A Question of Guilt

by Frances Fyfield

  There had been a mama, of course, whom father had loved once, but it had been like the passionate interest inspired by a fascinating book, and once he had read it, he put it away. There was no one else for unlovable Eileen to love, and being both shy and inept in a world which did not like her, she started to collect. She collected bits and pieces, first indiscriminate rubbish, then not. Old fabrics, early Liberty scarves, ancient ribbons, buckles and bows, lace. She collected small items: tiny silver jugs, thimbles, sewing cases miniaturised beyond usefulness, hand coolers in marble and wood, purses in needlepoint which had blinded eyes, lawn handkerchiefs, small samplers, egg spoons and fruit knives, hand mirrors, brushes and combs, cruets, and furniture for dolls houses. It was as if her interest became confined to things which could be held comfortably in one hand, tactile, controllable things, easily assembled together, easily hidden. Next, cameos and miniatures; then coins, icons, beads, brooches, lockets containing twists of hair and stern portraits, tiny figures in jade, and rings. Nothing flashed or shone with more than a subdued gleam: no trash, no glitter in her rich collection, begun with childish pence, continued with modest pounds, flourishing in all the years when plastic was more convenient than oak, glass more fashionable than jet, and a junk-shop a treasure trove.

  A mountain of lace had adorned her room, and still often did. Little pieces in the beginning, bits removed from jumble sale blouses, then yards, edgings from torn sheets and silk petticoats found in the 2/6d boxes of the East End. She was astute, bargained for halfpennies in the way she still bargained for half-pence, with the same powerful persuasion she could employ when she became a seller, which was rarely before her father died, since he despised commerce and declared it vulgar.

  But the best of it was the way the collection gave her grace, dignity, and interest. All Father’s friends, dry sticks, considered her odd, but found her collections charming, and it was these which gave her status in their eyes. Eileen had collected as a child for no reason but the desire to have pretty things which she could call her own: as an adult she knew the collection was her lifeline to the rest of the world and the only means whereby the human race would notice her at all. An odd young girl became an ugly woman sharing a starved heart between an unresponsive old man and beautiful things. Equal passions, only one of them disappointing.

  Until the first death, that was.

  Eileen slept. Outside in the street, a bulky figure strained to see the light in her window, decided she was out and he would return later. Eileen would have preferred his visit to this orgy of nostalgia, would have opened her window in the cold to call him back if she had known. ‘Come back,’ she would have shrieked. ‘Come back! Don’t leave me now.’

  Papa, dead in bed one careless morning. A little flushed and twisted, natural, if puzzling, causes. Armed with all the natural dignity of the sepulchre, Francis Cartwright, his one time colleague, officiated at the soulless cremation Father had ordered for himself. Eileen wrapped the best of her treasures and had them burned with him, a dramatic gesture she failed to understand, even as she made it. Francis had squeezed her hand: she thought she had seen him weep, but she might have been wrong – her eyesight had always been poor. ‘Poor girl,’ said Francis, ‘alone in the world.’ He looked at Eileen, and looked at her exquisite possessions while Eileen looked back. ‘I’m not alone,’ she protested, ‘I’m not even lonely,’ and if she had been able to ignore the reactions of the world she might have believed it.

  Eileen clutched at railings for support before finally clutching Francis. She did not understand: she was so good, so generous, so respectable, and no one wanted her. She would have to try harder, make changes, get rich. Twitching in her sleep on the afternoon of Jaskowski’s committal, Eileen remembered that resolution. Money would bring love: keeping it was a question of will, so she would be rich. She leased the damp ground floor of the house, began to trade in bric-à-brac down Portobello, leased a shop for the same purpose, then another in Camden Passage. Possessor of house, shops, and the beginnings of solid income, she was as eligible as she would ever be, and no more ungainly than before. To complete the two-year revolution, she married Francis Cartwright, believing that she liked him, and that he loved her.

  Harmless Francis Cartwright, impecunious academic, forty going on seventy, needed a wife and didn’t mind who; anyone who would encourage him to finish his book on medieval English. His motives were simple, not even dishonourable: he wanted a house of books and someone to keep him in it, while her motives were simpler still. She wanted to be loved. Unbeautiful Eileen, with her heavy bosom and heavier thighs the memorable feature of a woman with an equally solid face, believed this was part of the bargain. To be fair to Francis, he was not a bad man, and in some measure at least, he did his duty and battled with Eileen’s virginity until he had relieved her of it, filling her with infertile seed and himself with disgust in the process. Eileen in nightgown was not a pretty sight, and over a few hopeless years, it became worse than the vacuum which had existed before it, with headaches for Francis and leaden despair for his spouse.

  Eileen rallied again, knew that effort was its own reward. Cook better, provide better, heat his study and titillate his bed, will him to love her with the sweat of her brow until he responded, and all this provoked was irritation. There was one halcyon period after four years of marriage, when Francis had his first heart attack and relished the care he received, but after that, dislike settled on his forehead, and still she persisted, Eileen against the Matterhorn of indifference until his slow fuse burned away.

  ‘Why don’t you talk to me, Francis? You never talk to me these days.’

  ‘Yes I do, Eileen, I’m preoccupied, that’s all. The book’s almost finished.’

  ‘You don’t talk to me, Francis. You don’t listen either. Do you love me at all, Francis?’

  Under the beam of her spectacled eyes, and the light of their garish kitchen, he had hesitated. Eileen had no eye for interior colour, only for objects and fabrics, so that the room mirrored her ugliness just as the whole house reflected her stark lack of appeal.

  ‘Of course I love you, Eileen. I’ve told you so. You know I love you.’

  ‘No I don’t. I should like to know. Do you love me, Francis? What have I done wrong?’

  Francis was suddenly more afraid of the lie than he was of its opposite. He should have suppressed the whole of the truth, he owed her that, but he was too worn for caution.

  ‘All right. You asked. I do not, could not, and never have loved you. How could I? How could anyone love the lump you are, or even like it? You’re an ugly cow, Eileen. An ugly, insensitive cow, who behaves like a prima donna with a dishcloth. Stop thinking about being loved. It’s indecent.’

  The grey shock of his words sank like a stone as a slight perspiration appeared on her forehead.

  ‘My father loved me.’

  ‘Your father despised you.’

  ‘No.’ The voice rose and fell into a whispered plea. ‘No, Francis: he loved me.’

  ‘Then he lied to one of us. Not to me, I think.’

  He could not recall how long was the silence which followed, how deep his own regret. But to his amazement, the apologies and denials given later were accepted. Francis chose not to question why, but life between them stumbled on without being dramatically worse. She smiled as often, spoke less, nagged never, worked hard, and Francis decided he had been forgiven.

  Eileen stirred, half opened her eyes. Why had none of them loved her? Why did it matter so little in comparison to the triumph she had felt in Sylvia Bernard’s death? She had performed a service in putting such an abomination out of sight. Hating her had been more rewarding than loving Bernard. Hatred made her alive. Of Stanislaus, Eileen did not think at all as she woke from her doze. A mere agent, who had broken his word, who dared to cross her: not enough of him to hate. Then she thought of that girl, arrogant and bossy, how dare she speak like that? Sylvia and that lawyer girl, so alike, so bloody perfect, so righteous in a
ll they did, and so stupid. Smiling while she burned, with their good figures, good clothes, males on arms like silver bracelets, protected by all the men who had so ignored her own progress, all of them hideously bland and ungrateful.

  Eileen was awake. Hatred always dispelled dreams and the thought of the girl was a new toy for her mind. What was there now but hatred? Love persuaded no one, but hatred worked. She stirred, heart beating, mouth hungry. So many duties, and she had always been a creature of duty. Slowly she dialled a familiar telephone number. Fate was about to be unkind to her, but she was not imprisoned yet. And there was her friend, her only friend, in times all ripe for revenge. Somebody, she told herself, loves me only, and will earn my spurs for me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘I’m sick of the stories of the psychic detective,’ said Bailey. ‘You know the man. Feels the blood of the victim on his coat and then on his brain, and goes off panting like a sniffer dog after drugs, making the odd mistake, but thinking deeply, half killing himself with guilt at his own inadequacies: missing three more murders before he reconstructs the whole unlikely scenario in his mind, without anything as vulgar as a clue or a piece of forensic evidence. And then homes in on his target. If only I knew him. I might catch some of his talent, some of his charm. To say nothing of his appearance.’

  ‘But he doesn’t exist?’ Helen asked.

  ‘I’m sure he does. He couldn’t be such a convincing character if he didn’t exist somewhere, but wherever it is, it isn’t in my shape or my size, and it certainly isn’t in the form of anyone I know.’ Bailey laughed. ‘Can’t understand why I let myself read about him so often. A hard day at work on the gruesome facts, back home to the pit and out with the Maigret novels, to read myself into an inferiority complex. He’d define my nature of masochistic.’

  ‘Does that make you more of an expert on murder?’ He laughed again, a deep chuckle at odds with the narrow frame.

  ‘No one’s an expert on murder. Some of us are experts on one particular aspect of murder and even then only after a while. You do so many different things from the cradle to the grave of a police career, I mean, no one does nothing but murder: squads are formed when they’re needed and not until. I suppose I’ve seen a couple of dozen as investigating officer, dozens more in a supporting role, but I don’t feel an expert. Murder has a different impact on coppers, money for one, overtime for as long as the investigation lasts. I don’t believe anyone would spin them out deliberately, but I’ve heard howls of protest when the killer’s caught within twenty-four hours. I’m digressing: I’m no more an expert in murders like this one than I am in any other kind of crime, not beyond knowing exactly what to do when they occur, who to telephone, what instructions to give, what kind of precautions, that kind of thing. After that, I can spot the gaps in the jigsaw puzzle, but I can’t pretend to do much more than that, can’t fathom why, or predict. I’m not fooled as easily as I was twenty years ago, but I’m still fooled. No psychic skills whatever.’

  ‘But you don’t need them with the average murders,’ Helen asked. ‘Aren’t the luckiest detectives people like Ryan, all skill and energy without much insight, and aren’t the usual explanations written on someone’s wall in capital letters? Isn’t it mostly messy without being complicated? What we call the domestics, husband and wife, father and son, tragic without being difficult?’

  ‘Messy, but not complicated? Sounds like a comment on married life before murder.’

  ‘You know what I mean. There’s nothing mysterious about killing, not most of the time. Murderer and victim know one another, lover against lover, family stresses, jealousies, all those make up the majority. Then there’s murder for rape or robbery, blameless victims. Or murder for gain, professional murder, gangland politics, but the motives are usually clear, and after a lot of fancy forensic footwork, so is the culprit, whether you arrest him or not. Perhaps you just don’t have much opportunity for magic detection: would have it to use if you did. Not part of the scientific age.’

  ‘You’re being kind to me, Helen.’

  ‘You’re asking me to be kind.’

  With inconspicuous ease they had slipped away from the formality of the first two meetings into comfortable first names. Impossible to sit stiffly in a pub at seven in the evening after two hours of counsel’s intelligent pomposity and not relax the professional acquaintance when they had both privately considered themselves the only element of sanity in the whole case. Carey QC was eminent, able and sharp, also a bore, aware of his own abilities, regarding solicitors as a lesser breed of human animal and policemen as something strange on the periphery of existence. Although he was irritatingly suitable for this case, his heavy humour was only apparent in the courtroom, lacking in chambers where they had been squashed against the green walls and tolerated without much concession.

  Ryan had taken home his awe and his bad temper to his wife. He had scarcely listened to what had been said, Helen noticed; looked like a man who was distracted. Ryan had not wanted to listen to pompous claptrap: he had other fish to fry and the law was an ass by comparison. Helen and Geoffrey, of one accord, slumped into the nearest public house, not the wine bar favoured by barristers, the pub with orange walls favoured by lesser mortals. This was the second drink, and Bailey’s normal terse reluctance with words was melting fast. Like two animals who had sniffed the air around one another, he and Helen had tacitly agreed on mutual liking, and the silence which followed her last remark was companionable.

  ‘You’re right, in the main,’ he continued. ‘More often than not the explanation for the death is far from obscure. It isn’t the hunt for the culprit which makes it glow, it’s the hunt for the victim’s life, the rights it gives to forage for information as impertinently as we do in so many people’s lives. No, not the motives: there are few enough like this, respectable body smashed to pieces in its own hallway, with no killer on the horizon, no obvious reason. More often, he’s round the corner, or someone says within the first hours, “I bet it was Johnny done it,” and you know where to start and why. Far more human ingenuity in robbery, while murder is likely to be nothing more than the longest short cut anyone can take. I mean, why does a son murder his mother, or a husband his wife? Why don’t they just leave home? Almost anyone can commit murder, you, me, the girl next door, there’s no skill involved, but what sets it apart is being able to take the lid off the can of worms, ask the sort of questions which would normally have me shot: the only time they’ll let you. Makes murder an education. When else would you ever get the intimate history of a marriage, what the partners really thought of one another, and what the neighbours thought of them? It shocks me still, paralyses me with surprise, what people will notice, store away, and never say until after a murder. Then they say so much, often unprintable.’

  ‘What did the neighbours think of Mrs Bernard?’

  ‘Ah, they weren’t particularly rewarding. Ryan did the neighbours. Ryan loves talking to people, especially females. I never knew a man with such a knack for women. Wherever they are he’ll find them; he only ever produces female witnesses, three or four this time. Quite excited he was. Anyway, not a neighbourly road, more fun when they are. Most of them work by day, and the Bernards hadn’t been there longer than six months. They seemed to move house every other year, more fashionable all the time. I gather Mrs B. was known as a lucrative pain in the neck to all the local estate agents. She never stopped looking for the perfect house.’

  ‘And had she found it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Shouldn’t think so. Another drink?’

  ‘Let me get it. You got the last.’

  ‘Wouldn’t hear of it. You might be emancipated, but I’m not. Same again?’

  Bailey’s concentration was not deflected by the interruption. ‘No help from Mrs Bernard’s neighbours. Pleasant, polite lady, they said. Obviously never needed to borrow a cup of sugar, and if she had, they wouldn’t have been in. Not many housewives in that neck of the woods where it usually takes two to
pay the mortgage. She found enough to occupy her time. Her diary was like a history, cataloguing everything she’d done for the last few weeks. One ironic thing: she was expecting a delivery of flowers when Jaskowski arrived. No wonder she opened the door, poor woman. Plenty of friends in Hampstead and Highgate, where there seem to be more wives like her. She always turned up on time, and was always pretty. Same age as Mrs Cartwright, although you wouldn’t guess it.’

  ‘Gentlemen friends?’

  ‘Well, no, not any you’d notice.’

  ‘Shame. The perfect wife in the almost perfect house.’

  ‘Not your type, Helen, the unliberated woman, washing successful husband’s socks, and receiving the large allowance?’

  Helen sighed. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Most cold mornings, when I lie in bed thinking up ridiculous excuses not to get out of it, that kind of life seems a wonderful idea. I wouldn’t even wash the socks. But what about him? Sylvia’s husband, I mean. The provider.’