by Adams, Guy
Perhaps she was.
Anna turned off the shower and reached for a towel. She looked at herself in the mirror. Was it such a bad face? Such a bad body? Maybe not. Maybe it was something she could offer John in return for all his kindnesses.
She heard him coming up the stairs.
‘I’ve got you a brandy,’ he shouted to her. ‘Is there anything else you want?’
She dropped the towel, walked over to the door and opened it.
‘Yes,’ she replied, standing naked in front of him – and didn’t that feel exciting and liberating? She took power from the way he stared, his eyes unable to hold onto her face, wandering irresistibly down her body. Of course he wanted her! Soft Mother was right, as always.
She walked across the landing and kissed him.
John had no idea what to do. Yes, he had thought about Anna while waiting downstairs. Had admitted to himself that he found her attractive. But could he really allow himself to give in to such an idea? He was more than twice her age and she was clearly not in control of her actions.
His mind went blank for a moment, unable to process anything but the taste of her mouth and the way her body felt pressed against his. She was hot, straight from the shower and steam was actually rising off her skin as she pushed him back against the wall. He felt his clothes dampening. Felt himself stiffening, the thought of her becoming aware of his erection both thrilling and shocking him out of the sensation.
‘No,’ he said, pulling away. ‘I can’t.’
Her face fell instantly and he wished for nothing more than to take back what he had said, she seemed so crushed.
‘I thought you wanted …’ she looked like she was about to cry.
‘I’m sorry,’ he insisted, ‘it’s not that I don’t find you attractive. Of course I do. I just—’
‘Forget it,’ she said, pushing past him and into her room, closing the door quickly behind her.
John stood there, both drinks still in his hands.
*
Anna climbed straight into bed, wanting to hide under the sheets where nobody could look at her.
‘I told you he didn’t want that,’ she told Soft Mother, pressing her face into the pillow to deaden the noise. ‘I told you.’
‘Yes dear,’ Soft Mother replied. ‘Stopped him asking any more awkward questions though, didn’t it?’
John sat down on the edge of the spare bed.
‘Fuck,’ he said, absolutely at a loss as to how the night had gone so wrong so quickly. He drank his own drink. Then, still angry with himself, he drank hers.
He put the empty glasses on the bedside table, stripped and climbed into bed. His chest burned with cheap brandy and embarrassment.
‘Fuck,’ he repeated. He closed his eyes and reached under the duvet to imagine how things might have gone if he had only said yes to Anna.
Thirteen
‘They’ll Kill Someone One of These Days’
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, John left for work before Anna got up. On his return both of them moved politely around each other, steadfastly refusing to mention what had happened the night before. After a while both of them relaxed, he telling her about his day, her asking questions about all his students. She seemed to find every detail of his working life thrilling, which it wasn’t, but he couldn’t help but enjoy the attention.
That night they went to their separate beds he smiling, she laughing about a particularly innocuous joke he’d made.
It had clearly been decided, by mutual consent, that the night before would simply not be mentioned.
This set the standard for the days that followed. John went to work; Anna became the old-fashioned housewife. After so long looking after himself – and since Jane had worked more hours than he did before her illness forced her to retire he had always taken the lion’s share of the housework – John found it awkward to begin with. Everything was always immaculate, a drink pressed into his hand as he came through the door, food laid out on the table shortly after. He felt like he’d taken residency in a seventies’ sitcom. He realised she was trying to be useful, no, more than that … essential, so that he didn’t decide to revoke his invitation for her to stay. He tried to explain that it was unnecessary, that she could stay as long as she liked and that she certainly didn’t have to repay him by becoming the house slave. She would just laugh and tell him not to be so silly, she liked helping out, liked keeping busy, what was the matter? Did he not like her cooking? At which point, backed into a corner, he would simply confess that he liked it just fine and stopped complaining.
Of course, there was a great deal of truth in what she said. Anna was desperately avoiding finding herself at a loose end. She wanted to be busy, focused on simple tasks, dashing from one place to another. As long as she had that she could ignore the voices – for the most part at least – and convince herself that life really was no more complex or threatening than a series of rooms to tidy and meals to cook.
Michael and Laura visited again and John was pleased to see that the first night hadn’t been a fluke, the company was easy and everyone got on well. In fact, Laura and Anna made plans to see each other during the following week, for ‘girls’ adventures’ they said, laughing together as naturally and confidently as if they had known each other for years.
Anna didn’t suffer from another of her ‘blanks’ – at least, John admitted, if she did he was unaware of the fact – and he found he was in no great hurry to discuss it any more. Life was too comfortable. After feeling uneasy in his own house for so long he couldn’t bring himself to rock the boat. Let things continue as they were. He was happy.
Plans for Michael and Laura to move in continued, helped, John was sure, by the clear friendship developing between the two women. They began to discuss how the house might be split, how they could best afford to double up on the amenities. While sketching out a plan of the rooms, John realised he had included space for Anna without even thinking about it, she had become part of the household in his head and therefore needed to be accounted for. How easy it is, he decided, to change your life completely within the space of only a few weeks.
Laura and Anna made regular trips into the city, both of them insisting on ‘doing the tourist thing’. Anna was only too happy to visit the well-worn old haunts, despite having lived in London all her life she had seen very little of it. Not that she would have minded even if she had, to be able to live a normal life, with a friend on her arm, was more than she had ever hoped for.
Michael got a job touring an Agatha Christie play around provincial seaside towns. The money wasn’t great but it was better than nothing and he joked about the pleasure of killing members of his cast on a daily basis (twice during matinees).
‘They’re all failed soap stars,’ he said, ‘or creaking comic turns from the eighties. You’ve never known a more poisonous group of people, they deserve everything I give them, with knife, axe and garrotte!’
While he was on the road, Laura moved in with John and Anna. She was perfectly capable of looking after herself, she insisted, but it seemed pointless not to make the most of their company when they were all getting on so well.
It was a shame that it was all to be lost so quickly. But lost it would be, and it started with a visit from Lord Llewellyn Probert.
Probert found John alone at the university. He and Anna had travelled in together (as had become something of a habit of late) and to his relief Probert arrived just after she had left his office to do some shopping. John hated to think how she would have reacted had she been present for the conversation between the two men, no doubt it would have done much to ruin her current contented feelings.
‘You free for a chat?’ asked Probert, catching John between his office and the main lecture hall.
‘Actually, I’m lecturing in a few minutes.’ John felt absurdly embarrassed at the sight of the Lord here at his place of work. It was as if something private had been brought out into the open. He glanced around in discomfort, wondering
who might be watching.
‘It’s important, I’m afraid. Is there somewhere we can talk privately?’
‘I can’t just go wandering off,’ John replied. ‘Can it not wait?’
‘Not really. Leave them a note to say you’ll be late.’ Probert seemed almost as uncomfortable as John when he admitted: ‘It’s about Anna.’
That was enough to beat down John’s complaints and he passed on a message to one of his students that he’d be there as soon as possible.
He led Probert to his office, finally regaining some of his confidence once they were out of the public eye.
‘How did you find me?’ John asked, then brushed the question away. ‘You know, forget it, I’m sure it’s not difficult for someone like you.’
‘No,’ Probert agreed with a smile, ‘it isn’t. I just asked the police.’
‘Why then? I mean, is everything all right about that night? About …?’
‘Father Goss? Yes, at least in the way you mean. There’s quite a lot you don’t know, I imagine, unless you read about Alasdair?’
‘What about him?’
Probert tried to get comfortable on the small chair he’d been given, stacks of books and magazines in his way. ‘Is there nowhere with a little more space?’
‘Alasdair,’ John repeated, ‘what should I have read about Alasdair?’
‘He was murdered,’ Probert replied, giving up and resting his left foot on a stack of old test papers. ‘During one of Golding’s demonstrations. His skull was caved in and then he was nailed to the door of the meeting hall. The murderer took a knife and …’ Probert mimed a cut from groin to throat. ‘When they opened the door he spilled out everywhere.’
John couldn’t think what to say to that so he kept silent.
Eventually, Probert continued. ‘Golding dragged me in because she was convinced that whoever had murdered Alasdair intended to kill her next. In fact, she thought it was Anna.’
‘She thought what?’ John was genuinely confused; he couldn’t place the two ideas together in his head. ‘She thought Anna was next?’
‘No.’ Probert sighed, clearly finding all this exceedingly unpleasant. ‘She thought Anna was the murderer.’
‘Ridiculous.’
‘Perhaps. It certainly seemed so later. I drove her home and …’ Probert shifted awkwardly again, ‘we actually apprehended the likely culprit.’ He saw no need to explain that he had done so with the bonnet of a car. ‘Apparently, after having dealt with Alasdair, he had driven to Golding’s house meaning to carry on the good work. He killed both Alasdair’s brother and his girlfriend. Presumably he would have then lain in wait to kill Golding when she returned home.’
‘Who was he?’
‘A fellow by the name of Trevor Court. History of mental illness, there was some question of his being implicated in the murder of his brother when they were both children. Nothing could ever be proven of course but he’s been in and out of institutions and care programmes. Apparently he attended one of Golding’s demonstrations and became convinced, after she claimed to have a message for him, that she knew something about his past. He ran out of the place screaming his head off.’
Trevor, thought John, remembering the look of panic on the man’s face at that first demonstration, the one he had attended with Michael. What had he said? He’d been terrified at the notion that Golding was talking to someone that had a message for him.
‘“What does he want?”’ John said.
‘Sorry?’
‘I was just remembering. I was there on that night. “What does he want?”, that’s what the man kept shouting. I thought it was strange at the time.’
‘Well, the man was obviously deranged, the things he did to them all. He didn’t just kill them, it was drawn out and cruel, he took real pleasure in it.’ Which in turn made Probert think of the Barrowman brothers and he lost himself for a moment. ‘Sorry,’ he said, pulling his thoughts back together. ‘I found the body, you see. Alasdair’s brother Glen, that is … in the back of Court’s car. He had spent a long time working on it with a screwdriver.’
The two men sat in silence for a moment, the words needed to settle down before either was willing to step over them.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ John admitted finally. ‘I mean … well, it’s just horrible. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Anna.’
Mention of her name shook Probert out of his funk. ‘Well, yes,’ he admitted, ‘but there’s a lot more about her you need to know first.’
Anna was getting used to freedom. Some days she couldn’t quite bear the idea of wandering around outside, big open streets, crowds everywhere, it was too much. It was an environment a person could get lost in, maybe lose their sense of solidity and float away into that endless sky. Other days, better days, the wide open was what she craved. Those were the days when the memory of that soundproofed cupboard beneath the stairs was fresh in her head and the only thing she could do to brush it away was to get out in the bright light and noise of the city. Now the weather had finally take a turn for the better walking was a pleasure. She would head out and take her time over planning what she could cook for John and Laura. She made it an event. Something to make a fuss of. It was a simple act, something she could control and focus on, getting better each and every day one meal at a time. Small steps. The presenter on one of those morning chat shows had talked about the importance of those: ‘Walking back to mental health takes small steps,’ they had said, looking into the camera in that earnest way they all had. Anna could sense the charlatanism in most of them, she’d lived with one long enough after all, but she still enjoyed having the shows on. It was another little freedom she could allow herself, even if Laura would insist on turning the volume down whenever she walked in the room. ‘It’s like having a football crowd in the house,’ she would say.
Anna stopped at a farmers’ market and lost herself in a stall selling homemade jam.
‘Who knew you could make so many different types, eh?’ asked a voice behind her and she turned around to see Davinia Harris.
‘Oh,’ said Anna, startled by the woman’s presence. For a moment the world pressed in on her: the jumble of stalls, the shuffle of the customers, voices everywhere … were they all in her head or were some of them on the outside?
‘Sorry, dear,’ said Davinia, ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump.’
The older woman reached out and took Anna’s arm to stop her falling over.
‘It’s all right,’ said Anna, slowly getting herself back under control. ‘I was miles away.’
‘No bad place to be these days,’ said Davinia. ‘Let me buy you a cup of tea to say sorry.’
‘Oh don’t worry, there’s no need …’
‘I insist,’ said Davinia, ‘there’s a lovely little place on the next street along, they do cakes to die for!’
Feeling she could not refuse, Anna followed Davinia out of the market and around the corner to a small teashop. It was laid out over three tiny floors of a Victorian terrace. Bored waiting staff stared into thin air. Perhaps, thought Anna, all of their clientele had finally given up and died of old age.
Clearly the archaic nature of the place appealed to Davinia. ‘Like they used to be,’ she said, gesturing around vaguely. ‘Would you like a scone? Or a toasted teacake?’
‘No, I’m fine thanks. Just a cup of tea.’
‘Oh,’ Davinia sounded disappointed. ‘Well, I might just have a little something … an Eccles cake or a bit of shortbread perhaps. Tea’s too wet without a little something.’
‘Eccles cakes are nice,’ Anna agreed, feeling she ought to say something.
‘Quite right dear, that’s the spirit,’ Davinia replied and promptly ordered two Eccles cakes and a large pot of tea. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she suggested, ‘it’s full of old things.’
Anna guessed that Davinia meant this as a recommendation and followed her up a narrow, dark wood staircase that led to a second floor. It was, indeed, filled wit
h old things. A perfect hiding place for lace or faux Wedgwood, there was so much of it already there nobody would notice more. The walls were covered with prints of old London street maps. On one, a fireplace dressed in heavy green tile was decorated with knick-knacks and dusty teddy bears.
‘Lovely,’ confirmed Davinia, settling into a chair near the window.
Anna ran her finger along the mantelpiece, looking at the row of pretend antiquity. There was a selection of china rabbits, a cut-glass perfume bottle, a satin pincushion that held a cluster of long hat-pins. ‘It’s very nice,’ she agreed and sat down.
‘It’s ever so funny I bumped into you,’ said Davinia, ‘as I was only thinking about you the other day. I wonder how dear Sandy is doing, I thought.’
It hadn’t occurred to Anna that Davinia didn’t know her real name and she was grateful for the fact that it had been pointed out.
‘If anyone’s seen dear Aida of late, I thought,’ continued Davinia, ‘it’ll be her.’
‘Actually I haven’t,’ said Anna ‘I’ve …’ she had been about to say ‘left’ before correcting herself, ‘… stopped going to see her.’
‘You and me both, dear,’ said Davinia, ‘She’s vanished off the face of the Earth. There was a bit of fuss over a night she did at the Barret-Holden Memorial Hall in Bermondsey only I didn’t go.’ She leaned over and spoke in a whisper. ‘My Henry won’t be seen anywhere south of the river my love, he’s a terrible snob like that so when Aida’s down that way I just don’t go.’ She leaned back again. ‘But things seemed perfectly normal the next few nights. She was on her own, mind, no sign of that nice young man that helps out … And then, a few days ago … nothing! All the shows on the website are cancelled, she won’t answer her phone. Who knows what’s happened to her?’
Anna shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen her since that night.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Davinia gushing with enthusiasm, ‘that night. Who can forget that, eh? Though the police certainly seem to have. I haven’t heard a peep from them. That clever Lord Probert, I imagine, had something to do with that. He did say he was going to sort it all out, didn’t he? I must admit I didn’t take to him on the night but he certainly seems to have a bit of clout. Click of his fingers and the police were rushing around like he was the Chief Constable. Or is it Chief Commissioner? I can never remember. My Henry refused to have anything to do with the police … ever since those riots with the blacks. Said they were as bad as the crooks half the time. I dare say he was right. Here’s our tea!’