That Still andWhispering Place

by Kathy Shuker

  ‘Does it matter?’ She waited. ‘So…’ she prompted. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I don’t know. Lots of things, of course. I’m cross, naturally. He should have told us he wanted to take these. Laura was only a kid really.’

  ‘You don’t sound cross.’

  ‘Well, it’s difficult, isn’t it?’

  ‘No. Well, yes. In a way. But no, he should never have taken them. It wasn’t a question of him telling us, like he had some right to do it. It’s freaky. I’ve always liked Tim and I know he’s your brother, Neil, but I’m sorry, it’s sick. She was twelve. What kind of man takes pictures of his twelve-year-old niece naked like that?’

  ‘He’s a photographer, Claire. See…’ He gestured impatiently with a hand towards the pictures but didn’t actually look at them. ‘…they’re black and white. All arty. That’s the way he is. He shouldn’t have done it without asking but it doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘You aren’t serious?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am.’

  ‘Then why did he do it secretly?’

  Neil shrugged, not quite looking at her. ‘You know what Tim’s like. He seems quite confident but it’s all show. Anyway, I’ll speak to Laura, check that he asked her, you know…nicely, to do it.’

  ‘No.’ Claire was almost shouting now. ‘No. You can’t do it like that.’

  ‘I’ll have a word with Tim too, if you like, explain how upset you are.’

  She stared at him, astonished. How upset you are. He was dissociating himself from it like he always did and simply refusing to see the implications. And if he spoke to Laura he’d manipulate her to get the answers he wanted. She had heard him do it before.

  ‘Suppose he didn’t ask her nicely?’ she said. ‘Then he pressured her. You think she’s going to just come out and admit that now? She’s probably still scared of him.’

  ‘Scared of Tim?’ He snorted. ‘Why would…’

  ‘Of course she’ll be scared of him. Anyway, I haven’t told you the other thing.’

  ‘What other thing?’

  ‘It’s even worse, Neil. Fiona came to see me after the fête. You know Fiona was Tim’s last girlfriend - a point you omitted to tell me, by the way. She said that she found that hair slide among Tim’s things and gave it to the fête to be sold. Gilly’s slide. In a box hidden away with Tim’s things.’

  She watched him, still hoping for some anger. Something. Anything.

  He made eye contact at last and stared at her, incredulous.

  ‘Oh come on, Claire. Not that slide thing again. You admitted it wasn’t important. You said you’d thrown it away.’

  ‘That was before Fiona spoke to me. I threw it in the garden but I found it again. Don’t you see? Tim had Gilly’s hair slide.’ She began enunciating slowly and clearly as if to a child. ‘He took these photos of Laura. Tim has problems. He had Gilly’s slide. He knows what happened to Gilly. We have to make him tell us.’

  ‘Now you’re making me cross, Claire. You’re being ridiculous. Tim was with your father when Gilly disappeared, everyone knows that. He even went looking for her too.’

  Claire stood up, her anger and frustration too great now to contain sitting down.

  ‘You’re cross? And I’m being ridiculous? I’m telling you this because I thought you cared about your daughter; I thought you’d want to know what happened to her. I’m telling you this because you’re Gilly’s father but, frankly, I’m struggling to remember that. And I’ve worked out Tim’s alibi. In the end it was obvious. Blindingly obvious. My father never wore his watch. He told the time by the sun and in the summer the sun is so high and moves so slowly, it’s not as accurate. And most of the time he didn’t give a fig what the time was anyway. I imagine Tim turned up later than usual but made a point of mentioning that it was half past four or something. Dad believed it; why wouldn’t he? We all believed it. But Tim knows what happened to Gilly. And we need to tell the police.’

  Neil quickly got to his feet and put a firm hand on her arm.

  ‘Now come on, Claire. Calm down. You’re overreacting. I can’t believe what Fiona’s saying. She’s being vindictive because he dumped her. And she’s got a history of it too, hasn’t she? I’m sure Jane said she used to make things up when they were kids – stories that used to get Jane into trouble with her mother. She’s not reliable. We should ask Tim.’

  She felt a moment of doubt. Jane had never said that explicitly to her. So maybe Fiona wasn’t reliable. And Claire didn’t want to believe it either. Then she remembered the photographs and shook his hand off angrily.

  ‘I believe Fiona,’ she said. ‘If you ask Tim, he’ll just lie.’

  ‘You’re making something out of nothing. I agree the photos aren’t right. He shouldn’t have done that. But to suggest he had anything to do with Gilly.’ He forced a pained smile. ‘That’s absurd, Claire. Why should we believe Fiona in preference to Tim? We certainly can’t go to the police with any of this. It’d hang over him forever. And I mean…imagine when it got out? The press would be down here again like a shot and the vineyard would be mentioned for all the wrong reasons. This is something we have to keep in the family.’

  A heavy, chilling thought settled on her.

  ‘Is that what you’ve been doing, Neil – keeping it in the family? Did you all know what Tim was up to all along? Did you even know about Gilly and turn a blind eye rather than risk it getting out and muddying the Pennyman name?’

  ‘No, no, of course not.’ Neil started protesting before she’d even finished talking. ‘What are you accusing us of? Of course we didn’t know anything. I didn’t anyway. I’m sure the others didn’t either.’

  ‘And if you had known… What then?’

  He hesitated just a moment too long before replying and Claire felt her anger wash away on a smothering tide of disappointment and resignation. She walked to the front door and opened it.

  ‘You’d better go now, Neil. I need to make a phone call.’

  Neil quickly moved to stand in front of her.

  ‘Please don’t do this, Claire. We can work it out.’ The irritation had gone; his tone was gentle, caressing, conciliatory. ‘Don’t you care about us?’ He came closer still and stroked his hand over her hair. ‘Darling, I want us to be together. Can’t you see that this’ll just drive a wedge between us again? It’ll change everything; it’ll change us. You’re playing with fire. None of us will ever be the same again.’ He looked at her wearing an earnest, agonised expression.

  She knocked his hand away crossly, squeezing her lips together hard, trying to keep control. All her hopes of getting back together with him were about to be thrown away. And she was the one who was going to do it.

  ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘We’ve already changed, Neil. Nothing can ever be the same again. I’ve made that mistake before - thinking I could go back.’ She held his gaze, unflinching. ‘And I’m afraid I simply don’t love you enough to abandon my daughters for you.’

  He took a step back, looking at her disbelievingly.

  ‘You’re not really going to ring the police? Let’s talk about this some more.’

  ‘There’s nothing left to say.’

  His jaw set. ‘You’re making a big mistake.’

  ‘I hope you’re not threatening me. Just go.’

  His face puckered in anger and disbelief. He stormed out, kicking wildly at the terracotta pot of geraniums by the door as he went, making it fall over and smash.

  Claire closed the door but continued to stand there, staring at it but seeing nothing, shaking. She turned away and picked up the phone.

  *

  The police took Tim in for questioning and went through his house, checking all his photographs in case there were others of children. They found none. He was asked about the hair slide too but insisted he’d found it on the floor at the nursery some time afterwards. He said he’d taken it home because he wasn’t sure what to do with it: he’d been anxious not to upset anyone. He as
sumed it had fallen there when Gilly was playing and he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away because he was so fond of his niece. That was his story and it was extremely plausible; the evidence was circumstantial.

  Days had passed and Claire was back at work, trying to keep some routine. Penny was away again in France and Claire was grateful for the space, throwing herself into mundane tasks, trying to stay occupied. Now she was ironing linens - a task she always found soothing, steaming and smoothing out creases, spraying the freshly laundered linen with lavender water.

  She had heard about Tim’s response to the allegations courtesy of Lyn James, the Family Liaison Officer. At the moment, however, she was more preoccupied with Laura, their stilted conversations going round and round in her head. Her daughter simply wouldn’t talk about Timothy.

  Sam had dropped her back at the cottage on the Sunday afternoon, had stopped to speak to Claire and left. At that point, Laura had been happy and remarkably chatty; she had had a good time. Sam was ‘OK’, she’d said. He had been ‘no pressure’; he was ‘fun’; they’d talked of maybe seeing each other again but hadn’t arranged anything definite. So Claire had prattled about other things, had tried to bring the conversation round to the photographs but had quickly realised that there wasn’t an easy way to do it. In the end, she had done it perhaps too suddenly and Laura’s demeanour had changed almost instantly. She became evasive.

  ‘Did he force you to have the pictures taken?’ Claire asked for a second time.

  ‘No. It was just…’ Laura appeared to be breathing too hard. ‘I…’ She hesitated again. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, mum, OK?’

  ‘Laura, we have to talk about it.’

  ‘Why? I don’t want to. It’s history. He was just…he was very persuasive.’

  ‘Did he…you know, touch you or anything?’

  ‘God, no. No.’ Laura shook her head and looked like she was going to cry. Claire tried to hug her but Laura broke away. ‘I’m all right, mum. I’m fine. I just don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘But the police will have to talk to you about it, Laura,’ Claire said gently. ‘The thing is…there’s something else.’ Claire had explained about the slide. Laura listened, mouth open, eyes staring, then just backed away and ran up the stairs to her room. Claire watched her go and put her hands to her head in despair. She didn’t know what to do.

  And when the police interviewed her later, Laura was little more forthcoming. She insisted that ‘nothing happened’, that her uncle had never touched her. He just told her how to pose. Tim kept insisting his photographs were art - he never meant them to be pornographic - and he had set them up carefully so they weren’t.

  Claire scoffed at the idea. She put another table runner on the ironing board and put the iron down on it heavily and pounded up the length of it. The police, it seemed, weren’t in a hurry to accuse Tim of anything. They were still considering the matter apparently and had released him ‘pending further investigations’, asking him to keep them informed of his whereabouts. Claire was astonished. What more did they need to see? Cynically she suspected that who he was weighed more heavily with them than what he had done; Eve Pennyman knew a lot of people.

  She shifted the runner along the board and hammered down on it again with the iron. She was haunted by how badly she felt she had let her daughter down. Even if Tim hadn’t done anything physically to her, Laura had clearly been scarred by his behaviour. And Claire wished now she’d spent longer in Tim’s house when she’d had the opportunity, sure that she would have found something else to incriminate him if she’d looked hard enough. She shouldn’t have waited to see Neil before ringing the police, either. Tim had probably destroyed a load of photographs as soon as Neil told him what she was going to do.

  How could she ever have thought that Neil would side with her and the girls against his brother? And now the village grapevine was buzzing with the story of course, each version bigger and more lurid than the last. She had kept away.

  The bell rang on the shop door and she looked up. It was Adam. She put the iron down and met him by the counter.

  ‘Adam, I was going to ring you…’ She hesitated. ‘I wanted to apologise for the way I behaved the other night. I wasn’t myself.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’ve heard…’ He shrugged. ‘I understand.’ He ran a finger along the counter top. ‘So are the rumours true?’

  ‘I suppose that depends which versions you’ve heard.’

  ‘That Tim had something of Gilly’s which you found? I assume that’s the hair slide. They say he was arrested.’

  ‘Yes, it was the slide but, no, he wasn’t arrested, just questioned. His ex-girlfriend said she found it in his things. He says he found it on the ground at the nursery.’

  ‘And they believe him?’

  ‘No reason not to, I gather, not at the moment.’ She tried not to sound bitter and knew she’d failed.

  ‘There’s talk about photographs too.’

  ‘Oh no. How do people find out these things?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Forget it.’

  ‘No. It’s all right. I can tell you.’ She explained briefly about Laura and the pictures. ‘That’s why I’m sure he took her. Gilly either knew about the photos or he tried to photograph her and she wouldn’t have it. Honestly it makes me sick to think about.’

  He fidgeted.

  ‘How is Laura?’ he asked after a pause.

  ‘She’s gone to stay with a friend from university. She couldn’t stay here with all this going on.’

  ‘Tim’s gone away too, I heard, ‘visiting friends’.’

  ‘Yes. So Penny said. In Suffolk. Eve’s damage limitation, no doubt. Apparently, if the police permit it, he might be going abroad to ‘get work experience at another vineyard’. It’s a bad joke.’

  They both glanced round as a couple came into the unit.

  ‘Look,’ Adam murmured, leaning forward. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help… Or if you just want to talk, ring me will you?’

  ‘Yes. I will. Thank you.’ She tried a smile. ‘Please don’t say anything about Laura to anyone, will you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  She watched him walk to the door.

  ‘Adam? Are you all right?’

  He turned and flashed a smile.

  ‘Of course. I’m fine.’

  ‘And Zoe?’

  The blink of a hesitation. ‘Yes, she’s fine too.’

  He left, ambling back towards his studio. She still wasn’t convinced – there was something in his manner that bothered her. But as he’d told her himself: men don’t talk.

  She went back to the ironing and her mind drifted back to Tim, wondering how long it would be before he returned to Bohenna and, more to the point, how long it would be before she found out what he knew about Gilly. As far as she was concerned, she would wait for as long as it took; she wasn’t going anywhere until she got all the answers.

  *

  Julia took the car down into the village, drew it into the car park between The Swan and the green and sat for several minutes without getting out. It was July now and some schools had already broken up for the summer. A woman with two small children sat on the bench, watching her offspring chase each other over the grass, shrieking in their excitement. A couple of retirement age, wearing long shorts and walking boots, walked along the road towards the bridge in single file. They had an air of self-absorbed contentment that Julia envied. Behind her, the doors of the pub were open and she could see Dave Spenser in her rear view mirror, mopping the floor inside. It was still early; there would be many more people swarming over Bohenna later.

  She’d been avoiding going down into the village for days, had driven to Lostwithiel for odd items she’d run out of rather than brave all those invasive, curious looks. But she couldn’t avoid them forever. She lived and worked here so sooner or later she would have to face them. She took a deep breath, blew it out on a sigh and got out of the car, grabbing her bags and c
rossing the road to the shop.

  Even though he was serving someone else, Julia was immediately aware of Steve Carthy’s eyes following her from the moment she walked in. She took a basket and worked her way round the store, pulling things from the shelves with an affected insouciance. She went to the freezer, picked up a packet of burgers and a bag of garden peas and dumped them on top, then grabbed a jumbo pack of crisps on the way to the till. Danny never seemed to stop eating these days.

  ‘Julia, good to see you,’ Steve said, as she put the basket down on the counter.

  ‘Morning Steve.’

  Holding her purse, she began loading things into her hessian bag as he put them through the till.

  He flicked her a probing glance. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘We’ve been hearing all sorts of tales. I’m sure they can’t all be true.’

  ‘I’m sure they can’t either.’

  ‘But I heard Tim’s gone away for a while. Must be difficult at this time of year, without him to do all those vine tours?’

  ‘It’s not a problem. Neil’s doing them while Tim’s away.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good then.’ He put a loaf of bread through. ‘Coming back soon, is he? Tim, I mean.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know Steve. Do you tell your sister what you’re doing all the time?’

  ‘No, but then she doesn’t work with me, Julia.’ He smiled obsequiously, said how much she owed him and flung the basket into the pile on the floor by the till. ‘Your mum all right? Haven’t seen her for a few days.’

  ‘She’s fine, thank you.’

  She handed him a couple of notes. He rang them through the till and lifted out her change, pausing before he gave it to her.

  ‘Police not finished with Tim yet then?’ he asked with an innocent air.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll know before I do,’ she replied sweetly, holding out her hand.

  He counted the money into it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and left.

  She loaded the bags in the car but locked it again and walked across to the river, cutting down onto the footpath. She needed air and…something else, she wasn’t sure what. She stared into the river. After a dry start to the summer with long spells of sunshine it was running lower. It boded well for the vines; they might have a big crop this year and quite early maybe. It was ironic, given that they probably wouldn’t have Tim’s help when the harvest came. When would Tim return? She truly didn’t know. Eve was naively convinced that if he stayed away from the village for a while, it would all die down, that everyone would forget. End of story. But he’d been obliged to give the police his contact details and Julia was equally certain that it wasn’t over yet.