Bury Him Darkly

by Roger Ormerod

  The other three were loose.

  Before allowing myself to give it any deep thought I banged on all four nuts solidly, then I went round the other three wheels. Only the two front ones were affected. The offside front was the worst, all four nuts about to fall off. As I was tightening these a small car whipped past, its headlights flooding me. It swerved as though about to stop, but didn’t. It went within a foot of my back, in fact. I stood up and stared after it. It had the general shape of a Ford Fiesta.

  There are several ways of rendering a motor vehicle lethal. They usually involve the braking or steering, but these are not really satisfactory methods, as either can fail at a non-dangerous time, braking or turning for corners, when you’re moving slower. Loosening the wheel nuts can cause you to lose a wheel, most likely at a high speed, and can be very lethal indeed. The assumption has to be, though, that the driver is so stupid as not to notice anything going wrong, such as a female person, who is not supposed, by the bulk of motoring males, to know a steering wheel from a speedometer.

  Yet I’d been warned, well and truly, though the only person who would want me dead before I could prove my real identity seemed to be Bella. I could think of no one else. And Bella could not possibly have got near the Rover, even if she could have forced herself to put her delicate and beautifully manicured hands anywhere near a tool of any description.

  So I had to assume that someone else wanted me dead. The only question outstanding was whether I was wanted dead as Philipa Lowe, or as Tonia Fields.

  Chapter 6

  It was visiting hours at St James’s. I’d dropped lucky for a change. Yes, they had an Oliver Simpson in Cassandra Ward, on the fourth floor. Easy, apart from the fact that this was an old building with no lifts available, except to patients on trolleys, so I had to walk up, the snag being that my legs were still foolishly shaking unless I could keep moving.

  He was in a four-bed ward, two of them empty. His sole companion was asleep, Oliver reading a collection of Sherlock Holmes, which was supported on his raised knees. His right shoulder and chest were swathed in bandages, his face seeming drawn and grey.

  ‘Phil!’ He tried to lift himself higher. ‘Is it really you?’

  I walked round the bed, trying to smile as though I wasn’t devastated by his general appearance. He seemed shrunken, his body drained by pain. I kissed him on the lips. They were dry.

  ‘Oliver! What have you been doing?’

  He moved uneasily at the memory. ‘He’d gone crazy. Old Pearson. His wife was hiding in a barn, and I tried to take his shotgun from him. The old confidence trick, you know. “Now hand it over, Charlie. You know very well you’re not going to fire it.” But he didn’t know, and he did fire it. Lucky, I suppose, that he didn’t blow my head off.’

  I studied him with my head on one side, knowing the approach that would appeal to him. ‘No harm to your face, though. Still the same old good-looking bastard.’

  ‘Sarcasm, Phil? What about you? Have you come home to stay? Well, that’s cheered me up no end, I must say. I’ll be out of here —’

  ‘Don’t cheer yet, Oliver, please,’ I said, looking round for a chair and dragging it across so that I could sit beside him, perhaps hold his hand.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re going back! New York calls, does it?’

  ‘I don’t hear it. No, no.’ I secured the hand. ‘But I’m a little caught up in something at the moment...’ I allowed it to tail away.

  ‘How did you know I’m in here?’

  ‘Easy. I rang the station.’

  He tilted his head. Even that drew a tiny wince. ‘Rang it? Does that mean you’re not staying here, Phil?’

  ‘I’m at a place called Horseley Green. Heard of it?’

  ‘I know it. Go on, tell me what you’re caught up in. Lousy sentence, sorry. Tell me what it’s all about.’

  But now I didn’t want to. My own troubles seemed so paltry compared with his present condition. I felt guilty that my visit might present itself as being less than a hundred per cent on his behalf. The last time I had seen him, he’d been so full of energy, a burly man, brushing six feet, though with touches of grey above his ears. It hadn’t, then, shown much, his hair being very light, like bleached straw. Now it did show, because his hair seemed darker, probably with sweat. He’d aged, looked fifty, though I knew he was no more than in his mid forties. But I couldn’t continue to stare at him. He was waiting, attentive.

  I told him all about it, every detail that I could squeeze from my memory, from the moment I’d met Bella on the QE2. He watched me closely, his eyes roving over my face. Those grey eyes seemed to darken with his concern. There was not a word from him; he was always a good listener.

  ‘But Phil,’ he protested, when I’d worked up to the present, ‘this is ridiculous. How can she claim you’re her sister? All you’ve got to do is deny it, and leave her to offer some sort of proof. Tell her to go and jump in the lake.’

  ‘She hasn’t claimed anything,’ I said. I couldn’t get much emphasis into it.

  ‘And that inspector… hasn’t she?’

  ‘No. It was all implication. The nod and the wink — and a lot of background confirmation she could produce if she had to.’

  He was clearly in pain, moving uneasily in the bed. He wasn’t going to waste much time with paltry claims.

  ‘Then you simply tell her to go to hell.’

  ‘If she prefers that to the lake?’ I pouted at him. ‘It’s easy for you to say it. But don’t worry about that, Oliver. I’ll —’

  He wasn’t to be diverted. ‘And that Inspector… Connaught, was it? He couldn’t go along with something like that.’ He shook his head stiffly and reached for a glass of fruit juice he had on the bedside table.

  ‘He is going along with it,’ I admitted reluctantly.

  ‘Then it’s a trick he’s playing. He’s probably leading her on. He knows she must be guilty —’

  ‘I don’t know what his thinking is, Oliver. But I’m not so sure she’s guilty. Of anything.’

  ‘Ah! Got you interested, has she?’

  I didn’t reply. Damn the man, he always managed to lead me into saying more than I’d intended.

  ‘He’s playing it canny, you can bet your life,’ Oliver went on with confidence, because that was what he’d have done. ‘He’s waiting for her to trap herself.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind. It’s comforting.’

  But now his grey eyes were watching me keenly. Oliver never missed anything, and he could build mountains out of impressions. He’d detected the worry in my voice. ‘Does it concern you so much, Phil?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No lying, now. Don’t ever keep anything from me — d’you hear?’

  I pouted, smiled at the ‘ever’, and admitted that there’d already been an attempt on my life.

  ‘You didn’t mention this,’ he accused.

  ‘If I were to die now, in such a way that I could be buried as Tonia Fields, then I wouldn’t be in any position to deny it.’

  Behind his eyes I saw the anger grow. The fingers of his left hand clenched; I removed mine just in time. ‘That blasted Connaught! Irresponsible, that’s the word for him. Right ... we’ve only got to identify you formally, and that’ll be that. I can be out of here —’

  ‘Oh, no, you won’t!’

  ‘A day or so...’

  ‘No, Oliver. Don’t be stupid. Somebody else, perhaps.’

  ‘Superintendent Grossman? He knows you.’ He tried a twisted grin. I shook my head. He nodded. ‘Right. There’s another way. She’d know her sister’s abnormalities.’

  ‘Abnormal?’ I hadn’t heard of anything like that.

  ‘Have you got any birthmarks — which she wouldn’t have?’

  ‘A raspberry mark on my left cheek. I wouldn’t call it an abnormality.’

  He squinted at me. ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘On my bottom.’

  ‘There! You see. Ask her about her sister’s bir
thmarks, not mentioning her bottom. If sister Tonia didn’t have one, and you’ve got a witness present, then you can prove —’

  ‘To Connaught?’

  ‘I didn’t quite mean —’

  I laughed. ‘But it wouldn’t work, anyway. Bella’s seen me stripped.’

  ‘Pity. I haven’t been so privileged.’ He pouted.

  ‘Now don’t start that.’

  We grinned at each other, almost as freely as we used to before. I felt we’d steered clear of the seriousness of it. Really, look at it from the correct angle and the whole thing was positively ridiculous. I shrugged. Perhaps the loose nuts had been pure chance.

  ‘I’ll manage,’ I assured him.

  ‘There ought to be somebody who could help you, though.’

  Behind me the door opened. I heard it sigh. He looked past me, his face lightening. ‘But of course, there’s always Jennie!’

  I turned, rising to my feet. Yes, there was always Jennie, and there she was. Trim and bright, a busty redhead, that was Woman Detective Constable Jennie Lyons, who had been far too intimate with her inspector for my liking, and, judging by her grin and Oliver’s suddenly uplifted response, still was. But she had one very large plus mark. She knew me.

  ‘Just the person we need!’ he cried.

  We smiled at each other in cool formality and bumped cheeks in an empty kiss at the air.

  ‘How splendid to be wanted.’ She looked from one face to the other. ‘What is it?’

  Oliver told her briskly and precisely, she nodding. Very quick and smart, was Jennie. She watched his face as he spoke, not once glancing at me. They shared a tight intimacy in those few moments. But I saw that her lips twitched. She found the situation amusing, and when she’d heard the last of it she turned to me with her eyes dancing.

  ‘Of course I’ll come,’ she said without hesitation.

  But I didn’t want Jennie. She would be doing it for him, not for me. Yet her smile was for me, and her enthusiasm was for the adventure of it. There was nothing but friendliness in her expression. But we had always been friends, in the brief time I’d known her, which had been during the trouble arising from my husband’s death. She’d never been anything but uncritically sympathetic. I felt mean that I should have considered rejecting her offer, and tried to match her warmth.

  ‘But it’s so much trouble for you!’ I protested. ‘And all over a silly misunderstanding. I can’t ask —’

  ‘Nonsense. It’ll be fun. I’m off duty at ten.’

  ‘At nine,’ put in Oliver helpfully. ‘My orders.’

  I doubted he could give orders, being off on sick leave, but I didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’ll be there just after ten,’ Jennie told me, placing a hand on my arm, squeezing. ‘We’ll sort this crazy woman out, you’ll see.’

  I knew that there was no doubt that Jennie, when she got going, would be able to overwhelm Bella completely with her fiery personality, which didn’t need any acting to boost it.

  So there I was, feeling caught again, when in fact I’d got what I’d come for, if not in the way I’d expected. I gave her directions, but she knew Horseley Green. I told her it was the Crown. She said she knew it. I told her she could park round the back. She seemed to know that, too. She was one of those people who infuriatingly know everything.

  ‘We’re in room seven,’ I murmured, trying to find something she didn’t.

  ‘I’ll come straight up to the room,’ she said. ‘Walk in on her. Say ten to ten-thirty. If you could get this Connaught character there, it could all be cleared up in a few minutes.’

  ‘And there’d be time for a drink before the bar closes?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  I was, of course, reluctant to leave before she did, but I’d had my share of visiting and she’d really had none. So I kissed Oliver chastely on the chin, nodded and smiled at Jennie, and left.

  I sat in my car and tried to work out how I was going to tackle it. A phone call ahead would best guarantee the presence of Inspector Connaught, on duty or off, because he’d clearly considered the question of my identity to be of importance. I therefore went back inside the hospital to where I’d noted a coin phone, discovered I was short of change, but was lucky to get straight through to him at once. In a few brisk sentences I told him where I was, and that there’d already been one attempt on my life. The idea was to shake him a little, but it didn’t work.

  ‘Really? I didn’t expec t—’

  ‘Never mind what you expected,’ I cut in briskly. ‘If you can be at the Crown at about ten-fifteen, room seven, I’ll be in a position to put an end to it. WDC Jennie Lyons is her name, of Penley Police. She’ll no doubt have her warrant card with her. All right?’

  ‘Yes. This attempt on your life —’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’ I hung up. I’d heard the pips and my time was running out. Not, perhaps, an auspicious thought to present to myself at that time.

  I left the Rover in the hospital car park and walked the short distance to the nearest café, got a couple of cups of tea and an over-poached egg on hard toast, went back to the car… and remembered to check those wheel nuts once again. You never know. They were firm. I climbed in and got going.

  There was, I discovered, a certain satisfaction in pushing the car way beyond a safe speed on those roads. It was a gesture. If the car was going to kill me, I dared it to get on with it, throwing challenges at it on every scrabbled corner. There comes a time when you realize your concentration is at its peak, and that you are anticipating and calculating to perfection. And in so doing, you thrust behind you all background concerns and the intricacies of your problems. When I turned into the yard behind the Crown I was in a state of complete and relaxed readiness. That drive had done me the world of good. It seemed, now, that I was on top of my difficulties and in charge of my destiny.

  At night, that yard was a dingy place, with no more than a single pearl globe on a bracket from one wall. I wasted no time getting away from there and hurried into the lobby, pattering up the stairs, anxious to acquaint Bella with the fact that her stupid plotting was about to come to nothing.

  But of course — and this was something that had slipped my mind — it would then leave the double-skeleton problem wide open. Or firmly closed, I suppose. With me out of the reckoning as a possible sister, there could no longer be much doubt that the female corpse had to be that of the real and genuine Tonia Fields. Bella would be in trouble, and I cannot deny a little eagerness to get to her and tell her so, face to face.

  My hand was on the doorknob before I heard the raised voices within, one of them a man’s. For a moment I assumed Connaught had arrived early. I opened the door and walked in.

  Bella was standing with her back to the window, her long and flowing skirt still settling, as though she had just completed a whirl. Her face was flushed with anger and I thought perhaps she had been weeping. The man had his back to me. She was shouting, ‘And you can just bloody well get back...’ She stopped as she saw me.

  The man turned. Not Connaught. This one was taller and more craggily built. He was wearing casual slacks and a chunky, hand-knitted sweater, which must have cost a mint. There was a motif of J’s worked into it. So I didn’t need any introduction. This was Bella’s Jay, a very masculine man indeed, over six feet and balanced with it, heavy shoulders and deep chest tapering down to a narrow waist. She had said he was in his fifties, but by heaven he was fit. To maintain this pitch he would have had to spend a good part of every day working out, a process that either builds you up or strikes you down. At the moment he was very much alive, with a tensed eagerness about him and suppressed triumph that blazed from his eyes. Blue-grey eyes, they were, under craggy brows, set in a sunburnt knobbly face that somehow contrived to look like an experienced thirty instead of a jaded fifty. Bella had at one time implied a series of face-lifts, and any number of tucks and pleats could have gone into forming his half-handsome and half-distorted face. But his mouth was soft, wide, e
xpressive. At the moment, as he turned, fury and scorn still controlled it, and then it melted into a wide smile of sheer pleasure, unadulterated joy at the sight of me, whilst his eyes, in one quick and experienced glance, took in every aspect of my figure from top to toe, stripping me of all dignity.

  ‘Well, well,’ he cried. ‘At last, the little sister.’

  I knew he had to be mocking somebody, me or himself or Bella. He’d made the instant connection with what she must have told him about me, my name and its derivation. Otherwise, he’d not have used the Raymond Chandler title: The Little Sister. But he had the required appearance of tough resilience to have enabled him to play Philip Marlowe in a film. I would have thought, though, that he could not have conveyed Marlowe’s deep understanding and muted passion. Nothing deep about this man, nothing muted. But passion, certainly. It shouted out at me.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he repeated, using up his reserves. He raised his arm as though to slap me on the back, but instead it fell along my shoulders as though it lived there, and perhaps I was expected to bask in it. Smiling, I slipped free.

  ‘What was the shouting about?’ I asked Bella.

  It was he who answered. ‘Shouting? We were discussing —’

  She didn’t allow him to finish. ‘Shouting — yes! That was me. I was telling this idiot… oh, this is Jay, my husband… telling the stupid fool to sod off back to where he came from.’

  I glanced at him. He raised his shoulders heavily, grimacing. ‘What’ve I done?’ he asked me ruefully, in an intimate way not justified by our short acquaintanceship.

  ‘You’ve come here, that’s what,’ Bella snapped.

  ‘All I did… plane to Heathrow… hired an auto… came to you, sweetheart. I’ve brought you news. Special news. Have I got news!’