Death in the Garden Read online

  Or coffee. Or honey on croissant – soon there would be nothing left to eat.

  ‘I suppose it’s the telephone calls that are really getting to you.’

  ‘That and several other things.’ Like the murder of Luke and the sober realisation of what it meant to be alone with a child coming. She had never felt so alone. Cassie and Alice were receding into the remote distance. ‘Events that seem to have no connection except through me. Me. That frightens me.’

  Further back in time there was yet another connection, another person, and behind that person yet another person and even another further removed still.

  A chain of people of whom Edwina was only one, and not necessarily the last. She perceived this in a vague way without realising it yet. Tim was there somewhere.

  ‘I’ve got a job you could do for me, Dougie, if you will.’

  Dougie said, ‘You don’t take me seriously. You think I’m just a niminy-piminy young man who happens to have a good eye for a picture. I care for you, Edwina.’

  ‘You’re a good lad.’

  ‘I’m more than that, a whole lot more.’

  ‘And five years younger,’ went on Edwina steadily.

  ‘What’s the job?’ said Dougie sulkily.

  ‘Hide me.’

  Dougie looked behind him as if seeking how to do it, then he stepped forward and threw his arms out protectively.

  ‘No, no, it won’t be like that,’ said Edwina.

  From the door Alice said, ‘ Like what?’

  Cassie and Alice had arrived together.

  ‘She’s going to hide,’ said Dougie.

  Cassie stared. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘I am simply going away.’

  ‘But you can’t.’

  ‘Watch me.’

  ‘The police won’t let you.’

  ‘I’m not going to tell them. And if your loyalty to the sergeant is stronger than your loyalty to me then I won’t tell you either. I was going to, but I won’t.’ It was the nearest she had ever come to quarrelling with Cassie: a bit more of their relationship had come apart.

  Alice interposed: ‘We’ll look after you, Eddie. You’ll be better with us. I promise you will. You’re upset now, but leave it to us.’ She looked at Cassie. ‘We’ve made plans, haven’t we, Cass? You’re to move in with me. Just for a bit, until things sort themselves out. Say till the baby is born.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie nodded. ‘And Kit agrees.’

  ‘You’ve told him?’ Edwina went white with anger.

  ‘Yes, of course. And he’s coming here. We sent a message.’

  In a quiet voice, measuring out every word, Edwina said, ‘I did not want any man here. Don’t you understand: no man. It’s a man, some man, I’m running away from.’

  ‘Not Kit,’ said Alice; she was a bit in love with Kit, she admitted, and could see no wrong in him. They had not met since Kit had turned to her for advice on what to tell Edwina about Tim, and although they had not come to an agreement, she had enjoyed the encounter. It was a start, and Edwina did not seem to want him.

  ‘What about me?’ asked Dougie.

  ‘I don’t count you.’

  ‘Thanks. This is where I came in.’

  ‘We feel protective towards you, Eddie, don’t you see that? We’re tender.’ Cassie was in earnest, her hair spikier than ever. This week her hairdresser had introduced her to a blue metallic wash so that her fair crest glinted like a battleship in the sun.

  ‘The worst of women,’ Edwina was brisk, ‘is that they always think they know best.’

  From the door Kit Langley said, ‘I’ve often thought that, but I never expected to hear you say it.’

  All three women turned round, taking up without hesitation their characteristic grouping: outsiders need not attack us, they were saying mutely, this we sort out for ourselves.

  ‘Sorry I spoke,’ said Kit.

  The triple alliance might be under strain but it was still strong enough to rebuff him: ‘Men Keep Out’ was the slogan.

  He held up his hands in mock supplication.

  ‘Tact, diplomacy, all are needed, I admit.’ His eyes met Alice’s alert blue gaze, saying silently: You and I have failed Edwina there, we have shirked telling her what she ought to know about Tim.

  Dougie grinned. ‘You’ll get no help from me.’ He knew what Edwina expected from him now: he was to be on her side totally. In spite of his air of privileged youth, he had come from a poor background so he always identified with women, because he saw that his mother had had all his own troubles and those of her sex as well. Edwina’s upper-class self-confidence had attracted him to her in the beginning: he was not going to dent it now. He and his sister Laura had dragged themselves upward, hand in hand; he would not betray a woman. Unconsciously, Edwina had chosen well when she elected him her ally.

  Edwina sat down at her desk, facing them all. Usually her eyes rested upon it with pleasure, since it had been her own find, as a student, a desk by Ruhlmann, picked up in an auction in Bristol where no one had recognised it for what it was; her first venture into taste of her own. Today she hardly saw it; just something she would leave behind. ‘ I’m off,’ she said. ‘You won’t see me around for a bit. I’ve had enough. I’m frightened. Get in touch with me through the gallery. Only Dougie will know my address. He’ll pass on a message. But I shall get my letters.’ She was selecting keys from the rack behind her.

  ‘You’re running away,’ said Kit.

  ‘You can put it like that. And well advised to, in my opinion. I shall feel safer if no one knows where I am. I shall be safer.’

  ‘The police—’ began Cassie.

  ‘They will be able to find me. If they want to.’

  ‘You’re running away from your friends.’

  Edwina shook her head. ‘You will be better without me. Safer, too. The hate is rubbing off on you.’

  ‘I won’t let you go off.’

  ‘You’ll have to, Kit.’

  He nodded without animosity. ‘You know where to find me.’ There was warmth and love in his eyes. He wasn’t going to turn away from her. He was apprehensive for her, but his instinct was to hang on.

  ‘I know now what divides women.’ Alice fixed her eyes on Edwina. ‘It’s not men, but children. The great open space between those who have and those who have not. It’s coming on us, Cass,’ she said sadly. ‘ Eddie has started it. We’re breaking up.’

  Kit said protectively, ‘There’s been a death, remember. Don’t forget Luke.’ He put his arm around Edwina.

  Died a death, she thought. Luke died; I am pursued; where is there a connection? Or is there one? If there is, I could find it. Connections work and exist through people. Dead or alive there had to be such a person.

  Perhaps she should look for that person. Not leave it to the police but go at it herself. You had to learn to ask the right questions, she had not learnt yet.

  Cassie said, ‘I am totally against this.’ She did not look at Dougie but she was conscious of him; inside she was saying: I’ll get the truth of where Eddie is out of him. ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘Leave her alone.’ Alice was still protective. ‘ She can’t help it – it’s her form of morning sickness.’ She thought she had the measure of Dougie: he’ll tell me where Eddie is hiding, I’ll find out, was her thought.

  Kit turned towards the door. ‘I’m off. I’ll see you, Dougie.’ I’ll get the truth of where she is out of you if I have to kill you. But these words he did not say aloud.

  ‘Kit?’

  He turned, eager, hopeful.

  ‘You have the box with all Tim’s books and papers from his room in chambers, haven’t you?’ Unconsciously she had come to the point of asking one of the right questions.

  He nodded; he had collected them and kept them at a time when Edwina could not face doing so. Tim’s mother seemed not to know of them or care. He’d also had his clothes and other possessions. He had Tim’s diaries, but perhaps he should hold them back?

&nbs
p; ‘What did you do with Tim’s things?’

  ‘Sent them to the Sally Army. Or Jim Linker did; I gave them to the secretary woman to give to him.’

  ‘Everything?’

  Cautiously he said, ‘Think so. Except his books and papers.’

  ‘Can I have them?’

  He said he would see to it. He was tense, not pleased, but it did not matter. The vague immensity of their relationship was like a stone building, something you could walk around in. There was comfort in it.

  One by one they left, each determined they would find out where Edwina was.

  Edwina watched them go. Not by a flicker did she reveal that even Dougie would not know, for long, where she really was, and what she was doing.

  A day later Edwina let herself into Lily’s flat where her belongings were already distributed in a homely fashion. A photograph of Tim on a small table by the bed; a pile of books and her typewriter on the table in the kitchen, and the bunch of flowers which Dougie had pressed on her as she left the gallery in a bowl in the window.

  ‘And can’t I have your telephone number?’

  ‘No, Dougie, not even you.’

  ‘But if something urgent comes up … There is the Barlow picture. Now supposing Alan Yorking made an offer? He was hovering over it yesterday and breathing heavily.’

  ‘I shall ring every day. And you have an address for letters.’

  Dougie noticed she did not say ‘my’ address; I’m not fooled, he thought. You’ve got something up your sleeve.

  ‘And I’ll be working, Dougie. Don’t think I’ll be idle. I’ll complete the catalogue. And do other things.’ She was not specific about the ‘other things’. Better he had no notion.

  ‘But won’t you need the libraries – the BM and the London Library for the catalogue?’

  ‘I’ll manage. Don’t fuss.’

  Now she came into the room to put down her shopping. Already she felt at home. Lily had remained faithful to her roots and her flat was in a renovated building with new pretensions to smartness overlooking Deptford Broadway.

  The place was full of Lily’s character, full of her love of bright colours and eccentric furniture – there was her solid Edwardian wash-stand with the green-tiled back turned into a sideboard, and here her Victorian brass birdcage, which she used to keep her make-up in – all of which even smelt of her.

  It might be thought strange of Lily to have a flat in Deptford, but she had affection for the area; Lily was loyal. Once she loved you, she always loved you. Also, the house was early nineteenth century and of great charm. Every window had a little curving iron balcony, still intact, having survived bombs and property developers.

  Lily’s own, personal scent, that everything she touched seemed to pick up, was a mixture of roses and amber, sharpened with a hint of lavender and a touch of verbena. Or so one of her lovers had analysed it, although Lily claimed it was just from good soap used often.

  Lettuce in the refrigerator, bread in Lily’s stone crock, and layers of frozen food in the freezer; she could stand a siege.

  On the shelf stood the bottles of vitamin tablets and iron pills that she was taking for the good of both parties concerned. Her food love-hate was in abeyance; she actually liked coffee again: it was a good sign.

  Lily’s telephone was silent, as it was likely to be since Lily was known to be away on her honeymoon, and, anyway, she had not been at the end of any threatening calls. Perhaps no one could threaten Lily, who rose like a balloon above everything. As far as Edwina was concerned, it could stay silent for ever. In any case, she would not answer its ring.

  Then it rang. Shrilling through the rooms.

  Let it ring. She went out of the flat again, closing the front door firmly behind her.

  Lily, with her famous face, had not been anonymous in her neighbourhood but Edwina passed unnoticed. Lily had chosen her flat well for its privacy. She was the sole inhabitant on the top floor. The flat below was lived in by a person who never appeared; he or she was simply never seen, although noises suggested someone was about. Lily claimed he was a local gangster in bad with the Mafia who dared not show his face. The ground floor was occupied by a baker who worked all night then slept all day.

  Edwina walked down the quiet stairs, turned into the busy main road, then a quick left turn into a side-street when she went into the newsagent.

  ‘Morning, miss.’ The proprietor was a young Londoner, busy shaping himself into an old-style Cockney using his grandfather as a model. His own father was in prison, had been there for the last eight years and had another four to do. He was wearing a black-and-white checked waistcoat, a dark flannel shirt and a spotted muffler tied at the neck, cravatwise. His hair was pomaded down and he was cleanshaven. He was a clever copy but not quite genuine.

  He shuffled forward on his carpet slippers, handing her a copy of The Guardian. ‘Got it in special, as ordered. Not much call for it here. Like The Sun as well?’

  He knew she would not take it, and as a matter of fact he read The Guardian himself, but he was just playing his part.

  ‘Give over, Sid,’ said his wife from her corner by the cigarettes and chocolates. She would not play her part and remained adamantly unreconstructed. A punk she had been when he married her and a punk she still was, but one dressed and coiffed with considerable skill and expense. She had been at school with Lily.

  Edwina took the papers. ‘I’ll have The Times tomorrow as well, please.’ Must keep an eye on current exhibitions, couldn’t opt out of her career altogether. Her future demanded she be a good earner.

  ‘Give you one now if you like.’ He produced a copy from beneath the counter. He and his wife knew Edwina was Lily’s friend but did not connect her with a gallery in Covent Garden or a murder which was getting some publicity now. Least of all did they know she was Lily’s stepdaughter. Edwina, for her part, did not know that they knew she was living in Lily’s flat.

  But they knew she was a Woman of Mystery. Sandra had called her that the minute Edwina’s back had been turned, after her initial visit, when she had asked them to receive her letters.

  ‘I always wanted to be a poste restante for someone. Staying in Lily’s pad, isn’t she?’ Edwina had not told them but Sandra always knew that sort of thing. Sid said she was a natural spy. ‘She’s a strange lady, our Lily, but you can usually trust her friends. We’ll trust this one.’ Sid set great store by his wife’s judgement.

  Sid had carefully recreated a newspaper shop of pre-war London, even to buying some old tins of Mackintosh toffee and Clarnico confectionery to put on the shelves. From the Caledonian market had come a large mirror with ‘Cadbury’s Drinking Chocolate’written across it in large letters. Sid’s favourite purchase was a newspaper placard which he displayed on the wall behind him, announcing: Hitler marches into the Saar.

  It was a popular shop with the customers, who enjoyed a walk backwards in time although frequently pointing out that Sid’s prices were 1987. Locally he was ironically called Granddad.

  Edwina departed with the two newspapers, having paid cash; somehow she knew prompt payment and no weekly accounts were the way to Sid’s heart. In addition she was paying for his receiving her letters.

  Edwina, nameless now (except to Sid and Sandra who knew both her name and where she lived), walked through the street back to Lily’s flat. She spent a peaceful afternoon and evening finishing off her catalogue. She had not been quite truthful with Dougie because there was hardly any work left to do and she had never intended to do much.

  The first day was recuperative; the atmosphere of the flat worked upon her so that she felt gentle and calm like the owner herself, only not so pretty. A few large freckles were appearing on her face, like blotches. Tiresome. Not true, she thought, that pregnancy improved your looks, rather the reverse. At night she sat up in bed reading some of her own letters to Tim that she had extracted from Kit. But so far, nothing else. There were other letters, books and his diaries; she knew he had kept a diary; she m
eant to go through them all. They were part of her past and it was her past she wanted to study because in it must be the reason, somewhere, that she was hunted. But first she had to get hold of them.

  Her letters were happy, hopeful letters; she hardly felt herself to be the Edwina who had written them. She remembered fondly that Tim had a little habit of writing notes to himself, and leaving them around. ‘Remember laundry; Tim you are a fool to send your best shirts. They get pinched’, or ‘Flowers for Mamma’s birthday. Not white carnations.’ Once she had gathered them all up and destroyed them as ephemera. Now she wished she had them still. She felt irritated.

  On the second day she put her work on the catalogue in an envelope which she addressed to Janine at the gallery; Dougie would hand it over.

  Then she went round to Sid’s shop to collect her papers and any post there might be.

  ‘Morning, Granddad.’

  ‘Oh, you know that name then?’ He was opening a drawer. ‘How’d you pick it up?’

  ‘A friend told me.’ Lily, of course. ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Made it happen, didn’t I?’

  There were no letters for her, so she was satisfactorily cut off. She felt liberated, neither mother-to-be, nor grieving lover, not even woman. Just a completely free creature off on her own. Like a dog on an afternoon ramble.

  She took a bus to Lewisham where she entered a large, busy post office to despatch the catalogue to Dougie. Thus she avoided the Deptford postmark in case prying eyes were about. She might telephone Dougie tonight to advise destroying the envelope.

  Two days passed peacefully for her; not so peacefully for others.

  Leaning lightly on Janine Grandy’s arm, Bee Linker toured the Garden. It was a trip she liked to take at least once a week; ‘Gathering strength’ she called it. Creative strength, she meant. Somehow the area fed her imagination. ‘ I’ve been much more creative since I came here to live,’ she had said. She could not see the place but she could remember it as it used to be and she could smell and hear it as it was now. The two made a stimulating mix to her.

  She never let on to Janine how much she could hear, how much finer and more sensitive was her hearing than that of the fully-sighted. To overhear was a little luxury she allowed herself. It was a small compensation for what she had lost. And invaluable for her work, since she picked up hints and undertones that she might not have heard if her eyes had been busy.