‘Yes.’ Terry hung up, feeling defeated. The boy was hopeless. Who would ever have thought that that adorable baby, with tight little blond curls, big saucer-like eyes and a sudden, enormous grin, would have turned into this sulky, selfish, indifferent man?
His childhood had given no hint that he would end up the way he was now. At eight years old Sean had been so funny; always grinning, making very bad jokes, chucking himself about.
He had been a solid, boisterous boy who loved football and watching TV, went around in a crowd of other boys, nudging and shoving each other, giggling in class, driving his teachers wild.
When had he changed? In his teens? Yes, that was when he began to get into trouble.
When his hormones began to riot and he started chasing girls!
No, they had chased him in the beginning, remembered Terry. Sean had been a beautiful boy at fifteen. Girls had swarmed around him, he could have his pick. And did, no doubt. Terry had been amused by it at the time; now he saw that Sean had been spoilt by all that attention, had started to take his sexual power for granted, had come to despise girls. He had had them too easily.
Or had it been the abandonment of his mother that made him the way he was? He had adored Sandra. She had been a very loving mother. When she went off like that it must have hurt Sean badly.
The new PR girl came into the room as if on tiptoe. Terry looked blankly at her. He could never remember her name. She was older than Miranda, and not as pretty. Far too thin, with short brown hair and a bony neck. She wore a sort of office uniform; black skirt, white blouse, with flat black shoes. So far he had not seen her in anything else.
‘Yes?’ he demanded impatiently. Why had he chosen her? Perhaps because she was everything Miranda had not been, or perhaps because he saw at a glance that he could awe her into doing whatever he demanded.
‘The police are downstairs.’ She was breathless, anxious. ‘Should I deal with them? They say they want to see you.’
Not again! What did they want now? They had asked a thousand questions, visited him at home, and here – why did they keep coming back? Terry’s hands clenched into fists on his knees, out of sight, but he fought to look calm and unbothered.
‘I’ll see them, tell my secretary to show them in!’
There were the same two of them. Sergeant Maddrell and a six-foot tall constable with pink cheeks, curly hair and a notebook in one hand, ready to make notes.
‘What can I do for you today, Sergeant?’ Trying to make them feel stupid – maybe they would stop coming if they realised how ridiculous their questions were.
‘Do you have a private plane, sir?’ the Sergeant asked, watching him intently.
Terry’s face went blank. How had they got on to that? It wasn’t something he talked about to his friends. He didn’t want them asking him to take them up.
‘Yes, I do, as it happens – a light aircraft, a four seater. I’ve had it for a few years but I rarely take it up lately, I’m too busy.’
Miranda must have told them about it – he should have realised she would. Yet, why
should she? How had it come up in the conversation?
‘Where do you keep it?’
He mentioned the name of the airfield a few miles from his house in the country. They probably knew it anyway, if Miranda had told them about the plane she would have told them which airfield he used. He had been a member there for years, had learnt to fly with an instructor there.
‘We would like to take a look at it.’
‘What are you hoping to find?’ Terry snapped. ‘Bloodstains? I can assure you, you won’t.’
The sergeant looked bland. ‘She was drowned, we wouldn’t expect to find bloodstains.’
The expression on his face made Terry so angry he wanted to punch the smug bastard.
‘My son did not drown anyone! You aren’t still listening to that crazy girl? Haven’t you talked to the psychiatrists at the hospital? Seen her records? She’s obsessed with people drowning. She imagined the whole thing.’
Ignoring all that, the sergeant asked him, ‘Does your son fly?’
‘He doesn’t have a licence. But he has just begun to have lessons.’
‘At the airfield where you keep your plane?’
‘Yes, but he isn’t allowed to go up without a qualified pilot. He has only had a couple of lessons.’