The Witness at the Wedding

Thirty-One

Like everything else in Robert Coleman’s club, the ladies’ room was severe with no frills. But it was spotlessly clean. As she washed her hands, Carole thought about their host’s abrupt departure. Just as they had reached the foyer from the dining room, he had received a call on his mobile.

Its content was clearly urgent because, with the most perfunctory of farewells, he left the two women alone. Robert Coleman’s anxiety about his niece’s safety seemed to have suddenly evaporated. Though, of course, that could mean that the news he’d had related to the capture of Michael Brewer, which would in turn mean that the threat to Gaby was at an end. Carole, not for the first time in her investigative career, felt deeply frustrated. Why were the police – and by extension, their intimates like Robert Coleman – always so uncommunicative about how their enquiries were progressing?

Gaby came out of a cubicle to join her at the washbasin, and Carole decided the moment had arrived to put forward her plan. “A coincidence that your grandmother’s name came up at lunch.”

“Why? Oh, I do feel terribly guilty about her, you know.”

“I do know. Which is maybe why the coincidence is one that you could turn to your own good.”

Gaby looked at her curiously.

“I was talking to Stephen this morning, when he came to fetch some stuff from his house…”

“Yes?”

“And he’s terribly worried about you.”

“I know.”

“He wants you away from here, away from all your familiar haunts, away from anywhere where that man might be able to find you.”

Tears trickled from Gaby’s eyes. The relentless stress still had a hold on her.

“I suggested you should go to Fran ce.”

“France?”

“To see your grandmother.”

“On my own?”

“No, not on your own. You’d need someone with you for security.” A silence. “Stephen thought it was a very good idea.” A longer silence. “Well, do you think it’s a good idea, Gaby?”

“Yes. I think it’s a brilliant idea.”

When Jude told her that Gita Millington had returned to London, Carole could not suppress a feeling of unworthy glee. Jude had anticipated and noted this, but did not comment.

She was quickly brought up to date with developments on the case: Michael Brewer’s appearance in Gaby’s flat the previous night, and Carole’s brainwave as to where the girl should go.

“I agree. A great idea. Because, apart from anything else, if anyone is going to know the whole history of the case, then it’s going to be Gaby’s grandmother. She was around when the whole thing happened.”

“Exactly, Jude.”

“So, what are you planning to do? Drive down to the South of France? Or fly?”

“Flying’ll be quicker.”

“Have you booked a flight?”

“Stephen’s PA has sorted it out. They’re holding two seats for a Gatwick flight to Bordeaux at 7.55 tomorrow morning. But I didn’t want to confirm until I knew the names of the passengers.”

“What?” Jude looked perplexed. “Come on, Carole. You know Gaby’s name. And I assume you know your own.”

“No. I wanted to check first that you’d be willing to go with Gaby.”

“Me?”

“It’s logical. I’m in touch with Stephen and Marie and Robert. You’re not, really. So if anything happens here, I’ll be able to keep in touch with developments. Besides…” said Carole, with one of her hard-nosed moments of self-knowledge, “I think Gaby might be more relaxed with you than she is with me.”

“All right.” The bird’s nest of blonde hair quivered with the vigour of Jude’s nod.

“And there’s another thing.”

“What?”

“You speak good French.”

Jude acknowledged this was true.

“Because you told me once that you lived in France for a couple of years.”

“Yes, you’re right. I did. And I’m sure, once I’m actually there, the language will come back.”

Carole had been hoping for more details of her neighbour’s sojourn in France, but as so often happened with Jude, the moment for elaboration was quickly past, and the conversation moved on.

“One small matter, Carole.”

“Yes?”

“Who’s actually paying for this little jaunt?”

“Stephen.”

“Well, it’s logical that he should pay for his fiancée, but – ”

“He’s paying for both of you. Anyway, it’s not just a jaunt for you. You have a job of work to do.”

“As what?”

“Gaby’s minder.”

After their lunch with Robert, Gaby had gone into work for the afternoon, the reasoning being that if Michael Brewer was trying to get at her, he wouldn’t choose to do so in a busy office full of theatrical agents. She found being in her work environment a blessed distraction; arguing with tight-fisted theatre managements brought out her competitive instinct and drove all other thoughts from her mind. At the end of the day she stayed late, her colleagues supporting her with a few glasses of wine, until Stephen came to pick her up. He was her minder overnight in the Fulham house, and he drove her down to check in before seven o’clock at Gatwick’s North Terminal.

Stephen had explained their plans to Inspector Pollard, who approved them. The police effort was concentrated in West Sussex as the noose tightened on Michael Brewer and, so far as he was concerned, the further away Gaby Martin was, the better. He made sure they all had the relevant contact numbers, and gave the expedition his blessing.

Gaby had also phoned the retirement home near Villeneuve-sur-Lot where her grandmother was in residence, and told them she’d be coming to visit. The receptionist she spoke to was delighted at the news because the old lady was not getting any stronger, and she kept talking about her granddaughter and her impending marriage.

Jude was waiting for them at the North Terminal. Carole had driven her up from Fethering in the Renault, but, with characteristic economy, had avoided the cost of parking and just dropped her at Departures.

Stephen kissed his fiancée an anxious goodbye, and returned to his latest work crisis. Neither of the women needed to check bags in. They only had hand luggage: a neat executive rectangle for Gaby, and a squashy patterned fabric bag for Jude. The plan was only to be away two nights. Gaby had booked them in to the small hotel in Villeneuve-sur-Lotthat the Martins always used during their visits to Grand’mère.

They sat down for a coffee and waited for their flight to board.

“God,” said Gaby. “I cannot wait to be on that plane. It’ll be the first time I’ve felt really safe for ages.”

The flight time was only an hour and thirty-five minutes, but quite a lot was achieved in that time. Though, apart from their therapy session, Gaby had only met Jude once – the evening in the Crown and Anchor when they had been joined by Phil and Bazza – there was no reticence between them. As ever, Jude’s easy presence elicited confidences. (The knowledge of this was one of the reasons why Carole had decided that her neighbour should take on the role of minder for the trip.) In spite of the age difference, Gaby soon found herself talking as though to a contemporary she had known since childhood.

“The back’s been all right, has it, during all the nightmares of the last few weeks?”

“Yes. It’s amazing, isn’t it, Jude? When I was under minimal stress, my back packed in. Now I’m facing real disasters, real threats, I haven’t got a twinge.”

“I don’t find that at all amazing. Your body, or your mind, or the two of them working as a conspiracy, have decided that you need all your strength. Your being incapacitated at the moment wouldn’t serve any useful purpose. It wouldn’t remove the stress.”

“No, that’s only going to happen when Michael Brewer’s been caught.”

“And when the stress is removed, that’s when you’re going to have to be careful.”

“About my back?”

“About your back or any number of other physical symptoms which may try and get at you. If you think about it, Gaby, for the last few weeks, you’ve been putting so much energy into just keeping going, you’ve shut out all kinds of negative thoughts simply in the cause of survival. When the pressure’s off, you’ll be very vulnerable.”

“I know what you mean. Sometimes in the past, after a sustained period of pressure, I’ve gone down with a fluey cold.”

“And you’ve rather enjoyed that, haven’t you?”

Gaby grinned, acknowledging Jude’s intuition. “Yes, it’s been very welcome. Snuffling round the flat, watching daytime television and endless mushy DVDs.”

“But you only got ill when you’d completed the project in question, didn’t you? Illness has never stopped you from doing some work you had to, has it?”

“No.” Gaby chuckled. “Why are we such idiots? Why do we let our bodies play these tricks on us? We should be able to recognize their little games. Yes, I’ve been stressed. When the stress is off, I will be ill. And yet, every time it happens, it’s like a big surprise. Same as when there’s snow in England. Everyone has always known it’s a possibility, but there’s still total shockwhen it happens, and the whole country grinds to a halt.”

“Illness is often a very good medicine, Gaby.”

“Mm.” The girl was thoughtful. “Maybe Mum needs a nice comfortable little illness, to make her less uptight.”

Jude shook her head. “From what I hear of your mother, she controls things by being uptight, by being publicly uptight.”

“I know what you mean. Everyone knows she’s nervy. You only have to meet her to know that.”

“So instantly you have less expectation of her. I think that’s how your mother has insulated herself from the unpleasantnesses of life.”

“You’re right. She seems very self-effacing and unassertive.”

“But in fact the entire life of her family revolves around her.”

Gaby nodded, as if at the confirmation of something she had always suspected.

“Power,” Jude continued, “comes in different packages.”

There was a silence. They both looked out of the plane window. The wide green fields of northern France – so different from the greens of England – rolled away below them. Both felt that little burst of liberation that flying can bring.

“Do you know what changed your mother, Gaby?”

“What do you mean – ‘changed her’?”

“Carole met someone who’d been at school with her. Apparently, as a teenager, she was an incredibly lively personality, real life and soul of the party.”

“Mm. I’ve always suspected there was another side to her, but I’ve never seen it.”

“So what do you think changed her?”

“I don’t know. Getting married? Having kids?”

“A lot of people regard getting married and having kids as very positive experiences.”

“Yes, but I don’t think Mum and Dad really got on very well. I mean, as a kid, you’re really too close to know what’s going on, but it was a very tense atmosphere to grow up in. I don’t know what was wrong between them, but there did seem to be something.”

“Did your mother ever talk to you about it?”

A firm shake of the head. “Emotions were a no-go area. Mum just got on with life, though always with the air that the whole business was a major imposition.”

“Did she ever talk about the time when you were born?”

“No. But I get the impression it was round then that something changed for her. Maybe it was the worry because I was premature. Maybe she got post-natal depression. I should think that’s the most likely explanation. But of course, it’s something that she would have kept quiet about. And I don’t think Dad would have been aware there was a problem – he was a sweet man, but not very sensitive to the feelings of others. I’m sure Mum would never have gone to a doctor or anyone like that for help. I’ve thought about this quite a lot, Jude, as I’m sure you can imagine, and that’s the best explanation I’ve come up with.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Jude, although she had thoughts of her own on the subject. “And your father – was he a dominant presence around the house?”

“No. He was very quiet. I mean, he went out to work and came back in the evenings and watched television. But he was kind of…I don’t know. I wasn’t very aware of him when I was growing up.”

“When you came to see me about your back, you mentioned that your father had had bowel cancer.”

“Yes. What, eight years ago, I suppose? But he made a complete recovery – survived so that he could be murdered,” Gaby added bitterly.

“You also told me that when you’d got stomach trouble, you’d been worried that it might be bowel cancer presumably because of the family history of the disease?”

“Yes, but it was all right. I talked to Mum and – ooh, look at that big lake down there!”

Jude duly looked in the direction of the pointing finger, wondering whether the interest of the lake was sufficient to justify the change of subject. Anyway, she wasn’t going to be side-tracked so easily.

“Gaby – sorry to go back over unpleasant memories – but thinking back to when your father’s body was found in Epping Forest…”

“Yes?”

“Carole told me everything that happened. It must have been terrible for you when the body had been found, but still not identified.”

“It was, awful. Because part of me thought, so a body’s been found in Epping Forest. It’s not the first and it won’t be the last. But, because Dad hadn’t gone back home the night before, another part of me was having all these awful fantasies which, sadly, turned out to be true.”

“Yes. Carole said that initially the police weren’t sure how they were going to identify the body.”

“True. Talk of DNA matches, which was another complication, because Phil had gone missing that night, but it turned out all right. They identified Dad from his dental records and the scar where he’d had the cancer surgery.” Gaby shuddered. “Oh God, I never want to live through anything like that time again. The thought of something like that happening to Steve.”

“It’s not going to happen to Stephen,” said Jude, automatically reassuring, while her mind raced, building up a new edifice of logic which she longed to share with Carole.

Their conversation broadened and they started to talk about France. Clearly visits to Villeneuve-sur-Lot had featured large in Gaby’s childhood, and she spoke of her Grand’mère with deep affection.

“How long has she been living there?”

“She moved fairly soon after Grandpa died. I suppose I was about five or six. I don’t really remember him very well.”

“But he was English, your grandfather?”

“Oh yes.” Gaby hugged her knees. “I’ve always loved France. I always feel a part of me belongs here. I’m longing to show my favourite places to Steve.”

“I’m sure you’ll soon be able to when all this is over.”

This reminder of her situation cast a slight shadow over Gaby, so she determinedly moved the conversation on. “You said you lived in France for a while, Jude. What were you doing?”

And, because Gaby had asked a direct question, Jude told her. She was still telling her when they arrived at Bordeaux Airport. Carole would have killed to have been there.