'Tony told us something similar,' said Cochrane. 'He had all sorts of scenarios worked out to keep women by his side. He didn't need to kill them to re-create his happiest hours, merely make them immobile. It seems he experimented for a number of years without getting caught, although there were a few close calls. He felt at home in pubs, and dreaded the sound of the last bell, knowing that the place would empty out and leave him alone.'
'The girl he kidnapped was anxious to point out that she was never hurt by him in any way,' said May. And yet it seems he decided to start killing them.'
'You say he changed after his mother died. How did that change manifest itself?'
'He'd always been boisterous, eager to join in and organise meetings. He enjoyed a good argument with the others, although he could be very attention-deficit and tended toward over-excitement. After her funeral he withdrew from every-one, wouldn't talk or think for himself, exhibited the classic signs of depression, became morbidly introspective, lost weight, spent too much time asleep.'
'If he was unwell, why was he transferred?'
'This building has been sold, Mr Bryant. It is about to be-come luxury apartments. The pressure is on for us to place all of our patients elsewhere as soon as possible. Tony Pellew was apparently no longer considered to be a threat to himself or anyone else. It was decided that the Broadhampton was better equipped for his needs.'
'Are you aware that he's no longer at the Broadhampton, either?' asked May.
'I knew the board decided to release him recently, because they contacted me in order to obtain my personal files,' Cochrane explained.
'Don't you think their decision was rather odd?'
'Not so much these days. You'd be amazed if you knew about some of the people who get sent back out onto the streets.'
'You must have made your own judgement as to whether he was in any fit state to be released.'
Cochrane regarded Bryant with a cool detachment that suggested she had an opinion but wasn't keen on sharing it. 'I'm afraid you'll have to take that up with the staff at the Broadhampton,' she replied.
As the echoing rooms of Twelve Elms Cross were emptied and barred, it seemed as if their past melancholies would fade and die with them, to be replaced by the bright, light cubicles of a luxurious new prison.
28
MATERNITY
B
ryant was unusually quiet on the journey back. He stared from the scarred windows with his chin resting on a liver-spotted knuckle, lost in thought, impervious to conversation. May was confident that it would be only a matter of hours before they would find Pellew, and his partner's silence perplexed him.
All right, out with it,' he said finally. 'What's wrong?'
Bryant turned to fix him with translucent blue eyes that were, for once, unreadable. 'You would say that we understand each other to an unusual degree, wouldn't you?' he asked. 'I mean, over so many years, the extraordinary way in which we've been involved in each other's lives?'
'Indeed. I never know exactly what you're thinking, but I usually have a pretty good idea. I can't imagine anyone knows you better.'
'And that's how I feel about you. I know you leave the TV on all the time, and love buying those hideously vulgar new suits. I know you've got a sister in Brighton. I know you lost the wallet I bought you for your birthday, and purchased an identical one so I wouldn't find out. I know you hate beetroot and suffer from hay fever. I know you still blame yourself for the death of your daughter, even though there was nothing more you could have done for her. I wonder, therefore, if you've been entirely honest with me.'
'What do you mean? What about?'
'The past, John. The past. There were, of course, a few periods when we weren't working together, and I know I didn't see enough of you during the time you were married. That's understandable; you were in love, and were having to deal with the onset of Jane's mental problems; I was wrapped up in troubles of my own. I suppose I always realised there were—omissions—in your life. I forgot about them for a while, but I started wondering again during Oswald Finch's wake.'
May furrowed his brow, but decided to say nothing. It was better to let Bryant clear his head without interruption. Perhaps it was time for the conversation he had so long avoided.
'I got to thinking. Instead of floral tributes, Oswald asked for contributions to be left in the care of a ward at the Broadhampton Hospital. When I asked you about it, you re-fused to catch my eye. In fact, considering the number of times we've had cause to check with the Broadhampton's patients in other investigations, you've always seemed uncomfortable with the subject. I think it's time you told me the truth.'
'What about?' May played for time. He had not lied so much as omitted details, but after all this time he knew that the inconsistency felt like something more deceptive.
'Jane, your wife. Surely you couldn't have lied to me about her?'
Any answer May could have made dried in his mouth. He stared helplessly back.
'On more than one occasion you told me she was dead, or at least you suggested as much, but it was the way you said it, as if you meant dead to me, as if you had simply cut her out of your life after the divorce. That was how I phrased it when I was writing our memoirs. Of course, you'd been apart for quite a while by then, and I thought well, if that's how he's dealing with it, it's his affair. Then out of the blue, you told me you'd take me to meet her, and I could only assume you were making some kind of off-colour joke. You really had led me to believe she was gone, hadn't you?'
'I wasn't deliberately trying to mislead you, if that's what you're thinking.'
'I knew she'd had a breakdown. I assumed she'd died in the Broadhampton, and that Oswald knew about it, which is why he wanted contributions sent there.'
'No,' said May, shaking his head. 'No, she didn't die, Arthur. She's still there.'
'Then it's true. My God. I don't understand. Why would you keep such a thing from me?'
May felt the shame of a betrayer. 'It was less a lie than an omission. You don't know what I went through with Jane.'
'You could have told me; I might have been able to help.'
'Arthur, you have no patience with people. This was a private problem, something I couldn't find a way to share with you. I had to find a way of getting through to Jane on my own. Mental illness is so terribly misunderstood and I wanted to see if I could help her.'
'Even you can't undo the past, John,' said Bryant sadly. 'How is she now?'
'She has her black dog days. The death of our daughter will always stand between us, but the trouble began long before she died.' May had good reason for sometimes thinking that his family had been cursed. First, Jane's illness and their subsequent divorce, then the death of Elizabeth. Alex, her brother, had left for Canada and would still not talk to his father. 'I kept thinking that if I had understood Jane better in the early days of her illness, I might have been able to keep us all together.'
'When was the last time you saw her?'
About four months ago. Oswald used to come with me to visit her. That's why he wanted to leave money to the hospital.'
'Does she recognise you?'
'Certainly. But it's difficult to hold a conversation with her. Sometimes you think she's perfectly fine, but she's very good at pretending that nothing is wrong. She's in her seventies, hardly the age it once was, of course, but she hasn't been right for such a long time that I can hardly recall a time when she was ever truly well. I've lost track of the number of times she's tried to kill herself. Elizabeth's death removed her reason for living.'
'But what about April? Does she know about this?'
'No, and I agreed with Jane that we're not going to tell her. That girl's been through enough without finding out that her grandmother is still alive. What is the point in opening up old wounds? Jane is in no fit state to see her granddaughter, and April has only just made her own recovery. I don't hold with all this guff about closure and moving on. Sometimes I think it just causes more damage.
'
'Perhaps she needs to decide that for herself,' said Bryant carefully.
'Don't you see, once the subject is reopened it can't be closed up again. April is not strong enough. I have to protect her.'
'Nor is she a child, John. What happened to Jane?'
May sighed. 'It was a long time ago, in a very sixties marriage. You must remember what Jane was like, how wild she could be. It's a miracle we stayed together as long as we did.
After the separation, I told you she went off with someone who was a bad influence on her, some kind of TV producer, so he said. I expected him to tell her lies, but not to give her drugs. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see she was not the sort of person...well, I was looking after the children, you were off in France sorting out troubles of your own with Nathalie's family, we weren't working together much, you and I—I meant to tell you what had happened, but the time never seemed to be right.'
'You told me a little about the accident, but not much.'
'Jane was driving the Volkswagen when it mounted the side-walk right in the middle of Tottenham Court Road. Her boy-friend was killed instantly. She had no licence. They found LSD, cocaine and alcohol in her system. She was too fragile to deal with police and doctors. She suffered a mental collapse and was deemed unfit to stand trial. She wouldn't see me, or anyone else for that matter, and although her physician thought she would eventually recover, she seemed to slip away from us to some private place inside her head. She became a danger to herself and was admitted as a patient to the Broadhampton. I had to sign her papers. It was the worst day of my life. She showed little improvement, and seemed desperate to take up long-term residency. She wanted no responsibility for her own life. When you returned, I told myself I would talk to you when the time was right, but I kept putting it off. I visit her every once in a while, but she doesn't really know who I am.' May looked from the window as if searching for answers.'It seems I can help every family except my own. My son thinks I dumped his mother in a clinic and encouraged his sister to join the police. To think that I could have lost April as well... '
'But you didn't, John, you brought her back,' said Bryant gently. 'You should be proud of that. You know we have to go to the Broadhampton next, don't you? Would you let me visit Jane?'
'Wouldn't you rather remember her as she once was?' asked May, as the train passed across the glittering grey Thames on its approach to Victoria Station.
'Yes, but I'd still like to see her once more.'
'Then I should call ahead.' May took out his phone.
'No, don't do that. We need to find out why Pellew was released early, so let's catch them on the hop. I don't want any prepared answers.'
May tried to read the look on his partner's face, but for once, failed to do so.
The Broadhampton Clinic in Lavender Hill, South London, was an orange brick Edwardian building with central columns of white stucco, pedimented wings and a small bell tower. It possessed the aura of paternal authority common to civic buildings of the era, and made one feel protected just by approaching it.
The detectives met with an apologetic young intern named Senwe who did his best to help, but was unfamiliar with the patient in question. After questioning other nurses and registrars, Senwe returned to the office where he had left the detectives waiting.
'There is a lady who knows about the release of Anthony Pellew,' he explained, rounding his vowels with a crystal African accent, 'but she is away on holiday. Her department have given me this for you.' He handed over a single folded sheet of paper.
Bryant fiddled his reading glasses into place.'Let's see, what have we got? "A. Pellew, thirty-seven years of age, adjudged by the medical assessment committee under conditions established by the Revised Mental Health Act of 1998 to be of such mental sufficiency that he may be released under his own cognizance conditional to regular examination and palliative care"—God, who writes these things?'
'It looks like the board decided he met enough of their criteria to be placed in a halfway house, so long as he continued to take medication for anxiety,' said May, reading over his shoulder.
'So he was kept on the happy pills and packed off to a flat on the De Beauvoir estate, off the Balls Pond Road in Islington. There's an address here. We could nip back and get Victor.'
'I'm not driving around town in that lethal hippie rust-bucket, thank you,' May warned. 'We'll take my BMW. You shouldn't be driving.'
'You're a fine one to talk. Alma hasn't forgiven you for buggering up her Bedford van.'
'We were stuck in a snowdrift, Arthur; it's hardly surprising the radiator cracked. Any next of kin listed?'
'None, but there's a social services officer. Actually, it's someone we've dealt with before: Lorraine Bonner, the leader of the Residents' Association at the Roland Plumbe Community estate. At least we know where to find her.'
'Then that's our next stop.' May paused, uncertain. 'Do you still want to see Jane?'
'Yes, I'd like to.'
May led the way upstairs and through the cheerfully painted corridors, to a ward separated from the rest of the floor. Nodding to the duty nurse, he headed toward the corner room and gently pushed back the door.
'Jane, it's me.' There was no answer. 'I've brought somebody to see you. You remember Arthur Bryant, don't you?'
She wore a tightly drawn fawn cardigan over a long pleated skirt. Her white sneakers had no laces. She had kept her figure and removed any trace of grey from her auburn hair, but when she turned around, Bryant saw the pain and confusion of the intervening years etched under her eyes and around her thin mouth. There was a loss of focus in her face, as though she was searching for something she could not quite make out. After a moment of composure during which she absently touched a hair into place, she drew a breath and seemed to straighten a little.
'Jane, do you remember Arthur?'
She raised a finger at him and tried to smile. 'Yes, we've met, but I'm afraid I don't know where—'
'I came to your wedding,' said Bryant gently.
'My wedding. How nice. Of course you did. You were always so kind.' The smile held, the eyes even twinkled, but her concentration was disturbed by the movement of branches beyond the window, the scrappy flight of a magpie above the grounds, a murmur of conversation in the corridor. 'I wonder if—' She stopped, a cloud of anxiety crossing her features. 'We could go to the coast. I'd like that, John. On a day when it's sunny, a day like today. I'd like to walk on the cliffs. But it must be warmer.'
'I know you don't like the cold, Jane, but spring will be here soon. I'll come for you then.'
'You've always been so good to him, Arthur.' She reached out for Bryant's arm, gently plucking a thread from his sleeve. As she did so, he glimpsed the scribble of scars whitening the flesh of her inside arm. 'I felt sure you would have both retired by now.'
'Oh, no, we're in this together right until the bitter end.' There was indulgent gaiety in Bryant's chuckle, but he could see a lasting winter in her eyes.
'Well, I feel terribly special today. It's good to see you both. I'm very privileged. Perhaps you'll come back another time. Come and see me again.'
The audience was over. Her attention had started to diminish, like a boat pulling away from the shore. She started to turn away. 'I'm quite happy here. I know everyone. You needn't rush back, not if you don't want to.'
'Jane, did you meet a patient here, a gentleman called Tony Pellew?' Bryant could not stop himself from asking.
Her waning interest was suddenly checked. Here was something she could grasp, someone she could recall from re-cent days. 'Of course I did. He spoke to me.'
The answer had come too quickly. He doubted she was telling the truth. 'Really? You knew him?'
'Long brown hair, slight, under-nourished. They let him out.'
'That's right.'
'He seemed decent enough, very bright, but such a mother's boy. There was something too soft in his eyes. He talked about his mother all the time. He told me that whe
n she died, all the clocks in the pub stopped at two minutes past eleven.'
'What pub?'
'Where she lived. They let him leave. He wasn't well enough, in my opinion. You can tell which ones are well enough to go.' She pulled her cardigan a little tighter. 'How is my little girl?'
May looked guilty. 'She's well, Jane. Much better than she's been in years.'
'You must take very good care of her. She's all I have now.' She looked away, touching a finger beneath her eye. 'Perhaps one day you can bring her here.'
'We discussed this, Jane. If the doctor feels you can cope—' 'I know, I know, it's a stupid idea.' Her features set in a smile of practised hospitality. 'Well, I must go now, or I'll miss my lunch.'
Bryant looked back once as he walked away, and wished he had not seen her. The tiny, hunchbacked figure framed against the window bore no resemblance to the woman he remembered laughing between their linked arms. The tragedy of losing those she loved had robbed her of the right to happiness.
29
WRAITH
L
orraine Bonner was a broad black woman with a laugh like someone unbunging a sink and enough courage to make the surliest delinquent think twice about disrespecting her. They found her surrounded by cardboard files in the chaotic first-floor office of the council estate's main block.
'I didn't think I'd see the two of you again,' she said, pouring thick brown tea from a steel pot the size of an upturned bucket. 'I thought that thing with the Highwayman was all over.'
'It is, Lorraine, but Mr May and I have a new problem,' said Bryant, 'and we thought you might be able to help us.'
'Can you walk with me while I do my pensioners?' Mrs Bonner delivered meals to the mobility-challenged seniors on the estate every lunchtime. When their own relatives could not be bothered to look after them, she was there to dispense patient kindnesses that had sophisticates sneering, while offering such practical help that they felt ashamed. May explained their mission as she manhandled her protesting trolley into the corridor.
The Victoria Vanishes Page 16