Ann Cleeves - Hidden Depths

Outside her hall he pulled her to him and kissed her, and he stroked her hair, not gently this time, but with a violent, rubbing motion which made her feel how frustrated he must be. This pressure on her hair and scalp was the only expression of desire he allowed himself. She felt the contained passion stinging and fizzing inside him like electricity.

‘Can we meet for lunch?’ he asked. ‘Tomorrow?’

When she agreed she felt as if she was in control. She was the one with the power.

As he walked off, a friend wandered up. ‘Who was that?’

‘Peter Calvert.’

The friend was impressed. ‘I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he supposed to be brilliant? Almost a genius?’

He took her to Tynemouth for lunch, driving her there in his car. She had expected they’d go somewhere in town, somewhere close to the university. The car and the hotel restaurant full of businessmen again set him apart from her student friends. It took very little to impress her. Afterwards they climbed the bank to the priory and looked down over the river to South Shields. They walked along the bank of the Tyne and he pointed out a Mediterranean gull. He’d been wearing binoculars. She had thought that was odd because his subject was botany. She hadn’t understood then the nature of his ruling passion.

‘Do you have to be back?’ he asked. ‘A lecture?’ He took her hand in his, drew on her palm with his finger. The sun was shining and today he had no need of gloves. ‘I don’t want to lead you astray.’

‘Don’t you?’

He smiled at her. ‘Well, perhaps. Come and have tea with me.’

His flat wasn’t far away, in North Shields, an attic overlooking Northumberland Park. Two elderly sisters lived in the rest of the house. One of them was in the small garden when they arrived, raking up leaves from the lawn. She waved in a friendly way, then went back to her work without taking undue interest in Felicity. The flat was very tidy and Felicity imagined that Peter had cleaned it specially. It was full of books. A large-scale Ordnance Survey map showing the area of his field study had been pinned to the wall and the way in was blocked by a telescope on a tripod. There was a living room with a cramped kitchen and a bathroom off and a door which she presumed must lead to the bedroom. The door into the bedroom seemed to hold a fascination for her and while Peter was making tea she found her eyes drawn to it. It was panelled and the grain of the wood showed through the white gloss paint. It had a round brass knob. She wondered if the bedroom was also tidy, if he had changed the sheets in expectation. She would have sneaked a look but he came in, carrying a tea tray. There were cups and saucers which didn’t match and slices of fruit loaf, buttered.

Later that afternoon they went into the bedroom and made love. Her first time and nothing to write home about, of course. There was a lot of fumbling with a Durex, which he seemed as uncertain about how to use as she was, and they must have got the whole thing seriously wrong, or there had been an accident, because she found out soon after that she was pregnant. It must have been that first time. Later they became more proficient. The sex got better too. Even that first afternoon, though, she had a glimpse, an inkling of something wonderful, and that was more than she had expected.

She took Peter to meet her parents soon after, before she realized she was pregnant. It was a damp, raw day and, although it was only lunchtime, as they drove through the trees they could see the lights on in the living room, and a fire. ‘It was always like this when I came home from school,’ she said. ‘Welcoming.’ He never talked much about his parents. They were in business, rather driven. He made her feel as if her attitude to her family was sentimental and unreal.

Her mother had made a thick vegetable soup because it was Felicity’s favourite and home-made bread. After lunch they took coffee and chocolate cake and sat by the fire. Peter had been very quiet at first. It was as if he felt out of place, much as she did in the university. He was feeling his way. Now, sitting by the fire, he seemed to relax. Felicity seemed unnaturally tired. She listened to the conversation as if she was half asleep. He was talking about his work and her father was asking questions – not out of politeness, Felicity could always tell when he was simply being polite – but because he was interested. That’s good, Felicity thought. They get on. Then she must have fallen asleep because she woke with a start when a log fell and a spark cracked and spat onto the hearth rug. Her mother smiled indulgently and made a comment about wild parties. Felicity felt the same exhaustion in the first stage of all her pregnancies.

Marriage was Peter’s idea. Her parents put no pressure on them. Indeed, they seemed unsure about the wisdom of such haste. ‘You have been together for such a short time.’ They would probably have supported her through an abortion if that had been her choice. Peter asked to speak to her parents alone. There was another trip to the vicarage and the three of them talked in the kitchen while she dozed once more over a book in the living room. She felt altogether that the matter was out of her hands. She lacked the energy to make a decision.

On the way back to Newcastle, she asked Peter what had been said. ‘I told them I wanted to marry you the moment I set eyes on you.’ She thought it was the most romantic thing she had ever heard and the wedding went ahead.

Felicity was so caught up in her memories that the sound of a door closing downstairs made her start with surprise. The bath water was tepid. She climbed out and wrapped a towel around her, went out onto the landing and shouted downstairs.

‘Peter! I’m up here.’

There was no reply. She looked over the banister but there was no sign of him. She walked down the stairs, still wound in her towel, leaving a trail of damp footprints. The house was empty. She told herself she must have imagined the noise of the closing door, but a sense that the house had been invaded remained with her for the rest of the day.

Acklington Prison was up the coast and almost on Vera’s way home. It hadn’t been easy to arrange to visit Davy Sharp this late in the afternoon. Mornings were the time for official visits – solicitors, probation, police – and prison routine was rigid. It had taken called-in favours and tantrums on the phone before they’d agreed. She parked and walked to the gate. There was a heat haze over the flat fields towards the sea. Everywhere was quiet. Still the sun was shining and she felt the sweat greasy on her forehead and her nose just in the time it took to get to the building. The gate officer greeted her by name, though she didn’t recognize him. He was friendly and chatted about the weather as she handed over her mobile phone and signed herself in.

‘If it doesn’t break soon, there’ll be trouble,’ he said. ‘The heat gets to them. It’s a nightmare in the workshops. Someone will kick off soon and we’ll be lucky if there’s not a riot.’

She waited in an interview room while they fetched Davy Sharp. All the heat of the day seemed trapped in the small square space and the sun still streamed through a high window. In winter, she knew, the prison was freezing, the wind blowing straight from Scandinavia. She struggled to focus. She’d talked to Davy Sharp before. He could be sullen and uncommunicative, or charming. She thought of him as an actor or a chameleon. He could play whatever part he needed. It was always hard to know how to respond to him. Important to recognize that he was cleverer than he made out. And all the time her thoughts came back to beer, straight from the fridge, the condensation running down the outside of the glass. She’d had the picture in her head since leaving Geoff Armstrong’s.