Death of a Friend (16 page)

But no action had been taken. It had apparently been a false alarm – a groundless accusation. It surely wasn’t anything to do with the death of Charlie Gratton. Or was it?

Den’s training had only just been completed. His head was still full of dictums:
Pay particular attention to apparent coincidences
and
Watch out for the same names appearing in different contexts
. He tried to imagine how it had been for the family, under the scrutiny of Social Services. Had they taken Clem away for medical examination? Had they questioned Richmond and Nev – and Charlie? Had the adults closed ranks and defended each other – or had there been a scapegoat?

The experience could not fail to have left a 
mark on Clem, if not on the whole family. And perhaps it had left resentment, too. And who was the
anonymous informant
? Who would be so malicious – or so sensitive to the possibility – as to make such a charge?

‘You are going to stay with us, aren’t you, Nev?’ Hugh said, for the tenth time in three days, as they walked together from the barn to the house early on Wednesday morning. ‘Just for the summer. We can go to Granny’s if you don’t like it here. Or maybe we could come with you to somewhere foreign. We’ve only got one more term, and then it’s the long holiday. Will you stay till then? We’ve got the school trip in July and they want someone’s dad to come. Would you do that? You’re good at travel things. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

Nev put a slim hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘I ain’t got no plans to go no place,’ he drawled. ‘Might think about that there camping trip.’ 

Hugh smiled politely at the attempt at humour and suppressed the urge to show excitement at the semi-promise. His experience of Nev from the very beginning had taught him to place little credence on anything his father said. Everyone, himself included, wished he would stop laying himself open to disappointment, but the wellspring of hope was yet to run dry.

‘I heard that,’ came Martha’s voice from an open window. ‘Sounds a great idea to me.’

‘What does?’ Nev asked, peering into the room. ‘These windows are filthy, d’you know that?’

‘Camping,’ she said, firmly ignoring the comment. ‘Hugh’s in Year Nine now, and they always have a week on Exmoor every summer. It’s very popular and everybody loves it.’

‘So why is there a vacancy for “someone’s dad”?’

‘Because most of the dads are otherwise engaged.’ The
obviously
was clearly implied.

Hugh drifted away, unsure whether or not to be grateful for Martha’s intervention. Nev was just as likely to be deterred by what he interpreted as nagging as convinced by a commercial for the Year Nine Trip. All the old ambivalences attached to his feelings for Nev were coming back, just as they always did. It was as if the most fantastic meal imaginable, made with all your favourite
ingredients, had been dished up sprinkled with some sort of bitter herb. You had to scrape it off, work around it, try to ignore it – but the fun was spoilt, just the same.

The Easter holiday was just about to start: two and a half weeks in which to make sure he’d get what he wanted. So long as he could keep Nev in sight, it would probably be okay. It was going to school that had always been such agony. Every day he imagined his father stealing away with no warning, off on yet another of his mysterious and apparently pointless trips. The other kids did their best to understand. They liked Hugh, despite his reluctance to join in; perhaps they found him intriguing. Several of them had absent fathers, so the habit of inventing reasons for their non-appearance was deep-rooted and entirely accepted. The shared anxiety this gave rise to was a bond, particularly amongst the boys.

But Hugh was unusual in his insistence that
his
father was not absent – not really. His parents weren’t divorced. Nev came back at intervals and behaved like a proper father. It was his
job
to be away, like a soldier or a geologist. ‘So what is his job then?’ came the obvious query. And Hugh could never find a satisfactory answer to that.

Martha was a complicating factor in his school life which he often felt he could do without. It wasn’t as bad as having a
parent
for a teacher, like poor Richard Rivers, whose mother taught geography and was one of the least popular teachers in the school. But an English teacher aunt with frizzy orange hair and clothes like someone out of the Addams Family was nonetheless an embarrassment. Fortunately, everyone liked her and nobody ever suggested she was anything but a brilliant teacher. And on Wednesdays and Fridays she drove him to school instead of leaving him to get the bus. On those days she had to get there early enough for Hugh to catch registration; otherwise, she timed it to arrive two minutes before First Lesson, which wasn’t soon enough for Hugh. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘it’s good for you to be with the others on the bus.’ He was still trying to work that one out.

Today was Wednesday, the last day of term, and they were due to leave in five minutes’ time. Nev, for once, had got up before nine and had gone out to the barn with Richmond, saying he’d like to see the changes he’d made. Hugh had taken the opportunity of going with them.

‘Don’t go wandering off!’ Martha had called after him through the window. ‘And where’s your schoolbag?’

‘In the car,’ he called back. They only stayed a few minutes in the barn before coming back to the house – Hugh didn’t believe Nev knew or cared anything about Richmond’s business.
It had been a silly whim. Nev hadn’t asked any questions and Richmond hadn’t bothered making any explanations. Nobody imagined Nev would ever offer to take a share in the work.

Now, two minutes before he and Martha were due to leave, Hugh fixed Nev with a long, hungry stare.

‘Don’t worry, mate,’ Nev laughed uncomfortably at him. ‘I’ll still be here when you get back.’ The fact that Nev knew what he was afraid of did nothing at all to quell his anxiety.

Martha chatted steadily in the car, as she always did. But this morning she had a disconcerting new plan. ‘I was talking to Richmond last night,’ she said, ‘and we thought it would be good if you boys had some sort of proper holiday, at half term at the end of May. Richmond thought he might take you somewhere abroad, Italy maybe. What do you think? It could be a late birthday present for you.’

Hugh frowned. ‘Why Richmond? Why not Nev?’

‘Good question,’ she nodded. ‘Why not indeed? But you know Nev. He’d never be pinned down to a precise date, and he’s not one for the sort of thing we had in mind. Another time, maybe – when Clem’s a bit older – he can take you to some remote rainforest. But for now, we thought something a bit more normal. A nice
package holiday with a swimming pool and a beach nearby.’

‘But …’ Hugh’s stomach clenched with all the things he wanted to say. ‘But we’re
Nev’s
sons, not Richmond’s.’ He wriggled uneasily as he heard the way that sounded.

‘I know you are. We’re not trying to
steal
you. But we owe something to Nina. Besides, I think you need to get away for a break after all that’s happened. Clem as much as you. More, probably. He’s been so quiet and pale, poor little chap.’

‘Okay,’ he muttered, more to shut her up than in agreement with the proposal. Italy with Richmond may or may not be a good idea. Just at that moment it simply didn’t feel relevant.

A mile or two before reaching the school they overtook a rusted and smoking Mini. Hugh looked back over his shoulder. ‘That was Mrs Aspen,’ he said. ‘Her car doesn’t look good.’

‘The woman who helps in the IT department?’ Martha queried vaguely.

‘That’s right. She knows Alexis and Charlie. She … she cried about Charlie yesterday.’ His voice tailed away and he looked back again, seeming anxious, although the Mini was no longer visible.

Martha screwed up her face in puzzlement. ‘When? I mean … explain.’

‘She was helping me with the computer and
suddenly seemed to recognise me. I think it was because I’d put my address on the screen – we were writing letters. And she said wasn’t that where Charlie Gratton had died, and I said yeah and she started crying. Just quietly. Nobody else saw.’

‘Did you try to comfort her?’

‘Sort of. I said I didn’t think he suffered much. That’s what people usually say, isn’t it?’ He glanced at her and caught her eye as she gave him a swift look before returning her attention to the road.

‘Yes, that’s what people usually say,’ she agreed. ‘Whether it’s true or not.’

At High Copse Farmhouse that morning, Alexis, Richmond and Nev all found separate ways of keeping busy. Richmond dealt with a succession of customers for animal feed, trying to ignore their curious glances at the new grave under the oak tree and the field where they assumed Charlie’s body to have been found. Only one person openly referred to the dramatic events, and that in a manner irritatingly oblique.

‘Be expecting a third, if the old stories are to be believed,’ said Bartholomew White, as he hefted a sizeable sack of Pascoe’s Complete Dog Food onto one shoulder. Richmond held the door open for him and made no reply.

‘Us’ll miss Charlie at Meeting,’ Barty went on. ‘Doubt the youngsters’ll keep on coming, without ’e.’

Richmond sighed. ‘I certainly doubt you’ll be seeing Alexis there again,’ he agreed. ‘Though you never can tell. Your dogs doing all right on that stuff, are they?’

‘Right enough. Don’t know it’s worth the price, though. If it were down to me, they’d have offal and tripes, same as always, but that Fairfield’s a fussy chap. Got to be just right for’n. Dogs eat better than people these days.’

Richmond shrugged. He hadn’t warmed to Bartholomew from what he knew of him. A self-contained man, seeming older than his years, he kept a pack of Jack Russell terriers on behalf of the local hunt, their yapping resounding famously across the neighbourhood. Richmond’s acquaintance with Charlie had led him to assume that Quakers found hunting anathema; one day, he promised himself, he’d ask Barty how he reconciled the two.

‘You been interviewed pretty thorough, I dare say?’ Barty asked, as he got into his battered pickup truck. ‘Had a young chap call on me a day or so ago, asking about Charlie. Didn’t seem to have much idea about anything. Can’t see it being a proper murder, anyhow. Seems to me that someone’s horse got out of hand and Charlie was
in the way. Be typical, that would. Even if it were done on purpose, the trail’ll be cold before they got themselves together.’

‘You’ve got a horse yourself, haven’t you?’ Richmond asked.

‘My son’s. I never ride him. Too big for me now. Never did feel too easy on anything bigger than fifteen hands. He didn’t go unnoticed, though, if that’s what you’re axing me.’

Richmond merely nodded vaguely and stood back, hoping the man would drive away. Barty turned on the engine, but threw one final remark at Richmond before moving off.

‘You be careful, friend,’ he said. ‘It never stops at two.’

Alexis was planning a conference to be held in Plymouth next October. She specialised in small-scale events, where she had sole control of the arrangements; payment was modest, but satisfaction high and the majority of the work could be done from home. She never quite understood why it was that people hired her at all, when the whole thing was usually so simple that anybody with a telephone and a filing system could do it all for themselves. She assumed it was because they liked to have someone to blame when things went wrong.

Fortunately, things very rarely did go wrong.
She handled the advertising, booking, payments, meals and hospitality for the speakers with care and full attention to detail. She produced programmes, organised stalls in the foyer, and ensured that delegates were well plied with tea and coffee in the intervals. She was bossy where necessary and always insistent on deadlines. Her workload varied between two and four events per month, which gave her a great deal of free time. She believed she had the perfect job, and most people agreed with her. At least, she
had
believed that, twelve days ago, when she had two sisters and a boyfriend. It felt different now. The phrase she’d used in the press announcement of Nina’s death returned relentlessly, echoing in her mind.
Diminished lives
, she’d said and it seemed to get more true with every day that passed.

Without Charlie the evenings were long and achingly dull. Without Nina the days were flat and two-dimensional. There was nobody left for Alexis to talk to: Martha was out all day and distracted in the evenings; Richmond and Alexis had little to say to each other; and Nev was beneath contempt. A week after burying Nina and finding Charlie’s body, there seemed to be little reason to go on. Almost overnight, her life had lost all its colour, its direction. Alexis was frightened, although she tried not to admit it. The only future she could see for herself now
was a desert of tedious, repetitive work and a slow, crumbling monotony of daily life at High Copse.

And yet she hadn’t been aware of any great expectations built around Charlie. She had known, somewhere inside her, that it wasn’t going to last for ever. She and Charlie had been good together, but not paired-up-for-life good; he was both too similar to her, and too different. Being Nev’s friend had made him almost part of the family; being a Quaker had made him an alien. The animal rights obsession had made him downright dangerous. It was true they’d talked about setting up home together, and she supposed she might have done it, but High Copse was a hard place to abandon and Alexis wasn’t convinced she could have made the necessary effort.

As she scanned through her files for the conference, she was aware of Nev roaming restlessly through the house, in and out of Nina’s room, up and down the stairs. She tried to ignore him. Her own room was large and light, at the front of the house on the first floor. Of the five bedrooms, it was the second best and she had turned it into more of an office than a place to sleep. The bed, which had been rather narrow for her and Charlie to share comfortably, had been pushed into a corner. Since Charlie died,
she had slept very badly, vividly recalling the nights he had spent with her there.

She supposed that Nina’s room would quickly become Nev’s own space, if he stayed. Although he had very few possessions with which to fill it. The house was accustomed to changes, people coming and going, boundaries shifting. It was full of the ghosts of previous inhabitants, the air thick at times with their dust and detritus. Charlie would leave a lesser trace than the others: his distinctive way of running up and down the stairs, a heavy thud alternating with a lighter step; his tuneless whistle as he shaved; the newsletters and notices that he left everywhere, advertising another protest rally or setting out reasons why fox hunting was morally untenable. He had been more like one of the children than a new adult around the place, which might explain why Hugh and Clem had been so cool towards him. However hard he’d tried to win their affection, they had maintained a certain distance.

‘They’re slow to trust men,’ Martha had explained. ‘With a father like Nev, it isn’t surprising.’