Dead by Morning

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘It would make a change!’

  Back at the car they changed into their shoes, banging their boots on a fence post to remove the worst of the mud then wiping them roughly on the grass.

  ‘Give me a nice warm office every time,’ said Lineham as he slammed the car boot.

  It was a relief to get into the car, out of the wind.

  Thanet glanced at his watch. Half-past one. Unless Fever’s lunch hour was from one to two, he should be back at work by now. Anyway, if not, the house was only a stone’s throw away. ‘We’ll try the yard first.’

  Most of the farm buildings from which Fever ran his haulage business looked on the verge of collapse. The old Kent peg tiles had been stripped off and replaced with corrugated iron – a common sight since the hurricane, when the value of the old tiles had tripled overnight – and there were ragged gaps in the traditional weatherboarding. Lineham swung in between the open double metal gates which fronted the yard and parked alongside a small brick twin-kilned oast house marked OFFICE, the only building in reasonably good repair. As they got out of the car they became aware of raised voices within. The door was slightly ajar and as they drew closer Thanet put a warning finger to his lips.

  ‘Honest, Mr Fever, I swear I never –’

  ‘Don’t give me that guff! Think I was born yesterday? I been over and over those records and there’s no way I can come up with any other answer. If you think I’m going to sweat my guts out supplying easy money for toe-rags like you, you’ve got another think coming!’

  ‘But –’

  ‘But nothing! I’ve said all I’m going to say. That’s it. Finish. There’s your card, there’s your money up to date. Now get out!’

  Silence, then the sound of a door closing and footsteps approaching. A typewriter started clattering. Fever’s secretary starting work after listening to the row?

  Thanet and Lineham stepped back as a man emerged. He was grossly overweight, his belly hanging over the waistband of his low-slung trousers, his round moon-face wearing a hangdog expression. After a flicker of surprise at the sight of the two policemen he slunk past them and walked away through the gates, hands in pockets, shoulders slumped.

  Thanet knocked at the door and they went in.

  They were in a short, uncarpeted corridor floored with scuffed, grubby vinyl tiles. To their left was a closed door, to their right a notice saying ENQUIRIES stuck on to a glass partition through which they could see a girl typing on an antiquated machine. It was increasingly obvious that however freely Fever lavished money upon his private life, he didn’t believe in spending it on his working environment. Presumably most of his business was conducted by telephone and as there was no one to impress he didn’t think it worth the expenditure.

  Lineham tapped on the glass and the girl looked up, then came to slide a section of the partition open.

  ‘Yes?’

  She was young and plain, shoddily dressed in a short, tight black skirt and striped acrylic jumper.

  ‘We’d like a word with Mr Fever.’

  Her eyes darted anxiously to the door across the corridor. ‘I’ll see if he’s free. Who shall I say?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Thanet and Detective Sergeant Lineham, Sturrenden CID.’

  She looked alarmed. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Right. I’ll … er … I’ll just go and see.’

  She came out into the corridor and crossed to knock at the door on their left.

  ‘Come in.’

  With a nervous glance over her shoulder at the two policemen she opened the door just wide enough to sidle in, closing it behind her. After a brief murmur of voices she came out again, holding it wide open this time. ‘Mr Fever can see you now.’

  Fever was seated at a paper-strewn desk. He cast up his eyes. ‘This is all I need.’

  ‘Trouble?’ said Thanet benignly. ‘I’m afraid we couldn’t help overhearing. The door was open.’

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’ He waved a hand at a spindly metal stacking chair with a plastic seat. ‘I’m afraid there’s only one chair.’

  Personal appearance mattered to him. His clothes, by contrast with the tattiness of his surroundings, were again sleek and expensive: creamy silk polo shirt and soft beige suede jacket. His rather sparse brown hair was well-cut, if rather long for Thanet’s taste, and a faint aroma of aftershave hung in the air.

  ‘Not to worry.’

  Thanet sat down and Lineham moved across to lean against the windowsill, taking out his notebook.

  ‘Right, Mr Fever, now perhaps we can start again.’

  Fever’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Some rather interesting information has come to light since we saw you last.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Fever, warily.

  ‘Yes. First, it has been confirmed that Mr Martindale was knocked down by the Ford van from Longford Hall Hotel.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The one used principally by Sam Tiller.’

  Something flickered in Fever’s eyes. Dismay? Guilt? Fear? Impossible to tell. His facial expression did not alter. He had himself well under control. He raised his eyebrows in polite enquiry. What has this got to do with me?

  ‘Secondly, we have also learned, from the post-mortem, that Mr Martindale did not die as a result of the collision. After the “accident”’ – Thanet’s voice implied inverted commas around the word – ‘his body was placed in the ditch where it was found next morning. He died from exposure, Mr Fever.’

  ‘Too bad. But …’

  The man’s indifference infuriated Thanet and, longing to puncture it, he cut in. ‘We understand that at some point he must have recovered consciousness and tried to get out. Unfortunately his spine was broken and he couldn’t.’ Fever, he was glad to see, was looking shaken. ‘A very unpleasant death, as I’m sure you’ll agree.’

  ‘Poor bastard … But I still don’t see what all this has to do with me.’

  ‘Well, as I was explaining, you must see that this is therefore now a murder investigation.’ Thanet paused, sat back and folded his arms. ‘We were interested to learn that you drove the van that night, Mr Fever.’

  The implication was too obvious to ignore. Fever sat up with a jerk, looking suitably outraged. ‘Now look here …’

  ‘No, you look here, Mr Fever. You admit, do you, that you drove the van that evening?’

  ‘Well yes. But I had a perfectly good reason …’

  ‘So I believe. But that is beside the point. The point is that you did drive it. I think you’ll have to admit, it doesn’t look good for you. First of all you have a blazing row with Mr Martindale, telling him to keep away from your wife …’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I –?’

  ‘Then,’ Thanet raised his voice, cutting Fever off, ‘only a few hours later, Martindale is knocked down by a van which you admit to driving that same evening.’

  Fever’s face had become suffused with colour and his eyes bulged slightly as he said through his teeth, ‘I refuse to put up with this.’ His hand went out to the telephone. ‘I’m going to call my solicitor.’

  Thanet sat back, folding his arms. ‘Do, by all means. But it might be a good idea to hear the rest of what I have to say, first.’

  Fever’s hand hovered above the instrument then fell back. ‘Spit it out, then, why don’t you?’

  ‘It’s obvious, surely. Means, motive, opportunity.’ Thanet ticked them off on his fingers. ‘I think you’ll agree, you had them all.’

  ‘Agree! Like hell I will.’ He gave a cynical bark of laughter. ‘Motive, indeed. What motive? Just because I told him to keep away from my wife?’

  ‘Partly, perhaps. But I think we both know it goes a lot deeper than that.’

  Fever was suddenly motionless, his eyes gleaming. ‘What the hell,’ he said softly, ‘do you mean by that?’

  ‘You had good reason to be jealous of Martindale, didn’t you, Mr Fever?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  �
�Oh come on, let’s not play games. We both know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Do we?’

  About to deliver a mortal blow to Fever’s pride, Thanet steeled himself. Aggression did not come easily to him and it was only the knowledge that with this particular man he couldn’t afford to let up for a moment that enabled him to sustain the attack. And if Fever were guilty, if he had indeed dragged an injured man into a ditch and left him to die, then he deserved all he was getting. But if not, if he were innocent … Thanet was well aware that Fever’s hostility might well be a defence mechanism to cover up his vulnerability, that the man could have been more sinned against than sinning.

  ‘I must admit that I was a little surprised that a few minutes’ conversation in public between your wife and Martindale was enough to send you to rushing off to have a row with him …’

  Fever was very still, waiting.

  ‘And then this morning, of course, I realised why you had reacted so strongly.’

  The tension in the air was almost tangible.

  ‘What did Martindale say to your wife that afternoon, Mr Fever, to make you so angry?’ Thanet paused before playing his trump card. ‘Did he threaten to tell Toby that he was his father?’

  ‘No!’ With the explosive monosyllable Fever was on his feet, hands gripping the edge of his desk. ‘Who the hell …’ he shouted and then, remembering his secretary’s proximity, ‘who the hell,’ he hissed, ‘do you think you are, coming here like this, poking your nose into my private life, making irresponsible accusations right left and centre …?’ His eyes were wild and flecks of spittle flew in Thanet’s direction.

  Thanet didn’t flinch. ‘Irresponsible, Mr Fever?’ he said softly. But, although he didn’t show it, for a moment he wavered. What if he were wrong?

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘You deny, then, that Toby was Martindale’s son?’ Thanet held up a hand. ‘And, before you say “yes”, I must warn you that this is not just idle speculation. We have been in touch with the General Register Office to check dates and so on.’

  Fever stared at him, the anger gradually dying out of his eyes, to be replaced with despair. Then he slowly subsided into his chair and putting his elbows on the desk buried his head in his hands.

  The silence was sufficient answer. Thanet was relieved. At least he hadn’t been wrong in this. He glanced at Lineham who gave a satisfied nod.

  Thanet waited a moment or two longer and then said, ‘Look, Mr Fever, whether you believe it or not, I’m not enjoying this. I don’t get a kick out of other people’s misery and I’m not here either to make judgements or to broadcast people’s secrets unless it is absolutely necessary. I am merely trying to discover the facts but you must see that until I do I can’t even begin to decide whether this matter is relevant or not.’

  Fever was listening, he could tell. Encouraged, he went on. ‘I’ve had to be rather hard on you because, as I’m sure you’ll admit, you weren’t exactly in a cooperative mood. But if we could now have a sensible and rational discussion …’

  Fever raised his head and looked at Thanet, a long, assessing look. Can I believe what you’re saying?

  Thanet waited, meeting Fever’s gaze squarely and hoping that his expression was suitably frank and open.

  After a moment or two Fever sat back, lifting his hands a little way off the desk and dropping them again in a gesture of surrender. He shrugged. ‘OK. What do you want to know?’

  TWENTY-ONE

  As the tension in the room began to ebb away Lineham shifted his stance and cleared his throat, unconsciously signalling the fact that one phase of the interview had just ended and another was about to begin. Briefly Thanet wondered if highly-charged emotion actually generated its own – what? – static electricity? Magnetic field? He didn’t know. He felt depleted, suddenly aware of an ache in the small of his back, always his weak spot. He longed to get up and ease it, to walk about, light his pipe, relax, but he couldn’t afford to do any of these things. It was important not to lose the impetus he had won.

  Fever, by contrast, had now given up. Slumped in his chair, he was waiting for Thanet to begin, eyes dull, hands clasped loosely across his stomach.

  ‘I’ll be as brief as I can. Toby is Martindale’s son?’

  A tightening of the lips, a nod.

  ‘And you’ve known this right from the beginning.’

  Another nod.

  ‘Does Toby know?’

  This brought a reaction. Fever straightened up. ‘No! And I – we, don’t want him to know.’

  ‘You’ve brought him up as your own son?’

  ‘Yeah.’ A wry attempt at a smile. ‘We always thought if he took it into his head to count up on his fingers, he’d simply work out we’d enjoyed a bit of hanky-panky before we walked up the aisle.’

  ‘You had no other children?’

  Fever shook his head. ‘No such luck. So it was all the more important that Toby never suspected …’

  ‘Yes, I can see that. All the same, a bit risky, wasn’t it?’

  Fever shrugged. ‘Even if he’d been adopted we wouldn’t have told him till he was at least four. By then Leo’d been gone nearly five years and as time went on it seemed less and less likely he’d ever come back.’

  An uncomfortable thought struck Thanet. ‘Does anybody else know, or suspect?’

  Fever was shaking his head again. ‘Not that I know of. It’s never even been hinted at. There was a bit of ribbing, of course, when Toby was born only six months after the wedding, but we just let everybody think we’d been at it before we should’ve.’

  Oh God, thought Thanet. And I’ve told Delia Hamilton. What would she do, if anything? He shook his head, to clear it. He’d have to think about that later. Ought he to mention it to Fever? No, not now, when the man was being cooperative at last.

  ‘I’m not sure of the legal position of an illegitimate child, but did you ever think that you could be depriving Toby of a fine inheritance?’

  ‘Well yeah, that did worry us, I must admit, but we took legal advice, confidential-like, when old Martindale died, just for our own peace of mind. Anyway, we discovered Toby didn’t have no claim at all, in law. According to the solicitor, illegitimate kids can now inherit, but only if the parents are together. To be honest, we was relieved. Having kept it from him all that time … And the last thing we wanted was a legal battle on our hands, that sort of thing can drag on for years. Besides, Toby’s happy as he is. He’s got everything he wants or needs. He’s a good lad, we get on well together, he enjoys working in the business with me … Nah, we decided ignorance was bliss and to leave well alone.’

  ‘You implied just now that one of the reasons why you’d never told Toby was because you thought Martindale would never come back.’ Now for the important question. ‘Does this mean that Martindale knew your wife was pregnant by him, before he went away?’

  It was clear that the thought of Martindale impregnating his wife was even now, after all these years, painful to Fever. He compressed his lips and shook his head.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure! We just thought that if Leo did come back he might work it out for himself.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘No!’

  Thanet didn’t think he was lying. But what if, knowing her husband’s jealous nature, Yvonne had told Martindale before he went away, but had never had the nerve to admit it to Fever? Remembering Martindale’s questioning of the hotel receptionist in regard to Toby’s identity, Thanet considered this possible.

  Thanet tried to work it out. If Fever truly believed that Martindale had never known and had therefore never been in the position to threaten to tell Toby, the case against him was strongly undermined. Though there still remained his jealousy. Would that have been enough to drive him, on impulse, to murder? Remembering Fever’s reaction just now Thanet thought that it might. For Fever to have stepped in and married Yvonne the moment it became obvious that Martindale had abandoned her,
it was more than likely that Fever had been in love with her for some time, that he had had to stand back and watch helplessly while she was swept off her feet by the son of the big house. Jealousy was a cruel emotion, a classic cause of murder. In the case of a man like Fever, whose reputation was such that his wife scarcely dared even speak to another man in his presence for fear of provoking an outburst, the reappearance of Martindale, who had once actually possessed Fever’s wife, perhaps stolen her from under his very nose while he looked impotently on, could well have reactivated all his original resentment and hatred of the man. Jealousy had certainly driven him to an immediate confrontation with Martindale. Thanet wondered exactly what had been said during that row, how Martindale had reacted to Fever’s warning. Could he have laughed at him, thus provoking him even further and sending him away in an even greater rage? If so, and if, later, on his way back from taking his wife to her mother’s house in the van, Fever had been presented with the spectacle of Martindale walking along the road ahead of him, alone … Yes, it was still possible that Fever was their man.

  Thanet became aware that both Lineham and Fever were watching him, intrigued by his long silence. He stood up. ‘Right, thank you.’

  Fever came to his feet. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘For the moment, yes.’

  They left him staring after them with a puzzled frown.

  ‘No point in asking him if he’d seen Martindale later, when he borrowed the van. He’d only have denied it,’ said Thanet as they got into the car. He wound down the window and took out his pipe, began to fill it.

  Lineham was nodding agreement. ‘He could be our man, though.’ He smacked his clenched fist into the palm of the other hand. ‘If only we had some hard evidence against one of them. Just one tiny scrap!’

  ‘I know.’ Briefly, at the very back of Thanet’s mind something flickered. What was it? He struggled to grasp it, drag it out in order to examine it but already it was gone. Had he imagined it?

  Lineham was watching him. ‘What?’

  Thanet shook his head. ‘It’s gone.’ He struck a match, lit his pipe.

  ‘Where now, sir? Hamilton?’