Screaming Yellow (33 page)

“Yes, but…” Simon faltered. “Aren’t you going to tell me what this surprise is?”

“Nope.” Meinwen smiled. “If I told you, you’d tell Jennifer and then the whole world would know.”

“I can keep a secret.” Simon turned into his own drive, Meinwen following.

“Like the one about the ring, for example?”

Simon coughed. “That just slipped out.”

“Exactly.” Meinwen smiled and took the mug from her pocket as Simon opened the door and ushered her inside.

Jennifer sat on the sofa cradling a crying woman. She looked up as they bustled in. “It’s Catherine, although I’ve no idea why she’s crying. She says she’ll only talk to you, Simon.”

Meinwen put the cup on the table and crouched next to the girl. “Catherine? Everything will be all right. You can talk to us. We know your secret, Mrs. Godwin.”

Chapter 30

With a glance at Jennifer for permission, Meinwen slid onto the sofa and put her arms around Catherine. “It’s all right. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.”

Catherine shook her head, her long dark hair unkempt and tangled. Her sobs began to diminish as Meinwen rocked her like a child.

Simon looked across at Jennifer with raised eyebrows “Mrs. Godwin?” he mouthed.

His sister held up her hands in a silent “don’t ask me” gesture. Meinwen caught the exchange. “I expect we could all do with a nice cup of tea. I think Catherine would like a little sugar to sweeten hers, as well.”

“That’s a good idea.” Jennifer smiled acidly at her brother. “Why don’t you go and make it, Simon?”

“Me?” Simon looked affronted. “All right, I’m going.” He headed into the kitchen and began banging cups about.

Meinwen raised her eyebrows at Jennifer and gestured to the box of tissues. Jennifer handed them over, jerking her head in the direction of the kitchen and mouthing “men!”

Meinwen lifted Catherine’s head up. “There, there. Tears are good but hope is better.” She wiped away the tears around Catherine’s eyes and gave her the tissue. Catherine attempted a smile and completed the task, finishing by blowing her nose.

“There now,” said Meinwen, when the girl had composed herself. “What are all the tears in aid of?”

“They’ve caught Richard.” Catherine sniffed, her eyes filling again. “They think he murdered his stepfather and they’re going to send him to prison.”

Meinwen wiped away another tear that ran down the girl’s cheek. What was it about tears that she found so erotic? “Sometimes rumors are just rumors.”

“But Amanda phoned the police station and confirmed it.” Catherine looked for the tissues again.

Meinwen handed her the box. “Have a little faith in the boys in blue. They won’t put Richard away if he’s innocent, will they? This is real life, not a television show. They’re much cleverer than that. It’s a long time since they put people in prison because they looked suspicious.”

“Really?” Catherine dabbed at her eyes. “He won’t go to prison and be ravished in the showers?”

“Not if he’s innocent, no.” Meinwen smiled.

“Unless he wants to be,” Jennifer added.

Meinwen glared at her. “Look, here’s Simon with the tea. Pull yourself together a bit and then you can tell us the whole story.”

“I’ll try.” Catherine shuffled backward on the floor and gained the relative safety and aloofness of the armchair, hoisting herself into it but leaning forward defensively, her mug of sweet tea held in both hands and her head down as if she were inhaling eucalyptus for a cold.

“I came down here for Robert,” she said, rubbing her pendant, a Celtic knot in a circular pattern, between thumb and forefinger. “I met him online in a chat room and he seemed to be everything I was looking for. He was my chance to get away from my family for a bit.” She glanced at Simon, who had seated himself in the other armchair but unlike Catherine was filling the chair and the space around it with the air of a lord of the manor.

“I come from a big family, see,” Catherine said. “Catholic. Mum never believed in birth control and I had four sisters and three brothers. Four, if you count Mikey, but he died at birth. We never had a spare penny. Dad was a fork-lift driver–good money if you haven’t many mouths to feed. Mum did what she could but there were too many of us for her to work full-time, so she did part-time at the school crossing. Anyway, I went to college when I was sixteen. Just the local tech, nothing fancy, and that’s where I learned about computers.”

Meinwen nodded. “I can relate to that. Go on.”

“I got a part time job in the chippy and saved up enough to buy a laptop. Just a basic one along with a broadband package. It got me out of myself, you see. Showed me other worlds I was missing. That’s when I found the
chat
rooms.”

“I can guess what you’re missing out,” Simon said. “There’s really no need. I may be a priest but I have heard of sex.” He grinned. “After all, my sister is quite the author of erotica.”

“Are you?” Catherine’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know. What have you written?”

Jennifer shrugged, suddenly modest. “Simon’s exaggerating. I’ve published one or two. Have you read
She Died for Passion
or
The Clergyman’s Confession
?”

Catherine shook her head. “Sorry. I’ll look out for them, though. I was more into Mills and Boon and Black Lace, I’m afraid.” She hitched up her jeans to scratch her ankle, displaying a tattooed anklet chain in a Celtic weave.

Jennifer shrugged. “Perhaps I ought to spice up my books with bondage.”

“What happened in the chat rooms?” Meinwen tried to steer the conversation back to Catherine’s story.

“I met Robert a few weeks later,” Catherine said. “I’d met all sorts by then. Men pretending to be girls and girls pretending to be men. I had to trawl through all the troglodytes in the country first. It was like a test. Those who didn’t just want a quick shag wanted somebody to whip them, and a few of them sounded more like serial killers in the making. Robert was a breath of fresh air in a stuffy chip shop. I could see myself with him, you see. The more blogs and websites I found that told me about women who loved older men, the more I knew that I was one of them. We started talking about a relationship.”

“Was he easy to talk to?”

“Not at first. He was different, though. He made me feel safe from the start, didn’t try to make me do anything I didn’t want to do, and pointed me to a few places where I could find out about him, prove to myself that he was a real person.”

“Go on.” Meinwen picked up her forgotten tea. It was already only lukewarm. She began to drink it anyway. Robert had never taken her that seriously.

“I wanted to meet him.” Catherine smiled. “He was so careful. He made me set up a safe call first before he’d even tell me where he lived.”

“A safe call?” Simon leaned forward in his chair.

“It’s where you arrange for a friend to phone you to make sure you’re all right,” Meinwen explained. “The friend knows who you’re meeting and where. If you’re in trouble you say a pre-arranged codeword, such as ‘I’ve got my lucky socks on’ and the friend phones the police without the person you’re meeting knowing that something is wrong.”

Simon nodded. “That sounds very sensible. So did you wear your lucky socks when you met Robert?”

“I didn’t have to,” said Catherine. “He was a perfect gentleman. We met in the Corner Rooms Tea House on Lovat Street.”

“It went well then?”

“It certainly did. I handed in my notice at the chippy and was back with my bag within a fortnight. He took me in on a month’s trial and gave me a room.”

“What happened then?” Meinwen thought about how close she had come to being in exactly the same situation.

“I had the duties of a maid to begin with, and cooking when Susan was off-duty. He gave me a uniform and everything. It was like being in an old film. We always had to wear stockings, too.” She smiled for the first time since she’d been there. “That’s when I met Richard. He was everything his stepfather was and more. He was my age you see, or near enough. I ended up looking after him more than I looked after Robert.”

“How did Richard feel about this?” Jennifer was hunched forward, leaning on every word. Meinwen could imagine her writing it up as a novel.

“He fell in love with me. Asked him to marry him.”

“When?” Simon sat up again. “He never told me.”

“Valentine’s Day. Robert wouldn’t have approved of his precious heir marrying a poor girl from south of the river, though. That’s why we had to marry in secret. He had a lot of debts and if Robert had found out he’d married me he would have cut him out of the will.”

“Debts?” Meinwen’s tone was nonchalant. “What were they for?”

Catherine shrugged. “College, I think. Student loans and a whopping overdraft. We kept the marriage secret by using the White Art instead of the house. Mike gave Richard a good rate for the room and kept our secret for us.”

“Then Mr. Markhew insisted that Richard marry Mary.”

Catherine’s face clouded. “Yes. I didn’t know about it at first. Richard told me the old man was suspicious about us. That’s why he seemed to cool off toward me. I sort of thought Mary found out, but didn’t think she’d give a toss either way. Richard was giving her money to keep her quiet, he said. She didn’t love him, nor he her. They were more like brother and sister than anything.” Catherine relinquished her mug. Jennifer took it off her and gave it to Simon, who put it on the coffee table.

“Richard was hoping for the inheritance before he told anyone that you and he were married then?”

“That’s right. We saw each other a bit less for appearances’ sake, but the sex was even better when we did manage it. The trouble came when Robert announced that Richard and Mary were engaged. I think Mrs. Markhew was pushing for it. Suddenly I realized that it was actually going to happen, and what would become of me? I was already his wife but I was being pushed out. I didn’t know what to do. It’s not like I could afford a solicitor.”

“You confronted Richard?”

“What else could I do? I was devastated. He promised me that it was all a sham, that Mary didn’t really want to marry him. It was all for the inheritance, you see. Richard promised to split it with her. He told me to be patient.”

“This was in the park, wasn’t it?” asked Jennifer. “I was in the woods and heard you, but I didn’t know who Richard was talking to.”

“By the wall, yes. I didn’t think we’d be overheard there.” Catherine frowned. “Anyway, I didn’t want to be patient. I wanted my husband, all official-like. So I marched up to Mr. Markhew and had it out with him, interrupted his writing, as well.”

“He didn’t take it well, did he?”

“I should say not. He offered to buy me off there and then. Told me I’d come to him on false pretences and gave me my notice. We had a huge row about it and I stormed off. I didn’t want to see either of them no more.”

“What did you do then?” Meinwen shifted position on the sofa, glancing at the fascinated expressions of Simon and Jennifer.

Catherine gave a half smile. “I went to the cinema and saw the new Disney film. By the time I came out I’d calmed down a bit. I looked at my phone and found six missed calls from having it off in the cinema. I rang Richard to meet me in the park again.”

“And you fought.”

Catherine nodded, her fingers straying once more to her necklace. “He was furious with me because Robert had shouted at him, threatened to cut him out of the will altogether if he didn’t get the marriage annulled.”

“That’s when you threw your wedding ring at him?”

Catherine laughed. “Yes, I was a bit dramatic. I stamped on it too! Richard stormed off back to the house and I went to the chippy.” She sighed. “I sneaked back to the house at about half-past six, expecting Richard to find me and apologize. I hid in my room after that to just keep out of everybody’s way. I didn’t wake up again until the police came at nearly midnight and Robert was dead.”

She looked at Meinwen. “I didn’t have anything to do with his death, I swear.”

“Nobody thinks you did.” Jennifer rose from the sofa to cuddle the girl. “No one would suspect you of killing Robert, even if you did have an argument with him.”

“I hope not.” Catherine dabbed her eyes with a fresh tissue. “Richard didn’t do it either. He’s got more sense than that. You can’t inherit by murder.” She looked at each of the three faces.