The Chief Inspector's Daughter (3 page)

On the day after Alison's return, four of the family sat at supper trying to think of something to say to each other. It was a meal from which Quantrill was frequently absent, because of the irregular hours he worked. Left to themselves, he knew, Molly and fourteen-year-old Peter ate sandwiches in front of the television set. He preferred to fry bacon and egg for himself when he came in, and to eat it in peace in the kitchen.

But Alison was home, for the first time – apart from quick weekends – for eighteen months, and so a display of family solidarity was called for. As on the previous evening, the meal had been set in the dining area of the main room, under the supervisory stare of a herd of wild elephants, one of Boots'best-selling framed prints. To Peter's chagrin the television set had been turned off. Conversation was required, but with Alison melancholic and Molly fretting over her and trying to coax her to eat, it was hard going.

They had all, Alison included, made a special effort to be bright the previous evening; fortunately there had been Jennifer, her elder sister, a nurse at Guy's Hospital, to talk about. But now the topic of Jennifer was exhausted; Peter was sulking over a missed television programme; Quantrill and his wife had nothing to say to each other; and Alison had resumed the desolate air of a space traveller who has landed on an uninhabited planet. Quantrill wondered guiltily how long it would be before they could all stop pretending to togetherness and revert to their usual practices; a fried egg in the kitchen, with the
East Anglian Daily Press
for company, had never seemed so desirable.

‘Are you warm enough, Alison?' Molly asked. The houses had been built when electricity was a relatively cheap fuel, and the room was heated by a system of ducted air. There was a fireplace, but it had been designed merely as a decorative feature to house an electric appliance disguised as a blazing log. Quantrill hated the phoney fire, disliked ducted air heating, and was appalled by the running costs of the system; but as he could not afford to move, this seemed to be yet another part of his life that he was stuck with.

Molly, on the other hand, enjoyed the trouble-free cleanliness of electric heating. She worked part-time as the local doctor's receptionist, and was on the committee of the Women's Institute as well as being an active member of the Breckham Market and district amateur operatic society, and she had quite enough to do without coping with a real fire. She enjoyed the sight of the simulated flames flickering over the simulated log; cosy, and with no messy grate to clear up afterwards.

‘Alison,' she repeated patiently, the skin at the outer corners of her mild brown eyes puckering with concern, ‘are you warm enough, dear?'

The girl continued to stare down at her unwanted food, absently pushing a long strand of hair behind her ear when it threatened to dip into her plate. ‘Yes, thank you,' she murmured.

Molly give a bright, uncertain smile. ‘That's good,' she said.

She longed to know the reason for her daughter's sudden homecoming. An unhappy love affair, that was obvious; but Molly would have liked the detail, the who-with and the how-far and the what-next. Douglas had assured her that there was nothing to worry about and had instructed her not to plague the girl with questions, but it was not his edict that deterred her. She had asked Alison nothing because she knew perfectly well that her daughter would not confide in her.

Molly Quantrill very much regretted the lack of closeness in her family. She blamed it, to a large extent, on the influence of the grammar school; she was proud that her daughters had gone there, but at the same time she resented the fact that the girls had grown so far away from her. What with that and with Douglas's rapid promotion, from sergeant to chief inspector in four years, she felt left behind, unregarded. Even Peter, her favourite child – now making bored one-handed inroads into his food, with surreptitious contributions to the cat – had grown secretive. Perhaps that was to be expected with an adolescent boy, but a girl ought to be closer to her mother; she herself had told her mother everything—

Well, not everything, of course. Molly glanced at Alison and then at her husband. The girl had such a look of her father about her, and Douggie as a young man had been darkly handsome; still was, despite the scattering of grey hairs, and the weight he had put on. Molly remembered the irresistible way he had gazed at her soon after they had first met, the pleading look in his green eyes, the persuasiveness of his tongue … no, she hadn't told her mother everything, not by a long way. Perhaps she had no right to expect her own daughter's confidence.

‘Eat your supper while it's hot, Alison,' she said. ‘And Peter, do sit up and use your knife and fork properly. And stop encouraging that cat, or it'll have to go outside.'

Quantrill cleared his throat and prepared to contribute to the conversation. Ordinarily he made a point of never mentioning any aspect of his work at home, but anything that seemed likely to divert his wife's attention from Alison was worth a try.

‘Tell you who young Martin Tait went to see yesterday, Molly. A woman writer who lives out at Thirling – Jasmine Woods.'

Molly's mouth fell open with excitement. ‘Jasmine Woods! She's my favourite author.' Her eyes shone at her husband over a poised, pallid forkful of cauliflower and mashed potato and Bird's Eye cod-in-butter-sauce. ‘I never knew she lived in Suffolk, never mind three miles from here! She's not in any trouble, is she?'

‘No, of course not,' said Quantrill. ‘Martin was just making routine enquiries. He seems to have made a good impression on Jasmine Woods, though. She's invited him to go to a party and to take one of his girl friends.'

‘The lucky boy!' Molly's plump face looked dewily maternal, envious of her husband's sergeant's good fortune. ‘Oh, if only we could go instead, Douggie …'

‘It's not me she fancies,' pointed out Quantrill, who hated being called Douggie.

Molly straightened her back. ‘I should think not,' she said primly. ‘After all, you're a married man—'

Quantrill would have liked to comment that even married men are human, and that fancying – or loving, come to that – takes no account of marital status on either side; but he prudently filled his mouth with overdone cauliflower instead. No point now, when last year's love for another woman had finally dulled to an intermittent ache, in arousing his wife's suspicions. Her gullibility was a permanent reproach to him. Apparently it had never occurred to her, when he offered to buy the sheepskin coat that she coveted, that he was making a belated attempt to ease his conscience.

Molly turned to her daughter, glad of something to talk about. ‘You like Jasmine Woods, too, don't you Alison? I'm reading her latest now – well, not her very latest, there's such a long waiting list at the library. This one's called
The English Governess
. It's one of her best. It's all about this girl who goes to St Petersburg before the Russian Revolution—' her face was pink with animation, and for a moment Quantrill thought that they were going to hear every convolution of the plot; but Molly, whose contribution to the amateur operatic society was confined to the outer fringe of the chorus and helping with the costumes, suddenly felt that she was making herself conspicuous. ‘Well, anyway,' she finished lamely, ‘I'm just on the last chapter. I'll pass it on to you, if you like.'

To Quantrill's pleasure, Alison assented with what sounded almost like enthusiasm. She had actually been taking an interest in what her mother was saying, and he congratulated himself on having introduced a topic that had taken her mind off her problems, if only for a few moments. A pity that she had said so decisively that she didn't want to meet young Tait, though; Quantrill was confident that, with a little persuasion, his sergeant would have made a point of inviting his daughter to Jasmine Woods's party.

Molly Quantrill's mind was moving in the same direction. She had seen Martin Tait several times and had found him charming – well-spoken, flatteringly attentive and just a little awe-inspiring: a very clever and attractive young man, and just the right age for Alison.

She exercised her tact, waiting until she had served her family with canned pears and cream before saying casually to her husband, ‘Isn't it about time we had Martin Tait to supper again? I'm sure he doesn't feed himself properly in that flat of his. What about one day this week?'

Quantrill looked at her with surprised approval, and agreed to pass on the invitation. ‘But don't go to a lot of fuss and bother,' he instructed his wife. ‘Nothing fancy – the boy's not a senior officer yet, you know. Something home-made,' he added wistfully; since Molly had taken on a part-time job she had made it an excuse to give up baking, and he had a weakness for pastry. ‘How about one of your juicy steak and kidney pies?'

But Molly, whose married life had encompassed a number of humiliations, known as well as unguessed-at, enjoyed the exercise of what limited power she possessed. No conscientious wife, she declared with virtuous relish, would feed pastry to a man of Douglas's age and weight; and wasn't it time that he went on a diet again?

Her husband remembered that he had brought some paperwork home, and strode out of the room scowling. But as he closed the door behind him he rejoiced in the fact that he could hear, for the first time since her return, his daughter's cheerful giggle.

Douglas Quantrill finished reading the local newspaper, tossed it on to the bedroom floor, yawned, scratched the back of his head and slid a little further down the pillow. Beside him in their double bed, in pink sleeping net and pink frilly nightie, with her reading glasses half-way down her nose and her mouth slightly open, Molly was ingurgitating the final chapter of Jasmine Woods's
The English Governess
.

It was unusual for the Quantrills to go to bed at the same time, and particularly unusual for Molly to go on reading after her husband had switched off his bedside light. Often his work kept him out late, but even when he was at home for the evening Molly made a point of going upstairs before he did, so that when he went up she was asleep; or feigning sleep. Tonight, Jasmine Woods was keeping her awake, and not only awake but excited.

Quantrill watched his wife with a mixture of amused tolerance and irritation. Incredible, he thought, that a middle-aged woman could be aroused by a rubbishy book. Her plump cheeks were patched with colour, and the ample frills over her breasts were rising and falling more rapidly than they had done in response to his own attentions for a very long time. He didn't know whether to laugh at his wife or to snatch the book from her in a fit of jealousy and fling it across the room.

The fact was, he acknowledged, that Molly was still attractive. He propped himself on one Marks and Spencer paisley pattern pyjama'd elbow and looked past the hideous net and the ageing glasses; yes, the pretty girl was still there. Her soft brown hair hadn't a touch of grey, the tilt of her nose still beckoned him, and the fullness of her cheeks suited her far better than the deep vertical lines her face acquired every time she went on one of her wretched diets. When she looked flushed, as she did now, Molly was definitely desirable.

Quantrill cautiously inched himself nearer. His wife was very rarely in a co-operative mood; keen enough in their younger days, but for the past few years she'd gone off it, or him, almost completely. He didn't know why because they had never been able to discuss the subject of sex. When they had first gone out together, he had been tongue-tied and she was far too prudish; then, in the early days of their marriage, they had hidden their mutual embarrassment behind lovers'baby-talk. Later, discussion had seemed superfluous. Now it was impossible, because they had no common adult vocabulary.

Here then was an unlooked-for revival of her interest. The fact that it was of Jasmine Woods's contriving rather than his own was immaterial; Molly was in the right mood, and that was enough. He reached out a hand and spread it experimentally on her plump thigh.

Molly's muscles twitched absently, like those of a grazing mare plagued by flies in summer.

Quantrill edged closer, and explored a little further.

‘Give over,' Molly muttered, closing her legs and crossing her ankles and continuing to read.

Quantrill, with the finesse of a salesman who keeps his foot in the door, left his hand in place and pressed his shoulder against his wife's. She was a page or two from the end of the book, and he began to read with her:

‘Nicolai,' she whispered. She could not look at him, but she was overwhelmingly conscious of his presence beside her on the furs of the troika, of the length of his body, the turn of his head, the shape of his hands. ‘Nicolai,' she said again, and he caught her to him, pressing his body against …

Quantrill grinned expectantly at his wife. ‘Hurry up,' he said with a lecherous nudge, ‘turn the page!'

Molly sat up, exasperated. ‘Ooh!' she cried, clutching the open book to the front of her nightdress like a chastity shield, ‘mind your own business! Why can't you go to sleep?'

Her husband plucked tentatively at one of her rounded pink frills and tried a revival of the boyish grin that had rarely failed to work in the distant past. ‘You know why not,' he pleaded, half-laughing, half-intense. ‘Come on Molly …'

Typical, she though bitterly. Just like her husband, to start making demands when she was enjoying herself; just like him to go straight to one of the sexier passages in the book and want to put it into practice, ignoring the preliminaries of affection and tenderness that had been woven into the excitements of the story.

This was the difference of course, she told herself, between romantic novels and real life. Jasmine Woods understood and wrote about the importance of the smaller intimacies, the things that really mattered, like the entwining of hands and fingers and the exchange of words of reassurance and love; whereas in real life it was just a sudden ‘Come on, Molly,' and a lot of heavy breathing and a clumsy tussle under the bedclothes, and then nothing but lying disappointed in the dark.