Deadly Virtues Read online

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Also by Jo Bannister

  About the Author

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  JEROME CARDY KNEW he was going to die the moment he saw the other car in his rearview mirror. He knew it wasn’t going to stop: it was already too close, if it was braking at all it was too little too late, and he had nowhere left to go. As soon as the lights changed, a milk tanker the size of Rutland had moved into the junction. With enough milk to protect a generation from rickets in front and the big silver hatchback coming up fast behind, all Jerome could do was brace himself for the inevitable. He knew what was going to happen. He’d known for weeks.

  He could have got out while there was still time. But he’d had too much to lose. He’d told himself that it might never happen. That the future isn’t set in stone. That if he was careful, if he kept out of trouble, no one could touch him. If he played it cool, stayed out of reach, he might never have to choose between the love of his life and, well, his life.…

  And now it was too late to choose. The choice had been made for him. All Jerome could do was close his eyes, make himself small behind the wheel, and wait.

  The impact, when it came, was less than he’d been expecting. Jerome’s car stayed where it was, held by its own handbrake; the milk tanker found the gap it had been waiting for and moved off; Jerome rocked for a moment in his seat belt, then settled back, still waiting.

  When nothing else happened, cautiously he opened one eye.

  It hadn’t been enough of an accident to stop the rush-hour traffic. The cars that had been in line behind him were now carefully edging past and on their way home. Not so much an accident as a shunt: if nobody’s hurt, you exchange details and you, too, get on your way. Jerome wasn’t hurt. He turned slowly in his seat to look behind him.

  The other driver was a middle-aged woman, her mouth shocked to a dark round O. She made no move, nor did her expression change, as he slowly got out of his car and walked back to her. “Are you all right?”

  She blinked, and went from total paralysis to frantic hyperactivity without passing through normal. She didn’t answer him but dived into the well of the passenger seat, scrabbling for her handbag. “We have to call the police! Have you got a phone? I have a phone—in here somewhere. I can’t find it! Have you got a phone? We have to call the police.”

  “Well, actually,” said Jerome gently, “we don’t. Unless you’re hurt. I’m not hurt, and nobody else was involved. We can just exchange details and let the insurance sort it out.”

  Her eyes stretched almost as wide as her mouth. She was a well-dressed, middle-aged, middle-class woman who might never have been in an accident before. The little card from her insurers that told her what to do in the event of an incident hadn’t warned her how distressed she’d be, how difficult she’d find it to act logically or even to make sense.

  Jerome said again, “Are you hurt? Do we need an ambulance?”

  After a moment she shook her head. “No. You?”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her. “Listen, why don’t we park your car, I’ll drive you home, and we’ll swap details over a cup of tea?”

  It was as if she was drowning and he’d thrown her a lifeline, but she didn’t like to grab it because she didn’t know where it had been. “Can we? Don’t we have to call the police?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a minor traffic accident. Nobody’s hurt—nobody’s drunk—nobody’s committed an offense. We pass it over to the insurers. I’ll park your car if you don’t want to.” He opened her door and extended a courteous hand.

  Her name was Evelyn Wiltshire. She was a middle-aged, middle-class Englishwoman, and she was also shocked, which may have been part of it, but mainly she just wasn’t used to young black men trying to take her by the hand. She recoiled instinctively. “Police! We need to call the police. I have a phone, somewhere.…”

  Jerome fought to keep calm. If he snapped at her, if he frightened her, the opportunity to sort this out in a civilized fashion would be gone. And he had much more to lose than she did. “My name is Jerome. I’m a second-year law student. Really, I wouldn’t tell you this was all right if it wasn’t. Why would I? The accident wasn’t my fault. It’s not me the police will accuse of driving carelessly.”

  Mrs. Wiltshire had finally found the phone. She stared at it as if it might bite. She stared at Jerome, ditto. His future hung by a thread.

  She’d been brought up to do the right thing, even if it wasn’t in her own best interests. She started to dial.

  Jerome felt himself grow desperate. “If you’re worried about the cost, why don’t we just fix our own dents? We don’t even have to involve the insurers, if you don’t want to. There really isn’t that much damage. Is that all right? Can we do that?”

  “But … I ran into you.…”

  “Yes. That’s okay. My father owns a garage—he’ll sort me out. There’s no need to involve the police. Is that all right?”

  For a moment longer it hung in the balance. Then Mrs. Wiltshire swallowed. Fifty years of middle-class morality weighed more with her than her own immediate wishes. “No, I’m sorry. I’m going to call the police.”

  Jerome was backing away before she’d finished dialing. “I’m sorry, too. I really am sorry. But I can’t wait.” He ran back to his car and drove off without knowing or even caring where he was driving to, only that he was putting distance between himself and the scene of the accident. Such a little accident. Such a trivial reason to die.

  * * *

  “I see you took my advice.” The woman had a nose meant for pince-nez: sharp as a blade, with a pair of diamond gray eyes above. Everything about her—the nose, the glasses, the tailored suit she wore, the way she scraped her dark hair away from her face and pinned it into a ruthless bun—said severe. But as she glanced at the dog curled up on her rug, she smiled, and the smile knocked ten years off her age and softened her face in unexpected ways. Her name was Laura Fry, and she was a trauma therapist.

  The man looked at the dog, too. As if he couldn’t quite remember where it had come from. “Yes.”

  “Is it helping?”

  He considered. “I’m not sure.”

  “It’s a nice dog. I’d have thought you’d enjoy the company.”

  “I do.”

  “Being alone can become a habit that’s hard to break.”

  “Yes.”

  Laura Fry smiled again. “Gabriel, this process would be more useful if you didn’t spend words as if they were fifty-pound notes.”
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  The man blinked, managed a pale flicker of a grin. “Sorry.” Then, as if he was trying to cooperate, to enter into the spirit of the thing: “I talk to the dog.”

  “Good.” Laura nodded reassuringly. “Talking to the dog is good.”

  A faint, fragile frown. “Is it?”

  “Of course. She likes you talking to her, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you feel better for talking to her?”

  Again, he had to think. “I suppose so.”

  “Then where’s the downside? Unless you start thinking she’s talking back.” He didn’t return her sly grin, so she pressed on. “Gabriel, this was always going to be hard. We both knew that. Getting a dog isn’t going to turn your life around—make you forget what happened, or make it hurt any less. It’s a dog, not a magician.

  “But it will help. You need to find ways of relating to the world again, and looking after something that needs you is a start. It doesn’t actually matter whether you like dogs or not. She’s your responsibility now. She was a stray dog with nothing, not even much time left, until you came along. Now she has a home and someone to love. You don’t even have to love her in return. A square meal every day and she’ll think you love her, and that’s what counts.”

  “Then what’s the point?” His brow was creased, as if he was genuinely trying to understand. He was a man in his late thirties with rather a lot of dark curly hair and creases that looked like laughter lines around his deep-set brown eyes. They’d been there a long time. He hadn’t laughed much recently.

  Laura elevated a pencil-sharp eyebrow. “Apart from the fact that because of you she lives instead of dying? Looking after things is good for us. It makes us feel needed. It makes us think about something beyond our own hurts. It forces us into some kind of routine, and routine is good, too. You’re eating better, aren’t you? I can see. You make her meal, and then you get something for yourself. She needs walking, so you walk her—fresh air, exercise, nod an acknowledgment at other people doing the same thing. You were hardly leaving the house, and now you are. That’s the point.”

  She looked down at the dog again, all nose and legs, curled on the rug as if posing for an illuminated manuscript. “What do you call her?”

  “Patience.”

  “Ah.” Just that.

  Gabriel Ash looked at her warily. “That’s significant?”

  “Possibly. Do you know why people talk to dogs?” He waited. “Because they feel silly talking to themselves. It isn’t always easy to find a human confidant. The dog is an uncritical listener”—the diamond gray eyes twinkled mischievously—“a bit like a therapist. Talking to a dog is like holding a conversation with yourself—with another aspect of yourself. The fact that you call your dog Patience suggests to me that, somewhere inside yourself, you recognize the fact that patience is what you need. To be gentle with yourself, to give yourself time to come to terms with what happened. You could have called her Spotty, or Snowball.”

  He almost flinched as he looked down at the animal at his feet. “If I’d called her Snowball, she’d never have spoken to me again.”

  “Ah.”

  He darted a furtive sideways look, as if he’d let something slip, something that would cause him trouble. But then, he always looked as if he was afraid of causing trouble. “Again with the ‘ah’?”

  “You think she wouldn’t like it because it’s an animal’s name?”

  “Because it’s not a name at all—it’s a thing. Like a chair, or a tablecloth. If we want animals as companions, why would we name them after inanimate objects? It’s not … respectful. Giving them a proper name—a person’s name—makes you think of them as someone rather than something. Encourages you to treat them decently.”

  He saw the way Laura Fry was looking at him and rocked back in his chair, his gaunt face catching the light from the window. “And now you think that because I chose a bitch and gave her a woman’s name, I’m thinking of her as a wife substitute.”

  The therapist shook her head. “Not at all. Gabriel, there’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with how you’re feeling or what you’re doing. Something terrible happened in your life, and you’re struggling to deal with it, and anything that helps, even a little bit, is a good thing. Getting a dog is a good thing. Caring about her is a good thing.

  “You’re not mad. You’re not even slightly unhinged. In the normal way of things you and I would never have met. All I’m trying to do, all these conversations are about, is to help you find a way of managing what happened without it destroying you. Whatever you call her, if the dog gets you out of your chair and makes you go into the kitchen, and then makes you walk as far as the park, she’s already had a positive influence.” She leaned down and patted the white dog.

  “She doesn’t…” He bit his lip.

  “What?” He wasn’t going to answer; she pressed him. “What, Gabriel?”

  “I’m not sure she likes being patted.”

  “No? Well, in that case you chose her name well—she’s very patient.” But she had the grace to leave the dog alone.

  She saw the pair of them out. Her office looked over Norbold’s Jubilee Park, a view she enjoyed, even if most of her clients were too wrapped up in their own troubles to appreciate it. “Next Wednesday, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Behind the pince-nez Laura Fry’s sharp eyes were concerned and almost affectionate. “I’m always afraid that you won’t come. That you’ll decide therapy is for wimps and you can manage without. That you’d rather manage without. You’ve thought about it, haven’t you?”

  He wouldn’t lie. “I was never much good at sharing. Even … before.”

  “I know that. I know these sessions are a trial to you. All I can tell you is, you are getting better. Stronger. I can see you getting stronger.”

  “Yes? Then why—” He stopped.

  “Why what?”

  He looked across the expanse of the park, the trees in their fresh spring livery, so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “Then why do I feel afraid all the time?”

  He was a client, and Laura Fry didn’t weep for clients. She helped them instead. She said softly, “Because the wounds are still raw. Because the situation is unresolved. Because not knowing is worse than knowing the worst. Because not enough time has passed yet for you to pack the hurt and the uncertainty away where you can get on with your life without constantly tripping over them. Because you need”—she looked at the dog, now tugging with gentle insistence at her lead—“patience. You won’t always feel how you feel today.”

  He nodded, and walked away and didn’t look back. Not until he judged she’d have gone back inside did he wipe his sleeve across his eyes.

  * * *

  Jerome Cardy was heading for the motorway. From there, all England was before him. He should have done this before. He could call, explain. She could join him. They’d be safe. Anywhere but Norbold, they’d be safe.

  He almost made it. He could actually see high-sided vehicles on the motorway overpass, to his right and maybe a mile ahead, when the police car swung out of a side street and into line behind him, and his heart shot into his throat.

  For ten or fifteen seconds, driving with infinite care and watching it in his rearview mirror, Jerome tried to tell himself it was a coincidence. A patrol car, patrolling. That everyone experiences a momentary anxiety when a police car comes up behind them, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s just doing what it does, showing the flag and deterring people from dropping litter and murdering their neighbors.

  But at the end of those ten or fifteen seconds the police car didn’t turn away and vanish as mysteriously as it had appeared. It turned on its siren and flashing blue light, and when Jerome looked back in dread, he saw the officer in the left-hand seat signaling him to pull over.

  There was no time to think. Either he did as he was told or he made a run for it. No one who knew him, no one who knew what had happened at the
junction, would have thought there was any question about what he would do. But then, almost none of them knew what he was facing. What falling into the hands of Norbold’s police would mean. And the motorway was less than a mile away. All England waiting …

  Like the woman in the silver hatchback, Jerome was a law-abiding citizen. It went against every tenet to run from the police. If there’s been a misunderstanding, you stop and sort it out. Running only makes you look guilty. He swallowed. He passed a hand across his mouth. And then, acting on purest instinct, the instinct for self-preservation, he floored the accelerator.

  Once again luck was not with him, so the escape attempt was over almost before it had begun. It was the middle of the evening—people heading out formed a bottleneck at the approach to the motorway. Traffic slowed to fifteen miles an hour. You can’t make a dash for freedom at fifteen miles an hour, but neither was he prepared to risk lives by driving up onto the pavement or against the traffic flow. Jerome Cardy clenched his fists on the wheel, wiped the sweat off his brow with his cuff, and, feeling sick, pulled over.

  CHAPTER 2

  HALF A MILE AWAY, in a shady corner of Jubilee Park where the steps of the war memorial provided the youth of Norbold with a convenient stage to drink themselves stupid, a small gang of teenagers was indulging in a bit of dummy baiting.

  It wasn’t that they nurtured any particular dislike for the man with the white dog. They didn’t even know his name. They saw him most days, but he didn’t bother them. He didn’t seem to bother anybody. All they knew of him was that he walked his dog in the park every morning and every evening, rain or shine, and muttered to himself as he went.

  It was enough. They were between about fifteen and nineteen years old, they’d given up on school not because—as they’d told friends and family—it was stupid but because they’d come to believe that they were, and they didn’t see any way that their lives were ever going to improve. On top of that they’d run out of cider. One of them grinned a vacuous grin and nodded at the man with the dog, and the others hauled themselves off the stone steps and followed. Partly to see what happened, partly to make sure that something did.