A Species of Revenge

by Marjorie Eccles

  She was alone in the house. Hope was at school and Francis nowhere to be found – probably on one of his long walks, or shut up in his study with his icons and his books, and his holy pictures. Where she could not – dared not – disturb him.

  She couldn’t cope with this by herself. Her life hadn’t equipped her to deal with this sort of situation, but there was no one else she could confide in, she’d lost touch with most of her old friends when she went away to live. She wanted, needed, Tom. But would Tom, after everything that had happened, want her?

  17

  Lucy had been invited to tea with her new friend Jodie, and Jodie’s mother had telephoned to say she would meet both children out of school, arranging to have Lucy at home by half past six.

  Sarah could see that it would be no bad thing just now that Lucy should have the chance to do something on her own. She was being difficult, and it all had to do with the people at Simla, with Imogen and, to a certain extent, Francis. It was on Allie, for some reason, that their favour had especially fallen. Anyone else might have been in danger of becoming spoiled through all the attention being paid to her, but Allie, being Allie, accepted it without appearing to notice. Poor Lucy, who was used to being the one in the limelight and couldn’t be blamed for not understanding what was going on, had her nose sadly out of joint.

  Hope, despite the gift of the dolls, remained detached from all this, which Sarah had decided must be due to diffidence, in view of how she’d sent the children’s presents over via Imogen, rather than giving them herself. ‘I think she’s basically a very shy person,’ she’d told Fitz.

  His reaction had been disconcerting. ‘Don’t let the children get too close to the Kendricks, Sarah. They’re an odd bunch.’ He wouldn’t say anything more and she wondered what he meant. But Fitz had grown up in this area and had known the Kendricks all his life, he’d gone to school with Francis, they’d both been day boys at Lavenstock College. She sometimes forgot what a tight community this was, compared to a big, anonymous city like London, how well known so many people were to each other.

  She drove up to the school at home-time, parked in the long line of cars belonging to waiting mothers, and settled down until Allie should put in an appearance. The children came out, Lucy and her friend Jodie (hair definitely highlighted, ye Gods!) piled into Jodie’s mother’s car after she (her hair improbably auburn) had had a brief word with Sarah, and were driven away. Other children followed, until Sarah’s car was the only one left. Lisa had often laughed about how she and an impatient Lucy had sat thus outside their former school, times without number, waiting for Allie to emerge. She was invariably one of the last, if not the last, trailing out, clutching her slipping possessions, dreamily unaware how long she’d taken.

  Sarah sat staring through the windscreen at the pleasant grouping of the red-brick school buildings and, as seemed to happen every spare moment now, her own problems swam into focus.

  She’d spoken to Simon last night. He was becoming increasingly irritated at her refusal to say when she was coming back. Fending him off had been just another cowardly excuse for not coming to grips with what she really ought to say to him – that this space between them had given her time to think, that she was now sure that her own future couldn’t include him, not in any way meaningful to him. But, apart from the fact that she didn’t want to ask herself why this decision was connected with Fitz, telling Simon the truth took more courage than she’d been able to summon up last night, after she’d at last remembered where she’d last seen the face in the photograph.

  The knowledge lay like a heavy, indigestible lump in her stomach. She couldn’t yet bring herself to do what she knew she must, eventually. She’d once despised others in the same situation, not seeing it as a viable choice. She understood better now. Yet there was no decision, not really. It was not a matter of if, but when. And not really even that – it must be now.

  The last, lingering child had departed, and still no sign of Allie. She should have been out ten minutes ago. Sarah got out of the car and went to jolly her along.

  Three minutes after that, she was on the telephone to the police.

  Dermot was furious with the school. ‘What the hell do they mean, they let her go with that woman? They’re supposed to be responsible for the children in their charge, for God’s sake!’

  ‘That woman’, DC Jenny Platt reminded him gently, was Hope Kendrick, a well-known and respected member of the community, another teacher, and although not of their school, known to most of the staff at Greymont JMI as well. Known also to live next door to Allie, her affection for Allie obviously returned. All the same, Sarah could see that she agreed with Dermot. The school was in serious dereliction of duty, they should have checked, there was simply no excuse for letting her go off with anyone, no matter how plausible the reason for taking Allie out of school. Allie’s class teacher, now appalled at what she’d done, had been far too ready to accept that Hope had been asked by the child’s father to pick Allie up for him that morning – a forgotten appointment, she’d said, with the orthodontist who was building up that chipped front tooth. Reasonable enough to be accepted by a busy teacher.

  It was now nearly eight o’clock, and the house fully lit up, with a heavy police presence everywhere, doorbells ringing, people coming and going. In view, presumably, of what had happened to Patti Ryman, they were taking no chances, they’d sent this policewoman round to stay in the house, and they’d put out a search for Hope’s car. But this must be a different matter to Patti’s murder, entirely. Yet it seemed equally impossible to associate Hope with taking Allie away like that.

  ‘She won’t get far. We’ll pick her up. It isn’t as though we don’t know who’s taken her,’ they’d said. Which made it all the worse in Sarah’s eyes. It was such an irrational thing to have done, and when reason went out of the window ... She tried not to think what might be going on in Allie’s mind, by now. Rigid-faced and making cups of tea for all as if her life depended on it, she couldn’t make any sense of any of it.

  With all her heart, she wished Fitz here. She’d telephoned him at his office, at the first available opportunity. ‘What?’ He’d listened without interruption until she’d blurted out the story, but when he answered seemed not anxious to prolong the conversation. ‘Sarah, this is terrible. Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll be all right. I’m sorry, but I can’t come over straight away, I’ve made other plans for this evening. I’ll try and get over later.’

  It wasn’t what she’d hoped for. She’d never spoken to him on the telephone before and hadn’t realized how clipped and abrupt his voice would sound, more so than usual. Perhaps she’d rung at an inconvenient moment, but all the same, she’d expected concern and warm sympathy and felt depressingly let down.

  They were all sitting in the cheerless drawing room with its incongruous furniture – why there, of all places, Sarah couldn’t imagine, except that it was next to the hall and only a few strides from where the telephone was, and there was more room for all the people who were coming and going. Every time it rang, they all sat up, as if pulled up by wires attached to their shoulders, only to sag like puppets when one of the police answered it and there was no news.

  Dermot sat with his head in his hands. Suddenly he looked up. ‘What the hell are you all hanging around here for, doing nothing, when you should be out finding Allie?’

  The policewoman, who said they should call her Jenny, had a clean-scrubbed appearance and well-polished shoes. She was young, but not afraid of showing her disapproval. All she said, however, was, ‘There’s still time for Miss Kendrick to bring her back. She may just have taken some misplaced notion into her head to take Allie out for the day.’ She didn’t look convinced. No one else did, either.

  Doreen Bailey came downstairs at last from seeing Lucy calmed down and tucked up in bed. She’d insisted on staying with her, apparently thinking that someone was going to steal into the house and spirit her away, too. ‘Asleep, poor lamb,’ she said
.

  The doorbell rang. The lanky sergeant, Kite, looked round the door and summoned WDC Platt with a jerk of his head. A murmur of voices came from the hall and then Jenny Platt returned, shaking her head at their hopeful faces.

  ‘Anyone fancy a cup of coffee?’ Doreen asked.

  ‘To hell with coffee, we’re all awash with it,’ Dermot said, jumping up and beginning to pace the room. ‘Sorry, Mrs B. In God’s name, how much longer?’

  Sarah, clutching Angel to her like a talisman, as if the doll could somehow summon Allie back, saw defeat traced on his features, defeat and something dark and deep in him that Sarah had never recognized before. Some realization of his inadequacy as a parent? At seeing the whole bright enterprise collapsing? A need for Lisa at this time – who could tell?

  Abigail hadn’t been able to leave for Solihull until the late afternoon, but a telephone call had established that by the time she got there, Judith Ensor would be home from work.

  She was dressed in pale blue this time, in a matching dress and jacket that only needed a picture hat to make it suitable for a wedding. Her enamelled make-up was flawless as ever, colour-coordinated pink-frosted lips and nails, like strawberry sorbet, hair like dark candyfloss.

  ‘Dermot and Lisa Voss?’ At first it seemed as though she wasn’t going to admit to having known them, but after a time it appeared to dawn on her that denial was pointless and she gave a grudging admission. ‘We used to know them, once.’

  ‘Used to?’

  ‘They lived near us. Then we moved down here and we lost touch.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t see each other again? You didn’t visit, or write?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even a Christmas card?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Had you quarrelled?’

  She lifted one immaculate shoulder. ‘These things happen.’

  ‘Well. Did your husband ever lend Dermot Voss any money?’

  ‘He may have done. He didn’t tell me if he did.’

  She crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt. Her expression was unyielding. It was going to be like drawing teeth. ‘Mrs Ensor, don’t you want to know who killed your husband?’ Abigail asked gently.

  For a moment, it seemed that might have got to her. Her colour came and went. Tears appeared at the corner of her eyes. Then she remembered her mascara. ‘Would you like a glass of sherry?’ she asked suddenly. ‘I would.’

  Why not, if it would get her to talk? After the first sip of the sweet, brown liquid Abigail left the little crystal glass to one side, waiting while Judith drank hers.

  ‘How did you meet the Voss family? Were they near neighbours?’ she prompted after a while, hoping the drink might have given Judith a bit of Dutch courage. Either it had, or she’d decided to give a little more. She began to speak, softly and quickly.

  ‘Near enough. Philip met Dermot at some airport or other when their flight was held up for hours and hours. They got talking and found we lived in the same place, and that was how it started. We played bridge together. I used to babysit for them when Dermot was home. A faint smile momentarily softened the hard little face in its frame of cloudy dark hair. ‘I liked the children. They were great.’

  She sat elegantly on the settee, glass in hand, staring out of the window. ‘This other murder you mentioned, this young girl,’ she said suddenly. ‘What’s Dermot’s involvement in that?’

  ‘I can’t say that, yet,’ Abigail replied cautiously.

  She didn’t say anything for a while, then seemed to come to a decision. ‘After you’d gone, the other day, I found something that might interest you. Excuse me while I get it, will you?’

  When she came back, she silently handed over a packet of letters, enclosed with an elastic band. They were addressed to Philip Ensor, at his business address, handwritten in a stylish hand, with swooping loops and Greek Es. The ink was brown, the paper was thick, creamy-yellow, with a curlicued stylized flower in brown at the top right-hand corner.

  Abigail skimmed through them. They were love letters, not of the most steamy kind, but love letters, all the same, and all from Lisa Voss. The writing paper interested her.

  ‘Very distinctive, this paper,’ she said, putting the last letter back into the envelope.

  ‘Dermot got it for her. He used to buy her lovely things all the time – a new supply of these every birthday, and once a special pen to go with it.’

  ‘A fountain pen – with this same flower engraved on it?’

  ‘It’s not a flower – it was her monogram. She drew her initials like that!’ Well, yes, Abigail saw that with the curved downstrokes of the V joining together at the bottom, and the L curling extravagantly around it, it did look exactly like a flower. ‘He had the pen specially engraved to match. She didn’t know when she was well off – a lot of women would’ve given their eye-teeth for a husband like that.’

  Including Judith Ensor? She’d evidently liked Voss, which wasn’t surprising. Good-looking, good-humoured, a good line in blarney. A way of talking to women that made them feel special ... whereas her husband had been, to her at least, a very different proposition.

  ‘She was like that, Lisa – always had to be different – her clothes, her house ...’ She glanced round in a dissatisfied way at the pristine, conventional room which had everything that money could buy. ‘It was all right, if you didn’t look beneath the surface – I mean, she wasn’t too fussed about housework, for all she’d spend hours doing up old furniture and things.’

  Her lips pursed together as if she’d been sucking a lemon.

  The female half of the Voss partnership, at least, had cut no ice with her.

  Abigail snapped the elastic band round the letters Judith had conveniently ‘found’, while Judith drank her sherry and poured herself another, and stared at the carpet while tears gathered in her eyes. ‘You see how it was,’ she said. This time she didn’t bother about her mascara.

  ‘May I take these with me? I’ll give you a receipt.’

  ‘I don’t want them back, I never want to see them again. You can keep them.’ Her voice tinkled like icicles.

  Abigail understood what she meant. In Judith’s position she wouldn’t have wanted them back, either. They explicitly charted the progress of Lisa Voss’s affair with Philip Ensor, the secret meetings when Dermot had been away and Ensor supposedly on business elsewhere, the growing angst about not being able to be together permanently. Then the tone of the letters changed. Despite the care they’d taken to keep their affair secret, Dermot had somehow found out, and was taking it badly, refusing even to discuss a divorce, becoming abusive ... it was in the last letter that Ensor was told that Lisa was pregnant.

  ‘How did Dermot find out about Lisa and your husband, Mrs Ensor?’

  She shrugged. ‘How should I know that?’ She avoided Abigail’s eye.

  Jealousy was an ugly word. An ugly emotion. Maybe it was an assumption on Abigail’s part, though she didn’t feel it was unjustified, that Judith Ensor was not childless from choice. How cruel then, to find out that her husband’s mistress, with two children of her own already, was pregnant with her own husband’s child. She said gently, ‘Was it before or after Lisa Voss died that you moved here? Whose suggestion was it, yours or your husband’s?’

  ‘It was before, but does it matter? We both wanted to leave the place behind.’

  That was understandable, on Judith’s part, at least. Who would want to live within spitting distance of reminders of her husband’s infidelities? But it also implied that she’d known what was going on, and that it was probably the cause of the split between the families.

  Standing up, ready to leave, Abigail asked Judith Ensor, ‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’

  She sat in her baby-blue suit on her flowered settee, a sparkly little brooch in the form of an arch-backed cat with green eyes on her neat lapel, her beautiful grey eyes wide and unblinking. ‘I always liked Dermot, he was good fun, and if he had killed Philip – well
, it was only what Philip deserved, wasn’t it?’

  Down at Milford Road Police Station, Fitzallan was being shown into the nearest room, which happened to be one of the interview rooms. He’d appeared at the front desk with a curt request to see the senior officer on the Patti Ryman case, stating that he had something important to say. When the request came, Mayo shrugged on his jacket, adjusted his tie, drank the dregs of yet another coffee, and went downstairs. Summoning a PC to join them, he introduced himself, saying, ‘I believe you’ve already answered the questions my officers put to you – is there something you’ve remembered?’

  He spoke more impatiently than he knew. The whole station was alive with activity and tension, events were piling up, occupying his thoughts and his time – notably this latest worrying development, the disappearance of the little girl, Allie. He couldn’t see how, yet, but if it was a coincidence, unconnected with the other happenings they were working on, then he was a Dutchman. He was in no mood to put up with time-wasting grumbles from the public, wherever they came from.

  An abrupt man with deep-set eyes, not given to smiling easily at any time, now Fitzallan positively glowered. Tall and broad-shouldered, in a casually expensive suit, he dominated the cheerlessly functional surroundings, throwing himself on to the hard chair offered without seeming to notice its comfort or otherwise. Then he startled Mayo by asking abruptly, ‘First of all, do I need to go into my personal background? Are you familiar with what happened to my wife some years ago?’ He added tersely, ‘The officers who’ve already questioned me seemed to know all about it.’

  ‘It’s part of their job to know. I remember the case, too.’