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

our toes. Uncertainty, unpredictability, they stop us from getting bored and boring, don’t they? But they are also exhausting, and they are my choice, not David’s. I see how he is with other people: reasonable, amenable, thoughtful – a man to be respected and relied on. He goes along with the fencing because he knows it’s what I like, but he wouldn’t choose it, would he? Given the chance, he is perfectly capable of being reassuring, comforting, kind.

He is still standing outside the door. I turn round to him. ‘Come in for a minute,’ I say. He steps into the room. I drop my bag on the floor. ‘David, I so want a hug,’ I say, and he does something quite odd – he takes off his suit jacket and drops it onto a chair. Then he comes up and takes me in his arms. We stand there together and as I lay my head against his chest I can feel through his shirt the warmth of him, and the solid, reassuring, steady beating of his heart.

We stand there for quite a long time, I think, and when eventually I pull away I say, ‘Why did you take your jacket off?’

‘Well,’ he says, ‘it’s a new suit and I wasn’t sure if there were going to be some more tears.’

I sit down on the floor, lean my head against the side of the bed and, helplessly, I start to laugh.

Chapter Nineteen THE PARLEY

Wednesday

Would everyone be able to see that they had both been crying? Freda wondered about this as she followed her mother into the police station the next morning. Or would it be obvious that they had just had the biggest row they had ever had? And all because she had said that she would rather have Ben with her for her interview than Mum. And the very reason why she wanted Ben was because he would keep calm and wouldn’t interfere or get emotional, and Mum had behaved exactly as she didn’t want her to behave with the police, going off on one about Granny being irresponsible and a bad influence – di-da-di-da. Well, it was her story, she was the one who was there, and she hoped her interviewer would tell Mum to shut up if necessary.

Inside the station she manoeuvred past her mother so that she got to the reception desk first.

‘I’m Freda Gray,’ she said.

‘Ah yes,’ the desk sergeant said, and looked past her to her mother.

‘This is my mum,’ Freda said hastily. ‘She’s just here to—

‘Quite,’ said the sergeant. ‘Mrs Gray?’

‘Biaggi,’ her mother said, coming closer and virtually barging her out of the way. ‘Eleanor Gray Biaggi.’

They were shown into a room with soft chairs arranged around a coffee table. A special room, Freda thought, for people who weren’t accused of a crime. A couple of police officers, quite young, not in uniform, came in after them and introduced themselves: Detective Sergeant Jane Hapgood and Detective Constable Mark Abington. On TV, Freda thought, one of them would have been BAME, but these two were both white in a rather uninteresting way. They all sat down.

‘Now, Freda,’ Jane Hapgood said, ‘we just want to hear what happened to you. If you get at all upset, we can stop at any time. And of course your mum’s here.’

Freda did not look at her mother. ‘I won’t get upset,’ she said, wondering again whether her recent angry tears were still evident and if that was making them think she was going to get upset.’

‘So first, just tell us what you are doing here in Carnmere.’

Freda had thought about this. She intended to tell the truth as far as possible but she had an instinct that it would be a bad idea to tell the police that Granny had come here to find out what had happened to Ruby, and that she had been brought along to help. TV crime drama told her that the police didn’t like amateurs getting involved.

‘Just a holiday,’ she said, ‘with my gran. She was meeting up with an old friend who lives here.’

Mark Abington shuffled through some notes he had with him. ‘Would that be Mrs Eve Fletcher?’

‘Yes.’

He made a note and glanced at the sergeant.

She said, ‘Do you often go on holiday with your gran?’

‘Not usually on holiday but I go and stay with her quite a lot.’

‘But your family have been on holiday in Italy, haven’t they? Didn’t you want to go with them?’

Freda wasn’t quick enough to stop her mum from jumping in. ‘Freda was going to join us later – on Friday, in fact. This was just a short break to keep my mother company, and now she’ll be joining us for the real family holiday – with my husband’s parents.’

Furious, Freda said, ‘I enjoy spending time with my gran. My brother is quite a bit younger than me so I can do more interesting things with my gran, that we can’t do with him.’

‘And you’ve been staying at the Carnmere Manor Hotel?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did you know Dumitru Radu?’

‘Yes. He’s a waiter and he works in the bar.’

‘And do you know all the waiters?’

‘No, but my gran knew Dumitru because she was giving him English lessons.’

‘Why was she doing that?’

‘She’s an English teacher and he needed help for some exam. He didn’t pay her or anything. She just wanted to help.’ She shot a glance at her mother. ‘She’s like that. Kind.’

She could see her mother opening her mouth to speak but Jane Hapgood got in first. ‘So your gran introduced you to him?’

‘Sort of.’

‘And you felt that you knew him well?’

‘Not well, no.’

‘But well enough to get into his car with him?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘You didn’t think that he might drive off with you?’

’I wanted him to.’

Her mum was ready to explode at this point but Jane Hapgood put up a hand to stop her. ‘Let us get this straight, Freda. You wanted Dumitru Radu to abduct you?’

‘Actually,’ Freda said, ‘I made him do it.’

DC Abington gave a snort of