Read Online The Child Garden by Catriona McPherson - Free Book Online

the crocheted, tea-stained handles on the brown-paper sun blinds didn’t help. Cat sick, Miss Drumm called it, which made me shudder, but at least the quilt and the pillow slips were satin. I drew the line at candlewick; all her candlewick covers were in the linen cupboard, dry cleaned and stored in bags sucked small with the hoover.
    â€œI’ll put towels in the bathroom for you,” I said, as I slid the two hot water bottles in under the bedclothes. “And a toothbrush. And I’ll set out a razor. Can you sleep in the sweat suit for now? I won’t be long and no one will come to the door, I promise, but if they do, don’t answer. No one’s got a spare key. No one can get in.”
    â€œWhat?” he said. “Where are you going?”
    â€œPhone box at Shawhead. It’s tucked well away and nobody’s even going to be walking a dog at this time of night when it’s like this, are they?”
    â€œYou’re really going to call the police?”
    â€œI’ve got to. We can’t leave her there on her own in the cold and dark.”
    â€œI can’t ask you to do that,” he said. “You don’t owe me.”
    â€œAnonymously and a woman’s voice,” I said. “It’s best that way. They’ll probably want to ask me if I heard anything or saw anything, but they’ll get me at work tomorrow. They won’t come round here. There’s no reason for them to connect me with April.”
    He nodded. I held out my hand.
    â€œI’ll put your car away while I’m out.”
    He nodded again and fished his car keys out of the sweatpants pocket. I was almost out the door when he stopped me.
    â€œGlo?” he said. “You know earlier, when you were freaking out about them closing the home? Thinking someone who works there might be mixed up in this?” I nodded. “Why would you want them looking after your boy if you reckon that’s possible? Why wouldn’t you want the place closed down if there’s someone there who might harm him?”
    I took a long time deciding what to say, but in the end I was as straight with him as he’d been with me. “What’s the worst they could do?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t want to say it.”
    â€œSay it.”
    â€œThey could kill him.”
    â€œAnd his troubles would be over. Don’t look at me like that.”
    â€œOr they could hurt him.”
    â€œNo, they couldn’t,” I said. “Wait here.” I walked along the corridor to the big bedroom at the other end and lifted Nicky’s picture from my bedside table.
    â€œOh,” said Stig, when I came back and handed it to him. “What’s caused that then?”
    That’s a fair enough question, and so I answered him. “Pantothenate Kinase-Associated Neurodegeneration,” I said, taking the picture back and polishing the frame with my cuff. “PKAN, for short.” I kissed the glass over Nicky’s face “My little PKAN pie. Nothing hurts him, nothing helps him, nothing ever will. I’d best be off.”
    â€œOf course, if you’re going to tell them that Stephen Tarrant drove a woman to suicide and you’ve got him locked in your house without his car keys, there’s nothing I could do to stop you,” Stig said. He was smiling at me.
    â€œYou could overpower me now before I start,” I said, smiling back. “If you’re going to leave one woman’s body behind you, why not two?”
    We considered one another for a long minute. I’m not sure who broke eye contact first. Probably me since I’m not much of a hard nut.
    â€œDrive safely,” he said.
    â€œSleep tight,” I said back.

Seven
    I practised what to say all the way on the back lane to the Shawhead phone box. Just as I had imagined, I didn’t pass another car and I drew off the road before the start of the houses, made my way to the kiosk on