Meet Me at the Pier Head (20 page)

‘What the hell was that?’ she managed eventually. ‘It tasted of whisky.’

‘An American special,’ was his answer. ‘Learned at drive-in movies while making out.’

‘In your teens?’

‘Yes, we colonials start early. Not sex, no whisky, just kissing and stuff.’

‘More like vacuuming,’ she giggled.

‘Are you complaining?’

She shook her head, but said nothing. Her brain was on fire.
He never married because a child might be affected by some fault, some handicap. How do I feel about giving birth to a disabled
son or daughter? No bloody idea. He seems physically and mentally unaffected by whatever it is, yet he could possibly be a carrier, as could his offspring. The damage to him is probably emotional,
too, and it’s the root of his fear. I don’t know what to say to him. But he’s letting me in. I have the feeling that he’s never before allowed anyone in.

‘Tia?’

‘Quiet, I’m thinking. With my paucity of brain cells, it’s a difficult process.’

‘Don’t be silly; you have twice my ability, as you know very well, Mother Superior.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘Another Roedean word?’

‘No. Oxford. Shut up.’
Shall I ask him for the name of the disability and how it affects the unfortunate ones? Are they blind, unable to walk, mentally afflicted? No, I must
wait. Whatever’s happened belongs to him, so it’s his to keep or tell.

‘Still thinking?’ he asked.

‘No, I’ve used up all my energy. After a kiss like that, it’s understandable.’

‘Ah, so I’m too much for you, then?’

She stared straight at him, her face expressionless. ‘Best kiss ever, Mr Quinn. But we need to put you through all the paces, see how you follow through.’

‘Is that a challenge?’

Tia raised her shoulders. ‘Perhaps, though there is a child in the house at present, and I’m expecting Bellamys. Bellamys can be exhausting.’

‘I noticed.’

‘Juliet’s the prettiest and quietest, but she isn’t coming.’

‘But Delia is?’
Six women. Four up and two down. Maybe I should take time off from writing and go for a cruise up the fjords. I’ve been promising myself that for years.
There’s only a week to get through at school, and I’d enjoy the fjords. Can I separate myself from this amazing woman?

‘Yes, Delia will drive their stuff up here,’ Tia was saying. ‘But she’ll come a couple of days before or after they do, I imagine. And she won’t stay, because
she’ll want to get back to her girlfriend. She’s lesbian. Teddy?’

‘What?’

‘Stop worrying.’

He swallowed. ‘It was my best ever kiss too, Portia. You’re lovely.’

‘So are you.’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t worry. These things happen, don’t they? And always when we least expect them.’

He searched her face for clues, but found none. She did deadpan better than anyone he had ever met. That would be the drama training, damn it. ‘So it’s just another of life’s
hiccups?’
What are you hoping for, Theo? A yes, a no, a perhaps?

At last, she awarded him a cheeky grin. ‘I rather suspect it’s more, but what do I know? The first time I met you in the school doorway, I thought yes, I’ll be working for this
man and yes, he’s attractive and challenging. I think fate drove me towards Maitland and the other chap at the lettings agency, fate sent me here, to Crompton Villa and your body
parts.’ Her smile broadened.

‘Another double entendre?’ he asked.

‘You do more of those than I do, Teddy.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. You’re the most interesting person I’ve met for a very long time. But there’s a lot of stuff going on – Ma and Nanny Reynolds, that murder,
Rosie and Maggie and Sadie. There’s no time for us to be ourselves.’ She blew him a kiss before going up to check on Rosie and prepare a late lunch.

She decided on a picnic. Mr Timidity could bring the drinks, but she hoped he’d leave the whisky alone. After all, the police were coming.

Meanwhile, several emotions fought for space in Theo’s chest. He felt fear, exhilaration, need, impatience, loneliness and happiness. Near-insanity threatened; was he courting
disaster?

Upstairs, Tia wore a silly smile and a sensible dress, since scarlet clothing and shoes seemed too flippant for a meeting with police. Rosie had managed a great deal of tidying; it was as if she
were trying to pay for the privilege of staying here. ‘You are not just a good girl, Rosie. You are the best.’

Rosie beamed; she was unused to praise. She was also unused to regular meals, cleanliness and a pleasant environment. ‘I like it here, Miss Bellamy. It doesn’t smell bad and
there’s a garden.’

It occurred yet again to Tia that children like this one appreciated stuff that had always been taken for granted by many, including herself. On the Bartle Hall estate, there were barns and
cottages, stables, fields, gardens, summer houses, woods, ponds, a tree house, and many wild animals, including deer and ponies. For some people, life was a near-holiday; for others, it was prison,
and it wasn’t fair, wasn’t designed to be fair.

The visiting policeman was a woman, and she brought a man with her. He was a policeman, though he wore an ordinary suit. They arrived early and found themselves picnicking in the rear garden
with Mr Quinn, Miss Bellamy and Rosie Tunstall. The uniformed female explained to Rosie about her mother being in hospital, about Nana needing a rest, and about Miles Tunstall having been murdered.
‘Do you know what that means, Rosie?’ she asked kindly.

Rosie nodded. ‘My mammy got sick because of all the gin, my nan’s very tired, and that’s why I’m staying here with Miss Bellamy. I heard Mrs Atherton telling Mr Atherton
that my mammy loves gin more than she loves me, and Mr Atherton said it was a disgrace. Uncle Miles adopted me and I had to call him Daddy, but I kept forgetting. He got murdered on the park. That
means somebody killed him.’ She lowered her head.

‘Rosie?’ Constable Piggot touched the little girl’s hair. ‘The adoption wasn’t completed when he died, sweetheart, so he wasn’t your stepfather. You’re
still Rosie Stone.’

Up came the chin. ‘He hit me when I wouldn’t call him Daddy. He threw me in the coal shed and my head banged on the wall. That was when the jumping men came, and I had to stay
outside.’

‘Sadie and Flo’s clients,’ Theo interjected.

The man in the suit got out of his deckchair and sat on the ground with Rosie. ‘My name’s Dan. My children call me Dan-Dan the cop shop man.’ He smiled. ‘Did you know any
of the jumping men?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘But they made a lot of noise. I saw some of them. I saw one hitting Uncle Miles.’

‘Was the man who hit Uncle Miles very tall, with a beard?’

Rosie closed her eyes. ‘No. He was fat and going baldy. He had a bit of hair low down. It started at his ears and went all the way round, but the top of his head was like a big boiled egg,
but shiny.’

The plain clothes detective mouthed at his uniformed companion, ‘Photographic memory?’

Rosie continued. ‘Then my mam got beaten up because she wouldn’t let a black man play jumping up and down. Uncle Miles hit her so hard, she slept for three days.’

Tia placed her sandwich in a piece of greaseproof; her appetite had gone. ‘Concussion,’ she said quietly.

‘Mammy said she wouldn’t go with men like him.’ Rosie opened her eyes. ‘She wouldn’t go with the black man, and he was nice.’

‘How was he nice?’ Constable Piggot asked gently.

Rosie closed her eyes again. ‘I was sat on the front doorstep, and he gave me a shilling. He had very white teeth and a big smile, but no beard. He had a green jumper and brown trousers
with lines in the cloth. Black shoes and big feet, he had.’ Her eyes flew open. ‘I never saw a man with a beard, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. I could have been in
the coal shed.’

‘So you’ve no idea who killed him, Rosie? We were wondering if it might have been one of the jumping men.’

Rosie nodded. ‘It might have been, but I don’t know.’

‘It was a big, strong person,’ Dan-Dan the cop shop man said.

‘I’m sorry.’ Rosie bit her lip. ‘I wasn’t allowed inside, you see. The men came in the front way, and I was out at the back, so I never saw nothing. You’ll
have to ask my mam.’

The officers stared at each other; Sadie Tunstall had said scarcely a word. She was drying out, and she was making no sense when she did explode with vitriol. ‘We’ll ask her when
she’s a bit better,’ Dan said.

In the near distance, a phone sounded its bell. Theo ran in and picked up the call. Within seconds, he was out again. ‘It’s from Detective Constable Fallon,’ he said.

Dan jumped up from the ground and went inside. He listened, frowned and wrote on a pad. ‘Thanks,’ he said, before ending the call. For a few minutes, he stood in Theo’s living
room and watched the neighbours mowing grass, dead-heading roses, sweeping paths. ‘Just an ordinary Sunday,’ he muttered.

On heavy feet, he went back through the dining room and reached the back garden via open French doors. He smiled at Rosie before handing the torn-out note to Theo, who scanned it quickly.

It said,
Sadie Tunstall tried to hang herself last night. Condition critical.

Exciting was not an adjective Isadora Bellamy might have applied to this particular Sunday. Confusing might have come near, though. Terrifying was a step too far, since she
refused to be any more than slightly afraid of a man whose heart was cold, who felt no obligation towards his own wife and children, whose talent had died due to neglect and self-indulgence. She
could not bear the idea of living or working with him again; as for any physical contact – well, the very idea turned her stomach. She and Richard no longer had anything in common, so
conversation had been off the menu for months, even years. And she was sick to her wisdom teeth of acting drunk, so . . .

Yet more than anything, she feared herself, because he’d worn her down so many times before when she’d hovered on the brink. ‘Come on, Izzy,’ she whispered. ‘Your
duty days are over; it’s your turn now.’ She was too tired for further adjectives, though a few expletives sprang to mind when she thought about him, and she needed to hang on to her
anger. ‘Time to exit stage right followed by a bear with a sore head if you don’t get a move on. Oh why, why did he have to choose now to become ill? I’m sure he does these things
deliberately.’

She clung to her anger like a baby with a ragged comfort blanket. After a heavy sigh, she jumped to her feet, trying hard to keep up with her brain, which was doing a hundred miles an hour along
an unpaved road that led to . . . that led away from here. Richard was on his way home to convalesce after an infection, and his home was rather deficient in the furniture department. His home was
no longer a home, was it?

She was supposed to be an alcoholic, yet she had just spent an hour or more unpacking her personal belongings and placing them back on her dressing table. While preparing to arrange herself in a
stained robe on her chaise longue, she had wondered vaguely whether fate had stepped in with an unwelcome message. Richard had lost his voice, so an understudy would play his role. Was this really
a suggestion that she ought to take him back? But very suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Do not weaken,’ she ordered herself now in a low voice. ‘Let him come; do not be
nervous. Get out. Get out now. Collect some people first . . .’ She went into reverse, collecting things she had just unpacked, the same things she had packed last night. Was this the onset
of premature dementia? Lord, how she wished Portia could be here. Portia, like her namesake, could manage people.

Joan Reynolds, often known as Nanny, was busy secreting suitcases and bags in priest holes. Occasionally, her screams could be heard travelling along corridors and through rooms, because the
poor woman was terrified of spiders and cobwebs. The children no longer played in the priest holes – children? Isadora’s girls were twenty-six, twenty-three and twenty-one, so
hide-and-seek was no longer on the agenda – and the secret cubicles made in Cromwell’s time were left to wildlife, and spiders thrived. Poor Joan. It was time to put an end to all this
nonsense, surely?
Come on, Izzy. Pull yourself together and get out of here now, immediately if not sooner
.

‘Bugger,’ she mumbled, borrowing her eldest daughter’s favourite swear word. She opened her bedroom door and yelled. ‘Joan? Joan? Come out, wherever you are. We
can’t do this; we mustn’t do this. Throw yourself into reverse, please.’

The ex-nanny emerged on hands and knees from the smallest of holes behind the panelling. ‘Isadora?’ she squeaked, blowing dusty hair from her eyes. She was hot, bothered and furrowed
in the forehead department. ‘Yes?’

‘Stop. I’ve had enough and you’ve had enough. I’ve spoken to Portia on the telephone, and we’re not expected today. I shall call Delia to find out which day is best
for her to collect our things, after which I shall speak again to Tia. Now, get on your bicycle and go to the Punch Bowl, because the personal touch is required when begging. Ask Mr Jenkins to
summon any or all available cars in the village and to send them here. Book rooms for us and an extra room for our belongings. Tell the truth – say we’re leaving. If Richard finds us,
we’ll be in a safer place with plenty of company.’ Yes, there was some fear, she finally managed to admit to herself; just a little bit, a mere frisson . . .

Joan closed her gaping mouth. ‘Are you sure?’ She didn’t relish the idea of yet another change of mind.

‘Positive. There’s nothing else I can do, is there? Do we want to be here when he tries to eat from a non-existent dining table while sitting on an invisible chair? I’ll leave
a note for him. The time for honesty has come at last.’

‘But what if he comes while we’re still here?’ Joan asked, her face ashen under smears of aged dirt. ‘He’ll hit the roof.’

Isadora shrugged. ‘Just go, please.’

When Joan had rushed off to the inn, Isadora divested herself of the stained gown and dressed in a decent suit. She wouldn’t bother just yet with makeup, because another task needed to be
performed.