From Higher Places

by Roger Curtis

  Mark’s voice from the corridor asked if she were asleep.

  ‘Not asleep Mark, just thinking.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He pulled aside the crumpled coverlet and ran the back of his had along her spine under the single tortured sheet. ‘Why are you on your tummy?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s better that way,’ she replied, raising herself onto knees and elbows. ‘You chose the time. For once let me choose the position.’ He must have seen that the pillow where her head had rested was wet with tears.

  13

  Her face was not healing properly and the local press were coming to interview her. She wondered how they’d been held at bay for so long. Months later she would realise the extent of Mark’s hand in that.

  Brian had telephoned at nine to say that the Echo and the Shirley Chronicle had the story and would she be ready by ten. She filled an hour in front of the mirror, dabbing on an array of creams and lotions – all with flesh-like hues – and wiping them off again. Nothing seemed to work. She wrinkled her nose at her reflection, as if her failed quest were a putrid fish, then cleaned her face with soap and water. When she looked again there was an irregular reddish band along the line of the scar. It was angry and its discovery caused her heart to sink, because all along she had been expecting it.

  Brian arrived early and sat with her in the conservatory, reassuring her with the low bedside voice he had cultivated for his patients. When he took her hand she did not remove it; and not doing so was one of the signs that the attention of others, on which her life-blood had depended, was steadily and surely being withdrawn. It hurt her that Brian did not once look at her face.

  ‘You realise, Sarah, that they will only be able to publish the facts as they are known, not opinions that might prejudice a jury.’

  ‘As I see it the facts are rather few and far between, Brian.’

  ‘That’s because there’s one more piece of evidence I’ve still to tell you about.’ Was this, then, why he was here?

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The signatures on your two letters. Quite indecipherable, of course, and deliberately so, but the ink has been traced.’

  ‘To Jack Adams’ pen, no doubt.’

  ‘Exactly. Absolutely right. The police searched the house again. They expect to pick him up when he gets back tomorrow.’

  She raised a thin smile. ‘Then I owe you an apology. I really thought you were on the wrong track – all of you. I guess I’ve not been thinking straight lately.’ A warmth dredged up from somewhere deep within made her confide in him. ‘There were other possibilities, you see.’

  ‘Oh really? Who?’

  She laughed. ‘Well, they belong to closed chapters steadily gathering dust. Forget I said it. But Brian...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you. I don’t deserve your help. I know I haven’t always been as nice to you as I might have been.’

  Brian’s response, which would have been illuminating, was cut short by Marguerite ushering in the two reporters.

  Jack Adams was apprehended at Gatwick as he cleared customs – and before he’d had time to see the local papers. His mother was hysterical. The customs officers were said to have marvelled at the protestations of innocence.

  The case came before the Crawley magistrates later that morning and by the end of the afternoon he was on bail. His only consolation, apparently, was an offer of help from his only contact of stature in the legal world, an ageing QC called Fairburn, the father of an old school friend once on drugs and, with Jack’s help, hauled back from the brink.

  For Sarah-Jane it was an opportunity to take stock. The easing of the pressure had allowed in a little of the creative energy – admittedly never much – that had lain dormant since childhood. In a chance comment to Mark she had suggested painting, and he had bought her a splendid box of acrylics with boards and an easel. She set the easel up in the conservatory and was sitting in front of it, trying to make aesthetic sense of the labyrinthine backcloth of ivies and ferns, when Marguerite came in.

  ‘There’s a Thomas Sharp at the door, Miss. He says he knows you and wants to come in.’

  So he hadn’t taken notice of her letter, nor heeded her advice to stay away.

  ‘I don’t want to see him. Tell him to go away.’

  But Tom, uninvited, had followed Marguerite. From outside the conservatory door he had heard Sarah-Jane’s remark, and showed it by stamping his feet in mock impatience. He did not bother to remove his cap.

  ‘Sarah – or should I say Sarah-Jane. Oh my, how the mighty have risen – that’s not a very nice way to greet an old friend.’

  ‘Hardly that, Tom. Why have you come, now of all times?’

  ‘Simplicity itself. Business in Croydon, saw the local rag. Local beauty gets her come-uppance – or words to that effect. I still come this way, see. Not often though, so it was lucky, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Not for me.’

  ‘Forgive and forget. That’s what I always say. But you were never much good at that, were you Sarah?’

  ‘I never had cause to be. Tell me what you want, then go.’

  All the while he had been studying her face, intently, as a lepidopterist might have squinted at one of the rare butterflies that from time to time alighted around them. ‘My goodness me, you’ve certainly copped it. You must have upset someone real good and proper.’

  ‘If it doesn’t boost your ego too much I can tell you the first in the frame was you.’

  ‘You might just have been right to think that, Sarah. I owed it you. But there we go, someone’s beat me to it.’ Sarah-Jane felt, as much as heard, an inexplicable depth of malice she had never encountered in him before. ‘Haven’t they, my proud beauty?’

  Marguerite, until now hovering in indecision, reluctantly positioned herself between them. ‘Shall I get help, Miss?’

  ‘No. First I want to hear what he has to say.’ She glared at Tom. ‘Go on, you bastard, get it over with.’

  Tom slapped Marguerite’s bottom. ‘How about making us a nice cup of tea, eh?’

  Marguerite looked beseechingly at her mistress. But Sarah-Jane had no thought now for her sensibilities. ‘Do as he says, Marguerite.’

  ‘But, Miss…’

  ‘Do it!’

  The girl took one uncomprehending look at each of them and fled.

  ‘Let’s go back to basics, shall we?’ Tom said. ‘What you owe me. You remember that much?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘A debt that could have been repaid without harm to anyone, except a bit of hurt pride.’

  ‘You’re referring to my mother’s will.’

  ‘Right. Betty’s will. But you weren’t satisfied with that solution, were you?’

  ‘You tricked her! You had no bloody right to involve her!’

  ‘It was what she wanted. Perhaps still does. Or would if she knew half of what we know.’ The raised eyebrows above the thin cruel smile invited complicity or denial. ‘Not the other half, mind! But that’s by the way.’ He lunged forward and grasped her knee, his voice chillingly serious. ‘I want it settled Sarah. Two hundred grand you lost me, give or take a few quid. I want it. Now.’

  Sarah-Jane felt the blood drain from her face. She imagined the inflamed band crawling down her pale cheek like an exotic caterpillar, red with rage.

  ‘Then tell me just one thing,’ she hissed. ‘When the cards are so obviously stacked against you – that letter of mine could do you great harm – what gives you the impudence to bargain for anything?’

  ‘Like in all such cases, Sarah. Because of something I know.’

  ‘Nothing you know can hurt me. My life’s an open book, except for what’s past history.’

  ‘It’s not about your life, Sarah. It’s abou
t your face.’

  ‘My face?’

  ‘I mean, I know who did it to you. And I can tell you one thing now, for free. It wasn’t Jack Adams and he wasn’t involved.’

  Sarah-Jane lay back in her chair and laughed. ‘If you’d told me that yesterday I might just have believed you. Now I know you’re bluffing. I’m sorry, Tom, you’ll have to try harder.’ She squeezed her eyes in contempt. ‘Now get out!’

  Tom rose to his feet and bent over her. Without concern for her damaged cheek he grasped her face between fingers and thumb and shook it from side to side. But realising he couldn’t expunge the scorn in her eyes he thrust it away. Taking a step backwards he wagged his forefinger at her.

  Neither of them had heard Mark enter. Without seeking an explanation he gripped Tom by his collar and the seat of his pants, dragged him struggling to the front door and threw him head first onto the gravel.

  Tom scrambled to a safe distance, then shouted back: ‘You tell that bitch of a wife she knows where to find me.’ In the grinding chase on the gravel Tom, lighter than Mark and with greater cause, reached the gate – and the freedom of a waiting car – with inches to spare.

  If Sarah-Jane had been unnerved by Tom Sharp’s appearance it was less on account of his threats than on Mark’s reaction to the intrusion. It was Mark’s first intimation that something he might not be prepared to contemplate had existed prior to their relationship. His usual laissez-faire attitude towards her had become inquisitorial in the space of hours.

  ‘For the last time, Sarah-Jane. What did he want?’

  ‘I’ve told you. Just a dispute we had way back in the past. It doesn’t concern you.’ Then a forlorn gambit: ‘Have you forgotten our agreement?’

  ‘I find a man assaulting my wife in my own home and it’s not my concern?’ Mark’s face was slowly turning crimson.

  ‘Mark, just stop bothering me. It’s giving me a headache.’

  ‘When women get headaches men sometimes seek alternatives.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Meaning, Sarah-Jane, that you’re no longer in a bargaining position.’

  Marguerite, frozen in the doorway, was surprised to see Sarah-Jane’s eyes fill with tears. She moved protectively towards her mistress.

  ‘Don’t touch her!’ In frustration Mark brought his fist crashing down on a butterfly that had alighted on his other hand. It was an act against his nature, making the two women recoil in surprise. The muscles around his mouth twitched with remorse. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled, ‘I never thought you’d see me do a thing like that.’ He took the wings of the mangled insect between finger and thumb and transferred it gently to a leaf. ‘Marguerite, you talk to Sarah-Jane. See if you can convince her we’re only concerned for her welfare.’

  He left the two women with their arms about each other, not speaking, and making no move to disengage.

  Brian found Sarah-Jane on her knees surrounded by a dozen balls of screwed-up paper.

  ‘They’re not coming. Not a single bloody one is coming!’

  ‘Who’s not coming?’

  ‘The cretins we invited to dinner. Listen to this.’ She unscrewed one of the balls. ‘We’re really sorry, Sarah-Jane, but Friday is the night Percy goes to pottery! And here’s another. Bertie is flying off to Moscow next week, so we’re sure you’ll understand if… Christ, Brian, am I a leper or something?’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, we might come.’

  ‘Not much point now, is there?’

  ‘Why ever not? You seemed pleased enough last time when you got your painting.’

  ‘Brian, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. You never do. So let’s change the subject.’

  ‘But you’ll come?’

  ‘Perhaps. Now listen carefully. By some means Adams has got a top man to represent him. So we’re going to have to work doubly hard. You do want that, don’t you?’

  She bit her lip. ‘I want to see justice done.’

  ‘Exactly. So Mark and I have leant a bit on the crown prosecution. We think now we can better them. But we must have the wherewithal, Sarah.’

  ‘But you say the case is watertight.’

  ‘Of course. That’s right. But remember, there were no independent witnesses. Convincing though it is, the evidence is still circumstantial. For a start we thought that Marguerite might be a shade more positive about your attacker’s features – his walk, his height, shape of the face under the stocking, that sort of thing.’

  ‘We are determined, aren’t we?’

  ‘Why do you ridicule, you of all people?’ A little pallid ring was extending like a fungus over each cheekbone.

  ‘Who gains?’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Who gains? In a single sentence.’

  ‘From convicting Adams? No-one in particular, besides yourself. But a debt has to be paid to society. That’s what justice is about.’

  ‘Thank you. I did wonder.’

  ‘Mr Throgmorton arrives at two. Let’s run through it all once more, then get Marguerite in. Hopefully there’ll be a time for a little lunch before he gets here.’

  Mark arrived home early, and paced in the hall before ascending the stairs. Sarah-Jane was still in her evening clothes, glaring into her dressing table mirror. ‘You had a hand in it, didn’t you?’ she said viciously.

  ‘In what, Sarah-Jane?’

  ‘Sabotaging my – our – dinner party.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You rang around, didn’t you, to put them off.’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘They told me!’

  ‘Oh, who?’

  ‘The Peters, the Wellboroughs, the…’

  ‘As an incidental remark I might have mentioned that the size of the gathering was likely to be too much for you. I didn’t expect them to take it personally or act upon it. The Davisons are coming though.’

  ‘I asked them not to. Or rather it’s been postponed to the evening after the trial, whenever that will be. If you’re free, that is.’

  Jack Adams’ appearance at the crown court on a charge of causing Sarah Preston grievous bodily harm commenced on a Monday; it was all over by the Thursday afternoon. To the public and jury alike there was a singular lack of evidence and a questionable motive; almost from the beginning it was obvious that an acquittal was inevitable.

  Years later Mr Justice Hobson would confide to Sarah-Jane that he could never quite understand why the prosecution had embarked upon their brief with such apparent confidence; and she, for her part, could not bring herself to tell of the undercurrents concerning the trial that only afterwards had come to light. She had kept a copy of the transcript of the summing up, parts of which she had highlighted: …whether you are safe to convict on the basis of the factual evidence before you. No-one questions that the threatening letters to Mrs Preston emanated from the fund-raising office – that is to say the defendant’s home – but you must consider who might have had access to the stationery and the typewriter, and even the defendant’s pen. The answer must be many people, for it was a very busy office at that time… nor can we be sure that the letters were intended to be anything other than intimidating, as distinct from predictive, for there is no absolute link with the deed that was actually perpetrated… we see a possible motive in the hurt that the defendant sustained, but in taking account of his former unblemished character you should also ask yourselves whether he would not, were he the perpetrator of the act, have realised that the finger of suspicion would assuredly be pointed at him… you may then ask yourselves on whom, if not the defendant, might suspicion otherwise fall. Both the prosecution and the defence probed deeply into this question and neither could identify any person who might have had sufficient grudge against
Mrs Preston to contemplate this violent act…

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Sarah-Jane said that evening at dinner, ‘is why I got off so lightly. Surely, if the defence had wanted to divert suspicion away from Jack Adams they would have taken me apart looking for someone with a better motive. Why didn’t they?’

  ‘Perhaps because they didn’t need to.’ Brian folded his arms and momentarily raised his left eyebrow. It was a new mannerism that told her the point scored was significant but unlikely to be explained.

  ‘You seem remarkably sanguine, Brian, about the result,’ Mark said. ‘It looked to me as if you were the one most anxious to see Adams put away.’

  Was there a whiff of complicity about her husband’s reply?

  ‘Brought to trial, Mark, brought to trial. There’s a substantial difference.’

  ‘But the result’s hardly satisfactory, is it? I for one am no wiser.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Brian said. ‘We had to take it as far as it would go. Surely you can see that.’ He leaned back in his chair, inhaled deeply on his cigar and blew smoke rings into the air.

  Try as she might, Sarah-Jane could not see why he seemed so satisfied with himself.

  Mark was right, though: the whole wretched business was unsatisfactory. The only conceivable benefit was that it had served to occupy her mind. Now the waiting was over another terrible void was becoming filled with brooding and contemplation of her ravaged face.

  If anything the red band along the scar had widened. Worse, the surface of the skin was becoming increasingly irregular, reminding her of an abandoned and slowly desiccating beetroot. It was worst of all at the junction of the lips and the surrounding skin; and it was no longer possible to disguise the puffiness with lipstick, a cosmetic of which, in any case, she was not particularly fond. When it all settles down and stabilises, Brian had told her, only then start worrying about what you should do next.