For Death Comes Softly (30 page)

The enquiry's findings were made public in October, six months after the disaster, and were about the best result there could have been for Robin and I. Perhaps the judge's manner belied his thinking, perhaps he had merely been playing devil's advocate. Perhaps he simply believed that aggressive questioning of witnesses was the way in which to seek the truth, and that this did not actually indicate how his judgement was going to go. Whatever lay behind it, I was both surprised and delighted when he effectively cleared Robin of all responsibility.

The disaster, Lord Justice Symons' report concluded inevitably, had been caused by the collapse of the complex network of old mine shafts which had been constructed dangerously close to the surface – the legacy of the gold-mining industry which had ripped the very core out of the island.

The mining operations run by Robin's ancestors, principally his obsessive great-great-great-great-grandfather Ernest John as Robin had told me when he and I had first met, dated back to a time when safety regulations in that kind of industry had yet to be invented. Greed had been the order of the day and the island had been effectively raped so that the last of its gold could be extracted. And when supplies finally ran out there had been a flurry of exploratory shafts tunnelled in all directions in a last desperate bid to find new strains. The experts had found that it was during that period, between 1850 when the last map was dated and somewhere around 1860 when all mining work was believed to have ended, that the most damage had been done to the structure of Abri. The islanders, forced ultimately to return to their more traditional occupations of fishing and sheep farming, were quite oblivious to the hazard which had been created, and had blocked off all the shafts in order that neither sheep nor children would fall down them. The relatively brief period during which virtually the entire island was turned into a gold mine had been more or less forgotten – relegated almost to the level of some vaguely mythical folk tale passed half-heartedly down the generations. But beneath the fertile top soil of Abri had lain this complex honeycomb of tunnels which every passing year had rendered more and more dangerous. There had been an unseen cancer eating away the very heart of the island, and the influx of so many people for our wedding, plus the disruptive effects of laying the foundations for the new hotel complex, the first major new building works in over 100 years, had almost certainly contributed to the eventual collapse of a treacherously weakened infrastructure. In the words of Lord Justice Symons, Abri Island had been a disaster waiting to happen.

Under the circumstances it was recommended that no criminal charges should be brought against Robin. The enquiry accepted unequivocally, as did I, that he had had no idea of the great danger lurking within Abri, and that the only maps he ever had gave no indication of the true extent of the tunnelling. Even AKEKO's surveyors had accepted the validity of the inaccurate maps, and had merely inspected the shafts known to exist. Robin could hardly be blamed for the sins of an irresponsibly obsessed nineteenth-century ancestor.

Nonetheless, the Abri Island disaster was a hell of a thing to live with and I knew that we were both close to being unhinged by it. But it never occurred to me that Robin could be speaking anything other than the 100 per cent truth and it was a great comfort somehow that a formal enquiry of such magnitude as this one had also not doubted him.

All in all, the findings were just a tremendous relief – although nothing would ever lessen for Robin the blow of having irrevocably lost Abri. He had devoted his life to preserving Abri Island for his family, and now it was gone for good.

Five days later the body of Stephen Jeffries was found in a shallow grave high in the Mendip hills, just over a year after the boy had disappeared. A dog being taken for a walk by its owner had unearthed Stephen's remains. Unusually heavy rain had caused the various water sources in the higher regions of the hills to flood and pour down towards the lower regions, washing away much of the top soil which had effectively covered the boy for so long. Without the intervention of British weather the body might never have been found. I heard about it on the TV news. I was not involved any more. It was no longer my case – but the news devastated me.

Chief Superintendent Titmuss announced that he was now heading a murder enquiry. I suppose it had been a foregone conclusion that, after all this time, young Stephen had to be dead, but with all the other trauma in my life I had tried not to think about that. Instead, like a distraught relative, I had willed the boy to be somehow, somewhere, still alive.

He wasn't. He had been killed and unceremoniously left to rot in a moorland pit. It sent shivers down my spine. This was yet another death for which I felt I had to take at least some responsibility.

Eighteen

Robin and I were married. We went to Barbados to do the deed, just the two of us, and we told nobody of our intentions until our return. We flew out of the UK just a week after young Stephen Jeffries' body had been discovered, and for me it was the best therapy there could ever have been. We stayed in the Coral Reef Hotel on St James Beach in a little bungalow in the midst of tropical gardens and wed on the beach two days after arriving. I wore a simple cream linen dress and Robin wore white canvas trousers and a bright yellow shirt without a tie. Two other guests, people we hardly knew, were our witnesses. We celebrated alone over a long lingering dinner and then we danced bare-footed in the moonlight. Nothing could have been more removed from the wedding we had expected to have on Abri.

We remained in Barbados for a magical fortnight, and for fourteen glorious days we thought of nothing but each other. We were helped, of course, by the fact that nobody we encountered knew anything about us nor the terrible tragedy we had experienced. One of the worst aspects of being involved in something so appalling is the public knowledge of it. The way you cannot meet with friends or even buy a newspaper in the corner shop without being aware of watchful eyes, and carefully tactful words. Other people's awareness, and indeed their concern, can actually make it impossible for you to move forward. On Barbados, albeit only fleetingly, it felt in a way as if life returned to a kind of normality – although I suppose holidays are never really normality.

Robin and I were blissfully happy together. The old companionship returned, and we talked endlessly about anything and everything, and most importantly, for the first time probably since the disaster, not always coming back to Abri. In fact I don't think we ever mentioned it. It was as if we had an unspoken agreement that we would not discuss it. There really was nothing left to say. No tears left to be shed.

Robin and I had to look to the future not the past, and I for one, was quite determined that we would do just that. The truth, of course, was that Robin had become just about all I ever thought about. It was almost as if I were hypnotised.

Our happiness continued undisturbed during our first week back in Bristol. At last our beautiful Clifton house began to feel like a real home. Robin went straight back to work, which was a good sign. I knew by now that he was at his happiest when he was working. Alone during the day I was even able at last to keep the nightmares at bay. And I continued in my attempts to learn to cook, actually producing one or two meals which were almost edible.

Then I had a call from Julia. She had yet to learn that I had married Robin. In fact the last time I had talked to her about him it had been to confide that things weren't so good between us, and that I wondered if we were ever going to recover from the disaster. When we began to build our bridges and eventually planned our wedding, I don't know why I didn't call her straight away, to give her the good news. I had told her we were going on holiday, of course, but nothing more. I think I just hadn't wanted to break the spell, or maybe I was afraid of tempting providence. And now, before I had a chance to confide in her she began to speak.

‘Rose, I've got something I must tell you . . .'

‘Snap!' I said.

‘Rose, please,' she said. She sounded very serious, I suppose. But I was on a high, the first one in a long time, and I wasn't interested in a word she had to say until I had imparted my news.

‘Shut up, Julia, and listen,' I instructed imperiously. ‘Robin and I are married. We did the deed in Barbados.' There was a long silence. ‘Well, aren't you going to congratulate me?'

‘Congratulations,' said Julia flatly.

‘Don't sound so bloody enthusiastic,' I grumbled.

I thought that I detected a sigh down the line.

‘Darling, if you're happy then I'm happy, you must know that by now,' said Julia. ‘And God knows you deserve some happiness.'

‘We all do, Julia,' I said sombrely. ‘And I'm going to grasp it now, I really am. Robin and I just have to somehow overcome our guilt and our grief, we have to, and get on with our lives.'

They were heavy words, but there was a new lightness in my heart. Had been since the wedding.

‘Oh Julia, I do love him so,' I blurted out. ‘I'm sure we can be happy together again, in spite of everything, I'm sure of it.'

‘I hope so, Rose,' replied Julia.

‘No doubt about it,' I responded.

Again Julia didn't say anything. It was not like her to go in for long telephone silences. Normally she gossiped for England, even the disaster had not changed that.

‘What's the matter with you?' I asked eventually.

‘Nothing,' she said. ‘A bit tired, that's all. Overworked and underpaid, you know.'

‘I do – but you don't,' I said. ‘Underpaid is not the way I would describe your job exactly.'

She managed a wry laugh.

‘So come on, let's have it,' I encouraged. ‘What is it you want to tell me, then?'

‘Oh, nothing, darling,' she replied. ‘Your news has completely overshadowed it.'

‘Tell me anyway,' I commanded.

‘Rose, to be truthful, I can't even remember what I was going to say,' she told me. And, rather curiously, I didn't think she was being truthful at all. But I was quite untroubled. I had married my Robin at last. I was quite sure that he loved me every bit as much as I loved him. Nothing else mattered.

During the next month our lives seemed to improve daily. I really did begin to believe in the future. There even seemed to be a chance at last of rebuilding my shattered relationship with my sister Clem. It was my niece's ninth birthday at the end of November, and I decided to take a risk and call around unannounced with a present and a card.

Young Ruth seemed, on the surface at least, to be exactly the same as she had been before the disaster which claimed her little brother's life. She greeted me with a big hug and a kiss the way she always had, even though it was the first time I had seen her since that terrible day. Clem, who had for so long refused even to speak to me, at least let me in through the door.

The old warmth was sorely missing, but for the first time I felt this might not always be so.

I told her about my marriage, and, while she did not offer congratulations, neither did she display any particularly adverse reaction. We talked about our mother for a bit, who had predictably displayed wonderful powers of recovery and taken off to New Zealand to stay with a cousin neither of us had ever heard of before. We even managed a weak half-joke about how long the cousin would be able to stand it.

When I left I spontaneously reached out and touched Clem's hand. Very briefly her fingers tightened around mine, then she withdrew.

‘Maybe you'll let me visit again?' I enquired tentatively.

She did not reply directly. ‘Just do not ask me to ever see Robin again, that's all,' she said.

I winced. My mother had said much the same thing to me when she had phoned briefly to say goodbye before leaving on her big trip. It had been almost funny coming from mother when you considered the way she had once been all over Robin just because of who he was. Certainly there was little my mother could ever say which would really upset me. With Clem it was different. I was deeply hurt.

‘Clem, Robin will never get over the guilt he feels,' I told her. ‘But there is no logical reason for him to bear any guilt, you must believe that. Robin lost his brother and so many friends . . .'

She looked at me with deep sorrow in her eyes. ‘I don't know what I believe, to be honest, Rose,' she said.

I left her then, my heart heavy, but I was no longer without hope. Certainly I felt able at last to deal with some of the legacies of Abri. Maybe I was finally healing. And there was no doubt that marrying Robin had been a major part of the healing process. Since the wedding we had become very close again, perhaps almost as close as we had been before the disaster. I had realised a long time ago, or I would never have agreed to marry him the first time around, that there was much more than sex, sensational as it was, to Robin and I. In between our more passionate moments we were actually quite cosy together. During that really quite idyllic month at home after our exotic wedding we would spend evening after evening alone in the Clifton house, cuddled up on the sofa like a couple of lovesick kids, watching TV or listening to music. Somehow or other we had got some peace back into our lives, if nothing else.

Maude's affliction was a major sadness, but Roger insisted on taking her home to Exmoor where he looked after her, almost single-handedly, with great devotion. There seemed little hope of much improvement and I suspected that this wonderfully independent woman would probably have preferred the stroke to have killed her rather than leave her in this condition. Robin and I visited at least once a week, and one Saturday immediately after we had got back home to Bristol he broke down in tears in my arms, so upset was he at seeing his mother the way she was. It was the first time he had shown how he felt about Maude, the first time he had cried, in front of me, anyway, since the disaster, and I was so relieved that he was able to display his emotions again and to allow me to share his distress and give him what comfort I could.