‘Colin,’ burst in Adolphus sharply. ‘What is this ridiculous talk of giving notice? We couldn’t possibly manage—’
Victoria leaned forward and put a hand on his knee. ‘Now Fussy, he doesn’t mean that. You don’t really mean that, Colin?’
‘Only if you disagreed.’
They glanced at each other, but Colin got in first.
‘I’m sure you were really looking forward to having Helen and Dennis with you—and I’m very sorry—but truly, she’d not be happy on your estate. Not after the initial delight, she wouldn’t. So I’m asking you what you think.’
They did another of their mind-reading acts, nodded at each other, and Fussy spoke for them. It was the first time I’d heard their pet name for him, but it fitted him so well. Now he fluffed about with his hands, and did a lot of hems and haws, then he said, ‘You must know, Colin, that we wouldn’t want to lose you—we rely absolutely on you. So, do it as you wish, you and the dear young lady, and the boy, Dennis. If it’ll make you happy, though I’ve never quite understood—’
‘Fussy!’ said Victoria gently. ‘Of course they must be together.’
And Colin smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘And here,’ said Fussy.
‘But…’ Alexandra touched her lips with one finger. ‘Your own family, Colin—Ruby and Gerald and Mellie. I’m sure Gerald will not be pleased.’
‘Then,’ said Colin, raising his eyebrows, ‘he’ll have to put up with it—won’t he!’
And they laughed. Then they got to their feet, Colin kissed two rather lined but flushed cheeks, and shook a crumpled and bony hand, and a contract had been sealed, in a way the family understood. Brindley had probably shaken hands with every one of his Navvies, though perhaps had not kissed their cheeks.
Quietly, Amelia and I slipped out, but hesitated at the door to hear the last part of it.
‘And now, Colin,’ said Adolphus, ‘perhaps you can get outside and see about that mess the police have left.’
We were therefore back in the bar when Colin swept past us, on his way to the locks. He put up a victorious thumb. Full of bounce and energy, was Colin. Then came the wump, wump of the swing doors behind him, but he was not intending actually to do any clearing.
For that, he would need a very large rubbish-clearance wagon, and the assistance of a throng of muscular men. No...not to do anything, just to stand out there with his beloved flight, with which he would not now need to part, and if he felt like it—as he probably did—dance a jig from one end to the other and shout out his happiness to the open sky.
Amelia and I followed him discreetly, and found him talking to Mellie and Ray, who had been surveying the rubbish piles, though not too seriously, I gathered.
It was no doubt a humorous situation, depending on your point of view. The rubbish had been doing no harm, slopping away in a about a foot of mud beneath, at the least, five feet of water. Now it was distinctly an eyesore. But it seemed farcical that Colin should get rid of it simply by heaving it back where it had come from. Fortunately, the three piles stood by their respective locks, and on the far side from the house. There was not much sign of healthy green visible beneath them at that moment, but at least, if the rubbish could not be disposed of at once, that was the best place for it. It was well clear of being tripped over or walked into, at night, as nobody had any reason for being over there.
‘You could,’ I suggested to Colin, ‘simply leave it where it is. Call it a work of art. Put up a plaque and give it a name. Detritus. How about that? Art experts would flock here. Directors from every Art Gallery and Museum in the country would crave for it. You could hold an auction, and the highest bidder would have to take it away—and it would cost you nothing, Colin. In fact...no, you wouldn’t gain. The money would have to go to the family, as it’s their rubbish. Though they might prefer to leave it…’
‘Richard!’ Amelia prodded me in the ribs with a finger.
‘Yes love?’
‘Behave yourself.’
I winked at her. But Gerald was now with us, and would not have appreciated my suggestion. He came walking round the house, carrying two large carrier bags, one in each hand.
‘What on earth’s going on here?’ he demanded to know. ‘Oh there you are, Colin. What is all this?’
Colin sighed. ‘The police have been dragging the locks for a possible weapon. Clare’s death, dad.’
‘I know they have. And did they find it?’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘There you are, then. Get on the phone and tell them to come and collect their rubbish.’ Colin clearly found the situation amusing. I saw his lips twitch. ‘I’m afraid it’s ours, dad.’
‘What! Is it? Hmm! Perhaps so. I’ll look it up. Yes. Perhaps we could get them under the Litter Act. Am I right, Richard? The Litter Act, 1983. It is an offence—’
Ruby said, from behind him, ‘Now Gerald! It’s not the time for you to be spouting your precious law.’
He dismissed the subject. ‘That store you sent me to was packed, Ruby. I had to queue for ages, just to pay for these few items.’
‘Gerald!’ cut in Ruby briskly. ‘Will you please go and take that shopping into the house...oh, Mellie, do take your father into the kitchen, and show him where to put everything. You know he’s quite helpless and useless.’
Mellie grimaced at me, and Ray, remaining behind because he’d not had instructions otherwise, gave me a wink.
‘Stay a while,’ I said to him.
‘Oh...sure. I’ll be here, Mellie.’
She didn’t look at him as she turned to follow her father. I wondered what could have happened between them.
‘I wanted a word with you, Ray,’ I told him.
‘Sure, sure.’ His favourite word.
‘You’re not supposed to be on duty, I hope.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Later.’
‘They’ll have to get you another partner.’
‘I suppose they will.’
‘Another woman?’ I asked casually. ‘Would you prefer to work with a woman, Ray?’
‘What?’ He seemed startled at the question. ‘No. Not particularly,’ he said, as I nodded encouragement.
‘You’d never get another woman as good as Clare, anyway?’ I made it a question.
He frowned, feeling I was leading him into a trap. ‘She was a good copper,’ he said warily.
‘A good woman?’
Now everybody seemed to want to stand out in the rather weak sunlight. They gathered just outside the swing doors, the better to observe the art exhibit as an entirety, but standing back, perhaps because they were aware that I was exchanging quiet words with Ray.
He was shaking his head, and hadn’t answered my question.
‘I’ve had very different opinions on Clare, Ray,’ I told him. ‘From different people. I was rather wondering what yours would be.’
‘We got along fine together.’
He made a movement to turn away, but I caught at his arm. With an abrupt flash of angry impatience he turned back. ‘What the hell is this?’
He was trying to keep his eyes on Mellie, who had returned from helping her father put away the groceries. There was something reserved in her attitude, something that made Ray uneasy. She was hanging back, hesitant and worried. Dennis was clinging to her hand. He had recognized in me the strange man who had made his poppa lie down on his face, and who was looking as though about to make another man, whom he knew, do the same. His eyes were huge, he uncertain whether to be afraid or excited. Bruce sat at his feet.
Mellie asked, raising her voice a little, ‘What’s Richard asking, Ray?’
‘God knows what he’s after. He’s always waving around his ideas. And what’s the present idea, Richard?’ he asked me, none too politely.
‘It’s just something I can’t get clear in my mind. That night...Do you mind if I remind you, Ray? No? All right, I’ll go on, then. The night of the storm. Evening, rather—it was only just after five. Clare
and you picked up Dennis and loaded him into her car, and brought him here. I don’t want to ask him what he remembers—’
‘Now...Richard.’ That was Amelia. She hates to hear me doing this kind of questioning. Pressuring, she calls it, but I thought I was being very casual.
‘Ray’s not protesting,’ I pointed out. ‘You don’t mind, Ray? Of course you don’t. Nothing to be ashamed of, was it, Ray. An errand of mercy, that’s what it was. Weren’t you and Clare doing exactly what her sister, Helen, had asked?’
‘Well yes...yes, it’d been Helen who’d asked. She’d said she wanted Dennis with her. Naturally, she was worried about him. It wasn’t my idea. Damn it all, when we got him there to the boat, well, quite frankly Helen didn’t seem up to scratch to me.’
‘Up to scratch?’
‘Well…call it capable. Not really capable of looking after Denny, I thought.’
The impression was that we were alone. There was not a sound from the others. Even Dennis, somewhat repressed by the general atmosphere, was very quiet. He had heard his own name mentioned. It was all very puzzling. Bruce sat quietly beside him, his head cocked.
‘Not really capable.’ I repeated his words. ‘With a broken wrist and two front teeth knocked out—and you thought she wasn’t really up to scratch! Damn it all, Ray, she probably couldn’t even stand. Did she stand?’
‘Well—yes.’ He looked round, as though for witnesses. ‘She wasn’t anything like what you’re saying. There was nothing wrong with her teeth, or her wrist. Not at that time, there wasn’t.’
‘And so you thought she was capable? And you left him there, with his mother? You did leave him there?’
He stared at me as though I was insane. ‘Well yes, of course. It was what Helen wanted.’
‘So you’d made her happy?’
‘What?’
‘Happy. It was what she’d asked. You and Clare had made the delivery, so everybody was happy.’
‘Yes.’ He made a hissing sound out of it. ‘And it was me who made the delivery. On my own for the last bit. Clare didn’t want to see Helen. Said she made her sick, being such a weak ninny. Anyway, she’d seen her once that day. She took her groceries, in the morning.’
There was now absolute silence around us. Nobody really understood what I was getting at, or what Ray was saying. They couldn’t realise that it was important. So there was silence. Not entire silence, though, as there was shouting in the distance, though I could not locate it, but for now I didn’t want to relax my concentration on Ray.
‘But Ray,’ I said. ‘All that trouble for you and Clare...oh yes, I was forgetting to ask about that. How did you manage to get hold of Dennis, you and Clare? I mean—in order to bring him to the houseboat.’
‘Clare knew how to do it. We picked him up from Mrs Lloyd’s, next door but one. She was the woman who looked after Dennis when the dad was away. Pierce. Away at work, and Helen out shopping, say. He’s a bricklayer.’
‘Ah, I see. And looked after him when Helen was incapable of doing it. Is that what you mean?’
Ray straightened his shoulders. ‘Yes. Then. Those times. Too.’
‘So all right.’ And who the devil was that, doing all the shouting? ‘So you brought Dennis to the houseboat. On the evening of the storm. During it, in fact, you brought Dennis here. Carrying him, I suppose? Taking turns, you and Clare? Down the lane—not the tow-path?’ I waited for his nod. He simply stared. I accepted this as agreement.
‘But the next morning,’ I said, ‘he was gone. He wasn’t there when I discovered Helen. Now, tell me, Ray...how could that have come about? How did Pierce find out about the houseboat? He didn’t know before, or he’d have come for Helen. He came for Dennis that night, along the tow-path from Crayminster. That same night. What had been a secret, all of a sudden became something he knew in detail. So...how, Ray, how?’
Ray darted glances around him, as though seeking escape. I knew that he was searching for Mellie, to gauge from her expression what she was thinking about all this. But Mellie hung back, her face white, her eyes huge, her hand clutching Denny’s possessively.
Woodenly, and barely moving his lips, Ray said, ‘I wouldn’t know—would I!’
‘You didn’t, either you or Clare, happen to mention to Mrs Lloyd where you were taking him?’
‘Of course not. Ask yourself, Richard.’
‘I’m asking you, Ray. You’re the one who’s got all the answers. And the answer I’m trying to get from you is how Arnold Pierce got to know where Helen and Dennis were hiding.’
‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head violently.
I persisted with it. ‘Only two people knew about the houseboat. You and Clare. No...three, if we count Colin, and he didn’t know you’d brought along Dennis to his houseboat. And then Clare died, so that left only you, Ray.’
He shook his head stubbornly. ‘I don’t know how he found out.’
Now the shouting was very close. I had to take notice of it.
‘Denny! Where’s my Denny?’
They parted, the group that had drifted closer, and now edged back towards the house. As far as the three old dears were concerned, their actions were those of revulsion. Pierce, in the poor lighting of his own home, had not been very pleasant to behold. Now—in bright daylight—he was quite revolting. It was needless to guess that he hadn’t had his clothes off the previous night. I had done so much damage to his vicious hands that he probably wouldn’t have been able to undress, anyway. But when he tried to force himself into a run—and I hadn’t harmed his legs—it was in fact a shamble. He hadn’t washed and he hadn’t shaved.
Whatever force that now drove him on (and I couldn’t credit him with any affection for the lad) brought him stumbling along the tow-path to a point from which he could make his demands most forcefully, and facing the complete group of his enemies.
Because I had gradually moved closer to the house, so that nobody would miss a word of my conversation to Ray, it now left an obvious place for Pierce to use, to stop and stand with his legs apart, and stare balefully around an unsympathetic group of faces, his back to the centre lock.
There he stood, swaying.
Chapter Fifteen
‘I want my Denny.’ His voice was hoarse. I heard Mellie give a small and frantic cry, but she was well behind me.
I said, ‘You can’t have him, Pierce. You’re not fit to have control of a child. You’re not really fit to go on living.’
I advanced a pace towards him, and jabbed a finger in emphasis in the general direction of his chest. He backed a pace, a clumsy shuffle.
‘You keep yer bloody hands to yerself,’ he shouted. ‘Got witnesses now, I have.’
I hesitated. I couldn’t hit him, when I knew he was unable to use his hands. I prodded a finger towards his chest.
‘Look at all them witnesses,’ he cried. ‘All the pretty ladies an’ gennelmen. Witnesses. They’ll say—you’m pushin’ me. Violence, that’s what it is. All I want’s me lad.’
‘How did you know about the houseboat?’ I asked. Another little prod, not reaching him by a good foot, but it provoked another shuffle backwards. ‘How did you know where to come to get Denny?’
‘I bloody-well knew.’
‘How?’
‘Bugger off. Gimme the lad.’
Mellie produced another sharp eek. Pierce’s eyes probed past me, towards the sound. ‘There he is. Bring him here, me luvvie.’
Bruce growled, deep in his throat.
And Mellie—I caught the movement on the edge of my vision—captured and hypnotized by fear, took a step forward. So did I.
I didn’t touch him, didn’t need to, because his heels had reached the curved edges of the coping stones, and now they went an inch too far. With a scream, his arms flung wide, he fell backwards into the lock.
There was an almighty splash as he hit the water flat on his back, odd chunks of it rising high enough to splash on my trousers. The fall from edge to water was about ei
ght feet. He plunged around wildly, but his feet would be able to contact nothing solid. Mud down there, surely. I had guessed at a foot of it. Certainly, it would not have felt like a firm surface, and he splashed with the frantic windmilling of arms that denotes a non-swimmer.
‘Can’t swim!’ he cried out. ‘Help me!’
‘Help yourself,’ I shouted back.
‘Richard!’ Amelia was now at my shoulder.
‘He’s safe enough, love,’ I assured her. ‘They always fit iron ladders, just in case anybody should fall in. Look. There’s one right behind him. Fastened to the wall.’
In fact, it was six inches clear of the surface, in order to allow room for fingers.
‘Oh yes...yes,’ said Amelia.
‘There’s a ladder right by you,’ I called out. ‘At your shoulder. You can climb up.’
Spluttering and gasping, he struggled round for a sight of the ladder, and reached it, then raised his head and stared up at me, as I walked across to stand at the head of it. His face was distorted with terror, a mirror image of the many faces that had stared back at him in his time. Then I realized what his basic difficulty was. After the treatment I had given his hands, he was quite incapable of gripping the rungs.
For one moment I felt a chill, all down my back. I had no wish to watch somebody drown, not even this useless oaf.
‘I’ll have to go down to him,’ I told Amelia. Though I couldn’t see in what way I would be able to help him.
‘No, Richard. I forbid that.’
I looked into her eyes. ‘Forbid?’
‘Yes, yes.’ And this time she really meant it.
I smiled at her. ‘He’ll find a way.’
And as we had been exchanging these comments, he had. With his elbows crooked, he was hooking them over the iron rungs, and gradually climbing. Slowly and painfully. I watched.
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