The Child Garden Read Online Free PDF Page B

we do,” he said. “I haven’t been completely straight, Gloria. There’s something you should know.”

Four
    â€œI didn’t do it.”
    That was the first thing he said when we were back in the car, crawling along the track to the gap in the fence. I would have driven like a bat out of hell if I could have, but my limbs had turned leaden on me, my feet sludgy on the pedals and my arms so heavy I thought they might drop from the steering wheel and just lie in my lap like sandbags.
    â€œSo if you’re protecting me for some mad reason, you don’t have to. I didn’t do that. I could never … ”
    I believed him. I knew without a flicker of doubt, right from the off that Stig Tarrant hadn’t killed April Cowan. It wasn’t sentiment. It wasn’t old times. It was the way he had called out her name, so hopeful, and the way he had said she wasn’t there, so torn between relief and disappointment, and the way he had said those terrible words: Oh Jesus fuck . He wasn’t acting.
    I can smell insincerity at fifty paces. I can hear the lie under the kind word every time. Lynne at work calls it a certain kind of detector, and though I don’t like the sound of having one of them inside me, I suppose it’s true. One of the orderlies is always saying Nicky’s a lovely boy and I’m a lucky mummy or he’s a lucky boy and I’m lovely mummy, and she might as well shout at the top of her lungs that she despises me and Nicky gives her the creeps. But then there’s this old Irish orderly, Donna, and she says, “Ah, the poor soul, but he’s still your blessing.” And she means every word.
    â€œI know you didn’t,” I said to Stig. “She did it herself.”
    â€œBut I mean I didn’t drive her to it,” Stig said. “I don’t know why she picked on me and set me up for this. I don’t understand anything that’s happening.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œSo why aren’t we dialling 999?”
    â€œListen,” I said, “and I’ll tell you.”
    Back in the kitchen the Rayburn was teetering. When the wind gets up in the north it sometimes just snuffs it out, and then Rough House is a miserable place to be. I usually light a fire in the living room if it looks likely, but tonight I didn’t have the energy to strike a match, never mind lay the paper and twigs and nurse it. The chimney’s as bad as the stove when the wind blows.
    â€œTea?” I said.
    â€œWhisky?” said Stig. I went through to the living room to get the bottle from the press. When I got back he had dragged two chairs from the table, set them close to the oven, and opened the door.
    â€œI know it’ll cool your hot water, but needs must.” His teeth were chattering.
    I turned and left again, went upstairs to my bedroom, got a tee-shirt and a sweat suit—a plain one in pale grey with no sparkles—thick socks and a fleece hat.
    â€œHere,” I said, when I got back to the kitchen again. “Strip off and get into these. I’m going to change too. Shout when you’re ready.”
    I managed not to laugh at the sight of him, bundled in my clothes with the hat flaps pulled over his ears. I just sat down beside him, kicked off my slippers, and put my feet on Walter Scott’s back. He thumped his tail once but didn’t open his eyes.
    â€œThink my size nines would flatten him?” said Stig, his voice sounding rough from a big swallow of whisky.
    â€œNot Walter,” I said. “Sometimes at night he burrows under me so I’m right on top of him, and he stays there till morning.”
    I blushed then, but who knows if it was from admitting I slept with a dog, alluding to my figure, or just the whisky.
    â€œOkay,” I said. Stig wouldn’t know I was blushing. Only the lamps were on, not the big light, and the green distemper makes everyone look like a vampire.