Little Fingers! (15 page)

Brenda
considers this for a second. “Except that I am not sure that Mary
and George are that unhappy together, and Mary still takes great
pleasure in upsetting everyone else. And nothing is going to change
that now. She will be like that until she dies and, being as she
is, she will probably last forever, heaven help us.”

“
Do you think
I should bump her off, too?” I hold out my hand as Brenda reacts.
“Only joking, Brenda!”

* *
*

We are both
forlorn as we get out of the car, having driven back from the
police station. We are not talking to each other. I wonder if this
will ever end. Mary simply refuses to explain to anyone what
happened between Alice and her. The police, got more and more
menacing, but she stonewalled it. Not a murmur, except if you were
standing in the corridor as I was, and overheard the shouting of
the interrogator punctuated by Mary's short, flat responses. Twice
the policeman (l'Inspecteur Herbert) hurled himself out of the
interrogation room and slammed the door behind him so hard that the
partition walls visibly vibrated with the shock waves. He came down
the corridor and stared at me. “What is it with this woman? Why
won't she talk to us? What is she hiding? Does she not see the pain
she is causing Mme. Picard and her family? Do you two think you can
come in here and hurt families who have lived here for centuries,
without repercussions? Watch out, I say. Watch out!” He then
stormed back into the interrogation room, and roared at Mary all
over again.

I have to say
that I was not feeling the empathy for Mary I should have. I should
have been sitting in her body, scared and alone in the face of this
onslaught, hiding maybe some terrible secret, wishing it would all
end. I should have been beside myself, crying in the corridor,
begging them to stop hurting her, begging Mary to relent and give
them what they wanted, however compromising, however terrible. I
should perhaps have screamed the house down until they stopped,
roasting every gendarme, or whatever they officially are (I don't
understand the French police compartmentalisation and hierarchy
either) as they stood apologetically in front of me, I should have
demanded a lawyer and got one.

But I did none
of these things. I let Mary sort these things out for herself. What
they were asking of her was perfectly reasonable. There is a young
girl of the village missing, she went missing, it is to be assumed,
while she was in Mary's 'care', so why is Mary refusing to talk?
Nonetheless, if I were a better, more committed person, I would
have protected her. I think she would have done that for me.
Perhaps a few months ago, I would have done that for her. We have
become estranged from each other's needs, and especially I from
hers. There is a coldness about me that always saddens me. It is
part of my refusal to become embroiled with the world. To get in
there and fight would be to become human. I don't want to be human.
I don't want to be that foolish, and I don't want to be that hurt,
and I don't want to be that ground down and crushed by the
emotionality of being human. I prefer to live a separate life, in
life but not of it.

So, as we get
out of the car, I am sure Mary feels sad and betrayed. She won't
look at me, and that usually means that she is controllably angry
with me, an ice dagger that cuts deep and melts into invisibility.
I have not protected her, and she will lacerate me.

“
Mary, let's
talk,” I suggest.

“
Don't you
dare say a word to me!” Her eyes flash at me. “Leave me alone. You
are good at that. I don't know what I am doing here, I really
don't.”

“
Then go
somewhere else. Go back to Hanburgh, to Frank.”

“
You know I
can't do that. How dishonest can you get? I despise you. You are
disgusting!”

“
I accept
that. What shall we do about it?”

“
What will
you do about it? You! What are you going to do about
it?”

“
I am not
sure that there is anything I can do. I am me. Take me or leave
me.”

“
I certainly
don't want you anywhere near me. I cannot bear you anywhere near
me. I want you to go!”

“
No, I am
sorry, Mary. I am not going anywhere. I am renting this house. You
walked out on me. You lost Alice along the way and are refusing to
say where she is, provoking the police to drag us off to their
station and shout at us. You could easily say where she
is………”

“
I do not
know where she is!” Her eyes are red and tired and watering. There
is a despair temporarily eclipsing the anger. “Why will no-one
believe me that I do not know where she is? She left without a
note. I woke up and she was no longer there, her clothes were no
longer there, there was no trace that she had ever been there. She
never said that she was planning to leave. She never gave the
slightest hint of it. We had a good time the night before she left,
then I woke up and the room was empty of her, and I have never
heard anything of her since.”

“
Why didn't
you tell the police that?”

“
It is none
of their business. I have done nothing wrong. Alice is her own
responsibility, they must talk to her.”

“
They don't
know where she is.”

“
I don't know
where she is! Can't you fucking get that into your thick skull? I
don't know where she is!”

“
Explain that
to them, not to me. I am not the one looking for her. She can be
where the fuck she likes as far as I am concerned.”

“
Lucky for
you then!” I am not at all sure what I am being accused of this
time - not caring about a young, complicated girl, who walked out
on me, without saying goodbye or thank you, with my partner,
without saying goodbye or thank you for her either?

I cannot help
comparing your interrogation technique, Inspector John, with that
of the French inspector, l'Inspecteur Herbert. I have to say you
are much quieter, although I suspect that you are both highly
subtle and highly professional in your different ways. Under
whatever techniques you use, you both glint through as being caring
human beings. It is a glimpse of you that makes us want to talk.
L'Inspecteur Herbert is younger than you, much more handsome, much
more still, more giving, but he can also rave and shout. You are
older, mousier, more biting and visibly less in control. I feel
that I know you and that I unnerve you, that I want full-out to
unnerve you. I do not feel that with l'Inspecteur Herbert. There is
no need, and I would be frightened of doing it, either because it
would hurt him, or because he would hurt me, or, more probably, the
one and then the other. He did not manage to persuade Mary to talk,
although she claims that she had nothing much to say. He did not
even unearth the nothing much. It was the same between us. I knew
virtually nothing, but I failed to tell you the one fact that I
could have told you, that I saw Sally Willows disappear into the
alleyway down the road from the house as I slammed the front door
shut and, as you know, she claims not to have been in the village
until the next day, when she heard the news about Tom. There is
something for you, at last. Have a play with that. I cannot believe
that she would have hurt Tom, but you have to ask yourself “Why was
she there, and why did she not admit to being there?” Clue number
one.

Actually,
there is the same situation here. I noticed Mary shoving a bloodied
piece of clothing into the washing machine shortly after she came
home. It could have been menstrual, who knows, but it sets the mind
computing. It makes me anxious. Is Mary really here to accompany
me, or is she here to keep an eye on my progress? Is she reading
this while I am out? If she was keeping watch on me, why did she
leave with Alice? If she was here out of companionship or love she
no longer felt when she decided to leave, why did she come back?
What part did Alice play in this? Did Alice find out something she
could not be allowed to divulge? Is she lying in some scrubland
somewhere, dead? Am I in danger even as I write this, exactly
because I am writing this? Was Mary so jealous that she killed Tom?
No, I don't think so. Killing Tom was a man's work, and neither
Sally nor Mary are men, I am pretty sure of that, although you
never can tell, can you?

* *
*

Chapter
9

“
Hi, I am
from The Sun newspaper. My name is Dave Chevey. Here is my badge.
May I come in? Quite a place you have got here.”

“
I doubt it,
Dave.”

“
To be
honest, it is virtually impossible to write, talk and stand up all
at the same time.”

“
And
especially if you are a Sun reporter.” I smile sweetly.

“
So you are
not looking to chummy up to me, then?”

“
No, I shan't
be doing that.”

“
You are not
nervous of bad publicity, then?”

“
I have good
lawyers.”

“
OK, so that
is well understood. Where shall we talk, then?”

“
Who said we
were going to talk?”

“
I don't know
if you know anything about the press, Julia, but it is much easier
to get it over with. We hang around until we have got want we want.
So let's go inside, I'll ask a few questions, you will answer them
as honestly as you can (honesty is the best policy with us - we
always find out everything in the end…….)”

“
But you are
not always allowed to print it.”

“
That is
true, Julia. Anyway, I think that co-operating with us would be
very much to your advantage.”

“
To be
honest, Dave, I don't care a flying fuck what you
think.”

“
Well, can we
sit in the garden then, if you won't let me into your house? Why is
that, then, by the way?”

“
I doubt I
would ever be able to get rid of you.”

“
Well, you
are definitely gorgeous, darling, but not that gorgeous. I have had
better.”

I consider for
a moment telling him to piss off, or slapping him, or just slamming
the door in his face. I consider doing all three. There again, I am
sure he can be a complete pain in the arse if he wants to be, so it
may indeed be better to give him what we wants, and be done with
him.

“
I'll get out
some chairs. The hammock will still be damp from the dew this
morning.”

“
Anywhere you
like.”

I drag out a
couple of folding plastic seats from the hammock. “I think that the
grass should hold up, but you might find yourself sinking in a
bit.”

“
That's OK.
So, Julia, you are a newcomer to the 'hood.”

“
Yes, I
arrived here a few months ago.”

“
And you have
no connections with the village.”

“
None
whatsoever.”

“
So why did
you come here?”

“
For peace
and quiet.”

He
laughs.

“
So you were
the last person to see Tom Willows alive.”

“
No.”

“
No? How is
that?”

“
The murderer
saw him last.”

“
OK, I'll
re-phrase my question. You are the last known person to have seen
Tom Willows alive?”

“
Yes, so
far.”

“
And you had
just had sex with him?”

“
Delicately
put.”

“
We don't
mess around.”

“
Ordinarily,
neither do I.”

“
So you
weren't planning on having a long-term affair with him? You weren't
his new girlfriend?”

“
I don't
think Tom had girlfriends in that sense.”

“
Children.
Did he have any children?”

“
I don't have
the first idea.”

“
He must have
a few little bastards tucked away around here somewhere, with his
reputation.”

“
Perhaps the
women always came well prepared, with his reputation.”

“
And
you?”

“
I can't have
children.”

“
So what was
it like having it away with someone, and the next minute they have
been gruesomely murdered?”

“
Are you
trying to delve into my deepest emotions?”

“
Nah. I don't
write that sort of stuff. I just want words like 'shocked'.
'horrified', 'it tore my world apart', that sort of thing.
Something quotable, and quick. We don't have that much space. 200
words. That's nothing.”

“
You can use
'shocked' then, and 'frightened'.”

“
Yeah, those
are good words. Had you known him long?”

“
Not
intimately, no. I knew him as a friend. He did this garden up for
me.”

“
So, it is
not the end of the world for you, then?”

“
Only for
him.”

“
OK, that's
it then.” He tugs his ear. “Oh, look, here comes Steve. He is my
photographer for the day. You don't mind us taking pictures, do
you? The house, the garden, you?”