by Jo Verity
‘No.’ He felt sick at the thought of his father telling a lie.
The following afternoon, the children collected their belongings together, ready to return home. This time Gran packed, too, and it was clear from the size of her suitcase and the selection of things she put in it – knitting, a hot water bottle, smelling salts, a photograph of her late husband – that she was planning to be away from home for several days.
As they reached the bus stop, it began to rain – a fine drizzle blown on a stiff breeze. When the bus turned up they travelled on the lower deck, sitting on the sideways-facing bench seat, their bags stowed in the cubbyhole beneath the steep stairs. An effective heating system, coupled with the close-packed bodies of the other passengers, drew the damp out of overcoats and mackintoshes, tainting the air with a wet dog smell. The threesome barely spoke as the bus ground its way across the dark town and, by the time they were trudging down Medway Avenue, they had ceased talking altogether.
Lewis was pleased to be leaving Gran’s house but he wasn’t sure he wanted to go home. What if his mother was still crying? What if his father was in one of his tempers? What if the police asked him how many newspapers his father read? Would his parents have got rid of all the baby things – cot, bibs, safety pins, little vests and jackets – yet? Then there was the pram that the baby snatcher hadn’t taken. Might they be able to claim the wheels – really big wheels with fancy tyres – to make a second go cart? His nervousness increased when, on reaching the front door, Gran fussed with their coat collars and told them to stand up straight, as though they were going to be inspected by an army officer. Once she had them organised to her satisfaction, she pounded on the knocker.
Their father opened the door and when the children saw that, as usual, he was wearing his brown slippers and corduroy trousers, for a few seconds it was as if nothing had changed and it really had been a silly mistake after all. He pulled them to him, bending to kiss the crowns of their damp heads and, as they nuzzled their faces in his prickly jumper, they knew it was true. Tessa could contain herself no longer and started sobbing. Lewis joined in.
Their grandmother had been watching this display of emotion. ‘Come on, you two. You’ve got to be brave for your mum and dad.’
‘It’s okay, Dot. It’ll do them good to have a cry. Peggy’s in bed if you want to go up. The doctor’s given her something but she’s not asleep.’
‘Is there … any news?’
‘Nothing.’ His voice cracked.
‘Well, you know what they say…’ She trudged upstairs.
During the days that followed, the children discovered that school was the best place to be. When they were doing sums or learning spellings, or playing tag or marbles, everything was as it had always been. But, as soon as the end-of-school bell sounded, life went haywire. Their mother rarely left her bedroom and never got dressed. When they went upstairs to see her it was like visiting an invalid whom they shouldn’t tire. She smiled vaguely and asked them questions about school, as if she’d never met them before. Sometimes she stopped in the middle of a sentence, forgetting or abandoning what she was about to say.
They weren’t allowed to walk home on their own – something they’d been doing for years. Their father, or more often their grandmother, was stationed on the pavement opposite, ready to shepherd them down the road, grabbing their hands as if they were toddlers. And once they reached the house, they were forbidden to set foot out of the front gate without permission. When Tessa demanded to know why, the explanation she received from Gran was a wary, ‘You can’t be too careful these days.’
Tessa noticed that, when she and Lewis passed neighbours in the street, they looked away or, at best, muttered a hasty, ‘Hello,’ before scurrying by. Neither Diane nor Susan invited her to tea after school. Lewis’s friends didn’t ask him to play football. Neither of them received invitations to the several birthday parties that took place.
Home became a place where people whispered and closed doors. Relatives whom they barely knew made brief visits, scarcely acknowledging them beyond an irritating ‘Goodness, dear, haven’t you grown?’ The phone rang at all hours. Newspapers were pushed out of sight. Unsmiling men, whom the children supposed were plain clothed policemen, came and went. One woman, with fat legs and flat shoes, spent a great deal of time with their mother, but again the door was shut and the children had no idea what they talked about. Strangers hung about outside on the pavement, watching the house. The doctor called most days, patting them on the head or ruffling their hair before going up to their mother’s room. Their father didn’t seem to go to work any more.
There was one bright spot – Lewis was relegated to a camp-bed in Tessa’s room so that his grandmother could use his. One night he slithered out of bed and pulled open the bottom drawer of the chest. He rummaged around beneath Tessa’s clothes and brought out the purse, still bulging with their unspent holiday money. ‘I’ve been thinking. When the kidnappers get in touch, we can give this to Dad, to put towards the ransom, can’t we?’
‘He’s been gone for a whole week, Lewis. Kidnappers would have been in touch by now.’ Tessa whispered. ‘I don’t think they’ll ever find him.’
‘That’s horrible,’ Lewis whimpered. ‘I wish we hadn’t—’
‘Look, we’ve been over and over this. What we did was just a bit of fun.’ She laughed but it came out more like a dry cough.
He was silent for a few seconds. ‘Perhaps we did send him back, like we were trying to do. Think about it. Mum’s not very well, is she? She never gets dressed and the doctor comes every day. Perhaps—’
‘Don’t be daft.’
Tessa clambered out of bed and began tickling Lewis. Soon they were screaming with laughter and failed to hear their grandmother plodding up the stairs.
‘Another peep out of you two and one of you will be in with me.’ Gran stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the landing light. ‘Now off to sleep.’
They scrambled back under the covers, lying quiet and motionless until they heard her talking to their father downstairs. Tessa reached down towards the camp bed where her brother lay and they linked fingers.
Chapter 6
Swathed in coats, hats and gloves to combat the winter chill, the children were in the garden, repairing their den. A couple of months earlier, their father had been clearing out the garage – something he did at the end of every summer – and they had persuaded him to let them have three sheets of hardboard, water stained and warped after years of storage. ‘Okay. I don’t suppose I’ll be using them now,’ he’d conceded. The construction, located well away from the house, was a simple affair, little more than flimsy ‘walls’ wedged upright between piles of bricks, with odd lengths of wood spanning from side to side to suggest a roof. Insubstantial though it was, it had become the focus for their most exciting games. Sometimes it was the stockade where the cavalry held out against the Apaches; sometimes a tent in the snowy wastes, shelter for intrepid explorers on their way to the South Pole; sometimes a bulletproof bunker where soldiers might hide from an invading army. The games were fun, but better still was the satisfaction of adapting the structure and adding new features. This morning they had commandeered an orange box, destined as kindling for the fire, and were sitting on it discussing the injustice of their curfew.
‘I wish we could go to Cranwell Lodge,’ Lewis said. ‘We haven’t been for ages.’
Tessa inspected the ends of her plaits. ‘I don’t see why we can’t.’
‘But they’ll notice we’re not here. They can see us from the window.’ Lewis peeped round the hardboard wall and, as if to prove his point, their father appeared at the bedroom window, peering across the garden.
‘Wave at him,’ instructed Tessa.
They both emerged from the den, waving and smiling, and their father raised a hand in acknowledgement, then turned and moved away from the window.
‘Okay. If he looks out again and doesn’t see us, he’ll think we’re in here, o
ut of sight. He’s bound to stay upstairs with Mum because Gran’s gone home to fetch some things.’ She bent low and grabbed the sleeve of Lewis’s coat. ‘Come on. If we go right away, we’ve got at least half an hour before he even wonders where we are.’
They slunk down the garden, keeping close to the privet hedge and, once out of the gate, ran at full tilt along Medway Avenue and up Cranwell Road, breathless by the time they knocked on the back door of the old house.
Mr Zeal opened the door but, instead of the customary welcome, he stared at them, mumbling, ‘Good gracious. My-oh-my. There’s a thing,’ until Tessa piped up, ‘It’s only us, Mr Zeal. Can we come in? Just for a minute.’
He stood aside, waving them through to the breakfast room where the beginnings of a fire crackled in the grate. Greenish-grey smoke from the coals snaked up the chimney but no heat came from it yet and the children’s panting breath was visible in the shafts of light which filtered between the heavy curtains. ‘I’m afraid you’ve caught us out,’ he said, gathering a pile of newspapers and pushing them under one of the cushions on the sofa.
What on earth did he mean ‘caught us out’? Tessa glanced around. ‘Where’s Mrs Channing?’ she asked.
‘She’s busy at the moment. Why don’t you talk to Blanche and I’ll let her know you’re here.’
‘We can’t stay long,’ Lewis called as Mr Zeal disappeared into the hall.
After the efforts they’d made to escape from the garden, Tessa felt let down. This morning, Mr Zeal, chin stubbly and wearing a shapeless green cardigan, looked like any other old man. So far he’d said nothing in the slightest bit rude or interesting. There was no singing. No offers of sherry. Blanche was silent and uncooperative. The furniture looked shabby and, when she made her regular inspection of the ornaments on the mantelpiece, she noticed that they were covered in dust. Today everything about Cranwell Lodge seemed ordinary. Could that be what he’d meant – that he and Mrs Channing had been ‘caught out’ being ordinary?
‘We ought to be going, Tess.’ Lewis pulled his right earlobe.
‘It’ll be okay. We’ll just wait and say hello to Mrs Channing.’
Tessa flopped on the sofa and the cushion slipped, exposing the headline on one of the newspapers that Mr Zeal had stuffed beneath it – SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING BABY. Tessa held it up for her brother to read. ‘Look at this, Lewis.’
The next newspaper she pulled out had been folded open. NO TRACE OF SWINBURNE BABY headed the page, accompanied by a picture of Gordon’s empty pram. She examined the papers stowed under the cushion and each one was opened at an article concerning their missing brother.
Before they had a chance to discuss what this meant, voices sounded on the far side of the door. Tessa gathered up the papers, shoving them back in their hiding place, and the children were standing, side by side in front of the fire, when Mrs Channing and Mr Zeal came in.
‘Good morning, Swinburnes. Allow me to apologise for not being here to greet you but I was at a rather intricate juncture in my ablutions.’ At least Mrs Channing, clad in her shiny red dressing gown, hair contained in a sort of decorative net, was living up to expectations. ‘How are you, my dears?’ she asked in a breezy tone, without a trace of the pity they’d become used to hearing during the past week.
This surprised Tessa. It was obvious that she and Mr Zeal had been keeping up with the story and they must realise that the missing baby was the very one that she and Lewis had grumbled about during recent visits.
‘It’s been horrible—’ Lewis started.
Before he could say any more, Tessa jumped in. ‘It’s been horrible weather, hasn’t it? All cold and horrible.’ She glared at her brother who looked confused by her interruption. ‘Anyway. We’d better be going. Dinner’ll be ready soon.’
Grabbing his arm, she pulled him towards the door.
‘Hold your horses.’ Mr Zeal went to the dresser drawer and took out a paper bag. ‘These should keep you going.’ He handed the bag to Tessa. She peeped inside then held it out for Lewis to see. The bag contained boiled sweets, each individually wrapped in clear cellophane – maybe ten or a dozen in all. On previous visits, Mr Zeal had produced the sweets from his trouser pocket and deposited them on the palms of their hands, with a flourish. Today he’d given them boring old boiled sweets in a crumpled bag.
‘Thank you. Where do these come from, Mr Zeal?’ Lewis asked.
The old man looked puzzled. ‘The sweet shop in the market, as far as I recall.’
‘Not from Morocco, then?’
‘Aaahhh.’ The old man smiled, his large white teeth looking out of place in his unshaven face. ‘Only in a manner of speaking.’
‘What was he on about?’ Lewis asked as, sucking boiled sweets, they raced down Cranwell Road.
Tessa seemed not to have heard him. ‘Did you notice how they didn’t say anything about Gordon? Even though they’d been reading about it in the paper? Don’t you think that’s—’
‘Fishy?’ Lewis liked this word, which he’d learned from his sister.
‘Exactly.’
‘Perhaps they thought talking about him would upset us.’
‘Mmmm. I don’t know.’
When they reached the house, the garden gate, which Lewis was positive he had latched, stood ajar. ‘Someone’s come,’ he whispered.
They tiptoed between the house and the garage, scurried past the back door and on down the path to the safety of the den where they collapsed on the orange box, giggling with relief.
‘I told you it would be all right,’ Tessa grinned.
They hid the rest of the sweets under an inverted flower-pot before making their way back to the house. Four cups and saucers stood on a tray on the kitchen table. A faint whistling came from the kettle on the stove, warning that it was coming to the boil and, as the sound rose to a penetrating shriek, their father came in. ‘So there you are.’ He glared at them. ‘And where have you two been?’
‘Nowhere. Well, just in the Avenue.’ Tessa pointed at the cups. ‘Have we got visitors?’
‘Don’t try and change the subject, young lady. And you were not “just in the Avenue” because I watched you tearing off somewhere.’ He poured the hot water from the kettle into the brown teapot. ‘You know perfectly well what the rules are. We’ll discuss this later. Take your coats off. And those muddy shoes. There’s a gentlemen and a lady who want to talk to you.’
‘But we’ve already talked to someone,’ Tessa complained. ‘We’ve already told them that we went to town and got winter coats.’
‘I’m not asking you if you want to talk to them, I’m telling you that you’re going to.’
It was the first time that they’d seen their mother out of bed and dressed since last Saturday afternoon, when they’d gone to Gran’s. Sunk in an armchair, staring, unblinking, in the direction of the window, she looked not much bigger than a child. The pallor of her face was emphasized by the shadowy skin around her eyes. Her lank hair was scraped back and held in place by a couple of Tessa’s hair slides. Tessa thought how old and ugly she looked.
The lady – Tessa recognised her as the one who spent a lot of time with her mother – and gentleman had been to the house several times before. Now they sat on the sofa, still wearing their overcoats, looking as if they might jump to attention at any minute.
‘Hello,’ the lady said, smiling. ‘You must be Tessa. And you must be Lewis. My name’s Miss Underwood and this,’ she turned to the man, ‘is Mr Hulbert.’
‘Are you detectives?’ Tessa asked politely.
‘We are. And we’re here because we want to find your baby brother,’ the man took over, ‘as I’m sure you do. That’s right isn’t it?’
This wasn’t a man to argue with and she nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yes.’
‘Yes.’ Lewis echoed.
‘Good.’ He beckoned them closer. ‘No need to be shy. We’d just like to go over what happened. Make sure we’ve got it absolutely straight.’
Balancing the cup and saucer on the broad arm of the sofa, he pulled a small black notebook from the inside pocket of his coat and flipped it open. ‘Now, tell us what you did last Saturday morning.’
From where she stood, a couple of feet in front of Mr Hulbert’s knees, Tessa was unable to see her parents but she knew that they were listening very closely to every word she said. ‘We went to town with Mum. On the bus.’ She gave a factual account of everything that they’d done that morning – the purchase of the coats, spending her pocket money, the visit to the Kardomah.
‘And when you got back home?’ he coaxed.
‘We had omelettes,’ Lewis chimed in.
The policeman turned to him. ‘Who had omelettes, son?’
‘Me and Tessa and Mum.’
‘Not your Dad?’
‘No. He wasn’t there. Mum was a bit worried—’
‘That’s right,’ Tessa interrupted, ‘And then Dad phoned to say that … well, to tell Mum what happened. Then we went to Gran’s.’ Tessa glanced at her mother who had swivelled in her seat, her face showing neither encouragement nor disapproval of what her children were saying.
‘Tess and I have been thinking about it quite a lot and what we don’t really understand is why Dad went to buy a paper. He has one delivered every morning,’ Lewis chirped.
‘I see.’ Mr Hulbert smiled at Lewis, pencil poised over the little notebook. ‘That’s very clever of you to think of that. Is there anything else you … don’t understand? Anything … unusual? Anything … out of the ordinary?’
The room was still, as if everyone in it were holding their breath. Tessa turned to catch a glimpse of her father’s face. He was sitting on the arm of her mother’s chair, his eyes shut, his head bent forward, fingertips raised to his forehead. She knew that her brother was trying to help the detectives and to demonstrate their skill at spotting ‘fishy-ness’ but it did seem disloyal to hint that their father was lying.
