“Into drugs?”
“Not that we know of.”
“But theft and robbery and crime, presumably.”
A faint frown sprang over Denise’s broad forehead. “He has no form.”
“But he’s not going to be a beginner, is he?”
Denise didn’t attempt to answer this.
Again Catherine decided to leave; again something held her back.
Ben asked almost crossly, “Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?”
“We feel confident that we have enough evidence to support the charges, yes. We feel confident that the CPS will take the case to court.”
“But what evidence have you got?”
“It’s forensic. That’s all I can tell you at this stage.”
“You mean fingerprints, DNA, that sort of thing?”
“Well.. .” Denise struggled on that one. “Loosely .. . yes.”
“And what does this guy say? Does he admit anything?”
“He’s denying it, basically.”
“Don’t tell me he was at home with his girlfriend that night.”
“It may well be something along those lines, yes.”
“He’s got a lawyer, I suppose.”
“Everyone’s allowed a lawyer.”
“But one who knows all the tricks.”
“Most of them know all the tricks, I’m afraid.”
In the small pause that followed, Catherine asked quietly, “So he was found with my mother’s brooch?”
“Yes.”
The thought of avaricious hands on the unassuming amber brooch that her mother had given her at the end of her life was repellent. “It was worth nothing to him,” she said. “Not to anyone in fact. Twenty pounds, if that.”
Denise made a sympathetic face. “You’ll get it back after the trial.”
“I won’t ever have to see this man, will I?” Catherine said. “I won’t have to go to court?”
“That’ll be up to the lawyers to decide, Catherine. Not in our hands.”
Catherine looked away towards the small courtyard garden that she had rebuilt in the early spring, with York stone, raised beds along three walls, and a wall fountain. When she and Ben had left for France the first climbers and perennials had been coming into flower, the garden was showing what Catherine liked to call the first flush of promise. Since then, however, either the watering system hadn’t been working properly or Ben had inadvertently turned it off, because many of the plants were missing presumed dead while the remainder were showing all the symptoms of drought and neglect.
“I’m rather cold,” she said. “I think I’ll go and get a cardigan.”
But before she could move, Ben cried, “I’ll go!” as though he’d been itching for just such an opportunity. He was on his feet and out of the door before she had the chance to tell him where to look.
Denise sat forward. “I know how hard it is to face the business of court and giving evidence, Catherine. But if you do have to attend, I’ll be there to see you through. If you like, we can go and look around the court in advance, work out where everyone’ll be sitting, what’ll happen when you arrive.”
Even before Denise had finished, Catherine had decided she would resist all but the most powerful arguments to give evidence. There was nothing she could say that Ben couldn’t say better. He would make a good witness, clear and concise. What was almost as important, it would give him a role. The shrink’s words reverberated in her head. Try to make him feel protective of you.
Denise added, “It’s hard to face an attacker, but most crime victims find it a lot harder when the offender never gets apprehended, when they have to live with the fact he’s still out there, a threat to someone else.”
Catherine thought: Well, if most victims are like that, then I’m the odd one out, aren’t I? She said, “How long before the trial?”
“Hard to say. But months rather than weeks.”
“And until then? He’ll be in jail?”
Denise faltered momentarily. “Could be given bail. Depends on the sort of lawyer he has and the magistrate on the day. The CPS may well oppose bail, but when it’s a first offence they don’t always win that argument, I’m afraid. I’d be lying if I said they did.” She added hastily, “If we thought he was likely to be a threat we’d give you protection, Catherine.”
“But you don’t think he will be?”
“Nothing to suggest it. DS Wilson and the lads have been through his room. Nothing to show he was a stalker. Nothing to show he’d ever heard of you. So they’re pretty confident it was a random attack.”
The dark shadow flickered across Catherine’s memory, she saw the advancing figure, the arm swinging rapidly upwards to come down with all its force, and a powerful but unwelcome thought sprang into her mind: He was waiting for me. He meant to come for me. This thought had come to her before a couple of times if she was honest, maybe a dozen times but she’d always rejected it, as she rejected it again now, because it was based on nothing more than fear, the irrational rangings of an overcharged imagination.
Denise stood up. “Well.. .”
Dutifully, Catherine said, “Thanks for everything. Will you tell the rest of the team that we’re very grateful?”
“Sure.” She hesitated in the doorway. “Nothing else you want to tell me, Catherine?”
“What do you mean?”
“Anything else you remember? Any thoughts?”
“No,” Catherine said warily. “Why?”
“The phone calls. There’s nothing more you can remember about them?”
Catherine maintained her expression. “There is nothing to remember.”
Denise gave a sudden smile. “Fine. Sorry to have interrupted your birthday, Catherine.”
“Denise?”
She stopped in the doorway.
“The calls weren’t from this man. I promise you that.”
Denise greeted this statement with a quick nod. “Of course.”
Duncan must have shown her out because soon after the front door sounded he put a tentative head into the room and, eyes lighting up, greeted Catherine as he had always greeted her, with a show of joy and unconcealed pride. Like an Italian father, he stood with his arms outstretched, his head at an angle, his face creased into an emotionally charged smile. He bent to kiss her. When he pulled back, his lower lip was trembling slightly. “Darling girl! The happiest birthday in the whole world to my darling girl! And to be home. At last. Home.” He took a rapturous breath, his expression see-sawed between elation and other more lachrymose emotions. Abruptly, he cried, “Champagne!” and threw a hand into the air, as if to summon a wine waiter. He beamed conspiratorially. “Nothing less than bubbly will do, eh?”
This rallying cry had reverberated throughout Catherine’s childhood, for her father had never needed much of an excuse for a celebration. He loved the ritual of champagne, the weighing of the bottle in his hands, the appraisal of the label though as Catherine had got older the labels had got brasher and less worthy of reverence the extracting of the cork, and the pouring of the first glasses. He was never happier than when he was master of ceremonies, setting the whole household into motion, as he did now, calling out to Emma for glasses, to an absent Ben for the ice bucket, to Alice for general unspecified assistance.
Catherine laid a hand on his sleeve. “I need to find my cardigan, Pa.
I think it’s in the front room. Would you take me through?”
“Of course, darling!” He went about the task with all the gallantry of the military man he was frequently taken to be, opening the door with a flourish, skirting back round the wheelchair to push her carefully through into the hall, and executing a neat turn into the terra cotta hospital room. Diligently, he asked where the cardigan might be.
“Pa?”
“Darling girl.”
“I was wondering .. . I’m a bit short of money.”
He threw out a hand: a problem easily solved. “Got plenty! Just been to the cash mach
ine. How much do you need, darling? Thirty? Fifty?”
“No, Pa.” All sort of thoughts went through her mind, of his generosity in small things, of his lifelong difficulties with larger sums, of his old age, not so far away. “No, it’s more capital. Ben and I find we’re rather in debt. It’s all been a bit much recently, with all the extra expenses. I was wondering if you could manage a loan. Just for a year or so. Until we can pay you back.”
“Darling girl, you know I’d give you the earth ...” His eyes travelled the floor. “The earth.”
“Whatever you could manage, Pa.”
His mouth moved soundlessly, he made a hesitant gesture. “Would five thousand be any good? I might be able to stretch to six.”
Somewhere, in a foolish and optimistic part of her brain, she’d hoped the restructuring of the wine business might have changed things, that he might have managed to put something substantial in the bank, but history and experience should have taught her otherwise. She mustered a grateful smile. “That’s very kind, Pa.”
He brightened. “Just wish I could manage more, darling, but you know how it is ... first the recession, then the pound, then these blasted day-trippers bringing wine in by the van-load.
Company’s struggling a bit. But it’ll help, will it, the odd five thousand?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Thank you, Pa. In fact, we might not even need it at the end of the day. But it’s nice to know it’s there.”
“Darling girl anything.” He creased up his face into the endearing smile she knew so well.
Seeking reassurance where she could find it, she asked, “You’re all right for money generally, are you, Pa?”
“Me? Oh yes, darling. It’s never easy, of course, managing to do everything one wants to do in this life. But I’m perfectly content. Got to count one’s blessings.”
“No debts hanging over you? No mortgage?”
“No, no,” he cried resoundingly. “Not a thing.”
He lived in a flat on the southern borders of Belgravia, in what the pedantic might describe as Pimlico. The place was overlooked and dark, the rooms poky, but it was handy for evenings spent at his club in Pall Mall, or as the spare man at dinner parties, for which he was in great demand.
“That business with Terry Devlin, it’s all over and done with, is it?”
His face darkened a little. “Thank God. Horrid little man.”
“What happened exactly, Pa?”
He viewed the question with faint disapproval. “Darling .. . best forgotten, believe me.”
“I’d like to know.”
His expression slowly shifted through one of suspicion to profound alarm. “You’re not thinking of ? You wouldn’t ? You don’t need money that badly, darling girl?”
In attempting to shrug it off, she heard herself laugh falsely. “No, no. I was just curious, that’s all.”
“For a dreadful moment.. .” Grimacing, he relaxed again.
“You always said he’d cheated you. I wanted to know how, that’s all.”
“How?” he repeated, looking unsettled again. “Darling, very briefly very simply he called in the debt when I couldn’t pay it, when he knew I couldn’t pay it. Insisted on taking Morne. What could I do? How could I save it? Had to let it go. Broke my heart, as you know. Poor Mummy I felt I’d failed her, that I’d betrayed her last wishes, to leave it to you and Alice. To sell if you wished!” He held up a hand as if to deny suggestions to the contrary. “Oh yes, you could always have sold it she was quite clear about that. But it was to be your decision after I’d gone.” His voice shook. “But what could I do? He had the deeds of the house as security and when I couldn’t pay he made me sign them over to him. It wasn’t in the spirit of the agreement. Wasn’t cricket. But then, what could you expect? That’s how he’s got where he is today, isn’t it? By never missing a trick. By taking every advantage, and to hell with who gets hammered along the way.”
He turned his old soldier’s face to the window, stoic in defeat. “And after all we did for him,” he mused sadly. “You would have thought, wouldn’t you?”
He patted her arm, he smiled his most uplifting smile. “Enough of unpleasant things. It’s your birthday! We’re celebrating! Now where’s this cardigan?”
The search for her overnight bag was carried out with a brisk efficiency that took him round the room and out into the hall, where she heard him calling for Ben and Alice.
Alone, Catherine was soon oppressed by the dark musty room and the mockery of the narrow bed, and soon followed her father out into the hall to find that he had vanished. Hearing clattering from the back extension, she looked down the passage and saw Alice silhouetted against the kitchen window, chopping with a vigour that would have done credit to a com mis chef. Energy was not something one readily associated with Alice, and again Catherine thought: She’s happy. She must have found a man. On the heels of these thoughts came the worry that Alice would set her hopes too high too quickly, that her uncertainties would drive her to smother the poor fellow with unreasonable demands. Alice had long professed a disdain for men, mainly because over the years she had thrown herself at a whole series of unsuitable and unwinnable men who, in rejecting her, had reconfirmed her views both of the male sex and, fatally, of her own unworthiness. Catherine only hoped that the new figure marked a new confidence, that she would break through the ceiling of distrust and discover some self-belief.
From another part of the house came more elusive sounds. Turning her head to catch them, she traced hushed voices to the upstairs landing. Wheeling herself across the hall into the angle of the stairs she craned her head up and saw through the banisters Emma’s back and, barely visible beyond, the top of Ben’s head. Emma said something in a soft murmur. Ben responded in a voice pitched equally low. Catherine was about to call up when Ben moved forward and touched Emma’s shoulder. It seemed to Catherine that what followed was relayed to her at two speeds, that each move was enacted both rapidly and in slow motion. Ben dropped his hand from Emma’s shoulder and, looping both arms around her, pulled her close and leant his head against hers. It might have been Catherine’s imagination but it seemed to her that his eyes were closed, as if with strong emotion. Emma, meanwhile, had raised her arms to embrace him around the waist. They stood locked together for what seemed a long time but was probably only seconds. As they began to pull apart, Catherine pushed herself swiftly away out of sight.
It was barely twelve when Duncan poured out the champagne and the family raised their glasses to toast her birthday. Catherine drank the first glass quickly and accepted a second in the full knowledge that, this early in the day, it would make her rapidly and irretrievably drunk.
Alice proclaimed, as though from the battlements, “They will be gone in five minutes!” and described an enormous arc through the air as if to direct a cavalry charge towards the front door. “Even if I have to throw them into the street with my bare hands.”
Catherine announced, “I need a man.”
Alice grinned delightedly. “Don’t we all!”
“Preferably strong and sober.”
“Oh, too muchr she chortled.
“To get me upstairs.”
“Upstairs? Right upstairs] No sooner said.” Alice waved an imaginary wand. “Who would you like? Ben? Hugh? Charlie?”
“So many men to choose from!” For no particular reason, Catherine found this thought terribly funny and grinned ludicrously.
Alice’s smile faded. She crouched at her side. “You all right, Cath?”
“I’m fine.” This was far from the truth, since Catherine was not only several glasses the wrong side of happy but for the past four hours had been neglecting her bodily chores, the hated tasks, large and small, that averted pressure sores and bladder infections and spasms, sins and omissions for which she would doubtless pay dearly. Already she felt the prickle of sickly heat in her face, a trickle of cooler sweat against her shirt. “Just need to go upstair
s.”
Alice hovered uncertainly before murmuring, “I’ll get Ben.”
“No Hugh.”
Hugh, an accomplished horseman when he wasn’t being a lawyer, was fit and strong and picked Catherine up as if she were a bundle of rags. He grinned leerily down at her. “I think you’re wonderful,” he said, breathing wine and smoked salmon over her.
She laughed a little. “Why, thank you.”
“We all think you’re wonderful.”
Catherine turned her head sharply away so that he shouldn’t see the scorn in her face, and asked Alice to fold the wheelchair and bring it upstairs.
As soon as she was safely ensconced on the upper landing,
she whispered to Hugh in a tone of complicity, “If anyone asks, could you tell them I’m sleeping?”
“Certainly!”
Beckoning him closer, she whispered, “Unless you’d like to join me?”
He laughed too loud and too long, he couldn’t quite conceal the look of embarrassment that crossed his face and when he retreated down the stairs his chuckle had the phoney ring of a stage comedian’s.
While Alice went down to fetch her bags from the terra cotta room, Catherine wheeled herself into the main bedroom and found not the untidiness and scattering of unwashed shirts she had been expecting but order and a neatly made bed. Before she had time to wonder if Ben had found a cleaning lady, the sweat started from her forehead, she shivered with cold or fever and pushed herself hastily towards the bathroom. Some weeks ago, when the st airlift had first come up for discussion, Ben had measured the upstairs doorways and pronounced them adequate, but his measurements must have been out somewhere because the bathroom door proved to be a tight squeeze, and she had to grasp the doorframe and drag herself through, scraping the wheels against the woodwork in the process. Sponging her face with cold water, she didn’t feel much cooler. She closed her eyes but reopened them as her head spun and her stomach tightened with the nauseous acidity that comes from too much champagne and too little food. If she wasn’t careful she was going to have a vicious hangover. It was too late to make herself sick, the only thing was water and antacid.
The medicine cabinet was out of reach on the wall and she had to wait for Alice to come back to find aspirin and Resolve. As Alice rummaged through the stock of medicines something on the upper shelf caught Catherine’s eye. Light-headed with fever or alcohol or both, it was a moment before she understood what it was. Among the antibiotics and home remedies was a bottle of perfume. Pale amber in smooth glass.
Keep Me Close Page 18