A Place Of Safety(20)

But tonight, like everyone else in the village (except the Lawrences), Val and Louise were mulling over the grisly discovery in Carter’s Wood. Also like everyone else, they were convinced the dead person was Charlie Leathers.

‘One, he’s missing.’ Valentine ticked the points off on his fingers. ‘Two, it was his dog found nearby, badly beaten. And three, absolutely nobody likes him.’

‘Not liking is no reason—’

‘It’s a damn nuisance. We’re going to have to find someone else to do the garden.’

‘He only does - did a couple of hours a week. I can manage that. It’s the Old Rectory that’ll feel the pinch. Which reminds me . . .’ She told Valentine about her meeting with Ann Lawrence the previous afternoon when they had discussed Carlotta’s disappearance.

‘There is no way she would have got into that state over just a row. Trembling and shaking - she could hardly speak.’

‘Perhaps she’s the one who bumped off Charlie.’

‘That’s not very funny, Val.’

‘Murder’s not supposed to be very funny.’

‘More likely to be—’

Louise stopped, realising immediately it was too late. The time to stop had been when the words were still in her mouth. And she had been so careful. Always thinking, anticipating. Ever since the night, months ago, when she had first spoken her mind on the subject in question and Val had spoken his mind and it was plain there could be no meeting of the two minds, ever. She had never seen her brother behave as he had then. He was like a man possessed. Which, of course, he was.

‘More likely to be?’

The words lay across her heart like lashes from a whip. ‘I’m sorry, Val.’

‘One mistake and he pays for the rest of his life, is that it?’ He got up, taking a leather jacket from the back of his chair, cramming an arm into one sleeve, shrugging it over his shoulders.

‘Don’t!’ She ran round the table, not caring what she said now that the damage had been done. ‘Don’t go over there. Please.’

‘I shall go where I like.’ He was running down the curved glass staircase. At the bottom he turned round and stared back up at her, his face quite expressionless, his eyes burning. ‘If all you can find to do is criticise the one person who makes me glad to be alive then I suggest you find another place to do it in.’





Of course, someone had phoned the Old Rectory. The caller seemed to think that Lionel Lawrence, whom she insisted on addressing as ‘Your Reverend’, would wish to visit Mrs Leathers in his role as ‘our living Lord’s rod and staff and comforter’.

Much to Lionel’s irritation the general view around the village seemed to be, once a cleric, always a cleric. He was still frequently addressed as Vicar and from time to time called upon to involve himself in deeply fraught situations that were none of his making. He always declined but people could be extremely, sometimes quite unpleasantly, persistent. In the present case, after a few judicious questions, Lionel felt obliged to refuse. It seemed the body had not yet been positively identified. Lionel was not easily embarrassed but even he drew the line at offering solace to a widow whose husband might pop his head round the door at any minute.

His main concern at the moment was his own wife. When he told her the news, Ann’s reaction was deeply disturbing. She leapt up and seized his arm, asking him over and over again just where the dead man had been found and when exactly it had all happened. She was in a feverish state, wild-eyed, her skin so hot that he suggested calling the doctor. She calmed down then. Or pretended to. He could see her struggling to appear more tranquil but her eyes, dazed with alarm, danced and flickered round the room.

Eventually he persuaded her to go to bed. Then he went into the study, placed some applewood logs carefully on the fire and immersed himself in the Gospel according to St Paul. But his mind soon drifted back to its previous occupation and, for the millionth time, he wondered where Carlotta was now and what she could be doing. Had she made her way to London and fallen among thieves? Attempted to hitch hike and been picked up by a man who made it his business to prey on young girls? Was she even now lying lifeless on some scrubby wasteland, her clothes torn, her skirt over her head—

Lionel gasped with shock at the vivid image the thought provoked and turned his scarlet cheeks away from the fire. More safely, he dwelt on the girl’s time in his house. The talks they’d had walking around the garden or in the tumultuous chaos of her room. A compassionate out-pouring of paternal concern on his part which poor, affection-starved Carlotta had soaked up like a thirsty sponge. All you need is love - the naive anthem of his adolescent years - was no more than the simple truth. And he had so much to give.