Peter Lovesey: Bloodhounds

So honest was the recollection that Diamond's image of the solid middle-aged woman opposite had been supplanted by a mental picture of the desperately vulnerable twenty-six-year-old she had been. He remembered those times, and the moral climate and the pains and blunders of young love.

"Of course it was a shock, a tremendous shock, but in a way I'd been hoping something like this would happen. He'd always been vague about our future together. This was going to force us to a decision. I saw it as my chance to bring him to the registry office, if not the altar."

She shook her head, sighing deeply. "When I told him, his whole manner toward me changed. He told me to get rid of it. Those were his actual words. 'It'-as if the child inside me was an object. I was horrified. I said something about getting married, and he told me quite brutally-as if I should have realized already-that he was already happily married with two children of his own. As I say, I'd guessed it really, but refused to admit it to myself. I was his mistress. He regarded my pregnancy as my mistake, a hazard that you have to face. We'd taken no precautions. I don't know if you can understand this, but I would have felt that birth control in any form would have made me into a loose woman."

"So you had the child?"

She nodded. "Alone. He refused to have anything more to do with me. His attitude was that if I wasn't willing to go to an abortionist, it was my bad fortune. So I made my own arrangements. I confided in a cousin, a woman who lived in Ex-mouth and worked in a private nursing home. We'd spent holidays there sometimes, and I'd got to know her quite well. She was the only person I could think of asking. I said I wanted to have the baby, but I wouldn't be able to keep it. I couldn't face the shame of bringing up a fatherless child. So my cousin Emma told me she knew of women who were desperate to adopt and had been turned down for some obscure reason by the adoption agencies. If I was really willing to give up the child within a short time of the birth, she could arrange it. So that's what happened. When I got toward the end of the pregnancy- when it was getting obvious, I mean-I went away to Exmouth. The child was born. I suckled him for a week or two, and then Emma took him away. He was registered as someone else's child, you see. It was highly illegal, but he was legitimized. Part of the understanding was that I should not be told the identity of the couple who were given him. I came back to Bath and resumed my life. I've never had another serious relationship."

"Did you name him?"

"No. It was thought to be better if the adoptive mother gave him a name."

"And you were not to have any more to do with them?"

"That was the understanding."

"Hard, I'm sure."

"Very-but I understood the thinking behind it. Over the years I've had times when I've wept a little, and times when I've wondered just what my son was like, but I kept my side of the bargain. I made no attempt to trace him. Fortunately I couldn't, not even knowing his name."

She paused. She had shredded the paper tissue in her lap. She picked up one piece and dabbed the corner of her eye.

Diamond prompted her. "You said you kept your side of the bargain, as if someone else did not. Did the father-your lover, I mean-did he know of these arrangements?"

"No. He had nothing more to do with me."

"So it was someone else."

She nodded. "About two years ago, I received a letter from someone who clearly knew a great deal about what had happened. He mentioned the date of birth, the place and the name of my cousin Emma, who died in 1990. He asked to meet me at a stated time by the west door of the Abbey. It wasn't exactly a threatening letter, yet there was so much in it that only I could have known. So I decided to go along."

"A blackmailer?"

"No."

"But you paid money. You've been making regular payments." She had been frank, and so would he.

"He's not a blackmailer. He's my son."

"Your son?"

"I couldn't refuse him, could I?"

"Are you certain?"

"Absolutely."

"How do you know?"

"A mother's instinct. Whatever one thinks of him-and I know he has taken advantage-that first meeting outside the Abbey was a revelation. He wanted to know what his own mother was like as much as I longed to see him. It was genuine, I swear to you. We went for a coffee together and for a long time simply looked at each other. An opportunity I never expected to have. A miracle. We weren't breaking faith with anyone, because he'd long since left his adoptive family."

"What's his name?"

She shook her head. Her expression tightened. "I'm not going to say and you can't make me. What has happened between us is strictly private. It isn't illegal. I'm allowed to support my own child, for heaven's sake."

Diamond sighed. "When did he tell you he needed money? Right at the start?"

"It was obvious. He's thirty-two. He should be making his way in the world, but these are dreadful times for his generation. He was sent to a good school. It ought to help, but he's been unable to get regular work. I had more, than enough money, so I gave him some. He was living in Radstock, with no prospect of employment, so I persuaded him to come here- to Bath, I mean. There are more opportunities here."

"What does he do, then?"

Miss Chilmark clicked her tongue. "You won't get it out of me that way. Can't you be satisfied with what I've told you already?"

Diamond tried some gentle persuasion. "Look at your situation. In a couple of years you've gone through most of your fortune for this man. You sold your family home to stay in credit with the bank. You must have realized you were running through the money-or, rather, he was. You came here because you can't bring yourself to tell him it's the end of the line for this particular gravy train. You ran away. Are you going to be able to pay the hotel bill?"

She covered her eyes.

He asked, "Do you have any idea where all the money has gone?"

No answer.

He said, "If what he's been doing is legal, we can't touch him." More tenderly, he said, "I'm going to arrange for Inspector Halliwell to drive you back to your home. You can't run away from your son. You haven't the funds. You've got to tell him you're almost skint. Or I have. I'm willing to talk to him. I think I know who he is, you see." He paused. "Would his name be Ambrose Jason Smith?"

Miss Chilmark gave a cry as if of pain and thrust her face more deeply into her hands. She wept uncontrollably now, for her son, and her mistakes and the cruelty of fate.

Keith Halliwell was in his car having a nap when a heavy tread across the gravel alerted him. He woke instantly, like a dog expecting a walk.

"Any joy, Mr. Diamond?"

"Joy isn't the word I'd use," said Diamond. "Anyway, she's packing her case up there. Going home. I've offered you as chauffeur."

"Right, sir. And a message came through from Sergeant Filkins. That Bradford on Avon enquiry. He spoke to the people. The, em…?"

"The Volks."

"Yes. And it's quite definite that Rupert Darby's beret was marked with paint before the art gallery party. They say he actually complained about it when they met him at the Saracen's Head."

Diamond's interest quickened. "Rupert mentioned it himself, did he?"

"Apparently there was an incident at the Lansdown Arms, his local. He went in with his dog early in the evening, his usual time, for a quick drink. On the way out, some merchant banker was playing about with what Rupert took to be a tin of hairspray."

"Merchant banker?"

"Rhyming slang, sir. Rupert's expression."

After a moment's thought, Diamond responded with a distinct note of affection, "I can hear him saying it in his plummy accent, too."