For Death Comes Softly (18 page)

‘Got an arrangement with the butcher,' she said in reply.

I bet you have, I thought.

‘Apparently the correct phraseology is to ask for a nice sirloin for the dog,' grinned Roger.

Lunch was a pleasant and relaxed meal, washed down with a thoroughly decent claret. I couldn't believe how at ease I felt. The conversation was light and unchallenging. It was a wonderful introduction to a new family, and as the meal progressed I learned more about Robin and his driving force than ever before.

‘He was just a boy when his father died, but he grew up straight away,' said Maude. ‘He was only thirteen, yet he ran the place as much as I did from that time on. He was always so intense about Abri. That island is his life, you do know that, Rose, don't you?'

Robin shifted uncomfortably in his chair in the way that sons and daughters of all ages invariably do when a parent talks about them. ‘Oh, mother,' he said.

I ignored him. ‘Yes Maude, I do know,' I said.

She nodded approvingly. ‘It was only a couple of years after Robin's father died that I met Roger,' she went on. ‘There's not many of us get two chances to love, but I didn't know what to do. I had two young sons and our home was an island in the Bristol Channel, and I didn't see how I could build a new life with an Exmoor farmer. Robin did. He was sixteen. He insisted on leaving school to run Abri. He said it was all he had ever wanted to do anyway.

‘He told me to get on with my life. So I did. I married Roger and brought James here with me to live on Exmoor. James has never cared where he lived as long as he was free to paint – nor about anything much apart from painting. Right, James?'

Her younger son continued to munch contentedly, quite untroubled. ‘Aren't you always right, mother?' he responded through a mouthful of beef.

She smiled at him warmly. Maude Croft-Maple, I was to learn, possessed the rare gift of being able to love people for what they were, and not what she wanted them to be.

‘I still adore Abri, and I go back whenever I can,' she went on. ‘But it's Robin's island. Always has been, always will be.'

I was fascinated. Robin eventually managed to manoeuvre the conversation on to topics he obviously found considerably less embarrassing – sheep, the state of the nation, movies, almost anything that was not personal in fact – but what Maude had said about his early life did make me fret again about how Robin and I were actually going to manage the mechanics of marriage. Currently he was spending four days a week on Abri Island, and three with me in Bristol. It wasn't ideal and I sometimes wondered how long Robin would be prepared to carry on like that, or even able to. I knew already that running Abri was a full-time occupation and that before me Robin had devoted all his energies to it. I also realised, listening to Maude, that I must overcome my reservations about the island and make time to return there with Robin, although I didn't know when – not with the job I had on at the moment. And for the first time since I had arrived at Northgate my thoughts turned uneasily to missing Stephen Jeffries. But I told myself that I was not going to let any of my worries spoil this day, and made myself concentrate on the conversation around the table which was light, bright and witty, and the food, which was quite delicious.

After the meal was over Robin excused himself from the table, walked over to the kitchen window and peered out at the sky. The rain had finally stopped.

‘Reckon it's brightening up, Roger,' he remarked.

‘Right,' said Roger, rising from his chair. ‘Coming, James?'

‘Absolutely,' replied James, swiftly downing the last of his claret.

I gave Maude another questioning look.

‘Shooting,' she said. ‘You can always tell a farmer. It's a lovely day, let's go out and kill something.'

I burst out laughing.

‘Really mother,' said Robin, and then to me rather pointedly, ‘You'll be all right, Rose.'

It was a statement more than a question. I glowered at him. It seemed fairly clear that he was deliberately leaving me with his mother, and he could not have been much more transparent.

‘Glass of port,' invited Maude. ‘The fire's lit in the drawing room.'

The drawing room was another big airy room, and the fireplace turned out to be a beautiful old inglenook. I sank into a battered armchair which reeked of faded luxury and seemed to mould itself to my backside, stretched out my legs, and began to sip what proved to be an excellent port from a glass which most people would have considered to be rather too large for the purpose. Not Maude Croft-Maple, however.

She stoked up the fire, piling on logs from a basket in the grate, and when she had finally arranged the fire to her satisfaction she lowered her not inconsiderable frame into the armchair next to me.

‘You like sex, I suppose,' she said.

I nearly choked on her splendid port.

‘Well, you do, don't you?' she pressed.

‘Uh, yes I do,' I responded eventually, and not a little uncertainly.

‘Well, that's all right then,' she said. ‘They're all rams, the Davey men. Lad wouldn't be wedding you unless you'd got that side sorted out, I don't suppose.'

I was speechless. You have to remember that at home with the Hyacinth Bucket of Weston-super-Mare sex was never even mentioned. I was a divorcee, and my mother had once caught me at the age of fifteen with my sixteen-year-old boyfriend and no knickers, yet I sometimes suspected she still thought I was a virgin.

It therefore came as something of a shock to be sitting with my aged future mother-in-law discussing my sex life – or rather listening to her discussing it. More was to follow.

‘Robin's father was hung like a donkey,' she remarked conversationally. ‘Could never get enough of it, neither. Didn't play away from home though. Neither will Robin as long as he gets his home comforts. They don't cheat, not the Davey's.'

‘Right,' I said. And that was all I could manage.

‘James is the same. Never interested in settling down with one woman, waste of energy as far as he's concerned. He breaks hearts but not promises.'

She sighed. ‘I still miss it, you know,' she continued evenly. ‘Wonderful man, Roger, I'm a lucky woman. Love him to bits, and he loves me. But he's never made my nerve ends jangle. Know what I mean?'

‘Yes, I know what you mean.' I did too. I may not have done, not quite, before I had met her son.

‘Shock you does it, an old woman talking about sex?'

I gulped. ‘Not exactly,' I said. ‘Surprises me, I suppose.'

‘Surprises me too,' she said, with a throaty laugh. ‘I remember years ago reading in a magazine about some old geezer who was asked what he wished he'd known when he was eighteen, and he said he wished he'd known that one day the sex urge would go away and what a relief it would be.'

She winked at me. You hardly ever see a woman wink. It was quite captivating.

‘Trouble is, I'm still waiting for that to happen. Don't know whether to be glad or sorry. More port?'

Grateful that Robin was driving I accepted another huge glassful. Maude continued to talk about her family but somewhat to my relief the sex discussion seemed at an end.

At no stage during the day was Natasha Felks ever mentioned, although I remained all too aware that she had died only eight months before Robin proposed marriage to me. I assumed that Maude and the rest of the family did not talk about her in my presence, even if they were sometimes thinking about her, out of deference to my feelings.

By the time we left for home that evening I had come to the conclusion that Maude Croft-Maple was the most extraordinary person I had ever met in my life. Apart from Robin, of course.

It was during the week after my first meeting with Robin's mother that the news of our engagement leaked out – as, of course, it was always going to. Never try to keep a secret in a police station. One night Robin and I were enjoying a late-night curry in a little Indian restaurant where I had never before met anyone I knew in the world when in walked Phyllis Jordan, to pick up a takeaway, she explained. I was wearing my diamond ring on my engagement finger and Phyllis spotted it at once. She was after all my favourite office manager because of her extraordinary attention to detail.

I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head, she stared so hard at my wedding finger. Then she looked up at us both enquiringly and I felt myself flush. I didn't know whether Robin had guessed that I had not exactly been boasting about our engagement, nor if he had how he felt about it, but he obviously decided the time had come to take the initiative.

I introduced him to Phyllis merely by name, without any explanation, which, I suppose, was pretty cowardly of me.

‘Hi,' said Robin casually. ‘I'm Rose's fiancé.'

Well, I suppose I couldn't blame him. If you're going to marry a woman you can hardly remain incognito.

Phyllis's eyes opened even wider than they were already. ‘Delighted to meet you,' she said, and she couldn't have looked much more pleased with herself if she'd just won the lottery, as with a knowing smile at me she left the restaurant clutching a bag full of what smelt like a particularly fierce selection of curries.

I knew the news would be around the entire nick in no time and I was not to be disappointed.

‘Congratulations, boss,' said Peter Mellor, rather pointedly, as we retired to the nearby Green Dragon pub for a lunchtime pint the next day.

I grinned. ‘Phyllis didn't waste much time then,' I said as easily as I could manage.

‘Perhaps she didn't know it was a secret,' he responded. I studied him carefully. I couldn't be sure, but I had a feeling my cold fish of a sergeant was a bit offended that I hadn't confided in him.

‘It's not,' I said firmly, and added a bit of a half-fib. ‘Robin's only just given me the ring, that's all.'

‘Well, all the best anyway, boss,' he said.

‘Thanks Peter,' I said. ‘You must come and meet Robin, have a drink with us one night.'

Well, the word was out now, so I might as well hit the gossip head on.

‘That would be great, boss,' Peter replied, but I fancied he was a little tight-lipped.

In common with everyone else Peter knew the history behind my relationship with Robin. He also knew that there was still a feeling of dissatisfaction down at the Devon and Cornwall over the way the Natasha Felks' investigation had ended in limbo. I was well aware that the news that Robin Davey and I were to marry was probably already fuelling better gossip at nicks throughout the South West than had been enjoyed since the wife of a one-time Chief Constable had left him for a young Detective Sergeant twenty years her junior.

For myself I was so besotted and so caught up with all that was happening in my life that I further feared I may be neglecting my work. In some kind of perverse compensation for this I drove myself harder than ever, turning up at my desk earlier and earlier and putting in longer and longer hours. The relatively brief times away from the nick I spent either sleeping or making love. There was time for nothing else any more. During the four days a week that Robin was away on Abri Island I slept. When he was with me at Harbour Court our hunger for each other was such that we seemed to make love almost ceaselessly. But I was starting to leave for work sometimes as early as 5 a.m., and I often did not return until nine or ten at night. And although, unlike Simon, Robin never criticised my timekeeping nor the obsessive way I had of throwing myself into the job, he did tell me frequently that he didn't know how I could go on like it, and that I was driving myself too hard.

I knew he was right, and did not really need him nor Peter Mellor nor anyone else to point out the error of my ways. Long hours are no substitute for total concentration. By the beginning of December Stephen Jeffries had been missing for three long months. The case was terribly serious now. I was consumed with guilt about the mistakes that I may already have made and the mistakes I feared I was still making. I drove my team as hard as I was driving myself. Anyone not in the office by 8.00 a.m. at the latest could expect a call from me at home or on their mobile. I demanded 101 per cent commitment from them, fully aware that, in spite of the hours spent at my desk, I was no longer really capable of that kind of commitment myself to anything or anyone except Robin Davey.

Certainly I had no time to worry about what may or may not have happened to Natasha Felks, I told myself. And while the Stephen Jeffries investigation haunted me, it was as if I lived merely for the little time I managed to spend with Robin. That was my only relief.

In practical terms we did everything we possibly could to find young Stephen, dead or alive. We combed every expanse of wasteland within miles of the Jeffries' home and sent divers into every likely expanse of water. We did not find the body we were dreading, thank God, but neither did we find anything to take our investigations further. I interviewed Richard Jeffries over and over again. So did Mellor and just about everyone else. We got nowhere, and I still found it hard to believe that the man could be guilty and remain so plausible.

Nobody can work for ever without a break. But I was close to collapse before I gave in. Robin desperately wanted to take me to Abri. I had already realised that if I really wanted to marry the man, and by God I did, then I would have to overcome the qualms I still had about the island, but I continued to put off a visit there for as long as possible. I felt haunted by the place.

It was more than a month after our lunch with Robin's mother at Northgate Farm when I finally allowed myself to be persuaded to take a weekend off. And I still didn't really want to go back to Abri.