Darkmans (14 page)

‘Good.’ Elen seemed bolstered by this.

‘Although the horse
was
standing right next to us at the time…’

Beede shrugged.

Elen continued to cradle her mug between her hands. Her hair fell across her face. She peered up at him, through it. ‘So it wasn’t just an accident?’

‘What?’ Beede scowled. ‘That he was there? Where
we
were? No,’ he shook his head, firmly, ‘definitely not.’

‘Oh.’

This obviously wasn’t the answer Elen had been hoping for. ‘But if you think about it…’ she mused, ‘I mean the actual
geography
of that area…’

‘No.’ Beede wouldn’t concede the point, even to mollify her. ‘If we were to calculate the odds – and I mean quite coldly, quite brutally – then I’d have to say that it was at least…’ he ruminated, briefly, ‘at least three-to-one
on
that he knew – strong odds, in other words.’

Elen frowned. Odds weren’t really her forte.

‘He
must’ve
known,’ Beede pressed his point home, ‘at some level.’ She shook her head, slowly, as if still determined to resist his negative prognosis. ‘But it wasn’t very far…’ she persisted, ‘he was working in South Willesborough. I came to the restaurant on foot, but he may’ve seen your old Douglas in the car park. It’s very distinctive, after all. It could’ve generated some kind of…of
spark.
’

Beede’s ears suddenly pricked up. ‘But how did you know that?’ he demanded.

‘What?’

‘About South Willesborough?’

She seemed bemused by this question. ‘Because he rang. He phoned me. Just before I left home.’

‘Ah…’ Beede nodded, then smiled (somewhat self-consciously). ‘But of course. Of
course.
How silly of me.’

They were both quiet for a while. Beede fiddled idly with the teaspoon. It was a nice, sturdy piece of old-fashioned hospital issue with a reassuringly deep bowl and a broad, flattened tip. Age and over-use had given its original silver finish a slightly greenish hue.

‘So did he let anything slip?’ Elen asked.

Beede shook his head. ‘Not a sausage.’

He glanced up as he spoke (she seemed mildly amused by his colloquial turn of phrase) and then, almost without thinking, he reached
out his hand and tucked her hair, gently, behind her ear. The hair was so soft – so shiny – that it immediately slipped free again.

As soon as he’d touched her, Beede stiffened and then blushed (That was Danny! It was
him
!). Elen appeared completely unabashed. She casually pulled a hairband from around her wrist and tied back her hair into a ponytail with it.

‘There,’ she smiled, ‘that’s better.’

Her birthmark was now fully visible. It was about half an inch across – at its widest point – and just less than an inch long. It was in the approximate shape of Africa (although the southern tip was slightly flatter) and hung like a dark continent between her eyes, which, while also brown, were at least two shades lighter.

‘He did mention that he’d been in South Willesborough immediately before,’ Beede reverted – with an element of bluster – to his former train of thought, ‘and we eventually found his car on the roundabout, close to the new exit. He’d left the door open. It was causing quite an obstruction. The police had just pulled up.’

‘
God.
You should’ve phoned.’

Elen seemed about as close – in that instant – as she ever was to being fully engaged.

‘I know, but he expressly asked me
not
to, and I just felt…’ He shrugged, grimacing.

‘Compromised,’ she nodded, understanding completely, ‘of
course
you did.’

She reached out her hand and covered his hand with it.

He automatically pulled his hand away – she didn’t appear to take this amiss – and then he smiled at her; a small, almost apologetic smile. She flattened her palm on to the desk and slowly pulled her arm back in towards her body again. Beede watched her lovely fingers (they
were
lovely) running smoothly over the coarse grain of the wood. He felt a sudden wave of excitement, then an equally sudden pang of recrimination. His eye settled, glumly, on the neat, gold band encircling her wedding finger.

‘And it’s all my fault,’ she murmured, a finger and thumb from the offending hand now fiddling, nervously, with one of the buttons on her shirt, ‘I
know
that…’

He was still watching the hand as it moved slightly higher and strummed the single-string-harp of her collar bone.

‘I feel terrible about it,’ she added, ‘if that helps in any way.’

‘Pardon?’ He finally made eye contact with her. He hadn’t heard a word.

‘I said I’m
sorry
,’ she reiterated (her cheeks flushing). ‘This is all my fault. I should never have involved you…’

She paused, briefly – as if hoping for some kind of reassurance – but then rushed on, denying him the opportunity (had he taken it) to respond. ‘Although if it’s any kind of compensation, it’s made such an amazing difference, simply sharing the burden with someone. It’s been such a
relief…
And I’m just so…so embarrassingly…so
absurdly
grateful to you.’

She laughed on ‘absurdly’ – slightly hollowly – and then swallowed, involuntarily, on ‘grateful’ (so that it emerged in a half-gulp). Beede rapidly gathered his wits together (he’d been remiss before). ‘Don’t be
ridiculous
, Elen…’

He’d hoped to make this sound tender, but failed abysmally (his tender parts were as creaky, ill-used and rusty as the hinge of an ancient door).

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I mean…’ she shook her head ‘…
No.
You’re right. I should just…’

Her hand flew, briefly, to her mouth. She cleared her throat. Her hand dropped. She seemed quite composed again, but her lips were just a fraction too straight. He stared at her mouth, fascinated by this straightness. Then, before he knew it, she’d collapsed forward, buried her face in her hands and was sobbing. No sound. Just her shoulders – her fragile shoulders – jerking, rhythmically, up and down.

Beede was completely overwhelmed. He pushed back his chair (it screeched, maddeningly), glanced anxiously through the window, tensed his legs (as if about to stand up), but then stayed exactly where he was. Five seconds passed. Finally, he reached over for a tissue – it was a long reach – and then fell to his knees, proffering it to her. ‘Please stop,’ he murmured, ‘crying won’t help anyone.’

He processed these words internally and then promptly tore them into a thousand pieces –

You clumsy, heartless old fool!

He felt like an earthworm in the midday heat, trapped on an endless-seeming expanse of tarmac – crispening up, frightened. He longed for a moist, damp crack to crawl into; for the soil, the dank, the dark.

It took a mammoth effort, but he reached up his arm and cupped
his large hand over the back of her small head (like a father might, with his son, or a priest, to a grieving widower). Elen responded to his touch. She drew a deep, shaky breath. She tried to control herself.

‘Here’s a tissue, you foolish thing,’ he murmured.

She removed one hand from her face – it was soaking – and took the tissue from him, clenching it – like a child – for succour.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice just as calm and as soft as before. ‘Everything’s so…so
complicated
, that’s all. And sometimes I don’t really know…’ she paused, ‘how to…’ she paused again, drew another deep breath, and then shuddered, in wordless conclusion. She looked exhausted. She dabbed at her face with the tissue.

Beede removed his hand. He twisted around and pulled his chair closer, then clambered to his feet and sat back down on it. They were knee to knee.

‘You’re still not sleeping.’

It was a statement of fact.

‘No. I mean
yes.
I mean I’m absolutely
fine.
It’s just the…the
roof
,’ she back-pedalled, desperately, ‘it’s still leaking. And the builder, Harvey – Mr Broad – he keeps on stalling…’

‘Harvey Broad?’ Beede echoed, stiffening slightly. ‘Harvey Broad is your builder?’

‘And I’ve had a request from Fleet’s teacher to come in and see her,’ Elen continued (almost as if she hadn’t actually heard him). ‘I think there might be some kind of…of
problem
there.’

‘But mainly it’s Isidore,’ Beede spoke with a quiet authority, ‘he’s much worse again, isn’t he?’

She glanced up, dismayed. ‘Isidore’s
fine.
He’s fine. He’s…’

She groped around, desperately, for a better word.

‘
Fine
,’ Beede echoed, dryly. ‘Yes. I get the picture. Even if he did just steal a horse and ride it, bareback, along a busy dual carriageway.’ Her former – somewhat shaky – resolve seemed visibly undermined by this callous summation. Her shoulders drooped, pathetically.

‘So what now?’ he asked, observing the droop with a bitter pang. She didn’t answer him straight away. Instead, she unclenched the fist in which she’d held the tissue, observed it, balled up, in her palm, and then addressed her next few thoughts directly to it. ‘Things were so much better when you were around,’ she murmured, wistfully. ‘He seemed so much more…’ she paused, ‘so much
easier
…’

Beede also stared down at the tissue – not a little jealously, at first
(I mean what had the damn
tissue
done to earn itself this gentle homily?).

‘Easier in
himself
, somehow,’ Elen continued (apparently undeterred by the tissue’s taciturnity). ‘But lately he’s grown so…’ she shivered, involuntarily, ‘dark.
Dark.
Just…’

A long pause: ‘just
furious.
Full of…’

A still longer pause ‘…
anger.
Bile. And then suddenly – out of nowhere – there’ll be that awful, that cruel…the…the
laughter
,’ she glanced up, fearfully, ‘you know?’

Beede nodded. He did know.

‘He’s homing in on the boy,’ she continued, warming to her theme now, ‘more every day. And at night, if I rest – even for a moment – then he’s up and he’s gone. He just…just
flits…
’

Beede’s expression did not alter. ‘You need to use those new tablets I gave you.’

She shook her head, looking down, focussing all her energies – once again – on the tissue.

‘Just for a
while
,’ Beede wheedled. ‘The other approach obviously isn’t working.’

She shifted in her seat. ‘I’d rather medicate myself,’ she glanced up, anxiously, ‘control myself. Don’t you see? To do anything else would just feel…’ she sighed ‘…
detestable.
’ She paused, shrugged, smiled resignedly. ‘And those other pills helped me enormously. They really did. I used them in conjunction with the ones from my doctor and was able to stay awake for several weeks, just taking quick naps, during the day, between clients…’

‘That’s crazy, Elen,’ Beede interjected, harshly, ‘and dangerous and short-sighted and irresponsible…’

‘I honestly believed,’ she interrupted, almost pleadingly, ‘in fact I
still
believe, that if I could just keep a close watch on him, build up some kind of a regular…a
pattern
, then things might have a chance – however slight – of falling back into place again.’

She closed her eyes. She frowned. ‘But everything’s the wrong…the wrong
shape
, somehow.’

Beede was still furious. ‘How on
earth
did you persuade me to get involved in all of this?’ he asked (and it was a question as much to himself as to anybody). ‘It’s just…It’s
madness
, don’t you see? You’re looking after a child, you’re running a household, you’re holding down a job…’

She dumbly nodded her acquiescence, a large tear forming in her eye and then sliding, plumply, down her cheek.

‘You’ve lost so much
weight
,’ Beede struggled, valiantly, to redirect his anger, ‘you’re so
thin.
I mean you look like you might just…just blow away.’

Elen shrugged (what did she care about that?). ‘Dory’s still exercising,’ she murmured, trying – and almost succeeding – to maintain her fragile equilibrium. ‘He’s really, really
trying.
And it’s so…so unbearably
sad
, somehow. He’s doing the breathing – the yoga breathing – which is all very positive and empowering and everything…’ she paused again, ‘but there are just so many repercussions which he doesn’t know about – which he
can’t
know about – and I don’t honestly feel like I can tell him – kill off that little bit of…of
hope.
But the more control he believes he has, the worse it becomes for everybody else. The less he goes under…I don’t know…when he
does
go…’ she bit her lip, ‘it’s just so much more
terrible.
I mean the
consequences…
And if the police get involved again…’

She shrugged, helplessly.

‘Dissolve a tablet into his tea,’ Beede instructed her, ‘or whatever he drinks before bed. That’s the most difficult time, isn’t it? The REM? When everything’s in transition? He’ll get to sleep much quicker. It’ll be deeper. And that’s
bound
to take the pressure off.’

‘Oh
God
,’ Elen clenched her hands together. ‘If only it were that simple…’

‘
Try
, at least,’ Beede cajoled her. ‘Think about Fleet. Your main priority has to be the boy. And yourself, obviously…’ he paused, frowning, ‘I’ve let you down recently. I can see that now…’

He scowled. ‘We’ve been short-staffed here for a while. I’ve been taking too much on. And then there’s this whole
Monkeith
situation. I seem to have become…’ he shrugged ‘…horribly enmeshed in the whole thing…’

A look of fleeting interest crossed Elen’s face. ‘Well it’s certainly a good cause,’ she gently chivvied him, ‘and so tragic. He was only eleven. Dory knows the godparents. He’s been doing some leafleting for them.’

‘I know,’ Beede’s voice sounded just a fraction sharper than before, ‘it was actually Dory who recommended me to them.’

‘Oh.’

Elen struggled to let the implications of this news sink in.

‘But I can play around with my rota here at work…’ Beede leaned over and grabbed a photocopied time-table from his desk, ‘juggle things around a bit. I’ve certainly got some holiday owing. I can try my best over the next few weeks to keep up with him during the day again. And then you can have a rest. A proper rest. Believe me, things’ll look ten times brighter after a couple of good nights’ sleep.’