The Judgement of Strangers Page 13

  I glanced at her. Her eyes met mine. Her face was calm and beautiful. My daughter. I wanted to believe that truth was beauty, and beauty truth. But what if Keats was wrong and beauty did not have a moral dimension? What if beauty told lies? Rosemary had told lies in the past. But she had been too young to know better. Children only gradually become moral beings. I pushed aside the memory.

  I walked quickly away from the shelter of the trees. I felt better in the open. Rosemary followed me. Did she not feel the atmosphere of the place? There was a growl of thunder. The rain sluiced out of the sky. Water ran down my neck and soaked through the shoulders of my jacket. Wash me clean. Would it wash away the evidence – and, if so, was that a good thing, for fear of what the evidence might reveal?

  Rosemary took my arm again – unusual for her, because she tended not to touch me very much. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Fine. We’d better go home and get dry.’

  ‘You’ll ring the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nuzzled against me, as if trying to push me into action. ‘If we cut through the Cliffords’ garden we can get up to the drive. It’ll be quicker than going back the way we came.’

  I followed her. It was easier than arguing about whether or not we should trespass. In a way I was grateful that she had taken charge. I was not usually indecisive. Indeed, I tend to go the other way, sometimes to the point of arrogance. But at that moment I could no more make a choice than I could play a note on a violin with slackened strings. The poison under the trees was working at me, sapping my will.

  The poison had other effects. Rosemary led the way – she seemed to know it, and I did not. We walked along the line of a straggling hedgerow towards a dark-green mass of trees and shrubs. The rain plastered her hair to her head and her clothes to her body. I could not see her face – just her figure, and the lilting sway of her bottom as she walked. I felt a stirring of desire, just as I had when I put my arms round Joanna the previous evening. But this was far worse. Rosemary was my daughter. What is happening to me? Nausea mingled with my desire. I stared at the ground. It was so long since Vanessa and I had made love.

  ‘Lord have mercy,’ I muttered. ‘Lord have mercy.’

  She could not have heard me, but she turned. ‘I’m soaking,’ she said happily.

  We came to a barbed-wire fence which separated the strip of wasteland from the belt of trees and bushes. The wire was rusting and some of the posts were either missing or leaning.

  Rosemary picked up one of the posts, leaving a gap nearly three feet high between the ground and the lowest strand of wire. ‘I’ll hold it for you.’

  I crawled underneath. It was clear that people had been through the fence at this point before, and I suspected that Rosemary had been one of them. I felt ridiculous: a middle-aged clergyman dragged back to adolescence. Rosemary scrambled after me. I had never been here before, but I guessed that we were in what had once been part of the garden of Roth Park. The belt of trees was dominated by a big copper beech. Among the tangle of seedlings were other, older plants – rhododendrons and laurels; the remains of a yew hedge; and the long carcass of a fallen Douglas fir.

  ‘This way,’ Rosemary urged, the rainwater streaming down her cheeks. She smiled brilliantly. ‘Follow me.’

  We picked our way through the undergrowth and passed under the canopy of the copper beech. Despite the cover from the branches, the rain was still pounding down. Suddenly the trees thinned and the rain increased in intensity. I caught sight of the chimneys and upper windows of the house. I realized where we were.

  A few paces ahead of me, Rosemary stopped. She turned back to me. The rain poured over her. ‘Oh no,’ she hissed. ‘How embarrassing.’

  The ground shelved. Before us was what had once been a sunken rose garden surrounded by stone walls. Now it contained a kidney-shaped depression made of concrete, filled not with water but with dead leaves. A springboard still arched over what had once been the deep end, its coconut matting slimy with rain. A pavement of stone flags ran round the pool. There were benches set at intervals in the wall, and halfway down one of the longer sides was a wooden structure with a pitched roof and a little verandah running along the front. Sitting in a director’s chair on the verandah was Toby Clifford, smoking a long, white cigarette.

  He saw us a few seconds after we saw him. He waved. ‘Come and get out of the rain,’ he called.

  We picked our way round the edge of the pool towards the building, a combination of changing room and summer house. Toby was wearing jeans and a loose cotton top with embroidery around the neck, and his feet were bare; he looked more like a hippy than ever. He stubbed out his cigarette, even though it was only partly smoked, and threw it into the bushes. There was another chair on the verandah. He unfolded it with a flourish. Rosemary was first up the steps. He bowed from the waist, waving her into the chair.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I began. ‘We were walking across Carter’s Meadow, and it began to rain hard.’

  ‘So you thought you’d look for shelter. Jolly good idea. Have a seat.’

  ‘I’m afraid we’re trespassing –’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Toby perched on the rail. ‘I’ll run up to the house and get an umbrella and a couple of towels.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘You mustn’t catch cold.’

  Rosemary said, ‘I’m not cold. I’m boiling.’

  We both looked at her – sitting back in the chair, smiling – almost laughing – at us. She was bedraggled but as beautiful as ever, almost as if the rain had colluded with her and brought out another aspect of her beauty: nature meant her to be drenched and glistening. Her shirt was plastered to her body, marking the outlines of her thin bra, through which poked the outlines of her erect nipples. Now my emotions shifted to another mode, and I wanted to cover her up, to shield her body from the eyes of a strange man. There was a half smile on Toby’s face.

  ‘You mustn’t let us put you to any trouble,’ I said. ‘When the rain slackens off, we’ll be on our way.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. Nice to have an opportunity to return your hospitality. How’s Miss – Miss Oliphant, is it? Jo told me about the business with the cat.’

  ‘She’s taking it –’

  ‘That’s why we came out,’ Rosemary interrupted. ‘We found some blood.’

  ‘Blood?’ He stared at her. ‘Where?’

  ‘In Carter’s Meadow. You know, the field beyond your garden. It’s part of the park, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not exactly – but what do you mean, some blood?’

  ‘There’s a place under one of the trees … Father found some fur as well.’

  Toby whistled.

  ‘It may be where they cut off the cat’s head,’ Rosemary said, her voice prim. ‘We shall have to tell the police.’

  ‘You can phone from here, if you like.’ Toby was talking to Rosemary, not me. ‘It’s nearer. And then I could run you home in the car.’

  She nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you think the police will do anything about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. But one has to try. Poor Audrey.’

  I noticed that at some point in the last few days Rosemary had stopped calling Audrey ‘Miss Oliphant’.

  Toby stood up. ‘You stay there. I’ll fetch the umbrella.’

  ‘There’s no point,’ Rosemary said. ‘We’re both soaked as it is.’

  Toby stared at her again, and they exchanged smiles. ‘OK. We’ll run through the rain instead.’ Then he remembered me. ‘But I can bring back the umbrella for you, David.’

  ‘No need, thanks. But I may not run. Walking’s more my style, these days.’

  The two of them ran ahead – darting up the steps behind the pavilion and tearing ragged tracks through the long grass of the croquet lawn. I followed them up to the terrace where I had had coffee with Toby and Joanna. Sexual desire had sensitized me to the presence of desire in others. It was quite clear that Rosemary was attracted to Tob
y, and that he was attracted to her.

  The two of them entered the house through one of the French windows that opened on to the terrace. ‘Jo!’ I heard Toby call. ‘Visitors!’

  I went after them. The room beyond was large, light and well proportioned, a double cube at least twenty-five feet long. As well as two pairs of French windows on to the terrace, there were two tall windows looking out on the drive. In the Bramleys’ time this had been the residents’ lounge.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s still a bit of a mess.’ Toby grinned at Rosemary. ‘Any time you want a job as a housekeeper, you have only to ask.’

  I hesitated just inside the door, aware that a puddle was rapidly forming around my feet.

  ‘Come on in,’ Toby said. ‘A little water won’t hurt the place.’

  The size of the room dwarfed its contents – G-Plan furniture, two easy chairs, a mattress, several tea chests and a roll of carpet. Beside the empty fireplace was a record player – a series of expensive-looking boxes linked by wires – and several cartons of long-playing records. Ghostly traces of the Bramleys remained – pale patches marking the sites of pictures and furniture. There were cigarettes and whisky on the mantelpiece. Propped against the wall behind them was a large mirror with an ornate gilded frame and a long crack running diagonally down the glass. Our footsteps were loud on the bare floor and left trails of wet prints across the boards.

  Toby was at the door. ‘Let’s find some towels, shall we? This way.’

  He led us into a short corridor which ran down to the central hall by the front door. I had been here often enough in the Bramleys’ day, but now the place felt and looked like a different house. The clutter of wheelchairs had gone from the foot of the stairs. The carpets, pictures, and shabby furniture had departed, and so had the smell of powder, perfume, disinfectant and old age. I was aware of empty rooms around and above us, of the cellars beneath our feet, of silent, enclosed spaces, of damp, musty smells.

  In the hall, the emptiness stretched up to a skylight like a glass tent on the roof of the house. The panes were cracked and stained with bird droppings. To our right, a pitch-pine staircase divided in two at mezzanine level and ran up to a galleried landing.

  ‘Damn,’ Toby said. ‘There’s a leak. I’m not surprised.’

  A puddle had already gathered on the black-and-white tiles of the floor. Plop – plop – plop. I watched a silver drop describe what looked like a curving path from skylight to floor, where it shattered.

  ‘Jo,’ Toby called, and his voice bounced up the stairwell. ‘Jo, where are you?’

  I heard feet pattering along the landing above our heads. Not pattering: bare feet thudding on bare boards. Suddenly the footsteps stopped and Joanna’s pale face appeared twenty feet above us, hanging over the rail of the banisters.

  ‘What is it?’ She sounded out of breath.

  ‘We need towels,’ Toby said. ‘David and Rosemary were caught in the storm, and so was I. There are clean ones in that room by the bathroom. Inside the blue trunk.’

  The head vanished. A moment later Joanna came down the stairs with an armful of towels. She was wearing a dark-blue halter-neck T-shirt, which clung to her body, and a long wrap-around skirt. Her feet were grubby, and the toenails were decorated with green nail varnish, much chipped. She handed round the towels. When she came to me, she raised her head. Our eyes met, and I saw that her eyelids were puffy.

  Toby towelled himself vigorously. ‘I’m sure that Jo could find something for Rosemary to change into. As for you, David, I could see what –’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Rosemary interrupted. ‘Thank you. I’m quite warm. I’ll soon dry out.’

  ‘I’m all right as well,’ I said to Toby.

  He grinned. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I’ve got anything that would fit you.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better ring the police, Father?’ Rosemary suggested.

  ‘The police?’ Joanna’s face was stiff like a mask, the green eyes murky. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘We found some fur and something that might be blood on the waste ground near your garden,’ I said. ‘We think it may have something to do with that business last night.’

  ‘The cat?’ She hugged herself and, still staring up at me, murmured, ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘There’s a phone along here, David,’ Toby said from the other side of the hall.

  I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring fashion at Joanna and followed Toby into a small room facing the front of the house. The Bramleys had used it as an office. It was furnished with a scarred dining table, a pair of kitchen chairs and a row of empty shelves screwed to the wall. On the table was an ashtray and a telephone.

  Toby left me alone. I rang the operator, who put me through to the police station. I asked for Sergeant Clough, and after a few minutes he came on the line. I told him what Rosemary and I had discovered.

  ‘Well, that’s very interesting.’ There was a pause, filled with a click followed by a hissing noise: Clough was lighting his pipe. ‘I’ll make a note of it. No sign of the cat’s head, I suppose?’

  ‘No.’ I wondered whether to tell him about Vanessa’s theory but decided against. It was a safe bet that Clough would not be interested in speculations about Lady Youlgreave’s bird table. ‘Aren’t you going to send someone out to look at the place?’

  ‘In an ideal world, yes. But we’re very stretched at present, Mr Byfield, very stretched.’ Another pause, another click, another hiss. ‘We have to allocate resources as we think best. We do have one or two slightly more important cases than this business with the cat. And – if you don’t mind me speaking plainly – we can’t even be sure that what you and your daughter found has any bearing on it. I can’t help feeling my inspector would say it was all a bit of a wild-goose chase. I’m sorry, sir, but you know how it is.’

  I agreed that I knew how it was, though of course I didn’t. I didn’t much like Clough, but I had to admit, if only to myself, that the man probably knew what he was talking about.

  ‘But let us know if anything else turns up, Mr Byfield. No harm in it, is there, and you never know.’

  We said goodbye politely and I went to find the others. They were waiting in the big room with the French windows. Rosemary and Toby were kneeling on the floor and leafing through a box of long-playing records. Joanna was by the fireplace with a cigarette in her hand, staring in the mirror at my reflection in the doorway.

  ‘Are the police coming?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  Rosemary looked up, her face flushed. ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘They don’t think it sufficiently important.’

  She stood up. ‘That’s terrible. Of course it’s important.’ She turned her head sharply to look at Toby, and her hair lifted from her shoulders. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  ‘Policemen aren’t like other people,’ he said. ‘Their minds are mysterious.’

  ‘But it could be a vital clue,’ Rosemary persisted, talking not to me but to Toby. ‘Did you know that Audrey is going to pay the vet to do a postmortem?’

  He shook his head. ‘You said there was a tuft of fur?’

  Rosemary nodded.

  ‘If they put that under a microscope,’ he went on, ‘they’d be able to match it up with the hair of the cat. Well, I expect they could, anyway.’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘Modern science is wonderful. I suppose we’d better go and fetch it.’

  ‘Now?’ Rosemary said.

  ‘The sooner the better.’ He flashed a glance at me and then a smile at Rosemary. ‘Otherwise we’ll dry out and then get wet again. And if we leave it, anything might happen. The rain could wash it away. Or …’ He paused and licked his lips. ‘Or the person who did it might come back to tidy up.’

  ‘We must go. It’s only fair to Audrey.’ Rosemary looked at me. ‘Don’t you agree?’

  Before I could answer, Toby said, ‘It can do no harm, at least, can it? And who knows, it might actually do some good.’


  I looked at the mirror, but Joanna had turned her head so I could no longer see the reflection of her face. ‘Surely you’ll wait until the rain has stopped, at least?’

  ‘Better not,’ Toby said. ‘Anyway, Rosemary and I can take an umbrella. Why don’t you stay and have some tea with Joanna?’

  Rosemary pushed a strand of damp hair from her cheek like a cat grooming her face with a paw. ‘No point in us all getting wet.’

  The two of them were already at the door. I sensed Rosemary’s excitement. I had never seen her like this before. Her body was taut, and in every movement there was an awareness of its possible effect on Toby.

  He threw a glance at his sister. ‘You’ll be OK?’

  It seemed a strange question. Why should she not be all right in her own home in the company of a middle-aged priest?

  Jo nodded, dropping her cigarette end in the empty grate.

  ‘On second thoughts,’ Toby went on, ‘it’s a bit late for tea – must be after six. Why don’t you see if David would like a drink?’

  Then he and Rosemary were gone. I heard their footsteps in the corridor. Toby said something and Rosemary laughed in reply, a quick, high, gasping laugh. A door slammed in the distance. The big room filled with silence. The only sound was the patter of the rain. Joanna stared down at her hands and flexed her fingers. Automatically, I fumbled in my pocket for cigarettes. The packet was damp but the contents were dry.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’ Joanna said, without looking at me.

  ‘Nothing just now, thanks.’

  She looked up at me and smiled, which transformed her face, filling it with warmth and charm. ‘You won’t mind watching me, will you?’

  I shook my head, smiling, and lit a cigarette. She fetched a glass from the cupboard by the fireplace and poured herself an inch of whisky from the bottle on the mantelpiece. And I watched.

  ‘Let’s sit down,’ she suggested.

  She led the way to the nearer French window, the one we had not used when we came in from the terrace. Two armchairs faced each other on either side, standing on bare floorboards. An upturned tea chest between them served as a table. Joanna sat down and, holding the glass in both hands, sipped. Colour filled her face. The skirt parted. I watched as the triangular gap extended, riding up her legs to an inch above the knee. I looked away; I remembered who I was and where I was; I remembered Vanessa.