by Rebecca Tope
‘Okay. Wait a sec.’ She drove hurriedly up to the garage, intending to put the car inside it. Then she thought perhaps it would be more sensible to leave it out, where she might get at it quickly if necessary. Such caution was unnatural to her, and she knew a small pang of regret at its onset.
‘Careful!’ came a shout, a millisecond before she hit the glass tank containing the tortoise. It made a telltale sound, a sound that universally signalled calamity. Broken glass meant wastage at the very least, and a terrorist bomb at worst. In this case it spelt bad news for a sleeping tortoise.
She let the car run back a yard or so, and then got out. ‘Stay here,’ she told the spaniel. ‘You might cut your feet.’
The man was already squatting down to inspect the damage. ‘Is this a tortoise?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Have I killed it?’
‘Don’t panic. You didn’t hit it hard. It’s buried in all this dirt – was it like that before?’
‘Yes. It’s hibernating. Due to wake up any day now.’
He scooped away some soil, and delicately extracted shards of glass from one side of the reptile. ‘Look at that!’ he said, with wonder distinct in his voice.
A narrow stripy head raised miraculously out of the earthy bed and very slowly turned from side to side. The man worked his hands down either side, and gently lifted the whole creature aloft. ‘He’s awake,’ he said. The shell was domed, four stumpy legs sticking out and the head raised. It blinked and opened its mouth, in a perfect imitation of a long yawn.
‘So he is. I guess even hibernation can’t withstand being hit by a car.’
‘What happens now?’
‘Um … warm bath and relocation to a nice big thing called a vivarium. Are you sure he’s not hurt?’
‘Probably takes quite a lot to damage that shell. A warm bath, eh? Then a nice big meal, I expect. Maybe he’d like a little walk, just to stretch his legs.’ He bent down to set the tortoise on the ground, only to emit a shrill cry of pain.
‘What?’ Thea could see no cause for concern. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘My back. Oh Christ – it’s gone into spasm. Wait a minute. Oh!’ He staggered to the car and leant over it, gasping. Thea remained where she was, her mind blank.
‘Sorry,’ panted Jim Tanner. ‘It does this. Never any warning. I won’t be able to walk until it eases off. Sorry,’ he repeated.
‘Can you sit?’
‘Where?’
‘Over there.’ She pointed out the wrought iron seat that she and Steve had used that morning.
‘If you help me.’
Unselfconsciously she supported him the few yards to the seat, and lowered him slowly into it. Then she collected the tortoise and her dog. Inside the house, Gwennie was yapping.
‘Thanks,’ he said, and then gave a muted howl. ‘Oh, God. It always does it at the wrong moment. You wouldn’t believe the pain.’ There was sweat on his brow and he held himself tight from neck to knee.
‘Have you got pills or anything?’
‘Not with me. They’re not very good, anyway. Just take the edge off it.’
The whole episode was reminding Thea powerfully of an earlier instance where a man with a bad back had looked to her for sympathy and support. She had failed him in a big way. Now she had a second chance to get it right. ‘You poor thing,’ she murmured. ‘Is there anyone I can phone?’
‘Give it a few minutes, okay? Just let me sit.’
‘A drink?’
‘No thanks. Go and do what you need to with the tortoise or the dog. I’m all right.’
‘I’ll be ten minutes. Shout if you want me.’
She left him sitting in full view of the road, his whole body rigid with pain. Anyone passing would see a puzzling figure, but she doubted whether they’d stop to learn more. Tucking the tortoise under one arm, she unlocked the front door and let Gwennie out. She made directly for Jim Tanner, but didn’t touch him. Instead she stood two feet away and gave him a thorough inspection. ‘She can’t see very well,’ Thea called. ‘But she’s quite friendly.’
She went into the kitchen, with her spaniel at her heels, and gave some thought to the task of bathing a sleepy tortoise. Mr Foster’s instructions were invaluable. Use the big red bowl from under the sink. Water should be comfortably warm. No soap. Just fill it to within a couple of inches and slowly immerse him. Leave him for five minutes maximum and then remove him onto a towel and pat him dry. Quickly take him to the vivarium, which should be set at 65 degrees F, and offer fruit, salad – whatever you can find. Apple is good.
All of which was easily accomplished. But first she ran upstairs to plug in the vivarium, hoping it would warm up soon enough to keep the animal at the desired temperature. Outside, the afternoon was waning and with the disappearing sun the air was cooling quite noticeably. Poor Jim Tanner would get chilly too, at this rate.
‘I’ve done it,’ she reported, finally going back outside. ‘One revived tortoise, munching on a slice of apple. It does seem a bit like a miracle. How are you feeling now?’
‘Not quite so bad, thanks. I’m sorry to cause such a nuisance.’
‘No problem. Do you want to try and come into the house? You’ll get cold out here.’
‘All right, then,’ he said with apprehension clear on his face. ‘If I stay here I’ll only seize up, anyway.’
She took him past the scorched carpet in the hall – where he stopped for a long thoughtful look – and into the kitchen and made tea, despite his protests. ‘It looks to me as if you really do deserve the disability benefit,’ she said, without preamble. ‘Which isn’t what I heard. In fact I was told you’d spent time in prison for fraud.’
‘Thirty days,’ he nodded ruefully. ‘Nobody believes me, because it comes and goes, see.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I can’t really blame them.’
‘But surely you can? That was an awful thing Mrs Foster did to you. People took her side. You must have been completely ostracised.’
‘I’ve been okay for a while now. I even started to think she was right. They tested me, and I could do almost all of it – all the things they throw at you. So I lost the case and did the time. I only got out a couple of weeks ago. They sent me to the Job Centre. I’ve got a job, trying to sell ice cream.’
‘What – in a van? Driving round to housing estates and schools?’
‘No, no. There’s a big place that makes it out towards Cricklade. They wanted someone to get new business for them. I quite enjoy it, to be honest.’ He moaned. ‘The back’s been playing up for years, you know. I did something to it, ages ago. If it gets bad again now, and I have to pack in the job, I’ll never persuade them to put me back on benefits.’
‘But Mrs Foster,’ Thea prompted, trying not to get drawn into the complexity of the benefit system and its apparent injustices. ‘Is it right that she reported you to the welfare payment people, whatever they’re called?’
‘Seems so. She told enough of her friends about it that word got back to me. Didn’t take the cops long to conclude it was me tried to burn this house down. Lucky I could prove I was miles away at the time. Likewise both my boys. Not that any of us would have much idea how to make a firebomb anyway. If that’s what it was.’
‘I could have died,’ she said softly. ‘It was a terrible thing to do.’
He looked at her, moving his neck carefully. ‘Not the only terrible thing, then.’
‘You mean the murder? Or the assault on Jack Handy? Or both?’
‘There’s a lot going on. And you seem to know all about it. How’s that, then?’
She flushed. ‘Purely by accident, I met some of the people involved. And now they’ve made an arrest. It’ll be on tonight’s local news, I suppose.’
He jerked forward and then stopped with a noisy intake of breath. ‘Aarghh,’ he groaned. ‘There it goes again.’ He exhaled slowly, and took two more shallow breaths. ‘I can hardly breathe when it’s like this.’
‘There must be something they can do for
you. You can’t carry on like this.’
‘They’ve tried a couple of things, but backs are tricky and nothing comes near it. It’ll be a wheelchair before long, at this rate. Did you say someone’s been arrested? Who?’
She debated briefly with herself, and saw no reason to withhold what she knew. ‘Ricky Whiteacre. Do you know him?’
‘Everybody knows the Whiteacres. The young one’s been in trouble once or twice. Got herself in the paper.’ He frowned and blew out his cheeks. ‘They’ll be wrong, though. It wouldn’t have been him that they want.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Murder.’ He said the word thoughtfully, the frown deepening. ‘Stabbing, I heard. Very nasty.’
‘Indeed. Even nastier than cracking a man’s skull with his own walking stick. Ricky did that – apparently. It’s not so different, really. He must be a violent character.’ She realised she had not properly considered the implications of Ricky’s arrest for his family. Being accused of murder was about as bad as it got. How would they ever recover?
‘I don’t know. All I wanted … well, I said it already.’
‘Yes. So, who did start the fire? Have you any idea?’
‘Mrs Foster was a social worker. Everybody hates social workers. There was a forced adoption just before she retired. The baby was taken away at birth, because they said it was likely to be harmed by the mother. A lot of fuss was kicked up. She was wrong.’ He looked up again. ‘She’s a stupid woman. I won’t say more than that. But if I were a copper, I’d have a look at where those people were when the fire was set.’
Thea was wide-eyed at this imputation, not so much on the victimised parents, but the woman she had met and liked. ‘She seemed all right to me.’
‘She had too much power. That’s the truth of it. A stupid powerful woman can cause a lot of harm.’
‘You think it was this mother – the one whose baby was taken away? Did you tell the police?’
‘No need. They’ll work it out for themselves eventually. It took them until today to confirm my story. It’s not their top priority just now.’
‘And you thought they’d have left me thinking it was you?’
‘Everyone’s talking about you. I guessed you’d have heard my name from someone by this time. And I was right, wasn’t I?’
She nodded. ‘Seems we’re both rather famous, for different reasons.’
‘Those girls,’ he suddenly snarled. ‘Like witches, they are, poking their noses into other people’s lives. Shouting their rubbish about badgers and the rest of it. Always some new thing to make trouble over. Nobody’s safe from them. Poor old Jack Handy – just trying to make a living as best he can. If anybody’s going to commit a murder, I’d stake money on it being one of them.’
‘You mean Sophie … what’s her surname? Wells! She does seem very fanatical.’
‘I don’t know one from another. Except the little Whiteacre lass. She’s going to regret getting entangled with them, silly kid. My Graham took a fancy to her when they were in the sixth form together. He still carries a candle for her, tries to talk sense into her. I tell him, it’s a lost cause.’
‘She might need his friendship, then, when all this is finally sorted out. I mean – her brother! It’s going to be dreadful for them, isn’t it.’ Her thoughts remained centred on the Whiteacre family and its sudden tragedy. ‘They seemed so … carefree … only a day or two ago.’
‘Nice people,’ he nodded. ‘No side to them. They might have that dirty great house, but they never flaunt it. Look at us, living in a poky little terrace – they’ve never made us feel beneath them at all.’
‘I liked them,’ she agreed.
‘I should go,’ he said suddenly. ‘They’ll be wondering where I am.’
‘Why aren’t you selling ice cream today?’ she wondered.
‘It’s only part-time. I thought I said. Not exactly a brilliant career move. They just needed to prove a point, basically. Now that’s buggered, as well.’ He put a hand to his lower back, pressing himself hard, then slapping the place angrily. ‘No way can I go back like this. How would I even get there?’
‘How will you get home? I’ll drive you if you can get in and out of the car.’
‘I can’t. Call my wife. She knows what to do. We’ve got an adapted vehicle, so I can swing in and out.’
‘And with all that, you still got accused of fraud? That’s appalling.’
‘It’s the times we live in,’ he said, fatalistically. ‘And plenty of people do swing the lead, after all. Can’t expect the system to know which is which – it’s too big and too rule-bound. They don’t see the real person – just tick a lot of boxes.’
It was certainly enlightening, Thea thought. She had known, in theory, that her experience seldom brought her close to deprivation; life on welfare payouts, even living in a poky terrace house was strange to her. Jim Tanner was making her feel ashamed of herself and everybody like her.
‘I’ll call her, then. What’s the number?’
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was five o’clock before Mrs Tanner drove away with her groaning husband. She had been upset, and frosty with Thea, who readily understood what a blow his relapse must be to her. The brief encounter with her made Thea feel even more ashamed of the unkindness that prevailed throughout the country. A callous attitude towards the less fortunate had blossomed in recent times, allied to a complacency among those who did have their health and a job and a decent house.
Far better for Sophie and her comrades to fight against such inequity and ill usage, thought Thea, uncertainly. She had to concede that it would also be less glamorous and far less exciting. The task of improving the lot of the poor and disadvantaged demanded political engagement, persistent dogged work on points of law and hard cases. There was little or no scope for direct action when it came to ensuring decent provision of social security. Saving badgers was a lot more straightforward, and infinitely more romantic.
And now they’d arrested Ricky. They would not have done that without compelling evidence against him. On the other hand, there was a big difference between ‘arrest’ and ‘charge’. People were often arrested and then released again without charge. It could yet turn out to be a mistake, despite Higgins’s message implying that the whole thing was over and Thea could safely settle down and forget all about it. He just wanted her out of his way, she suspected, and who could blame him? He was going to have his hands full with Sheila Whiteacre, who was highly likely to turn into a ferociously protective mother, employing skilled lawyers and ensuring there was no undue pressure or excessive questioning of her beloved son.
She was strongly tempted to defy Higgins and barge in somewhere asking questions of her own. But where? Even Thea Osborne had more sense than to try to speak to anybody in the Whiteacre family. Nor did there seem to be much chance of finding Nella or Sophie or Steve, since she had no idea of where they lived.
The only person left, it seemed, was Sandy Handy – and what could Thea possibly have to say to her? She gave it some thought, and came up with nothing other than a pleasing diversion into other possible names the woman could have been landed with. Candy, Mandy – even Pandy. Wendy would have been almost as bad.
It all required an extended meditation, possibly with notes. She needed to go back over the week and try to figure out what truths, if any, could be established. If Ricky was the murderer, did that explain the reason for the visitation on Tuesday evening from his sister and her friends? Did they all know it was him, and were closing ranks? Where were the clues that she had missed? Was she being childish and naïve to think there was anything of the sort? Wasn’t plodding police procedure far more likely to arrive at the facts of the case?
She tried a succession of character analyses, starting with Sophie Wells, who was relatively easy to label as well intentioned but uncontrolled. Influential over others, but also often embarrassing. Impatient, intelligent and probably indulged as a child. Nella Davidson was less easy. Like
ly to be rich and at least as spoilt as Sophie, she must possess lovable qualities, since Danny had chosen her as his lifetime partner. Thea had seen small indications of passion – all her emotions had been exaggerated, from grief to impatience and anger. And yet somewhere there was an anomaly that Thea could not quite identify. Nella had said almost nothing about the environment or the reasons for being an activist in the first place. She had been detached when Thea first saw her, leaning carelessly against her fiancé’s – or officially her, as Higgins had disclosed – big car. Again, the next day, she had shrugged off the drama at the quarry as nothing important. Nella, then, went her own way and was wary of following the crowd. Perhaps that had been her attraction for Danny.
Tiffany was another spoilt daughter. Her mother had ineffectually reproached her for being with the group on Sunday morning, but had all too easily abandoned her complaints and let the girl do as she pleased. There had been a suggestion of mutual trust, and an overall relaxation of rules, despite Jim Tanner’s disclosure that Tiffany had been in trouble not so long ago. Tiffany was, after all, the youngest of five. The worries and problems of raising children would all have been worked through already by the time it came to her. Mr and Mrs Whiteacre were probably just keen to focus on being grandparents, cruising towards retirement with a sense of a job well done.
Steve, with the big ears and the straggly beard, had endeared himself to her with his straight talking. He seemed to be a well-balanced young man, comfortable with his place in the world, while still immersing himself in the grey areas of activism. He conveyed a sense of invulnerability, impervious to the usual laws of society, with his eavesdropping app. Steve, she supposed, could all too easily fit the profile of a deliberate killer. Clever, amoral, and pleased with himself. Physically unappealing, he had developed a disarming manner to compensate. Steve knew everybody – probably including the Tanner family.
Jack Handy, of course, might yet turn out to have murdered Danny. He remained the most convincing suspect in some ways, despite Thea’s liking for him. It would not be the first time she’d liked a killer, although she had yet to reach a position whereby the very fact of liking them became an indication of guilt. Laughing silently to herself, she gave up the whole task as a bad job. It was impossible without talking it through with someone else, someone who would point out any lack of logic or remind her of comments or incidents that might change her whole approach.