‘Did they actually say they’d eliminated him from their enquiries?’
‘Nothing as definite as that. In fact, they implied that they would need to question him further.’ The old man sounded very weary, uncertain how much more he could take. ‘Roddy’s in a bad way, Jude.’
‘Physically?’
‘A few scratches. Nothing that won’t heal. But it’s more the other aspect …’
‘His mental health?’
‘I suppose we have to call it that.’ It was said with the unwillingness of someone who had never in his life spoken of such matters.
‘Would it help if I were to come and see him?’
‘That’s what I was going to ask. I know it’s a cheek, but after what you did for my golfing buddy …’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
TWENTY-ONE
Smalting was along the coast to the west of Fethering. Its residents thought of it as the more upmarket of the two villages. The residents of Fethering thought the reverse, but on the objective valuations of estate agents, prices in Smalting were marginally higher. Which explained the air of smugness worn by many of the locals.
The house in which Brian Skelton lived was small and neat, with probably, Jude judged from the exterior, only two bedrooms. She got the feeling that, when Roddy had been young and meeting Alice at the Fethering Yacht Club, the family would have lived in a bigger property. Whether the downsizing had occurred before or after the death of Mrs Skelton, she did not know. She dismissed her taxi driver. It was a Fethering-based firm she used often, and she said she might call him back for the return trip.
The man who opened the front door to her was, as she had expected, the man she’d seen at the wedding. Tall and wiry, with white hair and fiercely black brows over pure blue eyes. Brian Skelton was slightly stooped with age, but still looked capable of a completing a couple of rounds of golf a week.
‘It’s good of you to come,’ he said.
‘No problem.’
‘Roddy’s very low.’ As he ushered her into the small, anonymous hall, he asked, ‘Can I get you a coffee or …?’
‘No, thanks. I had some just before I left.’
‘He’s hardly talking to me. I don’t know if you’ll be able to get anything out of him.’
‘We’ll see. Is he in bed?’
‘No. In the sitting room at the back.’
‘Does he know I’m coming?’
‘I said you were. Whether he took it in …’ He shrugged.
‘Let’s go and see him.’
‘Yes. Do you want me to … er …?’ he asked awkwardly.
‘I think if you’re around when I first talk to him … then we’ll play it by ear.’
‘Fine.’ Still, he didn’t move towards the back of the house. ‘It is terrible for me, seeing my son in this condition. He was pretty shaken each time he came back from Afghanistan, but nothing like this.’
‘He’s probably reacting to the accumulated stress.’
‘Perhaps. I was a career soldier too, but we never had … Attitudes were different. I don’t know, perhaps we weren’t subjected to the same pressures. Certainly, we never talked about stuff like that.’
‘And do you think that was a good thing?’ asked Jude gently.
The blue eyes looked piercingly into her brown ones. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.’
‘Let’s go and see Roddy.’
‘Yes.’
The small sitting room opened on to a conservatory which caught the afternoon sunshine. Like the hall, it was furnished efficiently rather than affectionately. The only personal touches were family photographs, Roddy and a sister at various ages in various seaside and boating situations. There was no photographic evidence of the late Mrs Skelton. On the small table beside the armchair in which Roddy sat was a framed picture of him in his full uniformed glory, probably taken at his Sandhurst passing-out ceremony.
The contrast between the beaming young man in the photograph and the figure who shrank into the armchair beside it could not have been more marked. Though their bulk was much the same. At the end of his Sandhurst training, Roddy had been at the peak of his physical fitness. In the years since he had put on enough weight to become almost chubby. But whatever he had been doing since the previous Saturday had stripped him of those excess pounds. He looked thin, gaunt, haunted. The jogging suit he wore hung loose on his frame. Though the scratches and bruises on his face had been cleaned up, they still looked livid and painful. His eyes were open, but unfocused.
‘Roddy,’ she said gently. ‘It’s Jude. Do you remember me?’
He showed no signs of recognition. No signs of hearing her. He seemed locked into his own silence.
‘This is pretty much how he was when he arrived here,’ said his father. ‘Filthy dirty, scratched all over. I cleaned him up. He didn’t say much.’
‘Did he come here of his own accord?’
‘I think so. Nobody drove him, if that’s what you mean. Just a couple of days ago, there was a knock on the front door, and there he was.’
‘I think that’s a good sign, that he knew where to come back to.’
‘Maybe,’ said the old man, in the manner of someone who had clutched at so many straws recently that he wasn’t much excited by being offered a new one.
‘And you say he did talk to the police?’
‘Yes. They didn’t want me to be there while they questioned him, but I could hear his voice from the kitchen. He was definitely talking to them.’
‘And did he tell you where he’d been since he left the Craigmullen?’
‘He sort of implied he’d been on the Downs. He used to spend a lot of time out there when he was a boy, and his training taught him basic fieldcraft, so he wouldn’t have had a problem surviving.’
‘And those wounds on his face – was he attacked by someone?’
‘I don’t know for sure, but I think they’re probably just scratches from brambles and what-have-you.’
‘Hm.’ Gently, Jude took the young man’s hand. ‘Roddy. Can you hear me, Roddy?’ There was no reaction.
‘My instinct,’ said Brian Skelton, ‘is just to tell him to snap out of it.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr Skelton. Your son is seriously ill.’
‘Mentally ill?’
‘Yes.’
The old man groaned. He was out of his depth in such talk. ‘I just never imagined … He was always such a happy child, full of enthusiasm for everything. And he loves the army. All right, he’s probably seen some pretty nasty stuff at times, Afghanistan certainly, but he’s basically always been as sane as I am.’
Jude didn’t comment. She wasn’t about to challenge Brian Skelton’s lifetime disbelief in the existence of mental illness. Instead, she said, ‘If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to spend some time with Roddy on his own …?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Absolutely fine. I’ll go and … er … make myself a cup of coffee. Get you one?’
‘No thank you, I’m fine.’
‘Oh yes, you said. Good, excellent. Well, I’ll … erm …’ And he shuffled awkwardly out of the room, closing the door behind him.
‘Roddy …’ Jude kept her voice very low. ‘I’m just going to try a healing technique that will relax you. It doesn’t involve my actually touching you, but …’
She stopped, because she suddenly noticed that a spark of life had come into his eyes.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I just can’t talk when the Aged P is in the room. I know I’ve let everyone down, but I’ve let him down most of all.’
‘In what way?’
‘He always wanted me to be a son he could be proud of. That’s why I went into the army. To please him. And I’ve let him down. He wanted a son who could cope with life, not a bloody basket case.’ Unbidden, tears were now trickling down his scratched cheeks. ‘Oh God, and now I’m blubbing like a new bug on his first day at prep school. Thank God the Aged P isn’t in the room to witness this!’