Close Her Eyes

by Dorothy Simpson

  From what Thanet had seen of the man he guessed that once Pritchard was side-tracked on to the question of religion he would be as difficult to stop as a runaway steamroller. Quickly, he intervened. ‘I see.’ He remembered what Lineham had told him. ‘So that was when you decided to go and see if she’d spent the weekend with the Hodges?’

  Pritchard blinked. It was as if a switch had been clicked off in his head and there was a pause before he said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘You said just now that before Charity left the Hodges’ on Friday morning she spent a few minutes alone with Veronica. Did she give Veronica any hint of what she was going to do now that their holiday was cancelled?’

  ‘I don’t think she could have, or Mrs Hodges would have mentioned it. In any case, at that point Charity didn’t know that we were going to be away. Otherwise she’d have told Mrs Hodges, I’m sure, and Mrs Hodges would probably have suggested she stay there for the weekend.’

  ‘You didn’t actually speak to Veronica herself?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I came here. I told you, I panicked.’

  ‘Understandably, I think.’

  Pritchard frowned. ‘As I said, we must trust in God at all times, Inspector. I have to believe that He is watching over her.’

  Despite his words Pritchard gave Thanet a beseeching look and Thanet sensed his desperate need for reassurance. But what reassurance could he possibly give?

  ‘Can you think of any other friends with whom Charity might have spent the weekend?’

  ‘She didn’t have any other friends.’

  Thanet bit back the questions which rushed into his mind concerning the girl’s classmates, clubs, leisure activities. Time for all that later, when it was certain that they were necessary.

  Pritchard dropped his head into his hands and groaned. ‘I just can’t think where she might be.’

  Thanet stood up and Pritchard raised his head as the chair scraped the floor. His face was bone-white, the skin stretched taut, his eyes tormented.

  ‘What are you going to do, Inspector?’

  ‘First we’ll go to your house, to check that she really hasn’t been back at all over the weekend. Then we’ll go and talk to Veronica. After that, well, we’ll see.’

  As they ushered Pritchard down the stairs and into the car Thanet fervently hoped that after that they wouldn’t be launching into a full-scale murder hunt.

  2

  It took them only ten minutes or so to reach Town Road, where the Pritchards lived; had it not been for the one-way system they could have done it in five. Sturrenden lies deep in the Kent countryside. It is a busy market town of some 45,000 inhabitants, the centre of a complex web of country lanes and scattered villages. The new traffic system has alleviated daytime congestion of the town centre, but older inhabitants still find it infuriating. Thanet’s attitude was ambivalent: the policeman in him appreciated its benefits but the private citizen resented having to take twice as long to reach his destination, especially on occasions like tonight, when the streets were deserted and he was in a hurry.

  Town Road was a long, narrow street of yellow-brick Victorian terraced houses with square-bayed windows upstairs and down. Cars were tightly packed along the kerbs on both sides of the road and Lineham was forced to park some little distance away from number 32.

  All along the street light spilled into narrow front gardens from uncurtained windows, but the Pritchards’ house was in darkness and Thanet and Lineham had to wait for a few moments while Pritchard fumbled with his keys. They followed him into a narrow passage and he switched on the light, an unshaded low-wattage bulb whose sickly glare revealed worn linoleum and bare walls.

  ‘You take upstairs,’ Thanet murmured, and Lineham obediently moved towards the staircase at the far end of the passage.

  Thanet asked to see the kitchen first and looked around him with disbelief. How many kitchens like this still existed? he asked himself. It was as though he had stepped back fifty years. Mrs Pritchard still cooked at an old kitchen range. The fire was out and there was a reek of stale soot. A battered aluminium kettle stood on the hob above the side oven. There was a shallow stone sink with a single tap, an upturned white enamelled bowl inverted on the wooden draining board, a narow wooden table, its top bleached ivory with much scrubbing and a storage cupboard beside it, painted brown. There was a rag rug on the floor in front of the hearth and a wooden armchair into which Pritchard subsided with a groan.

  ‘Go ahead, Inspector. Do whatever it is you want to do.’

  It certainly didn’t look as though Charity had been back here, Thanet thought as he checked. The sink, the bowl, the dishcloth and tea-towels were bone-dry, the cast-iron range stone-cold. The larder was as spotlessly clean as the kitchen, despite the faint, sour smell of stale cheese. There was no bread, no butter, no milk. They had taken all three with them, said Pritchard, when they left for Birmingham. Thanet guessed that it would have seemed sinful to throw good food away.

  Pritchard seemed to have sunk into a kind of stupor and Thanet went alone to take a quick look at the front room. People’s homes, Thanet believed, were highly revealing. A man’s sitting room is an expression of his personality—his choice of colour and patterns, his furniture, his objets d’art, his books, his records, all are evidence not only of his tastes but of his attitudes and habits.

  What he saw here appalled him. Apart from a three-piece suite upholstered in slippery brown rexine and a heavy upright piano standing against one wall, the room was bare of furniture. The only ornament was a wooden clock placed dead in the centre of the mantelpiece, the only concession to comfort a small beige rug in front of the empty Victorian basket grate, the only wall decoration a religious text in a narrow black frame. Thou, God, Seest Me, it proclaimed in curly black letters on a white ground.

  Thanet shivered. It was as if he had been vouchsafed a glimpse of the poverty of Pritchard’s soul, of the barren rigidity of his outlook. What could Charity be like, he wondered, raised in an atmosphere such as this. Yet there was a piano. He crossed to glance at the neat stack of sheet music on top. The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, he read. Grade VII (Advanced). So Charity at least had music to enrich her bleak existence.

  He heard Lineham coming down the stairs and went out into the hall to meet him.

  ‘Anything up there?’

  ‘Nothing. No sign of a suitcase in her room. Everything neat and tidy.’ Lineham grimaced. ‘The whole place gives me the creeps.’

  ‘I know what you mean. What about the bathroom?’

  Lineham raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘What bathroom?’

  ‘No bathroom … Can’t say I’m surprised, after what I’ve seen down here.’

  ‘Nothing downstairs either?’

  ‘No trace of her. We’d better get over to the Hodges’. I’ll just have a word with Pritchard first.’

  In the kitchen Pritchard was just as Thanet had left him, motionless in the armchair, hands on knees, head bowed, staring at the floor.

  ‘We’re just going over to see Mrs Hodges now, Mr Pritchard, and then we’ll come back here. Are you all right?’

  Pritchard raised dazed eyes and Thanet could see the effort the man made to concentrate on what Thanet was saying.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Thanet repeated.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘I’d like you to stay here in case Charity comes home while we’re gone. But there’s something I want you to do, while you’re waiting.’

  ‘Yes?’ A spark of interest, now.

  ‘I’d like you to write down the names of all the people with whom Charity could conceivably have spent the weekend. Family, friends, acquaintances, school friends, church members, anyone at all who is even a remote possibility. Could you do that?’

  Pritchard pressed thumb and forefinger into his eyes. ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘Have you pencil and paper?’ Thanet wanted Pritchard launched on the
task before they left.

  ‘Pencil and paper,’ Pritchard repeated, looking vaguely around. ‘Let me see.’ He heaved himself out of the chair. ‘Yes. In the table drawer. Here we are.’

  They left him to it.

  ‘Doesn’t look too bright, does it, sir?’ said Lineham when they were in the car.

  Thanet shrugged. The interview with Pritchard had alleviated some of his earlier anxiety. ‘We can’t tell, yet. It’s quite possible that after finding out that Veronica couldn’t go to Dorset with her, Charity went home, found the note, thought I’m not spending the weekend in this dump by myself—and who could blame her?—and decided to throw herself on the mercy of one of her school friends.’

  ‘Why not go back to the Hodges’ and ask if she could stay there?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps she didn’t like to ask, if Veronica was ill. Anyway, the point is, if she did spend the weekend with a friend, she wouldn’t have felt it necessary to come back until this evening because she knew that her parents wouldn’t be expecting her until then anyway. So she might well yet turn up safe and sound.’

  ‘True.’

  They slowed down to allow an ambulance to overtake them.

  ‘How’s Louise?’ said Thanet, his memory jogged.

  Lineham’s wife was soon due to produce their first child.

  ‘Oh, fine, thanks. The heat’s getting her down at the moment, of course, and she’ll be glad now when it’s all over.’

  ‘How much longer is it?’

  Lineham sighed. ‘Another four weeks.’

  Thanet grinned. ‘Cheer up, Mike. The first time’s the worst. After that it gets easier every time.’

  ‘Some consolation at this stage!’ Lineham swung the steering wheel. ‘Ah, here we are. Lantern Street.’

  More terraced cottages, but smaller and older this time, many of them boarded up or in disrepair. It looked as though the landlord had decided that the site was worth more than the rents.

  Number 8, however, presented a brave face to the world. Groups of scarlet tulips glowed like clustered rubies in the dusk and the brass door-knocker shone with much polishing.

  The woman who answered the door was short and plump, with fluffy fair hair.

  ‘Mrs Hodges?’ Thanet introduced himself. ‘It’s about Charity Pritchard.’

  ‘Oh? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?’

  ‘I thought you knew. She seems to have disappeared. Mr Pritchard told me he’d been here earlier this evening, that you hadn’t seen her since Friday morning.’

  ‘Oh yes, but she’s been here herself since then. In fact, she only left about a quarter of an hour ago. She should be home any minute.’

  ‘I see. Did she say where she’d been?’

  ‘Staying with a friend, she said. I told her her dad had been round and she looked a bit upset—well she would, wouldn’t she? I expect she’ll be for it when she gets home.’

  Had he imagined that there had been a hint of satisfaction in her voice?

  ‘So,’ said Lineham as they returned to the car. ‘You were right. All a storm in a teacup.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘All that hassle for nothing,’ Lineham grumbled.

  ‘Let’s just be thankful that it’s turned out the way it has.’

  They drove back to Town Street in silence.

  Pritchard opened the door to their knock almost at once, as if he had been waiting in the hall and stood back wordlessly for them to enter. In the wan light his face was the colour of old parchment. Clearly, Charity wasn’t home yet.

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Pritchard,’ Thanet said gently, touching him reassuringly on the arm. ‘Charity is safe.’

  ‘She’s all right?’ Pritchard closed his eyes, swayed slightly and put one hand against the wall for support. ‘I thought … I was afraid …’

  ‘I know.’ Thanet took him by the elbow and eased him along the passage into the kitchen, sat him down in the wooden armchair. ‘But it’s all right. No harm has come to her. She’ll be home any minute now.’

  ‘God be praised.’ Pritchard hunched forward, dropping his head into his hands.

  ‘Mrs Hodges said that Charity called in this evening on her way home. She’d spent the weekend with a friend, apparently. We only missed her by fifteen minutes or so. I don’t know how long it takes to walk from the Hodges’ house, but she really should be here at any moment.’

  Pritchard said nothing, did not look up, but Thanet could tell that he was listening. His body was tense, his breathing stilled.

  ‘Would you like us to wait until she gets here?’ Thanet offered. It wasn’t really necessary for him to do so but by now he was rather curious about the girl. And they shouldn’t have to wait long.

  For a minute or two Pritchard did not respond. The silence stretched out and Thanet glanced at Lineham, who responded by raising his eyebrows and shrugging. Thanet was even beginning to wonder if Pritchard was so exhausted by the nervous strain of the last few hours that he had dropped off to sleep. Then the man stirred and slowly straightened up, sat back in the chair.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’d be grateful if you would.’ His lips barely moved, as if even the effort of talking was too much for him and he had scarcely finished speaking before he closed his eyes and, head lolling back against the chair rail, dozed off.

  With one accord Thanet and Lineham quietly left the room and went into the sitting room. It was the first time Lineham had been in here and as he looked around Thanet could see mirrored in his face the same incredulity which Thanet had felt at his first sight of the kitchen.

  ‘My God,’ said Lineham. ‘Talk about Cosy Corner!’

  ‘Shh.’ Thanet made sure the door was closed. ‘Not exactly a home from home, I agree.’

  They both sat down in the hard, slippery armchairs.

  ‘How can they stand it?’ said Lineham. ‘The bedrooms are the same, you know—lumpy flock mattresses which look as though they came out of the Ark, rusty bedsprings, bare lino on the floor … I just can’t understand people being prepared to live like this.’

  ‘Perhaps they can’t afford to do otherwise?’

  ‘Oh come on, sir! It’s not just lack of money I’m talking about, and you know it. It’s the sheer drabness of it all. Just look at it! Anyone can buy a tin of emulsion paint and brighten things up if he wants to.’

  ‘Then obviously, the Pritchards don’t want to. This, incredible as it may seem to us, must be how they like it.’

  ‘Like it!’ Lineham’s face was a study in disbelief.

  ‘From what we’ve seen of Pritchard, I’d guess it’s a question of religious principle. He probably thinks comfort is sinful, an indulgence of the flesh.’

  ‘Is that what they’re like, these Children of Jerusalem?’

  ‘I don’t really know. I’m only judging by some of the things he’s said, and by this place.’

  ‘They meet in that hall in Jubilee Road, don’t they? The one with the green corrugated iron roof?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘They can’t exactly be thriving. The place looks as though it’s about to fall down.’

  ‘They may be going downhill now, but at one time they were a force to be reckoned with in Sturrenden, I believe.’

  ‘How long have they been around?’

  Thanet wrinkled his forehead. ‘I’m not sure exactly. But quite a time. I think I once heard, since the middle of the nineteenth century.’

  ‘As long as that! And presumably they’re not just a local group, if they still have these holiday homes.’

  ‘Quite.’ Thanet shifted restlessly, aware that beneath the apparently innocuous surface of this brief conversation there had been a growing undercurrent of unease. He noticed Lineham glance surreptitiously at his watch.

  ‘Mike, are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  ‘It’s twenty past ten,’ said Lineham flatly.

  ‘And she left the Hodges’ at about nine thirty-five.’

 
; ‘Three-quarters of an hour.’

  ‘For a twenty-minute walk.’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Thanet. ‘Not with two policemen sitting in her own front room, waiting for her.’

  ‘We’re clucking like a pair of mother hens,’ agreed Lineham.

  ‘Suffering, no doubt, from residual anxiety.’

  They rose in unison.

  The brief rest did not appear to have done Pritchard any good. His pallid forehead glistened with sweat in the dim light and his eyes were fixed, staring. The bones of his knuckles shone white through the skin where he gripped the arms of the chair. When he saw Thanet and Lineham he moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. ‘You said she was all right.’ he said, in a near-whisper. And then, with a suddenness that made them both start, he erupted from the chair. ‘If she’s all right,’ he bellowed, raising clenched fists, ‘where is she? You tell me that!’

  It was an effort of will not to flinch from that archetypal figure of despairing wrath.

  ‘We were about to ask you, Mr Pritchard,’ Thanet said calmly, ‘if there was anywhere she might have stopped off, on the way home.’

  The reasonableness of the question and Thanet’s matter-of-fact tone punctured Pritchard’s fear and anger and he seemed to deflate back to normal size. He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Which way would she have come?’

  Pritchard frowned, his eyes unfocused. He shook his head as if to clear it, put one hand up to his temple. ‘Let me see … She’d have turned right out of Mrs Hodges’, then left at the end of Lantern Street into Victoria Road. Then, if she had any sense, she’d have gone to the end of Victoria Road, turned left into St Peter’s Street and left again into Town Road.’

  Thus describing a wide semi-circle, Thanet thought. ‘You said, “If she had any sense …”’

  Pritchard swallowed, as if to control rising nausea. ‘Half way along Victoria Road there’s a short cut. A footpath.’

  A footpath. The word conjured up darkness, a narrow, confined space where shadows lurked at every corner. At this juncture the very word had a dangerous ring to it.