Caroline Graham
A Place Of Safety
For my friend
PATRICIA HOULIHAN
without whom none of it
would have happened
Chapter One
Every night, at exactly the same time and whatever the weather, Charlie Leathers took the dog for a walk. When Mrs Leathers heard the gate of their breeze-block council bungalow click to, she would peep through a gap in the net curtains to check he was on his way then switch the television back on.
Mr Leathers was usually out about half an hour but his wife would set her kitchen timer for twenty minutes then switch the set off just to be on the safe side. Once he had come back early, stared suspiciously at the newly blank screen and laid the back of his hand against the glass. It was still warm. Hetty had to listen to a droning lecture on how it stood to reason that nothing worth watching was on after ten and it was a known fact that valves wore out more quickly during the hours of darkness. Once she had had the temerity to ask him who paid the licence fee out of their wages and he hadn’t spoken for three days.
Anyway, this night - or the night in question as the police were to call it once its significance was appreciated - he was out rather longer than usual. Hetty could have watched every moment of Absolutely Fabulous. It was only a repeat but was still her favourite programme, being as far removed from her everyday life of domestic drudgery as it was possible to imagine.
Bright moonlight washed over the village green, illuminating the Best Kept Village notice and Ferne Basset’s amateurishly painted coat of arms. This was a made-up, folkloric affair showing a badger rampant, several sheaves of wheat, crossed cricket bats and an unnaturally vivid lime green chrysanthemum.
Charlie Leathers strode across the shorn grass and onto the pavement opposite. He directed an angry stare at the dark mass of half-finished new homes and builder’s equipment next to the pub and kicked a pile of bricks as he went by. He passed several Victorian cottages and a remarkable modern house made almost entirely of glass, over which the moonlight ran like silver rain. A few yards further and he was entering the churchyard behind which lay the beginnings of Carter’s Wood. He walked quickly with the angry, vehement energy that drove all his movements. Charlie never relaxed and even slept twitching, sometimes flailing at the air with clenched fists.
The Jack Russell kept up as best she could, trotting along with many an anxious, upward glance. Tiredness or hard stones along the way were no excuse for faltering. A savage hoik on the collar or an even sharper flick of leather on her tender nose kept her up to scratch. She was only allowed to pause once to do what she had been brought out to do. A wee was accomplished hopping on three legs. And the wonderfully rich and varied scents that thickened the night air remained for ever unexplored.
After being half dragged through a tangle of thick brambles and undergrowth, Candy was relieved to find herself padding on soft leaf mould before a sideways yank on the lead pulled her round in an awkward half-circle as they turned to go home.
This involved approaching Tall Trees Lane, where Charlie lived, in the opposite direction from which they had left. This way they would pass some semi-detached bungalows, several almshouses, the village shop and the church of St Timothy in Torment. And then, before the money started to show itself again, there was the river.
The Misbourne was fast-running and deep. A shallow weir a few hundred yards downstream made a soft swishing sound which mingled with the rustle of leaves in the still night air. Over the river was a stone bridge with a carved parapet barely three feet high.
Charlie had just walked across this when he heard shouting. He stood very still and listened. Noises are hard to place at night and at first he thought the shrill, angry voices were coming from the council houses where people couldn’t care less who heard them rowing. But then they suddenly became louder - perhaps because someone had opened a door - and he realised the source was the building close by the church: the Old Rectory.
Charlie hurried into the churchyard, stood on tiptoe and peered eagerly over the yew hedge. He wound Candy’s lead round and round his hand until she was almost choking. Warning her to be quiet.
Light from the hallway spilled out, flooding the front steps. A girl ran out calling something over her shoulder, the sense of it distorted by gulping sobs. There was an anguished cry from inside the house. ‘Carlotta, Carlotta! Wait!’
As the girl hared off down the drive, Charlie quickly backed round the corner of the hedge. Not that she would have noticed him. Her face as she ran by, just a few feet away, was blind with tears.
‘Come back!’
More running. A regular pounding on the gravel and a second woman, some years older but no less distressed, flew across his line of vision.
‘Leave me alone.’
Reaching the bridge, the girl had turned. Although the way behind her was perfectly clear, Charlie had the most vivid impression of a wild creature at bay.
‘I didn’t mean any harm!’
‘I know, Carlotta.’ The woman approached cautiously. ‘It’s all right. You mustn’t—’
‘It was my last chance - coming to you.’
‘There’s no need for all this.’ Her voice was soothing. ‘Try and calm down.’
The girl climbed onto the parapet.
‘For God’s sake—’
‘They’ll send me to prison.’
‘You don’t have to—’
‘I thought I’d be safe here.’
‘You were - are. I’ve just said—’
‘Where else can I go?’ She hung her head, exhausted by her tears, swaying precariously backwards then jerking upright again with a little cry of fear. ‘Ahh ... what will happen to me?’
‘Now don’t be silly.’ The woman moved forward, her face and hair ghostly in the moonlight. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to you.’
‘I might as well be dead.’ The girl on the bridge became considerably more agitated, covering her face with her hands and once more starting to cry, rocking wretchedly back and forth.
Momentarily unobserved, the woman approached quickly. Softly. She was level with the girl. Had her arms wrapped round the slender legs.
‘Get down, Carlotta. Look - I’ll hold your hand.’
‘Don’t touch me!’
Charlie Leathers had been easing forward, a breath at a time, while all this was going on. Tugged into the drama, not caring, such was his excitement, that he might be seen.
The moon slid behind a cloud. Detail was lost but there was still light enough to outline a dark agitated shape, grotesquely tall, as if one woman was balanced on the other’s shoulders. For a few seconds they wrestled backwards and forwards, grunting.
The girl cried again, ‘Don’t ... don’t push—’
Then there was a terrible cry and a splash as something heavy hit the water. Then silence.
Charlie stepped back into the shelter of the hedge. He was trembling, his nerve ends jumping like fleas on a hot plate. It was some time before he could start to make his way home. And when he did, more than one person noted his progress, for an English country village, despite all appearances to the contrary, is never quite asleep.
For instance, in the beautiful glass house Valentine Fainlight and his sister Louise were enjoying a ferocious game of chess. Valentine played with savage vigour and a determination to win. He would swoop over the board, snatch up pieces and wave them in the air triumphantly. Louise, more detached but equally resolute, remained very still. She would smile, a cool parting of the lips, after a successful move but showed neither disappointment nor displeasure in the face of failure.