The Beachcomber (46 page)

The room was littered with newspapers and empty cups. Two of them had turned over on the table, the spillage of tea now dried on the surface and on the lino, where it had at one stage dripped and had left a dark smudge.

There were other cups in the hearth, and writing paper torn into shreds and thrown across the rug. The fire-grate was piled high with ash and cinders, and the curtains of one window were still drawn. There was a crumpled pillow and blanket in the fireside chair, as if somebody had been sleeping there.

Alice couldn’t understand it. This was not the work of a burglar.

She almost leapt out of her skin when Lilian’s voice whispered in her ear, “I’ve been too busy to clean it up.”

Recovering her composure, Alice took the blanket and pillow from the chair. “Here, you sit down. I’ll make you a cup of tea, and don’t worry about all this.” Knowing how Lilian was always so particular about her appearance and the tidy manner in which she kept the office, Alice still could not believe that she had been living in such a pigsty as this. It was unthinkable, and only served to confirm how ill she was.

Once Lilian was comfortable in the chair, Alice asked her where the doctor’s number was.

Lilian said she didn’t want the doctor, and when she seemed to grow agitated, Alice calmed her down. “All right. Let’s have a cup of tea and a chat first,” she said. “Then we’ll see.” Though she was determined to get a doctor to her, she thought another few minutes wouldn’t hurt; at least until she had tidied the place up and got a fire going in the hearth.

After a quick look round, she soon found the matches. Lighting the stove, she filled the kettle and set it on the hob, leaving it to boil while she took the pillow and blanket upstairs.

Another shock awaited her, and this time she was shaken to her roots.

In the first bedroom, where the blanket and pillow obviously belonged, there were pictures plastered everywhere: over the wall, on the dressing-table mirror, and even on the bed-head.

Alice could hardly take it all in. “Oh, dear God!” Never in her life had she encountered anything like this.

She walked slowly around the room, looking at the pictures, unable to believe her eyes.

They were all photographs of Tom.

In different settings: walking from his car; sitting at his desk; climbing into a taxi; even several with his children. And here was another, of him sitting in a café, and yet another, of him with his brother, heads bent over the desk where a sheet of drawings was laid out. And another, of Tom discussing business with John Martin.

With the exception of the one with his children, which was taken from close up with Tom obviously aware it was being taken, they were all shot from a distance, Tom apparently unaware that his picture was being taken.

Horrified, Alice began to back off, when she saw other scraps of photographs at her feet. Stooping to pick them up, she pieced them together, one by one, in the palm of her hand.

The pictures were all of Tom and his wife, smiling into the camera.

In the background of one, Alice could see a Christmas tree, and baubles strung from the fireplace. In another, Tom had his arm around his wife, looking down with a smiling face and the look of love in his eyes. And in another, they were outside in the snow. All carefully taken pictures of a man and woman, happy and in love.

And every one torn to shreds, with the woman’s head being deliberately torn off, while the man was kept intact, yet discarded, as though in anger.

Alice shivered.

From the doorway, Lilian watched her. “That’s private,” she said, her voice as cold and hard as her hate-filled eyes. “
You shouldn’t be in here!
”

The streets were busy, with mothers pushing prams and hurrying about their chores. They didn’t take too much notice of the young woman running through the streets, wild and frantic. A female in flight was not an uncommon occurrence in these winding streets.

Her mind alive with fear and suspicion, Lilian wasn’t even aware of their presence. She was running away; looking for some kind of forgiveness. Driven by the ghosts that would not leave her be, she knew one person who would gladly take her in. One friend in all the world.

For all their sakes, it was time he knew the truth.

J
ASPER WAS ON
Jack’s boat, the
Mary Lou
, listening to the news on North Korea, where U.S. Marines had been forced to resort to using flame-throwers in an effort to rid the area of snipers. “By! It’s a bad old do, an’ no mistake,” he muttered, sipping his mug of tea. “Thousands med homeless and soldiers being tekken home in boxes. Will it never end?”

He thought back to the terrible years of the last war, and further back to the time when he had been a sailor. He had seen the horrors of war first hand, and it was not something he would ever want to get involved in again. Yet tragically, premature death had now come to West Bay; he’d arrived back from his visit with Liz and Robbie to find that Kathy’s sister had met with a terrible accident. Poor Kathy was beside herself: more so, since her mother had turned up.

He thought about Kathy’s mother, Irene. She was a hard, unforgiving woman, it seemed to him. “Aye, she’s a bad ”un, is that Irene!” he muttered, swilling back the dregs of his tea. “How a mother can turn agin her own child like that is a mystery to me. All right! I know she’s grieving and I’m sorry it had to happen that way, but to blame that lass is a sin an’ a shame, that’s what it is!”

“Talking to yourself again, is it?” Jack’s ruddy face peered through the cabin door. “They do say as how it’s a sign of madness.”

Jasper’s face broke into a half-smile. “Oh hello, lad. I were just thinking aloud, that’s all. It comes o’ growing old, I expect … I hope you don’t mind me mekkin’ meself at home here while I waited for you?”

“No, of course not,” the skipper said, settling himself down before remarking, “Bad business, though, and now they say Kathy’s mother is ranting and raving … blaming Kathy for what happened. She seems a right old witch; from what I’m told, they can hear her all over the place, screaming like a fishwife. I know she’s had shocking things to deal with, but for the life of me I can’t see the reasoning behind her attitude to Kathy.”

Jasper shook his head. “Ours is not to reason why,” he said. “But you’re right about one thing … her mother has had to bear up to the most shocking news. Summat like that could affect a body real bad.” Once more he shook his head slowly from side to side. “It’s terrible what happened. It just don’t bear thinking about.”

“I couldn’t help but hear what you were saying … just now.” While he talked Jack poured himself a cup of tea from the pot. “How is Kathy? Is she coping all right?”

“She’s devastated, poor lass.” Jasper had only now come back from there. “I were there a few minute since, doing me best, like yer do. Trying to help where I can. Only her mother arrived, so I thought I’d best mek mesel’ scarce.”

Taking out his hankie, he wiped a dewdrop from the end of his nose. “I can’t imagine how it must feel … being told that yer daughter’s drowned. In one way me old heart goes out to her. But though I say it as shouldn’t, that woman’s a bad bugger if ever there was one.”

“Why don’t they get on, her and Kathy?” Jack asked.

“Goes back a long way, from what I understand. According to Kathy, she’s never been like a real mother to her. It were Kathy’s father who seemed closest to the lass.”

Just then he peered out the porthole. “Hang on a minute! Look! Her mam’s just going.”

Two pairs of eyes followed Irene as she emerged from Kathy’s house. Dressed in a dark suit with fur collar and black ankle boots, she was a picture of elegance, much as her elder daughter had been before her.

With her, and holding onto her arm as if to support her, was a portly man, somewhat older and graying at the temples. “Who’s that?” Jack was curious.

“It’s Kathy’s stepfather.” Jasper switched off the radio. “I’d best go and see how she is. I’ll see you later.”

“Aye, you go on. I’ll sit here awhile, afore I take myself off for my tea.” He winked. “I reckon the missus will have a tasty hotpot bubbling away on the stove, time I get home.”

“Hmh! It’s all right for you. Some of us ’ave to do for us-selves.”

Concerned about Kathy, Jasper clambered his way out of the cabin and onto the deck; from there he shimmied up the mooring rope like a two-year-old. “You ain’t lost it yet, old-timer!” Jack called from inside the cabin.

Jasper nodded appreciatively. “Yer should see me on a bad day,” he chuckled.

In a minute he was wending his way across the green toward Barden House. Kathy saw him coming and ran to the door. “Oh, Jasper, I was hoping you’d come back when you saw them leave.”

“What’s up, lass? Yer look badly.” Kathy’s brown eyes were red and swollen, and her face was all puffed up; it was obvious to anyone who knew her that she was distraught.

Trying hard not to show her emotion, she said, “Tell me the truth, Jasper … do you think I was cruel to her? Do you think it’s because of me that she’s –” After the crippling confrontation with her mother, her resolve failed and she broke down.

“Now then, lass. Take a hold on yersel.’” Grabbing her by the shoulders, he drew her to him. “For a start off, I don’t think you could be ‘cruel’ if you tried. And for another thing, it weren’t ’cause o’ you that she went out.”

“But maybe I could have stopped her.”

“No, lass! From what you tell me, that sister o’ yourn was a law unto hersel.’ I dare say if you’d pleaded with her to stay in that night, she would still have gone out and done things the way she wanted. God only knows, what happened to her was a shocking and awful thing, but there was nothing you could have done … except maybe to baby her and follow her everywhere she went.”

He held her at arm’s length, his old heart breaking to see what a state she was in. “You gave her nowt but kindness. You let her into your home and allowed her to stay … even when she let it be known that she were out to take it from you.” He gave her a comforting shake. “No, lass, you weren’t ‘cruel.’ You were a good sister. Nobody can tek that away from yer. Just remember that.”

Kathy found it hard to believe him. “Mother says I’ve been selfish and greedy. She says I should have sold this house and given her half … that it wasn’t much to ask, and I turned my back on her when she needed help.” Taking a deep, choking breath, she went on. “Maybe if I’d promised to do what she wanted she would still be here today.”

“Now then! Don’t torment yersel’ with them kinda foolish notions. Y’see, lass … we’re all on us sent into this ’ere world with a number agin us. When that number is called, we’re away to God Almighty, and there ain’t nobody – not you, nor me, nor anybody else – as can mek the slightest difference to that.”

For a time, Kathy couldn’t answer him. Instead, she held onto him, her face buried in his shoulder, and the tears ran freely as she thought of Samantha and the awful way she had died: slipping and knocking her head as she fell into the harbor. “You’re a good friend, Jasper,” she murmured. “I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“I’ll tell yer what, lass.”

Sniffing, she wiped away the tears. “What?” Looking up at him, she felt safe; absolved somehow.

“How about you mek us a brew, eh? An’ we’ll sit and decide what’s to be done.”

A great, heavy sob escaped her, but with it came the tiniest of smiles. “I forgot my manners, didn’t I?”

He wagged a podgy finger. “So yer did. Shame on yer!”

He thought it would be good for her to busy herself and take her mind off things. While he waited, he asked about Rosie. “She’s been that worried about yer.”

Kathy returned with the tea. “Rosie’s been wonderful … just like you.”

Placing the tea in his outstretched hand, she sat in the other chair.

Hesitating just a little because he knew it was a thing close to her heart, he asked pointedly, “D’yer intend asking Tom if he’ll come back?”

“No.”

“Yer do know where he’s staying, don’t yer, lass? I mean … he did give you an address of sorts, didn’t he?”

“I have the address of his hotel, yes.” So many times she had been tempted to write to him or telephone, but she hadn’t, and she wouldn’t. “See, Jasper, if I were to phone him he’d be here straight away, and that wouldn’t be fair … to get him back just for my sake. He has a job to do, and the last thing I want to do is interfere with that.”