Trial by Fire (23 page)

What a waste.

The previous owners had made an effort, left him with a format. It was a tiny garden: small patio from the kitchen, twenty feet of lawn bisected by path, shrubs standing like soldiers against each fence, a miniature shed, and a patented compost thing looking like a large and ungainly dustbin. She raked the overgrown lawn and the scrubby beds free of leaves. She had carried her rake here for the purpose. Why had he never bought one of his own? Sweeping up leaves awkwardly, putting them in the compost bin with disgust.

That was where he had put the dead woman's clothes and handbag —sorry, someone else had put her clothes and handbag there. That was what Christine was supposed to believe and couldn't any longer. Strangely, that piece of evidence had failed to register with her at all until she had heard it read out loud, hadn't thought of it until it slapped her in the face. Now she did, and she was suddenly arrested by its incongruity with everything she knew of him.

That he would strike the woman, yes. Take her money and jewellery, no. Put the remnants here, no: he simply wasn't materialistic enough.

The gate at the side of the cottage clicked. Full of sinister thoughts, she turned in alarm, faced Bailey, dear Superintendent Bailey, the bastard, standing in his workday suit, beginning to speak. She stood up like a lioness in a cage, snapped in a voice that was all teeth,

'What do you want?'

`Nothing specific. Passing, and saw your car.'

She was angry, turned back abruptly, and began attacking the leaves, which floated from control, presenting her behind conspicuously, determined to ignore him. He simply fell in, grasping piles of damp leaves with skill and efficiency, shoving them into the compost bin, pressing them down, going back for more, quietly ignoring the effect on his suit and hands.

They worked in silence for fifteen minutes, clearing the leaves with speed, she found herself oddly mollified, disliking his presence less and less. She even felt the beginnings of a faint amusement, glad of the company. 'All right,' she said finally, flinging down the rake.

'You win. Now, what was it you really wanted?'

She sat on the single dirty patio chair. He sat on the wall next to it.

Ì was wondering,' he said mildly, as if the conversation was the most natural in the world and this was the middle of it. 'Looking at this garden, I was wondering how Antony ever knew where the compost bin was. Or that he had one at all. Surprising. Not a keen gardener, I take it.'

`No, ' she agreed curtly, suddenly reminded of the incongruity that had struck her before he arrived. 'He usually forgot he had a garden. Didn't really recognize its existence.'

Ì see.'

He did see, she thought; he saw what others had failed to see. He was all nerves and nerve, a complicated man, looking for something. In one fleeting instance she could imagine what Helen had found in him.

`Did you like him?' she asked gruffly. 'Antony, I mean.'

Ì didn't — don't know him well enough to say. I do try to distance myself from suspects, murder suspects particularly, because I hate, loathe, and detest violence. I find it difficult to take the rest seriously, but violence sickens me.'

`That means you don't like him.'

Ìt means I don't dislike him too much. I can't afford to.' His eyes strayed to the compost bin. 'But I don't see him as a thief. I wonder if I could look at his desk, even though we've looked at it before. I don't want to remove anything. Simply look.'

`For the investigation or for your conscience?'

He laughed. 'Helen's my conscience.'

`You've got a bloody cheek asking, but yes, you can. I doubt he would have allowed it, but I shall.'

Sun shone directly on her face, exposing the lines of worry and grief, making her look older and harsher than her years. The suggestion in his words of the case being incomplete did not bring a glimmer of hope as it might have done even days since; it created no bloom of excitement in her very pale cheeks.

`How's Helen?' Faintly polite and dim memory of manners, but a blank face.

His brow furrowed into lines. 'While quite understanding why you avoid her, she misses you greatly. She finds it very difficult to live with a policeman, I think.'

Òh.'

It provided a strange relief, hearing about the difficulties of other couples; it was oddly comforting. Christine wished Helen no ill, could not contemplate that, but all the same she would not have rejoiced in her happiness. This phase of her life would pass, she hoped, but at the moment the transparent contentment of others made her feel faintly sick.

`May I look, then? Do you want to come with me?'

`No, I'll trust you. Can't quite understand what you're doing, though.'

`Listen,' he said, standing above her like a slender and gentle giant. 'I may not like Antony, but I don't want him convicted of something he may not have done. Helen's always thought I didn't look far enough, doesn't realize that I never stop looking in my own way. If I find anything helpful to his defence, I'll tell them. I always do.'

Òh save your energy. He did it all right.'

`Do you really think so?'

`Yes, I do. Look, what's the point? Don't pussyfoot around here piling on the agony.

Oh, shit. What I really mean is that whether he did it or not, whatever the verdict whenever it happens, it'll all come too late for me. I can't even apologize for sounding so selfish, but that's what I think. I can't even think of him. It's too late for us.'

`Perhaps not,' said Bailey, well used to the aftermath, the grateful media-blessed reunions of the acquitted and their families with whom they would never again live in peace.

He was using tones of brisk optimism, a voice she recognized: nurse addressing the patient.

'Supposing he was acquitted. He'd get back his job, hasn't lost it yet; he'd come home. Life would go on as before.'

`No, ' said Christine. 'Don't give me that shit. No, life wouldn't go on and couldn't.

You know that very well. And you don't have to answer.' She spoke quietly, turning her face away from the sun as if ashamed of its resignation. 'Now bugger off and look at his desk. I've put the correspondence in piles. There are some letters from a schoolgirl that are particularly entertaining. They were of no interest to the others who looked. See yourself out.'

Bailey knew better than to repeat his platitudes, knew when and where he simply could not help, departed indoors for his unofficial exploration, his patient retracing of all the tracks he had delegated to Amanda Scott. Leaving Christine trying to erase from her eyes the relief of tears, looking at the garden denuded of all the early autumn leaves, feeling older than winter and already bereaved. She was right; she knew she was right. What was it she had said to him? `Whatever the verdict.' The great big irrelevant verdict. Mrs Blundell had won after all.

Helen had yanked herself into daylight, redeemed into humanity by Bailey's kind but speechless provision of coffee, the rest of her stiff and immune from touching. Get in car, go to office, court this p.m., home early given a single chance to duck, more sleep if possible.

Anger and pain were dissoluble in sleep, especially an insufficient, dream-filled sleep like hers. Her normal good nature reasserted itself and gave her enough cheerful self-control to reach her desk without hitting anyone en route. 'See Mr Redwood' — a note falling on to the blotter, which was covered with telephone numbers and shopping lists, slipping out of an in-tray the size of a house end. If yesterday had been the proper cue for an easy day today, someone somewhere had forgotten the lines.

Red Squirrel was suspiciously bright and know-all. Àh, Helen. Tried to get you yesterday, but you were off.'

`You're dead right I was, in all senses. But I did buy a coat,' she added irrelevantly. The coat continued to comfort. He looked puzzled.

`Little matter, Helen, of the Sumner proceedings. Why were you there? You were supposed to be in the office.'

Àh, yes. Well, I wasn't; I was at the proceedings. I did the office work first, of course. Why was I there? Curiosity. It's also good for me to see an expert like you at work.' He would miss the irony and take the compliment; she knew he would. 'I asked Harmoner if he would object if I watched; he didn't, so I did.'

The pace of this left him slightly disconcerted. He cleared his narrow throat.

`Detective Sergeant Scott says she thinks she saw you with Evelyn Blundell at the back. She thought you arrived and left together.' Questions and accusations hung in the air. 'I rather had the impression she must have been mistaken about the arrival. Others saw the departure.'

Èvelyn came in after me. I hauled her out. I knew her by sight and thought she had no business there. That's all.' Helen was sick of this explanation and could have done serious bodily harm to Amanda Scott. She was relieved and grateful to see Redwood nod his acceptance of her explanation.

Ì rather assumed something of the kind. You're rather too headstrong, Helen, but not lacking in wisdom.'

`You believe me, then?'

He looked surprised. 'Of course I do.' The fairness was reluctant, accompanied by another clearing of the throat. 'Whatever else I think of you, I've never known you to be other than professional. You might be rash sometimes, but you do have judgement. Of course I believe you.'

Which is more, Helen thought sadly, than dearest Bailey bothered to do. He didn't give me the benefit of the doubt, didn't make a single check before doubting my judgement, did he? But then, how could he? Whatever the verdict, patience and understanding had played no part in it. She listened politely to the guinea pig delivering a lecture.

`Miss West, you should not have been in court, should not have abused office time.

Keep your nose out of other people's cases, do you hear?' This was not entirely sincere, since he was beginning to wish he had never interfered and had left her to it. The Sumner case weighed on him and he wanted help, but he could not concede out loud that she was the best person to give it, so he lectured her instead.

Helen, on the other hand, felt entirely disinclined to confess her extramural activities which had resulted in knowledge of the dual entanglements of Featherstone and Blundell. Nor did she wish to reveal her own frightening suspicions. Let Redwood speak directly or not at all. He had his case and his corpse and was going to run with it. Funny, seen like that: she could imagine him lugging a corpse across a courtroom floor. Her mind had slipped long before the end of the lecture and only shifted gear when the hectoring tone, mercifully mild, moved back into the conversational and she noticed the subtle way he had of soliciting opinions. She decided he had left it too late.

Ànyway, the committal went well,' he said. 'Very efficiently run. Sergeant Scott must be a great asset. I can see why Bailey was able to leave her to it.'

`Yes,' Helen said vaguely, not tuned in to praise for such a little telltale, still perturbed by the way. Bailey appeared to have listened to her. 'Well, I'm glad everything's fine. Miss Scott's obviously the flavour of the month.'

Redwood disliked her quiescence, her equanimity in face of speeches from the throne, and the absence of anything suggesting co-operation or even acceptance of what had been his own version of an apology. He wanted to shake her, undermine that unnerving composure.

`Yes,' he said, rising to finish the interview. 'A highly successful case so far, but keep away from it. It's not yours.' He moved by instinct into a heavy teasing vein. 'Bailey owes a lot to Amanda Scott. Attractive girl. I should look to your laurels, there, Helen.' Playfully delivered words, like a punch in the arm, a kind of revenge.

Ìf you mean by my laurels my own superintendent,' Helen replied, returning the smile with saccharine, 'she can wear him around her head for all I care.'

Òh. Right, then.'

And that was all she needed in order to ignore the rest of what he had said. For the remainder of the day she only recalled the last bit. She needed, she decided, a full frontal lobotomy, a new job, and a long holiday. And all she had was a new coat, While he, dear he, had brand-new Amanda Scott. Well, so be it. He was welcome to her. Jealousy was beneath Helen. Her instincts told her simply to give up.

Evelyn was profoundly suspicious of her father's cheerfulness. Only that morning he had suffered an attack of meanness, going on about housekeeping and other mundane activities, chuntering through a lecture on the cost of living, but now the desk in the back of his office was littered with brochures, each featuring on its cover people smiling in bikinis and swimming trunks of indecent size, bikinis to the fore, each couple in Evelyn's eyes as identical as grains of sand on which they sat. 'I was thinking,' said her father, 'of going on holiday.' Evelyn, fairly slow today, had gathered that much. He was looking at her with questioning anxiety. 'Somewhere exotic.

There's no trade here at the moment . . . well, not much. I want to leave all this unpleasantness behind. I need sun, sea, sand, all that. You've wanted to travel since you were ten, you always said you did. You'd like a holiday, wouldn't you, Evelyn?'

In another age, when she had still asked for things, before she gave up asking, when there was less to do, yes. 'When?' she asked with visible alarm.

Òh, as soon as possible. Travel agent can get us a discount. In a day or two? Next week, maybe?'

`No, ' she said loudly.

He looked at her dumbfounded. There he was in a sudden effluxion of energy, and yes, a touch of guilt, planning treats for a daughter and a suntan for himself to take away some of the years he would need to subtract before grappling with one Amanda Scott, and darling child said
non
with all the defiance of a General de Gaulle. 'Why?' he asked stupidly.

`School starts next week.'

`But you've spent all summer gummed up with books, haven't you? Never let up for a single evening, ever since Mummy . . . left. Missing a week's school won't matter, surely?'

`Yes, it will.'

Òh, Evelyn, please.'

Oh, shit and blast and bloody hell. Tears again, lurking in his eyes. More therapy indicated.