Dalziel was gone, he observed, and his puppy-dog, Pascoe. Mentally he corrected himself. He had no reason for thinking Pascoe was merely that, though he was sure Dalziel would make him that if he got the chance.
And me, what would he make of me if he got the chance? he thought.
A parcel for the lawyers. Strongly wrapped, neatly labelled.
Samuel Connon. Wife-killer. There must be some long Latin word for a man who killed his wife. Dalziel might know it, though he probably wouldn’t admit to it if he did. Pascoe would know. He seemed a highly educated kind of cop. The new image. Get your degree, join the force, the Yard’s the limit. Or … leave school at sixteen, start as office boy. You can be assistant personnel manager by the time you’re forty. If you’re lucky. And if the general manager is a big rugby fan.
I’d better be getting down to Jenny. Poor Jenny. I wish I knew how hard this has hit her. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps we should get away for a bit. Where? What on? There’s not all that much spare in the account. All this costs a bit. Even if you haggled over headstones. Now if I’d gone first, Mary’d have been sitting pretty. But what kind of man insures against his wife’s death?
At least they can’t say I killed her for profit. But it’d be nice to get away. Soon. When things had quietened down. It’d be nice to get far, far away. To somewhere as unlike this as possible.
Back to the desert.
Over twenty years earlier, Connon had been sent to join his unit in Egypt at the start of his National Service. He had only been out there a couple of months when the regiment returned home, and at the time the few weeks he spent there seemed to consist of nothing but endless liquid motions of the bowels. He had been as delighted as the rest to return to England and it was this period that saw the blossoming of his rugby career. He had played only a couple of times since leaving school but now he became quickly aware of the advantages traditionally enjoyed by the athlete in His Majesty’s forces. His natural talent exploded into consummate artistry in these conditions and only the simultaneous service, as officer, of the current Welsh stand-off kept him out of the Army XV.
But something of his brief acquaintance with the desert did not easily die. It remained with him as dreams of luxury hotels in the remote Bermudas haunt some men.
He read anything he could get hold of on the desert. Any desert. He collected colour brochures and handouts from the travel agents. Fifteen days in Morocco. Three weeks in Tunisia. Amazing value. But always too much for him.
In any case the desert Connon really wanted to visit was not in any of the brochures, not even the most expensive. He recognized it by its absence, that is, he knew what he wanted was something out of the reach of a camera; something untranslatable into colour photography and glossy paper. He wanted rock that had absorbed terrible, endless heat for a million years, that had writhed in infinitely slow violence till its raw bowels lay on the surface, yet without a single movement noticed by man. He wanted sand which rose and fell like the sea, but so slowly that it was only when it drowned his own civilization that a man recognized its tides.
It was a vision he confided to no one. Least of all Mary, who had found his collection of travel brochures nuisance enough.
Perhaps Jenny …
He saw that she had got out of the car again and was standing against the bonnet looking up towards him. Otherwise the car park was now completely empty.
He began to walk towards her.
‘I wasn’t going to ask her anything,’ repeated Pascoe. ‘Not then. Not there. I felt sorry for her. Just standing there. She looked, I don’t know, helpless somehow.’
This, he thought, is a turn up for the book. Bruiser Dalziel lecturing me on tact and diplomacy. It was like Henry the Eighth preaching about marital constancy.
‘Well, watch it. We don’t harry people at funerals. At least not unless we think they did it. And we don’t think young Jenny Connon did it, do we?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You checked, of course?’
‘Of course. She was nearly a hundred miles away. We know that.’
‘It’s about all we bloody well do know. The only thing we make any progress with is the list of things we don’t know. Item: who had a strong motive to kill her? No one we know, not even the great Connie as far as we know.’
‘Strength of motive is in the mind of the murderer, sir.’
‘Confucius, he bloody well say. To continue. Item: what did he kill her with? A metal object or at least an object with a metal end, cylindrical in shape, long enough to be grasped probably with both hands and smashed right between the eyes of a victim who sits there smiling and doesn’t even try to duck.’
‘The pathologist’s report did say that Mrs Connon had unusually fragile bones, sir. Perhaps we’re overestimating the strength needed.’
‘So what? Thanks for nothing. And Mary Connon fragile? I don’t believe it. It couldn’t be true. With tits like those she’d have broken her collar-bone every time she stood up. To continue again. Item: who saw anything suspicious or even anyone anywhere near the house that night? Not a soul. Not even the eyes and ears of the Woodfield Estate, your friend Fernie. All he can swear is that Connon was rolling drunk. Which Connon can disprove with con-bloody-siderable ease.’
‘It does fit with Connon’s account, though. About his giddiness, I mean. Makes his story that bit stronger, don’t you think? And our doctor did find signs of a slight concussion. He’s still seeing his own man, too. I checked.’
Dalziel slammed his fist so hard on the desk that Pascoe broke his rule of stony non-reaction to his superior and started in his chair.
‘I’m not interested in the bloody man’s health. If he’s innocent, he can drop dead tomorrow for all I care.’
‘A sentiment that does you credit, sir. But there is one thing about this injury to Connon that’s a little bit odd.
‘What’s that, and why isn’t it in your report?’ asked Dalziel suspiciously.
‘Apparently irrelevant. But I felt you might like it, sir.’
Dalziel licked his lips and looked as if the task of strangling Pascoe personally and instantly might not be unattractive.
‘It’s just that when I was down at the Club, I talked among others to a chap called Slater.’
‘Fat Fred. I know him.’
‘Slater remembered Connon being laid out. But, he added casually and as far as I could see without malice, that he reckoned the boot that did the damage belonged to Evans, his own captain. He seemed to think it was just a case of mistaken identity.’
‘Fred would. He’s thick as pigshit, that one. But Arthur Evans isn’t made that way. He plays hard, but he’d never put the boot in.’
‘So?’
‘So Fred Slater should start wearing his glasses on the field. Or better still, give up. It’s indecent a man that size exposing himself in public. I don’t know how his wife manages him.’
He chuckled to himself at the thought and murmured, ‘Levers, I should think.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Sergeant,’ he said quietly, ‘is there anything we’ve left undone which we ought to have done?’
‘I don’t think so, sir.’
‘Right. Then somewhere, in some area we are covering, or have covered, lies the clue.’
‘The clue?’
‘There’s always a clue, boy. Don’t you read the Sunday papers? All this started somewhere and it wasn’t Boundary Drive. Or if it was, we’re not going to get much help there. Now where’s our best bet?’
Pascoe spoke like a bored actor who was thinking of things other than his lines.
‘At the Club.’
‘That’s right. I think I’ll just drop in there tonight. No, tomorrow. That’s a training night. They’ll all be there. Socially, I mean, for a pot of ale. If there’s anything known, they’ll tell me by chucking-out time. They’ll tell me.’
He spoke with some satisfaction.
Like a … but the phone interrupted Pascoe’s s
earch for the right simile.
Dalziel nodded at it.
‘Well, get it, then.’
Pascoe lifted up the receiver.
‘Sergeant Pascoe here. Yes?’
He listened for a few moments then replaced the receiver and stood silent.
‘Not a private call, I hope, Sergeant,’ said Dalziel. ‘Or are you just playing hard to get.’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Pascoe. ‘No. It’s the Connons. They got home and there was a letter. For the girl, it seems. Something unpleasant. Connon wants us to go out there straight away.’
Alice Fernie had gone straight home from the funeral, not doing some shopping first as she had told Jenny. She possessed a great deal of natural tact as well as independence of spirit, a quality which had made possible her friendship with Mary Connon. But the journey had involved two buses and a great deal of waiting. So she had plenty of time to think.
Buses and trains both set you thinking, she thought. But not in the same way. Trains gave you a rhythm, sent you into dreams, cut you off from reality. Buses were always stopping and starting; traffic, road-junctions, lights; and of course, bus-stops. The world you passed through was observable. And real.
So was the world inside your head.
Buses were good places to worry on.
Alice Fernie was worried. She was wondering what the law might do to her husband if it caught up with him.
‘Hello there, Alice. What a grand drying day it is, eh?’
Maisie Curtis from next door had got on the bus and was easing herself into the seat beside her. They were both broad-hipped women and the woeful inadequacy of the Corporation’s transport service was very apparent. Alice didn’t mind. The Corporation didn’t provide much heating either and the warmth generated by the collision of two such large areas was very welcome.
‘Hello, Maisie.’
‘You’re looking smart. You’ve been to her funeral, then?’
‘That’s right.’
There was a short pause while Maisie paid her fare.
‘Many there?’
‘A few.’
‘Oh.’
She’ll want names, thought Alice resignedly. She’ll want a guest-list. And she’ll get it.
‘There’s no funeral meats, then?’
‘No. Everyone’s just going home. Quietly. Like me.’
‘Was there anyone from the police there?’
Alice sighed.
‘As a guest, I mean, a mourner. They wouldn’t be there official, would they? Not unless …’
‘What?’
‘Unless they wanted to watch him, keep an eye on him.’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Connon, of course.’
Alice shifted herself in the seat so that Maisie had to give a couple of inches. The conductor looked in awe at the overhang.
‘Why should they want to watch him?’
‘I don’t know. In case he decided to skip, that’s why. Well, he might, mightn’t he? If he felt like it.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like getting away.’
‘In his shoes, who wouldn’t feel like getting away?’
Maisie was used to deliberate obtuseness on the part of her neighbour and was neither distracted nor offended by it.
‘I mean escaping. If he did it.’
‘If he did it? What makes you say that? You should watch what you say, Maisie. That kind of talk could get you into trouble.’
Alice found herself speaking with greater vehemence than she’d intended, but once more Maisie greeted the affront with a smile.
‘Well, if I’m in trouble, I won’t be the only one. There’ll be lots of company,’ she said smugly.
Alice’s heart sank.
‘Who do you mean?’
‘Why, your Dave for one.’
Oh God, she thought. Was he still at it? In spite of the row last night? He’d say it to someone who mattered sooner or later. And then, then the law would have its course with David Fernie. Alice knew nothing of the law of slander. But she knew how much compensation she herself would demand for being falsely accused of murder.
She tried to speak casually.
‘Dave? What’s he been saying to you?’
To you. Maisie Curtis. Queen gossip of the Woodfield Estate. Which meant of the town.
‘To me? Nothing. Your Dave doesn’t pass the time of day with me. No, it was our Stanley he was talking to.’
This was worse. Maisie Curtis’s Stanley was a direct channel to the Rugby Club. The only one Dave had, probably. And, equally probably, he’d know it. There’d be gossip enough at the Club. Bound to be. Suppose Stanley, young, bumptious, keen to impress … lived nearly opposite the murder-house … next to a key witness.
Witness! To what?
Like that time in Bolton. That was a few years ago, but her memory was longer than her husband’s. The law had been brought in then, but only to ask why anyone should have wanted to break Fernie’s jaw and kick three of his ribs in.
But Mr Connon was a different kettle of fish. It wouldn’t be the law of the jungle this time. Gossip was one thing. Innuendo, knowing winks, impudent questionings. But someone saying he knew was quite different; someone saying he was certain.
Dave Fernie, big Dave Fernie. He knew. He always bloody well knew. Not even God Almighty was as certain about things as Dave Fernie.
‘What’s Dave been saying, then?’ she asked as calmly as she could, shredding her ticket with meticulous care.
‘Well, according to my Stanley, your Dave says he knows how he, Mr Connon that is, killed his wife. And he knows why.’
Maisie nodded as affirmatively at this point as if she had been Fernie himself.
Soul-mates, thought Alice. They’re soul-mates. Born under the same star.
‘Was that all?’
‘All? Wasn’t it enough? It quite upset our Stanley, it did. That’s how I got to hear of it. I could see something was bothering him. And he’s not been in the best of health lately, had a few days off work with one of his tummy upsets. So I asked him and he told. He’s always looked up to Mr Connon, you see. Well, I mean, they all do, down at that Club. He’s on the selection committee as well, you see.’
Alice didn’t see, because she’d stopped listening. To think they said that it was women who had the vicious tongues. There’d been one or two near things since Bolton. One or two unpleasant moments. One or two lost friends.
But this could mean the law.
‘Alice! Are you not getting off, then?’
The pressure had gone from her flank. Maisie was standing in the aisle, looking down at her.
‘Yes, of course.’
They set off down the main road together, Maisie chattering away about other matters now. She was unoffendable herself and never considered for one moment that anyone could be hurt or angered by anything she might say.
After fifty yards they turned left into Boundary Drive.
It was quieter here, away from the main course of traffic. The private side of the road was lined with trees which, even though stripped for winter, added something to the peacefulness of the scene. The trees which should have been on the other side of the road had been swept away at one fell swoop, without warning, when the Corporation bulldozers had moved in at the end of the war. An act of civic vandalism, the residents had called it, complaining even more when they realized they would have to pay road charges now the council was making up the road-surface. But the trees had gone beyond recall, and their absence accentuated as much as the architecture the differences between the old and the new.
Still, the trees and the pleasant outlook over to the more solid and architecturally varied private houses had made Alice glad that they had been offered a house here rather than in the middle of the estate.
Up till now.
Maisie’s voice suddenly rose so sharply that it penetrated the confused web of her own thoughts.
‘That’s them, isn’t it, Alice? In that car. I thought I
recognized them.’
Her eyes focused ahead. A black saloon had just driven by them. She remembered seeing it in the cemetery car park. She watched with trepidation as it slowed down further along the street. For a moment of heart-sinking shock, she thought it had pulled over to stop in front of her own house. But the driver was merely giving himself enough room to swing round to the left, over the pavement and into the Connons’ drive.
‘I wonder what they’re after?’ asked Maisie, increasing her pace.
Alice didn’t wonder. She didn’t care. As long as they weren’t after Dave. She’d have to talk to him again. She’d have to make it quite clear that he was worrying her silly with his slanderous gossip. She’d have to get him to realize that he could get himself into very serious trouble with these terrible accusations against Mr Connon. Very serious trouble.
Unless …
It was curious that the thought had never entered her mind before.
Unless they were true.
She began to lengthen her stride to keep up with Maisie Curtis.
‘“Dear Miss Connon,
‘It must be terrible for you to find that your mother is dead and to realize your father is a murderer. Nothing can bring your mother back. But it may be some comfort to you to know that the man you think is your father is not. Your mother married him only so that her baby (you) would have a name. What a name! It is a murderer’s name. Think yourself lucky he is nothing to do with you.’”
‘No signature.’
‘Let me see,’ said Dalziel.
Pascoe handed over the letter. The superintendent took it carefully by the same corner that Pascoe had used and glanced down at the writing.
‘At least it’s clean,’ he said.
‘That’s little consolation,’ said Connon, who was standing with his arm protectively over Jenny’s shoulders. To Pascoe the girl did not look particularly in need of protection. In fact she had the same rather dangerously angry look he’d seen wrinkle her brow after the funeral.
‘Let’s get this clear …’ Dalziel began.
Connon interrupted him.
‘I presume that means you want me to repeat myself.’
Clever sod, thought Dalziel. Clever-clever. I’m beginning to hope you did it, clever Connie.
A Clubbable Woman Page 6