Part 9 (1/2)

”Was it?” said Sally, smiling valiantly.

At his home, a few minutes down the road from the Avon Arms, Maybridge was apologising to Alan Drew and his client that he couldn't give them more time and more hospitality. It seemed churlish not to offer them a meal. Had Meg been there, she would have got something together while he'd given the problem all the time and attention it deserved. Instant coffee or a soft drink for whoever was driving and a choice of something stronger for the pa.s.senger was the best he could do. They'd had an early dinner at a pub near Stroud, Drew explained. They were fine, honestly, didn't want anything. Except advice.

Maybridge's first impression of Rhoda didn't tally with Meg's, possibly because she wasn't putting on any kind of act. He listened to what she had to say - truth slightly edited, he guessed - and did a little reading between the lines. Her connection with Peter, through her sister, put her activities at Simon's home into a different light. Her unofficial sleuthing was unwise, but worry about her sister might have unbalanced her judgment, and Simon hadn't complained. It was obvious that she wished him no harm, her concern for the boy was genuine. It was wrong, she said, that he should be done out of any part of his inheritance.

And it was wrong, if you viewed it from the strictly moralistic angle, but the chances of its being put right were remote and depended on the goodwill of the missing sister. She would probably hang on to what she had.

If she were still alive, and there was no reason to fear that she wasn't. Hixon had been safely locked away when the photo was taken, and there weren't any other serial murderers roaming around - as far as he knew.

He asked Rhoda if they had parted on good terms last time they had met. She admitted they had had an argument. ”About her relations.h.i.+p with Peter. I thought the situation could be dangerous.” ”Dangerous?” ”Well - unwise.”

Unwise. A watered-down word, but surely nearer the mark. There had been sibling rivalry over a shared lover, perhaps. She hadn't spoken Bradshaw's name with cool indifference, though she had tried to, and she had avoided looking directly at him. Peter had a lot to answer for. Clare Warwick was by no means the first of his extramarital adventures. If there was an after-life, his h.e.l.l would be celibacy.

It seemed safe to a.s.sume that the sisters had quarrelled and the younger one had taken off in a huff. A simple explanation. If that were so she would return in her own good time and wonder what all the fuss was about. Only there hadn't been any fuss - yet - the only one who seemed to be worried was Rhoda. More than worried. Extremely anxious.

Drew had brought a typed resume of everything that Rhoda had told him earlier in the office. He pa.s.sed it to Maybridge. ”If you think this might be of any use, keep it. I have a copy.” It looked business-like, he hoped, and took the emphasis off the social side of the evening which had started quite delightfully with an alfresco meal of freshly caught salmon washed down with a good quality Chablis. He and Rhoda had taken a walk afterwards by the river which ran along the bottom of the inn's garden and the evening had been golden and very promising - or perhaps he had been a touch optimistic about the promise.

Maybridge, scanning the notes, realised that most of the information could have been imparted over the phone, though he was glad it hadn't been. It was interesting meeting her. That it was rather more than interesting for Drew was obvious. He tried to remember his marital background and had a hazy recollection of Meg's mentioning that he'd married the daughter of one of her university colleagues, a law graduate, and that it hadn't worked. Two professionals getting scratchy in the domestic cage - happier apart. Maybe it wasn't Drew - another solicitor - but the words had stuck. He and Meg had been scratchy at that particular time, too - job pressure, but no wounds of any consequence. Meg and Rhoda would be glad to have missed each other, he guessed: antipathy between women doesn't dissipate very easily.

He smiled at her. ”Telling someone not to worry is about as much use as telling a tooth to stop aching - but - well, for what it's worth - try to be positive. People, even sisters, can behave with cra.s.s stupidity. Forget to write. Not bother to get in touch. Lack the imagination to guess you might be anxious. I'll find out what's happening at the London end and keep Alan informed.”

She felt rea.s.sured. He had a quality of kindly honesty and would do all he could. She thanked him briefly. ”It's good of you to bother.”

He responded by wis.h.i.+ng her a safe journey back to London. She stood a far greater chance of being mugged on the train, he thought, than of anything dire having happened to her sister. It was unfortunate they couldn't have met earlier in the evening.

It was unfortunate for Simon, too. The timing couldn't have been worse. He and Sally were walking out of the Avon Arms when Drew and Rhoda were driving past. ”Looks as if the lad's got himself fixed up,” Drew pointed them out. ”Young love.” He slowed down. ”Do you want a word with him?”

Rhoda, speechless with relief, shook her head. If she were a praying woman she would have thanked whatever G.o.d had been wise and wonderful enough to fix such a neat and natural solution. The busty little blonde girl had her arm around his waist. She was perfect for him. Just what he needed. The crush he'd had on her was over. The burden had gone.

Rhoda had turned towards Drew and was smiling at him when Simon saw her. He watched the car moving slowly down the road and then gradually picking up speed. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Rhoda and Alan Drew. Alan Drew who knew his father. Alan Drew who had carried his mother's coffin. He wanted to run after the car, hammer on the bonnet, yell at Drew to stop. And then look at her. To make sure. She wouldn't come and go. Ignore him. Not come near him. Just like that.

Would she?

He found it difficult to move. Sally's arm was like a warm snake around his waist. He took her hand in his cold one and thrust her aside.

And stood looking after the car until it had gone.

”A woman of that age shouldn't have long hair,” Sally said nastily. She only had Creggan's description to go on - the black-haired senora - but looking at Simon's face now told her who it was. He was pale apart from blobs of colour on his cheekbones and on his forehead. Was that what love did to you - bring you out in a rash? It was funny, in a way, but she didn't dare smile. The bloke the woman had with her wasn't anything special. Not like Cormack. Cormack's brush-off had hurt a bit, but she'd get over it and try again.

She asked Simon what he wanted to do. They couldn't keep standing here like a couple of zombies. A walk up into the woods, while it was still light? ”I don't have to get back to The Mount yet.”

He told her he was going home. It was a dismissal she wouldn't accept. The evening, she hoped, might have a few plus points. It couldn't be minus all the time. Black clouds with silver linings - that sort of thing. Anyway, she could do with a few more drinks and the professor's cupboard still had a reasonable stock left.

She walked a few paces behind him because she couldn't keep up. After moving off in a sort of daze he seemed to have got himself into gear and was going at a pretty fast clip. People in a temper were like that sometimes. They walked off their rage.

But you can't walk off pain. You can walk until your heart thumps and your breath comes too fast, but it's inside you all the time. You can't out-walk it. Out-breathe it. It's in the air - on the Macklestone road - in the cool of the darkening house. Simon, aware of Sally's presence, but in a peripheral way as if she were part of the furniture, ignored her and went upstairs.

Sally, listening in the hall, heard the bathroom door close. Yes - well - upsets took her that way too. He might be there some time so she made for the drinks cupboard in the sitting-room and poured herself a gin. He had a fixation on that woman - or was obsession the word? - so there could be a bit of pa.s.sion in him somewhere. A relief, really, to know that. He wasn't a poofter, though she'd begun to wonder. She went to sit on the sofa and removed a pair of his trainers which had been slung on it. This was a nice house. An expensive house. Not the kind of place you gave up on. Perhaps the senora, whatever her name was, had a house of her own. An even better one. Or the bloke she was with had. She hadn't even waved to Simon. Just ducked her head and pretended she hadn't seen him. An uncaring sort of b.i.t.c.h, really.

Sally sipped her gin, listened to the toilet being flushed, and heard the sound of Simon's footsteps as he climbed to the top floor. She had been up there only once, on the day she had packed the Bradshaws' clobber. The place had the look of a rich kid's playroom, she'd thought then. Not that she'd liked the mural much. It hadn't seemed the sort of thing to make a kid happy. Young boys usually liked bug-eyed monsters. Bug-eyed monsters were cheerfully hideous. The creatures in the wall painting seemed to be suffering from anorexia nervosa, or one of the other daft dieting diseases Donaldson catered for, and they had twined poisonous ivy in their hair. Simon had probably been brought up looking at the wrong things. Which explained a lot.

If he had any sense he would paint it out. It would be therapy to do something like that. Sitting brooding wouldn't do him any good, if that was what he was doing. He could, of course, be hanging himself from the hook behind the door. She considered the possibility with equanimity, not believing it. Gin was a calming drink; her mind was untroubled.

She went upstairs after a while to see what he was up to and found him tearing up sheets of foolscap paper, closely written on, and cramming the torn paper into a wicker wastepaper basket. He didn't glance at her when she came in. It would do him good, she told him approvingly, to do just that. Some of The Mount patients got rid of their aggro by sticking pins in themselves, before they were stopped: tearing up paper was a better way. Would he like her to help - to tear it up with him? It sounded deeply sarcastic but wasn't intended that way.

His voice was small and tight. ”Go away.”

”A little painting, then?” she suggested. ”I can get rid of some of that for you. You're too old to have kids' pictures on a wall.”

She looked in the cupboard over the sink and found a gla.s.s jar of powder paint that had been mixed several months ago and gone solid with age. She half-filled the jar with water but it wouldn't absorb the paint and there was nothing to stir it with. Shaking the jar wasn't any use, either, and it slipped out of her hands and broke, depositing a small damp mound like a cow pat on the floor.

”Sorry, Simon. I'm a little whoozy. Didn't mean to make a mess.”

She hadn't meant to cut her finger, either. She asked him if he would mind very much if she wiped the blood off with a corner of the quilt. And wiped it off before he could answer.

Simon stopped tearing up Rhoda's notes. She wouldn't need them. She would never come here again. Doing this to her wouldn't hurt her. There was nothing he could do to her that would hurt her.

And there was nothing he could do to himself that would make him feel halfway alive again. Unless ...

He looked at Sally. ”All right,” he said.

She understood him immediately. Gin didn't turn her on, but it didn't turn her off, either. Had she been sober she would have undressed more seductively and not got her feet tangled up in her knickers. She would have taken better charge of him, too, not let him fumble around so much. He was a male virgin, whatever that was called, and she should have helped rather than giggled. But he got there in the end and she held his head against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and kissed his hair, which was damp with effort.

Sated, surprised, wanting to weep, to laugh, but mainly wanting to sleep, Simon rolled away from her and fell off the narrow couch on to the floor. The thump crashed him back into the reality of the here and now. Sleep fled. Rhoda's sacrosanct couch. He had made love on it. His pre-s.e.x gloom returned, tinged with guilt. Sally's laughter tinkled like lute strings plucked by demon fingers. He wished to G.o.d she'd shut up.

”You've got to go,” he told her.

She thought he was being extremely ungrateful. Why did she have to go? She had been very nice to him. He had enjoyed it. And it hadn't been at all bad for her, either. All he needed was practice.

”I've got to wash the quilt,” he said.

Wash it? Was he daft? Okay, so there should have been a towel or something, but it wasn't a clinical exercise, d.a.m.n it. It just happened. Didn't he know that? How would it have been for him if she had been the other woman? Would he have cuddled up with her all night? Was he being deliberately rude because she wasn't the other one?

”What's her name?” Her voice was sullen.

Simon was tugging at the quilt. ”Whose?”

”The black haired witch's.”

”I don't know who you're talking about.” He kept on tugging and she grabbed the other end and tugged back. She needed it to cover her, to keep her warm.

He was the stronger and pulled her off the couch, forcing her around the room towards the door, both of them treading on small slivers of gla.s.s and not noticing, lips compressed with effort, eyes slits of anger. He inched her out on to the landing and on to the top step of the stairs. Not cautious, not caring if the other fell, they slithered precariously, each step down his victory, reversed when she gained a step up. And then her hands wouldn't take the strain any more and she slackened her grip, but didn't let go. The last three steps were taken fast, the quilt softening the impact. Battle scarred - he had a cut lip and she had b.u.mped her forehead on the banister - they sat together on the bottom step, naked, breathless and momentarily at peace. It had been a pa.s.sionate few minutes, rather fun in its way, she thought. Had they made love now, they would have made it better - after a rest. He told her he was sorry and asked if she were all right. Her head throbbed, but not too badly, but there was blood on the quilt - from their feet, which were resting on it. ”Your blood is bleeding into mine,” she told him, ”like a gypsy love ritual.”

It hadn't seemed to him like an act of love - his act of love with Sally. And he had forgotten to wear his sheath. He was more sober than she was, but even less rational. Rhoda's desertion, her rejection, couldn't be viewed coolly by him. And the last thing he wanted was to have Sally's plump foot resting on his. He limped into the bathroom and came back with a wet towel for both of them. And he wiped her feet and she wiped his. And the gla.s.s, as small as sugar crystals, was picked out carefully by both of them. Like monkeys picking fleas, she giggled.

Not a Rhoda remark.

He told her he was cold and was going to get dressed - in the clothes in his bedroom. He wasn't going up to the studio to walk on gla.s.s, and if she went up she had better be careful.