They both knew that more lay behind her words than she would ever admit. She had learned as an adult that she had been adopted at birth, and her quest to find her birth mother had been a long and painful process.
‘Don’t hate me for saying it, Ian,’ she begged. ‘Being a parent gives your child a lifelong claim on you. I’m thinking of the baby as well as you. He has a right to know who his parents are. Every child needs to be offered the chance to know their parents, when it’s possible. And if this baby is yours, Bev is making that chance possible. You don’t have the right to take that chance away from your child.’
She thought of Daisy who would never know her father, and felt an overwhelming sadness.
‘You know I want to be with you,’ Ian interrupted her thoughts with a twisted smile, ‘but this changes everything. It’s all so complicated. I wish she’d never come back into my life! But you’re right, I need to find out the facts and then –’ He gave Geraldine a troubled look. ‘I don’t know where we go from here. I just don’t know.’
‘You have to find out the truth about the baby’s paternity before you can make any decisions about what to do. That way there’ll be no more surprises to deal with.’ Geraldine stood up. ‘I think you’d better go now.’
It sickened her to think that, for the three months she had been with Ian, he might unwittingly have had a child. Ian hesitated for a second then rose to his feet in one lithe movement and left without looking back. As she closed the door of the flat behind him, Geraldine burst into tears. Alone once more, she poured herself a second glass of wine and collapsed on the sofa, sobbing quietly. After just a few short months, her only chance of happiness had been snatched away and she had no resources left to comfort herself. She had assured Ian that everything would be all right, but that was a lie, at least where she was concerned. For the rest of her life, nothing would ever be all right again.
15
Turning on the ignition, David could hardly see anything through the film of slime on his windscreen as he drove round the bend in the drive, out of sight of the house. It was going to take a few minutes for the glass to clear, so while he waited he fished out his phone to check his emails. However furiously he worked his wipers, the mess continued to smear back and forth across the glass without seeming to clear. An automatic car wash was unlikely to remove all the traces of slime and fragments of shell left by the eggs that had been thrown, but he had no other choice until the next day as the hand valeting service at the garage would be closed by the time he reached the garage. The car wash machine was better than nothing, although he might be better off to wait until the morning when it could have a more thorough hand wash, but if he left the car as it was overnight, the viscous muck might dry and be more difficult to remove. He was still undecided what to do, and couldn’t help feeling the situation had become more challenging than it ought to be for an intelligent man accustomed to dealing with problems.
It was tempting to go home and forget about the mess on the car until the morning. He was feeling nauseous and a little giddy with every breath he took, which was understandable after the fright he had suffered. At the same time, he was impatient to get the muck cleaned off his windscreen. In addition, if he went to the car wash he could stop off at the police station on his way home to register his dissatisfaction with the treatment his complaint had received. He would do himself a favour if he lodged a complaint without delay. Fiddling with the windscreen wash, he changed his mind again, mainly because he had just felt another wave of nausea and his stomach hurt. Thinking he might actually be sick, he opened his window, hoping that a blast of fresh air would revive him. Looking out, he blinked furiously. His windscreen still had a film of sludge on it, making the street look hazy, but outside a fog had descended quickly and what he could see through the open window was equally blurry.
He kept his wipers going at full speed, but the fog in front of the car did not clear. By now he was more concerned about his drowsiness, which he was struggling to overcome. Delayed shock at the attack on his car had finally caught up with him. At the time he had been too incensed to fully register the danger he had survived. As he reached across to remove his seat belt, he felt his heart racing and he almost blacked out. Wiping away a trickle of saliva that was dripping down his chin, he noticed he was breathing very rapidly now, and realised he was experiencing a panic attack. Desperately fighting to control his hands, he fumbled to open the door. He needed to get out of the car and breathe in some fresh air before he choked to death, but somehow his limbs no longer moved freely.
By the time he managed to clamber out of the car he was breathing in shallow painful gasps. Reeling, he almost lost his balance when he pushed the car door closed. He nearly lost his footing again as he staggered up the drive. It was dark, and he swore as he made his way towards the house. Any movement on the path was supposed to trigger the security lights, but they did not come on. That was one more problem he would have to sort out. Unless he took matters into his own hands, nothing ever got done. His wife was a useless lazy cow who left everything to him. She had never been any different. If she even noticed the lights weren’t working it would never occur to her to have them fixed. She would just tell him about it, if she remembered, and wait for him to sort it out, as she did with everything else.
The house looked a long way off, and for an alarming instant he was confused about where he was and where he needed to go. At the same time, the ground seemed to rock gently with each dizzying step, as though he was on a boat at sea. Beside the front door, one of the downstairs windows was shimmering brightly in the darkness. Stumbling, he made a conscious effort to place one foot in front of the other, but he didn’t seem to be making any progress in his long walk to the house. Everything around him seemed to be spinning and he couldn’t control his limbs. With a jolt of fear, he understood that this was more than a panic attack. He was ill. He had been working too hard. As soon as he got inside, he was going straight to bed, and he would take a couple of days off to rest until he recovered. Not only that, he was going to insist Anne summoned the doctor. He was no good to anyone like this. The front door hovered ahead of him, tantalisingly out of reach.
He wasn’t sure what happened, but one minute he was staggering towards the house, fumbling in his pocket for his key, and the next he was staring at a patch of moss on the path. His nose stung where he had hit it on a paving stone, and one of his hands smarted from breaking his fall, jarring his elbow painfully. Pain stabbed his shoulder as he turned his head slightly and saw the moon quivering crazily above him. He was vaguely aware of an irregular whine which seemed to be coming from his chest. Every time he inhaled, a sharp pain in his throat and chest worsened. He suspected he was having a heart attack. Understanding that he had tripped and fallen, he was afraid to move in case he had seriously injured his head which was pounding horribly. He felt sick. He tried to shout, but heard only a faint whimper. Perhaps he had suffered a stroke. Terror threatened to overwhelm him as it occurred to him that, if he didn’t get medical assistance soon, he might die.
‘Help,’ he murmured, ‘I’m not well. I’ve fallen over. I can’t move. Someone, help! Anne! Someone! Help me, please! Help!’
But his voice was barely audible, and the words he uttered were no more than an incoherent mumble. He could not lie there waiting to pass out. Before he lost the power to move or speak at all, he had to summon help. He could hardly believe that he hadn’t thought to use his phone straight away. His hand shook as he felt for it in his pocket. It wasn’t there. Dismayed, he recalled taking it out of his pocket to check his emails while he was in the car. He must have left it lying on the passenger seat. He was alone and helpless, barely a foot away from his own front door, and no one was going to come to his aid. As though to complete his misery, it began to rain.
Painstakingly, he began to drag himself along the ground in what he thought must be the right direction, although he could no longer rem
ember where he was going. In the darkness, and the rain, he squirmed his way along the path. Faint light from a street lamp was suddenly blotted out and in the dim light of the moon he vaguely made out a figure standing above him.
‘Help,’ he whispered. ‘Help me.’
With a groan, he watched the other person lean over him, closer and closer, before vanishing into the darkness that was consuming everything. After that he felt nothing at all, only a coldness creeping over his limbs and body, dragging him down, down, into terrifying blackness.
‘No, no,’ he cried out, ‘I’m not ready to die,’ but his voice made no sound in the silence closing in around him.
16
Having wept helplessly for half an hour, Geraldine pulled herself together, showered, and made herself some dinner. By the time she finished eating, she was feeling calmer. On reflection, it seemed to her that the odds were stacked against Ian taking Bev back. For a start, the baby was probably not his. It was far more likely that the real father was Bev’s boyfriend in Kent, and that he had only been interested in a casual affair. Not ready for any serious commitment, he had most likely tired of being saddled with a crying baby, and either he had asked Bev to leave, or else she had stormed off in a rage. Whatever the reason for the break-up, she had gone running back to Ian, hoping to find refuge with him. Geraldine couldn’t blame Bev for seeking a secure home for herself and her baby, but she should never have lied to Ian over something as important as the identity of her baby’s father. That level of deceit was unforgivable.
Even if the baby did turn out to be Ian’s, his marriage to Bev must still be over. How could he live with her as his wife again, knowing he could never trust her? It was unthinkable that he would take her back, however beautiful she was. Plenty of fathers didn’t live with their children full-time. And if discovering he had fathered a child was no reason for him to resurrect his marriage, then it need not prevent him from resuming his relationship with Geraldine. So she resolved to be optimistic. If her hopes were ultimately disappointed, she told herself she would be no worse off than she had been before Ian moved in with her. But she knew that wasn’t true. Her disappointment was already sharper than a physical pain, and no doctor could prescribe a palliative for this suffering.
Lying in bed later that night, she was unable to sleep. Thinking about everything Ian had said, she was startled when her phone rang. Hardly daring to hope he was calling to say he was on his way back to her, she answered. Her disappointment was fierce when she heard a constable speaking to her from the police station.
‘To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether to call you,’ he said, ‘but the duty sergeant said you went to see David and Anne Armstrong earlier, so we both thought you’d be the best person to speak to her, even though it’s late.’
‘What’s this about?’ she asked. ‘You do know it’s past midnight?’
Despite her snappy response, Geraldine was pleased to be given something to take her mind off her own disappointment.
‘We had a call from Anne Armstrong,’ the constable explained. ‘We thought you might want to know, seeing as you’ve seen them and spoken to them about their missing granddaughter.’
‘What does she want at this hour?’ Geraldine asked, with a sudden hope that the baby had turned up.
‘She said her husband went out to the car wash five hours ago and never returned, and she’s worried something’s happened to him. She’s tried his phone repeatedly, but he’s not answering.’
‘The car wash?’ Geraldine repeated, not yet catching the drift of the call. ‘So this isn’t about the missing baby?’
‘No, it’s nothing to do with the baby. At least, I don’t think it is. She called to say her husband went out to the car wash and he never came home.’
‘Very well,’ Geraldine said. ‘Leave it with me for now.’
‘Yes, Sarge. Thank you.’
Geraldine should have been thanking the constable for offering her a distraction from her own thoughts. She was too distressed to sleep much that night anyway. First she phoned around the traffic police and the local hospitals, but she could find no trace of David having been involved in a car accident. It was gone two o’clock by the time she finished, but she had not heard that David had turned up, so she called Anne who confirmed that her husband had still not come home. Geraldine offered to go round to the house, and Anne agreed straight away.
‘I’m just so worried,’ Anne said. ‘After everything that’s happened, do you think he might have been attacked again? This time they may not have used eggs. What if he’s been stabbed? He only went out to the car wash. Why hasn’t he come home? Something must have happened to him.’
Urging Anne to remain calm, Geraldine set off, and before long she pulled up outside the Armstrongs’ house. There were two cars parked in the drive. A quick check confirmed that one belonged to Anne, the other to David. Whatever had happened to him, he had either driven home from the car wash, or else had not left home at all. Geraldine got out of her car and closed the door gently so as not to disturb the neighbours at half past two in the morning. Walking up the drive in the faint moonlight, she almost tripped over a body lying across the path.
She had found David.
Crouching down, she could discern no vital signs. Talking on her phone before she had fully straightened up, she reported the discovery and decided to wait for the assessment team before informing Anne that her husband was lying on her doorstep, dead.
‘Do you want to request the assessment team?’ the officer on duty asked when Geraldine spoke to him.
‘Yes, the likelihood is he died from natural causes, but he’d been receiving death threats so we need to take a closer look before moving the body.’
After the hate mail and the attack on his car, there was a strong chance the councillor had been murdered.
‘I can’t see much out here because there’s very little light from the street,’ she added. ‘All I’ve got is my torch. In any case, we need a medical examiner to check him over and that can’t wait till the morning.’
‘Very well, I’ll get things in motion.’
Geraldine squatted down beside the prone figure to wait for the homicide assessment team, and within ten minutes her colleagues arrived.
‘I’ll go in and talk to the widow,’ Geraldine said.
Anne opened the door as soon as Geraldine rang the bell.
‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been going out of my mind with worry.’
‘Let’s go inside where we can talk more comfortably,’ Geraldine replied quietly.
Geraldine had frequently spoken to those close to a murder victim while they were still ignorant of the devastating knowledge. Probably the most difficult part of Geraldine’s job was sharing such news. What made this death particularly macabre to report was that Anne’s husband was lying right outside her house. Hoping to guide Anne back into the house, Geraldine repeated her suggestion and took a step forwards. As she did so, the homicide assessment team vehicle reached them, and a medical officer arrived.
Anne looked startled. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded. ‘What are all those cars doing out there?’
‘Shall we go inside?’
‘No, no, I want to know who all those people are. What are they doing on the path? Please, tell them to leave.’
‘Not yet,’ Geraldine replied. ‘Those are police officers and they’re here doing their job. I have some difficult news for you. Shall we go in and sit down?’
‘No, no, what’s happened? Tell me what’s happened.’
Geraldine would have preferred to talk to Anne when they were both sitting down indoors rather than standing on the doorstep, but there was no help for it.
‘I’m afraid your husband’s dead,’ she said softly.
17
Anne let out a low moan and lowered her head, hiding her face in he
r hands. Suppressing a flicker of compassion for the bereaved woman, Geraldine was careful to keep her own feelings in check. Difficult though it was, she could not allow emotion to distract her from her observation of Anne’s response to the news that her husband was dead. She watched her closely, aware that anyone was a potential suspect in a murder investigation, and a spouse was always of particular interest. For a few minutes it was impossible to observe Anne’s reaction as she kept her face hidden in her hands. At last she looked up. Although her eyes looked slightly red, they were dry.
‘I’m so sorry. Are you all right?’ Geraldine asked, despising her fatuous question.
However many times she found herself in this position, it was always difficult to find something appropriate to say; there were no suitable words.
‘All right?’ Anne repeated angrily. ‘Of course I’m not all right. How can I be all right? You just told me my husband’s dead. Where – where is he? Where…’ She broke off, shuddering. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’m not myself. I can’t…’
‘Not at all. It’s perfectly understandable. Now, shall we go inside and sit down?’
‘I want to see him. Please, I want to see him. Where is he?’
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