A Game for All the Family Read online

  ‘He couldn’t have fallen by accident,’ said Sorrel. ‘The window in Perrine’s bedroom is set too high in the wall for that to be possible.’

  ‘We can’t know what happened for sure since we weren’t there,’ said Bascom, who, like Lisette, had strict views about standards of evidence. ‘For example, maybe Perrine was trying to perform some kind of strange trick, and it went wrong.’

  ‘What trick?’ Sorrel’s voice brimmed with disbelief.

  ‘I don’t know! Or … maybe she wasn’t planning to let go of him, but he slipped out of her grasp.’

  ‘You’re saying she was dangling him out of the window for fun?’ said Sorrel sharply. ‘Or to scare him? Oh, well, that’s all right then! Look, instead of wasting time speculating, why don’t we concentrate on deciding what to do?’

  Bascom, Lisette and Allisande were shocked. Sorrel did not usually say organised-sounding things like that.

  ‘Do?’ said Bascom (which was a more typically Sorrel-ish thing to say).

  ‘Yes,’ said his wife. ‘Everybody for miles around believes Perrine murdered Malachy, including all of us. Something is going to happen. Somebody – not the Dodds, who are too dull-witted, but somebody else – will try to avenge Malachy’s death. Can’t you feel the darkness in the atmosphere? I can. I can feel hatred for Perrine brewing, everywhere I go. Something will befall her. She hasn’t noticed, but I have. There is danger all around, and not only for Perrine – for us as well. What if someone throws boiling water in my face one day for bringing an evil child into the world?’

  ‘Mum!’ Lisette and Allisande protested in unison. ‘Don’t scare us!’

  ‘I’m afraid I might need to scare you in order to protect us all,’ Sorrel murmured.

  Bascom asked for evidence that the danger to their family was real, but Sorrel didn’t have any.

  Perrine carried on as usual – devious, charmless and prone to tantrums. She stopped being willing to answer questions about her role in Malachy Dodd’s death. She started to say, ‘I’ve put all that behind me,’ whenever the subject came up. This only set the village folk even more passionately against her. It was whispered on street corners and in local hostelries that Perrine Ingrey now referred to Malachy’s tragic death as if it were her ordeal and not his – she was the main victim, and she had survived and moved on.

  One day, during an ‘away’ rounders match at a local school, Perrine was standing on the grass of the sports field under a tree, and suddenly she felt something fall around her neck. It was a noose made of rope that had been dropped from above her head. She looked up. There was someone sitting on one of the higher branches of the tree. Their denim jeans and black trainers were visible but not their face, so Perrine never saw who her attacker was.

  (You’re starting to think that Perrine is about to get murdered, aren’t you? Wait and see.)

  She felt the noose tighten around her neck as her mysterious enemy pulled the rope from above. Luckily for Perrine, her next impulsive action saved her life. She grabbed at the rope with her hands, so that as it tightened and tightened, and as she was hoisted slowly into the air by whoever was sitting on the branch of the tree, her fingers were just about able to pull the noose away from her neck so that she could still breathe, though only barely. Her fingers were badly hurt, but her windpipe was not crushed.

  ‘Hanged by the neck until dead’ – isn’t that the saying? What a chilling phrase.

  Perrine Ingrey didn’t die. Not on that occasion. Do not think you can work out what is going to happen before I tell you, because you can’t. It’s impossible. There are some stories so unimaginably horrifying that no normal imagination could produce them. Even people who had known the Ingrey family for years would not have been able to predict what happened. Afterwards – after Perrine was eventually murdered – still nobody guessed who had done it, why or how. To this day, if you visit the vicinity of Speedwell House, you will hear the local legends and rumours about Perrine. From the crab-and-lobster-strewn tables of the Anchorstone Café in Dittisham to the steeply sloping streets of Dartmouth with their rows of little art galleries all selling identical paintings of pastel-coloured beach huts, and all up and down the River Dart on every kind of boat you care to mention, you will hear the name Perrine carried to you by the wind and whispered by the trees on the river bank. Sometimes it’s as if the water itself is gushing the name, as if hundreds of wooden oars are pushing it through the foam towards you: ‘Perrine, Perrine, Perrine!’ (But of course many people are quite fanciful and melodramatic, so I wouldn’t necessarily advise that you trust anyone who asks you to believe that water and trees can speak.)

  One thing is for certain: most of the human beings who live in or around Kingswear still tell the terrible tale of Perrine Ingrey. And the irritating thing is that when they reach the end, they all say the same thing. They all say: ‘The mystery was never solved. No one knows who murdered Perrine Ingrey.’

  That is, quite simply, not true. I know who murdered Perrine. And those who don’t know could easily work it out if only they used their brains. All the information they need is in their possession by the time they reach the end of the story. It’s really as plain as day, but they are not capable of guessing the truth, even though there is only one logical possibility.

  (To be fair, I’m not sure I would have been able to work it out either if I hadn’t been told.)

  Let’s get back to Perrine, who is hanging by her neck from a tree. How thoughtless of me to leave her dangling there while I digress and rant about people’s lack of imagination.

  Perrine might have died eventually if her would-be murderer had persisted. Even with her fingers between her neck and the rope, there wasn’t much room for breathing. Fortunately for Perrine, her killer saw that she had grabbed the noose with one hand, and this disheartened him or her. ‘Oh, dear,’ he or she must have thought. ‘A noose is supposed to have a neck in it and nothing else. My plan has gone dreadfully wrong.’ The miscreant decided to give up and scarper. Perrine later told her family that she heard footsteps a few seconds after she dropped to the ground. As she lay there choking and rubbing her wounded neck with her swollen, bruised fingers, she heard her attacker running away.

  If you asked Perrine (which you can’t any more, but apparently someone did while she was still alive), she would have said that the worst part of her ordeal was not hanging by her neck from a tree and fearing that darkness without end was about to swallow her up. No, the worst part was seeing the looks on the faces of her teacher and fellow pupils as she hung there, suspended in the air. Each and every one of them believed that Perrine was doomed, and not a single one made any move to save her life. Twenty-nine pupils and one teacher stood perfectly still and watched with smiles of admiration for the murderer on their faces, happy that soon Perrine would be no more.

  It was only when it became obvious that she would survive that her teacher sighed and said, ‘I suppose we’d better call an ambulance.’

  4

  I’m in the wrong place: sitting next to a tree in a terracotta pot in the lilac-walled reception area of the police station, when I should still be at Ellen’s school. I can’t believe I allowed myself to be steered out of Lesley Griffiths’ office and whooshed out of the building with a stream of encouraging but meaningless pleasantries: Ellen is a lovely girl, she’ll go far, she’s so creative … Yes, all true, all good to hear, but not the point.

  George Donbavand is the point.

  Why was I so utterly useless in the face of Lesley’s manipulation? Why did I leave without a satisfactory explanation? I know people do strange things when they’re in shock, but it isn’t as if I was tortured or assaulted – only mightily confused. It’s hard to stand up for yourself when you’re too bewildered to think straight.

  Deliberately bewildered – that’s how it felt.

  If there was never a boy at Beaconwood by the name of George Donbavand, why wasn’t Lesley more alarmed to hear about my daughter’s invention of him
? Why would Ellen make up a sister for him, also in danger of imminent framing and expulsion?

  I wish I’d asked Lesley about Fleur Donbavand. As soon as I’m finished here, I’m going to go back to school and interrogate some other people: Kendra Squires, Mr Fisher, any children I can get my hands on. Hurry up, PC Phoebe Hilton. That’s who I’ve been told I’m waiting for.

  Dozens of pupils would have known George if he was at Beaconwood, and all the teachers. You can’t force that many people into a conspiracy to lie, not with someone like me pestering them, determined to find out the truth.

  I keep coming back to this: Lesley Griffiths isn’t crazy. So what is she? Something much worse? If she’s lying to me – telling me there’s no George when there is one – that’s so unacceptable, I can barely believe any head teacher would do it.

  No one would do it. Yes, the world is full of grotesque characters who behave appallingly, but … this is too outlandish, too out-and-out bonkers. I can see the headlines in the Sun and the Mail now: ‘Head teacher who denied existence of pupil is revealed to be …’ What?

  ‘Justine Merrison?’ I look up to find a young woman smiling at me. ‘I’m PC Hilton. Call me Phoebe, though.’ She doesn’t look much older than Ellen. Blonde hair sprouts from the top of her head in a high ponytail.

  Is it illegal for a head teacher to lie to a parent? I might ask. The mystery of George Donbavand is all I’m interested in discussing at the moment. I’m less worried about the nuisance phone calls; they’re a problem I might be able to solve without police help. If living in Devon means putting up with threats from strangers and sending my daughter to a school where pupils get ‘disappeared’ in the manner of a fascist regime then I have no desire to stay in the county. I don’t want to go back to London, either. Maybe the deranged lisper would accept a compromise: Somerset, or Cornwall.

  I love Speedwell House, but I don’t love it that much. We could sell it in less than a week, probably – to one of the four families that lost out in the auction we won. Alex would insist that quitting is for cowards, but I’ve heard that nugget of alleged wisdom before and I’ve never agreed with it. If there’s an aspect of your life that’s making you unhappy and you can escape from it, why wait? Too many people stick around and try to improve things, which often means slogging your guts out to compensate for the deficiencies of others. Personally, I’m a fan of the discard: leave it; move on.

  Or, as Ben Lourenco so memorably said the last time I spoke to him, ‘Chuck it in the fuck-it bucket.’

  ‘Shall we go somewhere where we can talk in private?’ Phoebe Hilton asks.

  ‘I don’t mind. Here’s fine.’

  ‘I think we’ll be better off in a less public place. Reception’s not usually this quiet. You never know who’ll turn up.’

  ‘Fine.’ Then why ask me? I don’t care. I want to get this over with so that I can go back to Beaconwood.

  PC Hilton starts a conversation about the weather as we walk down a series of corridors. I do my best to participate without yawning. After we’ve established that it might or might not get colder over the next few days, she asks me about my accent. When I tell her I’m originally from Manchester, she says, ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘Northenden.’

  ‘I knew it! Near me. I was born in Wythenshawe.’

  ‘Really? You sound very Devon for a Mancunian.’

  ‘We moved here when I was fifteen. I gave myself a quick change of voice, so as not to get the bejesus kicked out of me every day at school. Still go back to Manc, though – my nan’s been there all her life. Northenden’s posh, if you ask her. S’pose anywhere’s posh compared to Wythenshawe.’

  ‘Apart from Miles Platting.’ I smile.

  Phoebe Hilton laughs. ‘Miles Platting! That’s a name I haven’t heard for a long time.’

  ‘I had a boyfriend who lived there. My dad and stepmum disapproved.’ And my mum called them snobs and told them to get over themselves, because Northenden was hardly Mayfair.

  What would PC Hilton say if I told her my mother was killed by a family tree? She’d probably say it can’t be true.

  It isn’t. I know it isn’t. It only feels true.

  Family trees are nothing more than pictures on paper. Do your worst, Bascom and Sorrel Ingrey. You can’t harm me, whoever you are.

  We end up in a long, rectangular room with horrible pleated orange curtains, and lots of chairs and tables pushed back against the walls as if to make space for an imminent barn dance. ‘Grab a chair,’ PC Hilton says, doing so herself. She sits down and pulls a small notebook and pen out of her pocket. ‘Right. Tell me about these funny phone calls, then. Funny peculiar, I mean – not funny ha-ha.’

  I start by describing my anonymous caller’s sort-of lisp, then do my best to reconstruct both conversations in their entirety. Next I explain the oddest part: that this woman talks as if we know each other well and have a history together when we don’t. ‘I wouldn’t be here, except when I rang my husband and told him about it, he insisted I tell the police.’

  ‘He’s right. If you’ve been threatened, it’s always best to report it. Even if it’s all hot air, as it seems in this case.’

  ‘You mean—’

  ‘It’s unlikely this person will do you any physical harm.’ Phoebe Hilton looks up from her note-taking and smiles.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Well, most antagonistic anonymous callers get all the aggro out of their systems by making the calls. That’s enough for them.’

  I wait for her to produce something more persuasive. When she doesn’t, I say, ‘Most?’

  ‘Yes. Admittedly, a small minority do take it further, but there are usually very specific warning signs – things we look out for. I’m comfortable that none of those red flags are cropping up here.’

  I pull a chair over from the side of the room and sit down opposite her. ‘You don’t think this woman’s going to attack me and my family if we don’t leave Devon immediately, then?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say so.’

  Damn. It would have been nice to be able to tell Alex, ‘The police advise us to run for our lives. If we stay, it’ll be at our own risk.’ I’m confident that I could turn abandoning Devon into as much fun as abandoning work.

  Is it weird to glean so much pleasure from booting troublesome things out of your life?

  I say, ‘What about the red flag of this woman knowing where we used to live and what my job used to be? What about “I don’t want to have to hurt you”?’

  PC Hilton’s face twists in sympathy. ‘That’s a horrible thing to hear, but it doesn’t mean she’s going to do anything. Honestly, for most of them, the calls are enough to give them the buzz they’re after.’

  ‘Are there lots of unhinged anonymous callers in this part of Devon?’ I ask. ‘You talk as if you meet hundreds of these people every day.’

  She laughs. ‘No, not at all. It’s very rare, this kind of behaviour.’

  ‘Then how—’

  ‘I’d expect the calls to stop fairly soon. That tends to be the pattern with people who do this. If it continues, obviously come and see us again.’

  ‘It already has continued. From one phone call to two – that’s a continuation.’ I didn’t want to come here, but I did, to please Alex; now I’m getting angry on his behalf, knowing that Phoebe Hilton isn’t saying any of the things he’d want her to. ‘Couldn’t you try to trace the calls? I might not be quivering with fear and in imminent danger, but it’s still harassment. People get prosecuted for this kind of thing, don’t they?’

  PC Hilton nods. ‘If the calls continue, we’ll certainly look into tracing them,’ she says. ‘To be honest, it might be easier if you were to have a think about who it could be, and maybe try and talk to them? Confront them. Not alone, obviously, and as diplomatically as possible. Perhaps your husband’d go with you?’

  Inside my head, all movement stops for a few seconds. Did I not explain myself clearly enough?
/>   ‘If I thought I could work out on my own who’s doing it, I wouldn’t be bothering you,’ I tell her. ‘I’m here because I’m certain this is nobody I know. It’s a voice I’ve never heard before.’

  ‘People can distort their voices,’ says PC Hilton.

  ‘I told you: this wasn’t a distorted voice. A distorted voice sounds muffled or altered, or … This woman was speaking in a perfectly ordinary, clear voice, with a slight lisp, though not the usual kind – not “th” for “s”.’

  ‘You said it sounded as if she might have had something in her mouth?’

  ‘I don’t think she actually did – I was trying to describe the lisp. It’s more likely her tongue was catching on her teeth as she spoke. The point is, I’d have recognised her if she were someone I knew. She isn’t. This is no one whose voice I’ve heard before.’

  ‘But you said she knew you used to work in the world of TV and live in Muswell Hill.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So she must know you.’

  ‘No. She knows of me, evidently – she knows facts about me – but she doesn’t know me because I don’t know her. I can’t believe I need to say it again, but it seems I do, so please listen carefully this time: the person making these calls is a stranger to me.’

  PC Hilton blushes and writes something down in her notebook. I hope it’s the words ‘Note to self: stop being a dick immediately.’

  ‘All right,’ she says, looking up. ‘So you can’t think of anyone you might have offended? Any incident that might have sparked this off? Obviously if you do think of anything or remember anything, let me know.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Without meaning to,’ she adds quickly. ‘I’m not saying you’ve deliberately intimidated anybody, but people can take offence at the strangest things, can’t they?’

  ‘They can, yes.’ It’s important to sound conciliatory. Three words of mollification: that’ll do. ‘But you’re missing the point. These phone calls aren’t about me or anything I’ve done or not done. Yes, of course I’ve upset people from time to time – plenty of them.’