Like There's No Tomorrow - Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

“It’s good to see you again,” Bob Cartwright told the woman sitting opposite.

“I’m not sure I can say the same,” replied Fern McAllister with an enigmatic smile. “You walked out on me and Stuart just when we needed you most. However,” the silky voice continued, “it was a long time ago so I suppose we should behave like mature adults and let bygones be bygones.”

“The police gave me a hard time,” he muttered.

“They gave everyone a hard time,” she reminded him coldly, “They had job to do, after all. I, for one, had no problem with being questioned over and over if it meant there was the slightest chance of finding my daughter.”

Neither spoke for a while.

“You look fantastic,” he lied.

She was immaculately dressed, and her whole demeanour remained as exquisitely composed as on the day they first met all those years ago. The eyes, always one of her best features had lost their sparkle. Nor would they have struck the casual observer as worth a second glance.  Cartwright knew better. In their amber depths he watched a kaleidoscope of emotions that stirred a sexual desire in him no other woman, before or since, had been able to either provoke or satisfy. Yet, she had aged badly. Oh, there were traces of the same poise and elegance, but where these would have made her stand out in any crowd, now the same crowd would have swallowed her up.

The lovely face still had the capacity to hypnotise him. Even so, the ravages of time were barely concealed under layers of make-up expertly applied. Still striking, she nevertheless struck him as having the gaunt look of a woman much older.  In her face, he saw the physical wreck she had become during those first awful days and months after little Carrie’s disappearance.

It came as a shock to reflect on the sad truth. Anyone who had known her years ago could have been forgiven for scarcely recognizing her now.

His alter-ego relived the trauma surrounding the Carrie McAllister affair. Losing Fern had come as a terrible blow. He recalled, with a shudder, how it had been like watching someone disintegrate. Even after a few short months, she had become a burnt out shell of the person she had once been.

 “I couldn’t bear it any longer,” he murmured self-consciously.

“And you think I could?” she enquired with deceptive lightness, a cutting edge to the silky voice betraying something of the bitterness she felt towards this man who abandoned her just when had most needed someone to be there for her.  It would have been enough, more than enough. Had it really been so much to ask? Oh, she thought understood his motives, she always had. Even so, she reasoned with irrefutable logic, since when did understanding a person’s more contemptible actions ever excuse them?

They were sitting in a Tea Rooms on the historic old High Street, civilly drinking Earl Grey from china cups and partaking of toasted teacakes lavishly spread with real butter, no stand-by substitute, served on matching plates.

“I can’t blame you for holding a grudge,” he said with that same look of boyish sincerity she recalled so well. It had irritated her then, too, even more so now.

“Not so much a grudge as a lasting disappointment,” she murmured over the rim of her teacup as she sipped, with measured enjoyment, her favourite brand of tea. “But, as you pointed out, it was a long time ago. One moves on, as they say.”

“And have you…moved on, I mean?”

“Moving on presumably requires some sort of closure. How do you achieve that when…” Her voice dropped to a whisper, perfect composure slipping a fraction then recovering almost immediately, “…there is no body?” she forced herself to say. It helped, she had discovered years ago, to state the obvious rather than skirt round the essentials like a wary diplomat anxious to avoid any embarrassment. “But life goes on regardless,” she added coolly, “we have to go with the flow or…” She shrugged and continued to drink her tea.

“I always knew you were a remarkable woman,” he said and meant every word.

“Did you really?” Fern McAllister was not easily convinced. “There’s nothing remarkable about living, people do it all the time. Dying, now, that’s something else. People do that all the time, too, of course. But life, we take for granted. Like it or not, we’re in the driving seat. Death, I suspect, insists we’re just passengers. For people like me and Alice Shepherd, who like to be control, it’s a daunting prospect.”

“Is that why you went to Alice’s funeral?” He asked the question nagging at him from the start. 

Fern McAllister gave a short, dry laugh. “Alice and I were close once. I would have liked to keep her as a friend. It was impossible, of course. But I never blamed her for standing by Owen. Any mother would have done the same. Who wants to believe their son is a paedophile, let alone tell the world?”

“And you?” What do you believe?”

She did not hesitate but said in a clear voice, “He’s as guilty as hell.”

“So…” Cartwright toyed with his teaspoon. “What are you up to?”

“Up to…? Why should I be ‘up to’ anything?”
You’re forgetting I know you as well as anyone, and better than most. You didn’t come down just for Alice Shepherd’s funeral or to scare the shit out of Owen.”ince you know me so well, suppose you tell me,” she countered, lips quivering with frank amusement.
“Revenge, maybe?”
“Too strong a word,” the silky voice responded without inflexion, “but a revenge of sorts, I suppose,” she conceded. “I didn’t want to hurt Alice any more that she had already been hurt and would go on being hurt so long as she drew breath.  Now she’s gone, out of harm’s way at last, Owen can’t hurt her any more. But he’ll pay. My God, yes, he’ll pay.  Oh, I’ll keep well within the law, of course. I’ll simply see to it that he can’t stay in one place for long without my Carrie coming back to haunt him. There’s a dreadful woman called Charley Briggs who has a nose for the likes of Owen Shepherd. My guess is she’s hot on his trail already. Before long, it will be common knowledge that Owen Shepherd is really Owen King, known paedophile.”

“Suspected paedophile,” he corrected her.

She gave a dismissive shrug. “Where there’s smoke there’s fire.  I’m surprised the other woman hasn’t cottoned on to that one.”

“What other woman?”

“They went to see your mother, the Briggs woman and someone called Anne, a pleasant enough if insipid soul. At least the Briggs woman has character, even if it does err on the vulgar side. Apparently, this Anne…Gates, I think her name was or was it Bates?  Anyway, it seems she lost her daughter in much the same way as I lost Caroline…years ago…right here in Brighton….”

But Cartwright wasn’t listening. He frowned as soon as mention of his mother was dropped, like a stone, into the conversation. Why had the two women gone to see his mother? True, she and Alice had been friends for years. Well, not friends exactly, he corrected himself. They were more like an odd couple prepared to put up with each other in the absence of anyone else. It had come as a shock to Jessie when she found herself standing next to Alice King in a shop among the Brighton Lanes one day. Alice, for her part, had been no less nonplussed. I bet! he reflected grimly. It had always intrigued him that they continued to see each other from time to time, usually at his mother’s house although sometimes they would meet up for lunch. As far as he knew, Owen was never mentioned.

“I feel sorry for Anne Gates…” Fern McAllister was saying as Cartwright forced himself to pay attention, “It will be dreadful for her when she finds out about Owen, simply awful. But she’s well rid of the man, we all are. Who knows? With any luck he’ll commit suicide before too long. It won’t have anything to do with conscience of course. He hasn’t got one. But now he can’t hide behind his mother’s skirts any more, hopefully the heat will get to him this time around.” Her eyes narrowed. “Poor Owen, just when he’ll be thinking how, after all this time, it’s perfectly safe to go into the water….”

Her matter-of-factness shocked him. She might have been discussing the weather instead of wishing someone dead.

“How long can your mother expect to have the pleasure of your company?” she asked abruptly. “I imagine you’re staying with Jessie? What is it this time, money again?” She laughed outright at his hurt expression. “Why am I not surprised?” She leaned across the table. “Tell me, Bob. What is it with you and your mother? You must admit it’s a weird relationship. Oh, I know how it looks…youngest son, apple of mother’s eye and all that?  But I think not.”

Another burst of laughter made Cartwright’s flesh crawl. He’d almost forgotten her inability to draw a line between teasing and tormenting.  Carrie, too, had often run to him crying. He fancied he could feel the child’s soft, warm body pressed tightly against his, her sobs ringing in his ears. What right had Fern McAllister to lecture him about mother-child relationships? “Mother and I are fine,” he told her between clenched teeth.

“Spoken like man in denial,” she said with the scathing directness of someone determined to score points over an opponent.

“More tea…? I think there’s some left in the pot.”

She nodded, fixing him with a piercing a look that seemed to Bob Cartwright to pass right through him.

…………………………….

Meanwhile, back at Hillcrest, Kirk Spencer had the sinking feeling that he was fighting a losing battle. “You can’t expect me to dig up a grave in broad daylight!” he protested. Suppose someone see us? Worse, what if Shepherd comes back and catches us in the act? How do we explain digging up a dead dog or whatever?”

Charley kept a tight rein on her patience. “No one will see you in the shrubbery,” she pointed out. “Besides, I will be keeping watch to make sure we’re not disturbed. As for Owen, he and Anne are taking Lynette to see the sand statues. Anne told me so herself. They’ll be gone all afternoon. Even if he did return unexpectedly…” her voice trailed off as she rummaged frantically for something to say that would kill off Spencer’s reservations once and for all.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“It won’t matter. Not that he will,” she hastened to add, “Because by then we’ll have found what we were looking for, proof of foul play beyond any shadow of a doubt.”

“You really think the dog was murdered?”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Spence, it doesn’t suit you,” she retorted crossly. “You know what I think. There well may be remains of a dog. But, mark my words, we will find human bones too. It has to be why Owen Shepherd went out that Saturday night all those years ago, to make preparations to put his evil plan into action. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. I told you he looked dirty. And why do you imagine that was? Because he had been getting that grave ready for another occupant, an innocent child, that’s why. Oh, it makes my blood run cold just thinking about it.” She shivered as if to drive the point home.

“You’re mad, mad, start raving mad!” Spence fumed. “Since when had it been a crime to stay out late and come back looking the worse for wear? It was the middle of the night, for heaven’s sake. You say he was dirty, but that dirt might just as easily been shadow. Besides, it’s a good principle, innocent until proven guilty.”

“If you’re so sure he’s innocent, now is your chance to prove it,” she told him with a smug smile. He had walked right into that one. Success, she knew, could now be taken as read.

“We’ll need a spade,” he muttered.

“I’m sure Owen’s garden shed will provide any tools we need.”

“It’s sure to be locked.”

“So we break in. In fact, we might do a spot of damage anyway. In the unlikely event I’m proved wrong, Owen will blame local yobs. So will the police, should he have the nerve to call them.”

“The police…?” Spence did not need to feign alarm.

“Don’t look so worried. They won’t suspect us in the least,” she assured him, “Besides, if anyone calls them at all, it will be me, to expose that man for what he is, a cold-blooded killer.”

“I don’t see it myself,” murmured the hapless Spence, “I don’t see it at all.”

“That’s because you’re too nice for your own good. You take people at face value. You don’t have an eye for the person within.”

“Give me Mr Nice Guy any day,” mumbled Spence, but Charley could tell from his expression that she had won her argument, if not the day…yet.

As it happened, they did have to break into Owen Shepherd’s shed and it did house a wide range of tools, including a spade as well as a lawnmower and various other garden accessories.

Once in the shrubbery, Spence wasted no time digging. “The sooner we get out of here the better,” he whispered to Charley. She, however, was already peering through the thick foliage towards the house and did not hear.

It took a good twenty minutes to unearth what was clearly the skeleton of an animal. “See, I told you so!” Spencer was cock-a-hoop and raised his voice without thinking.

Both intruders in the shrubbery froze.

“Dig deeper,” Charley whispered after a jittery pause.

“Why?” he demanded angrily but remembered to keep his voice low.

“Just do it,” Charley told him irritably.

“Okay, but a couple of feet, no more.” He started to dig again, wondering how on earth he’d let her persuade him to take part in such a farce. At the same time, he knew only too well why. Charley was not a woman who readily took no for an answer. Now he was hot, tired, sweating buckets and there was still the damn hole to be filled in again…

“Oh, alright, you win. You might as well stop now,” Charley agreed, every word ringing with disappointment and dismay.

“Do I detect a victory for commonsense?” Spence leaned on the spade’s long handle and enjoyed a long sigh of mixed relief and triumph.

“Can I help it if the man’s cleverer than I gave him credit for? “ Charley retorted. “Now, fill in the damn hole and don’t you dare say ‘I told you so’ or I’ll…Well, don’t you dare!”

“As if…” Spence grinned and was about climb out of the hole when something red caught his eye. He bent down for a closer look, tugged at what appeared to be a piece of cloth. It did not yield instantly. He pulled harder.

“What are you doing?” Charley whispered impatiently.

Spence ignored her and did not look up again until he held the tattered remains of what might once have been a child’s red and yellow polka dot dress in his hands.

“Oh, my God, I was right all along!” Charley’s expression, however, betrayed no hint of triumph at finding the proof with which she had become all but obsessed. Her eyes widened in disbelief. Yes, she had expected this. But to actually discover human remains...that was something else. Her heart went out to the people to whom their discovery would touch the most. The fact that she knew some of them personally brought bile to her throat. She could only recoil in horror as Spence tossed her the filthy, smelly article and let it drop at her feet.  Meanwhile, he carried on digging but lightly this time and with far more care than he had taken previously.

“Oh, my God, it’s true!” Charley kept repeating as it became clear that the skull shortly produced was not only human but also small enough to be that of a child. “Owen Shepherd must have just come from digging up the dog that night I saw him, so he could bury poor Patricia under it when the time came,” she murmured, heart thumping painfully against her chest as she held out a hand to assist a badly shaken as well as filthy Spencer out of the hole.”

“So what so we do now, call the police?”

“What about Anne? Shouldn’t we prepare her first?”

Spence shook his head. “We can’t just sit on this till Anne gets back. The police need to be told now. As it is, we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Oh dear, this is terrible!” Charley wailed and was glad of a comforting hug from Spence in spite of the dirt and sweat it deposited on her clothes and a putrid odour of decayed flesh emanating from a body she adored.  However, this soon proved too much. Reluctantly but abruptly, she broke away and proceeded to brush her clothes with both hands before rummaging in her bag for a handkerchief and holding it to her to her nose.

“You’re right. We should take a shower and change first,” Spence responded to the unspoken question while brushing his jeans down as best he could and wiping some of the sweat from face, neck and his bare torso with a tee shirt before pulling it over his head.

“You look and smell disgusting,” Charley observed.

“So? You know you like a bit of rough,” he told her with a weak grin and they embraced.  For once, they found small comfort in each other. Both remained shell-shocked.

“This is hardly the place,” she complained half-heartedly.

“You’re right.”  He gulped. “We should head back to the hotel and get cleaned up before...whatever,” he murmured shakily, his usually confident tone eroded to a croaky whisper.

Much later, at the local police station, a woman sergeant in uniform and a plain clothes detective inspector ushered Charley into an interview room where they could only listen in blank astonishment, and some scepticism, as she outlined her investigation and informed them of her findings.

For his part, Spence sat silent and morose on a bench in a draughty passage outside, sipping at an awful cup of stewed tea retrieved from a vending machine standing a few feet away.

..............................................

After returning Lynette to her parents, Anne made her way back to The Orion. Owen had already returned to the flat. He had agreed it was probably for the best if he and Steve Taylor kept out of each other’s way. “Sometimes two people just don’t get on,” she told Owen by way of smoothing oil on troubled waters, “You mustn’t take it personally,” she insisted.

“How can I not take it personally?” he demanded.

“Steve’s going through a bad patch. He’s temperamental, inclined to get things out of proportion. You’re better than that.” To her relief, he hadn’t taken the argument any further, although his grim expression led her to suspect that another contretemps between the two men would raise its ugly head again before too long.

By now, she had opening the door of her room with the swipe card down to fine art. Closing it behind her, she sat on the bed to muster her thoughts. It had been another delightful day. How had Cathy and Steve fared, she wondered? She hoped they could save their marriage…Well, didn’t she?  She gave a guilty start. Much as she wanted to get close to Cathy and play an active part in her life, Lynette’s too, there could be no denying that Steve Taylor was, indeed, a fly in the ointment. I can do this, she told herself with more confidence than she was feeling. “I can and I will,” she repeated aloud.

A knock at the door was a welcome interruption.

“Can I come in?” It was Charley Briggs, who sailed into the room without waiting for a reply, positioned herself on the edge of the bed and motioned for Anne to sit beside her.

Anne automatically looked for Spence. Seeing no sign, she closed the door and regarded her visitor with some alarm. She could tell at once that Charley was not her usual cheerful self. On the contrary, she was visibly flustered and upset. “What’s the matter? Has something happened?  Has there been an accident? Oh, dear, it’s not Spence?” Charley shook her head and gestured again for Anne to sit down. Anne was glad to do so since her legs had begun to shake uncontrollably.

“The police will be coming to see you?”

“The police, you say? Coming to see me?”

“In fact there are two police officers waiting outside.  They agreed I could… prepare you.”

“Prepare me?” Anne leapt to her feet. “Prepare me for what?”

“To cut a long story short…”

“Yes?” For heaven's sake get on with it, woman.

“The police have…that is…there’s been a child’s body discovered in Owen Shepherd’s shrubbery,” she said in a rush, and then had to look away, unable to bear the appalled expression on poor Anne’s face.

Anne felt her mouth drop open. Her head swam. Too late, she recognized a voice screaming as her own just excruciating seconds before she fell across the bed in a dead faint.

To be continued on Friday.