***
Hayes’ little blue and white panda car drew in to Fishguard just as the light was fading and parked up in a street between the station and the upper town. Here in the blustery west the snow hadn’t settled and instead the town was covered by a sheen of rain. As the car stilled, Hayes seemed to deflate and he slumped forward, his arms on the steering wheel, his head buried in his hands.
Wingate started to jiggle at Anna’s seat with his knees.
‘Let me out!’ he hissed.
Hayes said nothing to challenge him – he barely even moved – so Anna climbed out and pulled her seat forward. Wingate sprang from the car, almost tripping on the kerb in his desperation to be free.
‘That was virtually false imprisonment,’ he said to Anna as he passed. ‘I’m going to find a train ticket and a bottle of aspirin. Not necessarily in that order. And then I’m going to start wording my complaint.’
Anna watched him stride in the direction of the port. He seemed to be searching in his pockets for something, though he drew nothing from them.
Anna stood on the rainy pavement and surveyed the view. ‘There’s a big hotel up on the cliffs,’ she pointed out. ‘Lanny might well be up there.’
Hayes did not respond. Both Anna and Aloysius stared at his unmoving form.
‘What are you doing now?’ Aloysius asked Anna.
‘I think I’m going to try and get us all up to the hotel. Might as well start with the obvious.’
‘Would you mind very much if I needed a break?’ Aloysius asked her.
‘A break from what?’
Aloysius tilted his head towards Hayes but didn’t speak.
‘Of course,’ she told him. ‘But will you stay in Fishguard? You’re not going home?’
Aloysius climbed stiffly out of the back. ‘Anna. Would I come all this way to leave you now?’ He smiled at her. ‘If you go to the hotel, I’ll walk up to the town on the hill. We’ll find each other somehow.’ He glanced towards the car. ‘I can’t stay here. I need to breathe some other air.’
‘Okay,’ she told him. ‘Thank you. We’ll come and find you later.’
Aloysius strode off towards the upper town.
Anna climbed back into the car and shut the door. Hayes still lay against the wheel. ‘Sergeant? Are you all right?’
‘What am I doing?’ murmured Hayes to no one in particular.
‘You’re looking for Iolanthe Green.’
Hayes turned his head to look at her. ‘But what am I doing in Wales? I don’t have permission to be here. I only signed the car out so I could pick up Wingate. Knight’s going to go berserk.’
‘You’re being diligent. You’re trying to bring her home.’
‘I’m going to get myself sacked.’
‘You can’t fall apart now, Barnaby. You’re meant to be in charge.’
Hayes mumbled something.
‘What? I didn’t hear.’
‘My wife’s left me,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said Anna. What was she meant to do now? Comfort the man? Tell him maybe she’d come back? Maybe she was right to leave him …
‘I think I’ve been behaving rather badly,’ Hayes said, with the mournful expression of a chastened dog.
‘Well …’ Anna thought about this. ‘Yes. You have. A bit.’ She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder and tried to peel him off the wheel. ‘We just need to keep going a little longer. I’d offer to drive but I don’t know how. Let’s just start by going up to the hotel and asking them if they’ve seen her. That seems manageable. Doesn’t it?’
***
Orla woke Lanny at five o’clock and asked if she wanted to eat some tea with them in their room. She’d ordered herself and Gracie sandwiches but Lanny had been asleep so many hours and she’d never really touched her lunch.
‘Do you know what, I think I’ll take a little walk. Just out to the harbour wall and back. Five minutes at the most. Then, if you think Gracie will forgive me, I might find a quiet corner of the bar downstairs to eat. I’m sorry if I’m being rude, it’s just that I haven’t been out of this room all day,’ Lanny told her.
She tied her scarf around her head to hide her hair. Then she eased herself down the stairs and went out to see the boats. She sat for a few minutes on a little bench by the harbour’s edge. The lights from the houses twinkling in the gloom reminded her of a scene from a Christmas card. Over on the other side of the harbour that long spindly staircase led down to the little beach and she wished she had the energy to walk across and feel the sand under her feet. But it was too wet to stay long outside so she turned back and found a quiet table for herself in the side bar where she ordered a bowl of stew.
‘Coming up, cariad,’ the barman called to her from across the room.
Lanny’s mind started to drift. She lost herself in the feeling of heat from the fire. Her senses and her cunning had been coming and going ever since she started to recover. She could be sharp in bursts and then her memory would fail or she’d forget how to speak. Her eyes closed, she melted into the darkness.
The outside door opened with a bang and woke her. A long, pale face stared into the bar through the pane of glass. How odd, she thought to herself, that man looks exactly like James Wingate. She closed her eyes again.
***
Anna had managed to get Hayes as far as the lobby of the Fishguard Bay Hotel. They had parked outside and gone in to give the receptionist Lanny’s description. The young woman had seemed quite perplexed and swore she hadn’t seen anyone who looked like that come in. And no, there was no one staying here under the name of Green. Hayes took himself over to a fake Regency love seat and sat down heavily. He left so little room for Anna that she was forced to bend over him, talking to him as if he were her child.
‘I’m sorry your wife’s left you,’ she began. ‘And I’m sure you’re having an awful time. But Lanny’s in real, horrible, life-ending trouble and you can’t just sit here.’
‘I’ve poured myself into this job,’ Hayes said. ‘I’m good at this job. I thought public service made you a good man.’
‘It’s a perfectly noble thing to be doing.’
‘Then why can’t she see that I am good and let that be enough? None of us is perfect. She isn’t. Nor am I. Why’s she leaving me? Why’s she taking Gracie?’
‘Is that your little girl?’
‘What does she want me to do? She doesn’t tell me. I could change. I could be a better husband if she’d tell me how. Everyone has bad bits. But you don’t just leave. You stick them out.’ Hayes looked Anna straight in the eye.
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’ve never been married.’
‘I thought I loved her enough. But I can’t have done. How much is enough anyway? How much do you love someone before you say: yes, this is it. This is the right amount to love someone you’re married to.’
‘I don’t think anyone knows that, Barnaby.’ Anna reached down and took his hand. ‘You have to get up now. You have to keep going. Don’t you? Because she needs us. Yes?’
‘My wife is gone and I’m not even looking for her.’
‘Then we’ll look for her too,’ Anna told him, pulling him by the arm as discreetly as she was able.
Barnaby did not move. ‘I think I’m letting her leave,’ he told Anna, his eyes very wide.
Passengers
Friday, 12 November
The warmth of the pub and the crackle of the fire eased the pain in Iolanthe’s ribs. The table jolted beside her. She had the feeling that someone had set something down very near her. Perhaps it was that nice waitress with her meal. Sleep now, her body told her. She leaned her head against the curtains behind her.
‘Yolanda.’
‘What?’ She opened her eyes. Wingate sat across the table from her, looking both angry and a bit triumphant. His face was heavily stubbled and his hair greasy and unkempt. He was wearing a very large dark blue suit, which had obviously been tailored for a completely different kind of man. The whites o
f his eyes were shot through with red.
‘Yolanda,’ he repeated.
‘Why would you call me that?’ she asked.
‘Because it’s your name. Yolanda Green. Daughter of Maria Green. You would appear to be something of a fantasist, Yolanda.’
Lanny thought about this. ‘Not a fantasist, James, no.’ She closed her eyes again.
Wingate’s hand crashed against the table. ‘Wake up, you silly woman!’
Lanny opened her eyes. The men at the next table were staring at them. ‘You’ll get us both thrown out,’ she said.
Wingate dragged his hands through his hair and leaned towards her over the table. His posture seemed threatening but his eyes when she looked at them were fearful. ‘You’re carrying my child.’
‘What?’ Lanny said, beginning to rouse.
‘You’re running away with my child.’
‘No, I’m not.’ Lanny rubbed her face.
‘There’s no point lying about it now. Hayes told me.’
Lanny stared at Wingate. She found men in extremis so hard to read.
‘It’s not your child, James. You’re not the father.’
‘The dates show I am.’
‘No they don’t. What d’you know about dates anyway? I was pregnant when you met me. Don’t you remember how I threw up on your feet? That was morning sickness, you idiot. Why do you think I kept disappearing that weekend? I felt awful. I was four weeks gone at least.’
Wingate sat and stared, looking for all the world as if Lanny had announced that the sky was made of salt, the sea of peas. ‘I thought it was mine.’ He sounded bereft.
‘Oh fuck, James,’ Lanny said softly.
Wingate sat in silence.
The waitress arrived with Lanny’s bowl of stew and a plate of bread. ‘Do you want anything to eat, sir?’
‘I don’t have any money,’ Wingate said.
Lanny raised her hand. ‘I’ll buy him a Scotch. Since he’s come all this way.’
Wingate’s face sank further into its deep lines. He looked older. Grey. Cadaver-like, almost. Lanny ate a piece of bread and watched him age.
‘Whose is it, then?’ he asked.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ Lanny laughed. ‘I kind of wish I could. But I can’t.’
The Scotch arrived and Wingate drank it in silence. Lanny gave him a couple of minutes to compose himself. ‘What are you doing here with no money, James?’ she asked.
‘I have almost no idea,’ Wingate said. ‘I think I may have thrown up on myself last night and someone at my club redressed me in this. Then the policeman drove me here.’
‘The police?’ Lanny asked.
‘The policeman from London. He drove me here for God knows what reason and now I can’t get home because I haven’t got my wallet.’
Lanny opened the handbag at her side and withdrew a clip of notes. ‘How much do you need?’ she asked.
‘How much can you spare?’
Lanny smiled. ‘Quite a lot if you’d do me a favour.’
‘What’s the favour?’
‘I am in debt. To a man by the name of Cassidy, whose father once saved my brother and I from … quite a lot of trouble. Cassidy Junior wants his father’s money back and truth be told it was a loan. Just one we never thought would get called in.’
‘Why don’t you pay him?’
‘In the past six months I have sold my apartment in the States. I have sold my car. I have closed my personal savings accounts, my pensions. I have offered up everything I have and still it only comes to seventy per cent of what he’s asking for. So now there is talk of a court case … and he wants to go after my brother.’
‘The one who isn’t dead.’
‘Shit. Seriously? Is that common knowledge now?’
‘Well. I haven’t put it in the paper. Yet.’
‘Are you fucking with me, James?’ Lanny asked.
‘No. No, I’m not.’ Wingate leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face. ‘Go on, Yolanda Green. Ask me your favour.’
The barman sat on his stool and watched the interlopers talk. The sallow woman grew more animated by the minute. Her scarf slipped from her head and curls fell about her face as she talked. She really was quite beautiful, even if the colour of her skin made her look a little witchlike. The sleazy-looking gentleman in the dark blue suit eventually drew a notepad from his inner pocket and started to write things down. London folk, the barman thought, swarming across the border, importing their oddness like tins of Gentleman’s Relish.
As he watched them parley the door opened again and a very tall coloured man walked into the little vestibule. He was dressed like someone from a 1940s gangster film and his nose was badly swollen. He was wearing a pair of large dark-rimmed glasses in which the lenses had been smashed. He peered at the barman through the glass and the barman stared right back. Then the man seemed to see somebody that he knew and hurried into the bar. He paused by the table of the sallow lady and the note-maker and began to gesticulate with great fervour. Then the sallow lady and the gentleman both stood up, everyone gathered their belongings and trooped out of the bar together.
***
In the lobby of the Fishguard Bay Hotel Anna Treadway stood over a love seat shaking the knee of a disconsolate Barnaby Hayes. She had temporarily given up on trying to move him and was wondering desperately where she should go looking for Iolanthe on her own.
‘Barnaby? Sergeant Hayes? I’m going to have to go now. I have to go and look for Lanny. Do you understand?’
Hayes sat quite rigid and stared at the far wall.
Anna turned and looked pleadingly across at the young receptionist who was staring very hard at an address book and pretending not to listen. The front door opened and the receptionist glanced up. Then she looked at Anna, then she looked again at the door. Anna turned.
‘Lanny!’
A terribly awkward and yellow Iolanthe stood in the lobby beside the triumphant figure of Aloysius. Anna stared at Lanny for several seconds and then she rushed to her and held her tight. Barnaby Hayes quietly took in the scene from where he sat.
Lanny reached her hands up and patted Anna’s hair as if to comfort her but Anna did not let go. She breathed in the warmth of Lanny’s neck, as if she could remember the smell of her, which of course she couldn’t. She shut her eyes tight. I have to tell her, Anna thought. I have to tell her that I understand, that I’ve stood in her shoes.
She pulled away a little and looked into Lanny’s face. More than anything the older woman looked startled and confused by the intensity of Anna’s embrace. I’ve overwhelmed her, Anna thought. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know what we’ve been through for her.
And still Lanny stared at Anna.
Why doesn’t this feel right? Anna thought. Why isn’t this what I imagined? Oh God. Oh foolish, foolish Anna. It isn’t her. It isn’t Lanny that you thought you’d find.
She released her hold on Lanny, took a step away and searched for the words to explain herself. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … I’ve been so worried.’
‘I know,’ Lanny told her, her gaze sinking to the floor.
‘We thought you were dead.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I should have … I was just trying to put things right.’
Hayes rose and took a few steps towards the little group, staring at Iolanthe. ‘We found you.’ He didn’t sound as if he believed in this turn of events at all. He tried it again in a more certain voice. ‘We found you.’
Anna shot him a rather sharp glance. ‘Aloysius found her. We were just wasting time.’
Aloysius, containing a smile, observed, ‘I think it was very much a combined effort.’
Lanny stood there in silence, her frame sagging noticeably. She looked exhausted, older than her years.
‘Should we take you to a doctor?’ Anna asked.
‘No. No. I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep. I have a room in town but Aloysius here said we had to find you and show you I was oka
y.’
Anna reached up and kissed Aloysius’s cheek. ‘Well done,’ she whispered. ‘Clever man.’
‘Wingate went to see about the last train home. Too late for us, though. We missed it,’ Aloysius said.
Lanny raised her hand. ‘I’m sure we can all sleep here tonight since this is where we’ve ended up. I can pay for rooms,’ she said. ‘It seems to be the the least I can do.’ She walked slowly and carefully over to the desk. ‘Do you have a couple of twin rooms, just for the night? Both in the name of Green, please.’
‘I do, ma’am. I have two on the first floor.’
‘Myself and the young woman will take one of them. The gentlemen can have the other.’
‘Any luggage, ma’am?’
‘Not really.’ Lanny turned and looked at Anna. ‘I have some stuff over at the other place but I can get it tomorrow. I just need to make a call. Anna, will you take the keys to the room and go up first?’
‘Of course. If that’s what you want.’
Anna looked to Aloysius who was still absorbing the fact that he was sharing with Hayes. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed at him.
In the room, Anna sat and took in the silence. It’s over, she thought. We found her. She’s alive. Not dead at all. Just a little ill and battered. We’ll patch her up. The play could even go back on. I dare say we can make some story up to protect her from it all. It’s all fixable, she thought. Everything is fixable. Even the most terrible of messes.
She sank onto the bed, still in her clothes. After a couple of minutes the door creaked open and Lanny joined her. She seemed to be fiddling with something in her handbag then she stowed it by the bed nearest the door.
Lanny stripped off her coat and her dress. ‘Jesus, Anna. It’s all been such a nonsense, hasn’t it? I’m so sorry. To have worried so many people …’ Her limbs beneath her clothes were iodine-yellow and her veins bulged through the skin of her forearms. She lay down on one of the beds in her underwear and pulled the coverlet over her. ‘Do you know something? I was thinking just this afternoon: I’ve slept with more men in the past six months than in the whole of the rest of my life.’ She closed her eyes.
Miss Treadway & the Field of Stars Page 28
