Midnight is a Lonely Place (40 page)

Hands on hips he watched, a sneer curling his lip. Vengeance; sweet,
healing vengeance. And no one would ever know. Slowly the clouds were
drawing back; the sky was turning blue. It was going to be a beautiful
day. He put his hand to his belt and felt for the dagger he wore there,
opposite the empty sheath which had held his sword. Taking the hilt
between his fingers he stroked it for a moment, then he drew it out,
feeling the weight and balance of a well-loved, trusted weapon
.

Then he turned towards the priests
.

‘Are you and Alison going to work on your projects together today, Sue?’ Cissy Farnborough looked at the top of her daughter’s head, which was all she could see as the girl sat at the table, her face buried in a fat paperback.

Don’t read at table. She wanted to say it, but how could she with Joe sitting there on the far side of the cornflakes packet, as deeply buried in the
Sunday Telegraph
. She sighed. ‘Sue!’ she tried again, louder this time, more irritated. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

Sue looked up. Her unbrushed hair stood out round her head like a disorganised halo; her nightshirt, adorned with a particularly ugly picture of some hirsute pop star’s face in close up, was crumpled and distinctly grubby. ‘I don’t know what she’s doing. She missed school last week. I’ll ring her later,’ she said ungraciously.

‘Please do. I should like to know if there is someone extra for lunch.’

‘You always make too much anyway,’ Sue commented tartly. She buried herself back in her book. Cissy pursed her lips. She turned to the kettle and switching it on, reached for the jar of coffee. Her husband and her daughter had tea at breakfast, and as usual Joe had insisted on a full, cooked, death-by-cholesterol blow out. She shuddered as she glanced at the greasy frying pan. He wouldn’t even let her grill his bacon. ‘I work for my living, woman,’ he had growled when she suggested a slight moderation to his diet. ‘These namby pamby doctors don’t know anything about life on the land. They’re writing for city folk; desk pilots. Men who never shift their backsides off their chairs from one end of the month to the other. They should try and do some real work. See what that does for them!’ She had given up. It was a well worn theme. A combination of rural arrogance and resentment against her father, who had been an accountant in London before he retired. Spooning the coffee into her cup she stirred it thoughtfully, rehearsing her own dissatisfaction silently as she turned to look out of the window. She had married beneath her; both her parents had thought so. And unfortunately they had made no secret of their opinion. She had defended Joe, stuck up for him, passionately supported him, slept with him and finally married him, and of course they had been right. He had gone to a minor public school in Suffolk but he was not what she would call educated; he was not interested in anything but the farm; he never read anything except the Sunday newspapers and he despised education in others – especially his wife. Susie was different. Nothing was too good for her, but even there he never sup ported Cissy when she tried to make the child do her homework. ‘Leave the girl alone,’ he would say impatiently every time Cissy tried to get Sue to switch off her Walkman or the television and concentrate on work. ‘She’s pretty. She’ll find herself a man soon enough. She doesn’t need all this crap!’

‘There’s no marmalade, Ciss!’ Joe emerged from the paper looking wounded, the lid of the jar in his hand.

‘Blast!’ Cissy mouthed the word silently. Why, why, why did he always manage to find fault. Why was there always something she had forgotten?

‘Don’t call me Ciss,’ she snapped back. Cecilia Louise. That was what her parents had christened her. But Joe had never called her Cecilia in his life. At first she had thought it funny to be called Cissy, but the joke had soon palled. Now it just added to the weight of resentment.

‘Go and ring Alison now.’ She turned on Sue as always, her anger and helplessness directed against her daughter instead of its true target. ‘And get dressed. You look like a slut.’

To her surprise Sue got up at once, and she saw Joe glance at her surreptitiously from behind the paper. Perhaps she had spoken more forcefully than she had realised.

‘I will put marmalade on the list,’ she said calmly. ‘You will have to wait until I go to the shops again. There’s plenty of jam in the pantry.’ She smiled at her husband. ‘Or Marmite.’ She saw him shudder visibly, but to her surprise he said nothing. Meekly he larded his toast with butter and ate it plain. Well, if that was supposed to make her feel guilty it was not going to work. What were another few ounces of butter going to matter after the load of fat he had ladled into his body over the years?

She turned and looked out of the kitchen window. It was vile outside. The sky was almost dark even though it was after nine. The wind from the east was flattening the trees in the orchard beyond the kitchen garden, and there were thin, melting drifts of snow over the grass. She shivered. It was still sleeting. On the bird table outside the window a flock of small birds fought over the bowl of melted fat and seed she had put out for them. The only thing about Joe’s diet which did please her was the amount of fat which dripped from his food and which she could make into bird pudding. She half smiled as she watched two robins squabbling with some sparrows. On the snowy grass beneath the bird table about fifty small birds foraged about for the seed she had scattered there.

‘Mum! Their phone’s out of order.’ A querulous wail came from Sue as she slammed down the receiver. ‘Hell and shit and fuck!’

Joe looked up. ‘Go to your room, Susan,’ he bellowed.

‘But Dad. Allie’s got my notes. I’ve got to speak to her.’

‘I don’t care what she’s got.’ Something had at last pierced his lethargy. ‘No child of mine uses language like that in my house.’

Cissy sipped her coffee, for once uninvolved. Let them work it out. Sue’s friendship with Alison was one she cultivated assiduously. The Lindseys were a pleasant family. Well spoken; well educated. Their lack of money was not their fault – poor Roger was so ill – but still Diana managed to run that house with a grace and style which Cissy envied.

She turned away from the window and surveyed the thunderous scene at the table. ‘I’ll drive you down to Redall Farmhouse when I’ve put the lunch on,’ she said peaceably. ‘Then you can collect your notes and Allie can come back with us if she wants. In fact, they all can. I’ve got a huge joint this week. As you say, there will be plenty for everyone and it would be nice to have them over. In weather like this it’s not as though anyone can be doing anything outside.’ She smiled at her husband and her daughter, suddenly cheerful. Her depression had lifted as swiftly as it had fallen. The Lindseys would cheer them all up.

XLVII

Kate awoke suddenly with a start and lay staring up at the ceiling wondering where she was. Her head was spinning. Nothing about the room was familiar; she could not place it at all. A dull light was filtering through the closed orange curtains. She stared round at the overflowing shelves, the untidy desk with its computer, the posters on every inch of available wall space and then she closed her eyes again, defeated. She hadn’t the energy to sit up, but she knew she must. She lifted her wrist towards her face and squinted at her watch. A quarter past nine. She realised suddenly that under the duvet she was fully dressed. Cautiously she moved on the bed, easing herself nearer the edge, with a view to swinging her legs over the side, but every part of her body ached and for a moment she lay still, trying instead to force her brain into gear. What had happened last night? Why couldn’t she remember?

She turned her face towards the door as a faint knock sounded. It was Patrick. He grinned. ‘Sorry it’s such a mess in here. I’ve brought you some tea.’

Of course. Suddenly it was all flooding back. The horror and the fear; the cold and exhaustion. She levered herself up onto her elbow, and pushing the hair out of her eyes reached for the cup. ‘You’re a saint. I didn’t realise how thirsty I was. How is everybody?’

‘Alive, I guess.’ Patrick pulled the chair out from his desk and swivelling it round sat astride it, facing her. ‘What’s happening to us? What are we going to do?’

She sipped at the scalding tea and thought for a moment.

‘We’re going to have to get up to the main road. We need help. A doctor; the police.’ She paused, frowning. ‘How is Greg?’

‘His foot is all inflamed. Mum says he ought to be in hospital.’

The wave of anguish which swept over her surprised her. Greg was the only strong one amongst them; the only one who could protect them if … If what? If they were attacked?

Almost as though he had read her thoughts Patrick shook his head. ‘Whoever murdered Bill must be long gone by now. In our car. It was stolen yesterday. I’m going up to the Farnboroughs’ on foot. It won’t take me more than an hour.’

She drank some more tea, feeling it flowing through her veins like some kind of elixir of life. ‘You can’t go on your own. I’ll go with you. A quick wash and something to eat –’ she was surprised suddenly to realise just how hungry she was, ‘– and I’ll be ready for anything. What’s the weather like?’

Patrick stood up. He leaned across his desk and pulled back the curtains, letting in a dim brownish light. ‘Not very nice. It’s still windy and there’s been quite a bit of snow. They are forecasting blizzards –’ He broke off suddenly.

‘What is it?’ The lurch of panic in Kate’s stomach told her she was not nearly as calm as she had thought. All her fear was still there, under the surface, waiting to flood back through her.

‘The car!’ Patrick’s voice was strangled. Putting down the cup Kate lurched out of bed and went to stand beside him. ‘Where? Damn it, my specs are in my jacket.’ She screwed up her eyes as she looked out across the snow-covered grass towards the edge of the saltings.

‘Out there, on the marsh.’ Patrick’s voice was awed.

The Volvo was standing some hundred yards from the grass and sand at the edge of the salting, balanced on high sections of grass-topped mud. Beneath its wheels, the tide was rippling merrily out of the creek leaving a curtain of weed draped on the car’s bumper.

‘Is there anyone in it?’ Kate could only make out the outline from this distance.

‘I don’t think so.’ Patrick sounded distracted. ‘How could it have got there? No one could have driven it.’

‘Not even at low tide?’

‘Kate, look at the height of the ground it’s standing on! Those are like little islands. At high tide those grass patches are above sea level. They must be four feet off the ground. There is no way that car could have got there, no way.’

‘The tide must have carried it. There was a terrific wind last night – ’

‘Blowing this way. Off the sea. That’s a car, Kate. A bloody great Volvo. It’s not a Dinky toy. If it got in the sea it would sink.’

‘Yes. Of course.’ She pushed her hands deep into her pockets, aware that she was shivering. ‘Can we walk out there? When the tide’s gone out a bit?’

He nodded absently. ‘I’ll have to tell Dad.’

‘I’ll come downstairs.’

She stood back and watched as he headed for the door. He was in a daze. She glanced back at the window. The car was still there, the windscreen glittering in a stray, watery ray of sunshine.

On her way downstairs she glanced into Alison’s room through the open door. The girl lay unmoving, her hair spread across the pillow. The teddy lay on the floor, a hot water bottle near it. Kate stood for a moment watching her. She had a feeling Alison was not asleep.

‘Allie?’ she whispered. ‘Allie are you awake?’

There was no reply.

Roger was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of him, which judging by the skin on the top was cold and unappetising. Diana was standing near him watching the toaster.

‘Did you manage to sleep?’ She smiled at Kate and indicated the coffee pot on the hob.

Kate made for it gratefully. ‘A bit.’

‘Pour Greg one too, will you Kate, and take it through to him. I think he’d be glad to see you,’ Roger said. He mustered a valiant smile. ‘Then you and I and Paddy will grab a bit of breakfast. By then the tide will be low enough to make our way out to the family barouche. Those bastards. I can’t think how the hell they got it there, but it won’t be worth a tinker’s ha’penny after the tide has been in it.’

‘The insurance will pay, Dad.’ Patrick had emerged from the study.

‘Let’s hope so.’ Roger’s face was grim as he watched Kate make her way across the room with the two mugs of coffee.

Greg was propped up against a pile of pillows and cushions on the camp bed in the study. Someone had made a makeshift cage across his foot to keep the weight of the bed-clothes off it, and though Kate could see the pain in his face as he grinned at her, he looked immeasurably better than he had the night before.

‘How are you?’ She knelt to hand him the coffee, and then sat down on the floor beside him. ‘I hear the foot is not too good.’

‘I’ll live.’ He reached out a hand to her. ‘And that fact I owe to you. It hasn’t escaped me that you saved my life about five times last night. That’s some debt I owe you.’