The Comforts of Home

by Susan Hill

  ‘Monsieur.’

  ‘Ou est Delphine?’

  The shrug.

  ‘Has she been in at all today?’

  ‘Non.’

  ‘Has she telephoned or –’

  ‘Non. If she is not with you, I do not know where, monsieur le docteur. Excusez-moi.’

  Richard hesitated. Wait and see if she turned up? Go home?

  He walked away, leaving behind the chatter and chink of china and glass and the blue cigarette smoke, into the dark, quiet street to his car. Where was she? Probably Victor knew. Probably Olivier. She had told them – and told them not to say anything if he asked.

  He was not worried now. He was angry. Knowing nothing, being told nothing, made a fool of.

  He drove too fast through the twisting country lanes to the house.

  She was not there. No one was there.

  He poured a glass of wine and sat in the garden. Was she coming back? Had she gone off with someone? Why?

  And how much did he care? He had been fond of Delphine and enjoyed her company. He had not spoiled her with money or gifts, and she had never expected anything. But he had been made a fool of, and now, he felt that fool. An old fool. No fool like.

  He brought the remains of the bottle out, lit the mosquito coils, and with just enough light from the porch, started on the Times crossword. He usually did it in the morning, but he was too restless and irritable to go to bed, and disliked sitting doing nothing. He had never been able to do nothing. There had always been work, and later, writing medical papers, editing the journal, his family. Coping with Meriel’s death, marrying Judith and, with her, discovering a different life, travelling in the camper van, across America, up and down Europe. He had never expected to enjoy it but he had. Judith. He looked up from the crossword he had not yet begun. What had happened? They should not have separated. She should not have left him. It would have taken some words of apology, some adjustments, but it had not seemed to him that she had wanted to make them.

  He poured the last glass. The mosquito coil dimmed and went out, leaving the strange, musky smoke on the air. It was still very warm.

  He half woke, hearing a sound – a car in the lane, perhaps passing the house. He lifted his head, but as it was quiet again, went back to sleep, stretched out in the garden chair, deeply comfortable.

  In the end, it was not a sound but the sudden chill that brought him up. There was a dampness in the air, as of early morning.

  He was stiff, cursed himself for falling asleep, not having the sense at least to stay in the house. There was already a faint dew on the grass as he hobbled inside.

  It was a moment, because he was slightly dazed by sleep, before he noticed anything. The kitchen was as usual and he poured himself a glass of water, put some ice cubes into it, locked the back door, and went through to the small room he used as a study. His small Georgian clock was not on the side table, the Royal Doulton jug was not on the shelf, nor the two watercolours by Cotman. His laptop had gone. His Roberts radio. The three silver frames which had contained photographs of his grandchildren. The pictures themselves were scattered on the desk. He opened the drawers. In the top one he kept a couple of hundred euros in a wallet to pay people, take change when he needed it, and in the second the safe box which contained several thousand and a valuable gold pocket watch. He knew with only a cursory look that they had gone. Small items, some of worth, some he was merely fond of, an inlaid mother-of-pearl box, six silver spoons, a locket that had belonged to his mother and then to Meriel.

  It was perfectly clear that Delphine had taken what she wanted. All her things had gone as well. Had she acted alone? Had she lied when she had said she wanted to stay in the house here, to be with him?

  Did any of it matter?

  He picked up the phone. But it was half past five in the morning, Cat would not thank him for ringing her now. What would he say to her? Would he tell her? He felt helpless and unsure and, suddenly, old.

  Twenty

  ‘No need to stay too late, Mrs Lee, there isn’t anything urgent.’

  ‘I just want to deal with the notes about Mr Barker’s will and file it all. I didn’t get chance to finish everything earlier.’

  He filled the doorway of her office. The building was old, the doorways small, the ceilings low. The firm had been here in Cathedral Close for seventy years. No one would contemplate removal to somewhere more modern and convenient, and the sixteenth-century walls and roof did not prevent their being fully up to date. Too up to date, she sometimes thought but never said. She was fifty-nine but often felt that she should have lived in the 1900s.

  ‘Goodnight then.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Dodsworth.’

  She would work until six thirty, and then walk through the Close, up via the Lanes, to Silver Street. The restaurant they always met in, Primrose’s, was a good place for them because the food was straightforward, the portions not stingy, and because it was comfortable and, above all, quiet, even when it was full. They tried to get the same table, to one side, not in the window but near enough to have a view onto the street, with the cathedral in the background. In the daytime it lacked the atmosphere of the more recently established bars and bistros but after six, they put candles in small glass bowls with lids which had a red tinge, making the whole room feel safe and cosy. There were cushions on the backs of the chairs, and in winter, a wood-burning stove was lit. They had tried a couple of other places but they hadn’t been suitable because of the noise. They needed to hear themselves speak without having to shout and then be overheard and draw attention to themselves.

  Marion had to talk. It was her life, talking about it, but so few people could bear to listen any more. Her son Tim, living in Newcastle, her brother, neighbours – they were worn down, burned out with listening. They had to protect themselves against it now. It upset them, distressed and troubled and irritated and bored them by turns.

  So she clung on to Brenda, who felt it was her duty to allow that. In fact, if it were not for the subject of her daughter, Marion would have been an ideal friend. They got on well, they had plenty in common, everyday tastes and background too. They had even been on holiday together once, to a beautiful bay in Cornwall, and a hotel that looked right over the sea. They liked walking, reading, visiting heritage sites and churches – the weather had been very good apart from a couple of sea-misty mornings but it had cleared by noon each time. But everything led back to Kimberley.

  Her daughter-in-law had told her it would make her ill, drive her demented, if she didn’t loosen her ties with Marion. But she couldn’t just abandon her. She wanted to help. If Brenda could do anything to give her peace of mind, she would, but there was nothing. Only listening. She had managed to create a bigger gap between their meetings, by having this or that prior engagement or family commitment, or pleading the need to work late, so it was almost a fortnight since the last time they had had supper together. Her conscience wouldn’t let her leave it any longer.

  And it must be terrible. Brenda had imagined it enough times, put herself in Marion’s place. No one had the right to criticise her for dwelling on it, having it at the front of her mind every morning when she woke up. It was just – wearying for everyone else.

  Marion was waiting for her, as always, their glasses of Chablis already ordered. It was quiet at this time – just two other tables occupied. She took a few moments to get out of her jacket, put her bag at her feet, pick up the menu, raise her glass to Marion and take a drink, because she needed to settle, and because she wanted to put off just for a few minutes the inevitable launch into the same subject. Same old. Marion was looking pent-up, as if she had the first sentences ready formed in her mouth and was breathless with the need to let them out. It was never very relaxing.

  To give herself five minutes Brenda started on a story of her own, not a very interesting story, about an incident at work when Lauren had slipped and fallen down the steep stairs and lain at the bottom in a heap for several minutes wh
ile everyone rushed around, and Mr Dodsworth was showing a client out and didn’t know whether to carry on, go back, rush down to Lauren and …

  ‘And then she got up and laughed and she hadn’t even ricked an ankle. She will wear those stupid wedge shoes. Can you see the specials board, Marion? It’s a bit out of focus from here.’

  She wanted to keep the subject of Kimberley at bay for as long as she could, so after the menu question, she embarked on last night’s Master Chef and why the person sent home first should never have left, not in a million years.

  In this way, things were moved along until they had their smoked mackerel and country-style pâté in front of them.

  ‘It was five years ago to the day,’ Marion said. ‘When I went back to the police station.’

  The anniversary of the day Kimberley disappeared, though she thought she was the only person who remembered. Brenda clearly had not. As she spoke the words, Marion saw a look flash across her friend’s face, a look of – what? Weariness? ‘Here we go again’? Embarrassment? She didn’t know or care.

  ‘Five years,’ she said again. Brenda stared down at her plate.

  ‘It isn’t just a day, a date. It’s more than that. It was a big shove in the back, you know? I can’t let it go. I have to nag and nag and nag until they start again, Brenda. The other day, I read about some murder in the North that had been solved after forty-two years. FORTY-TWO! The man who did it is long dead, but they went on, until they pinned it on him. Well, this is only five years. What’s five? Why have they put it away in a drawer and closed it?’

  Brenda’s eyes remained on her plate.

  ‘I’ve decided I’m going to see him.’

  ‘See who?’

  ‘I can’t bear his name in my mouth. You know who I mean.’

  Brenda laid down her knife. ‘If it’s who I think you mean, Marion, you can’t. You just can’t.’

  ‘Yes I can. I know which prison he’s in.’

  ‘No, that’s not the point.’

  ‘He murdered my daughter. We know that.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I thought you were my friend. I thought you were on my side.’

  ‘I am. But this is different. Listen, yes, the police think he killed Kimberley, and yes, we all know that he probably did, but they didn’t have the evidence. That’s a fact, Marion, and you can’t deny it. There is the probability, if you like, but there’s no proof. Besides, what good do you think it would do, going in there and confronting him? What do you think you’d achieve?’

  ‘Get him to confess.’

  ‘He never would. He never has and he never will.’

  ‘I could make him.’

  Brenda reached out a hand and put it on Marion’s, which was holding a fork and shaking so that she could neither use it nor put it down.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘put that out of your mind. It’s going to eat away at you and you don’t need it.’

  ‘I didn’t need my daughter murdered, I didn’t need him to get off scot-free.’

  ‘Hardly. He’s in prison for life.’

  ‘Only not for Kimberley.’

  ‘I don’t understand what difference that makes. If he confessed tomorrow, what difference would it make? It wouldn’t –’

  Marion’s eyes were full of tears but they were angry tears and her voice was angry, bitter anger suffusing every word, though she spoke quietly.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘it wouldn’t bring Kimberley back – do you think I don’t know that? But it would be a resolution. I could die knowing it was settled.’

  Brenda sighed and looked down at her plate again, at broken bits of toast and small smears of pâté. At a tomato and a sprig of parsley and a slice of lemon. The restaurant was filling up now. The pink-shaded lamps on the table, the smell of wine and grilled meat, the murmur of conversations, the air of comfort, of people enjoying themselves, the general sense of well-being seemed to shrivel and sour as Brenda sat silent, and Marion’s tears continued. How could they carry on for the rest of the evening? What would they talk about now this impossible thing stood between them?

  ‘There’s another thing,’ Brenda said, because it had just occurred to her and, in occurring, had come to her rescue. ‘You wouldn’t be able to see him because you don’t just turn up at any prison for visiting hour, you have to apply, and it isn’t the prison authorities who have to grant the application, it’s the prisoner. They can choose to see you or not. It’s their decision, Marion, not yours, not anyone else’s.’

  ‘That can’t be right.’

  ‘Well, it is right. I happen to know it.’

  ‘I’ll apply then.’

  ‘And you honestly think he’d agree to a visit from you? Come on.’

  ‘He ought to. He ought to be made to.’

  ‘Nevertheless. I know he’s a prisoner but he does have a few choices left and this is one.’

  Marion started to cry in earnest now, ugly, unchecked tears that made her gulp and catch her breath, her nose ran and her face flushed, and still she went on crying. Brenda saw that the waitress was standing a few yards away, about to take their empty plates and not knowing whether to move forward or step back. Frozen with confusion and embarrassment.

  Twenty-one

  ‘I need your help,’ the voice said, but it came over as ‘If feed shelf …’

  ‘Who is this speaking?’

  ‘Sheevon.’

  ‘Hold on, let me walk up the slope a bit, it’s sometimes better there.’ Serrailler did so, but when he put the phone to his ear, there was only a hissing sound and then abrupt silence.

  ‘Effin mobile signal.’

  Sam said from the doorway. ‘I made some coffee.’

  ‘Great, thanks. God knows who it was, I couldn’t make any sense of it.’

  They sat down at the kitchen table. Sam had put out the pot of coffee, milk and a plate of Kirsty’s chocolate brownies, dropped off at the front door by Douglas just after dawn.

  ‘She likes feeding me up,’ Simon said. ‘Thinks I’m too thin.’

  Sam looked at his plate and said, ‘She’s pretty. Really.’

  ‘She is. And a delightful woman and safely married.’

  ‘Safely?’

  Simon didn’t answer.

  ‘You mean if she’d been free she’d have been a threat to your safe single life?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’d have done OK.’

  ‘Living up here? I don’t think so.’

  ‘You always skip sideways.’

  ‘Does your mobile work here?’

  ‘There you go again.’

  ‘I’d better go over to the pub, see if anyone’s left a message. You coming?’

  ‘Bloody hell, it’s like living in the 1950s. I got a signal on the top road the other day … well, half a bar.’

  But Simon was on his way to the door. ‘It was probably the doc,’ Sam said, whisking the car keys away and climbing into the driver’s seat.

  ‘That’s why I want to pick up any message now. I can drive with this arm, you know. Don’t you feel safe with me any longer?’

  ‘Yes, I just love driving this. You feeling insecure, being disabled?’

  ‘Fuck it, Sam, sometimes you push it too far. No, I feel perfectly normal. I’ve got a very clever fully functioning arm, thanks to the brilliant prosthetic engineers, and in a month or two I’ll have one so state-of-the-art I’ll be able to pick up a pin in my fingers. I do not feel insecure, I feel bloody lucky. They saved my life, so what’s an arm?’

  ‘Between friends.’

  ‘Watch it!’

  A sheep had wandered across the road within a few yards of them. Sam braked, swerved and skidded, righted the car and continued.

  ‘Would he be able to tell if she drowned herself?’ he asked after a silent couple of miles.

  ‘Not sure … certainly he will know if she died of drowning, which she almost certainly did – that’s the easy bit. Other factors come into play when recording a suicide ver
dict – known state of mind, any note or other communication left to anyone, things like coat pockets full of heavy stones to weight herself down … but I’m no medic. What do you think?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘You knew her, I didn’t.’

  ‘True, but you were very possibly the last person to see Sandy alive, so if she was in a state of mental distress …’

  Sam looked at Simon in shock. ‘Do you think that’s likely? That no one else saw her after she dropped me off that night?’

  ‘It’s possible, Sambo. She lived alone, it was late … and a filthy night. No one would be likely to call then … maybe the next morning, who knows, but when it was first noticed she hadn’t been around for a bit someone would have said if they’d been to the house that morning.’

  ‘Jeez. What will happen?’

  ‘If you were thought to be the last person? Nothing, except you may have to give evidence at the inquest. Don’t worry about that – it’ll be short and formal and the chances are the coroner will return a verdict of taking her own life by drowning.’

  ‘They might think I’d killed her.’

  ‘Why on earth would they think that? You mean you might have left me once I’d gone to bed, walked through a storm and a howling gale to a house you didn’t know, gone in and … and what? Knocked her on the head and dragged her down a steep path to the sea, in pitch darkness? And what would your motive have been?’

  ‘OK.’

  But even so, Sam remained silent for the rest of the way.

  Iain gave a short laugh. ‘If I were a betting man … Do you want the phone before or after the drink?’

  There were half a dozen in the bar. Sam slipped over to a far table.

  ‘In case you’re wondering, it’s everyone – there’s been damage to the mast or some of the usual nonsense. Mobiles are nae use out here, they really are not. You’ve had three calls, all wanting to leave messages, or wanting me to hike off and find you, as if I’d the time.’