He was getting nowhere. He had thought he might find something, perhaps some sign of a break-in, maybe evidence that a vagrant had been squatting in one of the vacant cabins.
But the police would have spotted anything like that.
He walked a short way into the woods, stopping before he reached the place where they had found Jerry. Again, the police would have been thorough.
Earlier, he had thought he might have some personal need to see the place again—a part of the process of putting this business securely behind him, a tying up of loose ends.
Now he realised he had no such need.
He stopped and looked around. Generation after generation of local people had wandered through these woods, and their legacy was an intricate lacework of footpaths. In the spreading twilight, he could see through the woods to the Strand Lane and the fringe of trees beyond. Behind him lay the estuary; ahead, the thickening woodland.
This was an old landscape, going back through centuries of alternating neglect and management, as coppice and common foraging land. It would be here for centuries to come. How many awful tragedies had been presided over by these looming trees? How many people had died within these boundaries?
He felt as if he had entered a cathedral. The woods had the same hushed atmosphere of great age and permanence. And also, they bore the same gloomy certainty of death.
Chapter 12
Saturday morning, the sun a golden smear across the North Sea. Nick ran south-west along Coastguards' Parade. A pair of boating lakes lay ahead, a family of mute swans on the water, a motley band of gulls peppering the grass all around. Beyond the lakes was a car park and then the new swimming pool. He veered off to the left, cutting through a double line of beach huts, painted in a jumble of bright colours, and ran along the sea front.
At the end of the Prom he came to Crab Island: an angled groyne terminating in a mound of weed-covered rocks which was just showing above the halfway tide. He turned right, along what remained of the Prom, and then left again, onto the sea-wall. Soon, he was free of the town and there was only salt-marsh to his left, caravan park and then rough set-aside fields to his right.
He hadn't planned to come out this way, although again it was as if a part of his subconscious had taken over, leading him on to the next logical step. After about half a mile, he left the sea-wall, following a path through the fields.
He was surprised to find a road cutting across the path. He had only expected a farm lane, rutted and wet from the morning's heavy dew. The road's course followed that of the track he had expected and when he had recovered his bearings he realised that this must be the latest boundary of the sprawling Long Meadows Estate.
The road, an extension of Low Road, wasn't open to traffic for all of its length and the land separating it from the estate proper was a muddy limbo of wasteland and half-erected houses.
He hurdled a gate, put up across the road to keep out unwanted traffic, and continued to run.
The new road took him out to the first big bend on the Stoham Road, as he had suspected it would. It followed a traditional right of way. Within its long curve, the new road had enclosed a vast area of land for the builders to fill. One day, he supposed, the estate would reach right down to the sea-wall and the only direction left for Bathside to sprawl would be farther inland.
This was longer than his usual morning runs—it was already after seven—but having come this far he had to go on, if only for a look. He remembered the address Jerry's father had written down for him. The house was called The Polders, and Mr Gayle had said it was somewhere near a pub called the Yew Tree.
Nick ran, past a petrol station on his right, some kind of nursing home on the left, set back amongst trees and ornamental ponds.
Within minutes he spotted the pub. It looked like a picture on a tin of biscuits: bulging half-timbered walls, windows with diagonal lead-work, all under a dark, uneven thatch. By the entrance was a lone tree, pruned into a pyramid shape. It was, Nick noted, a holly, despite the pub's name. Someone around here either had a sense of the surreal or a very poor appreciation of botany.
There was a bunched-up row of houses after the pub. Old farm labourer's cottages. Then Nick came to a heavy seven-barred gate, suspended between brick pillars. In the middle of the gate was a name-plate. The Polders.
So this was where Jerry had lived her wedded years, the scene of whatever domestic arrangements she and Matthew had shared.
He stopped and leaned on the gate, as if out of breath, resting. A narrow gravel drive curved off to the right, towards the house which was partly hidden from the road by the row of cottages. It was an impressive place, but not quite as grand as Nick had somehow imagined. It was built of the local red bricks, their tone and outline softened with age. There were ornate gables at either end, tall sash windows, a Boston ivy spreading its magnificent fiery hue across about half of the front wall. An out-building had been converted into a double garage, with some kind of accommodation above, connected to the main house by a covered walkway. It might have been a farmhouse at one point, although he guessed not. There was something about it which suggested reproduction, as if it had been built more recently, using old materials.
The house, itself, was not large—probably no more than three bedrooms, plus whatever was over the garage block. The gardens were a kind of ordered tangle: dense shrubberies smothered with creepers, little pathways apparently heading nowhere, pockets of shaggy lawn. Ersatz classical statues dotted the garden, naked figures half submerged in the undergrowth. Beyond, there were fields.
Nick ran on, towards Little Stoham.
After a short distance he came to the track he had expected and soon he was behind the row of houses which butted on to the road. He had intended to cut across the fields, here, but there was a stile, and a path well used by local dog-walkers; no need to trespass.
He climbed over the stile and ran, passing behind the line of houses until he came to the rear of The Polders. The path crossed a paddock here, which was clearly attached to the house. There was an open stable, too, and down at the far end of the field, a rather impressive looking chestnut horse, with white flashes to its nose and legs.
He was just wondering whether to investigate the house a bit more closely when first one dog, then another, started to bark from an enclosed part of the garden. He decided to keep his distance.
Apart from the dogs and the horse, there was no sign of life from Matthew Wyse's house. It was fully light now, but only just. Most people up at this time would still have some lights on, he thought. A glance at the other houses bore out that theory. No one had calmed the dogs, or shouted at them, or come to see what was disturbing them; the horse had already been turned out of its stable for the day.
He ran on, over another stile and into the next field. Soon he was back on the Stoham Road, heading into town again. Matthew Wyse was up, organised, and out already.
Nick wondered what else they had in common, apart from early rising and Jerry.
~
He decided to telephone. He found the numbers for Matthew Wyse's two shops in the Yellow Pages. First he tried the Colchester premises, reasoning that the man himself was likely to spend most of his time at what would probably be the main shop.
"I'm sorry," said a female voice. "Mr Wyse will be at our shop in Manningtree today. Can I help you instead?"
Nick made his excuses and rang off. At least he wasn't away on another business trip. He called the Manningtree number. "Could I speak to Mr Wyse, please?" he asked. It was still barely nine in the morning and the shop was probably only just about to open.
"You're doing so already. How can I help you?" His voice was smooth and educated. Nick tried to remember the pictures he had seen in the tabloids: Jerry and her husband. Dark hair, thin face. The pictures had been poor and his memory of the details was hazy.
"I'd like to speak to you," said Nick. "Please don't hang up. My name is Nick Redpath. I knew your wife. I was at Ronnie Deller's party
last week when... Can we talk, please? Will you at least hear me out?"
After a slight pause, Matthew Wyse replied. "I know who you are Mr Redpath." His voice was still smooth, but now there was an awkwardness to it, as if its owner was struggling to stay in control.
"Please," said Nick. "I want to help."
There was another silence, longer this time, then finally, Jerry's husband said, "If it is really necessary, then yes, we can talk. When?"
"Today? This morning?" He took the silences after each suggestion as affirmation. "I can be there in about an hour."
The final silence was broken by Wyse's, "Very well." And then the connection was cut and the handset buzzed into Nick's ear.
~
Again, he found himself on the old Ipswich Road. This time, he drove on past the Crooked Elms turning, passing through a succession of small villages, with the estuary nearly always visible to his right.
Council houses marked the beginning of Mistley. A sharp bend to the right, then another to the left past some shops and a chip shop. To his right, now, was a steep drop to the estuary, the dark buildings of some old maltings clinging bravely to the slope. As the road dropped down towards the river, Nick spotted the little raised pond where a stone swan sometimes dribbled water from its beak. Today, the swan was dry.
The road widened, to run along for about half a mile with only a narrow grass strip and some trees separating it from the mud of the estuary. He parked towards the end of this stretch, deciding to walk the rest of the way into Manningtree itself.
It was the sort of town you only ever drive through, or pass through on the train. Nice, but not nice enough to make you break your journey. The High Street was narrow, even single track at one point, the buildings put up long before buses and cars were a consideration. It was as if the twentieth century was still little more than an afterthought in this north-east Essex town.
Nick liked it and he wished he knew more about the place. This was the real Manningtree, but he knew that in another half mile or so the houses and shops were suddenly newer and drabber. Farther on were the factory units, clinging to the course of the railway, and to the other side of the road, another huge Essex sprawl of new housing.
But here, old shops huddled about the High Street, reaching up all around him. Here, Nick felt at home.
He found the lane, walked a short distance along it and came to a halt outside a shop-front.
A discreet board above the window simply gave the name of the proprietor—'MW Wyse, Esq.'—and the two telephone numbers. No indication of the nature of his business. Behind the window was the sort of mundane selection of antiques and curios you might expect of a small town antique dealer's. Vases and plates, some medals, a number of tiny paintings with frames more substantial than the works themselves. Nick was sure none of these items was of any real worth, but they had been arranged in such a manner—none of the usual antique shop clutter—that suggested, if not actual value then a certain respect for them as objects.
He went inside, and a young man came forward immediately. "Can I help you?" he asked.
Nick felt awkward and, not for the first time, wondered what he hoped to achieve. "Mr Wyse is expecting me," he said. "Nick Redpath."
He looked at the spines of some old books and then at a framed map on the wall. It was a modern reproduction of one of an early Ordnance Survey map, showing the estuary and the older parts of Manningtree and Mistley.
"Persistent bugger, aren't you?"
Nick turned and saw Matthew Wyse standing in a doorway. He was about six feet tall, and was wearing a dark three piece suit with a florid tie. His hair was dark, short, slicked back, and his face was so thin it made him look ill. His eyes never wavered as they fixed on Nick.
"You'd better come up," he said, then turned stiffly.
Nick went through, then followed Jerry's widower up a narrow, uneven flight of stairs. They entered a light, airy room, with a set of floor to ceiling windows looking over the jumble of old Manningtree to a sliver of estuary.
The walls were covered with large, brooding portraits, browned and darkened with age. They were, Nick noted, in curiously lightweight, modern frames.
"It's a clear choice," said Matthew Wyse, from somewhere by the window. "An inadequate reproduction of an Old Master, or an original by some second-rate hack. It's always been an easy decision for me. I go to the galleries whenever I can and these—" he waved at his prints "—are my aides-mémoires."
"I'd have the obscure originals," said Nick. Direct contact with another age.
"As would most," said Matthew. "Elitism, I think. Snobbery always triumphs over taste. Well, I'm going to sit down. Will you join me?"
Although Nick had been studying the pictures, he had also been observing his host. Matthew was skilled, as the genuine middle classes often are, at controlling his voice and his behaviour. Impression was everything. But even he was unable to hide the occasional distance in his look—eerily reminiscent of Jerry—and the simple fact that his amenable tone was forced.
Nick felt, again, that he shouldn't have come. What was driving him, he wondered? A ghoulish urge to see the partner Jerry had chosen? A need to measure himself against this man? Jealousy, after all that had happened?
"I'm sorry," he said, at last. "I know it's hard for you. I came to express my condolences. I was there. I thought it might help if you wanted to ask me anything about what happened." He shrugged. "It might help us both."
"You visited Jerry's parents on Tuesday. For the same reason?"
Nick nodded, looked away. He felt he could only be making things worse by being here. He should leave at the first opportunity.
"You were arrested, weren't you?" said Matthew.
Nick nodded again. He had the irrational feeling that any words would only compound his error.
Matthew picked up a pen from his desk and started turning it, end over end. "My father-in-law still thinks you killed her," he said.
Nick shook his head, meeting Matthew Wyse's steady look.
"I know," said Matthew. "Or at least: I believe you. I thought, when you called this morning, that you must be some kind of pervert. I thought, as Neville did, that you wanted to gloat."
"Why did you agree to see me, then?"
"Because I believe in a set of basic human values, even after all that I have been made to endure. I chose not to prejudge you."
Nick was impressed, which he thought was probably at least partly Matthew's intention. "What if I had come to gloat?"
Matthew smiled, for the first time. "Never in my entire life have I been a man of violence," he said, sliding open a drawer in his desk. "Even at school I did all that was possible to avoid conflict."
From the drawer he produced a heavy pistol, which he was careful to keep pointing at the floor, or the wall, as he showed it to Nick. The weapon mixed ugliness and beauty in similar proportions. Its nickel-plated barrel had been engraved with a series of elaborate curlicues, with a single winged bullet above the trigger guard; a short, business-like spike projected from the butt, for use at close quarters. "It's a .45 Webley and Scott service revolver," said Matthew. "It was carried by an officer at Ypres in the First World War, although its manufacture dates back to the turn of the century."
He put the gun back in its drawer, which he closed carefully.
"It's legal," he said. "Although the use to which I would have put it is not—to be frank, I really do not care. I like to think that I would have retained enough control, and dignity, that I would only have injured you, but I expect a judge would have been lenient in any case, in view of the circumstances. I don't know if I would have had that much control, though. One never knows unless placed in such a position, I imagine."
"I'd probably do the same, in your place," said Nick, although he doubted it. Revenge should be an instinctive thing, if it could not be avoided, not a calculated act such as this.
Matthew's hands were shaking, although he tried to conceal it by rubbing at the b
ack of his head, then stretching in his seat. "You were old schoolfriends, weren't you?" he said. "Jerry mentioned that she had seen you again. She said you had always been attracted to her."
All that time, he had believed he had hidden it so well. Now it seemed that everyone had known all along. "I was fourteen," said Nick. "We were in some of the same classes together. She always seemed older."
Matthew Wyse nodded, his look distant. "Had something of the Earth Mother in her, don't you think? An air of almost pagan wisdom."
Nick stared out of the tall windows at the rooftops and the mud beyond.
The silence was broken by a knock and the young man from the shop entered carrying a tray. Matthew smiled, again, as his assistant left the room. "I asked for tea," he said. "If there were no gun-shots within five minutes. He thought it was one of my little quips."
Nick remained silent while Matthew indulged in the ceremony of pouring two cups of tea. It made him think of Jerry, of course, and the Earl Grey they had shared at the Bay Hotel.
When it was finished, he asked, "Would you normally have gone with Jerry to Ronnie's party? Did she often go to that kind of thing alone?" Something in the atmosphere had changed since Matthew had revealed his pistol. It had been a shared secret, an admission of something intimate. It seemed more natural for Nick to ask his questions now.
"I was away," said Matthew. "It's futile to play the game of 'If only...' but if only I had not gone away that day." He shook his head. "Futile. I drove down to London that afternoon, as I'm sure you are aware. I booked into a motel and retired early, as is my inclination. The first indication of what had happened was when the police woke me in the early hours of Saturday morning."
"Hard to believe it's only been one week," said Nick.
"Oh no," said Matthew. "I've struggled through every minute of that week. I am perfectly aware of how long it has been." He stretched, again, a movement he used as a kind of punctuation, a pause to collect himself. "I might have attended Ronnie's gathering," he continued. "But it was never unusual for us to go out alone. Jerry used to describe us as an 'independently together couple'. We did our own thing, if you understand me."
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