The Woodcutter (58 page)

‘Just as well. It would hardly have done for you to rely for your deception on the work of such a second-rate psychiatrist as I clearly am,’ she said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘And now you hate me more for being innocent than ever you did for being guilty? Don’t you find that odd?’

‘I don’t hate you,’ she said. ‘I never did.’

‘A child-abusing fraudster? Come on!’

It did not seem the time to tell him she’d felt attracted to him almost from the start, despite everything she’d thought she knew about him, despite his appearance, despite all her efforts to analyse this troubling reaction out of her psyche. Getting this back on a formal professional level was important.

‘Hate the sin, not the sinner is the first line of the psychotherapist’s creed,’ she said. ‘You can’t help where you hate. I wanted to help you. I still do.’

‘Really?’ he said in mock surprise. ‘But now you recognize that I’m innocent, that I was set up, what’s to help?’

She regarded him sadly and said, ‘Wolf, after all that has happened to you, there’s no way you’re not damaged goods, you’re too bright not to see that.’

‘Damaged’s a bit strong, isn’t it? I’ve taken a few knocks, yes, but in the circumstances, I think I’ve come through it all a lot less battered inside than out. Look, Elf, don’t take it personally. I’m sorry you were the tool I used for getting out of jail. OK, I enjoyed fooling you to start with, but as I got to know you, I stopped enjoying.’

‘Why didn’t you just try to convince me you were innocent?’

He laughed and gave her much the same answer as Doll Trapp.

‘How the hell could I do that when every protestation of innocence was just another symptom of denial in your eyes? Even if I’d succeeded, who was going to listen to you? The parole hearing would pay you the respect due to an expert if you told them I’d responded to treatment and was now fit to be turned loose. But tell them I was innocent and all they’d see was a dotty woman who’d been duped by a manipulative sociopath.’

She resisted the temptation to say that was a pretty good description of what had happened anyway, and replied, ‘OK. So the end of the exercise was to get out and look for evidence of how you were fitted up. And you got it from Medler. So why didn’t you go straight to the authorities and say, Have a listen to this?’

He laughed again.

‘Don’t be naïve, Elf,’ he said. ‘They don’t want me to be innocent any more than you did. Fine, they’ll look into it, but while they’re doing that, I’ll be back inside.’

‘But not for long, surely, once they hear your recording.’

‘You reckon? But how do I prove it really was Medler talking? Or that he wasn’t under duress? After all, the poor sod was found dead not long afterwards. There’d be plenty of people eager to point the finger at me. And there’s Ed to think of. I was supposed to be staying with him. The Law Society would be down on him like a ton of bricks for covering up for me. And if they managed to prove it was Ed and Doll that fixed me up with a fake passport, what do you imagine that would do to them?’

She didn’t speak for a while, just sat there regarding him steadily.

Then she nodded and said, ‘Good arguments. You’ve obviously thought it through. But I think that, even if none of them applied, you would still have found some equally convincing reasons for not taking that recording to the authorities and asking them to take another look at your conviction.’

He grew angry now, or perhaps, she thought, unconsciously echoing Hollins the day before, he was seeking refuge in anger.

‘Haven’t you learned anything about the way the world works?’ he demanded. ‘To find evidence to support what Medler alleged, they’d have to go after Estover and the Nutbrowns. Toby’s one of the smartest lawyers in the country. Pippa Nutbrown’s as slippery as a sackful of snakes. As for Johnny, following his thought processes is like trying to count bubbles in a champagne glass. And remember, they’d be outside crying foul! while I’d be sitting on my arse in a cell.’

‘Childs says he thinks he can help you get your name cleared officially.’

‘Does he? I shan’t hold my breath.’

‘I just meant, with him on your side, it seems to me there’s a real chance for justice to be done.’

‘He let me go down in the first place,’ said Hadda indifferently. ‘I always knew, if I wanted justice, I had to look for it my way.’

‘You call what’s happened to the Nutbrowns justice?’

His expression turned cold.

‘To be dragged out of your bed by a dawn raid, to lose everything you hold precious, oh yes, that sounds like justice to me.’

‘And Estover?’

‘I gather his professional reputation may take a bit of a nosedive, and if he seeks for consolation in the little pile of gold he’s got stashed away for a rainy day, he may be in for a big surprise. So, no reputation, no money. Now who does that remind me of? Of course I’m sorry to hear he’s going to lose his youthful good looks and may end up walking with a bit of a limp. Maybe we could get together and do a double act round the halls?’

This was going to be even harder than she’d anticipated.

She said, ‘So, an eye for an eye; that sounds a lot more like revenge to me than justice.’

‘Anything they get will be less than they deserve,’ he said dismissively.

‘Would you still have been able to say that if Estover had died? You knew that was the likely outcome if it hadn’t been for Childs’s intervention.’

He shrugged.

‘It may still be that Toby will come to regard that as the better alternative,’ he said. ‘As for JC, I’ll bottle my gratitude till I’ve got enough to make a grateful tear.’

‘I think that, despite everything, he’s helped you because he is fond of you.’

‘And the same for you, no doubt. But John’s god is Necessity, and that’s an idol carved out of granite. Try not to come between it and anything you value.’

‘He’s genuinely worried about what you intend to do next,’ she said.

‘He needn’t be. What’s the point of worrying about fate?’

‘He said you might be suffering from the delusion that you were the instrument of God. Wolf, believe me, if left too late, that’s a delusion whose dissipation you might find too hard to bear.’

Suddenly he relaxed and let out a hoot of laughter.

‘Jesus, Elf, we’re beginning to sound like two characters in an old-fashioned melodrama! What do you think’s going to happen? I’m not about to mount a rocket attack on Ulphingstone Castle or anything like that, believe me. I’ve got most of the revenge stuff out of my system now, honest. All I want’s a bit of peace and quiet so that I can watch the spring arrive.’

She wanted to believe him. She had a feeling he wanted to believe himself. But she’d had it drummed into her that the truly effective psychiatrist always gets the couch warm for the client. Or, put another way, the first job is to look deep into yourself and make sure you start with a clean sheet.

Sneck suddenly rose from the hearth and went to the door, growling deep in this throat.

Hadda rose too.

‘Excuse me,’ he said.

Motioning Sneck to heel, he pulled the door open, waited a moment, then slipped outside. Alva found herself once more comparing the smooth, slightly rolling movement caused by his ruined knee with the laboured limp she remembered from Parkleigh.

She too stood up and went to the door.

She saw him in the barn doorway standing by the Defender. He plucked a spill of paper tucked in behind the wipers, unfolded it and began to read. Sneck turned and looked at Alva. Not wanting Wolf to think she was spying on him, she retreated and was sitting at the table once more, nursing her coffee mug, when he came back in.

‘Problem?’ she said.

‘No,’ he said, tossing a screwed-up ball of paper towards the fire. ‘Might have been a deer. Sneck and me are both getting neurotic. We had a bit of trouble with reporters.’

‘Yes, Luke Hollins told me about the muck-spreader. He seemed to find it rather poetic.’

‘He’s a good lad,’ said Hadda, resuming his seat and picking up his mug. ‘Now, where were we?’

He was trying to sound the same as he did before, but something had changed.

She said, ‘You were telling me how content you were to relax in your own cosy little house, far away from the world’s troubles, just waiting for the daffodils and swallows to return with the spring.’

‘Was I? Sounds good to me. Why are you giving me that fish-eyed psychiatrist look?’

‘Because I don’t believe you,’ she said.

‘Hang about? Are you people allowed to call your patients liars?’

‘I’m not talking to you as a patient but as a friend,’ she said. ‘And here’s what I think. I think that everything you’ve done since you got out, all your clever planning and scheming, all your talk of justice and revenge, amounts to nothing more than delaying tactics. You don’t really give a damn about Estover and Nutbrown. You don’t give a damn about proving your innocence. The only thing that really matters to you is what you’re going to do about Imogen. And the truth is, you’ve no idea what to do, no idea what you want to do. But now, with everything else out of the way, the big moment’s getting near. So what’s it to be, Wolf? Have you made up your mind yet?’

For a moment she thought she’d stung him to an honest reply. Then he let out a rather histrionic sigh, shook his head ruefully and said, ‘There you go, Elf. Even when you’re talking as a friend, you can’t stop working out interesting little mental scenarios, can you? I always suspected that all this psycho-analysing stuff came down to storytelling in the end. You plot a little narrative to take everything in, make a few adjustments to let the action flow more smoothly, offer a couple of endings, one happy, one unhappy, then tell your client to make his choice, that’ll be a hundred guineas please. Well, I’m sorry, Elf. I’m no longer a character in your fairy tale. I’m very happy in my own.’

She said, ‘
Once upon a time I was living happily ever after.
Those were the first words you wrote for me, remember? You were a character in your own fairy tale, Wolf, not mine. In fact, you were two characters. The wolf and the woodcutter. Bit of a conflict there. Maybe it’s a good job that fairy tale’s over. No way can you ever get back into it. But you’re right. Even without paying a hundred guineas, you can still choose the ending.’

On the wall the old bracket clock struck the hour.

He stood up and said, ‘That time already? Damn. And I was so enjoying our fireside chat. But I’m afraid I’ve got to go. Us licensed cons aren’t masters of our lives, as I’m sure you know. I need to show my face at regular intervals, prove I’m still on the straight and narrow.’

‘You mean you’re driving to Carlisle to see your probation officer?’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘No need for you to rush off, sit here and finish your coffee. But don’t feel you’ve got to wash up! Will I see you again before you go back down to Manchester, or are you heading off straight away?’

She looked up at him and said, ‘I’m not sure.’

‘OK,’ he said, turning away to pluck his axe from where it stood in a corner. Then he turned to look at her, curiously indecisive. Finally he took a couple of steps forward till he was standing alongside her chair. She sat quite still, aware of the closeness of his body. And of his axe also.

He said, ‘I never felt I could do this while you thought I was guilty. And now you don’t, I’m finding all kinds of other reasons for being frightened of doing it. At this rate, I’ll never do it! So here goes.’

He stooped, put his right hand behind her head and pressed his face to hers in a kiss that went on so long she felt herself becoming breathless, but she made no effort to break contact.

Finally he pulled away.

‘For better or worse, that’s done,’ he said. ‘First kiss? Last kiss? Who can ever tell?’

He made for the door. Sneck rose from the hearth but subsided reluctantly as his master commanded, ‘Stay!’

Then he was gone. A moment later she heard the grating roar of the Defender. When that died away, the silence seemed like the silence of space.

She finished her coffee. She’d made it strong, the way she knew Hadda liked it, but far from being a stimulant, it seemed to act on her like an opiate. A strange lassitude stole over her limbs and she sat peering sightlessly and for the most part thoughtlessly into her empty mug. It was as if there were a problem she had to puzzle out, only it was so big her mind could not even begin to get to grips with it.

It was the wigwam of logs in the grate collapsing in a gentle sigh of heron-grey ash that roused her from her reverie.

She ran her tongue round her lips.

Better or worse? First or last?

Who can tell?’

She stood up to get some more logs from the basket. Sneck looked up at her hopefully. She said, ‘Sorry,’ and he returned his attention to something he was licking at between his paws. As she set the logs in the grate, she realized it was the piece of paper Hadda had balled up and thrown at the fire.

She tried to pick it up. The dog bared his teeth. She went to the kitchen cupboard and got a ginger biscuit. Sneck acknowledged this was fair exchange and let her retrieve the paper.

She smoothed it out on the kitchen table.

It was a handwritten note:

Is she a permanent fixture then? I think I’ll take a stroll to Pillar Rock. Who says I’m not sentimental?

She didn’t recognize the writing; she didn’t need to.

He wasn’t on his way to see his probation officer. She should have known that as soon as he took his axe from the corner. But the kiss had diverted her mind down other channels in search of its meaning.

One thing she was certain of: the kiss couldn’t mean whatever she wanted it to mean while his problems with Imogen remained unresolved.

And she doubted whether a true resolution were possible while the woman was alive. But if she died, and if Wolf was responsible, then the problem would remain frozen in time for ever, and Wolf would be completely beyond her reach, emotionally, mentally, and almost certainly physically too.

She had no idea what she could do, but she knew that the possibility of solution did not lie in the maze of her mind but out there somewhere on the cold fell tops.