by Jill McGown
One by one, the customers—clients? whatever they were—left, and the girl nodded to Judy as she walked back the way she had come. Judy almost asked her what she thought of the place but didn’t. And she wasn’t going to find out about it standing outside and clocking the other customers, which was what she had been doing for the last ten minutes. The minirush seemed to be over now, so this was probably a good time to go in for a chat.
“Let’s have a look inside, then. We don’t have to commit ourselves, do we?”
At half past ten, having spent thirty minutes in the nursery, talking to the woman who ran it, meeting a couple of the girls who looked after babies, having morning coffee and biscuits, Judy and Charlotte left. It was a pleasant place, with all sorts of things to stimulate infant minds. The girls seemed to know what they were doing, their charges seemed happy, and the boss woman had all the right qualifications. Charlotte had smiled and laughed and said “ba-ba-ba” to everyone she had met; Judy felt that she could leave her there right now and Charlotte wouldn’t care.
But Judy would. She sighed. She didn’t want Charlotte saying her first word to a stranger or taking her first steps in a smart, state-of-the-art nursery. She wanted her baby to be in her own home, with someone she lived with, wherever and whoever that was going to be.
“Looks like we’re down to a so-so nanny or ga-ga mama. What do you think?”
“Ma-ma-ma.”
Judy stared at her. My God, she was just like her father.
“Lesley?” Ian called upstairs. “I’m just going to take the van back. I’ll be as quick as I can. It’s only a five-minute trip.”
He set off for Byford Road, wondering how all this had happened to him. The brook that ran alongside the road looked pretty, after the wet spring that had caused it to flood more than once; the water seemed to have been revitalized, moving briskly and busily over the stones. A solitary figure stood on the bridge, watching it, as Ian drove past. With its backdrop of trees, the scene looked like a painting.
The woodland that his father had managed for so many years was tended by council workers now, rather than the casual labor that his father had employed. But these itinerant workers—Gypsies, most of them—had made a better job of it. Or perhaps, he thought, people were just more considerate of their surroundings then. Or perhaps there simply weren’t as many people, so not as many antisocial ones.
The wood, shifting in the now-stiff breeze, still looked good, particularly in autumn, when it turned to red and gold, but it was difficult to appreciate it when he knew that the little clearing where he had played as a boy was now little more than an unofficial garbage dump. The council removed the rubbish from time to time, but it always happened again. There was a perfectly good disposal center where people could take unwanted items, but that was too much like hard work. Easier just to dump it in the clearing. You couldn’t see the pile of rubbish from the road; it was when you were enjoying a walk through the wood that you found yourself looking at it.
He turned right out of Brook Way and negotiated the miniroundabouts that guarded the entrances to the center of Stansfield, waiting to see what the black cab approaching on the roundabout was going to do, since its driver was signaling left but hadn’t taken the left turn up to the town center. The cab came straight over, and Ian, glancing in his mirror, saw it take the next left turn into Brook Way. He wasn’t going up to the town, either; he drove along the main road and turned left into Byford Road, where Theresa had her flat. Even that seemed wrong, because she didn’t seem to him to be entirely at home there. Six months ago, none of this had happened, and he wished with all his heart that it never had.
It was twenty to eleven when he pulled into the garage area, where his Alfa sat waiting for him. Up in the flat, they swapped keys once more, and Theresa looked at him, her head to one side.
“You said you borrowed the van so you could speak to me properly. But you didn’t, did you?”
No. Ian looked down at his feet.
“Come on. Out with it.”
He took a deep breath. “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake, Theresa.”
Phil got out of the cab and walked up the driveway of the cottage. He could see her car in the garage; presumably she was in. He went along the path to the front door, his hand poised to ring the bell; then he withdrew it. If she saw him on the doorstep, the door would be closed again; perhaps he could get in some other way.
The garage seemed to have been built onto the cottage—he walked back along the path, stepping as noiselessly as he could onto the graveled driveway, and almost tiptoed between the Audi and the wall, toward what looked like a connecting door. He shook his head when he glanced into the car, piled to the roof with bundles and boxes—she had no rear vision at all. And she’d just parked it and got out, leaving the keys, her bag, everything in it. All right, the house was in the middle of a wood, but she was a strange mixture, Lesley; she seemed to be concerned about everyone but herself. If that had been someone else’s car, it would be locked, the garage would be locked, and there would be nothing of value left in it to be stolen. But her own car—well, that was unimportant. And yet, despite the apparent selflessness, she always got her own way.
If the door was locked, he might try ringing the front door bell, just in case she allowed him in. But if he couldn’t get in that way, he would get in some way, because she wasn’t going to get away with this, not without listening to what he had to say. He would get in if he had to break the door down. But he didn’t have to break it down; the door opened into a dark, windowless utility room, with a washing machine and a freezer and various other bits and pieces, lit only by the faint shaded light from the open kitchen door.
“Lesley?” he shouted, moving farther into the room. “Lesley! Are you here?”
Dean had followed the path through the woods to where it forked; the right fork, Kayleigh had told him, took you to the rear of the cottage; the left fork took you to Brook Way Bridge. He had taken the left fork and was now standing on the bridge, watching the water as it danced and gurgled beneath him. He had been there a long time, looking up when vehicles passed on Brook Way, the inspired name of the road that ran alongside the brook, keeping an eye on the one-track road that branched off it, the official road to the cottage.
He had seen a van leave by that side road and drive past him; that must be the van they had borrowed to move their stuff, he had reasoned. Kayleigh had said it had to be back with its owner before eleven. A few minutes later, he had seen a black cab sweep past him going the opposite way; he had expected it to carry on along Brook Way, but it had taken the turn to the cottage. The taxi had left after a moment and had come back toward him, empty, its hire light on.
He had seen a postman cycle up the side road and back down again, and now, he saw a man walk down it and come along Brook Way toward him. As he drew closer, Dean swore to himself and turned his back, looking down at the stream. Because if Dean could recognize him, then he could recognize Dean, and that was the very last thing Dean wanted.
But that must mean that she was on her own now.
“Even if you left her, things couldn’t go back the way they were,” said Theresa.
“I know. I don’t think I’d want them to—and I’m sure you wouldn’t.”
“No,” she agreed. She wasn’t so crazy about her new life, but she hadn’t been that fond of the old one. It just took a while, getting back into some sort of social groove, after all these years.
“And I don’t want to leave her. But I don’t want to go to Australia, either.”
“Then why are you going?”
He moved his shoulders in a disconsolate shrug.
Theresa tried another tack. “So it’s just Australia. If you weren’t going to Australia, you would be happy. Yes?”
He looked into the middle distance for some moments, which was all the answer she needed.
“I don’t know,” he said, at last. “I just feel as though I’ve been taken over. Australia migh
t be what’s making me feel like that. But . . .” He looked at her then. “But I think I felt like this even before Australia was an issue.”
Theresa felt more like his mother than ever. It wasn’t everyone who had to put up with their ex-partners unburdening themselves about their current partners. “Then why on earth did you agree to it?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Lesley is . . . very forceful.”
“She bullied you into it.”
“No!” Then, less emphatically, “No.”
“Is that ‘no’ in its affirmative sense? The sense in which you used it when she said you should take the job? You knew it wasn’t working out with her, and yet here you are, Australia-bound. Why?”
“Because she’s really worried about Kayleigh. She genuinely wants to get her away, but without Kayleigh realizing that she’s doing it on purpose. And I’m the one who’s been offered the job in Australia, so she needs me to go through with it. And . . . well, because I couldn’t think of enough good reasons why not.”
“Why are you telling me this, Ian? What are you expecting me to do? Give you a note for Lesley? ‘Please excuse Ian from going to Australia, as he has a bad cold’? If you really don’t want to go, then you have to tell her, and tell Jerry.” She’d have to get started on her round soon; she had to pick up from her ladies, and if she was late leaving, it put the whole schedule out. “And then you have to work out whether you want to go anywhere with her.”
“I do! That is . . . I really want to be with her. But it doesn’t seem to matter what I say. We do what she thinks we should do. I just—” He sighed, shrugged.
Theresa shook her head. “Well, the remedy’s in your own hands. I must say I thought you had more backbone than that.”
That wasn’t strictly true; Ian had never had much gumption, really. Theresa had simply never had the desire to tell him what to do or how to live his life, and before that his father had allowed him to do exactly what he wanted, so in a way he was only now finding out that he could be bullied.
It was almost five to eleven, and time she was on her way. “Sorry, Ian. I have to go.”
They walked down to the garage area; Theresa opened the van door and got in as Ian made to get into his car, but he straightened up again.
“Maybe I will tell her we’re not going anywhere,” he said. “We can live in the cottage, pay you for your half.”
Theresa closed the van door as he drove past her, and shook her head again. If she knew Ian, he would like the idea of having Lesley and Kayleigh living in his bolt-hole even less than he liked the idea of Australia. And even if he did go and lay the law down to Lesley, it wouldn’t be because he wanted to; it would be because she, Theresa, had told him to. And the problem with that was that he didn’t know how to be forceful; he would probably just create an atmosphere and end up going to Australia anyway.
She hadn’t told him that she had rung Phil; she would have if his name had cropped up, but it didn’t. She’d tell him later, because she supposed—a little reluctantly—that they ought to know that he would be getting in touch, because he had been furious when she’d told him about Australia.
Lloyd stared at the petrol gauge. Stu, for such he liked to be known, had said that he’d given the car a good long run to make sure it was all right, and it hadn’t occurred to Lloyd to check the petrol. He would have thought that Stu would have done that, but evidently Stu had not, and now Lloyd was slowly, gently, inexorably, slowing to a halt. On a dual carriageway, with traffic behind him. He put on his hazard lights and coasted down what turned out to be a slight incline, offering up thanks to whoever or whatever ordained these things that he was going to be able to turn off into a business park where at least the car wouldn’t be a danger to other road users.
But it was miles from a petrol station. He got out with a sigh, took the empty petrol can out of the boot, and locked the car, walking back toward the main road. Once there, he had a long haul, but he hadn’t seen a taxi and he had no idea about these little shuttle buses. If either of these modes of transport appeared, he would take it. He walked on, turning every now and then to check the vehicles behind him. And this, it appeared, was his lucky day; not only had he been saved from a life of househusbandry, but within one minute of leaving his car the gods sent him, not a taxi or a bus, but a patrol car, which he flagged down to the surprise of its two occupants.
The one on the passenger side rolled down the window. “Sir?”
“It’s . . .” Lloyd thought hard, and the name came to him. Today he really had been touched by angels. “It’s Harker, isn’t it? Eddie Harker?”
“Yes, sir,” said the young man, looking wary.
“Any chance of a lift to a petrol station, Eddie?” He held the petrol can aloft. “It’s a long story. Don’t ask.”
Harker opened the rear door, and the driver, Lloyd could see as he got in the back, was Don Rogers, whom he’d known for years, so no feats of memory required. “Don,” he said, by way of greeting, and got a nod back.
“The Brook Way roundabout service station’s nearest, I reckon,” Don said, pulling away.
En route, Lloyd listened with half an ear to the messages on the radio until the one that made them all sit up.
“Can someone take a treble nine at Brook Way Cottage, Stansfield? We have a report of a woman found with severe head wounds, believed dead, but an ambulance is on its way.”
“That’s us,” said Rogers. “We’re practically there already. You’ll have to come along for the ride, sir.”
Harker informed Control that they were on their way.
“Thank you, six-four-one. The area car is also responding. The informant gave his name as Ian Waring—described the victim as his girlfriend, says he found her like that. No other information.”
Lloyd would never have admitted it in a million years, but he was enjoying himself hugely. It had been a very long time since he had answered an emergency call with the siren whooping and the blue lights flashing, and they were in a race with the area car; it was making him feel like Charlotte did when her donkey’s bell rang. And Don Rogers was an exhilarating driver; two minutes later, at five past eleven, the car was sweeping round the roundabout, past the service station, heading up Brook Way. No other cars in sight. They had won.
The area car appeared just as their vehicle took the turnoff, and caught them up as they approached the cottage. A yellow Alfa Romeo sports car was parked in front of the house, off the driveway; the garage was empty. The front door stood open, and a man lay on the gravel beside one of the brick columns that supported the porch. The cars stopped, and everyone got out; Rogers was attending to the man on the ground, Harker was telling Control that they had a second injured party in need of medical assistance, and the other two went inside in search of the woman about whom the call had been made.
“His pulse is very weak,” said Rogers. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Ian.” He coughed.
Lloyd crouched down by the man, who was in considerable pain and swimming in and out of consciousness. His clothes were bloodstained, and his leg was clearly broken; two trails of disturbed gravel led from where he lay back toward the garage, suggesting that a vehicle had come out from the garage and run him down. Lloyd could see blood on the pale sole of the man’s shoe, and he frowned, not convinced that any of the blood was actually his. He bent his head as the man’s eyes opened and he tried to speak.
“Intruder—man . . .”
“All right, Ian, you just hang on,” said Rogers. “Talk to me, Ian. Ian—can you hear me? Do you know your other name, Ian?”
But he closed his eyes, and despite all efforts to keep him awake, he lost consciousness.
One of the constables came to the door of the cottage. “Sir, there’s a dead woman here, all right. She’s been battered to death, by the looks of things. And she’s still warm.”
Lloyd stood up. “Tell them we need the whole shooting match here. And tell them to inform acting DI Sandw
ell that we’ll need an incident room set up.”
“And find out where the bloody ambulance is!” shouted Rogers. “Or we’ll lose this one as well.”
* * *
CHAPTER FIVE
Judy had strolled back along Bridge Street, window-shopping for a wedding outfit in Malworth’s expensive boutiques. If she was having to go through with this wedding, she might at least get something worth having out of it, as she had informed Charlotte. “Not that your dada isn’t worth having,” she had added. “But I still don’t see why we have to get married. If you ask me, marriage just complicates things.”
Now she was entering the park, pulling the pram carefully up the steps to the footbridge over the river, and bumping it down the steps at the other side, an activity that Charlotte found very diverting. Judy liked having the whole place virtually to herself; the regular dog walkers and joggers tended to be early-morning or early-evening users, and mid-morning on a weekday was quiet and peaceful. By the time the school holidays came, the public park would be full of picnickers, organized and disorganized games, walkers, cyclists, cross-country runners, staged open-air events, and everything else, but today, on this sunny, breezy Friday morning, it was quiet.
The only other people she could see were a long way off; an old couple sitting on a bench, looking toward the river, two women strolling through the gardens, an artist doing a watercolor of a statue, his paper weighted down, and, setting a baby in a carry-cot onto folding wheels, a girl in a gray sweatshirt and black jeans, even younger than the ones who worked at the nursery. She walked off, wheeling the baby along the path by the river, disappearing behind the weeping willows that trailed their branches in the water.
