“It was well worth mentioning, Robin. All the other locations will need to be checked out. And better the idea coming from me to the sergeant than from you to the sergeant. You’ll still have to work with him when this is all over.”
He raised his head. He looked grateful and relieved all at once. Barbara couldn’t remember what it felt like to be so new at a job and so eager to succeed. She found that she liked the constable, felt a certain sororial warmth towards him. He seemed quick-witted and affable. If he could ever get his embarrassment under control, he might actually make a good detective.
“Anything else?” she asked. “Because if not, I’ll need to get on to my digs. I’ve got to phone London and see what’s on at that end of things.”
“Yes, your digs,” he said. “Well. Yes.”
She waited for him to tell her where Amesford CID had arranged for her to stay, but he was clearly reluctant to part with the information. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then pulled his car keys out of his pocket and jiggled them in his hand. “This is awkward,” he said.
“There’s no place to stay?”
“There is. There is. It’s just that…We thought you were older, you see.”
“So? Where’ve you put me? The pensioners’ home?”
“No,” he said. “Mine.”
“Yours?”
He went on in a rush to explain that his mother was in residence, that the house was a bonafide B and B, that they were listed in the AA guide, that Barbara’d have her own bathroom—well, it was a shower actually, if she didn’t mind a shower—that there was no real hotel in Wootton Cross, that there were four rooms above the King Alfred Arms if she’d rather…Because she was only thirty-three and he was twenty-nine and if she thought it didn’t look right that she and he…in the same house…
The music was still issuing at cyclonic volume from the King Alfred Arms, “Yellow Submarine” with an interesting echo-chamber effect that was produced by the narrowness of the village streets. The band gave no auditory indication that their gig would be ending anytime soon.
“Where’s your house?” Barbara asked Robin Payne. “From the pub, that is.”
“Other end of town.”
“Sold,” she said.
Eve Bowen didn’t turn on the lights as she entered Charlotte’s bedroom. This was force of habit. Upon returning from the Commons, usually well past midnight, she always looked in on her daughter. This was force of duty. Mothers looked in on their children when mothers returned long after their children went to bed. Eve qualified as a mother, Charlotte qualified as children. Ergo, Eve looked in on Charlotte. She usually slid the bedroom door open. She readjusted the covers if they needed readjusting. She picked the stuffed Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle off the floor and placed her among Charlotte’s other collected hedgehogs. She made certain Charlotte’s alarm clock was set to the proper time. Then she went on her way.
What she didn’t do was stare down at her daughter and think of her infancy, her babyhood, her growing childhood, her coming adolescence, and her prospective womanhood. She didn’t marvel at the changes that time had wrought in her child. She didn’t meditate upon their past life together. She didn’t construct fantasies about their future. About her own future, yes. She did more than fantasies about her own future. She worked, she schemed, she planned, she produced, she manipulated, she confronted, she championed, she condemned. But as to Charlotte’s future…She told herself that Charlotte’s future was in Charlotte’s hands.
Eve crossed the room in the darkness. At the head of the empty single bed, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle nestled among a mound of gingham pillows, and Eve picked up the stuffed animal absently and ran her fingers over the thick, rough fur. She sat on the bed. Then she lay among the pillows, with Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle tucked into her arm. She thought.
She shouldn’t have had the baby. She’d known that the moment the doctor had said “Oh a lovely lovely precious little girl” and laid the blood-covered, warm, and writhing thing on her stomach, with a choked whisper of “I know exactly what this moment feels like, Eve. I have three of my own.” Everyone in the room—and it had seemed like dozens—had murmured appropriately about the beauty of the moment, about the miracle of birth, about the blessing of being safely delivered of a perfectly healthy, beautifully formed, and lustily crying baby. Wonderful, miraculous, awesome, amazing, incredible, astounding, extraordinary. Never in a single five minutes had Eve heard so many adjectives describing an event that had wrenched her body for twenty-eight agonising hours and left her wanting nothing so much as peace, silence, and, more than anything, solitude.
She had wanted to say, Take her away, get her off me. She could feel the bubbling loss of control that would provoke those words. It was working its way from the tips of her fingers in the direction of her lips. But she was a woman who, even in extremis, would always recall the importance of image. So she had touched her fingers to the unwashed head and then to the shoulders of the squalling infant, and she had produced a radiant smile for those in attendance. So that when the time came and the tabloids were eagerly sniffing round her past for a nasty titbit they could use to impede her rise to power, they wouldn’t be able to get a crumb from anyone present at Charlotte’s birth.
When she’d found herself pregnant, she’d considered abortion. Standing in the crush of passengers on the Bakerloo Line, she’d read the oblong advertisement posted above one of the windows—LAMBETH WOMEN’S HEALTH CENTRE: YOU HAVE A CHOICE—and wondered about the possibility of a quick trip to South London and an end to the interminable difficulties that a pregnancy was going to bring into her life. She’d thought about making an appointment, using a false name. She’d pondered effecting an alteration in her appearance and creating an accent for the occasion. But she rejected all of this as the hysterical fancy of a woman whose hormones were currently in a roil. Do not, she’d told herself, take any hasty decisions. Mull over each possibility and map out where each path might lead.
When she thought each course through, she knew that the only safe one was to have the child and keep it. Aborting could only too easily be used against her later on, when she presented herself as a lifelong champion of the family. Putting it out for adoption was a distinct possibility, but not if she was going to portray herself as A Working Mother, Like So Many of You, in the parliamentary campaigns that she was determined would be part of her future. She could hope to miscarry, but she was as healthy as a pack mule, with all of her parts in fine working order. And anyway, a miscarriage in her past could always evoke unnecessary whisperings of doubt in her future: Had she—an unmarried mother—done something to generate a miscarriage? Had she abused her body in some obscure way? Was there a history of drug or alcohol abuse that ought to be examined? And doubt was pernicious in politics.
Her original intention had been to keep the identity of the father a secret from everyone, including the father himself. But seeing Dennis Luxford unexpectedly five months after Blackpool had put an end to that plan. He was no fool. When from across the Central Lobby at Parliament, she saw his gaze run down her body and then fix itself upon her face, she knew the conclusion he’d reached. She’d excused herself from the MP whose opinion she’d been soliciting for the Telegraph. She’d gone into the Members’ Lobby, where she was writing out a message for another MP and preparing to slip it into his slot, when Luxford appeared at her side. He’d said, “We need to have a coffee,” to which she’d replied, “I don’t think so.” He’d taken her elbow. She’d said calmly, “Why don’t you just print up announcements, Dennis?” Without a glance at the dozens of people teeming round them—from tourists to tacticians—he’d dropped his hand. “Sorry,” he’d said. “I’ve no doubt of it,” she replied.
She’d made it clear to him that his participation in their child’s life would never be welcome. Aside from a single phone call one month after the birth in which he’d unsuccessfully attempted to discuss with her a “financial arrangement” he wished to make for Charlotte, h
e had not ventured to intrude upon them. She thought he might several times. First, when she stood for Parliament. Then when she married, a short time thereafter. When he hadn’t done and the years rolled by, she’d thought she was free.
But we’re never free of our pasts, Eve admitted in Charlotte’s dark room. And once again she silently made a confession to the truth: She should never have had this child.
She turned on her side. She tucked Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle under her chin. She drew up her legs and drew in a breath. The stuffed animal smelled vaguely of peanut butter. Which Eve had told Charlotte a hundred thousand times she was not to eat in her bedroom. Had Charlotte actually disobeyed her again? Had she dirtied the toy—an expensive Selfridge’s purchase—in direct defiance of her mother’s wishes? Eve lowered her head to the hedgehog, buried her face in the stiffened fur, and sniffed rapidly, suspiciously, and repeatedly. It certainly smelled like—
“Eve!” His footsteps came rapidly across the room. Eve felt his hand on her shoulder. He said, “Don’t. Not like this. Not alone.” And then her husband attempted to turn her on the bed. When she tensed, he said, “Let me help you, Eve.”
She was grateful for the darkness and for the hedgehog in whose fur she could keep her face hidden. She said, “I thought you were asleep.”
She felt the bed give as he sat on its side. He reclined next to her and formed his body into a shape that cupped hers. His arm came round her.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was low and she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.
“For?”
“Falling apart.” She heard the tightness beneath his words. She sought and failed to find a way to tell him he didn’t need to offer her comfort, especially when the comfort came at such a cost to himself. He went on. “I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t think it would end like this. With Charlie.” His hand grasped hers where hers grasped the hedgehog. “Jesus, Eve. I can’t even say her name without feeling like I’m falling into a bottomless pit.”
“You loved her,” Eve said, her voice a whisper.
“I can’t even think what to do to help you.”
She made him a gift of the only truth there was. “There’s nothing anyone can do to help me, Alex.”
His lips pressed against the back of her head. His hand squeezed hers so hard that her knuckles bruised each other and she bit into the hedgehog to keep from crying out. “You must stop this,” he said. “You’re blaming yourself. Don’t. You did what you thought was best. You didn’t know what would happen. You couldn’t have known. And I went along. I agreed. No police. So we’re both to blame if anyone is. I won’t let you carry this burden alone. God damn it.” His voice trembled on the word damn.
Hearing the tremble, she wondered how he would be able to handle the days ahead. She could see it was crucial that he not be faced with a confrontation with the media. They were bound to discover that she hadn’t phoned the police when Charlotte went missing, and once they had that bone of information to chew on, they would gnaw upon it to get at the marrow of her reason for keeping the police in the dark. It was one thing if they questioned her. She was used to duelling with them, and even had she lacked the skill to prevaricate believably, she was the mother of the victim and thus if she didn’t wish to answer questions shouted at her from the street by journalists, no one would conclude she was attempting to avoid them. Alex, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely.
She could picture him caught up in a verbal brawl with a dozen reporters hurling questions at him, each one more incendiary than the last. She could picture his temper flaring, his self-control snapping, and the story they wanted pouring out as a result. “I’ll tell you why we didn’t phone the fucking police,” he would snarl. And then, instead of employing subterfuge, he would resort to the truth. He wouldn’t intend to. He would start out with something like, “We didn’t phone the police because of bastards like you, all right?” Which would lead them to ask what he meant. “Your slobbering need for a bleeding story. God spare us all when you want your damn story.” Were you trying to spare Ms. Bowen from a story, then? Why? What story? Has she got something to hide? “No! No!” And on they would go from there, each question a noose getting tighter, encircling and closing in on the facts. He wouldn’t give them everything. But he would give them enough. So it was essential—it was critical—that he never talk to the press.
He needed another sedative, Eve decided. Two more, probably, so that he could sleep through the night. Sleep was as essential as silence. Without it, one ran the risk of losing control. She made a move to get up, raising herself on one elbow. She took his hand, pressed it briefly against her cheek, and laid it on the bed.
“Where—”
“I’m going to get those pills the doctor gave us.”
“Not yet,” he said.
“Exhaustion doesn’t help us.”
“But the pills just postpone. You must know that.”
She was immediately wary. She tried to read his face for a meaning, but the darkness that had protected her did the same for him.
He sat up. He spent a moment staring at his long legs, a time he seemed to use to gather his thoughts. Finally, he urged her up next to him. He put his arm round her and spoke against her head.
“Eve, listen to me. You’re safe here. All right? You’re completely and utterly safe with me.”
Safe, she thought.
“Here, in this room, you can let go. I don’t feel what you feel—I can’t, I’m not her mother, I wouldn’t presume to understand what a mother feels at a time like this—but I loved her, Eve. I—” He stopped. She could hear him swallow as he tried to maintain mastery over his sorrow. “If you keep taking the pills, you’ll just be postponing having to go through the grieving. That’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it? And you’ve been doing it because I fell apart. Because of what I said the other night about your not really living here, and not really knowing Charlie at all. God, I’m sorry for that. I just lost it for a moment. But I want you to know that I’m here now, for you. This is a place where you can let go.”
And then he waited. She knew what she was supposed to do: turn to him, beg to be comforted, and produce a believable manifestation of grief. In short, she was to cease pulling her hat upon her brow and to give sorrow actions, at least, if she could not give it words.
“Feel what you need to feel,” he murmured. “I’ll be here for you.”
Her brain worked feverishly to come up with a solution. When she had it, she lowered her chin and forced the tension from her body. “I can’t—” She took an audible breath. “There’s too much inside of me, Alex.”
“That’s no surprise. You can let it out a little at a time. We’ve all night.”
“Will you hold me?”
“What sort of question is that?”
She was in his arms. She slipped her own arms round him. She said into his shoulder, “I’ve been thinking that I should have been the one. Not Charlotte. Me.”
“That’s normal. You’re her mother.”
He rocked her. She turned her head towards his. She said, “I feel dead inside. What difference would it make if the rest of me died?”
“I know how it feels. I understand.”
He smoothed her hair. He rested his hand on the back of her neck. She lifted her head. “Alex, hold me. Keep me from falling apart.”
“I will.”
“Stay here.”
“Always. You know that.”
“Please.”
“Yes.”
“Be with me.”
“I will.”
When their mouths met, it seemed the logical conclusion to the conversation they’d been having. And the rest was easy.
“So they’ve divided the county into quadrants,” Havers was saying on her end of the phone. “The DS down here—a bloke called Stanley—has had DCs checking out every farm. But Payne thinks—”
“Payne?” Lynley asked.
“DC Payne. He met me at the W
ootton Cross station. He’s with Amesford CID.”
“Ah. Payne.”
“He thinks farm machinery’s too narrow a scope. He says the grease under her nails could have come from other sources. The locks along the canal, a sawmill, a corn mill, a caravan, a wharf. Which makes sense to me.”
Lynley thoughtfully picked up the tape recorder that lay on the top of his desk amidst three additional photographs of Charlotte Bowen handed over by her mother, the contents of the envelope St. James had given him earlier in Chelsea, the photographs and reports that had been collected by Hillier, and his own scrawled compendium of everything St. James had related in his basement kitchen. It was ten forty-seven and he’d been finishing off a cup of tepid coffee when Havers phoned from her lodgings in Wiltshire with the terse announcement, “I’m dossing at a local B and B. Lark’s Haven, sir,” and an equally terse recitation of its phone number before she went into the facts she’d gathered. He’d taken notes from her report. He’d jotted down the axle grease, the flea, and the approximate time the body had been in the water, and he’d been listing place names from Wootton Cross to Devizes when her caveat regarding the restricted nature of Sergeant Stanley’s investigation nudged against something he’d already heard that evening.
He said, “Hang on a minute, Sergeant,” and he pressed the play button on the tape recorder to listen once again to Charlotte Bowen’s voice.
“Cito,” the child said. “This man here says you c’n get me out. He says you’re s’posed to tell everyone a story. He says—”
“That’s the girl?” Havers said from her end of the line.
“Wait,” Lynley said. He pushed fast forward. The voice turned to a chipmunk chittering for a moment. He slowed the speed. The voice went on. “…I haven’t got a loo. But there’s bricks. A maypole.”
Lynley pressed stop. “Did you hear it?” he asked. “She seems to be talking about where she’s being held.”
“She said bricks and a maypole? Yeah. Got it. Whatever it means.” A man spoke in the background. Lynley heard Havers muffle the phone. Then she came back on the line and said in an altered voice, “Sir? Robin thinks the bricks and maypole give us a direction to go in.”
In the Presence of the Enemy Page 33