The Chief Inspector's Daughter (25 page)

Alison lay on her back with her fingers laced behind her head, staring at the dim outline of the poster on the wall. ‘It's something I never thought about,' she admitted. ‘But it's true: whatever else happened in Jasmine's books, and whatever independent noises her heroines made, you knew that in the end the girl would marry the hero. It seemed only right and proper. But it obviously wasn't the kind of ending that Jasmine wanted in her own life.'

‘No, she knew better than to assume that married couples necessarily live happily ever after. That was something that used to make me cross, because I felt that she was exploiting impressionable girls and giving them a false idea of the realities of life. But last Wednesday I went up to London to a meeting, and afterwards, on the underground train, I happened to be sitting next to a woman of about my own age. She was a West Indian, and she wore a green nylon overall under her coat. She must have been going home from work – I imagine she was a canteen helper or a hospital cleaner or something like that. She looked tired and defeated, her ankles were swollen and her clothes were shoddy, and she was burdened with shopping bags. I doubt if there was anything anyone could tell that woman about the realities of life.

‘I felt that I ought to do something to help her – give her some women's movement literature, persuade her that she had a right to a fuller life, encourage her to do something positive for herself instead of meekly accepting a subservient role. But as soon as she sat down she took a women's magazine out of her bag, and flipped through it until she found the serial story. It was from one of Jasmine's novels. I watched her face, and as she read she began to look happier. She obviously loved Jasmine's book, really lapped it up. For ten minutes, as she travelled from a dirty, exhausting, boring job to face the demands of her home and family, she was lost to reality. Jasmine had transported her to another world. And when you think about it, it's quite something, isn't it, to be able to give pleasure like that to thousands of people you've never met?'

‘Did you tell Jasmine about the woman?' Alison asked.

‘Of course. I told her when Jonathan and I went to Yeoman's for drinks yesterday. But I certainly didn't tell her what I've just told you, that I couldn't help envying her ability to give other people happiness. No, I scolded her for giving opiates to women, for lulling them with romantic trash when they ought to be fighting for their right to self-fulfilment. But Jasmine just smiled and said that fighting wasn't her line, and that it was time I accepted the fact that women have different needs. She said that it was arrogant of me to assume that the woman on the train wanted to be liberated; she might well want nothing more than to devote herself to her family. And she said that I had no right to belittle and badger women who really do find complete fulfilment in being wives and mothers, or to be superior about their tastes in fiction. I think my views must have mellowed since I've known her, because to some extent – and strictly in private – I can see that she was right. I might have said so, if Jonathan hadn't been there. We enjoyed having apparently irreconcilable arguments in front of him.'

‘Jonathan used to argue with Jasmine too,' remembered Alison.

His wife laughed indulgently. ‘Oh, that was just a ploy to give him an opportunity to talk to her. Poor man, he did so want to get her into bed with him.'

Alison was surprised. ‘But I thought you said that you and Jonathan—'

‘That we love each other, yes. But we've agreed that in our kind of marriage, that doesn't preclude sleeping with other people. We're both free individuals. As it happens, though, I'm too busy to want to bother with anyone else, and Jonathan is chased by so many of my students that he's terrified of getting involved with any one of them. Jasmine is – was – the only one he really wanted, and he daren't ask her because he's too vain; he won't admit it, but he was afraid she'd reject him. I told him only yesterday that I wished he'd ask her right out, instead of making transparent excuses to talk to her. We had quite an argument about it after we got home from Yeoman's, and he slammed his study door and wouldn't come out for the rest of the day.'

‘Would Jasmine have agreed, do you think, if he'd asked her?'

‘Good Lord no!' Roz Elliott floundered into a more comfortable position. ‘We'll have to make an early start, so we'd better try to sleep now.'

The girl lay thinking about Jasmine Woods; sadly, but at least about Jasmine alive rather than dead. She was interested in what Roz had said about alternatives to marriage and a family. She herself had always assumed that she would marry and have children. That was what she had hoped would be the outcome of her affair with Gavin Jackson, otherwise she would not have let him make love to her. But Gavin had been a disillusionment, and she had been revolted by the way the youth in Breckham Market had tried to handle her.

‘Jasmine was perfectly happy living alone,' she meditated aloud. ‘I think that's what I'd like, too. It's ridiculous to imagine, as my mother does, that a woman's life isn't fulfilled unless she's married.'

Roz Elliott muttered something, but it was muffled by the duck-down depths of her duvet.

‘But I can't descend on your sister without warning,' Alison objected. ‘Oughtn't we to ring and ask whether she minds?'

‘We can't, she doesn't have a telephone at the farm. That's partly why it's such a good place for you to go to, because they don't let the outside world intrude. They're two miles from the nearest village, and they have no newspapers, no radio, no television – the isolation would drive me mad, but Polly likes it. And don't worry about inconveniencing her, because you won't. She'll be delighted to add you to her family.'

They were travelling briskly from Yarchester into the countryside in Roz Elliott's Mini, which was so permanently dirty that it was easy to overlook the fact that it was only one year old and a 1275 GT model. It was half-past eight on the morning of Tuesday 7 April, the day when Alison's father was pursuing his enquiries in Norfolk and worrying over his daughter's safety. But Alison, feeling relaxed for the first time since her discovery of the murder, and happy in the company of an understanding woman, hardly gave her parents a thought.

‘Does Polly have a big family?' she asked.

‘Oh, I was using the term loosely, as she does. The commune's her family, and Lord knows how many are in it – I've never attempted to keep track. Polly's a widow. She has five children of her own from two marriages, but they're all away from home now. She and her second husband bought the farm ten years ago, shortly before he died, to restore and use as a weekend and holiday place. He'd turn in his grave if he knew what she'd done with it, but Polly loves kids and enjoys being Mum to everyone.'

Roz turned from the road along a rutted track. There had been a wooden five-bar gate at the entrance to the track but it was now pushed aside and leaning, off its hinges, against a hedge. The name on the gate, Mill Farm, had weathered almost to illegibility. The land immediately surrounding the farm-house was cultivated only in patches and at first sight it looked virtually derelict. The old sheds and stables, mainly of brick and corrugated iron, black-tarred against the weather, were dilapidated. Ancient pieces of machinery, skeletal with rust, lay dead in corners.

But neglected as it was, the place stirred with life. Spring helped, of course: weeds shouldered aside frost-bitten cement and flourished in the yard; young nettles thrust through the ribs of the abandoned hardware. At one end of the yard a small building rather like a sentry-box – which Alison's father would have identified without hesitation as the privy – had been almost completely overgrown by a bush of honeysuckle, which was just coming into leaf. Each opening leaf resembled a tiny pair of wings, trembling in the sharp air. It looked as though a cloud of pale green butterflies had alighted on the bare twigs of the bush and might at any moment take off again.

The air smelled fresh and damp and earthy, and birds and domestic creatures filled it with their sounds. Two bearded members of the Mill Farm family were in evidence, chopping wood and digging a large vegetable patch with more enthusiasm than skill. They looked up with an amiable ‘Hallo'as Roz and Alison passed them on their way to the house and there were more, and louder, greetings when Roz opened the door and walked into the big kitchen.

The noise, until Alison became accustomed to it, was distracting and almost deafening. A television set or a radio would have been entirely superfluous. The family appeared to consist of about a dozen adults and as many children under the age of five. The children sat at whim at or on a table, using spoons and fingers to attack bowls of porridge. The adults sat at another table, finishing their own breakfast and discussing the tasks for the day, with the exception of one frowning girl whose sole contribution to the discussion was a guitar accompaniment.

There was a certain uniformity of appearance among the members of the family. The children's sex was totally indeterminate, dressed as they all were in home-made dungarees, with their hair fringing their eyes. The adults all wore their hair long, though some of the men held theirs back with a headband. One or two of the women were in long skirts but most of them, like the men, wore frayed jeans and sweaters. There was one older woman at the adults' table, and she rose with a cry of welcome as soon as she saw her sister.

‘Roz!'

‘Polly dear.'

They embraced with a warmth that surprised Alison, who could not remember having touched her sister Jennifer since they were children. She was even more surprised when Roz introduced her and Polly insisted on giving her a welcoming hug.

She could hardly hear the conversation that took place between the sisters, but Roz's explanations were minimal. Polly was indifferent to everything except Alison's presence, which seemed to give her genuine pleasure. She put one arm across the girl's shoulders and took her round the room introducing her to each member of the family; and each one greeted the newcomer with a hug or a friendly kiss. Alison felt almost like a bagatelle ball when, bemused, breathless and liberally smeared with porridge, she fetched up again beside Roz Elliott.

Roz grinned. ‘All right? I must go now, or I'll never catch my train. Polly's delighted to have you here, and she's admirably incurious. She doesn't know what's happened – I've simply told her that you want to get away from home for a few days. You can tell her just as much or as little as you like, and stay as long as you want.' She stepped aside to dodge a porridge-encrusted infant that was bent on swarming up her boots. ‘Or as long as you can stand it. I shan't tell anyone where you are. You're an independent person, and presumably you'll get in touch with your family when you're ready to do so.'

Polly bustled forward to scoop up the baby, pointing out to her sister with gentle reproof that it was wrong to make children feel in any way rejected. Like Roz, she was a big woman with strong, handsome bones. She was in her middle forties, bulky in jeans and what looked like a hand-woven poncho. Her thick auburn hair, straighter than Roz's, was tied back loosely with a leather thong. She too had a rich warm voice, but a much more relaxed and outgoing personality. She put her free arm round her sister's waist and they walked outside together, with most of the children toddling or crawling after them.

Alison was immediately absorbed into the family. Room was made for her on a bench at the table, between a man with a straggling brown beard who was carving a piece of wood, and a barefooted girl in jeans and a slouch hat, breast-feeding a baby. Someone insisted on providing her with a pottery bowl containing porridge and a pottery mug of warm liquid that looked like tea, although it tasted as though the leaves had been grown considerably nearer to Breckham than to Bombay.

Discussion continued round her while she cautiously swallowed a second breakfast. The family was, apparently, trying to come to a collective decision about the vegetable crops that would be planted that year. As in any family, there was disagreement. Personalities obtruded, points were scored. The sun rose higher, and still the majority of the commune sat round the table, talking rather than doing.

The mounting tension was broken when the girl with the guitar played a loud discord and burst into tears. Immediately, the family reunited. Love and support overflowed, the girl was hugged and talked out of her tears, and the family rose from the table with a sense of harmony and achievement to begin the day's work. It was almost ten o'clock, and the bleating of the goats tethered outside had become piteous.

Alison found herself alone in the kitchen with the family's dirty breakfast dishes. Washing up was not her favourite occupation but she was grateful for the refuge and ready to do her share of the work. She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater and was collecting crockery and scraping up the remains of the porridge when Polly came back, with a different child in her arms.

She gave a rich chuckle when she saw what Alison was doing. ‘Bless your heart, but you needn't. It's Linda's turn for that today, and she'll get round to it eventually.'

‘It's the least I can do,' said Alison. ‘I mean, it's very good of you—'

‘Oh, you'll get your turn, never fear! We all muck in with all the jobs. But Roz tells me that you may not want to stay for long, and there are some things we couldn't expect you to do – the milking, for example, it wouldn't be fair on the goats. So perhaps a bit of extra washing up will even things out. And you'll be glad to hear that this isn't Cold Comfort Farm. We do have hot water and washing-up mops, so you won't need to cletter the porridge dishes with cold water and a twig.'

The allusion was unfamiliar to Alison, but she found the reassurance comforting. Polly worked with her, one-handed because of the child she was carrying, chatting about the commune.