No Place to Hide (9 page)

They were a popular pair among the neighboring children, with their cousin Wes living virtually next door; Chantal, Cheryl’s daughter, whom they both claimed as a best friend, halfway down the opposite hill; and Maddy’s kids, Neil and Nelly, in Brook Crossing Cottage at the edge of the park. These six formed the core group of friends; however, there were at least a dozen more who came and went regularly from the farmhouse, known more generally as sleepover central, since all their little chums seemed to agree that there was always more to do at the McQuillans’ than there was anywhere else in the village.

Plus there was always something amazing to eat.

By six that evening Justine had returned from the wedding tea to find the park at the heart of the vale all set up ready for the recitals. At least six dozen white foldable chairs were cluttering up the spaces between the leafy beech and horse chestnut trees, while the stage, complete with roughly cobbled-together wings and a roof to hold up the curtain and lights, was in front of the playground. Jolly triangles of bunting were swinging between low-hanging branches, while fairy lights in all colors were snaking up most of the trunks. A handful of local kids who weren’t taking part in the show had already climbed up among the foliage to sort out the best viewing positions, or those closest to the catering tables, which were already set up around the fence.

Once satisfied that there was nothing more she could do in the park for now, Justine took herself up to the farmhouse to check on progress there. “Is everyone dressed, rehearsed, and ready to go?” she called out as she climbed the stairs.

“Mum! I can’t find my hat,” Ben cried, rushing onto the landing in a panic. “Where did you put it? Dad can’t find it either…”

“It’s all right,” she soothed, “it’s at the top of my wardrobe to stop it getting crushed.” Her eyes were twinkling with merriment. “You look just the part,” she informed him, feeling quite proud of her own inexpert handiwork, since she’d put the costume together herself.

His handsome little face flushed with pleasure, though he expertly ducked the quick ruffle she attempted to give his rapidly darkening hair. It wouldn’t be long, she was thinking as she followed him into her and Matt’s room, before he was the same coloring as his father, and she hoped for his sake that his freckles might soon disappear, since he considered them babyish. Ben detested few things more these days than being thought babyish.

“Here you are,” Justine declared, bringing the hat down from a top shelf and setting it on his head.

“Is the feather right?” he asked, dashing to the mirror.

She watched the careful scrutiny of his reflection, and had to fight not to scoop him up for a cuddle. Apparently those had recently become childish too, apart from when he fell and hurt himself, or he was feeling unwell, when he might suffer one to make her feel better.

“Wow! It’s William Tell!” Matt exclaimed, coming into the room with a green bob-cut wig in one hand and another in pink on his head.

“Dad, you look really silly,” Ben informed him.

“No,” Matt protested, checking himself in the mirror. “I thought I looked cool. Do you think the green one instead?”

“None of them,” Ben retorted seriously.

“You need to lighten up, son,” Matt told him with a wink.

“I take it Abby’s opted for the multicolored wig,” Justine said as Matt gave her a kiss.

“She has, for now anyway, and she looks a treat.”

“I’ll pop in and see her. Ben, don’t forget to go to the toilet before you leave.”

“I’ve already been.”

“Try and go again.”

“I want some tights like that,” she heard Matt informing Ben as she went off along the landing to find Abby. On the way her mobile rang, so it was several minutes before she knocked on Abby’s door and went in to find her sitting on the bed in the middle of her showbiz chaos, very close to tears.

“Oh no, what’s the matter?” Justine cried, quickly going to her.

“What if I forget the words?” Abby whispered. “Everyone’ll laugh at me.”

Used to these pre-show nerves, which generally dissolved the instant she was onstage, Justine said, “No they won’t, and besides, you’re not going to forget them, because they’re all up here locked in nice and safely.”

As Justine tapped Abby’s multicolored tinsel wig, Abby turned her face into her mother’s chest.

Smoothing the wig, Justine said, “Why don’t we try another rehearsal? Just you and me?”

“No, because it’s got to be a surprise.”

“OK. So, did you remember it all the last time you sang it for Dad?”

Abby nodded. “Your phone’s ringing,” she told her.

Checking who it was, and fearing there was a problem at the wedding tea, Justine said, “I have to take this, but I’ll get Dad to come back and do another practice with you, OK?”

Abby nodded sadly.

It turned out that someone had forgotten to load the wedding cake—
the wedding cake—
into the delivery van, so Justine had to rush it over to the venue before anyone noticed.

“Sorry,” she said to Matt, finding him tidying up in Ben’s room while Ben shouted instructions from the toilet on where things went, “but we can hardly have a bride without a cake, and you’ve always been better at cheering Abby up than I am.”

“OK, just don’t drive too fast,” he warned, “and make sure you get back here in time for the show or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Luckily she did make it, but only just, since the laughter and applause for the act before Abby’s—Nelly Hawkins with her singing Jack Russell, Pip—was starting to fade as she joined Gina at the table full of trifles, brownies, cupcakes, and a specially hired popcorn machine.

“Where’s Matt?” she whispered, searching the audience for a glimpse of him.

“Backstage with Abby,” Gina told her.

“Is she OK?”

“She seemed to be the last time I saw her. I think he’s worked out a way to be onstage with her in case she freezes.”

Justine was intrigued, and as the curtain went up to reveal Matt taking bows in a pair of her diamond-patterned black tights, a red football shirt, and a green wig, and their friends and neighbors began whistling and jeering, she quickly realized what was happening. He was there to make sure that if anything went wrong he’d be the joke, not Abby.

It was only when Abby, in her glittery wig, slinky blue dress, and bright red lipstick, glided onto the stage to a lively round of applause that Justine realized they were both wearing roller skates.

Chancy,
she was thinking, with a little trepidation.

However, apparently uplifted by her enthusiastic reception, Abby gave a graceful pirouette in front of the mic before lifting it free. Though Abby’s eyes were shining with excitement, Justine could practically feel the rapid beats of her precious little heart.

Matt cued the play-in, Simon hit the karaoke box, and as the music began Justine wanted to cry as well as laugh. They’d chosen a song she used to sing with her dad when she was small: “I’ve Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates.”

And her husband, she decided, heart bursting with pride, was a genius, because there probably wasn’t an adult present who didn’t know the words, at least most of them, so there had never been any danger of Abby forgetting and feeling foolish. Everyone was joining in, keeping her going, and Matt was ready with a pratfall just in case something went wrong. However, Justine could tell from the sheer gusto Abby was pouring into her performance that she was completely on top of it. So much so that she even skated a little dance with Matt during the instrumental, and went on to honor three encores at the end.

Eventually Mrs. Hayward, one of the teachers, gently eased Abby off to the wings to make room for the next act.

It was Ben, looking superbly merry-mannish in his green costume, with Chantal, all floaty and femme fatale in her Maid Marian gown and wimple. However, Mr. Grayson, Ben’s teacher, was very quick to let everyone know that this was a scene from
William Tell,
not
Robin Hood.

Once again the audience was right behind the performers, stamping their feet and clapping their hands to the lively overture, while Ben strutted around the stage being very macho and Chantal ran hither and thither on tiptoe, trailing a silk hanky and touching the back of one hand to her brow.

They were simply too cute for words, and Justine and Cheryl were having to hold each other up, they were laughing so hard.

At last Chantal took her position in front of a cardboard tree and carefully placed an apple on the top of her head. At the other side of the stage Ben was taking an arrow from his quiver and loading his bow.

As he took aim several teachers pantomimed a gasp.

Simon played a drumroll.

Ben pulled back his arm.

Justine and Cheryl found each other’s hands, playing along with the suspense.

Ben let go abruptly, the arrow flew, and to everyone’s astonishment it hit Chantal smack in the middle of her forehead—and stuck.

There was a second of disbelief before Chantal sank to the ground.

A teacher ran in from the wings, followed by two more. The audience began rising from their seats; Justine and Chantal were paralyzed with shock.

Then quite suddenly Chantal jumped up and plucked the arrow off her forehead. Laughing uncontrollably, she and Ben joined hands to take their bows.

Finding her breath, Justine started to laugh along with everyone else. The little rascals had planned the shock, and the success of it was clearly everything they’d hoped for. She and Cheryl exchanged grins as the impish pair reveled in the praise and awe of their friends.

Cheryl said, “I just love how much she trusted him. I mean, he could have taken her eye out.”

“Please, don’t go there,” Justine protested.

“I might try and pull that trick on my old man,” Maddy quipped, “only there might not be any rubber involved.”

“Oh, go on, you love him really,” Cheryl teased.

“Yeah, like a hole in the head.”

Realizing what she’d said, Maddy gave a whoop of laughter and raised a glass of lemonade to her husband, who was downing a beer over by the brook with a couple of mates. Though rumors abounded about the Hawkinses—that Ronnie was having an affair with a woman from the estate, and that Maddy knew how to have a good time when she was out with the girls on a Friday night—Justine had no idea if any of them were true, nor did she particularly care. What mattered far more was that they were great parents to seven-year-old Nelly and five-year-old Neil, who was currently in remission from a rare form of leukemia. Knowing what the family had gone through during the darkest days of Neil’s illness, and the fear they lived with every day that it might come back, never failed to soften Justine’s heart toward Maddy’s rougher edges, even though Maddy did make it hard at times.

Half an hour later, with everyone swarming around the refreshment table, Justine shouted, “Anyone seen Abby? Abby! Where are you?”

“I’m up here, Mum,” Abby yelled from a nearby tree. “It’s so cool. Can we sleep up here tonight? Ben! We’re up here,” she shouted to her brother.

“Is Wesley with you?” Gina asked, trying to spot him through the leaves.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he called back. “We’re all up here.”

Cheryl was looking in the other direction. “Who’s that going into the farmhouse?” she asked curiously.

Everyone turned round, but there was no one in sight. “It must have been Matt, popped back for something,” Justine decided.

“It can’t be,” Maddy told her, “Matt’s over there, packing up chairs.”

Seeing that he was, Justine turned back to Cheryl. “Are you sure you saw someone?” she asked.

“Positive. He went in the side door, by the playroom.”

Justine frowned. Surely to God they didn’t have an intruder, a burglar even, in the vale.

“Simon!” Gina shouted to her husband. “We need you over here.”

Since Simon was an armed response officer with the county police force, he was regularly called upon locally for off-duty action.

“What’s up?”

“Cheryl just saw someone go into the farmhouse,” Gina explained, “and we thought you ought to go and check it out.”

With eyebrows raised he turned to look up the hill. “What kind of someone?”

“I’m sure it was a man,” Cheryl replied. “It was pretty quick and it’s difficult to tell from here, but I definitely saw someone.”

“Are you sure it’s not one of your guys gone to get more food?” he asked.

Cheryl shook her head. “There’s only women on tonight, and we’re all here.”

“Mm.” He gazed thoughtfully at the farmhouse again, before signaling for everyone to stay put as he went to investigate.

“What’s going on?” Matt asked, coming to join them. “Where’s Simon going?”

“To check on the house,” Justine replied. “Cheryl just saw someone going in through the playroom.”

Clearly not liking the sound of that, Matt said, “OK, wait here,” and he started after his brother.

Watching him go, Justine felt her anxiety starting to build. “It has to be someone we know,” she decided. “I mean, who’s going to carry out a burglary when there are so many people around? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“There’s no way out,” Gina added, “not without coming back down the hill. Unless he wants to walk for miles across country to get to the main road.”

They watched in silence as Matt caught up with Simon and together they entered the house.

“I reckon it was a ghost,” Maddy murmured.

Justine threw her a look.

Maddy shrugged. “Just a thought.”

“What’s Daddy doing?” Abby called out from the tree.

“He’s gone to get something,” Justine called back.

Long minutes ticked by with plenty of children still running around the glade, helping themselves to more food and climbing trees, until finally, to everyone’s astonishment, Simon frogmarched someone out of the house.

“Oh my God, they caught him,” Cheryl gasped.

Justine’s eyes were narrowed. “It’s Matt,” she declared darkly. “They’re larking around.”

“So who’s still inside?” Gina wanted to know.

“I told you it was a ghost,” Maddy insisted.