Читать книгу Uncaged - Lucy Gordon, Lucy Gordon - Страница 7

After three days of feeling too ill to care about anything, Megan awoke to the discovery that the fever had left her and her body no longer ached. Getting gingerly out of bed, she found that she was still weak, but after being unable to eat anything she was now ravenously hungry. She put on the thick socks Daniel always left for her feet, pulled on his robe, and left the room, holding on to things as she moved. The house was a big, rambling building that looked as if it might have been built a century ago. Although clean, it was shabby and in need of redecorating. Glancing out the window, she saw a large garden with trees and a rockery, the sort of garden that cried out for dogs and children romping together. But it was empty.

Everywhere was silence and there was no sign of Daniel. What Megan could see of the house was austere, as though its occupant lived in it only in passing.

One room was different. It was at the back of the house, and it was filled with electronic gadgets, audio-video equipment, tapes, records, magazines. How like Daniel Keller, she thought, to have a hobby that offered him the world at a distance. It fitted her picture of him as a man without human feeling.

She glanced idly through the videocassettes strewn on the floor. Their labels bore hastily scrawled notes in pencil. One of them read Interview 3. Feb. 23rd, 19—

Her heart began to beat hard. February 23rd was the day of her third interview with Keller. But surely...?

She hurried, switched on the set, and shoved the cassette into the machine. Shocked, she saw her own angry face on the screen. And from off camera came Daniel’s voice, taunting her. “You could have killed him easily. He wasn’t a big man, and I’ll bet you’re not as fragile as you look.”

Then the woman on the screen did the worst possible thing. Losing her temper, she launched herself forward at her tormentor. For a moment Daniel came into the shot, fending her off. He was right. She was stronger than she looked, and he had some trouble keeping her nails from his face. “Was this how you went for Henry Grainger with that heavy ashtray?” he asked, gasping slightly.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“The ashtray had your fingerprints and nobody else’s except Grainger’s own. How do you account for that?”

Megan shut off the set, shaking. She tried to calm her own thoughts. If she brooded about how much she hated Keller, it would overset her mind, and she needed her wits about her. Quickly she pulled out the cassette and began to rummage through the others, which all turned out to be copies of her interviews in the police station. The last thing she came to was a thick, buff-colored envelope, which she accidentally knocked off the sofa, sending its contents spilling over the floor. Gathering them up, she found herself looking at her own face.

Amazed, she studied the other papers. Every one of them was a piece about herself from her modeling days. Most were straightforward fashion shots, in which she was wearing a succession of glamorous clothes. One was a magazine cover, showing a close-up of her face, looking sensual and gorgeous. Megan considered the beauty in that picture as if she were a stranger, which in a sense was true. She had nothing to do with the shattered woman regarding her now.

There were some pages attached to the cover, containing a feature about her from inside the magazine. It was headlined, Tiger Lady and the writer had started by quoting Blake’s “Tyger, tyger, burning bright/In the forests of the night.” From there he’d gone wild, lavishing purple prose over “a woman with the power and sultry eroticism of a tiger, who moves with the sleek, silent grace of a jungle creature, stalking the forests of the night.”

The first time Megan had read it she’d laughed, thinking it wildly overdone. Now she wondered who that proud, confident woman had been, and how she’d ever come to this pass.

What astonished her most was finding the piece here, along with the copies of her interviews with Keller. It looked as though he’d been studying her in some depth. But why? Was he seeking the truth after all this time, or merely trying to confirm his original verdict? She decided it was probably safest to think badly of him. He was concerned with saving his own face and rebuilding his life. The rebuilding of her life wouldn’t concern him.

Megan rose suddenly and began to search for the telephone, which she found in an alcove in the hall. It was nearly four o’clock. Tommy would have just arrived home from school. If she called now there was a chance that he might pick up the phone. With trembling hands she dialed the number and sat, white-knuckled, listening to the ringing on the other end. So intent was she that she didn’t hear the front door open and Daniel come quietly into the house.

At last there was an answer. Megan’s heart sank as she heard the voice of Brian’s mother. “I want to speak to Tommy,” she said as firmly as she could.

“I’ve told you before, that isn’t possible,” said Mrs. Anderson in the cool, inflexible voice that Megan hated. “Please don’t call again.”

“I’ll call as often as I have to,” she raged. “He’s my son, and you can’t keep him from me.”

“Whatever his father and I do is in the child’s best interests. Kindly try to understand that, and don’t keep pestering us.” The phone went dead.

Megan had always disliked her self-righteous mother-in-law, but in the past she’d had the emotional stamina to cope with her. Now, with her nerves in shreds, she had no stamina left. She slammed down the receiver and thumped her fists helplessly against the wall again and again.

“Hey, come on.” Daniel reached out and touched her shoulder. Megan swung away, staring at him. “That doesn’t help,” he said gently.

“Nothing helps,” she said frantically. “But it relieves my feelings, until the next time.”

“Was that your husband you were talking to?”

“His mother. She won’t let me talk to Tommy.”

“Let’s have a cup of tea,” he suggested, leading the way to the kitchen. She followed him and watched while he put the kettle on. “It’s good to see you up and looking better,” he said.

“I don’t remember much about what happened. I ran away into the park...didn’t I?”

“That’s right. I followed you there and brought you here. You were soaked. I haven’t tried to get your things back from the boarding house in case the press is still sniffing around and it leads them here.”

“There was nothing I cared about,” she said with a shrug. “Just the things they give prisoners when they’re discharged.” She looked down at his robe and nightwear. “What happened to my nightgown?”

“I sent it to the laundry. It isn’t back yet.”

“There was no need to take that trouble,” she said, glancing at the washing machine. “Just throw it in.”

He was embarrassed. Having stripped the soaking nightgown off her without a second thought, he’d discovered that an unsuspected sense of propriety had made him avoid washing it himself, even in a machine. But he flinched from explaining this, anticipating her derision. “I was afraid you’d be really ill,” he said, concentrating on the kettle, “so I called in my doctor—a woman doctor. She looked after you. Here, the tea’s ready.”

She accepted the mug and sipped it. “I don’t like depending on you,” she said. “I’ll call my lawyer, and she’ll help me.”

They looked at each other warily. “I’d rather help you myself,” Daniel said.

“Look, I’m grateful to you for nursing me, but basically nothing’s changed. I just want to move out.”

“But not today. I need to talk to you first. We have...a lot to talk about.”

She regarded him ironically. “Didn’t we talk enough three years ago?”

“We talked a lot, but maybe not to any good purpose. I’ve been through those interviews, and there are things I’m uneasy about.”

“You’re...?” She regarded him in cynical hilarity. “You’re uneasy. Now I’ve heard everything. There were one or two things I was uneasy about, too, in particular, the way you deliberately distorted the truth and wrecked my life. Don’t ever imagine that pouring a few aspirin down my throat makes up for it.”

“I wouldn’t expect it to, if I really had deliberately hidden the truth,” he said edgily. His anger was rising as he discovered how difficult it was to make any impression on her. He was used to being arrogant, dominant, as a policeman had to be. Eating humble pie came very hard to him. “But I didn’t.”

“Oh, come on,” she said wearily. “We’ve passed that point, surely?”

“Megan, I didn’t suppress that statement,” he said emphatically. “I simply didn’t remember it.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You can do better than that.”

“No, I can’t, because it’s true. I didn’t remember anything about the witness. My mind just...blanked him out.” In despair he could hear how unconvincing it sounded, and her look of derision confirmed it. Perhaps if he told her everything about his mental and emotional agony at that time, and what had caused it, she might understand. But something deep within him shied away from exposing his wounds. He’d never begged for mercy. It wasn’t his way. “I had...a lot of cases on my plate” was the best he could manage.

“Funny, that. You always seemed to have time to interrogate me,” she observed. “I’ve never heard such a feeble excuse. What are you? Some kind of incompetent who needs your hand held? At least suppressing evidence is decisive. Losing it because you’re muddled is the action of a wimp.”

His temper rose. “You make very glib judgments,” he snapped.

“So did you.”

“The evidence against you was very strong. Without that witness it was a rock-solid case.”

“And of course you made absolutely sure it was ‘without that witness.’”

“Will you listen to me?” he demanded hoarsely.

“Will listening to you make any difference?” she flung back at him. “Will it give me back my reputation, three years of my life—my son? How would you know what it’s like to lose your child and think about him every moment of every day, becoming obsessed with him because they had no right to take him but he’s gone anyway?” She took a deep, shuddering breath and forced herself to calm down. “There’s no point in going through it again. You know what you did, even if you won’t admit it. There must be a way to undo the damage you did. I just...just don’t know what it is.”

He could have given her the answer. There was only one way to clear her completely, and that was to find the real murderer. But he didn’t say so because he still wasn’t totally convinced. After the days spent studying the interviews, he had serious doubts, but that wasn’t enough. He caught her looking at him, and had an uncomfortable feeling that she’d read his thoughts.

“I’m going to call my lawyer,” she said. “The sooner I’m away from here, the better.” She went back to the alcove and dialed.

“Newton and Baines,” the receptionist at the other end said.

“I’d like to speak to Janice,” Megan said urgently.

“I’m afraid Mrs. Baines isn’t here. Her son has measles and she’s quarantined at home with him.”

Megan ground her nails into her palm. “Mr. Newton, then.”

“One moment.”

She was reluctant to talk to Newton, a curt man who seemed devoid of all human sympathy, but she was desperate. When he came on the line a moment later her worst fears were realized. He listened in frozen silence as she described her predicament, then said, “I must say I think you were extremely unwise to leave your lodging.”

“I was driven out. I can’t go back there.”

“But you appear to have found somewhere else, so I don’t see the problem.”

Megan tried to keep her temper. “I am temporarily in the home of Detective Inspector Keller, the man who put me away, and that is the problem.”

“I don’t understand. What are you doing there?”

“He rescued me from the press and brought me here. But I’ve been here nearly a week, and I don’t want to stay.”

“Hmm.” Newton sounded bored. “Well, frankly, Mrs. Anderson, I find your point of view hard to comprehend. Having managed to get this man on your side, your sensible course would surely be to make use of him. He has, er, resources denied the rest of us. Give me the address and I’ll arrange for some money to be sent to you, but I’m afraid it won’t be much.”

As she hung up, Daniel came out into the hall and looked at her inquiringly. “She’s away,” Megan said. “Her partner is going to send me some money.”

“If you need money, why did you run away from the press?” he asked wryly. “They were offering to buy your story. You could have told the world just what you thought of me. I can’t think why you passed up the chance.”

“Because my son might have seen it. I don’t want him picking up a newspaper and seeing Megan Anderson Tells All. Brian would claim it made me an unfit mother, and I have enough of a fight on my hands without giving him ammunition.”

“Won’t he give you some financial help?”

“Him?” Megan asked with withering scorn. “All he wants is for me to vanish from sight. It suited him to have me in prison where I couldn’t challenge him for Tommy. Now that I’m out, he’d like to pretend it hasn’t happened.”

She sipped her tea in brooding silence, not noticing what he was doing until he placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. “Eat up,” he said. “You haven’t had a proper meal for days, and it takes strength to hate someone as much as you hate me.”