Charity

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘We don’t know that yet,’ Bailey said as she held the cold flannel to Charity’s wrists. ‘We only got a message about where he was found. His passport, uniform and other belongings were all in his car. When the Kent police contacted his regiment in Germany they were told he had leave to come and see you. The task of informing you was passed on to our station.’

  ‘But he phoned me yesterday morning,’ Charity said in some bewilderment. ‘He was coming to lunch today.’

  Sergeant Searle sat down on the other settee, opposite the two women. He was aware that Miss Stratton hadn’t fully taken in the news, and he wanted to get in his questions before she broke down entirely.

  ‘Where did he phone from?’

  ‘He didn’t say. But I got the impression he was in London.’

  ‘Did he say so?’

  ‘No. But he spoke as if he could be with me in minutes. I was going out –’ she stopped short, her hand covering her mouth.

  A terrible wail of anguish came from deep inside her and though Bailey moved nearer to hold her, Charity began to rock backwards and forwards, her arms clasped around her chest.

  Sergeant Searle looked at the policewoman and shrugged. He didn’t want to question Charity, not now while she was like this. But this was different from road traffic accidents and from the brief he’d received less than an hour ago he knew it was imperative that they move swiftly to discover the victim’s last movements.

  ‘Charity,’ he said more firmly. ‘I’m so sorry, but I have to know a few things. Do you know a girl called Carla Clayton?’

  Charity shook her head, eyes wide with shock, huge tears streaming down her face in a torrent.

  ‘Can you tell us any girlfriends’ names?’ he went on. ‘Girls Toby saw recently.’

  Charity had only one word in her head. It was going round and round, spinning faster and faster.

  ‘Murdered!’

  The letters were blood red, surrounded by blackness. She wanted to ask questions, but she was scared, terribly scared.

  Bailey caught hold of Charity firmly, drawing her tight against her chest.

  ‘There, there,’ she said soothingly, looking up at Searle and inclining her head towards the kitchen. ‘Sergeant Searle will make you a cup of tea while we talk. I know you are in shock but you must try to tell us about Toby’s friends because it’s important we see them tonight.’

  Searle wanted to walk out on that balcony and take some deep breaths. Any moment now he or Bailey would be forced to admit just how Miss Stratton’s brother died and tell her of their suspicions that he’d been involved in serious crime, but for once he found it impossible to be dispassionate.

  He switched the kettle on, then ran his wrists under the cold tap to cool himself down. Everything about the flat showed the woman’s character. It was classy, with its soft greens and blues, but there was nothing ostentatious. Large vases of flowers stood on the table and on the bookcase. Photographs of her brothers and sister everywhere showed her priorities in life.

  Sergeant Searle knew all the facts: the hotel where Stratton spent the night – even the torn-off Elastoplast – had been found. Whether the girl who stayed at the hotel with Stratton was another courier wasn’t known yet, but the customs officer at Dover had said Stratton was alone.

  There were no fingerprints except Stratton’s in the car. Only one clear print which wasn’t his had been found, and that was on his shoe, along with a black gritty dust which wasn’t consistent with the kind found in country areas, but both those had yet to be checked out.

  As Searle came back with the tea he found Bailey telling Charity how Toby had died, and their suspicions that he was a drugs courier.

  He put the tea silently on the coffee table and sat down to watch Miss Stratton. On the point of how he met his death, the woman’s reaction was entirely predictable: shock, horror, colour draining from her face and wild sobs. But as Bailey spoke of drugs he saw acceptance in Miss Stratton’s face, as if she half expected it.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you,’ he said.

  She lifted her face to his and her beautiful blue eyes swam.

  ‘Not that he was a courier.’ She tried to halt her sobs, swiping at the tears with the back of her hand. ‘But he had some pills once. He promised me yesterday he was through with it. Do you think that’s why they killed him – because he wanted out?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Searle knew this was unlikely, but if it gave her some comfort he wasn’t going to deny her it.

  The intercom buzzed. The two police looked at one another and back to Charity sitting motionless, head bowed with grief.

  ‘Shall I answer it?’ Bailey asked.

  A faint nod.

  ‘If it’s Robert, ask him to come up,’ she said faintly.

  ‘Oh, Rob. Where did I go wrong with Toby?’ Charity cried later.

  The police had left soon after Rob arrived and he had cradled her in his arms until the wild sobbing slowed down.

  Rob had counselled hundreds of grieving relatives over the last couple of years, for dozens of different reasons, but he was finding it hard to say the right words to Charity.

  He’d cried with her, unable to stop himself.

  ‘You didn’t go wrong,’ he said soothingly. ‘Your parents, uncle, the school and even the army made him what he was, not you.’

  ‘But I should’ve handled it differently when I found those pills,’ she sobbed again. Her face was swollen with crying, her scars puckered and angry.

  ‘No, Charity,’ he said gently. ‘You must accept he was a man, responsible for his own destiny. You gave him your love, no one could do more.’

  Rob let her pour out so many stories about Toby, all of them tinged with her belief that she had let him down in some way. It was tempting to give her a new perspective, show her that Toby had always been a greedy little sneak, a user and a taker, but Rob couldn’t bring himself to shatter the few comforting illusions she had left.

  ‘How can I tell Prue and James?’ she said, fresh tears running down her cheeks, as she finally remembered what this all really meant. ‘What will this do to them?’

  ‘I’ll tell them,’ he said firmly, lifting her up in his arms and carrying her towards the bedroom. ‘I’m going to give you a sedative and pop you into bed. Then I’ll phone them. You are doing nothing more tonight.’

  Charity lay in bed, her eyes drooping. Rob was speaking on the telephone and although she wanted to stay awake long enough to hear the outcome, she was losing the battle against the pills.

  As she drifted off, she was back in Greenwich Park. She could see Toby as clearly as if it were yesterday in his long grey flannel shorts and a threadbare navy blazer, kicking a football. His grey woolly socks were festooned round stick-thin ankles, his face pinched and pale, but his white-blond hair shone like a beacon against a backdrop of dark green trees.

  Charity woke with a start, soaked in sweat. She had dreamed she was tied up, and her heart was hammering. She found it was only the sheet tightly wrapped round her, but the fear still made her stomach contract painfully.

  Grey early morning light was coming through the curtains, and as she lay there trying to calm the rising panic inside her, faces danced before her.

  Suddenly she knew what had happened in those missing hours before the accident. She’d been like this then. She had come home from the office, lain on the settee and then it had begun – a long, slow torture of memories.

  Her father standing in his pulpit in a white surplice, arms stretched wide as he roared out his views on sin.

  Mother bowed over in a chair, holding baby Jacob, lifeless in her arms, wailing in grief, tears raining down on his tiny face.

  She saw Daniel’s first smile as she bent over to change his nappy, that last morning at Daleham Gardens, remembered how his tiny hand had reached out to tug her hair.

  John on the dome of the Duomo in Florence.

  Grandmother was there too, sitting in the chair and holding out those sapphire earrings. Un
cle Stephen glowered at Charity from his wheelchair.

  More and more images kept coming, briefer now, flashing before her eyes like a slide show. Mrs Cod and Miss Hawkins at the kitchen table at Bowes Court. Hugh, Miss Mansell and Miss Frost.

  Charity understood the significance of the images when Toby joined the ranks. She saw herself looking down from her balcony, watching him drive his car into the car park turning his face up to her to wave.

  All of them were gone now, wiped out of her life. Now Toby was with them.

  Time had run out before she could admit to Toby all the mistakes she’d made and forgive him for his. She would never see him again in his uniform, her heart swelling with pride at that straight back, broad shoulders and handsome face. There would be no honourable military funeral with his fellow officers in their green jackets, a Union Jack covering his coffin, only shame that Toby had besmirched a proud family’s history and his regiment.

  Charity buried her face in the pillow and wept. There was anger that Toby had chosen a short cut to riches, bitterness that his actions would hurt Prue and James, but most of all sorrow because in her heart she knew Toby had always been a troubled soul, cast in a role he couldn’t handle.

  Rob leaned on one elbow listening to Charity’s sobs. He hadn’t slept at all; it was too hot, the settee too soft.

  He knew now with utter certainty that from the first day at the cottage their paths were meant to intertwine. In helping Charity through her past Rob had come to terms with his own and all along that long and winding path he had found remarkable similarities.

  While Charity was pushing a pram of washing to the baths, he was at a top school. But they both had cruel fathers and mothers sunk in depression. Charity bore the scars of incest, while Rob’s were hideous ones caused by bigger boys. They both shared the feeling of being worthless and tainted, then misplaced love, betrayal and heartache had forged sheets of steel over their emotions.

  He understood Charity because their motivations were the same. Two people with a great deal of love to give, yet who needed so much to have it returned.

  Just last night Rob had believed the loneliness was over for both of them. He’d imagined being in that pink and cream bedroom, making love to Charity. The words of love were all there in his head, waiting for the right moment. But now she was lying in there alone and sobbing, maybe slowly sliding into the same kind of insanity that had taken his mother.

  ‘No, I won’t let you,’ Rob murmured, pulling on his trousers, his love for Charity stronger than his fear of rejection. ‘We’ve come too far together to back away now.’

  He stood in the doorway. In the dawn light creeping through the bedroom window Charity’s small shoulderblades stood out like wings as she buried her face in the pillow.

  Silently Rob moved to the bed, lay down beside her and gently drew her into his arms.

  ‘I’m here,’ he whispered against her hair. ‘And I’m here for ever.’

  ‘There is no for ever,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t keep anyone by me.’

  ‘I can.’ He kissed her damp forehead and held her shaking body. ‘I’m here. I’m never going to leave you. The past is done, Charity, but there is a future with me.’

  ‘Can you sit up and eat some breakfast?’ Rob put a tray of scrambled eggs, toast and marmalade down on the bed and opened the curtains.

  Charity had woken just moments before he came in. She sat up cautiously, expecting to find herself in physical pain.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked, rather surprised to find she felt nothing but dull aches.

  ‘Almost nine,’ Rob said. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘As if something sucked out all my blood in the night.’ Charity winced at the food on the tray. ‘I couldn’t eat anything.’

  ‘You must,’ he said firmly. ‘Try the orange juice first. My gran said you could do anything once you had food inside you.’

  Charity looked up at Rob. The smell of soap and shampoo, his clean white shirt and clean-shaven face were reminders of how he’d arrived the previous evening anticipating a night of love, not further trauma.

  ‘You look nice.’ She felt she ought to tell him how much he’d helped her, reassure him that she remembered his tender words, but she didn’t know how to. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed your sleep,’ she said, her eyes dropping from his with embarrassment.

  ‘It’s OK.’ Rob smiled, and sat down on the end of the bed. ‘Now eat. Prue will be here soon.’

  ‘How is she?’ A look of alarm came back into Charity’s face as she realised that the worst was yet to come. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘You can talk about that when she gets here,’ Rob said gently, reaching out to smooth the frown on her forehead. ‘I have to pop out to the hospital, but you can phone me there if you need me.’

  Charity drank the orange juice, then tried the eggs tentatively. This time yesterday she had woken looking forward to lovemaking. Now she and Rob were doctor and patient again.

  ‘Rob –’ she paused, unable to say what she wanted to.

  He looked at her enquiringly.

  Charity blushed.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’ His smile was tender. ‘There’s –’ The buzzer on the door interrupted him.

  Moments later Prue swept into the bedroom, bringing an air of country freshness with her long dress, her hair plaited into two thick gold skeins.

  ‘Oh Chas,’ she said, dropping a huge straw basket on the floor and enveloping Charity in a desperate hug. ‘What do we do now?’

  Charity could say nothing for a moment, just hugged her sister back, more glad to see her than she’d ever felt before.

  ‘We try and be tough, I suppose,’ she whispered eventually. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Prue. Maybe you, me and James can salvage something together.’

  Rob hovered in the doorway.

  ‘Would you like some breakfast, Prue?’ he asked. He felt uncertain about his role now. Last night he’d been comforter and organiser, but now Charity’s family, who he knew so much about yet had never met, would take over.

  ‘Just tea, please.’ Prue let go of Charity and turned to Rob. ‘Thank you so much for staying with Chas. But I’m here now.’

  Charity felt that prickle of irritation she had always felt with Prue. Her flat, bland face was full of bossiness; she always assumed no one was as capable as she was.

  ‘Rob’s my doctor and a dear friend,’ she said firmly, wanting to put the record straight immediately. ‘And I’m not ill any longer, Prue, I’m perfectly able to look after myself.’

  Rob smiled at Charity with a slightly quizzical look as if recalling everything Charity had ever told him about Prue. ‘I’ll pop in later,’ he said. ‘Phone me if you need me before.’

  It was only after Rob had gone to work and Charity had showered and dressed that Prue let down her defences.

  She had rushed around washing the breakfast things, straightening cushions, dusting the coffee table and putting food she’d brought into the cupboards. Finally she sat down on the settee and her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I didn’t mean to dismiss Rob,’ she said in a small voice. ‘He’s obviously a very kind man. I always seem to say the wrong thing.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  Charity had put on a dark blue dress and tied her hair back. She felt strained now, not knowing what to do exactly. It seemed wrong to behave normally, to sit outside in the sun, even to talk of anything other than Toby. She knew that Prue had expected to find her an invalid and that now she felt obsolete.

  ‘Neither of us knows what to do or say. I did all my crying last night, and I’m sure you did too. Now it’s like being in limbo.’

  ‘I don’t even know how I feel,’ Prue said, her blue eyes full of despair. ‘I can’t forget all the awful things Toby’s done. But on the other hand I can’t believe I’m never going to see him again.’

  Charity’s heart went out to her sister. Prue and Toby were so close in age and as
small children they had been inseparable, but after their parents’ death Prue was the one who distanced herself. Toby had sniped at her continually, teased and laughed at her, yet there had been deep affection too. During holidays at Studley they’d come to rediscover one another. Now Prue was struggling with conflicting emotions.

  ‘James will be here soon.’ Charity sat down beside her sister and took her hands. ‘We’ve got to walk a tightrope with him. We can’t make out Toby was a hero, but neither must we dwell on the bad parts.’

  ‘I expected to find you in a terrible state,’ Prue admitted. ‘I suppose I thought you cared more for Toby than me.’

  ‘I love all three of you in different ways.’ Charity shrugged her shoulders. ‘You never seemed to need me as much as Toby did, you were always so independent and singleminded. If it seemed I cared more for the boys, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m sure Toby killed Uncle Stephen,’ Prue blurted out as if it had been on her mind constantly and she could no longer bear it. ‘I think he paid someone to do it for him. That’s why he’s been killed, to silence him for good.’

  ‘Please don’t say such things.’ Charity’s eyes welled up with tears. ‘I can’t bear it.’

  ‘You just wait and see,’ Prue said darkly.

  James arrived with Geoff and Lou soon after eleven. He was pink-eyed and very pale. While Prue made yet more tea James showed Charity a copy of a tabloid newspaper with the headline, ARMY OFFICER MURDERED. GANGLAND REVENGE.

  ‘Was Toby doing something bad?’ he asked plaintively.

  To look at James was to see Toby at fifteen: a little blond fluff coming above his upper lip, the same achingly beautiful face. But with his innocent and guileless blue eyes, James was just a schoolboy too old and big to be cuddled and fobbed off with a kindly meant lie, yet not old enough to comprehend any of this.

  Charity looked to Geoff and Lou for support and guidance. Both their faces were drawn with anxiety, as uncertain as Charity was.

  ‘Tell him the truth, Charity,’ Geoff said in a low voice. ‘It hurts less in the long run.’

  It was mid-afternoon when the police came. Geoff and Lou had gone home an hour earlier, taking James with them; there was nothing further any of them could do for now.