Cry of the Children Page 12

  But Lisa was five years older than Anthea and they’d never been especially close. And Lisa had a husband who did not know what to say to Anthea. She also had two boisterous children of her own. Anthea tried to enjoy her nephews, but they reminded her too much of Lucy who was gone. She kept finding herself biting her lip and unable to speak to the boys.

  Two nights in Lisa’s pleasant modern house were enough for her. She said on Tuesday morning, ‘I need to get back home. I’ve got to face up to things some time, haven’t I?’

  ‘But not yet,’ said Lisa firmly. ‘You need more time before you go back to an empty house. And you know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.’

  ‘That’s good of you, but you have your own lives to get on with.’ She thought of those noisy boys, who laughed with each other and fought with each other by turns, who had already moved on, so that they now had to be reminded by their mother of Anthea’s tragic situation. They were at school now and she wanted to be gone before they were back in the house. ‘There’s a bus to Oldford at eleven fifteen. I’m going to get myself on to that and off home. I’ll ring you tonight.’

  Lisa protested and said it was too soon, but Anthea caught a measure of relief in her sister’s voice. She said determinedly, ‘I’ll need to make contact with Lloyd’s Chemists in Oldford. They won’t keep my job open for ever.’

  That wasn’t true, because the pharmacist had told her to be away for as long as she needed from the shop in Oldford. You needed to have a good measure of recovery before you could cope with the steady stream of sympathy that would come across the counter at you as you served customers in the busy little shop. Anthea only did that for twelve hours a week, but she was conscious in her misery that she was going to need those hours more than ever now if she was to carry on with her life.

  The bus took a winding route from Gloucester, so that it could call at numerous villages en route, but today the journey she had always found tedious passed too quickly for her. A pale yellow sunshine was falling low over the hedges. People on the bus spoke of how the hour would go off at the weekend and how it always felt like winter when that happened. Anthea managed to smile a weak agreement when the woman sitting next to her talked about it soon being dark before five o’clock. Anthea was faceless on this bus. No one knew of her tragedy. She wanted to hug that anonymity about her and keep it as a protective blanket for much longer.

  She stood for a moment with key in hand at her front door. She had to steel herself to enter the unremarkable house, which was suddenly full of echoes and memories. There were unwashed dishes in the sink, which shocked her. She had never done that before; only sluts did that. The thought allowed her a small smile at her own behaviour, at the thought of her sluttishness. Sluts could never be at the centre of tragedy.

  She washed those dishes with brisk efficiency, then dragged the vacuum cleaner from its cupboard and used it vigorously through the whole house. She did not stop even at Lucy’s bedroom, keeping her eyes resolutely upon the carpet as she moved the roaring cleaner industriously back and forth. She decided that she wouldn’t let this room become a shrine. Then she told herself that it was much too early to be entertaining thoughts like that.

  It was almost dark by the time she allowed herself to sit down. She made herself a cup of tea and tried to read the morning paper she’d brought with her from Gloucester. She didn’t feel at all hungry. She’d make herself something to eat later. She’d got used to eating early in this kitchen with Lucy, so that her daughter could digest her tea before her bedtime story. There was no need for that now. She slapped her palm hard against the paper for allowing herself to think like that. It made a sound like a pistol shot. She tried to find some interest in the latest Daily Express speculations about the royals.

  When the bell rang, she didn’t want to go to the door. She couldn’t face the latest well-meant bout of sympathy, still less the neighbourly rants about what they would do to whoever had done this awful thing. But the light was on and the visitor would know she was in. The bell rang again. Better face the caller and get rid of her as quickly as she could. It was sure to be a woman.

  Anthea paused in the hall, took a long deep breath, put on her public face and opened the door. She had a bigger shock than she’d expected.

  Matt Boyd cringed in front of her, as if he feared that she would hit him. He gulped and said, ‘May I come in?’ And then, before she could answer him, he tumbled out more words, ‘If you want me to go away, I’ll understand. Maybe it’s too soon.’

  Christine Lambert was feeling the strain of the case. She had been in school today, teaching ten-year-olds in the part-time job she normally found so stimulating. But the tragedy of that other, younger child, who had attended school no more than six miles away, fell over the staffroom exchanges that Christine normally so enjoyed.

  Everyone expected that as the wife of the local celebrity, John Lambert, she would know details of this melodrama which they could take and relate to others. It seemed to Christine that everyone thought the grisly glamour of death clung about her and was available to those who chose to carry chunks of it away. Even the classroom seemed to her less lively than usual on this autumn afternoon. The boys and girls sitting attentively in front of her appeared to think that the wife of Chief Superintendent Lambert must surely bring something of the weekend’s tragic event into their quiet country school.

  She confided some of this to her husband, who for once seemed anxious to talk about the case. Perhaps John thought he could lighten the burden of a child’s death by talking to a woman who moved among young people easily and knowledgeably. After a few minutes, Christine realized that this was the reason for John’s introduction of the subject. He was troubled and baffled by the death of Lucy Gibson and felt that because his wife had always known more about children and been happier with them than he was, she might have some telling idea to contribute, which he and his team had not yet explored.

  Christine didn’t mind that, though she feared that when it came to the abnormal adults who must surely be involved in this, she knew much less than John. She said as much when he asked for her thoughts. ‘I might know more about children than you do, though you underestimate yourself – you were always very good with our two when there was a crisis. But this isn’t about children, is it? It’s about some very evil or some very disturbed adult. You’ve met far more people like that than I have.’

  She was right, of course; John knew that. For years he had brought none of his work home with him, so that Christine had known nothing about the central parts of her husband’s life. Now he felt guilty about bringing this most disturbing of crimes into the house with him. Christine seemed far more vulnerable to him than she did to herself.

  Sturdy common sense wasn’t a protection against everything, and least of all against dark happenings like this. He said sadly, ‘I think whoever killed Lucy Gibson must be both evil and disturbed. But that can’t be my concern. My duty is to bring in whoever did this and let the law and the psychiatrists decide the rest. Whether he or she ends up in a high-security prison or in Broadmoor will be decided by others, not by me, thank the Lord.’

  He wondered why he still thanked that Lord he no longer believed in. Force of habit? Or touching wood? Christine felt his anguish; when you had lived with someone for so many years, not everything needed to be voiced. She said softly, ‘You said “he or she”. Is that just your normal caution? Everyone who’s spoken to me has assumed your killer is male.’

  ‘We have one woman among our leading suspects. I don’t think she did it. Correction: I hope she didn’t do it. I must have picked up that unprofessional approach from Bert Hook. This is a woman of low IQ who hasn’t had much out of life. But if I look at things objectively, I know quite well that that’s the springboard for a lot of violent crimes.’

  ‘You mean Big Julie?’

  He glanced at her sharply. She said, ‘This is what happens when you have a child murder on your doorstep, John. One of
the teachers is the same age as Julie and has known her for years. She lives within a hundred yards of her. The gossip gets round pretty quickly when the great detective John Lambert comes calling. Julie might even have spread the news herself; she doesn’t often have anything to make her the centre of attention.’

  Christine was on to things quickly, as she so often was. Now John Lambert wondered among many other wonderings why he so often underestimated his wife. ‘Perhaps I should have asked you about Julie earlier.’

  Christine shook her head. ‘I don’t know her, except by repute. There was a time twenty-five years ago, when I was working full-time at the comprehensive, when Julie Foster might have come through into my class. But she was removed before then and placed in a special school. I don’t think she had many behavioural problems, but she had a low IQ and was easily led. She grew up in a council home. She didn’t have much going for her.’

  ‘And still doesn’t, by the looks of where she lives and what she does. I’d say she’s had a raw deal from life, but we see a lot of those in CID. Julie’s got an old car, which she’s obviously very proud of.’

  If Christine saw the implications of that, she chose not to comment; instead, she switched the subject. ‘The papers say Lucy’s father isn’t living with her mother any more. I suppose you’ve had to investigate him.’

  ‘We have. And he’s another inadequate, in a different way from Big Julie Foster. He’s by no means stupid, but he was missing his daughter and his wife before this happened. I don’t think he was coping very well. But that applies to a lot of people, male or female, when a marriage or partnership splits up.’

  ‘According to our local paper, his wife’s new man was with Lucy when she was snatched at the fair.’

  John frowned his annoyance. Items of information that hadn’t been released by the police press officer were now appearing. That was inevitable when a local crime was discussed by all and sundry with wide-eared newshounds around. In this case, it was unlikely that a copper had sold stuff to the media – that was one of Lambert’s particular bêtes noires about the modern police service. ‘There’s no evidence for an arrest, though equally we’ve not been able to clear him yet. There’s something a little odd about Matthew Boyd, but that doesn’t make him a killer. It might pay him to stay clear of Oldford, though; the local witch-hunters come out in force after a death like this.’

  ‘There’ve been statistics in the press about the number of active paedophiles in the country. It’s quite appalling.’

  ‘It is indeed. The numbers of people collecting child pornography on computers are depressing. We’re policing a sick society.’ John sighed, knowing he was speaking and sounding like an old man. He had no illusions about ‘good old days’; there had been far more beatings of wives and children when he had been a fresh-faced young copper on the beat. Nevertheless, he found the numbers of people from all divisions of society who were interested in sex involving helpless children deeply depressing. He said, ‘As you’d expect, the team has interviewed a number of suspected paedophiles. We’ve been able to clear all but one. Bert and I saw him yesterday. Very discreetly, I hope. He hasn’t any convictions, but rumours travel fast; we don’t want the local vigilantes breaking his windows and daubing slogans on his house.’

  ‘Especially if he didn’t do it.’

  ‘Especially if he didn’t do it, as you say. He probably didn’t, though Bert and I both found him a creepy sod. I expect we’d have felt that anyway, knowing what he’d done in the past. When a paedophile has a smooth and educated appearance, it probably just makes you more suspicious. Very unfair, really.’

  Christine thought that he didn’t seem to care too much about being unfair. It must be difficult to be fair when you were with someone who you knew had done unspeakable things with children. She shuddered a little, surprising herself with the movement; she hadn’t been ready for it. She said hastily, ‘You took someone in from the fairground, didn’t you?’

  ‘How on earth did you know that?’

  For an instant, her husband was his bristling alter ego of a quarter of a century ago. She smiled and put her hand upon his taut forearm. ‘You were seen, John, yesterday morning at the fairground. Everyone is upset about Lucy, especially now that it’s murder, but it’s still the most exciting thing that’s happened in Oldford for years. When one person sees what’s going on, it passes round very quickly, often with colourful additions.’

  ‘Well, the addition someone’s made this time is that the man was taken in. He wasn’t arrested. He was questioned at the fairground, in a place selected by him, and then sent about his business, which in this case was demolishing the rides and stowing them on the lorries for transportation to their next venue.’

  ‘Cleared, then. I’m glad about that.’ Christine was habitually on the side of the much maligned younger generation.

  ‘Not quite cleared. He’s a young thug with unhealthy sexual appetites and a capacity for violence. But there are a lot of those around and most of them tangle with the police sooner or later. We’ve no evidence to arrest him, but we’ll be back to have more words with him, unless we turn up something pretty quickly.’

  He was looking very worn, thought Christine. This case was affecting him more than any other she could recall. But that was probably to his credit. John was like a battle-hardened soldier who was still capable of being disturbed by some killing that was especially appalling. She said, attempting to lighten his mood, ‘You’ll need a psychiatrist yourself, when this is over.’

  ‘I’ve called one in. Well, a psychologist, actually. I’m meeting the forensic psychologist who is now a resource available to all senior crime investigators tomorrow morning. We need all the help we can get.’

  Christine knew all about police scepticism when it came to trick cyclists. She said with only a hint of irony, ‘It’s marvellous how open-minded and receptive the modern senior policeman can be.’

  Anthea Gibson allowed Matt Boyd back into her house. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as she stood back and allowed him to move past her into the hall.

  The man who knew so much about her, who knew her body intimately, who last week she had so wanted to share her life, seemed at this moment a stranger in her house. He behaved like one. He stood awkwardly behind a chair in her kitchen, so that she had to say to him, ‘You’d better sit down.’ She tried to force a smile and found that she could not do that.

  Matt said, ‘I’ve got calls to make in this area over the next day or two. I thought I should come and see how you were coping.’

  ‘I’m coping. Just about. I was at Lisa’s until today. That’s my sister. You haven’t met her.’

  ‘No.’ He struggled desperately for something to say. ‘I’ve heard you speak of her.’

  She was looking at the table as she said, ‘Have the police bothered you again?’

  ‘No. Not since I went to the station with them on Sunday morning. I expect it was just routine. They had to eliminate me from their enquiries. As I was the last person known to have been with—’ He stopped abruptly, wondering how he could have allowed himself to arrive here.

  ‘With the deceased. That’s what they’d call it now, isn’t it? With the deceased.’ She gave a huge sigh, as if she could breathe out with it all her tensions. ‘Do you want to stay here tonight?’

  She’d surprised them both with the question. He said, ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. Do you want me to do that?’

  Anthea wondered if it was true that he hadn’t really thought about it. He must surely have considered the possibility of spending the night with her when he’d decided to come here and ring her bell. ‘You can stay if you like. I might not want to sleep with you.’

  ‘No, of course not. That’s understood.’ They were like nervous teenagers, he thought, yet they now had more between them than most couples who’d been married for many years. He reached across the table and put his hand on top of hers, trying to ignore how cold, how ali
en, it felt. ‘I want to be with you. I want to help you, if you’ll let me.’

  Anthea wondered how much he meant that, how much he was merely throwing the appropriate words across the table at her. She seemed to have lost any capacity to weigh these things and make judgements. Perhaps all her emotions had atrophied with the removal of Lucy from her life. Last week she’d been worried that this man wasn’t committing enough of himself to her, had been anxious for him to become a greater part of her life. Now he seemed a stranger. Perhaps she wanted to keep him a stranger. But she wasn’t sure of that or of anything else. She said dully, ‘I’ll get us something to eat.’

  She opened a can of soup, cut up some of the bread that Lisa had bought for her from the good Gloucester bakery. Matt tried to help, buttering the bread awkwardly and trying to do exactly the things she told him to do. ‘I’m not very good in the kitchen,’ he said with a nervous giggle. ‘But then you already knew that, didn’t you?’

  She didn’t respond, but carried on with what she was doing as if she hadn’t heard him. Last week, she’d have said daringly that it wasn’t his skill in the kitchen that attracted her, and they’d have laughed together at her bawdiness. Now she was trying to think, but she couldn’t make her brain work. Did she want this man in her house? Did she want this man in her bed? Surely her heart as well as her mind should have some emotional reaction to those questions? But she moved around her kitchen like an automaton and felt as much emotion as a robot.

  She watched Matt Boyd down his soup, then set scrambled egg on toast in the place she had set for him, with a smaller portion for herself opposite. She didn’t feel at all hungry. A few minutes later, she looked down at her plate and was surprised to find that it was empty. She had spoken to him whilst he ate and he had replied to her, but she had no idea what either of them had said.

  He said, ‘I’ll go now, if you like.’

  She watched the red second hand going round on the big kitchen clock. Dean had bought that for her, when he had still lived here. It took her a full half-minute to realize that Matt was waiting for a reply. As as if she was offering medical advice to him, she said, ‘No, I think it would be best if you stay.’