Fearful Symmetry (4 page)

‘So. The fur coat, Miss Page,’ DCI Poole said slowly. ‘Let’s hear a bit more about the fur coat. Tell me about that, if you would.’

Instead of saying that she’d called out to Bren about the coat because she was desperate for his attention, she said, ‘I called out to him to come and see if it was real. We couldn’t believe it. We both feel really strongly about animal rights. I mean, it’s totally disgusting, killing innocent animals for their fur.’ Those had been almost her exact words to Bren, and she remembered the flicker in his eyes as he had looked at her, as if he hadn’t been seeing her properly for some time. ‘So what you doing about it, then?’ he had asked quietly. ‘Just talking about it, or what?’ If there was sarcasm in the challenge, she could not afford to acknowledge it.

‘So we just had to do something. Make a protest,’ she told DCI Poole, ‘on principle.’ He nodded to her to go on. ‘We went in and I grabbed the coat and went up to the woman and told her it was just totally unacceptable. Only she was completely useless.’ For Anna’s purposes the small, mild Alice Silber had been useless, nodding courteously, showing a willingness to hear what she had to say and putting up no fight at all. And all the time Bren was behind her, watching and waiting to see if she was going to go all polite on the old bag and wimp out of the whole deal. That was when the other one had come in, thank God, and given Anna the chance to excel herself.

‘Then the other woman came up and she was really horrible. She started shouting at us. She insulted us. So we shouted back. Okay, so I lost it. But she had no right to go on at us like that.’

No, no right at all, but Anna kept to herself the fact that she had been very pleased that she had. For the first time in months, standing in that shop, everything she had wanted to say had come straight out of her mouth with beautiful, frightening clarity, not blunted into impotent tears by soft-edged housemistresses or silenced into dumb worry by Bren’s fickleness. Accusations and insults had spilled from her like the projectile vomiting of needles, purging her of a stomachful of spikes.

‘I want you to tell us again exactly what was said. As you were leaving. Can you do that?’

Anna sniffed wretchedly. Just because the woman had been killed a week later was no reason for her to be ashamed of what she had said.

‘Miss Page?’

Anna took a deep breath. ‘Well, she goes to us, all posh and really loud, “I insist that you leave these premises immediately. Get out now, before I call the police.” She was horrible.’

Anna looked uncertainly at WDC Frayling. Then she almost whispered, ‘And I went, “Drop dead, you stupid mad cow.” ’ There was a pause before she added, almost inaudibly, ‘And Bren goes, “I’ll get you for this, you stupid . . . fucking cunt.” ’

To break the silence that followed, Anna snorted loudly into the handkerchief. Suddenly, what she and Bren had said did not sound like an understandable response to intolerable provocation, but ugly threats to a flustered old lady. ‘I didn’t mean it, neither did Bren.’

‘And yet she did drop dead, didn’t she? And presumably you do mean it when you say that animal exploitation is—how did you put it—worth fighting for? Is that what Bren thinks? Is that what he’s off doing now—fighting for the cause?’

‘I don’t know where he is,’ Anna said. ‘Honestly. I haven’t seen him since before the weekend. Most of his stuff’s gone, and the dog, too.’

‘I see. And you really have no idea where he is,’ DCI Poole said smoothly. ‘He left no word, no message. And there are no friends, family, contacts that you know of. You’re saying he just disappeared, on the Friday before the bank holiday weekend.’

Anna nodded self-pityingly as the full extent of her abandonment was set out for her perusal. ‘And he hasn’t left anything for the rent,’ she whimpered, and started to cry again. She didn’t give a fuck about fur coats anymore. She wailed into the sodden handkerchief.

‘I want my dad,’ she spluttered damply. ‘Please get my dad. I want to go home. My name’s not Page. It’s Ward-Pargiter. I didn’t give you my real name. Please get my dad.’

There was a short silence before DCI Poole asked in his calm voice, ‘As in, Judge Ward-Pargiter of the Western Circuit, would that be, Anna?’

CHAPTER
5

I
T WASN
’
T PLUM
anyway, it was more like raw liver. So standing there in it, in front of the mirror which certainly had some distorting kink in the top half and was making her breasts swell up and seem much bigger than they actually were, Poppy decided that the colour was ghastly. She wasn’t going to take it because the colour was ghastly and she told the listless, lurking saleswoman so, shielding herself from having to admit that it didn’t fit, and the assistant from having to point out that she had just tried it on in the largest size.

Back out on the street Poppy looked about, hating Bath and everyone in it. Did these women, cheerfully passing her by in their little nipped-in business suits, not realise that it was only mere historical chance that their poached-egg bosoms and countable ribs were considered desirable, and not the rumpled landscape of her white thighs, with their suggestion of wadding just below the surface? Her brain began to bang like a fist on a tabletop. It was so unfair, she thought aggressively, how women are expected to have dynamic careers and dazzling sex lives and, by doing it on a couple of carrots and a mug of Bovril, have tiny little bodies as well, and the unfairest part was that so many of them seemed to manage it. She belonged to another age, one in which women did not aspire to look like egg-timers in Lycra. In the end, of course, body size simply did not matter. It was what was inside that mattered. It didn’t matter in the true sense, because Cosmo loved her for herself.

Poppy walked briskly past the Gap and into Waterstone’s, whose mild-eyed assistants would not care what she looked like and where books would never be unavailable in her size. Just the name—water stones—suggesting some timeless and restful lapping, appealed to her. Cool, black-shelved Waterstone’s, where she knew herself to be not obese but Rubenesque and where, browsing among the art books, it seemed not unrealistic to think that the tea-gown could make a comeback, and in whose dark-panelled tearoom you could read the papers, sipping tea and dropping bits of cake in your mouth and where Cosmo, who loved her for herself, would be waiting.

He came out from behind his newspaper when she arrived. ‘Would you get me some more tea? This pot’s empty.’ Poppy deposited her cardigan on the back of her chair and joined the queue at the serving point. Looking back to their table she saw that Cosmo had disappeared behind the paper again. Sighing, she asked for tea and two iced ginger squares, anticipating that if she bought herself just one, Cosmo would end up taking most of it.

By the time she was halfway down her cup of tea Cosmo had almost finished his cake and had still not asked her if she’d found something to wear. So she launched into another subject, one of Cosmo’s own and consequently of more interest.

‘Tonight’s the night, then.’

Cosmo nodded.

She went on. ‘First rehearsal of Helene’s little opera group after their summer break. You excited about meeting them? A bit nervous?’

Cosmo blew out his cheeks expansively, considering. ‘God, no, I’m not nervous of this lot. The Circus Opera Group, I regret to inform you, won’t have the first idea. Most of them won’t even be able to read music. So I’m not really expecting them to begin to understand what
I’m
all about.’

‘Well, no. Your music’s not something you just fall into straight away, is it? It demands something of the listener. In a positive sense. But you’ll be able to make them understand, I know you will. Just like you’ve made me understand.’ Cosmo was staring somewhere into the distance and did not acknowledge her trusting smile.

‘I’m not even attempting to give them anything to sing tonight. It’ll just be an introductory chat—a getting-to-know-me thing. They might as well know who they’re dealing with. And I need to assess how much they’ll be up to. Not that I’m pandering to them, mind.’

‘Oh, no. Of course not. I mean, Helene wouldn’t want you to. She wants you to stretch them. Helene’s on our side.’

Cosmo snorted, a little too productively. Wiping his nose on a shredded paper napkin he said, ‘Oh, Helene. Helene’s rather pathetic. Either pathetic or nuts.’

‘That’s not very kind,’ Poppy said graciously, warming herself in the superior, contrasting glow of presumably being considered sane. ‘When we’re staying with her for nothing. When she gave you the commission. And after all, she’s had us for over two weeks already, so’s you could get the feel of Bath and do some research before the group starts up again. We’d still be in horrid old London if she hadn’t asked you to write her little opera. It’s a start.’

Cosmo scowled at his plate. ‘Okay, it’s a start. But it’s hardly Composer of the Year, is it? What’s the point? I feel like giving up. There’s no point, is there, if my work doesn’t merit more recognition than
this
. . .’

‘Than what?’ Poppy asked hotly. ‘What? What do you mean? “This” means being here, being together. You with a proper commission. What’s wrong with “this”?’

Cosmo’s voice tightened. ‘Oh, come on, you know. A provincial little commission for practically no money. Having to take payment in kind, like rent-free accommodation, and ending up as the lodgers. With a third-rate has-been soprano who’s nuts, and a daughter who’s seriously nuts. And a
community
opera.’

Poppy watched him as he chewed sulkily on the last of his iced ginger square. ‘Adele’s not seriously nuts, she’s autistic,’ she said. ‘Helene’s had a very tough time with Adele. She could be very bright.’

Cosmo swallowed and said nothing. He regretted mentioning Adele. When he thought about her or her mother calmly, as he sometimes did at quiet moments, he usually found himself overwhelmed by the wish to be somewhere else.

‘She
could
be, underneath it all.’ Poppy sighed and changed tack. ‘I really think it’s going to be good for you, to be out of the fray for a while. Bath’s calmer than London, better to work in.’ Superstitiously, she hoped that by repeating this often enough it would become true. Cosmo’s lack of productivity was becoming a worry, now that the opera project was the only thing on his immediate horizon. ‘You’ll get going again soon, I know you will.’

Cosmo’s unchanging face told her she was not getting through and that he wished the subject changed. If she didn’t break through soon, the shutters of a sulky depression would come rattling down on Cosmo’s already weak motivation and would not be lifted for days. Ever since his return from Prague she had had to cope with these abrupt changes in his emotional weather, like the sudden clouding over of an anyway uncertain sky. The grey would be solid and slow to lift; he might not even try to work, and she could not risk that. She pressed her lips together. If only she could let him see what lengths she was going to in order to help him, he might set greater store by her efforts and reward her with a bit of effort in return. But she must not look for a return, not yet.

‘Cosmo,’ she said, leaning across the table. ‘Cosmo Lamb, listen to me. This is a start. You are a professional composer. You’re ambitious, and that’s good. The next thing you do will be bigger. The next after that, bigger still. The South Bank maybe. The European Composers Series
next
year. Or something different—a musical. Theme music. It’s how reputations are made. You’ve got it, Cosmo, I really believe that. You’ve got it. You’ll get there. And you’ve got me. I’ll support you.’

Cosmo looked at her with a doleful, doubting face, which she mistook for concern. The thought that he might appreciate all that she had done for him suddenly made it all right. She beamed. ‘You’re not to worry about me. I don’t care about the course, and the work on
The Magic Flute
would have finished soon anyway. I like working in the nursing home now. I’m getting to do almost proper nursing. They said one or two might even benefit from foot massages, maybe even acupuncture, so it’s not as if I’ve had to completely give up on all my healing stuff. I don’t care about not finishing the course. So you’re not to worry. I’ll support you right to the hilt, you know that, don’t you? You’ve still got me.’

Cosmo nodded, and exhaled a deep, deep sigh. He seemed about to speak, but then hesitated. Poppy smiled expectantly. He was so reticent about expressing love, even gratitude, but clearly her sacrifice was making him feel guilty. Behind that sleepy, little-boy look, guilt was written all over his face. He was so insecure.

‘Cosmo, I love you to little bits, you know,’ she whispered encouragingly. She waited. After all this time, after all she did for him, he must love her by now. He had to say it back. Surely he was going to say it now?

‘Hmm? What is it? Tell me. What, Cosmo?’

‘Are you finishing that?’ he asked, nodding at the half-eaten cake on her plate. ‘Because if not . . .’

CHAPTER
6

S
HE WAS WEARING
dark glasses, which struck Andrew as slightly ridiculous for around nine o’clock on a dull September evening in England. All day he had been picturing her tired but triumphant, coming towards him in graceful slow motion out of some imaginary composite world of international airports, foreign cities and famous concert halls, in his mind all rolled into one vast, steel and plate-glass dream landscape. He had overlooked the fact that she was travelling from New York to Dublin and then on by the Cityhopper to Bristol Airport, which had all the chipped paintwork, buckled seating, vending machines and missing lightbulbs of a popular emergency room, and about as much glamour. So he acknowledged that it was his own fault if the backdrop was a little disappointing. And although she was still the most beautiful woman in the building as well as the only one wearing lean, black trousers and a white T-shirt under a black leather jacket, the only competition was an assortment of stained business travellers, a few low-season tourists and a bewildered old lady from Dunshaughlin who did not know how to claim her luggage and was worried in case her daughter was not there to meet her. And Sara was obviously looking after her, taking charge and steering her towards the Information Desk and explaining her predicament at length to the ground staff, instead of looking vulnerably gorgeous and breaking into a slow-motion run before being swept up into the safety of his arms. He felt a bit daft.

In the car, things seemed for a moment to get better. Sara, taking off her glasses and shaking her dark hair out from under a large silver clip, said, ‘Sorry about these. I saw a doctor in New York, he said lighting in airports was a major headache trigger. My blood pressure’s up a bit. Probably just stress, he said acupuncture might help. I just need to get home. I feel fine
now
.’ And then she turned on him a long, smiling gaze from her big blue-green eyes, so full of sleepy, relieved pleasure to be here with him instead of anywhere else in the world that he had been unable to look away, and nearly drove into the back of the car ahead.

‘Watch!’

Andrew braked hard and dropped back.

‘Christ, sorry. It’d be a shame if you got this close to home and copped it in the last twenty miles,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you back in one piece.’

‘I know you will.’ Sara smiled. ‘I just couldn’t face going in on my own, without someone with me.’

Andrew stared straight ahead, trying to concentrate on the road. Someone? Anyone? Did that mean, not necessarily him? Just
someone
? He wanted to say that he was not ‘someone’, and that he was desperately, wildly excited to see her. What he did say, sulkily, was, ‘You must be tired now, I suppose.’

‘I think I’m perking up a bit, actually. How’s Valerie?’

‘Oh, she’s, you know, she’s—’

‘Oh, look, there’s a garage. Can we stop and get some milk?’ she interrupted, making Andrew annoyed with himself for not already having thought of getting some for her.

When they reached Medlar Cottage, Sara was chirpy and annoyingly independent. She darted about competently, switching on lights, drawing curtains, opening doors, dispelling the smell of cold dust in the still air. There was a lot of junk mail but no squatters, not a broken windowpane nor a burst pipe, not even a dead bird in the fireplace. The pilot light had not gone out and the hot water came on, with a heartwarming WHUP, first time.

She sighed happily. ‘I feel a bit of a fool for calling you like that. I’m fine now. Of course I could have done this on my own, I shouldn’t have bothered you. I’ve taken up your whole evening now.’

Andrew said no problem, and it wasn’t, except that he was beginning to think that his being here was turning out to have been not worth lying to Valerie about. He began to wonder why he had lied, exactly. He would have claimed, even a few hours ago, that while it was not adulterous just to collect Sara from the airport, Valerie would jump to the wrong conclusion, and his lie about working late was just to keep her suspicions at bay. But it was more likely that he had been deceiving even himself and the truth was that if the chance to be unfaithful were to offer itself, he had every intention of taking it. Why else would he now be feeling so cheated?

He brought in logs and lit the fire. While Sara was wandering about outside trying to assess the state of the garden in the dark, he fetched the bottle of champagne which he had brought from the car. When she came back in, clutching thick branches of rosemary from one of the huge bushes by the cottage gate, he had already found glasses.

‘Welcome home,’ he said shyly.

‘Oh, Andrew,’ she said, ducking from the pop and then the arc of the cork across the room.

‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ he said, looking up from pouring.

She was still holding the rosemary. ‘I must just get these in water.’

‘Sara—’

‘Back in a minute.’

When she returned she nestled into a corner of the sofa with her legs tucked up beneath her and asked, ‘So, how’s work? What was that about James’s neighbour that you wouldn’t tell me? Did you get him at the London number?’

Andrew did not want to discuss work, but nor did he want to appear provincial and boring as if, while she was jetting around the world playing in major concert halls, nothing had been happening to him. ‘Oh, we handled a terrorist alert yesterday,’ he said coolly. ‘Fairly unpleasant. Someone sent a letter-bomb to the old lady who lived in the garden flat at 11 Camden Crescent. She died in hospital.’

Sara gasped. ‘That’s awful.
Awful
. You don’t mean the bitch in the basement? That’s what they call her. She’s a monster. Terrible woman, apparently. They can’t stand her.’ She hesitated. ‘Or couldn’t, rather. Oh, but for someone to kill her, that’s . . .’ She shook her head, unable to finish. She gulped from her glass and swallowed as if the champagne were a lump in her mouth.

‘We’re beginning to gather that,’ Andrew said. ‘Her other neighbours are polite about her, just. She was clearly a professional complainer. James’s London number didn’t help, actually. Answering machine’s on. We’ve left messages there and in Brussels.’

‘I’m pretty sure he’s in Brussels,’ Sara said absently. ‘He’s judging something. New works for piano. Tell me more about this old lady, though. D’you know who did it yet?’

‘Got a pretty good idea.’

‘Go on. Tell me more.’

Andrew shook his head. ‘It’s fairly cut and dried. The woman was threatened in public a few days before she died. A row with a couple of animal righters. One of them’s harmless, just a spoiled twerp of a girl. But the other’s got a record. Vicious little bastard, actually. We’ll get him.’

‘Animal righters? I thought they bombed laboratories and mink farms, not old ladies. Are you sure?’

‘Sara, thanks, but this is
my
job.’

‘And it’d be pretty stupid, killing someone
after
you’ve threatened them in public.’

Andrew smiled and shook his head at her again.

She was smiling back, looking a little ashamed now. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said sheepishly. ‘Mustn’t start thinking I’m a super-sleuth, must I? Your department.’

‘Well, your experience of murderers is a little specialised. It would be stupid to kill someone after you’ve threatened them, but actually, most murderers are stupid. Makes my life easier. Intelligent murderers are so much harder to catch. Anyway, I am pretty certain about this one. He disappeared from his bedsit some time over the weekend of the bank holiday. He must have put the device together somewhere else, there’s no trace of materials or equipment in the room. And he probably left town as soon as he’d delivered it. There’s nothing mysterious about it.’

‘But you said the other neighbours were barely polite about her. Maybe someone else did it, for some other reason.’

Andrew, intent on restoring an atmosphere of homecoming, was not going into the details of the police search for Brendan Twigg or anything else. ‘Sara. Sara, you’re the cellist. I’m the detective, remember?’

Sara sighed, nodding. ‘Sorry, Detective Chief Inspector. It’s lovely to be back,’ she said.

Andrew rose and topped up her glass, unnecessarily, and returned reluctantly to his chair. He tried to tease from her an indirect admission that she had missed him. ‘So, what did you miss most, away on your own all that time?’

She thought. What she had missed was him, desperately, but she had driven out the longing by trying to picture him thoughtless of her and re-ensconced with Valerie. She had schooled herself painfully into the belief that he was not hers to miss, and so was not now going to let him know it.

‘
The Archers,
’ she said.

She would not settle, not even in front of the fire with her glass of champagne; the fire that he had lit for her and the champagne that he had brought to welcome her home and (he had to admit the possibility) also to engineer a mellow, sensual setting for what he had wanted for so long. Now she was not even drinking, just dipping one finger in the glass and sucking it almost unwillingly. He thought of proposing some toast, to ‘Homecoming’ or even ‘Us,’ but it sounded so stupid. He was suddenly unsure of his ground. Perhaps in her absence he had been transforming their relationship in his mind until it was inevitable that the real thing should jar like this and he would feel as wrong-footed and disappointed as he did. And perhaps the reason for her corresponding awkwardness with him was that she had not thought of him once in all the time she was away.

She sighed. ‘This is lovely, Andrew.’

‘My pleasure.’

‘It’s really special.’

She drank thoughtfully from her glass. ‘Andrew?’ Her voice was very soft. ‘It’s really lovely, but there’s something I’d like instead. Something I’ve been looking forward to.’

She put her glass down on the floor. He rose at once from his chair and came to sit next to her on the sofa. She turned, uncurled her legs from under her and faced him cross-legged, serious-eyed, leaning towards him. He took her hands and kissed her on the lips, much more gently than he really wanted to.

‘Andrew?’

‘Sara, I’ve missed you so much.’

‘No, but Andrew, the thing is . . .’

‘What is it? You missed me, didn’t you?’

‘Andrew, I just meant, don’t be hurt, but it’s been such a long time . . .’

‘What, darling? You’re tired, I know, I know. We can wait.’

‘No, no, no, I didn’t mean that. Andrew . . .’

‘Oh, Sara, let’s not then. I want you so much.’

This time she returned the kiss, at length. His hands moved on to her thighs.

‘Andrew, no. I mean, I wanted to ask . . .’

‘What?’

‘Don’t be hurt. The thing is, there was lots of champagne on the plane. What I’d really like is a proper cup of tea.’

A
FTER
A
NDREW
had gone, Sara, guided by the light which beamed out across the grass from the back of the house, climbed the path to the hut at the top of the garden. She unbolted and opened the double doors. The dry spidery smells of old Julys, which had been trapped inside, spilled out upon the night. She found matches, lit one of the storm lanterns hanging in the roof and dusted off the old chaise-longue before sitting down. She stared out from the hut into darkness over and beyond the roof of the house below, a darkness unleavened by moonlight, and thought she could remember, without seeing them, the precise places of the six lime trees in the meadow across the valley. Tomorrow she would look out and see that their leaves, although still green, were sharper and crisp-looking, already curling back to show the undersides of branches. Before the green turned to yellow, most of the leaves would fall. She was wide awake now. But it was too chilly to stay out and too hazardous to start thinking about Andrew, Herve, the poor dead woman from Camden Crescent and her own feelings in relation to them all. She blew out the lantern, closed the hut and came back down the path to the house. She got ready for bed, glad to be back in her own room. Sinking under the duvet in the dark she thought it ironic that although she had now reached an age when she appreciated sleeping in her own bed, the combination of her mind behaving as if she were about sixteen and her body behaving as if it were noon would probably keep her awake most of the night.