The Victoria Vanishes (23 page)

As the echoing rooms of Twelve Elms Cross were emptied and barred, it seemed as if their past melancholies would fade and die with them, to be replaced by the bright, light cubicles of a luxurious new prison.

28

MATERNITY

B

ryant was unusually quiet on the journey back. He stared from the scarred windows with his chin resting on a liver-spotted knuckle, lost in thought, impervious to conversation. May was confident that it would be only a matter of hours before they would find Pellew, and his partner's silence perplexed him.

All right, out with it,' he said finally.
'What's wrong?'

Bryant turned to fix him with translucent blue eyes that were, for once, unreadable.
'You would say that we understand each other to an unusual degree, wouldn't you?' he asked. 'I mean, over so many years, the extraordinary way in which we've been involved in each other's lives?'

'Indeed. I never know exactly what you're thinking, but I usually have a pretty good idea. I can't imagine anyone knows you better.'

'And that's how I feel about you. I know you leave the TV on all the time, and love buying those hideously vulgar new suits. I know you've got a sister in Brighton. I know you lost the wallet I bought you for
your birthday, and purchased an
identical one so I wouldn't find out. I know you hate beetroot and suffer from hay fever. I know you still blame yourself for the death of your daughter, even though there was nothing more you could have done for her. I wonder, therefore, if
you've been entirely honest with me.'

'What do you mean? What about?'

'The past, John. The past. Th
ere were, of course, a few peri
ods when we weren't working together, and I know I didn't see enough of you during the time you were
married. That's un
derstandable;
you were in love, and were having to deal with the onset of Jane's mental problems;
I was wrapped up in troubles of my own. I suppose I always realised there were—omissions—in your life. I forgot about them for a while, but I started wondering again during Oswald Finch's wake.'

May furrowed his brow, but decided to say nothing. It was better to let Bryant clear his head without interruption. Perhaps it was time for the conversation he had so long avoided.

'I got to thinking. Instead of floral tributes, Oswald asked for contributions to be left in the care of a ward at the Broadhampton Hospital. When I asked you about it, you re-fused to catch my eye. In fact, considering the number of
times we've had cause to check with the Broadhampton's patients in other investigations, you've always seemed uncomfortable with the subject. I think it's time you told me the truth.'

'What about?' May played for time. He had not lied so much as omitted details, but after all this time he knew that the inconsistency felt like something more deceptive.

'Jane, your wife. Surely you couldn't have lied to me about her?'

Any answer May could have made dried in his mouth. He stared helplessly back.

'On more than one occasion you told me she was dead, or at least you suggested as much, but it was the way you said it, as if you meant
dead to me,
as if you had simply cut her out of your life after the divorce. That was how I phrased it when I was writing our memoirs. Of course, you'd been apart for quite a while by then, and I thought
well, if that's how he's dealing with it, it's his affair.
Then out of the blue, you told me you'd take me to meet her, and I could only assume you were making some kind of off-colour joke. You really had led me to believe she was gone, hadn't you?'

'I wasn't deliberately trying to mislead you, if that's what you're thinking.'

'I knew she'd had a breakdown. I assumed she'd died in the Broadhampton, and that Oswald knew about it, which is why he wanted contributions sent there.'

'No,' said May, shaking his head.
'No, she didn't die, Arthur. She's still there.'

'Then it's true. My God. I don't understand. Why would you keep such a thing from me?'

May felt the shame of a betrayer. 'It was less a lie than an omission. You don't know what I went through with Jane.'

'You could have told me;
I might have been able to help.'

'Arthur, you have no patience wit
h people. This was a pri
vate problem, something I couldn't find a way to share with you. I had to find a way of getting through to Jane on my own. Mental illness is so terribly misunderstood and I wanted to see if I could help her.'

'Even you can't undo the past, John,' said Bryant sadly.
'How is she now?'

'She has her black dog days. The death of our daughter will always stand between us, but the trouble began long before she died.' May had good reason for sometimes thinking that his family had been cursed. First, Jane's illness and their subsequent divorce, then the death of Elizabeth. Alex, her brother, had left for Canada and would still not talk to his father.
'I kept thinking that if I had understood Jane better in the early days of her illness, I might have been able to keep us all together.'

'When was the last time you saw her?'

About four months ago. Oswald used to come with me to visit her. That's why he wanted to leave money to the hospital.'

'Does she recognise you?'

'Certainly. But it's difficult to hold a conversation with her. Sometimes you think she's perfectly fine, but she's very good at pretending that nothing is wrong. She's in her seventies, hardly the age it once was, of course, but she hasn't been right for such a long time that I can hardly recall a time when she was ever truly well. I've lost track of the number of times she's tried to kill herself. Elizabeth's death removed her reason for living.'

'But what about April? Does she know about this?'

'No, and I agreed with Jane that we're not going to tell her. That girl's been through enough without finding out that her grandmother is still alive. What is the point in opening up old wounds? Jane is in no fit state to see her granddaughter, and April has only just made her own recovery. I don't hold with all this guff about
closure
and
moving on.
Sometimes I think it just causes more damage.'

'Perhaps she needs to decide that for herself,' said Bryant carefully.

'Don't you see, once the subject is reopened it can't be closed up again. April is not strong enough. I have to protect her.'

'Nor is she a child, John. What happened to Jane?'

May sighed. 'It was a long
time ago, in a very sixties mar
riage. You must remember what Jane was like, how wild she could be. It's a miracle we stayed together as long as we did.

After the separation, I told you she went off with someone who was a bad influence on her, some kind of TV producer, so he said. I expected him to tell her lies, but not to give her drugs. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see she was not the sort of
person
...
well, I was looking after the children, you were off in France sorting out troubles of your own with Nathalie's family, we weren't working together much, you and I—I meant to tell you what had happened, but the time never seemed to be right.'

'You told me a little about the accident, but not much.'

'Jane was driving the Volkswagen when it mounted the side-walk right in the middle of Tottenham Court Road. Her boy-friend was killed instantly. She had no licence. They found LSD, cocaine and alcohol in her system. She was too fragile to deal with police and doctors. She suffered a mental collapse and was deemed unfit to stand trial. She wouldn't see me, or anyone else for that matter, and although her physician thought she would eventually recover, she seemed to slip away from us to some private place inside her head. She became a danger to herself and was admitted as a patient to the Broadhampton. I had to sign her papers. It was the worst day of my life. She showed little improvement,
and seemed desper
ate to take up long-term residency.
She wanted no responsibil
ity for her own life. When you returned, I told myself I would talk to you when the time was right, but I kept putting it off. I visit her every once in a while, but she doesn't really know who I am.' May looked from th
e window as if searching for an
swers.'It seems I can help every family except my own. My son thinks I dumped his mother in
a clinic and encouraged his sis
ter to join the police. To think that I could have lost April as well
...
'

'But you didn't, John, you brought her back,' said Bryant gently. 'You should be proud of that. You know we have to go to the Broadhampton next, don't you? Would you let me visit Jane?'

'Wouldn't you rather remember her as she once was?' asked May, as the train passed across the glittering grey Thames on its approach to Victoria Station.

'Yes, but I'd still like to see her once more.'

'Then I should call ahead.' May took out his phone.

'No, don't do that. We need to find out why Pellew was
re
leased early, so let's catch them on the hop. I don't want any prepared answers.'

May tried to read the look on his partner's face, but for once, failed to do so.

The Broadhampton Clinic in Lavender Hill, South London, was an orange brick Edwardian building with central columns of white stucco, pedimented wings and a small bell tower. It possessed the aura of paternal authority common to civic buildings of the era, and made one feel protected just by approaching it.

The detectives met with an apologetic young intern named Senwe who did his best to help, but was unfamiliar with the patient in question. After questioning other nurses and registrars, Senwe returned to the off
ice where he had left the detec
tives waiting.

'There is a lady who knows about the release of Anthony Pellew,' he explained, rounding his vowels with a crystal African accent, 'but she is away on holiday. Her department have given me this for you.' He handed over a single folded sheet of paper.

Bryant fiddled his reading glasses into place.'Let's see, what have we got? "A. Pellew, thirty-seven years of age, adjudged by the medical assessment committee under conditions established by the Revised Mental Health Act of 1998 to be of such mental sufficiency that he may be released under h
is own cog
nizance conditional to regular examination and palliative care"—God, who writes these things?'

'It looks like the board decided he met enough of their criteria to be placed in a halfway house, so long as he continued to take medication for anxiety,' s
aid May, reading over his shoul
der.

'So he was kept on the happy pills and packed off to a flat on the De Beauvoir estate, off the Balls Pond Road in Islington. There's an address here. We could nip back and get Victor.'

'I'm not driving around town in that lethal hippie rust-bucket, thank you,' May warned. 'We'll take my BMW. You shouldn't be driving.'

'You're a fine one to talk. A
lma hasn't forgiven you for bug
gering up her Bedford van.'

'We were stuck in a snowdrift, Arthur; it's hardly surprising the radiator cracked. Any next of kin listed?'

'None, but there's a social services officer. Actually, it's someone we've dealt with before: Lorraine Bonner, the leader of the Residents' Association at the Roland Plumbe Community estate. At least we know where to find her.'

'Then that's our next stop.' May paused, uncertain.
'Do you still want to see Jane?'

'Yes, I'd like to.'

May led the way upstairs and through the cheerfully painted corridors, to a ward separated from the rest of the floor. Nodding to the duty nurse, he headed toward the corner room and gently pushed back the door.

'Jane, it's me.' There was no answer. 'I've brought somebody to see you. You remember Arthur Bryant, don't you?'

She wore a tightly drawn fawn cardigan over a long pleated skirt. Her white sneakers had no laces. She had kept her figure and removed any trace of grey from her auburn hair, but when she turned around, Bryant saw the pain and confusion of the intervening years etched under her eyes and around her thin mouth. There was a loss of focus in her face, as though she was searching for something she could not quite make out. After a moment of composure during which she absently touched a hair into place, she drew a breath and seemed to straighten a little.

'Jane, do you remember Arthur?'