Cruel Tide

by Ruth Sutton

  She was adding things to her list and wondering whether the insurance money would cover it all when she heard the car outside and the doors bang. The front door opened and Irene looked round the door of the living room. She looked flushed and happy.

  ‘Alan’s putting the car away,’ she said, coming into the room. She kicked off her shoes and sat down heavily on one of the big pink armchairs. ‘What an evening! Actually I’d much rather have stayed here with you and had a little drink and watched some TV.’

  ‘Where have you been?’ Judith asked.

  ‘Oh, just a boring dinner with one of Alan’s old chums and his wife. What a frump the woman was,’ said Irene, lowering her voice. ‘Let herself go terribly, and she can’t be any older than me. Ghastly dress, haven’t seen one like it since VE day!’

  Alan Thornhill came in and smiled at his wife. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening, darling,’ she said to him. ‘I was just telling Judith what fun we had. Mrs Fossey is a lovely woman, isn’t she, and such a good cook.’

  ‘I bet she didn’t make that meal,’ he said, ‘any more than you make dinner when we have people coming. Thank God for Edna, I say.’

  ‘There, Judith,’ said Irene, ‘the secret is out. Edna’s a much better cook than me, but she’s a well-kept secret, isn’t she dear? My fondue is the talk of Barrow, thanks to her.’

  Judith laughed along with them. Is this what being married is like, she wondered? Do people say things to each other that aren’t true, and bother so much about appearances?

  ‘Nightcap, Judith?’ said Alan. ‘Time for a proper whisky. Old Fossey’s wasn’t up to much.’

  ‘And that wine,’ said Irene. ‘Life’s too short to drink wine as bad as that. What can we get you, Judith?’

  ‘Nothing, thanks. I’ve been drinking too much lately.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Irene, pouring a wine for herself and a whisky for Alan from the glass decanter. ‘So, what have you been up to with the house all to yourself?’

  ‘Making lists, mainly,’ said Judith, holding up the notepad.

  ‘Stories that’ll make us famous, eh Judith?’ said Alan, raising his glass.

  ‘No, sorry, just stuff I need for the flat, for when I go back.’

  ‘Oh but you’ve only just got here,’ said Irene. ‘You can’t leave just yet, can she Alan? It’s so interesting having you here, seeing what you’re working on. You never tell me anything about work, Alan, and Judith’s been telling me all about it.’

  ‘Not really,’ said Judith, looking across at her boss and wishing Irene wouldn’t talk so much.

  ‘Bill tells me you’re doing something about the boys at Montgomery House,’ said Alan. ‘How’s that going?’

  ‘It’s not, I’m afraid. I wanted to take the line that the boys were victims of the system, if you know what I mean, but Bill didn’t like that at all. I’ll have to re-think.’

  ‘Show me what you’ve got, if you like,’ said Alan, ‘and we’ll see what we could make of it. Not tomorrow, in a day or two. I’m sure we’ll work something out.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Judith, surprised. Maybe he’s being supportive because Irene’s here, she thought. She seems to call the shots, despite the little wife act she puts on. Judith couldn’t work out what they really saw in each other, but then most couples were a mystery to her.

  Later, she lay in bed and wondered about another couple, Sam and his wife Christine, and the story Elspeth had told her. How could you do that, walk out without warning and strip the house too? No wonder Sam was so glum most of the time, and wary. He seemed a kind man, from what she remembered of seeing him talk to Tommy and Donna. Morrison probably thought he was a liberal softie, but that was a compliment coming from Morrison. And there was another mystery, why Sam put up with being bossed around by someone he obviously didn’t respect. He could be a sergeant himself, she thought. That might make his life easier, and more money, too.

  The cheque from the insurance people arrived the following day, and Judith rang home before she went to work, as she’d promised to do. ‘That’s good timing,’ said her mother. ‘I’ve just arranged for Gran to come down on Saturday and stay here with Vince. Dad’s going walking, and I can come and help you. We’ll need to shop, and then we can take everything to your place and make it feel like home again. Or do you want to find somewhere else, after that nasty mess they made?

  ‘Hang on,’ said Judith. ‘Are you sure you want to come all the way down here?’ Already she had visions of Irene and her mother meeting each other, and the idea made her heart sink.

  ‘Of course, it’s not far, and your dad and I think we should say thank you to Mr and Mrs Thornhill for looking after you so well. He would come himself, but this walk’s been arranged for a while.’

  ‘Who’s he going with?’ asked Judith. John Pharaoh played golf almost every weekend, and didn’t go walking in the hills nearly as often as he used to.

  ‘With Lawrence,’ said Maggie. ‘Since Jessie died we haven’t seen much of him at all, and your dad always liked him. He lives in Elterwater now. So he’s going there and I’ll get the train down to Barrow. We can get a taxi if we have lots of things to carry. It’s not far, you said?’

  ‘No,’ said Judith. ‘Just ten minutes or so into town. Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. Tell those nice people that they’ve done enough and now your family has to help. It’s only right. I’ll get the early train if I can, so we can make a good start. I’ll let you know. See you Saturday, OK? It’ll be fun. ’Bye, dear.’

  Judith sensed that her weekend was going to be difficult. Maybe she could ask Elspeth to come over for a while, just to dilute the tension.

  She explained their plan for Saturday to Irene, who seemed unable or unwilling to understand that Maggie Pharaoh wanted to have her daughter to herself. There was something overbearing and unstoppable about Irene that Judith noticed increasingly as she stayed in their house. However much Alan Thornhill was in charge at work, at home Irene was the boss. Maybe it’s the same at our house, Judith wondered before she decided that it wasn’t. Her mother was louder than John, but it was his calm presence that held the household together. John Pharaoh made the Thornhills seem shallow, and Judith missed him.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  Judith’s worst fears about Saturday were realised. From the moment Maggie stepped off the train and found Irene Thornhill waiting with Judith and the Daimler, the morning descended into farce, with the two women trying to outdo each other in their concern for the hapless Judith. They disagreed about practically everything.

  ‘But you don’t have enough money for those curtains, do you dear?’ said Maggie as Irene picked out something glamorous and totally unsuitable for a small room in Cannon Street. ‘They could be a gift from me,’ said Irene gaily, at which point Judith thought her mother was about to implode.

  ‘Certainly not, thank you Mrs Thornhill,’ said Maggie. ‘John and I will be helping Judith with some extra things, won’t we, dear, after all the difficulties you’ve had. We do so much appreciate your kindness, Mrs Thornhill, and the loan of your lovely car, but I’m sure you must have things of your own to do this afternoon, and we can’t impose on you any longer, can we Judith?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Irene. ‘I see. Well I do have a bit of shopping to do myself. So if I meet you at the front of the shop in an hour or so and get you both back to Cannon Street with your bags…?’

  ‘So kind,’ said Maggie. ‘Thank you so much. Now come along Judith, we still have more things to find.’ And with that, Maggie tugged Judith away, leaving Irene standing with the curtains still in her hand.

  Judith was annoyed and embarrassed. ‘You didn’t need to leave her standing like that,’ she said when they were out of earshot.

  ‘Well, she wasn’t going to leave us alone, was she? Enough’s enough, for heaven’s sake. Does she have any children?’

  ‘I don’t think so, and there aren’t any photos in the house.’

  ‘She probably drove
them away,’ said Maggie, ‘fussing too much.’

  That’s rich, thought Judith. ‘They’ve both been very kind to me,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t tell you how Irene helped me with a problem at work.’ Damn, she thought, backtracking to avoid sharing anything about Ed Cunningham pestering her. ‘Just the chief reporter being difficult,’ she added quickly. ‘Irene asked Mr Thornhill to have a word with him, not be so hard on me. Helped a lot.’

  ‘Humph,’ said Maggie. ‘Too much interference if you ask me. Time you stood up for yourself. My dad wouldn’t let anyone push him around.’

  ‘That was down the pit, Mam,’ said Judith, ‘and a long time ago.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Maggie, ‘she can give us a lift to your place with all this stuff and then leave us alone.’

  ‘Elspeth might come round this afternoon, to help. I told you about her, the friend who lives in Roose, with the baby.’

  Maggie looked hard at her daughter. ‘Is this another unsuitable friend?

  She’s a lovely woman,’ Judith protested. ‘You’ll like her.’

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  ‘Come on up,’ Judith shouted later, when the front door bell at Cannon Street jangled. The flat looked fresh and sunny after the previous foggy days, and Judith and her mother were busy making it look like home again. Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Judith was surprised to see not only Elspeth and Tommy, but Sam too.

  ‘Brought someone for the heavy lifting,’ said Elspeth, smiling, ‘and something for the tins, too. Baked this morning, weren’t they, Tommy?’

  ‘I helped,’ said Tommy. Elspeth rolled her eyes.

  Judith turned to Maggie who was wiping her hands on her apron. ‘This is my friend Elspeth, Mam,’ she said, ‘and her son, Tommy.’

  ‘And her brother Sam,’ said Sam, extending his hand to Maggie. ‘Pleased to meet you Mrs Pharaoh.’

  ‘And you,’ said Maggie. ‘Judith, you didn’t say Elspeth had a brother.’

  ‘Half-brother, actually,’ said Elspeth, ‘and my lodger too, at the moment.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Maggie, looking at Sam.

  ‘Sam’s a policeman, Mam,’ said Judith. She and Elspeth winked at each other.

  ‘Really,’ said Maggie. ‘How interesting.’

  They worked till late afternoon, re-arranging furniture, putting up curtains, washing crockery and putting it back into newly cleaned cupboards. Elspeth made tea and they sat, the four of them, at the little table and ate Elspeth’s cake, which Maggie said was delicious. Judith watched Sam talk to her mother with the same balance of politeness and interest that she seen before, and with the same result. Maggie told him more about her family than Judith had heard her share before with a relative stranger. When she told Sam that she and her mother had both worked as screen lasses at a pit in Whitehaven, Judith almost choked on her cake.

  After they’d done as much as they could, and the flat was looking habitable, they all walked to the station to see Maggie on to the last train back to St Bees, Sam carrying Maggie’s bag and walking on the outside of the pavement, a gesture that Judith knew her mother would notice. As the train pulled away, Judith gave way finally to the laughter that had been building all day.

  ‘Genius,’ she said to Elspeth. ‘Mam’s had been on at me all day, and as soon as you all turned up I was off the hook. And Sam playing the gentleman, that was great.’

  ‘He is a gentleman,’ said Elspeth, ‘aren’t you, Sam?’

  ‘Your mother reminds me of my own mother, and my aunts,’ he said. ‘I find older women easier.’ He stopped, and shook his head. ‘Come on, Elspeth, time we got Tommy home.’ He turned to Judith. ‘Are you going back to Thornhills?’

  ‘Just one more night there,’ said Judith. ‘Irene gave me the money for a taxi back to Bay View, and then Mam did, too. Didn’t have the heart to refuse both of them.’

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  ‘What a charming woman your mother is, Judith,’ said Irene, when Judith let herself in and joined the Thornhills in the lounge that looked even bigger after the small rooms of the flat. ‘We must have them both here for dinner,’ she said to Alan.

  ‘I’m sure she’s saying exactly the same to my dad,’ said Judith. ‘They’re very grateful to you both for looking after me.’

  ‘We’ll run you down to the flat tomorrow, Judith,’ said Alan. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right there on your own?’

  ‘Certain,’ said Judith.

  But in truth she wasn’t so certain. Sam had told her that the fingerprints in the flat didn’t match the ones they got from Anthony Lennon, but they still didn’t know who’d wrecked the flat, or why. Sam seemed confident that they would pick up Anthony very soon, now that they knew the name he was using. The locks on the front door of the house and on Judith’s flat had all been changed. All it needed was time for her confidence to return, and she hoped it would happen soon. Or she might wait forever and still feel no safer than she did now

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  The first night back in the flat was hard. She put the radio on very loud and stayed up as long as she could, to make sure that she would fall asleep without worrying about every sound in the street. The new curtains were pulled tight shut, hiding the fog that had returned and encircled the orange street lights. Judith didn’t look out. She didn’t see the Landrover parked across the street and the two men who kept watch, their cigarettes glowing red in the night.

  CHAPTER 20

  ‘A letter came for you,’ said Elspeth. Sam dropped his coat and a box of files on the stairs and picked up the envelope, holding it carefully by its edges through sheer force of habit. The writing was spidery, and the postmark Gateshead. He abandoned procedural caution and opened the envelope. Inside was a letter, and a postcard that swooped to the floor. Sam picked it up. On one side was a picture of the beach at Silloth and the coast of Scotland on the horizon. He turned it over and read the message:

  Enjoying a day out here with the choir trip. Going well so far, apart from one lad who was sick on the coach before we’d hardly started! Hoping to come over at the end of the month to see you. Keep well, Desmond.

  The letter was more difficult to read. It was from Desmond Harries’s mother. Clearly the local police had tracked her down and told her the bad news about her son. He wondered how many letters to friends and family she would have written, and what she’d said in them. To Sam she had written:

  Thank you for trying so hard to find me with this terrible news. Sergeant Noble who came to see me was very kind. He said you needed some of Desmond’s handwriting so I have enclosed a postcard he wrote to me a couple of years ago which was the first thing that came to hand. I hope this is what you want. I have instructed an undertaker here who will make all the necessary arrangements to bring Desmond’s remains back to us for burial.

  Poor Desmond had been very sad for some years, and it was worse after his beloved father passed away three years ago. He rarely came to see me and I am not well enough to travel. He phoned me occasionally and I could tell he was unwell. Sergeant Noble did not tell me many details, and I don’t really want them. At least poor Desmond is at peace now.

  With kind regards,

  Dorothea Harries (Mrs)

  Poor woman, thought Sam. Hearing about her son’s death from a policeman must have been hard to bear.

  ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ he called to Elspeth in the kitchen.

  In his small, tidy bedroom he put down his coat and the letter and opened one of the files he’d brought home. Among the papers, exactly where he’d left it, was the note they’d found in Harries’s pocket. Forensics had found nothing on it except Harries’s own prints. Morrison said he’d checked the handwriting but Sam didn’t trust him any more. Everyone just wanted the Harries business closed, but Sam wanted to prove that for himself. He smoothed out the creases in the note, laid it flat on the table he used as a desk, and put the postcard down next to it. He looked carefully from one to the other, checking the curve of the vowels, the height of th
e longer letters. They looked exactly the same. No sign of any duress, or abnormality of any kind. Someone more expert than him would have to check, but another of Sam’s theories was crumbling. For whatever reason, and perhaps with an extra surge of guilt and fear from Anthony Lennon’s anger, it looked as if Desmond Harries had written the note himself without external pressure, put it in his coat pocket, picked up an orange box and a rope from the yard outside Montgomery House, walked with them down to the wood, knotted the rope carefully around a branch and his own neck, kicked away the box, and died.

  Sam sat on the bed. They’d all been right, and he wrong. No murder, no conspiracy, just a miserable, frightened man who’d finally cracked and done what he’d thought about for a long time. His own mother sounded sad, desperately sad, but not surprised. It was time to move on.

  ‘You all right?’ Elspeth asked as he came back downstairs. Sam looked tired and dispirited.

  ‘I’ve just been proved wrong about something,’ he said. ‘It makes me wonder if I’m any good at this policing business.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘You can’t be right all the time. At least you don’t take the easiest way out like some do.’

  Sam nodded. ‘Grayson actually told me today to stop making work for myself. “Accident and suicide, open and shut,” he kept saying. And something about me making the rest of them look bad.’

  ‘He could be right,’ said Elspeth. ‘I bet he’s not as tired as you are tonight.’

  ‘I don’t see the point of doing this job unless you’re prepared to be thorough,’ said Sam.

  ‘Fine, but you’ll get no thanks for it. Is Morrison still on your back?’

  ‘He’s worse than Grayson. Now he’s dumped a rash of break-ins and car thefts on the Upgill estate on my desk and told me to do something useful for a change.’