Circles of Fate

by Anne Saunders

  Cathy received this criticism of her former employer with a frown, but said amicably enough: “All right, you lied that night. Why?”

  “Isn’t that obvious. You saw Claude Perryman. Could you have told him, or any other newly bereaved man for that matter, that his wife was leaving him? That she was returning only because she thought she owed him a face-to-face explanation, that it was less harsh than reading it in a letter?”

  “Put like that, no, I couldn’t. But did you have to lie quite so excessively?”

  “Claude has a way with him. He draws you. I looked at him and I had to say all those things. He was a little boy begging sugar and I couldn’t deny him. But you know how it is.”

  “I know,” said Cathy, looking bleak.

  “Afterwards I regretted it.”

  “Afterwards? You mean now?”

  “No, then. He went greedy and mean. Yes, I’m remembering it all quite clearly now. He asked me about the jewellery. Then he started making up to me.”

  “Making up to you?”

  “Yes, under cover of that tragic widower act, he was making a pass. He told me that I fascinated him and hinted that we might, very discreetly, get together.”

  Cathy had been quietly sipping her gin and orange. She replaced her glass on the low coffee table with such force that the contents slopped over the sides and the glass sat in its own damp ring. Her face was very white.

  “That’s too much. I’ve known Claude Perryman for some time and he’s treated me, and every other woman within striking distance, with nothing but respect. The joke is, you almost had me believing your twisted little tale until you called Claude a womaniser.”

  “It’s not a twisted tale,” insisted Anita stubbornly. “It’s the truth.”

  “Then prove it,” said Cathy on a jarring note.

  “How can I?” – helplessly. “But wait a minute, perhaps I can. She did tell someone else.”

  Cathy’s: “Oh, yes?” was both sceptical and derisive, and although the colour was beginning to creep back in her cheeks her eyes blazed with enough anger to make Anita feel uncomfortable.

  “She told her sister. I distinctly remember Monica telling me that it was her sister who persuaded her to come back and face Claude and not take the coward’s way out. Oh, Cathy.” She stopped treading warily and her tone was one of extreme supplication. “I don’t ask you to believe me, but help me if you can. Do you by any chance know where Monica’s sister lives?”

  “Monica once told me, but I don’t remember. I’m not one to clutter my mind with unimportant details.” Catching sight of Anita’s eyes, and lowering her own before their humble entreaty, she amended that to: “Well, it seemed unimportant at the time.”

  “Think ... Cathy, think.”

  “Up North, definitely. She could have got an earlier flight, landing at Luton. But she said ... I think I’ve got it ... Chanley or Chamley was less than half an hour’s drive from Manchester airport.”

  “Cathy, I love you,” claimed Anita ecstatically. “Dear, kind, sweet, disbelieving Cathy, come with me to Chanley or Chamley or wherever it is.”

  “You must be crazy.”

  “Yes, I must be,” she wheedled. “Surely your conscience wouldn’t allow me to go alone.”

  As though it was settled, Anita unearthed a map and began to study the area round Manchester. She couldn’t find a Chanley or a Chamley, but she found a Chedley.

  “Could be,” said Cathy, then resignedly: “All right, when do you want to go?”

  “I want to go tomorrow, but Miss Standish, she’s the Head, would strongly disapprove. Better make it Saturday and keep my job. Can you drive?”

  “Yes. Do you have a car?”

  “No.” A pause. “Edward has.”

  “Look, you’ve enlisted my help in this wild goose chase, but Edward has far too much common sense.”

  “Not Edward. Just his car. You could talk nicely to him, Cathy.”

  It was much later before she realized she had told the secret she had pledged never to tell. She was sad about this, but had she really had a choice?

  TEN

  Saturday came. As they drove along, Anita said: “It was nice of Edward to lend us his car.”

  The sun had popped out at about eight o’clock, and had gone back in at half past. Now it was raining and had been for the past hour. The countryside looked uninspiring under its blanket of grey drizzle, and the steady flick of the windscreen wipers was beginning to give Anita a headache.

  “Have you thought what we should do when we get there?” asked Cathy.

  “Nope.”

  “Considering that we don’t even know the sister’s name,” she pressed, “what we’re hoping to achieve is pretty optimistic.”

  “I’m hoping Chedley turns out to be a village with a gossipy post-mistress who knows everyone’s business. There can’t be many people who’ve had a sister visit them from overseas, who has since died and whose husband is an exporter.”

  “All right, so we find her. What are we – correction – what are you going to say? I know Monica Perryman left her jewellery with you?”

  “M’m. Tricky, isn’t it?”

  Fifteen minutes later Cathy said: “We’re here.”

  Anita, who had been dozing off, sat up and took notice.

  “It is a village, or near enough.” Relief coloured her voice.

  As Anita had anticipated, Monica’s sister wasn’t difficult to locate. The post-office was closed for lunch, but they found a greengrocer’s shop open further down the road and made enquiries of the apple-cheeked assistant, who was happy to oblige. Monica’s sister was called Freda Thompson and she lived in the third cottage along the track leading to the river.

  “Better park your car and walk,” they were advised. “The man from the insurance firm got his car bogged down and Jim Myers, from the farm, had to bring his tractor to get him out.”

  Cathy and Anita exchanged glances, but said nothing. And yet, thought Anita, they couldn’t have hoped to be first. It shook her resolution, but only temporarily. Her thoughts had only to swing to Felipe to get a stiff injection.

  The approach road to the cottage was appalling. As Anita picked her way over the ruts, her opinion of Keith Gifford took a dive. He must have been crazy to attempt this road in his car.

  Then she concentrated her thoughts on Monica’s sister, Freda Thompson. The fishing tackle propped against the wall reminded her that there was also a Mr Thompson.

  She knocked three times before the door was opened. She expected to be greeted by an older, slightly more worn edition of Monica Perryman. It was not so. Pale grey eyes stared at her above prominent cheekbones. The heavy mouth was cautious and unfriendly. In that respect she was like Monica. Her manner had been just as crushing as her sister’s at first. Controlling the impatience in her voice, she said:

  “I’m Anita Hurst and this is my friend, Cathy Gray. We knew your sister.”

  “You’d better come in,” said Freda Thompson, widening the door grudgingly. “I’d be obliged if you’d keep your voices down, my husband is sick.”

  “I’m sorry,” they both murmured in unison.

  “That’s all right. He’s always sick. If it isn’t one thing it’s another. Delicate constitution, you know.”

  The room was big and comfortless. Anita remembered Monica telling her that her sister’s husband had fought ill-health all his life and had not been able to provide much in the way of material advantages.

  “It can’t have been easy for you,” she said. It sounded lame, not the sort of thing you said to a stranger. It built up aggression. Freda Thompson had stated a fact, she had not been soliciting sympathy.

  “You’d like to sit down, perhaps?”

  They sat, accepting the invitation that wasn’t, and was only put because her years of countrywoman’s hospitality reared higher than her new-found hostility. This wasn’t the sister that Monica had spoken of so lovingly, not this intense, trapped creature.

 
“You’d like some tea?” she asked, but again her tone lacked enthusiasm and both girls declined.

  There followed a tense silence, during which Anita toyed with various methods of approach. Brave and direct, she thought.

  “Did your sister and Claude Perryman have a happy marriage?”

  A wary look crept into the pale grey eyes. Anita had the funny impression that it wasn’t the last question she expected to be pitched at her.

  “Why shouldn’t they have been happy? With his money.”

  “Money doesn’t buy happiness, Mrs Thompson.” There was an unintended admonishment in Anita’s voice. She was going wrong somewhere, missing her cues, tangling her lines.

  “They were happy,” announced Freda Thompson defiantly.

  “That’s all I wanted to know,” said Anita, rising to her feet.

  She wondered how the woman’s curiosity could let her go without asking why she had wanted to know that. Her fear of trespassing beyond a certain point must be stronger than her curiosity, she decided.

  They didn’t speak until they were back in the car and then Cathy said :

  “So you’ve drawn a blank.”

  Anita couldn’t stop her eyes going incredulous. “Do you think so?”

  For reply Cathy said: “You’d better tell me what you made of her.”

  “It’s not what I’ve made of her,” answered Anita delicately, because short of saying the woman was a liar and a thief, how could she put it? “But circumstances.”

  “Yes, poor woman,” sympathized Cathy, on the wrong track altogether, “we can’t have seen her at her best. Death at close quarters is frightening. And her sister’s death was more tragic than most. One second Monica had a healthy expectancy of life and the next – Wham! On top of that the poor soul has to contend with a sick husband.”

  “You think that’s what made her nervy and frightened?”

  “Honey,” said Cathy, aghast, “what are you thinking?”

  “I think Monica gave her the jewellery to keep for her. I think that when she received news of her sister’s death she probably got a garbled account, so that she thought Monica’s body was on the plane when it blew up. When planes blow up, usually there isn’t much left to tell the tale. Sometimes things can’t ever be found. Bearing that in mind, she kept quiet about the jewellery, thinking that later she might be able to sell pieces, at discreet intervals, and provide some of the home comforts she has never had. Perhaps that’s what Monica had in mind. She could have been planning to live with them and she’d want better than Freda Thompson’s got. In a way Freda might think she’s carrying out her dead sister’s wishes. When the insurance man came nosing around, I don’t doubt that she regretted her decision, but so much time had elapsed that she couldn’t, in honesty, produce the stuff at that late date.” She paused to see how Cathy was reacting. Cathy wasn’t completely won over, but she was yielding.

  “Stop making things fit. She was distraught and uncommunicative, but there is an explanation. Her husband is sick in bed.”

  “So sick,” countered Anita, “that he’d just come in from fishing. His gear was propped outside and his waders were by the door where he’d kicked them off, with a ring of damp mud round the toes.”

  “Perhaps Mrs Thompson likes to fish.”

  “Those waders were size enormous.”

  “She is a heavy-boned woman.”

  “With disproportionately small feet. I made a special point of looking.”

  “You think her husband had nipped upstairs to hide? But why?”

  “Because he’s even more frightened than his wife. I bet, at this moment, he’s tipping the stuff in the river, if he didn’t do so after the insurance man’s visit.”

  “So I was right in the first place. You’ve drawn a blank.”

  “Yes,” admitted Anita, “I’ve drawn a blank. Even if I’d proof, I couldn’t tell anyone. I’m glad of one thing though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Claude’s housekeeper is bound to have told the insurance people how happily married they were and, with a bit of luck, she might have repeated what I said about Monica being as excited as a child at the prospect of being reunited with Claude. There won’t have been a whiff of anything to make anyone suspect that Monica was leaving him. So no one will have an inkling that the Thompsons have had possession of the missing property. If they can keep their mouths shut, they’re safe.”

  “I don’t even begin to understand you,” gaped Cathy.

  “I liked Monica Perryman. I feel sorry for her sister and husband. I couldn’t hurt them.”

  “But what about Felipe? If they’re guilty, then he’s innocent. You can’t keep quiet and let him take the blame.”

  Anita blew on her fingers as if it was just too hot to handle, and smiled grimly at Cathy’s complete reversal. “It’s a difficult situation,” she admitted.

  She was no nearer to a solution by the time they returned the car to Edward. They’d had to confide in him, of course.

  Cathy’s thumbs hooked down, indicating mission unsuccessful.

  “Hungry?” he enquired.

  “Not very. We stopped for a meal on the way back,” said Anita.

  Cathy, whose understanding antenna was fully extended where Edward was concerned, said quickly: “But that was hours ago. I’m famished.”

  “I bought some plaice, especially,” said Edward, looking gratified.

  It was pleasant to watch the sensitive reactions of two people in love, thought Anita. For Edward, Cathy’s sharp wit was allied to tenderness. Edward was strong and protective. At the heart of her thoughts was her own ache and loneliness. It was impossible to see their happiness and not think about Felipe. All the thoughts she had hoped were forgotten came bubbling to the surface, her love, the longing that was an exquisite pain of remembered intimacies; and up came a new thought, a tender, unexplored idea that was still in chrysalis form.

  Edward was frying the fish. Cathy was laying the table. A few crumbs of bread had spilt on the floor. She stared at them, as though they would feed and facilitate her idea. She prepared answers for the questions Edward would put. When they were neat and ready in her mind she announced her decision.

  “I’m packing in my job. I’m giving up the flat. I’m going back.”

  “Back?”

  “To Leyenda.”

  “To that Spaniard fellow?” – that was Edward.

  “If he’ll have me. He might think I’ve done him enough harm already.”

  “You?” said Cathy.

  “I’m at the root of all his troubles. He waited with me when I hurt my ankle instead of going with Rock Bennett. Pilar didn’t think of buying the house until she saw me, so I’m responsible for the large sum of money coming to light which he can’t, or won’t, explain. It won’t occur to anyone that Monica might have left her jewellery behind in someone’s safe-keeping, because I shouted my mouth off about how pleased she was to be coming back. And if that isn’t enough, I didn’t even have the foresight to alibi Felipe at the time of the crash. I handed him to the insurance man on a plate.”

  “I think you’re being a bit rough on yourself,” said Cathy.

  “You must be out of your mind,” said Edward. “He’s not like you at all, Anita. He’s uncouth, he must be. He’s a bullfighter. With dicey morals, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  Even as she marshalled her reply, it was Cathy who sprang to his defence. A Cathy who was stricken, white and exasperated, stirred to uncontrollable depths of fury.

  “Shut up,” she said. “I can’t stand that overbearing attitude. Can you love a person less because they haven’t always been virtuous?”

  “Steady,” cautioned Anita, touching Cathy’s arm.

  “It’s too late,” said Cathy. “It’s out now. I might as well tell Edward. If I don’t he’ll always wonder what I meant.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything,” said Edward. “You know?”

  “I know we are neither of us children. I�
��m not asking to share your past, only your future.”

  Cathy’s eyes were a bright burn of tears. She didn’t say anything.

  Anita said, to remind them that she was still there as much as anything: “That was a nice thing to say, Edward. Forgive me for thinking you were old and stuffy in your ideas.”

  “I still think you are out of your mind,” he said. “But good luck all the same. Are you all right for money?”

  “I’ve got the house-purchase money, remember? I can dip into that.”

  “Of course. Considering, that was a stupid thing to forget. Do one thing for me. Don’t burn all your boats. I suppose you will have to quit your job. No question of Miss Standish keeping it open for you?”

  “Miss Standish will be furious with me for leaving her in the lurch. She certainly won’t go out of her way to do me any such favour.”

  “No, I suppose not. But don’t dispose of your flat and furniture, not just yet. If things work out for you, drop me a line and I’ll sell your things for you.” Something suspiciously like a twinkle came to his eye. “I think you can trust me to hold out for a good price.”

  “Talking of burning boats,” said Cathy, pushing an impudent face between them.

  An unmistakable odour was issuing from the cooker, together with a blue smoke haze.

  “My fish!” shouted an aggrieved Edward.

  ELEVEN

  Three weeks passed before Anita could get away. Three weeks of darkening skies, sporadic rain and even briefer intervals of pale winter sunshine. Cathy lamented that she would not be here for Christmas and for her wedding which was scheduled to take place in the New Year.

  Anita tried to look suitably downcast, but it was difficult when her thoughts were riding a high plane of ecstasy. She really had tried to relegate Felipe to her past, but it had proved as impossible as making smoke curl down a chimney. Completely disregarding Edward’s cautious advice to write first, she was going to arrive unheralded so that she could see the delight curl up his mouth, the left side first, to obliterate his surprise.

  It was strange to be going back. Already the first journey had faded from the sharp forefront of memory and it was like retracing the steps of a dream.