by Penny Kline
‘If I were you,’ I said cautiously, ‘I think I might feel quite angry.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I am. You don’t have to tiptoe round my feelings. I’m forty, nearly forty-one. In a manner of speaking my whole life’s been devoted to the Church, now I’m …’ She held up her hand. ‘No, don’t try and reassure. I can see you’re an intelligent woman, and if we’re going to get on we must talk on equal terms.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Tom Luckham,’ she said suddenly. ‘Stephen said you’d met the family. He was an amazing person, I doubt if I’ve met anyone with so much energy.’
‘So I keep hearing.’
Her head shot up. ‘Yes, well, I’m sure you would.’ She stretched out a foot to retrieve the flat brown shoe that had slipped off one of her feet. ‘Stephen thinks I blamed Tom for his decision to leave the Church, but that’s nonsense.’
I waited for her to go on, but she was staring at me, willing me to ask questions.
‘I believe you’re staying with a friend at present, near Bath.’
‘Not a friend exactly. What constitutes a friend? They say someone’s only a real friend when you’ve fallen out with her, then made it up. Livvy and I have known each other for several years but I’d never confide in her, it’s not that sort of a friendship, and in any case she’s quite enough problems of her own.’
‘Yes, I see.’ I cut her short, afraid she might be planning to spend the rest of the time talking about her friend, just as Stephen Bryce had talked about her ‘It can’t be easy for you, not being in your own home.’
‘No, it’s not easy, but why should everything be easy?’ She was glaring at me, then suddenly she relented and managed a weak smile. ‘If I’m honest, I suppose I went to stay with Livvy precisely because of her problems. It was infinitely preferable to thinking about mine. Well, that’s how you’d see it, isn’t it? Of course, Livvy adored Tom. She talks about him all the time.’
‘Did Mr Luckham know about Stephen’s book? I mean, had he read it?’
She frowned. ‘Yes, I suppose so, they spent enough time together. As different as chalk from cheese, but that’s no bad thing from the point of view of the parishioners.’
‘I believe Tom Luckham was very active in the parish.’ I remembered what Bruce had said, but wanted Ros to think I knew nothing, apart from what Stephen had told me.
‘Like all new converts, Tom was something of an idealist, but he was no fool. He believed that unless you took the teaching of the Bible very seriously indeed you were heading for the slippery slope.’ Her hands were clasped together so tightly that the knuckles showed white. She became aware of where I was looking and let them drop to her lap. ‘I’m talking about the New Testament, of course. Tom was no fundamentalist, going on about the Garden of Eden, but he liked to quote from St Matthew, chapter five, verse forty-four: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” If he’d had his way I believe he’d have given up all his material possessions and lived a simple life. Like Jesus, I suppose.’
A shudder ran through her body and she adjusted her position on her chair, folded her hands on her lap, and sat up very straight. ‘Now, what are you supposed to do for me? I have a feeling the Job Centre might’ve been more appropriate. One ex-vicar’s wife, unemployed, with no dependants, the minimum of qualifications and no prospects whatsoever.’
*
I had promised my father I would try and find him a projector for his wildlife slides, which were not the usual 35mm variety but needed a special medium-format model. Flicking through the photography section in one of the free-ad newspapers I became guiltily aware of the person behind the counter and decided I had better buy a copy.
The woman had a streaming cold and as she took the money, she turned her head, overcome by a fit of coughing.
‘You ought to be in bed,’ I said.
‘Who with?’ She pressed a wad of tissues to her mouth, and at the same moment a voice behind me spoke my name.
Turning round sharply I found myself face to face with James Luckham.
‘Just been visiting a friend,’ he said, unconvincingly.
‘How did you know where I worked?’
He opened his mouth to say bumping into me had been pure coincidence, then changed his mind. ‘Will you be seeing my sister again?’
‘It depends.’
‘On what?’ He had a tiny mole on his cheek bone, and another just below his lower lip. Close to, he was just as good looking as I remembered, but they were the kind of looks that are better on a young boy than an older man. Smooth skin, turned up nose, wide apart eyes. I wondered if his father had had a similar appearance, if part of Tom Luckham’s appeal had been animal magnetism rather than the fact he was such a wonderfully selfless person.
‘Depends on what?’ James repeated.
‘Whether Sally remembers anything new. Whether the police gain additional information about the other case and need the answer to a particular question.’
We had left the newsagent’s and were standing outside a bakery, with its window full of pink meringues with faces, and those cakes in the shape of pyramids, covered in jam and slivers of coconut.
James leaned against the glass. ‘She’s only a kid,’ he said, ‘don’t you think she’s been through enough?’
I wasn’t sure if he meant the incident with the car, or whether he was referring to his father’s death as well.
‘That’s why I was asked to talk to her,’ I said. ‘The police thought I might be less intimidating.’
‘I thought they had policewomen trained for that kind of thing. Psychologists usually seem to make a balls-up of it when they’re brought in on a serious crime.’
‘What is it you want, James?’ I asked. ‘I can’t believe you’ve come all this way to try and warn me off. You must know perfectly well it won’t make any difference. Oh, and by the way, are you interested in pop music, I mean, do you play the guitar or anything?’
He didn’t even blink. Perhaps he had known what was coming or perhaps he really was as innocent as he looked. ‘Why d’you want to know?’
‘Oh, no particular reason. Someone sent me a cassette.’
‘What of?’
‘That’s just it. It was a recording of a recording, or I suppose it could be an amateur group, although they sounded reasonably professional.’
He looked a little uneasy. ‘So you’ll be round at the house again. How much has Sally told you about our father?’
‘Very little. I expect she finds it painful, talking about him.’
James gave a kind of snort, then turned it into a cough. ‘I was wondering how much you knew about the circumstances of his death. I don’t suppose it’s even occurred to you that what happened to Sally could be connected to my father’s so-called accident.’
He had taken the trouble to track me down, but he still felt obliged to maintain his confrontational manner.
‘Look, James, if there’s something you want to tell me, why not just say it straight?’
‘Whose side are you on?’
‘I’m not on anybody’s side, I’m trying to help Sally.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, you just want her to come up with something you can pass on to that half-witted Inspector. If they’d found out who killed my father none of this stuff with Sally would ever have happened. You’d never have been brought in on the case.’
*
My phone was ringing when I reached the flat. It was someone who wanted to send me a brochure about alarm systems. He had all the facts and figures, designed to scare potential customers into handing over excessive amounts of money, but I put the phone down in the middle of his spiel. Then it started ringing again.
‘Yes.’ I didn’t really think it was the same man, pretending we had been cut off, but neither did I have time to adjust my exasperated tone of voice.
‘Dr McColl? This is Stephen Bryce. Look, I reali
ze I’ve no right to phone you at home. As a matter of fact I was surprised you were in the book, I thought you’d be ex-directory, and in case you think I’m checking up on my wife, this has absolutely nothing to do with Ros.’
‘Good.’ To my surprise Ros had made another appointment, in a fortnight’s time, but I wasn’t going to tell Stephen about it.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘now that Ros is your patient it would be quite wrong for me to have any contact with you, as a client I mean. That’s why I decided to phone you at home, rather than at the office.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The reason I’m ringing … it’s about Tom Luckham. I know your main concern is what happened to Sally, but now you’ve met the family you must have realized how shattered they are, not just by Tom’s death but because the coroner at the inquest got it all so terribly wrong.’
‘If you know something, you should go to the police.’ But he had no intention of being put off by my tone of voice.
‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet,’ he said, ‘a girl Tom was helping at the time of his death. She lives in Eastfield, in a hostel that provides temporary accommodation for single mothers and their babies. I call round now and again, just to see how she is. I feel I owe it to Tom. Anyway, when I saw her yesterday she told me something I think might be important.’
‘What?’
There was a short pause. ‘Her name’s Clare Kilpatrick. Look, if I could think of any other way … I told her how you’ve been interviewing Sally, how you’ve connections with the police, and I got the impression —’
‘Why can’t she talk to the police herself?’
‘Oh, she’d never do that.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘I could pick you up in my car, it wouldn’t take long.’
What game was he playing? Since giving up his job he must have found it hard to adjust to having so much spare time. Was the retired clergyman, who had agreed to fill in until a replacement was found, aware that the ex-vicar was still visiting parishioners? I made a few more token protests, but I knew I was going to give in to Stephen’s request, although ‘giving in’ was hardly the correct way to describe my increasing interest in Tom Luckham’s death.
‘Not this evening,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow, seven-thirty, but I won’t be able to stay long.’ I had nothing else planned, it was just a feeble way of keeping the upper hand.
‘Thanks.’ He sounded inordinately grateful. ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then and, don’t worry, I haven’t the slightest intention of asking you about Ros.’
After he rang off I found the old Morocco-bound Bible my father had given me when I was still at school, and looked up St Matthew, chapter five, verse forty-four. Ros Bryce had quoted the right chapter, but the wrong verse. Verse forty-four had a rather different message from the one about letting your light shine before all men, but it was unlikely that her mistake had any particular significance. I read it aloud, remembering the long-ago days when my brother and I had sat between our parents on a shiny wooden pew, standing for the hymns, kneeling for the prayers.
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.
If Ros Bryce was trying to tell me something, was it about Stephen or Tom Luckham? Or was she thinking about herself?
Chapter Eight
Plenty of clients were late for their appointments but only Lloyd was always exactly seven minutes overdue each time. With another client this might have been something we discussed, but Lloyd, who was sixteen, would have insisted, to his last dying breath, that it was just that he was bad at timing things and had forgotten to look at his watch.
I could hear him on the stairs — he never bothered to tell Heather he had arrived — and a moment later he knocked loudly on the half-open door, strode into the room and slumped in a chair.
‘Take a look.’ He started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘Best it’s been for weeks.’
It was true. The area under each armpit that he had picked raw had receded until each of the sore places was less than the size of a small saucer.
‘You win,’ I said. ‘Still, I doubt if it’ll last. You’ve had a good week but you’ll find it difficult to keep it up.’
He looked at me suspiciously. ‘Some kind of trick, ain’t it?’ Then he grinned. ‘Had your hair cut. Makes you look dead sexy. Hey, I was going to ask you — most women, what do they like, a bloke who tells ’em what’s what, or one what does what he’s told?’
‘Is that a serious question?’
‘Well, they can'’ have it both ways.’
Things were following the normal pattern. Lloyd took the lead, trying to provoke me, then claiming that since I was a psychologist he ought to be allowed to say whatever he liked.
‘To get back to your chest, Lloyd, how was it you managed to leave the scabs alone for two whole weeks?’
‘Did what you said. Fixed me mind on something else. That film where the guy rapes this woman and she catches him and locks him in a cage. Seen it?’
‘Yes, I saw it.’
‘What she done to him, I mean, humiliating him like that and —’
‘What d’you think he’d done to her?’ I had fallen into the trap again. ‘Anyway, I’m glad your skin’s healing up so well.’
‘Yeah, but it don’t solve nothing, do it? Don’t explain why I started picking at it in the first place.’
‘No, that’s true, but it could have started with a rash or a minor injury and the habit caught hold.’
For some reason, mention of the rape victim had started me thinking about the woman who had stolen my bag. Every so often the incident came back into my mind; it had left a nasty shocked feeling that was taking a time to fade. Was it even remotely possible that the thief and Sally Luckham’s ‘abductor’ were one and the same person, and if so, could that person also have been responsible for sending the cassette?
One of Lloyd’s boots was resting on the table. He followed my eyes, then laughed, withdrawing his leg and sitting with his knees pressed together. ‘Thought since I was here, seeing you, that meant what I done to meself must be psychological.’
‘What I said, if you remember, was that it could mean you were under some kind of stress.’
‘Oh, I’m that all right.’ He jumped up and pressed his face to the window. ‘What you said — you could find the cause, what started it off in the first place, or you could find a way of getting rid of the habit.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So let’s find what done it. I reckon it’s my brother. He keeps me awake half the night, snoring and other stuff. Reckon if you told my mum I needed a room of my own.’ Suddenly his voice had gone quiet and the hand inside his jacket had started scratching at his shirt. ‘Reckon if you wanted you could talk to her about some other things as well.’
*
We were on our way to Eastfield. The sky had clouded over and the temperature had dropped a little, but it was still unpleasantly humid and Stephen Bryce’s car, an old Nissan Sunny, didn’t appear to have much in the way of ventilation.
‘The house belongs to a charitable trust,’ he said. ‘It was set up to provide short-term emergency accommodation for single mothers.’
‘Yes, you said. So how come Clare Kilpatrick has lived there for nearly a year?’
‘I imagine the trust found they couldn’t stick to the “short-term” rule too rigidly. Not much use housing people, then making them homeless all over again. They own houses in various parts of Bristol — Brislington, Knowle, Bedminster. My church used to make an annual donation.’
‘And that’s how Clare met Tom Luckham?’
‘Oh good heavens, no, she used to come to the youth club. Tom organized outings for some of the kids. Trips to the theatre, pop concerts, sporting events.’
‘I hadn’t realized she was so young.’
Stephen glanced at me and the car crossed the white line, narrowly missing a van coming in the opposite direction. ‘Sorry. Yes, she’s only s
eventeen. Got pregnant when she was still at school. Shame really, she was doing quite well.’
‘But she decided to keep the baby.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s right. I was going to say she must have left it too late, but a girl like Clare, she’s not exactly your helpless, hopeless type. Listen, I wanted to ask you something, then I’ll never mention it again.’
‘About your wife?’
‘It’s just — if you think she’s in a bad way — I mean, you would tell me — if you thought she was going to do something stupid.’
‘You’re still her next of kin. I think it’s highly unlikely, but I suppose I would if I was that worried. And the same would apply if I thought Ros needed to know something about you.’
He turned round, surprised. ‘I’m not depressed. Should I be? The book was a nine-day wonder and it’s not even selling that well, but I said what I wanted to. I’ve no regrets, it’s just a question of deciding what I’m going to do next.’
He kept glancing at me, then back at the road, and I had a feeling he was preparing himself to say something else. About Ros, or was it something about Clare Kilpatrick? He was wearing a black sweatshirt that made him look unhealthily pale. I wondered if he was eating properly or if he lived off a diet of sandwiches, with the occasional take-away. There were several questions I would have liked to ask, mostly about the rumours surrounding his resignation, but he would think I had been nosing around, looking for dirt. Instead I asked where he had worked before he came to Bristol.
‘Before I came to Bristol?’ he repeated. ‘School chaplain, up in Shropshire.’
‘I should think that might have suited you.’
‘Why d’you say that?’ He slowed down, turning into Henleaze Road. ‘Boys aren’t interested in theological discussions, except at the simplest level. Ros enjoyed it, at least I think she did. She’s more adaptable than I am — most women are, wouldn’t you say? Looking back, I realize I got ordained to please my mother. Stupid. Of course, it wasn’t something I was aware of at the time.’
He had this way of belittling himself while making it sound almost like boasting. It was not his words so much as the tone of voice he used. See what a hopelessly confused character I am, but don’t you find me fascinating …