"I didn't think it was fair."

He gave a mirthless laugh. "Well, maybe I don't put such a high price on fairness as you do. Did you think about that? Sam and I go back a long way. Maybe I'd have been happier not knowing."

I was sure he was right. It was truly said that what you don't know can't hurt you, and Sam and he could have gone on forever, the one lying about his stalwart support of his friend, the other lying about his success. It was also truly said that misery loves company and I laid a quiet bet with myself that Jock�a man not given to suffering in silence�would pick up the telephone after I left and offload some of his misery onto my husband.

It seemed eminently fair to me�justice demands a penalty�but whether they would ever speak again was questionable. I wasn't troubled by it. I had waited a very long time for my pound of flesh.
 

Family correspondence�dated 1999

CURRAN HOUSE
Whitehay Road
Torquay
Devon

Friday

Dearest M,

I can't help feeling Libby is right, and you should rethink these visits on Monday, particularly the one to Alan's house. I know Danny's told you Alan won't be there�but do at least consider how he's likely to react when his wife tells him you've taken photographs of what's there. Are you sure it wouldn't be more sensible to involve the police ? I know I don't need to remind you of what Alan and his father did to you�it distresses me to see you washing your hands all the time�but I'm not as confident as you that just because Alan's brother doesn't seem to know about his past, his wife won't either.

Love,
Dad
X X X

 

*18*

My last port of call that day was a small 1930s semi in Isleworth with pebble-dashed walls and lattice-style windows. It was too far to walk so I took a taxi from Richmond station and asked the driver to wait in case there was no one at home or the occupants refused to speak to me. I heard a dog bark as I rang the bell, then the door was flung open by a small curly haired boy, and a Great Dane came bounding out to circle 'round me, growling. "Mu-mmy!" the child screamed. "Satan's going to bite a lady. Mu-mmy!"

A plump blonde in a baggy T-shirt and leggings appeared behind him and sent the dog back inside with a click of her fingers. "Don't worry," she said comfortably. "His bark's worse than his bite."

I smiled weakly. "How do you know?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How many people has he bitten?"

"Oh, I see!" She giggled. "None. Yet ... No, I'm joking. Actually, he's a big softy. Mind you"�she ruffled her son's hair�"how many times do I have to tell you not to open the door, Jason? Not everyone's as easy 'round dogs as this lady and if Satan did bite someone we'd have the police here in no time flat." She turned him 'round and steered him toward a door to her right. "Go and watch Tansy for me. I don't want her sticking her fingers in the sockets again." The corners of her mouth lifted in a questioning smile. "So what can I do for you? If you're a Jehovah's Witness you'll be wasting your time. That's why Satan's called Satan ... to scare off the God squad."

She was like a gust of fresh air after the watchful suspicion of Maureen Slater, and I wasn't remotely surprised that Danny preferred her company to his mother's. "That would be Alan," I said.

"That's right."

"And you're Beth?"

She nodded.

"Alan knew me as Mrs. Ranelagh," I said, holding out my hand. "My husband and I used to live down the other end of Graham Road from his parents when he was a child. I was one of his teachers."

She looked surprised as she returned my handshake. "Are you the lady Danny was on about? He phoned a couple of nights ago and said he'd met someone who used to teach Al."

"Yes."

She glanced past me toward the taxi. "He said you were in Dorset."

"We're renting a farmhouse there for the summer. It's about ten miles from where Danny's staying. I'm in London today because there were some people I needed to see"�I didn't think she'd accept that I'd dropped in on a whim�"one of whom was Alan."

A look of uncertainty crossed her face. "He went really quiet when Danny mentioned your name ... almost like you were Jack the Ripper or something."

"Did he?" I asked in surprise. "He always told me I was his favorite teacher. I wouldn't have dreamed of dropping in otherwise."

She looked embarrassed. "He's not here. He's working on a site out Chertsey way." A frown developed. "I'm surprised Danny didn't tell you. It's one of these executive-type estates ... you know, houses with fancy stonework and porches on pillars�and he's been pestering Al for weeks to put his name up for the decorative bits. They're behind with the contract so my poor old boy's working overtime ... most evenings he doesn't get back till 'round 10." The frown deepened. "Anyway, how come you needed to see him? Most of his teachers were glad to be shot of him."

"Me, too," I said honestly. "Most of the time he couldn't be bothered to turn up, and when he did he was so disruptive that I wished he hadn't." I smiled to take the sting from my words. "Then I'd take a deep breath, remind myself of what his father was like, and try again. I couldn't bear to think he'd end up like Derek. And he obviously hasn't if everything Danny's told me about you and the children is true."

Curiosity won out, as I hoped it would, because my excuse for being there wasn't enough to persuade her to invite me in. "I never met his dad," she said, a gleam of interest sparkling in her eyes. "He was long gone before I met Al, but everyone says he was a bastard. Did you know him well?"

"Oh, yes. He threatened to rearrange my face once, so I tried to have him arrested." I turned irresolutely toward the taxi. "I asked the driver to wait in case you weren't at home, but I think he's left the clock running."

"Fuck that for a load of bananas," she said cheerfully. "They're all rip-off merchants ... charge you an arm 'n' a bloody leg just to look you. Excuse my French. How about I give you a cup of tea and we'll call for a minicab later? If you're lucky, Al might get home early for once. I mean, it's not every day one of his teachers turns up"�she canted her head to one side�"though you don't look much like any of the old bats who taught me, and that's a fact."

With a grateful smile for the offer of tea and the compliment�and a silent, earnest prayer that nothing would induce Alan to come home early�I paid off the cab and followed her inside. As I might have predicted, the interior was a reflection of Beth's down-to-earth character. Colors were simple and direct�terra-cotta and straw being her obvious favorites. Floor coverings were practical�sanded floorboards in the hall and cork in the kitchen�and all her furniture was arranged to maximize space and minimize accidents for her children. It worked, and it was attractive, and when I told her so she was pleased but not surprised.

"It's what I want to do when the kids are both at school," she said, "take over someone's house and make it nice for them. I reckon I've got a talent for it, and it seems a shame to work in a factory if I can make money out of something I enjoy. I do it all myself�Al's too tired to be sanding floors when he gets home�and most of my mates go green when they come visiting. Half of them think women aren't made for this kind of caper, and the other half say they'd be too embarrassed to go to the hire shop for tools like sanding machines and wallpaper strippers because they wouldn't know what to ask for."

I skirted cautiously around the Great Dane, which had stretched itself full length on a fluffy rug in front of the cooker. "What did you do before you married Alan?" I asked, pulling out a kitchen chair and straddling it. The dog raised its head with a hostile look in its eyes, then, at a click from his mistress's fingers, yawned and went back to sleep.

"I was a hairdresser," Beth said with a laugh, "and I hated every minute of it. I was supposed to be a stylist but the only styling I ever did was blue rinses for miserable old women who had nothing better to do with their time than whinge about their husbands. And it didn't seem to make much difference whether the poor old bastards were dead or alive, they still got the treatment. Yackety ... yackety ... yack. He's mean.... He's stupid ... He dribbles on the toilet seat ... Honestly! It didn't half put me off getting old."

I laughed. "It sounds like my mother."

"Is she like that?"

"A bit."

"I never knew my mum," said Beth, pushing an armful of bangles up to her elbow as she carried the kettle to the sink and turned on the water. "Not the biological one anyway. She put me up for adoption when I was a baby. My adoptive mum's great ... so is my dad ... they love Al and they love the kids. They asked me once if I wanted to go looking for my real mum, and I said no chance. I mean, there's no guarantee I'm going to like her�half the people I know can't stand their parents ... so why waste time looking for her?"

I didn't say anything.

"You think I'm wrong?"

"Not at all," I said with a smile. "I was thinking what a levelheaded woman you are and how lucky Alan is to have married you." I was also thinking of something that an educational psychologist had once written about Alan ... He should be encouraged to form strong and positive bonds with adults ... He needs to feel valued..."You've obviously been good for Danny as well ... He certainly talks about you very fondly." It was sincerely meant and her cheeks flushed pink with pleasure. "What about their sisters?" I asked. "Do you see much of them?"

This must have been a thornier subject because her frown promptly returned. "The last time we saw them was at Tansy's christening and that's three years ago now. Al said we'd give it one more try, so we invited them, and they promptly lammed into me and Al as per usual ... ruined poor little Tan's party ... and we thought, to hell with it, life's too short for this kind of aggro." She swept some breadcrumbs from the table into her cupped hand and I watched in fascination as the bangles rattled down to her wrist. "Al says it's jealousy because we're doing okay and they're not�one of them's got four kids and no bloke because he buggered off when she fell pregnant the last time�the other's got five kids by different dads and two of them are in care."

"Where do they live?"

"A big estate near Heathrow."

"Together?"

"Neighboring blocks. The kids run around in a gang and terrorize the old people living there. I hate to think how many police cautions they've had. Someone told me the other day that the council's planning to take out injunctions to force Sally and Pauline to keep them inside ... but I don't know if it's true. The worst thing is, they've been trying to get on the housing list here and I said to Al we'd have to move if it happened because there's no way I'm going to let Jason and Tansy get sucked into trouble by their cousins." She poured the tea and, like her mother-in-law, added milk automatically. "Al says it's not really his sisters' fault," she went on, passing me a cup, "not when you look at the kind of upbringing they had, but as I keep telling him, if that's true then he and Danny should be as bad."

She reminded me of Julia Charles, our neighbor in Graham Road, who had agonized in the same way about the terrible influence Alan Slater and Michael Percy would have on her children if she ever let them play in the street. They're such awful boys, she used to say, and it's not as though it's a "class" thing, or not really. It's their parents who're to blame. If their mothers spent more time with the kids and less time on their backs or on the bottle, then the kids would be better behaved. Everyone knew that.

"It sounds as if they've reversed their roles," I said slowly. "The two girls always seemed quite sensible when they were children. Either that or they were too terrified of their father to put a foot wrong. They used to follow in Alan's wake sometimes, but never further than the end of the road. They were both small and dark like their mother and Sally's the older of the two?" She nodded. "They were friendly with two other little girls of about the same age�Rosie and Bridget Spalding�and used to play hopscotch on the pavement. Bridget married Alan's friend, Michael Percy, and moved down to Bournemouth, but I've no idea what happened to Rosie." I raised a questioning eyebrow but Beth shook her head as she perched on the edge of a worktop and cradled her cup between her hands. "Al hasn't kept up with anyone from Graham Road," she said. "He goes to see his mother once in a while, but never for very long because it makes him so depressed. Left to himself, he wouldn't go at all ... but I keep saying, he has to set a good example to Jace and Tan ... I mean, I'd die if they never came to see me after they were grown." She had pale lashes and pale eyebrows, which gave her face a bland look until she screwed one of her many expressions onto it. Now she made a grimace of irritation. "She doesn't make it easy, though. All she ever does is complain about how lonely she is and how miserable she is. It's a vicious circle. If she put herself out to be pleasant, he'd probably drop in more often ... Instead, he delays as long as he can, then goes out of guilt."

"Do you and the children visit her?"

More grimacing. "We did till Jason found her Prozac and ended up in the hospital. I was that mad with her. It's not as though she needs the stupid things. Half the time she doesn't take them ... It's just a way of getting invalidity benefit so she can sit at home and watch the telly all day. I wouldn't mind so much if I hadn't asked her to keep them out of harm's way, but it's like talking to a brick wall. She smokes and drinks around Jace and Tan, takes no notice of what I might feel about it, then has the nerve to tell me she doesn't know what the fuss is about. 'It didn't do my kids any harm,' she says."

I laughed. "I used to get it about disposable nappies. I made the mistake of telling my mother what they cost and she lectured me for months about how I was wasting my money. 'What's wrong with terry toweling?' she kept saying ... 'If it was good enough for you, then it's good enough for your boys.' "

She sipped at her tea. "You don't like her much, do you?" The directness of the question took me aback, if only because it was something I never asked myself. "Rather more than you like Maureen, I suspect."

"Yes, but Maureen's not my mum," she said despondently. "It doesn't half worry me. I don't like falling out with people, but the way Alan's lot behave we won't be talking to any of them soon. I have nightmares sometimes that it's in the genes, and that my kids'll storm off after a huge row, and me and Al will never see them again."

"I'm sure that won't happen," I consoled her. "If behavior was inherited my two would have upped stumps and left long ago. But they're so laid-back it'll take a stick of dynamite to shift them. Either that or a stunning blonde with a Ferrari."

She eyed me thoughtfully. "Maybe they got their genes from their father," she suggested.

More likely their grandfather, I thought, while thinking it was hardly a good time to remind Beth of the genetic link between her children and Derek. "Except I agree with Alan that upbringing has more to do with it," I answered. "Jason and Tansy are the sum of their genes and experiences, not the sum of their genes alone, otherwise they'd be virtually indistinguishable from each other. You made the point yourself when you said how different Alan and Danny are from their sisters."

And how different Alan seemed now from the boy I once knew, I thought wryly.

"They're also very different from each other," she said. "Danny's a bit of a goer, but Al behaves like he was born middle-aged." She giggled and her face lit up immediately. "Jace said 'fuck' the other day because he heard it at nursery school and Al spent the next two hours worrying about whether it was his fault. I said, 'Don't be so fucking stupid...' Excuse my French ... And he said, 'It's all very well for you to laugh but the only time my dad showed me any attention was when he said, "Fuck off, bastard.'" And now he's hoping he is a bastard and Derek isn't his dad."

"I'd probably feel the same in his shoes," I said. "It's a bit like owning up to having Ivan the Terrible for a father."

She was agog with curiosity. "You said he threatened you. Why? What happened to make him angry?"

I was tempted to be honest, and not just because I liked her and felt guilty about using her. She was one of those rare people, irrespective of age, sex or background, whose straightforward, open personality demanded, and deserved, a reciprocal trust. Indeed, if I had any sadness at deceiving her, it was because I knew that in different circumstances I would be only too pleased to have her as an ally.

"We had a row in the street about the way he was treating Alan and he pushed my arm up behind my back and said if I ever interfered again he'd wipe the smile off my face." It's not a complete lie, I thought. The place was wrong, and the threat�which had nothing to do with my smile�was inflicted anyway, but Derek had certainly told me never to interfere again. "So I did what any sensible person would do and reported him to the police," I told her, "but they didn't believe me and repeated what I'd said to Derek."

If I were telling it as it really was, I would have added that I was betrayed twice in as many days by the same policeman and reaped a double dose of Derek's anger in consequence. But I wanted to woo Beth with amused indifference, not frighten her off with evidence of her father-in-law's savagery.

Her eyes widened. "What did he do?"

"Nothing much," I lied. "He was a typical bully�bluster on the outside and blancmange inside." I paused. "Danny told me he disappeared after Alan gave him a thrashing with a baseball bat?" I put an upward inflection into my voice, and Beth nodded. "So where did he go? Does anyone know?"

"Al doesn't talk about him much, except to say he doesn't want him anywhere near our kids. I know he went to prison because Sally got his address off a con who'd done time with him. It was before Tan's christening and she kept pestering us to invite him. She said he was back in London and wanted to meet up with his family again"�she shrugged�"but Al said if he showed his face here he'd get another thrashing, and that's what caused most of the aggro at the party. Sally and Pauline said Derek was skint and needed help, and Al said he could die of starvation before he'd lift a finger for him."

"Weren't you worried he'd come anyway?"

She glanced at the dog. "That's why Al got Satan. He wanted a Rottweiler but I said it'd be too dangerous with kids. Mind, I thought it was money down the drain at the time." She flexed the muscles in her right arm. "I reckon I'd be able to deal with Derek ... no trouble ... if he dared push his way in here, but Satan's sort of grown on us and I wouldn't be without him now."

I wanted to warn her against complacency, but instead I murmured, "Still ... it's not surprising Alan was worried, particularly if Derek was close."

"Not that close. Sally said he was shacked up with some bird out Whitechapel way."

"He was lucky to find someone."

"Too right. I said the bird needed her bloody head examined�unless, of course, he hadn't bothered to tell her he was a wife-beater�and Sally got miffed and said I shouldn't spread rumors about people I'd never met. So I said, 'I'll remind you of that when he clobbers this one.' "

I smiled. "What did Maureen say?"

Beth grinned back. "Said it was a pity Derek hadn't died of drink years ago and that the two girls deserved everything they got if they let him swan back into their lives just because he was family. She got well worked up, said he'd done his best to ruin their lives when they were children and if they had any sense they'd keep well away from him now."

"Better late than never, I suppose," I said dryly. "She didn't do much to protect them when they were living with him."

A thoughtful expression creased Beth's forehead and I wondered if I'd displayed my prejudice a little too blatantly. "Except I reckon she was just as bad. It was her who bought the baseball bat, you know ... not to use against Derek ... but to beat her kids about the head whenever they annoyed her."

"How do you know?"

"Danny was teasing Al one day about being slow on the uptake. He said it was because his mum had addled his brains with the bat."

"Was she strong enough?" I asked doubtfully.

"According to Danny she was. He said she was like a wild animal when she was in a temper, and you either scarpered or locked yourself in the toilet till she calmed down." She watched my frown of disbelief and gave a small shrug. "I couldn't swear on oath that it's true�Danny's always telling fibs�but it was pretty convincing at the time. Let's put it this way, Al didn't deny it�just told me never to lift a finger against Jace and Tan or I'd be answering to him. So I said, 'You've gotta be joking! Since when have I ever raised my hand in anger to anyone?' " She grinned suddenly. "And I told him straight, it's fucking rich coming from a bloke who calls his dog Satan and reckons the only way to discipline him is to take a rolled-up newspaper to his backside," She blew an air kiss toward the animal, which raised its head immediately and thumped its tail on the floor. "I mean, what kind of way is that to train a dog when he'll do anything as long as you give him a biscuit?"

Satan and I examined each other cautiously. "He's a good guard dog," I murmured. "I wouldn't fancy my chances much if I were Derek."

"He'd rip his throat out soon as look at him," said Beth. "I used to tie Satan to the pram outside shops when the kids were smaller. He growled at anyone who came closer than six yards, which meant I could do my shopping in peace without worrying about someone stealing my babies."

"Amazing! And he does all that for a biscuit?"

Her grin broadened. "Don't knock it," she said. "It's a damn sight more effective than beating the poor brute with a newspaper. That just made him vicious."

"Mm." Ripping throats out seemed fairly vicious to me, and I wondered how he'd react if I stood up unexpectedly. I glanced at my watch. "I really ought to be going," I said, putting reluctance into my voice. "It's a long journey back to Dorchester and Sam will be wondering where I am."

"Al'll be sorry to have missed you."

I nodded. "It's a shame. I'll phone first another time." I finished my tea and stood up. "Can I say good-bye to the children?"

"You surely can. They're in the sitting room. I'd be interested what you think of it." She pointed to the floor as a growl rose in Satan's throat and he subsided immediately.

"So when does he get the biscuit?" I asked, following her into the hall.

"When I feel like it. That's why he does what I tell him. He's never too sure when the moment will come."

"Does it work with husbands and children as well?"

She flattened her palm and made a rocking gesture. "It depends what the treat is. Biscuits don't work so well on Al. He likes basques and black stockings better." She grinned as I gave a splutter of laughter. "The kids are in here," she said, opening a door. "You'd better like it because it took me two months to finish. I'll phone for a cab while you're looking."

I did like it, although it was totally out of keeping with a 1930s semi. It can't have been bigger than five meters square, but it was decorated in Mexican style with an arched ceiling, tessellated floor, roughly stuccoed walls and an ornate bronze candelabra hanging from the ceiling. French windows opened out onto a tiny patio, and a huge rococo mirror, with a myriad of tilted facets in a scrolled gilt frame, reflected the light in indiscriminate dazzling shafts across every available surface. Even the fireplace had been transformed into something that would have been more at home on a ranch than in a back street in Isleworth, with a brass artillery shell laden with silk flowers standing in the hearth. I wondered why she'd done this room so differently from the rest.

"It's all fake," said Jason from the corner where he and his sister were watching television. "Mum just painted it to make it look real."

I tapped my foot on the tessellated floor and listened to the hollow ring of wood. "She's a clever lady," I said, touching a hand to the rough stucco and feeling the smoothness of plaster. "Did she make the mirror as well?"

"Yup. And the candy-laber."

"What about the picture?" I asked, gazing at the Quetzalcoatl mosaic on the wall.

"That's Dad's."

"The sofa and chairs?"

"Ten quid, job lot, from a junk shop," said Beth proudly behind me. "And five quid for the patchwork throws. I begged, borrowed and stole material ... dresses ... old curtains ... tablecloths ... whatever ... from everyone I knew. The five quid went on the reels of cotton to do the sewing. What do you think?"

"Brilliant," I said honestly.

"But a bit OTT for Isleworth?"

"A bit," I agreed.

"That's what Al thinks, but all I'm doing is setting out my stall. I can create any image you want, and I can do it for peanuts. This whole room cost under three hundred quid. Okay, it doesn't count my time, but you wouldn't believe how many of my friends say they'd pay me a tenner an hour to do it in their houses."

"I bet they would," I said dryly. "They're probably paying their cleaners as much just to Hoover their floors."

She looked crestfallen. "Al doesn't want me to do it at all, says he won't even think about it unless I ask a hundred per hour minimum."

"He's right."

"Except none of my friends can pay a hundred quid per hour."

I gave her hand a quick squeeze. "It's a bad mistake to work for friends," I said. "You should photograph each room and put a portfolio together, then go out and sell yourself ... Get some fliers printed ... take out ads in the local newspaper. You're way too good to work for Ł10 an hour." I patted my rucksack. "If you like, I'll take some photographs now and send them to you. I've got my camera with me, and I'd love my husband to see what you've done. We're toying with buying the farmhouse we're renting, and you never know"�How can you be such a bitch? I asked myself�"maybe I can persuade Sam that you're the interior decorator we need."

Her face flushed pink with pleasure again. "If you're sure."

"Of course I'm sure." I squatted down beside Jason and Tansy. "Would you two like to be in the pictures?" They nodded solemnly. "Then how about we turn off the telly and you sit on Mum's sofa, one at each end? It might be better if you stood behind me," I told Beth as I sat cross-legged in front of the windows and lined up the shot. "You're blocking the mirror."

She scurried onto the patio. "I hate having my picture taken. I always look so fat."

"It depends how they're done," I said, as I snapped off half a dozen shots of the sofa-side of the room before zooming in on the Quetzlcoatl. "Why don't you sit on one of the chairs with the kids on your lap, and I'll see if I can get a view of the fireplace with the three of you to the left?"

I should have choked on my own duplicity, instead I marveled at how easy it was to cajole her into letting me make a record of everything in the room, including the bangles on her wrist and a collection of small china cats at one end of the mantelpiece. "Who's the cat lover?" I asked, as I tucked my camera back into my rucksack, when the doorbell rang to announce the arrival of the minicab.

"Al. He bought them at a jumble sale years ago." She jumped the children off her lap and stood up. "You never said why you needed to see him," she reminded me, as we went back into the hall.

"I wanted to talk to him about Michael Percy," I lied, dredging up the only excuse I'd been able to come up with. "But you've already told me they lost touch"�I gave a rueful shrug�"so he wouldn't have been able to help me anyway."

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Whether Michael's as bad as he was painted in the newspapers," I said, pulling open the front door and nodding to the cab driver to say I was coming. "I'm thinking of visiting him in prison�he's just down the road from us on Portland�but I'm not sure if it's a sensible thing to do. I rather hoped Alan could give me some advice."

It sounded so weak to my ears that I expected suspicion to bristle out of her like hackles, but she seemed to find it reasonable. "Well, if it's any help, Al said it was well out of character for him to hit that woman. He reckons Michael was a lot less violent than he was when they used to hang out together. They had a fight before they fell out, and Al said Michael took a beating because he wouldn't defend himself."

"What were they fighting about?"

"That girl you mentioned�Bridget. It was when they were in their late teens. Al was so crazy about her he wanted to marry her, then he walked in one day and found her in bed with Michael. He went berserk ... broke Michael's jaw and God knows what else ... even attacked the policemen who arrived to break it up. It was mayhem, apparently. Bridget was screaming in the hall, Michael was half out the window and it took four policemen to get Al off him. He ended up in juvenile detention for it."

"Goodness!"

"He's been straight ever since," she assured me.

"I should hope so."

Beth laughed. "It all worked out for the best. He wouldn't be married to me if he'd stuck with her." A wistful note entered her voice. "But he's never broken anyone's jaw for me ... so I guess I'm not as attractive as Bridget."

I gave her an impulsive hug before heading for the cab. "Just don't test him," I warned over my shoulder. "I have a nasty feeling he'd break more than jaws if he found you in bed with someone else."

I spoke lightly, but the warning was sincere.
 

Letter from Dr. Joseph Ellas, psychiatrist
at the Queen Victoria Hospital, Hong Kong�dated 1985

QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL
Hong Kong
Dept. of Psychiatry

Mrs. M. Ranelagh
12 Greenhough Lane,
Pokfulam

June 12,1985

Dear Mrs. Ranelagh,

I am sad to hear you're leaving Hong Kong. I have enjoyed your letters and those all-too-rare occasions when you have consented to talk to me in person! You will like Sydney. I spent two years there from '72 to '74 and it was a delightful experience. Australia has the enthusiasm and vigor that comes from a mix of different cultures and I'm confident you will enjoy a polygeny where class divides are nonexistent and success depends on merit and not labels. You see, I have come to understand you.

You mentioned in your last letter that you and Sam have reached a fine understanding where the past remains buried in England. You also tell me he's an excellent father. You do not, however, say you love him. Am I supposed (like Sam?) to take that for granted? My friend the rabbi would say that nothing thrives in a desert. He would also say that whatever lies buried in England will resurface the minute you go home. But perhaps that is the plan? If so, you are a patient woman, my dear, and a little cruel, too, I think.

With best wishes for your future wherever it may be.
Yours affectionately,
J. Elias
Dr. J. Elias

 

*19*

Sam was sitting in the car outside Dorchester South station when I finally reached it at ten o'clock that evening. I wondered how long he'd been waiting because I hadn't phoned to say which train I was catching, and I feared it couldn't have done his temper much good if he'd been there any length of time. My intention had been to take a taxi home and face the inevitable row behind closed doors but, if his bleak expression when he got out of the car at my approach was anything to go by, he planned to have it in public.

"Jock phoned," he said tersely.

"I thought he might," I murmured, opening the back door and dumping my rucksack on the seat.

"He told me you left him at about four o'clock. What the hell have you been doing? Why the hell didn't you phone? I've been worried sick."

I showed my surprise. "I said I'd make my own way home."

"I didn't even know if you were coming home." He stalked angrily round the bonnet to open the passenger door for me, but it was so out of character that I stepped back automatically, assuming he was opening it for himself. "I'm not going to hit you," he snapped, gripping me by the arm and pressing me clumsily into my seat. "I'm not a complete bastard."

He slid in behind the steering wheel and we sat for several minutes in silence. The tension in the confined space was palpable, although I had no idea if it was due to anger over my perfidy or concern at my late return. The station was virtually empty at that time of night, but one or two people peered curiously through our windows as they passed, presumably wondering why the two dimly seen occupants were sitting so stiffly and refusing to look at each other.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked at last.

"Like what?"

"Explain?" he suggested. "I still can't believe you'd talk to Jock, and not to me. Why didn't you tell me Annie was beaten up? You know I'd have come clean if I'd realized how serious it all was."

"When?"

"What do you mean, when?"

"When would you have come clean?" I asked evenly. "I told you at the time what PC Quentin said about the bruising�but you just said we were talking bollocks. As I recall your comment was, 'Since when did a neurotic bitch and a disgruntled policeman know the first damn thing about pathology?' You could have told me the truth then and given me and Andrew Quentin a fighting chance against Drury ... but you didn't."

He dropped his head into his hands. "I thought you were wrong," he muttered. "I was pretty stressed out at the time, and you didn't make it easy for me."

"Fine. Then you've nothing to feel guilty about. You were saving me from myself. No one's going to blame you for that." I looked impatiently at my watch. "Can we go now? I'm hungry."

"You're not making this very easy for me," he said. "You must know how awful I feel."

"Actually, I don't," I said honestly. "You've never felt awful before. That year, 1978, was one of those little unpleasantnesses�like where the cutlery drawer is and how to boil eggs�that you manage to erase so successfully from your memory. I've always envied you for it, and if you're troubled now it's probably just a reaction to knowing you've been rumbled. It'll pass. It usually does."

He tried a different tack. "The boys are twitched as hell," he said. "They keep asking me what I've done that's so bad you'd want to run away."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" I said bluntly. "If you want to make me angry, then hiding behind your children is the surest way to do it. Luke and Tom know damn well I don't run away from things. They also know I wouldn't abandon them unless I was on a life-support machine somewhere. In any case, I told them I wouldn't be home until late so I imagine they're lying in front of the telly, as per normal, wondering why their father has suddenly gone 'round the bend."

"We had a row," he admitted. "I told them they were unfeeling bastards."

I didn't bother to comment because I wasn't in the mood to massage his bruised ego. "Look," I said, tapping my watch, "I haven't had anything to eat all day and I'm starving, so can we either go home or get a takeaway? Have you and the boys eaten?"

"Tom made some spag bol for him and Luke, but I wasn't hungry."

"Good, then we'll have a curry."

"Why didn't you eat on the train?"

"Because it was trolley service," I said crossly, "and the only thing left to eat by the time it reached me was a packet of dry biscuits. So I had some wine instead ... and now I'm fighting mad and in no mood to play silly buggers with you or anyone else."

"I don't blame you," he began self-pityingly as he fired the engine. "I just wish there was something I could do or say�"

I cut him off. "Don't even think of apologizing," I said. "As far as I'm concerned you can grovel to me for the rest of your life. And it won't make a blind bit of difference. It'll make a difference to Jock, though. The sorrier you are the happier he'll be, and you'll be back in each other's pockets before you know it."

He mulled this over quietly as we turned on to the main road. "I've already apologized to Jock."

"I assumed you would."

"He calmed down pretty quickly as a matter of fact, once I'd explained what a mistake the whole damn thing had been."

"Okay."

"It didn't mean Jack shit, you know ... just something that happened while you were away. The trouble is, Libby took it more seriously than I did. She and Jock weren't getting on too well at the time and it sort of ran out of control." He paused, inviting me to say something. When I didn't he went on, "Jock understands that. He's been there himself, knows what it's like to be caught between a rock and a hard place."

"Okay."

"Does that mean you understand?"

"Of course."

He flicked me an uneasy glance as he turned left at a pelican crossing. "You don't sound as if you do."

I sighed. "I'm your wife, Sam, and I've known you since I was twenty. If I don't understand you by now then I doubt I ever will."

"I didn't mean, do you understand me. I meant, do you understand how the thing with Libby happened? What a fucking disaster it was? How sorry I was afterward?"

I gave a small laugh. "The thing? Do you mean your affair? The time you rogered your best friend's wife because your own wife was away and you hadn't had sex for twenty-four hours?"

"It wasn't like that," he protested.

"Of course it wasn't," I agreed. "It was Libby's fault. She caught you at a low ebb, plied you with drink, then persuaded you into a quickie on the kitchen floor. Afterward, you found yourself in an impossible position. You regretted it intensely and hoped it was a one-off. She loved every minute of it and looked on it as the beginning of a great love affair." I watched him for a moment. "I should imagine Libby's version is a little different�you seduced her in other words�but the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle."

"I knew you'd be angry," he said unhappily. "That's why I never told you."

"Now you're flattering yourself," I said. "It's probably a huge disappointment but the only emotion I have ever experienced re you and Libby is indifference." Of course I was lying ... but he owed me ... I had honored my promises ... and he hadn't. "If I'd been able to work up the energy to feel angry, I think you'd have realized something was wrong. Certainly Libby would, but then she's a woman and women are better at picking up vibes."

He pulled up in front of the Indian restaurant. "Wasn't it her who told you about us?"

"No. I suspect she's even more embarrassed than you are. We're hardly talking Abelard and Heloise in all conscience."

He clamped down on his anger. "Who then?"

"You." I smiled at his expression. "One night in Hong Kong. Not in so many words ... You weren't that drunk ... but you said enough for me to put two and two together. It was quite a relief, actually. I remember thinking, So that's what this has all been about�a grubby little affair with Libby Williams. I even laughed about it afterward. I kept picturing you and her working up a sweat in Jock's bed while he was out getting blow jobs off the Graham Road tart. There was such a sweet irony about it�you being piggy in the middle of a couple of predators. It explained everything. Your unpleasantness ... your lies ... your dash to leave England. I even felt sorry for you in a funny kind of way because it seemed so obvious you'd sold your soul to the devil for something you hadn't enjoyed very much."

He shook his head in bewilderment. "Why didn't you say something?"

"I couldn't see the point. We were on the other side of the world. All I'd have been doing was closing the stable door after the horse had bolted."

Sam wasn't designed to remain humble for long. "Do you know what this feels like? It feels like I'm married to a stranger. I don't even know who you are anymore." He propped his elbows on the steering wheel and ground his knuckles into his eyes. "You always tell people what a great marriage we have ... what great kids we have ... what a great father I am. But it's all just crap ... one huge pretense at happy families when the truth is you hate my guts. How could you do that? How could you be so bloody devious?"

I reached for the door handle. "The same way you did," I said lightly. "Closed my eyes to what a bastard you'd been and pretended none of it had ever happened."
 

He agonized over my indifference while we waited for the curry, almost as if I'd thrown doubt on his manhood by refusing to take his infidelity seriously. For myself, I was wondering when he was going to realize that the bone of contention was Annie, not Libby, and how he would explain that when he did. We took seats in a corner and he muttered away in an undertone, afraid of being overheard, although my refusal to lighten his burden with sympathetic comments meant his tone became increasingly�and to my ears sweetly�strident.

He didn't want me to get the wrong impression ... It wasn't true that he'd tried to pretend nothing had happened ... more that he'd been terrified of losing me ... Of course he'd have admitted to it if I'd asked but it seemed more sensible to let sleeping dogs lie ... He knew I probably wouldn't believe him, but he was drunk the night Libby seduced him and the whole thing did turn into a total nightmare ... It was absolutely correct to describe Libby as a predator ... She was one of those women who thought the grass was always greener on the other side ... He remembered how shocked he'd been when he realized how jealous she was of me and how determined she was to bring me down to her size...

"When I told her I wanted to end it, she said she was going to tell you what a rat you'd married," he said grimly. "I know it's not much of an excuse but I honestly think I'd have killed her if she'd actually done it. I loathed her so much by then I couldn't be in the same room with her without wanting to strangle her."

I believed him, not just because I wanted to but because he'd never been able to mention Libby's name without prefacing it with "that bitch Jock married." There was a brief period when I wondered if he said it out of regret because he, too, had been rejected but I soon realized that the antipathy was real and that Libby was as irrelevant to him as the women he'd slept with before we married. That's not to say I wouldn't have clawed his eyes out if I'd known about the affair at the time�objectivity needs time and distance to develop�but to come across it when the ashes were cold was a reason for private grief only, and not for a fanning of the embers.

"You don't need to do this," I said, glancing toward a nearby customer who had one ear cocked to everything he was saying. "Not unless you insist on washing your dirty linen in public. Libby's a dead issue as far as I'm concerned." I lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. "I've always assumed that if you'd loved her you'd still be with her."

He brooded for a moment in offended silence, his gaze fixing abstractedly on the eavesdropper. "Then why tell Jock about it? Why get everyone worked up if it's all so unimportant to you?"

"Not all of it, Sam. Just Libby. I couldn't give a shit what you did to her ... but I do give a shit what you did to Annie. You left her to die in the gutter then labeled her a drunk in case anyone accused you of neglect. That's the issue. And, as usual, you're busting a gut to avoid it." I paused. "I know you saw her there�and not just because Jock confirmed it this afternoon�but because you always get so angry every time her name's mentioned."

He wouldn't meet my eyes. "I thought she was drunk."

"What if she was? It was freezing cold and pouring with rain and she needed help, whatever state she was in."

"I wasn't the only one," he muttered. "Jock and that woman ignored her, too."

It was hardly an answer but I let it go. "They never got as close as you did," I said. "I was watching them."

"How do you know how close I got?"

"Jock said you told him Annie was reeking of drink, but I didn't smell anything until I stooped down to rock her shoulder." I watched him curiously for a moment. "And it wasn't drink I smelled either, it was urine, and I don't understand how you could mistake that for alcohol."

"I didn't. All I told Jock was that she reeked to high heaven. He assumed it was alcohol."

"Did you recognize it as urine?"

"Yes."

"Oh, my God!" I slammed my palms on to the table. "Do you know that every time I told Drury to question why her coat was reeking of piss he told me her neighbors said it was normal ... that she was filthy and disgusting and always stank."

Abruptly he dropped his head into his hands. "I thought it was funny," he said wretchedly. "Your good cause for the year ... Mad bloody Annie ... wetting herself on your doorstep because she was too drunk to control her bladder. I went into the house and spent the next ten minutes laughing about it until I realized you were the most likely person to find her. Then I knew you'd bring her inside and clean her up and I thought, this is the day my marriage goes down the drain."

"Why?"

He breathed hard through his nose. "She knew about Libby�I think she must have seen us together at some point because she kept sneaking up behind me in the road and calling me 'dirty man.' " He forced out the words as if his life depended on it. '"Have you been fucking the tart today, dirty man.' 'Is that the tart I can smell on you, dirty man?' 'What do you want with trash, dirty man, when you've got a pretty lady at home?' I loathed her for it because I knew she was right and when I smelled her in the gutter"�he faltered painfully�"when I smelled her in the gutter, I kicked her and said, 'Who's dirty now?' "

I watched a tear drip through his fingers onto the table.

"And I've been in hell ever since because I so much wanted to take it back, and I've never been able to."

I watched a waiter come out of the kitchen and hold up a shopping bag to signal that our curry was ready, and I remember thinking that fate was all about timing. If I hadn't been at a parents' evening that night ... if Jock had abandoned the pub at 8:30 when Sharon didn't show ... if food didn't arrive at inopportune moments...

"Let's go home," I said.
 

Two days later, Maureen Slater phoned. She was angry and suspicious because Alan had told her I'd taken photographs of his house, and she demanded to know what my side of the trade was going to be. I repeated what I'd told her on Monday, that if she wasn't prepared to tell me what she knew, I would pass the Chiswick jeweler's affidavit to Richmond Police ... and, for good measure, the shots of the Mexican artifacts in Alan's sitting room. "No one would doubt they were thieves," I said. The only question would be, were they murderers, too? She told me some of what I wanted to know, but rather more interesting was what she chose to leave out.
 

Letter to Sergeant James Drury�dated 1999

LEAVENHAM FARM, LEAVENHAM, NR
DORCHESTER, DORSET DT2 XXY

4:30 a.m.�Friday, August 13, 1999

Dear Mr. Drury,

One of the downsides of finding Annie dying was that my sleep patterns were shot to pieces, and I count myself lucky now if I manage a four-hour stretch without waking. I've always hoped that an uneasy conscience has kept you similarly awake over the years, but I suspect it's misplaced optimism. To have a conscience at all means a man must question himself occasionally, and even in my wildest dreams I've never been able to picture you doing that.

I already know you will be absent when I leave this letter and enclosures at the Sailor's Rest, but it seems only fair you should have time to consider your response to the outstanding issue between us. I have, after all, had twenty years to consider mine.

Yours sincerely,
M. Ranelagh

 

*20*

Drury was watching for me when I came through the door of the Sailor's Rest at half past ten that evening. Being a Friday night in summer, the pub was crowded with holidaymakers and yachtsmen from the boats in the marina, and I felt a small satisfaction when I saw the flicker of apprehension in his eyes as I approached.

He came out from behind the bar before I could reach it. "We'll go through to the back," he said curtly, jerking his head toward a door in the corner. "I'm damned if I'll have this conversation in public."

"Why not?" I asked. "Are you afraid of witnesses?"

He made an angry movement as if to grab my arm and manhandle me in the direction he wanted me to go, but the curious glances of his other customers persuaded him to change his mind. "I don't want a scene," he muttered, "not in here and not on a Friday night. You said you wanted to be fair ... so be fair. This is my livelihood, remember."

I smiled slightly. "You could have me arrested for making a nuisance of myself, then tell your customers I'm mad," I suggested. "That's what you did last time."

He resolved the problem by heading toward the door and leaving me to follow or not as I chose. I followed. The "back" was a scruffy office full of dusty filing cabinets and a gray metal desk, covered in used polystyrene coffee cups and piles of paper. It was a smaller, dirtier version of Jock's office and, as Drury motioned me toward the typist's chair in front of the desk and perched himself on a stack of boxes in the corner, I wondered why men always seemed more comfortable when surrounded by the trappings of "work."

He watched me closely, waiting for me to speak. "What do you want?" he demanded abruptly. "An apology?"

I dropped my rucksack to the floor and used the tip of my finger to push a half-filled cup of congealed coffee away from me. "What for?"

"Whatever you like," he said curtly, "just as long as it gets you off my back."

"There'd be no point. I wouldn't accept it."

"What then?"

"Justice," I said. "That's all I've ever been interested in."

"You won't get it ... not this long afterward."

"For Annie or for myself?" I asked curiously.

He placed the flat of his hand on the opened brown envelope, which was sitting to one side of the desk. "Neither," he said confidently.

I wondered if he was aware of what he was saying because his words suggested he knew there was justice to be had. For Annie and me. "That envelope contains twenty-one years of patient research, showing Annie was murdered," I said lightly.

"And it's a bunch of crap." He leaned forward aggressively. "For every pathologist you produce, saying the bruises were inflicted hours before Annie's death, the Crown Prosecution Service will produce five who agree with the original postmortem finding. It's a budgeting exercise�always has been. Prosecutions are expensive and taxpayers get stroppy about funding failures. You're going to need a damn sight more than that to get the case reopened."

He was uncomfortably close and I sat back to get away from him, repelled by the energy that flowed out of him in waves. It was a far cry from twenty years ago when the same energy�authoritative, capable, comforting�had given me the confidence to talk more freely than I might otherwise have done. It's one of the great truisms that we only learn from our mistakes and, like Annie, I had since developed an abiding distrust of men in uniform.

"The climate's changed since the Stephen Lawrence inquiry," I said mildly. "I think you'll find the murder of a black woman will be at the top of the CPS's agenda, however long ago it happened ... particularly when it's supported by evidence that the sergeant in charge of the case was a racist."

He pummeled and squeezed one fist inside the other, exploding the joints like tiny firecrackers. "A letter from a WPC claiming sexual and racial harassment, which wasn't upheld at the time?" he sneered. "That won't stand. And neither will Andy Quentin's log. The guy's dead, for Christ's sake, and he had an ax to grind because he blamed me for his career going nowhere."

"With reason," I said. "You never had a good word for him."

"He was a creep."

"Yes, well, he didn't have much time for you either." I opened the envelope and removed Andy's log of Drury's stop-and-search arrests of Afro-Caribbeans and Asians between 1987 and 1989, giving details of the derogatory language Drury had habitually used. "What difference does it make if he did have an ax to grind?" I asked curiously. "It's a straightforward account, which you're perfectly entitled to challenge if it contains errors."

"He hasn't logged the names of the whites I stopped and searched."

"He's given comparative figures. Your ratio of black to white was way higher than anyone else's in Richmond at the time." I shrugged. "But it's all on record so it's easily proved. If Andy's figures are wrong then you'll be vindicated. If they aren't, his conclusion that you used your stop-and-search powers as a form of racist sport will carry weight."

"Not true," he snapped. "I was doing my job like everyone else. You can twist figures to fit any conclusion you like. I can just as easily demonstrate that his motive in producing that list was vindictive. There was a known history between us."

"What about the seventeen-year-old Asian boy whose cheek you fractured?"

His jaw worked angrily. "It was an accident."

"The police paid undisclosed damages."

"Standard procedure."

"So standard," I murmured sarcastically, "that you were put on sick leave for the duration of the internal inquiry, then took early retirement immediately afterward." I unzipped the front pocket of my rucksack and removed a folded piece of paper. "I left this out of the envelope. It was the last thing Andy sent me. It's the confidential assessment made of you by your superior officer. Among other things, he describes you as 'a violent individual with extreme racist views who has no place in the Metropolitan Police Force.' "

He snatched the paper from my grasp and shredded it to pieces, the muscles of his face working furiously. He was the opposite temperament to Sam. A man who brooded over long-held grudges. A man who saw loss of face as weakness.

I stirred the pieces with my toe, thinking I'd be safer poking a viper's nest. "Is that how you always deal with evidence you don't like? Tear it up?"

"It's inadmissible. The slate was wiped clean as part of my retirement package. You'd be prosecuted just for having it in your possession. Quentin, too, if he were still alive."

"Well, maybe I think a prosecution's worth it," I murmured, "just to get it into the public domain. I can fire off a thousand copies tomorrow and throw so much mud at you that there'll be no one left who won't question your motive for wanting Annie's death ruled accidental."

"You'll be seen for what you are," he warned, "a bitter woman with a personal vendetta against the police."

"One policeman, possibly," I agreed, "but not the police in general. I was given too much help by Andy for anyone to think I tar you all with the same brush. In any case, who's going to tell them it's a personal vendetta? You?" I smiled at his expression. "How do you plan to explain why I'd want to pursue one?"

He screwed his forefinger into his temple. "It's all in your statements," he said. "You were a head case ... persecution complex ... mother complex ... anorexia ... agoraphobia ... sexual fantasy ... What was I supposed to do? Sit beside your bed and hold your hand while you bawled your eyes out?"

"You might have questioned your own judgment," I suggested.

"You've only yourself to blame for that," he retorted sharply. "Maybe if you'd backed off once in a while, I'd have taken you more seriously. I don't like people in my face all the time." As if to prove the point, he slammed his back against the wall and stared at me through half-closed eyes.

I looked away. "Then why didn't you let someone else take over? Why wasn't I allowed to talk to Andy? Why did you get him pushed off the case?"

"He was more trouble than he was worth. He believed everything you told him."

We both knew that wasn't the real reason, but I let it go. "Because everything I said was true."

"You mean like this." He jerked his chin at the brown envelope. "There's no evidence of murder in there. Just different opinions."

"That's only a fraction of what I've got," I said. "You didn't think I'd show my whole hand, did you?" I took the photographs of Beth and Alan Slater's house from my rucksack. "There's plenty of evidence that Annie was robbed." I passed the pictures across to him. "Maureen Slater admits most of this stuff was sitting in her house for months after Annie died ... claims you saw it and even went back on one occasion, offering to buy the Quetzalcoatl mosaic. Which means you should have treated Annie's house as a scene of crime, if only because it must have been obvious to you that the Slaters had robbed her."

He gave the pictures a perfunctory glance. "Maureen said she bought it in a junk shop," he said dismissively. "I had no reason to think otherwise."

"She couldn't afford to go to the laundrette. How could she afford to buy paintings?"

"Not my problem. None of the stuff had been reported stolen."

"You must have recalled the Quetzalcoatl when Dr. Arnold started asking questions about Annie's possessions."

"No," he said bluntly. "It was four years later. How many houses do you think I'd entered in that time? I couldn't describe a picture I'd seen a week before, let alone one from way back."

"You offered Maureen twenty quid for it," I reminded him, "so it obviously made an impression on you."

He shrugged. "I don't remember."

"I didn't think you would," I said with a small laugh. "Any more than you'll remember Maureen giving you a gold statuette with emeralds for eyes and rubies for lips. She said you had no intention of buying the Quetzalcoatl ... All you wanted was something valuable as a quid pro quo for not asking awkward questions. What did you do with it? Keep it? Sell it? Melt it down? It must have scared you rigid when Sheila Arnold described it as one of the artifacts Annie had on her mantelpiece."

"Maureen's lying," he said bluntly.

"She's prepared to make a statement about it."

A glint of amusement sparked in his eyes. "You think anyone's going to believe her about something that happened twenty years ago? And why wouldn't I want to ask awkward questions of the Slaters? I had a reputation for being tough on the whole damn family."

"Not just tough," I said casually. "According to Danny, you were quite happy to frame them as well. He says you planted some cannabis in Alan's pocket and got him sent down for dealing."

Drury shook his head pityingly. "And you believe him, of course."

"Not necessarily. No one seems to know what Alan actually did. Danny says dealing, but Alan told his wife he was sent down for assaulting Michael Percy."

"Why am I not surprised?" he said with irony.

"Well?" I prompted when he didn't go on.

"She wouldn't have married him if she'd known the truth."

"Why is it such a secret?"

He pointed an accusing finger at me, as if Alan's crime were my responsibility. "He was always going to get off lightly. He was fifteen and couldn't be named, and neither could his victim. It's a bloody stupid rule in my book. All a kid has to do is see out his sentence, lie through his teeth, put a bit of distance between himself and what he did and he gets off virtually scot-free." He started popping his knuckles again. "Maureen kept it quiet because she was scared stiff of what people would say."

"What did he do?"

"Work it out for yourself. The victim was a woman."

"Rape," I suggested.

He nodded. "Took himself off to the other side of London where he thought he could get away with it. Dragged the woman into a car park behind some houses and proceeded to beat her up. But she managed to scream and one of the occupants called the police. Alan was caught in the act, pleaded guilty and did four years before he was let out."

"Anyone could have predicted it," I said unemotionally. "He was appallingly abused as a child, both physically and mentally."

But Drury wasn't interested in bleeding-heart excuses. "On that basis Danny would have become a rapist as well."

I stared at my hands. "Danny has no memories of his childhood. He was so young when his father left that he can't even remember what he looked like ... and if he heard his mother being thrashed in the bedroom, he wouldn't have understood the connection between sex and violence." I raised my head to took at him. "It makes a difference. All poor Alan ever learned from his parents was that reducing a woman to a shivering wreck would result in an orgasm."
 

*21*

Drury's gaze veered away from mine but not before I saw the quickly veiled flash of intelligence that told me he knew what I was talking about. It was a powerful revelation because, despite everything, I had never been certain of how much knowledge he had. For the moment I let it go. "Did Alan get into trouble again after the rape conviction?" I asked then.

"Not that I know of. He moved into a bedsit out Twickenham way and took laboring jobs. We kept an eye on him but he was wary of coming into Richmond or seeing anyone he knew."

I had no reason to disbelieve him. "So why did Danny tell me Alan received Ł5,000 compensation for being beaten up by the police?"

Amusement brought a gleam to Drury's eyes. "Because the guys who arrested him didn't much like what he'd done to the woman. His solicitor bellyached about police brutality until he saw the state of the victim, then settled on five thousand and told Alan to be grateful they hadn't killed him. I'd say it was cheap at the price."

I nodded. "Did Derek ever get done for rape?"

"That would suit you, wouldn't it?"

"Why?" I asked mildly. "I never accused him of rape."

"All but. You said he shoved his penis between your legs."

"I said he put something between my legs which I thought was his penis, and as a result I thought he was going to rape me. I also told you that's exactly what he wanted me to believe. He was giving me a demonstration of how bad things would get if I didn't keep my nigger-loving mouth shut. It was your choice to tell him I'd accused him of attempted rape ... your choice to put me in danger ... even though you'd already agreed with Andy's assessment that the worst Derek could be charged with was threatening behavior."

"We couldn't charge him with anything," he said dismissively. "He had an alibi. In any case, I thought the guy had a right to know what the latest accusation was. You weren't exactly stinting yourself on the Derek Slater front ... and sexual assault was a damn sight more serious than heavy breathing on the end of a phone."

"His alibi was a joke," I said. "You didn't follow it up until three days later."

"It makes no difference. It was watertight."

"Oh, come on!" I said impatiently. "A Kempton Park ticket stub which he could have picked out of the gutter the next day? The course is only a few miles outside Richmond in all conscience. And a telephone conversation with one of his friends? You didn't even bother to check on the remaining two."

"You didn't bother to report the incident until the day after it happened," he countered sarcastically.

I fingered my lip to quell the tic that was leaping and jumping beneath the skin. I couldn't stand the idea that he might interpret it as fear. "It took me twenty-four hours to pluck up the courage," I said matter-of-factly. "Half of me wanted to let the whole thing drop, the other half recognized that Derek wouldn't be terrorizing me if I wasn't right in what I was saying. I was very naive, of course. It never occurred to me you'd bend over backward to protect a man you described as scum ... just because he was white."

"That's not true, and you know it."

"Then why have you consistently protected the Slaters from questioning about Annie's death?"

"I haven't."

"Why didn't you follow through when Dr. Arnold told you Annie had been robbed? You must have realized then where the Quetzalcoatl mosaic came from."

"I didn't. I remember some bits of rubbish in the Slaters' sitting room, but I couldn't describe it now and I certainly didn't link it with anything Dr. Arnold said later."

I could almost believe him, if only because the death of a black woman had meant so little to him. "The children had been stealing from Annie for months," I said, "but they weren't very good at hiding what they were taking, and Maureen beat the truth out of Bridget Spalding when she spotted her wearing a ring that obviously hadn't come from Woolworth's. That's when she began to realize Annie might be sitting on a gold mine."

Drury flicked his hand dismissively. "The police can't act if a crime isn't reported."

I went on as if he hadn't spoken. "Annie was such an easy target. She wouldn't let people into her house, she distrusted anyone who spoke to her neighbors, thought council officials and men in uniform were against her, made an enemy of her bank manager. In fact the only person who came close to being a friend was her GP." I watched his face for a reaction, but it remained impassive. "Annie was fairly safe while Sheila was making regular visits because even Derek wasn't stupid enough to make a move while her doctor was taking an interest. Then Sheila left for America and everything changed."

"You can't blame me for that."

"More to the point, after Sheila's departure there was no one who could say what Annie did or didn't have." I held his gaze. "And you never bothered to ask because it suited you to believe a black woman would live in a slum."

"You're forgetting how many empty bottles we found. The conditions inside the house had nothing to do with the color of her skin, they were the result of a drink habit."

"They were vodka bottles," I said.

There was a tiny flicker of doubt in his eyes. "So?"

"She didn't drink vodka." I took a sheaf of papers from my rucksack. "Andy sent me a list of every landlord and off-license manager in Richmond in 1978. My father managed to locate just over half of them. Two of the off-license managers remember Annie well. They both say she was a regular and that she only bought Jamaican rum. And the landlord of the Green Man says he kept a stock of it just for Annie Butts because she used to get agitated if he ran out." I thrust the pages into his hand.

Drury frowned as he flicked through them. "It doesn't prove she wasn't buying vodka from a supermarket," he said.

"No," I agreed.

"Then it's not evidence."

"Not on its own, perhaps, but if you look at the last two pages you'll see that several off-license managers remember Maureen Slater as a vodka drinker. One of them describes how she used to come in after picking up her benefit money and buy half a dozen bottles at a time. He says he refused to serve her after she slapped one of her children�probably Alan�when he said he needed new shoes."

"So? All that proves is Maureen bought vodka; it doesn't prove Annie didn't. What are you trying to say, anyway? That the Slaters put their bottles in Annie's kitchen?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"After she was dead."

"Why?"

"To make you think what you did: that she was a chronic drunk who lived in a tip and neglected herself. That's why they turned off the main supplies and took away all the food that she'd bought for the cats."

"Oh, come on," he growled impatiently. "Everyone said she was a drunk, not just the Slaters." He smacked the paper with the back of his hand. "In any case, Derek was as thick as two short planks. He couldn't have followed through on a plan like that. He'd have given himself away the minute we started asking questions."

"Not Derek, maybe, but Maureen certainly could. All she had to do was play on your prejudices." I quoted his own words at him. "You'd never believe a 'downtrodden slut' could outmaneuver you, and 'a miserable black who couldn't hold her drink' was bound to soil her own floor and piss on herself. And why would you question the kind of bottles you found in Annie's house when the mere fact of their existence confirmed everything Maureen wanted you to believe?"

"There was no reason to question them. No one told us she didn't drink vodka."

I handed him another piece of paper.

"What's this?"

"A copy of Sharon Percy's statement. Your name's at the top as the interviewing officer. The first half deals with where she was during the evening�none of which is true as a matter of interest�the second half is her description of what Annie was like. Somewhere in the last paragraph it says: 'She used to get drunk on rum and start insulting everyone. She took swipes at the kids with the empty bottles. I kept reporting it but nothing was done.' "

Impatiently, he tore this page, too, into shreds and dropped it to the floor. "You're clutching at straws," he said. "You can muddy the waters as much as you like, it doesn't alter the fact that there was no reason to question anyone's statement at the time ... and that includes your husband's. The pathologist's findings were unambiguous�Ann Butts died because she walked in front of a truck."

"Which is what you told him to say."

"You can't prove it. If Hanley's files are missing, there's nothing to show which of us said what first."

I gave a small laugh. "He didn't do you any favors by getting rid of them. At the moment, the only document supporting your accident theory is the one-page report Hanley submitted to the coroner, and that has so many mistakes it's a joke. He spelled Annie's name wrong, referred to bruising on her left arm instead of her right, and completely ignored the lividity in her thighs, which is very pronounced in the photographs."

I was amazed to see him run a nervous tongue across his lips. "I don't think that's right."

"It is," I assured him. "Hanley was so incompetent by that time he was taking dictation from whichever police officer presented a body for inspection. I assume you got muddled over the arms because I told you she was lying left side uppermost with her back to the lamppost."

He had to think about his answer. "Not my responsibility. He had his job ... I had mine. Let him take the flak."

I reached for my rucksack and zipped up the pockets. "Reporters don't hound dead people," I told him. "Only the living. And there's more human interest in a racist policeman who refused to investigate a black woman's murder than a troubled pathologist who killed himself with drink because he couldn't stand the unnecessary mutilation of corpses. Radley's won't keep you on," I went on dispassionately, "not once you're plastered across the front of the newspapers. All your decent trade will vanish overnight to be supplanted by thugs from the National Front."

Small beads of sweat dampened his forehead. "Tell me what you came for," he said, "because we both know this has nothing to do with Annie."

Was he right? I honestly didn't know anymore. "It was two years before I learned to trust myself again," I said slowly, "and another two before I dared trust anyone else. I still have nightmares ... still run to the basin to wash myself ... still check the bolts on the door ... still jump out of my skin every rime I hear a sound I don't recognize." I pushed back my chair and stood up, hooking my rucksack over my shoulder. "I'd say this has everything to do with Annie. The only difference Between us is that she had the courage to stand and fight ... and I ran away." I moved to the door. "Which is why she's dead and I'm alive."
 

Letter from Dr. Joseph Elias, psychiatrist
at the Queen Victoria Hospital, Hong Kong�dated 1999

QUEEN VICTORIA HOSPITAL
Hong Kong
Dept. of Psychiatry

Mrs. M. Ranelagh
Jacaranda
Hightor Road
Cape Town
South Africa

February 17, 1999

Dear Mrs. Ranelagh,

Goodness me! So it's home to England at last. I shall await your news with bated breath. Yes, despite my incredibly advanced years, I still have a small consultancy in the hospital, but only because my patients seem to prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't.

And what of your devils, my dear? Somehow I doubt that justice for Annie will be enough for you. But who am I to criticize when my friend the rabbi would say: To win the peace you must first fight the war?

As requested, I enclose the notes I made in 1979.

Yours fondly,
J. Elias

 

*22*

Drury couldn't leave it alone, as I knew he wouldn't. For all his protestations about hating having people in his face, he disliked it even more when they walked away. I turned, left the pub and went about fifty yards toward the trawler moorings before I heard his footsteps behind me. Lights from the buildings along the quay shone a quiet glow across the cobblestones and, far ahead, tiny beacons bobbed upon the water like multicolored jewels, showing safe navigation for incoming yachtsmen. I had a moment to wish I could enjoy the scene for what it was�something beautiful�before his fingers closed about my arm.

"This is crazy," he said, jerking me 'round to face him. "You say you want to get even. Well, how? Destroying me isn't going to produce justice for you or for Annie. Are you asking me to deliver Derek Slater on a plate? Is that what this is about?"

I tried to pull away. "People are watching," I said.

"Let them watch," he growled. "I want this sorted."

"Fine. So when I decide to scream�which I certainly will if you don't let go�there'll be a hundred witnesses to confirm your superintendent's assessment that you're a violent man."

He released me immediately.

I smiled cynically as I rubbed my arm. "It's not so much fun when the boot's on the other foot, is it? The way things are at the moment, you'd crawl on your belly over these cobbles in exchange for a promise to burn what's in my rucksack. Am I right?"

"Don't push your luck," he said in an undertone. "I'm in no mood for games. All you'll achieve by going public is to make me a scapegoat, and that's not going to put Derek behind bars ... not after all this time. Is that the kind of justice you want?"

"It's better than nothing."

He grasped one writhing fist inside the other as if afraid he wouldn't be able to control them. "If it was me you wanted, you wouldn't have put me on my guard," he said reasonably.

"Perhaps I like watching you sweat," I murmured.

"How about I break your fucking neck?" he said through gritted teeth.

"You wouldn't get very far. My two sons are standing right behind you."

The words made no sense to him�he didn't associate me with children�and he stared at me in baffled fury like a tired bull trying to work out how to defeat a matador. "What the hell are you talking about now?"

"Protection." I nodded to Luke and Tom. "I come better prepared these days."

It took a second or two for his brain to catch on, but he spun 'round eventually to discover I was telling the truth. Perhaps he was expecting something younger�or smaller?�but whichever, he was suitably impressed. "Shit!" he said. "What the fuck's going on?"

"Sam's waiting for us in the car," I explained. "I'd like him to hear what you're going to say next."

Drury glanced nervously at the boys. "Which is what?"

I made him the same offer I'd made Maureen. "A trade?" I suggested. "You see you're right about one thing. The kind of justice I'm looking for is a little more"�I sought for a word�"basic than making you take the blame for everything that happened."

I didn't think he'd follow me, particularly as the boys returned to the pub as soon as I moved away. But perhaps he misunderstood what I wanted Sam to hear ... or what I meant by basic justice...

The car was parked beyond the trawler moorings, facing out over the water, and as we approached Sam opened the door and climbed out. In a spirit of mischief, I introduced them to each other as I lowered my rucksack onto the bonnet. "Mr. Ranelagh. Mr. Drury." They nodded to each other like a couple of wary rottweilers, but didn't shake hands. "You asked me if I was expecting you to deliver Derek on a plate," I reminded Drury, "but I don't see how you can do that unless you suppressed evidence at the time."

He looked tight-lipped at Sam, aware that anything he said now would be heard by a witness. "There was no suppression of evidence," he said sharply, "merely question marks over where Derek was at nine o'clock. He claimed he was having a drink with the local tart who'd been touting for custom since the place opened."

"Sharon Percy?"

He nodded. "It was straightforward stuff�the two of them were regulars�and the publican agreed they were both in there that night although he disputed the timing when we first questioned him. He remembered seeing Sharon at nine o'clock but he didn't think Derek came in until later." He shrugged. "He backed off when we asked for a statement ... said one day was much like another, and he couldn't swear he wasn't confusing two different occasions."

"This being the William of Orange," I said. "The pub Annie was banned from because she was black."

He gave an impatient shake of his head. "She was banned because she couldn't hold her drink and swore at the other customers. The publican was within his rights to refuse to serve her."

I looked questioningly at Sam.

"It was known locally as the Orange Free State," he told Drury. "There was a sign on the door saying 'no dogs' and the 'd' had been crossed out and changed to a 'w.' It was a popular pub�a fair number of policemen used it�but you never saw any blacks in there."

"If it offended you, you should have reported it."

"It didn't," said Sam honestly. "I never even questioned it."

"Then why expect me to?"

"Because it was your job. I'm not saying I'd have given you any medals for it�hell, the last thing I wanted was to have Mad Annie swearing at me over a pint�but the laws on discrimination were clear and anyone who put 'no wogs' on their front door ought to have been prosecuted." He paused to exchange a glance with me, clearly wondering how far he should or could go. "The landlord was cock-a-hoop after the accident," he went on abruptly. "Kept telling anyone who cared to listen that we had a truck driver to thank for making the streets cleaner."

"Not in front of me he didn't," said Drury so quickly that I guessed he'd had to answer that question before, probably at the time of his "retirement."

"So did you bother to challenge Derek about his alibi?" I said dryly. "Or was that when you decided to take him aside and tell him that I was the problem, and the best solution for everyone would be to shut me up? And how did you put it exactly? Do us all a favor, Derek, and teach that nigger-loving bitch a lesson because your alibi stinks and you'll be in trouble if you don't. Or did you drop hints to Maureen when you were looking at the bits of junk in her sitting room?"

I watched him flick a wary glance at Sam, but he took confidence from Sam's obvious ignorance of what I was talking about. "Of course I challenged him," he said bullishly. "He stuck to his story ... so did Sharon. They both said they'd been there all evening. We didn't believe them, but there was nothing we could do if no one was willing to contradict them."

"Did you ever find out what they were really doing?"

He shrugged. "Our best guess was that Sharon had been on her back somewhere and Derek was out thieving. They both had convictions�Sharon for prostitution; Derek for assault and theft."

"Sharon was with Geoffrey Spalding," I said. "He lived at number 27 and used to meet her at a hotel once a month because he didn't want his wife and daughters finding out what he was doing. He's the one who said he saw Annie in the street around a quarter past eight and tried to persuade her to go home."

"I remember him."

"I think he was lying about the time," I went on. "According to Jock Williams, Sharon arrived in a taxi at the William of Orange shortly after nine. He said she was high as a kite and had obviously been with another client, and I'm betting the client was Geoffrey and the same taxi dropped him off at the top of Graham Road before taking Sharon on to the pub. Which means, if Geoffrey talked to Annie at all, it must have been an hour later than he said it was."

He refused to accept it. "I spoke to him in front of his wife and she didn't question that he was home by 8:30."

"She wouldn't have known. She was on chemotherapy for breast cancer and would have been asleep whatever time he came in. Where did he say he'd been?"

Drury thought back. "Late at work. Nothing to raise any eyebrows over."

I turned to Sam. "I've always thought he must have passed the Williams' house as you came out ... otherwise you and Libby wouldn't have needed an alibi."

"Someone did," he admitted, "but I've no idea who it was. To be honest, I can't even be sure it was a man. It could have been a total stranger taking a shortcut, but Libby went apeshit and said tongues would start wagging�" He pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "Is this the man you think killed Annie?"

"I don't know," I answered slowly, "but I've never understood why he said he spoke to Annie unless it actually happened. It was an unnecessary lie. He could have done what you and Jock did and said he saw her on the other side of the road."

"People embroider all the time," said Drury. "It makes them feel important."

I shook my head. "She was seen by two different couples at around nine o'clock. The Pardoes at number 8 who watched her from their bedroom window, and the couple in the car who say she lurched out in front of them. They all said she was on her feet ... but by the time Sam passed her at 9:15 she was collapsed in the gutter."

"That's not what Mr. Ranelagh said at the time."

"His revised statement was in the envelope," I said impatiently, "so I know you've read it. The question is, was Annie on her feet when Geoffrey Spalding passed her? And if she was, did she speak to him? I think she was�and did�and that whatever she said made him so angry that he pushed her into the road. It would explain why he advanced the time by an hour ... it would also explain why Sharon was prepared to give Derek an alibi. If she told you she'd been with a customer�and you found out who it was�you'd have worked out PDQ that Geoffrey was the last person to speak to Annie.''

Drury frowned. "And?"

"You'd have come to the same conclusion he did ... that he killed her."

He gave a grunt of irritation. "Half an hour ago you were producing pathology reports saying she was beaten up several hours in advance of her death, now you're saying Geoffrey Spalding murdered her. When are you going to make up your mind, Mrs. Ranelagh?"

Sam roused himself. "She's not saying Spalding killed her." he said reasonably, "just that he thought he did. If it comes to that, I've spent twenty years worrying that I did the same. And maybe I did. Maybe that fifteen minutes I left her to lie in the gutter was the difference between life and death."

"Then you should have cleared your conscience by telling us the truth at the time," said Drury with a far from friendly smile, "instead of contaminating the investigation because you couldn't keep your hands off your friend's wife."

He would have been wiser not to mention Libby, I thought with private amusement as I watched an angry flush stain Sam's cheeks. Guilt was the one thing guaranteed to fire my husband's temper.

"You told us there wasn't going to be an investigation," he snapped. "I remember it very distinctly. You came to the house the next day to explain the postmortem findings. Unequivocal, you said ... a clear-cut accident ... no hint of foul play. I also remember you saying that if there had been any question marks over the death, the whole matter would have been turned over to the CID."

"There were no question marks, Mr. Ranelagh. It might have been different if you hadn't lied, but we could only work with the information we had."

Sam smoothed a hand across his bald patch, staring past Drury to the lights on the other side of the water. "Jock and I didn't offer any information until the Thursday evening when we were asked to make voluntary statements in support of what Libby had told you the day before, namely that Jock was at my house."

"So now you're blaming Mrs. Williams?"

"No, merely pointing out that you'd made up your mind it was an accident a good twenty-four hours before Jock or I said anything." He stared thoughtfully at Drury as if he were fundamentally reassessing some previous judgment. "Would it have made any difference if we had told the truth? Wouldn't you just have claimed she was hit by a truck between the couple in the car seeing her and my finding her?"

Drury's silence was an answer in itself. "You telephoned me several times at work," Sam went on, "telling me that my wife was suffering a classic response to stress and needed psychiatric help. You said you'd seen that sort of reaction before and it always led to more and more a accusations."

"You agreed with every word, Mr. Ranelagh, including the necessity for an official caution."

My husband folded his arms and stared fixedly at the cobbles as if certainty lay within their uneven surface. "Did I have any choice?" he asked. "You read out a catalog of complaints against her ... wasting police time ... making false accusations against Derek Slater ... reporting imaginary sex attacks to win sympathy ... plaguing you with telephone calls and visits because she had an unhealthy obsession with you." He lifted his head. "You were a policeman. I had to accept you were telling me the truth."

"It must have tallied with your own opinion," said Drury persuasively, "otherwise you'd have argued your wife's case."

Sam made a troubled gesture with his hand. "I was in no position to argue. I hadn't seen her for nearly three weeks, and on the one occasion she phoned she was hysterical. I couldn't make head or tail of what she was saying so I called her parents and asked them to help her." He paused, trying to marshal facts in his head. "But you'd already persuaded my mother-in-law that an official caution in front of her family was the best way to deal with the situation. 'She needs shaming to stop her wasting any more police time,' was the way you put it."

There was a short silence.

"It worked then," I said lightly. "I'd have slit my throat rather than say another word to Mr. Drury ... or to you and Ma, Sam. You both stood by and watched this bastard bully me into keeping my mouth shut"�I jerked my chin at Drury�"and then shook his hand at the end as if he'd done something fine. The only person who refused to go along with the charade was my father, yet he knew no more at that stage than you did. He just had faith in the woman he knew me to be rather than a pathetic, disturbed creature who was resorting to sexual fantasy to prolong her fifteen minutes of fame."

"You were never described in those terms or treated with anything other than courtesy," said Drury curtly. "Your husband knows that. That's why I asked him to be present, so that you wouldn't be able to rewrite the history afterward."

"You could be as courteous as you liked," I said, "because you knew I wouldn't argue with you. Not after the unofficial caution you arranged for me the night before. You should have joined the party," I told him. "I imagine it was a great deal more exciting than hammering a needle into a twelve-year-old's arm or pounding at a black face until the cheekbone snapped."

The muscles along the man's jawline tightened. "Now you're slandering me in front of a witness."

"Then sue me. Give me my day in court. It's all I've ever wanted. But you'll be on thin ice ... I've another copy of your assessment in my rucksack."

He took an abrupt step forward, swinging his fists at his sides. I thought he was going to hit me and dodged away 'round the bonnet of the car, but he snatched up the rucksack instead and tossed it into the water beyond the harbor wall.

There was a second of silence before it hit with a splash, and Drury stared after it with a look of satisfaction on his lean face. He flung off the nervous hand that Sam laid on his arm. "Leave it," he warned. "This is between me and your wife."

"You always were a shithead," I hissed angrily as I thought of my wallet and credit cards sinking into the sludge at the bottom of the river. "That's the only solution you've ever had to anything. Get rid of the evidence before your crimes find you out."

He laughed at my anger. "It's not so much fun when the boot's on the other foot, is it?" he taunted, resting his palms on one side of the bonnet and staring me down.

I did the same from my side, thrusting my face toward his and raking him with furious eyes. "Do you know what pisses me off the most? Not what you did to me"�I lifted a finger and stabbed it at his chest�"I learned to deal with that. It's the fact that you had the nerve to underestimate me ... and still fucking well do." I could feel the stridency roaring in my voice and, for once, didn't give a damn how it sounded. If the truth be told, I'd always been closer to loudmouthed fishwives than effete Victorian ladies who gave way to the vapors. "How dare you think I'm so stupid as to carry a master file with me? How dare you think I'd give you an opportunity to outflank me?

"You talked about a trade," said Drury aggressively.

"I want justice first," I flung at him. "Then I'll trade."

"What sort of justice?"

"The eye-for-an-eye kind. The same kind you believe in. You pumped a Neanderthal full of lies, then told him I'd be gagged the next day. What did you think he was going to do? Send me a bunch of flowers?"

He looked edgily toward Sam. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do. You got more and more angry every time I accused you of racism. That's why you made my official caution so public ... so that even a moron like Derek Slater knew he could have a free run at the nigger-lover without any fear of my reporting it."

"You're inventing things again, Mrs. Ranelagh. If a crime was committed you had a perfect opportunity to give us the details the next morning."

"You mean in the middle of an official caution for wasting police time? In front of a husband and mother who didn't believe a word I said because they had more faith in a corrupt policeman than they had in me?" I flung out my arms and caught him across the chest with the backs of my hands. "How dare you suggest I had an unhealthy fixation on you? How dare you imagine for one minute that I'd be interested in someone who thought a woman's place was under a man ... preferably bound and muzzled so that he wouldn't have to listen to her criticizing his performance."

He retreated warily but didn't say anything. "I had nothing but contempt for you," I said. "I saw you as a little man ... a pygmy in uniform ... someone who was allowed to strut his stage because his superiors were too inept to see how incompetent he was ... and the only reason I spoke to you at all was because I wanted justice for Annie. But I never thought of you as anything other than a reptile." I looked deep into the dead black of his eyes. "And that was my mistake, wasn't it? If I hadn't made it so obvious that the mere sight of you made my flesh crawl, you wouldn't have set Derek on me. Because it wasn't me who fancied you, you bastard, but you who fancied me." I felt Sam move behind me.

"You're crazy," said Drury.

"You'd better believe it," I agreed, slithering 'round the bonnet of the car. "I haven't been sane since Derek did your dirty work for you. He knew I'd never let him into my house, so he sent Alan in first, blubbing about how his father had been hitting his mother again. The child was twice as big as me, and I was stupid enough to put an arm 'round him while I turned to shut the door." I gave a hollow laugh. "He had me flat on my back before I knew what was happening, and used his weight to hold me down while his filthy great hands yanked my hair out by the roots every time I moved my head." I halted in front of the offside headlight so that he wouldn't retreat any further. "They couldn't mark me," I went on, "because you'd told Derek I'd be at the police station the next morning. And they couldn't rape me because they didn't want leave any incriminating evidence inside me." I tapped two fingers against my mouth. "So I got a mouthful of Derek later's urine instead."

I caught a glimpse of Sam's strained, white face out of the corner of rny eye. "He pissed over my mouth and nose while his son held me down"�I glanced at the harbor's edge�"and it's like drowning. You can't breathe�so you drink. And the legacy is that you wash your mouth out every hour of every day as long as you live." I lifted my lips in a wolfish snarl. "They swapped places while I was choking to give Alan his turn�but he was too excited and couldn't control himself..." I fell silent as Sam moved 'round behind the car.

Drury made a half-turn so he could keep an eye on Sam as well. "No one's going to believe you," he said, "not if there's no record of such a crime being committed. And why focus your anger on me, anyway? Why not blame your husband for abandoning you? If he'd had any guts he'd have stood by you instead of protecting his tart."

I had time to think that Drury was a shocking judge of charcter before�with one galvanizing charge�Sam launched at him, head down, and shunted him into the estuary after my rucksack.
 

*23*

Sam doubled up and backed away from the edge, roaring obscenities from an overdose of adrenaline, but I stayed to watch Drury rise. Luke had assured me that the westerly tidal stream in Weymouth harbor would carry a floating body toward the pontoons, but I had a small twinge of concern about how good a swimmer Drury was. When his face bobbed to the surface, we stared at each other for a moment before I gave him a one-fingered salute and turned away. Gotcha!

"We ought to call the police," said Sam, taking deep breaths to calm himself while he watched the man swim to safety.

"He can do it himself if he wants to. He knows our address." I walked back to the car. "But he won't. He'll bury his head in the sand and hope this counts as an eye for an eye."

"And does it?" he asked, following me.

"No chance," I said cheerfully, opening the passenger door. "He still has to answer for Annie, and he'll only do that when his name's plastered across every newspaper in this country with 'racist' attached to it." I slid onto the seat. "Come on," I called, buckling my seat belt, "let's shift. He'll be after your blood if I know anything about anything. Not reporting you to the police doesn't mean he won't break your jaw at the first opportunity."

Sam scrambled in beside me and fired the engine, twisting 'round to reverse the car out on the road. "I should have seen to him twenty years ago," he said as he spun the wheel. "I would have done, too, if I hadn't believed him."

"About Annie?"

"No," he growled, "about you stalking him. I know it sounds absurd now but at the time it seemed to make sense. The way you went off me after Annie died ... the hours you spent at the police station ... the fact that you were prepared to talk to him and not me." He eased the car forward and pulled out onto the road. "I started to think he was more your type than I was."

"That figures," I said sarcastically, reaching across him to buckle his belt. "I mean he had everything I wanted in a man: hair, a uniform, not to mention an enormous dick, which he kept permanently erect for the purposes of rogering every bit of totty that crossed his tracks."

He gave me a sheepish grin. "Actually, I'm being serious. I was incredibly jealous but I didn't think I had much of a leg to stand on after Libby. Then you got pregnant, and I thought, Shit, is the baby mine or Drury's? ... and I was so bloody churned up that when you agreed to try to make a go of it, all I could think about was getting away, burying the whole bloody saga and starting again."

I was so surprised that I felt as if my jaw had just hit the floor. "You thought Luke was Drury's?"

He nodded.

"Good God! What on earth gave you that idea?"

He took his foot off the pedal and the car slowed to a crawl. "Because the only time we had sex throughout that whole miserable period," he said with a sigh, "was when I forced myself on you and you told me you never wanted to see me again. You really hated me that night ... and I couldn't believe that something that was done with so much viciousness could produce something so grand."

I shook my head in amazement. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Because it didn't matter," he said simply. "I always thought of Luke as mine whether he was or not."

I was humbled. If our roles were reversed�if Libby had given birth to Sam's child�1 could never have been that generous. "But of course he's yours," I said, touching the back of my hand to his cheek. "You should never have doubted it for a minute."

He leaned his head to one side, trapping my hand against his shoulder. "I haven't for a long time ... not since Tom was born, anyway, because they looked so alike." He gave an abrupt laugh. "Then you insisted on bringing me here for lunch so that Drury could leer at you, and I thought, Is this the first step to telling the sod that my son is really his?"

I snatched my hand away. "You said you didn't recognize him."

He speeded up again. "I never forget the faces of men who make me jealous."

"There haven't been any."

"That's what you think." He leaned forward to wipe mist from the screen. "Where are we picking up the boys?"

"Beyond the swing bridge."

"Well, be prepared for some embarrassed silences," he warned matter-of-factly. "I spotted them creeping in behind one of the other cars, so I think the chances are they heard every word."

"Damn!" I said with sudden weariness, leaning my head against the seat. "I told them to make themselves scarce."

"Mm, well, I suspect curiosity won out. You can't blame them. We've both been behaving very oddly lately. It could makes things difficult with Danny," he warned again. "And I'll have to come clean about Libby ... why I lied ... why I ignored Annie. It's only right they should hear the truth from me."

"It's not what I wanted, Sam," I said with a sigh. "It was supposed to be just you who heard it because I didn't think you'd believe it if I told it to you cold."

"You should have trusted me," he said lightly. "I stopped being a bastard twenty years ago."

"I know." I felt tears prick behind my eyes. "But I could never find the right time to tell you. I'm sorry."

"Well, I'm not," he declared with sudden boisterous good numor. "You've got more balls than an entire rugby team, my girl, and it's about time the boys found out what an amazing mother they have." He slapped his hands against the steering -heel. "I keep thinking of this Chinese proverb Jock quoted to me the other day. It's a variation on the theme of 'everything comes to him who waits'"�he turned to me with an-ocher grin�"and it's peculiarly apt in the present circumstances."

"How does it go?"

" 'If you sit by the river long enough the bodies of all your enemies float by.' "

1 thought I knew the man I married before that night, but now I know I could live to be a hundred and still not understand the twists and turns of human nature. I don't know what he said to the boys but whatever it was made them treat me like a valuable antique for twenty-four hours, until I started effing and blinding out of pure frustration, and normal service was resumed. They carefully avoided any reference to the Slaters, all of them understanding that it is one thing to reveal the presence of a scar, quite another to have it split open under the pressure of constant examination.

Nevertheless, it wasn't a subject that could be avoided forever and, after much shuffling of feet on Saturday night, Tom confessed they were supposed to be meeting Danny Slater for a drink but weren't sure whether they should. Sam and I said in unison that Danny bore no responsibility for what his father and brother had done and that it wouldn't be fair to tell him. Leave him in ignorance was our advice.

"Has Dad told you he's thinking of letting Danny use the barn as a studio?" Tom asked me. "Assuming we buy the place, of course."

"It's just an idea at the moment." said Sam, "but I'd like him to know that we aren't just fair-weather friends."

''He'd have to slum it," put in Luke, "because Dad won't let him smoke dope in the house. But he can clean out the tack room and make it reasonably habitable. There's electricity down there and the loose boxes are big enough to work in. All he'd need to do then is beg some stone off one of the quarries, and he could have a bash at being a sculptor without having to bankrupt himself in the process."

Three eager faces turned toward me. What did I think?

I nodded and smiled and said it was a grand idea. But I knew it wouldn't happen. Danny would never forgive me for what I was about to do to his family.
 

The following Monday I visited Michael Percy in prison on Portland. It was a troubling experience because I was constantly reminded that his life was in limbo. Perhaps the extraordinary setting of the Verne, built inside an old citadel overlooking the harbor and standing alone at the end of a series of hairpin bends, added to my sense of unfulfilled promise and waste. Certainly, I felt its isolation very strongly and wondered if the same feeling was shared by the inmates.

The weather had turned blustery again and the wind plucked at my hair and clothes as I scurried from my car to the main entrance in the wake of a huddle of similarly windblown visitors. I hung behind them, following their lead, unwilling to show my ignorance in front of older hands who, by their relaxed expressions, had queued at reception a hundred times to present their visiting orders.

I thought of Bridget repeating this process month after month, year after year, and wondered if it was a cause for depression or happiness that at the end of it she would see her husband. For myself, I was overcome by a frightening regression to the agoraphobia of twenty years ago when I hadn't been able to leave my house for fear of being watched. Perhaps it had something to do with the officers' uniforms�or being touched during the searches�or having to sit at a table, twiddling my thumbs until Michael was brought to me�certain that everyone's gaze was upon me, even more certain that their gazes were hostile.

Whichever the case, his arrival was a relief, and I watched him walk toward me with an intense�and pleasurable�recognition. There is no accounting for taste, I thought. He was as bad�if not worse�than Alan, but, like Wendy and Bridget and every other woman he'd ever met, I imagine, he had won a place in my affections. He gave me a shy smile as he shook my hand. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

"I said I would."

"Yeah, but not everyone does what they say." He dropped into the chair on the other side of the table and scrutinized my face. "I wouldn't have recognized you if they hadn't said it was Mrs. Ranelagh."

"I've changed a bit."

"That's for sure." He tilted his head to one side to examine me, and I became very aware suddenly that the fourteen-year-old didn't exist anymore and this was a thirty-five-year-old man with a troubled background and a history of violence. "Any reason why?"

"I didn't much like that person," I said honestly.

"What was wrong with her?"

"Too complacent by half." I smiled slightly. "I decided to try lean and hungry instead."

He grinned. "I bet it made your husband sit up and take notice."

I wondered if he'd known about Sam and Libby, or if his intelligence was even more acute now than when I'd known him in school. "It helped," I agreed, scrutinizing him in return. "You haven't changed a bit, although Mrs. Stanhope, the vicar's wife, claims not to have recognized you from the photograph in the newspaper. She's still hoping it was a different Michael Percy who robbed the post office."

He ran the flat of a hand across his closely cropped hair. "Did you tell her?"

"I didn't need to. I'm sure she knows."

He sighed. "She was pretty decent to me when I was a kid. I bet she was wrecked to find out I got done for pistol-whipping a lady."

"I doubt it. She has no illusions about you."

"She offered to adopt me one time, you know, and I said, 'You've gotta be joking.' It'd be like going from the ridiculous to the gorblimey. On the one hand there was Mum who couldn't give a shit if I never came home ... on the other there was the vicar who kept giving me lectures about how Jesus could change my life. The only one who was halfway sensible was Mrs. S ... but she kept wanting to hug me, and I didn't much fancy that." He leaned forward to create an enclosed space for us among the intrusive hubbub of conversation around us. "I wouldn't have minded you giving me a hug," he said with an amused up-from-under look, "but you never showed much inclination."

"I'd have been sacked on the spot."

"You weren't sacked when you gave Alan Slater a hug."

"When did I give Alan a hug?"

"When he bawled his eyes out because the nurse found lice in his hair again. You put your arm 'round his shoulder and said you'd give him some shampoo to get rid of them. You never did that for me."

I had no recollection of it�as far as I knew I'd only put my arm 'round Alan once�and I wondered if Michael was confusing me with another teacher. "Did you ever have lice? You always looked so spick and span while, most days, poor Alan smelled as if he'd emerged from a sewer."

"He was a slob," said Michael dismissively. "I used to nick Prioderm out the chemist for him but he never bothered to use it until the nurse spotted eggs in his hair." He favored me with a crooked smile. "It bugged me that everyone thought I was a neat little kid with clean clothes and felt sorry for Alan because he came from a shit background. I started washing my own stuff myself when I was six years old, but it was only ever Mum who got credit for it."

I wondered fleetingly if the hug I gave Alan, and the hug I hadn't given Michael, had resulted in one settling down and the other doing fifteen years. "Most people thought she was a better mother than Maureen," I told him, "but it wasn't much of an endorsement. On a scale of one to ten, Maureen scored nought."

"At least she wasn't a prostitute," he said bitterly. "It does your head in to have a slag for a mother. Did you know that's what she was at the time?"

"I didn't know anything, Michael. I was very naive and very stupid, and if I had my life over again I'd do things differently." I watched him for a moment. "You were too sexually aware," I said gently. "I never felt threatened by Alan in the way I felt threatened by you. I didn't think you'd be content with a hug."

His smile became even more crooked. "Maybe not, but I'd have been too scared to do anything about it."

"That's not how I saw you," I said with a small laugh. "You had a knack of singling out women who were vulnerable ... like Wendy Stanhope. She becomes very wistful when she talks about you, so I doubt her feelings were entirely maternal."

"What about yours?"

"I don't know. I never tested them."

"But you did like me?"

I wondered why that was important. "Oh yes."

"What about Alan? Did you like him?"

"No," I said flatly, wondering how much he knew.

"He had a crush on you," he said. "Used to talk about how you couldn't keep your hands off him and how the only reason you refused to get the police involved when you caught him nicking from your handbag was because you were afraid he'd spill the beans about the sex he'd had with you." He examined my face closely and seemed to find the reassurance he wanted. "I knew it was a load of crap but it used to bug me the way you put yourself out to be nice to him."

I didn't say anything.

"And you're wrong about him not being sexually aware," he went on. "He was so damn big he had tackle the size of an elephant's by the time he was ten. Sex was the only thing he thought about. He used to nick porno mags and wank himself stupid over the pictures. It was pretty funny till he started doing it for real. He got hold of Rosie, Bridget's sister, and said he wanted to do it with her, and when she told him to fuck off he pushed her to the ground and said he was going to do it anyway. Poor little kid, she was only twelve and she didn't stop bleeding for weeks." His mouth thinned angrily at the memory. "But she was too frightened to tell anyone except me. Her Mum was ill and her dad was never around. So it was down to me to do the business. I beat the shit out of Alan and said if he ever did something like that again, I'd rip his head off."

"How old were you?"

"Fifteen. It wasn't long after you left."

"Did he do it again?"

Michael shrugged. "If he did, I never got to hear about it. He turned on his dad with a baseball bat a week or so later ... almost as if his brain caught up with his size and a bubble came out of his head saying, 'I'm big enough to take on guys.' After that, he didn't seem so interested in sex."

I tried to get a grip of the timing. "His wife told me you and he came to blows over Bridget."

He shook his head. "We only fought the once, and that was over Rosie."

"She told me Alan was besotted with Bridget until he found her in bed with you ... then he beat you half to death and spent time in juvenile prison for it."

"In his dreams maybe." He pulled a puzzled frown. "Bridget never gave him a second look after what he did to her sister, so why pretend otherwise? Who's he trying to con?"

"Beth?" I suggested. "His wife."

"Why?"

It was my turn to shrug.

"Stupid bugger. It's always better to be honest"�he smiled as he listened to himself�"after you've been caught anyway. Nothing remains secret very long in this kind of environment."

I looked around the room, which was packed with prisoners and their families�all talking, all listening, all under observation from prison officers�and I thought I could easily believe it. There was no privacy in a goldfish bowl. And I wondered what sort of control Maureen Slater exercised over her family that no hint of Alan's viciousness had ever leaked out.
 

Letter from John Howlett�RSPCA inspector who entered
Ann Butts's house on the morning after her death�
now resident in Lancashire�dated 1999

WHITE COTTAGE, LITTLEHAMPTON, NR
PRESTON, LANCASHIRE

Ms. M. Ranelagh
Leavenham Farm
Leavenham Nr
Dorchester
Dorset DT2 XXY

August 11, 1999

Dear Ms. Ranelagh,

May I say first how heartened I am by what you wrote. I have always been troubled by what we found in Miss Butts's house, and I feel so much happier to be asked to view it from a different perspective. As you so rightly suggest, I never had any reason to believe Annie was cruel until after she was dead.

Dr. Arnold was of the opinion that Annie had been robbed in the days before her death and suggested this was the cause of the rapid decline in her circumstances which we found on 15.11.78. While I had some sympathy with that view, I never felt it adequately explained the number and/or condition of the cats. The police "take" on the matter was that Annie was a difficult and disturbed woman who was clearly unable to look after herself and whose behavior had given rise to numerous complaints. What we found in her house, therefore, merely confirmed this belief. It's worth mentioning here that PS Drury told me an hour in advance of entering the house that there were in excess of twenty cats on the premises in order to ensure I brought enough cages to accommodate them. When I questioned this figure, saying that in my experience there had never been more than seven, he said it was based on information received from neighbors.

I blame myself now for not asking how her neighbors could be so exact about numbers, but it's easy to be wise with hindsight. At the time, my colleague and I were so shocked by what was there that all our efforts went into assessing and rescuing the animals. It would have been different had Annie still been alive because we would certainly have sought to prosecute on the grounds of cruelty, but her death meant that we effectively handed the responsibility for asking questions to Sergeant Drury. I know that Dr. Arnold had severe reservations about his handling of the case�and it would seem from your letter that you do, too�but in fairness I should stress that he was as shocked as we were by the conditions in the house and said several times, "I should have believed them." By this I assume he was referring to her neighbors, whom he described constantly as "low-life." I say this only to remind you that he, and we, were dealing with a situation that, even if it was unexpected, did in fact bear out everything that had been said about Annie for the last twelve months.

With respect to your specific questions: Annie said her "marmalade" cat had died of "heart failure." She was extremely distraught about it and asked me several times if I thought cats felt pain in the same way we did. I said I didn't know.

Most of the live cats were malnourished�except the six I was able to identify as hers. Several of the strays had bald patches 'round their muzzles, but in almost every instance the fur was beginning to grow back. I'm afraid there was no evidence that "efforts had been made to help them." Rather the reverse, sadly, as the only sensible help would have been a visit to the vet. However, if your premise that the cats' mouths were taped by someone other than Annie, then clearly the removal of the tape and the purchase of chicken and milk, etc., were an indication of "efforts to help." Her own cats were in noticeably better health than the rest.

I'm afraid it's impossible to say how much time had elapsed since the tomcats' mouths were taped, simply because their condition when we found them was so appalling. However, I take on board your suggestion that Annie was unlikely to render them helpless only to release them again.

If I accept your premise that it wasn't Annie who brutalized the animals, then I can also accept your premise that the reason we found sick cats shut into the back bedroom was because she wanted to protect the vulnerable cats from the rest. However, and sadly, I can recall no evidence from the postmortems to prove this, as we had no way of telling if the cats were confined after being bitten and scratched, or before.

Assuming the above premises to be true, then it is certainly possible that the healthy cats killed the sick ones and that the ones with broken necks were the result of "mercy killings." However, if Annie confined the sick toms to protect them from the others, they may well have turned on each other within the confines of the room. I agree that Annie may have chosen to confine the cats inside the house�despite their fouling the floors�in order to protect them from a greater danger outside.

In conclusion, I am a great deal happier with the suggestion that Annie was a savior of cats rather than a tormentor of them, though I fear you will have difficulty proving it.

With best wishes for a successful campaign,
John Hewlett

 

*24*

I asked Michael when he last saw Alan. "We stopped hanging around together after he hurt Rosie," he said, stroking his jaw in thoughtful reminiscence. "If I remember right, I didn't see hide nor hair of him from about '80 on ... but I was in and out of the nick myself on a pretty constant basis which probably accounts for it." He shook his head. "It's pretty bad when you think about it."

"What?"

"That there were only two families in that whole road that couldn't keep out of trouble. The Percys and the Slaters. We had the same chances as everyone else, but never used them. Do you realize we must have done over twenty years in prison between us�what with Derek and me, and whatever it was Alan did?"

"Habits are hard to break," I said.

"Yeah, like Rosie's."

"What happened to her?"

"OD'd on smack in a squat in Manchester about five years ago," he said bitterly. "Some idiot dealer was selling it uncut around that time so it was probably accidental and not deliberate. Bailiffs found her body under a mattress the day after her mates vacated the place. The police reckoned she'd been dead three days, but no one did a thing about it ... just left her there while they packed their bags and scarpered."

"I'm sorry."

He nodded. "It was pretty sad. Bridget kept trying to get treatment for her, but Rosie couldn't hack life without it. She always said she'd die of an overdose, so I guess she wouldn't have minded too much if she knew what was happening to her."

"What did her father say?"

"Zilch. I'm not sure he even knows she's dead. The girls stopped talking to him after he shacked up with Mum."

"Couldn't you have told him?"

"No way. He kicked me out when he moved in. That's when I started living with Rosie and Bridget." He jammed his hands between his knees, shoulders hunched in sudden anger. "He really hates me ... persuaded Mum I was no good," he said resentfully, "even though I was the one that looked out for her when it mattered."

"When was that?"

He turned away so that I couldn't see his expression. "It's not important."

I was sure it was, but couldn't see the point of pursuing it as he clearly didn't want to tell me. "What did you do to make Geoffrey dislike you so much?"