The Other Child (62 page)

But Jennifer could see more deeply. She often could. It was part of the marked ability to empathise with which she was blessed – or cursed. She herself often did not know whether to accept it or fight it. She saw the anger in Gwen. The sadness. The nameless rage. The pain. The despair. She saw the withering life, which had never blossomed. She saw the suffering which came of it, and she saw the innumerable unshed tears which were dammed up in her, faced as she was with everyone's indifference. The loved father who did not notice, because he was not interested. And Fiona, who could not leave the little family alone, and whose care concealed an obsession to cling to Chad. Gwen had seen through her long ago. Fiona was not interested in Gwen either. Jennifer even thought it possible that Fiona's attacks on Dave Tanner during the engagement party had less to do with the thought that he might be a misfortune to Gwen than with her concern about what would happen to Chad if a much younger, more ambitious man started to take control of the farm. Whatever Fiona had said, Jennifer had never believed that she was really thinking about Gwen's future.

And sometimes Jennifer had thought: what would happen if everything which has been hidden inside Gwen for decades, all the anger and hate, finds a way out? What would happen when the pressure became too great?

And that thought had always made her afraid.

Nevertheless a murder was so unimaginable, such a crazy idea, that Jennifer had repressed the fear with all her strength. And her need to protect others had grown with each meeting with Inspector Almond. She had known that the inspector would seize on every little scrap thrown to her, like a starving dog. Here too she had seen further than Colin and the others. Almond might look energetic, competent and sure of herself. But behind the mask there was a woman plagued with doubts and fears. She was a nervous officer who could gain no confidence from her career progression. She was driven in an unhealthy way by ambition to move up the career ladder. She feared deeply that she would fail to solve the Barnes case. Jennifer had felt that. The woman was at the end of her tether.

If Jennifer had given her Gwen, the inspector would have latched on to her and never let go, whether or not Gwen was involved.

And I can't do that to Gwen, she had told herself.

Perhaps her silence had now led to tragedy.

She reached the highest point of the wide hill. From here it was no longer far to the hanging bridge and the gorge. The most difficult part was still ahead of her. She could no longer just go as quickly as possible. She also had to think about her own safety. It would not help anyone if she broke her ankle.

Immediately she thought: A broken ankle … As if you didn't know that something much worse could happen.

She had always felt sorry for Gwen. She had always wanted to protect her. But she was realistic enough to know that Gwen had never really repaid her affection. To Gwen she was always a paying holiday guest. Someone who brought some variety into her life now and then. But Jennifer had never felt a friend's warmth in Gwen. She had never felt any warmth in Gwen. The nice smile had never come from her heart.

Jennifer followed the path that led down the hill towards the steeply sided rocky gorge. Then would come the bridge; then the uneven steps hewn into the rock with their unpredictable variations in height and distance. She would have to go down almost blindly.

She still had not reached the end of the path when she saw a beam of light shining out of the darkness ahead of her. She could not see exactly where it was coming from, but she had the impression that it was either from beyond the gorge or from the other end of the bridge. The light was not moving.

Jennifer stopped. Tensely, she strained to make something out in the darkness. She could not recognise anything. She was too far away. She had to feel her way closer to the object. She assumed it was a torch. But why was it not moving? Had the people up ahead – and it could only be Gwen or Leslie or Dave, or all three of them – already got to where they wanted to be? Or had they noticed they were being followed and were now waiting?

But then they would have turned off the light, thought Jennifer.

She crept closer, holding her breath.

When she had reached the bridge, she could see everything. It confirmed her worst fears. The torch was on a rock on the other side of the gorge. It bathed the creepy scene in its bright, almost searing, light. Leslie Cramer stood almost at the far end of the bridge. Her back was against the bridge's railing of plaited rope. Gwen was in front of her, pointing a gun at Leslie. The two women were staring at each other silently.

Suddenly Gwen said, ‘Hurry up and jump!'

And Leslie replied, ‘No. I'm not jumping. You're crazy. I'm not going to do what a crazy person tells me to.'

‘I'll shoot you,' said Gwen. ‘Then throw you down there. I'd think about it, Leslie. If you jump, you might have a chance.'

‘If I jump down there, I've got no chance,' replied Leslie.

Gwen raised her arm. In the silence of the night the quiet click of the safety catch being released was audible.

‘Please,' begged Leslie.

Jennifer took a step forward. ‘Gwen,' she called.

Gwen spun around. She looked in the direction from where she had heard her name, but she did not seem to be able to see who had called her.

‘Who's there?' she asked sharply.

Jennifer stepped onto the bridge. She knew that the bridge's swaying would betray her approach, but she also knew that Gwen would not be able to pick her off easily. She was protected by the dark.

‘It's me,' she said. ‘Jennifer.'

‘Don't come a step closer!' warned Gwen.

Jennifer stopped. She was now close enough to be able to see Leslie's face, rigid with fear, in the torch's beam. Gwen's face was hidden in shadow.

‘Gwen, be sensible,' asked Jennifer. ‘Colin's on the farm. He's calling the police. Soon the place will be swarming with officers. You don't have a chance, so let Leslie go. She didn't do anything to you.'

‘She let me down just like you all did,' said Gwen.

‘Shooting people you have a problem with doesn't solve anything. Please, Gwen. Put down the gun, come over here.'

Gwen laughed. It was a horrible but also a sad laugh. ‘You'd really like that, Jennifer. My advice to you is to get lost – else you'll be next! Don't poke your nose in what's none of your business. Go back to Colin and your curs and carry on with your smug, easy life. Just leave people alone who have it worse than you!'

‘My life has never been easy and smug, you should know that after all these years. And Leslie is not who you obviously think she is.

Other people have problems too, you know, Gwen. Even if you can't imagine that.'

‘Just shut up!' hissed Gwen.

Jennifer thought the gun in her hand had trembled a little. Gwen was nervous and unsure of herself. She had obviously hoped that Leslie would jump off the bridge when she threatened her with a revolver. She did not seem to be finding it easy to just shoot her onetime friend. And now someone had turned up, and was lurking in the shadows – an invisible threat. Gwen was acting like someone who feels driven into a corner, and that could cause the situation to escalate.

‘Gwen, whatever you feel right now, Leslie and I have always been your friends, and we still are,' said Jennifer. ‘Please. Put down the gun. Let's talk.'

‘I don't want to talk to either of you!' shouted Gwen. ‘I want you to leave me alone. I want you all to finally bugger off.'

Leslie moved and Gwen immediately spun around and aimed the revolver at her once again. ‘You're about to die!' she warned.

Jennifer dared to step closer. ‘Gwen. Don't do it.'

Now Gwen whipped around to face Jennifer. The gun was pointing right at Jennifer's chest. ‘I can see you,' she said triumphantly. ‘I can see you, Jennifer, and I'm warning you: one more step and I'll shoot. You can bet your life on it.'

‘Gwen,' beseeched Jennifer.

She took another step towards her.

The next second the shot rang out.

Everything happened at once. Leslie screamed. Jennifer clutched at the railing, because suddenly the bridge swayed wildly. She waited for the pain, sure it would cut into her like a knife. She waited for her legs to give way, to collapse. She waited for the blood which would start to flow.

And she saw Gwen fall, slowly, almost in slow motion. She sank down onto the wooden bridge, falling like a supple dancer glides into a new position. The gun slipped out of her hand and lay right by the edge of the bridge. With a little more momentum it would have fallen off.

Leslie knelt down next to Gwen, grabbed her arm and felt her pulse. Jennifer saw that too, and was still surprised to find herself standing and not in pain.

Then she heard a voice behind her.

‘Police. Don't move!'

She turned around. A shadow appeared from the darkness, walking along the bridge. Jennifer recognised Valerie Almond. She was holding a pistol in her hand. And Jennifer understood that the police officer had shot – at Gwen.

She realised that she herself was uninjured.

And that she did not have to wait for the pain.

Saturday, 18th October

The weather was grey and windy, and it was colder than the previous days. Thick, angrily massed clouds raced across the sky. The wind over the treeless moors was icy. A few sheep huddled together at the bottom of the hills. Nothing had remained of the golden October in which the week started, but nor had anything remained of the foggy and rainy last few days. The day seemed bathed in a curious emptiness. It was just grey. A nothing day.

Maybe that's just me, thought Leslie. Maybe I'm just seeing my own emptiness out there.

She was in her car on the road to Whitby. And she felt cold and lonely inside.

She had called Semira Newton and asked about the care home where Brian Somerville lived. After a few minutes' hesitation, Semira had told her.

‘Don't hurt him,' she had asked.

Leslie did not think that her visit alone was going to disturb the old man.

I can turn around any time, she thought, as she saw the first of the terraced houses on the edge of Whitby. A large cemetery stretched out on the left. The road led down steeply to the right towards the town centre. Leslie could see the famous abbey up on one hill.

She hardly knew how she had spent the previous day.

She had been in Fiona's flat, had smoked and stared out of the window. At some point she had gone for a walk of an hour or two, along the beach over to North Bay and back again. Then she had bought a ticket for the funicular railway up from the Spa Complex to Prince of Wales Terrace. Five of them had sat on a wooden bench in the carriage being pulled up the tracks. Leslie remembered how she had felt that she had nothing in common with the people who were in such close proximity. Too many terrible things had happened.

Chad was dead. She knew that he had still been alive when she had left the house with Gwen. She had heard a quiet groan from him. By the time Valerie Almond and Stephen arrived, Stephen had only been able to confirm he was dead. He had bled to death. He could have been saved if help had come sooner.

Gwen had been shot in the leg by DI Almond. She was in hospital but would soon be well enough to leave. She was to face charges of two murders and one attempted murder, as well as deprivation of liberty and coercion. The question was whether a psychiatric report would pronounce her of sane mind or not. Leslie thought it likely that Gwen would not be put in prison but in a psychiatric institute. Perhaps for ever.

She had spent all of yesterday with the image of the bridge scene in front of her. The torch's glare; Gwen collapsing at her feet; Jennifer Brankley a shadowy figure some distance away, who obviously could not move after the shot rang out. And Valerie Almond, who appeared out of the dark to save them. She calmed them down, saying, ‘She's not badly injured. Don't worry. I've just hurt her a little.' She meant Gwen. And Leslie remembered that she had jumped up and shouted, ‘We have to go down to the bay! Quick! Dave Tanner's down there. She shot him! Quick!'

She kept saying that, and in the end Valerie Almond had put her hand on her shoulder, looked her steadily in the eyes and said with a clear voice which would not allow for contradiction, ‘We'll look after him. OK? You aren't going down there now. My officers are just coming. Don't worry.'

The memory of her sitting at the Beckett farm afterwards was more hazy. Ambulance men and the police had been swarming all around. Someone had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and pressed a mug of hot, sugary tea into her hands. To her surprise Stephen was there, and he was also the one to tell her the news that Tanner had been rescued injured but alive.

‘He'll survive. He's been lucky. He was unconscious. The tide would have taken him in the early hours.'

Some time late at night Stephen had taken her to Fiona's flat and stayed there himself too. She had not tried to refuse. She had felt too weak to ever stand up to anyone or anything. He had asked if he could read Fiona's letters. She had nodded. Everyone was going to find out now, so why not him? Later she herself had told him about Semira and about Brian, and how although he lived so near to Scarborough, Fiona had never brought herself to visit him.

In the afternoon she had talked to Valerie Almond for a long time. The officer came straight from the hospital where she had talked to Dave Tanner.

‘He was really lucky. He could have bled to death or drowned. He's escaped this whole affair by the skin of his teeth.'

Dave was now free of all suspicion, but Leslie still wanted to hear for herself. ‘So, where was he then? That Saturday night, if not with his ex?'

‘The two of them were in the pub together,' Valerie explained. ‘That much was true. But then she went home alone and Tanner drove around aimlessly. He parked somewhere, had a smoke and a think. About his rather worrying future. By the time he got home it was well past midnight. As he was scared that no one would believe him, he made up the night with Miss Ward – sure that she would play along. But he made a big mistake there.'