Perfectly Pure And Good Part 16

Is that all?'

Enough, not even much. You encouraged Charles. You conspired to rid the world of your mother and brother, even if it was a malicious day-dream. Didn't you?'

'Yes.' The voice was dry.

'Well,' she said with a finality not quite approaching either threat or promise, 'I think it would be best all round if no-one ever knew about that.'

I think I'd like to go away,' said Edward shrewdly. 'Try living somewhere else.'

'What a good idea,' she said with a quiet approval of such intensity he could almost believe he had thought up the idea himself And I suppose for now, you'd better go home.'

'Do you want to come over with me? I mean, should you stay here by yourself? For your own safety?' The onset of genuine concern upset him with a sensation as pleasant as a warm swallow of tea. She seemed to consider for a moment.

'No. Thank you. Taking refuge isn't the best way to deal with fear. In case it becomes a habit.'

'Perhaps I should stay with you, then? For the same reason?' She seemed to consider it, shook her head.

'No.'

As a guarantee of good behaviour in the future?'

'To stiffen the sinews?' she suggested ironically.

'Something like that.'

The wind had risen with the tide, pus.h.i.+ng the water, encouraging the movement. Not the howling gales of winter whipping the waves on the open sea, a nudging wind, swollen with rain, eclipsing the sh.o.r.e line as the sea rode gently forward, filling the quay, lapping over the edge, covering the car-park, wavering at the edge of the road, creeping towards the front doors of the amus.e.m.e.nt arcade and the gift shops, s.h.i.+fting the litter of the evening and finally dragging it back, prudence dictating a pragmatic retreat on the eve of destruction. Stuck behind the hull of a forgotten boat, the bloated corpse of a dead animal was dislodged and floated away to another part of the coast.

Two Dutch boys from a tramp vessel borrowed the dinghy and rowed for sh.o.r.e in search of bright lights.

On the beach, the sea nibbled at land, obeying the wind without enthusiasm. Those in the adjacent caravans, stirred in the night, the ground beneath them somehow softer, the weight of their shelters settling more solidly after the rain. The sea crept right to the edge of the dunes, way beyond the high-tide level of the afternoon outlined by the sluggish boundary of variegated weed which led the unwary to presume it could invade no further. As the faintest of punishments for man's arrogance, the creeping water brushed the legs of the two furthest beach huts, eroded by similar attacks. The one requisitioned by the ghost collapsed to one side with a sighing groan, settled to sleep like a drunk on crutches as the retreating water sucked from the upended floor Charles Tysall's stolen blanket and other souvenirs.

A yacht suffered for the pride of its owners who ignored guidance and sailed into a sandback where they stuck and keeled sideways. In the early hours of the morning, the lifeboat siren made its own unearthly call, wailing and weeping in anger for the nuisance.

Julian heard it from the depths of a sleep in which he dreamed of murder most foul, his family, the inadequacies of medicine in the area and the body of Sarah Fortune. Heard it like a requiem for the dead, put his hands over his ears, shutting out any message which did not sing of hope.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

Rick was running. Running with clumsy grace towards the lifeboat station, the village glistening behind him. The inlet was half full, the banks of the sea defences exposed in muddy splendour.

Waddling, wheeling birds he had never bothered to identify, caught his vacant eye, birds which sprang, trotted, screeched in some kind of defiance, part of his landscape and he never even noticed them. Stonewall got down on his knees to talk to birds in the days when he was learning to love the creeks and Rick had laughed at him then; a boy, talking to birds, there's practice for you. How long did it really take to get to know someone?

He ran, one step after another, beginning to pant, wanting the excuse to stop, kept running.

One mile to the lifeboat station, where the inlet met the broader beach, so much further on foot than by transport. Stoney knew all that at half Rick's size, knew all about the birds if not the bees. Rick ran, seeing it all anew, the curlews, the footprints in the mud of the banks, the things which Stonewall saw.

He ran for oblivion, so that the screaming of muscle accustomed to different use would clear his mind from recent conversations of ghosts and retribution, talks with his uncle police officer, the lack of good news, and the tearful insistence of Jo, Don't go with them, Rick, please. If love was a question of conflicting demands, he could only obey the strongest which was not yet hers. So he ran the full mile to the beach, avoiding the woods, pa.s.sing the lifeboat station, leaping straight down the bank onto the sand. There he jogged slower, the sand soft, his feet wet from patches of shallow mud, the breeze noisy in his ears, a brisk day with a fitful sun, the promise of wind and only the few real diehards out to play. A good day for hunting He jogged past the beach huts on his left, saw how two had collapsed but did not know if it was recent, noted it in his mind as just another fact, broke into a proper run on a smooth patch of sand and then began to tire. Perspiration trickled into his eyes; he rubbed them absently and uselessly with the back of his hand, blinked, stumbled, blinked again.

There was a dog running towards him, for a moment he thought it was Stonewall's Sal, the sight so shocking and the expectation of seeing Stoney himself so acute, it made him stop, stagger and choke.

The dog skidded to a halt and then ran round him, barking, ready for a game. Despite his pounding heart and the hairball in his throat, Rick felt the slow beginnings of a smile. Of course this was not Stoney's russet-coloured mutt, but a floppy red spaniel, with nothing in common but the kind of silly, fussy, excitable temperament Stoney would like. It gave Rick an idea, the first positive thought in all the confusing negatives. Buy the boy a new dog: that would make him better.

A man was following the dog, running in the same direction with the sun behind him, moving with the experienced grace which Rick had never mastered, admired for being so different from his own awkward arms and legs swinging everywhere, wasting energy and breath. The man's style of movement was an economical, effortless sprinting, so that when he s.h.i.+mmied to a halt, it was almost a relief to see that he shone with sweat.

'Morning.' A pleasant voice. 'Don't let her bother you. She just likes everyone.'

The hairball in Rick's throat would not go away. He had never quite understood the boy's pa.s.sion for his dog; now he did as he stroked this one's soft ears and felt against his bare, damp legs those delighted vibrations of infinite trust.

'So did Stonewall's dog,' he blurted. 'Like people. Too much.'

The dog leant against his trembling knees. Having started, Rick had to go on, otherwise this odd piece of information, delivered so randomly to a stranger, would seem even odder. He made his voice harsh, as if his first words had some retrospective purpose instead of weakness.

'You want to be more careful of your dog,' he admonished. 'There's a maniac on the loose round here. Eats dogs for breakfast and tries to kill boys.'

'You're joking.' The man called his dog, which trotted to heel. Rick was stung.

'No, I'm not. The police are organizing a search party along this stretch. We called him the ghost, but he isn't a ghost. So you just watch yourself, running along here alone. Even running as fast as you do.'

He was envious and gabbling. He needed to gabble, talking to a stranger was easier than trying to make sense to himself. The man suddenly struck out a hand. Rick looked at it as if it was a t.u.r.d.

'Malcolm,' the man said, with a smile which brooked no refusal.

It was such an incongruously formal thing to do, shake hands and announce names in the middle of a beach, that Rick did it, although it made him want to laugh, relaxed him more than a little.

Maybe it was the running did that. They fell into step, walking back the way Rick had come. To where the search party formed on the spit by the lifeboat, a motley, serious crew, anxious to do duty.

'Perhaps I can help,' Malcolm said.

'Reckon you can. Just look at 'em. What a geriatric crew. Anyone's welcome. Even with a daft dog like yours.'

There was no-one young in the group. Rick looked at them sourly. This bloke Malcolm was the youngest apart from himself, better take him on. The rest looked like a congregation from church.

They were old enough, though, to work without complaint, with the thoroughness otherwise devoted to their gardens; perhaps Uncle Curl knew what he did when he chose, but even with effort, they did not find the white-haired man by the end of a long day. Not Rick, the London stranger who proved such an a.s.set, three dozen others walking through the woods. In and out of the caravans, taking apart the beach huts, one by empty one, wading across the flats, looking inside boats.

Moving into the village, ignoring the populous quay where no-one could possibly hide, sweeping forward from the coast to look inside empty holiday homes, further inland through the council estate, the church, into the barns of the hinterland. The two of them who walked through the graveyard tut-tutted at a mess of scattered flowers until they saw the stonemason erecting a headstone of fine white marble, stopped briefly to admire. Looking for a man with a stick and white hair, a form without needs or substance, otherwise held few rewards and less glory. They began to consider he was indeed a ghost, who had fled or gone back from where he came, into the embrace of the sea.

Rick and his ally Malcolm sat in the bar of the Crown on the Green, Merton's only hotel and a place where Rick had set foot twice, ever. It was Malcolm's invitation, said he was staying there.

Posh. Let Dad cope with the arcade.

Stonewall Jones dreamt of the sea, the amus.e.m.e.nt arcade, his dog, and remembered someone loved him, best.

Night fell over land, without a whimper. Sarah Fortune was packing her bags, sensing her own impending redundancy without bitterness, preoccupied. She knew, from walking the town, sitting again in front of that unedifying display of cakes, what went on around her and did not want to know more. They would find him, she supposed; that desperation of his would make him careless. But she did not want him found. Except perhaps by herself, as the fulfilment of a whole year's dreaming nightmares, in which she discovered him bound and helpless and made him feel what he had done to her, what it was like to be so diminished. Finding him thus would pacify that burning which ate her from within, that yearning to watch him crawl, to scratch his face with long, polished, nails and watch him beg. Naked, as she had been, screaming and whimpering as she had been in an empty house, suffering as she wanted him to suffer, with the knowledge of that helpless loss of pride.

There was a pain in her stomach; she diagnosed it as the result of all her self-restraint, the application of charm and manners to her daily life instead of howling for the carefree person she had been. A pain which came with the incipient grief for Elisabeth Tysall and for herself which would not go away. An ache which was the effort of her own agnostic prayer and the residue of all her violent and foul thoughts towards him. If home was where the heart resided, there was no such thing as home. She packed listlessly, half of her waiting, all of her ignored.

Mouse Pardoe crept away from the bosom of her family, ostensibly upstairs to bed and then out of the front door, bandaged hands lighting her way in the darkness. The deference of the children over a day, their affection, their overwhelming concern brought forth an unnatural sensation of guilt, a kind of emotional indigestion which alarmed her. Guilt of any kind was not second nature to Mouse: it made her tiptoe across the lawn, already resentful of the necessity of Sarah Fortune, who knew too much about them all and was now, for the lack of anyone else to tell, about to know more.

Hettie the sheep followed after, but Mouse was not afraid and it was only the reasons why she was not afraid, not of the ghost at least, which made her faintly ashamed.

'What are you doing?' she cried, facing the cottage living room as the door opened without hesitation. 'I came to see if you were all right,' she added with less conviction. Both of them knew it was not the truth. Sarah had fulfilled her purpose. Mouse had plenty of reason to be grateful to Sarah, and that was enough to stop anyone caring. The shawl which had covered the ugly sofa was gone, the table lamp back in place, the room bereft of the flowers which had made it homely, the whole thing back to the anonymity of just another place to rent.

'Packing up my travelling bordello,' said Sarah with a smile. She made it so easy, Mouse thought bitterly, to like her. This was no woman who would kiss and tell, she was as tight as a drum, but somehow, horribly relaxing, all sorts of ideas in her eyes and her mind, but none of them including the slightest critical judgement.

'Packing? Whatever for? We need you, dear.'

'No you don't. I've finished.' She waved a hand towards a neat pile of papers on the floor.

'Valuations. Edward helped last night, that's why I kept him here so long.' Their glances met and slid away in recognition of a lie mutually accepted. Mouse seized a bottle by the kitchen sink, two gla.s.ses from the draining board, poured without invitation. She a.s.sumed the claret was for her: she was slightly drunk already, aimed to get worse. Such was conscience. Why should she care? If a trespa.s.ser ate the food and burned her hands he deserved to deal with his own digestion.

'You Pardoes,' said Sarah without any hint of complaint as they sat, 'tend to be heavy on the rations. Anyway, if you can read the hand-written notes . . . I have very clear handwriting, nothing ambiguous about it, what I've done is suggest the properties you can get rid of soonest.

Selling them, at absolutely knock-down prices on ludicrously easy terms, to the people who currently own them. Those are the businesses, beginning with the pub and the amus.e.m.e.nt arcade, then the shops. Give back the lifeblood of the town. Right?'

Mouse nodded, gargling the wine, lovely stuff.

'You don't want to be dest.i.tute,' Sarah continued. 'The business end of all this, as well as further education for Edward and Jo, a modest nest egg for all three and fine wines and parties for yourself, will be financed out of the holiday cottages you have. Selling them at very low prices, to be bought by local people to raise families, still leaves plenty, properly invested, for your own old age. Whenever that occurs.'

Mouse liked that touch. She proffered her gla.s.s for refilling. 'We won't need Ernest Matthewson to sort it all?'

'You don't need him, no. He won't like it, but you don't. A local accountant, an honest estate agent . . . yours isn't, by the way.'

Awful in bed, Ernest,' said Mouse reflectively. 'Such a hurry.'

Sarah sipped without comment. Mouse sighed with satisfaction.

'Such a relief,' she said brightly. 'I mean really. We've all talked about it today, and they all want the same thing. They live here, they want to belong. Such well-brought-up children. All the right att.i.tudes. They all agree that none of them wants more than strictly enough. Enough is always enough, don't you think?'

Absolutely,' said Sarah with the right amount of fervour to make Mouse continue. The pain in her own abdomen was becoming intense, beyond the reach of wine, a hunting pain, which sought other places to attack.

After all,' Mouse went on, accepting more alcohol as if she were a favoured guest, 'wouldn't it be awful if I'd had to tell them in order to get them to agree? Frightful!'

She was back in her hotel receptionist mould which. Sarah realized had not been entirely mad.

Awful,' she agreed warmly.

I mean, if they hadn't listened? I didn't think they'd ever listen when I got Mr Pardoe to make that will. When he had those little heart flutters, you know? We were getting on so well, I knew he didn't notice how the thing was phrased. All my children . .

Oh, yes he did, Sarah thought. He might have seen Stonewall Jones in the drive, delivering bait and known. That boy was going to grow big and tall, like his real dad, with eyes like Julian Pardoe, all his colours and all his stockiness to become in the future the mirror image of his much older brother. When you lay with a man, you knew the colour of his eyes, knew when you had seen them before in another face, along with particular gestures and a way of eating and drinking. You knew.

I would have told them,' said Mouse. 'I would certainly have done, if they hadn't agreed we should give it all back, all this property stuff, as soon as we could.' She sighed. 'I mean I played the scene a thousand times in my head before I decided to act mad. There we would be, none of them listening, sitting round a table with Ernest Matthewson sitting at the top. Reading out that bit from the will. How does it go? I should know, I constructed it. "To my wife, and then to all MY children .. ." Meaning, his children. Not his and mine, HIS. Those wearing his jeans, sorry genes.' She spelt it out as if Sarah could not see the pun, hiccoughed, recovered her poise, continued.

'HIS children? Well, I suppose Julian is his child. I've every reason to think so. The others?

Joanna, probably. Edward, no. It seemed obvious to me. Perhaps that's why he and Mr Pardoe never got on. It's so difficult to tell. Now I don't have to tell.'

'Don't you?' Sarah's question was sad.

'No,' said Mouse. 'Not any more than you have to tell the person before who you slept with last.

It's all right for you young things taking the pill. Nature helped me: I could have had lots more babies, but I didn't. Which is just as well, I'd never have known whose they were.'

I've drafted a separate bequest for your new will,' Sarah murmured. 'Half the residue of your estate, to include a decent house and a piece of his own coast, to go to Stonewall Jones, after your death.'

Mouse nodded, did not even question.

I entirely agree,' she said. 'I'd already thought of that. I may be selfish, but I'm not dishonest.'

'Well, all's well that ends well,' said Sarah, pouring the dregs into Mouse Pardoe's gla.s.s.

'Not entirely,' said Mouse. 'I didn't mean to bang on about my family, now we're all sorted, after a fas.h.i.+on. They aren't really on my conscience, nothing lingers there long. Except these.'

She fumbled in the pocket of the dressing-gown, worn over a frilly nightie up to the chin, and ear-rings which dangled about the pie-crust collar. Produced a small packet, split at the top. Size 2/0, Sarah read. Super-sharp fine wire: designed and perfected for sh.o.r.e fis.h.i.+ng. She turned the packet over, read more. . . . Top-quality hooks made from high-carbon steel. She shook one of them into her palm. The point was needle sharp, with a neat, inverted barb. The hook was black; she felt it against her own skin, harmless until the barb took hold. The black hooks, each with a small eye at the top of the stem, curled sweetly in their innocent, polythene envelope.

Only one thing bothers me,' Mouse Pardoe was saying, carelessly, 'I put lots of these in the sandwiches. And the scones.' She tipped the gla.s.s over her nose.

I only did it as a joke. Edward, leaving them all over the place, drove me mad. Hettie could have eaten one. No-one ever eats anything I make: I only do it to annoy. All those years I had to cook; now I can do it for play, like making sandwiches. I would have told them about the hooks before they went near. To make the point to Ed, because then he would never have left anything in the kitchen again, like his father did before. Or hit me. What exactly did you DO to Edward, dear?

He's being so nice.'

Sarah saw Charles Tysall, backing out of the kitchen, stuffing yellow scones in his pocket.

Only that man, that Charles,' Mouse was saying airily, 'he ate all the sandwiches. I don't know how he did it, but he did,' she added with a trace of self-satisfaction. 'Ate the lot.'

Sarah looked at the hook curled in her palm, remembered the sound of the gulping of food and milk. The hook was such a fine wire, one inch long, small enough, only just, for a starving, hungry man to swallow. She pressed the small, inverted barb, between thumb and forefinger, felt it pierce her skin.

'Sharp, aren't they, dear?' Mouse remarked.

The pain in Sarah's abdomen became intense.

'Sleep on it, I would,' said Mouse, abdicating every decision with a smile. 'He deserved what he got.'

Rick never could take drink: a little went a long way, so he had been careful, was not drunk now, merely loquacious. How awful, in the village where he lived, to need the company of a stranger on a night like this. No news of Stonewall: he had checked with Jo and the doctor. He may as well stay where he was with this easy man, both of them dirty, other customers in the smart bar giving them s.p.a.ce. Two pints simply brought emotion nearer the surface. Rick wanted Jo to hug, but he stayed, giving Malcolm all the information distilled from Uncle Curl and everyone else.

Malcolm's gentler cross-examination techniques worked as well in a bar as in they did in a courtroom, especially when the victim was emotional, malleable and confused. Malcolm knew the name, the ident.i.ty, the local history and the persona of the man they hunted. Like Sarah Fortune, he was all too real.

'Your Cousin Stonewall thought that this Sarah Fortune woman was Mrs Tysall, did he?'

Malcolm was asking.

Only at first. My second cousin in the hairdresser's did too. What do you think the ghost wanted up at the Pardoes'? Apart from it being a lonely place where he might get food? A place with nothing to guard it but a sheep?' Rick's eyes widened, alcohol in flight in the face of realization.