For Death Comes Softly (22 page)

‘You know what I mean,' she said.

He did, of course. And so did I.

He proceeded to shake hands with everyone who had gathered there. His face was very pale in spite of his forced brightness. I understood absolutely that the worst thing for him was the knowledge that the people of Abri continued to think that he had deserted them in spite of all his efforts to convince them otherwise – and indeed, as I saw it, his genuine determination to ensure their futures as much as his own. Robin had not signed the island over to the highest bidder, I knew, but to the one he thought would be best for Abri.

We clambered aboard the chopper and there was none of the usual banter between Robin and pilot Eddie Brown, who, with his natural awareness and sensitivity, merely concentrated on his job.

Robin remained morosely silent throughout the flight back to Bristol, and barely bothered even to say goodbye to Eddie, who winked at me reassuringly when I glanced uneasily back at him over my shoulder as we walked away from the aircraft.

We were in the process of buying the Clifton house which Robin had told me about – I had loved it every bit as much as he had, which had somehow been predictable, although it was far grander than any place I had ever expected to become my home – but the sale had yet to be completed. For the time being we continued to live in my apartment, and with Robin now about to be there virtually full-time the place was not going to be nearly big enough. Fortunately Robin was confident that the deal on our new house would soon be finalised so that we could complete the work we wanted to do on the place in time for our April wedding, and, when we arrived back from Abri that day, I began to hope with particular fervour that would prove to be the case.

Robin went straight into the living room, flopped down on the sofa and switched on the TV. The flat felt smaller than ever, and his morose presence seemed to fill its every corner.

‘Would you like to go for a walk?' I asked lamely after watching him for half an hour or so during which he did not speak once.

He looked at me as if I was mad and shook his head. I made one or two further desolate attempts at conversation which he more or less ignored. He was apparently intent on spending the entire afternoon in front of the TV, surfing mindlessly through the satellite channels. I was disappointed because we had flown back from Abri quite early in the morning and I was free for the rest of the day, not due to return to my duties at Kingswood until Tuesday morning. Stephen Jeffries was still missing. We continued to make little or no progress. The case continued to torment me and I was beginning to realise that the only way I could stop myself from becoming dangerously obsessive was to take breaks occasionally. But this had not been the kind of break I needed. It had proven to be every bit as stressful as the job – at least when I was working I knew exactly what was going on and wasn't fretting about not being at the helm. In addition, as I never had nearly enough time to spend alone with Robin, a wasted minute seemed tragic, and this day, it appeared, was to be wasted entirely.

I finally gave up on my attempts to jolly him out of his ill humour and instead tried to read, but I found it even harder than usual to settle into a book. His mood wrapped itself around me like a blanket of black fog.

Sometime around seven o'clock I made a final attempt at resurrecting at least a part of the day.

‘Do you fancy going out to dinner?' I enquired without a great deal of optimism.

At least this time he bothered to reply properly.

‘I'm sorry, Rose, I just don't feel like being with people, and I don't feel like talking either, not even to you,' he said.

He then returned his attentions to the TV set and I took myself off to fetch a take-away curry without wasting any energy asking him what he would like. I could have phoned for something but I felt like a brief change of scene. Not that things had improved any by the time I returned. The curry was not a success. Robin ate hardly anything, and even I had very little appetite.

When, at about eleven, I said I was going to go to bed, Robin barely looked up from the TV screen.

‘I'll be there in a bit,' he said distractedly, but in fact he stayed just where he was for some hours more. Although distressed by his distress, I managed to fall into a fitful sleep from which he woke me at almost 3 a.m. when he climbed into bed beside me. He only woke me by accident though. There was no question that night of his reaching out for me to make love. Instead he lay uneasily beside me, and his restlessness made it virtually impossible for me to get any more sleep, so it was rather irritating that he was dead to the world and appeared so absolutely at peace when I left for the nick at 7.30.

He called me around mid-morning on my mobile.

‘Hallo, darling, sorry I was out for the count when you left this morning,' he said cheerily. He sounded quite his usual bouncy self. ‘'Fraid I was a bit of a misery guts yesterday,' he continued.

‘I do understand Robin,' I said. I did too. The island had always meant so much to him and his family, and for so long.

‘I know you do, darling, and that is one of the many reasons why I love you to distraction,' he said.

‘Me too,' I muttered obliquely. Well, although I was alone in my office, walls have ears in police stations.

‘I'm calling from the new office,' he continued animatedly. ‘Bob's already got a couple of great deals on the table, and now that I'm fully on board we'll really get cracking.'

He seemed to be right back to normal. Bob was an old school friend Robin had set himself up in partnership with. The two of them had capital to play with and Robin had told me that he was confident that they would make a lot of money in the property business. Certainly Robin was a natural wheeler and dealer. That was how he had single-handedly managed to keep the dinosaur of Abri afloat, so to speak, for as long as he had, in a world where it really had no place. It was typical of him to be already planning his future – our future. The large amount of capital already paid in advance on the leasing of Abri was such that he probably need not have worked at anything for the rest of his life, but that would not have suited Robin. And I did know how serious he was about rebuilding his family heritage. His dream now was to live long enough to have Abri handed back to him as a financially viable proposition to be handed on to future generations of Daveys, and to have made a new fortune himself to go with it. That kind of thinking was second nature to him.

I was, however, surprised at the speed with which he seemed to have recovered from the trauma of the previous day. I took a short break from the mound of paperwork on my desk to make myself some coffee. As I drank it I leaned back in my chair, put my feet on my desk and contemplated this extraordinary man I was going to marry.

I felt that I was very lucky. And I wondered why anything about Robin Davey surprised me any more.

Robin had made an arrangement with AKEKO that the Davey family would continue to have certain rights on the island throughout the leasing. These included the right to marry and to be buried there. So Robin and I were to marry, both of us for the second time, in Abri Island's church, built in the 1890s on the edge of Abri village by Robin's great-grandfather. To say I was daunted by this was a major understatement.

I had thought it unlikely that, as a divorcee, I would even be allowed to marry there, and secretly, had half-hoped that would prove to be the case. Robin would have none of it. A church wedding on Abri was expected for him. If there were any problems the Davey family fixed them. They were good at fixing things. All the Daveys had always been married on Abri, and indeed Robin had already been married there once. He was a sensitive man, and he had shown some concern about that.

‘Are you sure it doesn't bother you, Rose?' he asked.

‘No, that doesn't bother me,' I had replied quite honestly. ‘Your first wedding was twenty years ago, and that's a very long time. It was another life for you then, and I was just a kid. We didn't know each other existed. It really doesn't worry me at all.'

He had been pleased. ‘I'm glad you feel like that,' he said. ‘I know it will make the family happy.'

I took his hand. ‘I tell you what does bother me a bit,' I admitted. ‘Coping with a Davey family wedding and all the baggage it brings with it. The tradition of it. I feel a bit like I'm marrying a royal.'

He laughed. ‘You are, my dear,' he said mockingly. ‘A prince of a man, that's me.' And then he reassured me that I had nothing to worry about. ‘Mother, James, and I will deal with everything,' he said soothingly. ‘All you have to do is to turn up.'

Of course that unnerved me all the more. I was accustomed to making my own decisions and being in charge of my own life. I wasn't at all used to being carried along by events. But that was just what happened, of course. Robin's boundless energy, his unshakeable belief in himself, and in us, was overwhelming. What Robin wanted I went along with. I'd never have thought I would do that with any man. It was different with Robin. Life was different. I was different.

Robin's younger brother James would be best man. My sister Clem and her eight-year-old daughter, Ruth, the bridesmaids. The plans for our wedding seemed to just present themselves. Most of the decisions were made for me, even down to the food and drink which should be served at the wedding breakfast – dressed Cornish crab, smoked bacon with the local seaweed dish laver, Torridge salmon, and Devon cider as well as the more traditional champagne.

I took an afternoon off and drove over to Northgate to talk things over with Maude and James. It was a pleasantly warm March day and Maude, wearing something lacy and flowing and completely impractical which looked quite sensational, was collecting eggs from the free-range hens which wandered aimlessly about the yard.

‘I've baked some scones,' she said. ‘James is coming over. Let's have tea.'

The scones were mouth-watering. Another of Maude's many talents, it appeared. She and James continued to display the same ease of manner which had made my first visit to Northgate so relaxed.

Maude had the knack of organising you without appearing to do so. In spite of her size there was nothing remotely domineering about her. She just carried you along in her wake. And James, so laid back he might fall over, continued to give the impression that he'd rather be in his barn with his paints, but joined in the wedding talk with decent enthusiasm.

The guest list, which I thought was a terrifyingly long one, seemed to comprise about 200 or so Davey family and friends – plus, of course, all the Abri islanders – and about fifty of mine. There was quite an extended Davey family it seemed, of distant cousins and aged aunts and uncles, who must not be left out.

My dress had already been ordered from an old art school friend of James who had gone on to be a top designer. Maude was to travel to London with me for the final fitting.

‘Bloody good excuse,' she said, her vowels even more flatly Yorkshire than usual. ‘I've not had lunch at the Savoy for donkey's years.'

I had never had lunch at the Savoy. But I was willing to give it a try.

As the days passed I began to get used to being swept along with the Davey tide, and even grew rather to like it. Certainly there were far fewer demands on my time than you would expect with a wedding on this scale to plan, which continued to make it possible for me to give my job first priority.

Eventually there was a development in the Stephen Jeffries case, although not a very conclusive one. Elizabeth Jeffries suddenly walked out on her husband, taking their daughter with her. Their so-solid marriage, which had in a way hindered even our initial inquiries into the abuse allegation, had collapsed.

‘She must know something,' I told Peter Mellor impulsively. ‘I reckon she knows Richard Jeffries killed their son.'

Mellor shrugged. Ever reasonable. Ever rational. ‘Marriages often break down under this kind of strain, boss. You know that. It doesn't necessarily indicate guilt.'

‘Well then, let's do our best to find out whether it does or not,' I countered.

We switched the thrust of our investigation on to Elizabeth Jeffries. We interviewed her all over again at her mother's home where she was now living with her daughter, and then more formally at Kingswood. We gave her a thorough going over, but we got nowhere. There was none of the old cool arrogance about her. In fact she didn't seem to be functioning properly at all. She was almost zombie-like. But if she had cause to believe that her husband was guilty of murder, she still wasn't telling. All she said was that she had moved out because she could not cope with the deep depression into which Richard Jeffries had descended since Stephen's disappearance, and that by taking her daughter to her granny she had hoped to reintroduce some semblance of normality into little Anna's life.

It was hard to believe that the most obsessive middle-class dedication to keeping up appearances could lead a mother to go as far as protecting a man she knew had killed her child – even if that man was her husband. The truth was that I didn't know what to do next. The case was fast turning into one of the unhappiest I had ever been involved with, and I feared we were never to get to the bottom of the mystery. About the only way I could imagine moving constructively forward was to find the boy's body, and God knows I didn't want that.

I remained unhappily preoccupied, and it was really rather wonderful to at least know that I was about to enjoy a dream wedding to a man I was madly in love with and that I barely had to lift a finger. Our wedding day would be just two months after the island had been leased, by which time Robin hoped that the islanders would be becoming a little more used to the new order of things.