Grave Doubts (21 page)

She was making small whimpering sounds as she switched on the PC, appalled at the risk she was prepared to take, but she had to know. Ever since Wayne had been arrested she had been tortured by doubts. Could Dave have been involved? It was impossible to think of Wayne acting on his own initiative but it was equally difficult to accept that Dave might be implicated. When Wayne was sent down and Dave went travelling, she had found the key in its hiding place and had a copy made. It had lain unused in her bathroom cupboard ever since, until that poor girl was killed at the weekend.

Lucinda Hamilton. Dave had been in London the weekend she died. The way he’d had made love to her in the car park the day before had been so reminiscent of the times he’d returned from his jaunts with Wayne that she’d resolved then to act on her fears. She wasn’t sure why she was doing this whilst he was in the city but she couldn’t face another night without sleep or day with no appetite. Breaking through Dave’s security would be a desperate attempt to remove her suspicions once and for all. While she waited for the PC to warm up she remembered that she had bought rubber gloves and went to find them.

After a bacon sandwich he bought a paper to read over a decent coffee in a café he thought did the best in Birmingham. A pretty student, no more than nineteen, came into the crowded shop and asked if she could share his table. She had long legs, good skin and eyes as brown as coffee beans. From time to time she would flick them up to him, then look away quickly. It was fairly typical behaviour. Women found him attractive.

He toyed with the idea of picking her up and taking her away to a place where he could enjoy her properly but she was bound to live in Halls – she looked like a Fresher to his trained eye. Besides, he no longer indulged his interests so close to home since the police attention that had almost hooked him. As his coffee cooled, the idea of taking her became more attractive and he indulged his fantasy while he read the paper. When she saw him smiling at her she smiled back and he began to have second thoughts. She almost seemed to be inviting him to take her, and she would be a good one he could sense it. She would struggle. And he needed to act again quickly, otherwise there was a danger the police would think Lucinda an isolated attack, which would delay Griffiths’ appeal. Perhaps he could risk it just this once. He leant towards her.

‘Beverly! There you are. I’ve been looking all over.’ A plump girl with wire-rimmed glasses and frizzy hair flounced up to their table.

‘I said I’d be here.’ The young beauty opposite him suddenly looked sulky and the idea of biting down hard on that plump lower lip was delicious.

‘You said
Starbucks
, not here. Just as well I remembered this was your favourite. Come on we’ll be late.’

Beverly looked at him with a disappointed smile, and he raised his eyebrows in an invitation to stay. She hesitated a moment but her dumpy friend dragged her away. He watched them go, vaguely disappointed. It was time to call Iain again anyway and that was best done from the flat. He cleared his drinking debris away like a regular citizen and started the short walk home.

Wendy searched the desk in the hope of finding Dave’s password. She unearthed some dope, pornographic magazines and details of an account in the Isle of Man that she didn’t know he had, but no trace of what she really needed. Now that she was actually sitting at his desk she felt as if she had already taken the most difficult decision. The problem was that she had already tried twice to log on and the system had rejected her. If she tried again and was still wrong, the PC might lock her out. That was what happened at the hospital and then the password would need resetting. She could not risk that – Dave would know next time he went online and then her life would not be worth living.

A small voice told her to stop. If she took much longer she might be late for work and then the hospital would call and her deception would be discovered. Her palms were as wet as her cheeks.

‘I have to do this!’ She told herself, knowing that she would never be able to find the courage again.

She stared at the letters she had written down from watching through the crack of the door. His right hand had been visible and she had seen: _ O U _ I _ I quite clearly. In the weeks since she had spied on him she had done her research. There were only two words in her dictionary that fitted those letters and she had tried both without success. Now she was faced with the choice of using her last idea and risking a lock out and discovery, or abandoning her search. Wendy looked at the sweat-dampened paper in her hand and offered up a silent prayer before typing in the missing letters: H, D, N. Her finger hovered over the enter key, then with an audible sob she hit it.

HOUDINI, the great escape artist. His face appeared in the screen and smiled at her. She was in. She opened Internet Explorer and found his favourite sites. Dave had no idea that she knew how to do this, that she had paid for the class at night school with cash saved from her housekeeping. She manoeuvred the mouse until she found the address he had used most recently. It too was password protected and when HOUDINI would not work she selected the next one. On the fifth attempt she was given access. The site featured pictures of sado-masochistic sex and she browsed through it unmoved. What she saw was tame compared with the realities of her life.

Time was running out. She opened the next destination on the web and watched in horror as close-up photographs of train wrecks and natural disasters filled the screen, each with explicit images of human carnage. A severed foot lay next to red mess that looked like pulped tomatoes with white beans floating in it. When she recognised the white lumps as remnants of a shattered jawbone she had to rush to the bathroom. She cleared her vomit away scrupulously and sprayed perfume in the air to disguise the smell.

It was hard to return to the screen. There was little reason to look further, and she had no desire to see what pictures lay behind password protection. They would be worse and the thought sickened her. The necessity to log off and disguise her intrusion occupied her mind, forcing all other thoughts to the far reaches but they kept intruding nevertheless. Dave liked this stuff, he had searched the net and found it. What more did he like? Could she openly admit that he was a sadist, turned on by pain and violence? She already knew the answer but whilst horrified, she was also relieved. Nothing she had discovered suggested that he was capable of murder.

She turned off the PC, aware that she was running late because she had been sick. Wendy was slipping into her shoes when she heard the front door below slam shut. Their two neighbours had already left for work, which meant that it had to be Dave. She let out a squeal and looked around for somewhere to hide. There was nowhere. Her only option was to climb out of the bathroom window and onto the flat roof of the groundfoor flat’s kitchen. From there she would be able to jump to the ground.

Wendy wasn’t a brave person, nor was she fit or agile but the thought of being trapped by Dave, with the PC still warm from her use was more terrifying than any physical trial. She would have to take the risk about the PC and just hope that he thought that it was from his earlier use. There were footsteps on the landing outside and she could see a silhouette through the frosted glass of the front door. She grabbed her bag and ran to the bathroom, closing the door behind her as his key slid into the lock. ‘Please, God, don’t let him come in here,’ she thought as she opened the window and pushed her bag through. It was narrow but by standing on the lid of the toilet she was able to squeeze through and onto the asphalt of the roof three feet below.

As she pulled the window closed the bathroom door opened. Wendy shrank back flat against the wall and started to pray. She heard the noise of the seat being raised and a long stream of his pee spraying the bowl as he relieved himself. When the toilet flushed she counted to one hundred and then risked the jump to the concrete yard. She didn’t look back as she opened the gate and ran to her car, hidden three streets away.

During her drive through the city traffic she began to sort through the images in her mind. This was something at which she was practiced. Self-deception was relatively easy when the alternatives were unthinkable. By the time she arrived on the ward her thoughts were under control, excuses prepared and explanations in place. After a day of dealing with other people’s traumas she managed to regain a semblance of routine in which her main concern was whether Dave would still be there when she returned and, if he was, what she should buy him for supper.

Thunder directly overhead woke Nightingale and she lay in the dark, disorientated, as she tried to shake away the cobweb of a dream. She didn’t know why she should start having nightmares again but after a wonderfully blank sleep on her first night she had dreamt of Griffiths repeatedly. He was stalking her through a wood. It was night and a heavy bird was flying through the trees above her head, scattering twigs and leaves onto her. She was wearing a diaphanous, pale green dress with nothing on underneath. Griffiths was masked and much taller than she remembered.

Every night she woke up as his fingers grabbed her hair and pulled her backwards. Tonight, as she had struggled up out of the depths of sleep, she had felt the heat of his breath on her neck seconds before her eyes flew open in alarm. She pulled on a jumper over her T-shirt and went to find wood for the Aga so that she could make a cup of tea. While she waited for the fire to heat the water she lit a tilley lamp and laid out the contents of her aunt’s secret drawer. She had lost count of the number of times she had done this, but she had not yet discovered their secret.

There was a diary for the year of her birth, in which there was reference to a January house party that had ended in a fearful argument between her mother and father, and another at Easter when her parents were again among guests at Mill Farm. Nightingale compared the names of the people at the party at Easter with those from New Year. Five matched apart from her aunt: her parents, a married couple called George and Amelia Mayflower, and a guest called Lulu Bullock. The way her aunt described Lulu and the depth of their relationship had convinced Nightingale that the women had probably been lovers. In August her father had arrived with his heavily pregnant wife on condition that Lulu should reside somewhere else during their stay. Her aunt had prevailed on Amelia to take in her friend.

Nightingale studied a packet of photographs as she sipped her tea, trying to put names to faces. The girl she imagined might be Lulu reminded her of someone and she was still trying to remember whom as she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

A light tapping outside the window woke her at dawn. The air was full of birdsong, triumphant after the night of rain. A thrush had a snail in its beak and was beating it determinedly against the stone windowsill. Sunlight angled low through a gap in the trees. During the morning she finished cleaning the bedroom she had selected upstairs and cut some dog roses to place in a creamware jug on the dressing table. She decided against curtains. The idea of waking and sleeping in rhythm with the sun appealed to her. She was on her way downstairs when she heard someone knock at the front door.

‘Miss Nightingale, good morning.’ The old priest touched the brim of his hat lightly in salutation. ‘Glad to see you up and about. I’ve come to invite you to church. You’ve missed early morning mass but we have another service at eleven should you choose to celebrate the Lord’s day of rest.’

He eyed the mop and bucket in her hand meaningfully and there was a distinct emphasis to his final words. The priest managed to irritate her all over again but despite this the idea of church and some company appealed. She had been on her own for too long.

‘I’ll do my best to make it, Father, once I have finished here.’ She was not going to give in that easily.

He nodded and peered over her shoulder.

‘My word, you’ve transformed the place already. All your own work?’

‘I’m here on my own, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Indeed, yes, well. As I say, transformed. The garden is back under control, and you’ve put in seedlings, I see. Until later, then.’

Nightingale watched him walk away across the rutted track, his cassock caught up neatly in his belt to avoid the puddles. If the service was at eleven she barely had time to finish her chores and wash. She lit a fire under the copper in the scullery and filled it with water from the stream. In the twenty minutes it took to heat to luke warm she finished weeding the herb bed. The rosemary bushes had been hacked into submission, clumps of lemon, variegated and garden thyme had been shaped, and the sages sculpted into almost oriental proportions. Their mixed aromas filled the warm air as she worked.

She cut some lavender to throw in her bath and stripped off to wash there in the scullery. Her skin was tingling and pink by the time she finished, her hair glossy wet but drying quickly in the increasing heat of the morning. The blouse she took from her case was a little creased but the long floral skirt flowed wrinkle free. She put pearl studs in her ears, applied lipstick and a spray of perfume; she was representing the Nightingales, after all.

Bells were already ringing as she parked. An old lady leaning heavily on a stick was hobbling hastily to the door and she followed her down the path. Yew trees crowded the gate and shadowed the lichen-covered graves. Mixed oaks and rowans surrounded the church, proud in their summer green.

The church door creaked loudly as the old lady pushed it open and a dozen heads turned. Two dozen eyes widened in surprise to see a stranger step inside. Nightingale walked a short way down the aisle, crossed herself and bobbed in an action that sprang unchecked from her childhood. In front of her, she was conscious of the dry rustle of old people’s whispers. The priest arrived and with him a choir that included the only people in the church below the age of fifty. They raised the number in the congregation to twenty-five.

The organist played the opening bars of the first hymn and Nightingale joined in unselfconsciously, comfortable that her contralto voice would pass muster. As she sang she studied the organist, a woman about her mother’s age, who worked the stops and keys vigorously, inspiring the few voices to sing out. The service was traditional, the hymns the same as she had sung as a child. There was no clapping, no shouts of joy and not the faintest echo of a tambourine. It would have been entirely possible for this same service to have been conducted twenty-five years previously. Perhaps it had been and was only now being recycled.

As she left the priest was waiting to shake her hand. Beyond him, clusters of congregation and choir were hovering on the pretext of engaging in casual conversation but Nightingale was not fooled.

‘A lovely service. Thank you.’

‘Thank
you
for coming, Miss Nightingale. Shall we see you next week?’

‘I hope so.’ She shook his hand and he turned to go. ‘Oh, one thing, Father could you show me my Aunt’s grave?’

The priest coloured and looked around for rescue.

‘I’ll do that, Father Patrick.’ A voice came from behind her and Nightingale turned to see the organist bearing down on them.

‘Ah, thank you, Amelia. Into your capable hands then…’ He went to join safer members of his small flock.

‘I’m Amelia Mayflower. You must be Henry’s daughter. You have exactly his eyes. Well, well. It’s amazing,’ she narrowed her eyes and examined Nightingale openly, ‘the similarity is astonishing.’

‘Hardly. It’s my brother Simon people say resembles my parents. Apart from my eyes I have nothing in common with either of them.’

The woman blushed an unbecoming red and gestured with a beefy arm.

‘Your aunt’s grave is over here.’ She strode off to the west of the church. Nightingale followed her square rump into the shadow cast by the church wall and shivered.

‘There.’ The brisk tone softened. ‘I’ll leave you alone for a moment.’

Nightingale could not believe what she was seeing. The headstone was carved out of grey marble without any sign of age. It was a sculpture of a young woman kneeling on a mossy stone covered by heartsease and forget-me-nots. Above her another woman rested her hand on her shoulder. It was just possible to think of her as a guardian angel but to Nightingale’s enlightened eye the imagery was clear. This was her aunt’s lover and protectress, Lulu. It must have been carved when the two women were living together.

There was no inscription, nothing to suggest any sense of grief at her passing, only her aunt’s name and the dates that marked her life. She felt tears gather in her eyes.

‘You were fond of her then?’

Nightingale blinked hard before turning to face Amelia. ‘Yes. We were very close.’

‘She doted on you. If you had been her own daughter she could not have loved you more.’

‘Did you know her well?’ It was a test question. The diaries and photographs had already given her the answer but she was curious to see whether this woman was honest.

‘Very well at one time. Less so as we grew older. I had three children to bring up and a husband who was dogged with ill health. It was because of me that this stone was erected. The priest was fearfully against it but he can’t run the parish without me and I threatened to change churches so that was an end to it.’

‘Thank you.’ Nightingale stretched out her hand in a proper greeting. ‘I’m Louise, and I’m very pleased to meet you.’

‘So you stuck with that name did you? A real chip off the old block.’ She laughed and released Nightingale’s hand. ‘Shall we go, or would you like more time?’

‘Let’s go. I’ll come back with some flowers later.’

They walked away together, Amelia chatting by her side, explaining that she had been at school with her aunt.

‘We were inseparable, the three of us.’

‘Three?’

‘Your father, Ruth and I. They were wonderful days. How is Henry? He’s always kept in touch.’

The expression on Nightingale’s face must have told her that something was wrong.

‘Put my foot in it, have I? I’m always doing that. My late husband used to say it was my only distinguishing characteristic! Have they separated at last? I knew it would happen…’

Nightingale cleared her throat.

‘He’s dead. He died earlier this year, in January.’

It was as if she had punched Amelia. The breath went out of her and she sagged against the gatepost.

‘I didn’t know. News hasn’t reached here yet. Henry’s dead…’ She said the words as if testing them and Nightingale saw tears in her eyes. Instinctively, she put her arm around the woman’s broad shoulders in comfort. ‘I thought I would have known, that he had gone I mean. I should have known. What date was it?’

‘January 27
^th
.’

She shook her head.

‘No, that means nothing to me. All this time, I’ve been thinking…’ She shook herself and stepped away from Nightingale’s protecting arm.

‘You must have been very fond of him.’

‘Oh yes, I was. At one point I thought we would marry. But then, I was a silly empty-headed girl of eighteen. He went away to university and came back with a good degree and your mother.’

‘And you married and had children.’ She prompted, hoping to move the subject on.

‘Of course. George had always wanted me. His family was the wealthiest in the area and his prospects were promising, then. You should’ve seen the wedding present his parents gave us!’

‘What was it?’

‘The house I still live in. Imagine that. Your fate sealed at twenty-one. Hard to believe, isn’t it.’

Nightingale, who still had no real sense of who she was, let alone her destiny, could only nod. Something in her expression returned Amelia to her normal capable self.

‘Listen to me wittering! Tell me how’s your poor mother coping? I would have thought that his death would be hard on her.’

‘She’s dead too. It was a car accident. They died together.’ Nightingale tried to sound composed but there must have been something in her tone that betrayed the rawness of her feelings.

‘Oh my dear. You poor thing. And you’re down here on your own with all those memories. Let me give you lunch, no I insist. Follow me in your car, it’s not far.’ She was not to be denied.

Mrs Mayflower lived in the heart of the village in a small Georgian house next to the old Post Office. ‘Some wedding present,’ Nightingale thought as she pulled up outside.

The smell of roast lamb greeted them as her hostess opened the door.

‘It’s all done bar the gravy and greens. Help yourself to a sherry, it’s on the sideboard. Be a dear and pour me one too. I think we both need it.’

Sherry was not exactly to Nightingale’s taste but when she poured a glass for Amelia she noticed it was pale and smelled deliciously of smoked almonds. She served a second glass and took them through to the kitchen. Her hostess sipped but did not speak as she boiled peas then used the juice to make the gravy.

‘Knives and forks are in the top drawer. Place mat is by your elbow and napkins are in the dining room. Take your sherry through and lay your place. I’ll be right behind you.’

The plates were served ready filled which meant that the meal was hot. There was fresh mint sauce and the potatoes were roasted a crispy golden brown.

‘I have a roast every Sunday and I always make plenty in case one of the children turns up unannounced. Some wine? I know you’ve your car outside but there’s a back way up the hill to Mill Farm.’

She poured herself a very large glass and did the same for Nightingale. As they ate Amelia refilled her own glass whilst Nightingale sipped from hers. She talked almost non-stop, pausing only to chew and swallow. Nightingale forgave her hostess her loquaciousness as she was easy company. If she occasionally said a stupid or thoughtless thing it was soon forgotten in the following flow as there was little apparent malice behind the words.

Amelia opened a second bottle of wine although Nightingale had only just finished her first glass and frowned at the measure that replaced it. Over cheese and home baked biscuits, Amelia spoke of the early death of her husband after years of illness. Family money had kept her children housed, fed and educated and a small pension from the family business meant that she would never starve. Nightingale could understand why a woman with Amelia’s passion and industry had thrown her energy into village and church life.

Over coffee, during which Amelia worked diligently at her wine, they talked of Aunt Ruth.

‘She was a good friend. She helped me hold the family together when George was ill and after his death.’

‘I don’t think my father knew that side of her.’