Confirm or Deny

by Graham Ison

Harris laughed. “What’s old Geoffrey been up to?”

  “He’s dead,” said Gaffney.

  Harris placed his coffee cup carefully on a side-table. “Good God!” he said.

  His wife put her hand to her mouth. “How awful. What happened? Was it an accident?”

  “No,” said Gaffney, “it was not.”

  They waited for him to elaborate, and when he didn’t, Dick Harris asked, “You don’t mean he was murdered?” He could think of no other reason why a detective chief superintendent from Scotland Yard should have wanted to come and see him.

  “I don’t know, quite simply, Mr Harris. That is something I have been asked to find out.”

  “Well what happened?” asked Tina Harris again.

  There was no secret in that; it had been in the newspapers, albeit a brief article, and Gaffney was vaguely surprised that the Harrises hadn’t spotted it. They looked like people who read newspapers. “His body was found in the public toilets at Waterloo Station.”

  “God Almighty!” said Harris, and shook his head.

  Tina Harris stood up and poured more coffee without enquiring whether anybody wanted it. “Poor Julia,” she said. “I must give her a ring.” She paused, looking at Gaffney. “I suppose that’s all right?”

  “Perfectly all right,” said Gaffney.

  “And you think he might have been murdered?”

  “At the moment we don’t know. The pathologist is not entirely happy about the cause of death. They’re very careful people, pathologists, and until he’s satisfied, he won’t say. In the meantime, I have to treat the death as suspicious.” He spread his hands. “Of course, it may well turn out to be innocent; what I mean is, he may have committed suicide.”

  Harris looked thoughtful and then shook his head slowly. “I was about to say I wouldn’t have thought so,” he said.

  “But?”

  “But, on second thoughts, I’m not so sure. He wasn’t a very happy man, you know.”

  “You knew him quite well?”

  “We both did. We lived there for about, what, ten years?” He looked at his wife for confirmation.

  “Yes, all of that,” she said. “We actually knew his second wife better than his first.”

  “She must have arrived in the village at about the same time as yourselves, then.”

  “Yes. Julia bought Raven Cottage. Nice little place. She had money of her own. Well, I presume she had.” Dick Harris took up the story again.

  “How did you meet her?” asked Gaffney.

  “We held a house-warming – we love giving parties – and we invited just about everyone in the village: well, our sort of people, if you know what I mean.”

  “He sounds an awful snob, doesn’t he?” said his wife casually.

  “You know what I mean, darling.”

  “And Julia Simpson was one of your sort of people?” asked Gaffney.

  Tina Harris smiled tolerantly. “Have you met her?” she asked. Gaffney nodded. “Well,” she continued, “You’ll have seen why Dick thought she was one of his sort of people.”

  Harris looked embarrassed. “It was more a case of feeling sorry for her,” he said.

  “I gather from what I’ve heard so far that you two were instrumental in bringing Geoffrey Hodder and Julia together,” said Gaffney.

  “I suppose we were, in a way,” said Tina Harris. “Quite innocently, of course. Actually, Dick’s quite right; we did feel sorry for her. She’d arrived in the village on her own, and there’s no doubt that she’s an attractive woman; you’ll know that as you’ve seen her. You could see the women shielding their menfolk protectively.” She glanced at her husband, but he avoided her gaze. “She must have been about twenty-five or so then, when she first arrived there, and I suppose you could say that she flaunted herself a bit. In the summer she would stroll about in very short white shorts.” She laughed. “It was evident that she was being pretty well ostracized by most of the women, so when we decided to have a party, we invited her – more out of devilment than sympathy, if I’m honest – just to see what the reaction would be. On reflection it wasn’t a very clever thing to have done,” she added wistfully.

  “And what was the reaction?”

  “Oh, very polite; a bit stilted, I suppose; but then we were new as well.” She flicked her long, brown hair off her collar and leaned back in her chair. “It was rather amusing, really, watching the wives watching their husbands. The moment any of them spoke to Julia, the wife would home in very quickly.” She paused and looked again at her husband. “Except for… what was her name, Geoffrey’s first wife?”

  “Elizabeth,” said Gaffney.

  “Yes, of course. Yes, except for Elizabeth. She didn’t seem to worry, but then you only had to look at him to see why.”

  “Oh?”

  “He was the classic example of the domesticated, henpecked husband. I got the impression that he wouldn’t have dared step out of line. Ironic, isn’t it?”

  “You mean that Elizabeth was overbearing?”

  For a moment or two, the Harrises looked thoughtful, weighing up the question. “Well—” they both said together. Tina smiled and gave way.

  “The best way of describing her was coarse,” said Dick Harris. His wife nodded. “It was her very coarseness that made him appear afraid of offending her,” he continued. “It wasn’t so much that she might have taken him to task, but that she would do so in a coarse way.”

  “I can vouch for that,” said Tina Harris. “I’d only been talking to her for about five minutes. There was quite a crowd there—”

  “Cost a bloody fortune,” said Harris, interrupting.

  His wife ignored him and carried straight on. “I was trying to pair everybody off-in my mind,” she added hurriedly, and smiled. “And I asked her who her husband was. She pointed to Geoffrey, who was actually talking to Julia at that moment, and said, It’s him over there. I nodded and she went on, saying something like, Talking to that hussy – makes you laugh, doesn’t it? Then she said, He’ll be no good to the likes of her – he’s no good to me. Then she held up her little finger, and said, That’s about the size of it.” Tina Harris was clearly embarrassed at repeating the story, but obviously thought it relevant enough to make the effort.

  “That about sums her up,” said Harris. “That was the way she used to talk. She was dowdy, too. I don’t mean scruffy – she was immaculate – immaculate but unimaginative…” He paused, then: “Even if Elizabeth had worn exactly the same clothes as Julia, she wouldn’t have looked at all attractive. It’s difficult to describe, and it’s odd really, because she had quite a good figure. Mannish, that’s the word. The one thing that Elizabeth Hodder didn’t have was sex-appeal.”

  “So the first temptation that appeared and he was off?”

  Harris nodded. “So it seemed, but frankly I wouldn’t have thought that he had the guts.” He took a cigarette case from his pocket and offered it to the two policemen before lighting a cigarette for himself; his wife obviously didn’t smoke. “I think that’s the mistake that Elizabeth made. I reckon that she was actually challenging her husband, daring him, and that’s why she invited Julia Simpson to dinner. I honestly don’t know why Julia accepted; I wouldn’t have thought that she could possibly have fancied old Geoffrey, not in a million years; not her type at all. Strange really, the way things turned out. I suppose it was the first hand of friendship that had been extended to her. Apart from our party, of course.”

  “Did anyone else invite her to dinner, or to parties?” asked Gaffney.

  Tina Harris laughed. “They didn’t really have the time. It was fairly evident to casual observers of the social scene that something was going on between Julia and Geoffrey. How Elizabeth didn’t find out I’ll never know.” She reflected on that. “Perhaps she did, and didn’t care. Maybe the sexual thing between her and her husband was her doing and not his. She might have been quite content to let him have a fling with young Julia, knowing that he hadn’t the guts to walk ou
t on her. Not a great decision maker, Geoffrey.”

  “I understand that Elizabeth got a phone call one day,” said Gaffney.

  Tina Harris looked puzzled for a second or two, then she smiled. “Oh, the phone call, you mean? Yes, that put her on the spot. All the while she knew but didn’t know, if you see what I mean, she might have been happy to let it run on. But once she’d got that phone call, she either had to follow it up, or display the fact that she didn’t care. Well, no woman likes doing that, and her problem was that she didn’t know who the caller was, so she didn’t know who else knew. Tricky, that. There was only one thing left for her to do if she was to retain any dignity, and that was to confront them.”

  Tipper, who had been sitting quietly and making the occasional note, looked up. “Who d’you think made that telephone call, Mrs Harris?” he asked.

  Tina Harris glanced at her husband. “Julia, without a doubt,” she said. “I think she did it as a way of getting back at Elizabeth for her coarse remarks and her innuendoes about Geoffrey. It was a strange sort of revenge: knowing for certain that Elizabeth knew that her husband was being unfaithful. I don’t think that Julia thought it would ever come to divorce, though; but it did, and she was stuck with him. They got married soon after that, and Elizabeth pushed off somewhere; I don’t know where…”

  “Godalming,” said Tipper.

  Tina Harris nodded. “But Geoffrey was a changed man. He’d stop and chat, and was much happier than I’d ever seen him before.”

  “And what about Julia?” asked Gaffney, “Did she seem happy with her lot?”

  “I don’t know, really. She didn’t seem to change. Still the bright vivacious girl she’d been when we first met her. What was more to the point, she was accepted. The women started talking to her. She’d become one of them, you see. Married, and no longer a threat, I suppose. Apart from anything else, I don’t think they much liked Elizabeth. Funny creatures, married women.”

  “True!” said Harris.

  His wife laughed and switched her gaze back to Gaffney. “We got to know her a lot better after that. They would come to our parties, and she and Geoffrey came to dinner a few times; and we went there.”

  “How did they behave?”

  “To each other, you mean?” Gaffney nodded. “Oh,” said Tina Harris, “Blissfully happy, or so it seemed. Geoffrey very attentive; Julia very loving. It seemed a perfect match.”

  “Seemed?”

  “As far as one could tell, yes. It’s always difficult to assess other people’s marriages. Only the partners really know what it’s like, but on the surface theirs appeared to be okay.”

  “Did Julia ever talk about herself?” asked Tipper. “Mention anything about her past life? All we’ve learned so far is that she suddenly appeared at Raven Cottage one day, and the story goes on from there.”

  “As much as anyone ever does,” said Harris. “She mentioned one night over dinner that she’d been brought up in Nigeria – at least her early life – first three or four years, but that she’d been back since.”

  “What had her job been? Did she mention that? Was she qualified at anything?” asked Tipper.

  Harris shook his head. “No, don’t think so. She did say that she’d been working over there, with a charity, I believe. It came up because we were discussing a news item that had been on television that evening – something about floods, or a famine – and she mentioned that she’d been there, had worked in the area helping to distribute relief. It was only a fleeting reference, then someone went on to talk about something else. Not really the sort of thing to chat about over dinner – the starving millions in Africa – particularly when you’re just opening your fourth bottle of Cotes du Rhone.”

  Gaffney did a bit of mental arithmetic. “You must have lived there for about nine years after they got married, before you moved up here; would that be right?”

  “That’s about right, yes,” said Harris.

  “And did the marriage seem to go along in much the same way as it had started? No deterioration, apart from the sort of settlement you get once the novelty wears off?”

  “Not even that. They seemed to be as happy the day we moved as the day they got married. Why d’you ask?”

  Gaffney ignored the question, appearing not to hear it. “Did Geoffrey ever mention his job? Did you know what he did for a living?”

  “Never,” said Harris. “I don’t think I can recall him ever talking about it the whole time we knew them.”

  “I think he was a civil servant,” said Tina Harris. “I asked Julia one day. I forget now why I asked; it wasn’t nosiness. I think we’d got some tickets—” She stopped. “I remember,” she said, looking at her husband. “It was when you got those tickets for Ascot, d’you remember, from Frank Jamieson?” Harris nodded. “We asked them if they could come. Actually I asked Julia, asked if her husband could get a day off midweek. It was then she said something about his being a civil servant, and that it was always very difficult. We went on our own eventually.”

  “They had two cars, though,” said Harris.

  Gaffney raised his eyebrows. “Is that significant?”

  “It is if he was a civil servant. Civil servants don’t get company cars.”

  “I think she must have had money of her own,” said Tina Harris. “Don’t forget she’d bought Raven Cottage when she arrived, and sold it again when she got married. I don’t think she was short of a pound or two.”

  “You haven’t asked me about enemies,” said Harris.

  “Enemies? Why, did they have any?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Harris.

  “Well why…?”

  “I thought you always asked if people had enemies when you were investigating a murder.”

  Gaffney laughed. “I didn’t say I was investigating a murder, but in my experience, Mr Harris, people are not generally killed by their enemies. They are either murdered by complete strangers, or by people they know rather well. However, it could well be that Geoffrey Hodder committed suicide, as I said earlier.”

  Harris shook his head. “I still can’t see Geoffrey as a suicide,” he said. “Not married to Julia. She wouldn’t have pushed him to kill himself, although she might just have killed him in bed.”

  “Dick!” Tina Harris sounded scandalized, but Gaffney reckoned that she had done so for his benefit; she looked quite a sexy woman herself.

  Harris laughed. “These gentlemen are policemen, darling. They don’t shock easily.” He looked at Gaffney. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Gaffney in resigned tones. “I’m afraid there’s very little left either to amaze or excite us.” He eased himself out of the deep armchair with some difficulty. “We’ve taken up too much of your time,” he said. “Thank you for talking to us.”

  Harris closed the front door as the two policemen walked down the driveway, and turned to his wife. “Can’t say I’m surprised,” he said, “If he did commit suicide.”

  “Nor me,” said his wife.

  *

  “I don’t think they were telling the whole truth, guv’nor,” said Tipper.

  “Nor do I,” said Gaffney, “but I don’t know why they weren’t. It was almost as if they’d rehearsed it; it was too polished. I think they must have heard about it from someone.”

  “Didn’t want to get involved, perhaps; the usual cry of the law-abiding, stalwart citizen.”

  “Involved in what? A suicide?”

  “They think it’s a murder, and I think it comes as no surprise to them; which is interesting, but probably totally irrelevant.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  John Carfax was a rotund man. He was balding, and wore heavy horn-rimmed spectacles with wide arms that pressed into his fleshy head. His suit needed cleaning and his waistcoat was too short, permitting an expanse of striped shirt to be pushed out above his waistband by a stomach that had refused to accept the strictures of a suit bought originally for a lesser figure.

 
; He returned the Director-General’s letter of authority to Gaffney. “I have to say, John, that I disagree with the DG. A few years ago an investigation into the service’s activities by an outside agency would have been unthinkable.”

  “Perhaps a few years ago it would not have been necessary,” said Gaffney mildly.

  “Mmm, maybe so.” Carfax sniffed. “Nevertheless,” he said, “I find it distasteful and… still unnecessary.” He laid his podgy hands on his desk top and examined his fingernails. “There is nothing to investigate. Naturally, I have looked into it; there’s nothing to discover.”

  “I heard that you’d conducted an enquiry of sorts.”

  “Oh? Who told you that?”

  “Who told me doesn’t matter, but I understand that you were satisfied with your findings?”

  “No, I was not, but the plain fact is that I was unable to find out more.”

  “Have you any private thoughts about it? For instance, Geoffrey Hodder, whom I interviewed just before his death, maintains that he told no one the full details of the Dickson affair, and that, I gather, included you.” Gaffney looked searchingly at the other man.

  “Yes,” said Carfax. “But even in an organization like this one, people do have to be told certain things. The merest indication that an army officer was involved would be sufficient information for the KGB to act upon.”

  That interested Gaffney; it was the conclusion he had reached when Hodder had told him that he had given those bare details to Carfax. And now Carfax himself was saying the same thing; not that it took too much working out. “When did Hodder tell you about Armitage and Dickson?” Carfax thought about that. “About fourish, I suppose, just as he was leaving for the venue at Teddington.” He leaned forward and thumbed through his desk diary. “I thought so,” he said. “I remember it now, I was outside the DG’s office, talking to Cutty Wilson—” He glanced up. “Cuthbert Wilson is head of—”

  “Yes,” said Gaffney, interrupting, “I know Cutty. What happened, exactly?”

  “Hodder drew me to one side and told me that he was just off to Teddington with your people to arrest an army officer and, hopefully, the contact.”