Betrayal (39 page)

Setting off homeward, I called Melton. Julia told me Ginny was having a short sleep and seemed fine. This news took the edge off my concern, but like an ache temporarily suppressed by an analgesic, the throb of apprehension soon returned. I couldn’t entirely rid myself of the idea that the prison psychiatrist might have got it right and Ginny might be close to some act of desperation.

The answering machine at Furze Lodge referred calls for Mary to a mobile number which didn’t answer the first few times I tried it.

‘I didn’t know you had a mobile,’ I remarked when I finally got through to her.

‘Ah, well, you don’t know everything about me,’ she teased. ‘A girl’s got to stay in touch, hasn’t she?’ She was speaking from some quiet place with no background noise. ‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘You’re on the M4 somewhere. Heading west.’

I laughed, ‘How did you know?’

‘I cheated. I spoke to Ginny at lunchtime.’

‘Mary – thanks for doing that.
Thanks
. How did she sound?’

‘Oh . . . fairly shattered. But then, that’s not too surprising, is it? She
is
seeing someone good, isn’t she, Hugh? The psychiatrist?’

‘Yes. Well, David thinks he’s good.’

‘It’s Jones, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘He
is
the best. And the drugs – they’re really amazing nowadays. Prozac and all that. Ginny tells me you might be looking for a cottage somewhere on the edge of Dartmoor,’ Mary continued in some seamless train of thought. ‘I could keep an eye out for something, if you’d like me to. I hear of places from time to time.’

‘Oh . . . would you? Thanks.’

A pause while we waited for me to come to the point of my call. ‘Mary, I want some help.’

‘Anything.’ Behind the warmth I caught a hint of wariness.

‘Blackwell Cottage – do you know who owns it? Or more to the point, who arranged to let it, and who exactly they let it to?’

The silence that followed was aflame with objections. ‘Hugh, I don’t think that sort of information is going to help anyone.’

‘I only want a name, Mary.’

‘Yes, but
why
do you want it, Hugh? Contacting witnesses can get misunderstood.’

‘I only want to talk to someone.’

‘I really don’t think it’s a good idea.’

Sometimes I forgot that Mary was a lawyer by inclination as well as training, and that in situations like this her caution was liable to come bustling to the fore.

‘Fine,’ I said, giving in without a fuss.

A sharp pause, and she muttered in a mock head-mistressy voice, ‘I suppose that means you’ll go and find out anyway, from somebody else?’

I didn’t say anything to that. The connection faded as a lorry overtook in the fast lane and she asked: ‘Are you still there?’

‘I’m still here, Mary.’

‘Who do you want to talk to anyway?’ she said, trying to maintain a disapproving tone. ‘Don’t tell me – the long-haired lout?’

‘Yes.’

‘You realise he’s likely to be a prime prosecution witness?’

‘I doubt it. He was always completely stoned.’

She gave an admonitory groan. ‘All the more reason to stay away. What are you hoping to find out anyway?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said, partly playing her at her own game, but also responding to some instinct for caution, a wish to protect Ginny and her story from perfunctory judgments.

‘Whoa,’ Mary sang. ‘If I were to help you – and I’m not saying I am – then I’d need to know what you were letting yourself – and me – in for.’

Still unwilling to give away too much, I offered a limited version. ‘I want to find out about Sylvie’s drug-taking, the dealers, the people she mixed with. Joe was around most of the time, he must know.’

‘And this is going to help Ginny?’ she asked in a voice of concern.

‘I think so.’

‘How, Hugh?’

I wondered if she meant to sound quite so sceptical. ‘By digging out some of the facts the police never considered,’ I said doggedly.

‘How do you know what they considered?’

‘Well – we’ve got a fair idea,’ I bluffed.

‘This is something for your solicitor, Hugh.
He’s
the person to judge whether something needs investigating, not
you
. And he’ll have someone he uses for these things, a retired copper, someone who’s used to making these kind of enquiries. Someone,’ she added heavily, ‘who can speak to witnesses on a professional basis.’

‘I don’t think Joe’s likely to talk to a policeman, retired or otherwise,’ I said, for the sake of argument.

‘I’m getting signals here,’ Mary sighed. ‘And the signals are telling me that you’re determined to do this your way.’

‘Well, I can’t leave it, Mary, that’s for sure.’

‘But where’s it going to get you, Hugh? What are you hoping to achieve?’

I felt a swell of resentment at this unrelenting flow of difficulties. ‘I’m trying to help Ginny,’ I said stiffly.

She didn’t speak for so long I began to wonder if she was still there. Finally I heard a long sigh. ‘Oh,
Hugh
. The things I do . . . All right, I’ll see what I can find out. But on one condition. That if I do find an address for Joe-the-long-haired-loon that you don’t go near him yourself. That you pass the address straight on to your solicitor – what’s his name – ?’

‘Charles Tingwall.’

‘Tingwall. And that you leave him to deal with it. Promise me, Hugh?’

I heard myself say, ‘Okay.’

‘You won’t make me regret this, will you?’ she murmured as she rang off.

I thought hard before making my next call. I thought of all the objections Mary would make to it if she found out.

David’s laconic bark announced that I was interrupting him with a patient.

‘Won’t keep you,’ I promised, ‘but could you give me Jean-Paul’s address.’

‘Jean-who?
Oh
,’ he said in the next breath as it came back to him. ‘Oh, yes. Hang on . . .’ I could imagine him leaning across his desk and flipping open his address book and going down to the ’M’s. He gave me an address in the Clifton area of Bristol, and a phone number as well.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘And, David, it might be best if you didn’t mention this to Mary.’

Whether he simply didn’t have time to query this or it would never have occurred to him to discuss it with Mary anyway, he agreed impatiently.

‘Anything else?’ he asked in a more considerate tone.

‘Not at the moment, thanks.’

Then, almost kindly, ‘Will we see you soon? On the weekend? I think we should see each other on the weekend. I’ll speak to Mary.’

‘That would be lovely,’ I said automatically, wondering as I rang off how Ginny would feel about the invitation.

I let myself into the house and, hearing laughter, paused uncertainly on the threshold. Following the sound, I found Julia and Ginny at the kitchen table. Ginny was still smiling, her head on one side, her hair falling onto her shoulder in a cinnamon curve.

Seeing me, she stretched out a hand. ‘You’re home early,’ she declared, and the laughter had made her lovely again. She gave me a kiss and didn’t let go of my hand. ‘We’re celebrating,’ she said, and something in her tone put me on my guard.

‘Why?’

‘The people have made an offer for the house.’

I felt a wash of relief. ‘That’s wonderful.’

As she gave me the details I examined her surreptitiously. She seemed more alert, far less tired. But there was something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on.

Julia stood up and looked diplomatically at her watch. ‘Better be going. Messages in your study.’ She sent me a well-practised eye signal, and I followed her into the hall.

‘Howard called,’ she said. ‘Wanted to speak to you
urgently
. I told him you weren’t available. But it was like talking to a rhino, all thick skin and pea brain, so be warned. He may call this evening.’

‘Thank you for coming.’

‘Any time. I mean that. Just let me know.’

‘Maybe a couple of days next week?’

‘Of course. I look forward to it.’

Ginny was loading the dishwasher when I got back to the kitchen.

‘You seem much brighter,’ I said.

‘I am.’

‘Having Julia wasn’t too much trouble then?’

She flashed a glance at me. ‘Don’t be silly. I know why she was here.’

‘Ah.’ I made a contrite gesture. ‘It was just . . . Jones thought it best. Until we could be sure the medicines were the right ones for you.’

‘I’ve stopped taking them. Except one.’

My anxiety lurched to the surface. I stuttered, ‘Is that wise?’

‘They made me feel like a zombie.’ She began to hunt through the fridge.

‘But darling . . .’ I came round the table. ‘Wouldn’t it be best to discuss this with Jones first?’

‘I won’t change my mind,’ she said, her voice rising a notch. ‘My head’s so much clearer, I feel I can cope. They were doing me no good.’

I watched her long fingers pulling at some clingfilm and her movements seemed jerky and uncoordinated.

‘If that’s what you feel.’

She put the packet of food down and said, ‘Nothing’s going to stop me feeling desperate, Hugh. Nothing.’ And her voice rang nervily. ‘But I’d rather feel alive and desperate than half dead all the time. Anyway, I’m still taking a touch of the librium. Well, I think it’s librium. It’s the other stuff that makes me feel so wretched. Really – I feel so much better.’ She must have read the doubt in my face because she said with a touch of indignation, ‘I’m not going to kill myself, you know.’

I pulled a stupid smile. ‘Promise?’

‘I’ll give you notice, all right?’ she said. ‘If I start planning anything.’

I nodded, not encouraged by the knowledge that this was the one bargain a dedicated suicide would never keep.

Ginny insisted on making the supper. I opened a bottle of Chablis for her, what we called cook’s rations, and when I wandered back into the kitchen half an hour later I noticed that the bottle was nearly half empty.

Ginny caught my glance and said, ‘Yes, I’m drinking. Got to have something to make me sleep.’

‘Fine,’ I said.

She picked up her glass and, keeping her eyes on mine, took a long defiant gulp. ‘You might have to carry me to bed,’ and there was both humour and gentle entreaty in her face.

We kissed, and there was stored-up passion in her mouth, and urgency too, as though time for her were already running short. She pressed herself against my body in a way that was for her quite unusual and brazen. ‘See what drink does to me,’ she said in a low excited voice, and I kissed her again, much harder than before. We stumbled hurriedly upstairs like two teenagers, leaving a scattering of clothes across the bedroom floor. She did not close her eyes as we made love, but watched my face with unwavering intensity. At first I thought she was doing this to bring some greater reality to our lovemaking, to banish whatever demons came to her when her eyes were closed, but in the moment before I was lost in my own sensations it seemed to me that she was searching out something in my face, a truth or a confirmation that she was half afraid to find there. She cried out as she came.

As we lay side by side, panting softly, shoulders touching, I whispered, ‘I love you,’ and prepared myself for the expressions of doubt that this simple statement had often engendered in the recent past. But she only said, ‘It’s a long time since we made love before dinner.’

‘Lack of time rather than lack of ambition,’ I said. My memory searched lazily back. ‘We used to quite a lot, though, didn’t we? In the old days, at your flat.’

‘
God
.’ The memory didn’t please her. ‘I hated that time.’

I made a show of taking offence, twisting my head to give her a mock glare, and laughed accusingly, ‘I don’t quite know how to take that.’

‘Oh, I loved the excitement of it all, of course I did. But I hated loving you so much and not knowing if I was going to keep you. I was so desperate to marry you and I began to think you’d never ask me.’

This was one of those situations where it was going to be impossible to say the right thing. I ventured, ‘Well, you know how I was. Cautious Charlie. One step at a time. Not really appreciating I was on to a good thing.’ The truth was that I had hesitated long and hard over making the final leap. There had been a neediness in Ginny which had unsettled me and which instinct had told me would not easily be satisfied. And while she had never been openly possessive she had still managed to make me feel guilty for spending time away from her. I’d known that no marriage was ever perfect, that many of my friends had compromised and settled for a rough measure of contentment, I’d known that Ginny loved me more than was good for her, and probably for me as well; yet I hadn’t been able to decide whether my quota of misgivings was normal, whether it formed a suitable basis for a workaday marriage or reasonable grounds for retreat.

‘And once we were married?’ I asked lightly.

‘Then I was terribly happy.’

‘So was I.’

‘Were you really?’ It was a straight question with no apprehensions attached.

‘Oh yes,’ I replied. ‘I felt much more relaxed. I
liked
being married.’

She said in a distant reminiscent tone, ‘Then I went and spoilt it all.’

‘That’s simply not true, darling.’

‘Oh, it is, I know it is. I tried too hard, didn’t I? Trying to make up for all the things I couldn’t do, like have babies. I was always worrying, wasn’t I? Always fussing. And about
things
,’ she exclaimed in disgust. ‘Really! Such a lot of time wasted on
things
.’

‘Really, Ginny, you’re being far too hard on yourself. I’ve had no complaints.’

She turned her head and gazed at me with the same fierce intensity as before. ‘I wish we were starting again. I wish it were all different. I wish I could show you how I’d love you now, without all that –
nonsense
.’

Touched by this strange declaration, I said without thinking, ‘We’ve got six months.’ Then, in a clumsy attempt to cover my tactlessness: ‘I mean, just for a start—’

‘No, don’t say that!’ she interrupted with a shudder. ‘Please . . .
don’t
. Let’s just settle for six months. Don’t let’s think about anything more.’