Indian Summer (19 page)

Tom came with a large mug, and she took it automatically, warming her hands around it as she gazed at the tea. Max exchanged a look with Tom which showed that he was unsure whether Brenda had actually registered the truth about her lover's death, and he nodded an indication that Tom should take over. He did so after a moment or two, abandoning formality.

‘Tell us about Flip, Brenda. How did you meet?'

She spoke to the contents of the mug. ‘I was in Iraq with the
TA
at a time when things were pretty grim. They needed additional nurses in the field hospitals. Flip was brought in with a raging fever and by the time he left we had become close. We met up whenever we could. It was obvious to me that he loved his job and was very skilled at it.' Her faint smile crept over the rim of the mug to reach Tom. ‘Strange to say they were such happy days; people were being killed and injured, kids being orphaned. But we were in love, you see.'

‘Did he tell you about Starr?'

She sipped the tea pensively. ‘His pal Ryan hinted that there was a string of lovelorn women back in the UK, but that's typical lads' joshing. I knew it was the real thing between us. We planned to marry when I got home later in the year. Such happy days! Then it happened and everything changed.'

The short silence was broken by the faint whimper of the baby who was moving restlessly and setting the cradle rocking, but he settled again.

‘He was a different person afterwards. I could see the problem and worked hard to alleviate it. The confident, laughing and, I have to admit,
cocksure
Flip was on the verge of losing his nerve. It wasn't difficult to get the full story from him.'

‘And that was?' prompted Max.

‘Flip had been on a night patrol.'

Max felt a surge of excitement as this woman repeated facts given to him by Ben Steele, and to Tom by Frank Priest. ‘Go on.'

‘Of course, people who've never walked stealthily through the purple darkness of a desert night, knowing that at any moment something deadly could whistle through the air and put an end to your existence can't imagine the stress this puts on the human mind and body. Doing it just once would daunt most people, but soldiers do it time after time. It takes enormous resolution, particularly towards the end of a tour that involves living in basic accommodation, eating basic food, being absent from loved ones, hearing constant bombardment and knowing the dread that your next step on the sand might result in being blown apart. These men are tired, edgy and under continual mental and physical strain.

‘Being charged with shooting dead one of our own troops shattered Flip. The worst twenty-four hours of his life, he told me. Even when it turned out that the casualty had really been a hostile, Flip couldn't get his mind around it. I was able to confirm that no casualties had been brought in that night, but the sense of guilt and remorse stayed with him and our relationship became that of patient and nurse. For a time I was afraid he'd never recover his confidence and courage, but he very gradually put the experience behind him.

‘Unfortunately, he still saw me as some kind of saviour and persuaded himself he wasn't a good enough husband for me. Wrote from the
UK
to break off our unofficial engagement.' She frowned. ‘That's when the Walpoles moved in on him. Between that mob and his strict, religious parents he didn't stand a chance.' She looked up swiftly. ‘Did the Walpoles kill him?'

Taken unawares by this sudden proof that she had, indeed, registered all he had said, Max shook his head. ‘We have no evidence of that.'

‘Then who did?'

‘As yet we have no definite lead,' said Tom. ‘We hope you might clear up some points to aid our investigation. When did you meet up with Flip again?'

‘Last autumn. I'd done another stint in Iraq which had revived my sadness at losing him, so I resigned from the
TA
and accepted a three-year exchange to Germany with the intention of starting a new life. When I got here I discovered that the
RCR
were actually stationed just down the road. I saw it as fate, and contacted Flip right away. He was desperately unhappy with Starr, and I was desperately unhappy without him, so the affair started again. We were so discreet no one knew we were meeting. My pregnancy sealed our happiness, and we made plans for a future together. He was so caring, so concerned about my welfare but it took me a while to recognize there was an underlying cause for the flood of calls and emails when he first went to Afghanistan. He was apprehensive about going into action again; feared he'd be unable to fire his rifle lest he shoot one of his comrades. He needed my reassurances, my steadying confidence in his ability. Once he'd successfully brought out his men from a Taliban ambush he reverted to the man I'd first met in Iraq. The perfect soldier.

‘When he got back to base and came to see Micky and me, he
cried
. It's very moving to see the man you love cry,' she repeated as if to herself, as she fastened her gaze on the desert picture again. Then, seconds later, she doubled up and began to sob uncontrollably as the devastating truths of this afternoon could no longer be held at bay.

Tom was surprised when Max made a slight diversion and brought his car to a halt outside the house he presently rented for himself and his family.

‘Lunch?' he asked, thinking Max expected an invitation.

‘Thanks, but no thanks,' he returned with a smile. ‘So I was completely up the creek about that nice woman, wasn't I? It comes of muscling in on a case that's already under way. What will she do with her life now, I wonder?'

Tom gazed thoughtfully through the windscreen. ‘She has a choice of staying here and making the new start she had planned before meeting Keane again, or returning to the
UK
and befriending Keane's people who are the baby's legit grandparents. They're unlikely to gain any rights over Prince and Melody, who'll probably be fostered by a family which'll take them both, so Brenda could set up a secure background for Micky with her lover's mother and father, providing they offered the kind of doting affection they would surely feel for their only son's child.'

‘Mmm, would strictly religious elderly folk – we've been told they had Keane late in life – accept what they would possibly regard as a bastard child?'

Tom sighed. ‘We'll never know. Part of the downside of this job is that we only get “the story so far” and never read the concluding chapters.'

‘We got further insight to Keane, however,' Max continued, causing Tom to wonder why he chose to sit here having this conversation. ‘How could a man of a type to inspire such forgiving devotion in a woman like Brenda surrender her so easily, to throw in his lot with a loud-mouthed harridan?'

‘We never met Starr, so you're making that comparison on hearsay,' Tom pointed out.

‘Most of which indicated that the dead woman – a cocaine user, don't forget – would have been the devil to live with.'

‘So Keane was a wimp, as defined by Starr's friends. A couple of painful armlocks by the truckie brothers and he agreed to their demands.'

Max gave him a quizzical look. ‘Hearsay, Tom.'

‘
OK
, so Keane was a sucker for kids. One sight of baby Prince being waved under his nose gave him the overwhelming urge to make more like him with the large, cuddly woman conveniently on the spot. Which he did, hence Melody. Maybe he got his sexual kicks from being dominated.'

‘He was a full-blooded soldier, for Christ's sake!'

‘He had to be reassured long-term by Brenda; in her own words he saw her as a saviour. In any case, if you took a peek in the bedrooms on this base at night you'd find all manner of strange things going on with full-blooded soldiers. We've just heard about a guy dressing as a clown and kissing his wife like crazy in front of party guests just because she was obsessed with horoscopes, and . . .'

‘Another riding around wearing armour at midnight. Yes, point taken, but I lean to the view that Keane changed dramatically during his time in Iraq, as Brenda just told us. Ryan Moore said much the same, as did Ben Steele. The curious thing is that the incident that caused the change officially never happened, and
that
makes me think Keane's death might somehow be linked to it.'

He nodded at the house. ‘Take the rest of the day off. Brenda didn't create the breakthrough I hoped for, and when it does come you'll be putting in a lot of overtime. Take Nora out for a drive in the country, have a meal in a rural beer garden. Make the most of this wonderful unseasonal weather. When it ends, raw winter will be right here with us.'

Tom made no demur – he could do with some time at home before the school bus deposited the girls at the end of this road – but he sensed that Max was up to something. Chasing a new wild goose? He climbed from the car.

‘I'll get Nora to drive me in in the morning.'

Max raised his hand in farewell. ‘Enjoy yourselves, but watch out for bees.' He drove off.

Tom found Nora in the kitchen, ironing. He grinned. ‘Glad to see you're making yourself useful, not having it off with the neighbour when I arrive home unexpectedly.'

He knew he had said the wrong thing when she failed to rise to his teasing. ‘I suppose you want a swift bowl of soup and a pile of sandwiches before you dash off again.'

‘Believe it or not, I've finished for the day.' He kissed her cheek because her lips were not offered. ‘Forget the swift soup. I'm going to take you out for an al fresco meal beside the river. Pack that away and doll yourself up, we leave in ten.'

She grew still and gazed at him. ‘You've no idea, have you? Because you have nothing to do, for once, you swan in and expect me to drop everything and amuse you. The girls need fresh blouses in the morning, you need a clean starched shirt and a spare in case you mess it up, and that's without T-shirts and shorts that manage to get covered in marmalade, gravy, glue, nail varnish, paint, tea, custard . . .'

‘Hey, hey!' he said in concern. ‘It can be left until this evening. I'll do my shirts and the girls can iron their own things, like they often do. Why're you making such an issue of it, love?'

Nora burst into tears. She was not a woman who cried easily, so he was dismayed and worried by this outburst. Having just left Brenda sobbing over a murdered lover, Tom's imagination plunged to the depths as he switched off the iron at the socket and attempted to comfort her.

‘What's wrong? What's happened? Tell me, love. We're in this together. Always have been.'

She remained stiff in his embrace, which worried him even more and prompted wild, unwelcome fantasies. No, it could not be that. Their marriage was on a rock-solid foundation. Dear God, had she been told something shattering by Clare Goodey?

He held her closer, stroking her hair with an unsteady hand. ‘Aren't you feeling well? Is that it?'

‘I'm tired, that's all,' she muttered thickly, drawing away.

‘No, it's not. There's something more. Something you're not telling me.'

She sat at the breakfast counter and absently dried her eyes on a T-shirt lying on the ironing board. ‘The girls phoned during their lunch break about the puppy. I told them no, and they all chorused,
pleeese, pleeese
. You know how they do. They kept on and on.' She frowned. ‘I . . . I told them they were selfish, ungrateful, demanding people and hung up on them.' She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘It's only a puppy they want. They haven't had a pet since Fluffy died, and a dog's more involving than a hamster. It's good for kids to have an animal of some sort. Why did I treat them that way?'

Tom sat beside her and took her hand. ‘Because you're tired, love, and don't want any more responsibility. You said as much this morning, and I'm fully in agreement. I'll sort it with them tonight, explain that a puppy's almost as time-consuming as a new baby. It has to be house-trained, given the correct weaning food at regular times, needs comforting when it's frightened by something and has to be prevented from wandering away and getting lost. We'd have to put a fence around the house to keep him in.'

He squeezed the hand lying limply in his. ‘I'll make us both some soup and sandwiches which we'll have in the garden. After that you'll take a warm shower, put on your robe and spend an hour or so on the bed while I get rid of this ironing. Then I'll call Captain Goodey and ask her to come in and see you on her way home tonight.'

‘
No
, Tom! I'm just tired. I wouldn't dream of fetching her here when she has genuine patients to visit. You're not to contact her.'

Her vehemence was due to exhaustion, he guessed, so he compromised by extracting an assurance that she would attend the surgery the next morning.

‘I'll be cadging a lift to the base, anyway. Max dropped me off on the way back from visiting the woman who's just had a baby fathered by the guy murdered on Saturday.' He began to butter bread and grate cheese. ‘He had some wild notion that the kid was an invention, and she had killed Keane herself. You know how he flies off at a tangent sometimes.' He glanced up swiftly. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Getting the tins of soup from the cupboard.'

‘
I'm
OC
this meal, ma'am. If you must get something from the cupboard make it a bottle of wine, and pour some in two glasses. Wine is a restorative, gives you energy. My dad taught me that piece of wisdom.'

Her lack of comment to that, which should have brought forth her views on men who come up with inventive excuses for having a drink, revived his concern. She certainly looked and acted like a woman who needed a long rest, so he would ensure she saw Clare Goodey tomorrow if he had to march her in the consulting room himself.

They ate their garden picnic and, although a bee investigated a late-flowering shrub, it did not approach them. Nora made heavy work of the cheese and tomato sandwiches; showed more interest in the wine. For once she made no attempt to question him about the case, in spite of his reference to the visit to Brenda, so Tom talked about the various general plans for Hallowe'en.