Ralph’s Children (30 page)
Authors: Hilary Norman
Ralph hesitated, abruptly aware that they might be monitoring Roger’s calls, wondering if she’d said too much in the last conversation.
‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Please call my mobile.’
She waited for twenty-four hours before she tried again.
Both numbers.
Pig’s still unobtainable.
She left a second message for Roger.
Who did not return her call.
O
n the fourteenth of February, Martin Blake telephoned Michael to tell him that Wilson was appealing against his sentence, his lawyer claiming that the
fairness of his GBH trial had been prejudiced by the adverse
Flies
publicity.
‘Does he have a chance?’ Michael asked, newly appalled.
‘You know as well as I do it’s a possibility,’ Blake said. ‘And there was always the question about the neighbour going for him first with the bat.’
‘I’m not sure I want Kate to know,’ Michael said, after a moment.
‘The Moons are already beside themselves about the spoiled evidence, talking about suing,’ the lawyer said. ‘Kate’s going to hear. Better coming from you, I’d
say.’
‘Damn and blast him to hell,’ Michael said.
‘Delia and I have been thinking,’ he said to Kate, a few days after he’d broken the news to her, ‘that it might be best, just for a while, if you and
Bobbi were to move in with us.’
Kate laughed, then felt bad.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Truly.’
He’d come for Bobbi’s bath, currently his favourite pastime, but even while he held his tiny granddaughter snugly wrapped in her towel he’d had no peace, his mind filled with
images of evil roaming free again to target his own child.
‘Delia’s fine about it,’ he said now, downstairs in the kitchen as Kate made him a coffee, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘And I thank her for that – I thank you both,’ Kate said. ‘But I really can’t see it working out, can you?’
It was hard to know if the thought made her want to laugh again, or cry.
‘If it’s a space thing,’ Michael said, ‘we could move to a bigger place.’
‘That’s more than kind, Dad,’ Kate said, ‘but it’s not just space, and you know it. I’d probably turn into a queen bitch in no time, and I’d really hate
that to happen now.’
Which was true, in fact, because Delia had been lovely about Bobbi and kind about Rob, genuinely so, and Kate acknowledged that and was glad of it.
‘You already know –’ Michael wasn’t giving up easily – ‘how much Bel would love it if you went to her.’
Kate handed him his mug, and they both sat at the table.
‘Same difference,’ she said. ‘Mum and I get on so wonderfully these days. I’m not sure if I could bear it if that changed, and it would if we tried living together
again.’ She paused. ‘And there’s no point you saying “for a while”, when we both know you’re talking about
them
being out there, which makes this a
long-term situation.’
‘Forgive me if I find that prospect very hard to take,’ Michael said.
‘I’m OK, Dad,’ Kate said ‘all things considered. And don’t forget I’m far from being alone.’
A newborn baby and a woman in a wheelchair.
‘Not exactly a pair of bodyguards,’ Michael said.
‘And Mum would be?’ Kate asked.
Her father took the point.
‘Besides,’ Kate reminded him, ‘Jack might not win his appeal.’
‘I wish to God I could kill you here and now.’
The words still haunted her from time to time.
Michael took a sip of coffee. ‘Have you done anything about the panic button?’
‘Installed last week.’ Kate reached for his hand. ‘You and Mum really need to stop spending every minute worrying about us.’
‘Not quite every minute,’ her father said.
Kate watched him for a moment. ‘What else, Dad?’
‘Just about Marie.’ He paused. ‘She is out, isn’t she?’
Kate nodded. ‘At some meeting.’
‘You know how we feel about her saving you and Bobbi, of course.’
‘But?’
‘Only that before that,’ Michael went on, ‘your mother and I had the impression you weren’t too keen on her staying much longer.’
‘That was then,’ Kate said. ‘Pregnancy and everything else making me ratty. All very different now.’ She smiled. ‘And let’s face it, it is nice having someone
else around, at least for the time being.’
‘You could get a nanny,’ Michael said.
‘I don’t want anyone else to take care of Bobbi.’
‘Or a lodger,’ he persisted.
‘I have a lodger,’ Kate said. ‘Who’s insisted on paying rent, and who seems to be turning out to be one of the best friends I’ve ever had.’
T
hey met at Wayland’s Smithy in the second week of May.
Just the three of them.
It was breezy but mild and dry, the place filled with memories.
Ghosts.
‘I’ve brought champagne,’ Roger said.
‘Lovely,’ said Pig.
‘Nice one,’ said Jack.
Roger pulled the bottle and three plastic tulip glasses from a black cool-bag.
‘Thanks,’ said Pig. ‘Though I still feel bad about dumping the Chief.’
‘I thought I might,’ Jack said, ‘but I don’t.’
‘Let’s face it,’ Roger said, ‘if we’d gone down, it’d all have been her fault.’
‘From the word go,’ Jack agreed.
‘I don’t know,’ Pig said.
‘You’re such a fucking softie,’ said Jack.
‘Can’t help it,’ Pig said.
Roger opened the bottle and poured, not spilling a drop.
‘A toast, don’t you think?’ she said. ‘To freedom.’
‘And Simon,’ Pig said.
‘To Simon,’ Jack echoed.
They all drank deeply, drained their glasses.
‘She’d still be here,’ Pig allowed, ‘if it hadn’t been for the Chief’s plan.’
‘There you are then,’ Jack said, as Roger poured again. ‘So no more feeling bad about her, right?’
‘Yes,’ Pig said. ‘OK.’
‘So,’ Roger said, ‘how long before we can play again?’
‘I don’t know how that’ll go,’ Pig said. ‘Without the Chief.’
‘It won’t
be
without the Chief, will it,’ Roger said. ‘Or have you forgotten?’
‘You mean like in the book,’ Pig said.
In which Jack, the character, had overthrown Ralph as the children’s leader.
‘Obviously,’ Roger said.
‘I think,’ Jack said, ‘we need to be careful, wait a while.’
‘You’re right,’ said Roger.
For the time being, they drank.
O
n a warm, sunny afternoon in late June, Kate was standing in her kitchen looking out into the garden at Marie, who was sitting in her chair beside the
playpen in which Bobbi was lying on a blanket, kicking her little feet.
Kate felt almost content.
She still missed Rob every single day, but their daughter was healthy.
The first rough draft of her biography of Claude Duval was half written, and she understood from her new London-based agent that an editor at a firm of publishers was keen to see it on
completion.
Bel was dating a landscape gardener, a man named David Miles who everyone seemed to like. Much more to the point, her mother seemed happier than Kate could recall seeing her in a great many
years.
Michael and Delia were getting married, and Kate had never imagined that could make her feel remotely glad, yet it had done exactly that, and she thought that if Rob were here, he might be proud
of her for it.
Never too old, it seemed, to grow up.
Bobbi, she supposed, was responsible for that.
Kate looked out at Marie, at her sensible, increasingly grey-haired, very good friend, and wondered if the time was ever going to come when she might want to leave, and how she would feel about
that when it happened.
How she would feel about it if it never happened.
Fine, she decided, for now.
Which was, after all, the most that anyone could wish for.
R
alph sat in the Beast’s garden, promises of early summer all around her, the child on the ground beside her.
Ralph was thinking about
them
.
Her lost children.
She knew now that she would never see them again.
All her fault.
The Beast’s.
She thought about them all the time, wondered if they would ever forgive her. Wondered if they would ever play the game again; if maybe they already had.
As for her, she’d done what she had to, had gone on with it, played it on her own, one step at a time.
The husband first.
The fire next.
Then the simple good luck of Sandi West’s death wish.
No need for intervention there, not a scrap of trouble for her.
Not much luck in her life before her children.
Taken from her now.
Ralph looked towards the cottage, saw
her
in her kitchen, making their tea.
On the ground, the chestnut-haired, blue-eyed baby girl kicked her little legs and smiled up at her.
The Beast trusted her completely now with her child.
So Ralph could take her time. As long as she wanted.
Biding her time.
Planning her own game.
The best and most important game ever.
Motherhood.
›››
If you’ve enjoyed this book and would like to discover more great vintage crime
and thriller titles, as well as the most exciting crime and thriller authors writing today, visit:
›››
Where Criminal Minds Meet
By Hilary Norman
(titles that appear in bold are published by The Murder Room)
Sam Becket Mysteries
Mind Games (1999)
Last Run (2007)
Shimmer (2009)
Caged (2010)
Hell (2011)
Eclipse (2012)
Standalone Novels
In Love and Friendship (1986)
Chateau Ella (1988)
Shattered Stars (1991)
Fascination (1992)
Spellbound (1993)
Laura (1994)
If I Should Die (1995) (originally published under the pen name Alexandra Henry)
The Key to Susanna (1996)
Susanna (1996)
The Pact (1997)
Too Close (1998)
Blind Fear (2000)
Deadly Games (2001)
Twisted Minds (2002)
No Escape (2003)
Guilt (2004)
Compulsion (2005)
Ralph’s Children (2008)
For Jonathan
My gratitude to: Howard Barmad; Jennifer Bloch; Sheena Craig; Aisha Faruqi; Sara Fisher; Howard Green; Peter Johnston; Helmut Pesch; Helen Rose; Rainer Schumacher; Richard
Spencer; Dr Jonathan Tarlow.
Hilary Norman
Hilary Norman was born and educated in London. After working as an actress she had careers in the fashion and broadcasting industries. She travelled extensively throughout
Europe and lived for a time in the United States before writing her first international bestseller,
In Love and Friendship
, which has been translated into a dozen languages. Her subsequent
novels have been equally successful. She lives in North London, where she has spent most of her life, with her husband and their beloved RSPCA rescue dog.
An Orion ebook
Copyright © Hilary Norman 2008
The right of Hilary Norman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook first published in Great Britain in 2013
by Orion
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper St Martin’s Lane
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4719 0844 6
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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