‘You mean to tell me,’ Sylvia was saying laughingly, ‘that after my bringing you all the way down here, you won’t accept it?’
‘My dear, how could I explain a rose in my buttonhole? I’m supposed to be spending my free period in the library. And think of the grilling I’d get from Madge!’
Sylvia’s low laugh. ‘You’re getting quite neurotic about these little visits, darling! And she’ll know soon enough.’
‘Not till the time is ripe.’
With an effort Kate forced herself to walk out of the square. Her eavesdropping was unintentional. When she’d first recognized the voices, she’d been incapable for several seconds of moving away. Now, uselessly, she wished she had. What did they mean, Madge would know soon enough? Surely they weren’t serious about each other? According to gossip, Sylvia’s many intrigues were puffball affairs. Their only saving grace was that no one had been hurt by them. Twice before, Kate had argued herself out of suspicions of Paul, but the words she’d overheard nullified the excuses she’d thought up on his behalf. And there was nothing she could do. Knowledge of her helplessness intensified her despair.
The next morning, Josh, unusually, was ready before Kate. ‘Come on, Mum, we’ll be late,’ he urged for the second time. Kate smudged her lipstick and swore softly.
‘Wait downstairs, Josh, for goodness sake. Go and see if your comic’s arrived.’
He clattered off down the stairs and Kate completed her toilet in peace. It was as she started after him that she heard the sounds, a choked cry followed by a thud and a soft, muted scream. Then, almost simultaneously, Lana’s voice.
‘Josh, is that you? What—? Oh my God!’
Kate hurtled round the bend in the stairs and stopped aghast. Josh, ashen-faced, was standing in the passage staring at something that lay on the floor. Kate couldn’t see what it was because Lana, pulling the child’s stiffly resisting body against her, was blocking the view.
‘Josh?’ Kate ran down the last few steps. ‘Darling, whatever—?’
‘I’m going to be sick,’ he announced indistinctly.
‘I’ll take him.’ Swiftly Lana pushed him in front of her into the office and through to the tiny cloakroom the other side, leaving Kate staring down at the pieces of dead
mouse scattered over the floor. Oh no! she thought numbly, not again! The sound of Josh’s vomiting galvanized her into action. She ran to him, unceremoniously pushing Lana aside, and held his forehead. ‘There, darling, it’s all right, it’s all right.’
‘I don’t — understand,’ he said between shuddering gasps. ‘What was it doing in the little box? Was it supposed to be for me?’
‘I don’t know, darling. Just some silly joke. Don’t worry about it.’
‘But it was — pulled apart.’ He retched again and Kate’s own throat closed in sympathy.
Martin’s voice now, in the office behind her. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ And Lana’s unsteady murmured reply.
‘Ye gods! Where did it come from?’
Kate said over her shoulder, ‘Martin—’
‘Of course. I’ll get a shovel.’
She didn’t consider where he’d find such a thing. She was only concerned with getting Josh away from the scene as swiftly as possible.
‘You’ll be late for school, darling, come along.’ Much better to have his mind immediately taken off the incident. ‘All right? You mustn’t let it upset you. Someone was being very stupid and — and the mouse wouldn’t have known anything about it.’ Please God.
He nodded, wiped his hand across his mouth, and straightened up. She led him through the shop and out of the front door, amazed that her legs should support her. Madge and Tim were waiting in the usual place.
Kate said rapidly, ‘Josh has just had an unpleasant shock. Nothing serious, but I’ll tell you about it later.’
‘Is he all right?’ Madge looked with concern at the child’s white face, his eyes still red-rimmed from retching.
‘He will be. I must get back, Madge.’
‘Anything I can do?’
Kate shook her head and started back to the shop. Richard had arrived in her absence. He came quickly forward and drew her towards him. ‘Are you all right, Kate?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘I can’t get any sense out of Lana, and Martin apparently wasn’t here—’
‘Something — was left in the letter box.’
‘A dismembered mouse?’ Richard’s voice rose with incredulity.
‘It’s happened before. Last time it was a moth.’
‘Then it’s high time the police heard about it.’
‘No.’ Kate shook her head. ‘It’s all right, Richard. I think I know who’s doing it and they’re not — dangerous or anything.’
‘Who, then?’ He tipped her head back, staring frowningly down at her. She noted dispassionately that there were gold flecks in the hazel of his eyes.
‘Some boys Josh and I met one night. They followed us home.’
‘That’s no reason why they shouldn’t be stopped from pestering you.’
‘But I don’t know who they are,’ Kate said with careful reason. ‘Please, Richard, much the best thing is just to ignore it.’
‘Well, if you say so, and you really are all right.’
He bent his head and absentmindedly kissed her. Except that nothing Richard did was absentminded. It was a brief kiss, exerting a minimum pressure and almost immediately withdrawn. Passionless, merely comforting. His eyes when she raised hers to meet them were veiled, uncommunicative.
‘Better?’
She nodded and, still with his arm round her, he led her into the office. Lana sat tremblingly at her desk, a glass of water beside her. Martin was washing his hands in the cloakroom.
‘OK,’ he said briskly. ‘All over and done with. Except for this.’ He indicated a small cardboard box, similar to the one in which the moth had been delivered. On the lid was written in black letters ‘For the lady upstairs’.
‘Too bad Josh had to open it,’ Martin added. ‘It would have been bad enough for Kate.’
‘He didn’t see the writing,’ Lana said. ‘He had it upside down, that’s why it fell on the floor. Oh God!’ She put both hands to her mouth. ‘His little face!’
Richard said, ‘Kate doesn’t want us to do anything. Against my advice, but it’s up to her. She thinks it came from some boys who followed her the other night.’
‘And chalked up a word on your door?’
Kate nodded. ‘It’s all very childish but I suppose it amuses them. Thank you all for helping.’
‘Then perhaps if order is restored, we can now open for business.’
Madge phoned shortly afterwards, anxious to know the cause of the upset, but Kate made light of it. Her suspicion of Paul had effectively closed off his home as her bolthole and place of comfort. Madge knew her too well for Kate to be able to conceal her changed attitude towards him.
Josh was still pale when he returned from school and Kate noted achingly that he averted his eyes from the passage floor. With luck he’d soon forget, but he was a sensitive child and fond of animals. At best, he’d had an extremely unpleasant experience.
It resurrected itself that night. Kate was reading when he suddenly started to scream. She rushed upstairs to find him sitting up in bed, eyes wide open and pyjamas wringing wet. It took her a long time to soothe him, even longer before he’d let her leave the room. Unless he was better the next day, it would be impossible for her to go to the concert.
When she returned downstairs, Kate felt in need of comfort herself and, reaching a swift decision, went to the phone and dialled Michael’s number. He still had Josh’s interests at heart. The phone rang for a long time and she was about to give up when the ringing abruptly ceased and a girl’s voice said breathlessly, ‘Hello?’
Kate stiffened, her hand tightening on the phone. Then, like her own tormentor, she replaced it without a word.
By the next morning Josh at l
east had recovered his equilibrium, though he was careful to wait for his mother before venturing downstairs. All being well, she’d get to the concert after all.
***
Nella arrived with Richard at six-thirty. Dressed, Kate presumed, for a late informal supper, she sported a cowl-necked sweater in canary yellow, skin-tight jeans, green leg-warmers, and ankle boots in purple suede. As always, she looked delectable.
The restaurant Richard had chosen for their early meal was small and intimate, almost deserted at that hour of the evening. The lights were shaded and candles flickered on the tables. Kate thought suddenly, ‘It’s like a scene from TV, the prelude to a seduction!’, and then caught her breath. Perhaps that’s what it was.
But if Richard had plans, he was not revealing them yet. Throughout the meal and the concert that followed he was polite, formal, and completely impersonal, as though they were strangers meeting for the first time. Kate hadn’t known what she expected of the evening, but it was not this. To her shame, she was aware of baffled disappointment.
They emerged from the concert hall at nine-thirty. ‘It’s early to end the evening,’ Richard commented as they walked to the car, ‘but we promised Nella to go straight back. Perhaps we could have coffee at the flat.’
Guiltily Kate remembered Josh and wondered if he’d woken and needed her. Nella put her mind at rest.
‘Not a dicky-bird!’ she told them cheerfully, packing away some surprisingly intricate embroidery she had brought with her. ‘He was so quiet I went up once to have a look at him. He was sound asleep.’
Richard saw Nella out while Kate went to make coffee. When she carried it through, Richard was leafing through a library book she’d left on the table. He looked up, watching her move towards him, and her pulses started racing. This, then, was what the evening had been building towards. She was not mistaken after all.
She put the tray on the table and bent to pour the coffee, but his hand stopped her.
‘Leave that for a moment,’ he said, turning her to face him. He was the exact opposite of Michael, Kate thought incoherently, stocky where her husband was thin and wiry, hair thick and straight instead of dark and crinkly. Only the expression in his eyes was the same, and her starved body responded to it in the self-same way.
It was some moments before the first doubts came and she turned her head away. His open mouth moved over her neck and ear and she shuddered under its caress, trying above the clamour of her body to define the unwelcome mental reservations. He said softly, ‘Last time we were here together, you were in your nightdress. Shall we take it from there?’ She caught her breath and he went on more urgently, ‘We’re not schoolchildren, Kate. We both know what we want and there’ll never be a better time. You’re in need of therapy — let’s apply it now.’
But the doubts had crystallized and Kate knew with despairing resentment that her loyalties were still with Michael. Ten years of his lovemaking, familiar and tender, still outweighed the promised excitement of Richard’s. It was unfair, but there was no escaping it.
He had been watching her tensely and now dropped his hands with a short laugh. ‘The answer’s no, isn’t it? Well, it was worth a try. No hard feelings.’
‘I’m — sorry,’ Kate murmured, and bent to the coffee tray. Damn Michael! she thought with sudden vehemence. Damn him for keeping her in thrall after shrugging off her own claims.
Her hands were still shaking as she passed Richard his coffee.
CHAPTER 16
After Richard had gone, Kate sat for a long time in the silent room, waiting for her jumping nerves to settle. On the table in front of her the tray still stood with their empty cups. The smell of cold coffee titillated her nostrils, overlaid by a memory of Nella’s scent from earlier in the evening. Kate imagined her now, vivid and full of life, talking and laughing with her friends. Nella, Richard, Martin, Lana. They were so much a part of her life that it was startling to realize how little she knew them. And of them all only Nella, flamboyant and outrageous, had been completely open with her. The others, for reasons of their own, kept her at a distance.
She tried to think of them objectively; Martin, whose ready smile masked a furtiveness she hadn’t at first suspected; Lana, reserved and wary, jealous of Richard’s attention; and Richard himself, acknowledging his desire but remaining cool and uninformative to the point of anonymity.
Yet in this new and hostile world they were all she had. Madge, tried friend of many years, was barred to her now by Paul’s deception. Nor could she approach Michael. At the weekend they’d exchanged barely a dozen words, and a telephone call might be answered by Jill.
Essentially she was alone, and in her aloneness the pinpricks of unease occasioned by the moth, the mouse, the silent phone calls, escalated into a menace she could no longer dismiss as chance. For some reason she was being deliberately singled out for harassment. Why?
Her mind switched with terrifying logic to the Delilah victims. Had their final retribution come on the same unanswered question? Kate went cold. Suppose they too had received prior, unexplained warning of their fate?
She stood up abruptly, knocking against the low table so that the cups rattled. Tomorrow she’d tell Richard the whole story. He’d been concerned for her about the mouse, he’d be able to advise her.
The relief at the prospect of transferring her burden was immense, and on the crest of it she went to bed.
But her peace of mind was tempered by the dream she had that night. In it, she was clinging to a cliff face while below her the incoming tide rushed into a rocky cove. Gulls circled overhead screaming discordantly, but above their cry she heard her name called and, looking up, saw Richard leaning over the cliff top.
Painfully she inched her way up, sliding and scrabbling with bleeding hands until, at the limit of her endurance, her stretching fingers touched his. And suddenly, shockingly, he wrenched himself free, prising her fingers from his to send her hurtling away to fall, spiralling crazily, to the dark and jagged sea below. As she fell she heard herself crying out his name in a long, despairing scream.
It was the scream that woke her, shuddering and sweating, and not even the reassuring light she reached for could dispel the strands of nightmare. Because, hidden in the melodrama, was a grain of truth. Despite Richard’s caresses, she had no idea whether or not she could trust him.
***
The effect of the dream survived the night, remaining with Kate and colouring everything with nebulous uncertainty.
‘How’s Josh?’ Lana inquired over coffee.
‘He’s not had any more nightmares.’ Last night, it had been her turn.
‘Poor little soul, I felt so sorry for him.’
‘You must have an admirer, Kate,’ said Martin. ‘Count Dracula, perhaps.’
Kate forced a smile and did not reply.
Though she’d been apprehensive of seeing Richard again, he gave no hint of embarrassment. It was as though he’d never held her, never urged her to make love to him. The incident seemed as unreal as his image in her dream, and it struck her that even if they had spent the night together his attitude would not have changed. It was a humiliating thought.
At twelve-thirty Lana asked what time she’d be required that evening, and Kate, who’d forgotten it was parents’ evening, hastily collected herself.
‘About seven if you can manage it, Lana. We’re asked to be there by a quarter past.’
Josh returned from school with the information that Madge would wait for Kate on the usual corner. ‘Uncle Paul isn’t going,’ he added. ‘He’s got a sore throat so he wasn’t at school today.’
Guiltily, Kate was grateful. She had no wish to come face to face with Paul.
‘I hope Josh won’t wake while you’re out,’ Lana said on arrival. ‘If he was frightened, it would be you he’d want.’
‘I think he’s over it now,’ Kate reassured her. All the same, Josh hadn’t recovered his normal joie-de-vivre. She hoped he wasn’t about to go down with
the whooping cough Paul had mentioned.
There would be rain later, Kate thought as she pulled the door shut behind her. Heavy purple clouds were banking to the east and against them the outlines of roofs and trees were stencilled with abnormal clarity. It gave to the scene an ominous sense of importance, almost of foreboding, like a stage set for tragedy. She shook herself and hurried on, thinking more prosaically that she should have brought an umbrella.
Catching sight of Madge on the corner, Kate felt a rush of affection. Damn Paul for coming between them! She threaded her arm impulsively through Madge’s and gave it a little squeeze. Madge’s slightly anxious look disappeared.
‘That’s better!’ she commented. ‘I was getting worried about you. You almost seem to have been avoiding me.’
‘Nonsense!’ Kate said roundly. ‘You won’t get rid of me as easily as that!’
The hall was crowded as they took their seats on the undersized chairs that are the penance of parents’ evenings the world over. ‘I’m sorry Paul isn’t well,’ Kate said dutifully.
‘A touch of tonsillitis, I think. The doctor’s put him on antibiotics but he’s not in bed.’
Kate hoped darkly that, with Madge and Henry safely occupied, he would not take the chance of slipping round to Sylvia’s. She might be prepared to risk a sore throat in the furtherance of their affair.
‘At least,’ Madge was adding, ‘it saved the bother of finding a babysitter.’ And Kate relaxed. Paul was unlikely to abandon his children, even if his wife was not afforded such consideration.
The Headmaster, resplendent in cap and gown, took his place on the platform and the evening began with a speech outlining the policies and achievements of the school. Afterwards, the parents scattered to seek out those masters who taught their own sons.
‘There’s no point in waiting for each other,’ Madge told Kate. ‘One of us is bound to finish before the other. But come round after work tomorrow and we’ll have a cup of tea. I haven’t seen much of you lately.’
A Shroud for Delilah (DCI Webb Mystery Book 1) Page 14