Текст книги "The Risk of Darkness"
Автор книги: Susan Hill
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He should have been on a high from the success of the private view. He had spoken to a couple of art critics from the national press, had watched the red circles being stuck on to the frames of his drawings, had heard the buzz of interest all around him. But he had felt both detached from it all, as if the drawings were nothing to do with him, and yet at moments when he caught sight of one, acutely aware of just how close they were to him and hating the way anyone and everyone was able to peer, comment, judge. What he loved was the work itself, the doing of it, silently, privately. The rest he could take or leave and some of the rest he resented. He shook his head ruefully at his own thoughts.
The news, such as it was, about Edwina Sleightholme’s appearance in court, dominated every bulletin around the radio stations. She had pleaded not guilty on all counts and no application for bail had been made. Simon wondered how she had been in the dock, pictured her, small, slim, dark-haired, impassive. She had given nothing away to him or to any other officer and he guessed she would give nothing away to anyone else, not even the shrink. He had known other murderers. Apart from those who had killed in a blind moment of desperation, or alcohol-and drug-fuelled rage, they had shared Sleightholme’s same opaqueness, the infuriating, almost arrogant refusal to participate in the normal intercourse between human beings. He thought of her beside him on the shelf halfway up the cliff, afraid, and angry with herself for being so. Defiant. Closed. Would anyone ever discover why she had done whatever unspeakable things she had, to God knew how many children? Could there be anything like a reason? Her face was fixed in his mind, until he realised that what he had wanted to do was draw her, capture that expression, pin the neat cap of dark hair and the impenetrable eyes on the paper for eternity. He did not often work from memory but he wondered if he might try to do so this time. Perhaps by analysing her face, feature by feature, by looking into the eyes as he remembered them, by studying the set of her mouth and head, by trying to capture her expression full on, perhaps he might find a way into her mind and motive. Perhaps.
“A thirty-eight-year-old woman, Edwina Sleight-holme, appeared in c”
He doused the radio and picked up speed, wanting to put miles between himself and London quickly. He had steered away from Diana for the whole of the evening, apart from a hurried greeting. It had been easy, the room had been packed, people wanted to talk to him. Once or twice he caught sight of her trying to meet his eye, once he moved as she negotiated her way through people’s backs to reach him.
A car pulled out without warning into the fast lane in front of him, giving him a fraction of a second to brake, missing a collision by centimetres. Simon flashed his lights and then, furious with himself, clicked on the hands-free phone and pressed one button.
“Lafferton Police.”
Simon read off the number of the car ahead of him. “Can you alert motorway patrol please? We’re approaching Junction 7 and I want him stopped.”
He dropped back slightly. Let the bugger reach ninety or a hundred just in time to be picked up.
Thirty-four
“Dad?”
“Hello?”
“Is that you?”
“I’m trying to be a bit quiet, lad, Eileen’s just dropped off.”
“Bloody hell, Dad, is this true or what?”
“It’s true.”
“Only Leah saw it on the news and said there was a name she thought she recognised and then when I went in c Jesus Christ. What’s it all about?”
“I don’t know, Keith, I just don’t know. All I know is what it’s been like here. She saw it on the telly as well, you see, and she said, wasn’t that funny, someone with the same name, same age c”
“But it’s the same bloody town. It’s got to be her.”
“Yes, it is. It has got to be. Course. Only it was the shock.”
“So Eileen didn’t know anything?”
“Of course she didn’t know, how could she have known, what do you think?”
“Sorry, Dad, I meant, hadn’t she heard from Edwina or c well, I dunno, the police or something?”
“Edwina c Weeny c she doesn’t have anything to do with us, you know she doesn’t. Not since we got married. Not her, not Janet, though Weeny sends a card at Christmas. I always thought I ought to do something, you know, go and see her, see them both, put things right. I don’t want Eileen suffering because of me, losing her family because of me, only now c”
“Too bloody right, only now. Listen, I’m driving down tomorrow to fetch you. You won’t want to be waiting around there and you definitely won’t want to be going back on the coach. I’ll be there around dinner time.”
“No, no—”
“Dougie?”
“Hang on c Keith, she’s waking up c I’ll talk to you later. Thanks, boy, thank you.”
“Dougie?’’
“It’s all right, love, that was only Keith.”
Eileen sat up, flushed in the face. “What for? Is he all right, is it the children? What did he want?” She stared around her.
“He said he’d drive down tomorrow, take us back.”
She swung her legs slowly off the bed and then stood up gingerly as if unsure she could bear her own weight.
“Why would he do that?”
“He said you c we might not want to go back on the coach. With everyone.”
“I don’t see.’’
Dougie sighed. He did not know which way to turn, what to say or do that was not hopelessly wrong.
“It’s just a mistake that’s got to be sorted out, Dougie. I’ll sort it out. Do you think I should ring them now?”
“Ring who, Eileen?”
“The police c the television. No, it won’t be them.”
“You could maybe ring tomorrow. When we get home.”
“It wants sorting now, though. If it was one of your boys wouldn’t you want to get to the bottom of it straight away?”
“Only, the thing is, it was her name, her c where she lives c you said—”
“Oh, I know it was her, I know it was our Weeny, not someone else, I know that now, well, of course I do, there wouldn’t be two women with that name, same age, living in the same place, it’s not like Ann Smith, is it?”
“No.”
“No, I mean, well, it wants sorting because of course she couldn’t have done anything like that, how could she? Well, to start with, it’s men, that’s what men do, it’s always men.”
Rose West, Dougie thought. Myra Hindley.
“It’s a terrible thing to make a mistake over, terrible. I have to go up there, Dougie.”
She stood looking out at the dark sea, and the fairy lights strung round the promenade. The road was quiet. In the end he went and stood beside her. After a minute, he put his arm round her.
“I’ll ring Keith then,” he said.
“Yes. I think if he could fetch us, I’d feel better, it’d get us home quicker. I can start sorting it all out then.”
“I’ll ring now.”
“What do you want to do about eating, Dougie?”
Eating. He did not know. The word did not have a meaning.
“They don’t know anything, do they? Here. It’s a mistake, but all the same, I’d rather it was like this, that they don’t know. Meelup hasn’t got anything to do with Sleightholme, has it?”
He felt tears prick, hot at the back of his eyes.
“Maybe we could just walk a bit.”
“Yes,” Dougie said. “If that’s what you’d like.”
“I don’t know what I’d like,” Eileen Meelup said, turning back to the dark sea.
Going out of the hotel and away from the golden lights and warm voices into the street they instinctively reached for one another. They walked vaguely, not speaking, slowly up the promenade. There were a few people about with dogs, or just strolling, going into one of the pubs. The air smelled of seaweed and burned sugar from a candyfloss stall. At the top of the promenade, where the road began to slope away from the seafront, there was a small garden with gravel paths winding between shrubs. Eileen stopped beside a bench.
He did not suggest they sit, or walk on, he simply waited. He had no real sense of where he was or why and knew that it was the same with her. There was no room in their heads for anything but what she had heard and seen on the television screen and which, ever since, Dougie had tried to picture and hear for himself. It was impossible to understand. He wanted to be sure, as Eileen was sure, that it was a confusion and a mistake, a wrongful arrest, a muddle. What else was there to believe that was not the stuff of horror? He barely knew either of the girls and only felt unhappy that they had treated their mother thoughtlessly. She had been hurt and upset. He had been hurt and angry. But that was families. They’d come round. He had said it over and over. He had felt confident. Now he was treading water and any minute he would drown.
He felt Eileen’s hand clutching at his arm as if she, too, were drowning and he was her last support.
It was some time before they went back to the hotel. They wandered around the town, staring into the lighted windows of closed shops, at shoes and jars of sweets and swimming costumes and necklaces on decapitated velvet necks. And each window they looked into reflected their own faces back and the faces were stark and grave and quite unfamiliar.
In the end, by some sort of silent signal between them, they turned and went back to the hotel and the buzz of gossip, the smell of smoke from the bar. In the doorway, Eileen hesitated.
“Be a good idea,” Dougie said. “Maybe a brandy? I’ll have a whisky. Be settling.”
A roar of laughter burst up from a group, and the laughter came rolling towards them and broke over their heads like a wave. Someone turned round and caught sight of them hesitating in the doorway. The woman glanced away.
It was enough. There was no question, after all, of going into the bar, of having a drink among the others, as if they were normal people and like them, as if none of it had happened, the television had not spoken, the day would rewind itself and begin again.
Neither of them slept.
Thirty-five
“I cannot believewhat you just told me. I cannot believe what you did.”
“OK, spare me the sermon.”
“Why? Why the hell should I? It’s about time someone preached to you, it’s about time you got it full on.”
“And if not you then who?”
“Too bloody right.”
Cat dumped Felix in his playpen under the garden umbrella and stood over her brother, who was lying back in a deckchair with a glass of beer. It was hot. The air was thick and steamy, the midges jazzing in a series of small clouds over the garden.
“Listen, can we call truce? It’s not the weather for an argument.”
“Oh, there is not going to be any argument, Si, none at all, because I am not going to argue, you are just going to bloody well listen. You are my brother and I adore you and you are a total and utter shit. You are a psychological mess and you are a menace. Whatever your problem is, you need to get yourself sorted because you are not a teenager, you are nearly forty. You have no excuse for treating women the way you’ve treated Diana. It was bad enough to string her along, enjoy everything she offered without commitment, but she was apparently doing the same. So OK. Then she fell for you which, let’s face it, she was always going to do, at which point you backed off in a hurry. I didn’t care for your way of going about it but I accept that by then Freya Graffham was on the scene and you imagined you had feelings for her.”
“Look—”
“Yes. Imagine is the word. It only got real for you once she was safely dead and don’t interrupt to tell me that is a shitty thing to say because shitty or not it’s true. You were in a mess and you dumped Diana in the most unkind and graceless and hurtful way. She still has feelings for you, still thinks there’s hope, well, that’s sad and the only thing to do, the onlything, Simon, is to be polite but distant. ‘Sorry, nothing’s changed.’ She isn’t a fool. She’d get the message.”
“Yes.”
“Yes. But what do you do? Not only take her out to dinner, which was stupid and thoughtless but not downright wrong—”
“But sleep with her. I know. Fuck it, Cat, I know, I know.”
“What were you thinking? You absolute and total bastard. You thoughtless, selfish, self-regarding, self-serving, mindless shit.”
Felix looked up at his mother’s suddenly raised voice, his small face crumpling. “Now look what you’ve done.” Cat picked her son up and took him on to her knee. He was sticky and radiating heat. Cat buried her face in his damp fair hair. She was shaking.
Simon sat in silence. She was right and he knew it and he was furious with her. The one person in the world by whom he had always felt unconditionally loved, the one person he trusted and to whom he had always been able to tell anything, had spun round and hit him hard in the face.
“I’m not sorry,” Cat said weakly. But she did not look at him.
“Clearly.”
“I don’t know why I’m crying because I’m right and I’m glad I said it, it wanted saying, you’re the one who should be crying.”
“Leave it.”
“Of course we can’t leave it.”
The air was thunderous. They sat in silence, Felix burrowing into Cat’s shoulder and kicking his feet against her, fractious in the heat. Simon twisted his beer glass round and round. He wondered if he had better not simply go, now, let the air clear between them for a few days rather than stay on for supper and have a sour evening.
Cat set a reluctant Felix down on the grass. “Come on, let’s give the chickens their corn.”
She took his hand and they went slowly off, Felix waddling beside her towards the paddock. She did not look back. Simon sat on miserably. The last time he and Cat had fallen out it had taken the death and funeral of their sister to bring them together again.
He got up. Felix was standing on the paddock rails, held firmly round his waist, waving his arm imperiously at the chickens. Simon stood beside them.
“Why?” he said at last. “I need to understand why and I don’t. I can’t.”
“Why do I harangue you? Why do you behave so badly to women?”
“Why am I like this?”
“Oh God.”
“Big question.”
“For a hot afternoon.”
“The thing is, I’m not unhappy. Inside my own skin.”
“Bully for you.”
“Cat c”
“Sorry. But listen to what you just said.”
“OK, I’m a selfish bastard.”
“Among other things. A whole lot of much better things.”
“Thanks.”
“Look, I’m not your psychiatrist, I’m your sister. The only thing I think you have to decide PDQ is what to do about Diana. Because you owe it to her. And don’t say you don’t know.”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you in love with her?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Do you like her?”
“I enjoy her company.”
“Would that be enough for you?”
“Christ, Cat, I don’t want to marryher.”
She looked at him. “Here, take him.”
Simon took his nephew and sat him on his shoulders as they walked towards the shed to collect chicken feed. Felix drummed small feet into his chest, squealing with pleasure. The shed was cool and smelled sweetly of the dry corn and meal in galvanised bins against the wall. Cat lifted a lid and began to scoop some into a bucket and the dust rose in a pale golden cloud.
“OK,” Simon said, “but what should I do?”
“Not for me to say.”
“That’ll be a first then.”
“No, I mean it, Si. It isn’t. You need to work it out. What do you want, who, where, when? I’d do most things for you but I can’t do that.”
She scattered corn into the dry patches of soil around the hen run and the birds began fussing about, busying themselves among it. Felix drummed his heels again.
“Maybe I should just get right away, Cat? And don’t tell me only I can decide.”
His sister linked her arm in his. “OK, just say that again, but this time replacing the word ‘get’ with the word ‘run’. Think about it while I put sir down for his nap and fetch you another beer.”
Thirty-six
Lynsey was finishing her shower when the phone rang at ten past eight.
“Hi, it’s Mel from Towers Rogers.”
“Hey. You’re in early.”
“I know, but you’ll like this. You know the fishing tackle place?”
“Behind Gas Street?”
“That’s the one c there’s the warehouse, the place they use for a shop which is actually the old lock-keeper’s cottage.”
“You’d never know. It’s a mess.”
“Someone—I can’t say who—put in a plan for getting rid of the lot and replacing it with a block of flats but now they’ve gone bust. Since then local planning has tightened as you know and presumption is now not to knock down and have new build. The council wants the whole site restored in keeping for part housing, part small workshops for local people.”
Lynsey sat down at the kitchen table. “You have my interest.”
“Thought I might. It’ll go out from here tomorrow. You’ve got twenty-four hours to suss it out and decide.”
“That’s not very long.”
“I’m not even supposed to be giving you that. If anyone finds out both our arses are bacon.”
“What ballpark figure would we be looking at?”
“It’ll go to auction with a guide price of ninety as a come-on, expect to pay upwards of one thirty, maybe a hell of a lot more.”
“So if I’m interested, I could put in a pre-emptive of what?”
“I’ve given you the figures, Lyns. Up to you now. Have to go.”
Forty minutes later, Lynsey was parking her car in one of the side streets leading to the canal. She had a map of Lafferton on the passenger seat and knew roughly where she was headed but not how accessible the site would be, whether she was even allowed to be there.
In the car, she had run through figures in her head. Whether she had to put in a pre-emptive bid or risk attending the auction, she had to find a great deal of money. This would be the biggest project she had undertaken but Mel knew that she had been looking for something like this for over a year. To convert one of the last redundant buildings sympathetically, to bring it back to its old glory and yet put it to new uses in the contemporary world, was a dream she had been keeping warm. Everything she had done as a property developer up till now had been relatively small. She had no doubt at all about her abilities, about the people she could call on, about her taste and eye for detail and period, about how something like this could be turned into a major success. Whether she could—dared—raise so much money was another matter.
She got out of the car, folded the map and put it in her pocket. The street was quiet and shady. The forecast was for another hot day. She could see the tow-path and the gleam of the canal.
“Lizzie! Oh God, Lizzie, please c”
She stopped.
“Lizzie, wait.”
He was a few yards from her, beside the entrance to the Old Ribbon Factory. He looked more unkempt and wild-eyed than she had remembered.
Lynsey touched the mobile phone in her pocket for safety.
“Wait.” He came towards her.
“I am not Lizzie,” she said firmly. “Whoever Lizzie is, I am not her. You mistook me for her before. I’m sorry. I have to get on now, I’m meeting someone, I’m late for an appointment.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” He reached out a hand. Lynsey shrank back. “Why did you come down here? Down this street?”
“I told you. I have an appointment.”
“You’re doing it on purpose. Because you look like her.”
“I don’t know you. If you don’t leave me alone now, and let me get on without following me or shouting after me again, I’ll have to call the police.”
“From behind you could be her. Everything. Not when you turn round, not when you talk, but from behind you’re Lizzie.”
“No,” Lynsey said gently, “I’m not Lizzie. You know that.”
She began to edge away from him, not turning her back completely, keeping her hand in her pocket, touching the phone. She wished someone would come out of one of the buildings but no one did. She wondered how long it would take to run away, how long before the police might come, whether he would follow her towards the canal. Perhaps it would be better to turn back. Someone might drive down this street any minute but once she was among the old buildings and if he came after her, anything could happen.
But he did not follow her. At the end of the street, she looked back. He was standing staring after her, an unfathomable expression on his face. She turned the corner, began to walk along the towpath in the direction of the semi-derelict buildings and sheds beside the lock-keeper’s cottage.
A woman was coming the other way with a terrier on a lead. It saw Lynsey and began to bark and somehow the barking restored her nerve.
She stopped and took out her phone but then hesitated. She wanted to get on. She had to see the buildings before anyone else, and besides, what would she say? He had done nothing. It was the second time and she felt threatened but, face it, he hadn’t made any threats. The police would probably laugh.
The old warehouses were in a bad way but by no means as bad as she had feared. They were exciting. Lynsey wandered around, taking quick pictures, her brain calculating as she explored. It was cool and dim inside the main, large building with dust motes dancing in slants of sunlight coming through gaps in the boarded-up windows and down through holes in the roof. This section could be converted to perhaps four apartments. The lock-keeper’s cottage ought to be turned back to its original state, as one house, but it was in a bad way. The sheds and outbuildings were easy. Small units for craftspeople could be quickly carved out of them at minimal cost.
The auction estimate was way lower than the lot would fetch. She would have to see the bank manager to find out if she could raise enough for the purchase and the work. In her head she knew it was unlikely but her head was also a business one and she had no doubt that, if she were to take the next big step up the ladder, the rung was here in front of her. Miss this and another such opportunity would be a long time coming.
The noise made her leap up from the old workbench she had sat down on to think. Someone was banging on the side of the building and she had no right to be here, she was trespassing and she could not use Mel’s name for authority. She slipped the camera into her pocket as the side door gave way.
He stood, blinking into the dark space, the sun behind him, haloing his hair. Lynsey’s skin prickled. He had neither touched nor threatened her but now she felt absolutely sure that he was about to do so and there would be no one driving or walking by down here. The chances of another dog owner coming along the towpath were probably minimal.
He came slowly inside and she realised that he had not actually seen her yet and that his eyes were still adjusting to the light.
“Lizzie? Where are you? I saw you come in here, I followed you. Why didn’t you come home? Why did you come down here? Lizzie.”
Lynsey remained frozen, working out what to do. She was fit and a fast runner, she had the advantage of being able to see him and to see her exit behind him. She could wait and hope that as he came further into the building, away from the open door, her exit route would be clearer, or she could go for it now and risk his grabbing her as she fled past him.
She thought he must be able to hear her heart thudding. It seemed to her to be echoing round the empty space of the entire building.
“Lizzie?”
She remembered that the first time he had followed her he had started to cry. Now, his voice came through sobs again, hysterical, desperate.
She waited. It took a long time, but eventually, he did move, though not away from her to the other side of the warehouse, but towards her. In a moment, he was bound to see her. She had on a white shirt. He couldn’t fail to see her.
“Lizzie,” he said very quietly now. “What is it like?”
Lynsey opened her mouth to answer, then bit her lip hard.
“Being dead,” he said. “Tell me. What’s it like? I need to know. I need to picture you. Being dead.”
Lynsey made a single move, away from the bench and across the warehouse towards the oblong of bright light. She moved fast and with the purpose of an arrow and as she reached the sunlight, she skidded on something loose lying on the floor and crashed down.
As she fell, she screamed, louder than she knew it was possible to scream.
Thirty-seven
When it was bad you had just your thoughts to help you. Thoughts could take you anywhere.
It was hot. Her clothes stuck to her back and her neck and her hair felt sweaty all the time. The heat made everyone boil up. She could hear the racket, the shouting, swearing, banging, screaming, on and on into the night. It was like a lid on a boiling pan. She didn’t see any of it. They kept her separate all the time, even on exercise, though when she did go out the others knew and started banging. It wasn’t nice. It frightened her.
She ate her food alone, read, watched her television, went out, came back, walked through the corridors to see the shrink, walked back, and the heat was thick everywhere, you smelled it and breathed it.
But if she thought hard enough she could get away, for a bit.
The sea. Driving down the motorway. Her garden. Kyra. Those were the best. And when it got bad, there was always the other. She didn’t tell herself that she went there sometimes. She kept away from that. But she did go. Usually it was at night when the banging started up and seemed to go right through her head, like someone driving nails. It was a secret, furtive journey, and it took her a long time. But then, it always had. Once she was there, she closed the doors behind her and locked them. She didn’t know she was there then.
But they were there, sometimes together, sometimes one at a time. She went through it all again, step by step, from the moment she first saw them. Then, there had been a rush; now, there was none. She had recorded everything, her mind was a camera. She saw everything. She heard everything. She had photographs of their faces, close-up photographs. She had recordings of their voices. Every word they had spoken. The boy in the blazer. The boy with the sports bag. The girl on the bicycle. The girl with the shopping bag. The boy on the scooter. The one with the ice cream. Every face. Every word. Every detail. Every mile on every journey, every stop. Every last thing. Sometimes she stayed only for a short time, paid a brief visit then came out quickly, locking the door again and she never knew she had been gone, let alone where. Other times, when she felt safe or when it was hardest, she stayed for a long time.
But the shrink never found out. Sometimes she asked, but Ed never told her.
The place was like an oven. The banging went on. When the food came and it was hot, she had to let it go cold before she could eat it. The same with the coffee, same with the tea. Ice cream came but it was a sickly yellow puddle. Salad came and the lettuce was wet and the tomatoes lukewarm.
Once, she threw her food at the wall. They took her television away.
But it scarcely bothered her. She could think. She always had her own thoughts and her own pictures. Better than theirs. Far, far better.
Thirty-eight
“Right.” Dougie Meelup stood up and pushed back his chair from the table. “I’m opening these doors. What’s a garden for?”
Eileen watched him.
“I’ll put the deckchair out there, you bring your book.”
“No, I’m better here.”
“Eileen, it is beautiful sunshine out there, I’ve put up the umbrella, you can be in the shade.”
“I can’t sit out.”
“No one will see you. Next door are away.”
“I can’t.”
“And no one knows anything else.”
“Of course they know. They know my other name and it’s not like Smith, they all see the television, read the papers. They know I’ve two girls.”
“And what if they do? Whoever ‘they’ may be? What if they do?”
“I don’t blame you for losing patience with me.”
“I haven’t. I just want you to hold your head up a bit. You can’t skulk here for good, Eileen.”
“Hold my head up? Oh, I can do that. I can do that when I know it’s a mistake and they’ve charged the wrong person and want to be sued. Will be sued. When it’s all sorted. Only until it is, someone might believe it. Someone we know. Someone who’d see me.”
Someone already had, only Dougie had not told her. When he’d rung in to work to say she was sick, there’d been a pause first and then, “Yeah. Right.” In a tone of voice you couldn’t mistake.
It came in waves. But the waves were closer together now and higher. One day, Eileen thought, a wave would be so high and race in so fast it would break over her head and drown her and sweep her away and it was what she prayed for. Never to wake up. Pictures flickered on a screen behind her eyes. Weeny when she was three. Weeny on her way to school the first day. Weeny and Janet holding hands outside the gate.
In a box file on the shelf in the living room were the real pictures. She would get them out soon, because the pictures would tell the truth about how happy they had all been and what pretty little girls, about how they’d been such a close family. The truth was in the photographs. She knew that.
“Other thing is,” Dougie said, “I’m going to ring and book that visit.”
She fiddled with the spoon in her saucer.
“I’ll take you, we’ll both go up there.”
The prison was Gedley Vale. The name had been given out on the news. Dougie had looked it up on the map. It was about ninety miles.
“I’ll have to write everything down, what I want to say to her. I have to get it straight. She’ll need to know I’m getting it together. Maybe I’d better find out what solicitors she’s got, see them as well. Do you think?”
“I don’t know what you’re allowed to do.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, solicitors and that. I’ve never had to sort anything like this out.”
She stared at him. “You think I have?”
Dougie shook his head.
All the way home in Keith’s car, she had fought out aloud, fought with the police and the papers and the television, fought for her daughter and the monstrous injustice of it all; fought down any particle of doubt. It had been a mistake. How a mistake could be this bad, get this far, she had no idea but it had and she had to stop it dead. Weeny had been charged with doing things too terrible to allow into your mind, things that only the most evil, wicked people could ever do and not so many of them. Weeny was not that sort of person. How could anyone think she was? How could it have happened?
Janet had been on the phone twice screaming and crying so that in the end Dougie had had to take the phone away from her and tell the girl to calm down.
“I’ve got kids,” Jan kept saying, “I’ve got kids, you know.”
