Mrs Bryant handed the picture back. ‘I’m sorry. I can tell you nothing about him. If he ever passed through these doors, it would have been years ago, and children are often unrecognizable when they grow up.’
‘Your records, perhaps?’ Alan suggested.
‘We do not keep photographic records. Surely you can understand why. And in any case, all records are destroyed after a period of time. It is a security measure, Mr Nesbitt.’ She leaned forward. ‘You have, in your career with the police, encountered many violent criminals, I’m sure.’
Alan nodded.
‘And you know that they can be utterly determined to achieve their goals, utterly ruthless, utterly without moral restraint.’
‘That is largely what makes them criminals.’
‘Of course. You can understand, then, that we are dealing with men of that sort. They have beaten their women, often also their children, sometimes nearly to death. They are outraged when those women and children escape, and are determined to find them. Our mission here, our purpose overriding all else, is to make sure they don’t succeed. It is quite literally a matter of life and death. Therefore we keep as few records as possible, guard them with great care, and destroy them when the clients have moved on.’
‘Do they never come back?’
A look of great pain passed across Mrs Bryant’s face. ‘Often. Many of them go back to their abusers, you know. They have little sense of self-worth when they come to us, and if we are not able to help them learn to value themselves, they will go back, and the man will promise never to hurt them again. He always does, of course.’
I was sitting next to Alan. I let my hand touch his, in a gesture of love and gratitude. I had been so fortunate. My first husband, Frank Martin, had been a kind and considerate man. His death had devastated me, but then I’d had the supreme good fortune to meet Alan. Just as kind, just as considerate, and happy to stay by my side for the rest of our lives.
‘Just one last question, Mrs Bryant. Or perhaps two. Can you tell me what, specifically, Ms Carter was working on when you last spoke with her?’
‘She was taking a little holiday. Her clients here had no urgent needs. Yesterday she was to begin work with a new client who badly needs a job.’
‘I see. And do you know where she was calling from?’
‘No. She was using her mobile. She could have been anywhere.’
The superintendent thanked her, and we left, not much wiser than when we came. When Alan and I had been taken to our own car, though, and were on our way back to the cottage, he said, ‘There was at least one interesting thing in that conversation.’
‘She lied.’
‘Yes. She recognized that picture.’
‘She almost said so, and then thought better of it and made some remark about an entertainer.’
‘She knows who Paul is, or Peter, or whatever we want to call him.’
‘Let’s stick to Paul, for the sake of simplicity, shall we? I think if she were certain, she might have told us,’ I said. ‘She’s the sort of person who wants everything nailed down, everything precise and tidy. Did you notice how painfully neat her desk was?’
‘It’s understandable. She lives in a world of violence, an untidy world of emotions, of actions without thought. She needs to control what she can.’
‘And we need to find Jo Carter and Paul Jones. Do you think if we went back . . .?’
‘I doubt we’d get much further. She has to decide what she can reveal without harm to her present clients, or to Ms Carter, and she’s going to decide that on her own time.’
‘Well, she’d better hurry up about it.’ I was cross. ‘I have a bad feeling about this.’
FIFTEEN
‘What are we doing to do about it?’ We had finished our breakfast. It was another glorious day. ‘Shall we go back to the shelter and try to get some more information out of the head clam?’
‘It’s worth a try, I suppose. Do keep in mind, love, that the police are doing their best to find Ms Carter, and their best is very good indeed. They’ll talk to all her known associates and put out bulletins. They have many dedicated men and women who know their jobs.’
‘Of course they do. But Alan, they don’t have a personal interest in finding Jo. We do.’
‘You specialize in personal interests, don’t you, my dear? And your real interest is in Paul.’
‘He’s only a boy, Alan. He’s mixed up in something awful.’
‘He is also a wealthy young man with a raft of agents, fans, hangers-on. I’m not sure he needs our protection.’
‘It’s not so much a matter of protection. It’s just . . . do you think any of these people really care about Paul?’
There is a look Alan gives me occasionally that always brings tears to my eyes, a look of love and understanding, of compassion and warmth that no words could express. He kissed me and said, ‘Get a move on, my girl. We need to get to Cheltenham.’
I never can find a place to which I’ve only been driven, rather than driving there myself, but Alan, with his far superior bump of direction, found the shelter with no trouble. The front door was, of course, locked. He rang the buzzer and waited. Eventually an automated voice sounded from a speaker above the buzzer. ‘Please state your name and business.’
‘Alan Nesbitt, to speak briefly to Mrs Bryant.’
We waited some more. Another voice, human this time, said, ‘Mrs Bryant is not able to see you.’ A click sounded, with finality. Alan rolled his eyes and pressed the buzzer again. We waited for a long time before there was any response at all, and then the door opened a crack and a young woman looked out. ‘Mrs Bryant can’t see you now,’ she said, sounding scared.
I could imagine that she had spent a good deal of her life sounding scared.
She started to close the door, but Alan hadn’t been a policeman all those years for nothing. Somehow his foot was in the way. ‘I understand that she’s busy, and I don’t mean to take more than a moment of her time. Would it be possible for us to wait?’
‘I’ll ask.’ The door closed.
‘It’s a good thing it’s a nice day.’ I leaned against the wall. ‘We may be here for some time.’
‘We don’t have to wait, you know.’
‘Yes, we do.’
We could hear nothing from inside the house. I would have expected the sound of women’s voices, babies crying. There was nothing. I looked at the windows, which were tightly shut and barred. ‘It must be stifling in there, with no ventilation on a day like this,’ I said to Alan.
He pointed to a condenser on the roof. ‘Air conditioned. Didn’t you notice yesterday?’
‘I thought I was just cold because she was so . . . so rigid.’
‘They take no chances at all that anyone might get in.’
‘Or out,’ I said, looking again at the barred windows. ‘Alan, I know it’s all meant to keep the women safe, but it’s an awful lot like a prison. And virtually soundproof.’
He started to make some comment, but the door opened again and the young doorkeeper appeared. ‘Mrs Bryant will see you for five minutes.’ She opened the door just wide enough to let us in and then closed it carefully, shooting the bolt.
My claustrophobia kicked in immediately. Somehow I hadn’t noticed yesterday, but it was like a prison in here. There was no lack of space, nor of comfort of a restrained sort. Everything I could see was spotlessly clean, and there was no smell of diapers or sour milk, as might have been expected. Gentle sounds of mothers and babies could be heard from upstairs, and there was a toy box in the front room.
Nevertheless, no one could get out. Only the chosen few could get in. I half expected to be screened for weapons.
The doorkeeper accompanied us to the office, although we could hardly have lost our way; it was just off the front hall.
If we hadn’t already guessed that the matron was not pleased to see us, it would have been immediately apparent. She didn’t rise from her desk when we came in, and didn’
t ask us to sit down.
‘I cannot imagine how you think I can help you, Mr Nesbitt, and as you can see, I am very busy.’
The surface of her desk had a single folder open upon it. For her, a riot of disorder.
‘I told you yesterday everything I knew about Ms Carter. I know no more today.’
‘It wasn’t about Ms Carter, directly, that I wanted to talk to you.’
‘What, then?’
‘I wondered if you had any more idea about the identity of the young man calling himself Paul Jones. You were a bit uncertain yesterday, whether you recognized him or not.’
‘I thought I made it clear that I was quite certain. I do not know who he is. I have never seen him before. Now, is that all?’
For once Alan didn’t have to signal me to keep my mouth shut. It was obvious we weren’t going to get anywhere. I smiled sweetly. ‘It was good of you to see us. We’ll be sure to let you know if we learn anything.’
‘Indeed. I should have thought that was the job of the police. Good morning.’
Our doorkeeper was waiting just outside the office. We were not to be allowed to roam about the house on our own; that was plain.
On impulse, as she opened the door for us, I asked, ‘My dear, are you happy here?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s not bad. Better than getting hit all the time.’ She pulled up her sleeve and showed us a bruise the size of a saucer, and then she lowered her voice. ‘It’s not all roses, though. Mrs Bryant won’t let us breathe, hardly, for fear our men’ll find us. I’m leaving as soon as I can find another place. And, ma’am . . .’ she lowered her voice still further ‘ . . . she’s lying to you about Peter James. We saw him on the telly the other night, and Mrs Stevens, that’s the cook, recognized him right away. He used to live here, with his mother and sisters. She’s just afraid to tell, like she’s afraid of everything.’
‘Do you know his real name?’ Alan breathed, in the lowest possible tones.
‘Libby!’ The call came from the office. Mrs Bryant sounded annoyed.
‘Gotta go.’ The young woman all but pushed us out the door.
‘Well, now we know the connection.’
Alan and I had gone back to our cottage, changed into hiking gear, and were wandering over the hills, bound for Sezincote House. We hoped walking would open up our minds as well as our lungs. The landscape would have made any artist set up an easel then and there. The soft colours of late spring sprang to life in the sunshine. Birds trilled in the hedges; lambs gambolled in the pastures. I barely took notice of any of it.
‘We know the connection,’ Alan replied, ‘but does it get us anywhere? The fact that Paul knew Jo Carter years ago, and she was, presumably, of help to his family in a difficult situation, doesn’t shed much light on their connection now.’
‘Well, let’s— oops! Thanks, dear. I had no idea that hole was there. Let’s think about what we know about Paul. It’s a good name for him, I think. He actually looks a little like Paul McCartney, you know? When he was young, I mean.
‘Now, what do we know? We know he and his mother spent some time in the shelter. Libby said something about sisters, so there were other children, too. We don’t know how many, or their ages, or anything about them.’
‘We can find out,’ said Alan, his voice a bit grim. ‘If it becomes necessary, we can get a court order to search the shelter’s records. I simply do not believe Mrs Bryant destroys them all. And if she does, well, we can insist she tell us what she knows.’
‘She’s a tough nut to crack.’
‘You might be surprised. Sometimes that sort will come apart completely if you can find their weak spot.’
I winced at that. ‘Yes, but Alan, I hope we, or rather they, the police, don’t have to do that. I don’t like the woman, but I admire her. She’s doing the best she can in an absolutely horrifying job. Imagine dealing, day after day, with stories of human misery on that scale. I think the only way she’s able to keep her sanity is to remove herself from the emotion of it all and stick to administration. As you said, keep her desk obsessively in order, her clients obsessively protected, lest the darkness crash in and drown them all.’ My voice had risen and I made such an expansive gesture that I nearly crashed into a thorny hedge. ‘Sorry about the dramatics. I . . . it gets to me.’
‘It gets to anyone with a spark of humanity. And of course that’s why I don’t want to force information out of Mrs Bryant, either. But we have to find Jo Carter. That is, somebody has to find Jo Carter. I’m truly worried about this disappearing act. It doesn’t seem at all in character, and too many odd and unpleasant things have been happening to ignore the possibility of something nasty.’
‘You don’t think she’s . . . dead, do you? I can’t think of any reason why someone would want to kill her.’
‘Nobody can think of any reason to kill William Symonds, either,’ Alan reminded me.
I negotiated a complicated stile, with Alan’s help, and tried to pet a lamb on the other side. Of course it ran away, and its mother told me what she thought of me. ‘It all goes back to that, doesn’t it?’ I said, watching my footing as we strolled across the pasture. ‘The death of William Symonds, blameless farmer. And Paul knows who did it.’
‘We think Paul knows who did it. That’s conjecture on our part, don’t forget.’
‘Well, either he does or he doesn’t, and there’s one way to find out. He shouldn’t be hard to find, now that he’s famous.’
‘If he knows something dangerous, he’s going to be very cautious about making his whereabouts known,’ Alan objected.
‘He can’t hide completely. His publicity people would never allow it. His safety right now lies in the fact that what he saw, if he saw anything, was in the persona of Paul Jones. Why should anyone connect that person with Peter James, rock star?’
‘Dorothy, you’re not thinking. Everyone at the Holly Tree knows. He told Pam about his big surprise, remember? And now everyone at the shelter knows, even though Mrs Bryant is trying to keep it quiet. He’s a sitting duck!’
‘But . . . but then he wasn’t worried about anyone knowing . . . Alan, we’re missing something somewhere.’
‘Careful, love, this stuff is loose underfoot. You could take a nasty slide. I agree we don’t understand everything. Hardly anything, in fact. But I’d like to find young Paul, myself. When we get back, let’s see what we can find on the Internet.’
SIXTEEN
I enjoyed Sezincote. I really did. It isn’t quite as over the top as Brighton Pavilion, which it is said to have inspired, but there is an exuberance about it that reminds one of the glamorous days of the Raj, and allows one, for a time, anyway, to forget the darker side of that period of history. It lifted my spirits. I especially enjoyed the two stone baby elephants, nearly life-size, that graced the gardens. And I enjoyed the walk there and back. But Paul Jones was never far from my thoughts. As we strolled the gardens, a bored teenager following his parents jogged to the tune playing in his ears, and I wondered if he was listening to the latest sensation. As we ate a snack lunch, I remembered our lunch with Paul. When Alan caught my arm to keep me from falling at a hill that was slightly steeper than expected, I thought about the quarry.
The first thing I did when we got back to the cottage was to put the kettle on for tea. The second was to boot up the laptop we’d left in the car.
There was a time when I was pretty helpless in front of a computer, but our young friend, Nigel Evans, is a technology wizard, a ‘geek’ in the very best sense of the word. He taught me the basics, Alan expanded my knowledge, and now I flatter myself I’m as good at finding things on the Internet as many people half my age.
The trouble with searching for someone well-known is that entirely too much information is available. I had little patience for sorting through the millions (literally) of sites mentioning the name of Peter James. Some of them were obviously referring to other people by that far from uncommon name, some indeed to saints and apostles, or
churches. Many were repetitive. I was offered the opportunity to buy recordings of his music in various forms, some of which were completely unfamiliar. I could hear excerpts of his work online. (I passed on that, with a shudder.)
‘Try that one,’ said Alan, who had been leaning over my shoulder. He sometimes has flashes of insight about these things that I will never have. He was a policeman for over forty years, after all, and knows something about seeking information.
I clicked where he pointed, and reached a website that showed, joy of joys, a complete calendar of performances for Peter James, from last week’s TV show through the end of June.
‘Oh, that was in Birmingham,’ I said in surprise. ‘I had thought, London. Would that mean he’s still in Birmingham, do you think?’
But Alan’s mind was following another track. He took the mouse from my hand and clicked on the ‘contact’ icon.
There was no phone number for Paul/Peter. I hadn’t expected that there would be. But there were numbers and email addresses for agents and managers, for media contacts, for ‘contract negotiations’, for anything under the sun.
‘Wow,’ I said in a whisper. ‘He really is big business. I hadn’t quite realized . . .’
‘Yes.’ said Alan. His voice was hard.
‘What?’
‘Don’t you see, love? All this makes him that much more vulnerable.’
‘And,’ I said, thinking aloud, ‘makes it that much more surprising that he spent more than a week in Broadway, just before his big night. His handlers must have been tearing their hair out.’
‘He had to have had a compelling reason. And I’ll wager anything you like to name that Ms Carter could tell us what it was.’
‘If we could find her. Alan, we must!’
‘Well, someone must, anyway, we or the police. And our best lead, our only lead, actually, is Paul Jones.’
‘Yes. Alan, is your email address still “ccnesbitt at belleconstab”, or whatever it is?’
The Evil that Men Do Page 11
