by Susan Hill
‘Before that?’
‘What?’
‘Your car?’
‘I always had company cars.’
‘What were you driving when you were with Hummings?’
‘Vauxhall Cavalier.’
‘Colour?’
‘Listen –’
‘Black, wasn’t it?’
‘No, light blue. What –’
‘Was that the car you were driving the day you saw Harriet at the bus stop?’
‘It would have been –’
‘Where were you parked? How far away from the bus stop?’
‘I was on the other side.’
Simon looked at him steadily.
And then Stephen Foster crumpled. His head went forward and he put his hands over his face. But after only a moment, he jumped up and came to stand in front of Simon. His eyes were wild, his face even more deeply flushed.
‘All right, I was there, I was parked there, I saw her, I admit that, and I phoned because the second I found out about the girl going missing I knew I had to. I had to. Anybody would have to. But I was on the opposite side of the road the whole time, I didn’t speak to her, I didn’t go near here, I just saw …’
‘Yes. So you’d better sit down, and then tell me first of all exactly what you did see and then why you wouldn’t give your details on the phone – either originally, or the other day when you called again. You did call again on the new hotline, we know that.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes. And you’d better tell me what you were doing in Parkside Drive that afternoon, why you lied about it, why you said you were in your office, and why you also said you hadn’t watched the television programme when I know that you did. You did watch it, didn’t you?’
Foster’s voice was hoarse. ‘Yes.’
‘OK. You tell me everything, every last detail, and it had better be the truth and I had better believe you, because if I don’t, if you lie any more, if you give me any bullshit, we’ll be talking again in an interview room and I’ll be asking you why you killed Harriet Lowther.’
Thirty-six
‘SAM, HAVE YOU finished your homework?’
Sam slid Right Ho, Jeeves expertly under his maths textbook before calling out, ‘Nearly.’
‘How long?’
‘Er … ten minutes.’
His mother appeared in the doorway of his room.
‘Hmm.’
‘Why?’
‘Supper in half an hour but I’ve got to make a couple of calls, and one of them might take a while, so Molly’s doing yours, OK?’
‘Whatever.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t say that.’
‘Whatever.’
She came and glanced at his maths book. ‘Is that all tonight?’
‘Yup.’
‘So is there a chance you could read to Felix?’
‘No, there is no chance. I have some French and then a poem.’
‘French what?’
‘Verbs.’
‘Which verbs?’
‘Haven’t looked yet.’
‘What poem?’
‘Ditto.’
‘Sam …’
‘Sorry, need to pee really quickly.’
He shot off his chair, and out, knocking the maths textbook to the floor, revealing Right Ho, Jeeves as he did so.
‘SAM …’
Cat sat down in his chair. The desk lamp threw a bright circle onto her son’s maths exercise book. She stared at the figures, remembering. She had been good at maths, and at physics, bad at chemistry, best at biology. But she had resented the need to concentrate on sciences to the exclusion of everything else. Now, they could get into medical school on a broader range of subjects – Molly had done English A level, with biology and maths, her boyfriend Rob had done history. It was better, it gave doctors a broader base, it stopped them from becoming narrow scientists with a narrow scientific outlook. She had continued to read throughout her Cambridge and medical school years because she loved literature and could not imagine life without it, and because she believed it deepened her understanding of the people she dealt with in her surgery. But it had been a struggle sometimes, and there had always been time constraints, always the weeks on call as a junior doctor when she didn’t open a book. During those periods, she had missed reading novels as if they were cool water and she had a permanent, raging thirst.
She picked up Right Ho, Jeeves. Sam had inherited his love of P.G. Wodehouse from her father, who was quietly delighted by the way he had grasped the point of him immediately. It was a passion that had skipped a generation. Neither she nor Simon, who both read omnivorously, could bear PGW. Their triplet brother Ivo never read books at all.
She was not going to complain to Sam about the Wodehouse. Nagging about homework was counterproductive, and in any case, Sam was bright and worked pretty hard, it was not a problem. But he had others. A note had come from school saying that he was barred from the school sports teams for one weekend’s matches because of ‘unruly behaviour’. More detailed explanation was not forthcoming and she did not feel able to ask. No, untrue – she felt perfectly able, just unwilling. She didn’t want to confront what Sam had done, or said, didn’t feel she could deal with any of it. It was weak and cowardly to opt for ignorance and she blamed herself. But there were times, and they were becoming more frequent, when she felt inadequate as the single parent of an early-teenage son. And it would get worse before it got better, she knew that. Sam was headstrong, he could land in all sorts of trouble, he needed a loving but firm hand and he lacked a father. Simon was full of good intentions but rarely had much time to give his nephew, her father was not the right person to deal with any problems – he had not coped with his own sons well.
‘Oh.’
Sam was standing in the doorway.
‘I thought you had phoning and work stuff.’
He came and stood at her shoulder. ‘You OK?’
‘Tired, that’s all,’ Cat said.
‘You haven’t got a headache, have you?’
He would not get any closer in asking for reassurance. His father had had appalling headaches. His father had died of a brain tumour.
‘Absolutely not. But Sambo, listen … people do get headaches for quite ordinary reasons, you know. They’re very common.’
He did not reply.
‘I see patients with headaches every week. Ordinary headaches that go away by themselves and don’t have a serious cause, OK?’
‘Yup.’
‘How much longer do you think you’ll be? Honest answer.’
‘Is Molly in yet?’
‘Sam …’
‘Twenty minutes?’
‘Fine. If Molly isn’t back by then could you read to Felix once he’s in bed?’
Sam sighed. ‘Look, OK, but not Mr Strong or Mr Messy … actually, not Mr Anything. They’re so boring.’
‘Yes, but he’s too young to know that.’
‘I don’t mind reading Peace at Last or The Gruffalo.’
‘It’s his bedtime, it really ought to be his choice.’
‘Yeah, it can be, only just not a Mr Men.’
‘Hi …’
Sam leapt up, hearing Molly come in and dump her bag and cycle helmet on the kitchen floor.
‘Hi, Moll, you don’t mind reading the Mr Men to Felix, do you? Only I’ve got this absolute load of homework.’
‘Better get on with it then, hadn’t you?’
‘Do you want testing on the nervous system later?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Tropical diseases?’
‘Nope.’
‘Eruptions of the skin?’
‘Sambo, will you get back in there? This is your last warning.’
‘Molly …’
But she was on her way to her room, waving a hand as she did so. Sam made a face.
A couple of hours later, the kitchen was quiet, all three children in bed, Felix asleep. Hannah had persuaded Molly to let her paint her fi
ngernails with the clear varnish Molly used. ‘Granny Judith has scarlet – she’s even got one that’s dark purple and one that’s black.’
‘Cool.’
‘She doesn’t let me have that. She is quite cool, isn’t she?’
Molly had put Hannah’s hair in a dozen small plaits, which would make it wavy when she woke up and took them out, and for an hour afterwards, before the tendency to absolute straightness reasserted itself. But an hour of waves, in Hannah’s book, was worth the tedium of the plaiting.
Supper was eaten, the dishwasher was full. Mephisto and Wookie were curled on the sofa in relative harmony.
‘You revising?’
Molly’s finals were a month away.
‘I guess. Tired of it.’
‘I remember. But you’re with me tomorrow and Wednesday which has to be more interesting than “What are the contraindications for the insertion of a catheter?”’
‘Are there any?’
Cat laughed. ‘You want a coffee?’
‘Let me get it.’
‘Sit still. Are there any others in your lot interested in spending a day shadowing me?’
‘Not sure. Jamie might be. He was getting aereated about the withholding of treatment last I heard. But he gets bees in his bonnet. He was on about the twenty-four-week rule before that.’
‘I wonder why.’
‘Well, twenty-four weeks is viable, isn’t it, there are plenty of –’
‘Yes, but I meant palliative care. Just wondering why not many are interested. We need new blood. Hospice care is going to get more important still with an ageing population.’
‘I think it’s to do with – well, we go into this wanting to save lives, make people better … which means, terminal patients don’t figure, I guess.’
‘You make their lives comfortable, and pain-free, you help them to the best quality of life you can obtain for them and then you help them to a death without pain or distress, with dignity and care and attention and … with love. You make the end of a life as good as you possibly can and you help their relatives to an acceptance and an accommodation with that death too. That in itself is a healing process to which you are devoting your time and contributing all your skill. It’s ultimately the most satisfying, rewarding medicine I’ve ever been involved in, Molly.’ She put the two mugs of coffee on the table. ‘Here endeth the sermon.’
‘No. I like you to say stuff. I need to hear that.’
‘Well, if nothing else you’ll begin to understand what a crying need there is for Imogen House and what a scandal it is that we’re living from hand to mouth and under threat of closure every day of the week. Which reminds me, you ought to meet Leo Fison too. You should come with me to his care home.’
‘Would I be able to shadow him?’
‘Don’t see why he shouldn’t have a student for a day or two. Dementia care is another branch of medicine that’s bound to grow during your career – ageing population again, and it’s a thriving research area too.’
‘Another thing none of the others seems to want to do.’
‘What do they find sexy, then?’
‘A & E. Intensive care. Paeds. Cardiac.’
‘Plus ça change. Obs and gynae was pretty highly rated when I was training.’
‘Yeeuch, no.’
‘Now, the thing is, are we watching the rerun of Foyle’s War? I’m not fit for much else.’
But car headlights swept across the kitchen blind, and a moment later, Wookie was hurling himself at Simon in a frenzy of noisy affection.
Molly picked up her pile of textbooks and went out.
‘You don’t have to go, Moll. You live here, Si doesn’t count.’
But she was already halfway up the stairs.
‘We’ve eaten,’ Cat said.
‘Didn’t come for that. Can I have a coffee?’
‘Since when did you need to ask?’
Cat sat on the sofa and stroked Wookie’s ears, at the same time as she watched her brother. There was something but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. He was preoccupied, but that was usual when he was in the middle of a big case. He had a look about him. Distant. Distracted. Something.
Something.
‘Any leads on the two girls?’
‘Lots of calls. Nothing useful. Well – having said that, there was one to the line today … someone was sure she remembered a girl coming into the village post office she used to keep. Said she came in about twice a week, sometimes more, did bits of grocery shopping, posted stuff. Talked about the war once or twice.’
‘The war?’
‘Former Yugoslavia – Serbia … that one. And that fits her profile – she could have come from that region, according to the experts.’
‘Have you been to the village?’
‘Not yet. Post office closed not long afterwards, and this caller moved to Derbyshire but she obviously keeps her eye on the Lafferton news, she had the newspaper, all the stuff about the girl, and about Harriet – she’d seen the television programme.’
‘Going up to Derbyshire?’
‘Not yet.’ He sat down at the table and looked down into his coffee.
Something.
A look.
The shadow from the lamp fell across his face. Simon had always looked rather younger than her and Ivo, but now Cat suddenly saw that middle age was about to settle on his features, though she could not quite identify how. Perhaps it was just an expression. Temporary. Something.
‘Not many girls would have come here from that part of the world surely. Not in 1995.’
‘You’d be surprised. There were a heck of a lot of au pairs from Yugoslavia.’
‘Is that what she was?’
‘Could have been.’
‘Bit of a long shot.’
‘So is everything.’
‘Nothing on Harriet?’
‘Possibly. Possibly on Harriet.’
‘What, someone in your sights?’
‘Possibly.’
She knew when not to press him.
‘About Sam,’ she said instead. ‘I know you’re up against it but you did say you’d find a weekend to take him climbing.’
Simon sighed.
‘Listen, it doesn’t matter right now, there are the summer holidays, but you don’t even play so much cricket these days and he misses being around you.’
‘I know, I know. I tell you what, if I absolutely guarantee it, can it wait till July or August? I’ll have so much leave owing me. I’ll take him up to the island. I said I would and never did. Then we can walk and climb and he can go out in the boats.’
‘You mean it? Because …’
‘Well, other things being equal.’
‘Ah, that. Other things.’
‘How do I know now if this case is going to be done and dusted by then, or trailing on or blowing up in my face? Be reasonable.’
‘Be reasonable? Me, be reasonable? Si, he’s your nephew, you’re his father figure now, he’s always adored you, you’re his role model, you —’
‘Listen, stop dumping all this on me, would you?’
‘What?’
‘I’m his uncle, OK, I do my best, OK, but it’s hardly my fault his father’s dead.’
His words fell heavily between them. The dishwasher clicked off and there was a dreadful silence. After a moment it was broken by Mephisto’s faint snoring.
Simon knew what he should have done, knew perfectly well. A swift step across to his sister, arms round her in a long, tight hug. He would not have needed to say anything, neither to explain – there was no explanation or excuse – nor even to apologise. She would have taken his embrace as all of those things.
Why did he not do it? Why did he simply stand where he was, coffee mug in hand, staring at the floor to avoid looking at Cat, who was hunched up, head down, motionless and silent?
It was Molly who broke the terrible spell, running downstairs and into the kitchen, but then hesitating, as she sensed the tension.
‘Sorry …’
Cat waved her hand. ‘It’s fine, Moll, Simon was going.’
Simon didn’t move. Molly picked up a book from the chair and fled. Silence again.
In the end, Cat got up and went past her brother without looking at him. Put her mug in the sink. Emptied the cafetière. Rinsed it. Set it on the draining board.
‘I had supper with Judith.’
‘Oh –’
‘I knew Dad would revert to type sooner or later and sure enough.’
‘Revert to type?’ She sat down at the table with a glass of water in front of her. Did not drink it.
‘You know.’
‘Do I?’
‘To his old self. He upset her. Did she tell you? She was here that day – she must have been talking to you.’
‘She was. But I don’t expect her to disclose the intimate details of their marriage.’
‘Don’t be pompous.’
What happened next was shocking. Cat got up, came round the table to where he was standing, and slapped him hard across the face, making his skin sting. Then again. As she did so, she drew in her breath and seemed to be about to say something, but did not.
He put up his hand to his cheek. ‘I suppose I deserved that,’ he said.
‘And more.’
He went to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. Cat had not moved.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever hit anyone before,’ she said quietly.
‘Yes you have, you punched me when we were seven. Your hamster escaped and I laughed.’
It should have lightened the mood but it did not.
‘Dad …’
‘Yes,’ Cat said. ‘You know what? I never thought you had anything much of Dad in you, but you have. It was buried, but it’s surfacing. Is it the job? Is that it? You see and hear such appalling things every day that it’s hardening you, it’s making you as cruel as some of the people you have to deal with? You used to keep it all separate. The policeman wasn’t the man. But maybe that’s no longer true. You’d never have said what you said to me just now a few years ago.’
‘No. Listen –’
‘Why? Why should I?’
‘I was only going to ask what you thought about all this stuff with Dad and Judith.’
‘What about it?’
‘I just wonder what his motive was.’
‘Now there’s a word.’