The Fifth Rapunzel Part 8

Happy is a weak word. Simon's emotions tended to swirl together like clouds in a dark sky, edged here and there with flashes of light. He was reasonably happy lying in a field with Sally after they'd jogged. Happy because the exercise was over and that his body had calmed down. Hers probably hadn't, but that was her problem. Girls were lucky they had nothing to get an erection with. They were never embarra.s.sed. Rhoda had put him into a state of almost perpetual embarra.s.sment. And he couldn't forget her. That Sally wanted s.e.x with him was perfectly obvious. But he wanted it with Rhoda. His body might not mind one way or the other, but he minded inside his head. There's nothing beautiful about love - it's a torment - a pain - it's full of anger. He wanted to hurt Rhoda because she wasn't there. He wanted to hurt Sally because she was there. Most of all he wanted to hurt himself. He envied his parents for being dead. He wished he were dead. Peaceful. Done with. Finished. Or he wished he were alive -properly alive - blazingly - marvellously alive. In bed with Rhoda.

Sally bored him.

It was the ultimate insult. No boy had ever been bored by her before. She toyed with the idea of dumping him. He bored her, too. Doctor Cormack wouldn't bore her. Max Cormack was a man, not a smooth skinned boy who still had traces of acne. And Cormack, unlike most older men, was free - no wife. And he had a good job. No house of his own yet, but he'd get one. When she had come to work at The Mount she had a.s.sessed the male potential. Patients as possible prey were dismissed, they would be more trouble than they were worth. The medical and domestic staff were married, about to be, living with someone, or so unattractive they'd stay single for ever. Cormack was in a cla.s.s of his own. Hard to hunt down, though. He had no reason to visit The Mount. The whist drive had been a one-off. His forensic work took him out every day into places where she couldn't follow him. If he went to the pub, he didn't go when she did. Getting Simon to go with her wasn't easy, so she didn't go often. People kept bothering him, he said, asked how he was getting on that sort of thing. She knew that. So they drank in his home. His nice home. In a few years he would be properly grown up. And besieged by women - like his father had been, according to gossip. He was at his worst now. Raw. Bereaved. He would improve. Simon, a few years in the future, might be a prize, and she'd be a prize idiot now if she ditched him. So hang on. Keep an eye on Cormack and play the game, whichever way the dice fell.

"There are times," she said dreamily to Simon, "when I feel like turning Catholic."

This was so extraordinary he stopped being bored. They were sitting in the summerhouse because it was too hot to sit outside. The sun seemed to sizzle the gnats that were jumping up and down like tiny creatures from h.e.l.l. h.e.l.l. Heaven. Religion. "Why Catholic?"

Because church might be a handy place to meet Cormack.

"Why not?"

He asked her if she was anything now. Did she believe in anything? She said she believed in transubstantiation and hoped she'd got the word right. She didn't know what it meant. Something to do with fish?

The conversation reminded him of his recent visit to the cemetery. He had gone along to look at his parents'grave, the first time since the funeral, and just couldn't believe in it. A mound of earth with a temporary headstone. It meant nothing. The vicar had suggested that he should get a permanent headstone soon. Apparently you could get a catalogue from a monumental mason and choose what you liked. It had all seemed too gruesome. And final. He had asked where the strangled prost.i.tute had been buried. Over by the wall, the vicar had told him. No. No. No. Not over the wall. In consecrated ground. Even suicides were buried in consecrated ground these days. "The church is charitable, Simon." And particularly charitable in the case of the prost.i.tute, apparently. Money had been raised locally for the burial as no one had come forward to claim the body and she had died in the environs of the village. Simon wondered how much his father had contributed - a hundred quid for Rapunzel number five? He cringed, deeply ashamed. It was a disgusting thing to think.

After the vicar had left him, he strolled along by the perimeter wall to see if he could find the grave. The headstones in this part of the cemetery were very old - seventy or eighty years in some cases - and were mainly slabs of slate with mossed-over lettering that was difficult to read. There were a few flowers on some of them, which was odd. Did great-great-grandchildren bother with their ancestors? Apparently some of them did. He didn't at first recognise the Rapunzel grave because he had forgotten the name. It came back to him when he saw the small neat headstone of pale grey granite with the lettering in black:

IN SAD MEMORY OF SUSAN MARTIN.

According to the date, she had been twenty-six. To date accurately wasn't always possible, his father had told him once, but his father had dated this one. Or someone had. In sad memory. Whose memory? The words were very troubling. No epitaph might have been better than one made up by strangers for a stranger. He imagined the church council gathering together in the vestry and jotting down their ideas on sc.r.a.ps of paper. They had paid for the headstone: they could say what they liked. They had no memory of her. Hadn't even seen her. Blank pieces of paper. Blank minds.

While he had stood looking down at the grave a squadron of Red Arrow aircraft had flown low overhead - banking - weaving - screaming their way up into the clouds. Watching them made him feel better. It wasn't all death and doom around here. Maybe he would be a pilot one day, or a racing driver. Juvenile ambitions that he was supposed to have grown out of. The aircraft became silent in the distance, crimson sparks of light where the sun caught them, and then nothing.

That night he had dreamed of them, but in the dream they had merged and become the threatening bird of Grimm's story. It had come swooping down at him in the dark, crus.h.i.+ng his nostrils with its heavy wings so that, gasping for breath, he had torn at it in panic, breaking the thin sinews of the feathers, thinner than a child's fingers, and scattering them over the bed.

Sitting here with Sally now he thought of the nightmare again and s.h.i.+vered despite the heat. The almond tree was just a few yards away and he could smell its sap, or maybe its leaves. Why had his mother been so obsessed with the horror stories of long ago? Shouldn't Grimm's fairy tale about the murdered child buried under the tree, and the appalling bird perched on one of its branches, have revolted her? "All the blossom," he said, "has gone." Sally was still thinking about Cormack. The Irish had big families. Or they used to. Perhaps not any more.

"Birth control," she said, "is important." Simon looked at her, puzzled. The almond tree - the birds and the bees - pollination - the Durex in his pocket. The world was more than a little mad, but not at this moment threatening.

Drew recognised Rhoda immediately she walked into the office. It took her a few minutes to remember him. He had been sombrely dressed for the funeral in a dark grey suit and had exuded dark grey disapproval at her, along with everyone else, when she'd dropped the camera. Today, casually dressed in light grey cords and a white short-sleeved s.h.i.+rt, he seemed benign, though obviously very surprised.

She had phoned the office after reading the firm's announcement in the personal column of the Daily Telegraph requesting Mrs Clare Warwick to get in touch with them. She was Clare's sister, she explained, and wanted to know what it was all about. She would have to be told personally, and not over the phone, Drew said. Very well, she agreed, she would travel to Bristol to see him this afternoon. No 'ifs' or 'buts' or Is it all right with you?' She was coming. His curiosity was t.i.tillated and he didn't argue.

Antic.i.p.ating that the solicitor would need proof of ident.i.ty, she had brought her birth certificate. She had earlier searched Peter's flat for Clare's, and for Clare's divorce papers, but hadn't found them or anything relevant to her at all, apart from her clothes in the wardrobe, which hadn't included the red dress or hat.

And there hadn't been any letters piling up in the hall. Just a lot of junk mail which she got rid of on her weekly clandestine visits. The firm's recorded delivery letters hadn't been delivered as they hadn't been signed for, Drew explained. It was fortunate that the personal announcement had drawn a response. "A valid one," he added, "and so far the only one."

He glanced at her birth certificate, noticed that her father had been a colonel in the Royal Engineers and that she was thirty-two years old. He handed it back. "No doc.u.ments relevant to your sister?"

"Sorry, no. She has them with her. Wherever she is." If she's anywhere. Three words thrumming in her head. Not to be expressed yet. "Why are you trying to trace her?"

Drew told her, sketching in the background, about Professor Bradshaw's visit to the office just a few months ago. The drawing-up of the codicil according to his wishes.

Her mind, focused until now wholly on Clare, began focusing on Peter. That he should bequeath the flat to Clare didn't touch her at all emotionally, though it surprised her, but his presence here in this room, not so long ago, became suddenly very real. Tears were alien to her, but they were burning in her eyes now and, ashamed of them, she turned her head away and forced her attention on her surroundings. The certificates on the wall were a blur of black words on white vellum with crimson seals like blobs of blood. Certificates of competence. Of know-how. A room where Wills were made. Where Peter had made his. Imagining Peter here, perhaps seated on this chair, was like imagining him clothed in black crepe. Virile, lying, b.l.o.o.d.y-minded, hot-tempered, faithless and, G.o.d help her, tenderly loving Peter. The funeral service had frightened and appalled her but this was going deeper like the careful slow probing of his scalpel on an already open wound. His hand was on this. It affirmed his death. She believed it, not just intellectually as she had before, but physically. In the tips of her fingers, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her gut. She hadn't realised she'd loved him or could remember him with so much pain.

She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. Grimaced. "Sorry ... it's just that ..." Just that. Nothing. She shrugged, not knowing what to say.

Her tears had surprised him. Her face, with its heavy dark wings of hair, had seemed emotionless as if sculpted in marble. He asked her if she would like a cup of tea - and hoped his secretary was still there to make it. It had gone five o'clock.

The question was so trite that it nearly rocked her over into laughter. Listen to that, Peter. What kind of silly scenario have you landed me in? And what, for Christ's sake, have you done to Clare? Nudged her back into the land of the living, perhaps? Affirmed that she is still alive? A legatee - a recipient of your gift? Or about to be?

A few moments of optimism calmed her. She declined the tea.

It was time to get down to business. Drew told her it was necessary to get more background information. He had a scribble pad on his desk and unscrewed his fountain pen, ready to make notes.

For Rhoda it was like someone taking her hand in a foggy landscape with the promise of guiding her through it. She told him she had reported her sister's disappearance to the police at the local station near where she lived. Details had been taken but she had sensed that the young Met. officer who had interviewed her hadn't taken her very seriously. Apparently, when adults took off the police saw no pressing need to go looking for them. And she had probably reported her missing too soon - a few weeks after she'd last heard from her.

Drew pointed out that the sibling relations.h.i.+p, though close, wasn't as close as the marital relations.h.i.+p. A husband reporting the disappearance of his wife is taken seriously and the information is acted on at once. The same applied to children. And people living together. Brothers and sisters tended to make their own separate lives and often drifted away from each other. Rhoda reminded him that Clare was divorced and her ex-husband had seen no reason to get involved. And no, there was no sinister implication there. An amicable divorce. No maintenance. Clare hadn't asked for it, didn't believe in it. So no ha.s.sle over money. Her ex-husband - totally unreliable, pea-brained, currently working as a ski instructor and flexing his sun bronzed muscles to the delight of pea-brained females on dry ski slopes - well, it was summer - was as harmless as that kind of beautiful muscular hunk usually was. But no - to answer the question, not asked but implied, he had no motive to murder her.

A sparky lady, Drew thought, amused. If she were always this outspoken, a rift with her sister was easy to understand. But why should she think her sister might have been murdered? It was an intriguing situation and he was beginning to enjoy it. Which was reprehensible.

He asked her if she thought the obvious relations.h.i.+p between Bradshaw and Mrs Warwick might have some bearing on her sister's disappearance. Had there been a row, for instance, when Mrs Bradshaw had learnt of the liaison?

Rhoda thought about the photograph and the anger that had shown in the sketch, but didn't mention the latter. How could she? She had trespa.s.sed on Lisa's territory, stolen her diaries and broken all rules of reasonable behaviour by moving in on Simon. In many ways her behaviour had been worse than Clare's. She needed this man's professional respect and goodwill. She answered that it would be natural for Mrs Bradshaw to be angry, though she might not have known that Peter was so seriously involved with Clare, involved enough to bequeath her the flat. Which, incidentally, seemed an extraordinary thing to do. In the normal way she wouldn't stand to inherit for another twenty years or so. "She's twenty-four. I don't think the relations.h.i.+p would have lasted that long. And there's no child to provide for. Bequeath is an old man's word."

It wasn't, but he didn't argue. He needed more details and pressed on. "Names and addresses of your sister's friends would be useful." She had already contacted them, she told him, but he noted them down just the same. And then he asked for details of the places where she had worked. Her first job had been as a chalet maid in an Austrian ski resort, where she had met her husband, and she had helped out with that sort of thing until the marriage broke up. Afterwards she had done some modelling, which had paid better than anything else and was the reason why she hadn't reverted to her maiden name after the divorce. She was known as Clare Warwick, not well known, but her future had seemed promising.

Rhoda broke off. Until that point it had been easy to state all the facts calmly. The past tense was like a dark presence in a sleazy room. Waiting.

"The future is probably still very promising," Drew said, a little too heartily. "Have you a photograph of her?"

"Nothing very clear. Only a snapshot." Rhoda had brought it with her and pa.s.sed it to him. It had seemed sensible to combine the visit to Bristol with a brief call on Simon at nearby Macklestone and return it.

Drew recognised Bradshaw and Lisa, but no one else. "Which one is your sister?" But he had guessed before she pointed her out that it was the girl standing next to Bradshaw. The colour red made a strong statement. It was a 'look at me' colour. He could imagine her on a catwalk, wiggling her hips and doing those fancy steps they did on catwalks. An attention grabber, Rhoda's sister. He wasn't impressed. He handed the snap back. It was no good for identification purposes. "She doesn't look like you."

"No. Younger. Prettier. Dresses better."

He didn't pay her the obvious compliment. Rhoda at any age, and dressed as tattily as she was now in a dark green cotton summer skirt and a top in a shade of sludge, would still be remarkable to look at. He asked her what she did for a living.

"Freelance journalism." But she wasn't here to talk about herself. "What about Simon? Does he know about the flat?"

"Yes, I told him a little time ago. He seemed to accept the situation."

A healthy anger against Peter flared. If anyone should have the flat, he should have it. "If it were in my power to hand it back to Simon - on Clare's behalf - then I would."

Drew didn't deal in ifs and buts, or in sudden surprising sentimentality. He glanced at his notepad. There was a lot on it, but not much a firm of solicitors was capable of handling. A private detective agency was better suited to tracking her down, but would be extremely expensive. Advice from Detective Chief Inspector Maybridge would cost nothing and he knew him well enough to approach him. As the Metropolitan Police had the matter in hand, though they might not have done much about it so far apart from adding her name to the Missing Persons Bureau computer, it might be better to see Maybridge privately. He could liaise with his London colleagues officially if he thought it necessary, or he could advise Rhoda to go back to them and make her own enquiries.

He asked her if she knew Maybridge. "You might have met at the Bradshaws' funeral?"

"I was persona non grata," she reminded him drily. "He'd hardly come and shake my hand."

"Well, he could have ticked you off for creating a disturbance," Drew teased. "If you'd like me to try to arrange a meeting with him during his off-duty time - this evening, if possible - I'll go along with you, if you don't mind my divulging that Bradshaw has bequeathed the flat to your sister. It adds some urgency. He'll know the best procedure. If he is available, it might mean your getting back to London rather late. Would it matter?"

It wouldn't, of course. An interview with Maybridge, especially if his wife was there, might be difficult and embarra.s.sing, but it would be made easier and more productive if she had a solicitor with her.

"Nothing matters," she said, "except finding Clare."

Maybridge's availability was always unpredictable. He told Drew, in response to his phone call to headquarters, that he had a meeting with Superintendent Claxby scheduled for the early evening and didn't expect to be home much before nine - followed by a later commitment to drive over to Clifton by ten thirty to pick up his wife, whose car was in for a service. "Another evening," he suggested, "or a brief meeting tonight?"

Drew, after consulting Rhoda, settled for the brief meeting. He would take her for a meal somewhere in the Macklestone area beforehand. There wouldn't be time afterwards if she was to catch her London train.

The Avon Arms did pub lunches and evening snacks. Most of the food was frozen and bought in large quant.i.ties from a nearby supermarket. On Fridays, it was supplemented by three dozen savoury flans baked by Mrs Mackay and delivered by her in her fifteen-year-old Ford Cortina. Her friend, Dawn Millington, received them and carried them into the pub kitchen. To step across the threshold of a public house was something Mrs Mackay wouldn't do. Feeding the drinkers, however, didn't blot her moral code and it blotted up the beer. She was doing nothing wrong. All the ingredients, imaginatively put together and not necessarily expensive, were strictly recorded in an account book. The money she made on the flans was money for her skill, she wasn't stealing from The Mount's store cupboard. This she made very clear to Doctor Donaldson. He was extremely embarra.s.sed and wished she wouldn't do it. Didn't he pay her enough? Was it a subtle, or maybe not so subtle, way of asking for a rise? He had put the question to her as tactfully as he could. She had a.s.sured him that she was perfectly contented with the salary, but there might come a time in the future, when she reached retirement age, when part-time cooking would make life a little easier, for her financially - and be an interest. She was building up for the future now. That was why she had bought her cottage and was furnis.h.i.+ng it with the flan money. As she rarely spoke very much, Donaldson had felt he was being a.s.sailed with information. Had she pointed to the mixing bowl on the kitchen table and said briefly: "Look, I'm doing it. You're not losing out, so stop interfering," it would have embarra.s.sed him less. He could have told her to stop - or leave. Not that he would have done. He needed her and she knew it.

Mrs Mackay's building for the future was being erected to a smaller degree socially. She and Dawn Millington shared a liking for choral music. And she and Dawn Millington's husband attended the Nonconformist chapel and sat in the same pew. Dawn Millington's once-a-week stint as a barmaid was attributable to the shortcomings of the Common Agricultural Policy, according to her husband. A lowering of standards, deplored but financially necessary.

Cormack, hearing most of this from Mrs Millington, was amused. On Friday evenings, she had explained to him, there would be a cold supper laid out for him on the dining-room table, or a slow cooking ca.s.serole in the kitchen which she could safely leave for him to help himself. Alternatively, if he wanted some decent pub grub, all the locals in the know went to the Avon Arms and ordered a flan. The other food was rubbish. What her husband did on her absent evenings was a mystery. Probably grabbed some bread and cheese and ate it seated on his tractor. Cormack's attempts to socialise with him had been abortive and he had stopped trying. Some people are born taciturn.

And some - like Cormack - need human contact that is warm, cheerful and undemanding. And preferably female. He was missing Josie. Letters and phone calls made matters worse. Her letters spoke of love - her breathy voice on the telephone spoke of it, too - but letters are just pieces of paper and a telephone is a piece of metal and sweet Mother of G.o.d he wanted more than that.

He had taken his secretary, Sofia, out a few times, but it was a relations.h.i.+p that had to be handled with some delicacy. He wasn't sure what her background was: of mixed Eastern and Western parentage, he guessed. The Western att.i.tude to a casual s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p might be accepted by her as a fact of life but, without being overtly prudish, she didn't approve of it. In other words, he couldn't take her to bed. He liked her, respected her, and if his body occasionally l.u.s.ted for her, he controlled it severely. Talking shop, now and then, helped to prevent over-heating. Cadavers are cold.

Going early to the Avon Arms to eat a flan on a Friday evening might not be the acme of gourmet delight - as far as he knew - but it would make a change. He invited Sofia and she accepted. Her boyfriend was away for a few days, she told him, so she was free that evening. That Josie was away - far away - she knew. At times Cormack wondered if the boyfriend - nameless - existed. He seemed to be away a lot of the time, too. She was a good old-fas.h.i.+oned girl, and would have made a good old-fas.h.i.+oned nun if she hadn't been a Muslim, or whatever. She controlled her s.e.xuality and helped him to control his, which was no bad thing. Josie would be home in eight months.

Sally, who couldn't control her s.e.xuality even if it were just she and an octogenarian eskimo in an igloo in the frozen wastes of Greenland, was becoming progressively more irked by Simon. He wouldn't respond. She had bought herself a mini skirt in thin black leather, rather too hot just now. The sun must be finding holes in the ozone layer and blasting through. When it missed the holes, it was cold. It had been chilly when she had bought the skirt in Bristol a few days ago. It had cost her the equivalent of what she'd made on Mrs Bradshaw's three evening dresses and the professor's tweed jacket, she'd worked out. She had spent some more of the loot money at a Redolence Salon - rather posh and expensive. Ten quid for a facial. The Patchouli Parlours were run by the same company, the girl who was steam cleaning her face told her. Patchouli was an Indian scent. Some of the men clients preferred citronella, which was more lemony. The Redolence company marketed it under the name of Citre, which didn't mean anything but sounded macho. Would she like a sample for her boyfriend? It had been the kind of sales talk she usually ignored, but she felt she owed it to Simon to get him something and bought him a small bottle. Her s.e.xy skirt and the pressie might help matters along, she hoped.

Simon, not impressed with either, had thanked her politely for the body lotion - would his father have used this sort of stuff? - and put it on the shelf in the bathroom. He wasn't just bored with Sally these days. He was bored with himself - his aimless existence - mooching around - or driving around - not fast - he was even getting bored with speed. All his dreams of exploring the world seemed to be disappearing. He'd probably end up sitting with a lot of geriatrics on Brighton promenade. Donaldson would have told him that he was suffering from exogenous depression - natural a few months after a bereavement - had he gone along and asked him. But Simon's last contact with Donaldson was the last contact he wanted with him. It had produced Sally, which had been helpful for a while. But the only lasting help that would do him any good would be Rhoda.

"This house is getting disgustingly dirty," Sally grumbled as they sat together in the kitchen, wondering what to have for supper. He agreed. Rhoda had kept the place looking reasonable when she hadn't been upstairs, working. Not that he had wanted her to dirty her hands with housework.

"You could try was.h.i.+ng up," Sally said tartly, "some men do. Try it sometime. It won't shorten your willie."

Oh, sparkling, happy, nice Sally. What's happening?

She looked in his fridge and didn't fancy what she saw in it. The sort of frozen stuff the Avon Arms gave its customers late on Fridays, and all the time on other days. She glanced at the kitchen clock. It was getting on for seven thirty.

"If we move," she said, "we'll be in time for a flan."

"A what?"

She explained. "And please don't say you don't want to come, Simon. There won't be many there this early. n.o.body's going to bother you. It will be just a pleasant normal evening out down at the local. And what's wrong with that?"

Charles Hixon, in one of his sermons, had described taverns as amphitheatres of sin. Which proved he hadn't been in one. The Avon Arms, like most pubs, was cosy. There wasn't a large gladiatorial area in the middle. Sin, if it occurred, might be in the eye of the beholder, but usually the scene was pleasantly convivial. Marital combat, or combat of any other kind, wasn't overt.

The bar was shaped like a horseshoe and made from a large hunk of ancient oak. It took up a lot of s.p.a.ce. The restaurant area had been the original kitchen and was approached through a low archway with a sign over it: Pub Grub - Mind Your Head. Having the eating area separate made it legally acceptable for children to be on the premises. The serious drinkers stayed in the main bar and had their pub grub, if they wanted it, at small tables. Cormack, as serious a drinker as most of his compatriots, could take it or leave it. When driving, or out with Sofia, he left it. A pint of beer didn't count. Sofia always had orange juice made from fresh fruit and cooled with ice. A small fleck of pulped orange was on her lower lip and Cormack wondered if she would leap back with dismay if he wiped it off. Her pale pink lips were a gentle contrast to her pale brown skin and her dark blue linen dress completed the picture. Well, he could look. It had been a day of combined business and pleasure - business at the forensic science laboratory at Chepstow - and the pleasure of driving there and back with her through pleasant countryside. He was still house hunting in a fairly desultory way. If Josie didn't want to settle here, there were other attractive areas not too far from base. Thinking about Josie and looking at Sofia's lips was a kind of balancing exercise in restraint. d.a.m.n restraint! He leaned across the table and gently removed the fleck of orange with his little finger. She didn't leap back. Just smiled and said thanks.

Sally, seated with Simon at an alcove table and with a good view of Cormack's back and Sofia's front, swore quietly into her gin and tonic. She wasn't too alarmed, just mildly upset. Simon asked her what was the matter. Nothing, she told him. He thought she might be annoyed because they had arrived too late for a flan and were making do with chicken in a basket. The couple she had been watching had a flan. It wasn't his fault, he pointed out to her, he couldn't help being waylaid by someone he didn't know but who knew his parents and kept on sympathising. "Anyway, this chicken isn't bad."

"There are birds and birds," Sally said enigmatically. "Would you mind changing places, Simon? I'm not comfortable sitting here."

He didn't think she would be comfortable sitting anywhere in that skirt. It looked like black rubber and probably stuck to her chair. The evening was very humid. He agreed to change places and offered to freshen her drink. Freshen. A stupid word. He wished he could freshen his mind - dunk it into a bucket of cold water. A double gin, she told him, and a small bottle of orange. Yes, orange, not tonic.

While Simon was fetching her drink, Sally made eye contact with Cormack. It wasn't easy, but Sally was skilled. Once aware of her, Cormack was startled into a quick grimace of recognition, an alarmed smile. A fair had come to his Irish village a long time ago and the girl he had been with had taken pot shots at a row of cardboard squirrels moving with erratic jerks in front of a cardboard rural scene. If you potted a squirrel you won a bag of peanuts. She had potted nearly all of them and loaded him with nuts. They had eaten them lying on straw in her father's barn, mouth to mouth like salty French kisses. Afterwards they had made love. He sensed that the blonde waitress from The Mount would have an aim just as deadly. But his nuts were for Josie.

He picked up the menu card and asked Sofia what she would like to follow. The choice wasn't large. Ice-cream. Gateaux. Coffee. She settled for a strawberry ice-cream and wondered why Max seemed suddenly distrait.

Simon, returning with the drinks, wondered why Sally was suddenly sunny. Her warmth, her cheeriness were back. She thanked him for the drinks. Touched his hand. Drew her chair nearer to his. Pressed her thigh so close that he could feel the slither of the leather against his jeans. Her conversation, that had become a long grey drool, was now a long bright drool. She laughed a lot and he felt rotten about not finding what she said particularly funny.

"I think you should be introduced," Sally said at last "What? Introduced to whom?" The room was full of people, most of them villagers who had been tactful enough to leave him and Sally alone.

"Come along, Simon. Your father would wish it."

"Wish what?"

She linked her arm through his and almost frogmarched him to the table where the red-headed chap and his girlfriend were sitting.

"This is Professor Bradshaw's son, Simon," Sally said, "and this, Simon, is Doctor Cormack, who has your father's old job."

Cormack, very annoyed, stood up politely. What a calculating little b.i.t.c.h. What he had been witnessing out of the corner of his eye had been a cold-blooded charade. She'd been using the lad. An idyllic picture of young love? Rats! b.l.o.o.d.y squirrels!

He introduced Sofia.

"Charmed," Sally said, her eyes little glints of steel, "absolutely delighted." Sofia smiled weakly.

Sally asked if they might join them for a few minutes. "Would you fetch a couple of chairs, Simon?"

Simon was looking at the man who had taken his father's place. It was at moments like these that the severance pain hurt again and reversed the healing process. When his father had been this man's age he, Simon, had been a child, about nine or so. They had done things together. Gone on outings. During the period of his mother's absence, when Trudy Morrison, the housekeeper who couldn't cook but was very pretty, was looking after the house, they had made up a threesome once at tennis. He and Trudy at one side of the net, lobbing b.a.l.l.s at his father, and his father, who wasn't much good at it, missing most of them. It was when Trudy was reaching for a ball that she had slipped and fallen. His father had picked her up very gently and sworn at a lot of people who seemed to think she was making a fuss about nothing. She had been hurt enough to need to have her arm in plaster. Another time he remembered was when Trudy had found the birds' nest in the apple tree and had made a joke about a cuckoo. His father, overhearing, had shaken his head warningly. It hadn't occurred to him then that they might have been lovers. And he didn't want to think of it now, but the girl sitting at the table would be about the same age as Trudy was then, and the man - Cormack - was looking at her and ... and ... time was vicious ... it kept moving on ... killing ... replacing ...

"The chairs, Simon," Sally said.

He looked at her dully. Chairs? What chairs? The two from the table they'd just left? But why? He didn't want to sit with this man and this woman.

Cormack felt compa.s.sion and wondered what the right words were to express it - were any words right? His own father was still alive, thank G.o.d, and he couldn't get under this lad's skin and feel what he was feeling, but he could sense it to some extent. He put his hand on Simon's shoulder very briefly. "Sorry." The other words stayed inside his head, the usual cliches of commiseration. He wished he could take a walk outside with the lad - just walk - there's sympathy in companions.h.i.+p and silence. A foursome was the last thing the boy needed and if the b.l.o.o.d.y girl mentioned chairs again he'd b.l.o.o.d.y brain her. Any s.e.xual attraction he'd felt for her earlier was killed stone dead.

It was necessary to withdraw and with as much good manners as he could muster. Not easy. Sofia hadn't finished her ice-cream and was too shy to get on with it now that the blonde bosomy girl was standing over her. Cormack launched into a leaving speech. "I'm sorry, but we have to be on our way almost immediately." He smiled at Sofia. "As soon as you're ready." Surprised, she picked up her spoon and began eating, too fast, and giving up on the wafer, put it at the side of her plate. "It was a successful whist drive up at The Mount the other evening, very enjoyable Miss ... er ... ?"

"Loreto. Sally Loreto. Call me Sally."

"And the refreshments you carried around on your tray and tempted us with were superb."

Sally wondered if this was a social put-down and decided it wasn't. This man wouldn't give a d.a.m.n what she did for a living. He had been receiving her signals like bursts of electricity up to the last few minutes. It was something to do with Simon's standing there. If only he'd fetched the chairs when asked and not looked so po-faced - if he had just co-operated - not thrown a spanner in the works and fused everything back into gloom.

"Well," Sally said lightly, "I'm glad you enjoyed it. You might come to The Mount again for the next one - it's quite soon - or for bridge."

Cormack said he might, but his work kept him rather busy. "Congratulate your cook on the flan this evening. It was quite excellent."