The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale

by Jill McGown

  Had been a trusted employee. He swallowed nervously. He hadn’t expected retribution to be this swift. Or this savage, come to that. He had only told Lennie, for God’s sake. But she must have used the weapon he had given her, and it was now being pointed at him.

  Despite the warmth of the day, Steve was cold. Tell me, he had shouted, tell me what’s happening. But one of them told him to shut up, and he had thought it best to do as he was told.

  He had never been convinced that it would work, though Rosemary had been. But only with Austin’s co-operation, of course. And thanks to Steve’s sudden rush of self-respect to the blood, that co-operation had presumably been withdrawn now that Lennie knew. But there was nothing Austin could do to Rosemary. He’d never go to the police.

  So why, he thought, as they sat in the silent, invisible car, why was he here? He had thought at worst that he was risking his favoured position with Rosemary – something that his irritating self-respect had decided wasn’t worth hanging on to anyway. He wouldn’t be sharing the fortune, other than as a well-paid lorry driver and a diversion for Rosemary. The Beales would be the ones with the villa in Spain; he’d be the one running the risks. That was what he had thought he was giving up, if Lennie said anything. He had thought that Rosemary would keep him out of it as far as her husband was concerned.

  But she hadn’t, evidently, or he wouldn’t be here. If he had thought for one moment that he was risking life and limb, then his self-respect would have taken a back seat, and Lennie’s would have been nowhere. Austin could have gone on using her, Rosemary could have gone on using him. Everyone would have been happy.

  And he wouldn’t be sitting in a Rolls-Royce full of hired muscle just itching to bring him to book.

  ‘What?’ said Beale.

  ‘I want to let Gordon Pearce have his pick of them,’ said Jonathan. ‘But I thought you might want to have the rest.’

  Beale looked round at the canvases adorning the walls of the studio, his mouth slightly open.

  ‘There are more in the back,’ said Jonathan. ‘And some watercolours. She did them for a while. And old sketches, that sort of thing. I thought you might be interested in them.’

  Beale turned back to him, frowning. ‘I thought I was a businessman,’ he said.

  Jonathan wasn’t really listening; he was searching his pockets for his lighter, the unlit cigarette between his lips. ‘Sorry?’ he said, finding it.

  ‘That’s why you asked me down here?’ Beale shook his head. ‘You don’t let the grass grow, do you? Maybe you should hang on to them,’ he added sarcastically. ‘They’ll be worth more in a couple of years.’

  Jonathan took the cigarette from his month. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘I’m not selling them. I just want you to have them.’ He lit the cigarette. ‘After Gordon’s taken what he wants,’ he said.

  ‘You’re giving them away?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To me?’

  Jonathan expelled smoke.

  ‘You shouldn’t really do that in here,’ said Beale.

  ‘Oh.’ Jonathan looked at the cigarette. No, no, he shouldn’t. Leonora had always said …

  ‘One won’t matter,’ Beale said.

  Beale’s disapproval at Jonathan’s apparent cashing in on his wife’s death was having to adjust to sheer astonishment; he had covered his confusion with the diversion. Jonathan had known he would get this reaction; it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone would assume he was selling the work.

  ‘Why?’ Beale asked.

  ‘You like them.’

  Beale smiled, still bewildered. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  ‘You understand art.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, with a slightly bitter laugh. ‘ Frankie Beale, wide boy. I’m not supposed to know a Degas from a day centre, right? But I do.’ He smiled again. ‘Art galleries were the only places you could go for nothing,’ he said. ‘When I was a kid, I spent hours …’ He stopped, slightly embarrassed.

  ‘So I want you to have them,’ said Jonathan.

  ‘I think,’ said Beale, ‘that we should discuss this in my flat. Don’t you?’

  No. No, Jonathan didn’t want to do anything of the sort. But he nodded, and the two men left the studio, and went round to the flat entrance.

  Jonathan still had his cigarette as they waited for the lift; he looked round for somewhere to put it, and found himself staring at an ashtray exactly like the one Sergeant Drake had described.

  ‘Where did that come from?’ he demanded.

  ‘Eh?’ Beale turned and looked round the foyer. ‘ What?’ he said.

  ‘That! That ashtray.’

  Beale frowned. ‘Oh – yes. Pearce put it there. People were putting ash in the potted plants.’

  Jonathan let his cigarette slip into it, and stepped into the lift. His mind was barely aware of what Beale was saying as he followed him in to the flat.

  ‘Can I offer you a drink, Mr Austin?’ said Beale. ‘I’ve got whisky, gin, vodka, brandy …’

  ‘Vodka and tonic, if that’s …’ He needed a drink.

  ‘One VAT.’

  He poured Jonathan’s vodka and a gin and tonic for himself. ‘My wife,’ he said, handing Jonathan his drink and indicating the leather sofa, ‘wanted respectability, Mr Austin.’

  Jonathan didn’t know what to say to that; he sipped his drink.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘You were respectability.’

  Was he? Jonathan felt that she could have chosen a better role model.

  ‘I said, ‘‘Rosemary, what the hell do you know about engineering?’’ ‘‘Nothing,’’ she says. “I don’t need to know about engineering. I know about business.’’ She wanted to work, see, Mr Austin. Me – I’m semi-retired. I’m coming up for my pension. But she was just in her mid-forties. She wanted to keep busy. That’s why I got her to go round the clubs, keep an eye on things. She was sharp, Rosemary. Clever. But she didn’t really want to do that.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand why she chose your outfit, though.’

  Jonathan thought saying nothing had to be the wisest course. She had told him Beale didn’t know, and thank God, she had been speaking the truth.

  ‘The police say it’s because she was having an affair with you. It would explain things.’

  Jonathan shook his head, still not speaking.

  ‘It doesn’t surprise you, though?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘ I’ve been made aware of the rumours.’

  Beale sat down. ‘And there’s no truth in them?’

  ‘None,’ said Jonathan.

  Beale drank, then stared into his glass. ‘ How do rumours like that start?’ he asked.

  ‘Who knows?’ Jonathan sighed. ‘She was taking a more active role in the business – we were working together a great deal. And your wife was very.…’ Obvious was the word that came to mind. Jonathan searched for another one. ‘… glamorous,’ he said, after a moment. ‘ I’ve got a reputation as a bit of a stick-in-the-mud,’ he said. ‘I think it appealed to them to think that there might be something going on.’

  Beale nodded slowly. ‘But there wasn’t,’ he said.

  ‘No, I assure you, there wasn’t.’

  ‘Were you happily married, Mr Austin?’

  The question took Jonathan by surprise. ‘We had our ups and downs,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. So did we. Rosemary and me. She … she has been known to … stray, now and then. But I loved her.’

  ‘Mr Beale – my relationship with your wife was purely a business one,’ he said. If he said it often enough, he might believe him.

  ‘So why the paintings?’

  ‘I don’t understand them. I shouldn’t have them. You encouraged her, you bought a lot of her work – you were going to commission work. I want you to have them. That’s all.’

  Beale looked back into his drink. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you don’t want the paintings because they remind you of your wife, and all that. But you and I – we’re in a peculiar position. I mean, I don’t know
why in God’s name it’s happened, but we’ve both lost …’ He cleared his throat. ‘We’ve both lost our wives. Without any warning, without any reason that I can see – so I know how you’re feeling.’

  Jonathan nodded briefly. He had known this would be difficult. He just hoped it wasn’t going to be impossible. Big, flash Frank Beale had gone; this man was devastated. Frank Beale didn’t know, couldn’t know how he felt. No one knew. All he could do was try to hold himself together, knowing that his only aim was to survive it all, maybe even realise his ambition … no. His dream. His dream of being in a position to make the world a different place because of his existence in it.

  Once, it had been a worthy ambition. But it had become tarnished over the years of seeking nomination, of finding success there only to fail at the polls, because no one wanted to risk him in a reasonably safe seat. Stansfield were prepared to, but only after he had told them that he would be marrying Leonora. One hypocrisy. Taking that flat was another. Show the voters of Stansfield that you are just like them. You understand their problems. Their problems are your problems. Bullshit. He had never known money worries; his father had made money, and Jonathan had gone on making it. Once his voters had safely elected him, he would move to the country house he had already earmarked, for which he had already had interior designs roughed out, which was already landscaped on paper, on which he had already paid out thirty thousand pounds to the old lady to make sure he got it.

  He could see his dream now for what it was, now that it might be snatched from him. But it didn’t stop him wanting to survive it all. And here was Beale, who cocked a snook at the very laws that he wanted to frame, giving him a lesson in morality.

  ‘You see,’ Beale said, ‘your wife was good. I mean – people were sitting up and taking notice. I mean – you don’t get headlines in the Sun for it, but … well, I think her work will get quite valuable. It’s unusual for a woman to be that highly thought of … I’m not talking Van Gogh, you understand, but you still don’t want to give it away.’

  Jonathan swallowed, and took a deep draw on the cigarette. ‘ I have money, Mr Beale,’ he said. ‘I don’t need her paintings to make money for me.’ He looked up for the first time. ‘And neither do you,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean you shouldn’t sell them – they’re yours. But you’ll enjoy them. I can’t.’ Beale half shrugged. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a cooling-off

  period. How’s that? You can change your mind.’

  Jonathan shook his head.

  ‘Have another drink,’ said Beale, taking his still half-full glass.

  The CID room was empty, which was how Mickey Drake liked it. Not that he didn’t get on with his colleagues; he did. But on this nice, sunny evening the air in the room was fresh, and he could hear the birds call to one another as they settled for the night. If his colleagues were all here, the room would be smoky and stale in no time. He smiled at himself. He was a reformed smoker at heart, but he tried not to behave like one.

  He had found Tasker’s digs, but his landlady said he had gone out. Mickey had left a car there waiting for his return, and had rung Lloyd to let him know. Tasker, Lloyd informed him, had been chauffeuring Mrs Beale about. Mickey hadn’t known that; he would have to give it some thought.

  He read the fire officer’s report on Austin-Pearce; entry had been effected through a window in a gents’ lavatory. The fire had been started under the wooden cabinet; no traces of inflammable spirit being used. Just combustible materials. The cabinet had resisted the flames; it was the plastic floor-covering which had given off smoke and fumes and set the sprinklers off. Hence the limited damage. Forensic were going over Mrs Beale’s office. He thought about Pearce, and about what Inspector Hill had said about his wife, and the more he thought, the more likely it seemed. He ought to talk to Lloyd first, though, so there wasn’t much more he could do there, and he might as well try to catch up on his other work.

  The chief inspector had said that an incident room was being set up, and that the routine stuff would still be there when they got back to normal duties, but Mickey couldn’t really relax knowing that there was a backlog. So, he thought, if he got rid of as much of it as he could, he would feel more able to address himself to the puzzle of the fire.

  DI Hill seemed to favour Austin himself, but Mickey wasn’t so sure. And he had considerable doubt about Austin’s supposed affair with Rosemary Beale, however much evidence there was to support the rumours. He didn’t know what sort of reception he’d get from the chief inspector if he voiced his beliefs about Austin, but he would have to tell him. He had made a fool of himself in front of Lloyd, and he didn’t want to do it again; he just hoped he was right. He glanced at the door of Lloyd’s office, and tried to imagine himself in that position. He wasn’t all that far off it: inspector next year, providing Lloyd gave him a good report. A year’s probation as inspector, and if he made the grade, the rank would be confirmed, and he would aim for chief inspector next. Two, three years at the most. And yet, for the moment, there seemed a world of difference. Sergeants were other ranks.

  It was good in Stansfield, though. A good atmosphere. He hadn’t wanted to come back, and he hadn’t really wanted to be at Divisional HQ; he had thought it would be likely to stifle personal initiative. But Lloyd left you to get on with whatever you were doing; it was teamwork, of course – Mickey didn’t want to be a maverick, anyway – but he felt reasonably confident that Lloyd would notice if his contribution made a difference.

  But for the moment, he was trying to clear his desk. He sighed, and picked up the file he had begun on the improbable crack factory at the Mitchell Estate flats. No point carrying on with that. He would tell Lloyd he had been spotted.

  ‘Stephen Arthur Tasker,’ boomed a voice, and Mickey leapt to his feet as the chief inspector came into the room, a file in one hand, and a plastic holder with machine cups of coffee in it in the other.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to make you jump.’

  Not much. Mickey sat down again.

  ‘One sugar, no milk – that’s right, isn’t it?’ Lloyd removed a cup from the plastic holder and put it on the desk.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Mickey, putting it on to the drip mat. Thank you.’

  Lloyd removed his own coffee from the holder, and perched on the edge of Mickey’s desk. ‘Stephen Arthur Tasker, age forty-nine.’ He frowned. ‘I was expecting him to be a younger man,’ he said.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, blowing away the steam that rose in waves from the cup, and taking a sip, ‘what can you tell me about him?’

  Mickey felt flustered. He had been expecting this ever since he’d been given Tasker’s name by Judy, but it didn’t make it any easier. ‘Not much more than it says in there,’ he said, indicating the file in Lloyd’s hand.

  Lloyd drank some more coffee.

  Mickey looked at him, fascinated by how he could possibly be drinking the boiling liquid in his cup. He felt a little like a rabbit with a snake.

  ‘You were the arresting officer,’ Lloyd said.

  Oh, God. This man would think he was a congenital idiot, and no wonder. Mickey opened the file, and nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I got the credit,’ he said. ‘But only because he ran and I played rugby.’

  ‘You caught him before he could ditch the stuff,’ said Lloyd.

  Mickey smiled. They had been watching the place all night before they had raided it; he had been determined to make it worth while. ‘Got him with a flying tackle,’ he said. ‘ But there were dozens of us on the raid – I didn’t really think of it as my arrest.’ He was talking to delay the inevitable, but it didn’t delay it long.

  ‘Was that who you saw with Mrs Austin?’

  Mickey sighed, resigned to the fact that Lloyd would now be considering having him assigned to directing traffic. ‘It must have been, sir,’ he said. ‘ The description tallies. but it never crossed my mind. I thought he was still inside. He got three years plus he had to serve two years of a suspend
ed sentence. I didn’t think he would be out yet.’

  ‘Well he is. And he isn’t at his digs.’

  ‘Do you think he’s done a runner, sir?’

  Lloyd shrugged. ‘Either that or Beale got to him before we did,’ he said.

  Mickey’s heart landed fairly and squarely somewhere in his stomach. ‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘Sorry, sir. Do you think he’s our man?’

  Lloyd shrugged. ‘Not unless he had transport, and as far as we know, he didn’t. So if you did see him with Mrs Austin, he didn’t kill Mrs Beale. I’m banking on Beale realising that. He’d be no good to us in a coma.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What else do you remember?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘About the raid? It was a studio flat in Queens Estate – it was rented by the girl he was living with.’

  ‘Do you remember her name?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Mickey. ‘I don’t know if I ever knew it. I was a probationer – I had nothing to do with the planning. I was just muscle.’

  ‘Hovak,’ said Lloyd. ‘Leonora Hovak.’

  Mickey wanted to die.

  Lloyd got up, and pulled a chair across, sitting down, leaning his arms on the desk. ‘ Look,’ he said. ‘No one could deny that you work hard,’ He glanced at the clock. ‘It’s late, you were on duty half the night, you had a very traumatic experience, and you’re still here, working. Your paperwork’s always bang up to date – you do all your follow-up calls, you’re prepared to go out on a limb if you think it’s worth it – like your intelligence on the crack factory.’

  Christ. He couldn’t tell him about that, not now. Not yet. Perhaps he could redeem himself somehow first.

  ‘But CID work is about more than that,’ said Lloyd. He smiled. ‘You have the opposite problem to most people,’ he said. ‘I usually have to tell detectives that it isn’t any more glamorous than being a bobby. It’s a damn sight more boring, most of the time. Hours spent on the phone. Days spent watching nothing happen. Months of work going down the drain in two minutes because you can’t prove what you know. Writing endless reports and statements. But that’s the bit you’re good at. it’s the one per cent inspiration that you’re missing out on – and you needn’t.’