‘Dig in, then. I know you must be hungry. I had something with Matthew before he went out.’
He cut the pie and loaded his fork with Dead Sea fruit – or was it coals of fire? She waited until his mouth was full and then asked him brightly, ‘How is your case going?’
He chewed and swallowed with painful haste. ‘I didn’t know you knew about my case.’
‘I didn’t. I don’t. But you’ve always got one on, haven’t you?’
‘It’s a murder, actually – a domestic. Bit of a puzzler,’ he said telegraphically.
‘Oh, then I’m surprised you’ve got time to come and see me,’ she said. ‘When you’ve had a murder before you’ve hardly had time to come home to sleep.’
Ah, a hint of acid: this was more like the old days. But he couldn’t afford to revel in comforts like that.
‘I wanted to talk to you properly,’ he said evenly. ‘Can we be civilised and talk without recriminations on either side? I think this is too important for quarrelling.’
She looked away from him for a moment at the blank television screen. He was close enough to see the fine lines around her eyes under the makeup, the sad, tired droop of her mouth. He knew her so well, and discovered now that he didn’t know her at all, as though she were a character in a new drama played by a very familiar actor. He felt no attachment to her. At some point all his belonging feelings had redirected themselves towards Joanna. It made things easier; but harder, too, in a way, because it meant he didn’t know what Irene was thinking. His domestic thoughts moved to Joanna’s rhythm now; framed themselves in her idiom.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry I blew up at you on the phone the other day. I was a bit tense.’
‘I know. Nothing about this is easy, for any of us. But we’ve got to sort it out, and it’s better that we do it between us, just you and I, without any third parties getting in on the act.’
‘What does your mistress think of that?’ she said, with a flash of the old spirit.
‘What’s decided between you and me has nothing to do with her,’ he said steadily.
She said nothing, reaching out for her glass, drinking at it straight, like a poker-player, without looking at him.
‘Irene,’ he said gently, ‘what’s happening between you and Ernie? Don’t you really want to live with him any more?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, and put her glass down. She didn’t look at him. ‘I don’t know what I want any more. It all seemed clear once. I was fed up with you never being home, being stuck here alone with the kids all the time, no proper social life. I used to think sometimes, what was the point of being married at all? And then Ernie was so kind to me, and – everything,’ she concluded, hopeless of defining her former bridge-partner’s charms. Slider thought he knew – some of it, at least. Irene had always been a sucker for the trappings of middle-class advancement. It was what she had always thought she wanted. And everyone wanted attention. God, he knew that! It was the origin of so much crime.
She seemed to have got stuck, and he tried to help her along. ‘So when he asked you to come and live with him …’
She made a strange little noise, like a snort of amusement, except that she didn’t look very amused. ‘Oh, he didn’t ask me. He’s much too shy. Well, not shy exactly, but he doesn’t value himself highly enough. He’d never have thought he was good enough for me. No, I had to ask him.’ She flicked a glance at him. ‘I suppose you think that’s funny?’
Oh, far, far from it, he thought. ‘I never had anything against Ernie,’ he said.
‘You could have fooled me. You’ve always been so rude about him.’
‘Defence mechanism. I was jealous,’ he said thoughtlessly.
‘Were you?’ she said, turning to him fully as though she had only been waiting for that. The fearful eagerness in her eyes warned him, too late, to look where he was treading. He had been jealous of Ernie, but it was mostly on account of his children, and a bit of atavistic resentment of another man taking his possessions. It was not the sexual jealousy that Irene was wanting him to mean. But how could he explain that to her? While he was not explaining, she carried on, stupidly brave, ‘Ernie’s been good to me, but it hasn’t all been roses. The children haven’t really taken to him, and it’s strange living in his house. You’d laugh, but I miss this house in a way, and now I’m back here – well …’ She paused, gathering her words. ‘I only told him I wanted to think things out for a bit, but what I think is – what it seems to me—’ She swallowed. ‘I think I’m still a bit in love with you.’
He couldn’t say what she wanted him to say. He sat there, stupidly silent. She died, like someone in variety with the wrong act before the wrong house, but could only carry on, stranded there in the middle of his unreceptiveness with her hopelessly inappropriate script.
‘What I mean is – it would make so much more sense for us just to go back to where we were. There’s the children to think about. The house – you can’t afford two places, can you? It makes no sense to be paying rent and housekeeping for this place, and not living here. Oh, Bill,’ she rose up like a surfer on a wave of urgency, ‘we could be comfortable! I know it wasn’t ideal before, but I understand more now. I’d be more patient about your job – and you could try and be home more, so we could have more of a life together.’
‘Irene—’ he began helplessly.
‘I’m your wife!’ she cried desperately. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything?’ He was silent. She turned her face away. ‘I don’t want to live here alone,’ she concluded.
He had to speak. ‘I can’t go back to the way it was. I can’t come back here.’
‘You don’t want to.’
It took courage for her to ask that, and courage for him to answer with the truth. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Well,’ she said after a moment, in a flat voice, ‘that’s that.’ She drank some more of her gin and tonic. ‘I suppose you’re really in love with her, then – this woman?’
‘Please don’t let’s quarrel about it.’
‘I’m not going to quarrel. Just give me a straight answer to a straight question.’
It seemed best to, now. ‘Yes, I’m in love with her. I love her.’
‘Are you going to marry her?’
‘We haven’t talked about it. One day, maybe.’
She looked at him starkly. ‘I spoke to a solicitor, after you told me all that on the phone the other night. I went to see one yesterday. She confirmed what you said about no fault. And she says I can’t stop the divorce, that it’s automatic after a time, whether I want it or not.’
He nodded, very gently. ‘That’s the law now.’
‘Do you want a divorce?’
The house seemed to hold its breath. Even the barbecue smoke beyond the window paused, and the distant cutlery ceased to cuttle. He’d have given anything not to answer, but this was another case where his anything wouldn’t even buy the handles. He had to speak. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Her shoulders went down in an exhalation, and Ruislip started up again. She finished her drink, pulled out her handkerchief and blew her nose, and then said in a different voice, quite briskly, ‘Well, thanks for telling me. I needed to hear it from you straight.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘No, it’s all right. Things come to an end. I just didn’t want to face it, I think, that’s all.’
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked her cautiously.
She hardly paused. ‘I suppose I’ll go back to Ernie,’ she said.
Her courage was staggering. He had never admired her so much. ‘You don’t have to, you know. You can stay here. I won’t let you want.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t like living without a man; and the children need someone.’
‘I thought you said they didn’t get on with him?’
‘It’s early days. Everything’s strange, still. They’ll get used to him. He’s a good man.’ She looked at him. ‘My mother
would have liked me to marry someone like him. She was never sure about you being a policeman.’
‘Nor was I,’ he said, wanting to laugh, God knew why. It was just the thought of Mrs Carter weighing him up and finding him wanting. It was so beautifully Victorian. A policeman is not a gentleman, dear, however nice he may be. ‘I get less sure all the time.’
‘Does she mind it?’ she asked curiously. ‘The hours and everything?’
‘She’s a musician, you see,’ he said. ‘She has hours herself.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s different, then. She’ll understand.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s different.’
* * *
He didn’t go straight home. He drove around a bit, not really aware of where he was going; just going, with that instinct to escape the emotional scene that throughout history had made men leave home, fleeing their mother’s pain, their wife’s, their children’s, going to the Crusades, to war, to the Colonies, the Antarctic, the Moon, the pub; hopelessly fleeing the eyes that always went with them, followed them for ever and all the way to death’s dream kingdom. He wanted to be tired enough to sleep: that other escape. He thought suddenly of Eddie Andrews, and his story that he had driven about all night and didn’t remember where. Well, it was plausible. Hard put to it, Slider could probably have dredged up some kind of memory of his own itinerary, but then Slider’s emotional turmoil was kindergarten stuff compared with Eddie’s.
When he got back to Turnham Green, Joanna was just parking, and waited for him outside the front gate while he eased his car into a space further up the road, the last roadside gap in all west London. The time would soon come when they’d have to build cars with retractable stilts so that you could park above one another.
‘You’ll never guess what!’ she called to him as he approached.
With an effort, he remembered her meeting. ‘They’re going to allow you to wear trousers?’
‘Phooey! I’m talking sensational news here.’
‘Sensational good or sensational bad?’
‘Good. Well, I think so.’ He reached her and she slid her arms round his waist. ‘Jim Atherton had a date tonight.’
‘I know, he told me.’ His brain caught up belatedly. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because I know who it was with!’
‘You don’t mean Sue?’
‘Yes! Isn’t that terrific? Our subtle campaigning the other night must have worked. Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Oh, yes, I like Sue.’
‘I think she’ll be good for him.’ She realised at last that he was elsewhere, and scanned his face anxiously. ‘What is it? Did you see Irene? Did it go badly?’
‘Yes and no. She’s agreed to a divorce, and she’s going back to Ernie.’
‘What’s the “no”, then?’
‘She’s agreed to a divorce, and she’s going back to Ernie. Do we have to discuss this in the street?’
‘Yes. I want to know why you’re upset.’
He drew a deep, long sigh that came all the way up from his boots. ‘It’s easier to fight with her than admire her. She was so brave.’
‘Oh,’ said Joanna, and turned to walk up the path with him. She had her key out ready, and let them in, and once the door was closed put down her bag and put both arms round him again. Some of his muscles took the opportunity to slump into her familiar curves, and he closed his eyes a moment and rested his face against her. It was a thingummy devoutly to be wished, to consummate and then to sleep.
‘Is it all settled now?’ she asked carefully.
‘Yes, all settled. We’ve agreed maintenance and everything. Provided she doesn’t go back on it.’
‘Which is always a possibility, if lawyers get involved.’
‘Or her friend Marilyn. But for now …’ For now the arrangement was the best that could be hoped for. She would have a home with Ernie Newman, and Slider could sell the Ruislip house – which, with the market picking up, now looked possible – relieving him of having to pay the mortgage, insurance and other associated bills, which had been a huge chunk out of his wages. So he wouldn’t be stony broke and utterly dependent on Joanna after all. He’d be able to pay for his food and petrol, at least. So everything was peachy, wasn’t it?
‘Did you see the children?’ Joanna asked, going instinctively to the heart of it.
‘No, they were out,’ he said.
She detached herself enough to look up, saw the closed eyes and the tired lines beside the mouth. ‘Bill?’
He opened his eyes then, and she saw he was almost spent. ‘Can we go to bed?’ he asked. ‘Right now?’
She squeezed him hard and reached up to kiss him. ‘Come on, then.’ They walked interlinked towards the bedroom and the haven of her bed where he was king and emperor, all-powerful, always wanted; safe. ‘You big, dumb, strong ones are always the first to go,’ she said, unbuttoning his shirt. ‘You should learn to let it all out.’ But he never would do that, couldn’t, and she knew it.
The public appeal was getting results. Atherton greeted Slider with the news when he came in.
‘It’s the best response we’ve had since Hunt missed a typing error on a flyer, and we invited the whole of F Division on a sponsored wank.’
‘I’ve just been to see Mr Porson and congratulate him on his performance,’ Slider said. Porson had been as happy as a randy dog in a Miss Lovely Legs competition. It was touching, really. ‘He said his wife recorded him on video as a momentum of the occasion.’
‘He didn’t!’ Atherton said admiringly.
‘He did. Had a good time last night?’
Atherton grew inscrutable. ‘Yes, thank you,’ he said, with grammar-school politeness. ‘I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’
‘Bad news first.’
‘McLaren hasn’t called in sick. The good news is that the fingermarks on the handbag are not Meacher’s – official.’
‘That’s good news?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t have helped us if they had been, would it? We know he was with her. At least this way there’s a chance they may be useful.’
‘True, O king. What about the staff at the Goat?’
‘Haven’t done them yet. Mackay’s seeing to it.’ Atherton eyed his guv’nor, wondering how events went with Irene last night and trying to gauge the answer from his expression. But Slider’s mild worried frown was practically permanent and told him nothing, and he could hardly ask for intimate confidences if he wasn’t prepared to offer them himself, so he went away unsatisfied and got on with his work.
The trouble with public appeals was that they generated so much work, panning the rubbish for the real information, which occurred with about the same frequency as gold nuggets. It was mid-morning before McLaren tapped on Slider’s open door and said nasally, ‘Guv, I think we got one.’ Slider beckoned him in. ‘It’s a Mr Tarrant, lives in Hamlet Gardens, says he was walking his dog Tuesday night, saw a man and a woman talking at the end of the footpath down to the footbridge. Quarter past eleven, give or take.’
‘What does he sound like?’
‘Posh-ish voice. Not young. Sounds normal.’
‘Right then, send someone round to get his story.’
‘Can’t I go, guv?’ Slider hesitated about inflicting biological warfare on the general public. ‘Everyone else is busy. I could get you a sandwich on my way back,’ he added guilefully. ‘From that new place, where they do the nice bread and everything.’
‘Trying to bribe a senior officer?’ Slider said sternly.
‘No point in bribing a junior,’ McLaren pointed out logically. He dragged out a handkerchief and blew into it.
‘Yes, go,’ Slider said hastily. Anything to get rid of him.
Mr Tarrant turned out to be older than his voice, a well-preserved man in his sixties, a retired chartered accountant. He had the ground floor of an Edwardian terraced house converted into a one-bedroom flat, with no room to swing an environmental health inspector, but at least with
the tiny square of garden. ‘I wouldn’t think of having a dog if I didn’t have a garden,’ he told McLaren, as he made tea in the galley kitchen, so small that McLaren had to stand in the hall and watch him through the door, ‘but even so, I take Tosca out twice a day. Dogs need a lot of exercise. People rarely understand how much they do need. A five-minute stroll to the nearest tree isn’t enough, you know. Tosca has a brisk walk for an hour, twice a day. That’s what keeps me fit.’
‘Yes, sir,’ McLaren said encouragingly. ‘You do look fit.’
‘Man was made to walk. Best exercise in the world. We do all too little of it these days. Children especially. Taken everywhere by car – driven to school, even! When I was a boy everyone walked to school. Most people walked to work, as well. It’s no wonder there’s so much obesity. And ill health,’ he added as McLaren blew again. ‘Now I never get colds.’
McLaren was resigned to having hobby-horses aired in front of him. It was funny how many people saw a policeman as a captive audience. He let Mr Tarrant ramble on until the tea was made, and then, sitting down in the tiny living-room with the big yellow Labrador watching him doubtfully from uncomfortably close quarters, he eased the old boy round to the topic of Tuesday night.
‘I often take my walk around St Michael Square because it’s quiet and away from the traffic. On that particular evening I had just come round the end of the churchyard and I was intending to go over the railway footbridge and back down Wenhaston Road, but I saw there was a young couple standing on the pavement just where the footpath to the bridge comes out.’
‘Yes, I know.’ McLaren answered the slight query at the end of the sentence.
Shallow Grave (Bill Slider Mystery) Page 21