by Anne Baker
She was cringing. ‘I can’t face it. Please get me more pills. It would be too awful if I suffered all that and then woke up again.’
It went against all Rex’s instincts, but one afternoon when he was making a cup of tea for them both and there was no one else in the kitchen, he looked on the top shelf in the larder for the two pill bottles. He took four out of each and gave them to Helen to add to her hoard. With what she had, it gave her twenty times her normal dose.
‘I think that should do it,’ he said as he watched her slide them into her little green suede Dorothy bag.
‘I’ve got to be sure it will.’ He could see anguish on her face. ‘Will you buy me a large bottle of aspirins too?’
Rex was dreading his birthday and was well aware that it was approaching fast.
He went home to toss and turn in bed. What Helen was doing was giving him nightmares. He should not be helping her in this way, but now he’d done what she’d asked, there was no way he could stop it. He had to admire her guts, but he feared for her too. He was horribly afraid she was going to have a very painful death. Four more days to wait before she staged it.
Rex woke up in a tangle of bedclothes, hot, sweaty and dry-mouthed. He didn’t at first realise that it was the ringing telephone down in the hall that had woken him. He lay back, willing it to stop. When it didn’t, he switched on his bedside light. It was half past three.
He leapt out of bed, and pulling his eiderdown round him, ran down to the hall still feeling fuzzy.
‘Yes, hello,’ he said into the phone. Chloe’s voice jerked him back to wakefulness. She was crying and hardly coherent.
‘Rex, it’s Mum. I think she’s going.’
‘Going?’
‘She’s slipping away. Dying. She’s asking for you.’
He stood half paralysed with shock. This was not what Helen had planned. He almost said, she can’t be, not yet, but pulled himself together sufficiently to say, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ before running back upstairs to throw on his clothes.
His mind raced. Helen knew he wasn’t convinced it was the right thing for her to do. He’d never stopped trying to dissuade her. Had she been afraid that at the last moment he’d tell her family about her plan? Was that why she’d jumped the gun?
It was a dark night, and there was no traffic on the road. Rex hardly knew what he was doing; he was in an emotional tumult. Every light shone out of the windows of 8 Carberry Road. Marigold in a scarlet dressing gown had the front door open before he reached it.
‘She’s at the gates of heaven,’ she said. ‘I’ve rung for the doctor.’
He shot upstairs to Helen’s room and Marigold followed. Chloe had been sitting by the bed; she rose to her feet. ‘Rex, thank goodness you’re here, Mum’s asking for you.’
Helen was a tiny figure under the bedclothes. She looked half comatose, and her face was deathly pale with a blueish tinge round her mouth. Marigold went to the other side of the bed. ‘We’re all gathered round you, Helen,’ she said in a sonorous voice.
Rex slid down on to the chair Chloe had vacated. ‘Helen, love,’ he said. ‘I’m here now. We’re all with you.’
Her eyes flickered open for a moment. ‘Rex . . .’ Her breath came out in a long-drawn-out gasp. ‘Can’t wait for . . . your birthday.’
‘No need,’ he said. His mind was aflame. Had she taken her hoard of pills sooner? Had she been in so much pain she couldn’t wait four more days? His stomach churned. But no, this wasn’t the painful, agonising death the library books had promised those who took poison. Helen was relaxing into her pillow; she was calm and barely breathing. He took her hand in his; it was icy cold.
‘Glad,’ she said softly after a few moments. He had to crane closer to hear her. ‘I asked . . . too much of you.’
‘No, Helen, you’ve never done that,’ he assured her, though her last plans certainly had.
Her voice had almost gone. ‘Look after Chloe . . . and her babies . . . for me.’
‘Of course I will. You don’t have to ask that.’
Chloe was still standing beside him. He heard her sob of distress and got up to draw her closer to the bed with him.
Helen’s voice was a faint murmur, a soft whisper. ‘I know . . . you’ve always loved her . . .’
Chloe turned to him and wept on his shoulder. Rex put his arms round her and pulled her closer. The tears were pouring down his face too.
‘Oh God,’ Marigold said. ‘I think she’s gone.’
Rex looked down and waited, but Helen didn’t take another breath. Marigold was right. Helen was dead. He wept with grief, but at the same time he felt deeply thankful she’d had the peaceful, natural death he’d so much wanted for her.
The sound of the doorbell ripped through the house.
‘That’ll be the doctor,’ Marigold said and went down to let him in. Rex felt numb.
Dr Harris came up to see his patient for the last time. He murmured words of sympathy to them all and drew the sheet over Helen’s face.
‘I’m afraid there are certain formalities we need to attend to. I’ll make out the death certificate; you can collect it from the surgery in the morning.’
Rex watched both Chloe and Marigold go downstairs to see him out, but he didn’t immediately follow. His mind was now on one last service he must do for Helen. He needed to find that green suede Dorothy bag. She must have kept it within her reach. He crept quietly round the bed, opening the drawers in her bedside table, pushing away the neatly ironed handkerchiefs as he looked for it. It was in the last one. He picked it up and found himself sweating with relief to find it still full of tablets. He pushed it in to his pocket.
Before leaving, he folded the sheet back from Helen’s face. The lines of age and suffering were gone. She looked young again, as young as when he’d first known her. She looked as though she’d just fallen asleep.
‘Goodbye, Helen,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going to miss you. Sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted.’
He turned to go, and found a tear-stained Chloe watching him from the doorway.
She stood staring at him for a moment, then turned and ran from him, along the passage to her own bedroom. The door closed firmly behind her.
Rex hesitated. He wanted to follow her. He knew he could both comfort her and take comfort from her. But it was her bedroom, her private place, and he was afraid he’d say too much too soon. His mind was raging with other things and hers must be too. And she’d closed the door against him.
Marigold had made tea for them in the kitchen and had poured out three cups. Rex hesitated again. He wanted to take Chloe’s up to her, but although Marigold’s eyes were wet, they were as fierce as ever, and he didn’t dare suggest it. Marigold took it up herself.
Chloe got into bed and pulled the bedclothes over her head. It had caught in her throat and made her feel swamped with emotion to find Rex talking to her dead mother. She’d known that Mum loved him; she’d felt their devotion, been envious that they’d found everlasting love while what she’d had had withered and died.
She despised Adam but felt admiration for Rex. She owed him a lot. It was he who’d supported her in her hour of need when Adam had told her not to return to the home she’d shared with him.
‘Don’t let yourself become a victim,’ Rex had said, and she’d drawn from him the strength to do that. Whenever she’d felt weak, lost and unable to help herself, Rex had been there.
‘What you need is a bit of gardening,’ he’d say, and she’d find herself soothed. Since she’d been a child, he’d been a rock of support.
She heard the tap on her bedroom door, and pushed up through the bedclothes to see Aunt Goldie.
‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’ She put it down on her bedside table. ‘Poor Helen,’ she mourned. ‘So young, and so sad for you to lose your mother.’ The door closed behind her.
Chloe wept, and knew she was weeping for many things.
Rex went home to grieve alone. Full dayl
ight came quickly. He had work to do that filled his morning, though he felt slower and less effective than usual. Chloe and her grief was filling his mind. He couldn’t stay away from her and the house in Carberry Road. He wanted to help with Helen’s funeral in the way he had when Gran had died.
When Chloe greeted him, her eyes were red and she seemed numb. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but she was ring-fenced from him by her family. Uncle Walter and Auntie Joan were there. It was they who helped Chloe decide that her children were too young to go to the funeral. Peggy was going to look after them and lay out a small buffet of finger food for the mourners who would return with them. They all felt held in limbo until the day of the funeral came.
In church, Rex stood between Chloe and Marigold. It was a solemn and sad occasion, but he felt relief, too, that Helen’s death had come before she could put her plan in action. If he had helped her die, he’d have felt guilt for the rest of his life, and been left wondering if her cancer might just have gone into remission and allowed her to survive.
Now he could be glad that her pain and suffering were over and that she’d had the calm and peaceful death she’d hoped for. Except that he wanted to weep again that she’d lost her life to illness at the age of forty-eight. That was too young to die.
Rex’s heart was heavy. He knew he’d miss Helen as much as any of her family would. She’d been a close friend and his lover for a large part of his life. Yes, he mourned for her, but it left him free now to tell Chloe what he’d always felt for her.
It took him only moments to realise that of course it did not. He couldn’t tell her how much he loved her in the days after her mother’s death, while she was still gripped by grief. It would seem heartless if he cast Helen aside too quickly. He’d have to wait until Chloe could focus on other things.
The funeral reception was a sad little gathering. Marigold gave in to bouts of weeping and for the first time referred to Helen openly as her daughter. Chloe had red eyes and her children picked up on the atmosphere and cried for their nana. Zac kept asking where she’d gone, and that distressed them all. As the mourners drifted away and Marigold saw them out, Rex felt he should go too.
‘No, Rex, don’t you go.’ Chloe put her hand on his arm. ‘You must stay and eat with us.’
That cheered him, as it seemed she wanted him close, but he had to ask, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course. You mustn’t go home to an empty house tonight. Mum would never forgive me if I let you do that.’
He found that quite upsetting. Was Chloe seeing him only as her mother’s partner? She went on, ‘When everybody goes, I want you to walk me and the children round the garden and tell us about the flowers and plants.’
When the last guest left, Marigold went upstairs to lie down and Peggy started to cook the evening meal. It was a cool, damp afternoon and it had been raining. As Chloe dressed her children in macs and Rex pushed their tiny feet into wellingtons, she told them, ‘This was Nana’s garden. She and Rex made it together.’
The children raced off across the wet grass and Chloe looked up at Rex with a sad smile. ‘Mum lived for her garden. It’ll always remind me of her.’
She took his arm and they set off after the children. ‘Mum’s death changes everything for me,’ she confided. ‘She’s left me her house, so I’ll always have a home for my children. But you know that, don’t you? She said you’d helped her put her affairs in order.’
‘Yes.’ He could sense the effort Chloe was making to hold her tears in check.
‘I’m going back to work,’ she said. ‘Uncle Walter wants me to; he’s worried stiff that so much of his company’s money has disappeared with his accountant.’
Rex wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, tell her not to worry, that he’d help with all her problems. Instead, he dead-headed a few flowers as they passed by, and told her what plants would flower next and how, years ago, he’d dug this pond out from a patch of bog.
‘I want you to keep it like this always,’ Chloe murmured. ‘It will be a memorial for Mum.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
TO CHLOE IT FELT strange to be back at work. Not too much seemed to have changed in the office, while her mother’s death had caused an enormous difference at home. The girls welcomed her back; they’d kept her work as well as the accounting ledgers up to date, and were being especially kind to her. They were bursting with news of Francis Clitheroe when Walter Bristow came through their office.
‘Chloe, you shouldn’t have rushed back,’ he said. ‘Don’t you need more time for yourself?’
‘No, I’ll have less time to think about Mum if I’m working. I prefer to be here.’
‘Well, you’d better come in to my office and I’ll bring you up to date. Angela, please could you arrange for a couple of cups of coffee to come in?’
‘I gather a lot has been going on.’ Chloe sat down on the other side of his desk. ‘The girls are agog about what Francis Clitheroe was doing.’
‘Yes, it’s not good news. I didn’t want to bother you with all the details at the time. I told you he didn’t turn up for his court hearing?’
‘Yes, and he’s disappeared now?’
‘So it seems. Constable Benton went to look for him at his lodging house only to find he’d done a flit.’
‘I didn’t know he was in lodgings,’ Chloe said.
‘Neither did I. He told me he was in a rented flat and looking for a more permanent home.’
‘That was a lie? It looks as though things are worse than we supposed, Uncle.’
‘Yes. The landlady had cleaned his room out by the time the police got there, and said he left nothing at all behind. He told everyone he was going home to the Isle of Man because his mother had had a heart attack and was very ill.’
‘I never heard him mention the Isle of Man,’ said Chloe, frowning.
Walter was indignant. ‘He gave me a London address when he came here. His last place of work was London. They sent me references. Good references.’
‘Too good, by the looks of it.’
‘Yes, Benton checked and Clitheroe didn’t take the ferry to the Isle of Man and neither does he appear to have relatives there. We think that was intended to be a red herring.’
‘Heavens,’ Chloe said. ‘I hope they find him or you’ll not get your money back.’
‘They’ve frozen his bank account as well as the one he opened in the name of Alistair Jackson. So I’ll get some of it.’
The following day, the police officers came in and asked Walter if they could take another look at Clitheroe’s office. ‘And then,’ Inspector Halyard said, ‘we’d like to talk to other members of your staff. Those who worked for him.’
‘Yes of course,’ Walter told them. ‘Chloe will take you.’ But he was anxious that little progress was being made, and he went with them.
‘You gave him a very private office,’ Halyard said, looking round. ‘Nobody could watch what he did here.’ He opened every drawer in the desk; there was nothing left but articles belonging to the company.
‘It looks as though he cleaned up before he left,’ Benton said. ‘Possibly he’s done this before.’
‘I don’t like this,’ Chloe said. ‘Clitheroe was telling lies and he seems to have no long term address. I don’t like the idea of him getting off scot-free with your money.’
‘Neither do I, and Joan’s furious about it.’
‘So where could he have gone?’ Chloe demanded. ‘He told us he’d come from London.’
‘We checked the address in London that both you and he gave us; it was a false one.’
‘What?’ Walter was cross. ‘That means he deliberately set out to steal from me.’
‘It’s beginning to look like that. The road on which we thought he lived does exist, but the houses only go up to number thirty-five, and he gave number forty-one as his previous address.’
‘He told me that was his parents’ home and he’d been living with them up til
l then,’ Walter said.
‘You’re saying he’s vanished?’ Chloe asked.
‘That’s about it,’ the constable agreed, taking out his notepad. ‘We’ve drawn no leads at all on Francis Clitheroe. A total blank, in fact. To trace him now we need to know more about him. Is there anything else you can tell us, Mr Bristow?’
Walter spread out his hands, palms up. ‘I’ve told you all I know, really I have. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow, I quite liked him. I had no suspicions there was anything wrong. I thought he’d do a good job.’
‘What about you, Miss Redwood?’
‘To be honest, I didn’t like him, and I got the impression he didn’t much care for me. He wasn’t popular with any of the girls; they said he was po-faced.’
‘Can you remember anything unusual about him?’ Chloe was shaking her head. ‘Anything at all, however minor?’
‘Well, to start with he used a silver propelling pencil all the time. He fiddled with it while he was dictating. A fancy one, expensive-looking.’
‘That might be helpful,’ Halyard said. ‘He must be intelligent to have worked this system out, would you agree?’
‘Yes,’ Walter sighed. ‘Very intelligent. I reckon he was the sort who could think on his feet. He was articulate, always had words ready in answer to any question. He sounded logical and sincere. Sorry, that doesn’t give you much more to go on, does it?’
‘No, but if you think of anything else, give me a ring.’
The officers interviewed several members of staff and took away the file Walter had had made for Clitheroe, saying they might find a lead in the information it contained.
The next day was Saturday. Chloe got up late, felt weary and in the morning did little but play with her children. Aunt Goldie made lunch and afterwards went to rest on her bed. In the afternoon, Chloe took the children to the local shops. Lucy had paddled in the pool wearing the only pair of shoes she had that still fitted her. She bought each of them a new pair. She was pushing the pram along Carberry Road on her return when she saw Walter’s car come from the opposite end and pull into her drive.