It sounded good, of course. Only he wasn’t sure he believed a word of it. He’d just had his sixty-fifth birthday. He was in reasonable health, able to enjoy life, his occasional games of golf, his even more occasional estuary forays on his boat, and so on. On that particular day he felt about 105.
‘I’m too old for all this, Martha,’ he said.
‘You weren’t too old for it when it wasn’t causing you any trouble,’ Martha reminded him.
‘Murder is a step too far,’ said Gerry, only vaguely aware that he had said something rather ridiculous. ‘One huge step too far. To be perfectly honest, Martha, I didn’t know today whether to call you or just to go to the police and tell them everything I know.’
‘Well, I’m very glad you decided to call me, Gerry,’ responded Martha. ‘That was definitely your best option. Now, you will get another call. Tonight. It will be from someone who will make an arrangement to meet you, and allow you to go back to your retirement. Full time.’
‘That’s what I want, Martha. I can’t do this anymore.’
‘You won’t have to.’ There was a pause. ‘Uh, Gerry, have you told anybody else about your part in all of this? Your wife. Anyone?’
Gerry remained silent for a few seconds, trying to think on his feet. What should he tell her? It would have to be the truth, or more or less. Lying to Martha would be far too dangerous. People like her had ways of finding things out. He had little choice but to trust her. And he so wanted all this to go away, just as she was promising.
‘Only somebody who half knew already,’ he said eventually.
‘What do you mean by that? Who?’
‘I told you at the time what happened. I was confronted by Sam Ferguson, Jane’s father-in-law, when … when I was … Look, I told you. He hated his daughter-in-law. He was happy, more than happy, to overlook everything in exchange for information. Don’t you remember?’
‘Of course, I remember. So why did you feel the need to share anything more with him?’
‘He was threatening to go to the police. He said he knew people in high places and if I didn’t tell him what was going on he would destroy my life and my marriage. My “cosy little retirement”, he called it. I’m now beginning to think I should have let him go to the police.’
‘Well, you were clearly put in a difficult position. Have you any idea what he is going to do now? Is he still planning to destroy your “cosy little life”?’
‘How the hell do I know? He just stomped off huffing and puffing. But he is an important man around these parts.’
‘I’m sure he is, Gerry. Just try to stop worrying, and wait to be contacted later. Once you have been properly debriefed everything will seem clearer, I promise you.’
‘I just never thought things would turn out like this, that’s all.’
‘Quite,’ said Martha, ending the call.
EIGHTEEN
Amelia Ferguson wasn’t so much furious as, like Anne Barham, bewildered at her husband’s behaviour. To outsiders it might have seemed that she was the dominant partner in their marriage, and that her husband, whilst successful and rather important out in the world, deferred to her in everything concerning home and family. Not a lot of people knew it, but the truth was rather different. When it came to the bigger issues in their lives, Amelia looked to her husband in everything. Sam was her rock.
He finally arrived home just after six thirty p.m., looking damp and dishevelled. His wife greeted him in the hallway, closing the door to the sitting room firmly behind her.
‘For God’s sake, what have you been doing?’ she demanded.
‘I told you,’ replied Sam curtly. ‘I needed to go to my office at the council, I had business to sort out before tomorrow.’
‘I called your direct line, several times, you didn’t answer. You weren’t there, were you? I mean, look at you. You’re wet through.’
‘It’s raining and blowing a gale, haven’t you noticed? Of course I was there. Since when did you feel the need to check up on me, anyway?’
‘Since you disappeared on the day your son’s wife died, that’s when.’
‘I’m sorry. It was unavoidable.’
Amelia noticed that he didn’t sound very sorry. In fact, he barely sounded like Sam. But she was still too angry to pay that much attention.
‘Well, now that you’re finally back perhaps you could give the remains of your family five minutes,’ she snapped. ‘Felix is in a real state. When he returned from walking the dogs he sat himself down with a bottle of whisky, and he seems to have drunk the lot. He’s slumped on the sofa in the sitting room, barely conscious. Will you see if you can get him upstairs to his bedroom to sleep it off?’
For a moment Sam looked as if he were about to protest. Ultimately, he muttered a reluctant assent.
‘Now, Sam,’ continued Amelia. ‘I want him out of the way of the children, although I get the feeling they’ve seen it all before.’
‘Where are the children?’ asked Sam.
‘They’re in the kitchen, I’ve got them playing with cake mix, and a right mess they’re making too …’
‘Go back to them,’ instructed Sam. ‘I’ll sort Felix out. Just make sure those children are safe.’
Amelia was thoroughly puzzled.
‘What on earth are you talking about, Sam?’ she asked. ‘Safe? Of course, they’re safe.’
‘Yes, of course,’ echoed Sam. ‘I meant, well you know, you’ve left them alone in the kitchen. There are knives and things around …’
‘Sam, you know perfectly well we redesigned our kitchen when the twins reached toddler age so that they couldn’t reach anything that might harm them.’
‘So, I do,’ said Sam, smiling a rather forced sort of smile. ‘I don’t seem able to think straight today, that’s all.’
‘Yes, well, that I can understand.’
Amelia paused at the kitchen door and looked back over her shoulder.
‘Look, I think we should have something to eat. You deal with Felix, it’ll soon be the little ones’ bedtime, and then I’ll get us some supper.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Sam at once.
‘Neither am I. But we must eat, we are going to need all our strength.’
‘You’re not wrong there,’ Sam muttered.
When Amelia woke at six a.m. the following morning she found her husband had already left the house. It was a Monday morning, the start of the working week. Sam always started early and worked long hours. So this was not unusual. Or it would not have been at any other time.
But this was still only the day after the death of their daughter-in-law, and the day after learning the equally shocking news that the police were treating her death as murder. Although Amelia supposed she had to accept that Sam’s behaviour was nothing if not consistent.
She tried his mobile at once. Her call went straight to voicemail. His direct line at the council offices also went straight to voicemail. This, too, would not have been unusual on any other day. Sam was a very busy man and a very independent man with his own agenda to follow. When he was out and about running his various businesses, he rarely answered his mobile; neither did Amelia expect him to. Usually she would text him if there was something she wished to tell or ask him.
Neither of them had the time or inclination for idle chat on their mobiles. They weren’t those sort of people.
But she couldn’t quite believe he’d again walked out on her like that, at such a stressful time, leaving her to deal with their son, who was still sleeping off his excesses of the previous afternoon, their grandchildren, and quite possibly, further police enquiries.
Amelia did something she would not normally dream of doing. She set out to find Sam, wherever he was.
She knew that the council offices opened at nine a.m., and almost on the dot she called the switchboard, asking to speak to her husband, only to be told that he was not in his office. She then began a ring around of the family businesses, the café, Cleverdon’s, the estate
agency, the department store in Bideford High Street, and the office at the Westward Ho! holiday complex. Nobody had seen Sam.
Angry, and becoming increasingly more anxious, she blitzed Sam’s phone with calls and texts. She even emailed, and messaged him on WhatsApp.
Finally, just before twelve noon he called back.
‘What on earth’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘You must have called a dozen times, and texted. Didn’t you realize I was obviously busy? You don’t usually behave like this.’
‘No,’ said Amelia. ‘But this isn’t a usual day, is it?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Sam, in a more reasonable tone of voice. ‘I do realize that, darling. I don’t understand why you have been chasing me, that’s all.’
‘Where have you been, Sam?’ asked Amelia.
‘I’ve been working, just like always. I’ve been busy. Life has to go on, you know. Somebody has to get a grip if this family is going to survive.’
‘Sam, I’ve phoned the council, I’ve phoned the café, the estate agency, Westward Ho!, I have phoned every one of our businesses trying to find you. Nobody has seen you all morning. I asked at each place that they call me if you turned up there. Nobody called back. What’s going on, Sam?’
‘Nothing’s going on, Amelia. Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Well, will you tell me honestly, then, what have you been doing?’
She heard him sigh down the phone.
‘Look, I had things to do, could we just leave it at that. I’m not always quite as strong as everybody thinks I am.’
‘Really?’ queried his wife. ‘Well, you’re not alone in that, Sam. So, where did you go?’
‘I went for a drive.’
‘For the best part of six hours?’
‘No. I stopped. Parked up. I’m sorry, darling. I was just trying to get my head around everything. I’m having difficulty coping.’
Amelia felt most uneasy. This really wasn’t her Sam. Did he really say he was having difficulty coping? This was a man who always coped. Coping was what Sam Ferguson was best at.
‘Just come home, Sam,’ she said, her voice displaying more emotion than she would normally reveal to anyone. ‘Your family needs you. I need you. Together we will cope. Just come home.’
NINETEEN
In Instow Anne Barham woke at seven a.m., almost exactly an hour after Amelia Ferguson. At first she felt better than she had at any stage since discovering her neighbour’s body. She had slept well. She felt rested, as if she might be beginning to recover. Just a little.
She reached out with one languid hand for Gerry. He was no longer in bed beside her. She was mildly surprised, because he rarely rose before her now that he was retired, but it was another glorious morning. The sun was shining through the windows. Yesterday’s storm had passed over during the night. She propped herself on one elbow and listened to see if she could hear him moving around the house. There was no sound except the tick of the bedroom clock and the occasional drip of the tap in the en-suite bathroom, which they really must get fixed. Gerry, like her, was a keen gardener, but he was no handyman. He had probably made tea and gone out into the garden for a potter. More than likely he would soon bring her up a cup.
Once Gerry had finally arrived home the previous day he had been profusely apologetic and promised Anne his full attention for the rest of the evening. A promise he had delivered absolutely. He’d prepared supper, scrambled egg and smoked salmon, one of her favourites. Then they had sat together on the sofa watching an old movie. They hadn’t talked about Jane Ferguson and her terrible death. They hadn’t needed to. Gerry and Anne were good at companionable silence, and in Anne’s opinion they almost always knew what each other was thinking, anyway. Although she hadn’t been entirely sure of that yesterday afternoon.
By bedtime she had not only forgiven her husband for worrying her so, but made herself at least begin to forget all about it. She was just as determined to forget the terrible scene she had been confronted with at number eleven. And Gerry, who by then really had seemed like her Gerry again, had come up to bed only ten minutes or so after her, although she did think she had heard him on the phone again. And for her to be able to do that from upstairs, when he was in his study, meant that his voice must have been raised considerably. Which in itself was unusual for Gerry.
She hadn’t asked him about it though. She hadn’t wanted to risk upsetting him again. She just wanted things to get back to normal. And, after all, she trusted him, didn’t she?
Anne still felt deliciously sleepy. She thought she would give herself another ten minutes or so. In fact, she drifted off into a deep sleep again and did not wake for well over an hour.
When she did wake, she sat up in bed at once. This time completely without her feeling of renewed wellbeing. The clock on the wall told her that it was eight thirty-five a.m. There was no cup of tea on her bedside table. And when Gerry was up first he always brought her a cuppa. She was also surprised he hadn’t woken her. He knew it made her feel rotten if she lay in for too long.
She got out of bed, pulled her dressing gown over her shoulders, and trotted downstairs, calling out Gerry’s name as she did so. There was no reply.
Could he perhaps still be in the garden? The conservatory off the hall afforded a pretty good view of most of their little plot. She could see no sign of him, nor of the gardening paraphernalia, from wheelbarrow to spade and fork, which he was inclined to leave all over the place when he was at work.
She opened the garden door and called out. Still no reply. Where could he be? Feeling distinctly anxious again she headed for the kitchen. There was a note on the kitchen table.
‘Just popped out for a walk, darling. You were sleeping so peacefully I didn’t want to wake you. I’ll do a bit of shopping and pick us up something nice for dinner tonight. Gx.’
Anne reached for her mobile phone at once and tried to call her husband. The call went straight to voicemail.
For God’s sake, not again, she thought, as she left a brief, somewhat curt, message asking him to call her back.
Half an hour or so passed during which she tried his number twice more, each time getting no response.
She made tea for herself and took it into the conservatory, all the while keeping her phone close by. Her anxiety was growing. Where was he and what was he doing?
She went upstairs, showered, and dressed. There was still no word from Gerry.
She tried telling herself she was worrying unnecessarily. He could be somewhere without a mobile signal, particularly if he were walking along the cliffs. He could have run out of battery. He’d done that before. The worst-case scenario, surely, was a repeat of the previous day, when he had just wanted to be alone and get away from everything and everybody. Including his wife. She hadn’t liked it yesterday. She didn’t like it today. But was it really so difficult to understand? Perhaps she just had to accept that Gerry had been much more deeply affected by what had happened than he’d let on. Possibly more affected than her. She told herself she should not bother him anymore, that she should leave him to get over it all in his own way. Meanwhile she should concentrate on keeping herself occupied, mentally and physically. And that, she determined, was exactly what she would do.
She hadn’t even made the bed. She did so, tidied the bedroom, and cleaned and tidied the bathroom. Then she went downstairs into the kitchen where she emptied the dishwasher and scrubbed and polished the white stone worktop until it shone like opaque glass.
Finally she heard the little bleep from her phone which indicated that she’d been sent a text. The time was eleven forty-seven a.m. The text was from Gerry:
Just to let you know, it’s such a lovely morning, I thought I’d take the boat out for a bit. Take my mind off everything. Gx
Anne was both surprised and alarmed. Gerry had bought his small second-hand, two-berth motor cruiser soon after they’d moved to the North Devon coast from their previous home in the London suburbs, not far from where their daughter and
son-in-law still lived. He’d said that he wanted to feel as if he were really part of the seaside community of Instow. And he liked the idea of joining the yacht club.
But it had proved to be pretty much the fad Anne had suspected it might be. Gerry barely used the boat. Virtually never, in fact, except when Ralph and Angela visited. Ralph had learned to sail as a boy, and although rather scathing about Gerry’s motorized ‘gin cottage’ as he called it, enjoyed trips around the estuary when the weather and the tides were right.
So why would Gerry want to take the boat out today? Why on earth today?
Anne glanced anxiously out of the window at the sky. The sun was still shining intermittently, and it had indeed been a glorious morning. But there were definite signs that this was not going to last and that once again some pretty grim weather was blowing in from the Atlantic.
She checked the weather forecast on her phone, the hourly regional BBC one. To her horror she saw that heavy rain and high winds were forecast for early afternoon, and there was a coastal storm warning off Bideford Bay.
Gerry’s little boat, with its planing hull and big but single outboard motor, was only really seaworthy in perfect conditions. Certainly, with a sailor as inexperienced as Gerry at the helm. As far as Anne knew he hadn’t taken it out at all that year, although she was aware that he’d arranged for it to be moved from winter storage to its river mooring, and she wasn’t sure if he had ever before taken the boat out on his own. She wondered when the outboard had last been serviced. Maybe it wouldn’t start. That, she thought, would be the best result. What on earth was Gerry thinking of? This was a kind of madness.
She picked up her phone again and once more tried to call him. Once more she got only voicemail.
She left a message: ‘Gerry, have you not seen the weather coming in? The forecast is terrible. Please don’t take the boat out. Just come home, will you? I know you are still upset. We both are. I think we need to talk properly about what’s happened. Just come home.’
Dreams of Fear Page 18
