Still Waters cr-9

by John Harvey

  Twenty-three

  Narrow, 1960s modern, the blip of gray-bricked houses presented their backs to the tightly curved sweep of road and the fenced circle of grass on which a rough-coated pony improbably grazed. Trees hung green across broad pavements in need of some repair, and in the gardens of neighboring, older properties, shrubs sat fat and prosperous on swathes of lawn. Sunday morning, less than fifteen minutes brisk walk from the center of the city, still too early for the milkman or the paper boy or the first church bell. The background hum of traffic vied with the sweet, intermittent racket of birds.

  The interior of the Peterson house was less parsimonious than its exterior suggested, the rooms surprisingly broad and light, a central stairway opening onto glass. Save for a grandfather clock, clumsy and tall in the space opposite the front door, the furnishings were quite contemporary, blacks and whites and grays in wood and chrome. The walls were cream, a roughish matte finish at one with those places where the exposed brick had been allowed to show through. Paintings hung sparingly, vivid abstracts whose colors seemed to move.

  Kitchen and dining room led off the entrance hall on the raised ground floor, spare room, laundry room, and bathroom below; the living room spanned the second floor, opening onto a wide balcony, the main bedroom and en-suite bathroom above.

  Alex Peterson unfastened the sliding glass doors that led onto the balcony and stepped outside. For a moment, his body shivered deeply and he reached forward to steady himself, and Resnick, watching from the comfort of a brown leather chair, saw it as a pose and wondered why he felt the need to impress.

  Normally a matter that would have been looked into by a junior officer, at this stage at least, Resnick had come out to the house in response to Hannah’s mounting distress about her friend, and from a sneaking interest of his own. There had still been no call from Jane, no explanation; the routine inquiries to hospitals and the like had come up blank.

  Peterson was wearing mid-blue trousers and a beige V-neck sweater, deck shoes, sockless, on his feet. His hair was suitably awry and he hadn’t shaved. Blue eyes, pale, pale blue, showed their concern.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing you could have forgotten?” Resnick said. “Someone she was going to visit? A friend where she might have stayed?”

  “And never phoned?”

  “Isn’t it possible she forgot? Simply didn’t think?”

  “Inspector-Charlie-you’ve got to understand. Jane and I, we make a point of staying in touch.” He sat on the settee, angled away from the side wall. “We’re very close.”

  “The day school,” Resnick said, “you didn’t go?”

  Peterson allowed himself a smile. “It’s no secret-we talked about it that night at dinner-I don’t think time spent on that kind of thing’s particularly worthwhile. Dress it up whichever way you like, they weren’t exactly going to be discussing Othello or Madame Bovary. But, no, it was Jane’s day. She’d worked hard to see it succeed. I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “You think that’s how she would have seen it, if you’d gone along, an intrusion?”

  Peterson touched fingertips to the nape of his neck, below the neat line of hair. “Sometimes, and quite wrongly, Jane felt as if her work wasn’t really important. She’d seen me build up a successful practice, become, I think it’s fair to say, something of an authority, whereas she …” He leaned forward, earnest in his stare. “No matter how much I encouraged her to think otherwise, Jane always undervalued what she did.”

  “Does,” Resnick said quietly. “What she does.”

  “Of course. And yesterday, I wanted her to have all the glory. Prove to herself what she could achieve on her own.” With a swing of his legs, Peterson was back on his feet. “More coffee?”

  Resnick shook his head. “This list of friends,” he said, “family. People Jane might have been in contact with. If you could check through it once more, there might be someone who didn’t occur to you first time round.” He looked at his watch. “I dare say you’ll be making some more calls yourself. The next hour or so, you’ll hear something, I’m sure.”

  At the door, Peterson shook Resnick’s hand. “Thanks for coming. Handling things yourself. I appreciate that, I really do.”

  Jane’s parents, Tim and Eileen Harker, lived in Wetherby, her father the head teacher of a local primary school, her mother an ex-midwife who baked cakes for the Women’s Institute and Mothers’ Union, took her turn staffing the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, and wrote impassioned letters at the behest of Amnesty International. There was an elder brother, James, who worked as a systems analyst and lived with his wife and three children in Portsmouth, and two sisters. One older, Margaret, married to a sheep farmer in the Dales; the youngest, Diane, unmarried, lived with her two young children in Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast.

  By noon, Resnick had spoken to all save Diane, whose number rang and rang unanswered. They were perturbed, confused, unable to supply a satisfactory explanation. The most recent to have spoken to Jane was her mother, who had talked to her on Thursday evening and done her best to allay her daughter’s fears about the event she was organizing.

  “She was distressed, then?” Resnick said.

  “Worried about what might happen, yes. Oh, you know, the usual things-what if one of the speakers didn’t arrive, or the film broke down, or … well, you would have to know Jane to understand she could work herself into a lather about any little thing. Usually, without good reason.”

  “And you think it was this day school that was upsetting her, rather than anything else?”

  “Why, yes.”

  “She didn’t seem concerned about anything more personal, Mrs. Harker?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing between herself and Alex? No big rows, disagreements, something she might have confided to you as her mother?”

  Eileen Harker’s voice stiffened. “Had my daughter felt the need to confide in me, Inspector, I doubt that I would betray that confidence unless I thought it truly necessary. But let me assure you, nothing of the kind passed between us.”

  Resnick held the next question for a moment longer on his tongue. “Your relationship with your daughter, Mrs. Harker, would you characterize it as close?”

  “I am her mother, Inspector.”

  “And her marriage, you’d say, for the most part it was happy?”

  “It is a marriage, Inspector, like many another.”

  Resnick understood that for the present that was all the answer he was going to get.

  Sections of the Independent on Sunday and the Observer lay, barely ruffled, in various rooms. Dar Williams’ soft, slightly mocking voice drifted out along the hallway.

  “Have you get any news?” Hannah called, the moment Resnick set foot in the hail.

  “No, nothing.”

  “Shit!”

  When Resnick moved to kiss her, she turned her face away.

  “What about Alex, Charlie? What’s he got to say about all this?”

  “He’s no idea where she is.”

  Hannah laughed, abrupt and loud.

  “You think he’s lying?”

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  “For God’s sake, Charlie, it’s your job to be sure.”

  “Hannah, come on, let’s sit down. Have a drink …”

  “I don’t want a bloody drink!”

  “Then let’s sit anyway.”

  “Christ, Charlie!” She glared at him angrily. “Why are you always so fucking reasonable?”

  The recreation ground was a flat, open space bordered by three roads and a railway line. The far end from Hannah’s house was given over to a crown bowling green and a children’s playground, a thick hedge separating them from an expanse of trimmed grass circled by well-set shrubs and trees and the path around which Resnick and Hannah slowly walked.

  Raucous across Sunday morning, a group of six- to nine-year-olds, white and Asian, vied to see who
could reach highest on the swings.

  Parents sat on benches, read newspapers, rocked prams. “You haven’t said anything to Alex about what he did to her?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “I’m not sure how far it’s relevant.”

  “God, Charlie! A woman disappears, out of the blue, no apparent reason, no warning, you know her husband’s been beating her up and you don’t think it’s relevant.”

  “Look.” Resnick stopped walking. “Most people who disappear do so of their own volition. A situation, no longer bearable, they’re running from; another, more desirable, they’re running to. In very few cases is foul play actually involved.”

  “Except in this case,” Hannah said, “we know very well that it was. Alex was beating her up.”

  “Once.”

  “No.”

  “That’s all we-you-have proof of, once. And only your word for that.”

  “You think I’m making it up.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why won’t you act upon it?”

  Resnick resumed walking and, almost reluctantly, she fell in step beside him. “I still reckon, the most likely thing, she’s gone off somewhere. Maybe just to clear the air. You said, that thing at Broadway, she was excited at the way it went. Buoyed up.”

  “And that made her run away?”

  “Maybe it convinced her that she could.”

  Hannah shook her head.

  “When we get back,” Resnick said, “you could make a list of people she worked with at school, talked to; anyone other than yourself she might have confided in. You never know, sometimes it’s just a chance remark …”

  “Yes,” she said a little stiffly, “of course.”

  There were fourteen names, for almost all of which Hannah had been able to supply addresses or telephone numbers or both; those Jane would have spent the most time with, members of her department, had been neatly asterisked in red. Resnick read through the list twice slowly, eight women, six men. The coffee that he’d made while Hannah was making the list sat, almost finished, by his side.

  “You don’t think,” he asked, “she could have been having an affair?”

  Hannah shifted a little in her seat and smiled a wry smile. “With Alex breathing down her neck the whole time, logging her every move? I don’t see how she could.”

  Back at the station, mid-afternoon, Resnick tried Diane Harker’s number again and she picked up on the second ring. It was soon clear that, unlike the others Resnick had contacted, this was the first she had heard of Jane’s disappearance.

  “I thought perhaps you’d already spoken to Alex,” Resnick said.

  “He’d not phone here. Not if hell were freezing over.”

  “You had a row?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Can I ask what it was about?”

  “My lifestyle, that’s what he’d call it, I dare say. Irresponsible. Getting myself pregnant and scrounging off the State.”

  In the background, Resnick could hear a small child calling, the voice more and more insistent. “You haven’t heard from Jane, this weekend?”

  “I haven’t heard in a good three months.”

  “You’ve not seen her?”

  “I just said …”

  “She’s not there with you now?”

  “You don’t take no for an answer easily, do you?”

  “It’s important. I need to be sure.”

  “Well, no, I haven’t seen my dear sister and no, I don’t know where she is, but one thing, if after all this time she’s come to her senses and left that prick of a husband I shall hang out of the upstairs window and cheer.”

  Twenty-four

  Hannah carried the small radio into the bathroom and let Radio 4 voices mill around her as she soaked. It was only when the sound of the telephone interrupted with a new urgency that she realized she had also slept. Clutching a towel against her and dripping water liberally, her hand was reaching for the receiver as the ringing ceased. She immediately punched 1471, but the operator’s voice informed her that her caller had exercised his or her option to keep their number to themselves.

  Hannah swore, dialed Resnick’s number, and got no reply.

  She was almost at the bathroom door when she heard the front gate swing closed, the tread of feet, heavy upon the path. Grabbing her robe and hurrying downstairs, she had the latch turned back almost before there was time for the bell to sound.

  “Charlie, I …”

  But, no, it was Alex, white-faced, strained, standing there at her door.

  “Hannah, I’m sorry, I … I didn’t know where else to go.”

  She looked at him, those light blue eyes appealing out of the half-dark, and despite wanting to say no, she was sorry, but she was busy, too tired, this wasn’t a good time, she found herself taking a step backward and inviting him in.

  “Alex, has something happened? You haven’t heard from Jane?”

  “No. No. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  They were standing in Hannah’s kitchen at the back of the house and suddenly it seemed cramped and small, the ceiling unnaturally low, Hannah conscious of her nakedness beneath her robe.

  “Sit down, Alex. Here. I’ll just run upstairs and get changed.”

  “It’s okay, I won’t stay, I …”

  But she pulled out an upright chair from the table and waited until he was sitting, elbow on the table, shoulders slumped.

  “Just one minute, right?”

  Passing the first-floor living room, she denied an impulse to try Resnick’s number again, even have him bleeped from the station. What did she think was going to happen there in her own house? However many times had Alex been there before, Alex and Jane? She knew this was different. In the bedroom, she dressed quickly in functional underwear, a dark, three-button top, loose and shapeless, and blue jeans.

  Alex seemed scarcely to have moved, save that his head was resting in his hands. He sat up and turned as she came in. “Look, Hannah, I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have come.”

  “Nonsense. Here, let me get you a drink.”

  “Not a good idea, really. Most likely had too much already.” He smiled at her quickly, his eyes searching for sympathy. “My way of getting through the afternoon.”

  “She’ll be in touch, Alex. Really.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, of course. She’ll phone, make contact somehow. A letter, maybe, first post tomorrow.”

  “But from where? Where? Where the hell is she?” Surprised to see tears in his eyes, Hannah was tempted to reach out for his hand. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “But I’m sure it will be fine.” Why was she saying these things, these banalities, words she didn’t truly believe? She didn’t know a thing, couldn’t think, except in dark imaginings, what might have happened to Jane, where she might have gone.

  “There’s one thought, Hannah,” Alex said, “keeps going round and round; this one thought I can’t shake. Whatever it is Jane’s up to, you must know.”

  “Alex, I don’t. I can assure you.”

  “She’s your friend.”

  “I know.”

  “This is where she comes running, any time she’s upset, any little disagreement we might have had. Spilling it all out to you.”

  “Alex, it isn’t like that.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Hannah gasped, surprised, as he seized hold of her wrist. All tears had gone now: this was the old Alex, staring at her with the same blue eyes, his fingers biting tight against the bone beneath her skin.

  “She made you promise, didn’t she? Promise not to tell.”

  “No.”

  “Hannah, you’ve got to tell me.”

  Straining, Hannah prized back first one of his fingers, then another before wrenching herself away. “Alex, listen to me. I’ve no idea where Jane is, not a clue where she might be. I’m as much in the dark as you.”

  He slumped back, his
breath accelerated by the effort of holding her.

  “Believe me, Alex, I only wish I did.”

  With a sigh, he bowed his head, hands trapped tight between his knees. “I’m sorry. Really sorry. I didn’t mean … I don’t know what else to do.”

  “It’s all right. You’re upset. I understand. But now I think you must go.”

  At the door, she watched as he hesitated halfway along the path and turned toward her, his face a rough oval of light. Uncertainly, he raised a hand and then walked on. Hannah stood there several moments longer, gazing out across the empty recreation ground, its gradations of dark.

  Inside, she locked the door and slid the bolts across; checked the windows, front and back. In the bathroom, she cleaned her face, tied back her hair, and brushed her teeth. Naked in the attic room, the moment before slipping on the T-shirt in which she slept, a wave of cold ploughed through her, head to foot, the imprint of Alex Peterson’s hand clear as daylight on her skin.

  Twenty-five

  “He attacked you, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not attacked, no. That’s too strong a word.”

  “Well, what then?”

  “He grabbed hold of me. Here. My arm, wrist. That’s all it was.”

  “Assault, that’s what it was.”

  “God, Charlie …”

  “What?”

  “When I told you what he’d done to Jane, it was as though it hardly mattered at all. Now because this has happened to me you’re taking it so seriously.”

  “Of course I am. What else did you expect?”

  Sliding her fingers between his, she leaned forward against him, her face smooth against the breadth of his shoulder. “I don’t know,” she said. Rarely, if ever, had she seen him show so much anger.

  Hannah had arrived at Resnick’s house early, dressed for school, her reddish hair swept tidily back from her face. Only when chunks of dubious-looking meat and jelly had been forked into the four cats’ bowls, coffee brewed and toast made, had she told him of Alex’s visit the night before.

  Resnick listened carefully and then made her go through the whole thing again. This time he was calmer, more under control.