Trial by Fire hw-2

by Frances Fyfield

  `For the investigation or for your conscience?'

  He laughed. 'Helen's my conscience.'

  `You've got a bloody cheek asking, but yes, you can. I doubt he would have allowed it, but I shall.'

  Sun shone directly on her face, exposing the lines of worry and grief, making her look older and harsher than her years. The suggestion in his words of the case being incomplete did not bring a glimmer of hope as it might have done even days since; it created no bloom of excitement in her very pale cheeks.

  `How's Helen?' Faintly polite and dim memory of manners, but a blank face.

  His brow furrowed into lines. 'While quite understanding why you avoid her, she misses you greatly. She finds it very difficult to live with a policeman, I think.'

  Oh.'

  It provided a strange relief, hearing about the difficulties of other couples; it was oddly comforting. Christine wished Helen no ill, could not contemplate that, but all the same she would not have rejoiced in her happiness. This phase of her life would pass, she hoped, but at the moment the transparent contentment of others made her feel faintly sick.

  `May I look, then? Do you want to come with me?'

  `No, I'll trust you. Can't quite understand what you're doing, though.'

  `Listen,' he said, standing above her like a slender and gentle giant. 'I may not like Antony, but I don't want him convicted of something he may not have done. Helen's always thought I didn't look far enough, doesn't realize that I never stop looking in my own way. If I find anything helpful to his defence, I'll tell them. I always do.'

  Oh save your energy. He did it all right.'

  `Do you really think so?'

  `Yes, I do. Look, what's the point? Don't pussyfoot around here piling on the agony.

  Oh, shit. What I really mean is that whether he did it or not, whatever the verdict whenever it happens, it'll all come too late for me. I can't even apologize for sounding so selfish, but that's what I think. I can't even think of him. It's too late for us.'

  `Perhaps not,' said Bailey, well used to the aftermath, the grateful media-blessed reunions of the acquitted and their families with whom they would never again live in peace.

  He was using tones of brisk optimism, a voice she recognized: nurse addressing the patient.

  'Supposing he was acquitted. He'd get back his job, hasn't lost it yet; he'd come home. Life would go on as before.'

  `No, ' said Christine. 'Don't give me that shit. No, life wouldn't go on and couldn't.

  You know that very well. And you don't have to answer.' She spoke quietly, turning her face away from the sun as if ashamed of its resignation. 'Now bugger off and look at his desk. I've put the correspondence in piles. There are some letters from a schoolgirl that are particularly entertaining. They were of no interest to the others who looked. See yourself out.'

  Bailey knew better than to repeat his platitudes, knew when and where he simply could not help, departed indoors for his unofficial exploration, his patient retracing of all the tracks he had delegated to Amanda Scott. Leaving Christine trying to erase from her eyes the relief of tears, looking at the garden denuded of all the early autumn leaves, feeling older than winter and already bereaved. She was right; she knew she was right. What was it she had said to him? `Whatever the verdict.' The great big irrelevant verdict. Mrs Blundell had won after all.

  Helen had yanked herself into daylight, redeemed into humanity by Bailey's kind but speechless provision of coffee, the rest of her stiff and immune from touching. Get in car, go to office, court this p.m., home early given a single chance to duck, more sleep if possible.

  Anger and pain were dissoluble in sleep, especially an insufficient, dream-filled sleep like hers. Her normal good nature reasserted itself and gave her enough cheerful self-control to reach her desk without hitting anyone en route. 'See Mr Redwood' – a note falling on to the blotter, which was covered with telephone numbers and shopping lists, slipping out of an in-tray the size of a house end. If yesterday had been the proper cue for an easy day today, someone somewhere had forgotten the lines.

  Red Squirrel was suspiciously bright and know-all. Ah, Helen. Tried to get you yesterday, but you were off.'

  `You're dead right I was, in all senses. But I did buy a coat,' she added irrelevantly. The coat continued to comfort. He looked puzzled.

  `Little matter, Helen, of the Sumner proceedings. Why were you there? You were supposed to be in the office.'

  Ah, yes. Well, I wasn't; I was at the proceedings. I did the office work first, of course. Why was I there? Curiosity. It's also good for me to see an expert like you at work.' He would miss the irony and take the compliment; she knew he would. 'I asked Harmoner if he would object if I watched; he didn't, so I did.'

  The pace of this left him slightly disconcerted. He cleared his narrow throat.

  `Detective Sergeant Scott says she thinks she saw you with Evelyn Blundell at the back. She thought you arrived and left together.' Questions and accusations hung in the air. 'I rather had the impression she must have been mistaken about the arrival. Others saw the departure.'

  Evelyn came in after me. I hauled her out. I knew her by sight and thought she had no business there. That's all.' Helen was sick of this explanation and could have done serious bodily harm to Amanda Scott. She was relieved and grateful to see Redwood nod his acceptance of her explanation.

  I rather assumed something of the kind. You're rather too headstrong, Helen, but not lacking in wisdom.'

  `You believe me, then?'

  He looked surprised. 'Of course I do.' The fairness was reluctant, accompanied by another clearing of the throat. 'Whatever else I think of you, I've never known you to be other than professional. You might be rash sometimes, but you do have judgement. Of course I believe you.'

  Which is more, Helen thought sadly, than dearest Bailey bothered to do. He didn't give me the benefit of the doubt, didn't make a single check before doubting my judgement, did he? But then, how could he? Whatever the verdict, patience and understanding had played no part in it. She listened politely to the guinea pig delivering a lecture.

  `Miss West, you should not have been in court, should not have abused office time.

  Keep your nose out of other people's cases, do you hear?' This was not entirely sincere, since he was beginning to wish he had never interfered and had left her to it. The Sumner case weighed on him and he wanted help, but he could not concede out loud that she was the best person to give it, so he lectured her instead.

  Helen, on the other hand, felt entirely disinclined to confess her extramural activities which had resulted in knowledge of the dual entanglements of Featherstone and Blundell. Nor did she wish to reveal her own frightening suspicions. Let Redwood speak directly or not at all. He had his case and his corpse and was going to run with it. Funny, seen like that: she could imagine him lugging a corpse across a courtroom floor. Her mind had slipped long before the end of the lecture and only shifted gear when the hectoring tone, mercifully mild, moved back into the conversational and she noticed the subtle way he had of soliciting opinions. She decided he had left it too late.

  Anyway, the committal went well,' he said. 'Very efficiently run. Sergeant Scott must be a great asset. I can see why Bailey was able to leave her to it.'

  `Yes,' Helen said vaguely, not tuned in to praise for such a little telltale, still perturbed by the way. Bailey appeared to have listened to her. 'Well, I'm glad everything's fine. Miss Scott's obviously the flavour of the month.'

  Redwood disliked her quiescence, her equanimity in face of speeches from the throne, and the absence of anything suggesting co-operation or even acceptance of what had been his own version of an apology. He wanted to shake her, undermine that unnerving composure.

  `Yes,' he said, rising to finish the interview. 'A highly successful case so far, but keep away from it. It's not yours.' He moved by instinct into a heavy teasing vein. 'Bailey owes a lot to Amanda Scott. Attractive girl. I should look to your laurels, there, Hele
n.' Playfully delivered words, like a punch in the arm, a kind of revenge.

  If you mean by my laurels my own superintendent,' Helen replied, returning the smile with saccharine, 'she can wear him around her head for all I care.'

  Oh. Right, then.'

  And that was all she needed in order to ignore the rest of what he had said. For the remainder of the day she only recalled the last bit. She needed, she decided, a full frontal lobotomy, a new job, and a long holiday. And all she had was a new coat, While he, dear he, had brand-new Amanda Scott. Well, so be it. He was welcome to her. Jealousy was beneath Helen. Her instincts told her simply to give up.

  Evelyn was profoundly suspicious of her father's cheerfulness. Only that morning he had suffered an attack of meanness, going on about housekeeping and other mundane activities, chuntering through a lecture on the cost of living, but now the desk in the back of his office was littered with brochures, each featuring on its cover people smiling in bikinis and swimming trunks of indecent size, bikinis to the fore, each couple in Evelyn's eyes as identical as grains of sand on which they sat. 'I was thinking,' said her father, 'of going on holiday.' Evelyn, fairly slow today, had gathered that much. He was looking at her with questioning anxiety. 'Somewhere exotic.

  There's no trade here at the moment… well, not much. I want to leave all this unpleasantness behind. I need sun, sea, sand, all that. You've wanted to travel since you were ten, you always said you did. You'd like a holiday, wouldn't you, Evelyn?'

  In another age, when she had still asked for things, before she gave up asking, when there was less to do, yes. 'When?' she asked with visible alarm.

  Oh, as soon as possible. Travel agent can get us a discount. In a day or two? Next week, maybe?'

  `No, ' she said loudly.

  He looked at her dumbfounded. There he was in a sudden effluxion of energy, and yes, a touch of guilt, planning treats for a daughter and a suntan for himself to take away some of the years he would need to subtract before grappling with one Amanda Scott, and darling child said non with all the defiance of a General de Gaulle. 'Why?' he asked stupidly.

  `School starts next week.'

  `But you've spent all summer gummed up with books, haven't you? Never let up for a single evening, ever since Mummy… left. Missing a week's school won't matter, surely?'

  `Yes, it will.'

  Oh, Evelyn, please.'

  Oh, shit and blast and bloody hell. Tears again, lurking in his eyes. More therapy indicated.

  The sooner he went back to ignoring her the better. Look at him with his beseeching eyes, like an ancient puppy with none of the appeal. 'Later, Dad, later. Take someone else. I'll be all right on my own.'

  `No, you won't, of course you won't. I've had that Mr Bailey in here only this morning asking about you. All about homework, washing up, and did you have a bicycle, for heaven's sake. Everyone seems to think I bloody neglect you, and I'm not having them thinking that.

  What would you do if I left you here?'

  Meaning what would they think, all of them out there. Mind my own business, that's what I'd do, if you and everyone else would only mind yours. Words at the back of her throat ready to be shouted in sheer exasperation and gut-wrenching panic: Why don't you leave me alone? Can't you see I've got far too much to cope with already? It's a bit late to look after me now, Dad.

  `Later, Dad, like I said,' stammered in a voice of wheedling humility. 'I couldn't cope.

  Not just yet. I'm not quite ready.' A better note to strike with him unable to see her little fists clenched behind the desk.

  `Sure, darling child, but I don't see why.' The eyes filled with tears again. God, he had an inexhaustible supply that his customers never saw. He came around the desk again with his automatic gestures, automatic voice, patting her back.

  "S'all right, Dad, 'S'all right, really it is. Let's just stay still awhile, shall we? After that man's been tried, Daddy, then we'll go, shall we?'

  He thought of the hideous expenditure he was offering and might be avoiding, considered the business he might miss if he went away, thought of the evening ahead with delicious Amanda Scott, found himself suddenly less tearful, and patted Evelyn's behind in turn. She leapt away like a scalded cat, calmed immediately, and sat down away from him, smiling her placatory smile.

  OK, darling child. Anything you say.'

  Evelyn could have wept during her afternoon of industry, ploughing through the list of shopping he had given her and she had not dared refuse. Father was watching her: it seemed everyone was watching her: she felt it when she walked down Branston High Street like a grown-up with a grocery bag, sick of it, very sick. She was even watched when she was out of bounds with William.

  She'd been seen on a tube platform, and he'd gone home alone, saying God knows what. If they found out about William, and what darling child did with William, that would be the end of holiday plans, school, and just about everything else that made life tolerable, like being ignored, for instance. William had to be protected and that was all there was about it.

  Going on holiday and leaving that vulnerable lump was quite unthinkable. He had to be protected from himself was what, and both of them had better stay protected from the outside world.

  `Buy more groceries, will you, darling child? Especially washing-up liquid?' As if she was the skivvy her mother had wanted her to be. 'I don't know what you do with it,' he'd said.

  'Do you drink it or something?'

  I like the dishes clean,' Evelyn had said primly. Yes, she would love the holiday, even with him – she could lose him somewhere; he would soon be bored with her – but it was impossible. She bought the washing-up liquid, cheapest brand, like he said, looked at it quizzically.

  Quite impossible to leave now.

  Not without William sorted out first.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The flames were still murmuring towards the beginnings of stars when Bailey arrived at this fire. The fury of them had diminished, but the display and the noise were still significant. Most of the noise was the row of human endeavour, but as he walked towards the scene, there was a cracking of glass above the shop yard, then warning shouts as broken windowpanes clattered into the tiny yard below, musical and sinister, loud above the spitting of flame. The fire had long since engulfed its own beginnings.

  Bailey knew on first sight exactly what fuel had been used, watched the hungry heat that had stroked the windows into explosion. A low pyramid of boxes was tumbled by water.

  The firemen always used too much water, causing more damage than the fire. It was dramatic but pathetic, the whole sight, but it was under control. He noticed Amanda Scott's presence and her slightly festive clothes. Beneath her cloth coat, he could see the shiny material of an unusually flamboyant blouse catching the reflections of the dying flames, which also threw into focus the hard planes of her face. Her eyes shone like crystal: she was stiff with resentment at the interruption of her evening. Without a word she handed him the souvenirs she had found so efficiently, knowing he disliked her for it. For one bizarre moment, Bailey imagined her incandescent with malice.

  `Coming out through the front, sir,' said another voice, irritatingly cheerful.

  `Thank you.' He ducked down the smoke-filled alley beside the shop, followed the light to the road beyond.

  `No problem here, sir, no one dead. They're in shock and all that, shock and smoke.

  One of them is cut. They live in the flat upstairs, sir. No, they're not the owners. They're an elderly couple who were watching TV, saw the flames at the back, and panicked. Couldn't get out, smashed the front door of the shop.'

  Cut and crying, controlled tenants who lived above an upmarket gift shop in peaceful disharmony. Now they were consigned to a night in hospital and a lifetime fear of flames. The ambulance rolled away. One panting key holder was conferring with the fire brigade on the boarding up of his shattered plate-glass window, moaning about ruined stock already accumulated for Christmas, what a mess, what a bloody mess, a ma
n disliking his life in the semidarkness and the acrid stench of the smoke. Bailey was momentarily oblivious to the fate of the survivors.

  His mind was busy with its own stock in trade; he was puzzled, alarmed, quietly angry. Deep in the pocket of his raincoat – Burberry, generously bought by Helen, stained by the smoke and by his having stooped to examine the dusty ground beyond the shop's back yard- his long fingers closed around the discordant collection of things given to him with such lack of ceremony by Amanda. Strange things to the uninitiated eye, so obviously placed, almost trampled in the rush as if the depositor of the incrimination, with a greater faith than Bailey in official vigilance, had wanted them found and relied on the eagle eye of a policeman to do so.

  Souvenirs.

  To Bailey's mind, in the sight of anyone with even primary knowledge of the boy, souvenirs with the hallmark of William Featherstone, almost bearing his autograph. A pile of bus tickets, a piece of chipped enamel half fashioned into a brooch, William's jewellery and William's favourite pastime scattered on the ground like his flag.

  Early yet. An early dark, as if this arsonist had seized the first opportunity evening offered for the kind of display that would be spoiled by daylight. Even the timing served to illustrate how easy it would have been for him to arrive and depart prosaically by the bus that stopped outside the shop, timing his operation perhaps in accordance with the fictional timetables that only became fact in the early part of the evening, buses disappearing into total silence with the onset of night.

  Nine forty-five now.

  The work of minutes to stack boxes as he had done before; apply paraffin, as he had done before; discard the tickets and the shiny thing by the gate, as he had never done before. Flung apart from the other souvenirs was an empty washing-up liquid container, cheapest brand.

  Bailey thought fleetingly of the Featherstones' brimming sinks, the ever-expensive tastes, the mismanagement of provisions, buying the best and misusing it. It was too impractical a household for economy, not parsimonious enough. A richer, more successful household would feature such cheeseparing.