by William Paul
‘He said that, did he?’
‘Yes. And that was why I was at his house on Thursday. It was because we missed Tuesday. Then after you lot came he asked me if I would be his alibi and I thought it was a bad joke until I read the papers today. They say that Laura Lambert was probably killed on Tuesday.’
She put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it from a shaky hand. Matthewson did not smile but he realized what was coming and composed himself to be ready for it.
‘Simon must have murdered his wife on Tuesday night when he should have been with me.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘I could smell her perfume on him, that’s why.’
She sucked hard on the cigarette. The burning tobacco glowed fiercely. So Wright wasn’t such a smart bastard after all, Matthewson was thinking. Now he had been caught lying they could really take him apart.
‘Will you make a statement to that effect?’ Matthewson asked.
‘I’m a married woman. My husband doesn’t suspect a thing.’
Matthewson didn’t know how to answer her. He was elated. All he could think of was Wright’s face when they confronted him with this information.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any way to avoid my name being used?’ she said.
‘I’ll try but it will be difficult, Janet.’ He was lying. She would be the main witness. There was no way out for her. She couldn’t remain anonymous. He said: ‘If he killed his wife, you could be next.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed sadly, crushing the half-smoked cigarette underfoot. ‘I’ll give you your statement but not now. I need to go home to my family now before they suspect anything. Can you take me? It’s not far.’
Matthewson took her elbow in the palm of his hand and guided her to the edge of the pavement. They waited patiently for a sudden convoy of four cars and a taxi to pass, then crossed the road. Matthewson had to consciously slow himself down to walk at her pace. He was excited. He had solved the murder mystery. Fyfe would be proud of him.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Friday, 22.17
Douglas Lambert lay on the sofa the way the dead bodies were laid out in their coffins in the funeral parlour below him. He crossed his hands over his chest and felt the weak tremor caused by the regular beat of his old heart. Pat Gilchrist stood over him, looking down at him but right through him. She was talking to herself.
‘It was Norma, the bitch. She killed Laura and then lured Ron up there on some pretext to set him up as the scapegoat. Everybody knew Ron was infatuated with Laura but he never touched her. Not once. I would have known. He didn’t touch her.’
‘Yes Pat, you’re right.’
The tears were swelling behind Lambert’s eyes but he resisted them. They were tears of self-pity anyway, not tears of genuine sorrow. He studied the light fitting. It was a simple copper-coloured, four-bulb affair hanging from a central stalk. One glass shade was cracked with a small fingernail-sized piece missing. The line of an ancient cobweb, like a thin trail of spittle, was strung between two others.
‘They’ll get her, wherever she is,’ Pat said. ‘I told them about her and Laura. How they were a couple. You knew too, didn’t you Doug? You let them use the bedroom here. I don’t know how you could do that.’
‘She was my daughter.’
Pat grimaced horribly. Her whole face wrinkled up as if it was a rubber mask about to be peeled away. Lambert remembered Laura’s face turning to him. Norma on her knees on the bed kissing her stomach. The triumph in their eyes. The insolence. The supremacy. The unnaturalness of it. The depravity.
‘He was sleeping with her, Pat,’ he said quietly.
‘Who?’
‘Your Ron. He was sleeping with her.’
‘Nonsense. How do you know?’
‘Laura told me.’
He was lying. Laura hadn’t told him. Norma had. He could see that Pat was shattered by the information. She didn’t argue because she had known all along and just didn’t want to acknowledge the fact. Once he had brought it out in the open she could no longer avoid the truth. It affected her like an illness followed through by time-lapse photography. She visibly aged in front of him. Her skin became grey and settled flimsily around the bones beneath. All her illusions faded and died.
Only days ago he had planned to marry this woman and live with her for the rest of his life. Only last night he had slept with her, caressed her, comforted her, made asexual love to her. Now he couldn’t care less. He felt nothing for her, absolutely nothing. They were strangers again and he wanted to hurt her so that he could gain some perverse consolation by not suffering alone.
He heard the door open and close, footsteps down the stairs, out into the street. Only once he was alone did Lambert begin to cry. He put his hands to his face and massaged the damp skin below his eyes.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Friday, 22.41
The car phone rang when Fyfe was ten minutes from home. He decided not to answer it. Twelve rings. A round dozen. Obviously nothing too important.
Fyfe tried not to think about Moya back at the flat with her jealous boyfriend. He wasn’t sure how to take her final act of kissing him so passionately before kicking him out. Where did they stand now? Who was going to be more embarrassed when they met again to continue the murder inquiry? For Christ’s sake, all he wanted was a warm body to cuddle in with. Never mind. At least he had Sally waiting to comfort him.
He occupied his mind by making up a good story to explain his injuries, a better story than standing like a statue while somebody crashed a chair over his head. My eye? It’s nothing really. You should see the other bastard. The bloody nose? Well, I tried to get my leg over this sexy detective and she hit me with a right hook.
Fyfe hoped Sally would be asleep. He had warned her he might not be back until after midnight. She was almost certainly asleep by now. Fine by him. He would undress and climb in beside her. No explanations necessary for excited dogs, blood-stained shirts or black eyes if he stayed in the dark. He examined his unshaven battered face in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t a pretty sight, but then he never had been.
The big Volvo turned off the road, fitting through the gateway with only inches to spare on either side. The lights were on downstairs in the house. That meant Sally was still up, reading a book or watching a late film on the television. He was even more surprised to see a strange car parked in his usual space in front of the garage. Visitors? At this time of night? A spasm of foreboding made his chest tighten. He should have answered the phone a few minutes ago. Something was wrong here.
He got out of the car and walked to the main door. It was unlocked. The dogs whimpered quietly behind him, anxious to greet Sally. He could hear low voices coming from the living-room. He quickened his pace along the hallway, pushed the door open, stepped inside. Sally was sitting on the arm of a chair. Her hair was hanging loose. When she looked across at him it hid her face. She was wearing a dressing-gown that had fallen open to show her legs. There was a man sitting in the chair. His balding head was pressed to her chest and one arm was over her waist with the hand resting lightly on her hip. Sally was holding his head. There was a lipstick mark on the scalp where she had kissed him.
‘What the fuck,’ Fyfe said.
The dogs started barking. A rush of inarticulate anger barnstormed through Fyfe’s veins. The blood vessels in his nose burst and blood leaked into his mouth. He ran across the room. Sally tried to stand up. The stranger tried to disentangle himself from her but didn’t succeed before Fyfe had him by the jacket, dragging him to his feet. Sally was shoved unceremoniously to one side.
‘It’s not what you think,’ said the man, holding his hands up in an attitude of surrender. ‘Honestly, it’s not what you think.’
He was relatively young. The lack of hair made him look older from a distance. His face was unlined. His nose was thin and straight. His fingernails professionally manicured. He had a thick gold chain round his neck.
‘Dave. Stop it
.’ Sally tried to force herself between them. ‘Will you listen for a moment?’
Jill and Number Five stood off, bouncing on their front paws and barking furiously. Fyfe pushed Sally away with one hand and swung his fist at the man. The punch looped through the empty air. Its momentum pulled Fyfe after it. He overbalanced and landed face down in the chair. When he scrambled round the man was where he had been with his hands stretched out in front to hold Fyfe at bay.
‘Will you stop it,’ Sally screamed, jumping on his back.
He dislodged her and lunged forward. The man easily moved out of reach. Number Five jumped at him snapping but he held her off. Jill went for his ankles but he danced out of reach. Fyfe growled like an animal and wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand.
‘I really don’t want to hurt you,’ the stranger said.
‘I’ll fucking hurt you then, you bastard.’
‘Stay back.’
‘Too late, pretty boy.’
‘I’m warning you.’
Fyfe lunged with another punch and missed. He feinted another punch and at the last moment changed it to a shoulder charge. The man stepped aside but Fyfe caught hold of his arm as he went past and managed to stay close in. He gripped onto the sleeve and twisted to have a clear route of attack. This time the punch he threw was heading straight for its target until the man suddenly pirouetted ballet-style on one leg and brought his other leg flashing round in a graceful curve. Fyfe had a glimpse of the pattern of holes in a black brogue shoe before it connected with the right side of his forehead. He went down like a ton of bricks, unconscious before he hit the ground.
Chapter Fifty
Friday, 23.03
A shockwave of mental clarity hit Eddie Illingworth as he missed the step he was taking and the involuntary stamping of his foot jarred up through his body. He was on the central stairway of his tenement block, one landing below his flat. He recognized the peeling paint on the walls. He was hopelessly drunk and a woman was pulling him along by the hand. He had no idea who she was, where he had met her, or where he had been. The last thing he remembered was leaving the office after the unsettling visit by the two detectives doing their tapdancing impersonation of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He had no conception of the time or the events that had elapsed since then.
His companion tugged at him but Illingworth stood firm. She turned to face him. The long overcoat swung like a cloak, disturbing the freezing air. Her breath was vaporizing as it came out of her mouth, making her head look as if it was about to burst into flames. Tightly curled dark hair, green eye shadow and huge spider lashes. One dangling ear-ring was lower than its neighbour. Her legs were too thick for the mini-skirt. She was a complete overweight stranger.
‘Come on, lover boy,’ she leered back at him. ‘You’re not getting cold feet after everything you promised me?’
It wasn’t cold feet he had, but a sudden case of frostbite. What had he promised her? Who was she? He wished he had stayed blackout drunk until the inevitable was over. Then his penance would have been merely the embarrassment of waking up and getting rid of her in the morning. This was like waking up in the middle of a painful operation with the first cut about to be made in his tender flesh. Whatever he had promised her it had not been stimulating conversation.
There was no point in resisting. She led him up the next flight of stairs as easily as a mother pulling a reluctant child. Her backside moved solidly under the thick material of her coat. She balanced expertly on long stiletto heels. Outside his door she pushed him to the front, put her chin on his shoulder and slipped her hands into both his trouser pockets.
‘Is this a bunch of keys in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?’
Illingworth flinched as his genitals were squeezed none too gently. He didn’t like to object too forcibly. Intuition warned him that she was the type of woman who would enjoy inflicting pain much more if she realized it wasn’t being properly appreciated. Her teeth were on his neck. They felt worryingly sharp. He felt alarmingly fragile but at the same time was beginning to think that this might not be too bad after all.
He unlocked the door and they tumbled inside, almost falling over each other but being saved by the walls of the narrow hallway. He went straight for the kitchen where he kept his household supply of booze. A few drinks more would tip the scales back into the blackout. His pick-up still had her hands in his pockets. She was towed after him. Before he had the chance to reach for the cupboard she had spun him round and forced him back against the cork noticeboard hanging on the wall. She kissed him, bouncing his head off the wall. Her mouth covered not only his lips but his nose as well so that he couldn’t breathe. Her pelvis ground hard into him. He struggled to break free but she was a strong woman. The holiday postcards pinned to the board were knocked off. Then the gas and electricity bills and all the other accumulated debris of notes and reminders. While they were still fluttering to the floor she stopped trying to suck his face off and stood back. He breathed in thankfully.
‘That’s just for starters, lover boy,’ she said hoarsely, wiping away a smear of stray lipstick. ‘Where’s the bedroom?’
Illingworth pointed to the door beyond the kitchen. The whole noticeboard crashed down behind him among the litter at his ankles. She made an obscene gesture with her tongue and flounced out.
He went for the booze cupboard, aware that he would need all the help he could get to survive the coming encounter. But before he could get hold of a bottle he was transfixed by a high-pitched scream that sliced through him like a buzz-saw. He reacted slowly, pulled towards the sound. He stepped outside the kitchen door just as the woman came running out of the bedroom. The look of unquenchable lust in her eyes had changed to one of absolute terror. She shoulder-charged Illingworth, knocking him to the ground and winding him. She ran over the top of him. One sharp heel stabbed into the little finger of his left hand, ripping it open. Then she was gone out of the front door, her screaming trailing behind her, fading gradually, as though she had jumped over a sheer precipice and was skydiving earthwards.
In the corridor, Illingworth picked himself up and looked from bedroom to front door, undecided which to go to first. ‘Was it something I said?’ he asked the empty flat.
The screaming stopped with the ground-floor door thumping shut. Illingworth frowned. Drunkenness made him sway on his feet and think in disconnected sequences that failed to make any sense of what had happened. He looked at his bleeding finger but didn’t feel any pain. He held it in his good hand to stem the blood-flow and decided the bedroom would offer the best explanation of what the fuss was about.
He saw Norma’s body from the doorway. It was lying diagonally across the floor, face down on the rectangle of light blue scatter carpet. He must have realized it was his sister Norma immediately but it took several seconds for his brain to acknowledge the fact. She had one arm stretched out in front of her. It pointed to the antique hourglass, showing that a small section of the wooden framework had been snapped. The top bulb was broken, cracked like an eggshell. A hole had been punched in it and the jagged edges of the break were dripping with a green viscous fluid. Some of the sand inside was stained green. The inside of the curving glass was smeared with it, like moss on a wall. On the floor he noticed an empty plastic bottle of supermarket shampoo and an old flat iron he used as a door stop.
Illingworth moved into the room and stood over his sister. By shifting his position he saw her from a different angle. On the carpet he saw the cartoon fishes nibbling at her. He remembered Thursday morning and her trance, her painful glimpse of the future. When he had heard about Laura and the discovery of her body at the loch he had been suitably impressed, disconcerted and terrified by her psychic ability. But he had been wrong. It had been a prophetic vision of Norma’s own death. Here was the proof lying at his feet. Blood dripped from his finger onto her.
He stared down helplessly, hoping a vision would come to him to tell him what to do. Poor Norma wasn�
�t dead. He could see she was still breathing. She had always hated his hourglass. She said it had a bad aura, had seen too many bad things in the past, had recorded too many deaths and not enough births. He had laughed at her. Once before she had tried to break it. Soon after he moved in, she had arrived back one night stoned out of her mind and tried to shove it out the window. He had taken it off her and tried to quieten her. ‘Some day I’ll have to stop it,’ she told him as he held her down in her bed. In the morning she remembered nothing.
The shampoo inside the hourglass was coagulating in the fine sand, thickening it, blocking the filament aperture. As Illingworth watched the sand was prevented from running freely. The thin stream was choked off. Time stood still.
Chapter Fifty-One
Friday, 23.05
Moya had been won over. All the anger was gone. She was glad that Ian Dalglish had taken the time and trouble to seek her out and stop her from doing something that she would have hugely regretted come the morning. It was good to think he could be so jealous and so desperate as to enlist the help of an off-duty assistant chief constable. And so they had kissed, made up, and made love in front of the fire with the debris from the Chinese meal she had eaten with Fyfe still stacked up on the tray beside them. She luxuriated in the afterglow of satisfying sex. Paris was postponed by mutual consent until the next weekend she had free.
Dalglish was asleep beside her, bundled under the covers they had dragged through from the bedroom. She stroked his forehead and counted her blessings. A career was important but it didn’t keep you warm in bed at night. It didn’t get jealous because it loved you madly. It didn’t travel the length of the country to find you. Dalglish hadn’t got round to asking her to marry him. They hadn’t had much time to talk. But she knew he would eventually. The quicker the better, as far as she was concerned now. She had learned a lot from the near miss with Fyfe. More than he would ever know, and among it all he had taught her there was more to life than being the world’s greatest detective. She was grateful to him for that.