‘My son, Dr Randall, is at his surgery. He is a very dedicated doctor who would not allow any personal circumstance, however tragic, to keep him from his duty to his patients and his colleagues.’
There was certainly no sign of these tragic circumstances in her own face or demeanour. Intrigued, Kingsley said, ‘How very brave of him. I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes, just to fill in the background?’ Reading a glacial refusal in her face, he added cleverly, ‘It might spare him some distress if I didn’t need to go through it all with him.’
She hesitated. ‘Oh, very well,’ she agreed at last, stepping aside to let him enter the hall.
It was a modern house, situated in the small network of roads forming a modern housing development off the main road which roughly divided Knockhaven into old and new. It was sparsely furnished; the sitting room Mrs Randall led him into had a black leather suite, an expensive-looking perspex coffee table, a bleached wood and glass unit down one wall and very little else apart from a large plasma-screen television. On the mantelpiece above the living gas fire in its chrome surround there was a large glass sculpture of a swan and three abstract oils in pale colours hung on the cream walls. The only photograph was a large, very glamorous shot of someone who looked rather like Nicole Kidman: Ashley Randall, Kingsley assumed.
You couldn’t readily imagine having a cosy evening in with a takeaway in front of Big Brother. Ashley Randall didn’t look to have been much of a home-maker and her mother-in-law looked around disparagingly as she ushered him in.
‘I suppose we can sit here. It’s not exactly—’ She broke off her sentence with a sigh, then perched on the edge of one of the leather seats as if dissociating herself from any connection with it.
‘It’s very kind of you to spare me the time on what must be a very difficult day for you as well as your son,’ Kingsley grovelled shamelessly, and was rewarded with a wintry smile.
‘Of course. My son’s wife was a very able woman. She will be a great loss.’
A fulsome tribute! ‘Had they been married long?’
‘Six years.’ Six years too many, her tone implied.
‘And am I right that they had no children?’
She compressed thin lips, carefully outlined in dark pink lipstick. ‘My daughter-in-law was very much a career girl.’
‘That must have been something of a disappointment for you,’ Kingsley prompted sympathetically.
‘It certainly was. My son would make a wonderful father, wonderful, but to tell you the truth I doubt if he would ever have managed to persuade Ashley. She was a very sel—’ She cut off the word and substituted, ‘determined person and she had her work and the lifeboat, of course. That seemed to take up a great deal of her time and energy.’
‘It must sometimes have been quite tricky to combine with her duties as a doctor. The practice must have been very understanding.’
At this evidence of right-thinking, Mrs Randall thawed visibly. ‘Oh, I can’t tell you how often poor Lewis gave up his time off to cover for her! I used to think he was quite exhausted sometimes, but of course she never even seemed to notice.’
The claws were definitely starting to show now. ‘Were they unhappy together?’
‘Oh no, no! Certainly not!’ This was taking it a step too far, obviously – a less than perfect marriage might reflect badly on her perfect son. ‘They were a devoted couple, absolutely devoted.’
He retreated. ‘So last night’s events must have been a devastating shock. Were you together when it happened?’
He tried to make the question sound entirely casual, but she was no fool. He saw her stiffen. ‘Why should you want to know? Surely it could be of no possible relevance to an accident enquiry where either my son or I was when it happened?’
‘Oh, I’m just trying to get a picture of the sequence of events,’ he soothed her, but she was on her feet.
‘I think I have told you everything that could be helpful. As you can imagine, there are a lot of personal matters to deal with. You must excuse me.’
Kingsley took his dismissal gracefully, favoured her with another of his most charming smiles and left.
Back in his car, he settled down to make notes of the conversation. He had listened intently at the morning briefing, and to what DI Fleming had said to him afterwards about the rumour her son had picked up. Her faulty reasoning – that Smith could have been one of Rettie’s targets – had struck him immediately but he calculated that picking her up on it wouldn’t make him flavour of the month. She wouldn’t enjoy having her most junior officer pointing out a blind spot; he’d save it for later so she could be impressed without feeling so directly challenged by his superior analytic skills.
What Morton had told him about Rettie made Kingsley inclined to believe the boy was more the tormentor of a hapless victim than the avenger of wrongs, though of course he’d need to interview the girl to check out the headmaster’s theory. Not that it actually put Rettie in the clear; killing off a hated stepfather was a good enough motive, but you had to keep a very open mind at this stage.
The gossip about Ashley Randall’s relationship with Ritchie Elder could mean that her husband had a pretty solid motive too – and the woman he had just talked to opened up another scenario. She adored her son, hated his wife – Oedipal-type stuff, or what? And she’d reacted with instant hostility to his faux-innocent request for alibi information.
Yes, this was his chance to show that a case like this needed a more sophisticated approach than it was likely to get out here in the boondocks where their idea of police work was pursuing the obvious. There were three people in that boat and he would point out at the next briefing that there was still a long way to go before you could assume you knew who was the intended victim. That ought to be good for a few gold stars.
And then it struck him. There was, of course, a fourth victim: the man who wasn’t there.
9
‘Now, my dearie, are you certain sure you’re not wanting me to come in with you – make you a wee cup of tea, maybe?’ The woman’s elderly, weather-beaten face was creased in concern as she parked the car in the square at the back of the Anchor Inn.
Katy Anderson, unnaturally calm and tearless now, moistened her dry, chapped lips. ‘I’ll be fine, Jean. Thank you for coming to the hospital.’
Her neighbour patted the hands Katy had clasped tight in her lap. ‘How would I not? Do you not mind how often you took me to see Dougie when he’d his operation last winter, and the weather so bad I was scared to drive myself? Now, Dougie and me’ll away back in the afternoon to fetch Rob’s car, so you’ve no need to worry about that. And I’ve made an appointment with Dr Matthews for you – four o’clock. He’s real nice, so see and not forget.’
‘I’m not ill,’ Katy said, but in the face of such inexorable kindness she was too weary to resist.
‘Of course you’re not, pet. But he’ll be able to give you a wee something just to get you over the shock. Would you like me to take you?’
‘Oh no. No, thank you. Honestly.’ Katy opened the car door, almost frantic to escape from the suffocating solicitude. If she could just have peace, just sit in the silence of her own home, maybe she wouldn’t fall apart and start screaming. She still hadn’t taken it in; it was all just words, words which she recognised were slashing away at her heart, but she was numb. They said when you were stabbed you didn’t feel pain or even see blood at first. She needed to get inside before the bleeding started.
She was shaking so much it was hard to fit the key in the lock; it took both hands and a lot of determination before the door was open and she was inside. The silent house seemed expectant, as if now she had come back her busy, happy life would begin again. They had painted the hall and staircase together, she and Rob, sunshine-yellow to replace dark beige wallpaper, which changed it completely. He had transformed her life with sunny warmth in just the same way.
Katy had only just left Nat’s father when they met; she was still raw from t
he misery of it all, still ashamed and convinced that it was in some way her fault, that she was the sort of person who wasn’t entitled to happiness. It had taken Rob some time to convince her that everyone had times of great unhappiness, things they blamed themselves for, but it didn’t mean that this was for ever. ‘Every day is the first day of the rest of your life,’ had been one of his mottoes, and though of course she knew it was a cliché, it had helped, then. It didn’t help now. It really didn’t help to think about what the rest of her life would be.
Her limbs leaden, Katy dragged herself up the stairs to the flat. In the kitchen, everything looked absolutely normal. It seemed all wrong; if the table had been overturned, the chairs broken and the pretty china she had set on the shelves with such pleasure smashed on the floor, it would have been more fitting. How could something as unimportant as a tea-set still be whole and unharmed while Rob, Rob . . . ?
The newspaper was open at the sports page, lying on the table where he had been reading it before they opened up last night. Their coffee mugs stood on the draining board, waiting to be washed. All the signs of home-life briefly interrupted, soon to be resumed. Or not, as it had turned out.
What was she to do now? Make a cup of tea – that was the accepted thing. But she’d lost count of the number of cups of tea she’d been offered last night – as if they had any effect beyond making the other person feel less helpless in the face of your suffering. She didn’t want tea.
She didn’t want brandy either – that other treatment for shock. She knew all too well what could happen if you chose that route.
Go to bed? Perhaps that would be best. She hadn’t slept all night, couldn’t imagine sleeping now – could hardly imagine ever sleeping again in the big bed where she and Rob had made love and talked and cuddled and laughed. Rob: she felt, suddenly, a knife-twist of pain in her heart, gasping with the suddenness of it. Yes, perhaps she should get herself to bed before the numb disbelief wore off altogether and she was felled by grief. Wearily she climbed the narrow stairs to the upper floor.
She was just outside her bedroom when she heard a door open downstairs and for a second her heart beat crazily. Rob – it was all a mistake . . . Then, dully, she remembered her son, whose bedroom was at the back on the first floor.
Nat came up the stairs wearing boxer shorts and a faded black T-shirt with the legend ‘SuperStud’ – an improbable boast, taken in conjunction with his acned skin, straggling stubble and scowling expression.
‘Where’ve you been? There’s something going on – police cars and stuff.’
‘The lifeboat went down. Rob’s dead.’ Her lips felt stiff as she framed the words.
Nat went very still and his eyes narrowed. ‘What happened?’
She didn’t answer, just turned to go into her room. He took two strides across the landing to bar her way with his arm. ‘Hold on. Some guy came here this morning. Plain clothes but you could tell he was the Filth. Was he looking for me?’
It was hard to focus her mind. ‘Police – I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be at school?’
‘Slept in. Weren’t here to get me up, were you?’ He lowered his face towards hers menacingly. ‘You didn’t go and sick them on to me just because I took a lend of your car, did you? Because—’
He was threatening her, just the way his father used to, and suddenly she was angry, furiously angry, and it felt good.
‘Yes!’ she yelled in his face, startling him. ‘Yes, I did. And if you end up in prison, that’s fine by me. I’ve tried to do my best for you, God knows I’ve tried, but all you want to do is bully me. You did everything to spoil the time I had with Rob and it was so short, so short! He was a good man, a decent man, who wanted to help you to stop making a mess of your life and you threw it back in his face. You couldn’t even say you were sorry when I told you he was dead.
‘Get out of my way. I can’t stand the sight of you.’ She struck out at him, slamming down with her full force on the arm that was blocking her way. Nat lurched back, rubbing his injury; the door shut, a key turned, and he heard the sound of frantic weeping on the other side.
He chewed his lip uncertainly, staring at the door with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d never seen his mother like this. It would have been sodding Rob’s idea to shop him for taking the car last night; he’d changed her ideas in a way that didn’t suit Nat at all but now, with him permanently off the scene, it should have been easy enough to put her back in her place.
Her fury had scared him. What if the man being dead wasn’t enough – what if she stopped his allowance, threw him out anyway? What would he do then? He wasn’t going back to his father, to be his skivvy and a punchbag when he was drunk, and at his age you couldn’t live on social security. With the references he’d get from school he wouldn’t get a job either. He’d be on the streets, or living in a hostel with stinking old winos.
It was a mistake not to have said he was sorry. That was what had wound her up. He could take her a cup of tea now, find something good to say about the man even if it stuck in his throat, say he’d just been too gob-smacked to say anything before – maybe she’d buy that. And he could say he was going in to school – she always went mental when he took a day off, so she might chill a bit after that. Then he could maybe make her call off the Pigs, say she’d made a mistake, that she’d just forgotten where she’d parked the car.
He went back into his room and dressed in his school uniform grey trousers and white shirt. He was tying the tie the stupid buggers insisted you wore as loosely as he dared – he didn’t want to fall foul of Morton today – and he was on his way downstairs when he heard the ring at the doorbell, accompanied by a tattoo on the knocker.
It didn’t take a genius to work out who that was and his stomach lurched. There was no point in ignoring it this time. He’d just have to deny everything flatly. There wasn’t a thing they could prove.
The sun was pouring into the poolside area of the Elders’ house and Joanna, on one of the lime-green padded loungers, was luxuriating in its warmth. She stretched like a cat in her pink one-piece, her eyes half-closed.
On the low table beside her was a deep wicker tray with the remains of a hearty breakfast; she had eaten two croissants smothered with Normandy butter and strawberry preserve and drunk three cappuccinos. At the farther side of the pool, where the gym equipment was, the treadmill stood idle.
This late in the day, she would usually have completed a workout and run several miles, but she didn’t need to exercise today. The gnawing fear which possessed her, which only seemed to disappear when physical effort was so gruelling that she could think of nothing else, had gone.
She’d been hungry this morning too, which she hadn’t been for weeks and weeks. She was well aware that Ritchie found her emaciated body repellent – she didn’t like to look at the knobbly joints, the stick-like arms and legs herself – but she hadn’t been able to do anything about it. She had to exercise to control the fear; she couldn’t eat because it formed a cold, hard lump in her stomach. She could eat now and get rounded and feminine again, the way Ritchie liked his woman to be. She’d gone a little crazy when she realised that the security of children could never be hers, and she’d lost sight of her primary duty – to keep Ritchie happy. That had brought her perilously close to losing everything and Joanna wasn’t going to allow it to happen again.
He’d slipped quietly out of bed this morning, avoiding her, of course. She’d gone down last night when she heard his car just after midnight; he’d been pale and dishevelled, and she had listened to his disjointed account of the disaster, plying him with brandy and womanly sympathy until he said he was ready to go to bed. She’d made him take a sleeping pill and tactfully pretended to be asleep when she heard him blundering about in the morning.
The important thing was not to crowd him. He mustn’t have a chance, in his present state, to say something that could never be taken back. If he blurted out his feelings for that bitch who was now, thank
fully, dead, Joanna would never get their marriage stuck back together again. He had to believe that she had suspected nothing; he had to be brought to depend on her sympathy and support.
Ritchie would need excuses for his emotion; her funeral, for instance, would be a danger-point, but with any luck it would be a combined ceremony for all three crew and Joanna could reassure him that manly grief on the part of the Honorary Secretary, bearing his terrible burden of responsibility, was entirely appropriate.
And once all this was behind them, when she’d regained her figure and her confidence, she’d take him away for a holiday – Goa, perhaps, or the Maldives. A glamorous resort with sun and sand where surely the sex part of the package couldn’t help but come right.
Ritchie wouldn’t change. He’d go on having affairs, but an understanding wife who knew when to turn a blind eye would be a positive asset. And if anything like the Ashley Randall thing came along again she’d make damn sure it didn’t have a chance to take root. She’d had her own stupidity and self-absorption to blame.
Even so, her eyes went to the gleaming machines at the farther end of the pool. Like an alcoholic seeing a whisky bottle, she felt a sudden, desperate yearning, but she fought it down. It was nearly eleven o’clock; her cleaners would be having their elevenses. She picked up the white towelling robe lying on the table beside her and got up. She could go to the kitchen and nick one of the chocolate biscuits she kept for them and catch up on what they were saying in the village at the same time. It should be red-hot stuff this morning.
The Darkness and the Deep Page 13
