Evil Angels Among Them (36 page)

‘She's nearly a year now,' Lisa said. ‘She's started walking already. That's why we've got the playpen in here – she's started getting into things. And she's so clever – she can say a few words already, can't you, darling?'

Janie wriggled in his arms; clearly she wanted down. Her mother scooped her up and put her into the playpen. ‘Janie want to play, then?' she cooed, dangling a fat teddy in front of her.

‘Play!' Janie echoed, seizing the teddy by the ears.

David breathed a quiet sigh of relief and settled back on the sofa. He gave Lisa a few minutes to sit down and grow comfortable with him, chatting about Janie in a way that was calculated to lower the young mother's defences. But though Lisa clearly enjoyed talking about her daughter, she never really relaxed; she seemed fidgety and ill at ease, her attention drawn away from him alternately by the baby in the playpen, the clock on the shelf, and the front door. Worried about her mother's imminent return, David guessed. Perhaps he had better move things along before Mum came back and interrupted.

He knew, instinctively, that he could afford to be circumspect only up to a point; she would not volunteer certain information unless he shocked it out of her. But he built up to it gradually. ‘Janie's at such a cute age,' he remarked, watching the mother watching the baby as she systematically tried to destroy her teddy, manually and with her teeth.

‘She's more like a real little person than a baby now,' Lisa agreed, smiling fondly at her daughter. ‘Even if it does mean that the house is a bit crowded, with the playpen and all. Mum moans about it, but I know she loves Janie. And I tell her that it will get better, when Janie's a bit older.'

‘There's no chance of your . . . moving out?' David suggested; he watched her and added deliberately, ‘For instance, being with Janie's father?'

Lisa's reaction was controlled; only the nervous gesture of tucking her hair behind her ear betrayed anything. ‘No, that won't be happening,' she said softly.

David kept his voice soothing. ‘Cynth said that Janie's father isn't around any longer,' he remarked.

‘Cynth talks too much.' Lisa bit her lip and blinked her eyes rapidly, speaking more sharply than she intended.

He could delay no longer; now was the time to strike. ‘Lisa,' he said gently, ‘I need to know this – it's important. Believe me, I wouldn't ask you if it weren't. Your baby's father is Jamie Bletsoe, isn't he?'

She gasped as if she'd been struck, staring at David in horror. ‘But no one knows!' she choked. ‘How did you find out? Who told you? Do you know Jamie, then? Did he tell you?'

‘I don't know Jamie,' he assured her. ‘And no one told me. I just sort of . . . guessed.'

Lisa gulped. ‘You mustn't tell anyone – please, Mr . . . David. Promise me you won't tell!'

‘But why is it so important that no one should know?'

‘It's Jamie's gran,' she whispered, as large fat tears ran down her cheeks. ‘She mustn't find out. Jamie said that she'd kill him if she ever knew.' She rubbed at the tears with the back of her hand. ‘And he said that she'd want to take Janie away from me and raise her herself. He said that she could do it, too – she could say that I was an unfit mother. But I'd
die
if someone took Janie away!' she added passionately. ‘So she mustn't find out!'

David leaned forward, careful not to touch her but willing her to look at him. ‘Lisa,' he said, ‘I'm not the only one to guess about Janie's father, am I?'

Caught by the tone of his voice, she raised her wet eyes to meet his. ‘No,' she whispered. ‘It was that social worker – Miss Newall. She guessed as well. She'd been on at me to tell her who Janie's father was, so that agency, the CSA she called it, could get some money out of him for child support. I wouldn't tell her – that wouldn't be fair to Jamie. But she guessed.'

‘How did she guess?'

Lisa twisted her hands together in her lap. ‘It was the name, partly. I called my baby Janie, to remind me of Jamie. It was silly of me, but I thought that no one would figure it out. And she knew his gran too. She told me that his gran's house is full of pictures of Jamie when he was small – and Janie is the spitting image of her daddy.' Her hands fluttered helplessly, like wounded birds. ‘I made her promise that she wouldn't tell, that she wouldn't tell Jamie's gran or anyone else.'

‘And did she keep that promise?' David held his breath.

Her answer was so quiet that he had to strain to hear. ‘I don't know.' The tears were coming faster now. ‘I don't know,' she repeated wretchedly. ‘She died, didn't she? Right after that, she died.'

Bryony English was bored. Her mother had sent her outside to play, telling her not to come back into the house under any circumstances; she would rather have been inside watching television or reading a book, but Mummy was horrid sometimes and said that she needed fresh air. She skipped desultorily, wishing there were another little girl across the road for her to play with instead of that Mrs Bletsoe. Mummy didn't like Mrs Bletsoe, though Bryony wasn't at all sure why; her own experiences with Mrs Bletsoe had been uniformly pleasant.

So when Mrs Bletsoe appeared outside her house, smiling, Bryony didn't run away. ‘Hello, Bryony darling,' said Mrs Bletsoe with a flash of teeth. ‘Wouldn't you like some nice choccie biscuits, darling?'

Bryony weighed up her options. She could go back inside, defying Mummy's wishes, or she could go across and eat Mrs Bletsoe's chocolate biscuits, defying Mummy's wishes. As she was going to lose either way, it didn't seem much of a contest. And there was always a chance that Mummy wouldn't find out if she chose the second option, whereas she would most certainly find out about the first. ‘Yes, all right,' she said, dropping her skipping rope in the garden. She remembered to look both ways when she crossed the road; it was a pity she wouldn't be able to tell Mummy how good she'd been.

‘I feel so sorry for that poor kid,' David told Lucy a bit later. ‘She's really had a raw deal – stuck with Jamie Bletsoe's baby and too terrified to tell anyone.'

‘While he's off wooing the lovely Charlotte Hollingsworth,' Lucy said bitterly. ‘All right for some.'

They had slipped into the church after Evensong in search of a quiet place to talk; this time Lucy was careful to stay in the nave, where they would have ample warning if anyone else entered the church. ‘It's pathetic, Lucy love,' David sighed. ‘She really loved him, you know. Stars in her eyes, and all that. She was only sixteen when they met. Real Romeo and Juliet stuff.'

‘They met when he had that summer job in Nether Walston,' Lucy guessed.

‘That's right. At the agricultural processing plant, she told me. Their eyes met over a turkey carcass and it was love at first sight.'

Lucy wrinkled her nose. ‘How romantic.'

‘Well, it was for them.'

‘Does she know about the lovely Charlotte?' Lucy asked.

David shook his head. ‘She knows that it's over between them, but she doesn't know the reason why. Apparently he promised to marry her at first, but later on he broke it off.'

‘Presumably when the lovely Charlotte came on the scene,' Lucy surmised. ‘What an opportunistic little toerag he is! And she's stayed loyal to him all this time in spite of it, refusing to name him as the father of her child.'

‘But in all fairness, love,' David pointed out, ‘she had her own reasons for keeping quiet. He told her that cock-and-bull story about his grandmother being able to take the baby away from her, and she fell for it. And I think that he probably
did
love her, at one time.'

Lucy frowned. ‘Are you defending him? He deserves to be boiled in oil, as far as I'm concerned.' She looked up at the Doom painting, at the everlasting torments visited upon the damned. ‘In fact, boiling in oil is too good for him.'

‘Oh, no, I wouldn't defend him.' David shook his head hastily, all too aware that it was more than his life was worth to do so. ‘He behaved abominably towards her – I'd be the first one to say so.' Still, though, he mused, it wasn't all that surprising that things had happened as they had, given the circumstances. It was almost like a fairy tale, though one without a happy ending: a young man falls in love for the first time, with a stunningly beautiful but poor girl, and nature takes its course. A baby is on the way and he promises to marry her, meaning it, if he can manage to get round his wicked grandmother. But then fate intervenes, putting a spoiled rich girl in his way, and the temptation is too great for him. Exit poor girl and baby, enter – what? ‘If there's any justice in the world, and if Charlotte Hollingsworth is as frightful as Pat says she is, then I suspect that Jamie Bletsoe will get his just deserts,' David commented, lifting his eyebrows ironically and following Lucy's gaze up at the Doom painting. ‘A lifetime with Charlotte Hollingsworth – that will be worse than any punishment that even you might be able to devise for him.'

Lucy smiled in satisfaction. ‘I hope so.'

He rubbed his palms together as though dusting them off. ‘Well, that's that then, love.'

‘What do you mean, that's that?' she demanded. ‘We've now got a case built against Enid Bletsoe: means, opportunity – and motive. In a neat little package. What are we going to do about it?'

David regarded her for a moment with a half-smile. ‘Put a bow on it and give it to John Spring. As a leaving gift.'

‘But John Spring isn't leaving,' Lucy stated, baffled.

‘No, but we are. Have you forgotten?' Moving towards the door, he added, ‘Come on, love. It's time to pack. Remember your promise? Back to London tonight, and it's getting late.'

‘Supper is ready, lovey.' Gill put her head round the door of the sitting room, where Lou was rereading the business section of one of the Sunday papers. ‘Where is Bryony?'

Lou looked up. ‘Isn't she with you?'

‘No.' Gill frowned. ‘I sent her outside to play in the garden, but that was quite a while ago. I just assumed she'd come back in here to watch television.'

‘Maybe she's gone up to her room,' Lou suggested.

Gill went to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Bryony!' she called. ‘It's time for supper, darling!' There was no reply; after a moment Gill went up the stairs.

Lou was waiting at the bottom when she returned. ‘Not there?'

Gill shook her head, the beginning of a worried frown between her brows.

‘Perhaps she's still outside.' Lou tried to sound reassuring; she went to the door, opened it, and called. ‘Bryony! Where are you hiding, you little horror?'

Still there was no reply.

‘Where could she have got to?' Gill chewed on her lower lip, the frown deepening.

‘You don't suppose . . .' Lou began. ‘Oh, never mind.'

Gill turned to her, demanding, ‘What?'

‘I just wondered,' Lou said slowly, ‘if she might have gone across the road. To see that old bag with the chocolate biscuits.'

‘I told her never to speak to Enid Bletsoe,' Gill snapped. ‘Bryony wouldn't disobey me by going over there when I'd expressly forbidden it.'

‘But if she's not there, angelface, where is she?'

Gill took a deep breath. ‘I don't know. Oh, lovey, I'm scared.'

Lou gave her a fierce, protective hug. ‘Well, I'm going over there,' she declared. ‘If Bryony is there, I'll give that cow a piece of cud to chew on!'

Wasting no time, she stormed across the road to The Pines. The door was ajar; she rapped on it sharply.

There was no reply. ‘Hey!' she shouted, hands on her hips. ‘Is anyone at home?'

The house was silent. After a moment, Lou pushed the door open and poked her head inside. ‘Bryony?' she called. ‘Are you here?' Then, as another thought occurred to her, she added in a loud voice, ‘You don't have to be afraid to come home, Bryony darling. You won't be punished for disobeying your mother. Just come on home now, darling. We're worried about you.'

Lou could see that the door to the lounge was open. Her certainty that Bryony was hiding somewhere in the house emboldened her to step into the hall, and from there into the lounge. Bryony wasn't there; the only figure visible was that of Enid Bletsoe, lying on the sofa.

‘What have you done with Bryony, you miserable old cow?' Lou demanded, not caring that she was waking Enid from her Sunday afternoon nap.

But there was no chance at all that Enid would wake, either then or ever again, and this was soon horribly evident to Lou.

Gill, waiting anxiously at the door of Foxglove Cottage, heard her screaming from across the road.

CHAPTER 26

    
For my soul is full of trouble: and my life draweth nigh unto hell.

Psalm 88.2

‘Well, it's been very kind of you to put up with us for so long,' David said, stowing their cases in the boot of his car.

‘Not at all.' Stephen stepped forward to shake David's hand. ‘It's been marvellous of you to give up over a week of your time to help us through a difficult patch. Becca and I will always be enormously grateful to both of you.'

Becca bit her lip and blinked back tears. She had very mixed feelings about their going: she and Stephen had a lot of catching up to do, best done in private, but she would miss Lucy dreadfully. Over the past days she had come to rely on Lucy's strength and wisdom, and to value her friendship.

‘We'll be back, Becca love,' Lucy whispered in her ear, embracing her warmly. ‘And you'll come to London to see us, won't you?'

‘Yes, all right.' Becca nodded. ‘And you'll ring me sometime?'

‘Of course. And you can ring me any time you want to chat.'