Shadows on the Mirror

by Frances Fyfield

  ‘The one no one else could ride, vicious brute. Bucked and reared, and reared and bucked, and no one could stay on its back. Thousands of blokes on the sands tried every year, all failed, knocked off, ground into the sand, trampled by the dozen. Until this Yorkshire bloke, he stayed there, gripped on like glue, nothing could shift him. So they all stopped and cheered and said, How do you do it, how do you do it, you’ve got to tell us . . . And he said, It’s nothing lads, nothing, and they ask again. Where did you get the knack, tell us? And he says, It’s nothing lads, really. I’ve allus been the same since the wife had whooping cough.’

  Malcolm spluttered into his black beans while Ryan roared at his own story. Healthy attitude to sex is what Malcolm needed; apart from that he was pretty normal really, for a solicitor. He’d have to be to rise to that story. The wife hadn’t liked it much. Nor had that social worker he’d told yesterday. Ryan’s little test of humour showed he was happy.

  One hour after, chirpy and dutiful, he went home for the train. Plenty to tell with a clear conscience, glad it was only midnight and also that, in comparison to Mr Cook’s funny flat and empty bed, his own life seemed rosier. As he left, Ryan glanced at the front door of the huge old house, and the lit windows of the second floor, wondering which were hers. Nice to spot that redhead again. He may have been well-behaved these days, but there was never any harm in looking.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was raining and dark after Ryan had gone, and Malcolm had the overwhelming desire to speak to his father. In case that wise old bird would extend into the vacuum some hint of affection, or even suggest he might know what to do with a financier like Charles Tysall. But no. To speak to his father was to try and speak a new language, and only ever served to renew the old quarrel. Perhaps at the Gray’s Inn Ball, that grand annual occasion which both of them were bound to attend, out of long habit and his mother’s insistence. Perhaps then, when they were both bound to be jolly, but not now. All Father would do now was scold, like an otherwise fair school prefect on a bad day, raise his voice out of the stiff collar of his outraged pride. Lowly public servant, he would yell, as he had yelled before. Struggling in the gutter for your trade, hardly like a proper solicitor, and probably damaged in the process. You fool. Yes, yes, Malcolm had said, all that and more. Exploited, bemused, saddened and maddened, usually on the losing side. You never change anything by prosecuting people, Father had shouted. No you don’t, Malcolm had agreed, but then nothing changes people except luck, and at least this way I have the chance to protect the victims, that’s the point. Besides, I get to laugh sometimes, which is more than you seem to do. But only sometimes. Not a dignified way of earning money, but my own, you see.

  No, he would not speak to his father, however much he loved him. Tomorrow he would make ten more telephone calls in the search for Sarah Fortune; maybe he would succeed. She might have been a stranger, but he never lost the urge to talk to her again, or the belief that she would understand him. He had tried to will it away as he would have tried to deny the existence of a toothache, with the same lack of success for an ache which grew. The thoughts were jumbled: Sarah, Charles Tysall and his own father, all somehow ill-fated.

  He could not bring hope of a prodigal return to his father, nor could he defend himself. If neither Ryan, Bailey nor himself could even draw the barge of the judicial system alongside Charles Tysall’s yacht, then Stepfather would be proved right. Even if he were interested in criminal affairs, which Malcolm doubted, he never had, as far as Malcolm knew, encountered violence. Instead of speaking, Malcolm resorted to his old friend, the night. He went out like a burglar at midnight, ignoring the summer rain. Padding his dark route on shiny warm streets, looking for the man and the dog, wanting something to rescue.

  There they were, on cue for inspection, the dog thinner than before, ratlike with damp fur, dragged each inch of the way, not even whimpering protest, while the man shrugged on, fighting his private battle with the world. Malcolm passed them once, then twice, sizing the frame of both, looking for witnesses. Then circled the block and ran from behind, silent, full of trepidation. Stealing was far from easy. He had begun to think like a thief, but was not a thief whatever his sympathies. May have watched it, read of it, but never embarked at dead of night with real theft in mind. Whether the kidnap was of handbag, child or animal, there was still a violence in it he could feel as he gathered speed, accelerating for the task, rushed softly to the man, snapped the lead from his hand, lifted the dog into his arms and ran on, panting in a spasm of relief before he reached the end of the street. There he stopped and turned briefly. The man was watching, passive but confused, arms by his sides in resignation, gesturing nothing at all, swaying slightly. Without the whimpering dog in his arms, almost weightless through long deprivation, Malcolm might have returned. He knew this one sad man would not change, not ever or not soon enough, neither for RSPCA inspectors nor anyone else. Malcolm’s role in life left him no belief whatever in authorities: nothing was ever altered except by individual will. It was one of the reasons why he respected thieves. ‘Got you,’ he murmured to the dog. ‘Why did I take so long? You might have died.’

  They jogged home, two miles before the weight began to tell. No protest from the animal, plenty from Malcolm’s limbs as he carried his damp bundle upstairs, and closed his door behind them. Once released, the dog, who appeared on closer inspection to be half spaniel, half nondescript, placed her matted rump on the kitchen floor, and regarded him with caution, her neck rubbed raw of hair and her eyes still bleary. Malcolm found eggs and milk, remembering gentle puppy diets. She wolfed food, eyeing him nervously as she ate, in case he should regret such generosity. Then the two of them, both thin animals used to greater quantities of flesh, examined one another with some hesitation and mutual admiration, like a couple of lovers still uncertain of the affair on which they were due to embark. In the end, they removed to the bathroom, where he washed the dog gently and towelled her dry, a treatment she disliked but did not resent. He had thought of a hairdryer to complete the process, abandoned the idea for fear the noise would alarm her. Still perplexed, he led her into the living room and sat in his armchair, admiring his handiwork. She sat on the carpet, looking at him again expectantly, and, after the briefest of pauses, crawled weakly into the capacious seat beside him. Acquired in his larger days, it held them both easily. She padded and snuffled damply, until they were comfortable.

  Later he took her into the garden behind the house, found she did not try to escape but followed him back. He was adopting the same principle with the dog as he would these days with a kept-witness: if you wish to ignore safety and go home to violence, I cannot make you stay, though I wish I could. They resumed the chair by common consent. Together, they were seen by a dawn trickling through neglected curtains over the bodies of both which twitched and dozed in profound contentment. If it was a love affair, it was committed to continuance by the morning. In the course of the night, Malcolm’s dizzy world returned to its own axis.

  Ted Plumb’s highly disturbed world was even worse than it had been. No matter if he forgot to feed it, or if the wretched creature was a nuisance he disliked, it had still been his dog. His by default, and the property of no one else. As he sat outside Sarah Fortune’s house, not suspecting the presence of the sickly animal indoors on the top floor, Ted’s loss rankled. He pulled the half-bottle from his top pocket. Two hours since the last drink, may as well be at work if you can’t sleep at two a.m., and looking at this building was work of a kind. The liquid was fiery in his throat, nothing like the initial gulp, the sheer warmth of it, wish it didn’t mean he would have to finish whatever was left in the bottle. That was the problem, never a single sip, never stopping at the stage when it was merely comforting.

  He must not think of the dog, hadn’t wanted it, and did not really want it now. Elisabeth Tysall’s puppy. God, she had loved that thing, cuddled it like a baby, then, daft bitch, it had been left to Ted to kill it. He could not do so,
but could not love it either. The dog had not wanted to stay with him, cried for its mistress night after night, always searched for her whenever they went out month after month. Same penchant for red-haired women as its master. He had tried to give the dog to the kids, they had not wanted it either, and now some bugger had stolen it. However mean the relationship, Ted had not wanted the dog stolen from him. There were enough humiliations without that. Made him weak, standing there like a pansy for some tall, thin bloke to snatch it out of his hands and run away. A reminder of the fact that he himself was incapable of running, incapable of protecting his own. His own hadn’t wanted the dog either.

  Tears of self-pity gathered in Ted’s eyes. He took another mouthful, shook his head. Bugger the dog and let it rot, as well as the thief who took her. Look at the house first, where Sarah Whatsh-ername lived, whoever she was. Then go home, sleep and think, Good riddance. But first, concentrate.

  Buildings had once been an interest of his, in the days when he had interests. A very large house, semi-detached, late-Victorian he guessed, flanking a small park, nice and quiet. One huge front door in the middle, two side doors either end; must be like a warren inside. Old houses like that would have had two staircases each side, one for family, one for the servants. Ted supposed they’d kept both. The flats on the top floor could use one side staircase each, or the main one if they chose; same for the second floor, but the grander flats on the first would probably ignore the narrower access. A sympathetic conversion, needing a coat of paint, but otherwise fine.

  Ted was pleased, even for the damp summer warmth. Not unpleasant really, sitting on the bench in the small park opposite, quite pretty and peaceful, not the way it used to be, all teeming tenements at the back and faded splendour facing out bravely, neither poor nor quite rich. Respectable, he would call it, almost, but not quite grand.

  Find out which flat she has, those were his instructions, or what he suspected were only the first part of those instructions. How long was he supposed to watch, he’d wondered, but had not asked. As long as it takes, of course, is what Charles Tysall would have answered. She’d been out till after midnight, came back through the big front door, then the lights had come on in a second-floor flat, left of the door. He’d watched two others go in, side entrance right, wondering who else was in residence here, not that it was worth reporting. He had stayed as he was until all the lights were out, then gone to see if he could check names on the door. No chance, entryphone systems on all doors, occupants identified by number only, a trick to make them feel safer, though the doors themselves were as vulnerable as any other. Never mind. There were eight flats: someone was bound to lose a key sometime. Ted knew what estate agents were, he’d worked for one once before someone had spotted him. Down one end of the building was a For Sale sign, ‘Luxury garden flat. Two Bdrms’, the obvious way to get a key, but if a key was what Mr Tysall wanted, he could get it himself. Since Tysall had the looks to con himself into anything, getting a key from an estate agent was hardly an unsuitable task.

  ‘Pas de problème, old son, but you’ve got to find yourself an informant. Someone who knows her. Someone who can give me an inside clue what she does with her life. Need a starting point. Can’t do this all on my own,’ Ted murmured to himself, hands in pockets, looking for the last cigarette. That was the trouble with observations, you smoked too much, as well as drank. Shambling away from the scene, he was vaguely bothered by questions, like what did Tysall want? But the curiosity was soon dismissed: all that was not his business. Ted’s police career, abruptly and disgracefully ended, had accustomed him to obedience and a ‘do now, think later’ routine perfected into fine art. He was as grateful to Tysall as he could be to any man for the regular employment. Pity about Miss Steepel, pity about Maria and the others, pity about Mrs Tysall, but none of it was his business and nothing bore his fingerprints. And when Tysall crashed, as Tysall would one day, there might be pickings in plenty for himself, Maria and Joan, who might welcome him back with a fistful of cash. Ted would wait. There were always fortunes to be found in ruins, rings on broken fingers.

  Watch what she does, he’d been told. I want a picture of her life. He was used to that too, the painting of verbal portraits. A few weeks should do it, allowing for some invention. Nothing difficult for a Drugs Squad man. Even one who could not keep a dog.

  Soft-shoed Ted left no footprints. In the morning light, everything was normal. She could tell herself, speaking to the slightly dusty mirror in the hall, that everything was straight, and everything in place. The hall mirror, very old, fine and slightly crooked, gave a focus to her flat, revealing to her a simultaneous glimpse of the two rooms flanking it as soon as she came through her door. Squinting into it now, she could see that order reigned, or as much order as ever was in her own home. Sitting in the sunny kitchen, Sarah entertained herself to a mental review, uncomfortable, but necessary, before she could face the office and everyone in it. Joan nagging more than ever, Ernest with his worried ulcer face, and all those life-histories from the corner shop to the reception desk of where she worked. Damn. Why did it all have to be so complicated when she had tried to make it so simple? She had run out of coffee, sugar and milk, wondered if it was sinful to eat chocolate for breakfast in the absence of anything else, thinking at the same time that she had a very strange notion of sin to consider it at all.

  Everything was in its place in her complicated life, difficult but not impossible. No malice anywhere, generosity given from all her huge reserves, and received wherever she trod her diplomatic way, so why this unease? Charles Tysall was why. She was thinking of all her clients on the way to work, simply to remind herself of the comparisons of what had become standard in her life, and what was not, wondering if close knowledge of too many of the breed had weakened her imagination. Charles had ridden into her office like a god all those months ago, and no one but Sarah had been immune to his charm, and not even herself, at first. Stuffed in the perspiring crowds of the morning tube, she could only recall him with a shiver of frost.

  ‘He’s something special, Sarah. No kidding, promise.’ Joan’s breathless recommendation had been startling. Usually she was so scrupulous, so unimpressed by any client, however rich, who happened to cross the portals of the practice. Straggly Joan, so completely contemptuous of male charm, had been bowled over by Charles Tysall. Asked by Matthewson’s secretary to take the man to Miss Fortune, she had embarked with ill-grace and mutterings. Stupid client insisting on seeing someone, having called in without appointment to see Ernest on a day off with the ulcer – his bad luck, wasn’t it? Tell him to . . . Ernest had been the Tysall solicitor over many years, but since the firm must appear to pull together, and Miss Fortune was so good at placating people, she could take instructions, surely, whatever they were. She might not know any law, but she did seem to know how to please people.

  ‘Why me?’ Sarah had protested. ‘Don’t know him, don’t want to know him, give him to one of the Commercial boys.’ ‘OK.’ Joan raised her thin hands. ‘I’ll try and head him off.’ Instead she had whistled back. ‘You’ll bloody well see him, gal,’ she hissed. ‘And if you think I’m taking someone who looks like a cross between Michael York and Omar Sharif to see one of those faceless little buggers in Commercial, you’ve got another think coming. ‘Shut up, and comb your hair.’

  So, Sarah had seen him. No, nothing urgent, he said. If ever there was, he’d forgotten. It could wait for the next day, but since he had been informed that she was more generalist than specialist, he had taken the opportunity of seeing her for a little advice on Industrial law. Could she help? She wondered wryly if he meant the same thing by ‘generalist’ as she did, and smiled at the thought since she could not see this man willingly consulting such a bodger of all legal trades, expert in none but vivid invention. Industrial tribunals were part of Sarah’s mixed-bag of legal tricks, along with divorces and domestic upset, the ‘also rans’ of litigation. She had somehow found a role in the firm which was the p
rovision of the sort of advice which no self-respecting Commercial solicitor could touch with a long spoon, and hers was the loophole in the practice designed to prevent their clients going elsewhere, forming other loyalties in humbler streets. In any event, it did not matter how she came to be sitting in her untidy office with immaculate Charles Tysall on a January morning, while Joan fluttered in with coffee in borrowed china cups, lipstick-free. Sarah shot her a glance of amused suspicion, and Joan, scowling in response, almost patted the well-groomed head of Charles on her way past.

  Powerful certainly, leonine and handsome: he was all of those. Also urbane, amusing and apparently modest, twinkling like a star with the pleasure and success of his life, and bristling with animal attraction. No one, thought Sarah, should have so much of it. They had achieved little in the meeting, except to agree what should be done with the dishonest employee, who Sarah suspected was no more than a polite device to hide the fact he was wasting her time, since he could not, or would not, speak of the real purpose of his visit, reserved for Matthewson’s ears only. Then Charles Tysall had suggested dinner the same evening, and under the spell of very brilliant eyes, she had agreed and wished she had not. Attracted, but profoundly disturbed, dreading and looking forward without knowing why, feeling like a silly girl.

  Meeting a strange man by arrangement in a strange place, a wine bar, was always an intimidation which none of Sarah’s sophistication could quite dispel, but by the time she had arrived, she had given her mental defences a complete overhaul. Certainly Charles Tysall was a devastating man (she could only think of him, as Joan did, by resorting to teenage epithets), but with all the advanced instincts of her being, she knew he was an abnormal one, without pausing to define why. He was certainly not a potential client, nor a lover, nor a friend; friend least of all. She was early, willed herself into insouciance, ordered her wine, and, in the light and calm of the early-evening trade, read a book. Charles was late. She had known he would be late: men like Charles did not sit and wait.