Hackett looked over at Nelson, but he had moved to the door and was standing with his head bowed, apparently deep in thought. Hackett turned back to Dr Wilkinson, irritated that Nelson, who had insisted on the interview, had apparently lost all interest in it. He nodded, even forced a smile. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said. ‘But I might be tempted to do something just to make the awfulness stop.’
She frowned.
‘It must have felt like there was no end to it,’ Hackett went on, his voice quiet, its tone mesmeric. ‘The loss of the baby. The taunts.’
Helen looked into his face. ‘I longed for one kind gesture from Edward,’ she said. ‘One act of gentleness. If he’d uttered a single word of regret—’ She broke off, and just as he was about to prompt her, she spoke again. ‘Would you understand if I told you that the simple truth is that I would have been grateful even to have been left alone to grieve?’
Hackett was shaken. What kind of monster would deny a woman that?
She nodded, as if accepting that he was beginning to appreciate the pain her husband’s coldness had caused her.
‘Shall I tell you what Edward said to me after I lost my baby?’ She didn’t wait for a reply but went on, ‘He said that a female’s worth is measured by her fecundity and her child-rearing skills. Apparently, I failed on both counts.’
Hackett tightened his jaw against making an utterance of disgust at the professor’s cruelty, or sympathy for Helen — it wasn’t his job to sympathize, it was his job to get to the truth.
‘How did you respond to that?’ he asked.
Helen blinked, startled, as if she hadn’t realized she had spoken aloud, then she looked away. ‘We argued,’ she said. ‘Again.’
‘Did you ever fight? Physically, I mean.’
She gave a sad smile. ‘Edward was far too subtle for that. He didn’t need to resort to anything so crude as physical violence.’
‘But surely, when you lost the baby—’
Helen swallowed. ‘That was the only time. And it was me, not him. I threw a punch. Missed—’ She took a breath as though she could not get enough air. ‘And killed my baby.’
Hackett sat in the chair opposite Helen’s. ‘That must have been . . . difficult for you.’
Helen laughed. A sudden, harsh sound, without humour, like a cry of pain. ‘Difficult. Yes.’
He went on: ‘It wouldn’t be surprising if you’d wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt you.’
‘Edward was fireproof,’ she said quietly. ‘Nothing could hurt him.’
‘Something did,’ he said quietly. ‘Someone.’
‘I did,’ Helen said.
Hackett saw Nelson’s shoulders tense and willed him to stay quiet. Don’t you dare interrupt now, he thought. Let her speak.
‘I hurt him a thousand times after that day,’ she said. ‘In daydreams. In fantasies so real that I would have to seek Edward out, to convince myself that he was all right. And when I found him in his study, or watching TV, or reading in bed, notes scattered around him, a supercilious look on his face, it wasn’t relief I felt.’
Hackett waited, and after a long pause, Helen said with quiet dignity, ‘I don’t know who killed Edward, Mr Hackett. But I’m not sorry he’s dead.’
* * *
‘Sir?’
Nelson twitched at the sound of his name, then shook himself. ‘Oh,’ he said, looking around the room. ‘You’ve let her go.’
‘Are you all right, sir?’
Nelson’s eyes were watery, their colour less intense than usual. ‘That bloke,’ he said.
‘What bloke?’ Hackett said, thinking sourly that Dr Wilkinson’s vagueness must be contagious.
‘Ellis,’ Nelson said. ‘He was hanging around again. When we brought her in. What is it between them? Are they having an affair an’ all?’ He tried to make a joke of it, but he seemed uneasy.
‘More likely he’s looking for her to put in a good word for him.’
Nelson frowned.
‘With the selection board,’ Hackett said.
‘God, these people are ruthless!’ Nelson exclaimed. Then, ‘What did you get out of the mistress?’
‘Clara Ainsley’s more carved up about Wilkinson’s death than his wife,’ Hackett said.
He had interviewed Clara Ainsley earlier, at headquarters — it seemed kinder than bringing her in to the university where speculation and gossip had already reached fever pitch. A neighbour had agreed to look after her baby for a couple of hours. Mrs Ainsley looked a hundred years old. Hackett was reminded of the winter when Lisa got one damn cold after another and would cry all night and most of the day. Even when she was quiet, they would need go to her and check that she hadn’t suffocated on the terrible congestion in her lungs and nose. Sheila, haggard, wild, frenzied, had been driven to the point of screaming in the end, and he had felt the urge more than once himself, despite the fact that, for ten or twelve hours of the day he would be away from the noise and the upset.
He gave Hackett a precis of the interview.
‘So, she’s torn up,’ Nelson said. ‘With guilt, or grief?’
‘She claims she saw Wilkinson at the university after he’d completed the staff interviews,’ Hackett said. ‘She says that she told him they were finished. That she thought he was messing about with someone else.’
‘She said, “I wasn’t about to let him treat me like the others, like some tart he’d picked up on a street corner.”’
Nelson grunted. ‘Colourful image.’ He pondered a moment. ‘A pity, though, her dumping him like that, when he was planning to set her up in her own little office, right within pawing range.’
‘I got the impression she felt the same way.’
Nelson sniffed, turned, and stood staring into the empty eye socket of the skull for a few moments. ‘Spilt milk,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, we only have her word for it that she dumped him. What if it was the other way around?’
‘He was setting up the secretarial job for her,’ Hackett said. ‘Why would he get shut of her?’
Nelson nodded, an irritated crease appearing in the middle of his forehead. ‘Okay, what if she thought he was going to dump her? One of his little games — like Marks said.’
Hackett thought about it. ‘Then I’d say that Clara is just about untethered enough at the moment to’ve taken a knife to him.’
* * *
The rain and sleet had abated for the time being and although small, sodden melts of snow clustered around the bases of the daffodils, the sky was a flawless cobalt blue and the sun sparkled on raindrops trembling on the buds of the birch trees.
‘Hey, slow down!’ Ruth caught up with Helen and put a hand on her friend’s arm.
Helen stared at the clumped of flowers in the grass. ‘Forty-five degrees,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘The flower buds of the daffodils — they’re angled at forty-five degrees to the stems. There must be a reason, don’t you think?’
Ruth glanced around and then edged Helen towards the doorway of the environmental biology building. Helen’s office was housed in the comparative modernity of this Edwardian building, the patterned tiling of its floor had long since worn thin and many of the tiles were cracked, but it held a certain charm; its square, unfussy design was well suited to the department’s needs: a combination of office accommodation and laboratories — indeed, it was one of the few purpose-built departments in the old university.
‘Helen,’ Ruth said, putting some edge in her voice. ‘Don’t start flaking out on me again.’
Helen frowned, still considering the puzzle of the daffodils, then with a sigh, she turned and made to go through the door.
Ruth stopped her. ‘This is a smokescreen,’ she said, losing patience. ‘Going off on a tangent like that — it’s a bullshit smokescreen to avoid unpleasant truths.’
Helen blinked, and it was as if a switched had been flicked. ‘How’s this for facing the truth?’ she said, her eyes cobalt blue and sh
arper that Ruth had seen them in a long while. ‘One time — I think it was a month or so after the baby died — I found a kitchen knife — the kitchen knife, the one that’s now missing — in my bedside cabinet. I couldn’t remember putting it there. Still can’t.’ Her eyes, staring into Ruth’s own, were hard and unforgiving.
‘Shall I tell you how many times I took that boning knife from its slot in the block and sharpened it? Shall I describe how I took comfort from the song of metal against metal? And when it was sharp enough to carve wood, I would rehearse every step, from start to finish, carrying out my intention in my mind and soul and heart because I hated him with an intensity that cannot be described in words.’
‘Shh!’ Ruth gripped Helen’s arms at the elbows and glanced over her shoulder, praying that no one had overheard.
Helen drew herself to her full height and gently disengaged herself from Ruth’s grasp. Then she entered the building and walked past the stairway leading to her office, towards the staff common room.
‘Where are you going?’ Ruth said, following her.
‘I have to get my coat.’
‘Helen, for God’s sake—’
Helen turned suddenly and Ruth was confronted again by that hard stare.
‘Who would tell the press all those things, Ruth? About the baby. Who would know?’ She stared into Ruth’s face as though she would find the answer to her question in the fine lines around her mouth, or in the blue-grey of her eyes.
‘Ed didn’t exactly keep it a secret,’ Ruth said, shrinking slightly under her unflinching gaze.
‘Maybe. But he wasn’t interested in the specifics — Ed was a broad brush-strokes man. There were details in the papers—’
‘Clara? David? Who knows?’ Ruth caught her hand. ‘Helen — it doesn’t matter.’
‘It does matter.’ Helen shook herself free. ‘It matters.’
‘All right. I’m sorry. It matters. Now will you tell me where you’re going?’
Helen’s eyes roved around the main entrance and Ruth did the same, hoping for some clue to her friend’s change in mood. The wide foyer was empty except for a porter and two postgraduate students who were checking the wooden racks of pigeon-holes for mail.
‘Will you just tell me what the hell is going on?’ Ruth whispered.
‘I don’t confide in many people, Ruth. There aren’t so very many people I feel I can trust. I confided in you.’
‘You did. So . . . ?’
The two women stared at each other for a full half minute, then Ruth, suddenly assimilating the implications of what Helen had said, burst out, ‘Is this an accusation? You think I’d spread those sordid stories about your husband’s grubby little affairs? Jesus, Helen! Who helped you sort yourself out when you lost the baby? Who suggested the switch to tissue culture when you couldn’t bear the sight and smell of blood any longer? Who smoothed your worried brow and took your calls at two in the morning and convinced you otherwise when you found the knife in your bedroom cabinet — it was a couple of weeks after you lost the baby, by the way — your timeline’s off.’
Helen turned her wedding ring round and round on her finger.
‘Who looked after you? Who helped you to sort out what was real from what was in your head?’
More than once, Ruth had tracked Edward down — in a meeting, or a seminar — and insisted that he talk to Helen, because she had convinced herself that this time, she really had done it, that he was dead.
‘It was me, Helen, all those times. Your old faithful friend. Always there, like a big St Bernard, lolloping after you — whistle and I come running.’
‘Don’t patronize me, Ruth.’ The words spat out, angry.
‘Then stop talking like a bloody lunatic!’ Ruth said with sudden ferocity. She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. But you are making me crazy. What are you trying to do? Drive away the only friend you have in this temple of misogyny? Is that what you want?’
‘I just want to know what happened,’ Helen said, her voice calm.
Ruth shook her roughly. ‘I’ll tell you what happened. Someone did you a fucking great favour. Edward is dead and you’re free to do whatever the hell you like. Get used to it and stop whinging.’
* * *
Isaac Smolder, skulking in the shadows, almost broke cover. Almost shouted to Ruth Marks to take her mauling hands off Helen. But he knew that now would be the wrong time. Once, animal activists had got into his laboratory. Security had discovered the break-in and called the police before they’d had chance to do much damage. All of the cages had been unlocked and the doors were wide open. He had arrived two hours later and from a total of over a hundred experimental animals, only a couple of rats had escaped; the rest, habituated to captivity, had remained passively in their cages, doing no more than sniffing anxiously at the open space where the door should have been. All he had to do was secure the latches. Helen would not go far. He could wait.
* * *
Helen stared at Ruth, shocked by her outburst. The two students had turned to look at them and the porter took a tentative step towards them. He cleared his throat. ‘All right, ladies?’ he asked.
Ruth let go of Helen. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Everything’s under control — isn’t it, Helen?’
Helen shrugged and smiled, embarrassed. They were arguing. Why was that? Ruth was right — it was crazy. But who else would know all the awful, humiliating details the press had printed? Could Ed really have told his mistress the sordid particulars of his previous flirtations and affairs — and worse — the sad, intimate circumstances of her miscarriage? Had he thought so little of her?
At that moment, Helen felt the need of her mother. She knew it was childish and pathetic, knew how unsatisfactory the encounter would be, but she wanted comfort, uncompromising love, even though she knew her mother was incapable of giving it. Anyway, she had returned to Bolton on the nine-thirty train; Ruth had dropped her at the station after Helen had persuaded her to go home with the promise that she would visit at the weekend.
You’re on your own, now, she thought. You have to do this alone. But looking into Ruth’s face, she saw concern and love, as well as frustration — perhaps even a little fear. Poor Ruth, she thought.
‘That bloke Nelson has a funny effect on me,’ she said. Then turning back toward the door out, she added, ‘I think I’ll take a walk.’
Ruth hesitated, then followed, a few steps behind, uncertain of her welcome, but Helen dawdled, despite the cold of the day and she was soon walking beside her friend, feeling shaken by the sudden change in Helen. After a few minutes of silence, Helen spoke.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘About the people on the list.’
‘The Apocalypse file?’
‘Could they have done it, Ruth? Would anyone kill, just to keep their job?’
‘It isn’t just a job to some of these people,’ Ruth said, relieved to be on safer ground. ‘This university is home, career, status. Ed knew that and would most likely have worked on their inflated egos. He really had a way of flaying the flesh from the bone, and Marks’s Paradox states that inflated egos are easily deflated — the rate of deflation being directly proportional to the original distension.’
Helen smiled, and Ruth drew her arm through her own. Her hand was frozen — she hadn’t fetched her coat, after all — and Ruth turned into a more sheltered area with paved paths and raised flower beds, riotous with pansies and polyanthus.
‘Look at Mallory,’ Ruth went on. ‘He must’ve seen it coming, but he was devastated when Ed told him his contract wouldn’t be renewed.’
‘How do you know?’
Ruth grinned. ‘Valerie hates gossip, but she’s soft-hearted. Take a sympathetic line and she’ll tell you anything you want to know. “Poor Dr Mallory, after all those years of devoted service . . .” You get the idea. And speaking of Valerie, she had a motive her own.’
‘Ruth! You can’t be serious! Valerie Roberts?’
‘Never underestimate the fury of quiet women,’ Ruth cautioned. ‘Especially quiet, middle-aged women. They feel the slings and arrows, the contumely of the young and arrogant far more acutely than the rest of us. And they don’t suffer the insults lightly.’
‘I understand the argument,’ Helen said. But Valerie Roberts?’
Ruth returned Helen’s outraged stare for a few moments, then they both burst out laughing. ‘All right,’ Ruth agreed. ‘Maybe not Valerie.’
‘It’s a ridiculous notion,’ Helen chuckled.
‘But reasons for murder often are ridiculous — or at least they seem so to the outsider,’ Ruth argued. ‘The objective, rational observer can’t take the imaginative leap, because they haven’t had to put up with the years building up to the event. Ten years, in Valerie’s case.’
‘Even so,’ Helen said, clearly unconvinced. ‘What about Clara, or David? If Edward didn’t tell Clara his plans, she might have lost her temper.’ She shrugged. ‘And David has not been exactly rational since the news broke.’ Her hand went involuntarily to the bruise under her eye.
‘Bloody madman.’ A sudden cloud darkened the little garden where they had been pacing for the last few minutes and they heard the first hailstones fall like broken rosary beads onto the stone flags.
‘Shit,’ Ruth said eloquently.
They ran for cover and found themselves a couple of minutes later inside the Horace Shelby library, shaking melting ice from their hair and continuing their speculation.
‘Either of them could’ve done it,’ Ruth said, her voice echoing in the high, empty space of the foyer. ‘And what about Mick Tuttle?’
‘Mick?’ Helen blinked.
‘It’s no secret he hated Edward. He’s strong enough. If he surprised Ed in bed—’
‘Come off it, Ruth. He may be strong, but he could hardly be described as fast. And how the hell would he surprise Edward in bed wearing those callipers?’
‘If it was nearer Christmas Ed might’ve thought it was the ghost of Christmas future coming to haunt him,’ Ruth said with a sardonic smile. ‘But you’re probably right — Mick isn’t a strong candidate. It’d help if we knew who’d altered the files. Who had access to Ed’s password?’
HER HUSBAND’S KILLER an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists Page 12