by Penny Kline
Wendy waved aside the explanation with a slight toss of her head. ‘I’ve already decided I’ll tell you everything I know. It’s in my interest as well as yours. Miles has always been a pathological liar. The only way to outsmart those kind of people is to gather conflicting stories from as many sources as possible then present the person with your evidence.’
‘Yes, I see.’
‘I don’t suppose you do.’ Wendy’s formal way of speaking was in keeping with the orderliness of her house, but beneath the objective manner she was struggling to keep a grip on herself. ‘Sit down then. Anywhere. Wherever you like. Miles wrote to me after they came back from Portugal, to tell me he’d made a terrible mistake and wanted to come home.’
Izzy opened her mouth, but Wendy indicated that if she wanted to hear the whole story she would have to be allowed to tell it without interruption. ‘Naturally I wasn’t going to let him return, and carry on as if nothing had happened, so I wrote back and more or less told him it wasn’t on.’ She paused, glancing at Izzy then rubbing the palms of her hand together ending with a small clap. ‘I suppose I wanted him to beg. Well wouldn’t you?’
It was a rhetorical question but Izzy nodded in agreement. The room, with its immaculate décor, was almost clinical and Izzy suspected Wendy was one of those people who plumped out the cushions as soon as her visitors had left. Did she have any visitors or was her life divided into work all day and caring for her child in the evenings and at weekends?
‘Anyway,’ Wendy continued, ‘by the end of April, Miles had said sufficient for me to suggest he return home and we would give it a trial. So to cut a long story short, he’s been living here since the beginning of May and Dawn stayed on in Kent.’
‘Kent?’ Izzy could keep quiet no longer. ‘Whereabouts in Kent? You mean your husband is living here now and –’
Wendy raised her left hand, and Izzy noticed she still wore a wedding ring. ‘He was here until the Sunday before last then, following a phone call, he said he was popping out to see a friend. He hasn’t been back since.’
‘You’ve reported him missing?’
She shook her head. ‘Not much point, is there? Just adding more humiliation. Obviously, once he’d got me back, in a manner of speaking, he missed Dawn. You know I think his ideal would have been to carry on having an affair with her while he was still living with me. Lots of men would like that, wouldn’t you say?’
‘So you haven’t heard from him since he left?’
‘Not a word, and he needn’t thinks he can do the same thing over again. I’ll tell you one thing though, I’ve a feeling Dawn may have moved into the area. He’d changed his mobile number, but someone rang the landline and when I answered the call was ended immediately.’
‘But what makes you think she’s living nearby?’
Wendy bent to pick up a piece of fluff on the carpet. ‘The second time it happened I checked and it was a local number.’
‘Did you make a note of it?’
‘I was going to ring back but … I wasn’t sure … What could I say? It could have been her who answered and from the brief remarks Miles made about her I … this may sound pitiable but I was afraid.’
The door had creaked open and a small boy of about six or seven was standing staring at her.
‘Dominic, I told you to stay in your bedroom.’ Wendy sounded unreasonably harsh, then noticed the boy’s expression and reached out to pull him close to her. ‘This is my son.’
‘Hello.’ Izzy smiled at the boy while secretly cursing him for interrupting the conversation just when she was hoping Wendy might have been going to tell her something important. No, how could she curse him when he was so young and looked so worried. Dawn should have told her Miles had a child. Perhaps she felt ashamed that she had taken him away from his son. Not that Dawn was one for feeling shame. In fact, it was one of the emotions she considered to be pointless. What good does it do, Izzy? Teachers always want you to feel ashamed if you haven’t done your best work. What I do is up to me.
‘Go and wait in the kitchen, Dominic,’ Wendy told the boy, ‘I’ll only be a few more minutes.’
He hesitated, rubbing his turned-up nose. He was the image of his father, same round face and sandy hair. He had even inherited Miles’ short-sightedness, although the frames of Dominic’s glasses were transparent whereas Miles’ had been horn-rimmed. His jeans looked newly pressed. So did his grey sweatshirt with a picture of a fox on the front. Izzy pictured immaculate bedrooms, his and Wendy’s, with clothes neatly folded or hung, and nothing out of place. His toys would be the same, lined up or put away in boxes. Could you pass on your obsessional behaviour to your child and if you tried would he or she rebel during their teenage years?
‘Go on, Dom.’ Wendy raised her voice and the little boy’s mouth turned down. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, darling, but this lady used to know Daddy, she might be able to help us find him.’ Then, turning to Izzy. ‘I’ll give you the number provided you promise to get in touch if you find out where they are. I suppose I could have rung it myself but quite honestly I haven’t been able to face speaking to either of them. If it was just me – but there’s Dominic to think about. Before all this happened the two of them were inseparable.’
Dominic was standing outside the door. Izzy could see one of his white trainers. She wondered if there was anything he could tell her that might throw light on where Dawn and Miles were living. Children picked up far more than adults realised. It had been the same when she was a child and her parents spoke in French, thinking they wouldn’t be understood. If Dawn had been in the house when it happened, the two of them had rushed upstairs and grabbed Izzy’s French dictionary. What’s the French for pregnant? They usually assumed her parents had been talking about some friend or relative who was unmarried and having a baby. Otherwise, why couldn’t they speak openly?
Having a baby when you weren’t married? How unimportant it seemed in the current circumstances. Dawn would never have seen the lack of a husband or boyfriend as a reason to give away your baby. For a desperate measure like that she must be in serious trouble.
Dominic had crept back in. He approached Izzy, uncurling his fingers to show her a black plastic figure, with a green mask and a laser in its hand.
‘That’s nice,’ she said, ‘what’s he called?’
‘I told you to stay in the kitchen, Dominic.’ Wendy sounded close to tears. ‘No, it’s all right, come and sit down.’
The boy sat on the floor next to Izzy. ‘He’s got special powers,’ he said.
‘Yes, I’m sure. What can he do?’
‘Kill people,’ he muttered fiercely, ‘and do magic on them to make them come alive again.’
Wendy interrupted to say she had thought it was going to rain but the sky seemed to be clearing.
The weather, a safe subject to return to, but nothing about Wendy gave the impression she felt safe.
Driving home, Izzy tried to collect her thoughts. It was clear Wendy Bruton knew nothing about a baby. But why should she? Miles would have been unlikely to tell her. Except how did he think he was going to patch up his marriage and give Dawn money for the baby without his wife finding out? Was there a baby? It was the name Cressy that had started everything off, but she and Dawn had thought of other names too.
At one time, Dawn’s favourite boy’s name had been Howard and her favourite girl’s name, Marigold. If you had a baby and it was a boy … Izzy herself had gone through at least half a dozen names. Suzy for a girl. Or, Kirsty, or Eva. For a boy, she had chosen Alistair or Joshua. Joshua? She thought about Josh and gave an involuntary hollow laugh. Little had she known, little did anyone know how their adult life was going to turn out.
Once they had started at the comprehensive they never played the game again. It was too babyish. Still, however hard Izzy tried to convince herself, there was no denying that the last few times they had played it, Dawn had settled on the name Cressida and even started to picture what her daughter would look like. C
ressida, Izzy, don’t you think it’s the best name ever. Cressida, and Cressy for short. A coincidence? If it had been just the name … But there was the parcel, with the bear. That had to prove something.
Dominic was a name Izzy liked but she couldn’t recall thinking of it while they were playing their game. They had played other games too. Ones Rosalie would have disapproved of and Izzy’s mother might not have too pleased either. Dawn’s favourite game was sticking pins in a rag doll she had made herself. One of them chose a victim, sometimes a strict teacher who had punished one of them, or Dawn was more likely to select a member of their class. A girl called Elaine was the most likely, her crime being that she sometimes did better than Dawn in a maths test. The game with the pins had made Izzy uneasy but she was too in awe of Dawn to say anything, although later she would feel guilty. In case the pins worked. Except how could they, and what were they supposed to do? Saying she was ‘in awe’ of Dawn was re-writing history. In truth she had been afraid of her, not all the time but when Dawn was in full flow, plotting revenge with that grim expression on her face.
Her thoughts returned to Wendy Bruton. So far, Izzy had assumed Dawn had fallen for Miles and forced him to leave his wife. But it might not have been like that. Wendy, with her ultra-tidy house, could have made his life unbearable and he might have been looking for a way out when he met up with Dawn. How had they met? Izzy had an idea they had bumped into one another in a cinema. Dawn had been on her own and so had Miles. But with Dawn, fact and fiction were indivisible. Some of her stories were true. Others were inventions and it seemed to amuse her when Izzy had questioned her to try and discover the truth. How would it be if she found her now? But it was no good worrying about that. Dawn would be incapable of hiding the fact that she had given birth to Cressy.
When she returned to the office, Izzy almost forgot she was supposed to have had a dental appointment. One lie followed another, and she even found herself holding the left hand side of her jaw.
Harry and Kath had been whispering when she opened the office door and she felt certain they had been talking about her. Did Harry know she had made up the toothache? They were watching her, both of them, then Kath gave a brittle laugh and began talking about the project they were working on and how the layout looked all wrong.
‘It’s what the client wants.’ Harry stretched out his legs. ‘I made a few suggestions but they were all turned down.’
‘I know, Harry,’ Kath drawled, ‘but if she doesn’t like it she’ll blame us. Should I give her a ring and she can have a look at what we’ve done so far?’
Harry opened a drawer. He seemed not have heard what Kath said. Either that or he had something else on his mind. In any case, Izzy was fairly certain the conversation about the client had been thought up to disguise the fact they had been discussing her state of mind and both of them thought she was losing the plot.
‘This baby,’ Harry said, ‘you don’t suppose you were chosen specially, perhaps by someone you’ve been kind to in the past?’
‘How do you mean?’ Instantly Izzy was on guard.
‘I don’t know.’ Harry was still looking in his desk drawer. ‘A friend of a friend? Friend of Josh’s? Just a suggestion.’
He and Kath exchanged glances and Izzy responded angrily. ‘If the two of you have been discussing me behind my back I’d prefer to know what you were saying.’
‘Whoa.’ Harry slammed the drawer shut. ‘Don’t be like that. We want to help, don’t we Kath, but you seem unwilling to let us. And as a matter of fact, we were talking about something entirely different.’
Izzy was starting to feel unwell. Not her teeth, although that would have been a judgement for telling a lie, but her head throbbed and her neck felt stiff. ‘If you must know, I’ve been to Exmouth. To see someone who might know what’s going on. She didn’t so that’s an end to it. And you’re starting to sound like DS Fairbrother, Harry.’
She wanted to go home and go to bed. If Josh was there he would have made her a hot drink and sat on the bed, listening to what had happened. Like hell, he would. Josh had never been able to stand it if she was ill. I’m not good with sick people, Izzy, something to do with my mother. It had often been something to do with his mother.
Dearest Miles,
Izzy tried to get her back but returned home empty-handed. I expect it will take a few more days. You don’t like Josh, do you, but I think he’ll make a good father when he comes round to the idea. He’s a fool but that means he can easily be manipulated. Lions kill the offspring of females with whom they want to mate. We’re all animals, of course, but our superior brains mean we can rise above such base instincts. I know Izzy inside out – she’d be more than a match for any man. No, I’ll rephrase that. More than a match for Josh. It’s cold today and my back aches from re-arranging stuff so the garage door can be closed properly. Do you think Cressy can smile or will she wait until she’s settled into her proper home? The house in Dawlish must be some kind of hostel. I reckon Izzy panicked – it would be typical of her - but it will all work out how we want it to in the end. In my experience, if you want something badly enough you can always get it. We know that, don’t we, Miles?
Love you, love you, Dawn
Chapter Seven
She had phoned the number that Wendy Bruton had given her five times and on each occasion it rang but no one answered. After one more unsuccessful attempt to get through, she set off to visit Cressy’s foster family. It was after six but traffic was still heavy and it was not until she reached the edge of the city that she started to relax and think about what she was going to say to Bev and Alan Jordan.
Nine days had passed since the baby had been left outside her house. What was it like being a foster parent, particularly when such a young child had been put in your care? How could you fail to become attached to it? And the other children – Nigel and Pippa – how were they going to feel if the real mother turned up?
No doubt Bev had explained to them repeatedly how Cressy was only there for a few weeks. Would it make any difference? Bev had fostered other children on a short-term basis but in each case the child had been much older, and the length of its stay known in advance.
In her driving mirror, she spotted a green van. It was not directly behind her – there was another car in between – so it was impossible to catch a glimpse of the driver. Was it Josh? He drove an ancient Saab but he could have borrowed Dave’s van. So he could follow her, check up on her, because he had accused her of getting rid of him so some other bloke could move in? It was something he and Dawn had in common, a determination to get their own way, but there the resemblance ended. There was nothing stupid about Josh, but he lacked Dawn’s sharp intelligence, her ability to look ahead, like a chess player – and her ruthlessness.
Did Josh love her? Had he ever loved her? What was love? Sexual attraction, mutual dependency, attachment born out of familiarity?
What was she doing? It was right that absence sometime made the heart grow fonder, but the expression, “familiarity breeds contempt” also had some truth to it. If she was honest with herself, Josh had taken her for granted, almost as soon as he moved in. Love is blind – another cliché that rings true. She had accepted his excuses: his mother had spoiled him because he was the only boy in the family or – and this was the feeblest excuse of all – his father had expected everything done for him so it must be genetic!
Dawn and then Josh. Did she attract self-centred people? Did she enjoy playing the role of the martyr? No, none of that was true. At her best, Dawn was a good friend, exciting to be with, amusing, loyal. When they resurrected their friendship in Exeter, she had seemed remote, preoccupied, but the fact that she had left her baby outside Izzy’s house meant she still trusted her. Cressy was her baby. Izzy was sure of it. Her attempts to convince herself it was “just a baby” always failed. The notes were not Dawn’s usual style – she prided herself on her ability to write good English – but she had needed to be anonymous, quite apart fr
om the fact that she must be under severe stress.
When she reached the junction at the edge of the town, the van was still following, but the driver of a slow-moving Citroën had allowed another car to come out of a side road in front of him so it was even harder to see. As well as that, it had started to rain, big drops that splashed on the windscreen then stopped as quickly as they had started so that the wipers dragged and squeaked. Her car needed a service. Wouldn’t it be typical if it broke down just now?
Taking the right fork, she thought she saw a flash of green turning left. Josh knew roughly where the foster parents lived – but not their exact address – and why would he have any interest in following her there? She was imagining things; there must be dozens of green vans about, and in any case it could have been Dave on his way to meet some friends.
She ought to be relieved that Josh had taken her words at face value and stayed away. She was relieved, of course she was, but she wanted him to suffer and suspected when he begged her to let him move back in, he had simply needed to prove he could always get what he wanted, that he was irresistible. Was he still living with Dave? What did it matter? Put him out of her mind. Concentrate on Cressy – and Dawn. Cressy ought to be reunited with her mother, but in the state she was in Dawn was unlikely to be able to look after her and she was far better off with Bev Jordan. What about Miles? He had a right to know what had happened to his daughter. Perhaps he did know. Perhaps he and Dawn had planned the whole thing together.
Parking her car in the same place as before, Izzy walked back to the Jordans’ house, trying to ignore the growing sense of unease that she had not told the police about the teddy bear and the accompanying note. Did anyone have the right to control another person by threatening suicide? But Dawn could be severely depressed. Since her conversation with Wendy Bruton, it had become clear that Dawn had been on her own for a time. Although it was possible Miles had lived with Wendy and still visited Dawn.