Will looked and sounded surprised now. ‘You know what they’re about then, do you?’
Carl nodded.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Will.
‘We’re sure all right,’ said Carl.
Will half looked as if he might say more, but he didn’t. Neither did Carl speak for a bit. I didn’t see that it really mattered whether he told Will any more of it anyway, and half hoped that he would. The whole world was going to know soon enough, I assumed, so we might as well get it over with. There wasn’t really a secret any longer, was there?
However, Carl just drew in a deep breath, as if making a great effort to pull himself together. ‘Look, Will, thanks for coming round, but I’m afraid we’re just not very sociable today,’ he said then. ‘I need to be alone with Suzanne. I’m sorry. We’re both upset.’
Will stared at him for a moment or two. ‘Why don’t you let me go up and talk to her for a minute. I’m sure I could help,’ he said.
My heart sank. I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone.
Thankfully, Carl dissuaded him. ‘I don’t think so, Will. I think she would really like to be on her own for a while.’
‘Of course.’ Will stood up at once as if he were about to leave, then reached into his pocket and brought out one of the brown envelopes we were invariably so grateful to receive. ‘I nearly forgot. Sold two of your landscapes last week,’ he said.
Carl muttered his thanks and escorted Will towards the door.
‘Give Suzanne my love, then.’
Carl nodded as Will stepped outside. On the doorstep he turned and put a big hand on Carl’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry about all this. Tell her, won’t you?’ he said quietly.
‘I know you are, Will, thank you, and of course I’ll tell her.’
He went back into the kitchen. He must have guessed I had been listening, even if not watching, but he didn’t look up as he passed the bottom of the staircase.
There was silence for a few minutes more and then Carl called me to eat my supper. Obediently I trotted downstairs and sat at the table.
‘You heard Will, I expect,’ he said casually.
I nodded my assent. He didn’t say any more. He had spread a white cloth over the old table and put a small vase containing a few flowers in the centre. A candle stood next to it, its flame flickering palely. Strange when all that is normal becomes suddenly abnormal. I had experienced that sensation before.
I think the pasta was very good, Carl’s cooking was usually excellent, but I barely remember eating it and did so only because I thought it would be the easiest option. I couldn’t stand the thought of Carl making a fuss. At first we ate in silence. I really did feel drained. In any case there was only one thing I wanted to talk to him about and he had made it quite clear that he did not want to talk about it at all.
There was fresh pineapple and local Cornish ice cream for dessert. While we were eating it the candle flickered more dramatically and blew out. The only light in the room then was from the single spotlight aimed at my Pumpkin Soup painting, and suddenly it seemed quite harsh and unforgiving. I thought Carl had probably opened the small kitchen window while he was cooking – he often did. He must have been more preoccupied than he was letting on because he made no move to relight the candle, which was unlike him.
When the meal was over I made one last attempt to question him about his recollections of Robert’s death but he still didn’t want to talk about it.
‘You saw Robert, didn’t you, bleeding from the knife wounds, from where I’d stabbed him . . .’ I began.
‘Go to bed and I’ll bring you up a hot drink.’
‘Carl, I do not understand what the police are saying to me. I really need to get to the bottom of it. Don’t you, Carl? Don’t you want that too?’ I persisted lamely.
‘The less we have to do with the police or any other officials in our lives the better,’ he replied obliquely. ‘We’ve always agreed on that, haven’t we?’
I nodded. ‘But things are different now, Carl, this can’t go on.’
Carl looked weary. ‘Honey, why don’t you go to bed?’ he asked again. ‘We’re both tired. There’s nothing we can do about the cops until they’ve completed their silly investigation. There can only be one result. You and I know the truth and so, soon enough, slow as they seem to be, will the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. That’s what I’m afraid of. It’ll spoil everything, won’t it?
‘But right now, why don’t you just go to bed. Things will look brighter and clearer in the morning. They always do, don’t they?’
I nodded in a resigned sort of way. But I didn’t really think so, not in this case.
‘Go on, I’ll make you some creamy cocoa,’ Carl encouraged.
Again I meekly obeyed him, from habit, I suppose, as much as anything. And in the end I was actually quite happy to do as he said. My brain was in turmoil. I was bewildered. I longed for oblivion.
I climbed the funny old staircase, proceeded to unfold the futon sofa and turn it into our double bed, a task I had performed so many times in this house. I opened the old seaman’s chest in which we kept our bedding, removed the duvet, bottom sheet and pillows, and flung them on the futon in a tangled lump.
Downstairs I could hear Carl moving about. He would clear up meticulously before he brought me the promised hot drink. That was in his nature. Crisis or no crisis, I had no doubt that all the dishes would be washed and put away, and both kitchen and dining room restored to perfect order. I had often thought that it was a good job I had been brought up by Gran to be tidy, because I couldn’t imagine Carl being able to live with someone who wasn’t.
I turned on the bedside radio in the hope of being able to listen to something restful and beautiful, which might calm me, but it was on CD mode and, predictably, the strains of Leonard Cohen filled the room. I wasn’t in the mood. I switched it on to radio, fiddling with the dial until I found Classic FM. Something I vaguely recognised as being Mozart, although I couldn’t have said what, was playing. It was both gentle and beautiful but I doubted anything would have done much to improve my distraught state of mind.
With a great effort of will I unfolded the bottom sheet and spread it over the futon, placed the pillows neatly side by side and shook the duvet into some semblance of order.
I really needed comfort so I sought out a pair of Carl’s heavy cotton pyjamas, warm and cosy, and engulfed myself in them. Then I climbed into the bed and pulled the cover up to my neck. It was all so familiar, so comfortable, but it gave me no solace at all.
I just lay there, wide awake and fretting, until I heard Carl go through his nightly routine of checking that both front and back doors were locked, then returning to check them both again as he almost always seemed to, and eventually his footsteps on the stairs. He put a steaming mug of cocoa on the floor next to my side of the bed and sat down alongside me.
He kissed me on the end of my nose. ‘I bet you’ve got my pyjamas on tonight,’ he said. He knew me so well. I allowed him to tug the duvet back an inch or two. ‘You have too. I really fancy you in my jim-jams, do you know that,’ he went on.
I forced a smile. I didn’t think I could face sex.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, gently stroking my hair and reading my mind as usual. ‘I just want you to sleep well tonight, that’s all. Now drink your cocoa before it gets cold.’
He passed me the mug. It was my favourite, with a reproduction of Monet’s Westminster Bridge over the Thames all round it. It reminded me of long Thames-side walks with Gran when I was a child. I took a series of deep drafts and after a bit I did start to feel much more calm and relaxed. My eyelids began to droop. My last memory that night was of Carl smiling at me, his face misting over before my eyes.
The next thing I was aware of was him shaking my shoulder gently, trying to wake me. Eventually and reluctantly I opened my eyes and blinked in the glare of daylight. Another glorious April day, it seemed. The sun was streaming in the window and I was vaguely aw
are that it was quite high in the sky. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was 11.15 a.m. I tried to raise myself off the bed. My limbs felt leaden and my head was still muzzy.
‘You’ve had a good long sleep,’ said Carl. ‘Time to wake up now.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ I said. ‘I must have slept for over twelve hours.’
‘Good thing too,’ he said. ‘Just what you needed.’
‘I suppose so.’ I shook my head tentatively. It felt a bit as if it belonged to somebody else. ‘I don’t feel all that hot this morning though.’
‘You soon will,’ he assured me. ‘This is going to be one of the good days.’
I smiled wanly. The memory of all the events of the previous day was already vivid in spite of my slight wooziness and, in the circumstances, I thought it unlikely that this new day could be much of an improvement.
‘Dress now, sweetheart,’ he told me. ‘Wear something warm. Don’t be long.’
Unquestioningly, I did as he bade me, maybe out of habit, maybe because I didn’t have the energy to resist. I pulled on jeans, a T-shirt and a big, thick sweater on top. Then I went downstairs. He had made tea and laid a light breakfast on the dining-room table.
I found to my surprise that I was ravenously hungry.
He watched with open delight as I demolished a brimming bowl of cornflakes, downed three large mugs of tea and consumed several slices of toast and honey. ‘Good, that will get your strength up,’ he told me.
‘Yes, and I guess I’m going to need to be strong,’ I remarked wryly.
‘You certainly are,’ he said. ‘I’m going to spirit you away. I’m taking you somewhere nobody can find us.’
Eleven
I didn’t think that was what I wanted. Not any more. But I always did what Carl said. Doing what somebody else told me to had always been a habit for me and old habits die hard. In any case I did not seem able to think clearly. Everything appeared blurred.
I let him help me outside and down the alleyway to where the van was parked in the street leading steeply down to the harbour. We were just pulling away when Detective Sergeant Perry arrived.
She was slowing down, obviously looking for a parking space, when she spotted us and flashed her lights. Carl said ‘Damn!’ loudly. He didn’t stop the van.
I looked at him, startled. He just hit the accelerator and carried on driving, swerving around the policewoman’s car. I hadn’t wanted him to do that. Whatever the police had to say I felt I was ready for it, even if Carl didn’t agree.
I turned and peered out of the back window. DS Perry’s car was facing the wrong way. I wondered if she would try to turn and follow us, but she did not seem to be attempting to do so.
‘I want to talk to her, Carl,’ I said. ‘Please go back.’
He shook his head and carried on driving, swinging the car around the twisting streets of St Ives.
‘Carl, I need to hear what she has found out,’ I said. ‘I want to know what the police have discovered about Robert. I have to.’
‘You know already,’ he said abruptly. ‘And I expect they know now, too.’
I really didn’t understand any of it.
‘They’re bound to know the truth by now,’ he muttered.
‘I’m beginning to wonder if I do.’
‘How can you not?’ asked Carl. ‘You were there. You were responsible, and me too, for what we did afterwards.’
He looked frightened and I had never seen Carl afraid before. That had always been my prerogative.
‘Whatever the truth, we can’t keep running, Carl,’ I insisted. ‘I don’t want to run any more . . .’
He took one hand off the steering wheel and put it on my knee. ‘Honey,’ he said. ‘What choice do we have? What choice have we ever had?’
I started to argue with him. I had virtually never argued with him before. Not seriously, anyway. ‘The choice is to go back to the police station, carry through what I’ve begun . . .’
‘No,’ he interrupted. His voice very sharp.
‘You’re wrong, Carl, I’m sure of it. This has to end, for both of us.’
I could see that he didn’t like me speaking out like this, making a stand against him. He shot a glance at me sideways. He really did look angry now.
But when he spoke again he was my usual kind, gentle Carl. ‘I only ever want to do the best for you. You trust me, don’t you?’
I nodded. Of course I trusted him.
‘I don’t want you to be forced into anything, that’s all,’ he went on. ‘Just do it my way one more time, just for a bit . . .’
The sun was still shining and my head still felt muzzy. We were on the open road now, the B road which wends its way along the north coast via Zennor and St Just towards Land’s End. It twists and turns its way through miles of scrubby moorland. Even the main highway, the A30, is of such a low standard right down in the foot of Cornwall that the locals always said it would not have been given A status anywhere else in the UK. Carl and I had a record at home, that we’d bought second-hand from a market, of West Country folk singer Cyril Tawney singing ‘Second-hand City’, a song about Plymouth, which contains the line ‘hanging on to England like Lucifer’s tail’ – and Plymouth wasn’t even quite in Cornwall. We passed a great many familiar places and sights we had learned about from books and then explored in the van and on foot. The beautiful cliff-edge home of the painter Patrick Heron, one of Carl’s heroes, the remains of old tin mines, flocks of rough sheep, occasional ponies. I descended into a kind of trance again, only half aware.
I didn’t have the strength to argue with Carl any more. It was very warm in the van, and eventually I found the muzziness inside my head overwhelming me and I drifted off into a fitful dozing sleep.
I was woken when the vehicle began to bump and swerve. I opened my eyes and could see that we were on a narrow, winding, uneven track leading straight through a rough moor-land area.
It looked vaguely familiar. Then I realised that just off the track was a small tucked-away bluebell wood, which Carl and I had discovered in the early days of exploring the countryside around our home and had since visited several times. It was April. There would still be bluebells in bloom.
‘Are we going for a walk, Carl?’ I asked, feeling even more bewildered.
He smiled tightly. ‘Not exactly,’ he answered.
In fact we drove right past the entrance to the wood. I had not previously been so far along the track. It became progressively more uneven, until it was barely any kind of thoroughfare at all, just an expanse of rocky outcrop and mud.
‘Where are we going?’ I enquired. I wasn’t alarmed, just tired.
‘You’ll see,’ he replied.
Eventually we came across a deserted old shed alongside a disused quarry, which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Carl drove straight into the quarry down a precariously steep slope and parked the van in the middle of a covert of tangled scrubby bushes. And he did so in such a way that I felt sure it was not the first time he had been to this place. He climbed out from the driver’s seat, walked around to the passenger side and helped me out. I still felt woozy and leaned on him heavily as he assisted me up the steep incline to the shed, which was granite-built and quite solid-looking in spite of its obvious state of neglect. Its windows were boarded up, a heavy wooden door, firmly shut, to one side. The place did not look as if anyone had been near it in years.
‘Come on, we’ll be safe here,’ said Carl. ‘Nobody will find us.’
I glanced back down into the quarry where we had left the van. It was totally concealed. I tried one more time to reason with Carl. ‘But why, Carl?’ I asked. ‘I want to be found. Honestly I do. I keep telling you, I don’t want to hide for the rest of my life . . .’
‘Trust me, honey,’ he answered. ‘Like you’ve always done. It won’t be for ever, just till I can find out exactly what the police know.’
He produced a key and unlocked the big, rusty-looking padlock, which was
attached to the heavy wooden door. The lock turned surprisingly smoothly and the door opened easily, although it looked as if it had been wedged shut and unused for years. Obliquely I thought that both lock and hinges must have been oiled quite recently.
I glanced at Carl in surprise.
‘I stumbled across this place by accident one day,’ he said. ‘The padlock was in place, but it wasn’t locked. I went to that old ironmonger’s in Penzance to get a key for it, oiled it and put it back on. All I had to do was make sure that I kept the shed looking the same from the outside as it has done since it was abandoned God knows how many years ago. But inside – well, see for yourself.’
We were still standing in the doorway. Carl took a torch out of his pocket and shone it inside, steering me into the shed and closing the door behind us. I could see two camp beds, a Primus stove, a Calor gas heater, a couple of straight-backed wooden chairs and an old table. There was a new-looking sleeping bag on each bed. My eyes questioned him.
‘I had to have somewhere for us to go, for us to hide, just in case,’ he said. ‘Particularly after the threats started . . .’
‘You’ve been planning this . . .’ I began and knew that the shock was clear in my voice.
‘I hoped we’d never need it,’ he said quickly.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about it, show me the place, ask me what I thought?’
I was quite disturbed by what was happening.
‘I didn’t want to worry you more than you were already, with the letters and everything,’ he said.
‘Carl, I’m worried about being here.’
‘Don’t be,’ he instructed. ‘It won’t be for long, I promise. Everything will be just fine.’
He led me to one of the chairs and I obediently sat on it. My legs and my head still felt rather as if they belonged to someone else.
‘I’ll make us some tea.’ He lit an oil lamp and some candles before switching off the torch. There appeared to be no natural light.
I sat in silence watching as he busied himself with the Primus stove and a kettle. I could not fight the fuzziness inside my head and for a moment or two I could think of nothing more to say.
A Deep Deceit Page 15
