The Photograph (13 page)

“Listen,” he says. “It was a flash in the pan. A silly, idiotic, passing thing. It was all over, long ago. Long before she—”

“No doubt.”

“It makes absolutely no difference to
us
,” he says. “Neither then nor now. It was a stupid mistake. Kath herself would say that. Believe me. I know she would.”

“Very likely.”

 
This isn’t going right. He has struck the wrong note, somehow. And Elaine is unnerving him. She just sits there, quite calm, staring him down. Right now he feels more strongly than ever that there is a stranger there, not her.

The bee is silent. Jim and the tractor mower have gone. The ground is steady, the room no longer rocks, but it feels alien. Everything is just the same, but not the same at all.

 
“What can I do?” he says. Very quiet voice. Careful, sorrowful.

“I want you to go,” says Elaine.

He gazes in total disbelief. “Go where?”

“That is entirely up to you. Away from here. Away from this house.”

He is about to say, “But this is my house,” when he remembers that it is not. It is Elaine’s house. Elaine put down the deposit, Elaine pays the mortgage.

“So long as you are here,” says Elaine, “I shall be reminded of this every time I look at you. I shall have all the feelings that I am having at the moment. And I don’t propose to remain in this condition for the foreseeable future. I have better things to do.”

“But I live here,” says Nick.

“At the moment.”

 
Scuttling thoughts. No, not thoughts—panicky explosions in the head. But she can’t! Yes, she can. What will I . . . ? Where can I . . . ? This is so unfair. Years ago. I haven’t committed a
crime
. I mean, lots of people . . .

Stay cool, that’s the thing. Sweet reason. Elaine is a reasonable woman. She must see that this is . . . exaggerated. Of course it’s shaken her up, of course she’s angry. She has every right.

 
Quiet voice, still. Gentle, persuasive. “Listen, I absolutely understand how you must be feeling. And I’m with you. I’m wiped out by this myself. But we can manage. We can’t let it spoil everything. In time, we’ll be able to live with it.”

“You apparently have been doing so for years, quite comfortably,” says Elaine. “Personally, I don’t feel so confident about that.”

Back in the house the phone rings again. It stops. Nick sees Elaine shoot a glance at her watch.

“Honestly, sweetie,” he says. “This is all a bit over the top. What we need to do is wind down, sleep on it, and have a little talk in a few days’ time.”

Elaine gets up. “In a few days’ time you won’t be here,” she says. “I’m off shortly. I’ll be back late tomorrow afternoon, and I expect to find you gone. Money is being paid into your account, and will be each month. Enough to rent a place and meet modest living expenses. Take your car. And your books. We can sort out what else belongs to you at some later point.”

And she goes. Outside, Jim is back with the tractor mower. The bee is joined by a friend. The day marches on.

Bloody hell? What a mess. After all this time. Just because of a wretched photograph.

Oliver feels trapped. Here he is in his own familiar pub along the road from the office, and nothing is as it should be. Instead of a pint and a quiet half hour with the newspaper, he is eyeball-to-eyeball with Glyn Peters. The pint is there, but he is not enjoying it. Glyn is a heavy presence, grilling him. He leans insistently across the low shiny round table, moving beer mats with one finger. He fixes Oliver with those glittery dark-brown eyes.

“What I need to know—” he says.

You’d be a damn sight better off not knowing, thinks Oliver. Just leave it alone. Nothing to be done about it now. All over with. And, no, I don’t know how long it went on for and I don’t want to know and nor should you. It’s nothing to do with me, never was. Anyone would think I was some sort of accessory to the crime.

“Why did you photograph them?” demands Glyn.

For heaven’s sake! “Look, I didn’t see until after I got the prints. I just snapped the whole group, standing there chatting to each other. I hadn’t noticed that Kath and Nick were—” He shrugs.

And when you did, thinks Glyn, you got into a right old panic, didn’t you? Your business chum and his sister-in-law. And you all matey with everyone—always in and out of the house . . .

Years since he set eyes on Oliver Watson. The man much the same as ever—that slightly apologetic manner, self-deprecation tinged with complacency. Running some sort of small printing outfit these days, it seems. Little office with computers. Lady who appears to be rather more than an assistant, taking a distinct interest in one’s arrival. Oliver rather keen to get them both off the premises sharpish: “Glyn Peters—Sandra Chalcott. Sandra’s my partner. We’ll push off to the local, shall we, and have a chat there?”

“How did you find me?” Oliver inquires. “Given that we’ve rather lost touch?”

“Elaine.”

“You’ve told Elaine!”

“I needed to establish certain facts. There was no alternative.” Glyn is impatient rather than defensive.

“Nick?” says Oliver, after a moment.

“That’s up to Elaine. I am frankly not much interested in Nick.”

Oliver takes a swig of beer, which does nothing for him. He wishes he were back in the office. He wishes Glyn were anywhere but here. He is irritated, and also faintly apprehensive. There is something evangelical about Glyn’s approach to this, the sinister evangelism of the obsessed.

Glyn hammers on. “You must have seen a good deal of Kath, over the years?”

“Well . . . yes. She was often around.” What is this leading up to? Good grief . . . is he going to accuse me of having it off with her too?

Glyn leans back in his chair. He places his fingers tip-to-tip, rests his chin on them, becomes reflective and confidential. “Let me tell you, this revelation has stopped me in my tracks. You must understand that. I am confronted with . . . an unreliability about my own past. My past with Kath. I am not interested in recriminations. My concern is purely forensic. Do you follow me?”

“Not really,” says Oliver.

“I want to know if Kath was in the habit of infidelity. I want to know about her.”

Oliver is shocked. But you were married to her, for Christ’s sake, he wants to say. It’s a bit late in the day to start talking like this.

Glyn finishes his beer, rises, gestures at Oliver. “Drink up.”

“Actually, I won’t have another,” says Oliver. “I’ve got an afternoon’s work to do.” But Glyn has ignored him, and is already heading for the bar.

When he returns he is in full flow before he has sat down. “I have to look at this as I would at any other major piece of research. Every clue must be followed up. . . . I have to take a detached view, lay everything out for inspection, pay attention to even the most marginal pieces of information. . . .” Isolated phrases reach over, rising above the background buzz of the pub; Oliver wears an attentive expression, and allows himself to drift. What’s with the man? Was he always like this? Well, yes—somewhat. And the voice—great delivery. Generations of Welsh preachers behind that. “Method, patience. You start out with an open mind, prepared for whatever may turn up. Which doesn’t mean that you don’t follow a hunch, do you see? Now, seeking you out may take me nowhere, but it was worth doing. Kath is now my area of study—”

“But she’s not an area,” Oliver interrupts, goaded. “She’s a woman. Was.”

Glyn jolts to a halt. He stares. Annoyed, it would seem. But the mood switches. “Point taken,” he says. “That’s the whole trouble, isn’t it?”

Oliver looks down into his unwelcome second pint. No answer to that one.

“So tell me, then. Was she known for this kind of thing?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Before she married me she had . . . admirers. Par for the course.”

“Quite,” Oliver agrees.

“I’m concerned with a subsequent pattern of behavior.”

Oliver is finding it hard to believe that this conversation is taking place. He surveys the room. He eyes other pairs of men, presumably having a comfortable postmortem on some business assignment, or talking politics or sport or last night’s television. While he is landed with the manic concerns of a bloke he thought he no longer knew.

“You must have had a general impression about her, as a person.”

No comment required, it would seem.

“Did you know her friends?”

Enough, thinks Oliver. “Look,” he says. “Kath is . . . dead. Not here. Can’t put up any sort of defense or explanation. Is this fair?”

Glyn spreads his hands. “But that is the whole point about the dead. Precisely. They are unaffected. Untouchable. Beyond reach. The rest of us are still flailing around trying to make sense of things. Addicts like myself choose to do so as a way of life.”

“Well,” says Oliver. “That’s your view. Not mine, I have to say.”

Glyn takes stock. This is not going anywhere. Impossible to get one’s point across. Stonewalling—that’s what the man is at. Why? What’s his agenda? Is there something he knows? If so, he’s been pretty quick on his feet. Had no idea what I wanted to see him about until half an hour ago. Whatever . . . no point in spinning this out.

He smiles—genial, equable. “And I respect your position. But I’m sure you appreciate that I’ve been somewhat thrown by this.”

Actually, Oliver does. At least, at this moment he does. It must indeed have been a slap in the face. He manages a wan reciprocating grin.

Glyn downs his beer. “Well—good to have met up again after all this time. Pity it had to be about this.”

Oliver mumbles some similar sentiment.

They get up and move towards the door. Outside, Glyn pauses. “The other couple—on that occasion. Woman called Mary Packard, I believe. Friend of yours?”

Oliver shakes his head, wanting to make a bolt for the office.

“Artist of some kind, is that right?”

“Potter,” says Oliver desperately. “Lived in Winchcombe.” Oh, treachery. But what is Mary Packard to him? Anything to have done with this. “Have to dash,” he says. “Client due shortly. Good to see you.”

Kath! I can’t believe all this is about
Kath
.

I mean, basically she was just such an amazingly nice person. I adored her. So possibly I’m prejudiced, but that’s how she was for me. I thought she was wonderful. Of course, that rather went down like a lead balloon with Mum. She and Mum . . . Oh well, old history now. Except that apparently nothing is. But it was all more on Mum’s side, you know. Always Mum being uptight and critical, and Kath going her own sweet way. I suppose that was the problem—Kath just carried on regardless and other people were left to look on, and they didn’t always look kindly. Though what business it was of theirs, frankly . . . I mean, Kath just lived life to the full and what’s wrong with that, say I?

She was
so
attractive. That face. And the way she moved and sat and stood—you always found yourself watching her. Not that she was the slightest bit vain, never bothered about clothes or hair—well, she didn’t need to, but the point is she never realized she didn’t need to. Just didn’t much care. Of course you can only be like that if you
are
that compelling, so I suppose in a way she did know, kind of unconsciously—it comes full circle.

But she wasn’t full of self-confidence—not a bit. It was more that she was . . . well, she had some kind of glow. And dash— always off somewhere, meeting someone, jumping in the car. She didn’t hang around. Almost as though she didn’t dare to, when one thinks about it. As though if she stopped, something would catch up with her. Anyway, “self-confident” isn’t the term—definitely not. But she must have
known
the effect she had. Men, after all . . . It was more as though that just didn’t have any effect on
her
. Or any sort of ego-boosting effect. She didn’t really seem to have an ego, come to think of it. Self-centered she was not, if that’s compatible with always doing pretty much what you want. Hmm . . . more complicated than one reckons.

I remember when my first boyfriend dumped me, when I was at college. What? Oh yes, definitely he was a rat. Hey—are you having a go at me? Well, good, then. Anyway, it was Kath’s shoulder I wept on, of course, rather than Mum’s. Kath said, “That’s what they do.” And sort of shrugged, with that little odd smile. And I remember I said, “I bet no one’s ever dumped
you
.” And she thought for a moment and she said: “Not as such, I suppose, but there’s other ways of going about it.” I can still hear her saying that. I didn’t know what she meant, and I don’t now. Women dump too? Well, of course. Too right they do. I’m not talking general theory, I’m talking Kath, do you mind? And then she took me out shopping and we bought me a crazy ridiculous dress I’d never have bought on my own and had an extravagant lunch in an Italian place. That was Kath all over—turn your back on life’s glitches, go out, go away, ring up a friend.

Sort of thing that made Mum go all tight-lipped. Not Mum’s style, you see. There was something tortoise-and-hare about Mum and Kath. Oh, but it’s the tortoise that wins, isn’t it? Hmm . . . food for thought there. Not that it was a race, or even the usual sort of sisterly-rivalry stuff. Frankly, they never even seemed like sisters. But there was some kind of eerie connection. Umbilical cord—no, that’s not right, but you know what I mean. I suppose it’s always like that, with siblings. I wouldn’t know, not having any.

When I was little, Kath was where the fun was at, whenever she came to our house, always unexpected, out of the blue. Bringing lovely silly presents that I’ve never forgotten—paper flowers that opened in water, and a kite like a dragon, and a ginger kitten that just about had Mum hitting the roof. She made up games that we played, and she read me stories, and she did my hair in funky styles, and she discovered face-painting for kids before everyone else was doing it. When she walked in the door it was suddenly like it was Christmas, or a birthday.