Into the Water 18 страница

Julia was kind to me when I got home. She wasn’t faking, she was obviously glad that I was back, she was worried about me. She seemed to think that Mark had assaulted me, like she maybe thought he was some sort of pervert who couldn’t keep his hands off teenage girls. I’ll give him this: he was right about one thing – people don’t understand about him and K, they never will.

(There’s a tiny, twisted part of me that sort of wishes I believed in an afterlife, and that the two of them could pick up again there, and maybe things might be all right for them, and she’d be happy. As much as I hate him, I’d like to think that somehow Katie could be happy. )

When I felt clean, or at least as close to clean as I thought it was possible to get, I went to my room and sat on the window sill, because that’s where I do all my best thinking. I lit a cigarette and tried to figure out what I should do. I wanted to ask Mum, I wanted to ask her so badly, but I couldn’t think about that because I’d just start crying again, and what good would that be to her? I didn’t know whether to tell Julia what Mark had told me. Whether I could trust her to do the right thing.

Maybe. When I told Julia that Mum didn’t jump, I expected her to tell me that I was wrong or crazy or whatever, but she just accepted it. Without question. Like she knew already. Like she’d always known.

I don’t even know if the shit Mark told me is true, though it would be a pretty weird thing to make up. Why point the finger at Mrs Townsend, when there are more obvious people to blame? Like Louise, for example. But maybe he feels bad enough about the Whittakers, after what he’s done to them.

I don’t know whether he was lying or telling the truth, but either way he deserved what I said to him, what I did. He deserved everything he got.

Jules

WHEN LENA CAME back downstairs, her face and hands scrubbed clean, she sat at the kitchen table and ate, ravenously. Afterwards, when she smiled and said thank you, I shivered, because now that I have seen it, I can’t un-see it. She has her father’s smile.

(What else, I wondered, does she have of his? )

‘What’s wrong? ’ Lena asked suddenly. ‘You’re staring at me. ’

‘I’m sorry, ’ I said, my face reddening. ‘I’m just … I’m glad you’re home. I’m glad you’re safe. ’

‘Me too. ’

I hesitated a moment before going on. ‘I know you’re tired, but I need to ask you, Lena, about what happened today. About the bracelet. ’

She turned her face from me towards the window. ‘Yeah. I know. ’

‘Mark had it? ’ She nodded again. ‘And you took it from him? ’

She sighed. ‘He gave it to me. ’

‘Why did he give it to you? Why did he have it in the first place? ’

‘I don’t know. ’ She turned her head back to face me, her eyes blank, shuttered. ‘He told me he found it. ’

‘He found it? Where? ’ She didn’t answer. ‘Lena, we need to go to the police about this, we need to tell them. ’

She got to her feet and took her plate over to the sink. Her back to me, she said, ‘We made a deal. ’

‘A deal? ’

‘That he would give me Mum’s bracelet and let me go home, ’ she said, ‘so long as I told the police that I’d lied about him and Katie. ’ Her voice was incongruously light as she busied herself with the dishes.

‘And he believed you would do that? ’ She raised her skinny shoulders to her ears. ‘Lena. Tell me the truth. Do you think … do you believe Mark Henderson was the one who killed your mum? ’

She turned around and looked at me. ‘I’m telling the truth. And I don’t know. He told me he took it from Mrs Townsend’s office. ’

‘Helen Townsend? ’ Lena nodded. ‘Sean’s wife? Your head teacher? But why would she have the bracelet? I don’t understand …’

‘Neither do I, ’ she said quietly. ‘Not really. ’

I made tea and we sat together at the kitchen table, sipping our drinks in silence. I held Nel’s bracelet in my hand. Lena sat loose-limbed, her head bowed, visibly sagging in front of me. I reached out and grazed her fingers with my own.

‘You’re exhausted, ’ I said. ‘You should go to bed. ’

She nodded, looking up at me with hooded eyes. ‘Will you come up with me, please? I don’t want to be by myself. ’

I followed her up the stairs and into your room, not her own. She clambered on to your bed and lay her head on the pillow, patting the space next to her.

‘When we first moved here, ’ she said, ‘I couldn’t sleep by myself. ’

‘All the noises? ’ I asked, clambering up next to her and covering us with your coat.

She nodded. ‘All the creaking and the moaning …’

‘And all your mother’s scary stories? ’

‘Exactly. I used to come in here and sleep next to Mum all the time. ’

There was a lump in my throat, a pebble. I couldn’t swallow. ‘I used to do that with my mum, too. ’

She fell asleep. I stayed at her side, looking down at her face, which in repose was yours exactly. I wanted to touch her, to stroke her hair, to do something motherly, but I didn’t want to wake her, or alarm her, or do something wrong. I have no idea how to be a mother. I’ve never taken care of a child in my entire life. I wished that you would speak, that you would tell me what to do, what to feel. As she lay beside me, I think I did feel tenderness, but I felt it for you, and for our mother, and the second her green eyes flicked open and fixed on mine, I shivered.

‘Why are you always watching me like that? ’ she whispered, half smiling. ‘It’s really weird. ’

‘I’m sorry, ’ I said, and rolled on to my back.

She slipped her fingers between mine. ‘It’s OK, ’ she said. ‘Weird’s OK. Weird can be good. ’

We lay there, side by side, our fingers interlaced. I listened to her breathing slow, then quicken, and then slow once again.

‘You know, what I don’t understand, ’ she whispered, ‘is why you hated her so much. ’

‘I didn’t …’

‘She didn’t understand either. ’

‘I know, ’ I said. ‘I know she didn’t. ’

‘You’re crying, ’ she whispered, reaching over to touch my face. She brushed the tears from my cheek.

I told her. All the things I should have told you, I told them to your daughter instead. I told her how I’d let you down, how I’d believed the worst of you, how I’d allowed myself to blame you.

‘But why didn’t you just tell her? Why didn’t you tell her what really happened? ’

‘It was complicated, ’ I said, and I felt her stiffen beside me.

‘Complicated how? How complicated could it be? ’

‘Our mother was dying. Our parents were in a terrible way and I didn’t want to do anything to make it worse. ’

‘But … but he raped you, ’ she said. ‘He should have gone to prison. ’

‘I didn’t see it that way. I was very young. I was younger than you are, and I don’t just mean in years, although I was that, too. But I was naive, completely inexperienced, I was clueless. We didn’t talk about consent in the way you girls do now. I thought …’

‘You thought what he did was OK? ’

‘No, but I don’t think I saw it for what it was. What it really was. I thought rape was something a bad man did to you, a man who jumped out at you in an alleyway in the dead of night, a man who held a knife to your throat. I didn’t think boys did it. Not schoolboys like Robbie, not good-looking boys, the ones who go out with the prettiest girl in town. I didn’t think they did it to you in your own living room, I didn’t think they talked to you about it afterwards, and asked you if you’d had a good time. I just thought I must have done something wrong, that I hadn’t made it clear enough that I didn’t want it. ’

Lena was silent for a while, but when she spoke again her voice was higher, more insistent. ‘OK, maybe you didn’t want to say anything at the time, but what about later? Why didn’t you explain it to her later on? ’

‘Because I misunderstood her, ’ I said. ‘I misjudged her completely. I thought that she knew what had happened that night. ’

‘You thought that she knew and did nothing? How could you think that of her? ’

How could I explain that? That I pieced together your words – the words you said to me that night and the words you said to me later, Wasn’t there some part of you that liked it? – and I told myself a story about you that made sense to me, that allowed me to get on with my life without ever having to face what really happened.

‘I thought that she chose to protect him, ’ I whispered. ‘I thought she chose him over me. I couldn’t blame him, because I couldn’t even think about him. If I’d have blamed him and thought about him, I’d have made it real. So I just … I thought about Nel instead. ’

Lena’s voice grew cold. ‘I don’t understand you. I don’t understand people like you, who always choose to blame the woman. If there’s two people doing something wrong and one of them’s a girl, it’s got to be her fault, right? ’

‘No, Lena, it’s not like that, it isn’t—’

‘Yes, it is. It’s like when someone has an affair, why does the wife always hate the other woman? Why doesn’t she hate her husband? He’s the one who’s betrayed her, he’s the one who swore to love her and keep her and whatever for ever and ever. Why isn’t he the one who gets shoved off a fucking cliff? ’

TUESDAY, 25 AUGUST

Erin

I LEFT THE cottage early, running upriver. I wanted to get away from Beckford, to clear my head, but though the air had been rinsed clean by rain and the sky was a perfect, pale blue, the fog in my head got darker, murkier. Nothing about this place makes sense.

By the time Sean and I left Jules and Lena at the Mill House yesterday, I’d worked myself up into a total state, and I was so pissed off at him I just came out with it, right there in the car. ‘What exactly was going on with you and Nel Abbott? ’

He slammed his foot on the brake so hard I thought I’d go through the windscreen. We’d stopped in the middle of the lane, but Sean didn’t seem to care. ‘What did you say? ’

‘Do you want to pull over? ’ I asked, checking the rear-view mirror, but he didn’t. I felt like an idiot for blurting it out like that, not leading up to it, not testing the water at all.

‘Are you questioning my integrity? ’ There was a look on his face I hadn’t seen before, a hardness I hadn’t yet come up against. ‘Well? Are you? ’

‘It was suggested to me, ’ I said, keeping my voice even, ‘hinted at …’

‘Hinted? ’ He sounded incredulous. A car behind us hooted and Sean put his foot back on the accelerator. ‘Someone hinted at something, did they? And you thought it would be appropriate to question me about it? ’

‘Sean, I—’

We’d reached the car park outside the church. He pulled over, leaned across me and opened the passenger door. ‘Have you seen my service record, Erin? ’ he asked. ‘Because I’ve seen yours. ’

‘Sir, I didn’t mean to offend you, but—’

‘Get out of the car. ’

I barely had time to close the door behind me before he accelerated away.

I was out of puff by the time I’d climbed the hill north of the cottage; I stopped at the summit for a breather. It was still early – barely seven o’clock – the entire valley was mine. Perfectly, peacefully mine. I stretched out my legs and prepared myself for the descent. I felt I needed to sprint, to fly, to exhaust myself. Wasn’t that the way to find clarity?

Sean had reacted like a guilty man. Or like an offended man. A man who thought his integrity was being questioned without evidence. I picked up the pace. When he’d sneered at me about our respective records, he had a point. His is impeccable; I narrowly avoided getting sacked for sleeping with a younger colleague. I was sprinting now, going hell for leather down the hill, my eyes trained on the path, the gorse at the side of my vision a blur. He has an impressive arrest record, he is highly respected amongst his colleagues. He is, as Louise said, a good man. My right foot caught on a rock in the path and I went flying. I lay in the dust, fighting for breath, the wind knocked clean out of me. Sean Townsend is a good man.

There are a lot of them about. My father was a good man. He was a respected officer. Didn’t stop him beating the shit out of me and my brothers when he lost his temper, but still. When my mother complained to one of his colleagues after he broke my youngest brother’s nose, his colleague said, ‘There’s a thin blue line, love, and I’m afraid you just don’t cross it. ’

I hauled myself up, dusting the dirt off me. I could say nothing. I could stay on the right side of the thin blue line, I could ignore Louise’s hints and intimations, I could ignore Sean’s possible personal connection to Nel Abbott. But if I did that, I’d be ignoring the fact that where there is sex, there is motive. He had a motive to get rid of Nel, and his wife did, too. I thought about her face the day I spoke to her at the school, the way she spoke about Nel, about Lena. What was it she despised? Her insistent, tiresome expression of sexual availability?

I reached the bottom of the slope and skirted around the gorse; the cottage was just a couple of hundred yards away and I could see that there was someone outside. A figure, stout and stooped, in a dark coat. Not Patrick and not Sean. As I got closer, I realized it was the old goth, the psychic, mad-as-a-hatter Nickie Sage.

She was leaning against the wall of the cottage, her face puce. She looked like she might be on the verge of a heart attack.

‘Mrs Sage! ’ I called out. ‘Are you all right? ’

She looked up at me, breathing heavily, and pushed her floppy velvet hat further up her brow. ‘I’m fine, ’ she said, ‘although it’s been a while since I’ve walked this far. ’ She looked me up and down. ‘You look like you’ve been playing in the muck. ’

‘Oh, yes, ’ I said, doing an ineffectual job of brushing the remaining dirt off me. ‘Had a bit of a tumble. ’ She nodded. As she straightened up I could hear the wheeze as she breathed. ‘Would you like to come in and sit down? ’

‘In there? ’ She jerked her head back towards the cottage. ‘Not likely. ’ She took a few steps away from the front door. ‘Do you know what happened in there? Do you know what Anne Ward did? ’

‘She murdered her husband, ’ I replied. ‘And then she drowned herself, just out there in the river. ’

Nickie shrugged, waddling off towards the river bank. I followed her. ‘More of an exorcism than a murder, if you ask me. She was getting rid of whatever evil spirit had taken hold of that man. It left him, but it didn’t leave that place, did it? You have trouble sleeping there? ’

‘Well, I …’

‘Not surprised. Not surprised at all. I could have told you that – not that you’d have listened. The place is full of evil. Why do you think Townsend keeps it as his own, looks after it like it’s his special place? ’

‘I’ve no idea, ’ I said. ‘I thought he used it as a fishing cabin. ’

‘Fishing! ’ she exclaimed, as though she’d never heard anything quite so ridiculous in her entire life. ‘Fishing! ’

‘Well, I have actually seen him out here fishing, so …’

Nickie harrumphed, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. We were at the water’s edge. Toe to heel and heel to toe, Nickie was working her swollen, mottled feet out of her slip-on shoes. She put a toe in the water and gave a satisfied chuckle. ‘The water’s cold up here, isn’t it? Clean. ’ Standing ankle-deep in the river, she asked, ‘Have you been to see him? Townsend? Have you asked him about his wife? ’

‘You mean Helen? ’

She turned to look at me, her expression contemptuous. ‘Sean’s wife? That Helen, with her face like a slapped arse? What’s she got to do with anything? She’s about as interesting as paint drying on a damp day. No, the one you should be interested in is Patrick’s wife. Lauren. ’

‘Lauren? Lauren who died thirty years ago? ’

‘Yes, Lauren who died thirty years ago! You think the dead don’t matter? You think the dead don’t speak? You should hear the things they have to say. ’ She shuffled a little further into the river, bending down to soak her hands. ‘This is it, this is where Annie came to wash her hands, just like this, see, only she kept going …’

I was losing interest. ‘I need to go, Nickie, I need to take a shower and get on with some work. It was good talking to you, ’ I said, turning to leave her. I was halfway back to the cottage when I heard her call out.

‘You think the dead don’t speak? You should listen, you might hear something. It’s Lauren you’re looking for, she’s the one who started all this! ’

I left her at the river. My plan was to get to Sean early; I thought if I showed up at his place, picked him up and drove him to the station, I’d have him captive for at least fifteen minutes. He wouldn’t be able to get away from me or throw me out of the car. It was better than confronting him at the station, where there would be other people around.

It’s not far from the cottage to the Townsends’ place. Along the river it’s probably about three miles, but there’s no direct road, you have to drive all the way into the town and then back out again, so it was after eight a. m. by the time I got there. I was too late. There were no cars in the courtyard – he’d already left. The sensible thing, I knew, would be to turn the car around and head for the office, but I had Nickie’s voice in my head and Louise’s, too, and I thought I’d just see, on the off chance, whether Helen was around.

She wasn’t. I knocked on the door a few times and there was no reply. I was heading back to my car when I thought I might as well try Patrick Townsend’s place next door. No answer there either. I peered through the front window but couldn’t see much, just a dark and seemingly empty room. I went back to the front door and knocked again. Nothing. But when I tried the handle, the door swung open, and that seemed as good as an invitation.

‘Hello? ’ I called out. ‘Mr Townsend? Hello? ’ There was no answer. I walked into the living room, a spartan space with dark wooden floors and bare walls; the only concession to decoration was a selection of framed photographs on the mantelpiece. Patrick Townsend in uniform – first army, then police – and a number of pictures of Sean as a child and then a teenager, smiling stiffly at the camera, the same pose and the same expression in each one. There was a photograph of Sean and Helen on their wedding day, too, standing in front of the church in Beckford. Sean looked young, handsome and unhappy. Helen looked much the same as she does today – a bit thinner, perhaps. She looked happier, though, smiling shyly at the camera in spite of her ugly dress.

Over on a wooden sideboard in front of the window was another set of frames, these ones containing certificates, commendations, qualifications, a monument to the achievements of father and son. There were no pictures, as far as I could see, of Sean’s mother.

I left the living room and called out again. ‘Mr Townsend? ’ My voice echoed back to me in the hallway. The whole place felt abandoned, and yet it was spotlessly clean, not a speck of dust on the skirting boards or the bannister. I walked up the stairs and on to the landing. There were two bedrooms there, side by side, as sparsely furnished as the living room downstairs, but lived in. Both of them, by the looks of things. In the main bedroom, with its large window looking down the valley to the river, were Patrick’s things: polished black shoes by the wall, his suits hanging in the wardrobe. Next door, beside a neatly made single bed, was a chair with a suit jacket hanging over it, which I recognized as the one Helen wore when I interviewed her at the school. And in the wardrobe were more of her clothes, black and grey and navy and shapeless.

My phone beeped, deafeningly loud in the funeral-parlour silence of that house. I had a voicemail, a missed call. It was Jules. ‘DS Morgan, ’ she was saying, her voice solemn, ‘I need to talk to you. It’s quite urgent. I’m coming in to see you. I … er … I need to talk to you alone. I’ll see you at the station. ’

I slipped the phone back into my pocket. I went back into Patrick’s room and took another quick look around, at the books on the shelves, in the drawer next to the bed. There were photographs in there, too, old ones, of Sean and Helen together, fishing at the river near the cottage, Sean and Helen leaning proudly against a new car, Helen standing in front of the school, looking at once happy and embarrassed, Helen out in the courtyard, cradling a cat in her arms, Helen, Helen, Helen.

I heard a noise, a click, the sound of a latch lifting and then a creak of floorboards. I put the photographs back hastily and shut the drawer, then moved as quietly as I could out on to the landing. Then I froze. Helen was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me. She had a paring knife in her left hand and was gripping its blade so tightly that blood was dripping on to the floor.

Helen

HELEN HAD NO idea why Erin Morgan was wandering about Patrick’s house as though she owned it, but for the moment she was more concerned with the blood on the floor. Patrick liked a clean house. She fetched a cloth from the kitchen and began to wipe it up, only for more to spill from the deep cut across her palm.

‘I was chopping onions, ’ she said to the detective by way of an explanation. ‘You startled me. ’

This wasn’t exactly true, because she’d stopped chopping onions when she’d seen the car pull up. With the knife in her hand she’d stood stock-still while Erin knocked, and then had watched her wander over to Patrick’s place. She knew that he was out, so she’d assumed the detective would just leave. But then she remembered that when she’d left that morning, she hadn’t locked the front door. So, knife still in hand, she walked across the courtyard to check.

‘It’s quite deep, ’ Erin said. ‘You need to clean and bandage that properly. ’ Erin had come downstairs and was standing over Helen, watching her wipe the floor. Standing there in Patrick’s house as though she had every right to be there.

‘He’ll be livid if he sees this, ’ Helen said. ‘He likes a clean house. Always has. ’

‘And you … keep house for him, do you? ’

Helen gave Erin a sharp look. ‘I help out. He does most things himself, but he’s getting on. And he likes things to be just so. His late wife, ’ she said, looking up at Erin, ‘was a slattern. His word. An old-fashioned word. You’re not allowed to say slut any longer, are you? It’s politically incorrect. ’

She stood up, facing Erin, holding the bloody cloth in front of her. The pain in her hand felt hot and bright, like a burn almost, with the same cauterizing effect. She was no longer sure who to be afraid of, or what exactly to feel guilty for, but she felt that she ought to keep Erin here, to find out what she wanted. To detain her for a while, hopefully until Patrick got back, because she was sure that he’d want to talk to her.

Helen wiped the knife handle with the cloth. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Detective? ’ she asked.

‘Lovely, ’ Erin replied, her cheery smile fading as she watched Helen lock the front door and slip the key into her pocket before continuing on into the kitchen.

‘Mrs Townsend—’ Erin started.

‘Do you take sugar? ’ Helen interrupted.

The way to deal with situations like this was to throw the other person off their game. Helen knew this from years of public-sector politics. Don’t do what people expect you to do, it puts them on the back foot right away and, if nothing else, it buys you time. So instead of being angry, outraged that this woman had come into their home without permission, Helen was polite.

‘Have you found him? ’ she asked Erin as she handed her the mug of tea. ‘Mark Henderson? Has he turned up yet? ’

‘No, ’ Erin replied, ‘not yet. ’

‘His car left on the cliff and no sign of him anywhere. ’ She sighed. ‘A suicide can be an admission of guilt, can’t it? It’s certainly going to look that way. What a mess. ’ Erin nodded. She was nervous, Helen could tell, she kept glancing back at the door, fiddling around in her pocket. ‘It’ll be terrible for the school, for our reputation. The reputation of this entire place, tarnished again …’

‘Is that why you disliked Nel Abbott so much? ’ Erin asked. ‘Because she tarnished the reputation of Beckford with her work? ’

Helen frowned. ‘Well, it’s one of the reasons. She was a bad parent, as I told you, she was disrespectful to me and to the traditions and rules of the school. ’

‘Was she a slut? ’ Erin asked.

Helen laughed in surprise. ‘I beg your pardon? ’

‘I was just wondering if, to use your politically incorrect term, you thought Nel Abbott was a slut? I’ve heard she had affairs with some of the men in town …’

‘I don’t know anything about that, ’ Helen said, but her face was hot and she felt that she had lost the upper hand. She got to her feet, crossed over to the counter and retrieved her paring knife. Standing at the sink, she washed her blood from its blade.

‘I don’t profess to know anything about Nel Abbott’s private life, ’ she said quietly. She could feel the detective’s eyes on her, watching her face, her hands. She could feel her blush spread to her neck, to her chest, her body betraying her. She tried to keep her voice light. ‘Though I’d hardly be surprised if she were promiscuous. She was an attention-seeker. ’

She wanted this conversation to end. She wanted the detective to leave their home, she wanted Sean to be there, and Patrick. She had an urge to lay everything on the table, to confess to her own sins and demand they confess to theirs. Mistakes had been made, admittedly, but the Townsends were a good family. They were good people. They had nothing to fear. She turned to face the detective, her chin raised and with as haughty an expression as she could muster, but her hands were trembling so badly she thought she might drop the knife. Surely she had nothing to fear?

Jules

I LEFT LENA tucked up in her mother’s bed in the morning, still sound asleep. I wrote her a note, saying I’d meet her at the police station at eleven for her to give her statement. There were things I needed to do first, conversations best had between adults. I had to think like a parent now, like a mother. I had to protect her, to keep her from any further harm.

I drove to the station, stopping halfway to ring Erin to warn her I’d be coming in. I wanted to make sure that it was Erin I spoke to, and I had to make sure that we could speak alone.

‘Why isn’t he the one who gets shoved off a fucking cliff? ’ Lena had been talking about Sean Townsend last night. It had all come out, how Sean had fallen in love with Nel and – Lena thought – Nel a bit in love with Sean. It had ended a while back – Nel had said things had ‘run their course’, although Lena didn’t quite believe her. In any case, Helen must have found out, she must have taken revenge. Then it was my turn to be outraged: why hadn’t Lena said anything before? He was in charge of the investigation into Nel’s death, it was completely inappropriate.

‘He loved her, ’ Lena said. ‘Doesn’t that make him a good person, that he tried to find out what happened to her? ’

‘But Lena, don’t you see …? ’

‘He’s a good person, Julia. How could I say anything? It would have got him into trouble, and he doesn’t deserve that. He’s a good man. ’

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