The Invisible Cord Page 26
She found that she was trembling. Mr Wilkins had got to the garage then. But where was he? If he had come out he would surely have taken the car back home to Mr Pollock. Their Rance, Percy, and Mr Wilkins, where were they? She put her foot down on the starter and the car leapt forward.
She was outside the house again, but as she stepped from the car she looked to the right of her and saw Mr Pollock standing in the Wilkins’s front garden, and Mrs Wilkins was on her doorstep and Mr Pollock’s voice was loud and carried to anyone who had a mind to stop and listen, saying, ‘It’s bloody unfair, Jenny, that’s all I can say. I went out of me way to take him there yesterday. I’ve lost two days, you know that, I’ve lost two days. And how does he repay me? Goes off with me bloody car, and not a by your leave or can I. I tell you, it’s taking advantage, it’s taking advantage.’
She heard Mrs Wilkins speak in a tear-filled voice, saying, ‘Come in, Larry. Come in, and don’t raise the street.’
As Tishy opened the front door Mr Pollock was repeating, ‘Don’t raise the street? It’s enough to make anybody raise hell.’
‘Mam!’ She was standing with her back to the door. But there was no reply, and she closed her eyes and said, ‘Oh dear God; bring her, bring her soon, because I don’t want to have to do anything. If I do she’ll blame me, she’ll hold it against me for the rest of my life. She’ll say I’d just been waiting for the chance.’
She went into the kitchen and added to the note: ‘8.30. Please, please, Mam, phone Kathy as soon as you come in. There is trouble.’
In the street, Mr Pollock was coming out of the Wilkins’s again. Should she go and say to him, ‘I saw your car parked near our garage’? No, no she must do nothing, nothing at all until her mother came on the scene. Yet she was fully aware that in the meantime something dreadful could be happening. Their Rance was vicious, he was bad, innately bad; she had known it since she was a child. He was sly and wily, and clever with it because he was one of those people who could look you in the face while swearing your life away. He had no moral sense. That was his trouble, he was utterly devoid of moral sense.
When she reached Kathy’s it was to find her crying bitterly. ‘Something’s happened, Tishy, I know something’s happened, I feel it, and it’s to do with our Rance. He’s been going round with funny people. That Benny Warlister. Percy saw him the other day and he said he looked like a prosperous gangster of the Al Capone type. Do you think I should phone the police again?’
‘No, no; wait.’
‘What’s happened to Mam? Why isn’t she home?’
‘That’s what I’d like to know. But it’s likely the spell of good weather, and she wanted a break, she needed it. I tried to get her to come with me but she wouldn’t.’
Jumping up suddenly, Kathy said, ‘If I have to sit here and do nothing I’ll go mad. There’s no way of contacting Mam, is there?’
‘You know there isn’t, Kathy; the only way is to go there. I could do it but it would take me two hours, and two hours back, and then there’s the chance I might pass her on the road.’
‘If she’s not here shortly she won’t be coming. She won’t drive in the dark.’
‘No, that’s certain.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Wait; that’s all we can do.’
‘Oh, Tishy, Tishy, I’m frightened.’
‘Now, now—’ Tishy put her arms about her sister—‘there’ll be a simple explanation, you’ll see.’…Oh dear God! If there only could be a simple explanation.
At quarter past nine the front doorbell rang and they both rushed to the door together, then stared open-mouthed at the policeman and plain-clothes man.
‘Mrs Rinkton?’ The plain-clothes man looked from one to the other.
‘I’m…I’m Mrs Rinkton. Something’s…something’s happened, my husband?’
‘May I come in?’
She stood aside, and they came into the hall but moved no further before the man said, ‘Your husband’s in hospital, Mrs Rinkton.’
‘In hospital? So there has been an accident?’ Kathy had her hands to her throat.
‘I…I don’t know about an accident, Mrs Rinkton, but—’ the man seemed slightly uneasy—‘it is rather a complicated business. A short while ago a phone call was put through to the station to the effect that a car was parked on some waste land and that there were two men in it and one was bleeding. He had been stabbed.’
‘Percy!’
‘No; your husband was apparently unconscious, the man who was stabbed was a Mr Harry Wilkins. They are both in the General Hospital.’
‘It’s all right, it’s all right. Sit down and put your head between your knees.’ It wasn’t Kathy to whom the policeman was speaking but Tishy.
‘Right down,’ said the policeman. ‘That’s it.’
After a while she muttered, ‘I’m all right. I’m all right.’
‘I…I must go. I can go, can’t I, I mean to see my husband?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. We’ll take you now.’
‘I…I must change this.’ Kathy was patting the front of her dress. ‘We…we were going to a dinner.’
The two officers looked at her, their glances seeming neutral, without either condemnation or sympathy.
She turned from them and ran up the stairs, and Tishy asked, ‘Is…is the man badly wounded?’
‘I can’t rightly say, miss. I…I think they are going to operate.’
‘What relation are you to—?’ The plain-clothes man nodded towards the stairs, and she answered, ‘My sister.’
‘You knew her husband well?’
‘Yes, oh yes.’
‘Did you know anything about his personal life?’
‘Personal life? What do you mean?’
‘His habits or…or was he addicted to say, drugs?’
‘Percy?’ She gulped deeply. ‘No! No, not Percy; he’s highly respectable; he’s an accountant and Doctor Rinkton’s son.’
‘That doesn’t mean much these days, miss. You could be the Queen’s cousin and still fall for drugs.’
‘But…but what makes you think that Percy, Mr Rinkton?…’
‘Well, they were found on him and…and he’s under the influence of them.’
Oh God no! She dropped her head onto her chest as she groaned inwardly, ‘Oh, our Rance! Our Rance!’ But he’d not get off with it this time. In any case, when Mr Wilkins came round he would tell them…if he came round. What if he didn’t? Percy would then have to fight his own way out. Oh no, no, she couldn’t let that happen. Anyway, there was always Mrs Wilkins and Susan…Where was her mother! Where was her mother!
Kathy came running down the stairs and said, ‘You’ll stay, won’t you, Tishy?’ Tishy nodded at her.
On the point of leaving, Kathy turned and said, ‘His mother. His mother and father, they should know…His father, he’ll know what to do.’
‘You go on, I’ll phone them.’
‘Tell…tell Dad to come to the hospital, will you?’
‘I’ll do that.’
When the door had closed on them Tishy went slowly into the dining room and to a cabinet in the corner of the room. Taking from it a bottle, she poured out a good measure of brandy and drank it at one gulp, then sat choking and coughing.
Doctor Rinkton brought his wife and Kathy back to the house at half past ten. He had almost to support them through the front door. In the drawing room, Kathy, looking up at Tishy through her tears, said, ‘The world’s gone mad. They say that Percy has been taking drugs.’
‘My Percy taking drugs.’
Tishy now looked at Mrs Rinkton. She was in great distress. Then she turned her gaze on Doctor Rinkton, who was saying slowly, ‘There’s something very wrong here, very wrong. My son would no more take to drugs than he would run along the street naked.’
Tishy glanced from one to the other before she asked, ‘What did he say? what did Percy say?’
‘He hasn’t come round yet, he’s got concussio
n.’ It was his father speaking. ‘But he’s also under the influence of drugs. They found two punctures in his arm and a packet in the car. I tell you, there’s something very wrong here.’
On a high choked cry now Mrs Rinkton exclaimed, ‘My Percy to stab anyone! It’s fantastic even to contemplate. Someone’s done this, They’ve done this. I’ve said to you someone’s done this. They intended to kill that man, and Percy too, and make it look…My Percy wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
Doctor Rinkton came and stood directly in front of Tishy now and said quietly, ‘Kathy tells me that Percy gave your brother a lift to the garage. Have you seen your brother since?’
She had to force the word out: ‘No.’
‘Is he likely to be home by now?’
‘I…I could ring.’
‘I’ll do that.’
She watched him go into the hall and she didn’t move until he returned, saying, ‘There’s no reply,’ then added, ‘Why did he want a lift, your brother? He drives, doesn’t he?’
‘He had hurt his thumb.’
‘Then he couldn’t drive at all?’
‘I…I shouldn’t say so.’
The doctor blinked and turned away, and now Kathy looking at Tishy asked pitifully, ‘Mam, she’s not back yet?’
‘No. It doesn’t look now as if she’ll be back tonight.’ Tishy paused a moment, then said, ‘I…I could go and get her.’
‘Would you, Tishy?’
‘Yes.’
They stared at each other, then nodded. Tishy, turning away, said, ‘I’ll call in home first and if…if she’s there I’ll phone you.’
She went out into the hall for her coat; then re-entering the room, she went hastily to the couch and hugged Kathy to her for a moment, saying, ‘It’ll be all right. Do you hear? It’ll be all right.’ Then straightening herself, she looked from Doctor Rinkton to his wife and she repeated, ‘It will be all right. Believe me, it’ll be all right.’ Then she ran from the room and the house.
Two
It had been raining when she left Shields, but by the time she was through Newcastle the thunder was frightening, with the lightning picking out the countryside all around her. Fortunately the traffic on the road was light, except for the heavy night lorries. At one point, when nearing Otterburn, it was as if a thunderbolt had dropped just behind the car for the pressure of it brought her crouching over the wheel. When she turned into the narrow road leading to the copse it was running with water like a millstream.
Her headlights didn’t pick out the Mini until she was nearly upon it, but she managed to bring the car to a sharp skidding stop; then sat back and closed her eyes for a moment, telling herself that she would never forget this night as long as she lived. Reaching over to the back seat she picked up her mac and the battery lantern. She struggled into the coat, pulled the hood over her head, then stepped out of the car and into ice cold water that came over her ankles. She could not hear her own exclamation above the fierceness of the wind. She had to fight her way up the first field, and when she reached the wall she clung to it, then lay against it, her back to the wind, in order to get her breath.
Twice as she went up towards the cottage she was almost lifted off her feet. Before mounting the steps she clung on to the iron post for a moment; then she was at the door knocking and calling, ‘Mam! Mam!’ She tried the latch, hoping that perhaps Annie had left the door open. She went down the steps again and fought her way to the back door. This, too, she found locked. She did not thump on this door, knowing it would be no use; if her mother hadn’t heard her at the front, she wouldn’t hear at the back. But there was a way of getting in. She opened her bag and groped in the side pocket where, she knew, she would find a nail file, and this she inserted in the framework of the glass window in the kitchen annexe. With the first sharp lift the latch gave and the windows of their own accord burst outwards. Putting the lantern through she climbed in, then fell over the deck chairs. When she was on her feet again she forced the windows closed, and, picking up the lantern, went through the kitchen and into the sitting room. Her mother was here all right, the embers of the fire were still glowing. She dropped her bag onto the couch so that she could take off her mac, which she threw down beside the bag; then, the lantern in her hand, she mounted the stairs.
‘Mam! Mam!’ She thought she’d better call so as not to frighten her.
When she pushed her bedroom door open and lifted the lantern high she stood staring at the sight before her. A short while before she had said she would never forget this night, but all that had happened so far paled now into insignificance. There in the bed was her mother lying on her back, her shoulders and breasts bare, and on his side, his arm across her, lay Alan Partridge.
‘Mother!’ She screamed the name at the highest pitch of her voice; it tore up out of her throat. Then again, ‘Mother!’ Not Mam, but Mother. You couldn’t get condemnation into the word Mam, not as you could into that of Mother.
‘W…what! Who! O-oh God! God!’ Annie was sitting up, clutching the bedclothes up around her chin now. ‘Who…who is it?’
‘Who do you think?’ Her voice was still a scream. She looked down the beam of light and watched Alan pull himself up and blink and shade his eyes against the light. Now he was scrambling out of the bed and he didn’t bother to cover himself up. She turned and ran from the room and down the stairs. After crashing the lantern on to the table, she went to the couch and, throwing herself on it, buried her face in a cushion and bit on her lip till the blood ran.
When she heard Annie beside her she didn’t move. ‘Oh my God, girl! You…you shouldn’t have come. It…it isn’t what you think. Look…look at me.’
When Tishy felt the hand on her shoulder she sprang away from it. But she looked at Annie, and now, dry-eyed but the tears breaking her voice, she cried, ‘You’re…you’re filthy! You’re a filthy old woman!’
‘I’m not. Don’t you dare say that. Oh!’ Annie groaned now and turned away, holding her head in her hands. Then as swiftly she turned to Tishy again, saying, ‘It’s all right, it’s above-board, we’re…we’re going to be married, I’m going to America. It doesn’t matter about age.’
Tishy slowly drew herself up from the couch and, peering at Annie through the diffused light of the lantern, she said with slow bitterness, ‘Well, I don’t think you’ll be going to America just yet. And when you do you might have to take long trips back to visit your son in prison.’
She watched her mother’s lips tremble, she watched her fingers tapping her chin in small rapid movements, and it was a full minute before Annie said, ‘What do you mean? What’s brought you?’
‘I’ll tell you what’s brought me. I’ve come to tell you that your son’s a drug pusher. I tried to tell you three years ago, but you waved the betting slip at me. Well, now Susan Wilkins is back and she’s spilled the beans, and her dad went after your dear Rance and Rance stabbed him. But what else did he do, eh? What else did he do? I’ll tell you, he’s got Percy in the hands of the police under suspicion. Percy gave him a lift to the garage because he had hurt his thumb. What happened after that is not yet clear to anybody, but this I do know, he stabbed Mr Wilkins, knocked Percy out, then he must have injected drugs into him and he left drugs on him. So if you’re interested, that’s why I’m here, that’s what I’ve come to tell you, and if you hadn’t been so busy whoring you would have been home now where you’re needed.’
‘If it wasn’t for—’ Annie gulped, then went on, ‘If I didn’t know you weren’t a liar I…I would slap your face for you this minute and for more reasons than one.’
‘Why don’t you?’
Now Annie, her hands again at her head, said, ‘I can’t…I can’t believe it.’
Alan walked into the rim of light and to her side. He now had his trousers on, but the rest of him was bare. He put his arm around her shoulders and looking at Tishy, he said, ‘I’m…I’m sorry, Tishy, it had to be broken to you like this but…but it isn’t what you think.’
‘Stop it! Your bitterness will burn you up one of these days, girl…I—’ Annie now turned to Alan—‘I must go. I must get dressed.’ She pulled herself away from him and stumbled across the room towards the stairs, and Alan, looking towards the dark outline of Tishy, said, ‘I’m deeply sorry about this trouble with Rance, but I’m more sorry that you have taken this attitude against your mother because of me, she’s not to blame in any way. Nothing was planned. I was on a walking tour, I was helping an accident case over the fells, we stopped here for water. That was how it happened, nothing was planned. You mustn’t hold anything against her.’
‘Oh I don’t, not really. I mean, what chance would she have against you? You tried your best seven years ago, didn’t you?’
She waited for an answer but he remained silent, and she went on, ‘Fourteen years younger than her. No woman could stand against that: flattery alone would get them down.’
‘Tishy! Tishy! You’re being cruel.’
‘Oh my God! Don’t come that with me. Now let’s get this straight, Mr Partridge. Your fine manners, your smooth tongue will never cut any ice with me, and don’t, I’m warning you, come the old “we could be very good friends”, for when you become my stepfather I’ll be sick, nauseated, by the very unnaturalness of it.’