Swimming in the Shadows

by Diane Janes

  By pure chance a police car was travelling down the lane about twenty minutes after Marie finished work at the shop, and the officers noticed her abandoned bicycle with its flat tyre propped against the hedge, but of Marie there was no sign.

  The girl was reported missing and a huge search was mounted. My father was among the volunteers. Marie’s body was found dumped four or five miles out of town.

  For seemingly months, pictures of Marie were on show outside police stations and in post office windows. A mobile incident room was set up. A policewoman came into school to warn us children about taking lifts from strangers. Rumours ran around the playground about strange men following people home, sometimes in blue cars, sometimes in red; but gradually the excitement died down. Every so often something would happen to recall the story into the local news, but eventually the little grey caravan which had been the hub of the investigation closed down.

  Interest in the fate of Marie Glover revived a couple of years later when another Nicholsfield girl went missing. She hailed from the council estate near the gas works and the general consensus was that she had run off to London, but with no positive sightings of her, alive or dead, rumours of a connection between the two persisted.

  I was thirteen when Sally Walsh vanished. Sally was only three or four years older than me, and she too had been a pupil at that same primary school. I remember remarking on this to my father one evening while we were sitting at the dinner table, but he had not appeared at all interested, not even pausing in the act of forking a piece of fishcake into his mouth.

  ‘She was, wasn’t she?’ I persisted until, having swallowed his fishcake and followed it with a sip of tea, he eventually said in a disinterested, non-committal way: ‘It’s entirely possible. Hundreds of children have passed through the school, Jennifer. I cannot possibly recall every name.’

  ‘Get on with your tea, Jennifer,’ my mother said. ‘Before it goes cold.’

  My mother would never come right out and remonstrate with me for introducing such an alarming subject as murder to the tea table, but she would certainly have done her best to divert the discussion elsewhere at the first possible opportunity, working on her usual premise that unpleasantness, if ignored, would go away.

  Unlike my mother, I couldn’t banish things from my mind so easily. I spent a good deal of time after that pondering uncomfortable possibilities. If anyone were going to accept a lift from a trusted person already known to them, wouldn’t their old headmaster present an ideal candidate?

  Marie Glover had been abducted at around a quarter to five in the afternoon – a time when a lot of men were still at work. Unemployment was less common then and my father’s working day finished long before most men’s did. He had a motor car, when so many people were still restricted to buses and trains. He had a blameless character and would never be suspected. He had known two of the missing girls. More crucially, they had known him and would hardly have refused his offer of a lift.

  I didn’t know what to do. Ought I go to the police? Perhaps find some way to tip them off anonymously? For several weeks, I was in a state of feverish inner turmoil. I had no special friend in whom to confide my suspicions. No one with whom I could talk things through.

  In the event nothing more was heard of Sally Walsh either. She slid out of the local papers and into Martin Bullock’s legions of missing persons.

  Three months after Alan and I got married, another young woman was murdered. She was not actually from Nicholsfield, but from Banbury, which was a good forty miles away. It had been almost ten years since the Marie Glover murder and there was probably no connection. Just the same, I felt a familiar prickle of unease when I realized, on piecing things together, that my father had not been at home on the evening when the girl died.

  My father was not at all the sort of person to attract anyone’s suspicions. The traditional perception of a man who stalks and kills little girls or young women is not a married man with a respectable career and a nice house in the suburbs. In plays and films such men are inevitably slightly sinister characters who usually live somewhere seedy. Everyone from playwrights to ‘criminal profilers’ underscored the theory that the type of men who raped and murdered young women were misfits and loners – those were the kind of men at whom the finger of suspicion inevitably pointed. Yet I wondered … how about successful killers, the ones who never got caught? Perhaps like the weather forecast, these perceptions were generally right, but sometimes dangerously and spectacularly wrong. Suppose the killer was actually a pillar of the community, quietly watching from the sidelines while everyone else dashed about in search of dangerous loners?

  ‘Loner’ was not an expression people would readily have applied to my father. He would certainly not have used the word himself, in all likelihood dismissing it as modern slang. Yet in many ways my father had been a loner. It was true that the church had been packed to capacity at his funeral. There were ex-colleagues, numerous acquaintances from the circle of people with whom, for the sake of his wife’s social pretensions, he occasionally joined for dinner dances, cheese and wine or charity luncheons. His wife’s family and an assortment of neighbours from Orchard Lane had turned out in force, but not one person attended whom my father would have named as a close personal friend.

  There was, of course, nothing sinister or suspicious in this. Many men must live lives devoid of real friendships. It is possible that other people imagined us a close family, hidden away by the hedges and conifer trees, sufficient unto ourselves. They had no way of knowing that behind the evergreens each of us lived in their own separate invisible boxes, never quite reaching out to touch one another.

  Some children manage to get close to their parents by sharing in their enthusiasms, but in this I faced a particular difficulty, because the fact was that my father had no interests. His dismissal of popular music in favour of the classics never led him to attend concerts or purchase recordings. It was perhaps not so much that he liked this music himself, but rather that he felt it was the kind of music a headmaster ought to promote. Similarly, though he counselled me against reading what he chose to dismiss as ‘trash’, his gold-embossed copies of Dickens, Austen and Hardy lay untouched on the shelves, save for the attentions of my mother’s feather duster. He pruned and weeded and marched solemnly to and fro behind the lawnmower, but his interest in the garden extended only to the achievement of tidiness and symmetry. Not for him the heady joys of cultivation: so far as I could discern, the fragrances and colours of the seasons left him unmoved.

  Neatness and order were the watchwords of my father’s life. The daily ritual of shoe cleaning, the weekly polishing of the car. Perhaps the influence of his time in the army was strong. Certainly this careful turnout of himself and everything associated with him (even the brushes and jar of hair cream on his chest of drawers stood symmetrical and to attention, awaiting an inspection which never came) engaged a great deal of his time.

  There were also the periods spent in his study. I would sit on the semi-circular steps leading into the garden, engrossed in Noel Streatfield or Arthur Ransome while my father remained behind the closed French doors, engaged in I knew not what, seemingly oblivious to the sunshine. Coupled with his being neither a drinker nor a smoker, my father’s lack of hobbies made him a very difficult person when it came to buying presents, so I was relieved when one Christmas he expressed the desire for a paperweight to adorn his desk. One of the antique shops near The Market Square had a display of paperweights in the window and I went inside to have a closer look. The man in the shop was informative and charming, playfully insisting that he would only let me buy the paperweight of my choice if I accepted an invitation to join him for dinner.

  I was thrilled and flattered. An invitation to dinner from a man I judged to be at least seven or eight years older than me symbolized the equivalent of an entrée to the jet-set. Thus it was that I encountered Alan and was, from the very first moment, completely in awe of him. By the time I met him he was
not only conducting a thriving business through his shop but also taking commissions to furnish rooms, or even whole houses, seeking out ornamental lamps and fire irons for people too rich, busy or lazy to source these things for themselves.

  He already had a house of his own: a detached Victorian villa which he took me to see at an early stage in our relationship. A virgin still, I’d half hoped this excursion would be the front for an opportunity to hop me on to his brass bedstead, but he had restricted himself to no more than an arm around my shoulders, his purpose genuinely that I might admire his Victorian watercolours and a fire screen, hand-embroidered with pansies.

  That someone with acknowledged expertise in any field could find something to admire in a person so ordinary and dull as myself seemed well-nigh incredible. Alan had a car and paid for things by credit card, which represented the height of sophistication in the mid-nineteen seventies. He treated me with deferential care and in the beginning I was flattered by it. It is impossible to say precisely when I began to feel suffocated by it. Initially I saw only the charms and none of the constraints. All this went down incredibly well with my parents. In particular with my mother, who said Alan was ‘such a gentleman’ and predicted that ‘he will take good care of Jennifer’ as though it was tacitly understood that I could never be expected to take care of myself. When my boyfriend of a few months produced an engagement ring (genuine Victorian setting, of course) both my parents appeared to be delighted.

  It seemed to me then that I must love Alan. He was clever and interesting and successful. I am ashamed to say that I was absurdly proud to be the prospective mistress of the period home he had lovingly created. I didn’t realize that he was constructing another invisible box for me. It was kindly done. Whereas my father’s unfulfilled academic expectations had weighed heavily upon me, Alan’s loving care held fewer obvious challenges. He never minded that I couldn’t grasp the principals of dating chairs, nor remember the simplest of hallmarks. ‘That’s my department,’ he would say. ‘You be yourself.’

  Except, of course, that wasn’t what he meant at all. He wanted me to be the self that he thought I was. He wanted the rather vulnerable, dependant girl, the gauche, not quite grown-up Jenny – naïve and innocent. At work I obtained practice manager’s certification and swept my efficient broom into every corner of the medical centre, but at home I could never be trusted to make a major decision for myself. Alan’s love was stifling. His concern and watchfulness made me nervous. I became like a fly, trapped in the spider’s silken threads, but while I thrashed, silent and helpless, Alan always remained calm, always knew what was best. Some couples have an enormous age difference and it matters not a jot, but our eight years was a gulf – an ever-widening chasm. Alan’s maturity versus my regression into childhood.

  Escape seemed the only answer and running away the only means of escape, but this constituted an admission which at first I could barely make to myself. It meant that I did not love Alan after all. Had it all been an innocent mistake, or did it mean that for me it had always been a sham? Accustomed to accepting blame, I concluded that it must have been the latter. It was unforgivable and I knew that I would have to carry the guilt forever.

  FIFTEEN

  On the night of Julie Peacock’s funeral I lay awake, watching the passage of clouds across the moon through the slit where the curtains did not meet, trying to stave off my instinctive, restless movements so as not to disturb Rob, whose steady breathing sounded beside me as regular as the ticking of Aunt Millicent’s metronome.

  The entire village had turned out to pay their respects to the dead girl and her family, many packing into the church and others lining the main street and either side of the Green as the coffin went by. I had joined the rest of the staff in standing out on the pavement at the front of the health centre, our normal work briefly suspended. In the afternoon the event had inevitably been the subject of discussion in the common room. The Tragedy Queen (who had naturally taken time off to attend the service itself) thoroughly approved of the sermon and hymn selection, while noting regretfully that things were not what they used to be, when every curtain along the route would have been drawn, all shops and businesses closed and shuttered for the duration.

  The Trollop disagreed, dismissing the closing of curtains as old fashioned and mawkish. ‘People have different ways of showing solidarity nowadays. You should have seen the number who turned out last night to help with the food for the funeral buffet in the church hall. Me and our Ellen must have cut five loaves of ham sandwiches – they’ll all go, mind. That Dentwhistle lot can down a plate of sausage rolls before you can blink.’

  The Tragedy Queen looked a bit ruffled at this, perhaps sensing some implied criticism in her own lack of participation in the catering, but the Trollop had already segued into slightly different subject matter, saying, ‘Pat Metcalf was buttering next to me – you know, Doctor Milly is lodging with her – and she said she reckons his girlfriend has thrown him over. She only found out by accident ’cause she asked him, casual like, when she was serving his breakfast the other day, if the girl was coming up again soon, as she hadn’t seen anything of her since that first time, and Doctor Milly said something like, “Oh, you won’t be seeing anything of her again, I’m afraid”, and Pat said he looked right down in the mouth about it.’

  ‘Your life’s not your own when you lodge at Pat Metcalf’s,’ reproved Helen, the receptionist. ‘She told me that the police had been back to question him about the murder again – honestly! As if a nice young doctor would be mixed up in something like that.’

  I found myself wondering how much they talked about Rob and myself when I was not around. Over the last few days Rob had repeatedly speculated that other people apart from the police might suspect him, and though I tried to reassure him, I sensed that there was something more behind his words, something he could not bring himself to articulate: that perhaps it was not the doubts and suspicions of our neighbours he feared, but someone much closer. I was acutely aware of my failure to support and reassure him as I should have done. Yet when I tried to find words which underlined the bond between us, I was constantly brought up short by my own duplicity. Every profession of confidence sounded hollow to me, because I knew that underneath my assurances of mutual trust there lay a rippling pool of deceit.

  These uncomfortable thoughts always came into their own on sleepless nights, lying awake with a door at the back of my mind ajar and dark thoughts slipping one by one into the open, like wisps of smoke stealing out of a burning building, precursors of worse to come. At three in the morning it wasn’t difficult to believe that I was to blame for everything. Close contact with me seemed to bring people nothing but unhappiness.

  To make matters worse, it seemed lately that every line of conversation led inexorably to a sign marked red for danger. Subjects which began innocently could unexpectedly lead into a minefield. The forthcoming school concert was a case in point, causing Rob to ask me, apropos of nothing in particular: ‘You didn’t ever play in your school orchestra, did you?’

  He was sprawled comfortably in the armchair nearest the window, his long legs almost reaching the fireplace, stretching and flexing his arms, almost as if to emphasise the casual nature of the query, but I felt myself stiffen – I was afraid I knew what direction we were about to go in.

  ‘Not me. I’m not a bit musical.’

  ‘You had piano lessons from your auntie.’

  I tried not to be fazed. ‘Only when I was little. I don’t think I really wanted to learn. I’d probably never have gone if the piano teacher hadn’t been a friend of my mum’s.’ Hoping to divert him, I asked, ‘Did you ever play anything?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t interested.’ He grinned. ‘I wanted to be a scientist, so I used to get those junior chemistry sets for Christmas. Little test tubes and crystals that turned purple when you warmed them up.’

  ‘So what went wrong, Professor Beaker?’

  ‘Oh, it was totally different at school
. No purple crystals at all. Loads of theorems and equations and stuff. I might have been better off learning the piano, but then, my mum never had a friend who was a music teacher.’

  I just smiled at him.

  ‘Sue,’ he said suddenly. ‘You do trust me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ I was across the room in a moment, kneeling in front of him, holding him tightly. ‘I love you,’ I said, the words muffled by being spoken into his chest. ‘You have no idea how much I love you.’

  We held each other close, but the moment was tempered by a nagging sense that something trembled in the air above us. A question unasked and unanswered.

  Now, as I lay beside him in the early hours, I replayed the conversation over and over in my head until it became stale and sour: his questioning of my trust and my inability to convince him of it. Was it just my imagination, or was there a Grand Canyon of doubt opening up between us? Well, it was me who must bear the responsibility for that. I was the one holding something back, the one teetering on the high wire, one false step away from falling into Niagara.

  Disappeared! had made me paranoid. Lately I had developed a theory that while local people probably accepted me at face value because they thought they ‘knew’ I was Susan and therefore could not be Jennifer, strangers represented a different kind of danger, because to them I did not have a firmly defined identity and therefore could be anyone at all. I had all but shielded my face when a man came to read the gas meter. And when no immediate danger presented itself, I managed to conjure one up, imagining a situation in which one of my aunt Felicity’s grown-up children, last heard of living in Yorkshire, decided to bring their teenage children out for a walk in the Dales. Suppose they came through the village and recognized me? I might once have reassured myself that that our previous encounters had been so infrequent as to render mutual recognition most unlikely, but with my anxiety levels at high alert, my long-lost Yorkshire cousins were just one more item on a growing list of dangerous possibilities.