Keith digested this in silence for a moment or two. "Have you told the police?"
"What?"
"That she's a user."
"No."
"Then I think it's better all round if you never told me and I never heard it."
"Why?"
"Because I'm on the side of law and order and I don't have your freedom to behave as I like."
"Don't blame your profession for your lack of freedom, Smollett," Jack growled, "blame yourself for selling out to it." He nodded towards the house. "She needs help and the best person to give it to her is the one she won't see. Sarah, in other words. What good would a policeman be to her?"
"He could prevent her murdering someone else."
Thoughtfully, Jack rubbed his unshaven jaw. "Meaning that because she's degenerate enough to use drugs, she's ipso facto degenerate enough to kill her mother. That's crap, and you know it."
"It gives her a damn sight better motive than the one Sarah's been saddled with. It's expensive to feed a habit, not to mention the effect it has on the personality. If she didn't kill the old woman for money, then she's probably unpredictable enough to have done it out of sudden fury."
"You'd have no qualms about briefing a barrister with that codswallop either, would you?" murmured Jack.
"No qualms at all, particularly if it's Sarah's neck that ends up on the line." Keith turned the cassette in his fingers, then reached out to put it beside the recorder. "You do know she's worried sick about losing her patients and being arrested for murder, I suppose, while you're here mooning over a drug-addicted nymphomaniac? Where's your loyalty, man?"
Was this Sarah talking? Jack wondered. He hoped not. "Mooning" was not a word he recognized as part of her vocabulary. She had too much self-respect. He gave a prodigious yawn. "Does Sarah want me back. Is that why you're here? I don't mind admitting I'm pretty fed up with freezing my balls off in this miserable dump."
Keith breathed deeply through his nose. "I don't know what she wants," he said, bunching his fists in his lap. "I came because I had an absurd idea that you and I could discuss this mess in an adult way without either of us needling the other. I should have known it was impossible."
Jack squinted at the bunched fists, while doubting that Keith could ever be provoked into using them. "Did she tell you why she wanted a divorce?"
"Not precisely."
He linked his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. "She took against me when she had to arrange an abortion for my lover. It's been downhill ever since."
Keith was genuinely shocked. That explained Sarah's bitterness all right. With a shake of his head, he pushed himself out of his chair and stood by the door, gazing out across the garden. "If I wasn't so sure I'd lose, I'd invite you out there for a thrashing. You're a shit, Jack. JE-SUS!" he said, as the full import of what the man had said slowly dawned. "You had the bloody nerve to make Sarah murder your baby. That is so damn sick I can hardly believe it. She's your wife, for God's sake, not some sleazy back-street abortionist slaughtering wholesale for money. No wonder she wants a divorce. Don't you have any sensibilities at all?"
"Clearly not," said Jack impassively.
"I warned her not to marry you." He turned back bludgeoning the air with his finger because he hadn't the courage to bludgeon Jack with a fist. "I knew it wouldn't last, told her exactly what to expect, what sort of a man you were, how many women you'd used and discarded. But not this. Never this. How could you do such a thing?" He was almost in tears. "Dammit, I wouldn't even turn my back on the baby, but to make your own wife responsible for its murder. You're sick! Do you know that? You're a sick man."
"Put like that, I rather agree with you."
"If I have my way you won't get a penny out of this divorce," he said ferociously. "You do realize I'm going to report this back to her, and make sure she uses it in court?"
"I'm relying on you."
Keith's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means, Smollett, that I expect you to repeat every word of this conversation verbatim." His expression was unreadable. "Now do me a favour and take yourself off before I do something I might regret. Sarah's friendships are entirely her concern, of course, but I admit I've never understood why she always attracts domineering little men who think she's vulnerable." He flipped the tape, pushed it back into the recorder and pressed the "play" button. This time it was Richard Rodney Bennett's "I never went away" that drifted in melancholy splendour upon the air.
No matter where I travelled to,
I never went away from you...
I never went away...
Jack closed his eyes. "Now bugger off," he murmured, "before I rip your arms off. And don't forget to mention the sleeping-bag, there's a good chap."
Duncan and Violet Orloff are the most absurd couple. They spent the entire afternoon on the lawn with Duncan fast asleep and Violet twittering non-stop drivel at him. She's like a manic little bird, constantly twitching her head from side to side for fear of predators. As a result she never once looked at Duncan and was quite oblivious to the fact that he wasn't listening to a word she said. I can't say I blame him. She was empty-headed as a child and age has not improved her. I still can't decide whether it was a good or a bad idea to offer them Wing Cottage when Violet wrote and said they'd set their hearts on spending their retirement in Fontwell. "We do so want to come home," was her appallingly sentimental way of putting it. The money was very useful, of course-Joanna's flat was a shocking expense, as is Ruth's education-but, on balance, neighbours should be eschewed. It's a relationship that can all too easily descend into forced intimacy. Violet forgot herself and called me "love" last week, then went into paroxysms of hysteria when I pointed it out, beating her chest with her hands and ululating like some peasant woman. A most revolting display, frankly. I'm inclined to think she's going senile.
Duncan, of course, is a very different kettle of fish. The wit is still there, if somewhat slower through lack of practice. Hardly surprising when it has been blunted for forty years on Violet's plank of a brain. I wonder sometimes how much they remember of the past. I worry that Violet will twitter away to Joanna or Ruth one day and let cats out of bags that are better confined. We all share too many secrets.
I read back through my early diaries recently and discovered, somewhat to my chagrin, that I told Violet the week before her wedding that her marriage would never last. If the poor creature had a sense of humour, she could reasonably claim the last laugh ...
*9*
Joanna showed little surprise at finding Sarah on her doorstep at noon the next day. She gave the faintest of smiles and stepped back into the hall, inviting the other woman inside. "I was reading the newspaper," she said, as if Sarah had asked her a specific question. She led the way into the drawing-room. "Do sit down. If you've come to see Jack, he's outside."
This was a very different reception from the one Keith described having the previous evening, and Sarah wondered about Joanna's motives. She doubted that it had anything to do with the drug addiction Keith had harped on about, and thought it more likely that curiosity had got the better of her. It made sense. She was Mathilda's daughter and Mathilda had been insatiably curious.
She shook her head. "No, it's you I've come to see."
Joanna resumed her own seat but made no comment.
"I always liked this room," said Sarah slowly. "I thought how comfortable it was. Your mother used to sit over there," she pointed to a high-backed chair in front of the french windows, "and when the sun shone it turned her hair into a silver halo. You're very like her to look at but I expect you know that."