The Anna McColl Mysteries Box Set 1

by Penny Kline

  There was another reason of course. Since I had failed to tell Sergeant Whittle, or anyone at the hospital, about Luke’s fantasies, the least I could do was satisfy myself that I knew as much as possible about what had been going on in his life. He wasn’t violent. I was certain of it. But what was he so afraid of?

  I could hear his quiet, deadpan voice, picture the damp sheen on his sun-tanned face. ‘I see someone coming towards me. Walking down the road. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt them, injure them with a knife. Only I haven’t got a knife. I can’t stop thinking. Supposing I couldn’t control the thoughts and … ’

  *

  The sky had brightened and some of the people walking up and down Whiteladies Road were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, making the most of what passed for a summer’s day.

  I paused for a moment outside a pub recently converted to a wine bar. A blackboard leaning against the front of the building invited customers to come inside for Pizza and Salad Niçoise or Pasta and Garlic Bread. My stomach heaved. I caught a glimpse of myself reflected in the window and suddenly I understood why Graham Whittle had looked a little concerned.

  3

  The White Cottage was not difficult to find. It was called a cottage but by the look of it a family of five could have lived there in comfort and there would still have been rooms to spare. Long and low, built of cob and thatch with rounded corners and windows appearing at irregular intervals, it was the kind of place that features on West Country calendars, and must have been worth a fortune.

  I parked in the lane, tucking the car in so the neighbours could come in and out of their gateway, but taking care not to leave tyre marks on the immaculate grass verge.

  As I walked up the drive everything felt so quiet that I was afraid the Jestys must be out, visiting friends or taking the dog for a walk round the Chew Valley Lake. The state of the garden was such that it could have been opened to the public. A lawn as smooth as a bowling green, surrounded by beds of roses with flowers of the palest pink through to light coppery orange. In the bed closest to the drive each plant had been neatly labelled. I bent down to read the names. Stanwell Perpetua, La Reine Victoria, Tuscany Superb.

  The sun had come out and felt hot on my face. I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of warm grass and something else that might have been lemon thyme. Luke would be lying on his bed in his side ward, or perhaps by now he was in one of the main wards or sitting in the day room watching the huge television screen with the sound turned low but the colour turned up to its brightest possible setting. Was he pretending to receive messages from the screen? Had the doctor I met in the corridor classified him as a typical schizophrenic and given him the medication he should have received months ago?

  By now Howard Fry would have returned to the police station. Graham Whittle would be telling his superior about my visit. ‘Oh, Howard, your friend the psychologist called in this morning. Seemed a bit overwrought. Something to do with a road accident, although I got the impression there was rather more to it than she was letting on.’

  Footsteps sounded on the gravel and a woman came round the side of the house. Her eyes were hidden by dark glasses but I could see at once that she was exceptionally good looking. High cheekbones and lightly tanned skin. Shiny brown hair, swept back from her face. She was dressed in a pale orange skirt and a white silk shirt.

  ‘Hallo.’ Her voice was deeper than I had expected. ‘Did you want to see my husband?’

  ‘Mrs Jesty?’

  She twisted her gold bracelet until the clasp, in the shape of a padlock, hung across the back of her hand. ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘My name’s Anna McColl, I’m a friend of Luke’s.’

  ‘Oh!’ She put her hand up to her face.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Nothing’s happened to him. Only I wanted to explain.’

  ‘You’d better come inside.’

  Holding open the front door she stood back for me to go in first, then changed her mind and stepped in ahead of me.

  ‘Excuse me a moment. I’ll fetch my husband. He’s working in his study.’ There was no entrance hall. The front door led directly into a large living-room with windows on three sides and a door at the back, leading out to a stone passageway. Next to the big open fireplace was what looked like an old baker’s oven, and beside it polished wooden steps, almost as steep as a ladder, led up to the first floor.

  I moved across the room and stood with my back to the wall, preparing myself for what might prove to be a tricky encounter. How much had Luke told his parents about the last few months? Did they know who I was? Was I breaking a confidence letting them know Luke had been coming to see me? For all I knew, they might be the kind of people who viewed a referral to a psychiatrist or psychologist as something shameful, unmentionable even.

  There were no ornaments or photographs in the room, and I turned to inspect one of the few insipid watercolours on the magnolia walls. At that moment Mrs Jesty returned, signalling her approach with a small discreet cough.

  She moved quickly to where I was standing and spoke close to my ear. I could smell her perfume, something light and expensive, and just for a moment it affected me like a mild aphrodisiac — or perhaps the scent conjured up some pleasant association from the past.

  ‘Don’t mention the tablets,’ she whispered. ‘I thought it better not to tell Peter at the time.’ She broke off. ‘Oh, no, Luke hasn’t taken … ’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’

  Her body slumped as though she had been holding her breath and suddenly all the air had left her lungs.

  ‘Thank God. You’ve no idea how much I — ’

  Peter Jesty came through from the back of the house, rubbing his hair and looking preoccupied, annoyed that his work had been interrupted. A tall, thin man who had to lower his head to avoid the heavy beam across the doorway, he walked briskly towards me and held out his hand.

  ‘How d’you do? My wife says you’re a friend of my son.’

  ‘Yes. Not a friend exactly. I’ve been seeing Luke once a week for the last two months, helping him with his anxiety symptoms.’

  ‘Oh, you’re a psychiatrist.’ He let go of my hand and gestured towards a chair.

  ‘No, a psychologist. My name’s Anna McColl.’ I sat at the far end of one of the sofas.

  ‘A psychologist,’ he repeated, ‘now let me get this straight. You’re not a doctor but you have a degree in psychology and presumably some postgraduate training.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I work with a team of people.’

  ‘In Bristol?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mrs Jesty had taken off her dark glasses and was sitting on the arm of the other sofa, smiling. It was a fixed smile, so much so that she seemed almost incapable of changing the expression on her face.

  Peter Jesty ignored her, talking to me as though we were alone together. ‘I know a chap in the Psychology Department at the university. Calls himself a cognitive scientist. You wouldn’t see yourself that way.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do they teach you these days? Behaviour Modification? Or there’s some new-fangled treatment I’ve read about. Rational Emotive Therapy? Have I got it right?

  I became aware that my hands were clenched into fists. Spreading out my fingers I placed both hands on my knees and tried to relax. He was trying to put me in my place, establish my position — a low one — in some hierarchy he had invented for his own purpose. He was the kind of man who took hard science seriously but despised the social sciences.

  ‘I’m sorry to just turn up like this,’ I said, ‘but yesterday evening Luke had a very distressing experience. A friend of his was knocked down outside the Hippodrome. He’s very shocked and — well, this morning I had to take him to hospital.’

  ‘Hospital?’ Peter Jesty sounded intrigued rather than worried.

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t injured,’ I said, ‘not physically.’

  ‘I see.’

  Mrs Jesty’s smile had disapp
eared. ‘You mean a mental hospital. He’s had a nervous breakdown.’

  ‘No. It is a psychiatric hospital but I’m sure he’ll be perfectly all right in a day or two. It just seemed the best place. It was what he wanted. You see, this friend of his — Paula Redfern — ’

  ‘Killed?’ Once again Peter Jesty sounded as though he just wanted to get the record straight.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. You didn’t know her, did you?’

  He turned to his wife. ‘Do we know anyone of that name?’

  Brigid Jesty’s hands were twisting and untwisting. She looked as though she was desperate for a cigarette.

  ‘No, I’ve never heard of anyone called Paula.’

  I glanced at her face. Her lips were slightly parted and her narrow eyes were almost closed. She was lying, I was sure of it.

  Peter Jesty leaned back against a fat silk cushion. It was the first time I had looked at him properly and I could see now that he and Luke were very alike. The same straight fair hair, light brown eyes and slightly upturned nose. But unlike his son Peter Jesty appeared well equipped to deal with whatever came along, and that included a unknown psychologist arriving at his house to inform him that one of his family was in a psychiatric hospital.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘how did it come about that Luke was referred to someone like you?’

  I looked at Brigid Jesty but she was staring out of the window.

  ‘Well, I expect he’s always been a fairly anxious kind of person, hasn’t he? He told me how he had to leave Oxford.’

  ‘Had to? You mean, he has no staying power. Yes, I’ll give you that. What’s he been doing since? We never set eyes on him, do we, my dear?’

  ‘He’s been working in a shop,’ I said. ‘A place that sells herbal remedies. But he’s starting another degree course in the autumn. He’ll be reading biochemistry.’

  ‘Maths, chemistry, it won’t last. However, I admire your optimism. Which university has been foolhardy enough to offer him a place?’

  ‘Bristol. He wanted to stay in the area and he seems really interested in biochemistry. I think it might suit him better than pure maths.’

  ‘You do, do you?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  My fingers were drumming on the arm of the sofa. I waited for the next question but it never came. Peter Jesty sat staring at me. His cold, detached manner might be a well-rehearsed defence but he was making me extremely angry.

  ‘I think Luke found Oxford hard to cope with,’ I said. ‘Lots of students have difficulty settling in if they’ve never been away from home before.’

  ‘But most them manage to make a go of it.’ He leaned forward with the palms of his hands pressed together. He had beautiful hands with exceptionally long fingers. ‘As you may or may not know I run a large and moderately successful company that provides financial services, mainly to small businesses. Each year we take on a number of new graduates and apart from the obvious fact that they need to be in the top ten per cent, the key personality factor is self-confidence.’

  ‘Yes, I take your point, but there are other kinds of jobs that need different qualities.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ It was an absurd conversation, leading nowhere. Peter Jesty obviously despised his son. Luke had failed to live up to expectations so he had washed his hands of all further responsibility.

  A bee had flown in through one of the windows and started knocking against the glass. Brigid Jesty opened the window a little wider but the bee flew across the room and up to the ceiling. I turned to face her, hoping to draw her into the conversation, but the bee had caused a welcome diversion.

  On a table near the fireplace a map of the area had been smoothed out and held in place by two glass paperweights. Peter Jesty followed my eyes.

  ‘You’re interested in geology?’ He pointed to a section circled in red ink. ‘Here, where they’re building the new bridge over the Severn. Triassic rocks consisting mainly of interbedded sandstone — and coal, of course.’

  Brigid Jesty gave a small nervous laugh which she changed quickly into a fit of coughing.

  ‘So,’ said Peter Jesty, ‘you felt that since my son is well below his chronological age in terms of emotional maturity it was wise to keep us informed of his — ’

  ‘No,’ I interrupted crossly. ‘I just thought you’d want to know what had happened.’

  ‘Of course. It was good of you to go to so much trouble.’

  I stood up, taking my car keys from my pocket.

  ‘I’ll be seeing Luke tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell him I’ve been to see you and of course if you want to visit … ’

  ‘But you say he’ll be back home in a couple of days.’

  ‘Yes, I should think so. It’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Good. Well, thank you for letting us know.’ He held out his hand once more. I took hold of it briefly and as our eyes met I realized that beneath the icy self-control he was very angry — and very upset.

  Brigid Jesty followed me out of the front door and we walked together down the drive with the gravel crunching under our feet. I could sense her agitation and suspected she wanted to tell me something but not until she was well out of earshot of her husband.

  ‘Your garden’s beautiful,’ I said. ‘It must need plenty of work to keep it looking so good.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ Her voice was flat, lifeless. Either she was very depressed and wanted me to go away as quickly as possible or she was afraid my attempts at pleasant conversation would make it more difficult for her to say whatever was on her mind.

  Pausing by the car door I made an effort to produce what I hoped was a warm, sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, this must be difficult for you.’

  ‘My husband,’ she said, ‘it’s just his manner. He doesn’t mean to sound so … He works terribly hard, often from eight in the morning to eight o’clock at night. Then when he’s at home he works on his book.’

  ‘He’s writing a book?’

  ‘The creatures that live on the salt marshes by the Severn Estuary.’

  ‘Are there any?’

  ‘Oh, yes, there seem to be.’ Against her better judgement she laughed, putting her hands up to her face to conceal her expression. ‘Froghoppers, leafhoppers, and a beetle with shovel-shaped legs for digging.’

  Her voice trailed away. She glanced back at the house, then lowered her voice as though she thought the gateposts might be bugged.

  ‘I didn’t say anything before but Luke and I meet occasionally in Bristol. A little wine bar place in Clifton Village. My husband, it would only upset him, has Luke mentioned … ?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, he’s told me very little about his family.’

  ‘But you’ve been giving him some kind of treatment?’

  ‘At the moment my main aim is to gain his confidence. Later, when he feels safer with me, I’m hoping to — ’

  ‘Yes, I see. He’s always been quiet, secretive, but I didn’t think it mattered.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ I said, ‘as long as he’s happy.’

  ‘But he isn’t, is he.’

  ‘It’s hard to tell. No. I’m afraid Paula Redfern’s death has affected him badly. I’m not sure how well they knew each other but Luke finds it hard to make friends and — ’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Her fingers were rubbing the back of her neck, trying to relieve the tension. I wanted her to tell me as much as possible but I had a feeling that one false move on my part and she would clam up.

  ‘Luke doesn’t come home very often?’ I said.

  She stiffened, blinking several times in quick succession. Then the muscles in her face relaxed.

  ‘He doesn’t drive.’

  ‘Perhaps he should buy a bicycle.’

  ‘No! They have those cycle lanes but I always think they’re worse than useless. When they come to an end the cyclists are forced back into the stream of traffic.’ She paused, replacing her dark glasses, then taking a deep breath and
removing them again. ‘Luke’s told you about his sister, I expect.’

  ‘Sister? I know he’s got an older brother.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Michael.’ She had undone one of the buttons on her shirt, revealing the pale skin round the sun-tanned V on her upper chest.

  ‘He has a sister as well?’ I said.

  She stared at me for a moment, then looked away and spoke slowly, mechanically, rather as Luke had spoken the previous evening. It was as though she had used the same sentence many times before. ‘Diana died a few days before her thirteenth birthday.’

  I felt a chill run down my back. At the thought of losing a thirteen-year-old daughter? Or was it because Luke had failed to tell me what must certainly have been the most traumatic event in his childhood?

  ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye.

  ‘It was a long time ago. Nearly six years.’

  I wanted to say that six years was no time at all, that losing a child was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. But any words would have sounded trite. A helicopter was flying overhead. The noise of the rotor blades made conversation impossible and provided a short relief.

  As the sound faded in the distance we both started talking at once.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, do go on.’

  ‘I just wanted to explain,’ I said. ‘Luke hasn’t talked much about himself yet. We’ve been concentrating on finding ways of reducing his symptoms. Breathing exercises, methods of diverting the thoughts that disturb — ’ I broke off. It all sounded so irrelevant, so inadequate.

  She nodded vaguely, turning to inspect a climbing plant that had attached itself to the gate. ‘Thank you so much for coming to find us. And on a Sunday too.’

  ‘That’s all right. Anyway, I hope we’ll meet again some time. Try not to worry about Luke. He’ll be making a new start in the autumn and I’m going to carry on seeing him as long as he needs it.’