Undercurrent (34 page)

'Maggie, don't go back to that husband. Look what he made you. Took away the poetry. And don't close the window, please don't.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

After she had gone, Henry waited. He stared at the ceiling and saw the cracks he had never noticed before, either, tried to conjure up Francesca's face as he had last seen it, on the bus which drove her away, twenty years before.

It was light that distorted faces, gave them a different texture. If he were to see her now, in the same light as then, he would know her for sure, but he had never seen her under the grey skies which had influenced her flawless complexion. He could not really remember the face or what it was about it which had convinced him of the goodness within.

Sitting on the train, coming into Warbling, he had tried to recall it and tried, painstakingly to reconstruct what it might look like now. What he could remember was a series of dissociated details, such as a prominent eyebrow, so much darker than the colour of her hair, the tanned cheekbones, the lack of jewellery, her profile against the sun, how she put out a hand with bitten nails to wave away the camera he had carried through a continent. The way she coiled her long, fair hair against the back of her neck and how soft it felt when he touched it.

He remembered the happiness she had brought to making love. When did I start wanting you. Henry? Was I five, or six, or seven? How typical of a man that he could recall the details of her slender body far better than he could remember her face. And the feeling of heat and sheer belonging; the acceptance that she was the centre of his universe as he was of hers and always would be.

How little he had mattered in the scheme of things, how naive and selfish and insecure to resent other loyalties. He was not the love of her life; he was merely one of them. Francesca had a cast iron set of priorities, like his own father. 'Dad,' Henry sighed. 'What would you do?' His forehead was sticky with perspiration.

He got off the bed and tiptoed out of the door and down to the next landing. Staring down to the ground floor, he could see the shawl on the newel post, Maggie's signal that she had gone for a late night bath, and there was the distant rumble of the plumbing.

He went back to his room, picked up his shoes and rummaged in his case for the lightweight rainproof cape he had packed somewhere so carefully he had forgotten its existence. It crinkled as he went downstairs. He carried his shoes until he reached the outside door.

So much easier to act drunk when distress made him feel it. He could feel the booze at the back of his throat like a metallic taste with the sherry as the last note, a single glass of the bottle which had lasted all week. He didn't like it much. The light-headedness persisted, the sweat froze.

The cold dispelled the last vestiges of the earlier wine and beer. Between here and the castle, on the beach by himself; that was where she said Neil was. Neil was the last hope. He was not going to talk voluntarily, none of them were now. He would have to be taken by surprise. Henry broke into a jog.

The mist was damp. He pulled the hood of the cape round his face. There was nothing intimidating about the dark unless it was enclosed. He could have heard himself from a mile away.

It was weeks since he had jogged or done anything sensible like that and he felt his legs creak in protest and his breath telling him to stop. His shoes were all wrong. He could see the light of the fire on the beach ahead and the shadow of a black umbrella.

He slowed down. If he crossed on to the beach now, the noise of his footsteps would waken the dead and he would be slow. Henry stayed close to the inland side of the road, huddling against the houses until he was past the campfire. Not a fire, he noticed, a burning Camping Gaz lantern sufficient to illuminate and warm the hands. Two forms huddled around it. If he jumped down the steps at the nearest point, Neil would have no time to move. Henry would walk towards him slowly, like a fellow fisherman with a query about his luck, ask him how he was doing.

The sound of his feet landing on the shingle seemed unnaturally loud. The drop was further than it seemed and Henry felt as if he had crashed to earth.

The two forms by the umbrella moved as he approached, broke apart and doubled in size.

The breeze made Henry's cape flap and crinkle noisily as he strode towards them, ready to say hi, as if this almost midnight encounter was natural. He waved and the cape waved with him. Then the gaslight was held aloft, illuminating his galloping form as he moved closer like a great moth with large, nylon wings.

There was a gasp; the lamp crashed to earth; the dog barked and Neil staggered. Henry had a brief glimpse of a grimacing mouth and then the other man began to run, sidestepping him, better used to moving on shingle, more familiar with the contours of the beach. Reaching the edge he clambered up the steps Henry had not seen, the dog at his heels.

'Come back!' Henry shouted, but the words came out like a whisper.

He followed, memorizing the steps of the man, reaching the sidewalk and seeing him make off in the direction of the castle and the pier. He was suddenly furious, as if the man had slapped him for no reason or pushed him to one side. I only want to talk to you, why won't you talk to me?

Nobody wanted to talk to him; he was sick of it, began to jog again, pacing himself, fuelled with sullen determination. Neil ran unsteadily, his unathletic build encumbered by enough extra weight to slow him down. The dog pranced around him silently as if it was a game; Henry could see them in the streetlights, their disparate heights making them look like an odd, comic team. Then the dog got in the way of Neil's feet and he stumbled, correcting himself before he hit the ground, losing all rhythm to his running and moving slower and slower. The dog seemed to try and impede him and Neil seemed to forget where he was and the direction he wanted to go. He looked over his shoulder and as he did so, the dog stopped. It stood still for a second, a growl sounding in its chest, its body braced. Then it launched itself forward and tore back towards Henry. It grew in size in the approach, turning into a big black wolf.

He stood stock still for a moment of terror, keeping his eyes on the man rather than the animal, waiting for the man to give an order, convinced that the dog would leap for his throat, knock him to the ground and tear at him. He clenched his fists beneath the cape, but the dog did nothing but slew to a skidding halt and stop by his side, panting. Still with his eyes on the man.

Henry could see the despairing slump of his shoulders, as if he was saying, you traitor, you damned traitor, leaving me now. Henry began to move again, striding until they stood level, the dog between them. When he was close enough, Henry saw that the other man was trembling. Fear in his case, downright anger in Henry's own.

'What'ya do that for?' he demanded. They were level with one of the archaic bus shelters which littered the front at random intervals. They were like solid concrete bunkers facing the sea.

Neil moved inside the shelter with a groan and sat down. Henry followed. It was a bleak enough place to avoid the world. 'I thought you were a fucking ghost,' Neil said. 'Flapping about like that.

Fucking Valkyrie with no hair and a tail.' He began to laugh, a harsh, breathless sound which was more like a wheeze and singularly lacking in humour.

Henry pushed back the hood of the cape. The bunker was icy cold, he was burning up with heat and not disposed to be apologetic. Far too irritated for that.

'What ghost?'

'Oh, ghosts who live in there -' he pointed to where the castle walls loomed in the near distance. 'Those ghosts.'

'Crap,' Henry said. 'You were running away from me.' Neil nodded as the trembling began to cease. 'I might have done that too, if I'd known,' he conceded, 'but I was really just running. I always knew they'd get out one of these days.'

'Nights,' Henry corrected, breathing heavily.

'Yes, I meant nights. Of course. Anyway when the dog left me I could see there was no point.

They'd got me at last.' He laughed again. 'I should be grateful it's only you.'

Neil shuffled on the bench seat, withdrawing into a corner , not wanting to be close and patently embarrassed as awareness of Henry's identity hit home. Only you. He looked utterly miserable.

'I suppose I owe you an apology,' he said resentfully.

'Several, really. Should have been in a fit state to let you out of the castle, but I wasn't.

Shouldn't have got into your room, but I did. I'm bloody sorry about that.' Henry shrugged.

Apologies disarmed him, he was as ready to accept them as make them, whatever the circumstances. He nodded.

'You couldn't have found much,' he said. 'Vitamins are all I carry and if you want Viagra, why it's easy. 'You can order it on the net, like everyone else does.'

Neil began to laugh again, nervous hysteria, tinged with relief. 'I can? Oh Christ, why didn't I think of that? Jesus Christ.' Then he sobered, sighed gustily.

'Might be better if I stuck to fishing. At least I know what I'm doing.'

'Catch much?' Henry asked, chattily.

'No, that isn't the point.'

He would never understand the English. Fished without wanting to catch fish.

'I owe you,' Neil said. 'You could have reported me to the police. I'd have left fingerprints all over. You could have complained about being locked in ... Maggie could have shopped me for ignoring the alarm. I owe you.' Henry raised his hand to stop the babbling. He wasn't going to say there was small chance of fingerprints because of the way Peter and Tim scoured and dusted, nor would he say it would not have occurred to him to go anywhere near the police in case it was himself who would be put into a cell.

'You owe me sweet nothing. A few facts'd be nice.'

'Facts?' Neil said scornfully. 'I don't deal in facts. Only history.'

'This is history. All I ever did want to ask you was do you think Francesca killed her boy?'

The words came out badly; he was making a hash of this. 'I mean, were things really as bad as that?

You knew them all and your wife won't talk to me.'

Neil began to shake again. The bus shelter saved them from the breeze which shooed away the mist.

He seemed to have a resurgence of the fear which had made him run and he looked at Henry as if he was the fang-toothed spirit of his nightmares. 'Don't,' he said. 'Please don't. It isn't fair.'

'It's perfectly fair. You weren't ever asked for a statement, were you? No need by the time they got round to you. They had all the answers. She'd given them. Just tell me what you think, that's all. I'm not going to tell anyone else, I just want to know.' Henry crossed his fingers to save himself from the curse of telling a lie. There was a silence, punctuated by the background sound of the sea and the sigh of the dog as it settled itself with its head on Henry's knee.

At another moment, he would have felt absurdly comforted by this gesture of allegiance, but for now he was pleased with the animal for conspiring with him to isolate its owner. Or what passed for an owner. He might even have admired Neil Hulme for being a dedicated fisherman except for the fact that this dog, which was clearly his, wandered around by itself all day and that was cruel. The silence continued and the shaking increased. It seemed to communicate itself to the walls. 'OK, OK,' Henry said, leaning down to stroke the dog's ears. Silky soft, not such a bad owner after all, not so much cruel as negligent. 'Just take me through the morning it happened. You went round to get Tanya to take her to school... so there you were .. .'

'Did she say that? The bitch, the bloody bitch . . . why did she have to mention me? That's about all the use I am. A bloody alibi... the bitch.'

'No, not really. It means she's an alibi for you, too. In case anyone should reckon you were on that damn pier, fishing away, catching dozens, thinking away when along comes this irritating little kid who kicks over the bait and snags the line and pisses you off just when you have the hangover from hell and a bad night with a woman and life's a bitch and your temper's gone, man, really gone.' Henry exaggerated his drawl and his alien vowel sounds, making himself the caricature American. 'You fisher
meyen
, tetchy critters. Kind of man, sitting out there
all aloan
, when every other son of a bitch is tucked up with his sweetie . . .'

The response was not quite what he had predicted.

If he had ever predicted at all about what he was playing by ear, he might have expected to be punched in the nose, which would not have bothered him much, especially as he was aping the role of a second-rate sheriff in a B movie. Henry did not expect the sigh of relief and the slow expulsion of nervous, spontaneous laughter so free of artifice that his heart sank. Neil was not the answer; Neil was not going to give him an alternative explanation to the one he thought he already knew.

'Oh is that it? Fine. I'll own up, then. Killed the little fucker, never liked him anyway.

February's a bad time of year. I don't care, I don't care. I'll swing for that. I thought that what you were going to say was . . . was . . . was . .. Oh Jesus.'

He dived into his pocket for a ready-made spliff, fished in the other for a lighter and sucked greedily.

Henry could not avoid the curiosity of his prudish self which wondered why the saliva-coated stub handed to him in bizarre courtesy should present such a challenge.

He took and sucked tentatively, remembering a code of conduct abandoned long since. Pass it back. Hide the distaste of its lousy texture and pretend gratitude. Neil had stopped shaking. If this was all it took to keep out the cold and shove emotion into a corner, he might try it. Another long, shuddering sigh erupted from him as he sat back against the unwelcoming shelter of the concrete. A shadow of moss grew above the corner he occupied. Henry looked at the featureless ceiling, grey, yellow, patched with black, as worn and speckled as his own conscience,

'I thought you were going to say it was obvious. That she did it. Angela. She fucking loathed him, poor little brute. She had time to do it, 'cos I was late, see? Very late, s'far as I knew. And there was no one there, no one at all. They'd already gone. Lights on, no one at home, like the Marie Celeste, but doors locked. Then I looked at the time, and thought, Christ, I am late. Serve 'em right.