The Various Haunts of Men (43 page)

He spun round in his chair and stared at me for a long time, his eyes steady and deep.

‘What makes you
feel that this is where your future lies?’

‘An inner conviction.’

‘Do you hope to be a rich man?’

I laughed. ‘I don’t expect to become a millionaire.’

‘You don’t answer my question.’

‘I am not here because I expect to make a fortune. But I have been poor and I confess I have found it a miserable experience.’

He said nothing more, but got up and went to his
desk, where he jotted down some
names and addresses.

‘Write for information, find out all you can. Any of these people will advise you. Mention my name. But if you succeed – be prepared for ridicule and hostility. Could you cope with that?’

‘Yes,’ I answered confidently. I have never had any interest in the good opinion of others.

Finally, he lent me three books to study. ‘By the time you have read them carefully and thoroughly
and then thought about what you have read, you will know. One way or the other.’

I thanked him and got up. I was anxious to get home and to begin reading them, to open the first doors on to my future life. But the certainty was mine already.

‘Sarge?’

‘Hi, Nathan, what did she give you?’

‘Chocolate cake to die for.’

‘And?’

‘And the old girl was going to a medium. Trying to get in touch with her Harry.’

‘Why didn’t the neighbour tell us that before?’

‘Said she felt it was a sort of betrayal, like, didn’t think Mrs Chater wanted any Tom, Dick and Harry knowing … well, she wanted Harry to know, if you get me, only –’

‘Cut the bad jokes.’

‘Sorry … anyway, she said, Mrs Moss, only I got to call her Pauline –’

‘– I bet you did.’

‘She said it was all a bit secret … apparently, she were the one found out the name of this spook-raiser and she give it to Mrs Chater who went once, then went all quiet about it. I think Pauline was trying to protect her really, you know, from everyone taking the mick.’

‘Did you get
the name?’

‘On my way.’

‘Good boy. By the way, the DCI’s going for a reconstruction – Debbie Parker walking down her street in the early morning, and round the perimeter road of the Hill.’

‘When’s that?’

‘Thursday morning. They’re looking for a girl now.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’m off to the jeweller in Bevham … I want you to go up to Starly, interview our friend Dava again, give him a real
grilling.’

‘Hold on, Sarge, when do I get my lunch?’

‘You don’t need lunch, you’ve had half a chocolate cake.’

‘Sarge! Have a heart.’

‘OK, you can have a cup of dandelion tea in that green café.’

Nathan made a retching noise and rang off.

The jeweller was polite, cool, willing to be helpful but sure he could tell her nothing more.

‘I would like you to take your time and think back very
carefully to Miss Randall’s visits here. Can you remember the conversations you had with her when she was choosing the items and purchasing them? I want you to try and remember if she said anything at all that might give us a clue as to who the recipient was.’

‘Or recipients?’

‘What I’m getting at is that people usually have some sort of conversation when buying items of this kind … it isn’t
a quick purchase, like buying a bar of soap at the chemist. If I came in here to buy something expensive and special for someone … say, a birthday, I would take
my time choosing it and I would involve the salesperson in the purchase … it’s part of the fun, if you like. Especially when items are costly and you don’t buy them every day. I would probably say this gold chain is a christening present
for a new niece, or ask if you would recommend a particular type of cufflink for a brother’s fortieth birthday.’

‘People do that, yes.’

‘Often?’

‘Quite frequently, yes.’

‘But not Angela Randall? Never? Not once? Didn’t that strike you as odd.’

‘Miss Randall simply asked me to show her items of a certain type or within a certain price range … she never discussed why she was buying them.’

‘Or for whom?’

‘No.’

‘And you didn’t ask her?’

He looked prim. ‘Certainly not. It is none of our business unless a customer chooses to tell us.’

‘Did you ever get the feeling that these were gifts for a lover?’

‘No. She wasn’t that kind of person.’

‘So what kind of person was she?’

He thought for a moment. ‘Restrained. Private. Pleasant but … yes, private is the best word – not the kind
of lady who made small talk.’

‘Do you think she would tell, say, her hairdresser, her business?’

‘No. And we, of course, are not hairdressers.’

Which makes them a pretty low form of pond life in your world picture, Freya thought as she left the shop and crossed the street towards her favourite café.

It was just emptying after the lunchtime crowds, and she found a table in the window, ordered
a brie and salad ciabatta and a large cappuccino, and got out her notebook. It always helped if she could think quietly for half an hour after an interview, jotting as she went along if anything came to her. But nothing did. The visit to Duckham’s had been a waste of time. She decided to go back to Angela Randall’s sterile little house. But the whole investigation was going nowhere except up against
an impenetrable fog. Fog. Angela Randall had last been seen running into one. It seemed appropriate. But at least she had been seen by someone. No one had seen Debbie Parker or Mrs Iris Chater.

Freya bit into her ciabatta and the salad dressing dribbled out of the bread and down her chin and hands. As she started to wipe them with the paper napkin, she glanced up and saw someone on the other
side of the café window, looking in and trying to attract her attention. It was Simon Serrailler’s sister.

Any interruption to such a frustrating circle of thought was welcome, but Cat Deerbon more welcome than anyone else Freya could think of, save her brother.

‘Isn’t it typical? Someone always catches you when you dribble salad dressing down yourself. There’s no way of eating this thing politely.’

‘Like éclairs.’

‘Join me – have a coffee? Or one of these?’

Cat Deerbon sat down, and dumped a couple of large carrier bags on the floor.

‘Child shopping – bor-ing. Vests, socks, pyjamas, knickers … I’d love a large espresso and – not a sandwich. What?’ She looked at the menu. ‘A toasted teacake. How nice to see you again. Aren’t you on duty?’

‘Oh yes, I’ve just been interviewing someone.
But we’re allowed to eat. You?’

‘Half day. And the children look like waifs their clothes are so outgrown. I had to do something about it.’

Freya looked more closely at her. When you knew that she and Simon were brother and sister, you could see a resemblance, about the eyes, and the mouth, but their colouring was different, Simon looked older and it would never have seemed likely that they
were two of triplets.

Cat bit into her teacake and the hot butter ran down her chin. They giggled.

This is Simon’s sister, this is his flesh and blood. This is not only a woman whom I like, and who might become a real friend, this is someone who knows him as well or better than anyone. I want to ask her about him, I want to hear about him, everything, his tastes, how he behaved as a child, his
relationship with his father, where he goes on holiday, who his friends are … the women Sharon says have been in love with him, the hearts he has broken.

It seemed impossible to begin. But Cat brought the conversation round to Starly. ‘You know, people have lots of reasons for wanting to become doctors … not always good reasons, but I guess in the main they’re respectable ones. I just can’t fathom
what lies behind someone setting up as these extremist alternatives. What is this guy, the psychic surgeon so-called? Is he mad or bad?’

‘Same question as we ask about people who commit certain crimes. Paedophiles, some killers. Mad? What’s mad? You can answer that better than I can.’

Cat shook her head. ‘Only in the most obvious and clear-cut cases and they are pretty few, you know. Truly,
certifiably, permanently “mad” – deranged, out of all touch with normal human reality. It’s rare.’

‘Bad then. I don’t know if any of these people are simply bad. Misguided.’

‘There has perhaps been some thwarted desire to do good, to heal … and it’s become channelled in the wrong direction, or warped in some way.’

‘It must be a power trip as well. Especially when people are so grateful they
call you a miracle worker.’

‘I sometimes think all of medicine is a bit of a power trip actually. I can think of quite a few consultants who get off on power.’

‘You see, what puzzles me is that this guy – and not only this one – does actually seem to have an effect. People claim to be cured.’

‘Most conditions that are not life-threatening get better on their own anyway and the power of placebo
should never be underestimated. I’d like to talk to someone who has claimed to be cured of cancer or multiple sclerosis or motor neurone disease by a psychic surgeon or a crystal healer. I’d like to talk to them every six months for the next ten years and see if they still make the claim. They won’t, of course.’

‘Do no harm … isn’t that your first principle?’

‘Yes. But I’m a qualified doctor.’

The waitress came to clear the table.

‘Another coffee?’

‘I ought to get back.’

‘So ought I.’

‘Then we’ll have another coffee. And there’s something I need to clear up … was my father very rude to you the other evening?’

Freya made a face. ‘Ish.’

Cat’s face coloured quickly. ‘God, he makes me so furious. He does it to wreck anything Mother does,
anything to stop other people having a good
time, anything to put a curse on an event.’

‘He seems rather bitter.’

‘He is.’

‘Has he had disappointments?’

‘No. Well – Si not going into medicine was a blow. As if there weren’t plenty of Serrailler doctors to keep him happy. He hated retiring, hated it. He was resentful, depressed, angry … whereas my mother just accepted the inevitable and got on with the rest of her life.’

‘And how.’

‘Absolutely. Dad wallowed in self-pity for a couple of years and then took to being rude. I’m sorry you copped it and I apologise.’

‘I’ve coped with worse – don’t think about it. I was more puzzled than anything else.’

Their coffees came and Cat stirred her espresso several times, before she looked up at Freya and said, ‘There’s Martha too, of course. Has Si mentioned her?’

‘No, but …’

‘No,
I suppose he wouldn’t tell people at work. He finds it difficult.’

‘I have seen Simon outside work.’

‘Oh?’ Cat looked at her sharply.

‘We had dinner.’

‘Right.’

Freya wanted desperately to tell Cat about the evening in Simon’s flat, about the dinner at the Italian restaurant, about her feelings. The conversation might open into a new realm of intimacy between them. Instead, Cat said, ‘Martha
is our younger sister … ten years younger than us. You know we’re triplets? There’s Ivo as well, in Australia.’

‘Yes, Simon told me.’

‘Martha is very seriously handicapped, mentally and physically. She’s always been so. The only surprise is that she didn’t die as a child. She lives in a special home at Chanvy Wood. It has eaten my father’s life away and he barely mentions her – I don’t think
he and I have had more than two or three conversations about Martha in my life. If anything made him bitter and angry and resentful it was that.’

‘Hard for Meriel.’

‘Very. But then, a lot of things have been hard for her and she has simply shouldered them and batted on. I may not always get on easily with Ma – she drives me nuts sometimes – but I admire her more than I can express.’

‘Does your
father blame anyone – or anything for Martha’s condition?’

‘I’ve no idea. Oh, himself, probably, deep down in a place no one would ever be able to get to. Of course it’s nonsense, it was simply a chromosomal accident. There’s no history of it in either family. But it’s hard to be rational about something like this when it happens to you. I know, I’ve dealt with patients in the same situation.’

‘I wonder why Simon didn’t mention it.’

‘Simon has a lot of my father in him, but just in a more positive way. He’s very private too … there are places just as deep in him. You just don’t go there.’

‘No one?’

Cat gave her a long look. ‘No one. It’s none of my business, Freya, but … just don’t try. I love my brother dearly but I’m probably the only woman in the world apart from Mother who can
do so.’

She drained her coffee and reached down to get her carrier bags together. ‘I must get off home with my vests
and knickers.’ She started to get out her purse but Freya put out her hand. ‘No, these are on the CID. You’ve been helping the police with their inquiries. Actually, you have – I needed to talk over this Starly business.’

‘Come and see us at home, will you? If you could bear the
chaos of Sunday lunch?’

‘I’d love to.’

‘I’ll ring.’ Cat bent down suddenly and touched Freya’s cheek with her own. ‘I’m really glad I looked in through the window.’

Freya watched her leave, bundling with her bags through the door, and felt elated, in spite of the warning about Simon, the same warning that had come from Sharon Medcalf. She liked Cat for herself. She also thought that, in spite
of the dutiful speech, Cat liked her and might even see her as good for her brother. Please, she said, putting her notebook away, yes, please.

He had gone to the unit at half past five that morning in order to look at the real Debbie so that he had her clearly in mind, as she was now and as she had been. When he arrived on the perimeter of the Hill, they were already there, crowds of them, police vans, reporters, television crews, like a film set with all the hangers-on those entailed. It was early but plenty of people had heard
about it and come to stare, women mainly, and a few teenagers before they went on to catch the school buses.