A Place Of Safety

by Caroline Graham

  ‘Well, that’s no surprise.’ The tone was condescending and would-be jovial. Plainly he planned to humour her. ‘The way you treat—’

  ‘In any case, maintaining a nine-roomed house and a very large garden is beyond my means.’

  ‘Help costs nothing in the country—’

  ‘The place is falling to bits. I can’t afford to keep it on.’ She was determined not to use the royal pronoun. Lionel had contributed nothing financially to their marriage since he had surrendered his stipend and she would not pretend that he had. ‘And there’s no reason why I should.’

  ‘We have a position in the village—’

  ‘What do you know of the village?’ Ann looked through the window at the cedar tree, part of her existence since the day she was born, and her courage faltered. But there were other trees and freedom never came without a price. ‘The Rectory will have to be sold.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘Why not? It belongs to me.’ Thank God. And thank God I never let him near my trust fund, such as it is. How awful, thought Ann. Here’s the only life I’ve ever known breaking up in huge chunks around me and all I can think about is whether I’ll have any money. But then - she experienced a sad instant of comprehension - it’s not as if there’s any love involved.

  ‘And where are we going to live? Or haven’t you given that trivial little matter any thought?’

  ‘I hope to get a job. Perhaps train for something.’

  ‘At your age?’

  ‘I’m only thirty-eight.’

  ‘People are retired at forty these days.’ He gave a bitter, sarcastic laugh. ‘Easy to see you’ve never had to cope with the real world.’

  Ann sensed genuine spite behind the words. Understandable. It was not only her world that was being shaken up today. But it was still a shock to realise that the person to whom she had given almost half her life didn’t even like her.

  ‘Anyway,’ Lionel continued sulkily, ‘you haven’t answered my question. And I can tell you right now we won’t be moving far from this area. My work must and will continue even though I may no longer be able to offer a refuge to those in need.’

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ replied Ann, driven to bluntness by this blithe assumption that they would still be rolling merrily along in double harness. ‘You’ll just have to find somewhere with enough space.’

  ‘Find . . . enough . . .’

  ‘With a spare room.’

  ‘What?’ Lionel’s face showed utter bewilderment which gradually dissolved into an alarmed understanding. ‘You can’t mean.’

  ‘You don’t listen, do you, Lionel? It’s been all of two minutes since I told you I haven’t been happy for years.’

  A long pause.

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to do something about that, won’t we?’ said Lionel, adding an awkward and tentative, ‘dear’.

  Faced with this grating sycophancy, Ann winced. ‘It’s too late.’

  ‘I see.’ At this Lionel gradually became so puffed up with outrage it seemed he might rise naturally into the air and float to the ceiling. ‘So this is the reward I get for a lifetime of devoted service?’

  Unfortunately at this moment Ann’s eye alighted on the ebony ormolu clock on the mantelpiece. She saw herself crossing the room, picking it up and handing it to Lionel with every good wish for a happy retirement. Her mouth twitched and she had to bite hard on her bottom lip. Covering her face with her hand she turned away.

  ‘I’m glad to see you still have some decent feelings, Ann.’ Lionel, now safely grounded, moved with hunted dignity towards the door.

  ‘One more thing,’ said Ann as she heard the handle turn. ‘I want that man out of the garage flat.’

  ‘I can’t get anywhere without Jax,’ said Lionel firmly. Then, with a little stab of triumph, ‘You’ll have to drive the car.’

  ‘There won’t be any car, Lionel.’

  Kemel Mahoud, contacted on Barnaby’s mobile, gave his office address as 14a Kelly Street, just off Kentish Town Road.

  He was a wiry little man with a smooth, fawn skin, almost bald but flashing a huge brigand moustache, two silky blue-black swags of hair waxed up at the ends into curly commas. He was obsequiously anxious to be helpful - suspiciously so, in Troy’s opinion.

  ‘A first-class tenant, Miss Ryan. First rate. No troubles. Rent paid. Spot on.’

  ‘She was a thief, Mr Mahoud,’ said Troy. ‘When the police followed her home, they found the place full of stolen goods.’

  ‘Ah!’ He gasped in what appeared to be real amazement. ‘I can’t believe. Such a nice girl.’

  ‘You knew her?’

  ‘No, my God. Just saw her one time. She gives deposit, three months’ rent, I give key. Two minutes - done.’

  ‘Well, now I’d like you to give me the key,’ said Barnaby. ‘We need to gain entrance to the flat.’

  ‘Won’t she let you in?’

  ‘Miss Ryan has disappeared,’ said Sergeant Troy.

  ‘But rent is due, two weeks.’

  ‘That’s not our concern. You’ll get the key back, don’t worry.’

  ‘No problem.’ He crossed to the far wall, three-quarters covered by a huge peg board on which hung masses of neatly labelled keys. ‘Always I wish to help.’

  ‘Slimy toerag,’ said Sergeant Troy, climbing into the Astra and ramming the key into the ignition. ‘Foreigners. They’re practically running the place.’

  ‘Watch that florist’s van.’

  Crawling back down Whitechapel past the Bangladeshi stalls of wild-looking vegetables and ripe mangoes and glittering saris and cooking pots, Barnaby started to keep his eye out for a place to lunch.

  ‘Oh, look, chief! What about there?’

  ‘Keep your eye on the road.’

  ‘It’s the Blind Beggar. Where it all happened.’

  ‘Nearly thirty years ago.’

  ‘Couldn’t we, though? Please?’

  Troy’s enthusiasm was great and his disappointment commensurate. A comfy, bright, clean pub with a nice thick carpet and all the expected furnishings. There was even a paved garden with white furniture and a dark green awning tacked onto one side. It being a pleasant day, this was where they took their hefty beef sandwiches and halves of Ruddles.

  ‘Your face.’ Barnaby was laughing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Like a kid on Christmas morning with an empty sock. What did you expect, blood on the floor?’

  ‘Sawdust, maybe.’

  ‘Look, one Kray’s snuffed it, the other’s in for life and Frankie Fraser’s making a bomb on the celebrity circuit. It’s a different world.’

  Troy smeared horseradish onto his sandwich and looked out at the crowded pavements and roaring traffic. This was life and no mistake. He started to relax and enjoy himself.

  ‘Actually, chief, I’ve been thinking about putting in for a transfer to the Met.’

  ‘You’ve been what?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they’ll chew you up in two minutes flat then spit out the fur and gristle, that’s why not.’

  ‘It can’t be that bad.’

  ‘Can’t it?’ Barnaby laughed. ‘What put such a daft idea into your head in the first place?’

  ‘They get to drive a Porsche 968 Club Sport on patrol.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘It’s true. Inspector Carter told me in the canteen.’

  ‘Take out a second mortgage and buy your own.’

  ‘Maureen’d kill me.’

  ‘It’s still a safer option.’

  When they returned at three o’clock to 17 Lomax Road, it seemed deserted. Before letting themselves in, Barnaby had tried the bell for Benson and Ducane (Chas) with no success. Troy rapped on Tanya Walker’s door and got the same result.

  The chief inspector hesitated a few seconds before entering Carlotta’s room. Over the years he had come to savour moments like this for their sheer unpredictability. You turn the key, you open the box and you
find . . . what? Good news that could unexpectedly turn a deadlocked, impenetrable case inside out; bad news that could make all the work that had gone before a waste of time. Or nothing at all.

  ‘Blimey,’ said Sergeant Troy who entered first. ‘The locusts have landed.’

  ‘They certainly have,’ agreed Barnaby.

  The rooms were empty except for the furniture. A wooden table with extending leaves and two hard-backed chairs, a shabby armchair and a scarred chest of drawers with two knobs missing. In the corner of the room was a sink, a Baby Belling and a tiny fridge. On the metal draining board were a few chipped cups and saucers and a battered frying pan. Behind a greasy-looking bead curtain was a second very small room with a single bed, the sort of dressing table that had become obsolete sometime in the swinging sixties and a narrow wardrobe.

  ‘I wonder how much that oily tosser screwed her for this dump.’

  Barnaby shrugged. ‘A hundred. One twenty.’

  ‘Daylight robbery.’ Troy moved over to the chest of drawers and made to open one.

  ‘Use your handkerchief!’

  ‘Right, chief.’ Troy wrapped it round his fingers and pulled. ‘You think we’ve got a suspicious here, then?’

  ‘I don’t know what I think.’ Barnaby walked around, staring at the walls. Lumps of Blu-Tack were plentiful, posters were not.

  Troy called out from the smaller room, ‘Drawers in here empty. And the wardrobe.’

  ‘Why would someone strip a place when they haven’t permanently moved out and there’s still some rent left?’

  ‘Search me.’

  ‘Even the bedding’s disappeared.’

  ‘Maybe Tanya’s borrowed it.’

  ‘No key, remember?’

  Troy sat in the armchair. It made the one with the broken spring in Vivienne Calthrop’s office feel like cloud nine.

  ‘Maybe she thought she was permanently moving out,’ suggested Troy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Barnaby. ‘Maybe she did. And there’s something else.’ Barnaby sniffed then breathed more deeply as he came to a halt by the window. ‘How long did Lawrence say Carlotta had been at the Rectory?’

  ‘Couple of months.’

  ‘There’s no way this place has been shut up for two months. The air’s fresh. This window’s been opened within the last day or so.’

  ‘Crikey,’ said Sergeant Troy.

  ‘We’ll drive over to Bethnal Green nick. See if they’ll do us a favour and get any prints lifted. And seal that door.’

  ‘Pity the horse has bolted,’ said Troy.

  By the time his team had assembled for their early evening briefing, Barnaby had discovered that the Met’s forensics could not be of assistance in the matter of Carlotta’s flat.

  ‘I asked if they’d dust the place but they’ve already got a backlog processing prints so we’ll have to get our lot out there a.s.a.p. Then we’ll be able to match what they get against the landlord and anyone else with access to the keys. Plus, of course, the three other residents in the house.’

  ‘Do we have the girl’s own prints, sir?’ asked Sergeant Brierley.

  ‘We should have by this time tomorrow.’

  Barnaby was looking forward to telling Lionel Lawrence that a couple of forensic officers would be entering the Rectory, with or without his permission, within the next twenty-four hours and smothering all resistable surfaces in his attic bedsit with aluminium powder.

  As soon as the briefing was concluded, he retired to his office and did just that. When the agitated burble about police states and the harassment of innocent citizens was in full flow, Barnaby interrupted somewhat forcefully.

  ‘I’m surprised to hear you taking this attitude, Mr Lawrence. I thought you would be a hundred per cent behind anything that helped establish the possible whereabouts and wellbeing of Miss Ryan.’

  There was a longish pause during which Barnaby smiled quietly to himself. Wrong-footing the pompous was a small pleasure but some days a man needed all the small pleasures he could gather.

  Lionel made a strange noise which sounded as if he was gargling with an extremely unpleasant substance.

  ‘Well, naturally . . .’

  ‘That’s all right then.’ Barnaby drew a cheerful line under the subject.

  ‘Will they clean everything up before they go?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I also need to speak to your wife. I hope she’s now fully recovered.’

  ‘She certainly is.’

  Barnaby absorbed this quick, unconsidered response, shot through with bad-tempered resentment, and wondered what had brought it about. Perhaps he’d find out tomorrow. With a bit of luck it might be conflict over Jackson. A lever to prise the lid off that particular can of worms.

  ‘So perhaps we might fix a time tomorrow when Mrs Lawrence is sure to be in.’

  ‘Well, the Mothers’ Union meet at five thirty. She’ll be here five at the latest to sort out the crockery and stuff. Never misses. Otherwise she’s in Causton most of the day on business.’

  A lot of ‘she’s’ there, thought the chief inspector. You’d think the poor woman didn’t have a name to call her own. ‘If you’d kindly tell her—’

  ‘Tell her yourself. She’s just coming.’

  A moment later Ann Lawrence picked up the phone, agreed in a calm voice that 5 p.m. would be a good time and that she was looking forward to talking to him.

  Barnaby hung up, shrugged into his overcoat, peered through the dusty cream slats on his Venetian blind and discovered a slight drizzle misting the evening air. It did nothing to damp his spirits. In half an hour he would be home and sitting in his favourite chair in front of the fire with a glass of wine and the daily paper while the wife of his bosom cooked up a storm in the kitchen. Yes, well, maybe in that case, two glasses of wine.

  It had been a good day on the whole. He had found out quite a lot about Carlotta. He had met two people who knew her, he had seen where she lived. And tomorrow he would be talking to the one person who knew exactly what had happened on the night she disappeared.

  Chapter Nine

  Forty-eight hours after she had made her momentous decision, Ann was getting ready to go into Causton. Lionel was sulking in his study. She had knocked and said lunch was ready and he had not replied. Where she would once have taken a tray in for him, she now ate her own meal and left his to get cold on the table.

  She had four hours before the police came. Although her resolve to tell them everything had not faltered she did not want to spend the intervening time dwelling on how the interview might go. Or on what might happen to her when it was over.

  There was plenty to do. First she would go to the bank and pay back the five thousand pounds. (She had already rung Mr Ainsley to say she would be doing this and asking him to cancel their loan agreement.) Then she would do the rounds of estate agents. There were several in Causton and she hoped to cover them all. Or at least as many as it took to take her up to half past four.

  In her bedroom, having changed into a flowered dress and jacket, Ann was drawn by the beauty of the day to her window. She noticed that the gravel drive, barely a week since Charlie Leathers raked it over, was already sprouting weeds. And the wonderful thing was she would not have to go and tug them all out. No one would. As Ann relished this satisfactory observation, the sun vanished behind a cloud. A nice sense of timing, for it was then that Ann saw Jax. That is, she saw the lower section of him. The rest was hidden beneath the bonnet of the Humber which was half in and half out of the garage. She needed the car to drive into Causton.

  At the thought of walking up to the man, looking into those cold, radiant eyes, being exposed to that suggestive leering voice, her courage, so steadfast until then, faltered. And what if Lionel had already told him of her demands that he should leave. What might he say then?

  What a pity Mrs Leathers wasn’t still here. She would have stridden across, told him the car was wanted right away and he’d better look sharp abou
t it. Perhaps, Ann thought, I could just open the window and call.

  Then, upset and agitated, she remembered the telephone. There was an extension from the main house to his flat. If she rehearsed what she had to say, there would be no need to get involved in any sort of conversation. Keep it short, she instructed herself, picking up the telephone and pressing the connecting button. She watched him stop what he was doing, wipe his hands on a cloth and disappear through the painted blue door. And the instruction worked. After all that queasy anxiety, the exchange was simplicity itself.

  Ann said, ‘This is Mrs Lawrence. I shall need the car in five minutes. Will it be ready then?’

  And he said, ‘No problem, Mrs Lawrence.’

  A ridiculously overwhelming rush of relief (after all, what could he actually do?) receded and Ann began to feel calmer. She washed her face and hands, brushed her hair and tied it away from her face with a black silk ribbon then collected her handbag, checking that the money was still inside. She hesitated whether to take a coat - the sun had come out again - and decided against it.

  She left the house and walked in what she hoped was an unflustered way towards the garage. There was no sign of Jax. The interior of the car was heavy with the smell of polish, the chestnut leather gleamed. Telling herself she had been watching too many movies, Ann still couldn’t help checking out the back of the car. She even turned over a travelling rug on the carpeted floor to make sure the interior was empty.

  As she drove out of the gates and turned left towards the road to Causton, everything about her suddenly seemed transformed. The whole world seemed light and airy and free from care. That was the world - carefree.

  ‘I am carefree,’ said Ann aloud. And she started to sing.

  ‘Penny Lane’, the song her mother had loved, the song she half remembered from her childhood.

  ‘ “Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes . . . there beneath the blue suburban skies . . .” ’

  And, as the distance between herself and the Old Rectory increased, so did the dizzy feeling of exhilaration. She was cutting herself loose. Floating away from the self-centred, querulous man around whom she had organized her life for so many years and from the huge, crumbling millstone of a house. A source of financial worry for as long as she could remember. To paraphrase a title from Lionel’s huge collection on his counselling bookshelf, this was the first day of the rest of her life.