Till We Meet Again

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘What did you come here for?’ Wright interrupted. ‘If it was in the hope you could get me to make an impassioned appeal for lenience, you’re barking up the wrong tree.’

  ‘Not at all, Mr Wright,’ Steven said through clenched teeth. He couldn’t believe anyone could be that unfeeling. ‘I have other people who will come forward to tell the court how unfairly life treated Susan. I just wanted to see for myself what her brother was like, and how you lived.’ He wished he could add that he thought Wright was merely adding to Susan’s credibility, but he didn’t dare go that far.

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Wright asked, a touch of menace in his voice.

  ‘Did you know that at the time your sister shot those people, she was broken down with grief, living in a damp, cold attic room, cleaning offices to pay the rent?’ Steven said. ‘A gesture from you might have made all the difference.’

  ‘I had no idea where she was,’ Wright said, for the first time sounding a little nervous.

  ‘I think you did, Mr Wright,’ Steven replied, more calmly than he felt. ‘Susan telephoned you at your office in May of 1993, not long after she arrived back in Bristol. She asked you for help, didn’t she? That’s when she told you Annabel had died.’

  ‘She caught me at a bad moment,’ Wright said quickly. ‘And anyway, she didn’t make herself very clear.’

  ‘I think if my sister was to ring me and tell me her child was dead, that would be clear enough for me,’ Steven said archly.

  ‘It would have been hypocritical for me to make a fuss about it when I’d had nothing to do with the child when she was alive,’ Wright blustered. ‘Besides, I don’t like being contacted at the office.’

  Steven knew he had in fact been abusive and had refused to lend Susan money to tide her over until she got a job. But there was little point in bringing that up now.

  ‘Susan had no other way of contacting you, except at your office,’ he said calmly. ‘You didn’t let her know when you moved here, did you?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Wright said, his voice rising slightly. ‘She was nothing to me. The moment she was born I was pushed out –’ he broke off suddenly, his faint blush showing he was dismayed that he’d let slip the real reason for his animosity to his sister.

  Steven would have very much liked to probe further about this, but he doubted Wright was capable of opening up about anything, so he just made a mental note of his reaction to pass on to the barrister at Susan’s trial.

  ‘The war made a lot of fathers strangers to their children,’ he said, softening his voice. ‘Susan couldn’t help that. But anyway, your father was far kinder to you than he was to your sister. He let you pursue the career of your choice, made no demands on your freedom. And he left you everything. As I see it, the only things he did for Susan was to burden her with responsibility he should have shouldered himself, teach her to shoot and give her his gun. I’d say you were the one that had it easy.’

  As he said this, Steven got up – he wasn’t going to wait to be thrown out. The man was odious and any further questioning was unnecessary.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he continued. ‘You may very well be called as a witness, that will depend on Susan’s plea. And a Happy New Year to you. I’ll let myself out.’

  *

  At the start of February Beth drove over to Wales on Friday evening after work. She was alone because she felt unable to ask Roy to accompany her again when the trip necessitated staying overnight in a hotel.

  They had been out together several times since New Year, to the cinema, for a drink, and she’d cooked him Sunday lunch one day at her place. They had kissed and cuddled, but Roy hadn’t attempted to take things any further, and Beth still didn’t know if she was ready to tell him about her past.

  The more she saw him, the more confused she became. One moment she was burning to see him, the next she was dreading it. She wasn’t dreading actually being with him, it was only the burden of knowing that sooner or later she would have to bring things to a head and tell him about the rape. Sometimes she even imagined it would be easier never to see him again than to live with the perpetual anxiety about it.

  She hoped that by going away alone for this weekend, she might be able to clarify her feelings. She had never been farther into Wales than Cardiff before, and although it was very cold, no rain or snow was expected, so she hoped she might be able to do some walking.

  Since the start of the year, she had visited Susan three times. They were not fact-finding visits, she left those to Steven. Her role was that of old friend, and as such she and Susan mostly just reminisced and filled in the years since they’d last seen each other. She had found she liked Susan as much as she had as a girl. Maybe the innocence had gone, for in many ways she was more worldly than Beth now, but her warmth, and the way she cared far more about others than herself, were still the same.

  Time and again Beth thought what a good social worker Susan would have made. She had a knack of drawing out confidences and she had a deep understanding of people, both her fellow prisoners and the officers.

  They were talking about drug-related crime on one visit, and Susan said she believed addicts should be registered, the way they used to be years ago.

  ‘It would put the bloody drug barons out of business,’ she said with surprising passion. ‘They’d give up bringing drugs into the country, and the addicts would be seen by qualified people, in clinics, get drugs that are pure, and be encouraged to kick the habit.’

  Beth didn’t agree and said so.

  ‘If you spent just a couple of days in here you’d soon see it my way,’ Susan said fiercely. ‘The women here have to steal and sell themselves to support their habit, there is no other way. But remove the need to do that and you’d halve the drug-related crime overnight. Without pushers on the streets, there would be far fewer new addicts.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were the oracle on drugs and addiction,’ Beth said with just a touch of sarcasm.

  Susan gave her a scathing look. ‘You haven’t changed,’ she said, and then half smiled. ‘You always were a bit judgmental. You don’t necessarily have to shoot up heroin to understand why some people succumb to it. Any more than you don’t have to murder someone to understand that either. It’s all about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes for a minute or two.’

  ‘So having murdered someone helps you understand a drug addict, does it?’ Beth said.

  ‘Yes, it does. I think we share a similar basic flaw in our characters,’ Susan said, and folded her arms defiantly. ‘It’s all about doing something regardless of the fact that it will lead to destruction. With drugs it’s your own destruction, with murder it’s someone else’s. But I’d say the original compulsion is quite similar in both cases, basically a lack of self-esteem.’

  ‘So that was your problem, was it?’ Beth asked.

  Susan didn’t answer.

  ‘Well, speak up then,’ Beth taunted her.

  Susan gave her a cold look. ‘Don’t mock me, Beth. Of course I haven’t got much self-esteem. Why else would I let people walk all over me? I could never articulate what I really felt, I kept it all inside. A great many addicts start out the same. They found drugs made them feel good about themselves. Of course, the feel-good factor doesn’t last, so they do it again, and again. Before long they are hooked.’

  ‘Are you trying to say you felt better once you killed Wetherall and Parks?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  Beth looked hard at Susan and saw that she really meant what she said. It made her feel just a little nervous, though she didn’t quite know why.

  ‘Does that mean if you hadn’t been arrested you might have killed again?’

  Susan laughed mirthlessly. ‘I made sure I was arrested! It was the equivalent of taking a really big overdose. That way you know you won’t be around to do it again.’

  Beth had left the prison that day with plenty of food for thought. Ever since Steven had met Martin Wright and found h
im to be even more callous and obnoxious than Susan had led him to believe, he’d had a slightly different view on her case. He had put forward the suggestion to Beth that Susan had started to crack at the time of her parents’ death, not, as they had previously supposed, when Annabel died. She’d been under a great deal of strain for years – the two deaths in such a short space of time, the contents of her father’s will, and of course her brother’s nastiness had all added to it. This, Steven felt, would explain why she got involved with Liam, and why she acted in such an uncharacteristic manner by moving away without telling her old friends and neighbours where she was going.

  Steven had showed Beth a medical report about how pregnancy often dispelled depression and anxiety, even in patients who had suffered severely from it for years. There was evidence, too, that many women didn’t have a relapse after the birth of their baby, the joy they felt in being a mother kept it at bay.

  Steven felt, and he’d consulted a psychiatrist for confirmation of this view, that when Annabel died, Susan was utterly broken, for along with natural grief, all her old wounds opened up again. He felt sure Beth would discover that her time in Wales had merely been a kind of remission, and that when she finally returned to Bristol with nothing, and no one to turn to, she fell apart mentally.

  Beth was inclined to agree with him. If she could just get some proof that Reuben had been another hard-hearted swine who had used Susan for his own ends, then pushed her out, she was sure they could present a watertight case of diminished responsibility.

  Beth reached The Crown in Cardigan at half past nine. Brendan, Beth’s colleague at the practice, had recommended the small inn, as he and his wife often stayed there, and Emlyn Carlisle, the town nearest to Hill House, Reuben’s place, was only about twenty miles further inland, Susan had told them.

  The inn was everything Brendan had said it was, beautifully furnished and decorated, and very warm and comfortable. Simon, the landlord, was attentive and friendly. When Beth said she thought she was too tired for a proper meal in the restaurant, he offered to bring up a tray to her room.

  It was very cold but bright the next morning and Beth set out for Emlyn Carlisle straight after breakfast. Simon had informed her it was something of a ghetto of what he laughingly called ‘Save the Whalers’, a generic term for old hippies, animal rights activists, vegetarians and other non-conformists. He suggested she should stop at the pub in the High Street in Emlyn Carlisle and have a chat with the landlord first, as he apparently knew everyone for miles around and would be able to give her directions to Hill House.

  Beth was wearing walking boots, jeans and a thick padded coat. She hoped that after she’d talked to Reuben, she’d have some time left for exploring the countryside.

  A health shop, several small crafts shops and others selling crystals, candles and Tarot cards suggested that Simon was right about Emlyn Carlisle having a large proportion of ‘alternatives’ amongst its population. The pub Beth had been directed to wasn’t officially open when she got there, but as the door was open and she could see a man behind the bar restocking the shelves, she went in anyway. She apologized for doing so and explained that Simon at The Crown in Cardigan had suggested she got directions for Hill House here.

  The man looked typically Welsh, as short and sturdy as a pit pony, dark-haired with a ruddy face. ‘Hill House?’ he repeated, frowning as if puzzled by the request. ‘You know someone up there?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I just want to have a talk with the owner. Do you know him, Reuben Moreland? I understand it’s a sort of commune. Is that right?’

  ‘They like to call it that, but a coven of witches, crooks and drug addicts is how I see it,’ he said. He seemed agitated and sort of shuffled down the bar away from her, as if even saying that much was dangerous.

  Beth thought it would be better to lay her cards on the table. ‘I’m a solicitor,’ she said, and put her card on the bar in front of him. ‘I am representing someone who once lived there. That’s why I need to talk to Moreland.’

  The man picked up her card, read it and looked at her again, this time with a smile. ‘You’ll be lucky,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t been seen around here for ages.’

  ‘So who is living there now?’ Beth asked, pleased to see he was unbending. ‘I’d be grateful for any information before I go there.’

  ‘You don’t want to go up there alone,’ he said, looking horrified. ‘Too many dogs and queer people. Anything could happen to you.’

  Beth hadn’t for one moment expected to be warned off. ‘Really!’ she exclaimed in surprise.

  He leaned on the bar. ‘Yes. Look, it’s dangerous, see,’ he said conspiratorially. ‘They’re like animals, living in filth, out of their minds on drugs. All of us down here give them a wide berth.’

  Beth thought that the man was probably exaggerating, prejudiced because the residents of Hill House weren’t conventional. But on the other hand she would be foolish to go up there unprepared.

  ‘I have been told Moreland cons vulnerable people to come and live there,’ she admitted. The man nodded in agreement.

  ‘I’ve seen some of the wrecks that run away from there,’ he said. ‘I’ve made complaints to the police, but it seems they can’t do anything because Moreland owns that place. They said they need evidence of a crime before they can act. But he isn’t there now anyway, he hasn’t been seen around for a long while.’

  ‘If it’s his place and there’s people living there, they must know where he is,’ Beth said.

  ‘They probably do, but I can’t see any of them telling you.’

  The man launched into a vitriolic account of vanloads of grungy dead-beats arriving during the summer for wild parties. He said that the locals were frightened to go away on holiday for fear their houses would be broken into. Cars had been stolen; the fields and woodlands were left littered with rubbish, needles and syringes found by children on the sides of the lanes.

  Beth felt it couldn’t have been like that while Susan was there, for she would have said so. Nor did it sound as if anyone made or sold craft work any more. She thought it was likely that the present situation had come about since Reuben went away.

  Then, just as she was beginning to think she would have to go to the local police for advice, the landlord told her that there was a girl living down here in the village who had lived at Hill House.

  ‘She’s not much better than the rest of them,’ he said, wrinkling his nose with distaste. ‘But she does work, paints pottery, and she doesn’t have anything to do with that bunch up at the house any more. You could talk to her. She lives in the last cottage along the road.’

  Beth thanked him for his help, then, leaving her car in the pub car park, she walked to the cottage he’d directed her to.

  It was a tiny cottage and very shabby, the once white walls stained green with mould and paint peeling off the front door. Beth knocked once, and the door was opened by a pregnant woman wearing a paint-daubed smock over jeans, her straggly blonde hair badly in need of a wash.

  Beth told her briefly that she was trying to find Reuben Moreland.

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ the girl said defensively. ‘I don’t have nothing to do with that lot up at his house any more.’

  She had a London accent, softened by a faint Welsh lilt. Beth thought she was probably only in her middle to late twenties, but her weary look and grey skin tone made her seem older. Beth introduced herself, handed the girl her card to confirm it, and said she was making enquiries on behalf of Susan Fellows who had lived at Hill House.

  The girl gave a little gasp. ‘She shot two people in Bristol, didn’t she?’ she said. ‘I saw it on the news. I couldn’t believe it, she was a real lady.’

  ‘So you knew her?’ Beth asked. ‘Your name wouldn’t be Megan, would it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ the girl said, but her eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘Just a guess. Susan mentioned you,’ Beth said. ‘She said you were a
n artist. May I come in and talk to you for a moment?’

  Megan immediately looked wary. ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not here to make trouble for anyone,’ Beth said. ‘Just a little background information, that’s all I want.’

  Megan reluctantly opened the door wider. ‘The place is a bit of a mess,’ she said. ‘I’ve been rushing to finish a job, so you’ll have to take me as you find me.’

  ‘A bit of a mess’ was something of an understatement. It wasn’t a home at all but a dusty, cluttered workroom. A large table in the centre of the one room was covered in vases and lamp bases, which Megan was in the process of hand-painting. Boxes of plain white pottery were stacked on one side of the table, on the other side were more boxes containing the finished articles.

  ‘I do the hand-painting, then they collect them to glaze and fire them again,’ Megan said by way of an explanation.

  ‘Susan said you were very talented,’ Beth said, looking at a lamp base decorated with pink flowers which wouldn’t have looked out of place in Liberty’s. ‘She was right, you are very good.’

  Megan shrugged. ‘It’s all I can do,’ she said. ‘I wish I had a real studio and a kiln, but the pottery in Cardigan pays me well, so I can’t complain. I don’t know how I’m going to manage when the baby comes, though.’

  Beth glanced around her. It really was a hovel. Rough plaster walls hadn’t seen a coat of paint in decades, the meagre fire burning in the grate barely took the chill off the room. The staircase was bare boards, and even the kitchen area at the far end of the room was littered with more boxes, and a film of china dust covered everything. Beth couldn’t imagine how Megan could think of having a baby there, for she doubted it was any better upstairs.

  Megan sat down on a stool by the table, and indicated to Beth to sit on the one easy-chair by the fire. That had chipped arms and torn upholstery.

  ‘Don’t mind if I carry on while we talk, do you?’ Megan said, picking up a paint brush. ‘Like I said, I’ve got a rush job.’