The Claw

Thirty-seven

Liz sat in the playground outside the Hotel Britannia. It was one of the hottest days of the year. The sun looked as if it had burned a round hole in the metal sky. Children raced one another in the pool, splashed out and shook their sparkling hair; younger children were pleading with their parents for ice creams. Anna was in the playground, looking after the youngest ones. Liz watched her, trying not to hate the child.

It was all Anna's fault. If she hadn't annoyed Liz so much, Liz might have been some help when Jane had phoned. If Anna hadn't run away, Liz could have gone straight to Jane's; she might have been in time, she might have… She was in an agony of guilt. Worst of all, if Anna hadn't started her nonsense about the man who was hiding, Liz might have gone in to Jane anyway. If it hadn't been for Anna, Georgie might still be alive. How could Liz not hate her?

She was doing her best, telling herself that Anna couldn't have known, being determinedly gentle with the child, to compensate. Couldn't Anna tell that she ought to take care? Apparently not, for now she was gazing longingly at the pool, then at Liz. Liz shook her head, but still the child came over to her. 'Can't I have just a little swim?' she pleaded.

'Not now. Not while the big ones are in the pool.' Not while a swimsuit would expose the marks on her shoulder from the day Liz had caught her outside Jane's, scratches and a swollen purple bruise. 'Anyway,' Liz said triumphantly, 'you haven't got a swimsuit with you.'

'Can I take my blouse off, then? I'm so hot.'

Was the child determined to let people see her injuries?

'Keep it on,' Liz said. 'I haven't taken mine off, have I? We'll both be elegant. We hardly ever wear these blouses Granny Knight bought us.'

Anna looked sulky. 'Go on, Anna,' Liz said; Maggie the nursery girl was approaching, and Liz didn't want to lose her temper in front of her. 'Look, the little ones don't know what to do with themselves. You go and look after them.' Not the way you looked after Georgie, she thought before she could stop herself.

For a while she sat and talked to Maggie, then she kept an eye on the children while Maggie went in to lay the nursery tables for lunch. A seven-year-old brought her twin to Liz for first aid. Both little girls were silent, pale and tight-lipped while Liz tended to the gash, caused by a falling tricycle. Why couldn't Anna be like them? Had she ever been? She was copying Liz now, giving first aid to a reluctant toddler – 'I'll be nurse because you've hurt yourself,' she said. For the first time Liz wondered if the toddlers wanted Anna to look after them.

She was brooding about that when Ned came to her. 'Gail would like a word with you.'

The foyer was stifling, and smelled of dusty plants and carpet shampoo. Gail was fanning herself with a bunch of receipts; she glanced sharply at the long sleeves. 'We're both a bit sunburned,' Liz said glibly.

Gail shrugged that off. 'Derek has managed to get Jane into a private ward near Norwich,' she said. 'Rebecca and I are going to see her. Will you come?'

'I should come, Gail, I know I should, but I don't think I can, not yet. You do understand, don't you? Maybe when Alan comes back, when I'm not on my own.'

Gail raised her eyebrows, though she was obviously trying to understand. 'And I don't want to leave Anna,' Liz said desperately. 'We couldn't very well take her with us.'

Why had she said that? She felt she was saying too much in an attempt to hide the truth.

'You could leave her in the nursery,' Gail suggested. 'It would only be for the afternoon.'

'Well, as I say, Anna isn't really the problem.' She wished she hadn't mentioned the child at all; Gail had seemed altogether too eager to take Anna off her hands. 'It's just me, Gail. I can't help how I feel. Tell Jane I'm thinking of her,' she said, which sounded so feeble that she wished she hadn't said it at all.

She wandered through the ground floor of the hotel, trying to think before she went back to Anna. Children were clambering on armchairs in the lounge until their father chased them out; in the games room opposite, a pair of table-tennis bats formed a round-winged insect on the table. She couldn't go to see Jane, not yet – not until she knew what to do about the claw.

She was sure that Jane had taken it. Rebecca had virtually told her so: she'd said she didn't believe that any money had been stolen from Jane's bag that day at Liz's house. The claw must be somewhere at Jane's, too well hidden for the police to find. She couldn't raise the subject in front of anyone else, she didn't know why. The more she thought about the claw, the more urgent it seemed to retrieve it, yet thinking about it seemed to snag her thoughts, preventing her from planning coherently. When she heard the rattle of the grille she went to talk to Jimmy in the bar.

He wanted to talk about Jane; everybody did. 'You can't assume any kids are safe, whatever their parents are like in public,' he said morosely. 'You never know what goes on in their homes. You can't know what they do to their kids when nobody else is watching.'

He was making her uncomfortable, not least because she wasn't sure that he was talking solely about Jane. What did he know about it? He hadn't even started teaching, and even when he did he'd have no idea what it was like to have to put up with a child all the time, without being able to send it home at the end of the day, or take a holiday from it at all. He was just like the rest of them, trying to make her think there was something wrong with her. Since he didn't seem disposed to change the subject until he'd finished lecturing, she took her drink out of the bar.

The sun made her eyes ache. Why should it worry her that she couldn't see her surroundings straight away? Now she could: Anna was helping a toddler up the steps to the slide, though he didn't look entirely convinced that he wanted to go; nobody was in sight who shouldn't be. Liz sat down at a table on the grass to watch, the plastic chair burning her thighs and back for a moment, before the heat faded. Then she made to dodge into the bar, but restrained herself. It was too late. Alex had already seen her.

'Hello, Alex,' Liz said, as coldly as she could. 'Finished your filming?'

'I've finished that one. I've some more glamour ads to do.' She sat opposite Liz and stretched her long polished legs into the sunlight, to show them off or to add to their tan. 'I heard about Jane. I wish I hadn't been away.'

'Why?'

'Well, what a question! She had nobody to turn to, had she? Derek was away. She couldn't cope on her own. Things finally proved too much for her.'

Liz stared at her. 'Something certainly did.'

'I don't know why you're looking at me like that. What do you mean?'

Liz hadn't the patience to reply to that. 'What do you mean, spreading rumours about me? It was you who told people that I'd left Anna alone the night I came to Gail's party, wasn't it?'

'Oh, Liz, I really can't remember. I may have passed on some story of the kind. I'm sorry if it wasn't true -1 wasn't at the party, after all. Don't let's fall out. Hasn't there been enough viciousness without our starting too? We ought to rally round.'

Liz almost laughed out loud, though without a trace of humour. 'Surely you can't believe that Jane would want to see you.'

'Well, why not? I'm her friend too, aren't I? I should have thought we could forget our differences under the circumstances. I'll do everything I can to help.'

Liz punched the table-top to restrain herself from lashing out. The noise was so loud that parents glanced across from the nursery. 'Are you really as stupid as you make out, Alex? Haven't you done enough?'

'If you're trying to imply that what happened was my fault, I think you're very cruel.' She looked as if she were trying to suppress the moisture in her eyes. 'In any case, I don't agree with you. I really think I relieved some of the strain on their marriage. Derek came to me for things he couldn't get from Jane.'

'I'm sure he did.'

'It's true, however awful you try and make it sound. Do you know that she hadn't let Derek touch her since she was pregnant? Jane didn't kill Georgie because of me, she did it because she should never have had a child. I know we don't like to think of it happening to someone we know, but it happens all the time. You can hardly pick up a newspaper these days without reading of another case.'

Liz hid her fists under the table; her nails were tingling again. 'Do you honestly think it was just another case of a mother losing patience – another battered baby? Have you any idea what Jane did?'

'I know she killed him, and that's all I want to know. I should think that's all you know, as well. You weren't there, were you?'

'No, but I've heard what happened. Someone who was there was so appalled he couldn't keep from talking.' No, but she'd been as near as made no difference, and she'd talked to Jane on the night of their dinner about wanting to harm one's child; she might as well have been at Jane's side, egging her on. 'She didn't just kill him; she tore him to pieces. You made her do that by giving her too much to cope with.'

Alex stood up, overturning her chair. 'I think you're the cruellest person I've ever met. I never want to speak to you again.' She stumbled away, one hand at her eyes, and vanished around the side of the hotel. The parents who had been watching turned away.

But, curiously, speaking her mind hadn't made Liz feel any better, however much Rebecca and Gail would have applauded her; instead she felt exhausted and depressed. Accusing Alex had simply been a way of avoiding her own guilt and Anna's, bloody Anna's. She decided to go back and talk to Jimmy. It was easy to coax him into talking about pleasant things, that was part of his job. Anyway she felt sorry for him; this wasn't much of a preparation for having to deal with a roomful of children. One was more than enough.

She talked to him until the bar closed, then she collected Anna from the nursery, where she and another girl were playing tennis with plastic bats and a sponge ball. Anna looked bored and resentful. At least Maggie had given her lunch; Liz realized that she'd eaten lunch herself at some time during her stay in the bar, and that she was quite drunk. It was a good job she hadn't brought the car. Being drunk didn't make her feel any less guilty about Jane, though.

Her guilt followed her home. The sun swelled as it sank toward the hazy fields; families trudged up from the beach, slow as a herd of cattle in search of water. Anna was tired, and beginning to whine: 'My shoulder hurts. It hurts, mummy. It hurts.' She sounded as if she might go on like that all the way home. 'You won't die of it,' Liz snapped, and the child shut up.

Liz was unlocking the front door when the phone started ringing. Perhaps it meant company. She ran down the hall and lifted the receiver. 'Liz Knight,' she said.

'Mrs Knight? Hetherington here. I fear I owe you an apology.'

Her momentary panic faded; he couldn't know about the claw. 'Why's that?' she said.

'Because I'm afraid I let someone find out your number. Joanna Marlowe, the wife of the anthropologist who gave your husband the artefact. Your number was on my desk when she came to my office the other day, and I suspect she may phone you. Please make allowances for her – 2 expect you know her husband killed himself. You'll appreciate that she's still in a hysterical state.'

Liz knew at once that she'd already had the call – hers was the anonymous shrill voice; but she couldn't admit to it, she wanted time to think. 'Thank you for letting me know,' she said.

'I've been trying for some days. While we're speaking, perhaps I can ask you if there is any news of the artefact.'

'No,' she said at once. 'None at all.'

'Well, please do inform me if anything transpires.'

She put down the receiver and gazed at nothing. She couldn't think now, not until Anna was in bed. Anna had taken off her blouse and was waiting for Liz to notice her shoulder. The bruise was fading a little, which made the scratches more vivid. 'It doesn't look too bad,' Liz said, refusing to feel guilty; the child had asked for it. 'Just don't lie on it.'

'Oh, then can I swim tomorrow?'

'No, not yet. You said it was hurting. You mustn't go in the pool until it's better.' Liz couldn't help enjoying the way Anna had talked herself into that. 'And you must wear a blouse until it is.'

'I don't want to. It looks stupid.'

'Of course it doesn't. I don't, do I?' Why must all her conversations with Anna be so excruciatingly banal? 'Now, no arguments. You know what happened the last time you made me lose my temper.'

They had nothing to say to each other at dinner. If Anna wanted to be sullen, Liz decided she was best ignored. The silence intensified the sounds of eating, as though they both were trapped in a film whose soundtrack was turned up too high – the sea might have been the hiss of the soundtrack. Eating made her feel uncomfortable, as if she'd forgotten how to do it properly. The meat tasted overcooked. Perhaps it was.

Afterward Anna found an Enid Blyton to reread, which at least kept her quiet for a while. Nevertheless Liz couldn't think while the child was in the room; she might want to mumble to herself, she might give herself away somehow; she felt too confused to plan silently. The night closed in, the sea rumbled forward; Liz dozed and felt that the house was sinking into dark water, that she was sinking into a darkness within herself, where something raw was waiting. When she jerked awake and saw that Anna was nodding over the book, she sent her up to bed.

Being alone didn't help much. There were too many thoughts and feelings to deal with: Joanna Marlowe, who'd sounded like a spiteful villager but might have had a message for her after all; the way Liz had accused Alex, as if that would stop her feeling guilty herself; Jane and Georgie and Alan and Anna and, thank God, Jimmy; the claw.. . but whenever she thought of the claw her thoughts slipped awry, and she had to start again.

For some time she dozed. When she woke, she was convinced that she'd made Jane kill Georgie so that she could steal back the claw. The idea had the internal logic of a dream, but was more difficult to shake off than that; she couldn't help feeling that it contained some distorted inkling of the truth. She forced her eyes open, and at once her heart was pounding. Anna was in the doorway, staring fearfully at her.

Why was she looking like that? Liz would give her a reason – she was scared of the claw. She struggled to control her feelings, to wake herself up. 'What's the matter?' she demanded. 'What are you doing downstairs?'

'I don't want to be up there by myself.' She sounded as if asking Liz to come upstairs was very much the lesser of two evils. 'I'm scared. There's someone up there.'

Liz knew she'd bolted the front and back doors; nobody could have got in. Anna was starting all over again; she'd learned nothing. As Liz sprang to her feet, the house seemed to darken about her. Anna flinched back, but that wasn't enough for Liz any more.

'Just you remember what happened to Georgie,' she said.