Death in the Family

by Jill McGown

  She had known to expect all of that, of course; but the feeling of freedom—strange and welcome after being answerable to a small tyrant for the last fifty-one days—was unexpected, and it came with a price. Guilt, because she felt like that at all, and because it had been her father’s funeral that had brought it about, and because she knew she wanted to be her own boss again, to get back to work and let someone else change nappies and give feeds. And that gave rise to a new fear, the fear that she didn’t love Charlotte enough.

  Lloyd emerged from the shop and got back into the car, handing her a bar of chocolate. “It’s quite normal, you know,” he said.

  She sighed. “What is?” She knew perfectly well what he was talking about. He always seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.

  “Wanting to send them back.”

  She smiled. “I don’t really. It’s just that when you haven’t had an unbroken night’s sleep for weeks and it seems all you’re doing is running round in circles, washing clothes, sterilizing bottles, and wiping bottoms, a day off is a reminder that there is another world out there.”

  “You’re just feeling it more because of your dad. Eat the chocolate. It’ll make you feel better.”

  Lloyd was a great believer in food at times of emotional upheaval. “But it’s not just that,” she said. “It was nice being able to talk to people who talked back, but—” She broke off, worried about telling even Lloyd how she felt. But if she couldn’t tell him, she couldn’t tell anyone. “It’s more that I feel as though I’m looking after her for someone else. As though she isn’t mine at all.” She looked at him. “I shouldn’t feel like that, should I?”

  Lloyd shrugged. “I don’t think you can say that people should or shouldn’t feel anything. You feel the way you feel, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “But it’s not normal.”

  “Who says? At the moment, she’s a small animal who needs to eat and sleep and have everything done for her.” He smiled. “There isn’t much to work with. But you’ll be amazed how quickly things change; believe me, you will.”

  “But what if I don’t change?”

  He smiled again. “Do you actively dislike her?”

  “No, of course not! I just—I just feel kind of detached from her. I don’t seem to have much of a maternal instinct.”

  “And what was it your mother told you about that?”

  Judy sighed. “That you didn’t need instinct as long as you used your common sense.”

  “Quite. And you’ve got plenty of that.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Usually.”

  Lloyd could always make her feel better. But his facility for lying, so ably demonstrated at the funeral, was one of the reasons she had backed away from marriage, even from living together, until now. Not because she thought for one moment that he would lie to her maliciously—she knew he would never do that—but because she knew that her emotions could be manipulated as smoothly and deliberately as he had manipulated his audience this afternoon. That’s what he was doing now; for all she knew he had been deeply disturbed by what she had said.

  A car hooted, trying to get in to the pump, and Lloyd waved an apology, started the engine.

  “Besides,” Lloyd was saying as he pulled out onto the road, “instinct isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Look at lemmings and cliffs. Moths and naked flames. Penguins and low-flying aircraft, rabbits and car headlights—”

  “Penguins and low-flying aircraft?”

  “Penguins crane their necks to look up at planes flying overhead and fall over backward as a result.”

  She shook her head. “Are you making that up?”

  “No! They do. Or so they say—I think someone’s disproved it now.”

  Judy smiled and closed her eyes. He and the truth might be fair-weather friends, but he was good at rescuing people, and she let him rescue her now, as she drifted off to sleep.

  “Not to mention the would-be husbands of black widow spiders,” he was saying. “Insects and Venus flytraps. Giant pandas and increasingly scarce bamboo shoots. . . .”

  * * *

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I just said I was borrowing a van from a friend. It wasn’t a lie. You are still my friend, aren’t you?” Theresa smiled. “Why are you borrowing the van at all?”

  Ian looked decidedly shifty. “Because we need clothes and crockery and things, even if it is just for a month, and it’s a lot more than we can fit into Lesley’s old Audi.”

  “Old Audi?” That surprised Theresa, given that all she really knew about Lesley was that she was wealthy.

  “Oh, yes. About five years old. She spends money on everyone but herself.”

  Wealthy and saintly, thought Theresa, a little bitchily. That’s nice. It was mid-June, early morning, they were in the high-tech kitchen of the flat she had so stubbornly set her sights on, and on this beautiful day the balcony windows were open to admit a warm, gentle breeze. Theresa felt that she should be happier than she was, but she still hadn’t really adjusted to living alone. She had thought the move might help, that it had been the familiar surroundings without Ian in them that made her lonely, but it hadn’t been. She just was lonely.

  Still . . . the rooms were as spacious and comfortable as she had thought they would be, and she had plans for her new home. Once she’d got it decorated to her own taste, things would be better, she was sure. But the plans would have to wait until the cottage was sold; in the meantime, she had furnished it with some stuff from the cottage. She hadn’t had room for it all, which, as it turned out, was just as well.

  At the beginning of April, she had been telephoned by Ian, who had stiffly and formally asked her if she would help him and Lesley out. They were on the move again, apparently, but the people who had bought their house in Malworth had just informed them that they were having to move out of their house a month earlier than planned, and Ian and Lesley, unwilling to pass up their own sale, needed a stopgap for half of June and two weeks in July. And since Theresa was going to be moving out of the cottage . . .

  Thus the cottage had had to be taken off the market, and today Ian and Lesley were moving in.

  During that phone call, Theresa had asked why they were selling up not two months after they had arrived in Malworth, but Ian hadn’t answered her. Lesley, presumably, had been monitoring his end of the conversation, and he was clearly not permitted to divulge any more than Theresa needed to know. She had asked if he had passed on Phil Roddam’s request and had been told that it wasn’t possible.

  The next phone call had been last night, when he’d called her “mate” and asked if he could borrow the van; he would leave her his car in exchange, he said, so that she wasn’t without transport. It would only be for a couple of hours. She had agreed, providing she had the van back before eleven, which was when she would be going out to do her collections and deliveries. And she had every intention of getting to the bottom of all of this.

  “No,” she said. “I mean why are you borrowing the van rather than getting someone to do it for you? A DIY removal doesn’t seem to me to be Lesley’s style. And you must have had removal people booked for the rest of your stuff—why not ask them to do it?”

  He looked shifty. “Because this way I could see you. Talk to you. Properly.”

  Theresa raised her eyebrows. “And why did you want to see me and talk to me properly? Is the angst-ridden teenage daughter proving too much for you?”

  “No. Kayleigh’s fine. We get on all right.”

  Theresa switched on the kettle and spooned coffee into mugs. “Why didn’t you give her Phil’s address?”

  “Oh, it’s ‘Phil,’ is it?” he said, suddenly on the defensive. “I didn’t realize you were that friendly.”

  “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Ian.” But his reaction wasn’t prompted by jealousy; she knew that. It meant that she was on the right trail, that he was unhappy about something and it was something to do with Phil Roddam. “And, yes, you get to know someone quite well
when he’s ringing you up every week, begging you to give him a break.”

  “You haven’t told him where Lesley is, have you?”

  “No, but it would hardly matter if I had, since you’re moving out again. Is that why you’re moving? Because he’s bound to track Lesley down soon, so she has to keep one jump ahead of him?”

  “No, of course it isn’t.”

  She made the coffee, wondering about the secrecy. She had only spoken to the man on the phone, but she liked him. Ian’s reaction to her familiarity with him suggested that his guilt—because he was, undoubtedly, looking for some sort of absolution from her—was centered on Phil, which made no sense if Phil had done something dreadful and deserved to be cut off from communication with Kayleigh. But she asked anyway, just in case. “Was he violent or something?”

  “Not as far as I’m aware. No—I’m sure he wasn’t. He’s got a bit of a temper, but I’m sure he isn’t violent, not like that. I told you that he caused a bit of trouble when Lesley told him about us. . . .”

  “I know about the windows. But she hasn’t ex-communicated him because of that, has she? It’s not Kayleigh’s fault. Stopping him even writing to her seems a bit over-the-top.”

  “She thought that Kayleigh would be better off in the countryside, that’s all. It had nothing to do with Phil. He was away when we moved and she couldn’t get in touch with him.”

  “But he’s back now. So why all the secrecy about where she’s living?” She handed him his coffee and walked through to the sitting room, turning as he came in behind her. “And why is she moving again?” When she got no reply, she came right out with what was bothering her. “Did he sexually abuse Kayleigh—is that what it is?”

  Ian looked appalled. “Oh, no—you mustn’t think that. No. Lesley says he’s great with Kayleigh.”

  “Then why is she doing this?”

  “She had no intention of keeping the address secret, not to start with.” Ian sat down, his face troubled. “She meant Kayleigh and Phil to see each other. But then this move came up, and she thought he might make difficulties.”

  “How could he make difficulties?”

  “With Kayleigh. She doesn’t want to go, and Phil would take her side. Lesley is very anxious to leave, and she wants it all to go as smoothly as possible.”

  “Which brings me to my next question.” Theresa blew absently at the steam rising from her coffee mug. “Why would it make any difference to him where you are? It’s not as though you live all that close to him now. Where are you moving to? Or is that a state secret?”

  Now he went pink. “Australia,” he muttered into his coffee.

  Theresa’s eyes grew wide. “I’m sorry? I thought you said Australia.”

  He looked at her over his mug.

  “Australia, Ian? Australia?”

  “Jerry offered me a very good job the day I met him in London.”

  Oh. He really had met Jerry in London—Theresa had been convinced that was a lie, since she had been told nothing of the conversation and she usually was. Now she knew why; she had been cheated out of a new life in Australia. Not that she cared, but Ian had obviously thought that she might.

  “I turned him down originally, but Lesley was desperate to move, and since I’d been offered this job, we decided I should take it.”

  “We decided?”

  He looked down, not meeting her gaze.

  “And why is she desperate to move? You’ve only been in Malworth five minutes.”

  Ian looked distinctly uncomfortable now. “Because of Kayleigh. She . . . she’s in a relationship that bothers Lesley. Really bothers her.”

  “Does that make yet another person who won’t be allowed to communicate with Kayleigh?”

  “I suppose so,” he muttered, and looked at his watch. “Oh—it’s almost half past seven. I’d better get going or I’ll be cutting getting the van back to you very fine.”

  Then Theresa realized what was happening, what it was that Ian was finding difficult to live with. It wasn’t the time that was hastening his departure; it was that she was about to put two and two together, and unfortunately for him, she just had.

  “She’s taking Kayleigh to Australia without even telling Phil?”

  “Yes, well, like I said . . . she thinks he would make difficulties.”

  “I’ll bet he would! Ian—that’s not right; you know it’s not!”

  Ian held his hands up. “Save your breath. You’re not going to say anything that I haven’t already said to Lesley. She’s adamant—and she does have right on her side.”

  “Right?”

  “OK, the law,” Ian amended. “Phil has no blood or legal connection with Kayleigh, and there’s nothing to stop her doing what she’s doing.”

  “He brought her up from when she was five years old! And what about Kayleigh herself? No wonder she’s crisis-prone! What does she think about it?”

  “She hasn’t said much—she thinks we’ve lost touch with Phil accidentally. And we did, to start with. I’ve said as much as I can to Lesley—it’s not really any of my business.”

  “It’ll be your business once you’re stuck in the outback with Kayleigh having a crisis.”

  “It’s Sydney, not the outback.”

  “Oh, it’s Sydney, is it? So much for the good country air.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be out-of-doors a great deal more than she would be here. It’s a great place for kids.”

  “Like you’d know.”

  “I’m certain that Kayleigh will love it. It’s me I’m not so sure about.”

  She shook her head. “So why are you going there?”

  He ignored her. “And Lesley says she’ll tell Phil once we’re there. There’ll be no problem about him coming to visit her, or anything like that. Lesley would pay his fare.”

  “Oh, no. No problem at all. Everyone’s got the time to hop on a plane to Sydney every other weekend.”

  Ian stood up. “I’ve got to go, Theresa. I’ll bring the van back by eleven.”

  Today was the day they were moving out, because the new people were moving in on Monday.

  And today was the day that Kayleigh was going to put into action the plan that she had spent weeks perfecting. Things could go wrong; she knew that. She might even have to abandon the whole idea. But nothing had gone wrong yet.

  The removal men were just finishing, taking out the last of the stuff that was going with them to Australia to put it in storage. There wasn’t all that much, but what was going tended to be large, heavy, or fragile or all three, in the case of her mother’s grand piano. The rest of it was books, records, photographs, family heirlooms, that sort of thing, a portrait of Kayleigh herself that her mother had had painted when she was five, a portrait of her mother and Richard. The house had been sold complete with the furniture; only what they needed on a daily basis was being taken to the one in Stansfield.

  Her mother hadn’t liked having to move into Ian’s cottage; it meant his talking to Theresa, for one thing, and she didn’t really like him doing that. She was right not to like it, because if you asked Kayleigh, Ian sometimes wished he’d never left Theresa. Kayleigh could have told him that he would, because her mother took a lot of getting used to. But it was either that or letting the sale fall through, and her mother certainly didn’t want that to happen, so it was the lesser of two evils as far as she was concerned.

  And it had been when she and her mother had gone with Ian to the cottage to see what was what and how much they would need to take with them—her mother, practiced in the art of moving house, had no intention of taking more to the cottage than was strictly necessary—that Kayleigh had seen how she could achieve her goal.

  Ian was borrowing a van to take the stuff to Stansfield and was going to be pushed for time if he didn’t get back with it soon, because they had to load it up, drive to the cottage, unload it, and get it back to his friend by eleven o’clock and it was a twenty-five-minute drive from the Riverside area of Malworth to Stansf
ield. It was exactly sixteen miles door-to-door; her mother, of course, had checked even that.

  Her mother hadn’t understood why he wouldn’t just get the removal people to take it, but he said it was a waste of money and she had humored him, like she always did with other people about small, unimportant things. But with anything that really mattered it was a different story.

  The removal van drove away, and as Kayleigh watched, a small white van pulled up and Ian got out, waving to her.

  “He’s here!” she called up to her mother.

  “About time!”

  “Thank you all for coming in so early,” said the assistant chief constable.

  Tom glanced at Lloyd. Gatherings of the clan were always viewed with deep suspicion, and this meeting of CID personnel of the rank of inspector and above was in order to unveil the restructuring on which the top brass had been laboring for almost eighteen months, or at least that part of it that concerned the Criminal Investigation Department. Rumors had been flying about during all of that time, and Tom had even more interest in what was really going to happen than he might have, because he had, thanks to Judy’s insistence that he go on the training course, passed his inspector’s exam. Not that he was an inspector yet, but as he was a potential inspector this meeting concerned him, because now he was going to find out what opportunities were likely to be available.

  “I have no wish to open up old wounds,” the ACC went on, “but as most of you know, Bartonshire Police Service suffered a setback a couple of years ago when it was discovered that one of our divisions had, not to put too fine a point on it, fostered corrupt officers running their own corrupt system, albeit with what they believed were good intentions. . . .”

  Tom blew out his cheeks a little. The ACC was famous for never using one word when thirty would do. He listened with half an ear to a minute reexamination of the old wounds that the ACC didn’t want to open up.