The Darkness and the Deep (17 page)

Yes, this was his chance to show that a case like this needed a more sophisticated approach than it was likely to get out here in the boondocks where their idea of police work was pursuing the obvious. There were three people in that boat and he would point out at the next briefing that there was still a long way to go before you could assume you knew who was the intended victim. That ought to be good for a few gold stars.

And then it struck him. There was, of course, a fourth victim: the man who wasn’t there.

9

‘Now, my dearie, are you certain sure you’re not wanting me to come in with you – make you a wee cup of tea, maybe?’ The woman’s elderly, weather-beaten face was creased in concern as she parked the car in the square at the back of the Anchor Inn.

Katy Anderson, unnaturally calm and tearless now, moistened her dry, chapped lips. ‘I’ll be fine, Jean. Thank you for coming to the hospital.’

Her neighbour patted the hands Katy had clasped tight in her lap. ‘How would I not? Do you not mind how often you took me to see Dougie when he’d his operation last winter, and the weather so bad I was scared to drive myself? Now, Dougie and me’ll away back in the afternoon to fetch Rob’s car, so you’ve no need to worry about that. And I’ve made an appointment with Dr Matthews for you – four o’clock. He’s real nice, so see and not forget.’

‘I’m not ill,’ Katy said, but in the face of such inexorable kindness she was too weary to resist.

‘Of course you’re not, pet. But he’ll be able to give you a wee something just to get you over the shock. Would you like me to take you?’

‘Oh no. No, thank you. Honestly.’ Katy opened the car door, almost frantic to escape from the suffocating solicitude. If she could just have peace, just sit in the silence of her own home, maybe she wouldn’t fall apart and start screaming. She still hadn’t taken it in; it was all just words, words which she recognised were slashing away at her heart, but she was numb. They said when you were stabbed you didn’t feel pain or even see blood at first. She needed to get inside before the bleeding started.

She was shaking so much it was hard to fit the key in the lock; it took both hands and a lot of determination before the door was open and she was inside. The silent house seemed expectant, as if now she had come back her busy, happy life would begin again. They had painted the hall and staircase together, she and Rob, sunshine-yellow to replace dark beige wallpaper, which changed it completely. He had transformed her life with sunny warmth in just the same way.

Katy had only just left Nat’s father when they met; she was still raw from the misery of it all, still ashamed and convinced that it was in some way her fault, that she was the sort of person who wasn’t entitled to happiness. It had taken Rob some time to convince her that everyone had times of great unhappiness, things they blamed themselves for, but it didn’t mean that this was for ever. ‘Every day is the first day of the rest of your life,’ had been one of his mottoes, and though of course she knew it was a cliché, it had helped, then. It didn’t help now. It
really
didn’t help to think about what the rest of her life would be.

Her limbs leaden, Katy dragged herself up the stairs to the flat. In the kitchen, everything looked absolutely normal. It seemed all wrong; if the table had been overturned, the chairs broken and the pretty china she had set on the shelves with such pleasure smashed on the floor, it would have been more fitting. How could something as unimportant as a tea-set still be whole and unharmed while Rob, Rob . . . ?

The newspaper was open at the sports page, lying on the table where he had been reading it before they opened up last night. Their coffee mugs stood on the draining board, waiting to be washed. All the signs of home-life briefly interrupted, soon to be resumed. Or not, as it had turned out.

What was she to do now? Make a cup of tea – that was the accepted thing. But she’d lost count of the number of cups of tea she’d been offered last night – as if they had any effect beyond making the other person feel less helpless in the face of your suffering. She didn’t want tea.

She didn’t want brandy either – that other treatment for shock. She knew all too well what could happen if you chose that route.

Go to bed? Perhaps that would be best. She hadn’t slept all night, couldn’t imagine sleeping now – could hardly imagine ever sleeping again in the big bed where she and Rob had made love and talked and cuddled and laughed. Rob: she felt, suddenly, a knife-twist of pain in her heart, gasping with the suddenness of it. Yes, perhaps she should get herself to bed before the numb disbelief wore off altogether and she was felled by grief. Wearily she climbed the narrow stairs to the upper floor.

She was just outside her bedroom when she heard a door open downstairs and for a second her heart beat crazily. Rob – it was all a mistake . . . Then, dully, she remembered her son, whose bedroom was at the back on the first floor.

Nat came up the stairs wearing boxer shorts and a faded black T-shirt with the legend ‘SuperStud’ – an improbable boast, taken in conjunction with his acned skin, straggling stubble and scowling expression.

‘Where’ve you been? There’s something going on – police cars and stuff.’

‘The lifeboat went down. Rob’s dead.’ Her lips felt stiff as she framed the words.

Nat went very still and his eyes narrowed. ‘What happened?’

She didn’t answer, just turned to go into her room. He took two strides across the landing to bar her way with his arm. ‘Hold on. Some guy came here this morning. Plain clothes but you could tell he was the Filth. Was he looking for me?’

It was hard to focus her mind. ‘Police – I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be at school?’

‘Slept in. Weren’t here to get me up, were you?’ He lowered his face towards hers menacingly. ‘You didn’t go and sick them on to me just because I took a lend of your car, did you? Because—’

He was threatening her, just the way his father used to, and suddenly she was angry, furiously angry, and it felt good.

‘Yes!’ she yelled in his face, startling him. ‘Yes, I did. And if you end up in prison, that’s fine by me. I’ve tried to do my best for you, God knows I’ve tried, but all you want to do is bully me. You did everything to spoil the time I had with Rob and it was so short, so short! He was a good man, a decent man, who wanted to help you to stop making a mess of your life and you threw it back in his face. You couldn’t even say you were sorry when I told you he was dead.

‘Get out of my way. I can’t stand the sight of you.’ She struck out at him, slamming down with her full force on the arm that was blocking her way. Nat lurched back, rubbing his injury; the door shut, a key turned, and he heard the sound of frantic weeping on the other side.

He chewed his lip uncertainly, staring at the door with a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d never seen his mother like this. It would have been sodding Rob’s idea to shop him for taking the car last night; he’d changed her ideas in a way that didn’t suit Nat at all but now, with him permanently off the scene, it should have been easy enough to put her back in her place.

Her fury had scared him. What if the man being dead wasn’t enough – what if she stopped his allowance, threw him out anyway? What would he do then? He wasn’t going back to his father, to be his skivvy and a punchbag when he was drunk, and at his age you couldn’t live on social security. With the references he’d get from school he wouldn’t get a job either. He’d be on the streets, or living in a hostel with stinking old winos.

It was a mistake not to have said he was sorry. That was what had wound her up. He could take her a cup of tea now, find something good to say about the man even if it stuck in his throat, say he’d just been too gob-smacked to say anything before – maybe she’d buy that. And he could say he was going in to school – she always went mental when he took a day off, so she might chill a bit after that. Then he could maybe make her call off the Pigs, say she’d made a mistake, that she’d just forgotten where she’d parked the car.

He went back into his room and dressed in his school uniform grey trousers and white shirt. He was tying the tie the stupid buggers insisted you wore as loosely as he dared – he didn’t want to fall foul of Morton today – and he was on his way downstairs when he heard the ring at the doorbell, accompanied by a tattoo on the knocker.

It didn’t take a genius to work out who that was and his stomach lurched. There was no point in ignoring it this time. He’d just have to deny everything flatly. There wasn’t a thing they could prove.

The sun was pouring into the poolside area of the Elders’ house and Joanna, on one of the lime-green padded loungers, was luxuriating in its warmth. She stretched like a cat in her pink one-piece, her eyes half-closed.

On the low table beside her was a deep wicker tray with the remains of a hearty breakfast; she had eaten two croissants smothered with Normandy butter and strawberry preserve and drunk three cappuccinos. At the farther side of the pool, where the gym equipment was, the treadmill stood idle.

This late in the day, she would usually have completed a workout and run several miles, but she didn’t need to exercise today. The gnawing fear which possessed her, which only seemed to disappear when physical effort was so gruelling that she could think of nothing else, had gone.

She’d been hungry this morning too, which she hadn’t been for weeks and weeks. She was well aware that Ritchie found her emaciated body repellent – she didn’t like to look at the knobbly joints, the stick-like arms and legs herself – but she hadn’t been able to do anything about it. She had to exercise to control the fear; she couldn’t eat because it formed a cold, hard lump in her stomach. She could eat now and get rounded and feminine again, the way Ritchie liked his woman to be. She’d gone a little crazy when she realised that the security of children could never be hers, and she’d lost sight of her primary duty – to keep Ritchie happy. That had brought her perilously close to losing everything and Joanna wasn’t going to allow it to happen again.

He’d slipped quietly out of bed this morning, avoiding her, of course. She’d gone down last night when she heard his car just after midnight; he’d been pale and dishevelled, and she had listened to his disjointed account of the disaster, plying him with brandy and womanly sympathy until he said he was ready to go to bed. She’d made him take a sleeping pill and tactfully pretended to be asleep when she heard him blundering about in the morning.

The important thing was not to crowd him. He mustn’t have a chance, in his present state, to say something that could never be taken back. If he blurted out his feelings for that bitch who was now, thankfully, dead, Joanna would never get their marriage stuck back together again. He had to believe that she had suspected nothing; he had to be brought to depend on her sympathy and support.

Ritchie would need excuses for his emotion;
her
funeral, for instance, would be a danger-point, but with any luck it would be a combined ceremony for all three crew and Joanna could reassure him that manly grief on the part of the Honorary Secretary, bearing his terrible burden of responsibility, was entirely appropriate.

And once all this was behind them, when she’d regained her figure and her confidence, she’d take him away for a holiday – Goa, perhaps, or the Maldives. A glamorous resort with sun and sand where surely the sex part of the package couldn’t help but come right.

Ritchie wouldn’t change. He’d go on having affairs, but an understanding wife who knew when to turn a blind eye would be a positive asset. And if anything like the Ashley Randall thing came along again she’d make damn sure it didn’t have a chance to take root. She’d had her own stupidity and self-absorption to blame.

Even so, her eyes went to the gleaming machines at the farther end of the pool. Like an alcoholic seeing a whisky bottle, she felt a sudden, desperate yearning, but she fought it down. It was nearly eleven o’clock; her cleaners would be having their elevenses. She picked up the white towelling robe lying on the table beside her and got up. She could go to the kitchen and nick one of the chocolate biscuits she kept for them and catch up on what they were saying in the village at the same time. It should be red-hot stuff this morning.

There seemed to be a public meeting going on when DC Kingsley arrived at the Knockhaven Medical Centre, a little after half-past two. The entrance was open-plan, with a waiting area lined with blue padded benches and a table untidily strewn with dog-eared magazines, while a corridor at the farther end led to the consulting rooms. A basket of children’s toys occupied one corner and the whole of the back was office space, separated from the public by a reception desk round which half a dozen women were clustered, their backs to the door, apparently being addressed by the bulky woman on the business side. She was in late middle age with tightly permed hair, protuberant eyes and a thin-lipped mouth a little enlarged by plum-coloured lipstick. The contours of her bosom suggested corsetry of the most architectural sort and, taken in conjunction with the gun-metal grey of her acrylic jersey, reminded Kingsley irresistibly of the prow of a battleship. The name-badge she wore said ‘Muriel Henderson’.

‘And now he’s been taken away to the police station in Kirkluce. Is that not awful for the poor soul – her own son under suspicion?’

There was a communal intake of breath and a few shocked murmurs, though no one had the temerity to interrupt while Muriel held the floor. She was going on, ‘Mind you, I was speaking to someone who’d been speaking to Jackie Duncan and she said Jackie said Willie said—’

As Kingsley approached the desk, she broke off. Six heads swivelled as one, looking accusingly at the intruder who had interrupted this gossip fest just as a particularly savoury morsel was about to be served up.

‘Yes? Can I help you?’ From Muriel’s tone, he might have come bursting into her private sitting room.