'I parked the car near the prom. There were a lot of people around, all caught up in their own business. No one looked at me. I went into the shop to buy the ice cream. When I came out, I rang the police and told them my story, about Robin having been abducted, or at least having disappeared. I never thought they'd believe it, but they seemed to, and the more they questioned me about it, the clearer the details came in my mind. After a time I almost came to believe it myself.
'Obviously I couldn't leave Robin in the parlour for too long, but a week later I came in at night-time and embalmed him. That would preserve the body for a while.
'And all the publicity and the press conferences and the pleas on television from Rory and Miranda . . . well, that all died down after a time. And I was doing some work in the garden at home. Previously we'd just had the one pond, you know, but I was adding to that, making a great big water feature and that involved a lot of digging and—'
'So you took Robin's body from the funeral parlour back to your garden and buried him there?' suggested Jude.
The old man nodded a weary nod. He seemed to have aged during his narrative. 'So Robin was always close to me. I knew where he was. He was there, and it gave me comfort to know he was there.'
'And everything was fine,' said Carole, joining up the dots, 'until you had to move house?'
'Yes. I couldn't leave Robin in the garden there. Partly I was worried about a new owner finding his remains, though I didn't care so much about that. It's more I couldn't be parted from the child, from the boy I loved. We've no garden with the new flat we're going to, just a window box. So . . .' He gestured rather feebly towards Quiet Harbour. 'I knew we'd still come here. I knew if I put him under one of the beach huts he'd still be near me.' He let out a little mirthless laugh. 'I think I also knew that it couldn't last, that very soon I'd be found out. Which is, of course, what's happened.
'In fact, I was nearly found out earlier. Only a few nights after I'd taken the bones from our garden and reburied them under the beach hut, some idiot tried to set fire to it. Fortunately the fire didn't spread far — or someone put it out, I don't know.'
'And you put down an old offcut of carpet so that the damage wouldn't show from the inside,' said Carole, pleased to be filling in the gaps in the case.
'Yes, I did that.' Lionel Oliver sighed. 'I'm a stupid old man. I don't know why I thought I'd get away with it. Or perhaps I didn't think I'd get away with it. Perhaps I was just so tired of holding the secret inside me that I wanted to be found out. Yes, I think that's probably it.'
Jude broke the long silence that ensued by saying, very gently, 'You still haven't told us how Robin died.'
'No.'
'Are you going to?'
'Why not? You know everything else. I'd taken the day off work, that day we were going to look after Robin. I 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.'
Chapter 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 Les Miserables, I'd had a real blinder the night before. I was on more than a bottle of gin a day then, and that morning I woke up having slept very badly and with the kind of crushing hangover that can only be alleviated by a very large hair of the dog. But I'd drunk the house dry the night before. I was desperate for a bottle of gin. I managed to disguise how I was feeling from Rory and Miranda when they came to bring Robin over, but as soon as they'd gone I ordered Lionel to go and buy me a bottle of gin. I'm not proud of how I was in those days. I was a monster.'
'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 Mistral. The next thing I'm aware of is the news that Robin's been abducted and the police are coming round and...'
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?'