A Game for All the Family Read online

  I see and hear nothing that surprises me, only boats and birds: an orange sail tied to a mast; a seagull sick of having to repeat itself.

  No George Donbavand.

  ‘There it is!’ Ellen points out over the water. Standing beside her, I can feel her excitement. ‘Lionel’s boat!’

  Lionel – never referred to with a surname attached – is a well-known local painter with a booming voice who has a tendency to finish his sentences with the words ‘Are you with me?’ He exhibits his wares in pubs and cafés, hoping to sell them for between £40 and £90, depending on their size. Lionel has considerable skill as an artist, but his pictures are stomach-churningly awful. He paints attractive Devon scenes and landmarks – Budleigh Salterton beach, Exmoor, the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, Torre Abbey – then spoils the beauty he’s created by painting a caricature of himself, complete with broken-veined nose, tufty white hair and tobacco-stained teeth, over the landscape in a completely different cartoon-like style that clashes horribly.

  All his paintings have titles that begin ‘Lionel Woz Ere’: Lionel Woz Ere At Wortham Manor, Lionel Woz Ere On Burgh Island – those were two I particularly enjoyed leaving behind at the Anchorstone Café in Dittisham to put people off their food until the end of time. Lionel’s pictures don’t sell, and so end up being exhibited relentlessly, forever, by owners of establishments who tolerate and even encourage him because he’s ‘a character’. His paid work is to pilot his boat The Kingswear Treasure, a large wooden dinghy with an outboard motor, from Kingswear to Dartmouth and back again dozens of times a day, seven days a week. God knows when he finds time to paint.

  ‘What’s Lionel’s boat got to do with George?’ I ask Ellen as The Kingswear Treasure chugs over to our side of the river.

  ‘George’ll be on it when it goes back across to Dartmouth. The Donbavands live on the other side. His dad always took him and Fleur to school on the boat. Now he’s been expelled, only Fleur needs to be taken, but George’s dad would never leave him in the house alone and his mum always leaves for work at about five thirty in the morning to avoid rush hour traffic. George will have gone across on the boat with his dad and Fleur. He must have!’

  I see what she means. ‘Lionel’s boat leaves for Dartmouth on the hour and the half hour, so given that they’d miss the nine o’clock because school only starts at nine—’

  ‘They’ll be on the nine thirty,’ Ellen completes my sentence.

  I can’t help smiling. It’s funny to talk about ‘the nine o’clock’ and ‘the nine thirty’ when we’re talking about the same battered wooden vessel, steered by the same white-haired windbag.

  ‘Isn’t Fleur in sixth form, didn’t you say?’ Alex frowns. ‘Surely she’s old enough to go to school on her own by now.’

  ‘George’s mum doesn’t think so.’ Ellen cranes her neck, nearly toppling over the wall. ‘I wish I could see the jetty from here. Why are there so many trees in the way? George and his dad will be on the jetty, waiting for the boat.’

  ‘Here we go,’ I say as The Kingswear Treasure slides back into view on a burst of foam.

  ‘There he is!’ Ellen shrieks next to my ear. ‘There – see that man with blond hair and glasses in the brown coat and red scarf? That’s his dad. The boy next to him, that’s George. George! George!’

  I step back to avoid being deafened by her screams.

  Turn round, George. Please turn round.

  ‘He’s never going to hear you over the noise of all the people on the boat,’ says Alex. ‘Plus the water, the wind …’

  ‘That’s him, Dad,’ Ellen says mournfully. ‘I knew he’d be on Lionel’s boat and there he is – too far away to hear me!’ She bursts into tears and starts to run back towards the house. Alex follows her.

  I stay where I am, staring at The Kingswear Treasure.

  You’re disappointed that he didn’t turn round. Admit it. You think it might mean something.

  I stare at the boy who might be George as he drifts further away. He could easily be the person Ellen described. Light brown hair. I’d call it dark blond, but it amounts to the same thing. He’s sitting with his back to me, so I can’t see if his eyes are blue.

  A boy in a boat. No proof that his name is George Donbavand.

  Once I’m sure that both Ellen and Alex are inside the house, I shout, ‘George!’ as loud as I can. He doesn’t respond. Of course he doesn’t. He’s halfway to Dartmouth. As Alex said, it’s a windy day.

  It doesn’t mean anything.

  I’m sitting in the gazebo when I hear Alex’s car pull up on the gravel on the other side of the house. I’ve left a note in the kitchen telling him where I am.

  Ten minutes later, I see him coming across the lawn with two mugs in his hand, steam rising from both. He’ll have made me tea – too strong, as always, with not enough milk. It’s a running joke. Alex calls my kind of tea ‘beige water’.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask as he hands me my drink.

  ‘Nothing interesting. I dropped El at school, then drove home.’

  ‘Did you go in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Speak to any teachers?’

  ‘No. Let me try this again.’ Alex clears his throat. ‘I dropped Ellen at school, and then I came home. Nothing else happened. If it had, I’d tell you.’

  ‘Sorry.’ I swear under my breath. ‘We should have kept her at home.’

  Alex sighs. ‘We didn’t, though, so why have the argument now?’

  ‘She’s knackered. I don’t think she got any sleep at all last night. She stayed up writing her story.’

  ‘It won’t kill her to be tired.’

  ‘We need to see that story. There’s something not right about it. It’s not what it seems.’

  ‘Not this again. How is it not what it seems?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ The smell of Alex’s coffee is ruining the sea-salt smell that I love. I move away from him, wrinkling my nose at his mug. ‘If I could be more specific, I would. There’s something wrong, Alex. I thought so yesterday and I think so today, hence the repetition. Why do you think Ellen was so determined to go to school today?’

  ‘She explained why: she can’t ruin her education just because she’s upset about George. Sensible, if you ask me.’

  ‘That was a lie, to placate us. She’s frightened. Can’t you tell? I think she believes the threat – to her, George, us, whoever – will be greater if she acknowledges it. By staying away from school, she’d be signalling that she knows how serious the problem is. She’s trying to … appease the danger by pretending to be unaware of it. She’s gone in today intent on acting normal.’

  Alex sips his drink. ‘That sounds vague and woolly to me. I mean, you could be right, but …’ He shrugs. ‘By the way, how old do you reckon Lesley Griffiths is?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ellen asked me. I didn’t know the answer.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just now, on the way to school.’

  ‘I’ve always assumed late fifties. What else did Ellen ask you?’

  ‘Nothing. Oh, wait, no, she did. She asked about some family photos in Lesley’s office. I didn’t know what she meant. I’ve only been in her office twice, and I didn’t notice any photographs.’

  ‘There’s a framed collage – Lesley and her husband and kids at their house in France, messing around by the swimming pool.’

  ‘Apparently so. Ellen saw it when she was in the office sticking up for George.’

  ‘Why? Why would she care how old Lesley is?’ I’m asking myself more than Alex. I don’t believe Ellen suddenly, randomly, wondered about her head teacher’s age.

  My phone starts to ring in my pocket. I grab it quickly, in case something terrible has happened to Ellen at school since Alex left her there.

  If you think that’s likely, she shouldn’t be there.

  But if she’s terrified of what might happen if she stays away …

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘You’re still th
ere, in the house. You’re not going to make this easy for either of us, are you?’

  ‘Hello, crazy stranger. Alex, it’s that crazy stranger I was telling you about. She’s got my mobile number now too – isn’t that fantastic?’

  ‘Three empty graves,’ says the unidentified voice. ‘One smaller than the other two.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ My heart thuds like a bullet hitting bone.

  ‘Two for a mummy and a daddy, one for a child.’

  I cover my mouth with my hand. Swallow hard.

  ‘Three graves to fill, and all because you’re too stubborn to see sense and go back to London. Is it worth it? Does winning mean that much to you?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘That’s very mature, isn’t it?’ says the lisper. ‘That’s going to solve everything.’

  ‘You just threatened me with murder if I’m not mistaken. How mature is that?’

  Alex is gesturing to me that I should pass the phone to him. No. This enemy is mine.

  ‘Who are you?’ I ask her.

  No answer.

  I don’t know why I say what I say next. I know there’s a reason, but it’s not one I can put into words. ‘Is your name Olwen?’

  Alex mouths, ‘Who?’

  ‘Olwen? Is that you?’

  I hear a click. She’s gone.

  Chapter 5

  Home-schooling

  As soon as they heard the details of the changes that were about to rock their lives, the three Ingrey sisters burst into tears all over again.

  ‘From now on, no more school,’ said their mother brightly. ‘You will be home-educated. I will teach you everything creative and interesting – fun, arty things like dressing up and putting on improvised plays – and your father will take care of all the boring stuffy-shirt subjects like Maths, Physics, History, big yawns all round.’

  ‘No, I will teach you the important things,’ Bascom contradicted her. ‘Important things, which are also interesting. I’m afraid your mother’s knowledge of history consists of little more than remembering that she used to find Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones fame more attractive than either John or Paul from the Beatles.’

  ‘Only a stuffy-shirt would use the expression “of Rolling Stones fame”,’ said Sorrel.

  ‘The expression is stuffed shirt,’ Bascom corrected her stuffily. She laughed at him.

  Lisette, Allisande and Perrine were unable to feel pleased that their parents were once again disagreeing in a loving and jovial manner. They did not want to be home-schooled. They were aghast at the prospect of losing this important dimension of their lives. It wasn’t about the education, it was about seeing their friends, and the gossip that they couldn’t live without. (No human being should be expected to live without gossip – that is an indisputable fact.) For example, Mr Coote had recently told off Henrietta Sennitt-Sasse for spraying her floral deodorant spray all over the school bus, but he had not done this during school hours, or even on school grounds – oh, no. Shockingly, Mr Coote had bumped into Henrietta in the park one weekend and started reprimanding her most severely when he wasn’t even in loco parentis. Every idiot knows that a teacher can’t harangue a pupil for a school-related offence once the school day is over. Henrietta had told Allisande that the ‘Pas devant les enfants’ her mother had spluttered to her father on this occasion had been positively vicious, and she was sure her parents were going to do all they could to have Mr Coote fired. Henrietta was determined that he should be sacked, and if her parents didn’t make this happen, she planned to catch him out in another way. Mr Coote had a habit of ruffling children’s hair and slapping them on the back, and Henrietta thought this behaviour could easily be presented as violent pupil battering.

  It was because of ongoing sagas like this that Allisande and Lisette Ingrey did not want to give up going to school, and they said so to their parents. They begged and pleaded, to no avail. Perrine, surprisingly, felt the same way as her sisters. Everyone was rather shocked to hear this. ‘But Perrine, last time you went to school, someone tried to hang you from a tree,’ Allisande pointed out.

  ‘Yes, but that could have happened anywhere,’ said Perrine. ‘There’s no way of knowing that the person who tried to kill me was someone from school. Anyway, I’m not scared. I was off my guard, but not any more. If anyone else tries to kill me, I guarantee I’ll choke the life out of them first.’ Perrine giggled, then let her eyes roll back in her head. She poked her tongue out of the side of her mouth and mimed pulling up a rope behind her head. She made a noise that sounded like gargling and the snapping of a neck all at the same time. Then she giggled some more.

  Lisette and Allisande exchanged a look. Some of the time they were able to pretend to themselves that Perrine was normal-ish, but then something like this would happen and it became obvious that she really wasn’t.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Lisette. ‘Mum, Dad … no one has tried to kill me or Allisande, have they? Why can’t we go to school as normal, and just Perrine can stay home?’

  Sorrel shook her head sadly. ‘I wish I could say yes to that, I really do. But I’m afraid Perrine needs company.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Perrine. ‘I’m fine on my own.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ said Bascom. ‘Listen to your parents who know what’s best for you. Families must always stick together, no matter what. Very close together.’

  ‘It’s not only about keeping Perrine company,’ Sorrel explained. ‘It’s also a safety measure. Your father and I are determined to keep Perrine confined to this house so that no one can get to her. We will succeed, because when we join forces, we always triumph.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Bascom agreed. ‘That’s the secret of our happy marriage.’

  ‘So, everyone who hates Perrine and wants her dead will be frustrated,’ Sorrel went on. ‘How long before they think to themselves, “Okay, then, if we can’t kill her, we’ll make do with one of her sisters”?’

  ‘I don’t think anyone would think that,’ said Allisande. ‘Everyone likes me and Lisette. They wouldn’t punish us because Perrine murdered Malachy Dodd.’

  ‘Oh, not that again!’ said Perrine irritably. ‘I didn’t murder him.’

  ‘Allisande’s right,’ said Lisette. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of people who have said how sorry they are for me, having Perrine as a sister. I’ve had offers from teachers and pupils for me to go and live at their houses, join their families.’

  ‘Girls, I’m so sorry,’ said Sorrel. ‘It has to be this way. You two will be a good influence on Perrine, and I don’t want to have to worry about you at school all day. Yes, most people have been reasonable and sympathetic to you both, but remember, it only takes one person to drop a rope noose down from the branch of a tree.’

  ‘But … we can still see our friends, can’t we?’ said Lisette. ‘Mimsie can still come round for tea after school sometimes, and at weekends?’

  ‘And Henrietta?’ said Allisande.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Sorrel, who looked genuinely upset. ‘Anyone who comes to the house might try to harm Perrine. Even if they have no desire to do so themselves, they might unwittingly be used as a pawn by someone who wants to hurt or kill her. We can’t take the risk. From now on, for the foreseeable future, it’ll just be the five of us. And … perhaps we will eventually move out of Speedwell House, away from Kingswear, to somewhere where no one knows the names Perrine Ingrey and Malachy Dodd.’

  ‘No!’ protested Lisette and Allisande in unison. They had both started to sob. ‘We don’t want to leave our friends!’

  Sorrel looked at Bascom. ‘You see?’ she said softly. ‘My way wouldn’t have involved cutting Lisette and Allisande off from their—’

  ‘Darling,’ Bascom said with a warning tone to his voice. ‘Come on. We agreed.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sorrel sighed. ‘We agreed.’

  ‘So …’ Bascom rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. ‘It’s going to be just the five of us for a while, and it’s
going to be lots of fun! We’ll do all kinds of exciting things! We’re going to introduce some new, extra-special security measures here at home, so that no one will be able to break in and threaten us. It’ll be like playing hide and seek, but … for a long time, and with no one being able to find us.’

  ‘But you and Mum both have jobs,’ said Lisette.

  This was true. Bascom worked as a supervisor in a timber frame factory, and Sorrel worked part-time as a receptionist for a vet in Kingswear. She would have hated to work full-time, or be a boss, whereas Bascom was ideally suited to a managerial role. He enjoyed delegating work, nurturing employees and being responsible for bringing everything together. Even when one of his workers fell into one of the machines at the timber factory and lost an arm, Bascom was pleased that he was the one sorting it all out (though there was nothing he could do about the lost arm, sadly).

  ‘We will give up our jobs,’ Bascom told his three daughters. ‘We’ll manage. We have some money saved up. This is why it’s so sensible to save for a rainy day.’

  At that moment, the twilight sky lost all its colour and turned jet black, and rain started to pour forth from above, drumming and hammering on the roof of Speedwell House. The Ingreys huddled together for comfort, but it was hard to feel safe when it seemed as if even the weather had turned against you.

  6

  I’m sitting in my car on Cravestock Road, a narrow one-way street of red-brick interwar semis. Less than ten metres away are Panama Row and Germander; less than twenty, my old friend the North Circular Road. I’m trying to convince myself that coming here isn’t the most senseless thing I’ve ever done.

  There’s no reason to believe that my anonymous caller is Olwen Brawn, a woman I’ve never met. I know this. I also know I’m going to suspect her until I prove that she’s not the culprit.

  If we speak – if her tongue doesn’t catch on her teeth and she has nothing resembling a lisp – then I’ll have made progress. I’ll have ruled her out. I should get on with it. Get out of the car and do this.