"Gill, B M - Tom Maybridge 03 - The Fifth Rapunzel 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gill B M)

While he had stood looking down at the grave a squadron of Red Arrow aircraft had flown low overhead - banking - weaving - screaming their way up into the clouds. Watching them made him feel better. It wasn't all death and doom around here. Maybe he would be a pilot one day, or a racing driver. Juvenile ambitions that he was supposed to have grown out of. The aircraft became silent in the distance, crimson sparks of light where the sun caught them, and then nothing.
That night he had dreamed of them, but in the dream they had merged and become the threatening bird of Grimm's story. It had come swooping down at him in the dark, crushing his nostrils with its heavy wings so that, gasping for breath, he had torn at it in panic, breaking the thin sinews of the feathers, thinner than a child's fingers, and scattering them over the bed.
Sitting here with Sally now he thought of the nightmare again and shivered despite the heat. The almond tree was just a few yards away and he could smell its sap, or maybe its leaves. Why had his mother been so obsessed with the horror stories of long ago? Shouldn't Grimm's fairy tale about the murdered child buried under the tree, and the appalling bird perched on one
of its branches, have revolted her? "All the blossom," he said, "has gone." Sally was still thinking about Cormack. The Irish had big families. Or they used to. Perhaps not any more.
"Birth control," she said, "is important." Simon looked at her, puzzled. The almond tree - the
birds and the bees - pollination - the Durex in his pocket. The world was more than a little mad, but not at this moment threatening.

11.

Drew recognised Rhoda immediately she walked into the office. It took her a few minutes to remember him. He had been sombrely dressed for the funeral in a dark grey suit and had exuded dark grey disapproval at her, along with everyone else, when she'd dropped the camera. Today, casually dressed in light grey cords and a white short-sleeved shirt, he seemed benign, though obviously very surprised.
She had phoned the office after reading the firm's announcement in the personal column of the Daily Telegraph requesting Mrs Clare Warwick to get in touch with them. She was Clare's sister, she explained, and wanted to know what it was all about. She would have to be told personally, and not over the phone, Drew said. Very well, she agreed, she would travel to Bristol to see him this afternoon. No 'ifs' or 'buts' or Is it all right with you?' She was coming. His curiosity was titillated and he didn't argue.
Anticipating that the solicitor would need proof of identity, she had brought her birth certificate. She had earlier searched Peter's flat for Clare's, and for Clare's divorce papers, but hadn't found them or anything relevant to her at all, apart from her clothes in the wardrobe, which hadn't included the red dress or hat.
And there hadn't been any letters piling up in the hall. Just a lot of junk mail which she got rid of on her weekly clandestine visits. The firm's recorded delivery letters hadn't been delivered as they hadn't been signed for, Drew explained. It was fortunate that the personal announcement had drawn a response. "A valid one," he added, "and so far the only one."
He glanced at her birth certificate, noticed that her father had been a colonel in the Royal Engineers and that she was thirty-two years old. He handed it back. "No documents relevant to your sister?"
"Sorry, no. She has them with her. Wherever she is." If she's anywhere. Three words thrumming in her head. Not to be expressed yet. "Why are you trying to trace her?"
Drew told her, sketching in the background, about Professor Bradshaw's visit to the office just a few months ago. The drawing-up of the codicil according to his wishes.
Her mind, focused until now wholly on Clare, began focusing on Peter. That he should bequeath the flat to Clare didn't touch her at all emotionally, though it surprised her, but his presence here in this room, not so long ago, became suddenly very real. Tears were alien to her, but they were burning in her eyes now and, ashamed of them, she turned her head away and forced her attention on her surroundings. The certificates on the wall were a blur of black words on white vellum with crimson seals like blobs of blood. Certificates of competence. Of know-how. A room where Wills were made. Where Peter had made his. Imagining Peter here, perhaps seated on this chair, was like imagining him clothed in black crepe. Virile, lying, bloody-minded, hot-tempered, faithless and, God help her, tenderly loving Peter. The funeral service had frightened and appalled her but this was going deeper like the careful slow probing of his scalpel on an already open wound. His hand was on this. It affirmed his death. She believed it, not just intellectually as she had before, but physically. In the tips of her fingers, her breasts, her gut. She hadn't realised she'd loved him or could remember him with so much pain.
She wiped the tears with the back of her hand. Grimaced. "Sorry ... it's just that ..." Just that. Nothing. She shrugged, not knowing what to say.
Her tears had surprised him. Her face, with its heavy dark wings of hair, had seemed emotionless as if sculpted in marble. He asked her if she would like a cup of tea - and hoped his secretary was still there to make it. It had gone five o'clock.
The question was so trite that it nearly rocked her over into laughter. Listen to that, Peter. What kind of silly scenario have you landed me in? And what, for Christ's sake, have you done to Clare? Nudged her back into the land of the living, perhaps? Affirmed that she is still alive? A legatee - a recipient of your gift? Or about to be?
A few moments of optimism calmed her. She declined the tea.
It was time to get down to business. Drew told her it was necessary to get more background information. He had a scribble pad on his desk and unscrewed his fountain pen, ready to make notes.
For Rhoda it was like someone taking her hand in a foggy landscape with the promise of guiding her through it. She told him she had reported her sister's disappearance to the police at the local station near where she lived. Details had been taken but she had sensed that the young Met. officer who had interviewed her hadn't taken her very seriously. Apparently, when adults took off the police saw no pressing need to go looking for them. And she had probably reported her missing too soon - a few weeks after she'd last heard from her.
Drew pointed out that the sibling relationship, though close, wasn't as close as the marital relationship. A husband reporting the disappearance of his wife is taken seriously and the information is acted on at once. The same applied to children. And people living together. Brothers and sisters tended to make their own separate lives and often drifted away from each other. Rhoda reminded him that Clare was divorced and her ex-husband had seen no reason to get involved. And no, there was no sinister implication there. An amicable divorce. No maintenance. Clare hadn't asked for it, didn't believe in it. So no hassle over money. Her ex-husband - totally unreliable, pea-brained, currently working as a ski instructor and flexing his sun bronzed muscles to the delight of pea-brained females on dry ski slopes - well, it was summer - was as harmless as that kind of beautiful muscular hunk usually was. But no - to answer the question, not asked but implied, he had no motive to murder her.
A sparky lady, Drew thought, amused. If she were always this outspoken, a rift with her sister was easy to understand. But why should she think her sister might have been murdered? It was an intriguing situation and he was beginning to enjoy it. Which was reprehensible.
He asked her if she thought the obvious relationship between Bradshaw and Mrs Warwick might have some bearing on her sister's disappearance. Had there been a row, for instance, when Mrs Bradshaw had learnt of the liaison?
Rhoda thought about the photograph and the anger that had shown in the sketch, but didn't mention the latter. How could she? She had trespassed on Lisa's territory, stolen her diaries and broken all rules of reasonable behaviour by moving in on Simon. In many ways her behaviour had been worse than Clare's. She needed this man's professional respect and goodwill. She answered that it would be natural for Mrs Bradshaw to be angry, though she might not have known that Peter was so seriously involved with Clare, involved enough to bequeath her the flat. Which, incidentally, seemed an extraordinary thing to do. In the normal way she wouldn't stand to inherit for another twenty years or so. "She's twenty-four. I don't think the relationship would have lasted that long. And there's no child to provide for. Bequeath is an old man's word."
It wasn't, but he didn't argue. He needed more details and pressed on. "Names and addresses of your sister's friends would be useful." She had already contacted them, she told him, but he noted them down just the same. And then he asked for details of the places where she had worked. Her first job had been as a chalet maid in an Austrian ski resort, where she had met her husband, and she had helped out with that sort of thing until the marriage broke up. Afterwards she had done some modelling, which had paid better than anything else and was the reason why she hadn't reverted to her maiden name after the divorce. She was known as Clare Warwick, not well known, but her future had seemed promising.
Rhoda broke off. Until that point it had been easy to state all the facts calmly. The past tense was like a dark presence in a sleazy room. Waiting.
"The future is probably still very promising," Drew said, a little too heartily. "Have you a photograph of her?"
"Nothing very clear. Only a snapshot." Rhoda had brought it with her and passed it to him. It had seemed sensible to combine the visit to Bristol with a brief call on Simon at nearby Macklestone and return it.
Drew recognised Bradshaw and Lisa, but no one else. "Which one is your sister?" But he had guessed before she pointed her out that it was the girl standing next to Bradshaw. The colour red made a strong statement. It was a 'look at me' colour. He could imagine her on a catwalk, wiggling her hips and doing those fancy steps they did on catwalks. An attention grabber, Rhoda's sister. He wasn't impressed. He handed the snap back. It was no good for identification purposes. "She doesn't look like you."
"No. Younger. Prettier. Dresses better."
He didn't pay her the obvious compliment. Rhoda at any age, and dressed as tattily as she was now in a dark green cotton summer skirt and a top in a shade of sludge, would still be remarkable to look at. He asked her what she did for a living.
"Freelance journalism." But she wasn't here to talk about herself. "What about Simon? Does he know about the flat?"
"Yes, I told him a little time ago. He seemed to accept the situation."
A healthy anger against Peter flared. If anyone should have the flat, he should have it. "If it were in my power to hand it back to Simon - on Clare's behalf - then I would."
Drew didn't deal in ifs and buts, or in sudden surprising sentimentality. He glanced at his notepad. There was a lot on it, but not much a firm of solicitors was capable of handling. A private detective agency was better suited to tracking her down, but would be extremely expensive. Advice from Detective Chief Inspector Maybridge would cost nothing and he knew him well enough to approach him. As the Metropolitan Police had the matter in hand, though they might not have done much about it so far apart from adding her name to the Missing Persons Bureau computer, it might be better to see Maybridge privately. He could liaise with his London colleagues officially if he thought it necessary, or he could advise Rhoda to go back to them and make her own enquiries.
He asked her if she knew Maybridge. "You might have met at the Bradshaws' funeral?"
"I was persona non grata," she reminded him drily. "He'd hardly come and shake my hand."
"Well, he could have ticked you off for creating a disturbance," Drew teased. "If you'd like me to try to arrange a meeting with him during his off-duty time - this evening, if possible - I'll go along with you, if you don't mind my divulging that Bradshaw has bequeathed the flat to your sister. It adds some urgency. He'll know the best procedure. If he is available, it might mean your getting back to London rather late. Would it matter?"
It wouldn't, of course. An interview with Maybridge, especially if his wife was there, might be difficult and embarrassing, but it would be made easier and more productive if she had a solicitor with her.
"Nothing matters," she said, "except finding Clare."
Maybridge's availability was always unpredictable. He told Drew, in response to his phone call to headquarters, that he had a meeting with Superintendent Claxby scheduled for the early evening and didn't expect to be home much before nine - followed by a later commitment to drive over to Clifton by ten thirty to pick up his wife, whose car was in for a service. "Another evening," he suggested, "or a brief meeting tonight?"
Drew, after consulting Rhoda, settled for the brief meeting. He would take her for a meal somewhere in the Macklestone area beforehand. There wouldn't be time afterwards if she was to catch her London train.

The Avon Arms did pub lunches and evening snacks. Most of the food was frozen and bought in large quantities from a nearby supermarket. On Fridays, it was supplemented by three dozen savoury flans baked by Mrs Mackay and delivered by her in her fifteen-year-old Ford Cortina. Her friend, Dawn Millington, received them and carried them into the pub kitchen. To step across the threshold of a public house was something Mrs Mackay wouldn't do. Feeding the drinkers, however, didn't blot her moral code and it blotted up the beer. She was doing nothing wrong. All the ingredients, imaginatively put together and not necessarily expensive, were strictly recorded in an account book. The money she made on the flans was money for her skill, she wasn't stealing from The Mount's store cupboard. This she made very clear to Doctor Donaldson. He was extremely embarrassed and wished she wouldn't do it. Didn't he pay her enough? Was it a subtle, or maybe not so subtle, way of asking for a rise? He had put the question to her as tactfully as he could. She had assured him that she was perfectly contented with the salary, but there might come a time in the future, when she reached retirement age, when part-time cooking would make life a little easier, for her financially - and be an interest. She was building up for the future now. That was why she had bought her cottage and was furnishing it with the flan money. As she rarely spoke very much, Donaldson had felt he was being assailed with information. Had she pointed to the mixing bowl on the kitchen table and said briefly: "Look, I'm doing it. You're not losing out, so stop interfering," it would have embarrassed him less. He could have told her to stop - or leave. Not that he would have done. He needed her and she knew it.
Mrs Mackay's building for the future was being erected to a smaller degree socially. She and Dawn Millington shared a liking for choral music. And she and Dawn Millington's husband attended the Nonconformist chapel and sat in the same pew. Dawn Millington's once-a-week stint as a barmaid was attributable to the shortcomings of the Common Agricultural Policy, according to her husband. A lowering of standards, deplored but financially necessary.
Cormack, hearing most of this from Mrs Millington, was amused. On Friday evenings, she had explained to him, there would be a cold supper laid out for him on the dining-room table, or a slow cooking casserole in the kitchen which she could safely leave for him to help himself. Alternatively, if he wanted some decent pub grub, all the locals in the know went to the Avon Arms and ordered a flan. The other food was rubbish. What her husband did on her absent evenings was a mystery. Probably grabbed some bread and cheese and ate it seated on his tractor. Cormack's attempts to socialise with him had been abortive and he had stopped trying. Some people are born taciturn.
And some - like Cormack - need human contact that is warm, cheerful and undemanding. And preferably female. He was missing Josie. Letters and phone calls made matters worse. Her letters spoke of love - her breathy voice on the telephone spoke of it, too - but letters are just pieces of paper and a telephone is a piece of metal and sweet Mother of God he wanted more than that.