Читать книгу A Violent End - Emma Page - Страница 8

Ten minutes past seven on Saturday morning, not yet day­light. Sounds began to penetrate Christine Wilmot’s sleep: the rattle of a wheelbarrow, footsteps on gravel. She stirred and rolled over, glanced across at the other bed. It was empty, the covers thrown back.

She switched on the bedside lamp and looked at the clock. After a moment or two she got slowly out of bed, yawning. She put on her slippers and housecoat and went over to the window.

She drew back the flowered curtains. The morning was quiet and still after yesterday evening’s wind and rain. Along the skyline lay a band of deep grey cloud, shading into silvery grey above; frail streaks of carmine rayed out over the horizon.

Down below, light streamed out over the garden from the kitchen window. The evening’s stormy lashings had stripped leaves from trees, the last scarlet and yellow roses from the bushes, flattening dahlias in the beds, golden rod along the borders.

Ian was busy dealing with the havoc. He turned his head and saw her standing at the window, raised a hand in salutation and resumed his task.

Christine left the window and crossed to the dressing table, peered at her face in the glass, ran a comb through her hair. She went slowly downstairs and made a start on the breakfast. She always cooked a substantial fry-up on Saturday morning. However busy the day might be, Satur­day always retained something of a holiday air, a hangover from childhood schooldays. And there was time to enjoy and digest a good breakfast. Christine never shopped on Saturdays when the stores were crowded; she got all that out of the way on Thursday morning before her own busy time began. On Saturdays she drove out around the hamlets and villages to the north of Overmead, a prosperous rural area where she had by now built up a highly satisfactory trade.

The kitchen was warm from the heat of the all-night stove. She put the coffee on to percolate, took bacon and sausages from the fridge. She heard Ian come in through the back door a few minutes later as she was rinsing mushrooms and tomatoes under the tap. Ian went into the utility room, coming through into the kitchen a little later when she was back at the cooker again.

‘You’re an early bird,’ she greeted him. ‘How long have you been up? I never heard you.’

He didn’t answer her question. ‘I tried not to wake you. I didn’t sleep too well, I had a touch of indigestion. I went along with some of the committee last night, after the meeting. We went to the chairman’s house, his wife had laid on some refreshments. I thought I might as well get up and get going, instead of lying in bed, tossing and turning.’ He gestured out at the garden. ‘Plenty to be done after the storm.’

She stirred the contents of the frying-pan. ‘Do you want fried bread with your breakfast?’

He made a grimace. ‘No, thank you.’

‘Too much booze last night?’ No edge of censure in her tone.

‘No, very little booze, as a matter of fact.’ And no defen­siveness in his tone. ‘It must have been the sandwiches that upset me. Lobster. Very good, but a bit too rich for that time of night.’

She lowered the heat under the pan and set about making toast. ‘It was almost twelve when I got in myself. These sales parties can be a bit too much of a good thing sometimes. Some of these housewives don’t know where to draw the line when they start letting their hair down. I was absolutely exhausted, I went flat out the moment my head hit the pillow. I never heard you come in.’ She paused as she was about to cut more bread and looked up at him. ‘How much toast can you eat?’

‘Actually, I don’t think I want anything to eat,’ he said with apology. ‘Just some coffee, that’ll do me.’

She wasn’t at all put out. ‘You could try something to eat, a piece of dry toast, perhaps. It might do you good, put a lining on your stomach.’

He shook his head with emphasis. ‘No, thanks. Just the coffee, good and strong, that’s all I want.’

‘Not to worry,’ she assured him. ‘The food won’t be wasted. I haven’t started cooking Karen’s breakfast yet, so she can have yours. Give her a shout, tell her to come down right away, her breakfast’s ready.’

He went into the hall and called loudly up the stairs. Without waiting for an answer he went along to the utility room, coming back into the kitchen a minute or two later.

Christine was pouring his coffee. He began to drink it at once, scalding hot, black, very strong. Christine switched on the radio, giving it half an ear. She finished laying the table and returned to the cooker where the contents of the pan were ready for dishing up.

‘Where’s that girl?’ she exclaimed on a note of irritation. ‘I don’t hear her moving.’

‘Perhaps she wants a lie-in,’ Ian suggested. ‘She may have gone to bed late.’

‘She certainly wasn’t up when I got in.’ Christine moved to the kitchen door. ‘And I know she doesn’t want to be up late this morning. She told me she wants to go to the Amnesty book sale.’

In the hall she called sharply up the stairs. There was no reply.

She clicked her tongue, muttered something and went rapidly up to Karen’s bedroom. She beat a loud tattoo on the door.

No reply, no sound from within.

She thrust the door open and marched in. She came to a sudden halt.

The room was empty. The bed had not been disturbed, the covers lay smoothly in place. The curtains were drawn back, the window closed. Everything neat and orderly.

She stood staring round, frowning down at the carpet. Then she went along the corridor to the bathroom and looked in. She opened every door upstairs and glanced inside, then she went slowly downstairs again.

Ian was pouring himself more coffee. He became aware of her silent presence in the kitchen doorway and turned his head.

‘She’s not here,’ Christine said flatly.

He frowned. ‘Not here?’

‘Her bed’s not been slept in. She’s not anywhere upstairs. I’ve looked.’

He stared blankly at her.

She burst out: ‘I know where she is! She’s with that Paul Clayton!’

‘Clayton?’ he echoed in incredulous tones. ‘You don’t think she’s run off with him?’

‘Run off?’ she repeated with a startled face. ‘No, that wasn’t what I meant. I never thought of that.’

She turned and went running up the stairs again. He heard her moving noisily about, opening and shutting drawers and cupboards.

She came down again a few minutes later. ‘She hasn’t taken any of her things.’

Ian drank his coffee. ‘I don’t see why you should jump to the conclusion that she’s with Clayton. She could easily have stayed the night with some girl from college.’

‘Then why hasn’t she let us know?’

‘She probably tried to, and couldn’t. There was no one here to answer the phone. She could have gone to a disco or a club, or a party maybe, with some students from the college. She could have missed the last bus, decided to stay the night with one of the girls. She’s probably still in bed, fast asleep.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘It’s only just gone half past seven.’ He took another drink of his coffee. ‘I can’t honestly see there’s any real need to worry. She’ll phone us as soon as she gets up.’

She gazed at him in silence, then she said slowly, ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. That could be what happened.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ he said heartily. ‘She’ll be here by the time you get back from your round. If she phones, I’ll be here to answer it. Now stop worrying and forget it. Sit down and eat your breakfast. We could give the Musgroves a ring after you’ve eaten, see if Karen’s there, or if Lynn knows where she might be. We can’t very well ring them yet, it’s too early.’

It was by now broad daylight, the sky still flamed a brilliant orange-gold from the sunrise. On the northernmost edge of Overmead a lad of thirteen let himself out of the back door of the cottage where he lived, took his bicycle from the shed and loaded it up with his fishing tackle, his sandwiches and flask, a folded macintosh in case of any more storms of rain.

But the morning looked fine enough as he set off down the lane. A minute or two later he entered a side road running south. It would take him to the main road which he would cross, continuing south, headed for the river.

He whistled cheerfully as he pedalled along. There was as yet scarcely any traffic. The birds sang, sunlight glittered yesterday’s puddles of rain.

As he came into sight of the main road the rough tracts of Overmead Wood stretched out before him on his right. He looked over at the wood with old affection; he had spent many a happy hour there with his mates, playing Robin Hood.

Something caught his eye among the trees, a long, bright loop of yellow, dangling from a branch. He slowed his pace. A broad grass verge, still muddy from the rain, overgrown with weeds and brambles, ran along the edge of the wood. A number of books were scattered over the ground. A fancy, light-coloured bag or satchel lay among the reedy grass and dead thistles, spilling its contents.

A long-tailed pheasant rose from the verge and flew away as he halted and laid his bike down on a little rising mound, comparatively clean. Mindful of his clothes and footwear, he picked his way to inspect the books, the bag with its contents: notebooks, pens, pencils, a case of mathematical instruments, all soaking wet. He touched nothing, he left everything where it lay. Then he straightened up and made his way along a narrow track, treacherous and slippery, meandering between oaks and chestnuts, sycamores and birches, to where the long yellow scarf hung from its bough, drenched with rain, the yarn snagged and snarled where the wind had flung it against rough bark.

He glanced about, peered into the recesses of the wood. On the ground, some distance away, a flash of the same bright colour caught his eye. He moved gingerly towards it.

When he was still a little way off he stopped suddenly and put a hand up to his mouth. The vague blur of colour had all at once resolved itself into a tattered yellow cap on the head of someone lying sprawled face down in a muddied clearing between the trees.