They breakfasted, and when Liz was ready to leave — wearing the Wellingtons she kept at Woodside and an anorak from her car — Helen said, ‘I can’t tell you what it means to me to have you help me through this, and be so brave and calm.’
Liz, feeling furtive and jittery, said gently, ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, I’m sure. Listen, what we were talking about yesterday, about the police checking up on Reggie’s background and everything. I’ve been thinking... they might contact you. If they do it won’t be because I’ve told them about this, you can trust me.’
‘But, Liz, why should they?’
‘Well, they seem to need to ask about him and you know more about him than anyone. This is such a peculiar business; we have no way of knowing what people are thinking, saying... ’
‘I know. I can only hope that this vicious person has been satisfied by this act, and will do nothing else. And I do think the way we must look at it is that if they’re asking questions helps to settle this awful business, then we must co-operate as much as we can.’
Liz left, arranging to be in contact later. Once out of the gates, on to Woodside, she drove no more than two houses, slipped into a parking space under the trees, locked her car and went at a fast walk, with a sense of déjà-vu, along the path. It was impossible for Helen to see her from the house, but she felt conspicuous, lurking by the fence, studying the state of the shrubs, the gate itself — firmly locked. It was hopeless, she couldn’t tell if the shrubs were more damaged than when she had thrashed through them on Friday; it didn’t look as if the gate had been tampered with — although how was she equipped to judge?
She turned to go. Gasped aloud to find a figure almost upon her in the gloomy tree-tunnel. It was only a moment — the sense of menace in a deserted place — she felt limp with relief, recognising him.
‘Made you jump, didn’t I?’ A gleeful chuckle.
‘Mr Truelove, it’s you.’
‘Who else?’
Who indeed, in that place and at that hour of the day. Morning and evening, at unvarying times, he followed an unvarying route, no matter what the weather, brisk in his lurching stride. If he had worn his (up to now) unvarying clothes she would have recognised him at once. But in place of his shabby military mac and old tweed ghillie hat, he wore an entire outfit of smart, enveloping waterproofs.
His reedy laugh rang out, the heartless self-congratulation of the old. ‘You should have seen your face. Didn’t recognise me, eh? My daughter bought me these, aren’t I splendid?’
Liz admired them, wanting to brain the old bugger. He made people scream with his cantankerousness. His daughter, mortified by his looking like a tramp but not wanting to discourage him from leaving the house twice a day, must have found it worth the fight to get him out of his old clothes.
As he was not remotely interested in anyone but himself, he didn’t ask Liz what she was doing hanging about the end of Helen’s garden. But he was unpredictable, so just in case, Liz said a cheerful, ‘Bye now,’ and was off. If she kept their encounter brief there was a good chance he would forget all about it and not start asking Helen awkward questions next time he met her.
Ten
In the old merchant area of Chatfield, broad pavements, stately squares, grand buildings, spoke of past wealth and confidence. At the close of the working day the business community surged homeward, leaving the city to the whisper of rain on shining streets, the ghosts of prosperous gentlemen driving home in their carriages.
The pub — the Brown Jug — having its interior grotesquely interfered with in the sixties, had been returned to an approximation of its origins with engraved glass, polished wood and pretend gas lighting. In an atmosphere so peaceable they might have been the only customers (there were, after all, very few), WPC Annette Jones and DS James Collier sat for some time with little inclination to say anything. After a while, Annette roused herself. ‘Right. We’ve been everywhere. Well, everywhere this niece — this spinster schoolmistress — said.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Collier, thinking of the spinster schoolmistress, gazed innocently into space.
‘The Manhattan. Merlin’s. Bloody Barker’s. Oh, Christ, everywhere. This Reggie is so vacuous he scarcely exists as an entity, never mind picking up someone like Beattie.’ She sipped her drink, put her glass down carefully. ‘This is the local brew, isn’t it? We’d better take it easy, it’s pretty strong.’
‘Just one. We need something to eat. Shall we try that Thai restaurant? Unless you’ve got anything else doing tonight.’
‘No, I haven’t. That’s a good idea.’ There was no one waiting for her to go home, she was disinclined to cook for herself. In the intervals of affairs she claimed to be hopelessly in love with Hunter. Collier said she was only trying to make herself interesting. ‘Interesting... He never looks at me with a spark of interest, never mind decent galloping lust, the way a man should look at a woman. You know.’ — ‘I take it that’s a rhetorical question.’
Like Annette, Collier was currently unattached; when he did have a relationship it was with a man. Annette found nothing remarkable in this except his ability to withstand verbal attacks of homophobia ranging from the crass to the savage. Looking like a school prefect, blonde and scrubbed clean, just about regulation height — if that had still applied — no one expected him to fight dirty. He had to, to survive. He loved being a policeman; where it came to defending his private life he was very, very tough.
(When Hunter first asked Annette if she could team up with Collier — could they work together? — she was enthusiastic. ‘Oh, James is great. Not that I fancy him.’ Hunter observed it was just as well. ‘Yes, guv. I know.’ ‘Good, then there aren’t going to be any problems.’ None, she assured him, and there never had been.)
She looked round the pub. ‘It’s nice here, isn’t it? Restful. James, why does Hunter always call pubs the Frog and Nightgown?’
‘Only the ones he likes drinking in, I believe.’
She felt too peaceful to give this any serious thought, so they sat in communicative and undemanding silence until Collier said, ‘He was doing it again today. Having a conversation with himself.’
‘And you sort of fall into his mind, like falling into — a snowdrift. I have to dig like bloody hell sometimes to find out where I am, don’t you?’
‘It doesn’t always do to bother. Not if it’s private.’
Deeply interested in the private recesses of Hunter’s mind, Annette asked, ‘Was it?’
‘Yes. The young Bette Davis. Her early films.’
‘Now you’re doing it,’ Annette said, then grew dreamy. She adored old black and white films. ‘Her dresses. The way she wore them. The way she walked.’
‘Yes, that was what he was on about.’
Annette examined this in the context of a working day, unavailingly. ‘What, for God’s sake?’
‘Miss Farrell. Willoughby’s niece. That’s how she walks.’
Annette narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t tell me.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘No.’
‘Tall. Slim. Classic beauty.’
‘And you said he said she’s “very nice”. What a cretinous understatement.’
‘He also said she knows something.’
‘I wish we bloody did.’
In from the whispering rain, the evening quiet, Constable George Withers appeared, bulky and smiling. They greeted him with pleasure. Collier went to the bar to get him a drink. Annette said, ‘George, what can you be doing out without your wife?’
‘No place for Enid when it comes to a wild night with a pal.’
‘Don’t be silly. You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because... ’ He sat before her, square and solid in his civvies. ‘People like you don’t. You’re everyone’s uncle — cosy and full of common sense.’
‘I’ve always wanted to be sexy and dangerous.’
‘Who is?’ Collier delivered George’s half pint. ‘You’d
better watch that stuff, George.’
‘Weaned on it. And what are you two about?’
‘Just collapsing at the end of an unproductive day.’
Collier said, ‘Come on, Annette, I know we haven’t turned up anything but there is the eye-witness. You up to date on that, George?’
‘Only that there is one. No details.’
Annette explained. ‘A young woman, lives in Hambling. Thursday, Friday and Saturday she works as a night nurse at Chatfield General. She uses the old Hambling road because it’s closer to where she lives than going through town to the by-pass. One Thursday evening, four weeks ago — she remembers because she was late and had to phone up and tell them when she’d be in. At the by-pass end of the road she saw a woman answering to Beattie’s description getting into a white Mondeo.’
‘Did she notice the driver?’
‘No. She was so intrigued seeing someone like Beattie in a country lane in the middle of nowhere she never even looked at the driver, couldn’t say if it was a man or a woman.’
And it was just that one night?’
‘Yes — because she was later than her usual time.’
‘Right. What happened about the buses? She must have left a trail there.’
‘True, but it hasn’t led anywhere new Still the bus shelter by the old Hambling road,’ Annette said. Several passengers, she explained, had noticed Beattie, some chatted with her — just a few words — nothing that gave any indication who she was meeting, where she was going. But — the weather being so bad that last Thursday evening, there were few people travelling, no one was much inclined to speak, so no one could say if there was anything unusual in her manner. ‘We’ve had nothing from the road check, though, and nothing of value in response to the press release.’
Collier said, ‘Your turn now, George. Come clean, what are you up to?’
George had a way of looking at Collier: measuring, not unkind. He would accept Hunter’s recommendation of any man, but he still needed a margin in which to make his own judgement. And if this nice lass thought so much of him, he must be pretty straight. So to speak.
‘Your boss and me are having a night out, going round our old haunts.’
Annette said in a small voice, ‘Can I come?’
Collier said, ‘Don’t take any notice of her, she gets weak-minded when she’s tired. Ah, of course... You and Mr Hunter know this city inside out. You both grew up here, didn’t you?’
‘Man and beast.’
‘So it’s not just a night off, is it? I mean, some of this was Beattie’s patch, too, wasn’t it? George — did you know her? All those years ago?’ Annette asked this with all the insultingly bright-eyed tactlessness of the young.
‘No. I’ve tried to think back. There were hundreds of us kids. She might only have lived a few streets away, but still... there were invisible frontiers. You had to make sure you knew what they were if you wanted to survive, you know — ’
No, they didn’t know — sitting there eager and polished, with their Young Conservative background and university education. They were the product of what he had made sure his kids had — an upbringing in a sheltered suburb of well-kept gardens and parks. What could they know of survival on the streets?
‘You mean, you’re going to see if anyone can tell you anything about her, even something inconsequential?’
‘It’s all inconsequential,’ Hunter said. No one had noticed him come in. He took off his trench coat; rain spangled his dark hair. As he sat down a waiter — previously indistinguishable from the decor — appeared at the table.
Collier said, ‘Not for us, thanks. If Annette drinks when she’s hungry she falls down.’
Annette kicked him under the table, said to Hunter, ‘Inconsequential?’
‘Mmm. Everyone’s going to tell us something, and everyone wise after the event. It’s the only subject round here. Poor old Beattie had to pop her clogs to get the attention she’s getting now.’
Annette said, ‘But, George, you’ve covered this ground, haven’t you? Ad nauseam.’
‘This is different,’ George said. ‘We’re having a bit of a night out. We’ll look in here, have a drink there, a chat, a bit of reminiscence — we’re good at that. Egg and chips at a caff, mug of tea at the all-night with the toms and taxi drivers.’
‘Return of the natives,’ Collier murmured.
‘You’ve got it, lad.’ George said. Because he and Hunter, for all their well-tailored look, had that mysterious ability — the partial eclipse of self — that enabled them to graft themselves on to their surroundings: the familiarity with which they sat, the ease with which they talked; the confidence of their walk, the salt of their everyman humour. Their progress through the evening might be marked with furtive slinkings away, panic-stricken departures, nudges and nods — watch them buggers, they’re the Bill. Still, they had their place in that world, they would talk and be talked to. They would listen.
Hunter took an experimental sip of his drink and sat looking at it in silent respect before saying, ‘I’ve just come from Beattie’s flat. Just taking a look round.’
He had no need to describe it, they all knew what it would be like; variations came in the range of possessions and degrees of cleanliness. Beattie’s possessions were meagre, cheap, worn, pathetically clean. But here and there, gaudy proofs of affluence amongst all that was scrupulously brushed, scrubbed, mended... New matching duvet and bedroom curtains. New rug before the gas fire. New clothes in the wardrobe. If credibility could be stretched far enough to consider that Beattie had savings, any evidence of them would be in her still undiscovered handbag. (Another handbag, battered enough for everyday use, yielded nothing.) There was no cash hidden away in the flat. She was on Social Security, with nothing to spare. He had no doubt who was giving her money. Voluntarily? Or not?
He was being regarded expectantly. At any moment someone would ask him what he had found that forensic had missed. He felt apologetic. ‘I didn’t get anything out of the flat, but I did find a neighbour who had something. Well... Old girl one floor up from Beattie’s. Knew Beattie by sight but not more than the occasional word. Except a few weeks ago — the old girl’s husband was very ill — Beattie knocked on their door and said to let her know if she could fetch any shopping. That’s about the longest conversation they’d had. Early September, the old boy took a turn for the worse, his wife was often up half the night, making tea, looking out of the window for something to do.’
Annette leaned forward. ‘She saw them? She saw Beattie with him?’
‘She saw Beattie getting out of a car. A white car. There’s something in front of Causeway laughingly called the Concourse. Most of the lights are broken. There’s so much shadow it’d be impossible to see inside any car.’
Collier said, ‘Someone else who couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman driving.’
‘That’s it. But it was a Thursday night. The old boy was taken into hospital next day, that’s how she remembers.’
George said, ‘Well, there’s always been the problem of how she got home. He drove her. Obvious. And at a time when there was hardly a soul about to see him.’
Collier said, ‘And at the Hambling end presumably no one to ask why he was going backwards and forwards at all hours of the night. So... he lives alone?’
George said, ‘This Willoughby doesn’t, does he? Isn’t his set-up with his sister?’
Annette said, ‘She’s not deaf, is she? I’m not being frivolous — but if she couldn’t hear him going out, coming back late, it’d made her corroboration of any times useless, wouldn’t it?’
Hunter said, ‘I think we’ll go and take a look at Miss Willoughby tomorrow, you and I, Annette.’
‘Right, guv. Did you get anything else from the neighbours?’
‘I might have done, buggered if I know it means anything. Just gossiping here and there, one of them lives opposite the local laundrette, knows Beattie by sight. Apparently in the few weeks before her death,
Beattie started going regularly into the laundrette, not carrying any washing. I went to see the owner. What happened was that every Thursday or Friday, Beattie went in there to use the phone. Being on private premises it’s unvandalised. It’s also private in the sense of being in a little lobby to one side of the laundrette. She couldn’t overhear what Beattie was saying and Beattie never volunteered anything.’
They thought this over for a while. Annette said, ‘It’s significant in that it was an unusual activity for her, coinciding with the time she’d been seeing this man.’
‘On a Thursday,’ Collier said. ‘Confirming their evening date. On a Friday — what?’
‘It might have nothing to do with the investigation. But it’ll give you an excuse to feed information into that insatiable instrument of yours.’
Collier agreed, and in a short while he and Annette went thoughtfully off in search of supper. Sitting companionably with George, Hunter picked up his glass, swallowed deep. ‘This the special?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you what, George. It’ll take the wrinkles out of any bugger’s scrotum.’
*
Late. George, completely sober, drove Hunter, not completely drunk, home to his flat on the outskirts of Chatfield — an exclusive development so featureless that in certain lights it looked like a cardboard cut-out. There Hunter lived, minimally, expecting nothing in the way of aesthetic satisfaction from his domestic arrangements; he ate out, he worked. At least the flat provided privacy, adequate for one-night stands although too stark for anything of a more regular nature. Affairs occasionally involving candlelight, recklessness and clean underwear were conducted in expensive hotels. Hunter took his lifestyle for granted; George considered it grievous. Glaring at the development from the car, he said, ‘Bloody barracks. I don’t know. You had it all. Wife, daughter, nice house, nice garden.’
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