Jigsaw (7 page)

He held her eye for a moment longer, then nodded slowly and turned away. Nuala drew a deep breath and, determined to abide by her resolution, returned to her work.

Avril's forte was plain English cooking, at which she excelled, and it was for this reason that she preferred the family to come to Sunday lunch, with its traditional roast. Deprived of that option, she had settled on smoked salmon, followed by grilled steak and gooseberry fool. It had been Paola King who'd given Rona her taste for spicy foods, and made her a regular visitor to Dino's.

Lindsey was tense that evening, no doubt anticipating a tirade against Hugh, and to safeguard her, Rona monopolized the conversation with her plans for the Buckford articles.

‘We found a very pleasant B&B up there,' she said, ‘recommended by the vicar, no less. Actually, he was helpful in other ways, too. He gave me the name of a woman who's lived there for years and is a mine of information, and another who was a headmistress and compiled histories of the local schools. Believe it or not, she retired to Marsborough, but I can't find her in the phone book, which is frustrating.'

‘What's her name?' Avril asked, passing round the vege tables.

‘Bishop, Catherine Bishop.'

Tom looked up in surprise. ‘I know Mrs Bishop. She has an account with us.'

‘
Has
she, Pops? What a stroke of luck! What's she like?'

‘Well, I've hardly spoken to her, but she struck me as quiet and unassuming. I'd no idea she used to be a headmistress.'

‘Could you let me have her phone number?' Rona asked eagerly, but her father was shaking his head.

‘Against bank policy, love. Next time I see her, though, I'll ask if she'd mind your contacting her.'

‘But she mightn't come in for ages,' Rona protested, ‘and I really need to speak to her.'

‘Sorry, that's the best I can do.'

Rona bit her lip in frustration, but she knew that note in her father's voice, and accepted that nothing she could say would sway him.

‘What about the other person?' Lindsey asked, coming in her turn to Rona's rescue.

‘Which other person?'

‘The one who's a mine of information. Can't you start with her?'

‘I suppose I'll have to,' Rona said ungraciously.

‘Rona saw the Ridgeways the other evening,' Max remarked into the uncomfortable silence. ‘Apparently Gavin's finally fit again.'

Rona, aware that both her sister and her husband were trying to rally her, flashed them a shamefaced smile and emerged from her sulk. ‘They've been living it up in Brazil,' she volunteered, and the conversation settled back on an even keel. Between them, they kept it going, ensuring there was no pause in which Avril could insert the subject of Hugh, and as a result the remainder of the evening passed without incident.

‘Thanks, guys,' Lindsey said outside on the pavement. ‘That went better than I'd dared hope. Mum opened her mouth purposefully once or twice, but each time one or other of you leapt nobly into the breach and cut her off.'

‘All part of the service,' Max said lightly.

A
s it happened, Catherine Bishop called at the bank the following day. Mindful of his promise, Tom had asked the chief cashier to advise him of her next visit, and a little after eleven, his phone rang.

‘Mrs Bishop has just come in, Mr Parish,' the cashier told him. ‘She's purchasing some foreign currency.'

‘Thank you, Charles. Would you ask her to come and see me when you've completed the transaction?'

Five minutes later there was a tap on his door and she was shown into the room. Tom rose to his feet and held out his hand, which she gravely took.

‘Nothing wrong, I hope, Mr Parish?' she asked quietly, seating herself at his invitation.

‘No, not at all.' He glanced down at his hands clasped on the desk, aware of the unusualness of his request. ‘I'm wondering if I could possibly ask you a favour,' he began, and saw her eyebrows arch.

‘My daughter is about to start on a series of articles to coincide with Buckford's celebrations next year, and your name was given to her as a source of information.'

Catherine Bishop frowned. ‘Given by whom?'

‘Er – the vicar, I believe.'

‘Gordon Breen?' Surprise rang in her voice.

‘I'm afraid I don't know his name. Look, if you'd rather—'

‘No, please, tell me more about this project. She's a journalist, your daughter?'

‘Basically she's a writer. She works freelance for
Chiltern Life
but her
main interest is biographies. She—'

Mrs Bishop held up a hand. ‘Just a moment – biographies?' A look of enlightenment crossed her face. ‘Your daughter's not Rona Parish, by any chance?'

‘Well, yes, but—'

‘How silly of me not to have made the connection. I've read several of her books. You must be very proud of her.'

‘Yes, I am,' Tom said simply, and they both smiled, simultaneously aware of each other not as stereotypical bank manager and customer, but as two human beings. A check on the computer had revealed that Catherine Bishop was a widow in her fifties; now he found himself compiling a more personal dossier. Quiet and unassuming was how he'd described her, but that, he was realizing, left a lot unsaid. The first thing he'd noticed as she crossed the room towards him had been her impeccable grooming, hair sleek, shoes highly polished, and linen suit miraculously uncreased. The second, as she sat across from him, was her deportment, straight-backed and with feet neatly together – a posture that had no doubt served as an example to her pupils.

For the rest, her face was unremarkable – pale skin, steady grey eyes, very little make-up, hair simply styled, light brown fading to grey. But there was an air of what he could only describe as stillness about her that he found oddly restful. He sat back in his chair, unconsciously relaxing.

‘I didn't know you'd been a headmistress,' he said.

She took the non sequitur in her stride. ‘Yes indeed, for twelve years. I was widowed when I was forty, and teaching was my anchor. It was also a lifestyle ideally suited to having a young son; I worked the same hours he did, and was home during the holidays.'

‘So what brought you to Marsborough?'

‘My mother; she suffered a stroke two years ago and was no longer able to look after herself. I took early retirement and moved down here.'

‘It must have been a wrench.'

‘Yes.'

‘And now?'

‘Sadly she died last year, but there's nothing to take me back to Buckford. My son's married and living in Cricklehurst, so I see quite a bit of him and his wife.' She paused, and added with a smile, ‘We seem to have strayed from your original request. What was it you wanted to ask me?'

Tom flushed. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrogate you. It was just that Rona would very much like to meet you. She was told you'd done a lot of research on the history of the schools up there.'

‘I suppose I have. It started as a project for eleven-year-olds and just – took off.'

‘Would you have any objection to meeting her?'

‘Of course not, I should be delighted. As I said, I've admired her work for some time.'

‘Then may I give her your phone number? She couldn't find it in the book.'

‘The directory came out while I was at my mother's.' She opened her bag, extracted a card, and handed it across to him. ‘I'll be in Paris for the weekend – I've just been collecting some euros – but perhaps we could arrange something for next week.'

‘Paris? I envy you,' Tom said. He had a sudden vision of her walking in the Tuileries Gardens, sitting at pavement cafés, going to museums and art galleries. Her visit, he felt sure, would not be the frenzied shopping trip he'd endured with Avril on their sole visit to the French capital twenty years ago. He felt a twinge of disloyalty, and cleared his throat to free himself of it.

‘Yes,' she said, unconsciously echoing his thoughts, ‘I'm hoping to see the Matisse exhibition.' She closed her handbag and stood up, smoothing down her skirt. ‘I look forward to hearing from her.'

‘Thank you.' Tom had risen with her, casting about for ways of detaining her but unable to think of any. He took the hand she held out.

‘Have a good trip,' he said fatuously, and rang for a clerk to see her out. As the door closed behind her he sat down again, feeling oddly flat. A charming woman, he thought, and wondered suddenly who was accompanying her to Paris. The telephone on his desk shrilled sharply, and he turned to it with a sense of undefined relief.

‘Tom Parish,' he said.

Catherine thought over the meeting as she walked back to her car. She seldom went to the bank, and as far as she could remember this was the first time she'd spoken to the manager. He seemed a pleasant man, touchingly proud of his clever daughter – and with reason. Rona Parish had a gift for making readers empathize with her subjects; though frank about their faults and eccentricities, she was non-judgemental, illustrating instead how those traits had made them the characters they were and contributed to their enduring places in history. Catherine always finished one of her biographies feeling that the subject was a friend.

Emerging from the car park, she turned right rather than continue over the junction into the clogged thoroughfare of Guild Street. She drove as she did everything else, competently and calmly, and, having negotiated Alban Road, wove her way unhesitatingly through the maze of little streets to her new bungalow.

‘Good God, Mother!' Daniel had exclaimed on his first visit. ‘You need a map and compass to find this place!'

For herself, she preferred her home to be tucked away in a close, rather than on a busy main road, as her mother's had been. It afforded her the sense of privacy that, over the last fourteen years, had become so essential to her. Odd, really, to think how her character had changed since her husband's death. When Neil had so tragically and so unbelievably died at forty-two, the torrent of emotions she'd felt had seriously alarmed her, and for a while she had feared for her sanity. Anguish, fury at the fates and searing loneliness had vied for supremacy, but for the sake of twelve-year-old Daniel she succumbed to them only when alone.

During those terrible months she'd grown increasingly paranoid about allowing anyone other than her son to come close. Even her mother, whose open weeping for Neil at first embarrassed and then irritated her, had been held figuratively at arm's length. She had been, she now admitted, selfish in her grief, resentful of anyone else expressing a sense of loss, and gradually family and friends had stepped back, withholding open expressions of sympathy in admiration for what they saw as her courage and strength of character. They knew nothing of the endless nights she'd spend ranting in impotent fury and soaking her pillow with her tears. And gradually, month by month, year by year, the calm front she presented to the world had become grafted on to her personality, screening her from any involvement that might, in some unforeseen way, inflict future hurt. She could not withstand it a second time.

No one suspected, either, just how bitterly she'd resented having to leave St Stephen's and come back to Marsborough to nurse her mother. In fact, she thought now, the bank manager, whom she barely knew, was the only one who'd expressed understanding. ‘It must have been a wrench,' he'd said.

Indeed, the sense of loss in giving up a true vocation to nurse a fretful and ungrateful old woman had been insupportable. But then they'd never been close. Mary Jessop, fifteen years her husband's junior, had played the part of child bride until her death at seventy-six, and in her teens Catherine had frequently been embarrassed by her ‘little girl' attitude, her kittenish behaviour towards her husband and – to be frank – any other men with whom she came in contact.

Regrettably, therefore, she had shed few tears at her mother's death. Perhaps she'd gone to the other extreme and her detachment had become cold-heartedness. Whatever, it had allowed her to go dry-eyed through her mother's effects and put up for sale the house in which she'd been born. Its position on the main road, coupled with its nearness to schools and the station, had ensured a quick sale at what Catherine considered a phenomenal price, and she had found the bungalow with a minimum of fuss.

She'd not had a home of her own since leaving Buckford; her personal things had been in storage during the eighteen months that she'd nursed her mother, and she enjoyed having them about her again. The Buckford house hadn't been large, and almost everything fitted in here. The few pieces that had not found homes – a wardrobe, a wall mirror and a wrought-iron table – Daniel and Jenny had been pleased to take.

She turned into her driveway and garaged the car, pausing as she walked up the path to survey the small garden over which she'd been labouring. It was at last beginning to repay her efforts, and the effects of months of neglect under previous ownership were being overtaken by a profusion of scent and colour.

And now, she thought as she closed the front door, she must decide what to take with her to Paris. She went into her bedroom and had just taken down her suitcase when the phone rang.

‘Mrs Bishop?' said an unfamiliar voice. ‘This is Rona Parish. You were kind enough to give my father your number.'

Catherine sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Yes of course, Miss Parish. I believe you'd like to talk about Buckford?'

‘If you wouldn't mind.'

‘I'd be delighted. As I told your father, I'm off to Paris for a long weekend, but I'll be free on Tuesday, if that would suit you?'

Rona hesitated. ‘Actually, I'll be spending half the week in Buckford for the time being. Could we possibly make it Thursday, a week today?'