“I like to leave that kind of talk to teenage magazines. Let’s say, we discovered each other. There’s much more to Cathy than meets the eye. She’s sensitive and generous, but she liked to shelter behind the image of the domineering wife. We went to the Chester Gateway the next time. Started planning other things together. One night, late on, we’d both had a bit to drink. The men were away again, the two of us were over at the Morgans’ place. She put her arms round me. It seemed natural and right. We spent the night together.”
There was a faraway look on her face when she spoke. Do I have a similar expression, thought Harry, whenever I think back to the early days with Liz?
“Have you ever come across the book by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden? For me, becoming Cathy’s lover was like discovering my own secret garden. The ordinary world might be as drab as ever, but when I was with her it suddenly became wonderful. She’d had some experience with another girl years ago. It didn’t work out, she’d thought it was an adolescent phase. I’d never dreamed of getting involved in a lesbian relationship. Sex never appealed to me so much. Now I had someone who would care for me as a person, someone I could care for too. It was a new feeling. And indescribably good.”
“When did you first decide to live together?”
“At first we didn’t know what to do or how to do it. Coming out and making the break was — such a final thing. We’re both quite conventional people, whatever you may think. And then Cathy came into money. A great deal of money.”
“Her father’s estate.”
“Oh, you know that as well. It gave us a chance to set up Patches, to build something worthwhile together without any contribution from the men. I’d known Knutsford since I was a child. I once had an aunt who lived down Ladies’ Mile. And I’d always meant to take my patchwork more seriously. Jack was only interested if I could make money out of it. Cathy’s attitude was different. If it will make you happy, let’s do it, she said. She’s always fancied running a little cottage industry anyway. So — here we are.”
“I can understand why you wanted to put the past behind you,” said Harry slowly. “Which of us hasn’t longed to do that? And yet, there is one thing I don’t follow. I can see that planning your getaway would have been exciting. But why did it have to be so secret? Surely you didn’t have to steal away in such a fashion, so that not even your own mother knew where you were, or whether you were alive or dead. Why the big mystery?”
“I tried to explain before. My relationship with my mother, however she might like to glamourise it, was as empty as a saucepan on a rack. The same was true of my marriage. Neither Jack nor my mother were losing anything they had not already lost years earlier.”
Harry shook his head.
“Alison, I hear what you’re saying, but it doesn’t add up. For God’s sake, Doreen has accused Jack of murdering you. You’re safe and sound, but neither of them know that and the police certainly don’t know it either. You didn’t even get in touch when Claire went missing or after her body was found. As you say, no one deserves to finish up the way she did. Especially not at fifteen. You’re not a brutal woman and I’m sure you’re not a coward either. However bad life was between Jack and yourself, surely you owe him a little consideration. He’s not an ogre. Won’t you contact him yourself?”
She coloured as he spoke. He could see traces of guilt on her face, red spots high on her cheek bones. She closed her eyes and said, “Harry, that’s impossible. I’m happy here. I want things to stay as they are. And I’m not just being selfish. There’s a very good reason why Jack mustn’t find out I’m alive.”
“You’re the one who’s asking the impossible.”
She said softly, “As I said, there’s a good reason why you shouldn’t tell Jack where I am. Are you listening? I’m terrified that if you do, he’ll come out here and kill me.”
“Christ, Alison, that’s ridiculous! We all know he’s got a temper, but…”
“Some of us know more than others,” she broke in.
“What do you mean?”
“If he finds me, he will murder me.”
One of the oldest lawyers’ rules is never to ask a question to which you don’t already know the answer. Harry had disobeyed the old saw often enough this afternoon. An obscure instinct urged belated caution. But he could not help himself.
“Why in God’s name do you say that?”
She gazed at him levelly, pausing for a moment before her reply.
“Because I know he’s committed murder before.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
As darkness fell Harry drove back towards Liverpool, wondering once again whether Jack Stirrup was a murderer.
After leaving Patches he had eaten in a Knutsford pub with low beams, an inglenook and a real fire. The locals were preparing for a quiz night, tossing trivial questions and obscure answers back and forth like Wimbledon stars knocking-up before a Centre Court final. Who wrote the music for Psycho? Where did Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria die? What was discovered by the brigantine Dei Gratia in 1872? The home team’s captain, a bespectacled youth who consumed bitter over mild as if there would be no tomorrow never seemed at a loss. Harry had half a mind to seek from him a second opinion on Alison’s story.
There was not a shadow of doubt that she was telling the truth. Yet that did not necessarily make Stirrup a killer. Hence his dilemma. There was no master of ceremonies with the answer already written down in a book, he would be unable to groan it-was-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue when the truth came out. If it ever did.
Alison’s account of her last weeks as a wife had been candid. She did not absolve herself of blame for the collapse of the marriage: it had been a union of two incompatible people. After deciding that her future lay with Catherine Morgan she had scarcely bothered to conceal her contempt for either Jack Stirrup or his daughter. Rows between the three of them became ever more frequent and bitter.
For her part, Cathy vowed not to tell Trevor, out of work and hitting the bottle, about her impending departure until a suitable opportunity arose for Alison to break the news to Stirrup. The two women were arranging to start up Patches in secret in the meantime. Alison’s fear of her husband’s tempers was rooted in experience. He had struck her once in a rage, a year or so earlier, and she was afraid that if he found out she was leaving him for another woman he would lose all control. So it was vital to pick the right moment; yet the right moment never seemed to come.
As things turned out, it never did. A quarrel about Claire’s rudeness escalated one night. The girl had gone to her room, weeping and saying she hated Alison. Stirrup, tense at a time of sticky negotiations with Grealish for the sale of his business, had bellowed with anger until he was hoarse.
“Do you want me to go?” Alison had asked. Perhaps the time had come, perhaps it was worth risking his fury. This endless fighting couldn’t continue.
“What do you mean?” Stirrup had spoken with a sudden softness. She recognised it as a danger sign, like the intensity of his stare.
“You’re not happy with me. And I’m not happy with you. It makes sense for me to move out.”
“Listen!”
He’d grabbed her wrist, hurting her, making her afraid that he was about to break it.
“You’re moving nowhere. No one walks out on me, do you understand? No one. I’d sooner kill you.”
She had squirmed in his grip, trying in vain to escape. It only made him tighten his hold and hurt her more.
“Don’t be stupid. I don’t belong to you. Marriages do go stale. Ours has. What else can I do?”
“You’re my wife, got that? My wife! And you don’t move out. You stay here and toe the line. I meant what I said.”
She’d summoned up her courage or maybe her folly and spat at him. As if he’d had an electric shock, he let go of her, but within a moment lifted his right arm and smashed it against the side of her head, sending her spinning to the floor. Luckily he’d aimed high and wide and her hair had taken some of the sting out of the blow. Two inches lower and a little straighter and he’d have broken her cheekbone for sure.