enjoyed playing with him.”
“When you say ‘playing with him’…?” asked Carole tentatively.
That did make him angry. “Oh, for God’s sake! Don’t you start! I went through all that with the police, time and time and time again. What I meant by ‘playing with him’ was kicking a ball about in the back garden, hide and seek, showing him the goldfish in the pond, the kind of things you do with a five-year-old child. The games grandfathers and grandsons have played down the centuries.
“Anyway, it was a hot day and I’d been busy at work the last few weeks and I wasn’t as young as I used to be, so I was very tired. And we were playing hide and seek, and it was a big garden and so Robin had introduced this rule that we had to count up to two hundred. He was a bright boy, very advanced for his age. He could count up to two hundred, no problems. And then he’d shout at the top of his voice, ‘Coming, ready or not!’”
For a moment the recollection was almost too emotional for him, but he managed to control himself and went on, “Well, it was my turn to count and Robin’s to hide. And, as I say, I started counting and…I fell asleep. Don’t know how long it was for, probably only a quarter of an hour, but when I woke up, there was no sign of Robin.
“It didn’t take me long to find him. I knew he was fascinated by the goldfish. He must have been peering down at them and lost his footing. There was a kind of rockery at the side, with a little waterfall running down it, and when he fell he must have hit his head on one of the rocks. It was only a small pond, but big enough to drown my grandson.”
The long silence which followed this was finally broken by the voice of Joyce Oliver from inside the beach hut. “Except,” she said, “that isn’t what happened at all.”
? Bones Under The Beach Hut ?
Thirty-Eight
The expression on Lionel Oliver’s face as he watched his wife walk out of the beach hut was a complex one, combining puzzlement, annoyance and protectiveness. “What are you on about, Joyce? Of course that’s what happened.”
“No, it isn’t. I think it must be true that Robin drowned in the pond, as you said he did. I didn’t know that till just now, Lionel. But if he did, it wasn’t you who was meant to be looking after him. It happened on my watch.”
“That’s ridiculous, Joyce.”
“It happened on my watch,” his wife repeated. She looked at Lionel, daring him to interrupt her, then turned firmly to Carole and Jude. “I didn’t know the half of what he’s just told you. I just woke up and heard almost all of it. Lionel, why couldn’t you have told me before?”
“There wasn’t any point,” he mumbled. “Why should you suffer too?”
“I should suffer because I deserved to suffer. I should suffer because it was my fault.”
“No.”
“Yes, it was. I don’t know why you two are here, but since you’ve heard the rest of it, I think that you should hear the truth. My daughter-in-law, Miranda, didn’t trust me. She didn’t like me looking after Robin. And she was right. Because back then I had a serious problem. A drink problem. We tried to keep it quiet from everyone, but the family knew. Miranda certainly knew and that was why she would only let Robin stay with us if she knew Lionel was going to be there, that it wasn’t just me on my own.
“Well, that day, the day that Rory and Miranda were going up to London to see the matinee of
“No, you weren’t, love,” her husband protested feebly. “You couldn’t help yourself. It’s an illness.”
“I was a monster,” Joyce reiterated. Jude began to understand the great hatred Miranda Browning had felt against her mother-in-law. “So, I ordered Lionel to go and replenish my stocks of gin and I was in sole charge of Robin. Except I wasn’t in a state to be in charge of anything or anyone. I remember that I fell asleep at the kitchen table. Robin was around before I fell asleep, and I know the door to the garden was open, and the next thing I remember was Lionel waking me up.
“He seemed a bit agitated, but I didn’t ask him why. All I cared about was the fact that he’d brought me a bottle of gin. I got stuck into that. Lionel said he was going to take Robin down to Smalting, get him an ice cream, maybe spend some time with the boy here at
There was a long moment before Joyce Oliver turned back to her husband and said, “Tell me the truth, Lionel. Did you come back that morning from buying the gin and find Robin drowned in the pond?”
There was nothing he could do but nod abjectly.
“But why did you do all you did? Why?”
“If Miranda had ever found out that I’d left Robin alone with you…If she’d found out that you were dead drunk and had let him go near the pond on his own…” He shook his head, unable to say out loud what would have happened.
Joyce Oliver looked at her husband with an expression of infinite pain and infinite respect. She realized the extent of his love for her. To put himself through all the trauma of police questioning, the inevitable suspicions that he might be a paedophile…all that for the woman who had allowed the child he adored to die.
“The only good thing to come out of any of it,” Joyce said, “was that, although I didn’t know the details of what had really happened, the shock of Robin’s disappearance did stop me drinking. Maybe I felt guilty for the fact that the last time I’d seen him, I’d been almost comatose from the gin, I don’t know.” A deep sigh trembled through her body. “All of this is going to take a long time to come to terms with.”
They were aware of a young man in a crumpled beige suit hovering on the edge of their charmed circle in front of the beach hut. Lionel Oliver looked up and recognized him. “Ah, Inspector Fyfield. The car’s here, is it?”
“Yes, Mr Oliver. The Superintendant would like to talk to you back at the station.”
“Of course.”
“I think he ought to talk to me too,” said Joyce.
“I’m sure that’d be fine. If you wish to accompany your husband, Mrs Oliver…”
“Yes, I do. Lionel, if you’ll just lock up
“Of course, love.”
“Carole and Jude,” Joyce went on, “if you don’t mind just walking up to the car with me, I’d like to get your contact numbers. I think there are a few things we’re going to need to talk about.”
The two women reckoned that was probably an understatement. Joyce Oliver picked up her beach bag and the three of them followed Inspector Fyfield up the beach.
On the edge of the prom Joyce stopped by a bench, which faced away from the sea, and sat down. “If I could just get those numbers from you…”
The simple process seemed to take a long time.
Joyce Oliver shuffled through the contents of her bag in search of pen and paper, but her hands were shaking so much Jude had to help her. In spite of her earlier apparent calmness, she was clearly in a state of shock.
But eventually one of her wordsearch books was found. Carole and Jude wrote down their contact numbers on the back of it. Then they followed the route taken by Inspector Fyfield, who was by now leaning against his car. Though he had his back to them, the women could detect the impatience in his body language.
It was an unmarked police car with a driver in civilian clothes, not a patrol car. After the shock of being a scene of crime, Smalting was not about to suffer any further affronts to its middle-class respectability.
Or was it? Jude, as ever hypersensitive to the mood of her environment, experienced a feeling almost of dread. She tapped Carole on the sleeve. Both looked out to sea. Lionel Oliver had put his suit jacket on, as if
