Part 13 (1/2)
Simon went into the larger bedroom again and looked in the wardrobe. A woman's clothes, a blur of colours, very bright some of them, and a few city suits of his father's were squashed untidily together like two people sharing a small bed. He felt a pang of sympathy for his mother and for the first time ever was on her side. His father might have needed the love and warmth of somebody normal, but understanding that wasn't quite the same as looking at the evidence. His mother had needed someone, too.
The living-room, which looked over the street - a rather sleazy street, not well lit this hour of the night - as nondescript, mostly done up in different shades of green and cream as if no one cared a great deal. It wasn't evocative of his father, no personal imprint of any kind.
He went into the kitchen and noticed that the fridge was connected but empty. He was hungry and couldn't do much about it. Some fish and chips would have been marvellous. There weren't any drinks on the premises apart from tea and coffee. No milk. He made himself some milkless tea, then went into the bedroom again and drew the curtains.
He slept in his underpants and socks, he had packed nothing, and woke a little after midnight when the light was switched on.
”So” you've done a runner, Simon,” Rhoda said quietly. ”I thought perhaps you might.”
The owners of the shop downstair had noticed the drawn curtains and had phoned her. They were a couple of brothers originally from the West Country who had sold the flat to Peter, and had become friends over the years. They knew the background and thought Clare might have returned.
Disappointment that it was Simon and not Clare was difficult to suppress. His eyes were half closed against the light. He looked pale, very tired, very young.
He mumbled, ”I'm dreaming you.”
”Yes,” she said, ”you're dreaming me,” and put out the light. Dream on, she thought. Get what rest you can. She would return in the morning with some food for him.
His dramatic rupturing of what had seemed an idyllic relations.h.i.+p with the missing blonde had shocked her. He was the type to be hurt. Not to hurt. He would need all the help she could give him.
Simon woke to the smell of bacon grilling and, ravenously hungry by now, went to see who was in the kitchen. So it had been Rhoda in the night. He'd had too much buffeting by a malignant fate in the last week or so to feel much about anything. Including her. He remembered being angry with her a long time ago - it felt like years. Seeing her now didn't jolt him into a state of emotional turmoil, but he was glad she was there. It didn't occur to him to wonder why she should be. It seemed natural for her to turn up. She always had.
Relieved that he was accepting her presence so casually, she asked him if he had slept well. He said he had, thanks.
”You're looking scruffy,” she observed. ”There's plenty of hot water for you to freshen up, but you'd better eat first.”
It was like the old days at home. Rhoda cooking for him, caring for him, being critical. No intervening days of trauma.
She had breakfasted earlier and went through to the bathroom while he ate. She set out Peter's toiletries where he could see them, and put Clare's where he couldn't. A couple of toothbrushes sharing a mug had a raffish air of propinquity. She took the pink one out. Now what? she wondered. The situation was bizarre. His calm unnatural. When would he be ready to talk? She wanted to hear the facts, not the guesses of journalists. He had the dazed look of someone recovering from an accident, not clearly aware of anything yet.
She returned to the kitchen and poured his tea for him.
He asked her what day it was, not that it mattered, but time seemed to have got out of sequence.
”Thursday.”
”It's raining?”
”Yes.” She had hung her wet anorak on the hook on the back of the kitchen door. He was looking at it, and at her hair which gleamed with moisture.
”You've been out somewhere.”
”Yes - to my own flat. And yes - before you ask it - I have a key to this one. Your father gave it to me. I look in now and again. And let's leave it at that, shall we? At least for now. Do you want more toast?”
He didn't. She had overdone the last piece and the smell of it reminded him of the burning quilt. And that evoked other memories.
”You forgot to take it with you,” he told her.
”What?”
”Your nightdress. The police have it.”
She knew nothing of the background: details of the investigation had been kept from the Press. All she knew was that the search was on and his garden was being dug. And the inference was strong enough that though Simon wasn't charged with murdering the girl yet, he soon would be. She asked him why the police had her nightdress. He said he didn't want to talk about it.
”If you don't tell me I can't help you.”
He was grateful she wanted to help him, but he didn't see how she possibly could. To escape further questioning he told her he was going to have a bath.
He took his time over it, lying in the cooling water and trying to think things through. He would probably have to have a lawyer at some stage and wondered about Alan Drew. Perhaps he didn't do criminal work - just divorces, petty ordinary stuff. He explored his feelings about Rhoda sleeping with Drew. If she had. It was like sticking a pin in himself, a light cautious prod followed by a deeper one. Yes, it could draw blood, but at least he wasn't haemorrhaging over it.
Rhoda washed up then went to wait for him in the sitting-room. If he wouldn't speak of the past - yet - he couldn't force him to. When he joined her she asked him what his immediate plans were. ”How long do you intend staying here?”
He had no idea. ”A woman called Clare Warwick owns the flat. She might come any time. When she comes, I'll go. Or before she comes, if the police arrest me. I wish my father had left the flat to you.”
She looked stricken. ”Simon ...” She couldn't tell him. She went over to the window and stood with her face averted. He was puzzled by her reaction to a perfectly ordinary remark. If his father had given her the key to the place, then it might have been more than a casual friends.h.i.+p.
If it was, he didn't want to know.
The room was feeling stuffy. He told her he wanted to go out. The rain had eased and there were patches of blue in the sky.
She turned to face him. ”Where do you want to go?”
He remembered he'd left his car somewhere, but he had no idea where. It had probably been stolen by now or impounded by the police. It didn't matter. He couldn't drive anywhere - there was no place to drive to. He would be arrested eventually, but for the next few hours he was free. ”Anywhere - just walk around.”
”Do you want me to come with you?”
”Of course.” What did she expect him to do - go out and leave her? But she had left him and he had made a big thing of it. Met Sally and ... ”We bled,” he said, ”both of us. There's blood on your nightdress. Hers.”
”Oh G.o.d, Simon, what have you done?”
”Nothing. She just walked out. We had a row. I hit her. She had a nosebleed. That's all.” He didn't expect her to believe him. n.o.body did. People had been convicted of murder in the past without the body being produced. They were put away on circ.u.mstantial evidence. Hixon had killed five women and had raised h.e.l.l about the last one. He should have shut up, he'd had nothing to complain about. All five bodies on the mortuary slab, examined by his father, guilt positively proved.
”I wouldn't mind so much,” Simon said bitterly, ”if I were guilty. It's being innocent that gets at me. It's so f.u.c.king unfair.”
No words were ever more patently true, Rhoda, totally convinced, felt her taut muscles relax. It was then, on impulse, that she told him about Clare. And couldn't have chosen a better moment.
Clare's disappearance, compared with Sally's, seemed to Simon of no great consequence. She had decided to go somewhere else - take a holiday - not send a letter - that was all. She hadn't left any blood anywhere, had she? The police weren't chasing Rhoda, were they? That she was Rhoda's sister and had been his father's mistress, the owner of the clothes in the wardrobe, was more disturbing.
”Why didn't you tell me before?”
”I didn't want to upset you.”
He thought about it. Had things been normal he would have been upset. If you fling a pebble into a goldfish bowl the splash wets you and you might kill the fish. If you throw that same pebble into a large grey ocean it sinks without trace. Simon's ocean was very grey. He stood a good chance of drowning in it.
”I'm not upset,” he said. ”I've other, more upsetting things to be upset about. But I still wish my father had left the flat to you.”
Mrs Mackay couldn't believe that Sally might be dying. She was drowsy all the time, that was all, too drowsy, maybe. She was too weak to get out of bed and didn't try. But if she were to get back to The Mount then it was necessary that she should walk, even just a little. Mrs Mackay couldn't carry her. And Sally would have to say where she had been - a story about being concussed and wandering around, she couldn't remember where. That had been the plan. Doctor Donaldson had used hypnosis with his patients to help them to find out where they had been. If he used it on Sally she might tell him. He might guess about the drugs. The pharmacist had gone down the corridor to speak to one of the nurses while she had waited for her cough linctus. ”Only be gone a tick' he'd said. A tick had been about five minutes. Long enough.