It had been an austere service, though Blewton’s crematorium had a human organist who had played Bach, with no change in volume, not canned accompaniment. Hugo’s coffin, surprisingly small, had vanished behind velvet curtains in the manner of a cinema screen. His widow and their two sons, with wives and children, had occupied the front pews. Helen had worked out who they all were as she stood apart from the other mourners watching them arrive, while the group attending the previous funeral departed from the chapel by another door. It was the best way, she thought: quick flames; no tombstone; but a conveyor-belt operation.
There were a number of elderly men in dark suits and black ties among the congregation. A pretty girl with long blonde hair was weeping: that must be Hugo’s grand-daughter.
I loved him too, Helen told her silently.
In the years since her marriage she had met him five times, for lunch at his London club. The last time was four years ago, when he had looked old and frail. After he retired he had moved to the country near Blewton, where he pottered in his garden, and most surprisingly kept bees. Helen had been his secretary, and he had seduced her in the traditional way; there had been others before her, and some afterwards, but she knew that she had been special. Perhaps, in a sense, though it made their relationship sound incestuous, he had seen in her the daughter he had never had, she sometimes thought. She would never forget him. He was her only lover, apart from her husband, and he had wakened her to tenderness. When she met James, she had known quite soon that she wanted to marry him, and they had been happy. But James had never known about Hugo, and he therefore would not understand why she wanted to say good-bye. Before they married, she had wanted to tell him about this one romance, but he had said nothing about his own earlier experiences and had seemed to assume that any she might have had were trivial. In those days there had been no pill and no permissive code of conduct that had to be accepted even if it was not condoned. In the end, Helen had left it. The affair ended when she met James and Hugo had never attempted to resume it. He had given her a fat cheque, and kept in touch, wanting to be sure that she was happy and that things were going well for her. He was fond of his wife, she knew; that aspect of it all had been hard to understand at the time, but now, with the ambivalence of her own feelings, she felt less puzzled.
A policeman had come to see her about the accident, but she had not been able to tell him much. When she told him that she had been to a funeral, he had not reproved her for forgetting the car keys.
‘I expect you were upset,’ he said, and asked whose funeral and when.
‘Why do you want to know?’ she asked.
‘We just like to be sure,’ he said. ‘It’s routine. We check everything.’
It was strange that she had not told her husband she was going to a funeral.
Arriving at the bank on Friday morning after their evening out, Robbie thought, as he greeted Wendy, how extraordinary it was that the fearful act he had committed had drawn them together. They had spent a very pleasant evening, although when he rang the hospital, assuming his gruff snarl, he had been told that Mrs Jordan’s condition was still unchanged.
Wendy had been wearing a black dress which, though nothing special in itself, as he knew from his experience of the stock at Caprice, made her look younger and slimmer. She wore her hair loosely – he did not realize that it had been washed and swiftly blown dry since they parted earlier – and there was a hint of some rather nice scent about her. He wondered what Isabel would think if she could see him dining out with this pleasant girl, and thought that she would simply laugh. True, Wendy was not Angela: she was not the sort of girl men stared at; she was not the type one thought of as a mistress.
Yet perhaps she might become one.
He pushed the idea away, frightened of it, while they chose their veal dishes. Wendy glanced at her watch when he took her home and said it was late, so she would not ask him in. Robbie felt some disappointment, but a touch of relief too. He needed time to think things out.
Greatly daring, he kissed her cheek, and felt her lips warm and soft on his own face. His heart pounded.
On the way back to Harbington he stopped at a call box to ring up the hospital again, but there was no news about Mrs Jordan. Because he had telephoned so late, and because his voice sounded strange to the girl who took the call, she mentioned it.
The night sister in charge of Helen Jordan decided to tell the police; as they wanted the truth about the injured woman’s condition concealed for the present, they might be interested in inquirers. They were very interested when they heard that several calls had been made since the incident. When Robbie rang up again on his way to the bank on Friday, that was reported too.
By Friday afternoon, when nothing more had happened, Philip Grigson said that he thought the police were being disgracefully slow in making an arrest.
‘He’ll get away with it, and do it again,’ said Philip.
‘I don’t see how you expect them to find him so quickly,’ said Wendy. ‘They’ve nothing to go on. He left no clues here and he was disguised. And we don’t know the numbers of the notes.’
‘He’s probably living it up on the Costa Brava by now,’ said Robbie.
It was strange: he could talk about the robber as if he really was another man.
Philip decided to ring up the police, to see if they had anything to report; then he could tell head office that he had done so, to show that he was alert, though powerless. On Monday the manager would be back and his brief reign ended.
There wasn’t much time for talk, however, as Friday was always very busy.
Robbie waylaid Wendy again that evening and took her home. She was going to her evening class, she told him: ancient history. She was interested in Greece and had been to Athens. She was hoping to go to Crete in the summer. All her spare money went on travel.
‘What about tomorrow?’ Robbie asked. ‘Are you busy?’
‘In the evening, do you mean?’
Robbie had been thinking of the evening, but when she said that he realized that it was Saturday. There was no work for either of them, but Isabel would be safely in Caprice. He must do the books in the morning, but there was no point in working in the garden, since soon it would be his no more.
‘Well – why don’t we have a day out?’ he said boldly. ‘Or an afternoon, at least? If it’s a nice day we could go for a run in the country somewhere – have tea – would you like that?’ She looked the sort of girl who would enjoy a country walk.
‘That would be lovely,’ said Wendy with enthusiasm, not sparing a thought for Isabel. Weekends hung heavy now; she had lost touch with many of her friends while she was tied up with Terry and though she was trying to pick up the threads again, she spent a lot of time alone; it was still too early for tennis, which she intended to take up again. Her plans for tomorrow were a visit to the launderette and then perhaps a cinema, if there was anything on worth seeing.
‘I’ll come about two-fifteen,’ said Robbie.
‘All right.’
Wendy supposed his Saturdays were rather solitary too. It was a pity. He was really very nice.
8
Helen Jordan had been badly concussed and had broken two ribs; she was covered in cuts and bruises and her face was grazed, so that she looked a somewhat sorry spectacle to her husband as he sat by her bed on Saturday morning wondering if she would soon be able to explain what had happened. She had had moments of consciousness, but these had not lasted long, and he thought she was unaware of his dutiful presence beside her when he should be pursuing export orders in Germany.
A nurse had brought him a cup of coffee. He had just finished it when he saw Helen’s eyes regarding him.
‘Hullo, James,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here? You should be in Düsseldorf.’
‘I came back, of course, as soon as I heard about your accident,’ said James. ‘I was here all day yesterday.’
‘What day is it?’ asked Helen. She tried to raise herself
and winced as the pain in her ribs caught her. ‘I don’t remember,’ she added. But she felt clear-headed, for the first time, and she could remember seeing a man with a beard jump into the Renault. The rest was a blur.
‘It’s Saturday,’ James said. ‘And you’re in Blewton General Hospital. Whatever were you doing in Blewton, Helen?’
‘Saturday! But – but it was Wednesday!’ Helen exclaimed.
She had vague memories of nurses tending her and coaxing her to drink. There was a man, too, who had asked questions. A policeman? She didn’t think she had answered very sensibly.
‘The car! Oh James, I’m sorry! It was stolen,’ she said. ‘Have they got it back?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it damaged?’
‘No, not at all.’ James was about to ask her what on earth she was thinking of, leaving the keys in it, when she forestalled him.
‘I left the keys in it. I suddenly remembered, when I was having lunch in that café. I couldn’t find them in my bag when I paid the bill. Then I saw that man get into the car. I thought, what a cheek, and then – did he hit me? I don’t remember any more. I think I made a dive for the car.’
‘Yes, he did hit you,’ said James. ‘He’d just robbed a bank.’
‘What?’
‘That’s right. He’d robbed the bank just a few doors down from the café you were in. He got away in the Renault.’
‘He didn’t hit me on purpose, did he?’ asked Helen.
‘No one seems to know. I don’t suppose he was too particular,’ said James. ‘He had a gun, in the bank.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’
‘No. Only you.’
‘Well, that’s something.’
‘You’ll have to talk to the police,’ said James. ‘Now you’ve come round properly. They did have a policewoman on duty here waiting for you to come round, but she seems to have gone – got more important things to do, I suppose. They’ll want to know, though.’
‘I can’t tell them much,’ said Helen. ‘I just saw a man – with a beard and wearing a cap, and I think he’d got dark glasses on. Yes, he had. It was a ginger beard,’ she added.
‘Before I call the police station, what on earth were you doing in Blewton?’ James asked.
Helen sighed.
‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘But somehow I don’t think you’re going to understand.’
She could tell he was very angry already: angry because he had had to come home from an important trip, and angry because she was not where he expected her to be. His anger was, she realized, partly relief because she was not seriously hurt. She had flown at the children, in the past, when they had come home later than expected and she had begun to worry about them. Relief made one do this. All the same, he wasn’t in the best possible mood to hear about Hugo.
‘Let’s get the police bit over first,’ she cravenly said.
Robbie zipped through Caprice’s books on Saturday morning, and put in an hour on Wendy’s coffee table too. At eleven o’clock he lifted the telephone to call the hospital, then thought better of it and replaced the receiver. A call box would be safer: he could be ringing from any where.
He walked along the road to the box on the corner and rang the hospital, adopting the same gruff voice. He received the same message as before: Mrs Jordan’s condition was unchanged.
As instructed, the hospital noted the time of the call and passed the information on.
He was mad to be setting out with Wendy on an afternoon’s enjoyment, Robbie thought, when a woman lay critically ill in hospital because of him, and might die. He had stolen over three thousand pounds from the bank that he had served loyally for most of his adult life; and here he was, off for a day in the country. Moreover, he was meeting a woman who wasn’t his wife.
You know perfectly well that Isabel wouldn’t go with you if you asked her, Robbie told himself. And you’d hate it, with her. You hate being with her. You hate her.
It was true. She had made him her creature, a thing worth no more than his ability to tot up accounts and balance books, and do repairs about the place. Now, when it was too late, Robbie recognized how pathetic he must have seemed as a young man; and how pathetic, in fact, he had been, to let himself be picked up and swamped like this by Isabel. With hindsight, Robbie saw very clearly how it had happened: he was green and she was desperate to acquire a husband. Girls were less desperate on that score today, he thought, though most of them did still seem to want to marry and have children. Folk made brief excursions into contact with other people, brushing their lives peripherally, but were really alone; everyone was, in the end.
Now he was to brush against Wendy. Why not just make the most of what ensued? Plenty of men took out women who were not their wives, or if they did not do that, they had taken out plenty of women before they married. Robbie had done neither, and he was going to do it now before it was too late: before he got too old, and before he was caught for the robbery.
But he wouldn’t be caught. He was the last man who would ever be suspected. He had no alibi for the time of the raid, but everyone knew he walked in the recreation ground in his lunch hour. There was the money to be thought about, too: all three thousand pounds of it. He could spend it on Wendy: spread out over several years, it could buy them several exotic holidays. He must not splash it around recklessly; that would lead to speculation about how he could afford such extravagance. But at the thought of using money which belonged to the bank, he was uneasy. His job, all these years, had been to look after that money.
He parked outside the house where Wendy had her room and opened the front door. The stairs were covered in worn matting. He walked briskly up them and administered a sharp rap to her door.
Wendy was ready. She wore trousers and a padded anorak. Robbie was glad he had assembled his country garb, such as it was – a thick polo sweater and a light anorak he used for holidays. He and Isabel no longer went on holiday together. For a few years they had tried it, and had been to Spain and Yugoslavia. Isabel, immense in a swimsuit, had sunned herself at the poolside while Robbie, who burned easily, lay under the shade of a beach umbrella reading. There had been other couples to chat to in the hotel, and Robbie had enjoyed that; Isabel was at least diluted. Sometimes, seeing Isabel, who never swam, walking around the pool, Robbie would will her to fall in; but someone would certainly rescue her. He dreamed of pushing her in on a dark night.
Now she took a few days off at a time and went to London to fashion shows, and once for a long weekend to Bath with Beryl. The two women talked of going abroad together but felt that one of them must be at hand for the business. They had good assistants now, however, in both shops, and would probably soon decide that things could be left for a fortnight.
Robbie spent most of his holidays working on improvements at 49 Claremont Terrace, or simply enjoying having the house to himself while Isabel was in the shop. He had not thought seriously of going away alone.
The sun came out as Robbie and Wendy drove northwards. He turned off the main road and they went through small villages with houses built of old stone, some with thatched roofs like warm hats and others topped by mellow tiles. Pale, timid wisps of green showed in the hedges and the willow trees carried early buds on their long boughs, like tresses of yellow hair.
They found a museum in a small town, and wandered about looking at displays of ancient weapons and cooking pots. There was an exhibition of old lace, and the ivory bobbins and padded cushions used to make it. Wendy said she would like to learn how to do it. She gazed at the intricate detail, leaning on the showcase, and Robbie leaned on it too so that their elbows touched. She did not move away at all hastily.
They had tea in a thatched cottage with a low, beamed ceiling. A tall, thin woman in a flowered overall served them with scones and clotted cream. Robbie could not remember having tea in a place like this for years. Tea did not feature in his life with Isabel.
‘Your wife has to work on Saturdays,’ Wendy said, spreadin
g cream.
‘Yes.’
‘Your wife,’ she tried again. She had been very conscious of his elbow touching hers, and had taken care not to move away for several seconds. He had put his hand under her arm to help her into the car, too, and had most carefully helped her off with her anorak as they settled to their tea.
‘Isabel’s quite a lot older than I am,’ said Robbie, and his voice was harsh. ‘I was very young when we got married. We don’t have a lot in common. She’s very wrapped up in her business. She’s very successful,’ he added, to be fair.
We’re two of the walking wounded, thought Wendy.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Have another scone.’
James Jordan returned to Wimbledon on Saturday evening. The police had released the Renault; they wanted him to come back the next day because if he went home for long the press would realize that Helen was recovering. A small paragraph tucked away in some of the dailies mentioned that her condition was unchanged, but a political kidnapping in Italy was taking the headlines and there was not much space for a story where the trail seemed to have grown cold. If she died, that would be different.
James could not get over the tale Helen had told him about the old man who had been her lover. He was quite appalled.
‘A man old enough to be your father,’ he had said in disgust.
‘He wasn’t old then, James, though it’s true he was old enough to be my father. He was about the age you are now. And I hadn’t met you.’
But James was shocked.
‘All these years,’ he said. ‘All these years I’ve loved an illusion.’
‘Oh, James, be reasonable,’ Helen said. ‘As for Hugo – I’m sure you fancy young girls – I’ve seen you looking at them – Ginny’s friends – and I’ve told you, it was before we met.’
She was too weak to argue, and she wept as he drove away.
May had wanted to telephone the police after the kitchen window had been broken, but Wilfred would not agree.
Death on Account Page 7