A Banquet of Consequences (61 page)

He said to her, “That, my girl, is the only music I ever need to hear.”

THORNFORD

DORSET

F
or the first time, Alastair hadn’t left her. Instead, he’d thrown duty directly out of the window. He’d put the morning’s baking into the hands of his assistant, and he’d remained with Sharon the whole blessed night.

He felt no guilt. Nor did he feel even a twinge of concern that the bakery’s goods might not be quite up to the mark as a result of his failure either to oversee or to have a hand in every step of their creation. There were too many other emotions to be feeling, and supreme among them was what he could name only as triumph. This involved a rightness to everything that was now going on between Sharon and him.

Caro he’d left to her own devices, whatever they were going to be in the aftermath of her return from London. Sharon he would leave no more.

They’d walked out into the garden in the fading daylight upon his arrival, and there they’d watched the farmer in the fields behind them. They’d listened to him whistling to direct his border collie in the gathering of the sheep and the herding of them. They’d commented on the skill and the partnership of man and dog.

After that, they’d had a simple supper: chops and a salad. Alastair
realised then that he should have stopped somewhere along the way to purchase a bottle of wine, but he hadn’t done as he’d been in so much of a rush to get to Sharon. She declared it was of little matter.

Then to bed and lovemaking, during which time he began to understand that Sharon brought out the best in him in all ways but especially in this. And he knew it was the same for her because she’d whispered, “It’s never
ever
been like this,” and he’d declared that this was how it would always be with them. She’d chuckled at that and he’d said, “I swear it.”

She wondered when he did not rise at two in order to get back to the bakery for the early morning’s work. He told her that he wasn’t leaving, that he wanted to be with her for the rest of the night.

He hadn’t expected to sleep so well. It had been so many years during which his sleep was a broken thing, interrupted by the baking, interrupted by Caro, interrupted by his own restlessness. He’d supposed he would sleep only fitfully and spend most of the night merely enjoying the sensation of Sharon’s warm body next to his. But instead he’d fallen deeply and almost immediately to sleep, and he’d stayed asleep.

He awakened just after five. For a moment he panicked, forgetting both where he was and what his intention had been: to allow his assistant to man the ovens. His heart slammed him into purpose, and he was about to leap from the bed when in the mirror opposite he caught sight of Sharon. That was all it took to calm him.

She slept the sleep of the innocent, curled on her side, her fists tucked beneath her chin. On her face a faint smile reflected whatever dream she was dreaming.

He eased from the bed and reached for his clothing, careful not to awaken her. He realised he needed to bring more of his belongings here so that he would be comfortable until such a time as he was entirely free of Caro. A dressing gown would be nice, he thought, a pair of slippers as well. A cardigan for the autumn evenings.

He descended to the kitchen, where he could see the sky above the farm’s fields was beginning to lighten. He saw movement at a distance from the house, a light bobbing in the direction of the great stone barn as the farmer began his day. He decided he would do the
same: begin his day. And it would start with an extraordinary breakfast for Sharon, no typical English breakfast this but something memorable that used his skill. He’d make her a batch of succulent breakfast muffins, he thought. He’d accompany them with an omelet of cheese and mushrooms, he’d include a fruit salad and fresh squeezed orange juice, and if she rose before he managed to finish his work, he’d insist she sit at table and talk to him while he worked.

He chuckled at himself as he set about on his search for everything he would need. Of course, he was
assuming
and well he knew it. Did she have cheese? Did she have mushrooms? Was there fruit for a salad or oranges for juice?

He heated the oven and browsed till he found her electric mixer, a bowl for his muffin ingredients, a baking pan to hold them. Well and good, he thought, and he went from there to assemble the rest of what he would require. Lemon and poppy seed muffins, he reckoned, melting onto the tongue along with creamery butter.

He fetched eggs and butter from the fridge. He rustled through the neat cupboards and brought out the flour, the sugar, and the salt. But then he couldn’t find baking powder, and he muttered in frustration over this as he gazed out of the window, saw the steady light shining from the farmer’s barn, and tried to work out what he could bake without baking powder to help the concoction rise.

His gaze fell on the dust bin just outside to the right of the steps that led to the garden. Seeing this, he recalled Sharon upon his arrival, cleaning her cupboards industriously and tossing items that had passed their best-by and use-by dates. Perhaps, he considered, there was baking powder among them. If the best-by date wasn’t too far in the past, the powder would probably do just fine.

He flipped on the light above the door and went outside. Within the dust bin was the rubbish bag into which Sharon had been discarding items from her cupboards. He unfastened this and began to riffle through what was within. He was in luck because a container of baking powder was upended—but not spilled out—inside an open bag of rock-hard brown sugar. He rescued it, holding it up under the light to see the date upon it. To his surprise, it was one month away. Excellent luck, he thought. Shar had made a mistake.

He heard a rustling nearby, and he looked up quickly to see that one of the farmer’s sheep had wandered close to Sharon’s garden and was nibbling upon the longer grass that grew at the base of one of the fence poles. The animal was just beyond the fence, but the light of the day had now increased and in it the laburnum tree showed off its long brown pods. A trick of shadows made it difficult to tell how close the laburnum tree was to the fence, and Alastair wondered about its proximity to the sheep and whether its pods were dangerous to them, and he considered how he should speak to Sharon about this as it wouldn’t do to have one of the farmer’s animals poisoned as the ill will involved would hardly be worth the tree’s brief beauty in the spring.

And then. No crash of thunder, no rise of dramatic music playing, no bolt of lightning. He simply knew.

He’d rung her. He’d left a message: both on her mobile and on her landline. He’d told her the coppers were on the trail of a poison and they’d been at his house to talk about it. He’d advised her, hadn’t he, not to let them into her house because she didn’t
have
to let them into her house, and they certainly could not search the place without a warrant. He’d told her this.

She’d had no idea from that that he would come to her in Thornford.
He
hadn’t known he would come to her. It was Caro’s madness that had driven him to Sharon last evening, and when he’d arrived it was to find her . . . He tried to call into his mind the images of what he’d seen upon his arrival, and it was an easy thing to do because it seemed that every image he had of Sharon in the last few months was branded into his memory and consequently simple to bring forth. Last evening’s image was especially simple: Shar in the kitchen and what she’d been doing.

As he saw this image, Alastair tried to make the cleaning of her cupboards a completely innocent thing. But there was no getting away from what he had in his hand just as there was no getting away from the laburnum tree, which she hadn’t planted until her children were old enough to understand the deadly nature of the tree’s long pods. And those pods hung from it now. Announcing themselves, they were.

Alastair carried the baking powder container into the house, a sickness coming over him. He set the container onto the table, sat, and considered what to do.

She’d done it for him and for their future. Because of this, he could no more turn her over to the coppers than could he climb to the farmhouse’s rooftop and take to the air. But there had to be truth in all things between them, and especially there had to be truth in this. What had occurred could not remain lying like a dead dog in the room, for it would eventually destroy what they had together, and he wasn’t about to allow that to happen. Everything would be in the open, he thought. It was the only way if they were to go forward.

When Sharon came into the kitchen, then, he was ready. He’d started the coffee and she’d smelled it upstairs. Like a siren’s call, it had brought her down to him and she wandered sleepily into the room, wearing a dressing gown that was fraying at the cuffs and slippers that were tattered.

She said with a smile as she stretched her arms above her head, “What’re you about then, my fine man?” She took in the items on the work top that he’d not yet returned to the cupboards, and she said, “What’s to do?” And then she seemed to take in the baking powder sitting alone on the kitchen table, and she frowned at this, picked it up, examined it, and said, “Didn’t I toss this in the rubbish?”

He said, “Aye. That you did. But we best be rid of it in a better way. Leaving it in the rubbish like that . . . ? It makes no sense asking for trouble, Shar.”

“What’re you on about?” She asked this with a perplexed little laugh, and it was the laugh that made him certain.

He took the container from her and he tucked it into his trouser pocket. He said, “I’m taking this . . .” And then he paused for he hadn’t thought it all through. He looked at the time—just after six, now—and he said, “To Sherborne. There’s the supermarket, and they’ll have wheelie bins behind it. We got to get this far away and at this hour no one’s likely to see me.”

“But Alastair, why are—”

“It’s the best-by date, Shar. Everything else out there . . . ?” with a nod towards the back door and the bin outside of it. “Its best-by date
and use-by date . . . they’re passed. But this—” Here he tapped on his pocket where the powder was tucked. “We’re not close to the date.”

“So put it back into the cupboard,” she said.

“We can’t have it there,” he told her. “No matter the date. Cops aren’t going to concern themselves with dates.”

She was silent, and he could see her thinking. He could imagine her calculating and worrying, with anxiety driving her into a state of nerves. He couldn’t have this. What she’d done . . . It was for them, it was for their future, it was for their life together. He said, “You’re not to worry. I’m taking care of it, and then I’m taking care of you. Now and always. I know you’ve meant well towards me since the day we met. It’s down to God that you’re in my life and you
are
my life and the point is I don’t even care. What I’m saying is I know what this is—” Again he tapped his pocket. “And what I’m saying is I’m taking it away. And from the moment I walk out of the door, we won’t talk about it ever again. Only just now . . . It’s that I can’t have a lie between us, not after last night and what it meant that I stayed and Caro knows I stayed. I’m saying I don’t want there to be something not said, something not quite right, something others might see as evil but I never will cos, like I said, I know what you did you did for us.”

She licked her lips. He could see that they were dry as a twig. She said, “Alastair . . . What’re you saying?”

“Them laburnum pods. There, I’ve said it. But no worries cos I swear on everything that’s ever been holy that nothing you do can part me from you.”

She rose in a movement so slow it was as if her bones had aged her to ninety years. “You think there’s poison in that container?” She extended her hand. “Give it to me, then. I’ll show you the truth.”

“I’m thinking only that nothing matters, just you and me. I’m thinking that everything’s out in the open now and everything there is begins with this: I love you. I’m telling you that I got not a single regret, and no one is parting us. That’s what you thought would happen, isn’t it? That she would part us. And I c’n see why because of everything that’s involved in ridding myself of her. Only it doesn’t matter what I lose in a divorce, cos the only thing that matters is you.”

“I’m not a poisoner,” she said.

He said, “Shar, I rang you. I told you the cops—”

“I was cleaning my cupboards. I always do. Twice each year I do it.”

“The best-by date, Shar.”

“Give it to me then.
Give
it to me.”

He began to walk out. He knew they would go round and round about this unless he rid them of the poison. He knew he needed to get it to Sherborne, to put it into the bins behind the supermarket there, and to walk away. It was only in this manner that they could put the past behind them and make their way into a future together.

She cried, “Alastair! You mustn’t! Don’t leave me. Please.”

He understood how worried she was that he would be caught doing what needed to be done. But he had no intention of being caught. His only intention was to return to her.

SHAFTESBURY

DORSET

DI Lynley had been as good as his word. He’d managed the paperwork, laying out the facts and circumstances in such a way as, Barbara hoped, to persuade a magistrate to grant them a warrant to search Caroline Goldacre’s house and the bakery that stood near it. But tracking down a magistrate hadn’t been as simple as it might have been. Once Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata had everything in hand for a search warrant—with a compulsive attention to detail and language suggestive of Dorothea Harriman’s competent involvement—they rang the local nick for the magistrate’s location. As the hour was early, they’d gone to his home, only to discover that the bloke was on holiday in Croatia. So they had to dig deeper to find a judicial official who could authorise a warrant. This involved a trek down to Dorchester, where they’d cooled their heels for an hour in the institutional reception area of the magistrate’s court while Sylvia Parker-Humphries finished up business in another part of the building.