Creeping Ivy (8 page)

‘Thank you, Mr Weblock,’ she said when they were alone again. ‘I have to say that I agree with you.’

‘Good. Will you tell me when the child’s found? I can’t rely on

Antonia to keep me informed.’

‘OK, if I can. But I expect you’ll hear it on the radio before I can get to you. Goodbye.’

Sam Herrick was already in the driving seat of the car by the time Kath reached it.

‘Well?’ she said as she buckled her seat belt, aware that Ben Weblock was standing in the open doorway, looking down the steps at them. ‘What did you find in the house, Sam?’

‘Sod all, Sarge. No sign of any kids’ things anywhere except for some paintings tacked up on the kitchen walls. It was a right mess upstairs, I can tell you. Women’s clothes draped over all the chairs in the bedroom; clean, but they didn’t look as if they’d ever seen an iron. Piles of towels and sheets, too, mixed in with them. Doesn’t look as though his second woman is much of a housewife.’

Kath suppressed the obvious comment in the interests of getting the information she needed as quickly as possible.

‘Nothing in the cellar neither, nor signs of digging in the garden. That was just as bad as the house: bit of ratty grass in the middle, unpruned roses with blackspot gone all leggy in the flower beds and all sorts of dead shrubs, too. My old man would turn in his grave. No one’s dug any earth there in years. And the fence needed treating. It’s nearly rotted through in places; be down in the next strong wind. Couple of sluts, if you ask me. But no sign of any kid or kids.’

‘Right. We’ll have to talk to the neighbours, but not, I think, just now while he’s so aware of us. And to colleagues at his school. And the doctor. What did you think of him?’

‘Big girl’s blouse. I’m not surprised his ex fooled around.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘She was trying to get him to play the man for once, wasn’t she? Put his foot down an’ tell her that
he
wanted her and no other damned bloke was going to get his … get his hands on her.’

‘What an interesting idea!’

‘Why the sarkiness, Sarge?’

‘I thought he might be a good man,’ Kath said slowly, looking through the pristine windscreen but not seeing any of the traffic or the pedestrians. She was thinking about the worn, lined face and the kind smile, the warm voice, and the careful intelligence she had sensed in the man they had just left. ‘I’d like to have been taught by him when I was at primary school. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Not sure I can remember that long ago,’ said Sam with the realism that was his most admirable characteristic. ‘But I doubt it. He’d have been too much of a creep for me even then.’

‘I think he might be tougher than you give him credit for.’

‘Come on, Sarge. He was a jellyfish. What d’you reckon? Could he have nicked the kid?’

‘A man like that? I can’t see it, can you?’

‘Only if he’d done it to get back at his ex. Not to hurt the child; I can’t see him doing that. But I can see him putting her somewhere safe so he could watch his ex squirm.’

‘You’ve got a nasty mind, haven’t you, Sam?’

‘It’s what they pay me for.’

Chapter Six

‘What shall I do, Trish? I can’t sit here waiting – I’m not used to it. I don’t know how to let other people run things any more.’

‘You’ve got to, Antonia. The police know what they’re doing. There’ll be plenty for you to do yourself when …’ Trish paused, reluctant to offer false comfort and yet unable to make herself correct her ‘when’ to an ‘if’. ‘Later,’ she added feebly. ‘Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about Robert.’

‘What about him?’

‘How things are going with him. Whether you’re happy. That sort of thing.’

‘Why?’ Suspicion stood out all around Antonia’s head like the quills of a threatened porcupine. Trish could almost hear the rattle.

With the discovery of blood in Charlotte’s toy pram and news of the marks on her arms, it was impossible not to believe that someone in the house had been hurting her. Knowing from the statistics that Robert was a much more likely suspect than the nanny, Trish wanted to find out a lot more about him. Antonia was the only person who’d be able to tell her anything useful, but she was looking so suspicious that she would have to be approached with care.

After a moment, Trish delved into her own private weediness and said, ‘Because I’m so bad, at relationships, and I don’t understand why. I thought hearing about yours might give me a clue.’

Not all that convincing, she told herself as she waited for Antonia to answer. I know exactly why. It’s because I hate the way men make you peel back all your defences until you’ve none left and then bugger off – or else use you for target practice. Either way you end up miserable, furious, and scared of the self you’ve found below the pith.

‘I used to be able to keep an affair going for nearly a year but these days I can’t stick it for more than about three months. I look at people like you and Robert and admire you like anything and then start wondering how you do it.’

‘By not thinking too much.’ Antonia’s voice was dry but a good deal of the suspicion had gone. ‘That’s always fatal.’

‘Why? I mean, what is it you’re afraid you might find if you did start thinking about Robert?’

‘Nothing awful, so there’s no need to look so interested. I’m not a romantic like you and I’ve seen too much to believe in eternal bliss or even happy-ever-after; it’s better to concentrate on the surface and not go digging for trouble.’

I’ve seen too much, too, thought Trish, but that’s why I won’t put up with any of it any more.

‘Come on, Trish, you know as well as I do that no man ever stays as attractive – or as keen – as he was at the beginning. That’s just life. But I’d say Robert’s probably as good as they come. We still like doing the same things, and he makes me laugh,’ Antonia’s lips parted in a smile that was at least half a grimace. And he never
yearns
at me like Ben always did. That used to make me feel sick.’

‘Yes, I know. I could see that you hated it.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ Antonia demanded sharply.

‘Probably,’ Trish said, hoping that her voice was as calmly affectionate as it ought to be to excuse what she was going to say. ‘But perhaps he wouldn’t have yearned so much if he’d had more confidence in what you felt about him. He always did need a lot of bolstering, didn’t he, poor Ben? And you were a touch niggardly in handing that out.’

Antonia smiled, some of the familiar queenliness returning to her posture and her eyes. ‘You were pretty keen on him yourself, weren’t you? I used to wonder at one stage if you might be trying to cut me out.’

‘You didn’t, did you? When?’

‘Oh, ages ago,’ Antonia said vaguely.

‘You must’ve been mad. I was always fond of him, of course I was, but in a cousinly kind of way,’ said Trish, before adding more truthfully: ‘He was yours from the beginning and you know what I think about people who break up other people’s marriages.’

‘I ought to, you’ve told me often enough. Do you ever see your father these days?’

‘No,’ Trish would have talked happily about almost anything to keep Antonia from tormenting herself with pictures of what might be happening to Charlotte, but she still found it hard to discuss her father with anyone.

He had disappeared with brutal suddenness when Trish was eight. Looking back, she was amazed how well her mother had managed, refusing to panic and finding both a job and a cottage she could afford to rent on her meagre salary within a month. She had had no financial help from her husband until she eventually forced him into court five years after his desertion, but even so she had managed to give Trish nearly everything her schoolmates had. It must have been extraordinarily hard for her, and yet she had never once criticised him in Trish’s hearing. In retrospect that seemed positively saintly.

In fact, it could have been a bit too saintly. There had been times when Trish felt that a little criticism might have helped. Her father had never bothered to get in touch with her. She’d had no letters from him, no Christmas or birthday presents, no congratulations on any of her exam successes, no contact at all until she had appeared in the papers as a rising young barrister, and by then it was far too late. She was too angry to let him anywhere near her, and she was damned if he was going to take the credit for any success she might have achieved. Her mother had a right to that; but no one else.

‘Sorry,’ said Antonia, looking curiously at her. ‘I didn’t realise it was such a sore subject.’

Trish shrugged. ‘Just one I find difficult to talk about. Tell me about Robert instead.’

‘He didn’t break up my marriage to Ben, so you can stop looking so disapproving. It was that American bitch of Ben’s who wrecked it, as you very well know. I didn’t meet Robert until later.’

‘Yes, I do know,’ said Trish, keeping her thoughts about Antonia’s many affairs to herself.

‘And life is much easier with him than it ever was with Ben.’

‘Is it? Good. In what sort of ways?’

‘Oh, lots,’ said Antonia with a peculiar smile. ‘If I’m honest …’ She paused and then a moment later nodded as though either she or Trish had said something. ‘Yes, I think a lot of it has got to do with the way Robert loathes all the things Ben always thought were so wonderful.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, come on, Trish. You must remember how Ben used to bang on about the wonders of family life. He was forever fantasising about clean nappies drying on one of those old nursery fireguards with the flames flickering behind them and a clutch of dewy naked babies playing with hand-carved bone rattles on a hearthrug woven by his devoted wife during long winter evenings while he did manly work in the fresh air somewhere else. There’d be apple pies in the oven, smelling of cinnamon, and me being plump and aproned, smiling adoringly whenever he chose to come home to pay my bills and keep me safe and tell me what to do. Ugh!’

Trish had never seen evidence of so much imagination from Antonia before and hoped she was not goggling in astonishment.

‘Robert would detest all that as much as I do. He likes decent restaurants and adult company and a much more sophisticated kind of life altogether. And he’s not in the least threatened by my success. Ben couldn’t ever hack that. It was weird, you know; I’d always earned infinitely more than him even at the beginning, but he insisted on paying for everything. I suppose it was some kind of power trip, but it drove me mad. Robert’s completely different. He loves the fact that I make such a lot and positively encourages me to lavish money on him.’

‘And that’s a good thing?’

‘Sure. Can’t you see why? He’s confident enough to take, which Ben never was. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to live with a confident man than a dribbling wimp.’

‘Oh. Good,’ Trish said, thinking, Poor Ben. What a life you led him.

‘And then Robert likes me as I am. Ben was always trying to make me different, less than I am, so that he wouldn’t feel inferior.’

Did he? Trish asked herself, looking back into the past. Surely not. Didn’t he just want you to go on caring about him in the way that you seemed to at the beginning? Wasn’t that all it was?

‘Well, I’m really glad it’s working,’ she said aloud. ‘By the way, what was Robert’s reaction to the bruises you saw on Charlotte’s arms?’

‘He didn’t know anything about them.’

Trish stared. She would never understand Antonia. In her position, Trish would have told everyone anywhere near so that she could involve them all in policing Charlotte’s life.

Was it possible that at some level Antonia had always known that Nicky was unlikely to have made the marks? Could she have been afraid it was Robert? So afraid that she hadn’t been able to admit it to anyone, even the police?

‘Why didn’t you tell him?’ Trish asked as gently as possible.

Antonia shrugged. ‘He’s not all that good at pretending, and I didn’t trust him not to alert Nicky before I’d got some evidence one way or the other.’

‘Right. I see – at least I think I do. Antonia?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did the police give you any idea of who saw Charlotte last yesterday?’

‘Nicky, of course.’ Antonia looked at Trish as though she was a complete fool. ‘And before that Robert when he left for the office at two-thirty. And before that Mike, her swimming teacher. But they will have left the pool at about twelve as usual, so he can’t have seen anything useful. Who’s that out there?’

They’d both heard the journalists coming to life outside the closed windows.

‘It must be Nicky,’ said Trish, hearing an anxious female voice amid the reporters’ aggressively excited babble. ‘Shall I rescue Constable Derring from the kitchen and let her get started?’

‘Not yet. I want a word with Nicky first.’

‘But the inspector specifically said …’

‘Sod that. There are things I need to know before they get their hands on her.’

Antonia left the room, to return a moment later with a slight fair-haired young woman at her side.

Trish looked at her with interest. She had never met the nanny before and knew of her only from Antonia’s impatient descriptions and Charlotte’s affectionate prattle on the night of the wiggly worms. It seemed from her account then that Nicky, too, had been pretty good at proving that they didn’t exist.

She was said to be twenty-one, but Trish thought she looked younger, possibly because she was so small. Barely five feet two, she was slim and dressed in black jeans held up with a blue elastic snake belt and a tight stretchy shirt of blue and green stripes. Trish was too far away to see the colour of her eyes, but the skin around them was puffy with crying and there were raw patches on either side of her nose.

Her naked face looked surprisingly pasty for someone who, if Antonia’s description of the household routine had been true, must have spent the greater part of every afternoon out of doors. The only bright colour about her was the emerald-velvet scrunchy with which she had pulled back her hair.

‘Antonia, I’m so sorry,’ she was saying in a hesitant voice with more than a hint of the north in it. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

Antonia shut the door carefully behind them as though to make sure no sound reached the basement kitchen, where Constable Derring must be still obediently drinking her tea.