A Place Of Safety

by Caroline Graham

  And she couldn’t stop observing because she couldn’t stop caring. Because that meant she had stopped loving. And I shall do that, she vowed silently, when I’m in my grave.

  A movement in the road caught her eye. A blue car was turning into the Old Rectory drive, drawing up at the front door. She recognised the two men who got out. They were the same policemen who had come to interview herself and Val. Louise wondered what they wanted. She noticed they didn’t ring the bell for the main house but crossed over to the garage flat.

  Louise arranged the expression on her face, tried various opening gambits on for size and mentally tuned her voice to a note of amiable casualness. She had heard Val’s footsteps dragging down the stairs. Not all that long ago he would have bounded down two steps at a time.

  When his bowed head came into view, Louise said, ‘Hi.’

  ‘Waiting up?’

  Louise ignored the gibe. ‘I was just going to make tea. Would you like some?’

  ‘I’d rather have a drink.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘OK.’ Val caught the wary passivity with spear-like accuracy. ‘Do I hear a whiff of “sun not quite over the yardarm”?’

  ‘No. You can pour Jack Daniel’s on your cornflakes and throw up all over Richard and Judy for all I care.’

  ‘That’s more like it. I was wondering where the real Louise had gone for a minute.’

  ‘So.’ She crossed to the drinks table. ‘What’ll you have?’

  ‘Don’t care. Just make it strong.’

  ‘Jameson’s?’

  ‘The very man.’ He watched her rattling around in the ice bucket. Observed her cast-down face, noticed the slight thickening under her chin, hollowed cheeks and tired lines, which he had never noticed before, printing the fine skin beneath her eyes. Poor Lou. She hadn’t asked for any of this.

  ‘So, as we seem to be playing house, what did you do today, Mrs Forbes?’

  ‘Well,’ Louise drew a deep breath like a child about to recite in front of the grown-ups, ‘I worked in the garden. Made several phone calls - putting out feelers for work. This afternoon I went to Causton and had my ends trimmed.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

  ‘They give you some coffee afterwards.’

  ‘I’d need an anaesthetic first.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I didn’t garden. I made no phone calls. And my ends are absolute hell.’

  ‘Come on, Val. You must have done something.’

  ‘Looked over the proofs of the Hopscotch Kid. Messed about generally. Then Jax rang around three and I went over.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Louise took a deep breath. ‘How is he then, Jax?’

  ‘Fighting fit.’

  ‘So you had a good time?’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘Good. Actually when I was in Causton, I—’

  ‘Until the bloody police turned up.’

  ‘Oh? What did they want?’

  ‘What do they ever want? Bullying him with endless questions. Once you’ve slipped up in this country, Lou, you’re done for. It’s a waste of time even trying to go straight. I didn’t used to believe that. I thought it was just criminals, you know, whining. But it’s true.’

  ‘What a shame it’s happening now.’ Louise gagged on the words but somehow managed to squeeze them out. ‘Being down here, well away from the sort of people who got him into trouble, could have given him a completely new start.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Valentine drained half the Irish in one swallow. ‘I don’t have much time for Lionel, as you know, but his idea of sanctuary for youngsters in trouble is really great.’

  Youngsters? That man was never a youngster. Cunning like his is as old as the hills.

  ‘I think I’ll join you.’ Casually Louise turned away to pour herself a drink. She knew it would be a mistake to show how pleased she was at the way the conversation was progressing. And an even bigger one to try and build on it. She said, ‘I got a partridge for tonight.’

  ‘Lovely.’ Val drained his glass and walked over. ‘You could freshen my drink.’

  ‘You haven’t got a drink.’ Louise laughed, letting go a little with relief at the first hurdle cleared.

  ‘My ice cubes then.’

  After she had refilled the glass, Valentine carried it across the room, flung himself onto the huge pale sofa and put his feet up. He already looked slightly less tired. His face was smoothing out. As he stretched his legs and flexed his toes, Louise sensed a quickening of vitality. Could it really be possible that a few transparent lies on her part could accomplish such a transformation? Lies which his sharp intelligence would normally see straight through?

  It seemed so. Oh, why hadn’t she realised months ago how hard her fear and dislike of Jax had been for her brother to handle? Even obsessives have moments of clarity and it must have seemed to Val that she had withdrawn her love and support just when he needed it the most. If only she had made allowances for his irrational state of mind. Listened more sympathetically. Bided her time. But, because there had never been pretence between them, this had simply not occurred to her. Not until now, when it was too late.

  ‘Sorry, Val.’ The sound of his voice had registered but not the words.

  ‘I cut you off when we were talking before. Something or other happened in Causton?’

  ‘Oh, yes. You’ll never guess who—’

  But then the telephone rang. And after the call it was impossible to continue that or any other conversation. The terrible news about Ann Lawrence not only stopped Louise’s mouth but was so devastating in the light of what she had been about to relate that it almost stopped her heart as well.

  ‘Are you all right, Lionel?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How do you feel? I mean, really?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  It was a good question. Very perceptive. How did he feel, really? He knew how he ought to feel. And perhaps, if Ann hadn’t been so cruel to him, he would appropriately be feeling it. Frantically worried, praying to God for her recovery, dreading the heartbreak that follows the loss of a beloved spouse.

  And he had loved her. All these years he had been a good and faithful husband. The trouble was, as the ugly scene the previous day had so clearly illustrated, she didn’t love him. So he could hardly be blamed if his response to the dreadful news he had just received was somewhat muted.

  ‘I should go, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Fact is, Lionel, she won’t know whether you’re there or not.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘If she comes round, well . . .’

  ‘Then, of course.’

  ‘Obviously. And if it’s not out of line, I’d like to say you have my deepest sympathy.’

  ‘I know that, Jax. It means a lot having you here.’

  ‘For some reason unknown, Mrs Lawrence never took to me.’

  ‘She had - has a nervous disposition.’

  ‘But I’m not the sort to take offence. And I can only pray that God is on our side at this moment in time.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  An hour or so earlier, after the person at the other end of the line had explained what had happened and Lionel had listened in thunderstruck silence, he had stood for a long while with the phone glued to his ear staring at the faded wallpaper.

  Then, when the first shock had passed, he felt curiously empty. He sat down and waited to see what would happen next. What happened next was that Lionel found he very much needed to pass the information on. Any suggestion that this was nothing more than the normal human response when receiving disastrous or exciting news would have outraged him. Lionel knew himself to be purely in need of consolation and support. But where to find it?

  The only person he could think of was dear Vivienne at the Caritas Trust. She had always been most simpatico on the increasingly frequent occasions when he had felt the need to unburden his heart.

  Lionel dialled the number with what he was pleased to see
was a very steady hand. But he had hardly begun to speak before Vivienne cut him short. She was interviewing and also had someone waiting. When Lionel suggested he should ring later, she said she would call him but not to hold his breath.

  Bewildered, he hung up. So who else was there? It was a moment or two before he thought of Jax largely because, in his understanding of their relationship, he himself was always firmly cast in the role of comforter. But he had nothing to lose by asking. Jax might even welcome the opportunity to repay some of the kindness he had been shown.

  And so it proved to be. He had rushed over within minutes, bringing a bottle. Lionel had been so grateful he had not demurred when Jax opened the red wine straightaway and insisted that he drink some. And Jax, ‘as this is rather an unusual occasion’, agreed to join him. Now the bottle was nearly empty.

  ‘This is really delicious.’ Lionel drained his third glass, not noticing that Jax’s remained almost untouched. ‘It certainly seems to take the edge off the pain.’

  ‘Mr Fainlight gave it me,’ said Jax. ‘I did a little job for him.’

  Lionel looked at his watch. ‘D’you think . . .’

  ‘It’s not vintage or nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps I should ring.’

  ‘They said they’d contact you if there was any change.’

  Lionel didn’t remember that. He stared around the room, frowning. Jax crossed over, bringing his glass, to sit next to his benefactor on the sofa.

  ‘I can see I’m going to have to look after you, Lionel.’

  ‘Oh, Jax.’

  ‘Just till Mrs Lawrence gets better.’ Jackson hesitated. ‘Perhaps I should stay over here tonight.’

  ‘Oh, would you? I get so lonely sometimes.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that, Lionel. And many’s the time I’ve wanted to make an overture of friendship, believe you me. Just been afraid to overstep the mark.’

  ‘I don’t know how to express my gratitude.’

  Jackson prided himself on his sense of timing. There would be a moment to suggest how Lionel could best express his gratitude but this was not it; it was too soon after the sad event and the Rev was more than a little swacked. It was not drunken promises that Jackson was after. Such promises frequently did not survive the harsh scrutiny of the morning after. Thankfulness recollected in sober tranquillity was the ultimate aim.

  Lionel’s glass once more being empty, Jackson offered to exchange it for his own, even going as far as to place it in Lionel’s hand. He curled the limp fingers round the stem and his eyes shone with encouragement and approval.

  The doorbell rang. Lionel gave a great jump and his wine went everywhere. Jackson stepped back, his expression one of controlled rage, and left the room.

  Even in his present state Lionel recognised the two men Jackson showed in. He struggled to get up, making indignant incomprehensible gurgles. Reeled, steadied himself with one hand.

  ‘Mr Lawrence?’ Barnaby stared in amazement.

  ‘He does live here,’ said Jackson.

  Barnaby, who had only rung the main house bell after getting no joy at the garage, said, ‘Why aren’t you at the hospital, sir?’

  ‘What . . . what?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard from Stoke Mandeville?’

  ‘Yes . . . that is . . .’ He turned to Jackson.

  ‘They said Mrs L was unconscious.’ Jackson spoke directly to Barnaby. ‘And that they’d ring if there was any change. If there is, naturally he’ll be straight down there.’

  The patronising scorn with which he spoke was deeply disturbing. As was Lionel’s attitude. A dishevelled, shambolic figure covered in stains that looked appallingly like blood, he sat beaming at Jackson, nodding eagerly at everything he said.

  ‘Anyway,’ Barnaby made no effort to conceal his contempt, ‘it’s you I’m here to see, Jackson.’

  ‘Anything, Inspector. You’ve only got to ask.’

  ‘How are you on a bike?’

  ‘Never tried it. I went straight from skateboarding to TDA. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sergeant Troy. ‘We’re asking for your clothes. Top layer, underwear, socks, shoes. Contents of pockets. The lot.’

  ‘That’s fetishism, that is.’

  ‘Just get on with it.’ Barnaby seemed to have endless patience.

  ‘You mean . . .’ Jackson touched the edge of a beautiful leather jacket. ‘These clothes?’

  ‘If those are what you were wearing at three o’clock this afternoon,’ said Barnaby, ‘yes.’

  ‘I’ve told you earlier, I were gardening this afternoon. You don’t think I’d do a dirty job in clobber like this.’

  ‘So we’ll have the clobber you did do the job in,’ said Sergeant Troy. He was taking a leaf out of the chief’s book and speaking calmly and quietly. What he really wanted to do was run across the room, get his hands round the fucker’s throat and squeeze till moisture showered from his baby blues like rain.

  ‘It’s in the flat, Inspector.’

  ‘So get it,’ said Barnaby. ‘And stop calling me Inspector.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Jackson, strolling towards the door. ‘The cycle should be through by now.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The wash cycle. After I’d finished work I put everything in the machine. Like I say, it was a dirty job.’

  Barnaby was twenty minutes late for his seven o’clock briefing and arrived flushed with annoyance after a wrangle with the money men on the top floor. The incident room was bristling with people lively and animated on two counts. First, the situation, which had appeared to be in grave danger of becoming totally moribund, had now taken a totally unexpected and dramatic turn. Secondly, the tape had arrived. Everyone had heard it except the chief and his bagman. Inspector Carter waited till they were seated, wound back and pressed Play.

  The moment she spoke Barnaby knew who it was.

  ‘. . . help . . . you must help . . . me . . . someone has fallen—no, no, into the water . . . the river . . . she disappeared so fast . . . just swept . . . I ran up and down . . . all the way to the weir . . . What? Oh, Ferne Basset . . . I don’t know, half an hour, maybe less . . . For God’s sake! Does it matter when? Just come, you must come now . . .’

  When asked for her name, the woman caught her breath. There was a moment of absolute silence then the receiver fell. They could all hear it, clattering and banging against the side of the box. Then she started to cry. Just over a minute later the phone was placed very gently back on the rest.

  Barnaby sat very still, his eyes closed. There was no point in bemoaning the tragic twists and turns in the case that had kept Ann Lawrence from his grasp until it was too late. ‘If only’ were words outside his vocabulary. Even so, it was bloody hard.

  The room was still. Someone switched the machine off. Sergeant Troy, struggling with a deep sense of unease, looked sideways at the brooding figure under the Anglepoise. He saw a profile that seemed to sag rather than relax, blue veins prominent in the wrists (why had he never noticed them before?) and a heavy droop of skin above each eyelid.

  Of course the chief often looked knackered, that was nothing new. Sergeant Troy had seen him look tired and disappointed many times. Cheated. Betrayed even. But not beaten like this. And never old.

  Barnaby lifted his head, heavily at first as if it was a ball of stone, then more freely. His burly shoulders, freed from tension, set themselves firmly back.

  ‘Well,’ he said and smiled, warming to life again before their very eyes. ‘Here’s a turn-up for the book.’

  The whole room was reactivated as well then, like a film when the freeze frame is released. People started to move, gesture, talk. Someone even laughed. It was Sergeant Troy actually. Part nerves, part just bloody relief.

  ‘Ties her well in, doesn’t it, sir?’ said Audrey Brierley. ‘Mrs Lawrence.’

  There were murmurs of agreement. Plain as the nose on your face, it seemed now. The missing girl had lived in the woman’s house, as did the prime susp
ect. Or as good as. The murdered man had worked for her. Everything was becoming satisfyingly intertwined.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Barnaby, ‘we now know she saw what happened when the girl went into the river. But that’s all we know at this stage, OK?’

  There were a few murmurs of reluctant agreement.

  ‘Let’s not get overexcited,’ continued the chief inspector. ‘She may simply have been an observer.’

  ‘Presumably a secret observer,’ suggested DI Carter, ‘or someone would have shut her up long before this.’

  ‘But if that was not the case,’ Barnaby carried on smoothly, ‘and Mrs Lawrence was the only person involved, then Leathers must have been blackmailing her.’

  This suggestion, which overturned all the beliefs and theories held so far in the murder inquiry, was presented with surprising equanimity. The room, taking their cue from the top, nodded.

  ‘First thing tomorrow we chase up her bank. And if she’s been drawing out large sums of money . . .’ Barnaby shrugged, letting the rest of the sentence tail eloquently away.

  Troy liked this idea of open-ended dialogue, if only so that someone else could make a fool of themselves for a change by finishing it. He said, ‘So our assumption that the blackmail victim murdered Leathers . . .’ He shrugged, letting the rest of the sentence tail eloquently away.

  ‘Yes?’ said Barnaby.

  ‘Um.’ A pause.

  ‘Hurry up. We haven’t got all day.’

  ‘I think Gavin means,’ said Sergeant Brierley, ‘that it’s very hard to picture Mrs Lawrence garrotting someone.’

  ‘Very hard indeed,’ said the chief inspector. ‘Though not impossible.’

  ‘But she’s been attacked herself, sir,’ said Constable Phillips. ‘There aren’t two murderers involved in this case surely?’

  Barnaby did not reply. Just sat looking round the room. Roughly ten minutes into the meeting and so far sympathy for Ann Lawrence was not particularly in evidence. The chief inspector was not surprised. As far as he knew, no one present, apart from Troy, had met her. They had certainly not witnessed her lying unconscious and hanging on to life, breath by fragile breath, in a lonely hospital bed.