A Place of Execution (1999) (51 page)

After her daily walk, she’d drive back to Longnor and have a snack of bread, cheese and salad before returning to her task. At six, she opened a bottle of wine and watched the TV news. Then it was back to work until nine, when she’d stop and eat a pizza or some other instant meal from the supermarket. For the rest of the evening, she’d answer e–mail and read some trashy airport paperback. That, and occasional conversations with her editor about the progress of her book, and with the documentary maker about his timetable, were all she was capable of.

For the first time in her life, Catherine’s days had ceased to revolve around a gregarious office and an active social life. She was bemused by how little she missed human company. She had, she thought wryly, 340 become what six months previously she would have categorized as a sad bastard.

When the phone rang one afternoon and she heard George Bennett’s voice on the other end, it seemed as if her words had suddenly taken on a life of their own and for a moment, she couldn’t take in what he was saying.

‘Sorry, George, I was miles away when you rang, can you just run that past me again?’ she said uncertainly.

‘I hope I haven’t interrupted the creative flow at a crucial moment.’

‘No, no, nothing like that. How can I help you?’ Catherine was back in control, slipping straight into her professional persona. ‘I was ringing to tell you Paul is bringing Helen over for a few days next week. Anne and I wondered if you’d like to join us for dinner on Friday?’

‘I’d be delighted,’ she said. ‘I should have the first draft finished by the end of this week. I’ll bring it over with me so you can check it over after they’ve gone back to Brussels.’

‘You have been working hard,’ George said. ‘That’ll be a real treat for me. So, Friday at seven it is.

See you then, Catherine.’ She replaced the receiver and stared at her wall of photographs. She’d done almost all she could to make them come to life. Now, like Philip Hawkin, she’d have to wait for the verdict of others.

August 1998

C
atherine ceremoniously handed George the thick padded envelope. ‘The first draft,’ she said.

‘Don’t be kind, George. I need to know what you really think.’

She followed him into the living room, where Paul and Helen were sitting on the sofa. ‘Here’s a cause for celebration,’ George said. ‘Catherine’s delivered her book.’

Helen grinned. ‘Well done, Catherine. You’ve not wasted any time.’ Catherine shrugged. ‘I’m due back at work in three weeks. I didn’t have any time to waste. That’s the beauty of a journalistic training—writing expands or contracts to fill the time available.’ Before they could discuss it further, Anne came through with a tray of glasses and a bottle of champagne. ‘Hello, Catherine.

George said you had something to celebrate, so we thought we’d crack open the bubbly.’

Paul grinned. ‘Not for the first time this week. Helen’s divorce finally came through, and we’ve decided we’re going to get married. So we had a couple of bottles the other night to set the seal on it.’ Catherine crossed the room and leaned forward to kiss Helen on both cheeks. ‘That’s great news,’ she enthused. She turned to Paul and kissed him too. ‘I’m thrilled for both of you.’

George took the tray and put it down. ‘We’re pretty pleased, too. This has turned into a vintage week.’ George opened the champagne and filled their glasses. ‘A toast,’ he said, handing the drinks round. ‘To the book.’

‘And the happy couple,’ Catherine added.

‘No, the book, the book,’ Paul protested. ‘That way we’ll have to open another bottle so you can toast me and Helen. And you’ll have to come to the wedding,’ he added. ‘After all, if it wasn’t for you, we’d never have got Dad to come to Scardale to meet Helen’s sister.’

‘You’ve been to Scardale?’ Catherine couldn’t hide her astonishment. The one failure she regretted in her research was that she had been unable to persuade George to return to the village and go over the physical ground with her.

George looked faintly sheepish. ‘We’ve not been yet. But we’re going to lunch with Helen’s sister Janis on Monday.’

Catherine raised her glass to Paul. ‘You’ve pulled it off again. I tried everything short of kidnapping to get him to come there with me.’ Paul grinned. ‘You did the groundwork.’

‘Well, whoever’s responsible, I’m glad you’re going,’ Catherine said. ‘And I don’t think you’ll find any memories lingering in Scardale Manor, George.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, leaning forward.

‘It’s been gutted. According to Kathy Lomas, who gave me the tour, there’s not a single room that’s anything like it was back in 1963. It’s not just decorated differently—there’s even been a bit of structural work, knocking a couple of small rooms into one bigger one, turning a bedroom into a bathroom, that sort of thing. If you closed your eyes all the way down the Scardale road and didn’t open them till you were inside the manor, I guarantee you wouldn’t feel a single memory stirring,’ she added with a smile.

George shook his head. ‘I wish I could believe you,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got a feeling that I won’t be able to escape the past that easily.’

‘I don’t know, George,’ Helen chipped in. ‘You know how houses have an atmosphere? Some places you just walk in and know it’s a friendly, welcoming place? And other times, no matter how much money’s been spent on it, the house feels cold and hostile? Well, Scardale Manor’s one of those houses that feels like home from the moment you cross the threshold. That’s what Jan said when she first went to look at the place after we inherited it. She rang me up to tell me she’d known as soon as she walked in that this was the house for her.

And I can sense exactly what she means. Whenever I’ve stayed there, I’ve always slept like a log and felt totally at home. So if there ever were any ghosts, they moved out a long time ago.’

‘So you might be in for a pleasant surprise, love,’ Anne said reassuringly.

Still the doubt remained on George’s face. ‘I hope so,’ he said.

‘Never mind being worried about memories lying in ambush for you, George. If the remaining Carters, Crowthers and Lomases get wind that you’re coming back to the dale, they’ll probably roll out the red carpet and decorate their houses with bunting,’ Catherine said. ‘The only threat to your health and wellbeing might come from an excess of hospitality.’

‘Speaking of which, I think it’s time for that second bottle,’ Paul said, jumping to his feet.

‘There is one small thing, George,’ Catherine said, smiling as charmingly as she knew how. ‘If you manage to survive your return to Scardale, would you consider going back again with me?’

‘I thought you’d finished the book,’ he said, looking for an excuse to refuse.

‘Only the first draft. There’s still plenty of time to add to what I’ve already written.’

George sighed. ‘I suppose I owe you that much. All right, Catherine. If I make it out of Scardale alive, I’ll go back with you. That’s a promise.’

August 1998

C
atherine stared at the letter in utter disbelief. Her first thought was that it was a joke. But she rejected that idea before it was even fully formed. She knew George Bennett was far too much the gentleman and the gentle man—to make this kind of savage joke. She read the letter again and wondered if he was having some kind of breakdown. Perhaps visiting Scardale on top of reliving the Alison Carter case might have caused the crack-up some people would have experienced at the time. She dismissed that too; George Bennett was far too sane a man to lose his marbles thirty-five years on, no matter how traumatic the memories. And he himself had remarked more than once that going over the case had been less disturbing than he had feared.

That recognition left Catherine without a straw to clutch at. Outrage began to burn inside her like indigestion. She had been halfway through a late breakfast when the post had arrived. She’d been expecting a letter from her editor with her comments and requests for any rewrites, not this catastrophe. Her first impulse was to pick up the phone, but before she’d got three digits into George’s number, she slammed it down again. Years of journalism had taught her exactly how easy it was to fob somebody off on the phone. This was one she had to deal with face to face. She left the half-drunk coffee and half-eaten toast on the table. Forty minutes later, she was turning right by the millpond. For every minute of those forty, Catherine had seethed with frustration. All she could see was George’s high-handedness and she couldn’t understand what had provoked it. He’d never shown the slightest sign that he was capable of such overbearing behaviour. She’d thought they’d become friends, but she couldn’t understand how a friend could treat her like this.

In her heart, Catherine knew the book was more hers than it was his, and that he had no right to take it from her. She wasn’t daunted by his threat of legal action, knowing what the book contract said. But she was disturbed by the effect his opposition could have on both her sales and her reputation. To have the book repudiated by the one person who knew the case inside out could damage her beyond repair. And that was something Catherine wouldn’t accept without a fight. If George had set aside their friendship, then she would have to find it in her heart to do the same, however difficult she might find it.

She edged the car up the narrow road. Both the Bennetts’ cars were in the drive, so she had to carry on past their limestone villa and leave the car in a lay-by halfway up the hill. She strode back down to the house and stormed up the drive.

The doorbell echoed, as it does in an empty house. But surely even if George had gone to the village on foot, Anne should be at home. Her arthritis meant that any journey required a car.

Catherine stepped away from the front door and walked round the side of the house, thinking they might be in the garden, enjoying the sunshine before it grew too warm for comfort. But she drew a blank there too. There was nothing in sight but manicured lawn and colour-coded flower beds like some miniature Sissinghurst.

It was as she returned to the front of the house that a possible solution came to her. If Paul and Helen had hired a car, it was possible they had taken George and Anne out for the day. The thought simply increased her determination to have it out with George. If she had to wait till bedtime to speak to him, so be it. She was standing in the drive, wondering whether to stake the house out from the car or to browse the bookshop by the millpond for an hour when she heard her name.

The next-door neighbour was standing on her doorstep, looking surprised.

‘Catherine?’ she repeated.

‘Hello, Sandra,’ Catherine said, finding a purely professional smile from deep inside. ‘I don’t suppose you know where George and Anne have gone off to?’

She gaped at her. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ she eventually said, unable to keep a note of glee out of her voice because she knew something Catherine didn’t.

‘Is there something I should have heard?’ she asked coolly.

‘I thought you’d have known. He’s had a heart attack.’

Catherine stared in disbelief. ‘A heart attack.

‘Rushed to hospital in an ambulance early this morning,’ Sandra said with relish. ‘Of course, Anne went with him in the ambulance. Paul and Helen followed in their car.’

Appalled, Catherine cleared her throat. ‘Is there any news yet?’

‘Paul came back to pick up some of his dad’s things earlier on and we had a word, of course. George is in intensive care. Paul said it’s been touch and go, but the doctors say George is a fighter. Of course, we all knew that.’

Catherine couldn’t work out why the woman was so smug about what had happened. She didn’t want to think it was because she was hugging to herself the pleasure of knowing something Catherine didn’t, but no other explanation came to mind. ‘Which hospital?’ she asked. ‘They’ve taken him to the specialist cardiac care unit in Derby,’ she said.

Catherine was already walking back up the hill to the car. ‘They won’t let you in,’ Sandra called after her. ‘You’re not family. They won’t let you in.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ Catherine said grimly under her breath. Predictably, her fears for George manifested themselves in unreasonable rage. How dare George deprive her of the satisfaction of finding out what the hell was going on by contriving to be at death’s door? It was only as she drove down to Derby that she simmered down and began to realize what a terrible night it must have been for all of them—Anne, Paul, Helen, and of course, George himself, trapped inside a body that wasn’t functioning the way he demanded it should. She couldn’t imagine anything worse for a man like George. Even at sixty-five, she knew he was trim and fit; his mind too was sharper than most of the serving police officers she’d ever encountered. He could still complete the Guardian crossword three days out of four, which was more than Catherine had ever managed. Working so closely with him had provoked respect, but also affection. She hated to think of him diminished by disease.

The intensive care unit wasn’t hard to find. Catherine pushed open one of the double doors and found herself in an empty reception area. She pressed the buzzer on the desk and waited. After a couple of minutes, she pressed it again. A nurse in a white overall emerged from one of the three closed doors. ‘Can I help you?’ she said. ‘I’m inquiring about George Bennett?’ Catherine said with an anxious half-smile.

‘Are you family?’ the nurse asked automatically.

‘I’ve been working with George. I’m a friend of the family.’

‘I’m afraid we can only allow visits from immediate family,’ she said, her voice entirely empty of regret.

‘I appreciate that.’ Catherine smiled again. ‘I wonder, though, if you could tell Anne—Mrs Bennett, that is—that I’m here? Perhaps we could go somewhere for a cup of tea, if that’s all right with her?’

The nurse smiled for the first time. ‘Of course I’ll tell her. Your name is?’

‘Catherine Heathcote. Where would be a good place to meet Mrs Bennett?’

The nurse pointed her in the direction of the coffee bar, and as she turned away, Catherine called after her, ‘And George? Is there anything you can tell me about George?’