Where Everything Seems Double by Penny Freedman (popular romance novels .txt) 📕

‘I can’t wait.’

She says nothing and I sit, trying to picture the scene.

‘So does that mean that Ruby was left to manage a two-person canoe on her own, because if so isn’t the most likely thing that—’

‘She wasn’t,’ she interrupts. ‘Someone else was in the boat with her. People remember that.’

‘So who?’

‘No-one knows. I told you, the men were in costume as Oberon’s followers. They were all wearing animal masks.’

‘Oh, wouldn’t they be, of course! And the boat was found in the reeds somewhere?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the police have questioned Colin?’

‘The police have questioned everyone, but they’ve questioned Colin a second time – and then there’s all the other stuff. Anything from threatening emails to graffiti on our front door.’

‘You’ve been here for a couple of years. Before this, did anyone here know about what happened with Colin in Marlbury?’

‘I don’t think so. Our name change helped, and people here aren’t nosey. They don’t google their new neighbours to see if they have a criminal record.’

‘So how has it come out now?’

‘I’m afraid it’s the grandchildren. Fergus, who you met, and Milo, his brother. They didn’t mean any harm, of course. We’ve never told them about why we left Marlbury – though we’ve had to tell them now. They come here every school holiday. They know Ruby – her father has a glass-making studio just along from here – so of course when she went missing they were all over Facebook and WhatsApp and whatever else to their friends, and that included their cousins in Marlbury, who passed it on to their friends. And those friends told their parents, who – because Marlbury is really a very small town – remembered Laura Fletcher, now Maguire, and remembered that the Fletcher girl’s parents had had to leave Marlbury because Dr Fletcher had been involved somehow in the murder of a girl – and wasn’t there a paedophile ring involved? He had got away with it somehow, but now Laura Fletcher’s children were caught up in the disappearance of Ruby Buxton, and why? Because they were staying with their grandfather in Carnmere – that very same Dr Fletcher.’

She pauses, breathless, and then starts coughing, alarmingly. I jump up to go for some water. But she waves me back and drains her mug of its cold tea.

‘I’m fine,’ she says, eventually. ‘But I’m eaten up with rage at people’s stupidity. And I’m exhausted by it. I can’t deal with it any more. That’s why you have to help.’

‘And Colin?’ I ask. ‘Is he coping?’

‘Colin?’ she says, looking away across the lake. ‘I can’t say. You’ll have to judge for yourself.’

I have a moment of panic, thinking that she means that he is nearby, coming to accuse me, but no-one is approaching, so I ask, ‘What was he doing when Ruby disappeared?’

‘He was ushering at the theatre. I persuaded him. I’m helping backstage and I thought it would be good for him. Fergus and Milo are doing scene shifting and Colin would have been on his own at home They need ushers at the interval to manage the move to the lakeside, so there he was – in prime position for snatching a little girl in the dark. And I put him there.’

I wait for a moment and then I ask, ‘What exactly have the police said to Colin? How do you know they have him in the frame?’

She picks up her cup, finds it empty and puts it down again.

‘They’ve interviewed him twice. Once was routine – they talked to everyone who was there that night – the second time they had had the back story and they summoned him to the station. He came back—’ She stops and looks out over the lake. ‘He came back looking like an old man. He was white, he was shaking, he looked as though he could hardly walk.’

‘What exactly had they said to him?’

‘I DON’T KNOW!’

She is suddenly yelling and I put up a placatory hand.

She stands up and walks towards the edge of the lake. I sit and wait. Eventually, she comes back but she doesn’t sit down.

‘He won’t talk about it,’ she says, quietly now. ‘He’s gone into himself and I can’t reach him.’

I feel sorry for Colin and I hate to see Eve’s pain but there is a danger of seeing them as the prime victims here.

‘How are Ruby’s parents doing?’ I ask. ‘You know them, don’t you?’

‘I told you – Neil’s studio is the one just down there.’ She points further along the lakeside. ‘I’ll introduce you but not now.’

I don’t know if we could have gone any further. As it is, Fergus and Freda appear, walking towards us with another boy who must be Milo – taller and broader than Fergus and with the same floppy hair. Freda is looking bright-eyed and rather pink.

‘Here we are, Gran,’ the older boy says, and I hear the Irish lilt in his voice. ‘Freda has met all the gang now, and tomorrow she’ll be out on the lake.’

Panic surges in me. I hadn’t thought about this. Can Freda swim? We never did more than paddling when I lived by the sea. They are close to the sea in Marlbury – has Ben taught her to swim?

Eve seems to read my thoughts – perhaps it is just grandmother’s telepathy or perhaps the panic shows in my face.

‘They all wear lifejackets,’ she says. ‘It’s understood.’ She looks at her grandsons. ‘Isn’t it, boys?’

They grin and nod, and I remember again what a good teacher Eve was.

‘We’ll walk you back to the hotel,’ Eve says, and as we go she says quietly, ‘You’ll need to talk to Colin tomorrow, and I’ve a plan for you to meet Dumitru – the waiter at the hotel who was supposed to be in Ruby’s boat.’

‘A plan?’

‘Well, you can’t just walk up to him and start interrogating him, can you? Even you can’t get away with that. He comes into the studio sometimes. He wants to study design here in