Scarlet Feather

by Maeve Binchy

  'You will be coming home tomorrow?' Simon asked.

  'You really are the most tiresome child I ever met in my whole life,' Kenneth Mitchell said, and hung up.

  'Walter's right,' Simon said. 'Nobody does want us. Nobody at all.'

  Next morning Kenneth Mitchell came home at dawn from old Barty's club, where he had dozed in an armchair for a few hours and felt much revived. He found a note on the kitchen table. 'We are leaving home. Goodbye, Maud and Simon.'

  He called his brother Jock. Jock was not well pleased to be woken at seven o'clock in the morning.

  'Talk to Neil and Cathy, they'll know,' he said, and hung up.

  Neil listened with no pleasure to the confused story.

  'Shouldn't you ring Sara?' he suggested.

  ' I thought I'd talk to the family first,' Kenneth said.

  'Okay, I'll contact Cathy for you. Doesn't Walter know anything?'

  'He doesn't appear to be here either,' said Kenneth Mitchell.

  Betty was on duty at Holly's hotel. She was full of praise for the way those young people had left the place, and treats in the fridge as well. The phone rang and she went to answer it. Very early for Holly's hotel. It was that nice young Neil Mitchell, looking for his wife. Apparently the van had broken down and she had stayed the night.

  '

  'Icouldn't understand why that big van was still here. Hold on a moment, Mr Mitchell, she must be in Room Nine. I'll put you through.'

  Neil waited, and then the phone was answered.

  'Hallo,' the voice said. It was Tom Feather.

  'Hallo?' Neil said again, puzzled. 'Is that Room Nine?'

  'Yes, it is. Who's that?' Tom had a headache, he had woken an hour later than he intended to, he had to find a car mechanic, mend the van and get back to Dublin. Who was this ringing him and annoying him?

  'I was looking for Cathy,' the voice said.

  It was Neil. Tom was awake immediately. 'My God, Neil, what bloody bad luck we had last night, the van was dead as a dodo…' As he spoke, he began to shake Cathy into wakefulness in the next bed.

  'Yes, I know, Cathy left a message. Where is she, by the way? I asked for her room.'

  'Oh, she's down sorting out the van. I just came up here to her room to get her mobile for her, I think she was going to ring you on it.'

  'I tried that first. She has it turned off.'

  'No, I think the battery's dead, anyway, will I tell her to ring you on a real phone, a hotel phone I mean?' He was playing for time. Cathy had by now sat up, straightened herself and realised where she was.

  'No, there's a bit of a crisis here. Will I hang on, or can you transfer me back down to the desk?'

  'No,' Tom shouted. 'No, Neil, hang on, I see her coming up the stairs. Cathy, Cathy,' he shouted loudly. 'I found your phone here in your room, but the battery's down, but Neil is here on the hotel phone, come and speak to him.'

  Cathy had understood much more quickly than he had thought she would. 'Sorry, Neil, I'm out of breath running up the stairs. Everything okay?'

  He told her. 'Neil, I'm in the heart of the country with no transport, can't you ring Sara?'

  'What about your parents?'

  'They'd have phoned someone if the kids had turned up at St Jarlath's Crescent, but ring them anyway, please, Neil.'

  'And of course no sign of Walter, the one time you'd need him.'

  'Neil! Neil, I hadn't time to tell you. I think Walter was one of the vandals who broke into the premises. Something Maud saw in the shed, you must check the shed, they might be hiding things there. Listen, I'll charge this phone up and ring you later to know is there any news.' She hung up. They looked at each other.

  'Quick thinking,' she said to him.

  'Quickly taken up,' he praised her back.

  It wasn't really necessary, you know, we could have said what happened. Neil would have understood.'

  'I know, but this way was easier,' he said.

  'You're right. Less explaining. God, I feel terrible,' Cathy said, and went into the bathroom. 'And I look worse,' she screamed when she saw her reflection in the mirror.

  'What's happened to the children?' Tom asked.

  'They've run away. Of all the days out of the three hundred and sixty-five, they chose today.'

  But the day was only beginning. When they had tidied up and splashed enough water to make themselves a bit respectable, they opened the door of the bedroom. Betty was in the corridor, bringing a breakfast tray to the newly-weds in Room Twelve. She paused to look at them. Betty, who had seen Cathy in the hotel just over a month ago telling her husband that she was pregnant, was utterly shocked. Miss Holly also seemed a lot less cordial today. She must have been informed.

  It was an endless morning of negotiating with garages. The fault was identified, the part was found. She phoned Neil at the law library.

  'Nothing at all, Sara's really worried. Can you call her? She wants to talk about Walter, apparently.'

  'Do Mam and Dad know?' Cathy asked.

  'They have the whole of St Jarlath's Crescent out with sticks beating bushes by the canal.'

  'Not really?'

  'No, but nearly. Are you all right, Cathy? You sound very ropy.'

  'I have too much to do.'

  'We choose our lives, Cathy. I've offered you a holiday.'

  'We've been through that…'

  'No, we've been through one poorly thought-out—'

  'Neil, I'll ring you later,' she said.

  They got back to Dublin in the early afternoon, in no humour to hear of June's fun with the orchestra, nor of Lucy's argument with her parents about her coming home on a motorbike with a man. They had no time for James Byrne about the final demand. Hannah Mitchell wittering on about a letter from Canada, or Peter Murphy who wanted to have a cocktail party to annoy Geraldine. They didn't want to hear where Freddie Flynn had bought villas nowadays, nor to discuss a Hallowe'en extravaganza with Shay and Molly Hayes. But they had to do all those things because that was what work was about. When the day was finally drawing to a close, two phones shrilled. Cathy looked at Tom with big, tired eyes.

  'Why do I feel these are things we don't want to hear?' she asked him, and picked up the one nearest to her.

  'Don't hang up on me, Cathy, it's Marcella, please try to get Tom to talk to me, please.'

  Tom answered a call from Sara, saying it was all in the hands of the guards now and Maud and Simon were assumed to have spent one night sleeping rough and were heading into a second. Everyone was very worried indeed.

  Chapter Ten

  OCTOBER

  Simon and Maud discussed telephoning Muttie and his wife Lizzie. If they really had sent a five-pound note that went astray, then they might not be as hostile as everyone else. They got Lizzie on the phone; she was cagey about Muttie's whereabouts, he had gone away for a day or two. This was puzzling.Muttie never went away anywhere. And what about the birthday treat?

  'He's not refusing to talk to us or anything?' Maud asked. 'Child, aren't you the most extraordinary little thing, why would he do that?' Lizzie said. It sounded reassuring, but it wasn't a yes or a no.

  Simon thanked her for the five-pound note. It was very kind of you, it's made a lot of difference,' he said.

  Lizzie said they must be thinking of the wrong people; she and Muttie had sent no fiver. They explained how it had got lost in the post, and how Cathy had taken one from her handbag.

  'Ah, there must have been some mistake.'

  'I'm sorry, Lizzie,' Simon said politely. 'Do you know when Muttie will be back?'

  She sounded guarded. 'Hard to say, a day or two I think.'

  'She's lying,' Maud said afterwards.

  'Muttie never goes anywhere…'

  'Except the races.'

  Muttie Scarlet had spent a night in hospital… an embarrassing matter of his private parIs being examined by young doctors and unmentionable things being put into them. He wanted it neither discussed nor known. Lizzie was under strict instructi
ons to say that he was away on business. He came home to find all hell had broken loose. The twins had disappeared. Sara, their social worker, was going mad and interrogating Lizzie. Poor Lizzie was going over every word of the conversation.

  'I didn't know they were contemplating anything like this… How was I meant to be inspired? They always said they were fine, I thought they were tired of coming here… They didn't sound upset at all, they were full of old rubbish, thanking me for a fiver that we never sent them.'

  It had been an endless day, with people going back over things, fruitlessly examining the note left in the kennel: 'We have taken Hooves with us.' It seemed somehow a very bleak little letter, giving no information, not even a hint of where they were heading. A search of possible places led nowhere: friends at school could reveal nothing. Kenneth had pulled himself together sharply and revealed with every sentence he spoke how little he knew of the life that went on at The Beeches. There seemed to be no trace of Walter. He had not shown up at work, so it was quite possible that the twins were with him. Kay, now frightened into sobriety by the amount of activity in the house said no, that Walter had left earlier, in a taxi with a lot of black bags. But since she was not considered a reliable witness, nobody took much notice of this memory. By the time the guards had been called and Maud and Simon were officially declared missing,Muttie had alerted many of his associates who said they would help to search for the children, who must have been in the neighbourhood of St Jarlath's Crescent at any time after ten p.m. when Lizzie went to bed. Neighbours who knew the children were drafted in. Every time the phone rang, everyone in St Jarlath's Crescent jumped. This time it was Cathy—she was on her way over to them.Muttie relaxed for the first time that day. Cathy would get it sorted.

  'I have to go over there,' Cathy said. 'Go straight away, take the van.' 'Could you ring Marcella?' she said, too casually. 'What?' he sounded shocked.

  'I've written down her number here, she's waiting by the phone.' 'Thanks, but I'll pass on that.' 'She was crying, Tom, I said I'd do my best.'

  'And you have.' He was cold.

  'I can't leave her standing in a phone box waiting for you to ring,' Cathy begged.

  'Thanks, Cathy, take the keys and stop worrying. They'll turn up, those two, with some amazing explanation.'

  In the middle of a street in London, Tom, she deserves more than that.'

  He turned away. Cathy dialled the number.

  'Tom!' The excitement in Marcella's voice was almost hurtful to hear.

  'No, Marcella, I'm sorry, it's Cathy again. I told him, and he's not going to phone you. No, I don't know why, but I didn't want you standing there waiting.'

  There was a silence. 'Why won't he even talk?' Marcella sobbed.

  I'm so very sorry,' Cathy said, and she hung up and left the premises without even catching Tom's eye.

  'It's all my fault, I was so short with poor little Maud,' Cathy wept at the kitchen table. 'I kept saying things like Hurry up, and If that's all, Maud…' Everyone was startled. This wasn't the Cathy they knew. Lizzie, Geraldine,Muttie and Sara all looked at each other helplessly. 'And the awful thing is that she was being so kind, she was trying to get me a punchbowl from the shed and she didn't even realise that it was stolen by her little shit of a brother.'

  'Simon?'Muttie asked, totally bewildered.

  'No, Walter, he has a shed full of things from our premises, I gather.'

  Sara looked up sharply. 'You think Walter was your burglar?'

  'Yes, he must have been. Maybe this has something to do with the children running away,' she said anxiously.

  'Have you reported any of this? Does Neil know?'

  'No, I only heard yesterday or the day before, and I've been up to my tonsils in a wedding in the country.'

  Sara seemed to think this was odd. 'But if you thought that, surely you'd have told Neil?'

  Cathy took no notice of her disapproving tone. 'Did you say that Walter has gone from The Beeches?'

  'Yes, his mother thinks he went last night in a taxi… carrying a lot of bags,' Sara said somewhat doubtfully.

  Then suddenly Sara and Cathy looked at each other as the implication became clear. Sara took out her mobile phone and called the guards again.

  At The Beeches, Kenneth and Kay waited for the guards to arrive. There was no news, but the guards needed to look in the garden shed and in Mr Walter Mitchell's bedroom. They said that Ms Cathy Scarlet would be joining them shortly.

  'What does she want?' Kenneth asked.

  'She is the daughter of the couple whose house the twins visited last night to collect their dog.'

  'They don't have a dog,' Kay said.

  'They think they do, madam, and Ms Scarlet is also married to your nephew, so could be considered family. I believe her husband is also joining her here.'

  'Huh,' Kenneth said.

  'Mr Neil Mitchell is a barrister, sir; if you have any objection to our looking though the house, please state it now.'

  'And what would you do if I objected?' Kenneth asked.

  'We'd get a search warrant,' the young guard said simply.

  I'm not saying he did steal the things, I'm only saying it's a pretty odd coincidence,' Cathy said to Neil as they drove to The Beeches.

  'We must be very careful not to go in hurling accusations,' Neil warned. 'Dad did tell me that he nicked a computer from work and didn't turn up today, so it looks as if you're right, but…'

  'And your drinky aunt thinks she heard him leaving with a lot of black plastic bags in a taxi last night…'

  'I know. And if he took them, Cathy, no mercy, you understand?'

  'No, I don't believe you, in the end you'll say he was a victim, he deserves our concern.'

  'What have I done, hon? Why are you fighting with me? Neil asked, aggrieved.

  'I don't know, Neil, I really don't. I want to kill Walter and I want to kill myself. If I had only been just a bit nicer, those two foolish children wouldn't have run away.'

  'You're working too hard. You just didn't have the time,' he said.

  'No, Neil, I just didn't make the time, that's different.'

  'But I have a surprise for you. I wasn't going to tell you before, but I think you need it now.'

  'A surprise?' she looked at him warily.

  'You are very tired, hon. I talked to Tom about it; he can spare you, he says, and I've booked us a week in Morocco!'

  He waited to see her pleasure, but he was disappointed. 'Neil, it's kind of you, but no.'

  'It's booked!' he said.

  'I can't think of anything now except those children, and I don't really want to go away at all, we're too busy.'

  'Tom said…'

  'Tom is a kind man, he says what he thinks people want him to say. Most of the time,' she added, thinking of Marcella weeping down the phone. 'Can we talk about it another time, Neil?'

  'Whenever you feel you'd like to give the time,' he said huffily.

  'Well, not now, when we're worried sick about the kids.'

  'Not any time, Cathy. There's no time to talk to you these days, and no way of talking to you, either.'

  'I don't know what you mean.'

  His face was very hard.

  'If I talk about the miscarriage, I'm saying the wrong thing and upsetting you. If I don't talk about it I'm hard and unfeeling and I've forgotten it.'

  'It's not like that.'

  'Well, that's the way it looks from here. And when I do something, get us away from here for a bit of peace…'

  'It's not peace trekking through Morocco seeing would I like Africa

  'Oh, shut up, Cathy, there's no pleasing you. If I suggested a holiday on the Isle of Man you wouldn't want it either.' His face was set in a look she hadn't known before. He was very, very angry.

  She spoke slowly. 'I would be perfectly happy to go on holiday but only if we discuss it, not when you tell me you've booked something…'

  'Don't worry, a holiday with you is the last thing on my mind,' he said and the
y drove to The Beeches in silence.

  The punchbowl was gone when the guards searched the shed, but there were a lot of other things that they asked Cathy to look at. At first she thought that she could see nothing that belonged to them. Then she saw some salad servers and a linen tablecloth.

  'The salad servers were a present from Neil's parents last Christmas, the cloth has our laundry mark on it,' she said in a small, flat voice.

  Neil nodded gravely. The guards seemed entirely convinced. It would nail Walter when they found him.

  Neil's father made a statement to the guards about the missing computer. 'And I want you to know that nephew or no nephew, we intend to go the distance on this one.'

  They nodded, satisfied. 'Do you have any explanation of why he might have taken the children, sir?' The guards had long decided that there was little future in talking to the children's parents. They had higher hopes of Jock Mitchell, who seemed normal and articulate and capable of understanding that two nine-year-olds had left a note and vanished from their home.

  'I can't understand it at all,' Jock Mitchell said. 'He never mentioned them at all, and if I ever asked about them he was vague, as if he really didn't know anything.'

  'He didn't know they were there,' Cathy said. 'He never took them with him, I know that much for a fact. He high-tailed it out of here on his own because he thought we were onto him.'

  'But it's too much of a coincidence that they should all go on the same day,' Neil argued.

  'Neil, you never listened to him. I swear they didn't figure in his life, he didn't kidnap them or take them as hostages or anything.'

  'I say,' Kenneth said disapprovingly, as if this kind of chat was going too far. They all looked at him, waiting to know what he was going to say. But he said nothing. 'Sorry,' he said eventually.