Deception and Desire Page 31

  When he had finally wrapped up his school team’s cricket match he drove home and fixed himself a scratch meal – a tin of corned beef, some tired-looking salad and a jacket potato baked in the microwave, washed down with a can of lager. While he was eating he switched on the TV, catching the end of the local news coverage, but there was nothing to hold his interest – the threat of job losses at a local manufacturing firm, primary school children dressed up in the costumes of the last century to commemorate some centenary or other, an old woman who might have worn one of the original mobcaps and pinafores as a child grinning toothlessly – and dazedly – as she was given a bouquet of flowers to celebrate reaching the grand old age of one hundred and five. The pictures blurred before Mike’s eyes. He was just about to switch off when the recap of the headlines began. A body had been found in woodlands. Mike stiffened, nerves taut and jangling suddenly, like the trip wires of a dozen alarm bells.

  Ros. The thought hit him simultaneously with the newsreader’s words. Then, seconds later, he heard the newsreader qualify the statement – the body was that of a man who had not yet been formally identified but whom police thought was probably a tramp who had been sleeping rough. Mike experienced an enormous rush of relief, but the shadow of dread, raised so suddenly by those first blank words, remained. ‘A body has been found in woodlands.’ Mike put down his knife and fork and pushed his plate away. He was no longer hungry. He took the remains of his supper to the kitchen and dumped them in the pedal bin. Then he went upstairs, showered and changed.

  Brendan, you bastard, I’m coming to see you. I have a few questions to ask you and you had better come up with the right answers.

  Mike had never before been to Brendan’s flat but he found it easily enough from Ros’s descriptions and rang the bell beside the name card in its plastic box. It was a while before the intercom buzzed into life, and Mike was just beginning to think Brendan must be out when the man himself answered with a curt: ‘ Who is it?’

  ‘Mike Thompson. I want to talk to you, Newman.’

  ‘Mike Bloody Thompson. Well I sure as hell don’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘It’s about Ros.’

  ‘I don’t care what it’s about. I’m going out and I’m late already.’

  ‘It won’t take more than a few minutes.’

  But Brendan had gone. Mike put his finger on the bell again, keeping it there. After a minute the intercom crackled again and Brendan’s voice bellowed: ‘ Fuck off, Thompson, and leave me alone.’

  ‘Not until I’ve spoken to you.’

  ‘I don’t talk to scum.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Mike said.

  His temper, slow to rise, was up now. He’d stay here all night if he had to. But if Brendan was going out it was unlikely that would be necessary. Mike went back to his Citroen, parked in the communal yard at the back of the flats, got in and waited. After about ten minutes the door opened and Brendan came out.

  Mike recognised him at once, though Brendan had put on quite a lot of weight since his broadcasting days. Tonight he was looking less raddled than when Maggie had called on him. His jet-black hair was gelled into a fashionable style and he was wearing a white jacket over a black shirt. Reactolite glasses covered his permanently red-rimmed eyes. Mike got out of his car and walked over to him.

  ‘Brendan my friend. I said I’d wait.’

  ‘And I said I didn’t have anything to say to you.’ He made for his car – a BMW which had once been a symbol of his success but which now looked as if it had seen better days; one wing had been buckled and the indentation was gathering rust. Mike followed him.

  ‘I’m trying to find out what has happened to Ros. You know she’s missing?’

  Brendan laughed unpleasantly. ‘Left you, has she? Just like she left me? Yes, I had heard.’

  Mike controlled the temptation to rise to the bait.

  ‘Don’t you want to find out what has happened to her? She was your wife, after all.’

  ‘Perhaps someone should have reminded her of that.’ Brendan was searching amongst his keys for the one that would unlock his car. Mike wondered how he could detain him, short of physical violence.

  ‘I’m worried about her, Newman, if you’re not.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, isn’t it obvious? She’s gone off with another man.’

  Again Mike suppressed the instinct to retaliate sharply.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? When a woman goes off there’s always a man. Particularly if the woman happens to be our own sweet Rosalie. She never could keep her knickers on. Haven’t you found that out yet? But then perhaps you don’t know her as well as I do. And aren’t you the lucky one?’

  Mike controlled the urge to hit the Irishman.

  ‘You told Maggie you saw Ros with a man in Clifton,’ he said between gritted teeth.

  ‘Maggie?’

  ‘Ros’s sister.’

  ‘Oh, that Maggie.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘Well, what did he look like?’

  ‘I don’t remember. Just a regular guy. Well endowed, but then he would be, wouldn’t he? Ros wouldn’t bother with one who wasn’t.’

  ‘And you only saw him the once?’

  ‘Yes – and I’d never seen him before. Satisfied?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Was he dark? Fair? Ginger?’

  ‘Look, Thompson, can’t you get it into your thick head – I don’t remember. He was white, right? About thirty, smartly dressed, good-looking. That’s all.’

  ‘OK,’ Mike said. ‘You don’t remember. Well I suggest, Newman, that you start trying to remember. Because if we don’t find Ros things don’t look good for you.’

  ‘What the hell have I got to do with it?’

  ‘Because if Ros hasn’t gone off with someone, if something a good deal more serious has happened to her, then you are Prime Suspect Number One. You’ve threatened her often enough – she was scared to death of you, Maggie will testify to that. And you are lying when you say that’s the only time you have seen her recently.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Maggie sent Ros a scarf for her birthday which, as we both know, is in May. She found it in your flat. So don’t try to tell me the only time you have seen her was in a bar in Clifton.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Brendan had stopped searching for his key.

  ‘It’s the bloody truth,’ he said at last, but Mike noticed that a haze of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

  ‘So how did you come to have her scarf in your possession?’

  Brendan pulled out a handkerchief, a huge square of royal blue to mop his forehead, and managed to knock his glasses askew. He looked, Mike thought, thoroughly rattled.

  ‘She left it behind in the bar that night,’ he blustered.

  ‘How very convenient.’

  ‘It was on the back of her chair after she left. I took it home to return to her sometime.’

  ‘But you haven’t.’

  ‘Because I haven’t seen her. Christ, what is this?’

  Mike’s hand shot out, pinning Brendan against the car. Brendan was a big man, but Mike, fit from all the sport he played, was stronger.

  ‘I’ll tell you, Newman. If Ros doesn’t turn up soon, safe and well, I shall go to the police about the scarf – so you had better get your story straight. And you’d better start trying to remember who it was you saw her with too. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Get off my back, Thompson!’ But the sweat was trickling now in rivers down Brendan’s pasty face. Mike had the distinct impression he was afraid – and not just of the threat of physical violence. The note of panic in his voice was more profound than that. He was keeping something back, Mike was certain, but he was at a loss to know how he could find out what it was.

  A car turned into the communal parking area. Mike relaxed his grip on Brendan and the other man shook h
imself free, straightening his jacket and glowering at Mike.

  ‘Do that again and I’ll have you charged with assault.’

  ‘If anything has happened to Ros you’ll find yourself charged with something a lot more serious than that.’

  Brendan unlocked the door of his car and got in.

  ‘Forget her, Thompson, she’s just not fucking worth it.’ He started the engine, slammed into gear and pulled away. Mike stared after him, impotent in his anger, and wondering whether he dared break into Brendan’s flat to see if he could find any more evidence that Ros might have been there. The tenants who had come home whilst he was talking to Brendan had left the main communal door ajar, perhaps they intended going out again. He crossed and pushed it open, then with a quick look round to see if anyone was about, climbed the stairs. But Brendan’s own front door was securely locked. There was no way in.

  Mike cursed. Perhaps his best bet was to go to the police again. Would they obtain a search warrant? Somehow he doubted it. At the moment they just did not seem interested in the case. If anyone was going to find out what had happened to Ros it was going to have to be him – and Maggie.

  He stood for a moment deep in thought. Perhaps if he were to get a photograph of her and show it around someone would remember having seen her – the station staff at Temple Meads, for instance, the booking office clerk or the ticket collector. Ros was the sort of woman men did notice.

  The thought jarred on Mike. Men noticed Ros, and if Brendan was to be believed, Ros noticed men. In this, at least, Mike thought her ex-husband was telling the truth and the suspicion did nothing to make him feel better. Perhaps it was the Judy syndrome all over again and Ros had simply walked out on him for another man he knew nothing about. With an effort he pushed the thought aside. It would be all too easy to guard his pride and do nothing. But if something had happened to Ros inaction would be no help to her at all.

  Mike drove home, found a good photograph of Ros, and visited the railway station. But he drew a complete blank. No one remembered having seen a girl looking like Ros. There were other staff, of course, not on duty at the moment. If Mike would like to leave the picture …

  Mike was unwilling to do that. He would get copies made and come back again, he said. Then he toured the bars and restaurants in Clifton, asking the same question. He had a little more success here, several waitresses and barmen thought they recognised Ros, but none could come up with any concrete sighting and no one could remember who they might have seen her with. At last, sick at heart and demoralised, Mike treated himself to a drink at The Channings. It was late when he got home again. He noticed he had forgotten to put his answering machine on, so he had no idea if anyone had tried to call him. Well – tough.

  Mike drank a glass of milk and headed for bed.

  When she woke next day Maggie’s first thought, apart from the ever-present worries about Ros and the constant nagging anxieties about her own marriage, was that she could hardly put off contacting her mother any longer. As a maternal parent Dulcie might have many shortcomings but for all that she was still her mother, and the longer Maggie put it off the worse it would be for her, she knew. Dulcie would have stoked up such a sense of grievance that she would be quite impossible and the visit would be even more uncomfortable than it might otherwise have been.

  Besides, Maggie thought, it was always possible she did know something without realising she knew it. Ros might have said something to her to which she had attached no importance – Dulcie’s powers of deduction were limited and her concentration span practically zero.

  Maggie telephoned suggesting she should drive over for lunch, and though her mother’s faintly pained tones did not bode well for the visit, she agreed.

  ‘I’ll see you later then, Margaret. If something doesn’t happen to sidetrack you in the meantime, that is.’

  ‘I’ll be there, Mother,’ Maggie said patiently. ‘I do usually do what I say I am going to.’

  ‘Do you, dear? Then you must have changed a good deal. At least, it may be that you are reliable where your friends are concerned, but with your family it’s always been another matter.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a couple of hours,’ Maggie said grimly.

  She made herself some breakfast, showered and dressed. The weather had taken a turn for the worse again; it was chilly and damp with a strong breeze blowing the bedraggled-looking roses in Ros’s small front garden. Maggie got into her car and headed for Wiltshire, hoping she could find the way. Navigation had never been her strong point but her mother would never accept the excuse of getting lost as a reason for being late.

  Dulcie always referred to the home she shared with the Colonel as a ‘cottage’, but compared to Ros’s genuine article the description was a misnomer. In fact the Ashbys occupied a pretty country house, set in extensive gardens on which Dulcie lavished most of her time and interest. The fact that the lion’s share of the hard work was done by a gardener was lost on her; she always referred to ‘my roses’ and ‘my sweet peas’ as if she personally nourished and tended each one, when in fact Maggie could not remember ever seeing her actually wield a hoe or pull a weed. Instead she loved to float about with a wooden trug on her arm, planning, criticising and admiring.

  ‘I’m so glad I put the rhododendrons there,’ she would say; or, ‘My phlox are an absolute picture this year – I’ll divide them next autumn and make an extra bed.’

  To this the Colonel would merely grunt. In his opinion a garden was something which should be left entirely to the hired help so that all Dulcie’s attention could be focused on his own well-being.

  Today, because of the inclement weather, Dulcie was not in the garden when Maggie pulled into the driveway. Maggie went round to the back door, which was flanked by a conservatory, rang the bell and pushed the door open.

  ‘Mother, it’s me!’

  Dulcie floated into the conservatory. In her pale trousers and tailored shirt she looked, Maggie thought, ridiculously young. Only the carefully coiffured hair and the network of fine fines around her nose and mouth betrayed the fact that she would never see sixty again. She kissed Maggie, then held her away, frowning slightly.

  ‘Darling, what have you been doing to yourself? You’ve lost weight. Haven’t you been eating properly?’

  Maggie suppressed a sigh. Every time she saw her mother she said the same thing.

  ‘I’ve been this size for the past ten years, Mother.’

  ‘Hmm, I don’t know about that. But then of course I so rarely see you.’

  ‘You are looking well, Mother,’ Maggie said, changing the subject.

  ‘Am I? I suppose I know how to make the best of myself. Even though I am a perfect martyr to arthritis, and my back goes out at the least excuse.’

  Maggie knew about the back trouble – it had always seemed to occur whenever there was an occasion her mother wanted to avoid – but the arthritis was a new one.

  ‘I didn’t know you had arthritis.’

  ‘Oh dear, yes! In my hands.’

  Dulcie extended them for inspection. Maggie could see no evidence of arthritis – her mother’s fragile wrists and slim, tapering fingers with perfectly manicured nails looked to her much as they always had done.

  ‘Sometimes I can hardly bear to hold a knife and fork,’ Dulcie murmured plaintively. ‘But I try not to complain. Harry fusses over me so if I do. Now, we don’t want to talk about my little ailments, do we? Come into the drawing room, dear. I have the coffee pot on.’

  The drawing room was small but genteel and, as always, perfectly ordered, cushions plumped, glossy coffee-table books on gardening set out rather pretentiously. Harry was sitting near the window, a cup of coffee on a low table at his elbow, reading the Daily Telegraph. He folded it carefully as Maggie and Dulcie entered, managing to make the gesture appear somewhat ungracious, and stacked the paper neatly into a rack strategically placed near his chair.

  ‘Margaret! Your mother was expecting to see you yesterday, you know.
’

  ‘I never said I’d come yesterday,’ Maggie protested. ‘And anyway, I had a migraine.’

  ‘Oh dear, do you get those too?’ Dulcie enquired. ‘I used to suffer from them dreadfully – I expect you remember. I have been known to lie in a darkened room for anything up to a whole week, but I don’t seem to get them quite as badly nowadays. By the time you are my age, Margaret, you probably won’t get them at all. And they are obviously not as serious as mine used to be.’

  ‘No, I don’t expect they are, Mother,’ Maggie said.

  Dulcie poured coffee into bone-china cups (‘ I hate pottery – so clumsy!’ she always said) and passed one to Maggie, who perched rather uncomfortably on the edge of a brocade-covered chair.

  ‘So, how is Ari?’ Dulcie asked with perfect conversational politeness yet somehow managing at the same time to convey her disapproval.

  ‘He’s well. Working hard as usual.’ Maggie had not the slightest intention of discussing her marital problems with her mother who would, she knew, delight in them whilst pretending concern.

  ‘And his family?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They don’t know how lucky they are,’ Dulcie sighed. ‘It must be wonderful to be so closely knit.’

  ‘Oh Mother, you know you’d hate to have me and Ros under your feet all the time.’

  ‘Darling, what a thing to say! I should adore to be allowed to share in your lives. I realise where you are concerned that is simply not possible, but Rosalie … She lives so close by and yet I scarcely ever see her.’

  Maggie’s heart came into her mouth and she found herself wondering suddenly whether any of them would ever see Ros again.

  ‘Mother, I am very worried about Ros,’ she said.

  Harry snorted impatiently and Dulcie sighed.