Stillwater (10 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Beth opened her eyes to see daylight streaming in through the window. She raised her head from the pillow, only to let it drop back as a sharp pain pierced her temple and started to throb.

Confusion muddied her thoughts. She was in bed, how did she get here? The bed felt wet; her hands reached out and she touched her naked body. Water, and strands of pondweed.

Her recollections were hazy. Dinner with James; the woman's voice mocking and taunting her; the wheelchair smashing into her legs… She pulled back the blanket that was covering her, and her confusion increased.

She was fully dressed in the clothes she'd been wearing the night before, her legs were unmarked, and the wheelchair was intact and parked at the side of the bed. She wasn't soaked; the bed was completely dry.

She closed her eyes, and tried to gather herself, to make some sense of what was happening.

Her eyes snapped open as the coffee grinder in the kitchen whirred into life. “What the…” Someone was in the house.

She hauled herself out of bed and into her chair, propelling it across the room to the door. There she stopped and listened. There were sounds of movement from somewhere—cups clinking together, someone whistling tunelessly. Suddenly she was scared. What if it was the young men from last night? Wait, what men?

“Good morning,” James said, as she opened the bedroom door and pushed through.

The shock of seeing him standing in her kitchen silenced her. She ran her hand through her tousled hair and sought the appropriate response. “Why are you here?” was all she could manage.

“I'm making coffee. Want one?” Everything seemed so normal.

She could only stare at him as she wheeled over to where he was standing. “I don't understand,” she said.

“You don't remember?” he said with a small chuckle. “Can't say I'm really surprised.”

“Remember what?” she said.

He transferred the ground coffee to the espresso machine, and switched it on. Within seconds it was hissing and gurgling. He took another cup from the cupboard and set it down on the counter beside the first. “I think you need a coffee, strong and black,” he said.

She nodded dumbly. She needed coffee and probably something a lot stronger.

“Do you remember anything about last night?”

“Bits and pieces,” she said uncertainly. Which part of last night was he asking about? “Why are you still here?”

“Do you remember cooking the meal, chili?”

“Yes, of course I do. Look, tell me what happened, what
you
remember.”

He looked at her steadily, thinking that she seemed like someone with a large hangover. “You cooked a lovely meal, we drank wine and I told you what I knew about the Franklins. After the meal you wanted to move to the sofas. We did that, and five minutes later you passed out.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said. “Why would I pass out?”

He said nothing but pointed to the four empty red wine bottles on the counter.

“I didn't drink
that
much,” she said indignantly. “Did I?”

“I'll put my hands up for one of them. You had nearly finished the Merlot when I arrived. The other two…well, you must have had a thirst on last night.”

“So how did I end up in my bed?”

“I carried you there. I tried to wake you when you were on the sofa but you were out for the count, so I carried you through and covered you with a blanket.”

She looked at him incredulously. She didn't recall any of this. She wanted to press him about what else had happened, remembering his failed seduction attempt.
Did that happen?
From his demeanor
,
probably not
. “So why are you still here?”

“Once I'd settled you down I realized that I'd drunk too much to drive safely so I curled up on the sofa, and went out like a light. I roused at four and checked on you. You were sleeping like a baby. Jog any memories yet?”

She shook her head. “It's not how I remember it,” she said, staring down at the floor so he couldn't see her blushes.

“Ah, well, yes, I was hoping you'd let me forget that.”

“So we did…”

“I wanted to…but you weren't so keen.”

“It's just…” She indicated her wheelchair-clad legs. “I'm not used…”

“So, coffee?”

“Please, yes.” She was glad of the diversion.

“And then I'll make a move. I should be able to get home and change and still get to work on time.” He filled the cups and handed her one. “How do you feel this morning?”

“Like Fred is putting Ginger through her paces inside my head.”

“You look pretty peaky. It would probably be best if you went back to bed when I'm gone. Sleep it off.”

“I wasn't drunk,” she protested, and then, out of the corner of her eye, caught a glimpse of the empty bottles on the counter.
But was I
? she thought.

He looked at her over the top of his coffee cup. “You've not been having an easy time of it lately,” he said. “Moving house, your cat, a new novel…” He didn't say, “And your obsession with the Franklins,” but she knew he was thinking it. “I don't blame you for having a skinful. In your position I would have done the same.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Not for saying that, but for taking care of me. That was above and beyond the call of duty. I feel guilty for laying that on you. And…thanks for not taking advantage.”

He cocked his head, puzzled. “Advantage?”

“I was out cold when you put me to bed. I've known other men who might have seen that as an opportunity.”

His face clouded. She could see he was holding his anger in check.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to imply that you might—”

“Forget it,” he said, cutting her off. “I can only think you've known some pretty flaky men in your time. You were the worse for drink, and there are rules about that sort of thing.” He drained his cup. “Right, I have to dash.”

She set her cup down on the counter, and made to accompany him to the door.

“It's okay. I'll see myself out.”

“I've offended you.”

He stared at her for a long moment, but she couldn't read the expression in his eyes.

“Go back to bed,” he said and left the house.

She heard his car start up and drive away. She started to wheel herself back to the bedroom, but at the last moment turned and went to the study instead. Sleep could wait.

She sat at the computer, typed
Bernard Franklin
into the search engine and waited for the results. As the screen filled with references to Franklin she scrolled down, opening websites at random, but four screen pages later she was no closer to finding anything out about him. When she started seeing references to Benjamin Franklin she called off the search for him and typed in
Dolores Franklin
instead.

The Google screen disappeared to be replaced with a page of photographs, each of them featuring a very beautiful woman in a variety of poses.

The woman had long, dark hair, alabaster skin, a full-lipped sensual mouth and the most haunting eyes Beth had ever seen. She recognized her instantly as the woman who had stared down at her through the water in the bathroom. She may even have been the woman from her dream last night, the woman in the lake.

Beth hovered the cursor over a particularly striking image, clicked on it, and the other images faded away, allowing the single image to fill the screen. Dolores Franklin sitting in a high-backed, wicker chair, relaxed, cross-legged, the white satin dress she was wearing slipping back to reveal ten inches of porcelain thigh.

The back of the wicker chair was large and circular, the edges decorated with mother of pearl inlays that echoed the iridescent sheen of her dress. Sitting at her feet were three young men, all of them good-looking, none of them more than twenty. All three were stripped to the waist, showing their lithe, toned bodies, muscles oiled, glistening in the photographer's reflector light as they stared up at Dolores adoringly.

It was a portrait of a woman at ease with her sex appeal, and the power it gave her. Beth remembered what James had told her about Dolores and the young men in town—her acolytes.

As Beth stared into Dolores Franklin's eyes a chill passed through her body, and she shivered. For all the woman's beauty and sensuality there was something repulsive about the image. Dolores Franklin sat, serene and imperious, like a spider in the center of a web of twisted sexuality and corruption.

Then the woman on the computer screen blinked.

Beth tore her eyes away for a second and then looked back. The face was still, like the water on the lake. The eyes dark and impenetrable.

Then the lips smiled.

They pulled back from the teeth in a hungry smile that wasn't inviting, it was threatening.

Beth moved the mouse but she couldn't delete the picture; the cursor traced invisible lines over the skin, helplessly trying to erase the image.

Then the three men at her feet began to caress her legs, sweeping firm hands over bare flesh, at the same time looking out at Beth, challenging.

The woman winked, her left eye closing slowly, and opening again as if in slow motion.

Beth switched the monitor off, waited moments and then turned it on again. The screen gradually opened, the erotic scene again portrayed in colorful glory.

“She was a very beautiful woman.”

Beth jerked round at the sound of the voice.

Chapter Nineteen

Arthur Latham stood in the doorway of the study, leaning against the doorframe, relaxed, with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his corduroy trousers.

Beth ignored him, staring back at the monitor. The woman sat, the men draped in devotion, but all were static.

“I rang the doorbell but there was no reply,” he said. “I hope you don't mind me barging in like this, but the back door was open.”

She did mind. She minded very much. And why was the back door open? Perhaps James had opened it this morning and forgotten to close it before he left. Latham had given her a start.

She watched the computer for a while longer, waiting for something, but it evaded her.

Her nerves were still jangling after the night she'd just had; a night that had, apparently, been nothing more than a figment of her chaotic imagination. How could she have imagined with such vividness? It all seemed so real to her.

She recovered enough to paste a smile on her lips, and direct it in Latham's direction. “That's okay, Arthur,” she said, with a brightness she didn't feel. “I wasn't doing anything special.”
Only going mad
, she thought. “What can I do for you?”

“I brought you a gift: an apple pie. Gwen was baking yesterday and thought you might like it. I grew the apples myself,” he added, with a hint of pride.

She stared at him, looking for the gift.

“I left it in the kitchen,” he said, and pushed himself away from the doorframe, sauntering across to where she was sitting. “Yes” he said, almost to himself. “Very beautiful.” He pointed to the screen. “I've never seen that photo before. Where did it come from?”

“The Internet,” Beth said. “I Googled her.”

“Remarkable. It never ceases to amaze me just what's floating around out there in the ether. I've never really got to grips with the World Wide Web. I'm old school. I prefer books and libraries.”

“I'll put the kettle on,” she said. “I take it you'll stay for a cup of tea.” She framed it as an invitation, but it wasn't. She moved away from the desk, and wheeled past him to the kitchen.

Gwen's apple pie sat in the kitchen counter: golden short-crust pastry, with more pastry decorating the top in an elaborate pattern of apples and leaves. The air was redolent with the aromas of apples and cloves. Beth hated cloves. “The pie looks lovely,” she said. “Thank Gwen for me.”

“You can thank her yourself,” Latham said. “She's outside in the car.”

“In the car? For…Arthur, go and fetch her in. I'll get another cup.”

“Well, they've certainly done you proud with the renovation,” Gwen Latham said, as her husband pushed her into the house.

“I didn't realize you'd been here before,” Beth said.

“I came over when it was standing empty. Had a peek through the windows. It was a terrible mess. No, this is a hundred times better. Look, Arthur, what I said to you about lowering the worktops to make it easier for me to cook, you can see now how that would work.”

Latham flashed a rueful smile at Beth. “I can see,” he said to his wife. “But I dare say it cost a pretty penny.”

“Thank you for the pie, Gwen,” Beth said.
One cup of tea
, she thought,
and I can get rid of them. And the awful smell of cloves.

“You must think we're awful, barging in like this,” Gwen said. “I assure you we won't make a habit of it. Only Arthur said you'd called round when I was at the hospital and I was sorry to have missed you.”

“Let's take the tea through to the lounge,” Beth said.

“Good idea,” Latham said, and swooped onto the tea tray, picking it up and carrying it through, setting it down on the coffee table. He picked up the teapot. “Shall I be mother?”

“Feel free,” Beth said. Her patience was at a low ebb.

“Arthur said you were asking about the Franklins,” Gwen said, pulling up beside Beth's chair. “I knew you wouldn't let it go.”

Ah
, Beth thought,
the real reason for the visit.

“Beth's unearthed a remarkable picture of Dolores,” Latham said. “On the Internet of all places. Dolores and her pets.”

“Pets?” Gwen said. “Oh, her disciples. Stupid young fools, taken in by a pretty face and the promise of a fuck.”

“Gwen!” Latham said. “That kind of language…”

“…is entirely appropriate,” Gwen countered. “Come on, Arthur, we both heard the stories about her, and what was going on in her sordid life.”

“And that's all they were,” Latham said. “Rumor and gossip. The twin curses of village life.”

Gwen shook her head. “Sometimes, Arthur, your naivety astonishes me. Why Bernard Franklin tolerated his wife's philandering I'll never know.”

“Perhaps he loved her,” Arthur said.

Gwen made a noise in the back of throat to convey her contempt. “Perhaps he did, but that's no excuse for becoming her doormat.”

“Did Jessica know about the other men?” Beth said. She'd watched the matrimonial discussion with some amusement, an onlooker into a private world.

“My dear, the whole village knew. If Jessica was unaware of her mother's behavior then she must have gone through life impersonating an ostrich.”

“And the hexes, the spells,” Beth said. “Do you believe she had some kind of paranormal ability?” She aimed the question at Gwen, who shrugged theatrically.

“I was convinced for a while. I blamed her for my illness,” she said, confirming what her husband had said.

“And now?”

“Now I'm not so certain. I'm older, I suppose, and possibly wiser. Now I realize the MS was going to get me sooner or later. She was a handy scapegoat where I could channel my anger and frustration.” She smiled, but there was no warmth in her eyes. “I've since heard even more lurid stories about her, but apart from the ones about her sexual perversions, I choose to dismiss them. Believing in her powers make them real, and I'm not prepared to give her that satisfaction.”

“You make it sound as if she's still on the scene,” Beth said.

“She's current,” Gwen said. “Even if no one has seen or heard from her for a decade and a half. She cast a huge shadow, and some of the older residents of the village—me included—still find it difficult to lift ourselves out from under it. Let me see the picture you found.”

Beth led them through to the study. The computer had gone into energy-saver mode and the screen was blank. Gwen rolled up in front of it, Beth next to her. Beth reached out, hit a key and the screen burst back into life. As the picture of Dolores Franklin appeared, Gwen Latham drew in her breath, letting it out in a low whistle. “My God,” she said. “It takes me right back there. You can see the corruption, there in her eyes.”

“I wonder what happened to the young men,” Beth said.

“I should think they went back to their dull and boring lives once the bitch left the area. They're probably bank clerks and car mechanics now, married with two point four kids and living in the suburbs,” Gwen said, laughing.

“They're all dead.” Arthur Latham was standing a few yards away from the computer, staring out through the window at the garden. “Your roses need deadheading, Beth. You'll get a second bloom if you do it now.”

“I'm not much of a gardener, I'm afraid,” Beth said.

“I'll pop round and give you a hand if you like.”

“Whoa!” Gwen said. “Arthur Latham, you can't just drop a bomb into the conversation like that and walk away from it.” She was glaring hotly at her husband. “What do you mean,
all dead
? Did you know these boys?”

Slowly he turned away from the window. “I knew one of them. Carl Page. I taught him up to the age of fourteen, but then his parents moved out of the area, and he went to a new school closer to town.”

“And you kept tabs on him?”

Latham shook his head. “No, not me. But there were pupils at school who stayed in contact with him. He was always a bit of a tearaway, but not a bad lad for all that. That was why I was surprised when I heard what had happened.”

“What did happen?” Beth asked.

“The police arrested him, probably not long after that photo was taken.”

“Why?” Gwen asked.

“He killed the other two boys in the photo.”

Gwen's face blanched. “Both of them?”

“Knifed them.”

“But why?” Beth said. “Why did he kill them?”

Arthur Latham pulled up a chair and sat down heavily. “The police never got to the bottom of it. It seemed to be a completely unprovoked attack.”

“He never explained his motives?” Beth asked.

“Not directly, but he did say he was told to do it.”

“And did the police press him on it? Did they ask who was it told him to kill them?”

Latham sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “I only had the newspaper reports to go on—the case made quite a splash—but, from what I read, they tried, but he clammed up, and never said another word. He was silent throughout his trial and, when he was sent to Broadmoor, the secure mental institution, for an indeterminate period, he merely smiled at the court and gave them a victory sign.”

“But if it made such a
splash
in the media,” Gwen said, “how come I didn't hear of it?”

“It was in 2001,” Latham said. “If you recall you were very ill for most of that year.”

“Yes, I remember,” Gwen said grimly. She turned to Beth. “It was before I discovered the benefits of marijuana. I was in a lot of pain that year.”

“So is he still there?” Beth said.

Latham shook his head. “He died in there, five years after he was sent down. An accident—fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck.” He pointed at the screen “That's him, the one on her left, staring up at her like a sick puppy.”

Beth looked at the screen. Carl Page was dressed like the others, leather trousers and not much else, but he looked younger. The heavy kohl eye make-up added no maturity to his features. Instead he looked like a boy who had ransacked his mother's dressing table and painted himself with whatever came to hand. He looked neither evil nor menacing, Beth thought. Rather he looked sad and pathetic.

Latham got to his feet. “Gwen, if you've finished your coffee we should go and let Beth get on.” He turned to Beth. “This was just meant to be a flying visit to drop off the pie. We've taken up too much of your time.”

“It's all right, really,” Beth said. She was relieved they were going but tried hard to construct the lie.

“No, Arthur's right.” Gwen wheeled herself to the door. “I want you to finish the new book. I can't wait to read it.”

Beth accompanied them to the front door.

“I'll drop by in a couple of days to attend to the roses,” Latham said. “Don't worry, I'll ring first. I won't just descend like today.”

“Thanks.”

As they headed to the car Latham stopped and turned back. “When I come I'll bring my spade and fill in the hole in your back garden.”

“Hole?” Beth said, puzzled.

“I saw it when I was looking out through the window. Pretty nasty if you come across it by accident. But don't worry. I can have it filled in a few minutes.”

After they had gone, Beth wheeled herself through the house, and opened the back door. Even as she rolled down the ramp she could see what Latham was talking about.

The pile of earth that marked Teddy's grave had gone. Instead there was a neat hole about two feet across. She stared down into it. Apart from a few clumps of ginger fur the grave was empty. There was no sign of Teddy's body.