Cross My Heart and Hope to Die (29 page)

I've been a fool of course, no need to tell me that. Letting myself get entangled in emotion and sex, just like the girls I used to despise when I read their letters in the agony columns of Mum's
Woman's Weekly
. And I'm doubly ashamed, because I've had better opportunities than most of them have had, so I should know better. But all the education in the world doesn't help you cope with real life, and with flesh-and-blood people.

Oh, I can find plenty of excuses for myself. Dad's death, for a start. That, and the shock of knowing about Mum, threw me completely. I was so unhappy, so lonely in London, so desperate for affection and human contact that I clung to the first person who was kind to me. And when Kate shook me off, I was only too willing to let Andy pick me up and practise his seduction technique on me.

I've been wondering what would have happened if my stomach hadn't chosen that particular moment last night to throw up. Would I have gone on saying ‘No'? I'd like to think so, but to be honest I found Andy so attractive that I might well have let him make use of me.

And wouldn't that have been ironic? A chip off the old block, me. I was so disgusted when I thought about Mum and the Americans, but now I know how easy it is to get carried away I've had to revise my judgement.

Besides, I've never heard Mum's side of it. Perhaps she had some valid excuse. Perhaps she really was in love with the man who was my father, and he loved her, only there was some reason why he couldn't marry her.

But I'd have had no excuse for having sex with Andy Crackjaw. No love, no relationship of any kind. Just a couple of hours together, with too much to drink, a few kisses in his car, and then a squalid tumble in Longmire Lane.

I might even have ended up pregnant, as Mum did. That would have been rich, wouldn't it? Her little mistake – me – following her example a generation later. I can just imagine her outraged respectability and her frantic attempts to marry me off, regardless.

That at least would have been one part of the pattern I wouldn't have dreamed of repeating. But what a lovely juicy scandal for the village women to chew over! And Mrs Vernon and Mrs Hanbury would have been so superior about it, as though my being a fool proves that you can't ever expect anything better from people like us. I would have let poor Dad down so badly. And the other people who encouraged me, Mrs Bloomfield and old Miss Massingham. Mum, too, come to that.

Luckily she was so surprised and pleased to see me last night that she didn't nag too much about the condition I was in. I accounted for my sour breath by saying I'd eaten something that disagreed with me, and for my muddy skirt by saying I'd been tripped by a bramble when I was walking up the lane from the bus. So Mum knows nothing at all about what happened, and things are back to normal – except of course that Dad isn't here.

It's desolating without him. I just can't believe I'll never see him again. I cried myself to sleep last night, missing him so desperately. But at least I can cry now, and that helps a bit.

They say that you get over grief, in time. I didn't believe I ever could, in the first weeks after Dad died, but I think they must be right because I have to admit that when I was obsessed with Kate I sometimes forgot about him for hours. Days, sometimes. And then I'd remember, and the guilt of having forgotten would be sharper than the sadness.

So I know I'll come to terms with it eventually. And things will be better when I go back to college in the New Year. I'll be able to make a fresh start, take an interest, join in. I might even get to like the place, and if I don't it will be my own fault.

I know now that if I want happiness I've got to make it for myself. No use relying on anyone else. I'm not going to be impulsive and get involved with people again, because that way you only get hurt. I'm going to be independent, self-contained, a private person, because that's the only safe way of living. After all, it's not as though I'm alone in the world. If I want human contact, there's Mum.

‘Ooh, he's a laugh, that short one! Do you fancy a drink, lovey? I'll put the kettle on as soon as the programme's finished.'

‘All right, I can take a hint. What do you want, tea or coffee?'

‘Don't mind. Whichever you want.'

‘All right, Nescafé then.'

‘Oh. Oh, well, if that's what you fancy –'

‘You'd rather have tea, wouldn't you? Why on earth couldn't you say so!'

‘Sssh, you're spoiling the programme.'

Snarling quietly, I stalked into our perishing cold kitchen. The big enamel water jug was empty. It would be. I pulled on my old anorak and gloves, and went outside and round towards the lane, where the pump is.

I didn't need a torch, because everything was as bright as day. The moon was lodged like a great white dinner plate in the top branches of the elms in Spirkett's Wood, and all the hedges and the winter veg in our front garden were covered with frost. An owl hooted, making me shiver with loneliness and loss.

Then I heard the clink of a bucket. A tall figure appeared on the Crackjaw's path, on a similar course and with a similar purpose. Hadn't set eyes on him since last night and couldn't think what, if anything, to say. But too late now to turn back.

‘'Lo, Janet.'

‘'Lo, Andy.'

We converged on the pump. It stood fixed to the front garden wall, muffled in old woollies.

‘Give us your jug,' he said.

I handed it over, and stood clapping my gloves together while he filled it. He lowered his voice, although no one but the owls could hear.

‘Are you all right?'

‘'Course I'm all right.'

‘I just wondered, considering you'd been sick.'

‘I must have a weak stomach. I spent a whole afternoon in Oxford being sick, once.'

He hesitated, still holding my jug. ‘Look, Janet, I'm sorry. I mean, I thought you were willing – you know, you being a student in London an'all …'

‘My own fault. I shouldn't have drunk so much.'

‘I shouldn't have left you like that, though.' He handed over my jug and began to fill his bucket. ‘I s'pose you don't think very much of me, after what happened?'

‘I've hardly thought of you at all,' I said truthfully. ‘I've been too busy thinking badly of myself.'

‘Well, I'd like to make it up to you. Don't want you to think I don't know how to behave myself, just because I was brought up rough.'

I was quite touched. After all, until he'd started to get randy, I'd thought of him as a very agreeable companion. Considering his background, and his brute of a father, he'd turned out a lot better than anyone would ever have imagined. And he hadn't had the benefit of my educational express lift, he'd only had his own bootstraps to pull himself up by.

‘That's all right, Andy,' I said. ‘You don't have to do any making up. Let's just forget about it.'

‘But I'd rather put it right. Look, how about going out together tomorrow night? No messing about, honest. Not for a pub crawl, either. I'll buy you a meal somewhere – tell you what, let's go back to the White Hart, they do a good dinner there.'

I was staggered by the suggestion. It seemed so unlikely to be invited out for a meal by anybody, let alone by Andy Crackjaw, let alone after last night.

‘Well – er –'

‘I won't muck about, promise. I'm asking you as a friend. After all, we're both stuck at home for a bit, but I've got the car so we might as well make use of it. No reason why we shouldn't have an evening out together in a decent place for once, seeing how the other half lives.'

It was a handsome offer, but there was no question of my accepting it, of course. I'd only just decided that I was never going to act on impulse or get involved with anyone again, so it would be crazy to go out with Andy Crackjaw, however well he behaved himself.

On the other hand, I really did appreciate his offer. It seemed unfair to give him a blunt refusal, but I was too cold to stand about talking any longer.

‘Thanks, Andy,' I said. ‘D'you mind if I think it over, though? You know, it's all a bit unexpected.'

‘Fair enough. Let me know in the morning, then.'

He picked up his bucket, and we parted to make our way up our respective garden paths.

‘Hey, Janet,' he called softly across the frosted sprouts.

‘What?'

‘I'n it marvellous?' he said, pointing upwards. ‘They've sent men up there to walk about on that moon – but our families still have to come out to a pump for every drop of water. I reckon something's wrong with their priorities, don't you?'

We laughed and said goodnight. As I stood in the kitchen filling the kettle, I suddenly heard myself humming and realized that I'd quite forgotten how bleak and friendless life had seemed just ten minutes ago. I caught myself wondering instead, in pleasurable panic, what on earth I could wear for being taken out for an evening at the best hotel in Breckham Market.

On Thursday 30 March, a week after Ziggy Crackjaw last collected the pensions for himself and his wife from Byland post office, Mrs Thacker senior suffered a stroke.

Ada Thacker was ninety-three years old. Until her stroke she had been in moderately good health; quicker on her feet than her daughter-in-law, as she had enjoyed saying in order to annoy Betty. She had also enjoyed saying that she looked after herself entirely in her part of the house, ignoring the fact that Betty did her washing and ironing and cleaning as well as serving in the shop.

It was some ten years since Ada had handed over the management of the shop to Betty's daughter, with great reluctance and only because her eyesight had grown too poor to do the paperwork. She was not displeased that Janet had become the sub-postmistress, because the post office paid Janet's salary and also brought more customers to the shop. But despite that, Ada had continued to keep a tight grip on all business and domestic finances.

It had begun to seem to Betty and Janet that Ada Thacker was going to live forever. Finding her on that Thursday morning, immobile and mumbling incomprehensibly in her bed, had taken them completely by surprise. Naturally, they did everything they could for her. They didn't pretend to grieve, but as the ambulance took her mother-in-law away to hospital, Betty had shed some stressful tears.

When the news went round Byland, everyone anticipated old Mrs Thacker's death, and with it the ending of an era. But she was tougher than they thought. Within the first twenty-four hours, skilled nursing enabled her to regain some movement and most of her speech. As she told Betty, who had been driven to Yarchester by Janet, after work, to visit her: ‘I'm not finished yet, you needn't think it!'

Chief Inspector Quantrill was not a reader of anything except official reports and a limited quantity of the
Daily Telegraph
. He had never read an autobiography in his life, and when Sergeant Lloyd urged Janet Thacker's on him, he told her that he wasn't going to start now. But she insisted that he must at least read the pages she had flagged, because they were relevant to the Crackjaw investigation. And as Gladys Crackjaw's body still hadn't been found, and there had been no sightings of Ziggy, Quantrill stopped complaining and settled down in his office for a quiet read.

‘Well, well –' he said when he finished. ‘I see what you mean about the book giving us a different viewpoint on the Crackjaws' disappearance. We've been assuming that Ziggy killed Gladys, when the chances are that Andrew killed Ziggy.'

‘It does seem to be more likely that way round,' agreed Hilary. ‘I was beginning to wonder how the old man could possibly have managed to dispose of his wife's body, and then disappear himself.'

Quantrill stood up and walked to the window, working it out. ‘If Andrew arrived home to find his mother had been ill-treated, he might well have carried out his threat to knock his father down. He wouldn't necesarily have meant to kill him. But when he realized the old man was dead, he could have put him in the boot of his car, wiped up the living-room floor, and then dumped the body miles away … Ah, but what about the old lady? What would he have done with her?'

‘I'm hoping he's put her in a residential home somewhere,' said Hilary. ‘He's obviously quite fond of her, but he couldn't look after her himself. Before we convince ourselves that it's Andrew we want, though, there's a big problem with the timing.'

Quantrill rubbed his chin. ‘Blast, I'd almost forgotten. Ziggy was last seen on Thursday 23rd, at the post office. By that time, Andrew was back at work on a gas rig in the North Sea … That checks out, I suppose?'

‘Yes, his company confirms that he returned to the rig from leave on Tuesday 21st. He's been there ever since, apart from the day he came to meet us at Longmire End. Andrew Crackjaw's got a perfect alibi –
if
it's true that his father was alive on Thursday 23rd. That's what I'm beginning to doubt. And that's where Janet Thacker comes in, because I think she's the key to this investigation.'

‘You mean she's been lying to you? Ziggy didn't collect his pension on the 23rd?'

‘Janet's the only person in the village who says she saw him that day. Andrew was recognized by someone the previous Monday, though, going to the post office. Janet says he went to buy some stamps, but I think his father was probably already dead, and what he really wanted was an alibi. He got it by persuading her to date-stamp the pension counterfoils in advance.'

‘Fiddling the official date stamp is bound to be against post-office rules,' objected Quantrill. ‘If she was found out, she'd lose her job at the very least. Why would she be prepared to take the risk?'

‘For old times'sake?' suggested Hilary. ‘It's clear from the ending of her book that she and Andrew were on the brink of some kind of relationship. Perhaps she's still half in love with him.'