The Fifth Rapunzel Part 12

Maybridge, shocked by the discovery of the nightdress, would have agreed with Claxby had Simon not been involved. He didn't seem to have the temperament for it. You can't talk about gut feelings in this kind of situation, and he wasn't sure what his gut feelings were.

He hoped Simon was innocent, but hope is optimistic doubt, which isn't a professional state of mind. As a professional policeman he thought Simon should be brought in. He guessed that Rendcome, as a professional policeman, thought the same. Both he and Rendcome had memories of Simon's father, as had Claxby, but Claxby's memories didn't count. Nothing would colour his judgment. Maybridge looked for reasons that might delay the inevitable. "So far," he said cautiously, "the evidence is circ.u.mstantial. I've never known the lad to be violent. I think we should wait a few days sir, and make further enquiries. The Mount is a psychiatric hospital. One of the patients, Paul Creggan, is due to be brought back from London tomorrow for questioning. He left the premises at the weekend."

Rendcome, relieved, agreed that this seemed the best course. "Meanwhile, young Bradshaw should be kept under surveillance. Un.o.btrusively."

Claxby, slightly mollified by the proviso, said he'd see to it. Had Simon Bradshaw been the son of Joe Bloggs, he thought, he would be spending the night minus his shoelaces and tie as a guest of Her Majesty in a small room with bars on the window.

Simon, in David's large airy bedroom in Maybridge's home, replete after a substantial supper of roast lamb which he thought he wouldn't be able to eat but had surprised himself by being hungry (he hadn't, after all, eaten much all day), tossed and turned under the duvet and kept up a running conversation with himself inside his head. He should be out there looking for Sally. He had been told to stay put by the plain clothes policeman, the boss of the squad who had taken the nightdress away. But did he have to listen and take orders? Yes, obviously he had. But he'd come here. Organised searches by the villagers would be made; he might be able to join one of them. But that was leaving it late. The sky was starless tonight and there was a drizzle of rain on the window. If she were out there - under a bush - in a field - the rain falling on her - hurt - dying perhaps - and he was lying here - doing nothing - cold with guilt one minute, burning with shame the next- and he failed to stay awake and stopped thinking of her ...

Meg, looking in on him quietly just before her husband returned, saw that he was deeply asleep and she was reminded of David at the same age. Her son had had his traumas, too, but nothing this bad. She hoped to G.o.d the girl was all right.

Sally, drugged to her eyeb.a.l.l.s, was having the most-appalling dreams. In her last coherent state of mind she had threatened the old bag that if she didn't fetch her clothes soon she would walk back to The Mount naked. Mrs Mackay, not sure how Sally would take the news that the police were out looking for her, had been evasive when Sally had asked her what was happening. It took time before people began worrying, she soothed. In a few days Sally's feet would be healed and she would return to The Mount and carry on as usual. A meeting with Mrs Hixon in a cafe near Horfield Gaol in Bristol had convinced Mrs Mackay that she was doing the right thing. The suffering of Bradshaw's son would be nothing compared to the suffering of her husband, she had pointed out. Her husband was in for life. Simon Bradshaw was just getting a small taste of misery. When he had suffered enough it would end. As for Mrs Mackay's worry about the illegality of the situation - laws were man made. Nemesis, the G.o.ddess of retributive justice, was above human law. "And you care for the girl, don't you?" she had asked, smiling coyly. "Who better could look after her until she is well? Do you suppose it was by chance that she found her way to you on Friday night? Believe me, she was guided to you by the Divine Will. A precious being has been placed in your charge. Mould her. Pray for her. Then send her forth when she's beautiful in flesh and mind and spirit."

A tall order.

Mrs Mackay bought Dettol for Sally's feet (her nose and forehead had healed). Her mind and spirit she couldn't do much about apart from keeping her quiet with a c.o.c.ktail of barbiturates dissolved in the most tasty of soups. When the squad of police failed to do a spot check inside the cottage and satisfied themselves with a routine enquiry at the door followed by a look inside the coalhouse in the back yard, she became convinced that Mrs Hixon was right. Had it been part of the Great Scheme of Things for Sally to be found, she would have been then. "You'll soon be better, m'love," she told her when Sally tried to get downstairs on legs that felt like nerveless pieces of plastic, and the floor and ceiling splintered into hard black squares and triangles that tended to come up and hit her. She guided her gently back to bed and arranged a couple of bolsters on either side of her. "To make you comfy, m'dear." As going to the lavatory didn't seem safe unless she was there to help her, she left a commode and toilet paper in the bedroom, and locked the door.

Sally, not drugged, would have broken the window. And yelled. And kept on yelling until someone came. She would have saved herself eventually.

But Sally slept.

Having a row with Meg and making Simon get up at dawn and go home were two emotionally bruising experiences for Maybridge - especially the latter.

He had tried to point out calmly to the boy that as a policeman he had to observe certain rules of professional behaviour and having him there put him in an invidious position. He couldn't tell him he was under surveillance. "If I'm seen to be helping you too openly, then I can't help you at all. Superintendent Claxby will be taking over from me in all further interviews with you - on the orders of the Chief Constable. I'm sorry about this, but I haven't any say in the matter." Later, he had broken a few rules of confidentiality by telling Meg about the build-up of evidence against Simon. She had listened in silence, deeply perturbed, and her anger with him abated. "The happiest day of my life," she said sadly, "will be the day of your retirement." His, too, on occasions such as this. There were times when he wondered why he had chosen the profession.

Paul Creggan's moods of dark disillusionment with his job came and went, but he ran his multi-million-pound business with considerable skill. He attributed his success to his ac.u.men in choosing the right female staff. It was, after all, a feminine product that was on sale - apart from Citre - and Citre was bought by women for men, according to a survey he'd had done. Very few men bought the product for themselves. The full range of perfumes sold under the Redolence logo were to be found in salons within the large better cla.s.s stores up and down the country. His senior executives, all women and London based, were well paid, well educated, well groomed and well motivated. The perfume industry rolled along on well oiled wheels, gathering momentum, and caused him no ha.s.sle. It was one hundred percent legitimate.

The aromatic oiling of the wheels of the Patchouli Parlours, however, needed watching. It tended at times to clog. It had clogged badly when Hixon had murdered one of his girls. She had broken all the rules and might have broken his business if the police had probed a little deeper. The ponce, a nasty little geezer who ran a similar establishment in Bath, had lured her. And she had moon-lighted.

The Patchouli Parlours might not be as white as driven snow but they were elegant places to work in and the girls, carefully chosen, weren't coerced into doing anything they didn't want to do. If they showed particular apt.i.tude in attracting male customers for aromatherapy plus extras they were rewarded with a flat above the premises - free. If intake fell, they lost the flat. While the flat was theirs they were promoted to managerial status and wore a brooch in the shape of the letter M. That M might also stand for Madam amused some of the livelier ones. The French version - Madame - one of them suggested had a ring of cla.s.s about it - so why not use it? When Hixon had started his lethal campaign the jokes had stopped. The business had slumped, too. Understandably. The inc.u.mbents had kept their flats - and status - it wasn't their fault. Business, now that Hixon was safely locked away, was booming again.

There were times when Creggan saw himself blackly as King Rat and wished he could chuck it all in, but it would take someone with the funds and ability of an emperor rat to buy it. Such men existed but to find them you had to trawl in deep waters and perhaps finish up drowned. In his darkest moments he imagined himself at the bottom of a tarn in a quiet dun coloured landscape where sheep safely grazed and only entrepreneurs perished. These moods tended to come upon him when he was undergoing ma.s.sage with aromatic oils in his regular Gestapo surveillance visits to the Parlours outside London. He hated the smell. He could smell the b.l.o.o.d.y stuff for hours. It clogged his pores. Got into his clothes. Clung.

He had suggested to his wife, the blonde b.i.t.c.h on his back, that the Parlours should be closed - not sold - closed. Finished with. But she had pointed out that a move as unbusiness-like as that would invite investigation and she didn't see why she should suffer financially for his unpredictable conscience. "Take your holiday," she had urged, "wear your sackcloth and ashes for a while, and come back when you're normal."

He was normal when he lived in the tepee.

He was gra.s.s-roots normal there.

He wished he would live in it for ever.

To be peremptorily summoned back to it by the police, however, was a bit of a shock.

Maybridge conducted the interview in Donaldson's office, and as Paul Creggan was, or had been, a patient, Donaldson was sitting in on it. It looked like a role reversal situation. It was Donaldson who seemed sick with nerves. He couldn't keep his hands still and seemed to be having an intense psychotic relations.h.i.+p with a carafe of what looked like water. It mesmerised him. If it contained what Maybridge thought it contained, then he wished he'd take a swig of it and calm down. It was understandable that he should worry that one of his staff was missing, but surely he shouldn't be this worried.

Creggan's leaving Macklestone at the vital time had placed the focus on him temporarily. Creggan under the spotlight wasn't blinking. He was extremely bland. And extremely well groomed. The erstwhile tramp-like individual wore a Savile Row suit, Gucchi shoes, and smelt of roses.

Maybridge offered him a cigarette.

Creggan declined. He indulged in the occasional cigar and wished he had one with him now. Cigars had a good strong smell. So had carbolic soap. He had arrived without having had time to bathe or change his underwear. His Daimler in the car park made the kind of statement he usually tried to avoid and stank with exotic fragrance. He had told his chauffeur to open all the windows and take a stroll around the grounds and if the d.a.m.ned car was stolen then so be it. He might not be going back. He didn't know why he was here.

Maybridge told him.

Creggan was surprised but not immediately perturbed. He had expected this to be a business investigation, though on reflection that would have been conducted in his head office in Regent Street. He had half-hoped that it might have something to do with Susan Martin, the fifth Rapunzel, that her true ident.i.ty might have been discovered. That his little Sally Loreto had skipped off somewhere didn't alarm him. His alarm might grow as time went on, but he'd had no close link with her. Not like the other one.

"Tell me more," he said suavely, "and how you think I might help you."

Maybridge gave him the outline but Creggan's section must be mapped in by him. "She was seen at the Avon Arms on Friday evening. She didn't come back to The Mount. You were in your tent here on Friday evening and left on Sat.u.r.day morning. Tell me about your movements up to today."

Creggan's movements were as innocent as Simon's. He had walked his dog at around midnight before clouds obscured the moon, but under the circ.u.mstances it might be unwise to admit it. He said he'd slept all night. He had phoned his wife on Sat.u.r.day morning and decided to go home for a while. He felt rested enough to carry on with his business affairs again. If this were the kind of enquiry in which alibis were necessary then he could write Maybridge a list of people he'd been with so that Maybridge could check.

Maybridge suggested he should do so. "But Mr Millington told me that you collected your dog and walked it on Friday night. Please explain that first."

Creggan apologised. He said he'd forgotten. "Doctor Donaldson will vouch that my memory isn't all it should be."

Maybridge looked at Donaldson. Donaldson looked at his carafe. Silence. "Well?" Maybridge prompted.

Donaldson said vaguely that Mr Creggan's medication might have blurred his memory a little. And then remembered belatedly that Creggan had no medication whatsoever. A lapse of concentration. He had more important things to worry about. Someone somewhere was having access to a lethal dose of tranquillisers. A recent check in the pharmacy showed that the pilfering had been done at random by someone with no medical knowledge and probably in a hurry - a few pills of this and that - not all benzodiazepines, some a lot stronger. A patient could have stolen the key. His own investigation was being hampered by this one. It should be reported to the police now. If someone was poisoned he would be held responsible.

He forced his attention back to the interview. Creggan was saying that Millington had been perfectly correct to state that he had walked his dog on the night in question. He remembered it now very clearly. He also remembered meeting Millington late one night in Craxley Copse a few weeks ago. Millington had been blocking badger holes so that foxes couldn't escape the hounds by hiding in them. He was presumably being paid for this by the Master of Fox Hounds. Dwindling farm profits had bizarre consequences.

Maybridge, not sure if Creggan was devious or just uncaring about Sally, knew that in this instance he was deflecting attention from himself. Millington took night walks, too. Okay, point made. Bradshaw had had a stand up row with Millington about messing up the badger setts, or something equally unlikely for a man who liked to hunt. Past history. Maybridge had forgotten the episode until now. He brought Creggan back to the present. "Have you ever seen Sally - off the premises - walking on her own or with someone else? In the copse, maybe? Anywhere?" He wasn't loading the question against Creggan. He didn't think he would be sufficiently indiscreet to carry on with the girl openly, or admit to it if he had. But he might have seen her with someone else. Not Simon. He had questioned Mrs Mackay along the same lines, with no luck.

Craxley Copse was very evocative for Creggan - an area of some beauty and of great gloom. He could smell the place - damp leaves - fir cones. In no way ever did he a.s.sociate it with Sally, but it was a place of death and Sally was missing. He began to feel more concern for her. His natural caution nudged him to be careful but he had been careful a long time, disa.s.sociating himself when he should have come forward and told the police what he knew. The two cases were very different, the odds against Sally's demise were high, even so one could never be sure. He had seen her with Bradshaw's son.

"Tell me," Maybridge urged, aware instinctively that Creggan might be holding something back, but hesitant.

Creggan let the words come - slowly and carefully. He didn't look at either Maybridge or Donaldson as he spoke, he saw a wider audience in his mind's eye. And he saw her. Not Sally. "She worked under a different name from her own," he said, "most do. I knew her background - most don't. She was one of my employees - a good one. She had a flat on the premises. Her parents were Canadian, she told me, but she was born over here. Her parents went back to Vancouver. She stayed. When she got tired of the aromatherapy business she worked for an escort agency - no, not the kind you think - she escorted children to and from boarding school when the parents were abroad. In between she took jobs as a temporary nanny or housekeeper. Ask Simon Bradshaw about her. She fell and broke her wrist when she was playing tennis one day with him and his father when his mother was away. She played other games with the professor, too, on and off over the years. If the corpse in Craxley Copse had a damaged hand then you can call her Susan Martin if you want to. But it wouldn't please her. She had stopped being Susan Martin a long time. She was christened Trudy Morrison and she's a lot older than the date on the gravestone. How the professor could get away with that sort of deception I don't know, but he did. If you don't believe me, disinter the body and let Cormack look at her hands."

Maybridge drew deeply on his cigarette and the silence grew. He had been pushed back in time and all the niggling anxieties he had managed to subdue were painfully present again. Both of the skeleton's hands had been severed. Too neatly, according to Radwell, who had been the first to discover her, to have been done by an animal.

He looked over at Donaldson but Donaldson was intent on pouring a stiff drink of vodka into a gla.s.s. Some of it spilled.

Creggan, master of the situation, temporarily and perhaps perilously, felt a surge of pure relief. Potent as champagne. His unpredictable conscience had probably smashed his empire if Maybridge took what he said seriously and began probing. Either way he felt less of a King Rat. Trudy had been a warm, loving member of the human race. A pretty long-haired Rapunzel that he guessed Hixon had never met. He had handed her ident.i.ty back to her. A small gift too long delayed.

"Bull s.h.i.+t!" Donaldson stood up. He had been badly shaken and controlling his anger was difficult, but it was necessary to a.s.sume the therapist role and take command. "This is an investigation into the disappearance of Sally Loreto, Mr Creggan. We don't want to hear a fanciful farrago of nonsense about a dead prost.i.tute." He addressed Maybridge. "I think it would be better if you deferred your talk with my patient until he's in a more rational frame of mind."

Or you are, Maybridge thought, or both of us. He didn't know what to say or do and was grateful for a respite. He would report it to Claxby and Claxby would tell Rendcome who might let the matter lie. It was up to him. For Simon's sake he hoped that Creggan was truly out of his mind. He looked at him thoughtfully. Creggan, genuinely amused, smiled. He seemed alarmingly sane.

Anger makes you strong, Simon discovered, and he was getting very angry indeed. When Maybridge had made him get up and go home at a time in the morning he had never seen before, he had felt like weeping. Maybridge hadn't looked happy either. To be deserted by the one person you thought was okay, even though that person came out with what sounded like reasonable excuses, was wounding. To be thought capable of killing Sally and burying her in the garden was worse. It was b.l.o.o.d.y insulting.

And everyone seemed to think it - even Meg. She kept visiting and she brought him food so that he always had something in the fridge, but she looked at him as if she wasn't quite sure about him and hated herself for not being sure. He told her rather truculently that he wasn't in the habit of doing people in, and if Sally turned up dead it wasn't his fault. It sounded brutal, as if he really were capable of killing her. But he did care what happened to her. He was sick with worry about her. Not selfishly sick - though he was that, too - probably a mixture of both. Meg had tried to soothe him, and even put her arm around his shoulder and given him a swift kiss. "Don't worry, kiddo - everything will work out okay, you'll see." The brief show of affection had cooled his anger and brought tears - not shed, luckily. She had gone quickly, perhaps aware that they might be.

People tended to go quickly, the few who came at all. The vicar had arrived, carrying a small black leather-bound Bible as if it were a talisman against evil. He didn't seem to know what to say, so Simon had taken him into the living-room and offered him sherry. It was all he had to offer. He and Sally had drunk pretty well everything else. He said, "No, thank you very much, Simon. I just called to see if I could be of any a.s.sistance." To help the police dig up his garden? Simon wondered. "The last time I was here," the Reverend Sutton had gone on, rather tactlessly, when Simon hadn't responded, "it was the funeral of your poor dear parents." It sounded accusatory, as if his poor dear parents would be forgiven if they threw celestial bricks at him.

An unexpected visitor who annoyed him even more was Kester-Evans. Sally's disappearance was reported in most of the tabloids, accompanied by a rather blurred photo of her taken by one of The Mount's patients. Sally in her jogging gear looking very busty and dishevelled, the kind of snap she'd hate. Simon had barely recognised her. The missing girlfriend of Professor Bradshaw's son, was the caption.

Kester-Evans had brought the local paper with him. He marched straight in with it and put it on the hall table. 'There are innuendoes in the journalese," he said, "that I don't like. When I stopped for a meal at the local hostelry I heard gossip I liked even less. Where, as your headmaster, have I gone wrong? Where have I failed you?" A difficult question to answer. Simon, still angry, no longer cowed, was tempted to try. Instead he offered him sherry.

"Don't be ridiculous, boy!"

Kester-Evans strode ahead of him and, as he didn't know the geography of the house, finished up in the kitchen which was getting stacked high with unwashed dishes again. He spun around on his heel. "Where do we sit? I want to talk to you."

Simon took him to his father's study. The activity in the garden couldn't be seen from here.

It was an appropriate setting. Kester-Evans sat at his father's desk, which was slightly dusty, and pointed to the leather chair by the bookcase. "Sit there and listen to this," he said peremptorily, "and listen well: 'Just.i.tia erga Deum religio dicitur; erga parentes pietas.' Now translate."

Habit dies hard. You might be eighteen, falsely accused, or about to be, and very annoyed, but when your former headmaster speaks in that tone and points a bony finger at you, you do as you're told. "The discharge of our duty towards G.o.d is called religion; towards our parents, piety," Simon intoned.

"Quite. And the source of the quotation?"

Simon didn't know.

"Cicero - who was slain. And your parents met a sad and violent end. Their deaths were a terrible shock for you and I've tried to be tolerant, but your actions over these last few months have been stupid in the extreme." -Kester-Evans went on to enumerate the many ways in which Simon had been lacking in duty - to G.o.d and his parents - but mainly to his alma mater. "Your father placed you in my care. We, at the school, did all we could for you. We guided you towards the career your father had planned. You threw it all away. Had you acted dutifully and honourably you would be taking your place in medical school this autumn. You've rejected a golden opportunity, boy. In a few years' time you could have been in a position of authority, carrying on the work of your father, earning respect. Instead, what do you do?"

The question hung in the air like a balloon filled with nitrous oxide. To answer honestly would be to puncture *it. Simon, edging on hysteria, didn't dare. Laughter and pain were a dangerous mixture. He tried looking at Kester-Evans objectively as if he were a wax-work with nothing coming out of his mouth. The old boy was wearing a university tie and a cream jacket. He was a thinner, taller, older version of Superintendent Claxby. Claxby, Simon sensed, had never been a real buddy of his father's. Not like Maybridge and the Chief Constable. And he couldn't imagine his father getting on with Kester-Evans. Kester-Evans was a pompous twit. His father was rational about most things, he wouldn't have gone overboard had Simon told him he didn't want to go in for medicine, he would have suggested something else. He kept thinking of the last time he'd seen him - by the car at the school gates. His father's hug, uncharacteristic and very affectionate. He'd said something about life being a survival course - arriving where you wanted to in the end. And just before they'd left home he'd sent him down the garden to say goodbye properly to his mother. These memories were precious. He needed them now. He wished Kester-Evans would go away.

He did eventually, but took a walk down to the orchard first to see what the police were doing. When he returned to his car where Simon was waiting to see him off, he shook his head sadly. "My dear boy, what can I say?"

"Goodbye," Simon suggested. It sounded ruder than he had intended. He apologised and thanked him for coming. "It was good of you to bother. I know I've made a mess of everything, but not as much of a mess as you might think - and if I could tell you all that in Latin and make it sound good then I would, but I can't."

Kester-Evans, about to get into the car, stopped. "Latin has its limitations," he observed drily, "and so, I fear, have I. You have my phone number, Simon - use it if you need me."

The vicar and Kester-Evans had been a pain but the Press were a torment. They had behaved well at the funeral, looking suitably doleful and keeping in the background. That had been the end of a story. This was the beginning of one. They roistered. Simon disconnected his telephone and the doorbell, but couldn't prevent them thumping on the door. He drew the curtains on the downstairs windows and when an intrepid reporter from one of the tabloids found a ladder in the shed and climbed up to Simon's bedroom window, Simon threatened to push the cas.e.m.e.nt open and knock him off. Maybridge could have told him that you don't treat the Press like that. That they had a job to do. You needn't go to the other extreme, however, and offer them sherry, though a few cans of bitter were in order - or even tea.

Beleaguered, Simon retired to the studio at the top of the house. Up here the anger bled out of him. Without it he was weak.

Sally was weaker, and getting weaker every day.

While Simon sat on the couch and gazed blankly and with deep depression at the mural his mother had painted all those years ago, Sally in her bed at Mrs Mackay's not only saw it, she lived it. The bedroom) with its low ceiling and tiny window, seemed caught in a grey web that dragged it silently out of her vision and the other land crept in. The trees were oppressive: too tall, too rough, too close. Their boles were gummy and the resin smelt of sweat. Forest pools as white as milk, where she tried to bathe, fumed with bubbles of antiseptic and hands kept reaching for her when she tried to move away. There were beautiful people here and horrific creatures and they changed their skins and one became the other. A boy was being fattened so that a witch might eat him. He poked animal bones through his cage to deceive her. Rabbit bones streaked with blood. She kept hearing a voice like a low drone of bees in the distance: You'll be better soon, m'dear ... drink this, m'love ... just a few more days, Sally ... a few more days of rest ...

It was becoming impossible for Mrs Mackay to look after Sally and do her job at The Mount. She had a good supply of tranquillisers to last a while so she had no need to return for a week or so. She phoned Doctor Donaldson and told him that she was unwell and needed a few days off.

Like Sally, Mrs Mackay had picked up sc.r.a.ps of information about medical matters. Sleep therapy helped healing - both mentally and physically. Sally's feet, which didn't have a chance to walk, were already getting better. And Sally had stopped being obstreperous. During the first couple of days she had been very cross and used four-letter words a lot. Why the f.u.c.k, she wanted to know, was Mrs Mackay refusing to fetch her clothes? And why the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l had she put a perfectly good leather skirt in a was.h.i.+ng machine when all it needed was to have the zip sewn? She was sick of being treated like an invalid, she said, and being preached at, and given Mrs Mackay's revolting pyjamas to wear. And Simon hadn't raped her, if she wanted to know, she had raped him, or shown him how because he didn't know much about it, and if being here was supposed to be getting back at him, then she'd got back at him enough, and if it lasted any longer he might forget all about her and find somebody else.

Mrs Mackay had repeated most of this to Mrs Hixon and Mrs Hixon had suggested that Sally was protecting the lout and that at heart, despite her bad language, she was essentially very sensitive and kind. "Persuade her to stay a few more days," she urged, "she'll thank you for it in the end. You're her salvation."

Getting Sally to sit up and take nourishment was becoming more and more difficult. All Mrs Mackay's culinary skills came into use in an effort to tempt her, and the cottage smelled like a gourmet's dream. Without food she would become poorly, without drugs she would become obstreperous. Sometimes the nouris.h.i.+ng liquid wouldn't stay down and the barbiturates came up, too. There were brief moments of consciousness when Sally became aware that Mrs Mackay was sitting at her bedside, sewing. "A dress for you, m'love," Mrs Mackay crooned. "A pretty dress for when you're well." It was pale blue with sprigs of daisies on it and when it was finished it would have a white lace collar. Sally, too weak to say f.u.c.k it, looked at it bleary eyed. And she looked at Mrs Mackay's hands that were like the rabbit bones in the forest. She didn't want to be touched by them and tried to move her head away when they stroked her hair - which seemed to have grown very fast. It was in long blond curls reaching below her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Mrs Mackay looked at her lovingly. She was beautiful with the switch of hair combed out of its plait and attached carefully with hairpins to her own short tresses. At night she removed it and put it in the black and gold evening bag that Sally had stolen from Mrs Bradshaw. "Thou shalt not steal," she whispered. "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Claxby didn't believe in tempering the wind to the shorn lamb if a short sharp gale did the trick. When dealing with a psychiatric patient, however, he proceeded with more caution. If Donaldson had asked if he might sit in on the interview he wouldn't have argued, but he didn't invite him. Maybridge had prepared him for what Creggan had to say and Claxby, at first very sceptical, heard him out. When he finally dismissed him with the request that he should make himself available if called upon for another 'talk', he had come to the conclusion that there might be some truth in it. Creggan had grown rich on immoral earnings, though that might take some time to prove; he had chosen his words carefully. The fifth Rapunzel was probably Susan Martin, alias Trudy Morrison, one of his madams. Creggan wouldn't gain anything by saying she was if she wasn't. On the contrary. He had laid his business open to investigation by coming forward now - perhaps prodded into action by the disappearance of Sally Loreto. a.s.suming that he was of reasonably sound mind - he appeared lucid - and could be believed, then Professor Bradshaw had done a cover-up. Why? He threw the question at Maybridge, who tried to field it.

"I can't think of any reason why he should."

"Can't or prefer not to?" Claxby suggested. "We both knew Peter, Tom. And you knew him better. Did he have a liaison with the woman, as Creggan said? Was there village gossip?"

There had been and Maybridge couldn't deny it. "There wasn't necessarily any truth in it."

Claxby agreed. "But let's a.s.sume it was true, and explore a few possibilities." He enumerated them on his fingers. "One - she disrupts the marriage. Lisa, mentally unstable as we all know, kills her. Peter disposes of the body. Two - Peter, perhaps because he is being blackmailed by her, disposes of her. Thirdly, and keeping it in the family, Simon, aged about sixteen at the time and perfectly capable of murder, gets rid of her, out of loyalty to his mother, perhaps. It's the old scenario, played many times before, but in this case the forensic pathologist is in an extremely good position to cover his family's backs - and his own."

It is particularly sickening to try and make out a case against a former colleague, now dead, and Claxby wasn't enjoying it, but he had seen the professor's reports on the fifth Rapunzel murder and had they been made by anyone more junior they wouldn't have been acceptable. The forensic expert called by the defence had lacked Bradshaw's forceful personality and hadn't impressed the jury. Deference to Peter's skill was all very well, but in this case the skill could have been misapplied. Hands torn off by an animal - Bradshaw's evidence - and hands chopped off by a knife were two distinctively different pictures. Hixon had never mutilated his victims.

He went on: "The fox, or whatever animal was around, conveniently ravaged her face, too. And as I remember it, Hixon tended to leave his prost.i.tutes decorously clothed, after arranging their hair. The only link that the Fifth Rapunzel had with the other four was the long hair. Has the missing Sally Loreto got long hair, too? Not that it makes any difference unless young Simon has a predilection for it."

"You're biased against the lad," Maybridge tried to stay cool and failed.

"Well, there has been rather a lot of blood," Claxby said mildly, "and you're biased in the other direction. I'm just keeping the balance."

Claxby's interview with Donaldson was bland. Temperamentally they were in many ways akin. Had they found themselves in an uncongenial social gathering they would have gravitated towards each other and discussed matters of no great consequence very peaceably. Claxby sussed out that the medical superintendent wasn't happy in his job, but who would be? Running a psychiatric hospital must be at least as stressful as being a senior police officer, only the pay was better. He made a note about the stolen drugs which Donaldson reported and promised to send one of his officers to liaise with him. A conversation that had started with routine questions about Sally Loreto became a discussion on safety precautions when you had a large number of psychiatric patients in your care. This led, as Claxby intended, to Lisa Bradshaw. "Was she very emotionally disturbed?" Donaldson, expecting the question, spoke of mild neurosis. "A danger to herself and perhaps to others?" Claxby persisted. Donaldson looked at his carafe. "The lady is dead, Superintendent. She was a very gentle person." Claxby sensed evasion. "Have you ever had occasion to treat her son?"

"No." Donaldson could have added that he had no reason to believe that Simon was capable of violence towards Sally. But everyone was capable of it. Patients, under hypnosis, had spoken of murderous acts contemplated but never done, and had come round looking dazed, emptied of emotion, even relieved. Lisa's question on waking was usually, "How was it - was it okay?" or "By G.o.d, I trust you, don't I!" But sometimes she had awakened and wept in his arms. Her weeks away from home, when Trudy Morrison had taken over her house and her bed, had been spent in a small beach house on the Yorks.h.i.+re coast. Bleak. Bare. Lonely. He had spent a few days with her and driven her back here before taking her home. She hadn't wanted to walk in on Peter's Dianeme, as she called her, a reference to a woman in a poem by Herrick, she explained. "So phone the house for me, Steven, and ask Peter if the b.i.t.c.h has gone." A bizarre order and he'd done it. His role as Lisa's crutch, and very occasional lover, had been difficult to sustain, but without her he was bereft. Trying to preserve an acceptable picture of the past was the best he could do for her now. He answered the question that Claxby hadn't asked. "Paul Creggan is schizoid. Disregard anything he might have told you." It was the first time he had made a professional diagnosis of the man. He hoped the superintendent would believe it. Claxby, aware of possible emotional involvement, kept an open mind.

Claxby's careful picking and choosing as regards who should be interviewed by Maybridge and who shouldn't took some thinking about. Surveillance of Simon had begun almost immediately and he had been told that Maybridge's wife had taken him home for the night and Maybridge had returned him first thing in the morning. He had been amused. No harm done. He hadn't mentioned it to Maybridge. Having met Donaldson he knew that his D.C.I, could have conducted the interview with him without bias. Whether he would be biased towards or against Doctor Cormack was difficult to guess. He was a neighbour - Maybridge and his wife would have been hospitable - the newcomer would have been made welcome. But he had taken over the job of a dead colleague and might have criticised him. If Simon hadn't mentioned that Sally had spoken to Cormack in the pub, it wouldn't have been necessary to interview him at all. In his professional capacity Cormack had done the usual a.n.a.lyses connected with the case. All blood samples found on the premises were Group O, the most common group and shared by both of them. As yet Cormack hadn't had direct contact with Simon.

Both he and the boy had been spared that embarra.s.sment. Claxby told Maybridge they would visit him together that evening up at his digs and have a word with the Millingtons at the same time.

Cormack had spent the afternoon making a corpse pretty after degutting it - or pretty enough to be taken to a chapel of rest. When he arrived back at his digs he wasn't in the mood to be quizzed about Sally. His feelings about her were ambivalent. Simon shouldn't have battered her if he had. But if any girl had cried out to be battered, then she had. Her s.e.xual charade with Simon, put on for his benefit, had repelled him. He had pa.s.sed Simon's home on the drive to the Millingtons and noticed that the garden was still being dug - about another quarter of an acre to go, he reckoned. And the Press were hanging around looking like a right lot of b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. That Simon might be the prime b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and deserved everything that was coming to him, he couldn't believe. He had liked the lad on that brief encounter at the pub - a quiet youngster - naive - easily put upon. So what should he say to Maybridge and the superintendent, who had come to ask about Sally? Tell them she was a nice girl - obviously not a candidate for murder - so the lad wouldn't have done it? Or, more truthfully, that she was the kind of girl to drive any lad berserk? He compromised by saying he hardly knew her, she was a waitress at The Mount, they hadn't socialised. For a non-cla.s.s-conscious Irishman it sounded snooty. Claxby thought his att.i.tude perfectly natural. Maybridge didn't. He sensed a degree of sympathy for Simon. It was reprehensible, perhaps, but he felt the same.

Cormack outlined his movements over the weekend. It had been spent with Sofia in London. They had gone to see a musical on Sat.u.r.day evening and had stayed at a hotel in separate rooms. Very pure. She would alibi him, of course, he suggested stiffly. Claxby said it wasn't necessary. He hadn't thought for a moment, etcetera, etcetera ...

Maybridge, mildly embarra.s.sed, said he'd go and have a few words with the Millingtons. The Millingtons were having more than a few words, sotto voce, in the kitchen. Dawn wanted to complain to Maybridge about the way the squad of policemen had dug up her asparagus bed just because Creggan's dog had dug a hole in it earlier. She had lost the whole crop. Millington, usually cantankerous and pleased to complain about anything, wouldn't. "Let it be," he muttered, "let it be." As Creggan had removed his dog after walking it last Friday night, information already pa.s.sed on to Maybridge, and as there weren't any other dogs on the premises, Dawn had suggested crossly that the squad should be invited back to break their shovels on the cemented area of the kennels. She was tired of hearing the animals bark and of cleaning up their mess; she would turn it into a herb garden. Maybridge, walking in on the last sentence, wondered why a proposed herb garden should provoke such angst. He asked them if they'd thought of anything since his last visit - or heard of anything - that might throw some light on Sally's disappearance. A question that might be rather annoying if seen as persistent probing, in this instance soothed. They knew nothing useful - sorry - and hoped she would be found soon. Claxby walked into the kitchen a few minutes later, asked the same questions, and was given the same answer and a cup of tea. A wasted evening, he thought, but necessary. It was when they were leaving that Dawn began praising Radwell. The sergeant had a beautiful tenor voice, she told Claxby. He was an a.s.set to the choir. "But I shall always remember the poor young man's distress when he came here to phone after finding the body of the woman in the copse. He was almost in tears. He said she was in a dreadful state."

Claxby tut-tutted, a sharp little rat-tat through clenched teeth that sounded more like gunshot. He hadn't been aware that the sergeant had come here to phone. He had imparted information to these people before he had contacted the police. He'd skin him!

The Chief Constable instructed the Press Officer to call a Press conference for eight o'clock on Wednesday evening. The area of search was to be extended to Craxley Copse. If Simon had been involved in the murder of the fifth Rapunzel then Sally might be buried in the vicinity, Superintendent Claxby had pointed out. She hadn't been found in his garden - yet - so look in the copse. Rendcome thought it an appalling notion, based on Creggan's scurrilous aspersions on Bradshaw's integrity. Nevertheless he agreed that the search should be widened. He warned the Press Officer to say as little as possible. "State that there is no new evidence - there isn't. If anyone should mention the Susan Martin murder then say there is no link. Tell them we are just covering as much ground as possible in the vicinity of the village." A Save the Badger group, incensed that the setts might be tampered with, were a temporary diversion, not antic.i.p.ated but welcome, and gave the Press something to write about.

Simon saw his garden emptying of the enemy like water down a plug hole. He went outside and breathed in great gulps of evening air. For the first time for days, after self-imposed house-arrest, he felt uninhibited, free. He imagined himself jogging with Sally - and liking it - more than liking it, being ecstatically happy about it because she was alive and here. He wanted to run - run - run - and hear her feet clipping along ahead of him - she had always been ahead of him. Had she run off under a pale evening sky, like this one, or better still in the bright light of morning, he wouldn't have this feeling that something awful might have happened to her. But she had gone in the dark. And there was nothing he could do. For her. Or for himself.

Except go away while he had the chance. He still had the keys of his father's flat.

A relay of unmarked police cars followed Simon on his drive to London. His route to Islington was circuitous. He didn't know the way. Eventually abandoning his car down a side street, he took a taxi and arrived at eleven thirty-six. The information was pa.s.sed to headquarters by the officer on surveillance duty. He was told to wait, watch, and do nothing until further orders.

The flat was smaller than Simon had expected. For a hundred thousand quid it wasn't impressive. He hadn't brought a torch and groped around in the narrow hall before finding the light switch. The electricity hadn't been turned off. The steep stairs led up to accommodation over a shop and consisted of two bedrooms, a sitting-room, kitchen and bathroom. It was basic. Unaware of London prices, he thought his father might have done better. The furniture was a mixture of antique, mostly too big, and modern. In the larger bedroom a melamine wardrobe and a double bed took up most of the s.p.a.ce. The smaller one was unfurnished apart from a two-tiered metal bookcase holding an a.s.sortment of paperbacks including some early Penguin editions in orange and white and green and white covers. His father had probably bought them in a job lot, he wasn't much of a reader. His mother would have approved of some and been contemptuous of others. "The way you furnish your mind is of more importance than the way you furnish your home," she had told him in one of those rare moments when she had spoken to him as an equal, if not in intelligence, then in maturity. His father had chipped in that other people's bookshelves were as revealing as their laundry baskets, but you could look without being rude. Simon's choice, he had teased him, had been like rather smelly socks.