All Things Undying (14 page)

‘I know how you're feeling, Hannah. Gutted.' She touched my arm lightly. ‘Come as you are. By the time you get downstairs, I'll be in my pajamas, too.'

After Janet left, I splashed some water on my face, then wandered over to the wardrobe where I found the fluffy terrycloth robe Janet provided for each of her guests, pulled it off the padded hanger and slipped into it gratefully. I spent several frustrating minutes looking for my slippers before remembering that I hadn't packed any, then padded downstairs wearing a pair of the gray wool socks Paul never travelled anywhere without.

The door to the lounge was propped open with an iron cat sculpture with marbles for eyes. Inside, I found Janet already sitting on the couch, legs stretched out, feet propped up on the coffee table next to a bottle of red wine and two balloon glasses. The television was on, its volume muted.

Janet patted the sofa cushion next to her, indicating I should park myself there. ‘Red or red?'

‘After carefully considering the options, I'll take red.'

She poured, but when she passed the glass to me, it was so large I had to use both hands.

We sat in companionable silence, slowly sipping, watching the screen numbly as a silent parade of policemen, some apparently wearing cameras affixed to their heads, brought petty criminals to justice on the highways, byways and back gardens of Britain.

‘We were just becoming good friends. And the girls adored her!' Janet sobbed for the third or fourth time since I'd returned to Horn Hill House and delivered the bad news. She snatched a tissue from the box that sat on the sofa between us and blew her nose.

I choked up, too, thinking of my mother and missing her terribly. With Susan gone, that door had slammed shut. It was as if Mother had died all over again. I reached for a fresh tissue.

Janet had inverted the wine bottle over my glass, wringing out the last few drops, when the clock on the mantel chimed ten. Susan switched to the evening news on BBC One, and we sat through stories about the Iraq war, swine flu, rising university tuition fees and how eating fish might protect us from Alzheimers, but surprisingly, there was no mention of Susan Parker's death.

At 10:25, BBC One gave way to Spotlight BBC South-West. Janet aimed the remote, and turned up the sound.

A news reader with perfectly styled, variegated blond hair fixed serious blue eyes on the camera lens and began:

‘That's it? That's all they're going to say about it?'

Janet flapped a hand. ‘Shhh. Look! That's Royal Park Garden!'

While I sputtered in outrage, the camera cut to a panorama of the historic park that stood opposite the Embankment near the spot where Susan had died. Viewers were treated to serene close-ups of the Victorian fountain, cheerfully splashing, flower beds in summer profusion, and tourists resting their weary bones on park benches, before coming to rest on a reporter standing in front of the bandstand, the midday sun highlighting his hair like a halo as the wind swirled it around his head.

The woman in the pink warm-ups must have hung around the scene for some time after the ambulance took Susan away, because she loitered at the reporter's right, shifting her weight nervously back and forth from one trainer-clad foot to another, almost as if she were jogging in place. ‘I saw the driver's face!' she told the reporter. ‘Screwed up like this, it was.' She furrowed her brow until her eyes became slits. Her lips formed a firm straight line. ‘Determined, I'd say. Drove that car deliberately over the curb and aimed it straight at that poor woman!'

‘Was the driver a man or a woman?' the reporter asked, then thrust the microphone in the direction of her brightly painted mouth.

‘I
think
it was a woman, but it could have been a very short man. The driver was looking
through
the steering wheel, like this.' She raised her hands to a ten and two o'clock position and scowled between them in the direction of the camera. ‘Whoever it was had white hair, I'm sure of that. Or maybe it was blond.'

I sat up as straight as anyone could while cradling an oversize wine glass in both hands. ‘You didn't mention that this morning, you stupid cow!' I shouted at the florid face now filling Janet's television screen. ‘Or maybe you did, and I wasn't paying attention.' I collapsed, melting back into the cushions. ‘They must still be trying to notify Susan's next of kin, right? Otherwise they'd be reporting her name?'

‘That shouldn't take long. Susan's face will be all over the news by morning.' Janet flicked the controls and the television screen went blank. ‘We're out of wine,' she announced after a moment in which the only sound was that of a toilet flushing somewhere in the house. ‘But the situation is easily remedied.' She winked. ‘I know where Alan keeps the key. Back in a tick.'

And she was, too, carrying two bottles of Cotes du Rhone Villages 1996 and a corkscrew. As she held one of the bottles between her knees and worked the cork out, she said, ‘I hope this isn't something Alan's saving for a special occasion.'

‘You're a clever girl. You'll think of something to tell him.' I held my glass out for a refill.

Janet poured herself a glass, took a sip, smacked her lips. ‘It's not exactly cooking wine, is it?'

‘Not even close,' I said, feeling mellower by the minute.

We shared another long cry, during the course of which the box of tissues became empty and the second bottle of wine magically opened itself. Janet topped off our glasses, slopping a bit of wine on the oriental carpet. ‘Never mind. It's the same color as the rug,' she said, rubbing it into the thick pile with the toe of her shoe.

I don't remember much after that, except declaring emphatically to Alan when he wandered in from the Cherub somewhere around midnight that no matter what the police had to say, I was in complete agreement with the woman in the pink warm-up suit. Susan's death had been no accident.

Janet, bless her, had the presence of mind to stumble to the kitchen and fetch me a tall glass of water and a packet of liver salts. She watched while I dumped the contents of the packet into the water, waited for it to fizz, then drink the mixture down before sending me upstairs to bed, like a good mother.

Janet should have taken some liver salts herself. Although I was in rough shape the following day, I managed to crawl out of bed, shower, and show up for breakfast around nine o'clock, only to find that Janet was so hungover that Alan was manning the kitchen, cooking breakfast for the guests.

I slid into my chair and made it easy for him by ordering hot tea and a slice of wholewheat toast.

While I nibbled on the crust, I could hear Sam and Vicky playing with Bruce in the kitchen. Their delighted squeals made my head hurt. I hoped the girls would get to keep the dog, and that the little fellow didn't get tied up – like Susan's estate was likely to, considering what she'd said about her ex-husband – in a lawsuit.

After breakfast, I decided to take a walk, hoping the fresh morning air would clear my head. I stopped at the boat float, the artificial harbor where several dozen wooden boats bobbed in postcard-perfect perfection, struck by the way the sky and a scattering of clouds were perfectly mirrored by the water on that calm, windless day.

On the off-chance that somebody would tell me something about the investigation into Susan's death, I headed for the police station on the corner across from the Flavel Arts Centre. In contrast to the modern, but thoughtfully designed cinema/theater/art gallery/library, the police station was part of a relentlessly ugly, glass and concrete, post-nuclear style building, housed in a corner storefront tacked on like an afterthought, having all the style of, say, a Tandoori takeaway. Although a police car was parked in a reserved spot nearby, I found the door to the station locked. Shading my eyes, I peered though the window at a short row of chairs opposite a closed door and a ticket booth-style window. Nobody was home. When I stepped back, I noticed a sign on the door that informed me of the number I should dial in case of an emergency.

‘Damn!'

Back home in Maryland, I had an inside track with law enforcement. Paul's sister, Connie, was married to a Chesapeake County police lieutenant. In England, though, I was on my own.

Trusting that all of Dartmouth's Finest were out investigating Susan Parker's death, I turned my back on the empty police station and took a stroll through the lush, sub-tropical beauty of Royal Park Gardens, ending up at the bandstand. I plopped myself down on the top step and closed my eyes, turning my face toward the sun. Somewhere behind me, a busker began playing ‘Fly Me To The Moon' on a harmonica, the instrument making the tune sound so plaintive and haunting that I fought back a fresh flood of tears.

As much as I had wanted to cry on his shoulder, I hadn't called Paul. I knew he'd put on his Supportive Husband hat and insist on rushing back to Dartmouth, but the last thing in the world I wanted was for him to abandon his adventure – man against the sea – to rescue a damsel, no matter how keen her distress. I must have been sending out melancholy vibes, however, because my cell phone picked that moment to ring.

‘Hannah! I just heard about Susan Parker. Dreadful news!'

So I got to cry on his shoulder after all, but had the surprisingly great presence of mind not to mention that I'd actually been at the scene of the accident. That would have brought Paul back to Dartmouth with a rocket tied to his tail.

After we said goodbye, I found myself inexplicably drawn to the Embankment, to the place where it happened. When I got there, barely twenty-four hours after Susan's death, the spot was already covered with mounds of flowers, everything from single buds to elaborate bouquets from Smith Street Flowers, even a wreath which someone had apparently liberated from a local cemetery bearing the inscription ‘RIP Mother'. Stuffed animals, photographs of Susan torn from fan magazines, letters of condolence encased in plastic spilled out over the pavement. I flashed back to the floral tributes at Kensington Gardens following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, then to the impromptu memorial on the banks of the South River at the spot where the body of my friend Melanie Fosher had washed ashore. Overwhelmed with sadness, I made my way to the nearest park bench and sat down on it.

And I watched them come. Middle-aged women, young twenty-somethings, girls in their teens, even the occasional man showed up to pay their respects to the late medium and clairvoyant. As the sun climbed higher in the sky, warming Kingswear across the Dart until its buildings glowed as if lit from within, I sat glued to the bench, watching the pile of floral tributes grow.

Would Susan's murderer return to the scene of the crime?

Spookily, just as that thought entered my head, I noticed someone familiar loitering at the fringes of the crowd. It was the red headband that first caught my eye, the same headband she had been wearing outside the Palace Theatre in Paignton: Olivia Sandman. Today she was dressed in a long-sleeved cotton top, and I could see the shadows of thin legs through the lightweight fabric of a flowered skirt that swished about her ankles.

I remembered the brochure Olivia had given me and fished it out of my handbag. WTL: Way, Truth and Life. I unfolded it for the first time, and scanned the contents.

Like Mikey from the old Life cereal advertising campaign, the WTL Guardians seemed to hate everything. Animal cruelty, abortion, gays, witchcraft, Muslims, wi-fi networks, the rock star Lady Gaga, and the Bishop Administrator of the Anglican Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham in particular. It was a peculiarly comprehensive catalog. As far as I could tell, the only thing WTL loved was Jesus.

Could one of the Guardians have run Susan down? Susan had always blown the group off, and yet fanatics of any religious persuasion could prove dangerous. Perhaps Susan's flippant dismissal of Alf and his band of tiny-minded men (and women) had been misguided. On the BRNC episode of
Dead Reckoning
, she'd seemed more concerned about her ex – what was his name? Greg? – than about the demonstrators.

So how about Greg Parker himself? But he was in California. Or was he?

I decided it wouldn't hurt to talk with Olivia, shake her tree, and see what fell out of it, so I wandered ever-so-casually over to the palm tree planter where the young woman was sitting and plopped myself down on the warm stones next to her. ‘Hi, Olivia. I'm Hannah. Remember me from the other night?'

Olivia considered me through the lenses of a pair of rimless eyeglasses. ‘In front of the Palace Theatre, right?'

‘Uh huh.'

‘It's terrible what happened, innit? That accident.' Olivia nodded in the direction of the floral memorial.

‘Very upsetting,' I agreed.

‘Someone driving drunk, I bet.'

‘I'm sure the police want everyone to
think
it was one of your garden-variety hit and runs, but I understand that they're looking into the possibility that someone ran Susan Parker down intentionally.' I was making it up as I went along.

Olivia's eyes widened. ‘That's a terrible thing to say!'

‘Put yourself in their shoes, Olivia.' I lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘Think of all the people who might have wanted Susan Parker dead. The Guardians, for example. You.'