Page 95 of The Locked Room
She has no idea when that will be.
Zoe comes over to meet them, her hands dark with earth. ‘How was Cathbad? Everyone at the surgery is so happy that he’s out of hospital.’
‘He looked a bit frail but he was obviously delighted to be home,’ says Ruth. ‘He’s got nine lives, but I think this has used up one of them.’
‘My time-travelling cat has got ninety-nine lives,’ says Kate.
‘Have you written any more?’ asks Zoe. Ruth listens to Kate telling her aunt about Whittaker’s latest adventures. It takes her mind off the fact that Nelson is, probably at this very moment, being reunited with his wife.
Nelson has taken the day off work but now he wishes he hadn’t. The time seems to pass so slowly in the silent cul-de-sac. He can’t stop thinking about Cathbad coming home from hospital, about Ruth and Katie, about the team back at the station.
Hugh Baxter has been charged with unlawful imprisonment but he’s pleading memory loss and incipient dementia. Nelson has an awful feeling that he’ll get away with it all. There’s no evidence that Hugh persuaded Samantha, Avril and Karen to kill themselves. His fingerprints were on the handle of Avril’s bedroom but Hugh is sharp enough to say that they got there on one of his many visits to the house. ‘We were friends,’ he tells Tanya, ‘I loved Avril.’ Nelson, watching on the video link, isn’t convinced for a moment.
Hugh can’t deny trapping Zoe in the room below the information centre but he is saying that he was confused and didn’t know what he was doing. Against this is the fact that he visited Zoe several times, bringing food and pills and urging her to put an end to her life. He had obviously planned the whole thing, discovering the underground room when he was working as a volunteer in the shop. Kindly Hugh, with his interest in local history. Who would have thought that, not content with telling visitors the story of the Grey Lady, he seemed determined to re-enact it?
Zoe will be a good witness for the prosecution although Nelson knows that she’s worried about the earlier case being resurrected. ‘I don’t think I can quite face being the angel of death again,’ she said, with a brave attempt at a smile. Ruth will be a witness to the fact that she found Zoe in the cellar and was locked in by Hugh herself. Nelson doesn’t know why Hugh went to such extreme lengths with Zoe. He obviously knew her through the surgery. Did he know about the Dawn Stainton case too? Is this why he targeted her? Nelson has wondered if Hugh was the elderly man in the waiting room when he visited the surgery to enquire after Zoe. At the time, he had seemed a harmless, anonymous presence. The mask had helped too.
Leah is back at work, helping Nelson through the latest interactive nightmare devised by Jo, something called Teams. Leah is still living at the refuge but hopes to get her own place soon. Nelson is trying to force through several initiatives about domestic violence. If Jo is surprised at this sudden interest in community policing, she doesn’t say so. On the other hand, she hasn’t stopped reminding Nelson that it could be time to retire. ‘After the shooting last year and whatever happened at Tombland, you deserve a rest.’ Jo clearly hasn’t bought the story about Nelson tripping over and banging his head. ‘I’m fine,’ Nelson told her, ‘never better.’
Joe McMahon is transferring to Birmingham. Nelson mentally sends the university his best wishes and hopes that Joe will not feel the need to keep in touch. Eileen has gone home. She sent Nelson a postcard thanking him for his help and saying that she hoped to be back in Norfolk next year. Eileen, like Nelson’s mother, is clearly a fan of postcards. This one, rather tactlessly, showed an artist’s impression of the Grey Lady, midway through a wall.
Laura is in the kitchen, preparing a welcome-home meal. Bruno is with Nelson, restlessly pacing the parquet floor, toenails clicking. Suddenly the dog’s ears seem to become even more pointed. He barks and goes to the door. Nelson can’t hear anything, but he knows that the dog has sensed something, a change in the space-time continuum perhaps. Minutes later, Michelle’s car pulls into the drive. After a day of waiting, suddenly Nelson is not ready. Bruno whimpers excitedly but Nelson waits in the sitting room until the very last moment, until he hears Michelle’s key in the lock and Georgie’s shout of ‘My Doggy!’ Or maybe it’s ‘My Daddy’. Nelson’s not sure. He comes into the hall and swings his son into the air. At least this bit is easy, he thinks. It’s never been difficult to summon his love for his children.
Laura is hugging her mother. ‘I’m so glad you’re back. We’ve missed you so much.’ Nelson meets Michelle’s eyes. She looks tired from the drive, but he’s struck, once again, by her beauty. Surely, she’s more beautiful now, at fifty-one, than she was at twenty-one when he first saw her in the Blackpool rock shop. Laura envelops George in a hug. Bruno runs up and down the stairs in a frenzy of welcome.
‘Hallo, love,’ says Nelson.
‘Hallo, Harry,’ says Michelle.
Nelson kisses her cheek and they get through the next few minutes somehow, talking about the drive and the children, against a background of Bruno’s barks and George’s squeals of joy.
It’s only later that Michelle says, ‘Harry, we need to talk.’