A Place Of Safety(28)

When Val had walked out with such an air of savage finality the previous evening she had been driven to follow him. She knew where he was going and that she would learn nothing new. And that there was nothing she could do to stop him. She also knew that he would be even more angry than he was already if he saw her. Yet Louise had not been able to help herself.

When she saw him enter the Old Rectory’s garden she waited with no idea of what she should do if he discovered her. After the door to the garage flat had opened, she had turned, sick at heart, and gone home.

Val had come in about an hour later. Louise had watched him through a space between the rugs on her floor. He had sat very still for some time with his head resting in his hands then gone quietly upstairs to bed.

She had hardly slept and had woken full of deep apprehension. For the first time in her life that she could remember she dreaded coming face to face with her brother. Even so, as soon as she heard him moving about, she made a pot of the Assam Orange Pekoe tea he always liked on rising and made her way to his room.

She knocked, received no reply and gently turned the handle. Valentine was in his bathroom. He had apparently just come out of the shower and was standing in front of the mirror, towel round his waist, shaving. The door was half open. She was about to call out when he bent to splash his face with water and she saw a dreadful mark, bluish crimson with almost black edges, on the back of his neck.

Louise moved clumsily backwards onto the landing. Everything on her tray shook or trembled. The lid on the teapot, the fragile cup in its saucer, the surface of the milk. Carefully she put the tray on the floor and slowly straightened. She placed her quivering hands by her sides and breathed deeply, struggling to recover her equilibrium.

She knew who was responsible for the disfigurement and told herself perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it looked, even as she knew it was much worse. The phrase ‘love bites’ jumped into her mind. She remembered how, if you could flash one of these innocent, exuberant bruises on the school bus, the other girls were envious.

But this was something else. This was a deeply unloving bite. A hate bite. A wound. She wondered if it had bled when first inflicted, if Valentine had had to reach awkwardly over his shoulder and bathe and dry it when he got home. If it had hurt when he lay down.

Half an hour later, when her brother came into the kitchen carrying the tea tray, she could hardly bring herself to look at him. Not because of their argument, which now seemed utterly trivial, but because of what she might read in his face.

He was moving around very calmly, as if in a dream - putting his cup and saucer in the dishwasher, peeling an orange. Then he sat at the table, separating the fruit into segments, placing them carefully on a plate but making no attempt to eat.

Louise moved out of Valentine’s sightline so she could look at him directly. Then she understood this was quite unnecessary for he had plainly forgotten she was there. He was staring out of the window, his gaze clear-eyed, knowledgeable, quiescent. Everything about him spoke of resignation. His hands rested sadly on his knees, his back curved beneath an invisible load.

Another memory, this time from early childhood. Sitting with her grandfather looking through a scrapbook of photographs. There were postcards too, several from the Great War. The Angel of Mons looking sorrowfully down on a soldier kneeling by a cross. The soldier looked bravely back, knowing his fate and courageously preparing to meet it. Just so did Valentine look.

More chiming finally brought her back to the present. Louise sighed, heaved herself upright and pushed the newspaper away. A distorted burly shape was outlined through the heavy ribbed door. And, just behind it, a slimmer one.

‘Mrs Fainlight?’

‘Mrs Forbes. Valentine Fainlight is my brother. Who are you?’

As he produced his warrant card Barnaby regarded the woman facing him with admiration. Anyone more different from Ann Lawrence would be hard to imagine. A wide, narrow-lipped mouth, perfectly painted vermilion. High cheekbones, slightly tilted hazel eyes with very long lashes and skin the colour and texture of thick cream. She reminded him of Lauren Bacall in the days when Bogie could still boogie.

‘May we come in?’

‘Why?’ Despite the blunt response, her voice had a throaty sweetness.

‘A couple of questions about Charlie Leathers. I understand he worked for you.’

‘Only just.’

But she stood aside for them to come in. Barnaby entered and waited, completely at home as he was almost anywhere. Troy stared about him in wonderment. At the glorious fall of curtains, the single stunning central light, the suspended Arabian lamps and patterned silk wall hangings. At the whole elaborate fairytale structure.