Once Too Often

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘The trouble was,’ said Manifest, ‘that Jessica needed security. And I really do mean needed it, like most people need food and drink. And unfortunately I couldn’t give it to her any longer. That was why I appreciated so much the fact that she stood by me.’

  To the extent that he was prepared to put up with whatever treatment she felt like dishing out? thought Thanet. ‘Why was that, do you suppose? Why did she need security so much?’

  Manifest lifted his shoulders. ‘I imagine it was to do with the fact that she lost both her parents when she was quite young. Her father died when she was six and her mother four years later. She went to live with her sister, who was much older than she was and married by then.’

  ‘Yes. We’ve talked to her brother-in-law.’

  Manifest pulled a face. ‘Bernard.’

  ‘You don’t like him?’

  ‘He’s all right, I suppose. I just can’t stand the way he smokes like a chimney and stinks like an ashtray.’

  Lineham shifted in his chair, obviously longing to voice his agreement.

  ‘Strange that it should have affected her so profoundly,’ said Thanet. ‘Obviously it’s pretty traumatic for a child to lose both parents one after the other but at least she did have close family to take her in. If she’d gone into a children’s home and been shifted from pillar to post it would have been a different matter.’

  ‘I know.’ Manifest had relaxed considerably by now. He returned to his chair and sat down, stretching out his legs and clasping his hands loosely in his lap. ‘But there it was. It took me a long time to realise that the Jessica we saw on the surface – so self-assured and confident – was quite different from the person underneath.’

  ‘What was she like underneath, then?’

  ‘Insecure, as I’ve said. Pessimistic. Gloomy. Often depressed. And angry. For a long time I couldn’t understand why she would blow up about quite trivial matters and then, eventually, it dawned on me. There was this constant anger always simmering away beneath the surface, just waiting to erupt the moment something triggered it off.’

  Thanet thought of the scene in the garden which the Bartons had described. An anger, then, which occasionally erupted into violence. An anger which might last night have erupted at the wrong moment, against the wrong person?

  ‘Anger about what?’

  Manifest shrugged again. ‘Life in general, I suppose. I’ve had a lot of time to think about things over the last few years but I’ve never reached any cut and dried conclusions. I don’t suppose you ever can, as far as people are concerned. They change all the time, according to circumstances and how life treats them. Look at me, now! You’d hardly recognise me as the man I was five years ago.’

  Thanet hesitated. There was something he badly wanted to ask and he didn’t know if Manifest would ever again be in the mood to talk so frankly about his wife. In Thanet’s experience people often regretted such confidences later and tended to withdraw. He decided to risk it. ‘Look, sir, there’s a question I’d like to put to you. But it could be painful.’

  ‘Go ahead. I don’t suppose it’ll affect me too much. I’m still pretty numb at the moment.’

  ‘How do you think your wife would have reacted if Ogilvy had told her that he was breaking off the affair.’

  Manifest tensed. ‘Did he?’

  ‘He says he did.’

  ‘Last night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So that was why he didn’t stay long. Poor Jessica! I suppose he’d found himself someone new. He was in the Harrow with a woman.’

  ‘That was his wife.’

  ‘Oh. What was she doing there?’

  Thanet shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t go into all the ins and outs of the situation now. You haven’t answered my question. How do you think Mrs Manifest would have reacted?’

  Manifest stared at him. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Would she have been crushed? Or angry? Pleaded with him?’

  ‘No! She wouldn’t have pleaded! She had too much pride. And she wouldn’t have wanted him to know if she was really upset. She’d have kept that till later, when she was alone. But yes, she would have been angry. Furious, in fact.’ He sat up with a jerk. ‘My God, is that what happened? They had a row because he was leaving her, and he shoved her down the stairs? It all makes sense now.’

  ‘It’s much too early in the investigation to jump to conclusions, sir. That’s the danger of being in possession of only half the facts.’ Thanet hoped he hadn’t been imprudent. He didn’t want Manifest to do anything rash like rushing off to accuse Ogilvy.

  ‘But don’t you see?’ Manifest jumped up out of his chair and began to pace about, swerving to avoid those pieces of furniture which projected into the limited free space. ‘It must have been him! He’s the one who made the phone call! Then he scarpered, before the ambulance got here, so he wouldn’t be involved, the bastard!’

  ‘He assures us that your wife was alive and well when he left.’

  ‘Well he would, wouldn’t he!’

  ‘And,’ said Lineham, ‘the phone call was made at 8.11, only a few minutes before you yourself saw him in the pub with his wife. What is more, the landlord confirms that they arrived at around the time Mr Ogilvy claims, a quarter to eight.’

  But Manifest was not deterred. ‘OK, so he didn’t make the phone call. But he still could have been involved in her death, before he left for the pub. Someone else must have found her and rung for the ambulance.’

  ‘Who?’ said Thanet, thinking the prowler} ‘And how would he have got in? Mr Ogilvy swears he shut the front door behind him.’

  ‘You’ve only got his word for that. Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe he thought he had and the latch hadn’t caught. It doesn’t always.’

  ‘The point is,’ said Thanet, ‘that all this is speculation. We have to wait and see what the scientific evidence tells us. Then we might have a clearer picture.’

  Lineham waited until the front door had shut behind them and then said, “ ‘Poor Jessica” indeed! Imagine being sorry for your wife because her lover had given her the push! Talk about weird!’

  ‘I think he really cared about her, in spite of everything,’ said Thanet as they got into the car. ‘In fact, I think he’s still in love with her.’

  Lineham buckled his seat-belt, started the engine and switched the lights on. Dusk was now beginning to fall. ‘I don’t know about that, but I do think we’re beginning to get a clearer picture of what went on last night, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Though there are still too many gaps for my liking.’

  ‘Of course, the fact remains that he’s right about Ogilvy. He could have done it before he left for the pub.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you the same could be said about him?’ said Thanet. ‘All right, we know he couldn’t have made the phone call, but we’ve only got his word for it that he was striding about the countryside in the dark between 7.20 and 8.15. What if he set out on his walk as usual, then thought, what the hell, I’ve had enough of this, I’m going back to have it out with them?’ Thanet could tell by the expression on Lineham’s face that he didn’t like this idea.

  ‘What would be the point, sir? If they were . . . brazen enough to go to bed together with him still in the house, they’re not going to listen to him if he finally loses his temper with them.’

  ‘To relieve his feelings, get it off his chest?’

  ‘Possible, I suppose.’ But Lineham still sounded unconvinced.

  ‘But then, when he got there, Ogilvy had already left and Jessica was by herself. But Manifest had worked himself up to the point of having it out with her and that was what he did. With tragic results.’ Having put the theory into words it seemed to Thanet that it was all too likely a scenario.

  But Lineham was still reluctant to accept it. ‘I think I agree with what you said earlier, sir,’ he said, turning the tables. ‘It’s too early to jump to conclusions.’

  Thanet grinned inwardly. Very neat, Mik
e. Then he yawned. ‘I’m sure you’re right. Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I think we’ve had enough for today.’

  ‘Can’t wait to tackle that speech, eh, sir?’

  Thanet grinned. It was a pleasure to see Lineham in a good mood, engrossed in the case. The sergeant had always loved his work. Maybe this was just what he needed to give him a sufficient boost in morale to lift him out of his impasse and help him to resolve his problems at home. With any luck Thanet wouldn’t have to intervene after all.

  It was a cheering thought and his spirits lifted further at the thought of an evening – what was left of it – at home alone with Joan. He was therefore not very pleased to find a strange car in the drive. ‘Who on earth . . .?’ he muttered, as he parked in the road.

  Joan must have heard his key in the lock and came out into the hall to meet him. A savoury smell made Thanet’s mouth water and his stomach give a protesting rumble at the thought of nourishment being further withheld. In response to his raised eyebrows and expression of dismay as he gestured towards the sound of voices in the sitting room, Joan whispered, ‘James and Marjorie. Called in with a present for Bridget.’

  Thanet scowled. ‘Better say hullo, I suppose.’ He was fond of James and Marjorie and was normally pleased to see them, but not now, at the end of a long day, when he was tired and hungry. He put his head around the door and greeted them with a smile.

  Despite their declared intention of leaving at once it was another three-quarters of an hour before they did so.

  ‘Poor you. You must be starving.’ Joan went straight into the kitchen and took his supper out of the oven. She took the cover off the plate and a delicious aroma of lamb casserole with herb dumplings filled the air.

  He sat down. ‘That smells good.’

  Half an hour later, with a cup of coffee beside him and his pipe drawing well he was a different man.

  ‘How’s the case going?’ said Joan companionably. She was stretched out full length on the sofa with her shoes off. Tonight, she had announced, she was not going to do one single chore connected with the wedding.

  Thanet had always discussed his work with her. Some policemen, he knew, shut the door on their working life the minute they got home, but he had never found it possible to do that. Joan was completely trustworthy and she had often helped him to see his way through a difficult case. He knew too that it helped her to cope with the often unreasonable demands his job made upon her if she felt, in however limited a way, a part of it.

  ‘You have your hair cut at Snippers, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘I was surprised, when we went there today. I wouldn’t have thought it was your kind of place.’

  She laughed. ‘What is my kind of place, exactly?’

  ‘Something a bit more, well . . .’

  ‘Conventional?’

  ‘Perhaps, yes. All that pop music –’

  ‘Dull?’Joan persisted.

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Fuddy-duddy, in fact?’

  ‘Perish the thought! You know I love the way they do your hair. It suits you perfectly. It’s just that the atmosphere was a bit, well, brash, I suppose.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Joan.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Unreservedly. But as far as I’m concerned, I’d be prepared to put up with anything so long as they cut my hair as well as they do.’ Joan ran her fingers through her mass of curls. ‘They’re the first place I’ve been to that could tame this lot. Dennis is a brilliant cutter.’

  ‘Ah so, you have Dennis, do you?’

  ‘Yes. Why all the interest, anyway? What were you doing there?’

  ‘One of the apprentices is hovering on the fringe of this case. Kevin Barcombe.’

  ‘Oh yes. He’s washed my hair occasionally.’

  ‘What do you think of him?’

  The silence lasted a little longer than Thanet would have expected.

  ‘Joan?’ he said.

  ‘I’m thinking. As a matter of fact, though I haven’t consciously admitted it to myself before, I don’t particularly like him.’

  Thanet’s brain clicked into a higher gear. ‘Why not?’

  ‘That’s what I was trying to work out a moment ago. And the truth is, I don’t know. He just makes me feel uneasy, that’s all.’

  ‘But why? This could be important, darling. Please try to think.’

  She hesitated a moment longer, then said, ‘It’s his eyes, I suppose.’

  ‘Ah! “The windows of the soul”, as the saying goes. What you mean is, you find him creepy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because you have a nasty feeling that something rather unpleasant is going on in his mind.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because of the way he looks at you?’ Thanet found his hackles rising.

  ‘No, that’s the puzzling thing, that’s not it. It’s nothing to do with me, specifically, which is why I haven’t given it much thought. And it’s not the way he looks at other women, either. No, sorry, I’m not sure what it is exactly. Just an uneasy feeling, as I said. Why the interest, anyway?’

  Thanet explained and Joan said, ‘So, a prowler. Now yes, that would just about fit the bill, I think.’

  They talked for a while longer about the case and then Thanet said, ‘The frightening thing is that for the Manifests the whole thing fell apart because of something completely outside their control.’

  ‘Him losing his job, you mean? Why frightening?’

  ‘You do realise that he was in the same line as Alexander, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ Joan swung her feet on to the ground and sat up. ‘So of course you’re wondering, what if the same thing happened to Bridget and Alexander?’

  ‘I can’t help asking myself that. I mean, that huge mortgage they’ve got . . . What on earth would they do if Alexander were to turn up for work one day and, like Desmond Manifest, find his desk had been cleared – which is, I understand, how it’s often done?’

  ‘So I’ve heard. It must be shattering. And I’ve no idea what they’d do. But look, Luke, you’re just going to have to accept that if it came to the worst and that did happen, they’d simply have to cope with it in their own way. If we thought of every possible thing that could go wrong for them before they’ve even started, we’d go mad.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  She left the sofa and came to kneel on the floor in front of him. She took his hand. ‘You’re finding this very hard, aren’t you? To let her go.’

  It was difficult to admit it, even to himself. He sighed. ‘You’re right, of course.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of! She’s always been your little girl and, let’s face it, she always will be, in a way. But at the same time she’s a woman now, and you have to allow her to be one.’

  ‘I know, I know, I know! I’ll manage it in the end, I’m sure. If only I were happier about Alexander.’

  ‘Alexander is all right. He’s kind –’

  ‘Kind, after the way he ditched her!’

  ‘He was younger then. Commitment is a frightening thing. Young people these days seem to find it very difficult. If he wasn’t ready for it, it was only right for him to say so. I know Bridget was hurt but far better that he should go into marriage sure in his own mind that he’s doing the right thing, than rush into it too soon and always wonder if he had. But now . . . No, I think they’ll be fine. He’s loyal, patient, hardworking . . .’ She smiled up at Thanet. ‘Just like you, in fact.’

  ‘Like me!’ Thanet was astounded. The successful, glamorous Alexander, just like him! ‘Rubbish!’ he said.

  ‘I mean it. Come to think of it, that’s probably why Bridget chose him.’

  ‘For a sensible woman you do talk a lot of nonsense sometimes!’ But secretly, the thought pleased him and he tucked it away for future examination.

  NINE

  ‘I remember Bridget once saying to me that she had decided she wasn’t going to get married at all, s
he was going to be a career woman,’ said Thanet to his reflection. ‘It goes without saying that that was before she met Alexander.’ He adjusted his tie. ‘In fact, she was only six years old at the time.’ He paused, then consulted himself. ‘Too feeble? No, I don’t think so. But I must get the timing right. A pause before “In fact”.’

  He had stayed up late last night putting the final touches to his speech and was now running through it for the second time this morning.

  ‘Luke? You’re getting behind.’ Joan was calling up the stairs.

  He checked the time. So he was. He slipped his jacket on, stuffed wallet, keys, loose change, pipe and tobacco pouch into his pockets and hurried downstairs.

  Joan was in the hall, putting her coat on. ‘I’ve got to get in early,’ she said. ‘One of my clients is starting a new job this morning and I want to see him before he goes to work.’

  ‘Have you had any breakfast?’

  She nodded. ‘A piece of toast and a cup of tea.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Despite her evening off she was still looking tired, he thought.

  ‘Fine. How’s your back this morning?

  Thanet moved experimentally. ‘Much better, thanks, after that session yesterday. When is Bridget arriving?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Some time this afternoon, I think.’

  ‘Good.’ He kissed her. ‘See you this evening, then.’

  In the kitchen he made himself a cup of coffee to accompany what Joan called his breakfast cocktail, an approved (by her) mixture of various cereals, fruit and yoghurt. Except on high days and holidays bacon and eggs were a thing of the past. At first Thanet had protested about the healthy regime she had instituted but by now he had got used to it – enjoyed it, even, though he had no intention of admitting it. By twenty past eight he was in the car on his way to work enjoying a few puffs of his pipe, speech forgotten, focusing on the day ahead. It was a crisp autumn morning with clear skies, bright sunshine and a touch of frost in the air. His spirits rose. While he deplored the senseless waste of human life, the challenge of a new case always excited him. He enjoyed the way it stretched him, forced him to exercise all his skills, all his ingenuity, all his patience. He liked meeting new witnesses, working out fresh lines of inquiry and following them through to their logical conclusion. Above all he enjoyed that incomparable feeling of elation when the days of striving finally bore fruit and he knew the mystery was solved. And this time, of course, there was the added bonus that with Draco away he wouldn’t have the Superintendent breathing down his neck. He wondered what new information was awaiting him on his desk. By the time he got to work Lineham would no doubt have sifted through the reports as usual.