The Pure in Heart (33 page)

He remembered Diana but immediately pushed her to the back of his mind. He would not let her in
here or allow her to enrage him. She did not belong in his life and he would keep her out of it, whether she stalked him with phone messages and emails
or even unannounced visits to his flat.

He had better things to think about. That morning he had been contacted by a Mayfair gallery suggesting a co-exhibition of his drawings. His fellow artist would be a man whose work Simon admired. The call had come as a total surprise and made him feel as he had felt very few times in his life; for five minutes everything else had receded into the distance.
Nothing had ever seemed so important. If he could change his life … if he could afford to … would he?

A strange cloudy band seemed to spread across him, blotting out two-thirds not only of what he did but what he was. No colleagues. No challenges. No satisfaction when a case was concluded. But there was everything else. His flat. His drawing. Travel, anywhere, everywhere, for half the year. He
could be a nomad with a canvas satchel.

The door opened.

‘Hi, bro. Saw your car from the bathroom window. Here, have this a minute …’ Cat held the baby under one arm like a rolled-up newspaper, which she dumped into Simon’s lap.

‘Hi, Felix.’

‘Prop him up or he’ll sick on you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘He’s been sicky all day. Here …’ She threw a clean kitchen towel across. ‘Be prepared. I was asleep.’

‘Thought so … nap while you can. What a life.’

‘I’m loving it, Si. If it weren’t for the fact that Chris is on his knees with exhaustion I’d seriously think of giving up being a GP for good … just do the odd clinic and locums. But how can I? I might have to go back to take over some surgeries soon anyway, I can’t let Chris go on like this.’

Simon leaned his head back and tucked Felix into the
crook of his arm. The baby’s head dropped sideways on to him. He listened to his sister chatting as she unloaded the dishwasher and put things away, poured herself a glass of water, let Mephisto out of the window.

Suddenly, he wanted a kitchen full of warmth and tea and a cat and a baby, full of happiness and a contented everyday domestic sound. Full of love. The memory of Freya lanced through
him.

‘You OK?’

‘Yes. No.’

‘Hang on till I dump these things in the washing machine …’ Cat picked up the laundry basket and went out to the scullery. Felix opened his eyes and was sick at the same moment. Simon reached for the towel and wiped them both up.

‘Oh God. I don’t think he’s ill. I ate a curry and it’s disagreed with him. You forget. Amazing but you forget.’

She took Felix to the
sink, wiped his face gently with a damp piece of tissue, and returned him to Simon. ‘Do you want wiping as well?’ Cat sat down on the sofa.

He had thought that he had come to talk to her about Marilyn Angus and to hear her advice, and when that was done, to tell her about the gallery. He had thought they were the things that most concerned him, were at the front of his mind. He had not expected
to hear himself say, ‘I want to ask you something about Martha.’

‘Martha?’ Cat raised her eyebrows.

‘It’s been niggling.’

‘What?’

He sighed and shifted Felix gingerly but the sickness seemed to have spent itself.

‘When she was in BG and I came back from Venice, she was pretty ill. When Dad rang me there he said if I didn’t come home I wouldn’t see her again, or words to that effect.’

‘Yes.
She was very ill.’

‘But she didn’t die.’

‘No. They gave her an antibiotic she hadn’t had before, something pretty new, and she responded. It happens. They didn’t expect it to but it did.’

‘Yes. But then she died without any warning, in her sleep … when she was better. It’s bothered me.’

‘OK, let me explain. You know that anyone as badly handicapped as that from birth is likely to have all
sorts of weaknesses and defects … can be anything – kidneys, lungs, but most often it’s the heart. In her case it was known about and checked regularly. It wasn’t serious enough to kill her as a baby, but every time she had an infection, whether it was in her lungs, her bladder – she got a lot of
kidney infections – whatever, and she was given very powerful drugs, the heart weakness was exacerbated.
The last bout was very serious … if she hadn’t responded to the new antibiotic she would have died, no question. But obviously her heart was affected more seriously than anyone recognised, or else it was just one last straw that broke the camel’s back, we can’t be sure. Either way, her chest infection was cured, but her heart wasn’t, so it just gave up. It isn’t uncommon. Not a bad way to die
either.’

‘I suppose so.’

Cat looked at him for a long time. ‘What is it?’

Everything seemed to bubble up from somewhere deep below the surface of his consciousness.

‘Is there any possibility that someone took her life? I’m choosing my words carefully here …’

‘Who? And even more, why?’

‘I don’t know … well, yes, the why is easy enough.’

‘Is it?’

‘It was generally thought that she had no
quality of life. I never thought so, but you all did, and everyone at Ivy Lodge, except that sweet girl Shirley. No one thought her life was worth living.’

‘Sweeping.’

‘But true.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Yes, especially in the last couple of years when she was succumbing to infections so easily. But if people thought that – it’s a big step to doing something about it. I mean to
murdering her. That’s
the word you have to use, Si. You should know.’

‘Yes.’

‘Derek Wix saw her first and he was confident it was heart failure. Chris went in to see her. He didn’t examine her, true, but he saw her and he didn’t question Derek’s opinion. Nobody at Ivy Lodge questioned the cause of death. You bloody detectives see crime everywhere you turn.’

Simon’s mobile rang, waking Felix, who wailed in fright.

‘Nathan, where are you?’

‘Standing outside BG, guv. I been in seein’ Andy Gunton only he’s still in a bad way, they wasn’t letting anyone in.’

‘Have his family been told?’

‘Sister’s there now. I know that Michelle Tait. She had a mouthful for me when she saw me down the corridor, but then she’s always had a mouthful for anyone.’

‘Do we know what happened?’

‘Naw. Man with the ’edge trimmer
was going along there, looked down and saw him in the ditch. Called the ambulance straight off. He’d been beaten up and dropped out of a vehicle, seems like.’

‘Nasty.’

‘He’s mixed up with some nasty people … I’m off up to see Lee Carter.’

‘You know him?’

‘Oh yeah, I know Lee Carter all right.’

‘Well, be careful, take someone tough with you.’

‘You mean I ain’t tough?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘You see that Mrs Angus, guv?’

‘I did. She’s in a bad way.’

‘Well, she was always going to be, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ Serrailler said. ‘Yes, I suppose she was.’ He liked the way his DS went straight at things.

Simon turned back into the kitchen. ‘Cat, Marilyn Angus is your patient, isn’t she?’

‘Chris’s.’

‘But you know her?’

‘Not very well. Why?’

He pulled out a chair and sat on it back to
front, facing Cat as she sat with Felix at her breast.

‘She worried me a lot.’

He told her about his visit to the Angus house. Cat listened carefully, stroking the baby’s small head. His feet curled and uncurled with the extreme pleasure of suckling.

‘She’s obviously in shock, but that’s not surprising.’

‘She didn’t seem to connect with me. It was as though I was there but not there. She seemed
in a trance.’

‘Detached?’

‘Yes … more …’

‘Zombie-like?’

‘That describes it well enough, yes. It’s the daughter I feel most concerned about. She was at school but it sounds as if she isn’t talking to her
mother at all – she locks herself in her room the minute she comes home. Marilyn Angus won’t have anyone else in the house, said they were fine.’

‘Could she be suicidal?’

‘No. She didn’t
seem to have enough focus, enough energy or sense of purpose for that.’

‘Would she be a danger to Lucy?’

‘Only in the sense that she’d neglect her, be unaware of her or what she was doing, not bother with her.’

‘Not good. Do you want me to ask Chris to call in?’

‘Someone should.’

‘He’s got so much on his plate. But he’ll go. I think the locum actually did a surgery this morning.’ She lifted
Felix and began to rub his back.

‘OK, I’d better hit the road.’

‘Oh no. You sit there until you tell me what you were driving at before your phone rang.’

He had known she would bring him back to it. He had never been able to evade her, even when they were children.

‘You asked if I thought someone could have killed Martha.’

‘Not in so many words.’

‘Oh, don’t be jesuitical, it’s what you meant.’

‘All right. Do you?’

‘But who?’

‘That isn’t part of the question. I just meant, is it possible?’

‘Well, anything might be. Is it likely? No, of course not. Why would anyone do that? Because they wanted to be rid of her?’

‘Because they felt sorry for her?’

‘Who felt sorry for her?’

‘God, Cat, stop challenging me.’

‘You’ve challenged me by starting this. Bloody policemen. There is such a
thing as natural death, you know.’

‘Let’s drop it. I’ve got to go. Nathan has gone to see a potentially dangerous man. I ought to be there.’

‘Suit yourself. I just wish you hadn’t walked in here and sown all sorts of doubts and left them to sprout up between the cracks in the floor tiles.’

Simon turned from pulling on his jacket. His sister was crying, holding the baby close to her face.

‘Oh Christ, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think, I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘You meant it, you should say it. It’s OK, I’m still full of hormones, take no notice.’

Simon squatted down, handed Cat a clean handkerchief, and took Felix from her while she wiped her eyes. The baby smelled of warm flesh and milk.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I honestly don’t think there’s a one-in-a-million chance of it, Si. I really
don’t. Put it out of your mind. Go and find David Angus, please.’ She looked into his face. He said nothing. There was nothing to say. ‘And now there’s another thing, this child’s
body in Gardale,’ Cat said. ‘They’ve got to be connected, haven’t they?’

‘Not necessarily. We don’t know anything at this stage. I’m not ruling it in or out.’

Cat’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘Put him in his crib,
will you? He’s had enough and I’ll only sob all over him.’

Simon settled his nephew down, then went to sit beside Cat. He put his arms round her.

‘I am a shit.’

‘No more than usual.’

‘Forget it all.’

‘Not sure I can. Now, hop it, I’m going to read a nice comforting book for half an hour before they come piling in wanting tea and homework. I’ll ring Chris. He’s in an antenatal clinic, he can
call in on Marilyn Angus on his way home.’

‘Thanks, sis.’

‘What do they pay you for, DCI Serrailler?’

Andy Gunton could scarcely move. His neck was in a collar, his right arm in plaster. He was on a mattress which was supposed to ease the pain of his leg and his bruised back but he wondered how much difference it made.

He couldn’t do anything much. Only think.

Michelle had been in twice and harangued him in such a shrill voice they had asked her to go. No one else, apart from the
police. He hadn’t been fit to talk to them, but they’d be back. He wasn’t complaining though, he knew he was lucky to be alive. Had Lee Carter meant him to be alive? The van had run at him, blinding him with its headlights at the same time as it headed fast out of nowhere towards him. One minute he’d been walking home from the airfield, the next rolling in agony in the deep ditch beside the black
lane. He remembered little else … just a blur of noise and lights and pain, and the desperate need to stop anyone moving him. Then he had woken up in A & E.

The message had come as usual via a text.
Brrtts Lane 2am
.

He wasn’t going. How could he? He’d been caught, he’d talked to the police. He was in a sweat already. But Pete had made it plain that if more money in envelopes through the post
was not forthcoming he was out on the street. He meant it. The police would be watching him round the clock. They’d want him to lead them to bigger fish, they’d be watching and waiting, laying a trap.

No, he wasn’t going to do another Carter job. Not till he woke up at one o’clock and lay there wondering what would happen if he didn’t. When it occurred to him that they might come here, he shot
out of bed and began pulling on his jeans and sweater. It was a cold night. Matt was lying on his stomach, one foot sticking out from under the duvet. Andy lifted it and shoved it back. The foot was freezing. He hesitated but his nephew merely groaned slightly.

Barrett’s Lane was not far away. He didn’t mind the walking at night. It was keeping him fit, but it was so cold that a half-mile was
pleasanter than two or three. The lane was a snicket between the backs of some old, dilapidated houses and he saw the car waiting as soon as he turned into it. It was a black Ford Focus and he didn’t know the driver who started the engine as soon as Andy came towards him and accelerated away before he’d properly climbed in and got the door closed.

‘Watch it, I nearly fell out.’

Silence. Andy
looked sideways. He was a handsome lad with a shaved head and four rings in
one ear. He drove fast, screaming the wheels on every corner and said nothing at all the whole way to the airfield. Once there he had driven to the hangar. ‘Out.’ Andy got out. The Focus screeched off. The airfield was silent, deserted, so far as he could make out, freezing cold and pitch black. He huddled into the lee
of the hangar but the wind found him out. He edged round the other side, turning up his collar. His hands were stiff with cold. On this side it was worse, the wind coming straight towards him. He waited. Waited for maybe almost an hour. He was so cold he couldn’t think and he felt sick. In the end, he walked across the airfield and back, jogged a bit on the spot and then made for the gateway. Nobody
was coming. Lee Carter had been taking the piss. Probably he could see him from some satellite, could track him the five and a half miles home through the freezing night and laugh about it. He had turned out into the lane and was jogging along it. Then there had been the headlights and the van heading for him and the crack of pain and terror as it hit.