“Yes. I think they must have known earlier that they couldn’t have been Tamsin’s. It can’t have been definite when Detective Sergeant Baylis came to see us, or he’d have said. But I suppose they didn’t know about the rumours in the village, so they had no idea what we’d been thinking.”
“Miles must have been very relieved.”
“He’s totally transformed. You cannot believe the difference between knowing your daughter’s missing and thinking that she’s dead. Now would you like some tea?”
Jude ignored the question and looked piercingly at Tamsin’s mother. “You, on the other hand, Gillie, don’t look totally transformed.”
“Sorry?”
“You look exactly the same as you did yesterday.”
“Yes. Well, one has to keep up some kind of front, however much one’s hurting inside.”
“What I’m saying, Gillie, is that I think you’ve known all along that Tamsin’s alive.”
The shock in Gillie Lutteridge’s face took a moment to establish itself. “How could I?”
“Easily, if you were in touch with her.” Before the denial could come, Jude pressed on. “I’ve been at Sandalls Manor this morning.”
“Ah.” The surrender was immediate. Gillie Lutteridge did not try to argue.
“By chance a letter in your handwriting arrived. Addressed to Tamsin.”
“Did you see her?” The question was full of maternal eagerness, desperate for any news of her daughter.
“Charles Hilton said she wasn’t there.”
Gillie nodded, partly resigned, partly relieved. “We’d agreed that. I was afraid that Miles might find out, and Tamsin…Well, she didn’t want anyone to know she was there either.”
“Because she was ashamed of her illness?”
“No. She just…she said she wanted to vanish off the face of the earth for a while.”
“That’s a rather strange thing to say.” Gillie shrugged. “You don’t think she meant she was suicidal?”
“No, Jude! Certainly not!” The girl’s mother was appalled by the suggestion. “Tamsin’s got a bit depressed while she’s been ill, but she’s never thought like that. All she wants to do is get better, so that she can get back to her normal life. She’d never do anything to harm herself…”
“Good. So Charles is curing her, is he?”
“I hope to God he is, yes. She’s having long sessions with him, and doing an exercise routine, and she’s on a special diet. She has been getting better.”
“Has she?”
“Yes. Last week she was much stronger. She even came here.”
“What did Miles say?”
“He was away on business. Otherwise she wouldn’t have come. Even then, she came in a taxi, after dark, so no one would see her. We just wanted to find out if she could cope.”
“And could she?”
The perfectly coiffed head drooped. “No. Next morning she had gone right back. She seemed worse than ever. No energy, terribly jumpy and depressed. She didn’t want to stay here a minute longer than necessary, went straight back to Sandalls Manor. That’s what’s so cruel about this wretched illness. Tamsin can go a day or two with hardly any symptoms at all, and then, just when she starts to make plans for the future, it comes back again.”
“But, in spite of that relapse, you still think Charles can cure her?”
“I’m praying that he can.” She read in Jude’s face a scepticism that wasn’t there. “We’ve tried everything else! We’ve tried doctor after doctor. Tamsin’s been in hospital for every test known to man. She’s been prescribed vitamin supplements, tonics, anti-depressant after anti-depressant. Nothing has made her any better. Nothing has brought back her energy. Charles Hilton offers an alternative possibility. I’d say it was worth trying.”
“Yes. Yes, of course it is. Presumably the course will take quite a long time?”
“Chronic fatigue syndrome is a complex illness. There are no quick fixes.”
“I know. But I dare say one-to-one therapy with Charles Hilton doesn’t come cheap.”
“I can afford it,” said Gillie defiantly. “I got some money of my own when my mother died.”
“Ah.” Jude nodded her blonde head. “I see.”
“See what?”
“You’re using money of your own. You and Tamsin have agreed to this cloak of secrecy so that Miles doesn’t find out.”
“Is that so odd? You’ve heard him on the subject of alternative therapists. Miles doesn’t even believe Tamsin’s illness exists. Just imagine what he’d make of someone like Charles Hilton.”
“Yes.” Jude understood completely. “But, Gillie…what I can’t understand…when the rumours in the village started about the bones being lamsin’s…when you could see how much pain Miles was suffering…you could have set his mind at rest with just a few words…and you didn’t. You could have told him you knew that Tamsin was still alive.”
“But then he’d have wanted to know how I knew. He’d have tracked her down, and destroyed her last chance of getting better!”
“Are you sure he would, Gillie? Couldn’t you have talked to him about it?”
“No. I can’t talk to Miles. I can’t talk to Miles about anything.”
And, without the slightest tremor of her body, Gillie Lutteridge began to weep. Tears spilled and coursed down her cheeks, destroying the perfection of her make-up and spotting the immaculate collar of her silk blouse.
? Death on the Downs ?
Sixteen
They watched the local news in Jude’s cluttered sitting room. Although they’d already arranged to go to the Crown and Anchor, each had a glass of white wine in their hand. To Carole that seemed like the height of decadence. She also couldn’t help stroking the new juniper she’d put on when she’d nipped back into High Tor to feed Gulliver. It was only Marks & Spencer’s, but there was a bit of cashmere in the weave. And it was Cambridge Blue, a colour bolder than most in Carole’s sartorial spectrum.
Jude’s television was still a tiny portable perched on a pile of wine crates. And it still required a hearty thump before the snow on the screen resolved into pictures. Carole wondered why her neighbour hadn’t replaced the set for something more modern. Could it be that Jude hadn’t got the money to do so? One of the old gnawing questions reasserted itself. What did Jude live on? And how did she spend the majority of her time when she wasn’t with Carole? Come to that, where had she been for the past few weeks? And with whom?
Carole realized she’d let the obvious cues for that last question slip past her. Well, never mind, that could still be remedied. She’d ask Jude straight: Where have you been the last fortnight? Such a direct question couldn’t be evaded.
“Here we go,” said Jude, as the signature tune for the local news started.
And another cue had slipped past.
The news presenter had never quite got over being described as ‘vivacious’ in a school report. Probably at some point she’d also been said to have a bubbly personality’. As a result her lip and eyebrow movements were far too big for the television screen.
“Further to our report at the weekend of human remains being found near the West Sussex village of Weldisham, at a press conference today police…”
She hadn’t much more to tell than they already knew. The skeleton was of a woman, aged between thirty and fifty, and she was reckoned to have died at least five years before. Police forensic investigations were continuing.
There was a clip from the news conference. As ever on the local bulletin, it was too short to have any meaning. Carole had a moment of surprise not to see Detective Sergeant Baylis on the screen, but quickly rationalized his absence. He was too junior in the investigation for such a role.
