Pretty Lady (15 page)

Even Peter. That was the way people always identified Denny. ‘Denny –you know.' With a significant lift of an eyebrow, or a swift gesture to temple with finger. It was another thing she had long been accustomed to, but which grated badly on her nerves tonight.

‘Yes, Denny-you-know!' Her Irish temper flared suddenly and she made no effort to control it. ‘Denny-the-dimwit. Denny-the-idiot. Denny-the-mental-defective. Or, how about, Denny-but-for-the-grace-of-God-goes-yourselves? Do you have to talk about him that way? He
is
still human, you know.'

'Yes, I know,' Rembrandt said, absently handing her the least soiled of his paint rags, for the anger had released the tears that grief and fear had held back. ‘But why should you be looking for him here?'

‘You
told
me he'd be here!' In her desperation, she rounded on Peter. ‘You said he'd be here!' The dark wings of panic were beating wildly round her. ‘And now we've wasted all this time, when we should have been out looking somewhere else.'

‘See here, what's the fuss?' Rembrandt was bewildered, but game. ‘Sit down and have a drink. There's no need to get upset. Denny is a sensible enough lad, he knows where he lives. It may be a bit naughty of him to stray off without saying anything at this hour of the night, but you really needn't worry all that much. He'll go back home when he's ready.'

‘If he
can,'
Sheila said, and the tears flooded out anything else she might have said. She was aware that, over her head, Rembrandt's and Peter's eyes consulted briefly. Then Peter gave a quick jerk of his head and they both retreated to the far corner of the room. It was almost funny, the way everyone was trying to spare her, after she'd lived a lifetime with it all and knew everything that could be said; imagined every horror that could have been imagined. Except this final one.

No matter how low they kept their voices, words drifted to her. They were all words she had heard before, but she had still to learn to associate them with Mum and Denny. ‘Sleeping pills ... do away with ... attempted suicide ... mitigating circumstances ... manslaughter ...' And, “Good God!' from Rembrandt, genuinely shaken.

She stiffened her backbone, dabbing at her eyes, breathing deeply. The brief spasm of tears had helped, she felt stronger now, ready to take up the search again. But where?

‘I still don't understand –' they were walking back to her, Rembrandt grim, but still puzzled – ‘why you came here. What made you think Denny might be with me? So far as I know, he has no idea where I live.'

‘This.' Peter pulled the stub of tawny-gold chalk from his pocket and held it out. ‘Denny was drawing squiggles on his bedside table with it. They appear to be the last thing he did before leaving the house. I thought it might point to what he'd had in mind. I knew you'd given him a lot of bits of chalk like this, and so –' he faced Sheila apologetically – ‘I guessed wrongly. I thought he was coming here.'

‘That's mine, all right.' Rembrandt took the pastel stub and turned it round in his fingers. ‘Squiggles, you say. What sort of squiggles ?' He snatched up a canvas, reversed it, and scrawled rapidly on the back. ‘Like that?'

‘Well ...' They both considered the scrawls carefully. Peter looked to Sheila, he'd been misled by the chalk itself, it hadn't occurred to him that the drawing might be meant to represent something.

‘More or less,' Sheila decided, trying to visualize the original scrawls, before Aunt Vera had started to obliterate them. ‘Yes, they looked like that.'

‘I see.' Whistling between his teeth, Rembrandt stood there, frowning at the canvas, tossing the bit of chalk up into the air and catching it again. 'In that case, he didn't have me on his mind. That's my cocker spaniel ear, and this is the chalk for it. Denny was thinking about dogs – perhaps he went out to find one.'

It was possible. It was only too possible. Dismayed, Sheila thought of the long procession of dogs which had ‘followed' Denny home. He'd always longed for one. But which one? And where would he go to get it?

‘Dogs,' she said bleakly. ‘Dogs. Where does that leave us? The city is full of dogs.'

‘We might try the Dogs' Home.' Rembrandt was shrugging into a duffle coat, completely sober now, and beginning to share their desperate urgency as he realized the enormity of the situation. ‘It's a start.'

‘Would it be open at this hour?'

‘Would Denny know the difference?' he asked.

‘He'd never even think of such a thing,' she acknowledged sadly. Denny, acting on an impulse, would never stop to consider that places might be open or closed. He'd just go plunging along, to be astonished and rather hurt to find things weren't working out the way he planned them. Only, this time, he could be more than hurt – he could be dead. Curled up in a doorway nearby, to wait until the place opened in the morning, not knowing that, for him, morning wasn't going to come.

‘I saw him with a dog today,' Peter remembered suddenly. ‘A puppy. I had the impression he was going to let it out of its garden and play with it. He stopped, though, when he saw me. He might have gone back there tonight.'

‘Where?' Sheila asked quickly.

‘Quite a way from here,' Peter admitted. ‘In the other direction. If he went there, then I've brought you completely out of the way. I'm sorry.'

She wondered vaguely if that dreadful sinking feeling were going to be a part of her for the rest of her life. Probably. It was something she was going to have to learn to live with. Like so many other things. Things she didn't want to think about right now, couldn't face. Any more than she could face inactivity, however momentary. She moved restlessly.

‘Let's go, then. If we hurry –'

‘We're not sure he's there,' Rembrandt reminded her. ‘He might have gone to the Dogs' Home. He might have gone to quite another place. We can't be sure.'

‘I'll phone in,' Peter decided. ‘They can send a patrol car to check that area quicker than we can get there.'

‘Yes,' she said, curiously reluctant. After all, it didn't matter who found Denny, just so long as he was found. But strange men in police uniforms coming at him would frighten him. And you could never be sure what he'd do when he was frightened. He might decide to try to fight; more probably, he might run away and hide. Hide so well that he could not be found again – until it was too late.

‘Have you a telephone?' Peter turned to Rembrandt.

‘Sorry,' he said, ‘we don't run to such luxuries around here. But there's an outside phone nearby. You can call from there – if the vandals haven't got at it.'

‘Right!' Peter whirled, as though he, too, were unable to stand inactivity. ‘Let's go.'

Rembrandt paused to snap off the lights.

‘No!' Sheila cried, overwhelmed by the sudden feeling that too many lights were going out tonight. She could not bear the darkness.

‘I mean,' she said, as they both looked at her, ‘Denny
might
come here, after all. You never know. And if he finds the place in darkness, he'll go away again. But if there's a light on, he'll know you're coming back, and he'll wait for you.'

‘True,' Rembrandt said, almost as though he knew what she really felt. He reversed the switch and light sprang into the room again. He closed the door quietly on the silent canvases and followed them up the stairs, leaving the dim hall light on, as well.

‘It's this way.' Gaining the pavement level, Rembrandt took the lead, at a pace fast enough to suit even Sheila. The urgency of the situation seemed to be filtering through his quick artist's imagination. She felt he was sensitive to all the nuances which Peter had omitted in his swift potted version of the night's events. Also – she felt a faint warming glow –like Peter, he was a friend of Denny's.

The thought of the telephone drew her, yet repelled her. After Peter had used it to direct the search for Denny into a fresh direction, she must call the hospital. Ask how Mum was, find out if she were still alive. Either way, the answer must be almost more than she could bear.

If Mum had died, then she must live with the knowledge that it was partly her fault. She could never forget that – thinking she was being so clever, thinking that she was sparing Mum an ordeal – she had kept Vera from Mum's bedroom. Vera, who could recognize the difference between natural sleep and a coma. She had deliberately done everything in her power to prevent Vera from going near Mum. For the rest of her life, she must wonder whether that extra time would have meant the difference between life and death. Vera wouldn't hurl it in her teeth – give Vera that –- it was she herself who would sit in unending judgement through long sleepless nights.

And if Mum lived – if she were to survive, and they failed to find Denny in time – what then? Attempted suicide wasn't a criminal offence any more. But murder was. Peter was already bearing down on all the conciliatory phrases: ‘mitigating circumstances', ‘diminished responsibility', ‘manslaughter', that betrayed the way the law was thinking. And it was too late to try to hush anything up. The police, out searching for Denny, knew all about it. The solemn majesty of the law was already on the march. Would Mum have to stand trial? Go to prison?

‘Just around the corner here,' Rembrandt said, and the telephone kiosk loomed out of die mist ahead of them.

Peter lengthened his stride, moving away from them. He was already dialling when they reached the kiosk. In another moment, he began to speak. Obviously, the phone was in working order.

He looked splendidly real and solid in the light of the kiosk. In contrast, she felt as insubstantial as the mist swirling about her. She leaned weakly against the building behind the telephone kiosk.

‘Careful,' Rembrandt said, gently pulling her away from it, ‘you'll get your coat all dirty.' As though she hadn't long ago passed into a world where such things were inconsequential. ‘Someone's been playing silly b's with chalk around here.'

Absently, she focused on the thick chalk scrawls, while something about them tried to register on her exhausted brain. Inside, Peter looked out at her and made a hopeful grimace.

‘Denny!' she cried. ‘It's Denny!' Rembrandt looked at her oddly.

‘Don't you see?' She gripped his arm earnestly. ‘
That's
what Denny drew on the bedside table.' She pointed to the curling hair, now recognizable as such. ‘Denny's been this way tonight.'

‘I see.' Rembrandt looked at the hair, and at the delicate profile limned beneath it.

‘That,' he said decisively, ‘is no cocker spaniel.'

From the corner of the street, he had seen her in the lighted window, the bright beckoning glow of her hair unmistakable. He had just been going to wave when the bad man came and pulled her away.

He had to get to Merelda and help her. Denny straightened, pulling himself away from the supporting lamp-post and trying to force his lethargic legs to a faster pace. Merelda needed him.

It was certainly getting foggy. The road ahead of him blurred and wavered. Everything seemed hazy and unreal. He felt all wobbly, too. As though, when he put his feet down, there might not be any road underneath them, or they might not hold him up. He'd never felt so strange before.

It wasn't far now. He could make it. Her steps were the ones with the flower-pots at the top. And the key was underneath one of the flower-pots. It would be easy to find. He'd probably feel better, too, once he was inside the house. It would be warm in there, and there wouldn't be this fog getting in front of his eyes. He just had to keep going, not think about stopping to rest, and he'd be there.

The cement steps loomed up before him, looking steep and high enough to reach the sky. At the top, he sat down, breathing heavily.

The flower-pot was heavier than it looked, he had to use both hands to lift it. And then the key wasn't under it. Not that one. There were three along each side of the ledge enclosing the steps. All the same size, all heavy. As he looked at them, they blurred and receded. Fog was getting worse.

He rubbed his eyes, repressing a yawn, and the flowerpots reappeared sharply and clearly. Unsteadily, again with both hands, he lifted the next flower-pot and replaced it. Then the third, the one nearest the steps. The blurring fog rolled in again as he set the pot down and he missed the ledge. It rolled down the steps, shattering as it hit the pavement, spilling dirt across the cement like blood from a wound. He wondered if the poor plant was hurt, in pain – and then whether anyone had heard.

Fearfully, he glanced up at the lighted window, but no shapes moved behind it. A sound like thunder seemed to come from above. Vaguely, he distinguished drums and loud brass. Maybe they hadn't noticed anything, after all, if they were listening to noisy music.

The key was under the flower-pot nearest the door on the opposite wall. Had Merelda told him that? She might have. He couldn't always remember so well, and he couldn't always tell left from right, either.

He held his breath, fumbling to get the key into the lock – that was always the hardest part –and then the door swung open. As he stepped inside, the hall dipped and swirled about him. He stumbled, recovered himself quickly, and shut the door. It slipped out of his grasp and slammed, the noise hitting his eardrums with an almost physical pain. But no door opened at the head of the stairs, no grim figure stood there to demand what he thought he was doing.

He knew what he was doing, what he had yet to do. The study door was invitingly ajar and a dim light burned just inside. Merelda had left it on for him. His heart glowed at her thoughtfulness. Merelda was his friend. And he would help her, as she had asked. Then she would continue to be his friend, for ever.

Smiling, he went to the desk. Easing the drawer open, he groped inside for the gun. It was still there, as she had said it would be. He took it out with difficulty, his hands were beginning to seem as though they didn't belong to him. They weren't responding properly to the commands from his brain. His fingers curled awkwardly around the butt of the gun, giving him no assurance that they might not suddenly let it drop. The room grew darker and was unsteady again.