Little Face (33 page)

I walk downstairs, stumbling occasionally on my way down. My
brain feels hazy and frayed, as if it is slowly decomposing. My mental
fog is broken every so often by a coherent thought. One of these is that
it is better to seek David out than to wait to be summoned. If he has
some horror in store for me, I would rather face it straight away, get
it over with.

I find him in the kitchen with Little Face, who is lying by the door on
her Barnaby Bear changing mat, kicking her legs vigorously. Radio
Three is on in the background, or maybe it's Classic FM. Those are the
only stations David ever listens to. The room is smoky, full of the
smell of fried meat. I try not to gag. Tonelessly, David begins to recite,
`Fried eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, fried bread.'

`What?'

`Civilised people say pardon. That's what's on the menu. You didn't have breakfast, so I thought you could have it now. Sorry, would
you prefer something else? Smoked salmon? Caviar?'

`I'm not hungry,' I say.

`Mum told me to cook you something, so that's what I'm doing.'

I notice that my handbag, car keys and phone are on the counter
under the window; Vivienne said she would put them there. As reliable
as ever.

`It's ready,' says David. `I've even warmed the plate for you.'

I thank him. His face creases in irritation. It is an unpleasant task,
to try to imagine the thoughts of a sadist, but I force myself to do so,
and wonder if he would prefer me to be defiant, at least initially. That way he can watch my spirit crumble in the face of his cruelty. Perhaps
that is what secretly thrills him.

`I don't think I'll be able to eat any of it,' I say. `I'm sorry. I ... I don't
feel well enough.'

`Try,' says David. `Have one baked bean, one mushroom, and see
how you feel after that. Maybe it'll stimulate your appetite.'

`All right.' I sit at the table and wait for him to put the food down
in front of me.

`What are you doing?' he says.

`I thought you wanted me to try to eat.'

`Not there, silly.' He laughs. I turn and see that he has put the plate
down on the floor, next to the kitchen bin. `Kneel down and eat it,' he
says.

I close my eyes. How can he do this in front of Little Face, a tiny,
blameless baby? Her presence, her oblivious background gurgling,
makes what is happening so much worse. `Please, David, don't ask me
to do that.' I watch him swell with satisfaction. I'm not sure who I am
appealing to, David the tyrant or the reasonable, kind man that I used
to be married to.

`You're not housetrained,' he says. `You can eat on the floor, like an
animal.'

My mind shrinks in on itself. If I refuse, David will be only too glad
to remind me that it is within his power to separate me from Florence
for ever. I don't know if this is true, or if he would really do it, but it
would be foolish of me to assume that his bark is worse than his bite.
I have been naive for too long.

I kneel down beside the plate of hot food. Steam rises from it, wetting my face. The smell revolts me and I nearly vomit. `I can't, I'll be
sick,' I whisper. `Please, don't make me.'

`You're trying my patience, Alice.'

I pick up a mushroom with one hand.

`Put that down!' David shouts. `Don't use your hands. Put them
behind your back. Use your mouth only to eat.'

I am so shaky, I doubt that I can do as he asks without losing my
balance. When I tell him this, he says, `Try,' in a tone of mockencouragement. I take a deep breath and lower my face, retching at the
smell of greasy food. Somehow I manage to stop myself from vomiting up the bile in my stomach, but I cannot control my tears. They drip
off my chin and land on the plate.

`Eat,' David orders. I want to do as he says, because I know that
I have to and I want it to be over, but I physically cannot put my face
in the orangey-yellow mess of beans and eggs. I look around, see Little Face's pink kicking feet, the bristly brown mat next to the
kitchen door, chair and table legs, David's brown Italian leather
shoes against the white gloss skirting boards. Everything looks so
normal and correct. The sound of an orchestra playing something
that I know only as the theme tune to the film Brief Encounter fills
the room.

I look up at David, helpless and desperate, sobbing hard. His face
scrunches with anger. He marches across the room towards me, his
hand raised. In that instant I am convinced he is going to beat me up,
maybe even kill me. I recoil from him and topple over. As I fall on my
back, my shoulder catches the side of the plate and it flips up in the air.
The cooked breakfast slop lands on my face, neck and chest, its heat
burning my skin through my jumper.

`Please don't hurt me!'

`Hurt you? Alice, I have no intention of laying a finger on you.'
David looks down at me as I lie on my back, howling. He feigns shock.
`I was just going to swat that fly on the bin, but it's gone now.'

I sit up, brush off as much food as I can.

`I'm not a violent man, Alice. You've tested my patience to the limit
with your lies and scheming over the past week, but I've kept my temper. Many husbands wouldn't have been so tolerant. You're lucky to
be married to me. Aren't you?'

`Yes,' I say, wishing him dead.

`Look at you, covered in food. You're a dirty pig.' David takes the dustpan and brush out of the cupboard beneath the sink and starts to
brush the food off my jumper, but all he does is rub it in. My once
cream jumper has a large, wet, orangey-brown patch on the front.

I try to wipe my face but David takes my hand and places it firmly
at my side. `Oh no,' he says. `You don't get to make a mess like that
and then clean yourself up, as if nothing's happened. I let you do that
with the bath, but it's about time you learned that you have to live with
the consequences of your actions. You were determined not to eat the
nice meal I cooked for you, so you can wear it instead.' He hands me
the dustpan and brush. `Now sweep that mess off the floor, and when
you've collected as much as you can, put it back on the plate. You can
have it for supper later. Maybe you'll be hungry by then.'

He stares at me. I stare back. In what strange game are we opponents, I wonder. David's harsh expression flickers, as if he might be
thinking the same thing, that the two of us are reading out lines from
some bizarre script without stopping to question, because that would
be too hard, the parts we are playing.

Thursday, October 9, 2003, 6.30 PM

THE BROWN COW PUB was a short walk from Spilling Police Station
in the centre of town, and might as well have been linked to it by a covered walkway, so popular was it with bobbies and Ds alike. It had
recently been refurbished in dark, polished wood, with a non-smoking
room and an extended menu that offered chicken breast stuffed with
Brie and grape mousse as well as the more traditional pub fare that
Simon was used to.

Tonight he didn't feel like eating. Alice and the baby had been
missing for six days. Not enough was happening, apart from in
Simon's head, where his deepening preoccupation with Alice and
what, precisely, she meant to him was beginning to starve his brain of
oxygen. His mind had become a dark trap. He could no longer block
out thoughts of how he had failed her, possibly endangered her life and
the lives of two babies.

He felt uncomfortable, sensing that there was a half-formed idea
snagging at the back of his mind. What was it? The Cryers? Richard
and Maunagh Rae?

He wasn't in the mood for drinking with Charlie, but she'd insisted.
They needed to talk, she said, and so here they were, with a pint of lager
each and a prickly atmos phere between them. So far they'd discussed
bank accounts. While Simon and Charlie had been interviewing the
Raes, Sellers and Gibbs had spent the afternoon looking into the Fan courts' finances. They had found nothing amiss, no mysterious sums of
money that had vanished without trace. In other words, thought Simon
glumly, no evidence to suggest that David Fancourt or any of his nearest and dearest had paid Darryl Beer to do their dirty work.

He stared past Charlie to the picture on the wall behind her. It was
of a brown cow, aptly enough. The animal was in profile, standing in
a forest clearing. Simon thought the picture was good until he noticed
that the natural light that fell around the cow looked quite unnatural,
more like rays from a spotlight than beams of sun. For a second, he
thought he might be about to grasp that stray idea, the one that was
eluding him. But then the moment passed and, irritatingly, he was none
the wiser. Was it something to do with money?

`If Fancourt's having an affair, he's keeping it bloody well hidden,'
Charlie moved on from matters financial. `That's what Sellers says and
... well, he ought to know. He's the expert.' Simon waited for her to
say something crude about Sellers' sex life, and was surprised when she
didn't. It wasn't like her to miss an opportunity. `Oh, and this Mandy
woman. It appears she and her live-in bloke have taken their baby and
gone away. France, a couple of their neighbours said. To buy booze.
I'm not sure they'd have been able to get the baby a passport so
quickly, though. And the neighbours could be wrong, or lying-this is
the Winstanley estate we're talking about, after all. Who goes on a
booze cruise two weeks after having a baby?'

`Interesting,' said Simon, feeling his heartbeat quicken. Perhaps
more than interesting. Significant, maybe. They were on the verge, he
sensed it.

`Yeah, well. The Snowman's certainly in a quandary now.' Charlie
allowed herself a small, vindictive smile. `He has to decide whether to
pursue it further, on the basis of Alice Fancourt's say-so alone, or wait
a while and hope Mandy and family reappear.'

`What do you reckon?'

`Proust doesn't care what I think.' Charlie sighed. `I don't know. If
it were my decision to make, I reckon I'd follow it up.' She looked at Simon. `Mandy hadn't even been discharged from midwife care. She
didn't tell anyone she was going-the midwife, the health visitor, her
doctor. No-one. Not that that means she's got Florence Fancourt, but
... 'She shrugged. `Simon, I'm sorry I've been a bitch to you.'

`Right.' He was relieved. This surely signalled her intention to
revert to her more usual behaviour, which was all he wanted. Then
resentment flooded his mind. Now that he knew she was sorry, now
that she'd confirmed that she was the one in the wrong, he could withhold his forgiveness with confidence. In private. She'd see no sign of
his true feelings.

She smiled at him, and Simon felt immediately guilty. He'd let her
down badly, at Sellers' party, and she'd forgiven him. Charlie was
hopeless at hiding her feelings. Simon knew she still thought well of
him, in spite of everything. Why did he relish the opportunity to hold
a grudge against her? Was she right? Was he addicted to the idea that
he was hard done by?

`I think we need to have a long, frank talk,' said Charlie. `Otherwise
things are going to become impossible between us.' There was an awkward silence. Simon tensed. What was coming? `Right, well, I'll start,
then,' she said. `I was really hurt that you said all that stuff in front of
Proust and everyone, without telling me first.'

`About the Cryer case?' Again Simon felt that unsettling twitch
somewhere in the depths of his memory. What was it, for fuck's sake?

`Yeah. Were you deliberately trying to make me look like a dick?'

`No.' Why on earth would she think that? he wondered. `To be honest, I wasn't sure I was going to tell you, Proust or anyone. I thought
you'd all shout me down. I didn't realise Proust was in favour of looking at the case again until he said so, and as soon as he did, I thought:
here's my chance.'

Charlie frowned. `And it didn't occur to you that I might have
liked to hear about it first?'

`What does that matter?' said Simon impatiently. `We're all working together, aren't we?'

`You made me look like an idiot. I should know what's going on,
and you made it bloody obvious to everyone that I didn't.'

`Look, normally I'd probably tell you stuff first, but I didn't think
you'd be all that receptive. You'd already made it clear you thought
there was no doubt Beer was guilty.'

Charlie sighed. `You made some good points. I still think, on the
balance of probabilities, Beer's our man, but I'm not so pig-headed that
I wouldn't listen to a new angle. You must think I'm shit at my job if
you think I'd do that.'

`I don't think that at all,' said Simon, surprised.

`Maybe I am. Why didn't any of that stuff you said occur to me? I
was the officer in charge.' Simon had never heard Charlie express
doubts about her own abilities before. It made him feel uncomfortable.
`Well?' she said.

`Well what?'

`Do you think I'm shit at my job?'

`Don't be daft. I think you're brilliant at it. Everyone does.'