“That’s all?”
“No, sir. There’s a child missing and . . .”
“Why the hell didn’t you say so before?”
“It’s all taken care of,” Camb stammered. “Martin knows and he’s bound to have phoned Mr. Wexford. Look, sir, it’s not for me to interfere, but - well, why don’t you just go home, sir?”
“When I require your instructions, Sergeant, I’ll ask for them. The last child that went missing here was never found. I am not going home.” I have nothing to go home for. He didn’t say it, but the words were there and the sergeant heard them. “Get me an outside line, will you?”
Camb did so and Burden said, “My home.” When Grace Woodville answered, Camb gave the phone to her brother-in-law. “Grace? Mike. Don’t wait dinner for me. There’s a child missing, I should be in by ten.”
Burden crashed down the receiver and made for the lift. Camb watched the doors blankly for ten minutes and then Sergeant Mathers came down to take over the desk.
The bungalow in Tabard Road looked exactly as it had done in Jean Burden’s lifetime. the floors gleamed, the windows shone and there were flowers - chrysanthemums at this season - in the Poole pottery vases. Plain English food was served at regular times and the children had the cared-for look of children who have a loving mother. The beds were made by eight-thirty, the washing was on the line by nine and a pleasant cheerful voice sounded a greeting to those who came home.
Grace Woodville had seen to all this. It had seemed to her the only way, to keep the house as her sister had done, to act with the children as her sister had done. She already looked as much like her sister as is possible for two women who are not twins. And it had worked, Sometimes she thought John and Pat almost forgot. They came to her when they were hurt or in trouble or had something interesting to tell just as they had gone to Jean. They seemed happy, recovered from the wound of Christmas, It had worked for them and the house and the practical business of running things, but it hadn’t worked for Mike. Of course it hadn’t. Had she really thought it would?
She put down the phone and looked into the glass where she saw Jean’s face looking back at her. Her own face had never seemed like Jean’s while Jean was alive, but quite different, squarer and stronger and more fulfilled and - well, why not say it? - more intelligent. It was like Jean’s now. The liveliness had gone out of it, the sharp wit, and that wasn’t surprising when she thought how she spent her days, cooking and cleaning and comforting and waiting at home for a man who took it all for granted.
She called out, “John? That was your father. He won be home till ten. I think we’ll eat, shall we?” His sister was in the garden, gathering caterpillars for the collection she kept in the garage. Grace was more afraid of caterpillars than most women are of mice or spiders, but she had to pretend to like them, even to gloat over them, because she was all Pat had for a mother. “Pat! Food, darling. Don’t be long.”
The little girl was eleven. She came in and opened the matchbox she was holding. Grace’s heart squeezed and chilled at the sight of the fat green thing inside. “Lovely,” she said faintly. “A lime hawk?” she had done her homework, and Pat, like all children, valued adults who bothered.
“Look at his sweet face.”
“Yes, I am. I hope he’ll grow into a chrysalis before the leaves die off. Daddy won’t be home for dinner.”
Pat gave an indifferent shrug. She didn’t love her father much at present. He had loved her mother more than her, she knew that now, and she also knew that he ought to love her to make up for, what she had lost. One of the teachers at school had told her that he would, that all fathers did that. She had waited and he hadn’t. He had always stayed out late working but now he stayed out nearly all the time. She transferred her simple animal-like love to her Aunt Grace. Privately she thought it would be nice if John and her father went away and left her with her aunt and then the two of them would have a lovely time collecting better and rarer, caterpillars and reading books on natural history and science and the Bolshoi Ballet.
She sat down at the table next to her aunt and then began to eat the chicken-and-ham pie which was just like the ones Jean used to make.
Her brother said, “We had a debate at school today on the equality of the sexes.”
“That was interesting,” said Grace, “What did you have to say?”
“I left most of the talking to the others. One thing I did say, women’s brains don’t weigh as much as men’s.”
“They do,” said Pat.
“No, they don’t. They don’t, do they, Auntie Grace?”
“I’m afraid they don’t,” said Grace, who had been a nurse. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t as good.”
“I bet,” said Pat with a vindictive look at her brother, “I bet mine weighs more than yours. My head’s bigger. Anyway, it’s all boring, discussions and stuff. A lot of talk.”
“Come along, darling, eat your pie.”
“When I am grown up,” said Pat, beginning on a perennial theme, “I’m not going to talk and argue and do boring things. I’m going to get my degree - no, maybe I’ll wait till I’ve got my doctorate - and then I’m going to go to Scotland and make a big Investigation of the lochs, all the very deep lochs, and discover the monsters that live in them, and then I’m . . .
“There aren’t any monsters. They looked and they never found one.”
Pat ignored her brother. “I’ll have divers and a special boat and a whole staff and Auntie Grace will be at the station looking after us and cooking for us.”
They began to argue fiercely. It could happen, Grace thought. That was the horrible thing, it could just happen. Sometimes she could see herself staying here until they were grown up and she was old and then tagging along after Pat, being her housekeeper. What else would she be fit for then? And what did it matter whether her brain weighed less than a man’s or more or the same when it was stuck in a little house in the depths of Sussex, atrophying away?
She had been a sister in a big London teaching hospital when Jean died and she had taken the six weeks’ leave that was owing to her to come here and care for Mike and Mike’s children. Just six weeks she was going to stay. You didn’t spend years of your life studying, taking cuts in salary, to study for more qualifications, going to the States for two years to learn the latest obstetric methods at a Boston clinic, and then just give it all up. The hospital board had told her not to and she had laughed at the very idea. But the six weeks had lengthened into six months, into nine, ten, and now her post at the hospital had been filled by someone else.
She looked thoughtfully at the children. How could she leave them now? How could she even think of leaving them for five years? And then Pat would be only sixteen.
It was all Mike’s fault. A hard thing to think, but true. Other men lost their wives. Other men adjusted. On Mike’s salary and with his allowances he could afford a housekeeper. And it wasn’t only that. A man as intelligent as Mike ought to realise what he was doing to her and the children. She had come at his invitation, his passionate plea, thinking that she would have his support in her task, certain that he would make an effort to be home in the evenings, take the children out at weekends, compensate them in some measure for the loss of their mother. He had done none of this. How long was it now since he’d spent one evening at home? Three weeks? Four? And he wasn’t always working. One night when she could no longer stand the sight of John’s bitter rebellious face she had phoned Wexford and the chief inspector had told her Mike went off duty at five. A neighbour had told her later where Mike went. She had seen him sitting in his car on one of the paths in Cheriton Forest, just sitting dill and staring at the straight, parallel, endless trees.