Caught in the Light (34 page)

"From London."

"And after such a long time, too. Ian Jarrett. Yes, that was the name. Kind of you to call."

"Not really."

"It's a pity you didn't come before. While Doris was alive. She might have appreciated it."

"I am sorry. About all of it. Especially the accident, of course. I wish to God it hadn't happened."

"I wish that, too." He looked down. "Still, good of you to make the effort. Thank you."

"Mind if I... ask you a few questions about your daughter?"

"Mind? No. Got nothing else but memories to live on. You may as well jog a few. If you want to. Can't see what you'll gain by it, though."

"Was Isobel born in Chichester?"

"Oh yes. Right upstairs." He nodded towards the ceiling. "We thought she'd be the first of two or three, Doris and me. But..." He shook his head. "Isobel turned out to be our only child. It's a grievous thing to outlive your own child, Mr. Jarrett. Not natural. Not in the order of things."

"And she grew up in the city?"

"Yes. Till she went away to university. She was a bright girl, our Isobel. Clever as they come. That's how she did so well for herself. Had a good job with Sotheby's. A very good job."

"As a photographic expert, I believe."

"That's right. She loved photography, even as a little girl. She took over my old Brownie box camera when she was about ten and built up whole albums of pictures. We bought her a smart new camera one Christmas, but she went on using the Brownie. Then she got into developing the pictures herself. Set up a club at her school and used their darkroom. It's a funny thing, really. Hundreds of pictures there must be upstairs, taken by her. But hardly any of her."

"Occupational hazard."

"Come again?"

"Never mind. Tell me, do you know East Pallant?"

"It's just round the corner."

"What about number eight? It's a legal practice."

"Not with you."

"What I mean is did Isobel .. . take an unusual interest in a particular house in East Pallant?"

"No. Why should she have? She took lots of pictures round Chichester. Liked Georgian architecture. East Pallant's the place for that if anywhere is. But... number eight? I don't know what you're getting at."

"She never married, did she?"

"So?"

"I just wondered if she was ... planning to."

"Not that Doris and I knew of. We didn't see as much of her as we'd have liked, though. She was always .. . busy. Well, that's London for you. If there was a man .. ." He shrugged. "We didn't hear from him afterwards. That's all I can tell you."

"Did she ever mention the name Conrad Nyman?"

"Who?"

' Conrad Nyman."

"Never heard of him."

"What about Daphne Sanger?"

"Her neither."

"I gather she attended the funeral. A friend of Isobel's presumably. A cigar-smoker. Slim. Ash blonde. Glasses."

"I don't remember her."

"Really? A colleague of Isobel's at Sotheby's said she met her there."

"Maybe she did. But I don't remember. It was an upsetting time."

"Of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ..." I sighed and glanced round at the shabby remnants of the Courtney family business, aware how little right I had to badger this sad old man with his hoarded memories of the camera-crazy girl that had grown into the photograph-haunted woman. "Isobel's colleague said she had a fine collection of early Victorian photographs. What happened to them?"

"Her solicitor dealt with all that. Cleared the house before it was sold. We couldn't bear to have any of it here."

"No mementoes?"

"We had mementoes enough."

"Yes. I suppose so. Did they include ... I mean, I know you said there were hardly any, but... do you have a photograph of Isobel, Mr. Courtney? I've never ... actually seen her ... If you know what I mean."

"There are photographs, yes. Doris had one framed .. . afterwards. You can see it... if you want."

"I'd like to. If I may."

"Go through to the back." He reached out and raised the flap to let me through the counter.

A small sitting room lay beyond the doorway, crowded with oversized Fifties-style furniture. The air was frowsty, heavy with dust and cigarette smoke. The remains of a meal stood on a table near the window, adding stale soup to the mix of odours. But the past was stronger than all of them.

I crossed to the mantelpiece above the gas fire. Framed photographs stood on either side of the clock in the centre. One was a wedding shot of Sam and Doris Courtney long ago, the other of a slim blond-haired woman in her mid to late twenties, standing in a walled pathway near the cathedral. A transept and part of its spire could be seen in the background. She was dressed casually and was smiling warmly at the camera, posing for her mother, perhaps, during a weekend down from London. Her hair was longer than I recalled. There was nothing as such for me to recognize. It was an unstudied insignificant snapshot. But it was how the Courtneys had chosen to remember their daughter. Young, cheerful and free of foreboding. Except that, to my eye, there was something, in the stiff edge to her smile and the faint wariness of her gaze, that implied she wasn't the untroubled or uncomplicated girl her parents would have wished to believe. Even then.

"You had a lovely daughter, Mr. Courtney," I said, walking back into the shop. "I'm truly sorry. I wish ... Well, you must know what I wish."

"But wishes aren't wands, Mr. Jarrett. You can't wave them over your sorrows and make them go away."

"Why was Isobel in Barnet that night, by the way?"

"Visiting a friend."

"Which friend was that?"

He looked at me sharply, aware, it seemed, that he'd spoken without thinking. He was holding something back. That was clear. I'd suspected it all along. But he had a crucial advantage that meant I couldn't press him to reveal what it was. He was the aged father of the woman I'd killed. He owed me nothing. Not even honesty. "I can't remember," he mumbled at last.

"Were they at the funeral?"

"I... I'm not sure. I suppose so. My memory's not as sharp as it used to be. I forget. Except the things I want to forget. They don't go away." He stuck out his lower lip pugnaciously. "I try to think of Isobel as she is in that photograph, but my mind won't always let me. Sometimes, too often, it puts a different picture in its place. The picture of what I saw on that slab in the mortuary when I went in to identify her. How she was after you'd ..."

He flapped his hand, at me or the memory, I couldn't tell which, and caught a small tower of tobacco tins with one of his fingers. The tins toppled across the counter, several skidding off onto the floor, where they rolled and rattled slowly to rest.

"I'd like to close up now," he said, breaking the silence that followed. "Would you mind leaving? I'm rather tired."

Sam Courtney was tired. Maybe I was, too. Or maybe my confidence was ebbing. It was no more than a five-minute walk to East Pallant. Number eight stood at the end of an elegant parabola of Georgian houses. Like most of the others, it had been converted into offices, whose occupants were beginning to leave for home, strolling away in the mellow late afternoon sunlight, briefcases in hand, coats over arms. Everything was ordinary and orderly. Nothing was out of place.

But if I raised my gaze to the rooftops and the sky and let my mind discard the sights and sounds of the present I could almost imagine that, with enough thought and concentration, enough desire to make it so, I could look down again and see Marian Esguard emerging from the door of her father's house into the world she'd known. The same bricks and mortar, the same railings and paving stones. It wasn't so very different, nor so very far away. She'd been here. Maybe, in some sense, she still was here.

But when I did eventually look down, all I saw was a schoolgirl walking slowly past me and on along the street. I hadn't heard her approaching and I watched her receding figure with a fixity of mind I couldn't quite fathom. She was wearing school uniform boater, blazer and pleated skirt and was carrying a satchel over her shoulder. Her long blond hair bounced on the collar of her blazer as she walked. She was probably about Amy's age, and I could easily imagine what Amy would say about having to wear a boater, though this girl didn't seem to mind. She glanced back at me, or at something behind me, as she crossed to the other side of the street, then vanished from sight round the curve of the buildings.

I didn't think any more about her until I was driving north out of the city, back towards London. Then it came to me. It was still the Easter holiday. There shouldn't have been any schoolgirls in uniform on the streets of Chichester. Not now. Not at this point in time.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nyman had so far eluded me, but Daphne surely couldn't hope to deny her friendship with Isobel Courtney. Mary Whiting had met her at the funeral, and I'd have taken a bet she was living in Barnet at the time. Isobel had gone there to see her, perhaps to seek help in dealing with whatever affinity she felt with the lost and long-ago soul of Marian Esguard.

I couldn't see my way much further into the mystery than that and I wasn't sure I wanted to. There was another possible explanation for everything that had happened to me. It was the most horrifying one of all and the backward glance of the schoolgirl who'd passed me in East Pallant lingered in my mind as a glimpse of just what that explanation would mean: that nobody was to be trusted, least of all me.

But I wasn't going to believe that until I was forced to. Next morning I went straight to Harley Street and tried the bell at Daphne's practice. There was, as I expected, no answer, so I tried the next bell on the panel, for an osteopath called Ramirez, and talked his receptionist into letting me in.

"Miss Sanger will be away for at least another week," she informed me. "It was my understanding that she'd been in touch with all her clients to explain the situation."

"She must have missed me. I need to write to her, actually. Do you have her home address?"

"I can't give that out, I'm afraid. But, if you write to her here, we'll forward it on." With a tell-tale downward glance, she slid one envelope over another in her out-tray.

"It's an urgent matter. I'm not sure I can I snatched up the envelope she'd just covered and looked at the name and address on it.

"Give that back to me at once," she demanded, flushing angrily, though partly perhaps at her own stupidity.

"Certainly." I handed it over smartly. "Don't worry. I won't tell if you won't."

It was a small house in a select reach of West Hampstead. The empty drive, the firmly latched gate, the closed windows and the milk dial set on zero told me what the answer phone had already implied: she wasn't there. She couldn't stay in hiding for ever, but maybe she thought she could stay there long enough to seal my fate in whatever way Nyman had planned. I could chase them, but it seemed I could never catch them.

A neighbour was eyeing me suspiciously over the hedge and I decided to capitalize on her watchfulness. Predictably, she had no idea where Daphne had gone, nor when she'd be back. But she saw no harm in satisfying my curiosity on one point. Daphne had moved into the area four years before from Barnet. They could stay ahead, but it seemed they were never quite out of sight.

Clapham proved the point. I worked my way along Smollett Avenue, drawing blanks at every door. Five years was a long time. The name meant nothing. And why should it, when people kept themselves to themselves, and Isobel Courtney might well have done so more assiduously than most? But somebody knew something. They always do. And the elderly Asian woman at number forty-seven was that somebody.

"Miss Courtney lived right next door, at forty-five. Oh yes, I remember her well. She was very pleasant. I liked her. Not like the couple who live there now, with their noses in the air and their big car. He drives like the man must have done who killed Miss Courtney. Hurry, hurry, hurry and hang the consequences. Miss Courtney was a very nice lady. She never said a bad word about anybody."

"Did she get many visitors friends coming and going?"

"No, no. She lived very quietly. No noise, no parties, no people. I used to say to her, "You should find yourself a good man before it's too late." But she never did." She grinned at me. "The men only come now it is too late."

"Men?"

"You're not the first to ask about Miss Courtney. You're not even the best-looking. But don't worry. You're not the worst-looking. There was a gentleman in a pink bow tie I didn't at all '

"Quisden-Neve?"

"That could be his name. He gave me his card, but I don't .. ." She frowned thoughtfully. "Quisden-Neve. Yes, it was something like that."

"When was this?"

"I forget. Two years. Three. Who knows?"

"What did he want?"

"Same as you. Same as the first one."

"The good-looking one?"

"Yes. He came about a year after Miss Courtney's death. Very smart. Very handsome. Very .. . well spoken. Who were her friends? What happened to her possessions? What did I remember about her? Always it's the same. She's dead. Why don't you let her rest in peace? There's nothing I can tell you. She was here. Then I heard she was killed. I went to her funeral. I met her parents. Good people, very sad. A van came and the house was emptied. Then it was sold. What more can I say?"

"The first man. Was his name Nyman?"

"I don't remember if he said."

"But handsome? Blue eyes? Grey-blond hair? Maybe just blond then? Tanned and well dressed? Touch of the film star about him?"

"That would be him to a likeness."

"Then it was Nyman."

At last I had something to show for my efforts. Isobel Courtney was a common denominator between Nyman, Daphne and me. She'd played a part in all our pasts. Now I knew so for a fact, I was determined to force the knowledge on Faith and oblige her to take my allegations seriously.

I could think of only one way to be absolutely sure of speaking to her alone. I phoned her office in Hounslow, checked she was at work that afternoon, then drove out there and parked just far enough down the road to be able to monitor arrivals and departures without drawing attention to myself. I had a clear view of her car in the car park. It was only a matter of time.