Betrayal (51 page)

I felt a terrible tension, a warring of instincts and loyalties. I screwed up my face and managed to say, ‘But
someone
was on the boat that day.’

She gave me a soft pitying look. ‘Not David, Hugh. Couldn’t have been. He was seeing patients all morning, and then he had lunch with me, and then he went to a partners’ meeting which lasted most of the afternoon.’ She was very gentle with me now. ‘There wasn’t a moment of his day which wasn’t accounted for.’

Part of me tried to accept this, but another confused part of me wanted to shout: But you’re bound to say that, aren’t you?

‘I know the way it must look to you,’ Mary conceded with the same patient note of understanding, ‘but I
promise
you – he wasn’t there. He couldn’t have been there.’

I can’t have looked terribly convinced because a spark of exasperation passed over her face and she argued with more determination, ‘You would be ruining his life, Hugh! And for what? For an
affair
. With someone like
that
. It’s too ghastly. Too – unfair. Don’t repay me this way, Hugh –
please
.’

I felt a sudden coldness. ‘Repay you?’

She dropped her eyes and fanned her fingers as if to withdraw the remark. ‘Just promise me,’ she said, returning her gaze to mine. ‘Promise me you won’t ruin his life –
our
lives – for
nothing
.’

I thought of Ginny, I thought of everything we had been through, and I hardened my heart. ‘I can’t promise that, Mary. I just can’t.’

A succession of violent emotions passed over Mary’s face, her features seemed to swell. Finally she said in a voice that trembled with feeling, ‘I’ve gone out on a limb for you, Hugh. I’ve protected you, supported you,
lied
for you. Don’t do this to me. Don’t repay me this way.’

‘If it’s a question of repayment,’ I said tightly. ‘You can keep the money. I don’t care about the money.’

She threw me a furious look. ‘It’s not the
money
, for God’s sake.’

We glared at each other, separated by the depth of our misunderstanding.

‘
Lied
,’ I echoed as her words came back to me. ‘I’m sorry you feel you had to
lie
for me as well.’

‘Not for
you
.’

‘Who for then?’

She shook her head, as though she had already said too much. ‘Leave it. Please. Let’s just leave it.’

But something in her manner drew me forward, a suggestion of momentous revelations, and I was filled with a strange beating fear. ‘You can’t say something like that and expect me to ignore it.’

She kept shaking her head. ‘If only you could understand that David wasn’t involved. If only you could
believe
me, then—’ Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. I had never seen her upset before.

‘Mary, don’t.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling herself together with an effort. ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’ She fumbled in her sleeve for a handkerchief. ‘But Hugh – promise me, please.’

‘I can’t do that, Mary. I can’t promise something like that.’

She gave a shudder that shook her whole body. ‘How I wish I didn’t have to do this!’ she cried. ‘I never wanted to have to
say
anything – ever! Ever! I wanted to
save
you that at least. Oh Hugh, how I wish—’ She sniffed hard and wiped her eyes, and when she looked up again her makeup had run, a streak of blue that leached down one cheek. ‘And, believe me, you
must
believe me, it’s
not
an either-or thing – I would
hate
you to think that! It’s not as if I’d
ever
go to the police! I’d rather die! I’d rather die than tell them! But Hugh – you
have
to understand that it wasn’t David! You
have
to realise!’

As she made her circuitous way towards the point, my sense of foreboding grew.

Mary said again, ‘I’d never tell! Never!’ Calming herself visibly, she dabbed her eyes again. ‘In fact, I’d lie to them again. I’d lie to them every time.’ She took a sharp breath. ‘I did lie, you see. I lied to them straight away. When David and I gave our fingerprints to the police, they asked me about the day the woman died, whether I knew anything, whether I’d seen anything. And I said I hadn’t. But – it wasn’t true.’ She paused and looked at me in anguish, as if we might yet escape this moment of truth. ‘I saw Ginny, you see. I was at Dittisham House with Mrs Perry, and I saw Ginny.’

I kept staring at her.

‘I was up in David’s old room,’ she began slowly. ‘I looked out at the river and I saw a dinghy tied up to
Ellie
. I knew it couldn’t be David – he was at the partners’ meeting. I thought maybe it was someone from the yard. There were some binoculars there by the window. I was looking through them when I saw someone come up on deck.’ She gave a tiny shudder. ‘It was the woman. There was no mistaking her – the long hair, the tight clothes. It was definitely her. I thought – well, you can imagine. I thought she was hanging around in the hope of seeing David. I thought she was trying to get him back or something. I was ready to get hopping mad. But then –
then
– oh,
Hugh
.’ Mary’s face crumpled, she clenched her lips together, when she finally spoke her tone rose in despair. ‘Ginny . . . came. In a dinghy. She . . . rowed up to the boat. She rowed up to the boat and . . . they talked, she and . . .
her
. For a minute or so. Then—’ Her mouth moved but no words came.

‘Then?’

She forced herself on. ‘Then . . . Ginny climbed on board. And . . . they talked some more. I think they were— No,’ she suppressed some unspoken thought, ‘no, I couldn’t tell from that distance. No – they
talked
. And then . . .’ Each word was dragged from her with terrible effort. ‘Then . . . they both . . . went down below. Into the cabin.’

My mind was cold and clear, but my imagination was blurry. I saw the two figures climbing down the companionway, but they remained a long way off, I couldn’t bring them into focus. I said, ‘You’re sure it was Ginny?’

Mary nodded sadly.

‘From so far away?’

‘Hugh, believe me, she was the
last
person I was expecting to see. I couldn’t believe it at first, I kept looking. But that hair – no one else has hair like Ginny’s, no one. And she was wearing that jacket of hers, the dark pink one – sort of raspberry-coloured. I’d remembered it, it was such a lovely jacket. And she had the same long floaty scarf she’d worn with it before, sort of cream and raspberry mixed. She wasn’t really dressed for the water. So smart. And then she turned towards me.’ She exhaled sharply. ‘It was her.’

I didn’t say anything for a while. ‘Go on,’ I murmured at last.

She continued in a flat voice, ‘Oh . . . I waited a while, but Mrs Perry needed to get home and I had to get on. It was after five. I kept going back to the window, looking, but there was no sign of anybody. I thought – well, I didn’t know what to think. Maybe that Ginny knew her, that they had arranged to . . .’ Suddenly dissatisfied with this idea, she abandoned it with a small movement of her head. ‘I had a last look before I left, but I couldn’t see anything.’ Her final words emerged as a murmur: ‘Just the two dinghies.’

The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of Mary’s sighs. ‘Oh, Hugh,’ she said at last, ‘I’m so sorry you had to know.’

I pictured Ginny as she had appeared at Dittisham House that night, I saw the raspberry jacket and the long floaty scarf jammed halfway into one pocket, and a strange calm spread through me, and it was the calm that comes at the end of a long and troubled journey.

L
IKE AN
icy hand the cold had stolen in off the blackness of the moor. Climbing out of bed I caught the glint of frost on the window panes. The freeze had begun two weeks after Christmas and, ten bitter days later, was showing no sign of a thaw. I felt my way to the bathroom and, turning on a light, peered blindly at my watch. Not yet seven. Pulling on a robe I went down the narrow cottage stairs to the boiler to see if I could entice it into action. I twisted the thermostat to and fro, checked the setting on the time controller and gave the pump a solid whack. With a shudder of complaint, the ancient furnace roared capriciously back into life.

The boiler wasn’t the only primitive contraption in the rented cottage – the cooker was slow, the fridge antique – and in this weather the steep track leading up from the road was icy and treacherous, but Ginny liked the place, she felt safe here, and it was only twenty minutes from Hartford, so, all said, it still had a lot to recommend it. We wouldn’t be here for very much longer anyway. With Melton gone and Glebe Place virtually sold and the various loans and mortgages almost settled, we could think about buying a new place in the spring. I spent a lot of my time on such practicalities nowadays, I positively overwhelmed myself with details of every kind. That way I maintained an illusion of usefulness.

Making myself some coffee in the still-unfamiliar kitchen, I heard creaking floorboards above and set out a tea tray for Ginny, with some fruit and a couple of Ryvita, which was about all she ate these days. I found her running a bath. Her nakedness alarmed me, she had grown so very thin, and I had to make an effort not to say anything. She greeted me with a pale smile.

‘Would you like your tea here?’ I asked.

‘Please.’

The morning tea tray was one of our little rituals, along with Ginny’s pretence at eating. Normally I was first in the bathroom so as to be ready to leave the house by eight, but since the committal proceedings had begun we had altered our timetable and now Ginny bathed first while I drank my coffee in front of the breakfast news.

‘I’m out,’ she announced ten minutes later, going past me to the wardrobe. ‘I’m not sure what to wear. What do you think?’

We stood before the rail of clothes. We had already decided against anything too bright, and she had worn grey for the first day and navy blue for the second.

‘The black?’ I suggested.

‘Mmm. But it needs something to soften it up a bit.’ She pulled out a scarf in muted blues. ‘What do you think?’

‘Perfect.’ But then Ginny always looked perfect. I thought of the stipendiary magistrate who had been sent down from London to hear the case, and, while he was doubtless the most scrupulous of men, I couldn’t believe that he would be immune to appearances and that Ginny, with her frail understated femininity, wouldn’t make a favourable impression.

When we had dressed we got ready to leave for Exeter. After two days these departures had also developed a certain ritual. I asked Ginny to check that she had two full inhalers with her; she asked me if I had my briefcase. I was certain she wouldn’t be warm enough; she told me I worried too much. By such solicitous concern did we conduct our relationship, by such scrupulous consideration did we maintain a veneer of composure.

The track had been gritted but a fresh sprinkling of snow had formed an ice sheet in the night, and, though I took the slope very gingerly, I felt the wheels slip at the last turn. The next instant the back of the car thumped into the earth wall and we began to slither crabwise towards the road. At the last moment the brakes gripped and the car slid to a halt a couple of feet into the road. I reversed back onto the track just as a car sped past, blowing its horn.

‘I’ll get it gritted again,’ I said when my nerves had quietened down a little.

Ginny had her head pressed against the back of the seat, eyes screwed up, breathing sharply.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yup,’ she rasped.

‘Breathe,’ I said. ‘Keep it slow. Calm thoughts. Plenty of time. No hurry.’ I made her unclench her fisted hands, I pressed her shoulders gently down, I lifted her coat collar higher around her neck.

She gave a small gasping laugh. ‘What would I do without you?’ Taking long steady draughts of air, she opened her eyes and turned her head towards me. ‘I really don’t know, you know – what I’d do without you. I certainly couldn’t have gone ahead with the court thing. Not if you hadn’t believed in me.’ She lifted my hand and pressed it against her cheek. ‘Sometimes I get the feeling that Grainger doesn’t. Believe in me, I mean. Oh, he doesn’t actually say anything of course, but ever since I asked him if I’d do better pleading guilty he’s never quite looked me in the eye again. I think he thinks I
did it!
’ She vamped the words and gave an ironic little laugh that didn’t quite come off. ‘And Charles,’ she added with sudden bewilderment, ‘sometimes I think he has his doubts as well.’

‘That’s just not true,’ I argued, ‘Charles has no doubts at all. Honestly.’

She frowned, not entirely sure whether she could take this protestation of honesty at face value. ‘Anyway,’ she said with forced brightness, ‘you’re the only person who matters. So long as you believe in me, then the rest of the world can—’ She dismissed the rest of the world with a shake of her head.

I maintained my gaze as best I could. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

She brought her face close to mine. ‘Thank you, darling. Thank you for giving me the most important thing of all.’

I saw the need in her eyes, and the vulnerability, and my mouth jerked into a smile, I gave an indeterminate shrug. ‘Dear heart,’ I murmured, gripped by emotions so disturbing that it was all I could do to keep them out of my face.

‘Love you,’ she said fiercely.

‘Love you too.’

Her eyes didn’t leave my face but took on a glint of faint puzzlement, as though she had caught something in my expression which confused her.

I said quickly, ‘It’ll be all right, darling. I have a feeling about it.’

Her lids fluttered, she nodded jerkily, then, hugging her arms against her body, settled back in her seat.

I fumbled with the heating controls and we set off again. Worried about ice, I concentrated hard on my driving, but the road had been salted, it seemed safe enough, and when we had been silent for some time I offered, ‘I’m sure you’re wrong about Grainger, you know. I think he’s right with you.’

She thought about this. ‘Oh, he may be with me. But that’s not quite the same as believing in me, is it?’