Читать книгу Final Moments - Emma Page - Страница 6

CHAPTER 1

In Northwick Road, a humdrum shopping area in a workaday suburb of Cannonbridge, the shopkeepers were closing the tills and putting up the shutters. An overcast evening, unseasonably cool for the second week in May, the last stages of a wet, blustery spell that had interrupted a fine, early spring.

No. 47, Franklin’s, occupied premises somewhat larger than the chemist and draper on either side; it was housed in what had originally been two small shops, now knocked into one. Franklin’s dealt in the sale and rental, service and repair of television sets, radios, washing-machines, fridges and other items of domestic electrical machinery.

One of the service engineers drew up in his van and went briefly inside to cash up, hand over his lists and jobsheets, check if there were any evening calls for him. There were four repairmen, as well as a young male assistant in the shop. Roy Franklin, the owner, worked harder than any of his employees, putting in long hours behind the counter as well as going out on emergency calls in the evenings and at weekends.

‘You can get off now for your bus,’ he told the young assistant when the last of the repairmen had made his call and left. Franklin went upstairs to the living quarters, and into the kitchen. The flat was scrupulously clean, very plainly and economically furnished. Everything severely practical, involving no unnecessary work.

He didn’t switch on the radio but stood for a moment in the middle of the room with his eyes closed and his head thrown back. The place was silent; only the muted sound of traffic and the shift and stir of the fridge. He opened his eyes and blew out a long, noisy breath. ‘Tea,’ he said aloud. He crossed to the sink and filled the kettle. He was a lean, sinewy man of medium height, in his middle thirties. Dark hair and dark blue eyes. A bony face, good-looking enough ten or fifteen years ago, but the skin stretched tight now over the cheekbones, his hairline already beginning to recede, the lines scoring his forehead deepening day by day. He had a quick, intent gaze, the look of a man who saw life as an arduous battle he was determined to win.

He made himself a sandwich while he waited for the kettle to boil; he began to eat the sandwich with an abstracted air. Every couple of minutes as he drank his tea he glanced up at the clock, crossed to the window and stooped to look up the road. The third time he did this he was rewarded by the sight of his wife Jane–his second wife, married to him for more than two years now–turning into the road on her scooter.

His air of abstraction vanished. He left the window and switched on the radio. He finished his sandwich and poured himself another mug of tea. He was listening to a current affairs programme when his wife entered the flat.

Jane didn’t speak when she came into the kitchen. She flashed him an assessing look as she put down her things and poured herself some tea. Her face was set and unsmiling, her posture rigid and controlled. Her coming filled the kitchen with a sense of tension and conflict; the silence between them seemed like the stubborn silence in the middle of some fierce disagreement rather than the expression of chronic hostility.

She was a year or so younger than her husband, a well-built, athletic-looking woman with strong, rounded arms; she was dressed in neat, inexpensive, no-nonsense clothes. Her gleaming chestnut hair, thick and straight, was cut in a trim helmet shape. She wore no make-up; she had an aseptic, scrubbed look.

She went over to the kitchen cabinet and selected a small glass bottle from among several standing on a shelf. She tipped a couple of tablets out on to her palm and swallowed them with her tea. Roy stood watching her without comment.

‘I had a sandwich,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve got to go out on a call. I shouldn’t be long, about half an hour, I should think.’

She moved her shoulders. ‘I’ll have supper ready when you get back.’ Her manner was tired and irritable. She took a pan from a cupboard and made a start on preparations for a simple meal. ‘I won’t be able to do the books this evening,’ she told him over her shoulder. ‘I’m doing the night shift at the nursing-home. One of the staff is away ill.’ She was an assistant nurse, working full-time for a local agency. In what little spare time she had she helped her husband in his business; they usually worked on the books on Tuesday evenings.

‘We’ll do the books tomorrow instead,’ Roy said easily. He had inherited the business from his father. It had originally been a small family grocery store but his father had always had an interest in radio and television and had begun to carry out small repairs for his customers on an amateur basis. Later he had branched out into selling sets and later still into renting them out. When Roy left school he went into the business and soon took charge of the electrical side. He spent a good deal of time trying to persuade his father to expand that part of the business and forget the groceries, but his father had continued cautiously and stubbornly to cling to what he saw as the enduring, reliable, bread-and-butter trade. On his father’s death Roy had lost no time in closing down the grocery side. As soon as the opportunity arose he bought the shop next door in order to enlarge the service and repair side of his trade. He was anxious now to expand yet again, into stereos and videos, home computers.

Jane crossed to the sink and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. She began scrubbing vegetables. Roy stood in silence, looking at the back of her head, then he said in an expressionless tone, ‘Venetia phoned this afternoon.’ Jane stiffened at his words, her hands fell idle in the water. ‘To arrange about the weekend,’ Roy added. ‘What time I’m to pick up the children.’ Venetia was his first wife. There were two children of their marriage: Simon, aged eight, and Katie, six, both living with their mother. The children often stayed with Roy for a weekend. He was very fond of his children, and Jane, busy as she was, was always happy to see them.

She stood waiting for him to continue but he said nothing more. She turned abruptly from the sink and burst out at him with vehemence, ‘Didn’t she say anything about the money? Isn’t she going to answer your letter?’

He gave a long, weary sigh. ‘I’ve already had a reply to my letter.’ He raised a hand to silence her. ‘It came on Saturday morning. I didn’t tell you about it, I didn’t want to upset you.’

She tore off her rubber gloves and thrust out a hand. He took a letter from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘It’s from her solicitor,’ he said.

She ran her eye over the brief, formal communication: Far from wishing to consider any reduction in the amounts regularly paid over to her, Mrs Franklin was currently contemplating an application to the court to increase the maintenance award for the two children; there were additional expenses as they got older and inflation continued to present a problem.

Jane uttered an angry sound and flung the letter down on the table. She burst into tears and then, even angrier because of this show of weakness, uttered another sound, of intense irritation, and dashed the tears from her cheek.

Roy went over and put an arm round her shoulders. ‘Don’t get so upset about it,’ he urged. ‘It’ll sort itself out one day.’

She pulled away from him. ‘I’ll be thirty-five next month. It’ll soon be too late to start a family of our own.’ She flung round to face him. ‘You must go and see her. Writing letters is no good. You’ve got to talk to her, make her see reason.’

He shook his head with finality. ‘She wouldn’t listen. She’d simply tell me to talk to her solicitor. I knew it was a waste of time writing to her but you would have me do it.’

She went back to her vegetables and resumed her task with unnecessary force. ‘Then if you won’t go, I will,’ she threw at him, defiantly resolute. ‘I’ll make very sure she listens to me. She won’t push me off to her solicitor.’

He seized her shoulders and swung her round. ‘Oh no you won’t!’ His tone was sharp and imperious. ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort.’

She tried to jerk herself free but his grip was too fierce. ‘You can’t stop me,’ she told him.

‘I want your solemn word that you won’t go.’ He gave her shoulders a brisk shake. ‘Promise me.’

She glared back at him for several seconds, then all at once she abandoned the struggle. ‘Oh, very well,’ she said, suddenly deflated. ‘I promise.’

He let her go. He drew a deep breath, then put an arm round her in a gentle embrace. ‘It’ll be all right one of these days,’ he assured her. ‘You mustn’t get so worked up about it.’ He drew her to him and they exchanged a long, lingering kiss.

Thursday dawned brilliantly clear. At midday the sun rode high in a cloudless sky, by late afternoon the swifts were beginning to dip and soar over Foxwell Common, a mile or two out of Cannonbridge. On the paved terrace at the rear of her cottage on the edge of the common, Venetia Franklin reclined at ease on a sunlounger of gaily striped canvas. She lay with her eyes closed, her hands linked behind her head, a faint smile on her lips.

Beside her, on a wooden table, a radio played light music. The scent of honeysuckle drifted over the garden; from the top of an apple tree dense with pink and white blossom a greenfinch poured out his silvery runs and trills. A delicious emanation of heat rose up from the old grey flagstones. I do believe the fine weather’s come back to stay, Venetia thought with pleasure. She revelled like a cat in warmth and sunshine. Her skin took on a delicate honey tan in the summer, the soft curls of her barley-blonde hair grew even paler.

From the shrubbery the voices of the children, Simon and Katie, floated out as they darted about in one of their complicated games. The sound of sheep bleating strayed across from the common.

She yawned and stretched, opened her eyes and glanced idly round the garden. Her eyes were large and luminous, a deep sea-blue, with long, dark, curling lashes. At twenty-nine she was a good-looking woman; she had been a ravishingly pretty girl. Not very tall, slightly built and fine-boned, with narrow wrists and ankles.

The phone rang from inside the cottage. Her face broke into a smile. She sprang to her feet and ran in through the back door, along a passage into the sitting room. She snatched up the receiver.

‘Venetia?’ At the sound of Philip Colborn’s voice her smile vanished.

‘Oh, it’s you.’ Her tone was easy and amiable. She remained standing, turning her head this way and that as she listened, glancing about the room. From time to time she interjected a word or two, giving him no more than surface attention.

On the wall nearby hung a long mirror. She considered her image with a critical eye, studying her new dark blue cotton sundress with its bold white patterning, pondering the effect against the silky skin of her shoulders.

A note of remonstrance appeared in Colborn’s voice. In the garden the children laughed and called. She half turned to scrutinize her rear view in the glass. With her free hand she raised the skirt of her sundress. She stood with her head inclined, the gaze of her sea-blue eyes detached and assessing, contemplating the reflection of her slender, shapely legs.

Springfield House, the home of the Colborn family for over two hundred years, occupied a prime position in Cannonbridge, close to the town centre but retaining, with its large grounds, a good deal of quiet and privacy, a sense of the spacious, leisured Georgian days in which it had been built.

The Colborn who had chosen the site and built the house had been a successful lawyer, the son of a country parson. In early middle age he had gone into politics, representing the borough of Cannonbridge for the next thirty years; he had achieved minor office. He took for his wife the daughter of an earl, a high-principled, handsome, energetic young woman. Lady Wilhelmina made a lasting name for herself in Cannonbridge by her devotion to good works. There was still a Lady Wilhelmina Crescent in the town, a Lady Wilhelmina Memorial Hall, a Lady Wilhelmina tavern.

After this splendid start the fortunes of the Colborns suffered a long, slow decline. Succeeding generations were less talented, less enthusiastic, less energetic. The family remained prosperous, well esteemed locally, until the early part of the twentieth century, when the gentle decline began to accelerate. A son was killed in the Boer War, another in the Great War. A third Colborn was killed in the Second World War and a fourth, Philip Colborn’s father, died five years after the war of wounds received at Alamein.

At the time of his father’s death Philip, his only child, was seven years old. Philip’s mother felt the loss of her husband as a savage blow. Always a dependent, clinging woman, she sank rapidly into isolated, grieving widowhood, withdrawing from all social life and before long retreating even further, into outright invalidism. She lived on until Philip was a grown man but never again made the slightest effort to bestir herself to go out into the world.

The house slipped into neglect and from neglect into decay. The magnificent gardens became a wilderness. Several rooms were shrouded in dust sheets and closed up. It wasn’t money that was in short supply but energy and resolution, interest and motivation. Little by little the name of Colborn slid from the consciousness of the town.

At half past seven on Friday morning Philip Colborn woke in his bedroom on the first floor of Springfield House. His eyes ached, his head throbbed. His sleep, as often of late, had been uneasy and broken. He and his wife Ruth had occupied separate bedrooms since the time three years ago when he had been struck down by influenza.

He got slowly out of bed and went over to the window. He was forty-one, with a tall, rangy figure. He had been handsome as a young man and was still good-looking enough, with his fair hair and grey eyes, to attract a female glance. He drew back the curtains and gazed bleakly out at the day. A sparkling May morning, sunlight glittering the dewy lawns. From downstairs he could hear a radio playing, something from Bizet, hauntingly beautiful.

The gardens were once more a superb sight, thanks to the determination and dedication of his wife Ruth. They had married nine years ago, eighteen months after the death of Philip’s mother. He had wanted to sell Springfield House which he saw only as the gloomy, secluded, dilapidated dwelling in which he had grown up. He had thought of buying a much smaller house on one of the new developments on the edge of Cannonbridge; he believed the move would provide a sense of release, of a fresh, hopeful start.

But Ruth had been horrified at the notion. She was certain the house could be restored to its old glory within a few years, the gardens even sooner. The fabric of the dwelling was still essentially sound. All the furnishings and pictures, all the objets d’art were still there; nothing had been disposed of. And there was more than sufficient money. Philip had inherited the whole of his mother’s estate and in addition he had his salary from the bank where he worked. He had allowed himself to be persuaded.

‘Are you awake, darling?’ Ruth called up to him now from the foot of the stairs. He crossed the room and opened the bedroom door. The music rose up at him, imploring, yearning. An alluring odour of coffee drifted over the threshold. ‘I won’t be long,’ he called down.

When he came into the kitchen a little later Ruth had already finished eating. ‘I have a particularly busy day ahead of me,’ she reminded him. She was a year or two older than her husband. Not very tall, delicately made, with a calm, pale, oval face and small regular features. Her thick, heavy brown hair, the colour of beechnuts, was wound carefully and becomingly round her head in shining braids and loops that gave her a look of a Brontë or Jane Austen heroine.

She moved swiftly and efficiently about the kitchen, attending to half a dozen tasks. From the radio a pair of voices soared in harmony. Philip went over and switched the radio off. Ruth halted for an instant and glanced at him in surprise.

‘I’m sorry.’ He sat down at the table. ‘I have a headache. I slept badly.’

She gave him a look of tender concern. ‘Shall I get you an aspirin?’

‘No, thanks. Just some coffee.’ She tried to persuade him to eat but he shook his head. While he drank his coffee she went along to the front hall to look for the post and came back with a handful of mail, mostly for herself. She always had a good deal of mail; since her marriage she had assiduously followed the example of Lady Wilhelmina and worked tirelessly for a dozen charitable causes. She slit open the envelopes, swiftly sorted out what must be dealt with promptly, what might safely wait a little. She sat down opposite Philip and poured herself some coffee.

Philip glanced through his letters without enthusiasm. He was employed by the bank where the Colborns had always kept their accounts; he had been manager of the Cannonbridge branch for four years now. Ruth had worked for the same bank herself. She wasn’t a native of Cannonbridge; she had been transferred to the Cannonbridge branch a year or so before she and Philip were married–that was how they had met.

She glanced up from her correspondence and saw his dejected air. ‘Cheer up,’ she said in a tone of bracing optimism. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’

He was jerked out of his thoughts. He gave her a long look as if he hadn’t really seen her for some time, then he leaned across the table and laid a hand on hers. ‘I do appreciate all you’ve done for me,’ he said with feeling. ‘I may not say so very often but that doesn’t mean I’m not deeply grateful.’

A flush rose in her cheeks, a tear shone in her eye. She looked at him without speaking, giving him a tremulous smile, surprised and pleased.

He gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it. He made an effort to take an interest in her day. ‘I know you told me what you’re doing,’ he said apologetically, ‘but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.’ He knew it was some big occasion but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what.

She gave him a quick rundown of the morning ahead: a committee meeting, some essential calls, a look-in at a fundraising coffee morning. ‘But it’s this afternoon I’m really looking forward to,’ she said with a smile of profound pleasure. ‘It’s the presentation of the purses at Polesworth.’ Polesworth was a stately home, the seat of a viscount. It stood in a magnificent park ten miles out of Cannonbridge; the presentation was in aid of the county branch of a national charity for underprivileged children. Two hundred years ago, in the days of Lady Wilhelmina Colborn, there had been occasional trafficking between Springfield House and Polesworth; in the decades after Lady Wilhelmina’s death the trafficking had dwindled and eventually ceased. Now, nine years after Ruth had come to Springfield House as a bride, her feet were about to take her in for the first time though the noble portals of the mansion.

‘I hope it all goes well,’ Philip said warmly. ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow evening.’ He was spending the weekend at Danehill Manor, some sixty miles away. The manor belonged to the bank who used it for conferences, staff courses, seminars. Philip was being picked up at the bank at three o’clock by the manager of a neighbouring branch who was also going to Danehill; they wouldn’t be back till Sunday night.

He frowned anxiously. ‘I’m not at all happy about my paper,’ he said. He had to read a paper on the role of banks in the expansion of small businesses. He had revised the paper yesterday evening, had asked Ruth to glance over it once again before going to bed.

‘It’s fine,’ she assured him now, as she had already assured him half a dozen times. ‘You’ve nothing to worry about. I know it’ll go down well.’

She stood up, leaving the breakfast things to be dealt with shortly by her daily woman, an efficient and competent worker, much superior to the ordinary run of dailies, an invaluable assistant to Ruth in her busy life.

In the hall Philip picked up his briefcase and overnight bag. He rarely came home to lunch, either taking out a client or going to his club. He gave Ruth an affectionate kiss. ‘Look after yourself,’ he told her. ‘Don’t go overdoing things.’

She smiled up at him. ‘Make your mark at Danehill. It’s a good speech. It’ll be a great success.’ She stood watching in the doorway as he got into his car and set off down the drive. As he approached the elegant wrought-iron gates, already standing open, a woman turned in at the entrance. She was pushing a wheelchair that held a vacant-looking, lolling boy; she stood aside to let the car go past.

Philip raised a hand in greeting and she waved back. The boy gave a vague grin and flapped a hand. Dorothy Pickard and her brother Terry, familiar figures about the streets of Cannonbridge and the lanes of the neighbouring countryside, regular callers at Springfield House. Dorothy was forty but looked older. Her naturally pleasant, lively expression was overlaid with an air of chronic anxiety.

Terry was seventeen but appeared much younger. He was small and slightly built; he had been the unexpected child of his mother’s middle age and had suffered from birth from severe multiple handicaps. His mother had done her best to weather the difficult years that followed. Her husband, a building labourer, took himself off when Terry was four, unable or unwilling to share the burden any longer. Mrs Pickard continued stoically to soldier on until herself struck down by ill-health. Dorothy was at that time unmarried, living at home, doing what she could to help her mother in the evenings and at weekends. She worked full-time as an assistant at a garden centre on the outskirts of Cannonbridge; she had always been fond of an outdoor life. When Mrs Pickard’s health failed Dorothy gave up her job to look after her mother and brother, taking any casual work she could find for a few hours here and there: fruit-picking, serving in a local greengrocer’s, putting in half a day at a garden stall in the market.

Mrs Pickard grew steadily worse and Dorothy was forced to give up even these small jobs. Twelve months ago Mrs Pickard died and the entire responsibility for the boy fell on Dorothy. She accepted the duty without resentment or complaint, one of the hazards of existence, to be borne as cheerfully as possible.

Now, as she pushed the wheelchair along the drive of Springfield House, Ruth Colborn came out to meet her, smiling and waving at Terry. The Colborns had no children.

As soon as Terry became aware of Ruth’s approach he gave his vacuous grin and flung his hands about. Ruth crouched down beside the wheelchair and spoke to him, as she always did. He made incoherent, grunting sounds in reply.

‘I’ve put out the leaflets for you,’ Ruth told Dorothy as she straightened up. In the course of her daily perambulations Dorothy delivered notices, brochures, electoral handouts. Ruth’s leaflets were to advertise the annual charity garden day at Springfield House, to be held this year on the first Saturday in June.

To the left of the drive lay a large secluded shrub rose garden. Dorothy halted by the entrance and glanced in. Springfield House had always been noted for its magnificent shrub rose garden, devoted to the old varieties. After her marriage Ruth had resolutely set about rescuing the shrubs from the wilderness of neglect.

‘They’ll be a wonderful sight in another three weeks,’ Dorothy said, eyeing with lively appreciation, and a certain amount of knowledge from her garden-centre days, the graceful forms of Rosa Alba, Rosa Gallica, the Musk, China and Moss Roses, the Noisette and Rugosa. The branching sprays were tightly packed with clusters of buds beginning to show colour, snowy white, delicate cream, pale shell pink, lilac, purple, velvety crimson.

Airy wafts of fragrance floated after them as they moved off again towards the house. ‘I won’t be a moment,’ Ruth said as she went inside for the leaflets. While she was gone Dorothy wheeled Terry along the gravelled walk surrounding the house, pausing to peer in through the windows at the many splendours. When she reached the drawing-room she pressed her face against the glass, gazing up at the full-length portrait of Lady Wilhelmina occupying the place of honour to one side of the fireplace.

The portrait had been painted in London by an artist of note, shortly after Lady Wilhelmina’s marriage. It showed a young woman of erect carriage and slender figure with a handsome, serious face, a wide brow and fine eyes. She had a fresh complexion, thick, shining brown hair arranged in heavy loops and bands. There was some slight natural resemblance between Lady Wilhelmina and Ruth Colborn. It had taken Ruth some years after her marriage to grow her hair to a length where she could arrange it in the same style as Lady Wilhelmina’s gleaming tresses; she had accomplished the feat at about the same time as she had completed the restoration of the house and gardens. Another, later, portrait of Lady Wilhelmina hung in the Mayor’s parlour at the Town Hall and the resemblance between the two women, considerably heightened by Ruth’s new hairstyle, was often remarked on. The similarity in the charitable activities of the two women was mentioned with increasing frequency in the local press. Ruth never failed to note these references with an inward glow of pleasure.

‘Oh–this is where you’ve got to,’ Ruth said as she came hurrying up with the leaflets. Dorothy stepped back from the window and took the bundle from her, stowing it away in a basket fixed to the wheelchair. Her expression now was hesitant and uncertain, she was visibly bracing herself to say something to Mrs Colborn. She plunged in at last before she lost her nerve.

‘I don’t know if you’ve had time to think over what I asked you about the other day,’ she said in a rush. ‘About getting Terry admitted to Lyndale.’ This was a home for the handicapped and disabled, standing in an outlying suburb of Cannonbridge; it was run by a charitable trust and provided for roughly a score of residents. Ruth was a member of the managing committee, a frequent visitor to the home.

‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you,’ Dorothy continued urgently, ‘if there was anything else I could think of. You’re the only person I know that could possibly help me.’ A man Dorothy had known for years, a man who worked the local markets, selling seeds and plants, flowers and shrubs, had recently made her a proposition. He had been a widower for eighteen months; his wife had always worked the markets at his side. He had one daughter who had helped in the business since leaving school but she was shortly getting married and going to London to live.

The man–Ken by name–had recently told Dorothy that if she could make some suitable arrangement for Terry, he would like to marry her. He would expect her to work the markets with him as his wife and daughter had done; he was confident she would pull her weight. It wasn’t that he had anything against Terry but there could be no place in such a life for a severely handicapped lad whose problems must increase as he grew older.

‘Ken isn’t selfish or hard-hearted,’ Dorothy had explained to Ruth. ‘He’s a decent, kind, hard-working man.’ But he was also a practical, realistic man; he had seen more than one marriage broken by the presence of a handicapped youngster. Nor had Dorothy forgotten the example of her own father.

‘Lyndale would be just the place for Terry,’ Dorothy had assured Ruth. On a scale closer to the domestic than the institutional, where he could more easily settle in, and near enough for her to be able to visit him regularly. The place wasn’t strange to him. She often called there with Terry in the course of her errands. Everyone was kind to the boy, he would probably scarcely notice the transition from his own home.

‘I’m very sorry,’ Ruth said gently. ‘I’m afraid I can’t have made myself clear the other day. It wouldn’t be kind to let you entertain false hopes. There really is no possibility, none at all. Lyndale simply will not take anyone of Terry’s age. Twenty-one is the absolute minimum. But there are places that might take him. I could—’

‘Not round here,’ Dorothy broke in, like a terrier pouncing on a bone. ‘Not in Cannonbridge.’

‘There’s a very good place only fifteen miles away,’ Ruth said patiently but Dorothy burst in again. ‘They’d listen to you at Lyndale. If you spoke up for Terry, they’d take him for sure.’

Ruth smiled slightly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t attempt to turn their policies upside down. They don’t make these rules without a lot of thought.’

‘But they did have one or two youngsters there at one time,’ Dorothy persisted. ‘I’m sure I can remember.’

‘Well, yes, that is so,’ Ruth conceded. ‘They did make an occasional exception—’

‘There you are then!’ Dorothy cried in triumph. ‘That’s what I’ve been saying all along. It isn’t a hard and fast rule. If they could make those exceptions then, they can make one for Terry.’

Ruth sighed. ‘It’s a hard and fast rule now, I’m afraid. It’s just because of those earlier exceptions that the committee decided to be very strict in future. The truth is, those particular admissions didn’t work out very well.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But in any case, quite apart from Terry’s age, there’s a much stronger reason for not admitting him. He really wouldn’t fit in very well at Lyndale.’

Dorothy’s frown returned. ‘He’s not a troublesome boy. You know that.’

‘Yes, I do know that, but the committee have decided that in future they will only admit applicants who are capable of making some kind of personal, social contribution to the life of Lyndale, who are able to help themselves and each other to some extent. It’s far better for the residents, makes them more independent, more sociable, gives them a sense of purpose. It produces a much healthier atmosphere, and of course on a practical level it means the home can be run with fewer staff–and that’s no small consideration these days.’ She paused and then asked gently, ‘Can you honestly see Terry being able to fit into that pattern of life? I’m afraid he’ll never be capable of any more than he is at present.’ She looked down at Terry who grinned amiably up at the pale blue sky.

‘I can’t lose this chance,’ Dorothy said with fierce determination, darting at Ruth from another angle. She knew Ken wouldn’t wait for ever, or even for very long. He needed a wife now; if not her, then he would find someone else. She pressed her hands together. ‘I know we could make a go of it. We’ve always got on well, and I’d love the life. I’ll never get another chance like this.’

Ruth turned towards the house. ‘You mustn’t give up hope,’ she said in a tone of great kindness. ‘I’m sure we can find somewhere suitable for Terry. I’ll make some more inquiries.’

But Dorothy shook her head stubbornly. ‘It’s got to be Lyndale,’ she said, totally unmoved by everything Ruth had said, still confident of the final outcome. ‘Lyndale or nothing.’

Over the weekend the weather continued fair, showing signs of becoming settled again. Along the avenues the laurels raised their creamy candles; on the hills above the town the rowans were in bloom. By two o’clock on Friday afternoon the first fair of the season was in full swing on a stretch of open ground beside the railway station.

Shortly before half past four on Monday afternoon the phone rang in the Franklins’ flat in Northwick Road. Downstairs in the shop Roy heard it ring. He had just finished serving a customer and was busy returning a selection of food processors to their places on the shelves. He paused for a moment and stood listening. Along the counter his assistant explained to a woman the terms on which they offered credit sales.

The phone stopped ringing and Roy resumed his task. A minute or two later there came the sound of someone running down the stairs from the flat. The door at the end of the shop burst open and Jane Franklin darted in. She ran up to Roy.

‘Sunnycroft School’s just rung,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Venetia hasn’t turned up to collect the children. They rang the cottage twice but there’s no answer. They wanted to know if you’d pick the children up. I said we’d be over right away.’

‘There’s no need for you to come,’ Roy said brusquely. ‘You can give a hand in here while I’m gone.’

She shook her head with determination. ‘I’m coming with you.’

He looked as if he might argue but then thought better of it; he gave a little jerk of his shoulders. He spoke to the assistant and then went rapidly out with Jane behind him.

Sunnycroft School, a small private establishment, was situated in a residential suburb at the other side of town. The traffic was building up towards the rush hour and it was a good fifteen minutes before Roy drove up to the front entrance. He jumped out and pressed the bell.

The door was opened by one of the teachers. ‘I’ve just rung Foxwell Cottage again,’ she told Roy. ‘There’s still no answer. The children tell me their mother went away for the weekend, they’ve been staying with you.’

Roy nodded. ‘I expect something cropped up to make her late setting off for home.’

The teacher frowned. ‘I would have thought she’d have rung to let us know. She’s never missed picking them up before, she’s always very punctual.’

‘If her car broke down on the road,’ Jane put in, ‘she might not have been able to get to a phone.’

‘Yes, I suppose that could be it.’ The teacher led the way into the hall where Simon and Katie sat waiting. They had a subdued, anxious air, only partly dispelled by the sight of their father and stepmother. They got to their feet and stood glancing from one face to the other.

‘Isn’t Mummy coming?’ Katie asked. She went up to Jane and slipped a hand into hers.

‘I expect she’s been delayed,’ Roy said easily.

In the car Jane chatted to the children about their day at school. They answered briefly and flatly. Roy scarcely spoke and after a few minutes all four lapsed into silence.

They reached the edge of town and Roy headed the car towards Foxwell Common. It was a fine, sunny afternoon with a little thin, high cloud. The landscape looked serene and peaceful. Along the hedgerows the hawthorns were in full snowy blossom, the common was bright with yellow gorse, the grass thickly studded with golden dandelions.

The hamlet consisted of half a dozen dwellings. Roy drove past a black and white thatched cottage owned by a widow who used the parlour as a little general store, past a farmhouse, a pair of old dwellings modernized for letting out to holidaymakers but empty now, so early in the season. He turned the car in through the open gates of Foxwell Cottage.

‘It’s all right! Mummy’s back!’ Katie cried out on a note of relief. She had caught sight of her mother’s car over on the right, on the far side of the house.

Simon frowned. ‘Why didn’t she drive straight to school to pick us up?’ No one answered.

Roy came to a halt and switched off the engine. He opened his door and got out. Jane and the children made to follow but he stooped and put his head in at the rear window. ‘Stay where you are,’ he commanded the children. Jane’s head came sharply round and he flashed her a look. ‘You stay with them.’ She said nothing. All three sat upright and alert, looking out at him in silence.

He walked over the gravel to the front door and pressed the bell; it rang sharp and clear. There was no response. He glanced about. The cottage windows were open, upstairs and down. He tried the front door. It yielded to his touch and he went inside. On the floor of the hall lay a couple of envelopes, a picture postcard, a scatter of leaflets. He went in and out of the ground-floor rooms, calling out Venetia’s name. There was no stir of movement, no whisper of sound. Nothing out of order in the sitting room or dining room.

He went upstairs, glanced in at the children’s rooms, the bathroom. In Venetia’s bedroom an overnight bag and vanity case stood packed at the foot of the bed. A summer dress, crisply laundered, had been carefully laid out on the coverlet. A shoulder-bag lay on top of the chest of drawers.

By now he had given up calling out. He went down to the kitchen. On the table in the centre of the room was a tray holding used tea-things, an open biscuit tin beside it.

The back door was propped open with an old firedog. He went out on to the paved terrace. A garden table stood beside a canvas sunlounger; on the table a couple of beakers and a jug that had held lemonade. A folded newspaper bearing Friday’s date stuck out from behind the cushions of the lounger.

He stood for a moment with his head back and his eyes closed. The only sounds were the twittering of birds and the distant hum of a mechanical saw. He went round the cottage to where Venetia’s car stood with its back to him, its front windows wound down. The boot wasn’t locked. He glanced inside; it was empty except for the spare tyre and a bag of tools.

He went round to the nearside front door of the car, opened it and stooped inside; the keys were in the ignition. On the rear window ledge lay some children’s comics and a rag doll. He knelt on the front seat, leaned over and glanced down–and there she was. Jammed into the space between the front and rear seats, facing him, her eyes closed. She lay on her back, in shirt and jeans, her knees drawn up. Her hair fell in disordered curls over her forehead. Her face was contused and contorted, with livid bruises, her lips swollen, her mouth wide open. Something had been rammed down her throat, some patterned stuff, brown and silky.

He remained staring down at her for several seconds, then he reached over and laid the back of his hand against her puffy, discoloured cheek. He drew a long quavering breath and got out of the car. He staggered over to the side of the cottage and stood leaning against the wall, his head in his hands. After a minute or two he roused himself and walked round to where Jane and the children still sat silent in the car.

They saw his face as he approached, white and shaken, his trembling, uncertain gait. They gazed dumbly out at him. He didn’t glance at the children but put his head in at the front window and without looking at Jane said in a low, unsteady voice, ‘You must take the children home at once and stay there with them.’ He put a hand up to his eyes. ‘There’s been an accident. I must ring the police.’

Jane said nothing but gave a single answering nod. She slid into the driver’s seat and switched on the engine. In the back the children had caught something of what he’d said. They sat in tremulous silence, their faces puzzled and uneasy.

Roy stepped back and watched as Jane turned the car and drove out through the gates, then he went slowly back to the cottage. All at once he began to shake violently. He couldn’t control the fierce tremors, he could scarcely discipline his fingers sufficiently to open the front door.

The phone stood on a small table in the sitting room. As he approached it the tremors increased. The receiver rattled against its rest as he tried to pick it up. Suddenly he began to cry. It was some minutes before he managed to dial the number and all the time the tears ran down his face.