AT LAST THE day was drawing to a close. The children had been packed back into their coaches and driven away, the brass band was gone. The well-dressing committee had tidied up as best they could. The panels would stay in their place over the well for the next week and the gardens would be open to anyone who wanted to come and take photographs.
Annie drank tea and watched the lights of the cars winding their way back down the lane. Then she put her head around the living-room door. Ethel was sitting on the settee with Mrs Miller beside her, holding her hand on her lap, and Elizabeth was lying on her tummy on the floor. The child smiled up at her mother.
‘We’re watching ’Allo ’Allo.’
‘I can see.’
‘Do you want to watch it with us?’
‘Later,’ Annie said. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
She went outside and walked over to the marquee. Inside, trestle tables were still lined up along one side and a temporary wooden floor had been laid to protect the grass. She heard footsteps and turned, and there was William. She went towards him. He was rigid with tension.
‘I heard what happened,’ she said. ‘I heard there was another murder.’
He breathed in through his teeth. ‘We’re trying to keep it quiet.’
‘I heard it was another young woman, and that she was found on the moor. I suppose …’ she looked at him ‘… I suppose this means it’s the same person who killed them both?’
‘We’re working on that assumption.’ William sighed. ‘This time we know who the victim is. This time we’ll get whoever did it. I came to tell you that I’ll be out for a couple of hours.’
Annie looked at her husband and she took a deep breath. ‘William, we need to talk.’
‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘If we need to talk, we can talk tomorrow. I’m hoping that by tomorrow this will be cleared up.’
‘You know who it is then?’
‘We have a good idea.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ll be back before midnight.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll save you some supper.’
He left. She made a light meal for Elizabeth and Ethel and settled them both in bed. After that she went outside again and she lit the candles in the lanterns that hung from the branches of the trees and she sat by the well and she drank some wine and watched the stars come out in the night sky.
She knew he would come. She did not doubt it for a moment. She looked out towards the moor and after a while she made out the shape of him, a dark figure crossing the home meadow. She jumped up then and climbed the stile to run to meet him. They kissed in the long grass, amongst the gentle cows, and bats darted above them and the little night moths were all around. Annie knew at once that something had changed; it was in his voice, in his arms, in the way he pressed her to him. He kissed her so hard that in the end she could not bear it and had to pull away.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Without you, everything is wrong,’ he said. ‘I didn’t see the point of anything. If I couldn’t be with you, nothing mattered.’
‘Oh Tom.’
‘And then this afternoon …’ He paused and took in a gulp of air. ‘This afternoon, Annie, after I’d come here I drove back to the flat and it was chaos there. I parked at the top of the road. There was a line of police cars in front of the houses and our house was taped off; there was a sergeant standing at the door. Nobody knew what was going on.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I went to the café and I had a drink and I listened to what people were saying. It was speculation. They were saying someone else had died, and I wondered if the police were after me, Annie. I wondered if they were trying to stitch me up again. I walked around for a bit and when I went back they were still there, inside the house. So I went to pick up the truck and they were towing it away. The police were towing my truck away! Christ! Why would they do that? Do you think they’re trying to frame me?’
‘There’s been another murder,’ Annie said, ‘on the moor.’
‘Oh Jesus Christ. Oh no. Do you know who it was?’
‘No.’ She put her hand up to his face. She stroked his beard. ‘It’s a woman, a young woman, that’s all I know.’
She thought of the forensic report she’d flushed down the toilet. She thought of the paperwork still hidden in the cupboard. ‘Try not to worry,’ she said.
‘But why were they taking my truck?’
‘I don’t know, love. I have no idea.’
‘Don’t you feel – doesn’t it seem that everything’s going weird, Annie? That the world is turning at the wrong speed? Everything is out of sync. People who ought to be working together are fighting one another, and bodies are being left on the moor like sacrificial victims, and you and me are apart when we should be together.’
‘We’re together now.’
‘I feel as if I’m losing my mind. I feel as if everything’s wrong.’ He leaned down to kiss her. ‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘My God, you’re so beautiful. You taste so sweet. I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve made up my mind,’ Annie told him. ‘I’m going to leave William. I tried to live without you, and I can’t. It’s you who makes my life worth living, Tom.’
‘Oh my love, my Annie …’
‘It will be terrible. My mother won’t speak to me and it will destroy William and Elizabeth and Ethel, and I shall feel guilty for the rest of my life. But you said that people get over these things; they survive, don’t they? There are worse things that can happen to people, aren’t there?’
‘If you’re sure. Are you sure, Annie?’
‘William knows something already, or suspects. The way he looks at me, the way he’s been with me … I’ve been afraid to talk to him. I thought it would be all right when I tried to finish with you, but it wasn’t all right. If anything, it was worse.’ She paused. She bit at her nail. ‘There’s no good way, is there, to tell him I love you more than I’ve ever loved him. There’s no good way to end a marriage.’
‘You don’t need to say anything. Just leave him. Talking won’t make it any easier. Just come away – quickly, now, before anything else goes wrong.’
‘And Elizabeth?’
‘Bring her with you. We’ll sort it out. We’ll manage. It won’t matter where we are, as long as we’re together.’
He kissed her again. Her face, her jaw, her neck.
‘And all the police are here,’ he said. ‘They’re all in South Yorkshire. They’ve taken the men from the ports, from everywhere. If we go quickly, before they start to look for us, we could catch a ferry, go to Ireland, rent a cottage somewhere.’
‘Could we do that?’
‘We can do whatever we want. Whatever you want. We’ll be so happy, Annie. I’ll make you happy. I promise I will. I’ll make you happy every day for the rest of your life.’
‘Oh God,’ she said and she pictured, in her mind, a little house in the countryside, green fields and hedges lined with cow parsley and she and Tom and Elizabeth together and everything wonderful.
Tom sold the dream to her and at the same time he began to undo the buttons on her dress. ‘It’s lovely there, Annie. I shared a cell with a man from Donegal. He described it to me, he said it’s like heaven. You’ll love it, I know you will. And we can live properly there. We can grow our own vegetables, have more babies … you can have all the books you want, your own library.’ He slipped the dress from her shoulders, kissed her neck.
‘Tom, if anyone comes …’
‘They won’t.’
‘What was that?’
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
‘I’m sure I heard something.’
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘it’s only the cows, it’s nothing.’
They listened for a moment and Annie heard nothing but the cows tugging at the grass in the dark.
‘All right?’ he whispered and she nodded.
‘Yes, but be quick.’
He shrugged off his coat, fought the belt off his trousers, pulled the shirt over his head. She put her hand flat on his chest, and she felt his heartbeat through her hand, felt it inside her and he put his arms around her and lifted her, so that she was clinging to him and she thought: Oh thank God. And there was no need for talking any more. No need for anything but sex. She didn’t care about anything but Tom now, because he had told her what their future would be and she was certain it was what she wanted; she was certain he would give it to her.
It was quick and cold and breathless. It was over in moments. Afterwards they held on to each other. She was exhausted and dizzy, lying in the damp green grass when the flashlight beamed across the field beside them, an arc of dazzling white light.
‘What’s that?’ she cried, and then she clamped her hand over her mouth. She tried to scramble to her feet but she was half-naked, and then she heard her husband’s voice calling her name. ‘Oh God, dear God!’ She fumbled with her dress.
Tom tried to help but she pushed him away.
‘You have to go,’ she whispered. ‘Go now! Go quickly!’
‘I can’t leave you like this.’
‘Tom, please,’ she cried, ‘just get away from here. He might have his gun!’
‘Annie!’ William’s voice rang out through the darkness.
‘I’ll come back for you,’ Tom whispered. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘Oh be careful, Tom.’
‘I will be. And, Annie?’
‘Yes?’
‘I love you.’
‘I know you do,’ she said, ‘I know.’
Annie stumbled to her feet and made her way back to William, wading through the long grass, hoping he would not see her in the meadow, scrambling over the stile and grazing the palms of her hands, going towards him furtively as he called her name and searched for her in the garden, and then he found her in the beam. The light blinded her. She stood still with her hands over her eyes while he ran towards her, and she knew what a mess she was, how dishevelled and muddy, as if she had been dragged through a bush backwards. He grabbed her arm.
‘What’s happened to you?’ he cried. ‘Are you hurt? Did someone attack you?’
And she realised what it looked like to him – it looked as if she had been taken against her will up towards the moor, and that she had escaped and run back towards the house, and she was appalled at herself for frightening him so.
‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. I went for a walk, that’s all.’
‘To the moor?’
‘Through the meadow.’
‘You know someone’s out there killing women on the moor and still you went out on your own in the dark!’ he cried. He shook her. ‘How could you do that? How could you be so foolish? What the hell is wrong with you?’
She had no defence, no excuses.
‘I needed some air,’ she said lamely. ‘It’s been a long day.’
‘You could have stayed in the garden.’
‘I felt safe amongst the cows,’ she said and then she had to stifle a laugh; she wanted to bend over and roar with laughter at the ridiculousness of it all – this dance of deception, these crazy, stupid lies.
In the kitchen, she busied herself tidying up. The room was full of boxes, tangled bunting and black plastic bin bags full of litter, crisp packets, paper plates and plastic cups. She poured herself a large glass of wine and William drank whisky and watched her. She felt as if his eyes could see right through her clothes, see through to her skin still flushed from Tom’s kisses, see to the sex between her legs. She felt like an exhibit in a museum, a laboratory rat. William had studied criminal psychology and he knew how to recognise the behaviour and body language of a liar; she did not know how to disguise it so she said little and kept herself busy with the bags, a cloth, a bottle of bleach.
When the kitchen was tidy, she made a pot of tea and went upstairs to bathe. She lay in the water until it went cold, and when she returned to the bedroom William was already asleep. He must have been exhausted, as he had fallen asleep on top of the bed, with his clothes on. Annie carefully took off his shoes and covered him over with the eiderdown. He was lying on his back snoring gently through his open mouth and his breath smelled of Laphroaig. He looked old and tired and vulnerable. He was growing older every day, fading in front of her. Old Grey Eyes, the journalist had called him. Mr Enigma. The only incorruptible copper in England. Annie felt a stab of pity for the man. She climbed carefully into the bed beside him and lay there awake, wondering how she would tell him that she was leaving, and how much it would hurt her to watch his face as she tore his life apart.