I'll Be There Read online

  Charles nodded. ‘Thank you, Mr. Smith. You needn’t read it all out.’

  The investigator slid the papers into a manila folder, placed them on the table and opened his briefcase. His astute brown eyes met those of Charles. ‘Sarah Wyman is more ... interesting.’

  Charles sighed. ‘Continue, please, if you would.’

  ‘Because of her frequent trips I’ve concentrated my investigation of her in Paris, though I’ve including a comprehensive list of her social and business interests as well. I really think you should study my report in private. Most of it is based on hearsay, and is of a sensitive nature. If you wish to proceed with the investigation I could provide you with evidence, it will just tale a bit longer.’

  ‘How sordid is it?’

  ‘I’d prefer not to offer an opinion. ‘John Smith placed the folder on top of the other and rose to his feet. ‘Let me know your decision after you’ve studied it. You have my number.’

  And extraordinary man after all, Charles thought – and one he could grow to like. After Smith had gone he opened up his wife’s file and flipped it open. An hour later he opened the safe and distastefully shoved it inside. He felt sick, inside and out.

  Shrugging into his jacket he whistled for his dog. He needed some fresh air ... lots of it!

  * * * *

  Janey had turned thirteen in the winter of 1962.

  Now it was summer and the holidays had arrived. Linda was in France with the Brown family. Lazy days on the beach or in the woods beckoned; and time to draw and to play with her baby sister.

  ‘Sit still for two minutes,’ she grumbled, quickly sketching in Susie’s dark mischievious eyes and springy dark curls. ‘If you’re good I’ll take you to see the new kittens in the barn.’

  Pamela laughed. ‘You’ll be lucky. She’s on the go all day, and into everything now. She broke an ornament this morning. I don’t know what your dad will say when he finds out. It was a wedding present from Madam.’

  Janey’s smile faded. ‘He isn’t coming down this weekend, is he?’

  Pamela shrugged. ‘He might, he hasn’t been home for some time now.’

  Eight weeks to be exact. Janey circled Susie in her arms when the child scrambled on her lap, and she kissed her sticky upturned face. ‘You’re a pest Susan Renfrew.’

  ‘Kitties,’ Susie demanded.

  ‘Okay.’ Janey stood and marched Suzie to the kitchen. ‘But we wash your face first, else the wasps will gobble you up. There was a short-lived fight with the flannel-yielding Janey. Susie was strapped in her push chair and the pair of them headed out.’

  Eyes filled with love, Pamela watched them go. There had been a subtle change in Janey of late. Her face had fined, revealing a delicate bone structure, and her lips had a softer, rounder shape. Her hair had grown long again, and was drawn into a ponytail on the crown of her head. She’d never understood why Janey had hacked it off.

  ‘She might have been jealous of the baby,’ Ada had said, nodding in agreement with her own wisdom. ‘It was hacked off with no rhyme or reason.’

  Yet Janey had never displayed and sign of jealousy. Susie adored her. It was only Linda that Susan hadn’t taken to.

  Not that Linda cared. She didn’t care for anybody but herself. Just turned sixteen, she was too aware of herself, aware of the heads that turned her way. She was like Eddie, difficult to live with, especially when she got the monthly curse.

  ‘Anyone would think she was the only female who had to put up with it,’ Pamela grumbled as she surveyed the mess in the girl’s room. All the fainting and complaining from her got on her nerves.

  She quickly gathered up Linda’s scattered clothes, sorting out the clean from the dirty as she did. Her wardrobe was stuffed full, some of it hardly worn.

  Eddie catered to Linda’s every whim, whereas poor Janey walked around in cast-offs for most of the time. It was as if Janey didn’t belong to him ...? Pamela thought about that for a while, and then stared at the wall with shock. What if Janey wasn’t his child, could that account for the way he treated her?

  She remembered a small leather case Eddie had brought back from London the last time he’d visited. Personal papers, he’d said, and had put the case in the roof space. She’d thought it an odd place to keep personal papers. But hadn’t dared question him.

  An hour later she was none the wiser about Janey – but she was wiser about her husband. All those photographs ... and they’d been so young! They were so disgusting they’d made her skin crawl. She shuddered, thankful Eddie didn’t touch her any more. She didn’t think she could bear it now. She slumped in a chair, not knowing what to do about it as she stared at the case. What if one of the girls found them?

  After a while she went outside, fetched a spade from the shed and dug a hole at the end of the garden. Wrapping the case in a plastic shopping bag she dropped it in the hole and filled the hole in. She doubted if Eddie would kick up a stink when he found out – he wouldn’t want to admit to them.

  Things would be better after a cup of tea, she thought as she walked unsteadily back to the cottage. They always were.

  * * * *

  He would tell her when she was sixteen.

  I’m your father, Janey ... your mother and I loved each other, he’d say.

  Jack watched her mix a subtle shade of blue on her palette. She was working on a seascape – a gift for Charles Wyman. She’d known exactly what she’d wanted to paint, and had borrowed his camera to take a photograph of yachts racing out of Bridport and rounding the buoy. They were strung out across the sea, spinnakers blowing in the breeze.

  She had a good eye for a scene and color but not much patience for the final details. Tonal colors merged into the other, shadows and shapes making suggestions ... impressionistic. But not quite, her style was unique.

  She put the finishing touch to a sail, a shadowy sweep of blue. Then she stood back, her eyes intent and serious. ‘It’s finished.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She slanted him a glance, her eyes still absorbed. ‘This is exactly as I wanted it to be.’

  No hesitation or doubt, yet her eyes questioned him, invited comment.

  ‘You’ve forgotten your signature.’

  Her laugh was a tiny breathless mortal as she picked up a brush and supplied the small detail. ‘Does it always feel like this when something comes to an end.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I feel like a boat without a sail.’

  * * * *

  ‘Cast adrift, you mean?’ He remembered Margaret, Janey’s mother. ‘It’s a sort of bereavement, like when somebody you love dies. You have to plan another project to take your mind off it.’

  ‘Have you ever loved someone who died.’

  Jack’s throat constricted. ‘Yes ... someone I loved very much.’

  ‘And you found something to replace her.’

  Tears gathered in his eyes. ‘Someone, but nobody could ever replace her. Eventually she became a memory, and living without her didn’t hurt quite so much.’

  Her hand patted his, ‘I’m glad you did. Thank you for the lesson Mr. Gregory. I enjoyed it.’

  His tears threatened to spill over as she walked to the door and opened it. His pupil never lingered after the lesson, unconsciously aware of the proper relation between student and teacher. Jack could imagine Pamela Renfrew reminding her every time he came here. Don’t overstay your welcome, and don’t forget to thank him, Janey.

  For once, Jack felt like breaking the mould. He followed her on to the porch. ‘Would you mind if I gave you a hug before you leave?’

  Her hesitation was as momentary as the surprise in her eyes, then she nodded, allowing him to clasp her in a hug and kiss her forehead in a brief embrace.

  She pushed him away almost immediately, and then hurried down the path into the lane beyond, her ponytail swinging. ‘Good night Mr. Gregory, I’ll see you on Friday,’ she called out.

  Goldie pressed against his leg and whined. He fondled the
dog’s ear. ‘Fetch your leash then. I’ll get the car out and we’ll go for a run on the beach before it gets dark.’

  The district nurse was in the garden opposite, watering her plants..

  He nodded to her as he backed out. ‘Good evening Mrs.. Adams.’

  ‘Mr. Gregory.

  Her smiled faded as soon as he was out of sight. She’d observed the caress and wondered at it. Janey Renfrew was a strange child in her estimation. She was too quiet, a dreamer, and usually shied away from intimacy – but she was growing into a beautiful girl.

  ‘John Gregory was a single man, a war hero by all accounts and a loner. Apart from his sister and her husband he had very few visitors. In her experience men like him usually had something to hide.

  * * * *

  Janey lingered on her way home. The dusk resembled mauve velvet, and breathed moisture against her skin. It was a time of resting after the excitement of the day. Birds returned the their nests and squirrels to their homes on high in the trees.

  Then came the turn of the night creatures. Tiny voles, and moles burrowed under the lawns, leaving mounds of earth where they popped their heads up. Owls glided on silent wings to hunt the unwary, and hedgehogs snuffled in the undergrowth.

  Moths, white ghost shapes fluttered up from the grass at her feet as she walked, to be snatched from the air by bats swooping in from nowhere.

  Only they weren’t really silent, and didn’t come from nowhere. Griff Tyler had told her they gave high-pitched squeaks to help them locate their prey, and to stop them from bumping into things in the dark

  The bats inhabited a cave that was hidden inside the hill. Griff had taken her there once. They’d watched to bats emerge at dusk, exploding through a tiny fissure like a handful of black rags thrown into the air.

  ‘The quiet dusk was broken by something that sounded like a car rolling engineless down a hill, but there was no gleam of headlights and it didn’t come down the lane. She stopped to watch the moon emerge from behind the hill, throwing the pines into stark relief and sending silvery shafts of light through the trunks. It climbed rapidly upwards, bathing her in its glow.

  When a twig snapped beyond the hedge she quickened her pace. Pamela didn’t like her being out after dark. She was about to pass the Sutton’s old cow-shed when something clinked against a stone. Tim Brown trying to scare her? Then she remembered he was in France. She gave a squeak of alarm when a shadow moved within a shadow.

  ‘Phil ...?’ But the shadow was too tall. ‘Griff ... stop trying to scare me.’

  There was a low chuckle. Thoroughly spooked now, for it was out of character for either Griff or his father to play such a trick on her, she turned to run.

  She’d hardly taken a step when something dusty came down over her head. A hand cut off her scream and her flailing arms were pinned to her side. Helpless, she was dragged into the building and thrown on the floor. As she tried to scramble to her feet something smacked against her head and everything went dark.

  Consciousness came, and with it a claustrophobic suffocation. Rough against her face was a hessian sack. Sucking in a deep breath she inhaled dust and began to cough.

  There was the taste of blood, and pain – unbearable pain. When she tried to resist, blows against her stomach, her ribs and her face. Then her arm was twisted up behind her back. A moment of unbearable agony made her scream.

  ‘The torment continued long after, just under the surface of her consciousness. Shadows came to haunt her and she cast herself adrift, riding the dark maelstrom until it became a drift of calm water.

  * * * *

  Janey woke to a different kind of pain, struggling up from sleep into an astringent smelling brightness.

  ‘You’re awake then dear.’

  She stared at the nurse, bewildered. A hospital, was she sick?

  ‘Thirsty?’

  She nodded, then groan when movement brought pain lancing into her neck.

  ‘Your shoulder is dislocated. Try not to move so much ... just drink it through the straw ... that’s right ... good girl.’

  The liquid trickled sweetly into her mouth and parched throat.

  A doctor came to see her. He shone a light into her eyes and asked her questions she couldn’t answer. Her head began to ache. The nurse held her hand and Janey cried during the examination. Humiliated and sore, she wished he’d go away.

  Doctor nodded to the nurse. ‘Not much doubt I’m afraid. Her memory of the event might returns when she’s over the shock, but perhaps she’ll be better off if it doesn’t. Keep her in overnight and we’ll arrange for the district nurse to visit her.’

  ‘The sedative should be working by now so let’s see to that shoulder.’ He gazed down at her, pity in his eyes. ‘This might hurt a little, but try and relax.’

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when a sudden excruciating pain made her yelp. The pain receded leaving only a few shreds behind.

  ‘Got it in one,’ the nurse said, and patted her hand. ‘Cheer up love, you’ll soon be home.’

  * * * *

  Pamela was awkwardly cheerful as she tucked her up in bed the next afternoon. ‘Your father was very upset to hear about your ... little accident. Thank goodness Griffin and Phil found you.’

  Accident ... what accident? The last thing Janey remembered was leaving John Gregory’s house after her painting lesson and the moon climbing out of the pine trees. ‘Was I hit by a car?’

  Pamela’s eyes slid away. ‘Most likely dear.’

  ‘Shortly afterwards her father arrived. He gave her some chocolate and an Enid Blyton annual she’d read three years before, and then seated himself on the end of the bed.

  Uncomfortable in his presence Janey traced the pattern on the bedspread with her finger.

  ‘They’ve caught the man who did this to you. It was John Gregory.’

  Shocked, her head jerked up. ‘Mr. Gregory ran me over?’

  ‘That’s right. There’s a policemen downstairs. He needs to ask you some questions. Make sure you tell the truth about John Gregory, else you’ll be in serious trouble.’

  The policeman’s uniform and gruff voice was intimidating. ‘How long have you been taking art lessons with John Gregory?’

  Janey couldn’t remember exactly so she gazed mutely at Pamela.

  ‘Several years ... but privately for just over two. He said she’s very talented.’

  The policeman wrote it in his notebook.

  ‘Mrs.. Adams said John Gregory hugged and kissed you that night. Did he often do that?’

  Her father’s grey eyes were intent on her face.

  ‘Not usually,’ she said reluctantly.

  ‘Did he ever touch you?’

  Her head began to throb. ‘I don’t know ... he sometimes stood behind me and guided my hand with his.’

  ‘Did he ever tell you he was your father?’

  She closed her eyes and wished the policeman would go away. ‘Why should he say something stupid like that?’

  Pamela’s hand closed around hers.

  ‘I’m asking the questions, Miss. Can you tell me what happened last night?’

  Tears trickled down her face when she remembered what her father had said. ‘John Gregory did it? I can’t believe –’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Pamela snapped. ‘Hasn’t she been through enough. The doctor said she must rest.’

  Later, Janey heard her parents arguing.

  First came her father. ‘This is your fault for allowing her to roam all over the countryside at night.’

  ‘And where were you while this was going on? You only married me to have a mother for your children. You’re a rotten father, and I wish I’d never – ‘

  Pamela cried out as a slap rang out. ‘You’re my wife and you’ll do what I tell you. If you don’t I’ll take Susan and leave you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t take Susie from me.’

  ‘Just try me.’ Footsteps thudded across the floor and the door slammed shut. Seconds later the car roa
red into life.

  Janey waited until the sound of the engine died away, and then rose from her bed and went downstairs. Seated on the threadbare sofa Pamela fearfully cuddled Susie against her. Pamela was weeping, but it was silent and despairing. Experiencing a desperate rage when she saw the red welt on her stepmother’s cheek, she crossed to where she sat and gently touched it. ‘I want you to know that I love you, and I love Susie. I didn’t know how to say it before.’

  ‘I know Janey ... I know.’ Pamela drew her close. ‘I’ve loved you from the moment I first saw you.’

  Pamela wondered where the girl found her strength. Her face was swollen, her arm in a sling, bruises covered her body and she’d been violated in the worst way possible for a young girl. ‘You should be in bed,’ she said gently.

  ‘What will happen to John Gregory?’

  ‘I don’t know. I expect he’ll go to prison if he’s convicted. You might have to give evidence.’

  ‘I can’t remember anything.’ The short, sharp sense of loss she experienced was overtaken by a deep hurt. Why had the man she’d grown to love and trust betrayed her?

  ‘I wonder is Mr. and Mrs.. Yates have been told,’ was all she could think of to say.

  * * * *

  The evidence against Jack Bellamy was circumstantial, but it was enough to convict him. On the doctor’s advice Janey was spared the ordeal of a court case.

  Witnesses for the prosecution included Noel Chatterton. The lawyer Eddie had sought advice from. He verified the warning letter Eddie had sent to Jack. Mrs.. Adams said her piece with breathless relish. The policeman damned Jack straight away when he flipped open his notebook and read the record of his first interview with Janey.

  ‘John Gregory did it, the girl said, m’lord.’ He gazed at Jack as he exclaimed accusingly, ‘John Gregory did it?’

  ‘The fact that Jack had moved to the village to be near Janey, and had concealed his real name, did nothing to help his case.

  Two people gave him a character reference, Phil Tyler and Mr. James. After the schoolteacher said Jack was a war hero, and was a bloody fine bloke and an expert painter, the judge commented caustically, ‘So was Adolph Hitler in the eyes of some.’