by Penny Kline
‘Yes.’
She opened her mouth as though she was going to tell me something important, then seemed to think better of it. ‘I’m just so thankful Thomas isn’t here,’ she said. ‘Poor Thomas, he’s such a sensitive little boy, over-sensitive like me, I’m afraid I’ve been too protective.’
‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘A little shy maybe but he’ll grow out of it, people usually do.’
I was talking about Thomas but thinking about Lynsey. After she told Sandy about the baby had he used the knowledge to blackmail her into sleeping with him? Lynsey could be with him even now. But I was speculating again, imagining. Not long ago I had thought he was having an affair with Helen Sealey.
Geraldine was clasping and unclasping her hands.
‘About Sandy,’ I said, ‘perhaps you should call the police.’
She jumped. ‘Oh no, I’d never do that. Sandy hates a fuss, he’d never forgive me. He’ll turn up soon, it’s just that I don’t feel I can tell you very much this morning.’
‘It’s Saturday, I only came up to tell you about Rona.’
‘Oh.’ She closed her eyes.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I’ll make a few enquiries, ask if anyone’s seen him. Perhaps he said something to Bryan or Helen. If not I’ll go round to the cottage, he might have worked late and decided to stay there for the night. You’re sure he didn’t say that’s what he intended to do? There’s an old mattress and I think I saw some blankets.’
She hadn’t heard a word.
‘Anna? The young man who broke into the ground-floor flat — d’you know what’s happened to him? Sandy said he was still in custody, pending further enquiries, surely they don’t think he had anything to do with the murder.’
‘What did Sandy tell you?’
‘Oh, I forget exactly, I just thought you might know something. All he did was break a window.’
‘And the lock inside it. He’d have needed some kind of heavy tool to do that.’
The colour had drained from her face. She pushed open the living-room door and collapsed into the nearest chair with her head tipped back and her knuckles pressed against her eyes. Then all of a sudden she sat up straight. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
‘Nothing to be sorry about, Geraldine,’ I said, ‘I’ll see you in about an hour.’
Chapter Nineteen
Just as I had decided there was no one at home a broadly built man, with a shock of untidy yellow hair, yanked open the front door and stood there, wrapped in a blanket, his eyes half closed with sleep.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m looking for Lynsey Wills,’ I said, ignoring the scowl on his face.
‘Why ring our bell, then?’ I expected him to slam the front door in my face. Instead he took a packet of cigarettes from under the blanket and flicked it open. ‘You’re a friend of Lynsey’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s out. Was last time I looked. Her room’s empty, bed hasn’t been slept in. I wanted to borrow some milk.’ He took a cigarette out of the packet, then pushed it back in. ‘Why d’you want her?’
‘You know her quite well, do you?’
He shrugged. ‘She drops in for a chat now and again. Hates men but tolerates me and Greg. Seems to have got involved with some guy who gave her a hard time.’
‘Look, d’you mind if I come inside?’
‘S’pose you’d better. This blanket’s bringing me out in a rash.’ He stepped back, holding open the front door. ‘Told you most of what I know but you could ask Greg if you like. What are you? Not one of them, I hope, not from the Benefit Office?’
‘Do I look like it?’
‘No, you look too worried.’
I followed him into a ground-floor room that stretched from the front of the house to the back, with dividing doors that had been folded back and held in place by a chest of drawers and a battered armchair. Through a half-open door at the far end I could hear children quarrelling in a neighbouring garden, an exasperated adult voice intervening to sort out the dispute.
The man who had answered the door was pulling on a pair of white jeans. ‘What time is?’ he asked. ‘Christ, if my watch’s right … ’ He pointed in the direction of a double bed where a black foot stuck out from under a brown and red duvet. ‘I’m Hal and that’s Greg.’
‘Anna,’ I said, ‘Anna McColl. Look, it’s a long story but Lynsey ran off last night and I need to talk to her. I didn’t expect her to come back here but I couldn’t think where else to start.’
‘How d’you mean ran off? I could check her room again if you like. She never locks the door. Greg and I nag her about it — all kinds of people come in and out of the house, you can’t be too careful.’ He started up the stairs and when I caught up with him he was banging on the door of a room at the back of the house.
‘She’s not there,’ shouted a voice from the next floor up, and an old woman descended the stairs, clutching at the rail to steady herself although the screws that held it in place were coming away from the wall. She was wearing a maroon dressing-gown, held together by a white plastic belt. Her face looked familiar and I guessed she must be the woman in the hat, the one Lynsey and I had passed when we were walking along the Gorge.
‘Phyllis,’ said Hal, ‘she’s hard of hearing.’ He spoke close to her ear. ‘D’you know where she is?’
‘Eh?’
‘Lynsey, d’you know where she’s gone?’
She thought about it, bending down to pull her slipper over the back of her heel. ‘Hasn’t come back.’
‘Since when?’ I said. ‘When did you see her last? Did she say anything?’
‘Eh?’
‘I wondered if Lynsey’d said anything, told you where she was going?’
The old woman muttered something I couldn’t catch, then opened her mouth wider but put up her hand to cover the lack of teeth. ‘She’s a good girl. Why d’you want her?’
Hal was watching me closely and I had a feeling he would ask me to leave unless I came up with a convincing explanation.
‘Look, the reason I’m here … Lynsey thinks she’s in trouble but — ’
‘What kind of trouble?’
I hesitated. ‘That’s just it. It’s all a misunderstanding. I wanted to let her know.’
Phyllis muttered something about snoopers and shuffled back up the stairs. Hal gestured towards the ground floor and I went down ahead of him and waited by the pile of junk mail lying on the floor beneath a pay-phone attached to the wall. Above the phone several numbers had been scrawled in green felt pen and someone had drawn a face with squinting eyes and its mouth turned down like a clown.
‘Come in if you’re coming,’ called Hal and I could tell by his tone of voice that he had decided to help. As I entered the room he gave the bedclothes a shake and the man called Greg pulled his foot under the duvet and turned over on his stomach.
‘Do you know if Lynsey has any friends,’ I said, ‘people who call round?’
‘Haven’t seen anyone. She used to live in Whitchurch.’
‘With Deb.’
‘Oh, you know her. Never heard her talk about anyone else. Names, plenty of names, but as far as we could tell they were mostly kids she went to school with, guys she knew in London.’
Greg raised himself up on an elbow and smiled. ‘How you doing?’ Then he flopped back on to the pillow.
‘So you don’t really know anything about her,’ I said, remembering the rented video, wondering if he was holding back. ‘I got the impression you saw quite a lot of her. She told me the three of you watched videos together.’
‘Oh, she talks to us all right but you can never tell fact from fiction. To be honest I don’t listen all that carefully.’
‘Right,’ I said, ‘well, thanks. I’d better go.’
‘No, hang on, what did she tell you about the videos? Makes us laugh, sitting there watching all that blood and guts. Keeps shouting: “Kill the bastard!” — that’s if there’s some rapist bloke or i
t could be just a harmless bunch of guys fooling around.’ He grinned, holding a teaspoon over a jar of instant. ‘Coffee? It’ll have to be black, I’m afraid.’
‘No thanks. Sorry to get you out of bed. She’ll turn up sooner or later, I’m sure she will. If you see her tell her I called by.’
As I turned to leave Greg propped himself up again, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
‘Sandy,’ he said, ‘she mentioned some guy called Sandy. Is that any help?’
My head was throbbing. I returned to the flat, drank two glasses of water, then realized it wasn’t going to do the trick and found a couple of aspirins. I knew where I had to go next. The drive would take less than half an hour, even allowing for traffic congestion near the Suspension Bridge. How long was it since my last visit to the cottage? Only ten days but it felt like much longer. It seemed so unlikely that Sandy would want to spend the night there but supposing he had injured himself, sawing wood or drilling holes in the brickwork? There was no phone and the nearest house was about a quarter of a mile away. He could be stranded, unable to call an ambulance. But there were other, more likely reasons to explain why he had failed to return home. He could have told Geraldine he had a business appointment, some loose end to tie up, a remnant of his property development days. The story was a cover. He was with another woman. I would have to go back to the flat and tell lies on his behalf. It was the last thing I wanted.
When I ran down the outside steps a car was pulling up next to mine.
‘Hang on,’ I shouted, ‘don’t box me in, I’m just leaving.’
The driver stopped reversing and wound down his window. It was Owen.
‘In a hurry, are you?’
‘Yes. Why?’ There was no time to go into a long explanation and, besides, the last time — when I had needed his advice …
‘Just wanted a quick word,’ he said.
‘What about?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Another time’ll do.’ He looked uncomfortable, as though he had psyched himself up to tell me something I wouldn’t want to hear. ‘The girl with the baby,’ he said, ‘what happened?’
‘Nothing. She’s OK. I mean, I hope she is. She thinks she’s in trouble with the police.’
‘She is, isn’t she?’
‘No. No, it wasn’t her fault. It’s complicated. Look, just tell me why you came round.’
‘I wanted to explain. I think you may have got the wrong idea.’
‘Yes.’ I waited, as patiently as I could. Explain what? That he hoped we could stay friends but just at present he didn’t feel up to anything more. That he might have seemed unsympathetic when I called in at the Unit but he didn’t really want to be involved in my work problems, he just thought we could go out for the evening now and again.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, winding up the car window until it was only open a crack and I could barely hear what he was saying. ‘Now’s obviously not the right time. Incidentally, the man they found in Leigh Woods — I met someone in the French Department who taught him at an adult education class.’
‘A French class, was it?’ I shouted. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
He started up the engine, looking over his shoulder to check for on-coming traffic. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think it was of any great importance.’
*
The air was very still. As I joined the Clevedon Road a tractor, pulling a trailer that was empty apart from a rough-haired collie, came out from a farm entrance fifty yards ahead. I cursed, knowing I would probably have to follow it at a snail’s pace for the mile or so until I reached the turning to the lane. But what was the hurry? What difference did it make how soon I reached the cottage, apart from the wish to satisfy my curiosity? Lynsey could be up in London, or anywhere. If she really believed Chloe was her baby who could blame her if she wanted a few days on her own? As for Sandy, I felt certain he must have told Geraldine he was going to be away for the night. Finding herself alone in the flat, without even Thomas for company, she had worked herself up into a panic, then taken enough of her tablets to reduce herself to a state where she couldn’t even remember what day it was.
The sky was cloudless and the tarmac shimmered in the sun. I wound down my window and leaned out, and the tractor slowed down even more then suddenly, without any warning signal, turned into a field on the right. I could see the thick woods at the top of the hill and realized if I didn’t turn off soon I would be in Clevedon. Just before the turning to the lane I remembered seeing a red bungalow with a weather cock on the roof. Had I passed it already? On my left was a field of stubble and to the right a stone building that might once have been a chapel or a school. The road had straightened. There was no signpost ahead but I was sure the lane was close by, within a hundred yards or so. The car behind me was revving up, desperate to pass. I waved it on, slowed down to a crawl, and spotted the red bungalow, just visible beyond a thick beech hedge.
In the garden, very close to the road, a small boy was sitting on top of a step-ladder with a notebook balanced on his knees. I turned the corner and he swung round, nearly losing his balance. Then a man with a rake in his hand appeared, glaring at me angrily as though he thought the lane was reserved for the people who lived there, not holidaymakers who obviously didn’t know their way about.
Steering from left and right I tried to avoid the worst of the potholes, which were deeper than I remembered, although Sandy’s car was large enough to have straddled most of the track. Once the Clevedon Road was out of sight the whole place seemed deserted and almost eerily quiet. No sounds of birdsong, dogs barking, not even a field of cows. I passed the cottage closest to Sandy’s a small chalet-like place — but there was no sign of life apart from a cat chewing at something in the long grass. A little further up the lane someone had left a bicycle lying in the ditch but, by the look of it, it could have been there for months.
Sandy’s car was just inside the gateway. My hand tightened on the steering-wheel. So he was there after all. Concentrating on the surface of the lane I drove past until it widened a little, then parked as close to the hedge as possible, hoping no tractors came up that far. As I walked back to the cottage a helicopter passed overhead. On its way to the coast, searching for a missing yacht? But it didn’t look like Air-Sea Rescue. The edges of the lane had been left untrimmed and the pollen was making my eyes itch. I pushed back my sleeve but I had forgotten my watch and could only guess it must be between three and four, probably nearer four.
The front door was locked and there was no bell or knocker, but round the back the door to the kitchen had been left wide open. Surely if Sandy was there he would have come out when he heard the car? I stepped inside and called his name, an intruder in someone else’s property for the second day running. No one answered. Moving from room to room it occurred to me that someone might have forced open the back door, someone who knew the cottage was empty and wanted to have a look round — or even spend the night there. Sandy had told me he worried about squatters — that was why the doors and windows had substantial locks — but if someone was determined to break in there was very little he could do about it. If anyone was in the house he would have heard me by now unless he was in a drunken stupor.
I picked up a chisel and began to climb the stairs.
The smallest bedroom was empty: no furniture, no tools, just a few scraps of sandpaper and an old tobacco tin full of rusty screws. The next room looked much the same although a window had been left open and the air smelled fresher, less laden with dust. Breathing more slowly I began to relax. Sandy must be somewhere nearby. Not in the garden — it was too small for me to have missed him or him to have missed seeing me. He must have called in at the nearest house, perhaps to borrow a particular tool or ask about the local sewage system. Another possibility was that a friend of his had turned up and the two of them had gone out in the friend’s car to buy something to eat.
The door to the third bedroom was closed. The brass knob was loose but I managed to push i
t against the door until it turned. Inside the air felt oppressively hot. Pushing up my hair I wiped the sweat off my forehead and moved towards the window to let in some air. Then I saw him. He was lying on his back by the grate with his arms flung out and one of his legs twisted to one side. Just above his left ear a patch of dark dry blood contrasted with the whiteness of his skin. One of his eyes was partially open and his lips were parted revealing the backward slope of his long front teeth.
I held my breath. Everything must be left exactly as I had found it so the Scenes of Crime Officer could make his notes, write his report. Calm, objective, I was a pathologist viewing an unknown body, all in a day’s work. Reaching out I touched the place where the leg of his jeans had been pulled up a couple of inches above his sock, feeling nothing but the iciness of my own skin. Then bile rose up in my throat and the room blurred in front of my eyes. There was no phone, the nearest house was some distance away, and whoever had done this might still be close by. Stumbling out of the room I ran down the stairs, pulled at the locked front door then caught my foot against the edge of a rotten floorboard. Wrenching it free I turned and ran to the back of the house, out into the garden, out into the air, past the cottage, past Sandy’s car and on up the lane.
For a moment I thought the engine wouldn’t start, then I pushed down too hard on the accelerator and it roared so loudly that it could have been heard half a mile away. The only way to turn round would be to go on and hope the lane ended in some kind of open space. Instead I reversed, twisting my head and zigzagging between the hedges, trying to stay in the middle of the track but swinging
wildly from left to right and back again. Suddenly a shape leapt out of my path and I slammed on the brakes, stalling the engine and feeling the sharp pain as my neck jerked back. A woman, holding a spaniel in her arms, shouted something I couldn’t hear. Her face was very close to my window and I could see the screwed-up lines between her eyes — blue eyes, rather like Rona Halliwell’s — then her expression changed and she yanked open the door.