Uncaged

by Lucy Gordon

  “I can’t stay here,” she said stubbornly.

  He wasn’t by nature a tactful man, but somehow tact came to him now. Or perhaps it was guile. Whatever it was, it was what he needed. “But you don’t have to rush off tomorrow morning. Take a couple of days to find something.”

  She didn’t answer him directly. For the first time she seemed to become aware that she was holding a small teddy bear in her hand. “How did I get this?”

  “It was in my son’s room. You must have thought it was Tommy’s.”

  “I’m sorry.” She gave it to him.

  “Go back to sleep, Megan.”

  Daniel crept out and made his way back to the room where he’d found her. He put on a small table lamp at the side of the bed, straightened the bedspread and replaced the teddy bear, adjusting its position twice before he was satisfied. When he was sure everything was as it had been, he looked around him. Normally nobody ever came here but himself. His cleaning woman had strict instructions never to enter. Megan was the first intruder since— His mind always stopped there. Since.

  But she didn’t feel like an intruder. Her anguish over her son gave them a companionship in grief, even if she didn’t know about it, and he didn’t resent her presence as he would have resented anyone else’s.

  He opened a drawer and took out a photograph of a little boy. He was about seven years old, with a cheeky grin, a tooth missing in the middle, and a face full of mischief. Daniel touched the glass over the picture, his fingers straining to find a way through to the child, but there was only coldness. Megan’s words echoed through his heart.

  How would you know what it’s like to lose your child and think about him every moment of every day, becoming obsessed with him?

  He could have told her how he knew, if only he could have found the words. But he wasn’t used to having to express his deepest feelings. With Sally, it had seldom been necessary. She’d loved him enough to understand the things he couldn’t say. But now, no words would come.

  And where, in any case, were the words that would describe the little boy full of fun and devilment, yet with a heart that was kind beyond his years? How could any man describe the feel of his son’s arms around his neck, and the warmth of his childish, unsentimental love? In agony, Daniel bowed his head over the picture, pressing his lips to the cold glass again and again. But there was no returning embrace, no eager whisper of “I love you, Daddy.” And the little boy’s shining eyes stared out sightlessly.

  * * *

  Daniel was out when Megan got up the next morning. She made herself some breakfast and was starting to pour tea when she heard a key in the front door. Assuming it was Daniel, she stayed as she was, to finish pouring, and heard a startled gasp behind her, and a woman saying, “Oh, my Lord!”

  Megan turned and saw a plump, elderly woman in a smock, her hand over her heart. “You did give me a start,” the woman said. “I thought you were a ghost.” She recovered her wits and regarded Megan with suspicion.

  “Mr. Keller invited me to stay for a few days,” Megan explained. “My name is Megan Anderson.”

  The woman registered only the barest flicker. Perhaps contact with Daniel had taught her not to be surprised at anything. She went on imperturbably. “I’m Gladys. Yes, I’ll have a cup if there’s one going. Three sugars, please. I need all my energy for this house.” She saw Megan looking at her inquiringly and added, “I ‘do’ for Mr. Keller. Three afternoons a week. I’ve been off looking after my sister, who’s been poorly. I told Mr. Keller I wouldn’t be back until next week, but my sister’s better now and I can’t stand that idiot she married at any price, so I popped home a bit early.” She ran out of breath.

  Megan handed her a cup of well-sugared tea. “Why did you think I was a ghost?”

  “That sweater, dear. It’s like one Sally had—Mrs. Keller. I often saw her standing in this kitchen in it. She used to wear it for working because it’s yellow.”

  “I don’t understand....”

  “Cheerful, you see. She always liked to be cheerful. She used to laugh and joke all the time. She could even make him smile, and that took some doing. Not a naturally cheerful man, Mr. Keller, but he’d smile and laugh for her.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Died. She was out in the car with their little boy and another car just smashed into them. It was terrible. I thought he’d go mad.”

  “He? You mean, Mr. Keller?”

  “That’s right. They were everything to him, and all the lights went out for him when it happened. It was two days before Christmas. They had all the decorations up, and the tree, with the presents around it. There was a big box with his gift to her, all shiny wrapped. She kept begging him to tell her what was in it, and he kept teasing her, saying, ‘Wait and you’ll find out.’ Well, she never did find out, poor lass.”

  Megan remembered her last Christmas of freedom, the first since the break-up of her marriage. She’d taken Tommy to visit some cousins who had five children of their own, and it had been a happy time. There had been no hint of the horror that was about to fall on them. That horror was Daniel Keller’s fault. But somehow it was impossible to hate him when she thought of him alone in this house with the tree and the presents that would never be given. “It must have made a ghastly mockery to spend Christmas here, with all those happy preparations around him,” she murmured.

  “Oh, but he didn’t,” Gladys said. “He cleared everything out. The tree, the decorations, presents, turkey—the lot. The house was like a desert. He worked nonstop over that Christmas. I’ve never seen him smile since. Of course, the little boy—” She jumped as she heard a key in the lock and went on in a forced voice, “Well, here I am, ready to start work again. Thanks for the tea. I’ll get on now.”

  Daniel appeared in the kitchen doorway. He looked startled to see Gladys. “I’m glad your sister’s better,” he said when he’d heard her explanation, “but there was no need to hurry back.” Megan had the feeling he was annoyed. Gladys seemed to sense it, too, for she scuttled away upstairs. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you she’d be coming,” he said. “But I wasn’t expecting her back yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Gladys is a natural born gossip,” he said, following some train of thought of his own. “She’s a dear soul, but it doesn’t do to take every word as gospel.”

  “She told me about your wife and son. I wish I’d known before. That room I went to last night...it was your son’s room, wasn’t it? And the teddy bear...”

  “Was also his.”

  She gave a frayed smile. “I’m leaving this morning. You’ll be glad to see the back of me.”

  “I told you last night, take a few days to find somewhere.”

  But she shook her head. “There isn’t anywhere, Daniel. Thank you for protecting me this long, but now I’ve got to go out to face the world myself.”

  “And do what? How will you get Tommy back without my help?”

  She looked up. “Your help? You’d do that...after what I—?”

  “I think we should forget about that,” he said quickly. “It didn’t happen. The only thing we should think of now is proving your innocence.”

  “You believe me innocent?” she asked eagerly.

  He didn’t answer at once. “I guess maybe I do,” he said at last.

  “You don’t sound entirely convinced.”

  “It’s hard to face what I did to you. I don’t want to believe you innocent, Megan. It leaves me with too many burdens to carry. But somehow the picture of you as a murderess just doesn’t convince me anymore. Maybe it happened last night.” He saw her looking at him, and added hastily, “I mean, when you were sleepwalking—the way you talked to that little boy. Even the way you were ready to seduce me to get him back. A woman who would go the lengths of sleeping with a man she hates to be reunited with her son would never do anything that would separate her from him in the first place.”

  Without warning, remembered se
nsations streamed through her—the feel of his hand on her breast, hot tremors going through her body, the eager desire to invite him further. A man she hates...

  She averted her eyes, not to let him see her true feelings. “You’re right about one thing,” she said. “I wouldn’t do anything that could separate me from Tommy, and I didn’t kill Grainger.”

  Daniel took a deep breath. “So we have to do something about it.”

  Six

  Brian Anderson’s home was set well back from the road, with a curved drive that swept in one side and out the other. Trees protected the house from the eyes of passersby, and Daniel was well along the driveway before he caught his first sight of the building. It was clearly the dwelling of a wealthy, successful man, one who cared a lot about appearances. Daniel felt his hackles rising fast. There was something about this kind of luxurious, perfectly kept house that had always antagonized him. He tried to ignore the feeling and be impartial, but the memory of Megan in the shabby little apartment where he’d first found her wouldn’t go away.

  He rang the bell and listened while it sounded deep inside the house. After a moment, the door was opened by a middle-aged woman in a maid’s uniform. “I’d like to see Mr. Anderson,” Daniel told her.

  “Who shall I say?”

  “Detective Inspector Daniel Keller.”

  She looked uncertain. “I’ll have to see.” She closed the door, leaving him outside. After a moment, she returned. “He says he’ll see you.”

  “Thank you,” Daniel said ironically. “That’s very gracious of him.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said, unconscious of the irony. “He doesn’t see everyone.”

  She led him into a large, oak-paneled study where Brian Anderson was sitting behind a desk, concentrating on a computer screen. He waited for a precisely calculated ten seconds before looking up, which gave Daniel a chance to consider the room. To one side of the desk was a large photograph of a young woman. She looked in her mid-twenties and was groomed and made up to glossy perfection, but to Daniel’s eye her glamor was hard and artificial, and her sexuality seemed calculated and sprayed on. He preferred Megan’s beauty with its hint of bruised vulnerability, but evidently Brian Anderson did not. His opinion of the man, not high to start with, sank further.

  At last Anderson looked up, stretching his mouth in an approximation of affability that didn’t reach his eyes. “Detective Inspector,” he said slowly, as if considering the words. “My congratulations.”

  “Congratulations?”

  “Since you announced yourself by your rank I assume you’ve been reinstated in the force. Isn’t that a matter for congratulation?”

  “It would be if it had happened,” Daniel retorted, cursing himself for clumsiness. The fact was that he already disliked Anderson so much that he’d tried to intimidate him. But it had backfired, and now he was at a disadvantage.

  Anderson gave a cold smile. “I see. One of those unconscious slips that we all make sometimes,” he said, leaving Daniel with the conviction that he’d understood only too well. “So you’re not back in the force yet. That means I can offer you a drink. What will you have?” He moved toward the liquor cabinet.

  It was on the tip of Daniel’s tongue to say he’d die before he’d take anything Brian Anderson had to offer, but he remembered in time that he wanted to keep things cordial, so he forced a smile and said, “Something soft, please. I’m driving.”

  “And like all good police officers, you disapprove of drinking and driving.”

  After a moment, Daniel said, “That’s right.”

  Anderson poured him a lemonade. “Now, what can I do for you, Detective Inspector?”

  There might have been the hint of a sneer on the final two words, but Daniel told himself not to get paranoid. “I’ve come about your wife,” he said.

  “You mean my ex-wife. We’ve been divorced for over a year.”

  “You must still have been delighted at the result of her appeal,” Daniel persisted.

  Anderson hesitated. “To be frank, that’s a difficult question to answer.”

  “Are you telling me it wasn’t a relief to know that she was innocent?”

  “But I don’t know that,” Anderson said blandly. “She was released...but that’s not quite the same thing, is it?”

  “The court found that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her. In law, that’s innocence.”

  “Ah, yes, in law. But the law is forced to take a very narrow view. For the rest of us it’s a little different.”

  “Are you saying you believe her guilty?”

  “I’d be more interested to know what you believe, Detective Inspector. What is this visit all about? You formed your opinion about Megan three years ago. You must have been very convinced of your case to, er, lose that statement.”

  Daniel gripped his glass so hard that he had to set it down in case he crushed it. He was swamped by irrational hate toward this man who’d once sworn to love and cherish Megan, and was now so coldly indifferent to her troubles. “You imply that I lost that statement deliberately,” he said, keeping calm by an effort of will.

  Brian gave a careless, self-confident smile. “Let’s just say that I believe those psychologists who tell us that there’s no such thing as a genuine accident. All accidents spring from the subconscious.”

  “This one sprang from exhaustion and overwork,” Daniel said firmly. “Policemen make mistakes, too, but ours attract more attention than other people’s.”

  “All right, it was a genuine mistake,” Brian said with a shrug. “But what does it prove? That witness saw a woman who could have been anyone.”

  “I believe he saw Megan,” Daniel said emphatically, “and if that’s so, she couldn’t possibly have killed Henry Grainger.”

  “So why are you here?” An incredulous smile stretched his thin mouth. “Not an attack of conscience, surely? Acting the social worker?”

  “Let’s say I’d like to know why you won’t take her calls.”

  “Why should I? What is there to say?”

  “There’s a lot to say,” Daniel said, controlling his temper. “Your wife—your ex-wife—lost everything when she was convicted. Now her conviction’s been reversed, she’s entitled to some of it back.”

  “Have I understood you properly?” Anderson asked. “You want me to offer her a reconciliation? Take her back? Is that what she wants?”

  Suddenly Daniel was gasping for air. Until that moment he’d believed himself dispassionate, in command, but the brutal picture presented by that cool question filled him with revulsion. Megan and this self-satisfied man. Living with him. Letting him touch her. She’d said, “I’ll do anything to get Tommy back...the devil himself—” How far would she go? I’ll do anything...

  “I don’t...know what she wants,” he managed to say.

  “But you are here on her behalf, aren’t you?”

  “Only to make you see reason about not shutting her out. She’s entitled to see her son.”

  “She’s really got you on her side, hasn’t she? A persuasive lady, I have to admit. But you see, I know Megan better than you. Have you discovered yet that she has a killing temper, or has she carefully kept that little tidbit to herself?”

  “I’ve seen her when she was upset,” Daniel conceded, remembering how Megan had flown at him on that first evening. “But she has plenty of cause to be upset.”

  Brian ignored the last part of this remark. “It’s a spectacular temper, isn’t it?” he asked affably. “Once seen, never forgotten. They didn’t call her Tiger Lady for nothing. Henry Grainger should have been more careful.”

  “Good God!” Daniel exclaimed in disgust. “Do you want to think her guilty? What about your son?”

  “My son is being protected from her. As a responsible father, I consider that my first duty. Tommy has forgotten Megan very satisfactorily, and I’ve no intention of allowing his life to be ruined by an unstable woman. And I may as well tell you that I shall soon be marr
ying again.” He nodded in the direction of the picture of the young woman. “My future wife will be an excellent mother to Tommy. If—” He checked himself as the phone rang. “Excuse me.” He answered, and Daniel could just hear a female voice through the phone. At once, Anderson’s voice altered. “Hello, Selena, sweetheart,” he murmured.

  Daniel was taken aback by the change that had come over the man. His very skin seemed to be suffused by awareness of the woman he was speaking to. Daniel didn’t think it was love he was witnessing. He’d already judged Anderson incapable of a true emotion. But sexually he was in thrall to the brassy creature staring out of the picture. Like a good policeman, Daniel filed the knowledge away for future reference.

  Anderson became suddenly self-conscious. “Would you mind waiting outside a moment?” he said abruptly.

  Thus dismissed, Daniel went out into the hall and began to look around, taking in the tasteful luxury, the signs of a man who’d been a success in business and was thoroughly satisfied with himself. He’d seldom disliked anyone so much at first acquaintance as he disliked Brian Anderson.

  As he could hear that Anderson was settling into a long conversation, he wandered toward the back of the house where he found a room with large windows on two sides, giving it a sunny aspect. Several pictures hung on the walls, one of which attracted his attention. It showed a puppy bouncing high in the air after a ball, and was clearly the work of a very young artist. But though the execution was immature, the lines were confident and true, revealing a genuine flair.

  There was no sound or movement, but his trained instincts made him suddenly aware that he was no longer alone. Turning, he saw a boy of about nine standing in a door that led out to the garden, watching him, and he felt a frisson go up his spine at something familiar about this child. Superficially he didn’t resemble Megan. His features had the unfinished look common in young children, and his only resemblance was to other nine-year-old boys. But this had to be Megan’s son because he had her quality of intense stillness, like a cat peering through grass. He stood watching in silence, sizing Daniel up. “Hello,” he said at last. “That’s my picture.”