'Did Leo come back that night?'
'If he did, I didn't hear him. I bolted the front and back door on the inside, so he couldn't get in.' She brushed imaginary fluff from her sleeve. 'He came back at lunchtime on the Saturday.'
'Were Miles and Fergus still there?'
She nodded. 'We were all in the kitchen when he came in through the back door. They couldn't go unless I lent them some money for the tube fare back to Miles's Porsche, which was parked outside a casino somewhere, but I was refusing to shell out any more. I said they could walk for all I cared, or phone Adam and explain what they'd been doing. He'd already told them that if they persisted with the gambling he'd cut them out of his will.' She closed her eyes and touched her fingertips to her eyelids as if she had a pain there. 'So Leo offered to drive them and they all left.'
There was another silence.
'And what did you do then?' asked Alan.
'I don't know,' she said. 'I can't remember anything after they left. I think I must have gone to sleep.' She lowered her hand and looked at him with a kind of despair.
THE VICARAGE, LITTLETON MARY-12:30 P.M.
They sat in the drawing room in deep discomfort. Caroline Harris crouched on the sofa, misery etched into every line of her face. Charles sat as far away from her as he could, while Simon perched unhappily on a stool. Frank, overheated and tired, was offered a deep leather armchair which hurt his back.
'We've located Leo's house in Chelsea,' he explained, 'and according to the information phoned through before I left, there are several boxes and suitcases on the premises which appear to belong to your daughter. Preliminary searches have uncovered a photograph album which shows several snapshots of Meg and Leo together, taken in July 1983.' He addressed his question to Mrs. Harris. 'Were you aware they had known each other for at least eleven years?'
Her lips thinned to a narrow line. 'No,' she said.
'Was she a secretive person, Mrs. Harris?'
The woman glanced spitefully at her husband. 'Not with me. She told me everything. It was her father she kept secrets from.'
'That's not true,' said Simon.
Frank glanced at him. 'You'd say she
'Very. She didn't want anyone to know anything about her life, least of all Mum or Dad. Particularly Mum, in fact. She knew how much Mum hated sex, so she didn't tell her until recently how many men she slept with, and she only did that because she was angry.' He closed his eyes to avoid looking at his mother's pain. 'She loved sex, saw it as a healthy expression of life, love, and beauty, and couldn't bear to have it treated as something dirty and disgusting.''
'You wanted her too, Simon,' said Caroline in a whisper, 'just like your father. Never mind she was your sister. You think I didn't notice. I saw how you looked at her.'
A dull flush rose in Simon's face. 'It was you who made her uncomfortable,' he said quietly, 'not Dad. Everything she did was the opposite of what you've done. She got herself a decent education, she rejected God, she loved sex, she stayed single, she dove into London life to get away from the sterility of village rectitude. She experienced more in her thirty-four years than you will experience in a whole lifetime.' Tears glittered in his eyes. 'She didn't strangle life, she glorified every minute as if it were her last. I wish to God the rest of us could do the same.'
There was a desperate and terrible silence.
Frank cleared his throat. 'One of the photographs has a somewhat cryptic caption underneath it. It reads'-he consulted a notebook-' 'Happiness AA.' I'm told Meg is sitting in Leo's lap on a beach.' He looked up. 'Do you know what 'AA' stands for? It seems unlikely that Automobile Association or Alcoholics Anonymous would fit the bill.'
Simon looked towards his mother, but she had retreated into some internal world and was rocking herself tenderly on the sofa. 'After Abortion,' he said quietly. 'Married couples always talk about their lives BC-Before Children. Meg always referred to life after her abortion as 'double-A time.' She said she'd never realized before just how awful it would be to have children and she thanked God she'd discovered early on that she wasn't cut out to be a mother.'
'Was Leo the father?'
'I don't know. She never told me who it was, and I didn't ask.'
'Did you know about Leo before your parents did?'
'Not by name. I knew she had a long-term lover who came and went between her other affairs. She was very fond of him, called him her old standby. I presume that was Leo if she'd known him eleven years.'
'Did she ever say why she didn't marry him?'
Simon shrugged. 'She said once that he was permanently broke, but the truth is, I don't think she wanted to get married. She certainly didn't want children.' He glanced towards his father. 'She always felt that I fitted into our family better than she did, and she was afraid of bringing a child into the world who didn't belong. She said it wasn't fair.'
'It can't have been Leo,' said his father. 'Surely she wouldn't describe a man with a house in Chelsea as permanently broke.'
Frank Cheever tucked his notebook into his pocket. 'In fact, sir, he had several properties both in this country and abroad, but no one knew about them, not even his parents. He made a habit of pleading poverty when, according to his solicitor, he was worth a very tidy fortune. Miss Kingsley describes him as a parasite who was obsessively secretive about money. His mother describes a disturbed young man with a pathological dislike of sharing. He wasn't a straightforward character by any means, so it's highly probable he did give your daughter the impression he had no money.'
