Deep Waters (8 page)

This afternoon, with the promise of spring just outside of the windows, Frances observed a high level of boredom in the wards. Tea time was approaching, but not quickly enough. And when tea finally arrived, it was variously judged to be too hot, too cold, too milky, too strong.

Frances was ready for a cup herself, and ready to sit down for a few minutes. She wasn’t due to go home for a couple of hours, and she needed a break. So she headed for the cafe, where the tea was arguably better than in the wards.

She went through the line and got a pot of lapsang, which she reckoned would keep her going for the remainder of the afternoon, and after a momentary hesitation she added a packet of shortbread biscuits to her tray, telling herself that her blood sugar could do with a boost.

Everyone seemed to have decided that it was time for tea, and the cafe was crowded. Frances would have preferred a table on her own—she felt she’d earned a few minutes of solitude—but was willing to settle for an unoccupied chair. She spotted one and made her way to it, glancing at the man at the table for his consent to share, as protocol demanded. He was hunched over a cup of coffee, not looking at her, so she had to verbalise her request. ‘Do you mind?’ she said, inclining her head towards the empty chair.

The man looked up, and Frances nearly dropped her tray. It was Neville Stewart. Detective Inspector Neville Stewart, whose wedding she had witnessed less than a week ago.

‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Have a seat.’

Frances blurted the first thing that came into her head. ‘But… but you’re on your honeymoon!’

‘Make that past tense.’ Neville lowered his head again and stared into his coffee cup. ‘The honeymoon’s over.’

Frances’ history with Neville Stewart was decidedly negative; she had first met him in a professional capacity—
his
profession, not hers. He had questioned her, suspected her, and eventually arrested her on suspicion of murder. Apart from that, he had made her friend Triona miserable, impregnating her and then deserting her. When he and Triona reconciled, Frances had tried to see the man’s good side, and had even served as Triona’s attendant at the wedding. But she remained unconvinced. In her mind, Neville Stewart was not a nice person, or someone she would voluntarily spend time with.

Here, though, was a man in distress. Not the confident,
bullying
Neville Stewart who had bombarded her with so many outrageous questions, nor the ebullient man who had married Triona last Saturday. This Neville Stewart looked beaten, broken, exhausted. His skin had a grey cast and his cheeks were unshaven; his eyes were bloodshot. Frances’ heart went out to him, as a fellow human being and as a priest.

Frances sat down and put her small hand over his. ‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ she said quietly.

‘I’ve just come from the mortuary.’ Neville’s voice was shaking.

Callie parted from her brother after leaving the CD shop, the Karma album safely in her bag. She said goodbye to him with some reluctance; he had certainly cheered her up, as he almost always did, and she was feeling better about life in general and her situation at the vicarage in particular. ‘After all,’ he’d said airily, ‘you put up with having me under your roof for…it must have been a couple of weeks, at least. If you could survive that, Sis, a few weeks with a dragon of a vicar’s wife should be a piece of cake!’

And Jane wasn’t
really
a dragon, Callie told herself on the Tube back to Bayswater. She was a perfectly nice person who just didn’t happen to like Callie a great deal. That much was clear, even if
the reasons for that antipathy were far from fathomable. Callie wasn’t the sort of person who could ask Jane outright why she didn’t like her, in spite of Peter’s counsels on the subject. ‘Just confront the old cow,’ he’d urged. ‘Ask her what her problem is. After all, it’s
her
problem, not yours.’

Callie knew she wouldn’t follow Peter’s advice, but she did stop at a corner shop and buy a box of chocolates for Jane: an appeasement for whatever sins she had unknowingly committed in her dealings with her.

She let herself in with the key she’d been issued and fixed a smile on her face—just in case—as she headed for the bottom of the stairs.

It was Brian who intercepted her, putting his head out of his study door, wearing a slightly anxious expression. ‘Oh, Callie,’ he said. ‘I believe that Jane would like a word. She’s in the kitchen, I think.’

‘Oh. All right. Thanks, Brian.’ Callie changed course and went to the back of the house, her heart thudding apprehensively.

The ironing board was set up in the middle of the kitchen. Jane stood over it, iron in hand, attacking a crumpled surplice with a determined scowl. The scowl deepened as Callie came through the door.

‘Brian said you wanted me?’

Jane didn’t waste time on preliminary niceties. ‘It’s that dog,’ she stated.

‘Bella?’

‘What other dog would I be talking about?’ Jane snapped. ‘It hasn’t stopped carrying on since you left!’

‘Carrying on?’ Callie echoed faintly.

‘Whining. Howling, even!’

She’d left Bella closed in her room, reasoning that Bella was used to being alone in the flat during the day and that this shouldn’t really be any different. Apparently, though, Bella wasn’t any more comfortable about being in the vicarage than Callie was. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Callie apologised. ‘I thought she’d be okay.’

Jane wasn’t mollified. ‘It just won’t do,’ she said. ‘I told Brian. We can’t have a dog carrying on like that all day. Day in, day out. And suppose it’s…made a mess in the guest room?’

Callie hadn’t even thought of
that
. Bella had good
bladder
control; surely she wouldn’t have disgraced herself to that extent…

‘It won’t do,’ Jane repeated. ‘That dog will have to go. It will just have to go in kennels, if no one else will take it.’
You
can stay—on sufferance, her eyes told Callie. She set the iron down on the ironing board and crossed her arms across her chest. ‘Brian checked with the insurance company. They’ll pay. For kennels. I told him that I want that dog out of my house. By tomorrow. At the latest.’

A human being. Neville Stewart!

Frances couldn’t believe she was actually feeling sorry for him. That, she reflected as she made her way back to her office, was what happened when someone opened their heart to you, and you allowed yourself to be equally open to their pain.

No wonder he looked terrible. Called back from his
honeymoon
, plunged into the tragedy of a baby’s death. And then to be expected to attend the actual post-mortem—to watch the pathologist put his scalpel into that tiny body…

On top of it all, he wasn’t in the least sure how things stood with his new wife—with Triona. She’d been pretty angry when the honeymoon had been cut short, he’d confided. He knew—who better?—what a fiery temper she had, and he didn’t blame her for exercising it on this occasion. But he didn’t know what to do about it, or even where to find her, when he was eventually free to go to her. She wasn’t answering her mobile. Not to him, anyway.

Even if he hadn’t begged Frances to contact Triona on his behalf, she would have felt compelled to ring her friend. Neville Stewart aside, she cared about what happened to Triona, whom she’d first known years ago, during the long struggle for women’s ordination to the priesthood. Triona had been a young Irish
firebrand, training for a career in law, standing shoulder-
to-shoulder
with the women who knew they were called to be priests but who were blocked at every turn by the fossilised element of the Church’s hierarchy. Eventually the women had succeeded, of course, yet not before they’d done some fairly extreme things; like the Suffragettes before them, they’d occasionally risked personal safety and come pretty close to the edges of the law. Triona had promised Frances that she would be there for her if ever she needed a lawyer, neither of them dreaming under what circumstances that call would finally come.

In her office, Frances took a moment to compose herself before picking up the phone. Neville had written down Triona’s mobile number for her; she smoothed the slip of paper out on her desk and breathed deeply, praying that she would know what to say. The last thing she wanted to do was to get in the middle of a domestic misunderstanding, and she certainly had no wish to take Neville Stewart’s side against his wife. No: she needed to be available to Triona. As a friend.

Poor, poor Triona. Frances punched in the number, willing Triona to answer.

She did, but only after several rings.

‘Triona? It’s Frances.’

‘Frances.’ Triona’s voice was flat; it sounded hoarse, as if she had a cold—or had been crying.

‘How…are you?’

Triona gave a harsh laugh. ‘The honeymoon is over. Really over. How do you
think
I am?’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘What’s to talk about? My husband’—she laughed again—‘chose his job over me. And it won’t be the last time. I can see the way it will be from now on. Why should I put myself through this? I might as well just admit I made a mistake and walk away from it right now.’

Frances was appalled. She’d expected Triona to be hurt, angry. But talking about her marriage being over before it had even properly begun…this was more than a marital misunderstanding.
And there was a baby involved as well. ‘Triona. Where are you?’ she asked.

‘My flat. Where else? Certainly not that tip that Neville calls home.’

‘You need to talk to Neville,’ Frances stated.

‘I don’t
need
to talk to him. I don’t
want
to talk to him.’ Her voice broke on a sob. ‘Oh, God. I’ve just realised. He’ll come looking for me. Eventually. When he’s run out of excuses to keep away.’

That, Frances knew, wasn’t fair. Triona hadn’t been answering his calls; that meant she knew he was trying to reach her.

‘I can’t stay here,’ Triona went on, almost to herself. ‘He’ll find me. I don’t want to see him.’

‘Then—’ Frances began.

‘Where can I go? He’ll find me here. And he has a key.’

‘But you can’t just hide from him.’ That would solve
nothing
, Frances was sure; it would just prolong the pain for both of them.

Triona ignored her. ‘Do you have a spare room? Can I stay with you, Frances?’

‘With
me
?’

‘That big vicarage. You must have a spare room.’

Well, reflected Frances, at least it would give her a chance to speak to Triona face-to-face. She could make her see, somehow, that it was way too soon to give up on her marriage. She could
encourage
her to talk to Neville, to look at things from his point of view. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You can stay with Graham and me.’ For a few days, anyway. Surely Triona would cool off, see reason, realise that all marriages required work and that her baby needed a father.

‘I’ll take a taxi,’ said Triona. ‘I’ll be there within the hour.’

Frances sighed as she put the phone down. She’d better get home, then, make sure the guest room was made up, and prepare her husband Graham for the invasion.