Other Countries

by Jo Bannister

  Superintendent Maybourne had responded with no fewer than three cars and a dozen officers, and was on the scene herself, organising the search.

  Ash’s dog was lying at Saturday’s feet, washing her paws.

  Hazel chewed thoughtfully on the inside of her lip. After a moment she walked over to join her colleagues. ‘Gabriel thinks his sons have been kidnapped. I know why he thinks that, but I don’t think it’s the most likely thing to have happened.’

  She had the superintendent’s full attention. Conscious that she could be making a mistake, Hazel pressed on. ‘Those boys haven’t been in Norbold very long. They know Highfield Road, and the park, and the way to school, and that’s probably about it. Has anyone checked Gabriel’s house?’

  Grace Maybourne was obscurely disappointed. She’d hoped for something more creative from the problematic Constable Best. ‘Of course we have. The house is locked – if they’d found their way home, they’d have been waiting in the garden. They weren’t.’

  ‘Has anyone checked for two little boys who don’t want to be found?’

  Superintendent Maybourne blinked. ‘You think they’re hiding?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hazel said quickly. ‘But I do know the older one is quick to take offence, easily bored, and calls the shots. If he took offence at being dumped on Saturday, he might very well decide to teach his father a lesson.’

  ‘By running off?’

  Hazel nodded. ‘But since they don’t know this town very well, they’d probably end up going home. They’d know they were in trouble – if a police car came to their house, there’s a good chance they’d stay out of sight until it left.’

  If she was wrong, she might delay the start of a thorough search. If Ash’s sons were really in trouble, that could be disastrous. But dragging the lake and throwing a cordon around the ring road wouldn’t find them if they were actually hiding in the shrubbery behind their own house.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she offered, ‘I’ll take Saturday and Patience, and we’ll check out Highfield Road. If they’re not there, maybe something has happened to them.’

  ‘All right,’ agreed Maybourne. ‘Do you want a car?’

  ‘Please.’ Hazel had left Oliver Ford at the museum and taken a taxi back to Norbold as soon as Ash called her.

  Only as the younger woman turned purposefully towards the area car did the superintendent give way to a puzzled frown. ‘Who’s Patience?’

  Hazel had the area car stop at the corner of the road. She pushed Saturday out onto the pavement and followed with the dog, whose lead she immediately removed. ‘Okay, girl, time to shine. Find the boys. Where are they?’

  Patience, still carrying her ball, headed for home at a steady jog. Perhaps, thought Hazel, the animal actually understood what was required of her. Or perhaps she was aware, with that uncanny sense dogs have, that it was time for her dinner.

  In any event, she turned in at Ash’s driveway and – tucking her long legs under her and arching her slender back – hurdled the side gate that was supposed to keep her in the back garden. Hazel followed at half a run, though she paused long enough to open the gate.

  The garden was empty. Hazel tried the back door in passing, but it was indeed locked. Patience was trotting down the path to the garage. When Hazel tried the side access, the door opened under her hand.

  Hazel went inside. ‘Okay, guys, fun’s over. Your dad’s having kittens and my boss is about to issue an All-Points Bulletin. Let’s get our heads together and come up with an explanation that leaves you looking thoughtless rather than cruel.’

  Saturday was looking at her as if she was mad. But Patience was gazing up into the rafters, where old bicycles and half-rotted tents and a small canoe were lashed to the timbers, reached by a wooden ladder.

  After a moment, two small, pale, anxious faces appeared among the cobwebs.

  NINE

  Hazel had decided against putting her uniform on. She was on sick leave and not available for duty, so while she would have appreciated the authority it gave her, it seemed a little impertinent to use it just for that. She opted for smart civvies, did what she could with her hair and presented herself at Superintendent Maybourne’s door at 8.15 a.m. precisely.

  She could not tell, either from the other woman’s expression or her tone, how much trouble she was in. Partly because they hadn’t known one another for very long, but also because the superintendent didn’t give very much away. She was invariably quiet, polite and precise, and if Hazel had been summoned here to receive her dismissal, she was confident it would be delivered in a quiet, polite and precise manner.

  She was not invited to sit so remained standing, hands behind her back, at attention despite the absent uniform.

  Maybourne regarded her with a curious mixture of amusement, exasperation, and what Hazel dared to think might almost be tolerance. She gave the quietest, politest sigh imaginable. ‘Constable Best – you’re one of them, aren’t you?’

  Hazel was completely wrong-footed. She had no idea which them the superintendent was referring to, and therefore whether she should be offended or agree enthusiastically. ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘People to whom things happen which could happen to anyone, but don’t.’

  It took Hazel a moment to work through the syntax. When she had, she found herself unable to disagree. ‘I can see why you’d think that, ma’am.’

  ‘Was it always so?’ Superintendent Maybourne seemed genuinely interested. ‘When you were a little girl, were you the one that stray dogs followed home? The one who happened to be passing when the fire alarm went off unexpectedly? Do you find yourself in lifts when there’s a power-cut, or living under the flat where someone habitually lets the bath overflow? In short, Constable Best, if a tornado were to rip through Norbold, would you lay odds on it picking up your car?’

  Hazel decided there was nothing to be lost by being honest. If she was going to get the sack, she’d find out soon enough. ‘It would pick up my car,’ she agreed, deadpan, ‘and use it to demolish my house.’

  A tiny smile played momentarily around Maybourne’s lips. She hid it quickly, but Hazel knew she hadn’t imagined it. ‘How is Mr Ash now?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him since yesterday. It took him a couple of hours to calm down, but then the shock started giving way to embarrassment. He was very sorry for the trouble he’d given you.’

  ‘I know. He phoned me yesterday evening.’ Maybourne gave a graceful shrug. ‘I told him, and I hope you’ll tell him, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. That nobody’s more relieved than us when missing children turn up in their own garage.’

  ‘I did tell him that. I’m not sure he believed me. He was very conscious of wasting police time. He just couldn’t think, in the heat of the moment, what else to do.’

  ‘He did the right thing,’ said Maybourne. ‘Even if it had occurred to him that his sons might be playing a trick on him, he couldn’t risk doing nothing. If they had been abducted, the twenty minutes it would have taken him to go home and not find them would have been enough to get them out of Norbold and on their way to anywhere at all.’

  ‘Of course,’ ventured Hazel, ‘Gabriel’s children are no more likely to be abducted than anybody else’s children. And that’s very unlikely indeed.’

  ‘But after everything that happened, that won’t be how it feels to him. And in fact, with their mother being sought in connection with a criminal conspiracy, the risk that she might try to take them from him isn’t insignificant. No, constable, I think we have to forgive Mr Ash for being over-sensitive. In all the circumstances.’

  ‘That’s very generous, ma’am,’ said Hazel. ‘May I tell him you said that?’

  ‘Certainly. I said as much to him myself, but I’m not sure he really took it in. He’s still’ – she hesitated, looking for the right word – ‘quite troubled, isn’t he?’

  ‘It’s not the sort of thing you put behind you in a few weeks. His wife conspired with her lover to convince Gabr
iel that she and their sons had been kidnapped. He believed that for four years. Then he learned the truth. Perhaps “troubled” is the best we should expect for a while.’

  Hazel waited. But the superintendent seemed to have nothing to add. Hazel began to hope that maybe, since forgiveness was in the air, some of it might come her way. ‘Will that be all, ma’am?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Maybourne opened the top drawer of her desk, took out a padded envelope. ‘I have been asked to pass this on to you. You may open it now, if you like.’

  Perplexed, Hazel did as she was bid. The first thing out of the envelope was a letter bearing the badge of Divisional Headquarters. So this was how they sacked you …

  Except that it wasn’t. She read what was written. Then she read it again. Then she took out the plain little cardboard box she’d seen before, and out of the box she took the tiny gold phoenix with the ruby-chip eyes. She looked at the superintendent. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Maybourne smiled coolly. ‘Of course you do, Hazel. Mr Ford wanted to give you that to thank you for protecting him. Very properly, you said you couldn’t accept. Mr Ford sought permission from the chief constable to offer it again. That is written confirmation that the chief constable considers it entirely appropriate for you to accept, in view of the service rendered, the comparatively modest value of the item to a person like Oliver Ford, and the fact that since the Norbold News will be carrying a photograph, no one can claim there was anything underhand about it. Mr Ford will be in touch shortly. Do us all a favour: take the bloody necklace.’

  Ash didn’t blame Saturday for what had happened. He knew who was responsible, but actually he didn’t blame Gilbert either. He blamed himself. For panicking when he should have been thinking. For involving the police instead of assessing the situation logically, the way Hazel had done. For letting his emotions swamp his common sense. He knew better. He’d made a good career of seeing to the truth of things. He didn’t understand why that acuity seemed to fly out of the window when it would have been most valuable to him.

  Now, because of his over-reaction to the mischief of an eight-year-old boy, both he and Hazel could lose the things that mattered to them most.

  He’d been tempted to keep the boys off school – let them start the weekend a day early. But that would have been a mistake. Nothing had happened. Nothing had nearly happened, only a fairly routine bit of family drama, and keeping the boys at home would invest the affair with more importance than it warranted. It might be understandable that he’d behaved like a neurotic mother-hen. But it was important that he shouldn’t make a habit of it.

  So he walked them to school as he did every weekday morning. There was little conversation. Guy, largely oblivious of the strained atmosphere, chatted intermittently with Patience, trotting on her lead beside them, but Ash and his first-born exchanged nothing but terse necessities.

  At the school gates Gilbert hesitated. ‘I am sorry,’ he said again. It wasn’t the first apology he’d offered, although it was the first one that sounded genuine.

  ‘I know,’ Ash said quietly. ‘Me too. Neither of us distinguished ourselves. I just hope …’ He let the sentence peter out. The boy was only eight years old, too young to share the burden of possible consequences. That was for Ash to carry alone.

  But this was Ash’s son. More than that: Gilbert was his father at eight years old. Given three or four words, and a certain tone of voice, and a certain expression, he was entirely capable of inferring the comment Ash had thought better of airing. ‘You think the ladies from the council will think you’re a bad father?’

  Ash gave a little snort, half of surprise, half amusement. ‘Well, they might. They might even have a point.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘It was my responsibility to see that you were safe – that you’d be safe with whoever I asked to look after you. And you weren’t.’

  ‘Yes, we were. Nothing happened.’

  ‘You were missing for over an hour. I thought something had happened to you. I called the police. If I’d had the number, I’d have called in the army.’

  ‘We weren’t missing,’ insisted Gilbert. ‘I knew where we were.’

  Ash had no answer to such perfect logic. He let his sons head in to school. But he watched until the door closed behind them.

  When he finally turned away, he saw that he too was being watched: by Hazel Best, leaning against her parked car. He nodded a greeting. He didn’t much feel like smiling.

  ‘I’ve just come from The Presence,’ said Hazel. ‘I thought she was going to sack me.’

  Ash was alarmed. ‘Did she?’

  ‘No, she gave me a necklace.’ Hazel still looked bemused. ‘Never mind that. Everything’s fine. What happened was a false alarm. The police like false alarms. They’re much easier to deal with than genuine emergencies.’

  ‘Superintendent Maybourne told you that?’

  ‘In as many words. Gabriel, stop beating yourself up over this. It really wasn’t that big a deal. The boys gave Saturday the slip. If you over-reacted, everyone understands why. It’s early days. It’ll get easier as you get used to the job. It’ll never get so easy that they won’t cost you sleep from time to time.’

  Ash hesitated, then voiced the fear that was tormenting him. ‘I’m going to lose them, Hazel. They’re going to take them away from me. They’re going to use this as an excuse to take them away.’

  Hazel’s eyes flared wide in astonishment. ‘The Child Protection people? They said that?’

  ‘No. But it’s what they’re thinking. They think I’m barely competent to look after myself, let alone two under-tens. Let alone those two under-tens, who’ve hardly had the most normal upbringing to date and desperately need some stability in their lives. They think the boys would be better off living with a proper family, or in care, and I could take them out for tea every Sunday as long as I got them home by six.’

  The grief in his voice was like an open wound. What was almost worse than the fear of losing his sons was the belief Hazel could hear in his tone that a decision to remove them might be justified. She felt her heart lurch with compassion. After everything he’d been through …

  She forced herself to speak calmly. ‘I’m sure nobody’s thinking any such thing. Gabriel, you didn’t do anything wrong! You left them with a responsible adult when you couldn’t be there yourself.’

  ‘Well no, I didn’t,’ he retorted, ‘I left them with Saturday. Possibly the only person in Norbold worse qualified to look after them than I am!’

  Hazel shot to her lodger’s defence. ‘Hey, don’t blame Saturday for not having eyes in the back of his head! He did what you asked him to do. He met them from school and took them to the park. It’s not his fault the little brats thought it would be clever to run off and hide.’

  ‘They’ve never done it when they were with me. And I don’t believe they’d have done it if they’d been with you.’

  ‘So now it’s my fault?’ Hazel heard her voice soaring and didn’t care. ‘For wanting a social life that doesn’t revolve exclusively around you and your brood? You wanted to be a parent, Gabriel – well, guess what, this is what it’s like! Juggling your time. Trying to be in two places at once. Having to pick up the pieces when you fail. But it’s what you wanted, so good luck with it. Only, don’t expect me to hold your hand while you do it. I have my own life to get on with. I’m happy to help, when I can. But I am not your own personal Nanny McPhee!’

  Most people would have understood the allusion. But Ash hadn’t had a television in his house until his sons came home; and now he had a television, he hadn’t time to watch it. He stared at her angrily. ‘Nanny who?’

  ‘McPhee!’ snapped Hazel.

  They glared at one another from a range of inches, each feeling ill-used and resisting the suspicion that they weren’t behaving well either. Ash straightened up with dignity. ‘My sons are not brats.’

  ‘No? Well, they do a pretty good impression of it so
metimes. They were angry that you had something to do besides meeting them from school, and they took it out on Saturday. He did the best he could. If you want someone better qualified to look after them when you can’t, you’ll have to employ someone. No one will be more relieved than Saturday.’

  ‘All right, I will.’ Ash sniffed, childishly. ‘I rather thought it was the sort of thing friends did for one another.’

  Hazel wanted to slap him. ‘It is. And when I have some ill-mannered little brats that need taking care of, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

  Fuming, she got back into her car and slammed the door. But before she drove off she was aware that she hadn’t handled the situation well. Ash had made so much progress in the last few months: it wasn’t reasonable for her to be impatient that there were still hangovers from the bad times. Like Saturday, he was doing his best. If she hadn’t wanted him to rely on her so much, perhaps she shouldn’t have made her shoulder quite so available to lean on.

  She felt eyes on her and looked round, ready to apologise, only to meet a steady golden gaze. Ash had turned for home but Patience lingered outside the school and was regarding her with gentle disappointment.

  Hazel scowled. ‘What are you looking at?’ she demanded. The dog blinked, and Hazel drove away.

  TEN

  Ford’s car was parked in front of the little house in Railway Street. As Hazel pulled in behind it, Ford got out. But he stood beside it, leaving the door open, as if he might have to beat a hasty retreat.

  ‘You’re in my parking spot,’ Hazel said by way of greeting.

  Ford looked uncertainly at the kerb. ‘Shall I move it?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ She locked her own car. Her fingers picked out the house key automatically. ‘Are you coming in?’

  ‘May I?’

  ‘No, let’s stand on the pavement and trade recriminations,’ said Hazel shortly. ‘Of course you can come in. Saturday would have let you in if he’d known you were waiting.’