Caught in the Light (5 page)

"Just a gift for observation. Too generalized to make me as good a photographer as you are. You've always had an obsessive streak, Ian. I wouldn't have thought it made you very good at mixing business with pleasure, though, like you must have been doing in Vienna." "I managed."

"So you did bring back some pictures?" "Yes."

"Which you'll want me to print?" "Of course." "Tomorrow?"

"I was hoping so. Then I could deliver them on Friday." "Before taking off with the woman of your dreams." I shrugged apologetically. "Something like that." "This is going to cost you a few friendships, you know. A lot of people are going to take Faith's side. You do realize that, don't you?"

"Yes. But the friendships that really matter will endure." Tim sighed and drank some of his beer, then gave me a purse-lipped frown that amounted to a limited kind of blessing. "I suppose they will. When all's said and done."

I took the train to Bury St. Edmunds next morning, then a taxi out to Amy's school. I'd phoned ahead and arranged to see her during a free period before lunch. This was the worst part of the whole enterprise. I knew she was going to be upset and I knew Faith would end up doing most of the consoling. But still I wanted to be the one to tell her. I wanted her to say she understood, even if she didn't. In short, I wanted it all.

But it was soon clear to me I wasn't going to get it. We walked out along the bank of the river that ran through the grounds, a chill, grey East Anglian mist turning the players on an adjoining hockey pitch to wraiths and the school building beyond them to a ghostly outline of the country house it had once been. Beside me, huddled in her uniform duffel coat and striped scarf, Amy looked too young and trusting to be burdened with what I had to tell her. But tell her I did, as gently as I knew how.

"Surely', she said disbelievingly, 'everything was all right at Christmas."

"This has happened since Christmas, Amy. I've simply met somebody I realize I can't live without. It's not easy. These things happen. People change. They grow apart."

"Is that what you and Mum have done?"

"Sadly, yes. But it doesn't mean we love you any less. Either of us."

"You just won't be together any more?"

"No. I'm afraid we won't."

"Are you going to get divorced?"

"Eventually."

"And then you'll marry this other person you've met?"

"I hope so. Her name's Marian. You'll like her."

"No, I won't."

"Come on, Amy. You've never met her. How can you say that?"

"I don't want to meet her."

"You'll change your mind. This isn't the end of the world."

"But it means nothing will ever be the same again. Quite a few of the other girls have divorced parents. And that's what they say. It alters everything. Spoils it. Makes it... complicated."

"Life is. I wish it didn't have to be. But it is."

"It didn't have to be with .. . Nicole." Amy stopped. "Did it?"

"Who told you about Nicole?" I said, taken aback to discover that my efforts to shield her from the truth five years before had evidently been in vain. "Your mother?"

"Nobody told me, Dad. I just listened. I think I do that better than you."

"Maybe you do."

"But it's not going to be like it was then?"

"No, Amy. It isn't."

"I'll just have to get used to the idea?"

"We all will. But remember. What the other girls have told you isn't quite true. It doesn't alter everything. I'll still love you. You'll still be able to count on me when it matters."

"Will I?"

"Oh yes." I hugged her and sensed her struggling not to cry. "As fathers go, you could do worse, believe it or not."

"I believe it." She pulled away and forced herself to smile. "Honest I do."

"Just not a lot worse, eh?" I aimed an elaborately slow punch that landed on her nose as softly as a butterfly. When she was younger, she used to squeeze her eyes shut and giggle as my fist approached. But she was older now. This time she kept her eyes open. And she never even came close to laughing.

A strained discussion with Amy's house tutor, late-running trains and a more than usually chaotic rush hour in London meant it was early evening before I got back to Parsons Green. To my surprise, Tim wasn't home yet. I let myself in with the spare key and seized the chance to telephone Marian. I was badly in need of her reassurance that the damage I was strewing round so blithely had a purpose as compelling for her as for me. But she was out, maybe walking off the same impatience I felt for our rendezvous at Lacock, maybe just having an early dinner. Guessing what I might do in her shoes, I rang the Schwarzenberg and persuaded them to page her. But she wasn't there either. I gave up and decided to try the Imperial again later.

Before I got the chance, Tim arrived, looking like a man with something to worry about. And pretty soon I had something to worry about as well.

"I developed your Viennese films."

"How'd they come out?"

"They didn't."

"What do you mean?"

"There's nothing on them. All six films are blank."

"Blank?"

"The whole lot were exposed. It's as if you had the back of the camera open when you wound on. Every frame's a blackout. There's nothing there. Not a single picture to prove you even went to Vienna."

"What have you done?" I shouted, shock unhinging my thought processes. "Where are my photographs?"

"I don't know."

"You .. . botched this somehow?"

"No, Ian. I just did my normal job. There must be something badly wrong with your camera."

"There's nothing wrong with it. It's working perfectly."

"The results suggest otherwise."

"Tim, for God's sake tell me you're joking. Where are my bloody photographs?"

"They don't exist."

"They must exist. I took them."

"I believe you. The trouble is, you lost what you took. I don't know how or why."

"Well, I certainly don't."

"It's a mystery, then."

"Just a minute." I stepped closer. "You didn't wreck this job for me, did you, Tim? As some sort of mark of your disapproval?"

"Of course I didn't. What do you take me for?"

"Sorry. I .. ." His hurt look was genuine. There was no doubt about it. "I'm not thinking straight. I just... don't understand."

"Neither do I."

"Exposed? The whole lot?"

"Every single one."

"This is insane."

"But true."

I struck out at thin air in frustration and began to walk up and down, thoughts whirling in my head. It couldn't be true, but apparently it was. I was scheduled to deliver my portfolio of Viennese photographs the very next day. But I had none to deliver. Except... "There's one film left," I announced, snapping my fingers. "It's in the camera now. A few last shots of Vienna nothing important." That wasn't quite true, of course. It contained the pictures I'd taken of Marian at the Imperial, which naturally I hadn't wanted Tim to develop. "But it'll prove the camera isn't at fault. I'll take the film to the lab, if that's all right by you, and develop it myself."

"Now?"

"Why not? Is there a problem? I know my way round the place. I won't break anything."

"I know you won't. But '

"Then humour me. I'd like to do the job myself. It's not that I don't trust you."

"Sounds like it."

"I'm going to be in one hell of a jam if I've got nothing to show them tomorrow, Tim. Let me do this my way, will you?"

He shrugged. "All right. But my bet is you'll just get another load of duds. It has to be the camera. Either that or .. ."

"What?"

"There is only one other possible explanation, Ian. And you don't need me to tell you what it is."

Sabotage. That was the explanation Tim hadn't cared to name. Like he'd said, it was as if I'd opened the back of the camera when winding on the film. Only I hadn't, of course. But somebody else might have. It certainly looked as if they had, because the film I developed that night was the same as the ones Tim had developed earlier: black and ruined. Including the frames I hadn't even used. Which suggested they'd been wound on with the camera open, then wound back, in a deliberate and calculated act of destruction.

I must have sat in Tim's darkroom for an hour or more, trying to reason out a response to what had happened. The camera looked fine. It was old enough to make light seepage a remote possibility, but not on a scale to account for total exposure. The films had come from a regular source and I'd already used several from the same batch without any problems. There were the X-ray machines at the airports to consider, of course. They could have been wrongly adjusted. Still, it would have to have been a pretty gross error to produce such a devastating result. No, no. The overwhelming probability was that the films had been got at, before or after my arrival in Vienna. As to why, I hadn't the inkling of an idea. As to who, just about the only person who'd had an opportunity to do such a thing was the one person I had to believe, for the sake of my own sanity, couldn't be responsible.

I phoned the Imperial from the lab. It was late enough now to be confident of finding Marian in her room. And so she was.

"Are you all right, Ian? You sound ... I don't know .. . odd."

"There are some problems with the pictures I took of Vienna."

"Serious problems?"

"You could say that. You don't remember seeing anyone .. . tampering with my camera, do you?"

"No. I'd have told you at the time if I had."

"Yes. Of course you would."

"Is this going to interfere with our plans?"

"What? No. No, why should it?"

"I can't wait to see you tomorrow. Christ, I literally ache to touch you again. You know that?"

"I feel the same." It was true. Even the professional disaster I was staring in the face couldn't diminish my desire for her.

"How were things .. . with your wife?"

"Much as I expected."

"But dealt with?"

"Oh yes."

"Now it's my turn. Wish me luck."

"You think you'll need it?"

"Not really. You've booked us into the place at Lacock?"

"Yes. The Sign of the Angel. I'll go down there tomorrow afternoon."

"And I'll join you in the evening."

"What time?"

"Hard to say. Nine o'clock at the latest, I suppose."

"You'd better give me your home phone number. Just in case."

"In case of what?"

"I don't know. Delays. Difficulties."

"There won't be any, Ian. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. I love you, remember. Nothing's going to stop me. I'll see you at Lacock."

"All right, but '

"No buts. Just be sure you're waiting for me when I arrive. I'll expect a warm welcome."

"You'll get it."

"I'm going to hang up now. Otherwise, I won't know how to. Until tomorrow, my love ... I'll be thinking of you all the time."

She rang off. I put the telephone down and stared at the strips of useless film lying in front of me on the lab bench. Something was going on and part of me dearly wished not to know what it was. In twenty-four hours I'd see Marian again. Then, somehow, it would all be all right.

Friday was grey and cold and still, London a drab and grubby ghost of itself. I had to get out, had to start moving, not despite the hours at my disposal but because of them. I telephoned my agent and pleaded a family bereavement as justification for postponing delivery of the Viennese photographs until Monday morning. Then I asked yet another favour of Tim: take some pictures with a new film in my camera and develop them immediately to see whether they came out. That would rule in or out one possible explanation for what had happened. Pending the result, I preferred not to face the other possibilities. My thoughts were concentrated on surviving until I saw Marian again. I promised to phone Tim later, then set off. Only to find I'd left my departure just too late. A car I recognized very well was slowing to a halt at the kerb side just as I stepped onto the pavement. As it stopped, the driver lowered the window and looked out at me.

"Where are you going, Ian?" Faith asked. Her voice sounded calm enough, but her expression was tense, her jaw set in a clenched line.

"Does it matter?"

"Amy phoned last night."

"Ah. Did she?"

"You should have warned me you meant to tell her straight away."

"Maybe I would have done, if I'd got the chance."

"Don't give me that. She's our daughter, Ian. You should have consulted me."

"Well, neither of us were in a very consultative mood, were we?"

"I'm going up there this weekend to try to repair some of the damage you've done."

"What can I say? She had to know, Faith."

"You could say you're sorry. You could say you've taken leave of your senses. You could even say you want to put things right."

"What would be the point? You said there was no way back." A mad idea burst into my mind so abruptly then that I didn't realize at first just how mad it was. "While I was in Suffolk yesterday, you didn't.. . drop by Tim's lab, did you?"

"Pardon?"

"Tim's processing lab. Did you, Faith?"

"Why the hell should I have gone there?"

"Some films of mine have been mysteriously ruined. You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, I suppose?"

"Are you out of your mind? You think She slowly shook her head, evidently dismayed that I should even hint at anything so absurd. "God, Ian, I think you're falling apart, you know that?

Maybe this Marian is the sort of woman who can drive men crazy. In your case that seems to mean paranoid. You ought to listen to yourself some time, you really ought. You'll be hearing from Malcolm. I'll leave you to find a solicitor of your own." She let in the clutch with a roar and accelerated away down the road.

I watched her go. The stupidity of what I'd said hit home even before she'd turned out of sight onto the main road. It was illogical as well as unlikely, if not downright impossible, for Faith to have been responsible. She and Tim would have to have been conspiring against me. And if I started believing that .. . then I really might begin to fall apart.