by J M Gregson
‘You should indeed. You’ve increased the suspicion falling on you, rather than diminished it. People who lie to us invariably do that. We’ve learned a little about your previous dealings with Mr Norbury, as you now say you expected us to do. I think it’s high time we had the full story from you.’
Dick put his face into his hands for a moment, shutting out Peach’s alert, insistent face. He needed to concentrate. But he realized that he didn’t know just how much they knew and how much he could hold back. He’d just admitted to deliberate attempts to deceive them and to persuading Ernie Ainsworth to lie on his behalf. He couldn’t afford to be caught out again. ‘We worked together. We worked for the Daily Mail. I was full-time; Alfred was freelance, but getting a lot of work. He reviewed books – most of the fiction and some of the historical stuff. I was billed as arts correspondent. I reviewed all the major exhibitions and commented on competitions like the Turner Prize. I also had a regular cartoon in the paper. I enjoyed the work and I was earning good money.’
‘But Alfred Norbury changed all that.’
They knew, then. Knew the important stuff, anyway. ‘I should have realized that I was in a dangerous situation with Alfred. Success always made him envious. He said he liked to see people jumping hurdles. In fact he liked to see them falling flat on their faces, in as much mud as possible.’
‘So when he saw things going well for you, he didn’t like it?’
‘That’s putting it mildly. And I wasn’t prepared for what he did: I’d seen only the better side of him until that point. He could be very helpful, when you were making your way. He knew a lot of powerful people in the arts world and he had words with them on my behalf. As long as I was his discovery, the bright young man whom he had spotted and was helping along, I was fine. That sounds silly, because he was only six years older than I was. But when you’re twenty-eight, that seems quite a difference, and certainly Alfred always seemed vastly more experienced and worldly-wise than I was.’
Peach’s normally very mobile features remained totally impassive, so that Fosdyke had no idea whether or not he was accepting this. ‘So what did Norbury do to disturb the smooth progress of your career?’
‘Small things at first. People in the world of art and the world of books were suddenly more reserved and less helpful to me. I realized that where once Alfred had been putting in good words for me behind the scenes, he was now doing exactly the opposite. Eventually the editor of the paper wasn’t passing me the assignments which I had once been given. When I realized what was going on and tackled Alfred about it, he shrugged it aside. A week later I found he was attempting to destroy my marriage.’
‘In what way?’
Dick flicked his hair again, that sudden gesture of disquiet which he was scarcely aware of in himself. ‘Not many newspapermen are saints, Chief Inspector. I was sleeping around a bit. Not serious, earth-shattering affairs. Opportunist, I suppose. Stupid and selfish – oh, I’ve been through the self-examination and self-recrimination stuff many times. I found that my wife was suddenly asking about my activities and where I’d been at certain times. It didn’t take me long to work out who her informant was. When I confronted Norbury, he went all sententious and said that she had a right to know and he was bringing me to my senses. He did that all right. I lost my job at the Daily Mail and I’ve been freelance ever since. Alison and I patched things up and the marriage struggled on for several years, but it was the beginning of the end.’
Peach looked round at the small, comfortable flat and at the pictures of Fosdyke’s children which had appeared there since his last visit. ‘You’ve picked your life up since then.’
Dick allowed himself a bitter smile. ‘Sort of. I’m earning again, though life as a freelance is always rather precarious. But I think that I’ve now managed to acquire a certain reputation as a cartoonist. I earn decent money, even if there’s not a lot left over after my monthly payments to Alison. I’ve got a reasonable life going again, I suppose.’
‘So why tangle again with the man who’d destroyed everything, according to the account you’ve just given to us?’
Dick had known this would come, just as he’d known that he must now try to make his explanation as convincing as he possibly could. ‘I can’t fully explain that, even to myself. I thought of pulling out, when I found Norbury was to be a member of the book club. But then I thought that I wasn’t going to let that sod dictate the way I lived my life.’ He looked at Peach, but found no clue in the round, impassive face as to whether he was convincing him. ‘I suppose there was also a certain vanity: I wanted to show Alfred that I’d made a new and successful life, with demanding work and interesting friends, despite what he’d done to me ten years ago. And perhaps there was also a certain curiosity. I wanted to see how Norbury would react to me after all this time, especially in the presence of others who did not know our history.’
Peach nodded slowly, his first visible reaction in many minutes. ‘And what were your first thoughts when you saw him at that initial book club meeting?’
‘He was as bold as brass, for a start. It didn’t seem at all embarrassing to him meeting me again, even though we both knew what he’d done to me. He wanted to take over the conversation as he’d always done and to tell other people what they should be thinking. He also had a young man in tow. Jamie Norris. He seemed a pleasant, intelligent lad from what I saw of him. I suspect he’s mid-twenties, but I’d say he’s younger than his years. And just the kind of candidate to become an Alfred Norbury protégé. I made a note on that Monday night that I was going to take the first opportunity to warn Jamie Norris about Norbury. Alfred would help him along, be very kind to him at first, but he’d have his own agenda. Don’t trust the sod as far as you can throw him, I was going to tell young Jamie. I don’t need to do that now.’
Peach nodded, allowing those mobile black eyebrows to dance a little for the first time. ‘You said earlier that you didn’t think we’d consider the three women who were present at that first book club meeting as likely candidates for murder. The other member of that group was the nice lad who was a protégé of Norbury’s and beholden to him, you thought. He doesn’t seem a very likely suspect for us either, does he? Which leaves you, Mr Fosdyke. A man who has now confessed to the murderous hate which is often the prelude to a killing. A man who tried to sell us a clumsily contrived alibi. A man who contrived a meeting with a murder victim so as to allow himself the opportunity for long-sought revenge.’
‘I didn’t kill Norbury.’
Peach now gave him a huge and disconcerting beam. ‘You’re the only convincing suspect, on your own admission. We don’t often get that, do we, DS Northcott? A man setting himself up for us as our prime suspect?’
‘It’s unique in my experience, sir. But it shows admirable frankness in a member of the public. I think we should encourage it, sir. Publicise it, perhaps, after the arrest – try to establish a trend.’
Fosdyke almost snarled at them. ‘I didn’t shoot Norbury. I’d have been tempted, given the opportunity, but I’m not your killer.’
Peach’s black eyebrows arched impossibly high beneath the bald pate. ‘You gave yourself the opportunity, Mr Fosdyke, when you joined that book club. And Alfred Norbury practically suggested the method to you, when he volunteered the information that he carried a loaded pistol in his car.’
‘And I knew his car – he’d had that Triumph Stag as long as I’d known him – and I now have no alibi for the time he was killed. But the onus of proof is still on you, DCI Peach, and you won’t be able to meet it.’
Dick spoke with all the confidence he could muster, but his adversary looked singularly unimpressed. ‘We’re now certain that Alfred Norbury was shot at quarter to seven on Tuesday the twenty-first of January. Killed within ten minutes’ walk of the White Hart, where you presented yourself, according to independent witnesses, at around seven o’clock. Where do you now claim to have been at quarter to seven?’
‘Walking from her
e to the White Hart. I didn’t take the car because I wanted to be free to drink as much as I wished with my old friend.’
‘Whom you’d agreed to meet there to provide yourself with a sort of alibi for the murder you’d already planned.’
‘Whom I’d agreed to meet to enjoy a pleasant evening together and reminisce about old times. You’ll find it difficult to prove it otherwise, DCI Peach.’
‘We’ll find the proof, if it’s needed, Mr Fosdyke. Perhaps this is the time for you to consult a good criminal defence lawyer.’
Enid Frott thought long and hard before inviting Sharon Burgess for coffee. She still wasn’t sure about their relationship. How could you be? What rules could there possibly be for the association of a wife and the mistress who had almost destroyed her marriage?’
That was years ago, of course, and time heals most things. But surely not this? Surely armed neutrality was the nearest she and Sharon should get to any sort of relationship? And now there was murder. Murder of a man both of them had hated; murder of a man who had been crucial in the agonies both of them had endured a decade and more ago. Enid was sure now that both of them had wished Alfred Norbury dead. Why had she invited him to join the book club? Why had Sharon taken up her suggestion of a book club so eagerly and pushed it along, when it might otherwise have been one of those good ideas that never found a practical outlet?
Her life seemed at present to be dominated by a series of questions, to none of which she could provide a satisfactory answer. It was as though Alfred Norbury was taunting her from beyond the grave, amusing himself with her pain now as he had done so thoroughly in life. As the time of this meeting she had arranged approached, she agonized over yet another question. Was Sharon Burgess the right person to meet now, in view of their history? Wasn’t a conversation with Sharon likely to leave her further confused rather than clear her mind? Would the police, who seemed to discover everything which went on among them, get to know of this meeting? And if they did, how would they interpret her action in arranging it?
She was thoroughly regretting her initiative by the time Sharon Burgess arrived. The simple electronic chime sounded in her ears like the knell of doom. Enid painted a welcoming smile across her lips and opened the door of the flat. ‘Good of you to come, Sharon. I thought we should have a talk.’
‘I’m glad you did. You probably think I’ve got plenty of people to talk to at Pendle View, but the family aren’t around and you don’t talk to the people who work for you about things like this. I feel as isolated as you are. Sorry, that sounds rather rude. I didn’t mean it to be.’
Enid smiled wanly. ‘There’s no need to apologize. Perhaps it’s being involved in a murder enquiry that puts us on edge. Because we are involved, you know: we’re suspects, and it’s not a good feeling. I think we feel we can only really talk about it to other people who are in it as deeply as we are.’
Sharon wondered if Enid suspected her, if she’d brought her here to quiz her with a view to making her incriminate herself. Had she heard about the glove in Alfred’s Triumph Stag? The police wouldn’t have told her, but all kinds of information seemed to be flying around the town in the feverish atmosphere that had built up during the last week. She accepted the offer of coffee because that would give her time to think and perhaps to prepare herself for whatever it was that Enid Frott wanted of her.
She’d never been here until that fateful Monday-night meeting of the book club, and she’d been much too preoccupied with the other people there to give much attention to her surroundings. Enid’s ground-floor flat was a strange mixture, but one which worked well. The flat had the large rooms and long, simple windows of the original Georgian house, but the comfort and elegance of a modern flat. Part of its appeal was no doubt due to Enid, who as she would have expected had made the most of the place. The furnishings and decoration were minimalist, with every piece no doubt chosen carefully to make the maximum effect within the whole.
Enid was only four years younger than her, which meant that she must be sixty-three now. But the style she had gone for and brought off here was that of a much younger person. Sharon herself would never have dared to attempt it, even if it had been her taste, which it was not. It was easier to bring off these effects, she supposed, when you had no children or grandchildren to bring their appealing chaos into the rooms where you lived. Or was she just being bitchy? She wasn’t generally bitchy, but you could surely make an exception of your husband’s mistress.
When Enid brought in the coffee, it was almost as if she read these thoughts. She said rather abruptly as she set the tray on the low table, ‘Frank was never here, you know. The house is old, but the conversion to four flats was only undertaken three years ago.’
Sharon smiled, acknowledging that the daring introduction of Frank had been well meant. She accepted her coffee, said nothing during the several seconds the two women took to arrange themselves in sofa and armchair, then came back quietly with, ‘He was a good man, Frank.’
‘Yes. He had a conscience.’ Enid stared hard at her coffee as she summoned her courage. ‘He did the right thing in the end.’
Sharon tried not to show her surprise. She was shocked as much at herself as at Enid for letting the conversation run this way. ‘Perhaps he did. Which of us knows, in the end? We fight for what we have. Monogamy may not be the most natural arrangement for mankind. It certainly isn’t the easiest.’
‘We shan’t have Alfred Norbury around to complicate the rest of our lives.’
‘No. I’m surprised how glad I am that someone’s put paid to him.’
Enid wondered if this was a genuine thought, or simply Sharon’s assertion that she hadn’t committed this crime. ‘I’m glad too. Seeing him again reminded me how bitterly I felt about him all those years ago.’
Sharon smiled ‘“All those years”. Ten years doesn’t seem much, when you reach your sixties.’
‘That’s true. Perhaps I never really ceased hating him. Perhaps it was seeing him again that brought it back to the surface.’
‘Are you telling me that you killed him?’ Sharon delivered it with a smile, to conceal the real enquiry behind it.
‘No. But then I wouldn’t be, even if I’d shot the bugger, would I?’
Sharon grinned, feeling a welcome relaxation of the tension. ‘He was a bugger, wasn’t he? Quite literally, I suppose. I’m sure he had sexual plans for that young man he brought along to the book club meeting: I could tell by the way he glanced at him from time to time.’ She stretched her legs, glancing at the calf leather on her blue, elegant shoes. ‘In the old days, I used to think of Alfred as a likeable rascal, shading into rogue, but he was worse than that, wasn’t he?’
‘He was, yes. Much worse. When they’re up to no good, it’s always the intelligent ones who are the worst. I’d say he was highly intelligent and highly dangerous. Like a lot of other people, I didn’t realize that at the time when he was damaging me.’
Sharon suddenly looked hard at the woman who had brought her here. ‘You’ve fired a few pistols in your time, I seem to remember.’
Enid refused to take offence. ‘I used to be a member of the Brunton Small Arms Club, yes. Thirty years ago and more. And in case you wish to throw this in too, I was quite a good shot. I won the odd prize, in those days. My then boyfriend was a member of the club, and quite proud of me. That was long before I became Frank’s PA. But I should point out that whoever shot Alfred had no need of any arms expertise. I gather the killer simply put the pistol close to his temple and pulled the trigger. You don’t need any previous experience to do that.’
‘But at least the thought of handling a pistol wouldn’t inhibit you. I’ve always been terrified of the whole business of firearms. I don’t believe I could bring myself to handle a pistol.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you could, if you were bent on murder.’ This was the kind of barbed exchange they’d enjoyed at Sharon’s big house on the hill, Enid thought, when they were setting up the book club, before
any of this had happened. And she was in danger of enjoying it now, as she’d enjoyed it then.
Perhaps Sharon Burgess felt something of the same odd, irrelevant excitement. But she now switched the subject away from the two of them again. ‘Do you think that Jamie Norris might have killed him? If he didn’t want to be bedded and Alfred was too persistent, I mean?’
She’s ruling herself out again, Enid thought. But ruling out me as well: perhaps I’m being ultra-sensitive. ‘He might well have done, I suppose. When I was as young and as inexperienced as he still seems to be, I’d have panicked if Alfred Norbury had been digging his sexual claws into me. Speaking of youngsters, what about that bright young woman you brought along? I liked her.’
‘Jane Preston? Oh, I think Jane can look after herself. I don’t think she’d panic, even if Alfred set his sights upon her – I always used to wonder if he was bisexual, you know. But with her looks and her figure, she must by now be well used to handling male attention, welcome or unwelcome. I’ve seen her in action at my evening class. She’s a highly competent teacher, but she also keeps people at a distance easily enough, when she wants to. She’s a bright girl: I expect she’s late twenties, but anyone that age is a girl to me now.’
‘And me.’ Enid was wondering now quite why she’d brought Sharon Burgess here. Frank was a bond between them, however unlikely that seemed. Strange how a man who was now dead and whom she hadn’t seen for many years previously could still be so strong a presence for the two women he had loved. She’d been vaguely hoping the two of them could help each other in some way with the police, but she’d realized as soon as Sharon had come into her flat that she was wrong. She said thoughtfully, ‘Do you think either of those young ones could have killed Alfred?’
‘You’ve obviously been looking for a killer, as I have.’ Sharon smiled grimly, aware that what she was going to say was narrowing the field, transferring suspicion back to the woman in front of her – and to herself, of course. ‘I don’t really see either of those two killing Alfred – unless Jamie panicked in the face of sexual advances, as we thought he might have done. Jane wouldn’t have lost her head like that, and I can’t see any other reason for her to have killed Alfred.’