Victims

by Richardson,Robert

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said hastily before she even saw him. ‘I’m leaving.’ He was just inside, next to the plate on which he had left two pounds for a pamphlet that cost 30p.

  ‘Thank you … As I said, come back whenever you want. Nobody should be locked out of a church.’ That sounded pious, but she could think of no other way to put it. ‘Have you settled in all right?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. It’s very comfortable.’

  ‘Good … anyway, I must get on.’ Small talk felt inappropriate.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Pardon? Oh.’ It was the oval slate plaque on the wall by the door which she could rarely bring herself to look at. ‘That’s … it was a long time ago.’

  He read the engraved names and inscription again.

  Benjamin Porter Godwin. Anne Hilda Godwin. Cheryl Anne Hood. Thomas Christopher Hood. Amanda Rachel Hood. In Memoriam, 11 July 1990. Loving and beloved, they left for God together.

  ‘Who were they?’

  She had to control herself. ‘Ben owned a farm just outside the village. Annie was his wife and Cheryl was their daughter. Tom and Mandy were her children.’ She swallowed. ‘They were murdered. Didn’t you read about it? Every damned newspaper reported it.’

  ‘I think I must have done … It was while I was at Cambridge. Wasn’t someone arrested?’

  ‘No … I remember trying to rationalize why the thought of no one being punished made it worse. It wouldn’t have brought them back.’

  ‘Did you know them … Were they friends of yours?’

  ‘Yes. Cheryl especially, but everyone in Finch knew Ben and Annie. They were lovely people.’

  He turned back to the wall. ‘Two children.’

  ‘Yes. Tom would have been nineteen this year … I’m sorry, it’s difficult to talk about.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t realize.’

  ‘You weren’t to know.’ She could see the suggestion of tears in his eyes again. Was that it? He’d lost someone too, and was here to mourn? ‘Anyway, life has to go on … It’s the sort of thing that makes you cling to clichés … Oh, dear.’ Whatever hurt was very near the surface; he had begun to weep, anguish creasing his face. Joyce’s impulse to hold him was stopped by awareness that he was a stranger. ‘Come and sit down again.’

  She escorted him without touching, as though he were contagious, and for a moment could find no words. Then. ‘Look, I have to do this, but come back to my house when I’ve finished and we can have coffee. OK?’ Face hidden in his hands, he nodded and she touched his shoulder gently before walking to the altar. As she started to clean the cross she wondered what she could say, how near she could approach. At least when she looked at him again he was sitting up, still sad but composed.

  ‘Come on then.’ She used the brisk, reassuring tone of a mother to a distressed child. Let’s talk about something else to take your mind off it. She spoke of the weather, prospects for the harvest, her church duties; as they passed the Godwin graves, stones marbled with shadow, she pointed to some distant landmark to deflect his attention. When they reached the gate he complimented her on her garden, which pleased her. Once in the house, she led him straight through to the kitchen.

  ‘Instant will be quicker. Please sit down.’ He took a chair by the kitchen table and looked at the front page of the Guardian without interest as she decided that the informality of mugs would be less intimidating than bone china. ‘Did you find everything all right?’

  ‘What? Oh, at the cottage. Yes … No sugar, thank you.’

  ‘Is that how you keep so slim?’

  ‘I don’t know … I just am.’

  ‘Lucky you. I have to exercise. Fortunately, I cycle a lot — and go on aerobics binges when I start to panic.’

  He smiled, as though any response might sound unflattering, and remained silent as she brought the coffee over.

  ‘Here you are … and do smoke if you wish. I noticed the cigarettes when you arrived.’ She admired his hands again as he lit one, conscious of their grace. ‘Feeling better now?’

  He nodded. ‘I can’t explain … about the church.’

  ‘It’s not my business.’ She indicated his coffee. ‘This is just being friendly … Have you managed to do any writing yet?’

  ‘Not really … It’s not easy.’ He was looking at the three chains she invariably wore, find golden threads crossing the summer-brown skin at the exposed delta of her throat. ‘Have you lived here long?’

  ‘We moved from London in nineteen eighty, the year Rupert was born. It was a good time to buy property, especially in this part of the world. Then the cottage came on the market and we bought it as an investment. We’ll sell it eventually, of course, but my husband’s waiting until prices go up more. Anyway, letting it through the summer covers most of the costs. Of course, nobody wants to come here in the winter. The east wind can be wicked. Straight across the North Sea from the Urals. What my mother calls a lazy wind — it cuts right through you instead of going round.’

  She was conscious of talking more than was necessary and felt uncomfortable. The invitation had been hers, its subtext sympathy, a willingness to listen if that was what he wanted. It struck her how rare it was for her to be alone with a man; Ralph obviously didn’t count, and conversations with Jeffrey in the vicarage carried no overtones. She dismissed the thought; this was just lack of practice. So ask him something, be normal.

  ‘Why did you decide to come to Finch?’

  ‘Why not?’ There was an immediate edge there, almost suspicion.

  ‘Well, there must be dozens of other places where you could write — I’ve always thought it would be best near the sea. Have you been here before?’

  ‘No.’ His head shook to emphasize. ‘I just saw your ad in the Sunday Times and looked on a map. I didn’t want to travel too far from London.’

  ‘Is it what you expected? I mean, I know it’s quiet, but …’ Instinctively she reached across the table and took his hand as she saw what was returning to his face. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right. You aren’t … I don’t know why I chose here. There wasn’t a reason.’

  Perhaps not a specific reason for coming to Finch, but she was certain there had been a need to get away. Perhaps if she pushed very gently …

  ‘Tell me to back off if I’m intruding, but we all wonder about other people and …’ She hesitated. ‘Have you lost someone?’

  He pulled his hand away. ‘Not like … Yes, I have.’

  ‘Oh, that is so awful. Did they die? Were they very young?’ She was dismayed as he began to weep again. ‘God, that was tactless.’ She held up her hands helplessly. ‘I was just trying to … well, I ballsed that one up, didn’t I?’ He was no longer looking at her. ‘Please … just forget I said anything. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  She walked through to the drawing room, for no other reason than to leave him alone, and stood by the window, caught by his distress, embarrassed by her own behaviour rather than his. She should have been more careful, testing the fragility of his emotions before barging in like … like what? The middle-aged, middle-class do-gooder. It was so long since she’d had to express sympathy for another person that she’d forgotten it was a matter of giving them space and following them into it. And … She leant her head against the pane.

  ‘And if you’d been a woman or an old man, would I have invited you back here?’ she murmured to herself. ‘And am I saying this because I’m the one with the case of need here and you, Mr Jowett, are very handy as a fantasy figure? Oh, get your bloody head together.’

  She picked up a magazine and took it back with her; thankfully, he looked better and had finished his coffee.

  ‘I wanted to get this. There’s a piece in it on this year’s Pegman Pageant you were asking me about.’

  ‘Thank you … Can anyone go?’

  ‘The more the merrier. You’ll be able to see me dressed as a very romanticized medieval lady. I do magic as well.’

  ‘D
oes everyone have to dress up?’

  ‘No. Only a few of us. It’s all part of the legend.’

  He looked as though he wanted to thank her, but was finding it difficult. He stood up awkwardly, then they both started as a voice called, enquiring and vibrant, from the garden.

  ‘Anyone home?’

  Joyce felt immediate relief. ‘Kitchen!’

  The woman burst in like a bright bird, flame satin shirt, white skirt with decorative belt of plaited scarlet thongs, tortoiseshell framed sunglasses pushed up into a mane of designer-mop brunette hair, like some courting ornament. ‘Hi … Oh. Hello.’

  ‘This is … I’ve forgotten your first name … Randall. Randall Jowett. He’s staying at Windhover … Fay Graveney.’ She frowned. ‘I’ve seen you somewhere … Weren’t you in the supermarket at Bury yesterday morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought so … Anything left in the pot?’

  ‘It’s instant.’

  ‘I don’t mind slumming it.’ Fay turned back to Jowett. ‘So. What do you think of Finch?’

  ‘I haven’t seen much of it yet. I only arrived on Saturday.’

  ‘There’s precious little to see. One wool church, a house where Tallulah Bankhead — you’re much too young to have heard of her, and so am I — spent a night for some reason and a Plague Stone … Can I cadge one of those?’

  ‘Pardon? Oh. Yes, sure.’ He offered the cigarette packet and lit it for her.

  ‘Given up giving up again?’ Joyce asked sardonically.

  ‘I’ve got it down to one a day.’ Fay smiled at Jowett through expelled smoke. ‘This one’s May the fourteenth, 2007.’

  ‘What? Oh. Yeah.’ He smiled thinly, then looked at Joyce. ‘I ought to go. Thank you for the coffee and … well, thanks. Nice to have met you.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ Fay told him. ‘How long are you staying?’

  ‘Five weeks.’

  ‘Five weeks?’ She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘My dear boy, you’ll die of terminal boredom.’

  He looked uncomfortable, unsure how to respond, then smiled again and walked out through the door and back across the garden towards the church. Fay stood up to watch him and her eyes sparkled as she turned back to Joyce.

  ‘Any time … any place.’

  ‘Stop it. You don’t mean it — and, anyway, I thought you were committed?’

  ‘Come on, darling, the fact that you’ve ordered your meal doesn’t stop you looking at the menu again, and he’s seriously gorgeous. He’s here on his own?’

  ‘Yes. I think … I’m not sure. I found him in the church. Crying. He may have lost somebody. He’s desperately unhappy.’

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘Possibly … or boyfriend, of course.’

  ‘Is he gay?’

  ‘I don’t know, but the thought crossed my mind.’

  ‘Whichever, who’d leave him?’

  ‘I think they may have died.’

  ‘That’s it, then.’ Fay held up her right hand, palm outwards. ‘Keep clear. Aids alert.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Joyce felt unexpectedly protective. ‘Perhaps it was his parents … or it might not be anything to do with anyone dying.’

  ‘It was something heavy though,’ Fay remarked. ‘Why else would he want to spend five weeks in Finch?’

  ‘He may just like being on his own. He’s writing a book. Anyway, it’s none of our business. I asked him back for coffee because I felt sorry for him and that’s the end of it. What brings you round?’

  ‘I’m going into Ipswich. Need anything?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Fay owned a badge with the legend ‘Born to Shop’; when she put it on, it was like a battle honour.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Mainly I’m taking things back. They look so dire when you get them home. But I must have something for this damned Masonic ladies evening next week. They’ve got some Lord High Panjandrum as guest of honour and we’re on the top table.’

  ‘Why on earth does Oliver belong to them? It’s not his scene.’

  ‘Business. If you’re not on the square, you’re out of the circle. He only goes through the motions.’

  ‘How is he? We waved to each other when he was driving to work the other morning.’

  ‘Fine. Some incredibly rare drawings have turned up in one of his catalogues and we’re going up to Christie’s so he can bid for them. My part of the treat’s tickets for Buddy in the evening.’

  ‘Oliver at a rock and roll show?’ Joyce shook her head in disbelief. ‘He’s not real, that man.’

  Fay smiled. ‘He’s not perfect, just a lot more understanding than most of them.’ She gulped down her coffee. ‘Anyway, I’m off or I’ll get caught in the traffic coming home. Thanks. Look after your lost lamb.’

  Fay’s presence always lingered. She had a life of satisfaction, rare freedom and a husband who loved her more than himself. She was happy — so trite a word for so envied a condition — and complete, with no emptinesses, no self-betrayals. Joyce had once known similar contentment, but found that the memories, which were supposed to bring a glow of warmth, only amplified the chill of now.

  So … she paused as she put the mugs in the washing-up machine, was that why she’d invited Jowett back? Sympathy for someone also suffering pain an opportunity to raise her own self-worth? She could have waited until she was sure he had left the church and found time for the cleaning in the afternoon. He was not just attractive in the carnal sense Fay had meant, but gentle, sad, needing help. Except in a practical way, nobody she could think of seemed to need her help.

  ‘Dumb bunny,’ she murmured, as she closed the door of the machine. ‘Let him call the Samaritans.’

  Chapter Four

  Lambert had walked among the boutiques, booksellers and antique dealers of the Lanes for more than an hour before deciding. Seeing the woman leaving the shop with the Pekinese, a sour-faced puppet waddling on the end of a white leather lead, had clinched it. Parody of a decaying Lady Bountiful — tottering heels, her ageing, fringed silk dress outrageous for daytime, face a parchment mask, rouged and powdered to challenge death — she was obviously from the quarter of Brighton where pensioned warriors, forgotten players and mottled, melancholy gentry lived, troubled over the grandchildren’s inheritance as they sold off another piece of silver. The dealer would be understanding as he contemplated the dollar power of American and Asian collectors.

  There was no sign of a security camera inside the shop, but the peak of the checked cap shadowed Lambert’s face as the owner — badged blazer, regimental tie, disciplined moustache — examined the vase.

  ‘We only moved to the area recently. Near Rottingdean. I passed your shop the other day and was admiring some of the stuff in the window. I must bring my wife in to see that tea set. She’s very keen on Spode; her father’s something of an authority. I assume it’s complete.’

  The patter had been refined with practice: the using executive living in the right sort of village, wealthy in-laws, suggestions that he might prove to be a good customer in the future. It had never failed to smooth the opening moments.

  ‘Yes, everything’s there.’ A powerful finger banded with a gunmetal signet ring gently tapped the high relief figure of Aphrodite. ‘It’s a very beautiful piece. I’m surprised you want to sell.’

  Lambert shrugged. ‘Neither of us likes Wedgwood, but we can’t choose our legacies. I’ll have to risk my aunt’s ghost haunting me for getting rid of it.’

  The faintest smile acknowledged the possibility as the dealer lifted the vase to examine the base again. ‘Would you excuse me for a moment, please? I just need to look something up.’ Lambert tensed as the dealer walked into the back, taking the vase with him; this hadn’t happened before. The natural thing would be to wander idly round the shop, but if there was a closed circuit camera he wanted to make sure it got no clear shots of him. If the proprietor was checking a police list of stolen goods, could valuables from Tannerslade
Farm still be appearing on it after so long? He began to rehearse responses, offended arguments; there must be some mistake, my uncle bought it more than thirty years ago in —

  ‘Here we are.’ The dealer reappeared, now also carrying an open catalogue. ‘It’s extremely rare, which is why I didn’t recognize it. See.’ He proffered the page with the coloured photograph. Then his eyes narrowed with judicious consideration. ‘Yes … I think we’d be interested. Did you have a price in mind?’

  Lambert gestured vaguely. ‘I’ve always known it was valuable, of course, but … six thousand?’

  Breath hissed faintly inwards through lips and teeth. ‘I don’t think we could go to six, sir … three perhaps. The market’s somewhat depressed.’

  Is it ever anything else? Lambert began to play his allotted role in the game of barter. ‘I’m not sure. It’s not as if we’re desperate to get rid of it — incidentally, I’d prefer cash … if that’s all right.’

  The smile was now conspiratorial, a recognition that certain customers — respectable customers in Harris tweed jacket and cords — needed to be financially circumspect. ‘That’s not a difficulty, sir, although it would naturally have an effect on our offer … two thousand five hundred?’

  ‘Seven fifty?’

  The fractional pause as though calculating, then the nod. ‘Very well … but if you’re interested in the Spode, we could come to an arrangement.’

  ‘Not at the moment.’ That had to be firmly stamped on. ‘That’s a long-term thing. Perhaps for my wife’s birthday. Two seven fifty? Well, I’m in your hands to a degree. Do you have the cash here?’

  ‘Oh yes. Whatever notes are most convenient. I’ll just need you to sign a standard receipt.’

  ‘Of course … all right. Thank you … Twenties will be fine.’

  Lambert rubbed sweat from his hands against the sides of his jacket as he waited. But he was nearly there.