He put his hands into the water and moved the dog’s back legs, forcing her to walk down the bath. When she arrived Anne gave her a small piece of biscuit. Tom picked her up, put her back at the other end, and said to the dog, ‘Come on now, try it on your own, you lazy hound.’
But the back legs buckled under her and she began to pull herself through the water.
‘What’s her name?’ Anne said.
‘Beanie, because she used to sleep in a baked-bean box, but I’m thinking of renaming her tadpole. Her legs look like the tail of a tadpole when she pulls herself along.’ He worked her legs again as Beanie moved down the bath to get the food. ‘She’s a greedy little thing, that’s why I have to give her slimming biscuits. Otherwise she’d put on weight.’
‘What happened?’
‘She . . .’ He hesitated. ‘She had an accident.’
‘Poor little thing.’
‘She doesn’t think she’s a poor little thing.’
‘How long has she been like this?’
‘Three months. Okay, that’s enough.’ He scooped Beanie from the bath, wrapped the shivering body in a towel, and said to Anne, ‘Come downstairs and we’ll find a drink.’
On the ground floor he waved her to a large armchair. Still clutching the dog he went off to find a bottle and glasses.
She looked round. The kitchen, with a dining table and chairs, was on the left side of the front door, and on the right, the living-room, where she was sitting. There were no lights on and the place had a chilly look and a chilly feel.
The furniture looked like a job lot bought at a car boot sale and reminded her of her father’s cottage at the Cape of Good Hope: functional but lacking warmth. Once, when she had mentioned it to Henry, he had said, ‘Men without women always live like this.’
She itched to get her hands on these beautiful old rooms. Soft-tone lighting like that of oil-lamps, with curtains and rugs in warm reds and yellows, would go a long way, she thought, to give the place the cosiness it lacked.
He came back with a bottle of white wine and glasses. Then he spread a towel on his lap and sat Beanie on top of it. He began to work gently on her back legs, pressing down and making her resist. ‘She’s got more steroids in her than Ben Johnson,’ he said. ‘And her muscle tone’s pretty good. She’s just not making the connection. But – to work. Is everything all right at the nick?’
‘It’s been pretty hectic but Dr Robbins has been a Godsend.’
‘Oh, he knows the ropes.’
Dr Robbins was a local practitioner who did freelance prison work and was now filling Tom’s shoes while he attended court.
She gave him a rundown on what had been happening and finally came to Billy Sweete.
‘Well, that’s certainly new,’ he said.
‘You still don’t trust him? Why would he lie about something as intimate as that?’
‘So he wouldn’t be sent to Loxton.’ He worked in silence for a few moments on Beanie’s legs. ‘Trust? I’m not even sure what that word means any more.’
She waited for him to expand on that but he didn’t. She said, ‘I suppose we have to trust some of the prisoners some of the time otherwise they’d all be in Loxton.’
‘Arson followed by sexual release isn’t uncommon, you know. But just uncommon enough. What was it Kipling wrote: the something of the something excites the tiger?’
‘The bleating of the kid excites the tiger.’
‘Soldiers Three?’
‘Stalky and Co. My father read it over and over to me when I was tiny.’
‘I’d like to meet your father some time.’
She smiled but did not comment. Instead she said, ‘The interesting thing is that he didn’t immediately link fire and sexual excitement. When I asked him why he set the barns alight he said he did it because of the warmth.’
He frowned. ‘Sorry, I’m being obtuse. Were all the fires set in winter?’
‘No, no—’
‘Oh, I get it. You mean—’
‘Well, his father deserted the family when he was tiny. His mother died not much later. Wouldn’t that indicate a lack of parental warmth?’
‘That’s very good. Right, well, we’ll dig a little deeper into friend Sweete.’
‘I thought I’d go to see his grandmother.’
‘Why not? But have you got the time?’
‘I think so.’
‘What about Newman?’
She opened her mouth then closed it. ‘I got my father to give his wife a lift to the prison. She doesn’t drive.’
He looked at her as though sensing she was keeping something back, then he shrugged and said, ‘Don’t overdo things. You’ll make it difficult for the rest of us to keep up with you.’
That phrase was in her mind as she drove away from the house. It had sounded just a little sharp-edged.
Her thoughts were abruptly shattered. As she slowed down to manoeuvre the car through the gate a dark figure loomed up from the blackberry thicket. It was Joyce, the man with the shotgun. He placed himself in front of the car so that she had to pull up.
‘Would you mind!’ she said, through the open window.
He came up to her. ‘You’re with Tommy at the prison ain’t you?’
‘That’s right, but I don’t see that it’s—’
‘You be careful when you comes ’ere. You follow me?’
‘What on earth—?’
But he had turned away and, in the half light, was gone in a matter of seconds.
When she reached Kingstown, the lonely house, the man with the shotgun, the crippled dog, even Tom Melville, all seemed to be invested with an air of menace and it was with a troubled mind that she locked the car and entered the house.
It was dark and still. This, in her present mood, made her feel anxious.
‘I’m home!’
All she heard was the silence. She switched on the lights and went into the kitchen. On the blackboard which she used for shopping lists was scrawled: HILLY AND I HAVE GONE SHOPPING THEN TO THE LIBRARY WHAT’SHISNAME PHONED.
She found a slice of cold pizza in the fridge and ate it while she dialled Clive’s number. She was surprised when she heard his voice.
‘Don’t tell me business is bad,’ she said.
‘I don’t get you.’
‘You’re hardly ever in to answer the phone.’
‘I’m just on my way—’
‘To a meeting.’
‘If I didn’t go to these meetings I wouldn’t be able to afford my flash pad or the gin palace I’m going to buy. And you won’t call it a gin palace when I sail over to France without you.’
‘Have you ever sailed before?’
‘No.’
‘Then maybe I’ll be pleased to be left behind.’
‘Listen, my mother would like us to come for lunch at the weekend. You haven’t been for weeks. I think she thinks you don’t want to see her.’
‘I’ve had other things on my mind, you know.’
‘Of course you have and I’ve told her that. I just think it would be a nice thing to do. We could go a little early and get away by half past two and—’ He paused meaningfully.
‘That’s a bit clinical, isn’t it?’
‘We have to plan these things. It’s just a fact of life.’
‘You have to.’
‘No, we both have to. I’m busy and you’re busy and unless we organise we’ll never get together.’
‘It doesn’t sound very romantic though, does it?’
‘Romantic! It’s not as though we’re in the first flush of youth. And with you living down in Sussex and me in London . . . I mean, be reasonable. We’ve got to make arrangements.’
‘I suppose we do. But it can’t be this Sunday. I’m on duty.’
‘Oh shit, I knew this sort of thing would happen if you went into the civil service!’
‘If I was in general practice or on a hospital staff I’d only get one Sunday off in two or three.’
‘Not
if you married me and came to live here. You could have a practice among the locals. Pick and choose. Make your own hours. Be in charge of your own life.’
‘A private practice?’
‘Of course. There’s enough money here to make you—’
‘You don’t understand. If I just wanted money I wouldn’t have gone into medicine. Anyway, I don’t want to spend all my time treating wealthy patients for hypertension brought on by too much rich food and too much booze.’
‘You’re a reverse snob, you know. Don’t you believe that rich people are entitled to health care?’
‘I’ve got to go, Clive, Hilly and my father are coming back in a minute and I want to make them some supper.’
‘Was that your father on the phone when I called?’
‘Of course it was, you didn’t think it was Hilly, did you? Why?’
‘He was bloody rude. I asked him to give you a message and he sounded reluctant. And then he said he was busy. And then he said what did I think of America. I mean what sort of question is that? And when I said I didn’t know what he meant he put the phone down.’
‘I’ll talk to him about it.’
*
‘Wow-eeeee . . . Sniff . . . Sniff . . .’
They were in the exercise yard. Jason tried to move away from him but Billy Sweete followed. It was a grey autumn day and above them the anti-helicopter wires hummed and clattered in a cold northwesterly.
‘Smell it!’
Jason, hands in pockets, moved against a wall out of the wind. Sweete shoved up next to him and lit a rollup.
‘That’s your real fresh air – diesel. It’s them lorries going up the hill. Grinding away, blowing out the fumes. That’s freedom that is. Don’t you like it?’
‘No.’ Jason began to move away again.
‘No? Doesn’t like it? Take him away, nurse, and put the boot in.’
‘How’d you know, anyway?’
‘How do I know? ’Cause my father was a truck driver, that’s how.’
‘You said he left you when you were small.’
‘And so he did, old cock, so he did. But it’s in the blood. Oh, yes. In the blood.’
They walked on, heads bowed to the wind. The diesel smell was mixed now with the smell of cabbage and washing-up water venting from the prison kitchens.
‘You ever seen blood, Jason? I don’t mean frigging scratches on your knees when you fall on the tennis court, I mean real blood . . . running blood . . .’
The eye . . . the eye . . .
‘. . . running so hard you can’t stop it. Let me tell you old bean, it’s something amazing. I seen it at Loxton – where you’re probably going. Bloke by the name of Pinker cut his throat. He was talking to me. Having a rap. Telling me about his haemorrhoids. And then he takes out this razor blade, and while he’s talking, while he’s telling me how sore his backside is, he cuts the side of his neck and whoosh!’
Jason remembers the eye . . .
‘All over my clothes. Couldn’t stop it. Dead in twelve minutes.’
‘I don’t want to hear.’
‘Don’t kid me, Jason Tennisplayer. Everybody likes to hear things like that.’
‘I’m going in.’
‘Listen, listen, I ain’t finished yet . . . I’m trying to do you a favour, prepare you for Loxton. You’ll thank me one day. Let me tell you. There was a bloke called Napp. Name like that. And he has this habit of throwing his food off his plate. Knows it’s wrong but can’t stop himself. I mean that’s why he’s there in the first place because he’s a fucking loony, okay? And so they tell him to stop it but he can’t, see? And he does it again and the screws – oh, yeah, they call ’em screws in Loxton, not nurses – the screws hold him down and sit on him and make him eat it off the floor, only they’re sitting on him so hard they break his foot. That’s Loxton, Sonny Jim.’
‘For Christ’s sake, stop it! I’M NOT GOING TO LOXTON. They said so.’
‘Who said so? The new woman quack? What does she know?’ He smiled reminiscently. ‘She asked me about the fires and what happened and I told her. She wasn’t expecting that.’
‘What?’
‘What I told her.’
‘What?’
‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’
Jason turned away and heard Sweete’s laughter.
When he went back to his cell he lay on his bunk and his thoughts were of blood. Was there something wrong with him? Truly wrong? So wrong that they’d send him to Loxton?
He tried to sleep, but all he saw was the eye.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Mummy! Mummy! We’ve been to the library.’
Hilly burst into the house, turning it abruptly from a cold and depressing place into a home full of warmth. Anne’s bleak mood vanished. She gathered her daughter up and gave her a fierce hug.
‘What’s that?’ Hilly pointed to the stove.
‘Spaghetti.’
The front door slammed and Henry came in. He was carrying his briefcase.
‘The library?’ Anne said. ‘Have you joined?’
‘Grandpa watched tv.’
‘That’s a funny place to watch it.’ Anne began to lay the table. She turned to Henry. ‘Do you want a drink before we eat?’
‘Does the sun rise in the east?’
He poured himself a whisky and soda and sat down at the kitchen table.
‘Up you go,’ Anne said to Hilly. ‘Hands and face.’ Then to her father. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing all afternoon? Watching television?’
‘Not quite.’
‘I thought not.’
‘Have you heard of the Times Index?’
‘No.’
‘You see I’m not completely past it. It’s in several hundred volumes and goes back to the first edition in God knows when. Eighteenth century, I think. It’s kept by only the largest reference libraries, and Kingstown library is one. The volumes are cross-referenced and once you find the date and issue containing what you want you can ask for the microfilm and bring up the pages on a reading machine.’
‘No wonder Hilly thought you were watching tv.’
‘I thought I’d try to look up the missing children Margaret Newman mentioned. No luck. They’re too recent for the Index. But when I mentioned this the librarian said they kept The Times on file and also, bless them, the Kingstown Argus.’ He opened his briefcase. ‘Have you ever heard me deprecate modern science?’
‘Deprecate would be putting it mildly.’
‘In this instance allow me to praise it. The library has a photocopying machine and voilà . . .’ He handed her several sheets of paper on which he had copied news stories.
The first, from the Kingstown Argus, read:
CHOC-ICE TODDLER MISSING ON CASTLE FIELDS BIG POLICE SEARCH
A five-year-old child is missing after her mother left her for a few minutes to buy her an ice-cream.
Mrs Carol Marsh, 28, of the Prendergast Estate, Kingstown, said she had taken her daughter, Tessa, to Castle Fields today so she could have a dolls’ picnic by the river.
They were leaving when they saw an ice-cream van parked near the Castle gate.
Mrs Marsh said Tessa had asked if she could have a chocolate ice-cream.
‘It was a warm day and I decided to have one too,’ she said. ‘Tessa couldn’t push her dolly’s pram up the steep slope so I told her to wait on the path. When I came back a few moments later she was gone.’
Mrs Marsh’s mother has come to take care of her in her council flat and both women were too distressed to answer further questions.
Inspector Rodney Davis, of the Kingstown Police, said, ‘As yet we have formed no conclusion as to what might have happened.
‘The undergrowth and woods below the Castle are thick and little Tessa may have left the contour path to meet her mother and become lost.’
He said he had ordered a full-scale search of the area and the use of sniffer dogs.
Tessa has dark hair, is small f
or her age, and was wearing a green polo-shirt and black jeans.
Anyone who might have seen her or who has any information should phone the Kingstown police.
This story was followed up the following day with one headed: CHOC-ICE TODDLER’S PRAM FOUND.
Anne read the story quickly, but the discovery of the pram in thick undergrowth below the contour path was the only new aspect of the case.
During the following weeks in late summer there were other stories but they followed an all too familiar contemporary pattern and the headings told Anne all she needed to know.
‘Anguished mother makes tv appeal in missing toddler case . . . House-to-house search of Prendergast Estate yields nothing new . . . Police interview toddler’s father in Yorkshire . . . Tessa’s dad blames ex-wife for neglect . . . “We fear worst” says police chief . . .’
Then nothing.
Anne said to her father, ‘Castle Fields . . . that must be where we went to fly the kite. I didn’t know it had a name.’
She heard Hilly in the bathroom upstairs and hastily read the case of the second child. The headings were generically similar, the circumstances different.
Again, it was a little girl. This time two years older, called Sharon. She had gone to her local village shop to fetch a video her father had ordered. To get there she had had to cross a field. She was seen in the shop where she had picked up the video and bought a Mars Bar.
She had never returned home; had never been seen again; nothing had been found; there were no clues – not even disturbed grass to indicate a struggle.
Henry said, ‘It seems that more than fifteen thousand children go missing in Europe each year. Some, of course, have got lost or run away. But a high proportion vanish without trace into paedophile rings or are sold into prostitution.’
‘Or are murdered.’
‘Yes. Or are murdered.’
*
‘Busy?’ Tom Melville said.
Anne was at her desk writing a report and he appeared in the doorway. She smiled and said, ‘I don’t know. I haven’t got the time to figure it out.’
‘At least it’s better than being bored. I can’t stand that.’
Burn Out (Dr. Anne Vernon Book 1) Page 12