It didn’t seem so, and Martha noticed that her daughter was on edge whenever the three of them were in the same room. Was it the snide remarks her boyfriend made, or her mother’s tightening of the lips and thinly disguised intolerance for Pom’s strongly held views which ranged from ‘Trans people’ (Who the hell do they think they’re fooling?) to university degrees (You just rack up debt. Bloody waste of time if you ask me.). No one was asking, but that fact seemed to constantly escape him. But when he trod on her job (Can’t see the point of it, quite honestly, Martha. I mean the dead are dead, aren’t they?), he’d crossed the line. It was only the look of panic in Sukey’s wide blue eyes that stopped Martha from climbing on to her soap box to defend her role.
Instead she fizzed like a bottle of cheap lemonade that has been shaken and then the top twisted on tighter to stop any gas from escaping. She could almost feel the pressure build up towards an inevitable explosion. She did the only thing possible. She rang her mother, even though she already knew what she would say.
‘Don’t go shootin’ your mouth off now, Martha. If you say how much you don’t like him or point out his shortcomings she’ll be getting engaged or havin’ a baby just because …’
‘To spite me?’
‘No, because she’s a girl and wants to prove she’s a woman. Tssh, it’ll all melt away.’
‘Oh, Mum.’
She hadn’t told her mother about Erica Randall. For that matter, her mother didn’t really know about Alex whom, if she referred to him at all, she tended to call that detective fellow.
Oh, Mum. But this time it was a silent plea.
THIRTY
Friday, 14 April, 6.47 a.m.
Martha had woken early. No one else was stirring so she did her favourite thing – snuck downstairs, made herself two cups of strong coffee and went back to bed for fifteen minutes to plan out her day. Her mother had instilled in her the philosophy of not fretting about situations she had no control over.
Focus, she always said, on the things you can influence. Don’t waste your energy, Martha. If it can’t be done then it can’t. Just accept it, preferably gracefully.
Her own version of the Serenity Prayer. But it is hard to be serene when the words ringing in your ears are I hate her. I hate her. I wish she was dead.
Oh, hell, she wished he hadn’t said it. Because now it lay, thick and oily, polluting her stomach. She finished the first coffee of the day.
When he’d spoken those words she had seen the passion that lay behind this quiet, self-contained man, glimpsed the life he had led, the sheer damage Erica had caused. She picked up her second cup of coffee and drank slowly, spinning out the moment before she had to face the day.
Another of her mother’s philosophies sprang to mind, apt and appropriate: If you’re dressed right it will help your day along. Her mother was immensely practical and so Martha took this piece of advice too. First of all, what she should wear.
A coroner’s work has a negative impact on one’s wardrobe. Not for her scarlet suits or bright leather skirts, no jeans or revealing blouses. Her ‘uniform’ was necessarily sober: grey suit with grey high-heeled court shoes, but as a concession to an interview with Patrick Elson’s teacher, Freddie Trimble, she would wear a red shirt underneath. Already she liked the sound of him. He sounded … well, like one of the jollier characters from Dickens. Someone just like Scrooge’s nephew, Fred. It was only when watching Dickensian, yah-booing at Compeyson for jilting Amelia Havisham and checking up on the trivia, that she’d realized Fred’s last name was never given. What last name, she wondered, would Dickens have given him? He certainly was capable of some very imaginative surnames. Magwitch, Compeyson, Pickwick, Squeers, her favourite, Trotwood, and so on. So having given Fred ‘Scrooge’ the surname Trimble, she wondered what Patrick Elson’s teacher would be like. Would he live up to the image of Scrooge’s jolly, Christmas-loving, benevolent and ultimately forgiving nephew?
She continued planning her day. Later in the morning she would make a hairdresser’s appointment for next week, with the inevitable scolding about not taking enough care of her hair from Vernon Grubb. Even, perhaps, book a facial, nails, eyebrows, for later on in the week. It was definitely time for a pamper. That would help her to face what was to come, because as a sailor senses an approaching storm she could almost smell choppy waters ahead. Dangerous currents and rip tides which would knock her off balance.
But for now she had a list of people to speak to. She ticked them off on her fingers.
After Freddie Trimble, Curtis Thatcher, as Gina Marconi’s partner-in-law, was high on the list. As she sat up in bed, hugging her knees, trying to ignore Bobby’s scratching at the door, asking to be let out or, even better, taken for a long morning stroll, Martha pondered. This was her best time of day, her brain sharp from a night’s sleep and before distractions crowded in and confused the issue, stifling free thought. She revisited her ideas, pondered their flaws and hoped she was right.
And when she recalled those pathetic pictures of the terrified boy and the consequences of the threat, she was galvanized into action.
She would take great pleasure handing them over to the police and seeing how they dealt with them.
But, inevitably, this turned her full circle.
The police? The police in her mind had always been represented by one man. He had been her constant point of contact. Would he ever be again? Or was he more lost to her than when he had been married?
Luckily her mind returned to Gina Marconi. Think, Martha, think. Work this one out. Use your brain. One step at a time. Climb slowly. One rung of the ladder. Revise what you already know. Gina had contact with the criminal world, the lowlife and felons, thieves and killers. She also had protection from that same world. Start looking in that world for someone who knew something they could and would use against her. It would have to be something which had the power to discredit her and destroy the life she had so carefully lined up. So maybe Martha should search among her clients?
She hugged her knees. Was she right or was she wrong to connect the two suicides? Was she making a futile search for connections that simply did not exist? Was the answer somewhere else? Somewhere nearer to Gina’s private life than her professional one? Was, for instance, Julius Zedanski a controlling hero? Someone who would eventually stifle her? And had Gina woken up to this and taken the only way out she could think of? Martha shook her head. Gina Marconi was an independent woman who had been on her own for a number of years. She was well able to take care of herself, her son and her mother. And if she had believed that Zedanski was the wrong man for her, she wouldn’t have been afraid to simply call it off.
But now, struck by another of her brainwaves, she smiled. She could use her powers to redeem Gina Marconi.
She wished she could have run her idea past Alex. She pictured his face, thin, sometimes haggard, unhappy in repose, and smiled to herself. Not exactly a textbook hero. But sometimes it is hard to define what makes a man attractive. Sometimes it isn’t as simple as ‘good looks’ or an ‘interesting personality’. Sometimes it is something else – some elusive quality, a reticence, a hesitation that draws you in. She smiled to herself as her thoughts tumbled out.
She’d finished both cups of coffee. She was on her own now. No Alex to fall back on. Her mother’s voice again: You’re a big girl now, love. Usually accompanied by a kiss. When does one stop appreciating their mother? she wondered. Never was the word that thundered back at her.
Energized by that thought she threw back the covers, laid her clothes out on the bed, spent minutes in the shower and sat in front of her dressing table to apply her make-up – again fairly subdued – a smear of foundation, blusher, a brush of beige eye shadow and mascara. Red hair limited her palette of make-up to beiges and greens. No violets, blues or pinks. Then she fought with her hair, finally spraying with a hair spray almost severe enough to force even her thick, unruly mop into submission. Ready to face the world.
There was
no sound from Sukey and Pomeroy’s room (twin beds – what a hope) but Sam was already under the shower and joined her for breakfast minutes later having thrown on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, his hair, a little too like hers, still wet. At least she had breakfast – a dish of muesli and an apple. He seemed to eat almost the entire contents of the fridge. Rashers of bacon, two eggs, four slices of toast, beans, mushrooms and tomatoes before he too dug into a bowl of muesli twice the size of hers. She watched him with love, and a certain amount of admiration. Where did he put it all?
He sat opposite her, this tall young man with the crooked teeth being forced into submission by a brace, her red hair – except even more unruly but much shorter – and his grin which would melt polar ice caps. He leaned in and said conspiratorially, accusingly and perceptively, grinning from ear to ear, ‘You don’t like him, do you, Mum?’
She knew better than to lie. She shook her head. ‘Is it that obvious?’
‘To me, yes.’ His voice was gruff but tender. ‘Not sure about Sukes. She seems to have lost her powers of judgement if you ask me.’
‘So you don’t like him either?’ she accused and her son’s grin broadened.
‘Put it like this, Mum. I wouldn’t invite him to my birthday party.’
The image of blowing out candles on a birthday cake drew them both into a loud guffaw which seemed to conjure up a yawning, eye-rubbing, sleepy Sukey who appeared, like magic, in the doorway. ‘What are you two chuckling about?’
Which made Martha realize that by allying herself to Pom, Sukey was isolating herself from her family, from the two people who loved her and would always love her forever and ever. Amen.
Sukey poured herself a mug of tea and sat down, a thin dressing gown draped around her bony shoulders.
Martha glanced up at the kitchen clock. She must leave in no longer than eight minutes and …
‘Will you take Bobby out for his morning stroll?’
‘I will.’ Sam stood up. ‘Soon as I’ve finished my breakfast.’ He was still shovelling the muesli in.
‘So what was the joke?’ Her daughter’s voice was plaintive, uncertain. Excluded.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Sukes,’ Martha said, resisting the temptation to ruffle her hair. ‘Something and nothing.’
Her daughter tossed a strand out of her face, licked her lips and sipped her tea, eyes wary. Martha took her chance.
‘And what were you and …’ she hesitated, ‘… Pom talking about when I got in last night?’
Sukey stared glumly into her mug. ‘Dominic has got me an offer of a job in a TV soap. It won’t last long. I think the storyline gets rid of me in about eight episodes, but Pom doesn’t think I should take it.’
‘Why not?’
‘He thinks it’ll typecast me so I’ll never get the chance of other work.’
‘And what is the part?’
‘Oh, a sort of wayward delinquent daughter of one of the main stars. I shoot off and go to live with my father.’
‘What does Dominic say?’ It was the obvious question. ‘He’s your agent.’
‘We-ell.’ Sukey frowned and took another gulp of tea. ‘In one way he agrees with Pom. He says if it had been a longer contract it would have typecast me.’
Martha wanted to say, And what’s wrong with being typecast? It was a job, surely, in a precarious world. She kept her mouth shut. ‘But?’ she prompted.
‘As it’s only going to be a short contract Dominic thought it might get me noticed and on to bigger things.’
‘But Pom …?’ she prompted. That was the way – leave this sentence hanging in the air or just hanging. Swipe away the vision of Pom dangling on the end of a rope. She could guess the end of the sentence.
‘Pom says the part’s beneath me and will do my reputation no good.’ Sukey was speaking slowly as though evaluating the view herself. Sounding dubious. Atypically unsure. Unconfident. Not trusting her own instincts and those of her agent but relying completely on this young man.
Martha felt her dislike of the youth compounding, growing arms and legs and a fiery tongue.
‘Well.’ She stood up. ‘Pom isn’t your agent,’ she said crisply. It was as far as she dared to go, although lots of thoughts were spinning around in her head. All of them bad. She bent and kissed the top of her daughter’s head. Sukey had to sort this one out for herself. She banished the dreadful tug at her heart that mingled with the thought: And what if she never does? What if this relationship is the one that lasts?
‘I need to go, darling,’ she said quickly before any negative words spilled out of her. Once said they would not be forgotten. ‘Talk to your brother.’
At that the old Sukey re-entered the room, threw back her head and laughed out loud. ‘Sam,’ she said disparagingly, ‘what on earth does he know about it?’
‘Not a lot,’ her twin brother responded gruffly.
Martha left them to it.
THIRTY-ONE
Friday, 14 April, 9.10 a.m.
As soon as she reached the office she asked Jericho to try and arrange a meeting with Gina’s business partner. She needed more information about Gina’s clients. Somewhere, in that rat hole of society’s dregs, someone knew something. She believed there was another set of photographs and she needed to scotch the snake before it hatched.
As for her theory about Erica Randall, she had to consign it to the back of her mind – for now. If she needed to act she would. But for now she would be content to wait.
Her desk was piled high with case notes; her computer, when she switched it on, displayed thirty-nine unread emails. And she still needed to prepare for Patrick Elson’s inquest next Tuesday.
‘Oh, sugar,’ she said as she faced the mountain of work ahead of her.
Well, Martha, she lectured herself. You’re not paid to sit and do nothing but look pretty. That provoked a Sam-like guffaw and an instant lightening of her mood.
Sometimes her mother’s mantras were a godsend.
She managed right through the morning not to ring either Mark Sullivan or even David Steadman, and there was no word from them either. Just a woolly silence, but it gave her a chance to clear her backlog of work.
At eleven, when Jericho brought in some coffee (no biscuits this time) and told her that Curtis Thatcher would be calling in at eleven thirty and Fred Trimble at four thirty (after school), her resistance finally broke. ‘Have you heard anything more about DI Randall’s wife?’
‘It’s gone deathly quiet,’ he said, shaking his head with his habitual pessimism. ‘I have no idea what is going on. And to be honest, Mrs Gunn, it doesn’t look good.’
Deathly quiet didn’t look or sound good to her either. She wished he had chosen a less uncomfortable phrase.
Her voice was subdued and she looked away from her assistant as she asked the next question. ‘Is he back at work?’
‘I believe not, Mrs Gunn.’ Jericho’s voice was also quiet and she caught the tone of sympathy with unusual gratitude. He continued, ‘I understand Detective Sergeant Talith is still dealing with the case.’
She turned around in her chair so he could not see her face at all as she absorbed this last piece of information. So, no more cosy chats with him. She wouldn’t be able to test her idea about Patrick or Gina – no using his position to winkle out confidences and facts. No more bouncing ideas off him, no more working together. Possibly ever. It was frustrating and she felt lonely. Already she was missing it. More truthfully, she missed him. His quiet presence, his common sense. After all the years of coping on her own there had been something terribly reassuring about having a man around. Correction: that particular man around. In weeks to come she guessed this sense of loss would intensify. And at the back of her mind was the shadow of his wife, creeping along the wall behind him. Jericho left her to her reflections.
Which was her excuse for making a silly mistake and ringing up a man she’d vowed to keep at arm’s length. Simon Pendlebury was the very wealthy widower of Evie, an old friend of
hers, who had died a few years ago of ovarian cancer. Called ‘the silent killer’ by the medical profession because its symptoms presented late, which meant the diagnosis was made late and the death rate was subsequently high. After Evie’s death she and Simon had remained platonic friends, even weathering a ridiculous affair he’d had with a young gold-digger.
She’d kept him in quarantine because … Because he being a widower and she a widow, it would have been only too easy to have fallen into a relationship which would have been wrong for both of them. There was something cold and damaged deep inside Simon which felt as infectious as the flu. Somehow he had made a lot of money in a short time, which had led her for years to wonder: did anyone become that wealthy that quickly on the right side of the law? Added to that, he had an edgy personality. He was unpredictable, his direction taking turns as abrupt, sharp and unexpected as a dodgem car. Evie might have trusted him implicitly but the farther she was away from her friend’s memory, the more Martha thought of Evie as someone too trusting, almost gullible. Naive and unable to spot the flaws in the people she loved, she was subsequently blind to her husband’s true character. And testament to this flaw were Simon’s two frankly horrible, selfish and unkind daughters. Hard as she might try, Martha could see none of Evie’s sweetness in that pair of harpies, Armenia and Jocasta.
Hence Martha’s resolve to keep him at arm’s length. In her mind he was untrustworthy and the last thing she wanted to do was send him all the wrong messages by sharing not only dinner dates but also her problems with him – but she was desperate. She needed to talk to someone and that someone could not be DI Alex Randall.
Simon picked up almost immediately, recognizing her number. She very rarely called him. It was always the other way round.
Bridge of Sighs Page 15
