The Perfect Daughter (26 page)

‘We'd love to see it lived in again. There's been nobody for Jimmy to play with since the Hayworths went.'

‘A big family?'

‘Six children. We were so sorry when they left, but he was offered a headmaster's job in Yorkshire.'

‘How long's it been empty?'

‘Two months, nearly.'

Which disposed of Tomintoul. I was resigned to going back to the town and starting again, but didn't want to tramp along the main road again and asked if there was a footpath through the Forest. The woman said yes, of course there was and came out of her gate to show me. She was ready to stop and talk, perhaps grateful for any adult conversation after a day with the child. She told me what a nice area it was, peaceful and healthy.

‘Do you get many strangers round here?'

‘Not many. A few walkers now and then.'

The child meanwhile had wandered off. She called, ‘Jimmy, where are you?', and his voice came back from the garden of the thatched cottage next door telling her he'd found an enormous butterfly. She gave me a mock despairing look.

‘I don't care how enormous it is, darling. That's not our garden.'

She unlatched next door's gate and went in under an arch of neatly clipped yew hedge to fetch the boy back. I stood outside by the gate, listening to the bees buzzing and admiring the little cottage that dozed behind its cushiony yew hedges like a cat in a basket. It was newly thatched and cream painted, with apricot-coloured roses over the porch and rows of beans at the side. The woman brought the boy back and I opened the gate for her, glancing at the carved wooden nameplate under my hand: Yew Tree Cottage. Fair enough name. Then something sparked – YTC.

‘Oh God.'

She glanced at me.

‘What a pretty cottage,' I said. ‘I suppose that one's not for rent?'

‘Oh no. That belongs to our writer.'

‘Writer?'

She was occupied with the child who was grizzling at being dragged away from the butterfly.

‘It's supposed to be his hideaway, but of course we all know round here.'

‘Hideaway from what?'

‘There are plenty of other butterflies, darling, look. Just somewhere he can come and work in private when he's starting a new book.'

Something knotted up inside me. I wanted to walk away before this took me somewhere I'd rather not go.

‘He must be a successful writer if he can afford this.'

‘Oh yes. He and his wife lived here just after they were married. He was a teacher. Then when his books did so well they moved to somewhere larger in Surrey but they loved Yew Tree Cottage so much they kept it on. That was long before we moved here, but of course the local people do gossip and we're all very proud of him.'

‘Are we talking about Vincent Hergest by any chance?'

‘Yes.' She smiled, pleased I'd guessed. ‘I love his books, don't you? Have you read his latest?'

‘Does he come here very much?'

‘Not very often. We've only seen him a few times. We just say good morning, the way you would to any neighbour. After all, if he comes here for privacy we should respect it, shouldn't we?'

‘Has he been here recently?'

‘I last saw him about two months ago. He came to call on Mrs Grey when she was staying there.'

‘Mrs Grey?'

‘He's very generous about letting his friends use it.'

VG. Verona Grey? I tried to keep my voice on the same conversational level.

‘Was she staying on her own?'

‘While her husband was away working in France. She had a woman friend with her sometimes, but the friend had to go up to London a lot, so Vera was left on her own. I think she must have been lonely sometimes but she was very brave about it. We got quite friendly.'

‘An elderly woman?'

‘Oh no, very young, younger than I am. My husband said to me she hardly looked old enough to be married, let alone…'

‘Expecting?'

She gave a little nod and a significant glance at the child. ‘I must have said something when we were talking and I could see her blushing and she looked at me in a way that, you know – well, you just know, don't you?'

‘Was Vera Grey slim with red-brown hair?'

‘You know her?'

‘I think perhaps I do. What was the friend like?'

An anxious look came over her face. ‘Well, different. I must admit I was quite surprised that she and Vera … I mean, you know … although she was always perfectly polite when we happened to speak, which we didn't often because she always seemed to be dashing off somewhere, but…'

I thought I recognised the source of the anxiety. She was trying to convey without saying so that the friend was socially a step down from Vera.

‘What did she look like?'

‘Small, with dark hair cut short, like a pageboy's.'

‘A northern Irish accent?'

‘To be honest, I thought it was Glaswegian, but they do sound alike if you're not used to them, don't they?'

I didn't answer, staring down the path of lavender bushes to the cottage. A few minutes ago it had looked a pleasant place. Now I wanted to drive a fist into its plump, self-satisfied face. The woman was chattering on happily.

‘Anyway, her husband must be back now.'

‘Vera's? How do you know?'

‘We haven't seen her for about a month, so we assumed that's what must have happened.'

‘You didn't see her go?'

‘No, but we were away visiting relatives around the end of May, so that must be when she went. I'd have liked to see her again, but it's nice to think of her being back with her husband.'

I suppose I said yes, very nice, or something along those lines. She walked with me to the start of the path through the Forest, the boy trailing beside us, still mourning his missed butterfly. They waved me off through the trees. Her parting words were, ‘I do hope you find the house you're looking for.'

I wished I hadn't.

Chapter Twenty

I
T DIDN'T EVEN FEEL LIKE ANGER.
A
NGER FLARES
up and down, with sulks and smoulders in between the outbursts. The feeling that came over me didn't change at all on the way back to London. It was as if a diver's helmet had closed over my head and all I could see through the visor was a world that had changed and would never change back again. This new world felt and looked in some ways like the old world, but there wasn't a single thing in it you could rely on to be the same. The train tracks might, if they chose, end in mid-field. Things that looked like doors might refuse to open, things that looked like walls might melt away to mist. When I talked to people, as I had to for the simple business of buying tickets and checking platforms, it was a surprise that they seemed to understand and answer me. I must have managed. I'm pretty sure I remembered to put the two sets of keys through the door of the estate agent before I left Epping.

I got myself out to Elephant and Castle by underground and found the half-demolished street off Walworth Road. It was after seven o'clock by then, all work on the sites over for the weekend, but the smell of brick dust and drains was still hanging in the warm air. The gate to the scrapyard was unlocked. I went inside and pulled it up after me, not taking much trouble to be quiet. Kitty's brother couldn't be permanently on guard and with luck on a Saturday evening he'd be trick shooting at some music hall. It was possible that she'd be with him doing their double act, but there were figures moving inside the uncurtained windows of the martial arts academy so somebody had been left to look after the business. I got behind the remains of an old copper boiler and watched from a distance. It was fencing this time and, as far as I could see, three people there. The small one might be Kitty, but it was imposible to tell for sure because I could only see the top halves of their bodies and they were wearing masks and padded waistcoats. The sound of thudding feet and the occasional male gulp of triumph or frustration drifted out through an open window. After twenty minutes or so everything went quiet and there were no moving figures. Ten minutes after that two young men came round the side of the studio in flannels and jackets, hatless. They were carrying canvas sports bags and looked well exercised, pleased with themselves.

‘Fierce little filly, isn't she,' one of them said.

They went past me without noticing and out of the gate. I walked over and looked through a window, standing to the side. There was only one person in the studio. She was sitting on a bench in the changing area at the far end of the room with the heavy curtain half-drawn back. The fencing mask was off, but she was still wearing the padded waistcoat. Even from a distance you could see that her short dark hair was spiky with sweat and her usually taut body slumped with tiredness or depression. The bench and the floor round it were strewn with foils, Indian clubs, shoes. The end of a long, hard day – only it wasn't the end and it was going to get worse. I walked round the corner of the building, in at the door, smelling the beeswax odour of dry sweat.

‘Good evening, Kitty Dulcie.'

She'd started putting things away and spun round, a shoe in each hand.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘Come to talk to you.'

‘He told you, we don't want you.'

‘How much were you paid?'

‘Get out, will you. Get out.'

She dropped the shoes and started walking towards me, eyes on my face, arms a few inches out from her sides, hands at hip level.

‘Going to throw me out, are you? I shouldn't try.'

There are rules and courtesies in ju-jitsu and if I kept to them, she could probably get me on the floor. But I was around six inches taller, at least a stone heavier and in no mood for keeping rules. She stopped just beyond arm's reach.

‘These are private premises. We don't want you.'

‘Call a policeman, then.' Her eyes changed. She wasn't to know what a disaster it would be for me if she did. ‘But you don't want to, do you, Kitty? You're afraid they might have some questions to ask you about why Verona was murdered.'

Her hands were on her thighs now, pressing down the pleats of her white fencing skirt.

‘Who says she was murdered?'

‘The police do. I've been talking to them.' She deserved a lie.

‘I don't know anything about it.'

‘No? When you were one of the last people to see her alive? When you were keeping her hidden away in Yew Tree Cottage?'

She turned and walked away from me. ‘Get out.'

But this time she didn't expect it to work. There was no confidence in her movements as she walked to the end of the room and started sorting out shoes again. I followed and sat down on the bench, watching as she stowed them away in open lockers. The lockers were made of unvarnished pinewood, so new that the knots of it were still bleeding sap.

‘You've spent money setting up this place, haven't you? Did it all come from Vincent Hergest?' She picked up a foil and slid it into a long canvas bag. ‘I asked you how much he paid you.'

‘What's that got to do with you?'

‘I suppose I'm curious what the current rate is for assisting a kidnap.'

That got to her. She turned round, furious. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Kidnapping, murdering, just what the hell are you accusing me of?'

‘Of knowing a lot more than most people about the last few weeks of Verona North's life – or Vera Grey if you like that better. You and Hergest kept her tucked away in that cottage…'

‘She wasn't bloody kidnapped! She wanted to be there. She could have walked away anytime if she didn't.'

‘So what were you doing there?'

‘Protecting her, for Christ's sake. I was there to protect her.'

‘Against what?'

‘She'd got it into her head that she was being watched. She thought there were people out in the trees watching her. She didn't like being alone there at nights.'

She sat down on the bench, elbows on her knees, head in her hands. ‘You're mad, you are. Coming in here, accusing me of kidnapping and murdering people. I was helping her.'

She looked and sounded much younger than before. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick, like a nervous child's.

‘You didn't do it very well then, did you?'

She glared. ‘Yes, I did. She was all right the last time I saw her.'

‘When was that?'

‘I can't remember days. Late May.'

‘She was dead by May the twenty-eighth.'

‘Are you trying to make out that I killed her?'

‘No. Where did you see her last?'

‘Are you going to the police with this?' She was scared, ready to bargain.

‘Not unless I have to.' Not in a thousand years.

‘So what are you playing at?'

‘I want to know what happened to her. If I can do that without bringing the police into it, I will.'

‘If you tell the police about me, I'll kill you.'

‘Where did you see her last?'

‘I mean it.'

‘All right, you mean it. Where did you see her last?'

‘At the cottage.'

‘What was she doing?'

‘Eating breakfast, quite normal. I left early because I had to take some classes in town. She was all right. When I got back, there was a note for me saying she'd gone away for a few days and she'd let me know when she got back. She never did.'

‘A note in her handwriting?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did she say where she was going?'

‘No.'

‘Or why?'

‘No.'

‘Have you still got the note?'

‘No.'

‘How long had she been living at Yew Tree Cottage?'

‘I don't know. I'd been there with her about three weeks.'

That was most of the missing time. ‘Did she ask you to stay with her there?'