The Fifth Rapunzel Part 3

It had been no part of Rhoda's plan to s.e.xually arouse Simon. The word 'l.u.s.t' didn't occur to her - or to him. 's.e.xually arouse' might be the same thing, but it sounded better. She had to accept the fact that he was s.e.xually aroused and that the reaction was natural. She had been a fool not to antic.i.p.ate it. He'd had an erection, after all, that night when he was p.i.s.sed and she'd put him to bed. Now, quite sober, his masculinity was being an awful nuisance to him, and a blus.h.i.+ng embarra.s.sment because most of the time he couldn't hide it. Amused, she had thought of Kester-Evans. What would he have counselled? Cold showers? Physical exercise? Withdrawal from the scene of temptation?

She could hear Simon showering in the bathroom every morning - not a cold one, though. When she went in later for her bath, the window was steamed over and the towel rail blazing hot. As for exercise: he mooched. A stroll around the garden. A short walk to the dairy for milk. He didn't even go out in his car. Just looked at it as if he was rather pleased he had it - a handsome piece of machinery. And he looked at her. Differently. When the young fall in love there is a degree of pain. Rhoda, carefully avoiding the word 'love', felt her conscience kick. She tried to subdue it. A few words to Peter, inside her head, helped. "I haven't enticed Simon. Been careful not to. I saw to the domestic arrangements. They're okay. You couldn't fault them.

I sleep in Lisa's studio, on her couch, with her Welsh blanket on top of me. It smells of whatever perfume she used. Sweet. She wasn't sweet, was she? But that's the way she smelled. Simon wanted me to have the guest bedroom, next to his. I told him, no. I needed to work late. And I do. And I have. If you and Lisa were able to walk in on me, Peter, you'd erupt together in one great explosion of rage. I sometimes lie in her bed and think of a great h.e.l.lish thundercloud of rage. And it excites me. Pleases me. Makes me more sure that what I'm doing must be done. Digging away for the truth, all the time.

"But Simon ... What do I do about Simon? I'm not here to hurt him."

Simon, aware of a cooling in a relations.h.i.+p that, on her part, had never been very warm, was mutely miserable. He had shared his home with this gut-churning, odd, beautiful, vixen-eyed woman for six days, and in that time he had pushed himself up to some sort of mountain peak, because she was up there, too. Mountain peaks are lonely places when the other person doesn't want you. You might get the message that she's rejecting you but you only get it in your brain. Your brain won't transmit it to the rest of you. Your body doesn't get it. Your body gives you h.e.l.l. You can't even eat - well, you can't eat much.

He derived some comfort from the fact that she spent time cooking the evening meal for them both, doing the best she could with the contents of the deep-freeze and showing concern about his likes and dislikes. "If you don't like chicken cha.s.seur, or whatever ridiculous name it's called, you should have said." "I do like it." "Eat it, then." "I have - most of it." "Not enough. You're a growing boy, for G.o.d's sake." "For G.o.d's sake, I'm b.l.o.o.d.y eighteen." A rueful smile from her: "Sorry. lt's just that I'm bothered about you. It's not all that long since the funeral and ..." she shrugged, "well, I think I know what you must be feeling. It takes time for everything to be normal again. I'll be gone soon - just a few more days - and then you'll have the place to yourself."

He looked at her, stricken. "A few more days?" The future was a horrid abyss, a dark crater on his mountain top. He couldn't bear it.

She collected up the plates and emptied the remains of his meal into the pedal-bin. "There's ice-cream and cherry tart."

He winced.

"What, then? What would you like?"

A tumblerful of neat whisky. An injection of any mind-numbing drug. "Nothing."

She felt extremely irritated but kept her voice level. "I may have to stay a while longer - perhaps another week." Now would the silly boy have some pudding?

He agreed he would - just a little.

Simon's apparent indifference to what she was doing up in his mother's studio, day after day, was a bonus she hadn't expected when she'd moved in. She'd hidden the diaries in a half-used box of typing paper and shoved it under the couch in case he walked in on her and picked one of them up. It didn't matter if he saw the ma.n.u.scripts, they wouldn't hurt him, and she was working on them legitimately; a few pages of boring comment, turned out now and then in case he asked about progress. She'd asked him if he'd ever gone through his mother's papers - anything she might have written - or any letters - or even postcards that she might have received. "When someone dies, there's usually correspondence to be got rid of. If you haven't done that, could you let me have a quick glance? There might be something relevant to the profile I'm writing. Editors like the human touch." He said there weren't any letters. His mother never kept them. And his father didn't either. "What about art, then? Most of her sketches relate to her work. Did she never do sketches of her friends?" The possibility obviously surprised him. "No, she never painted living people." Her art, he explained, was other people's art - re-done. Though she might have some sketch books she'd put away somewhere. He didn't know. He'd never asked. Art and literature -if writing books about art was literature - weren't his 'thing'. Any more than forensic pathology was. "We don't necessarily like what our parents like," he'd added, his gaze lingering on her hair as if he longed to touch it.

Well, sometimes we do, she'd thought.

Why did most men like long hair?

Why had Lisa bought a wig?

The entry was irr Lisa's penultimate diary:

Bought a switch of hair in a little shop near the university. Light blonde. Divided it into two plaits. Dressed for dinner in the dark blue bust-clinging frock. Like hers. Well, almost. She's more busty than me. Let the two plaits swing forward and form a loop, then went down to Peter in the dining-room. He was decanting brandy. Nothing straight from the bottle for him. Oh, no. Good crystal. Have it. Use it. Have women. Use them, too. "They're calling them the Rapunzel murders," I told him, "the Press. And what do you call your long-haired lady? Dianeme? Like Herrick?" He kept on decanting. Didn't spill a single drop. Then turned and looked at me. Eyes like ice. Smiled.

"Need another session at The Mount with Donaldson, Lisa? Or just some stronger pills?"

The writing had trailed off there, to be resumed after a few empty pages:

Dianeme, in Herrick's poem, had ruby ear-rings. If the poor little tart in the church vault wore ear-rings, they'd be gla.s.s. What would Peter's Dianeme wear? Pearls? All they had in common was their hair. And Peter. Hands on the living. Hands on the dead.

Rhoda s.h.i.+vered and pushed the diary aside. All the murdered women had had long hair. Clare's hair had been long, too. And blonde. And who was Peter's Dianeme?

"The Mount is a rest home," Simon told Rhoda. "My mother went there to rest." He had known for some years that the bland description was misleading but preferred it to the truth. "Why can't she rest in her own bed at home?" he had asked his father during one of the school holidays when he was about eleven or so. "Why do slimmers go to health farms," his father had hedged, "when they can diet just as well in their own kitchens?" It was no answer and he'd tried to provide his own. "To resist temptation." His father had smiled and rumpled his hair in a rough gesture of affection. "Temptation comes in many guises, Simon. Bed and food probably top the list. Stop worrying about your mother. Steven Donaldson is an expert on mothers. Especially yours." He had been too young then to understand the irony, but the words were clear in his mind now as he looked at Rhoda. She was a lot older than he, but no more a mother figure than his mother had been. Why this thought should occur to him, he didn't know. She had come into the small book-lined room off the hall which his father had used as his study and found him reading a Rider Haggard, or rather, leafing through it - the t.i.tle She had appealed. Was there any poetry on the shelves? Rhoda wanted to know. Anything by Herrick, for instance? He'd found a Golden Treasury and given it to her. She'd sat in silence, turning the pages, and then discovered whatever she was looking for. "Ah," she said. "Dianeme. So that's where she got it." "Got what?" "It doesn't matter. Just a reference."

He noticed she had washed her hair for the second time that day. One of the green guest towels was draped over the shoulders of her white sweats.h.i.+rt. Perhaps her hair had got dusty when she had been in the attic. He had heard her pulling down the Slingsby ladder but had resisted following her. There was nothing of interest up there. Just suitcases. Perhaps one of the smaller ones had his mother's name on it and the address of The Mount, though it seemed unlikely. The Mount, after all, was local, just a few minutes away by car. He asked her how she knew about it.

She was evasive. "Well, it does rather loom over the village - it's not the sort of place you can ignore. Someone may have mentioned it to me. I can't remember. What's the name of the man who runs it?"

"Donaldson - he's the medical superintendent." "A colleague of your father's? Or a friend, perhaps?" Simon wasn't sure that either word had applied to his father's relations.h.i.+p with Donaldson. Both men were doctors but colleagues implied a shared speciality - psychiatry was far removed from pathology. As for friends.h.i.+p ... he had only been in their company a few times and they had been coldly polite. Donaldson and his mother - that was different. Professionalism plus what ... ? He looked thoughtfully at Rhoda. Plus ... that? No, it couldn't have been. Donaldson was old -at least fifty.

He wasn't sure how to answer the question, but managed to get near the truth. "Doctor Donaldson has mostly acquaintances. Everyone knows him. I don't know if he visits much socially, but he encourages visits to The Mount. He has Bridge parties sometimes - and musical evenings. The Maybridges and the vicar, people like that, go along. It's mainly for the patients though, those who want to attend. A way of getting them back amongst people again." He was sorry he had used the word 'patient' and added quickly: "Some of the villagers call it a psychiatric hospital - it isn't - it's a private nursing home. People go there to escape ... well, pressure ... a job that worries them ... or any other sort of bother. Donaldson lets them do their own thing. Nothing at all, if that's what they want. A man called Paul Creggan lives in a tepee in the grounds for a few weeks now and then, and then goes back to being an accountant - or whatever." Creggan living in a tepee was one of the stories about Donaldson's methods that had stayed in his mind. And rea.s.sured him to some extent. At least his mother hadn't lived in a tent. On the whole she had been pretty normal.

"My mother wasn't neurotic," he said. "Just couldn't cope sometimes. Couldn't sleep. Got on edge. There are a lot of people like that. There was nothing wrong with her mentally. Donaldson could tell you that."

As soon as he had spoken the words he regretted them. He didn't mind her probing here but he didn't want her to go probing there. There was no knowing what Donaldson might tell her.

"Must we keep talking about my mother?" he burst out irritably. "Can't you understand that I'm stuck here while you spend hours upstairs? There are times when I wish you'd never started whatever it is you're doing - your article - your profile. You never talk to me. Not properly. Just ask questions. Not about me. About her. I'm a person, not a b.l.o.o.d.y cipher. I exist!"

It was petulant. But it was justified, too. How to soothe the boy, Rhoda wondered, without taking him to bed? A careful caress? A light touch of fingers on his cheek? No, his mood was too volatile. They'd be rolling around on the carpet within minutes.

She suggested that he might like to take her for a run in his car - to Bristol, perhaps?

He thought it a rotten idea. What was she proposing? To take him to the zoo - to throw peanuts at the monkeys - suck a lollipop? He wanted to go to London with her - to her flat or wherever it was she lived. He wanted to see where she ate and slept. To open her wardrobe. Feel her clothes. She was as nebulous as a mirage. As unknown as a refugee in an empty landscape. He wanted to know her. In every sense, know her.

His silence perturbed her. There was a quality of maturity in his glance now that reminded her of his father. He was a boy/man, and at this moment there was no childishness in him at all.

"I need to go in to do some shopping," she told him briskly, "and to get a book in one of the antiquarian book shops. One that was mentioned in your mother's ..." She broke off. His mother as a topic was taboo for a while. "Though that's not urgent. We can have a meal somewhere. And then you can show me the sights - your favourite parts of Bristol - the modern precincts - or the historical areas - anything."

He had no favourite parts of Bristol, though it was a pleasant enough city. He imagined the two of them trekking around like a couple of tourists and ending up in the crypt of St Nicholas's, seated at one of the long trestle tables, doing bra.s.s rubbings. Or maybe in the vault of that other place with the odd name that didn't sound C. of E. at all. The place where the tramps went at night - and where his father had been called out by the police to look at the body of a murdered girl.

He told her decisively, as his father would have told her, that he would rather take her to Gloucester. "You can shop there."

For a while the man was in the ascendancy and she didn't argue.

A visit of condolence, Donaldson believed, was obligatory. He had put it off as long as possible and was relieved not to find Simon in. The possibility that he might be down in the orchard, in the summerhouse, occurred to him but he preferred not to look. He went back to his car and wrote a note on one of his address cards: "Sorry to have missed you. If there is anything I can do, then please call on me." It looked curt but there wasn't room for more. He hesitated before putting the card through the letterbox. He had written a letter of sympathy a couple of weeks ago - the usual words about grief - loss - fond memory and so on-but it had seemed shallow and conventional - a parroting of emotions and he had torn it up. He knew how he felt. How Lisa's son felt was no business of his - professionally or any other way. There had been too much involvement in the past. Clinical detachment where Lisa had been concerned had been a sick joke. Detachment from her son was prerequisite to a return to normal life. Or as normal as any life can be.

"Happy insanity," one of his patients had joked, "is vastly preferable to being sadly sane. How dare you cure me? I don't want to go home."

Quite a lot of them didn't.

Including Lisa.

"Discretion," he reminded his staff from time to time, "is as vital as good nursing. The patients must trust you. Encourage them to talk, talking is therapeutic, then forget what they've told you, unless it's relevant. If it is, tell me." He could have said, more simply, "Don't gossip," but that would have been insulting. On the whole, he had what he thought of as a good team. They batted on an easy wicket and were well paid. The non-professional staff, who kept the place clean and saw to the other domestic ch.o.r.es, tended to come and go. None was local. The cook, Mrs Mackay, a taciturn Scotswoman, had been with him eight years, which was exceptional. She had recently bought a cottage on the outskirts of the village and with luck would remain up to retirement age. Or perhaps beyond. "If music is the food of love," a grateful patient had commented, "and the converse is equally true, then she plays one h.e.l.l of a good sonata with her Grampian roast." She wasn't at all bad at more exotic dishes either, but she refused to give them fancy names. French and Italian words describing anything she cooked were taboo. Bouillabaisse appeared on her menu as fish soup, and a frica.s.see as stewed mince. Caviare, served occasionally as a starter, was listed as fish roes. New patients, expecting the worst and sunk in gloom at the prospect of a terrible meal, were pleasantly surprised. Shock therapy by a Cordon Bleu electrified their tastebuds. Only the anorexic were slow to respond.

And Paul Creggan.

Creggan liked a soft boiled egg, white bread and b.u.t.ter, canned soup and strong cheese. The food was carried down to him in his tepee and placed on a tin tray on an upturned tea-chest. He drank bottled water and weak beer. When he had first visited Donaldson for a consultation and a request to be admitted, he had arrived in a chauffeur-driven Daimler and worn an immaculately tailored grey suit the same shade as his well-groomed hair. Donaldson, who had had no prior warning of the visit, had pointed out that he would need a referral from Mr Creggan's general pract.i.tioner. Creggan had told him that it was on its way - would arrive soon - but not soon enough if Donaldson sent him back home again. "Have you ever experienced despair, doctor? The big black dog? In my case a big blonde b.i.t.c.h." Creggan's matrimonial kennel was a large luxury flat in Maida Vale. "Sumptuous," he described it, "to the point of suffocation." His companion (wife, mistress, he didn't say) was of the best bloodstock - beautifully bred. "But yaps like a demented terrier, Doctor. All the time. The canine species can be legally put down. I don't wish to break the law, Doctor. If you send me back I shall be sorely tempted." Donaldson, not impressed, had suggested he should take a holiday. Creggan, not impressed with the advice, had started taking off his clothes.

Donaldson had taken an empty syringe out of his desk drawer and handled it thoughtfully.

Creggan had dressed again.

The saga of Creggan's eventual admittance to The Mount covered several pages of case history. A letter from his G.P. had urged it and also, surprisingly, a letter from one of The Mount's ex-patients, a stockbroker. "Give him a break," he wrote, "he needs it. When the market collapsed, made me suicidal, you helped a lot. He's a harmless eccentric, if that's not too unscientific a description, and domestic problems are making him worse. He needs a period of calm. I told him you'd see he got it. Don't let me down."

The doctor's note had omitted any diagnostic a.n.a.lysis. He wasn't an expert, he said, but when patients cried for help he believed they needed it. He would be grateful if Donaldson would listen and, if necessary, treat.

Both letters were persuasive. But Creggan's attempted bribe, over the phone, offering to double the fee, wasn't. A second phone call, apologising and asking if he could bring his tent, had surprised Donaldson into laughter. He had been even more surprised later to discover it wasn't a joke.

The tent, a brown canvas tepee, lacked a few Indian feathers at the top to be totally bizarre, but was bizarre enough to attract amused comment. Donaldson allowed it to be set up in a wild area of garden that was near enough to the main building for convenience but not too obvious from the road. He had dealt with a few extraordinary obsessions in his professional life, and the only rule he laid down about this one was that Creggan should use one of The Mount's bedrooms which had been set aside for him so that he might keep himself clean in the ensuite bathroom and use the lavatory. Whether or not he slept in the bed or on the trestle bed in the tepee was up to him. Creggan chose the latter unless the weather was exceptionally bad. He had come to find peace, he said rather plaintively. He hadn't come to fraternise with people who might be just a little peculiar. Resisting psychotherapy and medication of any kind, which Donaldson was honest enough not to push but felt he had to offer to justify the fee, he spent a few weeks every now and then in self-imposed isolation. A retreat in a Trappist monastery would have been less expensive, but perhaps more rigorous. In The Mount he could use his time however he liked. Casually dressed in khaki shorts and a shabby brown pullover, with a tweed jacket over his shoulders if it were chilly, he spent hours reading detective and western paperbacks and listening to the radio through earphones. When he got bored, he slept. In the night he took long walks when the moon was high, or in the early dawn when there was enough light to see by.

Donaldson had alerted Maybridge to the walks, a.s.suring him that Creggan was harmless. "He's perfectly safe. Don't let any of your eager p.cs ha.s.sle him." Maybridge, not one to take advice, especially in a case like this, had him tailed for a while and finally agreed with Donaldson that he wasn't a threat to anyone. Just a man who preferred the night to the day - quiet moonlit fields - no personal encounters. A man who wanted to be on his own.

But not all the time.

Creggan had attended the funeral of Peter and Lisa Bradshaw. That the mole should emerge into bright sunlight, to mourn the pa.s.sing of a couple he didn't know, had startled Donaldson. Creggan had stood at the back of the church, sombrely dressed in his London clothes, and had averted his eyes from Donaldson's when the coffins were carried out. Before the interment, and just after the camera had been dropped, he had returned to The Mount, packed his bag, left a note to say he would be away for a couple of weeks, and taken a taxi back home. Or back somewhere.

His sudden departure after attending the funeral was disquieting.

Rhoda might like roses, Simon thought.

The visit to Gloucester was better in some respects, and worse in others, than he had expected. Better insofar as she talked to him as one polite adult to another, mainly about the architecture of the cathedral, the decor of the restaurant where they had lunch and the quality of the wine which she had chosen and allowed him to buy (a cheap white medium-dry French). The main meal was her treat, she'd insisted, what would he like? As he guessed she hadn't much cash he'd decided against Chicken Kiev (it had garlic, anyway, and he didn't want to breathe fumes over her) and opted for a hamburger. She had chosen Chicken Kiev.

The not so good parts weren't anything he could complain about. They weren't her fault. She was about an inch taller than he and it was obvious when they walked side by side. In the house it wasn't noticeable. Out here in the busy street, noisy with traffic, he was conscious that her mouth was on a level with his ear and while he heard everything she said, she didn't always hear him. Had suggested, politely, that he mumbled.

And she couldn't help the way she looked. Beautiful. Tight yellow jersey. Tight jeans. They'd looked looser when she'd worn them at the funeral. Perhaps they'd shrunk. A couple of yobs of about his age had whistled at her. They'd both shaved themselves bald apart from a k.n.o.b of hair at the top, tied with bootlaces, and looked disgusting. She'd agreed with him when he'd said so, but had seemed rather amused.

She had left him a couple of times to shop and suggested that he might like to shop, too. Did he want a razor, or anything? He'd thought this might be a hint that he looked scruffy and had felt his chin, which hadn't grown any stubble since the morning. His father's stubble had been black. His was blond. Unfortunately. Blond stubble wasn't macho. He told her that he had an electric razor and that it shaved quite close. He didn't need another.

She had left him again, just a few minutes ago, to go to the pharmacy across the road and he had wandered over to look at the window of a florist. He wanted to give her something and flowers seemed appropriate. He'd feel an absolute idiot buying them, but most men probably did. If you let embarra.s.sment stop you, you wouldn't do anything. He paid seven pounds fifty for a small bunch of tightly budded pink roses and an extra quid for the wrapping. He should have brought more money out with him. He had no idea things were so expensive. The a.s.sistant had teased him about having a girlfriend, and the b.l.o.o.d.y woman had made him blush. When Rhoda had told him she was going to the pharmacy to buy tampons he hadn't blushed. It had sounded matter-of-fact. Part of adult conversation. Woman to man. He didn't think she had said it to put him off. It occurred to him that her withdrawal during the last few days might have had something to do with her periods. The menstrual cycle} according to the biology lecture in school last term, lasted for a few days once a month. Some women suffered from pre-menstrual tension. If a woman was regularly on the contraceptive pill her periods stopped for a while. Now that AIDS was a threat it was better for a lover to wear a condom. The word 'lover' had amused Simon's fellow sixth formers and he had grinned sardonically along with the rest of them. Now it didn't amuse him. It no longer seemed sentimental or stupid. He wished he could be Rhoda's lover and wear one of the sheaths he had carried around for some time. Did sheaths ever go off? Rot? Form holes? "Be honourable in your dealings with women," Kester-Evans had intoned from the back of the lecture hall where he had been listening with the boys. "Treat them with the respect with which you would treat your own mothers." That the remark was unintentionally incestuous obviously hadn't occurred to him. The lecturer had pretended to busy himself with his lecture notes before adding a few innocuous sentences and bringing the lecture to a close. The boys had suppressed their mirth until he had left the rostrum and Kester-Evans had followed him out. And then they'd erupted. They were all experienced, Simon believed. Not a virgin amongst them. Virile and confident, not the least bit scared.

Rhoda, about to emerge from the pharmacy, held the swing door open for a woman with a couple of large bulky parcels, and in that moment glanced outside and saw Simon's bouquet. And then she saw him looking at her and tried to look pleasantly back. By Christ, but you can't control your expression all in a moment! But you have to. Go out. Greet him with a smile. Coolly. He's bought the wretched things for you. Peter's gift was usually his favourite brand of Scotch. To share - pre bed. Forget Peter. His kid has gone all sentimental. Roses, oh G.o.d! A frill of white paper around them, like a paper doily. And cellophane.

She was gearing herself to play the scene - older sister, perhaps - slightly maternal, perhaps - when the woman dropped her parcel. A bottle of cough linctus smashed and spattered its yellow viscous contents over a large box of cotton wool and over Rhoda's shoes.

A delay. Apologies. Cleaning up. "It's all right. Just old trainers. I'll sponge them when I get home. Not to worry. Mind you don't cut your fingers on the gla.s.s." And then - stepping out smartly to greet Simon.

He wasn't there.

There was no rubbish bin in the vicinity. Untidy Britain was meagre with its rubbish bins. Simon walked quickly, looking for one, and then pushed the roses between a pile of cardboard boxes and a crate in an alley near the car park. Her first unguarded expression had seared him.

Some while later Rhoda found him sitting in the car. His face was hard with embarra.s.sment, his eyes dark and evasive. She wondered what he had done with the flowers. And wanted to hug him as she would a child. Console him. Tell him it didn't matter.

But it did matter. It mattered one h.e.l.l of a lot. The scene was getting increasingly difficult to play.

They spoke very little on the drive back. The creamy yellow Cotswold villages seemed to him as old as time, and as dreary as time. Heavy dark skies would have suited his mood, but the sun shone. When they reached the main road he drove faster, then faster still. His parents had died in a car, he mused, what had it been like for them, that sudden end? Rhoda, beside him, was breathing quickly. Scared? He hoped so. He wished she would beg him to slow down, but she didn't. Eventually he eased his foot off the accelerator and was pleased when she sighed with relief.

"Pretty powerful," she told him, "and you handle it well."

He was young enough to appreciate the compliment, but not quite old enough to receive it graciously.

"Any fool," he said bitterly, "can drive a car."

"Here's one fool," she lied tactfully, "who can't." Lies were becoming a habit. She tried to soothe him with another. "It has been a good day out. I've enjoyed it."

He glanced at her but didn't answer.

Grief can be a.s.suaged to some degree by photographs of the dead, Maybridge mused, as he examined the photograph of Lisa that Meg had found. You hold on to memories. An image propped up on a mantelpiece. On a bedroom dressing-table that catches the morning light. Framed on a living-room wall. When the pain eases you look at it less often. The wound heals partly, in some cases completely.

His contact with the bereaved in the course of his police work was always traumatic, all deaths unnatural, no soothing inevitability about any of them. On a few later visits, when shock had been blunted by time, the photographs had appeared. The victims (children, some of them, and those were the most heartbreaking), were shown as they had been, unmarked by violence. Mary Luce, the youngest of Hixon's victims, had been photographed on her eighteenth birthday, a few months before she was murdered. The studio portrait had been handed to him by Mary's mother.

"Look," she'd said. "Just look." And then, after a pause, "She looks back at you, doesn't she? Innocent. Trusting. Do wh.o.r.es look like that? Well - do they? That animal raped her. She'd never been with a man before."

It wasn't true. She had been at the trial and heard all the forensic evidence relating to Mary and the other victims, but when those you love are dead you have to protect your memory of them, and if that means pus.h.i.+ng the truth around until it is almost acceptable, then that's what you have to do. The horror of Mary's death by strangulation couldn't be articulated; the shock of discovering her daughter's whoring could be - and denied. Maybridge had said, sadly and honestly, that she had been a pretty young woman. A lovely photograph. Encouraged, she had brought out an alb.u.m of snaps and shown him many more. Mary at school. On holiday. At a disco. Different phases of growing up. Happy moments caught for ever and proudly displayed. The photo of Lisa, a snapshot was a good one. Very clear.

"Yes," Maybridge said, handing it back to Meg, "you're right. Simon would like to have it. It will mean more to him than to anyone. Especially now."

The evening was pleasantly cool after a very hot day. He had been watering the bedding plants at the base of the patio and the soil smelt sharp, like ginger. Soon it would be time for their evening tipple - Guinness for him and a small brandy for Meg. A quiet period together, he watching Sports Night on the telly and Meg catching up on some letters she had to write. She had come across the photo when she had been looking for an address book in the bureau a few minutes ago and had called him in from the garden to see it. He asked her where it had been taken.

"At the opening ceremony of the children's library. Up at the school. She'd done a mural for it - oh, a very harmless, childish one, I'd warned her, and it was okay. Very good, in fact. Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea-party. Everyone looking rather sweet."

Lisa producing anything remotely sweet was hard to imagine. "You should have taken her standing in front of the mural. On her own. This is outside. It's a pity she's one of a crowd."

Meg agreed. "But everyone is standing behind her, luckily. She's in a prominent position. Peter is in there somewhere." She looked for him and found him. "Here - at the back. I should have asked him to move forward but I was focusing on Lisa. She looked so natural. Not posing. The snap could be enlarged and the background cut away. Should I have that done, do you think? Or give it to Simon as it is?"

"As it is. He'd rather have his father in it."

"It's odd he doesn't have a single photograph of his parents anywhere. At a time like this they're usually put on display. They're needed."

Which was precisely what Maybridge had been thinking.

Meg, in most matters very honest, didn't tell her husband that taking the snap to Simon was partly a pretext to suss out the woman who was living with him. She guessed Tom knew, of course, and half expected to be told to tread gently, that she wasn't on her own domestic territory. When she had heard from a social worker about David's crazy alliance with a pot-smoking unmarried mother of four he'd met in a squat, she had been so dismayed she had jack-booted tact into the ground and her son hadn't come home again for almost a year. His first visit back, on his nineteenth birthday, had been a period of unvoiced mutual apologies. A carpet slipper approach to everything. His new girlfriend, sharp, glossy, a non-smoker of anything and too bright to get pregnant, hadn't been Meg's ideal of a soul mate, either. But she had smiled and shut up. This time, not emotionally or maternally involved, to smile should come more easily and careful comment was just a matter of being polite.

Meg visited mid-afternoon on Friday, the day when she had no tutorials at the university. It was bl.u.s.tery, with a hint of rain in the air, and she wore a thick blue handknitted jersey over a navy blue pleated skirt. The wicker basket she carried contained a couple of jars of raspberry jam and a jar of Indian chutney, products bought at the church fete. Also in the basket was one of Lisa's books, A. E. Housman's A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad. And, on top of it, a carton of six free-range eggs.