The Mysterious Miss Mayhew (39 page)

She looked towards the kitchen and then back at him, anxiously. ‘But she wants to know.’

‘Hattie, please. I don’t want to get cross. I will be back in soon. Now, don’t disturb me again. I mean it.’

He watched her walk off, shoulders hunched. Oh damn. He felt he was being pulled in so many directions he was going to snap.

He put the phone back to his ear. ‘Fran? Look, I went to bed last night and I was asleep … Fast asleep. Steph got in beside me. And she tried to kiss me and I got out of there pretty quick.’

There was silence, before Fran asked, ‘And she was naked?’

‘Uh-huh.’

An unmistakable sigh. ‘Second question. Her plans to move up here. Again, is this something she just fabricated?’

‘Well, she came up with that news, out of the blue, last night. And she told Hattie. But it was never going to happen, Fran, and I reminded her why … And so, by this morning, she’d changed her mind.’

‘So let me get this straight, Tom. When you came to see me and I asked you if there were any developments, all these things had happened the night before. And you didn’t think to mention them?’

‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

‘Even though I’ve told you how much I hate secrets. Even though I have tried and tried to get you to see that
you
have
to trust some people and open up? I had to stand there completely clueless while she hit me with one piece of news after the other. But if you’d confided in me, I could have said, smugly, “Tom’s told me everything – he says you tried to seduce him and also, that thing about moving up here? You’ve already changed your mind.” Why did you put me in that position, Tom?’

‘Fran, I’m really sorry.’ Should he say that again because she wasn’t speaking? His heart
was
racing now. ‘Fran, look—’

‘No. I’ve always said I’m not a person who flounces and sulks and stomps off.’ She sounded as if she was fighting to keep her voice under control. ‘Well, I’ve changed my mind. You’ve made it clear that you won’t trust me as I’ve trusted you. So I suppose we’d better call it a day. Goodbye, Tom.’

She had gone, but he kept jabbing at the buttons trying to get her back.

He looked towards the kitchen and saw the quick turn of Steph’s head back to the washing up. Even if she couldn’t hear what he was saying, his body language must have told her that he was reaping the results of her mischief.

He tried to ring Fran back, but it went through to voicemail. He had to get round to the bungalow and hope she was ringing from there. He walked quickly towards the house, stress twisting his stomach, and the phone rang again. Thank God.

It was Rob’s number. ‘It’s happening,’ he said, ‘she’s gone into labour. She’s at the hospital.’

It was the only news that would have halted his progress to the house, and in that instant he wasn’t thinking of Fran or himself, he was thinking of Kath. Natalie was right, she was early.

‘That’s great,’ he said, ‘really, really great news.’

He looked towards the kitchen – he could shout to Hattie and tell her, but Rob was speaking again. ‘Sorry,’ Tom said, putting the phone to his other ear, ‘didn’t catch that. Is everything, you know, going all right?’

‘That’s what I was saying, everything’s fine. She’s not far on, but it’s definitely underway.’ Rob sounded breathless. Well that wasn’t a surprise. ‘They’re monitoring her … all that.’

‘You’re doing great,’ Tom said. ‘You’re so nearly there, Rob. Proud of you. In a few hours you’ll—Rob, where are you? That music is really loud.’

Tom was sure women didn’t give birth to techno-rock.

‘It’s coming from one of the shops.’

‘What, in the hospital?’

‘No.’

That stress was suddenly twisting in him again. ‘So … you just nipped out for some fresh air?’

All Tom could hear for a few seconds was the music and
Rob’s rapid breathing and then he said, ‘I went to have a pee and, standing there in the Gents, I knew I couldn’t hack this, Tom. I’m going to the railway station. I’m getting on a train and I’m sorry, but Kath’s better off without me in the way.’

Tom had turned his back to the house again. ‘Rob, stop walking right now. You get back there, you can’t leave Kath on her own … Ask for a slug of gas and air or whatever it takes and hold her hand and get through it with her. Rob!
Rob!
’

Everyone was hanging up on him today. He tried to ring back. Voicemail. What if Rob didn’t get on a train, but chucked himself under one? He knew he was pacing back and forth across the lawn. He turned and looked towards the kitchen. Hattie was sitting at the table, her cup in one hand. She was talking to Steph.

He rang his mother. Got the rev.

‘It’s Tom. Joan’s son.’

‘Uh-huh. Is it your mother you want? Well, I’m sorry, she’s not free at the moment.’

‘I’ll try her mobile—’

‘Is it urgent, then?’ That was a definite change of tone. ‘Hang on.’

Oh God, what had he interrupted?

When his mother said, ‘Hello,’ he was straight in with,
‘Listen, Mum. Has Rob rung you? Kath’s gone into labour, yes, it’s brilliant, but we’ve got a problem.’ He told her the story.

‘I’ll find Rob,’ he said. ‘Will you go and keep Kath company? I have no idea if she knows Rob’s missing yet. Keep in touch, yes?’

He walked quickly up the garden and saw Hattie was no longer in the kitchen. He so needed to talk to Fran.

Steph was mopping up something from the floor, Hattie’s plastic cup in one hand. She looked at him and quickly glanced back down at the spillage. He wasn’t going to give her the bloody satisfaction of saying anything about what she’d wrecked with Fran. She’d be expecting a big fight, well let her bloody stew.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Kath’s in labour.’

He expected a sarcastic comment, but she just said, ‘Right. OK.’

‘I’m taking Hattie with me.’

A quick nod.

He saw her hand go to her face, the unmistakable brushing away of tears. That figured, bringing out the tears because she’d thought he was going to shout at her about Fran. He left her and went through to the sitting room.

He called up the stairs. ‘Hats, Auntie Kath is at the hospital – the baby’s coming and we need to go and get Rob
from the station and take him there. The railway station in town. Quickly.’

He’d shouted that last word even louder, but no response.

‘Hattie, love, come on, quick as you can.’ He tried not to be tetchy with her again.

What was she doing up there? He expected her to be wherever Steph was.

He stood, halfway up the stairs, and listened. No noise at all.

‘Hattie?’ He ran up to the landing and opened doors, checked the bathroom. He felt his stomach twist tighter.

‘OK, Hattie, come on, stop messing about,’ he said, and went back down the stairs.

Steph was in the sitting room, moving the magazines around on the table. She was still making little crying noises.

‘Where did Hattie go?’ he asked her.

She shrugged.

‘Well, where was she going when she left the kitchen? Did she say?’

‘Upstairs, I think.’

‘I’ve looked up there.’

He left Steph staring down at the pile of magazines.

He went through to the back garden. Perhaps she’d come out when his back was turned?

‘Hattie! Hattie!’ he called.

The twisting in his stomach was constant now, and his throat felt tight.

He climbed up the ladder of the tree house and looked in at the door. Empty, just some small plastic figures in one corner. They looked abandoned and that thought hiked up his anxiety.

He walked quickly around the garden calling her name and went back in the house. He darted through the kitchen, past whatever had been spilled and the empty cup on the draining board. Back in the sitting room, Steph looked up as if she hadn’t heard him until the second he’d walked in and he got an unprepared face, an involuntary reaction. She looked scared. No, more than that. Guilty.

The spillage on the floor clicked into place. Hattie’s empty cup in Steph’s hand.

‘What did you do?’ he said.

She didn’t answer.

‘What did you do?’ he asked again, louder, closer to where she was sitting.

‘She wouldn’t drink her orange juice. She’s been difficult all evening.’

‘What did you fucking do?’ he roared. He forced himself to stay on this side of the table or he didn’t know what he would do to get that information.

She wasn’t speaking, just sniffing.

‘You hit her, didn’t you?’

‘She wouldn’t drink her orange juice,’ Steph shouted back. She was starting to cry again, her breathing irregular. It was proper crying. The stuff in the kitchen had been proper too; he just hadn’t picked up on it. ‘She wouldn’t drink it. I asked her to and she wouldn’t drink it.’

He had to get out of there or he would hit a woman who had just hit a child. He went along the hall to the front door. It wasn’t closed properly.

He wrenched it open, starting to panic. Steph had hit Hattie and she’d run off. He’d been on the phone and he’d told her not to disturb him. Hadn’t he always said she came first? Before Fran or Rob or Kath? But when she really needed him …

It would be all right. She’d just run out of the garden. He’d find her on the lane, maybe she’d even be coming back by now.

By now? How long ago had she gone? When had he last seen her? Before he’d rung his mother? No, she was there when he’d been talking to Rob. He returned to the house. Steph was still in the sitting room, on the sofa, the knuckle of her thumb held to her lips.

‘Did you hear her go out of the front door?’

She nodded her head and moved her thumb. ‘She wouldn’t drink her juice,’ she said again.

‘How long ago?’ he bellowed at her.

‘Five minutes. Ten. I don’t know.’

In the kitchen he picked up his mobile and was out the back door, through the side gate.

He was shouting, ‘Hattie! Hattie!’ He couldn’t see her on the lane.

He rushed up next door’s drive, fumbling the bell. No answer. He went round the back, shouting. The garden was empty.

He looked at his watch and felt the twin pulls of Rob and Hattie. On to the next house. They were in and he gave them an edited explanation. They would keep an eye out. He wrote down his mobile number. All along the houses he went. A couple of dads said they would walk up the hill and have a look around. They told him not to worry; they’d ring him when they found her.

Kids, eh?

Rob
.

He kept walking while he rang his mother. He was nearly at the end of the lane and it felt like the completion of the first phase of something. It would only have been a little thing for her to go out on to the lane, but beyond it? On the side road leading down to the busier one?

‘I’m not there yet,’ his mother said in the distracted tone she always had when the phone rang as she was driving.

‘I can’t go to Rob,’ he told her. ‘Hattie’s missing. She’s run out of the garden.’

‘It’s all right,’ his mother said straight away, ‘it’s all right. Children wander in summer all the time. I’ll ring George and get him to go and find Rob. She’ll not be far, Tom.’

He tried to look in the verges, see if she was lying down, hiding, but the bloody cow parsley was too high.

When should you ring the police? How long had it been now? He was at the end of the lane. There were no more houses, just the road with a plantation of trees on one side, fields on the other. He stood on the stile and looked over the field. Only sheep.

He went to the fence bordering the plantation and called her name and only the birds called back.

If she was upset she would be hiding.
If
. Of course she was upset.

But she’d still come to him if she heard him calling, wouldn’t she?

If she was able to
.

He shoved away that thought and quickly stored it with the last tetchy thing he’d said to her. His breathing sounded deafening and he knew he was in the grip of panic; he felt light-headed, but his lungs were full of lead.

He shouted into the evening, ‘Hattie! Hattie!’ Now he was down on the main road, crossing over and back, over and back, parting the cow parsley on both verges, trying to look over the fence into the fields that led down to the river.

No, don’t think about the river, it was slow-moving and shallow this time of year.

Unless they’ve let a load of water out from the reservoir
.

A car came past him, slowed and halted. ‘You all right?’ the guy in it said when he wound down the window. A guy in a suit – he used to be that normal just a few minutes ago.

Tom explained, trying to make full sentences, but his fear was affecting his speech.

‘How old is she?’ the guy asked and when Tom told him, an expression skimmed over his face. Was it worry, or thankfulness that this was happening to Tom and not him?

‘I’ll keep an eye open,’ he said, ‘as I drive. You rung the police?’

Tom did then. It had been half an hour. What was it they always said in the papers? The first hour was crucial. Another thought to shove away.

He walked as he phoned, still hitting at the hedgerows, trying to make them give her up. ‘OK, sir, take it slowly,’ the person on the switchboard said. Tom answered
questions and stumbled on the one about what she was wearing, not because he couldn’t recall, but because he was spooked remembering news reports where bodies were identified by their clothing. What if she’d got to the road and someone had dragged her into a car? Or knocked her over and driven off?

‘Where are you now, sir?’

They would send a car straight away. The fact they took it so seriously made him realise how bad this was.

Please God, I don’t believe in you, but please let her walk along this road now. Let me find her
.

He thought of Kath labouring away in Newcastle – please, not one in, one out.

He remembered every time she’d asked him for a pet and he’d been mean and only offered her the one choice. If he got her back he would fill the house with whatever she wanted – rats, scorpions, anything.

He stopped walking. He needed to use his brain. She could have just run anywhere, blindly, too upset to care. But what if she ran
to
somewhere. To
someone
.