For Death Comes Softly (38 page)

‘They match,' cried Julia, shooting me a puzzled look.

I nodded. ‘It's Robin's,' I said quietly. ‘I suddenly remembered that the lock to Highpoint was a Banham.'

There was a searing pain behind my eyes. Was it all true then? Everything I had feared and so wanted to disprove.

Julia reached out and grasped my hand. She was still so far from well, and I didn't know how she could be so strong after all she had been through.

‘Hold on, old love,' she said. ‘Let's work out exactly what this means.'

I shut my eyes wishing I could make it all go away. But that wasn't possible any more. I knew that my ostrich days were finally and irrevocably over. I forced my eyes open again. The lids felt heavy. The pain was still there. Fleetingly I wondered how the ache in my head compared with Julia's, and I suspected that hers would make mine pale into insignificance. Again I wondered how she managed to function so well.

‘It can only mean that Robin took your key off the hook and replaced it with his own,' I said haltingly. ‘Presumably so that if I checked, which I did, I would think yours was still there.'

Julia's grip tightened. ‘But if so, why didn't he replace it later with the real key to my flat? You know . . . after . . . afterwards.' She stumbled over the last bit, finding it as difficult as I did to put the terrible suspicion into words.

I looked at her blankly. ‘I don't know,' I said lamely. ‘Maybe he thought that key would never be used again. Maybe he just forgot . . .'

‘I can't imagine Robin ever forgetting anything,' responded Julia. And she managed a wry smile.

‘I have to know,' I whispered. ‘I have to know for sure.'

Julia nodded. When she spoke again she sounded quite businesslike.

‘Of course you do,' she said. ‘And I don't think we should jump to any conclusions until we have more proof.'

‘How?' I asked mournfully.

Julia's frown deepened. Then she slapped the table top with her free hand.

‘Got it,' she said. ‘Couldn't you do a check on passengers flying out of Heathrow to Ireland on the morning after my fire?'

‘Perhaps,' I said. ‘But surely he wouldn't have checked in under his own name.'

‘Robin travels to Ireland regularly, doesn't he?'

I nodded. ‘Yes, there are family connections and he is involved in several property deals there.'

‘Then he would know that although travel between Ireland and the UK is officially passport-free, the airlines frequently ask either for passports or some sort of identification,' said Julia thoughtfully. ‘They're still pretty security conscious. If Robin flew out of Heathrow that morning I don't think he would have risked a false name. He could all too easily have just ended up drawing attention to himself. I think he would have used his real name. He wouldn't have expected anyone to check the passenger list. After all, he would appear to have arrived in Ireland as scheduled by train and boat. He had an alibi. You took him to the railway station, for goodness' sake. Look, if it hadn't been for the key we wouldn't be doing this now, would we?'

Without responding I went to the telephone and called the police at Heathrow. I knew one officer serving there and I asked for him by name. I had to do this under the old pals act – a straightforward approach would have set alarm bells clattering. I doubted there was a bobby in the country who didn't know about DCI Rose Piper, Robin Davey and the Abri Island disaster.

My mate was off duty until the following day.

‘Now what?' I asked Julia.

‘I'm not sure,' she said. ‘We ought to carry on as normal until we know for certain. But that means you driving back to Bristol later this afternoon, as arranged. And, well,' she paused, then continued bluntly, ‘I don't like the idea of you going back to the man, I really don't.'

‘I'm going to have to, aren't I?'

She half-nodded. ‘I suppose so,' she murmured eventually.

I told her I'd be fine. Strangely enough, I still wasn't afraid of Robin. But I was afraid of having to face him, of having to pretend that everything was normal.

If Robin and I had been alone together that evening I am not sure that I would have been able to pull it off. The dinner with the AKEKO chairman made it just about possible. Indeed Robin and the Japanese businessman seemed to have so much to talk about that I was mercifully required to make very little conversation. There was the familiar glint in Robin's eye when talking about Abri, and the plans to rebuild, to which AKEKO were undoubtedly now every bit as committed as he was. Robin's continued obsession with the island had concerned me enough even before I had learned all that I had that day, and, with the offending key tucked carefully in a corner of my handbag, it was a struggle for me to keep up any semblance of normality. However, if Robin noticed anything amiss, he said nothing, except to remark casually on the way home that I had been unusually quiet.

‘Couldn't get a word in edgeways,' I said lightly, and that had seemed to satisfy him.

In bed that night I disgusted myself. I let Robin make love to me. Only that's not an honest description. I told myself that I was only doing so in order not to rouse his suspicions, but the truth was that physically I wanted him as much as ever, I responded as passionately as ever. I didn't have to pretend. A part of me wondered desperately if this could really be the last time and cried out for it not to be, and I was ashamed. I wept when I came just as I had the very first time. He kissed me gently, turned over and went straight to sleep.

I lay awake all night. The physical relief that he always brought me had heightened rather than lessened my mental anguish.

As soon as he left for the office the next morning I called Heathrow. My old pal was on duty, but as I had expected he immediately sussed out the significance of my request. He agreed to help me with great reluctance and only after I had made all kinds of promises and told several white lies.

Then I sat and waited for him to make his enquiries and call me back. It was a long three hours before the phone rang. I picked up the receiver with trepidation. The caller was Julia. And she went straight to the point.

‘I've done a bit of checking myself this morning,' she said. ‘On the night of the fire the train timetables changed and the Fishguard train left Bristol twenty-five minutes earlier than previously. Robin would have missed it, wouldn't he?'

‘Almost certainly,' I replied in a voice that held no expression any more.

I could feel the world closing in on me. I told her that I was still waiting to hear from Heathrow. She said she wished she was with me, that she was about to meet Kendal and finally gain access to her flat, and that I was to phone her there as soon as I had any news.

I hung up and the phone immediately rang again. This time it was the call I had been waiting for.

The morning after the fire in Julia's flat a passenger called Robin Davey travelled to Cork aboard the first British Airways flight out of Heathrow.

Twenty-Three

I couldn't wait. I didn't have time to call Julia. That would come later. Within minutes I was in my car and on the way to Robin's office.

I walked straight in, not even acknowledging the secretary he shared with the business partner I had only once met. Robin, elegant as ever in a dark grey pin-striped suit, was sitting sideways at his big leather-topped desk with his long legs stretched out. His shoes had a mirror shine to them. It occurred to me obliquely that I had never seen him wearing shoes without a deep shine, except perhaps on Abri or at his mother's farm. And there was always a razor-sharp crease in his trousers. He was talking on the telephone and he looked up enquiringly as I entered, smiled the to-die-for smile and gestured me to a chair.

I ignored the gesture and, remaining standing, tore my wedding ring off my finger and threw it at him. It would have hit him in the face except that he raised his left hand, fending the ring off so that it dropped back on to his desk. He stopped speaking in mid-sentence and replaced the phone in its cradle.

‘It's strange how people get caught out,' I said.

I put my hand in my pocket, took out the key to Highpoint, still with the label attached saying ‘Julia' in my handwriting, and held it in the palm of my hand.

‘Your only mistake,' I said, glancing down at it. I looked up at him again, genuinely curious. ‘Why didn't you replace it with Julia's key after . . . afterwards?' Again the slight pause, the stumble, the difficulty in putting the dreadful deed into words. ‘We might never have known,' I continued.

I studied him carefully, watched the gradual realisation dawn, and saw him turn grey before me. In the space of a minute he aged ten years. His shoulders slumped. He didn't even try to kid me any more because he knew there was no point. Robin was sensitive to my every mood, to my every thought. He recognised the sea change within me. There was defeat in his voice when he replied, although he managed a wry twisted smile, almost as though he were amused by the absurdity of what he was about to say.

‘Would you believe I lost the key, that there was a hole in my trouser pocket . . .' He stopped then, as if only just realising what he had begun to admit.

I had no intention of letting him off the hook. Not this time. Not any more. Robin had made me forget all too often that I was a police officer. At last I hoped I was at least beginning to remember, although I knew perfectly well that I should not really even have been confronting him in the way that I was. But some things in life you just cannot stop yourself doing – and I, of all people, was acutely aware of that.

‘I also know that you flew from London to Cork on the morning after Julia's fire,' I told him flatly.

He said nothing. There was an awful blankness in the blue eyes which had so captivated me.

‘So you see,' I continued conversationally, fighting to keep all emotion out of my voice, ‘I know that you tried to kill Julia, and I know how you did it. I know that you came back to the house when you realised you had missed the Fishguard train, that you overheard my telephone conversation with Julia, and that you took the key to her flat out of the cupboard at home and replaced it with your own old Highpoint one. I am also quite sure now that you abandoned Natasha on the Pencil. And you have forty-four other deaths on your conscience – if you have any conscience. I just wish to God I knew why you did it all.'

I could see that Robin was trying to evaluate what I had told him, the evidence that I had put before him. This time I just waited, although it seemed a very long time before he eventually spoke.

‘Why?' he repeated, and he was not looking at me, but at some distant place somewhere above and beyond my head. ‘I am a Davey. I am the heir to the legacy of centuries. I could not lose Abri. I could not go down in history as the Davey who lost our island . . .' His voice trailed off. He switched his gaze, focusing on me. His voice was unusually rough when he spoke.

‘You could never understand. Why should you? What do you know about the responsibility, the burden, of inheritance? What do you know about land, about old families, their traditions and their fortunes? You have no conception of what any of that means. You never felt a damn thing for Abri.' He gave a derisory snort. ‘But then, how could you?' he sneered. ‘A bloody little policewoman from Weston-super-Mare.'

His eyes narrowed, and he spat out the next words. ‘I should never have married you!'

I flinched. In spite of all that I now knew, I hated to hear him say that. I forced myself to maintain control.

‘But surely Natasha understood,' I said quietly. ‘She came from the right kind of background . . .'

He interrupted me, his voice unusually high-pitched. ‘She was perfect. Perfect. But when she found out about the mines and the maps I held back from AKEKO she just wouldn't let up on it. Kept insisting that I hand over the maps, or at least have a full mining survey done. AKEKO would never have gone ahead if they'd been aware of the extent of the network of shafts on Abri. I knew that – but I never believed they were dangerous. They'd been there for 150 years. Natasha would not listen to reason . . .'

Even at that moment I wondered how he could say that. Forty-four people had died and more than twice as many had been injured, yet he still appeared to think that his had been the voice of reason.

‘She just said she wouldn't allow me to take risks with other people's lives . . .' he went on.

‘So you decided to take hers. Just like that.'

He looked as if he were going to respond straight away, then changed his mind. Dramatically he switched tack.

‘No, no, I will not give in to you, I will never admit it, never, not any of it,' he cried. Swiftly he got up from his chair, came around to the front of the desk, took me by both shoulders and began to shake me.

‘How could you do this to me?' he shouted in my face. ‘How could you? I love you, you stupid bitch. I was obsessed with you from the start. Do you think I would have chosen to get involved with a fucking police detective? I couldn't help it, I loved you so much.'

‘And I have loved you, Robin,' I said. Although I was becoming afraid of him I remained surprisingly calm. ‘More than you will probably ever know.'

The words made some kind of impact, I think. He stopped shaking me, and stood back. I could see him physically pulling himself together, trying to clear his thoughts. That public-school training again, I thought obscurely. I had managed to keep hold of the key. Curiously, perhaps, he hadn't even tried to take it from me. I put it back in my pocket.