For Death Comes Softly (37 page)

Twenty-Two

Eventually Julia recovered sufficiently so that even I deemed her well enough to leave us. She stayed with us for just over a month, which meant that she was away from her devastated London home for a total of four months, during which time the flat, fortuitously well-insured, was completely renovated, redecorated and refurnished. Kendal Rees, an achingly trendy interior designer friend of Julia's, undertook the bulk of the work, although Julia and I made a couple of gentle shopping trips to London in order to make some personal choices.

From the moment she had begun to function again Julia had been quite determined to return to her flat, declaring with encouraging ferocity that she was
not
going to be scared away from her own bloody home. But her family and friends, including me, did manage to persuade her not even to visit the place until all the damage had been repaired and it was ready to move into again.

I volunteered to drive her up to town. On a gloriously bright April morning we loaded up my car with her clothes and the various debris she had acquired during her convalescence. It was the first truly beautiful spring day of the year, and I rather hoped that might be a good omen for all our futures. Julia was almost childishly excited. I could understand that well enough. When you are used to having your own home nothing else will quite do, and even hospitality from people you love is ultimately a poor substitute. I also realised that in Julia's case going home to her own place represented the final stage of her recovery.

We were practically ready to leave when Julia suddenly turned to me. ‘Damn,' she said. ‘I haven't got a door key.'

Now that was something to which I just hadn't given a thought, and neither had anyone else apparently. But surely she could call Kendal, I suggested, presumably he had at least one key which he could give her.

‘I think he's got two or three – but not today he won't,' said Julia glumly. ‘He's up north at some exhibition. He apologised for not being around.'

She touched her head tentatively, as if unsure if it were quite healed.

‘I can't believe I could forget something like that,' she said. ‘I never used to forget things, not important things anyway.'

She sounded troubled. I suppose when you have had your brain sliced open, the slightest blip is going to make you worry about your mental health.

‘Everybody else forgot too,' I reminded her. But she still looked dejected.

‘I suppose everybody assumed I had a key already,' she went on. ‘It's the same front door you see. Steel-plated to be burglar- and fireproof – obviously successfully because it's about the only thing that hasn't had to be replaced.'

I hadn't even known that the same door and lock had been retained during the renovations. As soon as that sunk in I quickly remembered Julia's key hanging in the cupboard along with all Robin's and my various keys.

‘Why didn't you tell me it was the same lock?' I remonstrated, grinning at her. ‘I've still got the key you gave me all that time ago.'

Julia's face brightened at once. I went back into the house, fetched the key to Julia's flat, complete with the label on which I had written her name, and brought it back to her.

She took it from me, smiling broadly. She really was a good recoverer.

‘God, I'm so relieved, Rose,' she said. ‘I know it's daft, but if I hadn't been able to move in today I would have been really disappointed.'

‘It's not daft,' I told her. ‘This is a big step forwards, and you want to be in your own place again – just as long as you are sure you're going to be all right.'

‘Rose, stop fussing, you sound like my bloody mother.' Julia's smile stretched even more broadly as she spoke.

‘OK, OK, come on then, let's get on the road,' I said. I wanted to stay long enough with Julia in London to be sure that she was settled and at ease, and I had promised to be back in Bristol that night for a dinner with Robin and the UK chairman of AKEKO. The pair of them had become pretty thick over recent weeks and I was becoming more and more sure that Robin would pull off his scheme, and, in spite of my lack of enthusiasm I was not prepared to do or say anything that might upset his plans or rock our recovered, if slightly fragile, relationship. I felt as if I had coped with enough trouble and emotional distress to last me several lifetimes. I realised I was turning into something of an ostrich again, but it was all about survival really. And I didn't know how else to survive.

I had offered to move in with Julia for a few days, but she had been quite adamant, the independent old bat, that she wanted to be on her own from the start.

Her excitement bubbled over all the way up the M4.

‘I just can't wait to see what Kendal's done with the place,' she enthused, her eyes shining in eager anticipation. It was a long time since I had seen her in such fine form.

‘There's no need to make it quite so obvious how pleased you are to be getting shot of me,' I said, as we turned right off the Cromwell Road at Earl's Court and headed down to the Embankment.

She giggled delightedly. ‘I thought it was the other way round,' she responded.

‘Never,' I told her. Pathetic really, but I was feeling a bit emotional and I couldn't keep the banter up.

She was silent for the rest of the journey to Arlington Towers, and I hoped that her euphoria would not evaporate when she was faced with the reality of returning to the place where she nearly died. But she looked positive enough as she pumped her personal code into the key pad by the big glass front doors which led into the lobby – Arlington was one of these modern fully automated blocks of luxury flats without on-site porterage.

‘At least I can remember the number, I can't be entirely brain dead,' she quipped. I winced, but Julia merely gave me a playful push. She really seemed to be very nearly her old self and I couldn't get over it.

We took the lift to the fourth floor and walked along to Julia's flat. She took the key I had given her out of her bag and inserted it in the lock.

It wouldn't turn.

She removed the key and stared at it for a moment or two, looking puzzled. I saw her touch her head, as she had done when we had left my Clifton house, as if wondering if everything inside were functioning correctly.

‘Here, let me have a go,' I said.

She passed me the key. I put it in the lock. It wouldn't turn. I wiggled and twisted it, pushed the door forwards, pulled it backwards. The key still would not turn. I removed it and stared at it in the palm of my hand, just as Julia had done.

My first thought was that Julia had somehow got in a muddle or that Kendal had changed the lock for some reason after all, and she had forgotten.

‘It's the wrong key, isn't it?' said Julia in a small voice.

I nodded. ‘There must be an explanation . . .' I began.

‘And I dread to think what it is,' responded Julia, continuing to speak very quietly.

I glanced at her. All the animation had gone from her. She looked pale and ill again. But I suddenly realised that her brain, in spite of the battering it had received not so very long ago, was working more quickly than mine.

‘Oh my God,' I said. My legs felt like jelly, and if I had not leaned against the wall for support I think I would have collapsed.

Julia took charge then. She must have been in better shape than I had realised. I had been supposed to be looking after her. Suddenly it turned out to be the other way around.

‘We need a place to sit and think this through,' she said. ‘I'm not going to chase around frantically for a key, I'll sort that out with Kendal in the morning. Let's check into that big new hotel just across the river.'

Her brain was definitely motoring again. My own had temporarily shut down. I allowed myself to be led out on to the street. I climbed into my car, started the motor, and drove like a zombie, following Julia's instructions, across Lambeth Bridge and left along the South Bank to the hotel she had in mind which had taken over the old County Hall building. Julia did all the checking in and ordered coffee for both of us and a large brandy for me – she was still not allowed to drink – as soon as we got into our room.

We sat at a window overlooking the river. I have always loved the Thames. You could see Westminster Bridge and Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament beyond. For once I did not notice the splendour of it. The offending key was in the pocket of my jeans and I half-imagined I could feel it burning my thigh. I took it out and put it on the table before us.

‘Perhaps it just doesn't work properly,' I said.

‘Rose, it's a Banham, you can't get them cut anywhere except by Banham, they always work,' said Julia.

I knew she was right. But still clutching at straws, I suppose, I voiced what had been my first thought.

‘Well, perhaps the lock has been changed after all, and nobody told you, or, well, I don't want to upset you, but maybe you forgot . . .'

Julia shook her head, unoffended. ‘No,' she said simply. ‘Kendal told me he'd lent a key to the builders and all manner of people, right up until yesterday, and suggested I might like to get the lock changed straight away after I'd moved in, just in case.'

My heart felt like lead.

Julia looked paler than ever. I watched her take two pain killers from the bottle she kept in her bag and swallow them quickly.

‘It's the wrong key, Rose, it has to be,' she said. ‘It cannot be the one I gave you. That's the only solution.'

‘But the label . . .' I stammered.

‘Somebody must have swapped it, taken my key off the hook and replaced it with this one.'

My leaden heart sank into my boots.

‘Robin,' I whispered through dry lips. ‘It could only be Robin.'

I wanted to go over to the big double bed, climb under the covers and hide myself away from the world. I felt as if my head belonged to somebody else, somebody I didn't know. I battled to clear my thoughts.

‘But he couldn't have known you had that letter or even that you had been to see Jeremy Cole,' I said suddenly. ‘He was on his way to Ireland. And he arrived on schedule. Todd Mallett checked it out.'

I could see that Julia was making a tremendous effort to concentrate. She sat holding her chin in both hands, her brow furrowed.

‘He went on the night train, didn't he – allegedly?' she asked, and she put special emphasis on the word ‘allegedly'.

I nodded. Afraid all over again.

‘What if he came back to your house, because he'd forgotten something, or missed the train, what if he was in the house somewhere and overheard our conversation when I told you on the phone about the letter?'

‘Robin doesn't miss trains. Anyway, I took him to the station. He had plenty of time.'

‘Did you see him get on the train?'

‘Well no,' I said. ‘But he must have done, I'm sure of it. And he certainly wasn't at home when I got back. The place was in darkness and all locked up. The phone was ringing. I had a struggle to get into the house to answer it in time . . .' A terrible thought overwhelmed me. ‘Oh Julia, I left the back door open, I was in such a hurry . . . it was you on the phone . . .'

Julia looked as shocked as I was, but her voice sounded quite steady when she spoke again.

‘So if he returned home just after you he could have overheard our conversation?'

‘I suppose so,' I said, feeling absolutely desolate.

‘Try to remember, wouldn't you have heard him come in?'

I shook my head. There was no point in lying, even to myself.

‘Not necessarily,' I said. ‘I was so intent on what you were telling me about the letter and everything. Unless he had made a noise or called out, he could have stood in the hallway outside the kitchen door and I wouldn't have known he was there. And if he'd come back by taxi it would have dropped him in the road at the front and I wouldn't have heard that either . . .'

I just hated what I was saying, but I carried on.

‘Then I went straight to bed and drank the best part of a bottle of whisky and went to sleep.'

Julia was squinting with the effort of concentration. I suspected that her head was really hurting. With one had she tugged gently at a clump of newly sprouting red hair

‘Could he have slipped out of the house later on without you knowing, do you think?'

‘Yes, I'm afraid he could. You know how big our house is and how thick the walls are – and I was out for the count.'

We looked at each other. Was I finally going to have to admit everything to myself, finally going to have to give Robin up? I still desperately wanted to put him in the clear.

‘Look, Todd's team checked that Robin was on the Rosslare ferry passenger list . . .' I began.

Julia interrupted me. ‘Yes, but did they check that he actually boarded?'

‘I don't know,' I admitted.

‘OK. So how did he get to Ireland on schedule the next morning?' I asked. Almost before I had finished speaking I heard myself answer my own question. ‘An early flight from Heathrow. Oh my God, Julia. He would still have had time to get to London, and all night to . . . to . . .' I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't put it into words.

For a minute or so we were both silent, sitting together looking down at the key as if willing it to speak to us, or maybe just to disappear. Suddenly it hit me.

Hastily I scrabbled in my shoulder bag for my key ring. With foreboding I sorted out the key to Highpoint, Robin's house on Abri, which he had given me the night he proposed, and lay it on the table next to the other key. I hardly needed to look. I knew.