“All right, I’ll do what I can, but at least come in for a moment so that we can talk about it. I can see you’re upset,” she heard her mother say.
“You’re not wrong about that. But I can’t stay. I really can’t. I’ve too much to do.”
He had opened the door then and seemed to be on his way out, pausing only when her mother said: “You haven’t brought any clothes for the girls, Richard, not even any nightclothes.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just not thinking straight. I’ll sort some stuff out for them and bring it round early in the morning. They’ll need their school uniforms, of course, but they can sleep in their T-shirts. They often do, anyway.”
“All right, but how long do you want me to keep them? You know what Karen’s father is like. He’s out now at one of his quiz nights. God knows what he’ll say when he comes home and finds your two here.”
“It won’t be for long, I promise.” Richard’s voice had been wheedling. “Just till I manage to sort something out. A couple of days...”
Karen had sneezed then. She had been trying very hard to stifle it, but had finally been unable to do so.
“Karen, Karen, is that you?” Her mother had turned and leaned forward around the staircase so that even in the poor light Karen could see her upturned face. “Go back to bed, you silly girl, or you’ll never get better. It’s only Richard from next door.”
Karen had scurried off, knowing full well she’d be told no more even if she bothered to ask. But she sensed that there was some kind of crisis. The girls, Janine and Lorraine, had been quiet and withdrawn throughout their brief stay at Laurel House, and Karen was at an age when she was in any case totally disinterested in children younger than herself. She had made a point of ignoring them as much as possible, something she now regretted, being of such an intrinsically nosy nature, because she thought she might have missed the opportunity to learn something. Something important perhaps.
But just the way in which Richard Marshall had delivered his children that night, and the whole sorry little episode, had stuck in Karen’s mind. And so she listened with great interest at the door when the police interviewed her mother, listened while her mother told them about Richard’s visit that night. Told them about looking after the little girls. Listened to hear if she would tell them the rest of it. But she didn’t. Not any of it.
It was quite apparent that the police didn’t know what Karen knew. They couldn’t know, or their whole approach would have been different, Karen felt sure. Her mother’s secret was still safe. Which she supposed was a good thing, although somehow she wasn’t quite sure.
Karen remained there for several minutes, resting her chin on her knees, silent, unmoving. She felt more than a bit wobbly.
Eventually her mother wandered aimlessly out of the sitting room. Her eyes were blank. Karen could not read any expression in them. This was not unusual. Margaret Meadows invariably retreated into a world of her own whenever threatened by anything she might regard as remotely unpleasant or even merely unwelcome. She drifted towards the kitchen, apparently not noticing her daughter on the staircase.
Karen watched her mother’s retreating back. She wanted so much to talk to her, yet again to ask her the questions she was bursting to ask. But her mother would never talk to her about anything that mattered, so she certainly wouldn’t discuss this. She expected her daughter to behave like an adult, but only treated her like one when it suited her.
This infuriated Karen. One minute it seemed to be assumed that she knew about everything that had been going on. The next moment she was expected to forget that she knew anything at all.
But Karen knew all right. And how she wished that she didn’t.
She tightened her grip around her legs and buried her whole face in her knees. She wanted a family like everybody else she knew seemed to have. She wanted a mother. A proper mother. Not this beautiful drifting creature who blew hot and cold with the wind. This woman who was sometimes a friend, sometimes a big sister, sometimes someone from another planet, and certainly never the kind of mother Karen longed for.
She was, however, all that Karen had. And Karen would never do anything to hurt her. Anything that might lead to losing her. Karen would never ever tell.
Talbot had kept Richard Marshall in custody overnight. And once more, shortly after Malone and Parkin reported back, he decided to conduct another interview with Marshall himself.
“Margaret Meadows says you told her that your mother was coming to pick up your girls. But your mother says you never even asked her to do so and she did not know that they and Clara had disappeared until several months after they were last seen.”
Marshall didn’t miss a beat. A night in a police cell had not shaken him one jot. But then, Talbot had not really expected it to.
“I told Margaret that I was going to ask my mother to come to pick up the girls, not that I had already asked her,” he responded quickly. “I’d managed to get help in the hotel, though at a tremendous price. I was therefore at least able to look after them until I could get my mother down here and so I went next door to get them. But then Clara came back and asked for them before I even got round to calling my mother.”
“You never told Mrs. Meadows any of that.”
“Why would I? I told nobody anything more than I had to. I was emotionally drained by it all. My wife had walked out on me. My family had broken up. I didn’t want to talk about it. I barely knew Margaret Meadows...”
“You knew her well enough to dump your children on her.”
“I was desperate.”
“So did she never ask you about them afterwards?”
“I don’t remember. I didn’t see her often.”
“She says you just told her that Clara had come back for them.”
“Perhaps I did then. It was the truth, after all. But I never said any more than I had to. I didn’t see it was any of her business or anybody else’s.”
“It is now, Mr. Marshall, it’s the business both of the police and of the public. Make no mistake about it.”
Marshall shrugged.
“And what about your mother? Why didn’t you tell her straight away that your wife and children had left you? Isn’t it rather curious that you failed to tell your own mother?”
Marshall shrugged again. “I can be a bit of an ostrich,” he said. “I think I was hoping Clara would come back, bring the girls back. I’ve been hoping that all this time in spite of everything.”
He looked directly, challengingly, at Talbot. “In spite of what you think, that’s the truth, too.”
He paused as if waiting for Talbot to respond. When the DCI showed absolutely no signs of doing so he sighed and continued.
“The fewer people I told the less real it all seemed. Anyway, my mother and I have never been close...”
“Who are you close to, Mr. Marshall?”
Marshall looked blank.
Talbot persisted. He was beginning to think his only hope was to break Richard Marshall although he knew that was a big big ask.
“Were you close to your children?”
“Of course. I love my kids. I still love my kids.”
There was a note of aggression in Marshall’s voice then.
“At best you let them go very very easily then, didn’t you? I wouldn’t let my kids go that easily. No way.”
It was Talbot’s turn to pause, to wait for a response, and Marshall’s not to make one.
“At worst you killed them.”