The Shivering Turn, page 4
‘So all that leaves is the newspapers, doesn’t it?’ Dunn asked. ‘You could easily go to them, and present them with your largely unsubstantiated story about a bent senior policeman, but would they print it? They’d certainly first consider the possibility that, if they ran with it, I might well sue them, and they’d be only too aware that they’d never be briefed from this police station ever again – so, on balance, I don’t think they would.’
He slid a piece of paper across the desk to me.
‘This is your letter of resignation, DC Redhead,’ he said. ‘Will you sign it now? You know it’s for the best.’
‘Yes,’ I said heavily, ‘I’ll sign it.’
He reached for his pen, and was in the process of uncapping it when I said, ‘Given how many crooked deals that pen has probably played a part in, I think it would be safer to use my own.’
I watched the look of pure rage spread across his face. It wasn’t much of a victory – but it was all that I had.
‘So you resigned,’ Corbet says.
I shrug. ‘I like to think I can act heroically when the situation calls for it, but heroism wouldn’t have done me any good at that point, and I’m not the stuff that martyrs are made of.’
‘And do you still think Dunn’s bent?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m far from convinced you’re right, but I suspect that if I thought he was bent, I wouldn’t have the balls to go after him. And that’s the only reason I’m willing to talk to you now, Miss Redhead – you’ve got more balls than I have, and that buys you a little respect.’ He pauses and lights a cigarette. ‘Ask me whatever it was that you came here to ask me.’
‘Linda’s mother thinks something terrible has happened to Linda in Oxford, but you think she’s simply run away. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yet the night she went missing, you spent hours driving round Oxford, looking for her.’
Corbet shakes his head, sadly.
‘Is that what Mary’s told you?’
‘Isn’t it true?’
‘No, it isn’t. What I did do was to go to the railway station and bus station, to find out if anyone had seen her there.’
‘And it didn’t occur to you – not even for a second – that she might have been attacked?’
‘Not after I saw that Mr Dumpy was missing.’
‘Mr Dumpy?’
‘When Lindie was eleven, we went to Southend-on-Sea for our holidays, and one day, when we were walking along the promenade, she noticed this canvas bag in one of the gift shops. It was only a cheap thing, but she was absolutely thrilled to bits when I bought it for her. She embroidered a cartoon of a man’s face on the side of it, and she called it Mr Dumpy, because she could dump all her stuff in it, and when she’d done that, the cheeks on the face bulged like those on a dumpy person. That’s the sort of silly thing that kids make up.’
‘I know,’ I agree.
‘Anyway, she’s stuck with that bag ever since. Every time we go away on holiday, she point-blank refuses to use the smart suitcase we bought her, and crams everything into Mr Dumpy. It means she has to do a lot more ironing, but she doesn’t seem to mind that.’
‘And you noticed Mr Dumpy was missing?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘While Mary was on the phone to Lindie’s friends, I checked her room, and there was no sign of Mr Dumpy.’
‘Why do you think she ran away?’ I ask.
‘If you asked her, she’d probably say it’s because I’ve been putting too much pressure on her.’
‘And what if I asked you?’
‘I’d say I was doing my best to persuade her not to throw her life away.’ Another pause, while he takes a drag on his cigarette. ‘I suppose my wife has been telling you how well Lindie’s doing at school.’
‘And isn’t she?’
‘She was until just before Christmas – then her work suddenly started dropping off. And it went even worse in March, when she got mixed up with the wrong crowd.’
I have to tread very carefully here, because although I know he’s referring to the St Luke’s students she was arrested with, I can’t let him know that I know without revealing that I have a source at the station.
So all I say is, ‘The wrong crowd?’
‘They’re students from the university, but not the good students – the ones she should have been taking as an example if she ever wants to get into Oxford herself. No, she chose to pal up with the dregs – with a bunch of over-privileged, mindless vandals.’
‘Did you have an argument with Linda over these new university friends of hers?’ I ask.
‘We discussed it,’ he says cautiously.
‘Discussions don’t normally make people decide to run away from home,’ I point out.
‘Do you want me to say that I lost my temper with her – that I shouted at her and said things I regretted later?’
‘Only if that’s what happened.’
‘All right, I may have lost my temper,’ he concedes. ‘I did lose my temper with her. I told her if she didn’t show some marked improvement pretty damn quickly, I’d kick her out.’
I say nothing.
‘Do you think I’ve been too hard on her, Miss Redhead?’ he asks. ‘From what I’ve said, have you already formed an impression of me as an unyielding Victorian father?’
‘I haven’t formed any sort of clear impression yet,’ I tell him. Then I add, because this man seems to have a finely tuned radar for detecting insincerity, ‘But the unyielding Victorian father is a possibility I’ve yet to rule out.’
For perhaps a minute, Corbet says nothing, and when he does speak, there is a bitter edge to his tone.
‘My father was a useless drunk, and my mother was nothing but a street-corner prostitute,’ he says. ‘Does it surprise you to hear me describe my parents like that?’
‘Not if that’s what they were.’
‘I’ve had a little help along the way, when I was growing up. I won’t deny that – but the man I am today is mainly of my own making,’ Corbet says. ‘I’m not claiming to be that exceptional – many other people have had to make the same journey – but by God, it was bloody hard, and all I ever wanted was to make sure that Lindie didn’t have to endure the same herself.’
‘Go on,’ I encourage him.
‘I was an inspector stationed in Abingdon, and I was in line for a promotion to chief inspector. Then, one day, Lindie’s form teacher called me in. We met in Lindie’s classroom. The teacher – Miss Eccles – said my daughter had great potential. Then she stood up, walked over to the door, and looked up and down the corridor, to see if any other member of staff was close enough to hear what she was about to say. And even then, when she spoke it was almost in a whisper.’
‘What did she tell you?’
‘She told me that to fully realize that potential, Lindie needed to be in a better school. She said she had contacts at St Margaret’s in Oxford but, because it was a good school, it was also a very popular one, and in order for Lindie to get in …’
‘You’d have to live in the catchment area, which would mean you moving to Oxford.’
‘Which would mean us moving to Oxford,’ Corbet agrees. ‘When I put in for a transfer, my chief super called me into his office. He told me that if I stayed in Abingdon, I’d get my promotion within six months, but he’d done some checking on my behalf, and discovered that there wouldn’t be any vacancy in Oxford in the foreseeable future. Looking at it from that perspective, I’d be a complete bloody fool to move, he pointed out.’
‘But you did it anyway – which shows you’ve got a fair amount of balls yourself.’
Corbet shakes his head slowly from side to side. ‘No, Miss Redhead, you don’t understand. It wasn’t balls at all – it was love. But I expected something in return – I expected Linda to make the best of her opportunities.’
‘Where do you think she’s gone?’ I ask.
‘She could have gone anywhere, but I expect she’s headed for London – which is where most runaways end up.’
‘And have you asked the London police to look for her?’
‘Not officially, no. I’ve no grounds for making such a request, because she’s seventeen and a half, and left of her own free will.’
‘But unofficially …?’
‘Unofficially, I know some coppers in the Met, because we’ve attended the same conferences and got on together, and I’ve asked them if they’ll keep an eye out for her.’
‘Do you think that she’ll come home of her own free will?’
‘That’s what I’m praying for. But she’s like me – stubborn – and she certainly won’t come back until the money’s run out.’
‘She has money?’
‘Oh yes. When she told me that she’d decided she wanted to become a doctor—’
‘Was that her decision – or yours?’ I interrupt.
‘It was hers,’ he says, with just a hint of anger. Then he softens, and adds, ‘It would probably be more accurate to say it was ours.’
‘Yours and Linda’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did your wife think about it?’
Corbet sighs. ‘Mary’s not a very practical person,’ he says. ‘Her idea of self-fulfilment is to dress up and pretend to be somebody else.’
His cigarette has burned down almost to the filter tip. He snips off the still-burning ash with his finger and thumb, watches it fall to the ground and then stamps on it. As he puts the filter tip in one pocket of his overalls with one hand – a tidy allotment is a filter-free allotment – he is already reaching into another pocket with the other for his packet of cigarettes.
‘It was because Lindie wants to be a doctor that I got her a part-time job – Saturdays and holidays – in one of the pharmacies,’ he says.
I can see where he’s going with this.
‘And you let her keep some of the money she earned?’ I ask.
‘I let her keep all of it,’ Corbet says, with a sudden hard edge to his voice. ‘She’s my daughter, not a lodger.’ He looks around the allotment with a wistful expression on his face. ‘Lindie loved this allotment when she was younger,’ he continues, dreamily. ‘We’d come here day after day, and never get tired of it. I’d never grown flowers – I’m a practical man, and I don’t see the point in growing something you can’t eat – but she asked me if she could try her hand at it, and I said yes. And you should have seen the results. She didn’t just have green fingers – she had magic fingers!’
I do a quick survey of the allotment. There are lettuces growing in stiff, uncompromising rows, and the regimented tops of autumn potatoes thrusting out from their clayey grave. And in one sheltered corner there is a bed of flowers – blue and yellow delphiniums around the edge, red roses in the middle – over which butterflies dance in gay abandon.
‘Did your daughter plant those?’ I ask.
‘Have you not been listening – or is it simply that you have no short-term memory?’ Corbet asks, suddenly irritable. ‘I’ve just told you that she doesn’t come to the allotment any more. As she developed more interests of her own, the allotment lost its allure, which is, I suppose,’ he pauses to sigh again, ‘only natural.’
‘So you planted them?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Recently?’
‘Yes.’
He is speaking awkwardly – perhaps reluctantly – but I don’t read the signals, because I am interested in his motives, and completely forget that he also has emotions.
‘What made you plant them?’ I ask, like a drunken elephant rampaging through an Indian village. ‘Are you growing them for her?’
‘Well, of course I’m growing them for her, you stupid bloody bitch!’ he roars at me.
The sudden violence in his voice – the aggressive stiffness of his body – quite shocks me. But it passes in a moment. His stance loosens. His mouth – which was temporarily a vast cavern of rage – returns to its normal size.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, in a voice which is now almost a whisper. ‘That was unforgivable.’
‘No, I’m the one who should be saying sorry,’ I tell him.
And I truly mean it.
He was quite right to call me a stupid bitch. I have been very stupid – not to mention grossly insensitive. The allotment was where he and Linda were happiest together, and this flower bed is his equivalent of keeping a candle burning in the window for his missing daughter. It is a deeply personal thing – and of course he doesn’t want to talk about it to an outsider.
‘I’d like you to do something for me,’ he says – and it is a plea rather than a request.
‘What?’
‘I’d like you to persuade my wife that nothing bad has happened to Lindie – that she’s just run away. If you can get her to believe that, then you’ll be giving her hope. And even if Lindie never does come home again, there’s at least a slight possibility that Mary will be able to convince herself that, wherever she is, the girl is happy.’
‘Is that what you think, Mr Corbet?’ I ask. ‘Do you think she might never come home again?’
‘No, of course not,’ he says, far too hurriedly. Then he shakes himself, as if he could shake off despair as a dog shakes off water. ‘I don’t know,’ he admits. ‘I tell myself that there’s no reason she wouldn’t come home eventually, but there’s a part of me that says she never will.’
‘I will talk to your wife,’ I promise. ‘But I’m not a family friend or a guidance counsellor, and all I can really do is to say that, in my professional opinion, she’s gone away of her own free will.’
‘Yes, of course, that’s all I could expect you to do,’ he says sadly.
As I start to walk away, I hear him say, ‘Maybe I was too hard – maybe I was too hard,’ but I don’t turn around, because I know he isn’t talking to me.
FOUR
The house is a large 1930s’ semi-detached dwelling on a leafy street in north Summertown – the sort of street which is the natural habitat of assistant bank managers, junior doctors, deputy head teachers and university lecturers. It has two bay windows projecting out from the main building, and the upper one is capped with a dinky triangular roof. The walls are painted white, as are the window frames and front door, and the curtains are a delicate shade of pale blue. If you’d asked me to describe the kind of house in which I thought the Corbets might live, I would have imagined something exactly like this.
As I walk up the driveway, I find myself thinking about the little flat I once owned over one of the many bookshops on Broad Street. It wasn’t much (two-bed, one bath, kitchen/lounge), but I’d grown quite fond of it, and when, as a result of having signed the letter Chief Superintendent Dunn had so thoughtfully drafted for me, I found I was no longer able to keep up my mortgage payments, I may have shed a tear or two.
Now, I occupy a bedsit near my office – and whereas, in my old flat, I had a cupboard in the bathroom, I now have a bathroom in a cupboard.
I hope to some day step on to the property ladder again, and there is no doubt the money Mary Corbet gave me would have been a huge help to that ambition. Unfortunately, the reason I’m here is to hand that money back.
C’est la vie!
I ring the doorbell, and instead of hearing the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor, I hear the bolt being drawn and the door opening.
It’s almost as if Mrs Corbet has been hovering in the hallway on the off-chance that I might pay her a visit, I think – and maybe that’s exactly what she has been doing.
I hadn’t anticipated being angry but, looking at her now, that is exactly what I am.
‘Have you found out anything yet, Miss Redhead?’ she asks, almost breathlessly.
‘Yes,’ I reply coldly, ‘I’ve found you’ve been playing me for the complete bloody fool.’
‘I haven’t … I never meant to …’
I hold out the roll of bank notes in my right hand.
‘I’m returning your money,’ I tell her. ‘I haven’t spent so much as a penny of it.’
‘Oh please,’ she says, cupping my right hand with both of hers – forcing it closed, so I am still holding the bank roll – ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t entirely honest with you the last time we talked.’
‘Saying you weren’t “entirely honest” is a bit of an understatement, don’t you think?’ I ask her.
‘Just come inside, and I’ll explain everything to you,’ Mary Corbet implores me.
‘I can’t see there’d be much point in that,’ I say. ‘In my professional opinion, Linda has decided to leave home, and there’s really not a great deal that anybody can do about it.’
‘Please, I’m begging you,’ she moans.
She has a grip on my right hand and is using that grip to haul me into the house.
Resisting would present me with no problems – I once dropped a fifteen-stone lorry driver armed with a crowbar – but, given the state she’s in, it would seem almost cruel.
Besides, having one last shot at convincing her of the truth is the least I can do for her husband.
Once inside, Mary Corbet seems to decide that it is no longer necessary to apply ‘force’. She relinquishes her grip, and shimmies around me so that she can close the front door.
‘The lounge is that first door on the right,’ she says, once we are both safely locked inside. ‘Go straight in.’
I sigh, and do as I’m told.
Once we’re in the lounge, she begins fussing over me like a mother hen.
‘Do take a seat,’ she says. ‘I think you’ll find that armchair over there very comfortable. Now, what would you like to drink? There’s both tea and coffee, but I wouldn’t the least mind – honestly I wouldn’t – if you told me that you felt like having something a little stronger.’
‘I don’t want a drink, Mrs Corbet,’ I say.
‘Not even tea? Oh, and I’ve just remembered – there’s fruit juice. Pineapple and peach flavours, I think.’
‘I don’t want anything to drink – but I would like to ask you a question,’ I tell her.
‘Oh, all right, then,’ she says, sounding disappointed. ‘What was it you wanted to know?’
