Rosie Meadows Regrets...

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Oh, we have, Rosie.’

  ‘And?’

  She paused before delivering her trump card. ‘And he admits to having had an affair with you.’

  I stared. After a long moment I sank back in my chair, aghast. ‘He admits to … no, he can’t have done! It’s absurd, you’re lying, it’s simply not true, ask anyone!’

  ‘We have. The staff at Sainsbury’s confirm that he made a bee-line for you, your neighbour has seen him enter your house, and friends of his confirm that the two of you were something of an item.’

  I gazed at her, almost unseeing. ‘Where is he?’ I whispered at last. ‘Let me see him. Let me speak to him. You’ll see then, you’ll see by his reaction that it’s not true!’ My hair was pricking my head, I was terrified.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. Not only is it illegal for suspects to corroborate evidence, but since Mr McWerther is currently being detained by us in conjunction with another matter, he is, as such, unavailable for comment.’

  When I’d interpreted this spiel of police jargon, I stuttered, ‘You mean you’ve arrested him? What for?’

  ‘Rosie, I’m going to ask you again. Were you, or were you not, having an affair with Timothy McWerther?’

  ‘Not!’ I rasped loudly. ‘I was not!’

  ‘I put it to you that you were, and that the two of you collaborated to kill Mr Meadows on the assumption of collecting the inheritance due to him from his uncle, Sir Bertram Meadows.’

  I blinked. ‘Good God. That’s absurd!’

  ‘Is it?’ Her smile was thin, disingenuous. Then quick as a flash it disappeared. She raised her chin, challengingly, waiting.

  My mouth opened but I seemed to have neither wind nor words to draw on. I sat, immobilized, gazing at her stupefied as she calmly looked back. Finally I found my voice. ‘L-look,’ I stuttered. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m not saying any more. I want a lawyer.’

  She nodded. ‘And I fully advise you to get one. Personally, I think you’re going to need one. I’m therefore terminating this interview with Mrs Meadows at,’ she shot her watch out of her sleeve, ‘nine twenty-one precisely.’ She snapped the tapes out, pocketed one, gave me the other, then stood up and tucked her papers under her arm. I looked up at her.

  ‘Wh-where are you taking me? Where am I going?’

  ‘Home, I imagine.’

  I swallowed. ‘B-but … you said …’

  ‘We’re not charging you. Not yet anyway. There are one or two details to fine tune yet, but rest assured, Rosie, we shall be meeting again. In fact, it’s only a matter of time before we’ll be seeing a great deal of one another. Good day.’

  And with that, she swept out of the room.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Needless to say, I didn’t exchange much merry banter with the policeman who drove me home that morning. In fact it was as much as I could do to keep myself from throwing up in the back of his car. As we drove into Farlings I directed him, in a halting whisper, past the main house and then down to the cottage. I didn’t even recognize my own voice. As we came to a stop outside, he looked at me in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘You all right, luv?’ His brown eyes were kindly, concerned. He must have been about my father’s age, probably coming up for retirement.

  I nodded but did not trust myself to speak. I fumbled for the door handle and got out. I shut the car door and stumbled up the path, knowing he was watching me. He waited until I’d let myself in, then as I leaned back heavily against the front door, I heard the car purr slowly up the drive. I shut my eyes for a moment, feeling the blood rush to my head. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. As I opened my eyes, they lit upon the gin bottle on the sideboard on the other side of the room. I stumbled across, fell on it, and with a hand that shook so much I had to pause for a moment to regard it with awe, poured myself a giant slugful. Recklessly I knocked it back. My nose wrinkled in disgust. God, it was vile, like taking medicine, but I was determined to numb the pain instantly without the namby-pamby diluting effect of tonic. I took another gulp, and this time it didn’t seem quite so putrid. Clutching the glass possessively, I turned, and nearly made it to the sofa, but my knees gave way just short of it and I sank to the rug in front of the fire in a heap. Still in my coat, I put my head in my hands and had a bloody good cry.

  After a few minutes I blew my nose, wiped my eyes and finished off the gin. There. That should start to reach the vital organs soon enough. I sniffed hard and stared at the old Turkish rug I was sitting on. It was so worn in places that the brown threads underneath were laid bare. Oh yes, threadbare. How strange that I should suddenly see the point of that word at a moment like this. I stared bleakly at it. Oh God, what was I going to do? Was this really happening to me? Had I really just been interrogated, intimidated, accused of – Jesus – of murder? And not just any old murder but pre-meditated, plotting and scheming Machiavellian sort of murder, in cahoots with a toy boy sort of murder, my lover supposedly, some flipping shop boy of about nineteen and – oh hell, it was no good, I needed another slug of that gin and then I needed to talk to someone, I needed to talk to someone right now.

  I knew in an instant I yearned for Joss. I longed to hear his irritated, authoritative voice say oh, don’t be ridiculous, Rosie. If you didn’t do it then that’s the end of it, it’s as simple as that. They can’t make you confess for God’s sake, the whole thing’s utterly absurd – or some such other, similarly dismissive riposte. But of course talking to Joss was out of the question. In the first place he was probably still on a plane, and in the second place, even if he wasn’t, I was pretty sure Annabel had joined him at the airport and if she answered the phone she might not be too thrilled to hear me demanding to speak to her husband regarding a little matter of a murder charge I was on, and oh, incidentally, so sorry I dropped you in it over the condoms, Annabel, do hope I haven’t wrecked your marriage.

  No, Joss was definitely out, at least until such time as he rang Farlings when I might be able to race Martha to the phone and apropos of absolutely nothing, slip into the conversation that, by the way, I’ve had a slight problem with the homicide boys over in the next county. Nothing I couldn’t handle of course, but they are attempting to reel me in, the bastards. I shivered. Homicide. Murder. Me – shit! I damn nearly did, but instead I leapt up and grabbed the phone. I sank to the floor with it and stared at the dial. Who then? Philly? No, not Philly, she’d worry herself into anorexia in seconds and she’d also be pathologically incapable of keeping it from my parents which wouldn’t do a huge amount for Daddy’s angina and would have Mummy committing hara-kiri on the spot. ‘You’ll go to jail!’ she’d shriek. ‘Oh God, what will the Burdetts say!’ And with that she’d seize the pearl-handled cake knife and plunge it into her breast, falling headlong into the pavlova she’d just lovingly assembled. No, it had to be Alice. Dear, strong Alice who could always be relied upon to keep her head in a crisis. I punched out her number and nearly dropped the phone when Michael answered. Christ, I’d forgotten about him! He recovered first.

  ‘Rosie. A happy New Year to you,’ he said with forced civility.

  In a flash I realized Alice must be listening. ‘A-and to you too, Michael,’ I croaked.

  ‘I take it you want my wife?’

  God, he was cool. But if he could be cool so could I.

  ‘Please.’

  There was a long pause, then, ‘Rosie!’ Alice’s voice came on, happy and relaxed. ‘A very happy New Year to you, my dear. Gosh, we completely forgot to ring each other last night, didn’t we? Actually I was asleep before half past eleven I was so exhausted and the telly was such crap, wasn’t it – hang on a moment.’ She broke off and I heard her talking to the children. ‘’Bye, my darlings! Be good, give my love to Granny!’ And then she was back. ‘Michael’s taking the children to my mother’s for the day,’ she explained. ‘Giving me a break since I didn’t get to go out last night and he did.’

  ‘Ah. Yes. How
was his … party?’

  ‘Oh, pretty dull, by all accounts, although some drunken idiot managed to smash a beer glass over his head, poor darling. There was a scuffle at the bar apparently and Michael just happened to be in the way. He’s got a hell of a lump on his forehead and he’s still got a rotten headache.’

  I bet he has, I thought grimly.

  ‘Anyway, how are you?’

  ‘Well not so good actually, Alice. I’ve got a bit of a problem. You see,’ and with that I burst into a fresh flood of tears, and to the dramatic accompaniment of sobs, shrieks and pauses for nose blowing, I gave her a lurid, graphic account of the last few hours. When I’d finished, there was a horrified silence on the other end of the line.

  ‘Good God,’ she muttered faintly.

  ‘I know!’ I wailed. ‘Oh Alice, what am I going to do?’

  ‘Do nothing,’ she said firmly. ‘Just stay right there and sit tight. I’m coming down.’

  Well I literally sat and waited. I felt almost numb with shock, and I didn’t feel I could possibly do anything other than sit in a heap in my coat and stare into space. Now and again I tried to grasp the full implications of what was happening, but at the last minute my mind would scuttle away in terror and retreat to that comfortable, numb sanctuary of nothingness again. The only thing that disturbed my vigil as I waited the hour and a bit it took for Alice to come down, was the telephone ringing. I stared at it for ages, counting at least twelve rings before I finally picked it up.

  ‘Hello?’ I whispered.

  ‘You all right, Rosie?’ It was Martha.

  ‘Martha!’ I said with relief. ‘Yes I’m fine, well, sort of fine …’ I broke off, struggling with my voice.

  ‘Ah. Thought so. Bit more serious than we faught then was it? Think you bumped him off, do they?’

  ‘Yes!’ I gasped. ‘Yes, they do, isn’t it dreadful?’

  ‘Course it’s dreadful, silly sods, it’s blimmin’ ridiculous. But don’t you worry, they can’t touch you, they haven’t got a leg to stand on.’

  ‘Sadly they seem to have quite a few, but listen, Martha, would you do me a favour? D’you think you could possibly hang on to Ivo for me for a bit? It’s just – well I don’t want him to see me upset, and I am …’ I wrestled with my face muscles, ‘I am rather – at the moment.’

  ‘Course I can, he’s fine wiv me. He can stay up ’ere for the night, wiv me an’ the kids and then you can ’ave ’im back in the morning when you feel a bit better.’

  ‘Oh, Martha, would you do that? But what about your dad? What about going to the hospital?’

  ‘’E’s turned the corner,’ she breathed. ‘That’s why I was in so early today, wanted to come and tell you. It wasn’t a secondary tumour after all and they reckon ’e’s clear of the last lot! ’E’s coming home soon!’ She tried, but couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice.

  ‘Oh, Martha, that’s wonderful. Oh, I’m so pleased for you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, forget about ’im for the minute,’ she said quickly, ‘let’s just get you sorted out, eh? Blimey, you’ve done enough for me, you can leave Ivo wiv me as long as you like.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I whispered. ‘You’re a star.’

  ‘You’re all right,’ she said, returning the compliment with her own, ultimate accolade.

  When I put the phone down I found my legs had gone to sleep underneath me so I simply pulled myself up from the floor on to the sofa, like a seal slipping out of the sea on to the rocks, and curled up in the corner waiting. Finally Alice arrived. I heard the car door slam outside and then her footsteps on the path. I hurried to open the door before she knocked.

  ‘Oh Alice!’ I fell into her arms, sobbing.

  She held me for a moment, then gently but firmly disentangled me and led me back to the sofa. She sat me down and picked up the gin bottle.

  ‘I see we’ve been hitting the hard stuff already.’

  ‘Had to,’ I sniffed. ‘I might not get cocktails in jail.’

  ‘Now listen, Rosie,’ she said, shifting sideways so she could see my face. ‘I’ve been thinking about all this on the way down and the more I think about it, the more bloody ridiculous I can see that it is. You’re getting yourself in a complete state about nothing here.’

  I stared at her. Her blue eyes were shining with conviction and her red hair glowed around her head like a halo, making her look like a blazing heretic.

  ‘Am I?’ I said in surprise.

  ‘Of course you are! Listen, did they arrest you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And did they charge you?’

  ‘Well, no, but –’

  ‘So they just questioned you, right?’

  ‘Well, yes, but fairly aggressively, Alice!’

  ‘Of course, because they’re trying to put the frighteners on you! It’s a classic case of manipulation by fear, my love. They’ve got absolutely nothing on you, but because lover-boy has for some reason claimed to have had a tempestuous affair with you, they’ve put two and two together and thought, aye aye, her husband’s just died hasn’t he? Kind of convenient if she was having a ding-dong with someone else, perhaps she bumped him off. So what do they do? They bring you in, give you the once over, scare you witless, then let you stew for a bit to see if you take the bait, see if you confess.’

  ‘But what if they just pin it on me anyway? I mean the cap more or less fits doesn’t it?’

  ‘They won’t, Rosie, I promise you. Give them time and they’ll realize they’re barking up the wrong tree. In fact, I’d put money on it they know that already, just from interviewing you this morning. I’ll bet you anything you like old Steel Knickers went back to her colleagues down the corridor and said, “Uh uh, no dice, boys. She simply isn’t the type.” They can tell, you know, they get a nose for this sort of thing – it’s like me spotting a great painting in someone’s house, or you happening on a terrific new recipe. These people can sniff out a villain at twenty paces, and let me tell you, my love, that ain’t you. You’re simply not the calibre.’

  ‘Oh Alice, I wish I could believe you but you didn’t hear the dreadful things she said to me! I’m sure she thinks I’m bitter and twisted and she knows I loathed Harry, and I mean, let’s face it, ninety per cent of murders happen within the family don’t they? I read that somewhere. It’s the little things that send people over the top, like not screwing the tops on jars and forgetting to put the rubbish out, and Christ, let’s face it, I had far more reason than that to kill him, didn’t I? She was right about that, he was going to take Ivo away from me and, oh God, shall I tell you something really, really dreadful, Alice?’

  ‘What?’ she said, looking fearful for a moment.

  ‘No, I can’t,’ I said seeing her face.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, go on!’

  ‘I – I used to fantasize about him dying!’ I gasped. ‘I did, Alice, I used to imagine him walking past a conveniently loose roof tile and being decapitated, or – or being knocked down by a runaway milk float or eating a dodgy mussel or a prawn or something, getting salmonella and – oh God, that’s how he died, Alice, don’t you see?’ I wrung my hands. ‘I might actually have done it, I might have done it subconsciously!’

  ‘Don’t be such an idiot, Rosie, have you any idea how many women fantasize about their husbands dying?’

  I blinked. ‘No.’

  ‘Every other sodding one of them! God, if they locked up every woman who offered up a little prayer that the ladder might topple sideways just as hubby was cleaning out the gutters the prisons would be heaving! For heaven’s sake, Rosie, it’s perfectly natural to wish your husband was dead, but there’s a world of difference between fantasizing and actually doing the dirty deed. The trouble is, they’ve got to you now, and you’re trying to persuade yourself that you did do it which is precisely what they want! Get a grip, for heaven’s sake. You’re innocent!’

  I gazed at her. She was right, I had to keep calm. I bathed in the fierce light in her eyes, hanging
on to her conviction. Suddenly the light in them flashed to an idea. ‘What about Tim?’ she said suddenly, seizing my hand. ‘What do you know about him? Why d’you think he’s implicated you like this?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea! I don’t know anything about him!’ I wailed.

  ‘Well, for some reason he’s using you as an alibi, isn’t he? He’s claiming to have had an affair with you to help himself – and incidentally, they’ll soon find out that that’s a load of old tommy rot. She said they’d asked all his friends – well, what about asking your friends? They haven’t asked me, have they? They haven’t asked your nearest and dearest about this man-cub you’re supposed to have been trailing around on a chain for months. I’m quite sure one or two of us would have spotted him. No, Rosie. He’s using you for some reason and you’ve got to try to think why.’

  I stared at her, trying to digest all this. Then I clutched my head in despair. ‘Oh God, I think I’m going mad. I mean, I know nothing about him! What d’you think he’s done?’

  She compressed her lips. ‘I don’t know, but he’s obviously a shady character. You don’t get many stunningly good-looking ex-public schoolboys shelf-stacking in Sainsbury’s, do you? The GTC perhaps, or even Thomas Goode, but not Sainsbury’s. Perhaps it’s a front for a huge undercover operation, perhaps he’s injecting lethal bacteria into the Ambrosia creamed rice, popping Semtex in the Coco Pops, smuggling caviar out by the bucketful – God, I don’t know, the possibilities are endless!’

  ‘But what’s it all got to do with me?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely nothing. As far as he’s concerned you’re just a desperate, last-ditch attempt at some cover, but they’ll soon find out that’s all bollocks and you don’t even really know him.’ She frowned. ‘Didn’t you say you saw him recently?’

  ‘Yes, in the street, and he walked straight by.’

  ‘Hmmm … interesting.’ She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. Then she got up. ‘Oh well, never mind.’ She sighed and brushed down her skirt. ‘Now,’ She looked around purposefully, hands on hips. ‘Let’s see about getting some lunch organized, shall we? I’m starving and, God, it’s cold in here. I tell you what, you light the fire and I’ll scramble some eggs or something. I thought I’d stay, incidentally,’ she said, sailing through to the kitchen. ‘I rang Michael on the mobile and he’s going to stay at Mum’s with the children for the night. Where d’you keep your eggs, in here?’ She peered in the fridge.