A Game for All the Family Read online

  ‘He didn’t like them?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. It was more that he said he felt as if he was married to all three of us. Mum and Dad rang every night, we got together every other weekend … either they’d come to Scotland or we’d come here. Nathan got sick of only having one weekend in two to ourselves. To me it was just normal!’ Small giggle.

  ‘But Anne doesn’t speak to you every night on the phone or visit every other weekend?’ I say.

  ‘No.’ Sarah sighs. ‘She comes with Stephen and the kids for two hours on Christmas Day. That’s it. And it’s clear she’s not having a good time when she’s there. She always seems kind of … removed from the festivities, as if she’s present in body only. Stephen, her husband – he’s really lovely! – he tries to over-compensate by being super-friendly, but it’s a bit awful really. Ha!’

  ‘Well, it’s clear from this portrait – thanks to your skill as an artist – that Anne is a woman with many interesting facets to her character,’ I say.

  ‘Seriously? That’s so sweet of you!’

  ‘What’s she like? I hope you don’t mind my asking. I mean, what was she like as a child? And – again, feel free to tell me to mind my own business – but was she always a bit distant and aloof from the rest of you, or … did something happen?’

  ‘Nothing whatsoever. That’s why it was so weird when she suddenly backed away from us soon after she left for university. I know everyone says, “I did nothing wrong”, but, literally, there was nothing that happened. I think Anne must have had some kind of … psychological epiphany. Sometimes the people you grew up around remind you of the old you – the person you don’t want to be any more. Mum and Dad begged to know what they’d done wrong, but all they got in response was polite deflection. I told them: leave her be. If she’s ever going to come back to us, it’ll only happen if we back off.’

  ‘Sounds sensible,’ I say.

  ‘I’m more optimistic than Mum and Dad,’ says Sarah. ‘Anne and I were close, despite the seven-year age gap between us. I was her adoring disciple. She used to tell me stories about film stars she’d met – Richard Gere and Harrison Ford – and pop groups that had asked her to join because they were in dire need of a female vocalist – Duran Duran, no less! I’d lap up the stories unquestioningly.’ Titter, titter.

  ‘But … they weren’t true?’ I don’t know why I’m asking when I know the answer. Teenage Anne Offord from Totnes did not meet Richard Gere or Harrison Ford. She wasn’t invited to sing with Duran Duran.

  ‘Oh, God, no, but Anne told them as if they were!’

  It’s called lying. Same goes for making up pregnancies.

  ‘Anne had the most incredible imagination,’ says Sarah. ‘I was always the visual one and she was the storyteller. I was sure she’d be a writer. So were Mum and Dad. I actually wonder if she went into academia to spite us.’

  ‘It’s odd that you think she’d want to do that, given that you say nothing happened, no conflict or rift, or …’ I shrug. Mustn’t seem too interested. Feigning a laugh, I say, ‘Are you sure there’s no dark family secret? A third sister tucked away somewhere who might have driven Anne away?’

  ‘Haha. No, I’m afraid not.’

  Not a flicker of recognition or guilt.

  ‘Literally, apart from being very close – closer than most, if you don’t include Anne – there’s nothing interesting about my family at all.’

  Apart from it containing a pathological liar. One who started early.

  ‘I branched out into the semi-bohemian by being an artist, but other than that, my childhood was building-society-advert dull: 2.4 kids and a microwave kind of deal. The most dramatic thing to happen was when I seemed to develop a strange respiratory illness, but then even that turned out to be a massive anti-climax: I was just allergic to our dog!’

  The mention of a dog makes me think of Figgy and how odd it is not having him with me. Alex has him today and I’m a bit jealous. I want to get back to him, bury my nose in the curly fur on the top of his head. If I could go back in time and tell the Muswell Hill, TV-producer Me that she would turn into someone who aspired to do Nothing and looked forward to cuddling a dog, she would be distraught.

  And, what’s more, it would serve her right – for what, I’m not sure.

  ‘Is this painting of Anne for sale?’ I ask Sarah.

  ‘Ooh. Good question.’ She puts her thumb in her mouth and starts to chew it. ‘Can I think about it and let you know? I mean, I’m sure it will be for sale, but because of the sentimental value, I don’t want to rush into selling it, if that makes sense.’

  ‘Of course.’ I smile. Inside, I’m cursing. I want the picture now. I want to deface it. Dig a grave for it on Professor Anne’s lawn. Let her good friends Richard Gere and Harrison Ford try to stop me.

  I write down my details for Sarah and ask her to email me once she’s decided about the portrait. Hopefully she’ll decide in my favour, and when I come back to collect it, I can ask her more questions. If she rumbles me, I can always tell her the truth: ‘Look, I’m sorry I came here under false pretences, but here’s the situation …’ That’s what normal people do – people who lie only occasionally, when they need to: they apologise and revert to the truth when found out. They have a sense of shame.

  Pathological liars like Anne Donbavand produce new lies to explain away the old ones: ‘Oh, did what I said turn out not to be true? Here, then, have another nice but false story.’

  The teenage girl who pretended Duran Duran were headhunting her grew into an adult woman who pretended her family changed its name and started a new life because they were in danger from a nameless pursuer.

  I believe Lesley Griffiths; I don’t care what Ops thinks. I doubt he’s ever worked in TV drama. I’ve probably read more documents than he has about the psychology of the compulsive liar. Mythomania, it’s called. I remember a document with that heading sitting on my desk for weeks, and me never having time to read it. Eventually I spilled coffee over it deliberately, hoping no one would provide me with another copy.

  Someone did. I read it eventually. One line stuck in my mind: ‘The stories told tend to present the liar favourably, as the hero or the victim.’ I thought that was odd: why would anyone want to be a victim? How did that qualify as favourable presentation?

  If I ever meet Anne Donbavand, I might ask her.

  Before I leave Sarah’s gallery, I can’t resist trying one more question. I throw it over my shoulder as I’m leaving, hand on the door, to make it sound trivial. If she reacts badly, I can always make a run for it. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard of a Perrine Ingrey, have you?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Though what an alluring name! Is she an artist?’

  Again, not a flicker of recognition.

  ‘I’m not sure she’s anyone,’ I say, wanting to make my parting remark as honest as possible. ‘I think I’ve been given the wrong information.’

  I arrive out of breath and two minutes late for my four o’clock meeting with Stephen Donbavand. Getting from Totnes to Exeter was the easy part. Finding the right office once I arrived at Exeter University proved almost impossible.

  I knock on the door. Two minutes only counts as late if you’re a punctuality freak like me. It’s another hangover from my London life, where it really mattered. Every meeting that needed two hours was squashed into one because you invariably had a stack-up of twelve to get through afterwards, followed by an evening spent doing all your housework with one hand while arranging and rearranging the next day’s meetings on your iPhone with the other.

  I’m hoping Exeter University has a more leisurely ethos. I suppose it bodes well that no one I’ve encountered so far seems to know where any of the buildings or departments are. I found Stephen Donbavand’s room by accident in the end.

  Who am I supposed to be again? Too late: the door is opening. Fuck. This isn’t a normal kind of forgetting; it’s a panic-induced blanking out.

  ‘Julia Vowles?’
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br />   Oh, thank you, thank you.

  ‘Yes. Dr Donbavand?’

  He extends a hand. I’m about to shake it when he turns abruptly and walks over to a table in the corner of the room that has a kettle, mugs and sachets of Nescafé on it. ‘Pleasure to meet you,’ he says.

  I put away my unwanted hand and try not to feel embarrassed. Is this a new thing: the air handshake, like the ‘Mwah-mwah’ no-contact kissing that TV people do?

  I’m surprised by my racing heart and dry throat. One day I might tell someone I did this – Alex, for example – and I’ll make it a funny story: how I snuck in and fooled Stephen Donbavand, pretending to be someone wanting to study micro-blah-blah economics. I won’t mention that I was so scared, I could hardly breathe.

  What if Stephen Donbavand sees through my act? What if he attacks me?

  ‘Do come in and make yourself comfortable. Coffee? I can offer you caf or decaf, but no tea, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’ll have decaf. Thanks.’ It’s not a breaking of my rule. Decaf instant Nescafé has more in common with Ribena than it does with real coffee.

  ‘Good idea! I’ll join you.’ He sounds delighted that we’re going to have the same drink.

  I know this man. Not him specifically, but his type. He’s one of those people so steeped in niceness, he’s unable to recognise its opposite. Of course Anne Donbavand would marry someone like him. He’d be the perfect enabler.

  His office is tidy and impersonal. There are two shelves of economics books with titles like A Note on the Existence of Nash Equilibrium in Games With Discontinuous Payoffs, one small blue and white rug that looks pitiful at the centre of such a large room. The mug in which my non-coffee arrives has a slogan on it: ‘150% of statistics are wrong!’ No photos anywhere in the room, of his wife and children or of anything else.

  It’s as if Stephen Donbavand has dutifully put some things in his office to make it his own, but has no idea how to make it truly personal or homely. Either that’s a typically male approach to occupying space or else I’m a sexist.

  Already, I know more about George’s father than I did when I knocked on his door. I know he didn’t take one look at me and think, ‘That’s not Julia Vowles, it’s Justine Merrison.’ Or ‘That’s my sister-in-law, Allisande Ingrey.’

  How much has Anne confided in him? People keep things from their spouses all the time. I set off to Totnes this morning without mentioning to Alex that I was going on to Exeter afterwards to pretend to be Julia Vowles the Economics student. It’s possible that Anne Donbavand hasn’t mentioned her harassment of me to her husband.

  He must know the Ingrey story, though, if George does. But, no, that doesn’t work. If Stephen and George – and Fleur too, presumably – think that Anne is Lisette Ingrey, daughter of Bascom and Sorrel, sister of Allisande and Perrine, who do they all think they’re visiting each Christmas when they spend a tense afternoon with Martin and Denise Offord and Sarah Parsons?

  When he sits down opposite me holding his own mug, which he’s rather bizarrely wrapped in a blue tea towel, I look at Stephen Donbavand’s smiling face and think, ‘You could tell this man anything and get away with it.’

  ‘So. Why Exeter University?’ he asks me.

  ‘Because you’re here,’ I say. ‘As I said in my email, I’ve read some of your work and found it very interesting.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looks surprised. ‘Well … thank you!’

  I wonder if there’s a slogan on his mug, concealed by the tea towel: ‘150% of prospective PhD students are secretly here to ask questions about your mad wife!’

  ‘And also I know your sister-in-law, Sarah Parsons,’ I add on a whim. I’m scared anyway; might as well escalate to very scared.

  Stephen Donbavand looks surprised, but pleasantly so. ‘I see! How do you know Sarah?’

  ‘From walking past her gallery so often – one day I plucked up the courage to go in. We got chatting – you know how friendly and chatty she is – and we’ve been good friends ever since. She’s an amazing artist, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. Very talented indeed.’

  ‘You must have her paintings all over your walls, have you? Oh. I’m so sorry.’ I cover my mouth with my hand. ‘What a stupid thing to say. I know Anne doesn’t like to have much involvement with her family – Sarah told me. So … there’s no reason why you’d have lots of her work in your house.’

  ‘Think nothing of it.’ Stephen smiles. Still no suspicion on his face; still the benign duck expression. ‘In fact, what I know about art could be written on the back of a postage stamp, so rather than have a conversation that reveals my ignorance … shall we talk about your research plans instead?’

  Interesting. I make a reprehensibly intrusive comment about his wife, and his response is to try to make me feel better.

  ‘Yes. Though … I’m just thinking, does it matter that I’m a friend of Sarah’s, from the point of view of you maybe being my supervisor?’

  ‘No, I don’t think it’s any sort of conflict of interests,’ Stephen Donbavand says.

  ‘Good. Neither do I.’

  We smile at one another.

  ‘So tell me about your work, then.’

  Shit. What can I say? Sitting in a room with someone who believes I might be planning to do some work is making me sweaty and nauseous.

  ‘Julia? Are you all right?’

  ‘I will be. I feel a bit dizzy.’

  Think, woman. Economics. Help, quick. The budget. The Chancellor of the Exchequer holding up a red box. Until Alex set me straight, I thought the box was full of money and wondered why I never heard it jingle when George Osborne waved it in the air.

  ‘Julia? Shall I get you some water? Coffee’s not the best thing if you feel faint – even decaf.’

  ‘Water would be good. Thanks.’

  He puts down his drink on the shelf next to his chair. In his hurry to get the water he hopes will cure me, he lets the blue tea towel drop to the floor and I see that his mug does indeed have writing on it – the worst kind. It’s one of those head-bashingly irritating ‘Keep Calm’ slogans: in this instance ‘Keep Calm and Stop Caring’.

  ‘Here you go.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I take two long sips of cold water. Stephen stands in front of me, too close. He’s probably waiting to catch me if I faint.

  ‘I’m fine now, really. Thanks.’

  As he turns to walk back to his chair, I catch sight of his palms and gasp.

  He whirls round. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. It’s just … the water’s cold. In a good way.’ I smile, hoping he can’t hear the terror-drumming of my heart.

  His hands are livid red and swollen. Cracked at the bottom, with mud embedded in the cracks, brown lines across his palms. On the fleshy pad beneath one of his thumbs is a wound, like a burst blister, inadequately covered by a plaster.

  That’s why the tea towel. Without it, holding a mug of hot coffee would be too painful for him.

  I’ve found the Speedwell House gravedigger. Not Anne Donbavand, but her husband: smiling Stephen. Or maybe both of them.

  ‘Ouch, that looks sore,’ I say. ‘Your hands. Did you burn them?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes. No, actually, it was digging that did it.’

  How dare you, you fucker? How dare you look so jovial about it?

  ‘Gardening? At this time of year?’ My laugh comes out strangled. I’m nearly as bad an actress as I am an economist. Doesn’t matter. Now that I know Stephen Donbavand dug a hole out of my garden to scare me and my family, I’m less worried about him suspecting my true identity. He’s got something to hide, so he’ll assume he’s the only one in the room who has.

  ‘Well …’ He shrugs and laughs. ‘If it keeps my wife happy.’

  My breath turns solid in my mouth and throat. He has no idea who he’s talking to, or what he’s told me. Not that I didn’t know it anyway. This isn’t a man who would dig a grave in a stranger’s garden off his own bat. Stephen Don
bavand would never do that. What he would do, if he woke up one day and found himself married to a dangerous lunatic, is keep calm and stop caring. Or care, but do nothing about it.

  He tries again. ‘Let’s talk about your proposed PhD. And, if you could give me some background about your—’

  ‘No.’

  He can’t physically attack me without using his hands, and they’re injured. If I have to fight him physically, I will. I think I could win.

  ‘Let’s talk about your wife for a bit longer. Before she married you, she was Anne Offord, with one sister, Sarah. Yet she pretends she grew up as Lisette Ingrey, with two sisters, Allisande and Perrine. Perrine murdered Malachy Dodd. Except none of these people are real, are they?’

  I’m looking at a frozen man with a colourless face. He’s not going to ask me what I mean. He knows.

  ‘My name isn’t Julia Vowles,’ I tell him. ‘I think you know who I am, don’t you? Who would care enough to trick you into a meeting? Who’s your wife tormenting at the moment? Who are you helping her to harrass? Any names spring to mind?’

  ‘I … I think you ought to leave. I’m … I’m really sorry.’ The last word comes out as a sob. He’s hunched in his chair, protecting himself with his arms. From words. Nothing but words.

  ‘I’m Justine Merrison, Stephen. Your hands are sore because you spent most of last night digging a grave in my garden – as you said, to keep your wife happy. You’re scared of her, which I can understand. George is scared of her, and I can only assume Fleur is too. From my point of view, that’s no excuse for going along with whatever she asks you to do.’

  ‘Justine, you have to leave.’ He isn’t asking; he’s pleading.