“What’s happened?”
She twisted away from him, threw herself against the wall and beat on it with her fists. “Oh God, what shall I do?”
“I know it’s hard,” he said helplessly, “but we’re doing everything that’s humanly possible. We’re . . .”
“Your people,” she sobbed, “they’ve been in and out all day, searching and - and asking me things. They searched this house! And people kept phoning, awful people. There was a woman - a woman . . . Oh my God! She said John was dead and she - she described how he died and she said it was my fault! I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it, I shall gas myself, I shall cut my wrists . . .”
“You must stop this,” he shouted. She turned to him and screamed into his face. He raised his hand and slapped her stingingly on the cheek. She gagged, gulped and crumpled, collapsing against him. To stop her falling, he put his arms round her and for a moment she clung to him, as in a lover’s embrace, her wet face buried in his neck. Then she stepped back, the red hair flying as she shook herself.
“Forgive me,” she said. Her voice was hoarse with crying. “I’m mad. I think I’m going mad.”
“Come in here and tell me. You were optimistic earlier.”
“That was this morning.” She spoke quietly now in a thin broken voice. Gradually and not very coherently she told him about the policeman who had searched her cupboards and tramped through the attics, how they had torn away the undergrowth that swamped the roots of old trees in that wild garden. She told him, gasping, of the obscene phone calls and of the letters, inspired by last night’s evening-paper story, the second post had brought.
“You are not to open any letters unless you recognise the handwriting,” he said. “Everything else we’ll look at first. As to the phone calls . . .”
“Your sergeant said you’d have an arrangement to get my phone monitored.” She sighed deeply, calmer now, but the tears were still falling.
“Have you got any brandy in this – er – place?”
“In the dining room.” She managed a damp, weak smile. It belonged to my great-aunt. This – er - place, as you call it, was hers. Brandy keeps for years and years, doesn’t it?”
“Years and years make it all the better,” said Burden,
The dining room was cavernous, cold and smelling of dust. He wondered what combination of circumstances had brought her to this house and why she stayed. The brandy was in a sideboard that looked more like a wooden mansion than a piece of furniture, it was so ornamented with carved pillars and arches and niches and balconies.
“You have some too,” she said.
He hesitated. “All right. Thank you.” He made his way back to the armchair he had occupied before going to the dining room, but she sat down on the floor, curling her legs under her and staring up at him with a curious blind trust. Only one lamp was alight, making a little golden glow behind her head.
She drank her brandy and for a long time they sat without talking. Then, warmed and calmed, she began to speak about the lost boy, the things he liked doing, the things be said, his little precocious cleverness. She spoke of London and of the strangeness of Stowerton, to herself and her son. At last she fell silent, her eyes fixed on his face, but he had lost the embarrassment which this trusting childlike stare had at first occasioned in him and it didn’t return even when, leaning forward with quick impulsiveness, she reached for his hand and held it tightly.
He wasn’t embarrassed, but the touch of her hand electrified him. It brought him such a shock and such sudden turbulence that instead of the normal reactions of a normal man enclosing the hand of a pretty woman in his own he had the illusion that his whole body was holding her body. The effect of this was to make him tremble. He loosened his fingers and said abruptly, breaking the now heavy and languorous silence, “You’re a Londoner. You like London. Why do you live here?”
“It is rather ghastly, isn’t it?” All the harshness and terror had gone from her voice and once more it was soft and rich. Although he had known she was bound to speak in answer to his question, the sound of her beautiful voice, quite normal now, disturbed him almost as much as the touch of her hand. “A dreadful old white elephant of a house,” she said.
“It’s no business of mine,” be muttered.
“But it’s no secret either. I didn’t even know I had this great-aunt. She died three years ago and left this house to my father, but he was dying himself of cancer.” With a peculiarly graceful but unstudied movement she raised her hand and pushed away the mass of hair from her face. The full embroidered sleeve of the strange tunic she wore fell away from her arm and the skin glowed whitely, faint golden down gleaming in the lamplight. “I tried to sell it for my father, but no one wanted it, and then he died and Matthew - my husband - left me. Where else could I go but here? I couldn’t afford the rent of our flat and Matthew’s money had run out.” It seemed like hours since those eyes had first begun staring at him, but now at last she turned them away. “The police,” she said very softly, “thought Matthew might have taken John.”
“I know. It’s something we always have to check on when the child of – er - estranged or divorced parents is missing.”
“They went to see him, or they tried to. He’s in hospital, having his appendix out. I believe they talked to his wife. He married again, you see.”
Burden nodded. With more than a policeman’s natural curiosity he passionately wanted to know whether this Matthew had divorced her or she him, what he did for a living, how it had all come about. He couldn’t ask her. His voice felt strangled.
She edged a little closer towards him, not reaching out for his hand this time. Her hair curtained her face. I want you to know,” she said, “how you’ve helped me. What a comfort you’ve been. I should have broken down completely tonight if you hadn’t come. I should have done something dreadful.”
“You mustn’t be alone.”
“I’ve got my sleeping tablets,” she said, “and Mrs. Crantock is coming in at ten.” Slowly she got to her feet, reached out and switched on the standard lamp. “She’ll be here in a minute. It’s five to now.”
Her words and the sudden brightness brought Burden sharply back to reality. He blinked and shook himself.
“Five to ten? I’ve just remembered, I’m supposed to be taking my family to the pictures.”
“And I’ve stopped you? Would you like to phone? Please do. Use my phone.”
“Too late, I’m afraid.”
"I’m dreadfully sorry.”
“I think my being here was more important, don’t you?”
“It was important to me. But you must go now. Will you come again tomorrow? I mean you yourself.”
He was standing in the doorway as she spoke. She put her hand lightly on his arm and they were close together, their faces only a foot apart. “I - yes . . . Yes, of course.” He was stammering badly. “Of course I’ll come.”
“Inspector Burden . . . No, I can’t keep calling you that. What’s your first name?”
“I think it will be best if you . . .” he began, and then, almost desperately, “It’s Michael. People call me Mike.”
“Mike,” she said, and at that moment, as she dwelt on the name, repeating it softly, Mrs. Crantock rang the bell.
Grace was curled up on the sofa and he could see that she had been crying. The enormity of what he had done for a moment overcame that other enormity, the urgency of his body.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, going over to her. “The phone box was full and later . . .”