‘You’re just like your dad,’ she said. ‘Such a good-looking young man.’
He smiled at her and pressed her hand, guessing what was coming, dreading the need for an answer, not knowing what he could possibly say.
‘Are you married yet, Ben?’
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‘No, Mum. You know I’m not.’
You’ll find a nice giri soon. I’d like to see you married and have children.’ ‘Don’t worry.’ He knew the words were meaningless. But in all his vocabulary
there didn’t seem to he any words that would carrv a meaning
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they could both understand and draw comfort from.
Isabel’s shoulders twitched and her legs jerked and squirmed, rustling under the hospital sheet like restless animals. Her tongue
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protruded over her lips as she blinked around the room with a puzzled expression. Then she focused on her son. She sought his face eagerly, her eyes desperate and pleading. She was sending out a mute appeal, begging him for some small drop of consolation.
‘Just like your dad,’ she said.
He waited. His muscles were frozen and his brain empty of thoughts. He was a mesmerized rabbit waiting for the fatal bite. His lungs hurt from holding his breath. He knew he would not be able to refuse the plea in her eyes.
‘Have they made you a sergeant yet, Ben?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ he said, though it broke his heart to lie.
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21
It was the first time Diane Fry had visited the Mount. She was not impressed by the mock porticos and the triple garage and the wrought-iron gates. She found the whole thing tasteless, a white box that was out of place set against the scenery of the valley behind it and the rows of stone cottages a few yards down the road. It could have been plonked down here from a suburb of Birmingham. Edgbaston or Bournville, perhaps. It gave no impression of being part of the landscape.
She had been allocated the task of talking to Charlotte Vernon, following DCI Tailby’s interview with her husband and son. Charlotte had been saying little so far, and attention
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had not been concentrated on her. But now there were other questions that needed to be asked, particularly questions about Lee Sherratt. The boy was still Mr Tailby’s favoured option, though Fry could see he had always kept in mind a second line of enquiry centred on the family. It was possible Charlotte
Vernon might hold the key, one way or the other.
& ^ ‘ }
Fry was shown in by Daniel. He seemed subdued and sullen, rather than the angry young man she had read about in the reports. But when she told him what she wanted, he took her through the house without a word or a backwards glance, finding no necessity for politeness. It was a pity his alibi had checked out so thoroughly.
Charlotte Vernon had been described by the officers who had seen her as an attractive woman; some had said very attractive. Fry had expected to find a rich man’s spoilt wife, with nothing to do all day but look after her appearance, keeping her body in perfect condition, her hair expensively styled, her cosmetics flawless. But she found a woman in her late thirties, tired and resigned. The cosmetics were certainly there, and might have fooled a man. But Fry recognized that they had been applied without conviction.
Charlotte was wearing cream slacks and a silk shirt. She looked
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elegant — but then any woman wearing so many hundreds of pounds worth of clothes on her back ought to look stylish. Fry had come prepared to feel sympathy for the woman, who had just lost her daughter. She was willing to put the son’s story to the hack of her mind, to listen to Charlotte’s version of events. But there was something in the tilt of the woman’s head as she
o
lit a cigarette and settled herself into an armchair: something in
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the curl of her lips as she looked her up and down critically. In the end, Fry did not get a chance to show sympathy, as Charlotte Vernon opened the interview aggressively.
‘Don’t bother to treat me with kid gloves. I’m all right now.’
‘There are a few questions, Mrs Vernon.’
‘Yes, I’ve been expecting you. Dan’s been to see you, of course. I couldn’t stop him. The poor boy — he gets so mixed up about sex. Some men take a long time to mature, don’t they? I think Clan has got a bad case of delayed puberty.’
‘Your son has made a statement about your relationship with Lee Sherratt, Mrs Vernon.’
‘You mean he found out I was having it off with the gardener, don’t you, dear?’
Fry stared at her without expression. They were in a room full of beautiful old furniture with clear, tidy surfaces. There were three or four large watercolours on the wall, and an expanse of woodblock floor led towards French windows and a flagged
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