The Depths of Solitude (2 page)

Authors: Jo Bannister

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: The Depths of Solitude

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All three of them stared at her – Voss with admiration, Deacon with respect, Brodie with horror. “We can’t!”

“Why not? If he’s busy he’ll send us packing. But it’s as obvious as sin that you two need to sit down and talk, that Mr Deacon won’t be happy till you do, and that while Mr Deacon’s unhappy Charlie’s going to be miserable. If he comes home glum and monosyllabic every night I may very well dump him and try out the talent in the doctors’ common room. At least when I go to parties with medics we talk about people I’ve met!”

Voss knew it wasn’t him she was getting at. He stood up. “That’s it, then. If you don’t want to blight my life you’ll do as Helen says.” He extended his hand: Brodie took it warily.

Deacon nodded approval and went to settle the bill.

Behind his back Brodie gave resistance one last shot. “The taxi won’t be here for another hour …”

“We’ll walk,” said Voss. “It’s a nice October evening, we’ll enjoy the stroll. Then Daniel can make us some coffee and we’ll have the taxi collect us there. This is something you need to do, Mrs Farrell. The longer you avoid talking to him, the harder it’ll be.”

That at least was true. In fact, most of what had been said in the last half hour had been true, and if a part of Brodie rebelled at having her affairs publicly debated another part was touched that there were people who cared enough to want to help. She shrugged and went with them. “Oh, all
right …
”

They walked along the esplanade with the Firestone Cliffs behind them. And if the winos who hung out in the decayed public rooms of the old Maritime Hotel thought it funny to see Detective Superintendent Deacon stroll hand-in-hand with a woman almost young enough, but much too pretty, to be his daughter, they had just enough sense to get back inside before laughing.

In the dark the three netting-sheds were black fingers
poking out of the shingle shore. There were no lights to show that the one nearest to the pier was someone’s home, and when the walkers reached the iron steps they saw why. The house was shut up, and there was a For Sale board wired to the railing.

For a moment estate agent Edwin Turnbull thought the woman with the cloud of dark hair who was waiting when he opened the office on Saturday morning wanted to buy the netting-shed. He showed her quickly to a chair, ordered coffee, would have given her shoes a quick polish if she’d asked him.

He hadn’t known what to expect of the property. Its seafront location might have sold it a dozen times over. As against that, it was clear to anyone with an eye in his head that some wild night Dimmock’s crumbling pier would break up and then it would be sheer luck whether an oak pile swept the shed away or not. No one would give a mortgage on it, or storm insurance. You can’t insure against the inevitable.

A cash buyer just might be keen enough to proceed with the purchase against wiser counsels, but the planning conditions attached to the property would weed out most eccentric millionaires. The original shed was destroyed by arson so the planners felt obliged to approve a replacement. What they would not agree to was any extension in the size of the footprint. No one would buy the shed for its location and build a mansion on the site.

Mr Turnbull was an optimist – all estate agents are, it’s part of the job description – and knew there had to be an unmarried, childless eccentric millionaire out there who wanted to be lulled to sleep by the sound of waves on shingle thirty paces from his bijou beach-house and would be undeterred by its lack of a garden, yard, car-parking or any kind of privacy. But he doubted there were two, so when Brodie asked about the shed he had her in
his office with his back against the door before she could explain the nature of her interest.

“I don’t want to buy the place,” she said for the third time, her voice taking on a steely timbre. “I want to contact the vendor.”

Mr Turnbull gave a delicate little shudder. He was a slightly stooped middle-aged man with thinning hair slicked back in a way that hadn’t been fashionable when he started doing it ten years before. “Oh no, Mrs Farrell, that’s not at all how we do things. I will convey to the vendor all expressions of interest in his house and any offers for it. He will instruct me whether to accept, or reject, or enter into negotiations. I am his agent. It’s why I’m called an estate agent.”

“Try to understand,” said Brodie with a patience that was starting to grate as it wore thin, like brake-pads. “I am not offering to buy the property. I am not trying to defraud you of your commission. I am trying to contact a man who was once a good friend, and is now so much a stranger that I didn’t know he’d left town until I saw your board at his front door. I want you to tell me where he went. I want an address for him, and a phone-number, and I want them now.”

If Mr Turnbull had fitted a panic-button under his desk he’d have been jabbing it. It was odd. She was clearly a respectable woman. Her request might have been unusual but she had said nothing he could take exception to. Yet he not only felt threatened, he knew he was meant to. As a professional visitor of other people’s homes Mr Turnbull had met dogs like that. They didn’t bark, they didn’t growl, they didn’t show their teeth — but you knew that if you handled the next few minutes wrong you were going to be picking fangs out of your leg.

He withdrew to his last defensible position. “It’s a question of confidentiality …”

Brodie withdrew to hers. It had a big gun on it. “If you’re not happy giving me the information, perhaps you’d entrust it to Detective Superintendent Deacon of Dimmock CID.”

Mr Turnbull gave a plaintive little sigh and opened the file. “One moment …”

She saw him blink as what he read there jogged his memory. “Mrs Farrell, I don’t think I can be much help either to you or Superintendent Deacon. Mr Hood couldn’t give me a forwarding address. He said he was going to be moving around, visiting family. He promised to phone at intervals for a progress report.”

“And has there been any?” asked Brodie.

“Progress? Not yet. Plenty of people have called but none have wanted to view. They’re all put off by the planning restrictions.”

“Good,” said Brodie. “Listen, Mr Turnbull, you might as well understand the situation. Daniel put his home on the market in a fit of pique. When he calms down he’ll take it off again. I realise that’s not what you want to hear, but you probably shouldn’t spend too much time trying to round up a buyer. The sale will never go ahead.”

The estate agent knitted his brows in a thoughtful frown and pursed his lips. “Mrs Farrell — how do I put this? — I understood Mr Hood to be unencumbered. If you’re telling me you have an interest in this property …”

Brodie laughed out loud. “No, I’m not his wife, Mr Turnbull. Or his lover, live-in or otherwise, or his business partner. I’m just a friend. But I know him well enough to know this is a mistake. I’m trying to save you time and effort.”

“And Detective Superintendent Deacon …?”

“ …is my toy-boy,” said Brodie calmly. “Actually, Mr Turnbull, there is one thing you can do for me. When Daniel calls in, tell him to phone me. He knows the number.”

The agent made a note in the file. “And in the meantime, should I show the house or not?”

Brodie shrugged. “I’ve told you what I think, what you do is up to you. But for heaven’s sake stop calling it a house. It’s a shack!”

She waited for the phone to ring. And it rang a lot, but it was never Daniel. She told herself it might take a few days. Longer than that: it could be a few days before he phoned Mr Turnbull, and a few days more while he debated whether to call her. But in the end he would. Whatever his feelings about her right now, Daniel Hood was not a man who fled his demons. All the time she’d known him, Brodie’s abiding concern had been that one day he would stand in front of a charging elephant to prove he wasn’t afraid to.

The phone kept ringing, and it kept being someone else.

After a week she called Turnbull again. He assured her he’d passed on her message, which meant Daniel was deliberately ignoring it. Brodie Farrell didn’t like being ignored. It didn’t happen very often, partly because she made sure it was never a cost-free option.

“So what are you going to do?” asked Deacon.

“Do?” she echoed coldly. “Nothing.”

Deacon nodded. “That’s mature.”

“What do you want me to do? Mount an expedition to look for him? I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Brodie,” said Deacon patiently, “finding things is what you do for a living.”

“That’s right,” she snapped, “it’s something I get paid for. I don’t see much profit in hunting for someone whose answer to a moral dichotomy is to throw his toys out of the pram! I made the first move. If he doesn’t want to meet me halfway, fine. I wasn’t wrong, Jack, I’m not fawning after him as if I was.”

Deacon had to erase from his mind the image of Brodie fawning after anyone. It was right up there with
Pavarotti Sings Shirley Temple
in the pantheon of improbabilities. “It’s not about right and wrong any more. It’s about you hurting one another for no better reason than you can’t seem to stop. Find him, Brodie. Tell him you hate what’s happened between you as much as he does. He’ll take it from there.”

She looked at him sidelong over the
petit fours
. They were back in the same French restaurant. It was Deacon’s favourite; if he wasn’t working they came here every Friday night. He liked it because, however busy it got, they always managed to find him a nice quiet table. He thought they were protecting his privacy. In fact they were protecting the rest of their clients from the arguments that surrounded him the way storm clouds gather round mountains.

“You realise what you’re doing?” said Brodie.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’re urging me to make up a fight with another man. That’s very Caring And Sharing of you.”

Deacon shrugged like a buffalo dislodging ox-peckers. On a list of New Men he put himself somewhere below Mike Tyson – he didn’t even stroke his cat. He didn’t know what Brodie saw in him, and didn’t ask. If she thought his rough, cynical exterior hid a heart of gold he wasn’t about to disabuse her. “You want to make me jealous, you’ll have to try harder than that. I may not know
exactly what it is between you and Daniel but I know what it isn’t.”

“He’s my best friend,” Brodie said simply. Her tone hardened. “At least, he used to be.”

“And I used to be a policeman,” snorted Deacon. “Some things last. Some things last longer than you want them to.”

Her eyes flared at him again. “This wasn’t my idea, Jack. I didn’t send Daniel away because of the choice he made in a frightful situation. He left because I couldn’t give him my whole-hearted approval. I was willing to draw a line under it. He wasn’t.”

“He was the one who was hurting,” murmured Deacon. “He needed your support. You could have lied.”

“To Daniel?” Her voice soared. “You think that would have made things better? Daniel thinks lying is the sin against the Holy Ghost – except of course that he’s an atheist. You can’t make this my fault, Jack. It happened because Daniel’s as stubborn as you are: there’s only one right way and that’s his way, and there’s only one reasonable position for other people to take and that’s lined up behind him. Well, other people’s consciences matter too. I can live with what he did, but I’m sure as hell not going to fete him for it!”

Deacon breathed heavily. “You’d rather lose him? You’d rather have him ride off into the sunset and never know what became of him? And don’t say yes because I know it isn’t true. You want to talk about stubborn, let’s talk about you. We both know you could find him in half a day if you wanted to. You’ve done it before, the only reason you’re not doing it now is you think it’s his turn to make a move. Well, maybe it is, but maybe he isn’t able to. You’re stronger than he is. And you haven’t as much on the line.”

Brodie snorted her derision. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Daniel isn’t weak –”

“He’s fragile, and you know it as well as I do. How could he be anything else? He’s lost the life he used to have. He’s been surrounded by death for eight months. He needs your kindness, Brodie. You’re offering to meet him halfway when what he needs is for you to follow him wherever he’s gone, dig him out of whatever hole he’s crawled into and bring him home.”

Brodie was stilled by surprise. It wasn’t that Deacon never expressed his feelings, just that the feelings he expressed were always anger and impatience. She knew there was another side to him, of course, or why was she here? But she was stunned by the unexpected opening of this window to his soul and the human decency it illuminated. She found herself glancing round, in case anyone had noticed. If they had Deacon would have some fences to mend.

But no. The waiters’ strategy was sound. If the other diners realised they were arguing none had thought it interesting enough to let their own meals go cold.

After a moment Brodie reached across the tablecloth and put her hand over Deacon’s. Even now she couldn’t touch him without being aware of the power latent in every part of his body. Casual acquaintances saw a big, heavy middle-aged man of uncertain temper and, apart from keeping out of his way, looked no closer. But those who knew him better acknowledged that while Jack Deacon might have been carved out of a mountain, rock isn’t dead. It’s hard and strong, and it’s thrown up by the boiling heart of the planet.

She said softly, “You’re a good man, Jack. A good and perceptive man. You think I should bring Daniel home?”

“Yes,” said Deacon.

“You don’t think –”

“No,” said Deacon.

She sighed and nodded. “Where do I start looking? I don’t know where he’d go when he left here.”

“Didn’t Turnbull say something about family? Where’s he from?”

“Nottingham. But I didn’t know he had any family left. His grandfather raised him but he died a couple of years ago. That’s when Daniel came to Dimmock.”

Deacon sucked in his cheeks and eyed her levelly. “Nottingham?”

Brodie sighed. “Don’t be so childish. Hood is a perfectly ordinary name.”

“Of course it is,” agreed Deacon. “I expect the Nottingham phone book’s full of them. But if not I’ll try official channels.”

“Official – ?”

“I’ll call the Sheriff’s office.”

Brodie ignored that. “I’ll wait till after the weekend,” she decided. “If he hasn’t got in touch by then I’ll go look for him.”