Reflections Page 3

  “No mysteries left, then?”

  “Only where Daws is holed up. But he’s a businessman, he has a lot of contacts both in England and abroad. I don’t doubt he could get himself smuggled out of the country if he wanted.”

  “Shades of Lord Lucan.”

  Deacon’s upper lip curled. He’d been a policeman for more than twenty years but he’d never learned to be philosophical about the ones that got away “He wasn’t my case.”

  Brodie tried not to smile. He had no sense of humour where his job was concerned. She said, “You didn’t tell me he wanted a tutor for the girls.”

  He shrugged. “I thought he’d tell you.”

  “You could have mentioned Daniel. You know he needs the work.”

  Deacon pushed his big body back in the chair and eyed her speculatively “Brodie, do you want to have this argument again right now? Or shall we put it off till we’ve more time and less of an audience?”

  “You’re not fair to him,” she said evenly

  “So you keep telling me. Look, I know he’s a friend of yours. Damn it, I like the man myself. But he’s not—reliable. I’d be uneasy leaving children of mine in his care, and I wouldn’t advise anyone else to.”

  Despite her best intentions Brodie felt her hackles rise. “You have no reason to feel that way. Daniel Hood has never hurt a soul in his life. He’s taken punishment himself rather than see other people hurt. I would trust him with my life, and my daughter’s life.”

  “I know he’s a good man, Brodie. But he makes bad decisions, and whether or not he means to he puts other people at risk. He’s put you at risk, and Paddy. And if Robert Daws comes back for his daughters I don’t want Daniel to be all that’s in his way. I don’t want to lose my witnesses because a man with more ethics than common sense stayed to talk when he should have grabbed them and run.”

  Chapter Four

  “I don’t know what you’ll make of them,” confessed Hugo as he drove out of Dimmock towards the green hem of the downs. “God knows I’m no expert—Peris and I have none of our own—but they don’t strike me as entirely normal.” He cast a troubled glance at the man beside him. “I shouldn’t be saying this, should I? Not if I want you to take the job.”

  “If you want me to take the job,” said Daniel patiently, “I’ll take it, unless the girls want you to keep looking. As for how they seem, it’s a miracle they’re still functioning at all. Their father murdered their mother almost in front of them. They were the last to see Serena alive, the first to see her dead. Their world was destroyed in the space of a few minutes.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten,” said Hugo, quietly reproachful. “And if that’s all it is, then fine. Of course it’s been traumatic; of course they need time to get over it. It’s just, they don’t seem traumatised so much as—detached. I find it quite intimidating. They look at you as if you’re trying their patience just by being there. As if you’ve turned up at an important meeting with the wrong papers.”

  Daniel chuckled. He’d been a teacher all his working life, knew that children had many different ways of disturbing adults. Those that weren’t punishable were the hardest to deal with. Sometimes even experienced teachers became paranoid, no longer saw children but little blazered aliens plotting world domination. “Did you know them before this happened?”

  Hugo shook his head. “We came over for my mother’s funeral, but Juanita was only a toddler and Emerald wasn’t even born then.”

  “Their mother’s decision to teach them at home was perfectly valid—the law requires them to receive a suitable education ‘in school or otherwise’—but there are drawbacks.

  Funnily enough the standard of teaching isn’t usually one. Anyone willing to put in time and effort can do a perfectly adequate job. What’s harder is to duplicate the gradual accumulation of experience. Kids learn most of their social skills at school, through the constant interactions with other people—children, adults, friends, strangers, people they like, people they don’t.

  “They get an understanding of how the world works which home-educated children don’t always have. They tend to be hot-house flowers: flourishing in their own environment, prone to wilt out in the cold hard world. Many of them have problems with self-confidence. Maybe that’s what you’re seeing in your nieces. They know things are never going to be the same again, and they don’t know how they’ll manage. Keeping their distance, staying aloof, makes them feel safer.”

  Hugo glanced at him again, this time with respect. “You’re good at this, aren’t you?”

  “I never wanted to be anything but a teacher,” said Daniel simply. “No, that’s not true, I wanted to be an astronaut but I’m too short-sighted. Teaching isn’t about knowing the subject: it’s about knowing children. What motivates them. What worries them. How to guide them from where they are to where they need to be.”

  “If you find out what motivates these two,” said Hugo glumly, “you might let me know.”

  Serena Daws hadn’t seen educating her own children as the easy option. She’d done it properly. She’d furnished a room on the second floor of her house with a big deal table, a computer and shelves groaning with books. There was a blackboard, a projector, and a map of the world covering most of the end wall that had been renewed as recently as the previous year. Mrs Daws had taken her obligations seriously, at least where her daughters were concerned.

  The younger girl was sitting at the table drawing when the two men came in. The older one was perched on the window-seat, looking out over the garden with studied nonchalance.

  Hugo performed stilted introductions. At fourteen Juanita was a tall strongly-built girl with long chestnut hair that fell in waves down her back. Emerald, at eleven, was not just younger but also smaller and fairer, a mousy little creature with a sharply pointed face and bright blue eyes.

  Daniel knew better than to be chummy with them. More than most, these children would be acutely sensitive to insincerity. He didn’t try to shake their hands but left his own in his pockets and nodded gravely. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Both girls nodded back, Juanita staring off over his left shoulder. Emerald peering up at his face with disconcerting directness. Neither offered a word of reply.

  He could deal with dumb insolence, but actually he didn’t think it was that. He suspected they were feeling desperately insecure and trying not to show it. They weren’t just meeting a new teacher. They were meeting their first new teacher ever. They had no idea what was expected of them.

  They might have been relieved to know that Daniel had very few expectations, was here not to judge but be judged. If he could help them he would; if he couldn’t he’d let someone else try. He agreed with Hugo, that re-establishing a routine would be a positive move and that lessons could provide a framework around which normality would grow. But right now it wasn’t fractions and French verbs they needed help with so much as getting through one day, and then getting through the next.

  If they had reacted to their tragedy with screams, bed-wetting and smashing the furniture they’d be seeing a child psychiatrist now. Because they had internalised the horror, relying on one another for support instead of turning to those around them, there was the danger that they would appear to be coping better than they were. Daniel was full of admiration for them. In the circumstances, anything short of babbling insanity was a major achievement. But he also knew that you can’t lock up that much rage and grief forever. At some point they would need to release it, and facilitating that was a job for which he was neither trained nor qualified. But he did have personal experience to rely on.

  Still defensive about his wards, Hugo felt obliged to break the silence. “Mr Hood could come and tutor you if you’d like that.”

  Juanita said distantly, “Fine.” Emerald said, “OK.” By a narrow margin they were too polite to say that they couldn’t care less, but the message got through just the same.

  Their uncle looked worried, but Daniel chuckled. “Wrong question
. If you ask, ‘Do you want to work or not?’ the answer’s obvious. You should have said, ‘Do you want to work with this guy, who seems like a push-over, or will you risk me hiring an ex-military policewoman who’ll have you standing to attention and singing the National Anthem every morning?’”

  Hugo grinned. Daniel caught a quick, curious glance from the older girl. He looked round the school-room and then out of the window. “It’s a nice room. But until we decide to do this, maybe we’d be better on neutral ground. Why don’t we go for a walk? You can show me the garden.”

  Outside everyone relaxed. Hugo fell back a step, pretending to inspect the hydrangeas. Emerald appointed herself to the role of guide. “Sparrow Hill is a Georgian house, built in 1805 for Edward Foster who was a merchant. What’s a merchant?”

  “Someone who buys things cheaply that other people are prepared to buy dear,” said Daniel.

  Satisfied, she carried on. “There are five bedrooms and four reception rooms but only one bathroom, so the early bird catches the hot water. Originally the house was surrounded by a thousand acres of land, but most of it was sold after the First World War. When the three sons of the Foster family died in the Second World War the house passed to a nephew. That was Grandpa Daws, and he left it to Daddy.” Her little face clouded. “I don’t know what’ll happen to it now.”

  Daniel said quietly, “I’m sorry about what happened. I know I can’t replace your mother, even in the schoolroom. I don’t intend to try. But I would like us to be friends. And if it’s what you want too, I’d like to be your teacher.”

  Juanita was drifting along beside them, at a carefully judged distance so that she could ignore any conversation that didn’t interest her and join in any that did. She shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Daniel’s pale eyes creased behind his glasses. “A little enthusiasm would be nice, but I guess ‘whatever’ is better than ‘no’. Juanita’s an interesting name. Is it Spanish?”

  “No,” she said shortly.

  Even in normal circumstances a fourteen-year-old girl carries a rag doll on one arm and a baby on the other. Her hormones are telling her she’s a woman, her parents are telling her she’s a child. Her physical structure is changing daily: if mood-swings are all those around her have to deal with she’s handling puberty pretty well.

  He tried his luck with the other one. “And Emerald’s a gem.”

  The younger girl rewarded him with a toothy smile, and got an elbow in the ribs for her pains. “Actually,” she confided, sparing her sister a hurt look, “we don’t much like our names.”

  “They’re pretty,” said Daniel, “but perhaps a shade decorative for everyday use. What would you rather be called?”

  “Johnny calls me Em,” volunteered the eleven-year-old. And then, somewhat superfluously, “I call her Johnny.”

  “Is that what you want me to call you?”

  They traded a glance. “You can do,” said Johnny indifferently.

  “What do we call you?” asked Em, peering intently into his face again.

  He almost asked, “What did you call your last teacher?” But the answer was too painfully obvious, and they sure as hell wouldn’t be calling him Mummy “When I taught in school they called me Mr Hood, but with just three of us it might sound a bit silly I’m happy with Daniel if you are.”

  “Daniel in the lion’s den,” said Em with a grin.

  “Not an original observation,” murmured Daniel, “but sometimes that’s how it feels.”

  Johnny eyed him mockingly “Don’t you like teaching?”

  “Of course I like teaching. It’s why I’m here. But it’s not easy. Even with just three of us I’m outnumbered. I can’t make you learn anything, but if you don’t it’s my job on the line. I need your help, your goodwill, much more than you need mine. If this doesn’t work out it’s my failure, not yours.”

  Johnny gave that some thought. “You mean, we could sack you?”

  Daniel laughed. “Not unless you’re planning on paying my wages. But you could make it impossible for me to stay.”

  Again the swift exchange of glances, the trade in messages no one else was meant to read. Em said diffidently, “I don’t think we’d do that. Would we, Johnny?”

  Johnny gave a negligent shrug. “I’m not making any promises. But we can give it a try.”

  “All right,” said Daniel. “Good.”

  He and Hugo sorted out the details. “I’ll check the times of the buses,” said Daniel. “Is it OK if we fit school hours around them?”

  “Of course,” nodded Hugo. “But it’s a hell of a walk from the bus-stop.”

  Daniel grinned. “People with cars think it’s a hell of a walk to the bottom of their drive. It won’t take me ten minutes from the Guildford Road.”

  “And from where you’re living to the bus-station?”

  “About the same.”

  Hugo shook his head in disbelief. “You’d walk forty minutes a day rather than learn how to drive?”

  “I can drive,” protested Daniel. “I just don’t have a car. I’ve never felt the need.”

  “Suppose I hire a car for you?”

  “Suppose you let me worry about getting here?”

  Hugo laughed. He’d been worried about his nieces before he got here, and increasingly in the time he’d spent with them. A lot of that worry had now lifted off his shoulders. He suspected they’d met their match in Daniel Hood. He only looked like a push-over. Behind that round, amiable face and the thick glasses was a surprisingly resilient young man.

  Another thought occurred to him. He turned it over a couple of times but couldn’t see any drawbacks. Or only one, and maybe he was being over-sensitive. “You’re living with a friend, yes? While they repair your house?”

  The word “repair” hardly covered it but Daniel nodded.

  “There’s a cottage at the back here. Why don’t you move in? It’d save you time and shoe-leather, and by the time things are sorted out here maybe your house will be finished.”

  A few weeks, he’d said. Daniel couldn’t see Mr Wilmslow being finished in a few weeks—sometimes he didn’t think he’d ever finish, that he’d haunt the place in perpetuity—but if nothing else it would give Marta a few weeks’ respite. She had taken him in without question, but none of them had expected the work to take so long. Now he was trapped between imposing on her further or causing offence by looking for a cheap hotel. But if his work required it she could enjoy his absence with a clear conscience.

  “Fine,” he said. “Knock the rent off my wages.”

  “Have a look round the place,” suggested Hugo, “tell my wife if there’s anything you need—towels, blankets, whatever. I’ll get her to stock the fridge for you.”

  Daniel hoped the girls would show him the cottage. But they claimed business elsewhere and vanished round the side of the stone house.

  It must have been a beautiful house when Edward Foster built it; Hugo said it was again after his brother renovated it; but it wasn’t now. It was starting to look neglected. Too many winters had got under the paint on the window-frames, and there was a scum of green algae like a tide-mark on the walls. Perhaps if there had been more love in the house it would have rubbed off. Now it was too late for Serena and too late for Robert; but the house could recover, given a little care and attention, and so could the children.

  He found the cottage by himself. The plank door was unlocked: inside it was clean and bright, well-furnished and recently decorated. There was a living-room and a compact kitchen on the ground floor, two bedrooms and a tiny bathroom above.

  The front of the living-room was just that, chairs and a sofa, a gate-legged table and a television. But the back wall had been replaced by french windows, letting the light flood in. It was Serena’s studio: here were her paints, her easels and her canvases.

  For a moment Daniel regarded them from across the room, reluctant to intrude. But he couldn’t live here without doing just that, and perhaps this was what the family need
ed: someone with no baggage moving in and simply living there, diluting the tragedy in the minutiae of daily existence.

  Because this was where Serena died. Daniel hadn’t realised before, and if Hugo Daws hadn’t exactly lied he also hadn’t been entirely frank. Now Daniel was here the newspaper reports made sense. This was where Robert Daws stabbed his wife thirteen times and let her bleed to death. Someone had cleaned up but eight days ago the floor was still wet with it, the air sweet with the stench, and the ribbons of slashed canvas lay thick about her.

  Daniel wondered how he felt about that. He didn’t believe in ghosts. He didn’t think that bricks and mortar could see and hear and remember. He didn’t think that what happened here a week ago was reason to avoid the place forever more.

  But if Hugo had warned him at least Daniel wouldn’t have asked the girls to show him round.

  He went looking for the tall man to tell him so.

  Chapter Five

  Following the sound of a radio Daniel entered Sparrow Hill through a back door and found himself in the kitchen. A woman was bent over the worktop, sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms the colour of mahogany, applying herself with gusto to the contents of a mixing bowl.

  Daniel cleared his throat. “I was looking for Hugo.”

  The woman turned to him with a smile. The face matched the arms: strong, broad, dark and capable. She was taller than him and twice as far round, with her hair piled high and tied with a coloured cloth. “You must be Daniel,” she said. “I’m Peris—Hugo’s wife.”

  “Hello.” He offered his hand, saw the flour on hers and hesitated. They both laughed.

  “Taken as read,” she suggested. “You do much baking, Daniel?”

  He shook his head. “I’m a great heater-up of packaged food. My friend Brodie bakes occasionally, mostly when she’s angry. She says it gives her something to thump that won’t thump back.”

  Peris chuckled. “That’s English women for you. In Africa, if you can’t cook you not only go hungry, you go lonely” She looked around. “Hugo. He came through a minute ago—I’m not sure where he was going. You could try the attic.”