No Escape (16 page)

‘And Jack,’ Christopher added.

‘I don’t, though, apologize for my instincts.’

‘Heaven forbid you should ever be entirely in the wrong.’

‘I daresay I’m in the wrong a great deal of the time,’ Lizzie said.

‘Staying with me, you mean.’

She saw then how completely pointless the conversation was, and how dreadful, and realized that the children and Gilly would be starting to wonder where they were, decided abruptly that
she’d rather it was she who returned to them before Christopher, and began to walk towards the door.

‘Had enough?’ he asked.

‘More than enough.’ She turned back to face him. ‘But just in case, just in the – please, God, unlikely – event that my instincts were not wholly groundless, you
should know one thing, Christopher.’

‘And what’s that?’ He sounded very bitter.

‘Simply that if you did, ever, in any way, harm Sophie or any of our children, I truly believe that I would kill you.’

Novak had gone along with Clare’s troubled instincts. There had been no question, of course, that he would, right from the first night she’d told him about little
Irina, because if he’d had to name the one thing he loved most about his wife, it would have had to be her sensitivity.

So he’d done some checking, taken some time to observe the Patstons.

The husband, Tony, good-looking man with one conviction for actual bodily harm, now working solo at Patston Motors in an alleyway off the North Circular near Walthamstow, going to the pub for
liquid lunches, downing too many pints for a man working with potentially dangerous machinery, knocking off at about six-thirty, going home to the semi in Chingford Hatch for an hour, two at most,
then heading out again to his local, sometimes alone, sometimes with his neighbour, for a longer session.

Joanne Patston, nice-looking too, but manifestly beleaguered, seeming to scurry everywhere, never leaving the house without the little girl, the child for whom Clare and Maureen Donnelly were
both so fearful.

And Irina herself, gorgeous little kid, no outward evidence of ill-treatment, no visible bruises – though Novak knew, of course, that they existed – but always clinging to her
mother’s hand without any of the natural, healthy eagerness to be free that characterized most four-year-olds.

Adopted. He’d learned that much without difficulty, but then he’d struck a dead end more swiftly than he might have expected, and, just as swiftly, he had withdrawn his enquiry lest
he make waves.

‘So what do you think?’ he asked Robin Allbeury in the second week of August, sitting on the solicitor’s terrace with its extraordinary views over the Thames
and beyond, drinking a cold beer while the other man finished reading his report. ‘Anything you could do?’

‘Tough call,’ Allbeury mused. ‘Presumably this question mark over the kiddy’s adoption could be enough to stop the lady leaving or divorcing him, even if it were what she
wanted.’ He paused. ‘I’d be concerned that any of my efforts within legal goalposts could end up getting Irina taken away from Mrs Patston, not just the father.’

‘More misery all round.’

‘Could be.’

‘I’ve never asked much before,’ Novak said, slowly, ‘never wanted to know too much about your methods for making certain things happen.’

Allbeury smiled. ‘What are you asking now, Mike? That I move outside those legal goalposts?’

‘Just asking you to try and help,’ Novak answered simply. ‘Just telling you that my instincts seem to be siding with Clare’s and Maureen Donnelly’s.’ He shook
his head. ‘Nothing much more to go on than that. I haven’t seen Patston shout at his daughter, let alone hurt her.’

‘Then again—’ Allbeury glanced down at the notes ‘—you haven’t actually seen him out with her, even at weekends, which is a little off, in itself.’

‘Definitely,’ Novak agreed.

‘And clearly what we’re all concerned about,’ Allbeury said, more grimly now, ‘is that the two visits to Waltham General may only be the thin end of the wedge.’

‘Mrs Patston scared of her husband
and
, maybe, losing the child.’

‘Too anxious, perhaps, to take Irina back to A&E, even if she’s really hurt.’

‘Robin’s going to make some enquiries of his own,’ Novak told Clare later on her mobile, it being one of her evenings in Wood Green with Nick Parry, her
private patient.

‘Is that good news?’ Clare asked, while the young man with gaunt cheeks and merry eyes that often hid his inner frustrations and bleaker moods – who had, until a few moments
before been playing Internet poker with a woman in Fiji – zipped back and forth in his wheelchair, making coffee. ‘Or does he usually do that?’

‘He said no promises,’ Novak said. ‘But I could tell he was concerned.’

‘I just hope he doesn’t waste too much time,’ Clare said.

‘He’s a careful man, my love. And he knows what he’s doing.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Thanks for trying.’

‘I don’t see we have a choice,’ Novak said.

‘Coffee’s ready,’ Nick Parry announced from the doorway as Clare put her phone back into her bag. ‘Though you look like you could use something stronger.’

Clare grinned at him. ‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not.’ He waited till they both had their mugs. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Tell me what’s up. You know you always feel better when you tell
me.’

She smiled again. Parry had once told Clare that he was better than most shrinks because he’d been there himself – pretty much all the way
down
there, he’d said –
for a good long while after his accident, and it hadn’t been therapists who’d got him through, but other things entirely: the welcome discovery that he could still, albeit more seldom
than before, get hammered with some of his old mates; the better of his carers; and his still-developing love affair with his computer and the Internet.

‘Listening to other people’s problems is up there too,’ Parry had confessed, candidly. ‘Helps put all this—’ he’d motioned towards his
legs‘—in perspective.’ And then he’d grimaced. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Christopher rejoining us tomorrow, I gather?’ Arden said to Lizzie at the end of their first day’s filming on Kefalonia, while the crew packed up and Wilson
and Gina went over notes. ‘Nice for you, darling.’

‘Lovely,’ Lizzie said.

‘You all right, Lizzie?’ Susan asked just moments later.

Always Susan – most often, Susan – detecting her troubled soul.

Careful, Lizzie
.

They’d been out on location in Argostoli, the capital, with Lizzie seeking out fresh local produce or specialities as usual, chatting to traders, buying several bottles of Gentillini wine
and a locally-produced honey, and checking out ingredients for the dishes she would prepare in the following days.

‘Sure you won’t have dinner with us, darling?’ Arden asked.

Most of the crew were eating together that night at the Hotel Boulevard Pyllaros half an hour or so away – where Arden, Wilson, Gina and Susan were also staying – but since the hotel
had been unable to offer suitable facilities for Jack’s needs, Christopher had rented a house closer to Sami in the north of the island, more convenient in any case for much of the scheduled
filming.

‘I really want to get back before dark, if possible,’ Lizzie told him.

‘Good idea,’ Susan said, ‘with those alarming roads.’

Lizzie smiled at her. ‘The driver I had this morning was pretty sane, and he said he’d pick me up.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘He’s probably waiting.’

Arden waited till she’d vanished from sight. ‘Do you know what’s wrong with her?’ he asked Susan quietly.

‘Nothing,’ Susan said, ‘so far as I know.’

‘Hm,’ Arden said.

‘What’s that mean?’ Susan asked.

The producer shrugged. ‘Hubby back tomorrow. Wife glowing till she found out. Trouble in paradise, I’d say.’

‘So long as you
don’t
say,’ Susan said.

‘Think the same, then, do you?’ Arden said.

‘Not at all,’ Susan said, slightly too sharply. ‘Not remotely.’

Arden raised both eyebrows, then shrugged. ‘Jolly good,’ he said.

Gilly opened the door the instant Lizzie’s taxi rattled to a halt outside the villa, a red-roofed, pink stone house with creamy shutters and jasmine and other
heavenly-scented flowers in the surrounding gardens.

‘You look shattered.’

‘I am.’ Lizzie dumped her bag on the cool stone floor, handed the two large flattish boxes she’d been carrying to Gilly and raised a finger to her lips.

‘The boys are playing one of their awful computer games and Sophie’s in bed.’

‘She all right?’ Sophie seldom willingly went to bed early.

‘Absolutely fine,’ Gilly reassured her. ‘But she swam for quite a while, and then she played volleyball with the boys for ages, so she was exhausted.’

‘Jack okay?’

‘Very happy, I’d say.’ Gilly smiled. ‘Excited about his dad coming back.’

Sophie’s room was on the upper floor, her parents on one side, Gilly on the other, while Jack and Edward were sharing the bedroom-cum-sitting room and bathroom on the ground floor.

‘I’ll just nip up first,’ Lizzie said.

She tiptoed in, found Sophie asleep, watched her for a few moments, as she loved to do most nights wherever they were, then kissed her golden hair very gently and crept back out.

Jack and Edward were in the sitting room.

‘Starving, Mum,’ Edward told her the instant she appeared.

‘No food tonight,’ Lizzie said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Jack said.

She went over to plant a kiss on his cheek.

‘Gilly said we had to wait,’ Edward said plaintively.

‘No real food, anyway,’ his mother said.

‘What’s that mean?’ her older son asked.

Jack wrinkled his nose. ‘Wow.’ He sniffed, to double-check. ‘Pizza?’

‘You’re kidding,’ Edward said. ‘I thought you’d be doing that mousse thing.’

‘Moussaka,’ Lizzie said. ‘Why would I make that when I know you don’t like it?’

‘Pizza,’ Jack said again. ‘Wicked.’

‘It’s rather a dull island on the mythological front,’ Christopher said the next evening over dinner on the terrace at the back of the house.

The cover explanation for his sudden return to London had been a hospital emergency, but the truth was that after the ugliness in San Remo, Lizzie had asked him – guiltily, but resolutely
– if he’d mind giving her a short breathing space, and he had told her that he did mind very much, but had still given in, leaving her, the children and Gilly to travel with the
Roadshow to Palermo and, from there, to the largest of the Ionian islands for the next segment.

He’d arrived that afternoon and promptly – to Lizzie’s surprise and discomfiture – invited Arden and Susan, Bill and Gina to join them for dinner.

‘No cooking,’ he’d said, seeing her expression. ‘All arranged with one of the better fish restaurants in town. They’re driving it over later.’

‘What about the children? They were expecting to have you to themselves.’

‘All sorted too,’ he’d replied, equably. ‘Gilly’s making supper with something light for you and I – a sort of appetizer, if you like.’

‘I don’t think I do like,’ Lizzie had said. ‘It all sounds very tiring.’

‘I think it sounds sociable,’ Christopher had said crisply, ‘and good PR, frankly, given that everyone’s been made to think I ran out on them. Anyway, our guests
won’t be here till getting on for ten. Most people dine late in this part of the world.’

‘Most people don’t have to get up early and be filmed all day.’

‘My,’ Christopher had said. ‘Aren’t we starting to sound like a film star?’

‘I fancied shooting this segment,’ Bill Wilson said now, several hours later, after the children had gone to their rooms, ‘on one of the more Dionysian islands like Naxos, so
that Lizzie could focus on wine.’

‘Kefalonia has some of the best wine in Greece,’ Lizzie said, prodding the rather limp grilled fish that the restaurant had delivered.

‘But no scope for orgies,’ Christopher said.

‘Sad little story,’ Gina said, ‘about that lake we’re scheduled to visit.’

‘Lake Melissani,’ Arden said.

‘Where Melissanthe, the Nymph, drowned herself when the great god Pan rejected her,’ Christopher said. ‘Though some would have it she was just a shepherdess looking for some
sheep who’d fallen in.’

‘You’ve done your homework,’ Susan said, impressed.

‘Always liked Greek myths,’ he said.

‘Crammed with sex,’ Bill said to Gina.

‘Pan’s father, Hermes,’ Christopher said to the table in general, ‘is said to have raped his mother Penelope in the guise of a goat.’

‘So that’s why Pan’s painted half-man, half-goat, is it?’ Gilly said.

‘His grandmother,’ Christopher said, ‘was called Maia.’

‘The fire goddess,’ Arden said.