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“Yes!” Beth had jumped on the idea. “That would be brilliant. What do you think, Dad? Would you like to do that?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
“What I’m not sure about is you traveling on your own.”
“Plenty of people do it, Dad. And I told you, once I get to Thailand, I’ll meet up with people and we’ll move on together. That’s what it’s all about, making friends, sharing experiences with them and seeing something of the planet we live on.” She’d put an arm around his shoulders. “I need you to get behind me on this.”
“You’re right, Beth.” Iris could see the effort it took for Gabriel to rally some enthusiasm. “It will be a great adventure for you, and I agree, it would be a shame not to do something more interesting than staying in Markham.”
“And will you come out and meet me at Christmas, like Mum said? I’ll probably still be in Thailand at that point so we could spend it on one of the islands, Koh Samui or Phuket.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “We’ll definitely do that. It will give us something to look forward to.”
“I’ll only have been gone for two months. You’ll hardly have time to miss me.”
As soon as Esme had heard that Beth was leaving, she’d hired a nanny to replace her. It meant that Iris and Gabriel would see a lot more of Beth in the run-up to her departure, as the nanny was starting on Monday.
“If there was only Hamish, I could cope,” Esme had explained to Iris over the phone. “But there’s still so much that needs doing in the house.”
“Esme, nobody is going to judge you for having a nanny.”
“We’ll miss Beth. How are you feeling about her leaving?”
“Worried, but proud that she’s doing her own thing. I’m going to miss her tremendously, it’s been so lovely having her here. Gabriel is putting a brave face on it, but he’s devastated.”
“I can imagine. Iris, I have a favor to ask.” Esme had sounded uncharacteristically nervous. “It’s about Joseph. Would you keep an eye on him during the christening, especially at the lunch? There’s going to be alcohol, and I don’t want him to be tempted.”
Iris’s heart had sunk. She’d been planning to avoid Joseph as much as possible once the service itself was over.
“Yes, of course,” she’d said. “Although if he decides to start drinking, I’m not sure I’ll be able to wrestle the glass from him.”
“Just tell my dad. Or Hugh and Marcus. They’ll sort him out.”
Iris set the tray on the table and checked the time. It was six thirty. Beth was having a shower and Gabriel had gone to see Joseph; he was picking their takeaway up on his way home. When she had asked if he was going to mention Beth to Joseph, Gabriel had shaken his head.
“Why not? Why are you going to see him if it’s not to talk about Beth?” she’d asked.
“Because I’ve got other things I want to talk to him about. Anyway, if I tell him to keep away from Beth, he’ll only tell her, and that will cause trouble between us and Beth. For what it’s worth, I don’t think her decision to go traveling has anything to do with him. Yes, he might have talked about Thailand and sparked an idea in her. But I think if she’d been meeting up with him, she would have told us. And Esme and Hugh would know, and they’d have mentioned it to us.”
She hadn’t bothered replying. She guessed that Gabriel wanted to speak to Joseph about Charlie. Once again, it seemed, Charlie Ingram was taking precedence over everyone else, even their daughter.
63
“First of all, I want to thank you for all your hard work,” Gabriel said. He was sitting at the table in Joseph’s cottage, a glass of juice in his hand.
“I enjoyed it,” Joseph said. “I just regret that Iris came between us.”
Gabriel frowned. “Iris? Any problems you have with Iris are no concern of mine.” Seeing the puzzlement on Joseph’s face, he carried on. “Iris isn’t the reason I haven’t worked in the garden with you for the past two weeks.” He paused. “You know, don’t you, that it was me who found Charlie Ingram in the quarry?”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you mention you had worked at his school? More to the point, why did you lie when I asked you if you’d worked there?”
Joseph shrugged. “I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it,” he said. “Anyway, I hadn’t known the boy.”
“That’s not quite true though, is it? You went around to the house where he lived with his mum. You were abusive and threatening and cruel.”
