A Place Of Safety Read online

  Today Ann would have to tell Lionel. She must tell him. He would want to know where Carlotta was. But, without knowing why, Ann knew she couldn’t reveal the whole truth.

  Not that he wasn’t the most understanding of men. And to understand all, as she had so often been told, was to forgive all. He made endless and sometimes, she thought, foolish allowances for all the young people taken temporarily under his wing. Those to whom society had shown only a cruel indifference. The distraught and abandoned, the criminal and near criminal. She had always (with one exception) tried to welcome them into her home.

  Ann hesitated because she knew Lionel would be bitterly disappointed in her. Even ashamed. And rightly so. What excuse could there possibly be for a woman in her late thirties, coming from a secure family background, comfortably off and living in a large, beautiful house to turn on a wretched creature who had taken refuge there and drive her into the night? Only the disappearance of a pair of earrings which she may or may not have taken. Which was no excuse at all.

  Ann got out of bed, painfully straightening her bruised limbs. She put on her rose brocade slippers, stretched her arms to the ceiling then touched her toes, wincing.

  Lionel would sleep for a while yet. He was home quite late last night. Ann decided to make herself some tea, take it to the library and work out just what she was going to say to him.

  She was putting on her dressing gown when she heard the front door open and her daily help call out, ‘Mrs Lawrence? Hello? A lovely day.’

  Ann hurried onto the landing, forcing a smile and some semblance of warmth into her voice. She leaned over the stairwell and called a greeting back. ‘Good morning, Hetty.’

  Evadne Pleat, of Mulberry Cottage, The Green, had just concluded the most important business of her day, namely the loving care and maintenance of her six Pekinese dogs. Brushing, washing, clipping, feeding, worming and walking. Their temperatures had to be taken, their collars checked for cleanliness and comfort, their beautiful creamy fur closely investigated lest any foreign body should have dared to trespass.

  Once this elaborate routine was over, Evadne had her breakfast (usually some porridge and an Arbroath Smokie) then placed a white Kashmir geranium in the kitchen window. This signalled that she was ‘at home’ and from then on her day was so crammed with incident she had hardly a moment to breathe. The reason for her popularity was simple. Evadne was a miraculously good listener.

  It is rare to come across someone more interested in others than in themselves and the inhabitants of Ferne Basset were quick to appreciate Evadne’s remarkable qualities. She always seemed to have the time to give people her absolute attention. Her eyes never strayed towards the face of her pretty grandmother clock nor did its sweet chimes ever distract. Whatever the subject under discussion, she would always appear sympathetic. And totally discreet.

  Inevitably people started to seek her out. The most comfortable chair in her cluttered little sitting room was always occupied by some troubled or excited soul getting it all off their chest while being sustained by shortbread tails and Earl Grey. Or, after 6 p.m., Noilly Prat and Epicure cheese footballs.

  Evadne never gave advice, which, if they’d thought about it, would have surprised her visitors for they always left feeling comforted, occasionally going as far as to say they could now see their way clear. Sometimes they even regarded the people they had come to complain bitterly about in an entirely different light.

  This day, of course, they talked about nothing but supposed events on the river bank. Lack of any solid evidence did not hold back a flood of almost Gothic extravagance. Not that there was anything to go on, she must understand. The vaguest of stories, my dear. Apparently no one actually heard anything. Even so - no smoke without fire. By the time Evadne’s lunch break arrived she was rather regretting that she had no writing talent for she had enough melodramatic narrative to keep a soap opera going for the next ten years.

  At lunchtime she removed her geranium and called Piers, the oldest and most sensible of the Pekes, to her. Gave it a basket with a note and some money in an envelope and sent it round to Brian’s Emporium for her Times, some Winalot and a few iced fancies. She was out of tonic water too but felt it wasn’t right to expect a dog to struggle with heavy bottles.

  When Piers came back with the wrong change (not for the first time), Evadne put the Yale down and started to prepare lunch. She sweated a couple of shallots and some chopped celery in unsalted butter, threw in a bay leaf, added fresh chicken stock and left the pan bubbling quietly. Then she poured out a small glass of elderflower wine and laid the table. Beautiful silver cutlery - a retirement present from the library staff at Swiss Cottage - a spray of hothouse mimosa, warm granary rolls.

  As she stirred the soup and sipped her homemade pick-me-up, Evadne could not help her thoughts straying to the matter that had so concerned all her morning visitors. She wondered if anyone really had fallen into the water. And if they had, where were they now? Could they already have floated miles away? Or become caught up in weeds? Maybe they were stuck in the muddy river bed.

  Evadne’s hand trembled as she found a packet of cardamoms and took down her mortar and pestle, and her heart swelled with pity for this perhaps mythical person. Drowning was the one thing Evadne was afraid of. Once at school, asked to read from Richard III, she had been given the scene describing the death of Clarence and had nearly choked on the horror of it. Suddenly feeling less adventurous, she replaced the cardamoms on the shelf and served up the soup straight.

  She was sitting down to eat it - indeed the spoon was halfway to her lips - when she suddenly remembered something that had happened the previous night. She had been in her bedroom under the eaves and preparing to retire. Having changed into a long winceyette nightie and sponged her face with rainwater and Pears soap, as she had done since she was a child, Evadne said her prayers. As always she brought various names to God’s attention, even suggesting the odd course of action whilst allowing that, naturally, the final choice must be His. Then she climbed into bed.

  Evadne always slept on her back, her hands crossed on her breast like an effigy in an old country church. She liked to think that, should her soul slip its moorings while she was unconscious, her remains would be discovered in a state of worshipful neatness. Invariably she fell straightaway into composed and dreamless sleep but last night, on the point of drifting off, she had been shocked into wakefulness by a strange cry, loud and rather fearful, almost a scream. At the time she had assumed it was a vixen or perhaps a small mammal caught in some predator’s grip. But now, sitting in a bright, sunlit kitchen and staring into her rapidly cooling soup, Evadne was not so sure.

  She gave herself a shake and told herself firmly that, even if she had been mistaken and the cries turned out to be human, there could surely be no connection. Everyone said that whoever had fallen into the Misbourne had done so near Swan Myrren. And these sounds came from much nearer home. Even so . . .

  Evadne finished her soup quickly, placed the dishes in the sink and her geranium back in the window. When the knocker was almost immediately lifted, she hurried to open the door. For this was one of the rare occasions when Evadne needed human company almost as much as it needed her.

  Round about four o’clock that same afternoon Louise Fainlight called to see Ann Lawrence. They had become casual friends in a rather hit-and-miss way for, apart from a love of gardening, they had little in common. Certainly, Louise was aware that, were she still living and working in London, they would have been ships that passed in the night hardly recognising, let alone acknowledging, each other’s existence.

  But in a small village choice is limited and, finding someone at least halfway compatible, an effort is nearly always made. And it was true that both women had come to find each other intriguing. Neither could understand how the other could possibly live the way they did.

  Ann admired and was slightly afraid of Louise’s glamour, her tough, ironical attitude to life in general and the jok
ing, seemingly detached relationship she had with her brother. The younger woman’s willingness to fight her corner was a source of envy. Some of the situations she had had to deal with as an analyst in the stocks and shares department of a merchant bank where she had previously worked would have had Ann running to the nearest loo in terror.

  For her part, Louise simply could not believe that a potentially extremely attractive woman of Ann’s age and intelligence could spend her time day after day, month after month, year after year doing nothing. Or at least what Louise regarded as nothing. Dreary preoccupations such as pottering in the greenhouse, chairing the WI, editing and printing the parish magazine, organising the church flower and cleaning rota. Unbelievable.

  Curiosity as to why her friend came to be married to such a dry stick of a man was easily satisfied, for everyone in the village knew the story. Ann had lived with her father, Ferne Basset’s resident vicar and over fifty when she was born, until he died some twenty-two years later. His curate, Lionel Lawrence, a timid, pleasant man then in his forties, gradually took over the Reverend Byford’s clerical duties and also helped Ann to care for him in his old age.

  When he suggested to the unhappy, bereaved girl that they should continue to care for each other, Ann, unused to anything but life in a village parsonage and of a painfully shy disposition, agreed. A couple of years after they were married, Lionel, though still ordained, gave up the curacy. This, he explained, was to give him time to do the Lord’s work where the need was greatest. Fortunately there was no question of losing the house which had belonged to Ann’s mother and not the diocese. Services were now taken, one Sunday in three, by a vicar who also covered two other villages. On the single occasion Louise broached the matter of Ann’s marriage, her friend just said, ‘It seemed the simplest thing to do,’ and quickly changed the subject.

  This seemed a sorry state of affairs to Louise. She was sure Ann was unhappy - who wouldn’t be, married to such a boring old wimp? As for the series of delinquent layabouts he was constantly bringing into the house, well. Louise had made the mistake, early on in their relationship, of advising Ann to put her foot down. To her amazement she discovered that, far from being resentful of this invasion, Ann felt ashamed that she was not able to welcome and care for these ‘sad youngsters’ more wholeheartedly. She felt she had let her husband down.

  After she had got her breath back, Louise launched into some serious backbone stiffening, trying to convince Ann that this point of view was seriously skew-whiff. That the majority of people would think even accepting such a situation showed remarkable tolerance. And that throwing oneself into it heart and soul would surely argue, at the very least, a few screws loose.

  A waste of time. Ann tried to listen but soon showed signs of impatience and some distress. Louise gave up but, in one small respect, there was a positive outcome. Not too long after this conversation a young man arrived at the Old Rectory. The moment Ann saw him she felt her skin crawl and coldness drench her flesh and bones. Though he stood patiently on the doorstep and his voice was low and civil, Ann sensed a prodigious unkindness. He only looked at her once but this glance had gleamed like a knife searching for a point where it could force an entry.

  Afraid, she sought out her husband and told him she would not have the man in the house. Lionel had been annoyed of course, especially when she could give no sensible reason for such an attitude, but, somewhat alarmed at the vehemence with which she spoke, eventually gave way.

  Louise had praised her afterwards for standing firm but Ann said there was nothing to praise. She had simply been driven. At the time Louise had thought it was all a bit pathetic. Now she understood. Now, when it was too late.

  The newcomer was put in the flat above the garage which had a connecting phone to the house. He offered to look after and drive the ancient Humber Hawk, inherited from Ann’s father and costing more than she could afford to maintain. Lionel, who did not drive, was delighted, seizing on this single courtesy as the first inkling of long-term reformation.

  The car was standing in the drive now as Louise walked towards the house. Of the chauffeur she was glad to see there was no sign. She passed the tall dining-room windows and saw Lionel Lawrence using the telephone. He seemed agitated, his grey-white hair standing up like Struwelpeter’s, waving his free arm in the air.

  Louise was about to go up the front steps when she caught sight of Ann. She was sitting absolutely still on a canvas chair near the great cedar in the middle of the lawn. Louise went over.

  ‘Hi. I’ve brought you some viola seedlings. White ones.’ She put the damp package on the grass and sat down. ‘Ann?’

  Louise realised then that Ann was not in fact sitting absolutely still. Her whole body was trembling. Her lips opened and closed and quivered. She was screwing up her eyes and blinking.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter?’

  ‘Ah, Louise . . . I’ve done something so . . . terrible . . . I can’t tell you.’ And she burst into tears. Louise put her arm round her friend’s slim shoulders and Ann cried and cried, slowly realising just how much she had needed to.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It’s too awful.’

  Louise reflected that what she and Ann would consider awful were two vastly different things. ‘You haven’t left old Mother Craven off the flower rota again?’

  ‘I had a . . . row. With Carlotta.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘She ran away.’

  ‘I’ll bet she did.’ Louise had her own ideas about Carlotta.

  ‘Lionel can’t find her. He’s tried everywhere.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  After a long pause, Ann whispered, ‘Yes.’ She had stopped shivering but had become intensely pale. Her eyes slid away, she gazed over Louise’s shoulder, into the air, examined the ground.

  Louise thought Ann was the worst liar she had ever come across. The first bit had been convincing. She believed there probably had been a row with Carlotta. The girl might even have run away. But that was not all there was to it. Not by a long chalk.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Have you told the police?’

  ‘No!’ A small scream.

  ‘All right, love.’ Louise stroked Ann’s hair. Slow, calming movements. ‘All right . . .’

  ‘Sorry.’ Ann produced a crumpled ball of tissue from her skirt pocket and blew her nose. ‘Lionel said she’d hate that. Bringing the . . . the pigs into it.’

  Pigs indeed. Louise had no patience. If Lionel thought aping the young would make him one of them, he was well up the wrong tree. Next thing it’d be a baseball cap the wrong way round and a Radiohead T-shirt.

  ‘I’m not leaving you out here.’ She got up, holding Ann’s hand, hoiking her up too. ‘Come home and have some tea.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Course you can.’ She tucked Ann’s arm through her own and marched her off down the drive. ‘I’ve got a gorgeous coffee cake from M & S.’

  ‘I should let Lionel know—’

  ‘Rubbish. He won’t even notice you’ve gone.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Ann sadly. ‘I don’t suppose he will.’

  Candy always regarded herself as Mrs Leathers’ dog and knew that Mrs Leathers felt the same. Neither of them made a thing about it, especially when Charlie was around. This evening he was in the front room where they usually ate and watched television and had been there so long and was so quiet, Mrs Leathers thought he must have fallen asleep. So she patted her lap. Candy hesitated then, after an anxious glance towards the closed connecting door, sprang up.

  Mrs Leathers fondled her golden-brown ears, like little triangles of warm toast. She scratched the dog’s stomach and Candy gave an ecstatic whine. Mrs Leathers wondered what her husband could possibly be doing. He had disappeared nearly an hour ago with yesterday’s People, some scissors and a tube of Super Glue.

  We shouldn’t grumble, should we? Mrs Leathers said to Candy and they smi
led at each other, snug as two bugs in the shabby old rocking chair next to the Rayburn. But when another twenty minutes had gone by and no sound or movement had been heard, Mrs Leathers reluctantly put the dog in her cheap plastic washing basket and went to see if everything was all right.

  On the rackety gateleg table, Charlie, wearing a pair of his wife’s washing-up gloves, was cutting out large pieces from the newspaper. Old football coupons and loser’s lottery tickets had all been pushed aside to make plenty of space.

  Charlie cut smaller. And smaller still. Selecting a paragraph, a sentence, a final word, a letter. He released a rattling sigh of satisfaction. That hadn’t been too difficult. Only six words needed and all what you might call common or garden.

  Charlie removed his gloves and picked up a Rizla packet to make himself a smoke. Laid the pungent ginger threads of Samson tobacco in an untidy pile, rolled up, ran the grey, corrugated tip of his tongue along the width of the paper and lit the end.

  A click of the latch and his wife stood on the threshold. Charlie sprang to his feet, scarlet with rage.

  ‘Get out!’

  ‘I wondered if you were—’

  ‘Can’t a man read the papers in peace?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Charlie Leathers glared at his wife as she backed away. At her meek scrawniness and straggly grey hair and sorrowful hunched shoulders. God, she was a whingeing pain in the arse. In normal circumstances he would have followed her out into the kitchen and given her what for.

  But not tonight. Because tonight, for Charlie, was far from normal. Tonight you might say the writing was on the wall. In front of him were six wallet-cramming hieroglyphs that could spell freedom. He looked around the tiny room, treating himself to a good snigger at the pockmarked vinyl suite, cheap veneer sideboard and old-fashioned cabinet television. Because soon he would be saying goodbye to all this. It would be your nice fur recliner, a bottle of Scotch on ice, Players High Tar to hand and something young and blonde and cuddly on his knee.