The Cruellest Game

Fifteen

It was gone five o’clock before we left Highrise. They took me to Exeter in the back of a patrol car, sandwiched between PC Jacobs and the woman PCSO. The rain was falling steadily again and darkness had already descended on this appropriately dismal November day.

The bells of Blackstone parish church were ringing, presumably to summon evensong, and as we swished our way through the village I saw Gladys Ponsonby Smythe approaching the church, her ample figure clearly illuminated by the lamp which stood alongside the old lychgate. She was wrapped in a shiny green oilskin cape and carrying an armful of autumnal flowers. She had to step back to avoid our spray, and naturally took a good long look at the passing police car. I was pretty sure the lamp provided enough light for her to have spotted that I was inside it.

Our eyes seemed to meet and her mouth dropped open in shock.

At Heavitree Road Police Station I was escorted through the back door to the custody suite, and checked in by the custody sergeant, a sallow-faced man with a hangdog expression. I had to relinquish my personal effects, primarily my handbag which I’d grabbed as I left Highrise, and which contained my wallet, my make-up, my hairbrush and, of course, my mobile phone. I even had to hand over my watch. I was then taken into a cubicle by a woman PC and told to remove my clothes, including my underwear, which were placed in a plastic sack. Afterwards I was given a white paper suit to wear. Then I was photographed and my fingerprints taken. A swab of saliva was extracted from inside my mouth on a disposable spatula in order for my DNA to be obtained.

Processing, the police called it. And it should have been the most humiliating experience of my life, but I was past caring.

The interrogation started as soon as all these procedures had been completed. They call them interviews nowadays, of course. But it felt like an interrogation to me.

I was formally offered legal assistance. I had the right to free independent advice from a duty solicitor, I was told. I declined again. I still had this silly idea in my head that because I was innocent I didn’t need any help.

I was questioned by DS Jarvis, and a second detective, new to me, who announced himself, for the interview room video, as Detective Constable John Price. The two men went over the same ground again and again. Once more I was asked how little Luke Macintyre came to be found in my old stable. Once more I said that I had no idea.

Jarvis listed the evidence against me.

‘We confidently expect your DNA to be all over the child,’ he said at one point.

‘Well, of course,’ I said. ‘I picked the boy up, didn’t I? Would you have expected me to leave him just lying there outside, in the state he was in, on a day like this? I was carrying him into the house, into the warm, when your two PCs came along.’

Jarvis grunted. ‘We have a team checking out your house and your car right now,’ he said. ‘If there is any trace of the child in either, we will find it. So why don’t you just stop wasting time, and tell us what happened?’

‘Look, Constable Bickerton carried little Luke into my kitchen. He and I wrapped him in my towels, warmed him with my hot-water bottles. Of course there are going to be forensic traces of him in my home. There shouldn’t be in my car. And if there is anything, then it’s been planted. Just like the child himself.’

Even in the state I was in I realized that the evidence they had against me could only be circumstantial. But it was pretty damning all right. And, also, I had no idea what else might turn up. What else this unknown perpetrator who was trying to frame me for this awful crime might have done to further incriminate me.

I was interviewed, on and off, throughout the evening and into the night, for a period stretching over five or six hours, I thought, but I ultimately began to more or less lose track of time. I didn’t doubt that care was taken to ensure the necessary breaks demanded by all the rules and formalities of British police procedure, and I was periodically offered tea or coffee and brought food that I couldn’t eat. It was, none the less, absolutely gruelling. Which was no doubt the intention. They worked on me in shifts. After Jarvis and Price, the uniformed boys I already knew, Bickerton and Jacobs, had a go. Then Price returned with PC Janet Cox, the woman officer who had tried to give the impression of being my friend when she’d come to Highrise on the day of Robbie’s death. She was certainly no longer making any attempt to do that. In fact, she was quite spiky in her approach, and I was rather glad that her stint didn’t last long. After what seemed like a relatively short session she was replaced by Jarvis again.

I, of course, had no one to take a shift for me. And when they eventually told me that the interviews were to be suspended, but I was to be held in police custody overnight and they were taking me to a cell, I felt only relief. Although I was concerned about Florrie. I was told she had already been taken to police kennels. She wouldn’t like that, but at least she was safe, I thought. Which was more than I felt myself to be.

However, cells had beds, didn’t they? And I so wanted to lie down. I was totally exhausted. But, of course, I had no idea what it was like to be locked in a cell. I’d never broken a law, except the occasional speed limit, in my entire life. Being locked up in a police cell, however, turned out to be the biggest shock of all. After being arrested in the first place that is.

The woman PC who had earlier overseen the removal of my clothes led me to the cell block and into a bleak little room, around eight foot by six, with grubby creamish walls, old graffiti half scrubbed out, and a bare concrete floor. The room was illuminated starkly by one bright light in the middle of the ceiling. The only furniture was a thin plastic-covered mattress laid on a concrete platform. I was handed a single blanket. No pillow. In case I was tempted to suffocate myself? I had no idea.

A lavatory pan with no seat stood in a recessed area directly opposite the cell door which, of course, had a viewing panel built into it. The recessed area had no door. Privacy, I supposed, was one of the first privileges you lost when you found yourself in police custody.

The cell smelt strongly of powerful disinfectant, and I could not prevent myself imagining fleetingly what might have been cleaned up. And how recently.

I sat down, almost involuntarily, on the concrete and plastic bed just as the steel door was slammed shut and I was locked in alone. I was aware, for a moment or two, of a pair of eyes studying me through the viewing panel. Then that was also slammed shut and I heard the unmistakable sound of my escort’s footsteps retreating.

It wasn’t cold in the cell, but I pulled the thin blanket tightly around me and rolled myself into a foetal position.

I did not weep. I think I was in too great a state of shock for tears. Neither did I sleep. Except perhaps for just an hour or two before dawn, or thereabouts, when I was awakened by the arrival of a breakfast of scrambled egg, which tasted like sawdust, accompanied by two anaemic sausages. I’d thought I was hungry, having eaten nothing since breakfast the previous day, but I couldn’t eat it. Apparently all custody units nowadays have stores of instant meals which are microwaved to order. Gone are the days of bacon sandwiches and the like brought to prisoners at police stations either from the canteen or the cafe round the corner. Not that I was at all sure I’d have been able to stomach even a bacon sandwich.

I had no watch so I had little idea really how long I remained in the cell before being escorted from the cell block back to the interview room by a young male PC. But we passed beneath a clock on a corridor wall which told me the time was 8.05 a.m.

‘Have to take the scenic route this morning. We’ve sprung a leak, got plumbers all over the shop,’ said the PC.

We passed right by the front office, from which I could hear, in spite of the early hour, the unmistakably familiar strident tones of Gladys Ponsonby Smith. She was demanding from the front office clerk to see the officer in charge of my case.

‘I can’t believe you have kept Mrs Anderson here overnight like this. I’m sure you have no grounds. I want to see her. Now. Somebody needs to make sure she has a solicitor present — that’s her right, as you know — and I need to talk to her so will you please—’

She stopped abruptly as she caught sight of me shuffling glumly along on the other side of the pass door.

‘Marion, Marion,’ she cried. ‘Don’t you worry, flower. Gerry has an excellent lawyer friend in Bristol. She’ll sort this out for you. We’ve called her already. She’s in court this morning but she’ll be here as soon as she can.’

‘Th-thank you,’ I stumbled.

Having spent just the one ghastly night in a police cell I was not about to protest again that I didn’t need or want a solicitor.

‘Yes, well, we haven’t spent all our working lives in Blackstone, you know,’ Gladys continued cheerily. ‘I’m a Scouser, me. And a parish in inner-city Liverpool was an eye-opener, I can tell you. Spent half me time bailing out the congregation...’

I struggled to find a response. But in any case I was being hustled along by my escort.

However, Gladys was never easily deterred.

‘Shall I contact your husband for you?’ she asked. ‘I understand he’s away again—’

‘No, no,’ I interrupted loudly, finding my voice and shouting over my shoulder. ‘I don’t want him here. I don’t want him.’

Gladys looked momentarily puzzled.

‘That’s enough, madam,’ said the front office clerk wearily. ‘We do have procedures to follow, you know—’

‘Exactly, and I’m here to make sure you do just that,’ boomed Gladys.

Those strident tones followed me down the corridor as she continued to berate the man. ‘What kind of procedure is it to keep a woman in custody without a solicitor or anyone at all to advise her, I’d like to know?’

‘I can assure you, madam, that Mrs Anderson has been correctly advised of her rights and offered legal assistance, which I understand she turned down—’

‘That’s not the point,’ interrupted Gladys fierily. ‘She’s not somebody who’s used to this sort of thing, for goodness’ sake. And actually I don’t believe any of you could really think Mrs Anderson was responsible for the abduction of that child. The whole thing is ridiculous...’

Her voice faded as I was escorted further along the corridor to the same sparsely furnished interview room in which I had been questioned the previous evening.

The next interrogation was the most gruelling. This time DS Jarvis was accompanied by PC Janet Cox. I came to the conclusion that the girl must be angling for promotion. There was no longer a hint of the friendly neighbourhood cop I had first met. She was brusque and unforgiving.

‘If you really have no explanation for that child being found on your property, then we shall ultimately have no choice but to charge you,’ she informed me.

‘You must do what you must do,’ I told her resignedly. ‘I’d never seen the little boy in my life until I found him in our stable.’

‘Mrs Anderson, you live in a remote part of Dartmoor. Who do you think would have left the child on your property if it were not you? And why?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I said. ‘How many times am I going to be asked that?’

I honestly thought I was going to break down and cry. It was only because of a stubborn determination not to be worn down by this total injustice, and by dint of sheer willpower, that I managed to maintain a modicum of self-control. Again, I was interviewed on and off by shifts of officers. Then, just before 1 p.m., Gerry Ponsonby Smythe’s solicitor friend arrived, and turned out to be not at all what I had expected. Marti Smith was a young-looking woman, thin almost to the point of being anorexic. She had spiky pink hair and wore a leather coat, open over a blinged white shirt, black leggings and black biker leather boots. I wondered vaguely if she’d made the court appearance Gladys had mentioned dressed like that, and what the average judge or magistrate would make of her hairdo.

Anyway, she turned out to be sharp as a needle and tough as her boots. She’d already done her homework and got straight to the point.

‘I have little doubt forensics have so far found no evidence at all in Mrs Anderson’s home linking her with the child, except in the kitchen where we know the boy was taken in the company of two police officers,’ she told Jarvis. ‘And neither, I am sure, has any such evidence been found in Mrs Anderson’s car. Indeed, as far as I can see you have no case against my client. She told you she found the child in her disused stable, and what evidence there is points only to that.’

‘The forensic examinations have not been completed,’ responded Jarvis doggedly. ‘Also, we are, of course, awaiting DNA results.’

‘Yes,’ said Marti Smith. ‘And that takes days. You may wish to continue with your inquiries, but you cannot keep Mrs Anderson here indefinitely, as you well know, without charging her. You are aware of PACE, I presume, Mr Jarvis? My client will soon have been in custody for twenty-four hours and without the authority of a police superintendent you must then release her. Unless, of course, you are in a position to charge Mrs Anderson, and I don’t think you are, Detective Sergeant, are you?’

Jarvis glowered at her. ‘No. But your client has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, the most serious of offences. I already have our super’s authority to extend custody.’

‘I’m not happy about that, not happy at all,’ said Marti Smith. ‘You know very well how flimsy your evidence is.’

‘The child was found on Mrs Anderson’s property, Miss Smith.’

‘Yes, and a couple of years ago now the body of a young woman was found on the Queen’s estate at Sandringham. I do not recollect the Queen or any other member of the royal family being charged with her murder.’

DS Jarvis continued to glower at my rather impressive solicitor. I found myself almost smiling. I liked Marti Smith already. How could I help myself?

‘Unless we do charge your client or apply for a further custody extension at the magistrates’ court she will be released...’ Jarvis seemed to think for a moment. ‘At six o’clock tomorrow morning, exactly thirty-six hours after she was formally taken into custody, and not a minute before.’

‘And not a minute afterwards, either, I do so hope, Detective Sergeant,’ countered Marti Smith. She was no pushover, that was for sure. Even so, it seemed I was going to spend a second night in custody after all. I tried not to think about it too much or I really would have broken down.

I suddenly remembered Dad. I hadn’t returned his Saturday call. Nor Bella’s, of course. But that didn’t matter so much. Dad would be going frantic. And I couldn’t risk him finding out about my arrest from some other source. I asked if I could phone him.

‘No,’ said DS Jarvis. ‘We can’t allow that, I’m afraid. But, if you wish, we can phone your father on your behalf to inform him of your whereabouts.’

The thought of that appalled me and would probably be the end of Dad, I reckoned.

Marti Smith saved the day. She offered to call my father as soon as she left the station, to explain everything as best she could, and to tell him that she was sure I would soon be released and able to speak to him myself. It wasn’t ideal. But it was certainly better than allowing DS Jarvis, or worse still the now quite disagreeable PC Cox, to call Dad. Anything would be better than that.

Interviews continued, on and off, throughout the rest of that afternoon and evening until finally I was again locked up in the same horrible cell overnight. They roused me early, provided me once more with an inedible breakfast, and took me back to the interview room at about 5.30 a.m. for another session with Jarvis. I wondered if the man ever went off duty.

On the dot of 6 a.m. I was told that I was to be released on police bail and escorted to the custody suite.

‘To be processed,’ they told me again.

To my surprise and relief Marti Smith, wearing what seemed to be her uniform of leggings, blinged shirt and leather coat, was there waiting for me.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here at this hour,’ I said.

‘In court in Exeter today. Just meant an earlier start, that’s all,’ she said. ‘Should make sure I’m not late on parade, anyway.’

The custody sergeant informed me that the clothes I had been wearing when I was arrested would be detained as possible evidence, and handed me a bag containing clothes I had never seen before — underwear, tracksuit trousers, a T-shirt, a thick sweater and a pair of trainers. They were all rather too big for me but I didn’t care. I wondered where the clothes had come from but I didn’t care much about that either. I had to wear something in order to be able to leave Heavitree Road Police Station, and that was all I did care about.

The sergeant, the same sallow-faced man who had checked me in thirty-six hours previously, also told me that my handbag and its contents had been detained for forensic examination. So, even, had my watch.

‘But my money, and my credit cards, they’re all in my bag. I have to have them, surely...’

The sergeant shook his head morosely. ‘I’m afraid you will have to apply for new cards, madam. I am unable to release any of the contents of your bag at the moment.’

I had to sign a receipt for all the items detained and also for other items which had apparently been removed from Highrise, including, of course, my iPad. And my passport, it seemed.

I felt weak and disorientated and was so grateful to Marti Smith for being there to help me through it all.

‘Right, before formally granting police bail I will need an address for you, Mrs Anderson,’ said the sergeant.

I was perplexed. ‘Why, my home, of course,’ I said. ‘Highrise, Blackstone...’

Marti Smith stepped in. ‘No, Marion, I’m afraid Highrise is still a crime scene. Look, I know it’s not ideal, but Gladys has offered to put you up until the SOCOs have finished.’

I just stared at her. Stupidly perhaps, it hadn’t occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to go straight home.

‘You may book into a hotel, if you wish, madam,’ said the custody sergeant. ‘We would accept that.’

I turned to look directly at him. ‘Without any cash or credit cards?’ I queried sarcastically.

He shrugged, more or less ignoring my inflection.

‘It’ll have to be Gladys’s, bless her,’ I said. Actually, the thought of being forced into the company of the vicar’s wife and having to listen to her endless garrulous outpourings appalled me, though I knew I was being ungrateful. But anything, anything at all, was better than spending another minute in police custody.

‘I’ll drive you to Blackstone,’ Marti said, when we’d completed all the paperwork.

‘But don’t you have to be in court?’

‘It’s not seven o’clock yet,’ she replied. ‘I’ve hours to spare and it won’t take long to get to Gladys’s at this hour.’

Weary, but relieved to be free again, I allowed myself to be led from the station. As much for something to say as anything else I asked Marti if she knew whose clothes I might be wearing. Were they some kind of standard police issue?

She shook her head. ‘Gladys told me she’d left clothes for you yesterday,’ said Marti. ‘Never underestimate that woman. She knows the form when someone’s arrested almost as well as I do, and she has a totally practical approach.’

I managed a small smile as we stepped out onto the pavement. But that was when more trouble started.

Half the world seemed to be outside. The news of my arrest had obviously broken with a vengeance. A crowd of locals, apparently furious that I was being released, shouted and screamed abuse at me. Was everyone in this part of Devon an excessively early riser, I wondered? Press photographers half blinded me with a cacophony of flash bulbs; reporters, from newspapers and radio and television stations, called out questions I could not even comprehend in the state I was in, let alone answer.

I suppose it was stupid; I had watched this kind of scene many times on TV news bulletins before, but I had not even thought about anything like it happening to me.

‘Just look straight ahead and walk tall,’ said Marti Smith. I tried to take her advice. It wasn’t easy. At one point I was hit in the side of the face by a rotting orange. Apart from the humiliation, it really hurt. The fruit imploded as it smashed into my cheekbone. Unpleasant brownish juice ran down over my chin. I stumbled as I tried to wipe it away with the back of one hand. A uniformed police officer launched himself into the crowd in search of the offender. But the damage had been done.

Once settled in Marti Smith’s convertible Mini Cooper I couldn’t hold the tears back.

‘How long do you think it will be before I can return to Highrise?’ I asked through my sniffles.

‘Hopefully not more than a day or two,’ Marti replied.

Even after all that had happened I wanted to be in my own home. But I would just have to be patient, it seemed. At least I wouldn’t be spending another night in that cell.

Gladys welcomed us warmly at the vicarage and fed us tea and toast in the Formica kitchen. Marti stayed almost an hour before slipping out to her car to fetch a tailored black pinstriped jacket and black court shoes, which she put on in Gladys’s downstairs toilet. When she returned to the kitchen her hair, though still pink, had been flattened and slicked neatly back behind her ears. The tailored jacket exposed little more than the white collar of her blinged shirt, and reached almost to her knees. The leggings protruding beneath it, now that Marti’s feet were clad in the court shoes instead of biker boots, looked surprisingly conventional. So that’s how she does it, I thought, as she left for her appearance at the crown court. She promised to call in later in the day before returning to Bristol. I wondered if she was this attentive to all her clients. I suspected probably not, and that the treatment I was receiving was almost certainly down to Marti Smith’s friendship with the Ponsonby Smythes. Something else I had to be grateful to Gladys for.

After Marti had departed I asked Gladys if I could phone Dad, and she left me alone in the kitchen while I did so. He was indeed frantic with worry, though at least it seemed that Marti Smith had broken the news of my arrest to him before he saw it on TV or read about it in a newspaper. He had, however, watched my traumatic release from police custody live on television earlier that morning.

‘Terrible, terrible it was, them people throwing things at you,’ he said. ‘I’ve been calling Highrise and your mobile ever since. Couldn’t get hold of Robert either.’

I explained that my mobile had been detained, I was not yet allowed to return home, and Robert was still somewhere in the North Sea. Predictably, he at once invited me to Hartland, but I told him I hoped to be back home very soon. He wanted to join me there as soon as I was reinstalled, ‘to look after you, maid’ as he put it. I managed, with some difficulty, to talk my way out of that too.

The whole conversation was extremely fraught, which was no more than I’d expected. Ultimately I informed him that my arrest was just a terrible misunderstanding, and with a confidence I did not really feel assured him that soon things would be resolved.

After the call to Dad I spoke to Gladys about having no credit cards and no cash. I really wasn’t functioning properly. I needed her help to apply for replacement cards. She found me phone numbers for Barclays and American Express. My new Connect card and Barclaycard had to be sent to my home address, but I could pick up the AmEx card from the company’s Exeter office the following day.

Gladys then offered to drive me into Okehampton so that I could draw some cash at my local Barclays. Fortunately this was still the kind of branch where the clerks often knew the customers, and I was lucky, albeit a tad embarrassed under the circumstances, to find on duty a woman who had been there so long we were on casual first-name terms, so I didn’t have a problem with identification. Curly haired Mavis smiled as I approached the counter, but I saw the colour rise in her cheeks and I’m sure there was more than just a flicker of recognition in her eyes. I wondered if she knew of my arrest. Judging from the commotion outside the police station, it was quite likely that she did.

She made no comment, though, just asked for my postcode, presumably as a cursory security check as I assumed it was on the screen before her. I drew out £500 and was surprised at how much better it made me feel to have money in my pocket.

Gladys and I then made a quick stop at Peacocks, Okehampton’s budget lady’s clothing store, where I bought some clothes that fitted me: jeans, sweater and a pair of trainers, and some night things. As we walked around the store I thought I noticed a couple of other shoppers stare at me, then look away and whisper to each other. But it could have been my imagination.

During the drive to and from Okehampton, Gladys, true to form, chattered non-stop. I have absolutely no idea what about. But I found I didn’t mind as much as I’d thought I might. It meant I barely had to speak. And she asked me no questions, which was an enormous relief.

Back at the vicarage she made a sandwich lunch, which again I could barely eat. The Reverend Gerald joined us, greeting me warmly but in such a way that I suspected he probably had no idea who I was. Afterwards Gladys showed me into a bedroom furnished in shabby G Plan, another legacy from the 1970s when I guessed the vicarage had last had a makeover. Surprisingly, there was a small flat-screen digital TV in one corner of the room.

‘You’d probably like some time on your own,’ said Gladys, displaying again that innate sensitivity which was so often belied by her manner. She gestured towards the television. ‘We have all sorts staying here, and find the TV can be quite a comfort to people. Come and go as you please, anywhere in the house.’

Yes, well, I definitely came into the category of ‘all sorts’, I thought. But I expressed genuinely felt thanks, and spent most of the rest of the afternoon lying on the bed half dozing and half watching TV, until around 5 p.m. when I heard Gladys calling up the stairs. Marti Smith had returned.

I made my way down to the kitchen. Marti, back in her biker boots and leather coat, was smiling broadly.

‘Good news, Marion: the SOCOs have finished at Highrise. I got the call as I was driving over here.’

I was pleased and relieved, even though I had come to the conclusion that staying at the vicarage might not be the ordeal I had feared.

‘You’re welcome to stay here, of course, but I’m sure you’ll want to be in your own home as soon as you can,’ said Gladys, full of understanding again. ‘I’ll drive you, if you like.’

I nodded, and smiled my thanks.

Marti Smith interjected.

‘I think I’d better take you, Marion,’ she said. ‘I would expect there to be press waiting at your home. Could need dealing with.’

There were too. Not as many as there had been at the police station that morning. Just a couple of reporters and photographers and one TV crew, but quite enough to lower me deeper into despair. They were waiting in the yard at the front of the house and surrounded the Mini as we pulled to a halt.

‘Just a minute,’ said Marti, gesturing for me to stay put.

She got out of the car and addressed the assembled little throng, in a manner far more authoritative than you would somehow expect from so slight a creature with pink hair, introducing herself and telling them she was representing me.

‘Mrs Anderson has nothing to say and indeed is legally unable to say anything at this stage,’ she said. ‘I am sure you all realize that you are on private property. Therefore I must ask you to leave, to make your way up to the top of the lane and wait there. Now skedaddle.’

To my surprise, the group meekly and immediately retreated. Only when they were out of sight did Marti walk around to the passenger side of the car, open the door and invite me to step out.

Then came the worst surprise of all that day.

As the press disappeared up the lane a taxi cab swung into view and pulled up alongside the Mini. Out stepped Robert, his anxious features fully illuminated in the glare of Highrise’s security lights.

The very sight of him made me angry all over again, immediately stirring up feelings of distress and apprehension equal to anything that I had experienced during my confinement at Heavitree Road Police Station.

‘My darling, whatever has happened?’ he asked. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I heard you’d been arrested. Why on earth didn’t you contact me? I’d have come home straight away.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want you to come home. Not after what I now know about you. You’re not my husband any more.’

‘Look, can’t we talk?’

‘How did you find out I’d been arrested?’ I asked.

‘It’s been on the news,’ he said.

Of course it had. Robert would have seen reports of my arrest. I knew well enough that watching television was the number one off-duty activity for the men on the rigs.

‘You weren’t named,’ Robert continued. ‘Not in the reports I saw, anyway. They mostly focused on the recovery of the child, but also mentioned that a woman had been arrested at her Dartmoor home in connection with the abduction, and that it was believed she’d recently lost her own son. Naturally, I put two and two together. I called the Farleys and they confirmed it, said they’d heard from the vicar’s wife...’

Robert carried on talking. I stopped listening. Gladys might be a wonderful woman in many ways, she might be a vicar’s wife and a committed Christian, but she was no saint. I would have expected her to be no more able to resist a good gossip than any other human being. And I’d known the village jungle drums would be beating. I just somehow still wasn’t prepared for the reality of it at all.

‘... Anyway, I got a chopper back to the mainland first thing this morning,’ I heard Robert say in the background. ‘Caught the first available flight to Exeter, and here I am.’

‘Yes, but God knows why,’ I snapped at him.

‘I want to help, of course,’ he said, managing to sound quite wounded.

‘You know what, Robert, you’re the last person I want help from any more.’

He recoiled slightly.

Over his shoulder I could see movement by the farm gate just to the left at the top of the lane. It looked as if the photographers were trying to aim long lenses at us.

‘Oh, come in, for God’s sake, and let’s get it over with,’ I commanded him. ‘But I warn you, I do not want you here.’

Marti Smith had yet to say a word. Tough as she patently was, it was clear that she had no intention of getting between husband and wife.

‘Right, Marion, I’ll leave you two to it then,’ she said eventually, as I opened the front door. Then she paused. ‘You obviously have a lot to discuss.’

That was an understatement, I thought. Though the truth was that I didn’t particularly want to discuss anything with Robert. Not yet anyway.

I just nodded.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow, keep you informed,’ she said.

I thanked her, and stepped into the house, pausing to check the new burglar alarm. It had not been activated. Well, the SOCOs who had remained in the house after my arrest wouldn’t have known the code. But so much for any police concern for my security, I thought. At least they’d locked up. There was a key on the doormat. They must have used the one that lived on the hook on the kitchen wall and then posted it through the letter box.

Robert followed me into the hallway. I heard his little gasp as he began to notice the sorry amendments to Highrise. The grandfather clock which had stood there so proudly was missing, of course, and there was nothing on the walls which had previously been lined with those lovingly collected paintings and prints. I strode into the kitchen and could hear his footsteps on the flagstones as he followed me. I turned towards him as he stepped through the kitchen door.

His face was a picture. He looked absolutely bewildered. I could see his puzzled gaze taking in the Welsh dresser empty of our wonderful dinner service and the collection of Toby jugs which I had inherited from my gran. The glass-fronted cupboards were also empty, of course, and most of the glass broken.

‘My God, whatever has happened here?’ he asked, his jaw slack with disbelief.

I had wanted to see his reaction. Although it seemed impossible that he could be involved in any way, not just because of logistics but because I honestly still believed it was not his intention to harm me.

I told him about the intruder in the night and then the trashing of our home.

‘Hence the burglar alarm,’ I finished. ‘At least I reckoned I could put a stop to that kind of thing happening. I hadn’t bargained for someone dumping an abducted and abused child in the stables.’

Robert seemed speechless. When he eventually did speak he took me totally by surprise. Again.

‘Have you contacted the insurance people?’ he asked.

I did a double take.

‘I haven’t contacted anyone, I didn’t even think about insurance,’ I said, realizing as I spoke that it might seem rather extraordinary that I hadn’t. Perhaps I’d just been too shocked, or perhaps subconsciously I hadn’t really wanted to rebuild my home. I wasn’t sure.

‘Presumably the police gave you a crime number,’ Robert continued.

Of course, I thought, PC Bickerton had told me to call to be given one. And wasn’t it widely considered to be the only real point in calling the police for a burglary nowadays, so that you had a crime number for your insurance company?

‘There is one but I don’t know what it is,’ I said. ‘And do you think we could talk about this another time? I’m on bail for child abduction and attempted murder. I can’t really be bothered with an insurance claim.’

‘Of course,’ he said quickly.

I waved an arm at our desecrated kitchen.

‘I don’t suppose you have any idea who may have done it?’ I enquired casually.

He still didn’t speak for a moment or two. I stared at him. He looked away from me. Was there the merest flicker in his eyes of some expression that I couldn’t quite work out? I wasn’t sure.

‘Of course I don’t,’ he said eventually.

‘The first time, when I heard sounds downstairs, I wondered if it might be you,’ I told him.

‘Me? Why on earth? Why would I steal into my own home in the middle of the night? It is still my home, you know.’

‘So you might think,’ I said.

He winced.

‘Surely you can’t hate me that much, Marion?’

‘Oh yes, I can.’

He did not really react to that, instead speaking again very quickly, as if something had just occurred to him.

‘So that’s why you checked if I was really on Jocelyn, because you suspected me of breaking into my own home.’

I made no response.

‘I still don’t understand why you would think I would do something like that,’ he repeated.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps you wanted to frighten me. Maybe you thought if I was frightened I would need you more and let you properly back into my life.’

Even as I spoke it sounded pretty lame.

‘I would never want to frighten you, Marion, not for any reason, ever,’ he said.

‘But you have frightened me, Robert. You lied to me and deceived me, and you couldn’t do anything more frightening than that. All that we had together I now know to be a lie. We’ve not only lost our son but also the entire foundation of our family life.’

‘It wasn’t like that...’ he began.

‘Oh yes, it was,’ I said. ‘Look, I just want you to go. I do not want you here under the same roof as me. Can you not understand that?’

‘But I know I can help you, Marion. I want to give you support. And there are practical things I can help with too. I mean, are you sure you have the best possible solicitor? I’ll pay, of course—’

‘Robert, I am more than satisfied that Marti Smith, the woman you saw, is an excellent solicitor. In any case, it doesn’t really matter, because I am innocent of everything I’ve been accused of. And surely, even in this mad crazy world I suddenly seem to inhabit, innocence must count for something.’

‘Well, of course, of course,’ he said.

‘I do hope so,’ I replied.

He took a step towards me, eyes imploring, reaching out with both hands. I took a step back. It wasn’t even deliberate. Just the involuntary reaction I now seemed to have to the man I had so loved.

‘Look, in any case, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, whatever you’ve done,’ he said. ‘I would understand, after what has happened. Anyone would. I know how overcome by grief you have been, we both have. Then you began to doubt me, in every way. I understand that too. You had good cause. And it was entirely my fault. So if you were responsible for any of this, then I am as much to blame as you.’

Even after all that had happened I found myself mildly shocked.

‘I just told you I was innocent,’ I said. ‘And I cannot believe that you of all people would think any differently. How could you even begin to suspect that I may have had anything to do with abducting a child and letting him half freeze to death?’

‘No, of course not, I only wanted you to know I understood, and I only meant...’ He stumbled over his words, unable to finish the sentence.

‘Oh, fuck off, Robert,’ I said.

He backed away at once. It was probably only the second time I had ever sworn at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘Of course I know you wouldn’t do anything like that. Of course I do. But if you didn’t, then who did?’

‘Who indeed, Robert?’ I repeated. ‘I’ve already asked you that question. You’re every bit as likely to know as I am, if not more so.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

I sighed. ‘I’m not really sure, Robert,’ I said. ‘I’m not really sure of anything any more. Except that I do not want you here. Just leave, will you.’

He looked shifty.

‘And where do you suggest I should go?’ he enquired.

‘I don’t care,’ I said. ‘As long as you’re not here with me.’

‘Can I at least take the car?’

‘I don’t have it, you bloody fool. The police are still crawling all over it, looking for some obscure piece of evidence with which to pin an unspeakable crime on me.’

He looked quite aghast at that.

‘I’ll call another taxi then,’ he said.

‘Right. And go and wait in the sitting room, will you. I don’t want to have to see you.’

He left the room without another word. About forty-five minutes later I heard a vehicle pull into the yard, presumably a taxi, and the front door open and close.

Robert left without attempting to speak to me again. I locked and bolted the door behind him.

It was almost eight o’clock by then. In a strange flash of practical lucidity I remembered that I had no transport of my own and called American Express to ask them to send my new card to Highrise after all. Then I spent a couple of hours just sitting at the kitchen table staring into space. I didn’t dare switch on the TV. I was afraid of seeing the news and of what might be on it. Eventually I set the new alarm system, and took myself off to bed, dosing myself with zolpidem and whisky. Only as I climbed under the duvet did I realize I had made no further enquiries about Florrie. I could have done with her company and the close proximity of her warm furry body. Instead I had thoughtlessly left her to spend another night in kennels. However, I was sure she would forgive me under the circumstances and I would do my best to get her released the following day.

Slightly woozy, I buried my head in the pillows, pathetically grateful for the warmth and comfort of a proper bed, but I slept only fitfully. It seemed like only an hour or so later that there was a loud hammering on the front door. I guessed I must have been asleep then, and awakened by the hammering, as I’d heard no sound of a vehicle pulling into the yard.

I looked at the digital radio on the windowsill. In standby mode its display panel featured an illuminated clock. The time was just before 7 a.m. I got up and walked to the front of the house and peered through the landing window. It was still dark but the security lights had come on. I could see a car parked in the yard, but whoever was banging on the door was standing inside the porch out of my eyeline.

I wondered who would be calling at that hour, and for a moment was anxious that my mystery tormentor may have returned. But I reminded myself that he or she was not in the habit of knocking. Then I heard the rattle of the letter box and a powerful male voice calling out.

‘Come on, Mrs Anderson, open up. Now.’

Of course it must be the police, I thought. The car outside was not a marked patrol car, but the voice had that note of accusative authority about it that I was beginning to get used to.

I made my way downstairs, using the remote control fob to deactivate the alarm system, then unlocked and opened the old oak door.

An angry-looking young woman stood on the doorstep flanked by two young men. The woman began to shout at me and one of the young men immediately started taking photographs.

I blinked in bewilderment. Bizarrely, I wondered what I must look like. I was wearing my pyjamas and had merely thrown my dressing gown over my shoulders as I left the bedroom. My hair was all over the place. I knew that I had dark hollows beneath my eyes, in contrast to the deathly pale of the rest of my face. And my cheekbones now jutted out almost as if they were razor blades beneath my skin and might break through at any moment. I never carried much weight, but I had become painfully thin, far thinner even than Marti Smith.

‘You’re wicked, wicked!’ shouted the young woman. ‘You’re a monster and you should be locked up. What are you doing out on the streets? You should be in jail. They should throw the fucking key away after what you’ve done. You’re a fucking monster, a fucking monster...’

And so it went on for what seemed like a very long time while I just stood in the doorway and took it. I think I was still slightly befuddled by my bedtime cocktail of drugs and alcohol. Whatever the cause, I had no way of dealing with this. Fleetingly, I even wished I hadn’t sent Robert away.

Eventually I started to function again and tried to close the front door. The second young man, carrying a notebook instead of a camera, stepped forward and looked as if he might be about to push his way into the hall.

‘Can’t we just have a word, Mrs Anderson?’ he enquired. ‘Wouldn’t you like to respond to Mrs Macintyre, give us your side of the story?’

Light dawned. Mrs Macintyre. The mother of the little boy left tied up in the stable. Of course it was Mrs Macintyre, whom I had seen on television, accompanied, apparently, by representatives of the Great British press.

I found my voice at last.

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ I said.

Then I remembered how Marti Smith had dealt with the press.

‘And I should remind you that you are on private property,’ I continued as calmly as I could manage. ‘I want you to leave. Please leave now.’

Rather to my surprise they backed off almost immediately. Well, I suppose they had got their story. And their pictures.

The young reporter asked over his shoulder if I was quite sure I didn’t want to say anything.

‘Please leave,’ I repeated.

They climbed into their car, manoeuvred a three-point turn in the yard and retreated up the lane.

I had a feeling they may have operated against the law, in more ways than one. But I knew from the Joanna Yeates case in Bristol, when the murdered young woman’s innocent landlord Christopher Jefferies was hounded unmercifully by the press after being wrongly arrested, that a significant flaw in Britain’s judicial system is that the laws of sub judice only come fully into force after a suspect has been charged.

In any case what did it matter? I wasn’t going to do anything about it, was I? I didn’t have the strength. I stood watching their tail lights disappear around the bend at the top of the lane. Then I closed and locked the door and slumped against it.

The urge to break down in tears again was almost overwhelming. But I was determined not to let myself. I really had to start fighting back, somehow. I knew what I needed to do. And the first thing was that I could not allow myself the luxury of collapsing in a heap. Not any more.