They had spent the rest of the journey together. He had been going on a course at the LSE, she to take a few days leave with her sister, who lived in Islington with her civil servant husband. Simon had telephoned within minutes of her arriving at her sister’s home and Rose had been waiting for the call, while at the same time telling herself resolutely that she would never hear from him again. They had spent the next evening together, and the evening after that, and the evening after that. Indeed they had not really been apart since.
Rose had always felt that their meeting sounded like something out of a bad Mills and Boon novel. Nonetheless it never ceased to give her warm glow to remember it. And she quite enjoyed telling new acquaintances, who asked the inevitable question of how she and her husband had met, that she had jumped on him aboard an Inter City express train.
Simon propped himself on one elbow and used the hand with which he had been attempting to brush his hair out of his face to rub his eyes. Rose smiled at him warmly, still locked in the memory of their splendid beginning and forgetting for a moment all the tensions which had latterly entered their relationship.
But there was small chance, it seemed, of Simon, whose smile she still so enjoyed, smiling back at her. His lips were set in that sulky line she had become increasingly more familiar with.
‘For God’s sake,’ he said irritably. ‘First you bloody wreck my party and then you wreck my night’s sleep. Couldn’t you have gone into the spare room?’
She flinched away from him. For a brief moment, she had been thinking, in spite of her extreme tiredness, how nice it would be to make love to him, to cuddle up to his warm body and let him sleepily explore hers. Their love-making was still good, although not as frequent as it used to be. It could be sometimes earthy and urgent and sometimes gentle and sweet and undemanding. The latter was what she would have liked then — but she patently wasn’t going to get it.
She did understand his irritation. Simon was disappointed. He felt let down. The party had been important to him. And she had undoubtedly jerked him awake into that uncomfortable limbo when you were still a bit drunk but the hangover was beginning too.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. And she meant it, although not enough to actually regret what she had done. To her it had been the only possible course of action.
He did not reply, but merely turned his back and seemed to fall almost immediately asleep once more. Again in spite of her exhaustion, she lay awake for a few minutes.
It would be all right in the morning, she assured herself, it usually was. Simon would forgive her, he usually did. He still loved her, she had no doubt about that. And she still loved him. It was just that they were so different. They didn’t seem to want the same things or even want to do the same things. She loved almost all sports, both playing and watching. He hated sport. They appreciated different kinds of music, read different sorts of books, enjoyed different films and TV programmes. And, perhaps most devastatingly, they rarely even liked the same people. But you don’t think about things like that when you fall in love. Not the way she and Simon had fallen in love.
Fleetingly she wondered if Simon had ever strayed. Goodness knows, he was attractive enough not to be short of opportunity, and sometimes she thought she wouldn’t altogether blame him. He was a modem, liberal-minded man, but he still wanted a wife. And she was only barely that. She had at least been faithful to him — so far. But occasionally — particularly after solving a difficult case — she had to admit that she had been tempted. She had always enjoyed sex, yet, perhaps curiously even though she had been only twenty-four, had not had a single serious relationship with a man before Simon. Her ambition in her career had, of course been part of the reason for that — she had never seemed to have the time. But that wasn’t all of it.
As a young single woman Rose had relished the thrill of sex without ties and of quite casual one-night stands too. She had often been told that was unusual in a woman — but that, of course, had always been by a man.
Even thinking that way made her feel disloyal, as if she was betraying the man she loved. She resolved that she would make it all up to him. That she would show him how much she loved him. Maybe even try for the child Simon so wanted.
But all of that, naturally, would have to wait until her current big case was over. When you were heading a murder enquiry you could not let yourself worry about anything else. You had to clear your mind and your desk of all except the case in hand. You could not carry baggage.
Rose Piper’s last conscious thoughts before she sank into much-needed oblivion were not of her husband, but of the murder investigation she had been placed in charge of. Who was Mrs Pattinson, she wondered? Almost certainly that was not her real name. And where was she? Was Mrs Pattinson really the killer? And would she strike again?
One thing Rose knew for certain. She had to find her.
Eight
Constance and Freddie were sitting at the kitchen table together drinking coffee and watching breakfast television. The discovery of the body of a young man in the grounds of a Bristol hotel was just a brief item. Few details were given but the bulletin identified the Crescent Hotel and showed a quick shot of it. The young man was not named. Next of kin had yet to be informed.
‘God, Bristol’s getting like Chicago nowadays,’ remarked Freddie cheerily.
Constance put her coffee mug down carefully on the table.
‘Right, I must get on,’ said Freddie in a determined voice. ‘We’ve got the milk tester again. Blasted EEC. If it’s not one regulation it’s another nowadays.’ He looked out of the window. Another wet day. ‘Wish they could regulate the weather. We couldn’t half have done with some of this rain in the spring. Weeks of drought when there’s crops coming up and now this downpour right through the autumn.’
He rose from his chair, kissed Constance absent-mindedly on the top of her head, pulled on boots and coat and departed through the kitchen door, still grumbling contentedly.
‘Global warming, my aunt Fanny,’ he muttered. ‘There’s somebody up there determined to put us poor bloody farmers out of business, that’s what I think...’
For Freddie this was just another day. Business as usual. He was not unhappy, nor unduly concerned. Farmers enjoy a good grumble. It goes with the territory. And the truth was that he took the attitude that Chalmpton Village Farm had suffered lousy weather conditions and an assortment of stupid rules and regulations throughout its long history and still survived. Freddie Lange did not really believe he had anything in the world to worry about. Farming had its problems like any other way of life. And what you did was cope. That was the way Freddie had been brought up.
He was, however, perhaps a little more preoccupied than usual this morning. He did have a heavy day ahead. He certainly had not noticed his wife react at all to the news item about the Bristol murder. And if her hand had been trembling when she placed her coffee cup on the table, Freddie hadn’t noticed that either.
Charlie also saw the report of his colleague’s death on breakfast news. He kept a small portable television in his bedroom, inside his wardrobe and concealed behind the wardrobe doors when not in use, so it didn’t spoil his decor. It was his habit when at home to make himself a pot of tea in the mornings and then go back to bed and drink it while idly watching television. He had quite a cosy side to his nature, did Charlie.