by Diane Janes
At around the same moment Jo was emerging from the ladies’ cloakroom in the Linthwaite Hotel, Harry was vigorously working the knocker at the front door of The Hideaway. It was Marcus who admitted him, necessitating a fidgety exchange of pleasantries in the hall, before he was free to mount the stairs and tap at Sean’s bedroom door. Sean appeared gratifyingly pleased to see him, which reassured Harry that the coming days would bring plenty of remission from ‘family fun’ back at The Hollies.
For the first hour of his visit, Harry managed to subdue his curiosity, hoping that the matter uppermost in his mind would be raised spontaneously by Sean, but when the minute hand had begun another circuit round the face of his watch, and the older boy had still made no reference to their parting conversation at the end of half-term, Harry cautiously broached the subject himself.
‘You know that stuff you were saying last time?’
‘What stuff?’
Sean sounded genuinely innocent but Harry proceeded carefully, still wary of a wind-up. ‘That story about there being a murderer in Easter Bridge.’
‘That – oh, yeah.’
‘You were kidding me, right?’
‘Deadly serious.’
‘So, who is it?’
Sean hesitated. For a split second his eyes darted in the direction of the bedroom door, as if afraid of an unseen listener out on the landing. ‘Let me show you something,’ he said. He brought his laptop on to the bed and positioned it so that they could both see the screen. Harry watched while Sean woke the machine, then located a file identified only by a series of apparently random letters and numbers, like a code. ‘I started hunting around on the net,’ Sean said. ‘There was loads of stuff about it. I’ve downloaded quite a bit.’
The file seemed to take an age to open. When it eventually did, the front page of a newspaper appeared onscreen: a block of text on the left and a picture on the right, which unrolled downwards like a slow-reveal picture question on a TV quiz show.
‘It’s a kid,’ said Harry. ‘A missing kid.’
‘Not just any kid. Ever noticed that photo on the dresser in our living room?’
‘No,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve hardly ever been in there.’
‘Well, it’s the same kid.’
‘Hunt Continues for Baby Lauren,’ Harry read aloud.
‘They never found the body,’ Sean said. ‘So they couldn’t charge anyone. Now look at this.’ He moved the cursor, shrinking the first image and clicking on another item, which opened a different newspaper article.
‘Tragic Sequel in Lauren Mystery,’ Harry read aloud again. ‘Father’s body found on beach. So?’
‘It’s her, you idiot. My dad’s wife. Don’t you recognize her?’
Harry looked back at the woman in the picture, then stared at Sean.
‘First her daughter, then her husband,’ Sean said.
‘Jeez …’ Harry made a whistling sound. ‘Hang on, though – you said it was murder.’
‘Look,’ Sean was putting up yet another page of newsprint, ‘there’s loads more. You have to put everything together to work it out. I knew about the kid. Dad told me ages ago, so I wouldn’t upset her by asking about the girl in the picture – like I would be interested in some baby picture. The official story is that she was kidnapped from outside a shop, but no one saw anything. No witnesses. Only the parents’ word for it that the kid had ever been outside the shop in the first place. They found the empty buggy chucked over the cliffs, but they never found the kid’s body – so officially she’s still a missing person. Then a couple of years later, some people found the dad’s body on the beach, pretty much near the same place. Again, there’s no witnesses. Some people think he chucked himself off the cliffs, some that he fell – but if you look at the evidence, the most likely thing is that she pushed him off.’
Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again. ‘How is that the most likely thing?’ he asked at last.
‘I’ve googled it. It’s all there in the papers, what everyone said, because there had to be an inquest – that’s what they do when someone dies and it’s suspicious. The two of them were staying at a caravan site, near where their daughter was supposed to have disappeared. Some people saw them set off together, but when she came back to the caravan she was on her own. Said her shoe strap had snapped, so she’d come back while he walked on. As if …’ he finished scornfully.
‘But the kid in the buggy – surely someone must have seen –’
‘They appealed for witnesses, but no one saw anything. The first thing anyone seems to remember is her screaming out that her baby had been stolen, but who’s to say the baby was outside the shop in the first place?’
‘Why would she do it?’
‘Because she’s a nutter. She belongs in the bin. I’m telling you, she’s not just one sandwich short of a picnic, she’s missing the pork pie and the crisps as well.’
Harry was visibly struggling to take it all in. ‘She always seems all right,’ he said, doubtfully.
‘All right? Let me show you “all right”.’ Sean pointed to the smashed cupboard door. ‘She did that while I was out at school. Does that look “all right”?’
Harry conceded that it was not the kind of thing his own mother would do. Up until now, he had still been able to think the whole thing a kind of game. A putting together of two and two, the sum of which made an exciting five – something you could accept without entirely believing it. The splintered wreck of the door was far more solid and immediate than a bunch of images on the net. It was there in the room with them, thrusting him abruptly into a real world of murderous stepmothers who wrecked your things and pushed people off cliffs.
‘What about your dad?’
‘What about him?’
‘Does he know about all this stuff?’
‘He must do. He knows about the kid disappearing because he told me about it. He must know that her first husband’s dead.’
‘Doesn’t he suspect? I mean … it’s like she’s the black widow, or something.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think he could have realized how strange she was to start with, but he must have noticed by now. He tries to make excuses for her when she’s being weirder than usual.’
‘You wouldn’t marry someone if you thought they’d murdered people.’
‘You think, Genius?’
‘So he must believe what she’s told him about it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘About her?’
‘It’s a waiting game. One day she’ll flip and do something really extreme, and then maybe Dad’ll get the message and get rid of her. And in the meantime, if she goes for me or Dad … well, I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, too.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jo had been looking forward to getting home, not least because she and Marcus had tickets to hear the Manchester Camerata in Ulverston that night. It was a rare treat for a night at home together to coincide with a concert date, so it was aggravating to be slowed down by the ever-present roadworks on the M6, then delayed by an accident just after Junction 34. When she phoned Marcus on her mobile to explain that she was going to be late and they should go ahead and eat without her, he sounded rather cool, but then lateness always wound Marcus up – punctuality was one of the ten commandments by which he ran his life.
‘Hello,’ she called from the front door, dumping her bags on the hall floor and following the sound of their voices into the kitchen, where she approached Marcus for a homecoming kiss, which he appeared accidentally to avoid by turning to put something back in the fridge. Sean studiously ignored her greeting.
Slightly thrown by this chilly welcome, but attributing it to Marcus’s displeasure at her lateness, Jo continued cheerfully, ‘Sorry I got held up, but it will only take me two ticks to have a quick shower and get changed. We won’t be late for the concert.’
She was surprised when he followed her
up to their bedroom, not saying a word until he had closed the door behind them. ‘Sean showed me what you did to his cupboard.’
She was caught completely off guard. The truth was that she had forgotten all about the episode with the cupboard, partly because it suited her to do so, and partly because once several days had gone by without Sean making any reference to it, she thought he had let it go. It had not occurred to her that he would merely wait his opportunity to snitch to Marcus when she wasn’t around.
‘I was trying to find the knife.’ She could see her own expression reflected in the mirror doors of the wardrobe, shifty and unmistakably embarrassed at being caught out.
‘But you didn’t find a knife, did you?’ Marcus’s voice was a shade louder than it needed to be. He sounded both exasperated and angry. ‘Basically, you hunted through his room and smashed your way into his cupboard, after I had specifically said we shouldn’t search his room.’
There was no real evidence that she had searched the room, but it seemed pointless to deny it. ‘I was sure I saw a knife.’
There was a brief silence while the phrase drifted around the room, pathetic as a half deflated balloon waiting to be kicked aside. This is how it was between my father and my mother, she thought. He not wanting to make a direct challenge, not wanting to say outright that she was imagining things. A shudder ran down her spine – a sensation that her mother had been wont to describe as a goose walking over your grave.
‘Sean was very upset.’ Marcus began to speak in an oddly controlled voice. ‘He doesn’t understand why you smashed his cupboard up. I think …’ again the pause was unbearably long ‘… I think he was a bit scared. It’s not a normal thing to do, going into someone’s room and smashing their things. He’s not used to anything – anything so violent.’
‘I’m not violent.’
‘You know what I mean.’
She stood beside the bed, frozen in the act of removing her sweater, suddenly afraid of what Marcus might say next: that there was no knife and never had been, that Brian had not harmed Shelley, that no unseen stalker had dogged her movements for years, mocking her with picture postcards of her vanished baby daughter. She wanted to say that she had changed her mind about the concert, and didn’t want to attend – that she suddenly had the strangest sense of foreboding about it. However, Marcus might interpret that as sulking or deliberate spite – or worse, as madness. There. She had allowed herself to think the word.
Marcus was still standing with his back against the bedroom door, almost as if he was expecting her to make a run for it and was ready to stop her. ‘You need to get ready,’ he said. ‘Otherwise we are going to be late.’
She nodded, dragging the sweater over her head, then fumbling with the hook of her skirt, while he continued to stand there watching her. She felt as if his scrutiny went deeper than her outward appearance, that he was examining things she could not see herself.
Eventually she said, ‘I shouldn’t have broken into his cupboard. It was just that I was so sure … Only now I’m not. I only got a glimpse – maybe he was looking at one of those magazines and the light caught the page when he shoved it out of the way.’
‘I think you should apologize to Sean,’ he said quietly. ‘Even if you can’t explain to him why you did it.’
‘Would you still have asked me to apologize if I’d found a knife in his cupboard?’ she flashed back.
‘But you didn’t.’
There was another silence while she peeled off her tights.
‘I didn’t smash the cupboard up on purpose. I know that it looks pretty violent, but I just levered the door open and it split. It looks worse than it is.’
‘It’s broken,’ he said. ‘How can that be better or worse?’ He walked out of the room before she could reply.
It was an uneasy drive down to Ulverston. She asked about his mother, he asked about the tour, but Jo felt that the issue of the knife travelled with them as surely as if it was lying on the dashboard, its shiny blade caught every so often in the headlights of passing cars. It was possible that she had been wrong. Mistaking an innocent object for a firearm had led to people being shot before now.
It had begun to drizzle, so they hurried up the hill from the car park, she clinging to Marcus’s arm as they sheltered beneath his big umbrella, partly as a matter of form, partly in order to keep up. Past the Laurel and Hardy statue and into the Coronation Hall, where the booking office doubled up with Tourist Information, showing their tickets to the dinner-jacketed stewards on duty at the front doors.
They had seats in the balcony because Marcus preferred the acoustics up there. Although Jo had been raised on pop music, she always enjoyed the Camerata, and the music seemed extraordinarily beautiful that night, a programme of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. At the end of the first half, when they joined the crowd shuffling down to the bar for interval drinks, she knew that both their spirits had been lifted: she returned Marcus’s smile, and he squeezed her hand. As they entered the bar she caught sight of Maisie Perry, down at the other end of the room. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘There’s Fred and Maisie. If we had known they were coming, we could have offered them a lift.’
The Perrys had seen them in the same instant, and Maisie began weaving her way towards them, her progress considerably impeded by people moving in all directions, many carrying a glass in each hand, everyone trying to negotiate a path around the clumps of people who had chosen a spot to stand in and were now impervious to all other human traffic.
‘Marcus, Jo – how lucky to see you here. Now I’ll be able to introduce you to our new neighbour, Mrs Iceton – the lady who has bought The Old Forge.’ Maisie waved an explanatory arm to where Fred was in conversation with a woman who had her back towards them.
As they followed her through the crowd, Jo turned to Marcus. ‘Surely someone hasn’t moved in there already.’
‘A removal van came, the day you went away.’
‘Goodness, but it’s crowded tonight,’ Maisie prattled as she shepherded them across the room. ‘Still, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? To see the concert so well supported. We’re very lucky to get the Camerata coming to the Coro, I always say.’ She ended her monologue with a flourish: ‘Gilda, meet some more of your new neighbours, Jo and Marcus.’
Only then did the strange woman turn and face them for the first time. It had been twenty-five years, but Jo knew Gilda instantly. She swallowed hard. Marcus was already shaking hands, ever ready with some pleasantry suitable to the occasion.
‘And this is Jo.’ Maisie was enjoying her role as introducer-in-chief.
‘I believe we’ve already met.’ Gilda’s smile was bright, but when Jo automatically extended her hand, the one she received in return was like a dead thing.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Jo, trying to meet the other woman squarely in the eye. ‘Or if we have, then I’m afraid I don’t remember you.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you can have come across Jo, yet,’ Maisie chipped in helpfully. ‘She has been away on one of their tours, until this evening. I think I already mentioned to you that Marcus and Jo run a company which specializes in historical and literary tours – such an interesting way to earn a living. You’ll have to get them to tell you all about it.’
Jo was too flustered to experience her usual level of irritation at the way Maisie was evidently au fait with all her movements. She was aware of Gilda regarding her discomfiture with cool amusement, while Maisie continued to chatter, oblivious to any possible tension. ‘What a coincidence, finding that half of Easter Bridge is here this evening.’
‘That’s not so very difficult,’ suggested Marcus. ‘Given the total population of Easter Bridge.’
‘I see the Wheatons are back at The Hollies,’ Maisie went on. ‘It’s their second home,’ she explained for Gilda’s benefit. ‘They have a boy and a girl, which might be nice for your daughter, when she’s at home. Gilda has a daughter at boarding school.’ She tossed this snippet of information in th
e direction of Jo and Marcus, barely pausing for breath before adding something about Brian and Shelley often coming to the Ulverston concerts too.
Jo turned swiftly to Maisie. ‘I haven’t seen anything of Shelley lately, have you?’ The words almost ended in a squeak as Marcus surreptitiously grasped her hand and dug his fingernails into her palm, while politely asking Gilda, ‘Your daughter will be home for the holidays at the moment, I suppose?’
‘No, I was hoping she would be, but she’s been invited to stay with a schoolfriend for a few days, and yesterday she rang to say that there’s some sort of party at this friend’s house on Saturday, so can she stay on until after the weekend.’ Gilda punctuated her monologue with the exasperated sigh of a parent who can hardly keep up with their offspring’s social life. ‘Then they are going to drive her up to Helmsley, where she’s due to spend the last week of the holidays with my cousin Carole. She always has Becky over in the holidays – Carole is our closest relative, and they’re very fond of one another, so in the end I’ve arranged to go across and see Becky there, before she goes back to school.’
‘I expect it’s fallen in very well, keeping her out of the way while you get straightened up after the move,’ Maisie said. ‘Moving is such a hectic time, although I expect she’s dying to see your new home together.’
Without giving Gilda the opportunity to confirm or deny this, Maisie turned to ask Fred something about the second half of the programme. Jo felt Gilda’s eyes on her again. It made her feel as if she were standing under a hot, bright spotlight. Maisie continued chattering to Fred and Marcus about Thomas Tallis. Fred was saying something about a piece which had first been performed in Gloucester Cathedral, but Jo wasn’t listening properly. She had to escape from the heat and dazzle. She edged away from the group, excusing herself with something about going to the ladies’.