Towers of Silence

Chapter Forty One

I kept the heater running in the car and soon the windows were opaque with condensation and the air redolent of wet hair and male body odour. Adam cried for a while gulping and sniffing. Wiping his face on his sleeve. “She knows?” he had said at the station when I’d told him I was a private eye. Meaning about his father. When he quietened he said in a husky voice.

“She doesn’t know, does she? You didn’t either?”

“Not till now.”

“Don’t tell her.”

I sighed. “I have to, Adam.”

“Why?”

“It’s my job. Your mum wanted me to find out what was happening with you. Now I have.”

“Please don’t tell her,” he begged me.

“It has to come out. Your mum knows you went to York and I’ve promised to find out who lives in the house. 21 Blandford Drive.”

“You followed me?” he said dully.

“Yes. And we couldn’t work out why you were there.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment then he cursed. “Bastard, fucking bastard.”

I knew who he meant.

“How did you find out?” I asked him.

“Colin, this friend. It was his birthday, in the summer holidays. We went to York. The Viking place. I got him a voucher, you know, for Comet and Superdrug, and there was a Comet in York. Colin was getting a mini-disc player, he’d saved up and he’d enough with the voucher.” He took a long breath in and out, pressed his palms between his knees. “He was there. I saw him kissing this woman at the counter. He goes off and she’s still waiting. I thought I’d gone mad. Maybe it was a double. You get that sometimes, doubles. She was ordering a dishwasher. I wanted to be wrong, so I listened for the name and the address.”

“Blandford Drive,” I said.

“Mrs Reeve,” he choked on the words.

I exhaled. Listened to the rain slapping against the car. Heard an alarm start, a high-pitched keening.

“I had to make sure. I so wanted to be wrong. You can’t tell her. You can’t,” he was impassioned. “She’ll… what will she do?”

“I don’t know. But don’t you think she’s entitled to the truth? Can you imagine carrying on like this? Keeping it from her? Missing college, not looking after yourself, messing up.”

“I’ll go to college.”

“It’s not just that.”

“It’ll wreck everything.”

“Adam, bigamy’s a serious offence. A crime. I need to talk to your mum. Not tonight but tomorrow when your Dad’s at work. I don’t know what’ll happen but she’ll need your help, you can be sure of that. You go home in a minute, don’t say anything. Go to college tomorrow and come straight home after. Will you do that?”

He nodded. Stared desolately at the windscreen.

“I am sorry,” I said to him.

“Will he go to prison?” he said tightly.

“I don’t know. I’ll try and find out what the law is before I see your mum.”

“I hate him,” he said. “I bloody hate him.”

“Yes.”

“If you talked to him, told him we knew, that he had to stop it…” He knew he was talking a fantasy. As though one family could be dropped into a hole and buried out of sight and the truth concreted over.

“No, Adam. When your mum hired me she’d no idea what you were involved in. Could have been drugs, crime, anything. She still wanted to know. She was beside herself worrying about you and she almost didn’t care what it was, once she knew then there was a chance she could help.”

A little sob escaped.

“What she hated most was the secrecy, not knowing. I have to tell her.”

I cleared the windows, turned the car round and took him back. I watched him get to the door and someone open it. He disappeared inside.

Sleep was fitful. Gale force winds roared round the house and blew about anything they could shift. A car alarm was ringing on and on, unattended.

My thoughts wove endlessly round the daunting events that awaited me the following day. Meeting Bryony Walker, breaking the news of her husband’s bigamy to Susan Reeve. I got a swing of anxiety too. Would Adam Reeve do anything foolish in an attempt to spare his mother? I nearly rang her but what could I say? She was anxious for him already, she hardly needed someone else to tell her to keep an eye on him. And perhaps now the secret was no longer his to bear he’d be able to settle once the shock waves had passed. However his mother took it their lives would change completely once I broke the news.

At four-thirty the wind abated but the alarm shrilled on, a dog did an occasional duet with it. Impossible to ignore. I went down to the kitchen and made a cup of tea. Digger lay beside the armchair and made no protest when I used him for a footstool. I could feel his warmth through my slippers.

I sipped the tea and tried to think of things domestic. We could get the tree on Saturday. I’d promised them, after all. Ray could get it when he was doing the big shop. Would he prefer new music to Marvin Gaye? Would he think I was making a point if I got him Marvin Gaye? I looked through the pile of cards that needed stringing up. Another job. Laura wore hats a lot. There were some nice fleecy ones about. What did I really fancy for Christmas dinner?

It was too cold to stay up and there was nothing productive I could do in the middle of the night so I returned to bed and covered my head with the duvet to muffle the alarm. Slowly I slipped into sleep.

“Mummeee!” Maddie’s yell pierced like tin. I sat bolt upright, then went quickly to her room before she screamed again.

“Mummy, it was a dream. There was a giant ant and it was trying to eat me.”

I gave her a hug. “It’s just a dream. It’s gone now. You lie down and go back to sleep.”

“What’s that noise?”

“An alarm.”

“Why doesn’t someone stop it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it robbers?”

“No, the wind set it off.”

“What if I have another bad dream?”

“I don’t think you will.”

“I might.”

“Maddie, I’m really tired.”

“Can I come in your bed?”

“No, you’re too wriggly.”

“I won’t wriggle.”

“Lie down.”

“Can you get giant ants?”

“No. Even the very biggest ones are so small they couldn’t eat a person.”

“But if there were bizillions of them and they all had a small bite… ”

“Maddie, I don’t want to talk about ants, I want to go to sleep. There’s no giant ants and that dream won’t come back. Think about something nice.”

“What?” Sulky tone.

“Christmas. We’re getting the tree on Saturday.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Think about that and the presents.”

She lay down and I covered her with the duvet. “Night-night,”

Sleep take three.

I must have got some. It was dawn when I awoke. I certainly hadn’t had enough though, not for the day that lay ahead.