A Place Of Safety Read online

  A PLACE OF SAFETY

  CAROLINE GRAHAM

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 1999 Caroline Graham

  The right of Caroline Graham to be identified as the Author of

  the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law,

  this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted,

  in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in

  writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in

  accordance with the terms of licences issued by the

  Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 7323 9

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette Livre UK Company

  338 Euston Road

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  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Praise for Caroline Graham:

  ‘The best-written crime novel I’ve read in ages’ Susan Green,

  Good Housekeeping

  ‘An exemplary crime novel’

  Literary Review

  ‘Hard to praise highly enough’

  The Sunday Times

  ‘Lots of excellent character sketches . . . and the dialogue is lively and convincing’

  Independent

  ‘Graham has the gift of delivering well-rounded eccentrics, together with plenty of horror spiked by humour, all twirling into a staggering danse macabre’

  The Sunday Times

  ‘A wonderfully rich collection of characters . . . altogether a most impressive performance’

  Birmingham Post

  ‘Everyone gets what they deserve in this high-class mystery’

  Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Wickedly acid, yet sympathetic’

  Publishers Weekly

  ‘Excellent mystery, skilfully handled’

  Manchester Evening News

  ‘One to savour’

  Val McDermid

  ‘Her books are not just great whodunits but great novels in their own right’

  Julie Burchill

  ‘Tension builds, bitchery flares, resentment seethes . . . lots of atmosphere, colourful characters and fair clues’

  Mail on Sunday

  ‘A mystery of which Agatha Christie would have been proud . . . A beautifully written crime novel’

  The Times

  ‘Characterisation first rate, plotting likewise . . . Written with enormous relish. A very superior whodunnit’

  Literary Review

  ‘Swift, tense and highly alarming’

  TLS

  ‘The classic English detective story brought right up to date’

  Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Enlivened by a very sardonic wit and turn of phrase, the narrative drive never falters’

  Birmingham Post

  ‘From the moment the book opens it is gripping and horribly real because Ms Graham draws her characters so well, sets her scenes so perfectly’

  Woman’s Own

  ‘An uncommonly appealing mystery . . . a real winner’

  Publishers Weekly

  ‘Guaranteed to keep you guessing until the very end’

  Woman

  ‘A witty, well-plotted, absolute joy of a book’

  Yorkshire Post

  ‘Switch off the television and settle down for an entertaining read’

  Sunday Telegraph

  ‘A pleasure to read: well-written, intelligent and enlivened with flashes of dry humour’

  Evening Standard

  ‘Read her and you’ll be astonished . . . very sexy, very hip and very funny’

  Scotsman

  ‘The mystery is intriguing, the wit shafts through like sunlight . . . do not miss this book’

  Family Circle

  ‘A treat . . . haunting stuff’

  Woman’s Realm

  Caroline Graham was born in Warwickshire and educated at Nuneaton High School for Girls, and later the Open University. She was awarded an MA in Theatre Studies at Birmingham University, and has written several plays for both radio and theatre, as well as the hugely popular and critically acclaimed Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby novels, which were also adapted for television in the series Midsomer Murders.

  Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby novels by Caroline Graham:

  1. The Killings at Badger’s Drift

  2. Death of a Hollow Man

  3. Death in Disguise

  4. Written in Blood

  5. Faithful unto Death

  6. A Place of Safety

  7. A Ghost in the Machine

  Other novels by Caroline Graham:

  Murder at Madingley Grange

  The Envy of the Stranger

  For my friend

  PATRICIA HOULIHAN

  without whom none of it

  would have happened

  Chapter One

  Every night, at exactly the same time and whatever the weather, Charlie Leathers took the dog for a walk. When Mrs Leathers heard the gate of their breeze-block council bungalow click to, she would peep through a gap in the net curtains to check he was on his way then switch the television back on.

  Mr Leathers was usually out about half an hour but his wife would set her kitchen timer for twenty minutes then switch the set off just to be on the safe side. Once he had come back early, stared suspiciously at the newly blank screen and laid the back of his hand against the glass. It was still warm. Hetty had to listen to a droning lecture on how it stood to reason that nothing worth watching was on after ten and it was a known fact that valves wore out more quickly during the hours of darkness. Once she had had the temerity to ask him who paid the licence fee out of their wages and he hadn’t spoken for three days.

  Anyway, this night - or the night in question as the police were to call it once its significance was appreciated - he was out rather longer than usual. Hetty could have watched every moment of Absolutely Fabulous. It was only a repeat but was still her favourite programme, being as far removed from her everyday life of domestic drudgery as it was possible to imagine.

  Bright moonlight washed over the village green, illuminating the Best Kept Village notice and Ferne Basset’s amateurishly painted coat of arms. This was a made-up, folkloric affair showing a badger rampant, several sheaves of wheat, crossed cricket bats and an unnaturally vivid lime green chrysanthemum.

  Charlie Leathers strode across the shorn grass and onto the pavement opposite. He directed an angry stare at the dark mass of half-finished new homes and builder’s equipment next to the pub and kicked a pile of bricks as he went by. He passed several Victorian cottages and a remarkable modern house made almost entirely of glass, over which the moonlight ran like silver rain. A few yards further and he was ent
ering the churchyard behind which lay the beginnings of Carter’s Wood. He walked quickly with the angry, vehement energy that drove all his movements. Charlie never relaxed and even slept twitching, sometimes flailing at the air with clenched fists.

  The Jack Russell kept up as best she could, trotting along with many an anxious, upward glance. Tiredness or hard stones along the way were no excuse for faltering. A savage hoik on the collar or an even sharper flick of leather on her tender nose kept her up to scratch. She was only allowed to pause once to do what she had been brought out to do. A wee was accomplished hopping on three legs. And the wonderfully rich and varied scents that thickened the night air remained for ever unexplored.

  After being half dragged through a tangle of thick brambles and undergrowth, Candy was relieved to find herself padding on soft leaf mould before a sideways yank on the lead pulled her round in an awkward half-circle as they turned to go home.

  This involved approaching Tall Trees Lane, where Charlie lived, in the opposite direction from which they had left. This way they would pass some semi-detached bungalows, several almshouses, the village shop and the church of St Timothy in Torment. And then, before the money started to show itself again, there was the river.

  The Misbourne was fast-running and deep. A shallow weir a few hundred yards downstream made a soft swishing sound which mingled with the rustle of leaves in the still night air. Over the river was a stone bridge with a carved parapet barely three feet high.

  Charlie had just walked across this when he heard shouting. He stood very still and listened. Noises are hard to place at night and at first he thought the shrill, angry voices were coming from the council houses where people couldn’t care less who heard them rowing. But then they suddenly became louder - perhaps because someone had opened a door - and he realised the source was the building close by the church: the Old Rectory.

  Charlie hurried into the churchyard, stood on tiptoe and peered eagerly over the yew hedge. He wound Candy’s lead round and round his hand until she was almost choking. Warning her to be quiet.

  Light from the hallway spilled out, flooding the front steps. A girl ran out calling something over her shoulder, the sense of it distorted by gulping sobs. There was an anguished cry from inside the house. ‘Carlotta, Carlotta! Wait!’

  As the girl hared off down the drive, Charlie quickly backed round the corner of the hedge. Not that she would have noticed him. Her face as she ran by, just a few feet away, was blind with tears.

  ‘Come back!’

  More running. A regular pounding on the gravel and a second woman, some years older but no less distressed, flew across his line of vision.

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  Reaching the bridge, the girl had turned. Although the way behind her was perfectly clear, Charlie had the most vivid impression of a wild creature at bay.

  ‘I didn’t mean any harm!’

  ‘I know, Carlotta.’ The woman approached cautiously. ‘It’s all right. You mustn’t—’

  ‘It was my last chance - coming to you.’

  ‘There’s no need for all this.’ Her voice was soothing. ‘Try and calm down.’

  The girl climbed onto the parapet.

  ‘For God’s sake—’

  ‘They’ll send me to prison.’

  ‘You don’t have to—’

  ‘I thought I’d be safe here.’

  ‘You were - are. I’ve just said—’

  ‘Where else can I go?’ She hung her head, exhausted by her tears, swaying precariously backwards then jerking upright again with a little cry of fear. ‘Ahh . . . what will happen to me?’

  ‘Now don’t be silly.’ The woman moved forward, her face and hair ghostly in the moonlight. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you.’

  ‘I might as well be dead.’ The girl on the bridge became considerably more agitated, covering her face with her hands and once more starting to cry, rocking wretchedly back and forth.

  Momentarily unobserved, the woman approached quickly. Softly. She was level with the girl. Had her arms wrapped round the slender legs.

  ‘Get down, Carlotta. Look - I’ll hold your hand.’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  Charlie Leathers had been easing forward, a breath at a time, while all this was going on. Tugged into the drama, not caring, such was his excitement, that he might be seen.

  The moon slid behind a cloud. Detail was lost but there was still light enough to outline a dark agitated shape, grotesquely tall, as if one woman was balanced on the other’s shoulders. For a few seconds they wrestled backwards and forwards, grunting.

  The girl cried again, ‘Don’t . . . don’t push—’

  Then there was a terrible cry and a splash as something heavy hit the water. Then silence.

  Charlie stepped back into the shelter of the hedge. He was trembling, his nerve ends jumping like fleas on a hot plate. It was some time before he could start to make his way home. And when he did, more than one person noted his progress, for an English country village, despite all appearances to the contrary, is never quite asleep.

  For instance, in the beautiful glass house Valentine Fainlight and his sister Louise were enjoying a ferocious game of chess. Valentine played with savage vigour and a determination to win. He would swoop over the board, snatch up pieces and wave them in the air triumphantly. Louise, more detached but equally resolute, remained very still. She would smile, a cool parting of the lips, after a successful move but showed neither disappointment nor displeasure in the face of failure.

  ‘Checkmate!’ The board was tipped over and the figures, dark blue resin styled in the manner of mythical beasts and warriors, clattered and fell. Immediately Louise got up and walked away.

  ‘Don’t sulk, Lou. Fair and square. Wasn’t it?’

  ‘As much as anything ever is with you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a glass of something.’

  There was no denying that, so far, it had been good having Louise around. Valentine had been edgily uncertain when she had first asked if she might come and stay. He was sorry for her, of course. The break-up of her marriage had caused real damage. For the first time in her life she had been dealt wounds deeper than those she had inflicted. But it had worked out very well. On the whole.

  To allay his anxiety and emphasise the transitory nature of her visit, Louise brought only two small suitcases. A month later she collected the rest of her clothes. Then her books and a tea chest full of stuff that had what is described as only sentimental value. Packing these things had hurt so much (why do people say ‘only’?) that the crate remained in the garage, unopened.

  ‘A spot of Casa Porta would be nice.’

  Louise started to pull the curtains. These were immensely long and full yet almost weightless, being made of gossamer-fine fabric scattered with pale stars. There was a gap between the upper floor, suspended from a huge loft by steel cables, and the external wall and the curtains fell through this, tumbling from the top of the house to the bottom, over a hundred feet to the ground. When Louise walked along, pulling them behind her, she always felt like someone in a theatre at the beginning of a play. Halfway across she stopped.

  ‘There’s Charlie Leathers with that poor little dog.’

  ‘Aahh . . .’

  ‘Why do you have to mock everything?’

  ‘Not quite everything.’

  No, thought Louise. If only.

  ‘You’re turning into a village drab, woman. Peering through the acrylics. You’ll be joining the WI next.’

  Louise stood for a moment staring at the dark, shifting silhouettes of trees. And the houses, solid black building blocks. She pictured people asleep, dreaming. Or awake, overcome by night-time fears of illness and their own eventual decay. As she moved again, the muslin soft against her arm, her brother called, ‘Hang on.’

  Louise stood still. She knew what was coming and kept her thoughts deliberately even and colourless. There really was nothing more to be said. They had exhausted a
ll the arguments. In a way, having been through the same fire, she could sympathise.

  ‘Is the blue door open?’

  ‘It’s too dark to see.’

  ‘What about a light in the flat?’

  The Old Rectory was shrouded by trees but the garage, over which the flat was built, stood some way from the house and was clearly visible.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’

  ‘Val, there’s nothing to look at.’

  ‘Humour me, darling.’

  They stood together staring into the night. Louise averted her eyes from the sensual hunger and raging tenderness that consumed her brother’s features. They waited for a few moments then she lifted Val’s hand and pressed it sadly against her cheek. As she did this the powerful headlights of a car swept down the village street and turned into the Old Rectory drive.

  Ann Lawrence was not asleep. But when she heard the front door slam and her husband climb the stairs, she jumped into bed, shut her eyes and lay very still thanking God they slept in separate rooms. Lionel opened the door of her room, spoke her name without lowering his voice, waited a while, gave an irritated sigh and briskly closed it.