A Dead Man Out of Mind (30 page)

‘All right,' he agreed, yawning. ‘If you'll promise to stop worrying about it for now, and try to get some sleep. On second thoughts,' he amended as she lay back down beside him, ‘I think we could both use a cuddle. Come here, Lucy love.'

She allowed him to take her in his arms, and didn't resist when his caresses became more insistent, but for the first time in the history of their lovemaking she was just going through the motions; though her body was engaged most pleasurably, her mind was elsewhere, and her heart was gripped in a chill ache that was beyond comfort.

CHAPTER 25

    
There is no health in my flesh, because of thy displeasure: neither is there any rest in my bones, by reason of my sin.

    
For my wickednesses are gone over my head: and are like a sore burden, too heavy for me to bear.

Psalm 38.3–4

After seeing David and Ruth off to work on Tuesday morning, Lucy washed up the breakfast dishes, fed Sophie, then moved about the house restlessly, feeling that she should be doing something of a constructive nature. The sitting room was a mess: Ruth had left the sofa bed unfolded, so Lucy removed the bedding, folded it up and stashed it in the cupboard under the stairs, then restored the innards to their hidden state inside the sofa. Her niece had also left an assortment of sweet wrappers and empty crisp packets on the table and even the floor. With an unconscious sigh she collected them all up and transported them to the bin in the kitchen, then took a cookery book off the shelf and located a recipe for that evening's meal.

She went upstairs, took a leisurely hot bubble bath, washed her hair and dried it, got dressed, then went into her studio. Vanessa's painting was on the easel, completed and ready to be wrapped up and delivered. Lucy was pleased with the painting, and thought that Vanessa would be as well; in keeping with the importance of the occasion which it was to mark, it had been executed on an ambitious scale, and it had worked. She had used Christian motifs, including a variety of crosses, repeated and combined in innovative ways, and the result was pleasing to the eye, devotional without being in any way sentimental.

Lucy looked at her watch. It was late enough to ring Vanessa, so she went into the bedroom to use the phone there.

Vanessa answered promptly, and seemed eager to see both Lucy and the painting. ‘Do you want me to come and fetch it?' she offered.

‘Oh, no. That's not necessary. I'll bring it to you. I can come by taxi.'

‘I can't wait to see it. And I can't wait to give it to Martin.'

‘Your anniversary is this weekend?'

‘That's right. Twenty years.' Vanessa sighed. ‘It doesn't seem possible that it's been that long.'

‘Well, I hope that you'll both like the painting. Is this afternoon convenient for you?'

‘Of course. Do you want to come around teatime?'

‘That would be nice,' agreed Lucy. ‘I'll see you then.'

David rang a short time later, his voice conveying suppressed excitement. ‘You may well be on to something with this Vanessa Bairstow business, love,' he informed her. ‘I've just had a chat with Alistair, and Vanessa
was
one of his hairdressing clients.'

‘And where does that take us?'

‘He told me something very interesting. He said that women tell their hairdressers things that they'd never tell anyone else, except maybe a psychiatrist or a priest. Do you think that's true?'

‘Yes,' said Lucy thoughtfully. ‘Yes, it's true, in a sense. There's something impersonal about a hairdresser – they just listen, and don't really engage with you like a priest would, or a psychiatrist. But I suppose that's the attraction for a lot of women. A nonjudgemental, listening ear. Something they don't get anywhere else.'

‘Especially not from their husbands,' David added with a dry chuckle.

‘Well, exactly. That's just the point. I've heard women sitting in the next chair to me, and whilst the scissors are snipping away they're chatting on in the most astonishingly intimate detail. The hairdressers never bat an eye. They'll just say, once in a while, in a bored voice, “Oh, yes, dear? And what did he do then?” It's amazing. Don't men do that too, at the barbers'?'

‘You've got to be joking, love. The barbers are the ones who do all the talking – every one of them is a self-proclaimed expert on cricket, football, and politics. In fact,' he said, ‘I think that this country would be in much better shape if we sacked the government and put the barbers in charge.'

Lucy laughed, then recalled the purpose of the call. ‘But what about Vanessa? Does she have a deep dark secret that she confided to her hairdresser?'

‘You've got it in one, you clever girl. Did I ever tell you that I adore you?'

‘Once or twice. But what was it?' she demanded. ‘Did he tell you what it was?'

‘No,' David admitted. ‘He said that as far as he's concerned, he's in the same position as a priest. The sacredness of the confessional, you know. He listens, but he won't repeat anything that a client tells him. He'd like to help us, he said, but if we want to know, we'll have to find out some other way. You've got to admire his integrity, though it's as annoying as hell.'

Thoughtfully Lucy twisted a red-gold curl around her finger. ‘But what about Father Julian?' she asked after a moment. ‘Did
he
know Vanessa's secret?'

‘It would seem so,' David confirmed. ‘Alistair admitted that she'd been to talk to Father Julian – she'd actually come to the house to see him. That's how Alistair knew the connection, that one of his clients was also one of Julian's parishioners.'

‘Ah,' said Lucy. ‘It's all beginning to make some sense, I think. Anyway,' she continued briskly, ‘I'm going to deliver her painting this afternoon. So we'll see what I can find out.'

‘You're good at getting people to tell you things,' David encouraged her, adding with a chuckle, ‘And if all other methods fail, can't you offer to cut her hair?'

Later that afternoon, Lucy balanced the unwieldy painting on the top step and pushed Vanessa's bell, with a terrible sense of déjà vu from the day before.

Vanessa opened the door a little way, then swung it wide. ‘Oh, hello, Lucy. Come in,' Her voice, normally deep-pitched and rich, sounded flat.

‘Where would you like me to put the painting? Somewhere in the light, where you can look at it properly?'

She gave an indifferent shrug. ‘It doesn't matter. Put it anywhere. I'll look at it later.' Vanessa turned and walked towards the drawing room, moving woodenly.

Puzzled, Lucy followed her. There was something wrong, she realised quickly: gone was the enthusiasm that Vanessa had shown on the phone that morning. And though Vanessa was dressed as elegantly as always, her face, under its layer of perfect make-up, seemed almost
too
perfectly arranged.

But whatever was wrong, she remembered her manners, gesturing to a chair. ‘Please, sit down, Lucy. Can I offer you some tea?'

‘If you're having some.'

Without another word, Vanessa went off to the kitchen, coming back a few minutes later with a tea tray. She set it down carefully on the table, her movements controlled in an unnatural way. ‘Lemon or milk?' she asked.

Concerned, Lucy stood up and went to her, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Listen, Vanessa. Something's wrong, isn't it? Can't you tell me what it is?'

The other woman tensed, then consciously relaxed. ‘I'll show you,' she said in a lifeless voice. Again she turned, and, moving almost like an automaton, led Lucy up the stairs and into a beautifully appointed bedroom – the sort of bedroom that she would have expected Vanessa to have, with lovely Georgian furniture, Colefax and Fowler wallpaper, and coordinating quilted spreads on the twin beds.

‘There,' said Vanessa, pointing to one of the beds.

Again Lucy experienced a painful sense of déjà vu at the pointing finger, but she forced herself to look. There, stretched on the bed, was a large yellow cat, with no apparent injuries but unmistakeably dead, its limbs extended stiffly and its mouth slightly open. As unmistakeably dead as Vera Bright, thought Lucy with an involuntary shudder.

Vanessa sensed the shudder, and turned to face her. ‘It's Augustine,' she said unnecessarily and with studied calm. ‘I found him a little while ago. He's dead. It looks like poison.'

‘Oh, Vanessa, I'm so sorry!' With impulsive but genuine empathy and pity, Lucy put her arms around the other woman, feeling her as rigid as the dead cat in her embrace.

This unexpected evidence of human warmth was all it took; in an instant Vanessa was wracked with tearing dry sobs of agony. ‘Oh,' she gasped. ‘Oh, he's dead! My baby – he's dead!'

Lucy knew that it was better for her to cry, healthier to express her grief than to suppress it. ‘Yes, yes,' she murmured.

Vanessa cried for a long time, clinging to Lucy, the dry sobs giving way to tears which thoroughly soaked Lucy's shoulder and wrecked her own perfect make-up. Eventually, with an effort, she controlled her sobs and pulled away from Lucy, revealing a face all the more human for the runnels of mascara and the smears of iridescent eye shadow. She reached for a tissue from the bedside table, then sat abruptly on the edge of the other bed, dabbing at her eyes.

‘Who could have done such a thing?' she said almost to herself.

‘Do you think that someone did it on purpose?' Lucy asked, horrified. ‘Put down poison?'

‘Oh, yes, I'm sure of it. The neighbours didn't like Augustine much, you know. They didn't like the way he killed birds, or . . . you know . . . in their gardens.' Vanessa wrapped her arms around her body and began rocking, forward and back, on the edge of the bed. ‘But how could they have done it?' she said softly. ‘The neighbours all have children. But he was all that I had. My darling Augustine, my beautiful cat. He was all that I had to love.'

Lucy knelt beside her. ‘That's not true,' she protested. ‘You might not have any children, but you have Martin.'

‘Martin.' Her laugh was low and without humour as she continued her rhythmic rocking. After a moment she began speaking, softly and quickly, almost as if to herself. ‘He's never loved me, you know. Not even at the beginning. If he had, surely he would have wanted me to be a true wife to him. It didn't matter so much to me at first – I loved him so much, and thought that the other would come in time. But later I wanted it – not just because I wanted children, but because I needed to know that he loved me. I wanted to be held, I wanted to be loved.' She bit her lip, choked, and went on. ‘He never even wanted to try. Whenever I suggested it, he would turn away from me, as if I were something . . . filthy. Unclean. Sometimes I was so desperate that I even got into his bed with him. Usually he just pushed me out. Once or twice he . . . tried. That was the worst.' She squeezed her eyes shut; tears trickled from their corners. ‘He just couldn't do it. He didn't find me attractive, he said. It was my fault.' Lowering her head, she whispered, ‘I've tried so hard to be attractive for him, to make him proud of me, to make him love me, to make him . . . want me. But it's no good. Now he can't even bear to touch me.'

Lucy took her hand and pressed it comfortingly; there was nothing she could say.

‘They all think he's the ideal husband, of course,' Vanessa went on in a noticeably more bitter tone. ‘All those old women at St Margaret's. They all envy me – can you believe it? But why shouldn't they? In public he always treats me like a cherished possession. And why shouldn't they think he's wonderful? There's nothing he wouldn't do for them – he gives them lifts to church, wires their plugs, prunes their hedges, helps them balance their chequebooks. He has more time for them than he's ever had for me. Sometimes I wonder what they'd say if they knew what he was really like.' Her mouth twisted in a sour smile. ‘Sometimes I just feel like standing up in the middle of church and shouting it out: “This man is a fraud – twenty years of marriage and he can scarcely bring himself to touch his wife, or even look at her, let alone make love to her!” What a fine churchwarden he is.'

Then she raised her head and looked at Lucy as though she were seeing her for the first time. ‘Oh, God, what have I done?' she breathed in an appalled whisper. ‘Please, you mustn't say anything, and you must never let Martin know that I've told you. There's no telling what he'd do if he found out.'

‘But this isn't something that you should have to deal with alone. Haven't you ever talked about it with anyone before?' Lucy asked, knowing the answer even as the question was spoken.

Vanessa sighed and looked down at her clasped hands. ‘Sometimes I feel desperate, as though I have to tell someone or I'll burst. Once I tried to say something to Father Keble Smythe, but he didn't want to know. So I talked to Father Julian. He was wonderful. He made me realise for the first time that Martin is the one with the problem, and that I'm not really as repulsive and . . . unnatural . . . as he always tells me I am, just because I want a normal married life. But then he died. And Rachel. She stopped by to see me a couple of weeks ago. Augustine had disappeared, and I was so upset. I said more than I should, and Martin came home in the middle of it and went mad. He loves playing the part of the perfect husband in front of everyone at St Margaret's – it would kill him if people knew the truth. Please,' she repeated with unmistakeable urgency. ‘Please forget that this ever happened. Promise me that you'll never tell a soul!'

Lucy hadn't been home long when David and Ruth returned from work. ‘Hello, my love,' David greeted her, and was pleasantly surprised at the warmth of her welcoming kiss; she'd been more shaken by the day's events than she was willing to admit.