Betrayal (37 page)

‘It wasn’t too late, you know,’ I said after we had walked in silence for a time. ‘Not for me.’

But she wouldn’t answer that because we were talking about the summer, and the summer was Sylvie.

When we got back she went into the sitting room and dozed off in front of an old film. As I scrubbed the potatoes for supper, her comments rolled round my mind. I accepted that I might not be able to judge my family too objectively – who could? – yet had I really understood so little about myself all these years? Had I really been driven by my obligations to them rather than my own needs, or Ginny’s? I had always striven to please my father, certainly, and that had never diminished. And given the choice I had preferred David’s approval to his annoyance, which could be fearsome. But had I really been driven by the fear of letting them down? It was a dispiriting thought.

I overcooked the salmon and undercooked the potatoes. Ginny assured me that she wasn’t very hungry and wouldn’t have eaten much anyway. She drank some Pouilly-Fume though, two full glasses, and was halfway through a third before she slowed down.

‘Tingwall – Charles – needs to see you some time this week,’ I told her. ‘I have to go down to Hartford on Thursday so I could drop you in Exeter on the way. Will that be all right?’

She took a long troubled breath.

‘You have to see him, darling. You have to trust him.’

She nodded stiffly.

‘He’s really thorough, you know. In fact, I’m pretty impressed with him. I think he’s well up to the job.’ I added tentatively: ‘So long as we give him all the help he needs, of course.’

She was staring out beyond the window, focused on some inner world, and gave no indication of having heard.

Suppressing a creep of frustration, I said, ‘You will talk to him, won’t you, darling? You can talk to him in confidence, you know. I mean, he won’t tell
me
anything you don’t want him to.’

I found it impossible to read what was going on in her mind. She gave me nothing back. After the revelations of the walk, the sudden burst of communication, she had put up the shutters again.

‘He’s been busy,’ I said in an effort at conversation. ‘Getting hold of experts to check the evidence . . .’ Lumbering on, searching for points of interest, I added, ‘Oh, and would you believe it, a witness has come forward, confirming my arrival time in Dittisham that day. Ironic, really. Henderson was always so transfixed by that missing journey time. Thought he could catch me out, like some Agatha Christie detective.’

I had her attention at last. ‘A witness?’

‘A man called Horrocks. An assistant harbour master. Saw me just outside Totnes.’

Her eyes burned brightly, urging me on.

‘Saw me at twenty to seven, apparently. Absolutely positive it was me. Knew the car and so on. Even waved at me, though I didn’t see him.’

‘So . . . So . . .’ She was blinking rapidly. ‘Does that mean you’re in the clear?’

A long confused pause followed.

‘Did you think I wasn’t?’

‘I was worried in case . . . You know, I thought . . . They’d think that we’d . . . together. That you were involved . . .’ She dismissed the rest of this thought with an agitated shake of her head before repeating more forcefully, ‘Does that mean you’re in the clear?’

Conflicting thoughts raced uncomfortably round my brain. ‘I would think so, yes.’

‘What about afterwards? After you arrived? They won’t think you could have got down to the boat then and helped me?’

I was struggling to catch up, to fill the gaps in this startling new scenario. ‘No. David saw me in town, remember.’

‘And after that?’

‘Well, you were there. And David dropped in.’

‘That’s right, that’s right. Yes . . . You had no time, did you?’ Without warning she began to blink back tears and laugh at the same time. ‘I was so worried. I thought . . .’ Now she was laughing more than she was crying, an odd overwrought sound. ‘Thank God.’

I went round the table and sat next to her.

She kept repeating, ‘Thank God.’ Then, with a flash of doubt, ‘But can we be sure? Can we really be sure? That it’ll be enough?’

‘Charles can find out, I imagine.’

‘Can he?’ She seized on this. ‘If he can . . .’

I tried to make light of my next question. ‘You thought Henderson might come back for me then?’

‘What?’ From a state of near-apathy she had become taut as a wire, as though hit by the effects of some fast-working drug, and I wondered if the pills she was taking had interacted with the wine. ‘Yes.
Ye s
,’ she insisted. ‘There was always a risk, wasn’t there?’

Maintaining my tone, I smiled, ‘Was there?’

Caught up in her frantic relief, she was barely listening again.

‘Ginny?’ I prompted. ‘There was a risk that he’d charge me?’

‘Yes.
God
. It was my nightmare. My worst nightmare. I thought they’d come back for you. That we’d both end up in prison.’ And she half winced, half laughed at the thought.

I was missing something fundamental here, something which both alarmed and electrified me. ‘So . . .’ I felt my way cautiously, aware of how quickly the shutters might close again. ‘If this chap hadn’t seen me, if I’d had the time to’ – I searched for innocuous words – ‘get down to the river . . . then Henderson might have suggested that I’d . . . that I’d . . .?’

‘Oh, that you’d killed Sylvie, of course. And that I helped you to get rid of her afterwards.’ She went on: ‘You see . . . That’s what
I
thought too. That you’d killed her.’

I was very still now. I was hovering on the brink of understanding, but I still needed to hear it from her mouth.

‘But I didn’t kill her,’ I prompted softly.

‘I know that now. But by the time I realised . . . it was too late.’ She shook her head again.

‘Why was it too late, Ginny?’

Through her tears, she gave me a beautiful lost smile. ‘Because by then I’d got rid of her. I’d put her over the side.’

‘O
H
,
I
knew the theory. I knew I should sit tight and let it blow over,’ Ginny began in a brittle voice. ‘Let you get bored with her, get her out of your system. I knew that’s what clever women did. But I wasn’t feeling clever, not about that sort of thing anyway. And you see – I wasn’t at all sure it
would
blow over. In fact the longer it went on, the more convinced I became that I was losing you for ever, that you’d never come back. And I couldn’t quite . . .
deal
with that.’

We had come to the smallest of the three living rooms at Melton, the room we called the sitting room, a low-lit room with book-lined walls, soft sofas and a fireplace which threw out plenty of heat. We sat side by side on the smaller sofa, staring into the fire, wine on the low table in front of us.

‘It was one thing to suspect that something was going on. But actually knowing, seeing . . . That was
awful
.’ And her voice rose to a gasp. ‘When I saw you together that weekend, watched you go off in the boat – well, I thought that was it. I could see she was younger. Prettier. And she knew how to sail. Well . . . I couldn’t see what possible reason you could have for staying with me. And I didn’t need to ask you how you felt about her. I could read the signs. I could see you were completely smitten.’

I forced myself not to say anything, not to offer the kind of instant denials which Ginny seemed to find so meaningless.

‘So there I was,’ she declared harshly. ‘Another weekend on my own, another weekend knowing you were with her. I simply couldn’t sit there any more like some animal to the slaughter. The more I thought about it, the more I felt I had absolutely nothing to lose by following you down and making a fool of myself. I’d have gone mad if I’d stayed at home a moment longer. Literally mad.’ She stole a nervous glance at me before reaching for her wine and taking a gulp. ‘I went through this great debate as I drove down – trying to decide on confrontation versus the oh-so civilised discussion. You know – do you love her, Hugh? Do you intend to leave me? Oh well, in that case, good luck old thing. I knew I’d never be able to carry that one off. Never have been able to deal with things in that way.
Coolly
. Not when I’m . . .’ She wrestled with this thought only to leave it unfinished. ‘So it was going to have to be the great confrontation. Burst in, have a scene, give you an ultimatum. I knew I’d probably end up behaving . . .
pathetically
. Crying. Making a fool of myself. I knew you’d probably hate me for it, I knew I risked losing you altogether – the hysterical wife, no humiliation untapped – but I couldn’t see any other way. At least the whole thing would be out in the open. At least I wouldn’t have this feeling that I wanted to die the whole time.’

Catching my expression, she said, ‘Oh, please don’t think I’m saying all this just to make you feel bad, Hugh. I’m not. Really. I just wanted you to understand how I was feeling, how desperate I was.’

I nodded rapidly, determined not to speak.

She pushed her head back against the sofa before starting off again in a voice that was increasingly unsteady. ‘I thought you’d gone straight down to Dittisham that Saturday. When you said you were going into the office for a few hours I thought you were just saying that – you know, to discourage me from joining you, to keep me away. So as soon as I thought you were well on your way I set off. And all the time I was planning what I’d say when I caught you together. I was going to wait until I did catch you together, you see. Awful, I know. Awful to set out to make a scene. But I was hurt. Angry. Off my head with worry. I felt like
killing
you.’ She flung me a fierce look. ‘Or myself. More likely myself. Anyway . . . You weren’t at the house, of course. I didn’t drive up. I parked in the village and took the path through the garden. I crept round the house, looking in through the windows like some awful nutter, and then I saw that your car wasn’t there, and immediately thought of the boat. I went to the terrace and looked across, and I saw it – the dinghy. Tied up to
Ellie Miller
. To me that meant only one thing, of course. That you must be there with
her
. That if I was quick I’d catch you in the act. Well – I’m not sure I actually wanted to find you in bed with her – I wasn’t that masochistic. But together, anyway. I wanted to have a good look at her, you see. I wanted to know just how pretty she was. And I wanted to confront both of you, to make you feel – I don’t know –
bad, guilty. Something
. Stupid, of course.’ She gave me a scornful sigh. ‘Never does any good, that sort of thing, does it? Never makes people change their minds.’

I couldn’t let this pass. ‘My mind never needed changing. I wanted to finish it. I knew there was no future in it.’

‘But I didn’t know that, did I?’ she argued with a spark of resentment. ‘I thought you were mad about her. I thought you were about to leave me. Oh, I tried to tell myself it mightn’t be that bad, I tried to be . . .
sensible
. But it never did any good. I couldn’t think of any reason why you should stay with me, you see. No confidence. Never have had. Hopeless.’

A pause while she dealt with this thought and put it behind her.

‘Anyway . . .’ Her voice was flagging. ‘I couldn’t get out to
Ellie
fast enough. I couldn’t bear the thought of missing the two of you together. I rushed down to the quay. I hadn’t thought about transport, of course. But there were quite a few people about. A load of people were just getting into a rubber dinghy and I was about to ask them for a lift when I saw
Ellie
’s dinghy, sitting there at the pontoon. The name and everything:
Tender to Ellie Miller
. Well, that drew me up short for a second. I wondered if I’d got it all wrong. I wondered if someone else was on the boat – a repair man or whatever. Then I thought: On a Saturday afternoon? They never work on Saturday afternoons, do they? So I got going again. I hadn’t forgotten how to row. You taught me too well. In the days when I pretended to love boats.’ Her voice softened a little. ‘Well, I loved being with you, doing what you enjoyed, so in a way I did love it, while it lasted.’

Reaching for her wine she cradled it in both hands as if it might warm her. ‘By the time I reached the boat I was shaking like a jelly. I could barely tie the dinghy up. And of course I was trying not to make any noise. My heart was hammering so hard I could scarcely breathe. And then I remembered that I’d left my inhaler in the car. God!’ She rolled her eyes at the memory. ‘So I stayed in the dinghy for a while, trying to catch my breath, trying to prevent an attack. Sat there like a dummy doing my breathing exercises, listening, half expecting to be discovered at any second. Nothing happened, of course, no sounds from the boat.’ This thought created its own silence. ‘When I’d finally calmed down a bit . . . I climbed aboard. I—’ The horror was revisited on her face. ‘I went into the cockpit. I looked into the cabin. I . . .’ She could barely speak. ‘. . .
saw her
.’

I waited for a long moment. Finally I murmured, ‘And she was dead?’

Her face contorted. ‘Yes.’ And she turned her gaze onto me, searching my expression, desperate for some sort of reassurance.

I nodded, urging her on.

‘She
was
dead.’

‘Yes,’ I said hastily. ‘Yes, of course she was.’

‘But they’re not going to believe me, are they? They’re never going to believe me.’ And the despair sounded in her voice.

‘Of course they will! Why shouldn’t they?’

She was drawing great gulps of air. ‘You believe me, though?’

‘Of course!’

‘Really?’

‘
Ye s
, Ginny. Really. I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t!’

But for Ginny no amount of reassurance could ever be enough, and she continued to scrutinise my face before she drew sufficient confidence to go on. Even then she kept casting rapid glances at me, never quite satisfied, never entirely convinced.

‘I had a terrible attack, of course,’ she sighed, picking up the story again. ‘Thought I was going to die. Lay in the cockpit. One of the worst ever. I almost blacked out at one stage. I’ve no idea how I managed to keep breathing. Thought it would never end. God, I really thought I was going to die! I even said my goodbyes. But then – well, it began to ease. And when it was finally over I lay there for a long time, not daring to move – not wanting to move. Sort of hoping I could put the moment off, hoping I could keep lying there and not have to face up to what was in the boat. Then through it all – the shock and everything – I began to think about what I was going to do. Was I going to row ashore and report it? Was I going to shout and wave from the boat until someone saw me on the bank? Then suddenly . . .
suddenly
. . . it came to me. I mean, like a bolt from the blue. That I couldn’t report it. I
mustn’t
. Because . . .’ She made a statement of this: ‘Because.’