Arlo rose from the folded towel that was his usual post, stretched forelegs and hind legs languorously, and observed Rory as if questioning the sanity of her entire morning’s routine. She patted his head and rolled up his towel. Next came the steam room, and he would wait without while she took her fifteen minutes in there on the slick white tiles that formed the benches along the walls of the room’s two chambers. She was one of eight other women, in various stages of undress, who sweated in the wet heat of the place. At the end of the quarter hour, she went off to the showers.
It was after her shower and while she was dressing that she saw there was a message on her mobile phone. It had come in at half past eight, and the number was Clare’s. She finished dressing and dried her hair. It was just before nine when she returned Clare’s call.
Caroline Goldacre answered. Rory felt a swell of what she knew was completely irrational irritation at the other woman’s intrusion. What was Caroline doing with Clare’s mobile? And what next? Access to her cashpoint card?
Rory said, “Clare rang me, Caroline. Is she—”
“It wasn’t Clare. It was me,” Caroline cried. “Clare’s dead! Rory, she’s dead!”
THORNFORD
DORSET
Alastair took the phone call from Caroline while sitting at Sharon Halsey’s breakfast table. He hadn’t intended to spend the night. He had called it a fling—“just a bit of fun, eh?”—when he’d first broken off relations with Sharon, deliberately trying to wipe himself out of her heart and herself out of his. He’d only had her five times before he’d been caught, anyway. One could hardly call that an affair, but one had to call it something in order to kill it off, yes? One couldn’t just say, “We best end this thing between us, girl, ’cause it’s going nowhere with nowhere to go.” That wasn’t true anyway. For he’d quickly discovered “this thing between us” had a real body and soul to it.
But he couldn’t admit that to himself. He couldn’t even think it lest Sharon see the longing on his face and feel the pull inside him that kept dragging him towards her.
He hadn’t taken her to bed that first night after dinner in her ancient farmhouse. He’d insisted on helping with the washing-up, and he’d stayed far later than he’d intended. They’d talked themselves into exhaustion over six long hours in each other’s company, discovering how much they had in common: from being the lost children in too-large families with careworn mums and put-upon dads to having secret dreams of adulthood that had gone unfulfilled. Hers: to live for a time in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands, where she would take up a career that involved the resident dolphins and the sea. His: always the impossible wish to be a warrior, with weapons of destruction slung across his chest, using those weapons to bring death to those who terrorised the innocent. Both of them laughed at dreams that came from childhood but still maintained their hold.
“I c’n see you with them dolphins,” he told her.
“Well, I can’t see you harming so much as a fly. Not you, Alastair. Not with your—”
“It’s my leg that got broke,” he told her. “And the bloke who set it . . . ? A dog’s dinner, that was, what he made of it.”
“I was going to say not with your sense of decency,” she told him. “As to your leg? See here, it’s just a leg. Shorter than the other, yes? I’ve seen your shoe, how it’s built up.”
“Army wouldn’t take me nor would anyone else,” he said. “Well, save Caro. I was man enough for her.”
“That’s silly. You’re man enough for anyone,” she replied.
She’d taken him to bed the third time they were alone together. It wasn’t her bed. Nor was it his. She’d called him to Yeovil to have a talk with the staff at the bakery shop there. She’d called it “good for business when the managing director himself comes to pay a call.”
Generally, he went directly to bed once the bakery vans set off with their morning deliveries to the shops across Dorset. He would have been at work since half past two, and after five hours with little enough sleep preceding them, he was in need of a kip. But Sharon’s recommendation made sense. What would it cost him to lose a few hours of sleep? Not much, he reckoned.
The meeting at the bakery shop went according to plan, but what he hadn’t expected was the secondary plan. This one took them to a nearby inn for a morning coffee. The morning coffee took them upstairs to a room Sharon had already taken. How she put it was, “I’ve got you a room for your kip, Alastair. I reckon you gave that up in order to speak to the staff and you must be dead on your feet. Would you be wanting to go up for a bit?”
He’d said, “Aye.” And then he’d added—God have mercy—“But not without you.” So it had begun, and the aftermath was not guilt at all but rather a kind of immense gratitude that God had given this woman to him.
Oddly, that was how it felt. She was his. To care for, to love, to cherish, to . . . What? he’d asked himself as they parted after that first time. What in God’s name was he supposed to do?
As he had no answer, he set about finding one, and his only course to that end was to have her again. He told himself that he needed to understand what they were to each other because if he had to make some sort of decision about her, then he had to be clear that what was going on between them was not the same mad lust that had fueled his earliest days with his wife.
Indeed, Caroline was dominant in his thoughts most of the time. How could she not be? One didn’t walk out on a woman who’d been through what Caroline had. It would be a death blow to her and he could not deal with it. He couldn’t begin to picture the moment when he faced her over dinner in the garden on a country drive as she did the laundry while she cooked him a meal, and he’d be there telling her that he’d fallen hard for someone else, harder even than he’d fallen for her and “Let’s look at it square, Caro, what’ve we really got, you and me? Not much, eh? Best we go our separate ways.”
As it turned out, he didn’t have to play out that scenario, for Caroline had come by a stack of photos sent to her by God only knew who. He could only thank the Almighty they’d been merely as graphic as photographing a long and openmouthed kiss would make them, or depicting hand-holding, or catching him caressing Sharon’s gorgeous bum. All of that had been bad enough, however. Caroline’s reaction had terrified him. Not a bit of rage, no tears, and not a single accusation. Just an offer that she made when he looked up from the photos she’d placed on his plate instead of the sandwich he’d been expecting.
She would kill herself if that’s what he wanted, she told him. I can see you love her. I can see you want her and who can blame you because look at what I’ve become. But it’s because I can’t get over him, Alastair. I try and I fail and I give you nothing. You’re everything to me, but I’ve never managed to be everything to you. I won’t divorce you because you’ll lose too much when it comes to a settlement and you don’t deserve that. But I’ll kill myself if that’s what you want.
God’s mercy, he didn’t want that! He jumped to his feet and begged her to forgive him for “this bloody stupid fling with Sharon.” It just happened before he knew it was happening was how he put it. One moment he was talking to her ’bout the shop in Dorchester the new building in Poundbury having to sack the shop assistant in Corfe the need for more freshly baked goods in Wareham . . . What did it matter? He babbled, he begged, he professed whatever he needed to profess in order to assure his wife that he felt nothing for Sharon Halsey.
He almost convinced himself. He steeled himself to tell Sharon that the nothing which they had equated to a nothing future. “Bit ’f fun, eh?” was how he put it, and he made himself walk away from her sweet face as it collapsed upon itself as if from a blow.
He felt noble for two days and three sleepless nights. And then he’d rung her. He couldn’t do it, he told her. “You’re the woman for me,” he told her.
When they lay together in her old iron bed, sated and staring into each
other’s eyes, it was easy to think how he would manage it all. Losing half of what he owned meant nothing to him if he could have Sharon. He’d give Caro the house. He’d give her half the shops. He’d give her—if he had to—his very soul. But when he finally broached the subject, Caro had made good on her offer. She’d cut herself, directly on the vein and deeply enough for him to see what the reality was and would always be.
So he was caught, but he could not give up Sharon. He would, he promised himself and her, find a way.
He didn’t lie when his mobile rang, and Caroline said, “Where are you, Alastair? I rang the house first, so don’t tell me I’ve awakened you from your nap. You’ve spent the night with her, haven’t you? You’ve decided that the best course is to take my heart in your mouth and chew it up.”
He glanced at Sharon, who was at the cooker in slippers and dressing gown with her baby-fine hair a mess that needed a careful brushing to detangle it. She looked his way and registered his expression. She came to him where he sat at table, she stood behind his chair, and she put her arms round him. She rested her cheek on the top of his head.
He said into the mobile, “You’ve not waked me.”
“As to the rest? You’re with her, aren’t you?” And then, “Why don’t you simply kill me yourself? Why don’t both of you plan something to be rid of me because that’s what you want, a clear path, isn’t it? And who can blame you for wanting to be rid of me because look at what I’ve become. Look at who I’ve become. I have nothing in my life now and I’ve rung you to tell you it’s over. What I touch turns to ash, who I am poisons the air. Will knew it and you do as well and now Clare . . . Oh my God, Clare . . .”
Alastair frowned. “What of Clare? Caro, what of Clare?”
“She’s dead and I’m alone here with her and I’ve rung Charlie but he’s not answering and I need you and that’s why I’ve phoned. Not because I’m checking on you. Not because I’m half mad with wanting you and wanting to keep you. She died in the night and the police are coming and I need you, Alastair. If I have to talk to the police on my own, if I have to find my way home on my own . . . I don’t know what to do or who to ring if I can’t ring you . . . And you’re with Sharon, aren’t you, I know you’re with her and you’ve spent the night and why would you want to come to me now but please, please.”
“Caro,” he said. “Caro, get hold of yourself, luv. I’ll be there soon.”
Sharon released him then. She went to the cooker. She saw to the eggs and the bacon. She slotted slices of toast in the holder.
He said to her, “Shar, it’s that Clare Abbott . . . Something’s happened to her up in Cambridge and Caro’s in a right state about it.”
She brought the toast to the table along with a plate of eggs and bacon. To this she’d added grilled tomatoes and mushrooms and a heaping portion of beans. A proper English breakfast it was, the sort of breakfast he’d not had at home in years.
“Eat your meal, then, Alastair,” she told him quietly. “It’s a long drive you’ve got before you.”
RIVER HOUSE HOTEL
CAMBRIDGE
Due to roadworks on the motorway, it was noon by the time Rory reached the hotel in Cambridge. She felt caught in a nightmare from which there was going to be no awakening. Her conversation with Caroline Goldacre had been interrupted by paroxysms of that woman’s tears. From it, though, Rory had managed to piece together an outline of what had happened.
Although Clare’s radio interview had not been scheduled till half past ten, Caroline knew that she was an extremely early, predawn riser. But she also knew not to disturb her employer when she was working, which Clare would be doing as she had an article to finish for a magazine’s deadline. Thus, Caroline hadn’t knocked on Clare’s door till eight A.M. When there was no answer, she wasn’t concerned. Clare, she reckoned, would be downstairs in the hotel’s restaurant, having her breakfast. That she normally ate earlier did not concern Caroline. It had been a late night, and there was always a possibility that Clare had not risen as early as she normally did.
But Clare wasn’t in the restaurant, and a question in the lobby of the hotel gave Caroline the information that Ms. Abbott hadn’t been seen going out for a walk along the river or anywhere else. As far as anyone knew, she was still in her room.
When a second knock on Clare’s door achieved nothing, Caroline returned to her own room. As they had adjoining rooms, she entered that way.
Why had she not done that from the first? was what Rory wanted to know.
Because she’d been told a thousand times not to bother Clare when she was at work! was Caroline’s reply. She went on to say she didn’t know what had happened to Clare. There she was on the floor and she was dead and she’d been dead for hours and Caroline raced to phone—
To Rory’s question of how Caroline had known that Clare was dead at all, let alone dead for hours, Caroline shrieked, “D’you know what it looks like when someone’s been dead for hours? D’you want me to give you chapter and verse? I rang reception and they came on the run and they phoned emergency and there was nothing to be done. The paramedics didn’t even try CPR because there was no point. D’you understand? Dead means dead and I don’t know what happened. It’s a heart attack or a stroke or something and I don’t know.”
Now in Cambridge, Rory pulled into the car park of the hotel. The River House sat on the bank of the River Cam, walking distance from the city’s great colleges, a modern affair of wood and glass but sympathetically designed to blend in with the great willows and sycamores that shaded it. She slipped Arlo into his vest, clipped him onto his lead, and hurried towards reception. She was opening the door as a heavy-set man came out, accompanied by a police officer in uniform. The heavy man’s words to “seal it off, then, until word comes round” told her he, too, was probably with the Cambridge police.
The presence of police on the scene made Rory feel faint. As he was trained to do, Arlo sensed this and bumped into her leg, nudging her towards a large planter box on which she could sit if she felt it necessary.
She said to the heavy man, “Clare Abbott?” and he paused. He jerked his head at the uniformed officer with a get-about-your-business expression, and he said nothing to Rory until the man had done as ordered. Then he introduced himself as Detective Chief Superintendent Daniel Sheehan, standing in this morning as duty inspector, and who was she? She used the words close friend first and colleague second and only third did she tell him she was Clare Abbott’s editor from London, here in Cambridge because Clare’s assistant Caroline Goldacre had rung her. Where is Clare? she added. What happened? How is . . . ?
But Rory knew there was no point to “How is she.” There was no chance that Caroline had been mistaken, not once the paramedics had arrived. Prior to that, perhaps, but not afterwards. To her horror, she began to weep. Arlo stepped in, nudging her again. The detective took her arm and led her into the hotel, where he sat her on a sofa and joined her. Arlo lay at her feet. The detective bent and petted his tousled-haired head, saying to him, “I expect you’re a helper dog of some sort, aren’t you?” before he spoke to Rory.
They were attempting to suss out the deceased woman’s next of kin, he told her, but they weren’t able to get much sense from the lady who’d discovered the body. She’d had to be given a mild sedative, so distraught was she. They’d insisted she ring for someone to come to her aid, as it didn’t seem likely that it would be safe for her to take herself home when the time came for her to leave. Could Ms. Statham give them the next of kin for the deceased? There was the formality of an identification of the body that would have to take place prior to the autopsy, which itself would occur once—
“Autopsy?” The idea of Clare being cut open . . . the thought of her skin being pulled back . . . the image of organs removed and weighed and a terrible incision in her chest sewn up . . . Rory pressed her fingers to her forehead. Arlo leapt onto the sofa and ass
umed the drop position, his chin in her lap.
“No cause for alarm,” Daniel Sheehan said sympathetically, putting his hand on her arm and squeezing it briefly. He called out to the receptionist. Could a pot of tea be brought? Some biscuits as well? A tea cake would do if they had one. He turned back to Rory. “It’s procedure,” he told her. “When an otherwise healthy individual dies suddenly? There’ll be a coroner’s inquest to determine what happened. But prior to that, a kinsman needs to do the formal identification. Has she a husband? Children? Siblings?”
“There’s no one,” Rory said. “Her parents are dead and she has no children. There’s a brother but they’ve been estranged for years. Things are . . . were . . . difficult between them.” No need to say more than that, Rory thought. To use Clare’s own words, her older brother was part of her past best forgotten. She had not continued to hate him for what he’d done to her childhood innocence in the dark of night, but two decades spent learning how to forgive him had not concluded with Clare’s wanting him to be a presence in her life. Rory added to what she’d said about the estrangement. “Clare wouldn’t want him here. If it’s allowed, I’ll identify her.”
Sheehan said that he would see to the arrangements, then.
Rory said, “C’n I ask . . . ?” The detective looked expectant but also kind and sympathetic, and she appreciated that. “It’s just that I don’t quite understand the police being here.”
The pot of tea arrived. Everything was set out: a china pot—not one of those terrible tin ones—with matching cups, saucers, milk jug, and sugar bowl. Five ginger biscuits were arranged on a plate. Sheehan frowned at these. He lifted the teapot’s lid and stirred its contents. He poured them each a cup. He broke a biscuit in half and asked if he could give it to Arlo. Rory liked him for this. He told her briefly that any call to triple nine was always evaluated by a police official, the force incident manager. Any death was considered suspicious until proven otherwise, so a uniformed patrol officer would be dispatched. That officer made sure the victim was indeed deceased, sealed off the scene, and rang for the duty inspector. “Me, in this case,” Sheehan said. “We’re short-handed at the moment.”
A Banquet of Consequences Page 17
