Still Waters (Charlie Resnick #9)(80)

There was a slight clink from outside, which Resnick registered and maybe Spurgeon did not; Lynn had arrived back and would have listened at the door, hearing enough of a flow in the conversation to know she should stay where she was.

“I borrowed some money and started up in business on my own. A small press, you know, specialist titles. All the forecasts showed there was every chance I could break even after a couple of years, pay back the debt, start forging ahead after that. That wasn’t the way it worked out.” Spurgeon wiped his hand across his mouth. “Some of the money I’d borrowed from Louise, well, from her family, I suppose. We were together by then, engaged, and it only seemed the natural thing. I remember after the wedding, her father making this speech, how his daughter was going to be sitting at the right hand of the next Lord Weidenfeld, the next Alan Lane. A little over four years later I was broke, virtually bankrupt. Louise’s family would scarcely speak to her, except to malign me, tell her what a fool she’d been, throwing herself away on a bigger fool like me.”

He paused and Lynn slipped back into the room with glasses and a jug of cloudy water.

Spurgeon waited until she had sat down. “It was around then that Jane got back in touch with me. She’d seen something in one of the papers about the firm going under, just a paragraph, but it had been enough to help her find me. She phoned one afternoon, a Sunday, it was only luck that I picked up the phone. “Hello,” she said, “this is Jane Peterson,” and for a moment I didn’t know who that was. I hadn’t even recognized her voice.”

He poured himself water from the jug and drank.

“We arranged to meet in Cambridge, Heffers bookshop in the middle of the town. If anyone saw me, saw us, said anything to Louise for any reason, well, I would have had a good reason for being there. There’s this sort of balcony that runs round three sides of the shop and that’s where I was standing, I wanted to be sure of spotting her when she came in. I suppose I was afraid of not recognizing her, but, of course, as soon as she stepped through the door, I knew who she was.

“We drove out to Grantchester and sat in this outdoor, well, tea place, café, right away from everyone else, shaded by the trees. We sat there for ages, drinking tea, apple juice, Jane telling me about her life. About Alex, how paranoid he was, possessive. And—she didn’t tell me this straight away—how he’d been hitting her. Where nobody would see. I could have … If I could have laid my hands on him, I swear I would have killed him.”

Spurgeon rocked back sharply in his chair, eyes closed. Resnick and Lynn exchanged a quick glance.

“I’m wondering what it must have been like,” Resnick said, not wanting the distraction of more tears, “seeing somebody you loved again after all that time.”

Spurgeon opened his eyes. “It was wonderful,” he said simply. “It was as if we’d never been apart; as if she’d never been away.”

“But you were,” Lynn said. “She was married. You were both married.”

“I know. I told her to leave him. After what he’d done …”

“And your wife?” Lynn asked. “Louise?”

“That was over.”

“And the children?”

Spurgeon pushed his fingers through his hair. “I would have left them in a moment, all of them. The kids would hardly notice, Louise would be glad. As for her parents, they’d be delighted, thrilled.”

“What did she say to all this?” Resnick asked. “Jane?”

“She’d been hoping, when she came to see me, hoping that I’d ask her, I could see that. That’s what she wanted to know, if I still felt the same.”

“And did she,” Lynn asked, “feel the same about you?”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure she did. But she was frightened. Terrified of Alex. Just terrified of what he would do if he found out we’d as much as seen one another, talked, never mind anything else.”

“So how did you leave it?” Resnick said. “After that first occasion? Would you say there was—what would you say?—an understanding?”

“She was going to think, very seriously, about what we’d said. Of course, nothing was going to be easy, we realized that. She had all these problems with Alex and I had to work hard to pay off all my debts. We agreed we’d keep in touch as best we could, make plans.”

“And you did?”

“It was difficult. Sometimes there wouldn’t be a chance to speak for months on end. He seemed to monitor every minute of her time. And because of all the resentment Louise had built up about Jane, I didn’t dare risk her calling me at home.”

“Which was when you started using the Dray Horse for calls?” Lynn said.

“Yes. I’d try and be there at certain times, sometimes she would call and sometimes not.”

“And this went on,” Resnick said, “not just for months, but years?”

“Yes.”

“And all this time you were waiting for Jane to leave her husband and live with you?”

“Yes.”

“It never occurred to you,” Lynn said, “that she might have been stringing you along?”

“Of course not. She was in love with me, we were in love. It was the same as before.”

It was Resnick’s turn to pour and drink a little water. “Tell us about this last few months,” he said.