Burial of Ghosts Page 27

  ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘Red OK?’

  I was going to say I was driving, then I realized I needed a drink as much as she did and I could sort out a taxi. Or stay over. Because it was as if we had that sort of relationship already. Friendship. Lizzie no-name Bartholomew could be invited to stay with the famous photographer Joanna Samson in Wintrylaw House. Or could invite herself to stay. Is it OK if I crash here? I could say that. It probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but it was important. It held out the hope or the promise of security. Like I’d become properly respectable. Real. Not the creation any more of two middle-aged ladies and a collie bitch. I could be a part of a house which had stood for hundreds of years. A part of the family. I could almost believe I was related to Philip and to Dickon.

  She got an already opened bottle of red from the larder and poured two goldfish-bowl-sized glasses. We sat on each side of the table.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘We have to decide what to do next.’

  I didn’t answer. I was enjoying the wine. I mean really enjoying it, the smell and the taste.

  ‘What should we do?’ She was insistent, pulling me back to the problem. I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted that moment, with the wine in my nose and on my throat and tongue to last. But she couldn’t let it alone. ‘I mean, it’s up to you, isn’t it? You’d be the one to press charges after tonight. You’d be the vital witness.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t grass. Anyway, it’s up to you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Ronnie didn’t kill Thomas.’

  ‘Not on his own,’ she said. ‘I accept that. Stuart must have been involved. Stuart was pulling the strings.’

  ‘No.’ And in that word I threw it all away – the chance of being a part of this. I turned away the good wine, winter walks along the beach with Dickon, family Sunday lunches at this table, girlie conversations with Joanna on the phone. All that was on offer. I could tell. Why the scruples? It wasn’t as if I owed Philip anything, as if Thomas had really been his son. I suppose it was pride. It was a dumb time to discover that I had some pride after all. But Joanna had bought everyone else one way or another. She wasn’t going to buy me.

  ‘Stuart didn’t invent the commission to track down Thomas Mariner,’ I said. ‘He believed in Philip’s illegitimate son as much as I did. It wasn’t Stuart or Philip who invited me to the funeral and offered me money. It was you. You set the whole thing up.’

  ‘Philip would have been glad you were there.’ She dipped her mouth towards the wine, and her whole face seemed swallowed up by the enormous glass. ‘You had quite an effect on him.’

  ‘He told you?’

  ‘Of course. We shared everything. He talked about leaving you some money in his will but he thought you might be offended. “She’s a free spirit. Independent. She’ll remember me anyway. And if she doesn’t, that’s fine. At least the memory won’t have been bought.”’

  ‘Weren’t you jealous?’

  ‘Of course I was bloody jealous. But he was dying. What could I say?’

  I remembered how Philip had described Joanna in Marrakech. She’s a saint. She denies me nothing. At the time I’d thought it a dry, almost ironic comment, but it had been true. Because of his illness she’d felt obliged to fulfil his dreams. He’d been cruel and careless of her feelings. He’d taken advantage of her.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’ It might seem ridiculous, but I didn’t feel at all scared during this conversation. Perhaps it was because of where it was taking place. I mean, it wasn’t like the Gothic setting of a windy wood in the shattered moonlight. This was safe, domestic.

  She got up and fetched another bottle of wine and a corkscrew. ‘Are you hungry? I think there’s some cheese.’

  She wasn’t trying to distract me. Even then she felt some obligation as a host. She put a lump of Stilton on a plate and brought out butter and crackers, still in their wrappers.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘it was all about money. I hate to admit it, but that was what it came down to.’

  ‘You formed the Countryside Consortium as a money-making venture?’

  ‘No, not at all. Not at first. I mean, I really believed we were in danger of losing a landscape I loved. There’d been so much change, so much red tape, people from the town telling us what to do. I wanted Wintrylaw to stay as it always had been for Flora and Dickon. I wanted to see my grandchildren play where I’d played.’ She looked up at me. ‘That’s not too much to ask, is it?’

  I shrugged. She’d been lucky to have it first time round. ‘I’ve never really believed in inherited wealth.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ she cried. ‘Wealth didn’t come into it. It was about survival.’

  I thought all that was relative. With her good wine and expensive cheese she seemed to be surviving fine. But this time I didn’t say anything. This was her story. Let her tell it her own way.

  ‘People thought we were well off. We had the house and the land. Philip’s TV series. My photography. But it was all precarious. We weren’t any good at saving. Things like pensions and health insurance seem so tedious, don’t they? You really wouldn’t want to be seen as the sort of person who bothered about that. Then Philip got ill and the telly dried up. He was always freelance, so there was no sick pay. Nothing. And once he knew he was dying there was so much he wanted to do and see.’

  ‘The Atlas Mountains.’

  ‘Quite. And I couldn’t tell him it was impossible.’

  No. You were a saint. You denied him nothing.

  ‘So I started taking it from the Consortium. Borrowing it at first. In the beginning I really intended to pay it back. The group had so much money. You wouldn’t believe how generous people were. Not only rich people. Cheques came in by every post. And the committee couldn’t decide what to spend it on. While they were squabbling among themselves about who deserved it most, it just piled up in the bank. Such a waste . . .’

  ‘It can’t have been that easy. There must have been an accounting system.’

  ‘It was a shambles. Really. Everyone was taken by surprise by how quickly the organization grew. There were a few pieces in the Sunday papers and in the glossy country living magazines, and the campaign seemed to capture the public’s imagination. None of us were ready for the success. The whole office was run by a couple of middle-aged volunteers and a schoolboy.’

  ‘Marcus Tate?’

  ‘The son of one of our supporters. Because our marketing was very slick, everyone assumed a competent machine to back it up. It wasn’t true. The office looked impressive enough – we were donated some hardware by a business supporter – but no one there really understood what was going on.’ She held her glass with both hands. ‘We were credited with far more power than we actually had. Some journalists thought we were devils, evil landowners who would deny access to common land to harmless walkers. Our supporters saw us as the saviours of every rural tradition – from village schools to the right to hunt. Of course we were neither. We were a bunch of well-meaning amateurs.’

  Well-meaning?

  ‘Then Thomas Mariner found out that you were stealing?’

  ‘Thomas Mariner had his own agenda.’ Joanna’s voice was frosty. ‘He hated Ronnie Laing. He joined up to make trouble. I didn’t discover that until later.’

  And he loved Nell Ravendale, I thought. He was planning a grand gesture to impress her. Nell hated the Consortium. She was in the camp which saw them as devils. She’d dragged Dan to the Wintrylaw fundraiser to spy out the opposition. That was why she’d been so circumspect in her description of Ronnie Laing. Thomas intended to cause as much of a scandal around Joanna’s theft as possible. There’d be no hush-up, no tactical retirement and discreet repayment plan. He’d make sure of that. That was why he’d stirred up Shona Murray’s interest. It was part of his strategy for getting back the love of his life.

  ‘Was Harry Pool one of your supporters?’

  ‘He gave us a big donation early on.’

&n
bsp; Perhaps Thomas had known about that. And when he’d started as a volunteer in the office he’d wondered where all the money had gone. I cut a sliver of Stilton and perched it on a water biscuit.

  ‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ she said, almost to herself. The wind blew a tuneless whistle outside the window. ‘Of course not. I thought I’d persuade him. Anyway, he was surprisingly difficult to track down without drawing attention to myself. He stopped coming into the office. No one seemed to know where he was staying. That’s where you came in.’

  Ronnie knew where Thomas lived, I thought. Marcus had told him. But only just before Thomas died. By then Joanna had woven her intricate fiction to entrap me. Dickon had said she was good at stories.

  ‘If you were so hard up, how could you afford the £10,000 in cash for me?’

  ‘What?’ Now the impatience was directed at me. It was as if I were quibbling over a few pence change. I wondered then just how much she had ripped off the Consortium. ‘Oh, Stuart saw to all that. He was devoted to Philip. He believed in Thomas as Philip’s son and in Philip’s request to give you work. He knew I didn’t have the money. And at that point he was trying to protect me from the knowledge that Philip had a racy past. I’d set it up for Stuart to find the instruction himself, along with a lot of other papers. It wasn’t hard to get Philip to sign it.’

  ‘Stuart’s devoted to you.’ He must have known she was involved. The meeting with Ronnie in Whitley Bay had been to discuss damage limitation. They’d suspected she was a murderer but still they had tried to protect her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose he is.’

  ‘But not so devoted that he’ll take the blame for two murders. He won’t be prepared to sacrifice himself.’

  ‘Not two murders,’ she said, offended, as if I’d accused her of being some kind of monster. ‘Only one.’

  ‘What happened to Marcus?’

  ‘He was a sweet boy. He had rather a crush. The older woman thing. He never really knew his mother.’

  ‘He came to see you the night he died.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He was getting a bit flaky about the money, a bit anxious that he’d be implicated if the police started sniffing around the office looking at Thomas’s things. He didn’t believe I could have killed Thomas. Of course not. Like I said he had a bit of a crush. But he might have worked it out eventually.’

  ‘You got him drunk?’

  ‘He got himself drunk.’

  ‘You can’t have known he’d drive himself over the bridge.’

  She didn’t answer but she looked smug. She wanted me to know how clever she was.

  ‘Did you tamper with the car?’

  ‘I followed him down the Spine Road. Got a bit close to him. Got him scared. He lost concentration. She looked up from the empty glass and gave me her seductive, I’m your best friend in the world smile. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. Of course not. I just wanted to warn him that it wouldn’t be a good idea to talk to his father or the police about any financial irregularities. It was an accident. These things happen. Young drivers . . .’ She shrugged.

  ‘Is that what will happen to me when I leave Wintrylaw tonight? I’m already over the limit. Will I have an accident too?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She was hurt that I could contemplate such a thing. She was good. Really, she was very good. She paused, then continued, choosing her words carefully, knowing that I’d understand their significance. ‘I think we have an understanding. You know I had no option but to kill Thomas. Any good mother would have done the same. Think about it. Philip had just died. I was all that Flora and Dickon had in the world. If Thomas revealed where our money had come from, if I went to prison, there’d be no one to look after them. They’d have had to go into care. Can you imagine what that would have done to them? Just after their father’s death?’

  Of course I could imagine, and she knew fine well I could. She’d found out all about me. Philip had told her.

  ‘What will happen if you go to the police now? It would be much, much worse.’

  Her words were relentless. I felt I’d been beaten to a crumpled heap on the floor and she was kicking me, one blow after another until my mind and my body were numb.

  ‘There’d be publicity. Would foster parents want the children of a murderer in their own homes? The kids’ friends would find out. Imagine the taunting and the bullying at school. And then there’d be the prison visits. Flora might be able to cope with that, but I’m not sure about Dickon.’

  I knew she was manipulating me. I wasn’t even sure she cared that much about what would happen to Flora and Dickon. But she was getting to me and she knew it.

  ‘It’s not as if I’m a danger to society,’ she went on. ‘It’s not as if I’d do anything like that again. If you talk to the police, it wouldn’t be me you’d be punishing, it would be them.’

  ‘I’d look after them myself.’ OK, crazy I know, but she’d driven me to it.

  ‘Come off it!’ All the pride and arrogance that she’d hidden under those soft, relentless words suddenly flashed through. ‘You’re mad. You stabbed someone. You’re no better than me. Worse, because there was no reason for it. You could have killed him. Do you think social services would give any kid to you?’

  I wanted to tell her that there was a reason for it. I’d been taken hostage and seen a boy killed. I wasn’t in my right mind. But that would have turned me into a victim again and it was time to let that go.

  We stared at each other across the table. The fat candle spluttered then recovered its flame. I got up. She must have thought she’d won, because she didn’t try to stop me. I found my way to the big front door and let myself out that way. I wasn’t a member of this family and I didn’t want to be. I looked up to Dickon’s window but the curtains were drawn and it was in darkness.

  I drove back carefully, very slowly, aware that I was in no fit state to be on the road. It wasn’t just the wine. I knew that if I had any sense I’d stop at the first phone box and call Farrier and tell him everything I knew. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it to Dickon. I couldn’t put him through everything I’d had to survive. I decided I had to give it a few days. I thought some event, some deus ex machina in the shape of Ronnie Laing or Stuart Howdon, might arrange things for me. Ronnie was mad enough to kill her. The kids would still have to go into care, but they could hang on to their picture of their mother. They wouldn’t need to know she’d killed a young lad. Or she might suddenly develop a conscience and shop herself. Or kill herself, leaving a note to say she couldn’t live without her husband. They’d go for that.

  When I got to Sea View, Jess was on her way to bed. She was wrapped up in the dreadful mauve candlewick dressing gown that looks like a toilet mat and has lost all its threads.

  ‘Hello, pet,’ she said. ‘Did you see the badgers?’

  ‘Na,’ I said. ‘They weren’t playing tonight.’

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  ‘You think too much,’ Farrier said.

  I don’t know how he could tell what I was thinking. He came to see me while I was waiting for the miracle to happen – for Joanna to die or disappear. He came to tell me she’d been arrested. I hadn’t expected that. Not without my help. It was the pride again. I’d thought I was the only person capable of putting her away. While I was waiting, the flashbacks had returned, more frequently than ever, but somehow I wasn’t so troubled by them. I didn’t let them get to me in the same way.

  ‘What’s happened to the kids?’

  ‘They’re with foster parents in Heaton. A really nice couple. A big house backing onto the park. I asked. I thought you’d want to know.’

  Heaton. Where Philip had come from. There was something reassuring about that.

  ‘You don’t seem surprised about Joanna,’ he said, probing.

  We were on the white bench outside Sea View. Jess had gone to Asda. Ray had taken her in the van because she had to do a big shop. She’d arrange
d a party, a big do. I thought she and Ray were intending to announce their engagement and I was so exhausted, so wrung out and emotionally dead, that I didn’t care any more. I’d move on, find somewhere to stay. There was always Absalom House.

  ‘No, I’m not surprised.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  I looked up at him. ‘Is this you and me talking? Or is it work, official?’

  ‘You and me.’

  ‘Because I won’t be a witness.’

  ‘She cut herself that day at Thomas’s. There were traces of blood which weren’t his. When we arrested her we did a test. The DNA matches. We won’t need witnesses like you. Between ourselves, I think there’ll be a guilty plea.’

  ‘She told me she killed him,’ I said. ‘She thought I cared so much about the kids I’d not give her away.’

  ‘You haven’t.’

  ‘I was still thinking about it.’

  ‘I know. I can tell.’

  We looked out to the bay, to St Bartholomew’s at one end, solid, the colour of coal dust, and south to Blyth power station and the wind turbines with their feet in the sea.

  ‘I sent the accountants into the Countryside Consortium,’ Farrier said. ‘I wasn’t sure much would come of it. Routine. There’d been a hint in that letter Thomas had sent to Shona Murray. I wasn’t quite straight about that.’

  ‘How had Thomas found out Joanna was on the fiddle?’

  ‘Some of the members were grumbling about where all the money had gone. No one suspected her, mind.’

  ‘Of course not. She’s a saint.’

  ‘Thomas had only joined up to make trouble. He saw himself as a spy. An infiltrator. According to Shona. He saw some of the letters of complaint and got into the computer system to find out more. He must have said something to Marcus. That’s how Joanna first suspected him.’ Farrier didn’t look at me at all during this conversation. It was as if he were reporting to a colleague. A superior. ‘Then Ronnie Laing talked. His wife brought him in. He was brooding, she said. He had something on his mind. It was making him ill. And then that solicitor made a statement. Rats leaving a sinking ship.’