A Question of Guilt

by Janet Tanner

  It was a good place to be.

  Next morning I woke to find myself alone. I hadn’t so much as stirred when Josh got up, but now I could hear the clatter of china in the kitchen, and when I padded downstairs I found him fully dressed and busy with mugs and tea bags.

  ‘Hey, what are you doing up?’ he greeted me. ‘I was going to bring you a cup of tea in bed.’

  ‘Nice thought, but too late,’ I laughed.

  Today, Saturday, was market day, but Mum’s pitch would have to remain empty today. There was no way I could cope with running it, and I was anxious to get to Bristol to see Dad again.

  This time it was Josh who took me. On the way we stopped off to update Jeremy and leave him a spare door key in case of any emergency occurring. I was delighted to find Dad was still steadily improving – the fact that he was insisting there was no need whatever for Mum to keep a bedside vigil clear evidence that he was beginning to think like his old self. It was Dad all over – he hates fuss – and in any case, he was worried about the farm. All very well to assure him that with Jeremy’s help I had everything under control – he still wanted Mum back in the saddle, so to speak.

  She was torn, I knew, but after some discussion it was agreed that she would come home with me and Josh today, and drive back tomorrow, after I’d had my meeting with Alice. Should there be any crisis – which, please God, there wouldn’t be – then obviously I’d have to cancel my appointment.

  Apart from that brief encounter in the hall when he called for me on our first date, this was the first time Mum had met Josh. But from the outset they seemed to get on really well. He’d earned brownie points for bringing me to the hospital, of course, but he was also a very easy person to like, with his laid-back, friendly manner, I thought, feeling pleased and rather proud. Mum gave me a furtive nod of approval when his back was turned. ‘A great improvement on Tim’ that look seemed to say.

  ‘So you’re still managing to go on with your investigation in spite of what’s happened?’ Mum said as we were driving home.

  ‘More’s the pity,’ Josh muttered.

  ‘Actually Alice came to me,’ I said, ignoring him, but Mum picked up on it.

  ‘What do you mean, Josh?’ she asked.

  ‘I keep warning her – she could be disturbing a hornet’s nest,’ Josh said. ‘She won’t listen to me, though. Perhaps you can talk some sense into her before she ends up like Dawn Burridge.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake!’ I exploded. But I could see he’d got Mum worried.

  ‘Oh my goodness – surely you don’t think . . .?’ she said anxiously.

  ‘Sally knows exactly what I think.’ Josh’s tone was grim. ‘I think she should leave well alone.’

  ‘You are so melodramatic!’ I said crossly. The last thing I wanted was for him to alarm Mum. If she thought I might be playing with fire she’d be reluctant to let me use Dad’s car again. ‘If there’s anything at all to discover, it’s all to do with emotional entanglements, not some kind of gang war between Mafia godfathers. This is Stoke Compton, not New York, or even London. And I’m going to talk to a girl who works in an estate agent’s office, not Mata Hari.’

  I didn’t add that I was beginning to be more and more certain that Lewis Crighton was behind what had happened to Dawn, and that Alice was frightened to death of him. If I wanted to continue following my story, the less said the better.

  But Mum’s thoughts had returned to Dad.

  ‘I wonder if I should have stayed another night? I don’t like leaving him . . .’

  ‘He’s in good hands, Mum,’ I said, grateful for the change of subject.

  At home everything appeared to be under control. Mum asked Josh if he would like to stay for supper – her way of thanking him for providing a taxi service, I guessed, but Josh had a better idea.

  ‘I’ll treat you both to a pub meal,’ he offered.

  Eating out isn’t really Mum’s thing, but when I added my weight to the argument – I hadn’t been able to get to the shops to buy food, and, in any case, the last thing she needed was to have to cook a meal – she agreed.

  Though there could be no intimacy between Josh and me tonight, I really enjoyed the fact that Mum was with us. It had the comfortable feel of family, a sort of warm stability to anchor all the euphoria of the attraction that existed between us. Something else I’d never experienced in all the time I’d been with Tim. And when Josh kissed me goodnight, although I’d have liked more, I felt truly content. There would be other nights for us to be together. For starters we’d decided that tomorrow evening we’d go to the cinema to see The Best Marigold Hotel, and grab a bite to eat afterwards.

  For now, I was perfectly happy that things were progressing exactly as they should.

  Sunday morning. Mum said she’d wait for me to get back from my meeting with Alice so that we could go to the hospital together. I helped her with the various chores until it was time to get ready to go, and then set out for Stoke Compton.

  The weather today was quite pleasant, with the promise of spring. Already the hedgerows were beginning to sprout green against the bare brown of winter, and clusters of daffodil spears had erupted in the banks along the stretch of main road on the approach to town. Soon, given some warm sunshine, they’d open into a sea of golden yellow.

  This was a new development. I didn’t remember daffodils at the roadside when I was young. Someone must have planted bulbs there at some time, and they’d grown and spread with each passing year.

  The sports centre was at ‘our’ end of town. I drove into the car park and found a space, surprised at just how full it was. Judging by the number of parents and children going in and out carrying sports bags there were probably swimming lessons this morning, and I imagined the gym and squash courts were well patronized too.

  I waited in the car until just before eleven, then made my way to the children’s play area. This was also already busy, boys and girls of all ages rushing about between the swings, slides and roundabouts, whilst their parents sat on benches or stood beside the low perimeter fence watching them. One lone woman wearing a parka with the hood up was standing at the far end with her back to me, and I wondered if it might be Alice. But as I neared her I saw her drop a cigarette butt on the grass, tread on it and call to a boy who was on the climbing frame. Not Alice, then.

  I walked all the way around the play park, but there was no sign of her. I stood watching the cars that were coming in, and the people emerging from them and walking towards the sports centre; Alice was not among them. I was beginning to get a bad feeling here. Had she changed her mind and decided not to meet me? Or was it possible there had been a misunderstanding and she was waiting for me in the cafeteria?

  I headed for the sports centre. The main doors led directly into an open-plan area where there were tables, chairs and vending machines. This, too, was busy, most of the tables occupied and children rushing about between them. But I could see at a glance that Alice wasn’t here. The clock above the viewing window for the swimming pool showed eleven fifteen. It might, of course, be a few minutes fast, but the fact remained – Alice was late – if she was coming at all.

  I went back outside, did another circuit of the playground, and waited by the path from the car park, my frustration growing with every passing minute.

  She wasn’t going to come.

  I waited until half past, and a bit beyond, just in case she’d thought she’d said eleven thirty, but without much hope, and at a twenty to twelve I eventually gave up.

  I was cold – for all that the sun was shining, there was a definite nip in the air – and I was utterly fed up. To have had this carrot dangled in front of me and then snatched away was disappointing to say the least.

  Alice knew something; she’d been on the point of sharing it with me. But – perhaps out of fear of losing her job – she’d changed her mind, and I had no way of knowing what it was she had been going to tell me.

  But once again, everything was pointing to
Compton Properties and Lewis Crighton. The answer to everything lay with him, I felt sure. And somehow I was going to find out what it was that he – and everyone around him – was hiding.

  ‘So you had a wasted journey,’ Mum said sympathetically when I got home, but I had the feeling she was actually secretly relieved. Josh and his warnings of doom had worried her, I knew.

  We headed off to Bristol, Mum driving, and spent a few hours with Dad, who was still making slow but steady progress.

  When we got home again, I thought I’d have a session on my computer. I left Mum watching television and went up to my room.

  I’d tucked my laptop in its case under the small upright chair behind the door, and I bent to pull it out. But the moment I went to lift it I knew something was wrong. Though the case was still zipped, as I’d left it, there was practically no weight to it at all. I put the case on to the bed and opened it.

  It was empty. My laptop had gone.

  For a moment I stared at the empty case scarcely able to believe the evidence of my own eyes.

  So the burglar had been upstairs after all – had stolen my laptop as well as Dad’s computer. I hadn’t realized it was missing before because the case had been zipped up again and replaced where I’d left it. Naturally I’d assumed it hadn’t been touched.

  Naturally! The mess downstairs, the emptied drawers, the overturned photograph, even the TV removed from its stand and stacked by the fireplace, was typical burglar behaviour, especially if, as I suspected, the culprit was some young thug looking for something to sell for drug money. But a leather case zipped up and replaced in its original position after the laptop had been removed? I’d never have suspected that in a million years. And why hadn’t he taken case and all? It made no sense whatever.

  But there was no getting away from the fact: it had been stolen. Unless I was going quietly mad and had left it in Dad’s office after I last used it. That must surely be the explanation. The burglar hadn’t come upstairs at all, but had taken it at the same time as taking Dad’s computer.

  ‘My laptop’s gone as well,’ I said to Mum, going back downstairs.

  ‘Oh no! Oh Sally, all your work!’

  ‘Well, I’ve still got it on a memory stick, thank goodness,’ I said, ‘but much good will that do me with no computer to run it on.’

  ‘You’ll just have to get another,’ Mum said. ‘And we’ll have to replace Dad’s, too. There’s no way we can manage without it. We’ll get on to the insurance company first thing in the morning, and they’ll tell us what to do.’

  I nodded.

  ‘They’ll say we can go ahead, I’m sure,’ I said.

  But the bad feeling I’d had ever since Alice failed to keep her appointment with me this morning had intensified. Since I’d begun this investigation everything seemed to be going pear-shaped. Could it be that Josh was right to warn me I was playing with fire? Was there something going on that was more than sheer bad luck?

  I shivered. Perhaps it would be wise to give up on my enquiries. Perhaps if I did all the bad things that were happening would stop. But that was nothing but foolish conjecture, surely. No way could there be any connection.

  Could there?

  Fifteen

  It didn’t take me long, of course, to put all such thoughts out of my head. I’d never have had them at all if my nerves hadn’t been so on edge, I felt sure.

  The afternoon flew past. By the time I’d spent what seemed like hours on the telephone talking to the insurance company, it was time to get ready to meet Josh, and I’d barely had a moment to so much as think about my investigation, let alone do anything to further it.

  Whilst I was waiting for Josh, however, Rachel rang to ask after Dad, and when we’d covered that, she mentioned our proposed trip to see Dawn’s mother.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ll want to go to Dorset this week with your dad in hospital.’

  Instantly all my enthusiasm for my project returned with a vengeance. Dad was out of danger now, and if I didn’t take Grace Burridge up on her offer to talk soon, she might change her mind.

  ‘Actually, I don’t think Dad would mind if I missed visiting just one day,’ I said. ‘In fact, it would give some of his friends a chance to go and see him – loads of them have been asking, but the hospital aren’t keen on him having more than two or three at his bedside at any one time, and so far that’s been me and Mum.’

  ‘OK,’ Rachel said. ‘In that case, I could make Thursday, if that suits you and Mrs Burridge. Steve’s working from home that day, so he’d be on hand to pick up the children if we should get delayed.’

  ‘It would be fine by me. I’ll ring Mrs Burridge tomorrow and let you know what she says . . .’ I could hear a car outside; Josh had arrived and there would be no time for me to make the call now.

  And I wasn’t going to tell him about it either, I decided. I didn’t want another argument about what I was planning to do.

  The film was excellent – very different – and I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I couldn’t help feeling it wasn’t Josh’s usual fare and that he’d suggested it because he thought I’d like it. Afterwards, we went to the TGIF next door to the cinema and ordered fajitas and drinks – wine for me, a beer for Josh.

  ‘I’ll cook that meal for you on Saturday,’ he said as we licked our sticky fingers.

  ‘Promises, promises!’ I joked.

  ‘No – a definite plan. I’m afraid I won’t be able to see you again until then, though. I’ve got a few days off, and a pal and I are planning to walk part of the Cotswold Way.’

  My heart sank. Five whole days when I wouldn’t see Josh seemed like an eternity.

  ‘I know – sorry,’ he said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘But this was arranged weeks ago. And let’s be fair, you’ve got enough going on at the moment not to miss me.’

  ‘What makes you think I’d miss you anyway?’ I teased, and his hand closed over mine on the table top.

  ‘You’d better!’ he said, mock threateningly. ‘And I don’t want to come back and discover you’ve been getting off with someone else in my absence, either.’

  I laughed. ‘Chance would be a fine thing!’

  ‘That’s all right, then.’

  The warmth was beginning inside me again, and with it the desire. I could feel it, electric in the air between us, and when Josh made a detour on the way home I wasn’t in the least surprised. He didn’t say where he was going and I didn’t ask, but as we bypassed Stoke Compton and pulled in through the gateway of a small, isolated cottage, I could hazard a pretty accurate guess.

  ‘My place,’ Josh said nonchalantly. ‘Are you coming in?’

  I didn’t need asking twice.

  I have to admit I noticed very little about Josh’s cottage at first beyond the fact that the tiny lobby opened directly into a long low room with rough wood beams and an open fireplace. I was rather too focused on the staircase, leading up from the corner opposite the door, and the magnetism sparking between Josh and me as he helped me climb it. Later, though, I thought what a charming little place it was, all sloping floors and uneven walls and funny little nooks and crannies. The fact that he had chosen to live here rather than a modern house or flat showed another side to Josh, one that I liked a lot. But then, to be honest, what was there I didn’t like about Josh?

  When he took me home – I had to go home, of course, much as I would have liked to stay – I thought again how I would miss him in the next few days. I could hardly believe that just two short weeks ago I hadn’t even met him. Perhaps Mum and Rachel had been right, and I should have taken more time before falling head over heels in love like this. But then again, maybe this was the way a once-in-a-lifetime love struck – like a bolt of lightning. If so, the way I was feeling made perfect sense.

  Next morning, after I’d fed the hens and collected the eggs, I phoned Grace Burridge and asked if it would be convenient if I came to see her on Thursday, and she said it would. Once again I felt dreadfully guilty at the
way I was deceiving her, but I told myself that if I could find out who had been responsible for her daughter’s death, then maybe that would help. At present the hit-and-run driver was still unidentified; even if the circumstances that had led up to the accident proved to be upsetting, at least it would mean that Grace had some sort of closure.

  When I returned to the kitchen, it was to find Mum washing the eggs I’d just collected and putting a dozen into a cardboard tray.

  ‘For Jeremy,’ she explained. ‘He said he’d pop by later, go through your dad’s accounts files, and try to set up some sort of system on his own computer so we can keep things up to date. We’re so lucky he was back home when all this happened. He’s been a brick, and I thought he might appreciate a nice fresh egg as a thank you. He won’t take any payment, that I do know.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be really pleased,’ I said. Jeremy didn’t keep hens – it wasn’t that kind of farm. It was much more highly mechanized than ours, and without the homely touches, though there did used to be a flock of geese strutting about in the days when his mother had been alive – I remembered being terrified of them.

  ‘Will you be here this morning?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Actually I’m popping over to Dad’s computer man to pick up a new laptop,’ I said. ‘I gave him a ring yesterday after I’d spoken to the insurance company, and he’s got one in stock that’s pretty much the same model as the one I had stolen. So if Jeremy can build some sort of database I can install it, and we won’t have to keep bothering him.’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about, Sally,’ Mum said blithely, ‘but I’ll tell Jeremy. I’m sure he’ll know what you mean.’

  ‘Trust me, he will. Computers for accounting purposes are definitely Jeremy’s territory.’ I fetched my coat and the car keys. ‘It is all right if I take Dad’s car, is it?’

  ‘You know it is,’ Mum replied.

  I drove first to Dad’s friendly computer supplier and picked up my replacement laptop, which he had ready and waiting for me. Then, on the way home, I decided to make a little detour and see if I could locate the warehouse where the auction would be held the following evening. I was determined to go along, partly because I was hoping Alice might be there, and partly because I wanted the opportunity to see Lewis Crighton again, but I wasn’t entirely sure exactly where the warehouse was situated, and I thought it would be a good idea to check it out in the daylight, rather than looking for it in the dark.