by Nicola Ford
‘You seriously expect me to believe you can’t remember stabbing your own father.’ The disbelief on Clare’s face was obvious.
‘If you think it’s unbelievable, just imagine how I feel.’
‘And if you think I have any sympathy for you then you really don’t understand me at all, Peter. I don’t care how you try to justify this to yourself. But you damn near killed me with that stunt of yours on the photographic tower and what you did to Jo was unspeakable.’
Peter’s face was filled with horror. ‘What? You think that was me? No, no.’ He shook his head violently from side to side. ‘You’ve got to believe me, I would never … I could never …’ He stopped mid-sentence, and plunged his head into his hands. For a few moments he sat in total silence. Then, taking a deep breath, he said, ‘I’m not trying to deny killing my father. I’m just saying I don’t remember it. And I could never hurt you, or Jo.’
‘How can you expect me to believe that? You killed your own father, for Christ’s sake.’ She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She’d thought they had so much in common. She’d allowed herself to be comforted and flattered by his attentive charm.
‘Whatever you think of me, I’m not going to let my mother take the blame for something I did. Ever since that day in the coroner’s court when I found out Father was dead, I’ve been going over and over it in my head – trying to make sense of what happened. Please, Clare, I need you to understand.’
She stood, arms folded, lips clamped shut, unable to reply for fear of what she might say.
‘When I came to the next day, Mother didn’t say a word to me. But Uncle Gerald gave me a hell of a rollicking. He told me Mother had found me spark out, covered in my own vomit, lying in the hallway. The whole house reeked of bleach for weeks afterwards. I thought it was where the maid had cleaned up my vomit. But they must have cleaned it, mustn’t they – the two of them.’ His head sank back into his hands, his fingers digging deep into his forehead. ‘Oh God. Mother and Uncle Gerald out there on their hands and knees scrubbing away my father’s blood.’
It was all Clare could do to stop her gaze being drawn through the open door towards the Minton tiles beyond. But there was one thing she still needed to know.
Her voice was calm and steady. ‘Think, Peter. You said the safe door was open. Did you see what was in it?’
He shook his head.
‘You don’t remember anything else?’
He took his head out of his hands, and closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. ‘When I woke up, someone had cleaned me up and put me to bed.’
He held his hands out in front of him, turning them over palms upwards and curling his fingers towards him. He seemed to be examining them. ‘There was dried blood under my fingernails. What with the black eye and the lump on the head I thought it must have been where I’d been fighting with Father. I tried to explain, to tell Gerald about finding Father with the open safe, about fighting with him. I was terrified of what Father would do to me. But Gerald wasn’t having any of it. He told me I wasn’t to speak of him. Said we wouldn’t be seeing him again. When I asked why, Gerald went mad. Said Father was a disgrace. That he’d brought nothing but shame on the family. I’d never seen him like that before. I thought he was mad at me because I’d been drunk – acting like a lush just like my father. Of course, it wasn’t long before the entire village knew Father had done a bunk with Joyce Clifford.’
Clare’s voice was softer now. ‘Or thought they knew.’
Peter looked up at her and nodded. ‘You do believe me, Clare, don’t you?’
‘What I believe really doesn’t matter.’ She struggled to keep her tone even and dispassionate. But the truth was, despite everything, she did believe him, and that meant she was still no nearer to finding out who was trying to kill her.
‘It does to me,’ he said quietly.
She looked down at the faded woollen kilim on the floor in front of her and said matter-of-factly, ‘You’ve got to tell the police, Peter. Tell them exactly what happened, before they figure it out for themselves.’
He nodded.
‘Was there anyone else, anyone at all, who might have known what happened?’
He didn’t get to answer. Outside, she could hear the sound of a car pulling onto the gravel drive. David. Finally! She walked over to the window and looked out to see two uniformed constables in a marked police car, and Sally and West climbing out of a silver Lexus. And trundling down the drive behind them was David’s Land Rover.
‘What is it?’
Peter got up and walked over to where she was standing. He looked out of the window, then without a word walked over to the sofa and sat down. Someone was banging on the back door. He stayed staring blankly at the unlit fireplace. He was still gazing inertly into the empty grate when there was a crash accompanied by the sound of splintering wood, and Sally and West, followed by an out-of-breath David, entered the drawing room.
Peter ignored Clare and David, turning instead to face Sally.
He spoke quietly and without fuss. ‘I killed him. I killed my father.’
Sally nodded at West. He read Peter his rights, cuffed him and led him outside.
Clare turned to face David. ‘Friendship means nothing to you, does it? Couldn’t you even allow him the dignity of turning himself in?’
David opened his mouth but, seeming to think better of it, closed it again.
It was Sally who replied. ‘Some people have the sense to realise these things are best dealt with by the professionals.’
Clare thrust her hand into her jacket pocket and handed the bag containing the knife to Sally.
‘What’s this?’
‘I’d have thought a professional would recognise a murder weapon when they saw one.’
Clare marched out of the room without another word. Standing on the front steps, she watched as an utterly compliant Peter was led through the driving rain into the waiting squad car. Glancing over her shoulder, Clare caught sight of David staring out of the drawing room window. His eyes were fixed so intently on the back of Peter’s head, he didn’t notice her watching him.
When she turned her attention back to the drive, Clare thought she saw the hint of a smile flick across Sally’s face as she climbed into the passenger seat beside West. It was all in a day’s work to them. And her mind drifted back to another rain-sodden afternoon and another young female police officer standing on her front doorstep. When she’d delivered the news of Stephen’s death, she’d wanted to stay, but Clare had refused. When she’d finally left, Clare had closed the door behind her, pressing her back against the wooden glazing bars and sliding down to sit crumpled on the cold, hard Minton tiles. And there she’d stayed for she couldn’t remember how long, the veneer of normality ripped away, her life shattered beyond repair.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘I’m not sure drinking in here was such a good idea.’ Clare had positioned herself so that she could see the door from the table where they were sitting in the corner of the Lamb and Flag. Not for the first time this evening, she was looking towards it anxiously.
‘You can’t keep avoiding him.’ Clare ignored Margaret. ‘He’s off out somewhere with Sally this evening. Besides, you can’t blame him for what happened.’
‘It wasn’t what happened, it was how it happened.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He shouldn’t have contacted the police.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous. What did you think he would do? He was in the department in Salisbury when you phoned him – miles away. He’d have to have been out of his mind not to have called the police after what you told him.’
Margaret was right – Clare knew it. She’d known the police would have to be involved eventually. But she’d phoned David because she trusted him. He was Peter’s friend as well as hers. She hadn’t really thought it through, but she’d assumed that somehow together they could talk Peter into handing himself in. After everything he and Estelle
had gone through, she’d figured that he deserved at least that.
She blamed herself every bit as much as David. She had every right to be angry with Peter – he’d killed his father. But, in truth, she felt sorry for the teenage Peter. Her anger had been directed firmly at Peter the man. She’d trusted him and he’d deceived her. She’d believed every word of his lies and he’d made her look like a fool.
Margaret’s expression was reproving. ‘Aren’t your sympathies somewhat misplaced? He admitted killing his father. And after what happened to Jo and poor Jenny, you must see he had to be stopped.’
Clare lowered her voice. ‘Peter had nothing to do with what happened to Jo. And we can’t be sure that Jenny didn’t take her own life.’
‘That’s not what you were saying a few days ago. And what about what happened to you? It was Peter who lent us the photo tower.’ Margaret hesitated for a second as if she was considering something, but seemed to think better of it.
‘I seem to remember everyone else had that down as an accident at the time.’
The two women sat in silence.
It was Margaret who spoke first. ‘Don’t you think you’re being just a tiny bit naïve, Clare? I’ve known Peter all his life and I would never have dreamt he was capable of killing his father. But none of us can be sure what we might be capable of in extreme circumstances.’ Margaret peered over the top of her spectacles. ‘We can’t change reality, however much we might wish to. We just have to find a way to live with it.’
Whatever Margaret might believe, she hadn’t seen the look of horror on Peter’s face when Clare had confronted him. She’d been convinced he was telling the truth: that he wasn’t responsible for what had happened to her or Jo. And she still wanted to believe that, but where a few short months ago she would have trusted her instincts, now she wasn’t so sure.
‘How could I have been so wrong about him, Margaret?’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. You didn’t know Jim. There are a good many people in this village who would have cheered Peter to the rafters if they’d known he’d killed him.’ Margaret paused. ‘And it seems to me that everything Peter has done since has been born out of desperation.’
Clare swirled the dregs of her Shiraz around in the bottom of her glass. ‘Gerald must have cared a great deal about Peter to do what he did for him. Were they alike?’
Margaret shook her head. ‘In looks, maybe, but not in any of the important things.’ Clare raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘It’s not what you think. They both took after Peter’s grandfather in appearance. But Peter lacked the Hart self-confidence as a boy, whereas Gerald and Jim both had it in spades. Peter was much more self-effacing. Temperamentally he was more like his mother. He was a quiet child. Ed was his only real friend.’
Clare said, ‘They seem to have stayed pretty close. Not all childhood friendships survive. I can’t remember the last time I saw any of the kids I went to school with.’
Margaret said, ‘You’ve got to remember that seventies Hungerbourne wasn’t the well-heeled commuter village it is today. It was a tiny isolated village stuck out in the middle of the Downs. There weren’t many boys of their age around, and Peter hero-worshipped Ed. A classic case of opposites attracting, I suppose.’
‘But they had one thing in common, didn’t they. They both hated their fathers.’
Margaret pursed her lips. ‘I suppose that’s true. I can’t imagine either the Jevons or the Hart households were easy places to grow up in. But I was thinking more of their interests. Ed was always going to take over the farm. It was more than simply a family inheritance. He had a real affinity with the land – a sense of connection to its past.’ Margaret took a sip of her whiskey and smiled. ‘Ed and I spent a lot of time together when we were young.’
Clare laughed. ‘I wouldn’t have had Ed down as your type.’
‘And you would be right – though not for want of trying on his part in his teenage years. But we shared a common interest.’
Margaret halted her explanation. The sound of raised voices was coming from the car park. Clare turned her head round towards the window in an effort to make out what was happening outside.
Clare couldn’t see anything, but she could hear Tony’s booming baritone. ‘Look at the state of you. You should never have driven down here.’ A door crashed against a wall. ‘I’ll call you a taxi.’
‘No bloody blow-in is going to tell me what I can and can’t do. Issheinthere?’ Ed’s words staggered into one another. There was another crash as woodwork hit brick and Ed himself staggered through the doorway.
Tony rushed in behind him and tried to interpose himself between Ed and the table where Clare and Margaret were sitting. But Ed shoved him to one side, sending him crashing over a bar stool and landing him with a resounding smack onto the flat of his back.
Ed gripped the edge of the table and leant forward towards Clare. She swayed backwards, trying to avoid the reek of brandy on his breath.
‘Couldn’t leave it alone, could you? We were fine before you stuck your nose in. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that people get hurt when they mess with things they don’t understand?’
Tony rolled onto his side and, gingerly touching one hand to the back of his head, tried to get to his feet. Transfixed by the scene unfolding in front of them, the students and villagers sitting around the bar watched in stunned silence.
Ed moved backwards, releasing then re-grasping the edge of the table in an oscillating motion that made Clare feel queasy.
He screamed at her, ‘You called the police!’
Clare stood up. ‘You should get your facts straight.’ She glanced down at Margaret, who shook her head. ‘And who phoned the police is irrelevant. You can’t bury the past. You have to deal with it.’
It was Margaret who spoke next. ‘How do you think carrying on like this is going to help Peter? God knows he could do with some real friends right now.’
Ed straightened up. ‘Why you …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. He snatched Clare’s wine from the table, swung back his arm and lashed it into the wall, spraying the two women with shards of glass and leaving a trail of sticky red liquid dribbling down the black-and-white print of the barrow cemetery that hung behind them.
Ed unbalanced forward.
Tony got to his feet. ‘Enough!’ Catching Ed by the arm, he twisted it up behind his back and shoved him against the bar. Tony’s breathing was heavy. ‘Call the police, Shirl.’
Shirl glanced over towards the door. ‘No need.’
‘What the …’ It was Sally.
Tony gave Ed’s arm another tweak. ‘He’s rat-arsed. Took a pop at me and tried to attack Clare and Margaret.’
‘Right, Mr Jevons, you’re going to spend tonight making friends with our custody sergeant.’
Sally was sitting at a small Formica-topped table in the middle of the interview room. Opposite her, someone had positioned a grey plastic chair. The narrow slit of frosted glass let into the wall high above to her left offered little in the way of illumination even in the hours of daylight. She could have been anywhere on planet Earth. She wondered if the public realised the average copper spent more time incarcerated than most cons.
She rubbed the back of her neck. The low-level buzz of the strip light wasn’t helping her headache. Arching her spine backwards, she placed her hand to her mouth, trying to suppress a yawn. The scrawny young PC standing on the other side of the room offered an embarrassed smile. She glanced down at her watch. What was taking them so long? There was no chance she’d get to see David this evening.
The door swung open and a jowly-faced middle-aged sergeant entered with a gaunt-looking Peter. In the time since she’d last interviewed him, he clearly hadn’t shaved. He sank down into the seat opposite her. She nodded and the constable started the tape machine. She spoke the time and date, and listed those present. Peter sat with his hands in his lap, his gaze fixed firmly on the tabletop that divided them.
Sally looked down at
the papers in front of her. ‘Thank you for being so forthcoming, Mr Hart, about the circumstances of your father’s death.’
He raised his head and shrugged his shoulders.
‘During your last interview, you told me you had nothing to do with the hit-and-run accident in Hungerbourne.’
‘I don’t know what else I can say to convince you.’
Sally looked into his brilliant blue eyes. Most people wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to believe he was lying. But she’d had too much experience of people’s capacity for deception to be so easily persuaded. She leant across the table and lowered her voice. ‘If I were to believe you, Mr Hart, that would mean there’s someone else out there with a reason for wanting Mrs Hills dead. Don’t you think that would be a bit too much of a coincidence?’
‘You mean Jo?’ he corrected her.
Sally shook her head. ‘Dr Granski was wearing Mrs Hills’ jacket. The person responsible’ – she looked directly at him – ‘was trying to kill Mrs Hills.’
‘If you think I want Clare dead, you’re insane.’
‘You supplied the photographic tower from which Mrs Hills nearly plunged to her death a few weeks ago. Mr Hart, isn’t it true that you’ve perpetrated a sustained campaign of intimidation and violence against Mrs Hills and her colleagues?’
‘No, no. I had nothing to do with any of it.’
Sally leant back in her chair, arms folded, and tilted her head slightly to one side. ‘One of your friends seems to have taken exception to Mrs Hills’ behaviour on your behalf.’
‘What?’ He looked confused.
She allowed herself a self-congratulatory smile – it was an old ploy, but an effective one. ‘Ed Jevons attacked Mrs Hills in the bar of the Lamb and Flag.’