Child's Play Read online

  ‘I think that depends more on the individual,’ he replied. ‘Part of the differing behaviours you encounter.’ As she began to walk towards the door he said, ‘Tell me, have there been suicides in the past?’

  She glanced over her shoulder but continued walking. ‘Yes. Teenagers are very vulnerable to such acts of desperation.’

  ‘How many?’

  She stopped then. ‘Several before I came here and one during my tenure as headmistress. That was six years ago,’ she added, facing him once again. ‘A fifth former whose parents were in the throes of a truly bitter and highly publicised divorce. She overdosed on her mother’s anti-depressants.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Of course not! We keep the strictest control of medicines.’

  ‘And if a girl’s using illicit drugs?’ he asked. ‘How would you control that?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘When you have time, read the section in our prospectus on the management of antisocial conduct. We have access to the best professional services. Now,’ she went on, ‘if you’ll excuse me? I must see to the girls.’

  He stood his ground. ‘Would you inform the police?’

  ‘You know better than I do that no matter what threats or inducements you employ, the very last thing a user will tell you is the identity of their supplier. It can, literally, be more than their life is worth.’ Head to one side, she regarded him appraisingly. ‘You must wonder, as I do, if there is therefore any point in bringing down the weight of the law on the hapless user, particularly when the law has proved repeatedly that it has nothing constructive to offer.’ Turning once more on her heel she added, ‘But that said, I would naturally never allow personal misgivings to persuade me to conceal a crime.’ She looked back at him, a little smile playing about her mouth. ‘I’m not a fool.’

  11

  Berkshire police sent two officers, a man and a woman, to the Melvilles’ luxurious country mansion to break the news that a body, washed up from the Menai Strait in north Wales, had been identified as their daughter’s by the headmistress of the Hermitage. For the woman, a young sergeant, this was the eighth time she had been called upon to deliver what her more cynical colleagues described as the ‘death-o-gram’, while her companion was being newly blooded. Sombre-faced, hats in hand, they delivered their message while standing uncomfortably on the fine Persian carpet in the drawing room.

  ‘Bangor police have asked us to tell you that they need to see you as soon as possible,’ the sergeant finished quietly. ‘Formal identification must be made by the next of kin.’

  John Melville stared at her. ‘Do you know, in the old days the bearer of evil tidings would be put to death?’ Then, a strange gurgling noise in his throat, he stumbled across the room to an open drinks cabinet, poured himself a huge glass of whisky and emptied it at a gulp.

  ‘My husband is not himself. Please, take no notice.’ Uttering her first words since the police arrived, Hester Melville rose from a silk-covered chaise longue in the window bay. Afternoon sunshine slanted through the glass, surrounding her in gauzy light. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she went on, her voice a clipped monotone. ‘The housekeeper will see you out.’

  As the police car began to make its way down the long drive, the sergeant turned in her seat, to see John Melville at the window, another vast drink in his hands.

  *

  John was still drinking as he sat in McKenna’s office well after eleven o’clock that night. He had arrived clutching an almost full bottle of whisky. Now he held it to his lips, drained the last of it, then dropped the bottle and stared at his balled-up fists, completely sober and praying for oblivion. Hester was talking and, as always, he thought despairingly, she was in control, bred to take without flinching whatever monstrousness life threw her way. Only the common, satisfying transactions of an ordinary existence seemed beyond her.

  At the mortuary, gazing calmly on the waxen Ophelia wrapped in a winding sheet, she had said, in her bell-like, always unemotional voice, ‘That is our daughter, Suzanne.’ John had taken one look at his child and lunged for the window that separated them, beating upon the glass until it threatened to shatter. Someone dragged him away, holding down his flailing arms with surprising strength; perhaps the thin, tired-looking detective with an Irish name; perhaps the other man, big and swarthy with five-o’clock shadow round his jaw. Perhaps even Hester, John reflected. It would not be the first time she had dragged him from the brink.

  Raising his eyes when he realised she was no longer speaking, he found the thin detective regarding him expectantly. Well, he thought, let’s not disappoint. Let’s even surprise him. I might look like a lush, but my feelings aren’t pickled. Wishing to God they were, he licked his parched lips. ‘A beggar,’ he said, with infinite care, ‘can live on the alms someone tossed his way maybe a week before, but yesterday’s happiness won’t help even the richest man get by.’ He paused, listening to his own echo. Satisfied his words were as clear as his mind obstinately remained, he rambled on, ‘When you lose someone you love, your life turns into a bad French farce. You pull out one drawer, push it back, try another, and another, and another, looking for what you lost. You can’t find it, so you start again. You’d like to stop, but the hope of finding what you lost goads you on and on and on, because you can’t face not trying, and perhaps not finding what was actually there and only hiding. Did you know,’ he asked, peering at McKenna, ‘that hope was the last thing to come out of Pandora’s box?’

  ‘I doubt if Superintendent McKenna is interested,’ said Hester wearily.

  ‘Don’t give a bugger whether he is or not!’ John thrust out his chin aggressively. ‘I want him to know how I feel!’

  ‘Only someone who has lost a child can know how you and Lady Hester feel.’ McKenna’s voice was gentle. ‘I would not presume.’

  ‘Don’t bring her into it!’ He glared, eyes bloodshot and muddy. ‘She doesn’t figure in this equation. She didn’t even cry. Did you see her cry?’ he demanded, turning from McKenna to Jack. ‘No, you didn’t, because she bloody didn’t cry! But she cried when one of her damned dogs died of old age. By God, she did! She never stopped bawling for days!’

  Hester stared at the wall behind McKenna. ‘Please take no notice, Superintendent. My husband is not himself.’

  ‘I haven’t been my bloody self since the day I married you,’ he snarled. ‘You’ve turned me inside out, trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.’ Again he addressed McKenna. ‘Lady Hester married beneath her, don’t you know? I was the bit of rough she just fancied, but I put a common little bun in her posh oven, so Daddy shoved a shotgun to her head.’ Drink was making him maudlin as well as coarse. Tears welled in his eyes and spilled over cheeks livid with the broken veins of alcoholism. ‘Poor, poor Sukie. You never wanted her, did you, Hester? ‘Cos of her, you’ve been stuck with me for eighteen years.’ He breathed heavily in her face. ‘It’s been hell, hasn’t it? Absolute bloody hell!’

  Hester ignored him. McKenna was not surprised, for theirs was an old conflict, he thought, looking from wife to husband, fought repeatedly over the same ground and although never before to a death, it retained its fatal energy. He realised he was witnessing now the sporadic gunfire of those who stumbled through the corpses on the battlefield not understanding that the war was lost.

  As the silence, broken only by John’s stertorous breathing, began to grow oppressive, Jack spoke. ‘Did Sukie have any reason to commit suicide?’ he asked.

  Hester flinched. Her husband guffawed. ‘How about having us for parents?’ he suggested. ‘Two reasons there, old chap, not just one.’

  Still gazing beyond McKenna’s shoulder, Hester asked, ‘Was she pregnant?’

  Before Jack could reply, John intervened. ‘We know what she’s thinking, don’t we? She’s thinking “like mother, like daughter”.’ With exaggerated effort, he screwed up his face and winked, but the gesture was simply pathetic. ‘’Spect you know you can always tell when a girl’s been dropping her
knickers. It shows on her face.’ He leered at his wife. ‘You can even smell it, can’t you?’

  With the speed of a cobra she delivered a stinging slap across his face. ‘Be quiet!’ she hissed. ‘Be quiet!’ She rose, her thin, elegant body quivering with rage. ‘Don’t you dare speak about my child like that. Don’t you dare!’ Fists balled, knuckles white, she began to rain down blows on his head.

  Moving with his own surprising speed, Jack grabbed her from behind, as he had earlier restrained her husband. For interminable moments she struggled silently, kicking his shins and tearing his hands with her nails, while McKenna looked on helplessly. Inch by inch, Jack dragged her towards the door, reached behind him to open it and pulled her out of the room.

  John rubbed his chin, skin rasping on stubble, then ran his fingers through the disarray of his hair, straightened the jacket of his navy pinstripe suit and tweaked his shirt collar. Finally, he rearranged his tie, a shimmering raspberry pink silk affair held down with a tiny diamond stud.

  Wondering inconsequentially why the man was dressed as if for a meeting in the City, McKenna scowled at him. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ he snapped.

  ‘Didn’t hear you complaining,’ John snapped back. ‘Grist to your coppers’ mill to let people slug it out, isn’t it? Get to hear things that way you wouldn’t get to know otherwise in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything yet that might explain why or how your daughter died.’

  ‘Already told you. She topped herself because of us and the fighting.’

  ‘Well, now she’s dead,’ McKenna said nastily, ‘you’ll be able to stop, won’t you?’

  ‘Don’t be funny.’ John’s eyes were dark with pain. ‘Sukie alive, Sukie dead, the shame’s the same.’ His words were beginning to slur. ‘Hester married a loser. S’only ‘cos Daddy gives her money we haven’t turned the corner into Queer Street, but believe me, Mr Superintendent whatever-your-bloody-name-is, we’re getting nearer every bloody day.’

  ‘My name is McKenna. Not a difficult name to remember, sober or drunk.’

  ‘Knew it was some Paddy handle.’ John blinked hard to keep his eyes open. ‘No offence, mate. Best jockeys come from over the water. Never let me down yet and that’s saying something. Every other bugger has, and horse-kicked me in the teeth to make sure I stay down.’ He chewed his mouth. ‘Even bloody Sukie, bless her. Got the hardest kick of the lot off her.’

  ‘How?’ McKenna demanded. ‘What did she do?’

  ‘Cost me a bloody fortune. Cost me an arm and a leg.’ He began to laugh uproariously. ‘Bloody funny, that is! An arm and a leg!’

  ‘I don’t find it in the least amusing.’

  John stabbed his finger in the air near McKenna’s face. ‘That’s cos you don’t bloody know.’

  ‘Then enlighten me, Mr Melville, if you’re not too drunk to know what you’re saying.’

  ‘Christ! You’re an arrogant sod!’ Unaware of the dribble at the corners of his mouth, he ranted, ‘You should bugger off back to bog-land where you belong. I want to see an English copper. Might get some respect off an English copper.’

  ‘That would be rather difficult.’ McKenna’s words were deliberately ambiguous. ‘If you want to get me out of your hair, tell me what Sukie did, then you can go to your hotel and have a nice long sleep.’

  ‘Think I can sleep just like that, do you? What do you know? Eh?’ He began to whine. ‘I’ll be opening and shutting every bloody drawer in Christendom for the rest of my life, looking for my little Sukie.’ Then, as he drew a deep breath, a sob escaped him. ‘Maybe Hester’ll start opening a few of her own. Who knows? Who bloody knows anything?’

  The scratches Hester had inflicted on Jack’s hands smarted like those McKenna’s cats dealt out when the mood took them. His shins, unsurprisingly, also hurt, for her stylish patent leather shoes had squared-off toes and high, set-back heels. With them she wore a chic, stone-coloured linen shift and, round her neck, what looked like a cascade of gold. Her wristwatch was also gold, and a stack of gold and diamond rings slithered towards her bony knuckle every time she moved.

  With a hastily summoned policewoman in tow, Jack had frogmarched her to his own office and pushed her into a soft chair, where she remained, a cup of black coffee growing cold on the desk in front of her. The policewoman sat behind her, ready to pounce.

  ‘Will I be arrested?’ Hester asked, staring at his scratches.

  ‘I’ve got two daughters of my own. I have an inkling of how terrible you must feel,’ he replied, thinking that such empty despair was something the childless McKenna would never understand. ‘Shock and grief take people all ways. I imagine that’s why your husband’s drinking so steadily.’

  ‘Do you?’ Her grey eyes flicked over him. ‘That’s because you don’t know him. He needs no excuse these days.’

  ‘But it wasn’t always like that?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Her voice was utterly weary.

  ‘Yes, if the conflict between you has a bearing on your daughter’s death.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it has,’ Hester assured him. ‘People repeatedly suffer the same things because their own nature determines the atmosphere in which they exist.’ After some thought, she said, ‘We exist in an atmosphere of misery and misfortune, and of course it infected Sukie. She’s listened to our rows since she was a baby. There was nothing she didn’t know. Nothing.’

  ‘What was there to know?’ asked Jack gently. ‘That you were pregnant before you married? Unmarried girls across the social spectrum become pregnant with determined regularity.’

  Hester looked down at her hands. ‘It broke my father’s heart.’

  ‘Did he force you into marriage?’

  She nodded stiffly. ‘Abortion wasn’t an option they would countenance.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you just become another unmarried mother?’

  ‘The shame,’ she replied, with the merest glint of irony. Then her face assumed an expression that was painful to see. ‘Their shame. They never let me forget, for a single moment.’ She met his eyes. ‘I could never be proud of Sukie. I had to love her in secret.’ After a small silence she added, ‘She didn’t even have a decent christening. We smuggled her into the family chapel one rainy Monday morning, as if she were a servant’s bastard.’

  ‘How old were you when you married?’

  ‘Seventeen. As my husband said, like mother, like daughter. He was eighteen.’

  ‘Sukie wasn’t pregnant.’

  ‘No?’ Hester frowned. ‘How do you know?’ Then her mouth fell open and as she clawed at her cheeks, her rings flashed and gleamed.

  ‘Nor had she been raped,’ he added.

  She shuddered from head to foot.

  For a while he let her mourn quietly for the second chance that was now forever beyond human reach, then asked, ‘What does your husband do for a living?’

  ‘This and that,’ she replied dully. ‘Investment, a stab at merchant banking, a stab at stockbroking.’

  ‘You look relatively prosperous.’

  ‘“Relatively” is very apt. Our finances are bound by the law of diminishing returns. Over the years, John’s thrown thousands at various good-looking deals and received hundreds back.’

  ‘Something else for you to row about,’ he commented.

  ‘Indeed, yes.’ When she looked up, he saw the glaze of panic in her eyes. ‘Can I go back now? I promise I won’t hit him again.’ She gnawed her lower lip. ‘He’s quite a terrifying person, isn’t he?’

  ‘Terrifying?’ Jack echoed. ‘Your husband?’

  ‘Of course not! I meant Superintendent McKenna. I’ve always found Dr Scott very intimidating, but Superintendent McKenna makes one feel quite panic-stricken.’

  ‘Why is Dr Scott intimidating?’

  ‘She knows exactly what to do, even in the most difficult situations. She has this tremendous confidence, d’you see? But I suppose that’s because she’s never wrong.’ Hester sighed. ‘It mus
t be wonderful to be so sure.’

  ‘She seems pretty sure at the moment that Sukie killed herself,’ Jack said, ‘although she can’t say why. Have you had any reason to worry about Sukie’s state of mind recently?’

  ‘We haven’t heard from her since the beginning of term.’

  ‘Weren’t you anxious?’

  ‘She didn’t get in touch from beginning to end of last term, either.’ Hester met his eyes again and he saw how dreadfully tired she was. ‘It’s like that when your child goes away to school. You rely on the school to look after them. It cuts both ways, you know. When I boarded, my teachers and school friends were far more important to me than my own family.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain what I see as a degree of estrangement between you and Sukie.’ Jack clasped his hands, leaning forward slightly. ‘Lady Melville, I know you’re exhausted and distraught, but I think you’re hiding something that might be important. Won’t you tell me? Please?’

  ‘But why? Dr Scott believes there’s nothing to be gained by dwelling on the past and she’s right. We must move on and away—’ Her voice faltered.

  ‘Always easier said than done,’ Jack commented softly. ‘Especially when the past won’t let you.’

  ‘Dr Scott said it was simply adolescent rebellion that went awry. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. She told us she could contain it and help them both to get through it.’ Hester stared at him. ‘And she kept her word. She’s been marvellous.’

  Even though he had no idea what Hester was talking about, Jack saw all too clearly the power the charismatic Freya Scott exercised over both pupils and parents. And if ever a parent were ripe for exploitation, he thought, it was this sad young aristocrat still in hock to the consequences of her own prosaic rebellion. ‘Was your husband happy to go along with her plans?’ he asked.

  ‘If Dr Scott told my husband to put a loaded gun into his mouth and pull the trigger, he’d do it. He snatches gratefully at any positive suggestion.’

  ‘And what was the problem she said she could “contain”?’