The Son-In-Law (18 page)

The Wildes found the hearing of 7 January difficult, and
left the building before I could speak to them.

•

‘They walked out.’ Joseph was sitting at Abigail’s kitchen table, a mug of very strong tea and one of her rock buns at his elbow. He felt deafened, as though he’d narrowly made it through the mortar fire of an enemy bombardment. ‘Just stormed past my solicitor. There was a social worker waiting to meet us all but he couldn’t because they’d gone.’

Richard O’Brien had arrived back in their meeting room looking bemused. ‘Well, I’m public enemy number one,’ he’d announced, scratching his head.

‘You’re definitely not,’ sighed Joseph. ‘That’s my honour.’

‘Grandma Wilde led the charge. If looks could kill, I’d be dead as a doornail right now.’

When Joseph relayed this conversation to Abigail, she raised her eyebrows. ‘I bet she wishes
you
were dead, Joseph Scott.’

‘I couldn’t even look the Wildes in the eye.’ He grimaced ruefully. ‘I know what I’d think of any bastard who laid a finger on Scarlet. I’d throttle him with my bare hands. But that judge—it was like he was on my side. It was . . . I felt as though he forgave me.’

‘Ah, forgiveness.’ Removing her glasses, Abigail rubbed her eyes. ‘There’s a prize to be treasured.’

And that was true, thought Joseph. It was something he hadn’t valued at all, until he himself committed the unforgiveable.

Abigail replaced her glasses and stood up. Joseph watched her moving quietly around the kitchen, gathering ingredients for some concoction. He sat with his palms wrapped around the mug.

‘They wanted to tell me,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Hannah and Frederick. I really think they did.’

Abigail looked confused. ‘Tell you what?’

‘About Zoe.’

•

Joseph’s first sight of the Wildes was at York Station, waiting side by side under the clock and presenting a graciously intimidating united front. They politely greeted the young teacher their daughter had brought home, but they had eyes only for Zoe.

Frederick would have been about sixty then, with a long, lined face and mud on his trousers from gardening. Joseph immediately felt drawn to him. Hannah was a handsome forty-something: energetic, blue-stocking and distant. She and Joseph disliked one another on sight.

Joseph was too embarrassed even to touch Zoe’s hand with her parents around, and was appalled when she came creeping into the spare room during the night. She mocked his protests with her low laughter, peeling her T-shirt over her head in one lithe movement.

‘Why are you winding my poor mother up?’ she murmured, crawling cat-like onto his bed.

‘Ssh! They’ll hear you . . . I’m not winding your mother up.’

‘You bloody well are! Telling her you’ve just decked some old enemy in a pub, behaving as though you’ve got the IQ of a goldfish.’

‘She was so patronising.’

‘Yep, I can’t deny it—but did you have to rise to the bait? Never mind, you can make it up to me right now.’ She took his hand and pressed it to her breast.

Later she whispered, ‘Tomorrow’s the day. Collar him in his study.’

Joseph squirmed at the toe-curling image. ‘Can’t we both tell him?’

‘No! My lovely father’s only got one daughter. It’s got to be done properly.’ She nuzzled his ear. ‘He won’t eat you.’

Frederick looked surprised when Joseph knocked on his study door the following evening, but hospitably offered his guest a gin and tonic. It was a hell of a mess in there, scripts and letters on every surface. The screensaver on the desktop showed a vivid picture of Zoe, her face brightly lit against a dark stage. Frederick cleared just enough space for them to sit down.

‘Zoe and I are engaged,’ blurted Joseph, still standing.

Frederick froze in the act of sitting. He sighed, and straightened again. He rubbed his mouth. Then he wandered to the mantelpiece and stood rearranging photographs. He wouldn’t look at Joseph. ‘You haven’t known her very long,’ he said quietly.

‘Long enough.’

‘You think you know her well enough to make this decision?’

‘Probably not, but I plan to spend the rest of my life getting to know her.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I’m twenty-three—the same as Zoe.’

‘Look. I think I ought to . . .’ Frederick pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes.

This wasn’t quite the reaction Joseph had expected. ‘I know this is a bit sudden,’ he said, ‘and we’re young, and you’re obviously shocked. She isn’t pregnant or anything. Frederick, it’s as simple as this: I am utterly, hopelessly, helplessly in love with your daughter. I believe she is in love with me too. I never thought I’d marry until I was at least forty, but Zoe has changed all that because I know for certain that she’s the right person for me. I can’t risk losing her to someone else.’ He hesitated. ‘You think that sounds brainless, don’t you?’

‘No. No, not at all. Quite the opposite.’ Frederick was silent for another long moment. Perturbed, Joseph watched him. At length the older man seemed to pull himself together. His gentle smile returned, though Joseph could have sworn he detected tears. ‘Well, marvellous. Congratulations! Another drink? I think I’ll have a large one.’

Hannah’s reaction was even less joyous. She actually used the expression ‘reckless haste’, and asked tight-lipped questions about how well they knew one another. After she’d mentioned their youth for the third time, Zoe’s cheeks flushed dangerously.

‘For God’s sake, Mum, stop it.’

‘Stop what?’

‘You know very well what you’re doing! You weren’t much older when you married Dad.’

‘That was different,’ said Hannah unhappily.

Fifteen years on, Joseph could see exactly what had been in their minds. It must have been a truly hellish dilemma for them—should they keep their fingers crossed and let him stumble into marriage blind, or tell the truth and risk his walking away? Hannah would have been pleased to see the back of him, but Zoe might never have forgiven them.

Abigail turned on the hot tap and began to warm a metal mixing bowl. Neither she nor Joseph had spoken for ten minutes or more. It was one of the things he most appreciated about the old farmer’s company: silences weren’t awkward, they were peaceable. He always felt his agitation lessen when he was with her.

‘They should have told me,’ he said. ‘But I can see why they didn’t.’

‘Zoe never dropped a hint?’

‘No. Well . . . just oblique references. She said she’d had a bit of depression. I didn’t even want to know.’ Joseph held out his hands. ‘I loved her, Abigail. I was nuts about her. Yes, I noticed things—quite big things, really. The ups and downs, the times when she wouldn’t see me, some spectacular spending sprees . . . but it was all part of her personality, the dazzling and most exhilarating part as well as the scariest. She was a white-knuckle ride, and I kept going back for more.’

‘What if someone had told you? What if you’d known all about Zoe Wilde, every last secret?’

‘I’ve often asked myself that,’ mused Joseph. ‘What would I have done? Would I have gone ahead and married her anyway?’

Abigail put down her mixing bowl with a clunk. ‘And what do you answer yourself?’

A hopeless smile twisted Joseph’s mouth. ‘Bloody silly question. Of course I would. I’d marry her again right now.’

Seventeen

Hannah

The Oracle acted faster than we expected. Jane had tried to reassure us that his service was snowed under and it might be weeks before he’d track us down, but violent death creates VIPs. Our phone was ringing when I walked in from work the next day.

‘Dr Wilde?’ The voice was irritatingly calm. ‘Lester Hardy here. Family court adviser.’

‘Yes?’

‘We weren’t able to meet after the hearing yesterday.’

‘No.’

I could hear what he was thinking:
difficult woman.
‘The judge has ordered me to prepare a report on Mr Scott’s contact application. I need to talk to you and take on board your views.’

‘I can give you my views right now,’ I declared. ‘The answer’s a definitive “no”. The children don’t remotely want to see him. It would do nothing but damage.’

He must have heard it all before; there was no change of inflection in his voice. ‘It’s very important that I meet you and Mr Wilde.’

‘I work twenty hours a week,’ I snapped. ‘I look after three children. Time is extremely precious.’

‘I can fit in with your schedule.’

‘And will you also see the children?’

‘Together, we can plan how best I might approach them. You know them better than anyone else.’

I ignored his blatant buttering-up. ‘I’ve no choice in this, have I?’

‘Well . . . no. Not really.’

•

Sure enough, a week or so later he was at our door: bearded, middle-aged, needed to lose some weight. Frederick showed him into the sitting room. Our cleaner had been the day before, so the place was at least presentable. I’d also picked up a thousand bits of Lego and plumped the cushions. As he shook our hands, I noticed the man’s gaze straying to the one photo of Zoe we had on the mantelpiece. He was asking Frederick about her acting career as I went to fetch the coffee. By the time I returned, they’d got out a box file of letters people wrote to us after she died. There were three hundred and nineteen of them, if you counted the cards that came with flowers.

‘Here’s one from her kindergarten teacher.’ Frederick picked up the letter. ‘And her first boyfriend . . . and my sister Clara. And dozens and dozens of others. You see? Zoe touched people’s lives. So many people.’

We sat around the coffee table, clearing our throats politely as though our visitor was selling life insurance. His beard covered rolls of chin, and he was wearing a purple shirt and a tie. He might have been a bishop.

‘How long have you lived here?’ he asked, as I poured the coffee.

‘Er . . .’ Frederick scratched his head, blinked, then glanced anxiously at me. ‘Mind’s gone blank. How shocking.’

‘We moved in when Zoe was a baby,’ I said quickly, trying to cover his memory lapse. ‘Thirty-six years, or thereabouts.’

‘Yes.’ Frederick nodded without certainty. He looked bemused. ‘Thereabouts.’

‘But Zoe and her family were living in Tadcaster when she passed away?’

‘You mean when she was killed,’ I retorted.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Hardy,’ said Freddie. ‘We both hate euphemisms. Always have. They are dangerous things.
Final solution
.
Ethnic cleansing
.’

‘Passed away!’ I cried testily. ‘What does that mean, exactly? It’s just an illustration of the cowardice of mankind that people can’t say the proper words. Zoe was
killed.
She
died
. It’s a fact. It doesn’t help to wrap it up in airy-fairy language.’

‘Point taken. I apologise.’

‘They were living in Tadcaster when Joseph Scott killed her. They found a house they liked there, and it was convenient for both York and Leeds.’

Lester—it was embarrassingly easy to slip into first-name terms—asked about Zoe’s childhood. We were only too happy to oblige. Frederick dug some photograph albums out of the bookcase and we showed him our daughter as a baby, a toddler, a dramatically lovely teenager, and as a young woman.

‘She was striking,’ remarked Lester, looking at some professional shots Zoe had taken for her agent. ‘Talk about photogenic.’

‘Heads turned.’ Frederick patted the album. ‘Heads turned when this girl walked down the street. It wasn’t just how she looked, it was pure charisma. She had it in spades, didn’t she, Hannah? From the day she was born. People were drawn to her. We’d pick her up from town when she was a teenager and she’d always be deep in conversation with somebody, man or woman, child or adult, hearing their life story. She was a magnet.’

‘I understand she was taken ill.’

Ah, there it was. We’d known it had to come. In the silence that followed, Frederick’s hand found mine.

‘She was unwell from time to time,’ I admitted defensively.

‘She didn’t deserve to die for it.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then why ask?’

‘Because it’s part of the picture.’

‘The subject is not only painful, it’s wholly irrelevant to the issue at hand.’

Lester tilted his head. ‘I can’t agree with you there.’

I snorted and looked away. I had no intention of discussing Zoe’s illness with this stranger; no intention of partaking in the sullying of her memory. Lester calmly sipped his coffee.

‘Thirteen,’ said Frederick quietly.

‘No, Freddie,’ I whispered.

He stroked my arm, hushing me. ‘She was thirteen when it began. Until then, she was an undiluted joy. Lots of friends. Focused on acting, singing, dancing . . . on everything she did. Perhaps too focused, looking back on it.’ A little coffee spilled over the edge of Frederick’s cup. He lowered it carefully onto a coaster, and it rattled. ‘It crept up. People tried to tell us it was adolescence. Hormones. She was our first and only child—we had no experience, no way of knowing why the joy had left her. She’d drag herself home from school, pull the blankets over her head, refuse to come out. The life was gone. One night I went and sat on her bed, and she said she felt so dark inside that she never wanted to wake up again. That scared me silly.’

‘Scared us both,’ I murmured.

‘She started cutting herself. She had scars up her arms but we just didn’t know what to do. One day she was upset by a row with her best friend, so she deliberately scalded her own leg with boiling water. We had to rush her to hospital. After that we got help.’

‘What help did you get?’

‘A beautiful girl.’ I heard the tremor in Frederick’s voice. He had to pause, to swallow. ‘
Our
beautiful girl, on antidepressants! Counselling. Psychiatrists. Depression, they said. Depression! We couldn’t think what we’d done wrong.’

I bent my head, clutching at Frederick’s hand for dear life. I felt him squeezing back ferociously. Then he reached into his pocket and handed me one of his white handkerchiefs.

‘It was a waking nightmare,’ he continued. ‘Her friends began to drift away. She alienated them one by one, fight after fight, crisis after crisis. She’d be singing and laughing, then fly off the handle. Everyone felt as though they were walking on eggshells. Oh, my word! The barneys we had—the slamming of doors and the smashing of ornaments. But she was still our lovely girl underneath. There were times of peace, months when we dared to hope it was all over and she was well again. She still had her charisma. People were still mesmerised. She could be such
fun
. Excuse me.’