Parallel Life (30 page)

He wasn't in the bedroom. The bathroom door stood wide, and she could see that the space was empty. Looking up, she confirmed that the trapdoor into the loft remained in its closed position, so he was not playing with trains. She didn't really expect him to play with trains, not yet. Sutures had already been removed, so he would not be visiting the doctor or the hospital . . .

Panic struck. Was he worse? Had he been taken in an ambulance? Was he too ill to leave a note? Had he gone home? ‘Gus?' she called. ‘Gus, where are you?'

No answer was forthcoming. Sheila Barton descended the stairs on leaden feet. His mobile phone. Damn – why had she never asked for the number? There was no point in telephoning any of the labs in which he worked because there were far too many and she didn't know how many people believed he was out of the country. It was all too complicated. Telephoning his wife was out of the question, since she definitely thought he had gone to New Zealand to look at some bees or tea tree oil mixed with something or other – oh, God. What was she going to do?

Downstairs, she sat while dusk arrived, remained where she was until the light had completely gone. Then, feeling stupid, she ran back upstairs to look at his clothes. His lightweight jacket had gone, and his pyjamas were on the floor at the far side of his bed. Slippers sat under a small easy chair – why hadn't she seen all this before? But, no matter how hard she thought, she failed to imagine where he might have gone. His wound was healed and clean, and he had been sitting out his New Zealand time and recharging his batteries – those had been his exact words.

Feeling guilty, she opened the top drawer of the bedside cabinet, gasping when she saw its contents. Pills. At least half a dozen bottles, some with names almost too long to fit on a label. He'd never mentioned any medication . . .

Shivering, Sheila went into the kitchen and made tea. It wasn't like him. He always left a note. Gus was too precise a man for such careless behaviour. Something had happened. The phone did not ring. She sat next to it, almost on top of it, and it still refused to ring. He had a mobile; he could call from just about anywhere.

The hands of her mother's clock crawled slowly over its face. Nine o'clock, ten. Darkness came to claim all the space around her, so she switched on a table lamp and watched the television news. Nothing was said about accidents to brilliant professors. Midnight found her in the same position, her head nodding towards sleep. Every time her chin dropped, she came to with a start, heart pounding, ears straining for a sound – any sound.

It had to be something extraordinarily unusual. Gus would not have gone without letting her know, not unless something had happened very suddenly. Heart attack? Ambulance? It was too late now to ask the neighbours, and she didn't mix with them, anyway.

She toyed with the idea of telephoning hospitals – even the police. But he might think her foolish if she did anything so rash. The police would contact his family, and that would do no good.

Finally, she lost her fight against sleep and dozed fitfully in a chair not designed for such purpose. When she woke at dawn, she had a crick in her neck. And he still had not come home.

Mr Earnshaw entered the tower room in which the girl had lain for more than two decades. He saw the violent finale of her fit, watched monitors as they went haywire, heard doctors shouting out orders regarding defibrillation. When the spasms ended, someone looked at the EEG result and declared brain activity to be minimal. The paddles were out, pads on the patient's thorax, the unit charged to two hundred. Everyone was ordered to stand back so that electricity might be fired through the now motionless figure on the bed.

‘Shock,' ordered the man in charge.

‘Stop,' commanded the newly-arrived visitor.

A nun turned to face him. ‘Mr Earnshaw – she was doing so well until this fit. I swear to God she was beginning to see me. Can we not try again?'

‘No.

‘But—'

‘No. I am her guardian, and the stupidity and the money keeping her here are both mine. This has not been a life. Suspended animation is no longer an option. Let her go. I shall sit with her while she dies.'

None of the lay medics argued with him. Many had held for some time the opinion that the princess in the tower should be allowed to die. But Sister Mary Magdalene was on her knees. ‘Please, please,' she begged.

The man shook his head slowly. ‘I shall not always be here to pay the bills. The electroencephalograph shows huge damage. I am a doctor, and I know the implications. Please, clear the room. I need to be with her.'

They left.

He sat for many hours holding the hand of this beloved and beautiful creature who had never truly lived. He told her stories about his life, about the nuns who had cared for her, about the siblings who had never known her, who would never meet her. He described the home she might have had, the mother who had not once held this baby in her arms. Finally, he fell asleep in the armchair.

He woke with a stiff neck, his body rigid and strangely cold. The temperature in the room had been maintained at a constant level for a long time, yet he felt as if he had been to the North Pole. Mary Magdalene was sitting next to Mathilda at the other side of the bed. ‘Has she gone?' he asked.

‘Soon,' was the broken reply.

‘I'm sorry, Sister. I know that you have loved her. We never knew her personality, but she looks like one of your saints, doesn't she?'

‘Indeed, she does. She is. We baptized her – I hope you don't mind – so there will be no Limbo for her, no Purgatory.'

‘Just straight to Heaven, do not pass go, do not collect your money?'

‘You don't believe.'

‘It makes no sense to me. I subscribe to the belief that we are animals like the rest and that the end is the end. We may have acquired the means to communicate in a superior manner, together with the ability to kill with ease and without conscience, but I expect no afterlife. In fact, I should prefer it so.' He looked at Mathilda. ‘She will never walk, talk, marry, work, have children. I cannot continue with such cruelty.'

The nun cleared her throat. ‘Why did you bring her here in the first place?'

He didn't know, and he said that.

Magda left the room to attend Chapel. The man sat again and held the hand of the only piece of love he had carried with him for as long as he cared to remember. His chest hurt, his neck was sore, while his spine, made stiff by a night in the armchair, ached from skull to coccyx. ‘Go,' he whispered. ‘Go where there is no pain and no worry.' She would never have another fit. The decision to sedate would not need to be made ever again.

When she expelled carbon dioxide for the last time, he stood, kissed the alabaster forehead, felt for pulses in order to make sure that she was safely on her way. The silence was deafening. No beeps, no ticks, no respirator. So beautiful. Perfect child in a room of virginal white. Appropriate.

Mr Earnshaw turned to leave the room. He had to tell the nuns that their beloved Mathilda had gone. Mr Earnshaw had entered the tower, but Gustav Compton-Milne left it.

He had to interrupt Mass. Mother Benedict followed him into a corridor lined with statues and small coloured vases in which tea lights flickered. ‘We know who you are,' she told him. ‘We have seen you on television.'

‘Yes.' He paused. Had Gus not turned on his mobile phone, Mathilda would probably still be alive in the technical sense. He cleared his throat. ‘We shall give her a Catholic funeral. I shall, of course, attend if my health allows it. She will be buried with her mother, who was Catholic. Please phone a taxi for me. I was not well enough to drive here yesterday.' He'd had no car, anyway. His Mini was still up at Weaver's Warp. ‘And thank you – all of you. She was hope. At the bottom of Pandora's box, only hope remained.' He burst into tears, sobbing so fiercely that Mother led him into her office. ‘There now,' she said, patting his shoulder. ‘You'll be all right.'

He shook his head. He would not be all right. That was an absolute certainty. ‘She's gone again,' he sobbed. ‘Gone from me twice over.'

Mother Benedict could not guess what he was talking about, yet she recognized truth born of real, deep anguish. ‘God bless you,' she said. And, whether or not he believed in the Deity, she meant it. His grief was profound, and she pitied him for it.

It rained. It rained in a professional manner, persistently, deliberately, taking just short breaths between heavy showers. Jimmy was fed up. When Gustav Wotsisface came back from New Zealand, the office window would be closed, and there would be no chance of the room getting searched. The attacks of panic were closer together now. He could not concentrate to read, listen to the radio, watch TV.

He asked Sal when the master of the house was expected back. ‘They said he'd gone for about three weeks,' she answered. ‘But he's one of them folk who just does as he wants. He might be back tomorrow, or he could stay till Christmas. Anyway, nobody misses him.'

‘And the boy?'

‘Still away. I heard Harrie saying something about him writing a book.'

‘She carrying on living in that wooden shack?'

Sal nodded. She nodded because she didn't know what else to do. The fact was that Harrie had moved back into her old room, while Jimmy's wife and kids were occupying the new bungalow. ‘People come and go up yon,' she told him. ‘They move about. I don't know who's where and what's what because I don't live in.'

Jimmy was already preparing for plan B. He had removed from Sal's shed a pre-war heater and enough paraffin to keep it going for several days. Even if the weather warmed up again, nights in that empty farmhouse might be cold. He had made a couple of careful journeys for tinned food, and he was almost ready to make a move, an action he would take only if it became absolutely necessary. He thanked his lucky stars that Cotters Farm was derelict. It was far enough away from Sal's cottage to be safe, near enough if he needed any help from her.

But he wasn't sure of Sal any more. She had become grumpy, sometimes almost ill-tempered. Meals were thrown together in haste, and she made no effort in the house or with her appearance. They slept now in separate rooms because she rose early and didn't want to disturb him. That was her excuse for it, anyway. He knew the truth; she wanted rid of him as soon as possible.

‘I'll be going when I get the gun back,' he said.

She didn't even turn her head, as she was engrossed in an antiquated drama series on Sky. ‘OK,' was all the reply she offered. Then, when the commercials interrupted her programme, she added, ‘What if you don't find it? What if it's not in the office?'

He had to tell her. If he didn't prepare her, there was a chance she might crack wide open once plan B came into operation. While the Compton-Milnes would soon be made aware of the identity of the kidnapper, he needed a couple of days during which they might worry. ‘I'm going to kidnap the daughter,' he said. Jimmy was amazed when she jumped from her seat with an alacrity he had not seen in weeks.

‘You what?' Her face glowed with heat. ‘What did you say?'

‘You heard.'

‘You can't do that.' His children were in the bungalow! ‘You never know where she is. Sometimes, she sleeps in the house in her old room, sometimes she stays in the bungalow with her boyfriend.'

‘I won't be taking her from the house,' he said. ‘I'll take her from the shop she works in, and then I'll have two things to barter – the girl and her diamonds. So when she does disappear, you know nothing. Do you hear me?'

Sal nodded mutely.

‘If they catch on, I'll know it was you who gave them the nod. If I have to take the girl, I will.'

Jimmy walked out of the house and sat in his van. He sat in his van quite often these days. Hanging around in an old wreck covered in carpet was infinitely preferable to staying in with Sal Potter. He had to trust her, had to depend on the fact that she feared him. A couple of months ago, she would have protected him for love, a bit of furniture and a plasma TV. Now, she kept her mouth shut for two reasons. Firstly, she knew he would batter her if she spoke up; secondly, she was involved. Not only had she harboured a criminal, but she had also gone to work for the very family he was targeting.

The route map was ready. Because of the rain and the need to save energy, he had worked out a way of taking the van along country lanes and hiding it before doing the final mile or so on foot. If he found what he needed, there would be no kidnap; if not . . . What if they told the police? What if they didn't tell the police until they had the daughter returned to them, only to inform them after the event?

He had to admit that he didn't really know what he was doing. The Compton-Milnes could take the gun to the police whenever – just on a whim. He might be too late. Was there any sense in the plan? Lisa and her family could tell the cops about the gun when everything was over. He couldn't win. But, by God, he would go down fighting. Because he hadn't done the Birmingham job. To that single truth, he clung like a leech. It wasn't fair; he would try to redress the balance. And he realized that he was rocking back and forth again . . .

Sheila almost jumped out of her skin when she heard the key turning. She looked in the mirror, tidied her hair, then stood waiting for him to come to her. But he didn't come. She heard his heavy, slow footfalls as he made his way up the stairs. The door to his bedroom closed. Sheila blinked and scratched her head. Even for Gustav Compton-Milne, this behaviour was excessively eccentric.

After a few minutes, she began to set a tray for him. She knew he liked ham salad sandwiches and a sliced, cored apple accompanied by a chunk of Lancashire cheese. With a nice cloth on the tray and a pot of tea, she crept up the stairs. He was sobbing. As quiet as any mouse, she placed the tray on a landing table, then knocked on his door. ‘Gus?' She paused. ‘Gus, are you all right? I've brought a sandwich and a bit of fruit. Some hot tea, too.'