Once the journey had started he leaned back, his eyes closed, and tried to make sense of the day and of his conflicting emotions. But instead, and almost immediately, he fell asleep and didn't stir into consciousness until the train was drawing into Norwich station. But the sleep had done him good. He strode towards the castle car park filled with renewed energy and optimism. He knew what he would do; drive at once to the bungalow, and confront Caroline with the evidence and ask her why she had lied. He couldn't go on seeing her and pretend not to know. They were lovers; they should be able to trust each other. If she was worried or frightened he was there to reassure and comfort her. He knew that she couldn't have murdered Hilary. The very thought was profanation. But she wouldn't have lied unless she was frightened. Something was dreadfully wrong. He would persuade her to go to the police, explain why she had lied and persuaded him to lie. They would go together, confess together. He didn't ask himself whether she would want to see him or even whether, late on a Saturday, she would be at home. All he knew was that the matter between them had to be settled now. There was a rightness and inevitability about his decision and he felt, too, a small surge of power. She had thought him a gullible and ineffectual fool. Well, he would show her that she was wrong. From now on there would be a subtle change in their relationship; she would have a more confident, less malleable lover.
Forty minutes later he was driving through the darkness across flat, undistinguished country towards the bungalow. Slowing down as it came into sight on his left, he was struck afresh by how remote and unattractive it was and wondered again why, with so many villages closer to Larksoken, with the attractions of Norwich and the coast, she should have rented this forbidding, almost sinister little box of crude red brick. And the very word bungalow seemed to him ridiculous, evoking a picture of suburban ribbon development, of cosy respectability, of old people who could no longer manage stairs. Caroline should live in a tower with a wide view of the sea.
And then he saw her. The silver Golf came out from the drive very fast and accelerated eastward. She was wearing what looked like a woollen cap pulled down over her yellow hair but he knew her immediately. He didn't know whether she had recognized him or the Fiesta, but instinctively he braked and let her get almost out of sight before he followed. And, waiting in the quietness of that flat landscape, he could hear Remus barking hysterically.
He was surprised how easy it was to keep her in sight. Sometimes another car passing him would obscure his view of the silver Golf and occasionally, when she slowed for traffic lights or because they had reached a village, he had quickly to reduce speed in case she realized that he was on her tail. They passed through Lydsett village and she took the right turn across the headland. By now he feared that she must have recognized him, must know that she was being followed, but she went on apparently uncaring. When she had negotiated the gate he waited until she was out of sight over the ridge before following, then stopped, put out the car lights and went a little way on foot. He saw that she was picking someone up; a slim girl with spiked yellow hair, orange at the tips, was briefly illuminated in the headlights. The car turned north along the coast road, inland at the power station, then north again. Forty minutes later their destination was known, the quay at Wells-next-the-Sea.
He parked the Fiesta beside the Golf and followed them, keeping Caroline's blue and white cap in sight. They walked quickly, apparently unspeaking and neither of them looked back. At the quay he momentarily lost them and then he saw that they were getting on a boat. And now was his chance; he had to speak to Caroline. He almost ran towards them. They were already on board. It was a small craft, no more than fifteen feet long with a low central cabin and an outboard motor. Both girls were standing in the cockpit. As he came up Caroline turned to him. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
'I want to talk to you. I've been following you since you left the bungalow.'
'I know that, you fool. You've been in my mirror practically the whole way. If I'd wanted to throw you off it wouldn't have been difficult. You should give up this cloak-and-dagger business. It doesn't suit you and you're no good at it.'
But there was no anger in her voice, only a kind of irritated weariness. He said: 'Caroline, I have to talk to you.'
'Then wait until tomorrow. Or stay where you are if you must. We'll be back in an hour.'
'But where are you going? What are you doing?'
'For Christ's sake, what do you think I'm doing? This is a boat, my boat. Out there is the sea. Amy and I are planning a short trip.'
Amy, he thought, Amy who? But Caroline didn't introduce her. He said weakly: 'But it's so late. It's dark and it's getting misty.'
'So it's dark and misty. This is October. Look, Jonathan, why don't you mind your own business and get off home to mother.'
She was busying herself in the cockpit. He leaned over and clutched the side of the boat, feeling the gentle rock of the tide. He said: 'Caroline, please talk to me! Don't go. I love you.'
'I doubt it.'
Both of them seemed to have forgotten Amy. He said desperately: 'I know that you lied about your mother being ruined by Hilary's father. That wasn't true, any of it. Look, if you're in trouble I want to help. We've got to talk. I can't go on like this.'
'I'm not in trouble, and if I were you'd be the last person I'd turn to. And take your hands off my boat.'
He said, as if it were the most important thing between them: 'Your boat? You never told me you had a boat.'
'There are a great many things that I didn't tell you.'
And then, suddenly, he knew. There was no longer room for doubt. 'So it wasn't real was it, any of it? You don't love me, you never did love me.'
'Love, love, love. Stop bleating the word, Jonathan. Look, go home. Stand in front of your glass and take a good long look at yourself. How could you ever have supposed that it was real? This is real, Amy and me. She is why I stay at Larksoken and I am why she stays. Now you know.'
'You used me.'
He knew that he sounded like a querulous child.
'Yes, I used you. We used each other. When we went to bed I was using you and you were using me. That's what sex is. And, if you want to know, it was bloody hard work and it made me sick.'
Even in the throes of his misery and humiliation he could sense an urgency in her that had nothing to do with him. The cruelty was deliberate but it had no passion in it. It would have been more bearable if it had. His presence was merely an irritating but minor intrusion into more important preoccupations. Now the end of the rope had whipped clear of the bollard. She had started the engine and the boat was edging away from the quay. And for the first time he really noticed the other girl. She hadn't spoken since he arrived. She stood silently beside Caroline in the cockpit, unsmiling, shivering slightly, and somehow vulnerable, and he thought he saw on her childish face a look of puzzled compassion before his tears began to sting and the boat and its occupants became an amorphous blur. He waited until they were almost out of sight moving on the dark water, and then he made another decision. He would find a pub, have a beer and some food and be there when they returned. They couldn't be away long or they would miss the tide. And he had to know the truth. He couldn't spend another night in this uncertainty. He stood on the quay staring out to sea as if the little boat with its two occupants was still in sight, then turned away and dragged his feet towards the nearest pub.
The throb of the engine, unnaturally loud, shook the quiet air. Amy half expected doors to open, people to come running down to the quay, to hear protesting voices calling after them. Caroline made a movement and the noise died in a gentle murmur. The boat gently moved away from the quay. Amy said angrily: 'Who is he? Who is that creep?'
'Just a man from Larksoken. His name's Jonathan Reeves. He's unimportant.'
'Why did you tell him lies? Why did you tell him lies about us? We're not lovers.'
'Because it was necessary. What does it matter anyway? It isn't important.'
'It's important to me. Look at me, Caroline. I'm talking to you.'
But still Caroline didn't meet her eyes. She said calmly: 'Wait until we get clear of the harbour. There's something I have to tell you, but I want to get into deep water and I need to concentrate. Get up to the prow and keep a lookout.'
Amy stood for a moment irresolute, and then she obeyed, working her way carefully along the narrow deck, clutching the rim of the low cabin roof. She wasn't sure she liked the hold that Caroline apparently had over her. It was nothing to do with the money, which was paid irregularly and anonymously into her post office account or left
