Orchestrated Death

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Atherton decided, as he was in the area, to check out Thompson’s story as far as the pub, Steptoes, was concerned. He found it moderately busy, filled with suited young men in run-down shoes and smart women with tired faces under hard make-up – the office crowd, and how, he wondered, could they get away with it? He ordered a pint of Marston’s and a toasted cheese sandwich and got chatting to the governor, a short and muscle-bound ex-boxer, who in turn introduced him to the Australian barmaid who had been on duty on Monday night.

  To Atherton’s surprise they both said they knew Simon Thompson and his girlfriend, the nurse. They came in a lot, usually with a crowd of other musicians and nurses. The two professions seemed to go together for some reason. But neither barmaid nor governor remembered seeing Simon on the Monday night.

  ‘But we were busy,’ the barmaid pointed out in fairness. ‘The fact that I didn’t see him doesn’t mean to say that he wasn’t here.’

  Which was true, Atherton thought, and just about what you could expect with this job.

  Slider left Joanna to wander about Woodstock while he went in to see the solicitor.

  Mr Battershaw was at first reluctant to believe that Anne-Marie was dead at all. ‘I shall have to see a death certificate,’ he said more than once; and, ‘Why wasn’t I informed before this?’

  Patiently Slider explained about the difficulty of identifying the body and tracing the next of kin. ‘I’ve just been to see Mrs Ringwood, and she gave me your name and address. I understand that you were Miss Austen’s solicitor?’

  Once properly convinced that Anne-Marie was no more, Battershaw became co-operative. He was a big, gaunt man in his late fifties, with surprised, pale eyes and a long jaw, which made him look like a bloodless horse. He offered Slider tea, which Slider refused, and under steady questioning settled down to tell the family story.

  ‘Anne-Marie’s grandfather, Mr Bindman, was the client of my predecessor here, the younger Mr Riggs. He’s retired now, but he told me all about Mr Bindman. He was a self-made man, who started off as the son of a penniless refugee who came over during the First World War. Our Mr Bindman set himself up in business and made his fortune, built himself that lovely house, and was altogether a pillar of society.’

  ‘What sort of business?’

  ‘Boots and shoes. Nothing exciting, I’m afraid. Well now, he was married twice – his first wife died in 1929 or ‘30 -and he had a son, David, by his first marriage, and two daughters, Rachel and Esther, by his second wife. David was killed in 1942 – a great tragedy. He was only eighteen, poor boy – just joined up. He’d only served a few weeks. And the second Mrs Bindman was killed in the Blitz, so there were just the two little girls left.

  ‘Mr Bindman doted on them both, but the younger girl, Rachel, was his pet. Esther married in 1957, and Gregory Ringwood was a very solid young man, steady and reliable, just the sort a careful father would approve of. But later the same year Rachel fell in love with a violin player called Austen, and that was a different matter altogether.’

  ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Oh, let me see – she’d be eighteen or nineteen. Very young. Well, Mr Bindman was very definite in his ideas. He loved music, and it was he who encouraged Rachel to go to concerts, and even bought her gramophone records and her own radiogram. But when it came to marrying a fiddle-player – that wasn’t good enough for his pet. He told her there was no future in it, and that Austen would never be able to earn enough to keep her, and forbade her to marry him, or even see him again. Rachel, I’m afraid, was a very strong-willed young woman, very like her father, in fact, and they spent two years or so quarrelling fiercely about it. Then in the end, as soon as she was twenty-one and the old man could no longer prevent her, she married Austen, and broke her father’s heart.’ Battershaw sighed. ‘Mr Bindman reacted in the only way he knew: he cut her out of his will, and vowed never to speak to her again.’

  ‘Pretty drastic,’ Slider said mildly.

  ‘Oh, positively Victorian! Mind you, I’m sure he would have changed his mind in the end, given time, because he adored Rachel, and she’d have found a way to get round him. I think he probably just wanted to register his disapproval in the time-honoured way. But unfortunately time wasn’t on his side. The following year, 1960, Anne-Marie was born, and Rachel attempted a reconciliation, and there were signs that the old fellow was softening; but then when Anne-Marie was a year old, Rachel and her husband were both killed in a car crash.’

  ‘How dreadful.’

  Battershaw nodded. ‘That was the year I joined the firm, and in a short time I saw old Mr Bindman age ten years. He blamed himself, as people will after the event, and poured out all the love he should have given to Rachel onto the little girl. And he changed his will, leaving half the estate to his daughter Esther, and the other half in trust for Anne-Marie.’

  The words fell into Slider’s mind like pieces of a jigsaw slotting into place. Mrs Ringwood’s hesitations aside, there was so often money at the bottom of things. When there’s a way, there’s a will, he thought.

  ‘What were the terms of the trust?’ he asked.

  Battershaw looked disapproving. ‘I’m afraid they were very ill-advised, and I argued strenuously with Mr Bindman about them, but he was a stubborn old man, and wouldn’t budge an inch. Money was to be released from the income to pay for Anne-Marie’s upbringing and education, but the capital and any accrued interest were not to be handed over to her until she married.’ He shook his head. ‘He didn’t trust women to handle money, you see – he thought they needed a man to guide them. Of course, I’m sure he didn’t anticipate the way things fell out. He must have expected that Anne-Marie would marry straight from school, and that he would still be around to approve or even arrange the marriage.’

  ‘And then, presumably, he would have changed the terms?’

  ‘Indeed. Oh, I did my best to persuade him anyway. I begged him at least to put a date to the winding-up of the trust, so that she would inherit either when she married or when she reached the age of, say twenty-five, but he wouldn’t have it. I dare say that given time I could have brought him round to it, but there again time was not on our side. Rachel’s death had broken his health, and he died within a year of her, leaving Anne-Marie in a most invidious position, without a penny she could touch until and unless she married.’

  Slider mused. ‘Did Mrs Ringwood know the terms of the trust?’

  ‘Indeed. She is the other trustee, you see, along with myself.’

  ‘And Anne-Marie? Did she know?’

  Battershaw looted a little disconcerted. ‘Now, it’s a strange thing, if you had asked me that question a year ago I would have had to say I didn’t know. I had never discussed the matter with her, and I have strong doubts as to how much Mrs Ringwood would have thought wise to tell her. The terms of the trust, you see, are certainly an encouragement to improvident marriage, and -’ He paused, embarrassed.

  ‘She might have married just anyone, simply to get away from home?’ Slider offered.

  ‘Yes,’ Battershaw said gratefully. He cleared his throat and continued. ‘But then last autumn Anne-Marie made an appointment to see me.’

  ‘Can you tell me the exact date?’

  ‘Oh, certainly. I don’t remember offhand – I think it was towards the end of October – but Mrs Kaplan, my secretary, will be able to tell you. It will be in my diary.’

  ‘Thank you. So Anne-Marie came to see you – here? In this office?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how did she seem?’

  ‘Seem? She was very well – quite sun-tanned, in fact. I remember I commented on the fact, and she said she had just come back from Italy. She had been on a tour with her Orchestra, I think, but she’d always been fond of Italy.’

  ‘Was she happy?’

  Battershaw seemed puzzled. ‘Really, Inspector, I don’t quite know. I had had very little personal contact with Anne-Marie, not enough to know how she was feeling. All I can say is I didn�
�t notice that she seemed unhappy.’

  ‘Of course. Please go on.’ Slider rescued him from these uncharted seas. ‘What did she want to see you about?’

  ‘She wanted to know the exact terms of her grandfather’s bequest to her. I told her -’

  ‘Just a moment, please – did she ask you what were the terms, or did she already know the terms, and ask you to confirm them?’

  Battershaw looked intelligent. ‘I understand you. As I remember, she said that she understood she had no money of her own until she married, and asked me if that were true. Of course, I told her that it was.’

  ‘And what was her reaction?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything at once, although she looked rather thoughtful, and not entirely pleased, which was understandable. Then she asked if there were any way round it, any way of changing the provision of the will. I told her there was not. And then she said, “You are quite sure that the only way I can lay my hands on my money is to get married?” Or words to that effect. I said yes, and then she got up to go.’

  ‘That was all?’

  ‘That was all. I asked if there were anything else I could do for her, and she said no.’ The anaemic horse smiled almost roguishly. ‘I think she said “Not a thing”, to be precise.’ The smile disappeared like a rabbit down a hole. ‘That was the last time I saw her. It’s hard to believe the poor child is dead. Are you quite sure it was murder?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Because I hate to think that she might have – laid hands on herself, for the want of money. That would not at all have been her grandfather’s intention.’

  ‘We’re confident it wasn’t suicide,’ Slider said. His mind was elsewhere. ‘Did Miss Austen have any relatives on her father’s side?’

  ‘None that I know of. Her father was an only child, I know, so there would not have been aunts and uncles, or cousins. There may have been second cousins, but I never heard of any.’

  Slider tried a long shot. ‘Did she have any relatives in Italy? Was Austen perhaps part-Italian?’

  Battershaw looked merely bewildered. ‘I never heard that he was. But really, I had nothing to do with him at all. Mrs Ringwood would be the person to ask.’

  ‘Of course. Thank you.’ Slider got up to go. ‘Your secretary will give me the date of that meeting?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Battershaw accompanied him to the door, and Slider checked him before he could open it.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘the estate was a large one, was it?’

  ‘Quite large. The capital was soundly invested.’ He named a sum which made Slider’s eyebrows rise.

  ‘And who does it all go to, now that Miss Austen is dead?’

  Battershaw looked unhappy now, a pale horse with colic. ‘Mrs Ringwood is the residuary legatee,’ he said.

  ‘I see. Thank you,’ said Slider.

  Slider walked out into the smeary, intemperate sunshine and stood there for a moment, blinking. The tangle of the case, he felt, was beginning to resolve. He could see ends of string that he could begin to wind in. The favoured sister; the dead favoured sister’s child – helpless, hapless infant; the dutiful daughter who had never been properly appreciated, forced to take care of the rival for her father’s love; the money that should have been hers, and was now hers again. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to talk about it, he thought. But motive doesn’t make a case. All the same -

  Suddenly he remembered Joanna. While he had been engrossed with Battershaw he had entirely forgotten her. It was one of the reasons he loved his job: it had the power to absorb him completely, so that it became his refuge, the one place where he could escape from wearying self-consciousness.

  But coming back to the thought of Joanna was refreshment and renewal. She was sitting in the window of the tearoom they had appointed as meeting-place, and she didn’t see him for a moment, so that he was able to look at her unobserved. Her face was already familiar to him, but now he saw it in the unmerciful sunlight in all its planes and textures, its shapes and inconsistencies, its simple uniqueness. There was all the evidence of a lifetime of experience entirely separate from him. She had lived, and living had marked her. She had spent perhaps half her allotted span, without him – he more than half of his, without her. Of all the thousands of days and nights, they had spent only one together. But still, looking at her, he had the extraordinary feeling of belonging. This was how it was, then, he thought. His righteous place was on her side of the glass, ranged with her against the incoming tide of the rest of the world, and it didn’t matter a damn that he knew nothing she knew: he knew her.

  She saw him. The focus of her eyes changed and she smiled and he went in.

  Sunshine or not, it was only January, and the gathering darkness as they drove back to London affected their mood, dampening their lightness with the realisation of their problems. Slider voiced it unwillingly as he drew up outside her house.

  ‘I mustn’t be too late back tonight.’ She made a small turning-away movement of her head, and he recognised it as hurt, which hurt him. ‘We could go out for a quick bite to eat, if you like,’ he said tentatively.

  She turned back to look at him clearly. ‘No, that would waste time. Let’s have a drink here, and a snack if you like. I’ll light the fire.’

  ‘I’ll have to make some phone calls,’ he said, and then added hastily, ‘to Atherton, and the station. I haven’t called in all day.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You must do what you have to.’

  But when they went in the phone began instantly to ring, and she sprinted for it and picked it up before the answering-machine could intercept. Slider felt a chill of foreboding even before she made polite responses into the receiver and then turned to offer it to him.

  ‘For you,’ she said. It was too dark in the hall to see the expression of her face, but her voice said clearly enough that she knew the day was over for them.

  It was O’Flaherty. ‘Izzat you Billy? Christ, we been trying to get yez all day. Atherton said y’ might be there. Jaysus, are you at that owl caper, now?’

  ‘What is it, Pat?’ Slider forbore to rise to the bait.

  ‘Ah, the world’s a wheel o’ fortune, so it is,’ O’Flaherty remarked cryptically. ‘Well, I’m sorry to spoil your shenanigans, but you’d better come in here straight away, me fine Billy, and thank God and Little Boy Blue that we never phoned your owl lady to ask where y’ were.’ Little Boy Blue was what O’Flaherty called Atherton. They had a robust but not unfriendly contempt for each other.

  A complex blend of relief, disappointment and apprehension was having its effect on Slider’s bowels, and he said impatiently, ‘For Christ’s sake, Pat, what’s happened?’

  ‘The owl woman, Mrs Gostyn. They been trying to raise her all day, and getting anxious as time went on and she never showed up. So Boy Blue goes in troo the winder and finds her dead on the floor.’

  The receiver suddenly felt slippery and cold in his grasp. In the darkness of the unlit hall he sought Joanna’s eyes, and her face seemed to swim unattached in the shadows. Then she reached out and switched on the light, and everything was ordinary again, and he only felt very tired.

  ‘How did it happen?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, she might’ve slipped and banged her head on the fender,’ O’Flaherty said with an emphasis on the word ‘might’ that told Slider all he needed to know.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ he said. Joanna turned away and went into the kitchen, which he recognised as her way of relieving him of responsibility for her. Their day was over; but under the surface of churning reactions there was still a peaceful-ness, because she was there, and they felt what they felt about each other, which meant that they couldn’t not go on being together in some way or another, and so everything was all right really, wasn’t it?

  CHAPTER 9

  Other Fish?

  Atherton had set his alarm to get him up with the birds, but what he was in fact up with was a disgusting crunching and slurping n
oise from under the bed, where Oedipus had retired to eat a mouse. Atherton got out of bed with a curse, and on his hands and knees cautiously lifted the corner of the counterpane. In the fluffy twilight the cat looked at him over its shoulder with yellow headlamp eyes and a tail hanging out of the corner of its mouth.

  ‘Just be sure you eat it all,’ Atherton said, remembering the time he had found four abandoned feet on his pillow, and headed for the bathroom. He had a hot shower, shaved under it, washed his hair, and then stood under the streaming, steaming water and thought about Slider.

  It was really the most extraordinary thing to have happened. He hadn’t met the Marshall woman, of course, but even if she combined all the feminine charms, it was hard to see how she could have got Slider off the rails of a lifetime in a matter of hours. To have slept with her – and really slept — the first evening of their acquaintance, and then to have taken her with him when he went out on police business, was so far out of character for his superior that Atherton, who believed in Love only as a theoretical possibility – as something that hadn’t been definitely disproved – could only think that Slider was heading for some kind of a breakdown.

  There was no fool like an unpractised fool, he thought, turning off the water and stepping into a very large, thick bath sheet – Atherton took washing very seriously – and to his knowledge Slider had never been unfaithful to Irene before, probably not even in thought. He was one of those rarities, a truly virtuous man, and Atherton, who was all for Slider’s getting out from under Irene’s thumb on principle, didn’t know whether the poor sap could handle it. If he was going to go off the rails, he’d probably do it in a spectacular way, and to be heading for that kind of crisis in the middle of a murder investigation was catastrophic.