Just What Kind of Mother Are You? (24 page)

I’m still shaky and jittery and can’t quite trust my limbs to do what they’re supposed to do. When I bend over to soap my lower legs I almost slip and fall.

Our shower is an over-the-bath type, which, although useful for cleaning off the dogs when they’ve been rolling in fox shit, means we don’t have those non-slip ridges you get in a shower cubicle. And right now I could really do with some. I ditched the bath mat last month when I noticed the underside was starting to look like a biology experiment.

‘Did Fergus see Kate unconscious?’ Joe asks me.

‘I managed to keep him upstairs until the paramedics took her.’

‘Poor kid. He’ll grow up weirder than he is already.’

‘Joe!’
I admonish.

‘What? You’re the one’s always saying he’s strange.’

‘Well, he is … but still.’ I turn off the water. ‘Pass me the towel, will you?’

Joe stands, moves his eyes up and down my naked body. ‘Looking good, Lise,’ he says quietly, and holds the towel out wide for me to step into. Then he wraps me up and kisses my
wet forehead. ‘Don’t you ever go doing anything like that,’ he says. ‘I’d die without you, Lise. We all would.’

‘Not planning on it,’ I say, and I kiss him on the mouth. His body responds immediately – as it always does – and he whispers, unexpectedly, ‘You up for some?’

‘There’s not time—’

‘There is.’

‘It’d feel wrong, me and you doing it in the bathroom while Kate’s having her stomach pumped.’

‘We don’t need to tell Kate,’ he says, his breath warm inside my mouth. ‘Besides, you saved her life this morning. I’m sure she’d forgive us … Really, she owes you, if you think about it—’

He slides his fingers beneath the towel. They come to rest under the creases of my buttocks.

‘But she wouldn’t have
taken
the pills if Lucinda was still here, and Joe, that’s all my fault, and—’

I’m becoming more breathless by the second, despite my protestations.

‘I need this, baby,’ he says, pulling me in hard towards him as the towel falls to the floor. He slips his tongue inside my lips. I’m pressing against him.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay, but we need to be quick.’

‘Quick,’ he replies, undoing the belt to his jeans, ‘I can do.’

He turns me around so I’m facing the bath. He lifts my right leg so my foot is balanced on the edge of the tub, and, because I know I’m not quite tall enough for this position, I lean my weight backwards. Then I wriggle my left foot up on to the top of his steel-toecapped boot.

I feel him inside me and exhale. Sigh out and almost collapse against him. The relief I feel is overwhelming, and I whimper as he holds me firm. Thank God he still wants me. Thank God he wants me after what I’ve done to him.

A few moments later, and it occurs to me that, from a certain angle I must resemble a child, a small child who’s learning to dance by placing her feet on top of her parent’s shoes.

Well, kind of like that, anyway.

I walk downstairs, thighs like jelly, as if I’ve done two hours on the leg-extension machine at the gym, and the phone is ringing. I pick up just as my voice kicks in on the answer machine … ‘Hello we’re not at home right now, if you’d like to—’

‘Hello?’ I say, out of breath, flustered. ‘I’m here—’

‘Lisa, I’ve just tried you at work, but they said you weren’t in yet.’

My mother.

She won’t ring my mobile because of the cost. She’d rather call everyone she knows trying to locate me than pay twenty pence a minute to BT.

‘I’m late because—’

‘Never mind,’ she says, cutting me off. ‘Did you hear? They’ve arrested Guy Riverty, and—’

‘
What
?’

She enunciates slowly as if the line’s bad. ‘They … have … arrested …’

‘Yes, yes, I heard you. Why? Why have they arrested him?’

She takes a deep drag on her cigarette. The first words of her sentence come out strained as she exhales and speaks at the same time. ‘I don’t know that part. Marjorie Clayton was delivering half a pig to the neighbours opposite and she saw him being taken in. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s because they think he has something to do with his daughter’s disappearance.’

‘No, that can’t be right, I—’

She interrupts again, just as I’m about to tell her about
finding Kate this morning. ‘It’s
always
the father,’ she says, a triumphant tone to her voice. ‘I don’t know why the police didn’t take him in to start with, instead of wasting time when they could’ve been getting on with—’ Her voice trails off.

She’s no idea what the police could have been getting on with, but that won’t stop her having an opinion about it.

‘Christ!’ I say. Then I hear Joe coming down the stairs.

‘What’s happened?’ he mouths, still doing up his trousers. His face has that dazed look of deep contentment that only comes from sex. I could probably ask him to do anything right now and he’d agree to it. I suppose he already has.

My mother is in mid-sentence, ‘One second, Mum, Joe’s here—’ I cover over the mouthpiece with my hand. ‘They’ve arrested Guy,’ I tell him, and his eyebrows shoot up.

Meanwhile, my mother’s saying: ‘Joe? What’s he doing at home? Why’s he not at work?’

‘He’s just not,’ I snap. ‘What else did Marjorie say?’

Marjorie farms in Troutbeck. She’s one of those people who is always complaining about how tough it is for farmers these days but manages to keep a brand-new seven-seater Land Rover Discovery on the road easily enough. It’s an odd pairing – her and my mother. My mother truly
is
skint, but she believes Marjorie’s claims of living in poverty without question.

My mother says, ‘Marjorie said Guy Riverty looked mad about it.’

‘He would … Christ!’ I exhale, shaking my head.

‘What?’ mouths Joe.

I cover the mouthpiece again. ‘He’s cross,’ I whisper, and Joe rolls his eyes like,
No shit, Lise
.

‘So that wife of his is not going to be best pleased,’ says my mother.

‘She took an overdose this morning. I was the one who found her.’

My mother gasps. After a second she says, ‘Well, it must be true, then.’

‘What must be true?’

‘That he’s abducted his own daughter. Why else would she try and kill herself?’

‘Perhaps because another girl went missing yesterday? Perhaps because she then thought her daughter would not be coming back?’ My tone is abrasive. ‘Don’t be so quick to judge, Mum.’

‘She wouldn’t leave her son without a mother,’ she replies tartly.

‘How do you know what she’d do? How would any of us know?’

‘She just wouldn’t do it.’

‘I know
I
wouldn’t do it, but I don’t know what
she’d
do, and neither do you. Quite honestly, you acting all gossipy is really the last thing I need to be listening to.’

‘Why was it you who found her and not her husband?’ she asks.

I pause. Reluctantly, I tell her, ‘Because he wasn’t there.’

‘Where was he?’

‘I don’t know.’

My mother scoffs. ‘Well, if you want my advice, I wouldn’t be going anywhere near that house. And I
certainly
wouldn’t be going around there alone. You don’t know what they might be hiding.’ When I don’t comment, she adds, ‘Anyway, Marjorie says that Guy Riverty is rude and arrogant.’

‘Marjorie is rude and arrogant.’

‘I’m going.’

She clicks off and I close my eyes. I can’t seem to think properly, can’t seem to organize my thoughts into separate, manageable portions. It barely seems possible.

Kate has overdosed.

Guy has been arrested.

Lucinda is still missing.

31

D
C J
OANNE
A
SPINALL
takes a moment to get herself together. She enters the interview room, her face blank, her demeanour one of calm efficiency. DC Colin Cunningham’s already in there with Guy Riverty, but it is she who will be leading the questioning.

She sits down opposite Guy and feels a pang of irritation as she has to adjust her left bra strap. It’s beginning to chafe on an already broken bit of skin, and it’s cutting in badly.

She feels she’s breaking the professional air she’s tried to cultivate – and she’s right. Flicking her right index finger deep inside her blouse, she sees a shadow of distaste fall across Guy Riverty’s face. He looks away.

Joanne is about to feel this insult viscerally but then reminds herself that
of course
Guy Riverty would be sickened by the sight of her. He likes his women thin. Thin and around thirteen years of age.

For the first time since this investigation started, Joanne wonders if it’s a coincidence that his wife, Kate, is also incredibly skinny, with the body of a child.

Joanne lays her notes down in front of her and has to suppress a smile. She’s remembering a wickedly cruel joke she heard about Victoria Beckham the other day, along the lines of ‘Victoria is so thin she can’t have the bath water too hot or else she turns into stock.’

Guy Riverty sits back in his chair, one foot crossed on to the opposite knee, trying his best to look bored and irritated.

His mane of hair is pushed back from his face, flopping over to one side. It’s a pretty-boy hairdo that Guy’s too old for but which Joanne imagines is still effective in pulling a certain kind of woman.

He’s wearing the same clothes Joanne saw him in that morning: cream cords with a black, fine-knit turtleneck and black jodhpur boots. His jacket is slung over the back of his chair. The image would be bordering on Simon Templar if Guy weren’t just a little bit scruffy around the edges. Joanne’s gaze rests on something red and sticky on his right thigh, something she doesn’t like the look of.

Guy’s manner has totally changed since two days ago, when Joanne met him for the first time. Then he was fidgety, jumpy, but absolutely quick to help out. Anything at all to find his daughter. Joanne had thought at the time that if she were to make a loud, sudden noise, Guy Riverty was liable to shoot three feet into the air like a startled cat. He was full of bristling energy.

Now, as she looks across the table to him, he’s exuding a relaxed, cocky air, a manner that’s atypical of a person about to be questioned. This unnerves Joanne slightly, puts her more on guard.

‘So, Mr Riverty, hello.’

He lifts his palm in a sarcastic acknowledgement of her presence while at the same time keeping his face expressionless.

‘You’ve had a drink, I trust?’

‘A coffee,’ he says, yawning. ‘I’ve had a crappy cup of coffee.’

‘You’ll have to excuse us,’ she says, ‘we’re all out of skinny lattes at the moment. Now, you are not under arrest, Mr Riverty, but you do understand that this interview is being recorded?’

He nods and shoots her a contemptuous look. ‘Why am I here
wasting time with you when my wife is fighting for her life in hospital?’

Joanne takes the lid off her pen and leafs purposely through the pages in front of her. Without glancing up, she says, ‘I believe you’ve been told that your wife – Mrs Riverty – is going to make a complete recovery, and is not
in fact
fighting for her life.’ She looks up. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine.’ She smiles. ‘Now, if we can start with—’

‘What happens if I refuse to answer your questions?’

‘Then we won’t be able to eliminate you from this inquiry as quickly as you require in order for you to see your wife in hospital. Or for you to return home to take care of your son. It would be a shame if he were to be confused again by a change in arrangements, wouldn’t you agree? He’s been through a lot these past couple of days … A quiet lad, isn’t he?’

Guy moves his eyes slowly up and down Joanne’s body. ‘Get on with it, then.’

Joanne smiles breezily. ‘Do you have any objection to us taking your mobile phone from you?’

He reaches into his jacket pocket and slides it across the desk. ‘For the purposes of the tape,’ Joanne says, ‘Mr Riverty is handing his phone to DC Aspinall.’

‘And no objection to us searching your house?’

He shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says.

‘Good. Right. Let’s begin.’

Guy spreads his hands wide. ‘Go ahead.’

Pen poised, Joanne asks, ‘Would you say that you have a happy marriage, Mr Riverty?’

‘What?’

‘A happy marriage. You and Mrs Riverty?’

He stares at her. ‘None of your fucking business.’

‘Do you love your wife?’

‘What’s this got to do with anything?’

Joanne waits. Holds his stare.

‘Yes, I love her,’ he snaps. ‘Of course I love her.’

‘What reason can you give as to why your wife tried to commit suicide this morning?’

He pushes his chair back, makes to stand.

‘I’m not answering this bullshit.’

Joanne is unrelenting. ‘I wouldn’t be wasting my time asking irrelevant questions, Mr Riverty. My time is as precious as yours. More so, in fact. Particularly when two girls’ lives are at stake … Now, if you wouldn’t mind—’

‘What has this got to do with finding my daughter?’

Joanne arches an eyebrow at him. ‘Answer the question, please.’

‘I’ve no idea why she did it,’ he says. ‘She didn’t leave a note. I think you need to ask
her
why she did it.’

‘I intend to. But, first, I’d like your thoughts on the matter. Had you been arguing at all?’

‘Yes, but that’s not why she did it.’

‘So you
do
know why she did it?’

‘I didn’t say that. I said it wasn’t because we were arguing. We’re married, we argue. Our daughter is gone. It’s hell. We’re out of our minds with worry. It would be weird if
we didn’t
argue. Kate is a mess, she can’t cope—’ Then he shakes his head. ‘What am I saying? Naturally, she can’t cope – who would cope in this situation? Nobody.’

‘Why do you think we brought you in for questioning?’

He shrugs. ‘I have no idea what the police are thinking. But my best guess is that you have no fucking idea where my daughter is, nor where this other girl is, and you’re desperate. You need to be seen to be doing something—’

Joanne flips two pages along in the notes. Tries to cover the fact that, yes, they are getting desperate. ‘Your wife supplied your alibi for your whereabouts yesterday afternoon, yes?’