Dark Place to Hide (8 page)

9 July

It has been raining all day, but still Tara has turned up at the cottage wearing shorts and wedge sandals with the platform made of coiled rope. They are sodden and she takes them off at the door. Frank is dozing on the hearthrug and Tara stops to stroke his tail with her bare foot before she joins Diane in the kitchen. Harper is out at a criminology department meeting and Diane has invited Tara over for homemade spaghetti bolognese.

‘You always make everything so special,’ Tara remarks, admiring the table in the centre of the kitchen, decorated with napkins in the shape of fleur-de-lis, a vase of sweet peas from the garden and a single pink rose tied onto each napkin ring.

‘Only for special people,’ Diane says with a wry smile, straightening a fork.

She brings the steaming dish to the table and serves up.

She knows as soon as she tips the first forkful onto her tongue that she’s put too much chilli in it. ‘Sorry…’ she groans with her mouth full.

‘S’okay,’ Tara replies, stoically, flapping her hand in front of her mouth. ‘I know you’re not a natural in the kitchen. I can always get a take-away on the way home.’

Diane sniggers, slurping a long snake of spaghetti through pursed lips. She loves the way Tara says it as it is.

Tara takes a big gulp of red wine, shutting her eyes briefly as it goes down. ‘Here’s to the end of term,’ she announces.

‘I can’t wait,’ Diane says, tapping her glass against her friend’s. She always makes one glass last while Tara has two – a habit from her swimming days. ‘I still haven’t got anything ready for assembly on Friday. Did you know our dear deputy head has roped me in to doing it again. Third time this term.’

‘It’s only because you do such a good job.
And
I think he’s got the hots for you.’

Diane pulls face. ‘Well – he can flipping-well pour iced water on it. He’s getting on my nerves; always there when I turn around.’

Tara plucks a piece of rocket from the salad bowl. ‘Morrell’s a bit officious, but he’s not that bad.’

‘Yes, he
is
,’ Diane retorts. ‘He’s so slimy for a start. I hate the way bits of spittle collect at the corner of his mouth when he speaks to you. Have you noticed? And he comes too close – he’s far too familiar for my liking.’

‘You have too much sex-appeal, Dee, that’s your problem.’

‘That’s grand coming from you.’ Most of the male members of staff and a couple of the female ones have had crushes on Tara since she arrived.

‘If only.’ Tara has dated regularly – a string of no-hoper boyfriends. She tends to fall for the moody silent type then gets upset when they’re moody and silent. She finds kind, warm men boring. Diane has never been like that. She’s always wanted someone straightforward who didn’t play games.

Tara makes polite in-roads into the spaghetti, then puffs out a breath and props her fork on the plate, calling it a day.

‘At what point did you know Harper was the one?’ she asks wistfully, sitting back twirling her wine glass.

‘It’s strange. I knew straight away when we met at that rally in Trafalgar Square. I never thought I’d ever find anyone like Harper. He was holding an umbrella and a bag of cherries and he offered me one casually, like we knew each other. He instantly felt like family, like someone I’d already spent time with way back in the past. It was odd and decidedly disconcerting.’

In fact she couldn’t believe her luck when Harper noticed her and asked her out. He shared that same uncanny feeling that they’d met before. It was totally bizarre. Every step in their relationship seemed to her like the most incredible gift. When he asked her to marry him – she burst into tears.

‘That’s not the response I was hoping for,’ he’d said, nervously, still on one knee in a not-very-secluded spot in St James’ Park.

‘It means yes,’ she snivelled, half laughing, half crying.

Diane found out as soon as they started dating that Harper wasn’t interested in having a family. For someone so tactile and openly generous, she couldn’t understand it, but in time Harper told her everything.

Tara folds her arms. ‘So he wasn’t interested in having kids until you came along?’

‘It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in having a family, he was terrified by the idea,’ Dee tells her. ‘His father had a lot to do with it. It transpired that Harper was convinced he’d repeat what he called his father’s “despicable behaviour” and be incapable of sustaining a long-term relationship. Until we talked about it and I worked on him, that was. I gradually chipped away at his armour, until I broke through and steered him towards a completely new frame of mind. Soon after, he proposed.’

Tara helps herself to more wine. ‘Is it that you hardly ever have arguments with Harper or that you don’t tell me about them?’

Diane laughs, then becomes quiet. ‘I know it sounds unlikely, but we haven’t had any major rows. I expected to make tons of compromises when we got together, but I’ve hardly made any. He has this innate respect and decency about him I’ve never seen in any other man.’

Tara stares into the Rioja left in her glass. ‘So you haven’t had
any
bust ups?’

‘No – not really – seriously. There was one tricky time over Christmas when Harper walked out of the festive meal at his mother’s – you know about that – but that’s the biggest one.’

‘Was that when he trashed his mother’s plant pots on the patio?’ Tara – never one to hold back.

Diane nodded.

‘Jeez – it doesn’t sound like Harper,’ Tara exclaims.

‘It’s not,’ Diane protests. ‘It really caught me by surprise. But it was a one-off. He’s not an aggressive person in the least.’

‘Has he made it up to her?’

‘No, not yet. But he will, in time.’ Diane turns to the fridge and slides out a chocolate tart – Tara’s favourite. She sets it in the centre of the table with a jug of thick cream. ‘He’s not one to hold on to bad feelings and he loves his mother.’

Tara cuts herself a wedge of tart large enough for two and smothers it in double cream. She scoops a loose drip from the spout and licks her finger. ‘What do you think of his new stepfather?’

‘Bruce? He runs a loan company and it seems so underhand. I can see what Harper means. I’d hate to be involved in anything like that. It’s so unethical, preying on people’s
deluded optimism that magically they’re going to have the money to pay everything back as soon as they get to pay-day.’

‘What’s Bruce like, personally?’

‘Not sure, really. He seems a bit slippery. He’s got this humorous, nice-guy front all the time, but he often laughs at other people’s expense and he’s opinionated and sexist. Racist too, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Tara cringes. ‘What does Harper’s mother see in him?’

‘She seems to adore him. He appears to treat her really well; he’s besotted with her too. He can’t do enough around the house, fixing things up, mowing the lawn, buying her expensive jewellery, taking her on trips. They’re going on a cruise in September. Lilian says it’s going to be a trip of a lifetime. She’s so happy.’

‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of that,’ says Tara. ‘It’s your anniversary in September, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah – we’re not doing anything big. Just going to a new restaurant in Winchester and staying overnight. I’ve got a new dress.’

‘You must show me!’ Tara gets up; she’s like a fox chasing a rabbit whenever anyone mentions fashion.

They go up to the bedroom and Tara slips her feet into a pair of stilettos Diane has left by the mirror. She flops on the bed while Diane flicks through the hangers. Tara rolls onto her stomach, her knees bent, and picks up a DVD lying on Harper’s bedside cabinet.

‘Not
Doctor Who
…Oh, God – the box set. My kids at school are hooked on it. What’s the appeal for a grown man like Harper?’

‘He likes the idea of time-travel in a police box and having a complete personality change every three or four years!’ Diane laughs at the quirks of her adorable husband. She remembers
she left the new dress in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom so Harper won’t see it. She’ll fetch it as soon as there’s a lull in conversation.

‘You said he works with the police sometimes,’ Tara continues.

Diane is barely listening. On the dresser is the glove puppet Harper’s been playing with to tease Frank and she’s thinking of her husband’s hands. He has beautiful long expressive fingers, like Nureyev. She loves the way he holds the phone, grips his toothbrush, stirs a sauce. Everyone notices his hands and assumes he must be artistic in some way: a dancer, a painter, a pianist. In fact, he’s none of these, but she loves the way he uses his hands to sculpt her body. The way he traces his playful fingers around her lips, nipples, armpits and inner thighs. They seem to have a sensibility of their own.

She snaps herself back to Tara’s comment. ‘He doesn’t really work with them. He has colleagues in the force – through his university work mainly, but they share research.’

‘You said he goes into prisons?’

‘Not for the police. That’s a bit different. He goes in twice a month as a prison visitor.’

‘How did he get into that?’

Diane tugs at the tassel on the curtain tie at the window. ‘His best friend was sent to Wormwood Scrubs for killing his girlfriend in 2002. Harper went to visit him, then became an official visitor and he’s done it ever since. What happened to his friend was a catalyst. It had the profound effect of kick-starting his career. He didn’t have a clue about what he wanted to do when he left school and suddenly he was studying criminology. He wanted to understand.’

‘So why didn’t he become a detective? You said he loves puzzles.’

‘He didn’t want to be in law enforcement. He didn’t want to be one of the people who could have put Victor behind bars, but he wanted to work within the system; improving it for both victims and offenders.’

‘Did he understand why his friend did it?’

‘It was a spur of the moment thing, apparently. Victor wasn’t thinking straight – he’d had a string of bad luck. He’d recently been hit by a car and needed surgery on his knee. He’d been dropped from the college rugby team and his grades had fallen off. He was depressed and stressed; his self-esteem was suffering, then came the final straw – he caught his girlfriend with someone else. She laughed in his face and in that moment, he snapped.’

‘Wow – what did he do?’

‘He strangled her in a fit of jealous rage.’ She was inadvertently rolling the cord from the curtain around her fingers. ‘Harper told me that as soon as Victor saw her slide to the floor, he was mortified. All he wanted was for her to stop laughing at him – and that’s how it ended.’

‘My God – male pride. A dangerous thing, huh?’

‘Yeah. He lost it. Went totally out of control. Harper says it’s more common than we think. Someone rises to the bait, makes a silly mistake, takes a risk, isn’t thinking – and the result is that someone else dies. For Victor, hearing Nicci laugh at him was the ultimate humiliation and it tipped him over the edge. In those few seconds, he didn’t know what he was doing.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I’ve only met Victor once – earlier this year. It’s hard to say. He seemed meek and unassuming – but you can never tell what people are capable of, can you?’

‘Do you think Harper can spot a criminal mind?’ Tara looks fascinated, leaning back on her arms, her mouth hanging open.

‘He says there’s no such thing as a criminal mind. No particular type as far as he’s concerned. People cross the line for hundreds of different reasons; greed, a sense of entitlement, fear, revenge, passion, anger, hurt, to protect their kids. Then there are those who are mentally unwell, or have a warped sense of what is right and appropriate.’

‘Yes – but don’t you think there are people who are pure evil and hurt because they can, without any real motive?’

Diane taps her lip with her tongue. ‘I think the ones who hurt others have been hurt themselves. It’s a vicious circle. It comes from their own past – they don’t just make a decision to be cruel.’

Tara makes a little humming sound, as if she’s not convinced. She lies back on the bed, Diane’s stilettos still on her feet, as if this is her place. They both jump when a sparrow flies into the glass of the French windows that lead onto the roof terrace. The tall panes were one of the features she and Harper loved about the place. Diane rushes over, concerned the bird is seriously injured. She hovers with her hand on the handle, wondering whether to open the door to rescue it.

‘You’ll frighten it,’ says Tara. ‘See if it recovers on its own.’

Diane finds it hard to stand by when a living creature is in pain – whether it’s a dog, a frog or a squirming cockroach. She watches it as it hops around, disoriented, then flies off. She holds her chest and lets out a blast of air.

‘Do they ever fly in when you have the windows open?’ Tara is full of questions today; Diane can barely keep up.

‘Yeah – only once. A robin came in.’ She stays by the window and admires the work she’s done on the roof terrace – the tall grasses around the edge to create privacy, the pots of
herbs, the boxes of lavender. ‘Let me get that dress,’ she says, suddenly remembering why they’re up here.

She comes back holding it against her body. It’s off the shoulder, like her wedding dress, with a ruched crossover bodice at her ample bust, in sapphire-blue silk. Tara is, however, transfixed by something else. She’s knocked over Diane’s bag beside the bed and a book has flopped out onto the floor.

Tara’s eyes widen. ‘
Managing Anger with Compassion
,’ she stares with curiosity. ‘This can’t be for you…?’ she says, hooking a question mark in at the end.

Diane stalls. ‘There was a programme on TV…I’m interested…’

Tara pulls her down onto the bed; Diane’s still clutching the dress. ‘Oh – come on – you can’t brush me off like that. Not when it’s right here by your bedside.’

Diane doesn’t know what to say. She hadn’t planned on explaining this to anyone.

Tara lets out a loud whoosh of air. ‘Sheesh – Dee, it’s
me
– you can tell me anything, girl.’

‘I know,’ says Diane, trying not to look at Tara. ‘It’s fine. Honestly.’