‘To be honest,’ he said, in the tone of the confessional, ‘she was too much for me, Lex. You know what I mean? A bit overpowering. In fact…well…she frightened me, the way she had everything worked out. I could see her taking over my life. Trying to change me, trying to make me into this other regular sort of chap. You know what I’m like, Lex—a bit of a slob,’ he said disarmingly. ‘Like my fry-ups and my fags and my home comforts. Nothing too fancy. Don’t want to change. Don’t want to be brought up to scratchy have the house all tarted up. Don’t want to—you know—have to behave all the time. Just not me, Lex.’
‘No.’
We reached the hut. Before stepping under the eaves, Edward lifted his head to the sky and blinked as the rain fell full on his face. ‘She got bloody tricky when I tried to back off.’ He gave a nervous laugh as he ducked in out of the wet. ‘Hadn’t seen that side of her before. Oh, cool and sort of foxy on the outside, but inside…Christ.’ He blew out his lips and gave a nervous shudder.
We stood side by side under the eaves, looking out at the rain. ‘She was angry?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Definitely. I’d sort of tried to tell her it was all getting a bit much, oh, two or three times. You know, let’s cool it a bit, that kind of thing. But she always managed to ignore it somehow. Sort of said, don’t worry about a thing. I felt I could never get through to her. It was like…’ But words had never been his strong pointy and he abandoned the thought with a shake of his head. He tried the hut door and finding it locked absentmindedly patted the pockets of his Barbour for the key. Giving up almost immediately, he went back to his story.
‘Well, I finally plucked up courage that afternoon. Finally came out with it straight, no interruptions. Actually said, I don’t think it’s such a good idea, us getting together. She was angry. Hid it well, of course. She always hid it well. But I could see. Those eyes of hers got a flinty look. A woman scorned, and all that. And then…well, she started on the usual spiel—how brilliant we were together, how happy I made her, all the things we’d do together. She made it sound quite good, I have to say that. Sort of tempting. But all the time…well…I felt she was too much for me, Lex. Definitely a bit too much.’
‘And then?’
He said sheepishly, ‘Then I, er, got sidetracked. Same as always. She, er…got me the way she always got me.’ He shambled out into the rain again and studied the weather. ‘She was a…er, a bit hot in that direction.’
‘So you kissed and made up?’
He lifted a helpless hand.
‘And when she got the call and rushed out she thought everything was all right between you again?’
He turned his head into profile. ‘I suppose so.’ Then, with a sharp look: ‘God, you weren’t thinking—’ He gave a dry laugh. ‘Oh, she’d never have got upset about me. God, no! Only ever saw her cry once, and that was when she thought it was the thing to do. No, no…Grace wouldn’t have been upset about me. No—’ He looked startled as some memory came back to him. He turned to face me. ‘No, it was Charlie she was upset about.’ One memory seemed to trigger another. He said in a tight voice, ‘No…After she got the call, when she was rushing around ranting and raving, she kept saying, “I’ll kill him! Wait till I get my hands on him, I’ll kill him!”’
We were quiet for a time, the only sound the rushing and pattering of the rain.
‘Who was T?’ I asked, thinking of Grace’s old diary. ‘Was it you?’
Edward looked shifty. ‘Yup.’
‘Ted?’
His face told me it was worse still.
‘Teddy?’
‘Told her I didn’t like it, but she wouldn’t listen. That was her, Lex—never really knew what I was about.’
Ramsey sat immobile in the corner of the car, staring through a small patch of window that he had rubbed clear of condensation. ‘We have facilities,’ he said at last in a distant tone. ‘The victim interview suite. Comfy chairs, pictures, pleasant colour scheme. Video camera behind glass. We’re quite proud of it. One of the best.’
I asked, ‘And you have someone trained to interview children?’
He turned towards me. ‘There’s a child psychologist we’ve used. Haven’t dealt with her my-self, but she’s meant to be good. Teams up with a woman detective constable.’
‘And it can be arranged soon? While it’s still fresh in his mind.’ I didn’t add: And while he’s still willing to tell it.
With an ironic gesture of being the last person wanting to hold things back, Ramsey said, ‘First thing in the morning, if it can be arranged.’
‘And I’d like to have a quick word with the psychologist before she sees him, if that’s okay with you.’
In the last half-hour Ramsey’s manner had progressed from open doubt to grudging acceptance to something very like cooperation. Now he said mildly, ‘About?’
‘There’re a couple of things she should know, a couple of things that she should avoid if she’s to get him to talk freely.’
‘Such as?’
My instinctive reaction was to disclose nothing, then I remembered that we were both after the same thing: to expedite Charlie’s journey towards the truth. ‘There was a special school his mother was threatening to send him to—
that’s a very difficult subject for him. And what he saw between his mother and her lover—I feel that no child should be asked to describe that.’
‘Between his mother and Mr Woodford,’ Ramsey stated with deliberate emphasis.
‘Yes.’
‘Your brother.’
‘Yes.’
‘It was on the strength of his evidence that your client almost got charged.’ He sounded resentful all of a sudden, as if it were somehow my fault.
‘I realize that.’
He seemed on the point of making some comment, only to shake his head and move on. ‘I don’t see a problem with you talking to the psychologist.’ Then, with the air of someone who could not be reassured too often: ‘He saw his mother go off to the marsh alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s sure about that?’
‘Yes, absolutely sure.’
‘And she was going to close the sluices?’
‘Yes.’
Lost in thought, Ramsey rubbed at the condensation again with his plump finger and peered out at the rainswept quay.
After a while I prompted, ‘So…once you have Charlie’s statement, that’ll cover every-thing, will it, Inspector?’
He raised an eyebrow, he cast me a knowing look, as if to give me full marks for trying. ‘Look here, Mrs O’Neill, whatever Maggie Dearden’s intentions might have been—and I accept that she might have thought she was acting for the best—the fact remains that she seriously misled us, she denied us vital information. She has singlehandedly been responsible for the most enormous wastage of police time—a truly enormous wastage! Fifty officers in the search, three assigned to the incident room, up to twenty as of yesterday. No…I can’t say to you that it’ll be allowed to pass. I can’t give you that sort of undertaking because it’s not in my power to do so.’
‘She’s not a well woman.’
He made a gesture of regret. ‘It’s simply not in my hands.’
‘So, what’s going to happen?’
‘She’ll have to give us another statement, for a start. A full and accurate statement. I’m going to need to be satisfied on several points. Like’—his round shoulders hunched in a fresh wave of disapproval—‘why she couldn’t at least have pointed us in the right direction at the beginning. Towards the marsh. We spread the search ten miles in every direction—a complete waste of time.’
I kept an expression of polite sympathy on my face.
‘And then the car. Moving Grace Dearden’s car. I will need to be satisfied as to why she moved the car. And why she didn’t choose to say anything about it.’
‘She’d just been subjected to an attack by Grace,’ I suggested quietly. ‘Quite a furious one. She’s not a young woman. She’s no
t well. She may have been a little disorientated.’
Ramsey considered this with the air of someone who feels duty-bound to give each and every idea a fair hearing, and I found myself warming to him. ‘Yes, well…maybe,’ he acknowledged. ‘But didn’t it occur to her that Grace Dearden might be in trouble out there? Wasn’t she concerned when Grace didn’t come back?’
‘I think she was too busy calming the boy. Calming herself. Everyone was very upset.’
Ramsey’s face reflected a number of expressions, among which disappointment, weariness and anxiety were clearly visible. ‘I’m not at all sure,’ he murmured, pulling in his thin lips.
I didn’t ask him what he wasn’t sure about.
‘How sick is she?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I would have to speak to her doctor.’
‘And the boy?’
‘Sorry?’
He leant across and lowered his voice, as though in the midst of the rain we were in danger of being overheard. ‘We’re not talking about a child who’s disturbed, are we? Medically speaking, I mean?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘What made you think that?’
‘A child that you would wish to protect?’
‘I don’t quite follow.’
I
‘A child who might have been…’ He tightened his lips, he frowned. ‘…more deeply involved.’
I looked him straight in the eye. ‘I believe that we have the complete story, or as close as we’ll ever get. I believe that Grace’s death was an accident pure and simple. I believe she was in a blind rage, and that her rage, combined with the effort of closing the gates, could have caused her to black out or maybe to stumble or fall. Charlie wasn’t there, Inspector. Of that I am sure.’
Ramsey pulled back and eyed me pensively for some time, before nodding and reaching for the door handle. ‘So…we’re ready then, are we?’
He might have been ready, but I realized that I hadn’t even begun to think of how I would explain this to Will.
‘I forbid my son to make a statement.’ Will’s voice was ice-cold and ferocious.
Ramsey said gently, ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to insist, Mr Dearden. But, as Mrs O’Neill has explained, it will be done in congenial surroundings, by a trained expert, and, under the code of practice, you yourself have the right to attend, or’—he glanced towards me—‘your designated representative could attend on your behalf.’
Will resolutely ignored me, as he’d ignored me since I had broken the news. He said stiffly,
‘You’re telling me you’re going to interview him anyway, whatever I say?’
‘It’s a matter of the law, Mr Dearden. When we receive information of such a significant nature we have no choice but to follow it up.’
‘And where did this information come from?’
Ramsey looked down at his feet before glancing in my direction.
‘It came from me,’ I said quickly. ‘Charlie told me everything.’
And still Will did not look at me. He said starkly, ‘I will be accompanying my son to the interview, Inspector. No one else.’
‘Hopefully it won’t be any later than tomorrow morning. But we’ll call and let you know.’
‘Call me, Inspector. No one else. All communications are to come through me.’
‘As you wish.’
Shivering with anger, Will spelt it out. ‘Mrs O’Neill won’t be representing us any more.’
Ramsey took a small step back, as if from a dispute. ‘I’ll call you very soon, then, Mr Dearden.’
Will made to stop him. ‘My mother,’ he said in fresh agitation. ‘You won’t need to—?’
‘We’ll have to take another statement from her, Mr Dearden. There’s a great deal to be explained.’
‘But she’s ill.’
‘We’ll try to keep it as simple as possible.’
‘But her illness—it’s serious. It’s…’ Will’s voice rose hoarsely. ‘She may not have long.’
There was a pause in which I felt my throat seize, my eyes burn. A part of me had suspected how bad it must be ever since that morning I had seen her, grey and haggard, in the kitchen at Marsh House; at the same time a part of me had kept hoping I was wrong. Certainty was altogether more brutal, and the sorrow pulled at my heart.
Ramsey said solicitously, ‘We’ll certainly bear that in mind. Should we speak to her doctor, perhaps?’
Will gave a sharp nod, and Ramsey, with a muttered farewell, walked off across the hall and let himself out.
The moment the door had shut, Will thrust out a fierce hand as though to push me as far away as possible. ‘You’d better leave now.’
‘I’m sorry about Charlie but, Will, there was no other way. If there’d been any other way, I would have taken it, believe me.’
His face contorted with anger, his eyes blared, he could hardly speak. ‘You did this behind my back! Without telling me! You did this without even—’ He swung away and raised clenched fists in a gesture of fury and impotence. ‘For God’s sake, what do you think I’ve been trying to do all this time?’ He spun back. ‘Trying to protect Charlie! Trying to keep him out of it!’
It was a moment before I understood all the implications of what he was saying. ‘You knew it was Charlie who’d opened the sluices?’
He shouted, ‘Yes!’
‘You knew why?,
He wrestled with this, he flung out an arm. ‘Well, I guessed! Didn’t take a lot of guessing! I knew—knew—it was all to do with the Gun Marsh. She kept pushing me to sell. Pushing, pushing, pushing! Thought she was being so subtle, so clever. But I could always see through her when she was after something she wanted! Always!’ he scoffed in a tone of deep bitterness. ‘Didn’t take a lot of working out after that! No! I mean, two and two made four several times over. Edward!’ He almost yelled it: ‘Edward! God!’ He took another furious turn and when he faced me again his eyes were glittering harshly. ‘I wanted Charlie out of it! That was the whole point—I wanted Charlie kept out of it!’
The realizations came quickly then, one after another: his intention to keep me in the dark, his duplicity, the lack of trust. I stood dumbly, abruptly and unexpectedly close to tears. ‘You should have told me about Charlie,’ I said painfully. ‘How could I help you if you didn’t tell me?’
‘That was the whole point—I thought you’d be able to keep them away! Stop them bothering us! I thought you’d know all the tricks! I didn’t think you’d do this to us! I didn’t think—’ But his anger got in the way again. He wheeled a hand as if to sweep me from his sight.
My breath came in a tight shudder, I blinked the heat from my eyes. ‘You didn’t trust me,’ I said.
‘No!’ he cried with despair. ‘I trusted you too much! That was the trouble! Too much!’ More realizations followed, more lurches of understanding that pulled at my pride as much as my heart.
I took a step back, I turned towards the door. ‘You should have told me about Charlie,’ I murmured again.
He made another wild gesture, a bewildered upward jerk of both hands, before marching into the kitchen and slamming the door behind him.
I spotted Paul’s car further along the street—parked hurriedly, by the look of it—but the porch was lit, the hall too.
I was about to slide the key into the lock when the latch sounded and the door flew open to reveal Paul on his way out, wearing a sports jacket, sweater and casual trousers.
We faced each other in mutual surprise.
‘You’re back!’ he exclaimed with a rather sudden laugh. ‘Thought you were gone till Monday.’
‘Didn’t you get my message?’
‘Ah!’ He made an exaggerated face of contrition. ‘Have to confess, didn’t call in and collect any messages. Thought, what the hell, it can all wait till Monday! New philosophy—weekends to be weekends. No more work allowed!’
He’d already had a drink or three, I reckoned, possibly a liquid lunch that he’d topped up during the afternoon. ‘I left
a message on your mobile too.’
He gave a wince. ‘Stuck in meetings all afternoon. No time to check.’
Stepping past him into the hall, I saw a bulging holdall on the floor and gave him a questioning glance.
‘Ha!’ He put on his jaunty Irishman. ‘I thought, since my wife was abandoning me for the weekend, I might as well go and get fit. Get the old forehand up to Wimbledon standard.’
‘What, tonight?’
‘Well, tomorrow. A tennis clinic. Intensive weekend.’
‘Oh.’ I knew nothing about tennis clinics, intensive or otherwise. ‘Is it far away?’
‘Ah, well, you see…’ He made an expansive gesture. ‘Thought that while I was about it a bit of warmth wouldn’t go amiss. A bit of sun—well, hopefully—and a bit of good food and wine and—’
‘Spain.’ Warning bells sounded, echoes of unease.
‘Espagna,’ Paul attempted a flourish. ‘Bit of R and R, bit of a tan and improve the old backhand at the same time.’ Catching my expression, seeing that I was having trouble with this story, he said briskly, ‘For God’s sake, a last-minute thing, Lexxy. Fixed this afternoon. Thought it’d do me good to get away. You know—fresh air, exercise, all that sort of stuff. Going with a couple of the lads, that’s all.’ He spread his arms, the picture of innocence, though his shifting eyes told a different tale.
I was feeling so demoralized, so defeated, that I would have done anything to avoid a confrontation, but when I glanced at the hall table there was no note. ‘You’ve left a number?’
‘With Corinthia.’
‘But you’ll leave it for me as well?’
‘Sure…’ He went through the pantomime of patting his trousers, of fishing into his breast pocket, he put on an expression of mystification, but I knew it was all a show, a way of marking time until he could announce that he couldn’t find it. Glancing out of the open door, his expression lifted with almost transparent relief. ‘Ah! The transport’s here!’
A Dark Devotion Page 38
