‘What was her reaction to what Susan had done?’
‘It hadn’t even crossed her mind that her former neighbour and the woman involved in the Dowry Square murders were one and the same. She was incredulous. That in itself is evidence that the woman we arrested was quite different from the one she used to be.’
‘I can vouch for that,’ Beth agreed wholeheartedly. ‘I still can’t equate the timid, gentle girl I knew with a gun-toting wino.’
‘The neighbour didn’t want to believe me. She said Susan was the old-fashioned kind, she baked her own bread, made jam and cakes and sat knitting and sewing in the evenings. It seems she moved there early on in her pregnancy, but no one really got to know her until after the baby was born.’
‘How much does she know about Susan’s past?’
‘Nothing,’ Roy said. ‘But then this woman was only too keen to tell me Susan was the kind who was more interested in others than talking about herself. She made cakes for the old age pensioners, she got their shopping. That sounds to me like someone who has spent their life taking care of others.’
Beth nodded agreement. ‘So what happened when Annabel died?’
‘It seemed everyone in that street shared her grief. Annabel was by all accounts a little star who used to wave to people through the window, she had played with many of the other small children. The neighbours immediately offered help and consolation, they all went to Annabel’s funeral, but Susan withdrew into herself. She stayed indoors with the curtains closed. But as the neighbour said, that was quite understandable, and they thought if they gave her time she’d come out of it. Then about six months later they found she’d moved out. No one saw her leave, she didn’t say goodbye to anyone. The first they knew of it was when a van arrived to collect her furniture.’
Beth had already discovered from the landlord at Belle Vue that Susan had only lived there for two years.
‘So where do you think she was for the eighteen-month period before she went to Belle Vue?’ she asked Roy.
‘That we don’t know. She was claiming benefits when Annabel was alive, but cancelled them when she moved out of Ambra Vale in Clifton Wood. Maybe she was living with a man who was taking care of her, it could have been Annabel’s father. There isn’t even any record of her seeing any doctor in Bristol, and that’s unusual after losing a child.’
‘I don’t suppose she had any faith in them any longer, not after the way Doctor Wetherall treated her,’ Beth mused. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about what she went through mentally, to end up hanging around that surgery, plotting to kill the people she blamed for her loss.’
‘There isn’t a lot of help about for anyone when a child dies,’ Roy said tersely. ‘Your friends don’t know how to behave towards you. I don’t think counselling does much good either. It’s something you have to come to terms with all by yourself.’
Beth thought that perhaps she was stirring up painful memories for Roy, and felt she’d better try to steer the conversation in another direction.
‘What would you do about Susan if you were me?’ she asked.
‘Give her case to someone you trust, then just write to her and offer your friendship,’ he said simply.
Beth thought about that for a moment. Steven Smythe was every bit as able a solicitor as her, and he’d probably be quite happy to let her continue to go and see Susan once in a while. That could work out quite well.
Over a third drink, they began talking about property prices. Beth had noticed they’d begun to rise quite steeply again since she’d bought her flat. Roy said he was very glad he’d bought his cottage during the recession a few years earlier, because it would be well out of his price range now.
‘You live in a cottage?’ Beth said with some surprise. She’d imagined him living in a modern place.
‘It’s a far cry from the idyllic roses-round-the-door kind of cottage,’ he said ruefully. ‘I bought it very cheap in an auction because it was practically falling down. At the time I thought a big project was just what I needed. I’m not so sure now.’
Beth guessed he meant to take his mind off his son dying and his marriage breaking up.
‘More work than you imagined?’ she asked.
‘Not half. Almost every job is dependent on something else. Like I couldn’t just get the roof mended, some of the beams had to be replaced first. I got that done, then I thought I’d make a start on new window-frames, but the floor-boards were rotten and some of them caved in, that’s when I found the small lake down in the foundations. The water pipes were leaking.’
‘How old is it?’ she asked, mentally picturing him up to his neck in muddy foundations.
‘About a hundred and fifty years old,’ he said. ‘Built as a farm labourer’s cottage, two up, two down, but no one had lived in it for some fifteen years. It was almost hidden with brambles and bushes. I must have been mad to buy it.’
‘I bet it’s got something good about it,’ she said, amused by his sardonic attitude.
‘The view is great,’ he agreed. ‘Fields all round, when I’m out clearing the ground on a warm sunny day, I think it’s heaven. But when I get home on a cold wet evening, and I can’t get the fire going, I’d gladly give up and get myself a flat in the city.’
‘I’d love to see it,’ she said impulsively and instantly wished she hadn’t been so forward.
‘Then we’ll pick a nice day,’ he said, his dark eyes twinkling. ‘And when I’ve had a few days off so I can tidy up a bit.’
They talked for a while about their ideas of an ideal home. Beth said she’d like a Georgian house with spacious rooms, large windows and a garden laid out to lawn and trees. ‘With a housekeeper and a gardener, so I don’t have to look after it myself,’ she added laughingly.
Roy said his ideal was what he’d already got, only with everything finished. ‘The kitchen all fitted out with a dishwasher and washing machine,’ he said dreamily. ‘No more bags of plaster, lengths of cable and pipes. A gleaming bathroom. Furniture and nice curtains.’
‘What kind of home did you live in as a child?’ she asked.
Roy grimaced. ‘A council house in Southmead.’
Beth was surprised that he came from the same big, rough housing estate north of Bristol as many of her clients. She had thought by the way he spoke and acted that he came from a middle-class background.
‘Joining the police was a way out,’ he said, as if guessing what she was thinking. ‘Some of my mates joined the Forces, a few emigrated to Australia, the ones who stayed mostly got into trouble. That’s how it is there, you get out, or get sucked right in.’
‘Are your parents still living there?’ she asked.
‘Dad died some years ago. Mum’s got a little flat in Keynsham now, near my sisters. They are both married, with three children between them. I’m not far from them either, the cottage is in Queen Charlton. Do you know it?’
‘Oh yes,’ Beth exclaimed, remembering the tiny hamlet south of Bristol she’d come across once when she took a wrong turning on her way back from Bath. It was right in the country, but only about five miles from Bristol. ‘It’s so pretty. You were lucky to find anything affordable there.’
‘That’s what persuaded me,’ Roy said. ‘But what about your folks? Where are they?’
‘Sussex, but my mother’s dead now, my father’s in a nursing home. My brother and sister are still in that area.’
‘So what made you come to Bristol then?’ He frowned as if he thought that was odd.
‘To get away from them,’ she said lightly.
‘You surprise me.’ He turned in his seat and looked right at her, making her blush. ‘You’ve got the kind of confidence which usually comes from strong family ties.’
‘I haven’t lived at home since I was eighteen,’ she said. ‘The confidence comes from looking after myself.’
‘Is that why you want the Georgian house with a housekeeper and gardener, rather than a partner?’
Beth bristled. ‘Do
n’t start psychoanalysing me, for God’s sake.’
‘I wasn’t, I’m just interested,’ he said. ‘My father was a miserable old sod. He gave all of us a hell of a life. That gives me some understanding of families, and what they can do to one another.’
Beth never told anyone what her father was like, she hid it away as she did most things she felt bad about. But for once she was tempted to spill it all out.
‘I don’t like my father either,’ was all she could bring herself to say. ‘He’s an overbearing snob. I suppose it’s because of him that I never wanted marriage.’
‘My father had the reverse effect.’ Roy grinned. ‘I think I was determined to prove I had it in me to be the perfect husband. I was only twenty-one when I met Meg, and I couldn’t wait to marry her.’
‘And were you happy?’
Roy appeared to be considering that for a few moments. ‘Happy in as much that we had a better life together than with our families,’ he said eventually. ‘Looking back, we had very little in common. I had my work, she kept house, but that was the way it was for most couples in those days. We’d been married for nine years when Mark was born, by then we’d just about given up hope of children. He became the pivot of our marriage, and so when he died it just collapsed.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Do you still see Meg?’
He shook his head. ‘She got married again. I hope she’s happier now.’
‘And you? Are you happier?’ she asked. Even as she asked that question, Beth wondered at the departure from her usual chilliness. In her work she had to question people all the time, but she never normally felt curious about anyone in her private life. Roy was intriguing her, though, for he was an attractive mix of toughness and sensitivity. She guessed he was in the habit of hiding the latter – with his background and job he would consider it a liability. She didn’t think he was in the habit of dropping his guard, any more than she was.
‘Mostly.’ He grinned boyishly. ‘Marriage wasn’t much fun, it was just a dreary kind of plod most of the time. I’ve had far more excitement since I was single. I find I like being on my own. Though I can’t say I’ll relish it when I’m old.’
‘Nor me.’ She grinned. ‘But I’m blowed if I’ll commit myself to someone just for the dubious pleasure of having company in the distant future.’
‘Do you ever feel lonely now?’ he asked curiously.
Beth thought about that for a moment. Loneliness was something she had always denied, after all she wasn’t like some people she knew who couldn’t bear to be alone for one night without phoning someone to break it up. But then she had trained herself to make sure she wasn’t stuck with time hanging on her hands and nothing to do.
‘Only on the occasional wet weekend,’ she said. ‘I suppose I keep myself too busy to succumb to it.’
‘So I have to invite you out on a wet weekend then?’ he said with a wide grin.
Beth felt herself recoil, just as she always did when someone tried to move in on her. She liked Roy, his intelligence, his sense of humour and his integrity, but she didn’t want him getting any romantic ideas about her.
He must have sensed what she was thinking for when she didn’t reply he laughed. ‘I feel an amazingly dry spell coming on,’ he said. ‘It’s okay, Beth, I was only thinking of going to the pictures, or a meal together, not forcing you to be my sex slave or getting you to do my washing.’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ she said, laughing as she tried to hide her confusion at having her mind read. ‘Now, I’m starving, so how about going and getting something to eat? I’m paying.’
Later that evening, once she was in bed, Beth pondered on why she couldn’t be like other single women and feel optimistic about every eligible man she met. Roy was extremely eligible, nice-looking, tall, amusing – he had a good job, and she had enjoyed his company. He’d even been too gentlemanly to let her pay for the pizza. Why did she always have to be so wary?
But she knew the answer to that only too well.
She was frightened of intimacy. It wasn’t that she didn’t ever fancy anyone enough. There had been dozens of times when she’d got all the right signals, felt an electric current flowing between her and the man, even an overpowering desire to make love. But once she was in bed with him she kind of froze up.
Up until a few years ago, every time she met a new man, she really believed that this time it was going to be different. When it failed, she blamed the man for not being a good enough lover. He was too rough, coarse, quick, he wasn’t clean enough, or too clean. She was too drunk, or not drunk enough. She’d used any excuse rather than face the truth, which was that the fault had to lie within her. She couldn’t admit any of this to the man, so she put on an act, pretended everything was wonderful, and hoped against hope that the next time it would be.
She couldn’t bring herself to do that any more. It was better to remain celibate than go through the misery of pretence and the bitterness which came with it.
Self-help books, she’d read them all. They taught her what was to blame of course, but then she’d known that all along. Putting the blame in the right quarter didn’t solve the problem, however.
Beth loved her brother and sister, but every time she saw them together with their partners and children, she felt wounded. She could sense the joy they got from sex, it kind of oozed out of them. With each one of her sister’s and her sister-in-law’s pregnancies she’d felt a mixture of envy and disgust. She squirmed with embarrassment when they breast-fed their babies, it was all too animal-like for her to take.
So she had kept her distance. Her visits were short and infrequent, and she avoided occasions like Christmas which she’d found to be emotional mine-fields. Expensive presents took the place of the involvement she would have liked to have had with her nieces and nephews. She had deprived herself of their love and affection.
A tear trickled down her cheek as she lay there, unable to sleep. She knew others saw her as a woman who had everything, an absorbing career, plenty of money, beautiful clothes and a nice home. They couldn’t be blamed for assuming she had never wanted a husband and children.
And she would never admit to anyone that she would gladly give up everything she had for a man who could make her feel like a real woman.
Chapter six
Susan carried her food tray across the canteen, keeping her eyes down to avoid looking directly at any of the other prisoners. She had been here for only nine days, but it seemed more like nine months. Seeing two vacant seats at the end table, she made straight for it, but suddenly she tripped on something, and the tray fell from her hands as she tried to stop herself falling head-first on to the floor.
A roar of laughter burst out as the tray clattered to the floor, the dinner of cottage pie, cabbage and rhubarb tart and custard flung out in all directions. It looked like vomit against the green tiles.
Susan realized immediately that she had been tripped up purposely, and frightened by such malice, her first thought was to run and hide. But running wasn’t an option, for Miss Haynes, one of the prison officers, was already advancing on her, grim-faced.
‘Pick it up, Fellows,’ she yelled, as if Susan was deaf as well as clumsy.
Susan knew by the sniggers around her that it would be folly to make any sort of complaint, and as she knelt down to try to scoop the mess back on to the tray she fought back the desire to cry. She wouldn’t put it past Haynes to make her eat it. She had already discovered that humanity didn’t exist in prison, not from the other prisoners or the officers.
‘Scrape it into the slop bucket and get a pail of water to clear it up,’ Haynes yelled again. She looked round at the women grinning at the nearest table. ‘I suppose you think that was funny?’ she said. ‘Little things please little minds!’
Susan rushed to do as she was told, embarrassed by the way everyone was looking at her.
A blowsy woman in a pink sweatshirt was standing by the slop bucket, scrapin
g the remains of her own food into it. ‘Don’t let it get to you, love,’ she said. ‘They do it to everyone new. They like to see how you’ll react.’
‘It’s a bit childish,’ Susan said with a sigh.
‘We’re all like kids when we’re in here,’ the woman said, and handed the bucket and cloth to her. ‘Some cry all the time, some fight, but the best way to cope with it is to laugh.’
As Susan hurried back to clean the floor, she wondered what anyone could find to laugh at in here. She wished now she’d turned the gun on herself after she’d shot the doctor.
In her naivety she had imagined prison to be something like going into a religious retreat. No comforts of course, but a chance to be alone most of the time, and in utter silence. But the noise in here was deafening and relentless. It never let up, not even at night: women shouting, swearing, crying, even screaming, trying to pass messages on to one another, others banging on the doors. She was in a cell with another woman called Julie who prattled on about nothing all the time and even the sound of her voice grated on Susan’s nerves.
It was so hot and airless, she would lie there at night in the dark feeling as if she couldn’t breathe. The cell was so small, just the bunks and a toilet and wash-basin, nowhere even to sit properly for there wasn’t enough headroom on the bottom bunk. She hated having to wash and dress in front of Julie, and having to use the toilet made her squirm with embarrassment – she would hang on for hours in the hopes of getting a minute alone. But Julie didn’t suffer from the same problem, she even laughed about it when she made terrible smells and noises.
Then there was the brutality.
On her second day Susan had seen one woman punched in the face by another prisoner while they were exercising outside. Since then she’d witnessed countless cat-fights and overheard all kinds of hideous threats to prisoners who weren’t liked for some reason. But worse still than the open aggression was the semi-concealed kind. She would see women whispering to one another in association time, and could sense by their scowls and gestures that they were plotting something against someone. She lived in fear that it might be her.
Till We Meet Again Page 8