An Air That Kills (9 page)

NINE

The news that Ron Galloway had been seen alive at Thorn­bury at approximately ten o'clock Saturday night was relayed to Esther late on Sunday afternoon.

She had just returned home from the lodge and was having early tea with the two boys in their playroom on the second floor. The boys were on their worst behavior. Sensing Esther's remoteness and preoccupation, they were using every trick in the book to draw her back into immediacy and refocus her attention on them. Food was thrown, epithets exchanged, tears shed. Through it all Esther tried to remain firm and kindly, but the cumulative strain of the past twenty-four hours proved too much for her and she herself had almost reached the point of tears when Annie came in to announce that Mr. Bream was waiting for her in the library.

“I told you I wasn't at home,” Esther said sharply, in a transfer of anger. “To anyone.”

“I couldn't help it, Mrs. Galloway. He said he had some very important news. And anyway, it's Mr.
Bream.”
She inflected the name to give it special importance, partly to excuse her disobedience of orders and partly because she liked Harry. He treated her with respect.

“All right. Take over these hellions. I can't do a thing with them.”

Annie gave her a superior you-never-could glance which Esther pretended not to notice. Esther was well aware that Annie had more power over her than she had over Annie. The balance of power lay in the boys, and Annie handled them with the ease and poise of a skilled animal trainer who realizes the exact limitations of her beasts and expects no more from them than what they can give.

“They're really quite good boys,” Annie said firmly.

“Yes, of course they are.”

Harry was waiting for her in the library. Even before she entered the room she could hear him pacing up and down as if he were angry.

Esther said, “Annie tells me you have news.”

“Of a kind.”

“Is it about Ron?”

“Some of it is.”

“Don't talk in riddles, Harry. This isn't the time or place.”

“I can't help that. It is a riddle. Everything is.” His hair and clothing were disheveled and his face feverish-red as if he'd just been battling a high wind. He was rather a short man but he usually held himself straight and tall so that people seldom thought of him as short. Yet during the after­noon he seemed to have shrunk by inches, his shoulders sagged, his neck was bent, and he looked small and wizened and old.

Perhaps I've changed just as much as Harry has, Esther thought, and she was grateful that there was no mirror in the room to tell her so.

“It's bad news, of course,” she said sounding very detached.

“No. No, it's not. Not about Ron, anyway.”

“Tell me.”

“Some woman saw him last night in a little town called Thornbury, about ten o'clock. He ran over her dog.”

“He what?”

“Ran over her dog and killed it. He slowed down, saw what he'd done and threw some money out of the car to pay for the dog. The woman described the car, and Ron, the cap he was wearing and so on. It was Ron, all right.”

“How can you be sure?”

“There was all kinds of identification in his wallet. I guess he didn't have time to take the money from his wallet so he just threw out money, wallet and everything. It was one of those impulsive things Ron does without thinking.”

“Without thinking? Oh no. He thought, all right. He thought, as usual, that money will pay for anything.”

“Now look, Es, I might have done the same thing myself if I'd been in a terrible hurry.”

“Why should he be in a terrible hurry?”

“I don't know. I just say maybe he was.”

“And that's why he didn't stop the car, because he was in this terrible hurry?”

Harry hesitated. “He could have been scared, too.”

“That's better. That sounds much more like Ron. He makes a mistake and runs away, throws money out of cars instead of stopping. Oh, it must have been Ron, all right. Even if there hadn't been any identification in the wallet, I'd know it was Ron. Will he ever grow up? Will he ever just once stand and face things?”

“Now Es, don't start . . .”

“Where's Thornbury?”

“Well, it's about halfway between Collingwood and Owen Sound. You pass through it on the way to the lodge. You must have seen it today.”

“I didn't notice.” She let out a long deep sigh, as if she'd been holding her breath, waiting for an attack. “And that's all the news?”

“Yes.”

“It's worse than none.”

“I don't see how you figure that.”

She turned away so that when she spoke again she seemed to be addressing the window. “All this time, right up until now, I've been thinking that Ron went away deliberately to avoid me. Perhaps he drove to Detroit, I thought, and after wrestling with his conscience for a while, he will call me and tell me where he is and everything will be all right again. Or as close to all right as it ever has been. That's what I've been thinking, that he did something wrong and couldn't bear to face me and ran away.”

“That's quite possible.”

“No, it isn't. Not now. If he wanted to run away he wouldn't run to the one place in the world where I'd look for him first. If he was seen in Thornbury, that means he was on his way to the lodge, or had been there and was coming back. In which direction was he going when he went through Thornbury?”

“I never thought to ask. There actually wasn't time. The Inspector returned to the lodge right after you left for home and told me about the Thornbury business. I thought you'd want to know right away so I drove down here.”

“You could have phoned.”

“I wanted an excuse to leave anyway.”

“Why?”

“I'd been trying to get in touch with Thelma. I got through to her once but she hung up on me. I tried again several times after that. The phone kept ringing all right, but no one answered. I know the reason, now.”

His tone was so peculiar that she turned to stare at him. “What's the matter, Harry?”

“She's left me,” Harry said, and began suddenly and silently to cry. He covered his face with his hands in an effort to hide his tears but they dribbled out between his fingers and down his wrists into his cuffs.

Esther had never seen a grown man cry before, and the shock of it temporarily immobilized her. She couldn't speak, and her only thought at first was that Harry needed a hand­kerchief, somebody should give poor Harry a handkerchief, he was getting his shirt wet.

When she finally found her voice it fitted her strangely, it was so tight and small. “Harry? I'll make you a drink, eh, Harry?”

“No. I'll be—all right. Give me—a minute.”

She turned back to the window. She had looked out of this window a thousand times and she still had the same impres­sion, that somewhere, beyond the circling driveway, the high hedges and the iron gates, life was going on without her and she hadn't been invited to the party. Sometimes, over the high hedge, she fancied she could hear the strains of distant music and between the iron rails could catch a glimpse of couples dancing.

“I went home,” Harry said. “She wasn't there. Just a letter on the kitchen table saying—saying she'd left me.”

“Did she give a reason?”

“Not anything I could understand. She wanted a chance to think things over, she said. I can't believe it. We were so
happy.”
He stumbled over the word and picked himself up again. “Everybody knows how happy we were. I can't under­stand. What's she got to think over?”

“Perhaps quite a bit.”

“But what?”

“It's an interesting coincidence, don't you think? Now they're both gone, Ron and Thelma.”

“You're not implying they went off together?”

“Maybe you and I have been pretty stupid about the whole thing.”

“They're not together,” Harry said sharply. “I
know
where Thelma is. She said in her letter she was going to stay for a while with a cousin of hers over on Eglington Avenue. She asked me not to try and get in touch with her. I did, though. I called Marian, that's her cousin, and Marian said she was there all right but didn't want to talk to me just yet.”

“Cousins,” Esther said dryly, “have been known to lie.”

“Not Marian. She and Thelma aren't that close, for one thing.”

“I never heard Thelma mention a cousin in town.”

“I just told you, they're not very close. Lunch together downtown twice a year, that sort of thing. Marian's never even been to visit us at the house.”

“Then why should Thelma go to stay with her now?”

“She had no place else to go, I guess.” He sounded as if he were going to start crying again, but he didn't. Instead, he swallowed hard several times before he resumed speaking. “She must have been desperate, to decide to go to Marian's. She doesn't even like her. She must have been desperate. Poor Thelma.”

Esther turned abruptly from the window, her fists clenched tight against her sides. “Poor Thelma. I'm getting bloody sick of the poor Ron, poor Thelma routine. I'd like to hear a little more about poor Harry and poor Esther!”

“No, Es. Don't. Don't be harsh.”

“It's time I was harsh.”

“It's never time, if you love somebody. I don't know what Thelma's problem is. All I know is that she's in trouble and I want to help her.”

“Suppose you can't.”

“I've got to,” Harry said with quiet firmness. “She's my wife. She needs me. I would do anything in the world to help her.”

Esther knew it was true. She stood, pale and motionless, thinking that if Ron ever said that about her she would be the happiest woman in the country. She would feel that at last she'd been invited to the party and the music was no longer distant but in the same room, and the couple dancing to its strains was herself and Ron.

“I wish I had your faith, Harry,” she said finally.

“I wasn't born with it. I built it up brick by brick, until now it's so high I can't see over it.”

“You don't want to see over it anyway.”

“Thelma has done nothing shameful,” Harry said. “What­ever your suspicions are about her and Ron, they're wrong, believe me.”

“I'd like to.”

“Read her letter.”

He took the letter out of his coat pocket and handed it to her, but she drew away. “No, I don't want to. It's private.”

“Thelma wouldn't object.”

“I don't want to,” she repeated, but even while she was speaking her eyes were seeking out the words on the paper, written in green ink in a highly stylized backhand. The effect of style was ruined by some misspellings, several clumsy era­sures, and one place where the ink was blurred as if by a tear­drop.

 

Dear Harry:

I have gone to stay with Marian for a time. It is so hard to explain to you, I feel so teribbly mixed up, and I thought if I went away by myself to think things over it would be better for all of us, including you. It is hard for me to figure out the right answers when I am so emotionaly upset like this. I can't talk to you just yet, so please don't call me or try to get in touch with me. Please, I mean it, Harry. If Mrs. Malverson or any of the neighbours wonder why I'm not there, just tell them I've gone to visit with a cousin, which is the truth anyway.

I know you are wondering what's the matter with me, have I lost my mind or something. Well, I don't think so but right now I'm not sure of anything except that I must go away and figure things out without having to think of other people or feel sorry for anyone. The past is all very well but it's the future I've got to live in. I must find the right course and stick to it.

Please try to be patient with me, Harry. I'll get in touch with you as soon as I feel that I can talk sensibaly and without breaking down. By the way, Marian knows nothing, so please don't try and pump her. I told her you and I had had a little spat.

  Thelma

P.S. Mrs. Reynold called this morning and said Dorothy Galloway wants to see you as soon as possible about Ron.

 

Esther almost dropped the letter in her amazement. “Mrs.
Reynold.
Why on earth should she call
you?”

“I've no idea. I hardly know the woman. As for Dorothy, well, I go to see her now and then, but God knows we never talk about Ron. If his name were mentioned she'd stage a heart attack.”

“Do you think it's possible she's heard something about Ron that we haven't?”

“How?
”

“By mistake, perhaps. She's still Mrs. Galloway, a message could have been sent to her by mistake, instead of to me.” The idea excited her, splashed color into her cheeks. “Isn't that reasonable?”