Fugitive Wife (11 page)

‘My husband,’ Mrs Chapman said flatly. ‘He kiled himself.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ said Briony. She felt wholy inadequate in the face of the grief and rage she seemed to feel emanating from this woman.

She was like one of the Furies from an ancient Greek tragedy, a figure of vengeance, only the Furies had also been known as the Kindly Ones, and there was nothing kind about Marina Chapman as she stood there, her eyes fixed relentlessly on Briony’s face.

‘He shot himself.’ Mrs Chapman went on after a pause. ‘And your husband drove him to it.’

‘Oh, no!’ Briony said quickly. ‘You’re wrong. You must be wrong. 1—’

‘He drove him to it.’ Mrs Chapman repeated relentlessly.

‘With his prying, and his endless, endless bloody questions. Harry got desperate. He had the answers, al the answers, but your husband never gave him time to think, time to answer. He was always phoning, or on the doorstep. And every day these stories in the paper― just the one he worked for at first, and then al the others. Then they al came gathering like vultures, asking questions, printing their vile lies―

lies your husband told them about Harry. Then the police. Harry was a good man― a good man!’ Her voice became high-pitched with her

insistence. ‘He didn’t do these things. He hadn’t defrauded anyone. He could have explained everything. But your husband never gave him a chance. He dragged his name in the mud, and stil he wasn’t content. Always questions. No bloody peace—ever!’

Briony put her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear any more!’

‘My Harry didn’t want to hear any more,’ Mrs Chapman said. ‘But your husband made him. And he was only the first― the chief jackal,

the leader of the pack. Filthy scavengers the lot of them, nosing through dirt!’

Her tone was hysterical, and Briony was afraid suddenly.

The woman sounded almost unhinged, and they were alone in the house.

She said, ‘Mrs Chapman, won’t you sit down, and let me get you something― a cup of coffee. Then we’l talk about this. You say your

husband was a good man― wel, I feel the same about my husband and . . .’

‘But you don’t know him, do you?’ said Mrs Chapman. ‘You’ve only known him a few weeks. It was in al the papers― a whirlwind

romance, they caled it. And you’ve only been married a matter of hours. What do you know about him? Only what you want to know.

That he is an attractive man― oh, I’l grant you that― that he makes you feel good in bed?’ She saw the sudden flare of colour in Briony’s pale cheeks and laughed harshly. ‘God, don’t you even know that yet? What an innocent! No wonder .. .’ She stopped.

‘No wonder what?’ Briony asked numbly.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ The older woman’s voice was dismissive. ‘Al that matters is that you should know the type of man you’ve married.

Someone who’s hunted down an innocent man― made his life a hel on earth. Someone who’d sel his own mother― or you― for a good

story with his name on it. Do you know that

everything he wrote about poor Harry—every lie,every vile insinuation had his name blazoned on It― as If he was proud of it.’

Briony heard herself say, ‘You must be wrong. There must be some mistake.’

‘There’s no mistake. Your husband murdered mine as surely as if he’d taken the gun in his own hand and puled the trigger. And how many other lives has he destroyed ― this “ace investigative reporter” ?’ She spat the words as if they were slime. ‘Who else has he trampled over to make his headlines― to get himself noticed― make his way to the top? Who else has been hounded and persecuted until he

couldn’t take any more?’ She broke off, her voice suddenly choked with sobs.

Briony turned .away. There was something vaguely indecent in this grief folowing on the heels of near violence and she felt nauseated.

Almost inconsequennaly, she noticed that the mist had thickened stil more, and it was now hardly possible to see more than a few yards from the window.

Behind her, Mrs Chapman stirred. She was clearly trying to regain her tenuous hold on her composure.

She said, ‘I’l go now, Mrs Adair. I’l leave the cuttings. They’re only duplicates. I have a ful file at home. But I felt you had a right to know, and that it was my duty to warn you if no one else would. I wish you wel, believe it or not, and I hope that you find― love is enough, because you’l never be able to trust him.’

Briony, standing motionless by the window, heard the front door close. She saw Mrs Chapman, her head slightly bent, walk down the path towards the gate, then the mist swalowed her up.

Briony began to shake. She turned and gathered up the scattered cuttings, intending to take them into the living room and put them on the fire, but almost in spite of herself began to examine them, turning them over. From each one Logan’s name seemed to scream out at her in bold black type, even on the report of Harry Chapman’s death. Found in the study of his house, the report ran, with head wounds. Briony shuddered, pressing her baled fist against her mouth. Who had found him? she wondered.

Marina Chapman? A housekeeper? She had seen a picture of the house they lived in. It was the sort of sprawling neo-Tudor mansion

which made some sort of living-in help essential.

She went slowly through the cuttings until she found the report of the inquest. There were in fact several of them culed from different newspapers, some rather sensational in treatment. One of them reported in detail some remarks made by the coroner while a verdict of suicide was being returned. Phrases like ‘respected member of the business community’― ‘intolerable pressures’― ‘unwarranted

persecutions by the less responsible sections of the Press’― ‘gutter journalism’― ‘terrible tragedy’ seemed to leap out at her, burning at her brain, as she tried to assimilate them. They were repeated to a greater or lesser extent in the other cuttings. The coroner’s words had obviously made a strong impression on those present, as they had been intended to. She read them again, more slowly. There was only one way that they could be interpreted― as an attack on Logan and the campaign he had mounted against the dead man. She began to search

through the cuttings for a date, and found one at last. This must have been about the last story Logan had worked on before he joined the Courier, she realised, and began to feel sick. Had this story been his passport to Fleet Street and a top job on a top newspaper? Was this what Marina Chapman had been getting at? And slowly and reluctantly, she began to remember al the things her father had said in the past as wel.

She had no idea how long she stood there motionless by the table, the cuttings stil clutched in her hands, her mind whirling on a terrified treadmil of revulsion and rejection, but when at last she came to herself with a slight start she was chiled to the bone, and wondering what had recaled her. Some distant noise― the slam of a car door perhaps― indicating that Logan had returned.

She gave a little choking cry and flung the cuttings down on the ground before she turned and ran out of the room. Her sheepskin coat was lying across a chair in the living room and she snatched it up on her way towards the kitchen. The bolt was stil undrawn on the back door and it resisted her first efforts. She struggled with it, fright warring with frustration within her. She was conscious only of the need for flight-the knowledge that she couldn’t face Logan or the demands he was now legaly entitled to make of her, feeling as she did. She didn’t even flinch as the bolt suddenly gave way, scraping her finger painfuly and drawing blood. She felt as if she was bleeding to death inside as it was.

The mist closed around her as she dived through the back door, thrusting her arms through the sleeves of her coat and dragging its warmth around her. She ran past the overgrown vegetable garden, and the ancient shed, and ducked beneath a sagging wire fence on to the open felside.

She knew her way to the huddle of stones at the top of the fel almost by instinct. She had spent a number of holidays at the cottage with Aunt Hes in the past, and a climb to the top of the fel had always been part of it like a pilgrimage. She’d intended to make Logan walk up there with her. Apart from the fantastic view, it had always been a special place for her, and she wanted to share it with him. Now she was franticaly glad that he would not know where she had gone in the mist or where to folow, thankful that she had a refuge where she could hide until she could think clearly and decide what she must do.

She was breathless and gasping when she reached the top, with a painful stitch in her side. She leaned against one of the rocks for support; pressing her hand against her body, until the worst of the pain was past. Then she sank down on her haunches, her back against the rock, and began to steady her ragged breathing. There was quite a wind blowing, and the mist was patchier here on top of the fel. Briony

huddled further into her coat.

She dropped her head into her hands and tried to think, but words and phrases she had read in the cuttings kept intruding. There had been a photograph too of Marina I and Harry Chapman on their wedding day, and a shudder went through her as the ful irony of that came

home to her.

She told herself ‘It can’t be true. Logan wouldn’t do that. The Coroner must have meant someone else.’ But even to her own ears, it

sounded pitiful, and totaly lacking in assurance.

For the fact was that she knew very little of what Logan might or might not be capable of doing. She remembered some of the things he himself had told her, and how they had sickened him, but he had filed his copy just the same. He hadn’t packed journalism in with disgust and chosen a less fraught existence.

And what about al the things he hadn’t told her― of which the Harry Chapman episode might only be one?

She had first met him after al at the awards party, and he’d been given the ‘Journalist of the Year’ title.

He’d claimed it meant nothing, but she knew that no one was even considered for such an award for merely covering flower shows and

Women’s Institute meetings.

Before she had ever laid eyes on him, she had read his work, and known it to be tough and hard-hitting.

She had heard her father on the power of the Press so many times, she had come to regard it as a secret joke, but it had never occurred to her that the power might be such that it might drive a man to lift a loaded gun to his head and pul the trigger. That, Briony thought, was an abuse of power. And she could not even make the excuse that Logan had been made to write what he did. He could have refused as a

matter of principle.

But he hadn’t refused, and the fact remained that Harry Chapman was dead― suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed. And

she was married to the man who had disturbed that balance. The pressure on Harry Chapman had come from Logan.And from others.

But what had Marina Chapman caled him? ‘The leader of the pack’.

At the smal reception which Aunt Hes had given for them at her flat, Hal Mackenzie had been unusualy ebulient, his arm round Logan’s shoulders and hers. ‘Look after him, sweetheart, because he’s the best. Where he leads, the others folow.’

At the time she’d felt a swift glow of pride, in no way dispeled by Logan’s mocking and self-denigrating retort, but now she felt cold and empty at the memory.

She’d seen a television film once about wild dogs, and how they hunted down their prey in packs, concentrating on the weakest quarry, the one most likely to break under pressure.

She shivered, crouching under her sheltering rock, then tensed slightly, peering downwards through the swirl of the mist. A glimmer of light had appeared, and she knew what it was Logan had returned to the cottage and had put the lights on. Probably he was going from room to room, looking for her, maybe believing that she was hiding from him to tease him. She wondered how soon he would find the scattered

cuttings on the parlour floor and realise the truth, and what he would do when the realisation did dawn.

It was dark now, and the chil and the damp were realy getting to her, and there was a darkness inside her too, while below her the light in the cottage stared up like an accusing eye. But why should I feel accused? she thought. I’m not the guilty one. And she heard ringing in her ears Marina Chapman’s harsh gibe, ‘What an innocent !’ She put her hands to her face and began to cry, harsh choking sobs which tore at her throat and chest. She sank further down on to the ground, uncaring about the icy dampness which seemed to seep into her bones. The unyielding earth was a comfort and a support, and the most she could hope for in a world that seemed to offer no hope at al.

She supposed that she must have cried herself to sleep, because the next thing she remembered was a confusion of voices and torches and a dog thrusting its wet nose into her hand. Dazedly she looked up into a face that was vaguely familiar. After a moment she realised it was the farmer whose land bordered the cottage.

‘Now then, lass, what’s to do?’ His voice was genial enough, but she sensed a puzzled note as wel.

‘Could you not find your way down again?’

‘Oh, Mr. Masters !’ Briony scrambled to her feet, aware of her wan, bedraggled appearance. ‘I― I’m sorry. Have you been looking for

me?’ She glanced round the smal group confronting her, recognising two of the men who worked on the farm, and another whose identity she was not aware of.

‘It weren’t much of a search,’ Mr. Masters assured her. ‘just as wel.’ He gave a slight guffaw. ‘You’ve left that man of yours in a right state. Wanted to come with us, he did, but I told him he was best to stay where he was and get the bed warm for you.’ He guffawed again, and the men with him joined in. Briony felt her cheeks flaming.

‘Get lost, did you?’ Mr. Masters sent her a narrow look as they began to make their way down the felside.

Briony noticed that the mist had pretty wel cleared, and that the sky above was speckled with stars. ‘Daft sort of weather for walking in.

What were you thinking of?’

Briony forced a smile. ‘I just― felt like some air.’ she answered stiltedly. ‘1― I didn’t realise the mist was so bad.’