The Primrose Switchback

by Jo Bannister

  I don’t want to be the boss’s girlfriend. Everything I have today I’ve earned: I don’t want people to think anything different tomorrow. I’d much sooner stick with the thoroughly rewarding relationship we’ve had until now. But I’m not sure we can have it any more. Half of me is angry at him for spoiling it, the other half is angry at me for being obstinate. There doesn’t seem to be any room to compromise …

  The fact that Shad didn’t want to discuss his problem with Rosie didn’t stop Rosie discussing it with him.

  It was late afternoon before they left the police station and the roads were beginning to fill up with people sneaking home early. Rosie drove in fits and starts, racing for the traffic lights then piling on the brakes with an obscenity when they changed. Shad could have walked home in five minutes; being driven by Rosie took about twenty and involved going the scenic route so they could drop off Prufrock. It also involved getting her opinion.

  “I know how you feel about sharing this with people,” she said, squeezing the big estate into a bicycle-sized space and glaring at the driver behind her. “I know it was hard talking to Marsh about it; it may be harder still talking to a shrink. I know you’re afraid of losing control: of being passed round the experts like a prize specimen, peered at and poked to see what makes you react. I know that worries you. I understand why.

  “But Shad, we’re talking about finding a man who killed a young woman. We don’t know who, and we don’t know why. He may just have had the urge to kill and picked someone at random. If that’s how it was, it’ll happen again. Marsh has to find him first, but he has nothing to go on. The Forensics Laboratory will do their best, but forensics is better at proving a suspicion than at finding a guilty party. For that you need a witness, and the only witness we know of is you.”

  “I know that,” growled Shad. “That’s why—”

  “I know, you don’t think you can tell him anything more. And maybe you’re right. But unless you work with the shrink you can’t be sure. You could hold the key to a murder. If you won’t even look for it, the killer will go free.”

  “I know,” Shad said again. “So—”

  “Jesus, Shad,” exclaimed Rosie, “I know what I’m asking! I’m asking you to sweat blood. I’m asking you to do something I couldn’t do myself. All right, that’s an imposition. But it’s also a privilege, all right? – to be able to do something for your fellow citizens that the man in the street couldn’t. I know it costs you. But there are rewards too. You can maybe get justice for that poor girl when nobody else can.”

  “Rosie, I know,” said Shad in exasperation. “I don’t need talking into it: I’ll give it a try. If I ever get home I’ll give this Doctor Cunningham a call.”

  Still blithely believing she’d persuaded him to do the right thing, Rosie took Shad home to Skipley High Street. Then she headed home herself. It was five o’clock by then, too late to go back to the Chronicle. By this time on a Thursday even Alex would have called it a day.

  But as she climbed out of the car she dropped her handbag, shattering one lens of the reading glasses whose protective case she had long ago mislaid. She kept another pair in the office: she sighed, got back in the car and went to fetch them.

  Which is how she came to find the letter which Alex had left in the absolute certainty that she’d have plenty of time to dispose of it before Rosie could see it.

  Alex had a small flat in a quietly prestigious block overlooking the Brickfields park. It was characteristic of the two women that, when they first came to Skipley, Rosie had been quite sure she’d be a resounding success and had bought the Old Vicarage while Alex had hedged her bets and rented instead. She might buy something if the Chronicle job still looked permanent in a year’s time.

  Alex was washing her hair, answered the door with her head turbaned in towelling. “Rosie! Come in. I wasn’t expecting …” But as soon as she saw the older woman’s expression she knew what had happened. “You’ve been to the office.”

  Rosie nodded. Her broad face, usually so animated, was sombre, her eyes compassionate. “You probably don’t want to talk about it …”

  Relieved, Alex turned away, squeezing water out of her long brown hair. “No, not really. I don’t know why I wrote it, let alone why I left it there. I fully intended to tear it up first thing tomorrow.”

  Rosie continued without drawing breath, without acknowledging that Alex had spoken. “… But I think we should. Mostly because you’re my friend and I care if something’s making you unhappy. Partly because Matt’s my friend and I care that something’s making him unhappy. And also because there’s one solution to this which is in my hands, but if that’s the way, we’re going we have to talk about it – with Matt as well. I won’t spring it on him as a done deal.”

  A sense of humour was not one of Alex’s strongest assets. But she had a sudden vision of how Rosie could help and gave a peal of delighted, slightly unsteady laughter. “Rosie, that’s wonderful! I hope the two of you will be very happy.”

  Rosie laughed too, more Quasimodo than the bells. “Somehow I don’t think Matt would consider it a fair exchange. That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  “Then …?”

  “As a last resort,” said Rosie, “we could do the same job on another paper.”

  Alex spun on her, clearly horrified. “You can’t do that to them! Matt could lose his paper. Dan and the rest of them could lose their jobs.”

  Rosie hid her satisfaction and shrugged. “I said it was a last resort – if you two really can’t work together any more. Matt owns the Chronicle, we can’t sack him. But we can leave.”

  A fine spray spattered the pastel furnishings as Alex shook her head. “No. Rosie, we’re not joined at the hip. If I have to leave the Chronicle I will, but I won’t be responsible for robbing Matt of his best chance to make a go of it. We both know that the paper’s finances are about as sound as a chocolate teapot. Without you, without The Primrose Path, it may not survive. Matt’s put everything he has into it. I won’t see him broken just because he’s fallen for the wrong woman.”

  “You don’t want to punish him then.”

  Alex’s eyebrows rocketed. “Of course not. Rosie, Matt hasn’t done anything wrong. I won’t have you wrecking his dream out of some misguided notion of loyalty.”

  Rosie had helped herself to the larger part of the sofa; after a moment, hugging the damp towel, Alex sat down beside her.

  “Tell me again,” murmured Rosie, with a flash of the insight that had made her a household name in Skipley and beyond, “how Matt’s feelings are entirely unrequited. How you’ve no more interest in him than the result of the Swedish general election.”

  “I never said that!” retorted Alex. “I never said I didn’t care what happened to him. He’s been a good friend to me, to both of us; which is why I didn’t want this to happen. I’d give anything to be back where we were last week – friends, two people who could rely on one another – and not have to worry about one another’s feelings!”

  “Because that’s you all over, isn’t it?” said Rosie ironically. “Only ever thinking of yourself, never giving a damn for anyone else. I can see how having a man say he’s in love with you would really cramp your style.”

  Alex stared at her, too troubled to be amused, too sensible not to see that there was a funny side. “You think I’m mad, don’t you?”

  Rosie smiled and shook her head. “Not mad. I think you take life too seriously. I think you worry too much about things that might happen when they probably won’t and wouldn’t be so terrible if they did. So what if you and Matt broke up? You’re two intelligent adults and that’s how you’d deal with it. People fall in and out of love all the time; it only seems a big deal to them and then only for a little while.

  “I wish you’d trust yourself more – because that’s the problem, isn’t it? Not that you don’t trust Matt to behave like a gentleman, but that you’re not sure you’d behave like a lady. You’re like Shad – you’re
afraid of losing control. But hell, girl, it’s not like your A-levels, there isn’t a passing grade. You make it up as you go along. You make your mistakes and either you learn from them or you make them again. But the things you regret are never what you did wrong, they’re what you were too afraid to do at all.”

  Alex said, doubtfully, “We have to have standards.”

  Rosie hooted with mirth. “Alex, you’re a one-off, you really are. You want to describe this standard of yours that Matt Gosling doesn’t measure up to?”

  But Alex wasn’t going to be mocked into submission. “You’re trying to make me sound like some prim little virgin fresh from school, and I’m not.”

  “Which?” asked Rosie innocently.

  “Either,” Alex said firmly. “I know what works for me, and until now not dating colleagues has worked fine. The only question is whether it might be sensible to make the occasional exception. If I thought that, I’d make one for Mart. I’d take the risks – and, if need be, I’d take the consequences.”

  “Then what’s stopping you?”

  “I don’t want anyone to get hurt! Not me and not him.”

  Rosie didn’t know whether to hug her or slap her. “Alex, look at you! You’re miserable. And whatever Matt’s doing right now, I bet he’s miserable too. How can you make that worse?

  “I’m not trying to talk you into anything. It’s none of my business whether you get together with Matt, with someone else or no one at all. I want you to be happy – I don’t give a damn how. If these principles of yours were making you happy, I‘d say OK – weird, but good luck to you. But they’re not. I don’t know if you and Matt can make a go of things, but there’s only one way to find out.”

  “What if we end up hating each other?”

  “Why should you hate each other? You’re two nice people, that’s not going to change. If it works out, great. And if it doesn’t, you’ll still be two nice people who once had something going and now don’t. You’ll take a week’s holiday, and when you get back Matt’ll take a week’s holiday, and when he gets back you’ll both be ready to move on. And I won’t need to hold painful little heart-to-hearts with both of you in quiet corners where the other one won’t hear.”

  “Both of us?” Alex’s scrubbed face shone with indignation. “You mean you’ve talked to Matt about me?”

  “Of course I have,” said Rosie cheerfully. “The man hired his own personal Agony Aunt – where else would he go for advice? Damn it, Alex, if it wasn’t for me he’d have jumped you months ago. I told him to be patient. And he has been – more patient than I ever imagined. He’s behaved impeccably. Now, for heaven’s sake put the poor guy out of his misery!”

  She picked up the phone. “Call him. Ask him for dinner.”

  Alex took the handset, stared at it as if it had grown tentacles. “But – what …?”

  Typically, Rosie assumed she was wondering what to feed him. “I’m not sure you can beat steak and chips,” she said ingenuously. “Listen, I’ll leave you to it. But chicken out and you really could be looking for another job. And you wouldn’t want the reference I’d write you!”

  Her rejection seemed so final the last time they spoke that for a moment Matt genuinely didn’t understand what Alex was saying. There was no way she could make it clearer so she said it again.

  “I said, I may have been wrong. We ought to talk. If you’ve no other plans this evening, would you come for dinner? About eight.”

  As a matter of fact Matt had made plans. He was planning to go to his mother’s for a country weekend and a bit of spoiling. He was feeling unloved, and the best antidote he knew was being fussed over by the celebrated Fane sisters. Now mostly in their sixties – his mother was the youngest – they were still the vibrant heart of Buckinghamshire society with their improbable millinery, their unsuitable liaisons and their happy habit of marrying into money.

  All six of them lived within a ten-mile radius, and a visit by Matt or any of his cousins was excuse enough to gather the clan for the sort of party that would get people with neighbours arrested. Last time he was at his Aunt Isobel’s he opened the scullery door, looking for something to get trifle off his dinner jacket, and found his Aunt Emerald humping the wine waiter. It was impossible to stay depressed in company like that.

  He already had a bag packed. If Alex had called ten minutes later he’d have been on his way. But the thing about families, even entertaining families, is that they’re always there. It never for a moment occurred to Matt to put her off, to ask if they could make it another night.

  “No,” he said swiftly, “no plans. I’ll be there at eight. Can I bring some wine?”

  “That would be nice.”

  It occurred to Alex, after she’d put the phone down and was trying to steady her shaking hands by clasping them together, that she should have been more specific. She didn’t want him to misunderstand. When she’d said they ought to talk that was exactly – and all – that she meant. If he came here expecting more …

  But she should have trusted him. He turned up at five past eight with a bottle of good white burgundy. No red roses, no champagne.

  Chapter Eight

  Self-restraint was not the attribute most widely associated with Rosie Holland. But by an almost superhuman effort she managed not to phone Alex that night but to contain her curiosity until they next met in the office and she could ask without making a big deal of it.

  Nobody in the Chronicle building, where work started from eight o’clock onwards, could remember Rosie ever being in before ten on a Friday. After being asked to hold the fort, Alex wasn’t sure she’d be in at all. But when she opened her door at five to nine, Rosie sprang at her like a fourteen-stone jack-in-the-box.

  “Well?”

  It wasn’t like Alex to be deliberately obtuse but on this occasion she considered it warranted. “Perfectly, thank you,” she said sweetly, hanging up her jacket. She kept a padded hanger at the office for this purpose. Rosie had a nail behind her door.

  “I mean,” exploded Rosie, and stopped when she realised that Alex knew exactly what she meant. She sniffed. “All right, so it’s a big secret. See if I care.”

  “You mean, if I don’t tell you you’ll go and ask Matt.”

  “I meant nothing of the sort,” Rosie lied loftily. “I just assumed that, since you got me involved in the first place, you’d want to tell me how things worked out.”

  Alex relented. “We had dinner. At first it felt strange – just us, and not business. But it was nice. We talked about the situation. We decided that as long as we behaved like adults we’d be able to handle it. We decided to try it and see how things went.”

  “And …?”

  Alex looked down her perfect nose at the older woman. “You mean, And did we end up in bed? No. We talked until about one o’clock this morning and then he went home. There’s a concert in Birmingham tomorrow evening, he’s trying to get tickets. We’re going out. We’re going to see if we can make this work. All right?”

  Rosie was delighted. They’d made more progress than she’d expected. She wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Alex had never made the phone call. But she pretended to be disappointed. “I thought you said you were going to behave like adults.“

  “Being adult makes it legal for every date to end in bed,” Alex said calmly. “It doesn’t make it compulsory.”

  Rosie grinned and threw a plump arm around her. “Anyway, best of luck.”

  She reached round her own door for her handbag and car keys. “If anybody’s looking for me, I’ll be at the Palmyra Café for the next hour. I haven’t had my breakfast yet.”

  By merest coincidence Rosie found herself driving back to the Chronicle along the High Street just as Shad’s door opened. He crossed to the Land Rover and climbed inside.

  He wasn’t dressed for turning compost. As far as Rosie knew he only had one shirt with no grass stains on it and one pair of trousers without knee patches, and he was wearing them. He looke
d positively respectable.

  He looked like a man visiting the doctor.

  Rosie nodded to herself, satisfied. She hadn’t known Shad Lucas very long but he was growing in her estimation. This thing in his head – she knew it troubled him, frightened him sometimes, that sometimes he’d give anything to be as insensitive to other people’s feelings as everyone else.

  Dowsing was different: he enjoyed that, got a kick out of tuning in to the energy of hidden waters surging along deep underground. But this business of feeling other people’s pain: there wasn’t much of an up-side to it. She knew that he’d have chosen not to be blessed. For years he’d kept it entombed at the bottom of his mind, had disinterred it only because she needed him to. That gave her an obligation to help. She wanted him to get professional guidance. Shad, she knew, really wanted to put it back in the cellar and hope time and cobwebs would cover it up. Two things stopped him: wondering if he had any right to squander something this rare; and the fear that if he didn’t use it, one day something would happen that he could have prevented.

  But there was a strength to him, besides the physical strength of his muscular young body, and a raw courage that made him face his demons head on. Rosie had never really doubted that he would do as Superintendent Marsh asked and work with the psychiatrist to chisel away at his amnesia. She hoped they would succeed quickly, before it cost him too much. Before scar tissue became the only kind of healing possible.

  It was Friday morning so, in the normal way of things, Shad would have been at Prufrock’s. The gardens around the cottage in Foxford Lane weren’t extensive enough or – the topiary hedge notwithstanding – ornate enough to require the services of a jobbing gardener twice a week. But Prufrock had reached an age when things he would once have taken in his stride were beginning to pose a problem. Shad could turn his hand to a bit of house maintenance as well as pruning the roses, and rarely had much difficulty filling the time.

  Because Prufrock was an early riser he usually started there soon after eight. His appointment with Doctor Cunningham meant he couldn’t keep to that. Prufrock wasn’t sure whether to expect him at all; but he delayed making his morning coffee on the off chance, and at eleven-thirty the growl of the Land Rover in the lane was his reward.