‘Cereal? Toast, drop of milk? Tea? Coffee?’
‘Tea, please. Weak. China, if possible. And I want to know—’
‘China’s doubtful, but I’ll look and see. And don’t break your head with questions. I’ve already said—you need to be sound in mind and body. We’ll pull you round. And you’ve nothing to worry about. Far from it. This is all for your own good.’
‘How long are you going to keep me here?’
‘Two or three days. I hope it won’t be longer. It depends on one or two things we can’t control.’
‘Who’s we? You and that horrible man in the car?’
Angela permitted herself a thin smile.
‘Len? You find him a little unrefined, do you? And not exactly the Brain of Britain? I’ll admit he’d probably never have made detective-sergeant. Not with the exams they make them take these days.’
‘I wish you’d tell me—’
‘Later. Relax. You’re among friends.’
‘It’s a new kind of friendship to me.’
‘You’ve led too sheltered a life. Go and freshen yourself up a bit. There’s a washbasin in the alcove. You’ll have to let me take you to the lav for the time being. I’ll be back in a few minutes with a tray. Then I suggest more sleep. If there’s anything within reason that you want, there’s no harm in asking. You’ll be back with your husband and friends within a day or two—a good deal better off than you are now.’
There was a hard edge to Angela’s cheerfulness. It was a cheerfulness that Anne did not find infectious. But there seemed to be something in the suggestion that she was not going to be badly looked after. On the rack above the washbasin they had provided her with a choice of soaps, toothpaste, a new brush, dental floss, toilet water.
The hot weak tea did her good. The toast gave her digestion something to work on. The sleep came, real sleep, in clean new sheets and a new nightdress provided by Angela. Whatever questions were unanswerable, whatever cudgelled her brain, it was sleep that had to win. When she woke up again, she knew that a day was almost over. The light over the orchard was failing.
‘Aye, well, Jean and Gwen grew, as you might say, apart. Gwen had spotted the sort of company that Jean and Angela were keeping. She’d tried a brief, sisterly chat—just once. I think Gwen was probably a little bit high-minded in those days, when she heard duty calling. But after the reception she got for her preaching, she didn’t have a second try. Jean drifted off into her own orbit—or Angela’s. Gwen said she felt guilty about it. But I told her—what had she to be guilty about? A nice lass, Kenworthy. Pity her own marriage has gone down the plughole.
‘They didn’t part enemies, just edged out of each other’s circle, though they went on exchanging letters every other Christmas. Until Slodden. Gwen had settled up there—married a lad she’d known at school. Then Jean suddenly telephoned her from Broadstairs.
‘Big trouble—but Gwen never got to know what it was really about. There were odd moments when Jean looked as if she was on the verge of the confessional—but she always pulled herself back. She was beside herself, something had gone radically wrong in her life. Gwen must find her a job, must find her digs, must find her a babysitter. She had to lose herself. Where better than working for a living in a place where no woman would be if she didn’t have to work there for a living?
‘They didn’t see a lot of each other in Slodden, Jean and Gwen. Gwen had her own life. She tried to be hospitable. Jean was a loner. But there was one thing, Gwen told me, that she had to give her: she looked after her child. She couldn’t dress her too well on her Slodden pay-packet, but she kept her scrupulously clean. And she taught her manners. Half a minute—my lass has just brought me a coffee.’
There was a clicking on and off of the recording switch, then Bartram had deliberately recorded himself slurping at his cup.
‘Then it was suddenly ta-ta, Slodden. Slodden over and out. So it’s over to you, too, Kenworthy. It was your patch she moved down to.’
‘Roger,’ Kenworthy said to himself.
Someone had visited the room while Anne had been asleep. There was a tray of sandwiches on the table by the window, a bottle of Perrier. The parallel with the Spanish hotel was poignant. She drank half a glass, felt better for it, went into the alcove and sluiced her face. She had not been at the basin more than a few seconds when she heard the lock of her door. They must be keeping close tabs on her. Perhaps her room was bugged. Or maybe they could tell from the plumbing. Angela came in briskly.
‘Rested? You’ve slept all day. Anything you want, you can at least try me. I can’t manage miracles, but you might be surprised at what I can rustle up.’
Nothing could have sounded more genuinely companionable. But then, startlingly, she came close behind Anne, pulled at her nightdress behind the shoulder.
‘Hey! What are you doing?’
‘Just looking. It’s fainter than I’d hoped, but it’s there, right enough.’
They were facing each other now. There was more than a hint of amused cruelty in Angela’s eyes.
‘You may not believe this—but I used to hate you. Do you remember anything at all of those days? When you were Edwina Booth?’
‘Why don’t you stop playing with me? Tell me what it’s about. I know I’ve been here before.’
‘Too true you have!’
Anne’s brain leaped a stage.
‘You were the nursemaid.’
Angela had changed a good deal since the photograph annexed to the file. But now she was across the gap. Anne could believe in the resemblance.
‘You know, you’re smarter than you sometimes have me thinking,’ Angela said. ‘Nursemaid? Yes—that was one way of earning a living. Well—let’s say it had its perks.’
She laughed—not a nice laugh.
‘Anyway, thank God my duties weren’t limited to you. If you don’t mind a spot of bluntness, I thought you were a horrible little brat. But we got by, by and large, you and I. As I hope we’re going to get by again now. I’m sure we shall—if we both make allowances. I promise you, I’ll do my best on my side.’
Anne looked round for a towel. Angela handed it to her.
‘And don’t ask too many questions, young lady. How many times did you hear me say that when you were Edwina?’
Anne went back and sat on the bed.
‘Still feeling sorry for yourself? You’ve no need to. If ever a girl had it made—’
‘So you keep hinting. How would you like to be in my position, not knowing?’
‘Well, I’ll tell you. You’ve got to know. It might make you an easier patient to nurse.’
Angela went idly to the window, looked vacantly out at the ancient apple-trees.
‘You were kidnapped. I dare say you’ve worked that out by now. And now you’re going back. You’re going back where you came from. You’re going to be in the money. And you won’t be the only one. There’ll be commission in it for one or two others.’
A blackbird flew across the skyline.
‘You were kidnapped, and your father—Edwin Booth—had his own way of playing it. Remember him? The big man. He got ahead of his wife and the police—but only to let it be known that they could whistle for their ransom. He didn’t want you back—any more than he wanted to keep your mother. They had finished together—all bar the paperwork. And what would he want with you? That was a right turn-up for an abduction squad, wasn’t it? They’d done him a favour. A one and a half times millionaire—that’s all he was in those days: and he didn’t give a pinch of shit for you, my love. You were an embarrassment to him. He had other places to go. When his wife was killed in the shoot-out, that was more than he’d ever dared have prayed for. What would he have had to pay her in maintenance? And you’re lucky to be alive, kiddo.’
Anne looked at her, bewildered by the mixture: a voice for all situations, including compassion—and behind it the suggestion of ruthlessness without limit.
‘You were lucky. Jean Cossey rescued you, the
sentimental little fool.’
Anne’s expression made her laugh.
‘So can’t you work it out that no harm can come to you? To be of any use to us, you’ve got to be hale and well. You’re going back to your father. He’s on his way back to the mainland right now. And I repeat, my spoiled little pet, you’re in clover for the rest of your days. You’ll go back to your detective-sergeant with a bank account you can do things with. You can have your baby, and half a dozen others—and we’ll all live happy ever after.’
She went over and turned on the television set, which Anne had noticed for the first time in a corner: a black and white portable. They were in mid-item of the news, some trouble at the Perkins-Diesel factory in Peterborough. Then came a close-up of Anne, blown-up from one of her wedding photographs.
Angela laughed.
Chapter Sixteen
Kenworthy knew that Swannee Foster was the key man. But Swannee was the sort of live wire you didn’t fiddle with till you made sure you were properly earthed. So he went to see Sid Heather first.
Sid had eight borrowed years already behind him, and their physical effect was pathetic: they showed what all men must come to. But he was mentally alert, had not stopped reading since the moment of his retirement. Sometimes he had to rummage in his brain for a name—but he always found it eventually.
Sid had never made headlines. He had never had a sensational case. But all his cases had been crimes. Heather was a DIs’ DI. During most of the years that Kenworthy’s time had overlapped with his, Heather had been on an inside job, Chief Inspector, specializing in cross-references and co-ordination for officers out in the field. No one had ever heard what Sid thought about sitting at a desk. He had never said. He had accepted the change—and got on with his assignment. Kenworthy had been glad of his services more than once. And today Heather was glad to see Kenworthy.
‘Edwin Booth, writer—Diane Booth, wife thereof, shot dead in post-kidnapping affray—Edwina Booth, infant, blood shed on the grass in the same incident. Otherwise vanished without trace. What can you tell me, Sid?’
‘Len Basset,’ Sid said.
‘I don’t think I know the gentleman.’
‘I dare say you wouldn’t. Small fry. Yet for small fry, he was now and then on the perimeter of big things. Nowadays he’d be called a special contract man: he had control, more or less, of a small but vicious heavy mob. The term special contract hadn’t come in at the time of the Booth case. And he wasn’t under contract, anyway. He was working for himself.’
‘I don’t remember seeing his name on the file,’ Kenworthy said.
‘Because I never did believe in committing guesswork to paper: though this wasn’t guesswork. I had Bassett’s name as a tip-off. I believed that tip-off—and I believe it still. But Bassett went down for a silly, scruffy little job that gave him a perfect alibi for the Booth kidnapping: it happened at the same time. It was bottom of the league stuff—a village post-office, a hundred quid in notes, a sheet or two of insurance stamps and the Barnardo box. This was in Houghton-le-Spring. County Durham, a long way from the Thames Valley: nylon stocking and Balaclava helmet. His defence was pathetic, but he only got a short sentence, a few months. It was a nasty business, the whole thing. There was something rotten about everybody connected with that case. I never did believe that Booth cared a bugger whether he got the kid back or not. All that mattered to him was showing us that he was half a trick smarter than we were. Oh, he said all the expected things, threw the right rages, drank all the extra doubles and more. He might have been acting out a scenario for one of his own books. Simon—if I tell you where I keep my Scotch, can I trust you not to be mean with it?’
Kenworthy poured them both stiff measures.
‘So you weren’t able to take the Durham job to pieces?’
‘They wouldn’t believe me,’ Heather said.
‘Who were they?’
‘Toplady and Guppy.’
‘I always thought they lived on Olympus.’
‘They did. With No Trespassing notices. They were a couple of right buggers to work for. But I can see their point now, even if I did feel sore about it at the time. I had no evidence—and they knew I was going to get none.’
‘It does look a bit thin, Sid—with this Bassett spilling his marbles in Houghton-le-Spring.’
‘I’d had this tip-off. A one hundred per center. I’d have been ready to stake my wardrobe on it. But he was a difficult grass. He had a thing about grassing—a bigger thing than most. He was a sort of grass inside a grass. He’d never have gone into the box: he’d never have been let inside the box. He wouldn’t speak plainly, even though he badly wanted to sink Basset. He seemed to think that once I knew Basset’s name, that was all I needed. He blamed me for not chucking Basset straight in the slammer.’
‘Dare I ask? You’re out of it now, Sid—’
These things were dyed in the fleece. An informant’s identity was sacrosanct. Even mountain-bound immortals were supposed not to ask. Did Sid intend to carry his prerogative with him into the frontier wilderness of senility?
‘Swannee Foster,’ Sid said.
‘That’s not the first time his name’s come up. I keep meaning to go and see him. I haven’t got round to it yet. Got to give Lionel Friedman the chance to clear his patch first. You see, Sid, we now feel pretty certain the Booth kid survived. She had a foster-mother, recently electrocuted in her bath.’
‘I know. I’ve read about it.’
‘But I don’t see the connection between Jean Cossey and Edwina Booth. Do you?’
There was something sphinx-like about Sid Heather. And he was not above a bit of presentation, a bonus of play-acting, even at this stage. Kenworthy let it go: he’d get at it some other way.
‘They ought never to have retired you, Sid. But let me go on. This foster-mother thing is a bit of a riddle. The woman herself was a riddle. Sometimes she seems to have been as naive as they come—and yet she did have her brighter moments. What I can’t make out, is what was she doing in the Booth business in the first instance?’
‘Child-minding, I would think,’ Heather said. ‘After the child was taken, and until she was delivered back. I suppose she developed her own relationship with the kid.’
‘So she must have been rubbing shoulders with some of the top people involved. And with top people who might not have been involved. Like Swannee Foster. Because when it was duff birth certificates she wanted, she knew to go to Swannee for them. And Lionel Friedman—he told me to go to Swannee, too.’
‘Then maybe it’s time you did. Give him my kind regards when you do. And I wouldn’t leave it too long. That young lady is distinctly expendable—whether she’s really Edwina Booth or not.’
‘It isn’t even my case, Sid. I’ve been told very nicely, very obliquely, not to interfere: bags of side-spin—barely kissed the ivory. But the Commander wants the glory of this one.’
‘Which Commander?’
‘Do I need to tell you? Cawthorne. Don’t get me on to that subject. It’s some time since I travelled by air. I’m low on vomit bags.’
Sid Heather looked at him with quizzical accusation.
‘If you ask me, Simon—which I’m sure you don’t—you’ve wasted too many of your years resenting Cawthorne.’
‘All the same—’
‘You’ll find no tie-up between Swannee and Cawthorne.’
‘That’s more than I could hope for.’
‘Yes, well—don’t let me lead you astray, Simon.’
Kenworthy wondered for a long time what old Sid meant by that. He even decided that at Sid’s age, it might mean nothing at all.
Chapter Seventeen
‘Relax, for God’s sake,’ Angela said. ‘I’ve told you the form.’
‘I’ve been in more relaxing situations.’
‘Then let this one be relaxing. Hasn’t it sunk in to you yet what this is worth to you? You’ll be lying awake at night wondering how you’re going to spend it all. And
you’re not breaking any laws. Be yourself. Prove you’re yourself: that’s what we’ve got to start working on now. Damn it, if he were my father, I’d be dying to get in on the act.’
‘It seems to me you are in on it.’
The door opened without a knock and the man came in—the man from Victoria Station. He had a Minolta round his neck, set up with a flash unit.
‘OK, show me,’ he said to Angela, virtually ignoring Anne.
‘Come over here, Anne. Where do you want her, Len? Under the window? Take your blouse off.’
‘I say, she’s not all that badly put together, is she?’
‘Take your eyes off her. She’s up the spout.’
Basset walked slowly round her.
‘That’s when they’re at their most loving, first three months with one in the pod. That’s when they really want it—isn’t it, darling? Never mind, my old love. A couple of hours with your old Dad, and you’ll be getting it legal and general again. Fancy being shagged by a London copper!’
Every top instinct was to rebel, to refuse to play their game. But Anne also saw other things with a once-in-a-lifetime clarity. If she appeared to obstruct these two, she was likely to get hurt; and she was doubly vulnerable. If Angela felt obliged to turn off her tactical sweetness, something pretty nasty was likely to come in its place.
The man Len moved behind her, focusing.
‘It looks bloody faint to me,’ he said. ‘Booth’s going to need more than this. Why the hell couldn’t you have warts, or six toes, you bloody moron?’
‘She’ll start remembering soon,’ Angela said.
Len took several shots, and then—more than Anne had hoped for—left the room.
‘There are times when Len isn’t exactly the ideal district visitor,’ Angela said. ‘It isn’t his bed-side manner that he’s ever cultivated.’
‘Are you chained to him for life, then?’
‘He gets better when you get to know him. He was very generous to Jean Cossey. Otherwise you’d have had a thin time. Eighteen years! A bloody lifetime!’
The Hobbema Prospect Page 10
