HER HUSBAND’S KILLER an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  Miss Chambers’ thin lips disappeared to almost nothing. ‘You, no doubt, were exempt from these — proceedings.’

  Ruth was gratified that the administrator was finding it hard to suppress her feelings of distaste. She smiled tightly. ‘But he did give me the right to vote. Between you and me, I think Ed had already made up his mind exactly what recommendations he would make to the Senate. But Edward liked to rule by division. You’ll find few people who actually trust one another in the departments you’re seeking to axe, Miss Chambers.’ She listened for a few minutes with half an ear to Alice Chambers’s explanations of rationalization and projected student numbers, the difficulties of high levels of supervision and equipment costs in practical science subjects, per capita allowances and sponsorship.

  ‘Some of the departments made a very poor showing in the Research Assessment Exercise,’ Miss Chambers explained. ‘Government funding will be cut by quite significant amounts as a result. We must rationalize staff numbers in order to balance the budget as well as looking to the future and ensuring at least a level three ranking at the next assessment.’

  ‘Universities used to be about academic rigour,’ Ruth said when she had heard enough. ‘Not about balancing budgets. Scientists used to be able to research without having to justify their interests in terms of commercial applications and the need to compile a tick list of recent publications. And what about staff who are excellent teachers? Can’t we recognize their contribution?’

  Miss Chambers pursed her lips. ‘It’s heart-warming to see such loyalty, Dr Marks—’

  Ruth laughed. ‘I hate to disillusion you, Miss Chambers, it’s a quaint notion and all that, but I’m not talking about Mallory. He’s a lazy, dried-up old prune who thought he could wing it for the next five years till retirement. I’m talking about the poor bastards who have to cram in lectures and tutorials and seminars and marking — and with groups three times the size I taught when I first came into university teaching.’

  ‘Efficiency’ — Miss Chambers nodded emphatically — ‘is considered a dirty word in some quarters.’

  ‘This isn’t efficiency. Surely you must see that? Driving people to the edge isn’t efficiency. We’re not machines. We can’t be driven to exhaustion and still be expected to have the creative inspiration to provide the research and the papers required by your criteria for grading. I’d like to know how much weighting you’d give to Dr X, brown-nosing for a research grant, compared with Dr Y, say, coming up with a new perspective on a research area. Knowledge used to be considered a worthy goal. It was our job to ask the profound questions. Corny, isn’t it? Embarrassing almost. But no more embarrassing, I can assure you, Miss Chambers, than grubbing for sponsorship, cap — or should I say mortarboard? — in hand. We spend more time grovelling to our sponsors than we do on research or — God forbid — teaching.’

  Alice Chambers seemed to think hard before she responded to this. ‘I have a certain amount of sympathy with your view, Dr Marks, but we live in the real world.’

  ‘Of academic accountancy—’ Ruth broke off. Mallory had arrived. He regarded her with the kind of alarmed concentration her first-year students showed on their first experimentation with electro-stimulation. They knew the animal was dead and couldn’t hurt them, but the appearance of life was strangely disturbing, and more were made ill by the twitching of a dead vertebrate limb than by the dissection which preceded it. As her boss, Mallory had good reason to be curious about a junior member of his department — worse, one who no longer had anything to lose — deep in conversation with a senior member of the Senate administration. As an academic approaching sixty who had not published anything of note in five years nor anything at all in the last two, he had even greater reason for concern. He had nothing to offer, nothing that would convince the Senate that he should be funded until the next Research Assessment, when he could be safely put out to grass. His reliance of Ellis’s crackpot ideas producing anything worthy of submission to the scientific journals proved only how seriously out of touch the man was.

  * * *

  David Ainsley debated whether to return home and attempt to patch things up with Clara. He had seen Helen Wilkinson leave with the florid, pock-marked policeman and didn’t feel up to being questioned himself. He walked out of the zoology buildings and through the gates into the leafy lane at the back. The blustery winds and bursts of sun and showers of the previous day had died down and the morning’s brightness had given way to a quiet, sullen greyness. The clouds hung low in opaque folds, unmoving, like fossilized smoke, threatening rain. He turned his collar up and looked first left towards home, then right to his own office in the environmental science building. He decided that he didn’t want to patch things up with Clara, just now. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

  He couldn’t pretend to be sorry that Edward was dead; he’d deserved it — David was just sorry that the end had been so quick and clean. And now what? The tabloid press would enjoy finding headlines. It seemed to David there was only one thing they hated more than success, and that was intellectuals. They would find out the sordid details and print them with vulgar relish.

  He picked up a few journals and took them to the stacks; they were quiet, most of the first- and second-year students had gone home for the vac, but Ainsley could not concentrate. He found himself in the Horace Shelby coffee bar, a tray in his hand, and a look of slight puzzlement on his face. Renowned across the campus, better by far than the college refectory, although three times as expensive, it served home-baked cakes and biscuits and freshly made sandwiches. Housed in a large basement room of the library, recently refurbished and painted blue and turquoise, it had a light, modern, vaguely Japanese air. The tables were well spaced, and most were vacant, so Ainsley was not in danger of being joined by his colleagues, one or two of whom he could see dotted about the room. He focused with a fierce determination on the chalkboard, scowling ostentatiously as he made his choice. He sat at one of the farthest tables, trying to avoid the eye of any of the academics, but he could not keep his attention from Ruth Marks, who sat with one of her third-year tutees. She seemed to be reading over an essay or some notes. Carelessly slopping her coffee and dropping crumbs over them, she would sit in silence for several minutes at a time, then talk in staccato bursts while the student nodded deferentially, and jotted down notes, darting anxious glances at the rapidly degenerating condition of his precious manuscript.

  Ruth happened to look up and smiled over at him. Ainsley looked away, picking up a discarded newspaper as a defensive gesture. The front page bore a picture of Edward Wilkinson, smiling, handsome. He tore the photograph out and carefully shredded it, first into thin strips and then into minuscule bits of dark confetti. He tried telling himself that now he was dead, Edward could not hurt anyone else, but there was no reassurance in the constant repetition. Edward, he thought, would seep like poison into an aquifer, tainting all their lives.

  Chapter 5

  Ruth found Helen in her office, having spent the last hour looking for her, and being sent from one end of the department to the other by various sightings. She had even sought her friend out at home.

  Helen was sitting at her desk, her arms folded, hugging herself. There was a blue tinge to her lips and she had a greyish pallor. Ruth picked up the telephone and dialled through to Patterson’s surgery, then she drew up a chair next to Helen and put both hands on her shoulders. Helen flinched, then, looking up at her friend, smiled apologetically.

  ‘I can’t stop shaking,’ she said.

  ‘I noticed. Where have you been?’

  Helen glanced anxiously over her shoulder. ‘Inspector Nelson—’

  ‘The bastard!’ Ruth yelled. Helen jumped and gave a little yelp. ‘It’s okay,’ Ruth reassured her, stroking her shoulder. ‘Jesus, he really spooked you, didn’t he?’

  ‘I’m sorry. It isn’t the police—’ Ruth found it difficult to understand Helen because the shaking was so violent her teeth were chattering. ‘It’s not t
heir fault. It’s me.’

  Ruth took Helen’s hands in hers and stared into the bruised and hollow sockets of her eyes. She hadn’t slept much the previous night. Ruth had insisted that Helen stay at her flat, since her own house was still overrun by police; she had woken at five to find Helen in the kitchen, sitting at the table, ghastly pale in the greenish light of the street lamp outside the window, staring at nothing. ‘Helen,’ she said, ‘You kept to our story, didn’t you? That we were together most of the afternoon?’

  Helen made an effort of concentration. ‘I don’t know.’ She passed a hand over her eyes, pressing at the temples as though it would help her to think straight. ‘He kept asking things I — I didn’t know what to tell him, Ruth.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, no, Helen!’ Ruth grabbed her shoulders tightly and gave her a shake. ‘You’ve got to stop this. You’re making them think you did it. It’s crazy! You’ve come through so much and stayed sane. Why let this get to you?’

  Helen looked up. ‘Let this get to me?’ she said. ‘My husband has been murdered.’ Her total bewilderment affected Ruth with unexpected force, a feeling almost of physical pain. How could she have so badly misjudged Helen? Was there more to her reaction than understandable shock?

  ‘Look,’ Ruth went on. ‘You did not kill Edward.’ She bent down, trying to make eye contact, but Helen turned her head away and twisted her hands, trying to free herself. Ruth held her fast.

  ‘Let me go, Ruth.’

  ‘Talk to me,’ Ruth said. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me what it is that’s got you so scared. Better me than that mad-eyed copper.’

  Helen continued struggling, but Ruth was strong, and held her.

  ‘All right!’ she exclaimed, breathlessly, still fighting Ruth, fighting, it seemed, the apathy which had wrapped around her like a straitjacket since she had found Edward. ‘Sometimes, I don’t just hate Edward for what he did to me. Sometimes I swear I wanted him to suffer like he made me suffer, but not only him—’ The effort to control her voice failed entirely and it rose to a scream. ‘Sometimes I want to tear the whole fucking world apart!’

  Ruth moved back, shocked, and Helen gave a short, angry laugh. ‘You see it? You see the thing I can’t control? It scares you, doesn’t it, Ruth? It should do. It should scare you — it scares the hell out of me.’ She stopped for a moment, panting. ‘It’s like I’m two quite different people. One is rational and calm. It takes — took — whatever Edward said or did and barely responded. The other . . .’ She paused, thinking. ‘The other is murderously furious with him. And the really scary thing is that I wanted to be the murderer. I have fantasized about it and planned it and done it so many times in my head that I didn’t want anyone else to get there first.’ There were tears in her eyes now, she was pleading for understanding. ‘Do you see, Ruth? Do you see what I’m trying to tell you?’

  ‘And I thought I hated the bastard,’ Ruth said, lightly, but Helen did not return her smile, and she nodded, dipping her head apologetically. ‘All right. I watched him use you, brainwash you, indoctrinate you — Pavlovian conditioning — he rang the bell and you came bounding out of your cage drooling guilt. There goes the bell — oops! Must be my fault. Your mother started the job, your religion consolidated it, and Edward, good son-in-law that he was, finished it. If you didn’t have anything to blame yourself for, you’d accuse yourself of the sin of pride. I have to say, Jewish guilt never had much of a hold on me — maybe my mother should have tried Catholicism — maybe I wouldn’t have turned out so wicked.’

  * * *

  Inspector Nelson, Helen remembered, had been far less convinced than Ruth of her innocence. He asked questions after question, many of which she missed or could not remember answering. He and the sergeant — Hackett — had set up in Mallory’s office. She didn’t know where Mallory was, but became preoccupied with the idea that he may return suddenly and demand to know what they were doing. Such inconsequential thoughts had obsessed her since January, and she had often found herself incapable of directing her thoughts to important matters. She caught herself looking around the room, trying to discover evidence that Mallory had been working on his presentation to the interview panel. She supposed there would have to be a panel, now that Edward . . . Her thoughts had trailed off at this point and she had come around a few minutes later to find that Hackett was trying to persuade the inspector to let her go home. She remembered raised voices, but the argument had rumbled like thunder over her head and she had been content to let it.

  Hackett had arranged for a patrol car to drop her off at home. The police and crime scene specialists had left and the house was quiet. It seemed somehow bereft in the icy chill of the sullen spring morning. She had stood on the doorstep in the cold, looking up at the window of the bedroom where she had found Edward, and had seen herself, opening the front door, finding him in bed, smelling of another woman’s perfume. He had smiled at her and she had gone to him, bent over him, smelling the freshness of the linen she had changed only that morning, and the perfume that was not hers and the spicy smell of his body overlaid with recent sex. She had kissed him, sliding her tongue into his mouth, probing the soft inner surface of his upper lip taking care to avoid his sharp, scrubbed teeth as she slid the knife between his ribs. No more than a flicker, a tease, and then out, and it was done.

  She couldn’t remember returning to the university, but there, in her own room, she had become aware, gradually, of her surroundings. Of colour and light. A grey, unforgiving light. Rain had begun to spatter the windows and she had watched for some time the random streams of water formed by one droplet merging with another, on and on down the window until it trickled onto the ledge. It was strangely soothing, and she discovered a calmness which was quite unlike the numb feeling of the past day. She turned back to the cosy clutter of her books and notes, the laptop computer standing open next to the PC on her desk. She had been working on her own presentation the previous day; Edward had made it clear that there would be no special concessions for her. She had picked up her notes, not meaning to read them, not having any clear intention in mind. Perhaps it was a simple attempt to connect with something tangible, something comprehensible and safe. Her submission was to be a development of her work on murine leukaemia. Of course, she could not deal with the mice, with their sometimes unpleasant deaths — death of any kind had become too distressing for her — but her cell cultures had brought in some interesting data and several pharmaceutical firms had shown an interest. She was confident she would get sponsorship. Even Edward wouldn’t have been able to argue with that. Abruptly, and with a violence which made her drop the typed sheets, she had begun to shake.

  ‘I stood on the pathway under our bedroom window and I remembered it,’ Helen said. ‘Exactly how I did it, precisely how I felt.’

  ‘You’re in shock, Helen,’ Ruth said, getting up to answer a knock at the door. ‘Tell her, Sanjay.’ she said, not bothering with greetings or explanations. ‘Tell her she’s in shock.’

  Sanjay Patterson crossed the room in three strides and knelt beside Helen. ‘I’ll give you my opinion when I’ve examined you,’ he said, talking directly to Helen. ‘You were supposed to be at home. Sergeant Hackett telephoned me. He said he’d sent you home in a police car. He was worried about you.’

  ‘That man’s just too nice to be a policeman,’ Ruth said, flopping into a chair. ‘Charming, well-bred, a positive paragon of old-fashioned courtesy. Now, what’s your opinion, Doc?’

  ‘BP low, pulse rate up. When did the shaking start?’

  ‘Right after that pustular policeman, Nelson, dragged her in for questioning.’

  Patterson shot Ruth a look, silencing her at least momentarily, and said, ‘Helen?’

  Helen closed her eyes. ‘I’ve had it off and on ever since . . . For the last two months . . . But not as bad as this.’

  Patterson took her hand. ‘Either,’ he said gently, ‘you go home, take two of the pills I prescribed and get some sleep, or I book
you into the Countess of Chester overnight.’

  Helen stared at him in horror. ‘I won’t go to the hospital,’ she said.

  He squeezed her hand. ‘Then go home. You have to remember that you’ve been through a lot. Not just this, but . . .’ Helen looked away and he stopped. He turned to Ruth. ‘Will you supervise?’

  ‘Sure, I’ve one or two things to do in the lab, but it’ll only take a few minutes, then I’ll drive you home,’ Ruth said, ‘if that’s where you want to go.’ She raised both hands to quell Dr Patterson’s objections. ‘I’m simply suggesting my flat as an alternative.’

  Helen sighed. ‘I should go home I suppose.’ She shook her head to displace the image that was beginning to form of Edward lying on the bed, blood spilling onto the sheets, the knife, made heavy by the weight of guilt, bloody in her hands. ‘I don’t know what happens next. I mean, will they let me start arranging the funeral?’

  Patterson shook his head. ‘They’re not likely to release the body just yet—’

  ‘Oh God!’ Helen’s hands flew to her face. ‘My parents! If they’ve heard about this, they’ll be frantic.’

  ‘I spoke to them last night,’ Ruth said. ‘They phoned while you were . . . out of it. Your mother wanted to come over.’

  ‘She can’t see me like this!’ Helen was suddenly tearful. ‘You didn’t tell her she should come?’

  Ruth and Patterson exchanged a look. ‘Helen,’ said Ruth, ‘Your mother won’t expect you to be on top form when your husband has just been murdered.’

  Patterson rolled his eyes at the bluntness of the statement.

  ‘Ruth, I can’t . . .’ Helen looked into Ruth’s face and saw that she understood.

  ‘Yeah, yes. Don’t worry,’ Ruth said. ‘I put her off, okay? She said she’d wait until she heard from you today.’