Permissible Limits (25 page)

After the service came the fly-past. Harald brought the Mustang low over the fold of chalk downland behind the church, dipped a wing, and then set course for mid-Channel. Mr Grover, the AAIB investigator, had given me a set of co-ordinates that put Adam a mile or so shy of the fifty-degree north reporting line, and Harald was carrying his SatNav to get the location exactly right.

When he got there, he circled low and dropped a bouquet I’d prepared the previous evening. My mother had been unhappy about a bouquet. A wreath, she insisted, would be more seemly. For once in my life, I ignored her. A wreath was exactly what Adam wouldn’t have wanted. My bouquet, on the other hand, an extravagant confection of roses, interlaced with woodland bluebells, snowdrops, spring crocus and angel’s tears, would doubtless raise a very big smile indeed. My mother, surprised and a little hurt by my refusal to concede her point, had tried to make an issue of it, but I headed off the inevitable argument by playing the overstressed widow.

‘
You’re lucky I’m coming to the service at all’, I told her. ‘I should be the one dropping the flowers.’

From St Lawrence, we all drove back to Mapledurcombe. Andrea had worked nonstop for the best part of a week getting the eats and drinks exactly right. Taking charge of what she called ‘the practicals’ was, she insisted, the least she could do. My own time would be far better spent in trying to come to terms with my loss, and all the other stuff - the preparation, the transport, the accommodations - I
was to leave to her.

I protested, of course, but to be honest I was only too grateful to fall in with her plans. Harald’s return of Adam’s sports bag had shaken me infinitely more than I’d expected and the wet, clammy feeling of the sodden leather had stayed with me for days. While I was on the phone to Mr Grover about the Channel co-ordinates I’d naturally mentioned the bag, and when he asked whether I might send it over to him, I’d been only too happy to oblige. I had many glorious memories of my dead husband but his tatty old sports bag wasn’t one of them. Its very familiarity, the fact that it and Adam had been practically inseparable, made it - oddly enough - all the more repugnant. It had travelled with him in the Cessna. It had been there, probably lodged under the passenger seat, when he’d died. Far from being a small, intimate, domestic object, part of the warp and weft of our shared life, it had become something sinister, a mute witness of an event I’d infinitely prefer never to think about. It had to go, and when I wrapped it in a brand-new dustbin liner, and squeezed it into a huge Jiffy bag, I was glad to see the back of it.
Yours for keeps,
I scribbled to Mr Grover.
When you’ve finished with it, throw the thing away.

Back at Mapledurcombe, after the memorial service, you could practically hear the collective sigh of relief. All of us, I think, had been apprehensive about the service, partly because the English are pretty
hopeless
at grieving, and partly because people of our age and inclination - still young, still active, still taking risks - hate being reminded of the consequences of getting it wrong. Back home though, refuelling on endless bottles of Chenin Blanc and Cape Chardonnay, the gathering quickly had the makings of a party. By the time dusk fell, even Adam’s father was managing to raise a smile, not so much - I
suspect - in solidarity with the mood of the rest of us,but at Andrea’s determination to impress a wayward French display pilot who’d been a particular favourite of Adam’s.

Jean-Luc, who never bothered much with words, had truly appalling English and Andrea was doing her best to translate her feelings about the funeral into what little schoolgirl French she could remember. She, like the rest of us, couldn’t stop talking about the swans. They’d appeared after the memorial service in the wake of the Mustang, holding a perfect V formation, and the drunker Andrea got, the more graphic her arm movements became. She’d long ago given up on the French for ‘swan’ and instead kept circling poor Jean-Luc, dipping her head, arching her neck and flapping her arms around. It looked more like charades than seduction and when one of Jean-Luc’s mates stepped in and acted as translator, the expression on his face brought the house down.

^‘
l
Ah, les cygnes.’
Jean-Luc backed towards the windows.
‘Je comprends.’

I was at the other end of the room, doing circuits and bumps with a tray of hot-cross buns, watching Andrea through a forest of heads. At first I thought the pressure on my elbow was accidental, someone jostling for space. I glanced round. It was Steve Liddell. I’d never seen him in a suit before.

‘
Steve,’ I said. ‘You made it.’

‘
Yeah.’ He ducked his head. ‘I’m sorry. I got… lost.’

At first, unlike the rest of us, I thought he was stone-cold sober. Then, with a shock, I realised he was very drunk indeed. I’d invited him over for the service, of course, and I’d even put in a phone call a couple of days ago to check whether he’d be coming, but when I’d got no answer and he hadn’t turned up at the church, I’d assumed he must be away.

‘
When did you get here?’

Steve was looking round, searching - I thought - for faces he recognised. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone looking so lost. Harald was over by the fireplace, deep in conversation with Ralph Pierson. Steve caught his eye but Harald barely acknowledged him.

I tried again.

‘
Did you fly over?’

Steve turned back to me. When I repeated the question, he shook his head. Then said yes.

‘
This morning,’ he added thickly.

‘
Southampton?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
And you got the ferry over?’ ‘Yes. Red thing.’

‘
So why didn’t you join us?’ I gestured around. ‘Couldn’t you find the church?’

He looked at me. He seemed to be brooding over the answer, sorting something out in his head. Finally, he beckoned me closer. ‘I came to say sorry,’ he mumbled.

‘
What for?’

‘
Adam.’ He nodded, ‘Adam.’

He laid his hand on my arm. He had big, broad, heavy hands, the nails rimmed with ingrained black. Jean-Luc was calling for more wine. Andrea was still pursuing him. It was the perfect time to leave the room. I took Steve’s hand and tugged him towards the door. He came willingly, bumping into me then apologising to someone about a spilled drink. Adam’s study was mercifully empty. I shut the door.

‘
Why the apology?’ I turned to Steve. ‘I don’t understand.’

Steve sank into Adam’s revolving chair and buried his face in his hands. As a gesture of guilt, it seemed pretty unambiguous. I perched myself on the corner of the desk. Time for some home truths, I thought. Time for some answers.

‘
What happened?’ I asked quietly.

Steve raised his head and tried to look at me. His eyes were glassy. ‘When?’ He sounded defensive.

‘
Over in Jersey.’

‘
You mean the aircraft? The Cessna?’

I shook my head very slowly. I didn’t mean that, and he knew I didn’t. The Cessna, in a way, was now immaterial, mere history. Much more important was my marriage, and what this man had done to it.

‘
Not the aircraft, Steve,’
I
said.

‘
No?’

‘
No. Tell me about Michelle. Tell me about your little girl Minette. Tell me what happened.’

Steve tipped back his head and closed his eyes, a gesture of infinite weariness. One leg reached for the carpet. The chair began to spin, very slowly. I stopped it.

‘
You came to say sorry,’ I prompted. ‘Sorry means you must have done something wrong.’

Steve eyed me, watchful now, and I wondered whether the police had been on to him. After DC Perry’s visit I’d heard nothing more, but that didn’t mean that Steve was off the book.

‘
I didn’t do anything,’ Steve said. ‘It wasn’t me.’

‘
Then why the guilt?’

‘
I liked him. I liked him a lot.’

‘
Who?’

‘
Adam. Your old man. Your husband. He was lovely, a lovely bloke.’ He shook his head hopelessly and then muttered something I didn’t catch.

‘
What? What did you say?’

I leaned forward. I wanted to shake him, to prise the truth out of him, to reach down through the syrup of alcohol and retrieve whatever it was he’d come to tell me. Had Adam stolen his partner? Gone off with Michelle? Lured her away with his big innocent grin and £70,000 of our money? Or, please God, did I have it all wrong?

‘
Tell me, Steve,’ I said. ‘Tell me about Michelle.’

‘
She left me.’

‘
I know that. Tell me why.’

‘
You
know
that?’

Steve was fighting to focus his eyes. I told him about Dennis.

‘
Dennis is away,’ he muttered. ‘Gone away. Gone to Barbados.’

It was true. Dennis Wetherall had indeed departed to the West Indies, one of the periodic breaks he fitted in, a mix of business and pleasure with the emphasis very definitely on the latter. I’d been phoning him for the best part of three weeks, desperate to find out more about our missing £70,000. Now it occurred to me that there were easier ways of nailing down the money. Maybe I should be asking Steve.

‘
My husband gave you seventy thousand pounds,’ I said slowly. ‘I’d like you to tell me why.’

‘
Lent.’ Steve gave the word a lot of emphasis. ‘He lent me it.’

‘
Lent, then. But why?’

Surprise.’

‘
Surprise?’
I was getting angry now. ‘Steve, he’s dead. He’s gone. One of the last things he did was give you a whole pile of money. Our money. My money. I want to know what’s happened to it. And why he just lent it to you like that.’

Steve followed my outburst with nods of his head. One hand crabbed up his jacket and slipped inside. I found myself looking at a cheque for £70,000.

‘
You’re supposed to be broke,’ I said. ‘Where did this come from?’

Steve ignored my question.

‘
I came to say sorry,’ he repeated, trying to get up.

I put the cheque on the desk and gave the chair a kick. Steve slipped helplessly back as it began to spin. Outside, in the corridor, I heard a sudden peal of laughter, the way it happens when someone opens a door.

I spun the chair another half-turn. Steve was starting to look ill.

‘
Tell me about Michelle,’ I said savagely. ‘That’s the least you owe me.’

‘
She went off,’ he protested. ‘Not my fault.’

‘
Yes, but who with?’ Steve gaped up at me.

‘
Who
with?’

He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then I heard a door opening and I looked up to find Harald standing on the threshold. He had a glass of orange juice in one hand and seemed surprised to find me talking to Steve.

‘
Hey,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘
It’s no problem.’

‘
It’s just -’ He was looking at Steve. ‘He OK?’

‘
He’s fine.’ I waited for Harald to say his piece. Harald was still studying Steve. Steve, at last, seemed to recognise him. Then he bent forward, vomiting noisily on the carpet. I tried to step past Harald, en route to fetch a bucket and a cloth from the kitchen. Harald stopped me, the gentlest pressure.

‘
I’ll fix Steve up,’ he said. ‘I think you should go see your sister.’

‘
Why?’

‘
She’s making a bit of a scene. It’s your mother I worry about, and the other older folks. Maybe…’ he shrugged, ‘… you could do something.’

When I got back to the lounge, Andrea was on the sofa with Jamie Pierson. Jamie had been helping us pass round the food and drink, eternally cheerful, but Andrea had clearly told him it was time for a break. There was a bottle of Chenin Blanc on the carpet between her
feet and as
I
watched she poured what was left into her
glass.
She
seemed no drunker than when I’d left, though the way she slipped her arm around Jamie’s shoulders, and gave him a little hug, undoubtedly signalled intent. She’d been fantasising about Jamie for weeks but so far I’d seen no signs of reciprocation.