A Place Of Safety

by Caroline Graham

  She covered the last few miles to the outskirts of Causton anticipating her meeting with the estate agents. And wondered how soon they would be able to come and give a valuation. That they would jump at the chance she was sure. A house the same size as hers, though admittedly in much better repair, had been sold at Martyr Bunting the previous week for three hundred thousand pounds.

  A roundabout was coming up. Ann started to concentrate on the road ahead. She negotiated her way round the war memorial in the main market square and down Causton High Street past Boots and Woolworths and Minnie’s Pantry. She decided to go there for tea around four o’clock, then there would be no need to have anything at home. She could stay out until almost the minute the police were due to arrive. She hoped it would be the big, burly detective who came after Charlie was killed. She had liked him and not only because he had shown impatience with Lionel’s affectations. Ann had guessed at a man unclouded by sentiment but not without kindness. Solid, self-contained and passionately interested in whatever was going on around him.

  She turned left at the town hall, behind which stood the new three-storey car park. This had been built only after two years of the most ferocious opposition. Causton, population twenty-seven thousand and eighty-three souls at the last electoral listing, reckoned it did not want or need a public car park. When it was mooted, Middle England took to the streets with banners and besieged the Causton Echo with abusive or heavily ironical why oh why? correspondence. Sit-ins took place at the municipal offices and when the town planning department bravely organised a public meeting, it ended in a riot. Several people lay down when the diggers came in. It was built anyway, of course, and the moment it was open the council painted double yellow lines all over the town centre and outlying streets so people had no choice but to use it.

  At three o’clock on a weekday afternoon, the car park was almost full. Ann drove slowly round the first and second tier but there was not a single empty space. At the third she found one between a Land Rover and a Robin Reliant, miles away from the exit.

  Ann didn’t really like using the place except at ground level which had plenty of natural light and people passing just a few feet away. Artificial lights were installed in the rest of the building but often didn’t work. Sometimes this was due to slack maintenance but more often to vandalism

  Like any public space with ease of access, lack of supervision and an opportunity for concealment, the car park had attracted those with something to conceal. Only the week before, several men had been caught after holding their very own car boot sale, swapping small bags of dream dust for large bags of used currency. They did not realise a pair of lovers were practically on the floor of a car just a few feet away. The ardent couple, passion spent, memorised the dealer’s number plate before wisely putting, and keeping, their heads down.

  Ann had read about this in the paper. As she got out and locked all four doors, recalling the drug handlers’ capture made her feel slightly more confident in the way air passengers will when travelling immediately after a major disaster, aware not only that the odds against a second disaster happening so soon were astronomical but also feeling everyone on the flight deck would be concentrating one thousand and one per cent.

  The long space between her and the lift was crammed with cars but apparently empty of human beings. Ann started to walk, looking around as she did so. How ugly concrete was. The bleak grey walls were already stained with running dark seams, like black tear tracks.

  She found herself counting the vehicles. Two, three, four . . . On seven - lucky seven - there was a sound behind her. A creak as if someone was opening a door. Ann wheeled round. Nothing. Had someone got out of one of the seemingly empty cars? Were they even now creeping along behind her, keeping pace with her movements? Or drawing level and catching up?

  She shook her head with irritation at her own timidity. Where was all the courage that had filled her heart and mind when she had sung those words a mere half-hour ago? She took a deep breath, lifted her chin and lengthened her stride. Eleven, twelve, thirteen - nearly halfway there.

  He must have been wearing soft shoes, or no shoes. She didn’t hear a thing but glimpsed a sudden great pouncing out of the corner of her eye. Then he was on her. She felt the weight of him, the grunting curse of his breath. His arm was clamped so fiercely round her throat that, even in her terror, she could not cry out.

  She was dragged over to the nearest car. Then, before she understood what was happening, he seized her hair, gathering it tightly in his fist, and yanked her head right back then swung it forward with tremendous force hard down against the edge of the bonnet.

  Valentine Fainlight was working. That is, he was going through the motions. The proofs for Barley Roscoe and the Hopscotch Kid had finally arrived and Val was vaguely turning over the pages, thinking they looked all right to him. Once upon a time, in another life it sometimes seemed, he would have noticed that the margins on more than one page were not quite even and that Barley’s magic cap was too dark a shade in the scene where he transformed hopscotch squares into blocks of honey fudge. (The cap, a pale, delicate blue when Barley was simply going about his day-to-day affairs, deepened according to the degree of catastrophe his transformations wrought.)

  Valentine saw none of these things. He saw only Jax’s face: cruel, beautiful, enigmatic. He had found himself wondering briefly yesterday evening how a person not all that intelligent could actually manage to look enigmatic then felt ashamed. Val had had thoughts like this once before and had immediately berated himself for being snobbish and unfair. And in any case, they were irrelevant. For who was ever cured of a fever by dispassionate analysis?

  He felt bad about Louise. He loved his sister and knew that his apparent rejection was hurting her. The only thing to be said in his defence was that if she continued to live with him, she would be hurt much, much more.

  Sometimes, at moments like this when Val acknowledged that the word relationship was meaningless and what he had really been infected by was a fatal disease, he remembered Bruno. Val had had the good fortune to live for seven years with a complex, gifted, difficult, funny, kind and completely loyal man. The sex had been great, the fights never vicious. When Bruno died, Valentine felt he had fallen into a bottomless chasm of despair.

  His partner’s parents, one or two very close friends, his work but, most of all, Louise had pulled him back to life. Now, when she was struggling to recover from her own smash-up, he was turning her out. A month ago he would not have thought himself capable. This morning, when she had cried in the kitchen, he felt so terrible he almost changed his mind. But then a wonderful idea occurred to him. A week ago, when Louise had gone to London for the day, he had asked Jax over to see the house. It had been warm and they had had wine and sandwiches in the garden. Jax had loved Fainlights and could hardly tear himself away. With Louise gone, Jax could not just visit, he could actually come and stay.

  The telephone rang. Val snatched it up and cried, ‘Yes, yes?’

  ‘Hello, Val.’

  ‘Jax! What do you—’ He stopped, gulped in some air. ‘I mean, how are things? How are you?’

  ‘I’m just going to have a shower, actually.’

  Oh God, if this is a tease I’ll go over there and kill him.

  ‘You one of them green people?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, save water, shower with a friend.’

  ‘Do you mean you’d like . . .’

  ‘Only if you want.’

  Louise saw him go. She had heard the phone ring, once. Now she watched her brother, her lovable, intelligent brother, capering in his excitement, fumbling with the front gates and racing into the road. Dancing at the end of this odious man’s leash like some sad performing bear.

  As Valentine hurried through the blue door and up the stairs, he realised he had not brought any money. But he could put that right. He could explain.

  The door of the flat was slightly open. He could hear the shower runnin
g. Was Jax already in there? Or maybe he was moving silently behind him on the cream carpet, creeping up to jump. To grab Val hard round the throat as he had once before. Already excited, Val deliberately didn’t turn his head.

  But then Jax walked out of his bedroom wearing a loosely tied towelling robe. Came straight up to Val and put the end of the belt in his hand. Then, using both his own hands, ripped open Val’s shirt, sending the buttons flying.

  Hetty Leathers, having now confirmed the time and date of her husband’s funeral, invited Evadne both to the church and afterwards for a light lunch at the bungalow.

  And so Evadne was laying out her black. It was not a colour she enjoyed wearing, consequently there was very little to choose from. However, having been brought up to observe the traditional formalities, she felt unable to attend such a function in any other colour.

  A lot depended on the weather. A late August day could be extremely warm or unexpectedly nippy. Evadne removed a fine wool coat and skirt from her wardrobe and gave the outfit a good shake. The coat smelt of moth balls and the lingering fragrance of Coco, her favourite scent. Then she picked out a long-sleeved anthracite velvet tunic and matching trousers and studied them thoughtfully. They were certainly dark enough to be acceptable and extremely elegant but her mother would have fainted with horror at the idea of a woman wearing trousers in church. Aware that her parent’s benign but strict attention could beam down unannounced at any time, Evadne put the ensemble back.

  The hat was not a problem. Well, it was and it wasn’t. That is, she had a hat and it was the proper colour but it was not what you would call funereal. She had bought the organza confection for a favourite niece’s wedding a year ago. It had a high crown, a wide, down-curving brim and was trimmed with dark floppy peonies made of shiny silk. However, as one could no more enter church without a hat than one could wearing masculine attire, it would have to do.

  Evadne carried the clothes downstairs and hung them in the kitchen near an open window to freshen up. Then she set about making a cup of lemon verbena tea which she always enjoyed with her morning paper.

  Soon there was a scratching at the front door. Evadne opened it to admit Mazeppa carrying a basket holding The Times. She was standing in for Piers who was having a lie-in.

  Mazeppa was a good girl, even famous - one of her puppies had won Best in Show at Crufts - but she had never got the hang of carrying a newspaper in her mouth. She felt this inability keenly and was deeply ashamed of being sent out with a basket. Evadne had never thought to explain that Piers only carried the local paper in his mouth. Even he needed a little help with the heavies.

  Now Mazeppa, determined to impress, tipped the basket onto its side, pulled out a section of the journal, mangled it between her teeth, dragged it into the kitchen and laid it carefully down.

  ‘What have I told you?’ Evadne picked up the paper, poking her finger through an extremely soggy patch and wagging it at the dog. ‘How am I supposed to read this?’

  Mazeppa beat her feathery, fleur-de-lys of a tail hard against the table leg panting and sighing with pleasure at all this attention.

  ‘Now I suppose you think you’re getting a biscuit.’

  The thumping rhythm slowed, becoming less certain. Mazeppa’s face, already squashed by nature into a crumpled landscape of ridges, tucks and frowns, became even more scrunched up by anxiety. Evadne patted the dog, tossed it a chocolate Bourbon and took her tea into the sitting room. She opened the remains of the newspaper at the arts section.

  There was an exhibition of early English mezzotints and watercolours at the V & A. Evadne loved watercolours. She wondered if the museum would accommodate the dogs. Mrs Craven had taken her poodle, a fractious little show-off, to a horticultural display at St Vincent’s Square. The Pekes, by comparison, were as good as gold. Perhaps they could be left briefly with the cloakroom attendant? She decided to ring the very next day.

  Already consumed by a happy glow of anticipation, Evadne skipped the theatre reviews - why on earth would anyone need theatre with the drama of daily life all about them? - and found the book pages.

  She always kept a little notebook and propelling pencil by her chair to write down new titles that appealed. Not that she could afford many of them but Causton library, even in its present state of constant penury, usually managed to raise or borrow a copy from somewhere.

  Today there was a full page on children’s literature. It was divided into boxes relating to the child’s age and showed illustrations from the books, some funny, some charming, some so frightening Evadne wondered at the parent who would let them into the house. She wished she had a young friend or relation to climb on her knee and listen to The Tale of Peter Rabbit or Babar the Elephant. Perhaps the newly married niece would eventually oblige.

  In the seven-to-nine-years section she found a new title from the Barley Roscoe series. Evadne knew all about Barley. Valentine Fainlight had donated a signed copy of his young hero’s adventures in aid of the church fete and Evadne had won it on the tombola. Barley was an appealing child, frequently in trouble yet always starting out with the best of intentions. He reminded her of William Brown but without William’s stunning insouciance when standing amidst the wreckage of his confident attempts to be helpful.

  Evadne put the paper aside, rather sorry now she had opened it. She had been trying to put the name Fainlight from her mind. Trying not to dwell on the sad fact of Carlotta’s disappearance. Her heart went out to Valentine. When the nice young constable had asked her if she had known the girl or could give any information about her disappearance, Evadne had mentioned her lovelorn suitor. Then, fearing that she had implied some involvement on Valentine’s part, hurriedly explained that this was purely a matter of observation rather than actual knowledge.

  And his poor sister. Oh dear. Evadne sighed aloud. She had heard Louise weeping in the garden of their house on Friday. Evadne had called on behalf of Christian Aid and had hovered uncertainly for several minutes, torn between a natural longing to offer comfort and an anxiety that an intrusion might embarrass or annoy. Louise had always struck her as a very private person. In the end she had walked quietly away. So much unhappiness. Evadne picked up The Times hoping to recapture her pleasant feelings of a few moments ago. She turned to the music page. This was largely taken up by an appreciation of a young and gifted jazz musician who had recently committed suicide.

  Evadne sighed again, rather more loudly this time. Mazeppa jumped into her lap, gazed intently into her eyes and gave a long moan of sympathy.

  At five fifteen precisely, when Louise Fainlight was quietly breaking her heart and her brother was kneeling on a tiled shower floor in a state of worshipful ecstasy; when Hetty Leathers and her daughter were cracking a bottle of Guinness to celebrate having scraped together the necessary to pay for fifty per cent of Charlie’s funeral (thanks to the Red Lion collection bottle) and the members of the Mothers’ Union were preparing their hearts and minds for their genteel and philanthropic endeavours, Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby and Sergeant Gavin Troy presented themselves on the crumbling steps of the Old Rectory.

  Lionel Lawrence hardly heard the bell and in any case was in such a state of inner turmoil that he had quite forgotten his telephone conversation earlier that day with the police. Lionel felt like a man who has owned a kitten for years, devotedly caring for it in a kindly if absent-minded manner, only to have it turn into a panther behind his back and bite a great chunk out of his hand.

  Obviously Ann would calm down. He would have to be patient, talk to her, maybe even listen a bit. She plainly felt she had some sort of legitimate grievance although Lionel could not imagine what this could possibly be. But he would make whatever promises she wanted and even do his best to keep them. Anything else was unthinkable. To be cut adrift at his time of life, homeless, penniless. What would he do? Where would he go? After years of dedicated compassion towards society’s cast-offs, Lionel realised that now that he was in need of a spot of it hims
elf, there seemed to be no one to turn to. Furious at his wife for putting him in such a position while knowing he could never afford to let it show, Lionel decided to forgive her, as a Christian should, and work hard towards their reconciliation.

  The bell rang again and this time it registered. Lionel, still consumed with apprehensive visions as to his future, drifted across the black and white tiled hall and opened the door.

  To his annoyance it was the policemen who had been so insolent only a few days ago. He couldn’t quite find the courage to tick off the senior officer and the younger was nosily peering over his shoulder into the house so Lionel settled for staring severely into the gap between them.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Barnaby, looking about as unsorry as a man could be, ‘but I believe you’re expecting us.’

  ‘I most certainly am not,’ said Lionel. ‘What I am expecting in,’ he removed a pocket watch from his waistcoat pocket and locked onto it as if spellbound, ‘roughly twenty minutes is the Ferne Basset Mothers’ Union monthly committee meeting.’

  ‘We spoke on the telephone yesterday.’ Barnaby stepped forward as he said this and Lionel, taken by surprise at the sudden brisk movement, moved hurriedly to his right, investing this brief sidle with an air of intolerable persecution.

  ‘Arranged to talk to Mrs Lawrence,’ explained Sergeant Troy, by now also in the hall. ‘Fivish.’

  ‘Ah.’ Lionel did not close the door. ‘Well, she isn’t here.’

  ‘But will be shortly?’ suggested the chief inspector. ‘You did say she always attended the meetings.’

  ‘Indeed. It is one of the high spots of her monthly calendar.’