The Vows of Silence (20 page)

“It’s strange. Karin believed so passionately in alternative medicine that she rejected everything you and I would accept—and probably Chris too.”

“Definitely Chris. He’s an evidence-based man. He won’t consider anything else. When it comes down to it, you know, not many doctors do.”

“What would you blame for Karin’s death? That she refused orthodox treatment?”

“Cancer is what I blame for her death, Jane. It’s what I will blame for Chris’s. But the longer I’m in medicine, the more I see of it, it becomes clear that what we know about cancer goes on one line that reads as follows: “You get it, or you don’t. You get better, or you don’t.” There’s another thing … I feel it ought to be me, I feel guilty. But inside, I’m just relieved that it isn’t me. That it’s someone else again, even if the someone is my husband. I’ve escaped. There now, I’ve said it.”

“But that’s what we all feel, isn’t it? The bullet missed me. Phew. No, that’s not the best analogy just now.”

“Are you going to see Simon, now you’re here?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. I have to go tomorrow, and you say he’s tied up with this investigation.”

“Stay with us for a few days. The children would love it and I won’t have much time for friends once Chris comes out of hospital.”

Jane was silent for a moment. She wanted to stay and she had no reason to be back in Cambridge yet. She might also see Simon. Did she want that? Yes. Should she?

“I’d like to very much. But I don’t think it would be a very good idea.”

It was Cat’s turn to say nothing.

Forty-two

It was chance. A beautiful chance. Roadworks had held him up for so long he’d tried a side route, taken a wrong turn off the bypass and found himself in Dedmeads Road.

One end led into the new Ashdown estate, a large and still growing area of private housing, interlacing cul-de-sacs off a main avenue. The completed houses were furthest away. From Dedmeads Road it was still a building site, half-finished houses and garage blocks, unmade roads, scaffolding, pieces of scrub which would be turfed as the final job. Of the completed houses, many were still unsold. Developers’ flags flew outside a couple of show houses.

At the north end, down which he had just come, one road of identical 1960s houses led to the bypass and away.

He stopped. Got out and looked around. He had the
very dirty silver Focus. You saw a dozen of them every half-hour.

It was nine ten. School was in. Workers in. Dedmeads Road was empty apart from a few mothers with toddlers and push chairs gossiping in a cluster outside the row of shops.

He got back into the car and drove on down. Parked near the shopping block but not near enough to have anyone pay attention to the car or the number plate.

The mothers huddled closer as he walked past and into the post office-cum-newsagent’s, and bought a paper and a packet of chewing gum.

“Morning. Thanks.”

“Going to rain for the weekend again.”

“Right bugger then.”

“Eighty pence. Cheers.”

“See you later.”

He walked out, reading the front page of the redtop. The shopkeeper had forgotten him before he reached the door.

Newsagent’s. Chinese fish and chip shop, closed. Launderette, two people inside, busy at the machines, not noticing him as he glanced through the windows. Late night grocer. Louise, Ladies’ Hairdresser. He walked straight by, looking at the paper; the place had a venetian blind down, slats open. No one saw him. Empty shop. Empty card-display stands pulled into the middle. Dirty windows. Piles of junk mail on the floor below the letter box.

That was it. He walked on, past a block of semis.
Then the low brick wall. A gravel car park. Bit of grass. Three or four trees. Blue sign. Gold lettering.

Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church

Times of Mass: daily at 8 a.m.; Sundays and Holy Days.
8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10.30 a.m., 4 p.m.
Confessions: Saturdays and Thursdays, 6–7.30 p.m.
Priest: Father G. Nolan, The Presbytery,
40 Dedmeads Road.

Bare-looking 1960s brick. Bright blue, yellow and green stained glass on either side of the light oak doors. Three shallow steps up. Wide gateway. Low iron gates, open and hooked back against the wall.

On the other side of the road, semis and a single detached house quite low down at the bottom of steep drives. Outside the detached, a sign.
Dedmeads Veterinary Surgery
. Three or four cars.

Hours: Monday to Friday 9–11 a.m. and 3–5 p.m.; Saturday 9–11 a.m.

Perfect.

Everything was perfect. Chance. A beautiful chance. He had to take it. Things fell out the way they did for a reason, he knew that.

He got back into the dirty silver Ford Focus and drove unobtrusively away.

At six that evening the Focus was stowed away in the lock-up he rented in Canal Street and he was in the van
on his way to the airfield. It was raining heavily. Traffic was light and he knew he wasn’t being followed because no one had any reason whatsoever to follow him. No one. He turned on the car radio to a local newsflash about the body of a teenage girl found in a ditch. She’d been missing for over a week. So why had it taken so long to find her? What had the police been farting about at? She’d been assaulted and strangled. Who did that sort of thing? Some animal. He shuddered, thinking of her, daft as teenage girls were, full of herself, cocky. Or some sad, lost kid, broken home, abused already and now again. Gone off with a stranger for a bit of fun and attention. Affection.

How did parents get through all that, girl not arriving home, mobile not answering, friends saying she’d left them hours before. Waiting. Dreading. Hoping. Desperate.

What kind of animal did that?

He knew nothing about that sort of behaviour.

His were completely different.

A clean kill.

The airfield was full of potholes and the potholes were full of water. Rain streamed across the headlights. He doused them as he drove up to the hangar and used the torch when he opened the doors. He drove the van inside and closed the doors again, took out the mechanic’s lamp from the boot and plugged it into the battery.

Which was when he heard the sound. He froze. Outside the hangar? Or inside? He waited. Nothing.
He waited again, counting. Two minutes. Three minutes. Nothing.

He relaxed, picked up the torch again and trained it on the place where the rolled-up plastic was hidden. Waited again. Nothing.

He stepped on the cement blocks he had manoeuvred there weeks ago and reached for the space behind the strut. As he did so, there was a noise again, far back inside the dark recesses of the hangar.

He jumped quickly down and walked towards it, holding the torch out. His trainers made no sound.

The noise was odd. It might have been a human groan, or an animal snuffling. There were foxes out here, his headlights had picked them up.

He moved slowly forward, though now the noise had stopped he was unsure if he was heading towards it. The torchlight picked up scuffed papers and broken concrete rubble on the ground, and the sides of the hangar when he moved it higher. Nothing else.

It came again. Animal. Had to be.

The next minute, something moved, his torch picked up a series of shapes and shadows, and then a man was lurching blindly towards him, hand up to his face against the powerful beam.

“Whatsitwhositwhatthefucksgoingon?”

He stopped. The man was a few yards away, still dazed by the light.

He trained it straight into his face.

“Bloodygerritoffwhatthehellyoufuckingplayingat?”

“Turn round.”

But the bundle of old clothes and filth that was the
man who had been disturbed from his drunken snoring in the corner of the hangar took another lurching step forward.

“Turn round.”

The man did so, swaying a bit. “Allrightallrightwhatyoudoingsfuckinnightnothurtinganyone
fuckincopsyourenotsafeanybloodywhereforgodsake—”

He slumped at the first blow to the back of his head.

Two minutes. Three. Four.

He hadn’t moved.

The torchlight showed blood down the filthy matted hair and on the old raincoat.

Leave him or drag him back into the corner?

Leave him.

It took a few minutes to select the piece of plastic and stick it to the side of the van, roll up the rest and replace it carefully. Then he unplugged the mechanic’s lamp from the battery, and stowed it behind the false panel in the back. Drove out. Closed the hangar doors. Took off his gloves and stowed those away.

It was still raining. He went slowly over the rutted ground—there was always the chance of getting a puncture here and he didn’t want to hang about changing a wheel by torchlight, risking being seen from the road. As he neared the gates, a fox slipped across in front of him, yellow eyes gleaming, caught in his headlights.

Forty-three

“I feel guilty,” Cat said.

The
Croxley Oak
was pleasantly busy, with half a dozen people at the bar, two-thirds of the tables full and the first log fire of the autumn. A waiter went past carrying a loaded tray. There was the chink of glasses.

Simon looked at her across the table. They were both exhausted, both in need of exactly this. He didn’t bother to reply.

“Chris should be here.”

“Yes, he should.”

“Will he ever have this sort of quiet evening out again?”

Simon shook his head.

“He might. When he gets over the operation. The radiotherapy will reduce the rest of the tumour for a time, then he’ll get a remission, it might be quite a decent one and we can come here.”

“You should. Do everything you can.”

“Yes.”

“You said we weren’t going to talk about it.”

Cat’s eyes filled with tears.

“Come on.”

The menus were chalked on blackboards at either end of the long room, specials on another board behind the bar. It was one of Simon’s favourite eating places and he hadn’t been here for months.

“Let’s make the most of it. Oh, good, they’ve got mussels.”

Moules marinières and fresh sardines, French bread and a bowl of olives were on the table when Cat’s mobile rang.

“If it’s home answer it, otherwise ignore it.”

“I don’t recognise the number. All right, ignore.”

“When is Karin McCafferty’s funeral?”

“I’ve no idea. Do you know that apart from her bastard ex-husband I don’t think she had any family? She never mentioned them. I wonder who’ll make the arrangements? I’ve known very old people have funerals at which the only attenders were me and the district nurse but that just meant they’d outlived everyone. Karin was only in her forties. I’ll talk to Imogen House, see what they know.”

“You went to see her when she was alive. That’s what matters. Don’t have regrets.”

“I don’t. Jane is the one who has those.”

“Jane who?” He looked blank for a moment.

“Jane Fitzroy. God, it’s been so long since we’ve talked.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Are you on call now?”

“I’m always on call at the moment. What about Jane Fitzroy?”

“Oh, you do remember her then.”

Simon picked a mussel carefully out of its shell with the prong of his fork and put it into his mouth. He did not look up.

“By the time she got here she was an hour too late. Not her fault, but it upset her.”

“She rang you?”

“She stayed the night.”

He poured her another glass of wine.

“Don’t you want to know any more?”

He shrugged.

“She asked after you.”

“Cat. Leave it.”

“Why?”

He shook his head, wiping bread round the plate to mop up the sauce.

“You liked her.”

“Well, yes. So did you.”

“That’s different.”

“Just leave it.”

Cat recognised his expression and his tone of voice. He meant it. The portcullis had come down. She would get no more out of him.

“You’re your own worst enemy, did you know that?”

But the waiter came to take their plates and Cat knew better than to pursue the subject further. For now, she thought. For now.

“Are you taking the kids to the Jug Fair?”

“I think so. Chris will be back home but Dad said he would stay with him. Felix is a bit young. He can stay too.”

“Will you join up with someone else?”

“I’m sure we’ll meet a load of people but Judith said she would come with me. And please do not put on that expression.”

“What expression?”

“Get over it, Si. She’s lovely and she’s good for Dad. Don’t put yourself out in the cold.”

The waiter came towards them with braised lamb shank and pan-fried black bream.

“Simon,” she said, after the vegetables were on the table, “thanks for this. It’s what I needed. I didn’t realise.”

“Trust your brother.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Oh, I do. On some things.”

She picked up her knife and fork, but as she did so she remembered, remembered the full horror and awfulness of what was happening, remembered Chris lying in bed that afternoon, eating a spoonful of scrambled egg very slowly, his head bound with bandages, eyes tired and defeated. He had already seemed to be receding from her, living a twilight life in a place she could not go to, a place he had to inhabit entirely alone. She swallowed and stared at the food on her plate.

“It’s OK,” Simon said.

But it was not and the tears spilled onto the back of her hand as she tried to wipe them away.

She got up. “I’m going to the cloakroom. When I come back, just talk to me. I can’t. Just talk to me.”

Simon waited, separating the flakes of moist lamb off the bones and eating them slowly, thinking. The bar had filled but they were in a corner at the end, not overheard.

She was a long time but when she returned her face was tearless, her hair brushed back.

“Right,” Cat said, putting the last of the vegetables onto her plate.