The White Shepherd

by Annie Dalton

  ‘Not rough around the edges?’

  ‘Unless you consider Hugh Grant to be rough around the edges,’ Anna said.

  ‘We’re talking pre sex scandal Hugh Grant?’

  ‘Yes, Four Weddings and a Funeral when he was still cute. He does that same gently self-mocking thing.’

  ‘Only posh people do that,’ Kirsty commented. ‘So I assume he’s posh?’

  ‘He is,’ Anna admitted, ‘but not annoyingly so. He’s good with people. He dresses well, but makes it look like he’s just casually thrown it all together, and he’s charming, successful, available.’

  ‘Same country?’

  ‘Same city,’ Anna said.

  ‘This is the right guy, Anna. I can feel it,’ Kirsty said fervently.

  Anna could feel herself blushing. She had completely reverted to her teens. ‘I’ve only met him once. But I did get the feeling he was attracted to me. Funnily enough—’ She was about to tell Kirsty that she’d just been describing the man who’d written Owen Traherne’s biography, when the waiter came back with the desserts menu.

  ‘Just coffee, I think,’ Anna said.

  Kirsty excused herself to go to the Ladies and Anna checked her phone to see how Tansy was progressing. To her surprise Tansy had sent a slightly blurry picture taken from outside Eve Bloomfield’s house, showing Eve emotionally flinging her arms around another woman. The second woman had her back to the camera, but Anna was almost positive she was Sara Traherne.

  She immediately called Tansy. ‘What’s going on?’ she said when Tansy answered.

  ‘I lost them! I’m so sorry,’ Tansy said.

  ‘You followed them?’

  ‘Of course,’ Tansy said, ‘or what was the point of me staking her out for hours and hours? Anyway, this car pulled up, and I recognized Sara slash Sarah from your murder board. She went to Eve’s house. Eve came out. They hugged on the step, all very kissy-kissy, touchy-touchy. Then they drove off in Sara slash Sarah’s’s car, so I thought I’d trail them.’ She gave a rueful laugh. ‘I lasted ten minutes. Got caught in an epic traffic snarl up around the Cowley Road and totally lost sight of them.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing!’ Anna tried to sound sympathetic, but she couldn’t help being tickled at the picture of Tansy grimly pursuing her suspect down the Cowley Road. ‘So you’re not going to be applying to be a full-time PI any time soon, then?’

  ‘Not if I have to do my investigating in my mum’s car,’ Tansy said, laughing. ‘I’d have done better on my stepdad’s ride-on lawn mower!’

  A few hours later Anna was walking briskly through the city centre. Soon it would be dark when she left work, and tonight there was a distinct chill in the air, ‘Will you be OK?’ she’d said as she and Kirsty stood on the pavement outside Walsingham, poised to go their separate ways. Kirsty had given her a subdued grin. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing my little boy’s face. I’m trying not to think beyond that. Where are you going now?’

  ‘I’m going to drop in on a friend.’ She’d had an impulse to take Laurie a small gift of some kind. She didn’t plan to stay; she had to get back for Bonnie. She just wanted Laurie to know that she was his friend.

  She had decided to buy him something tiny but delicious from Maison Blanc. It was only after she’d walked inside and been confronted with display cases filled with an exquisite array of French patisserie that she wondered if his illness was too far-advanced now for him to manage solid food.

  ‘I would buy him macarons, Madame,’ the male assistant suggested after Anna had explained her dilemma. ‘Our macarons are as light as feathers and also beautiful to look at. Even if your friend cannot eat, I think he will love that you have brought them.’

  Anna walked to Laurie’s house, carrying the beribboned box filled with the delicate pastel coloured macarons. She’d been amused by the theatrically Gallic assistant, a bit too theatrical, she thought, to be the real thing. She’d have to take Isadora in, she thought, to test him! Anna’s thoughts returned to Kirsty. It seemed unlikely that she and Jason would be able to sort things out. Maybe Kirsty would ask Jason to leave? That’s definitely what Anna would do. Then she found herself pondering Tansy’s surprise capture of Sara and Eve. It wasn’t surprising that these two rather chilly women knew each other, but the apparent intensity of their connection was.

  She walked up the path to Laurie’s house and saw a woman coming out carrying a worn canvas tote bag. When she saw Anna heading towards her she looked wild-eyed with alarm. ‘Nobody can come,’ she recited carefully. Her accent sounded vaguely middle-eastern. ‘I am very sorry to tell you this.’

  ‘I don’t want to disturb Mr Swanson if it’s a bad time,’ Anna explained, ‘but I’m a friend of his, and I wanted to leave him a little gift.’

  The woman shook her head. ‘You can’t see. Nobody can come.’

  ‘I don’t have to come in,’ Anna said, thinking she didn’t understand. ‘But could you maybe give these to the nurse for Mr Swanson? And say Anna will come back to see him another time.’

  The woman shook her head, almost frantic. ‘Nurse gone. Nobody can come. I am very sorry to tell you this.’ She started to weep.

  Anna felt a chill trickle through her as it slowly dawned on her what this distraught woman was trying to tell her. ‘Has Mr Swanson died? But the doctors said …’

  ‘Not cancer,’ the woman said quickly. ‘Poor man kill self. This why police say nobody can come.’ She stretched out her hands, as if she believed herself solely responsible for this terrible event. ‘I am so very, very sorry for this.’

  The world turned to white noise. Anna pushed the box of macarons at the person she could no longer properly see and stumbled back to the street. She started to walk, but only managed a few steps. She couldn’t breathe. She had to take off her scarf or she’d choke. She ripped it off, gasping for air. Fixated on saving Laurie’s love letters, she had failed to save Laurie himself. There must have been signs. Signs she had missed. She had hardly known Laurie Swanson, and now she never would. The pain of this new loss almost brought her to her knees.

  Still half blind with shock, she set off walking. Her movements felt jerky and puppet-like, as if she no longer had a centre of gravity. Feeling as if she might tip over at any moment, she walked and walked until she got to the Banbury Road, but at the last minute, instead of going home to Bonnie, she instinctively turned towards Marston Ferry Road and north to Summertown. Once she had to stop to lean against a wall. But she knew where she was going now. Not home. She had no home. She had tried to make a home of her own, but it had all been pretence: the pretty china, the fairy-tale wolf. She needed to be somewhere real, somewhere safe.

  But when she reached the top of the weedy drive, Anna came to a faltering halt. The rusty old Volvo wasn’t there. She rang the bell and battered on the door. But nobody came to tell her that it wasn’t Anna’s fault that everyone she’d ever cared about ended up dead.

  TWELVE

  ‘Anna? Anna?’ Isadora was bending over her, rubbing her hands. ‘I suddenly saw you in the headlights. For a moment …’ Her voice became brisk. ‘Let’s get you off this cold step.’

  Anna managed to say, ‘I didn’t know where else—’

  ‘Well, I’m very glad you came to me.’ Isadora helped her to her feet. ‘How long have you been waiting?’

  It could have been minutes or days; she had no idea. ‘What time is it?’ Her voice was a raspy whisper.

  Isadora checked her watch. ‘Almost eight.’ Her hand moved protectively to her cheek. ‘A dear friend took me out for champagne. We have this mutual arrangement to cheer each other up after some particularly grim procedure.’ Anna heard faint but frantic barking. ‘In a minute, Hero!’ Isadora called irritably. ‘I’ll just let her out of the car, then we’ll go inside.’

  In a series of time lapses, Anna found herself inside Isadora’s musty smelling hall, standing numbly in her kitchen then being pushed gently into the small wicker chair as a soft blanket was wrapped arou
nd her shoulders.

  ‘Laurie Swanson’s dead,’ she forced out through chattering teeth. ‘He killed himself.’

  Isadora went very still. ‘The poor dear man,’ she said softly at last. She thought for a moment. ‘You’re shocked, and you’re chilled to the bone. I’m going to run you a lovely hot bath.’

  She guided Anna up the stairs and into a turquoise-painted bathroom with an old claw-footed bath, pitted and stained with limescale. Isadora put in the plug and turned the hot tap on full. Somewhere far off, pipes began to judder and bang. Eventually, a cataract of scalding water surged out. ‘I have oceans of hot water, so use as much as you like,’ Isadora said. Above the washbasin mismatched Victorian tiles depicted ornate ferns, lilies and roses. There was a huge gilt-framed mirror which, like the walls, was becoming dewy with condensation. The rest of the walls were filled with paintings, drawings and framed cartoons.

  Isadora touched a small oil painting that showed a tiny white Jack Russell with brown-tipped ears. ‘This is Dido, my dog before Hero. I had to have her put to sleep. I begged the vet to do the same for me, and the stupid man thought I was joking.’ Isadora went to a low wooden cupboard on which various expensive bath products were set out. She selected a deep-blue bottle. ‘This is my current favourite,’ she said. ‘It contains damask rose, patchouli, pomegranate oil …’ She continued to list exotic ingredients, making them sound like a poem or a spell. Anna could feel the older woman’s voice firmly pulling her away from the dark place, lulling her – willing her – into a world of warmth and safety.

  Opening the bottle, Isadora liberally sloshed the scented oil into the water that came thundering and frothing from the tap. ‘I’ll leave it here in case you need to add more,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe one should stint on bath oil!’ She disappeared for a moment and came back with a violent-paisley-patterned bath towel that might have been new in the 1960s and an extraordinary Chinese looking robe. She dropped them both on the kind of cork-topped stool that Anna remembered from her grandparents’ bathroom. ‘Now I’ll leave you to have a lovely long soak.’

  Anna lay in the bath, letting the hot, scented water gradually penetrate into her chilled bones and looking at the little white dog that Isadora had loved so much she’d wanted to die with her.

  When the water grew cool, she climbed out of the tub and unsuccessfully attempted to dry herself on the thin, balding towel. In the end, still damp, she numbly wrapped herself in the robe. She must have gone looking for Isadora, or else she was waiting on the landing, because the next thing she knew, Isadora was helping her to a high curving bed and covering her over with a large quilt that smelled of dust and mothballs. ‘Now you are not to worry about anything, my darling, do you hear? Just sleep. I’ll go and get Bonnie for you.’

  Isadora had brought Anna’s bag upstairs. Anna managed to remove her spare key from her key chain before she was sucked down into a black, bottomless sleep.

  She woke in darkness, totally disorientated, sensing but not able to see her unfamiliar surroundings.

  For sixteen years, any awakening after a deep sleep involved a rapid reassembling of herself and her losses. That is who I used to be. This is who I have to be now. But this time, as Anna surfaced, the new horror of Laurie’s death felt like a punch in her lower belly, physically doubling her over.

  She shakily groped around until she found a switch. The lamp cast a thin circle of light, leaving most of the room still in shadow. She peered at her watch. Seven fifteen. Isadora hadn’t come home until after eight. At seven fifteen Anna had still been huddled on the step. She had actually slept right through till morning, an achievement so rare she couldn’t remember the last time she’d pulled it off.

  She slipped out from under the quilt and went across to the window. Pulling back one of the heavy curtains, she found herself looking out on to a dark street, lit by an orange street lamp.

  Seven fifteen at night. She had slept for almost twenty-four hours.

  Bonnie, she thought, then went dizzy with relief as she remembered Isadora’s promise to drive over and get her. Seeing a large bottle of mineral water on the bedside table, Anna opened it and gulped down half of it before she stopped to catch her breath. Her bag had been left beside the bed. She found her phone and hastily switched it on. Since her missed call from Naomi, Anna had taken to checking her phone first thing in case either her grandfather or the care home had been trying to get in touch. Anything could happen to a nearly ninety-year-old man in twenty-four hours. But nobody had left a message. Today had been her day off, luckily, so there wouldn’t be any problems with work.

  Someone – Anna guessed it was Tansy – had left a clean white T-shirt and a soft grey hoodie neatly folded on a chair. She put them on over the dark-grey trousers she had worn to work the previous day. She couldn’t find her shoes, so she padded out on to the landing in her bare feet. She could smell cooking – onions, garlic and spices. Voices floated up.

  Anna used the bathroom, scrubbing her teeth with her finger and some of Isadora’s toothpaste, and made her way down to the kitchen. She felt so dazed that she half wondered if she was still dreaming. Her feeling of unreality intensified when she pushed open the door to see Jake McCaffrey sitting with Tansy at Isadora’s kitchen table. The table had been swept clean of its normal chaos, revealing gleaming pine boards. Lit tea-lights flickered in pretty-coloured glasses.

  Bonnie had been lying sprawled across Jake’s feet. As soon as she saw Anna her tail started to thump the floor in greeting, gaining power and impetus with each new thump. ‘I told you she’d be here soon,’ Jake informed the dog.

  The shock and pleasure of seeing him almost undid her – the cornflower blue of his eyes, those fine crinkles at the corners, the sudden smile that illuminated his normally guarded face.

  ‘How the hell did you get here?’ she said shakily. He was wearing a dark-olive polo shirt and blue jeans. His leather jacket was casually thrown over the back of his chair. Like always he smelled fresh and clean, though she hadn’t been able to identify any particular cologne or product.

  Bonnie came over to be stroked, showing no resentment at having been abandoned for a day and a half. Anna bent to fondle her, grateful for the chance to hide her burning face.

  ‘I found him on your step, darling, just as I was leaving with Bonnie,’ Isadora called. ‘So I brought him home with me.’ She was standing over her range cooker, stirring a vast pan from which wonderful Middle-Eastern aromas rose. On the back of the stove a second huge pan steamed gently under its lid. Hero watched all these preparations with interest from the small wicker chair, her eyes bright behind her fringe.

  Isadora looked shamefaced. ‘Unfortunately, having perfectly remembered the code for your alarm on the way in, I had totally forgotten it by the time I came out, so I do hope there weren’t any burglars lurking.’

  ‘I’m sure there weren’t,’ Anna said. She had absolutely no memory of giving Isadora the code. She must have been completely out of it. ‘What were you doing on my step?’ she asked Jake.

  ‘You didn’t answer my text,’ he said calmly. ‘So I thought I’d come over and ask you in person.’

  His voice still made her go weak at the knees. She sat in the nearest chair, which happened to be next to Jake. She passed her hand over her face. ‘Sorry, I forgot all about it. It was quite a full-on day.’ She felt his big hand move to cover hers.

  ‘Seems to me you’re having quite a full-on month,’ he said quietly.

  Anna let her hand rest in his for a moment before she pulled it away. ‘Thanks for the clothes,’ she said to Tansy.

  Tansy’s half-smirk let Anna know that she’d registered the hand touching, but she just said, ‘No problem. Oh, look at your Bonnie!’ she added, laughing.

  Bonnie had succeeded in squeezing herself through the narrow gap between Anna and Jake’s chairs. Joyfully waving her tail, she looked from one of them to the other with a rapturous expression, as if she might be going to burst into song. />
  ‘Supper won’t be too long now,’ Isadora said, sprinkling fresh green coriander over her pan. ‘There are a few nibbles, everyone, if Tansy wouldn’t mind setting them out.’

  ‘You haven’t been here since last night?’ Anna asked Jake over an ecstatic Bonnie.

  He shook his head. ‘I just came back with Isadora to look in on you, make sure you were all right. Today I had a bunch of stuff to do with Mimi’s estate. I arrived about an hour or so ago, and Isadora kindly asked me to stop and eat with you guys.’ He gave her his lopsided smile. Americans were supposed to have blinding white movie star teeth, but she liked that Jake’s front tooth had that small but visible chip. He hadn’t lived that kind of perfect American life. If it hadn’t been for Mimi he might not have survived at all.

  ‘If you’d slept any longer, darling, we were going to send him up to wake you with a kiss,’ Isadora threw over her shoulder.

  ‘Shame you didn’t mention that a little sooner,’ Jake told her mischievously, but when he turned back to Anna she saw concern in his eyes. ‘Seriously, how are you holding up?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming. I mean, I was with him just two nights ago. And he seemed so wonderfully – I don’t know – at peace. And I mean about everything; his illness, his love for—’ Just in time, Anna stopped herself.

  ‘It’s OK, Jake knows,’ Tansy said quickly. ‘Isadora was so upset about you last night that she kind of let the cat out of the bag.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Anna felt a prickle of unease. What else had they told Jake while she was sleeping upstairs?

  ‘I won’t go blabbing,’ Jake reassured her. ‘But I can leave if that would be more comfortable for you guys? It’s obvious you’ve got a lot going on.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Isadora called from the cooker.

  ‘We want you to stay, don’t we, Anna?’ Tansy said.

  ‘Of course!’ Anna gave Jake what she hoped was a neutral smile. ‘For one thing we need someone to help us eat all Isadora’s food.’ Isadora would be hurt if Jake left, and Laurie was beyond being hurt now by tabloid hacks or any other ill-wishers.