The Betrayal of Trust (32 page)

‘You mean it? Because …’

‘Well, other things being equal.’

‘Ah, that. Other things.’

‘How do I know now if this case is going to be done and
dusted
by then, or trailing on or blowing up in my face? Be reasonable.’

‘Be reasonable? Me, be reasonable? Si, he’s your nephew, you’re his father figure now, he’s always adored
you, you’re his role model, you —’

‘Listen, stop dumping all this on me, would you?’

‘
What
?’

‘I’m his uncle, OK, I do my best, OK, but it’s hardly my fault his father’s dead.’

His words fell heavily between them. The dishwasher clicked off and there was a dreadful silence. After a moment it was broken by Mephisto’s faint snoring.

Simon knew what he should have done, knew perfectly well. A
swift step across to his sister, arms round her in a long, tight hug. He would not have needed to say anything, neither to explain – there was no explanation or excuse – nor even to apologise. She would have taken his embrace as all of those things.

Why did he not do it? Why did he simply stand where he was, coffee mug in hand, staring at the floor to avoid looking at Cat, who was hunched up,
head down, motionless and silent?

It was Molly who broke the terrible spell, running downstairs and into the kitchen, but then hesitating, as she sensed the tension.

‘Sorry …’

Cat waved her hand. ‘It’s fine, Moll, Simon was going.’

Simon didn’t move. Molly picked up a book from the chair and fled. Silence again.

In the end, Cat got up and went past her brother without looking at him. Put
her mug in the sink. Emptied the cafetière. Rinsed it. Set it on the draining board.

‘I had supper with Judith.’

‘Oh –’

‘I knew Dad would revert to type sooner or later and sure enough.’

‘Revert to type?’ She sat down at the table with a glass of water in front of her. Did not drink it.

‘You know.’

‘Do I?’

‘To his old self. He upset her. Did she tell you? She was here that day – she must
have been talking to you.’

‘She was. But I don’t expect her to disclose the intimate details of their marriage.’

‘Don’t be pompous.’

What happened next was shocking. Cat got up, came round the table to where he was standing, and slapped him hard across the face, making his skin sting. Then again. As she did so, she drew in her breath and seemed to be about to say something, but did not.

He
put up his hand to his cheek. ‘I suppose I deserved that,’ he said.

‘And more.’

He went to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. Cat had not moved.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever hit anyone before,’ she said quietly.

‘Yes you have, you punched me when we were seven. Your hamster escaped and I laughed.’

It should have lightened the mood but it did not.

‘Dad …’

‘Yes,’ Cat said. ‘You know
what? I never thought you had anything much of Dad in you, but you have. It was buried, but it’s surfacing. Is it the job? Is that it? You see and hear such appalling things every day that it’s hardening you, it’s making you as cruel as some of the people you have to deal with? You used to keep it all separate. The policeman wasn’t the man. But maybe that’s no longer true. You’d never have said
what you said to me just now a few years ago.’

‘No. Listen –’

‘Why? Why should I?’

‘I was only going to ask what you thought about all this stuff with Dad and Judith.’

‘What about it?’

‘I just wonder what his motive was.’

‘Now there’s a word.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Oh, I do. Motive. Dad’s motives are as unfathomable as yours. I told you – it’s coming out.’

He wondered whether that
was true. Was he turning into his father? He was like Meriel. He had always been like Meriel. He had felt alien to his father every day of his life. It was not possible that he was now becoming like him.

‘Why would he tell Judith about Martha?’

‘What about her? There’s nothing to tell. Judith knew all about Martha long ago, way before they were married. Probably before they had anything to do
with one another, before Mother died. Everyone knew about Martha. That she was … handicapped. That she …’

‘Well, yes, obviously, but I didn’t mean
in general
, did I?’

‘I don’t know what you meant.’

‘Of course you do!’

He might have wondered at that moment, might have hesitated to ask himself, but the thought was barely there, if anyone had asked him he would have denied that he had any doubt
at all. Of course she knew. She had probably been the first to know. She was a doctor, like their parents, she above all people would have known. He was the only one who had been kept out of the loop for so long. The moment when he might have stopped himself from saying it flared up and was gone.

‘He told Judith about Mother giving her the injection.’

Cat’s face registered something – some subliminal
awareness, some shock, some fear, her eyes were on him, asking, asking.

She cleared her throat. ‘Mother …’

‘Yes. Giving her the injection that killed her. Come on, what other injection would I be talking about? Can’t remember the name but you know …’

‘Si …’

‘Potassium. Don’t know why I forgot, because oddly enough there was a case last month, in the Midlands somewhere, only this was a nurse
– you’ve must have read about it. She saw off about half a dozen that way, but no reason or excuse with her of course, it wasn’t –’

He stopped. Cat’s face was grey. She had not taken her eyes off him all the time he had been talking.

Silence. This kitchen has never known such silences, he thought. Never known such vast terrible distances between people who are close. Were close. Need to be.

‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Jesus Christ, Cat. You didn’t know.’

HE SWITCHED OFF
the electric razor.

‘Serrailler.’

It was ten past seven.

‘This … It’s … Stephen Foster.’

‘Right.’

‘I need to see you.’

Don’t make it easy. Give him a hard time. This morning, Simon would have given anyone a hard time.

‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’

‘No … I don’t want that. I want to meet you somewhere.’

‘Sorry. Your house or nowhere.’

‘I can even come –
come into the police station.’

‘No need. Half an hour.’ He rang off and went on shaving.

He had driven away from the farmhouse just after midnight. Cat was shaken and angry, partly out of professional pride, he thought, that she, doctor among doctors, should be the last to know what had happened, but mainly out of the inevitable distress at what their mother had done. Mercy killing.

At ten
to eight, he was at the Fosters’ front door. Foster answered it, barefoot as before.

‘Is your wife in?’

‘No.’

They went into the orange and brown room.

‘Right,’ Simon said, ‘this time, you tell me.’

‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

‘No thanks. Talk.’

Foster walked up and down the small room a few times, stopped by the window, stopped by the chair on which Serrailler was sitting, notebook out.
He rarely wrote anything other than a name or a date but the open page itself often focused the mind of someone reluctant to talk.

‘Listen, this doesn’t go any further.’

‘Depends what you’re going to tell me. You must know you can’t ask for any sort of immunity once you start making confessions.’

‘Who said anything about a confession?’

‘Didn’t you?’

‘Not … right. If you think I rang you because
I killed that girl and thought better of denying it, you can forget it. I wasn’t near enough to lay a hand on her. I was on the other side of the road.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m coming to why. I said I wasn’t anywhere near, that I was at the print works because … I shouldn’t have been in Parkside Drive … anywhere near Parkside Drive.’

‘So why were you?’

Foster stopped by the window again and turned his
back to Simon. ‘I … I was going to see someone.’

‘Who?’

‘A friend.’

‘A friend.’

‘Someone … my wife doesn’t … didn’t know about.’

‘I need her name.’

‘I don’t want to give you that. I don’t want her involved.’

‘Where did she live?’

‘I don’t want –’

‘Name. Address. Don’t mess me about.’

Foster sighed. ‘Elaine Morner. 8 Parkside Drive – it’s a block of terraced houses pretty much opposite
the bus stop.’

‘How long had you been seeing Mrs Morner? Mrs?’

‘She’s divorced. But Mrs, yes. Then? Only a few months. Not quite a year.’

‘How often?’

‘Quite often. Afternoons … evenings. When I could.’

‘So you didn’t want to admit you’d been in Parkside Drive because you were having an affair with Mrs Morner? Understandable. But you could have told us that. We’re not in the business of divulging
private information which isn’t relevant to any inquiries, and it probably wouldn’t have been, would it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘No. If you’re telling me the truth,
why
you were in Parkside Drive, when you happened to see Harriet Lowther at the bus stop is irrelevant. The fact is that you saw her. You almost gave us some vital information, but you decided not to, and to remain anonymous and not to
call us back. Why was that?’

‘Obviously … I was afraid of it getting out. In spite of what you just said. These things do.’

‘And did it?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘So, tell me what you saw. Never mind about your affair, I’m not interested. Tell me exactly what you saw. You refreshed your mind when you watched the television reconstruction, didn’t you, it’s all come back to you. I need to know.’

Foster sat down and leaned forward, hands on his knees.

‘I came out of Elaine’s house. It was just after four – ten past, maybe a minute or so before.’

‘Yes. Harriet was waiting for the four fifteen bus.’

‘Right. I walked to my car – I always parked it away from Elaine’s house, at the end of the block. I happened to look across the road and saw the girl … she was standing on her own at the
bus stop. I’m sure she was on her own.’

‘Sure it was her?’

‘As soon as I read her description in the paper, yes. She had blonde hair in a ponytail, she was carrying a tennis racket. About fourteen or fifteen – she was fifteen, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘I just thought – this will sound odd – but the sight of her – well, it just somehow cheered me up … gave me a kick, you know what I mean? I don’t
go for girls or anything like that,
wouldn
’t dream of it, but … she was so … bright-looking … sunny-looking … her hair, her expression … holding the tennis racket … she just looked young and full of life, full of … well, sounds daft, but, full of sunshine, somehow. I remembered thinking that. When I read about her. I remembered it straight away. It seemed so – awful. Shocking. Her looking like
that and then … just … gone.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Well, I saw the bus come almost as soon as I saw her – it must have been travelling down the road – and next thing, I saw it pull into the stop. I unlocked my car but while it had been parked there the sun had moved round and it was too hot to get inside … I opened the doors and waited for a minute, so that’s when I was just looking across,
without even realising I was doing it, I suppose … and I saw the bus pull in, then after a minute, it pulled out again. Only she hadn’t got on it.’

‘How can you be sure? You weren’t on that side of the road and Harriet could have been sitting on the far side of the bus.’

‘Yes, but she wasn’t, because I saw her walking away from the stop and on down the road.’

‘Which direction was she walking
in?’

‘After the bus. Lafferton direction. Just seemed odd at first that she’d been waiting at the bus stop but hadn’t got on it … that she’d started walking.’

‘Odd at first?’

‘Yes. Only then of course she got the lift.’

Simon’s stomach flipped. ‘She got the lift?’

‘Yes. She was … she glanced over her shoulder a couple of times and then a car came up alongside her and stopped and she got in.
But then a white van got in between, overtaking, and I turned back to my car. I didn’t see any more.’

‘Can you explain that?’

‘I got into my car – it was a bit cooler – and when I looked again, they’d all gone … ‘

‘They, meaning …?’

‘The girl, the car she got into, one of those Ladas it was, the white van, the bus … you know. All of it.’

Simon let out a slow breath. ‘This is important information.
Do you realise that?’

‘I suppose.’

‘You suppose it’s important or you suppose you realise?’

Foster did not answer.

‘After sixteen years, you come up with information that might have saved Harriet Lowther’s life. Think about it, Mr Foster. Just sit there and think hard.’

‘I know. I … listen, the minute I saw that television programme I knew. I suppose I’d pushed it away before … and then years
have gone by, you forget.’

‘Harriet’s father hasn’t forgotten.’

‘No. Only … when I saw the TV it was pretty good, quite accurate – surprising that. And then I thought –’

‘Pity you didn’t “think” sixteen years ago.’

‘I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’ve got to live with that.’

‘What happened to the woman you were having the affair with? Elaine – Morner? You didn’t want your wife to find out, presumably.’

‘I still don’t.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I still don’t want my wife to find out. I still see her. We’re still …… Elaine. Nothing’s changed. That’s the thing.’

‘You’re still having an affair with Elaine Morner? You’ve been having an affair with her for sixteen – seventeen years? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘Yes,’ Foster said. ‘That’s right.’

The doors of the hatch into the kitchen burst open with such
a sudden bang that both men leapt up.

‘I heard that. I heard you. I came in and I heard …’

‘Noeline …’

She burst into the room now, her face twisted with anger and pain.