When, at about eleven, I said I was going to go to bed, Robin barely looked up from the TV screen.
‘I’ll be there in a bit,’ he said distractedly, but in fact he stayed just where he was for some hours more. Although distressed by his distress, I managed to fall into a fitful sleep from which he woke me at almost 3 a.m. when he climbed into bed beside me. He only woke me by accident though. There was no question that night of his reaching out for me to make love. Instead he lay uneasily beside me, and his restlessness made it virtually impossible for me to get any more sleep, so it was rather irritating that he was dead to the world and appeared so absolutely at peace when I left for the nick at 7.30.
He called me around mid-morning on my mobile.
‘Hallo, darling, sorry I was out for the count when you left this morning,’ he said cheerily. He sounded quite his usual bouncy self. ‘’Fraid I was a bit of a misery guts yesterday,’ he continued.
‘I do understand Robin,’ I said. I did too. The island had always meant so much to him and his family, and for so long.
‘I know you do, darling, and that is one of the many reasons why I love you to distraction,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ I muttered obliquely. Well, although I was alone in my office, walls have ears in police stations.
‘I’m calling from the new office,’ he continued animatedly. ‘Bob’s already got a couple of great deals on the table, and now that I’m fully on board we’ll really get cracking.’
He seemed to be right back to normal. Bob was an old school friend Robin had set himself up in partnership with. The two of them had capital to play with and Robin had told me that he was confident that they would make a lot of money in the property business. Certainly Robin was a natural wheeler and dealer. That was how he had single-handedly managed to keep the dinosaur of Abri afloat, so to speak, for as long as he had, in a world where it really had no place. It was typical of him to be already planning his future – our future. The large amount of capital already paid in advance on the leasing of Abri was such that he probably need not have worked at anything for the rest of his life, but that would not have suited Robin. And I did know how serious he was about rebuilding his family heritage. His dream now was to live long enough to have Abri handed back to him as a financially viable proposition to be handed on to future generations of Daveys, and to have made a new fortune himself to go with it. That kind of thinking was second nature to him.
I was, however, surprised at the speed with which he seemed to have recovered from the trauma of the previous day. I took a short break from the mound of paperwork on my desk to make myself some coffee. As I drank it I leaned back in my chair, put my feet on my desk and contemplated this extraordinary man I was going to marry.
I felt that I was very lucky. And I wondered why anything about Robin Davey surprised me any more.
Robin had made an arrangement with AKEKO that the Davey family would continue to have certain rights on the island throughout the leasing. These included the right to marry and to be buried there. So Robin and I were to marry, both of us for the second time, in Abri Island’s church, built in the 1890s on the edge of Abri village by Robin’s great-grandfather. To say I was daunted by this was a major understatement.
I had thought it unlikely that, as a divorcee, I would even be allowed to marry there, and secretly, had half-hoped that would prove to be the case. Robin would have none of it. A church wedding on Abri was expected for him. If there were any problems the Davey family fixed them. They were good at fixing things. All the Daveys had always been married on Abri, and indeed Robin had already been married there once. He was a sensitive man, and he had shown some concern about that.
‘Are you sure it doesn’t bother you, Rose?’ he asked.
‘No, that doesn’t bother me,’ I had replied quite honestly. ‘Your first wedding was twenty years ago, and that’s a very long time. It was another life for you then, and I was just a kid. We didn’t know each other existed. It really doesn’t worry me at all.’
He had been pleased. ‘I’m glad you feel like that,’ he said. ‘I know it will make the family happy.’
I took his hand. ‘I tell you what does bother me a bit,’ I admitted. ‘Coping with a Davey family wedding and all the baggage it brings with it. The tradition of it. I feel a bit like I’m marrying a royal.’
He laughed. ‘You are, my dear,’ he said mockingly. ‘A prince of a man, that’s me.’ And then he reassured me that I had nothing to worry about. ‘Mother, James, and I will deal with everything,’ he said soothingly. ‘All you have to do is to turn up.’
Of course that unnerved me all the more. I was accustomed to making my own decisions and being in charge of my own life. I wasn’t at all used to being carried along by events. But that was just what happened, of course. Robin’s boundless energy, his unshakeable belief in himself, and in us, was overwhelming. What Robin wanted I went along with. I’d never have thought I would do that with any man. It was different with Robin. Life was different. I was different.
Robin’s younger brother James would be best man. My sister Clem and her eight-year-old daughter, Ruth, the bridesmaids. The plans for our wedding seemed to just present themselves. Most of the decisions were made for me, even down to the food and drink which should be served at the wedding breakfast – dressed Cornish crab, smoked bacon with the local seaweed dish laver, Torridge salmon, and Devon cider as well as the more traditional champagne.
I took an afternoon off and drove over to Northgate to talk things over with Maude and James. It was a pleasantly warm March day and Maude, wearing something lacy and flowing and completely impractical which looked quite sensational, was collecting eggs from the free-range hens which wandered aimlessly about the yard.
‘I’ve baked some scones,’ she said. ‘James is coming over. Let’s have tea.’
The scones were mouth-watering. Another of Maude’s many talents, it appeared. She and James continued to display the same ease of manner which had made my first visit to Northgate so relaxed.
Maude had the knack of organising you without appearing to do so. In spite of her size there was nothing remotely domineering about her. She just carried you along in her wake. And James, so laid back he might fall over, continued to give the impression that he’d rather be in his barn with his paints, but joined in the wedding talk with decent enthusiasm.
The guest list, which I thought was a terrifyingly long one, seemed to comprise about 200 or so Davey family and friends – plus, of course, all the Abri islanders – and about fifty of mine. There was quite an extended Davey family it seemed, of distant cousins and aged aunts and uncles, who must not be left out.
My dress had already been ordered from an old art school friend of James who had gone on to be a top designer. Maude was to travel to London with me for the final fitting.
‘Bloody good excuse,’ she said, her vowels even more flatly Yorkshire than usual. ‘I’ve not had lunch at the Savoy for donkey’s years.’
I had never had lunch at the Savoy. But I was willing to give it a try.
As the days passed I began to get used to being swept along with the Davey tide, and even grew rather to like it. Certainly there were far fewer demands on my time than you would expect with a wedding on this scale to plan, which continued to make it possible for me to give my job first priority.
Eventually there was a development in the Stephen Jeffries case, although not a very conclusive one. Elizabeth Jeffries suddenly walked out on her husband, taking their daughter with her. Their so-solid marriage, which had in a way hindered even our initial inquiries into the abuse allegation, had collapsed.
‘She must know something,’ I told Peter Mellor impulsively. ‘I reckon she knows Richard Jeffries killed their son.’
Mellor shrugged. Ever reasonable. Ever rational. ‘Marriages often break down under this kind of strain, boss. You know that. It doesn’t necessarily indicate guilt.’
‘Well then, let’s do our best to fi
nd out whether it does or not,’ I countered.
We switched the thrust of our investigation on to Elizabeth Jeffries. We interviewed her all over again at her mother’s home where she was now living with her daughter, and then more formally at Kingswood. We gave her a thorough going over, but we got nowhere. There was none of the old cool arrogance about her. In fact she didn’t seem to be functioning properly at all. She was almost zombie-like. But if she had cause to believe that her husband was guilty of murder, she still wasn’t telling. All she said was that she had moved out because she could not cope with the deep depression into which Richard Jeffries had descended since Stephen’s disappearance, and that by taking her daughter to her granny she had hoped to reintroduce some semblance of normality into little Anna’s life.
It was hard to believe that the most obsessive middle-class dedication to keeping up appearances could lead a mother to go as far as protecting a man she knew had killed her child – even if that man was her husband. The truth was that I didn’t know what to do next. The case was fast turning into one of the unhappiest I had ever been involved with, and I feared we were never to get to the bottom of the mystery. About the only way I could imagine moving constructively forward was to find the boy’s body, and God knows I didn’t want that.
I remained unhappily preoccupied, and it was really rather wonderful to at least know that I was about to enjoy a dream wedding to a man I was madly in love with and that I barely had to lift a finger. Our wedding day would be just two months after the island had been leased, by which time Robin hoped that the islanders would be becoming a little more used to the new order of things.
I thought that might be a bit optimistic, but things did seem to be going better than may have been expected. The plans for the new luxury hotel complex, which was hopefully to change the fortunes of Abri, had been proven to be surprisingly sensitive to the spirit of the place and in sympathy with the surroundings. Even those among the islanders determined to find fault with everything had, to Robin’s delight and relief, been grudgingly approving. But, of course, although they would have liked things to carry on just as they were for ever, they must have realised that could not be possible. Abri had to earn its living, to prosper in order to survive, just like any business and any community. Robin was right about that. Planning permission had gone through swiftly, work had already begun on the site, and AKEKO, true to its word, had hired a number of islanders to help with the building.
We had taken over all the existing holiday accommodation for the weekend of the wedding and were to be given the run of the place. Robin was well pleased.
Meanwhile, our relationship seemed to go from strength to strength. And I had been around long enough to experience, in spite of my physical euphoria, a certain sense of relief when I began to realise that we really did get on every bit as well out of bed as in. That one dreadful row on Pencil Beach had yet to be repeated, and I hoped it never would be.
I even eventually faced up to the inevitable and invited my mother to meet Robin. I warned him thoroughly about the horrors of the Hyacinth Bucket of Weston-super-Mare, but he seemed completely untroubled by the prospect of meeting her. I had been dreading it and had put it off for an almost indecently long period after having reluctantly confided to her that I was remarrying – which I had also put off for as long as possible. It wasn’t that I feared her reaction. Predictably she had been absolutely delighted. I was after all marrying a Davey, and in North Devon the family really were regarded as being close to royalty. Indeed this was probably the first time in my entire life I had done anything that pleased her. My mother had the sensitivity of a Rottweiler – nay less, Rottweilers can be quite endearing. She had no problems at all with Robin’s past, indeed if she knew about the mysterious death of his former fiancée she did not seem even to consider it worth a mention. And it certainly did not worry her that I was remarrying fairly hastily after a divorce. Mother had never liked Simon, and I had always considered it a tribute to my first husband’s judgement of character that he had been unable to spend more than an hour or so in the same room as her and remain civil.
My mother had been christened Harriet and had always been known as Hat until a few years ago when she had suddenly announced that she would henceforth be known as Harrie. God knows what silly magazine she had been reading. It really was hard to imagine anything much more ridiculous than a short middle-aged woman, running slightly to fat, hairdo like the Queen’s, with a penchant for flowing multi-coloured polyester, calling herself Harrie.
Mother always overdressed. And she did not disappoint when she arrived for dinner at the flat. Robin had offered to cook for her, and I reckoned that would at least be marginally less embarrassing than taking her to a restaurant.
She was wearing a particularly gaudy polyester creation, too much jewellery and spangled spectacles. The very sight of her made me groan inside. And her mouth turned firmly down at the corners when she took in my jeans and tee shirt, which I am afraid I had chosen to wear quite deliberately. Childish, I suppose. Robin, however, emerged from the bedroom wearing one his smartest suits, shirt and tie. He really was a creep, and I whispered as much in his ear as he ushered a now-beaming mother into the sitting room.
‘Not much point in inviting her here and then upsetting her, is there?’ he hissed back with a smug smile. I slapped him playfully on the backside. He was right, of course. I resolved to try to be polite to my mother for a whole evening.
It was not easy.
‘Wonder how long it will be before you destroy this place, then, Rose,’ she remarked, looking snootily around my still remarkably uncluttered flat which I had managed to keep her out of until now.
I smiled through gritted teeth. The meal was a success. Mother raved over Robin’s home-made mushroom soup followed by grilled Dover soles. Well, there wasn’t much harm even I could have done putting a sole under the grill, I thought to myself grumpily.
Predictably Robin charmed my mother rotten. There was one moment, though, which confounded even him.
‘Have you got a pen, dear?’ asked mother, later on in the evening while Robin was out of the room. She often attempted to put on a really posh voice and usually ended up sounding plain peculiar.
I passed her a biro.
‘No dear, a pen for my blouse,’ replied mother.
Just as I was working this out Robin returned.
‘Could you please find me a pen, Robin?’ mother asked, in a rather exasperated way, as if I was thick, or something.
‘Of course,’ responded Robin, reaching in the breast pocket of his jacket for the Monte Blanc he invariably carried there.
‘Oh no, dear, a pen for my blouse,’ said mother again. ‘I seem to have lost a button . . .’
I swear this is a true story. How could anyone ever make it up?
Robin looked at me and I looked at Robin. We both started to giggle. Mother treated us to a puzzled frown. Robin pulled himself together first. Maybe it was his public school training. With wonderful control he straightened his features and adroitly changed the subject.
The rest of the evening was without notable incident and mother had to leave fairly early to drive back to Weston-super-Mare, which by then was as much of a relief to Robin as it was to me, I suspected.
For some days afterwards we each found ourselves asking at regular intervals if the other had a pen, before collapsing in hoots of merriment.
In general the weeks leading up to our wedding passed smoothly, at home if not in the job. Robin really was so kind and thoughtful and so understanding. He never seemed to mind the hours I put in at work, just said that it made our time together all the more precious. Certainly the joy of loving him became everything to me, whereas previously, and I suppose I have to admit that Simon had been quite right about it, when push came to shove my job had always come first.
However a couple of weeks before the wedding I sensed Robin back away from me a little. I already knew that he was capable of black moods, yet
I suppose most of us are. Life can seem pretty impossible sometimes. But if Robin was unhappy, I was learning, then he withdrew into himself, falling fretfully silent. I would have much preferred the occasional outburst of temper, anything that involved some kind of communication.
Over the space of a few days the periods of morose silence grew longer and longer and I found that I sorely missed the easy companionship which was usually so much a feature of our time together. I sensed that the intelligent thing to do was to leave him alone, let him live through whatever was bugging him, but naturally I could not resist confronting him, and in fact he responded better than I might have expected.
‘Robin, what is it?’ I asked directly at the end of an entire evening together when he had seemed not to want to talk to me at all. ‘Are you having second thoughts? Do you have doubts now about marrying me? Is that it?’
He looked astonished. ‘Is that what you’ve been thinking?’ he asked incredulously.
I shrugged. ‘To be honest, Robin, I haven’t known what to think.’
When he spoke again his voice was intense, his manner quite forceful. ‘Good God, Rose, possibly the one thing in the world I have no doubts about at all is you and my feelings for you.’
‘Well what is wrong then?’ I persisted.
He sighed. Suddenly and unusually he looked his forty-five years, and very tired indeed.
‘You have to realise the wrench it has been for me to hand Abri over to strangers,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it all gets too much. I feel that I can’t just live for a time twenty-five years hence when I might get it back, you were right about that. I may not even be alive . . .’
His voice tailed away. I studied him anxiously. There was real pain in his eyes. I thought he must be near to tears.
‘I’ve left so much behind, Rose,’ he said. ‘And then there’s so much I wish I could leave behind. So much death and sorrow.’
For Death Comes Softly Page 17