by Emma Page
She raised her eyes. ‘I—’ But she had already paused too long. And she could think of nothing to say.
She must say something actually and positively incriminating, Venn thought. In the warmth of the cabin he was beginning to sweat, he felt fatigue close in on him again. She still hadn’t been charged; if she got hold of a first-class solicitor–they’d be able to pin the embezzlement on her no doubt, but the murders, she might still be able to wriggle free.
Something of the urgency of his thoughts communicated itself to Cottrell who didn’t care for the silence that was developing. In silence a person had time to think, to marshal defences. Some indisputable fact, he thought rapidly, something we can get her to tell us that she couldn’t possibly know if she was innocent, something that can be checked, produced for a jury, some hard, concrete, material piece of evidence. The cat, he thought, seizing on the notion, surely there must be something connected with the cat. His brain flung up a succession of images.
‘What did you do with the cat?’ he asked in a friendly, conversational tone, as if he were changing the subject, trying to introduce a less strained note. And to his immense relief, and a little to his surprise, she turned to him and spoke with a more relaxed air, as if pleased to be able to consider some unimportant matter. He was afraid to speak again in case she suddenly realized that what she said now would put her behind bars for all the years that anyone could see.
‘I dumped it,’ she said. And even Quigley couldn’t altogether believe his ears as his pen moved across the page. ‘There was the bag, a straw bag.’ A look of distaste flickered over her face as she remembered having to pick up the stray–comatose or more probably dead–and stuff it into the carrier. But she might have dumped it anywhere, Cottrell thought with a thrust of dismay, how could they ever find one dead cat in the whole of Milbourne? And the bag was most likely already destroyed, all she had to do was take the bag home and burn it.
‘You’d be surprised,’ she said with a trace of a smile, ‘how difficult it is to dump a dead cat.’
‘So in the end,’ Cottrell said, scarcely able to frame the words, ‘you—’
‘I dumped it in the churchyard, bag and all.’ She smiled now openly, looking back on that ridiculous moment. ‘It seemed a suitable place.’ Cottrell closed his eyes and felt a shiver run through him.
Easy enough to find the churchyard, no need to push the matter any further now, don’t let her know she’s signed and sealed her sentence, only one or two churchyards at most between Mrs Bond’s cottage and the Piersons’ house. The bag would still be there–who would go poking through a winter churchyard scooping up an old shopping holdall with a dead cat inside–or if a zealous grave-digger had taken it into his head to do a bit of tidying-up, they could run the fellow to earth, he’d remember, his evidence would be as good as the actual objects.
He turned and gave Quigley a significant glance. The constable sighed and nodded, getting the message. Halt the car on the way back–or as soon as he’d dropped them off at the Milbourne station, run round every churchyard in the area. Guess whose job it will be to go stumping between the graves with a flashlight, looking for dead cats and mouldering bags, he thought bleakly. The words ran together in his mind and he smiled briefly to himself. She let the cat out of the bag there all right . . . he smiled again, pleased at his own wit.
‘Zena Yorke wasn’t a good woman,’ Sarah said suddenly as if all at once seized by the desire to talk.
‘And Emily Bond,’ Venn said with repugnance. ‘Was she a bad woman too?’ He recognized her need to release the torrents, he’d seen it all before, sometimes it was as much as they could do to stop the person talking in the end when it had all been said. Something of the impulse of the cornered stag, turning in the final moment and baring its throat to the hounds, a terrible death-wish–he never liked it. Useful as it was professionally, it never failed to turn his stomach. Human beings, after all, the lot of them, coppers and criminals, locked together for one inescapable period of time, the same flesh and bones, the same blood coursing through their veins. It always struck at him with violent nausea to see that doomed eager look, that compliant, relieved, almost joyful leap on to the waiting knives.
‘I was sorry about Emily Bond,’ Sarah said rapidly, defensively. ‘But she was old, she had no job, she wasn’t happy. And she’d have talked about the cat. To Owen Yorke, to Neil Underwood, to anyone she met. And she had nothing to live for.’ Venn’s silence weighed her words, judged them, dismissed them. Did you fancy you were God? he thought of saying, do you imagine you deal in life and death? But what was the use?
‘How did you know?’ she asked suddenly, frowning. ‘About the cat?’ She put up a hand to her cheek, she had after all disposed of Emily Bond most particularly in order that no one should ever know about the cat.
‘From Jane Underwood,’ Cottrell said. ‘It wasn’t Emily Bond who cleared up at The Sycamores.’ Her eyes came wide open at that. ‘It was Jane. Emily had been sacked.’
She gave a little nod of comprehension. ‘So.’ Her eyes met his, tired now, mildly amused, the moment of emotional catharsis past. ‘One can’t allow for everything.’ And a kind of relief also in her look. She had believed that her judgment had betrayed her, had lost something of its sureness because of the unperceived erosion of age, she was pleased now to find it had after all been a chance combination of accidents that had put them on her track.
Cottrell saw with clarity that she would go towards her prison sentence with acceptance, without any further hope and so without disappointment, without fear or despair. He had a fleeting vision of the way she would settle down, adapting herself to the curious life, assuming after a time some little position of authority in the prison, in the library or one of the tailoring workshops.
‘If you had known about Jane Underwood,’ he said, ‘if you had realized that she knew about the cat, what would you have done?’
She turned her head away, he guessed at her thoughts . . . Zena Yorke, that was justifiable : Emily Bond, that was a pity but it couldn’t be helped . . . but Jane . . . Jane Underwood! A girl of seventeen!
She drew a long breath, seeing Jane smiling at her across the library counter, Jane with her long shining hair. Other images flicked across her brain, the ship sailing without her to exotic ports, the prison rearing its long grey walls . . . She looked back at Cottrell. ‘But I didn’t know, you see. As to what I would have done, we shall never know now, shall we? Either of us.’
Venn glanced at his watch. He felt so weary that the action seemed to take place on the fringes of a dream. Better leave the formal charge till they got back to Milbourne. ‘Ring for the steward,’ he said to Cottrell. ‘Get her luggage taken off.’
‘There’s no need,’ Sarah said with a detached air. She took one last look at the smart cases, labelled, luxurious, the elegant new clothes she had spread out on the bed, no longer anything to do with her, part of no life she was ever likely now to lead. She picked up her coat and handbag.
But Cottrell went over and pressed the bell, walked out and met the answering steward, spoke to him in a discreet voice. Not in the least surprised, the steward, not after twenty years at sea on passenger liners. The only thing that ever surprised him now was the fact that a ship ever left at the right time.
Sarah followed Venn from the stateroom, sandwiched between him and Quigley; there was a brief halt while Venn explained matters to the purser, then they moved off again, through the clusters and groups, past the farewells, the tears, the jokes, the men carrying baskets of fruit, armfuls of flowers, gaily-ribboned boxes of chocolates, they came out into the fresh salty air.
When they reached solid ground Sarah turned and looked up at the ship. ‘Vigo . . . Lisbon . . . Madeira . . .’ she said. ‘A pity you couldn’t have left it all a little later.’ If they’d caught up with her in a week, a fortnight, if men had come aboard at some foreign port and taken her off, she wouldn’t really have minded, she’d have had something out of
it all. ‘They owed it to me,’ she said. ‘I earned it all, every penny, over more than forty years.’
Cottrell touched her arm and they moved off again towards the car. ‘By the way,’ Venn roused himself to say when they were settled into the car, waiting while a man stowed the luggage into the boot. ‘Where is your brother?’ He’d forgotten all about Pierson after the first couple of minutes.
Sarah raised her shoulders with casual indifference. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. He threw up his job and took himself off, said he was taking a holiday.’
‘Did he know you were going off on this trip?’
She shook her head, smiling. ‘No. He didn’t tell me where he was going, I saw no need whatever to tell him where I was going.’ She seemed with difficulty to restrain herself from laughing aloud.
‘Does he know about the house? That it was put up to let?’
Again she shook her head. ‘No. That’ll be a little surprise for him when he gets back.’
‘He will be back, then?’ Cottrell put in.
‘I see no reason why not.’
Cottrell stepped out of the car and slipped some coins into the man’s hand. It had stopped raining; a cold wind blew in from the sea. He took his seat again and Quigley set the car in motion.
Another hour or two and we’ll be back in Milbourne, Venn thought. Another hour or two after that and he would be able to put the key in his own front door. He closed his eyes and saw before him an alluring image of his comfortable bed, warmth and darkness and the indescribable bliss of sleep.
Jane lay curled up under the blankets, dreaming sweetly and peacefully of Kevin Lang. In the room across the landing Ruth stretched out a hand to where Neil lay in rigid silence a good eighteen inches away. ‘I won’t be working for Maurice Turner any more,’ she said. ‘I’ve moved over to the annexe, it’s all arranged.’ Maurice had taken it very well in the end, she’d made him understand; as soon as was decently possible he was going to get himself moved back to London.
Her fingers met those of Neil, twined round his. One yearned for a straightforward uncomplicated approach to life but all one got–all anyone got–was an intricate weaving of personalities and events, there was nothing to be done after all but accept it, fit into the pattern as best one could, embrace what happiness offered without overmuch puzzling or analysis, without expecting the impossible from those inextricably linked to oneself. For some odd reason a face floated into her mind, baffling her for an instant before she could place it and then she gave a little smile of recognition in the darkness–the sergeant’s face, that intent gaze he had levelled at her downstairs in the sitting room. She closed her eyes and blinked away the image. ‘I love you, Neil,’ she said. ‘You must believe that, you must trust me.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘I must.’ He reached over and took her in his arms.
In his room at the Milbourne Hotel Owen Yorke turned back the covers and got into bed. He must be up early in the morning, the weather was at last turning mild, work could begin on the new site, he must meet the contractor and get things moving, it was going to be a very busy time. He felt overwhelmingly anxious for work, for absorbing activity, he wanted to rear up a busy superstructure on the huge vacuum that had so abruptly arisen in his life. The whole lower level of his being seemed to be caught up in the grip of a vast numbness as if one half of his life had been sheared away. One day would slowly succeed another and in the end some new existence would crystallize; how or what it would be he could in no way visualize but if he waited long enough, if he conscientiously performed the motions of routine living, some meaning would emerge again, some purpose would give sustenance to his remaining time.
For a moment he saw again the graceful slender figure of Linda Fleming coming towards him at the presidential ball. He shook his head slowly and with finality, dismissing the picture from his mind, unable now to credit that he had ever been able to dwell on it with such fevered longing.
He leaned over and switched off the bedside lamp, lay back against the pillows, closed his eyes and waited for oblivion.
In her sitting room behind the shop Linda Fleming stood up and glanced round, seeing that everything was tidy for the night. She raised her hand in a yawn; it had been a long and tiring day and tomorrow promised to be equally busy. She moved about the room, plumping up the cushions, straightening books. Tomorrow she must phone Underwood’s, must arrange for delivery of the surplus stock from the shop. She would speak to a secretary, no need actually to contact Owen Yorke. She had heard nothing of him for some time and she had a strong feeling now that she would hear nothing from him again. The notion presented itself to her without emotion or regret.
As she opened the door of the sitting room the phone rang suddenly. She frowned as she went to answer it, wondering who it could be at this late hour.
‘I hope I didn’t disturb you.’ Arnold Pierson’s voice, firm and clear. ‘But I had to speak to you.’
‘Arnold!’ she cried with surprise and pleasure. ‘Where are you speaking from? I’ve been so worried about you. No one seemed to know where you were.’ She wouldn’t for the moment mention the visit from the inspector, the delicately probing questions.
‘I’m in a hotel,’ he said. ‘A hundred miles away from Milbourne. I won’t go into it all now, I’m coming back to Milbourne in the morning.’ To call in at the factory, explain things to Owen Yorke, his unrest, his uncertainties, his need to get away and think. If Yorke wanted to hand him his job back, well and good; if not, there were other, possibly better jobs. Someone else he intended to see, to talk to, Maurice Turner, his old captain. He had come to the end of his walking away from life, he was prepared now at long last to stand and look at it, whatever face it offered to him.
‘What I wanted to know,’ he said, ‘was if I might call in and see you.’
‘Of course you may,’ she said, smiling and flinging out a hand. ‘I’ll close the shop–or Iris can look after it. If you tell me what time you’re arriving, I’ll be down at the station to meet you.’
It was a clear fine night. The car ran between high steep banks under skeleton trees, along gleaming roads, through towns and hamlets, silent suburbs and sleeping villages, past tall blocks of flats and deserted shopping-centres. Lovers going by with their arms round each other, an old woman scuttling along, youths laughing in jostling groups outside late-night cafés, a man walking with his head down, his collar pulled up round his ears, hands thrust into his pockets, huddling himself along towards comfort or despair.
One day perhaps I might have a home of my own to go to, Cottrell thought; it seemed an improbable notion. He stared out of the car window, looked up at the perpetually astonishing, fathomless depths of the dark blue sky speckled and frosted with stars.
Beside him Sarah Pierson stirred a little. He glanced at her, he had thought her asleep. She gave him a fragmentary smile.
‘When I was a child . . .’ she said, softly, slowly, remembering the ruby pendant that had turned to red glass on her outstretched palm. But the rest of her sentence died away, it seemed now scarcely worth finishing. She settled herself into her corner, her face relaxed, almost peaceful, she closed her eyes again.
Her words echoed in Cottrell’s mind . . . When I was a child . . . He looked out at the narrow blinkered houses bedded down for the night, concealing behind their dark frontages joy or sorrow, love or hatred, dreaming contentment or intolerable pain. We were all children once, he thought, raising his eyes and seeing the beautiful winter sky, the glittering crescent of the moon and the seven perfect, improbable diamonds of the Plough.
The car swung out into a long straight road, went racing over the smooth surface. In the passenger seat Inspector Venn allowed himself to drift in and out of the fringes of slumber. Beside him, Quigley held the wheel in an easy grip, headed towards Milbourne and the police-station, the shadowy churchyards and the decaying cat, towards Sharon and his dried-up supper, his gold-watch years of service and his unborn children, summe
r holidays and Christmases, festivals and funerals, and his silver wedding coming rushing towards him in the light-punctured darkness from some incredible point of time almost twenty-five years away.
If you enjoyed Family and Friends, try:
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emma Page first began writing as a hobby, and after a number of her poems had been accepted by the BBC and her short stories began appearing in weekly magazines, she took to writing radio plays and crime novels. She was first published in the Crime Club, which later became Collins Crime.
An English graduate from Oxford, Emma Page taught in every kind of educational establishment the UK and abroad before she started writing full-time.
BY EMMA PAGE
Kelsey and Lambert series
Say it with Murder
Intent to Kill
Hard Evidence
Murder Comes Calling
In the Event of My Death
Mortal Remains
Deadlock
A Violent End
Final Moments
Scent of Death
Cold Light of Day
Last Walk Home
Every Second Thursday
Missing Woman
Standalone novels
A Fortnight by the Sea (also known as Add a Pinch of Cyanide)
Element of Chance
In Loving Memory
Family and Friends
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
