Nor All Your Tears (30 page)

To my surprise and, I think, Jean's, Masson got there first. ‘David told him. Probably not in an obvious way, but done subtly, done so that Mike Clarke wouldn't know he was being used.' He spoke in a voice that sounded, if not totally convinced, at least not completely contemptuous.

‘Yes,' I said, encouraged. Jean looked as if she had just discovered that her cocktail sausage was a piece of poodle poo.

He nodded in the deepest of deep consideration. ‘If I were David Clarke – evil mastermind, perhaps the most manipulative teenager on God's green earth – I wouldn't have hung on to my practice attempts at the blackmail note. I'd have got rid of them pretty sharpish.'

‘He thought that he had.'

He cocked his head at me, one eyebrow raised. ‘But he hadn't?'

‘He threw them away in the dustbin,' I said.

Jean scoffed. ‘Mike Clarke made a habit of going through the bins, did he?'

I asked, ‘Aren't you forgetting something . . . or someone?'

She looked at Masson, who looked at me and then said, ‘Joanna Clarke.'

FORTY-FOUR

‘
J
oanna's got no love for her stepfamily. In her way, she's as evil and scheming as David. I even wonder if she was tired of her fling with Marlene Jeffries and she wanted it all to end anyway. She had no love for the teaching staff, so their systematic slaughter hardly bothered her. I would like to believe that she had no idea what was going on until she found the practice notes. I hope that it was quite by chance – she was in David's bedroom, looking to pinch that week's issue of
Smash Hits
from him. She accidentally knocked over his wastepaper bin and had to put it all back in; amongst the rubbish were the practice notes. When she saw them, she realized everything; she's no fool, and she told her father.'

Jean asked, ‘How do you know all this?'

For once I was in a room with Masson and somebody else, and I wasn't his least favourite person. ‘Because he's talked to her,' he told her sourly.

I explained, ‘I've just come from where she's been fostered. Considering what's happened, she's amazingly calm; I would almost say that she's happy. She's certainly quite chatty about what's been going on, and she's got nothing to hide. She hated her stepbrother and hated her stepfather even more, and I can't blame her. You should talk to her.'

As soon as I said that, I regretted it. Masson turned a scorching glare on Jean, who in turn surveyed me with a gaze I swear shrivelled my testes. Masson said in a low but deadly way, ‘Yes, perhaps we should.'

FORTY-FIVE

A
nd so here I am, one month later, still being a GP in Thornton Heath, still having to look regularly at someone's stye, or tongue, or armpit (only we in the medical profession call it an ‘axilla' just to make sure that the general public think we're intelligent) or perhaps, if it's a good day, their perineum (don't even ask). Jean Abelson won't talk to me, but I'm starting to see that it might be for the best. Unfortunately, Max still won't talk to me either, but she'll come round, I'm sure. I know that she still loves me, deep down.

Arthur Silsby has died a rather unpleasant and totally undeserved death.

Regarding the Clarkes: Tricia has been charged with manslaughter and has been released on bail; she is living with her son David in a flat provided by the social services. Joanna is living with Ada in Kingswood Avenue. As far as I can determine, no legal action is planned against David because of lack of evidence.

So, life goes on, and whilst it does, so will death.

I called in on Dad this morning. It was the first day that we've had serious rain and boy, was it good. He was sitting in his conservatory, grimacing over the
Daily Telegraph
crossword, something he has done on a daily basis since he retired. He was tutting a lot, something else that he has done on a daily basis since he retired. Try as hard as I could, I could not see Ada having let him do that; it was too idiosyncratic, too unhusbandly.

‘Hello, Lance,' he said jovially. ‘How's things?'

‘Well . . . you know.'

‘Still no contact?' he asked, solicitously.

‘No.'

‘Don't worry, she'll come round. She's a sensible girl.'

Was she, I wondered? Maybe that was the problem. I said only, ‘I expect so.'

He put down the paper. ‘I've got some news.'

Just four words but, oh my Lord, what words!

‘Have you?' I cannot lie, I spoke warily.

‘I had a call yesterday from one of my old pals.'

My sense of horror was rising exponentially. ‘Which one?' Dad had a lot of old friends but there was only a small chance that it would be one of the non-loony ones.

‘Bill Wotherspoon.'

Only the news of an asteroid going to hit Thornton Heath within the next ten minutes could have been worse. William Wotherspoon had been a fighter pilot in the Second World War; he had been brave and resourceful and a hero; unfortunately, thirty years on and he still lived the same life, except that now he couldn't fly Hurricanes and kill Jerry. Subsequently, he was into displacement activity, big time. ‘How is he?'

‘He's on top form.'

‘That's good.'

‘Isn't it? He's asked me to help him out.'

I smiled; I don't know how, but I did. ‘Doing what?'

‘Raising money for charity.'

I knew instantly that he didn't mean shaking tins at the entrance to Waitrose. ‘How?' I asked, my voice a curiously husky thing.

Dad, in total contrast, was excited.

‘He's come across this curious thing they do in Mexico. Apparently they've been doing it for thousands of years. It's great fun and he thinks we can raise thousands of pounds.'

‘What is it?'

‘Something called bungee-jumping. He says it's great fun.'