For Death Comes Softly (19 page)

‘About bloody time too,' said Peter Mellor.

Titmuss merely grunted. Our relationship had sunk to the level when if he could not find anything to actively criticise in my conduct then he appeared to prefer to remain silent.

I was past caring about Titmuss. I cared intensely about Stephen Jeffries, but I also knew that my tormented obsessive approach to his case was probably no longer helping. And so on the evening of the second Friday in December, in the kind of blustery weather you would expect at that time of year – I returned at last to the island which had already played such a fateful part in my life. We travelled by chartered helicopter, Robin's usual form of transport there, which was also available to guests at an extra charge and in case of bad weather.

The pilot was a jovial black man called Eddie Brown whom Robin knew well from countless journeys between Abri and the mainland, and with whom he obviously had an easy rapport.

Somehow I had barely been aware during my previous visit just how romantic Abri was, but then, I had not been engaged to Robin Davey. This time, although I was aware that my palms were sweating as the helicopter touched down, I became engulfed by the romance of the place from the moment Robin and I began to walk together along the winding cliff-top path which led to Highpoint.

I had wondered what Mrs Cotley's reaction to the news of our engagement would be, but I need not have been concerned. If she thought it was all indecently soon after Natasha's death, then, in common with Robin's family, she gave no sign, but merely congratulated the pair of us warmly and proceeded to fuss over us greatly. As soon as we had finished the meal she predictably insisted on serving us, we retired eagerly to bed. Robin had coolly told Mrs Cotley that we would not be needing the guest room she had prepared and it had been quite entertaining to watch her try not to show her disapproval. There was, however, absolutely no chance of Robin and I missing an opportunity to sleep together – and we both pretended not to notice the housekeeper's pointed glance at the kitchen clock when we eventually emerged at noon the next day.

We tucked into coffee and eggs and Robin kept kicking me under the table. I felt a bit like a naughty schoolgirl. It was a good feeling.

Our lovemaking, in Robin's home for the first time, had been perhaps even more fervent than usual. My body, at least, was content. It had been a little strange at first to return to the big double bed in which I had recovered from my ordeal on the Pencil and to share it now with the owner of Abri Island. But I made myself not think about either my experience on that dreadful rock or what happened to Natasha Felks there. And certainly with Robin's ardent attentions to cope with, that was not too difficult a task. This man was everything I had ever dreamed of – passionate, charming, amusing and kind.

It was almost too good to be true. But it was true. And during that weekend, although the Stephen Jeffries case lurked at the back of my mind for much of the time, I started to feel truly happy and secure in my personal life at last.

On the Sunday afternoon Robin suggested that we walk along the east coast to a sheltered spot, surrounded now by rhododendron bushes, where a granite monument to great-great-great-great-grandfather Ernest John, the first Davey to own Abri, had been erected.

The wind was blowing a gale as usual, but here we were protected and the sun was shining quite warmly for December. Robin took off his coat and lay it on the ground for us, then he produced a silver hip flask.

‘Brandy,' he said. ‘I wanted us to come here to raise a toast to the past and future of Abri.'

He sounded very solemn. I sensed that he had brought me to the monument for something more than that. For reasons that I could not quite explain, I felt very uneasy.

There was only a little brandy in the flask and we finished it off. Then he stood up and walked over to the monument. He remained looking at it for several seconds before turning back to me.

‘It's time I told you something,' he said abruptly. ‘I am leasing Abri to a Japanese consortium who are going to build a luxury holiday development. The deal is nearly done. I will no longer run the island although it will be part of the agreement that I'll keep Highpoint House.'

I was astonished. More than that I was shocked. Robin had mentioned often enough his need to bring new money into Abri, and I had always known that he spent much of his time on the mainland involved in various financial negotiations – but he had never given me any indication that he had been planning something as momentous as this. Apart from any other considerations, I felt a little hurt that he had not confided in me earlier, although I didn't say that. I did feel, though, that I had to protest.

‘It's your family heritage, Robin,' I began haltingly.

He smiled, interrupting me. ‘I'm leasing, not selling,' he said.

I could see the strain in him and I wasn't convinced. ‘But it'll be like it's not yours any more, you won't be running it. You don't really want the island to become an up-market holiday camp out of your control, do you? Abri's yours. Your life. Always has been. Your mother told me that.'

He shrugged, and looked away out over the Bristol Channel which contrived around Abri, even in the winter, to acquire the aquamarine hues more commonly associated with the Mediterranean. When he replied his voice was heavy and grave.

‘Everything changes and moves on eventually,' he said. ‘Abri is draining what little resources my family still has. It's drained us for generations if the truth be told. We've got to the stage now where I cannot afford to keep the island going without major new investment. The way it is at the moment there is nothing to invest in. And no, I don't want Abri turned into an up-market holiday camp – I certainly don't.'

He paused and managed a wry smile. ‘But I hope it won't be quite like that, and in any case I've looked at the alternatives,' he went on. He mentioned the name of another Bristol Channel island, a little smaller than Abri and asked if I had been there. I told him I hadn't, but I knew about the place.

‘It used to be family-owned like Abri, but the family just ran out of cash,' he said. ‘In the end they sold for a song to a well-meaning benefactor who wanted to give the island to the nation. It seemed like the best thing that could possibly happen and the islanders even made a presentation to him in thanks. The benefactor handed the island over to the Heritage Trust, which is vaguely linked to the National Trust, and the future seemed assured. After all, the Heritage Trust is supposed to be a non-profit-making charity which preserves things, but what they actually did was to destroy a community, and with utter brutality. Within ten years all the islanders were evicted – families who had lived there for generations were sent packing and their homes turned into holiday accommodation. The Trust might preserve buildings and wildlife, but it's never given a monkeys for people and the very heart and soul of that island were ripped out. I won't let that happen to Abri or Abri's people. Abri is their home, as it has been my home, it's a proper living community which takes holiday guests.

‘Allegedly non-profit-making charities can sometimes be even more greedy and ruthless than the private sector, Rose, because they're like religious orders, they bury their consciences in dictum. I was advised years ago that the best thing I could do in order to turn Abri around financially, even just to survive at all, would be to clear the island as a living community and turn it quite simply into a sole-purpose tourist resort and nature reserve staffed by itinerant workers. And that's exactly what they've done on the Heritage Trust island. Place is manned almost entirely by folk running away from their pasts and with no futures to go to, who are prepared to work for a pittance. Quite frankly I just couldn't do any of that, Rose. I'd rather step back, give the place over to what at the very least will be a lesser evil.'

‘But won't your plan really be just as bad for the islanders?' I asked. ‘Surely your Japanese consortium will want to do what you've been told to do.'

‘They can't. That's the beauty of leasing the place rather than selling. It's a condition of the lease that the residents of Abri are guaranteed their homes for life and that employment will first be given to them before any outsiders are brought in. Going for the luxury end of the market makes that possible, you see. The Japanese consortium – AKEKO – are looking to the real top of the market, and they're even more aware than the Americans of the value of something that is quaint. Abri is quaint all right, and so are its people.'

He managed a wry chuckle. ‘I really believe that the consortium does want to preserve all that. Did I ever tell you there used to be a nine-hole golf course at the far north of the island, built in the twenties by my grandfather?'

I shook my head.

‘AKEKO are going to rebuild the golf course too, which could be a wonderful attraction. Crazy about golf, the Japanese.'

I remained concerned. ‘But it will be the most terrible wrench for you, won't it?' I asked.

He took my hand and held it tightly.

‘Yes it will – although not nearly as much as it would be if I didn't have you,' he said. ‘And you know, apart from the hard business side of it, there is our marriage to consider. I can't see you settling down to life on Abri, and we can't go on leading the double life we are at the moment. That would be no kind of marriage. You are a copper, Rose, a top cop. How can you do your job even spending half your time on Abri? And I know you wouldn't be happy to give it up, you have worked too hard at it. If you're not happy then we couldn't be happy together. Simple as that.'

I'd never been used to the men in my life showing any respect at all for my job, particularly not my ex-husband, and Robin was probably the most thoroughly masculine man I had ever met. A true male animal. Previously I had learned to live with the attitude often apparent also in those I worked with – that really they thought I should be home with a pinny on, nursing the baby, even if they never quite dared say so. Robin surprised and delighted me. Yet again, he also alarmed me.

‘It's wonderful of you to think that way, Robin,' I said. ‘But I know what your family and this island means to you. I don't want to be even partially responsible for the Davey family losing its heritage, I really don't.'

‘It's not like that,' he assured me quickly. ‘The lease is a long one, it had to be, twenty-five years. But when it's over I have the option to take the island back. It's the only way there is to preserve Abri for my children, to preserve the Davey heritage.'

He had taken me into uncomfortable territory. We hadn't even really talked about having children, he just took it for granted that went with the territory. Indeed we had stopped taking precautions, and the thought of having Robin's child thrilled me. I was also scared it just wouldn't happen.

‘I'm nearly thirty-six,' I reminded him not for the first time.

‘You're thirty-five, don't wish your life away,' he scolded. ‘And stop worrying, it will happen, I know it will.'

I didn't want to think about what it would do to him, to us, if it didn't happen. I preferred to take the conversation back to the subject in hand.

‘Robin, you're talking about getting Abri back in twenty-five years,' I told him very seriously. ‘You'll be seventy then. It's you who is wishing your life away.'

He answered me equally seriously. ‘No, I'm not Rose. But I have to think of the future because there is no present for Abri as it is, nor for you and me, for our family. Abri is desperate for new resources, for new money, for disposable cash. All I have in the world is already tied up in the island. I'll be bankrupt within five years if I don't do something about it.'

He paused. I tried to lighten the moment.

‘But I'm only marrying you for your money,' I said.

He went on as if I hadn't spoken. Indeed the remark deserved no response. I was so in love with Robin Davey that I'd probably have wanted to marry him if he were on the streets selling the
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, and, not being a man short on self-confidence, he, of course, knew that.

‘I have no choice, Rose,' he said. ‘It is time to move forward, and that's that. I've been having discussions with the Japanese for over a year. I didn't want to tell you until I was pretty sure I had it sorted out. It was not an easy decision to make, but Ernest John here would do the same thing if he lived now, I'm sure of it.'

He came over then and squatted down again on the grass beside me, raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. No wonder I found the bloody man so irresistible. He was full of extraordinary gestures like that, that way of talking and behaving that seemed sometimes to be straight out of Jane Austen.

‘I want to be with you so much, Rose,' he said. Then he grinned, looking suddenly as near to boyish as he could ever manage. ‘And I have a confession to make. I've seen a rather beautiful house in Clifton which I think could be our new home – if you like it too, of course.'

I found myself basking in his warmth. In the past I would not have allowed any man in my life to even attempt to make decisions for me. With Robin I didn't mind at all. I actually quite liked it.

All I said was: ‘Are you quite, quite sure?'

He nodded.

‘Don't forget that this island is associated with a lot of tragedy for me, and it will do no harm for me to distance myself from it a little,' he said softly. ‘I lived here with my first wife and our son, and it was here that Natasha died. We'll still have Highpoint to come to as often as we like, but a new start, a new life on the mainland, will be good for me, Rose. I am quite sure of that. I have plans to run a property business in Bristol, and meanwhile Abri will be earning money for itself and for us, instead of swallowing up what little I have left.'