Then I looked round, wondering where I might expect help. Not one of the group had moved. It was as though a spell had turned them to stone. The three oldies wore the identical expressions of offended distress that I’d noted before, but they did not turn away. Revulsion held them. Ruby was clasping Gerald’s arm tightly, and leaned against him. Colin stood with his arms hanging loose, hands knotted into fists, which he had prepared just in case he found need to use them. Ray was a yard behind me, his face expressionless, and Mellie held back, Denny’s hand in hers, and might have been cast in clay—in a rather white clay.
Pierce came up the ladder slowly. He must have been very nearly incapable of movement, first from the shock of the immersion, then from the wet clothes clinging to his flesh. I knew how it would be for him. But his elbow movements became more and more laboured, his face more and more distorted with effort and fear. My face, poised above him, must have offered him no comfort. Rope, I thought. But there was no time in which to search out rope. Yet...slowly he mounted, until he reached the top rung. It was six inches below safety. He stopped, no doubt expecting me to lift him the last foot by grasping him around the wrists. The curved coping stones offered him no grip, even if his hands had been fully operative.
I stared down at him. I believe I smiled.
‘Help me,’ he whispered hoarsely.
Bruce, abandoning Dennis, came to the edge and snarled into his face.
‘A question,’ I said. ‘Maybe two. Answer and I’ll pull you up.’
‘Richard!’ Amelia appealed.
‘It’s known as extraction of evidence under duress,’ I explained. ‘Not admissible in court, but never mind.’
‘Gerron an’ say it, for Chrissake!’ Pierce croaked.
‘How did you know where to go in order to collect Dennis?’ I asked.
‘The boat...’
‘Yes, I know that. But who told you?’
‘Phone call...’
‘You’re not on the phone. Where?’
‘Pub. The Blue Boar.’
‘Phoned you at the Blue Boar?’
His teeth were chattering. He nodded.
‘Who phoned you?’
‘Ray.’
‘Ray phoned?’
‘Yes.’
‘Say it good and loud. Who phoned?’
‘Ray, for God’s sake. Ray.’
‘Right.’ I crouched down, my knees protesting. I had offered him assistance, but now there was a distraction. It was a scream, a stifled and choked scream. In this situation I found it difficult to look round. Pierce croaked, ‘For Chrissake!’ I managed just to turn my head.
Ray was standing directly behind me, staring back towards the house. It was Mellie who had screamed, Mellie who had now released Dennis’s hand, needing both hands to tear the ring from her finger, but only one in order to hurl it at Ray’s head. Like a fool, he ducked. Women are notoriously bad at throwing. This time, as it happened, and unfortunately, she would have hit him directly in the face. But he ducked, and the ring sailed past his head, to make a small and insignificant plop into the lock.
‘For pity’s sake!’ whispered Pierce.
I kneeled now, muscles and bones crying out, my balance not secure, not certain I could manage it. Got my hands clasped around his forearms, and now both of us were groaning. ‘Don’t struggle,’ I gasped. He would have had us both in.
‘Richard!’ Amelia screamed, and I felt her hands grasping my coat, pulling, pulling. I reached lower and hooked hands beneath his armpits. ‘Now!’ I shouted at him. ‘Climb, damn you.’ Then Colin was clutching at my one shoulder, Gerald at the other. ‘Climb!’ I cried. ‘Your legs, man, use your legs. That’s it. Another step.’ I shuffled backwards. Amelia nearly had the coat off me. ‘Climb,’ I groaned, and Bruce barked frantically into Pierce’s agonized face.
And he came up, one painful heave at a time, until I rolled over, Amelia scrambling free, and Colin and Gerald got an arm each and hoisted him out, dumping him, face down and gasping, beside me.
Gerald, who had been so afraid of this creature, was now grinning in triumph at having saved him, and Colin, stolid, was unmoved but smiling. ‘Good show, pop,’ he said, and his father slapped him on the shoulder.
Then, grappling with each other, we helped ourselves to our feet, and we stood, looking down at the sodden wreck at our feet.
I felt fine. Strangely, the feeling was very like the hectic triumph with which I’d beaten him the evening before.
Beyond Ray’s stiff shoulders, I could see that Mellie was now standing at the half-open swing doors, Denny’s hand still firmly grasped in hers, and Bruce now peering round the closed half. She was staring her last agonized farewell to Ray. Then she was inside, and the door did its wump-wump.
Beside me, Pierce was stirring. I said to Gerald, ‘Anywhere you can dry him off, before he catches pneumonia?’ I didn’t want man and wife in the same hospital at the same time, however much their wards might be separated.
‘There’s the old Gents, through the back.’
‘There, then. Dry him off—and if you’ve got any old clothes…’
‘There’s a pair of corduroys in my wardrobe, dad,’ said Colin. And that old hacking jacket—and some old shirts in the drawer. You’ll find something.’
‘And we can send him home, all clean and tidy,’ I said.
So...with Gerald tentatively clutching an elbow, and Adolphus gently fingering a lapel, they took him, unsteady, inside. Victoria and Alexandra were giggling behind their hands at this audacious venture on the part of their brother. Pierce was assisted through the bar.
I realized that I had been left alone with Ray, apart from Amelia, who was keenly aware of the tension between Ray and myself and prepared to intervene.
‘Well Ray?’ I asked, turning to him. ‘You realize—do you—that you’ve now put yourself into the position of being the only one in close contact with Clare, at the time she died. You came here, with Clare and Dennis. You went with them to the boat, and delivered Dennis to Helen. All as planned. Then you walked back to here, to the locks. Then what?’
He simply stared at me, with a despair that was mainly based on Mellie’s action of angry rejection. But I realized now what burden he had been carrying, every moment of that evening. That evening! It seemed so long ago.
‘Ray,’ I said, ‘it seems very clear that you walked back with her after delivering Dennis to Helen. Back to the lower pound...’
I realized that I was repeating myself, but he didn’t seem to be taking in what I had said.
He interrupted abruptly. Now that he knew there was no way out for him, he was going to make sure of his own situation being presented accurately. He was going to tell me the exact truth.
I looked beyond him. One of the swing doors was open a foot or so. Somebody was watching, listening, from behind it. It had to be Mellie. I didn’t tell Ray, who had now begun pouring it out but I wished she wasn’t there.
‘You never understood Clare, did you?’ said Ray with a lofty contempt. Not really. You never ever met her—alive. And that’s just the word. Alive, Richard, full of life and energy and the joy of living. And she had guts. Nobody, absolutely nobody, would ever get the best of her, physically or verbally. She was a fighter, Richard. Pierce, that lout they’re now tidying up, he’d have stood no chance with her, if it’d come to it. If he’d raised one hand to her, she’d have had him in agony on his back in a second. And Helen…she was so different. Never fought back. Clare hated her, you know.’
‘Hated?’ said Amelia. ‘Her sister?’
Ray shrugged. ‘Had contempt for her, if you like. She was always on at Helen. “Get the bastard with a knife,” she told her. “Go for his guts.” As though Helen could’ve been even remotely capable of doing such a thing! No imagination, Clare hadn’t got. Not a bit.’
‘But Ray...’ Amelia touched his arm, a signal for me to let her take it on. I smiled at her.
‘But Ray,’ she said. ‘Clare did help he
r. She took Dennis to her. You can’t deny that. It wasn’t your doing, was it? Clare’s idea, surely.’
‘Sort of.’ He looked from one face to the other. ‘But most of the work—that was me.’
‘Explain, Ray,’ I said. ‘I’m not getting a clear picture.’
‘Aw...the hell with it. Clare came early in the day. That day. Brought groceries, you know. And Helen said she wanted Dennis. Well...from what Helen said when I got him there, she’d asked her before, but Clare had done nothing about it. This time, I suppose, she thought we’d do something about it. I would, that is. Get Dennis for her. That wasn’t going to be all that difficult, because we knew Dennis would be with Mrs Lloyd. Poor old dear, she got lumbered with him all the time, but she said he was company. I wouldn’t have thought an old lady’d want a kid around, but she didn’t seem to mind. Anyway, all we had to do, Clare and me, was go to Mrs Lloyd and pick him up. Pierce wouldn’t be home for ages.’
‘Home? He’s a bricklayer. Surely they wouldn’t be working in that sort of weather—what we had that day.’
I glanced at Amelia. She simply shook her head gently. I took that to mean: don’t question it—let Ray say it. So I did.
‘They seem to be able to find something to do, whatever the weather. In any event, we just told Mrs Lloyd we were taking Dennis to his mother, and she said it was about time, too. And we took Dennis along. Of course, he knew Clare. Auntie Clare, she was to him. So—no difficulty.’
He stopped. His eyes were wandering. Where was Mellie? He wanted to get to Mellie.
‘You said, no difficulty,’ I reminded him.
‘Well...yeah. There shouldn’t have been. But all of a sudden it was sort of my idea. I thought I knew Clare, but now, abruptly, she seemed to be backing off. On the drive here, oh—she was grumbling all the while. It was me who’d fixed up the boat for Helen, fixed it up with Colin. We’d worked it out together. Me who picked her up and brought her.’
‘Now Ray,’ put in Amelia, ‘you make it sound all straightforward, so why didn’t you bring Dennis with you, at the time? With Helen.’
‘Aw hell!’ he said, provoked by the memory. ‘He wasn’t there. Wasn’t.’
‘Then where was he?’ I asked. ‘Round at Mrs Lloyd’s?’
‘No, no. That would’ve been a doddle. Pierce had got him. This was an afternoon, you see. A Saturday afternoon. Just me. Clare’d parked her car around the corner, and said she didn’t want to get involved, so she stayed in the car. She was going all funny on me, and didn’t want to do it, after all. I was beginning to worry about Clare. A month before, I’d have matched her against anybody, but now...well, she seemed scared of getting the wrong side of Pierce. Scared! That was what really worried me. I couldn’t do it, without Clare, for back-up, you know. But there I was, all worked up to take Helen and Dennis away, and Dennis not there. But I just had to get Helen away. And Dennis wasn’t there, and Clare was acting funny, just sitting in the car. Oh hell, it was just a bloody mess. Helen in tears. Grabbing some of her clothes to take, and stuffin’ ’em in a plastic bag, and all the while weeping ’cause of Dennis. And me all worked up to do it. It was then or never and in the end she came with me.’
‘And where was Dennis?’ I asked. ‘If he wasn’t at home.’
‘His father had taken him down to the Blue Boar.’
‘A little lad? To a pub?’
‘Well...Pierce’d got hold of an air pistol, and he took Dennis along. Him and his mates were going to have a go at shooting rats in the yard at the back. He thought Dennis would enjoy that.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Yes, I see.’
It was now very silent around us, with not a sign of anybody keeping an eye on us or an ear behind a partly open door. The swing doors were firmly closed.
‘Go on,’ I said. My voice sounded flat to me.
‘I got Helen in the car,’ he said, ‘Clare didn’t say a word. I got in the back with Helen. Most of the way she was crying, grabbing my arm and leaning against me. And Clare...she said she had no patience with her. Said Helen should’ve taken a kitchen knife to him. The same old thing. All that and secretly, I discovered, Clare was just as scared of him. But that was a bit later. A bit later, when I found that out.’
‘Yes, Ray,’ I said patiently. ‘But was she?’
He laughed emptily. ‘Was she just!’
‘But she did bring Helen groceries, from time to time,’ Amelia reminded him.
‘Oh sure.’ He gave a brief laugh of contempt. ‘Once we knew Pierce hadn’t got a chance of finding Helen.’
‘But in the end he did find her,’ I pointed out. Pierce had received a phone call.
‘You’re too right,’ said Ray, grimacing. ‘He found out. He was told. But—you see—he’d guessed that Clare had been in on it, helping Helen get away. And he found out where Clare lived. A flat, she’d got. And he started hanging around. If she went out, he wouldn’t be far away. And letting her see him. But of course, not expecting her to lead him to Helen. Oh no. Just terrifying her, simply by staring at her.’
‘Intimidation,’ I said softly. ‘And she told you this?’
‘She did. And sometimes I saw him, too. If we were out for a drink. In a pub, say, he’d be there...in a far corner. Staring.’
Amelia said, ‘But he never managed to follow either of you, the times you visited Helen?’
‘No. How could he? We both had cars, and he didn’t. He’d have needed to nick a car, but he hadn’t got the talent for that. For all I know, he might not have been able to drive.’
It was all very substantial, and there was no reason why Ray shouldn’t be telling the exact truth. Mellie’s rejection of him had hit him hard. There was nothing else worth his while to worry about.
‘So,’ I said, ‘let’s come to the evening when Clare died. You’d taken Dennis to his mother that morning. You said that.’
I paused, hoping he would take it from there. He did.
‘Well...yes. Helen’d said she couldn’t go on with it. Ten days, it’d been. She said she’d got to get back because she didn’t know what was happening to Dennis. That time, I was on my own, visiting her, in the boat. I promised to get Dennis. All right. Fine. That suited Helen a treat. But when I told Clare...well, she started to go all strange about it. Reluctant. But she did go and see Helen. That morning, before we fetched Dennis. On her own I suppose so that she could try to persuade Helen it couldn’t be done. Something like that. But that was what Helen wanted and there was no getting away from it. And I suppose it was then she took the ring from Helen, or borrowed it. You know: “Lend me your ring and I’ll do it.” That sort of thing. Perhaps. But she had it on her finger at the time of the party.’
‘And did she tell you what she’d said to Helen?’ I asked.
‘Well...sort of. It was a kind of sulky temper she’d got on her, had Clare. Said she’d told Helen she ought to go home to Dennis, and not have Dennis at the boat. But Helen had been scared to go back. And then we got to talking about when we’d pick up Dennis. She cussed me out for offering. Said we were getting into it deeper and deeper. And if we took Dennis away, Pierce would know who’d done it—and he’d wait to get her...’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I just didn’t understand her. It was all...well, kind of different. Unusual. Clare was certainly acting awfully strange. There was the engagement party, that evening. She was...well, not demanding, but sort of possessive. Didn’t I think anything of her, she’d been saying. As though I’d ever thought once of getting married to Clare, or even mentioned the possibility. I couldn’t understand her. She’d been so positive—and even bossy—only a month or so before. Aggressive, you know. Acting like a man.’
He gave a shy smile, implying he didn’t really mean that.
‘But now, all of a sudden,’ he added, ‘she seemed scared of everything. Particularly Pierce.’
‘I believe’, said Amelia, ‘that I can explain that. She was two months pregnant, Ray. Women change. They need to look after themselv
es more carefully, because they’ve now got more than their own life and welfare to protect. Didn’t she tell you she was expecting a baby?’
He took a deep breath, and let it out with a sigh. ‘She did. And she said the baby was mine.’ He smiled sadly. ‘She said I’d got no right to promise to marry anybody else, when I’d made her pregnant—and we both of us knew damned well she’d had other men. God knows how many. That didn’t worry me. I didn’t feel anything for her in that way. But...’
And now he grimaced sourly. He shook his head, apparently unable to go on.
‘But,’ I said, ‘I do know that she was wearing the ring when she went into the pound. Did you know she was wearing it?’
He lifted his head in disgust, whether with Clare or of himself I couldn’t tell. ‘I told you. I knew she’d got it. She waved it under my nose. Swore she was going to break up the engagement party. Walk in there and claim a prior contract—the fact that she was pregnant. You know all this, Richard.’
‘I know it. But you wouldn’t have killed her for that. Not to stop her breaking up the party. But you did kill her.’
He didn’t answer that. After a few seconds of silence, he seemed to go off on another tack.
‘I couldn’t understand what had happened to her. We picked up Dennis easily enough, but then Clare seemed to go to pieces. Driving here...I was doing the driving...it was her car, though. She had Dennis on her lap. Driving here, she was moaning and groaning about it all the way. Dennis was asleep. When we left the car, the storm was blowing like mad. I put my slicker on, and I carried him all the way. Under it, to keep him dry. My cap blew off.’
‘It’s in the kitchen, drying. So what’s that one in your hand?’
He laughed disgustedly. ‘It’s Clare’s. I’ve got to have one to carry.’
I didn’t take him up on that. ‘Get on with what you were saying, Ray.’
‘Yeah. Well. There’s not much more. We walked down to the locks together. Clare wouldn’t go any further.’
‘The dog!’ said Amelia abruptly. ‘You haven’t mentioned Bruce.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘They wouldn’t go anywhere without each other. Yes, I’d got Bruce. His lead was on my wrist. And I left Clare waiting at the pound, where she couldn’t be seen.’
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