Echo

by Minette Walters

  "And did you have to pay in advance as well?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, thank you for your help, sir. I'll see myself out."

  "No, I'll see you out," said Barry with an odd little giggle. "We don't want you turning the wrong way, Sergeant. It wouldn't do at all if you woke my mother."

  Deacon drove through the farmhouse gates and parked in the lee of the red brick wall that bordered the driveway. The drone of motorway traffic was muted behind the baffle and the house slumbered in the winter sunshine that had emerged from the clouds as they traveled north. He peered up at the facade to see if their arrival had been noticed but there was no sign of movement in any of the windows that looked their way. There was a car he didn't recognize outside the kitchen door (which he rightly attributed to the live-in nurse), but otherwise the place looked exactly the same as when he had stormed out of it five years ago, vowing never to return.

  "Come on, then," said Terry when Deacon didn't move. "Are we going in or what?''

  "Or what probably."

  "Jesus, you can't be that nervous. You've got me, ain't you? I won't let the old dragon bite you."

  Deacon smiled. "All right. Let's go." He opened his car door. "Just don't take offense if she's rude to you, Terry. Or not immediately, anyway. Hold your tongue till we're back in the car. Is that a deal?"

  "What if she's rude to you?"

  "The same thing applies. The last time I came here I was so angry I damn nearly wrecked the place, and I never want to be that angry again." He stared towards the kitchen door, recalling the episode. "Anger's a killer, Terry. It destroys everything it touches, including the one it's feeding on."

  "Looks like we've caught our arsonists," said Harrison's partner as he reentered the station an hour later. "Three subhumans by the names of Grebe, Daniels, and Sharpe. They were picked up thirty minutes ago still reeking of gasoline. Daniels made the mistake of boasting to his girlfriend about how he and his mates had done the local community a service by getting rid of undesirables, and she rang us. According to her, Daniels heard about the trouble at the warehouse on Friday and decided to go in and torch it last night. He says all homeless people are scum, and he's buggered if their kind should be allowed to infect the streets of the East End. Charming, eh?"

  "And I've just wasted six hours chasing after Terry Dalton," said Harrison sourly, "ending up with the weirdest bloody bloke you've ever seen in Camden." He shuddered theatrically. "You know who he reminded me of? Richard Attenborough playing Christie in the film Ten Rillington Place. If it comes to that the house reminded me of a flaming film set."

  "Who's Christie?"

  "A nasty little pervert who killed women so that he could have sex with their corpses. Don't you know anything?"

  "Oh, that Christie," said his partner solemnly.

  The live-in nurse was an attractive Irish woman with soft grey hair and a buxom figure. She opened the kitchen door to Deacon's tap and invited them in with a warm smile of welcome. "I recognize you from your photographs," she told Deacon, wiping floury hands on her apron. "You're Michael." She shook his hand. "I'm Siobhan O'Brady."

  "How do you do, Siobhan?" He turned to Terry who was skulking in his shadow. "This is my friend Terry Dalton."

  "I'm pleased to meet you, Terry." She put an arm around the boy's shoulder and drew him inside before shutting the door. "Will you take a cup of tea after your journey?"

  Deacon thanked her, but Terry seemed to find her mothering instincts overpowering and was bent on extricating himself as soon as he decently could from her embrace. "I need a piss," he said firmly.

  "Through the door to your right, then first left," said Deacon, hiding a smile, "and mind your head as you go. There isn't a doorway in this house higher than six feet."

  Siobhan busied herself with the kettle. "Is your mother expecting you, Michael? Because she hasn't said a word to me if she is. She's a little forgetful these days, so it may have slipped her mind, but there's nothing to worry about. I can find a little extra to feed you and the lad." She chuckled happily. "How did we manage before the deep freeze? That's what I'm always asking myself. I remember my own mother pickling eggs to tide us over the lean periods, and nasty-looking things they were, too. There were fourteen of us and it was a struggle to make any of us eat them."

  She paused to spoon tea into the pot and Deacon seized the opportunity to answer her first question. She was a garrulous woman, he thought, and wondered how his mother, who was the opposite, put up with her. "No," he said, "she's not expecting me. And please don't worry about lunch. She may refuse to speak to me, in which case Terry and I will leave immediately."

  "We'll keep our fingers crossed, then, that she does no such thing. It would be a shame to come so far for so little."

  He smiled. "Why do I get the feeling that you were expecting me?"

  "Your sister mentioned the possibility. She said if you came at all it would be unannounced. I think she was afraid I'd ring the police first and ask questions later." She poured boiling water onto the tea leaves and took some mugs from a cupboard. "You'll be wanting to know how your mother is. Well, she's not as fit as she was-who is at her age?-but, despite what she's claiming, she's nowhere near death's door. She has impaired vision, which means she can't read, and she has difficulty walking because one of her legs is packing up. She needs constant supervision because her increasing immobility has caused her to take shortcuts on her diet, which of course means she could pass out with hypoglycemia at any moment."

  She poured a cup of tea and passed it to him with a jug of milk and the sugar bowl. "The obvious place for her is some sort of nursing home, where she can retain her independence and be given round-the-clock care, but your mother is very resistant to the idea. We have all tried to explain to her that she could live for another ten years, but she has a bee in her bonnet about being gone in a couple of months and is determined to die here." She fixed him with a knowing eye. "I can see from your expression that you're wondering what business this is of mine-why is the nurse siding with Emma and Hugh, you're thinking, when they're only after getting shot of their debts-but, my dear, the truth is I can't bear to see a patient of mine so unhappy. She sits day after day in her sitting room, with no one to visit her and no one to care, and her only companion is a talkative, middle-aged Irish woman with whom she has nothing in common. It breaks my heart to watch her struggling to be civil to me in case I up my stumps and leave. Almost anything would be preferable to that. Would you not agree, Michael?"

  "I would, yes."

  "Then you'll try to persuade her to be sensible?"

  He smiled apologetically and shook his head. "No. If her mind's all right, then she's capable of making her own decisions. I'm damned if I'll interfere. I wouldn't begin to know what's sensible and what's not. I can't even make rational judgments for myself, let alone for someone else. Sorry."

  Siobhan seemed less troubled by this answer than he expected. "Shall we find out if your mother will see you, Michael? Either she will or she won't, and there's little sense in putting it off."

  Cynically (and accurately) he guessed that Siobhan's complacency was based on her knowledge that Penelope Deacon would do the exact opposite of anything her son suggested.

  *15*

  Amanda Powell's elderly neighbor looked up from where she was preparing lunch and was alarmed to see a man fiddling with the lock on Mrs. Powell's garage. She knew the house was empty because Amanda had told her earlier that morning that she was spending the Christmas holiday with her mother in Kent. Shortly afterwards, she had driven away. The woman hurried through to the sitting room to alert her husband, but by the time they returned to the kichen window the man had gone.

  Her husband sallied forth-somewhat reluctantly it must be said-to discover where the would-be intruder had gone. He tried the garage door, but it was firmly locked. The same was true of the front door. He glanced up and down the quiet road, then with a shrug rejoined his wife. "Are you sure you didn't imagine
it, darling?"

  "Of course I didn't imagine it," she said crossly. "I'm not senile. He'll have nipped across the gardens at the back, and be trying somebody else's house by now. There'll be quite a few of them empty this weekend. You must ring the police."

  "They'll want a description."

  She paused in her peeling and stared out of the window, picturing the scene. "He was about six feet tall, thin, and he had on a dark coat."

  Muttering that it seemed unkind to trouble the police on Christmas Eve, and anyway every house had an alarm system, her husband nevertheless made the call. But as he put down the telephone after receiving an assurance that a patrol car would be sent to check the house, it occurred to him that he had seen a man fitting that description once before.

  When he had stood outside Mrs. Powell's garage and watched the police lay a dead tramp on a stretcher...

  He decided not to mention that to his wife.

  "I don't know why we're bothering," she said as he went back into the kitchen. "It's not as though she ever does anything for us."

  "No," he agreed, peering through the window. "But then she doesn't like people very much, does she?"

  There was a surrealistic quality to the scene that met Deacon's eyes as he and Siobhan approached the open sitting-room door. Far from being marooned in a chair as Siobhan had described, his mother was upright, leaning on Terry's arm, and peering at a painting on the wall. "Of course I can't really see it now," she was saying, "but if I remember correctly it's a George Chambers Junior. Can you make out the signature in the bottom left-hand corner?"

  Terry made a pretense of reading the artist's scrawl. "You've got an amazing memory, Mrs. D. George Chambers Junior it is. Did he always paint the sea, then?''

  "Oh, I'm sure he must have done other things, but he and his father were famous marine artists of the last century. I bought that years ago for twenty pounds in a down at the heel gallery in South London somewhere and I had it valued at Sotheby's a week later for hundreds. Goodness only knows what it's worth now." She urged him to move on. "Do you see a portrait of me in the alcove? A big bold one with lots of rich color. Read the signature on that," she said triumphantly. "He's a wonderful artist and it was such a thrill to be painted by him."

  Terry stared in agony at the canvas.

  "John Bratby," said Deacon from the doorway.

  Terry flashed him a relieved smile. "Yeah, well done, Mike. It's a John Bratby, all right. Mind you, Mrs. D, considering how beautiful you are, do you really reckon he's done you proud? It's bold, like you said, but it ain't pretty. D'you know what I'm saying?"

  "Yes I do, but my character isn't pretty, Terry, and I think John captured that perfectly. Can we turn round?''

  "Sure." He assisted her to face her son.

  "Come in, Michael," said Penelope. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

  He smiled uncomfortably. "Why do you always ask the hardest questions first, Ma?''

  "Terry seemed to find it easy enough. When I asked him who he was and what he was doing here, he said you and he had a visit from the-er-old Bill this morning and it seemed like a good idea to get out of London for a while. Is he lying to me?"

  "No."

  "Good. I'd rather you came because you're on the run from the police than because you've been talking to Emma. I won't have any more browbeating, Michael." She nudged Terry in the ribs. "Take me back to my chair, please, young man, and then go and sort out some drinks for us in the kitchen. There's gin, sherry, and wine but if you'd rather have beer, I expect there's some in the cellar. Siobhan will help you find it." She resumed her seat. "Sit down where I can see you, Michael. Did you shave before you left?"

  He took a chair, facing the window. "Afraid not. I didn't have time before the police came, and forgot about it afterwards." He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "The eyesight's not that bad then?"

  She ignored the remark. "Who is Terry and why is he with you?"

  "He's a lad I interviewed for a story on homelessness, and when I discovered he had nowhere to go for Christmas, I suggested he stay with me for a few days."

  "How old is he?"

  "That has nothing to do with why the police came this morning, Ma."

  "I don't remember saying it did. How old, Michael?"

  "Fourteen."

  "Dear God! Why aren't his parents looking after him?"

  Deacon gave a hollow laugh. "He'd have to find them first." He was shocked by how much his mother had changed. She was an older, smaller, thinner shadow of herself, and the piercing blue gaze had dimmed to grey. He had prepared for a wounded dragon who could still breathe fire, but not for one whose fires had gone out. "Don't waste your sympathy on him, Ma. Even if he knew where his parents were, he wouldn't go back to them. He's far too independent."

  "Like you, then?"

  "Not really. I was never as self-sufficient at his age. He has social skills that I still don't possess. I could no more have walked into this room at fourteen, and struck up a conversation with a complete stranger than fly over the moon. What did he say to you, as a matter of interest?"

  A faint smile hovered round her lips. "I called out when I heard him tiptoeing along the corridor. I said: 'Whoever that is will they please come in here?' And when he came in he said: 'Have you got ears in the back of your head or what?' Then he took great trouble to assure me he wasn't a burglar but that, if he were, there were some 'well brilliant' pictures that might take his fancy. I gather this house resembles a palace while your flat is as boring as a men's public lavatory. What are you going to do with him when Christmas is over?"

  "I don't know. 1 haven't thought about it yet."

  "You should, Michael. You have a nasty habit of taking on a responsibility lightly and then discarding it when it bores you. I blame myself. I should have forced you to face up to unpleasantness instead of encouraging you to avoid it."

  He looked at her. "Is that what you did?"

  "You know it is."

  "No, I don't. What I know is that I watched you martyr yourself for no good reason, and I made up my mind that nothing on earth would induce me to go down the same route. Julia and I loathed each other, never mind what she said afterwards. Believe me, she was as glad of the divorce as I was. Okay, I was the one who had the affair, but you try sleeping with a woman who doesn't want sex, doesn't want babies, and makes it abundantly clear that she only got married in the first place because Mrs. Deacon was a preferable title to Miss Fitt." He stood up and walked restlessly to the window. "Haven't you ever wondered why she never remarried, and why she continues to call herself Julia Deacon?" Briefly, he glanced back at her. "Because getting out from under her parents was all she was interested in, and I was the sap who helped her do it."

  "And what was Clara's reason for getting married? How long did that one last, Michael? Three years?"

  "At least she gave me a bit of warmth after eight frigid years with Julia."

  Penelope Deacon shook her head. "So why didn't she produce any children?" she asked. "Perhaps, after all, it's you who doesn't want them, Michael."

  "You're wrong. She didn't want to lose her blasted figure." He pressed his forehead to the glass. "You've no idea how much I envy Emma. I'd give my right arm to have her daughters."

  "No, you wouldn't," said Penelope with a dry laugh. "They're perfectly revolting. I can only tolerate them for a couple of minutes before their simpering starts to annoy me. I did hope you'd give me a grandson. Boys aren't so affected as girls."

  DS Harrison raised his hand in greeting to two uniformed policemen who were getting out of their car as he exited the station. "I'm off," he said. "Five days' hard-earned leave, and I'm planning to enjoy every damn minute."

  "You jammy bastard,'' said the driver enviously, opening the rear door of the car and grabbing the occupant by the arm. "Come on, sunshine. Let's be having you."

  Barry Grover emerged blinking into the sunlight.

  Harrison paused. "I know this guy," he said slowly. "What
's the story?"

  "Acting suspiciously in a woman's garden. More accurately, wanking his little heart out over a photograph of the occupant. What name do you know him by?''

  "Barry Grover."

  "How about giving us ten minutes then, Sarge? He's claiming to be a Kevin Powell of Claremont Cottage, Easeby, Kent. Says he's related to the Mrs. Amanda Powell who owns the house. We thought it pretty unlikely, seeing what he was doing to her photograph but, according to her neighbors, she does have relations in Kent. She drove down there this morning to stay with her mother."

  Harrison looked at Barry in disgust. "His name's Barry Grover and he lives with his mother in Camden. Jesus Christ! I hope to God wanking's the least of his crimes or we'll be digging out bodies from under his floorboards."

  "My son and I have never seen eye to eye," Penelope Deacon told Terry, "so much so that I can't think of a single decision he's made in life that I've agreed with."

  "You were thrilled when I said I was marrying Julia," murmured Deacon from his position by the window.

  "Hardly thrilled, Michael. I was pleased that you'd finally decided to settle down, but I remember saying that Julia would not have been my first choice. I always preferred Valerie Crewe."

  "You would," he said. "She agreed with everything you said."

  "Which shows how intelligent she was."

  "Terrified, more like. She used to quake every time she came into the house." He dropped a wink in Terry's direction. "Ma viewed every girl I brought home as potential marriage material, and she used to put them through the mill to find out if they were suitable. Who were their parents? Which school did they go to? Was there a history of insanity in their families?''

  "If there had been, it would have been pointless your marrying them," declared Penelope tartly. "Both sets of genes would have been so tainted, your children wouldn't have stood a chance."

  "We'll never know, will we?" said Deacon equally tartly. "Every time you brought up the so-called insanity on our side, the girls did a runner. It probably explains why Julia and Clara balked at having children."