Why Don’t You Come for Me (27 page)

Two days after the funeral, he set off to guide the inaugural Daphne du Maurier tour. Jo watched his meticulous preparations with renewed interest. Maybe he wasn’t cheating on her with Melissa, so much as disregarding her in favour of Daphne and a host of other dead literary folk, long-departed generals, kings and queens. She waved him away with a pang of envy. She had once been as enthusiastic about it all as he was.

Sean rose late, and after eating a large bowl of Shreddies, ambled down to Harry’s. Soon afterwards she happened to be looking out of an upstairs window and saw Harry’s sister emerging from the gateway of The Old Forge, walking side by side with Gilda’s daughter, the two of them also heading in the direction of The Hollies. Mindful of recent near-catastrophic events, Jo no longer allowed herself to entertain any speculations about this coincidental child. She and Gilda were the same age, and therefore it was quite likely that they would be producing children at around the same time. Whatever happened, she must not allow her imagination to run away with her again. She moved back from the window and resumed stripping the bed.

By coincidence, Suzanne Wheaton also happened to be changing the beds down at The Hollies. When she and John originally bought the place, they had been determined to buck the stereotype of second-home ownership. Not for them the Friday-night arrival, complete with bags of groceries brought from home, all too swiftly followed by the Sunday night departure with nary a word to their country neighbours in between. On the contrary, they told one another that they would make every effort to be part of the community, using the local shops and fraternizing to a degree which guaranteed their acceptance. When conjuring up this idyllic vision of chatting over the gate with a pipe-chewing farmer, or buying a jar or two of homemade marmalade from his apple-cheeked wife, they had reckoned without the nature of a hamlet like Easter Bridge, where the only emporium was an expensive gallery, and even regular residents like the Handleys were, as often as not, working away for days at a stretch.

Part of the picture had undoubtedly been the prospect of their own children rubbing shoulders with the local kids: children who would be interested in the world around them, conversant with the names of birds and the tracks of badgers – uncomplicated kids who would warm to their townie friends and invite them to come and help with lambing. The complete absence of children in the immediate area had undoubtedly put a damper on this in their previous years at The Hollies, but then Sean had arrived like the answer to a prayer, appearing at just the right time, when Harry was becoming increasingly resistant to the idea of family time spent up in the Lakes. At a stroke Harry’s complaints had been cut back to token whining, and within less than a year came the sale of The Old Forge, bringing with it the prospect of a possible friend for Charlotte too.

Alas, the reality of these friendships fell well short of the dream. Harry and his country-dwelling friend, far from disappearing to hunt for badger tracks or climb trees, spent most of their time playing computer games, just as Harry would have done if he had been at home with his friends in Heswall; while Charlotte’s new friend, Rebecca, turned out to be a pupil at a fee-paying school. As a good middle-class liberal, Suzanne Wheaton disapproved of private education, preferring to ‘support’ her excellent local comprehensive – having taken the precaution of moving into its catchment area as soon as Harry was expected. This reservation aside, Suzanne could not help being somewhat intrigued by Rebecca’s mother, a woman who, in spite of inhabiting the scruffiest dwelling for miles around, could evidently afford a private education for her daughter. And although Suzanne told herself that she had hoped her children would form friendships with rough-and-tumbling rural children, products of a threatened village school, and parented by the local salt of the earth, she was not unaware of the advantages of making ‘good’ connections, either. John was an architect, after all, and she could not imagine Rebecca’s mother would leave that house unaltered for very long. Even so, she baulked at the idea of inviting the woman round for a drink. On the handful of occasions when the two women had spoken, Suzanne had derived the impression that there was something a bit odd about Gilda Iceton. ‘Just nervy,’ John had said, but it wasn’t that – in fact, she came across to Suzanne as a fairly confident person. It was something she could not quite put her finger on, which went beyond the way the woman’s voice was a bit too loud, her laugh off-key.

At least Rebecca herself – unlike her mother – always looked nicely turned out. In fact, she seemed to be a thoroughly pleasant girl all round, who had lovely manners and was very well spoken. Suzanne was not so sure about Sean, who had blotted his copybook with the episode of the unsuitable DVD and the dreadful stories he had told Harry about his stepmother. John had been inclined to take a more charitable view than she had. ‘Kids make things up all the time, just to make themselves seem more interesting,’ he said. ‘Harry’s probably told Sean that we’re axe murderers.’

‘I sincerely hope not!’

Sean’s stepmother certainly didn’t look like a murderess. If anything, she looked more like a victim, Suzanne thought. A nervous little woman, who all but scurried past the house with her head down, never seeming to want to meet your eye. She hadn’t always been like that – she had appeared quite friendly when they first came, but now she looked as if she was afraid of her own shadow. Suzanne wondered if she might be ill. She never seemed to be away working with their tour company any more.

Her uneasiness about Sean was tempered by the difficulties of actively discouraging Harry from seeing him. Having originally encouraged the friendship, it was difficult suddenly to take the opposite line, and anyway, active prohibition seemed too extreme. It was not as if there were any other young people in whose direction Harry could be pointed. Moreover, she knew that the combined presence of Sean and Rebecca had probably been the single factor which had prevented her own two from killing each other this holiday. She was starting to feel the effects of cabin fever herself, as the rain kept them penned indoors day after day.

The weather was the subject of conversation in the sitting room of The Hollies at that precise moment. The youth of Easter Bridge normally segregated itself by gender, but the whole quartet had been temporarily forced into one another’s company when Mrs Wheaton ordered everyone out of the bedrooms so that she could change the beds.

‘I can’t believe Dad has gone walking in this weather,’ Charlotte was saying.

‘Dad’ll walk in anything,’ said Harry.

‘There’s no point. You can’t see anything.’

‘What’s the deal with walking, anyway?’ This from Sean. ‘Unless you actually need to get somewhere and you haven’t got a car, it’s just putting one foot in front of the other – a complete waste of time.’

There was a brief silence while the others tried to decide if Sean had just uttered something profound.

‘Does it
always
rain like this here?’ asked Rebecca.

‘Not always,’ said Charlotte. ‘It was really nice one year. We ate our dinner outside nearly every night.’

‘Since I’ve been home from school it’s rained nearly every day. It’s like winter all the time.’

‘Where did you live before?’

‘Oh, loads of places, mostly in Devon and Essex. My grandad used to own lots of property, so when I was little we lived in one of his houses, and when he died, my mum liquefied some of it and bought houses of her own.’

‘Oh.’ Charlotte was impressed, in spite of being unclear on what liquefying actually involved. ‘We’ve only got two houses, this one and our proper house in Heswall.’

‘This is a proper house, too, dummy,’ said her brother.

‘It’s not our real house, though. It’s not where we live most of the time.’

‘I’m at school most of the time,’ said Rebecca.

‘Do you mind?’

‘No, I like it. And sometimes I go to stay with friends, and some of the time I go to stay with my Aunty Carole in Yorkshire. I really love it there. There are some stables just down the road from her house, where I can go riding. Are there any stables round here? I asked Mum, but she didn’t know. She said she’d look into it. I’ve never seen anyone out hacking, have you?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Harry, who guessed that hacking must be something to do with horses, although the term conjured up a man going at a hedge with a scythe.

‘We’re going to the Algarve for the last two weeks of the holidays, to stay in my uncle’s villa,’ Charlotte announced. ‘You can ride horses there. I’ve seen a picture in the brochure.’

‘I’ve hardly ever been abroad,’ Rebecca said. ‘My mum doesn’t like flying. We’ve been to Euro Disney on the train. Aunty Carole took us. She was going to take me to France again last year, but then I got a virus and couldn’t go.’

‘Is she your dad’s sister?’ asked Sean, who wasn’t really interested in familial details, but was fed up with the subject of holidays, conscious that his father and stepmother had no plans to take him away anywhere, so that the best he could hope for was a few days in Manchester with his mother, pretending to admire the new baby. He supposed his father never thought about organizing a holiday for him, because he was always too busy organizing holidays for other people.

‘She’s not really my aunty. She’s my mother’s cousin, but I call her aunty because I don’t have any real ones. My mum’s an only child, and so was my dad.’

‘Are your parents divorced?’

‘No, my dad died in a plane crash. I think that’s why my mum is dead against flying.’ She leaned forward and flicked a biscuit crumb across the coffee table. Harry flicked it back, so Rebecca flicked it again, but this time it landed nearest to Sean, who sent the crumb skidding across to Charlotte, whose heavy-handed attempt scattered fragments of biscuit all over the table.

‘There’s always some reason for not doing stuff,’ Rebecca continued. ‘We can’t go abroad because she doesn’t like flying, or we can’t have pets because she’s allergic.’

‘That’s why you have Timmy, the stone cat by the fire,’ Charlotte put in.

‘Yeah,’ said Sean, ‘cos, like, a stone cat and a real cat are exactly the same thing.’

‘Anyway, I’m going to Aunty Carole’s for a week, starting next Thursday. She’s got a dog and three cats.’

Down at The Hideaway, Jo heard the postman’s van while she was separating the duvet from its cover, and her heart quickened as it did every morning at the prospect of another message. She had stopped rushing to get the post because that almost guaranteed that nothing would happen. She knew the pattern by now: something worthwhile only arrived when you did not expect it.

She descended the stairs with her arms full of bedding, giving a little cry when she had almost gained the lower floor. There was a postcard on the mat. She dropped the laundry and ran to pick it up. The communication was instantly recognizable, even from a distance of several feet, as a ‘Lauren card’. The picture was the same as always, but there was a new message printed below it:
Claife Station. Saturday midnight. Tell no one. Come alone.

Tears sprang into her eyes. Her legs almost gave way, so that she had to sit down on the bottom stair. This was it. Lauren would be restored to her – within days. All she had to do was follow the instructions, just as she had when answering the previous card, and this would be easier because no one need know. Saturday night was excellent from that point of view, because Marcus would still be away and Sean was so used to her coming and going that he would ask no questions. What would they say, the pair of them, when she came home with Lauren?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Shelley had managed to avoid Maisie’s strawberries-and-cream event by being unavoidably on duty at the gallery, but had promised a donation in lieu of attendance, which she planned to hand over the gate next time she spotted Maisie out in the garden. (A foray as far as the front door was never a good idea, since a swift escape from such an advanced position was extremely unlikely.) Having correctly anticipated that the first dry day would bring the Perrys forth, Shelley strolled down the lane and found Maisie deadheading in the border alongside the drive, a fortuitous situation which put her within easy eye-catching distance of the garden gate.

After thanking Shelley for her donation, Maisie naturally took the opportunity to go into all the whys and wherefores of who had turned up on the day, and how much money had been raised. ‘You haven’t seen anything of Jo lately?’ she asked. ‘I know the two of you are quite friendly.’

Shelley was surprised by the abrupt change of topic. ‘No. I haven’t seen her for a while. Why?’

‘Well, there was a little bit of an upset – I just thought she might have said something to you about it. Tell the truth, I’ve been wondering whether to pop along and have a chat with her, but it’s rather awkward – one doesn’t know quite what to say.’

The concept of Maisie ever being at a loss for words was novel enough to arouse Shelley’s curiosity. ‘Did something happen at the strawberry tea?’

‘Well, yes. I felt awfully sorry for her, but of course if we had known – and with the anniversary coming up …’

‘I’m sorry, Maisie, but I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

‘Ah – then you’re just as much in the dark as the rest of us.’ Maisie looked disappointed. ‘I thought Jo might have confided in you, with your being friendly. It was Gilda, you see. You can’t blame her, of course – she wasn’t to know.’

‘Wasn’t to know what?’ Shelley struggled to conceal her mounting impatience.

‘That our Jo Handley is also Joanne Ashton …’ She paused to see if Shelley would register anything, but when she received no more than a puzzled look, she continued: ‘The woman whose child was abducted at Barleycombe in Devon. You must remember the case: it was all over the papers at the time, and every so often they drag it up again. Jo is the mother of that little girl.’

‘Not really.’

‘Oh, there’s no doubt about it. Gilda just happened to say something about having a daughter who is virtually the same age as the little girl who was kidnapped, and Jo got upset and ran out. Normally I would have gone straight after her, but I didn’t understand what the matter was at first. I assumed she must have been feeling unwell, and what with a houseful of people and more arriving. Then when Gilda explained … she was mortified, as you can imagine, she had no idea that we didn’t know about it already – well, how could she have done? Not her fault, I said. Not her fault at all. I did walk down to The Hideaway later on to try to have a word with Jo, but her car wasn’t outside so I knew she must be out. And if she had been at home, I don’t really know what I would have said to her. One doesn’t want to make things worse by going on about it because she obviously can’t face talking about it, poor girl, and who can blame her?’