by Jill McGown
Marian’s head went back slightly. ‘So that he can do the decent thing by you?’ she asked archly. ‘Are you holding out for marriage? Is that what it is?’
‘No, no, no!’ Eleanor shouted. ‘Not that sort of freedom,’ she said, her voice quieter. She thought for a moment. ‘You called us lovers,’ she said. ‘But we’re not, you know. Not in any sense of the word. If George wanted me, he could have me, and he knows that.’ She paused. ‘But he doesn’t,’ she said. ‘He thinks he does, but he doesn’t.’
What was she to George, she wondered for the first time. A fellow prisoner? Or just a stick to shake at Marian? The one thing that he hoped would make her angry? And when that didn’t work . . . was that what the shotgun was about? Marian had said that perhaps he was waiting for her to find him. Yes, Eleanor could see George doing that, trying to baffle Marian into something other than patient understanding.
Failed again, George, she thought. Failed again.
‘I’m just a . . . a sort of focus,’ she said.
‘A focus?’ Marian repeated.
Eleanor couldn’t tell Marian what she meant. She and George had both been in prison; but she was on the other side of the bars now, free, while George was still painfully tunnelling out. Hers was the freedom of the newly released long-term prisoner; the world was a frightening, alien place. She and George needed one another, that was all.
‘A focus for his dreams?’ said Marian.
‘If you like,’ said Eleanor.
‘A damsel in distress, that he had to come and rescue?’ asked Marian. ‘A sleeping beauty that he had to awaken with a kiss?’
Eleanor felt her face grow hot, and Marian nodded. ‘He told me about Graham Elstow,’ she said, after a moment. ‘About his having caused your husband’s accident.’ She leant forward. ‘He was with you on Christmas Eve,’ she said. ‘What time did he get here, Mrs Langton?’
Eleanor frowned. ‘What?’ she said.
‘It’s a simple question,’ said Marian. ‘What time did he get here?’
‘What are you suggesting?’ asked Eleanor, her voice horrified. ‘That George killed Graham Elstow? On my behalf?’ She jumped to her feet. ‘Why? Why would you think that? George didn’t . . .? No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t tell you that. Why then? Just because you think he was going to kill himself? Is that why?’
Marian looked up at her. ‘I don’t think I said anything about George killing himself,’ she said, barely stressing the final word.
‘My God,’ said Eleanor. ‘If you can’t sacrifice yourself for your daughter, you’ll sacrifice George. You’re trying to blame George.’
‘Blame him?’ Marian repeated, with an uncomprehending movement of her head.
Eleanor sat down again. No. Marian had never blamed George for anything. ‘But you can’t really think it was George,’ she said. ‘Marian – he was in the pub, and ten minutes later he was with me.’
Marian nodded again. ‘And you had thirty minutes,’ she said. ‘Thirty minutes between my visit and George’s arrival.’
Eleanor’s eyes widened slightly.
‘That’s what is making George ill, Mrs Langton,’ said Marian. ‘That thirty minutes.’
George Wheeler splashed water on his face, and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. If he saw that man walking down the road, he wouldn’t recognise him.
Had he been going to kill himself? People asked him questions, all the time. And he didn’t have the answers. To thine own self be true. Had he been going to kill himself? Marian had gone to the police; she must have done. And wasn’t that why he had told her? So that she would protect him from that, too? She would go to the police, not him.
He’d gone to see Eleanor this morning. Why? Because she’d called him yesterday, said she had to see him. He hadn’t slept, and then he’d been pacing the floor, deciding to die. Yes, then he had been going to kill himself. He’d seen Eleanor’s light, and gone to her. Just once, he had thought. He wanted her just once before . . .
Before he killed himself? But his courage had already waned, even then. He couldn’t have Eleanor; he couldn’t even die.
Had he been going to kill himself?
Eleanor. When had he realised? Not when Marian found Elstow’s body, not even when they arrested her. It was later, after that, that it had begun to dawn on him. It was the day after that, in the church, with the sunlight streaming through the stained glass. Eleanor, coming in. Talking quietly. Almost angry when he had told her about Marian; just at that moment he could have sworn that Eleanor had thought he’d done it. But then, as she rushed him off to the police station, he had realised. Eleanor had been angry because someone else had been implicated, and she hadn’t meant that to happen; she had urged him into the police station, desperate to clear Marian’s name.
But she hadn’t told them about Elstow’s involvement in her husband’s accident, and neither had he, even though Marian was under arrest. Marian thought that it was his betrayal of her that was making him ill, and so had he, until now. But it wasn’t.
‘When did you start to feel ill?’ When they arrested Marian, he had said. But it was Marian, of course, who knew when he had really started to feel ill. ‘It started when Eleanor Langton came here, didn’t it?’
Had he been going to kill Marian? Marian, who sat there calmly discussing the pros and cons of his adultery, Marian who had confessed to the police because she thought he’d done it? Not Joanna, for Marian knew Joanna too well to think that she was capable of it. Joanna had loved Graham Elstow; she had been frightened of him, but she hadn’t hated him. No, Marian had been protecting him. Her other egg. Or so she believed. But all the time, she had been protecting an intruder, defending a cuckoo’s egg.
‘Eggs are supposed to hatch out.’ Eleanor understood. He was trying at last to break out of the shell, and that was what was making him ill. Yes, he had wanted to blast his way out with his father’s shotgun, and he could never be sure which way he would have pointed it, if he’d had the nerve to pull the trigger.
Lloyd carried the empty plates into the kitchen.
‘It was lovely,’ Judy called through. ‘Well worth the wait.’
‘Good things take a little time,’ Lloyd called back, smiling. ‘I’ve told you before. Andante.’ He piled the plates in the sink, and took mugs out of the cupboard.
‘I could have made something in ten minutes,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you could, but I wanted one decent meal today,’ he said, hunching up his shoulders as he waited for her reaction.
She arrived in the kitchen. ‘I can show you a school report,’ she said. ‘It says, “Judith shows an interest in and aptitude for domestic science.” So there.’
‘What happened?’ Lloyd put the sugar bowl on a tray with the mugs. ‘Black or white?’ he asked.
‘White.’
‘Take that through, will you?’ he said, indicating the coffee jug.
‘Do you trust me to?’ She took it.
He poured milk into a cream jug, then remembered that he had cream. ‘Cream or milk?’ he called.
‘Milk.’
He shrugged. No soul. It was good to see her back to her old self again, but it did make him feel more than ever like a bottle of aspirin. He carried the tray through, to find Judy looking at his Christmas cards. ‘You won’t find it there,’ he said. ‘If anyone had the nerve to put it on a card, it would go in the bin.’
She turned, smiling, ‘I don’t have to,’ she said.
‘You’re bluffing.’
‘Am I? All right,’ she said, sitting on the sofa. ‘Call my bluff.’
‘How?’ He picked up as many things as he could carry from the table, and went through to the kitchen. Judy was under strict orders to do nothing. This was an occasion. He came back through. ‘How can I call your bluff?’ he asked.
‘If I’m bluffing, give me permission to tell Jack Woodford,’ she said.
Her eyes glowed with mischief. But she was a rotten liar, as she had point
ed out last night, and she didn’t look as though she was bluffing. She must be, though. How could she have found out?
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Can I tell him?’
‘No.’ He picked up the salt and pepper and table mats, and turned to see her grinning at him. ‘If you know,’ he said, ‘you must have gone to Somerset House.’
She shook her head. ‘It isn’t Somerset House any more,’ she said. ‘And that would have been cheating.’
‘Certainly would.’
Back in the kitchen, he illogically put away the table mats and the salt and pepper, and left, closing the door on the piles of dishes. ‘So you are bluffing,’ he said, as he came back in. ‘I’m not calling it,’ he added quickly.
‘Am I allowed to pour the coffee?’
‘No! You’re to be waited on hand and foot.’
‘So how come I had to carry the coffee in?’
‘It’s good luck,’ he said solemnly, pouring the coffee. His first name had haunted him all his life. She didn’t know it. ‘How could you have found out?’ he asked.
‘You took me to visit your father before he went back to Wales,’ she said.
Lloyd joined her on the sofa, relaxed, now. ‘Then you’re definitely bluffing,’ he said, drinking some coffee just to see Judy wince. He liked it when it almost burned his mouth. ‘If it’s possible,’ he said, ‘my father is more ashamed of it than I am.’ Even his father just called him Lloyd. And his mother had settled for a shortened version, which could have been the diminutive of something less awful.
‘What did he call you when you were a baby?’ she asked. ‘He didn’t call you Lloyd then, surely?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lloyd said. ‘The baby, I suppose. That was his problem.’
Judy’s dark eyes regarded him as she gently blew at the steam from her coffee. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t tell me.’
Lloyd laughed. ‘You gave in too soon,’ he said.
‘I’ve not given in.’
He frowned. ‘What’s my father got to do with it, then?’ he asked.
‘You and your father went off to look at some furniture,’ she said. ‘To see if you wanted an old dresser, or something.’
An old dresser or something. A genuine . . . He began to feel uncomfortable again. Because that bit was true. ‘So?’
‘So I was left alone,’ she said. She left a pause. ‘With the family Bible.’
The family Bible? They didn’t have one. Did they? Oh, God, yes. He could remember it. A huge black one that he’d grown up with and seen every day, and to which he had never paid the least attention. But even so, they didn’t write names in it.
Judy sipped her coffee.
‘I’d know,’ he said. ‘If they’d written babies’ names in it.’
‘How? Your sisters are older than you. There weren’t any babies after you.’
Lloyd finished his coffee, and his mug still steamed. ‘What are their names?’ he demanded.
‘Megan and Amelia.’
He poured himself more coffee. ‘I’ve told you that,’ he said. ‘I must have.’ Megan and Melly. That’s what he called them. He never thought of Melly as Amelia. But then his father sometimes called her Amelia. That’s where she got that from. But he couldn’t be sure.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you know, tell me.’
She looked horrified. ‘You said you’d flatten me if I ever used it,’ she protested.
‘You are bluffing.’ He pointed at her. ‘But just in case you’re not,’ he said. ‘Don’t you ever utter it. Ever. Not even when you’re alone. Or I’ll—’
‘Flatten me,’ she said.
‘Worse. I’ll put a notice up in the CID room that you wear a vest. That’ll put a dent in your image, Sergeant Hill.’ He smiled. ‘I’m very glad you’re here,’ he said, giving her a squeeze.
‘I’m glad I’m here.’ She lay back, her head on his shoulder. ‘Talk to me,’ she said.
‘What about?’
‘Anything. It doesn’t matter. I don’t listen anyway.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Anything except double-glazing and cavity wall insulation,’ she said.
Lloyd smiled. ‘Well, that leaves the field fairly open,’ he said. ‘What would you like? The influence of Roman culture on ancient Britons?’ He kissed her, and her response was rather more to his liking than it had been in the car park of that dismal pub. ‘An analysis and comparison of the French and Russian revolutions,’ he said, as she began to loosen his tie. ‘Flora and fauna of the Florida everglades . . .’ Her mouth touched his as he spoke. ‘The pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,’ he said.
‘Eleanor Langton,’ she said.
‘The habitat of the natterjack toad,’ he carried on, and kissed her as she laughed.
‘You said she was in all evening,’ said Judy.
‘The decline of Twelfth Night as a popular festival.’ She wasn’t wearing a vest tonight. ‘The effect of television on the British film industry,’ he murmured in her ear, as he undid her bra.
‘But she might not have been.’
‘Can’t you think of anything else? Pick a subject.’
She smiled. ‘The pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,’ she said. ‘Marian saw her at five past eight, for about five . . .’
Lloyd drew her into a long kiss, but it had to end.
‘. . . minutes, and George got there at about twenty to nine.’
‘In the middle of the last century,’ Lloyd began, his lips on her shoulder, ‘three artists – Rossetti, Holman—’
‘And it only takes a few minutes across the fields,’ she said.
‘Holman Hunt, and Millais,’ he went on, his lips travelling with the words, ‘decided that they didn’t think much . . . she’d get there at twenty past,’ he said, tackling her zip. ‘At the earliest.’ Or long johns. She’d catch her death.
‘Plenty of time to do it,’ said Judy.
‘I know,’ said Lloyd. ‘But I’m in the mood now.’
‘Eleanor had plenty of time to kill Elstow.’
Lloyd sat back. ‘Except that if your little girl’s telling the truth, then she would have been there by the time Eleanor Langton arrived,’ he said.
‘Joanna could have been and gone by twenty past.’
‘In which case, she wouldn’t have found the door locked, would she?’
‘Are you saying that Joanna is telling the truth?’
‘No,’ he said, with great patience. ‘I’m saying that if it was Eleanor, then there’s no reason to disbelieve Joanna. And if there’s no reason to disbelieve Joanna, then it wasn’t Eleanor. You like logic problems – sort that one out.’
Judy took his hands. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘I’ll forgive you,’ he said. ‘But only because I’m damned if that family’s going to spoil this evening.’
Judy smiled, and lay back, taking him with her. ‘What family?’ she said.
‘Will you stay the night?’ he asked.
‘Oh, Lloyd, I can’t,’ she said.
‘You’ve never spent the night with me.’
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Please, Lloyd, I don’t want another row.’
‘Why can’t you?’ he asked. He didn’t want another row. He wanted her to stay.
‘I have to meet Michael’s train at half past seven in the morning,’ she said.
‘There is a half past seven in the morning here,’ Lloyd said.
She kissed him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It would be too obvious that I hadn’t been home. There would be too many questions.’
Don’t go on at her, he told himself. Don’t spoil it again. He smiled. ‘And you can’t tell lies,’ he said.
She shook her head.
‘What you need,’ he said seriously, putting his hands on her shoulders, ‘is a piece of magic chalk.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy it. What’s magic chalk?’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Dai’s going home from work, and calls in for a quick drink. And there at the bar is the most beautifu
l blonde he’s ever seen. He can’t believe his luck when she buys him a drink. So he sits down, and chats her up a bit, and then she says would he like to come home with her and make love to her.’
Judy smiled.
‘Would he not?’ Lloyd went on. ‘So Dai throws caution to the wind, goes home with her, and makes love to her for hours. But all good things must come to an end, and Dai’s getting dressed to go home when he sees the time. “My God,” he says. “Look at the time. What am I going to tell the wife?”’
‘Are you making this up as you go along?’
Lloyd grinned. ‘ “Don’t worry, Dai,” she says. “I’ve got some magic chalk here, see?” And she gives him a piece of chalk. Well, it just looks like ordinary chalk to Dai, but she swears it’s magic. “Just put it behind your ear,” she says, “and tell your wife the truth.”’
Judy moved closer to him as he spoke. ‘You are making it up,’ she said.
‘Dai doesn’t fancy that at all,’ said Lloyd. ‘But the blonde just smiles again. “Trust me,” she says. “It’s magic.” So Dai goes home, taking the chalk with him.’
‘Does this go on all night?’ Judy asked. ‘So I’ll have to stay – like Whatshername telling stories?’
‘Scheherazade,’ said Lloyd. ‘Now, he doesn’t have much faith in this chalk, but he’s got no chance otherwise. When he gets home, he puts it behind his ear, and goes in. “Where have you been, then?” says his wife. And Dai takes a deep breath. “I’ve been making love to a beautiful blonde all night,” he says. “Don’t give me that, Dai Griffith,” says his wife. “You’ve been down the Legion playing darts – you’ve still got the chalk behind your ear!”’
Judy laughed, but then her eyes widened, and the smile faded. She twisted away from him, reaching for her handbag.
‘Leave it!’ he ordered. ‘Don’t dare bring out that notebook!’ Gun-dogs were supposed to obey.
She leafed through the pages, and looked up. ‘It’s all here, Lloyd,’ she said. ‘We had all the pieces. You were asking the right questions, all along.’
Lloyd looked over her shoulder at her notes, but he couldn’t decipher the mixture of Judy’s own form of speedwriting, the odd clear word and dozens of question-marks and asterisks. ‘I hope your official notebook doesn’t look like that,’ he said.
