Trudy’s eyes flared. ‘You can’t say that!’ she repeated. But even as she felt the indignation and anger building inside her, now that the shock of the accusation was receding a little, in her head she was beginning to concede that her friend might have a point. What was to stop him destroying the diary if he thought it implicated his son? The man was only human after all. But … still she found it unthinkable. She knew that the Superintendent’s reputation as a police officer was totally unsullied. And having met the man, she just couldn’t see him betraying everything he’d worked for, and stood for … and yet …
Clement watched her go pale, then red, then pale again. He waited patiently for her to sort it all out in her mind, but he knew that she must be in turmoil. Everything loyal in her, and everything she’d been taught, would be telling her that superior officers were honourable and trustworthy and incorruptible.
But she wasn’t the totally green and innocent young girl he’d first met any longer. In the past two years she’d seen five murderers caught, and had to deal with the tragic aftermath of their crimes. She was learning, and learning fast, that the world didn’t operate in monochrome shades of pure black and bright white, but in an almost infinite number of shades of grey.
And now she was faced with a choice. Did she ‘do the right thing’, inform DI Jennings, as he’d told her she must, and ‘betray’ Superintendent Finch? Or did she keep a diplomatic silence?
Clement felt his left leg begin to tremble and cursed inwardly. No doubt the stress of the moment was bringing on an episode. Surreptitiously he leaned back against the garden fence behind him and carefully shifted more weight onto his right leg. At least Trudy was too distracted by her own woes to notice his, he thought gratefully.
He took slow, deep breaths and watched her struggle with her dilemma – and grimly acknowledged that there was nothing at all he could do to help her.
Chapter 26
Angela Baines was beginning to get worried. It wasn’t like Janet to be so late in getting home. Already she’d had to put their dinners to keep in the oven on a low heat. It simply wasn’t possible for her to eat on her own, not knowing why Janet wasn’t home. She’d always been a considerate girl and she knew when the evening meal was served.
She paced nervously up and down the front window, pausing every now and then to stare at the garden gate, hoping to see her daughter’s form push it open and walk through. But only a lone chaffinch, searching for mayflies to feed its growing brood, darted around the garden, providing movement.
She glanced at the wooden sunburst clock on the wall again. It was a recently purchased and rather fashionable item that would normally give her pleasure to look at, but today she barely noticed this symbol of her determined modernity. It simply kept telling her the same thing – time was ticking away and her daughter was not home.
Angela tried to stem her growing sense of panic. Janet was a sensible girl, after all, and a thoughtful one. She was sure to be home soon with a very good excuse. Maybe she’d been into town, and the bus had broken down? It was sure to be something like that and nothing serious at all. Unlike some girls, who could cause their parents no end of trouble, Janet had always been a good girl.
Not like that little madam Iris.
Angela was glad that Iris was gone and felt no guilt whatsoever for feeling this way. The little so-and-so had been nothing but trouble ever since she could start to walk and talk, but more recently she and her radical ideas about running away to London had become downright dangerous.
How many nights had Angela lain awake, worrying that the atrocious girl might succeed in luring Janet to go away with her? And who knows what might have happened to Janet then if she had? You heard such awful stories about young girls going to London and simply vanishing.
At least that particular nightmare no longer bothered her, she thought with intense satisfaction. A mother had a sacred duty to protect her children, didn’t she?
She paused at the window again, and glared at the still stubbornly shut garden gate, and felt her stomach once more start to churn with anxiety.
What on earth could be keeping her? Angela took another look at the placidly ticking clock and felt like dragging it from the wall and breaking off the silly wooden sunbeams that radiated out. She wanted to smash it to pieces and then throw the whole thing in the dustbin.
What on earth had made her buy the wretched thing?
She forced her trembling hands down to her side and took deep calming breaths. It was no use getting into ‘one of her awful tizzies’ as her mother had always called them.
Of course, they had only been childish tantrums, and she hadn’t had a spell like that for some time. Not since her husband died, in fact. Not that she could remember anyway. But there were times, in the middle of a particular dark or long night, when she could lie awake for hours, worrying. Whenever she’d had a particularly stressful day, she’d wonder if she might have had ‘one of her tizzies’ and then gone off into a daydream and forgotten about it.
How would she know if she had?
Angrily, Angela Baines shook her head. What on earth did it matter, when Janet wasn’t at home, like she should be?
She commenced pacing again, wringing her hands. She couldn’t bear it if anything happened to Janet. She just knew she couldn’t. She was all she had.
But her daughter would
