Lonely Hearts

Seventeen

Vera Barnett had already told them. As soon as she stepped into the airless hallway, faint with furniture spray and lily-of-the-valley, Rachel knew. The dry turning of locks and fumbled chains had taken minutes; the obscured murmurings of apology and frustration from behind the door. She sat in a wheelchair, uncomfortable, blue slipper-socks pulled over wrinkled tights, a plaid rug laid across her lap. Most of the curl had gone from her hair and it clung like a wig, ill-fitting and gray. She was staring at the swollen knuckles of her hands as though they had betrayed her once again.

“Mrs Barnett, I…”

“I haven’t got the strength.”

“That’s all right.”

“Is it?”

Rachel moved towards her, a half-smile. “I see the chair arrived.”

“It’s no good.”

“It looks fine.”

“It’s no good.”

Rachel moved around the older woman, taking the handles of the chair. “You’ll soon get used to it.”

“To being a cripple.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“What else am I doing in a wheelchair?”

Rachel started to back the chair round, wanting to move out of the hall. The sounds of muffled tears came from another room, intermittent.

“We talked about that, Mrs Barnett. About how it might help you while the children are here, so you don’t have to go chasing after them all the time and wear yourself out.”

“You talked about it.”

Rachel applied pressure to the handles and the chair rose up on its rear legs so that she could swing it round.

“Be careful!”

“I am. Don’t worry.”

When the front wheels touched ground again, lightly, Vera Barnett groaned.

“Let’s go into the living room,” Rachel said.

“You won’t get it through the door. Not without banging.”

“I’m sure we can manage.”

“It’s too big.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Not made for it, places like this. They’re not designed for cripples and invalids. Those wheels will take all the paint off, marks and scratches. It isn’t going to be any good.”

Rachel brought the chair round adjacent to the electric fire, pressed her foot down on the brake, and sat on the Parker Knoll chair opposite. “If you really don’t want it, Mrs. Barnett, I could call through to the department in the morning and ask them to come and take it away again.” She looked at her evenly. “Is that what you want me to do?”

Vera Barnett didn’t say anything. She fidgeted her hands along the edge of the rug and looked at the bars of the fire. Apart from the scrape of the older woman’s breathing, the only sound was the single repeated tick of the clock on the mantelpiece, between Luke’s school photograph and a china dog.

“How are the children?”

Vera Barnett closed her eyes. “How do you think they are?”

Rachel continued to look at her. The sound of crying rose up with a sharpness that broke on a silence of its own.

“Their mother taken away from them.”

“Did you tell them how…?”

“I told them she’d been in a accident. A motor accident. While she was out.” She looked at Rachel accusingly, expecting to be accused. “What did you want me to say? That she’d been killed by some monster. Raped and killed. Murdered. Is that what I should have said?”

Rachel shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “No.”

“Quick and done with, that’s what it was. Peaceful. That’s what…that’s what…” Her fingers were rubbing against the canvas at the side of the chair. “She didn’t feel any pain.”

Rachel guessed she had been holding in the tears for a long time, too long, and now they came in sobs that made the bones in her chest and head ache. Rachel stood beside her, one arm lightly against her shoulder, a hand between her hands.

“I’m sorry,” Vera Barnett repeated, over and over as her body shook. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t be like this with you.”

“Yes, you should.”

“It’s not your worries.”

“Yes, they are.”

Luke was standing outside the open door, not daring to come into the room. He was wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt with a blue and yellow Snoopy that had run in the wash.

Rachel smiled at him reassuringly.

Vera Barnett’s eyes were clenched shut as if trying to stop up the tears. Her fingers clasped at Rachel’s, failing to grip, and then they began to pat at the back of her hand instead, light and awkward.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she was still saying. “I’m sorry.”

Rachel looked away from her towards the doorway and Luke had disappeared. “It’s fine,” she said. “Cry. It will do you good.” Despite herself, she glanced at the clock on the mantel, the slowness of time.

“It’s for you, sir.”

Resnick hesitated near the top of the stairs as Patel looked down at him expectantly.

“It’s that solicitor, sir.”

“Olds?”

“Yes, sir.”

Resnick pushed back his sleeve, looked at his watch. “I’m late already.”

“She’s being really persistent. This is the fourth time in the last hour. Her office has been trying to get hold of you all…”

“Tell her to speak to the super.”

“Superintendent Skelton’s left, sir.”

Resnick continued downwards. “So have I.”

Patel’s reply was less distinct. As he slipped the catch and went through the station entrance, Resnick could not help but think there were times when his young DC failed altogether to approve of him.

Across the road, near the lights, the placard read CITY SLAYER AT LARGE. The vendor slid a last edition from beneath the plastic sheeting that was keeping his papers dry. Resnick crossed back towards the car park, reading as he walked.

Police are still probing the tragic and gruesome death of a young mother, whose body was found severely battered in the garden of her own home in the early hours of the morning.

Resnick pulled the car keys from his pocket. The front of the paper was dark with rain. As he dipped his head, water dribbled down the inside of his collar and on to his neck.

The man heading the police investigation, Det. Supt. Jack Skelton, said there was no apparent connection with a recent murder of another young woman, found strangled in her home. A man is still believed to be helping police with their investigations into this earlier crime.

“Careful, careful. Oh, please God, be careful!”

Rachel lifted her firmly, one arm bracing the spine, the other beneath the thighs, the hardness of bone through too little flesh. The bathroom was narrow, too narrow of course to admit the wheelchair, and the toilet at the far end, beyond the bath. On her own, Vera Barnett traced a careful progress, steadying herself with towel rail and wall, turning only once, one arm leant against the cistern, lowering herself painfully down. Once seated, she stayed there, waiting for her breath to steady, steeling herself for the same process in reverse. Often, it seemed to take all the strength from her and this evening she had no strength to give.

Rachel ignored the wincing and muttering and scooped skirt and petticoat back at the last moment, helped to ease knickers towards the knees.

How weak she was, that she should permit these intimacies to Rachel, a person that she scarcely knew and trusted less.

“All right, you can leave me now.”

“Let me know when you’re through, I’ll give you a hand.”

“I shall be able to manage. I shall have to when you’re not here. However else d’you think I get on?”

“Call me,” said Rachel, closing the door. “If you want.”

She went and looked in on the children. Sarah lay curled into a ball, facing the wrong way in the bed; the covers were a tangle leaving her mostly uncovered. Her thumb was in her mouth way past the middle joint. Luke had pressed himself up against the wall, mouth open, breathing through his nose. Maybe it wouldn’t work, letting them stay here with their grandmother; maybe her condition had deteriorated too far to allow it. If they could be certain of enough support, she would recommend giving it a few days, a week. Once she realized what there was to be gained from coping, her strength of will might be enough. Despite everything, Rachel thought, she was a resolute woman, Vera Barnett.

Rachel bent carefully down and rearranged the clothing over the little girl. Close, she allowed herself for a moment to touch the child’s cheek, the back of her hand against the smooth warmth of her skin. Sarah stirred, the rhythm of her breathing changed but she did not wake.

When she went out of the room, Rachel left the door unclosed by some inches. In the bathroom, Vera Barnett was on her feet, forcing one foot in front of the other as she leaned sideways against the wall.

“You needn’t bother,” she said, when Rachel went to take her arm, but she did nothing to resist her.

She was seated in the living room with the television on and Rachel was mashing tea when the doorbell rang.

“Whoever can that be?” called Vera Barnett. “Don’t let anybody in. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I won’t.”

“I think it might be the police,” Rachel said.

“How’s it going?” Resnick asked, shuffling off his damp coat.

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Could be worse.”

“Kids?”

“Sleeping now.”

“You told them?”

Rachel nodded towards the open living-room door. “She beat me to it.”

“How’s she standing up?”

Rachel smiled. “Sitting down.”

They were keeping their voices low, whispering really, close in someone else’s house, strange sort of intimacy.

“How are you?” Resnick asked. He was having to stop himself from reaching out a hand, touching her.

“We’d better go through,” Rachel said.

“Is she up to a few questions?” he asked to Rachel’s back.

“I think so. If you must.”

Vera had propped herself more upright in the chair; her hands were loosely linked over the straightened rug on her lap.

“This is Detective Inspector Resnick,” Rachel said, biting back a sudden, irrational desire to call him Charlie.

Charlie, Rachel was thinking. His name is Charlie.

She left them and went to the kitchen.

They were drinking tea. A half-dozen plain biscuits had been fanned out on a plate and ignored. They had listened to Vera Barnett on the subject of her son-in-law, her ironic surprise that he had found the time to visit the registrar, contact the undertakers; they had tiptoed around the subject of the funeral itself, the necessity of a “proper” service.

“You told the woman officer that your daughter had been seeing a man,” Resnick said.

Cup rattled against saucer. “I did no such thing.”

Resnick glanced down at his notebook. “She was with a man,” he quoted.

“Of course she was. Who else did that to her?”

“But you knew…”

“No.”

“You said…”

“Where else would she be?”

Resnick took another mouthful of tea. He knew that Rachel was trying hard not to look at him while he questioned Vera Barnett; somehow he’d felt good about the fact that she’d be watching him at work, but that had been before it began.

“Obviously, Mrs. Barnett, the sooner we can trace whoever Mary saw yesterday evening the better. So if you have any idea, any idea at all, who she might have been with…”

“My daughter and I didn’t discuss such matters.”

“Never?”

“She didn’t say and I didn’t ask.” The line of her mouth tightened until the lips had altogether disappeared. “She was free to do as she pleased. Whatever I might have said would have made precious little difference.”

“You haven’t any idea who she might have been seeing earlier, in the last six months or so? No name she might have mentioned, even in passing?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know if she had been seeing somebody regularly?”

A small, tight shake of the head.

“If there had been anyone, serious, I mean…”

“We were never close, not…not after the divorce. She seemed to think I blamed her for it in some way. Blamed her instead of him, running off after the first woman who gave him a second look, no better than an animal in heat. He ought to be ashamed of himself, leaving her and those two beautiful children, and now I hope he is. If he’d been there, this would never…”

She was crying again and Rachel went over and took the cup and saucer from her hands. Her eyes told Resnick what he already knew-go easy, don’t push too hard.

He waited until she had dabbed at her face with a tissue and Rachel had rearranged the rug about her knees. “We found some letters…”

“What letters?”

“From men. It looks as though Mary might have, um, put an ad in the local paper.”

“I don’t understand.”

“To meet somebody.”

“To meet…?”

“The personal columns, Lonely Hearts they call it, if there’s no other way of meeting someone to go out with…” Resnick felt himself faltering under the woman’s barely comprehending stare. “Somebody else who’s looking for a relationship.”

“In the newspaper? The daily…you’re talking about the newspaper?”

Resnick nodded. “Yes. It’s quite normal. A lot of people…”

“Mary did this?”

“Yes. At least, we think so.”

“Mary…?”

The rain had diminished to a slow drizzle that fell like a blur across the street lights. Search in vain for a star in the sky.

“I could do with a drink after that,” Resnick said.

“I’m sorry. I must get back.”

“I can’t even give you a lift?”

Rachel shook her head. “I’ve got my car.” Nevertheless, she continued to stand there; they both did. When Resnick unlocked his car she slid into the passenger seat alongside him.

“I suppose you had to tell her that.”

“I think so.”

“She won’t understand. She won’t begin to.”

“The names, once we’ve checked the letters out, we’ll have to see if any of them mean anything to her.”

“But she’s told you…”

“I know, but we’ll have to check just the same.”

“It hardly seems fair.”

“Think what would happen if we failed to do it and it turned out to have mattered. What she can’t remember today might be clearer tomorrow.”

Resnick switched on the engine and turned up the heater.

“I don’t think I understand either,” Rachel said. “Not really.”

“You’re lucky,” Resnick said.

“I don’t feel it.” The words were out without thinking and with emphasis.

“You mean more than this,” Resnick said, gesturing back at the house.

Rachel nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Chris?”

“It’ll sort itself out.” She wasn’t looking at him any more. He could see her reflected in the car window, three-quarter profile. For Christ’s sake, thought Resnick, do something-say something.

“I’ve got to go,” Rachel said, opening the door.

She had one foot on the pavement when Resnick put his hand on her arm. As her head swung round, he made himself keep the hand where it was. “Take care.”

She smiled ironically. “Leave it to the professionals.”

Resnick’s fingers were back round the steering wheel. The door was firmly shut. As Resnick signaled and drew away from the curb, he was wondering how soon after getting home Jack Skelton or the DCI would be on the phone, checking progress, feeling for the next move.

Patel had been pulled on to nights to relieve Lynn Kellogg and let her return to normal shift. In a way, it suited him well. Peel wasn’t the pushy sort, kept himself to his copy of the Daily Mail and allowed Patel to get on with the studying necessary for his sergeant’s board.

“Running before you can bloody walk, pal!” Divine had said, glancing down over Patel’s shoulder in the canteen. “Look at this,” he’d called to Naylor. “Not content with taking over every tobacconists and newsagents in the sodding country, they’ve got eyes on the Force as well!”

Naylor, who was busily beating the books on his own account (well, Debbie’s, if the truth were to be told), had shaken his head and said nothing.

“You know why our Asian friends didn’t prosper in the Roman Empire, don’t you?” Divine had asked in a loud voice.

Naylor and Patel knew they were going to be told anyway.

“All them straight roads, where’d they put the corner shops?”

The beauty of nights, Patel thought now, no Mark Divine.

After another two paragraphs, Patel realized that Peel was staring at him. Oh, no, not you too. Then he understood that there was somebody else in the office; someone else who was receiving a great deal of Peel’s attention. Patel got up from where he had tucked himself out of the way, round at the foot of the L-shaped room. Grace Kelley was standing outside the inspector’s room, looking in. She was wearing a bright red laminated cape and a matching hood; there were a couple of inches of bare skin between her black leather trousers and red high-heeled shoes. Her sweater had a deep roll at the neck and a turquoise brooch like a misshapen heart pinned to the appropriate place; the sweater was white wool and at least one size too small.

She smiled at Patel encouragingly.

“Inspector Resnick is off duty,” Patel said.

“All tucked up?”

Behind Patel, DC Peel sniggered and crossed his legs.

“He will be in first thing,” Patel assured her. “If you could call back.”

“By then I shall be back to civilization,” Grace said. “Cases are in the car and I’ve just filled the tank. I’ve run out of things a girl can do here.”

She winked at Patel and made a sinuous movement which caused her cape to slide further back from her shoulders. Patel was doing his best not to stare at the turquoise heart, but it drew his dark eyes like a magnet.

“Touch it if you want,” she grinned, moving closer. “Real smooth. Like a baby’s bum.”

She supposed; she didn’t think she had ever got near enough to know and she’d be pleased to keep it that way. This one, though, this little rabbit with his great startled eyes, ready to bolt at her first false move-well, somehow she’d never got around to bonking any Asians.

“No?”

Through the clipped dark hair of his mustache, she could see the drops of sweat beginning to gather. Rather him, she thought, than the chinless wonder, leering away at the back.

“No, well. I’d best leave the message with you, then. If that’s okay.”

“Of course.”

“Might not be nothing special, only, Shirley, you see, my friend that got…” She shrugged, not wanting to say the word. “She told me once about this bloke she met, all right he was, good-looking and everything. That’s not the point, though, is it? Point is, she met him through one of them ads. You know the kind-glamorous blond, simple tastes, anxious to meet well-hung yacht owner.” Her brittle laughter broke loud across the almost empty room. “Poor bloody Shirley! Little Miss bleedin’ Lonely Hearts!”