Evelyn Doyle and Tess had their next session on Tuesday morning. Evelyn, held up unavoidably for two or three minutes in the office, entered the counselling room to find Tess already seated. She was looking distressed and agitated but not because Peter Archer had given her the news of her brother’s death. He had been uncharacteristically slow in passing on the information. He had not yet met with her.
“You look agitated this morning. Has something happened?” Evelyn asked.
Tess looked solemn. It took her several minutes before she raised her head and looked briefly at Evelyn. She spoke in a mumble:
“I’m feeling a bit numb this morning. I didn’t sleep well.” She paused for what seemed like several minutes. “You see, I had a letter from my mother yesterday.”
Evelyn registered this news with the attention it demanded. A letter from her mother was a singular event, something that would take her off guard and disturb her equilibrium. If she could have her way all communications with Irene Dawson would be banned.
“I see,” said Evelyn. “Do you want to tell me what your mother had to say in her letter?”
Evelyn felt uncomfortable. She was sitting in the presence of Tess Dawson knowing that Stephen Dawson had been killed and she had so far said nothing about it. It occurred to her fleetingly that her mother’s letter could be telling Tess that news and she assumed that the Director would have told her. No sooner had she thought this than Tess said:
“My mother wrote to tell me that my brother was dead. He’s been killed. I know the word is ‘murdered’, but I find it so hard to say it. You hear it all the time on the TV. You see murders being committed. But it’s all so unreal and make-believe there. When it actually happens to someone you know it’s different. I can’t take the reality of it in. It feels so enormous.”
“Tess, I know about the death of your brother. I didn’t know that you knew, that your mother had written to you and told you. I’ve just been informed by the police, by Inspector McKenzie. You’ll remember her. I know she’s coming to see you tomorrow. She’s coming to interview you about the events leading up to your brother’s death.”
“Yes, I’m sure she is. They must have found traces of my blood in the kitchen. And my fingerprints.” She paused. “It was awful.” She paused for longer. “I knew they could trace me.”
Evelyn waited, taking in what Tess was saying. Finally she said: “Will you talk to Inspector McKenzie tomorrow? I know that arrangements are being made for you to see her in the afternoon. Then perhaps this matter can be cleared up.”
Talking to the Inspector was an unwelcome pressure. Since receiving her mother’s letter, Tess had been caught up in a maelstrom of emotions and thoughts. Her struggle with them had left her feeling disorientated and drained. She wanted to tell the whole story to Evelyn, make a clean breast of it. She wanted to give an account of why she had been in her brother’s kitchen, why traces of her had been left behind at the scene of his death.
She said: “I want to talk it through with you, about being there.”
Evelyn nodded. She guessed that during this last long pause Tess had been weighing up what she wanted to say, and that she had to feel totally in control to do that.
*
Later, Tess left the session and walked downstairs to the lounge. She helped herself to tea from the urn and sat down on the sofa. It felt reassuring that Evelyn knew about her brother’s death and knew that she had been at the scene of his murder. She did not allow herself to recall the events that had led up to her being there, nor to remember what had happened in the kitchen in her brother’s cottage. Instead she recalled the beautiful countryside that lay all around the cottage, the open fields surrounded by dry stone walls. She thought about how many hours it would take to build such walls and how many hours, days, weeks and years it would take now to repair them. It seemed an impossible task.
She was sitting deep in thought on the sofa when Mark approached and broke into her thoughts.
“Hello, Tess. The Director would like to see you as soon as possible. Do you have time now?”
Tess nodded reluctantly and stood up. She guessed that it would be about Stephen. It felt as if all hell was breaking loose about Stephen. She followed him to the Director’s office. He knocked on the door and waited for a response. “Enter,” it came. Mark opened the door and held it as he accompanied Tess inside and then retreated, closing it behind him and leaving her alone with Peter Archer.
“Do come in, Tess, and take a seat,” he directed pleasantly enough, indicating the two chairs in front of his desk.
Tess went forward and sat on one of the chairs. Peter Archer sat down behind his desk and looked at her intently. He laced his fingers and smiled a faint smile of welcome. Tess could see he wanted to put her at ease. She had never liked Peter Archer and had never felt at ease with him. She found his enthusiasm and interest intrusive and superficial. They jarred with her. She found his enthusiasm over-zealous and the interest feigned. She had never uttered a word to him. He felt he could trump her intransigence with the news he was about to give her.
“I’m afraid that I have some bad news for you, Tess. It concerns your brother Stephen. I’m afraid that he has been found dead. He’s been killed. Did you keep in touch with him at all?”
She could tell at twenty paces that Peter Archer was struggling with his announcement. He had lost courage by the time he reached the third sentence and his final question signalled his loss of control of the situation. As Tess remained silent he was increasingly perturbed and agitated, for there was no sign of emotion on her face, no indication that she had even taken in the shocking news. He interpreted this to himself as her obdurateness and her unfeeling inclination. He waited for a response. None came.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Miss Dawson?” He was feeling piqued, impatient and unappreciated. He had broken the awful news, he thought, with sensitivity and kindness. And still Tess Dawson showed not a flicker of response, not a twitch of acknowledgment. He decided to play his final and best trump card in the hope of shocking her into a response, some sign that he was having an effect on her.
“What is more, it seems that traces of your blood, and therefore your DNA, and your fingerprints were found at the scene of the death. You were actually there at or around the time of the murder.”
He wanted her to know that she was in trouble. The facts spoke for themselves. She could not simply sit there and say nothing. He continued to get angry.
“You’re to be questioned by the police tomorrow at 2.30. Please wait for Mark to find you in the common room at 2.15. He will be attending the meeting with you.”
Tess imagined that he found her heartless and unfeeling, untouched by human tragedy and personal loss. The absence of a response to his overtures was a rejection of him. That was an agony. As if in confirmation of that fact he stood, indicating that the meeting was over, that he had said all he had to say and that she could go. Tess stood wearily, looked once at his drawn and pale face and walked out of the room.
*
After the session with Evelyn and the meeting with the Director, Tess had found her refuge again in the potting shed. She was preoccupied by the prospect of her interview with Inspector McKenzie and felt apprehensive. She found herself rehearsing what might be said to her or asked of her and she wondered if she could keep silent if the pressure of the questions mounted, the demand became irresistible. She had made up her mind that she would answer none of the questions. She would wait for Evelyn.
In Evelyn she had found her ally. She had found someone who did not judge her and she felt reassured by that one simple fact. It felt as if she were being held in invisible and containing arms. She remembered that feeling. She had felt it a long time ago and the memory came back as the image of a face, warm and smiling, yet, in the eyes, holding a quality of seriousness and concentration. And all this was focused on her and it had been wonderful and scary. Then she remembered his name. Mr Muddiford.
He had been her form teacher when she was nine, perhaps just ten. Her father had just left and she was a prisoner in a house where her mother and her brother were the jailers. She only saw her father infrequently and her mother made it clear that she disapproved of Tess’s need to see him at all. Nevertheless, she fought to be allowed to visit him once a month. This lasted for five years until her father moved away from Kent altogether. She never really saw him again and it had been her mother who had eventually told her about his final departure in a mean and taunting way. That awful event coincided roughly with Stephen leaving home. She had been lucky that her father had remained in her vicinity for as long as he did. After Stephen finally left, she had only her carping and complaining mother to deal with. That was easy in comparison to the two of them together.
Neither was ever satisfied by the poisonous exchanges that passed for a relationship. Tess watched it all with only a vague understanding. By the age of ten she knew that the pain and suffering that all three endured was out of the ordinary, not right. The desperation of this intractable state of affairs ate away at her as she slowly developed the depression that she had been powerless to prevent. She had still hoped until then that her father might rescue her and take her away. Her schoolwork had suffered and she had developed the kind of behavioural problems that show themselves in low-key acts of aggression and disruptive actions that become troublesome in a class of thirty-four children.
Her behaviour began to draw attention from Mr Muddiford. From having been a quiet child (he had asked her previous class teachers) she was becoming noisy and bad mannered. She had hit her friend Sally for no apparent reason and Sally had cried inconsolably, causing upset to the class. Her exercise books were becoming messy and her work careless and full of mistakes. These were the changes that bothered Mr Muddiford. He knew that her father had left and that her brother Stephen, ahead of her by two years at the school and now moved on to the secondary school, had been a problem for several years. He knew her mother only from her infrequent attendance at parents’ meetings. She had been arrogant and bragging, inappropriately over-estimating the ability of her children who he knew were both unhappy. He had never met her father and that in itself confirmed William Dawson’s indifference to his children and the almost certain breakdown of any healthy relationship between him and his now estranged wife.
Tess had always been fascinated by Mr Muddiford. There was something about him that fed her imagination, and she regarded him with longing. He was the kindest person she had ever met. He was one of the people, in fact, that helped to form part of the slow-dawning realisation in her that there are good and kind people in the world. This realisation was a radical departure from the feeling that had grown in her about her mother and her brother. To her everlasting benefit, Mr Muddiford acted like a beacon of light and hope in her rather dark world. What had confirmed Mr Muddiford as the keeper of hope and goodness was an incident one morning in the form room that her class occupied in a light and airy building at the top of the sloping playground.
Mr Muddiford was working his way through the roll call, ticking each name on a register as he did so. As he came to Tess’s name she did not answer the usual ‘here’ in response. She sat at her desk, which she shared with Sally, doodling on her nature studies exercise book. She had heard her name being called out and for a moment she registered in her mind that she did not want to reply and she said nothing. Mr Muddiford called her name a second time. Again, she remained silent.
Inside Tess a small revolt, manifesting itself as a rebellion against authority, was taking place. She had never been directly defiant to Mr Muddiford. She liked him too much, and perhaps that was what made what she did next possible. What was slowly turning over in her mind was that she could remain silent and no one would be able to reach her. The silence and invisibility she had learnt to master at home she had now brought into the classroom. It gave her a frisson of both pleasure and fear to feel as powerful as she did. She waited to see what Mr Muddiford would do. This was his test. He raised his eyes slowly from the register and looked directly at her. He said very softly:
“Tess, would you come here, please.”
It was not a request but a gentle and irresistible instruction. She stood up and walked slowly on wobbling legs to the desk and stood next to his chair. She was anticipating retribution and punishment. Then he said:
“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong, Tess?”
In that instant she realised that he knew and understood her. What she had been asking for, demanding in her convoluted way, was for someone to ask her what was wrong. She looked into his face briefly before resuming her downward stare at the floor. She was struck dumb by the sheer unfathomable depth and unfamiliarity of what had been asked of her.
She could not speak. She felt as if she were suspended in an unknown land, hoping and longing for his lead and guidance. He had placed his left hand on her right forearm to make contact with her and reassure her as he had asked the question. The kindness of his touch was alien to her. She flinched and pulled away. He remained still and silent, his question still hanging in the air. His left hand rested on the desk as he contemplated her. She was transfixed by the nearness of this man who seemed to care about her. She could never have put what she felt into words. Then, and on an inexplicable impulse, she placed her right hand on Mr Muddiford’s hand and quietly began to cry. She stood next to him as the class murmured and chattered and watched. In all the time she cried he kept his hand under hers, constant and unmoving. When she had cried enough he took her hand in his and said:
“Tess, if you ever want to talk to me just ask. Will you do that?”
She looked into his face and nodded. A small grin turned the left-hand corner of her mouth down as she walked away and sat down next to Sally.
When Tess looked up it was later than she had thought. She felt a now familiar pressure in her chest and tightness in her throat. She breathed in, her forehead gathering into its lines and ridges and she let out a small, sad sob. Tomorrow she would attend the interview. She was ready.
*
Evelyn Doyle sat alone in the conservatory that reached out into her garden. She was understandably perplexed. Ever since her meeting with Tess that morning she had been dogged throughout the day by a question: Why had Tess Dawson been in West Wales in her brother’s cottage? Everything she knew about Stephen Dawson and his sister’s relationship with him indicated that there was no bond between them that would lead Tess to travel what must be well over a hundred miles in the depths of winter to visit a brother who she had not seen for years, who had bullied and tormented her throughout her childhood. Her presence there, and particularly the trace of her blood and her fingerprints that had clinched the fact of her presence, had thrown Evelyn into a bout of speculation.
She looked out over the darkening garden. She heard the insistent alarm call of a blackbird and looked intently with narrowed eyes, trying to make out the presence of a cat in her garden. She could see nothing except the gloom of the shrubbery and the vague outline of trees against the sky. It was chilly in the conservatory. She stood again and, with an air of distraction, made her way into the kitchen just as Paul Doyle let himself in through the front door.