The Night Book Page 16

  Jess smiled at him.

  ‘Well, for starters the licensee of the String of Horses is brother-in-law to one of the cleaners at the station. She told everyone who’d listen that you and Meriel spent the night at the pub. And believe me, everyone listened.

  ‘Then there’s the young couple who live opposite you in Warwick Road. She’s Helen Briar’s daughter – you know Helen, she runs accounts. They were coming home from dinner one evening and they saw Meriel slipping into your flat. Seemingly had her own key, they told Helen. Said they probably wouldn’t have noticed her if she hadn’t been wearing giant sunglasses after dark. Made her stand out a bit, apparently.’

  Seb sighed deeply. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yup,’ Jess replied cheerfully. ‘Tony in advertising keeps a little sailboat on Derwent Water. He was driving past Meriel’s house – what’s it called? Cathedral something, right?’

  ‘Cathedral Crag.’

  ‘That’s it. Anyway, Tony was tootling past there early last Saturday morning and whose Triumph Spitfire d’you suppose he saw turning out of the drive?’

  Seb put his face into his hands.

  ‘Shit. What’s everyone saying about it?’

  Jess looked surprised.

  ‘What do you think? They’re loving it. You work for a radio station, Sebby old chap. Everyone shags everyone else on a radio station. Except me. I’m too old and I’m happily married.’

  Seb thought for a moment.

  ‘Bob Merryman warned me that if Meriel and I were seeing each other and it got out, the press would have a field day with us. Well, with her mainly.’

  Jess finished with the mast and began winding a long electric cable back into its housing above a wheel-arch.

  ‘Well, you’d know more about that than me. I just drive the bus. But I wouldn’t worry about that for a while. Our people might enjoy a good gossip among themselves, but we’re family and what happens on the station stays on the station. No one’s going to do the dirty. Apart from anything else, everyone’s rather fond of both of you.’

  He snapped the lid down over the coiled flex and turned back to Seb.

  ‘It’ll come out eventually, of course, but by then this Cameron guy will have been long buried . . . well, at least for a month or two. And why shouldn’t his widow seek a little comfort from one of her handsome colleagues? It’s only natural. Anyway, this is 1976, not 1876. Having sex is allowed.’

  He paused, and looked curiously at the younger man.

  ‘What was all that business in your report just now about the dead guy’s watch? I couldn’t work it out.’

  Seb shook his head. ‘I honestly don’t know. The coroner obviously seemed to think it might be important and . . . well, I’m sure the papers will report that Meriel looked a bit thrown when he asked her about it.’

  ‘Did she? You didn’t mention that.’

  ‘No, I didn’t see the point. She was bound to be upset, Jess, she was telling the world how she watched her husband drown, for God’s sake.’

  Jess nodded sympathetically. ‘Well, go on then, back to Cathedral what’s-it-called, and do your arm-around-the-shoulder routine. A very pretty shoulder, I might add. I’ll finish up here.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Seb paused. ‘Jess . . .’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s not what people might think, you know. Oh, we are seeing each other, there’s obviously no point denying that . . . but what I mean is . . . This isn’t just a casual fling, you know. When things settle down we’re probably going to get married. I mean it.’

  The engineer patted the reporter’s shoulder.

  ‘Well, all I can say is – you’ll make a lovely couple.’

  The police had offered Meriel a car to the inquest but she preferred to drive herself. Now, less than an hour after listening to Dr Young dispassionately giving his verdict, she turned into her driveway and brought the Mercedes to a crunching halt on the gravel. She glanced at the car clock. Almost six o’clock; time for the news.

  A few minutes later she was listening to Seb’s voice summarising the main evidence from the inquest. The part about the missing watch was only briefly mentioned, but she knew he was going to ask her about it later. He’d want to know why she hadn’t mentioned her final conversation with Cameron, too. But, like the coroner, he’d probably be more curious about the missing Rolex.

  The trouble now, Meriel reflected as she went through her front door, was that Seb would inevitably start to wonder if there were other things she hadn’t told him. After all, he was a reporter. He was trained to follow a lead.

  What was she to do? Make a clean breast of it? Tell him everything, starting with the reason she’d used the watch to lure Cameron to his death? In other words, tell him about The Night Book? And that Cameron had found it? She’d have to, wouldn’t she, to explain her motive for drowning her husband.

  Yes: drowning her husband. That’s what she’d done. Let’s not forget that, Meriel, shall we? You drowned him with a trick.

  She shivered. She must be mad to even think about telling Seb the truth. What man could ever trust a woman who wrote such grotesque, violent fantasies about killing her husband? And then went on to do precisely that, and in cold blood, too?

  She walked slowly into the lounge with its views across Derwent Water, and felt a ripple of unease as she stared out at the lake. Its placid surface was darkening now that the sun had sunk behind the mountains to the west, and Meriel felt almost haunted. Would she ever be able to look at any lake again without remembering what she’d done?

  When she poured herself a Scotch from the drinks table, she noticed that her hands were shaking slightly.

  She must pull herself together. Seb would be here soon.

  She must have her story straight before then.

  But as it turned out, Seb was circumspect. In fact, he had been lovely, Meriel thought as they finished their evening meal together. All he seemed concerned about was her state of mind after being questioned so persistently, albeit politely, in court earlier.

  ‘I’m fine, honestly,’ she told him. ‘I was a bit thrown when he asked me why I hadn’t mentioned to the police that Cameron had asked me for the time . . . and then all that stuff about his bloody watch.’

  But Seb hadn’t taken the opening she’d given him, not straight away. He’d only replied that she’d probably simply forgotten. ‘After all, they were interviewing you barely two or three hours after it happened. Your mind would have been all over the place. Anyway, who cares if he asked you the time? Or where the watch went?’

  Meriel began to think that it was going to be all right after all.

  But later, when they’d taken their drinks out onto the lawn and the warm dusk was falling, he’d asked her the question she’d been expecting.

  ‘Meriel . . . going back to that part about Cameron asking you the time . . . As I said, it’s easy to understand why you didn’t think to mention it to the police that day.’

  He turned from the lake to face her.

  ‘But why not tell me about it? After all, you said how horrible he was to you, threatening you with a ghastly divorce – and I quite see why you chose not to share that with the coroner today. But why have you never told me about Cameron’s last words? They were pretty mundane by comparison.’

  Meriel shrugged, as casually as she could.

  ‘Haven’t I mentioned it to you? Are you sure? I honestly thought I had done. But it’s hardly important, is it? I don’t regard someone asking “what’s the time?” as a conversation, do you? If I haven’t remembered it before now it’s probably because it was so irrelevant. And completely overshadowed by the much nastier exchange we had before he got into the water.’

  Careful, Meriel. Don’t go on so much. Briefer is better.

  Seb digested what she’d said, before saying: ‘Fair enough. But what about the watch? You showed me all his personal valuables the other day, when you were wondering what to do with them. You never said anything about a Rolex
, or that it was missing. I mean, come on, you don’t buy a Rolex from Woolworth’s, do you? It must have been worth a small fortune. Probably as much as everything in that box put together. I can’t understand why you haven’t said anything about it.’

  Meriel contrived to look embarrassed, even slightly ashamed.

  ‘Now that sin of omission I plead guilty to,’ she said. She reached for his hand, and he took it.

  ‘I have lost the damn thing and the reason I didn’t tell you was because I just feel so stupid about it. You’re right, it’s worth a great deal of money and I can’t believe I could have been so careless. I just didn’t want to talk about it, that’s all. I suppose I didn’t want you thinking I’m some kind of . . . well, what my father would have called a flibbertigibbet.’

  Despite himself, Seb laughed.

  ‘A what?’

  She smiled at him. ‘Flibbertigibbet. I suppose what today we’d call an airhead. A silly female with no idea of the value of anything.’

  Seb shook his head, still smiling. ‘I could never think that about you. But listen, Meriel, you never have to keep secrets from me. Never. Certainly not something trivial like this, for heaven’s sake. Everyone loses stuff. It’s hardly surprising you mislaid that watch, after what had just happened.’

  He squeezed her hand. ‘Anyway, I’ll help you find it. Might it still be on the boat?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. As I told the coroner, I remember dropping it into my handbag before I went to the police station. I must have put it somewhere here in the house when I got back, either that night or soon after. I just can’t for the life of me remember where.’

  He reached for her empty wine glass. ‘Another?’

  ‘Mmm . . . please.’

  Seb rose to go inside.

  ‘Well, not to worry – it’ll turn up. I bet I find it. I’m a good finder. Whenever my mother lost something she’d set me on the scent of it. She still does – she calls me her bloodhound. Last Christmas she lost her engagement and wedding rings. Guess where I found them?’

  Meriel shook her head.

  ‘In the butter dish, in the actual butter. She’d used it to ease them off her fingers because they were making them itch. She’d totally forgotten the next day.’

  Meriel knew there was no possibility of him or anyone else ever finding Cameron’s Rolex. As far as she was aware, bloodhounds weren’t much good under sixty feet of water.

  Later, when they were in bed, he stroked her temple with the back of his forefinger.

  ‘I know it’s been a shitty day, but there’s something else we need to talk about.’

  She sat up and pushed her hair back. ‘What is it?’ She tried to keep the anxiety from her voice. What now?

  ‘Jess – you know, the station engineer – took me to one side earlier. He told me . . . well, he told me that just about everyone knows about us. On the station, that is. Seems they have for some time, almost from the start, in fact.’

  She swallowed. ‘How?’

  Seb took her through Jess’s account. When he’d finished, Meriel shrugged philosophically.

  ‘I suppose there’s nothing we can do about it, is there? Anyway, it isn’t a crime.’

  ‘No, but the papers might think it is. You know, the merry widow angle.’

  She shrugged again.

  ‘I’d already accepted that I was going to have to admit my marriage had failed, remember? I was going to leave Cameron and that story would have got out soon enough. So if and when the papers find out about us—’

  ‘It’ll be when, not if,’ Seb interrupted.

  ‘Fine. When they find out about us, I can truthfully tell them that I stuck by my husband right to the very end. That I kept up a cheerful front in public, despite everything having gone wrong. And now I’ve found happiness.’

  Seb stared at her.

  ‘You’ve come a long way from our night at the String of Horses, haven’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘I have. Because of you. You stopped me being frightened that night, Seb. You showed me a way out of the living hell of my marriage. Now Cameron is dead and I’m free to do what I want. And I’m going to, just you watch me. I don’t care what the papers say. I don’t care what anyone says.’

  Seb kissed her before turning to switch out his bedside light.

  ‘Fine. But let’s just not rub their faces in it, OK?’

  An exhausted Meriel was asleep in a couple of minutes; Seb could hear her slow, steady breathing beside him.

  But he lay awake for a long time.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the missing watch.

  And wondering why on earth she was lying about it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Next morning was a Saturday. Seb was up early, not for work but to drive into Keswick and buy all the papers.

  He parked in a corner of the medieval Market Place and carefully vetted first the tabloids and then the broadsheets.

  Meriel’s photo, showing her arriving at court in her black-and-cream outfit, was splashed all over the front pages. No surprise there, Seb thought – she looked stunning. Editors knew a circulation-booster when they saw one.

  The Sun headline was: PHONE-IN BEAUTY: ‘I COULDN’T SAVE HIM.’ The Mirror chose: AGONY AUNT’S AGONY AS HUBBIE DROWNED. The Mail went with: THE LOVELY WIDOW WEEPS even though Meriel hadn’t shed a tear. One or two of the stories on the inside pages briefly mentioned the matter of the missing watch, but the majority ignored it. It was a quirk in the case that most news editors had obviously decided led straight up a blind alley.

  Seb tossed the papers onto the front passenger seat beside him and tried to focus. He didn’t know it, but his thought processes were remarkably similar to the coroner’s the previous day.

  Something was out of joint, but he couldn’t say what. Last night, Meriel had given a perfectly logical explanation for not mentioning the Rolex business to him and – just like Dr Young – Seb had felt he couldn’t reasonably push the issue any further.

  But that didn’t mean it had gone away.

  ‘What’s the matter, Timothy? You’re not yourself this morning. In fact, you haven’t been since you came home from the inquest yesterday.’

  Dr Young’s wife was looking at her husband with concern.

  He smiled at her across the breakfast table.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling. I’m just a little preoccupied, I suppose.’

  ‘With this Cameron Bruton inquest? But you decided it was a straightforward case of misadventure, didn’t you?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Well, yes . . . up to a point. I didn’t really have any alternative, given the evidence. It’s his widow I can’t stop thinking about.’

  Miriam Young rolled her eyes, stood up, and crossed to the little card table in the alcove by the bay window. Outside, less than a hundred yards below the house, Bassenthwaite rippled cheerfully in the bright morning sun.

  She picked up the folded copy of the Telegraph and shook it open.

  ‘I’m not surprised you can’t stop thinking about her,’ she said crisply, staring at the picture of Meriel on page one. ‘Quite the dish, isn’t she?’

  Her husband laughed. ‘Don’t be silly, I didn’t mean like that. Anyway, I’m at least twice her age.’

  ‘Thanks. As am I.’

  He rubbed his chin. ‘Bugger. I’m not expressing myself too well this morning, am I?’

  His wife laughed in turn. ‘I’m teasing you, Tim. But seriously – what’s the matter? You look like you did in your barrister days after you lost the Coultrose case. That was perjury, wasn’t it? He got away with it, didn’t he?’

  The coroner nodded. ‘Yes, it was. And he did.’

  He left the table and went over to join his wife. Together they looked at Meriel’s picture.

  After a few moments, Dr Timothy Young gently tapped it with his fingernail.

  ‘You’re absolutely right, Miriam, as usual. That woman reminds me of Jeremy Coultrose. She was lying to me, just as he did. I don
’t know why, and I don’t really even know what about, either.’

  He stared out, unseeing, at the lake.

  ‘But she was definitely lying.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Meriel woke up in the grip of something approaching total panic.

  Her stomach was in knots and her pulse was racing. She had never felt anxiety like it. Her instinct was to take a double dose of the sleeping pills her GP had prescribed her after Cameron’s death, burrow deep under the sheets and fall into a chemically induced semi-coma as soon as possible.

  She was reaching for the pills in her bedside cabinet when the phone on top of it began to ring.

  She stared at it for a few moments before reluctantly picking up the receiver.

  ‘Hello . . . Meriel Kidd.’ She sounded OK. No hint of the agitation boiling inside. It must be the latent broadcaster in her, she decided, and she began to feel very slightly calmer.

  ‘Meriel, it’s Peter here, Peter Cox. How are you?’

  She liked the station manager. She owed her break in radio to him and he’d been a kind and encouraging mentor to her ever since.

  ‘Peter . . . honest answer? Terrible. I just woke up and I feel completely shattered. In bits. I’ve been fine up to now; ever since it happened, actually. I was fine all day yesterday. But today . . .’ Meriel’s voice trembled and broke. ‘Today I can’t . . . I just can’t . . .’

  Her voice gave out completely.

  She heard her boss clear his throat before he spoke again.

  ‘Now look here, Meriel . . . we all think you’ve been holding up extremely well. Incredibly strong. Yesterday must have been a ghastly ordeal, simply ghastly, and judging by this morning’s papers you came through it with extraordinary dignity and courage. I’m sure what you’re going through now is a reaction not just to the inquest but to everything, the whole lot of it, ever since . . . since . . . well, since what happened to Cameron.’

  Meriel managed to recover something of her voice.

  ‘Yes . . . It has been an unbelievable strain, Peter. I can’t begin to tell you.’

  ‘Of course. I just want you to know that you can take as much time as you need before you come back to work. Glenda can cover for you for as long as you like. And your loyal fans will wait for you. You should see your postbag, Meriel. You’ve had literally thousands of letters of sympathy and support. It’s much the same with today’s papers, as I said. Have you seen them yet?’