Echoes of Silence

by Marjorie Eccles

  Elf answered with barely concealed amusement, topping up her cup. ‘Don’t tell him, he’ll never know, he’s hardly likely to come here and see it.’

  ‘I didn’t know he was still painting.’

  ‘It might be one of his old ones – I found it in the basement with some others when I took the gallery over. It’s not the sort of thing Lance Armitage usually bought – they probably didn’t sell straight off, and he thought he’d made a mistake buying them.’

  ‘It’s time you made it up with Peter,’ Polly said abruptly, wrongfooting herself right at the start of what she’d really come to say.

  ‘I expect it is. But it takes two.’

  Spiky as ever. But, since her head was still intact on her shoulders, Polly further grasped the opportunity. ‘Elf – I’ve always wondered – you used to be such friends. What was it that happened between you two, and Philip?’

  Elf shrugged, her face closed. ‘If we could leave Philip out of this.’

  But Philip couldn’t be left out. There it was, the three of them, in that broken, triangular relationship that had never been explained. And there was Elf, maddening, infuriating as ever. Subject closed.

  OK. If that was how she wanted it. But for the time being only, Polly vowed.

  ‘Philip’s partly why I came,’ she said, letting it go. ‘I wish you’d been there last night. He’s not well …’ Explanations followed, tinged with guilt because they’d all owed a debt to Philip they’d never recognised. Or had they? ‘Gaining a family’ – that was what he’d said, hadn’t he? Fine sentiments indeed! Polly was beginning to find them a little hard to stomach in view of what she now suspected – knew, really – to be true.

  ‘So,’ she finished, ‘I’m afraid my mother left us nothing. But we’re all to share what Philip has to leave … the four of us.’ There was a silence. ‘I – hope you weren’t expecting more.’

  Someone tried the shop door, went away when they found it locked. Elf said drily, ‘I’d have been a fool to have expected anything from Freya! As for Philip …’ She shrugged.

  ‘Elvira,’ Polly said. ‘Stop it. Life’s too short for all this. A few days ago my mother died and I shall be sorry for ever for things I said and didn’t say. Philip’s an old man and not too well. Don’t let him die without patching up your quarrel with him.’

  For a moment, she thought she’d got through to Elf, but no. ‘Did I say there was a quarrel? Nothing so vulgar!’

  ‘What would you call it, then? A slight disagreement that’s lasted all these years?’

  ‘Don’t be sarcastic, Poll!’ But Elf looked sideways at Polly, as if wondering how much further to go, whether she hadn’t already said too much. Then she took a deep breath, and plunged. ‘Oh, what’s it matter, now? He – old Holier-than-thou Philip – discovered Peter painting me in the nude. Shock, horror! You can imagine how he put the worst possible construction on it.’

  ‘Oh.’ Polly could see that you might, coming across something like that, especially if it was your daughter! If you were Philip, who’d always been, as Elf said, a bit sanctimonious. She was rather taken aback herself. ‘In the nude? And how old were you?’

  ‘Nearly twelve.’ Elf’s chin went up.

  Eleven years old. God. Still a child. But old enough for Elf, always a precocious child, to know the danger. And young enough to be frightened of the consequences. ‘And you told no one?’ Not Freya, of course, she’d never have told Freya. Nor Dot, whose reaction might have been uncertain, to say the least. Poor little Elf, her almost-sister, trying to sort that one out, alone! ‘Why didn’t you tell Ginny, or even me?’ she asked gently.

  ‘You were in the middle of your mock As, and Ginny was too busy with wedding plans. Anyway, there wasn’t anything anyone could do. It was all over and done with – and there’d been nothing wrong in it to begin with. He only wanted to paint me, for heaven’s sake!’

  ‘The sensible thing would have been for him to have asked permission first.’ But the sensible thing would never have occurred to Peter. ‘What did he do about it?’

  ‘Oh, you know Peter, he blamed himself. Black’s black and white’s white with him. Examining his conscience and asking himself if his intentions had really been so innocent. Sheltering under the Church ever since in case he might be tempted again.’

  ‘You mean he just left it like that? And committed his whole life to an act of penance?’ It sounded bizarre, it was bizarre, unless applied to Peter. You could never judge him by ordinary standards, though perhaps it was time somebody did. It had been cruel to leave the situation like that, to leave a child to face the consequences, alone. And Philip, the old hyprocrite, was worse. Polly felt slightly dazed with everything that was being flung at her. Nasty things were emerging from the woodshed, with a vengeance. Whatever had happened to honesty in the Denshaw family? Philip, in collusion with Freya, hiding the truth of their father’s will. Freya, keeping hidden what had happened the night little Beth was killed …

  ‘Listen,’ she said urgently. ‘There’s something else you should know, something we all have to talk about.’

  She told Elf everything she could remember about the recent happenings, beginning with Freya’s fears about what the Austwick woman might have found out, and ending with all that had transpired at the police station. ‘I think Peter’s in trouble. But he’s got to help himself – and I can’t see him doing that,’ she added hopelessly. ‘He’s so – oh, I don’t know … What’s wrong with him, Elf, tell me? You always knew him better than either Ginny, or I.’

  ‘No I didn’t, I never have. But I do know he didn’t kill that child, or that woman. Not Peter.’ Her face suddenly looked small and shrunken.

  She loves him – not in the way Ginny and I love him, she’s in love with him, but she does think he did it, in spite of what she says – perhaps she knows, thought Polly with a return of that terrible premonition of impending doom which had hung over her ever since hearing about her mother’s intention to publish that wretched book.

  ‘He couldn’t have done it! I know he couldn’t because -’ She stopped, almost visibly swallowing what she’d been going to say. She was very white under the clever make-up. She put a hand to her mouth; the ring she wore was too big, and slid around on her finger. The stone, which had all this time lain innermost, towards her palm, now slipped around to the front. A black opal, a pointed oval shape surrounded by diamonds, that Freya had worn constantly in Polly’s youth, but which Polly hadn’t seen for years. Like so much more of her mother’s jewellery, it had disappeared without explanation.

  ‘Elf, where did you get that ring?’

  14

  Charlie Rawnsley walked down the hill to buy fish for his dinner from the stall in the covered market where you could always be sure it was fresh from Grimsby, straight out of the North Sea. He fancied a couple of herrings, cooked the way Connie used to do them, covered in rolled oats and fried, served with a mustard sauce, but he didn’t know whether Lilian would like herrings, or the smell of their cooking. A lot of people didn’t. Better get a nice piece of thick-end cod.

  Walking was hazardous, despite the ribbed soles of his rubber boots, snow turned to slush over a layer of ice. He watched his step, not wanting to end up as a geriatric disaster in the hospital, where Lilian Bentley had nearly found herself yesterday. She’d been shovelling snow from her front path (after he’d offered to do it for her, mind!) and she’d slipped and sprained her wrist. Lucky it was nothing worse. Broken hips weren’t to be lightly regarded when you were over sixty.

  But Lilian was like him – couldn’t abide being beholden to anybody. He thought himself highly honoured that she’d agreed to let him cook and share dinner. ‘Just this once, think on! I’ll be right as a bobbin tomorrow.’

  He thought she was overestimating her rate of recovery, but he was looking forward to the shared meal, and the company. She was a lively, cheerful woman with a sensible outlook on life and a variety of interests, a retired bookshop assistant
who’d only recently bought the house next door. She’d recommended him several new authors he hadn’t heard of before.

  He bought his fish and was debating whether or not to call for a pint before making the journey back up the hill, when he heard himself hailed by Tom Richmond. ‘Hey, Charlie!’ They met felicitously by the door of the Crown and Anchor. ‘Spotted you just as I was going to my car,’ Richmond said. ‘Time for a drink?’

  They settled for a sandwich as well, cheese spiced with pickle. Charlie had his dinner in the evening, now. A heavy meal midday put him to sleep. He didn’t mind that in the evening, dozing in front of the telly, since there was never anything but what he considered rubbish to watch, anyway. He put his carrier bag on the floor beside him, stretched his legs to the fire, took a long pull at his beer and sat back. ‘Well then, how’s it going?’

  The pub’s enormous fat tabby appeared from nowhere. Waved its tail superciliously. Considered the options and leaped on to the cushioned chair opposite, regarding them with disconcertingly unmoving yellow slitted eyes while Richmond gave the old man a succinct progress report of the Austwick murder. ‘I’m probably out of line, telling you all this, so keep it under your hat, Charlie, eh?’

  ‘You don’t need to ask!’ Charlie was offended. ‘It’ll go no further.’

  ‘All right, all right, sorry. I should’ve known.’

  Charlie was mollified. Retired or not, he was still a policeman, wasn’t he? He could be trusted to keep his mouth shut, to give advice when it was asked, as he was pleased to say it often was, to trawl his memory, which went back before computers were thought of, for faces and facts, but otherwise keep mum.

  ‘I wanted to see you, anyway, Charlie.’ Richmond pushed his empty plate away and looked at the old man consideringly. ‘What can you tell me about the Reverend Peter – off the record?’

  Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. Hadn’t been expecting that. ‘You shouldn’t be asking me, I’m prejudiced.’

  ‘Try not to be. As a good copper, Charlie, what did you really think of him? When you met him, through Isobel.’

  Charlie thought. The cat jumped from the chair and decided to come nearer and take advantage of the fire, while keeping its impassive stare fixed on them.

  ‘I wish I could give you an answer straight out, Tom, but it’s not as simple as that. I never had much to do with him, you know – even when he was married to Isobel. I sometimes go to his services and listen to him preach.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I sit at the back. Mebbe he doesn’t know I’m there, but mebbe he does.’

  ‘Intimidation, Charlie? Harassment?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it either. Started out … I wanted to know what made him tick, if he could’ve done it. And then you know, you begin to think … Well, you and me, Tom, we both know anybody can be a murderer, given the right circumstances, whatever they might say. And being a copper, you get a gut feeling. Something in your water tells you somebody’s either guilty or not, never mind evidence.’ It wasn’t a popular view, but one he knew Richmond agreed with.

  ‘So what’s your gut feeling about Peter Denshaw?’

  Charlie sank another couple of inches of his beer, wondering whether to admit it, even to himself. ‘I dunno … Lately … I don’t think he did it,’ he said at last.

  Richmond let out his breath. ‘It’s not beginning to look that way, Charlie.’

  ‘Well, I know nowt about that. He might’ve been involved, he might know who did it, though I wouldn’t be too sure about that, either. I’m not saying he isn’t capable of wanting anybody dead – what I am saying is, he wouldn’t do it that way. Too bloody soft, for one thing. But he’s slippy. If he did do it, he’d likely arrange it so’s he wasn’t there to see it happen.’

  Neither man spoke for a while. At last, Richmond said, ‘I’m down to interview him tomorrow. Jacks has got clearance from on high.’

  ‘You mean they’re going to reopen the case, officially?’

  ‘Wouldn’t go so far, yet, but they’ve presumably looked at my track record and decided I can be trusted to stick to the rule books and not pursue vendettas. Might not be the wisest decision they’ve ever made, but with all that’s happened on the Austwick murder it’s beginning to look like too much of a stretch to believe the two aren’t connected.’

  ‘Well, I’m buggered!’ Charlie declared, shocking two overdressed women who had come in and found a seat at the next table. But Charlie didn’t notice. He was looking as gleeful as if he himself had been asked to return and take charge of Steynton nick. The two men sat grinning at each other like fools.

  One of the women bent down and stroked the tabby, cooing over it, even went so far as to attempt to lift it on to her knee. Outraged at the liberty, it yowled and slipped from her grasp, pointedly turned its back on them and immediately began weaving itself round Charlie’s legs.

  Charlie was too chuffed with Richmond’s news to notice what was going on, until the cat, with lightning dexterity and speed, appropriated what was in his carrier bag and ran off with it in its jaws, leaving nothing but the bag itself behind. He shouted and jumped up and chased after the animal but it was on home ground and had disappeared down a passage before he reached the door.

  ‘Dang and blast!’ he said, returning, his language severely moderated in deference to the two cat-loving ladies, who were trying not very successfully to hide their laughter, and looking very much as though they’d like to applaud the animal’s feat. ‘That there fish cost me three pounds, eighty pee! I’d best be off and see if I can’t get some more – Sid’s usually sold out and shut his stall up by half-past one.’

  The incident effectively put an end to further conversation and the two men parted outside the pub, Richmond still smiling and thanking Charlie for his advice.

  ‘Nay, don’t thank me, lad. It’s only an opinion, and I could be wrong.’

  The fish man was still there, the cod wasn’t. Only rock salmon left, and no wonder. Catfish, we used to call it, and that’s all it’s good for, thought Charlie, calling down maledictions on the thieving tabby and opting for a couple of pork chops from the butcher.

  Trudging home again, he wondered what had made him say that to Tom about Peter Denshaw. Not that it was likely to get the Reverend off the hook if he’d done this other murder, and not that Charlie’s opinion mattered one way or t’other. It was just that admitting it like that, bringing it out into the open, he’d surprised himself. Fair bowled himself over, in fact, never having thought he could bring himself to speak out in Denshaw’s defence. But having done so, a grudge he’d nursed for ten years had suddenly ceased to hurt quite so much, like a boil that had been lanced. Leaving, in the space occupied for so long by pain and dark thoughts of revenge, that other question which had also tormented him: ‘If not Peter Denshaw, then who?’

  The trouble with Eddie was that you could never be sure what he was going to do. He was so unpredictable, there was no telling what he might already have done, using the only language he understood: violence. Handy with his fists, think afterwards, that was Eddie, thought Dot with unconscious irony. Strong in the back and weak in the head. And such a fool! Just think – a few dog hairs might be his undoing. If Eddie had a weak spot, it was for his dogs. He was as sentimental over them as he was about children, and that was saying something. He nearly cried every time he thought about that little girl lying for so long under the park bandstand, with her head on a pillow. He was very happy that there was another little girl about the place now.

  Harriet was a great favourite with him, though he told Dot he thought the name, Harriet, was awful, old-fashioned and ugly. He’d had a terrible great-aunt called Harriet who’d smelled of cat-pee and humbugs and took her teeth out to eat. He couldn’t think of this little darlin’ as Harriet without remembering the old witch and so he called her Missy, the name of a favourite dog who’d won him more money than any of his others put together.

  What was she going to do about him? Dot made
herself some more tea in the dark little kitchen of her cottage and sucked on her cigarette, endlessly turning over all the possibilities. Nothing seemed right at the moment, but it’d come to her, she’d sort him out. She always had done, in spite of everything.

  They were two of a kind, she and Eddie, with a violence in their relationship that stimulated it, kept it going. Each had a legacy from the same sort of background – a back-street, extended family, hand to mouth, day to day, where was next week’s rent coming from? existence. Which was why they both wanted security, would do anything to get it and keep it. What now – back to London? But Dot had all too recently seen, when meeting her family at the funeral of the aged uncle, that most of them were now living like prisoners in tower blocks, terrified out of their lives of teenage hooligans, and half the population around them black as your hat. Or, having escaped that, they were prisoners of a different kind, living in a tight-arsed sort of way, scratching and saving, a mortgage and a semi in outer London suburbia. She’d shuddered and sworn that was never for her.

  No, London wasn’t the city she’d known as a pre-war and wartime child and remembered with nostalgia: the street games, the camaraderie of the Underground in the Blitz, and later, her first job picking up pins in a couture house. It was all changed.

  Yet round and round in her head the problem went: what were they going to do now, she and Eddie? Together, however it turned out, she knew that, anything else was unthinkable. They’d started and so they would finish, locked together in mutual dependency, as she and Freya had been. Eddie – coming into her life when she was forty-three and he only just thirty. Eddie, a mistake in many ways, but necessary to her, for all their problems. He wanted to stay around these parts, but she thought they’d been here too long, that he’d become overfond of the easy life – a nice, cushy little number, he thought this job was, one that left him plenty of time for his own interests. Not idle, Eddie, he was never that. Always active, on the go, but doing only what suited him. Staying with her because of the promise, the carrot on the end of the stick. She’d no illusions about it.