The Cruellest Game (3 page)

She didn’t ask me where anything was, and it didn’t occur to me to assist by telling her. When she put a mug in front of me I obediently sipped from it.

The contents tasted as if at least six spoonfuls of sugar had been added. That old chestnut about sugar being good for shock. I hated sugar in my tea. Even at that moment, the most terrible of
my life, I remembered that I hated sugar in my tea.

PC Cox pointed to my abandoned shopping on the worktop and asked if she should put the food in the fridge before it spoiled, and clear away the ice cream which had started to melt and form a
gooey puddle. I didn’t bother to answer, but she did so anyway.

Sally returned carrying a red and black bag from which she removed some packets of assorted dressings, and began covering the burned areas of my feet with practised efficiency.

‘You’ll need to go to your local medical centre in a few days, have that lot checked,’ she instructed.

I nodded vaguely. I actually had no interest whatsoever in the state of my feet.

PC Cox also made tea for Sally the paramedic and for herself, mumbling something about the boys being big and ugly enough to get their own when they came downstairs, and then sat at the table
opposite me.

‘You must call me Janet,’ she said. ‘And I’m just here to help as much as I can. If there’s anything I can do, just shout.’

I stared at her.
Yes, you can bring my son back to me,
I wanted to scream.
You can bring my beautiful boy back to life.

She wriggled a bit under my gaze. Bizarrely, I wondered what it must feel like to be in her situation with a complete stranger.

She asked about my husband. I explained that he was away working in the North Sea and that I had so far been unable to contact him directly. But I had emailed him an urgent message.

‘Look, you should have someone with you,’ she said. ‘Someone close. Is there a relative you could get round, or a friend?’

I shook my head again. My mother had died when I was a child, the grandmother who had more or less brought me up had also died many years previously, and I had no brothers or sisters.

The only relative I had left really was my dad, who lived in the village of Hartland, on the North Devon coast, more than an hour away. He worshipped his grandson, and was notoriously bad in a
crisis. The next nightmare on my agenda would be to tell him about Robbie. Having him anywhere near would be even worse.

There were people in the village I vaguely knew and passed the time of day with, and the parents of some of the other pupils in Robbie’s school, but none of them could remotely be regarded
as friends.

We were a tight-knit happy little band, our tiny family. At least I had always thought so until that dreadful evening. Even Robbie had few friends, as far as I knew, anyway, and certainly none
that he brought home with him.

Robert did not encourage visitors, not when he was at home certainly, although he tolerated occasional visits from my father with reasonable grace. And he didn’t lay down any rules for
when he was away or anything like that. He just wanted us to be busy and happy, he said.

‘But when I’m home I do like my family all to myself,’ he would tell me and Robbie repeatedly. ‘In our own bit of paradise.’

‘A neighbour, perhaps?’ persisted Janet Cox.

I continued to stare at her and gestured out of the window at the far end of the kitchen, where the lights had not been switched on. You could still see through it quite well. Although darkness
had fallen, the sky remained as clear as I had earlier thought it would. Dartmoor stretched before us, silver and black, lit now by the moon and the stars, its distinctively jagged tors bisecting
an eerily bright night sky like something out of the Tate Modern.

‘Our nearest neighbours are five miles away,’ I said. ‘We’re not exactly in and out of each other’s houses.’

PC Cox, whom I somehow could not even think of let alone address as Janet, looked perplexed.

‘There must be someone . . .’ she said. ‘We can’t leave you on your own. The whole team will be going soon. I suppose I may be able to stay for a bit, I’ll have to
call the boss . . .’

There was something annoying about Janet Cox, her incongruously fluffy blonde hair brushing the stiff collar of her uniform, her eager determination to help. She had rather more the manner of a
harassed social worker than a police officer.

It was strange, perhaps, that I could even be aware of such stuff at such a time, but I was.

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly. I’m sure my husband will soon be in touch.’

‘But he’s in the middle of the North Sea, isn’t he? He still has to get to the mainland.’

‘They’ll chopper him back. They’ll get him here fast. They do in an emergency. Look, he’ll call any minute, I’m sure.’

Actually, I wasn’t sure at all. Robert and I had spoken early that morning, before I left for school, via Skype. I thought he’d mentioned something about being on a late shift,
though I wasn’t sure of anything that day. He would probably only be able to check his emails at the end of his shift, or perhaps on his break, though that was less likely. The reality was
that I had little idea when he would call.

‘Don’t you have some kind of emergency contact number?’ asked PC Cox.

I glanced at her in surprise. She had her uses after all. I did have an emergency number for Amaco Limited UK. Indeed, it was me who’d insisted Robert gave me one. Just in case I ever
really needed him in a hurry. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it, but then, I was barely capable of any kind of thought. And, of course, I’d never used it before. Nor
indeed envisaged any kind of emergency as extreme as this one.

I stood up. Robert had written the Aberdeen number on a piece of card and I’d pinned it to the cork noticeboard on the kitchen wall by the house phone. As was my habit. It was more or less
buried by other more recently attached bits of card and scraps of paper. I retrieved it. Head office, human resources department. A direct line, Robert had told me, with a link to a 24/7 duty
officer, and they can always get through to us on the rigs if they need to.

He’d joked with me that the riggers called them inhuman resources. I wondered if Robert and I would ever share a joke again.

I dialled the Aberdeen number. All I got was the number unobtainable tone. Janet Cox looked at me enquiringly.

I shrugged. ‘It was probably five or six years ago when Robert gave me this,’ I said. ‘Maybe the number’s changed.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Janet Cox vaguely. ‘It was Amaco you said, didn’t you?’

I nodded.

She used her mobile to dial directory enquiries, asked for Amaco UK in Aberdeen, scribbled the number on the shopping list which I’d earlier dropped onto the worktop along with my bags of
shopping, and began to dial again.

‘It’ll be out of office hours now,’ I said.

‘Yes, but this is the oil industry . . .’ she began, then stopped to listen.

‘There’s a recorded message giving a number for a duty officer,’ she said, as she wrote that number down.

I used the house phone again to dial the new number, explained briefly to the duty officer who I was, that I had a terrible family emergency, and that I needed desperately to get through to my
husband Robert Anderson.

There was no urgency at all in the young male voice at the other end of the line. Indeed, it seemed to me, not even much interest.

No, I didn’t know which platform Robert was on. I hadn’t realized it mattered. I’d never had reason to ask, not before. Anyway, as a drilling engineer didn’t he move from
rig to rig?

I was pretty certain the voice sighed.

‘Anderson, did you say? I’ll need to go through our lists and cross-refer. It may take a minute.’

I thanked him, though for what exactly I was unsure.

‘Oh here, I have him,’ said the voice, returning quite quickly. ‘Anderton, Rob. A derrickman. He’s out on Jocelyn, that’s Moray Firth—’

‘No,’ I said, the frustration of it all adding to my distress. ‘Anderson. A N D E R S O N. And it’s Robert. He’s never called Rob. He’s one of your senior
engineers.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t find an Anderson at all—’

‘But he’s been with your company for nearly twenty years,’ I interrupted, wishing I could reach down the phone line and slap the owner of this still disinterested-sounding
voice.

‘All right, hold on then. I’ll have to check the complete database . . .’

I waited for what seemed like for ever. Then my mobile rang. Robert’s Skype number flashed at me from the display panel.

I ended the call to Amaco without bothering to explain or even to say goodbye. In any case, once again, there was no one on the other end of the line.

‘Robert,’ I said. ‘Oh, my darling Robert . . .’

I stopped speaking abruptly simply because I was unable to continue. I just could not find the words. I glanced across at PC Cox. She was looking down, fiddling with her mobile phone, unwilling,
I thought, to meet my eye. Distancing herself. I didn’t blame her. There was, in any case, no way she could help me with this.

Down the line I could hear Robert’s anxious voice.

‘What is it, Marion? Whatever is wrong? Marion? Marion?’

‘I-I don’t know how to tell you,’ I said eventually.

‘Tell me what?’

‘I-I c-can’t, I don’t know how to—’

‘Just tell me.’ There was already a desperate note in his voice.

‘It . . . it’s Robbie,’ I said.

I heard his sharp intake of breath.

‘Yes?’

I think Robert knew before I spoke again. Finally I just blurted it out. There were, after all, no words in the English language that could soften the blow.

‘Our beautiful son is dead,’ I said. ‘Robbie is dead.’

There seemed to be a very long silence.

‘What? B-but how, what . . . what happened?’

‘It’s just so so awful—’ I began.

‘Was there an accident? Was it his bike? The car? Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m all right. But no, no, worse than any of that. So much worse. I came home and found him . . .’

I stopped again.

‘What do you mean, you found him?’ queried Robert. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘H-he was hanging, hanging from the beam in his room.’

‘Oh my God,’ Robert said.

I told him all of it then, in a jumbled burst.

Robert seemed as unable to take it in as I had been.

‘Suicide?’ he asked eventually, his voice high and squeaky, not sounding like him at all. But then, I already knew I didn’t sound like me.

I mumbled something incoherent.

‘It can’t be suicide, it can’t be,’ said Robert, suddenly stronger, almost authoritative. ‘Why on earth would Robbie want to kill himself?’

‘I don’t know.’ I half whispered the words. ‘I don’t know. It’s all so awful. And then I couldn’t get you. And I so needed you. I called Aberdeen. They
didn’t even seem able to find you. Why couldn’t they find you, Robert?’

‘Oh, Marion, our business is like every other – they’ve sacked half the proper people and taken on children for a fraction of the wages. Especially in areas like human
resources. They’re all worse than useless nowadays . . . Dammit, Marion, does it matter?’

‘No, no, of course not. Just come home, Robert. Come home quickly.’

‘Yes. Oh God, yes. Straight away.’

There was a pause. I could hear Robert’s voice, as if in the distance, and other people talking, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

Then Robert spoke directly into the phone again.

‘Look, Marion, it’s dark already. You know the new regulations. They don’t fly from our rigs after dark. Health and safety. Plus one of the transporter choppers is out of
action at the moment and the other one’s on some op for head office. I don’t think I’ll be able to get out until the morning. Anyway I’ve already missed the last flight from
Aberdeen. I’m so sorry . . .’

I hadn’t thought it possible to feel any more desolate than I already did. But I realized that even now I was looking forward to the comfort of having my husband with me. Robert was a calm
man. A typical dour Scotsman my dad had once said, though that had been when Robert had done something, I could not remotely remember what, to annoy him.

I didn’t know if Robert would be able to be his usual calm self, nor indeed whether he would have the inner strength to be able to offer anyone any comfort right now, even me. But I did so
desperately want him with me.

‘Please, just get here as fast as you can,’ I said.

‘I’ll do my absolute damnedest and I’ll call you as soon as I have some news,’ he replied.

We said an awkward goodbye, almost like strangers, and I clicked my phone off.

PC Cox had unfortunately got the gist.

‘Probably won’t be able to get back tonight, then?’ she said.

I nodded, feeling numb.

‘Are you sure there’s no one else who could come over? Just to be with you until he arrives?’

She wasn’t going to give up, was she? I racked my brains.

Suddenly it dawned on me. There was Bella. She seemed to have become fond of Robbie too. She had often actively sought out his company and, unusually, as our son had inherited his father’s
lack of interest in outsiders, Robbie had seemed to quite like having her around. Not that she had been to the house many times. But more than anyone else, that was for certain.

Bella was, I suppose, what people nowadays call ‘my new best friend’. I’d only known her for just over six months. We’d met on Exmouth beach at the end of April just
before the summer dog-walking restrictions came into force. I’d had to take Robbie into Exeter to buy some stuff for school which we couldn’t get locally, and as it had been a decent
day we’d loaded Florrie into the back of the car and driven on to Exmouth to take her for a run. She was not a young dog, but she still loved to scamper about on the sand and play in the sea,
jumping over the waves.

Bella had been throwing a ball for her own dog, a spaniel cross-breed called Flash, and at one point had accidentally thrown Flash’s tennis ball straight at Florrie. Florrie had gratefully
accepted the gift, taken it in her mouth, lain down on the sand and done her best to chew it to pieces, while Flash ran around her in frantic circles.