by Joan Smith
She looked down at her jeans, thankful that she was dressed for such an excursion, but her face clouded when she realized that her plan would still bring her out in view of the police car. She put a hand up to her face, close to despair, and moved into the study to ring Bridget and explain the hold-up. Her hand was actually on the phone when she heard a loud splash from the bottom of the garden, lifted her head and saw a man and a woman exchanging places in a rowing boat. Loretta watched for a moment, let out a loud exclamation and ran from the room, clattering down the stairs and hurling herself through the kitchen and dining room to the French windows. The key was in the lock, a piece of carelessness on her part for which she was heartily grateful, and she took the steps up to the lawn two at a time, careering across the grass and coming to an abrupt halt on the landing stage.
“Hey,” she called after the rowing boat, which was now pulling sedately northward. “Hey, can I have a lift?”
The man who had taken over the rowing stared at her, oars in mid-air. “You talking to me?”
“Yes. Please, can you turn back?”
There was an agonizing moment of indecision while the man leaned forward to consult his girlfriend, then he dipped an oar into the water and began to turn the boat.
“Thanks,” said Loretta, scrambling aboard. “I’ll get out at the bridge.” She crouched in the middle of the boat and smiled encouragingly over her shoulder at the oarsman as he pushed off.
“That your house?” asked the woman.
Loretta nodded. “I’m having a bet with a friend,” she improvised, “he’s walking to the bridge and I said I could get there quicker by boat.”
“Oh.” The woman accepted this unlikely explanation without question and Loretta remained where she was, clutching the sides of the boat, until the bridge came into sight.
“You can let me off here,” she cried, rocking the boat and almost losing her balance in her eagerness to reach dry land. She stumbled onto the towpath and made for the bridge without a backward glance, congratulating herself on the ease with which she had outwitted the watchers in Southmoor Road, and broke into a fast trot as she crossed the canal into Aristotle Lane.
15
Loretta Paused At The End Of Frenchay Road, looked over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being followed and turned left into Woodstock Road. She walked quickly but not too fast, anxious not to draw attention to herself, and started wildly when a cyclist shot past, ringing her bell and calling: “Hi, Loretta!” The rider was twenty yards up the road by the time Loretta recognized the loud voice and flying hair of Lucy Wilkes, a bright but lazy sixth-former whose parents had sent her to Loretta for extra tuition in English before her A levels. Loretta waved belatedly and allowed Lucy to dwindle to a speck before she turned into a front garden concealed from the road by a high hedge. There was no car in the drive but the garage door was firmly closed and Loretta guessed Bridget’s car was inside. She made for the narrow passage between the garage and the white-painted house, hardly noticing the familiar acrid smell which drifted over from a nearby factory when the wind was in the right direction. Stepping out onto the paved area behind the house, she observed the garden long enough to notice that the grass was knee-high, then tiptoed past the drawing room window to the conservatory.
She tapped on the glass. “Bridget? Bridget?”
Nothing happened for a moment, then the door from the dining room opened and Bridget appeared. She unbolted the conservatory door, stood back to allow Loretta inside and then threw herself into her friend’s arms with such force that Loretta nearly toppled backward. She held Bridget close, thinking again how thin and vulnerable she was, and almost at once Bridget dropped her head onto Loretta’s shoulder and began to sob. It was a desperate, inhuman sound, even worse than the bout of crying Loretta had listened to on Tuesday night, on the phone from Paris, and she felt helpless in the face of so profound a grief. She stroked Bridget’s hair, murmured loving words and felt behind her with her free hand for the handle of the conservatory door; the last thing she wanted was a curious neighbor coming round to see what the commotion was—not even Audrey Summers, whose house adjoined Bridget’s.
“Come on,” she said gently, sliding an arm round Bridget’s shoulders and guiding her towards the dining room. “Let’s get inside.” The garden wasn’t overlooked, it was long and bounded by trees, but she didn’t want to take any chances. The dining room was dark, most of its natural light stolen by the conservatory, and Loretta felt for the light switch only to discover that the power was turned off. She peered round the room, which she had not seen since Bridget moved out, and repressed a shiver at its shadowy emptiness. There were lighter patches on the wall where pictures had hung; and a corkboard full of postcards, photographs, seminar lists and programs from the Phoenix cinema. Loretta remembered a picture of herself and Bridget drinking champagne on the grass at St. Frideswide’s, celebrating the publication of Loretta’s biography of Edith Wharton. It had been taken by a friend of Bridget’s whose name Loretta could not remember although she clearly recalled Bridget thrusting the camera at him with a stream of confusing instructions on how to focus it; they were both amazed when it came out so well.
“Has all the furniture gone?” she asked uneasily, peering through the open door into the drawing room.
Bridget sniffed and moved away from Loretta’s supporting arm. “There’s a bed upstairs and a couple of chairs. The man who cleared the house didn’t want them, so I just left them.”
“Let’s go up, then. It’ll be safer, anyway.”
Bridget led the way through the drawing room, into the dark hall and up the stairs. The remaining furniture was in a small back bedroom, west-facing so there was still enough light for them to see each other. The single bed, now stripped down to its faded mattress, brought back more memories for Loretta; she had slept in it often when she lived in London, driving up to Oxford for parties or just to spend a weekend with Bridget. A thick paperback lay on the bed, face down and open, as though Bridget had been trying to read, and Loretta looked at the title from force of habit: Villette.
Bridget pushed the book aside and climbed heavily onto the mattress, curling her legs under her and leaning back against the wall. Loretta lowered herself into an old armchair and tried to make herself comfortable; she gave up, drew it nearer the bed and lifted her head.
“Oh, my God,” she blurted out, “your face.”
Bridget raised her hand and touched the livid bruise under her left eye with her fingertips. “I told you he hit me. It looks worse today than it did yesterday. You scared me,” she went on, “saying it would take you two hours. I thought you’d misunderstood, or there was another Professor Lai who lived in Birmingham or some-where.”
Loretta shook her head. “I was trying to make them think you were miles away—if anyone was listening, that is.”
Bridget said bitterly: “I wish I was. Loretta, what did they say, the police? Why do they want mel Has he told them I knew about the body, is that it?”
Loretta said nothing, her hands closing on the wooden arms of her chair.
“Say something, Loretta.”
“It’s—it’s much worse than that.”
“How do you mean worse? I’ve been thinking about it all day, it’s been going round and round in my head. He must have told them I knew she was there, he’s getting his revenge, the bastard.” Her voice rose: “I’m married to a murderer and I’m having another man’s baby—how could it be worse?”
Loretta stared at her, fearing another bout of hysterical weeping. She glanced down at her watch, anxious about time, and said cautiously: “You really think he’s capable of it, killing someone?”
“After yesterday I’d believe anything. You weren’t there, Loretta—if I hadn’t locked myself in the car I don’t know what would have happened.”
“But you said—on the phone you said it wasn’t much, just a slap.”
Bridget lifted her hand again, lightly touching the contours
of her face. “I didn’t want to worry you. I knew you’d see for yourself when you got back. I thought you’d help me find a solicitor, someone who knows about . . . battered wives.” Her lips turned down, distancing herself from the expression.
“All right, but—Bridget, you still haven’t told me. Where were you that Thursday?”
“Not that again I met Stephen in the King’s Arms. I had to ask him about—you know. Whether he used a condom.”
“Why on earth didn’t you tell the police?”
Bridget shivered and pulled down her skirt to cover her knees.
“Are you cold?”
“A bit.”
“Here, have this.” Loretta stripped off her green jacket and held it out.
Bridget hesitated, glancing towards the window, where a faint red glow above the trees marked the approach of night, then draped Loretta’s jacket over her shoulders. “Thanks. What about you?”
Loretta was wearing the same thin cotton shirt she had traveled in. “Don’t worry about me,” she said, rolling down her sleeves and folding her arms across her chest.
“I didn’t want them talking to Stephen,” Bridget went on. “He seemed to think it was a huge joke and I was terrified Sam would find out. You know how thick some of those cops are.”
“What about the rest of the afternoon?”
Bridget said impatiently: “I just walked around. Stephen was going to London, he had to catch a train at two something, and I wandered round the shops for a while. Retail therapy,” she added with the ghost of a smile, “though it doesn’t really work when you’re pregnant. I tried on a couple of dresses in Monsoon—”
“Did you buy anything?” Loretta asked eagerly, thinking there would be a record of the transaction.
“No.” Bridget placed a hand on her stomach. “I got fed up with that after a while and . . . actually, I walked over to your place. If you’d been in I’d probably have told you the whole story but by the time I saw you—the next day, wasn’t it? By then I’d decided to keep quiet, it didn’t seem fair to Sam.”
“Then what?”
“You’re as bad as the police, Loretta. I can’t prove any of this, you know, it wouldn’t have helped if I had told them. I walked round to Aristotle Lane and on to Port Meadow—it was a sunny day and I sat by the river for a while. I wanted to think it all through before I went home . . . It’s ironic, isn’t it? If I hadn’t got pregnant I wouldn’t have married him, then it turns out it isn’t even his child.”
“You wouldn’t? I thought you were crazy about him.”
Bridget shifted on the bed, stretching her legs in front of her as though the weight of her stomach was too much for them. “Oh, I was—in a way. I mean, I had doubts but . . . you know what it’s like when you’re in love, you try to make everything fit. I’m thirty-nine, Loretta, how many unattached men are there when you get to our age? It was so great at first, not just the sex, though that was brilliant. He had this attitude to life—you know, very Harvard Business School.”
“What?”
“Sort of, this is what you want, this is what you have to do to get it. Very practical, optimistic. All sorts of things seemed possible all of a sudden.”
“Overcontrolled, you mean.”
“Maybe, but I didn’t see it. I knew you didn’t like him.”
“I thought he was cold.”
“Yes, but not in bed. Not at first. Then he asked me if I’d ever been tied up.”
“What?” Loretta jerked forward.
“And I did have a fantasy about it, lots of women do.” She added defensively: “Haven’t you read Nancy Friday?”
“Yes, but fantasies are one thing. Acting them out is another.”
“Please, Loretta, this is hard enough without you lecturing me. I let him tie me up a couple of times—well, I enjoyed it. It felt . . . dangerous but he kept saying I was really in control, that I was the powerful one because I’d chosen to let him do these things to me.”
“Oh, God,” groaned Loretta, half aware that Bridget had said something similar very recently. “Designer S & M. You didn’t really fall for that stuff?”
Bridget turned her head away.
“Go on, I might as well hear the rest of it.”
“That time in February, when we split up—”
“Yes?”
“I couldn’t bring myself . . . I know you, you’d have wanted to see the bruises.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know,” she said quietly. “He went too far.”
“Bridget, for God’s sake, you’re telling me this and you married him?”
“He did apologize, he said it only happened because he had too much to drink, he didn’t realize . . . It never happened again and he started talking about getting married. Then I found out I was pregnant.”
Loretta lay back in the low chair. “I don’t believe this. You of all people, falling for a line like that.”
“You can talk. Only last week you were thinking of going back to John Tracey.”
“Not for long.’
“Loretta, you’ve never been pregnant. I didn’t want to be a single mother and I couldn’t face another abortion.” She lifted a hand and wiped a tear from the corner of each eye.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Loretta went to sit beside Bridget on the bed, taking her free hand. “You’re quite right, who am I to judge?” Bridget’s hand was icy and Loretta rubbed it between her own. “You really are cold, aren’t you? Have you had anything to eat?”
“This morning. Some of that horrible muesli.”
“We’ll have to stop on the motorway. You’d better stay in the car and I’ll bring you something.”
“The motorway? Where are we going?”
Loretta looked at her watch. “You know that phone on Woodstock Road, next to the playing field? I’m going to ring Christopher and ask to borrow his car. I daren’t call from here—”
Bridget seized her arm. “Loretta, you still haven’t told me. What’s he saying? That I helped him hide the body?”
Loretta squeezed Bridget’s hand. “He says . . . he says it was an accident but you killed her.”
Bridget choked, gagged and half fell off the bed. She blundered out of the room, across the landing and into the bathroom where Loretta, scrambling to follow, saw her retch into the lavatory bowl.
“Bridget,” she said, going to kneel beside her. Bridget’s lips were rimed with bile and Loretta pulled a tissue from her pocket to wipe it away. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, dropping the soiled tissue into the toilet. “Try not to think about it.” She fell back on her heels and added despairingly: “What a stupid thing to say. Come on, lean on me.”
She guided Bridget back to the bedroom, helped her to lie down on the bed and covered her with the thin linen jacket. “God,” she said, “it really is cold in here. Listen, Bridget, this is what we’re going to do. I’m going out to the phone; if Christopher isn’t in I’ll try Janet. I could rent a car but the police—”
“What about yours?”
“I had to leave it. They were watching the house.”
“How did you—”
“It’s a long story. You know that hotel I stayed in last summer, in Northumbria?” She saw that Bridget’s eyes were half-closed, her face alarmingly pale in the gathering dust. “Bridget, are you all right?”
“Mmm.”
Unconvinced, and terrified by the prospect of having a sick fugitive on her hands, Loretta began to gabble: “It’s women-only, I stayed for a week and the woman who runs it was so nice. I’m going to take you there and as soon as you’re settled we’ll get a really good lawyer. John’11 know someone. Bridget? Bridget, did you hear me?”
Bridget rolled over onto her back and Loretta’s jacket slipped to the floor. “I didn’t do it. You do believe me, don’t you?”
Loretta covered her up again. “Of course.”
“Who was she? I mean, why did he kill her?”
Loretta bit her lip, worried abou
t wasting time. “He met her in a clinic, did he ever mention it to you?”
“What sort of clinic?”
“I don’t know. He said—he told the police some story about working too hard; I wondered if he had had a breakdown and didn’t want to admit it. Apparently she worked there and they had some sort of affair. I really don’t know the details.”
“When? When was this?”
Loretta thought about Paula Wolf’s pregnancy, the stillborn baby she had given birth to that summer. “Last year,” she said, working back, “sort of August, September.”
Bridget murmured, closing her eyes: “He never said.”
Loretta looked at her watch and was horrified to see it was twenty past nine. “Will you be all right here while I go and phone?”
“Yes. Don’t be long.”
“I won’t.” Loretta went to the door, thought of something and turned back. “They found a tape in your desk, a Madonna tape—her fingerprints were on it. It’s not like Sam to listen to Madonna.”
Bridget groaned and lifted a hand to her forehead. “What’re you talking about, Loretta?”
“A cassette tape. In your desk. With her fingerprints on it.”
“I left some tapes in his car. When I drove over to see Mum. When my starter motor went.”
“Last month?”
“Please, Loretta, I feel awful.”
Loretta remained where she was for a moment, staring at the hunched figure on the bed. The sun had set and the room was in near-darkness, Bridget’s face and arm lighter shapes on the opaque oblong of the bed. “I won’t be long,” she said and turned to go downstairs.