The Gifted Child Read online

  The Gifted

  Child

  Penny Kline

  How do you deal with what comes after a death?

  When Kristen’s partner William is murdered in a mugging gone wrong, she tries to pick up the pieces for the sake of her young stepson Theo. But when Theo’s biological mother Ros demands that he go to live with her, Kristen’s world is torn apart again. The police think that William was killed by an elusive criminal known as ‘the dog man’ – but Kristen has reason to believe that Ros, a woman with an unstable past, is behind the killing.

  Soon, Kristen realises that William’s life wasn’t all it had seemed. Everyone she encounters has something to hide, and not everyone is who they appear to be. Maybe Kristen needs to watch for danger in the places she’d least expect…

  The Gifted Child is a superb psychological thriller which explores themes of fear and loss through the eyes of those who are left behind.

  For Jason and Tammy

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  OTHER PENNY KLINE TITLES

  OTHER ACCENT PRESS TITLES

  1

  He moved his head and the trees whirled past, green and white, dappled, waving. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he opened his mouth, not knowing if any sound came out. How far had he fallen … landing so hard, hurting his shoulder, his cheek … An arm stretched out on the grass. Easing it, slowly, carefully, his fingers reached his face, touching the pain, feeling the sticky dampness. Then a noise from a long way off, coming closer, rustling, scrabbling, warm breath on his skin, a smooth, dark shape, the smell of a dog. It was getting dark. A coldness touched his neck, his hair … licking, moaning; a voice calling his name.

  The pain eased; he was falling, spinning. ‘I’m here,’ he murmured, ‘I’m here’, then his body floated and he opened his eyes, saw the flickering lights and heard the wind.

  The dog jumped to the ground and stood still, sniffing the air. Perhaps it had picked up a different scent. Perhaps it was lost. When it started to howl perhaps it had nothing to do with the man on his back on the grass, who could have been sleeping but for his vacant, lifeless eyes.

  2

  Theo had his back turned, fiddling with the zip on his bag of games. Kristen tried to imagine the expression on his face. Anger? Fear? Perhaps a part of him he could never show was relieved. Relieved that it was over, that the day had arrived, even glad that he was going back to where he belonged.

  ‘She might have changed her mind.’ His voice was thick with unshed tears. ‘When Dad died she pretended she wanted me. Why didn’t you tell her? Why didn’t you say I had to stay with you?’

  ‘Oh, Theo, if there was anything I could do.’ Kristen balanced on the bed, trying to prise his football poster off the wall. The corner came away and it started to tear.

  ‘Leave it,’ he commanded, ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘All right.’ She spoke softly, wanting to calm him. ‘When you’re in London you’ll be able to support Chelsea. Their ground’s not far from Putney.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he shouted. ‘If Dad was alive none of this would be happening.’

  If Dad was alive they would be playing football in the park, or buying food for a picnic, or planning a trip to the Gower Peninsula. ‘I’ll see you often,’ she said, ‘I promise. Please, Theo, don’t look like that.’

  His arms hung limply by his sides. ‘You said you’d have to find a flat where the rent’s cheaper. There won’t be room for me.’

  Tears streamed down her face. ‘What does it matter where I’m living? You can have my bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa.’

  ‘When?’ He was frightened, blaming himself for making her cry. ‘When can I come?’

  ‘Soon. Very soon.’ Kristen allowed herself a flicker of hope. Perhaps Ros had changed her mind, had second thoughts. Combining an acting career with looking after an eight-year-old child was going to be too much. Already she was wishing she had decided to let him stay in Bristol, at least until the end of the year. But even if she had, it was too late, there would be no going back. Ros was someone who would never risk losing face.

  The basement flat – the only place they had been able to afford when they returned from America – had been pleasantly cool in May but now, in August, it felt like a hot, stuffy burrow. She and Theo were the rabbits, weak and defenceless, and Ros was the fox. Any moment now she would nose her way down the steps and tear them apart.

  She was late. People like Ros always were. Being late was a way of showing how terribly busy she was, how important, how much in demand. A recent part as a social worker in a soap opera had only lasted for three episodes, but convinced Ros she was on the brink of the breakthrough she had been waiting for ever since she left drama school, the year before Theo was born.

  In the five weeks since William’s body had been found, Ros had only been in touch three times. Once after the police had broken the news, once to arrange to collect Theo and a third time – a text – to alter the day from Friday evening to midday Saturday.

  Theo had switched on the television, turning down the sound until it was barely audible, a thin wail of pop music accompanying the gyrating figures on the screen. Looking up at the pavement, Kristen recognised familiar scraggy legs in wrinkled stockings. They passed the iron railings, and disappeared, and she heard Mrs Letts put her key in the lock of the ground floor flat and slam the door behind her. He’s going back to his birth mother? Mrs Letts had heard the expression in a documentary about adoption. It’s all wrong. They’re supposed to put the kiddie’s happiness first.

  A car slowed down, then accelerated with squealing tyres. Kristen put an arm round Theo’s shoulder but instead of responding as he usually did, his body stiffened.

  ‘You should have told her I’ve got thinner,’ he said, ‘and about my bad dreams. If I was older they’d let me choose and I’d tell them she drinks.’

  ‘Being caught over the limit doesn’t mean you’re an alcoholic.’ Kristen listened to herself defending the woman she hated, but it was Theo she was thinking about, not Ros.

  ‘Yes it does,’ he said. ‘She’s a criminal. She ought to be in prison.’

  ‘She’s getting her licence back at the end of the month. She’ll be able to take you out, bring you down here to see me.’

  When he turned to face her, his pale cheeks had two bright red spots. ‘If it’s true, if she does want me, that means it could have been her. She could be the one who killed Dad.’ Then his whole body sagged. ‘She’s here.’ He gazed up at the street. ‘It’s a sports car. They’ll make me sit in the back and I’ll feel sick. D’you think he lives with her?’

  ‘The man who’s driven her down? No, he’s a friend, another actor.’

  Ros was wearing a linen trouser suit and a pale orange T-shirt. Her glossy shoulder-length hair gleamed in the sun. She was holding a pair of designer glasses,
swinging them round her finger, smiling, but not too much, just enough to convey the appropriate mixture of friendliness, compassion, and pleasure at seeing her son.

  ‘This is John.’ She moved her head in the direction of the man coming down the steps. ‘Sorry we’re late, we got lost in a one-way system, took a wrong turning up by the Downs.’

  So far, everything had been addressed to Kristen. Now she bent to kiss Theo on the head. ‘Hello, darling. I saw your face at the window.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Kristen asked, half hoping her offer would be turned down, half desperate to put off the moment when Theo’s luggage was carried to the car.

  ‘Coffee would be lovely.’ Ros touched her companion’s arm. ‘You probably recognise John. If you don’t he’ll be rather upset, won’t you, my darling?’

  Kristen shook his hand, feeling a slight warmth towards him simply because he wasn’t Ros. His face was vaguely familiar. He could have been in any recent hospital or police series. He was probably about ten years younger than Ros.

  Over the coffee, Ros kept up a stream of chatter while taking care never to mention William. Every so often, she gave Kristen a sympathetic little smile and, while her cup was being refilled, she inquired about the new job Kristen was starting in two days’ time. ‘Something with gifted children, you said.’

  Kristen had explained on the phone but she would have to do it all over again. Pleasantries had to be exchanged. Everything had to be carried out as painlessly as possible.

  ‘A holiday course at a tuition college,’ she said. ‘One of the staff’s been taken ill. Brigid Howell suggested me for the job. Her husband, Alex, was in charge of the research project William worked on before we went to the States.’

  Ros examined her shiny apricot nails. ‘The man who was instrumental in finding William the post in Ohio. As I recall, when you first moved to Bristol he was working for someone else.’

  ‘That project came to an end, but by then Alex had met William and wanted to take him on.’

  ‘Nice to be so much in demand.’ Ros gave a beaming smile, almost as if she had forgotten for a moment that William was dead. ‘And Brigid Howell runs this holiday course, does she?’

  'No, it’s a man called Neville Unwin. Brigid has a four-month-old baby but the classes are only for two hours, three mornings a week.’

  ‘And you’ll be instructing them in the great philosophers.’

  ‘Neville Unwin wants me to teach them how to think.’

  ‘Really? How clever. John’s interested in all that kind of thing, aren’t you, my darling, brainstorming, lateral thinking. Of course, how stupid of me, the thesis you’re writing on children with exceptional ability. I remember William telling me about it.’ She glanced at Theo, flinching when her son’s stony eyes stared back at her.

  ‘Shame Theo won’t be able to attend the classes,’ said John, trying to break the tension, then, Theo stood up and left the room, looking at Kristen with a rueful expression.

  Ros sprang up to follow then changed her mind and sat down again. ‘Gone to the loo, I expect.’ She leaned towards Kristen until their heads were only inches apart. ‘Have the police been in touch recently? Are they still as sure as ever they know who did it?’

  Kristen nodded. ‘Someone they call “the dog man”. He’s a pickpocket who pretends he’s lost his dog, then steals bags, wallets, whatever he can take.’

  ‘I told you how a rather charming policeman called Tisdall came to see me?’ Ros pushed back her hair with both hands. ‘Just a formality, I mean, what could I possibly tell him? You know, it’s the randomness of it I find so hard to bear. William just happening to be in that particular place at that particular time. It makes you realise how little control we have over our lives.’

  She was talking too fast and for the first time it occurred to Kristen that she must be wondering how Theo was going to react when it was time to leave.

  ‘How’s he been the last few weeks?’ she whispered, ‘I’d have come down sooner, only as I mentioned on the phone I’m not sure it would have been much help.’

  Kristen could hear Theo outside his bedroom door. ‘I’ll check his luggage is ready.’

  Ros started to say something then decided against it, but a few moments later she joined them in Theo’s bedroom, hovering in the doorway as if she was afraid she was intruding on a private conversation. ‘Listen, I just want to say … I know … well, of course I don’t, how could I? What I mean, Theo can come and stay here whenever he likes, whenever you can get time off work, Kristen, or at the weekends of course. I do hope we can all be friends, keep things informal, be guided by Theo, really. What do you think, darling, does that sound about right?’

  For the first hour, Kristen felt nothing. Floating, muzzy, a tiny insignificant speck in a world where nothing mattered because nothing lasted, she drifted from room to room, switching on the radio and listening to the weather forecast, the news headlines, but without taking anything in. First William. Now Theo. To lose the two people you loved had something clean, clear-cut about it. Her life had been wiped out, there were no messy leftovers to be attended to. She was nothing, a blank sheet.

  The sight of Theo’s football shirt draped over the back of a kitchen chair jerked her out of her false euphoria. He would unpack, or Ros would, and notice straight away that it was missing. Then what? Ros would phone – or Theo would – and she would promise to send the shirt, and the ugly-bug stickers she had found down the side of the sofa, and he would tell her how unhappy he was or – if Ros was in the room – he would be brave, even sound quite cheerful, but she would know, they would both know.

  Picking up the crumpled red shirt, she carried it to the washing machine, pushing it in on top of his sheet and pillow case, the duvet cover with its pattern of sheep, and feeling the weight of misery descend on her. Ros would buy him a new football strip, as many new strips as he wanted, and try to take an interest but do it badly. You know what I’m like, darling, can’t tell which team is which, and what on earth do they mean when they say the ball’s offside?

  No, it was no use pretending Ros was the distant, alien creature Kristen wanted her to be. Half of Theo’s genes came from her and she had looked after him for the first four years of his life, or at least employed a succession of au pair girls. When the last of them took a day off and never returned, William had given up his research post at London University and taken over the care of Theo himself. It was something that had gone in his favour in court.

  During the four years since the divorce, Ros had seen far less of her son than William thought she should, although he admitted to Kristen – after she moved in with him a few months before the judge gave him custody – that his secret wish was that Ros would go to California and Theo would only have to see her once a year…

  By now, the three of them would have reached the M25, unless they had stopped at a services for something to eat. With a lurching sensation, half dread, half hope, it occurred to her they might still be in Bristol. I tell you what, darling, while we’re here we might as well buy you some decent clothes. It’ll be easier than trying to shop in London, less of a stampede.

  Returning to the other room, she stared up at the street, almost expecting to see them coming back. Ros had only reclaimed her son because doing anything else would have meant people thought badly of her. After all, she could hardly allow herself to be accused of putting her acting career before her own flesh and blood. Besides, there were compensations. Showing Theo off to her friends might be rather fun.

  A policeman was strolling past. He looked down at the basement flat, as if he sensed Kristen watching him, or perhaps it was his job to keep an eye on the place where William had lived.

  The job of breaking the news had been given to a policewoman and when Kristen answered the door she and an older male colleague had been talking in hushed voices. Was she Mrs Frith? No, but she knew what was coming next. A member of the public, walking near the River Frome … a dog yelping … the body would
be need to be identified.

  Later, two CID officers had called round to tell her they suspected foul play, that it seemed likely William’s death was the result of a mugging that had gone wrong. They were looking for a person whose activities were already known to them. William’s wallet was missing and the mugging had all the hallmarks of someone they had nicknamed ‘the dog man’. It had taken place in an area where previous thefts had been reported, a dog could have been used as a decoy, and a man, answering the description provided by several previous victims, had been seen in the vicinity around the time of the attack. They would, of course, keep her informed.

  At the inquest, cause of death was attributed to a blow on the head with half a brick, followed by a second injury to the skull when William fell from the bridge and landed with his legs in the water but the rest of him on dry land. Damage to the vertebral artery had led to subarachnoid bleeding. Subarachnoid. The word had stuck in her head like a mantra.

  The doorbell rang and Kristen’s heart started to thud. Theo had broken down in uncontrollable sobbing. Unable to handle the situation, Ros had decided to bring him back. Just until he’s had more time to adjust. I’m so sorry, Kristen, but I think for Theo’s sake …

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ When she opened the door, DS Tisdall had his back turned and was moving his head up and down as if in time to a tune going on in his head. She’d recognised him by the dead straight line of his hair on the back of his neck. That and the grey folder under his arm.

  ‘I just need to clear up a few anomalies. Is the boy with you?’

  ‘He’s gone back to London – to live with his mother.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Tisdall followed her into the flat and sat down. ‘Is that what he wanted, or didn’t his wishes come into it?’

  ‘So you’re no nearer finding the man who did it.’

  ‘We’re making some progress,’ he said, conveying the impression that exactly the opposite was true. ‘I just need to ask a few supplementary questions about the six weeks between the time you came back from America and the date of the crime.’