Loving

‘Not tonight, Heather,’ she refused gently, softening her refusal by adding, ‘perhaps another night, if your daddy will let you. Come on now, let’s dry those tears and then we’ll take you home.’

She could tell that Heather was reluctant to go, but what could she do? She saw her safely inside the gates, but didn’t go up to the house with her, mainly because she didn’t want to run the risk of running into Jay Fraser, should he have returned.

Later she was to curse herself for that bit of selfishness, but as she watched Heather’s small figure trudging miserably towards the house she had no premonition of what was to happen, only a tender-hearted sadness for the little girl’s misery.

The following day, when she went to meet them from school, Claire found that both little girls seemed rather subdued. She left Heather after seeing her safely inside the gates to her home, and although Lucy was quieter than usual, there was nothing in her small daughter’s silence to worry her.

They had almost reached their own cottage when Lucy suddenly asked, ‘Can Heather come and live with us, Mummy instead of with Mrs Roberts?’

Sighing faintly, Claire shook her head. ‘Heather’s daddy would be lonely if she came to live with us,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Just as I’d be lonely if you went away from me.’

‘But Heather’s daddy is always away, and she doesn’t like Mrs Roberts. She didn’t like her mummy either; she was always cross and smacking her.

Claire was too aware of how Jay Fraser would react if he ever learned that his daughter had been passing on these confidences to encourage Lucy to say any more. His comments to her on the one occasion on which they had met still stung.

She hated the thought that other people besides himself might consider that she was on the lookout for a husband. A man in her life was the last thing she wanted, especially a man with the legal right to share her bed and her body. She felt herself tense, the familiar sense of nausea sweeping through her.

After she had had her tea, Lucy asked if she could go and play in the garden. Claire agreed readily enough; Lucy knew that she was not allowed to go outside its perimeters.

Mrs Vickers had commented to her earlier in the day that soon it would be autumn. She had remarked on the likelihood of autumn gales and the damage they might do to the cottage roofs. Her cottage, like Claire’s badly needed re-roofing, but unlike Claire it seemed that she had enough money put on one side to cover this expense. She had mentioned a sum that had frankly appalled Claire, who had not realised that the age of the cottages and their country setting meant that they had to be re-roofed in the same traditional hand-made tiles as had been originally used.

She hadn’t realised how long she had been sitting worrying about the roof until she heard the church clock chiming seven. She went to the back door and called Lucy, frowning slightly as she scanned the garden and realised there was no sign of her daughter.

She was just wondering if Lucy could possibly have slipped round to see Mrs Vickers, when she suddenly appeared.

The guilty look on her face was enough to alert Claire’s maternal instincts. It was her private and most dreaded fear that the same thing that had happened to her might happen to Lucy, and it was because of this nightmare dread that she was so strict about not permitting her to stray outside the garden. Now, however, the guilt in her daughter’s eyes made her hesitate before getting angry with her. Her ‘Where have you been?’ brought a pink flush to Lucy’s face.

‘I went for a walk …’

‘Lucy, you know I’ve told you never to go out of the garden without me. Come on now, it’s bedtime.’ How on earth could one describe to a six-year-old the perils that lurked behind the smiling mask of friendly strangers?

‘Don’t be cross, Mummy.’ An engaging smile, and a small hand tucked in hers, made her sigh and decide that her lecture would have to await a more propitious occasion.

It was only when she was making Lucy’s supper that she noticed that her cake-tin was almost empty. She frowned slightly. She had never forbidden Lucy to help herself to food if she wanted it, but neither had she encouraged her. Lucy was not a greedy child, and rarely asked for food between meals, but she could have sworn that that cake-tin had held far more home-made buns last night than it did now.

NORMALLY HEATHER WAS waiting for them outside the school gates, but this morning there was no sign of her, and Claire couldn’t help feeling concerned. Was the little girl ill? Heather wasn’t her responsibility, she reminded herself, and neither her father nor Mrs Roberts would thank her for interfering, and yet she knew that if Jay Fraser’s reaction to her had been different she would have called at the house on her way home and checked to see if Heather was all right.

She knew that Heather was perhaps becoming too attached to her, needing a mother substitute, and while she had scrupulously tried to avoid encouraging the little girl to depend on her in any way at all, she knew that she herself was growing very attached to her. Heather wasn’t her child in the way that Lucy was, but there was something vulnerable in Heather that cried out for love and attention.

Several times during the morning she found herself worrying about her, remembering her wan little face. Heather was frightened of Mrs Roberts, and while she didn’t think the housekeeper would go as far as to physically maltreat the child, there were other ways of inflicting pain and fear on children.

She had almost decided that after lunch she would call round at Whitegates and brave Jay Fraser’s wrath if he found out, when she heard her doorbell ring.

The sight of Jay Fraser standing on her doorstep, flanked by the village constable and a young woman in police uniform, was so shockingly unexpected that she was robbed of breath.

It was the policewoman who spoke first.

‘Mrs Richards. I wonder if we could come in for a moment.’

Conscious of the curiosity of her neighbours, Claire hurriedly agreed. Her small sitting-room had never seemed more cramped. The local policeman, although not as tall as Jay Fraser, was still quite large. He was an older man, married with two grown-up sons, and he seemed pleasant. Now however, he looked worryingly grave, and Jay Fraser, who had refused her offer of a seat, looked almost ill. The tan she had noticed on his first visit now seemed a dirty yellow colour. His immaculate white shirt was unbuttoned at the throat, his tie askew, and his hair ruffled.

‘Mrs Richards, I believe your little girl is very friendly with Mr Fraser’s daughter.’

A terrible sense of foreboding overcame her.

‘Yes, yes, she is, she agreed in a husky voice. ‘They’re … they’re best friends.’

All that she constantly dreaded for her own daughter suddenly filled her mind, and it was as though Heather was actually her own child. She sank down into a chair, her body trembling.

‘Something’s happened to her, hasn’t it?’

Sergeant Holmes grimaced slightly. ‘We’re hoping not, Mrs Richards. We do know, however, that she’s disappeared. Mr Fraser’s housekeeper reported it to us late last evening.’

‘Late last evening?’

‘Yes, after the little girl didn’t come home from school.’ The sergeant frowned, and looked across at Jay Fraser. ‘It’s probably none of my business, sir, but that’s quite a lonely walk home for a six-year-old …’

‘Mrs Roberts had strict instructions to take Heather to and from school,’ Jay said tightly.

In that instant Claire felt for him, truly understanding how he must be feeling. No doubt he had given the housekeeper her instructions, never imagining that they would be disobeyed. More out of compassion for him than anything else Claire said huskily,

‘I … I … used to walk home with her. I didn’t like the thought of her walking alone. It wasn’t far out of our way …’

Instantly the sergeant’s frown disappeared, and he said eagerly, ‘And did you walk back with her yesterday, Mrs Richards?’

‘Why, yes. I always walked her to the gate and saw her safely inside. I …’

She heard the sound that Jay Fraser made and felt her own throat muscles lock in a mingling of pity and fear.

‘Then you must have been the last person to see her.’ The sergeant frowned. ‘Mrs Roberts says that she didn’t come home from school last night.’

And the woman had waited how long to report that she was missing? Inadvertently Claire looked across at Jay and saw the same emotions she was feeling reflected in his eyes.

‘Mmm. I was wondering if we could talk to your little girl, Mrs Richards. Children sometimes confide things to their friends that they don’t tell adults. We won’t say anything to frighten her,’ he added, correctly interpreting her expression.

‘She and Heather were very close,’ Claire admitted. She bit her lip and glanced apologetically at Jay. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring down at the carpet, his face set and hard.

‘I don’t know if it’s important, but I know that Heather was … well, she didn’t get on very well with Mrs Roberts.’

She caught Jay’s roughly expelled breath, and hurried on. ‘Of course it might not mean anything … and I’m not suggesting that Mrs Roberts was in any way unkind to her … but Heather is a very sensitive child.

‘And you think that perhaps she might have said something to upset the little girl? Children of that age get odd notions into their heads,’ the sergeant agreed. ‘I’ll never forget when our boy decided to leave home. All of five he was, and luckily a neighbour found him pedalling down the road on his trike.’

‘If Heather had walked off like that someone would have seen her,’ interrupted Jay roughly. ‘God—she’s only a baby … ‘His voice was full of anguish. ‘She’s been gone all night … nearly twenty-four hours!’

Claire felt for him, but she suspected that the last thing he would want would be her sympathy. He must be in hell right now, she thought compassionately. What parent wouldn’t be?

‘Have you informed her … her mother, sir?’ Sergeant Holmes asked.