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‘How old are you?’ he demanded.
‘Old enough not to tolerate being barked at.’
‘All right, all right,’ he said in the voice of a man making a concession. ‘Maybe I was hasty. We’ll start again.’
She stared at him in fascination. This man was so lacking in social skills that he was almost entertaining.
‘I suppose that’s as much of an apology as I’m going to get,’ she observed.
‘It wasn’t meant as an apology. I’m not used to coming home and finding myself under investigation by strangers.’
‘Investigation?’
‘It’s a politer word than spying. Are you here to report back to the social services? If so, tell them that my son has a good home and doesn’t need anyone’s interference.’
‘I’m not sure I could say that,’ she replied quietly.
‘What?’
‘Is this a good home? You tell me. What I’ve seen so far looks pretty bleak. Oh, it’s comfortable enough, plenty of money spent. But after all, what’s money?’
Now it was his turn to be fascinated. ‘Some people think money amounts to quite a lot.’
‘Not if it’s all you have.’
‘And you feel entitled to make that judgement, do you?’
‘Why not? At least I looked at the whole room. You judged me on the basis of my clothes and my age.’
‘I told you, I’ve drawn a line under that,’ he said impatiently.
‘But maybe I haven’t,’ she said, incensed again. ‘And maybe I stand on my right to jump to conclusions, just like you.’
She knew she was treading on thin ice, but what the hell? She was usually slow to anger, but there was something about this man that made her want to be unreasonable. In fact, there was something about him that made her want to jump up and down on his head.
He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘This is getting us nowhere. What are you doing in my house?’
House, she noticed. Not home. Well, he was right about that.
‘I gave Mark a lift.’
‘Riding that contraption outside?’
‘No,’ she shot back. ‘I rode it while he ran behind—’ She checked herself. This was no time for sarcasm. ‘Of course. He rode pillion.’
‘Did he have a helmet?’
‘Yes, I gave him mine.’
‘So you rode without one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which is against the law.’
‘I’m aware of that, but what else could I do? Leave him there? The point is, his head was safe.’
‘But yours wasn’t.’
‘I’m overwhelmed by your concern,’ she snapped.
‘My concern,’ he snapped back, ‘is for my son if you’d been stopped by the police while in breach of the law.’
Evie ground her teeth but wouldn’t risk answering. He had a point. An unfair point, but still a point.
‘And why were you giving him a lift anyway? Do you normally bring your pupils home from school?’
‘I didn’t bring him home from school. He played truant today, not for the first time.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard about his behaviour before this.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I went to the school and talked with the Deputy Head.’
‘No, I mean what did you do when you got home? Did you talk to Mark?’
‘Of course I did. I told him to behave himself or there’d be trouble. I gather he didn’t listen. All right, leave it to me. I’ll deal with him.’
She stared, aghast.
‘And just what do you mean by that?’ she demanded.
‘I mean I’ll make sure he knows the consequences of disobeying me again. Isn’t that what you came here for?’
‘No!’
Evie spoke so loudly and emphatically that he was actually startled.
‘That is not what I came here for,’ she said firmly. ‘That boy is very unhappy, and I’m trying to find out why. I hadn’t been here five minutes before I could see the reason. Heavens, what a place!’
‘What’s the matter with it?’ he demanded.
‘It’s like a museum. Full of things, but actually empty.’
He looked around at the expensive furnishing, then back at her. He was totally baffled.
‘You call this empty?’
‘It’s empty of everything that matters—warmth, parents to greet him when he comes home.’
‘His mother is dead,’ Justin Dane said in a hard voice.
‘She’s worse than dead, Mr Dane. She’s missing. Where are the pictures of her?’
‘After what she did, I saw no need to keep them, much less put them on display.’
‘But what about Mark? What would he have liked?’
She heard his sharp intake of breath before he said, ‘You’re trespassing on matters that do not concern you.’
‘You’re wrong,’ she said firmly. ‘I am Mark’s teacher and I’m concerned about his welfare. Anything about him concerns me, especially his suffering.’
‘What do you know about his suffering?’
‘Only what he’s trying to tell me without words. I rely on you to tell me the rest. What exactly did she do that entitles you to airbrush her out of existence?’
But he wouldn’t explain, she could see. His face had closed against her.
It was her own fault, she realised. What had she been thinking of to have lost her temper?
She took some deep breaths and tried to calm down. He seemed to be doing much the same for there was a silence. Turning, she saw that he was at the window with his back to her.
He was a tall man, well over six foot, and leanly built with broad shoulders which were emphasised by the way he was standing. When he left the window and began to stride about the room she was struck by how graceless he was. There was strength there, muscle, power, but nothing gentle or yielding.
Heaven help the person who really gets on his wrong side, Evie thought. He’d be pitiless. What kind of life does that poor child have?
When he spoke it was with an exasperated sigh, suggesting that he was doing his best with this awkward woman, but it was very difficult.
‘This is getting us nowhere,’ he said. ‘I accept that you came here with the best of intentions, and I’m glad to know about his misbehaviour. But your job is done now, and I suggest you leave it there.’
She lost her temper again. She couldn’t help it. This man was a machine for making her angry.
‘My job is not done as long as you’re talking about Mark’s ‘‘misbehaviour’’. He is not misbehaving. His mother’s dead, his father’s trying to pretend she never existed. He is miserable, unhappy, wretched, lonely, and that should be your priority. Am I getting through?’
‘Now look—’
A sound from the doorway made them both look, and see Mark. She wondered how long he’d been standing there, and how much he’d heard.
‘Hallo, Dad.’
‘Hallo, Mark. Has anyone offered Miss Wharton any tea?’
‘Yes, Lily’s made some.’
‘Then I suggest you take it upstairs and show Miss Wharton your room. She’d like to see some of your interests.’
She guessed that he would really have liked to throw her out, but he would not do so in front of his son.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I appreciate your being so helpful.’
That annoyed him, she was glad to notice.
Mark’s room turned out to contain all the gadgets any boy could want, including a music centre and computer. Evie guessed she was supposed to admire, and conclude that Mark had everything. Instead, she shivered.
Such a profusion of mechanical things, and nothing human. Even here, no pictures of the child’s mother were on show.
‘How powerful is your computer?’ she asked.
He switched on and showed her. As she’d expected it was state of the art, linked to a high-speed Internet connection.
‘It’s the next generation,’ he said. ‘They aren’t even in the shops yet, but Dad brought it home for me. He makes sure my machine is always ahead of the other kids’ machines.’
‘I’ll bet your school loves him for that,’ Evie observed wryly.
‘At my last school they told him he was throwing everything out of kilter by making their computers look outdated. He replaced every machine in the entire school with the newest thing on the market. Then he turned to the headmistress and said, ‘Not out of kilter now.’ And he winked.’
‘He what? Mark, I don’t believe it. I shouldn’t think your father knows how to wink.’
‘He can sometimes. He says there are things any man can do if he has to.’
So, Evie reflected, winking was Justin Dane’s idea of putting on the charm, something a man could do when he had to, but which was otherwise a waste of time. But she felt she was getting to know him now, and ventured to say, ‘I’ll bet he bought you a new computer too, and it was one step ahead of the school’s.’
Mark grinned and nodded.
‘What do you want to do when you leave school, Mark?’
‘I’d like to do something with languages. Dad doesn’t like it, but it’s what I want.’
‘Why isn’t your father keen?’
‘He says there’s no money in it.’
‘Well, that’s true,’ she agreed with a rueful grin.
‘But I don’t care about that,’ he said eagerly. ‘Languages take you into other people’s minds, and different worlds, so you’re not trapped any more, and—’
This was the boy she knew in class, words tumbling over each other in his joy at the glorious flame he’d discovered. Evie smiled encouragement.
‘I like Italian best,’ he said. ‘One day I want to go to Italy—hang on.’
A knock at the door had signalled Lily’s arrival with tea. While Mark was letting her in Evie looked at the shelf behind her chair and saw, with pleasure, how many books it contained. She took down the nearest volume and jumped as a photograph fell out from between the pages.
Picking it up, she saw that it was of a young woman with a little boy, plainly a much younger Mark. They were laughing directly into each other’s eyes.
His mother, she thought.
Something caught in her throat at the feeling that blazed from that picture. If ever two people had loved each other it was these two. But she was dead, and now his life was lived with a harsh father in a house whose luxury couldn’t hide its bleakness.
