“I know that, but it doesn’t make the family ‘a bunch of Essex gangsters’.”
“And…” David went on portentously, “he’s not the only one of them who’s been in prison.”
“What?”
“I was talking at the party to some man, and he said that someone the Martins know has just been released from prison.”
“All right. Someone they
“I’m not so sure about that.”
He hiccoughed. He really was drunk.
“Anyway, lots of people end up in prison, for motoring offences or – ”
David shook his head. “This wasn’t a motoring offence. This man’s just been released after serving thirty years for murder.”
? The Witness at the Wedding ?
Eleven
It was late by the time Carole managed to get rid of David. He had become increasingly maudlin, and even tried to be affectionate, which was absolutely the last thing she wanted. She was appalled when he tried to kiss her, and even more appalled by the fact that she felt an unwelcome flickering of responsive lust. He was so firmly out of her life that she didn’t want him encroaching even on its furthest margins.
Once she had finally ejected him, her mind was too full for sleep to come easily. Seeing David reanimated a whole complex of emotions that she hoped had been safely consigned to inert half-life. The fourteenth of September – the date when she had promised Stephen his parents would demonstrate what a mature, friendly relationship they had – loomed ever more threateningly ahead of her. And the worries David had voiced about Gaby’s family were also troubling, particularly as they echoed anxieties that she had not dared spell out to herself.
All she wanted to do was to snatch what sleep she could, get up at half past six, forgo breakfast, leave thehated hotel and set the Renault firmly on course for Fethering.
She was therefore annoyed, when the phone woke her at twenty to eight, to realize that she had overslept. It was Stephen. And he sounded very tense. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s Howard. Gaby’s dad.”
“What? Has he been taken ill?”
“No. He’s disappeared.”
“What do you mean, Stephen?”
“A car was ordered to take him back after the party last night. He got into it, and that’s the last anyone saw of him. He never made it home.”
? The Witness at the Wedding ?
Twelve
“Have you rung them?” asked Jude, as soon as she walked in from shopping.
“No.”
Gita spoke with defiant truculence. She was stretched over one of the draped sofas in the Woodside Cottage sitting room, but not in an attitude of relaxation. Her body was taut. She couldn’t get comfortable. The television was on, some lunchtime soap, but she didn’t seem able to concentrate on the screen.
“It’s a good idea.”
“I don’t know…”
“Yes, you do. You’re a professional journalist. You told me at breakfast that it was a good idea.”
“I know, but…”
“You woke up with the idea, you were full of it, you said it was the kind of feature you could write standing on your head, and there were at least half a dozen magazine editors who would snap it up.”
“Mm.”
“So why haven’t you rung any of them?”
“Because…” Gita leant forward and clasped her arms round her shins, making herself into a bundle ofmisery. “Because…I know I could have done it. I know the old me could have done it. I just don’t think – now all my confidence has gone – I don’t think I can do anything.”
She sounded so low, too abject even for tears. Instinctively Jude sat down on the sofa and enveloped her friend in a large hug. Gita’s body stayed tense. She sighed hopelessly. “I don’t think I am getting any better, you know, Jude.”
“You are, love. You are. You had the idea for the feature. That’s the first one you’ve had since you were ill.”
“Yes, but I still can’t follow it through.”
“You will. In time. Come on, you’ve just got to make one phone call.”
“I can’t. Oh, I’m sorry, Jude.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“There is. I know how sickeningly spineless I’m being. I know how infuriating I am. God, I bore
“Don’t worry about it.”
“And you have to keep saying the same things back at me.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“You must be sick to death of me.”
“I’m not, Gita. Because, you see, I have the advantage of you.”
“In what way?”
“I know you’re going to get better.”
Gita broke out into a little, despairing laugh. And then the tears came. Jude continued to hold her, as the body in her arms shook with the regular unloading of grief. It was all she could do, but probably also the most valuable thing she could do.
Calmly, over Gita’s heaving shoulders, Jude watched the lunchtime television news.
A man’s body had been found in a burnt-out car on the outskirts of Harlow in Essex.
Harlow, thought Jude. That’s where Carole’s just been. But it can’t have anything to do with her.
In her neat white Renault, driving down the M23 towards the South Coast, Carole heard the same news on the radio. And she had an awful feeling it might have something to do with her.
As soon as she got back to High Tor, she found a television news bulletin. Little was added to the information she already had. The body of a man had been found in a burnt-out car driven some way into Epping Forest off the B1393 road near Harlow. That was it. To Carole, in spite of the horror, it seemed appropriate, confirming her image of Epping Forest as a depository for the bodies of murder victims.
She rang Stephen on his mobile. He was still in Harlow. “I’m at the hotel. Gaby’s with her mother, but they didn’t want me there. Marie’s in a very nervous state.”
Even in the circumstances, Carole couldn’t help thinking, Marie’s always in a very nervous state. “Has there been any sign of Howard?”
“Well…” At the other end of the phone, Carole could hear her son swallow. “Mum, I think it’s going to be bad news.”
In her fever of anticipation she didn’t notice his use of ‘Mum’. “I heard something on the radio about a body in a burnt-out car in Epping Forest. Surely that wasn’t…?”
“It looks horribly as if it was. The police have been round to the flat. They haven’t got a positive identification yet, but they’ve said we should prepare ourselves for the worst.”
“Oh, God…”
“The body’s burnt beyond recognition, but apparently it’s the right sort of age. They’re going to have to check
