Till We Meet Again

  ‘It’s been a bit of a gruelling day,’ he said, then went on to tell her about his interview with Mary Fremantle. Then he showed her the picture of Zoë.

  ‘Wow!’ Beth exclaimed. ‘I think any woman would feel dejected being replaced by her.’

  ‘I personally can’t see what a girl like that would see in Reuben and a commune for weirdos,’ Roy said. ‘The only thing that springs to mind is that she thought he had money. Anyway, later on I spoke to the minister of the church where Susan met Reuben, his name is Peter Langdon. A good man, I’d say, caring and committed. He remembered Susan well, but he hadn’t connected her with the shooting and was very shocked. He said he found it totally out of character as she was such a gentle, shy woman. But his views on Reuben were much harsher, he said he’d had his suspicions that the man was some kind of confidence trickster, but he’d never managed to get any proof. He also wasn’t aware Susan had gone off with him.’

  ‘Would he be prepared to act as a character witness for Susan, do you think?’ Beth asked.

  ‘Without a doubt,’ Roy nodded. ‘He even offered to go and visit her. He’s a very sincere and genuine man. But the good news is that he had a photo of Reuben. It was taken at one of the church’s little parties.’

  Roy pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to Beth.

  She laughed, for he looked even worse than she’d imagined, with his long, gaunt face, his greying hair tied back in a pony-tail, and a rather ostentatious embroidered sleeveless jacket over a Nehru-style shirt.

  ‘He looks like a creep,’ she said. ‘I’ve always had an aversion to middle-aged men who try to look trendy. But I suppose he fits the bill as a “psychic healer”.’

  Roy smiled. ‘Peter Langdon was appalled that he called himself that. He didn’t recognize Zoë from her photograph, so it looks as if Reuben met her elsewhere. Maybe Susan will know where, and when.’

  ‘She didn’t even tell me or Steven about Zoë,’ Beth said with a frown. ‘She said there was a new woman, but nothing more. Why do you think that was?’

  ‘The same reason she didn’t tell you Liam dumped her,’ Roy said. ‘Pride maybe, not wanting to admit, even to herself, that she’d been had.’

  ‘Poor Susan.’ Beth sighed. ‘So much bad luck and unhappiness. Let’s hope it breaks for her soon, and we can at least find Reuben to stand as witness.’

  ‘We’ll be applying for permission to access to his bank account tomorrow,’ Roy said. ‘That should give us a lead as to where he is.’

  Beth looked sharply at him. ‘Do I hear the “We” as in police investigation?’

  Roy looked a bit sheepish. ‘Yes. We need to pull him in and ask him a few questions.’

  On Wednesday evening Roy called round at Beth’s place on his way home from work. ‘Sorry to barge in uninvited,’ he said as she let him in. ‘But I thought you’d like to know we checked Reuben’s bank account today.’

  ‘And?’ she said.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t touched it since April ‘93.’

  Beth made him a cup of coffee as she listened.

  ‘He had a credit balance of some two thousand pounds then. We looked back over the previous year and found he’d paid sums of two or three hundred into it about every four or five weeks. I assume that was money from the craft workshop. He had monthly direct debits set up for the council tax, electricity and a credit card. Those have been met every month. But there have been no other withdrawals at all, and no credits. At present there is a credit balance of around two hundred and fifty pounds.’

  Beth handed Roy his coffee. ‘I don’t see what you’re getting at,’ she said, puzzled by the way he’d rapped it out. ‘What’s wrong with that? He couldn’t pay money in if he wasn’t getting any from selling his goods.’

  ‘Or maybe he can’t because he’s dead,’ Roy said darkly.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ She laughed lightly. ‘The bank wouldn’t be meeting his bills.’

  ‘They would unless they were informed of his death. Direct debits just go on and on until someone cancels them, or there’s no money left in the account to cover them.’

  ‘He might have another account. Lots of people have one they use for regular stuff, and another just for spending.’

  ‘That’s true. But up until he paid in the last sum, he seemed to use that account for everything. There was a record of food in supermarkets paid for by cheque. Petrol, clothes, all sorts. They even checked back and found the record of the cheque from the auctioneers in Clifton from the sale of Susan’s effects.’

  ‘Of course he’s alive,’ Beth said sharply. ‘I bet he shot off abroad. It shows he was a pretty responsible person to leave money behind for regular payments.’

  ‘Absolutely everything about that bank account showed a responsible person,’ Roy agreed. ‘So you tell me why a careful and canny man, who we already know wasn’t altruistic at all, would allow people to stay on in his house, rent free, using his electricity, unconcerned if they let the place fall into rack and ruin.’

  ‘Maybe the people he left there were supposed to be paying rent?’ she said.

  ‘You said that the people living mere now don’t even know him!’

  There was a harsh note to Roy’s voice that implied even more than he was saying. All at once Beth realized he wasn’t just sounding off a few ideas on her, he had thought this through and had drawn his own conclusions.

  ‘You really do think he’s dead. Don’t you?’ she gasped.

  Roy frowned. ‘I can’t see any other explanation, Beth. Reuben bought that house over twelve years ago. Aside from shooting off for a while every now and again, he’s lived in it, got repairs done, built up a business of sorts from there. Who but a complete fool would go off for over two years and leave it at the not so tender mercies of a bunch of travellers?’

  ‘He might have met his Waterloo with Zoë,’ Beth suggested. ‘She’s young, wild, from a good background, probably as sexy as hell. That’s enough to make any middle-aged man lose his grip.’

  ‘I really hope that’s what it is and they’re holed up in Thailand or somewhere, doing drug deals or something that’s made the place in Wales look like chicken-feed,’ he said with a faint grin. ‘But somehow I just don’t think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  Roy shrugged. ‘Well, if he was doing well wherever he was and didn’t want to come back, he would have rung an estate agent and put that place on the market. You said yourself it’s in a beautiful spot – even if the house is crumbling, the land is worth a lot.

  ‘If things weren’t going well he’d have come back by now surely? As for Zoë, the same thing applies. She’d have rung her parents if all was well, and asked for help if it wasn’t.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Beth argued. ‘Her father might be as big a pig as mine. She might have left Reuben ages ago and taken up with someone else. Young girls aren’t predictable.’

  ‘All females are unpredictable,’ he said, and sighed. ‘Especially you. I had expected you’d see the significance in all this immediately.’

  ‘What?’ she asked, frowning at him. ‘What am I supposed to have seen?’

  ‘Murder?’

  ‘You think those travellers staying in the house could have bumped Reuben off?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘That’s one possibility,’ Roy said. ‘Reuben could have come back, got stroppy with that lot for being in his house, a fight broke out and Bob’s your uncle. Tom Whelon, the man who hit you, has a string of convictions behind him, everything from drugs to assault. Heaven only knows what we’ll uncover when we check through the rest.’

  An unpleasant cold and creepy feeling ran down Beth’s spine. ‘You’re including Susan as a suspect too, aren’t you?’ she exclaimed. ‘No, Roy! She couldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Why not?’ he replied quietly, his dark eyes looking right into hers. ‘You know the old saying, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” ’

  Angry tears welled up in B
eth’s eyes. ‘I thought you believed in her!’ she retorted, raising her voice. ‘You sympathized because of Annabel. How could you think this now?’

  ‘Because I’m a policeman,’ he said gently. ‘I’m not saying it was Susan, I haven’t even got any proof yet that Reuben and Zoë are dead. All I’ve got is a hunch. But most investigations start with just that.’

  He reached out for her, pulling her into his arms. ‘You must have had almost as many clients who have fooled you as I’ve had people I’ve interviewed and believed innocent. I don’t know about you, but it always makes me feel disappointed, and a little stupid. But this is different, Beth, you can’t be detached about this because Susan is all tied up with your childhood, you feel she is part of you, like a sister.’

  Beth sobbed against his shoulder.

  Roy hugged her tighter. ‘This probably isn’t the right moment to tell you, but I love you,’ he whispered, his lips against her neck. ‘I think I’d even turn away from an investigation if you asked me to.’

  Beth was astounded by what he’d said. She lifted her head to look at him. She could see by the resolute set of his mouth that he meant both things.

  ‘I wouldn’t ever ask you to do that, and you know it,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘You’d better go now, Roy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why,’ she said firmly. ‘Susan might not be my client any more, but I’m still very involved in the case and with her. I can’t run with the hare and the hounds. And neither can you. So don’t contact me again until you’ve done whatever you’ve got to do.’

  He looked stricken, every line on his face sagging. ‘No, Beth, please don’t say that,’ he pleaded.

  ‘I have to, Roy,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Surely I don’t need to spell it out to you, a policeman? I’ve already told you things about Susan that I shouldn’t have done. I’ve unwittingly led you to another possible crime. I won’t betray my old friend any further than I already have done.’

  ‘But I thought we had something special,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

  ‘I thought so too,’ she said sadly. ‘I didn’t think it would be our jobs that came between us.’

  Chapter fifteen

  Beth walked wearily into the office the following morning, having hardly slept a wink all night. Roy was a good policeman, intuitive and shrewd, she knew that he wouldn’t even think of embarking on an investigation into Reuben and Zoë’s disappearance unless he was pretty certain a serious crime had been committed.

  By now he would be discussing it with his governor, and before long Susan would be questioned again. This time every aspect of her time in Wales would come under scrutiny.

  ‘You look a bit rough today! Are you all right?’

  Beth looked up at Steven’s voice to see him coming down the stairs. He had his overcoat on and his briefcase in his hand and was obviously going off to court.

  ‘I’ve got something very important to tell you,’ she said in a low voice. The door to the typing pool was open and she didn’t want them to hear anything. ‘But it looks like you’re off to court?’

  ‘I can spare five or ten minutes,’ he said, looking at her anxiously. ‘Is that long enough?’

  ‘Enough for the bare bones,’ she said. ‘And that’s quite apt under the circumstances.’

  They went back up to his office, and the moment the door was closed, Beth blurted it all out.

  Steven’s face blanched. ‘Oh, shit!’ he exclaimed. ‘God almighty, Beth, do you think he could be right?’

  ‘I think he might be right in that Reuben’s dead, but I can’t believe Susan had anything to do with it,’ she said, her lips trembling. ‘I wish I’d never gone poking around over in Wales now, I wish I hadn’t enlisted Roy’s help in checking out that girl. I feel as if I’ve sold my old friend down the river to my new friend the policeman.’

  Steven put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. ‘You can’t look at it that way, Beth. Maybe you speeded things up by telling Roy what you’d heard. But the chances are the Welsh police would have gone down the same route eventually.’

  ‘Susan’s not going to see it like that,’ she said, looking into Steven’s eyes. ‘She’s going to think I’m responsible for renewed police interest in her.’

  ‘She’ll have nothing to fear if she knows nothing about Reuben’s disappearance,’ Steven said. He glanced at his watch. ‘Look, I must go now. Keep your chin up. I’ll see you at lunch-time.’

  Beth had a free half-hour with no clients later that morning. Although she had a great deal of correspondence to catch up on, she ignored it and stood at the window, staring out at the garden in the square below. It looked as bleak as she felt, refuse blowing around, getting caught on the bare branches of the trees, even the grass was all worn and muddy.

  Roy had told her he loved her last night. She ought to be happy about that, because she had no doubt she was in love with him too, but how could she be happy with something like this standing between them?

  Her whole life seemed to have been like this, moments that should have been joyful spoilt by something from the past. Graduation day was one. Because she didn’t want her father coming, she didn’t tell anyone when it was, not even Robert and Serena. She had received a first-class honours degree, but she was the only student there with no one to see her accept it. She’d slunk away while everyone was taking photographs of family groups and gone back to her bedsitter, to cry instead of to celebrate.

  When Robert’s first son was born, she rushed to the hospital to see her new nephew, full of excitement. She walked into the ward, only to see her father sitting by the cot, and she had to back out without a word for fear of spoiling the moment for Robert and his wife.

  But it wasn’t always her father who ruined things, mostly she just brought it on herself. She didn’t have friends, male or female, to share special occasions with, because she hadn’t known how to let people into her life and keep them there. So many times in the past she’d been scornful of Serena because it seemed she wasted so much valuable time phoning friends for a chat, squeezing meeting someone for coffee or lunch into an already packed diary. Serena hated to miss anyone’s birthday, she was there for them if they were sick or lonely. Her Christmas card list ran into four pages, and she spent a fortune on presents and throwing parties.

  Beth could see now, thanks to Steven pushing his way into her life, that she had in fact been punishing rather than protecting herself, by holding everyone at arm’s length. She’d give anything right now to have a girlfriend she could call up. Not to pour her heart out to necessarily, but to arrange a shopping trip, someone to have a laugh and a chat with. Just light-hearted silliness, the way it used to be with Susan.

  She could see them that last summer they spent together, at the dance in the church hall. Suzie was in the tight red dress she’d bought that afternoon, which she knew her parents wouldn’t approve of, Beth was in the emerald-green one that Aunt Rose had run up for her. They had danced together constantly rather than taking the risk of sitting down and looking as if they hoped boys would ask them to dance. Suzie was really good at The Shake – she managed to look sexy while Beth feared she looked more like an electronic scarecrow with a twitch.

  ‘The wallflowers,’ she murmured to herself. Neither of them had really believed that’s what they’d be, it was just bravado to cover up their nervousness. Tall, skinny Beth and short, plump Suzie, two fifteen-year-old misfits who really believed it was only a matter of time before they woke up one day to find themselves beautiful women who would take the world by storm.

  Yet fate had made them wallflowers. They put their roots down in the confines of the rocky places they both knew best, and stayed there. For Suzie that was entrapment within her family, for Beth it was learning. And like flowers that depend on the quality of the soil and the right weather conditions, how could either of them grow into something of beauty? Suzie had no outside stimulus, she led a barren life of servitude. B
eth had her roots poisoned by the rape, robbing her of any joy that would make her grow.

  Beth sighed deeply, leaning her forehead against the cold glass of the window and thinking of the wallflowers which had clung to crevices in the wall around the old kitchen garden at Copper Beeches. Each year they grew more scrawny and weed-like, the once vibrant colours gradually fading to a sickly yellow, the perfume gone.

  She should never have discussed Susan and her case with Roy, it was totally unprofessional. She felt ashamed she’d gone to Luddington to look for Liam with him, and even more angry with herself for asking him to check on Zoë Fremantle. Why couldn’t she have anticipated that it might cause a conflict of interests?

  She couldn’t blame Roy, he wouldn’t have been much of a policeman if he hadn’t followed up suspicious-looking leads. The only thing she could do was to tell him she couldn’t see him again until his investigation was over. But doing the right and honourable thing wasn’t any comfort. She felt heart-sick and so alone.

  It was another two weeks before Beth drove out to Eastwood Park to see Susan again. Roy and another police officer had interviewed her a couple of days earlier, with Steven present. Steven had said it wasn’t a heavy kind of interview, Roy made his questions about Susan’s time in Wales sound as if it was just part of the original investigation. But Steven had said that although Susan was very convincing when she told them that she left Wales while Reuben and Zoë were away from Hill House and that she had never gone back there or seen either of them again, the dates she gave didn’t tally with her taking the room in Belle Vue.

  Roy had contacted her old landlord, and he claimed she had taken the room almost a fortnight after she was supposed to have left Wales. When questioned about this, Susan insisted the man was mistaken.

  When Roy asked her about Liam, she did finally admit that she had known he wasn’t going to join her in Bristol, which was why she didn’t leave her address with the neighbours, but as she pointed out, that was nobody’s business but her own.