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Chapter 26
Thea stole a glance at the two children sitting glumly in the car before she set off. She turned out of the school parking area. ‘Right – next stop Aldeburgh to see your mum.’ She hoped that would cheer them up.
She heard Toby sigh again.
‘What’s the matter – don’t you want to see your mum?’
Surprisingly, Toby said, ‘Not really.’
‘Why ever not? She’s had an accident. She broke her leg. I would have thought you’d want to see how she is?’ Thea brought the car to a stop at the end of the street and turned in her seat to look at him. She watched him get out a pair of headphones and plug them into his phone. She turned to Katie. ‘So, are you coming to see your mum?’
‘I don’t like hospitals.’
Thea cast a glance at Winston, and said, ‘What about you?’
‘Dogs aren’t allowed in a hospital.’
Thea rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I know that Katie. It was a joke.’
‘Well, it wasn’t very funny.’
Thea set off, driving back the way she’d come, out of Leiston. She assumed she’d remember the way, but had to ask them to direct her. ‘So, am I going to see her on my own, then?’
Katie said, ‘I guess so.’
‘Will one of you look after the dog while I’m visiting?’
‘Toby will.’
Thea drove out of Leiston, but instead of joining the main road again, Katie directed her down a country lane that brought her out to Aldeburgh and the coast road that ran beside the beach from Aldeburgh to Thorpeness. Thea recognised it immediately.
On the couple of occasions that she’d visited her sister since they moved to Pettistree, they had tended to stay local, walking into Wickham Market, or driving to Woodbridge about four miles away. Her sister seemed to avoid Aldeburgh. Last time, Thea had suggested a trip down memory lane, to see their dad’s old bookshop, but she’d refused, saying she didn’t want to bring upall that.
‘But we had good times. I remember.’
‘Yeah, well, you were younger. I just remember mum being heartbroken when he left.’
‘But he didn’t leave. He went missing.’
And that had been the end of the conversation.It was something they’d always disagreed on. Her sister reckoned their dad had met someone else, and left them. Thea chose to believe that something had happened to him.If that’s what you need to believe, you keep telling yourself that.That’s what her sister had said.
The trouble with Thea’s theory was that it hadn’t made her feel any better over the years; it just meant if something had happened, and he couldn’t come back, then he was probably dead.
Thea hadn’t asked to go to Aldeburgh with her again. She wondered how her sister felt about being forced to stay in Aldeburgh.
‘Mum asked to be transferred to Ipswich hospital,’ said Katie, as if reading her mind. ‘I don’t know why. Perhaps she thought she’d get better care there or something. But it’s not going to happen, thank god.’
Thea threw Katie a sideways glance, wondering what she knew about her grandfather. With her mum in hospital and her dad away, Thea decided it was not a good time to bring that up.
‘It annoyed me,’ continued Katie. ‘Why wouldn’t she want to stay locally so we could visit her?’
Ah, thought Thea. Now she had an idea of why Katie didn’t want to see her mum. She asked, ‘Can you direct me to the hospital?’ She assumed they had both visited Jenna since she’d been inside. She frowned, wishing she hadn’t thought of it that way –inside. It made it sound like Jenna was in prison. She swept her next thought aside – the synthesised voice over the phone.
She decided to ask the twins a question, but waited while they directed her along the high street to the other end of town, and up a side street to a single-storey red-brick building with a small car park at the front.
The car park was full, so she pulled the car to a stop on the street outside and gathered her handbag. She glanced at Katie, and then turned in her seat to look at Toby. ‘Have either of you seen a package lying around the house?’
Toby shrugged.
