The Betrayal of Trust (28 page)

Alive.

She tried to pick up her book but her fingers would not tighten on it. Earlier, she had gone out to post a letter and felt herself shuffling along the pavement. The symptoms were manageable but they had definitely
grown worse. She noticed every tiny change, recorded it, worried about it.

Alive.

Yes, but the reprieve was only temporary. She knew what was going to happen and neither her escape nor this respite made that knowledge easier.

She pulled the book closer to her, scooped it up somehow with one hand, but the fingers felt nerveless, thickened and inert, and
she
could not turn the page. She abandoned
it and switched off the light. The wind gathered itself and hurtled towards the house. A gate banged further down the street. There was a full moon and the clouds scudding fast across it made strange moving shadows on the wall. It was like being a child again, warm and safe in her seaside bed, while the waves crashed onto the shingle and the gale roared and the street lamp outside flickered.

Safe.

Sheltered.

Alive.

When the phone rang she reached out for it automatically but her hand would not grip the receiver and she ended by knocking it onto the floor. By the time she had managed to switch on the lamp, get out of bed and retrieve it, the caller had rung off.

Since returning home she had been twitchy, anxious about callers and the telephone, worrying about the security settings
on her computer – though Penny had checked them and pronounced them perfectly adequate. Her illness made her vulnerable. It had been one of the reasons she had gone to the clinic. Vulnerable older people with medical conditions were prey to intruders, scams and hoax callers as well as to accidents. She had always been a woman of nerve and practical common sense. This new feeling of frailty and
the nag of anxiety that was always in her mind disturbed her. She did not know herself any more.

But she was herself, that was the point. She was herself now, warm under the bedclothes while the wind raged outside. Herself.

The lamp had a dimmer switch and she set it to Low, then, with the light softened to a glow, she turned her head on the pillow and sank into sleep.

The phone woke her again,
a little before eight. The wind was still high and although it was fully light, the clouds were so heavy that at first she thought it was not yet dawn. She was slightly disorientated, slow in movements, so that by the time she had re gistered the phone and managed to sit up, the ringing had stopped.

1471.

‘
You were called today at
…’

She dialled Penny.

‘Mother, I was just about to step into
the shower. Is it urgent?’

‘Someone keeps ringing me – they rang late last night and again just now.’

‘Who is ringing you?’

‘I don’t know. Number withheld.’

‘Well, I’m not sure I can do anything about it. I’m in court this morning, and even if I weren’t …’

‘I was a bit unnerved, that’s all.’

‘Have you had your tea yet? That’s sure to help. Go and do that and get back into bed with the paper,
Mother. I’ll try and call you at lunchtime.’

‘Penny, do you think …’

‘What?’

‘I just wondered … I mean …’

‘Mother …’

‘It’s illegal. What we did. What I did.’

Penny snorted. ‘And the police or the CPS make “number withheld” calls at strange times of the night about this sort of thing, do they? For goodness’ sake, stop it. Go and make your tea. I’ll talk to you later.’

When she opened up
her computer, she found an email from the woman Hazel Smith.

I happened to hear that you had aborted your visit to Switzerland and wondered if there was anything I could do for you, any help I could give. I have counselled several people who have found it a difficult journey and one woman who, like you, could not go through with her plan. If you would like to talk to me do please ring and we
could perhaps meet? I would so like to know how you are feeling, how you are facing up to things, whether you have another plan in place. Don’t hesitate to call, will you?

Warm regards,

Hazel

Jocelyn began to shake. The message nauseated her, with its false sweetness of tone, its offer of help which she found sinister, its intrusiveness, its unpleasant assumption of a friendship there had never
been and could never be. The woman had seemed genuine, slightly detached, willing to be a paid companion and take a certain risk in doing so. Now, she was apparently trying to insinuate herself, trying to extend her business arrangement further, ready to advise and counsel. Jocelyn deleted the message. Then, because it felt as if it were still a stain, contaminating her computer and the whole
desk, the room, the house even, she emptied the recycle bin. So it was gone. It could do no further harm. She would have nothing more to do with Hazel Smith.

But the memory of the woman and her message lingered, souring the air, weaving in and out through her thoughts. And she wondered if the phone calls might also have come from her.

Getting dressed took longer now. By the time she had done
so, driven to the supermarket and talked to her next-door neighbour for ten minutes on her return, she was exhausted. She was also frightened. As she had turned out of the car park she had not been able to feel her foot as it touched the brake and pressed down too hard, almost bringing the car to a shuddering standstill. People had hooted, one man had shaken his fist out of the window as he had overtaken
her.

So how long would it be before she had to give up driving? How long before she became entirely dependent on other people to fetch and carry?

‘
You were called today at
…’

‘I DIDN’T THINK
you’d come.’

Rachel smiled. ‘You said that the last time.’

He looked at her, astonished that she should be with him, that she hadn’t hesitated when he had rung but said, ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Ken is away in Oxford until tomorrow. He goes to a clinic once every three months to get treatment.’

‘Bevham General no good?’

‘Bevham General is fine but this is alternative
stuff … acupuncture, herbal medicine.’

‘Ah. That.’

‘There’s a practitioner he trusts. He listens to Ken. I think that’s the point really, don’t you?’

‘My sister listens to her patients. She reckons it’s important.’

‘It is. Look, for what it’s worth I don’t think these treatments do any good … but it helps him to go there, he thinks they’re doing him good so maybe they are.’

‘I don’t buy that.’

‘He has two days of people making him feel he’s important and that they can do something for him. He believes in it, he feels better when he comes home – mentally better, more able to cope. That’s worth paying for in my book. Why are you so hostile?’

‘Maybe because of a local acupuncturist who murdered
quite
a few people? Maybe because of all the cranks and quacks who colonise Starly? Maybe because
my sister has had to pick up the pieces from some of these snake-oil salesmen? You tell me.’

They were standing in the car park of the Cross Garters at Cobwood, ten miles out of Lafferton to the west, where Simon rarely came, though not for any particular reason. But he had wanted to bring Rachel somewhere which had no memories or associations and with little chance of his meeting anyone he knew.
He had rung her without hope of her being able to come.

‘You look beautiful.’ He heard himself and realised it was something he almost never said, not because he failed to notice – he always noticed – what women looked like, how they wore their hair, the colour of their eyes, their clothes, their tone of voice, but because compliments did not come easily from him. Perhaps, he had often thought,
in this, if in nothing else, he was exactly like his father.

‘Thank you.’

He smiled. Thank you, she had said. Not disagreeing, not being embarrassed, not turning away his words. Thank you.

‘I hope we weren’t arguing just then.’

‘What, about quacks? Hardly worth it.’

‘Hmm. Aren’t you working?’

‘Yes. Are you hungry?’

‘Not very. Maybe if we walked up to that spinney and back I would be.’

They crossed the lane, went through the gap beside the footpath sign. The spinney was on the crown of the slope ahead. A pair of buzzards soared over it, flat wings widespread.

‘They look like the
Angel of the North
,’ Rachel said.

He took her hand and, for a second, she paused, so that he was sure she would take it away. But in the end, she did not, and said nothing, walked on.

The breeze coming
downhill blew her hair, and as she turned to shake it out of her face, Simon felt a strange sense, not of déjà vu but of the opposite – a snatched moment in the future, months,
even
years ahead, when they would be here, walking up the slope, her hair blowing in her face.

That is what I want, he thought. I am seeing what I want to happen.

He had never felt such a thing in his life and he had
no idea how or why he did now. Rachel Wyatt. He barely knew her. He had met her less than half a dozen times. She did not know him. She had not seen where he lived, met anyone he knew. But they had talked, and that talk had included so many lines of subtext, about their feelings, their wants.

He knew her. She knew him.

They knew nothing.

The breeze was a wind as they reached the shelter of
the spinney. Rachel sat down on a fallen tree trunk and looked towards the village and then turned to the west, where the Mynt Hills rose, like a distant back of a blue whale.

‘On a good day …’

‘Have you ever been over there?’

‘No. Sometimes you don’t see the hills at all … it’s as if they’re just faint clouds on the horizon. Are they very high?’

‘No … I’ll take you. We’ll climb the Mynts.’

‘I wish.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know why not, Simon.’

He sat down next to her. ‘It would only be a day out.’

‘Not easy.’

‘This is a day out.’

‘No, it’s an hour or two. But that isn’t the point, is it?’

He was silent. Rachel stood up and turned away from him.

‘I don’t know what’s happened,’ Simon said. ‘How or what or why.’

‘Oh, there’s a word for it.’

‘Yes.’

‘The French put it well.’

‘I
don’t know what – what to do with it either. Sorry, that sounds crass.’

‘No. I’m the same. What do I do? I’m not a free agent. You are. It’s very different. A different place.’

‘You could be.’

She turned. ‘No. No, Simon, I couldn’t. That is the one sure thing.’

He said, ‘I only know about one sure thing.’

‘Yes. But …’

Now he was the one who turned away, and started to walk out of the crown
of trees and back down the track. He didn’t trust himself to speak or to look at her. His mind was a swirl of thoughts and words, things only half said but wholly felt.

He heard her footsteps behind him, soft on the grass, and paused until she was beside him, but he did not take her hand again.

They found a window table at the pub and sat with plates of soup and salads in front of them but not
eating, saying little. Simon wanted simply to look at her, see the light change her eyes from pale to deep violet blue, with the darker rim around the iris, to look at the curve of her lower lip and the way her hair curled into the nape of her neck.

He put his hand on hers for a second but she slid it away and picked up a spoon.

‘I shouldn’t have come.’

‘Why? Why do you say that?’

‘It’s not
sensible.’

‘Sensible.’

‘Or – fair. Not fair to you. Not fair to either of us. Or to –’

‘Oh, Rachel, what’s “fair”? What’s “sensible”? What kind of words are those?’

‘Useful ones.’

‘Are you happy as you are? Just tell me that truthfully. Because it isn’t enough. This isn’t any sort of life for you.’

‘Ken doesn’t have any sort of life either.’

‘I need to see you.’

‘Need.’

‘All right, want.
Need. Anything. I’m in love with you.’

She looked straight at him. ‘Yes.’

‘What does “yes” mean?’

‘It means … it means I know. And … yes.’

‘If I can’t … I don’t want to say all this here. We need to be on our own.’

‘It’s good that we’re not. We’re in a public place and it prevents us.’

‘I can’t do that. Stop – stop saying things to you, stop myself wanting to say them. That’s a warning,
I think. Yes.’

‘I can’t let this happen. I won’t let there be any more.’

‘So why did you come? What are you doing here?’

‘Don’t interrogate me like that.’

‘Sorry. I’m sorry. But I don’t understand what you’re doing. You say this but you’re here. You rang me. You sent me a text. You came to the hotel. All that. But you seem to be telling me you want – well, what? I don’t know.’

‘Friendship?’

‘Is that what you’re offering me? Is that what you want? Because all right then, yes, if that’s all I can have, I’ll take it because I can’t have nothing. I’ve just realised that.’

Rachel got up without a word and went across the bar to the cloakroom. She had long legs. Long, slender legs in smart jeans with a creamy linen jacket, hair tied loosely back.

I’ve blown it. He almost said it aloud.
Telling her he would have friendship because he couldn’t bear to have nothing had made him sound desperate and desperation was never attractive, desperation repelled. She could walk out now and never return a call or a message, simply avoid him from this moment on. It would be easy enough.

They hardly knew one another.

He had asked Judith if that mattered. No, she had said. But had warned him,
all the same.

‘Simon, I’m not being judgemental, I’m being realistic. You’re not talking about a relationship which could go somewhere. She isn’t free. I don’t even mean “she’s married”. It’s more than that because of his situation. Isn’t it? How long you’ve known her is neither here nor there, is it? Not set against that.’

He could see her as she had said it, hear the words. More than a marriage.