by Penny Kline
‘Anna McColl,’ I said.
‘Yes, of course.’ Her speech was a little slurred, as if she were not yet fully awake. ‘Sally’s told me all about you.’ She bent to remove a length of grass that had stuck to the bottom of her bare foot. ‘You’re a psychologist, whatever that may mean.’
When I drew level I could smell alcohol on her breath. So that was what the cleaner had meant when she’d said her employer was ‘indisposed’. How bad a drinking problem did she have? Very bad if it began this early in the morning.
Sally was standing a short distance away, leaning over a large run made out of chicken wire stretched over a wooden frame.
‘Guinea pigs,’ said Erica Luckham. ‘They breed like — well, like guinea pigs, I suppose. My son had the first pair. He’s potty about animals. Have you met him? I suppose the policeman told you all about us, not that there’s much to tell.’ She adjusted the belt of her dressing gown, but not before I had received a full view of her large, sun-tanned breasts. In spite of the fact that she had not bothered to dress she had made an effort with her make-up, concentrating mostly on her eyes, which were surrounded by slightly shaky black lines and two shades of green. Her dark brown hair was flecked with grey and there were deep frown marks between her eyes, but she was still what people call ‘a handsome woman’.
‘What time is it?’ she asked, glancing at her wrist, then realizing she had forgotten to put on her watch. ‘Heavens, I’ve no idea.’ Her voice was deep, almost masculine, but perhaps it was the effect of the gin. I had a distinct feeling that, at any moment, she might either burst into tears, or laugh hysterically.
Sally had one of the guinea pigs clasped in her two hands. Its nose protruded between her fingers and it was letting out high-pitched squeaks, but I noticed a calm, relaxed expression on Sally’s face that I had never seen before. Smoothing back the animal’s fur, she held it to her cheek, rubbing her face against it, then passed it to me.
‘Coffee?’ said Mrs Luckham. ‘Now what was it you wanted to know?’
‘No coffee, thanks. Superintendent Fry left a message to say Sally had remembered something and wanted to talk to me. Then perhaps I could have a quick word with you before I leave.’
‘With me? In that case I suppose I’d better get some clothes on. Sally, darling, make Dr McColl a cup of coffee, and while you’re at it, you can make some for me.’
After she left I put the guinea pig back with its relatives, then asked Sally to tell me all their names.
‘That’s Matthew.’ She indicated a brown and white one, sitting on its own, licking its stomach. ‘Then there’s Ruth, Joseph, Esther. The one you were holding is called Salome, she’s a long-haired Peruvian. Daddy gave her to me.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry about your father, you must miss him a lot.’
‘He was fifty-one,’ she said, almost in the tone that people use, following the death of someone in their eighties or nineties. ‘Mummy’s only forty-three. Shall I tell you what I remembered? It’s about the car. There was a map on the seat, only not the one of Bristol the lady had in her hand.’ She had pulled down her sweatshirt until it reached almost to her knees. When it started to ride up she gave it another tug. ‘I think it might have been Manchester.’
‘Manchester?’
She nodded uncertainly. ‘Something beginning with M.’
‘Anything else? Can you remember any more about the driver?’
‘No, nothing.’ She pulled a leaf off a nearby bush. ‘Honestly, if I could I’d tell you. I mean, why wouldn't I?’
‘It’s all right, I know you’re doing your best.’
‘Yes, I am. I promise I am.’ She had started walking towards a small summer house. I caught up with her, just as she pulled open the door and peered inside.
‘What does that smell remind you of?’ she asked. ‘I suppose it’s something Daddy used, to preserve the wood, but every time I smell it I think of the house where we used to live.’
‘Where was that?’
She looked surprised, as if she expected me to know every detail of the family’s past history. ‘Near Axbridge,’ she said, ‘only it was different then. Daddy had all these friends who did painting or wrote poetry or played the violin. There was this man who wore a cloak. I think he had a bit of a thing about Mummy, only not really.’
‘What was he called?’ I could see something lying in the long grass. It would have been a dead bird, or perhaps it was just a curled-up leaf.
‘What?’ Sally seemed to have forgotten the question. ‘Oh, the man in the cloak. Julian, no Jules. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He moved to London and married someone he met on a bus.’
I wondered if her reminiscences were leading up to another revelation about the ‘abductor’. It seemed unlikely, but at least she was starting to sound more at ease with me. Howard would have said now was the time to start putting on the pressure, softening her up, then coming out with a shock question that demanded an instant response.
‘This is a lovely garden,’ I said. ‘Does your mother look after it?’
Sally’s head jerked round. ‘She used to, she loves gardening, but she hasn’t been well. James used to mow the lawn, then he saw an advert in a shop window, someone who really needed the work.’
I nodded. I was wondering why James was too busy to cut the grass himself, but presumably he was either in bed — or following people across the Downs in his mustard Capri.
‘He’s quite nice,’ said Sally, and for a moment I was not certain who she was talking about.
‘Oh, you mean the gardener.’
Her nose twitched. ‘I don't think he’s that much older than James, but he’s got a moustache and a hairy chest. His name’s Col, I suppose it’s short for Colin.’
‘Do you have any friends who come round to the house?’
‘What?’ She sighed. ‘No, I haven’t been at my new school very long. There is one girl, she’s called Abigail. I thought we were friends but I think she and Tara are best friends now. Anyway, she thinks I’m a wimp.’
‘I wouldn’t take any notice,’ I said, experiencing a sudden rush of pity as I caught sight of her sad, resigned expression. ‘I expect you’ll make some friends next term.’
A man was coming through a side gate. ‘That’s him,’ whispered Sally, ‘that’s Col. I thought he’d be here soon.’
‘He works on Saturdays?’
‘Yes, I think he’s got some other jobs too.’ Her eyes were shining. I had never seen her looking so happy.
The man waved, then strolled towards the summer house. ‘He’s going to make a bigger run for the guinea pigs,’ said Sally. ‘James said it was a waste of money but Col said he’d do it for nothing.’ She stared at me, as if to impress on me that there were some kind people in the world. Then she laughed. ‘James is all right really, it’s just, well, since Daddy died …’ But she never finished the sentence. Col had picked up the dead bird and was carrying it by one wing. A moment later he threw it over the hedge into the next-door garden.
‘It was their cat what killed it,’ he said, with a grin, ‘so I reckon they can have it back.’
When we returned to the house Erica was in the drawing room, half inside a cupboard that looked like part of the wall panelling, searching through a pile of shoes. Her dressing gown had been exchanged for a white blouse and a pale blue skirt, both of which were slightly too tight.
‘D’you have trouble with your feet?’ she asked. ‘No, I don’t suppose you do. When I was a girl the fashions were much prettier, more feminine, but they ruined your toes.’ She sat on a low stool, pushing her foot into a navy blue sling-back sandal, like one of the ugly sisters trying on the glass slipper. Except there was nothing ugly about Erica Luckham. Once she had been extremely good-looking; then something had made her drown her sorrows with the help of large quantities of alcohol.
‘Tom used to paint me, you know. Oh, I’m talking about twenty years ago when his work meant everything to hi
m. Before he met Neil Hyatt.’ Her eyes drifted round the expensively furnished room. ‘We used to live in the country. Have you ever lived in the country? The children prefer it here. So did Tom. Well, I thought he did.’
Was she trying to tell me her husband had been depressed? Sufficiently depressed to have …
‘Everyone adored Tom,’ she said. ‘Everyone. You’ve met people like it, I expect. Larger than life, a wonderful husband and father. Of course, after he and Neil Hyatt found a way of cornering the market … Oh, take no notice, no doubt it was always on the cards.’ She gave a kind of snort. ‘They say the country would collapse without its voluntary workers.’
It was difficult to follow what she was saying. Who was Neil Hyatt? Someone who organized voluntary work? How had he and Tom Luckham managed to corner the market?
‘We seem to be moving back to how it was in the old days,’ said Erica, stretching out her arms, then letting them drop. ‘You disapprove, I expect. For political reasons or because you mistrust amateurs and think all welfare work should be professionalized?’
‘No, I don’t think …’ I began, but she never gave me a chance to answer any of her questions.
‘You say you’ve met James?’ She had hauled herself into a chair and was sitting with her head thrown back, patting her neck with her finger tips, as if it was some kind of exercise designed to get rid of a double chin. A pile of glossy magazines lay on the floor near her feet, along with a half-eaten box of Turkish delight. ‘James is artistic too,’ she said, ‘at least I used to think he was. He was out on the tiles last night, haven’t seen sight nor sound of him since.’
‘He hasn’t come home?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing to worry about, he does it all the time. Crashes out on someone’s floor. Crashes out, that’s what they call it. He has friends all over Bristol, some of them the most frightful-looking people. You probably think I’m a negligent parent, but quite honestly I’ve given up.’
‘Well, he’s eighteen, isn’t he? I expect he can take care of himself.’
‘Whatever that may mean.’ She looked me up and down. ‘You haven’t any children? You know when I was given your name I pictured someone rather different. Dr McColl sounds terribly grand. You’re all doctors, are you, you psychologist people?’
I opened my mouth to explain, but once again she didn’t seem to want an answer.
She was reaching out, inviting her daughter to come and sit on the arm of her chair. ‘Sally had a sudden flash of inspiration, didn’t you, darling?’
‘It was because of something Abigail once told me,’ said Sally. ‘You have to close your eyes and pretend you’re looking at a blank piece of paper. You have to empty your mind, then wait and see what comes into it.’
‘And it worked,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. There was something else. I can remember the colour of the car now too. It was blue, dark blue, and there was a dent in the door.’
‘Which door?’
The question seemed to throw her. ‘The front one. Yes, it must have been the front one. When the car stopped, before the woman got out.’
‘Was it a large dent?’
‘No. I’m not sure. Quite large.’
‘As if something had bumped into the car?’
‘What?’ She glanced at her mother, but Erica had closed her eyes and was breathing so heavily I wondered if she had fallen asleep.
‘Don’t worry,’ I told Sally. ‘I just wondered if the dent had removed any of the paint.’ I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back, and a moment later she was on her way out of the room. She couldn’t take any more, or was Howard right, had she invented the ‘abduction’ as a way of getting her family’s attention? God knows, with no father, and a mother who spent most of her time either in bed or in a drunken stupor, she had good reason to take drastic action. Perhaps she had wanted to impress Abigail, the girl she had hoped was going to be her friend, although if that had been her intention it didn’t seem to have worked.
Still with her eyes shut, Erica asked if Sally had been any help.
‘Yes, I hope so.’ I said. ‘Any information about the car, or its driver.’
‘Is she making some coffee?’ We both paused, listening for sounds coming from the kitchen, but the house was silent.
‘James was going to be a marine biologist,’ said Erica, ‘then staying on at school became a bit of a drag. I expect he’ll settle down sooner or later, what do you think?’
This time she seemed to want an answer. ‘Yes, I expect so.’
‘You know, you can learn a lot from soap operas,’ she said, running the last two words together, then repeating them more slowly. ‘No doubt you think they’re frightfully silly, but at least they keep you in touch with the different generations and the kind of things people do these days. That’s why I know there’s nothing much the matter with my son.’
‘You and Sally watch the soap operas, do you?’ I asked, hoping it was one way they spent some regular time together.
‘Sally,’ she said vaguely. ‘I’ve been wondering, d’you think it’s a mistake to have all your money tied up in property, or will things get back to normal if we all hang on?’
The way she kept changing the subject, it was almost as if she had grown bored with what had happened to Sally, but was quite enjoying having someone else to talk to.
‘James,’ she said, returning to what seemed to be her favourite subject, ‘seems quite happy, just visiting friends, listening to tapes and those CD things. He doesn’t play an instrument, never showed the slightest inclination to become a musician, but I expect he’d like to gyrate on a stage. Isn’t that what they all want?’ She opened the lid of a box of plain chocolates on the coffee table next to her chair, then realized the box was empty and dropped it into a leather waste-paper bin.
Is James the kind of boy who would send someone a threatening cassette? It was hardly a question I could put to his mother.
‘Sally seems to be feeling a little better,’ I said.
‘Perhaps, in a day or two, she’ll feel confident enough to go out, see some friends.’
‘What friends?’ Erica stood up, smoothing her skirt over her hips. ‘Best to just forget all about it, wouldn’t you say, like falling off a horse and climbing straight back on again.’
‘She seems quite friendly with the man who mows your lawn.’
‘What about him?’ She sounded irritated, as if she thought I had stirred up quite enough trouble for one day. ‘James got his name off some advert at the newsagent. Seems efficient enough, reasonably hard-working. You know, you want to take what Sally tells you with a pinch of salt. She spends too much time on her own, and adamantly refuses to join the Guides or whatever girls her age do these days.’
‘You think she’s lonely?’
‘Lonely? I was just explaining how she prefers her own company.’ She pointed to a small picture on the wall that I had failed to notice before. ‘One of Tom’s landscapes, painted when he was very young, only just out of art school. What d’you think?’
I stood up to study it more closely. ‘It’s Dorset, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, you know that area.’ She seemed pleased. ‘Later, he moved on to a more abstract phase, but he never abandoned his watercolours altogether, not until he met Neil Hyatt. Flash Harry, I called him. No aesthetic feeling whatsoever, but you couldn’t fault his business sense. Had Tom churning out prints by the dozen. Of course it was all very lucrative.’
‘You needed the money?’
She pressed her finger against her upper lip, as if to prevent a sneeze. ‘I suppose so. Who knows? We’d never been badly off, not with the investments Tom made, but perhaps they’d lost some of their value, or perhaps …’ She stood up and joined me near the small watercolour. ‘You know Stephen Bryce, don’t you? Poor Ros, when I think what happened I could spit.’
Did she mean Stephen’s decision to leave the parish, or was she talking about something else? I never had th
e chance to find out. By the time she had finished the sentence she was halfway through the patio door and there was no question of my being invited to accompany her into the garden.
When I left, Sally was standing on the pavement, close to where I had left my car.
‘All right?’ I asked, but there was no reply and when I looked at her more closely I could see that she was clenching and unclenching her jaw. ‘Look, don’t worry, no one expects miracles. It’s good you’ve remembered as much as you have.’
She raised her head and stared into the distance, gazing at the trees at the top of the Avon Gorge. ‘Will I have to go to court?’
‘Only if they catch the person who —’
‘But they won’t, will they?’
‘Is that what you’re afraid of?’ I meant the court, but she took it to mean she was frightened her attacker might come back for her.
‘I haven’t been out on my own since it happened. Abigail phoned. She’s my friend from school, well, sort of. She wants me to go round, to tell her what happened, only her father’s away and her mother’s lost her licence.’
‘Couldn’t your mother take you?’ Was she angling for a lift? If it wasn’t too far I probably had time. But who would bring her home?
‘No, it’s all right, I’ll ask James, only, the thing is, no one knows where he is.’
‘I expect he’ll be back soon.’
‘Yes.’ Her eyes had a far-away look and when she spoke again her voice was so quiet I had to read her lips. ‘Will you be coming again?’
She looked so worried, but I was not sure if it was because she thought she might be asked more questions, or because she was afraid it was my last visit.
‘D’you want me to come back?’
Her head moved. It could have been a nod. ‘Do you think Daddy was murdered?’ Then, without waiting for an answer, she ran back through the gate, across a patch of rough grass and disappeared round the side of the house.
*
Bristol Temple Meads. I could see my father through the swing doors. He was wearing his usual dark grey trousers, but the jacket was new, and so were the thick-soled shoes. He glanced at his watch, then up at the arrivals board.