Bridge of Sighs Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  A Selection of Recent Titles from Priscilla Masters

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  A Selection of Recent Titles from Priscilla Masters

  The Martha Gunn Mystery Series

  RIVER DEEP

  SLIP KNOT

  FROZEN CHARLOTTE *

  SMOKE ALARM *

  THE DEVIL’S CHAIR *

  RECALLED TO DEATH *

  The Joanna Piercy Mysteries

  WINDING UP THE SERPENT

  CATCH THE FALLEN SPARROW

  A WREATH FOR MY SISTER

  AND NONE SHALL SLEEP

  SCARING CROWS

  EMBROIDERING SHROUDS

  ENDANGERING INNOCENTS

  WINGS OVER THE WATCHER

  GRAVE STONES

  A VELVET SCREAM *

  THE FINAL CURTAIN *

  GUILTY WATERS *

  The Claire Roget Mystery Series

  DANGEROUS MINDS *

  THE DECEIVER *

  * available from Severn House

  BRIDGE OF SIGHS

  Priscilla Masters

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2018 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  First published in the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  This eBook edition first published in 2018 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2018 by Priscilla Masters.

  The right of Priscilla Masters to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8838-9 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-963-4 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0173-7 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  One more unfortunate

  Weary of breath

  Rashly importunate

  Gone to her death

  Take her up tenderly

  Lift her with care

  Fashioned so slenderly

  Young and so fair

  ‘The Bridge of Sighs’. Thomas Hood, 1799–1845

  This poem was a favourite of my grandfather’s, William Watkins – or Tad’cu. I can still hear him reading it in his sonorous Welsh voice. Thank you to him for sharing with me a love of literature, language, poetry and the natural world, and to Mr Hood for such a heartfelt and inspirational poem. One is always touched by the tragedy of suicide. A feeling that friends, family, the entire world has somehow failed them.

  The poem continues with questions:

  Who was her father?

  Who was her mother?

  Had she a sister?

  Had she a brother?

  Or was there a dearer one

  Still, and a nearer one

  Yet than all other?

  Questions which form part of any coroner’s investigation into a suicide.

  An attempt to answer the question …

  Why?

  ONE

  Friday, 10 March, 3 a.m.

  Now!

  It was the middle of the night when Gina finally realized that this was the time. She sat bolt upright in bed, for now giving up even the idea of sleep.

  Terence would be deeply asleep; he would not wake. She threw back the duvet, her thoughts racing towards their conclusion. She had been moving towards this point ever since … In the darkened room she blinked back a tear for what might have been. Ever since. The bolt of realization had found its target. She had known there was no escape and now she had reached the end of the line. With her analytical brain she had explored every single possible escape route and found none. She had explored every possible route, thinking up explanations, justifications … but in the end she had known there was no way through. It was a blind ending. Softly she stepped out of bed. She didn’t want to take the chance that he would wake. That would have twisted the knife too far. She slipped her track suit on. Every night it had been laid out, ready for the moment. After a swift glance at the screen she flipped her phone back on to the bedside table and padded out through the bedroom door, pausing for just a minute outside her son’s bedroom. There was not a sound. She couldn’t even hear him breathing. She pressed the palm of her hand to the door, as though it had palm recognition and would swing open. She was tempted, even now, to open it, to check he was still alive. But she knew he would be. She knew he would be OK. Better without the shadow she would have cast over his life. She now pressed her face to the panel painted Terence’s Room and kissed it. ‘Be happy,’ she whispered. ‘Have a good life, better than mine. Goodbye, my darling. I love you more than you can ever know. Believe me. And this is why I go.’

  She hadn’t left a note for her mother. For her to understand the full story would be to drag her into the slurry pit that her life would become if she stayed
. It was not a choice. Not her choice anyway. She must go, vanish. She had no option.

  She told herself this on every step as she descended the stairs, each step taking her farther away from her life until at the bottom she felt she was already in freefall. She let herself out through the front door, closing it behind her with the softest of clicks. And now she was outside in the cold clear night of early March. She could see stars above, identified the Plough, maybe Cassiopeia. No time to search for the rest. No time left at all. Her car was already facing down the drive in readiness. She had known as she had driven home from work and manoeuvred the three-point turn that this would be her last night on earth.

  She eased herself into the driver’s seat, buckled up and started the engine. If she could have done that quietly she would have, but engines make their own noise. They do not alter through grief or exuberance. There is no volume control on the internal combustion engine.

  She had reconnoitred her spot too, driving along the A528 north out of Shrewsbury, knowing the road to be winding and in some parts treacherous. In fact, ideal. She had found her blind bend with a wall ahead. Perfect.

  Driving through the still night she encountered few cars. One or two making their way home after a night shift, another heading into work for a very early shift. She passed them, envying them their ordinary, un-dramatic lives, their futures, their having somewhere to go whereas she had nowhere. Except the wall.

  She sensed when she was nearing the spot. And then she saw it, the road sign heralding a sharp and dangerous bend. TAKE CARE, it advised in bold letters. She smiled. She would.

  She had worked it all out step by step. Almost a week before she had explored all the possibilities to see if there was a way out, looking at each alternative from every angle, using her lawyer’s brain to search for that chink of light. But her conclusion had been inescapable.

  She must not survive.

  For a moment her thoughts veered towards self-pity. Why me? In the end she had answered this one too. Because you earned it. You popped your head above the parapet, became successful, wealthy, famous, one blessed by the gods. And you wonder why you got targeted? Don’t forget, little Gina, those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. She smiled. The real answer was not madness but visibility. She had become visible and attracted attention. A high-vis person. A target. And now the only way to stop herself from being the bull’s-eye was to exist no more, to remove herself body and soul.

  But the word ‘soul’ had uncomfortable connotations. It had conjured up her mother – mouth open, her tongue ready to receive the sacrament, head scarfed as she prayed. She seemed to look straight into those warm green eyes, kind eyes, the salt and pepper hair and the stoop which was a recent acquisition and gave the only clue to her age. Her mother was an Irish Catholic who believed as firmly in the soul as she did in hell and purgatory. Gina shivered. What if her mother was right?

  Suicide was a sin. Destroying what God had created.

  She was there. A jumble of thoughts pushed her foot further down on the accelerator, underlining her determination. There was no alternative. The Information Super Highway – she was zooming along it and the road pretty fast. As she released her seat belt only one thought snagged her brain: Terence. And yet even now, at the back of her mind, was the sweetness of stolen honey. Then resolutely she gripped the steering wheel so tight her knuckles shone like moonbeams. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, pressed her right foot down to the floor and waited for the impact, hearing a howl of protest from the engine which she overrode. Faster. Faster. Harder. Harder.

  The car smashed into the wall, glass, plastic, metal splintering as it screamed. She heard the noise, felt the crushing pain and then nothing.

  TWO

  Friday, 10 March, 3.18 a.m.

  Graham Skander was dreaming.

  He was diving the coral reef in Tobago where he had been only one short month ago. A fish was ahead of him, jewelled scales bright blue. He felt the sun on his back, heard his breathing rasping loudly in the snorkel mask, as he sucked on the pipe. He pursued the fish, camera in hand. He wanted to—

  Bang!

  Startled, it took him a while to surface, to leave the coral reef, open his eyes and process the sound, wondering whether it had been part of the dream. He lay for a minute, still confused, and then he heard a hissing sound. He knew what that was. Not part of a dream.

  He threw back the covers, planted his feet on the floor and crossed to the window.

  The Grange was an eighteenth-century house, symmetrical, red brick. It had been there long before the A49 had become such a rat run. It was his wall that cars had to manoeuvre and one or two had hit it before. He knew the sound and it made him angry. The insurance companies might rebuild but they never did it quite like it was before. Graham lived there alone since his wife, Rita, had left, citing his irascible nature which apparently was peppered with ‘boringness’. Her word, not his.

  Peering through the window, he recognized the signs instantly. A blaze of lights obscured by a cloud of steam. He could hear the hiss from the radiator, smell the stench of burning tyres as he breathed in petrol. Another bloody car taking the corner too fast now embedded in his bloody wall, he thought crossly. He slipped his bony feet into his slippers, tied his dressing gown around his waist and stomped down the stairs.

  Fumbling for the key, he spared a fleeting thought for the driver. But when he reached the car and shouted, ‘Hello, are you all right?’ he saw that the damage to the car was much worse than usual. The bonnet was completely crumpled but, worst of all, he saw something he had not seen since seat belts were made compulsory. Someone … A woman? Slumped half through the windscreen, her face embedded in the wall. Blood everywhere. And her face. Oh, God, her face.

  His ‘Hello’ died in his throat. He didn’t need to have a medical degree to see that she was dead. And, he harrumphed bravely as he turned back towards his house to ring the emergency services, looking at the state of her face, thank God she was.

  But he couldn’t say that to the operator when she asked which service he required and what had happened.

  For a moment, he couldn’t speak. ‘Umm.’ It was as far as he got at the first attempt. He cleared his throat. ‘Graham Skander here.’ He could hear the shock making his voice waver. ‘From The Grange. Preston Gubbals. A car has …’ Again, he cleared his throat. ‘Embedded itself in my wall.’ He recovered himself a little. ‘Not for the first time. A woman driver. I think … I’m afraid I think … I think she’s dead.’

  The operator provided the solution. ‘Ambulance then, and the police.’ Something of Felicity Corwen’s character peeped through. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  ‘Nothing a good malt won’t cure,’ he said bravely. Then added, ‘Poor woman. Her face, you know. Gone through the windscreen. Met the wall.’

  ‘You leave it to the police,’ she soothed, ‘and go have that malt.’

  ‘Happy to.’

  He knew he would get no more sleep tonight. And if he did, after hours of questions and recovery vehicles and the inevitable noise and delay, he would not be dreaming of coral reefs again this night – and probably not for a long time.

  THREE

  Saturday, 11 March, 9 a.m.

  The weekends always seemed to creep towards Martha Gunn, leapfrogging in hops, skips and jumps, so when she awoke on Saturday morning it was invariably with a feeling of surprise. It was always a slight shock to find that she did not have to drive into work or dress in sombre clothes. No, today, she thought with a skip of her heart, was a free day. A day for jeans, boots, a sweater and a long walk through the woods with Bobby, their Heinz 57 Collie cross. The weather men had been optimistic, forecasting sunshine, though, as usual, they were qualifying it with ‘may not reach all places until after the weekend’.

  Even that didn’t dent Martha’s spirits as she showered and slipped into jeans and a sweatshirt. Nothing would, she thought. Sam was playing an away match against Chelsea, which kick
ed off later today, so that was him accounted for. And Sukey had her new boyfriend, Pomeroy Trainer, known as Pom, to occupy her. So Martha felt very free and practically danced her way into her boots, out of the house and into the woods even under a cloudy grey sky that scowled at her. There was one cloud darker than the rest. The truth was she didn’t really like Pom, who had a way of making snide comments usually focused either against Sukey and her acting career, or Sam’s enthusiasm for football, or even Martha’s cookery skills. Whatever he turned his attention to he seemed to have a knack for finding the vulnerability in one’s happiness and could turn even a cosy family supper into something unpleasant, besmirching anyone’s pleasure. ‘Gosh, isn’t this meat tough?’, ‘I don’t like your hair like that, Sukey’, or, with a bored yawn and eye-roll at Sam, ‘Do you ever talk about anything other than football?’ He didn’t seem to realize how fucking rude he was being.

  Martha quickened her pace. Even telling herself that Pom’s negativity was probably the result of his insecurity hadn’t made her like him.

  Bobby scampered ahead as her thoughts reflected back to Sukey’s previous boyfriend, the intellectual, quiet, clever William Friedman. She had much preferred the solemn, bespectacled lad who had never made a single derogatory comment in the brief time she’d known him. Actually, she smiled to herself, stepping over a fallen tree, William had kept his views very much to himself, so it was anyone’s guess what his private thoughts were. Maybe they were equally negative. Pom, however, was an abrasive, critical character and Martha felt uneasy and inadequate around him. But now the sun was peeping through the trees, dappling the pine-needle path with equal parts sunshine and moving shade. The scent of the trees was strong. A rabbit tempted Bobby into a brief, unfruitful chase. Even thoughts of Pom couldn’t swamp the weekend feeling. She extended the walk until way past lunchtime since today she had no one to cook for.

  Stoke (and Sam) drew against Chelsea and Pom and Sukey went to the pictures on Saturday night followed by dinner somewhere in town. And Sunday? Recovery for Sam, a lazy day reading The Sunday Times from cover to cover for Martha, and Sukey and Pom spent the day with friends in Market Drayton.