She heard that. Steve. Dear old Steve.
‘He went home for a few hours. Have you got his phone number?’
She managed to open her eyes for a second, but the light was too bright and the effort was too much.
After picking up the buoy Leo climbed back into the Curlew’s cockpit and ducked down into the cabin. Carefully he drew the curtains across the portholes, then he lit the lamp, satisfied the light was unlikely to be seen unless someone was right down on the river bank. Sitting down, he let out a deep sigh.
Zoë was an amazing, gutsy woman and he had been astonished to find that he was deeply and genuinely besotted with her. The question was, did she feel the same about him? He rubbed his hands across his cheeks, feeling the ridges and irregularities of his scars. What did she see in him? He was a flawed man in so many senses, and now accused, on top of all the rest, of being a paedophile. He had no doubt she would do as she said and go and try to rebury the sword, but after that, would she come back? What had he to offer a woman like Zoë?
He bent and rummaged in one of his bags, pulling out a sketchbook. He opened it at his sketch of her and studied it, running his hand wistfully across her face, lingering over her eyes, her wildly blowing hair, the half-smile on her lips, then he glanced at the tide tables piled up on the end of the bunk. Should he wait for her at Max’s as he had promised or would it be better for them both if he quietly slipped away and disappeared from her life for ever, leaving Max to clear his name.
Putting out the lamp he went up on deck and stared round. The tide was almost high. It was time to leave. Once he reached Max’s he would decide.
Quietly and methodically he began to ready Curlew for a voyage, raising the sail again, tidying the decks, tying the dinghy to the stern and at last casting off from the buoy. In total silence the boat moved slowly out into the middle of the river, drifting on the tide as Leo hauled in the mainsail and pushed the tiller over. He gave a wry smile as the curved brown sail hung above him in the dark. Ghostly was the only word he could think of to describe it.
Once he had drifted into the fairway there was wind. He sat at the tiller as the yacht drew steadily away, moving slowly but inexorably down, past the sleeping countryside, houses in darkness, fields deserted, the woods asleep as the moon sailed in and out of sight behind the clouds. The mist hung over the water in pale drifting threads; somewhere he heard a fish jump and at last the quiet bubble of the water beneath the forefoot as Curlew gained in speed.
A bird called from the saltings along the river’s edge, eerily close in the darkness, and he heard a quick swirl in the water as another fish broke the surface. He could smell the mud as the tide began to fall.
He sailed on past Waldringfield sailing club, past The Maybush Inn with the blue umbrellas tightly furled against the damp night air, on past fields and woods, holding course with a single finger on the tiller. There were more wisps of mist round him now, rising off the water.
He would be there before long, and then he would make his decision.
The sword safely buried, Zoë wriggled backwards on her stomach for several metres then at last she climbed to her feet. There was no sound from the tent. The lights had been extinguished and with it the radio. She could hear nothing but silence and, as she reached the muddy field once more, the squelch and suck of her shoes as she stumbled across the furrows towards the hedge. If she had left footprints behind it was too bad. Nothing had been taken from the site so hopefully no one would look.
It seemed to take hours to make her way back towards The Old Barn but she reached it at last. She knew Ken wouldn’t be there but even so she pushed open the door as quietly as she could. The house was in darkness and after kicking off her shoes she stood in the kitchen for several seconds listening intently. Nothing.
Still without turning on the lights she tiptoed across the great room in her socks and made for the stairs. She didn’t turn on the lights until she had drawn the curtains of the bedroom tightly across the windows. Only then did she feel she could breathe again. Glancing at the bedside clock she saw it was just after three in the morning. Pulling off her muddy clothes at last she went and stood under the shower for several minutes and then it was all she could do to reach the bed before she collapsed into a deep exhausted sleep.
She was woken just after five by a frantic knocking on the door. Her heart in her mouth, she dragged on her dressing gown and ran downstairs, her brain befuddled with lack of sleep, expecting to see a policeman standing on the step, but it was Steve.
‘Thank God you are here. Please, Zoë. My car won’t start. The battery is dead. The hospital rang. She’s waking up.’
With one glance at his shaking hands and his agitated face she knew she had to offer to drive him, tired as she was. Sitting him down in the kitchen with a cup of coffee she ran upstairs to dress. It took only minutes to find some fresh clothes and grab her car keys and ring Leo’s mobile. It was switched off. She left a message then she ran back down the stairs and ushered Steve out into the cold of the early morning. She was, she realised, running on pure adrenaline.
She accompanied Steve up to the ward and stood behind him as he looked down at Rosemary, lying unmoving on the hospital bed. She was still hooked up to the monitors. A nurse appeared. ‘Mr Formby? Did they ring you? Rosemary showed some signs of waking up a couple of hours or so ago. She opened her eyes and moved a little.’
‘Is that good?’ Steve had stepped forward to take his wife’s hand.
‘It’s hopeful.’ The woman smiled. ‘It happened at just after two a.m.’
It was just after two a.m. that Zoë had laid the sword back in the ground.
‘I missed it.’ Steve sounded completely defeated. ‘I came as soon as you phoned.’
‘She’ll do it again.’ The nurse moved a chair forward for him. ‘I’ll bring you both some tea.’
‘Both?’ Steve looked confused. He had forgotten Zoë was there.
‘Is this another of your daughters?’ The nurse looked at Zoë and smiled.
Steve looked even more puzzled for a moment, then he shook his head. ‘We only have the one,’ he said sadly. Sarah hadn’t come back.
As the nurse disappeared he gave Zoë a wan smile. ‘You are lucky you don’t have children,’ he said slowly. ‘They can cause so much heartbreak.’
Zoë leaned across and gave his arm a little squeeze. ‘I am so sorry.’ She glanced helplessly round the ward and shook her head. ‘I’ll leave you to it, Steve,’ she said. ‘I have to go back, I’m sorry.’ She bent over and touched Rosemary gently on the arm, then she kissed him lightly on the cheek and tiptoed towards the door. She didn’t think Steve had even noticed that she was leaving.
22
‘He never touched her, Jeff.’ Sharon confronted her husband, hands on hips. ‘The doctor said she is still a virgin and she admitted to the woman she made it all up. She was jealous of Zoë, the stupid little madam.’
Jeff shook his head and sighed. ‘Why did we ever have kids, Sharon?’
‘Gawd knows.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Upstairs. She can’t go back to school till she’s out of quarantine for the bloody chicken pox. And she’s not out of quarantine until the spots have healed, and she keeps on scratching them.’
‘So what’s going to happen about Leo?’
Sharon shook her head. ‘They said someone else had made a complaint besides Jade, and I said, yes, it was my son and he would take back every word. I asked him, Jeff, and he admitted it. He said Jade blackmailed him. What is the matter with them? I am not having Leo hounded because of my frigging kids.’
Jeff gave a small wry grin, swiftly hidden behind his hand. ‘Good for you. What are we going to do with them, Shal?’
There was a long silence. ‘I won’t be able to bear it if Jacko goes to prison,’ she whispered at last. She sniffed and turned away. ‘Are you going to take those dogs for a walk or what?’
Jeff nodded. ‘Rosemary is hol
ding her own,’ he said gently. ‘I rang the hospital. Normally they won’t tell you unless you’re a relative, so I said I was her brother.’
Sharon smiled. ‘Please God she gets better. If he’s charged with murder –’
‘That policeman, Andy, said it would be manslaughter. He would go to prison, love. You have to accept it. He might anyway, for what he’s done. The fact that she was trespassing doesn’t make any difference.’
They stood for a moment in silence, looking at each other in despair, then at last Jeff turned away to look for the dogs’ leads. ‘We do have to sell the barn, don’t we?’ he said sadly as he picked them up off the sideboard and whistled.
Sharon nodded. ‘We could never go back there, Jeff. We couldn’t look them in the eye again, not any of them. Not after this.’
As the two dogs came running in from the garden he turned away from her so she couldn’t see his face. ‘You’re right, I suppose,’ he said. He couldn’t believe it but suddenly he felt like crying.
Zoë parked outside the barn. The whole place was deserted now, each house empty, a feeling of loss permeating the air. She glanced across at The Old Forge and then forced herself to walk casually across the grass towards the gate. There was no sign of anyone having been there. The house was locked up. No one as far as she could see had forced their way in. If the police had called on Leo they had gone away again without leaving any sign.
Standing there outside his front door she was overwhelmed with melancholy. Winter was on its way. She shivered, thinking of the ghosts and the cold grey sea heaving and breathing out beyond the river mouth like an animal, licking its lips, waiting for its next victim. Whatever happened Leo was not going to get her out there, over the bar. Her exotic shopping would be done no further away than Woodbridge.
She let herself into The Old Barn and ran up the stairs to the bedroom, glancing at her watch. She was going to drive to Max’s house; that had been the agreement and she would meet Leo there. He had told her Max’s address and how to find it, and jokingly she had said she wouldn’t write it down in case she was searched by the police. Now she wished she had. It had sounded simple when she had repeated it back to him; now that seemed so long ago.
Leo hadn’t returned her call and when she tried his number again his mobile was still switched off. She could feel panic building again. She could only pray he had got there safely and stashed the Curlew somewhere she couldn’t be seen.
She still wasn’t sure how long they would be away. Perhaps she ought to pack a proper bag now while she had the chance. There was so little room on the boat, but then again she could always leave it in the car if Leo looked at it askance. She pulled a holdall out of the cupboard on the landing and taking if into the bedroom she put it on the bed and turned to her chest of drawers. Nothing fancy, just trousers and sweaters for the cold nights on the river. She paused, thinking about the exotic clothes they were going to buy. Did he really see her in gypsy skirts and floaty scarves? If so, how was she going to manage on the boat? Her mind rejected the thought of setting out to sea, out of sight of land, across the ocean. That was not going to happen.
Pulling open one of the top drawers in search of warm socks, she stopped short. There was her passport. She picked it up and stared at it. If she took it she was implicitly accepting that they might find their way abroad. Unable to face the decision, she threw the passport on the bed. Something to think about at the last moment.
She was about to push the drawer shut when a box of tampons caught her eye. She froze, staring at them. She hadn’t given the subject a thought when she was packing her stuff, but now in the silence of the empty house she found she was doing some unaccustomed calculations in her head.
She sat down on the edge of the bed at last and put her hand experimentally on her stomach. Steve’s mournful statement about her lack of children must have hit a chord in some subconscious part of her brain. She wasn’t on the pill; she and Leo had taken no precautions. It hadn’t occurred to her, she was so used to the fact that Ken had had the snip. Was it possible?
She felt a flutter of excitement and then almost as quickly a moment of pure panic. Here, in this room, Ken had shown her that weird figure he had found under the bed. What had he called it? A grotesque fertility doll? Jade’s curse. No. She shook her head violently. She stood up and looked round. What had Ken done with it? She had asked him to throw it in the river. Had he?
She swallowed hard and took a deep breath. If she was pregnant it was not because Jade had left that thing in here. It was because she had been careless. Or had she been deliberately tempting fate? And it was Leo’s. It had to be. She and Ken had not had sex for weeks, if not months, and even if they had he was not capable of being a father. If he was, in spite of the op, they would have known about it years ago.
She glanced at her watch. There was plenty of time to drive into Woodbridge before she set off for Max’s. Should she go and buy a pregnancy testing kit? Her brain was whirling. Perhaps it was better to pretend she hadn’t thought about it, assume it was a false alarm and carry on as before with her plans to drive out to join Leo. What would he think about a pirate baby? Her shoulders slumped. She doubted if it was part of his master plan to embark on fatherhood again at this stage in his life. Hadn’t she mentioned it once in joking? Something about a wild child? He had not risen to the bait.
For a long time she sat there, deep in thought, then at last she stood up. Better if neither of them knew for sure at this point in the proceedings. She could be wrong. She probably was wrong. After all, stress can cause the same symptoms as early pregnancy, she had heard that time and again from worried friends. She was going to take Leo’s advice, throw caution to the winds and wait to see what fate would hurl in their direction. She picked up the box of tampons again and looked at it, then with a shrug she threw it into the bottom of her bag just in case. On top of it she threw the passport.
She headed for the bedroom door, then she paused. She was still wearing her wedding ring. She pulled it off and stared at it for a long moment, then she opened the drawer again, tucked the ring into her little jewel box and closed the drawer with a bang.
It was late afternoon when she turned the car into the front gate of Leo’s friend Max’s cottage. It was a small thatched building at the end of a long single-tracked lane, nestling amongst willow trees very near the river. Below it there was a narrow creek and at the end of it a secluded boathouse which was where, she assumed, Leo had hidden the Curlew.
She got out of her car and looked round. The building was run down, the walls, originally a pale Suffolk pink, here and there stained green with lumps of plaster missing. She rang the doorbell experimentally. There was no reply.
There was a small garage beside the house. She went over to it and dragged the door open a foot or two. It was empty.
Making her way down the ill-defined track from the front garden she scanned the river bank for the familiar mast. There was no sign. The whole place seemed to be deserted. She found the boathouse squatting amongst tall reeds and osiers and pulled open the side door. She stood staring down at the black water lapping against the pilings where surely the Curlew should be moored, and she felt her eyes fill with tears.
Leo wasn’t there. He hadn’t waited for her. Perhaps he thought she had lost her nerve; thought she had changed her mind. When he found Max wasn’t there, had he decided to go as he had originally planned on the top of the tide and was already out to sea? Her trip to the hospital and then her decision to go back to The Old Barn had cost her several hours, hours during which he must have waited, wondering if she was going to come back and at last he must have given up. But she had phoned. She had left a message. She had explained.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it. No signal. Perhaps he had never got her call. She slumped down miserably on the damp mossy boards and sat there, eyes closed, hugging her knees.
It was dark when she was woken some time later by the sound of the doors
behind her opening. ‘Leo?’ Her heart leaped with hope and then plummeted again in a panic when she saw the silhouette of a stranger standing there. He had a torch in his hand and shone it into the boathouse, picking her up at once as she sat on the damp floor, too frightened to move.
‘Zoë? Is that you?’ He stepped inside. ‘Sorry, did I give you a fright? I am Max, Leo’s friend.’
Slowly she scrambled to her feet, trying to muster her thoughts. She could see him more clearly now in the reflected torchlight. He was tall and thin with grey hair, dressed in jeans and a Guernsey sweater. ‘Come up to the cottage. You look frozen, my dear,’ he went on. He held out his hand. ‘Let’s go and switch everything on, light a fire and have something to eat. Leo is no doubt in the pub at this moment and the first thing you can do is ring him from my phone indoors.’
Numbly she followed him up the path, through the front door and into a small low-ceilinged room. The house was cold and smelled of old wood fires and damp. ‘I have only just got back,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I flew back from Capetown last night.’ He went straight to the fireplace and within minutes had collected firelighters and kindling and logs from the basket beside it. ‘It won’t take long to warm this place up.’
He turned and smiled at her. He was much older than she had at first thought, perhaps in his seventies and he had a kind smile. ‘Leo rang me. Just as well. I arrived back to find a strange car outside my front door. I wondered if I had squatters!’ He smiled again. His face was deeply lined and weather-beaten. ‘When he arrived here he found there was no signal to phone anyone and I was clearly still away so he took Curlew on down the river. He tried to leave you a message but your phone was off. He left you a note, didn’t you find it? He knew once you got here your phone wouldn’t work either.’ He paused, looking at her with concern. ‘He has explained the situation, Zoë, and between us we have worked out a plan to deal with this wretched accusation if they persist with it, so, my dear, you needn’t look so unhappy.’
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