The Cruellest Game (35 page)

‘I’m only sorry we got it all so wrong,’ he said.

I glanced at him in surprise, and so, I thought, did DC Price. I somehow didn’t think Jarvis was a man who would often apologize for anything.

I had previously been furious with the detective sergeant, and the police in general. They hadn’t listened, not any of them really, and they had made little or no effort to move beyond
their original crass assumptions. In my opinion they had not appeared to even attempt to conduct anything resembling a proper investigation.

But I saw no point in being anything other than conciliatory. Not at this stage. I was hoping they might reveal far more about their inquiries, not just concerning the abduction of Luke
Macintyre and the break-ins at Highrise, which directly affected me, but also Brenda Anderton’s death. And most importantly of all, I wanted them to investigate Robbie’s death properly,
and was even hoping they may already have begun to do so.

‘I can see how it must have looked,’ I said mildly.

‘Yes, well, I suppose we just have to move on,’ muttered Jarvis ambiguously, still fiddling with his sleeve.

He emptied his coffee cup and brushed the froth from his upper lip, resembling fleetingly rather more the gawky schoolboy I suspected he would once have been than a hard-nosed detective.

‘There’s something you may like to know,’ Jarvis continued, just a tad tentatively, as if he weren’t sure whether he should share it with me but was going to anyway.
‘We have CCTV footage of Brenda Anderton’s car travelling through the speed-restricted roadworks area of the A30 on the morning of your son’s death. She took the Blackstone
turning, and definitely could have been heading for Highrise. In fact, the coincidence seems too great for her to have been going anywhere else.’

I gasped.

‘It looks like she could well have been involved. Your son was at an impressionable age and his circumstances made him highly vulnerable. We can only assume that you are probably right,
Mrs Anderson, and that Brenda deliberately revealed to Robbie the truth about his father in, doubtless, the most blunt and unpleasant manner. That could perhaps have been enough to push him to do
something he never otherwise would have contemplated, to take his own life . . .’

I just stared at him. I was afraid I might break down and weep again, for the first time in days. Jarvis continued to speak.

‘The problem is, Mrs Anderson, now Brenda Anderton is also dead, I fear we will never be able to prove it.’

My mind was buzzing. ‘That CCTV footage is good enough for me,’ I said. ‘I feel I now know what happened. What is it judges tell juries? They must reach a verdict beyond any
reasonable doubt. I know what happened, all right, beyond any reasonable doubt.’

But, of course, I could only imagine what actually took place in Robbie’s room between Brenda Anderton and my son. I could only imagine how Robbie had felt. And that was the part of it all
that really devastated me. More than anything. My beautiful boy being told something that was so totally destructive to him that he no longer wished to continue living.

I felt tears pricking at the very thought of it and blinked them away ferociously. There were still things I wanted to know and DS Jarvis seemed, from what I knew of him anyway, in an unusually
receptive and helpful mood. Perhaps he was under his own pressure, I thought obliquely. Maybe the great and the good of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary feared that I might sue them.

I wasn’t sure if it would be remotely possible, but the thought had a certain appeal even in the state I was in. I had questions to ask first, though. I needed to know all the facts
possible.

‘What about Brenda Anderton’s death?’ I asked. ‘You told me you were re-investigating that? Have you found anything out? Do you now have reason to believe her death was
suspicious?’

Jarvis turned towards me, his face expressionless.

‘I’m afraid I cannot really talk about that, beyond confirming that our investigations are ongoing,’ he said formally.

I pushed him as much as I could but got no further. Indeed, he almost reverted to type – at least to the way I’d summed up when we first met on the day that Robbie had died. On the
worst day of my life.

The two officers left a few minutes later. Jarvis repeated his instruction of the previous day for me to stay inside and keep all my doors and windows locked, and told me to make sure I set the
alarm when I went to bed. I could only assume that he still suspected Robert of all kinds of things I really didn’t want to think about. Who else could he think might want to harm me now that
Brenda was dead?

‘I’ll get Jacobs and Bickerton to continue to keep an eye right through the night,’ he said. ‘This is their patch and, if you ask me, they don’t usually have enough
on, it’s that peaceful round here. A bit of extra duty will do them no harm at all. So don’t panic if you hear an engine or see lights approaching. It’ll be the boys in blue
looking out for you.’

He paused, then added almost inaudibly: ‘I hope.’

I had good ears. ‘So do I,’ I said.

He grinned. ‘Don’t worry,’ he went on. ‘I’ll make sure they stay on red alert. And if you have any cause for anxiety, dial 999 at once. Don’t mess about.
I’ll also make sure it’s known everywhere that you’re top priority.’

I nodded. A little boy had to be kidnapped and a woman, whatever she might have done, had to die before I was given any priority at all, I thought. But I said nothing.

The next morning Gladys arrived shortly after nine, holding a delicious-looking gooey cake before her. I answered the door in my dressing gown, Florrie at my feet.

‘Don’t worry, I didn’t make it,’ she said, by way of greeting, ‘Mrs Simmons, specially for you. Sticky toffee. Best she does, I reckon.’

I smiled my gratitude.

‘Hope I’m not too early,’ Gladys continued. ‘Just wanted to bring the cake round and tell you how thrilled we all are that the police have finally come to their
senses.’

I thanked her and invited her in, wondering yet again at the efficiency of the village jungle drums.

She insisted on making coffee and cutting into the sticky toffee cake – ‘nothing better to start the day with, flower’ – while I got dressed. During which time I
remembered my manners.

‘I just want to thank you so much for your support and all you did when I was arrested,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’ve done so before, not properly, and that’s
very wrong of me. You’ve been terrific. Really.’

‘Don’t worry about that, Marion, you’ve had one or two other things to think about,’ Gladys replied. She looked slightly embarrassed, but pleased, I thought.

‘I’m just glad it’s all worked out,’ she added.

I thanked her again, thinking, none the less, that it was a little premature to refer to anything having ‘worked out’.

‘I suppose so,’ I said mildly. ‘But you and I both know I will always be that woman whose son killed himself, and who was then arrested for abducting a little boy. Mud sticks
in small communities. And Dartmoor mud sticks like nothing else I know.’

‘Oh, goodness,’ countered Gladys, reaching out a hand to touch my arm. ‘You mustn’t think like that, luvvie. The ones who just gossip will soon move on to something else,
and the rest of them . . . well, I know a lot of people who just want to help you. Really.’

I managed a weak smile. I wondered how much, if anything at all, she knew yet about Robert’s double life and the role Brenda Anderton may have played in events. In any case she and the
rest of the village would learn about it sooner or later for sure. I thought I probably owed Gladys the courtesy of giving her a summary of events myself, but I just didn’t feel up to it.

I studied her in silence. She smiled back at me warmly, and began to make light small talk. She asked me no questions about anything. Not for the first time I became aware how much more
sensitive she was than she appeared to be. And I was quite surprised to realize what a comfort her presence was. Gladys Ponsonby Smythe really was an unusually kind and strong woman. She
didn’t overstay her welcome either, leaving right after we’d finished our coffee and cake.

‘Take care if you go out,’ she said. ‘The vultures are still gathered at the top of your lane.’

I’d assumed they would be. Even if they knew that I was no longer a police suspect they would presumably be looking for a quote on that and a picture to go with it.

However, I was going out. I was pretty sure neither DS Jarvis nor his colleagues would approve of what I was planning to do, but I didn’t care.

When Gladys had left I gave Florrie her breakfast – a scant handful of dried food – and shut her in the kitchen. I put on a warm coat and my fluffy boots, set the alarm excluding the
kitchen, locked up, and left the house. Then I climbed into the little Ford and roared up the lane as if I were Jenson Button and it was a Formula One racing car. Well, I certainly drove as fast as
speedster Charlie Jameson had ever driven on such a surface, I was quite sure. If not faster. When I got to the top I did not slow down, instead swinging the car onto the public road at full
throttle, causing it to slide sideways for quite some way, so that mud and muck splashed all over the gathered group of vultures, as Gladys had so accurately described them. They scattered in
various directions, several of them jumping into the hedge in order to escape me and my speeding vehicle. I only just managed to maintain any kind of control and narrowly avoided ending up in the
hedge myself. It would have been worth it even if I had. Indeed, it gave me such pleasure to watch the panic of those who had so diligently added to my distress that I felt almost in high spirits
as I slowed to a more sensible pace and proceeded on my journey.

I was heading for that grim Exeter council estate again. The place where Brenda had lived; the house she had shared with Robert, when he wasn’t with me or in the North Sea; the other home
he had kept going for so many years. The other home which was such a far cry from Highrise. The place where I assumed Robert now was, with his younger daughter.

It took me the best part of an hour to reach the inappropriately named Riverview Avenue. I drove slowly by number 5, and parked a little way up the road behind a white transit van, almost
mimicking my first visit to the street. But this time, thankfully, there were no threatening hoodies gathered by the garages.

There was also no sign of any police activity or any of the paraphernalia of a crime scene around the house. I could only assume that the police had completed their search – and, come to
think of it, that was what Jarvis had indicated – and that the house was no longer a crime scene. Indeed, had it been so I would definitely have had a wasted journey because presumably Robert
and his child would not have been allowed to be there.

There was a window slightly ajar on the first floor which hopefully indicated that somebody was in residence. And surely it must be Robert. For reasons I couldn’t quite explain to myself I
wanted to see him in this other environment. Just a glimpse would do. I had driven to the grim Bridge Estate entirely for that purpose.

I waited for about forty-five minutes. Then the door to number 5 opened, and Robert, as unshaven and dishevelled-looking as now seemed to be his habit, stepped outside and seemed to be sorting
some newspapers and bottles into recycling bins.

His clothes looked as if he’d slept in them. I hoped he wouldn’t notice me watching him, and was glad that I was driving a car he wouldn’t recognize and had been able to park
behind the transit van. However, he seemed almost curiously intent on his task. A movement behind him caught my eye. A little girl, presumably Janey, had appeared in the doorway. She seemed quite
small for her age, and young, both in looks and behaviour. But then I only really had Robbie to compare her with. And he had always been tall and rather grown-up. She was jumping on and off the
doorstep, up and down, up and down, laughing like children do, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe Robert had so far managed to keep at least the worst of it all from her. She
must surely have known that her mother had brought a little boy into the house, and I wondered how Brenda would have explained that. I also wondered if the girl even realized fully that her mother
was dead. Whatever she knew at the moment, and however much she was being protected, she could not be kept in the dark for long, that was for certain. Just as she surely could not be kept in the
dark for long concerning the terrible illness which lurked within her lithe young body.

In stark contrast to her father, and the sorry state of their house, little Janey was immaculately turned out. She wore a pristine cream tracksuit jacket, clean jeans and those trainers all the
kids like which light up at the heel when you stamp on them.

She had very black hair and pale opaque skin. Just like her father. And just like the half-brother she had never known. Robert’s genes must be powerful, I thought. His daughter, like our
son, was the image of him. No wonder Brenda had avoided my meeting her, and made up her story about a son and daughter as a kind of further camouflage, I suppose, in case of anything I might
mention to Robert. Anyway, if I had ever met Janey before, I would have at once spotted the resemblance to the man I’d thought was my husband. Another Boris Becker moment.

Robert finished his recycling, straightened up and went back into the house, ushering the child in before him. I watched as the door shut behind them, unsure really what I was feeling. And I was
so wrapped up in my own muddled thoughts that I didn’t spot the police patrol car until it pulled up right outside number 5.

Two uniformed officers, both men, and a woman in plain clothes whom I presumed to be CID, none of them among the considerable number of officers I had recently encountered, stepped out and
approached the front door.

After just a few seconds the door opened and Robert appeared again. I could see him clearly. He did not register surprise; more resignation tinged with dismay really. It was almost as if he had
been expecting this visit. And I suppose he probably had.