by Ann Cleeves
George remembered that night and the white, sobbing boy. If only he had known, then. He knew that the boy had been ready to confide in him. If only he had said the right words, had had the ability to inspire a little trust. But then nothing, really, would have been very different. He had a sudden vision then of the remand centre where Dennis Shawcroft had been held, the long walls and the smell and the uniforms. The hospital would not be very different.
“But why me?” Sally said suddenly. “I don’t understand what he had against me!”
She coddled Barnaby close to her in a fierce, involuntary gesture.
“Your involvement in it confused me all the way through. It was an unhappy coincidence, but it was all, in a way, provoked by Tom, who tried too hard with people, who couldn’t relax with them. You couldn’t tell me about Peter because you were frightened for him, and you couldn’t explain why you were so obliged to Tom because Peter was involved. Bernard Cranshaw wrote unpleasant letters to you because he hated Tom, and because he was jealous of him, and, in a way, of you. You both represented a freedom which he could never attain. But he seemed to me too weak to hurt Tom. Even when he was trying to scare the birders off the marsh he never really meant to hurt them. When he tried to hurt his mother he only bruised her. And his hatred for you and Tom was too close to love for him to contemplate doing you any real harm.
“Adam has always been too controlled. He would never let off an airgun, or have an argument. He kept his resentment to himself.
“His attempt on Sally’s life was another attempt to protect himself. Our belief in his story depended on our being convinced that he was pushed. If we believed that he was pushed, our attention was directed away from Adam as the possible murderer. But Sally had seen Adam in Fenquay on the day of his supposed accident, and he was on his own. He also had a coil of nylon rope with him. In fact Sally didn’t see whether or not Adam had a companion, and she didn’t see the rope. But he didn’t know that.
“I think that he brooded about Sally spotting him in Fenquay and began to see her as a real threat. He was with us when we were discussing Sally’s relationship with Peter and decided to use that knowledge to lure her out on to the marsh. After I’d left him in the Windmill he went and sat on the shingle bank, and began talking to some young lads. There were a lot of strangers in Rushy that day, come to see the bee-eater. Adam pretended to be called Peter Littleton and asked one of the boys to give the message to Sally. Then he set off in the opposite direction, with Molly following him.”
He smiled at his wife.
“He gave me the slip,” she said ruefully. “I’m not as young as I was. I followed him inland, right out of the village. He took that narrow lane which goes to the church, and then turns into a footpath, and eventually joins the Dereham road. You know that all the roads out of Rushy climb a bit. I was getting short of breath. I stopped and looked back over Rushy and saw that the mist was moving in from the sea. When I looked back Adam seemed to have disappeared. I thought for a while that he was hiding, for a joke.
“Then I saw him running down the main road towards the marsh. I knew I’d never catch him, but I walked down the hill after him. I heard him, in fact, before I saw him. The track into the marsh forms a sort of embankment and he must have climbed down into the reeds. By that time I’d walked out of the sun into a thick mist, and he didn’t see me. I don’t think he would have noticed me anyway. He was talking to himself. It was quite horrible. I heard mud and shingle splashing into water. He must have climbed on to the track ahead of me. I suppose that he could hear Sally further on. Of course I had no idea she was there. You all know what happened next.”
Sally leant over and took Molly’s hand. Barnaby stirred and smiled. Peter took him and held the baby over his head. Barnaby giggled and pulled at Peter’s hair.
They went then, leaving Peter, Sally and Barnaby in the garden together.
Again, the notion of a funeral returned to George. Like distant relatives who leave hushed voices and reverent thoughts in the church, they began to talk normally of ordinary things. Away from the influence of Sally and the cottage, Rob and Tina were making plans to return to Southampton. They began to laugh together at a private joke, and George realized how little the whole business had affected them. He had thought that Tina was attached to Adam. He had been concerned for her, but they were young and tough. They would have no nightmares.
Rob swung his cheap, nasty binoculars over his shoulder and said:
“Right. Back to Rushy now, I think, and the Windmill. To find out if there’s anything about.”
George, who was driving, was not offended by this command, or by the young people’s resilience. He would have nightmares enough for all of them.
Copyright
First published in 1986 by Century
This edition published 2013 by Bello
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Copyright © Ann Cleeves, 1986
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