An Empty Death

by Laura Wilson

  Jenny sighed. ‘So would mine. I’ll see what I can do.’

  Jenny managed to find a respectable-looking blouse and skirt, and a fairly decent cardigan. Later, standing in Doris’s kitchen, she held them up for inspection.

  ‘I hope they fit. I got the smallest ones I could.’

  ‘They’ll be fine. I’ll take them up to her.’

  Doris had just returned to the kitchen and was in the process of making tea, when there was a knock on the door. She went into the hall, and Jenny, curious to see Mr Ingram, followed. Opening the front door they saw, standing on the step, a small, narrow-shouldered man dressed in khaki, holding a kitbag. His face was triangular, broad across the temples and tapering sharply to a pointed chin, his lips compressed, and his eyes a hard, concentrated blue. There was a constrained look to him, as if he might explode at any minute. Even the small, tight knot of his tie looked angry. Jenny stepped back, feeling a flutter of fear.

  ‘Hello, Mr Ingram,’ said Doris.

  ‘Thank you for taking Elsie in like this,’ said Mr Ingram. Evidently, he didn’t think it was necessary to make introductions. ‘I’ve come to fetch her now, so she’ll be no more trouble to you.’ He smiled suddenly, revealing neat little teeth with a sharp canine at each side. Jenny took another step back. There was definitely something menacing about him, she thought, even though he was clearly trying to be friendly.

  ‘No trouble at all, Mr Ingram. Come in and have a cup of tea. Mrs Ingram’s upstairs, resting.’

  ‘I don’t want to cause any bother.’

  His speech, like his wife’s, was a sort of diluted cockney. Ugly, thought Jenny, who sometimes worried – especially when at Mrs Chetwynd’s, visiting the children – that she sounded the same.

  ‘No bother at all! We were just having one, weren’t we, Jen?’ said Doris, too brightly.

  ‘That’s right.’ Jenny was aware that her voice, like her sister’s, was overly enthusiastic. This man can’t hurt you, she told herself. He’s probably not so bad, just nervous, like we are. She helped him off with his hat and coat as Doris, clearly as rattled as she was, bustled into the kitchen to pour the tea.

  He accepted a cup, but would not sit. Instead he stood, leaning against a cupboard, so that Jenny and Doris felt that they had to remain standing too, awkward against the sink and the cooker, not knowing what to say.

  They caught each other’s eye when he wasn’t looking and made an unspoken pact – least said, soonest mended.

  ‘Mrs Ingram is fine,’ began Doris, in a chatty tone. ‘A terrible shock, of course, but it’s a miracle she wasn’t injured.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll soon be back to her old self,’ said Jenny. ‘That’s what the doctor said, isn’t it, Doris?’

  ‘How much for the doctor?’ asked Mr Ingram. ‘I’ll pay you.’ He said this defensively, as if they’d been expecting him not to offer.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Doris, taken aback. ‘Dr Makepeace said he’d send a bill because you’re on the panel. Have you got somewhere to take Mrs Ingram?’

  ‘We’ll manage.’ This was said with such hostile finality that neither woman liked to ask for further information. ‘Did the doctor give her anything?’

  Doris shook her head. ‘Just said she needed rest and quiet. He said there wasn’t anything to worry about, didn’t he, Jen?’ This wasn’t exactly what Dr Makepeace had said, but it was near enough not to be a downright lie.

  ‘That’s right. In any case, I’m sure that seeing you will be just the tonic she needs. I’m sure she’ll be down any—’

  Hearing the sound of feet on the stairs, Mr Ingram turned round. He had his back to Jenny but she could see, over his shoulder, that Mrs Ingram was standing in the doorway. Clad in the blouse and skirt Jenny had obtained from the Rest Centre, she’d made an effort to tidy her thin hair, with the result that the small pink rims of her ears stuck through it in a way that made Jenny think of a baby chimpanzee she’d once seen at the zoo. Her dash of lipstick was clumsily applied, and something told Jenny that this had been done, inexpertly, at Doris’s suggestion.

  For a moment, there was total silence. Mrs Ingram stared at her husband. Her mouth opened in a soundless ‘O’, and Jenny saw that some of the lipstick had got onto her teeth.

  ‘Here we are, dear,’ said Doris. ‘All safe and sound.’

  Mr Ingram took a step towards his wife, who backed away, her small form huddled in the hall. Doris, puzzled, stepped past Mr Ingram, repeating, ‘Here we are.’

  ‘It’s all right, Elsie,’ said Mr Ingram, stepping forward in his turn. ‘I’m here now.’

  Mrs Ingram blinked rapidly. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. The words came out slowly, as if she were new to speech.

  ‘What do you mean, who am I? Eric, of course.’

  ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘I’ve come to fetch you, dear. We’re going.’ Was Jenny imagining it, or did his jovial, chivvying tone carry an undercurrent of threat? ‘I spoke to you earlier on the telephone, remember?’

  Mrs Ingram shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. Why have you come for me?’

  ‘Mr Ingram’s come to take you—’ Doris stopped abruptly and Jenny could see from her face that she’d been about to say ‘take you home’.

  ‘Why?’ Mrs Ingram’s voice was shrill and fearful. Before Mr Ingram, or anyone else, could reply to this, she turned to Doris. ‘You said my husband was coming. And he told me he was. He said it himself, on the telephone.’

  In the baffled silence that followed, Jenny saw Mr Ingram lean forwards and it seemed to her he moved in slow motion, as if forcing himself to walk through an invisible blizzard. ‘Come on, Elsie,’ he said. ‘Mrs Kerr has done quite enough for us as it is. Let’s—’

  ‘No!’ Jenny saw her sister wince as Mrs Ingram stepped back and her foot smacked into Doris’s ankle. ‘He keeps calling me Elsie, and he doesn’t know me,’ she said to Jenny, her words coming faster now. ‘My husband’s coming,’ she told Mr Ingram. ‘He’ll be worried about me. He won’t like it if you’re here. He doesn’t like that sort of thing.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’ asked Jenny, baffled.

  ‘This,’ said Mrs Ingram. ‘Strange men.’

  Mr Ingram’s face flushed a dull pink, and Jenny saw that his fists were clenched at his sides. ‘Elsie, come on…’

  ‘My husband,’ said Mrs Ingram, ‘believes in clean living, and so do I.’

  ‘But I am your husband.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Whatever gave you that idea?’

  This was said with such utter certainty that Jenny turned to Mr Ingram and said, ‘You are, aren’t you?’

  Mr Ingram blinked at her. ‘Course I am.’

  ‘Are you?’ echoed Doris.

  ‘Yes, I bloody am!’ He made a grab for Elsie, who ducked behind Doris. ‘Now get moving and don’t—’

  ‘No!’ Mrs Ingram, sheltering behind Doris now, said, ‘Don’t let him take me.’

  ‘Look,’ said Jenny, directing her words towards the right side of Mrs Ingram, which was all that could be seen behind the larger form of her sister-in-law, ‘you’ve had a dreadful shock. It’s enough to confuse anybody. Why don’t we just sit down, and—’

  ‘We don’t need to sit down. Come on, Elsie, these people have done quite enough. We’re going now.’

  Mrs Ingram’s face appeared round Doris’s shoulder. ‘That man,’ she said, in a loud voice, pointing her finger, ‘is not my husband. I don’t want anything to do with him. My Eric wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ said Mr Ingram. He grabbed Mrs Ingram’s wrist.

  Mrs Ingram took hold of the banister with her other hand. ‘I won’t go with him! I won’t! Fetch the police!’

  ‘What?’ Mr Ingram let go of her, and Jenny saw that he’d left a red wheal on her arm.

  ‘Look, dear,’ said Doris, putting an arm round her shoulders, ‘why don’t you just—’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Mrs Ingram flinched away from he
r and looked at them all with wild, fearful eyes. ‘Why are you helping him?’ she wailed, and Jenny saw that there were tears streaking her face. ‘I’ve done nothing to you! I don’t understand. That’s not my husband. He’s pretending!’ Mrs Ingram turned to Doris. ‘Why don’t you telephone the police? They’ll soon get rid of him.’

  ‘Look, dear,’ said Doris. ‘Why don’t you go back upstairs, and we’ll sort this out.’

  ‘There’s nothing to sort out!’ shouted Mr Ingram. ‘She’s my wife, and we’re going!’

  ‘Please,’ said Jenny. ‘Let her go upstairs.’ Mrs Ingram seemed so adamant, and so distressed, that it seemed cruel to force her to leave with Mr Ingram (if indeed he was Mr Ingram – it suddenly occurred to Jenny that he had not produced any proof of this).

  There was a moment’s silence, during which Jenny and Doris stared helplessly at each other, before Mr Ingram burst out, ‘For God’s sake, Elsie, that’s enough! Pull yourself together and come with me!’

  Mrs Ingram cowered away, her hands still firmly clamped on the banister, and began to scream. The sound was unbearable, the shriek of an animal, trapped, uncomprehending and in pain. Jenny took hold of Mr Ingram’s arm. ‘Don’t! You’re making her worse.’

  ‘No!’ He shook her off roughly, so that she staggered and bashed the back of her head against the wall.

  As she winced and blinked, Jenny heard Doris making soothing noises and saying, ‘Why don’t you come back upstairs, dear? Have a nice lie-down,’ while attempting to prise Mrs Ingram off the banister. For such a frail-looking woman, she was surprisingly strong.

  ‘No,’ she panted, ‘no, please…I won’t go with him.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mrs Ingram,’ said Doris. ‘You can stay here.’

  ‘What do you mean, stay here? Of course she can’t, she’s—’

  ‘Stop it!’ said Jenny, with an authority she hadn’t known she possessed. As Mr Ingram blinked at her in surprise, she took his arm once more and turned him round to face the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but you can see she’s still confused. It’s enough to upset anybody, what she’s been through. Perhaps if you wait in there for a moment, we can try and sort it out.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, ungraciously.

  Jenny shut the door in his face and leant against it momentarily, rubbing her head. Mrs Ingram had retreated upstairs, and Jenny heard the door of her room bang, and the sound of something heavy being pulled, jerkily, across the floor, as if she were trying to barricade herself inside. Doris glanced upwards, raised her eyebrows, and beckoned Jenny down the passage to the back of the house.

  ‘Is your head all right?’ she hissed. ‘That was quite a whack.’

  ‘I’ll live,’ Jenny whispered. ‘What’s going on? Either he’s her husband or he isn’t.’

  ‘I don’t understand it either,’ Doris whispered. ‘But she can’t go anywhere in that state, can she? Listen…’ There were more sounds of bumping and scraping from above. Doris winced.

  ‘We can sort out the floor later. What are we going to do now? We don’t actually know it is him, do we?’

  ‘Well, I’m not asking him for his ID card.’

  ‘That wouldn’t prove anything – there’s no picture.’

  ‘Jen, it must be him. I mean, why would he come here saying he’s Mr Ingram if he isn’t?’

  ‘I don’t know, but she seems so sure.’

  ‘Well, she’s had a house fall on her, hasn’t she? She’s obviously not right yet. Anyway, I spoke to him, remember? He sounds exactly the same. Mind you, I don’t like him at all.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Nasty piece of work. I bet he knocks her about. And I don’t believe he’s got anywhere to take her.’

  ‘No…Aren’t there any neighbours who know what he looks like? At least we could be sure.’

  Doris shook her head. ‘The warden was asking, remember? And next door was killed. But it must be him. I mean, Dr Makepeace got hold of him, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes…I suppose so. Unless it’s someone else from the unit.’

  ‘Why would they do that? It’s ridiculous.’

  ‘So is this. We’ll have to put him off.’

  ‘I will, you mean. He’s probably only got a forty-eight-hour pass.’

  ‘He can come back tomorrow then, can’t he?’

  ‘This is mad.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘Now we’re going round in circles. Come on…I’m not going in there on my own.’

  They didn’t have to. Mr Ingram appeared, seeming to Jenny to vibrate with suppressed violence, told them that he didn’t know what had ‘got into her’ and that he’d be back tomorrow morning, scowled at them both, and left.

  ‘As if it was our fault!’ said Doris. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Ask Dr Makepeace,’ said Jenny. ‘He might be able come and see her.’

  ‘If she’ll let him into her room…’

  ‘Why don’t you telephone,’ said Jenny. ‘I’ll go upstairs.’

  Jenny knocked on the door of Mrs Ingram’s room. ‘It’s me, Jenny. Can I come in? He’s gone.’ She pushed at the door. As she expected, there was something big on the other side, stopping it from opening. Must be the chest of drawers, she thought, surprised that such a small body had the strength to move such a cumbersome piece of furniture.

  ‘He won’t come back, will he? He says he’s my Eric, but he’s not. He looks like him, and sounds like him, but he’s not.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Jenny, the side of her face against the door panels.

  ‘Yes! It’s not him. I don’t know why you think it’s him.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know what he looks like. Doris says it’s the same man you spoke to on the telephone.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not him! He’s not coming back, is he?’

  ‘No, dear.’ Jenny gave up. ‘I’ll fetch you some tea,’ she said. ‘I can leave it on the landing if you don’t want to come out.’

  Doris was sitting at the kitchen table, head in hands.

  ‘What did Dr Makepeace say?’

  ‘He’s coming later. What did she say?’

  ‘She won’t open the door. I said I’d take her a cup of tea, but I don’t think she cares one way or the other.’

  Doris shook her head in despair. ‘I wish I’d never gone to the hospital now.’

  ‘Don’t say that. You did the right thing, taking her in.’

  ‘Did I?’ Doris stared at her with baffled weariness.

  On the way home, Jenny tried to imagine any situation – up to and including having your house destroyed on top of you – in which she was unable to recognise Ted, but failed. Mrs Ingram had said that the man looked, and sounded, like her husband, but wasn’t. Unless he really wasn’t – something along the lines of a hitherto-unknown identical twin, perhaps – none of it made sense.

  She’d give Ted his dinner – a nasty-looking piece of haddock that was all that the fishmonger could offer – and then she’d talk to him about it. He was bound to have a sensible suggestion. One of the best things about Ted was the way she could trust his judgement. He was good at listening, he could always be relied upon to keep things in perspective, and he usually did come up with solutions to problems. It was rather a shame, she thought, that she only had a bit of pimply fish to give him in return.

  Nineteen

  The sound of Richard Tauber singing ‘My Heart and I’ greeted Stratton when he returned home. He felt dispirited: in the two days since he’d finished interviewing the nurses, the door-to-door enquiries had yielded nothing, and Lamb was breathing down his neck. Jenny was cooking, and the place smelt – not in a particularly pleasant way, he thought – of fish. She kissed him and made him a pot of tea while he went upstairs to wash.

  When he came down, and was comfortably settled – Tauber having finished his warbling and gargling – in the sitting room with paper and slippers, she placed his cup on the top of the steel-cage Morrison shelter
, and said, without preamble, ‘Can you imagine not being able to recognise me?’

  Bemused, he replied, ‘Course not, silly,’ and resumed reading about the progress (or otherwise – the report was suitably vague) of the army towards Cherbourg.

  ‘I mean,’ Jenny persisted, ‘you would always know it was me, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Stratton.

  ‘But what if you’d lost your memory?’

  ‘Well…’ Stratton lowered the newspaper. ‘Then I’d be jolly glad there was this beautiful, mysterious woman looking after me, wouldn’t I? What are you talking about, anyway?’

  ‘The oddest thing.’

  Resigning himself, Stratton folded the newspaper and placed it on the Morrison beside his teacup. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘This afternoon we were going to go to the pictures but Mr Ingram telephoned Doris – Dr Makepeace managed to get through to his unit in Southampton. He said they’d given him leave to collect Mrs Ingram. She spoke to him, and Doris said she was made up about it. But when Mr Ingram arrived, she…Well, she didn’t recognise him. She wanted us to fetch the police.’

  ‘But she’d recognised his voice on the telephone, hadn’t she?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Jenny emphatically. ‘That’s the strange thing.’

  ‘And it was definitely the same man?’

  ‘Well, Doris said the voice was the same as on the telephone, and Mrs Ingram recognised it then, but I really don’t understand how you can recognise someone on the telephone and not when they’re standing in front of you. Well, unless it’s not him at all, but I can’t imagine why he’d say he was her husband if he wasn’t.’

  ‘A joke?’ suggested Stratton.

  ‘Ted, it’s serious!’

  ‘I know. But it’s hardly likely, is it? Has Dr Makepeace been back to see her?’

  ‘He’s supposed to this evening. I told Doris I’d drop by after supper.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ said Stratton, irritably. ‘Do you have to?’