Forty-Three

He went round immediately to the Oaks Hotel.

He had to show his warrant at the desk before they would give him Anna’s room number, and even then, at her door, he had a hard job trying to get her to open the door.

‘It’s Robert Wilde,’ he insisted.

‘I can’t see you,’ she said, from the other side. ‘Put the warrant card under the door.’

He did so, not without some difficulty, and, at last, she opened it to him.

‘Didn’t you recognize my voice?’ he asked, as he came in.

She shut the door quickly. ‘I don’t trust myself,’ she told him. ‘To distinguish properly.’ She stood with her arms crossed, wrapped around herself as if for comfort.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

‘Ask for the heating to be put on.’

She shrugged. ‘I wrap the duvet around me,’ she said.

He felt sorry for her. Doubly sorry when he thought what it was that he had to tell her.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

‘Has something happened?’

‘Several things.’

She sat on the bed, he on a chair. The room was comfortable enough, but too small. The TV remote lay on the bed, and the set itself was still on, with the sound turned down. Following his glance, Anna smiled self-consciously. ‘Daytime television,’ she murmured. ‘Great fun.’

The afternoon news was just coming on. They watched for some seconds in silence as images of a ship, labouring on its side in a churning ocean, flashed on the screen. It was followed by the picture of a church, with what looked like rubble at the base of the spire.

‘Bad weather,’ Anna murmured. Then, she picked up the remote, and turned it off. She curled her legs beneath her.

‘I think I have a name for the girl,’ he said.

‘You do? What is it?’

‘Sara Acland.’

She looked at him, shook her head slowly. ‘It doesn’t ring any bells.’

‘She’s gone from Brimmer House.’

This took her aback. ‘She has? How? When?’

‘This morning. Just walked through a back door, they think, when a delivery was being made.’

Anna put one hand to her forehead. ‘No sign of her?’

‘Not yet.’

She pinched the bridge of her nose, then rubbed her forehead. ‘Where would she go? She has nowhere to go.’

‘Look,’ he said. He gazed at the floor for a second. He was having trouble trying to find the right way to phrase this—to tell her without terrifying her. ‘Look,’ he repeated, ‘you’re safe here. The desk seems very good. Would it be better if I had a man posted downstairs, all the time?’

‘Of course it would,’ she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. ‘Men posted twenty-four hours a day cost a lot of money,’ she observed.

‘He has been to see me,’ he said.

There was not much colour in her face, but what there was drained completely away. ‘Ben?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Here, in town?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew it,’ she whispered. ‘Oh God.’

‘I don’t want you to worry …’

‘He’s come all this way. He’s found me. How did he find me?’ she asked. She looked truly horrified, sick with the realization. Then she put both hands briefly to her face. ‘All this way. Oh Christ, he’s mad.’ She finally raised her eyes to him.

‘He said that he had been here to talk to you.’

‘To me? No.’

‘He said he’d been here this morning, first thing.’

‘No. No one’s been here. Ask the desk.’

Wilde nodded, holding her gaze. ‘It’s all right,’ he said.

She frowned suddenly. ‘But what did he come to see you for?’ she asked. ‘What did he say?’

‘He came because he knows Laura Aubrete,’ Wilde said.

She took this in slowly. Then she slumped back against the pillows. ‘That’s all I need,’ she told him.

‘He told me that you were swindling the Aubretes out of millions. And that you had taken money from him.’

‘What!’

‘Ten thousand pounds.’

‘Christ Almighty!’ She made a little, strangled noise. ‘He’s insane.’ Her eyes widened. ‘You don’t believe him?’

‘He’s very plausible.’

‘But—please—you don’t believe him?’

‘No, I don’t.’

She sighed heavily. ‘Thank God for that, at least.’

‘I don’t believe him because of something else I’ve heard this afternoon.’

She wasn’t looking at him, and evidently not listening at that moment. ‘He’s met Matthew, then,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

She made a little face, as close to grief as he had seen in her. ‘Well, that’s the end,’ she murmured. ‘That must really be the end.’

‘Anna,’ Wilde said.

She looked up again. ‘Yes?’

‘When did you say that Ben McGovern’s mother died?’

‘A year … no, more. A little more.’

‘And her name was McGovern.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Can you remember her other names? From the death announcement that you told me about?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was a young name. Natalie. There was another, too. But I forget what that was. Why?’

‘Had she been married to anyone besides Benedict’s father?’

‘I don’t know. I never met her. He didn’t tell me anything about her.’

‘Did he talk of a sister?’

‘A sister? No.’

Wilde tapped his finger on his knee thoughtfully. ‘No matter,’ he said.

‘Why? Is there a sister?’

‘I think there is.’

‘Living in Manningham?’

‘I think so,’ Wilde said. ‘I think the sister—stepsister, to be precise—is Sara Acland.’

She took a moment to absorb this. She sat perfectly still, her eyes fixed on his. Then, very quietly, she asked, ‘Did she bring him to me? Was that why she came to the house? Was he there somewhere, that night?’

‘I can’t tell you that,’ Wilde said. ‘But I would doubt it. I think Sara Acland is a victim, and Benedict McGovern, like his stepfather, is the abuser. Perhaps she even came here to warn you.’

‘But how did she know where I was?’

‘Could Matthew have mentioned you when he talked to Alisha?’

She frowned. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’ Then, his other statement seemed to register with her. ‘Abused?’ she repeated, in a small voice.

‘Yes.’

‘You have evidence of that?’

‘Not directly.’

‘But you think so.’

‘Yes.’

‘My God,’ she whispered. ‘Poor girl, poor girl.’

They sat in silence for a few moments.

‘Anna,’ he said, ‘I haven’t got any evidence against him.’

‘Of the abuse?’

‘Of anything. I can’t prove that he’s followed you, or what he did in Manningham. His stepfather—Sara’s father—has vanished, but I can even less prove that a crime has occurred, much less that Benedict McGovern has anything whatsoever to do with it.’

‘Vanished,’ she repeated. ‘You mean dead.’

‘Probably.’

‘Do you think he killed him? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I really don’t know.’

She thought, staring at the carpet for a second. ‘Do you think Sara killed him?’ she asked. ‘Killed her own father?’

‘That’s possible too.’

Anna recoiled slightly, and took a long breath. ‘You have two very sick people on the loose,’ she said, at last.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I know. That’s why I’d like you very much to do something.’

‘Me? What?’

‘I would like you to meet him,’ he said.

‘No. Oh, no. Never.’

‘Hear me out,’ he said. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘If you met Benedict McGovern—somewhere where we were close by—and you wore a tape—’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No … no.’

‘We would be close by. Very close. Hidden. Get him to admit to what he’s done …’

‘I couldn’t speak to him. I couldn’t have him near me,’ she objected.

‘Get him to talk about what he did …’

‘No,’ she echoed.

He looked at her carefully. ‘Anna,’ he said. ‘Why did you tell me that you reported him to the police?’

‘I did report him,’ she said.

‘No, you didn’t. I’ve checked.’

‘I …’ She looked away from him.

‘Tell me why,’ he said.

‘Because I knew how stupid it would sound,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand.’

She gave a laboured sigh. ‘I felt it was my fault,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t dissuaded him. Maybe he had interpreted it as encouragement. I had my hand on the phone a dozen times to ring the police, but I never did. Because I didn’t know how to tell them that I was frightened by him sitting outside in the car, or leaving playing cards on the path, or phoning me up. There was no law in place to stop him then. It was my word against his. And he’s so very believable, and … I just … I just ran away,’ she said. ‘I can’t even remember the night I went very clearly … he drove me out of my mind. That’s all I can say. And that’s the truth.’

She looked back up at him. ‘I’m sorry that I lied to you,’ she said. ‘I thought that it made me sound more rational if I said that I had told the police. But I never really did have any confidence in the police’s ability to stop him. Perhaps that was the bottom line. And until you’ve experienced this, a person like this … you just can’t describe how threatened you feel. You just can’t imagine it. I’m sorry.’

He watched her, then he got up, and walked to the window.

‘But has he really come after me, or Sara?’ she asked, behind him, after a while.

‘I don’t know that either.’

‘Why did Sara come here?’ she wondered again. ‘Was it just to be with Alisha, or what?’

‘All that we know about her is that her father brought her up in some kind of religious cult,’ Wilde said. He was watching the heavy stream of traffic in the road outside. ‘He talked about the end of the world and about turning her into an angel.’

‘Angels again,’ Anna said. ‘My God. And this man you think was Ben’s stepfather? No wonder he’s crazy. Exposed to that.’

‘Maybe she believes that she is an angel,’ Wilde continued. ‘A divine messenger, an instrument of God.’

‘To do what? For what?’ Anna asked.

He turned back to her. ‘When she spoke to you at this music weekend, did she mention a gate?’ he asked.

‘A gate?’ Anna said. ‘No. What kind of gate?’

‘I don’t know. It just keeps coming up.’

‘A gate where?’

He spread his hands wordlessly.

‘To hold in something? Or to hold out something?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ he admitted. ‘Alisha Graham talked about gates, too. But I don’t know the relevance. And …’ For a moment, he was going to tell her about Pennystone Road, but he thought better of it. She needed to believe in him as someone solid, reliable. ‘It just keeps cropping up,’ he repeated lamely.

Anna swung her legs off the bed, and ran her hands through her hair. ‘Are you going to post this man downstairs?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I will,’ he said. ‘Will you think about what I’ve asked?’

‘I can’t.’

Wilde didn’t like to press her any further. Yet, he had the unpleasant conviction that the only way he ever stood the slightest chance of arresting McGovern was if he actually caught him in a criminal act. And, if Anna wouldn’t wear a tape and meet him, then perhaps the act that McGovern would be caught in might be an assault on Anna. No security was ever a hundred per cent. The idea made his skin crawl.

‘I’ll speak to him again,’ he said.

She gave a small, tense smile.

He went to the door. But, just as he put his hand on the lock, she said, ‘I almost forgot. I was thinking about those letters.’

‘Which ones?’ he asked.

‘The ones you mentioned the other night, the ones by the prayer. The BMM.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘And?’

‘It might be names,’ she said. ‘It might be Bride, Mary and Michael. Saints.’

‘They are Irish saints?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Well, Celtic. Celts and Christianity sort of mingled. The Celts lived by spells and invocations. They asked for protection with the loricas, and they called …’ She paused.

‘What?’ he asked.

He saw that she was frowning deeply, with a sudden concentration. She glanced back at the television, and then briefly out of the window. He followed her eyes. ‘What?’ he repeated.

‘They invoked nature,’ she murmured. ‘They believed … they still believe, I think, that God’s power, the power of nature, allied together …’ She looked at him. ‘They believe in all kinds of things,’ she said. ‘The Otherworld, and magic, the power of the archangels, metamorphosis, reincarnation … they believe in the marriage of man and the earth, the balance of things …’

She stopped.

‘Do you believe in them, too?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I always thought my mother was a bit barmy over it. I thought it was mumbo-jumbo. Like a fairy story.’

‘And do you still?’ he asked.

There was a fraction of hesitation, but, when Anna did reply, her voice was firm. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s just fairy stories.’ She opened the door for him. ‘These things don’t really exist,’ she said.