‘Which one hit Mother?’
She was even vaguer about that, her voice lower. ‘I don’t think any of them did. I think she fell.’
The voices echoed in the room. It was a fat little policeman, without uniform, who was doing the fingerprinting. He had taken to making his reports to Robert, obviously sensing a natural leader, Andrew thought ironically. What a clean house this was, the fat one remarked now; very few sets of prints, and probably none from the burglars.
‘Of course it’s clean,’ Isabel volunteered. ‘I’ve cleaned it top to bottom.’ She looked at Robert, a hint of mockery in a voice that was otherwise toneless. ‘That’s what I do all day.’
Your prints, said the man, chattily, Mrs Burley’s, of course, and those of a third party. All prevalent in most rooms; all three in Mrs Burley’s bedroom. Would the third party be the gentleman called George whom all of them had mentioned?
‘George?’ Robert demanded. ‘George? He walks the dog. What would his prints be doing in her bedroom?’
‘A word about George,’ Doc Reilly began, apologetically. Needs must, he supposed, hardly a breach of confidence, and hardly any choice either, other than to communicate to his inspector friend in the corner what little he knew about George. The inspector, thin and sallow, stood apart from them all, listening.
‘He could only have gone into her bedroom to pry,’ Robert burst out, desperate to cast blame. ‘And where is he now? Hours late.’
‘I need this man George to get his prints for elimination,’ the fat man said, fussily. ‘Where is he?’
‘And I need tea,’ said Doc Reilly, irritated beyond his belief.
On cue with that observation, George appeared on the threshold, flanked by that damned dog. He seemed to have shrunk and he looked on the verge of tears, regarding the emptiness with dismay.
‘Hallo,’ he said, eyes on Serena. The rest of them need not have existed.
She crowed with delight. ‘George, darling!’
‘She’s OK, George,’ Isabel said sharply. ‘She’s probably the only one who is.’
He shook his head from side to side, the only part of him he seemed able to move, confused and slow.
‘You’ll be needing some more coal for that fire,’ he remarked finally. They all seemed to expect him to say something: it was the best he could do.
The shadowy, thin policeman stepped forward. ‘George Craske, is it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And what do you know about all of this, George?’
‘All what?’
‘Twenty thousand quid’s worth of burglary is what, what did you think I meant?’ The voice seemed to gloat.
‘Leave him alone,’ said Isabel.
George shrank further. It seemed to Isabel, from the outside, as if the fat and thin officers closed ranks on George, ready to surround him, with Robert on the flank waiting to move in and kick. There was fear in his eyes, along with unshed tears. It would be like this watching a gang forming, she thought. Assessing their chances, lowering, ready to charge.
‘Not exactly new to you is it?’ the thin one said unpleasantly ‘Got form, haven’t you, George? One for rape, three or four for theft from an employer. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Robert shouted. ‘And you’ve been in my mother’s bedroom. Christ almighty, Isabel, did you know about this?’
She shook her head, oddly unsurprised by the information, which did not seem to her to be of the greatest relevance. They had all known there was something odd about George: why be amazed now? She shook herself, desperately trying to gather energy for something that was more important than her own fuzzy exhaustion.
‘Look,’ she said levelly, ‘I can tell you one thing for sure. George would never have anything to do with this, never in a million years.’ The earnestness of her announcement created a momentary pause. She was surprised to find such certainty, such animation in herself.
George moved slowly and knelt by Serena’s chair. The isolation of it in a room otherwise unfurnished added to her air of a royal presence, with him the courtier.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Burley?’
She nodded, emphatically.
‘Are you sure now? Who hit you? Did they hit you?’
She looked at him with adoration. Touched her own forehead, and then touched his brow, as if the action of so doing would transfer the contusion from her own to his and it was an injury he would willingly accept. It was a little like a blessing. The sight of the contact made Robert squirm. Doc Reilly coughed. The thin policeman did not care for it either.
‘Who do you mean “they”, George? Do we know how many you mean by “they”? I mean, how many you showed around in the first place? Your friends, she said they were. From the first time. She can’t say much else, can she? Which you must have known, if anyone did, I suppose. She can’t say what your friends looked like either. Very useful.’
It was a quiet, taunting voice, grating on the ears, each word a fresh graze. Robert came closer, swearing under his breath, ready to pull George away from the vicinity of the regal chair. It was too much for George. He punched him in the soft part of the gut and, in the same moment, all the men were on him in a pack. It was a decorous and swift manhandling, as if rehearsed in deference to the women. No further blows struck, simply a restraint against which George struggled briefly before he stopped and stood limply, with his hands pinned behind him. He allowed himself to be patted down by the fat copper, who seemed to be out of breath, jerky with excitement. Those precise, rather feminine hands, which seemed designed for powder, prints and other unpleasant minutiae of life, found the dictaphone. That was all there was. He held it to his ear, shook it, turned it over, and then depressed the switch. They all listened to the sound of George’s voice, speaking uncertainly at first, then louder, repeating himself over and over.
‘I didn’t do it,’ said the voice. ‘I didn’t do it.’
Silence fell upon them like a stone into water, the ripples going wide.
Serena’s harsh shout of laughter jarred. ‘Lovely, George,’ she cried. ‘How clever you are! You clever, clever thing! Just what I need!’ Then, in a lower, more confidential voice, ‘I liked your friends, George. When are they coming back?’
‘Give it to her,’ George muttered. ‘It’s hers.’
The thin one almost purred with satisfaction, dying to state the obvious. ‘If you didn’t know about this burglary till you got here this afternoon, Mr Craske, how did you know you didn’t do it?’ He nodded at Robert. ‘We’ll take him with us, sir.’ He spoke like a man offering to remove the rubbish.
‘Stop it!’ Isabel shouted. ‘Stop it now! Listen to me, this is crap.’ She moved to put her hand on George’s shoulder. ‘George would never be involved … You can’t possibly believe a word she says. Friends? What friends?’
It was the first time she had ever touched him. Beneath the sweater his skin was boiling hot, his eyes, for once meeting hers in a way he normally avoided, looked at her as if he had never seen her before.
‘George,’ she began, shaking him. George, she wanted to say, I don’t like you, but I know you better than them.
Robert elbowed her aside.
‘Do you know something, Miss Isabel?’ George said over his shoulder. ‘She always seems to hurt herself with you around, and she never did before. At least you haven’t bitten her. Yet.’
No one heard but Isabel. A blush covered her face from chin to scalp, her mouth opened and closed in a resurgence of her so far suppressed shock, and, in that moment, she lost all pity for him. The pity was for herself.
He was ushered away. A slow shuffle beyond the door, the procession continuing down the corridor, three bodies in reluctant embrace.
‘See you tomorrow!’ Isabel yelled.
Another door slammed.
Serena struggled to her feet, sat back. She began to cry. A low pitched, keening noise at first, which rose into a howl of despair. Isabel could not bring hersel
f to touch her. It was Andrew who hugged her and tried in vain to stem the flow. Isabel watched them with complete detachment.
Then, choosing the moment, the lights went out.
The sobbing died and Serena gazed at the light of the fire as if it were a new discovery. Then turned her gaze to the dying light outside. ‘Electricity,’ she said. ‘Must pay it.’
The winter of this discontent was depressing. A different, shivering kind of darkness by ten at night. The light of a summer evening seemed remote.
‘Do me a favour, boy. Stay awhile.’
It was not like John Cornell to plead. He made it sound so gruff that the request seemed not really to matter, but it was still a plea.
‘What’s the matter, Pop? Feeling my age?’
‘I’m not as old as that Serena Burley. She must have had her kids late on, mustn’t she? Not good for a woman, that. They’ve got too independent by then. Start young, that’s the answer.’
Andrew smiled. To be honest, the cluttered comfort of his father’s small living room was welcome relief. Being concerned for Isabel, which he was, did not make any difference to the fact he had been glad to get out of the house and leave her with her brother. He had been rather too helpful, he gathered, becoming de trop in the face of blood being thicker than water; found himself dismissed. A sense of loneliness had driven him to his father’s and he was more than content to stay. At least this old boy had a tongue in his head and was not a hypocrite. Andrew found himself driven into approval of his dad by the sheer effect of contrast with another man. He poured them both generous measures of whisky.
‘If I drink this and then another, which is what I feel like doing,’ he said, ‘I might have to stay the night.’
That’d be nice,’ his father said.
They sipped companionably.
‘Pity about what happened up there,’ John said. ‘I should have liked the chance to buy that furniture. Sometime, when no one else had any further use for it.’
‘I know. So would I. I feel personally insulted by someone stealing stuff and then wasting it. Don’t worry, Dad. I know you wouldn’t have jumped the gun.’
John grunted, obscurely pleased. ‘You know who chose most of it, don’t you?’ he said. ‘It wasn’t Serena who had the eye for a bargain in the seventies. It was her sister, the lovely Mabel. She was the one with the eye, and never did seem to resent the fact that she was buying the stuff for her richer, well married sister. Well, anyway, she and her brother-in-law, they were the ones with taste. He found stuff wherever he was, but Mab had a gift for knowing what was good. Plain as a pikestaff, clever as a monkey, mad as a hatter. I had a fling with her, once.’
‘Did you?’ Andrew was amused. He restrained his avid curiosity. Despite the mellow mood, Papa was quite capable of refusing to tell a story just to keep him in suspense. ‘What was she like?’
‘Straight up the wicket when it came to sex, but quite impossibly possessive. Seething cauldron, that woman. When I told her it was no go she wrote me a filthy letter.’
‘Significant letter writers, these women?’ Andrew remarked drily.
‘The habits of childhood,’ his father said. ‘We all wrote letters. Telephones never quite became second nature. What’s going to happen up at that house?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Alzheimer’s,’ his father said dreamily. ‘We used to call it senility. Your grandmother had it, did I tell you? In the days when there was no question of sending anyone away. Probably poisoned my attitude to women. Made me guilty as hell when you stayed put to look after me. You know what it does? It makes the person who’s got it an absolute monster. Not a sweet little old thing, except in appearance, but a bundle of harm. Completely selfish. Completely irresponsible and quite incapable of love. If I ever get like that, boy, do us both a favour and shoot me. I’m not a good man, but I don’t want to be as bad as that. Not without enjoying it.’
He paused, extended his glass for a refill, chuckled grimly. ‘Old granny wrecked us. You’ll have heard tales of sweet eccentricity. Not tales of a wilful bitch who used the last remnants of her brain to manipulate. Fixed on survival. No one mattered.’
‘That bad?’ said Andrew, lightly.
‘Oh yes, make no mistake about it. It’s the form of insanity that drives other people mad. It’ll do that to your Isabel.’
‘She’s not my Isabel. She’s her brother’s sister and her mother’s daughter.’
‘God help her, then. God help her brother too. He was a nice little boy once. Adored his mother, but she was never there. Mab didn’t like him much. There’s nothing so destructive as duty. I don’t want duty from you, never did.’
‘What do you want, then?’ Andrew was grinning.
John pretended to consider, also grinning. ‘You aren’t that bad a business partner, I suppose. Otherwise, a bit of grudging admiration would do. The mutual kind.’
Andrew nodded, as if sealing a deal. They were going to get drunk. His father got up and went in search of cheese and biscuits. A long time since lunch.
‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Something I forgot to tell you. That little runt Derek, the one you never liked. Doc tells me he lives at the same address as that George you both told me about. Handy, isn’t it?’
‘Shit,’ said Andrew.
It reminded him of something else. In his pocket, was a pencil torch he had found in the Burleys’ backyard.
How fickle you are, you dreadful old bitch, Isabel thought, and how nice it is to indulge the disgust. There she sat, head of the table, Serena the queen, face decorated by a crazy black eye about which her daughter could not even feel shame. Laughing as Robert cut up her fish and encouraged her to feed scraps to the dog. And there she was, regardless of the betrayal of her lovely friend George, lapping up the attention Robert saw fit to give her. She did not even notice that he was acting like a politician, paying exaggerated tribute to someone’s very important baby.
Isabel detested sitting in the kitchen. She congratulated herself on the amazing job she was doing in blotting out what had happened in it. The effort was debilitating, but survival depended on making it.
‘Nice,’ Serena was saying. ‘Very nice, but too hot.’
‘Blow on it, then.’
‘She can be very sweet? can’t she?’ Robert said. Oh God, when could he go home?
Isabel could see his mind whirring, evading conclusions. He had regaled Isabel with recent experiences of typical old folks’ homes, working himself into a lather. It was still out of the question, wasn’t it, he pleaded? Look at her now, happy as a sandboy, and what a shame it would be to deliver all that insurance money over to the state. She felt monstrously tired, almost beyond fatigue and into a light-headed state in which the only thing that would weight her to earth was the effort of pretence and the food she did not want to eat.
‘We’ve got to decide what to do,’ Robert stated portentously.
‘There isn’t much to decide, is there? Apart from the fact that you’ll go home tomorrow. You must. All your responsibilities.’ The irony was lost on him.
‘Yes, but we’ll have to get someone in to help. Stay overnight. The police think these men might come back. That’s quite common, I gather.’
‘Robert, exactly who do you think would be prepared to stay overnight in a deserted old barn like this? Nurses from a nursing agency? Then we would have two and a half women guarding the place as opposed to one and a half.’
‘I take it you’re prepared to go on? With a better security system, of course. Good girl!’ He could scarcely keep the relief from spreading into his voice like sugar dissolving in tea.
That was not quite what she had said, but she could not think coherently. She could only think of sleep; not having to move or make any decisions whatever. The lethargy would have made her agreeable to suicide; she was aware of it and powerless. Words happened of their own accord.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘The worst has happened already. It can only get bette
r. Besides,’ she added, without looking at her mother, ‘we probably deserve one another.’
Robert had been good at practicalities. Such as getting the lights turned back on by dint of a combination of telephonic persuasion and cash. He had also sorted out the post. Got Serena to sign her cheques like a lamb. So useful to have a man round the place.
Robert had a dim memory of bedrooms in boarding schools, a memory he resented. The one allocated to him here was scarcely different. Cold sheets, so chilly he remained curled for half an hour, gradually easing his toes further and further down until he lay almost straight. Thinking of his daughter. George in his mother’s room, no, not thinking about that. Fretting his head with thoughts of money and rage at burglars, not quite as keen on the desperation of the underprivileged as he might have been. Wondering if Isabel was having an affair with that Andrew Cornell bloke and that was why she was so biddable. Could be the answer to a lot of problems if they got together. And then, a man who dealt in antiques, now was that coincidence or not? Surely it was; his sister was not clever enough to conspire.
Somewhere way beyond the middle of the night he decided it was perfectly proper for a real man such as himself to have a real hot-water bottle. Fuzzy from the half sleep which is all that was possible with icy-cold feet, he fumbled downstairs. Poor Isabel, he thought for the first time, she must have done this. Halfway down he paused, wondering what it must have been like to hear ghostly music in the distance.
He saw her at the bottom of the stairs. His mother, standing by the front door, wearing all her night apparel and a pair of white gloves. Her pose was ambiguous; she could have been beckoning someone in or waving them away.
She drooped in disappointment, like a sad flower. Such a nice party. He regarded her with longing, then with despair. Thought of all the times when he had been favourite, and she loved him with such intensity and then left him to those playground boys. He could not bear to watch. He backed away, lay in bed listening for her until he slept and, with the advent of morning, told himself that he, too, had been dreaming.
Let's Dance Page 17
