The Stepmother (21 page)

S
o Snow White
escaped the dangerous court in the nick of time, where her father didn’t seem to be helping much – too busy shagging his new queen perhaps.

Snow White lived in the cottage in the forest, although it meant that, after the hunter left her out there, she had to pretend she was dead.

The hunter had a deer’s heart to show her arch-enemy that Snow White had been destroyed, and so our heroine was safe – for a while at least.

By the way, forget the funny little dwarves: they’ve got no place in our tale. It’s not all about Sneezy and silly Dopey and that miserable old git Grumpy.

Snow White did have, before you start fretting, the animals in the forest for company. She had all her chores to keep her busy and from missing her home too much. And that was all all right – until the day her rival looked in the mirror – oh treacherous Mirror – and realised the hunter had lied. But he was long gone by then.

And so Snow White’s life was in danger again, because the old mirror kept speaking its truth.

B
ut I wonder
who
exactly
was the nasty rival trying to hurt?

The king, the pure-of-heart heroine or the memory of the dead queen – the ‘ideal mother’?

Answers on a postcard please. Address it to Walt Disney if you like.

W
hen I arrive
at the cottage, Jon helps me inside with my cases and then makes himself scarce. He’s flying to Africa in two days’ time.

‘Tying up loose ends, saying a few goodbyes,’ he says – but I think he’s actually giving me space.

He’s stored most of his personal things, just leaving the pictures on the walls and the furniture. I’ve brought hardly anything: just clothes, books and some photos of Frankie, at all ages.

I’ve got the wedding picture of Matthew and I that was smashed on the stairs in January, but I leave it in my suitcase.

I think of my last ‘fresh start’ and how wrong it went.

But from my new bedroom window I can see the green that stretches out behind the house, scattered with cotton-wool sheep. I can see the orchards at the foot of the hills, and I grin at the sight of actual rabbits bounding in the field behind the garden hedge.

‘It’s so pretty,’ I say when Jon returns with fish and chips for two. ‘Sort of – magical. Very Walt Disney.’

‘Isn’t it? And another plus – the fish and chips are infinitely better than anything down south,’ he jokes.

We sit on the wooden bench in his tiny front garden, next-door’s black-and-white cat rolling in the sun, and I feel a sense of calm that’s been missing for a while.

I could grow accustomed to this peace.

M
arlena’s promised
to come up soon – but she’s enmeshed in this story that she’s keeping very quiet. She’s not so quiet about her anger about the plight of the migrants and the lack of publicity they’re getting.

‘It’s just not considered “sexy”, so we can’t make the front pages,’ she complains on the phone. ‘And I have a very, very bad feeling about Nasreen too. I’m waiting for the DSI at Hounslow to get back to me.’

She’s about to go to Turkey. I asked her if it was anything dangerous just before I left London, and she promised it wasn’t, but the way she fiddled with her thin silver bracelet meant I knew she was lying.

‘Have you spoken to Frankie about those emails?’ she says now, and I tell her he’s flatly denied it.

‘I believe him,’ I confess.

‘Hmm,’ she says – but she is Frankie’s greatest fan, and I know she’d far rather believe he was innocent too. ‘I’ll get Robo to look at it again,’ she promises, but I know it’s not top of her agenda.

Matthew wanted to meet me before I left London, but I didn’t answer that call.

I’m not ready.

S
itting in the bedroom window
, I go through my post. I have two letters – well a letter and a card.

One from Frankie, extolling France’s charms.

The card is from Matthew; it’s that Hockney print of a swimming pool – no imagination, Marlena would say. He says he’s sorry. He needs to see me, he reiterates.

I send Matthew a brief email. I don’t say I miss him, but I am polite. The truth is I’m glad to hear from him, but I won’t admit it.

I eat spaghetti Bolognese outside, but it’s cold when the sun goes down. Afterwards I sit inside to write a proper letter to Frankie.

Midway I hear the ping of an email coming in. I look, half hoping it’s from Matthew.

But it’s not. It’s from
[email protected].

The header reads:
F*** OFF AND DIE
. My hands shake a little as I open it.

The punctuation’s wrong,
is my first thought.

My second is:
Lock the door.

I
settle
into class quite quickly. They’re a nice enough bunch of kids: not the special-needs group I was led to expect but more what we’d have called ‘remedial’ back in our day – or what Nan would have called plain naughty!

‘They can be – challenging,’ the head had said at my interview, pulling an ‘I blame the parents’ face, and during my first week, I can see what he meant.

But I have nothing to prove, and they don’t alarm me. I’m just glad to be back in front of a blackboard – or, more accurately, a whiteboard. My mind is so occupied during the day, it prevents me thinking about other things.

I don’t receive another email, and I don’t hear back from Matthew.

W
hen I get back
from school, pushing the bike up the hill because I need to work on my thigh muscles a bit more – especially with a rucksack of exercise books on my back – a car is parked outside the cottage. A big black car that I recognise. My heart gives a lurch.

My husband.

I contemplate jumping on my bike and freewheeling down the hill into the town and out the other side – but it isn’t a very strong urge.

The stronger urge is to find out what Matthew wants.

As I near, I see him leaning on the front wall, holding an enormous bunch of red roses and talking on the phone. When he sees me puffing up towards him, he rings off abruptly.

‘Hi.’ I feel shy – and out of breath. I should have kept the running up.

‘Hi, you,’ Matthew says.

I look at him, seeing him through the eyes of a stranger, sensing he wants to be conciliatory – but I trust nothing any more.

‘Nice bike,’ he says. His smile seems genuine enough. In fact, he looks almost nervous.

‘It’s not mine actually.’ I lean it against the low wall. ‘So this is a surprise. What are you doing here?’

‘I – well the fact is I missed you.’ Most unlike Matthew. ‘I thought we should talk – in person. Can I come in?’

My immediate reaction is to not let him through the door. Once he is in my space, that will be it. His mark will be left indelibly, however short a time he is here for.

‘I tell you what, let’s go to the café down in the square,’ I suggest. ‘They do great cake. My cupboards are bare I’m afraid.’

‘Fine.’ He shrugs. ‘These are for you by the way.’ Seemingly abashed, he pushes the roses at me, rather like a schoolboy might.

‘Thank you.’ Overwhelmed, I bury my nose in the beautiful red blooms. They feel like velvet against my skin – but there is no scent at all. ‘I won’t be a sec.’

I put the bike in the hall and the roses in the kitchen. I look quickly in the mirror – and then I think,
Who cares
?

Together we walk back down to The Deli on the square.

Over a pot of tea and scones we make polite conversation. I ask about the twins, and he says they are okay. He doesn’t ask about Frankie – but I tell him he’s fine anyway, last time I heard.

‘He’s picking grapes like mad,’ I say, imagining my son, straw hatted and ruddy cheeked beneath a southern sun. And I wait for Matthew to say why he’s come – but he doesn’t.

So I ask him why he’s here.

‘Because…’ He shrugs for the second time. ‘Us, I suppose.’

Is there an ‘us’ any more though? And if there is, is it right for there to be? I’m not so sure.

The last month has given me space to breathe.

I wait for him to say more – but he doesn’t. He just looks awkward and asks for the bill.

‘So is there a pub around here?’

‘There’s a pub around everywhere, isn’t there? But aren’t you driving?’ I insist on paying my share of the bill although he tries to wave me off. ‘You don’t want to do a long drive after beer, do you?’

‘Who said I was going to do a long drive?’ He grins, and I see a glimpse of the charming man I fell in love with.

‘Where are you staying then?’ I am disingenuous, and he grins again.

‘Come on. I’ll buy you a pint.’

‘I don’t drink pints,’ I say. ‘You know that.’ Does he though? Does he really know anything about me at all?

‘Half of cider then,’ he says, holding out a hand. I don’t take it, but I walk next to him, feeling the heat from his body – and I feel a small flutter of something. I let him lead me across the square, into The George and Dragon on the corner. He orders at the bar and then brings the drinks to the high table I’m perched at.

‘You look beautiful today.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry, Jeanie. I was very – hasty. I was horrible. Work’s been hard. I’ve been – stressed. I can see it’s been hard for you…’

I flush hotly as I take the glass of golden fizzy liquid from him.

‘I miss you, Jeanie,’ he says again quietly, and I say nothing.

We sit in the window and watch the world go by.

Does he think I am so easily bought?

I
don’t let
Matthew stay; I don’t even let him come into the cottage. And I am so proud of myself.

He walks me home, and then he leaves again.

It takes some strength of will – but I let him kiss my cheek, and then I close the door and lean on it, feeling like I’ve done something bad in rejecting him. But it is the right thing.

After he’s gone, I try to do some marking, but it is half-hearted, and the cider has made me blurry round the edges. I’ve hardly drunk since that awful dinner with Alison and Sean.

I take a long bath, despite the balmy temperature. I need to think, but I must drift off, because the next thing I know…

Someone is battering at the door.

S
o yeah
, okay, I was still trying and totally failing to tie up the Nasreen case. There was literally no trace of her, and that was really unsatisfactory. I was pissed off the bloody police weren’t all that bothered (‘Just another silly little Muslim cow getting her priorities all wrong,’ the old-school DSI had said when he finally agreed to meet me.) I’d had another meeting with the far more sympathetic DI Stevens about interviewing Nasreen’s family again, but I was taking matters into my own hands now.

I was leaving for the airport when Robo called.

‘All right, mate? See, I looked again at that email address. There was something niggling me about it.’

‘Like what?’ I said. I was catching a flight to Istanbul and another internal flight on to Antakya in Turkey to speak to the consul, and I was late already, my anxiety levels high as that famous old kite.

‘Well I think it was a decoy.’ He sounded enthused, as only a computer nerd could. ‘It was a fake IP address, rerouted through the original email address.’

‘You’re losing me, Robo.’ I dragged my jacket on and locked my front door. ‘Just talk English.’

‘It’s not from Frankie Randall’s computer. It’s generated by a different account altogether.’

‘Oh.’ He had my attention now. I stood, case in one hand, key in the other. ‘Well whose then?’

‘Someone called Scarlett King?’

W
hen I wake
the next morning, startled by something unknown, startled from a deep and dreamless sleep again, I don’t know where I am.

Instead of the gentle cooing of the wood pigeons, I open my eyes to a big black bird perched on the windowsill outside: a crow, or a raven perhaps. Small shiny eye, sharp tapered beak, tap-tapping at the glass. Not pretty like the blackbirds. The dead blackbirds outside Malum House.

I must have forgotten to pull the curtains when…

When we…

I roll over and see Matthew’s dark head on the other pillow, and my heart flip-flops.

Shit.

Blearily I realise it’s his phone that has woken me. It’s ringing and then cutting off and then ringing again.

‘You’d better answer it.’ I nudge his arm gently, shy despite what we’d been doing before we fell asleep; despite my faint hope that maybe, just maybe, it would be all right again. ‘Someone
really
wants you.’

He’d come back last night. He’d banged at the door, and he’d even got tearful. He’d begged me to let him in, and when I finally relented, he’d said how sorry he was.

He’d brought expensive wine, a bag of late apples from the orchard’s shop at the foot of the hill and a bottle of their cider. I’d said I didn’t want any more alcohol, but he’d poured me a glass anyway; he’d chosen it because he thought it was my favourite.

Later, after we’d talked and talked, he’d said please could I sign something he needed me to – it was only to do with the bank accounts in my name that he’d opened when we married, which needed two signatures. I skimmed through the paperwork, and I couldn’t see anything untoward, so I did; I just signed where he asked. I couldn’t see any harm.

And when I did that, he was so pleased he kissed me.

I tried to move away – but he just took my face in his hands and looked down at me. And he smelt so nice, and maybe the drink had gone to my head, or maybe it was the sight of the tears in his eyes earlier – but I gave in. I let him kiss me – and then I couldn’t help it.

I kissed him back.

Oh God, I hope I won’t regret it.

‘What?’ he mumbles now as I shake him gently.

‘Your phone. It might be urgent.’

He groans, and, eyes half open, leans down, fumbling for the phone on the floor somewhere near the bed. Eventually he finds it, just as it rings again.

‘Hello?’

He’s frowning. There’s a silence whilst he listens, and I pull myself up now to sit, feeling dozy and uncertain.

What now
,
for us
, I’m thinking when he explodes.

‘You are fucking kidding me!’

I turn. ‘What is it?’

‘You are fucking joking,’ Matthew repeats down the phone, glaring at me. ‘Are you sure?’

He’s pulling himself out of bed too and ignoring me, and I’ve got a bad feeling, a bad feeling that started a moment ago, and he’s telling whoever it was he’ll call them back in five minutes.

Then he’s off the phone and grimacing right in my face. ‘Did you know about this?’

‘What?’ I’m suddenly wide awake.

‘I bet you put him up to it. That’d be right, wouldn’t it?’

‘Put
who
up to
what
?’

‘I should have listened to my instincts about your son.’ He grabs his trousers and pulls them on. ‘So stupid, getting sucked in again.’

‘What is it? What’s wrong? Are you talking about Frankie?’

‘Yes, bloody Frankie, Jean, well done. Where the fuck are my socks?’ He’s so angry. ‘Have you bloody well hidden them?’

‘Matthew, you’re scaring me.’ I see his socks beneath the chair and clamber out to give them to him. ‘What is it?’

He grabs the socks, muttering to himself as he buttons his shirt.

‘Please calm down…’ I start, and he stares at me like I’m mad.

‘I’m not at all calm. And I won’t be any calmer when I find him,’ he spits, and I feel an intense fear I’ve never really felt before, not even when the whole Otto thing erupted. ‘You’re a fucking liar, Jeanie. I saw all those bloody pills again – and now this. God, I should have known.’

‘Please tell me what you’re talking about?’ I try to grab his arm, but he shakes me off like a dog would shake a rabbit, making me stumble so I fall against the bed. I crack my knee painfully on the wall, gasping with pain. ‘Matthew?’ I’m really scared, scrambling up again. ‘Please!’

‘And this fucking time I’m calling the police.’ Frenetic in his haste, he scoops up the rest of his clothes, his shoes, his jacket and leaves the room. Then he sticks his head back round the door. ‘You’d better tell him to get a fucking good lawyer. He’s going to need it.’

‘What’s he done?’ I follow him down the stairs as he fumbles to get his shoes on, swearing to himself. Has he found out about the emails? That Frankie might have sent them? But that was directed at me, not at Matthew…

‘Matthew, just tell me what the hell’s going on, for God’s sake!’

My shouting surprises both of us, I think.

He actually looks at me now. ‘Your bloody son. That’s what’s going on.’

‘But Frankie’s not even in the country.’

‘Yeah, well he’d better stay away if he knows what’s good for him.’

‘Why? What’s he meant to have done?’ My heart’s beating so hard I think it’s going to come clean out of my chest.

‘He’s cleared out Scarlett’s fucking savings account. There was thousands in there. Fucking thousands! Where the fuck are my keys?’

‘What bank account?’ Ice needles me now. ‘How do you know? Was that Scarlett?’

‘No, that was her mother on the phone. She’s totally distraught.’

‘Scarlett?’ I say stupidly.

‘No, Kaye. Scarlett doesn’t even know. Christ, the thieving little bastard…’

‘Kaye’s rung you to say Frankie’s taken Scarlett’s money? Are you sure?’

‘Kaye rang to say’—his tone is quiet and icy now—‘that she’s seen the account is empty.’

‘Empty?’

‘Yeah, empty.’

‘But how does she know it’s Frankie?’

He’s out of the front door now, key in hand, into the car. ‘She’s got evidence, she says.’

I run out into the tiny front garden in my dressing gown, to the passenger door, but it’s locked.

I rap at the window. ‘Don’t go like this please,’ I cry. ‘Please! We can sort it out together…’

What together?

And Matthew refuses to even look at me as he revs the car and pulls out and heads down the hill, his tyres squealing on the tarmac. He hits the wing mirror of an old Jeep further down the road, taking it clean off – but he doesn’t stop.

Another squeal of tyres round the corner and he’s gone. The only sign of him is the metal mirror rattling in the middle of the tarmac.

And it’s only when I turn to go back inside that I see the note, pinned to the door by an old tack.

F
rantic
, I try to reach Frankie in France, but his phone doesn’t even ring. Perhaps his pay-as-you-go isn’t working any more.

Where is the email with the details of where he’s living? I rifle through things, hands shaking, folders of bills and letters I’d brought with me, but I am so panicked I am just making a mess of everything and not finding anything I need.

Breathe, Jeanie
. I sit down. What can I do that would be helpful?

I debate ringing Scarlett – but it might just make things worse. I don’t dare make anything worse.

So I ring Kaye. She doesn’t answer.

I ring Marlena. She doesn’t answer either – but I leave her a message, half sobbing into the phone, begging her to call me back.

Then I go to work. I have no choice.

I
limp through the hot
, sticky day, thoroughly distracted, constantly wanting to check my phone.

By two o’clock the kids have sensed my lack of concentration and are really playing up. I set a composition on the topic of ‘Suspicion’ for the last half hour and warn them that if isn’t done, there’ll be consequences next week.

I don’t go to the staff meeting after class. I plead a migraine and cycle home. The weather has broken, and it is drizzling a fine misty rain now.

But I haven’t heard back from anyone, and Matthew isn’t answering my calls either. I keep ringing until he messages me:

I eat half a sandwich alone at the old wooden table. It is humid and sticky and horrible despite the open windows.
I
feel horrible. I chuck the second half of the sandwich away.

How different this is to last night – last night when there had been some kind of hope again. God – what an idiot. What a terrible stupid fool I’ve been.

I opened myself up to him – and just look what had happened. I hate myself.

Tears threaten – but I think, vehemently, I will
not
cry about this. Action not tears.

I try Frankie again; still not even a voicemail to leave a message on. But I have at least found the web address of the vineyard. There doesn’t seem to be a phone number, so I write an email in my poor French, asking them to
please
pass a message on to my son Frank Randall to call me ‘
immédiatement
’.

Marlena had sent a text as I’d pedalled home; I’d read it as I trudged in the front door.

She’d put a rare kiss at the end of the message.

Was it pity perhaps?

I go to bed early, wanting this day to be over. Before I do so, I check every door and window.

In the early hours, a noise wakes me from a broken sleep.

I sit up, listening intently.

Nothing – I’ve imagined it…

Haven’t I?

The owl is flying, calling his mournful warning as he makes his regular sweep above the fields behind the cottage.

I lie back down.

The noise again – a kind of scrabbling on wood. A rat maybe? I hope it is a rat.

I get out of bed very quietly and stand at the top of the stairs, listening again. It’s not a rat—

There is definitely someone down there.

I have no weapon – I have nothing. I am wearing only a T-shirt and pants; my phone’s downstairs; there’s no landline to call from up here.

So I have no choice. I pull my jeans on quickly and creep down a stair or two.

‘Who’s there?’ I call bravely, trying not to let the tremor creep into my voice. Nothing – but still the scrabbling. Perhaps it is an animal after all.

I edge down a few more stairs. ‘Is someone there?’

I can just make out the room, veiled in darkness, and suddenly a hand comes through the window and I scream – and then a voice is saying, ‘It’s me! Don’t scream, Jeanie, it’s only me.’

I turn the light on.

It is Scarlett.

W
hen I’ve calmed
down enough to let Scarlett in the front door – ‘The sensible and normal way to come in,’ I point out – I ask her what on earth she’s doing here.

I don’t mention the bank account or her father; I don’t know if it is linked to this sudden appearance, but it all seems very odd.

‘I’m assuming your parents don’t know you’re here?’

‘I’m meant to be on a geography field trip,’ she says. ‘Part of my coursework. I’m starving, Jeanie. I ran out of money at Leicester. Can I have something to eat?’

‘How did you get here?’

‘I hitched.’

I make her toast and Marmite and save my lecture about the dangers of hitching for another time. I sit down opposite her at the table. I am oddly pleased to see her now my heart has stopped hammering – but I am worried too.

‘Why have you come, lovey?’

She shrugs, eating her toast and avoiding my gaze. But I look at her again and I say, ‘Frankie’s not here you know.’

‘I know.’ She scowls, that familiar little expression. ‘He’s in France. It’s not him I came to see.’

‘Oh I see.’ I feel strangely touched. ‘You came to see me then?’

She nods.

‘Well I’m honoured. But you do know your mother will be going mad. You will have to go back.’

‘I don’t care.’ She flings down her final crust. ‘I don’t care if she’s going mad. She doesn’t care about me.’

‘Oh, Scarlett, I’m sure that’s not true – really.’

‘Are you?’ Her look is full of challenge – and then she yawns widely. Little girl that she is, she looks exhausted.

The little cuckoo clock Jon had left above the door strikes the hour.

‘Let’s go to bed, love, and we can talk in the morning. Have you let your mum know where you are?’

‘Yes.’

But I don’t believe her, so I text Kaye myself.

I owe her nothing, but it’s one mother to another.

Before I go to bed, I stick my head round Scarlett’s door. She is reading a battered old paperback. Daphne du Maurier’s
Rebecca
, I think.

‘Can I ask you one thing that’s been bothering me?’

‘Okay,’ she says, laying her book down.

‘It’s just…’ I go into the room properly and lean on the bedpost. ‘Well. You know you said you had a nanny?’

‘Daisy?’ She stares at me, fingers clutching the duvet. ‘Er – yeah – so?’

‘What exactly happened to her?’

Her eyes are really wide as she hesitates. ‘She – she kind of got – in an accident…’

‘What kind of accident?’

‘I’m not meant to talk about it.’ She scowls like the old Scarlett.

‘Why?’

‘It’s – it was like a legal thing, they said.’

‘Who said?’

‘Dad and Kipper.’

Kipper? I finally click: the overweight policeman who liked guns.

‘She got sort of – run over, but she was leaving anyway, I think. I can’t remember,’ Scarlett prevaricates.

‘Run over?’ I am horrified. ‘Was she – killed?’

‘Oh no.’ Scarlett is more airy now. ‘Not killed, no. Just broke her leg. And her back, I think.’