‘There’s a footpath too,’ said Morgan, her eyes merry. ‘From the village, the other way. Past the new houses.’ Where Alison had run. ‘Or along the sea wall. I mean, if we’re talking murder.’ They all looked at her and then the waitress was back, circling the table for the plates, disapproving. Lucy Carter came in behind her and sat back down.
‘Murder?’ she said, brightly.
‘The old drunk,’ said Morgan, rolling her eyes.
‘He spoke to me in the pub,’ said Paul thoughtfully. ‘The night we got here.’
‘You said,’ said Carter. ‘I don’t suppose you got into a fight with him, did you?’ And laughed, leaning back in his chair, looking for the next course. ‘No, seriously. It’s happened a dozen times before, Stephen Bray face down in the mud. No one’s even slightly surprised.’
‘What was he talking to you about?’ said Morgan, leaning into Paul. Her nails were long and silvery on her glass, she glittered.
‘Oh, guess,’ said Paul, and he drained his glass. ‘Ancient history. The murders, what else. It’s a pity nothing else has happened since, couldn’t you have given them a new scandal, Morgan?’
Alison watched Morgan. She leaned back in her chair, hard and beautiful in her shining silk. Christian was watching her too. ‘The murders didn’t really surprise you either, did they, Daddy?’ she said, and her father blinked, a little bleary suddenly, Alison saw.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s the expression? A car crash. An accident waiting to happen. It didn’t come out of the blue.’
And Alison thought of the kids throwing breeze blocks from the motorway bridge, of Sarah Rutherford clearing up the mess, and from there to the photographs still in their envelope under the car’s passenger seat.
‘I saw him getting into a fight outside the pub, though.’ Morgan was almost gleeful. ‘The man. John Grace.’
The waitress was back, with some chicken and pale potatoes. She began to move around the table.
Carter shifted in his chair, uneasy, but then Alison saw he couldn’t resist. She hated him. ‘Well that was a sad story,’ he began, steepling his fingers, pompous. ‘Young man, whose child died in a fire. They’d had some dealings, I believe. Grace had done some work on his house before the accident and the young man – Frank Marshall – decided he might have had something to do with the fire. They ended up rolling around in the mud one evening, both drunk, Marshall wanting to kill him, or vice versa, God knows.’ Morgan had an expression of sleepy satisfaction as her father spoke.
‘The young man had a criminal record,’ added Carter, dismissively. ‘Ended up killing himself, I believe.’ He peered at his plate. ‘Anyway, what’s this?’
‘Chicken Véronique,’ said his wife, pale as the plate.
Alison thought of something. She needed to change the subject. ‘That power station,’ she said, and all at once everyone was looking at her. ‘Does it still run? Is there a cancer risk?’ Although Kyra Price was the only one she had ever known, she imagined others, hidden behind their front doors, in bed. Attended by the district nurse. ‘Leukaemia?’
‘They decommissioned it,’ said Lucy Carter. ‘Didn’t they, darling?’
‘They did do some kind of, ah, risk assessment,’ said Carter, frowning at his wife. ‘But they found no evidence of any effect at all, as a matter of fact. Did all sorts of tests. Analysed the oyster beds, even.’ And laughed heartily. ‘Heresy!’
‘You didn’t notice any … greater incidence? Among your patients?’ Alison’s voice was steady and quiet: they were all still looking at her, taking her for some green zealot, perhaps. She took a drink, to cover an inappropriate desire to laugh, or shout.
‘I have cancer patients, of course,’ he said, dismissive. ‘In the usual proportions.’
‘He’s about to retire,’ said Lucy Carter, bright-eyed.
Roger Carter chewed. ‘This is good,’ he said, unconvincingly. Alison watched him, saw him grow uneasy again under her gaze, but didn’t drop it.
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, ah, Alison,’ he said, irritable at last. ‘But this is a perfectly normal village. A happy place.’
Clearing his throat, Christian raised his glass. ‘A happy place,’ he said, and one after the other they followed suit, sheepish, until it came to Morgan. She sounded jubilant.
‘A happy place,’ she said, and drank.
Chapter Nineteen
That night an ancient alarm sounded, an iron clapper mounted high somewhere and hammering so hard it rattled her teeth as she lay in bed.
Blindly she sat up in the dark, felt her head swim. Paul lay on the bed, just beginning to stir.
Lights went on outside and she groped for her glasses. What was she wearing? The dark-red silk thing. Beside her Paul flung out an arm and she started up.
When they had come up to bed the gun had been sitting there, wrapped in its dirty old serge on top of a shirt in his suitcase quite openly. More than openly, it was as if she was being shown it, because the suitcase was open on the bed.
‘What’s that?’ she said, pointing, although she recognised it straight away. Her head was thick from the wine, and from the Carters’ dining room.
Paul picked it up, weighing it, the cross-hatched grip sitting comfortably in his palm. ‘This?’ he asked.
She nodded, dumb.
He sighed. ‘Oh, superstition,’ he said, looking down. ‘Lucky charm, or something. It was given to me by old Saunders.’ It sat there, dangerous. She didn’t like the idea of Paul being Saunders’s friend, it ranged him against her, somehow, the world of men whose job is being clever. ‘Second World War, used by the Germans in France.’ He held it out. ‘You want to hold it?’ She’d stepped back so hurriedly she had to steady herself, and he set it down. He put a hand in the small of her back, pulling her to him, her hips squared below his.
‘That dinner was an ordeal,’ he said lightly. She felt him press against her. ‘Christ. Poor woman.’
He meant Lucy.
Had any of them been sober by the time they were herded back into the Carters’ big sitting room, with its baronial fireplace? Roger Carter had stood at the mantelpiece while Lucy pressed brandy on them.
Paul hadn’t seemed drunk at all, even though she had tasted the alcohol on his mouth, later.
‘Of course, women like that,’ Lucy Carter had said, handing a glass to Christian, careless, the liquid slopping inside it. ‘What do they expect? Basically just animals. Men, I mean. If you deceive men.’ She was flushed, unable or unwilling to compose a full sentence. ‘How do you think a man will behave? It’s…’ She stumbled over the word. ‘Programming. Evolutionary.’ Christian’s expression was stony.
‘Really, darling,’ said Roger Carter, feebly. ‘That’s rather an old-fashioned view.’
The uncomfortable silence barely lasted a second, and then from her perch on the arm of a sofa, long legs extended in front of her, Morgan spoke.
‘Alison.’ Her voice was warm, golden. Alison held her breath. Morgan tilted her head and her hair swung. ‘So. Where are you from, exactly?’ Poised.
Alison felt Paul shift closer. Terror moved inside her. ‘Alison’s from Cornwall,’ Paul said, before she could answer.
‘Parents?’ said Morgan, looking up at Alison. Her intentions seemed purely malicious and Alison felt panic spin, out of her grasp.
‘My dad’s dead,’ she said, meeting Morgan’s eye, trying to be methodical. Morgan tilted her head, waiting for elaboration. She’s distracting them, her mother’s pissed, she’s embarrassed. She’s being a lawyer, creating a diversion. ‘Heart attack at the wheel,’ Alison said. ‘Car crash.’
Morgan didn’t look embarrassed. Her smile was light, she was all glossy-haired composure. Alison made herself speak again.
‘My mother’s still down there.’ Polly, nothing like a mother. Sorry, she said in her head. ‘In Cornwall. I talked to her on the phone today.’ She felt Paul stiffen, but he didn’t turn to question her. Her brain scrambled its
emergency responses, what if, what if.
What if it goes further? Paul will want to meet her.
‘I swear I heard them, you know,’ said Lucy Carter, unstoppable, holding a glass out to her. ‘The shots, so loud.’ Mechanically, Alison took the glass and Lucy threw up her hands, miming. ‘Boom.’
There was an intake of breath from someone. Lucy looked around at her audience glassily. ‘We were out on the patio, weren’t we? Brandy on the terrace. It was such a cold night.’ Vague, her eyes settled on Morgan, who looked up at the ceiling as though counting in her head. ‘You remember, darling?’ Her gaze shifted. ‘Paul?’
‘You were here when it happened?’ said Alison quickly. Halfway through the sentence she heard her voice rise, trying to sound merely interested.
At her side Paul nodded, absently, watching Lucy. ‘I don’t remember hearing the shots,’ he said, thoughtful.
Lucy looked back at Morgan. ‘Not Daddy, of course.’ At the word on Roger’s wife’s lips, Daddy, Alison had to turn away. ‘There was a baby somewhere with a cold or something, and the mother called in the middle of the night. I tried to put her off but Roger had to do his duty. Freezing. A freezing night for June. I went out onto the patio and I heard it.’
Alison thought, I’m going to have to do something. There was no route out of this that she could see. If they asked her one more question … In the darkness beyond the wide expanse of glass she saw the patio, the ghost-white shape of the half-erected marquee beyond it, and she imagined Lucy Carter standing there with her glass in her hand, listening.
Carter shook his head gently. ‘It was Mrs Jonas,’ he said. ‘Actually the child had pneumonia, it turned out. So just as well.’
Morgan shifted. Now, thought Alison. Before she looks at me.
‘Did they never suspect anyone else?’ she said, and Morgan stilled. ‘I mean, apart from the father?’ Christian was looking at her too, his face weary at last. ‘It seems to happen all the time.’ In spite of herself, she pursued it. ‘Fathers killing their children. It seems too easy. For the police, I mean.’ Her lips felt numb. ‘You hope they do their job properly.’ And then she took a drink from the glass Lucy Carter had given her. ‘That’s all.’
* * *
Fire.
Did she smell smoke?
In the dark bedroom now, from below them in the hotel Alison heard thumping, voices. Already half out of bed, blindly she put out a hand to Paul. Someone rapped on their door and abruptly he was upright.
‘It’s the fire alarm,’ she said, in the middle of the room.
‘Christ,’ he said, and was out of bed reaching for his clothes.
The corridor was bright, no smoke, but there was a whiff of something acrid on the air. Alison’s feet were bare, she felt half naked in the slip, she should have stopped to put something, anything, over the top but it was too late to go back now. Paul was ahead of her on the stairs. Below them she saw Jan in the hall, her stiff hair disordered from sleep, in a dressing gown and slippers. Holding open the door she turned to look up at them, her face crumpled with tiredness and temper. Feet stood on the gravel beyond her.
Behind her on the stairs someone cleared his throat. It was Christian, in dark pyjamas. She turned and saw him look down the dark silk that slid against her skin. He smiled, wearily knowing.
They’d given him a lift to the hotel when finally, just before midnight, their conversation had drawn to a close. She knew she should never have asked the question, not even to create a diversion. But once it was out there, she had wanted to know. To know the other side of Sarah Rutherford’s carefully guarded responses.
Roger Carter had sighed. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s a long time, now. They seemed to be talking to an awful lot of people.’ Morgan moved to his side, setting her drink on the mantelpiece. She could be his young wife, a big handsome blond pair.
‘Ghastly,’ said Lucy Carter, sitting forward on the big plush sofa, her hands thin on her glass.
‘The boy,’ said Morgan, ignoring her.
‘Boy?’ Her father looked at her, bemused.
‘Well, young man, maybe,’ Morgan amplified. ‘Bit older than me? The one who was found on the marsh almost frozen to death the next morning.’
Alison’s heart thumped, fast and loud. What boy? she thought, and those two in their boat came to mind, heading out into the estuary. Brown-skinned Danny and his sad brother Martin.
‘Oh, yes.’ Carter looked thoughtful. ‘Hypothermia, he did nearly die, yes, but it was nowhere near the Grace house. Accident-prone. Simon Chatwin.’ He shook his head, glanced back at Alison. ‘The police spoke to him, I believe. They spoke to all sorts of people.’
It hit her like a thump between the shoulder blades. Accident-prone. Simon Chatwin’s windsurfer drifting abandoned past the barge’s bulk. Alison turned her face just slightly so Carter’s look fell past her. She stared at the wall, at decanters on the sideboard, anywhere so as not to meet a human eye. She and Simon Chatwin had both been out on the cold marsh after the gunshots, separated by what distance? Chatwin lying unconscious. How? Why?
She said nothing: someone else would have to speak, she didn’t trust herself even to look.
‘It could have been him, though, couldn’t it, Morgan?’ Lucy Carter sat up, excitable. Her daughter regarded her levelly.
‘Do you even know who we’re talking about, Mother?’ she said. ‘As far as I remember Simon Chatwin barely has the energy to roll a cigarette. And what about your theories about husbands being animals?’ Her mother subsided.
At the door, saying goodbye, Morgan had pressed her cheek against Alison’s too long. ‘Let’s get together tomorrow,’ she said. Alison had pulled back, dumbly. Paul’s eyes on her.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Lovely.’
‘Just us girls,’ said Morgan. ‘I’ll show you the dress.’
In the car Alison had held her breath, waiting for the ignition to fire. Paul was looking at her as he turned the key, he didn’t know, of course, and Alison felt the questions start up again. Why had the battery been dead?
She didn’t know enough about cars. Chatwin had an explanation, something about it having been sitting idle, but he’d been uncertain too, hadn’t he? She thought of his dull eyes, the sandy stubble with grey in it, already. How old could he be? Once he’d been golden, once he’d leaned down to kiss her smelling of cigarettes, the sun shining in his eyes, his hands warm. Pity for him softened her.
The ignition fired, she breathed, and Paul reached for his seat belt. ‘Morgan’s lovely,’ he said. ‘Go tomorrow. Give her a chance.’ Behind them Christian had looked out of the window.
‘Of course,’ she had said.
* * *
Fire.
As they came through the hotel’s front door to join the others on the gravel, Alison groped to find Paul’s hand. He looked down at her, amused. ‘I can smell smoke,’ she said.
‘Cigarette smoke, maybe,’ he said, but he squeezed her hand briefly. Alison raised her head to locate the smell. Something – a bonfire, someone’s barbecue – but not a real fire. The hotel stood behind them, solid and empty and safe. In the small group of guests and staff Alison felt a movement, a head turning to watch her, and she looked away. Paul’s little car was visible across the gravel in the dark.
They’d all fallen silent by the time they pulled in from the Carters’ that evening and she’d let Paul and Christian climb out while she stayed sitting there, alone inside the car.
Not quite alone. The photographs had been there all along, beneath the passenger seat. Not for one moment since she had pulled that top print out and thrust it away again had she forgotten them; they lay like a stain, a shadow. Alison had leaned, fingers creeping between the footwell carpet and the seat, feeling for the envelope. There: the flap of paper.
‘Darling?’ Paul was back, his head inside. Turning to smile awkwardly over her shoulder she felt something else, a slippery fabric thing, pulled at it.
‘My scarf,’ s
he said, straightening. Frowning. There all the time, as if it had worked its way under the seat to wait until she needed it, the cover story for her hand reaching for the envelope. Gratefully, she held it to her cheek for a quick embarrassed second.
‘Told you it’d turn up,’ he said, and held out his hand.
They had said goodnight to Christian on the stairs and Alison had felt it start up then, the flutter of anticipation, or fear. But he had been gentle, this time. He had seemed tired, at first, folding the gun back up in its serge: she had waited. Before Paul had she been so acquiescent? She didn’t think so. She had been the one impatient, the one to experiment, to insist. She had never wanted to submit, to surrender. He lulled her, he quieted her. She wanted to be quieted.
He’d laid her back on the bed, gently, and set to work, crouched over her. She remembered thinking, while she still had control, What do you want? – and then thinking, It doesn’t matter. He’d gone on, stroking her, soothing her, until she forgot the gun wrapped in its dirty cloth, forgot Morgan, his mouth on her softest places until she came and then slid away from him, into the blissful deep, and slept. She didn’t know what he did then, if he stayed awake, if he watched her.
A fire engine had arrived, blocking the drive with its bulk and three, four, five men climbed out and stood about. Cautiously Alison looked at their faces, and knew none of them. The first one took off his helmet, and Jan went over to them. Alison tiptoed, trying to hear. Jan pointed back towards the building and Alison heard ‘Kitchen’. Jan and the lead fireman, his helmet still on, went inside.
It was five, ten long minutes later that they re-emerged. ‘False alarm,’ said Jan, to a ripple of tired assent from the staff. At the sound Alison quickly examined them. A thickset man she thought was the chef; the foreign waitress; a bony, pimpled boy, barely out of teenage years; a woman approaching middle age. Their faces blank with sleeplessness. She slowed, looked closer – but Paul’s hand was on her elbow. ‘Back to bed,’ he said. The older woman’s tired face followed her, imprinted on her retina, a look she couldn’t dodge.
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