Paul Moorcraft - The Anchoress of Shere

Marda did not want to argue with her parents, who would surely try to insist that she stay in hospital. She asked the inspector, “Is it safe to return to my flat, if my parents are told to meet me there?”

The policeman tried briefly to persuade her to stay in hospital, but she was adamant. Eventually he said, “I will send one of my officers to your flat, and ask your parents to join you there. We have set up an operations room in Shere police station, so the village will be very safe.”

Gould, who had said very little, spoke directly to the inspector: “If Marda is so insistent on checking herself out of this hospital, may I presume to escort her back to Shere?”

The inspector excused himself to speak to one of his uniformed subordinates.

He soon returned and said, slightly begrudgingly, “OK, Professor Gould, I’ll get a key from Mr. Stewart, and arrange for the parents to go there later, when they are sure Captain Stewart’s on the mend. But please go to Shere directly. We don’t want to lose Marda again. Is that clear?”

“Of course, Inspector, and thank you,” said Gould.

So Marda was released from hospital on the understanding that she would undergo further police interviews and medical examinations later, and she returned with Gould to Shere. For the moment she had done all she could for her brother, but now she wanted to know what had happened to Duval. And she wanted revenge.

It was eight o’clock in the evening as Professor Irvine Gould drove Marda Stewart back to Shere from the hospital in Guildford.

“You really should have stayed in for twenty-four hours’ observation, Marda,” the American said with deep concern.

“Freedom is enough, Professor,” she replied forcefully, as she savoured the lights, the people, the smell of newness in the hired car. “Freedom is enough for the moment.”

“Are you sure you want to go back to your apartment? It’ll be cold. And, even with a police guard there, Duval is still on the loose.”

“No offence, Professor, I appreciate your concern, I really do,” she said, touching his arm, “but I’ve had enough of being told what to do and when. I’ve been living like a robot for too long. I know where I have to go first…Take me back, please, to Duval’s house.”

“Where?” Gould was astonished. “Why there of all places?” He slowed the car instinctively. Like most men, he found it almost impossible to concentrate on two important matters at once.

“There are things I must collect before the police ransack the place.”

“The police will be there now.”

“Precisely,” said Marda, with complete determination.

The professor, reluctantly, did what he was told. He wanted to appease her, to delay the breakdown he thought was inevitable. He had served in Korea, and had witnessed numerous breakdowns caused by stress and trauma.

He parked outside Hillside, next to a police car, and a large lorry from the Water Board which was pumping out the cellar. Gould helped Marda up the stairs; she was still weak, and wearing someone else’s clothes.

PC McGregor and the sergeant on duty at the house were astounded to see her back. She explained that she had come to collect Bobby en route to joining the police at her flat.

“Aye, I was wondering what we were going to do with him,” said the amiable constable. “Nice little beggar. I don’t see why you shouldn’t look after him. But you need to leave the crime scene immediately. I’m breaking all the rules because you’ve gone through hell. So be quick, and then, please, go straight home.”

They let her into the house to collect the dog. Alone for a few seconds, she sneaked into the study and saw on the desk a file of papers, amongst them a typescript with a cover sheet saying “Anchoress of Shere by Michael Duval.” Marda hid the papers in her bulky borrowed anorak: Christine Carpenter, too, must be freed from Duval’s evil.

With a sense of utter relief she led the dog to Gould’s car, and away from her prison. She thanked the two policemen, and then impulsively kissed Gould on the cheek.

“Thank you, Professor.”

“For what? For being so dumb? For taking so long to put two and two together?”

“For saving me, Mark…and Bobby here,” she added, hugging the dog.

The professor looked sheepish. “I wish I could have done a damn sight more and a damn sight sooner.”

“I don’t want to go to an empty, unguarded flat. Until the police get there, will you please take me somewhere warm and safe, where I can have a proper bath? I want to get rid of the smell of this place, of him, of that bastard Duval.”

Saying his name seemed instantly to undermine the front she was putting on: she was nearly hysterical.

Gould tried to calm her: “All right, but once we’ve cleaned you up we must go back to the police at your apartment.”

As they drove the half-mile to the White Horse, Marda’s pulse was racing and her body surged once again with adrenaline. Despite her extended trauma, she wanted to get out and see the whole world as soon as possible. She could not believe how alive the outside was, how sweet the air smelt, how wonderful it was to be free. She could now truly relate to how Christine felt when she escaped from the wall. But she also wanted to touch things; she felt the smoothness of the anorak she had borrowed, the plastic of the car seat, and, to Gould’s slight embarrassment, the roughness of the jacket he was wearing.

Gould became aware of her intense femininity, in spite of the pain etched on her face. Despite himself, he wondered whether she would automatically regard him as an old man, even though he was only ten or fifteen years her senior. Mark had talked a lot about his sister, and Gould liked what he had heard about her character. And he felt he wanted to make amends for taking so long to put the jigsaw together, a delay that could have killed both brother and sister. Why were academics so impractical? he asked himself.

Marda’s emotions were too crowded to think beyond the moment. Gould was a friend of her brother’s, and her saviour. And because of, or in spite of, her ordeal, she felt instinctively at ease with him, not least because he was, she sensed, the polar opposite of the loathsome Duval. That was enough, for the time being. Her nerves jangled with all the stimuli which even the dark, cold winter’s night could not disguise: a car-horn beeping, the powerful colours of the traffic lights, the glowing shop windows…she could stop where she wanted, speak whenever she wanted to, cry, laugh, sing, run…Duval had missed out so many little elements of freedom in his book, she thought; he could never have understood how Christine had really felt, not just because Duval was a man, but because he was incapable of genuine empathy.

The car stopped abruptly outside the White Horse, a hundred yards from Marda’s home. The village gossips had already been electrified by the rumours of Marda’s discovery and the police manhunt, so the bar was fuller than usual. Gould’s entry into the pub with a dishevelled and now famous ex-captive, in clothes far too big for her and leading a dog, inspired a swell of excitement not seen since VE Day. The trio ignored the stares and the few cheers, and swept up the stairs into the professor’s room.

“I need a good soak,” said Marda rather imperiously. Seeming to have regained some control, she did not ask his permission as she rushed into the en-suite bathroom.

“Please would you order me some tea and, yes, orange juice, and as many sandwiches as possible,” she called back to him, a little more politely. “I’ll have my bath first, but I just want to see some food.”

“You go ahead and I’ll go downstairs and fix that up.”

She put her head around the bathroom door. “Please don’t be long. I don’t want to be alone, not for a very, very long time. May I use your phone,” she said brightly, “to ring my friend Jenny?”