Swimming in the Shadows
Page 14
This is madness, yelled that voice in my head. Pure and utter madness.
I would have to watch him very closely. There was always the chance that he would start a rumour, setting other people on the trail. I wasn’t worried about the practice staff, because gossip seldom crossed the great medical-clerical divide, and I was prepared to gamble that Terry Millington wouldn’t say anything to the other doctors, just in case he was wrong. But what about the evenings spent in the pub? Was he a chatty drunk, or did he just have a couple of pints before retreating home with his stash from the booze aisle? How about Pat Metcalf? If he so much as let slip a hint to her it would be all over the valley by nightfall.
You’re gambling on a drunk? exclaimed my wiser twin, but I ignored her. I crawled under the duvet, still in my dressing gown, with all the lights left on downstairs, trying to convince myself that I could weather the storm. I have to get a good night’s sleep, I told myself, because tomorrow, whatever happens, I have to act normally.
NINETEEN
‘Acting normally’ ought to have become second nature to me by then, but even so I was on tenterhooks the next day, dreading my first encounter with Dr Milly, freezing at every tap on the office door, but our paths didn’t cross until mid-morning, when I met him emerging from the doctors’ sitting room. Determined to give nothing away, I looked him in the eye and smiled. ‘Good morning, Doctor Millington. Are you feeling better?’
‘Fit as a king, Susan – and yourself?’
I ignored what I fancied was a glimmer of amusement, replying, ‘Very well, thank you. You evidently got home safely.’
‘I did. You were quite right to send me packing. I’d enjoyed a few too many and I had no business turning up like that.’
‘Quite,’ I said firmly. ‘Well, least said, soonest mended.’
‘Mum’s the word.’ He grinned and tapped the side of his nose – that most theatrical of conspiracy gestures – then walked away towards the consulting rooms.
I tried not to take undue notice of him during the next few days, because I did not want him to think that I was worried. Susan McCarthy had nothing to worry about, because the whole idea of her being a missing person masquerading as someone else was so ridiculous as to be beneath her notice. But it was hard, so hard to focus on ordinary workaday realities when a part of me just longed to take Terry Millington aside and ask him to level with me. ‘Was the resemblance just some daft idea you entertained while drunk, or do you seriously suspect something? Do you know?’
The episode had unsettled me so much that Rob picked up on it, asking more than once whether I would prefer not to spend the night on my own. Knowing nothing of the Dr Millington problem, he put my jumpiness down to the fact that there was still a murderer loose in the neighbourhood, which to be honest was also an issue, because my earlier confidence had been undermined by a series of restless nights, when every creaking board brought alternate images of a visit from the local killer, or a half-drunk doctor with a policeman in tow.
Ordinarily I would have welcomed the comfort of Rob’s presence in my bed, but ever since the Disappeared! programme I’d been caught on the horns of a dilemma. Being with Rob was becoming like a game of roulette, in which the fun and excitement was constantly overshadowed by an ever-present threat of the ball falling into a slot labelled Found Out. Who knew when something else about Jennifer Reynolds might be lurking within the pages of a newspaper, or would pop up on the TV screen? My former identity had come to haunt me in much the same way as had a jack-in-the-box which someone had given me as a child – a garish creature, whose sudden appearance and rictus grin had always made me cry. In any other household the wretched thing might have been discarded or given away, but my mother was a keeper par excellence and the jack-in-the-box – which had a dodgy catch, liable to be set off by any unexpected movement – dogged me for years as it was put away in one place after another, ever ready to leap out when I was least expecting it, the clown-face grinning hideously and the box emitting a sinister gurgle of laughter which faded to a horrid, wheezing moan.
Fortunately nothing more appeared in the papers or on TV about Jennifer Reynolds and, more importantly, Rob made no further mentions of Jennifer – Dunwood or any other. The topic of foreign travels was similarly forgotten as he became increasingly preoccupied with the school’s forthcoming geography field trip, for which he carried the lion’s share of responsibility. ‘I don’t see how they could go ahead with the field trip if I’m suspended,’ he said.
I had given up my remonstrations to the effect that he would not be suspended, so I merely said, ‘Jolly good reason not to suspend you, then.’
The week of the field trip is indelibly etched on my memory. After work on Monday we ate supper at my cottage, then walked hand in hand up the lane and along the bridleway to the crest of the hill, not returning home until the evening star winked brightly above the trees of the rookery. Later we made love with exquisite tenderness and he stayed the night, because it was our last opportunity for the best part of two weeks. (The field trip did not leave until Wednesday morning, but Rob, ever conscientious, said he still had a lot of things to do, so we had agreed that meeting on the eve of departure was impractical.) He was going to be away for almost a fortnight because the school sent two groups of pupils to the field centre, one straight after the other, and Rob stayed the whole time, taking first one group and then the next through the same course.
I awoke in his arms that Tuesday morning and lay for some time watching the pale light creep across the room. In spite of his impending absence, I felt safe and happy. The warm curve of his body next to mine exuded love and security. He was sleeping calmly and easily beside me and I sensed that with the field trip to focus on, much of the tension and anxiety about the Julie Peacock affair had lifted from him.
It was less than three weeks since Julie had been murdered, but her death had already been forgotten by the national media and was slipping out of the local papers too. Even among residents of the dale, it was no longer invariably the principal topic of conversation. The police had been from door to door, potential witnesses had been questioned and a fingertip search made at the murder site, but if there had been any significant discoveries they were not communicated to the public at large. The fires of village speculation had begun to smoulder, though there were still people ready to reignite them with an injection of local fuel. From the snippets I gleaned in the common room and elsewhere, Rob appeared to rate well down the list of suspects still under consideration by the amateur sleuths who gathered in the Post Office, or the bar of The Black Bull. There was speculation that young Luke Robinson had been sweet on the girl, but he was generally thought a nice, quiet lad who earned an immediate gold star with most habitués of The Bull as he planned to follow his father into farming, when so many of the youngsters were turning away from the traditional ways. There had been a certain amount of head shaking among some of the older residents over Julie’s father, who was said to have ‘an evil temper on him’ when he had a bit too much to drink. Then there were the various inhabitants of the dale generally thought to be ‘short in the upper storey’. With half-a-dozen or more locals who had credentials such as these, no one was putting money on it being that nice Mr Dugdale who taught at the comp.
I kept a discreet eye on Terry Millington, still wondering how much he knew or had guessed, but he had done nothing further to increase my concerns. With the duty book now being kept in exemplary fashion, fewer administrative cock-ups and no repetition of his unsolicited home visit, I hoped that he had taken my warning to heart and was focused on getting his act together rather than contemplating facial similarities between members of staff and actresses in TV documentaries.
It’s going to be OK, I thought. Everything is getting back to normal. Everything is going to be all right. Our plans haven’t been diverted or derailed. Rob and I will be together forever. Together … forever … I shaped the words silently and they filled me with light-hearted joy.
When Rob had gone I decided to walk into work for a change, reasoning that the exercise would do me good. There was a cool breeze, but the sky was blue and sunbeams danced ahead of me along the lane. There was smoke issuing from the chimney at Rosecroft, where I knew Jim and Bob would be taking a late breakfast after already putting in a couple of hours work. The smell of wood smoke followed me along the lane. A comfortable smell, instantly evocative of all that was good about life in Lasthwaite. We never had a real fire when I was a child. My mother had said it made dust.
At Belsay House the sun reflected off the window panes and the lion’s head doorknocker positively glowed. I made a mental note to praise Linda, the cleaner. Everything seemed calm and cheerful that morning. No crisis loomed; no shortage of appointment slots or missing files. There were no messages awaiting me from complaining patients, no awkward meetings looming. It was turning out to be one of those truly good days on which anyone would feel glad to be alive.
As usual, I took my coffee with the doctors when they broke off between morning surgery consultations and home visits, joining the rest of the staff in their much larger common room in the afternoon. It was a gesture of friendship and solidarity on my part as much as anything else, even if I would sometimes rather have taken my Nescafe in the privacy of my office. By the time I got into the common room on that particular afternoon the Trollop was in full flow – a juicy scandal about her ex-sister-in-law and a fireman. Finding that the kettle had just boiled, I made myself a coffee and found a chair.
A lot of the staff preferred to have tea in the afternoon and there was a big pot stewing on the table, next to the box containing the afternoon biscuits, a daily treat foresworn by the perpetually dieting Trollop, but indulged in by the nurses, who were all size twenty-two and above. No digestives today, I noted, just wafers which left a crumbly pink dust in the bottom of the tin, and a couple of chocolate chip cookies. I took one of the latter, wondering idly why people brought wafers in because they always got left to last. Digestives, fig rolls and anything involving chocolate – those were the popular ones.
I listened with perhaps as much as half my attention while the Trollop approached the climax of her tale. The denouement drew gales of laughter from the less inhibited staff, while the lip-pursers made polite laugh-like noises. As the laughter died away there was a brief comfortable silence while people drank from their mugs, ate their biscuits or looked out at the sky, which was clouding over.
The Tragedy Queen was next to speak. ‘I see they’ve found that woman’s body. You know, the one what’s been missing for ages.’
‘Jennifer Reynolds,’ the Trainspotter put in helpfully. ‘I heard it on the news this lunchtime.’
‘Eeee – never? Well, how funny with it being on the telly just the other week,’ said the Trollop. ‘Do you remember how we were talking about her at Moira’s leaving party?’
The Tragedy Queen nodded. ‘I said to Frank it’ll be that psychic chap. He said he knew where to find her.’
‘No,’ said Jacky, a big, down-to-earth district nurse. ‘It’ll be new information from somebody who saw it on the telly. Something in that programme will have jogged someone’s memory.’
‘Guilty conscience, more like,’ said Jean, the receptionist. ‘Made someone think they ought to tell what they know. There’s always someone knows something.’
I was in a nightmare. Breathe – try to remember to breathe.
‘Have they said it’s her for definite?’ This from the Trollop.
‘Well, they don’t, do they?’ said the Trainspotter. ‘Not to start with. The television people seemed to think it was her. And they usually know, don’t they?’
‘They never give out the name to start off with,’ another voice chipped in. ‘They have to notify the relatives and such like first.’
Don’t look at me. Please don’t any of you look at me, at my guilty, Jennifer Reynolds face.
‘I remember when she went missing,’ said the Tragedy Queen, who in common with Stan Butters of Glastonbury, occasionally fancied herself gifted with clairvoyance. ‘I remember saying then – you mark my words, her husband’s done away with her.’
It was a nightmare, but I would wake up soon.
‘I reckon that’s why they put it back on the telly the other week – you know, to get people interested again. And now someone’s given them a tip-off.’
‘I bet he did do it, that husband. He looked right creepy – you can always tell.’
‘Wasn’t she the one who was supposed to have gone off without taking any money or clothes?’
‘That’s right. Left her car keys and credit cards on the kitchen table and just walked out.’
‘No … hang on, though, didn’t they think she’d been kidnapped? Weren’t there some bloodstains and a broken window?’
‘No-o-o. That wasn’t the Jennifer Reynolds case. You’re thinking of that other woman down in Dorset.’
It was just a terrible dream: any minute now I would wake up. I would be lying in my bedroom with the moonlight sliding in where the curtains don’t quite meet at the top.
‘Mind, I thought her husband had set that up …’
The conversation rambled off down other speculative avenues of kidnap and murder while I drank my coffee, very slowly and carefully. Say nothing. Don’t get up from your chair while they’re all still in here. Wait until you’re certain that you can stand up without your legs giving way.
No one seemed to notice that I made no contribution to the discussion. I didn’t even have to invent a headache. Back in my office, I tried to make some sense out of it all. How could my body have been discovered?
I considered the possibility that the Tragedy Queen had made a mistake over the name. Then again, several of them seemed to have heard the news item, presumably either before they set out in the morning or when they went home for lunch, and no one had corrected her about it. Probably the identity was mere speculation. Well, obviously … it would have to be.
I desperately wanted to talk to Rob, badly needed to see him, hear and touch him. I didn’t want to be alone any more. Not ever. It had all got too complicated. Somehow I would have to tell him the truth – Rob loved me, he would know what to do. It was no use calling school because he would be in classes, so instead I rang his cottage and left a message on his answering machine.
‘Hi, sweetheart – it’s me.’ I tried to keep my voice on an even keel. Mustn’t worry him by letting him hear how upset I was. ‘I know we said we wouldn’t call each other tonight because you’ve got such a lot to do, but I want to see you so much. Please ring me when you get home.’
When I put the phone down, it rang immediately and I snatched it up, full of foolish false hope, but it was only a call from the switchboard – would I speak with a Mr Duggan from Everbright Hygiene? I said I would. Mr Duggan wanted to make an appointment to talk through the health centre’s requirements. I arranged to see him the following week, managing to keep almost half my mind on the conversation I was having.
Jennifer Reynolds’s body. How could they have found Jennifer Reynolds’s body? It wasn’t possible. It was a mistake. A horrible, terrible mistake.
TWENTY
Rob generally reached home not much later than half past four, but by the time I left work at ten past five he still hadn’t called. I was tired by then and the sky had clouded over
so that choosing to leave the car at home now seemed like the act of an imbecile. Denuded of sunshine, everything appeared harsh and cold, the earlier promise of spring entirely gone. Rosecroft looked particularly gloomy, with no discernible signs of life – not even the tell-tale whiff of wood smoke – and in the clump of trees at the back of the farmhouse the rooks were making a huge commotion, one of those discordant clamours of the kind employed by film makers, whenever they want to create a sinister atmosphere for a story set in the English countryside.
I was half hoping that Rob would overtake me as I walked up the lane, or maybe even be waiting at the cottage, but when I got there the place was deserted. I let myself in at the front door, collapsed on to the sofa and kicked off my outdoor shoes. The discovery of ‘my’ body was the final straw. Somehow, I had to find a way of telling Rob the truth. As soon as I could summon up the energy I took off my coat, picked up the phone and pressed his number, but I got the answering machine again.
‘I’m just trying to get you, again,’ I said lamely. ‘Speak to you soon.’
I hung my coat in the lobby, put the kettle on and made a mug of coffee, all the time wondering where he could be. He was always home by now. Surely he wasn’t outside, chopping wood? He wouldn’t bother to get a stack of wood in before he went away – not with so many last minute things to do – and anyway, he usually heard the phone from the garden. He must have gone to the supermarket, I thought. Probably picking up something for the trip. But surely that didn’t take an hour?
I took my mug of coffee into the sitting room and perched on the arm of the chair, where I could see not only the television, but also through the window to the gate, where I was hoping against hope to spot the arrival of a certain geography teacher.