Element of Doubt

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘Nerine didn’t think of postponing the wedding?’

  ‘I don’t think the idea would have entered her head. I told you, she was completely insensitive to other people’s feelings.’

  ‘When you said that before … Were you trying to say that you think this insensitivity might have caused her death – that she had hurt someone so badly that he – or she – was driven to kill her?’

  Mrs Glass shrugged. ‘How can I tell? As I said, I haven’t seen Nerine for years. But I shouldn’t think she’s changed much.’

  ‘D’you think Daphne ever forgave her sister, for going ahead with the wedding so soon after Jocelyn’s death?’

  Mrs Glass sighed. ‘Oh yes. You see, I don’t think Daphne ever forgot those early years, when Nerine made so much of her. I suppose you’d find that difficult to understand, but to have Nerine’s exclusive attention was like … like … well, it was as if the sun was shining especially for you. It’s a feeling that’s difficult to describe, and I’ve never experienced it with anyone else. She could make you feel you were the most important person in the world, at that particular moment, and even though you were aware of all her faults, that feeling would keep you … bound, to her, somehow.’ Mrs Glass shook her head. ‘I’m not putting this very well, I’m afraid. But the point is, Daphne never forgot how much she’d meant to Nerine, when they were little. And after Mr Linacre died, of course, Nerine was the only family Daphne had. That was why, when the opportunity of living in the coach house came up, Daphne jumped at the chance to buy it.’

  ‘She didn’t give me the impression that she was deeply distressed over Nerine’s death.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose she would. She and Nerine haven’t been particularly close for years now. But don’t be misled. She’ll be upset in her own way, it’s just that she’s always been good at hiding her feelings.’

  There was a clatter of feet on the staircase, a knock at the door.

  ‘Yoo-hoo, Barbara. It’s me.’

  Mrs Glass rose stiffly to her feet, betraying her age for the first time. ‘That’ll be the friend I was expecting. The one whose granddaughter is getting married.’

  Ellie was a tiny, bird-like woman, with a restless, eager air. She came in with a rush, apologising for her lateness, widening her eyes at Thanet’s presence and finally twittering over the cake, dragging him into further admiration of its beauties.

  Eventually Thanet managed to make his excuses, thank Mrs Glass and leave. He walked slowly down the stairs, thinking over all that she had told him. He was glad he had come. For the first time he was beginning to feel genuine sympathy for Nerine, the ‘sweetest, sunniest little girl you could imagine’, whose life had overnight become transformed from a joyous, secure existence to a wasteland devoid of warmth and love. Small wonder that she had spent the rest of her life searching for those dimly remembered joys, flitting from lover to lover, restless and dissatisfied. And too blind to see that they had been right there beside her, all the time.

  THIRTEEN

  As Thanet drove home that evening he couldn’t help remembering how he had felt the night before: at peace with the world.

  Tonight it was very different.

  For one thing, he was tired. It had been a hectic day; stimulating of course, but requiring intense and unremitting concentration, crowded with new people, new impressions, and filled with that sense of urgency unique to the start of a murder case. True, things had gone reasonably well, but at the moment he had no inkling of who the murderer might be. As he’d said, there was certainly no shortage of suspects.

  Secondly, his back was aching. In the privacy of his car he allowed himself the luxury of a little groan as he tried to ease himself into a more comfortable position. Twice in the past he had managed to injure his back. On the first occasion he had foolishly tried to heave a lawnmower into the boot of his car and on the second – well, he preferred not to think about the second, if he could help it. About to escort a newly arrested murder suspect back to the police station, he had stooped to open the car door and found he couldn’t straighten up again. The suspect and Lineham had actually had to help him into the back seat. And as for his arrival back at the station … It had been one of the most humiliating experiences of his life.

  Thirdly … well, of course, this was where the root of his depression lay. Thirdly, there was Joan, and this clash of interests and loyalties which was threatening to undermine his marriage. It was pointless to remember that he had never really wanted Joan to go back to work in the first place, or to remind himself that he had foreseen precisely this sort of difficulty from the moment when Joan had first told him she wanted to train as a probation officer. The fact remained that for one reason and another (primarily the fear of losing her if he continued to oppose her wishes) Thanet had given in and until last night, he had to admit it, things had gone reasonably smoothly. There had been difficulties, true, but sensible discussion and a determination to overcome them had always won the day. But now …

  He could see Joan’s point of view, of course. Here she was, with a first offender whom she had every hope of putting permanently on the straight and narrow. Then along comes something like this, a disaster perhaps not of the client’s making, and the whole fragile edifice comes tumbling down, negating months of careful, sustained effort.

  She’s bound to be angry over the television appeal, Thanet told himself, forgetting his earlier optimism. It’s perfectly natural. I must just be prepared for it. It’ll blow over, in time.

  Anyway, what choice did I have? he asked himself.

  You could have left it another twenty-four hours.

  ‘No!’ he said aloud, glad that there was no one in the car with him to look at him askance.

  Look at the circumstances, he argued. A woman is dead. Her son is on probation. He is missing from the moment of the murder, and despite all attempts by the police to trace him, he still hasn’t turned up a day later …

  No, he had had no choice.

  Ben was mending a puncture, his bicycle upturned on the drive. Thanet edged the car carefully in alongside it and chatted with his son for a few minutes. Delaying tactics, he thought sadly as he let himself into the house. Who would ever have believed the day would come when he was reluctant to meet his wife?

  The kitchen was empty and in the living room Bridget was sitting on the floor, school magazines spread out all around her. She was snipping away at one, tongue between her teeth.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, greeting him with a smile. ‘I’m cutting out some recipes for the KM. And I’ve written them a letter. D’you think you could have a look at it after supper, see if you think it’s OK?’

  ‘Yes, sure. Er … where’s your mother?’

  ‘Upstairs, in the study.’

  This was the grandiose title given as a joke to the shoe-box of a fourth bedroom where both Thanet and Joan worked in the evenings, when necessary.

  ‘She’s finishing a report for tomorrow.’ Bridget hesitated, scissors stilled. ‘I don’t know what’s up, but she’s in a pretty grim mood.’

  Thanet pulled a face. ‘I’d better go and see.’

  ‘Your supper’s in the oven,’ Bridget called after him as he left the room.

  ‘Thanks.’

  But the thought of food made his stomach churn as he climbed the stairs, feet dragging. At the top he paused for a moment and then, without allowing himself to hesitate further, flung open the ‘study’ door, said ‘Hullo, darling,’ took the two necessary paces to arrive at the desk and stooped to kiss her.

  Instead of turning her head to kiss him on the mouth as usual she remained quite still, staring at the papers spread out on the desk, and the kiss landed on her temple.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said, and was immediately angry with himself. What was the point in pretending?

  Slowly, now, she turned to look up at him. ‘Need you ask?’

  He perched on the edge of the desk. ‘The television appeal, I suppose.’

&nbs
p; She nodded. ‘The television appeal. Oh, Luke, couldn’t you have waited just another twenty-four hours?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t. I’m sorry.’ Then, as she remained silent, he said with quiet intensity, ‘Look, I did everything that could be done. We’ve consulted you, as his probation officer, tracked down his friends, followed up every lead we’ve been given, and there’s been nothing. Not a trace of him, anywhere. He’s just disappeared off the face of the earth. And there’s been plenty of publicity over the murder. I imagine he has a radio in his car, most young people seem to, these days … So why hasn’t he come forward? He really should have heard by now.’

  ‘And if he hasn’t? It’ll be enough of a shock for him to find out his mother’s dead, without hearing that he’s wanted by the police.’

  ‘He’s not wanted by the police – not in the way you mean at least! Didn’t you notice how carefully worded the appeal was, to avoid giving that impression? We just want to talk to him, that’s all.’ Thanet shook his head. ‘Look, love, I can see your point of view. I was thinking about it on the way home in the car, and I can understand how concerned for him you must be, and how disappointed you must feel that all the work you’ve done with him might be wasted, if he reacts badly to all this. But you must try and look at it from my point of view, too. And the one thing I cannot allow myself to do is behave any differently towards him just because he happens to be your client. You must see that. So this afternoon, when I was debating whether or not to put out that appeal I had to ask myself why I was debating it at all. And I realised that if he hadn’t been your client I wouldn’t even have hesitated. The fact is that he disappeared around the time of the murder, and even if he is not implicated himself, he could have vital evidence …’

  ‘If he had, I’m sure he would have come forward with it.’

  Thanet shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

  Joan shook her head stubbornly. ‘I still think you could have given him another twenty-four hours. I’m sorry, Luke, I’m afraid we have to accept that we just aren’t going to agree over this, however much we talk about it.’

  I knew it, Thanet wanted to say. I knew this would happen one day, if you went into the probation service. Don’t you remember my saying so, right at the start?

  But nothing was to be gained by an I-told-you-so attitude and he left it at that. Over supper he brooded, his mind ranging to and fro between the various interviews he had conducted today, but always returning at intervals, obsessively, to Joan. At the moment he could see no way out of their predicament. He could recall that conversation seven years ago as though it were yesterday.

  “It would be ideal, Luke, don’t you see?”

  “Ideal for whom?”

  “Well for me, of course. What do you mean?”

  “Have you thought how it could affect us?”

  “Us? In what way?”

  “You haven’t thought that there could be a certain, well, clash of interests?”

  “No. Why should there be?”

  “Look, the probation service and the police, they’re often poles apart in their attitudes to criminals.”

  “But they’re both on the same side really, surely? They’re both concerned to maintain peace and order in society?”

  “Maybe. But that doesn’t stop them frequently being in conflict. I don’t suppose you’ve had much to do with probation officers, but I have. And I grant you they do very fine work, many of them. But that’s not the point. The point is, as I say, that their attitudes to criminals are different. Don’t you see that it’s impossible to shed one’s working attitudes in one’s private life? They become an integral part of one, as basic as breathing. I can see all sorts of situations in which this thing could become a barrier between us.”

  “How, for example?”

  “Well, for one thing, I’ve always shared my work with you, haven’t I? Told you everything, without reserve, knowing that I could trust you not to talk about it.”

  “But I still wouldn’t. You know that, surely?”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t talk about it, but your attitude to what I tell you would be bound to be different, don’t you see? It’s inevitable that you’d be looking at the whole question of crime from a different point of view, from the side of the criminal, his guilt, his rehabiliation, whatever … Darling, don’t you see that? You must, surely.”

  “Not necessarily. Probation officers have to be detached, they can’t afford to identify with their clients or they couldn’t work properly.”

  “And what if it turned out that we were both working on the same case …?”

  “I would think that the chances of that happening would be very slight. And if it did happen, couldn’t one or the other of us request that we should be taken off the case?”

  “And that would create a barrier between us, too. Joan, you must see that. It would limit us, put restrictions on our work. We’d be bound to resent it. And there would be other barriers – just in ordinary life, in casual conversation, we’d have to be guarding our tongues, watching what we say to each other …”

  And now it’s happening, thought Thanet. All my worst fears are being realised.

  ‘Did you enjoy that?’ Bridget had come in, gesturing at his plate and clutching a piece of paper.

  The plate was empty, so presumably he had eaten his supper, though he had no memory of doing so.

  Bridget was laughing. ‘Oh Dad, your face … Did you even notice what you were eating?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I knew it! I work my fingers to the bone and look what happens! I might just as well have made you a cardboard sandwich.’

  ‘Ah, well, now that I might have noticed. By the way, I came across an interesting dish today – at least, it smelt delicious. Now let me see, what was it …’

  They chatted for a while, and Thanet looked over the letter she had written to the Kent Messenger. He was impressed, and said so. ‘If that doesn’t make them take you on, I don’t know what will.’

  ‘D’you think so? Oh, Dad, I do hope so.’

  ‘Well don’t get too excited about it, just in case.’

  Ben came in to wash his hands.

  ‘Finished?’ said Thanet.

  Ben nodded. ‘Took me ages.’

  ‘How was the History test?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘OK. Seven out of ten.’

  ‘Good.’

  And so the evening passed. Joan did not come down to join him later on as she usually did. Instead she took a leisurely bath and went straight to bed. When he went upstairs she was either asleep or pretending to be so.

  It took him a long time to get to sleep himself.

  Next morning they again kept up a pretence of normality for the sake of the children, a simple matter in the fragmented bustle of bathroom, breakfast and departure. Joan kissed him goodbye as usual, but there was no warmth in it, merely a brief contact of flesh against flesh, as impersonal as a social kiss at a party.

  It was another glorious summer morning, but today Thanet was not in the mood to appreciate the beauties of nature. He arrived at the office early, determined to drown his private sorrows in work. Lineham was late, and by the time he bounded into the room whistling the Wedding March Thanet had already skimmed through the reports which had come in overnight. His heart sank as he noted the sergeant’s bright and smiling face. He hoped Lineham wasn’t going to be overpoweringly cheerful this morning, he didn’t think he could stand it.

  ‘Any news of the boy, sir?’

  ‘Quite a number of possible sightings, but none of them has come to anything, as yet.’

  ‘But not a word from the lad himself?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  Thanet slapped the report he had been reading down on his desk. ‘Why on earth can’t people tell the truth?’

  He knew the answer, of course: because they were afraid. But it was a time-wasting business trying to get people to be frank. There was something about a murder investigation which made them clam up, innocent and
guilty alike. The lengths to which people would go to conceal some very minor peccadillo never ceased to amaze Thanet. The problem for the police was trying to sift the wheat from the chaff.

  ‘Why, who’s been putting up smoke screens now?’ Lineham perched on the edge of Thanet’s desk, looking as keen and alert as a labrador awaiting the word of command.

  Thanet flapped an irritated hand. ‘Do go and sit down, Mike. I can’t think with you looming over me like that.’

  At once he was angry with himself, the look on Lineham’s face a silent reproach as without a word the sergeant slid off the desk and retreated to his own.

  The phone rang and Thanet answered it: Beatrix Haywood, enquiring after Damon. Thanet assured her that he’d let her and Miss Linacre know the moment there was anything definite, and rang off.

  ‘Sorry, Mike, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I seem to be in a bit of a mood this morning, I can’t think why.’ Liar. ‘You’ll just have to try and ignore it if I let fly from time to time.’

  Lineham was looking mollified. ‘Nothing wrong, sir, is there?’

  The negative question provided Thanet with his escape route. ‘Oh no …’ He managed to grin. ‘I expect I just got out of bed on the wrong side.’ He glanced at the reports scattered on his desk. ‘And now I find that not one but three of our main suspects have been either lying to us or misleading us.’

  Lineham leaned forward, the eagerness back in his face. ‘Which?’

  ‘The oh-so-innocent, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth Mrs Speed, for one. You remember she went sick-visiting after her meeting, in the afternoon? That’s been confirmed. What she didn’t tell us was that she also paid a call on Nerine Tarrant.’

  ‘Really? At what time?’

  ‘Well, that’s the interesting thing. It sounds as though she was in two minds about it. First of all she was spotted just after four o’clock, when the meeting in the village hall ended, standing by the gates of High Gables, staring up the drive towards the house. Then later on, about ten past five, presumably after she’d finished her sick visit, she was seen actually walking up the drive.’