A Dark Devotion

by Clare Francis

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she told you this when she phoned you on your mobile telephone?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Ramsey pursed his narrow lower lip. ‘I see. Normally, though, the handle was kept at your mother’s?’

  ‘Yes. In the outhouse.’

  Ramsey’s frown deepened. ‘No one thought of calling a neighbour?’

  ‘My mother had tried Frank Yates and got no reply. Another neighbour was away on holiday.’

  Ramsey dropped in casually, ‘Your wife didn’t come and help?’

  k Will stared at him. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your wife? She didn’t arrive to help?’

  ‘No,’ Will said in a deliberate voice. ‘Otherwise I would have told you.’

  ‘You’re sure about that, Mr Dearden? About her not arriving?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  ‘What if I tell you she was seen arriving?’

  The room was charged with sudden tension.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ Will protested, with a short involuntary sounds half exclamation, half bark.

  ‘She was seen driving down Salterns Lane towards Reed Cottage and the Gun Marsh.’

  ‘But she dropped Charlie off at my mother’s, we’ve told you—’

  ‘That was at four, Mr Dearden. I’m talking about an hour and a half later. At about five forty.’

  Will shook his head, and kept shaking it. ‘No…She couldn’t have been there then.’ He was making the effort to sound reasonable. ‘My mother would have seen her. Or I would. No, it sounds like a mistake.’

  ‘There’s no mistake,’ Ramsey answered with quiet satisfaction. ‘She was seen driving down the lane towards your mother’s cottage at around five forty.’

  ‘But she had no reason to go back. Why should she want to go back?’ will argued, sounding rattled.

  ‘The sluice? Perhaps she wanted to help?’

  ‘No, no. She never got involved in any of that. No—she wouldn’t…’

  ‘Perhaps she was bringing something over that you might need for your repair work?’

  ‘No, no.’

  Ramsey leant forward a little. ‘Perhaps you met up and had an argument, Mr Dearden. Matters got out of hand and you killed her. An accident perhaps.’

  Will swallowed, he looked Ramsey steadily in the eye. ‘No.’

  A short silence, which contained both tension and relief now that Ramsey had finally come out with it.

  ‘Perhaps you found her waiting for you and she wanted to talk about something else and you pushed her out of the way and she fell.’

  Will’s eyes glinted dangerously, and a very Italian anger rose into his face, fiery and immediate, yet when he spoke his voice was very controlled. ‘Nothing like that. You’re completely on the wrong track.’

  ‘You and she didn’t have an argument?’

  ‘I told you, she wasn’t even there.’

  ‘Did you have an argument at any time that day?’

  Will said with quiet emphasis, ‘No.’

  ‘The fact remains, Mr Dearden, that your wife came back to Salterns Lane, was identified driving down towards the marshes, and was never seen again.’

  ‘But it was dark by five forty,’ Will argued tightly. ‘I don’t understand how anyone could have seen anything in those conditions. It must have been a mistake.’

  ‘The sighting was very definite.’

  Will turned to me, as though for help, but I could only signal retreat. Challenging the veracity of an absent witness was never a productive route.

  Ramsey said, ‘So there was no disagreement between you and your wife that day, Mr Dear-den?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were getting on all right?’ Ramsey persisted.

  Will appeared not to have heard. He said in bewilderment, ‘I simply don’t understand how—why—she would have gone back to my mother’s…’

  Ramsey eyed him for a while, as if to assess the sincerity of this remark, before saying, ‘I must ask again, were you getting on all right, you and your wife?’

  The muscles in Will’s cheeks worked furiously. ‘What? Yes. Everything was normal.’

  ‘Normal…That doesn’t quite answer my question, Mr Dearden. What I asked was, were you and your wife getting on all right?’

  A pause in which Will was very still. ‘We were getting on fine,’ he replied softly.

  ‘No problems at all?’

  ‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Inspector Ramsey,’ I interrupted, ‘you’ve asked the same question several times, you’ve had your reply. Could we possibly move on?’

  Ramsey swivelled his raisin eyes briefly onto me and hissed, with unexpected rancour, ‘Why, is this a problem area?’ Then, to Will: ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, you say?’ And his tone left no doubt that he was about to produce evidence to the contrary. ‘Suppose I told you that Mrs Dearden visited a solicitor on the thirteenth of February?’

  Will waited, showing nothing.

  ‘Suppose I told you she went to discuss a separation.’

  Will stared at Ramsey and the life seemed to fade from his face. The silence stretched out until there was nothing but the soughing of the wind and the ticking of a clock in the hall. Only Barbara Smith moved, pressing her fingertips to her chin. Finally Will lifted a slow shoulder. ‘I would say you were totally mistaken,’ he said in a voice so low it was almost a murmur.

  ‘You can’t explain it, then?’

  Will seemed to shiver, a small spasm that passed quickly up his body. ‘No, I can’t.’ His mouth opened, for a moment no words came, then he murmured, ‘Whoever said this…they’re wrong.’

  ‘So you’re saying that, so far as you were concerned, there was no question of a separation?’

  ‘That’s right.’ His voice, which had picked up a little, was steady. Only the beat of a vein at his temple hinted at the tension beneath.

  ‘No question of your wife being unhappy?’

  ‘No. In fact…quite the opposite.’

  ‘You mean, she was happy?’

  ‘Yes. Very.’

  Ramsey raised his eyebrows. ‘Happy about your marriage?’

  ‘,’ thought so.’

  ‘So you never had arguments?’

  ‘Well…everyone has arguments.’

  ‘All right—serious arguments then.’

  Will exhaled slowly. ‘No. Absolutely not.’

  ‘So if your marriage was in such good shape, Mr Dearden, how do you account for your wife going to a solicitor to talk about a separation?’

  ‘I can only think it was about money. My wife had got into a state about money and Charlie’s schooling and…well, all sorts of things like that. I can only think she wanted to discuss money with this person.’

  ‘With a lawyer?’

  Will said restlessly, ‘Why not?’

  ‘An accountant, a bank manager would have been more likely, surely.’

  Will seemed to reach some threshold. His expression darkened, he began to breathe rapidly, he threw me a look of desperation.

  I said briskly, ‘Could we finish now. Inspector? Mr Dearden’s answered your questions.’

  ‘Has he?’ said Ramsey ingenuously. ‘If you say so, Mrs O’Neill.’ He made as if to shift his chair only to pause and lean forward again. ‘Before we finish, you couldn’t just recap on the rest of that evening, could you, Mr Dearden?’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’ I asked.

  ‘It won’t take a minute,’ Ramsey said, keeping his eyes on Will.

  Before I could argue any more. Will was saying at breakneck speed, ‘I went and looked at the sluice. It was broken, I tried to fix it there and then, but I couldn’t. So I drove to the barn—’

  ‘Where’s the barn exactly?’

  ‘At Upper Farm,’ he continued even faster. ‘I picked up the tools I needed and a generator and a pump, and went back to the sluice and cobbled a temporary repair to
gether, and then I went to my mother’s to wait for the tide, until it was low enough to let the water out and have another go at the repair, do a more permanent job on it.’

  ‘And that took you all night?’

  ‘Till half past nine, something like that. But then I had to drain the marsh. That took another few hours.’

  ‘You didn’t find time to go home at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even for half an hour?’

  Will slowed down at last. ‘It didn’t seem worth it. Not when I was going back and forth all the time, and waiting for the tide. It was more convenient to snatch a bit of sleep at my mother’s.’

  Ramsey pondered this quietly. ‘So, what time did you finally get home?’

  ‘Six thirty…something like that.’

  ‘And your wife wasn’t there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where did you think she was?’

  ‘I thought she’d left for the station.’

  ‘Though her car was still in the drive?’

  Will sat back wearily. ‘It was still dark, I was very tired…her car was at the side of the house. Here.’ He indicated the window. ‘It was easy to miss it.’

  Ramsey appeared to come to a rapid decision. Pushing his chair back, he poised himself to stand. ‘Thank you,’ he said brightly, as though we had just concluded a successful business meeting. ‘When the weather improves—hopefully tomorrow morning—you may wish to know that we’ll be launching another extensive search, Mr Dearden.’

  Will looked startled but said nothing.

  ‘We thought we’d focus on the marshes, unless there’s any other area you can suggest. Any area which might have been overlooked.’ Ramsey waited, his round head cocked to one side, eyebrows raised expectantly until, getting no reaction, he stood up and said to me, ‘I take it Mr Dearden will be available to come in to the station over the next few days?’

  ‘For…?’

  ‘We’ll need a statement.’

  ‘Can we make a time now?’ I was thinking of the office and the extra work my absence would be inflicting on everyone.

  ‘If you like,’ he said. ‘Though, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, circumstances may alter. I trust this won’t be a problem?’ There was no obvious irony in his tone, but I caught it all the same, loud and clear.

  We settled on five the next evening.

  ‘And will you be wanting to speak to Maggie Dearden again?’ I asked.

  From the flicker of irritation in Ramsey’s eyes I guessed he had been hoping to drop in on Maggie unannounced. ‘At some point,’ he said, attempting a casual tone he didn’t quite bring off.

  ‘Can’t she be left alone?’ Will said, coming back to life. He beckoned me closer and whispered, ‘She’s not been well. The stress—it’ll only make her ill again.’

  I said to Ramsey, ‘There’s a flood warning out. Mrs Dearden’s cottage is at high risk. She may have to be evacuated and her possessions moved out. Also, she’s in poor health. Perhaps we can talk about it again in a few days?’

  Ramsey smiled the thin smile of someone who knows he has been outmanoeuvred, and that, whatever happened now, I would get to Maggie first and prepare the ground.

  When the police car had finally driven away, I went back to Will, who was still at the dining table, staring blankly at its gleaming surface.

  ‘At least they’ve come out and said it now,’ I commented. ‘What they think, I mean.’

  But he wasn’t listening, he was miles away. ‘I simply don’t understand…’ he murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If she was there then…how could I have missed her?’

  I could offer no suggestions. All I could think was: He isn’t making this up. He can’t be making this up. He really didn’t see her. And I felt both relief and shame.

  He clutched his head with both hands as if his brain was running riot and he couldn’t keep a hold on it. ‘It doesn’t make sense…It just doesn’t…’ He exhaled suddenly, he turned his head sharply towards the window, he fell into an abrupt silence.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he whispered finally.

  As I left him, he slid his elbows further onto the table and covered his face with his hands.

  I made my calls from the kitchen. The room had a chill about it, as though the Aga had gone outs there were dirty plates on the table and a stack of pans on the draining board.

  I tried Maggie firsts but there was no reply.

  My office answered at the second ring.

  ‘We’re coping,’ Corinthia told me, after we had been through the most urgent messages. ‘There was a time this morning when I thought we’d have to do a quick cloning job because almost everyone was due to be in two places at once, but somehow we managed to spread ourselves around a bit. Sturgess took three of your bail applications at Clerkenwell, and got to Thames in time to do an assault, all before lunch.’

  ‘Give him an extra pat from me.’

  ‘Oh, and that Jason Hedley of yours has been in trouble again.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ I sighed.

  ‘Pinched a rump steak from Safeway. Bail re-fused, of course. Remanded at Brixton. Paul reckoned something bad had happened to him and that he was desperate to get inside.’

  ‘Paul handled it? Is he there?’

  ‘He’s been wanting to speak to you,’ she said diplomatically, and put me through.

  ‘Thank you for looking after Jason Hedley,’ I said as soon as he answered.

  ‘He was in a bit of a state,’ Paul reported. ‘Mixing in fast company, from what I could gather. Got himself nicked just to get a safe bed for the night.’

  ‘It’ll be more than the one night this time. You explained why I wasn’t there?’

  ‘I explained. How’re things going?’

  Involuntarily, I glanced around Grace’s kitchen. ‘No sign of her, no information, and the police are getting the wrong ideas.’

  ‘Ah. Know when you’ll be back?’ His voice held a note of light concern, and I felt guilty for having postponed the call for so long.

  ‘I expect it’ll be the weekend now. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Ah, well.’

  There was something in his voice, a wistfulness, an anxiety, that made me ask, ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Sure. Fine. Well, we’re managing, you know. Just about.’

  ‘Another partner would help, Paul.’

  He gave a faint chuckle at my persistence, and I could almost see him shaking his head. ‘Soon, Lexxy, I promise.’

  ‘You eating all right?’

  ‘Listen to you.’ But he liked my asking, I could tell by his voice. ‘I stayed home last night and made myself scrambled eggs. Quite good, they were, though I say so myself.’

  As always, I wondered how much he had drunk, and what sort of a state he’d been in when he got to bed. ‘I’ll see if I can get back before the weekend,’ I said.

  ‘That would be nice.’ A pause, he seemed on the point of saying more, but someone interrupted him, people were arriving for a meeting, and he had to go.

  The moment I put the phone down it began to ring again. I thought of picking it up but, seeing the red light on the answering machine, I left it to take a message. As I reached the door the machine relayed a woman’s voice. The voice was hushed and hasty and low. ‘It’s only me,’ it began. I took a step back into the room to hear better. ‘Just need to talk. I know it’s difficulty but can you call me later?’

  The machine clicked off.

  A worm of doubt slid into my stomach. And—I couldn’t deny it—a dart of something that may have been jealousy. The tone, the note of intimacy, the absence of names. More disconcerting still, playing the message back in my mind, it seemed to me that I had heard the voice before, that, softly as the words had been spoken, it resembled that of Anne Hampton.

  When I got back to the dining room, Will had disappeared. There was no note, no indication of where he had gone. Looking out
of the window, I saw that the Range Rover was missing.

  I waited a while. When he still hadn’t returned after an hour, I pulled on my coat and went out. The storm hadn’t abated. If anything, the sky seemed more opaque, the wind denser.

  I drove along the quay and up the lane to Sedgecomb House. Morning surgery was still in progress. There were two cars parked alongside the front railings and five more in marked bays in the courtyard. Ignoring the reserved sign, I took the last available place in a corner of the courtyard. The outbuildings had been transformed since my childhood. The front wall of the stables had been given large arched windows, while the lofty coach house had been converted into a two-storey building with glossy town-house doors and signs marked ‘surgery’ and ‘dispensary’. Even the crumbling weed-edged concrete in the yard had been overlaid with herringbone brickwork.

  The receptionist looked ready to repel boarders, but mellowed when I announced myself and, with an air of importance, spoke into a phone as soon as the doctor was ‘between patients’. He would be entirely free in twenty minutes, she relayed, and if I’d like to wait in the house I’d find Mrs Hampton there, who would be glad to give me some coffee.

  Making my way towards the house, I felt a strange sense of unreality, as though I were stepping backwards into a dream. I noticed a few changes—the side path had been bricked over and partially rerouted, the climbers clipped closer to the wall, two magnificent stone lions guarded the door—but the house itself was as solid and steady as ever, a mellow-bricked three-story cube supported by low-leaning wings like buttresses, with matching curved bays under the startled gaze of the semicircular eye-windows beneath the roof.

  As a child I had loved this house because it was my home, yet for most of my teenage years I had also thought of it as my mother’s prison, and then it had seemed an altogether sadder and more difficult place.

  Ringing the bell, I prepared myself for the revamped interior Edward had warned me about.

  ‘Alex!’ Anne Hampton swept me in with a show of pleasure that was a little too effusive to be comfortable. ‘How lovely to see you! Come in! What a wind! What a storm! Come in! Gosh, how nice of you to—’ She pulled up short with a sudden exclamation. ‘Of course, it must be ages since you’ve seen this place! We’ve done the odd bit. I hope you’ll approve.’