The Cruellest Game (25 page)

‘We need to take these coats and bits and pieces off him, wrap, say, one blanket round him, then wrap the bottles inside a second blanket like a cocoon,’ I said, not sure where I got
that idea from but it sounded like a good one.

PC Bickerton nodded his agreement and began to help me, holding the child while I did the wrapping. PC Jacobs reached forward with one hand to check the temperature of the hot-water bottles.
Only after he had felt them carefully did he gesture for me to go ahead.

What did he think I was going to do, for God’s sake? I wondered. Scald the little boy to death?

Once we had him securely and warmly wrapped I took the bowl of milk from the microwave, checked its temperature, and did my best to spoon-feed the child just a little of it. Fortunately his lips
were already slightly apart and I was able to insert the tip of the spoon inside his mouth quite easily. But at first he made no swallowing motion and I prayed I wouldn’t choke him. I tried
two or three spoonfuls and could see milk running out of the side of his mouth. I didn’t think I was being very successful and guessed I’d better stop. Then suddenly he coughed, and I
could have sworn I saw his little Adam’s apple move. I reached out to touch his face just as he started to cry again. Tears ran down his cheeks, which I thought were just a little warmer than
they had been earlier.

PC Bickerton was crouched by the chair, one arm around the little boy.

I looked across at him.

‘I think he’s coming back to us,’ I said.

PC Bickerton began to smile and so did I. I couldn’t help it. Neither of us could help it. There is something wonderful about watching life return to a human being, particularly one so
young as this.

Within seconds I realized that Bickerton and I were beaming at each other. At that moment we believed we had done this, that we were responsible for the child’s apparent recovery, and it
was a good feeling.

Then pandemonium broke loose.

An ambulance, a paramedic on a motorbike, and what felt like half the Devon and Cornwall police force arrived all at once.

It was DS Jarvis who led this medley of assorted medics and police officers into my kitchen. And if anybody had knocked on the front door, I certainly didn’t hear them. Jarvis, looking out
of breath and out of temper, stood in the doorway for a fraction of a second.

Then he bellowed his first set of instructions.

‘Bickerton, Jacobs, you bloody fools, get that woman away from that child.’

Strong arms pulled me upright and away from the little boy, whom, just a moment ago, I’d been so pleased to have helped.

Jarvis strode swiftly across the room and leaned close to the child.

‘That’s him all right,’ he said, as if there had ever really been any doubt. ‘That’s Luke Macintyre.’

I seemed to be surrounded by police officers of both sexes, in uniform and in plain clothes. And all of them made it quite clear exactly what they thought of me. They half pulled me out of my
own kitchen and into the sitting room. It seemed I was not even going to be allowed to remain in the same room as that poor maltreated child.

I realized for the first time, probably, just what terrible trouble I was in. And I had absolutely no idea what I could do about it, or who there was in all the world who might help me. Now,
surely, my life was truly over.

It seemed an awfully long time before anyone would speak to me.

‘I can explain, you know,’ I said to the woman police community support officer who seemed to have been deputed to keep an eye on me, along with another, male, PCSO I could just see
standing in the hallway outside the sitting-room door.

What did they think I was going to do now, for goodness’ sake? Did they really think I might make a run for it? Did they really think I was that crazy? Yes, actually, they did, I told
myself. And that was pretty frightening.

‘You’ll have to wait for DS Jarvis,’ said the woman PCSO. She had a pale elfin face and wispy blonde hair protruded from beneath her cap. She was very pretty. Obliquely, I
found myself wondering how she got on with the boys back at the station.

Sexist, stupid, and quite bizarre under the circumstances. I supposed I was no longer really capable of rational thought, so the remains of my brain kept dashing off at tangents.

‘He won’t be long, I’m sure,’ she said.

I nodded, defeated.

I could hear snatches of conversation from the kitchen. All the doors seemed to be standing open. DS Jarvis and PCs Jacobs and Bickerton were talking in loud, clear voices.

‘You should have seen her, sarge, tearing across the lawn, half naked, with the little lad in her arms. Gave us quite a turn, I can tell you. Just couldn’t take it in for a minute or
two.’

That was PC Jacobs, his sharp, rather high-pitched tones, with just the merest hint of a Devon accent, quite unmistakable.

‘Ummm. Lucky you came along when you did.’

DS Jarvis. A more modulated, perhaps better educated voice, lower-pitched.

‘Yep. It was only a routine follow-up to her call-out. Not that we’ve ever believed a word about these mystery intruders and all that, have we, Ricky?’

‘Well, no. Probably not. But we certainly weren’t expecting anything like this, that’s for sure.’

That was PC Bickerton speaking. Higher-pitched again, but more thoughtful and measured.

‘I wonder where she was planning to take the lad.’ DS Jarvis again.

‘Or what she was going to do to him, more to the point.’ PC Jacobs.

‘Look, we don’t know that she was going to do anything to him.’ Those measured tones of PC Bickerton. ‘She told us she just found him in the stable. By chance, like.
It’s possible she could be telling the truth, you know.’

‘Yeah, and pigs might fly.’ PC Jacobs.

‘She was keen enough to try to revive the boy.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything.’

‘But why would she take a child like that? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It does to me, Bickerton.’ DS Jarvis again. ‘Pretty straightforward, I’d say. She lost her own son and decided to nick somebody else’s.’

‘In that case, why didn’t she look after the child properly? Why on earth would she strip him, tie him up and leave him in a freezing stable?’

DS Jarvis’s response was swift. ‘Because she’s off her trolley, Bickerton. But then, we’d already half guessed that, hadn’t we?’

‘Yeah, probably thinks she’s the Virgin Mary. Soon be Christmas after all.’ Jacobs, laughing snidely at his own joke. Or what he presumably regarded as a joke. I could hardly
believe my ears. Even DS Jarvis seemed to think the constable had gone too far.

‘That’s enough, Jacobs,’ he said.

I glanced at the pretty woman PCSO. If she realized that I was listening to every word, she gave no sign. I suspected she might be the sort you get in all walks of life who do what they are told
and no more.

At that moment two paramedics carrying a small stretcher holding Luke Macintyre, now wrapped in a silver thermal blanket, went past in the hallway on their way to the front door. And within
seconds a trio of blue-suited Scenes of Crime Officers walked by in the other direction.

‘I see you buggers have been trampling over everything as usual,’ said a strong male voice. ‘Now, please everyone, get the fuck out of my crime scene!’

‘We did have to ensure the safety of a small child, you arrogant bastard,’ said DS Jarvis.

Now I was listening to a row between two different sides of the police force, and it didn’t sound like friendly banter to me. I glanced at the pretty PCSO again. As if reading my mind, she
turned on her heel and closed the sitting-room door.

Whatever was going on outside was now just an incomprehensible hum. In some ways, in view of what I’d overheard, this could have been regarded as something of a relief. But at least
I’d learned exactly what the police attitude to me was. And I had a feeling I was going to need all the knowledge I could acquire if I was going to survive this. Knowledge is strength, Gran
used to say.

Just a few minutes later the sitting-room door swung open again and in strode Jarvis with Jacobs and Bickerton at his heel. My three favourite policemen, though I thought Ricky Bickerton
wasn’t too bad.

I stood up and braced myself for an onslaught. I’d used the time alone in the sitting room to sort out my thoughts as best I could and to work out what I was going to say.

But I was completely thrown by DS Jarvis’s opening remark. It was an absolute corker.

‘Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t arrest you, Mrs Anderson?’ he enquired.

I just stared at him.

‘All right, first of all, where were you on Thursday afternoon? Jarvis asked.

‘I was here. I was teaching in the morning, at Okehampton College. And I got back just after 1.30, I think. I was here for the rest of the day.’

‘Were you alone in the house?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what time did you leave the college?’

‘About one. It’s around half an hour’s drive.’

‘So as Luke was taken at approximately 3 p.m. on Thursday you would have had plenty of time to get to Exeter, wouldn’t you?’

My head was spinning. I could hardly believe what was happening.

‘But I didn’t go to Exeter. I didn’t abduct the boy. You can’t seriously be thinking of arresting me. I haven’t done anything.’

‘We seem to be hearing that quite a lot from you right now, Mrs Anderson,’ Jarvis continued.

‘I can’t help it that these things keep happening to me. And I can’t explain it.’

‘Right,’ said Jarvis. ‘But presumably you can tell me how you came to discover little Luke Macintyre.’

‘I’ve already told PCs Jacobs and Bickerton,’ I said.

‘Yes, and now perhaps you’ll be kind enough to tell me,’ said the detective sergeant, speaking with deliberately over-emphasized patience. ‘I am the officer in charge
around here, I believe.’

I ignored the sarcasm and began to relate the whole story again, about Florrie behaving strangely and leading me to the stable, then hearing sounds from behind the woodpile, and the shock of
discovering the naked child there.

‘What about before that?’ asked Jarvis.

‘What do you mean before? There was no before.’

‘There most certainly was, Mrs Anderson. The medical team have already told me, and it’s pretty damned obvious to anyone, isn’t it, in this weather, that if little Luke had
been in that outbuilding for three nights, or even for one night, the boy would be dead by now.’

Jarvis paused, as if for dramatic effect.

‘But I don’t know where he was before,’ I said. ‘The first time I clapped eyes on the poor child was earlier this afternoon, just before your two constables
arrived.’

‘Look, it is a medical fact that if the boy had been in that old stable for more than a few hours, and certainly if he’d been there overnight, then he could not have survived. You do
accept that, do you not?’

I felt that any answer I gave could only be the wrong one. So I said nothing.

DS Jarvis had no intention of letting me off the hook. ‘Come on, Mrs Anderson. I need you to reply to my question.’

‘Yes, all right then,’ I said. ‘Of course, I accept that.’

‘In which case, Mrs Anderson, you are very lucky not to be looking at a murder charge, aren’t you?’

‘But I didn’t do—’ I began.

‘And indeed still might be looking at one, the state that poor child is in.’

‘He seemed so much better, though. Surely he is going to be all right, isn’t he?’ Rather to my surprise, I found that, for a moment anyway, I was every bit as concerned about
little Luke Macintyre as I was about myself.

‘You never know with hypothermia,’ said Jarvis. ‘And this is a three-year-old child we’re talking about. There’s nothing of him. Let’s just say you would be
prudent, yes prudent, to be anxious about his survival. Very anxious.’

‘Of course I’m anxious about the poor little boy’s survival,’ I said. ‘Anyone would be. Particularly a mother.’ I half choked on the word. ‘But it
doesn’t mean I had anything to do with what happened to him. I deny that absolutely.’

‘Do you, Mrs Anderson?’ continued the detective sergeant. ‘In which case perhaps you have some idea who may have brought the child here and abandoned him to freeze to death in
your stable. And, indeed, who may have been responsible for allegedly entering your house in the middle of the night and then trashing the place?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Of course I don’t know, but . . . but there might be something. There might be someone . . .’

I hesitated. Well, I’d been planning to report Michael Shaw, hadn’t I? Just not under such disadvantaged circumstances.

‘I learned something earlier today that you should know about,’ I continued.

I told him then, to the best of my ability, about Sue Shaw’s condition and everything the Shaws had told me.

‘So you see, DS Jarvis, Michael Shaw is a man with a temper. He was angry enough to come here and confront my son on the day he died. He could have been responsible for Robbie’s
death for all I know . . .’

‘Mrs Anderson,’ DS Jarvis interrupted. ‘It is true that the inquest into your son’s death has yet to be held, but those of us involved in the case have little or no doubt
that he took his own life. And now, thanks to you, it looks as if we know what drove him to do so. Your son had just found out that he’d got his girlfriend pregnant. He was fifteen years old.
He couldn’t cope, he felt he couldn’t go on.’

‘And that’s it, is it?’ I shouted, aware how unwise it was for me to raise my voice, but unable to help myself. ‘Are you not going to investigate Michael Shaw?’

‘Mrs Anderson, we are conducting an inquiry into, at the very least, the attempted murder of a child. I can assure you that all necessary action will be taken, and that no information we
acquire will be overlooked.’

‘But don’t you see,’ I went on, ‘if Michael Shaw was angry enough to come storming around here to confront Robbie the way he admits he did, he might have done almost
anything to seek revenge against me and my family. Mightn’t he? Anything.’

‘Yes, well, we will look into what you have told us. But could I ask you, Mrs Anderson, do you really think it is likely that the man would have abducted a child and left it to die to seek
revenge against you?’