Elizabeth George - Missing Joseph

Colin flashed the light to this. It was old and rusty, quite loose against the wooden jamb that was itself bolted to the angled stone plinth that served as its base. He played the hinge in his fingers, back and forth, up and down. He dropped his hand to the lower hinge. It held firmly to the wood. He shone the light against it, examined it closely, wondering if the marks he saw could be construed as scratches against the screws or merely an indication of some sort of abrasive used against the metal to remove the stains left by a slipshod worker when he painted the wood.

He should have seen all this before, he realised. He shouldn’t have been so desperate to hear “death by accidental poisoning” that he overlooked the signs which might have told him that Robin Sage’s death had been something else. Had he argued with Juliet’s own frantic conclusions, had his mind been clear, had he trusted her loyalty, he could have spared her the stain of suspicion, the subsequent gossip, and her own distorted belief that she had killed a man.

He turned off the torch and walked to the back door. He knocked. No one answered. He knocked a second time, and then tried the knob. The door swung open.

He said, “Stay,” to Leo who obediently sank onto his haunches. He entered the cottage.

The kitchen smelled of dinner — the fragrance of roasted chicken and newly baked bread, of garlic sautéed in olive oil. The odour of the food reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since the previous night. He’d lost appetite along with self-assurance the moment Sergeant Hawkins phoned him this morning and told him to expect a visit from New Scotland Yard.

“Juliet?” He flipped on the kitchen light. A pot was on the cooker, a salad on the work top, two places laid on the old Formica table with its burn mark shaped like a crescent moon. Two glasses held liquid — one milk, one water — but no one had eaten, and when he touched his fingers to the glass filled with milk, he could feel from its temperature that it had stood there, undrunk, for quite some time. He called her name again and went through the passage to the sitting room.

She was by the window in the dark, just a shadow herself, standing with her arms crossed beneath her breasts, looking out at the night. He said her name. She replied without turning from the glass.

“She hasn’t come home. I’ve phoned around. She was with Pam Rice earlier. Then with Josie. And now—” She let out her breath in a brief, bitter laugh. “I can guess where she’s gone. And what she’s up to. He was here last night, Colin. Nick Ware. Again.”

“Shall I go out and have a look for her?”

“What would be the point? She’s made up her mind. We can drag her back now and lock her in her room, but that would only be post

poning the inevitable.”

“What?”

“She means to get herself pregnant.” Juliet pressed the tips of her fingers against her forehead, rubbed them up to her hairline, grasped the front of her hair and pulled hard as if to give herself pain. “She doesn’t know anything about anything. God in heaven, neither do I. Why did I ever think I’d be good for a child?”

He crossed the room, stood behind her, and reached round her to loose her fi ngers from her hair. “You are good for her. This is just a stage she’s in.”

“One I’ve set in motion.”

“How?”

“With you.”

He felt an odd settling within him, one churn of the stomach and nothing more, presage of a future he wouldn’t consider. “Juliet,” he said. But he had no idea of what would reassure her.

Along with her blue jeans, she was wearing an old work shirt. It smelled faintly like a herb. Rosemary, he thought. He didn’t want to think of anything else. He pressed his cheek against her shoulder and felt the material, soft, against his skin.

“If her mummy can take a lover, why can’t she?” Juliet said. “I let you into my life and now I’m to pay.”

“She’ll grow past this. Give it time.”

“While she’s having regular sex with a fi f-teen-year-old boy?” She pulled away from him. He felt the cold sweep in to take the place of the pressure of her body against his. “There isn’t time. And even if there were, what she’s doing — what she’s after — is complicated by the fact that she wants her father, and if I can’t produce him in double quick time, she’ll make a father out of Nick.”

“Let me be her father.”

“That isn’t the point. She wants him , the real thing. Not a stars-in-his-eyes substitute ten years too young who’s blithering with some sort of idiotic love, who thinks marriage and babies are the answer to everything, who—” She stopped herself. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

He tried to sound unaffected. “It’s a fair enough description. We both know that.”

“It wasn’t. It was cruel. She hasn’t been home. I’ve been phoning everywhere. I feel caught on the edge and…” She balled her hands together and pressed them to her chin. In the meagre light that came from the kitchen, she looked like a child herself. “Colin, you can’t understand what she’s like — or what I’m like. The fact that you love me won’t change that.”

“And you?”

“What?”

“Don’t love me in return?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “ Love you? What a joke on the both of us. Of course, I love you. And look where it’s brought me to with Maggie.”

“Maggie can’t run your life.”

“Maggie is my life. Why can’t you see that? This isn’t about us — about you and me, Colin. This isn’t about our future because we don’t have a future. But Maggie does. I won’t let her destroy it.”

He heard only part of her words and said in careful repetition to make certain he’d understood, “We don’t have a future.”

“You’ve known that from the fi rst. You just haven’t wanted to admit it to yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because love makes us blind to the real world. It makes us feel so complete — so much part of someone else — that we can’t see its equal power to destroy.”

“I didn’t mean why haven’t I wanted to admit it. I meant why don’t we have a future,” he said.

“Because even if I weren’t too old, even if I wanted to give you babies, even if Maggie could live with the idea of our getting married—”

“You don’t know she can’t.”

“Let me finish. Please. This once. And listen.” She waited for a moment, perhaps to bring herself under control. She held her hands out towards him, cupped together, as if she would give him the information. “I killed a man, Colin. I can’t stay here in Winslough any longer. And I won’t let you leave this place you love.”

“The police have come,” he said in answer. “From London.”

At once, she dropped her hands to her sides. Her face altered, as if she were drawing a mask into place. He could feel the distance it created between them. She was invulnerable and unreachable, her armour secure. When she spoke, her voice was utterly calm.

“From London. What do they want?”

“To find out who killed Robin Sage.”

“But who…? How…?”

“It doesn’t matter who phoned them. Or why. It only matters that they’re here. They want the truth.”

She lifted her chin fractionally. “Then I’ll tell it. This time.”

“Don’t make yourself look guilty. There isn’t any need.”

“I said what you wanted me to say before. I won’t do that again.”

“You’re not hearing me, Juliet. There isn’t any need for self-sacrifice in this. You’re no more guilty than I am.”

“I…killed…this…man.”

“You fed him wild parsnip.”

“What I thought was wild parsnip. Which I myself dug up.”