A City of Strangers (27 page)

Steven Copperwhite did not feel like doing anything much about his move before Evie went out for the evening. He piled up some books against the wall of the study, got together a mass of papers, but beyond that it would have to wait. Really all he'd have to take would be a sort of symbolic essence of his presence in Wynton Lane. He was quite sure Evie would acquiesce good-humoredly in his move out, and let him come back any time he liked to remove more stuff. So it was just a question of clothes, typewriter, essential books, lecture notes.

At half past six, Evie poked her head around the door.

“Right. I'm off.”

“OK. Where is it tonight?”

“Grantham.”

“The Holy City! What are you doing there?”

“It's a symposium on strategies for women in the postfeminist age. With Doreen Appleby the MP.”

“Hmmmm. She's nobody's favorite woman MP. On the other hand, who is?”

“Pig,” said Evie cheerfully.

“Have a good time.”

He heard her march down the hall in her usual swinging fashion, her clogs clattering on the parquet flooring. He could feel his heart beating fast: His
life was turning another corner. When the front door banged, it had to his ears a ring of finality. He waited for the asthmatic wheeze of her car starting up and driving off, then he darted to the bedroom they had shared, opened the wardrobe wide and started collecting together his clothes.

He piled everything up in the hall. Books represented by far the largest share of what he felt he had to take. Steven's lectures were famous for the skill with which he juggled around other people's opinions. Lastly, when he had everything sorted out and ready, he went back into the study to write Evie a note. He had been working out the terms of it all day.

Darling Evie,

I feel it is time we admitted that you and me joining forces hasn't worked out. None of the blame for this is yours. You were totally honest, and laid down the terms before we started out. I am only sad I've failed to live up to you. I have loved your energy, your enthusiasms, your freshness. One day I know you'll find a man worthy of them. Can I hope that we shall always meet as friends?

Loving goodbye,

Steven

He wondered where to put it. The kitchen was the obvious place: Evie usually made herself a drink of hot chocolate when she came back late. But the mess of plates and packets and saucepans on the kitchen table and on all the other surfaces made that idea impracticable, and he was damned if he was going to wash up. In the end he shut the kitchen door and stuck the note onto it with sticky tape. Not very romantic, he thought, but it would have to do. It did not strike him that the end of a romance is not very romantic.

Before loading up the car he went up to one of the back bedrooms to see that there was no one around in the gardens. Not that there was likely to be on a dark November evening, but sometimes Lynn Packard worked on his car in the well-equipped stone garage he had had built. And Steven, though he was not at all ashamed of what he was doing, was distinctly embarrassed. No—all clear. No one around at all.

He went out, opened his garage, then opened the boot and the back doors of his car. Then he worked swiftly and efficiently. Back and forth he went, ten trips in all, and his life of the past three years was stored in his car. He shut the doors and went back into the house, congratulating himself on his efficiency, forgetting that he was efficient because he had done this before. He felt, faintly warming, a little wash of sentimentality. Really the only memories he cherished of his years here were centered on the bedroom. Still, this was the end of something—a chapter of his life, now closed. He took one
last look around, then switched off all the house lights and went out to the car.

A light drizzle had started. He reversed the car out, turned it where the lane widened out, then drove round the curve that skirted Daphne Bridewell's house and out into Wynton Lane. He decided to drive through the Estate. Easier than going up to the Battersby Road. As he drove up the slope he had to swerve to avoid a rangy brown mongrel which was copulating with an Alsatian. He ran over a nasty patch of broken bottles and flattened a soft drink can. As he passed the blackened shell of the Phelans' home, he thought: Odd—all this fuss there's been about that man Phelan and I don't think I ever actually set eyes on him.

Five minutes later, driving toward the Horley district and his old home, the car began to hiccup oddly, not to respond to his driving intentions. Oh Lord, a flat, he thought. That glass on the bloody Belfield Grove Estate. Luckily there was a garage only minutes away, and he drove in and confirmed his fears. To his chagrin there was only a young girl in the office.

“I seem to have a flat tire,” he said to her diffidently.

“Need any tools?”

“Well, actually, I'm not sure if I can change a wheel. I have done it once, but then I had someone with me to direct me. I don't suppose for a moment you—?”

“Sure. No problem.”

And it wasn't. In hardly more than ten minutes the wheel was off, the spare on, the car ready for the road again. Really, young women these days were wonderful. In fact, almost frightening. In spite of living with Evie all that time, women capable in traditional men's spheres still made him feel awkward. Steven paid without a murmur the distinctly steep charges, and drove off.

The drizzle had ceased now, but light twinkled greasily on the damp road and pavements. There were few people around, and those that were were scurrying into pubs and off-licenses and fast-food places. Before long he was approaching Horley. Horley was the University part of Sleate, and somewhere he naturally felt at home. Somehow his residence in Burtle had never seemed real, not entirely serious. His old home, in a quiet street not far from the residential heart of Horley, seemed to him a place of great peace, security, stability. It would be good to be back there.

It was a quarter to nine when he drew up outside it. No lights on, but Margaret had told him she'd probably be working late. He could settle himself in, maybe prepare a bit of supper for her when she came back. He wondered what the old rooms looked like, what changes she had made. He wondered where he would be sleeping.

He got out and shut the car door quietly. All the houses around had lights
on downstairs and curtains drawn. Good. He would be back and settled in before the tittle-tattle started. He opened the gate and saw that Margaret had left the porch light on. Considerate of her. The front garden seemed in good nick, though the buddleia could do with more cutting back. He slipped into the porch, took out his key, and put it into the lock.

Only it wouldn't go in. Odd. It was an ordinary Yale lock, and his old key, he felt sure. He jiggled it, but the lock resisted. He pushed it, trying to force it, then bent down to look closer. It was a new lock. So new as to be still bright and shining. Could Margaret have forgotten and—?

A dreadful realization washed over him. The lock was
brand
new. New since Margaret had handed him the key. She had played on him a cruel and humiliating jape. And suddenly, standing there, foolish, under the porch light another conviction invaded him: He was being watched. Someone was watching him now, and enjoying his plight. Not someone—two people. Women.

In the darkened bedroom of the house opposite—it was the house of the Fredericksons, whose cat Margaret was feeding while they were in Tunisia—she handed the opera glasses to Evie and wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes.

“I saw it,” she said. “I saw him realize that he'd been tricked. And I saw something else, I swear: I saw him gripped by the conviction that he was being watched.”

“He's going now,” said Evie. “Scuttling away I'd call it, wouldn't you? . . . You know, I'm rather ashamed of enjoying this so much. I'm not a cruel person as a rule.”

“I owe him one,” said Margaret grimly.

“For his leaving you?”

“The
way
he left me. I'd gone to Peterborough to fetch my mother for a stay with us. I arrived back to find my husband gone, leaving the male equivalent of a ‘Dear John' letter on the kitchen table. My marriage blown apart under the relentless gaze of my mother.”

“I didn't know that.”

“I wasn't accusing you of anything. . . . I wonder where he'll go now.”

“Well, the lock on the back door of Ashdene should be changed by now. There's a nice man on the Estate who helps with the youth club—he was going down to change it as soon as the lights were off in the house. The front door bolts, so it doesn't matter. Do you think he'll go to one of the children?”

“No. The nearest is Susan—she lives at York. But he doesn't get on with her husband. Maybe a colleague—oh, no: Steven can't stand ridicule.”

“That's true. Though he's quite good at jokes, isn't he? When I said I was going to Grantham tonight (actually it's tomorrow) he said: ‘The Holy City!' Quite funny, I thought.”

“He'll work it into one of his lectures soon. He's got a big repertoire of anti-Thatcher jokes. Do you know he said he was coming back to me because he needed rest? I nearly said I wasn't a Slumberdown mattress. Why do we always bite back remarks because we think we would regret them later, forgetting that we would thoroughly enjoy saying them at the time?”

“Women's conditioning. Still, this was better than a conversational put-down. . . . I suppose he'll go and stay in a hotel and start looking around for something to rent.”

“At least I shan't get any calls from him in the future.”

“Hardly. Do you think you'll marry again?”

“If somebody asks me.” When Evie's expression showed the shock of the young and liberated, she explained, “Sorry. I meant if someone in particular were to ask me. What about you?”

“Never. I'm so glad to be rid of him, you've no idea! And so painlessly, thanks to you. Now I've escaped, I'll never try marriage again.”

“Maybe it wasn't really marriage you tried.”

“It was near enough!” said Evie feelingly.

When Oddie and Stokes drew up in the little car park beside the handsome and substantial stone house that served the Burtle Group Practice it was eight o'clock and near the end of surgery time. They had been delayed because the duty sergeant had made the elementary error of putting a black youth in the same custody cell as Kevin Phelan. The delay had served its purpose, though, for there was by now only one receptionist on duty, and she was in a hurry to get home.

“I wonder if you could help me,” said Oddie, showing his ID to the pleasant middle-aged woman when she slipped open the glass panel of the reception desk. “I know Dr. Pickering isn't on duty tonight, but it's a little matter concerning one of his patients—just a small matter, no question of confidentiality or anything.”

“That's quite all right,” said the woman, bustling away to the filing cabinet. “I know Dr. Pickering is always happy to help the police. Who is it?”

“Kevin Phelan.”

“Oh,
that
family,” said the receptionist feelingly, bringing the file over and laying it on the desk top in front of the reception window. “What was it you wanted to know?”

“I want to know the date Kevin Phelan came to surgery here with burns on his hands. . . . Oh, and I had a question about Mr. Adrian Eastlake too.”

The receptionist bustled away to the files again, leaving Kevin Phelan's file open. Oddie briskly cast his eyes down the upside-down entries. The woman soon came back with the second file, and opened it.

“I'd like to know when Adrian Eastlake last consulted Dr. Pickering for himself.”

“Oh, that was a long time ago. March 1985. It's usually the mother, isn't it? . . . And Kevin Phelan seems to have consulted about burns in February this year—the twentieth.”

“That's very kind of you—very helpful.”

“Dr. Pickering's not on duty tonight, but he is in his consulting room if you want to have a word with him. He's catching up on some of the paper work.”