The Witness: A Novel (57 page)

“Why do you need to do anything?” Colin had asked.

Because doing something—anything—meant that she was not powerless.

He had tried to explain about the double standard in detective work: Find out
everything
but release information only on a need-to-know basis to anyone outside the investigation. It was hard to shift gears, and married officers sometimes took that attitude home with them, almost always to their detriment. It wasn’t just the long, sometimes unpredictable hours that made married life difficult for coppers. The contrast between the need for discretion on the Job and the need for openness at home contributed, a continual tug of war between what could be said and what could not.

She had called it the I-need-to-know-but-you-don’t attitude, and she didn’t like it.

Simon’s call was a welcome distraction. After lunch he took her to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and she was sure that her awe at what she saw concealed her unusual quietude. The Grand Canyon was vast, but that was God’s creation. This magnificence was man’s achievement, the vision Sir Christopher Wren’s, and the execution, thousands of nameless artisans. This cathedral had been an inspiration since its construction, and it still conveyed a sense of holiness to those who entered. People trod softly on the marble floor, and their voices had a respectful hush.

She was touched by the memorial to the American servicemen who had died defending Britain in World War II. They passed the tombs of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Nelson, even Florence Nightingale. T. E. Lawrence’s statue was labeled with his movie name, Lawrence of Arabia! And there was a bust of George Washington, who had surely been regarded as a renegade on these shores. Simon asked if she’d like to climb to the whispering gallery, but when she heard how many steps there were, she shook her head, not confident that she had the energy after tossing and turning all night.

They stopped for a cold drink at a sandwich shop nearby. She had
given him a brief description of her trip to Kent on the tube ride to the city. Now he wanted to know more. “Talk to me. You’re not yourself.”

How could she? If he had to deal with a crisis every time they were together, he would not want to take her places any more.

He switched his voice to the tone she could not ignore.

“Colin lost it yesterday,” she answered. “I’ve never seen him so angry. I’d gone out by myself. That was what brought it on. He’d never told me about the monster’s threat.”

“Your safety has been his primary consideration.”

“You protected me, too,” she commented. “Would you have lied to me?”

If lying meant not disclosing everything, yes. “Jenny, you have to sort things out with him. You’re part of a couple now. That means you don’t take decisions by yourself.”

“He did.”

“Water over the dam. Time for us to move out.”

C
olin came toward the door as she opened it. “Jenny, I feared you’d gone. Or that something had happened to you.”

“We need to talk, Colin.”

“Indeed we do.” He gestured toward the sofa. “What were you doing with Casey?”

“Touring St. Paul’s,” she answered with a frown. “Are you going to attack me for that?” Her chin went up. “I needed a friend today. He was your friend, too, if you must know. He defended you.”

“Jenny, our dispute has been on my mind all day. I admit I withheld information from you, but I’ll not carry the can by myself in this misunderstanding.”

“What do you mean?”

“You accused me of bringing you back into danger. That doesn’t tally.”

“Are you telling me that there’s no danger?”

“No. I’m suggesting that you may have suffered from selective memory. We all do, from time to time.”

Colin had a Voice, too—a tone of professional detachment. She didn’t like it any more than she liked Simon’s voices.

“The sniper attack during Bates’ trial came
after
Scott’s verdict and sentencing. You suspected the source of the threat then. Nothing significant has altered since.”

She remembered thinking that the sniper’s victim had borne at least a slight resemblance to her and that Simon would neither confirm nor deny it. “Ouch,” she said. “That’s true.” They were sitting only a few feet apart, but she felt as if there were still miles between them, and she didn’t know how to bridge the distance. “Feeling safe is important to me. I’m so tired of being afraid. I shouldn’t have criticized you for wanting to protect me.”

“In my view the risk level is the same. Your whereabouts are still the issue.”

Her frustration surfaced. “Oh, please stop sounding like a detective! I can’t live here like a prisoner. Help me figure out what to do.”

“Do you want to stay?”

“Yes, and I want a job, and I want—chocolate.” She gave a shaky laugh, and he felt a weight rise from his shoulders. “I need something to do while you’re at work, and I need to make friends. Besides Simon.”

That would be a good idea.

“I know I don’t have a work permit,” she continued, “but couldn’t I volunteer somewhere? Somewhere nearby?”

He raised his eyebrows, and she squirmed under his gaze. “Colin, I haven’t been completely honest, either. I’m—I’m—afraid to go out by myself. I should have told you, but I didn’t want you to know how crippled I was.”

No matter—he had already known. “My independent daughter—gone,” her father had lamented to him when he was in Houston. “One of us has to take her everywhere she goes.”

“Close to home works for me,” he assured her. “I’ll make some calls for you tomorrow. In the meantime, where would you like to go for dinner? French, Indian, Italian?”

“That Italian restaurant on Heath Street.”

While Colin ate his Dover Sole Amalfi, he promised to be proud, not angry, when she left the flat. She feasted on an herb-broiled chicken breast in basil cream sauce and agreed to leave him a note when she did and not to use her credit cards. They’d had a pasta course before their main meal, and the wine they drank was light and smooth. “Why are you willing to stay with me, Jenny?” he asked.

He saw the slow blush. “I can’t answer that here,” she said.

He put a generous assortment of pound notes on the table and left with her before the coffee and fudge cake had been served. She had trouble keeping up with his long strides. Inside the flat, he took her face in his hands and asked, “Why, Jenny?”

She was still panting from the dash home. “You have to kiss me first.”

He was happy to comply.

Her heart was racing. She would never get her breath back! “Because I love you, Colin. Because I love you.”

J
enny’s confession of love made Sinclair want to celebrate: They had a solid foundation to build on now. He had flown to Texas with no more than a wish and a prayer, fearing that it would take repeated visits to establish the connection he sought. Since she had come home with him, a second prayer had been answered: She loved him. A woman’s love is precious, his father had told him. You must safeguard it. He would—he already felt more tenderly toward her than ever before. Yes, there was much to celebrate—the woman he loved, loved him. She—damn! He’d missed his tube stop. This morning he’d have a longer walk to the Yard.

As he took the lift to his floor, he thought about her quest for a meaningful way to spend her time. She would be occupied today watching some of the Wimbledon tennis matches on TV, but the finals would take place on the Sunday, and another week would then stretch in front of her with little to do. He was not unsympathetic with her desire to be productive, but he had come close to losing her on several occasions, and as a result, he had probably overstated the amount of risk she faced. “Downshift!” she’d said. “You’re in overdrive!”

Nevertheless, her taking the tube to another part of the city was out of the question. That ruled out museums and universities as sites for her activity. The Hampstead library wasn’t large, and he didn’t imagine that reshelving books there would be very challenging.

He decided to ring his sister, Jillian. Her husband, Derek Horne, worked in finance in the city, and they were more socially active than he was. Jillian couldn’t think of anything offhand that would suit but promised to discuss it with Derek when he came home.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

J
enny had had a rough night, and Colin was tired. He leant back in his chair and stretched his limbs to revive them. Years of being called to crime scenes at all hours had made him a light sleeper, so he’d heard her rustling about in the kitchen. She couldn’t take pain meds on an empty stomach, she explained, and he’d embarrassed her by asking why she needed them.

Violet’s menstrual cycles had always been a surprise to him. Later in their marriage he suspected she used them as a contrivance to keep him at arm’s length, but he knew Jenny had no such purpose. She’d been more expressive that evening than ever before.

The jangling of his phone interrupted him. It was Jillian, with good news. “Would Jenny be interested in working in a bookshop? Antiquarian and secondhand books, that sort of thing. A friend of Derek’s—an investments counsellor—retired at the end of last year and joined his wife in her venture. They’re looking for help.”

“Where?”

“It’s not far from you, Colin—in Hampstead. Esther and Reginald Hollister are the proprietors, but it’s been small beer for years, so you might not know of it. Esther knows books, but Reggie’s a businessman. He has secured additional space and plans to use the internet for sales as well.” She gave him a phone number. “Reggie’s the one who wants to make it a going concern—probably retired from the city too soon, Derek says!”

He could hear children’s voices in the background and Jillian remonstrating them. “Derek would have rung him for you, but we didn’t know what you’d want him to know about Jenny. By the way, Mother loves her, and we want to meet her. Soon!” The youthful voices were more insistent. “Must run!”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

T
he answer phone had a woman’s voice. “Hollister’s Books, but we want to make them yours! We’re off finding more treats for you to add to your collections. Buying trip to end on Sunday, selling spree to begin on Tuesday. The tea is free! Cheerio!”

W
ednesday morning Colin left early for the Yard, and Jenny reviewed the directions he had given her for finding Hollister’s Books. It was about ten minutes’ walk from the flat, in an area of Hampstead not too far from Royal Free Hospital. The gold script with the owner’s name sparkled in the morning sun, and the broad windows beneath the marquee would let in as much of the natural light that the London climate could provide. When she entered, she felt as if she had stepped into someone’s sitting room. The ratio of books to furniture was a little skewed, but care had been taken in the selection of love seats, chairs, small tables, and shaded lamps that would make the shop seem cozy on cloudy days. “Hello?” she called. No one was in sight.

“Yes, yes, here we are,” a voice replied. “Look, Reggie, it’s our volunteer! Our regular clientele are never here this soon after opening,” she explained.

Jenny smiled as the superficially mismatched couple approached. Mrs. Hollister—“No, no, you must call me Esther,”—was a spare, big-boned woman with a baggy dress and flyaway gray hair. Her husband, who did not immediately encourage Jenny to address him by his first name, was short and nearly bald. His clothes were tailored but sufficient to cover his substantial girth.

He and his wife started to talk at the same time. “I haven’t got used to Reggie being about all the time,” Esther laughed. “I’ve had this little investment since the children started school, and that was years ago! Reggie has been involved just since the beginning of the year.”

“Essie, Miss Jeffries isn’t interested at all in your history.”

“It’s Jenny, and I am.”

“Ladies first, then,” he said graciously.

Esther Hollister gestured as she narrated. “Nonfiction downstairs, fiction upstairs, all arranged according to category, except for the first editions on the north wall, well away from the sun. I can’t permit any damage to be done to my little lovelies!”

Jenny had always been more concerned with what was printed on the pages, but she couldn’t deny that some of the Hollisters’ books were beautiful. Esther opened one case and handed Jenny a leather-bound
volume with gilt-edged pages and marbled end sheets.

“Some of these are purchased more for home decoration than for consumption,” she said. “To make a room appear more masculine or complement its colour scheme. Isn’t that sad? Books are lonely if they’re not opened, I think.” They squeezed past a ladder on wheels. “Reggie’s idea,” Esther continued. “I never had any difficulty reaching the top shelves, but he feels that if we’re an antiquarian shop, we should look the part.”

They arrived at the back of the store. “Here’s the children’s area. I wanted it at first so my little terrors would be occupied while I worked, but mothers seem to appreciate the fact that they are welcome with their children, and to be honest, they almost always buy a book for their little ones before they leave, so I sell twice as much. Although this section of the store stays a bit unruly, you can’t see it from the street, so it’s not a deterrent to those who don’t have youngsters.”

They had completed the tour of the ground floor, passing a small bathroom and an equally small workroom.

“My turn, dear?” Mr. Hollister asked. He turned to Jenny. “We have two target groups, the visibles and the invisibles. Essie prefers to deal with the visibles, those who come into the shop. You’ll be helping her periodically to stock the shelves with our new acquisitions and to remove the ones that are past their prime.”

“I’ve never met a book that was past its prime,” Esther said.

“The rest of the time, you’ll be working on the computer.” He led the little group upstairs. A desktop computer rested on one end of a glossy wooden table. Matching wooden file cabinets stood underneath and to one side. Jenny smiled. These modern furnishings could not be seen from the street, any more than the cluttered children’s area could. “I’ve had a website designed and installed. I’m now in the process of entering all the books in our inventory online.”