by Penny Jordan
‘It’s wonderful to find a shop like this one,’ their mother told Tania. ‘Normally buying anything for them is an absolute nightmare. My husband absolutely refuses to come with me, and the kids generally end up squabbling.’
Smiling her sympathy, Tania walked with them to the door.
Once they had gone she turned to Peggy and told her, ‘Things should quieten down a little now while everyone goes home for lunch. I’ll just pop upstairs and see what Lucy’s up to. She must be starving, poor child.’
But when she opened the door into the flat, the living-room was empty, the whole flat oddly silent.
She called Lucy’s name and opened her bedroom door, frowning at its emptiness.
Had Ann forgotten that she had promised to send Lucy home at twelve? Perhaps if the girls had become involved in a game… But the Fieldings normally sat down for lunch at twelve-thirty on the dot…and it was now almost one.
An indefinable maternal apprehension gripped hold of her. Without stopping to collect her jacket, she hurried downstairs and outside and then down the narrow passage which separated their building from its neighbour and out into the street, looking anxiously up and down it, in search of the familiar russet-haired figure of her small daughter.
Only there was no sign of Lucy.
Frantically anxious now, she hurried down the street, and into the Fieldings’ shop.
Tom Fielding was drinking a mug of tea, which he put down when he saw the anxiety in her face, asking quickly, ‘Tania, what’s wrong? Not another break-in?’
‘No, no, it’s not that… It’s Lucy… She hasn’t come home yet, and I was wondering…’
Tom stood up, his own face now shadowed and concerned.
‘But she left here at five to twelve. That’s—’
‘Over an hour ago,’ Tania finished shakily for him. ‘You don’t suppose…? She couldn’t have come back, perhaps?’
‘Well, she could have done, I suppose. Look, you go up and have a word with Ann.’
Anxiously Tania hurried upstairs, knocking tensely on the Fieldings’ sitting-room door.
Ann opened it, her smile fading to concern as Tania asked her if Lucy was with her.
‘No, she isn’t. I sent her home at five to twelve as we arranged.’
‘Oh, my God. I meant to meet her and walk back with her, but this woman came into the shop with four boys, and I couldn’t leave poor Peggy to deal with them. I thought Lucy must have come back and gone upstairs, but there’s no sign of her in the flat.’
She was beginning to shake with fear.
Ann took hold of her and said firmly, ‘Now, don’t panic. Are you sure she’s not at home? She couldn’t be in her bedroom, perhaps?’
‘No… No, I checked.’
‘Well, perhaps she met someone…a school-friend…’
‘No,’ Tania shook her head and said stiffly. ‘She would never go off with anyone else. She knows. I’ve always taught her. She’s been brought up in a city, Ann. She knows all about the dangers of speaking to strangers…of—’
Her voice broke and Ann hugged her tightly.
‘We’ll find her, don’t you worry. Let me go and ring the police.’
‘The police.’ Her eyes dark with fear for her daughter, Tania stared mutely at her friend.
‘It’s the only sensible thing to do,’ Ann told her gently. ‘She’s probably perfectly safe.’
Tania started to tremble violently, her mind forcing her to dwell on all that Ann was not saying.
It was every parent’s nightmare that her child should disappear. It happened so often, so tragically… Sickness clawed at her stomach.
‘No…not Lucy,’ she whispered chokily. ‘Oh, please, God, don’t let anything have happened to her!’
‘Come on…you won’t help her by breaking down,’ Ann warned her firmly. ‘Look, you sit down for a moment while I ring the police.’
* * *
Half an hour later, while her mind ran in frantic circles of fear, anguish and guilt, Tania was trying to answer the questions of the WPC and the detective who had come to the Fieldings’ home to interview her.
When they asked her what clothes Lucy was wearing, she had had such a heartbreakingly real image of her small daughter when she had said goodbye to her that morning that she had had to fight not to break down completely.
‘Don’t worry,’ they told her. ‘She’s probably gone off somewhere with a friend and totally lost track of time.’
Tania refused to accept any comfort. Lucy wouldn’t do that. And besides, her closest friend was Susan. Susan who had nervously told the WPC that Lucy had told her she was coming straight back after lunch.
‘Is there anyone who might have taken her away? Someone that you know,’ the WPC pressed gently. ‘Lucy’s father…grandparents…an ex-boyfriend?’
Numbly Tania shook her head. No, there was no one like that… No one.
‘Well, try not to worry. We’ve got people out searching for her. If she’s new to the town, it isn’t inconceivable that she’s even got lost. Does she know anywhere locally, anywhere where she might have wanted to go?’
‘We walked along by the river one day. We saw an otter, and a dog… Lucy loves dogs,’ she told them numbly. ‘I’d half promised her that in the spring…’
She started to shake, unable to stop herself from thinking that when the spring came she might well be alone…that Lucy, her precious, vulnerable child…
‘I have to ask you this, Tania. It isn’t a criticism. We all lose our tempers at times, but had you and Lucy had a quarrel? Could she perhaps have felt reluctant to come home?’
Tania shook her head.
‘No. We didn’t have that sort of relationship. She isn’t a naughty child.’
‘I can confirm that,’ Ann put in quietly. ‘And when she left here she seemed perfectly happy. She told us that you’d promised her fresh salmon for lunch.’
‘Yes, I had,’ Tania agreed jerkily. ‘It’s her favourite. An extravagance but far better for her than fish fingers…and I want her to grow up healthily. Girls these days come under so much pressure from the media. I don’t want her to grow up feeling that she has to conform to some advertisers’ ideal of what a woman should be.’
Her voice started to shake and she covered her face with her hands as the tears started to flow.
Oh, God, she was so frightened…not for herself but for Lucy, her precious little Lucy.
‘It will be all right,’ the WPC told her, but Tania wasn’t convinced. When the police suggested that it might be as well if she went home just in case Lucy found her own way back there, Tania got numbly to her feet.
‘Don’t worry about the shop,’ Ann told her. ‘I’ll go down and take over from Peggy.’
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of growing tension and anxiety. Someone stayed with her all the time, but slowly her hopes that Lucy might after all simply have got lost or distracted faded into an agonised certainty that something unbelievably dreadful had happened to her daughter.
And then at five o’clock the WPC who had stayed with her and who was standing by the living-room window frowned and asked her urgently, ‘Come here, will you, Tania?’
Awkwardly she went to join her, her heart literally leaping into her throat as she looked out into the street and saw Lucy getting out of the back of James Warren’s dark blue Jaguar.
‘Is that your daughter?’ the WPC asked her.
It was impossible for her to speak. She could only nod her head whilst tears of relief poured down her face.
Through them she saw Lucy confidently slip her hand into James’s as they walked towards the door, then James stopped and looked up at her.
The expression on his face made her heart twist a second time. She had never seen in another adult face such a combination of sorrow, anguish and guilt. It was a look that so closely mimicked her own emotions that she found she was holding her breath, hardly daring to breathe, hardly daring to do anything other than s
imply stand there as Lucy came hurtling up the stairs and burst into the room saying excitedly.
‘Mum, you’ll never guess what, James has promised me that he’ll buy me a dog for my birthday, if you say it’s all right…and he’s going to teach me how to train it properly so that it won’t be like Rupert. Not a spaniel, though, they’re too scatty, and besides they’re gun dogs really and they need lots and lots of exercise.’
While she paused to draw breath, the WPC walked slowly towards them and said quietly, ‘Hello, Lucy. Have you had a nice afternoon?’
Lucy beamed her affirmation, and the woman said quietly over her head to Tania, ‘I’ll report in and let them know she’s back safely.’ She then turned to James and said quietly, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to wait here for a few minutes, sir. Lucy has been missing all afternoon without her mother’s knowledge.’
‘I can explain everything,’ James answered emotionlessly.
He suddenly looked so tired, so defeated, so drained that Tania actually discovered she felt compassion for him.
Initially, when she had seen Lucy getting out of his car, she had been overwhelmed by a shock of realisation that when she had told the police she knew of no one who might want to kidnap her child she had been wrong. But when James had threatened her she had never dreamed he might try to hurt her through Lucy.
And then she had seen the look on his face and she had known instinctively that whatever had happened to Lucy, that whoever had been responsible for her disappearance, it was not this man.
‘I think it might be as well if I went back to the station with you,’ he told the policewoman, and then turned to Tania and added quietly, ‘Will it be all right if I leave my car outside? I need to talk with you anyway. I could call back later if you’ll let me.’
Numbly she nodded her head. ‘Thank you.’
The words were emotionless like every other word he had uttered and yet Tania was intensely aware that beneath his calm manner there was bitter anguish.
‘If you’d like to come this way, sir.’
If the policewoman was aware of who he was, she wasn’t allowing it to influence her.
Once she was alone with Lucy and she had assured herself that her child was physically and emotionally safe, she asked as casually as she could, ‘How did you come to meet James, poppet? I was worried about you, you know, when you didn’t come home for lunch…’
‘That’s what I told the lady,’ Lucy assured her gravely. ‘I said you would be worried, but she said that it was all right and that I was to go home with her. She said that you were busy with Uncle Nicholas,’ Lucy added innocently.
It was as though a huge fist had closed on her heart, Tania realised.
‘This…this lady. Was she…was she Uncle Nicholas’s wife?’
‘Yes,’ Lucy told her nodding vigorously. ‘They’ve got a really big house, Mum, and Rupert was there. She let me play with him and she gave me some chocolate biscuits. She kept asking me lots of questions about you and Uncle Nicholas and then she started to cry. She frightened me a bit,’ Lucy told her innocently, frowning. ‘I didn’t like it when she cried.’
‘Did she… Did she…say anything else to you?’ Tania asked her. She had no wish to frighten Lucy, or to make her realise just how much danger she might have been in. It was plain now that Clarissa was far more disturbed than Tania had realised.
‘No, not really. I didn’t really want to go with her, but she got hold of my arm, and it hurt, and then she pushed me into her car and I was too frightened to get out,’ Lucy added. ‘But it was fine playing with Rupert.
‘And then James came in, and she started to cry some more. He said that he was going to bring me home. They talked lots and lots and she grabbed hold of his arm and begged him not to leave her. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t think James did either.’
‘No. I’m sure he didn’t,’ Tania agreed slowly, shivering a little.
The phone rang and she picked up the receiver. It was Ann.
‘Any news?’
‘Yes, Lucy’s safely home. James Warren brought her back.’
‘James Warren—but—?’
‘I can’t really talk about it now,’ Tania interrupted her, ‘but it seems that Clarissa persuaded Lucy to go home with her.’
She heard Ann’s shocked gasp and then her friend said tensely, ‘The woman must be deranged. What on earth did she think she was doing?’
‘I’m not sure and I suspect that she isn’t either,’ Tania told her tiredly. ‘James has gone down to the police station. He said he’d call here afterwards and explain everything to me, but the important thing is that Lucy is safe.’
‘Yes,’ Ann agreed soberly. ‘Look, if you want me to come over and stay the night…’
‘No, we’ll be fine.’
In truth she would have been glad of Ann’s company and she certainly suspected she wouldn’t get much sleep, but it didn’t do to depend too much on others, and sooner or later she was going to have to confront the fears which had gripped her all afternoon. The important thing was that Lucy was safe. That none of the appalling fates which had tormented Tania had actually overtaken her…that while she had no doubt been a little frightened she had probably never been in any physical danger. Certainly it didn’t seem as though Clarissa had made any threats against her. From what Lucy had told her it seemed as though Clarissa had been more intent on finding out how much time Nicholas had spent with Tania and her daughter.
And the blame wasn’t entirely Clarissa’s…not entirely. They were all of them in part to blame, all of them. Tania herself might not have been having an affair with Nicholas, but she had been too proud, too stubborn to make sure that Clarissa knew she wasn’t. She had additionally recognised that the other woman wasn’t well, but she had done nothing to warn someone who might have been able to do something. And why? Because that someone was James. And because of that she had potentially put her child’s safety at risk. Through pride and stubbornness and a fear of her own that she was not as indifferent to him as she wanted to be.
Thankfully Lucy had emerged from her ordeal unharmed, but things could have been so different. If Clarissa had decided to punish Lucy for her mother’s imagined sins…if she had decided… Tania started to shudder.
Stop it, she told herself silently. For Lucy’s sake she must not give way to her emotions. She must remain calm and in control, outwardly at least. Inwardly…well, that was a different thing altogether. Inwardly…
All she could do was thank God and James that her daughter had been safely restored to her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS ten o’clock before James returned. Lucy had been in bed for an hour and was fast asleep.
When Tania went downstairs to let him in, the street lighting highlighted his haggard, drawn expression.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been so long, but there were certain formalities. I had to wait for Nicholas to get back from returning the boys to school so that he could sign the consent forms for Clarissa to be admitted to a private hospital, where hopefully…’
He stopped and Tania suggested awkwardly, ‘You look exhausted. I was going to have some supper. Would you…?’
‘No…nothing to eat, thanks, but a cup of coffee…’
‘Yes, of course. Come upstairs. We can talk up there. Lucy is asleep, no doubt dreaming of this puppy you’ve promised her,’ she added wryly.
‘I’m sorry. I should have asked you first…but after she’d witnessed Clarissa’s hysterics, it was the only thing I could think of to distract her. Poor kid, she must have been terrified, but she hid it well.’
‘I don’t think she’s actually realised how…how unstable Clarissa’s behaviour was,’ Tania told him carefully as they went upstairs. ‘Children don’t, you know. They tend to accept adult behaviour as being different from their own. All she said to me was that when you arrived Clarissa cried a lot.’
‘Really? Well, I suppose that’s one way of describing it.’<
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The grim expression in his eyes gave way to one of such haunting despair that Tania moved instinctively towards him, her hand reaching out to touch his jacket-clad arm in a gesture of sympathy and understanding.
Briefly she felt him tense beneath her touch and her face flamed with embarrassment and self-consciousness, but as she started to move away he covered her hand with his own, holding it where it was as though he wanted the physical contact with her.
‘I keep going over and over the whole thing in my mind…walking into the house, seeing your daughter there…thinking…’ He shook his head. ‘God help me, for a moment I thought you’d actually… And then Clarissa came in and started talking wildly about how she’d make you sorry…how she’d make you give up Nicholas, and even then I didn’t realise. Not until she started saying that I’d have to help her to hide Lucy away somewhere where no one could find her.
‘I blame myself entirely. I should have realised. She’s always been too highly strung. There was a brief breakdown when our parents were killed.’ He shook his head tiredly. ‘But that was nearly fifteen years ago. I never thought… I suppose I didn’t want to think.
‘Fortunately Nicholas arrived home just as I was trying to explain to her that I had to bring Lucy back to you. He told me everything. Admitted that he’d deliberately pretended the two of you were having an affair. Apparently Clarissa’s behaviour has steadily been growing more and more out of control, but I’ve put it down to dissatisfaction with their marriage. To resentment, if you like, and because of that I’d tended to cover up for her out of a mixture of love and pride.
‘Obviously it can’t go on. We called the doctor before I left. He knows of a private clinic in London where they specialise in dealing with cases like Clarissa’s. It could take some time, but with careful counselling and control there’s every possibility that her mental condition can be stabilised.’
‘It must have been a shock for you,’ Tania murmured, not knowing what else she could say.
It was plain that what had happened had affected him very deeply, otherwise she was sure he would never be unburdening himself to her in the way that it was. It was as though in some strange way the day’s trauma had united them, drawing them together from their opposite sides of the chasm which had separated them, uniting them in a common bond of anguish and shock.