She roams but she's always got somewhere to go.'
The sound of his boots striking the concrete floor made the dog spring into life. Henry felt the thrashing of its tail against his legs as it stood and Neil patted its back with rough indifference. It would never be sure of him. 'Always looking for something, aren't you?' Neil demanded of the dog without unkindness. 'So take me back to where I left my fucking rod. And while you're at it, tell him
... oh fuck it, don't tell him anything.' He stretched his arms above his head. 'Tell him I couldn't hurt anyone I don't care about. Like you. I might not be very nice to you, doggie, can't even give you a name, but I only hurt the ones I love.'
The dog stood indecisively between them, large head regarding them in turn.
'I cuffed Harry once,' Neil admitted gruffly, suddenly more expansive now he was on the move. 'But that was all it was and I wasn't too sorry either. He had a scream set your teeth on edge, you'd do anything to stop it. But I haven't got the bottle to do more. Unlike my wife.' He fingered his jawbone as if remembering a blow, nodding with rueful wonder, a slight smile altering his features.
'Never passionate enough, me. Not like those two, Fran and Angela.
Pair of furies.' He looked down at the dog. 'C'mon, girl.'
'Go on,’, Henry said softly.
They began to walk back in the way they had come. The dog would go with Neil; that much was established. It would find his rod on the beach in the absence of light and be rewarded for usefulness.
'Everyone stopped laughing when Harry died,' Neil said, pointing at the dog. 'I thought Tan would want the dog after all, but they didn't. Neither of them would let me in the house for months.
Tan stopped talking and stayed off school. They spent the summer on the beach, away from everyone. It was only in the autumn it all went back to normal.
As normal as it ever is. Christmas came round again, wasn't bad.
Then you came along, you berk.' It was said without recrimination, simply a sad fact. He stopped and put his hands on his hips, facing Henry under the dark eaves of the hotel. 'Making a mess 'cos you were so sure Francesca couldn't be a killer. But how can you know? How can anyone ever know?'
Henry shook his head in agreement, suddenly anxious to explain himself, for his own benefit at least. 'I began with the belief she had to be innocent,' he said, earnestly. 'I began with a belief in her virtue. But that isn't why I went on. I went on because the facts didn't fit... it's galling when facts don't add up. Offends me.' They continued walking, a little faster in response to the cold. The dog's paws clicked softly.
'Well now you've got them to add up, perhaps you'll be going home soon.'
Henry stopped, arrested and grief-stricken by the very thought. The dog stopped with him, careful of the presence of them both, waiting for a sign of aggression. 'Yes,' Henry said slowly. 'Yes, I probably will.' The light of his room shone out in the distance. The sky was ominously clear. Peter had told him that clear skies were an announcement of forthcoming storms and if he could see the shores of northern France from his window, the omens were bad. Better to run from a storm than face it. He turned to Neil.
'I'll get you the Viagra,' he said. 'Least I can do.'
'For what?' Neil's voice was full of shocked surprise. Henry shrugged.
'For settling something. Making me face up to truth.'
They did not shake hands. It was not a deal; it was two men walking away from one another, one of them possessed of an animal which the second one craved.
Only the dog looked back.
As Henry drew nearer, he could see there was a head sticking out of the top window of the House of Enchantment. The head retreated hurriedly. There was so little which could be done in a town this size without anyone noticing. Except kill a child, throw stones, break hearts. The head retreated as he drew level and waved at it.
The window remained open.
Henry felt churlish about being observed, just as he had felt foolish about being rescued. He wanted to spite her and not go in, go off wandering simply in order to make someone worry. Like he had done once or twice as a child, like all children did. Except Harry, who would probably rather sit indoors than go out in the cold when it was raining. He was too small and frail for the luxury of runaway gestures. Pity the child and what he might have been. Francesca would have made him better.
Henry sat, his legs suddenly weak. He seemed destined to sit on the wall outside the house across the narrow road from the big front door. Watching the sea and wondering for how long he would watch.
When he would go home, by what means, what he would do when he got there, to whom he should write, e-mail, fax his next intentions. Whatever they were.
She bewitched me
With such a sweet and genial charm,
I knew not when I wounded was,
And when I found it hugged the harm.
Who wrote that? Francesca would know. He sat still from sheer weariness and an aversion to climbing all the stairs which would lead either to a night of disturbed dreams or to Maggie, standing guard like a protective housekeeper, scolding him for going out.
Let her wait, she was not his guardian, and yet there was a faint pleasure in the knowledge that someone was concerned about him; it was a novel sensation to know that someone might register his comings and goings and a long time since such a thing had happened. He had begun to enjoy coming back to a house which was inhabited and he was sure he was becoming immune to the cold. Nothing seemed to touch him. He took out a cigarette and smoked contemplatively.
Ten minutes? Fifteen? Two cigarettes and his fingers numb. Amazing the difference in the time it took for a person to smoke a cigarette. Some took two minutes, others seemed to make the thing last half an hour. Amazing how time eclipsed. How long you could sit still in a state of indecisive shock, grief for an unknown child, admiration for sacrifice and work out you were feeling too ill to move, like someone falling over in the snow and finding it was a nice, warm place to be, comfortable to sleep. He could stay here all night, looking at the sea, waiting for the frost to form.
He could sort everything into clinical order, label his conclusions and put them into bottles.
He could smoke another cigarette if he could work out where he had put them. He felt something hit him in the back with a light thump. Then another small object whizzed over his head and crashed on the sidewalk beside him. He bent to see what it was and saw a smashed brown bottle and a litter of pills of a familiar size, the colour difficult to distinguish. A plastic canister followed, about the size of a camera film, but heavier. It was shiny and he knew by the shape of it as he bent to retrieve it what it was.
Henry found it was difficult to turn his head up towards the window, he seemed to have frozen to the spot; he put his hand to his face and found his fingers were numb. Squinting towards the light he saw another missile and realized what she was doing. Chucking out his supply of vitamins and stuff. Perhaps she had shouted too, but he had not noticed that. He tried to pick up one of the ginseng pills but his fingers could not grasp it. Henry got to his feet slowly and gestured surrender. Realized she was right; he could scarcely move.
Serious cold; everything slowing to a halt and his vision of the house on the other side of the road slightly blurred.
He thought of the boy who could not grasp with his right hand.
There was a crackle of thunder.
Maggie was behind the door when he reached it; she closed it softly behind him and began to push him up the stairs. His hands were ghostly white. The stairs were endless 'People die of pneumonia. Henry,' was all she said, calmly enough but with a catch of anxiety he may have mistaken. His teeth were chattering; there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
Beneath the silk coverlet, the warmth began to come back slowly and then he was raging hot and his chest was on fire. She went away and was a long time coming back with water and a kind of pill which, when he swallowed it, had the bitter taste of aspirin.
&nb
sp; Her absence and the fluctuations of temperature alarmed him; all that wanting to be alone and now he did not want to be alone at all. 'Don't go,' he said to her. 'Please don't go.'
'No, of course I shan't go. I should never have gone in the first place.' The glow of the fire turned her into a mere silhouette, a sweet smelling creature in a mannish dressing gown.
'Where did she put her letters and diaries?' he asked petulantly, his eyes closing with the effort of keeping them open.
'In the Wendy house. But they don't help, honestly they don't.'
'Oh.'
He found he was squeezing her hand tightly, relaxed his grip. He could grip; he could count her fingers; he could learn to fish. He tried one more time to conjure up an accurate picture of Francesca’s face and begged her forgiveness.
Where's Henry? I asked her. I referred to him as Henry on formal occasions. I pushed him, she said. I pushed him under. He's a wanker. Harry is, he wouldn't have me alone. The dog came on the pier and he started to yell; he pushed me first, he did. He's a baby, he's such a baby.
WHERE? I was screaming. I thought we could have been heard on the moon, but it rained and the sea was crashing. Show me WHERE. No, no and no. I dragged her along the pier, past where the fisherman had been. We started running. Got to the end where she showed me the barrier she'd climbed and he stood whingeing behind. She said she was trying to get away from him; he couldn't run anything like as fast. She wanted to hopscotch over the broken boards and trespass, of course she did; it was the sort of thing I'd taught her to do. He was timid, crying for company when the dog appeared.
And then he would have got over the barrier out of sheer terror. He ran at me, she said, he pushed me and he slipped. It was only a dog, it was MY dog what I couldn't have 'cos of Harry.
Then he slipped into the crack and got stuck. I laughed at him and he screamed. So I went to pull him out. He looked silly. He grabbed at me and bit my jacket, my lovely new jacket. He tore it with his teeth and I pushed him off with my feet. Fucking big tear. Where do you want to go? I shouted at him. You going to swim or wait for that dog?
You bite like a dog! So I shoved him down with my feet.
I lost it, I just. . . Did you hit his head? Yes. Did he go through the first time you used your feet?
No, but I heard when he hit the girder thing down there. I heard a thump. I thought he'd just come up the steps the other side. But he never. The dog kept barking, didn't it? You pushed him really hard, didn't you? YES,YES, his jumper was up by his neck, he wouldn't go . . . How long since? She was always good with time, knew how long things took. Well, she said, I waited for him to come up, an' the dog made funny noises, an' I walked back, again an' again. Fifteen minutes?
I wanted to kill her there and then. I knew it was too late to save him. He could swim a little bit, but no one can swim against that current. I tore off my coat to jump after him, but she clung to me, reminding me there was no point. It was bitter. Survival time is about five minutes for a grown man in February and he was hurt. I know this sea; it was my playground, my friend, my enemy. I made her tell me again, blow by blow as I walked her back, just in case. The dog sat at the end and howled. I knew he was dead. And knew what I held by the scruff of her beautiful neck was a child with no conception of what she had done. No one appeared; no one at all until we saw Angela at the door. And I made Tanya tell it, all over again.
So I knew what to say when they asked me. I knew how each injury had been caused. I knew they would find him soon. The sea always yields up the dead. I knew they would question family first.
Murder is done by those who purport to love one another. If they got as far as Tanya, it would be too late. If they took her away from her mother, everything that had been gained would be lost. She would be ostracized and institutionalized; she would become another lost child. She could become one of the faceless girls in my prison.
And Harry would still be dead.
I still miss the sea most of all. It saves me from remembering that I have no one to love any more. No child to love. And I did love them both, with all my heart.
I knew he would not believe me, but the chaplain says catharsis is good for the soul.
There, the anniversary of my arrival has passed.
Everything has a purpose, and I have achieved mine.
My only achievement was to be believed when I lied.
FMC.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
After the rain, the temperature rose. The office was warm.
'No one will believe him,' Edward said. 'Is he all right in the head?'
'Not exactly. Nobody with a temperature that high can ever be described as all right, but he's better. He talks less than he did. No more deliriums.'
Cigarette smoke spiralled up into the air. Maggie seemed to have lost weight in a matter of four days. The small gold studs in her ears were her most vibrant features. Edward wondered at the fact that she had remembered the earrings as well as the brushing of her hair.
'I've been worried to death. I thought we might have killed him.'
'You might have. Mine was the small part. All I did was confirm things with the bogus Uncle Joe.'
'Yes. I might have killed him. Me. Margaret F. Chisholm. Me.' She gazed at the fish and its lifeless profile. Edward's fingers, free of his black half-gloves, beat a mild tattoo on the desk. He coughed to clear his throat of the last cigarette before lighting another.
Cigarettes had been forbidden from Henry's sickroom, but elsewhere Maggie smoked as if survival depended upon it.
'An old-fashioned chill equals pneumonia. He's a heavy man to move. He loves being nursed and a clear conscience aids recovery. It reminds me of how much I like looking after a man and how much I hate those macho types who won't succumb to weakness.'
'I didn't think you were a natural nurse, but you are, aren't you?' Edward paused. 'You must mean Philip. He came here for directions.'
'So what about him? He arrived without warning.
I was too busy with Henry and his highly articulate nightmares. Philip took one look at the boys and the House of Enchantment and finally at me. He's even blinder than most, oh dear, oh dear.' She laughed, softly. 'We took a look at one another. He's so distinguished.
He wore a suit. He was born in a suit.'
'So was I,' Edward said, shooting his cuffs, holding his arms steady the better to observe the unequal lengths of his dark sleeves.
'Not that kind of suit, not even a cousin to that kind of suit. Philip would die of embarrassment. Still,' she added carelessly, examining the coffee mug for cracks, 'Henry appreciated the flowers.'
Edward stood looking out of the window into the bustle of the High Street. From where he stood, he could watch the traffic in and out of the greengrocer's and hazard guesses about what they carried away in their bags. The grocer had five different kinds of potato, his wife had told him.
There was the sonorous clanging of the church clock striking midday, a reminder of work undone and yet to do. He was relieved and depressed; truth was better than fiction, but not always as cheerful; it felt like the interval between one headache and the next. The storms had licked everything clean; the hotel had been flooded again in a minor way. The owner wanted to sell it.
They were at the beginning of the season for storms. Fishing would be out of the question.
He wanted to be outside to take advantage of the temporary blessing of the sun.
'Did you really have no idea?' Edward asked, casting the question over his shoulder. She shook her head. Even her hair seemed to have shrunk a little.
'No, but I should have done. Should have been able to work it out the way Henry did because it fitted so well with what Francesca's really like. It accords perfectly with what she would have done. She would have taken the blame and taken it soon enough to stop Tanya being questioned because Tanya would crack. Henry has a huge imagination or perhaps he really did know her better than any of us. On a different level. He told me the story as he saw it
in every detail, as if he'd been there.
It all makes sense. Angela so defensive and protective, keeping Tanya apart...'
'... Francesca hiding medical books with someone who would never read them and videos with someone who would never watch them to see how often she filmed Tanya. With love and curiosity. No one should see what Tanya could be like. No one could see what Harry was like. How much, how little she changed.
How fucking sad. Does Henry know what he told you?'
'Yes, he knows. He's repeated it all when sober, if you see what I mean. But if he hadn't been so ill, I doubt he would have said a word. He would have kept it locked up and said, I can't talk now.
And neither,
I suppose, can we.'
'Not without permission, no. I faxed the prison.
We should get a reply saying whether she wants to see him, oh, any time now. Let's go for a walk before it rains again.'
'Not the pier, not today.'
'No. The other place. The back way.'
He was too well known for the High Street. On a day when the sun shone in late February and the populace was out on errands they might otherwise have ignored, it would take Edward half an hour to survive the greetings and the chatterings and the sheer duty in acknowledging the length and breadth of his acquaintance. Francesca had once told him it was the same for her: she could not walk down here without meeting a parent of a child, or a child, or latterly an ex-schoolchild, hoped it would be so until she saw the ex-pupils walking here with their own children, but she sometimes wanted to do her shopping in the dark,
To make it shorter. He tried to remember what he had written to her, what sort of a code he had used, so that she would get the meaning and no one else, then remembered he had given up trying to be clever, had given up some time ago since words of more than one syllable were rarely understood.
Dear F.
A detective called Dr Henry Evans (mentioned before) has unearthed the truth about T; Not only the pros and the cons, but also the whys. He awaits further instructions and so do I.
Do you wish to meet him? Can be arranged if so. A confidential fellow who will doubtless disappear on request; no profit motive. As discreet as myself. Regret to inform you that Uncle Joseph Chisholm has died.
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