Stage Fright (26 page)

‘What are you saying? That I left the door open? Or that he didn't swap Agnes for Grace? That I don't know my child?'

‘Hey, now.' He spread out his hands in a placatory gesture.

‘Or that I made it all up? That Kevin isn't a psychopath who might even have murdered his own wife and—'

‘What?' Joe stared at me. He was on the point of saying something else, but I didn't find out what it was, because just then the phone rang.

For the first couple of rings neither of us spoke. Then Joe said, ‘Shall I?'

‘I'd better…' I got up and handed Grace to Joe.

‘Dr James?' It was a masculine voice, cultured, pleasant, light in timbre.

‘Yes?'

‘We're doing a survey on behalf of the Law Society. Have you got time to answer a few questions?'

‘Sorry, no—'

‘Just one question then. It's this: have you made a will?'

‘What?' I thought I must have misheard.

‘Have you made a will?'

I gasped and hung up.

‘What the hell was that about?' Joe was standing beside me with Grace in his arms. She was trying to grab his hair.

‘I think it was a threat. Someone asking me if I'd made a will.'

‘Kevin?'

‘It didn't sound like him, but…' I was remembering the other phone calls: the man selling security, the double-glazing saleswoman with the husky voice, the man from the holiday company. They hadn't sounded like Kevin either, but perhaps … I didn't know which were real and which weren't.

‘I think perhaps this isn't the first time he's rung up pretending to be someone else. Look, I've got to ring the police. I should have done it before.'

‘You're going to have to explain how he got into the house. Think, Cass. He
must
have got his hands on a key somehow. Are you sure that you haven't ever done any of that good neighbour stuff, watering each other's house plants or whatever.'

Something stirred in my memory.

‘Wait a minute. There was a time a couple of months ago. Stephen and I went to visit his sister down in Devon for a weekend. Melissa fed Bill Bailey for me. But she gave the key back. And anyway, it's the kind that key-cutting places aren't supposed to reproduce.'

‘Hell, there are ways of getting round that. And don't forget. He's the one with the missing wife. The police will still be looking at him very carefully. Do you think he did kill her? Did he say that he had?'

Grace was stretching out her arms to me. Joe handed her to me. It was hard to remember what Kevin had said exactly. I had been so afraid for Grace. It was only much later that I reconstructed that conversation in detail.

‘I don't know. But I think he's capable of it. But it doesn't matter. I still have to ring the police.'

I found the card Tim Fisher had given me. Joe punched in the number, but when he handed the phone to me there was nothing. I joggled the receiver.

‘There's no dialling tone,' I said.

Joe took the phone from me and listened.

‘You know what? That sick bastard hasn't hung up. You won't be able to ring out until he does.'

‘I'll have to use my mobile.' My handbag was hanging on a chair. I fished about in it. ‘It's not there. I had it last night. What can have happened to it? Realization dawned. ‘Oh, no…' I looked at Joe.

He read my face. ‘Oh shit. Kevin's taken it, hasn't he?'

‘It doesn't matter, does it? You've got one?'

There was a strange expression on Joe's face.

‘What?' I said.

‘Yep, the battery's dead. I wanted to ring you earlier on. Wasn't able to.' He shook his head. ‘I don't believe this. Here we are in one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world and we can't make a goddamned phone call.'

‘One of us will have to drive over to the farm next door.'

‘You'd better go. I'll baby-sit. They know you – and anyway I wouldn't want to leave you on your own here with that madman on the loose. Just let me try the phone again.' He lifted it up and listened. He shook his head.

An unpleasant feeling was stealing over me. ‘Perhaps he is on his way over here right now? I mean he doesn't know that I'm not alone. I'm going to look out of the bedroom window to see if his car's still there.'

‘Good idea. And Cass – take a look in the mirror while you're up there.'

I went up to my bedroom, taking Grace with me. I propped her up on the pillows and gave her Woolly Bear to suck. I picked up the binoculars and focused them on to Journey's End. The car was still there, thank God. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. There were smudges of mascara around my eyes and I was very pale. I looked like Dusty Springfield. My hair was sticking out in all directions. No wonder Joe had been so taken aback by my appearance earlier on. I washed my face and put on a clean shirt.

Joe shouted up the stairs.

‘Cass, there's some weird shit going on. Is there an extension up there? Pick up the phone.'

I did, but I couldn't make sense of what I was hearing: a clattering, a banging, shouting. And then someone picked up the receiver and a hoarse voice said:

‘Cass, Cass. Please? Cass?' I dropped the receiver as if I'd been stung.

I yelled down the stairs for Joe and ran back to the window. I heard him thumping up the stairs as I raised the glasses back to my eyes and trained them on the windows of the cottage. The ivy around them sprang into Pre-Raphaelite detail. As I watched the back door opened. I gave a start that almost sent the binoculars flying. A figure came stumbling out of the back door, a figure that was wearing Kevin's jeans, but the face … it was just a red blob. I thought there was something wrong with the focus of the glasses. By the time I realized that there wasn't, he'd disappeared round the corner of the house.

Joe was standing beside me now.

‘What is it? What's happening?'

I gave him the binoculars. He lifted them and fiddled with the focus.

‘I can't see anything!'

‘Give them to me!' I snatched them back. I looked through them just in time to see the figure emerge from the other side of the house where the car was parked. He was staggering now. It was like watching a film without a soundtrack. I could see exactly what was happening but I couldn't hear a thing. Kevin was heading down the drive. He had a hand up to his throat and he was weaving erratically from side to side. I followed his progress as he reeled along the path. What was going on? He tripped and fell. He struggled to his feet and stretched out groping hands like someone playing blindman's buff. He disappeared behind a hedge and I could see just his head bobbing along.

‘What's going on?' Joe said. ‘Tell me!'

While the scene was unfolding before me I was mesmerized by it. When Joe spoke, suddenly I understood what was happening.

‘His allergy! He's gone into anaphylactic shock, but why hasn't he taken his adrenaline?' And then I knew why not. I clapped my hand to my thigh and felt the outline of the keys through the denim of my jeans. ‘Oh God! Oh God!'

I pulled the keys out of my pocket and held them up. ‘It must be in the car! And I've got his keys.'

Joe stared at the keys, then at me.

‘You want me to…? Is this for real? How do we know it's not another trick?'

How could we be sure? Somehow I was sure, but I didn't really know, did I? I looked into Joe's face. He held my gaze. I'd like to say I didn't hesitate at all, but that wouldn't be true. It was no more than a second, but it was still time to think what a contemptible shit Kevin was and that the world would be a better place without him. I looked at the keys. I registered the number of serrations, the texture of the leather fob, the name of the car-hire firm stamped in gold.

‘Your call,' Joe said.

‘Go!' I dropped the keys into his hand.

Joe thudded down the stairs behind me. I turned back to the window. As I raised the binoculars again, I heard the front door slam below me and then an engine revving. At first I couldn't work out where Kevin was. Then I spotted him. He was moving more slowly now and his head was only occasionally visible above the hedge. The blood was thudding in my ears, a rhythmic pounding. A moment later I realized that the sound wasn't in my head. I lowered the binoculars and looked in the direction of Ely. Far off down the line I could see the Ely to Cambridge train advancing. The gates! I hadn't closed them. I lifted the binoculars. Kevin had emerged from the cover of the hedgerow. He was tottering this way and that as if he were drunk, his hands now covering his face. Surely he could hear the train? But he was moving towards the railway line. I leaned out of the window and yelled a warning at the top of my voice. It was hopeless at that distance, but to do nothing was impossible. The train was thundering up the track. Kevin was swaying now. He fell down and began to crawl on his hands and knees up the slight rise that led to the gates.

‘No, no, no,' I screamed.

Kevin got to his feet again. He staggered and the momentum spun him round. He moved his head around uncertainly. The train was fifty yards down the track. I gripped the windowsill. He seemed suddenly to be conscious of danger; his head was moving from side to side, but he must have been dizzy and disorientated. He turned and stepped straight on to the line.

I heard the screech as the driver tried to brake in time.

At the very last moment I closed my eyes.

Chapter Eighteen

‘I'
VE
made you some tea,' Stan said.

I pulled myself up on the pillows. I was still groggy, but the long drugged sleep made me feel as if my brain had been washed clean.

‘That's sweet of you,' I said.

It was the following morning and I was in bed at home. The police had questioned me briefly after Kevin's death, then a doctor had arrived and given me a sedative. Joe had arrived on the scene of the accident shortly after it had happened, and he was in an even greater state of shock. He'd actually been kept overnight in hospital. So had the driver of the train. Stan had arrived soon after the police and had stayed to look after the children.

‘Stephen rang a couple of hours ago,' Stan said. ‘He wouldn't let me wake you. He was at the airport in LA, hoping to get a seat on standby. He'll ring again when he's managed to get a flight.'

‘That's great.' Hearing his name made me long to see him.

‘Could you eat something?' Stan asked.

‘Perhaps in a while, but first, I'd better feed Grace.' I was leaking milk and Grace in her carry cot beside the bed was making little mewling noises.

‘She won't be awfully hungry. I gave her some of those porridge oats a bit ago.' Stan lifted Grace up and handed her to me. She settled down at my breast and began to suckle. For me too, there was comfort in the familiar contact.

Stan sat on the edge of the bed. Neither of us spoke.

My brain was still working sluggishly, but after a bit it threw up a question.

‘Is Agnes OK?'

‘Oh, Cass – I was waiting to tell you. After you fell asleep last night, someone came from Social Services. They've taken her into care.'

‘Into care?' I was horrified. ‘But what about Melissa's sister? Couldn't she take her?'

‘She wants to. I rang up and told her about it. She was hopping mad. Talking about employing a lawyer.'

‘And there's still nothing from Melissa?' It wasn't really a question. I knew that Stan would have told me if there had been.

She shook her head.

‘I did hope that when she heard about Kevin…' I said.

‘Yes, so did I. But it's not too late. It only hit the late news last night. She might not see it until this morning.'

If she was still alive. That thought hung unspoken between us.

‘Cass?'

‘Mm?'

‘There's something else I've got to tell you. After you'd gone to bed last night, the police came back and they searched the house. One of them, a woman, even had a quick look round in here.'

‘Whatever for!'

‘I don't know. I didn't want to let them do it, but they had a warrant and everything. And, well, they took your computer away. I'm sorry.' Her face was creased with concern.

‘Don't look so worried. You couldn't help that. I just can't think why they want it.' I said. I stretched out my hand towards her. She put her hand in mine and I squeezed it. ‘I just so much appreciate you coming over like this. What's happening at the theatre?'

‘Don't you worry about that now. I'll have to go and see Richard in a bit and find out what's happening. But let me get you some breakfast first.'

She got up from the bed and went downstairs.

Stan was right. Grace wasn't very hungry. It was the contact she'd wanted as much as anything. When she stopped feeding, I got out of bed and went over to the window. The sight of the binoculars gave me a queasy feeling. I left them where they were. I didn't need them to see that Journey's End was still a focus of activity. There were several police cars and a white van parked around it. The previous day, before I'd been sedated, I hadn't been able to stop myself running obsessively through the events that had led to Kevin's death. That was beginning again: the horror of finding my baby gone, Kevin taunting me, the feel of the car keys as I snatched them up, the screeching of tyres, my arrival back at the Old Granary, Joe spooning food into Agnes's mouth, Kevin reeling out of the door of the Old Granary. I shook my head as if I could shake the memories loose.

I got back into bed with Grace and pulled the covers up. Stephen would be home soon. Things wouldn't seem so bad then. And yet he was still so far away. Perhaps it was best to think of the distance in time, not miles. Every minute that passed brought him closer. I tried to count the hours before he would be here, but I found it hard to calculate. The dregs of the sedative were still clogging my thoughts. Time and space, were they really the same thing? I couldn't quite think. If only I could go back to sleep until Stephen got here, just to escape back into oblivion once more. I thought perhaps I could.…