Bury Him Darkly

by Roger Ormerod

  She raised her face again. The eyes were limpid, with defeat in them. ‘I never harmed anybody in my life. It’s not fair!’ she wailed.

  ‘It’s not fair to be killed and buried under a house.’

  ‘You’re hard. D’you know that?’

  ‘You killed them. I can be as hard as I like, and still not match you.’

  She looked at her fingers. The nail polish was cracked. She frowned. ‘You said...’ she whispered. ‘Told me you didn’t know what you would do when you got home. Well, you’re here. So that’s what you can do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Prove I didn’t do it. Them. Whatever.’

  ‘You must be —’

  ‘Joking!’ she cut in bitterly. ‘Oh, I feel just like a bloody good laugh. I didn’t do it. So you can help me out.’

  ‘You’ve dropped me in it — now you expect help!’

  Her face was like a child’s, mischievous and tentative. ‘If you can prove that, then it wouldn’t matter whether or not you’re my sister.’

  She was magnificent in her complete absorption. It was a flatly stated proposition; it would surely be done.

  I slapped my thighs. ‘D’you realize we’ve missed lunch downstairs? And if you mention fish and chips I’ll crown you.’

  ‘Give me time to change...’ She’d come alive, not realizing I was merely wearied of the fight, not complying with her request.

  ‘Change be damned. Repair your face, and you can take me somewhere very expensive and buy me a huge and satisfying meal. Wine, brandy, the lot.’

  ‘You’re on.’

  Like a chameleon, she was, except that I believe they change their colours slower.

  She was all eagerness now, so bright and optimistic that I ought to have felt flattered, her faith in my ability being so pathetically naïve. It took her longer to repair her face than for me to do mine, and really I needed to change, felt like a bath actually, but even the most expensive establishments are not going to serve lunch too late in the afternoon.

  ‘The Rendezvous,’ she said. ‘I used to know the head waiter. Wonder if he’s still there. I wish I had your hair, really I do. You shake your head, and it’s back in place. No, not that shirt, dear. Too mannish. We’re women, you know. Let’s look wildly feminine. And not that blouse. The collar ruins the line of your chin. You really ought to learn how to make the best of yourself.’

  I could’ve killed her for that alone, and chose the shirt anyway, with a straight, dark skirt, which slims my thighs a little. She tutted, and waited in the foyer until I’d brought the car round, as though I was her chauffeur.

  ‘You’re pointing the wrong way,’ she said.

  ‘If you’d come with me into the yard… oh, never mind. And fasten your seat-belt. It’s legal here.’

  The Rendezvous was a low, squat building along the Shrewsbury road, with an entrance drive long enough to hide it behind trees. Very dignified. They knew her, sure enough. The head waiter hadn’t changed, and might have been her uncle, the way he fussed. He called her Miss Felucci, was probably Italian himself.

  We were definitely late for lunch, as most of the diners were leaving, but nothing was too much trouble for the famous Roma Felucci. The chef came to the table and listened gravely to her instructions, the wine waiter polished his corkscrew. She laughed and preened, and charmed the eyeballs nearly out of them, but the result was a splendid and protracted meal. I had no intention of paying for it, and she clearly didn’t expect to. But no bill was presented, and we were shown out like royalty. Roma Felucci Ate Here. I could imagine the notice they’d already be preparing, and the odd pound or two being added to the items on the menus.

  ‘Aren’t they splendid!’ she cried. ‘Nobody ever lets me pay.’

  It didn’t happen to me. Never.

  As I turned on to the drive, I noticed a Ford Fiesta, dark and anonymous, pull out after us. Not a member of the staff, not a late customer; we were the last. Connaught had us under observation, I reckoned. I caught just a glimpse of a man’s profile. And what report would Connaught receive? That we’d dined, laughing and arguing together, just like two sisters.

  Had it been intentional on Bella’s part, adding verisimilitude to the fiction? Come to think of it, it was she who had contacted me on the QE2. Not quite contacted, perhaps, but had stumbled and cursed in a way to attract my attention and interest. She might well have picked me out, being the right size and having the correct colouring to be her sister, with the possibility of a deception looming ahead of her. But surely that would’ve been too complex to be planned.

  Yet she’d adopted an austere and distant aura, keeping everyone else clear, and ensuring that our relationship had been enviously observed. In case anybody official enquired at a later date? And hadn’t I followed her here! Surely she could not have motivated that — yet she’d managed an eloquent appeal with no more than her eyes. Those eyes! From which she had, possibly on purpose, swept her dark glasses to be left at my feet? How effectively she could use those eyes! Then on arrival I’d booked a double room. Playing straight into her hands. How useful this background would now prove to be, especially as I’d confided to her the details of my long stay at New York and my scarcity of contacts in England.

  I glanced sideways at her. She’d put on the car radio and was tapping her knee in rhythm to whatever it was. No care in the world, you would have thought. But why should she have? Hadn’t she now got Philip Marlowe trying to establish her innocence? Admittedly without the mister, but you can’t have everything.

  I dropped her outside the hotel. ‘I’m getting fed up with this dump,’ she said. ‘We’ll go out later.’ It was an order. She marched majestically up the steps and into the lobby.

  But now it was becoming dark, darker still in that cramped and over-shadowed car park. As I opened the car door and put a leg out, a shadow moved to my side. By that time my nerves were becoming tense, and I couldn’t suppress a sharp little, ‘Eek!’

  ‘It’s only me,’ said Connaught.

  Only? Had she punctured his ego? ‘Did you think we’d flown the coop?’ I slammed the car door behind me.

  ‘Years since I’ve heard that,’ he said appreciatively. ‘No coops now, it’s battery farming.’

  ‘Why do you have to be so literal?’

  ‘It’s police training. Have you given it a thought?’ he asked, assuming I had, expecting a report on the result, and meaning the two skulls.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It appears that if they were buried together and at the same time, the apparent choice is Bella.’

  ‘Apparent?’

  ‘I’m becoming convinced she didn’t do it — them.’

  He seemed to find that amusing. ‘Charmed you, has she?’

  ‘I’m not a man. Have you got any more information, yet?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘The skeletons. From Forensic. Have you had any sort of

  report?’

  ‘It’s a long job.’

  ‘Surely… sex. They’d have decided sexes. There’re bones that’re different. Have they said?’

  ‘Who’s asking the questions around here?’ He was being gentle but cool.

  ‘You’ve just asked one. It was me. Have they?’

  I caught the gleam of his teeth. ‘One female, one male.’

  ‘Ah. As you thought.’

  ‘The female was about your height.’

  I thought about that. If Bella had picked me out… ‘It’s to be expected.’

  He was silent for a few moments. Then, ‘So you haven’t given it serious thought.’

  ‘I told you. The apparent —’

  His voice was suddenly rough, angry. ‘You disappoint me.’

  ‘Is there more?’ I asked meekly, mocking his anger.

  ‘Of course there is, you ridiculous woman. Don’t you ever think of yourself and your own welfare?’

  ‘Of virtually nothing else, with you on one side, and Bella on �
��’

  ‘Never mind sides. Hasn’t it occurred to you… ? Look at it.

  Think. Here you are, suspected of being her sister. If the dead female is her sister, then she can’t produce her. So there’s you. You say you’re not. You say you can prove it. But you’ve been in the States. Your contacts are very few. All the same — one creditable witness that you are Philipa Lowe, and she’ll be proved a liar and therefore most likely a murderess. Ruthless with it, too.’

  ‘I’m beginning to see...’

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘If I should die...’

  ‘Unpleasantly, say...’

  ‘In a way making identification difficult.’

  ‘Then there’d be no way ... ‘

  ‘Of proving I’m not her sister,’ I completed it breathlessly. It did take my breath away.

  ‘Mind you,’ he added, his voice now more cheerful, ‘I’d then be absolutely certain she was the guilty party.’

  ‘But you’d be further away than ever from proving it?’

  ‘That is my fear,’ he admitted.

  ‘Thank you, Inspector. I appreciate your concern.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ he offered grandly.

  ‘Fear not, I don’t.’

  He touched me on the arm with one finger. ‘Look after yourself.’

  ‘Your man,’ I asked. ‘Is he to watch I don’t make a run for it? Or is he there as my protector?’

  He paused, half turned away. ‘Man? I haven’t got a man watching you. Nor a woman, if we want to be pedantic.’ He hesitated, seemed about to say something else, then he moved round and past me. I saw that he’d been hiding a sign with his broad back. GENTLEMEN. It was hanging against a wall, vertically by one nail. A man cleared his throat, and I was through that rear door and into the lobby in three seconds.

  Bella was just hanging up the phone, looking annoyed, when I entered the room. ‘Well?’ I asked.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Been on to New York — I assume.’ I was watching her eyebrows climbing towards the fringe. ‘No? I thought you’d been getting things moving. A private eye on the job over there.’

  She was frowning and distant. ‘Job?’

  ‘Tracing your sister,’ I suggested. ‘Or at least, making the motions.’

  Her gesture silenced me. So much anger in a mere gesture! She was superb. But the anger was not levelled at me. ‘It was New York — yes,’ she snapped. ‘Our flat. I was trying to contact Jay.’

  ‘You feel we need some male muscle on the job?’

  ‘The only muscle he uses isn’t going to help. But I want him here. Where I can watch him.’

  I thought about that, and realized what she meant. ‘You spoke to him?’

  ‘A woman answered,’ she spat out.

  ‘Oh. You knew the voice?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. How the hell could I ever keep up with them! He snaps his fingers and there they are, panting. I’ll kill him! I swear I’ll kill the pig.’

  ‘Hmm! Never the same one?’

  She paced a little, trying to work off the anger. Then she spoke quietly, subdued now, with her fury in a tight, compressed mass. ‘We’ve got a holiday place in New Haven. I don’t get time… God, I’ll make time, if I ever get out of this mess. But I’m sure he’s got some female or other settled in there. The nerve of it! Can you just imagine! I could slip up there, and if I caught them at it… oh hell, what’s the use of talking! What would I do? Stand in the doorway, blasting away with a bloody gun?’ She gave a short and bitter laugh of self-disgust. ‘I’m… I’m actually scared of facing the truth. That’s what it is. Scared that I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Doesn’t that sound marvellous! The tough and ruthless Roma Felucci — and I know I’d turn and run away from it. And do nothing. What could I do? Run to a lawyer? Then what? Divorce? Yeah, I’ve sworn I’ll divorce him, but Phil… Jesus, I couldn’t live without him, and that’s that.’

  She turned away from me. I wasn’t sure whether her shoulders were shaking.

  Did she realize she’d stepped into the jaws of her own trap? The current performance could be intended to persuade me that she was quite incapable of murder. To reach out for my sympathy at this stage of our relationship I found vaguely insulting.

  ‘If you’ve finished with the phone...’ I said.

  She gestured, not turning. ‘Help yourself.’

  I looked up the dialling code for Penley, my home town. I owned a cottage there, though I had no intention of going back to it, after the tragedy it had witnessed. My solicitor was at Penley, the family lawyer. I had a friend in the police force. It wasn’t much to form the basis of claiming it to be my home town, but it was all I had. I checked with my notebook and dialled my solicitor’s office, glanced at my watch to verify he ought still to be there — it was nearly five — and heard it ringing out.

  ‘This is a recorded message,’ I got back. ‘Please wait for the pips before stating your name and business. Mr Remington will be away until the seventeenth of November.’ Then I got the pips, said, ‘Go to hell,’ and slammed the phone down.

  The voice had been that of his secretary, Florence. What a time to go away, and on holiday, I assumed. But I knew Harvey. He’d be off for a month in Tenerife, or somewhere else distant, with, if my guess was correct, Florence.

  I asked Directory Enquiries for the number of Penley Police Station, then dialled again. The desk sergeant.

  ‘Is Inspector Simpson in his office, please?’

  ‘Is this a personal enquiry, madam?’ he asked.

  ‘It is personal.’

  ‘Your name, please.’

  Feeling uneasy now, I gave him my name.

  ‘Well...’ he said. ‘Miss Lowe… I’m afraid he’s on sick leave. In hospital, actually. St James’s.’

  Time ticked on.

  ‘Madam?’

  I cleared my throat. ‘Can you tell me… is it serious?’

  ‘The inspector was involved in a shooting incident. A shotgun. He’s out of danger —’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At Pearson’s Farm.’

  ‘I mean… the wound.’

  ‘Ah yes. The shoulder, madam. Right shoulder and upper chest. Painful but not lethal, if you get what I mean.’

  ‘Clearly, Sergeant. Thank you.’

  I hung up. The room seemed dark, then Bella had her hand on my arm. ‘Bad news? Here, come and sit down.’

  ‘I don’t want to sit down,’ I whispered.

  ‘Is it… your friend? You mentioned him. Oliver Simpson, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oliver. I’ve got to go to him, Bella.’

  ‘But if he’s in hospital, how can he help you?’

  I stared at her. ‘Help me?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to bring him here, to identify you.’

  I shook her off. ‘If you don’t know what friends are for, Bella, perhaps you’ve never had any. Sometimes I can feel very sorry for you.’

  ‘You’re going out?’

  ‘What d’you think? Yes, I’m going out. It’s only five. I’m getting away from this town, and away from you. I may be back. Perhaps not.’

  Of course I’d have to be back, but all I wanted at that moment was to be on my way to Penley.

  She watched me quietly, sadly, as I snatched a few things together. ‘There could be somebody else,’ she suggested, worried for me, for somebody.

  ‘Somebody else… what?’

  ‘For you to bring back. To identify you.’ She nodded.

  I stared at her for a moment, then laughed. It sounded flat to me. ‘Oh, you’re marvellous, Bella. Unbelievable.’

  I slammed the door after me and ran down the stairs, in a sudden panic because I hadn’t been able to put my hand on the car keys, which had to mean I’d left them in the car. What a stupid thing to do. I almost snatched at the car door, and I’d been correct. There they were, now illuminated by the interior light, the keys still in the ignition lock. I breathed out. What a problem it would have been
if the car had been stolen!

  I sat in the driver’s seat and took a good look at my map. To Bella I’d tossed the remark that my home town was only forty miles away. On the map it looked more, but it was mainly major roads, and the evening, dark now, was clear. I reckoned on an hour and a quarter, but wanted to keep south of Shrewsbury if I could. At this time of the evening the Shrewsbury bypass would be packed, nose-to-nose, shuffling along at walking pace. The snag with my proposed procedure was that I really needed a passenger to read the map. It’s so easy to be lured into taking a wrong turning when you’re on your own.

  This was what I seemed to have done, because I found myself on a winding B road, though proceeding roughly in the correct direction, as the moon was bright and I had to do no more than keep it ahead and slightly to the right. There was little traffic, so I was able to ease the speed higher as I became more used to the Rover’s handling. It was a neat car to drive. I’d discovered that on the drive from Southampton. But this was the first opportunity I’d had to push it into fast corners. It liked to be powered out, the tail never once wagging.

  It was quite abruptly that I felt an uncertainty in the steering. Not much; a judder on coming out of a corner, which could well have been due to an unevenness in the road surface. But when it did it again, with quite a frantic scrabble of tyres this time, I knew something was wrong. I slowed. Laybys on this class of road were rare, but I found one in the next half mile, pulled in, and got out to have a good cuss.

  I reckoned it had to be wheels. The tyres were nearly new, so it couldn’t relate to treads. I went round, grabbing opposite sides of the wheels and wiggling them. It took all my strength, but in two of them, the front ones, I thought there was a slight play.

  There was no torch in the car, so I had to manage with the moon and with the doors open for whatever light might filter out from the interior. The boot had its own lighting, so I had no difficulty in finding the jack and the levers and nut-wrench. I hesitated. There was a quicker way, without jacking it up. I levered off the front near-side wheel disc, and a nut fell out.