“What, then? His wife? I know she has men round while Kale’s at work. Is that it? Or is it something else?”
There was no further movement Ben took a deep breath, trying to control his frustration.
“Why won’t you tell me? Because you’re frightened of him?”
The detective turned his head away.
Ben stood up. He’d thought he’d feel some satisfaction in seeing the man broken. He didn’t, but he didn’t feel any pity either. He walked away from the bed without another word. On the way out he stopped at the nurses’ station. A plump young nurse was writing behind it. She looked up as Ben approached.
“I’m a friend of Mr Quilley’s. Does anyone know what happened to him?”
It took her a moment to place who he was talking about. “Oh, the man who was beaten up? No, I don’t think so. He says he can’t remember. We think it must have been more than one person, though, from the extent of his injuries. There’s a lot of internal bruising. He’s lucky he wasn’t killed.”
Ben thought he was very lucky.
He felt the pull of Tunford even after he had driven past the turnoff that led to it. For several miles afterwards he was conscious of where it lay behind him, as though part of his brain were looking backwards, watching it recede.
The snow had lingered here, piles of dirty white melting slowly by the roadside, staining the bare trees and dead grass like mould. Ben had turned the car heater up high, but the frigid damp still seemed to cling to his clothes.
Or perhaps it was him it was clinging to.
The industrial estate had an abandoned Sunday air about it. The town itself looked similarly deserted. One or two windows of the terraced houses were decorated with tinsel and coloured baubles, but they seemed unconvincing in the grey daylight.
When he reached the street where the Patersons lived he saw that more of the boarded-up houses had gone. The strip of semi-levelled rubble now extended halfway along the row of terraces. The JCBs and earth-shifting machinery stood patiently amongst the bricks, waiting to be loosed on the rest.
Ben parked outside the house and knocked on the door.
The window box held only soil. The glass above it was misted over. He stamped his feet, feeling the dank atmosphere penetrate his lungs.
The door was opened. Ron Paterson nodded a greeting and stood back to let him in.
The kitchen smelled of roasting meat. A coal fire burned in the small grate set into the tiled fireplace. Ben felt the warmth close around him, snuffing the chill in an instant.
Paterson closed the door. “Give me your coat.”
Ben took it off and handed it to him. He went out to hang it at the bottom of the stairs.
“You sure you don’t mind me coming?” Ben asked when he came back.
“I’d have said if I did.” He nodded at the table. “You might as well sit down.”
Ben had phoned the day before to ask if he could call around. Paterson had told him to come before lunch — he’d called it ‘dinner’ —the next day. He hadn’t asked why. It didn’t need to be said that it would be something to do with Jacob.
“How’s Mary?”
Paterson was filling the kettle. “In hospital.”
“Is she all right?” Ben had thought she must be upstairs.
“They’re doing tests.” He said it matter-of-factly, keeping whatever he felt out of sight. He plugged in the kettle. “Want a cuppa?” He set out the teapot and mugs, then came and sat at the table. “So what can I do for you?”
“You said something last time I was here. About Sandra Kale.”
“I said a lot of things.”
“But you started to say that you’d heard something about her, and then you stopped. I wondered what it was you’d heard.”
Ben had remembered the conversation after he’d visited Quilley. He knew he might have made the journey just to hear a piece of useless gossip. But it wasn’t as if his Sundays were so fun-filled any more that he couldn’t spare the time.
Paterson sucked on a tooth. He didn’t look at Ben, but he didn’t give the impression of looking away from him either.
“Just rumours.”
“What rumours?”
“I don’t spread gossip.”
“It might be important.”
Paterson considered that. “Why?”
Ben told him.
Jacob’s grandfather listened without making any comment.
Once he got up to unplug the kettle, although he didn’t bother making any tea. Other than that he didn’t move as Ben described Kale’s activities in the garden, and Sandra’s in the bedroom. Ben told him how Jacob was being kept off school, and what had happened when the two men had found him in the woods. He left nothing out, except the fact that he’d almost allowed himself to be sidetracked by Sandra Kale’s ruttish sexuality.
He wanted to emphasise how Kale was unbalanced, not only unfit to bring up Jacob but an actual danger to him. But he saw the grimness in Paterson’s face and knew there was no need.
There was a silence when he had finished. The coals of the fire tumbled in on themselves in a swarm of sparks. The gas oven hissed softly. Paterson went over and turned it down.
“We don’t keep drink in the house,” he said, fetching Ben’s coat.
He took Ben to the working men’s club. It was non-political, an old and ugly brick building with an even uglier 1960s extension tacked on to its front. An elderly fat man in a three-piece brown suit sat behind a table in the entrance. He greeted Paterson with a wheezed ‘Afternoon, Ron’ as he pushed across a book for him to sign. Ben wrote his own name in the ‘guest’ column and followed him inside.
It was a big room with a high stage at one end. Brightly coloured paper streamers ran from the edge of the ceiling to its centre, and already deflated balloons hung limply on the walls. The stage itself was fringed with gold plastic tassels that could have been a part of the Christmas decorations except for a tired look of permanence about them. Round, dark wood tables and matching stools filled the floor space with no clear aisles in between. A few were occupied, mainly by men, but most were empty.
Ben tried to buy the drinks but Paterson would have none of it. “You’re my guest,” he said, in a tone that spoke of protocols and tradition.
They carried their pints to a table by the window. Paterson exchanged nods with one or two of the other customers but didn’t stop to talk. They sat down, taking the top off their beer in the ritual that had to precede any conversation. The beer was cold and gassy. Ben stifled a belch as they set down their glasses.
The lull wasn’t so much awkwardness as not knowing where to start.
“Gets busy in here at nights. Specially weekends.” Paterson lifted his chin towards the stage. “Get some good acts on, as well.”
“Right.”
“Used to come in here a lot, Mary and me. Before we moved to London, and then for a bit when we first moved back. Till Mary got really bad. It’s difficult now, though.” He looked around the room as if noticing it for the first time.
They took another drink.
“I can’t vouch for anything,” Paterson said, abruptly coming to the point. “It’s only what people have said. Nothing specific.”
Ben nodded.
Paterson studied his pint. “She’s supposed to have a bit of a history, that’s all...”
“History?”
“Been a bit of a bad ‘un. Taking money for it.” He looked across at Ben to make sure he understood.
“You mean she was a prostitute?”
“That’s what I’ve heard. One of the club members’ sons had a mate who was based at Aldershot with Kale. Reckoned she’d sold it to half the regiment before she married him.” He pursed his lips disapprovingly. “Sounds like she’s still at it, from what you’ve said.”
Ben felt let down. Even if it were true, it wasn’t the revelation he’d hoped for. “Was there anything else?”