Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

Except that it never quite happened that way in anyone’s life, as far as Deborah could tell. There was love, and with it came growing trust. There was intimacy, and with it came the warmth of assurance. There was passion, and with it came moments of joy. But if two hearts were to beat as one and if two minds were to think in like manner, such integration had not occurred between herself and Simon. Or if it had, the triumph of its accomplishment had been evanescent.

Yet there was love between them. It was vast, subsuming most of her life. She could not imagine a world without it. What she wondered was if the love between them was enough to forge through fear in order to reach understanding.

Her fingers closed round the stone with its two pink rings painted brightly upon it. She would keep it as a talisman. It would serve as a fetish for what the unity of marriage was supposed to produce.

“You’ve made a real cock-up of things this time. You know that, don’t you? They’ve settled themselves in to reinvestigate the death and you’ve not got yourself a sinner’s chance in hell of stopping them. You understand that, don’t you?”

Colin carried his whisky glass into the kitchen. He placed it directly beneath the tap. Although there were no other dishes in the sink and none at the moment that wanted washing on either the work top or the table, he squirted a lemon-scented detergent into the glass and ran water into it until soap bubbles frothed. They slid over the rim and down one side while the water churned up more like foam in a Guinness.

“Your career’s on the line now. Everyone from Constable Nit chasing boys from Borstal to Hutton-Preston’s CC is going to hear about this. You realise that, don’t you? You’ve a blot on you, Col, and when next there’s an opening in CID, no one’s likely to forget it. You see that, don’t you?”

Colin unwound the striped dish cloth from the base of the tap and lowered it into the glass with the sort of precision he might have used when cleaning one of his shotguns. He knuckled it into a wad, shimmied it round and round, and ran it carefully along the rim. Funny, how he could still miss Annie at an unexpected moment like this. It always came without warning — a quick surge of grief and longing that rose from his loins and ended near his heart — and it always came from something so ordinary that he never considered how insidious was the action that precipitated it. He was always unarmed and never unaffected.

He blinked. A tremor shook him. He rubbed the glass harder.

“You think I can help you at this point, don’t you, boy?” his father was continuing. “I stepped in once—”

“Because you wanted to step in. I didn’t need you here, Pa.”

“Are you out of your mind? Have you bloody gone daft? Has she got you in blinkers or just smiling like a prat with your trousers unzipped?”

Colin rinsed the glass, dried it with the same care he’d used in washing it, and placed it next to the toaster which, he noted, was dusty and littered on its top with crumbs. Only then did he look at his father.

The Chief Inspector was standing in the doorway as was his habit, blocking escape. The only way to avoid conversation was to push past him, to find employment in the pantry off the kitchen, or to mess about in the garage. In any case, his father would follow. Colin recognised when the Chief Inspector was building up a good head of steam.

“What in hell were you thinking of?” his father asked. “What in God’s-name-bloodystinking hell were you thinking of?”

“We’ve been through this before. It was an accident. I told Hawkins. I followed procedure.”

“Bleeding hell you did! You had a corpse on your hands with the stench of murder oozing from every pore. Tongue chewed to shreds. Body bloated like a pig. The whole area beat down like he’d been wrestling with the devil. And you call it an accident? You report that to your superior officer? Christ, I can’t think why they haven’t sacked you by now.”

Colin folded his arms across his chest, leaned against the work top, and made his breathing slow. They both knew why. He put the answer into words. “You didn’t give them the chance, Pa. But for that matter, you didn’t give me a chance, either.”

His father’s face flamed. “Jesus God! A chance? This isn’t a game. This is life and death. It’s still life and death. Only this time, boy-o, you’re on your own.” He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt upon entering the house when they’d returned from their hike. Now he began unrolling them, shoving the material down his arms and battering it into place. On the wall to his right, Annie’s cat clock wagged its black pendulum tail as its eyes shifted with every tick and tock. It was just about time for him to leave. He had his sweet piece of girl-flesh to see to. All Colin had to do was wait him out.

“Suspicious circumstances call for CID. You know that, boy, don’t you?”

“I had CID.”

“You had their bleeding photographer!”

“The crime team came. They saw what I saw. There was no indication that anyone other than Mr. Sage had been there. No footprints in the snow but his. No witness who saw anyone else on the footpath that night. The ground was thrashed up because he’d had convulsions. It was obvious from the look of him that he’d had some sort of seizure. I didn’t need any DI to tell me that.”

His father’s fists clenched. He raised his arms then dropped them. “You’re as stubborn an ass as you were twenty years ago. As stupid as well.”

Colin shrugged.

“You have no choice now. You know that, don’t you? You’ve the whole sodding village in a quagmire over this wet fanny you’ve got such a fancy for.”

Colin’s own fist clenched. He forced himself to release it. “That’s it, Pa. Be on your way. As I recall, you’ve a fanny of your own waiting somewhere this evening.”

“You’re not too old to be beaten, boy.”

“True. But this time, you’d probably lose.”

“After what I did—”

“You didn’t need to do anything. I didn’t ask you to be here. I didn’t ask you to follow me round like a hound with a good scent of fox up his nose. I had it under control.”

His father gave a sharp, derisive nod. “Stubborn, stupid, and blind as well.” He left the kitchen and went to the front door where he battled his way into his jacket and shoved his left foot into one of his boots. “You’re lucky they’ve come.”

“I don’t need them. She did nothing.”

“Save poison the vicar.”

“By accident, Pa.”

His father jerked on the second boot and straightened up. “You’d better pray on that, son. Because there’s one hell of a cloud hanging over you now. In the village. In Clitheroe. All the way to Hutton-Preston. And the only way it’s about to clear off is if the Yard’s CID don’t smell something nasty in your lady friend’s bed.”

He fished his leather gloves from his pocket and began to pull them on. He didn’t speak again until he’d squashed his peaked cap on his head. Then he peered at his son sharply.

“You’ve been straight with me, haven’t you? You’ve done no holding back?”

“Pa—”

“Because if you’ve covered up for her, you’re through. You’re sacked. You’re indicted. That’s the number. You understand that, don’t you?”

Colin saw the anxiety in his father’s eyes and heard it beneath the anger in his voice. He knew there was a measure of paternal solicitude in it, but he also knew that beyond the reality that a cover-up would lead to an investigation and a trial, it was the complete incomprehensibility of the fact that he wasn’t hungry that picked at his father’s peace. He had never been restless. He didn’t yearn for a higher rank and the right to sit comfortably behind a desk. He was thirty-four years old and still a village constable and as far as his father was concerned, there had to be a good reason why. I like it wasn’t good enough. I love the countryside would never do. The Chief Inspector might have bought I can’t leave my Annie a year ago, but he’d fly into a rage if Colin spoke of Annie while Juliet Spence was part of his life.