‘And we’ve had a look on all three ferries and there’s no sign of him,’ Zac said, intrigued by the fact that even Mavis cared enough about Matthew Harvey’s disappearance to spend time helping in the search for him. This warm, whole-hearted rallying together when a neighbour needed help was something he’d never experienced before. It was as if, beneath the banter and gossip, the people who lived in Magnolia Square really cared about each other.
‘Bugger,’ Mavis said graphically, the river breeze tugging at her Betty Grable curls. She withdrew her attention from the approaching ferry and the sight of Nibbo’s distinctive Panama as he stood amid a crowd of shift-workers waiting to disembark, making direct eye contact with Zac for the first time. Her tummy somersaulted as if she was on a fairground ride. He was a good-looker, all right. She wasn’t remotely surprised her Beryl was crackers about him, or that there was already tittle-tattle about his love-life. A man like Zac Hemingway would never be short of female company, that was for sure. That the company in question would be in the bathing-beauty class also went without saying – which only made Lettie’s rumour-mongering about Carrie all the more ridiculous.
‘You haven’t seen Carrie, have you?’ she asked, as the ferry’s gong clanged and, down-river, a large ship with a Blue Star funnel hove into view.
He didn’t answer straight away, merely looked quizzically down at her in a way that made her instantly think he already knew of the rumours and was trying to decide if her question was quite as innocent as it sounded.
‘She’s with Christina Robson and Kate Emmerson,’ she added, wondering how on earth Lettie’s rumour-mongering could possibly have reached him and, if it had, who else it had also already reached.
He shook his head, the sunlight glinting his hair to gold. ‘No,’ he said, his eyes continuing to hold hers, an expression in them she couldn’t quite fathom. Knowing there was nowhere else she could now search for Carrie, she gave a resigned shrug of her shoulders. She’d done her best. She couldn’t do more.
The black and yellow ferry was now docking, but Nibbo showed no sign of disembarking. Instead he was questioning each new passenger who filed aboard, presumably asking if they had seen a young boy answering Matthew’s description.
‘Just so you know,’ she said off-handedly, seeing no reason why he shouldn’t be put in the picture, ‘Lettie Deakin is under the fanciful impression that you and our Carrie have got a hot love affair going. It might seem too daft to worry about to you, but Carrie’s husband ain’t the Brain of Britain and neither is his mother. They might just believe it, and then Carrie’s life will be a misery.’
A muscle pulsed at the corner of Zac’s jaw. The down-side of a neighbourhood community that rallied together in times of trouble was that it was also bloody nosey! How, in the name of all that was wonderful, had Lettie Deakin cottoned on to his feelings for Carrie! He remembered the dog that was always yapping at Lettie’s heels and gave an inward groan. She’d obviously seen him with Carrie while taking the wretched animal for its late-night walk. He chewed the corner of his lip, wondering how he felt about the cat being let out of the bag so early on in the game and decided that, apart from his concern for how it would affect Carrie, he didn’t care a jot.
Mavis grinned wryly, anticipating his disbelieving, ridiculing reaction. It didn’t come. Instead he frowned slightly, the expression in his eyes decidedly thoughtful. Mavis’s grin died. She was an awful lot of things, but she wasn’t a fool. For the first time in her life she understood the expression about time standing still. Through the high, protective ironwork of the pier she could see a tug steaming upriver, probably heading for one of the many wharves east of Greenwich. In mid-river, the Blue Star ship, taking advantage of a high tide, continued to approach. The ferry that had already set off on the crossing from North Woolwich drifted, its paddles still, as it made way for it. The clouds were very high in the sky. The shipping very low in the water.
Her eyes held his. ‘It’s true!’ she said in such stark disbelief, she barely recognized her own voice. ‘Sweet Jesus! You and our Carrie really were on the heath and up to no good last night, weren’t you?’
If the accusation had come from anyone else Zac would have lied, if only for Carrie’s sake. Mavis was Carrie’s sister, however, and for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, he didn’t want to lie to her. It was as if, by openly acknowledging to her that there was something going on between himself and Carrie, it would make it impossible for Carrie to have second thoughts and to refuse to see him again. ‘If we were,’ he said with easy nonchalance, ‘it’s our business and no one else’s.’
Mavis stared at him goggle-eyed, too stupefied for speech. This huge blond hunk and Carrie? Carrie who, to the best of her knowledge, had never stepped out of line ever! Carrie, who had never even gone out with another boy before going out with Danny, and who certainly hadn’t gone out with anyone else afterwards! It was almost too incredible for belief. Almost, but not quite. They had, after all, been seen. And Zac Hemingway was now brazenly admitting it.
Mavis sucked in her breath. ‘You bloody bastard!’ she hissed, her fists clenched, her eyes blazing. ‘How dare you play fast and loose with my kid sister?’
A middle-aged couple, a young child in tow, were hurrying past them, down to the ferry’s boarding point. ‘Disgraceful behaviour!’ the woman said in loud indignation. ‘It shouldn’t be allowed, not when there’s children about! Someone should do something!’
Mavis had never been deterred by an audience, and wasn’t deterred now. ‘As for whose business it is!’ she stormed, ‘I’ll bloody show you whose business it is!’ Her clenched right fist shot towards his jaw with such venom, speed and accuracy that, if it hadn’t been his main object in life to be ready for such attacks, he would have been spread-eagled, sagging-kneed, against the ironwork of the pier’s gangway. As it was, he sidestepped with swift expertise, his hands seizing hold of her wrists.
‘Now just steady on for a minute,’ he said reasonably, an edge of amusement in his voice. ‘For one thing, Carrie may be your younger sister but she’s hardly a kid any more. She’s a mature woman well able to make up her own mind as to her own behaviour. And for another . . .’ his hold on her wrists tightened as Mavis swore, struggling to be free, ‘. . . for another, you don’t seem to be taking into account the fact that I may not be playing fast and loose with Carrie, but that I’m deadly serious.’
Mavis stopped struggling and stared at him. ‘Serious? Serious? Who the bleeding hell do you think you’re kidding? Carrie may not be old enough to be your mother, but she’s old enough to be your auntie! And she’s married and has a family! And I don’t believe for one minute that she’s your usual type! You’re just having a joke at her expense, that’s what you’re doing Mr oh-so-smooth-and-slimy Hemingway!’ and, for good measure, she kicked him on his shin with all the force she was capable of.
Zac’s amusement vanished. He’d been entertained by her outrage at behaviour he was certain she indulged in herself, but he wasn’t even mildly entertained by her accusation that he was having a joke at Carrie’s expense. Just what made Carrie’s family so blind to her blazingly vibrant physical attractiveness? Her husband treated her as if she was part of the household furnishing, not a woman with as much sex appeal as an undiscovered Jane Russell, and now here was her sister unwittingly betraying the same kind of opinion.
Not even registering the vicious kick to his shin, he let go of her wrists, seizing hold of her shoulders, shaking her in real anger. ‘For Christ’s sake, what is it with your family and Carrie? Anyone would think she was a middle-aged frump the way you all talk about her! Can’t you see her as she really is? Can’t you see how very special she is?’
Mavis’s anger fled – to be replaced with something far more terrible. Fear. This head-turningly handsome man had genuinely fallen for Carrie and, as amoral in these matters as she herself tended to be, had not let the fact that Carrie was married stand in his way. In the ordinary way of things,
Carrie would be the last person in the world to have her head turned by a man, but Zac Hemingway wasn’t ordinary. He wasn’t ordinary at all.
‘Leave Carrie alone!’ There was passionate urgency in her voice. This was serious. Really serious. ‘Don’t steam into her life, disrupting and disturbing it!’
Aware of her change of mood, he released his hold on her shoulders. ‘But she might want it disrupting and disturbing,’ he said, once more tucking his hands into the top of his pockets, his stance unknowingly and impudently casual.
Mavis had never rated her brother-in-law very highly, but in her own way she was fond of him. He’d be devastated if he knew of the burgeoning affair between Carrie and Zac, and it could only just be burgeoning because Zac hadn’t been in Magnolia Square long enough for it to be anything else. ‘Do one thing for me,’ she said fiercely, aware that Nibbo was finally making his way ponderously back to them. ‘If anyone else asks you about your relationship with Carrie, don’t say to them what you’ve just said to me! At least have the sense and decency to try and put them off the track!’
As he never had the slightest intention of doing anything else, Zac gave a slight, complying nod of his head. He knew what she was after: time in which, as she saw it, to talk sense into Carrie. Well, she wouldn’t do so – he’d see to that. He was a man who had never before given his heart to anyone not a parent or a sibling, and certainly not to a woman. But something instantaneous and overwhelming had happened to him when he first confronted Carrie. Not only did he fall hook, line and sinker for her unaffected, gypsyish vibrancy, he’d instinctively sensed her worth. Carrie Collins was genuine through and through, and he’d had a hard enough life to be able to appreciate that quality above all others. If she felt for him what he felt for her, he was damned if he was going to take into account the feelings of a man who treated her with a careless affection more suited to a dog than a woman. He couldn’t see Nibbo approaching from behind him, but over Mavis’s shoulder he saw other familiar figures approaching: Leon and Jack and Charlie and Danny.
‘We have company,’ he said, not wanting Mavis to inadvertently blow the gaffe in front of Danny. ‘By the look of them, they’ve had no more success with their search than me and Nibbo.’
Mavis wheeled round, saw in consternation that Danny was nearly upon them, and in vast relief that Jack was hard on his heels.
‘We’ve had no joy, mate!’ Zac shouted out to Leon.
‘No one’s seen any boy of Matthew’s description,’ Nibbo added as he joined them, a trifle breathless after his walk along the pier gangway. ‘I’ve spoken to the captain and crew on all three ferries. Over the last couple of days they’ve had the usual one or two boys riding the boats when they should have been in school, but none of them were Matthew’s age, or fair-haired.’
Leon’s dark-skinned face looked almost grey with worry. ‘Then all we can do is to keep searching the docks,’ he said, refusing to give up hope and refusing to leave the search for his adopted son in the hands of the police who, as far as he was concerned, seemed to be doing absolutely nothing. ‘You don’t know where Kate, Christina and Carrie are looking, do you, Mavis?’
Mavis shook her head, acutely aware that Danny was now standing in close proximity to Zac. Was this perhaps how Carrie felt when she saw Jack in Ted’s company? For the first time in her life she understood just why Carrie got so angry with her where Jack was concerned. Understood, but was incapable of letting it change anything. ‘You couldn’t drop out of this search, could you, Jack?’ she asked him, so glad to see him it was all she could do not to throw her arms around his neck.
He looked down at her, his eyebrows rising slightly. What could be so important she wanted him to drop out of searching for Matthew? Then he saw the distress in her eyes and his own eyes darkened. ‘What the heck’s the matter, love?’ he asked, concerned. ‘What’s happened?’
She shook her head swiftly, not wanting Zac Hemingway to overhear. If he did he would assume, when she and Jack went off together, that she was about to tell him everything. That she was very probably going to do so was neither here nor there. She just didn’t want Zac Hemingway reading her as if she were an open book. ‘Nothing,’ she lied, wanting only the comfort of his company. ‘Let’s find a transport cafe and have a couple of strong mugs of tea.’
He slid his arm around her waist, knowing her too well not to know that she was almost on the brink of tears – and Mavis on the brink of tears was an unheard-of phenomenon. ‘Come on, love,’ he said affectionately, ‘Two mugs of tea it is.’ He looked towards the little group they had distanced themselves from. ‘I’m off for now!’ he called over to them. ‘But I’ll meet up with you later!’
Accustomed to Jack and Mavis’s long-standing and matey friendliness, no odd glances, apart from Zac’s, followed them as, in close and easy proximity, they walked off the pier together.
‘What gives there, then?’ Zac asked Danny, taking care old Charlie didn’t overhear him.
‘Mavis and Jack?’ Danny grinned, his spiky red hair standing straight up on the crown. ‘No one knows – which is probably just as well. When it comes to a bit of close-to-home ’anky-panky, what yer don’t know yer can’t grieve over, can yer?’
Chapter Eleven
Deborah Harvey was seated in the drawing-room of her niece’s London town house. From the muslin-draped windows there were magnificent views of Holland Park. Not in view, but agreeably close by, lay Kensington Palace, home of royalty, and Kensington Gardens. It was all a far cry from south-east London and, to Deborah, the offensive gregariousness of Magnolia Square. ‘How people live on top of each other like that, I cannot begin to imagine,’ she said in genuine bewilderment to her fifty-five-year-old niece. ‘Neighbours were in and out of the house all the time I was there. I might just as well have been in Piccadilly Circus. A woman friend of Matthew’s mother freely admitted to being a market-trader. Can you imagine? A market-trader, and she’s in and out of Matthew’s house as if it’s her own! There was also a young man there with trousers so tight he must have been sewn into them, and his hair was worn low over his forehead in a most peculiar kind of roll – quite unnatural.’
‘Perhaps his trousers had been badly dry-cleaned?’ Genevre Harvey suggested tentatively. ‘I remember once when I sent a wool skirt to Harrods—’
‘I shudder to think of the influence these people must have on Matthew,’ Deborah continued, riding rough-shod over an interruption she considered inane. ‘No wonder he’s run away! He should either be with you during his school vacations, or with me at Tumblers. Tumblers is, after all, his true family home. It is the home he will inherit.’
Genevre Harvey, as thin and angular as her aunt, but possessing a far more malleable manner, crossed to the window, lifting the muslin drapes aside, the better to see the street and the park. ‘And do you say people are in and out of the house all day long?’ she asked, knowing better than to continue with the story of her dry-cleaning mishap. ‘It must be very strange, mustn’t it?’ There was a hint of wistfulness in her voice, as if, as well as being strange, she also thought it might be pleasant.
‘It must be exceedingly inconvenient!’ Deborah retorted tartly. ‘And it is certainly extremely working-class and not at all a suitable environment for Matthew.’
Genevre remained silent. She was sure Deborah was right, and that Matthew would be much happier spending his school vacations with either Deborah or herself, and yet it had to be admitted that his south-east London home sounded interesting. She had never, of course, seen it for herself. When her grandfather was alive he had deemed any meeting between herself and Kate Emmerson as unnecessary and, after his death, when Deborah became head of the family, she, too, had refused to sanction any such demeaning familiarity.
It meant that the mystery persisted as to why her young brother had become unofficially engaged to a girl who, within months of his death and Matthew’s birth, was to embark on a liaison with a half-caste West Indian. Even now, all these y
ears later, she still couldn’t quite believe it to be true. It was simply too bizarre; too like the kind of thing one read about in the more lurid Sunday newspapers.
‘. . . and so I shall return in order to be on the spot in case this latest assumption, that Matthew is in hiding down by the river, should prove to be correct,’ Deborah said, squaring her shoulders in readiness for the ordeal of another trip south of the Thames.
‘Would you like me to come with you?’ Genevre suddenly wanted to put an end to the mystery. She wanted to meet Kate Emmerson. She wanted to understand.
‘Good heavens, no!’ Deborah was emphatic. ‘There’s no need for both of us to slum with market-traders and young hooligans – and it will be a wasted trip, of that I haven’t a minute’s doubt. It is the police who will find Matthew, not a bunch of rag-tag hoi-polloys. And when the police do find him, I shall make quite sure they understand why he ran away. When I think of the teasing he must have endured at St Osyth’s on account of his regrettably unusual home life . . .’ She shuddered, words failing her.
Despite her forbidding demeanour and waspish manner, Deborah Harvey had a soft centre. It was one few people glimpsed or even suspected existed, and it was one reserved entirely for her great-nephew. Deborah loved Matthew; she loved him dearly. He was the child and the grandchild she had never had. He was also, as his father was at the same age, a boy to be proud of. And she would not let his disastrously unsatisfactory home life make him wretchedly miserable. She would not.
Addressing her as he always did, as if she were the queen, her chauffeur said, ‘I’m afraid we have a slow puncture, Ma’am.’ It was forty-five minutes later, and the Bentley was turning majestically and slowly into Magnolia Terrace.
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