Killing Me Softly (6 page)

‘Tuscany, you said? What about her passport?'

‘It's not in the house, but neither is her handbag, or her other papers. That proves nothing. I've contacted Sophie, as well, or tried to, but wouldn't you know, she's off on her travels again, has been since last autumn, she and that husband of hers. A card came from her, yesterday, posted in Cairo.'

Sophie, Roz's sister. There was a name from the past! Abigail saw her around sometimes, though not often, had heard she was richer than ever, having inherited the old woman's money. Several times married, this time happily, but not cured of her wanderlust, it seemed.

‘Why haven't you reported her missing?'

He took another cigarette from the pack, watching her sardonically over the flame of the lighter. ‘Oh, come on! You know as well as I do what the reaction would be. Just the line you're taking now – if a grown woman decides to disappear, she presumably has reasons for not wanting to be found. No grounds for searching for her unless there are suspicious circumstances, and an uncleared fridge wouldn't be regarded as that.'

There was no arguing with that. ‘Just what do you want me to do that you can't do yourself? You're an experienced detective.'

‘I've every intention of carrying on looking for her myself, I just don't want to make a song and dance about it. I'm only asking you to make a few unofficial enquiries, as well, set something in motion. You've access to more information than I have. You carry more weight.'

They'd come a long way since the days when he could persuade her into almost anything. ‘I'm sorry, I'd advise you to wait a bit longer, I'm sure you'll hear from her soon.' Abigail stood up. She had a busy day in front of her, and no more time to waste. Yet she sensed that he was really worried, although so far he hadn't convinced her that there was any cause for undue concern. ‘Look, Nick, she could walk in at that door tomorrow, and she wouldn't thank you for having chased her.'

‘I know that well enough. But I can't leave it like this, you must see that.'

What Abigail saw was that the success or otherwise of his marriage was balanced on a knife edge, but she knew that Roz was a self-reliant lady, who valued her independence. She guessed also that Nick might be desperately afraid that his wife could renege on her promises to support him in his new venture, and that puzzled her.

‘What if she's in trouble,' he said suddenly, ‘serious trouble?'

Perhaps she'd been doing him an injustice in believing that he was worried about Roz's so-called disappearance primarily because it affected him financially. And after all, who could know what a mother might do after the death of her child? Roz had had a terrible experience, long and harrowing. Hardly surprising if something had finally snapped. Suicide? Was that what Nick was trying to say? But Roz, from what Abigail knew of her, stood for common sense, robustness. She could handle herself.

All the same ...

Nick was never loath to use emotional blackmail when the occasion warranted it, as she knew to her cost. He could be ruthless in getting what he wanted. She sighed and stood up. ‘All right, I'll keep my eyes open, that's all I can promise.'

‘Thank you, I knew you'd help.' She tried to ignore what was undoubtedly satisfaction in his eyes. ‘But you will be discreet, won't you?'

She gave her assurances, though she had a strong suspicion he hadn't told her all he knew, which didn't bode well for success. What was at the back of all this? she wondered as she made her way in to work. What game was he playing?

Clare hadn't yet gone to bed when Tim came home that night. Amy and three of her friends had spent a strenuous and rowdy few hours playing table tennis in the games room extension to the accompaniment of loud music, but the friends had long since noisily departed in an old banger belonging to one of the boys and Amy had gone straight up to bed.

Half an hour later, she'd heard a car arrive at speed down the drive, drawing up outside with a punishment of tyres on gravel which meant no one else but Richie. A wash of relief swept over her, as always when he returned after driving. He'd called goodnight from the hall, but she came out of the sitting-room while he was still half-way up the open-tread staircase.

"Night, Richie,' she called, then, ‘Are you all right?'

He looked pale, sick. She thought at first he'd dented her car, except that Richie would have come straight out with it; then that he was drunk, but there was no smell of drink on him. Drugs! The dreaded word flashed through her mind, every parent's nightmare. She searched his face for the signs that were supposed to be there, but instinctively she knew it wasn't that.

‘What's wrong?' she asked, reaching out over the banister rail to him.

‘It's nothing, Mum,' he said, avoiding her hand and then bending to give her a hasty, embarrassed, goodnight kiss. ‘Just knackered, that's all.' He'd loped up the rest of the stairs, two at a time, and she heard his bedroom door bang shut.

She made a chicken sandwich and a pot of tea, and sat wrapped in an old velvet kaftan, watching one mindless television programme after another, none of them making any impression whatever. She managed to eat half the sandwich, drank three cups of tea, then switched the set off and listened to the solitude. This was never how she'd expected her life to be, spending her evenings alone, worrying about her children, wondering if Tim was going to turn up or whether she'd be spending yet another solitary night, alone in the king-size bed.

Tonight, the house, silent but for its ever-present rush of water, was getting on her nerves. The mill wheel had been jammed to prevent its turning, but she could hear its creaking ghost. She shivered and concentrated on her outing with David Neale the next day. She was looking forward to it with more pleasure than she would have thought. It was a long time since she'd been escorted anywhere by a personable, attentive man and though it wasn't a social engagement as such, she'd planned what she was going to wear as if she were a young girl going out on her first date.

She heard Tim's car draw up as she was carrying her tray into the kitchen. She was loading crockery into the dishwasher when he came in and she was immediately aware that he'd been drinking, though normally he drank little. It wasn't one of his vices.

‘Come into the sitting-room, I want to talk to you, Clare.' He directed his appealing, one-sided smile at her, the one which had once made her knees turn to water, but it was a travesty of what it had once been. He looked dreadful, almost as bad as Richie.

‘I was just on my way to bed.'

‘Come on, you can spare me a few moments,' he said in a thick, cajoling voice.

She shrugged and followed him reluctantly, and perched on the arm of a chair, with her arms wrapped around herself. Let's get this over with, she thought, and then perhaps she might even get the chance to talk to him about Richie. He was Tim's responsibility as well as hers, and he and Richie had always been able to communicate with each other. ‘Tim –' she began.

‘I'm in trouble,' he interrupted abruptly, which didn't come as any surprise. Everything over the last week or two had suggested it, she'd seen the usual restless signs, plus an unfamiliar edge of worry. ‘Serious trouble.'

‘Money again, I take it.'

‘Partly – but don't be like that, Clare. It hasn't all been my fault.'

‘Most of it has.' For months now, she'd been keeping the household going, paid all the bills, and some of Tim's, too. ‘But you've come to the wrong place this time. Money's as tight with me as with everyone else.'

‘I'm only asking for a short-term loan, for God's sake! A few days, that's all.' Even when asking for favours, he couldn't hide his petulance, his assumption that it was his right to expect people to bail him out. His voice was unbearably patronizing in its public school arrogance. She shook her head.

‘There's your father.'

‘No,' she answered quickly, having anticipated this question, and her answer to it. ‘No way will I ask him. Don't even think of it.'

‘He's helped us before.'

‘That's just why I won't do it again.'

‘He wouldn't miss it, he's lousy with it!' His face had begun to look ugly.

‘He's worked damned hard for every penny, if that's what you mean, and it isn't right that he should be expected to subsidize you, Tim.'

‘God, you're a hard-hearted bitch! You care about nothing but that tinpot cooking outfit, you and that partner of yours!'

Instead of retreating into sulks, as he invariably did after one of their contretemps, he advanced towards her, his face congested with rage, and caught hold of her wrist, dragging her upright so that his face was inches from hers, and she could smell the whisky on his breath. He stood over her, big and overwhelming, glaring at her with his arm half lifted, his fist clenched, and she braced herself for the expected blow. Never before had he threatened her with violence, but she would not cower back. A pulse beat violently in her temple, but she held his gaze, and eventually it was his that fell. His arm dropped to his side, he flung her away from him and she lurched back against the chair.

He turned on her a look of such loathing that she felt scorched by it. Then, without another word, he swung round and stamped off upstairs. She held on to the chair for dear life, feeling waves of nausea envelop her. With her hand to her mouth, she staggered to the downstairs cloakroom and was violently sick.

Afterwards, she leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the mirror, her eyes closed. I've forgiven you a lot, Tim, over the years, but this must be the end, she told herself, the end of our marriage, the absolute end of everything.

On Saturday morning David Neale listened to the radio weather forecast as he showered and shaved. There was apparently to be no hope of a quick ending to the persistent clammy fog that still hung around outside his bathroom window, though the faintly optimistic forecast was that the sun might try to break through in the afternoon. But if not ... He was beginning to be worried. His arrangements with Clare might not work out exactly as he intended. Relax, he told himself, relax ...

Part of the cause of that collapse of his, after a particularly acrimonious board meeting, he'd been told, was due to his inability to unwind. His job was too stressful, he must give it up and learn to take things as they came. He'd been advised to take up yoga, find some new interests, quit smoking, and follow a quiet and well-ordered way of life. He'd thought at first he might as well
be
dead.

His parents had been rigid Presbyterian Scots and, since childhood, he'd been imbued with the strong Calvinistic ethic of hard work and duty. He'd reached his position on the board, not because of his brilliance, but through sheer slog and determination. Shy as a young man, he'd never actually relished the cut and thrust of corporate life; it didn't come naturally to him, but he'd always believed he'd managed to keep his end up, that he worked well under pressure. It had taken him a while to begin to admit to himself that he'd always been on the sidelines of that macho power game, longer to accept it and find there were other ways to keep the adrenalin flowing.

His pulses quickened as he thought of the day ahead, but he controlled his excitement as he went over his plans, making a careful selection from his wardrobe, deciding finally on a fawn cashmere roll-neck sweater and a pair of casual, well-tailored slacks that he put aside to wear later, when he went to meet Clare.

She'd left one of her notes on his desk yesterday when he'd been out at lunch time, suggesting the best time for him to collect her from her father's house. He smiled as he took it from his wallet and smoothed it out, and, before going downstairs, he put it in the drawer of his bedside table, next to the photograph of his mother, and every one of the other notes or memos Clare had ever written to him.

He had a cleaning woman who came in twice a week to do his chores, although one not untidy man living alone barely made a dent in the atmosphere. For the most part, he lived in his comfortably furnished study, next to the dining-room, but he always felt he owed it to Jane to see that the rest of the house was kept as she'd once liked it, with the care and attention that showed off the beautiful furniture, collected by her father, and now his responsibility. He walked from room to room, checking that everything was in order, that Mrs King hadn't knocked any of the pictures out of line when she dusted, rearranging in a more comfortable fashion the cushions which she insisted on leaving quatri-cornered along the sofa.

On an impulse, he went in as he reached the door of what had been Jane's workroom, something he rarely did now. It was very much as she'd left it – her battered old desk and armchair, the big table where she used to do her sewing. She'd been an accomplished needlewoman, and the tapestry cushions all over the house bore witness to this. She'd also taken to making her own clothes. He'd never been able to see why she'd rebelled against the designer models he liked to see her wearing whenever she went out with him. But for all they'd been married thirteen years, Jane had never really understood him. Not many women did.

Which was strange, because he liked women and was attentive to their welfare. He couldn't bear to see them suffer. He'd done his best for Jane, poor, dear, misguided Jane, in his own way, right to the end. He stared bleakly out of the fog-obscured window. He'd never imagined he would miss her so much, that he'd be so lonely. Her ghost walked with him everywhere.

The trick was to find the way out of the shadows, out of despair, to shut off your mind to things too painful to remember. He blinked and shook his head as if to clear it, and the image of Clare came to take its place. Yes, well. Maybe, soon, things would be different.

From here, one could just about see across the murky river. His eyes were drawn like a magnet to the Bagots, dimly outlined in the fog, eyesores which couldn't come down too soon for him. The sight of the decrepit, tumbledown, uncared-for buildings went against his sense of how people should live. The sooner they were pulled down and their inhabitants rehoused in clean, comfortable accommodation, the better he'd be pleased, for their sakes. He was delighted the developers had won the battle. Not only because he had a strong sense of social justice, but also because he had a substantial tranche of shares in their company. He wasn't Scottish for nothing.