‘And the deep-freeze?’ I said.
‘We had that already,’ he said and added: ‘It was for me, I was twenty years older than Marianne. It was I that was going to come back in fifty years’ time, not Marianne.’
We were silent for a time.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘what happened next?’
‘I said, it’s wrong of you to insist that I do this, Marianne.’
I said: ‘But you did it.’
‘Yes, as soon as I was equipped and ready. I did it at night. It was a terribly hot night, not a breath of wind. I removed the whole growth and cleaned the wound.’
‘I know nothing about surgery,’ I said, ‘but you’ll be questioned by people who do. Are you satisfied in yourself that you carried out the operation as you should have done?’
‘Perfectly satisfied.’
‘And do you believe that another, impartial surgeon would say the same?’
‘I do.’ He wiped sweat away from his forehead and added: ‘You realize, of course, that I couldn’t be as dispassionate as an uninvolved surgeon would have been.’
‘I understand. And then she got worse?’
‘Very soon afterwards. She had discomfort with her mouth at first; then she was in pain and finally in agony, complaining of pain not just where the growth had been, but higher up inside her cheek, in her throat and in her ear.’
‘How did you treat the pain?’
‘I could only alleviate it.’
‘And how did you do that?’
‘With morphine.’
‘And where did you get it?’
‘You can get anything,’ he said flatly, ‘if you’re prepared to pay for it.’
‘Go on.’
‘I examined her. There were secondaries in her left cheek, in the throat, and the beginnings of a growth in the left mastoid. I said, Marianne, you’ll have to do now what I should have made you do all along, and that’s go straight into hospital. She said, and if I die there I shall be buried in the usual way, and we’ll never meet again in fifty years. But I can’t treat you here, I said, I haven’t what I need and I’ve got no help. She said, I’m not going into hospital and that’s final. I said, Marianne, you’re very seriously ill – how can I just stand here and let you get worse and worse? It was like a nightmare, Sergeant.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I can see it was.’
‘I said, Marianne, don’t you want to get better and see your friends again and sing? I’ll never sing again, she said slowly, I know that, and I don’t believe I’ll ever get better now. You mustn’t talk like that, I said. You must go where you’ll be properly cared for, and that means hospital. I’ve got all that on tape as well. I listen to it over and over.’
Now I knew really what the voices I had half heard were saying – the dread, desperate arguments.
He continued: ‘It’s my face too, she said. I’ve looked at it. William, I want you to smash every mirror in the house, and I did. She said, if ever I do go out I shall wear a veil.’
I said: ‘Did you continue to operate on her?’
‘Yes. Part of it was in her vocal cords.’
‘And you operated there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you consider that you carried that operation out in a proper way?’
‘Yes.’
‘Under those circumstances?’
‘The test of any surgeon is his courage.’
‘Were you successful?’
‘I removed everything that I had to, but still I couldn’t halt it.’
‘Did you operate on her any further after that?’
‘Yes. I removed the new growth in her cheek. I had to go through the cheek, of course, but that was nothing; it would have left the smallest of scars. But you may know how it is with cancer. You remove one secondary and then almost immediately another one—’ He stopped.
I said: ‘And the mastoid?’
‘I had to do it,’ he said. ‘Don’t you see that otherwise she would have died in worse agony than she did?’
‘So that was why she was bald.’
‘Of course. I had to shave her.’
‘I’m asking the kind of questions that you’re going to have to answer at your trial.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘but you must remember that I had to do everything alone. Normally I would have had a team. But this was like being back in the war, trying to work on a battlefield.’
‘Where did she die,’ I said, ‘and when?’
‘It was on August 14th at teatime, in her bedroom. It was three days after the last operation.’
‘Was she in pain?’
‘No more so than usual. It had got to the point where at the first signs of distress I would give her morphine with a whisky base, and she would lie there dreaming and smiling.’
Half bald, I thought, and no lower lip. Dressings on her cheek, her throat and on the left side of her head. ‘Could she speak after the throat operation?’ I said.
‘No, just a croak,’ he said, ‘but she was most often on morphine anyway.’
‘What finally killed her?’
‘Shock, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘She was so weak after what she had already undergone that in her last hours I could watch her just slipping away.’
‘Do you think that any treatment could have made her well?’
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘and a woman – think of her face. In fifty years, of course—’
‘How was she when she died?’
‘Happy – I saw she was going and I put my arms round her, and she died looking out of the window at the sun, whispering old songs and stroking my face. I’ve come a long way from my own country, William, she said, but I’m going back there now. The morphine had really removed her from me already, but I could tell what she wanted to sing; we used to sing it together: Les filles sont volages, fréquentez-les donc pas; un jour elles vous aiment, un jour elles vous aiment pas. I sang it for her, and when I had finished she turned to me in my arms and thanked me very gravely, went grey and was gone.’
‘Did you take her downstairs yourself?’
‘I had to.’
21
‘When did Baddeley first start to bite?’
‘That was in November, about three months after Marianne had been downstairs, and the electricity strike happened. I was taking her flowers to her when the alarm from the freezer suddenly started. I looked at the thermometer; the temperature was only minus forty, so I rang Baddeley about the dry ice.’
‘Was Sanders working for you at that time?’
‘No, he had left; he was doing odd jobs for Baddeley.’
‘There was no trouble about Baddeley giving you this dry ice?’
‘Not at first.’
‘He didn’t ask you any questions? Didn’t ask you why you wanted anything so unusual?’
‘No, he made no trouble about it at all.’
‘You didn’t think that was strange?’
‘I was only thinking about Marianne.’
‘So you packed the dry ice in with her and then the strike ended. Then what happened?’
‘About a fortnight after that Baddeley came up to see me.’
‘Alone?’
‘No, there was a man called Prince with him whom he described as his assistant.’
‘What kind of person was he? Prince, I mean.’
‘Unpleasant.’
‘Tough?’
‘Big, from London, six foot two, hair crew-cut, sharp clothes. I saw them in this room. Baddeley sat in that corner there with his arms folded and said, I’ll let Mr Prince do the talking.’
‘And what did Prince say?’
‘It’s not the sort of language I use, but as near as I can recall he said: listen, you old cunt, what did you want that dry ice for a fortnight back? We think it was for your wife. Now you’d better play this straight up with us, otherwise the law’ll be round in less than five minutes and you’ll be right in the shit. And what about you? I said. Never mind about me, Pr
ince said, you just worry about yourself.’
‘That makes sense,’ I said. ‘Yes, I can hear that music.’
‘So then he said, we want to see the body, darling, to make sure, and that sharply. I said, and if I won’t? If you won’t, he said, I’ll turn this stinking old barracks over from cellar to attic and find out what we want to know anyway, and in a very short time. There’ll be some damage done in the process too, he added – in fact, by the time I’ve finished you won’t know your arse from your elbow in this place, and you could even get hurt yourself.’
‘And Baddeley?’
‘Baddeley just sat nodding and smiling and saying, I think you’d do best to cooperate with Mr Prince and myself, William.’
‘Had you ever talked about cryogenics in Thornhill?’
‘Yes of course,’ he said, ‘as a theory.’
I said: ‘Go on. Did either of these individuals in fact offer you violence?’
‘Yes. I was only thinking of Marianne. I was terrified the police would come and take her away. I didn’t care about myself so I prevaricated, until in the end Prince said, I’m getting fed up with this – if you don’t show us what we want to see, you miserable old bastard, I’ll do no more but knock the shit out of you, and what do you think about that?’
‘Did you in fact show them your wife’s body?’
‘Yes. I’m sixty-three, and I’m afraid my courage ran out in the end.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘So what happened when you told these two priceless crown jewels what they wanted to know?’
‘They put their contract to me.’
‘Did that include the reversion of this house to them on your death?’
‘It did.’
‘And what did you get in exchangc for this reversion, and for the thirty thousand pounds you paid them?’
‘The promise of their silence, Marianne and I left alone, and no trouble from the police.’
‘It’s really very very interesting,’ I said. ‘Yes. Now there’s a case that will most definitely go to trial when I’ve finished, and you will be a valuable prosecution witness in it. I cannot stand blackmailers.’
‘I was a fool to think I could keep her death secret,’ said Mardy, ‘but I was desperate.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘So then Baddeley set up these two companies, Wildways and Clearpath?’
‘Wildways existed already,’ Mardy said. ‘Clearpath was just for me to make the payments.’
‘Anyone else on the board except yourself?’
‘My wife. She can be a sleeping director, Baddeley said.’
‘I find that really very sick,’ I said.
‘Yes, they both burst out laughing when Baddeley said that, and then Baddeley said to me, it’s all right, she doesn’t have to sign the cheques, and her director’s fees can come straight to us, OK?’
‘The money you paid them,’ I said. ‘It was too much for you, wasn’t it, financially.’
‘It broke me.’
‘I will tell you something,’ I said, ‘if it’s any relief to you. You will have to go to trial, of course, but I’m the arresting officer, and I will tell you for nothing that there will be mitigating circumstances. Secondly, certain people in Thornhill, some more prominent than others, I have already marked down for arrest, and they will go down with a crash you could hear in Australia.’
‘But Marianne,’ he said. ‘What about Marianne?’
It was the question I couldn’t answer.
I thought as I walked back to the car that Mardy had been further abroad in the realm of terror and risk than most people would ever go.
As for me, I set my webs in the dark, and wait for my prey to come to me.
My prey is never innocent; it causes me wicked and frightening dreams, I am alone against it. All I want is for our democracy to be rid of violent bores.
I don’t mind how it’s done if we protect the innocent.
22
Hardly had I ceased thinking about bores when by Christ I was confronted by one. I was just going through the doors of the hotel when somebody darted out of a plastic armchair in the foyer, grabbed me by the wrist and said: ‘All right, what the hell’s going on with this Mardy business?’
‘Hell varies,’ I said, breaking my arm free, ‘and talking of that place, who the fuck are you?’
I didn’t know him.
‘I’m Fox,’ he shouted. ‘Detective-Inspector Fox. Fox by name and Fox by nature, that’s me.’
‘There’s no need to boast about what you can’t help,’ I said. ‘Now get off me.’
‘You cheeky bastard,’ he said, ‘you want to watch your step.’
‘And you mind you don’t break an arm,’ I said. ‘Now hop back into your panda, go back where you came from, fuck off out of here, go on, do it.’
‘I’m going to put in a report about your behaviour!’ he shouted.
‘It’ll just be ink wasted,’ I said. ‘Now go away, I’ve got a lot on my mind.’
‘You don’t understand!’ he screamed, waving his warrant card at me, ‘I’m working out of Serious Crimes.’
‘Work your way back to them then,’ I said, ‘nobody ordered you.’
‘If you’ve got to quarrel, gents,’ said the night porter, suddenly arriving, ‘would you mind doing it somewhere else? The other guests are trying to sleep.’
Fox said: ‘We’re police.’
‘I don’t give a fuck who you are,’ said the night porter. ‘I’ve not committed any crime so far and what I say in this hotel goes until six in the morning when I go to bed, and I advise you to do the same before I get fed up. If you’re both in love or something there are the rooms upstairs, but keep it quiet, will you?’
He drifted off. I said to Fox: ‘You one of Charlie Bowman’s mob? Yes? I thought so. Well, I know Charlie a great deal better than you do, and let me give you the strength of this, Inspector, and tell you what my thinking is. You’ve just been promoted, Charlie’s been lumbered with you, you’re brand new and silly and he’s sent you down here just to get you off his back and on to mine – anything to get rid of you for a while, he thinks that by pestering me you might get your motor run in a bit. Now don’t be tempted. I’m going to tell you what you’re going to do next. You’re going to turn quietly round, pretend you’ve never seen me if you know what’s good for you, and steer off back up the motorway to the smoke. Tell Charlie from me that this is my case, I’m warning you nicely, but if I get another sniff of you, you funny little artist, I might well be clumsier next time, are you with me?’
He could hardly help being, and had turned white. ‘You’re in for a lot of trouble over this,’ he said, ‘you do realize. I’ve been sent down here officially to help you clear this business up, whether you want me to or not.’
‘It’s my case,’ I said. ‘I’ll handle it the way I do all my work, entirely in my own way, and I absolutely will not cooperate with you, I don’t need you, now leave.’
‘You’re only a sergeant,’ he sneered, ‘you could get fired if you go on like this.’
‘They’ve never got round to it yet,’ I said. ‘Why? Do you fancy yourself at A14? I’ll be blunt, I don’t think you’re the right material.’
‘I think I could change all that,’ he said softly, ‘about your being fired.’
‘Do it, princess,’ I said, ‘and clear up all the shit if you can, but my view is that you’re just piss and wind, wooden-top, so get clear of me.’
‘You think you’re finished with me, do you?’
‘I don’t have to think hard about what I know.’
He went red as a poisoned berry. ‘All right, Sergeant. If that’s the way you want it.’
‘I do,’ I said, ‘now piss off, get back to traffic control, I’m busy. Never ever interfere with a case of mine again, and you might live to draw your pension.’
‘For the last time, Sergeant, I’m reminding you of my rank.’
‘The fact that you have to remind me of mine,’ I sa
id, ‘means that you don’t deserve yours. Christ only knows how you ever passed for inspector – my God, you must have been on form that day.’
23
The voice rang me at seven thirty in the morning, my last on the Mardy business as things turned out. It said: ‘I’m having the most frightful time up here. I’ve got Detective-Inspector Fox screaming at me that he’s going to break your neck.’
‘He had his chance to and didn’t take it,’ I said.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing, sending him back like that?’
‘I didn’t need him at all,’ I said. ‘I never ordered him, it isn’t his case.’
‘You cheeky sod,’ said the voice. ‘He went down by agreement with me and Chief Inspector Bowman to help you along with it.’
‘Well, I just helped him back into his car,’ I said. ‘You should have asked me first.’
‘Are you inferring that Fox can’t do his job?’
‘I don’t need a rat to do a tango at a funeral,’ I said, ‘I’ll put it that way – all I wanted to do was get rid of him, and please don’t send me people down on these things with new buttons on, he can hardly do without a bib at mealtimes yet.’
‘You know this is all going to go further,’ said the voice, ‘and this time I don’t think I’ll be able to cover you.’
‘I’ll survive,’ I said.
‘Maybe,’ said the voice, ‘but not in the police, I don’t think.’
‘Well that’ll be just too bad,’ I said. ‘Now until I’m finished here just keep people like Bowman and Fox right out of my way.’
‘We’re wondering whether to take you off this case.’
‘Keep wondering,’ I said, ‘but don’t do it now, it’s solved.’
‘What about this woman then? Where is she?’
‘In a deep-freeze,’ I said, ‘and in anybody’s view except her husband’s she is dead, and has been since last August.’
‘Will you stop talking in riddles?’ the voice snapped. ‘Exactly where does the husband come into it? Tell me what you mean.’
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