Free The Rhyme of the Magpie by Marty Wingate

long. I couldn’t ask Vesta for the loan of her car again—she had begun to have that way with me, and I imagined telling her my entire story over a cup of tea, then perhaps at last having the edges of my heart, still rubbed raw with grief, touched with a balm. There was no time for that now.
    When I rang my sister, Emelia answered, sounding thirty years old instead of ten.
    “Hello, 01736 55377, the Broom residence.”
    “Hello, Emmy, dear.”
    “Auntie Jools!” the ten-year-old returned. “Did Mummy tell you I’m to play Nana in
Peter Pan
? I tried for Wendy, but the teacher said I’m the only one with the skill to run about on all fours, and it’s really quite a privilege. Will you come and see me? It’s next month. Will you?”
    “I wouldn’t miss it—send me an email with the date, all right? Now, where is your mum?”
    “She’s talking to Daddy about the new baby. Mum said you saw the magpies. I told Mummy and Daddy they should choose a bird name that begins with ‘E’ for the baby, but all we could think of was Egret, and wouldn’t that be silly?”
    Emelia continued to chatter, and I heard the house noises behind her change as she walked from room to room. My mind wandered and I didn’t notice that Emmy had handed the phone to her mother until I heard Bee say sharply, “Julia, are you there?”
    “Bee, have you heard from Dad?”
    “Not since last week—why?”
    “Beryl rang—he’s gone off on one of his jaunts.” I used a light tone, and Bee responded in kind.
    “No, he didn’t forget to tell her, did he?”
    “He left a note, but didn’t say where he was. Not at Marshy End, apparently.” I felt safe in avoiding any mention of Kenneth Kersey. Bianca paid no attention to news in any form—on paper, television, or online, and I knew the name would mean nothing to her.
    “Oh, she should leave him be for a bit. He needed to get away, that’s all.”
    “Do you think he and Beryl might’ve had a fight?” I suppose I still held some tiny hope that was the reason he’d scarpered.
    “You mean like the time he took us off to Margate and left Mum behind at home?”
    “Margate? When I was nine? That was a holiday. Mum wasn’t able to go, so Dad took you and me.”
    Bianca laughed. “Yes, some holiday. They’d had a row and Dad went off in a huff, dragging us along. All he did was sit on the beach and be miserable.”
    “I thought he was holding still so I could bury him in the sand,” I said, steadily denying her accusation. “They never had a row.”
    “You’ve quite a selective memory when it comes to our parents’ marriage, Jools. You never remember the problems, only the happy times.”
    They were all happy times as far as I was concerned, but there was no arguing with Bee when she took on her older-sister tone.
    She continued. “A good marriage isn’t always easy—sometimes you’ve got to work through bad times and blocks of boredom to get to the good parts. A good marriage takes work—you and Nick lost interest in trying.”
    I was rapidly losing interest in this conversation. “Perhaps Dad will ring soon. I think he knows you’re pregnant—I think he saw magpies, too. The thing is”—I didn’t want to worry my sister, but she’s a levelheaded thinker, and I needed that right now—“he didn’t drive his Rover, it’s in the shop. Funny about that.”
    “Hmm. Well, he must’ve got hold of a car hire. He certainly wouldn’t ask to borrow yours, would he?”
    “Ah!” I cried out as that niggling worm popped out of the ground of its own accord. My little car hadn’t been nicked by a car thief—it had been nicked by my own father. I must’ve known it all along, and that’s why I hadn’t got round to ringing the police.
    Rupert hadn’t asked to borrow my car because I had banished him from my cottage. But he did have his own set of keys, and so perhaps he thought he could bring it back before I noticed.
    During my momentary silence, Bianca had started up