Pursued by Shadows (12 page)

“A likely story,” said Harriet.

“I've heard worse. The trouble is, it is likely, isn't it? Anyway, they told him that if he really had some information about the case, which he denies, that he ought to let them know about it. I thought you'd be reassured by that. And when they asked him what ‘it' is, he said he didn't know what they were talking about.” He paused and looked quizzically at Harriet. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Lots of reasons,” she said. “I'm wondering about a whole heap of things. Like—have you had lunch yet? And, what are you planning on doing for the next two weeks? And if the answer to that one is nothing, then what happens to you when you are suddenly cast adrift? Is it possible to live anywhere near you when you are not wrapped up in some passionately interesting job? That's a very crucial question, you know.”

“My God. How about life, the universe, and everything while you're at it? I'll start at the beginning. Lunch, wasn't it? The answer is no. I've been sulking, and came over here because I need an audience. Don't you think?”

“Definitely,” said Harriet gravely. “There is no point in sulking without an audience. Therefore, once we have settled the rest of the questions, we will go out to lunch.”

“The next question was what am I going to do? No, that wasn't it. It was what plans do I have? A subtle distinction. The answer to that is none. And I don't know if I am livable with if I don't have something going on in my life. I guess I'll find out pretty soon, won't I?”

Harriet smiled. “Not necessarily. There is something we still have to do. Remember?”

“Jesus. We still haven't found your highly mobile young friend, have we?”

“Right. So tomorrow we could go to Lindsay to see her parents. After all, they might know something.”

“Stop. Hold it right there, Harriet. Jane Sinclair, as current sex interest of the deceased, is part of this case. And I am specifically enjoined to avoid anything to do with this case.”

“You won't be doing anything. My friend is also my friend whom I am trying to find. You will be along merely as my consultant, driver, and bodyguard. Nothing to do with the case.”

“That, my love, is positively Jesuitical. And I'm not sure the department has your fine sense of distinctions. Much as I'd like to drive out to Lindsay tomorrow, and spend the day with you, I think you'll have to take this particular trip on your own.”

Sunday morning was sun-filled and summery; the fields were a bright green, somewhere between the pallor of spring and the dusty near black of summer. The road to Lindsay dipped and rose between the half-grown crops, relatively deserted at this time of day.

“Do you happen to know where we're going?” asked John, to whom, as chauffeur, had fallen the task of driving. “Lindsay isn't that small.”

“I have an address, if that's what you mean,” said Harriet. “Beyond that, we are at the mercy of friendly locals. But relax—it's a gorgeous day and it shouldn't take that long to find them.”

The Sinclairs' house turned out to be on the suburban fringes of the town, in a neighbourhood that exists thousands of times over from one end of North America to the other. Clean, orderly, safe, well looked after. But as they pulled up and parked the car on the shoulder, Harriet shivered. In spite of its split-level conventionality, its well-tended lawn, and its neatly clipped shrubs, an air of premature decay, a smell of inner rot, seemed to hang over the premises. Perhaps it was simply that the woodwork needed painting and the garage door could have used some repair, but the entire building looked dead and unloved in the newness of late spring. A baby wearing bright red overalls stood in the yard, clutching a huge, soft ball, preparing herself to throw it at a compact young man who was standing a few feet away from her. She had wispy pale blond hair, enormous blue eyes, and shrieked in triumphant laughter when she succeeded in heaving the ball in her playmate's direction. The two of them froze, like frightened rabbits, at the sound of the car doors opening and closing again.

The baby ran over and clutched the young man by the knee. Automatically he reached down and picked her up; from the safety of his arms she examined the strangers closely.

“Hi,” Harriet called as she walked up the driveway. “I'm Harriet Jeffries. Jane used to work for me.”

“The photographer,” said the young man, in a surprisingly deep voice. He half-turned so that his body was between the baby and the strangers and waited.

“And this is John Sanders—a friend who drove me up here. And you must be Jane's little girl,” she said to the infant who was peering around the young man's shoulder to scrutinize her carefully. “You're a real beauty, aren't you? Just like your mother.”

The young man looked suspiciously at the two of them, and finally reached out the hand that wasn't supporting the baby to shake Harriet's. “I'm Jeff Sinclair, Jane's brother. What can I do for you?”

“Actually, probably not much. We thought Jane might be here, that's all. I got a letter from her asking me to help her out with a few things, and then I lost touch with her, that's all. We were just trying to locate her. It's not important—at least, not for us. It might be important for Jane.” She let her sentence die a final death, realizing that she had begun to babble.

He continued to study them carefully. “You'd better talk to my mother,” he said abruptly. “I don't know what Jane is doing right now.” And he swung the baby up onto his shoulders. She whooped with delight and buried her hands in his pale red hair.

“No, we haven't had a word from Jane. Not recently. We read in the papers about Guy—wasn't that awful?—and we were sure that she'd contact us, but she's that independent. You never know what she's up to.” Mrs. Sinclair was thin and fragile-looking, neatly dressed in a skirt and blouse, and looked at first glance much too young to be mother to a daughter who was now twenty-seven. She led them into a living room that glittered with polish and reeked of industrial-strength cleaners. Order, peace, and calm reigned. No messy plants grew in here, dropping leaves on the floor; no flies buzzed against the window. From somewhere else, they could hear the sounds of Agnes being put to bed for her afternoon nap.

“There,” said Mrs. Sinclair, who had been listening to what was going on beyond the walls of the living room. “She's settled. No,” she said, turning her attention back to Harriet, “we haven't seen Jane since she left for London a year ago. We've had a couple of letters, but you know, Jane isn't much for writing. We're used to the idea that we're really all the family that Agnes is going to have.” She shot a nasty look at Harriet as if her visitor had been disputing her claim to the baby. “I never expected to have another baby to look after at my time of life. I mean, Jeff is almost out of high school now, but you really wouldn't want someone as irresponsible as Jane looking after a baby, would you?”

“Irresponsible?” asked Harriet. “I never—”

“That's right. Terribly. But then, I sometimes think that it was really my fault. I mean I had just turned nineteen when Jane was born and I was pretty reckless and silly in those days. Imagine, getting married and having a baby at nineteen,” she added, shaking her head. “It was almost like Jane inherited all my recklessness. Not to speak of her father's,” she whispered, looking around, embarrassed. “Of course her father—he was a terrible man,” she said in a low voice. “I don't think Jane even remembers him, though. The man she calls Dad is my second husband, Jack. I married him when Jane was four and he raised her just the same as he raised our own two.”

In the slight pause that ensued, Sanders made a discreet circle with his hand. Harriet glanced at him, puzzled, and then realized he wanted her to keep Mrs. Sinclair talking.

“We met Jane's brother,” she said in desperation.

“Yes, Jeff's a wonderful boy. I couldn't have got through this year without him. He simply adores Agnes.”

“Doesn't Jane have a sister, as well?”

A faint cloud passed over Helen Sinclair's brow. “She's at university right now. At Brock in St. Catharines. She doesn't get down to see us much. Like Jane, I'm afraid. Gone off and left us here. Jeff's not like that. He wants to go into his dad's business.”

“What sort of business is it?” asked Harriet.

“The restaurant,” said Helen Sinclair, sounding surprised that anyone should not know.

“Good heavens,” said Harriet, startled. “Did Jane work there?”

“Of course she did. All the kids have. You can't run a place around here without everyone pitching in and helping. There's too much to do and it's too hard to get help. And when you do hire them they up and quit just when you need them most or they try to rob you blind,” she went on bitterly. “You have to depend on family if you can. I do the books and the ordering and that sort of thing, and when people get sick I'm in the dining room—or even the kitchen, if I have to be.” She laughed. “We manage. And Jane was very good around the kitchen—she could have gone on to be a first-class chef if she'd stuck with it. But you know her. Ask her to do something for more than a week and she's too tired, or she's bored and sick of it,” she said with real venom in her tone.

Jeff came into the room, quietly, and sat on the floor beside his mother's chair. “Agnes is asleep,” he said.

“That's wonderful, dear,” said his mother. “You know,” she said, turning back to Harriet, “we've been thinking of adopting Agnes. Before Jane swoops down and takes her away to live with some hippie—”

“There aren't any hippies anymore, Mom,” protested her son.

“Well—people like them. She's very happy with us, isn't she, Jeff? Babies need to be surrounded by familiar people, don't they?”

“What would your daughter be doing in Skaneateles, New York, Mrs. Sinclair?” said Sanders, opening his mouth for the first time since they arrived. Everyone jumped and turned in his direction.

“Good heavens. Where's that?” asked Mrs. Sinclair, wide-eyed with amazement. “Is it somewhere near Buffalo? She used to go down to Buffalo to shop sometimes.”

“No,” said Harriet. “It's in the Finger Lakes.”

“I have no idea. I don't think I've ever heard of it.”

“Is there any other place that Jane might have gone to?” Sanders asked again. “Some place she liked, or felt safe in.”

Mrs. Sinclair shook her head. “I really can't think of any place. I'm sorry I can't be more help.” She paused, frowning. “You know, she left a couple of boxes here when she came to drop off Agnes before she went to London. You can look through them if you like. I don't think there's anything real confidential in them. That was quite a day,” she went on. “She just turned up and said could she store some stuff in the garage and by the way did we mind if she left Agnes with us? The way she might have left a kitten she'd found somewhere. You know—here, Ma, can you look after this for us? I was so startled I could hardly speak. Fortunately for me, I had the good sense to make her sign some papers: an authorization letter, saying I was the baby's guardian, things like that. I could just see trying to take her to the hospital some night and being refused because I wasn't her mother.”

“Now where?” said Harriet, getting up stiffly from her knees and looking down at a run in her second to last pair of panty hose. “I wish I'd worn my jeans,” she added ruefully.

“The restaurant for an early dinner, don't you think?” John looked around the garage as if he expected more information to come popping up from the containers of weed killer and lawn fertilizer. “Just in case? It might be illuminating.”

“Not Mrs. Sinclair again. Still, it might be more illuminating than those damned boxes,” said Harriet, who had not as yet succeeded in getting the dust and grime off her most expensive set of “official business woman” clothes, spring and summer version. “I had hoped for something more fascinating than old high school yearbooks and letters. And at least we'll get something to eat along with the eternal monologue.”

John shook his head. “The letters might have been more useful if you didn't have all those endearing scruples about reading other people's mail.”

“Not mail,” said Harriet, indignantly. “Love letters. I refuse to read love letters sent by
my
lover to the woman he—he was committing infidelity with at the time he was supposed to be faithful to me.”

“Committing infidelity with? Really, Harriet.”

“You know what I mean. Anyway—you could have read them.”

“No, I couldn't. I'm just a driver and bodyguard, remember? Anyway, let's go eat.”

The Sinclair family establishment was not the neon and fluorescent burger palace that Harriet had been expecting after seeing the house. It was located in an old commercial building that had been renovated some time ago, and referred to itself as the Meadows Inn. “It has pretensions,” said Sanders, looking at the menu in the window. “And a wine list.”

“Now I understand why Jane always gravitated toward restaurants to pick up a job. I thought she was just heading for the unskilled labor pool. My God,” whispered Harriet somewhat heatedly as they walked in. “It suddenly occurred to me. All those meals I threw together for everyone, and she can probably cook rings around me. She certainly never told me she knew one end of the kitchen from the other.”

“Conned, that's what you were,” said Sanders. “But be charitable, Harriet. Maybe she was sick of cooking.”

The restaurant was empty of customers when they walked into the dining room. It was quiet, except for muted thumps from the back. Helen Sinclair was sitting behind the cash desk, entering figures into a large calculator. “Good heavens,” she said. “How nice of you to drop in. It's early for most of our business, but I suppose you have to get back to Toronto tonight. Sit anywhere you like,” she added, grabbing a couple of menus and coming around to the other side of the desk.

By the time their orders had arrived, a few more people had trickled in, and the inn had lost its sepulchral emptiness. A waitress had turned up to relieve Mrs. Sinclair and background chat had begun to liven up the atmosphere. “It's not a bad sort of place,” said John, looking around him, “but if I were Mr. Sinclair I would close the whole operation down for a day or so and put a coat of paint on everything. It's getting scruffy around the edges, wouldn't you say?”

“The washroom could use some upgrading,” said Harriet, with feeling. “Actually, it could use some cleaning too. I'm surprised. Mrs. Sinclair seems to be such a fanatic at home. People are strange, aren't they?”

“Maybe Jane used to clean the toilets, and now that she's left—”

“What a ghastly thought,” said Harriet, giggling. “So how many years would that have been?”

Their crude speculations were cut short by the arrival of the main course. “Nouvelle cuisine,” remarked John, looking down at his prettily garnished plate.

“Alas, yes,” said Harriet, trying a piece of the veal she had ordered. “It's good, but it does carry the notion of delicate portion size to new heights, doesn't it? No wonder poor Jane was so thin. Years and years of insufficient food—”

“—and hard manual labor.”

“It's cruel to laugh,” said Harriet. “Maybe they're on the edge of bankruptcy.” And with that they settled down to finish their delicate repast.

Lesley Sinclair double-locked the door of her New York hotel room and slipped the chain into place. It didn't help the unpleasant pounding of her heart nor the heaviness in her chest and stomach. Nor did it drown out the sound of phantom footsteps pursuing her along hotel corridors. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and tried to calm herself the way she'd been taught. “The room is safely locked,” she murmured. “The hotel is guarded. I can walk to wherever I want to go.” Then, breathing deeply and evenly, she repeated, “I am safe in this place,” over and over until her terror was reduced to a tiny manageable lump in the back of her brain.

She shook herself like a dog coming out of the water and settled down to business. Yanking her cotton shirt out of the waistband of her skirt, she undid the flesh-coloured money belt concealed beneath it. She unzipped it and pulled out a stack of US currency. With grave concentration she counted it, slipped it back into the belt, and put it back on.