Terry scrabbled up, his back against cold stone, stretching his legs, bringing them one at a time up to his chest and down again in sketchy imitation of the exercise given to him by the physiotherapist. It eased the tightening in his chest.
On a nearby headstone was the name Edward Challoner: he had died in 1890, his wife Emily ten years later. Terry scrambled to his feet. A son, George, had died twenty years after his mother in 1920 and a Simon Challoner, only son of George in 1957, aged forty-one, ‘his plane lost over the English Channel’. It sounded as if the man had died in action; Terry knew he had been to the races at Deauville and was Ivan Challoner’s father. Although Ivan was Kate Rokesmith’s dentist, he had not been on their radar because they had not needed dental records to identify her. The police did not connect that a Simon Challoner had treated her at his home in Bishopstone when she was three and an Ivan Challoner twenty years later in Kew. Had they done so, a lot else would have fallen into place.
Terry had posted Janet by the lych gate and joined the mourners by the grave. From her vantage point Janet would not have seen Challoner and Terry had missed him completely. Challoner had his own gate and after the funeral had slipped away. But for one photograph Terry would not have known he was there.
While supposedly keeping an open mind, as procedure dictated, the investigation was scaled down: Hugh Rokesmith was the killer and they would prove it.
Within this paradigm Challoner had free rein.
The fluorescent hands on Terry’s watch said it was seconds before five, confirmed by tolls of the church clock as he traipsed up to the lych gate.
He sat in the front passenger seat of his car and scrolled through his photographs. Without downloading them he could not tell if they were in focus, but they appeared to be better than he could have hoped. It was clearly Ivan Challoner by the grave. Terry tucked the camera in behind a toilet roll in the top compartment: in this sleepy hamlet, thieves could operate with impunity.
He got out again. In London, the street lighting made it seem dark, but in this valley in the South Downs, the even light was enough to see where he was going. Terry adopted a stroll, ready to bid a hearty goodnight to anyone he encountered and say that he and his late wife had courted here if he got chatting.
He deliberately went past Challoner’s house and then sneaked back out of view of the windows. If someone did come, he would hide in the garden and pray Challoner would not see him. Hardly ideal, but he had no choice.
A light burned in a downstairs room where Challoner had left the curtains open. Terry could see a green sofa, an ornate wall lamp from which the light came and a mirror in a gold frame above a mantelpiece. There was no sign of Challoner.
He risked a few steps into the front garden, treading on grass patches amongst the gravel to avoid making a sound. The building’s symmetry was upset by a lean-to garage; Challoner had not put his car away. Terry was about to look through the sitting-room window when Challoner appeared. He shrank into the hedge but Challoner pulled shut the curtains without looking out.
Terry returned to the lane. Light from a lamp-post near the church did not penetrate this far and darkness enveloped him. Stars were pinpricks of light in the velvet sky. Terry congratulated himself for remembering his torch. Two dustbins stood by Challoner’s drive. He squatted behind them, his jacket, which had hung heavy on him all day – he flushed with the slightest effort – offered scant warmth, but, huffing, he pulled it around him. He had put on weight and could not do it up.
Terry had the patience if not the stamina for a long wait.
After half an hour the front door clicked, the car’s indicator lights blinked and the locking system bleeped. Challoner was returning to London for work in the morning.
Headlights swept over Terry’s hiding place, raking the bins a fraction from where he crouched. Challoner reversed, a red glow picking out dew on the grass like droplets of blood. The BMW accelerated away.
Terry kissed his palm at the receding car. Challoner had handed him an opportunity. Everyone gets one lucky break in their career; his had been a long time coming.
He brushed himself down and hobbled back to the lane and in through the lych gate. Here he dared use his torch and, keeping to the path by the beech hedge, found the Challoners’ gate. As he had seen, a chain linked around the latch was fastened with a padlock – but the intricately wrought fleurs-de-lis provided ideal footholds. As a younger man Terry would have scaled it like a monkey; in his sixties it took momentous effort to pull himself up and propel himself over. He did not jump down – he could not afford an injury – but gingerly descended on to the lawn where, mopping his face with his handkerchief, he tried to get his breath.
The shadows of the yew flitted over the grass through which the church tower was stark against night sky, its perky cockerel now dark and menacing.
He worked his way along flagstones slippery with icy moss, relying on an incipient ghostly moonlight to see, and tested the windows; all were locked with catches and limiters to prevent the sashes being lifted. A burglar alarm box from a company in Seaford was prominent above the back door but there was no obvious connection. When Challoner had left, Terry had not heard him set an alarm; in the countryside silence he would have heard the keypad bleep. He gambled that it was off. His hands slick with sweat, Terry fished in his pocket for surgical gloves and snapped them on. He still had no idea how he would break in but as he turned the kitchen door handle, to his astonishment it opened. No alarm.
Immediately he tripped over a pair of wellington boots beside a washing machine. He righted them and shone a light on hooks with waxed jackets, stiff from lack of wax, and sagging yellow waterproofs. He was in the utility room. Just in time he avoided a mop in a metal bucket.
Terry’s rubber-soled shoes made no sound on the stone floor, his torch illuminated a passage going in two directions. He chose right and found himself in a kitchen. Given how immaculate Challoner was, how sleek and clean was his car, and according to his website how state of the art his surgery, this room had not been decorated for decades. Pans hung from a wall of crumbling plaster; dishes were stacked on shelves by an Aga on which was a kettle and a pressure cooker. The stove gave off a dying heat welcome to Terry after his vigil in the cold. A couple of plates and a pan stood on a wooden draining rack. Challoner was no interior designer, but he was clean and he too would not leave dishes unwashed. At this moment his own house was spotless and sparkling, and thinking this Terry imagined getting Stella over. She knew about finishing off jobs. She would finish this job with him.
He froze: the table was set for breakfast, a packet of Cornflakes, a jar of marmalade, a butter dish along with plates, mugs and cutlery. For two. Challoner’s sister had given him the impression Ivan lived alone. She had not spoken kindly of her brother so it could not be her. A wave of tiredness engulfed him, making his legs ache. He was losing his grip: besides telling him that another person was in the house or was expected, what the breakfast table mostly indicated was that Challoner was coming back.
His heart was like a piston against his ribs. He should leave, except if he did then Challoner would have won. For the first time since Stella was a little girl, Terry felt alive.
A fire door lined with green baize gave a sigh when he pushed it. He was in a spacious hall with mosaic flooring stretching to the front door and a staircase to his left. Terry braced himself and climbed the stairs.