"Gill, B M - Tom Maybridge 03 - The Fifth Rapunzel 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gill B M)
They didn't help much. But the whisky did.
"A pig's trotter isn't very original," Maybridge said. "I mean, not very original as a form of abuse." He realised he was sounding rather inane, certainly quite unclear, but the conversation was proving even more difficult than he had expected. For one thing the lad was quite obviously hung-over and had only just got up. He was still in his pyjamas. Or possibly his father's. Middle-aged striped pyjamas, a size too big.
He tried again. "Rams' heads on farm gates - threats of that sort. You've probably heard of them, read of them. Lunatic actions. Actions that stop at that, usually." He paused, remembering a case where the action hadn't stopped there. He hoped the lad didn't remember it, too. "Anyone in your father's profession attracts both praise and resentment," he went on. "In his case the praise was well deserved. His testimony couldn't be faulted. Anyone put behind bars because of it has been put there justly. Someone on the outside - a misguided relative, perhaps - made a stupid gesture with the wreath. I don't know if your father had any hate mail. If he had he probably destroyed it. Regarded it with contempt. Rightly. But if you ever get any - or a stupid phone call - or, well, anything that bothers you, then tell me. Promise?"
Simon nodded. They were sitting at the kitchen table and the kitchen clock pointed to half past nine. The kitchen looked very neat. The pile of dishes he had last seen in the sink the night before had been washed and put away.
Maybridge asked him if he had had any breakfast.
Simon shuddered.
"You could try a prairie oyster. A raw egg in spirits." Unwise advice, perhaps, but it had worked for him from time to time in the past.
Simon said he was all right. He didn't want anything. Thanks all the same.
"How do you intend spending the day?" Simon shrugged. He was still sleep sodden and the night had been weird.
"If you're wise you'll get some fresh air. Walk over to see Meg whenever you want to. She'll give you a bite to eat when you feel like it."
Maybridge had to drive to headquarters so couldn't have prolonged the talk even if the lad had been in a fit state to listen. Meg had mentioned the chores he would have to face at some time - an acknowledgment of the letters of condolence; a brief word or two in the local paper would probably suffice - and the disposal of his parents' clothes to a local charity. "Tell him, if the time seems right to tell him, that he can unload all that on to me if he can't face it."
The time wasn't right to tell him. And somebody else, according to the state of the kitchen, must have been looking after him, though there was no one else on the premises now. The vicar's wife had probably been around. And he'd hit the bottle after she'd gone. A natural reaction. Simon noticed the slight smile on the Chief Inspector's lips and, despite the thumping in his head, managed to smile back. A disbelieving, amazed kind of smile, Maybridge noticed. Grief was like that. It unhinged you emotionally. Tears and laughter were perilously close and suppressing them wasn't easy. And the whisky, gin, whatever it was, had probably taken the lid right off. Good therapy, but better in small doses. "We'll talk again," Maybridge said, taking his leave. "Yes." Simon saw him to the door. He thought the woman had said that to him, too, but he could have been mistaken.
She had let herself in through the conservatory, she'd told him, as he hadn't answered the front door bell. He had been too far gone to question her right to let herself in. She was there, that was all he knew. And he was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, which seemed
unusually steep and were in constant motion like the companionway of a ship. He had told her that he was all at sea, which seemed a reasonable remark at the time. She had left him sailing his turbulent ocean, returning at intervals to see if he needed anything. Her laconic "All right?" and his nod in reply was the extent of their conversation. He'd thought she was from the W.I. or the Mothers' Union until she'd helped him upstairs to bed. And put him in the wrong bedroom. He'd crawled under the duvet, fully dressed. And she'd stood over him and made him take his clothes off and put on the pyjamas she'd found under the pillow. He'd thought vaguely that it was like being dressed in a shroud - and that his father would be embarrassed - and that if he thought he couldn't do 'it', then he was wrong, but that he might not do 'it' very well because he was feeling rather muzzy. And that he liked the smell of her, but not the look of her fingernails, and that her hair had the texture of a cat's fur - a black Persian cat.
He might have told her some of this. He wasn't sure. Some time during the night she came and sat on the bed, but didn't touch him. She said "Peter", mistaking him for his father, perhaps. And then, very quietly, she had mooched around the moonlit room like an animal getting the feel of a lair. He fell asleep and dreamt of a forest, dank and dark, where the leaves fell like rain.
In the morning she was gone.
Rhoda caught the early morning train to London at Bristol Parkway station after hitching a lift in a milk lorry. She felt tired after a sleepless, busy, very profitable night. It had been extremely lucky that the boy was pissed and she could search the premises without being disturbed, though her conscience had told her to tidy up the place as a kind of reparation before leaving him. She had looked in on him when dawn was breaking, a final look in case the booze had worn off or he'd been sick. He had been lying hunched up on his side, one arm supporting his head, the pillow on the floor. A restless sleeper like his father. The bed was by the window and there was enough light for her to see the growth of stubble on his chin. Peter had shaved twice a day. Once would do for the boy - for a while. He'd had an erection last night when she'd helped him undress, but hadn't seemed aware of it. Kept talking about cats. She smiled now, remembering. He was the kind of kid you wanted to protect, not thieve from. But stealing Lisa's diaries had been irresistible. She had found them hidden under a couple of Irish linen tablecloths, of all things, in the bottom drawer of a chest in her study - studio - whatever the extraordinary, mural dominated room was called. The top drawers held typewritten notes on the artistic style of various illustrators of children's stories: A. W. Bayes, Monro S. Orr, Arthur B. Frost, Henry Holiday and John Tenniel. (Artistic and literary obsession with the grim works of Grimm?) The bottom drawer had been locked but the lock was loose and she had prised it open easily. The white tablecloths, a dusty beige along the folded edges, had been there a long time. And so had the diaries. She had flipped through some of the earliest ones and a few sentences had caught her attention here and there:
Nanny Ferguson loves Simon. Good. Nanny Fer-guson loves Peter. Good. Good. Peter screws Nanny Ferguson. Bad. Poor Nanny Ferguson. Poor little owl.
Peter in Hull. Nasty murder. Nasty job. Simon thinks Peter's job nasty, too. Sorry for Peter. Peter needs Simon. Simon needs Peter. Can't be sorry for Simon. Wish I could.
Several months later:
Steve Donaldson says I'm okay - well, almost okay -but to keep on visiting. He has a patient called Shirley, he told me, who paints another patient called Mary-lou. Not on canvas. On flesh. Sunflower breasts with little brown nipples. Daisy chains around her throat. Sounds fun. Wanted to see. Steve wouldn't let me. "The privacy of the patients must be respected."Okay - but why tell me? Who cleans the bath afterwards?
Later still:
Much, much better after a period of being rotten. Simon to start boarding at new school. Feel great about this. He's nine. Good for him to get away. Will drive down to school with Peter. Mother plus father plus child. Have bought new suit - dark blue. Will try to say right things to Head - but what are they? What , do mothers say? Perhaps they just weep.
A week afterwards:
I didn't go. 1 couldn't. Looked at Simon's suitcase in the hall. His name on it. Everything very new. Simon's new shoes. Shining. Black. His hair looked very clean. Fair and straight. Melanie had washed it. Last au-pair job before leaving. Hope she will return during the holidays. Somebody must. Can't cope. Peter angry when I said he'd have to take Simon on his own. Swore at me. Simon heard. Looked upset but didn't cry. Never cries. Told him I'd post him some sweets. Must remember to do this. Hope he'll be happy. I mean this. Be happy, Simon. Please. I'll feel better if I know you're happy.
The early diaries were of no interest to Rhoda apart from sketching in Lisa's mental state, which was only relevant in a small degree to her mental state later. Which seemed to be normal. During Simon's early adolescence the diaries rarely mentioned him. There were crisp references to the research she was doing, mainly about social contacts with others with similar interests. A snide remark about Meg Maybridge caught Rhoda's eye:
Lunched with Meg Maybridge yesterday. She should bone up on her dates. She thought Rousseau's pal, Grimm, was one of the brothers Grimm. Laughed when 1 told her she was a century out. Said her attention had slipped and what did 1 want for dessert -lemon mousse? A hint I'm sharply acidic? Well - maybe. Do her English Lit. students ever trip her up - and does she care if they do?
Another reference to Meg was kinder and was written a few months later:
Monro S. Orr's illustrations of Grimm's fairy tales are brilliant, Meg tells me. As if I didn't know! She gave me a very early edition she'd had all her life. More use to me than to her, she said, now that her son had grown up. It's not of any use to me, I've already got all his work. Didn't tell her. She's generous. Nice. Would have made a good mother for Simon. Can't imagine her sleeping with Peter, though. She isn't his style.
Style. Rhoda caught a glimpse of her reflection in the train window and smiled a bitter little smile. He was easy with compliments, Peter. On their first meeting, in a chilly carriage on a broken-down train somewhere south of Birmingham two winters ago, they had shared coffee and sandwiches. His sandwiches - hospital canteen. Her coffee - instant. Neither good, but better than nothing. He had praised the coffee. Polite, of course. And apologised for the sandwiches. Ham, dried up and too fat. Some while later, still stranded, he had praised what he called her "patient acceptance of an appallingly long wait". If the delay had been shorter they might not have exchanged names. Hers meant nothing to him, but he said that Rhoda was charmingly old-fashioned. Greek, wasn't it? Or Latin? She had heard of him. As a freelance journalist she had covered a few crime stories and his role as forensic pathologist had been mentioned from time to time. She had asked him if he was working on anything at the moment. He was always working on something, he said, the killing instinct was inborn from the time of Cain. It kept him in bread and butter. Speaking of which, would she like another of his revolting sandwiches? Smiling, she had declined. He had smiled back. The middle-aged, thick-set man with the stubby fingers which must have done all manner of appalling things was, she had thought then, extraordinarily attractive. Most women, she was to discover, did. Including her sister, Clare.
His wife's last two diaries were in her holdall. Two small leather-bound books, pushed in between the remains of the camera. What use would a photograph of the coffins have been - other than a macabre reminder of a relationship that had ended? There was no clue to violence there. But the diaries might reveal something about Clare. Where she was. And if she were not alive - what had happened to her.
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