A Game For All The Family (20 page)

“She’s right,” said Lisette. “It’s not Dad.”

Sorrel stood up. She was about to go and investigate when she saw, through the window, a man falling to his death, just as Malachy Dodd had done before. His arms flailed as he fell.

There was a loud crash. Sorrel and her three daughters ran to the window. The man’s head had smashed open and there was blood spreading across the gravel where he’d fallen. “Oh my God!” said Allisande. “It’s the bumcracker who came in here, who Perrine helped!”

Perrine emitted a throaty chuckle. Sorrel, Lisette and Allisande looked at one another. They were all thinking the same thing: What if Perrine had somehow pushed the bumcracker off the scaffolding that was still attached to one side of Speedwell House? What if he’d grabbed onto a metal pole, hung on for as long as his arms and fingers could bear, crying for help and being ignored, and then fallen to his doom?

“Don’t look at me,” said Perrine, even though no one was because no one could bear to. “I didn’t kill him. He’s only a bumcracker, anyway. It’s not as if his life matters to anyone.”

8

F
inally I’m alone in the house. DC Luce has taken his reams of notes and gone; Alex is dropping Ellen at school and then heading into town. I’m on my own with Figgy, who, thankfully, doesn’t detract at all from my satisfying feeling of isolation. He’s not going to stop me from doing what I’m about to do, or demand that I justify myself.

“I’ll tell you, Figgs, because you’re tactful enough not to ask.” I sit down at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and my laptop. “I’m going to Google the fuck out of Professor Anne Donbavand. Why? Because . . .”

I stop to type her name into the search box, then press “return.” First impression: no shortage of results, all relating to the right person. Most of this stuff looks deadly boring, possibly because I don’t have a shred of interest in Assyriology.

I’m about to plunge into the first web link on the list when I realize I’d abandoned my explanation after “Because.” That’s a bit shoddy, even if one is only explaining to a dog.

“Several reasons, Figgy. All of them persuasive, in my opinion. Ellen’s obsessed with George. She might have given him our phone number—my mobile too. She doesn’t have a phone of her own, so anyone wanting to contact her would need to call me or the house.”

Ellen has always been adamant that she’ll never have a mobile. In London, mine ruined everything we tried to do as a family. Every trip, dinner and birthday treat was interrupted by between five and ten texts, emails or calls, most of which required immediate responses. Ellen once called my BlackBerry “the family destroyer.”

“If George has the numbers, it’s possible his mother also has them,” I tell Figgy. “Am I saying that I think Professor Anne Donbavand is my mystery caller? No, not at all. But she could be. I’ve never heard her voice. She might have a weird lisp. She doesn’t want George to have any friends, right? Ellen is George’s friend. Doesn’t that make Anne Donbavand the person most likely to want our family to leave Devon and go back to London?”

I try to make out the shape of a correct and wise answer in the silence, but Figgy offers no hint as to what he’s thinking.

“I believe it does,” I mutter, aware of how defensive I sound. “Whatever Ellen says, the idea that it’s someone at Beaconwood calling and threatening me . . . sorry, but I don’t buy it. And Alex will say I’m being ridiculous, but this Sandie business—”

I break off. Figgy looks at me expectantly.

“When I was talking to Lisp Woman this morning and Ellen started to cry—that wasn’t general distress at having a stranger call us and threaten our safety. Ellen burst into tears and ran from the room immediately after hearing me say, “My name’s not Sandie.” It was the name that broke her, and someone applying it to me. Later, she accused me of hiding my true identity—of being Sandie. Somehow . . .”

I pick up my mug of tea and walk over to the window. Standing here looking out, I remember the feeling I had upstairs in Ellen’s room.
Something not quite right about her window, or the view, or . . .

No, it’s not coming to me. It’s silly to hope that it ever will.

Figgy appears to be asleep. I go over the rest of my theory in my head: somehow, there’s a connection between Ellen getting so upset at the mention of Sandie, and Allisande from her story.

If she suspected me of being Allisande Ingrey, that means Allisande Ingrey is real.

Is it possible for three generations of a family, all with such unusual names, to have no online presence whatsoever? I Googled the Ingreys and found nothing. Maybe I should ask around about them—in pubs, in the post office at Kingswear. Not everyone is on Facebook or has a Twitter following, especially once you leave London. I’m the living proof. I haven’t looked at my Twitter timeline or Facebook page since giving up my job—not once. If there are messages for me, I have no interest in receiving them.

I could have shut down all my social media accounts when I left London—could have and probably should have, but doing so would have meant going to each site at least once more, and I couldn’t face that. I knew exactly what sort of messages would be waiting for me, and how many there would be, because I’d dared to disagree, publicly, with the dominant view of an issue that, in a sane world, would never have been an issue at all. I didn’t want to see all the nonsense, and still don’t. I chose instead to pretend that Twitter and Facebook had ceased to exist.

Devon must be full of people who feel the same way about the internet and shun electronic devices in favor of fresh air, horseback riding and mulch.

“But if Perrine Ingrey committed a murder, then surely I’d find something,” I say to Figgy, who has opened his eyes.

He yawns.

I go back to the table, sit down and start to click on the search results for Professor Anne Donbavand. Here’s her page from the University of Exeter’s website. No photo, but a square in the top right-hand corner containing a head-and-shoulders silhouette template.
Damn.
I’d like to see her face. Would I take one look at it and think, “Oh yes—definitely an unhinged harrasser”? Or the opposite: “There’s no way someone with that face would be capable of doing anything malicious”?

Professor Donbavand has three areas of expertise: the history of Mesopotamian medicine, the Babylonian language, and Akkadian grammar and textual criticism.

Wow. As someone with only two specialties—doing Nothing, and the internal politics of Lockhart Gardner, the law firm in
The Good Wife
—I can’t help feeling comparatively inadequate.

“It’s got to be her making the calls,” I tell Figgy. “If I had to spend my days researching ‘Cuneiform Tablets on Eye Diseases,’ I’d soon be issuing hysterical death threats too.”

I’ve looked through three pages of results and haven’t found anything about Anne Donbavand that isn’t connected to her work. If I have to read any more about the various papers she’s presented at Assyriology conferences, I’ll be tempted to bite chunks out of the kitchen table. Her email address is freely given on her university page. Should I email her?

In my head, I hear Ellen wail, “No, Mum!”

I start again with an empty search box and type in “Donbavand Exeter.” Ellen said George’s dad works there too. Yes, here we are: Dr. Stephen Donbavand, Economics Department. In format, his page is the same as his wife’s, except he’s been considerate enough to add a photo.

This could be the man I saw on Lionel’s boat. I think it is. I didn’t see his face, only the back of his head, but this looks like him. He has the absent-mustache look that some men have: not a trace of facial hair, but an oddly curved upper lip that makes you think about a mustache even though you can’t see one.

Big smile. Big blue eyes. Glasses. He looks nice. Like a big, benign duck. Approachable.

I don’t care that Ellen will scream at me later. Before I go to Beaconwood for round three of trying to get the truth out of somebody there, I’m going to send George Donbavand’s parents an email. Both of them.

I go to my Gmail account and click on the “compose” button. An empty message box appears. “Dear Professor and Dr. Donbavand,” I type. “My name is Justine Merrison. I’m the mother of Ellen Colley, who is a pupil at Beaconwood and an acquaintance of your son George.” Better not put “friend,” given what Ellen’s told me. “Acquaintance” sounds formal and distant. No one could object to acquaintanceship.

Should I refer to George’s expulsion directly? Probably better not.

“I believe there’s been a kerfuffle recently about a coat that Ellen gave to George?” I write instead. “I’m having trouble getting any sense out of the school about what’s happened, and I’d find it really useful to talk to one or both of you.” I type out my home and mobile phone numbers and sign off, congratulating myself on my maturity in not adding, “Though of course you might know both these numbers already and be using them in a campaign of daily persecution.”

I copy and paste the Donbavands’ email addresses from Exeter University’s website, press “send,” then slam my laptop shut as if that will cancel out what I’ve done.

It was the right thing to do. Going to Beaconwood again is the right thing to do.

“The more determined everybody is to keep secrets from me, the more determined I am to find out, Figgy.”

He’s chasing his tail, going round and round in dizzy-making circles.

“Who are the Ingreys, though?” I sigh. “They can’t be real. Can they? If they’re real and they’re nowhere to be found on the internet, where did Ellen get them from?”

The beauty of Beaconwood’s grounds in the bright winter light is unwelcome today. These are gardens you should only be allowed to see, breathe in, walk through when you’re happy. It’s too jarring otherwise. I look at the lush, frost-speckled trees and berry-studded bushes and all I feel is anger and frustration because I can’t enjoy them. Ellen’s misery is weighing me down: the knowledge that it’s there, inside her, and I can’t take it out and demolish it. It’s like carting a heavy rock around in a bag, with no choice about when to put it down.

I hear a child’s voice behind me. “He’s cute. Is he an Airedale?”

I turn and see a boy dressed in a Beaconwood Juniors uniform. He’s about seven or eight, with auburn hair and missing front teeth. Like many children his age whose parents do their best but lead too-busy lives, he has a clean face and a dirty neck—a grime scarf, I used to call it when Ellen was little.

Imagine being too busy to make sure your child washes properly. Oh, wait: you don’t need to imagine it, do you? You lived it.

A black BMW screeches out of the school parking lot onto the road as if it’s auditioning for an Extra-Specially-Reckless Driving bumper episode of
Top Gear.
I catch a fleeting glimpse of a cufflinked shirtsleeve and a man’s hand, waving. The boy waves back. He’s more sensible than his father. They’re both late—for school and work respectively—but only the boy realizes there’s no point hurrying when you’ve already missed half the morning. Might as well take your time.

“He’s a Bedlington,” I say. I’m such a dog novice, I don’t know if that’s a commonly used abbreviation, or if I should have said “Bedlington terrier.” I’m guessing the short version’s acceptable, since I’m pretty sure an Airedale is also a kind of terrier.

“How old?”

“Eight weeks.”

“Called?”

“His full name’s Figgy Pudding—that was the name his breeder gave him—but we call him Figgy.”

I’m braced for mockery, but the boy nods. “We’ve got a bull terrier called Woody, but his real name’s Cantorella Jumping Jack Flash. That’s what it says on his pedigree certificate.”

“From the Kennel Club, right?” Olwen told me about this.

“Yes. If your dog’s a purebred you can get a certificate with all his ancestors on. Woody’s ancestors have won loads of prizes. Have Figgy’s?”

“I don’t know.” I ought to thank him for helping me avoid a chore. I was probably never going to send off for Figgy’s pedigree certificate anyway, but now I definitely won’t. I hate family trees too much.
Sorry, Figgs—even yours.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure.” The boy tries to look modest. “I’m an expert on dogs. Before we had Woody, we had—”

“It’s not about dogs. It’s about a person: George Donbavand. He was at Beaconwood until recently. A bit older than you, I think. Did you know him? What’s your name, by the way? I’m Justine.” I smile and give him my hand to shake.

“Harry Shelley.”

“Did you know George?”

“A bit. I’m not allowed to answer questions about him, though. They told us all not to. You’ll have to ask one of the teachers.”

So George is real.
The heavy rock I’m carrying is suddenly lighter. My daughter might be unhappy, but she is not delusional.

“I will. Thanks. Nice to meet you, Harry.”

He runs ahead up the path toward the school building. I try to follow, but Figgy has other ideas. He sticks his nose into the bottom of a hedge, where it stays for the next ten minutes, snuffling around.

I ring the bell and wait. When Helen Minchin appears, I don’t bother with pleasantries. “I’m coming in, so please don’t try to stop me.”

“There’s no need to be unpleasant.”

“I agree. No need to be pleasant, either. I was going for neutral-informative. How did I do?”

When I try to move forward, she moves to stand directly in front of me. “I’m afraid we don’t allow dogs in the building.”

“I know that’s not true, Helen. I’ve seen a large, white, curly-haired dog in here more than once.”

“You mean Pippin. Yes.” Helen’s mouth tightens. “That shouldn’t have happened. We’ve clamped down since then.”

“Ha! I hate to think what clamping down means in a school that magics children out of existence whenever the fancy takes it. Guess what? I bumped into another Beaconwood parent last night and she knew George Donbavand. She confirmed that he used to be a pupil here.” I don’t feel guilty about lying. Anyone who would prefer the truth had better start using it themselves.