Ralph’s Children (22 page)

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Kate said.

It was still troubling her later when Rob came home from school.

‘God knows Mum’s hardly overrun by friends,’ she told him. ‘I feel guilty.’

‘I can’t see why you should,’ he said. ‘Bel broke up with Sandi for a perfectly good reason.’

‘Me,’ said Kate.

‘Her choice, though. Nothing you said.’

‘I suppose.’

‘You’ve never been able to stand Sandi. If Bel had taken any notice of that, she’d have ditched the friendship long ago.’

‘You said “broke up” before,’ Kate said. ‘Makes them sound like lovers.’

Which thought made her feel even sadder for Bel.

‘Is your mother all right?’ her father asked Kate the following week.

‘A bit low, I think,’ she said. ‘About Sandi.’

They’d already talked once about that issue.

‘I hope she’s OK,’ Michael said. ‘She seems – I don’t know – a bit distant.’

‘You’re divorced, Dad,’ Kate said. ‘You’re meant to be distant.’

‘I still worry about her,’ Michael said.

‘Me too,’ Kate said.

‘I don’t think she’s been drinking,’ Michael said. ‘Would you say?’

‘I’d say not,’ Kate consoled him. ‘But I’ll keep an eye on her, if that’s what you’re asking me to do.’

‘I suppose I am.’ He paused. ‘Any further developments in the case?’

‘If there have been,’ Kate said, ‘no one’s telling me.’

‘It’ll come,’ Michael said.

There were times when Kate found herself wishing that it would
never
come, that the police would never find the rest of the gang, so that maybe eventually the memories
would just fade and she might be able to move forward, be fully herself again.

Rob and her father, she knew, would never be happy until the killers had been locked up for the duration.

‘Whoever the fuck they are,’ Michael had said, quite violently, one day.

To Kate, of course, they were and would remain two men and a woman – faceless, but distinctive – named Jack, Roger and Pig.

Easier not knowing their identities.

‘I don’t think I want them humanized,’ Kate said to Rob.

‘Like Carol Marsh,’ he said, understanding.

‘Before I knew about her,’ Kate said, ‘she was just Simon, dead terrorist.’

‘Easier to hate,’ Rob said.

‘Maybe even to forget,’ she said. ‘One day.’

‘Are you still having nightmares?’ Bel asked her on the first Tuesday of February over a little late lunch at Caffè Nero in Henley.

They had been doing more mother-and-daughter things since it happened – and even more since Sandi had moved out of Bel’s life – which meant that there were
two
things,
Kate supposed, that had come out of the horror for which she could be grateful: her ever-improving relationships with both Rob and her mother.

‘Not every night,’ she answered now.

‘I was wondering,’ Bel said, ‘if you’d consider . . .’

Kate looked at her, had thought since they’d sat down that her mother had something on her mind, decided now that she was not going to like whatever was coming next.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘My self-help group,’ Bel said. ‘There’s a meeting this Thursday. I haven’t been for a while, and I know that ordinarily it’s not your kind of thing . .
.’

‘No, Mum,’ Kate said quickly. ‘It’s not.’

‘I think you’d be surprised,’ Bel said, ‘by what a mixed bunch they are.’

Kate thought of Sandi, then of her mother at her worst, and cringed at the very idea of a roomful of kindred spirits.

‘It sounds,’ she said, ‘like hell.’

‘I wouldn’t ask –’ clearly Bel had prepared for this conversation and for her refusal – ‘if I didn’t feel I so badly need to go.’

‘So why haven’t you gone?’ Kate paused. ‘Is it because of Sandi?’

‘She’s not going any more,’ Bel said, ‘so it’s nothing to do with her. But I do seem to be just a bit nervous of going back on my own.’

‘I can’t believe you agreed,’ Rob said. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea for you?’

‘I’m not going for me,’ Kate said. ‘Strictly to give Mum moral support.’

Rob looked dubious.

‘And I did promise Dad I was going to keep an eye out for her.’

‘And you think there’s no hidden agenda?’ Rob asked.

‘So long as Sandi isn’t there,’ Kate said, ‘I can’t imagine one.’

‘I’m just picturing you in a room full of well-meaning therapy pushers.’ Rob shook his head. ‘I hope Bel doesn’t think they could be what you need.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Kate said. ‘Though I was thinking I might possibly get a column out of it.’

‘Would that be OK with Bel?’

Simon’s taunt about cruelty to mothers flashed suddenly back at Kate.

‘I don’t know.’ She realized how tired she felt.

‘You OK?’ Rob was gentle.

‘Not really.’

He was silent for a moment, and then he said: ‘You don’t need to change yourself, you know. You’re fine just the way you are, the way you’ve always been.’

‘So fine you couldn’t bear living with me any more,’ Kate said softly.

‘That was the pair of us,’ Rob said, ‘both being fools.’

Kate sighed. ‘I don’t think doing this one small thing for my mother’s going to constitute a major character reform.’

‘And it might even be therapeutic, I suppose,’ Rob pondered. ‘So long as you don’t take them too seriously.’

‘Feel like joining us?’ Kate asked.

‘Poking needles into eyes comes to mind,’ he said.

R
alph could hardly recall a time when she had still thought of Simon by her real name.

Like the other three, Carol Marsh had been of no particular significance to her in her official capacity at Challow Hall. They had been just four more luckless kids with little hope for their
futures. She’d encountered them periodically, a part of the mass, had known them better on paper than in reality.

Until the evening at the Smithy, when she had become entranced by them.

After that, Carol Marsh had ceased almost entirely to exist for Ralph.

Simon until the day she died.

She wondered how long the police had known Simon’s identity before releasing her name. How much time they had spent digging around in Carol’s life, presumably
hoping to dislodge the others?

Jack had been the first to phone her after the name had hit the news.

Ralph had known she should rebuke him for breaking their no-contact rule, should forbid him from doing it again for all their sakes, but she had been so overwhelmingly glad to hear his voice
that she’d said it more mildly than was wise.

‘We mustn’t do this, Jack.’

‘I reckon we’ll know,’ he had said, ‘if they find out about any of us.’

‘They may be cleverer than that,’ Ralph said.

‘Not all that bright,’ Jack said, ‘in my experience.’

‘That’s your experience,’ Ralph had said, ‘as a burglar.’

She had not used the word ‘killer’, nor had either of them mentioned the game or any of the other’s names. Just in case someone was listening – Pig’s talents had
made them too alert to the possibilities of phone tapping.

‘How’s he doing?’ Ralph had asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘I thought you said we’re not to get in touch,’ Jack said.

‘And I meant it,’ Ralph said. ‘But I know you.’

‘I did take a drive just the other day, over to Swindon, saw him coming out of his place,’ Jack admitted. ‘He didn’t see me, but he looked pretty bad, I thought.
Can’t say I was surprised.’

‘Do you think he’ll stay away from the funeral?’

It had been on her mind constantly, a gnawing worry.

‘I bloody well hope so,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t think he’s that much of an idiot.’

Ralph had said she hoped not, too, and then she’d told Jack how good it had been to hear his voice, but that he mustn’t do it again.

‘Only in a real emergency,’ she had said.

Giving them both the get-out they had wanted.

* * *

She had known all along that none of them would be able to stop completely.

Not just because they were addicted, both to the group and the game. Not even just because they all loved each other.

It was what they had all known, deep down, since Simon had died.

That this game simply was not yet over.

‘I
’m only coming this once,’ Kate reminded her mother on the phone at lunchtime on Thursday, ‘to support you, right?’

‘I know,’ Bel said, ‘and I’m properly grateful.’

‘Just so long as they know I’m not going to talk about myself.’

‘I’ve told the organizer,’ Bel said, ‘but why don’t you see how you feel about it when you’re there?’

Kate knew there and then that she should have backed out.

The meeting was in a sitting room in a Victorian terraced house in East Reading, the room filled with a variety of unmatched chairs and stools, and an equally motley group of
about twenty men and women, most of them helping themselves to polystyrene cups of strong tea from an old, sturdy urn and custard creams from two large paper plates before sitting down and
beginning, one at a time, to unburden themselves.

All perfectly tolerable, Kate found, to her surprise, and actually more interesting than depressing because it was plain, from the start, that these people were relieved to be there, that
perhaps this might be their first chance to unload since the last meeting.

Until twenty minutes into the meeting, when the door opened.

‘Apologies,’ Sandi West said, entering the room.

Kate shot an accusing look at Bel, saw that her mother’s cheeks were flushed.

‘I had no idea,’ Bel whispered. ‘Do you want to leave?’

Kate shook her head, irritated, but unwilling to give Sandi that satisfaction.

Her mother’s former friend was leaning more heavily on her walking stick than Kate recalled from past encounters, looking decidedly weary, her pale face quite haggard and her eyes reacting
to Bel’s discomfort with unmistakable sadness.

Kate felt a pang of pity, then a twinge or two of shame.

All of which disappeared when, within moments of having wedged herself on to an already fully laden sofa, Sandi got back to her feet with a groan – definitely over-egging, Kate decided
– and addressed a question to her.

‘Are you starting to recover, do you feel, Kate,’ Sandi asked, ‘after your terrible experience?’

Kate felt her face grow warm, but maintained her composure.

‘Yes, thank you, Sandi,’ she said. ‘Though I really don’t want to speak about it.’

Another member of the group rose, ready to speak about his own depression following the loss, five months earlier, of his sister.

Kate began to relax again.

Until the speaker sat down.

‘Another question for Kate.’ This time, Sandi remained seated. ‘I was wondering if you’re planning on going to Laurie Moon’s funeral?’

Kate could hardly believe her ears.

‘I don’t think –’ her voice was shaky with anger – ‘that’s any of your business.’

‘I hope you’re not experiencing much guilt over her death,’ Sandi persisted.

‘Didn’t you hear Kate’s answer?’ asked Bel clearly and crisply.

Kate managed a swift sideways smile at her mother.

‘Do you know yet –’ Sandi was like the worst kind of bludgeoning reporter, the sort that gave Kate’s own profession a bad name – ‘why those people picked on
you?’

‘Are you deaf and stupid,’ Kate asked, ‘as well as insensitive?’

Composure gone now.

‘Change of subject, please,’ someone said.

It was the organizer, a woman named Mary, to whom Bel had introduced her earlier, and now Kate cast her an appreciative glance as the older woman deftly and firmly turned the focus away from
Kate, silencing Sandi and setting in motion a general group discussion on the pros and cons of cognitive therapy. Which rolled along quite engrossingly until another minor skirmish occurred between
two other members, and a white-haired man named Charles brought that under control.

Sandi waited for the next pause.

Too many chiefs,’ she said and smiled, looking straight at Kate again.

The word sent a sharp ice sliver through Kate’s head.

Bel saw her reaction. ‘Darling? Are you all right?’

‘Fine,’ Kate answered mechanically.

Not fine at all.

‘Want to leave?’ asked Bel.

‘Sorry,’ Kate said, ‘but I think I do.’

Not wishing to be party to another murder.

‘If it didn’t mean anything,’ Kate said later to Rob, ‘why did she look at me that way when she said it?’

‘Probably just miffed because you’d had a go at her,’ he said.

‘Don’t you think I was entitled?’

‘Very much so.’

‘Are you placating me?’ Kate was starting to bristle again.

‘Not at all,’ Rob said. ‘I think Sandi was incredibly out of order.’

‘But you do think I read too much into that last remark.’

‘I do,’ he said unequivocally.

Which calmed her, almost settled her, certainly enough to leave it alone, telling herself that Rob was probably right. ‘Too many chiefs’ was a perfectly ordinary phrase, nothing
whatever to do with what had happened to her.

And face it, if she was going to start playing her own harebrained ‘game’, imagining gang members around every corner, she’d have to come up with someone a damned sight more
probable than Sandi West.

* * *

T
he following Monday, four days after the meeting, she was coming home after a sandwich and chat with Fireman at the paper when she heard it –
less than a second after the front door had closed behind her.

Coming from the living room – from the telly.

A voice so horribly familiar it gave her chills.

She flew into the room, and there was Rob, work spread across the table in front of him, holding out the remote control, channel hopping.

‘The woman just speaking –’ Kate’s voice rapped out sharply – ‘did you see her?’

‘Who?’ Rob looked blank.

‘The woman who was just
speaking
, about a second ago.’ She knew she must seem mad to him. ‘On the TV.’

‘You OK?’ Rob put down the remote, stood up. ‘Problem at the paper? How was Fireman?’