Missing (45 page)

Vivienne’s eyes stayed on Jacqueline. Her heart was like a fist in her chest, clenched with dread. No interruption imminent, and she couldn’t risk leaving the room to make a call.

‘Do you go to church?’ Jacqueline asked, as if there had been no break in the conversation.

Vivienne shook her head. ‘No,’ she answered.

‘But you believe?’

Vivienne only looked at her. What did she want her to say? ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered. ‘Sometimes, yes, I guess I do.’

‘I didn’t, for years. I had no reason to. I’m not sure I
do
now, but I like that church, so I go inside and sit there for a while.’

‘Do you – do you find it a comfort?’ Vivienne ventured after a pause.

Jacqueline nodded. ‘Mm, though it’s hard to say why. Perhaps because no one there expects anything of me. I don’t think they’re even very interested in who I am. No one’s ever asked my name.’

‘Would you tell them, if they did?’

Jacqueline’s hands tightened their hold on each other. ‘I’d probably say I was Anne Cates,’ she confessed. ‘It’s a name I’ve been using. It belonged to a great-aunt of mine on my mother’s side. I never knew her. She was an artist and some of her works were passed down to me. A couple of them were quite good, actually, but I’ve let them go now. Everything has to go in the end.’

Wondering what lay beneath the final words, Vivienne said, unsteadily, ‘Your – your phone. The one you used to call the police. They said it’s registered under that name at my office address.’

Jacqueline seemed surprised, then vaguely contrite. ‘I’m afraid it was the only one I could come up with at the time,’ she said, ‘and I felt sure you wouldn’t mind. There’s no harm done, is there?’ she asked.

‘No, no,’ Vivienne assured her. ‘I just … Well, it was … Actually,’ she said, gesturing towards Rufus, ‘I need to go and change him.’

Jacqueline looked down at him. ‘He seems fine to me,’ she said, and lifting a hand she rested it gently on his head. ‘I think he can wait a while longer, can’t you, little fellow?’

Rufus gazed up at her with wide blue eyes.

She laughed softly. ‘You know, I’m trying to work
out
who he’s most like, you or Miles,’ she said. ‘With you both being dark it’s hard to tell, but perhaps his father has the edge. What do you think?’ Before Vivienne could answer she made a humorous tutting sound. ‘Of course you’ll see Miles in him much more than yourself. It was a silly question. Please ignore it.’

Vivienne’s gaze returned to the slim hand on Rufus’s head. What was she intending to do? How much longer before she became angry or vengeful or even violent? ‘I think we need to let Kelsey know you’re safe,’ she suddenly suggested, praying it was the right thing to say.

Jacqueline’s eyes came up from Rufus.

‘She’s been extremely worried,’ Vivienne told her. ‘She’s even run away … I mean, she’s here in London, actually. At your house. I’m sure it would help her a lot to hear your voice.’

Though Jacqueline’s expression softened in a smile, behind it she seemed agitated and upset. ‘I can’t help her,’ she said quietly.

‘But you’re her mother.’

‘She’s better off without me. I’m just messing up her life. It’s all I’ve ever done, since the day she was born.’

Eager to keep the subject off Rufus, Vivienne said, ‘If you’d engage with her, let her know that she matters every bit as much as Sam … Doesn’t she at least deserve to be given a chance?’

Jacqueline returned her gaze to Rufus. ‘He’s not as much like Sam as I expected,’ she said, stroking his cheek. ‘Probably because he’s dark and Sam was fair, like me.’ She swallowed and took a breath that trembled in her throat. ‘Why do you think such a terrible thing happened?’ she asked, keeping her head down.

Vivienne’s heart folded around the bewilderment in her voice. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered gently. ‘I’m just so sorry that it did.’

‘No one knows, and everyone’s sorry. It hasn’t brought him back, though, has it?’

‘Any one of us would if we knew how.’

When Jacqueline’s eyes came up they showed a light of gratitude. ‘But we’re restricted by the hand of destiny,’ she said. ‘We can’t change what’s meant to be, no matter how awful it is. Do you believe that?’

Again Vivienne was unsure how to answer.

‘Some would say that it was my destiny to lose a child; that it is the only reason I came to this world, to suffer in order to make myself at one with God. Would you say that?’

Vivienne tentatively shook her head.

‘But you have to agree it’s an answer of sorts.’

‘I guess it could be. Is it one you accept?’

Jacqueline swallowed and looked away. ‘I can think of no good reason to lose a child,’ she said, ‘so I understand why some find it helpful to go to a bigger picture, or a nebulous creation that might have some hidden meaning in its complexities, or even a purpose in its random strokes. If nothing else it absolves you of responsibility, because you can’t be to blame for things over which you have no control.’ She paused for a moment. ‘At what point was it decided that our lives, yours and mine, would intersect, and by whom?’ she asked, and smiled sadly. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not expecting you to answer, or even to engage with my ramblings, I’m just giving you an example of what goes through my head, and how impossible I find it to make any sense of my life.’ She looked up. ‘I see myself in you, the way I used to be,’ she said. ‘I had everything
worked
out; I knew where we were going, Miles and I – we had a son with another child on the way; he was already doing well and I believed in him the way you do now. It never occurred to me that anything could go wrong, because like you, I had faith in people and trust in life. It’s a good way to be, even though it’s an illusion, because things rarely turn out the way we expect.’ She took a deep breath and brushed her fingers lightly over Rufus’s cheek.

Taut with misgiving Vivienne watched her movements, while praying that this wasn’t leading up to something terrible and calamitous.

‘If I were to get to know you, I think I’d like you,’ Jacqueline told her with a curious smile. ‘I have an instinct about you that makes me think you’re as genuine as I used to be, and as caring. You do care, don’t you?’

Vivienne’s eyes were wary as she nodded.

‘Yes of course. You care about your son, your mother, your friends, the girl you’re trying to help, Miles … What about Kelsey, do you care about her?’

Not knowing whether the answer should be yes or no, Vivienne decided to go with the truth. ‘Very much,’ she answered softly.

‘But only because of Miles?’

Vivienne swallowed. ‘If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t know her.’

‘So you mind about Kelsey as Miles’s daughter, not as a person in her own right?’

‘I’ve hardly had the chance to get to know her, but I’m sure, if I did—’

‘I’m not trying to trick you,’ Jacqueline cut in. ‘I’m merely trying to find out if you’ll take good care of her.’

Vivienne stiffened. ‘I can never replace you,’ she said. ‘You’re her mother. It’s you she wants to have a—’

‘But it’s you she’s going to get – or are you hoping I’ll take custody of her so you and Miles can be alone with your son?’

‘No, that’s not …’ Oh God, which was the best way to answer that?

‘I’m afraid she wouldn’t come to me, even if I suggested it,’ Jacqueline went on. ‘It would be wrong of me to, anyway, I’d only carry on hurting her, which is all I’ve ever done. Has she met Rufus yet?’

Vivienne shook her head. ‘She’s not … Well, she hasn’t taken too well to the idea of him.’

Jacqueline nodded, and her face showed her inner strain. ‘I’m sure she’ll come round, in time,’ she said. Then she started to laugh as Rufus grabbed the hem of her coat to pull himself up. ‘How clever you are,’ she told him as he began bouncing up and down in front of her. ‘Is he walking?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Vivienne answered.

‘Mum, mum, brrrrrsssst!’ he gurgled, ending with a shower of bubbles.

‘May I?’ Jacqueline said, putting her hands under Rufus’s arms to lift him.

Vivienne’s heart rose to her mouth. The answer was
no, no, no
, but she was already picking him up.

‘There you are,’ Jacqueline cooed, settling him on her lap. ‘Is that nice?’

Spotting the wig, Rufus made a dive for it.

Jacqueline passed it to him, and seemed to enjoy the way he began tearing it apart. ‘He’s very sociable,’ she commented.

‘Yes,’ Vivienne said, the word seeming to skim across the top of her lungs.

‘That’s not always a good thing, as I found to my cost,’ and leaning forward she touched her lips to Rufus’s cheek. ‘You know, this is the first time I’ve held a baby since Sam was taken.’

Vivienne’s tension grew. ‘What about Kelsey?’ she reminded her.

Jacqueline frowned, and once again Vivienne glimpsed an inner struggle behind the mask. ‘What I should have said,’ she corrected, ‘is it’s the first time I’ve held a baby boy since Sam.’ Then to Rufus, ‘I can imagine how proud your daddy must be of you. He’s very lucky to have you.’

Vivienne could barely move. Her head was spinning, her chest was tight with fear.

‘He deserves you,’ Jacqueline continued, smiling down into Rufus’s watchful eyes. ‘He’s a good man. Difficult, but good. And loyal.’ She looked at Vivienne. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Miles is loyal?’

Vivienne only looked at her.

‘He never told me about Rufus, you know?’

‘He didn’t know. He only found out recently.’

Jacqueline was puzzled. ‘You didn’t tell him he had a son?’

Vivienne was mute. What could she say that wasn’t going to offend her? ‘You two had only just got back together,’ she managed. ‘It would have complicated things …’

As understanding dawned in Jacqueline’s eyes Vivienne braced herself ready to snatch Rufus from her lap, but Jacqueline merely looked away and continued to play with him as though it was something she did every day. ‘Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear, one step, two step, tickle you under there,’ and she laughed along with Rufus,
hugging
him to her as though she’d known him since birth.

Unsure whether she was more confused or afraid, Vivienne struggled for something to say that might take Jacqueline’s mind off Rufus, or even prompt her to put him down. In the end, she said, ‘Jacqueline, why did you disappear the way you did? What was the point of alarming everyone like that?’

With a tremulous sigh, Jacqueline rested her chin on Rufus’s head as she gazed thoughtfully at nothing for a while. ‘I couldn’t tell Miles where I was going when I left,’ she said, finally, ‘because at the time I believed, or hoped, that if I disappeared the way Sam did it might lead me to wherever Sam is.’ She smiled indulgently at the notion. ‘That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Well, of course it is, but sometimes I think if I can step away from the world, into some kind of parallel universe, I might find the place people go to when they vanish.’ She grimaced at her fancifulness and kissed Rufus’s mass of dark curls. ‘I’ve spent years creating that world for myself,’ she said. ‘I’ve given it people and towns, all kinds of things, including Sam, of course, because this world was too hard to be in. I’d have lost my mind entirely if I’d gone on living with the fear of what he might be suffering. For years I used to wake up at night certain I’d heard him screaming, that he was with people who were doing things to him … Terrible things, and he was screaming for me …’ She broke off, biting her lip to stop it trembling. ‘So I came up with this other world …’

She was lost inside her thoughts now, seeming hardly to notice that Rufus was trying to eat one of the buttons on her coat.

‘I suppose you could say I became caught between
the
two worlds,’ she went on sadly, ‘so I wasn’t able to be a mother to either of my children. Nor a wife. I’m just …’ She stopped and let the words die in her throat.

Torn between pity and the need to take Rufus from her, Vivienne looked on helplessly.

‘I was always so afraid of Miles having another son,’ Jacqueline continued, ‘and now I realise what a blessing it is. He’s been given a second chance, which is only right, because he wasn’t to blame for losing Sam. His punishment has never been just, and now it’s over. A beautiful infant spirit has come to bring him the joy that should always have been his. A son he can watch grow into a man.’

She swallowed and turned her eyes towards the sky outside. ‘For me the punishment will never end, and nor should it. There’s no redemption or forgiveness waiting in the future for me, no second chance, there’s only the eternal hell of never knowing where he is, and how shamefully I failed.’

‘But it wasn’t your fault,’ Vivienne said softly.

‘Not only with him, but with Kelsey too,’ she said, as though Vivienne hadn’t spoken. Then her eyes focused and she started to smile. ‘It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It almost feels like spring. The weather was like this the day Sam was taken.’

As she stood up Vivienne stood too, her arms going instinctively to take Rufus, but Jacqueline seemed not to notice as she carried him across the room to the balcony.

Vivienne watched, fraught with horror, as Jacqueline stepped outside and leaned over to look down at the courtyard below. ‘No!’ she heard herself gasp. ‘Please …’

‘It’s very pretty here,’ Jacqueline commented. ‘I expect you enjoy being close to the river.’

‘Jacqueline … Please …’

Seeming not to hear, Jacqueline hiked Rufus higher in her arms and gazed up into his face. Apparently liking the look of her, he clasped his hands to her cheeks and gave an excited squeal as he squeezed.

Jacqueline murmured something Vivienne couldn’t hear, and sat him on the railing.

Vivienne’s panic erupted. ‘No, stop, please!’ she shouted, dashing forward.

Jacqueline spun round. ‘What is it?’ she cried, clutching Rufus to her.

Vivienne halted.

‘Oh my goodness. You’re afraid,’ Jacqueline gasped. ‘You think …’ Appalled, she looked at Rufus, then turning her head away she thrust him at Vivienne. ‘Please take him,’ she said, her voice strangled with pain.

Grabbing him, Vivienne wrapped him tightly in her arms, her breath coming so fast it was hard to speak. ‘I’m sorry,’ she choked. ‘I didn’t mean … It’s just that he was so close …’