A Choice of Victims

by J F Straker

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve still got them. They’re in a suitcase under my bed.’

  ‘Really? Then if you didn’t want the money, why did you steal them?’

  His rigid attitude behind the wheel changed to motion. He began to rock back and forth as if urging the Fiat to increased speed. Patricia felt the car surge forward, pushing her back against the seat. Water cascaded over the windscreen as the front wheels hit a puddle.

  ‘Why?’ he said, his voice suddenly loud. ‘Because I killed Elizabeth, that’s why.’

  Now she was really scared. She did not believe him; young men of her acquaintance did not go around robbing their friends and murdering their stepmothers. But if he was not a thief and a killer he was almost certainly crazy. Maybe his mind was only temporarily deranged, caused by whatever it was that was troubling him, but that did not alter the situation; she was being driven recklessly, perhaps dangerously, along winding country lanes, on a gloom-laden evening in pouring rain, by a youth who was no longer in control of his actions. So how would it end? Did he know, did he care? Did he have a plan? Or would it depend on some crazy whim that might suddenly occur to him?

  She tried to fight the panic that gripped her. Keep cool, she told herself, you’ve got to keep cool. Behave normally, don’t let him know you’re frightened. There’s no telling how he might react.

  She took a deep breath. ‘It—it’s getting late, Andrew,’ she said, her voice just a little too shrill. ‘Isn’t it time we turned back? My parents will be worried.’

  He laughed. It was a dry, harsh sound. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

  ‘It’s difficult,’ she said. ‘I mean—well, why would you kill her?’

  He looked at her then. It was only a brief glance, but his expression surprised her. His thin lips were drawn back over clenched teeth, there was a wild look in his deep-set eyes. But it was the wildness of anger rather than of insanity. So had she got it wrong? Was it true? Had he really killed Elizabeth?

  ‘Because I hated her,’ he said. The words exploded from him in almost ungovernable fury. ‘Christ, how I hated the bitch!’

  She knew then that he had not been lying. She could almost feel his fury. It was as if the car could feel it too; they were going faster now, hitting the potholes, bouncing off the grass verge, skidding and sliding round the bends. Terrified, she glanced at the speedometer. The needle hovered around the sixty mark, and she knew that on the wet and uneven surface of the lane, with the rain and the gloom obscuring visibility, only a miracle could prevent an accident.

  ‘Please, Andrew!’ she said shrilly, abandoning all pretence at calm. ‘Slow down, please! I’m frightened.’

  ‘I hated her from the word go,’ he said, ignoring her plea. ‘Those hard eyes of hers, and her bony face and her strident voice—I knew what it would be like. I daresay my father knew too, only he was mesmerized by her damned money. Well, at least he got something out of it. But not me. Do you know what pocket money I had at school? Fifty pence. That’s all. Fifty pence!’

  He paused. Did he expect her to comment? ‘That was pretty mean,’ she said.

  ‘I’d reckoned on some sort of allowance after leaving school,’ he went on. ‘Not much, knowing her. But something. I didn’t get it, though. She said I didn’t need money, seeing as I was living at home and everything found.’ He snorted. ‘Some home! I had to beg for every damned thing. My father forked out occasionally, but not often, he’s always overdrawn. She never recognized my birthday, and all I got at Christmas was something like a pair of socks. Something she’d have had to buy anyway.’

  His tone was bitter and he was still driving too fast, but she thought to detect a slight relaxation in his attitude. Keep him talking, she thought. Let him vent his anger in words rather than in action.

  ‘She gave you that guitar, though, didn’t she?’ she said.

  ‘Did she hell! I won it in a raffle. Even that caused trouble. I wasn’t all that keen on it, but since I’d got it I thought I might as well learn to play it. That infuriated her. She wouldn’t let me practise in the house, pretended it gave her a headache. I had to use the shed.’ Patricia caught her breath as the car started to slide. But he righted the skid expertly, not touching the brakes. ‘It was like that all the time. Any way she could thwart me—any way she could humiliate me—you name it, she did it. And she didn’t spend a penny on me that she didn’t have to; you know, that would make her look mean to outsiders. Did you see that Spitfire I was working on with Derek?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You showed me.’

  ‘I’d set my heart on owning it. She knew it, too. But she wouldn’t buy it for me, although Derek was prepared to let me have it cheap. Two cars in the family were enough, she said. Bitch!’

  Patricia thought that Elizabeth had had reason for her refusal. She kept the thought to herself, but she wondered whether Andrew’s grudge against his stepmother had gradually become a festering hatred he could no longer control, so that he had seen personal animosity towards him in everything she did or did not do.

  ‘I’m sorry, Andrew,’ she said. ‘I never realized things were so difficult for you.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you?’ he said harshly. ‘We all have to keep up appearances. And then there was her refusal to let me train as a racing driver. That’s what I’ve always wanted to be. And I’d be good, I know I would.’ He slammed the car round a bend, tyres squealing in the wet. ‘The bitch wouldn’t stump up the fees. You know what she told me? “You’re not my son”,’ she said. ‘“I owe you nothing. And that’s about all you’ll get from me. Nothing”.’ He looked at her, his face drawn. ‘What do you think of that, eh?’

  ‘Cruel,’ she said. ‘But please, Andrew! Can’t we—’

  ‘Mind you, I didn’t mean to kill her,’ he said. ‘Not consciously, anyway, although I knew that as long as she was around she’d do her best to make my life a misery. It just happened. One minute she was standing there, sneering at me. Then she turned to get into the car, and I hit her with this piece of wood I was holding.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t remember picking it up, but I must have done. Somewhere on the way, I suppose.’

  Patricia shuddered, as much in revulsion at what he had done as in fear of what was happening.

  ‘Take me home, Andrew, please!’ she begged. ‘I’m frightened.’

  ‘Don’t you want to hear how it happened?’

  ‘No. At least—yes. Yes, I suppose so. But I can’t take it in while you’re racing around like this. If you want to talk, couldn’t we stop for a while?’

  ‘I like driving,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to stop.’

  ‘Well, slow down, then,’ she pleaded. ‘Please!’

  To her surprise and relief he did as she asked. He was not drunk when he left the Falcon, he said, but he was far from sober. He was also in a bitter mood, for that morning he had had to tell Derek that Elizabeth had refused to buy the Spitfire. He had started off along the ride through the woods, but he was not really thinking about where he was going, and presently he found that he had wandered on to the track that led past Philipson’s cottage. There seemed no point in turning back, and he had gone on, until he had come across the Morris and had realized that Elizabeth must have been delivering Philipson’s meal and could appear at any moment. ‘So I waited,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I had any clear idea of what I was going to say to her. I expect if I’d been sober I wouldn’t even have waited.

  ‘She was surprised to see me. She assumed I was waiting for a lift, and she said curtly that she had two more calls to make in the Glendale estate and that I would have to walk home, rain or no rain. That really made me mad. I mean, I wasn’t there to beg a lift, it just hadn’t occurred to me. But she would have to pass the Manor to get to the estate, which meant that she was just being her usual bloody-minded self. And when she turned away with that superior sort of sneer on her face I—well, like I said, I hit her.’

  Patricia felt sick. Her youth and her conventi
onal upbringing, the narrow, hitherto safe little world in which she lived, made it almost impossible for her to comprehend how someone like Andrew, someone she liked to think of as a close friend, could commit a murder. Though her mind told her it had happened, emotionally it seemed too horrible to be true.

  ‘I didn’t feel any remorse,’ Andrew said after a pause. ‘I don’t now. She was a wicked, vicious woman, she deserved to die. I remember thinking that now my father would be rich and I’d get most of the things I wanted, although that wasn’t in my mind when I killed her. Anyway, I put her in the boot and locked it and drove the car up to the lane. I had the idea, you see, that I could drive it somewhere and lose it—like in one of those ponds on Fenton Heath—and that by the time she was found any possible clues would be lost. I got out to shut the gate—I don’t know why—force of habit, I suppose—and that was when I heard those two men coming. So I hid behind the hedge until they passed. Only they didn’t pass. I heard them get into the car, and shortly after there was an almighty crashing of gears and off they went.

  ‘Well, that was a piece of luck, of course. It meant they’d be blamed for the murder, and even if they managed to wriggle out of it there was little chance it could be traced back to me. I was lucky too that I didn’t bump into anyone on the way home. That was because it was lunchtime, I suppose. And it was still raining. Absolutely teeming.’

  ‘Weren’t you scared?’ she asked. ‘At what you’d done, I mean.’

  ‘Of course I was. So would anyone be. But I reckoned I could cope.’

  Dusk was falling and the rain was still heavy, but he continued to drive without lights. Patricia tried to read the signposts, but visibility was blurred. And was it nervousness, she wondered, that made her think he was stepping up the speed again?

  ‘Why are you telling me this, Andrew?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t you afraid I might tell the police?’ That was a mistake, and she added quickly, ‘I won’t, of course. You can trust me. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘They know.’

  ‘They do? But how can they?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they do. Hasted told my father. Not that it was me. Just that he knew who had killed her.’

  ‘Couldn’t it be some sort of a trick?’

  ‘No. My father believed him. Besides, he mentioned things that proved he knew it was me.’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Well, that another person was involved.’

  ‘But there wasn’t, was there?’

  ‘Not at the time, no. But this chap rang me later. He’d been in the woods, he said, and he’d seen me kill her. He also said he’d got the piece of wood, and that it would cost me a lot of money to get it back. I’d dropped it, you see, and forgot to pick it up. There was blood on it, he said.’

  Patricia tried to imagine what it would be like to commit a murder and then be blackmailed by an unscrupulous witness. The image was beyond her comprehension and she shook her head in a gesture of defeat.

  ‘What—what did you do?’ she asked.

  ‘What could I do? I’ve no money of my own. I tried to borrow from my father, but he said he can’t touch Elizabeth’s money until the will has been proved. It was when I explained this to the man that he told me to steal those things from your house. He said that if I didn’t he—’

  ‘Look out!’ Patricia screamed.

  The unclipped headlights of the oncoming car formed an impenetrable blue of light across the wet windscreen of the Fiat as it rounded the bend. The bend was sharper than Andrew had anticipated and he had drifted too far to the right. He stamped on his brakes and the oncoming car scraped by. The Fiat was not so lucky. It mounted the verge, stayed poised for the briefest of moments and then plunged downward.

  Chapter Eleven

  It had been Frances’s idea that they should ask the Hasteds to dinner. Andrew had been killed in the accident; not wearing a seat belt, he had been thrown through the windscreen and had died on the way to hospital without regaining consciousness. Patricia had been more fortunate, suffering a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder and facial injuries that, although not severe, would take some time to heal. She had given the details of Andrew’s confession to the police and also to her parents, and the Scotts had passed on the information to the Holdens. But it was not enough to satisfy Frances’s curiosity. There was so much more she wanted to know. And who could have better knowledge of the affair than George Hasted?

  ‘You don’t think they’ll feel they’ve been invited just to pump him?’ she asked Tom.

  ‘Of course they will,’ Tom said. ‘They’re not idiots. Particularly as you’ve never asked them before.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Frances considered. ‘But then it’s only recently we’ve really got to know them, what with Sybil’s baby and George asking me endless questions. Anyway, what’s wrong with curiosity? It’s natural, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perfectly natural.’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded to herself ‘Yes, I think I’ll ask them. They can always refuse.’

  Two weeks had passed since the accident. Andrew had been buried with the minimum of fuss, Tony Bassett had been arrested and was awaiting trial, Patricia was still in hospital and David Doyle had gone on an extended holiday with his girlfriend. It was generally considered that if he returned it would be to put the Manor up for sale, and that he would then leave the village for good. He had been shocked by the disclosure of his son’s crimes. But in the opinion of some, among whom Frances and Tom were numbered, he was far from blameless for what had happened. A more caring interest in his son’s well-being might possibly have averted the tragedy.

  Frances delayed the invitation until after the children were back at school—well-mannered though they were, like most young people they could sometimes be disconcertingly frank in their comments. ‘Besides, just the four of us will make it more intimate,’ she told Tom when, to her delight, the Hasteds accepted the invitation. ‘And there could be details he wouldn’t care to mention in front of the children.’

  Tom laughed. ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Frances! It wasn’t that sort of a crime.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But all the same...’ She paused. ‘I must get out my cookbooks. I want it to be a really super dinner.’

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘They’re a nice couple.’

  Sybil was secretly thrilled by the invitation. She was not a snob, but she was also not averse to climbing the social ladder if the opportunity offered. Hasted’s father had been a postman and her own father a railway signalman, whereas the Holdens seemed to know everyone worth knowing in the county, and Frances’s father, now deceased, had held a commission in the Household Cavalry. But she knew better than to mention this aspect of the invitation to her husband. George was a proud man and would probably have turned it down. As it was, he said cheerfully that no doubt the Holdens would expect him to sing for his supper and that, within limits, he would be happy to oblige.

  Frances took particular care in her choice and preparation of the meal: a first course of crisply golden crepes aux sardines served with whipped cream and egg-white, followed by fillet of beef en croûte and finishing with oranges flambées glazed in caramel. She had been slightly apprehensive about the crepes aux sardines, which she had prepared only once before and then not too successfully. This time, however, it went better. Certainly her guests seemed to enjoy it, as they did the rest of the dinner.

  She had made up her mind to contain her curiosity until after the meal unless a suitable opening should occur earlier. But it was inevitable that the murder should be discussed, if only on its periphery, for it was still a major topic in the community. It was unanimously agreed that it would be good for the village if David Doyle decided to sell the Manor; he had never really fitted in. Sam Bates would certainly be pleased, Sybil said; according to Ivy he was already reassessing his plans for the proposed new estate. And talking of plans, she said, had they heard that Ed Mason was proposing to put the shop up fo
r sale? ‘They’ve never really liked it here,’ she said. ‘Especially Cheryl. I’m surprised they’ve stuck it so long.’

  ‘Selling the shop won’t be easy,’ Hasted said. According to Derek, now back in favour with Alice, the affair with Cheryl was definitely over. So Cheryl had lost both her sugar daddy (or was that not how she regarded Philipson?) and her lover. And she had always hated the shop. She would certainly favour a move. ‘It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. How’s Mrs Mason’s wrist, Doctor?’

  ‘Should be out of plaster soon. It’s only a minor fracture. And the name’s Tom.’ He smiled. ‘After all, I gather you and Frances got pretty matey during the investigation.’

  ‘We saw each other practically every day,’ Frances said. ‘Did you know about that, Sybil?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Sybil said. ‘The police don’t disclose the names of their informants.’

  Was I an informant? Frances wondered. Yes, I suppose I was. ‘If I was an informant I was a very uninformed one,’ she said. ‘Most of the time I hadn’t a clue what George was after. But I gather I helped.’

  ‘Considerably,’ Hasted said.

  ‘How? Or shouldn’t I ask?’

  ‘No reason why you shouldn’t. But do we really want to end such a delightful meal by talking shop?’

  ‘We do indeed,’ Frances said. ‘It may be shop to you and Sybil, but it isn’t shop to us.’ She looked round the table. Not a morsel of oranges flambées remained on plates or dish. ‘Take them into the sitting room, Tom, while I get the coffee. And don’t you dare say a word, George, until I’m back.’

  For obvious reasons, Hasted said when Frances rejoined them and started to serve the coffee, the murder of a wealthy wife almost invariably caused the police to look closely at the husband. David Doyle had been no exception, and in his case there had been reasons additional to the obvious reasons, Hasted explained, which he preferred not to disclose. ‘Andrew was also suspect, of course; he made no secret of his antipathy to his stepmother. But he was just one of a bunch. Despite of couple of inconsistencies, he didn’t really stand out.’