May felt the shame of a betrayer. “It was less a lie than an omission. You don’t know what I went through with Jane.”
“You could have told me; I might have been able to help.”
“Arthur, you have no patience with people. This was a private problem, something I couldn’t find a way to share with you. I had to find a way of getting through to Jane on my own. Mental illness is so terribly misunderstood and I wanted to see if I could help her.”
“Even you can’t undo the past, John,” said Bryant sadly. “How is she now?”
“She has her black dog days. The death of our daughter will always stand between us, but the trouble began long before she died.” May had good reason for sometimes thinking that his family had been cursed. First, Jane’s illness and their subsequent divorce, then the death of Elizabeth. Alex, her brother, had left for Canada and would still not talk to his father. “I kept thinking that if I had understood Jane better in the early days of her illness, I might have been able to keep us all together.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“About four months ago. Oswald used to come with me to visit her. That’s why he wanted to leave money to the hospital.”
“Does she recognise you?”
“Certainly. But it’s difficult to hold a conversation with her. Sometimes you think she’s perfectly fine, but she’s very good at pretending that nothing is wrong. She’s in her seventies, hardly the age it once was, of course, but she hasn’t been right for such a long time that I can hardly recall a time when she was ever truly well. I’ve lost track of the number of times she’s tried to kill herself. Elizabeth’s death removed her reason for living.”
“But what about April? Does she know about this?”
“No, and I agreed with Jane that we’re not going to tell her. That girl’s been through enough without finding out that her grandmother is still alive. What is the point in opening up old wounds? Jane is in no fit state to see her granddaughter, and April has only just made her own recovery. I don’t hold with all this guff about
“Perhaps she needs to decide that for herself,” said Bryant carefully.
“Don’t you see, once the subject is reopened it can’t be closed up again. April is not strong enough. I have to protect her.”
“Nor is she a child, John. What happened to Jane?”
May sighed. “It was a long time ago, in a very sixties marriage. You must remember what Jane was like, how wild she could be. It’s a miracle we stayed together as long as we did. After the separation, I told you she went off with someone who was a bad influence on her, some kind of TV producer, so he said. I expected him to tell her lies, but not to give her drugs. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see she was not the sort of person…well, I was looking after the children, you were off in France sorting out troubles of your own with Nathalie’s family, we weren’t working together much, you and I – I meant to tell you what had happened, but the time never seemed to be right.”
“You told me a little about the accident, but not much.”
“Jane was driving the Volkswagen when it mounted the sidewalk right in the middle of Tottenham Court Road. Her boyfriend was killed instantly. She had no licence. They found LSD, cocaine and alcohol in her system. She was too fragile to deal with police and doctors. She suffered a mental collapse and was deemed unfit to stand trial. She wouldn’t see me, or anyone else for that matter, and although her physician thought she would eventually recover, she seemed to slip away from us to some private place inside her head. She became a danger to herself and was admitted as a patient to the Broadhampton. I had to sign her papers. It was the worst day of my life. She showed little improvement, and seemed desperate to take up long-term residency. She wanted no responsibility for her own life. When you returned, I told myself I would talk to you when the time was right, but I kept putting it off. I visit her every once in a while, but she doesn’t really know who I am.” May looked from the window as if searching for answers. “It seems I can help every family except my own. My son thinks I dumped his mother in a clinic and encouraged his sister to join the police. To think that I could have lost April as well…”
“But you didn’t, John, you brought her back,” said Bryant gently. “You should be proud of that. You know we have to go to the Broadhampton next, don’t you? Would you let me visit Jane?”
“Wouldn’t you rather remember her as she once was?” asked May, as the train passed across the glittering grey Thames on its approach to Victoria Station.
“Yes, but I’d still like to see her once more.”
“Then I should call ahead.” May took out his phone.
“No, don’t do that. We need to find out why Pellew was released early, so let’s catch them on the hop. I don’t want any prepared answers.”
May tried to read the look on his partner’s face, but for once, failed to do so.
¦
The Broadhampton Clinic in Lavender Hill, South London, was an orange brick Edwardian building with central columns of white stucco, pedimented wings and a small bell tower. It possessed the aura of paternal authority common to civic buildings of the era, and made one feel protected just by approaching it.
The detectives met with an apologetic young intern named Senwe who did his best to help, but was unfamiliar with the patient in question. After questioning other nurses and registrars, Senwe returned to the office where he had left the detectives waiting.
“There is a lady who knows about the release of Anthony Pellew,” he explained, rounding his vowels with a crystal African accent, “but she is away on holiday. Her department have given me this for you.” He handed over a single folded sheet of paper.
Bryant fiddled his reading glasses into place. “Let’s see, what have we got? ‘A. Pellew, thirty-seven years of age, adjudged by the medical assessment committee under conditions established by the Revised Mental Health Act of 1998 to be of such mental sufficiency that he may be released under his own cognizance conditional to regular examination and palliative care’ – God, who writes these things?”
“It looks like the board decided he met enough of their criteria to be placed in a halfway house, so long as he continued to take medication for anxiety,” said May, reading over his shoulder.
“So he was kept on the happy pills and packed off to a flat on the De Beauvoir estate, off the Balls Pond Road in Islington. There’s an address here. We could nip back and get Victor.”
“I’m not driving around town in that lethal hippie rustbucket, thank you,” May warned. “We’ll take my BMW. You shouldn’t be driving.”
“You’re a fine one to talk. Alma hasn’t forgiven you for buggering up her Bedford van.”
“We were stuck in a snowdrift, Arthur; it’s hardly surprising the radiator cracked. Any next of kin listed?”
“None, but there’s a social services officer. Actually, it’s someone we’ve dealt with before: Lorraine Bonner, the leader of the Residents’ Association at the Roland Plumbe Community estate. At least we know where to find her.”
“Then that’s our next stop.” May paused, uncertain. “Do you still want to see Jane?”
“Yes, I’d like to.”
May led the way upstairs and through the cheerfully painted corridors, to a ward separated from the rest of the floor. Nodding to the duty nurse, he headed toward the corner room and gently pushed back the door.
“Jane, it’s me.” There was no answer. “I’ve brought somebody to see you. You remember Arthur Bryant, don’t you?”
She wore a tightly drawn fawn cardigan over a long pleated skirt. Her white sneakers had no laces. She had kept her figure and removed any trace of grey from her auburn hair, but when she turned around, Bryant saw the pain and confusion of the intervening years etched under her eyes and around her thin mouth. There was a loss of focus in her face, as though she was searching for something she could not quite make out. After a moment of composure during which she absently touched a hair into place, she drew a breath and seemed to straighten a little.
“Jane, do you remember Arthur?”
She raised a finger at him and tried to smile. “Yes, we’ve met, but I’m afraid I don’t know where – ”
“I came to your wedding,” said Bryant gently.
“My wedding. How nice. Of course you did. You were always so kind.” The smile held, the eyes even
