‘Don’t say the Hard Detective’s on the point of throwing in the towel.’
‘No, no. Of course I’m not. No, if whoever killed Bubbles is to be dug out of the woodwork, then I’m going to dig them out. But, God knows, it may take a year. It may take even more.’
Depression welled up in her.
And, at once, a secret antidote suggested itself.
Why not give way to Eros, wrap myself altogether in Aphrodite’s coils? Why not, like John’s eighteenth-century lady of quality, pay my fifty guineas, or pay whatever confessing to John will cost me, to be well mounted. Well mounted by Anselm.
I could. I could risk everything, husband, job, everything. And escape into a life of love.
Chapter Ten
There came the sudden sound of noisy voices on the garden path outside. The doorbell rang, pealing out under a steadily pressed thumb.
‘You know what?’ Harriet said. ‘It must be the twins.’
‘Oh, God. I meant to tell you. Graham rang just before you got back, saying they were on their way. Bringing piles of dirty washing, no doubt, and saying they’re due back at college tomorrow or the next day.’
‘Thank you, my learned friend. And I suppose now I’ve got to get them some supper with, like as not, nothing at all in the fridge.’
She pushed herself up, went to the door, unbolted its locks and opened it.
Graham and Malcolm came barging in, lugging a suitcase apiece, and submitted to being kissed.
‘Supper?’ Harriet asked, realizing only now how their arrival had saved her from blurting out to John what had happened to her.
‘Great, Mum.’
She went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, saw a packet of sausages and a large box of eggs.
Oh dear. Done provident John an injustice. Ought to have given him more credit. But now it’s exit the Hard Detective, if that’s what I still am. And enter the Earth Mother.
Then, as she busied herself with the cooking, she found unexpected and contradictory thoughts slowly marching through her head.
Earth Mother. Well, there’s something to be said for that role. Not a role perhaps to give up being a police officer for, but worth combining with being a useful police officer? So, then, is it worth giving up both Hard Detective and Earth Mother to become lost in love? A harder nut to crack.
Okay, I’ve just been saved from making the decision. By the skin of my teeth. Because I really do think if the boys had come just ten minutes later John would have known everything. And I’d have said something like, My tousle-headed blond lover weighs equal in the scales to your dazzlingly beautiful Indian lady. And then would I have said more? That I’m throwing over everything, you John, the twins, all our past life, because I’ve been struck down by Eros and encoiled by Aphrodite?
I think I might have done. Would have done. I’m caught. Yes, caught.
When the right circumstances come, tomorrow, or next week, or some time next month, I can see myself seizing on them. Seizing on poor unaware Anselm. Crushing him. Crushing him with kisses. Until I have him. Have him as mine.
The sausages had had long enough under the grill. The eggs in the pan, four of them, had just got to the point the twins liked, a little harder for Graham, a little more runny for Malcolm.
She dished them on to the plates waiting on the tray and took them into the waiting appetites in the dining-room.
‘Hey, Mum, you should hear the time we’ve been having down in the Smoke,’ Malcolm lunged out.
‘Oh, but better is how we got the cash for it,’ Graham broke in, spluttering with laughter.
‘You’re going to tell us,’ John said. ‘So tell us.’
‘We sold ourselves,’ Graham claimed.
‘No, no, we did better than that,’ Malcolm announced. ‘We sold a whole lot of future little Grahams and Malcolms.’
‘Yes. Our future offspring, in great gobbets of spunk. We joined the sperm donation thing at Uni. And got paid per ejaculation. How about that?’
John looked over at Harriet.
‘What we were talking about,’ he said. ‘The thunderous pressure of the sexual urge. So powerful that, apart from whatever these young men may have been doing in various beds, they still have enough of the urge to procreate, little though they realize that’s what it is, to make them rush off to do it into test tubes. They think it’s only to earn a bit of extra cash, but it’s just that urge, implanted in them, to perform that almost momentary act.’
Perhaps he’s right, Harriet thought. And what does Earth Mother feel about her little boys being so boastful about their sexual energies? Heaven knows, heaven knows.
And then, again, a picture of Anselm came into her mind, vague in outline but potent. Christ, she thought, that’s what I’d like. What I want, want, want. Anselm’s spunk in me, deep, deep inside me. Oh, God.
What shall I do when I see him next? Tomorrow. What shall I do tomorrow?
*
But next day in her cramped little office at the top of Levenham police station it was not Anselm, DI Brent, she saw but Handy Andy, DI Anderson.
‘Morning, ma’am. Got a bit of news for you. Good news, I think.’
He smiled down at her, white teeth flashing wide. I’m a good boy. Don’t I deserve a kiss?
‘I could do with good news, DI,’ she said, her voice a cold shower. ‘Let’s hear.’
‘Oh, well. Well, it’s this. I was over at Adam and Eve House yesterday evening, and —’
‘What were you doing there? I don’t remember tasking you with anything that would take you there.’
He grinned.
‘More of a private visit, actually. You know there’s a permanent police presence there.’
‘Who do you think ordered it, DI? Before you even joined the team.’
‘Yes.’
He had the grace to look a little sheepish now.
‘Yes, ma’am. Of course.’ The uncharacteristic look faded rapidly away. ‘Well, the fact is last night one of the Levenham WPCs was over there, and I thought she might like a bit of company.’
‘Are you telling me you went there with the object of making sexual advances while she was on duty?’
That plainly came as a shock.
‘Er — no. No, ma’am. That is, I just wanted to keep the poor girl company. It’s no fun doing that sort of duty.’
‘It’s not meant to be fun, DI. And I don’t want to hear you’ve been doing anything of that sort again, not while you’re under my command. Understood?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She could see him making up his mind to turn and leave.
‘You said you had some information for me, DI. If it’s relevant to the inquiry let me hear it.’
‘Yes, well, I think it is relevant. Or it may be. You see, while I was there I also talked to Fiona Dipcock. Sorry, ma’am, Diplock.’
‘I warn you, Mr Anderson, you’re in a fair way to being sent back to Birchester, and with a disciplinary charge to speed you on your way.’
‘Yes, ma’am. But all the same I think you’ll be glad to know what —’ he paused, meaningfully — ‘what Miss Diplock told me. What I got out of her in the end.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Well, what she said was this: a few days before Bubbles was killed she apparently had some sort of a row with someone who accosted her down by the boathouse there, just where she was murdered in fact. Fiona didn’t have any details. Apparently she hadn’t been very interested in what Bubbles had told her. Wasn’t all that much love lost there, I think. Fiona, who doesn’t think much about anybody but herself, says she never thought about it again. Until something I was telling her about major inquiries like ours jogged her memory. Bit of serendipity I was chatting to her really.’
Oh, no, you don’t, Handy Andy, she thought. You’re bloody lucky I’ve let you get away with as much as I have. You needn’t think I’m going to congratulate you on a smart piece of work. More a smart-arse
piece of work.
‘Right. You did well to let me know this. I think I’ll go over to Adam and Eve House later on and have a word with Miss Diplock myself.’
She pushed back her chair when Handy Andy had gone, stood up and began to pace up and down the cramped office.
Yes, a stranger to that wide lawn at the big old house, whoever Bubbles’ killer might be, but more than likely they had not been entirely a stranger to Bubbles herself. Something she had done, quite unconsciously perhaps, had possibly in that mysterious way — like ... like the sudden unexpected sight of a tennis player’s calloused hand — set off in someone’s mind a powder trail of obsessive longing ...
To and fro she paced. Up to the room’s single dust-powdered window, opened as much as it would go this stifling day, away back to stare at a calendar on the far wall, Compliments of Levenham Chamber of Commerce. Turn and stamp up to the window again.
But that incident, whatever it was, something perhaps sharper than that exchange with a cheeky fan that Anselm told me he’d read about — at Eastbourne, was it? Who’s your boyfriend? Who’s yours? — might have triggered an obsession with Bubbles. And that might ...
Too many mights? Well, perhaps. Or perhaps not. But some such incident might have led whoever it was to track Bubbles down to Adam and Eve House, find out that she went for her early-morning runs and then accost her. And Bubbles might well, at such a time as that, have felt a spit of temper, dealt with the intruder as vigorously as she was said to have dealt with Pierre le Fou.
And then ... Then afterwards she may have been, if only for a day or two, worried or upset or even simply amused by whatever it was. And might, casually, have mentioned it to Fiona.
Up and down again. Dusty window, calendar, window. Puff of sluggish air coming in. Turn and tramp back.
But what if this person, smarting under that rebuff administered when they had had a lover’s hopes of success, Eros’ imperative answered as eagerly as it was put ... What if they had returned to the Leven at dawn that day with murder in mind.
Up again to the window and its faint waft of slightly cooler air.
So if ...
Down below in the street a noisy band of boys dressed in sports gear was going by, blocking most of the pavement, shouting and shoving and pretending to threaten the occasional passer-by with the oars from the kayaks which three or four of them were holding perched upside-down over their heads. Two teachers shepherding them paying little attention.
Discipline, she thought momentarily, why will nobody enforce it? Even here in Levenham they could do with some tough policing. All right, it must be near the end of term and some high spirits to be expected, but to let that mob go noisily by ...
Train of thought about what Bubbles might or might not have told Fiona finally interrupted, she wondered for a moment if Anselm’s nephew — what was his name? Yes, Jonathan — was one of the mischief-makers. Or would the lad, destined for the police, take after his big uncle? Be naturally law-abiding? But, in any case, Jonathan didn’t seem to be in the boisterous procession, though she thought she had seen, trailing behind, his lumpier friend.
Boy who scrunched up my autograph. Cheeky bugger.
Then, of course, her picture of Anselm swam suddenly into pulsating view. She suppressed it hard. Cling on to peace of mind as long as it seemed to be there.
*
When Harriet got to Adam and Eve House she took Fiona Diplock out to the big lawn at the back. It was in any case a more comfortable place to be than anywhere inside. If June had been a dry month, July was proving even hotter, reducing the Leven beside the house to a mere thread of slow-running water as darkly green as the heavy enervated foliage of the syringa bush at the comer of the old house. The grass of the lawn that had been biscuit-coloured in June was now almost shrivelled away. The heat-baked house even appeared to be somehow shrinking in on itself.
But there was another and better reason to be out on the lawn. In the patch of shade beside the old boathouse, almost at the exact spot where Bubbles, Fiona’s friend or perhaps secret enemy, had been killed, it might be possible to get out of her more than she had said in idle conversation with Handy Andy. If idle conversation was all that had taken place between him and his Miss Dipcock.
After a little chat, about of course the weather, Harriet began.
‘I asked if you could spare a few minutes because of something Detective Inspector Anderson told me you had said to him.’
Do I detect a hint of a blush beneath the tan on that smoothly blue-eyed, carefully pink-lipped face?
‘Oh, yes? What was that?’
‘You said, if he remembered your conversation correctly, that some time before Miss Xingara was killed she told you she had had some sort of a confrontation with someone who had come up to her as she finished her morning run.’
‘Oh, yes. I believe I did mention that. And when it came to mind — I can’t remember what brought it back to me — I did wonder if I shouldn’t have told some police officer about it earlier on. But —’
A girlish giggle that hardly sat well with the cool-as-mint personality she generally presented to the world. A hint of something unresolved lying there beneath? A glint of guilt that her relations with generous little Bubbles had not been all they might have been? Or guilt even that she had occupied a place in Bubbles’ stepfather’s mind that rightly belonged to his wife?
‘But what, Miss Diplock?’
Touch of sharpness needed here.
Now Fiona Diplock did blush, a deep flush coming up under the tan and the red of the day’s heat.
‘But — well, you see, I couldn’t have told one of you if I had totally forgotten about it, could I?’
‘And you had totally forgotten? Totally? It didn’t come to mind now and again, and you decided not to mention it?’
‘No.’ Something not far short of a shout of denial.
‘Very well. If you’re certain of that.’ Keep her disorientated. ‘So perhaps now you should tell me everything you remember Miss Xingara saying to you about the incident. Everything.’
‘Yes, yes. I will. I’ll try. But she only spoke about it once, and it was quite a long time ago.’
‘Nevertheless, you should be able to recall a good deal, if you concentrate, about something so relevant to the terrible thing that happened —’
She broke off. Swung round. Pointed with deliberate drama to the place where on the day of the murder that hideously bright blue tent had stood.
‘That happened there.’
She saw, with a glint of pleasure, Fiona Diplock go noticeably paler for one brief moment before her face resumed the flush the hot day had brought to it.
‘Right. Now, as much as you can remember.’
‘Well ... Well, Bubbles just sort of mentioned it one day. It was — Yes, I’m sure you’re right, or ... And — Inspector Anderson was. Yes, probably about a week before — before poor Bubbles ...’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, she said that she had just come in from her run, and — and she was anxious to get into the boathouse, have her shower there and wait for Peter — that is, wait for Mr Renshaw to come down and take her blood pressure, as he always did, and then to suggest what work she should do on the machines.’
‘Good. You’re recalling something at least.’
For an instant she wondered if she should seize the opportunity to find out if in fact Peter Renshaw had been detained that morning in Fiona’s bed. But, no, the details of this dawn confrontation down by the river were what counted. Something might lead to the very person who had come to this very spot a few days later. With, in all probability, a javelin.
And Fiona seemed ready to go on.
‘Well then, Bubbles said, this person — She never actually mentioned whether it was a man or a woman. I think all the time she just kept saying they and someone. She said this person suddenly came up and I don’t know ... I expect asked for her autograph. People were always doing that. And then, I gathered
, somehow a real argument developed. Bubbles said something about giving the person, whoever it was, a bloody good kick, or something, knocking them to the ground. I expect Bubbles thought it was a hell of a cheek, when she must have been covered in sweat and needing to get indoors, for someone to ask her to sign their damn autograph book.’
Abruptly Harriet thought of the day when Anselm had asked her if she would sign his nephew’s autograph book. Which had she chosen, the green page or the pink? And Anselm? Had he by then realized, even subconsciously, that she had a special regard for him? Felt she would be willing to do almost anything he might ask?
Oh, God, a special regard. That’s hardly what I felt even then. And not in any way what I feel now.
She knew then that it had all come rushing back, had filled her to capacity. Love. Aphrodite, the enchanter, in full blazing light.
Oh, God, I love you, Anselm. I love you, love you, love you.
Chapter Eleven
Little else emerged about the dawn encounter. It was, Harriet thought, an oddly mysterious affair, with even the identity of the other party, man or woman, tauntingly vague. But tauntingly vague it all remained, even though she had pressed Fiona hard.
She had gone as far as she could. Pressing too hard, she had long ago learnt, is apt to produce an obstinate silence. The really hard detective knows when not to be hard.
Did I even let myself forget that with Fiona, she asked herself. And, worse, was that because my mind had, suddenly, shot off to ...? To Anselm, Anselm, Anselm. If I’d been paying more attention, would I have succeeded in easing out of the recesses of Fiona’s memory a word or two extra about what Bubbles said? And would it have helped?
The terrible thing is it might have done. Has love ended what might have been my chance of resolving the case? Love that overwhelming whatever. If I’d been doing my job as I ought to have been, would I at this minute be driving away from Adam and Eve House with perhaps just one detail about Bubbles’ murderer that could lead to a positive identification?
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