The Other Child (25 page)

‘Oh, nothing,' he said simply and so refrained from another doomed attempt to let his future wife see inside him and to share with her some of the thoughts, fears and confusions he felt.

‘Please just promise me that if you know something important about Fiona, you will tell the police,' he added. That was where they had started: that Fiona and her father had done something stupid, which Gwen had trouble digesting. It could be relevant.

Probably not, he thought.

She looked at him. She was somewhere else entirely. Where
she
had started.

‘Will you still … are we still … I mean … has anything changed?'

Now, his inner voice told him, you could get out. With a pretty plausible reason. She would be in despair, but she would not have to blame herself for the break-up. It would all be Fiona's fault – the old cow with the evil tongue, and Gwen could hate her for all eternity and would not have to beat herself up about her own inadequacy. Do her the favour. Use this merciful opportunity.

He could not. Even knowing it was the right thing to do, he just could not. She was the way out of this cold room, out of this life on the breadline, out of sleeping all day and drinking all night, and above all out of the feeling of being a loser who would never sort his life out.

‘No, Gwen,' he said with a voice raw with the effort of getting through this moment. ‘No. Nothing has changed.'

She got up. She smiled.

‘I want to sleep with you, Dave,' she said. ‘Now. Here. I so much want to.'

Good Lord, he thought, horrified.

4

The phone rang just as Colin was starting to think seriously about lunch. It was already half past two and he was starving. No one on the Beckett farm seemed to feel responsible for cooking today. Gwen had disappeared since the morning, no one knew where to, and Chad had barricaded himself into his room – literally: the door was locked. Colin's tentative query was answered with a rough growl.

Detective Inspector Almond was there. She had suddenly appeared and had said that she wanted to talk to Jennifer on her own. For the last half hour the two had been sitting downstairs in the living room while Colin waited upstairs with increasing unease. And hunger.

He hurried down to the study to answer the phone. At least he now had an excuse to get closer to the living room.

‘Yes?' he said, while simultaneously straining to hear something of the conversation in the next room – in vain.

‘Hello.' A woman was on the other end of the phone. She was not easy to understand because she spoke so quietly. ‘Excuse me, who am I talking to?'

‘Colin Brankley. On the Beckett farm.'

‘Oh, Colin! You're Jennifer's husband, aren't you? This is Ena. Ena Witty.'

Colin did not have the slightest clue who she was. ‘Right?' he said.

‘I'm … I'm a friend of – an acquaintance of Gwen's. Is Gwen there?'

‘Unfortunately not,' said Colin. ‘She's not in. Can I take a message?'

Ena Witty seemed thrown by this news. ‘She's out?' she asked in disbelief.

‘Yes. Would you like her to call you back?'

‘Yes. It's that … I have to talk to her about something important. At least, I think it's important. But I'm not sure, so I … perhaps … I'll call her back …'

The woman sounded rather confused to Colin. He was keen to end the call. He had just heard the front door close and then a car engine start in the yard. Thank God the Almond woman was finally buggering off. He had to see how his wife was doing.

‘Right then, Ms Witty,' he said impatiendy. ‘I'll let Gwen know you've called. Does Gwen have your number?'

Ena did not know. She dictated her number for Colin, and after a moment's hesitation as to how much she should confide in the stranger at the other end of the line, she added: ‘I've got … you see, I've got a really big problem … I don't know what to do, and I have to talk to someone. It's urgent. But of course I know that … well, Gwen will have other worries. I read about the horrible crime at the Beckett farm in the paper. Apparently the victim was a good friend of the family? How terrible for Gwen!'

‘We're all here for her,' said Colin. He did not want to go into it any further. He did not know this acquaintance of Gwen's and he had no idea how close the two friends were.

‘So, Ms Witty …' he said and she finally realised he was in a hurry.

‘I'm sorry to bother you,' she said. ‘And please, do get Gwen to phone me. It's really very important.'

He promised her once again that he would pass on her request, and then he said goodbye and hurriedly put the phone down. He rushed to the living room, where Jennifer, very pale, was sitting on the sofa. Colin thought she looked pretty upset.

‘Darling, finally! She's gone. Should I make us a cuppa? Or do you want something to eat?'

Jennifer shook her head. ‘I'm not hungry. But if you …'

‘I can't be bothered just for myself,' Colin said. He shivered. ‘God, it's cold and clammy in this room! And so foggy outside … horrible day, isn't it?'

She did not reply. Resolved, he knelt down in front of the fireplace. ‘Help me, will you?' he asked. ‘If no one else is going to do it, we'd better do it ourselves.'

As they worked to get a fire started, Colin asked, as if by the by, ‘What did she come back for? Almond, I mean.'

Jennifer, who was passing him a log, froze. ‘She knows,' she murmured.

‘What?'

‘The whole affair from back then. That I was a teacher and … well, all of that. She told me.'

‘What's that got to do with this case?'

‘She wanted to know if I knew Amy Mills. You know, the girl who was murdered here in July.'

‘Why should you?'

‘She was from Leeds. Went to school there. She thought I might have taught her.'

He froze now, and stared at her. ‘But you didn't, did you? You said you'd never heard the name, and …'

‘No. I don't know her.'

He stopped what he was doing, although they still did not have a fire to take the edge off the cold in the room and the bleakness of the foggy day. Jennifer was sitting on the rug next to the logs and staring in front of her. He squatted down and took her hands in his. They were cold as ice. ‘You're sure you don't know her?'

‘No.'

‘That's just …' He was breathing heavily, trying not to get wound up, but he could feel the anger rising in him. ‘They don't have anything,' he said bitterly. ‘Nothing at all. Not the slightest clue, and so they start to poke around in people's pasts. This policewoman is completely lost, if you ask me. And out of her depth. Now she's digging up old stories and trying to make something of them. Can't wait to see what she finds out about the lot of us!'

‘She knows that I used to take pills sometimes back then.'

‘And? Is that illegal?'

‘She wanted to know if I still took them.'

‘And what did you say?'

‘I said the truth. That I sometimes take a tranquilliser, before going into town, for example, or when I've got something on. But that I don't often.'

‘Right. And a lot of people do that. Listen, she's got no right to ask you those things. And you don't have to answer. It's none of her business.'

‘She didn't believe me,' whispered Jennifer.

‘What didn't she believe?'

‘That I … I have a normal life. She looked at me so strangely. I think she wants to pin an addiction on me, because then she could claim I'm unpredictable and possibly also dangerous. And her colleague is already checking my statement about Amy Mills. He's asking the schools in Leeds and Amy Mills's parents.'

‘He won't find anything they can use against you.'

‘Probably not,' said Jennifer, but she spoke in a monotonous, helpless tone.

Colin pressed her hand more firmly. ‘Darling, what is it? What's worrying you? They haven't got anything on you, and that's how it'll stay. Don't let them get to you.'

She looked at him. He could feel her fear. Damn it, he was angry. Angry at this Almond, this thoughtless woman. He knew why Jennifer was so agitated.

‘It drives you crazy having to talk about it all again, doesn't it?' he asked cautiously. ‘Having it all brought up again? Churned up once more. Is it the old feelings bothering you?'

She nodded. Her depression had her in its grip. You could actually see how it paralysed her. During the first three years after
the affair
she had been like this constantly. Then she had got it under control, but he had never let himself be deceived. Her fragile state of mind could easily come undone, especially if that was what someone was aiming for.

He could have throttled DI Almond.

‘It won't ever be over,' she whispered.

‘That's not true. It's over. It's over, even if some stupid policewoman talks about it.'

‘It was my life. The school. The girls. It was everything.'

‘I know. That's how it felt to you. But so many things make life worth living. Not only work.'

‘I …'

‘We have each other. We have a happy and strong marriage. How many people would give an arm and a leg for that? We have a beautiful home. We have nice friends. We have our two darling, enchanting dogs …' He grinned, hoping to tease a smile from her. She tried, but did not manage.

‘You see,' he said anyway. He reached out, brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. ‘Listen, I don't think Almond will bother you again. She's just stumbling around in the dark – literally, just look outside! She won't get anywhere with Leeds, the schools and Amy Mills. She'll drop this lead and have to find other ones. And in any case: you were out walking with the dogs. Gwen was with you, she can vouch for you. You told Almond that too?'

Instead of a reply, Jennifer asked, ‘Who just called?'

Colin made a dismissive gesture. ‘Someone Gwen knows. Ena Witty, I think she said. Pretty confused person. She has some problem she needs to talk to Gwen about quite urgently. She sounded over-excited and uncertain. Asked for Gwen to call her back.'

Jennifer's gaze took on a far-away look, as if she were seeing a distant time. ‘Oh yes. Ena Witty. With her extraordinarily loud boyfriend. She was on the same course as Gwen. I got to know her last Friday.' She shook her head. ‘That seems like a different world now,' she murmured.

‘Our world will go back to normal again,' Colin reassured her. ‘Peaceful and simple and unexciting. No doubt about it.'

‘Yes,' said Jennifer, and at that moment she sounded like a good schoolgirl, agreeing to something which she did not at all believe in.

For a long time she had no longer seen her world as normal.

5

Of course Stephen had offered to accompany her. He had almost forced her to let him. She had felt how hurt he was at being rejected. As always, the chance to cause him pain gave her a feeling of satisfaction, although she knew that it would not be long before it would collapse and leave her in a deep emptiness. The opportunity to hurt him could not remove her own hurt, the broken trust and the disillusion he had caused her. She simply managed to numb them briefly, nothing more.

She had driven to Hull on her own to identify her grandmother's body in the morgue. She had not for a moment harboured the hope that it could all be a mistake, that some unknown woman would be lying in front of her and Fiona would return days later from some short trip, surprised at the excitement caused by her disappearance.

They had prepared her grandmother's body well. There was scarcely anything to see of the nasty injuries to her head. She did not look peaceful, as you always hope dead people will look, but neither did she appear in pain; instead she seemed rather indifferent. She even looked down on her own death coolly, Leslie thought.

She nodded to confirm that it was her grandmother, and then she quickly left. She lit a cigarette in the foyer and smoked it hurriedly, her hands shaking. Valerie Almond, who had accompanied her, wanted to fetch a glass of water for her, but Leslie said no. ‘Thanks. I think a whisky's what I need.'

Valerie smiled in sympathy. ‘You still have to drive.'

‘Of course. Just joking.'

Valerie had offered to have an officer fetch her and take her home, but Leslie had not wanted that. She felt better acting under her own steam, when she had to concentrate, navigate, then find a parking space. Sitting on the back seat of a police car, too many thoughts about her grandmother would have flitted through her head, and that was what she had to avoid at all costs.

‘Are you all right getting home on your own?' asked Valerie.

Leslie hated looking weak. ‘I'm a doctor, Inspector. Seeing a body is not going to throw me.'

‘You were close to your grandmother, weren't you?'

‘She raised me. My mother died when I was five. From then on, Fiona was all I had.'

‘Why did your mother die?'

Leslie took a drag on her cigarette before replying. ‘My mother was a hippy. A flower child. She was always going from one festival to the next. And always on drugs. That was just part of it. Hash, marijuana, LSD. Alcohol too. At some point a cocktail of all of them was just too much for her body to take. She died of heart and kidney failure.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' said Valerie.

‘Yes,' replied Leslie evasively.

After a moment's silence, a kind of tactful pause, Valerie asked, ‘How well do you know Jennifer Brankley?'

‘Jennifer? Not at all. I only met her personally last Saturday, at the … engagement party.'

‘But you had heard of her before that?'

‘Yes. Gwen had mentioned her in her letters and calls. She seems to be good friends with her. The Brankleys spend their holidays on the Beckett farm at least twice, sometimes three times, a year. I'm happy that Gwen could earn a bit of money like that. And she was in dire need of a friend. Gwen was … is … very lonely.'