The Skeleton Tree by Diane Janes (reading women TXT) 📕

‘For heaven’s sake!’ Bruce exclaimed, but Tara had already gone, leaving the juice carton out on the counter. Wendy automatically turned away from the stove to put it back in the fridge.

Katie rose from the table and sidled out after her sister.

‘Katie!’ Wendy called. ‘What about your bacon?’

‘I don’t want any, thank you,’ came a voice from the hall.

‘But you said … oh for goodness’ sake, now I’ve cooked far too much. Bruce, Jamie, can you each eat another rasher?’

A few minutes later, Wendy said, ‘You shouldn’t take any notice of her. She’s on edge over her exams.’

‘Her exams are weeks away.’

‘You know,’ Wendy said, when Jamie had finished his extra bacon and she was left alone at the table with Bruce, she still finishing a bacon sandwich, he lingering over a second coffee while he read the paper, ‘this all started when you objected to her seeing that builder boy.’

‘Of course. My fault as usual,’ Bruce grunted, not bothering to look up from whatever he was reading.

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just think he’s at the root of all this trouble. I think she’s carried on seeing him behind our backs. There’s someone she rings, someone she’s always a bit secretive about. If I come through the hall sometimes, when she’s on the phone, her voice changes and she shuts up sharpish, as if it’s a conversation she doesn’t want me to hear.’

‘She’s eighteen. There’s probably a lot of conversations she doesn’t want you to hear.’ He lifted the paper, shook it back into shape and turned another page. ‘As for her continuing to see that John, or whatever his name is, why would she bother to keep it a secret? She was pretty defiant about it when I first challenged her.’

‘She’s put Birmingham down as her first choice.’

‘It’s a good university – and it’s near to her father too.’

‘It’s also where he’s all set to go to the Polytechnic.’

‘Birmingham’s quite a big place, Wendy. It’s not like them both being in Bishop Barnard, you know. Oh …’ He paused, his attention clearly caught by something he had spotted in the paper. ‘Talk of the devil … or devils, I suppose, in this case. That other labourer of Broughton’s, Peter Grayling …’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, the trial finished yesterday and he’s been found not guilty.’

‘I didn’t even know the trial had started. I suppose that’s good then.’

‘What’s good about it?’

‘It means he didn’t do it and now he’ll be set free.’

‘Good God, Wendy, you can be so naïve. All I can say is what a good thing it is we’ll all be moving away from here very soon.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘Don’t you get it? This chap knows the layout of the house and exactly who lives here.’

‘But he’s been found not guilty.’

‘There’s no smoke without fire, not in cases like this. The difficulty they’ve had all along in bringing it home to him is that they’ve never found the body, but the police wouldn’t have made an arrest if they hadn’t known it was him. You’ll need to be very careful with security when I’m not here. No forgetting and leaving the back door unlocked all night.’

‘That was only one occasion.’

‘Well, you’ll have to be very careful,’ Bruce repeated.

She had hoped to have a day free from all mention of Bruce’s impending departure, but they were right back on it again, she thought. It cast a cloud over everything, coloured every conversation. One more week as a family, before Bruce took up his new post, which would mean staying with his parents during the week. At least he would be home at weekends.

When they assembled to kiss Bruce goodbye on the front doorstep a week later (all except Tara, who was out with friends), Wendy experienced an awful sense of foreboding. Suppose he was killed on the motorway and never made it? It was quiet on Sunday afternoons, but even so …

‘Don’t forget to ring me when you get to your parents’ house,’ she said.

He did ring, but it was Tara who happened to answer the telephone. From the sitting room, Wendy caught a perfunctory exchange before Tara rang off and popped her head around the door.

‘That was Dad.’ (It was funny, Wendy thought, the way Tara attempted to make a point of addressing him as Bruce, but as often as not forgot herself and still called him by that old familiar label.) ‘He just called to say he got to Granny’s OK.’

‘Is that all?’

‘What were you expecting him to do? Declaim from Shakespeare or recite the Magna Carta? He’s only been gone a few hours. He said something about going out for a walk, to stretch his legs after the drive.’ Tara withdrew, shaking her head theatrically, as if in wonderment at the stupidity of parents.

Alone in the sitting room, Wendy considered the TV schedule and found nothing of interest. Katie joined her and they played best of three games of draughts (later extended to best of five) before it was her bedtime. At nine thirty she took Tara a cup of coffee in her lair, but Tara had settled down with her books and her headphones and was clearly not disposed for a chat. Back downstairs and mindful of Bruce’s warnings, Wendy checked that all the doors and windows were locked. She returned to the sitting room, wondering if the children felt the same sense of absence as she did. Did they feel any less safe now that Bruce was gone? And what would she do, supposing some maniac were to break into the house while she was there alone with just the children? She opened the sitting room curtains a crack and looked out on to the drive, the furthest end of which enjoyed sufficient illumination from the street lamps to confirm that it was empty. The rest of the front garden was in deep shadow. There was no moon and the high hedge and trees obscured the light which spread freely down