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

I have been, she knows that David is involved, she knows that Neil Buxton has been arrested and – being Eve – she has homed in on something she can do.

‘Why don’t Grace and Ruby come here for the night?’ she says. ‘Unless anyone’s got a better idea? That is assuming the police don’t think any more that Colin is a dangerous paedophile?’

‘I think that idea’s gone down the drain. That would be wonderful, Eve. You are wonderful.’ My voice wobbles a bit on this and I apologise. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit…’

‘Tired and emotional?’

‘Isn’t that a euphemism for “drunk”? I’m certainly not that, though I wouldn’t mind a large whisky. I’ll see you soon. We’ll deliver the girls to you before midnight, I hope.’

I put my phone away. ‘Tired and emotional’ doesn’t begin to cover how I’m feeling. I am so tired that pictures of my hotel room are dancing before my eyes, taunting me with the crisp, cool sheets on the bed, the comforting weight of the duvet, the heavy curtains shutting out the world. Even the kettle and the biscuits present themselves as a paradigm of comfort and consolation. I lean against the window and compose myself for sleep but it doesn’t work. Every now and then I nod off but then lurch awake in a way that makes me feel slightly seasick. David drives on relentlessly. At one wakeful moment I point out a Tiredness Kills notice and suggest a break, hoping for service station loos and a nice cup of tea, but he glances over his shoulder at the sleeping girls and says, ‘Better to let them sleep. We’ll carry on.’

A thought suddenly comes unbidden into my head. ‘What did your text mean?’ I ask.

‘What text?’

I find it on my phone. ‘Yes, because Ruby had her phone’, I read. ‘Obscure or what?’

‘The night she disappeared. Why did Ruby have her phone with her when she knew it didn’t work at the theatre?’

‘Milo says it was just a mistake.’

‘Or she had it with her because she was planning to disappear and her instinct was to have her phone with her.’

‘So why didn’t she take it with her? Why give it to Milo?’

‘Because someone – probably Milo – pointed out that she couldn’t use her phone because we would trace her. So he offered to look after it – switched off.’

‘And that made you think…

‘That you were right and she was planning to run away – and that one of the other kids at least was helping.’

‘And that was enough to bring you to Alcott Park?’

‘That and a conversation with the headmistress of the school. She confirmed that Grace wasn’t on any tour, and though she was very discreet she admitted that Grace had seen the school counsellor when she first arrived, about “issues at home”.’

‘And that was it?’

‘Well, plus my implicit faith in your intuitions, of course.’

‘Oh, piss off,’ I say, and now I do feel able to get some sleep.

*

I have been envisaging us presenting ourselves at the police station and then delivering first Freda to Ellie, where I expect to be cold-shouldered, and then Ruby and Grace to Eve, where I have hopes of the long-awaited cup of tea and even – possibly– a hug. But others have alternative plans. When we drive into the yard at the back of the police station we find a reception committee. Parked illegally in a space marked Police Vehicles Only is a car containing Eve, in the driving seat, Milo and Fergus, Ellie and Ben. The girls are woken by our stopping and stumble out of the car, blinking and bewildered, to be swept up in an orgy of hugging, fist-bumping and tears. Annie is nowhere to be seen, I notice – gone back to her own world now that the best of the drama is over, I assume. David goes into the station and I stand, an awkward outsider, trying to ignore the look of pure fury that Ellie is sending my way, over Freda’s head as she hugs her as if she will never let her go.

Suddenly Ben is at my side. He puts a hand on my shoulder and says quietly in my ear, ‘Thank you, Gina. Thank you for bringing her back,’ and I am so grateful that I can feel the treacherous tears welling up again. I lean my head against him for a moment and he squeezes my shoulder before he goes back to Ellie. Thank God for an Italian son-in-law.

Five minutes later, David comes out and summons us all inside. We troop in, slightly dazed by the harsh fluorescent lighting, and stand awkwardly, vaguely guilty, as if we were outside the head’s office, expecting to be reprimanded. The desk officer is civil, if not cordial, and pretty brisk, allocating times for interviews in the morning, establishing that appropriate adults will be accompanying the girls. I am summoned for ten o’clock and we all troop outside again. Ben and Ellie and Freda set off for their B & B, which is just off the square, and Ruby and Grace pack into Eve’s car with Milo and Fergus, and she drives them home. David and I get back into his car.

‘It’s going to be late for you to get a room at the hotel,’ I say. ‘It’s nearly midnight.’

‘I booked one earlier,’ he says, swinging the car out onto the road.

‘Really?’

‘While you were all in the loo at the pizza place.’

‘Oh. Right. Good,’ I say. ‘What forethought.’

At the hotel, we pick up our keys and he walks up with me to my room. He stands outside as I unlock my door. I step into the room and stand stock-still, slapped in the face by the sense of my own stupidity. It is my fault that we are like this – edgy, abrasive, combative, indirect, detached. I tell myself that it is good for us, that it keeps our relationship fresh, that the fencing and sparring – verbal and emotional – keeps us on