A Crushing Blow (Anna McColl Mystery Book 3)

by Penny Kline

  With half an ear I listened to her describing articles she had read in women’s magazines — about the inadequacy of some family doctors, about housewives on sleeping pills and tranquillizers … Now she had mentioned the murder weapon, quite calmly, almost objectively, was it possible to believe her when she still insisted it was the memory of Walter Bury’s violent death that was making it impossible for her to leave the flat?

  ‘Right,’ I said, trying another tack, determined to discover what was really going on in her head. ‘I want you to lean back in your chair and close your eyes.’

  ‘Like this?’ She did as she was told, squeezing her eyes shut and clutching the arms of the chair.

  ‘No, try to relax. Start with one foot and try clenching and relaxing the muscles in your ankle, then your calf, then your thigh. Then do the same with the other leg.’

  She opened one eye to see if I was watching her, then closed it again. ‘I’m afraid I’ve always been rather tense. I think some people are born that way. I had a friend who used to listen to a tape of the sea, waves lapping on the sand, but I don’t think it did her much good.’

  I made no response and she continued with the technique, clenching and unclenching her legs, her arms, her stomach muscles, chest muscles, neck. Finally she sat up straight. ‘D’you know, it really works. What a clever idea.’

  ‘Just stay leaning back,’ I said softly, ‘close your eyes again and try to remember the time when Helen told you a body had been found in the woods.’

  Her breathing became uneven, strained. ‘Try to breathe from low down, not up near your breast bone. Place your hands on your rib cage and feel the air going in and out of your lungs. Now think about that day. The weather — was it hot like today or dull and wet? How did you spend the morning? What was Sandy doing?’

  ‘It was very warm,’ she said slowly, ‘but overcast. Sandy drove to the Do-It-Yourself place to buy some wood. Then what? Oh, I know, Thomas had forgotten his swimming trunks so I had to call round at the school.’

  ‘In the car?’

  She nodded. ‘I had lunch on my own. I suppose I did. I was reading a book, a spy story, but I decided to take it back. It seemed silly, out of date, now the Berlin Wall’s come down.’

  ‘So you went to the library7.’

  ‘Oh, not that day. Sandy took it back later.’ Her face was screwed up, trying to remember. She looked younger, almost childlike, and for the first time that morning I felt genuine empathy. Beneath all the superficial chatter something was making her terribly unhappy.

  For a moment I thought she had fallen asleep, then she raised an arm to smooth her hair. ‘Can I sit up properly now?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Did I do that right?’

  ‘How did it make you feel?’

  ‘Tired,’ she said, ‘and sort of light headed.’ She stood up, steadying herself on the arm of the chair. ‘Before you go would you like to see Thomas’s room?’

  ‘Well, yes, but — ’

  ‘I’ll show you.’ She was across the room in an instant, holding open the door, smiling brightly. ‘Up a short flight of stairs. It’s in the roof. Thomas loves it.’ The stairs were steep and we had to bend to avoid banging our heads on the ceiling. When we reached the top she pulled open the door and flattened herself against the wall so I could pass in front of her. ‘After you, Anna.’

  It was the first time she had used my name. ‘I suppose in the old days a kitchen maid slept here. I expect it was freezing cold and very uncomfortable.’

  The room had a sloping ceiling and two small dormer windows and at first sight it was the kind of room a child dreams about. Shelves full of toys and games and books, a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, models of ships, planes, dinosaurs. But there was something too perfect. The walls were papered with what looked like children’s drawings but turned out to be the imitation stick men that graphic artists produce for advertisements for chocolate buttons or appeals for Great Ormond Street Hospital. Thomas’s bed was covered in a patchwork quilt with two Steiff teddy bears placed side by side on the pillow. Even the rocking horse was an antique. In fact the only newish pieces of furniture were a pine desk and a matching chair. On the desk was a computer, and next to it a printer with a toy penguin propped against it, its orange felt beak hanging in tatters as though it was taken to bed regularly and chewed for comfort.

  ‘Lucky boy,’ I said.

  Geraldine smiled. ‘Yes, isn’t he? Of course when my parents were alive this room was only used for storage. They lived on the top floor and we had the part where the Sealeys are staying.’

  ‘It worked well, did it, having your parents in the same house?’

  She turned her back on me. ‘Has Sandy been saying something? He disliked my father but I never really understood why.’ She picked up a pair of expensive-looking binoculars and held them to her eyes. ‘Over there,’ she said, ‘beyond those tall trees, that’s where they found him.’

  ‘The murder victim? Yes, Lynsey showed me the place.’

  ‘Lynsey?’ The binoculars clattered on the window-sill. ‘Was Thomas with her?’

  ‘No, it was the first time I came here, when I was taking the dog for a walk.’

  ‘Oh.’ She stared at me for a moment, sucking her bottom lip, then rubbing between her eyes as though she had the start of a bad headache. ‘Lynsey, she’s sweet with Thomas, awfully kind, but she does tend to put ideas into his head, all kinds of silly things.’

  *

  When I left Sandy was waiting for me in the garden. ‘In a hurry, are you, Anna?’

  ‘Not specially.’

  ‘Only if you’re free I wondered if you’d like to see the cottage.’

  ‘Oh.’ I hesitated.

  ‘Perhaps you’re thinking Geraldine wouldn’t like it. Patient confidentiality and all that. Don’t worry, I cleared it with her before you came. She knows I won’t ask what the two of you have been discussing, that would be entirely counter-productive.’

  The tired look had disappeared. Time spent in the garden had restored his good spirits. Why did he want me to see the cottage? Maybe he was just being friendly, or perhaps he had information he needed to pass on. Or some kind of confession?

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘yes, I’d like that, as long as you can bring me back again in an hour or so. Where is this cottage?’

  He pointed to his car, parked ready to leave. ‘Not far, just off the Clevedon Road. Jump in.’

  There was no sign of the Sealeys or the Japanese jeep. Through an open window I could hear the sound of a vacuum cleaner. Lynsey busy with her cleaning duties? Was Thomas with her and if not where was he? Did Rona take the baby for a walk as soon as Lynsey arrived, or did they edge past each other, united in their mutual hostility, moving from room to room making sure they avoided each other’s company as far as possible? I wondered if Helen looked after Chloe some of the time or whether she was out every day trying to establish herself in a new career as a photographer.

  As I climbed into the passenger seat of Sandy’s car something clicked in my brain. The woman in the black BMW going past the Oxfam shop — I had only caught a glimpse but there was something about the back of her head, the long elegant neck. If it had been Sandy driving — and I was almost certain it was — the woman with him could have been Helen Sealey.

  Chapter Seven

  The cottage was at the end of a lane that had started out as a proper made-up road then gradually turned into a grassy track. Sandy steered the car through the narrow gap between the gate posts he said he was going to demolish once the work on the house had been completed, and switched off the engine.

  ‘The kind of person likely to buy this place is sure to have a whacking great car. I’ll probably advertise it in one of the Sundays. The way I look at it a young local couple could never afford it, not in a position like this with the woods up there at the top of the hill and the sea only a couple of miles away.’

  ‘I thought you might want t
o live here yourself.’

  ‘It’s an idea. See how it goes.’

  From the outside the cottage looked in pretty good condition but once inside it was easy to see how much work needed to be done. Most of the floorboards in the entrance hall were rotten. Some had been pulled up but a walkway had been left and Sandy assured me it was perfectly safe. In several places the plaster had fallen off the wall, exposing the wooden laths underneath. Bags of cement lay in one corner, along with various tools, paint cans, and general rubble.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what d’you think? Looks a mess but it’s structurally sound. Eight or nine more months and it’ll be as good as new.’

  I followed him into a room at the back of the house that had a glass-panelled door leading out to the garden.

  ‘I’d have thought after all your property deals you’d have had enough of the housing market.’

  He picked up a tin of nails and started sorting through with his finger. ‘Oh, this is totally different. Something real, down-to-earth. I remember reading about Tibetan monks who make pottery while they meditate. If your hands have something to do it allows your brain to run free.’ He laughed, nodding in the direction of the stairs at the far end of the room. ‘Go on up, have a nose round. I just want to measure the skirting board, then I’ll show you what passes for a garden, see if you’ve any ideas what I could do with it.’

  Leaning out of an upstairs window I tried to work out exactly where we were. Trees obscured most of the view but in the distance I thought I could see the start of the flat marshy land between Tickenham and Yatton. That meant Bristol was more or less directly on my left and the sea was to the right.

  Down in the garden a black cat with a red flea collar was sitting on a stretch of broken wall swishing its tail, watching for birds. With the sun shining the whole place was idyllic but what would it be like in winter with rain streaming down and the lane turned into a sea of mud?

  There were three bedrooms, all of them small but large enough at least for a bed and one or two other pieces of furniture. Each room had a standard Victorian cast-iron fireplace and the biggest one had fitted cupboards, badly made, out of wood that had warped so the doors wouldn’t close properly. No doubt Sandy would strip out the cupboards and build new ones. He seemed to know what he was doing.

  In the largest of the three bedrooms a new window frame rested against the wall and a plank of wood lay supported by two trestles. I sat down on a dusty-looking bean bag and tried to imagine the room in a finished state — sanded floor, brass bed, Laura Ashley curtains, goatskin rugs — and became aware that I was picturing Geraldine living there. Did the lane qualify as open country or would she find the thick trees on two sides of the garden too gloomy, too oppressive? The morning session had left my brain racing. Had the visit to Thomas’s room had some special significance? Several times during the last few days I had wondered about the efficacy of brief, intensive therapy — surely anyone who was prepared to get to grips with their problems that quickly didn’t need a psychologist to help them — but Geraldine seemed to be starting to trust me. Any guilt I had felt about my dual wish — to cure Geraldine of her agoraphobia while at the same time trying to find out if she knew something about the violent crime in Leigh Woods — was fading fast as I came to realize that while Geraldine’s problem might be only loosely connected with Walter Bury’s murder, discovering the identity of the killer would certainly help her to come to terms with her anxiety. So far I had learned nothing that provided even the smallest clue. Perhaps there was nothing — that Geraldine could tell me. But I still felt certain there was.

  Sandy’s footsteps squeaked on the stairs and his head came round the door. ‘Ah, there you are. Seen the bath yet? Great huge enamelled thing, you can’t buy them like that these days. No, stay where you are a moment.’ He sat on the edge of a rickety table. ‘Lynsey — I wanted to ask what you thought of her? According to Geraldine she’s spending more and more time with Thomas. Is that a good thing, d’you suppose?’

  ‘As long as she gets her work done.’

  ‘Yes.’ That wasn’t what he had meant. ‘Thomas is on holiday of course but he still has to practise his violin, keep up with his studies.’

  What studies? Surely teachers didn’t set work for the summer holidays, not for a nine-year-old. ‘Does he have many friends?’

  ‘Oh, plenty, but none that live nearby. He used to go to the local primary school but it didn’t stretch him enough so we had to find somewhere private. You probably disapprove.’

  ‘Perhaps he and Lynsey are both a bit lonely.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right, although what a nineteen-year-old girl has in common with a small boy … Listen.’ He looked a little embarrassed. ‘There’s something else, something I really wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘I thought you were going to show me the bath.’

  ‘In a minute. Oh, now you think I’ve done the same thing again, dragged you out here on false pretences. But it’s not like that, I promise.’

  Part of a spider’s web had attached itself to the bushy strip of hair above his left ear. He bore little resemblance to the smartly turned out businessman I had first noticed sitting in the second row at the counselling course. Whereas Geraldine struck me as being a nervous person but with a hard core of strength, Sandy’s whole bearing exuded confidence but something told me he could well have spent his life struggling against underlying feelings of insecurity. A person’s eyes tell you a great deal. That’s why so many people find eye-contact lasting more than a split second too threatening to bear.

  Sandy’s eyes met mine. He smiled, then turned his head to stare through the dusty window-panes.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, running his finger across the place where he had once had a moustache, ‘what I really want, a fairly long-term aim of course, I realize that … what I would really like is to become an analyst.’ The colour seeped into his face. ‘You’re laughing at me.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘You think I’m too old?’

  ‘Not at all. I think it’s a good idea.’

  ‘You do? I thought you’d see it as some kind of mid-life crisis, one of those crazy plans like selling up and sailing to Tahiti. I don’t know about you but I feel I’m more in tune with Jung than with Freud. Freud was such a pessimist, whereas Jung believed in the need to develop the more spiritual side. I’ve found out what’s required — a full training analysis lasting several years — but to have any chance of being taken on in the first place I’ll need to have had some relevant experience.’

  ‘So that’s why you enrolled for the counselling course.’

  He nodded. The red spots on his cheeks were fading and the nervousness had disappeared. He seemed wildly excited, his eyes open wide, his lips slightly parted. ‘It was so amazing. One day — I forget exactly what was going on — I was meeting an architect I think, who was going to convert a row of terraced houses into flats. It suddenly came to me. I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life just making money out of property. I had to do something — something more … ’

  ‘Fulfilling?’ It was a word I disliked but just at that moment the only one that came to mind.

  ‘Exactly that.’ He clasped my arm, then let go and picked up an electric drill that was lying on the table. ‘You’re not a Jungian, are you?’ He clicked the switch on the drill so that the deafening noise of the motor cut out the end of his sentence, then switched it off again. ‘Sorry, can’t think straight. I don’t know why it was so difficult to tell you. I suppose it’s almost like admitting you want to take holy orders.’

  ‘Not quite,’ I said, ‘but I know what you mean. No, I’m not a Jungian, I don’t believe one form of treatment’s suitable for all — ’

  ‘Analysis is for the idle rich, is that what you think?’

  ‘No, I think it helps some people and if that’s how they want to spend their money … ’

  He couldn’t stop smiling. ‘You’ve no idea h
ow important your lectures were. Oh, not what you said so much, although obviously that was very useful. No, it was more your attitude, the way you talked. Some people reduce everything to learning a few techniques and applying them as though people were inanimate objects. You really seemed to care.’ He glanced at my face. ‘No, don’t look like that, I’m not trying to flatter you, I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate everything you’ve done.’

  Outside a bird was letting out a series of high-pitched squawks, probably a response to the black cat. I started moving towards the door but Sandy stopped me. ‘Freud thought if you didn’t sort yourself out when you were young there was very little hope.’

  ‘Whereas Jung thinks life begins at forty.’

  ‘Exactly. Individuation, the process by which a person becomes whole.’ He broke off, squeezing the side of his hand between his finger and thumb, searching for a splinter beneath the skin. ‘I don’t know if you agree but I think in order to achieve enlightenment you need a fairly settled way of life. A family, job — well, this is my job now.’ He gestured towards the walls of the cottage.

  ‘Seems ideal,’ I said, ‘renovating properties and training to be an analyst — although you’ll probably have to go to London for part of the week.’

  ‘Oh yes, I know. I realize how lucky I am, having the funds.’ He looked almost ashamed. ‘I’ve changed so much during the last few months. If you’d known me before I doubt if you’d have wanted anything to do with me.’

  ‘When you were the big property developer. I don’t suppose you were that different underneath.’

  ‘Oh, I was. I had to be.’

  For some reason it was important to him to believe he had changed completely. Seen the light, mended his ways. St Paul on the road to Damascus.