Doomed to Die

by Dorothy Simpson

  It had been Hobson’s choice for Perdita.

  All this had taken no longer than ten or fifteen minutes and they had arrived at the Green Man in Melton at about ten to nine. In the event, it had been a pointless exercise. Perdita had remained adamant. She refused even to consider going back to him and had repeated that nothing would change her mind about seeking a divorce. In the end he had given up. He took her back to the Broxtons’ house, arriving there at about twenty past nine and had left at once.

  ‘You didn’t go into the house?’ said Lineham.

  ‘No. I didn’t bother to ask. She’d only have refused. Anyway, there would have been no point. Her mind was made up. I just dropped her off then drove away.’

  Lineham glanced at Thanet, eyebrows raised. Anything else you want to ask?

  Thanet nodded and picked up the plastic carrier bag in which he had put Perdita’s sketchbook. He took it out. ‘We found this amongst your wife’s belongings.’ He flicked through it, held up the full-face sketch. ‘Can you identify this man?’

  The muscles of Master’s face froze but he couldn’t control the expression in his eyes. Shock, pain, anger, all were there. ‘Yes. That’s our next-door neighbour, Howard Swain.’

  ‘Drawn by your wife, I assume?’ Thanet glanced at the painting on the wall. ‘She was an artist, I gather.’

  ‘Yes. She’s … she was, very talented.’ Master nodded at the drawing and said, with an attempt at lightness, ‘She was always persuading friends to sit for her. She preferred to draw people she knew than to hire a model. I imagine those are preliminary sketches for a portrait.’

  Thanet didn’t believe him. The fact that these had been drawn in such detail and probably from memory strongly suggested an emotional involvement on Perdita’s part. But if so, Master was doing his best to play it down. Why? Because he couldn’t bear to think of her having a lover? Or because knowing that she had a lover would give him a stronger motive for killing her, in the eyes of the police? It was interesting that Swain was their next-door neighbour. Perhaps he, too, was sporting a black eye.

  Master looked exhausted. His eyes seemed to have receded deeper into their sockets, the pouches beneath them to have become more pronounced.

  Thanet took pity on him. If the man were innocent he needed a respite; he had suffered enough for one evening. And if he were not … well, it was obvious that at the moment nothing would shake his story. Further questioning would have to wait until they had something specific to go on. He stood up. ‘About the formal identification … I’ll send someone to pick you up, in the morning.’

  Master’s lips tightened. ‘What time?’

  ‘Nine o’clock?’

  A nod. ‘Right.’

  At the front door Thanet paused. ‘That’s a nasty black eye you’ve got there, sir. What happened?’

  Master’s mouth tugged down at the corners. ‘Believe it or not, I walked into a door. I feel such a fool … Got up to go to the bathroom during the night, didn’t switch the light on …’

  That old chestnut! In Thanet’s opinion Master would have had to run into a door at top speed for the impact to have had that effect. But he merely nodded, murmured his thanks and left.

  ‘Walked into a door!’ said Lineham as they got into the car. ‘I bet this chap Swain was the reason she was leaving him and after the row on Saturday he went steaming around there and they had a fight.’ He peered through the windscreen at the house next door, which was all in darkness. ‘Are we going to see Mr Swain now?’

  Thanet glanced at the dashboard clock. Nearly one a.m. ‘I don’t think we’ve got enough evidence to justify hauling him out of bed at this hour. No, he’ll keep till tomorrow. I think we’ll call it a day.’

  Next morning, he and Ben were having breakfast when the phone rang.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ called Joan, who was on her way downstairs.

  ‘Yuk!’ said Ben, surveying the array of cereal packets on the table. ‘Bran, bran and more bran. Oh, sorry, bran, bran, muesli and more bran. Why can’t we have rice crispies, or sugar puffs, or even cornflakes …?’

  ‘Stop grumbling,’ said Thanet, with only half his attention on the conversation. The phone call was probably for him. ‘High fibre is good for you.’

  The door to the hall was ajar and he heard Joan say, ‘Oh, no! When was this?’

  Her tone told him that this was bad news. His stomach lurched. Bridget. Something had happened to Bridget. He got up and went to the door.

  Joan was facing him, clutching the phone in both hands. Her expression confirmed that this was serious. In a series of lightning vignettes his ever-fertile imagination presented him with a succession of images, each more horrendous than the last: Bridget lying in the road, injured and bleeding; Bridget flying through the windscreen of a car, her face cut to shreds; Bridget lying, as he had seen so many people lie in premature death, sheeted in the morgue, a label on her toe the only vestige of her identity … Joan covered the receiver, whispered, ‘My mother. Heart attack.’

  The relief was only momentary. Thanet was very fond of his mother-in-law, had got to know her particularly well when she had come to live with him and the children while Joan was completing her training for the Probation service. He put his arm around Joan’s shoulders. ‘She’s not …?’

  Joan shook her head.

  This time the relief was heartfelt.

  Joan said, ‘I’ll get there as soon as I can.’ She put the phone down. ‘That was Mrs Parker, Mum’s next-door neighbour. They were supposed to go shopping together in Maidstone this morning and wanted to leave early, to get in before the rush. She went out to get the milk at half past seven, noticed Mum’s curtains were all still drawn, no lights on. There was no answer to her knock so she let herself in, she’s got a key …’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Ben was standing at the kitchen door, listening. ‘Is it Gran?’

  Joan nodded, biting her lip.

  ‘She’s not …?’ said Ben, echoing his father.

  ‘No, of course not! She’s …’ Joan hesitated, clearly wondering how much to tell him.

  ‘What?’

  Joan glanced at Thanet. Shall I?

  ‘Oh Mum!’ said Ben. ‘Come on! I’m not a baby, you know. What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘She’s had a heart attack.’

  Ben’s fingers tightened on the doorpost. ‘Oh …’ He put the question that Thanet had been waiting to ask. ‘How serious is it?’

  ‘Mrs Parker didn’t know. But fortunately it seems to have happened not long before she got there – Mum had just got out of bed, they think … Mrs Parker called an ambulance and they got there very quickly. They’ve taken her to Sturrenden General.’

  The muscles of Joan’s shoulders were rigid with tension beneath Thanet’s arm.

  ‘I must go,’ she said. She put her hand to her head. ‘Let me think. What have I got to do, first? I’ll have to let them know, at work …’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But that’ll be all right, I can do that later.’

  ‘I’ll do it for you, if you like.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, I’ll have to speak to Janice myself, get her to reorganise my day. Fortunately there’s nothing especially … Oh no … There was one particularly important appointment this morning. With Sharon …’

  Sharon Strive was a young single parent with two small children who after a long history of shoplifting was making a serious attempt to go straight. Joan had been working with her for some time.

  ‘She’s not on the phone, either, there’s no way of getting in touch with her.’

  ‘Someone from the office will go around and explain, I’m sure. She’ll understand, in the circumstances. First things first.’ He pushed Joan gently towards the stairs. ‘Go on, get ready.’

  ‘I just hate letting people down, especially someone like her, who hasn’t got anyone else.’

  ‘Get your coat,’ said Thanet. ‘I’ll see to everything here. And I’ll ring the hospital and get along as soon as
I can.’

  ‘No, don’t worry, I’ll ring you as soon as I find out the position. You’ll be so busy today, with this new case. How long will you be at the office?’

  Thanet thought rapidly. ‘Till about 9.30, I should think.’

  ‘Right.’ Joan hurried upstairs and Thanet went to move his car out of the drive, so that she could get hers out of the garage.

  For once Thanet arrived in good time at Draco’s morning meeting. Very little of interest had come in overnight and he had left Lineham to organise various tasks for the team: a preliminary, low-key call at the Swains’ house, an interview with Mrs Broxton’s housekeeper, house-to-house enquiries in the vicinity of the Broxtons’ home. The PM had been fixed for that afternoon.

  Draco was standing at the window when Thanet entered, looking out at the forecourt, hands clasped behind his back.

  ‘Ah, good morning, Thanet. Take a seat. Sorry I couldn’t get along last night.’

  He offered no explanation, Thanet noted.

  Draco sat down heavily at his desk.

  There was definitely something wrong with him, thought Thanet. All the Superintendent’s usual bounce and verve had drained away. The jet-bright blackness of his eyes was dulled and even his crisp, dark, springing hair seemed more limp and lifeless than usual. Perhaps it was Draco himself who was ill, or at least well below par.

  Chief Inspector Tody, Draco’s deputy, sidled in in his usual irritatingly deferential manner, followed soon afterwards by Inspector Boon of the uniformed branch, a long-time friend and colleague of Thanet.

  The meeting began as it always did with a brief summary of the previous day’s proceedings by each of them. The murder of Perdita Master at Melton was by far the most serious crime to report, and of necessity Thanet’s report was the longest. Draco would normally have peppered Thanet with questions, but today his interest was little more than cursory. Apart from a brief flare of interest at the fact that the murder had taken place at Vanessa Broxton’s house (‘You’ll have to be careful not to tread on too many toes there, Thanet’), he said little until Thanet had finished. Then, with a visible effort, he said, ‘Not much to go on at the moment, then?’

  ‘No, sir. Only the polythene bag.’

  ‘Well, you never know what we might learn from that. Every contact leaves a trace, remember, Thanet. Every contact leaves a trace.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Thanet, suppressing his irritation. He did wish Draco wouldn’t treat him like a raw recruit half the time! Boon’s ironic wink made him feel a little better.

  ‘Right,’ said Draco, laying both palms flat on his desk.

  This was the usual signal for the meeting to end and all three men began to rise.

  ‘Er … There’s just one other thing,’ said Draco.

  They subsided into their chairs again.

  Draco picked up a pencil and began fiddling with it, tapping on the desk and turning it in his fingers. ‘Er …’

  Thanet and Boon glanced at each other. What was coming? Draco was usually positive, decisive, the words tumbling over each other in his haste to get them out, or rolling forth in the sonorous, measured cadences of a Welsh preacher.

  ‘I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but …’ Draco compressed his lips. ‘I’m afraid, however, that it looks as though I am going to have to make somewhat heavier demands than usual upon you, so …’

  He glanced at each of them in turn, his gaze sombre, assessing.

  ‘It seems likely,’ he said carefully, ‘that in the near future I shall have to take time off occasionally.’ He lifted his chin, almost pugnaciously, as if preparing himself to meet whatever blows fate had in store for him. ‘My wife is ill, and she is going to have to go to London for time to time for treatment. Naturally I shall go with her …’ He was looking at his desk, unable to meet their gaze, afraid perhaps that the sympathy in their eyes would unman him.

  There was a moment’s silence while his three subordinates glanced at each other, united in shock and sympathy. Then Tody cleared his throat and said, ‘We’re very sorry to hear that, sir. We hope the treatment will be effective very quickly and meanwhile, please, don’t worry about what will happen at work. I know I speak for all of us when I say we’ll be only too willing to stand in or work overtime whenever it’s necessary.’

  Draco risked a glance at them. ‘Thank you.’

  It was obvious that his self-control was precarious and in unspoken agreement his three subordinates rose and left the room. Outside they conferred in low tones. ‘Sounds serious,’ said Tody gloomily.

  ‘If it is, it’ll hit him hard,’ said Boon.

  ‘Don’t talk as though she’s dead already!’ said Thanet. ‘We don’t know what’s wrong yet. Could be something that’ll respond to treatment.’

  Boon shrugged. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  When Thanet told Lineham the sergeant snapped his fingers. ‘I forgot to tell you … Louise told me this morning that she’d run into one of her friends from Sturrenden General yesterday and she’d told her that Mrs Draco has leukaemia.’

  ‘Oh, no … How serious is it? Aren’t some types of leukaemia curable nowadays?’

  The phone rang: Joan, with news of her mother. Mrs Bolton was in intensive care and the nursing staff would say no more than that it was too early to tell. Joan was going to stay at the hospital all day, if necessary.

  ‘I’ll probably have to see someone in the hospital later on this morning,’ said Thanet. ‘I’ll try and get along to see you at the same time.’ He wouldn’t tell Joan about Angharad Draco at the moment.

  ‘Oh good. See you then.’

  Thanet put the phone down. ‘Bit of an avalanche of doom and despair this morning, eh, Mike?’

  ‘I expect we’ll survive, sir. We usually seem to. Meanwhile …’

  Meanwhile, thank God, there was work to be done.

  ‘Who first, then, sir?’

  ‘Better go and see Mrs Master’s parents, I suppose.’

  ‘Not Mr Master? Or Mr Swain?’

  Thanet shook his head. ‘Mr Master is doing the identification at the moment. And anyway, as I said last night, I want to see if we can get something a bit more concrete before we go back to him. With any luck Perdita Master confided in either her mother or her stepfather. And Mr Swain can wait. He won’t run away.’

  ‘We hope,’ murmured Lineham sotto voce, as they picked up their coats and headed for the door.

  SIX

  In comparison with today’s sprawling conurbations the Pilkington estate in Sturrenden is positively cosy, consisting of no more than a few pleasant tree-lined streets of 1930s houses. Wayside Crescent backs on to school playing fields and Perdita Master’s mother and stepfather lived in one of the few detached houses. It was typical of the era, with generous bay windows upstairs and down and an arched entrance porch floored with quarry tiles. The place was spick and span, with neat front garden, weed-free drive, fresh paintwork and shining windows.

  The man who opened the front door was, Thanet guessed, usually equally neat, the type who feels most comfortable in suit and tie and whose only concession to leisure wear would be to discard his jacket in favour of a knitted cardigan. This morning the suit was appropriately sombre, dark grey worsted, with white shirt and black tie. The tie, however, was ill-knotted, a shoelace on one of his highly polished black shoes was trailing, and there was a small whitish patch on his jawline where he had cut himself while shaving and dabbed the spot with a styptic stick.

  ‘Mr Harrow?’ Thanet introduced himself and Lineham.

  Harrow’s jowls quivered as he clenched his teeth. ‘I still can’t believe it …’ He stepped back. ‘Come in.’

  He was in his mid-fifties, shortish and plump, verging on fat, with a round face, double chin, pale watery blue eyes and a few strands of hair trying to conceal the fact that he was virtually bald.

  He led them into a stiflingly hot sitting room which was neat if somewhat insipid, with pale green walls, deeper green curtains and a
fitted carpet in shades of green and beige. It was comfortably furnished with settee, matching armchairs, and bookshelves in the alcoves on either side of the gas fire with its imitation logs. The most striking feature was the painting on the opposite wall, one of Perdita’s, Thanet guessed. Here was a night-time garden, the pale disc of the moon floating through swollen, swirling masses of sombre cloud. In the foreground was a forest of white lilies, ghostly in the moonlight, their pale, delicate trumpets upturned as if in worship of the silver goddess of the night.

  Harrow acknowledged Thanet’s evident interest. ‘Perdita painted that. A birthday present for my wife. Do sit down.’

  Excess flesh strained against fabric at shoulder, thigh, stomach and crotch as Harrow lowered himself into an armchair.

  Thanet sat on the settee, deliberately choosing to turn his back on the painting. It had a kind of magnetic power, drawing the eye and nailing the attention, altogether too distracting while conducting an interview. Even so, he could visualise it, almost feel it on the wall behind him, exerting its strange fascination.

  Lineham took the other armchair. He and Thanet preferred not to sit next to each other at interviews. It was important for them to be able to see each other’s face. Unspoken communication was an essential part of their routine.

  ‘Such a waste,’ said Harrow, shaking his head.

  Thanet was already beginning to feel uncomfortably hot. How could people live in such a temperature?

  Lineham was also feeling the heat. Like Thanet, the sergeant had already removed his overcoat and was unbuttoning his jacket.

  ‘I’m very sorry about your stepdaughter. It must have been a terrible shock to you.’

  Harrow inclined his head. ‘Yes. And the worst part of it is, I’ve still got to tell my wife. She’s in hospital.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  Harrow leaned forward anxiously. ‘You haven’t told her yourself, I hope?’

  Thanet shook his head. ‘We thought it best to leave it to you.’