The Devil's Chair (24 page)

For a slim young woman Sukey made an awful lot of noise as she galloped down the stairs moments later in tiny denim shorts and a loose cotton top under which Martha suspected she was wearing nothing at all.

She sighed. Women of a certain age, particularly when they'd breast fed twins for six months, needed what her mother coyly called
support
. Ah, well, that was the price of motherhood. But there were compensations too. She pocketed her mobile phone and the dog lead, Bobby now thumping the floor with his tail as though it was a bongo drum. And how could a mongrel manage such an expressively hopeful look? He was just a dog.

Haughmond Abbey was the ruin of a twelfth-century Augustinian monastery. It was a spectacularly beautiful sight on the east side of Shrewsbury, slightly elevated so it provided a perfect view over the town's skyline and the beginnings of the Welsh hills beyond. It was surrounded by a wood and a network of footpaths and was a popular site for dog-walkers. Added to that list of recommendations it was only a short walk from The White House, Martha's embarrassingly pretentiously named home. When she and Martin had moved there fifteen years ago they had tried to think of a new name that would not sound as though they were mimicking a connection to the home of the president of the United States. The trouble was that the house was well named, being large and white, even with a bowed veranda at its front. It sat like an iceberg with a nose and on balance they had decided that they would sooner live in The White House than the Iceberg with its unpleasant connotations of sinking ships. And so, she suspected, the name would stay. She looked back at the house and remembered. Those had been the happy days – before Martin fell ill.

Sukey's long legs ending in Reeboks strode out along the path slightly ahead of her, Bobby keeping a watchful eye on the two women. He had a tendency to herd them like two dippy sheep. But they'd only gone a couple of hundred yards when Martha's mobile buzzed in her pocket. She recognized the caller ID: Simon. Simon Pendlebury, who had once been married to her dear friend, Evelyn. But, like Martin, Martha's husband, Evie had died and since then an uneasy friendship had sprung up between the two bereaved people. Uneasy? How so? First of all, uneasy because Martha didn't quite trust Simon. From humble beginnings he had become one of the super wealthy and she didn't quite know how except to trust that her friend, Evie, would never have condoned anything dishonest or underhand. Evie had been one of the most decent people Martha had ever known and she would not have married Simon unless she knew the answer to this puzzle.

Secondly Simon (and necessarily Evie too, although it was hard to believe) had somehow bred two of the most insufferable, selfish, ghastly daughters, Jocasta and Armenia. It would be a very brave woman who took on the chore of being stepmother to those two particular vipers: spoiled, demanding, determined to keep their father and their lifestyle to themselves. Martha suspected Simon would not marry again until both his daughters were also wed.

Her last reason for having reservations about him was that only a year ago Simon who was, like her, in his early forties, had ‘fallen in love' in the most clichéd and ridiculous way with a twenty-three-year-old girl called, just to complete the idiotic picture, Christabel. It had been a brief and passionate affair, predictably scuppered by the daughters, who had exposed a deprived and murky past for the poor girl and she'd taken off in a flood of tears. Since then Martha had felt even more that she wanted to distance herself from him. However, recently they had fallen back into an easy habit of meeting for dinner or just for a drink every few weeks. It was a casual and undemanding arrangement which suited them both. For all her reservations about him Simon was good company, intelligent, well read, charming and polite. But she could never quite relax in his company.

And now here he was, back on the line again.

He must have sensed that she was out of doors, perhaps from the echo of her voice, or maybe the ambient rustle of trees and twittering birdsong. ‘Where are you?'

‘Walking Bobby,' she said. ‘Why?'

He didn't answer straight away. ‘Wish I was with you,' he said. ‘Are you on your own?'

Martha glanced along the path. Though still in earshot Sukey had considerately moved fifty yards away and was playing throw the stick, catch the stick, bring the stick back, with an enthusiastic hound. She was pointedly
not
listening.

‘Where are
you?
' she asked, more out of politeness than curiosity.

‘In the hot office,' he said, ‘up to my eyeballs and looking out enviously at the bluest sky I've ever seen.' He gave a tight, humourless laugh. ‘I can't believe I still have to work so hard. Surely I should have some minions to do the dirty work?'

She caught her breath.
Dirty work?

He continued, ‘But I should be finished in a couple of hours. Are you busy tonight?'

She wished she was but the truth was, ‘No.'

‘Let me buy you dinner?'

Sukey was still eyeing her. Martha frowned. She didn't want to go out tonight. Not with Simon, not with anybody. Well, perhaps not with
anybody
– a certain pair of humour-filled hazel eyes seemed to blink, disembodied, right in front of her, but she certainly couldn't be bothered to make the effort with Simon. She heaved a great mental sigh and tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. ‘OK.'

‘Dress casual,' he said, sounding pleased. ‘I'll pick you up from your house. Seven o'clock.'

This was unusual. They usually met at the venue, both driving themselves as though neither wanted to risk extending the evening beyond dinner. Simon had almost
never
picked her up. Besides, seven was early for him. And he had never rung her in the afternoon to suggest a meeting that very night. Normally she had a couple of days' notice. The other thing that struck her was that he usually liked to eat at formal hotels. She couldn't remember a night when he had said ‘dress casual'. So what did this set of unusual circumstances signify? She just hoped he hadn't
fallen in love
again. She didn't think she could bear the toe-curling, cringingly embarrassing confessions. While there had been nothing wrong with poor Christabel there had been the undoubted disparity in their ages. And once the poor child had met Armenia and Jocasta it hadn't been long before she'd wisely taken to her heels and fled – even from the charming and urbane, expensively suited Simon, his beautiful house perfectly run by a German housekeeper, his top-of-the-range cars and flashy wealth. But once the two daughters had unearthed Christabel's
terrible
secret that her father was a jail bird, she had not stood a chance. And Simon's love had flown straight out of the window. He had never mentioned her since. Such is
lurve
.

Sukey was watching her with an adult perception in her bright eyes. ‘You don't really like him much, do you?'

Martha defended herself. ‘I don't not like him, Sukes,' she said, awkwardly defending herself. ‘I wouldn't have dinner with him if I didn't like him.' She was speaking the truth. It really wasn't that she didn't like him. Apart from the little objections she had just raised in her mind there was something else. She sensed a coldness around his heart. An icicle that she believed only Evelyn, with her soft ways and gentle voice, could have melted. The worst was that when they ate dinner together, sometimes laughing about events, she would look deep into his eyes and sense the same fear and knowledge inside him, however hard he tried to conceal it. Only Evie had held the key to his heart and anyone else would only ever come second best.

Martha knew that she herself had never known the core of the man. Like many charming and sophisticated men he kept his true self well hidden. Tightly wrapped up.

‘Yes, you
like
him,' Sukey persisted, frowning with adult perspicuity. ‘But why nothing more? He's good looking,' cheeky smile, ‘for an older man. He's got
pots
of money.'

‘I can't explain,' Martha said, wincing at her daughter's avarice. ‘I just know he's not …'

‘
Nobody's
going to be like Dad,' Sukey said with heavy, resigned firmness. It was obviously a well-worn phrase, dog-eared as an old book.

Then suddenly Martha laughed, throwing back her head and laughing loudly to the bright blue sky which seemed to laugh with her with her mouth wide open. Sukey watched, puzzled. ‘What?'

Mischievously, Martha chuckled. ‘And I'm sure you'd
really
like Armenia and Jocasta as your stepsisters.' Her chuckle grew even louder as she watched Sukey's expression of doubt as she absorbed the question. The next minute they were both running through the woods, Bobby snapping at their heels, barking joyfully. They ran until they were both breathless and stopped, still laughing in gasps of humour, Sukey bending over, hands on her knees. Martha felt like Christian at the end of
Pilgrim's Progress
, her burden rolling from her as she realized that she didn't have to love Simon. She didn't have to love anyone. She didn't have to fall in love again. There was no law that dictated she must marry again. And suddenly she was intoxicated with the pure expansive freedom of it. She was as free as a butterfly or a bird or any other of God's unfettered creatures. She could travel the world if she so wanted. And the word
alone
held no fear for her any more.

Sukey put her arms around her and pressed her cheek to her mother's. ‘Oh, Mum,' she said. ‘What am I going to do with you?'

And they ran again.

I read the papers too. I see what they make of the story. Nothing, actually. They have no perception, no insight. But my job is almost done. What job is that, you ask. Wait and see. You must be patient. The time must be right. So I study my fingers. I see the power that gleams from them; the ability to control is better than drinking the blood of infants. Even unbaptized infants. I can convert order into disorder. I am the destroyer as well as the creator; the healer as well as the cause of injury. I am both virus and bacteria. I am everything. I deliver a message so mystical only the blessed can read them and I am the blunt instrument of information, the knife that cuts through ties and slices through knots. I am Shiva and Parvati, both love and destruction. For isn't one simply the other in deceitful form?

Alex Randall was not allowing himself Saturday off in such a major and so far fruitless investigation. Besides, weekends at home were to be avoided as much as possible. Why stay, Alex? he asked himself frequently. Why stay? Why not go? Be free? There was no logical answer to this particular poser.

But for now he must leave behind his own private problems and focus on the missing child. Feeling that the answer had to lie somewhere in the vicinity of the Stretton Hills, he had driven down to Carding Mill Valley himself, parked and headed up the slope towards Hope Cottage.

Signs had been left all over the place appealing for any help tracing Daisy but they were rain-stained now, dog-eared and torn in spite of being laminated, and some had dropped to the floor, trampled into the mud. If anything signified the depressing lack of progress in this case, these were the tangible evidence. An area around the stream was marked with Police Do Not Cross tape and two personnel were searching the ground, but Randall could have told them that they would find nothing there. He was beginning to understand the subtlety of their adversary. She was not careless.

On the warm, weekend day, plenty of people were around; more than usual, Randall sensed. Some of them, he guessed, were not pleasure-seekers but thrill-seekers hoping to find a trace of Daisy and maybe claim the £20,000 reward that had been put up by Shrewsbury Police. In the absence of anything but the false trail of clues which was leading nowhere it was to be hoped that the money would flush out some of the secrets surrounding Daisy's disappearance.

He could see Charity's four-by-four parked outside so it was reasonable to assume that she was at home.

He was right.

She opened the door, her smile fading when she realized who her visitor was. She looked questioningly at him, vaguely hostile.

‘I'm sorry to bother you, Ms Ignatio,' he began, ‘but we're still curious as to the connection between the accident, the disappearance of the little girl and the mystery call.' He opened his eyes wide. ‘Why your cottage?' he asked bluntly.

‘Oh, come on, Inspector,' she responded, her eyes hard. ‘Look around you. It's not exactly a housing estate here, is it? It's practically the only house in the vicinity.'

‘I know,' he said awkwardly, ‘but there are others just down the track. If this person was local they would have known that. Besides, if you climb only a little way up the hill you get a perfectly good mobile signal so they needn't have broken into your cottage to use the phone. I would have thought they would have known that too.'

‘The caller may not have had a mobile phone.'

‘Practically everybody does these days,' Alex Randall pointed out gently. ‘And whatever the facts of the case, why leave the scene? Why not wait for the emergency services to arrive? Why take the child? For what purpose?'

Charity simply shrugged as though it was nothing to do with her, implying that she didn't care either.

But Randall didn't want to leave it at this. He hesitated on the doorstep, anxious not to leave. He felt instinctively that either Charity or her home held some sort of clue. There were these fragile and tenuous connections. The bunch of herbs, the Death Cap left on the doorstep, the use of her home which surely pointed to something? And he still had the card of her old maybe-crime hidden up his sleeve ready to flourish when it would produce the biggest reaction. Aware that he was still grasping at straws he prompted her, conversationally, ‘Tell me a bit about Hope Cottage.'