‘It’s just possible,’ said George Felse, eyeing him amiably but distantly from beyond the rampart of his official status, all the overtones of friendship carefully excised from a voice which remained gentle, courteous and low-pitched, ‘that I may need to see you for a few moments, too, Mr Kenyon, if you wouldn’t mind being somewhere available, in case?’
He said he wouldn’t, numbly and reluctantly, and turned to go up to his own room. He didn’t hurry, because he wanted to be called back, not to be excluded. In a way he would have given anything to escape, but since there wasn’t going to be any escape, anyhow, and he had already been dragged into the full intimacy of the family secret, what point was there in putting off the event? And before he had reached the stairs Beck was there, framed in the doorway of the living-room, wispy and grey and frightened, and looking desperately for an ally.
‘What is it? Did I hear you say you want to talk to Annet, Mr Felse?’ His eyes wandered sidelong to Tom, who had looked back. ‘No, no, don’t go, Kenyon, this can’t be anything so grave that you can’t hear it. Please, I should be glad if you’d stay. One of the household, you know. That’s if you have no objection to being present?’
Panic gleamed behind the thick lenses of his glasses; not for anything would he be left alone with Annet and his wife and the threat George Felse represented. His wife would expect him to spread a male protective barrier between his womenfolk and harm; or she would not expect it, but watch his helplessness with a bitter, contemptuous smile, and that would be worse. And Annet would act as though he was not there, knowing she had to fend for herself. No, he couldn’t do without Tom. He laid a trembling hand on his arm, and held him convulsively.
‘It’s rather if Felse has no objection,’ said Tom, watching the CID man’s face doubtfully.
‘No, this is not official – yet. Later I may have to ask you to make a formal statement. That will depend on what you have to tell me.’
He was looking Annet in the eyes, without a smile, but with the deliberate, emphatic gentleness of one breaking heavy matters to a child. He had known her since she was a small girl with pigtails; not intimately, but as an observant man knows the young creatures who grow up round him in his own village, the contemporaries of his own sons and daughters. He’d had to pay similar visits to not a few of their homes in his time, he knew all the pitfalls crumbling under their uncertain feet.
‘I’ll tell you what I can,’ said Annet, brows drawn close in a frown of bewilderment. ‘But I don’t know what you can want to ask me.’
‘So much the better, then,’ he said equably, and followed her into the living-room, and turned a chair to the light for her. She understood that quite open manoeuvre, and smiled faintly, but acquiesced without apparent reluctance. The parents hovered, quivering and silent. Tom closed the door, and sat down unobtrusively apart from them.
‘Now Annet, I want you to tell me, if you will, how you spent last week-end.’
George Felse sat down facing her, quite close, watching her attentively but very gently. If he felt the despairing contraction of the tension within the room he gave no sign, and neither did she. She tilted back her head, shaking away the winged shadow of her hair, as if to show him the muted tranquillity of her face more clearly.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ she said.
‘I think you can, if you will.’ And when she had nothing to say, and her mother only turned her head aside with a helpless, savage sigh, he pursued levelly: ‘Were you here at home, for instance?’
‘They say not,’ said Annet in a small, still voice.
‘Let them tell me that. I’m asking you what you say.’
‘I can only tell you what I told them,’ said Annet, ‘but you won’t believe me.’
‘Try me,’ he said patiently.
She looked him unwaveringly in the eyes, and took him at his word. Again, in the same clipped, bare terms she retold that fantastic story of hers.
‘Mrs Blacklock gave me practically a whole week off, from Thursday morning, because she was going to the child care conference at Gloucester. She asked me to come in again on Wednesday – yesterday – and clear up any routine correspondence, and then she came home in the evening. So I had five free days. I hadn’t made any plans to do anything special. I meant to go to choir practice on Friday night, as usual. Maybe to the dance on Saturday, but I hadn’t decided, because Myra was going with a party to the theatre in Wolverhampton, so I hadn’t anyone to go with. They must have missed me at choir practice, and at church on Sunday. If I’d intended not to be there, shouldn’t I have let them know?’
‘He rang up on Friday night,’ said Mrs Beck, a little huskily. ‘Mr Blacklock, I mean – after choir practice. He was worried because she didn’t turn up, wondered if she wasn’t well. I told him she had a bit of a cold. He was quite alarmed, and I had to put him off, or he’d have been round to see her. I said it was nothing much, but she was in bed early, and asleep, so he couldn’t disturb her, of course. He rang again on Sunday morning, after church, to ask how she was.’
‘He only has four altos,’ put in Beck with pathetic eagerness. ‘And she never lets them down. Mr Blacklock knows he can always rely on Annet for his alto solos.’
Annet’s clenched lips quivered in a brief and wry smile. It was all a part of the well-meaning communal effort to keep Annet busy and amused, everyone knew that. The Blacklocks had been taken into Mrs Beck’s embittered and indignant confidence, after that abortive affair with Miles Mallindine, and with her usual competence Regina had stemmed every gap in the fence of watchful care that surrounded the girl, and poured new commitments into every empty corner of her days. Probably the choir was one of the things she’d enjoyed most. Regina couldn’t sing a note; it was Peter, with his patient, fastidious kindness, who manipulated the casual material at his disposal into a very fair music for a village church. No wonder he rejoiced in Annet’s deep, lustrous, boy’s voice. And as charged by his wife, he always brought or sent her home in the car; that was a part of his responsibility. If Annet ever defected again, it mustn’t be while she was in their charge.
‘So from Thursday morning you were free,’ said George mildly, undistracted by these digressions. ‘What did you do with your freedom?’
‘I was home all Thursday afternoon. I washed some things, and played a few records, and wrote one letter. And my mother had two more to post, so about half past three I said I’d go and post them, and then go for a walk. I said I’d be back to tea. I met Mr Kenyon just at the gate, and he offered to post the letters for me, but I told him I wanted some air and was going for a walk. It was just beginning to rain, but I didn’t mind that, I like walking in the rain. I posted the letters in the box by the farm, and then I went on up the lane and over the stile on to the Hallowmount. I climbed right over the hill and went down into the valley by the brook, on the other side. I remember coming to the path there, this side of the brook. I can’t remember how much farther I walked. I can’t remember noticing which way I went, or when it stopped raining. But suddenly I realised it was dark, and I turned back. It wasn’t raining then. I thought I’d better get home the shortest way, so I climbed over the hill again, and there the grass was quite dry, and so were my shoes, and the moon was out. And just below the rocks there I met Mr Kenyon and my father, coming to look for me. They said they were looking for me. It seemed silly to me. I thought I was only a couple of hours late. But they said it was Tuesday,’ she said, eyes wide and distant and grave confronting George Felse’s straight regard. ‘They said I’d been gone five days. I didn’t believe it until we got home, and there was a letter for me, an answer to the one I’d posted. But I couldn’t tell them any more than I’ve told you now, and I know they don’t believe me. All the week-end, they say, they’ve been trying to find me, and covering up the fact that I wasn’t here.’