The Baby-Snatcher

Chapter Twenty-Three

While Hunter was preparing for a night in Whitley, Claire Irvine was in Cotter’s Row, wondering about driving lessons. It was too late for Bernard to take the plunge. She could see that. He’d never get to grips with driving a car. But someone in the family should be mobile, and she didn’t mind having a go. She certainly didn’t plan to work for the Coulthards for ever and even if she wanted to, that wouldn’t be possible. Soon Owen would start school and Emma might think she could manage the two youngest by herself. Then Claire would be looking for work. Most women wanted a woman who could drive – some even provided a car for running the kiddies around. And if ever she had a child herself it would be nice to be independent.

She thought too that if she could drive Bernard might be able to make more of his magic shows. He hated working in that office. These days it was all market testing and saving money. Although he’d never said, she had the feeling that everyone there made fun of him. He never mentioned any friends.

‘If you wanted to go out for a pint after work, you know I wouldn’t mind,’ she’d said recently.

Kath would never have thought of it, but Dad had gone to the pub with his mates every Friday. They’d played darts, made a night of it.

Bernie had shaken his head. He said he thought some of the chaps went out together but he wouldn’t feel right about asking to go along too.

‘Besides,’ he’d said. ‘I like getting home now. It’s so cosy.’

Then she’d felt a glow of pleasure and knew she’d done the right thing.

She didn’t mention the driving lessons to Bernard. It wouldn’t be tactful to make too many changes too soon. People would talk. She’d seen Sally Wedderburn staring at the television the last time she’d come to visit. As if renting a telly was some sort of crime.

She’d forgotten how soothing a night in front of the set could be. They all enjoyed it, though Marilyn wasn’t much interested in the programmes themselves. She still disappeared up to her bedroom with her books most nights. She did watch Top of the Pops but Claire thought that was just so she could talk about the groups with the other girls at school.

In the evenings Claire and Bernard had developed a routine. She would clear up the meal and wash the dishes, then the two of them would settle in front of the television. At nine o’clock he would make cocoa. They’d call Marilyn down from her room and drink it together. It was, as he’d said, very cosy.

Without a car Bernard had to rely on taxis to get him to the church halls and Scout huts, where he performed for the children. He took bookings for his shows at work and explained over the telephone that he would have to charge travelling expenses on top of his modest fee. Sometimes that put people off. Not people who’d actually seen him perform, though. They thought he was worth every penny.

She could see he was nervous about the Sunday school anniversary party. It was the first show he’d done since Kath’s death. He was worried he’d find it hard to concentrate sufficiently to make the tricks work. In magic, concentration was everything.

He’d asked Marilyn if she’d like to go with him, be his assistant.

‘We could find you a costume,’ he’d said enthusiastically. He would have liked her standing beside him in a sequinned leotard and shimmering tights.

But she’d refused absolutely. She’d told him that she’d arranged to meet a friend in Otterbridge. This was unheard of and Claire thought it was probably an excuse. Perhaps Marilyn was worried that some of the girls would find out. It probably wasn’t considered cool to be a magician’s assistant.

Claire would have gone with him for support, but she’d already agreed to work for the Coulthards. Emma and Brian had planned a Saturday afternoon out on their own. Another unheard-of occasion.

In the event Bernard needn’t have worried about his performance. It was as confident and fluid as ever. Indeed, in the beginning everything seemed to work like clockwork. The taxi turned up on time. He was met outside the church by a pleasant, motherly woman, in a flowery print dress.

‘Mr Howe,’ she said. ‘How kind of you to come.’ He could tell she meant it.

The hall had been built very recently. It had a polished-wood floor, a real stage and spotlights. The helpers had set aside a little room for him to get ready for his act. They brought a pot of tea and a plate of home-made cakes. In the hall he heard them shouting to the children to settle down. They were very lucky that Uncle Bernie had agreed to visit them. It all made him feel important.

When he stood up to perform there was immediate silence. The faces turned towards him were attentive, scrubbed clean. The girls wore frilly frocks and patent-leather sandals. He would have liked to dress Marilyn in prettier things when she was little but Kath had never cared much what her daughter looked like. The admiration of the children made him feel even better than the fussing women. He knew he would do well.

He chose a boy to help him, picked him out from the front row.

‘And what’s your name?’

‘Alex.’ He wasn’t the least bit shy.

‘And how old are you, Alex?’

‘I’m six.’

He wore red braces and a blue tie, a miniature merchant banker. His hair was still damp where his mother had slicked it into place. Throughout the show Alex watched every move Bernard made and gasped as each trick was performed. The audience followed his example and gasped and laughed in all the right places. The adults at the back clapped and shouted compliments.

This time the climax of the performance was not the creation of a birthday cake. Bernard had performed that many times before and was bored by it. Instead he reached into his bowler hat and threw handful after handful of sweets into the audience and then scattered, with a sweep of his arm, a cloud of silver stars which floated down on to the upturned faces like snowflakes.

He gave a deep bow and the room erupted into cheers.

He asked Alex if he’d like to help him pack his magic bag.

‘Can I?’

‘Of course.’

The two were left on the stage, forgotten, while the children chased round the room after the sweets he’d thrown. The helpers came out of the cloakroom with armfuls of coats.

‘I’m going to wait outside for my taxi,’ Bernard said. The boy was standing very close to him and he could tell now that the hair was slicked back not with water but a glutinous cream which had a strong and distinctive smell.

‘You can come with me if you like.’

Bernard had already been paid. He supposed he should say goodbye to the women but they seemed busy and Alex was pulling him by the hand through a side door.

‘Here,’ Bernard said. ‘Round the back. This is where it’ll be.’

There was a short, tree-lined path, which led to the street. It was quite dark. The parents collecting their children must be using another entrance. The boy still held his hand. They were close enough to the building to hear laughter, shouting mothers, but here they were alone. It was starting to get cold again. The boy shivered.

Suddenly a door was flung open and from the oblong of light a tiny woman in a short skirt, leather jacket and high-heeled shoes hurtled towards them. She was followed at a more measured pace by the helper in the floral dress.

The stranger grabbed Alex by the arm and pulled him away from Bernard. For a moment she stood with her arms wrapped around the boy. Her chin was bent towards the child’s hair and it occurred to Bernard that at such close quarters the scent of the gel would be overpowering and very unpleasant. She raised her head and said to Bernard. ‘What the hell do you think you were doing?’

It was a southern voice, deeper than he had expected, furious.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Don’t play the innocent with me. If we hadn’t come out then you’d have had him away.’

‘No,’ Bernard said. ‘Really. No.’

‘You drag him into the dark without telling anyone…’ She turned away from him in disgust and started on the Sunday school teacher. ‘You’re supposed to be looking after them. Not letting them wander off with any pervert who wants to abduct them. I should call the police.’

In the end the woman in the flowery dress who was, it seemed, the minister’s wife, calmed the situation. She explained who Bernard was and they all agreed to put the incident down to a misunderstanding. The taxi pulled up and Bernard was allowed to climb into it. He tried to say goodbye to Alex but the boy wouldn’t look at him. Bernard felt cheated. The day had been so promising and now it was spoiled.

Alex’s mother had a short fuse and soon forgot to be angry. When she got the boy home and he told her again what had happened she saw that no harm had been done. She even, felt a bit sorry for the bastard for laying into him. The look on his face!

The minister’s wife was not able to treat the event so lightly. She thought about it all evening and then, without discussing it with her husband, who tended to think the best of everyone, she phoned the police station.

‘It’s probably nothing,’ she said. ‘If it weren’t for all those other incidents I wouldn’t bother mentioning it.’

Before her marriage she had worked as a psychiatric social worker. She had met sad adults still troubled by unpleasantness in childhood.

To her discomfort the woman on the other end of the line took her seriously and said an officer would be sent that night to take a statement. Then the following day two detectives, a man and a woman, turned up at the manse and she had to explain again, or at least try to, what it was about Bernard Howe which had made her concerned.

‘It wasn’t anything he actually did,’ she told Ramsay and Sal Wedderburn. ‘I mean he was very nice. Charming, in fact.’

The house, like the church hall, was new and they sat in a bare living room which still smelled of paint, looking out over an untidy garden. As it was Sunday the minister was busy. She paused. Ramsay looked at Sally, warning her not to speak. In the garden a noisy blackbird was gathering dry grass for a nest. The woman continued.

‘We have a number of elderly spinsters who run the Sunday school, and they fussed over him. They had heard, of course, that his wife had died in tragic circumstances. He played up to them. I thought at first he was just being kind. Most men are embarrassed by the attention.’

She paused again. ‘I’m not explaining this very well. It wasn’t a real, adult conversation. He was behaving like a spoilt eight-year-old. As if all that fussing was due to him. It wasn’t normal.’

‘I see,’ Ramsay said. ‘Did he have any difficulty communicating with the children?’

‘None at all. They loved him. The little boy who went outside with him wasn’t frightened and I’m sure nothing untoward happened.’

‘Yet you felt sufficiently concerned, that you contacted us.’

‘Yes. There was something about the pair of them, standing there in the shadow hand in hand… Mr Howe didn’t seem to realize he was in a position of trust. When we went outside – the mother, of course, was frantic – it was as if he felt no more responsible for the incident than the boy. It was a sort of arrogance. He was the only person who mattered. We were inconsiderate fools to cause a scene.’

Ramsay leant forward.

‘Are you saying you think he would be capable of abducting a child?’

She looked back at him, troubled.

‘I suppose I am. He’d do it thoughtlessly. Probably not meaning to cause any harm. Just for the company. Not realizing what people might think. The spoilt child again.’