Chrissy had suggested Nula get some answers, but how? Charlie was away on business. He was always away, since it had happened with little Jake. It was like he couldn’t face the reality of their situation, that their child had died. He wouldn’t even visit the grave with Nula. He got furious if she so much as mentioned it, so she had to go there alone and stand there looking at the tiny prayer book headstone and wondering why?
But then she knew why, didn’t she? It was because they were wicked.
She thought back to those wild parties they’d once had. The unbridled sex, the swinging they’d once indulged in, before the babies, before her depression set in and gripped her so tightly in its merciless iron jaws. And the drugs business. That, more than anything, meant they were damned to hell. Didn’t it? Maybe they deserved to lose Jake. But her mind kept going back to Chrissy. He’s not ‘there’.
Christ! What did that mean?
But Nula knew. Of course she did. She hadn’t ever allowed herself to fully acknowledge it before, but she let the thoughts stream through her head now and they made her dizzy with dread. Harlan wasn’t normal. He didn’t interact properly with other children. Not even Milly, really. There was that one village boy who trailed around after him, that surly bullish creature Nipper, but could you really say that he was Harlan’s friend? No. You could not. He was more of a follower, she always thought.
Mostly Harlan played alone, out there in the hall, and when he finished playing he would take his toys back upstairs and put them in the box marked HARLAN in the top nursery. He was meticulously tidy; in fact, he hated anyone touching his toys. If any went astray, he threw a spectacular strop that verged on hysteria.
He’s not right.
Chrissy’s wild, frightened eyes.
He was leaning over me with a knife in his hand.
Of course the kid had only been mucking about. Chrissy had gone on to say that he’d laughed and then she’d taken the damned thing off him, told him he should never play with knives. It was only a joke, he’d explained. He didn’t mean any harm, he was just joking, couldn’t she take a joke? It was an old bone-handled knife from the kitchen anyway, nothing really dangerous. But Chrissy hadn’t found it at all amusing. If it really had been a joke then it had been a pretty damned poor one, and she’d been shaken by it.
Nula couldn’t talk to Charlie about this. But there was the woman from the adoption agency, didn’t they still have her number? Nula went into Charlie’s study and rummaged through the only filing cabinet he kept unlocked, the one that contained household paperwork. It was a faint hope, and she spent a good hour sorting through the mounds of crap that every household accumulates. It was no good. There was nothing there.
Nula paused, looking around the study. Charlie’s desk was clear; nothing on it except a dog-eared pink blotter and a silver paper knife. She went around the desk and sat in the studded ruby-red leather chair and yanked at the drawer handles. All locked.
Damn.
She looked again at the blotter, the paper knife. Oh fuck it. She snatched the knife up and jammed the blade into the top drawer, above the lock, and heaved. The drawer snapped open with a crunch, and Nula gulped as she saw the damage. She’d broken the damned thing now. Charlie would be livid. But for fuck’s sake! If the bastard wasn’t so damned shifty, she wouldn’t be driven to do things like this, would she?
She opened the first drawer and checked through the contents. Nothing. The next – and it was sort of satisfying now, levering the drawer open, hearing the wood give way – nothing. Some brass knuckledusters. A pile of invoices. Goods Inwards notes. The next drawer? Nothing again. She was getting fed up with this. And nervous. She was wrecking Charlie’s desk, and he was not going to be happy. She’d do one more, and then she’d get the stupid thing repaired, get a cabinet maker in, before Charlie got home; he’d be none the wiser.
Nula tried the next drawer and there it was.
She pulled out the copies of the official forms both she and Charlie had signed, and there was the letter from the woman who’d delivered Harlan to them, and there was her office phone number. Nula was sweating lightly with nerves. She wiped her hands on her skirt, then pulled the phone toward her and dialled, aware of her heart thwacking hard against her ribs. She knew Charlie wouldn’t like this, her going over his head this way. But she had to do it.
‘H’lo?’ asked a female voice.
That threw her. The woman sounded half asleep.
‘Hello?’ said Nula. ‘Is that Mrs Bushell?’
‘What?’
Nula was starting to get impatient. ‘Mrs Bushell, it’s Nula Stone. We got a little boy from the adoption agency, you remember? Harlan?’
‘Oh!’ There was movement on the other end of the line, what sounded like more voices, and when the woman spoke again she sounded sharper. ‘Yes. Mrs Stone. How can I help you?’
‘Well . . .’ Now Nula was actually talking to the woman, she found she didn’t know what to say. Did you send us a psycho? No. That sounded wrong. ‘Look, Mrs Bushell, we’ve got some concerns about Harlan and what we’re wondering is, do you have any information about the kind of background he had before he went into care? That sort of thing?’
‘Oh.’ Silence again.
‘If we could have information like that . . . ?’ said Nula.
‘Well, I would have to look into my records. If I can take your number, Mrs Stone, and call you back tomorrow?’
‘You’ve probably got it on file,’ said Nula.
‘Let me take it again anyway.’
Nula reeled off the number.
‘I’ll get those details for you, Mrs Stone,’ said Mrs Bushell, and put the phone down.
Nula went over to the photostat machine and quickly took a copy of the form containing the agency’s contact details. Charlie had said it was a government agency, completely above board. Then she went out into the hall to head for the kitchen and make herself a cup of coffee. Later, she would phone up and get the desk repaired. And she would phone the agency number again, maybe check it in the Yellow Pages, make sure she had that right.
Now, she needed caffeine. She felt unsettled by the conversation she’d just had with the Bushell woman. As she was crossing the hall, she nearly tripped over Harlan, crouched near the doorway to the sitting room.
‘Shit!’ she exclaimed, startled.
Harlan looked up at her and smiled that thin smile of his.
Had he heard any of that?
Now she really was getting paranoid. Of course he hadn’t. He was absorbed in his own little world, as always.