Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(70)

Lynn was looking back at her, not answering, but Patricia could read it in her face.

“The bastard. That cruel bastard.”

“You didn’t know?” Lynn asked quietly.

Lips tight together, Patricia shook her head.

“And Jane, she never said anything?”

“Not one word.”

“But you’re not surprised?”

“When I look back on it, it makes perfect sense. I mean, I knew that in a way she was frightened of him. That when he said jump, if you like, she jumped.” Patricia looked around toward the counter. “Look, I don’t know about you, but I could do with another coffee.”

“Maybe in a minute,” Lynn said. “I just wanted to ask, if all this was going on, why you think she put up with it?”

Patricia folded the paper that had held her wafer in half, then half, then half again. “I think in a way it’s what she wanted, that kind of almost domination. And I think, in any case, she would have been frightened to have done anything about it.”

“Anything. Such as?”

“Oh, the whole range, from suggesting family therapy to leaving him. Having an affair.”

“And you don’t think she did that?”

“An affair? Jane? She’d have had to be a combination of Houdini and Mata Hari if she had.”

Lynn nodded, stood away from the stool to get more coffee.

“Although she might have thought about it,” Patricia said quietly.

For a moment, Lynn held her breath. “What makes you say that?”

Patricia half-smiled, remembering. “We were nattering one day in the loo. Girls’ stuff. One of the games staff was having this big thing with someone from another school. Everyone knew about it and they didn’t seem to care; everyone except for their respective partners, I imagine. I remember Jane saying it’s amazing what you can get away with if you’ve got the guts. I think she said balls. Anyway, I told her it was okay for her to talk, she wasn’t the type to have an affair even in her wildest dreams. And I remember she gave me this little smile and said, ‘If only you knew.’”

“That was all?”

“That was all.”

“But you thought …?”

“I suppose I thought, well, she’s been thinking about it, at least.”

“Cappuccino or espresso?” Lynn asked.

“Straight, please. Straight black.”

“All right,” Resnick said, “correct me if I’m wrong.” They were in their room on the Ropewalk, Resnick, Khan, and Lynn, the window open several inches top and bottom, the air heavy and promising rain. To the northwest, the sky was darkening like an overripe plum. “What we’re supposing is this. One, despite any previous evidence to the contrary, Jane Peterson was carrying on an affair. How far this had got or how long it had been going on, we’ve no way as yet of knowing, but some kind of affair.

“Two, both of the calls she made from Broadway, were made to the other person involved, which places him in the Cambridgeshire–Newmarket area, if not permanently, then at those times.

“And three, after the second of those calls, somewhere, somehow, Jane ran out on her husband and joined her lover. We don’t know what happened then, where they went, anything. All we do know is that a week later she was dead.” He looked from Lynn to Khan and back again. “Now why, as a story, do I not find that convincing?”

“There are too many gaps,” Khan said. “Too much conjecture. We don’t know she was having an affair at all.”

“We know she phoned someone before she disappeared.”

“Okay, but if she’s on the point of meeting him, why talk for almost half an hour?”

“Maybe there were a lot of arrangements to be made.”

“Or,” Resnick said, “maybe one or other of them was getting cold feet.”

“Probably Jane,” Lynn said.

“We don’t know that,” said Khan.

“She was the one who’d stayed in an abusive relationship for years,” Lynn said. “If she was all that keen to run off, surely she’d have done it sooner. No, it makes perfect sense to me she’d have doubts.”

“Right at the last minute?”

“Especially then.”

“Okay,” Resnick said, “here’s what we do. Lynn, we should check back through all of Jane’s known friends and relations; if she let that one remark slip to Patricia Falk, she just may have said something to somebody else. Something that until we jog their memory they might have honestly forgotten. And push the Cambridgeshire connection, see if you can get them to come up with anyone Jane knew there.”

Lynn nodded.

“Anil, I want you back out at that pub, asking around. If this bloke we’re looking for calls in regular, daytimes, it might mean it’s on his route from here to there. But equally well, it might be his local. How close is the nearest village? Couple of miles? Happen he’s got good reasons for not wanting to take calls at home. Some calls. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right.” As Resnick pushed up to his feet, the first rumblings of thunder were heard, rolling across the middle distance. By the time he was down at the main entrance, spots of rain the size of ten pence pieces were darkening the street.