Missing Joseph Part 52

Lynley got out of the car. Constable Garrity and St. James joined him. They directed their torches' beams across the snow and saw the stone wall rising in a perpendicular line from the road. They ran their beams along it and found the spot where its flow was interrupted by the red iron bars of a gate. Beyond the gate stood Back End Barn. It was stone and slate, with a large door to admit vehicles, a smaller door for their drivers. It looked due east, so the wind had blown the snow in large drifts against the barn's face. The drifts were smooth mounds against the larger barn door. Against the smaller, however, a single drift was partially trampled. A V-shaped dent ran through it. Fresh snow dusted its edges.

"By G.o.d, she made it," St. James said quietly.

"Someone did," Lynley replied. He looked over his shoulder. Shepherd, he saw, was out of the Range Rover although he was maintaining his position next to its door.

Lynley considered the options. They had the element of surprise but she had the weapon. He had little doubt that she would use it the moment he moved against her. Sending in Shepherd was, in truth, the only reasonable way to proceed. But he wasn't willing to risk anyone's life when there was a chance of getting her out without gunfire. She was, after all, an intelligent woman. She had run in the first place because she knew that the truth was a moment away from discovery. She couldn't hope to escape with Maggie and go unapprehended a second time in her life. The weather, her history, and every one of the odds were dead set against her.

"Inspector." Something was pressed into his hand. "You might want to use this." He looked down, saw that Constable Garrity had given him a loud hailer. "Part of the kit in the car," she said. She looked embarra.s.sed as she tipped her head towards her vehicle and b.u.t.toned the neck of her coat against the wind. "Sergeant Hawkins says a DC's always got to know what might be needed at a crime scene or in an emergency. Shows initiative, he says. I've a rope as well. Life vests. The lot." Her eyes blinked solemnly behind the wet-streaked lenses of her spectacles.

"You're a G.o.dsend, Constable," Lynley said. "Thank you." He raised the loud hailer. He looked at the barn. Not a sliver of light showed round either of the doors. There were no windows. If she was inside, she was sealed off completely.

What to say to her, he wondered. Which cinematic inanity would serve their purpose and bring her out? You're surrounded, you can't hope to escape, throw out the gun, come out with your hands up, we know you're inside...

"Mrs. Spence," he called. "You have a weapon with you. I don't. We're at an impa.s.se.

I'd like to get you and Maggie out of here without harm being done to anyone."

He waited. There was no sound from the barn. The wind hissed as it slid along three graduated tiers of stone projections that ran the length of the barn's north side.

"You're still nearly five miles from High Bentham, Mrs. Spence. Even if you managed to survive the night in the barn, neither you nor Maggie would be in any condition to walk farther in the morning. You must know that."

Nothing. But he could feel her thinking. If she shot him, she could get to his vehicle, a better vehicle than her own, after all, and be on her way. It would be hours before anyone would notice he was missing, and if she hurt him badly enough, he wouldn't have the strength to crawl back towards High Bentham and find a.s.sistance.

"Don't make it worse than it already is," he said. "I know you don't want to do that to Maggie. She's cold, she's frightened, she's probably hungry. I'd like to get her back to the village now."

Silence. Her eyes would be quite used to the darkness. If he burst in on her and had the luck to s.h.i.+ne the torchlight directly in her face on the first go, even if she pulled the trigger, it wouldn't be likely that she'd be able to hit him. It might work. If he could find her the instant he crashed through the door...

"Maggie's never seen anyone shot," he said. "She doesn't know what it's like. She hasn't seen the blood. Don't make that part of her memory of this night. Not if you love her."

He wanted to say more. That he knew her husband and her sister had failed her when she needed them most. That there would have been an end to her mourning the death of her son had she only had someone to help her through it. That he knew she had acted in what she'd believed were Maggie's interests when she'd s.n.a.t.c.hed her from the car that long-ago night. But he also wanted to say that, in the end, she'd not had the right to determine the fate of a baby belonging to a fifteen-year-old girl. That while she may have indeed done better by Maggie as a result of taking her, they couldn't know that for sure. And it was because of that simple not knowing that Robin Sage had decided a cruelty-as-justice had to be done.

He found he wanted to blame what was going to happen this night on the man she had poisoned, on his sententious perspective and his b.u.mbling attempt to set things straight. For in the end, she was his victim as much as he was hers.

"Mrs. Spence," he said, "you know we're at the end of it here. Don't make it worse for Maggie. Please. You know I've been to London. I've seen your sister. I've met Maggie's mother. I've-"

A keening rose suddenly above the wind. Eerie, inhuman, it cut to the heart and then took on substance round a single word: Mummy.

"Mrs. Spence!"

And then the keening again. It sounded high with terror. It locked round the unmistakable tone of a plea. "Mummy! I'm afraid! Mummy! Mummy!"

Lynley shoved the loud hailer into Constable Garrity's hands. He pushed through the gate. And then he saw it. A shape was moving just to his left, beyond the wall as he himself was now.

"Shepherd!" he shouted.

"Mummy!" Maggie cried.

The constable came rapidly onward through the snow. He charged straight for the barn.

"Shepherd!" Lynley shouted. "G.o.d d.a.m.n it! Stay out!"

"Mummy! Please! I'm afraid! Mummy!"

Shepherd reached the barn door as the gun went off. He was inside when she shot again.

It was long past midnight when St. James finally climbed the stairs to their room. He thought she'd be asleep, but she was waiting for him as she'd said she would be, sitting in bed with the covers drawn up to her chest and an old copy of Elle spread across her lap.

She said, "You found her" when she saw his face and then "Simon, what happened," when he nodded and said nothing except "We did."

He was tired to the point of weakness. His dead leg felt like a hundredweight hanging from his hip. He dropped his coat and scarf to the floor, tossed his gloves upon them, and left them where they lay.

"Simon?"

He told her. He began with Colin Shepherd's attempt to implicate Polly Yarkin. He ended with the gunshots at Back End Barn.

"It was a rat," he said. "She was shooting at a rat."

They'd been huddled into a corner when Lynley found them: Juliet Spence, Maggie, and a mangy orange cat called Punkin that the girl had refused to leave behind in the car. When the torchlight fell on them, the cat hissed, spit, and scurried into the darkness, but neither Juliet nor Maggie moved. The girl cowered into the woman's arms, her face hidden. The woman encircled her as much as possible, perhaps to warm, perhaps to protect.

"We thought they were dead at first," St. James said, "a murder and a suicide, but there wasn't any blood."

Then Juliet spoke as if the others weren't there, saying, It's all right, darling. If I haven't hit him, I've frightened him to death. He won't get you, Maggie. Hush. It's all right.

"They were filthy," he said. "Their clothes were soaked. I can't think they would have lasted the night."

Deborah extended her hand to him. "Please," she said.

He sat on the bed. She smoothed her fingers beneath his eyes and across his forehead. She brushed back his hair.

There was no fight in her, St. James said, and no intention to run any farther or, it seemed, to use the gun again. She'd dropped it onto the stone floor of the barn, and she was holding Maggie's head to her shoulder. She began to rock her.

"She'd taken off her coat and thrown it round the girl," St. James said. "I don't think she actually knew we were there."

Shepherd got to her first. He stripped his own heavy jacket off. He wrapped it round her and then flung his arms round them both because Maggie wouldn't release her hold on her mother's waist. He said her name, but she didn't respond other than to say that she'd shot at it, darling, she always. .h.i.t her mark didn't she, it was probably dead, there was nothing to fear.

Constable Garrity ran for blankets. She'd brought a Thermos from home and she poured it saying, Poor lambs poor dears, in a fas.h.i.+on that was far more maternal than professional. She tried to get Shepherd to put his jacket back on, but he refused, wrapping himself in a blanket instead and watching everything-his eyes riveted with a kind of dying on Juliet's face.

When they were on their feet, Maggie began to cry for the cat, calling, Punkin! Mummy, where's Punkin? He's run off. It's snowing and he'll freeze. He won't know what to do.

They found the cat behind the door, his fur on end and his ears at the alert. St. James grabbed him. The cat climbed his back in a panic. But he settled well enough when he was returned to the girl.

She said, Punkin kept us warm, didn't he, Mummy? It was good to bring Punkin like I wanted, wasn't it? But he'll be happy to get home.

Juliet put her arm round the girl and pressed her face to the top of her head. She said, You take good care of Punkin, darling.

And then Maggie seemed to realise. She said, No! Mummy, please, I'm afraid. I don't want to go back. I don't want them to hurt me. Mummy! Please!

"Tommy made the decision to separate them at once," St. James said.

Constable Garrity took Maggie-You bring the cat, dear, she said-while Lynley took her mother. He intended to push all the way through to c.l.i.theroe if it took him the rest of the night. He wanted it to be over. He wanted to be clear of it.

"I can't blame him," St. James said. "I won't soon forget the sound of her screaming when she saw he meant to separate them then and there."

"Mrs. Spence?"

"Maggie. Calling for her mother. We could hear her even after the car drove off."

"And Mrs. Spence?"

There was nothing from Juliet Spence at first. Without expression or reaction, she'd watched Constable Garrity drive away. She'd stood with her hands in the pockets of Shepherd's jacket and the wind blowing her hair across her face, and she watched the tail lights of the receding car bob and weave as it lurched across the moor in the direction of Winslough. When they began to follow it, she sat in the rear seat next to Shepherd and never looked away from those lights for a moment.

She said, What else could I do? He said he was going to return her to London.

"And that was the real h.e.l.l behind the murder," St. James said.

Deborah looked perplexed. "What real h.e.l.l? What do you mean?"

St. James got to his feet and walked to the clothes cupboard. He began to undress. "Sage never intended to turn his wife over to the authorities for s.n.a.t.c.hing the baby," he said. "That last night of his life, he'd brought her enough money to get out of the country. He was perfectly willing to go to prison rather than tell anyone in London where he'd found the girl once he turned her over to Social Services. Of course, the police would have known eventually, but by that time his wife would have been long gone."

"That can't be right," Deborah said. "She must be lying about what happened."

He turned from the clothes cupboard. He said, "Why? The offer of money only makes the case against her blacker. Why would she lie?"

"Because..." Deborah plucked at the bed-covers as if she would find the answer there. She said deliberately, laying out her facts like cards, "He'd found her. He'd discovered who Maggie was. If he meant to return her to her real mother anyway, why wouldn't she have taken the money and saved herself from gaol? Why did she kill him? Why didn't she just run? She knew the game was up."

St. James unb.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt with great care. He examined each b.u.t.ton as his fingers touched it. He said, "I expect it was because Juliet felt she was Maggie's real mother all along, my love."

He looked up then. She was rolling a bit of the sheet between her thumb and forefinger and watching herself do so. He left her alone.

In the bathroom he took his time about was.h.i.+ng his face, brus.h.i.+ng his teeth, and running a brush through his hair. He removed his leg brace and let it thump to the floor. He kicked it to lie by the wall. It was metal and plastic, strips of Velcro and polyester. It was simple in design but essential in function. When legs didn't work the way they were supposed to, one strapped on a brace, or took to a wheelchair, or eased along on crutches. But one kept going. That had always been his basic philosophy. He wanted that precept to be Deborah's as well, but he knew she would have to be the one to choose it.

She'd switched off the lamp next to the bed, but when he came out of the bathroom, the light behind him fell across the room. In the shadows he could see that she was still sitting up in bed, but this time with her head on her knees and her arms round her legs. Her face was hidden.

He flicked off the bathroom light and made his way to the bed, tapping carefully in a darkness that was more complete this night because the skylights were covered with snow. He lowered himself into the covers and lay his crutches soundlessly on the floor. He reached out and ran his hand along her back.

"You're going to get cold," he said. "Lie down."

"In a moment."

He waited. He thought about how much of life comprised that very act, and how waiting always involved either another individual or a force outside oneself. He had mastered the art of waiting long ago. It had been a gift imposed upon him with too much alcohol, oncoming headlamps, and the cormorant scream of skidding tyres. Through sheer necessity, wait-and-see along with give-it-time had become his armorial motto. Sometimes the maxims led him into inaction. Sometimes they allowed him peace of mind.

Deborah stirred beneath his touch. She said, "Of course, you were right the other night. I wanted it for myself. But I also wanted it for you. Perhaps even more. I don't know." She turned her head to face him. He couldn't see her features in the darkness, just the shape of her.

"As retribution?" he asked. He felt her shake her head.

"We were estranged in those days, weren't we? I loved you but you wouldn't let yourself love me in return. So I tried to love someone else. And I did, you know. Love him."

"Yes."

"Does it hurt you to think about it?"

"I don't think about it. Do you?"

"Sometimes it creeps up on me. I'm never prepared. All of a sudden, there it is."

"Then?"

"I feel torn inside. I think how much I've hurt you. And I want things to be different."

"The past?"

"No. The past can't be changed, can it? It can just be forgiven. It's the present that concerns me."

He could tell that she was leading him towards something she had thought carefully through, perhaps that night, perhaps in the days that had preceded it. He wanted to help her say whatever it was she felt needed to be said, but he couldn't see the direction clearly. He could only sense that she believed the unspoken would hurt him in some undefin-able way. And while he wasn't afraid of discussion-indeed, he'd been determined to provoke it ever since they'd left London- he found at the moment that he wanted discussion only if he was able to control its content. That she intended to do so, to an end he couldn't clearly antic.i.p.ate, caused him to feel the cold-hot mantle of wariness cloak him. He tried to shed it, couldn't do so completely.

"You're everything to me," she said softly. "That's what I wanted to be to you. Everything."

"You are."

"No."

"This baby thing, Deborah. Adoption, the whole business of children-" He didn't complete the sentence because he didn't know where to go with it any longer.

"Yes," she said. "That's it. This baby thing. The whole business of children. Being whole in and of itself. That's what I wanted for you. That would be my gift."

He saw the truth then. It was between them the single dried bone of reality that they picked at and worried like two mongrel dogs. He'd grabbed it and chewed it for the years they'd been apart. Deborah had been worrying it ever since. Even now, he saw, when there was no need, she was grappling with it.

He said nothing further. She'd gone this far and he was confident she would say the rest. She was too close now to back away from saying it, and backing away was not, in fact, her style. She'd been doing so for months to protect him, he realised, when he needed no protection, either from her or from this.

"I wanted to make it up to you," she said.

Say the rest, he thought, it doesn't hurt me, it won't hurt you, you can say the rest.

"I wanted to give you something special."

It's all right, he thought. It doesn't change anything.

"Because you're crippled."

He pulled her down to him. She resisted at first, but came to him when he said her name. Then the rest of it was spilling out, whispered into his ear. Much of it didn't make sense, an oddly combined jumble of memories and the experience and understanding of the last few days. He merely held her and listened.

She remembered when they brought him home from his convalescence in Switzerland, she told him. He'd been gone four months, she was thirteen years old, and she remembered that rainy afternoon. How she'd observed it all from the top floor of the house, how her father and his mother had followed him slowly up the stairs, watching as he gripped the banister, their hands flying out to keep him from losing his balance but not touching him, never touching him because they knew without seeing the expression on his face-which she herself could see from the top of the house-that he wasn't to be touched, not that way, not any longer. And a week later when the two of them were alone-she in the study and this angry stranger called Mr. St. James a floor above in his bedroom from which he had not emerged in days-she heard the crash, the heavy thud of weight and she knew he'd fallen. She'd run up the stairs and stood by his door in her thirteenyear-old's agony of indecision. Then she'd heard him weeping. She'd heard the sound of him pulling himself along the floor. She'd crept away. She'd left him to face his devils alone because she didn't know what to do to help.

"I promised myself," she whispered in the darkness. "I'd do anything for you. To make it better."

But Juliet Spence had seen no difference between the baby she'd borne and the one she'd stolen, Deborah told him. Each was her child. She was the mother. There was no difference. To her, mothering wasn't the initial act and the nine months that followed it. But Robin Sage hadn't seen that, had he? He offered her money to escape, but he should have known she was Maggie's mother, she wouldn't leave her child, it didn't matter what price she had to pay to stay with her, she would pay it, she loved her, she was her mother.

"That's how it was for her, wasn't it?" Deborah whispered.