Pix (Volume Book 24) (Harpur & Iles Mysteries) (3 page)

Only Sybil and the children came to Severalponds for the transfers, never the jockey or schools inspector or whatever he was she lived with. They also had a Jaguar. That annoyed Shale. It was older than his and not top of the range, but he still felt irritated. For privacy, a sliding glass partition divided the front from the back of Manse's, but he had hardly ever closed it, even when Denzil was alive and chauffeuring. It would of seemed a bit majestic, and Shale detested pomp. Most likely Sybil said to this partner they better have a Jag because Manse owned one, and she didn't want to go down to a Ford or Skoda, because of appearance. Pride. If they'd bought something else he might of offered to pay off the hire purchase for them, but not when they offered deliberate disrespect and rivalry by picking a Jag. Total anger he did avoid. Manse almost always tried to understand Sybil. He told himself
she might of chosen the Jaguar so the children would not feel the change too strong and sudden of being with her after him and vice versa, like going into a pressure chamber when leaving a wrecked submarine. Now and then he thought he
would
do the hire purchase for them, regardless. Manse hated petty vindictiveness. Although living in Wales might be quite all right really, Shale considered he should be very kindly to her to make up for it.

Sybil pulled into the next car-park space just after he arrived, the children grinning and making faces at him through the side window. One thing Shale favoured as much as art was fatherliness. He believed he had a flair for this. Matilda and Laurent jumped from the car and ran together ahead towards the restaurant and gaming machines. They went out of sight. If he'd been masterminding here he would not of allowed that, but he knew he should try and keep things cheery. ‘They behave all right this time, Syb?' he said.

‘As much as they ever do.'

‘And they still get on all right with . . .?' He could never actually speak the name and always left it for her to fill in.

‘With Ivor? Oh, yes. He's very easy-going.'

‘That would be his training, I expect.'

‘What training?' she said.

‘I always forget which job he's in. Holiday camp redcoat? Supermarket cashier?'

‘He'd tell you if you asked him. Or if you didn't. And he'd go on and on about it. And things at the rectory?'

‘No changes. Just this great feeling of a good history.'

‘Serene?'

‘Serene, yes. That could be the very word, Syb.' He had the feeling suddenly then that she might like to be there with him again, and fuck Ivor. Or
not
fuck Ivor. Never at these Severalponds meetings had he sensed this before. Perhaps he'd been wrong to think of her happy and conversational in the Welsh bed. Then, despite them near-tears on the motorway, he wondered if he wanted Sybil back.

‘No purchases?' she said.

‘Purchases?'

‘Paintings?'

‘Not at this juncture,' he said.

‘What's that mean?'

‘Not at this moment in time.'

‘I do miss them. The Hughes,' Sybil replied.

‘Oh, the Hughes, yes. I couldn't be more in favour of art.'

‘Lights up the wall, the room.'

‘It does, it does.'

The children rushed back. They had some winnings and went into the shop to blue them. Afterwards the four sat with soft drinks and sandwiches in the restaurant. ‘They've got leaving pressies from Ivor in their overnight bags,' Sybil said. ‘Not to be opened until you're home. Things to wear. Modish – or
he
thinks so.'

‘But it's kindly.' Shale wondered why he wanted to defend Ivor – to persuade her to stay with him?

‘Oh, yes, he can be kind.'

She made it sound like nothing, or a disease. Although Shale waited for her to give kindness a slagging she left it there.

Manse, Laurent and Matilda were back at the rectory by 9.30. Manse felt hellishly tense, terrified about what they might find. In the drive, he said: ‘I'd like you to wait in the car for a minute.' He prepared to go first and check. That bastard Hilaire Chandor was so keen on merrymaking and pressure, the downstairs room and stairs might be as they had been, or worse. They said he'd been named after some joker in the writing game or a circus clown.

‘Oh, cars we've had enough of, dad,' Laurent said. They dashed from his Jaguar as they had dashed from the other. Both had keys to the rectory in case they came back from school or youth club in the week and Manse was out.

Shale yelled: ‘For God's sake wait. Let me go ahead, will you?' He unfolded from behind the wheel and sprinted himself but was too late. Lights went on and immediately he heard Matilda give a long, appalled scream. She shouted: ‘Oh, oh, what's happened?'

‘Come back!' Shale cried.

‘Oh, terrible!' Matilda howled.

‘Don't look,' Shale bellowed.

‘Dad, why have you done this? Awful! Awful! Awful!'

‘Oh, yes,' Laurent said. ‘Horrible.'

Shale called out: ‘Why didn't you wait? Stay where you –'

‘You've moved the pictures around on the walls. I don't like it a bit,' Matilda said. ‘They look
so
wrong.'

‘Oh, is that all?' Manse said. Them Chandor apes – they would not remember which went where. To that crew pictures was pictures and hooks hooks.

‘All!' Matilda replied. ‘All!'

‘I thought a change might be interesting,' Shale said.

‘Not interesting at all,' Matilda said. ‘A mistake.'

‘Yes, bad,' Laurent said. He took his bag upstairs to unpack and try on the Ivor present in his room. Laurent was touchy about clothes. He wouldn't want to be seen in gear he didn't like. He paused near the first landing. ‘What happened here, dad?' he said.

‘What?'

‘A mess on the stair carpet and wallpaper. Did you spill something?'

‘Oh, yes, some sauce. A stumble.'

‘Sauce?'

‘Yes.'

‘You were carrying sauce on the landing?' Matilda said. ‘You move the pictures around and were carrying sauce on the landing? What goes on, dad? Have you gone a bit loopy through loneliness?'

‘It doesn't come out very easily,' Shale said.

‘No, it doesn't,' Laurent said.

‘Dad, put the pictures back right, will you?' Matilda said. ‘All of them – hall and drawing room and everywhere.'

‘It was just an experiment.'

‘This experiment went wrong,
so, so
wrong. As if it's someone else's house, not ours.'

‘Why don't you unpack and have a look at your pressie while I pop down to the takeway?'

‘Indian,' Matilda said. ‘Can we have some chutneys and garlic bread?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘And please, dad – the pictures?' Matilda said.

‘Yes, of course. All as they were. Tonight.'

‘I'm trying to work it out,' Matilda replied.

‘What?' Shale said.

‘The sauce. Spilling it. Were you going
up
stairs with a bottle of sauce or coming
down
stairs when you stumbled? If you stumbled when you were coming
down
stairs you might have fallen all the way and that would have made a real mess with the sauce from top to bottom of the stairs, the carpet and the wallpaper until the bottle emptied itself. The top of the bottle was off, was it, or loose? Plus, you might have been hurt. But what I don't understand is why you had a bottle of sauce on the stairs at all – it doesn't matter if you were going up or coming down. What did you want a bottle of sauce upstairs for? A picnic?'

‘Or if you like I could get Chinese,' Mansel said. He shouted up to Laurent: ‘Chinese or Indian?'

‘This is real rubbish,' Laurent replied.

‘What?' Shale said.

‘This rubbish present from Ivor. I'll never wear it. Oxfam. Oh, Indian. With chutneys. Garlic bread. And is there any sauce left or did you spill it all? Get some more?'

During the meal, Manse thought of asking them whether they would like to see their mother back in the rectory, but then decided this might not be wily. If they said yes, it meant he must say yes to her, suppose she asked. One of the things with fatherliness was you had to take notice of what your children said about their mother even if she was shacked up with someone else. But if Manse did not ask them, and stayed uncertain about how they would answer if he
did
ask them, he could stay uncertain hisself, and he would prefer that for now. If they said no, they didn't want her back, this would mean he'd have to be chilly to her if she even hinted at it, like today, and he thought that might be cruel. It could be important for her to have at least a vision of getting out of a place like Wales, and away from a partner called so-and-so. Wouldn't it be heartless to crush the hope? Of course, one child might say he or she
did
want their mother back and the other might say he or she did
not
. That would bring Manse a lot of suffering and anxiety. He always tried to treat them with exact equality, and this could not be if they had different opinions about Syb.

Whatever the children thought, if Sybil did come back as permanent he would clearly have to say a complete goodbye to Lowri, Patricia and Carmel. This could make them feel like they been on the side only. Hurtful. They might turn bitter and start talking around the city of what they'd seen of his special commercial interests while living at the rectory. They would know the haulage and scrap metal side of things was only part of it. Kiss and tell, times three. This could be deleterious. Also, the children grew fond of Lowri or Patricia or Carmel while one of the three lived here on a stint, and might get upset to know none of them would ever return, because of Syb.

When the children went to bed he put the pictures back as they should be. Matilda had it right and the rectory
did
look like
his
rectory again now. Shale went up to the first landing where the slaughtered man had lain. There was still bad staining but, as Chandor had said, it could be just from an ordinary kind of accident, Manse thought. Could it? He examined the stairs leading down to the hall and found no spotting. They must of brought some kind of efficient body bag. He did another systematic tour of the house inside and out with a flashlight, and this time thought he found where they got in. A utility room window at the rear of the rectory looked to Manse as if it had been forced, though properly closed again afterwards. He could see small scratches in the paintwork, and even a little splintering. It puzzled him that he missed this previously. But perhaps shock had a hold on him then, and he'd been careless. Or, of course, they might not have entered by that window first time. Why would they change, though, if the earlier break-in had been so easy and undetectable? Did Chandor send different personnel for the second visit? Perhaps he was genuinely angry with the original people and replaced them. Manse remained
mystified. He'd have all locks changed, but did not really believe this would make things fully secure. The children would ask why they needed new keys, and he'd find some answer that didn't frighten them, even if he felt frightened hisself.

Manse went and sat down with a coffee in the drawing room and really enjoyed that Hughes over the safe. Clearly, it was much, much more than a picture for hiding safes with, and Hughes would not of announced to the Brotherhood one day in the Pre-Raphaelite times that he'd just finished a work great for concealing someone's gun store. But it
did
conceal the gun store brilliantly. Laurent came in wearing pyjamas. He said: ‘You'll really have to get new wallpaper and new carpet on the stairs if mum is coming back, dad. She'll be able to see right off it's blood. That would bother her because she's used to an ordinary sort of life now with Ivor. He's got an ordinary job.'

‘Who said mum's coming back?'

‘Did you change all the pictures around, so that was what we would notice, like Matilda did, and not the stuff on the stairs?' Laurent replied. ‘It's sort of funny, isn't it, dad?'

‘What?' Shale said.

‘Mum wants to come back, being fed up with Ivor
because
he is so ordinary. But she wouldn't like it if she came back and something that was not ordinary at all happened, such as blood all over the stair carpet and wallpaper. Was it to do with the commercial side or –'

‘Your mother never said anything to me about coming back,' Shale replied.

‘I mean, was this a death? It's a lot of blood.'

‘Your mother seems to me all right.'

‘If Matilda or myself talk about Lowri or Carmel or Patricia you can see mum get like really sad and ratty. Well, it's jealousy, isn't it? Oh, yes, she's wondering about coming back. This wasn't Lowri, was it?'

‘What wasn't?'

‘On the stairs. Did she turn up while we were away? Or one of the others? Did Lowri or Patricia or Carmel get
awkward – such as showing she'd noticed too much about the trade? Women – everyone knows they'll do some blabbing if they think they have not been treated right. In school we're studying a play that says,

‘Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

‘Everybody has to learn those lines.'

‘I've heard of them,' Shale said.

‘If Lowri, or Carmel or Patricia thought mum was coming back –'

‘Why should anyone think it?'

‘If you said.'

‘I wouldn't say, because I don't know if she wants to.'

‘But you might have said something that Lowri or Patricia or Carmel
thought
sounded like she was coming back,' Laurent replied.

‘I never talk to Lowri or Patricia or Carmel about your mother. That would not be right.'

‘Or it could be that, couldn't it?' Laurent said. ‘You never talk about her so they might think, Hello, something secret's going on and you'll give them the push soon. Did you have a bad squabble with one of them and –'