Eliza didn’t bother to knock. She walked straight in to find Annie had just returned from her routine morning dog walk in Rooks Wood. She was sitting in her favourite armchair reading the paper.
“The most terrible thing has happened.”
Annie got up and came over to Eliza, who was white-faced and tearful. With her arms outstretched, she said, “Whatever is it, darling?”
“Louise has drowned herself in their pool.”
If that’s what her child said, then that’s what had happened, so Annie saw no point in repeating the phrase in question form. In her years as a barrister, she had come across some very horrible things and just about nothing surprised her any more. She hugged her child tight. “How just dreadful. Oh darling, I am so sorry. A depressive, wasn’t she?”
“Well, she was certainly an up-and-down sort of person and used to have some bad bouts of lows, but since she’d been on medication, she had seemed a lot better. Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered whether she may have overdosed and then got into the pool.” She paused. “Those two weren’t happy, were they?”
Eliza wondered how and why her mother had picked up on such a thing. She had, after all, only met them perhaps three times at Sunday lunch at the farm, at which Annie was a permanent fixture. “You’re very perceptive, Mum. What’s so, so odd about this is that she couldn’t swim and was quite afraid of the water. It was one of her neuroses–”
Annie interrupted her, “Then how ever did she manage it?”
“Heavens knows why she decided to do it in the pool, and I cannot imagine for the life of me how she did it. There are many better ways to commit suicide. And she loved Sinead, and although she and Patrick were no longer in love, she didn’t hate him and would have been horrified to think of the child or Patrick finding her there.”
“It’s a very strange way to die.”
“And you’d think her survival instinct would kick in and she would scrabble her way out without actually drowning.”
“You would. Do we know whether she left a note?”
“Not as far as I know.”
Eliza held onto her mother. They stood quietly while Eliza cried some more. Then, taking her hand, her mother led her to the sofa and sat down beside her. She said, “Have the children been told?”
“Not yet. I have to break it to them. Francesca’s staying and she was such a close friend of Louise’s. I’ve got to tell the children, and it’s possible Patrick may come as I’ve offered to have him tonight. Luckily Holly had a sleepover with the Kendalls last night.” Her long thin hands covered her face. “I’ve got to pick her up later and will have to tell her then. She’s a good friend of Sinead’s, so will be very upset.”
“How old is Sinead?”
“They’ll both be twelve in November. They’re very much kindred spirits so I think Holly will be a great help to the poor little thing.”
“I’ll collect Holly for you,” said Annie. “You’ve more than enough on your plate. I’ll tell her what’s happened and bring her back here for a little while until she’s taken it in. What time does she need collecting?”
“Oh, thank you, Mum. Er, we said about five o’clock-ish, I think.”
“Where’s Jay? Being any help?” There was no wool to be pulled over Annie’s eyes.
“He’s not in a good way, Mum. His stutter has started to come back. This business with poor Louise seems to have been the last straw. He’s in bits.”
“A worried one, that man.” Jay’s recent inability to be strong for his family had seriously annoyed Annie, but she had a forgiving heart and had experienced how helpless some men could be in times of acute pressure. There was enough of an actress in the old barrister to make sure Eliza didn’t see her feelings. “He’s a very sensitive man, Eliza. One of the reasons you love him.” She paused. “Any hope he could get away for a week or so?”
“I hope he will go on Bob’s annual fishing thing in Scotland. But that’s not until September.”
“How about suggesting he visits his sister in Wales for a few days, and soon? That might help him get some perspective on all this.”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Good idea.” She glanced at her watch, “I’d better go. God, I’m dreading today.”
“Of course. The children mustn’t know how. Not yet, anyhow. Holly might mention it to Sinead and we don’t know what she’s been told.”
“Lunch tomorrow may be on hold, Mum. It depends on what Patrick wants to do.”
“Actually, Pam has invited me for lunch and chess. I was going to tell you I wouldn’t make it this week.” She put an arm round her shoulders and pulled her daughter toward her. “Chin up, my brave girl.”
When Eliza had left, Annie thought about what she had heard. So, Louise couldn’t swim. Annie found it hard to believe that she would choose that way to kill herself. She thought of Virginia Woolf’s tragic suicide. But that poor woman had made sure to end her life by putting heavy stones in her pockets. She recalled Louise’s seductive behaviour where the men were concerned, and she wondered.
Putting the subject out of her mind, Annie decided that once things had settled a bit, she would suggest a game of chess with Jay. He liked playing when he found time and it might help relax him. She pondered whether she could gently try to persuade him to open up to her about his worries while they were playing. Talking it through would be so good for him. Annie could read the tension in his face and knew he was his own worst enemy in that sense. Jay had always been someone who kept his thoughts to himself and although Eliza was the closest anyone had ever come to him, Annie understood that it was terribly difficult for him to talk to his wife about his serious concerns when she was also his business partner.
On the other hand, she was his mother-in-law. She and Jay were good friends who loved one another but she was who she was, which could make it hard for him to talk to her about the business. She knew he had found the gift of Manor Farm difficult to handle. His pride had found it challenging to accept that his in-laws had given him a leg up when he would have preferred to pay for the family home himself. It would have been churlish for him to refuse to live there, especially as Eliza loved the place so. And now he had become used to it, he had grown to love the farm too, seduced by the setting and the charm of the old place. Like a duck to water, Jay had taken to looking after the land, mending fences, repairing outbuildings when they needed it and ensuring the ditches were cleared.
Annie knew his major concern was the prospect of not being able to afford to live there anymore, and could see what a difficult position he found himself in. She also understood that his pride would never get over it should the business become bankrupt. He would never live it down. She felt terribly sorry for him and did so wish she could help. But her wise head told her she had done enough for them and that he would never be able to accept further help from her. She’d suggest a game of chess with him and see what came of it.
Annie’s friends knew her as a warm person with a sharp intelligence that shone from a square face with a mouth that turned slightly upward at the corners, giving her the appearance that life amused her, which in many respects it did. She thought of herself as a woman of the people as she had indeed been, when a successful defence barrister. A plucky person, she had taken on cases others wouldn’t touch and had done well for many whom, on account of their lack of funds and education, might otherwise have languished in prison for much longer than they should. She had focused her energy on something that had real meaning for her, especially as, in her view, her work helped create a balance and equality in a world that was full of social injustice and inequality. Juggling work and life had become something of an issue. The job had demanded she spend much time in the London courts, most often the Old Bailey.
Her adored husband, a tall, lanky, nice-looking man, had been soft, loving and funny. Some might call him lazy or spoilt: his only jobs had been to help care for Eliza and paint pictures. He’d been taught at the Slade School of A
rt and was a respected East Anglian artist who held regular local exhibitions and who had been employed by many local landowners with large houses to paint them in a flattering light. He had painted for his living all his life. He had inherited money from his father that had helped him choose what Eliza had later come to see was an extremely easy life. This small inheritance had soon been spent and while his wife had worked hard, Robin had pottered about at home, painting for part of every day. He had not helped around the home much and when he did, had bungled attempts to change light bulbs, mend fuses, et cetera. He had been an impractical man, and Annie had realised it was easier to do it herself or get someone in to do it.
Eliza had an innate desire to lead a similar life to her father, but as she had become a teenager, she had seen how incompetent and ineffectual her adored father really was, and had fought that feeling in herself. She knew now that her mother, often begrudged by the young girl for her absence, was actually the one who had kept them all from going under. In her adult years, Eliza sometimes wondered how her mother had tolerated the situation, but however irritable Annie may have become with her amiable, insouciant husband, she knew she had loved him.
Eventually, Annie had decided that in order to save her marriage she would need to pull back on the number of cases she took on. When she had done this, spending more time at home had frustrated this vibrant woman, especially since her husband had spent much of the time on his own painting landscapes. Sometimes she had wondered why she had bothered, but her child had been the constant reminder that she had done the right thing.
She looked across the flat grass field that was divided from her garden by a barbed wire fence. Eeyore had kept company with the family ponies for many years and grazed lazily beside old Jock. The pony had been Eliza’s last before she had decided art, along with two-legged boys, held more appeal than Jock.
To separate the garden from the countryside beyond, when Annie had moved into the barn, she could have had a high or low hedge planted or any kind of fence from picket to feather board. To the surprise of her architect, she had insisted the edge of her land stayed as it always had been. Ever since she had been at Manor Farm, she had appreciated the broad, open view that culminated in Rook’s Wood, the long sweep of woodland that belonged to the farm and ran along the horizon. And she liked the authenticity of the barbed wire. That the landscape stretched westward was better still as Annie could sit in her sitting room or on her patio and watch the sunsets that were particularly striking in August and September.
In this hot weather, if she’d been younger, she would have hitched up her skirt, run past the animals and taken a dip in the river that curved round the far border of the field. She remembered the races she used to have with Robin to reach it first. Very like her father, their child, tall, artistic, dreamy and gentle-natured, reminded her of him every time she saw her. Resolutely unsentimental, Annie quickly brought herself back to the present and remembered the dwindling watershed. The river that curled around the house and land in an arc had once run full and free flowing. It had decreased in depth and sometimes became clogged with plants and needed dredging every so often. It was currently overgrown with reeds and other water plants, for the dry weather had turned it into little more than a rivulet.
Eliza dragged her feet when walking back to the house. Now she had to break it to Juliet. As she went, she was surprised when Jay strode across the yard from the office, caught up with her, put an arm round her shoulders and murmured, “Sorry to have been such a flake earlier.”
Eliza felt a flood of relief wash over her that she would not have to deal with this dreadful event single-handed. Her shaken faith in Jay felt almost ready to be restored.
Francesca had great trouble digesting the fact that her friend had gone, let alone so suddenly.
“When the poor little darling was only six years old,” said Francesca, “she was swimming in the sea close to the beach when a vicious ten-foot wave came out of nowhere, picked up her little body and swept her out to sea. She was saved by her father but had never forgotten the helpless feeling of being like a piece of flotsam, and the terror. Since then no amount of endeavour by her parents had persuaded her to learn to swim and she had been afraid of water ever since. In spite of this, determined that her daughter wouldn’t be hampered by the same phobia, Patrick and she had built a swimming pool for Sinead, who is now an accomplished swimmer.”
Listening to this, the others teared up again.
“Such a tragic waste,” said Jay.
“So terribly young,” said Eliza.
Francesca couldn’t stop thinking about her friend’s drowning and how an idea like that could have taken hold of her and, more to the point, why? The last time she had seen her at their drinking session, Louise had seemed upbeat and, after all, she had arranged to meet them all in the pub that evening. She had a lover, so why end it now? Anxious questions pounded Francesca’s brain.
Sinead travelled back with her grandparents to their home in Cheshire. The idea of staying in their house alone was as abhorrent to Patrick as it had been for his daughter. He gratefully took up Eliza’s offer to stay the night. Francesca stayed on as well. She had offered to leave but, on the principle that many hands might help to make lighter work of such a difficult time, Eliza had insisted she stayed for at least one more night.
Jay made it plain that the last thing he felt they needed was to have Patrick to stay. “What about the children, Eliza?” he muttered when he cornered her in the kitchen. “Doesn’t he have some friends or family? They’d be better placed to deal with him.”
Eliza was relieved they were talking, and that, for once in this difficult time, she agreed with him. “I didn’t think he’d take us up. What can I do? I can’t… it’s too late now. Sorry, darling.”
“Oh well. If it helps the poor guy out…” said Jay.
“It’s only for a night. His parents are on their way over from Ireland and they’ll be here in the morning. And there’s that friend north of Cambridge who’s going to have him for a bit. It’s just that Patrick didn’t want to drive when he was so exhausted.”
The truth, though he hadn’t told them, was that the police had insisted Patrick stayed in the village and at an address they knew, and that he must return to his house by 8.30am the following morning. He was still considered a prime suspect while they searched for clues.
It was after six by the time Patrick appeared and it was a difficult evening for them all. To spare them, Eliza gave the girls meals on trays in the playroom where they could watch television.
Jay made the excuse of feeling unwell and went to bed as early as possible, leaving the women and Patrick at the kitchen table. Francesca and Eliza soon discovered that trying to help someone deal with a sudden death, especially such a tragic one, was very hard.
But later, they were glad they had because the evening had been good for Patrick, who talked and talked and talked. The women were taken aback by his feelings of disbelief, anger, guilt, confusion, shock, horror and trauma that seemed to go beyond the “normal” emotions following a death. Of all the feelings he gave vent to, anger was by far the strongest. The unconditional willingness of the women to sit, listen, hold his hand and even hug him when he cried, was the first step on his long road ahead of living with death’s residue.
They finally headed for bed at about two in the morning. Francesca went back to the bedroom she had stayed in the previous night and Patrick was given the other, smaller spare room. They fell into their beds so exhausted by emotion that even Patrick managed to sleep.
On Saturday, the local paper announced the news on its front page.
10
Late June to late July
The death of Louise Ryan had been estimated at somewhere between twelve noon and 2pm on 22 June 2018.
The forensic pathologist had been called to the scene where she had thoroughly examined the body. The police now needed to prove that Patrick or someone else had or had not murdered Louise who
had been the daughter of rich parents and well off in her own right. The investigation showed her husband stood to inherit her money as well as a sizeable life insurance.
When the pathologist later examined the body in her laboratory, she found traces of white cotton fibre in the woman’s mouth that suggested something had been stuffed into it either by herself or somebody else. There were no signs that the fabric had been forced into the mouth, which corroborated the suicide theory. But where was whatever it was? The pathologist felt uncomfortable about the detail and had the hunch that the fibres belonged to a handkerchief. But there was no evidence of bruising or marks on the body to suggest foul play.
There were quite a number of dark lividity marks caused after death by the husband grabbing the body and pulling it out of the pool, then attempting resuscitation.
Perhaps the woman, who she understood couldn’t swim, had put it in her own mouth to make it hard to breathe. It would be, she supposed, quite an ingenious way to die.
The big question for the police was: why wasn’t it still in the dead woman’s mouth or in the pool? Had someone removed it before the police had arrived? If so, who?
Alerted by the pathologist, Cambridgeshire Constabulary searched the house and garden for the missing piece of cotton, but with no luck.
They checked out Patrick’s alibi that he was in his shop. Fortunately for him, he had sold a table that had to be delivered to the customer. The police traced and visited the customer in question, who corroborated Patrick’s story that he was definitely in the shop between 12.35 and 12.50, the time the buyer had been there deliberating about the table before purchasing it, then making arrangements for its delivery.
The Decoy Page 6