Blood in Grandpont (17 page)

‘She came to see me,’ Geraldine began. ‘She arrived at about eight o’clock, and she left just after nine thirty. She said she was going to see Alan Tull.’

‘And why did she come to see you?’

‘Why not? We’re friends.’

‘Are you lovers?’

‘Ooh!’ Geraldine replied in a tone that was pure mock-horror. ‘You don’t beat about the bush do you, Inspector.’

‘Yes or no?’

‘No,’ she said with a smile.

‘Are you sure?’ growled Fox. He shouldn’t have interrupted. It wasn’t part of the plan, but he was tired and he didn’t like this dyke pissing his boss about.

Geraldine turned on him, all playfulness gone. ‘Of course I’m fucking sure, Sergeant. I’d have noticed if I’d been having an affair with her. And I’d be happy to admit it,’ she continued, turning back towards Holden. ‘Only it’s not true. I like her. I even tried it on with her once. But she wouldn’t have any of it.’

Fox snorted. He wasn’t that easily put off, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let the lesbian cow have the last word. ‘So how come she came round so early in the morning, as soon as her husband had left for work. It looks bloody suspicious to me.’

Geraldine turned back to her male interrogator, and her face snarled with fury. ‘Because, Mr fucking Policeman, her husband didn’t like me. And because I’m a dyke, he wouldn’t understand that Sarah and I might have a normal friendship. Like you, he’d have jumped to the conclusion that if we were seeing each other out of his sight, then it must be sex.’ She paused. Her face was flushed and her breathing was fast and shallow. ‘She just needed someone to talk to, that’s all.’

‘What if her husband had found out that you two saw each other socially behind his back?’ Fox was leaning forward, a look of triumph in his eyes. ‘And what if he had jumped to the conclusion
that his wife didn’t come round to see you just for a bit of tea and sympathy?’ He spat the words out, so that Holden suddenly shuddered and wondered what the hell she was doing working with a man like him. ‘Maybe they had a bust up and she blew his brains out?’

Geraldine Payne turned in supplication towards Holden. ‘She wouldn’t have done that. She’s tough on the outside, but inside.…’ Her words tailed off as she tried to martial her thoughts into coherence. ‘Look, Susan,’ she said, suddenly informal, ‘if I thought Sarah had done anything like that, I’d tell you. I wouldn’t protect a murderer. I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m honest.’ She paused, and then gave a sharp prod with her emotional knife. ‘Ask Karen. She’ll tell you.’

She was on a train. It was the same one as always, just like the one in her grandmother’s house. A bright red engine that careered along in front of her, while she stood in the front carriage – or maybe it was the only carriage, only she never dared to look behind her – unable to move. Her feet were glued to the floor, and all she could do was look forwards and watch the huge puffs of smoke which were emitted every few seconds from the funnel. It was like watching a cartoon, only she was part of it and it was real and she was terrified. The train seemed to be racing straight ahead, but they kept passing the same station, the same church, and the same set of signals, which stretched across the line just like in her father’s Triang trainset, and she had to keep ducking every time the signals reappeared for fear they would decapitate her. At first these landmarks, the station, the church, the signals, occurred at regular, spaced-out intervals, but soon she realized the gaps were getting shorter. They were gathering speed and she had no way of getting off or stopping. And then the train let off a whistle, a terrible steaming whistle, and it got louder and louder until it wasn’t a whistle any more. It was a scream of terror, and the scream was hers because right in front of the driverless train – for she had realized by now that it had no driver – there loomed a huge red wall and she was hurtling towards it and she knew she was going to crash into it.

Only she didn’t. She never had done. This was the point at which
she always woke. She sat bolt upright and shouted. It wasn’t a loud shout, though it would have probably been sufficient to wake Karen if Karen had been there, but she wasn’t. That had been Susan’s own choice. She had spent the evening round at Karen’s flat, but she’d insisted on coming back to Chilswell Road and sleeping on her own. She needed some time to herself, she had said, and Karen had said fine, as if she understood, but Karen had been hurt. Susan knew that, and she could have changed her mind, but instead she’d driven home to Grandpont and gone to bed alone. And now, at five o’clock in the morning, she wished she hadn’t been such a self-centred cow. Because then Karen would be lying next to her and she could tell her about this stupid nightmare and then she could lie down again and Karen would wrap her arms around her and she would feel OK.

For a moment she considered ringing Karen, but shook her head at her own foolishness. Instead, she sent her a text ‘Ring when u r awake’ (as if one possible option for Karen was to ring when she was asleep!) and went downstairs to the kitchen. She placed her mobile in the middle of the table, checked the kettle for water, and switched it on. Next stop was the mug tree: there were six mugs hanging on it, each a different bright colour. She studied them for several seconds, and then chose the yellow one. It was a long time since she had drunk out of it. Next came the choice of tea. In the tin from France were the herbal teas – she ought to have one of them to help her sleep – but she wasn’t sure she wanted to sleep and besides she kept them largely for guests. You couldn’t live here in this
left-leaning
, Guardian-reading, healthy-eating, allotment-obsessed area of South Oxford and not have herbal tea for your guests. But she opted to open the white tin with the unequivocal hand-written label ‘Builder’s Tea’ on it and pulled a bag out of that one.

She poured the boiling water in and let it stew for at least a minute before removing the bag and adding a dollop of milk. Then she sat at the table with her mug cradled in her hand, and tried to think. But nothing happened. Not a single constructive, analytical thought entered her consciousness. Not one. There was only
feeling, deep and bewildering, a feeling of immense and intolerable panic, as if the very roof of the world was pressing down on her, squeezing and squeezing her until there was no space left for her and no breath left in her lungs. She gave a snort, releasing the air she had been refusing to let out, and then sucked the stale house air deep into her lungs. She slammed her fist down on the table and shouted at herself to ward off the panic. Get a grip, you silly girl, get a grip! They weren’t her words, of course. They were her father’s, rocketing back from the past, and as they had always done back then, they now acted only to make her more determined – or stubborn, depending on whose point of view you took. She stood up suddenly and went over to the small semi-circular table which stood between the door leading through from the front of the house and the half-glass door leading sideways out into the garden. The table was dark brown and Georgian, with elegant curved legs, and was totally out of place in the kitchen, but it had been her grandmother’s and it fitted the space perfectly. The table was covered with a white lace cloth embroidered with delicate yellow flowers, and on this sat a silver-grey phone, a notepad, and biro. She picked up the notepad and returned to the kitchen table. She drank a slug of tea, revelling in its strong, ugly taste. Right, she told herself, it’s time to get organized.

‘Start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to start.’ That was what Maria von Trapp would have said, prancing across her stupid Austrian mountains, but she couldn’t do that. She could only start with Geraldine Payne, who seemed to be everyone’s bloody dentist and had once slept in the same bed as Karen. Because the fact was that Geraldine Payne had invaded her head.

‘Geraldine Payne.’ She wrote the name down at the top of the blank sheet of paper in front of her. She paused, took another slurp from her mug, and continued to write. ‘Dentist. Relationship with Sarah Russell. Sexual? Possibly! She denies it.’ She paused, a prolonged pause which took in another slurp of tea and a desultory scratching of her armpit. She tore off the sheet of paper, placed it in front of her to the left, and started writing on a fresh sheet.

‘Maria Tull.’ She looked hard at the two words. The idea was that writing things down would help to lessen the confusion in her brain and allay the feeling of panic in her gut. But it didn’t seem to be working. She picked up her mug again, and drained its contents. Concentrate, Susan! Concentrate!

She tried to recall the interview with Geraldine. In detail. It was easy to recall Fox’s blundering aggression. She hated the way he had gone about it, and she hated the attitudes that had fuelled his questioning, but the fact was he had forced her to talk about her relationship with Sarah Russell. Holden had taken over from him at that point. She didn’t feel she could walk out, job done, with the whiff of sexism and homophobia hanging acrid in the air. So she had changed the subject, moving it away from Sarah and towards the Tulls.

‘I like Alan,’ Geraldine had said firmly. ‘He’s a kind man, a gentleman. Just the sort of GP that anyone in their right mind would want. Of course, we both work in Beaumont Street, so we meet up occasionally for lunch. He always offers to pay, but I insist on taking turns. I think he likes being seen with me, a woman, but a totally safe woman. No chance of gossip or scandal, or anything getting out of hand.’

‘What about Maria?’ she had asked then.

‘She was all right.’ Holden had been struck by that expression. It was the sort of thing a child said about a teacher they liked or about an aunt who managed not to say embarrassing things in front of their friends. But in Geraldine’s mouth it seemed incongruous. Especially in view of how she’d described her that time she’d stormed into the station.

‘The first time we met,’ Holden said unemotionally, ‘you described her as an Italian bitch.’

Geraldine laughed. ‘Yes, I dare say I might have. I was cross then, really furious in fact, so I probably said things I didn’t really mean.’

‘Do you make a habit of that?’

‘Only when I want to.’ She had laughed again, as if the very idea of behaving in any other way was too ridiculous for words. ‘Look,
we got on. We weren’t best friends – far from it – but I think she found me interesting, what with me preferring women to men. She couldn’t get her head round that.’ Again, Geraldine had laughed. ‘I liked to talk art with her. She was really interesting on it. Occasionally, we’d meet at the Ashmolean and have a coffee, and she’d take me to look at just one painting that had taken her fancy, and she’d talk about it. Endlessly!’ She had laughed again. ‘She liked to show off her knowledge.’

‘Was she having an affair with anyone, do you think?’

Geraldine hadn’t shown any surprise at her change of tactic. Perhaps, when you’re being quizzed by the police, no question can be a real surprise. ‘I wasn’t her best buddy, Inspector,’ she had said. ‘I doubt she’d have confided in me. But actually, if you want my honest guess, I’d guess no. I’ll tell you for why. She was a looker, was Maria. Not my type, you understand, but the men liked her. She always got looks. Hell, she encouraged them! She loved a bit of flirting, even if it was only with the pensioner standing guard in the pre-Raphaelite gallery. It was amazing the favours she could get if she put her mind to it. But it was always a game with her. The bottom line was she liked her life. She liked the financial comfort that her marriage to a GP gave her. She liked Oxford. She liked being able to dabble in the art market, and she liked her trips back to Venice. She once asked me about lesbian sex and what we got up to, and when I had finished, she made a face and said that personally she thought sex was overrated. So that’s why I say I doubt she would risk it all for something she didn’t much like.’

‘Not even Dominic Russell?’ Susan had asked, switching her line of attack.

But Geraldine had merely broken into peals of laughter. ‘Are you kidding, Inspector. Especially not him. Rumour has it that he tried it on with her soon after she married Alan, and she turned him down flat. Dominic thought he was God’s gift to women, but only the young and the naïve fell for his dubious charms. And the bottom line is, when Sarah cracked the whip he used to come running.’

‘So when did you last see Maria alive?’ She had intended it as her last question; she hadn’t expected it to reveal anything interesting, but it had seemed like an easy way to wind the interview to a suitable conclusion.

Geraldine had frowned, and sucked in her lips. ‘It must be two or three weeks ago. I bumped into her outside the Playhouse.’

‘What did you talk about?’

She had shrugged. ‘This and that. I admired her handbag. It was very stylish, just like her. And she asked if I’d been away on holiday. And she told me she was giving a series of lectures on Venetian art.’ Geraldine had stopped at that point. Holden remembered noticing that something changed in her. ‘I rang her about it,’ she had said with intensity. ‘On the night she was murdered, I rang her on her mobile to find out when she was starting her lectures.’

‘You mean you spoke to her?’ Holden had been suddenly alert. ‘When was this?’

‘No,’ Geraldine had replied. ‘She never answered my call.’ She scratched her head, trying to recall the details. ‘It must have been a bit after six o’clock. I had a feeling she had told me that her lectures were starting that night, but I had nothing written down, so I wanted to check. Her mobile rang several times, but she didn’t answer. So I left a message, asking her to call me, and then I hung up. I never did speak to her.’

She had fallen silent then. They both had, as each wondered what might have been. If Geraldine had got hold of her and gone along that evening, would it have changed what happened?

Susan Holden yawned, and felt an almost physical jolt of tiredness sweep over her. She looked down at her piece of paper. Still only two words: ‘Maria Tull.’ She picked up the biro and started writing underneath. ‘Missed phone call from Geraldine? [Check with Wilson, esp. time.] Why did Maria not answer?
Does it matter?’

Then she put down the biro, picked up her mobile, and made her way upstairs.

It was the sound of her mobile that woke her. She scrabbled around on her bedside table for it, conscious that if she didn’t pick up by five rings, it would go into the answering service. ‘Yes,’ she said, just in time.

‘Are you all right?’ It was Karen’s voice. God, was it nice to hear her voice!

‘I think I might be cracking up.’ Susan hadn’t meant to say anything as dramatic as that. But the words popped out as large as life and twice as unsettling.

There was an intake of breath at the other end of the call. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I had a nightmare. A pig of a nightmare.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Have you time to listen?’

‘For you, babe, all the time in the world.’ It could have been a line from a cut-price B movie, and it was delivered by Karen as if it was, but cliché or not, it had a startling effect: Susan Holden burst uncontrollably into tears.

For twenty minutes they talked. Or rather for twenty minutes Susan Holden talked and Karen Pointer listened. And at the end of it Susan no longer felt like she was about to explode. ‘Thanks,’ she said simply at the end. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘It’s all part of the deal,’ Karen said, trying hard to distance herself from her emotions. For a minute or two in their conversation she had feared she was in danger of losing the best person who had ever happened to her.

‘I love you,’ Susan said.

‘I love you too.’ And tears had begun to well up in Karen’s eyes too.

‘Can I come round and stay tonight?’

‘Of course. Any night, or every night’

‘Really?’

‘Really. The only problem is I’ve lost a filling.’

‘You’ve what?’

‘I’ve lost a filling,’ Karen said, more slowly and more loudly, as if
talking to a call centre in Mumbai. ‘From my back tooth.’ She was louder now, fully into the part. ‘I ate a toffee. Do you understand?’ she said with exaggerated gaps between each word.

Susan laughed, and Karen laughed back, glad that Susan was reacting normally.

‘So,’ Karen continued, but this time in her sensible, organized voice, ‘I’m going to ask Geraldine to squeeze me in at the end of her day. I might be late home. So I’ll give you a ring when I’m finished and we can decide then what to do with our evening. OK?’

‘OK. Love you.’