An Air That Kills (22 page)

She picked up another sock from the seemingly bottomless supply in the mending basket. She was also worried about the children, and Richard's apparent lack of concern for them increased the animosity she felt towards him. David had a haunted look in his face and had wept on the way to school this morning: something was wrong there, and he wouldn't tell her what it was; like father, like son. Elizabeth's cough was getting worse: could it be turning to whooping cough?

She felt torn in all directions, as though her family threatened to dismember her emotionally. Hadn't she a right to her own life, if only for half an hour a day? She was a bondservant to her husband and her children and her house: she cooked, cleaned, washed, mended and penny-pinched; she gave them love and they gave her dirty socks, usually in need of darning.

She laid aside the current sock with a sigh. In the distance, she heard Elizabeth beginning to cough. Her eyes itched with tiredness and a yawn slipped out. She sensed that Richard was looking at her.

‘There's an article about the Templefields bones in here.'

‘Oh, yes.' She made an effort, since any conversation with him was better than this awful silence. ‘The case you're working on? The dead baby?'

‘Yes, it's by the editor, man called Philip Wemyss-Brown.' Still looking at her, he dropped the paper on to the table, stood up and stretched. ‘Tired?'

She nodded. ‘I haven't been sleeping well.' Elizabeth's cough had kept her awake for the last two nights, that and the other worries.

‘We could have an early night.'

‘It's only half past eight.'

‘So?' His eyes were very bright.

‘I – I really should finish this mending.'

‘Damn the mending.' He got up and stood behind her chair. His hands slid down and cupped her breasts. His breath was warm on her neck.

‘Richard, I'm tired. I'm sorry.'

His hands sprang away from her as if her body had given him an electric shock. ‘You're always bloody tired.'

‘I'm sorry, but there it is.'

He picked up the newspaper. ‘I'm going out.'

‘Where? Why?'

‘I might as well do something useful. It's work.'

He stalked out of the kitchen. His outrage had a comical aspect to it, but there was nothing comical about Edith's feelings. She heard him in the hall and guessed he was putting on his coat.

She got up and went to the door. She didn't know what she was going to do – whether she would shout at him or plead with him or submit to him. In the event there was no need to make up her mind: as she opened the door to the hall, Elizabeth started to cry as well as cough.

Richard was by the front door. He had his hat on the back of his head and hadn't bothered to button his overcoat. She thought, inappropriately, how handsome he looked.

‘Don't wait up,' he said, not looking at her. ‘I don't know when I'll be back.' He opened the door.

‘Damn you,' she said, quietly, in case the children were listening, and headed for the stairs.

Chapter Twelve

Dinner dragged its way through three courses, followed by cheese and fruit. Afterwards, Philip washed up, a cigarette between his lips and a glass of brandy conveniently to hand on the windowsill, while Jill dried and Charlotte put away and made the coffee. Susan's working day came to an end once she had helped to cook dinner; only on special occasions did she also help serve and clear away.

‘You're not a special occasion,' Philip had told Jill on her first evening. ‘You count as family, I'm afraid.'

‘In a manner of speaking,' Charlotte had added.

On balance, Jill thought, she was neither one thing nor the other.

This evening, both Philip and Charlotte were in a cheerful mood – Philip because he had sold his story about the Victorian murderess and the Templefields bones to one of the nationals, the
Daily Express
, and Charlotte because she had spent the day rearranging the Harcutts' lives; Good Works agreed with her.

‘I phoned Madge this evening,' Charlotte announced as she spooned coffee into the jug; she added for Jill's benefit, ‘She's the headmistress of the High School. We've had a wonderful stroke of luck. Their assistant secretary is leaving at the end of term. She's going to have a baby.'

‘You're plotting,' Philip said.

‘Well, it would be perfect for Antonia, wouldn't it? If she got the job, she could live at home and look after her father. I explained the situation to Madge, and between ourselves I think it's as good as settled. The school has a policy of favouring applications from Old Girls.'

The telephone started to ring in the hall. Charlotte went to answer it.

Ash fell from the end of Philip's cigarette into the soapy water. ‘What did Thornhill want with Harcutt?'

‘He didn't say,' Jill said.

‘I wonder if the police have found out something else, something they needed to check with him. Maybe I should give him a ring tomorrow. Did he say he'd tell the Harcutts about the man you saw?'

‘Yes. And he's going to get the local bobby to keep an eye on the place.' Jill began to polish a plate. ‘He thought it was probably someone having a look round on the off chance – someone who thought the major was in hospital and who didn't know Antonia was back.'

‘But they'd have seen the lights and our car in the drive.'

‘No, the Harcutts live at the back of the house. And he wouldn't have seen the car because I parked on the green. The drive's in a terrible state.'

Charlotte bustled back into the kitchen. ‘It's for you.'

Philip turned, reaching for a towel. ‘Who is it?'

‘No, for Jill.' Charlotte's face was alert with curiosity. ‘Someone called Oliver Yateley.
Very
charming.'

Very slowly and very carefully, Jill put down the plate on the table.

‘I didn't know anyone knew you were down here,' Charlotte said.

‘Nor did I,' Jill replied.

‘The name sounds faintly familiar. Perhaps we met him when we were up in London?'

‘I don't think so.'

Jill went into the hall. The handset was waiting for her, lying like a menacing black slug beside the cradle. This was one eventuality for which she was entirely unprepared. She had thought that she would be safe in Lydmouth.

She picked up the handset. For a second she listened to the electric near-silence of the open line. Somewhere on the other end of this piece of wire was Oliver, breathing and biding his time. She could break the connection and cast him back to the limbo of memory; but that wouldn't work because he would telephone again and again until he reached her. Oliver was persistent if nothing else as she knew to her cost.

‘Oliver.'

‘Jill – thank God. I've been phoning everyone I could think of.'

‘Where did you get the number?'

‘The address book in your desk. Listen, darling, I—'

‘You've been to my flat?'

‘Of course I have. What else could I do?'

‘I want to have the keys back. Or do I have to change the locks?'

There was a silence. She imagined him spending the evening, perhaps several evenings, working doggedly through the address book – ‘Is Jill with you, by any chance? No? So sorry to bother you' – until at last he reached the Wemyss-Browns near the bottom of the alphabet. It was humiliating to think that his pursuit of her had been so public. She missed something he was saying and had to ask him to repeat it.

‘I found the roses in your wastepaper basket.'

‘What do you expect? A dozen red roses aren't going to make me change my mind.'

‘Darling, you haven't been well. I need to see you, to talk to you properly. And what's this I hear about you resigning? You're in no state to make decisions at present. What do you think you're going to live on?'

‘It's nothing to do with you, Oliver. Will you just stop pestering me?'

She put down the phone, closed her eyes and leant against the wall. It's over, she said to herself, and nothing matters any more. She was dry-eyed, which pleased her; she was too angry to cry.

She went back to the kitchen. The door was an inch ajar. She could hear Charlotte's voice inside.

‘Helping Antonia could be a blessing in disguise. It'll take Jill's mind off things.'

Chapter Thirteen

With his head down and his hands deep in his pockets, Richard Thornhill walked into the wind. Without making a conscious decision, he headed towards the centre of the town. He drove himself hard, feeling that exhaustion was desirable because it led eventually to oblivion.

A lorry rolled by and for an instant he thought how easy it would be to step in front of it, like Harcutt's dog: the driver wouldn't have a chance of stopping. That would show them all. Bloody women. To make matters worse, he was aware, though for most of the time he managed to suppress the knowledge, that he was making a fool of himself.

At this hour, the High Street was almost deserted, even on Friday night. The idea of going up to his office slipped into his mind, only to be summarily dismissed. He hadn't come out on a filthy evening merely to plough through a few more of his predecessor's files. He deserved to enjoy himself for once, didn't he? A pint of beer, or perhaps two, was a far better idea.

The Bull Hotel was the nearest place. But Thornhill walked past it. His heart beating a little faster, he turned into Lyd Street. He walked quickly down the hill, warmed by the exercise and by a sense of guilty excitement. On the way, he passed on the left the dark windows of Masterman's the jeweller's.

At the bottom of the hill, near the river, was the Bathurst Arms. There was no harm in it, for God's sake, Thornhill told himself angrily as he opened the outer door. Laughter, cigarette smoke and the smell of beer washed over him. He went into the lounge bar.

The room wasn't crowded, though there was a decent sprinkling of drinkers. Gloria wasn't in evidence. He realised from his disappointment how much he had counted on seeing her. The plain young girl, Gloria's stepdaughter, took his order; there was no sign of recognition on her dull, pinched face. He glanced beyond her, into the public bar, where a noisy game of darts was in progress.

He paid for his drink and took it to a table near the fire. The beer tasted sour, and it sat heavily on his stomach. He drank quickly, tried to concentrate on the
Gazette
and told himself that this was the life, that he should do this more often.

Bravado dictated that he should have at least one more pint. He carried his glass to the bar. A few seconds before he got there, a tall man staggered across the public bar and slammed four glasses, two pints and two shorts, on to the bar top.

‘Same again, my love,' he bellowed to the barmaid.

While she was serving him, he began to roll a cigarette. Thornhill glanced at him and quickly looked away: it was Charlie Meague, and he was well on the way to becoming as drunk as a lord. The situation was one which made Thornhill automatically wary. Alcohol could remove many inhibitions, including the one about not hitting policemen. He changed his position to get a better view of the public bar: he was curious to see whom Meague was drinking with.

A small, bearded man was sitting near the window with a book open on the table in front of him. Thornhill's attention sharpened. He'd seen that man before – coming out of the library on the evening they had found the bones and going into the Bull Hotel. The thin, pasty face stirred other memories. Genghis Carn might be looking for Charlie Meague. If you took the beard away from that face, it would look not unlike the description of Carn in the
Police Gazette
.

Meague swore. He was making heavy weather of rolling his cigarette and had spilled tobacco into a pool of beer on the counter.

‘If you'd wiped that up, my girl,' he complained to the sad barmaid, ‘I could have used that tobacco. It's a bloody waste. What are you going to do about it?'

There was a roar from the men around the dartboard. Several people were in the process of leaving the lounge bar. Thornhill heard the clack of high heels in the private corridor behind the bar and he smelled perfume. He looked up eagerly. Gloria came in.

‘Charlie,' she said, ‘haven't you had enough?'

‘No.' With unexpected speed, Charlie's hand shot out and seized Gloria's arm. He lowered his voice until it wasn't much above a whisper. ‘I haven't had enough of you, either.'

‘Let go of my arm.'

He obeyed. ‘You should have married me, girl.'

‘Don't be stupid. You're making a fool of yourself. And of me.'

She hadn't seen Thornhill; she and Charlie were concentrating too hard on each other. Though their voices were quiet, their faces were intent and angry. The two of them might have been alone. The barmaid had turned away and was refilling the smaller glasses with whisky; the tips of her ears were red. Gloria was wearing a pink dress that outlined her waist and hips and made her look like a tart. Thornhill no longer wanted to see her, let alone talk to her.

Thornhill put his glass on the counter – gently to avoid disturbing the two people and whatever form of intimacy held them together. He grabbed his coat and hat and joined the tail end of the group leaving the bar.

Outside, the wind came roaring up the river and blew the hat off his head. Someone laughed. He bent down, picked it up and crammed it on his head. He felt foolish, unsatisfied and sad: he disgusted himself. Why did desire have to make a mockery of love? He walked slowly up the hill. It was time to go home. There was nowhere else to go.