Faraday 01 The Gigabyte Detective (11 page)

“What a lovely idea.”

The tide was out and for the next hour they explored the rock pools and got sand in their shoes. Susannah tried to remember when she had last done things like this. It must have been when she was a child. She remembered the excitement of visits to the seaside for a midlands city girl. She was amused to find that she felt almost the same now.

After a while Richard went back to the car and collected a travelling rug which he spread on the sand. They stretched out on it and let the evening sun warm their bodies.

Susannah wondered whether he was going to make some kind of physical contact. She wasn’t sure what her reaction would be. She thought she would be able to control any advances that he made, because there were other people on the beach and she was certain he wouldn’t try to force himself on her. So she was almost disappointed when he lay a couple of feet away from her and made no attempt to touch her. He was on his back and gazing up at the trees which overhung the beach from the low sandy cliffs.

“I like the pattern of the leaves against the sky,” he said. “Even on a day with as little wind as this, they are never quite still. I find their movement so peaceful.”

She agreed, but lay there without speaking and watched the gently swaying trees. After a while she unexpectedly dropped off to sleep.

* * * * * * * *

It was well into the evening by the time Charlotte had finished preparing all the data on the computer. Getting everything correctly set out and linked together was the slowest part of job and one on which you couldn’t cut corners. She suspected that was where Herrison’s team hadn’t been prepared to put in the intense work, despite her written instructions which stressed how important it was.

She spent about an hour with Stafford Paulson querying the couple of hundred anomalies which the programme had thrown up and most of those had been resolved. She now had a dozen or so main lines of enquiry presented to her. She knew that she would reject several of those as impractical when she read through them in detail. She printed them out to take back to her aunt’s as homework.

The interesting thing was that the extreme logic of the computer programme had nevertheless highlighted a number of the points raised by the journalist, Julian Brace, as needing further investigation. Charlotte knew how important it was to keep an open mind at this early stage, but she admitted to herself that she felt a stirring of anticipation when she cast her eye over them.

Taking a deep breath, she got to her feet, disconnected the laptop from its docking station, picked up the print-outs and made for the door. Tomorrow was going to be interesting.

* * * * * * * *

Susannah awoke with a shiver and looked round. The tide had come in quite a distance and a little chill evening breeze had sprung up. She was alone on the rug. Richard had disappeared.

She sat up in a panic. The beach was completely empty. The few people who had been here when she lay down had gone. The sun was just plunging into the trees across the estuary. Her body felt cold. There were goose pimples on her arms. She had left her cardigan in the car. Where was that? She got to her feet, feeling abandoned. Where was Richard?

“Ah, you’re awake.”

There he was, just coming down the path from the car park and carrying her cardigan.

“I was just going to wake you up and suggest we started to wend our way home. It’s getting quite late.” He draped the cardigan round her shoulders.

“My goodness.” She shivered again. “What on earth is the time?”

He looked at his watch. “Nearly seven o’clock. You’ve been asleep for the best part of two hours.” He smiled at her expression. “Don’t look so worried. You haven’t got to be in before dark or anything like that, have you?”

“No, of course not.” She took a breath. “But I didn’t intend to fall asleep.” After all, she thought to herself, he might have done anything now they were here all on their own.

“You’re looking a rather chilly.” He reached out and his hand was warm on her flesh. She felt her hair stand on end and there was an ache in her stomach. She gave a sudden violent shiver.

“Come on. We’d better get moving.” He bent down, picked up the rug and shook the sand from it. “Here, wrap this round you until we get back to the car.” For a second he held her against his firm, warm chest as he draped the rug over her shoulders and she ached for him to put his arms round her. But he bent down and she rested her hand on his back while he helped her into her unsuitable shoes.

He gave her a hand and helped her as they scrambled up the beach to the car park. She couldn’t remember when she had last been cosseted like this. She and Stephen were never in a situation where he felt the need to help her physically. She decided it was a nice sensation.

“You’ll soon warm up in the car,” said Richard. “I’ll put the heating on and we’ll quickly build up a fug.”

She nodded. “I don’t know why I didn’t have the sense to put my cardigan on before we lay down.”

“I don’t think either of us expected to fall asleep.” He laughed. “It’s obviously tiring stuff - this touring.”

“But very enjoyable. Thank you very much, Richard. I have enjoyed today.”

He lifted his head. “I hope it’s not over yet. I know a nice little pub where the landlord has one of those artificial log fires heated by gas. Will you let me take you there for a meal and a warm-up?”

“All right - why not?”

Nothing more needed to be said between them. Only Susannah knew that she didn’t want this day to come to an end.

* * * * * * * *

They sat close together at a table in an alcove by the fire. Susannah couldn’t remember afterwards what they ate. But she did remember the way they talked all the time about nothing important, heads leaning towards each other. She thought on one occasion that they must have appeared like lovers to any casual observer, and she realised she didn’t mind what anyone thought.

After the meal they drove back in the gathering darkness. At Dartmouth they went down to the castle beside the mouth of the river. They got out of the car and walked to the wall looking over the sea. The tide was nearly full and the last of the boats were chugging back into the harbour. Susannah was thoroughly warm again now. She had her cardigan about her shoulders and it was a balmy evening. There was no sign of a breeze in this sheltered corner. She was aware of Richard, still in his shirt-sleeves, standing close beside her.

“What a superb evening,” he murmured.

She looked at him. “It’s been a lovely day. Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever had a day like this before in my life.”

“Don’t you and Stephen ever do anything together?”

“Not like this.” She said slowly, “I don’t think he’d be comfortable driving round narrow lanes or lying on a rug on the beach. I can see him perhaps having a meal in a pub. But he’s never actually taken me to one.” She paused. “I suppose we don’t have that sort of marriage.”

“Is it an unhappy marriage?” he asked suddenly.

“Oh, no.” She shook her head strongly. “I think that really we’re quite happy in our way. I am sure Stephen thinks we are. It’s just that we’re hardly ever together. Looked at from my point of view, I am given everything I want, except the company of my husband. And, as I said yesterday, I am not sure that I could cope with that now anyway.” There was a faint smile about her beautiful features as she said, “Oh, no. I know what unhappiness is from my first marriage.”

“That was different?”

“Oh, yes.” Her mind went back over the years. “It was all right to start with, of course. We were both struggling young actors. We had nothing but each other and, after a few years, our two children. We lived in a council flat. But we were happy in those days.” Susannah looked out to sea again, watching the lights of the boats. “Then I became a success. I can see now that it was my success that destroyed it all.”

“Your success?”

She nodded. “Barnaby couldn’t cope with that. In the early days we were in repertory together. Then I started to pick up studio work. After a while things improved and I started to get well-paid, top roles. I was soon bringing in enough to keep us all in comfort and to let us move to a decent house. But Barnaby felt that he should be the one who was the bread-winner. He couldn’t accept that I was forced to go out to work, while he stayed at home and did the house-work. I had to get a woman in to do that.”

“Sounds all right to me,” grinned Richard. “I could cope with being a kept man.”

“That was only the start of it. Soon he began drinking. I mean, Barnaby had always liked a drink. But gradually he got to the point where he couldn’t be awake without a glass in his hand.” Her laugh was mirthless. “I began to realise that I was financing his drinking. At the same time I was watching him fall apart. But I had to keep working to give the children a decent standard of living.”

She paused for a minute, then continued, “The trouble was that he used to become violent when he was drunk - only with me - never with the children. And it was never serious, gratuitous violence. But one day he gave me a bruise on my cheek-bone - here.” Susannah indicated with her finger. “It blacked my eye for a couple of days. The studio made a big fuss about it because it disrupted shooting. They insisted that something was done about him. Barnaby had to agree to go to a clinic and be dried out.” She shook her head. “But within three months he was as bad as he had been before. He began to sink fast after that. It’s dreadful to watch someone you once loved gradually falling apart like that. The children were beginning to get older, and they started to realise there was something wrong with him.” She paused.

“So what happened then,” he prompted.

“Oh, one day he was involved in an accident in the car. He had the children with him. Although no-one was hurt, the point was that he shouldn’t have even been driving in his state. He was breathalysed and banned from driving for a year.” She gave a bleak smile. “After that I couldn’t trust him with them any longer. I had to arrange for someone else to collect them from school. That was a sort of a turning point in our relationship. I think he felt that I had taken away his last reason for being around. A few months later he left us.” Susannah turned back to look at him again and there were tears in her eyes. “I’m ashamed to admit it now, but I had got to the position where I felt nothing but relief when he went. Isn’t that dreadful?”

Then she was in his arms and sobbing all over his shirt-front.

“There’s nothing dreadful about it at all.” Richard hugged her against him and stroked her hair. “What else could you do? Your first responsibility was to the children. It wasn’t your fault that Barnaby couldn’t cope with your success.”

Susannah looked up at him. “Of course everybody said that. They were all most supportive.” She straightened up and pulled away from him. “Even Barnaby said in later years that it was all his fault.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” he asked.

“Oh yes. In fact,” she admitted, “he did seem to pull himself together after he left. He found himself a bed-sit near the West End and he picked up some work.” She shook her head. “To be fair, he was always a good actor. He just hadn’t been lucky enough to catch anyone’s eye. But he started to get a few supporting roles. He seemed to be able to keep his drinking under control when he was working. The next thing I heard, was that he had got a girl pregnant. She was in the chorus of the West End show in which he had a role. He wanted a divorce so that he could marry her.” She sighed. “By then it didn’t worry me one way or the other.”

“Did that one work out all right?”

“The marriage? Oh, yes. His new wife didn’t want anything more than to be a wife and a mother. That suited Barnaby just fine. As far as I know they’re not very well off, but perfectly happy. Probably happier than I am.”

“I don’t think you’re unhappy,” he said. “You’re just a little lonely and your life doesn’t seem to have much purpose. You need to have some aim in life to keep you interested. Perhaps you should go back into acting.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head vehemently. “I promised Stephen I would never go back to that. Besides, I’ve been out of it for too long. Things have changed too much. I’d never get back in now.”

He shrugged. “OK. Perhaps it has to be something else. How about discovering the local geography of South Devon? After all, you’ve had a flying start today.”

“What a good idea.” She turned to him with a grin. “I’ve enjoyed today a lot. You’re quite right. I must do more of it.”

“Well, if I return you promptly, perhaps you’ll come with me again another day and let me show you some more of the area. I can’t do it tomorrow because I have some work to do, but perhaps on Thursday.”

“All right,” she agreed as she went back to the car with him. “I’ll probably see you on Thursday.”

She wanted to ask him what his work was on Wednesday but she didn’t have the courage. However she had a strange feeling that something wasn’t quite right. It seemed to put a damper to the end of such a perfect day.

He drove her to where her white BMW was parked. He let her get out and walk to the car by herself. She asked herself whether she was feeling a little disappointed that he seemed so willing to simply say thank you and wave goodbye. She tried to analyse her feelings as she drove herself back to her beautiful lonely house above the sea.