Where Everything Seems Double

by Penny Freedman

  ‘Right. Well, I should try to get a bit of sleep now. I’m going to.’

  I don’t sleep, of course. Our triumphant return with all three girls safe and sound feels fraught with problems now. What am I going to say to Ellie? Will she speak to me at all? What is to happen to Ruby and Grace with their father in a police cell and their mother in intensive care? Where will they sleep tonight? They can’t sleep alone in their house, can they?

  My phone rings and, as if summoned by me like a genie out of a bottle, there is Eve. She has all the news of course; much of it has whizzed round Carnmere and she has spoken to Ellie to get the rest. So she knows where the girls have been, she knows where I have been, she knows that David is involved, she knows that Neil Buxton has been arrested and – being Eve – she has homed in on something she can do.

  ‘Why don’t Grace and Ruby come here for the night?’ she says. ‘Unless anyone’s got a better idea? That is assuming the police don’t think any more that Colin is a dangerous paedophile?’

  ‘I think that idea’s gone down the drain. That would be wonderful, Eve. You are wonderful.’ My voice wobbles a bit on this and I apologise. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit…’

  ‘Tired and emotional?’

  ‘Isn’t that a euphemism for “drunk”? I’m certainly not that, though I wouldn’t mind a large whisky. I’ll see you soon. We’ll deliver the girls to you before midnight, I hope.’

  I put my phone away. ‘Tired and emotional’ doesn’t begin to cover how I’m feeling. I am so tired that pictures of my hotel room are dancing before my eyes, taunting me with the crisp, cool sheets on the bed, the comforting weight of the duvet, the heavy curtains shutting out the world. Even the kettle and the biscuits present themselves as a paradigm of comfort and consolation. I lean against the window and compose myself for sleep but it doesn’t work. Every now and then I nod off but then lurch awake in a way that makes me feel slightly seasick. David drives on relentlessly. At one wakeful moment I point out a Tiredness Kills notice and suggest a break, hoping for service station loos and a nice cup of tea, but he glances over his shoulder at the sleeping girls and says, ‘Better to let them sleep. We’ll carry on.’

  A thought suddenly comes unbidden into my head. ‘What did your text mean?’ I ask.

  ‘What text?’

  I find it on my phone. ‘Yes, because Ruby had her phone’, I read. ‘Obscure or what?’

  ‘The night she disappeared. Why did Ruby have her phone with her when she knew it didn’t work at the theatre?’

  ‘Milo says it was just a mistake.’

  ‘Or she had it with her because she was planning to disappear and her instinct was to have her phone with her.’

  ‘So why didn’t she take it with her? Why give it to Milo?’

  ‘Because someone – probably Milo – pointed out that she couldn’t use her phone because we would trace her. So he offered to look after it – switched off.’

  ‘And that made you think…

  ‘That you were right and she was planning to run away – and that one of the other kids at least was helping.’

  ‘And that was enough to bring you to Alcott Park?’

  ‘That and a conversation with the headmistress of the school. She confirmed that Grace wasn’t on any tour, and though she was very discreet she admitted that Grace had seen the school counsellor when she first arrived, about “issues at home”.’

  ‘And that was it?’

  ‘Well, plus my implicit faith in your intuitions, of course.’

  ‘Oh, piss off,’ I say, and now I do feel able to get some sleep.

  *

  I have been envisaging us presenting ourselves at the police station and then delivering first Freda to Ellie, where I expect to be cold-shouldered, and then Ruby and Grace to Eve, where I have hopes of the long-awaited cup of tea and even – possibly– a hug. But others have alternative plans. When we drive into the yard at the back of the police station we find a reception committee. Parked illegally in a space marked Police Vehicles Only is a car containing Eve, in the driving seat, Milo and Fergus, Ellie and Ben. The girls are woken by our stopping and stumble out of the car, blinking and bewildered, to be swept up in an orgy of hugging, fist-bumping and tears. Annie is nowhere to be seen, I notice – gone back to her own world now that the best of the drama is over, I assume. David goes into the station and I stand, an awkward outsider, trying to ignore the look of pure fury that Ellie is sending my way, over Freda’s head as she hugs her as if she will never let her go.

  Suddenly Ben is at my side. He puts a hand on my shoulder and says quietly in my ear, ‘Thank you, Gina. Thank you for bringing her back,’ and I am so grateful that I can feel the treacherous tears welling up again. I lean my head against him for a moment and he squeezes my shoulder before he goes back to Ellie. Thank God for an Italian son-in-law.

  Five minutes later, David comes out and summons us all inside. We troop in, slightly dazed by the harsh fluorescent lighting, and stand awkwardly, vaguely guilty, as if we were outside the head’s office, expecting to be reprimanded. The desk officer is civil, if not cordial, and pretty brisk, allocating times for interviews in the morning, establishing that appropriate adults will be accompanying the girls. I am summoned for ten o’clock and we all troop outside again. Ben and Ellie and Freda set off for their B & B, which is just off the square, and Ruby and Grace pack into Eve’s car with Milo and Fergus, and she drives them home. David and I get back into his car.

  ‘It’s going to be late for you to get a room at the hotel,’ I say. ‘It’s nearly midnight.’

  ‘I booked one earlier,’ he says, swinging the car out onto the road.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘While you were all in the loo at the pizza place.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Good,’ I say. ‘What forethought.’

  At the hotel, we pick up our keys and he walks up with me to my room. He stands outside as I unlock my door. I step into the room and stand stock-still, slapped in the face by the sense of my own stupidity. It is my fault that we are like this – edgy, abrasive, combative, indirect, detached. I tell myself that it is good for us, that it keeps our relationship fresh, that the fencing and sparring – verbal and emotional – keeps us on our toes. Uncertainty, unpredictability, they stop us from getting bored and boring, don’t they? But they are also exhausting, and they are my choice, not David’s. I see how he is with other people: reasonable, amenable, thoughtful – a man to be respected and relied on. He goes along with the fencing because he knows it’s what I like, but he wouldn’t choose it, would he? Given the chance, he is perfectly capable of being reassuring, comforting, kind.

  He is still standing outside the door. I turn round to him. ‘Come in for a minute,’ I say. He steps into the room. I drop my bag on the floor. ‘David, I so want a hug,’ I say, and he does something quite odd – he takes off his suit jacket and drops it onto a chair. Then he comes up and takes me in his arms. We stand there together and as I lay my head against his chest I can feel through his shirt the warmth of him, and the solid, reassuring, steady beating of his heart.

  We stand there for quite a long time, I think, and when eventually I pull away I say, ‘Why did you take your jacket off?’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘it’s a new suit and I wasn’t sure if there were going to be some more tears.’

  I sit down on the floor, lean my head against the side of the bed and, helplessly, I start to laugh.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE PARLEY

  Wednesday

  Would everyone be able to see that they had both been crying? Freda wondered about this as she followed her mother into the police station the next morning. Or would it be obvious that they had just had the biggest row they had ever had? And all because she had said that she would rather have Ben with her for her interview than Mum. And the very reason why she wanted Ben was because he would
keep calm and wouldn’t interfere or get emotional, and Mum had behaved exactly as she didn’t want her to behave with the police, going off on one about Granny being irresponsible and a bad influence – di-da-di-da. Well, it was her story, she was the one who was there, and she hoped her interviewer would tell Mum to shut up if necessary.

  Inside the station she manoeuvred past her mother so that she got to the reception desk first.

  ‘I’m Freda Gray,’ she said.

  ‘Ah yes,’ the desk sergeant said, and looked past her to her mother.

  ‘This is my mum,’ Freda said hastily. ‘She’s just here to—

  ‘Quite,’ said the sergeant. ‘Mrs Gray?’

  ‘Biaggi,’ her mother said, coming closer and virtually barging her out of the way. ‘Eleanor Gray Biaggi.’

  They were shown into a room with soft chairs arranged around a coffee table. A special room, Freda thought, for people who weren’t accused of a crime. A couple of police officers, quite young, not in uniform, came in after them and introduced themselves: Detective Sergeant Jane Hapgood and Detective Constable Mark Abington. On TV, Freda thought, one of them would have been BAME, but these two were both white in a rather uninteresting way. They all sat down.

  ‘Now, Freda,’ Jane Hapgood said, ‘we just want to hear what happened to you. If you get at all upset, we can stop at any time. And of course your mum’s here.’

  Freda did not look at her mother. ‘I won’t get upset,’ she said, wondering again whether her recent angry tears were still evident and if that was making them think she was going to get upset.’

  ‘So first, just tell us what you are doing here in Carnmere.’

  Freda had thought about this. She intended to tell the truth as far as possible but she had an instinct that it would be a bad idea to tell the police that Granny had come here to find out what had happened to Ruby, and that she had been brought along to help. TV crime drama told her that the police didn’t like amateurs getting involved.

  ‘Just a holiday,’ she said, ‘with my gran. She was meeting up with an old friend who lives here.’

  Mark Abington shuffled through some notes he had with him. ‘Would that be Mrs Eve Fletcher?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He made a note and glanced at the sergeant.

  She said, ‘Do you often go on holiday with your gran?’

  ‘Not usually on holiday but I go and stay with her quite a lot.’

  ‘But your family have been on holiday in Italy, haven’t they? Didn’t you want to go with them?’

  Freda wasn’t quick enough to stop her mum from jumping in. ‘Freda was going to join us later – on Friday, in fact. This was just a short break to keep my mother company, and now she’ll be joining us for the real family holiday – with my husband’s parents.’

  Furious, Freda said, ‘I enjoy spending time with my gran. My brother is quite a bit younger than me so I can do more interesting things with my gran, that we can’t do with him.’

  ‘And you’ve been staying at the Carnmere Manor Hotel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did you know Dumitru Radu?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a waiter and he works in the bar.’

  ‘And do you know all the waiters?’

  ‘No, but my gran knew Dumitru because she was giving him English lessons.’

  ‘Why was she doing that?’

  ‘She’s an English teacher and he needed help for some exam. He didn’t pay her or anything. She just wanted to help.’ She shot a glance at her mother. ‘She’s like that. Kind.’

  She could see her mother opening her mouth to speak but Jane Hapgood got in first. ‘So your gran introduced you to him?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘And you felt that you knew him well?’

  ‘Not well, no.’

  ‘But well enough to get into his car with him?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘You didn’t think that he might drive off with you?’

  ’I wanted him to.’

  Her mum was ready to explode at this point but Jane Hapgood put up a hand to stop her. ‘Let us get this straight, Freda. You wanted Dumitru Radu to abduct you?’

  ‘Actually,’ Freda said, ‘I made him do it.’

  DC Abington gave a snort of laughter and DS Hapgood gave him a quelling look. She leaned forward and said very quietly, ‘Were you having a relationship with Dumitru, Freda?’

  It was Freda’s turn to laugh. ‘No, of course not,’ she said, and then, as DS Hapgood was looking nonplussed, she asked, helpfully, ‘Would you like me just to explain what happened?’

  ‘I think we would,’ Jane Hapgood said, and sat back in her chair.

  Freda had thought about this. This was what she had been expecting to do, not answer pointless questions. So she had thought about what she would tell them and what she wouldn’t. She didn’t know if Ruby and Grace would tell them all about how the others had been involved, but she didn’t think she needed to get into that anyway. All she needed to do was to tell them how she guessed where Ruby was and how she got Dumitru to take her there.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Well, it was quite simple really. I thought I might have worked out where Ruby Buxton was. You see, I couldn’t understand why Grace didn’t come home. I’d got friendly with some of Grace and Ruby’s friends and they talked about how close Grace and Ruby were – even after Grace went away to Alcott Park they were always texting and Facetiming each other – and I couldn’t understand why Grace hadn’t come home when Ruby went missing. I know she was supposed to be in a show but there are always understudies and if my brother had gone missing I’d have wanted to go home no matter what.’ She stopped for a moment. ‘My auntie came up here from London when I – when nobody knew where I was. It’s what you do, isn’t it?’

  Jane Hapgood nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘So I thought the only reason must be that Grace knew where she was, and that probably meant that she was with her.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell anyone about this?’

  Freda hesitated. ‘I wasn’t sure. It was only a guess. So I asked Dumitru.’

  ‘Why did you think he would know?’

  ‘Ruby used to talk to him. The others said she had a crush on him and was always finding excuses to get him alone and pour out her troubles. I didn’t think he’d taken her but I thought he might know if she was with Grace.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘No. But he knew about her dad and he knew she was unhappy, and he thought I was right.’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell anyone then? Your gran, for instance?’

  She wasn’t going to tell them about being pissed off with Gran, so she said, ‘We didn’t have any proof, and Dumitru didn’t want the police to go looking for her. He said he would go and find her himself. He couldn’t phone her because she’d left her phone behind, so he was going to go and fetch her. He said she had to come home and she and Grace should go to the police about their dad. He thought he was a really dangerous man. He’d beaten Dumitru up because he thought he could tell him where she was. He knocked him down with a cricket bat and then kicked him about. And then when Dumitru didn’t tell him anything he said, ‘Then she must know’, and Dumitru thought he meant Susan, and he might hurt her.’ She stopped. ‘And we were too late to stop that.’

  ‘Why did you go with him, Freda?’

  ‘I wanted to. I thought I might be able to help persuade her to come home – being the same age and everything. And it was my idea, after all. Dumitru didn’t want to take me but I made him.’

  ’How did you do that?’

  Freda looked down so that she didn’t have to meet anyone’s eye. ‘I blackmailed him,’ she said.

  Her mother exploded. ‘Freda, don’t talk nonsense!’

  ‘Would you like to explain?’ Jane Hapgood asked.

&n
bsp; ‘Can I ask something first?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is Dumitru alive?’

  ‘He is. And expected to recover. Your gran called the ambulance just in time.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to get him into trouble,’ Freda said, ‘because he was a hero and he was trying to protect us when he was stabbed. There was something I knew he’d done – not really a crime, but he’s nervous of the police. Where he comes from the police aren’t like they are here. So, could this be off the record?’

  Jane Hapgood looked round the room. ‘You don’t see any recording equipment here, do you? This is all off the record. DC Abington here is taking a few notes but he may not need to note this.’

  ‘All right,’ Freda said. ‘Well I knew he had boosted some stuff from the hotel.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  ‘A duvet and towels and stuff.’

  ‘And how did you know that?’

  ‘They were in his car. When I went to ask him about where Ruby was he said we should go and talk in his car because that would be private, and I saw them on the back seat – with the hotel logo on them – and I knew they were the things I had seen him carrying from the hotel to the car park late one night.’ She turned to her mother. ‘And before you ask, I was out in the car park late at night because I was ringing you. Remember – when we first arrived?’

  ‘Did he tell you why he had taken the things?’ DC Abington chipped in with a question.

  ‘He’s starting college in Carlisle in September and he’s got a room in a house there but he has to take all his own stuff – bedding and crockery and things – and he hasn’t got any money. He needs it all for the college fees and for rent. He said the hotel had loads of spare stuff and they wouldn’t miss it.’

  ‘But you threatened to tell them?’

  Freda looked down at her lap. This was a part of her story that she wasn’t proud of. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I knew he was really worried about anyone finding out. He said if it was reported to the police he could be deported back to Romania.’

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ her mother said. ‘He’s from an EU country.’