So, where did he go from here? Thanet sighed. The answer was all too familiar: back to the files. Past experience had taught him how easy it was mentally to dismiss something as unimportant, only to find later that it was a tiny but crucial piece of the jigsaw. Somewhere in those mounds of documented facts and statements he might find a chance remark, an innuendo, perhaps even something left unsaid, which could point him in the right direction.
At the moment, he’d be glad to be pointed in any direction.
20
Thanet closed the last of the files, sat back in his chair and massaged his temples. It was nine o’clock and after the long hours of reading his head was aching, his back stiff and his eyes gritty.
And it had all been for nothing.
No bells had rung, no new insight had rewarded his dogged determination to finish the task he had set himself.
He had missed Lineham, too. Normally they did this particular job together, pausing to comment, suggest, argue, speculate with the unconscious ease of long association. Deprived of this stimulation and of Lineham’s value as a sounding-board, Thanet had gradually found himself sinking into a stupefied inertia; ideas either failed to flow or seemed too uninspired to warrant more than passing consideration.
Reminded of the sergeant, Thanet now rang the hospital. After a short delay he was informed that Louise’s labour was progressing satisfactorily but that the birth was not yet imminent. No hope of Lineham returning to the office tonight, then. Thanet stood up and stretched. Time he gave up and went home.
Despite the open window the room was stuffy, stale with tobacco smoke. Thanet folded his arms on the window sill and leaned out, taking in deep breaths of fresh air. The street below was almost deserted, the shop fronts illuminated for the hours of darkness ahead, but above the roof-tops the light still lingered in an oyster-shell sky streaked with apricot and rose. It all looked very peaceful and yet, somewhere out there a murderer walked free, growing daily more confident, perhaps, that his crime would remain unsolved.
As well it might, thought Thanet despondently. Where have I gone wrong? What have I left undone? What have I missed? There must, surely, be something. Perhaps it was merely a question of viewpoint. Thanet was still convinced that this had been no casual killing. There had been no robbery, no sexual assault, no struggle. But the blow which had sent Charity reeling against that wicked piece of iron had caught her unprepared. So what, exactly, had precipitated it?
Thanet stared unseeing over the chimneys of Sturrenden, transported by his imagination back to the narrow alley where Charity had met her death.
Scenario one: Charity and the murderer were walking side by side along the footpath. Tempers were rising, the killer’s anger building inexorably towards flash point.
Thanet frowned and narrowed his eyes, as if intense concentration would reward him with a glimpse of the killer’s face.
With whom would Charity have been quarrelling?
With Veronica, because Veronica was refusing to go along with Charity’s schemes, ever again?
With Mrs Hodges, because she had discovered the reason for Charity and Veronica’s ‘friendship’, and was making it clear that she was not going to allow her daughter to be blackmailed and browbeaten any longer?
With Eileen Chase, because she wanted Charity to leave Mathews alone in future?
With Mathews, because … No, Mathews was now in the clear, remember. And so was Jethro.
With Mrs Jethro, then, because she had found out about her husband’s relationship with Charity and was determined that she and her husband were not going to suffer the ignominy of another court case?
Thanet was no nearer enlightenment and he shook his head wearily. What was the point of going on? But he couldn’t leave it alone. Obsessively, he returned to the darkness of the alley.
Scenario two: the murderer was lying in wait for Charity, poised to spring as the hurried, echoing tattoo of her footsteps came closer and closer …
Well, if that was how it had been, Thanet simply couldn’t visualise either Veronica or her mother crouching there in the shadows with murder in her heart. Eileen Chase? Well, possibly. Thanet was by now even more convinced that Eileen would fight tooth and nail to preserve her last chance of happiness. Mrs Jethro, too, would be a determined and formidable adversary.
But, would either of them be prepared to kill?
In any case, there was no evidence against either of them, and besides, the manner of Charity’s death argued against it having been a premeditated crime. If murder had been planned in advance the killer would surely have come equipped with a weapon, and none had been either used or found.
No, that blow had been struck in anger, Thanet was sure of that. So …
Scenario three: Charity’s murderer comes hurrying along the footpath, either to meet her or to catch her up. For whatever reason he is already in a precarious emotional state, keyed up to challenge her or to present her with an ultimatum, perhaps. They meet, he speaks and then … Ah yes. Then she responds in such a way (with scorn? Contempt? Defiance?) as to cause his self-control to snap.
If indeed it had happened like that, which of his suspects was most likely to fit the bill? All of them, he decided dejectedly. So he was no further forward. But wait! Perhaps he had been too limited, too blinkered in his thinking. Perhaps this was why he hadn’t got anywhere. True, there had so far been no hint of anyone else caught up in Charity’s toils, but that did not necessarily mean that such a person did not exist. Perhaps Thanet had not even met him yet. Or … perhaps the murderer was someone with a familiar face, someone they simply hadn’t thought of casting in this role?
The wail of a fire engine somewhere over to his right briefly penetrated Thanet’s absorption and he automatically turned his head, seeking the glow which would indicate its destination. There was nothing, but the strident signal of danger must have touched the alarm button in his subconscious, because he was suddenly remembering that incident with Ben a couple of days before.
In a kaleidoscope of recollected sound and vision he saw the bicycle rolling towards the open gate, heard the roar of the approaching tractor, his own frantic shouted warning. Again, Ben somersaulted over the handlebars, lay motionless upon the green of the grass verge and, in a miracle of resurrection, scrambled unharmed to his feet. Thanet relived his own relief, anger, shame as the palm of his hand cracked against Ben’s tender flesh.
‘How many times have I told you never to ride down that drive when the gate is open?’
A face that was already familiar … someone in a precarious emotional state …
Illumination was blinding and Thanet straightened up with such a jerk that he struck his head on the lintel. The combination of physical pain and mental dazzlement disorientated him and he staggered, clutching at the windowsill to steady himself.
After a few moments, when he felt more in control, he returned to his desk and sat down, rubbing the back of his head.
Was it possible?
That unique response, familiar to every parent, of intense anxiety instantaneously transmuted into relief and then into anger when the danger is over … Was this what had brought about Charity’s death?
Had she been killed by her own father?
Thanet’s mind raced as he began to test this new theory against the events of that night.
He had never seriously considered Pritchard as a suspect because Pritchard had reported Charity’s disappearance before the crime was committed and because Thanet had therefore had the impression of having had the man under his own surveillance for the entire evening. But now he realised that this was not so. For twenty minutes or so, while Thanet and Lineham were visiting Mrs Hodges, Pritchard had been left at home alone, on Thanet’s own suggestion.
Say that Pritchard, unable to bear the inactivity, had decided to go and look for his daughter along the footpath.
Here was a new scenario indeed: Pritchard advancing slowly, fearful of stumbling at any moment across his daug
hter’s body. After the long hours of slowly-mounting tension he is keyed up to an almost unbearable pitch of anxiety. Then he thinks he recognises the footsteps approaching. Hope burgeons. Can it possibly be Charity?
It is, and at once, now that he is assured of her safety, anxiety is transformed into an overwhelming rush of anger. He demands to know where she has been. And Charity?
What does Charity do?
She, too, is in a state of tension. She knows, from Mrs Hodges, that she has been found out, that there is no possibility this time of covering her tracks, of fobbing her father off with evasions or half-truths. Pritchard is going to want to have chapter and verse, corroboration of her story down to the last detail. And although her rebellion has long been in the making, she is not yet ready for open confrontation. At fifteen she is not equipped for independence and cannot hope to throw off the shackles of home in the same way as her cousin Caleb.
She really has only two options: to try to brazen it out, or to attempt to forestall him by jumping in first with profuse apologies and a plea for forgiveness. In her weakened state it was quite possible, Thanet thought, that she would have opted for the latter, but in any case he was pretty certain that all the way home she would have been bracing herself for the meeting and rehearsing the part she would play.
And then, suddenly, while she was still unprepared, there her father was. It was easy to imagine the rest. Thanet remembered the way he himself had shrunk from the power and impact of Pritchard’s rage in the kitchen that night. One false word from Charity—or even no response at all—and after the long hours of fear and tension Pritchard’s self-control would have snapped. One hard slap would have been enough …
But would Pritchard have left his daughter’s body lying there? Not if he had realised the extent of the damage he had done, but it was extremely unlikely that he should have known of the existence of that broken latch and it was possible that after striking Charity, unable to trust himself further, he had at once wheeled blindly away and hurried home to await her return.
Thanet now remembered that when he and Lineham had arrived back at the Pritchard’s house after seeing Mrs Hodges, Pritchard had been waiting in the hall. At the time, Thanet had assumed that this was because the man was eager to hear their news, but perhaps he had only just got home and had really been waiting for Charity to turn up. And when Thanet had assured him that Charity was safe, Pritchard’s relief—which Thanet had attributed to the information that Mrs Hodges had recently seen the girl—could have been because he thought that Thanet was saying that he had seen Charity since the scene in the alley, and that no harm had been done. And then, when Pritchard had realised that this was not so … this must have been the point at which he had begun to be afraid that that blow had done more damage than he had intended.
Thanet mentally reviewed the remainder of the events of that evening and saw that all along Pritchard’s behaviour had been entirely consistent with this new interpretation of events. It was Thanet’s own assumptions as to the man’s motivation, his own misinterpretations of Pritchard’s behaviour, that had led him astray.
Yes, the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that he had hit upon the truth. He had always felt that Pritchard’s sanity was balanced on a knife-edge, imperilled by religious fanaticism and dangerously unrealistic expectations of those about him. Thanet still believed that in his own way Pritchard had loved his daughter and had genuinely tried to do what he believed to be best for her. In Pritchard’s eyes Charity had been a brand to be plucked from the burning and it had been his duty, however unpleasant, to ensure her salvation. How shattering it must have been to find his worst fears confirmed, to see Charity lying dead in that alley and to realise that he himself had killed her. Scarcely surprising, then, that his raw, agonised exhibition of grief had been almost too painful to witness.
What effect would the realisation that he had killed his own daughter have had upon such a man? Would he be crushed by guilt, sorrow and remorse—or would he seek to justify himself?
Thanet remembered what Miss Foskett had told him, recalled Mrs Pritchard’s account of Charity’s harsh punishment all those years ago, and wondered: would Pritchard have tried to persuade himself of his innocence by trying to convince himself that in striking out at Charity he had really been attacking the devil that was in her?
Thanet had come across religious fanaticism before and was only too well aware of its capacity for self-deception and delusion. Nevertheless the man would have realised that the police would not be prepared to accept this excuse as justification for murder and would have been on tenterhooks in case they discovered the truth—or, for that matter, in case anyone discovered the truth.
Mrs Pritchard, for instance?
Thanet suddenly recalled Mrs Pritchard’s appearance when he had seen her leaving her sister-in-law’s house, this morning. She had looked distraught, on the verge of disintegration. He had attributed her distress to natural shock and grief, but what if it had had a more sinister origin? He remembered now that she had seemed to want to tell him something, but had held back. And he, intent upon his errand, had made nothing of it. Assuming that Pritchard had indeed killed his daughter, what if Mrs Pritchard had begun to suspect the truth?
Thinking back to his previous conversation with her, Thanet began to wonder if he himself could have been responsible for arousing such suspicions. He still believed that this whole tragic train of events had been set in motion when Charity had been cowed into apparent submission by her father’s harsh and misguided treatment. He had not actually said so to Mrs Pritchard, but it would not have been too difficult for her to work it out for herself after he left. What if, having done so, she had finally shed her stubborn loyalty to her husband and begun to blame him for what had happened? Not for the murder, of course. Thanet was certain that at that point Mrs Pritchard would not have suspected him of that. But she could have begun to hold him responsible for setting Charity on the wrong road, the road which had led her to deceit and, finally, to death.
And if so, Thanet was sure that her attitude to her husband would have changed. Mrs Pritchard had loved her daughter. Once she had begun to blame Pritchard for Charity’s death her change of attitude would have filtered through into her behaviour. What if Pritchard had misinterpreted the reason for that change? What if he had assumed that his wife had begun to suspect him of Charity’s murder? Thanet could envisage only too well a conversation begun at cross-purposes and ending, on Mrs Pritchard’s part, in horrified enlightenment. And although she may at one time have been prepared to justify her husband’s behaviour, Thanet could not believe that she would now be prepared to do so. To condone punishment was one thing, but murder, and of her own child … No, she would have been bound to condemn him.
And how would Pritchard have reacted to that? Here, surely, was a highly explosive situation. Had Thanet unwittingly put Mrs Pritchard herself in danger?
Thanet rose and began to pace about the room. If only he were able to discuss all this with Lineham. Perhaps the entire fabric of the case he had built up against Pritchard was no more than the product of an over-heated imagination. But he didn’t think so. There was an essential rightness about it which both elated and appalled him. Because if he were right, Pritchard was not to be trusted and Mrs Pritchard must be warned, convinced of the necessity of removing herself to safety.
Was he being alarmist? Should he go and see her now, tonight? Or should he sleep on it, wait till morning?
But if he did, and harm came to her, he would never forgive himself for not having tried to prevent it. He would go. At least, then, he would be able to gauge the emotional temperature, see how things stood between them.
He hurried out to the car park.
21
Well before he reached Town Road Thanet realised that, somewhere in the quiet residential area ahead, something was amiss. An ambulance overtook him, its blue light flashing, and he began to notice small knots of pedestrians hurryi
ng in the same direction. He was aware of the strange osmosis by which news of disaster spreads, and he began to feel as though he and all these others were being sucked into the same maleficent vortex.
He was driving with the window open and simultaneously he smelt smoke and remembered the siren he had heard shortly before leaving the office. A fire, then. Impatiently, he repudiated the idea that there could be any connection between his mission and the emergency ahead. But he failed to convince himself. If his theory was correct, Pritchard had been living on a short fuse. What more likely than that the situation had now exploded?
He turned the last corner before the entrance to Town Road and saw that ahead of him the sightseers had come to a halt against a cordon of uniformed police, like detritus washed against a sea wall. Abandoning his car he jumped out and shouldered his way through the crowd, ignoring the indignant protests from all sides. Within seconds he had been recognised and was allowed through. Noting with a sinking sense of inevitability that the furious activity ahead was indeed centred on or near the Pritchards’ house, he set off at a run. All along the street the inhabitants of Town Road had come out on to the pavements to enjoy their grandstand view.
It was the Pritchards’ house. And the fire had really got a hold. The doorway was an orange gateway to hell and long, forked tongues of flame licked hungrily at the brickwork through window spaces from which the glass had long since exploded. Arching jets of water were being directed into the house through every opening, but the firemen had no doubt been hampered in their task by the fact that these houses had no rear access. The fire could be fought on one front only, and it seemed that someone must be trapped inside, for the men were now setting ladders against the eaves.
Close Her Eyes Page 21