What Men Say (33 page)

“Let's go up, then. It'll be safer, anyway.”

Bridget led the way through the drawing room, into the dark hall and up the stairs. The remaining furniture was in a small back bedroom, west-facing so there was still enough light for them to see each other. The single bed, now stripped down to its faded mattress, brought back more memories for Loretta; she had slept in it often when she lived in London, driving up to Oxford for parties or just to spend a weekend with Bridget. A thick paperback lay on the bed, face down and open, as though Bridget had been trying to read, and Loretta looked at the title from force of habit:
Villette.

Bridget pushed the book aside and climbed heavily onto the mattress, curling her legs under her and leaning back against the wall. Loretta lowered herself into an old armchair and tried to make herself comfortable; she gave up, drew it nearer the bed and lifted her head.

“Oh, my God,” she blurted out, “your
face.”

Bridget raised her hand and touched the livid bruise under her left eye with her fingertips. “I told you he hit me. It looks worse today than it did yesterday. You scared me,” she went on, “saying it would take you two hours. I thought you'd misunderstood, or there was another
Professor Lai who lived in Birmingham or some-where.”

Loretta shook her head. “I was trying to make them think you were miles away—if anyone was listening, that is.”

Bridget said bitterly: “I wish I was. Loretta, what did they say, the police? Why do they want
mel
Has he told them I knew about the body, is that it?”

Loretta said nothing, her hands closing on the wooden arms of her chair.

“Say
something,
Loretta.”

“It's—it's much worse than that.”

“How do you mean worse? I've been thinking about it all day, it's been going round and round in my head. He must have told them I knew she was there, he's getting his revenge, the bastard.” Her voice rose: “I'm married to a murderer and I'm having another man's baby—how could it be worse?”

Loretta stared at her, fearing another bout of hysterical weeping. She glanced down at her watch, anxious about time, and said cautiously: “You really think he's capable of it, killing someone?”

“After yesterday I'd believe anything. You weren't there, Loretta—if I hadn't locked myself in the car I don't know what would have happened.”

“But you said—on the phone you said it wasn't much, just a slap.”

Bridget lifted her hand again, lightly touching the contours of her face. “I didn't want to worry you. I knew you'd see for yourself when you got back. I thought you'd help me find a solicitor, someone who knows about . . . battered wives.” Her lips turned down, distancing herself from the expression.

“All right, but—Bridget, you still haven't told me. Where
were
you that Thursday?”

“Not
that
again I met Stephen in the King's Arms. I had to ask him about—you know. Whether he used a condom.”

“Why on earth didn't you tell the police?”

Bridget shivered and pulled down her skirt to cover her knees.

“Are you cold?”

“A bit.”

“Here, have this.” Loretta stripped off her green jacket and held it out.

Bridget hesitated, glancing towards the window, where a faint red glow above the trees marked the approach of night, then draped Loretta's jacket over her shoulders. “Thanks. What about you?”

Loretta was wearing the same thin cotton shirt she had traveled in. “Don't worry about me,” she said, rolling down her sleeves and folding her arms across her chest.

“I didn't want them talking to Stephen,” Bridget went on. “He seemed to think it was a huge joke and I was
terrified
Sam would find out. You know how thick some of those cops are.”

“What about the rest of the afternoon?”

Bridget said impatiently: “I just walked around. Stephen was going to London, he had to catch a train at two something, and I wandered round the shops for a while. Retail therapy,” she added with the ghost of a smile, “though it doesn't really work when you're pregnant. I tried on a couple of dresses in Monsoon—”

“Did you buy anything?” Loretta asked eagerly, thinking there would be a record of the transaction.

“No.” Bridget placed a hand on her stomach. “I got fed up with that after a while and . . . actually, I walked over to your place. If you'd been in I'd probably have told you the whole story but by the time I saw you—the
next day, wasn't it? By then I'd decided to keep quiet, it didn't seem fair to Sam.”

“Then what?”

“You're as bad as the police, Loretta. I can't
prove
any of this, you know, it wouldn't have helped if I had told them. I walked round to Aristotle Lane and on to Port Meadow—it was a sunny day and I sat by the river for a while. I wanted to think it all through before I went home . . . It's ironic, isn't it? If I hadn't got pregnant I wouldn't have married him, then it turns out it isn't even his child.”

“You wouldn't? I thought you were crazy about him.”

Bridget shifted on the bed, stretching her legs in front of her as though the weight of her stomach was too much for them. “Oh, I was—in a way. I mean, I had doubts but . . . you know what it's like when you're in love, you try to make everything fit. I'm thirty-nine, Loretta, how many unattached men are there when you get to our age? It was so great at first, not just the sex, though that was brilliant. He had this attitude to life—you know, very Harvard Business School.”

“What?”

“Sort of, this is what you want, this is what you have to do to get it. Very practical, optimistic. All sorts of things seemed possible all of a sudden.”

“Overcontrolled, you mean.”

“Maybe, but I didn't see it. I knew
you
didn't like him.”

“I thought he was cold.”

“Yes, but not in bed. Not at first. Then he asked me if I'd ever been tied up.”

“
What?
” Loretta jerked forward.

“And I did have a fantasy about it, lots of women
do.” She added defensively: “Haven't you read Nancy Friday?”

“Yes, but fantasies are one thing. Acting them out is another.”

“Please, Loretta, this is hard enough without you lecturing me. I let him tie me up a couple of times—well, I enjoyed it. It felt . . . dangerous but he kept saying I was really in control, that I was the powerful one because I'd chosen to let him do these things to me.”

“Oh, God,” groaned Loretta, half aware that Bridget had said something similar very recently. “Designer S & M. You didn't really fall for that stuff?”

Bridget turned her head away.

“Go on, I might as well hear the rest of it.”

“That time in February, when we split up—”

“Yes?”

“I couldn't bring myself . . . I
know you,
you'd have wanted to see the bruises.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” she said quietly. “He went too far.”

“Bridget, for God's sake, you're telling me this and you
married
him?”

“He did apologize, he said it only happened because he had too much to drink, he didn't realize . . . It never happened again and he started talking about getting married. Then I found out I was pregnant.”

Loretta lay back in the low chair. “I don't believe this. You of all people, falling for a line like that.”

“You can talk. Only last week you were thinking of going back to John Tracey.”

“Not for long.'

“Loretta, you've never been pregnant. I didn't want to be a single mother and I couldn't face another abortion.” She lifted a hand and wiped a tear from the corner of each eye.

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Loretta went to sit beside Bridget on the bed, taking her free hand. “You're quite right, who am I to judge?” Bridget's hand was icy and Loretta rubbed it between her own. “You really are cold, aren't you? Have you had anything to eat?”

“This morning. Some of that horrible muesli.”

“We'll have to stop on the motorway. You'd better stay in the car and I'll bring you something.”

“The motorway? Where are we going?”

Loretta looked at her watch. “You know that phone on Woodstock Road, next to the playing field? I'm going to ring Christopher and ask to borrow his car. I daren't call from here—”

Bridget seized her arm. “Loretta, you still haven't told me. What's he saying? That I helped him hide the body?”

Loretta squeezed Bridget's hand. “He says . . . he says it was an accident but you killed her.”

Bridget choked, gagged and half fell off the bed. She blundered out of the room, across the landing and into the bathroom where Loretta, scrambling to follow, saw her retch into the lavatory bowl.

“Bridget,” she said, going to kneel beside her. Bridget's lips were rimed with bile and Loretta pulled a tissue from her pocket to wipe it away. “I'm sorry,” she murmured, dropping the soiled tissue into the toilet. “Try not to think about it.” She fell back on her heels and added despairingly: “What a
stupid
thing to say. Come on, lean on me.”

She guided Bridget back to the bedroom, helped her to lie down on the bed and covered her with the thin linen jacket. “God,” she said, “it really is cold in here. Listen, Bridget, this is what we're going to do. I'm going out to the phone; if Christopher isn't in I'll try Janet. I could rent a car but the police—”

“What about yours?”

“I had to leave it. They were watching the house.”

“How did you—”

“It's a long story. You know that hotel I stayed in last summer, in Northumbria?” She saw that Bridget's eyes were half-closed, her face alarmingly pale in the gathering dust. “Bridget, are you all right?”

“Mmm.”

Unconvinced, and terrified by the prospect of having a sick fugitive on her hands, Loretta began to gabble: “It's women-only, I stayed for a week and the woman who runs it was so nice. I'm going to take you there and as soon as you're settled we'll get a really good lawyer. John'11 know someone. Bridget? Bridget, did you hear me?”

Bridget rolled over onto her back and Loretta's jacket slipped to the floor. “I didn't do it. You do believe me, don't you?”

Loretta covered her up again. “Of course.”

“Who was she? I mean, why did he kill her?”

Loretta bit her lip, worried about wasting time. “He met her in a clinic, did he ever mention it to you?”

“What sort of clinic?”

“I don't know. He said—he told the police some story about working too hard; I wondered if he had had a breakdown and didn't want to admit it. Apparently she worked there and they had some sort of affair. I really don't know the details.”

“When? When was this?”

Loretta thought about Paula Wolf's pregnancy, the stillborn baby she had given birth to that summer. “Last year,” she said, working back, “sort of August, September.”

Bridget murmured, closing her eyes: “He never said.”

Loretta looked at her watch and was horrified to see
it was twenty past nine. “Will you be all right here while I go and phone?”

“Yes. Don't be long.”

“I won't.” Loretta went to the door, thought of something and turned back. “They found a tape in your desk, a Madonna tape—her fingerprints were on it. It's not like Sam to listen to Madonna.”

Bridget groaned and lifted a hand to her forehead. “What're you talking about, Loretta?”

“A cassette tape. In your desk. With her fingerprints on it.”

“I left some tapes in his car. When I drove over to see Mum. When my starter motor went.”

“Last month?”

“Please, Loretta, I feel awful.”

Loretta remained where she was for a moment, staring at the hunched figure on the bed. The sun had set and the room was in near-darkness, Bridget's face and arm lighter shapes on the opaque oblong of the bed. “I won't be long,” she said and turned to go downstairs.

She was on the last step when the phone rang, echoing eerily in the empty hall. It was on the wood-block floor behind the front door and Loretta stared at it, one hand going out to grasp the newel post. It rang and rang, and when Bridget called out from the floor above Loretta turned and exclaimed, “Shhh!”, as though the person at the other end might hear them. The phone stopped abruptly, in mid-ring, and she waited, listening to the sudden silence. There was no way of knowing whether someone—Inspector Queen or Sam Becker—had hit on the house as a possible refuge for Bridget, or whether it was merely a wrong number.

“Bridget, I'm off,” Loretta called, and eased open the front door. She slipped out, thankful for the cover of the high hedge, and hurried across the gravel to the open
gate. The phone was a couple of hundred yards up Woodstock Road and she walked jerkily, preoccupied with all the questions she wanted to ask Bridget: whether she had seen anyone she recognized in the city center after leaving Stephen Kaplan or on Port Meadow, although the water meadows were such a vast tract of land that Loretta didn't hold out much hope. There was also the matter of Sam's alibi, which still looked unbreakable—

Loretta caught her breath as she reached the phone, remembering that she had started to question Christopher Cisar about computer logs on Friday evening. The conversation was almost immediately interrupted by the appearance of John Tracey, but she now realized what had prompted her inquiry: months before, in the spring, she had been sitting in another restaurant in Oxford, bored to tears, as Bridget encouraged Sam to give a step-by-step description of an attempt to steal information from the main computer at CES and the brilliant strategy he had devised to block it. His account was far too technical for Loretta to follow but it was obvious he knew the system inside out; if there
was
a way of tampering with the log, he would know how to do it. Loretta opened her purse, snatched a twenty-pence piece and punched Christopher's number into the phone, bursting with questions. She listened anxiously to the ringing tone, willing him to be in, and it wasn't until she heard his voice that she remembered the much more urgent problem which had brought her out to the phone in the first place.