The DI was sure that Catherine's influence could be powerful enough if she only knew it. Slim chance of her recognising it though, Yvonne thought as she yawned widely. As she drifted into sleep, she saw Tasha by the fire, a glass of brandy in her hands.
When Brian and Tasha arrived at Lansdown in Bath, they were tense with focus. Neither had said much on the journey down and if they could have been instantly transported there they would have jumped at the chance. If Graham had the key to this whole case, even if he was unaware of it, they were going to find it. Whatever it took.
They found Graham in his shop below. He was allowed in his house now and, though he had briefly been inside, he couldn't bear the empty rooms; the noiseless kitchen; the unused perfume which sat on the dressing table. He'd chosen not to stay in the house because he couldn't bear to be there without Catherine and he was now sleeping and living as best he could surrounded by ticketed antiques.
He wasn't thrilled by the presence of the police, considering all he had been through with them.
“Come to gloat, have you?”, he asked unfairly.
Tasha winced. “We've come to try to find out why your wife was taken.” She took in the stubbly chin, the hallowed cheeks and the creased suit.
Around the room she saw dirty mugs, blankets piled high on a chaise-longue, and a framed photograph which had been left lying crookedly on the desk. She picked it up, taking in the serene, beautiful blonde who smiled enigmatically out from the frame. “Is this your wife?”
“I saw the news about your officer. I bet that's the real reason your here.”
They had known this might not be easy, but neither Tasha nor Brian could deny that there was a tiny grain of truth in what he said. They were desperate to find the DI, but they also both knew that they would have done their best for Catherine, anyway. Brian told him as much.
“Mr Swann,” Brian cleared his throat. “We believe Catherine was taken because the killer has a grudge against her. She was taken from her home and the killer deviated from his usual way of operating when he did this.”
“Maybe he's just changed his methods to stop you catching him, have you thought of that?” Graham wasn't about to accept that anyone could have a grudge against his wife. She was the last person on the planet who deserved such a thing.
“There were also the trophies, Graham.” Tasha's voice was gentle, and the use of his first name brought Graham's eyes from the window where they had settled to meet hers. “he things he took from his other victims and sent to your wife. In a way, he's been communicating with Catherine for a long time.”
Graham, leaned his head a little and thought about this for a moment. “So, what you're saying is you think that he was stalking her?”
“Yes,” Tasha continued with Brian's blessing as Graham appeared to be responding to her. “If we can find out what he was trying to say and why he was doing this, we may be able to pinpoint who he is and therefore where she is being held.”
“You think she is still alive, then?”
The DS and the psychologist exchanged glances. “Yes, Graham,” Brian said, borrowing Tasha's tone. “We think there is a very good chance she is still alive.”
“What do you want from me then, what can I do?” Graham's own tone was softer now, his former despondence lifting a little and they could see the hope appearing little by little in his eyes.
“We want you to think about anyone who might have felt slighted by your wife. Particularly,” Tasha decided to commit herself, “anyone who had an interest in her romantically. Someone she may have turned down.” This was Tasha's main hope, that Catherine and Graham knew this person. The alternative would be that he was an unknown stalker and this would take away their main strand of hope to finding Graham's wife and the the DI. Anyway, Tasha thought it unlikely he was unknown, as the trophies he sent Catherine were a message and they could only mean something if he was known to her.
Graham's face contorted as he wrestled with memories. “There was a regular customer a while back who always seemed to have a twinkle in his eye when he was served by Catherine but as far as I'm aware he didn't ever proposition her.”
“What about friends and close associates Graham?” Brian asked, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
“Men like her of course they do but she isn't the most approachable of women, not because she's cold or heartless but because she holds herself with such poise. I've always thought that she has the air of one who is on a different plane to everyone else...” Graham paused, suddenly embarrassed, “...if that makes sense.”
“It makes sense.” Tasha said quietly, “Graham, might we have a look at Catherine's personal things? Particularly her correspondence?”
Graham looked sceptical, “The local police have already been through it.”
“Please...” Tasha pleaded, “I know your life has been turned upside down but Catherine needs us to do this...”
Graham nodded his consent and rose from the chair at his desk to take them into the house.
120
Yvonne awoke to a raging thirst. She had no idea how long she had slept. Her hips and arms ached where they had been in contact with the floor. It hurt to move as she reached in the blackness for the water bottle which she emptied of the final dregs. She shook her head to clear it and held the empty water bottle, like a comfort blanket, to her chest.
It was then that the image came to her of someone laden down with large bottles of water such that they almost dropped them. She could see him again now so clearly. From there she thought further to the beginning of this mystery, to Emma and the rope from the boathouse. The boat house. Rowing teams. It hit her like a thunderbolt. She didn't know why it hadn't hit her before. Those water bottles had been for his captives!
When he finally opened up the door, she wanted to scream at him “I know who you are!” but she refrained because that might surely lead to hers and perhaps to Catherine's death. But it gave her an avenue to explore, perhaps if she could show empathy with him, she could talk their way out of this.
“Why are you doing this?” She asked trying to keep as much tension from her voice as she could, her eyes straining to make him out in the paltry light that was coming through the partly open door. She saw his arm raise just before the whip cracked down on her shoulder and back and she cried out from the pain which shot through her. She was sure he'd drawn blood.
“I'll ask the questions.” Hs voice was gruff, deeper, but there was no mistaking who he was now. Still, she held back from speaking his name. She persevered.
“This is about Catherine, isn't it? What happened?” She could feel the panic well and every muscle tensed with the need to force it back and to protect her against his violence.
Again the whip lashed, this time catching her face as it stung into her shoulder and chest.
“You loved her, didn't you? Maybe you still do but she doesn't love you, is that it?”
“I said be quiet!” This time, he grabbed her and his fingers bit so hard and so deep into her neck, she thought he might finish her there and then. He seemed to want to crush her. She knew how angry he was and became mute.
“You don't know the first thing about Catherine and myself. You have no idea what we shared. You– have– no- idea- about- love- or- loss- do- you?” His fist rained down on her with every word he said.
Blow after blow on her back, shoulders and finally her head, the crack of which sent her crashing back - her jaw limp. She couldn't talk now even if she wanted to, but thankfully his rage seemed to have abated somewhat, as he knelt down to her and grabbed the hair at the back of her head. He said slowly and deliberately, “don't try to psychoanalyse me, detective. I don't care for your games and, as I've already proved, I'm far smarter than that. You'll pay the consequences of meddling in my affairs.”
He got only a whimper in response. The DI knew there was very little hope now and the pain was beginning to drain her fight.
121
Brian and
Tasha were in the bedroom in Graham's house while he made hot drinks in the kitchen. They checked the draws and shelves for anything which might contain letters or memories.
They started with a bundle of letters in an old Quality Street tin in the bottom drawer of the dressing table. Many of the letters were from Catherine's parents and were yellowing with age. A few were from Graham when he had been away on business and others were from female friends, the most poignant of which were from Emma, written during vacation, in the year before she was murdered.
Tasha ran her fingers over the beautifully scripted writing,
Dear Catherine,
How is it with you in rural Devon? It's slow for me here in Nottingham. Has it only been 2 weeks since we broke up at College? I do so love my parents but I fear the gulf between us grows ever wider, they just do not seem to understand that time cannot, stand still and that I am not any longer their little girl to wrap in cotton wool. I swear that I have had the Spanish inquisition from them both about how we behave at College and if we have boyfriends and whether I am on the pill and such.
Oh Catherine, I do so miss you and our picnics and talks about literature and the arts. Have you managed to get onto one of the archaeological digs you were telling me about? I know how much you want to be involved. I swear I shall die of boredom by the time term starts again and I am desperately trying to find things to keep my mind alive.
Have you heard from Graham? He really loves you doesn't he. I do so wish that Gerald felt that way about me. Sometimes I think he does and then others... well I haven't heard from him since College broke up and I even made sure he had the correct address and telephone number. I wonder what he is doing now? I wonder what you are doing now Catherine? I am taking Buster for a walk soon and I shall sit in the meadow making daisy chains dreaming of Gerald.
Write soon my dearest Catherine,
From your ever loving friend,
Emma
XXXXX
How sweet, Tasha thought, and how innocent Emma seemed. Tasha's heart bled for the young woman who had not known, when writing this letter, that she would be dead by the time the year was out, but the letter had not really told her very much. She put it back and continued to rifle through. There were other letters from Emma along similar lines, but not with the information she wanted.
Brian had found more letters downstairs in the drawers of the bureau but these were business letters and though he did flick through these, he found nothing suggestive or flirtatious or anything which might suggest that Catherine was seeing any of her business acquaintances.
“Anything?”, he asked of Tasha when she rejoined him.
“Nothing,” she returned despondently. “I hoped that there would be something connecting Catherine to someone but in her personal letters the only person she is linked with is Graham.”
Graham came around from where he was rifling through the shelves looking for any other possible correspondence.
Tasha pursed her lips. “Graham, in Catherine's personal letters there were letters from Emma. I'm sure it bears no significance, but I'm just curious, she wrote to your wife throughout their second year summer vacation. How come there are no letters from their vacation following their first year at College?”
“Well, that would be because Emma stayed with Catherine all of that first summer at Catherine's parents. They were in a brand new friendship and were pretty much inseparable. Emma had never been anywhere so rural and charming as Devon and Catherine's parents ran a small holding which Emma loved. She would probably have stayed there in their second summer vacation to but Emma's parents persuaded her not too. They missed their daughter and wanted her with them and, as things turned out, I bet they were very glad she spent that summer with them.”
A brooding silence followed Graham's words as they mulled over what had just been said. So much tragedy. It served to focus them still further on the task in hand.
“Okay, let's not give this up just yet. Graham...do you have anything else? Postcards? Photograph albums? Anything which could provide us with insight as to who Catherine knew?”. Brian asked, running his hands through his already dishevelled hair.
Graham crossed the room to a different set of shelves, “these are our photo albums here,” he said, pointing out 6 or seven volumes which he started pulling down. “We can start with these.”
122
He'd gone. Yvonne's jaw throbbed and she knew, since she couldn't move it, that it must be broken. Already, her chin had swollen to twice its usual size and her shoulders and back ached from where he had beaten and whipped her. She had been amazed he had not finished her off there and then as she had expected him to.
What had stopped him she wondered, and then decided that it was almost certainly her silence. He became angry whenever his will was challenged or whenever things did not go the way he planned. Whilst she questioned him she enraged him. She probably owed her life to her broken jaw.
She was dizzy and even more thirsty now but did not know how she would be able to drink since she was so badly injured. She thought she could taste blood and her ankles felt raw from the shackles rubbing her. She didn't know exactly when she started crying, but felt the wetness on her cheeks and down her neck.
She thought of Tasha and Brian and the rest of the team who would be desperately trying to find out who her abductor was and she couldn't see how they were going to find out unless they delved deep enough into Catherine's past.
She lay on her back on the blanket, in more pain than she had ever known, and concentrated on her abductor's name whilst thinking of Tasha: as though in some way this would place him firmly into the psychologist's mind.
They had an album each. They had agreed that they would shout to each other immediately they found a photograph in which a male was paying particular attention to Catherine or she to him. Or even if she was photographed with a male other than Graham. They flicked the album pages in silence.
Tasha's album started with pictures of Catherine as a teenager, shy-looking, but with that upright and graceful stance that marked her out as different. There was nothing ungainly about her even then. There were pictures of her at her piano; accepting awards next to pianos and pictures of her with her proud parents.
Then the pictures changed and there were scenes from the parks in Oxford and outside the College. Photographs with Emma next to bicycles and a picture of a group of them on a punt with Graham in the process of falling off into the river and the look of a mixture of shock and mirth on the faces of the rest. Tasha scrutinised the picture and could make out Catherine, Emma, Graham, Gerald and a lad looking almost exactly like Graham whom she assumed to be Michael.
She continued looking through, there were pictures of the boat house, pictures of Graham and Gerald holding trophies for rowing and pictures of the two of them holding a silver cup over their heads just outside the boathouse. The boathouse. Tasha's hands trembled now as she continued to turn the pages. Thoughts of the boathouse and the rope and the connection to the murders.
As soon as she saw the picture she knew. She knew this was the one. It looked like it had been taken after the one of Gerald and Graham holding up the cup. The images were black and white, but the light and the background people and positions were the same. This time though, instead of Graham standing next to Gerald, it was Catherine and the two of them were gazing into each other's eyes. There was no mistaking that look. Those two were an item. Tasha's heart jumped over itself, “This is it!” She shouted breathless and then cleared her throat as the others joined her. “Graham, was your wife seeing Gerald in your first year at College?”
Graham stared at her open mouthed, and then remembered an answer was expected, “Yes...yes they were. Well, he was my best friend and he was seeing Catherine. They had been dating for months. I remember him telling me that it was a slow process with her...I hadn't meant to fall in love with her nor she with me and...well...I felt an awful heel you know, but we did. I thought he took it rather well. I
really thought he was fine about it. I expected him to deck me when I told him but he just turned on his heel and walked off. The next time I saw him, he behaved as though all I had told him was that I'd borrowed his socks and he wished me luck.”
“And Emma loved Gerald!” Tasha's eyes shone with the possibilities opening up. “How long was it before Emma's death, that you told him?”, she asked, breathless now.
“Those pictures were taken early summer the year before her death. I told Gerald that Catherine and I were in love just before Christmas that year. Oh my God, what did I do?” Graham sadly shook his head, as realisation dawned.
Brian placed a hand on his shoulder. “You couldn't have known what he would do Graham. No one could have.”
With that, Brian leapt up. I'll call Oxford and get an address for Gerald. We'll get someone over there.”
“Wait,” Tasha looked earnest. “Maybe we should go ourselves.”
“What do you mean?” Brian looked confused.
“Well, if we call for help on this one, they'll have armed boys from the Met' down there, cordoning off the place and shouting through loud hailers. I've got a hunch that this guy has got nothing left to lose and, if I'm right and he is surrounded, he will kill the DI and Catherine and then himself.”
“I see what you're saying...”
“Better that we go and find a way in. You'll have CS and cuffs and we can call for back up from there. At least then we will know if we need it or not. Of course, we could conceivably be wrong.”
Brian saw her logic, and agreed. He did call Oxford, but only to get an address and to say that they needed to question Gerald again.
They raced their car to London, faster than was strictly legal.
DI Giles BoxSet Page 25