She listens again.
“Use a car. Use anything.”
She listens again.
“Biscuits – get biscuits. I don’t know, bourbons, custard creams. He likes both. Now, get off my phone.”
“Honestly,” she sighs. “Some people have no sense of a situation.” She slips the phone back into her pocket and straightens her skirt. She turns to me and almost smiles. But I can see she’s only just holding it all together.
“Vivienne, you can sleep in the box room,” she says. “It’s cosy. And Maria will give you supper in the kitchen.”
And that’s it.
Maria and I watch a film with Bruce Willis and eat pasta in a revolting thick creamy sauce. Of course, I grew up running around this kitchen, but it feels empty with just the two of us. No Mum, no Noah. I notice how high the ceiling is, the tiled white walls. The cavernous fireplace guarded by ironwork that must have once roasted a lamb. Everything echoes and the tiny telly perched on the end of the table seems brash in this ancient place.
Maria must be used to it. She chatters from time to time, reads a romance novel and, quite suddenly in the middle of the film, starts making a Skype call in a language I don’t understand, laughing and chatting with her daughter back home in the Philippines.
I pull my dressing gown tighter and wait for the film to finish.
At nine o’ clock I wave goodbye to Maria, who’s still talking to her relatives, and creep up the back stairs to my bedroom. It’s tiny. But Lady B’s right; compared to the rest of the house, it’s cosy. Maria has put an ancient pink electric blanket in my bed and although I unplug it in case it explodes overnight, the bed’s toasty.
I sit with the curtains open, watching the rain beat against the windows. I wonder if Tai’s doing the same round at Tony’s house. I’ll try and get him back tomorrow. Surely no one would mind him sleeping up here with me, would they? I do miss him.
I check out the little bookshelf. Beatrix Potter, Rudyard Kipling, The Water Babies. There’s nothing published in the last one hundred years. I reread Mrs Tiggywinkle, then look at a book called Johnny Crow’s Garden. Weird. For a while I sit and hug my knees and watch torches wandering around the grounds.
I wish I had my phone.
I wish I’d brought something modern to read.
I wish Mum was here.
I also kind of wish that Noah wasn’t lost.
Just a tiny bit.
About a millimetre.
Needing a wee is what finally forces me out of bed. The landing’s deserted and I tiptoe down to the bathroom, which is huge and empty and has the Belcombe crest all over the porcelain. Pulling the chain on the toilet I set off a load of scary plumbing noises that thunder through the pipes, so I sneak back towards my room hoping that no one’s going to come and find out what’s going on.
Pausing on the landing, I listen to try and work out where everyone is. Below my feet a television rumbles, and then off to the left there are male voices. The police? In the hall?
Distantly, someone’s playing a piano – that’s probably Lady B. She used to play incidental music for all of us children when we made little movies and showed them back to her and Mum. Just now, it sounds very mournful, like a siren song – calling to someone.
The floorboards creak as I make my way along the landing to my room. On the way, I pass Noah’s bedroom. I’m kind of surprised it’s not covered in police tape so I push the door open and peek in. A little light comes with me from the landing, but I turn the main light on and decide that if anyone asks, I can just say I’m looking for something to read.
He has a bookshelf full of shiny new books. Some of them look really dull. Law in a Modern Age. What? Constitutional Reforms and the House of Lords? Seriously?
On the shelf below, I find some untouched fiction and help myself to a small stack.
I put the books on the bed and look around the rest of the room. It’s a weird mixture of boy and man. A Star Wars dressing gown hangs on the back of the door. He must have grown out of that by now. Some very expensive headphones dangle from the door handle, and there’s a thousand-pound computer gleaming on the desk. A Lego dinosaur’s working as a bookend on the law shelf; there are three soft rabbits on the bed. I recognise one of them as Herbert. Herbert travelled with Noah everywhere. I remember Noah standing, holding Herbert and watching Daisy and me building a den. I can see now that he wanted to join in, but at the time he just looked as if he wanted to destroy it. Which to be fair is exactly what he’d done to our last den. I pick Herbert up and give him a hug and arrange him on the pillow. I’d take him to keep me company if that wasn’t too much of a liberty.
And I’m surprised that if Noah’s on the run he didn’t take Herbert.
Perhaps he didn’t have time.
Presumably the police have checked his computer but I switch it on anyway. It asks me for a password and I look up at the top of the screen – there’s a Post-it note – “TheEmpireStrikesBack”. So I type it in and the computer pings into action. He’s got a really lame screensaver of some weird gaming hulk striding through a destroyed city. I noodle through his emails – all of them spam – and then check out everything else.
I work my way through a series of icons. There are three flight simulation games and a stack of gaming sites I’ve never heard of. Maybe my theory of him owing money to some distant criminal ring is spot on. Maybe he’s really annoyed someone in a way that I don’t understand. As I look through his browsing history most of it is incomprehensible to me and I wonder at the loneliness of someone who spends their life talking to unreal people on the other side of the world about imaginary creatures.
“Hmm, Noah,” I say out loud. “You’re very sad.”
I keep clicking and then find he’s got a couple of social media pages, hardly any friends – but no recent posts.
I sigh, long and hard, and close down all the things I’ve opened up, only I’m a bit slow and I’m not really concentrating and before I’ve actually switched the wretched thing off, a policewoman’s standing behind me with her arms crossed, and her face even crosser.
* * *
“So what exactly were you doing?” the policewoman asks me again.
“I was bored, I went into Noah’s room to borrow some books and then I just … saw the computer and wondered if there might be anything to say – you know – where he’d gone. I didn’t mean to … upset anyone.”
It sounds pathetic, very pathetic.
Lord B is sitting on the arm of an armchair and staring at me. Normally a restrained man, I can see he’s furious, and I feel terrible. He stands up and begins to pace the room.
The policewoman starts to talk. “And how did—”
But Lord B waves his hand at her and cuts in. “Did it not occur to you that you were staying in our house, on our hospitality?” He doesn’t exactly shout so much as hiss. “That, despite our son’s disappearance, we were extending the hand of friendship? We were putting ourselves out when we were at our lowest ebb. Eh?” He turns to glare at me. “We gave you a room, a bed, food, warmth, succour. We fed you. We cared for you.” He turns away again. “And, and – and that this, this abuse of us, was a gross – rank – appalling way to treat us? Did it never occur to you that you were behaving like a churl – a person with not a jot of morality? Eh? Did it not cross your tiny mind that you should never have poked around outside the room that we gave you? That you should have had the decency to keep yourself to yourself. And, most monstrously, had you never thought that when you clicked on Facebook, or whatever it was, that it would trigger the little light that gave us a moment’s blissful hope? That for a second, we thought Noah was accessing his page from somewhere – that he was safe? Did that not occur to you, Vivienne? Hmmm?” Swinging round he faces me again, his eyes, tear-filled and angry, burn at me.
“I—”
But he hasn’t finished. “Can you imagine how awful it is to lose a child? To conjure images of your child alone and scared in a cold
landscape – possibly lost, possibly distraught – running. Eh? Fear? My fear, his fear – and then you fed it with hope? Or are you just utterly, utterly, stupid?”
He stomps out of the room and slams the door.
I let out my breath. Even the policewoman lets out a long sigh. She blinks and looks back at her notebook.
I glance from her to the floor and back to her.
“But…?”
“Right, Vivienne. Back to bed, and stay there please. OK?”
“He’s not – that’s not.” I can’t say anything coherent. “I didn’t do it on purpose – doesn’t he…?”
The policewoman looks up at me and I have to look away. Tears of utter fury force their way down my cheeks, so many that they drip from my chin. I’m embarrassed and I don’t think anyone has ever been that angry with me. Not even Mum, not ever.
“Viv?” asks the policewoman.
“Can I have my phone back?” I mutter eventually.
“Oh, I didn’t realise we had it. I’ll put in a request. Off you go now.” She smiles kindly at me, which makes me want to cry even more. “Wash your face – you’ll feel better.”
But before I leave, the landline rings.
Lord B comes back into the room. Under his mane of grey curly hair his face is blotchy, and Lady B appears from somewhere, her hair a mess, followed by a policeman.
They all stare at the bleating handset. The policeman plugs an earphone into his ear and nods at Lord B.
“Hello? Geoffrey Belcombe here,” he says slowly.
There’s a pause.
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Can I speak to him?” he says very quickly. “Please – please – oh!”
And he lets the receiver fall from his ear.
“He’s been kidnapped.” He turns to his wife, sobs breaking up his words. “That was the kidnappers. They’re going to send us a photo as proof.”
“That,” says Nadine at school the next day, “is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened here. Isn’t it?”
Joe shakes his head. “Yup – a person of our own age, being held against their will by a PE teacher. As good as it gets.”
“Shut up, Joe. You know what I mean.”
“And it’s him – the most loathsome person we know,” says Sabriya. “I mean, it’s sort of karma, isn’t it?”
“Suppose so,” I say.
Ever since last night I’ve felt completely dreamlike. I don’t think I slept. The porridge tasted like wallpaper paste, the orange juice was just sharp. Maria’s words went over my head.
Seeing Lord B so angry and then the phone call, it suddenly feels as if someone’s died – and I haven’t got Mum and it feels as if she’s died too. I loathe Noah. “But I’ve known him all my life.”
“Ooooh – best friends now, are we? Gonna sell the story to the newspapers?” asks Joe.
“Shut up, Joe,” says Sabriya.
“I get you,” says Nadine. “But … it’s still exciting. Isn’t it?”
We stand shivering under the eaves at the back of the gym. My shoes are damp, my feet are cold. Nadine’s wearing the scratchy school sweater under her jacket and even she’s shuddering. “And I’m worried about Mum. She’s been with the police for more than twenty-four hours. They’ve taken her for their enquiries. They took her at six o’ clock yesterday morning. They think she’s in league with Sanjeev Gupta, the missing PE teacher.”
“Is taking someone away at that hour in the morning even legal?” asks Sabriya.
“Yeah,” says Joe, knowingly. “They do drug raids in the middle of the night. If they think it’s a crime like murder they can hold someone for thirty-six hours.”
We all look at Joe and he reddens. “Yeah, well, I’ve seen it on telly.”
“Murder? Who said anything about murder?” I say.
“Maybe kidnap is just as awful in the eyes of the law,” says Nadine.
“I don’t expect they think she did it. I mean, you’d know, wouldn’t you?” says Sabriya, pulling her jacket right across her chest and jamming her hands in her opposite pockets. “Wouldn’t you?”
* * *
All morning I think about it.
Would I know?
I’d know if Mum had hidden Noah in the wardrobe. Or locked him in our ancient car or somewhere. But then, so would the forensic people.
For the thousandth time I reach for my phone, which isn’t there.
And then I start to feel angry.
Angry with the police for taking Mum away in the dark of the early morning.
Angry with Noah for being kidnapped.
Angry with Sanjeev for having a relationship with Mum and disappearing at the same time as Noah.
Angry with St David’s for being rubbish at keeping their students safe.
Angry with the Belcombes for being so, so, so much better than we are.
Angry with Lord Belcombe for being angry with me.
Angry with the kidnappers for exploding my life, for all of it.
I look up at Miss Foulkes, who’s trying to persuade Jimmy Speckles to sit down, and I feel angry with her too – for being so incompetent – and Jimmy Speckles for being disruptive and I stand up and walk out of the class.
I go hot and cold but I keep walking.
“Vivienne. Vivienne! Where do you think—” And the door swings shut behind me and I’m in the corridor kind of uncertain about where to go, which way to go, how to go home, because go home I must because I have to know what’s going on.
* * *
Señora Delgado comes out to talk to me by the fence at the edge of the hockey pitch, and I explain. Handing me a tissue she suggests she rings the Belcombes from her mobile.
“What is the number, Vivienne?”
Personally, I think that’s quite brave of her – bearing in mind they’re in the middle of a kidnap situation, and all the stuff that Lord B said last night, and how Lady B responded to the conversation about biscuits – but Señora Delgado is calm and nice and smiley and makes me feel a little bit better, and a little bit guiltier about being so histrionic.
“It must be very hard for Lady Belcombe,” she says when she puts the phone back in her pocket. “Losing your child. Living there in the middle of the countryside,” she shudders. “With no … sophisticated company. So isolated.”
“Not that isolated – we’re only a few miles out of town and there are loads of people on the estate.”
“Hmmm.” Señora Delgado stares into the distance. “But no one is from her world. She was such an important figure in journalism. She used to work undercover, you know; investigate. She gave it all up to marry Lord Belcombe – who is, I must say, very charming. But still, she must miss that excitement, that acclaim.”
“You know a lot about them – more than I do,” I say, following her back towards reception.
“I find them interesting. I find her interesting.”
Tony Vitello, the gardener, comes to get me. He’s got Poppy, his little daughter, in the van and Tai, who greets me by licking my face and clambering into my lap.
“Tai,” I say, cuddling him and holding his warm wiry face against my cheek. Although Poppy doesn’t speak she’s got a big smile and she reaches over to stroke Tai.
“All right?” says Tony, swinging the van out on to the road.
“Thanks for collecting me, and looking after Tai. What’s been happening?” I ask, trying to sound grown up and not panicky like I feel inside.
Tony thinks for a moment, as if he’s wondering what I can be told. “It’s hard to keep track, to be honest – everyone’s all up in the air. Even Dave keeps on crying, and Chris is trying to be normal, but he’s at breaking point. Lady B’s got very touchy, Lord B’s the same. Shona, Pavel and I have searched every scrap of the greenhouses but now they know that the boy’s been taken, we’re all useless – which is worse than searching, to be honest. Now it’s St David’s and railway stations and whatnot.�
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“And Mum?”
Tony chews his lip slightly before answering, so I know he’s not telling the whole truth. “She’s – I don’t rightly know.”
“She’s their prime suspect, isn’t she?”
Tony waggles his head – he doesn’t want to commit.
“She is, isn’t she?”
“I dunno… She’s not back, so far as I know,” he says, as we bounce through puddles into the village. “Wait here. Just gonna get some smokes.” And he stops suddenly, outside the post office.
Poppy reaches out to her dad as he leaves the van and her lip trembles as she looks up at me. “It’s all right, Poppy,” I say. “Dad will be back in a minute – don’t worry.”
She smiles but a single tear rolls down her creamy cheek.
I put my hands up in front of my face and play peepo with her and Tai. Soon, she’s forgotten about her dad and she’s happily laughing and her laughter and that drop of water on her face makes me feel the first new tear of my own. This is all horrible, like a long nightmare that won’t go away.
“Hello, Poppy,” says Tony, swinging back into the van and driving on before doing up his seat belt. He turns on the radio – so that we can’t talk, and I notice that even the headlines don’t mention Noah.
We take the back entrance to Blackwater House. We drive over a small brick bridge and through a couple of flooded fields, and stop in the gravel yard by the potting sheds and the tractor barn in the back courtyard. Puddles are starting to form in the yard and Connor Evans has to skirt round them as he brings a pheasant feeder out of the shed and loads it into his Land Rover.
“If it keeps up like this I’ll have to move the birds.” He points at the sky. He’s got one of his gun dogs with him. Skipper, I think it’s called, and it skulks underneath the corrugated iron roof of the feed shed. Tai sniffs. Skipper sniffs. They ignore each other.
“Due to get worse,” says Tony, giving him a hand with the feeder. “All right there then, Viv?” He turns to me as I stand uncertainly pulling my jacket tighter against the rain. “Shall I keep the dog?”
Murder at Twilight Page 5
