Sheer Mischief

by Jill Mansell

  When Josh returned to the sitting room ten minutes later, Serena still hadn’t moved.

  “She isn’t anywhere,” he said, his voice taut with worry. “I’ve looked all over the house and in the garden, and she isn’t anywhere at all.”

  Serena sighed. “Well, when did you last see her? What time did she get back from the shop?”

  “What shop?”

  “The convenience store,” said Serena patiently. “She went to buy sweets.”

  Twitching with agitation, Josh stared at her. “On her own?”

  She stared back. “Of course on her own. She said you wouldn’t go with her because you were playing with that silly Game Boy machine.”

  “But Ella isn’t allowed to go to the shop without someone with her.” Abruptly, Josh’s eyes filled with tears. “Because of strange men. She’s only seven years old.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Having waved Paula off, Janey closed the shop at five o’clock and settled down to the fiddly business of constructing a fourteen-foot flower garland, commissioned by a local dignitary to festoon the buffet table at his wife’s sixtieth birthday celebrations. Linen bows, stiffened with flour-and-water paste and sprayed silver, were to be interspersed along the swagged length of the garland and the flowers—summer jasmine, champagne roses, and stephanotis—needed to be wired painstakingly into place. It was a time-consuming but rewarding task, and the end result, Janey hoped, would be spectacular. The party too sounded very much a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses affair and could bring plenty more business her way, so long as the dignitary’s wife didn’t try and pass off the flower garland as a little something she’d knocked up in her own spare time.

  She was up to her elbows in damp sphagnum moss, packing it securely around the wire that formed the basis of the garland, when the phone rang.

  “Janey, is that you?”

  It was a young voice, and at first she didn’t recognize it. “Yes, it’s me. Who’s this?”

  “Josh. Josh Cassidy. Maxine gave me your number in case anything was ever wrong, and she’s not due back home until tonight…”

  He sounded very scared. Janey, her heart racing, wiped her wet hands on her sweater and said, “It’s OK, Josh. I’m here. What’s the matter?”

  “Dad’s away.” His voice was high and strained, as if he was struggling to hold back tears. “Serena’s been looking after us today, but Ella went down to the shop an hour and a half ago on her own and she hasn’t come back. I said we should phone 999, but Serena thinks I’m making a fuss about nothing. She says I mustn’t call them and that Ella will be back soon, but she isn’t even supposed to go out on her own, and I’m worried about her. Janey, what do you think I should do?”

  Janey’s blood ran cold. Was Serena out of her mind? “Darling, don’t worry,” she said urgently as memories of Alan’s disappearance flooded back. “I’m sure Ella will be just fine, but to be on the safe side, I’ll phone the police myself.”

  “What about Serena? She’ll be cross with me.” His voice began to break.

  Janey, trying to sound as reassuring as possible, said, “Don’t you worry about Serena. As soon as I’ve phoned the police, I’ll come on over. You’ve done absolutely the right thing, Josh. Just hang on for a few minutes and I’ll be there with you. And you needn’t say anything to Serena if you don’t want to. I’ll speak to her myself.”

  • • •

  Abandoning the flower garland on the shop floor, Janey drove the van faster than it had ever been driven before in order to reach Trezale House before the police did. Thankfully, Tom Lacey had been on duty when she’d phoned and explained the situation, and he was on his way.

  Serena opened the front door. From the expression on her face, Josh had evidently spoken to her after all.

  “Have you really called the police?” she said, frowning at the sight of Janey in her unflattering work clothes. “I must say, you’re making an extraordinary fuss about this. Ella’s probably bumped into a friend.”

  “And maybe she’s bumped into a maniac with a penchant for attacking little girls,” Janey retorted, only managing to keep her voice down because she’d spotted Josh hovering white-faced in the hallway behind her. “For God’s sake, Serena. How long were you planning to wait before you did anything…a few days?”

  “But this is Cornwall.” For the first time, Serena began to look worried. “If we were in London… Well, OK, there are weirdos about, but it’s different down here.”

  “That is the most pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard in my life,” Janey replied icily, pushing past her and reaching for Josh. Flinging his arms around her waist, he buried his blond head in the folds of her sweater in order to hide his wet face.

  “You can’t let the police try and blame me for this,” Serena protested. “No one told me Ella wasn’t supposed to go out alone. It isn’t my fault if something’s happened to her.”

  Josh’s whole body was trembling. Having led him gently into the sitting room, Janey pulled him onto her lap while Serena remained outside. “Nothing’s happened to Ella,” she murmured, cradling him in her arms as he choked back tears. “I expect she’s just wandered off and forgotten the time.”

  “But I t-told her to leave me alone,” Josh sobbed. “She said she hated me because I was playing with my Game Boy, and I said I hated her back. What if she’s run away forever?”

  It was a fear with which Janey was only too painfully familiar. In the distance, she heard the sound of a fast-approaching car. At the same moment the rain started up again, giant droplets splattering noisily against the windows.

  “Ella knows you don’t hate her,” she said in soothing tones. “You might have said it, but you didn’t mean it any more than she did. Come on now, sweetheart, use this handkerchief and blow your nose. Tom’s here. What you have to do now is try and think where Ella may have gone, so we know where to start looking. What about school friends living nearby…?”

  Tom Lacey, himself the proud new father of six-week-old twin boys, questioned Josh with kindly understanding and attention to detail. When he’d finished, he put away his notebook and stood up.

  “Right then, all you have to do it wait here. I’ll check out the addresses of those names you’ve given me, and call in at the shop on my way. If young Ella turns up back here in the meantime, you can phone the station and they’ll contact me on the car radio.”

  The thought of staying at the house and doing nothing, however, was too much for Josh.

  “Can’t we come with you?” he pleaded, but Tom shook his head.

  “Best not,” he said gently.

  “But I want to help look for her!”

  Sensing his need to do something, Janey squeezed his hand.

  “If she’s gone to a friend’s house, Tom will find her.”

  “And if she’s run away, he won’t,” said Josh. “Will you come out with me, Janey? I want to look for her too.”

  The rain was torrential by the time the two of them set out on foot to investigate the wooded areas bordering the narrow lane that led away from the house. The woodland, dark and forbidding, separated the lane from the cliff top a quarter of a mile away. Janey, who had borrowed one of Maxine’s hopelessly impractical jackets, was soaked to the skin within minutes.

  “If we move too far away from the road, we won’t be able to hear Tom sounding his siren,” she warned. This was to be the signal that Ella had been found.

  But Josh, already clambering over fallen branches and pushing his way through the woody undergrowth, didn’t stop. Turning, he glanced up at her from beneath his drooping, yellow sou’wester. “If she was close to the road, she would have come home.”

  Janey wiped the rain from her face. The trees grew more densely here, and there were no clear paths, yet Josh was moving purposefully on ahead. She almost said, Do you come here often? but caught herself in time. In
stead, catching up with him, she turned him back around to face her once more. “Josh, do you know where you’re going?”

  For a second, the dark-blue eyes flickered away. Josh drew a breath. “Well, we’ve been through here a few times. It’s a shortcut to the top of the cliffs, but Dad told us we weren’t allowed to come through the wood, so…” He shrugged, his voice trailing away.

  “So you know this area like the back of your hand,” Janey supplied, giving him a brief smile and refusing even to think about the cliff top ahead. “Don’t panic. I’m not going to tell you off. Come on, Josh. Lead the way.”

  They found Ella fifteen minutes later, lying in a small, crumpled heap against a fallen tree. Cold and extremely wet, her face was streaked with mud and tears.

  So relieved she found it hard to breathe, Janey said unevenly, “Here you are, then. We wondered where you’d gotten to.”

  But for Josh, who had been fearing the worst and blaming himself, relief took another form. Unable to control himself, he shouted, “How dare you run away! I didn’t mean what I said… How could you be so stupid!”

  When Janey tried to help her to her feet, however, Ella let out a piercing shriek. “I didn’t run away; I tripped over a blackberry branch and hurt my ankle… Ouch, it hurts!”

  Carefully investigating the ankle, Janey saw that it was badly swollen but probably not broken. “It’s OK, sweetheart. Put your arms around my neck and let me lift you up.”

  “Stupid,” repeated Josh, choking back fresh tears. “Serena’s mad as hell, and we called the police in case you’d been murdered.”

  Ella, clinging to Janey, shouted, “Well, I wasn’t murdered, and I hate Serena anyway. I went to the shop and bought some sweets, and on the way back, I saw a rabbit going along our secret path, so I followed it, to give it some chocolate. But then I fell over and the rabbit ran off and it started raining. If you hadn’t told me to go away,” she added, her voice rising to a piteous wail, “we could both have gone to the shop and I wouldn’t have been all on my own when I fell over.”

  The Waltons it wasn’t.

  “OK, OK,” Janey said soothingly, struggling to get a secure grip on Ella and mentally bracing herself for the trek back through the woods. “Stop arguing, you two. Josh, you’ll have to go before me and hold the branches out of my way. And Ella’s very cold; why don’t you take off your oilskin and drape it around her shoulders?”

  “Because I’ll get wet.”

  “He’s a pig,” sniffed Ella. “It’s all Josh’s fault anyway. I still hate him.”

  “And you’re a litterbug,” Josh retaliated, pointing an accusing finger at the Rolo wrapper and shreds of gold foil on the ground. “I’m going to tell the policeman you left that there. You’ll probably have to go to prison.”

  The time had come to be firm. Janey, whose arms were aching already, said, “All right, that’s enough. Josh, pick up that sweet wrapper and stop arguing this minute.”

  “I’m c-cold,” whimpered Ella, whose blond, rain-drenched hair was plastered to her head.

  “And take off that oilskin. Your sister needs it more than you do.”

  “I thought you were nicer than Maxine.” Obeying at the speed of mud, Josh gave her a sulky look. “But you aren’t.”

  • • •

  Maxine returned to the house at eight thirty, by which time Tom Lacey had left, the local doctor had also been and gone, and the only physical reminder of the afternoon’s events was a neat, white pressure bandage encasing Ella’s left ankle, of which she was fast becoming inordinately proud.

  “What’s going on? Why’s Janey’s van parked outside?” Looking puzzled, Maxine dropped her coat over the back of an armchair. Serena, hogging the sofa as usual, was apparently engrossed in a frantic game show on the television. An ancient, skinny man, having evidently just won himself a vacuum cleaner and a weekend at a health farm, was leaping up and down in ecstasy.

  “Nothing’s going on.” Serena finally turned to meet her gaze. “Ella sprained her ankle, that’s all. Your sister has been making an incredible amount of fuss over a simple accident.”

  Maxine stared back. “Janey doesn’t make incredible amounts of fuss unless there’s a damn good reason for it. What kind of simple accident are we talking about?”

  But Serena merely shrugged. “You may as well ask her; she’s so much better at lurid detail than I am. She’s upstairs putting the children to bed. Probably giving them nightmares too with that neurotic imagination of hers…”

  Chapter Thirty

  Janey was working in the shop three days later when Guy Cassidy came in. Having been kept up-to-date with the goings-on at Trezale House by Maxine gleefully relaying each new installment over the phone, Janey could almost have timed his entrance to the second.

  “He’s leaving now,” Maxine had shrieked minutes earlier. “Put in a good word for me, Janey, and tell him I deserve a pay raise.”

  In order not to give the game away, however, she looked dutifully surprised to see him.

  “I’ve come to thank you,” Guy said simply. Then, breaking into a grin, he added, “But I have a bit of a problem. If it had been anyone else, I would have brought them flowers…”

  If there was one major drawback to this job, thought Janey, it was that nobody ever brought you flowers.

  “The story of my life,” she replied with a good-humored shrug. “But you don’t need to thank me, anyway. You helped me when I had a problem; all I did was return the favor.”

  “Rather more than that,” said Guy. “And I’m still grateful. I was going to bring you chocolates, but Maxine insisted they’d wreck your slimming campaign.” Studying her figure for a moment, he frowned and added, “Are you really on a diet?”

  “Oh dear.” Janey looked amused. “Does that mean it isn’t working?”

  “It means you don’t need to lose weight.”

  Acutely aware of his speculative gaze still upon her, Janey flushed with embarrassment. It was all very well for Guy Cassidy to say she didn’t need to diet, but she couldn’t help noticing that men like him only ever chose girlfriends as thin as sticks, the kind who could step out of a size 14 skirt without even undoing the zip.

  “How is Ella?” she said, changing the subject.

  “Recovering nicely.” Guy smiled. “And passionately attached to the bandage. She doesn’t really need it anymore, but whenever we suggest taking it off, the limp gets worse.”

  “And Josh?”

  This time he pulled a face. “You mean my modest son? He’s cast himself in the role of rescuing hero. By the time he goes back to school next week he’ll probably have awarded himself a knighthood at the very least.”

  Janey laughed. “So everything’s all right then, at home. Business as usual.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t quite say that.” He gave her an ambiguous look. “And it’s nice of you to ask, but I’m sure you know all the latest developments. Every time I’ve picked up the phone during the last few days,” he added pointedly, “it’s wafted Maxine’s perfume back at me. And the receiver’s always warm.”

  Caught out, she said, “Ah.”

  “So I’ll just say the situation has been dealt with.”

  At that moment, a customer entered the shop behind him. Guy, leaning against the counter, lowered his voice. “And since flowers and chocolates are out of the window, how about a couple of theater tickets instead?”

  “You really don’t have to,” protested Janey.

  “I want to. And the tickets are for Saturday night. Do you have someone you’d like to take with you?”

  Flustered by the unexpectedness of the question, she said, “Um…well. Maybe Maxine?”

  “What a shame, she has to stay at home and babysit,” Guy replied briskly. “Never mind, perhaps I’ll do instead.”

  Behind him, the woman customer waved a bunch of drippin
g gladioli. Distracted, wondering whether he had just said what she thought he’d said, Janey stammered, “Y-you mean…?”

  “Well, you can hardly invite Bruno, can you?” Guy grinned. “So that’s settled. I’ll pick you up on Saturday. What time do you close the shop?”

  “Um…f-five o’clock.”

  “Good. It doesn’t take you too long to get ready, does it? I’ll pick you up at six.”

  • • •

  From her upstairs window, Janey watched as Guy expertly reversed the Mercedes into a parking space just outside the shop. As she had suspected, he was bang on time. Her stomach squirmed, the jitters refusing to subside. It was silly to be nervous, since it wasn’t even a proper date, but still the adrenaline coursed through her bloodstream, working overtime practically of its own accord.

  It would be far easier, she thought, if only Guy Cassidy weren’t so physically attractive. Such exceptional good looks were downright intimidating. Talking to him the other night in the privacy of her own home had been one thing, but this evening they were going to be seen out together in public, looking for all the world like a real couple. She was only too well aware of how she measured up against such willowy exotic beauties as Serena Charlton. In the back of her mind lurked the nightmare scenario that other people, observing them together, might be snickering behind her back at such an unlikely pairing.

  But it wasn’t a real date, and at least she knew that even if they didn’t. As Maxine had carelessly remarked, upon learning of the outing, “I expect he just feels sorry for you because you never have any fun.”

  My sister, thought Janey. Such a comfort to have around. At least with Maxine to remind her of her failings, she wasn’t likely to get ideas above her station. And, as she had done with James, she was trusting to fate that they wouldn’t bump into anyone they knew at the theater. Then, she had been the embarrassed one. This time, she thought ruefully, the tables of justice had been well and truly turned. If anyone was going to be embarrassed tonight, it was Guy.

  When she opened the front door, however, he looked both surprised and pleased to see her.