Deep Water, Thin Ice (37 page)

A couple of days before, whilst cleaning her bedroom, she’d moved Simon’s cello and then, on a whim, had opened the case and fingered the instrument inside. Suddenly she’d burst into tears, a convulsing and violent spasm of emotion which afterwards had left her feeling spent and miserable. It had taken her completely by surprise – she hadn’t cried like that for months – and so close to the wedding she’d found evidence of such enduring acute grief unsettling and had quickly tried to shrug it off.

And the same afternoon, she’d been invited down to Captain’s Cottage for tea. Liz wanted to give her a pretty antique hair comb set with sapphires – ‘something blue to wear for the wedding, my dear’ – and she had been determined to relax and let Liz’s cosy chatter wrap around her. But over tea and cake, the conversation had turned to Bob Geaton. Liz was concerned that he’d lost a lot of weight and blamed the police who apparently kept questioning him, suspicious of his involvement in Helen’s death.

‘But I thought it was an accident,’ said Alex.

‘Well I’m sure it was,’ Liz responded, ‘but there are suggestions Helen might have been having an affair. Bob regularly went away on weekend fishing trips you see and yet there were reports of someone coming and going at the flat on Saturday nights. And, it seems…’ Liz paused for effect. ‘…there were other marks on the body. I suppose the police think he was jealous.’

Alex didn’t want to know. She found the information irrationally threatening as if it affected her in some way and she wished Liz would drop the subject. In the end she couldn’t wait to go and she thought it betrayed just how frayed her nerves had become.

Reaching the village square, Alex cut up the path to the quay and turned right towards the beach. When she reached the bar she turned inland and negotiated the winding track through to the reserve. She could have come the back way but she didn’t want to hide anymore; there wasn’t any point and she thought it sent out the wrong signals. When she arrived in the clearing, it was obvious Mick had been busy: the graffiti had gone from the carriage and it had a freshly painted look; the windows sparkled. The reserve was much the same though – just wetter.

Mick showed her round and brought her up to date; she cleaned a few feeders out and refilled them and then they stopped for coffee and toast. Inside the carriage Mick’s living space looked recently cleaned and tidied; a fresh, light scent hung in the air. She got the impression he had been expecting her. She examined his latest carving – a snipe – and they chatted fitfully. It wasn’t an easy meeting but when she told him of her intention to start her singing career up again he was obviously pleased.

When she stood up to go, Mick accompanied her to the door.

‘I’m afraid I won’t be coming again,’ she said, rather stiffly, determined not to show too much emotion. She’d rehearsed saying it which hadn’t helped at all. She avoided Mick’s eyes and stared fixedly at her hand poised on the door handle.

’I know,’ he said.

‘
How
do you know?’ She raised her eyes to look at him.

He shrugged.

‘Don’t know. Maybe I’m telepathic. Does Theo know you’re here?’

‘Yes. I told him last night that I was going to call.’ She remembered it well. Theo had asked her why she was going and she’d told him she wanted to find out how Mick and Susie were and to see what was happening with the bittern. ‘Thank you for telling me,’ he’d responded coldly and looked away.

‘And he asked you to stop coming?’ said Mick.

‘No. It’s my decision.’ She had been fretting over what she should do for ages, knowing what the result would have to be but reluctant to accept it. She’d almost hoped that Theo would ask her to stop visiting the reserve; then she would have defended her right to go. But he’d said nothing and she thought she owed him this, determined to start this marriage the right way. Not that she’d told him her decision though and she recognised her small-mindedness in letting let him sweat on it. Alex took her hand off the door handle suddenly and thrust it at Mick.

‘Thank you for everything,’ she said. ‘It’s been wonderful…well, you know. Thanks for letting me trespass. And…if you ever need anything…’ Her voice trailed away.

Mick looked at the hand and frowned then slipped his own hand into it.

‘We’re very formal this morning,’ he remarked, looking down at her pale, smooth hand in his weathered, scratched one. His flesh was warm against hers.

‘Yes. I suppose we are.’

He smiled sadly, lifted her hand up and kissed the back of it. Then, abruptly, he let go of her as if she were burning him.

It was for the best, she reassured herself as she made her way back home. She’d only recently understood how fond Mick had become of her. To keep visiting him would be unfair. And then of course there was the realisation that she was fond of him too, an affection whose depth she preferred not to examine too closely. Since his visit to the Hall and her renewed pleasure in his company she’d found herself occasionally wondering what it would be like to be held by him, to feel his intimate touch and share his passion. She found the thoughts disturbing and tried to put them aside. They had no place in her plans; they were deeply inappropriate.

*

On the Wednesday night, Theo, moving stealthily and dressed head to toe in black, his face darkened to stop any reflected light, took the same path Alex had walked the day before, inland to the reserve. It kept raining intermittently but now and then the burnt out remnant of a waning moon appeared between the clouds and cast an eerie light over the burgeoning trees shrouding his route. There was the constant sound of trickling water and the occasional piping call of a bird or a scuffling noise in the scrub. It made his flesh creep. When he got to the clearing he paused and watched the carriage warily for a few minutes, virtually holding his breath. Dangling from one hand was a heavy piece of fresh red meat. It was two in the morning and the place was in darkness. He could see the dog’s kennel but it appeared to be empty. He cautiously glanced around but there was no sign of the collie and he relaxed and allowed himself a moment to get his bearings, to remember what Alex had told him about the layout of the reserve.

The week before, on a dark night when the tide was out in the early hours, Theo had stood in the harbour basin and used a chisel and a rubber mallet to loosen some stones in the supporting wall of the bar. He’d pushed the chisel deep in to make penetrating holes, sure that once the sea got her fingers in the cracks, it wouldn’t be long before the wall crumbled, allowing the high spring tides to wash the bar away. With the bar gone, the reserve would be at the mercy of those same tides, its low, flat ground awash with insistent, damaging salt water. Theo anticipated that the final push of water which dislodged the wall and bar would be quick and would therefore take the occupants of the reserve by surprise, leaving them to fall victim to the swell of the sea as it rushed inland. Theo dearly wanted Mick Fenby out of the way.

But the deterioration of the bar was progressing more slowly than he had expected and Alex’s recent visit to the Birdman had made him panic. She wasn’t in any danger from the sea yet but he hated to think of her continuing her visits down there. And yet he risked alienating her if he tried to stop her and there was too much at stake. He felt like he was walking a tightrope which had started to sway dangerously; he could see the other side, he was nearly there in fact but was still several tricky footsteps away. Lately he’d found himself trying harder to identify himself again with Simon in Alex’s mind but from her occasional expression he wondered if that tactic was now exhausted. He desperately needed to get this marriage solemnised and take control. But, even so, he didn’t trust Mick for a second. The marriage had to last long enough before Alex’s ‘tragic accident’ to quell any idle speculation about her death. A fall from the cliffs too soon and people would ask questions, especially with Sarah moving promptly back into the Hall. Or suppose Mick made Alex suspicious and she started watching him or being wary of where she would go with him? No, he needed to get rid of Mick and he needed to do it soon.

Theo remembered Alex telling him how Mick had installed simple boarded sluices to control the water levels through the ditches. When he’d asked her the night before – contritely, as if penitent for his intransigence – about the reserve and the bitterns, Alex had mentioned that the Grenloe was running high, the ditches full and boardwalks almost submerged. ‘Mick’s concerned about the nests in the reeds,’ she’d said, clearly pleased at his interest. ‘He thinks they’ll be vulnerable if it gets much higher. He’s opened up the side channels as much as he can to spread the water around.’ It had occurred to Theo then that, if he were to close all the sluice gates, the outer ditches would be starved of water while the main channel would flood and as the sea water leaked in too, the reserve would be destroyed. It would take a few days before it happened he reckoned and they’d almost certainly be away on their honeymoon. It would look like a freak accident which no-one would be able to trace back to him.

‘And if there’s any justice, Fenby’ll drown in one of his own sodding ditches,’ Theo muttered now. He allowed himself a humourless smile; it would be a perfect wedding present.

Using a tiny torchlight to keep a check on his footing, he skirted the edge of the clearing and worked his way deeper into the reserve. He left the poisoned meat on the ground where he was sure the dog would find it, and then moved further inland in search of the sluices.

On the Friday morning Alex came to slowly, as if being pulled out of a deep cocoon, unsure what, if anything, had woken her. She rolled over and tried to go back to sleep but shivered and pulled the quilt closer against her shoulders and neck. She felt a prickling of unease but was at a loss to know why. Rain pattered insistently against the window; it had started again early the previous evening and had rained on and off ever since. Sleep rapidly evaporating, she turned over and peered at the clock: twenty-five past five. There was no need to be up for hours yet. She rolled onto her back, closed her eyes and pulled the quilt up to her neck again.

A couple of minutes later she rolled over again. Her mind felt crowded and preoccupied with persistent and yet pointless thoughts; sleep felt a million miles away. Theo had taken her out for dinner the previous evening and snatches of the conversation kept running arbitrarily through her head. He’d been excessively jovial, telling jokes and fooling around. She remembered him pretending to struggle reading the menu, holding it at arms length, and then saying it must be a family weakness and he’d need reading glasses soon like Simon. Then he’d started a string of frantic impersonations capped by a terrible imitation of Jimmy Cagney. He was completely over the top. ‘Well, I’m excited,’ he’d said when she’d commented on it. ‘Aren’t you?’ Actually she’d been feeling nervous and she guessed he was too which presumably accounted for the way he was behaving. After bringing her home, he’d left early. ‘Work tomorrow,’ he’d said. ‘Last day too, thank God. Then next week we’ll be on our honeymoon.’

Then her mind flicked to Erica. She would be arriving early that evening with Ben, having had permission to take him out of school early. It would be wonderful to see them again. And then there was the wedding: had she forgotten anything she ought to have done? Should she have done anything differently?

She opened her eyes again and tried to clear her head. It had gone quiet; the rain had stopped. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she could see the first glow of sunrise brightening in a broad panel between the fall of the curtains opposite. She eased herself up onto her elbows, frowning, for surely she remembered drawing the curtains tight shut the night before?

She reached over to click the bedside lamp on and got up, picking up the dressing gown slung across a nearby chair. She pulled the gown on and flicked her hair out from underneath it as she padded across to the window and then looked out.

The sun was still hidden behind the hill the other side of the valley but the clouds were rapidly clearing northwards on a scudding breeze and the sky glowed amber and apricot merging into deepest cerulean blue. Even with the window closed the River Kella was audible, funnelling its way down the valley to the sea. She looked down through the gap in the trees towards it. Down in the bottom of the valley it was still dark but the river showed light against the heavy blackness of the banks and trees.

On the near side of the river a shape moved, a man, slow and slight. She stared harder – she thought he looked familiar – but he disappeared again behind a stand of trees. When he reappeared she recognised him; it was Harry Downes.

When she’d seen Mick, on that last unhappy visit, he’d asked her if she’d spoken to Harry yet. She hadn’t. It had proved impossible to see him without Minna’s defensive and protective presence and, with the wedding so imminent, she’d decided to put it off. But Mick had been insistent. ‘I think you should speak to Harry,’
he’d said.
‘
I think it’s important. Promise me you’ll try to speak to him?’ And she had finally agreed.

So now Alex took one last glance down out of the window, then quickly dressed and left the house, heading down towards the river.

*

Getting close, the noise of the river was frightening, like a living thing, shouting and groaning in its effort to chase on down to the harbour. Alex was taken aback at the violence of it. In her route over the park and footpath, she’d been able to see the harbour and the tide was still far from fully in, yet the river level was already high, swirling and nudging at the banks precariously, its surface strewn with twigs, branches, even logs. And the water itself was heavy with mud, brown and thick. Alex pulled her raincoat protectively tighter round herself and advanced cautiously towards the bank. Harry was still there, standing facing the water where the stones lay, now deep and invisible beneath its surface.