A Death of Distinction (11 page)

After the two police officers had gone, Dorothea began stacking the used coffee cups in the dishwasher. Halfway through, she stopped to write a note to Sue, the young woman who came in three times a week to do the cleaning, to remind her to do the larder shelves, then remembered it wasn't her day ...

She had to collect some things of Flora's to take to the hospital, but she'd forgotten what...

Toilet things, surely? And a nightdress, perhaps that new white silk one of her own she hadn't worn yet, more suitable than those silly things Flora usually wore ...

And there was something else she should remember, though she couldn't think what that was, either ...

She stared across the gleaming surfaces of the kitchen Jack had recently had newly fitted for her, without seeing it. Was it always going to be like this? This lack of concentration? This hard knot in her chest, making her want to cry out loud in her need for Jack? With the source of tears that might have washed it away, dried up?

And that other person inside her head, whispering, whispering ...

The clock in the hall struck ten and she began to move automatically. She was due to meet Anthony Spurrier at half past.

Twenty minutes later, she was taking the garden path across to the institution, carrying the small bag with Flora's things in it.

Her car, as well as Flora's Polo, both of which had been garaged in the old barn, had been damaged in the blast, hers a total write-off, Flora's probably repairable. She was going to have to do something about finding another car, summon up energy to decide on something in which she'd little interest. She must ring the garage and tell them to send her the nearest replacement to her old one they could find. She couldn't go on being dependent on other people to ferry her around.

It was impossible in any situation, however fraught, for Dorothea to pass through the garden without casting a critical eye around, as she did now. Walking quickly, but observantly, she tried to assess what damage all those policemen, tramping over every square inch of the garden yesterday, had caused; paused briefly to see whether the peony buds were yet pushing prematurely through, while there was still danger of frost. They were not, but her gaze fell on a stray escape of ground elder, against which she waged implacable war. She pounced, her fingers burrowing deep to pull it out by the roots, otherwise it would send out fat white rhizomes under the soil, to surface where you least wished it to be – right in the crown of another delicate plant, most likely, threatening to choke it. She tugged the weed out at last and for several moments stood staring down impassively at it lying in the palm of her hand, as if reading her life in it, the delicate, trefoil leaves pretty and inoffensive, the roots unbelievably tenacious and invasive. Then she let it drop on to the path, later to be put on the bonfire. Burn it, destroy it, the only way to get rid of any infestation, completely and permanently.

Brief as it was, the incident had delayed her; she must hurry, or Anthony Spurrier, who was taking her down to the hospital, where he would see Flora for the first time since her accident, would be waiting. Dorothea, who was always punctual, except when she lost track of time in the garden, couldn't allow him to think she was letting down her own standards.

He was, she reflected, a rather naive young man, despite his impressive qualifications and the nature of his work, which she felt should have taught him more of the subtleties of human nature. She'd evidently astonished him by knowing about his relationship with Flora. He'd been overwhelmed that she'd bothered to set his mind at rest about her injuries and to keep him informed of her progress. Dorothea was wryly amused at this. How little they all knew her! She understood and cared more about Flora than anyone dreamed of.

All the same, the depth of Anthony's anxiety had demonstrated to her that perhaps it might not be so bad – Flora and Anthony Spurrier. He might be the one to make her happy, after all. It wasn't in the least what she'd envisaged for her daughter – no big wedding, no alliance with a son of one of the best families. Anthony was never likely to be rich, though that scarcely mattered now – Jack had left Flora well provided for; he was several years older than she was, and that might even be an advantage. Flora needed a firm hand, a father figure ... the knot in Dorothea's chest tightened again and she walked more quickly, images she would rather not see blurring before her eyes.

She'd almost reached the group of slender birches near the gate where the crinums had flourished until lately, before she remembered the snowdrops.

She was upset, out of all proportion, at this evidence of further confusion in her mind. How could she have forgotten her precious bulbs? So completely? When it had been the last thing she'd been doing before her world had shattered? Was it too late to save them, when they'd been lying out there in the cold, drying winds ever since, with their roots exposed to the sun?

When she reached the place where she'd left the trugful of bulbs there was, however, no sign of them – and the space which she'd designated for them was now filled. Planted in a neat square, in regimented rows like soldiers on parade, were the snowdrops, some of the leaves still a little limp and drooping, others already picked up. But planted, saved from withering away.

Tom Barnett! Whoever would have believed it?

She stood looking down at the rigidly disposed plants, aware of the soft smell of newly turned earth, of new life stirring all around her, of a blackbird singing on a flowering currant.

Quite suddenly, the tears welled up unstoppably. She leaned against the corky bark of a nearby beech, sobbing until at last she could cry no more, the hard knot in her chest slowly dissolving.

Finally, she blew her nose, smoothed back her hair and hurried on towards the admin block, anxious to find the women's cloakroom before meeting Anthony. Her hands were filthy from grubbing out the ground elder. She'd never in her life faced anyone with her eyes red, her face blotchy, and she wasn't going to start now.

The long, depressing street of villa-type brick houses was clotted with on-street parking, but Farrar found a space only four doors away from the house where Dex Davis's mother lived.

Dingy curtains and battered paintwork, a neglected plot of grass in front, roughly the dimensions of a grave – there could hardly have been a greater contrast to the house they'd previously visited, the house of the woman who'd supplanted her.

They knocked on the front door. Twice. As Kite lifted his hand for the third time, a voice from inside called, ‘Round the back!' Kite jerked his head at Farrar, signalling him to go down the passage between the houses, waiting while Farrar, always fastidious in the extreme, was picking his way along a broken and oil-stained concrete pathway, through a garden where only grass and dandelions survived, past a line of doubtful washing, a motorbike propped up on bricks, minus its front wheel, an overflowing dustbin and a week's supply of empty milk bottles.

Presently, Kite heard him shouting through the front-door letter box. ‘Have to go round the back, Sarge. Can't open this.'

The front door hadn't been opened for years. Couldn't be, the way it was blocked from behind with a log jam of discarded and broken objects, old shoes, and a coat rail so overburdened it had lost half its grip on reality and sunk lopsidedly towards the floor, making access to the upstairs something of an assault course.

‘Mrs Davis?' Kite inquired, when he, too, had negotiated the hazards of the back entry and was in the kitchen.

‘No. Bridie O'Sullivan. I've reverted to me maiden name,' replied the big, handsome woman with the cloud of dark hair and the rich Irish brogue grandly, making him wonder if there wasn't something more than tea in the mug she was swigging from.

He wouldn't have blamed her. Something had to compensate for her wretched surroundings, and by all accounts her wretched life, though she hadn't lost the sparkle in her blue eyes and her smile was as wide and generous as her hips. Breakfast was not yet over – a jar of Silver Shred with a knife sticking out of it stood on the cloth, next to a hacked-off white loaf and a plastic tub of marge, scored with the bread-knife serrations. Automatically, she reached for two more mugs and poured a black, evil-looking brew from the teapot, sugaring both with a heavy hand and pushing them across. Kite's look defied Farrar to refuse.

‘We're looking for your son, Dex, Mrs –'

‘Bridie,' she plugged the hesitation. ‘What's he done this time?'

‘Nothing so far as we know, yet. Is he living here?'

‘Only because he's nowhere better to go.'

‘Short of money, is he?'

She laughed.

‘Who's he associating with these days?'

‘It's no use asking me these sort of questions. I don't have any answers.' Her eyes were suddenly empty as a rain-washed Irish sky. ‘What do you want him for?'

‘Just a word in connection with that bomb that went off at the Conyhall Young Offenders' Institution.'

‘The bomb that killed the governor?' She was jerked into mobility, drawing herself upright on the kitchen chair. ‘No! He's a terrible little toerag, so he is, but he wouldn't do a thing like that, not Dex!' But he read fear and uncertainty in her voice.

‘We only want to talk to him, m'duck.'

‘Then you've struck lucky, haven't you? For that's his car just pulled up outside. Oh, Jesus. What have I ever done to deserve this?'

Bridie sank her head in her hands, banging her elbows on the table in frustration, but all it did was to make her keen with pain as she struck her funny-bone and the nerve sent excruciating tingles down her arm and hand.

‘What's up with you?' demanded the youth who shambled through the door.

The pain in her arm had receded, leaving only numbness, but the other pain, the one clutching her heart, was still there. She sat where she was, looked sorrowingly at the son who'd caused her nothing but trouble for the last six or seven years, and decided she'd had enough of what life decided to throw at her. Sure, she'd go on fighting. She hadn't been born Irish for nothing. But this time she was going to fight for herself.

‘You've got visitors,' she said.

If Dex Davis resembled either parent, it wasn't his mother, except that he was big. Muscular. Dangerous. A close-cropped head, a hard face devoid of expression, empty grey eyes, jaws moving rhythmically on a piece of gum. Leather jacket. Ironmongery in his ears. Washed-out black T-shirt, the mandatory skin-tight jeans and Doc Martens. A hard man in his own opinion.

He didn't frighten either policeman.

He looked older than his years, old with more knowledge of the seamy side of life than his age warranted. Nobody with sense would have trusted him with a bag of boiled sweets, let alone bought a used car from him. Life had already stamped on him what he was to become, a hopeless case, destined to spend the best part of his life under lock and key, the rest of it in the dubious activity that was to put him there.

‘Derek Davis?'

‘What of it?'

‘Detective Sergeant Kite, and this is Detective Constable Farrar. We'd like a word.'

‘What about? I've done nothing.'

‘Glad to hear it, Derek. But for starters, how long have you had the motor?' Farrar indicated the car drawn into the kerb. It wasn't new – a red, H-reg Orion – but if Dex could afford to buy and run that, legit, then Farrar was looking to him for a bit of advice.

Dex shrugged. ‘Week or two.'

‘Must've cost you.'

‘Got it cheap, off of one of me mates, didn't I?'

‘Yeah, we know mates like yours, sunshine,' Kite said. ‘Get you anything you want, can't they? Dodgy, is it? Nicked?'

‘No, it bloody isn't,. Paying for it on the knock, if you must know.'

‘And you on the dole? Come again.'

‘Dunno what you're on about,' Dex answered, taking refuge in playing stupid.

‘We're on about that bomb that went off at Conyhall. And what you know about it.'

His expression didn't change. His jaws masticated. But Kite was interested to see that a light sweat broke out on his forehead. ‘Hey, man. You can't pin that on me.'

‘Don't hold your breath.'

‘I don't know nothing about it.' Dex made a show of indifference and turned as if to go upstairs.

‘Don't go, Derek.'

He slouched into a chair. ‘Told you, I'd nothing to do with it.'

‘Then you won't mind coming down to the station, nice and quiet, like a good lad, and telling that to our inspector.'

‘Hey, hey!'

‘Get your coat on. Come on, don't hang about.'

‘I tell you, I dunno –' Farrar took hold of his arm. He wasn't such a ponce as you'd think. Dex began to look hunted. ‘Ma?'

‘Don't look at me, you daft little bugger, you're only getting what you asked for. I've done with you, so I have!' And Bridie, who'd seen off more policemen, probation officers and social workers in her time than she could count, sat immovable in her chair, while Farrar collared her son out to the waiting police car.

Halfway to the door, Kite turned back. ‘Thanks for the tea, Bridie, and good luck to you. Here,' he added, seeing the tears now spilling from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks, ‘don't let him get you down, m'duck, he's not worth it.'

‘And who the hell are you to say he's not worth it?' she rounded on him, swiping at the tears, blue eyes flashing, Irish temper up. ‘I'll thank you not to talk about my son as if he was rubbish – and you harm a hair of his head and I'll have your guts for garters, so I will – and don't think I'm not capable of it.' She picked up the smeary bread knife from the table and brandished it. ‘You get out of my house!'

Kite got. That she was capable of
anything,
he didn't doubt for a minute, and there were other parts of his anatomy that he valued, even more immediately accessible than his guts.