by Anne Morice
“What’s happened about your car?” I asked, when we had finished sorting the clothes and had carried the bundles downstairs.
“Still with the police. They take their time, don’t they? Not that I want it here, I can tell you. Talk about bringing back memories! I just pray I never have to set eyes on it again. Besides, it’s not as though it would be any use to me, as you know.”
“Still, it might be a good idea to sell it and invest in a little second-hand one. You’d soon learn to drive, if you made up your mind to, and I should think you’d find it rather inconvenient living here without a car. But perhaps you haven’t decided yet whether you will go on living here?”
“Whether I can afford to, you mean? No, but I’ve got to try and pull myself together and go into it properly in the next few days. I’ve got an appointment with the bank manager tomorrow. He rang me just after you did. Wants to talk to me about the will. It seems Mike made him executor, or whatever they call it.”
“Well, that’s lucky because he’ll know better than anyone how to advise you.”
“Think so? Well, maybe. I daresay Mike wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t thought it was for the best. Now, the other thing that’s bothering me, Tessa, is what to do about these books.”
We had moved into the living room by this time and the reference was to half a dozen hard-backed volumes, with about twice the number of paperbacks, which were stacked on the floor by the bookcase.
“You surely don’t intend to turn those out as well? Why not keep them for the boys when they’re old enough?”
“Because they aren’t mine to keep. These are some that Mike borrowed from the American chap . . . Drew Somebody . . . lives up the road.”
“Well, I don’t suppose he’s in any hurry for them.”
“No, but that’s not the point,” Brenda said obstinately. “I don’t like the idea of other people’s possessions lying around.”
“Okay, so why not shove them in a carrier and take them back?”
“I could do, I suppose, but I’d be sure to run into her and I’d feel so awkward.”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
“She might think it was just an excuse to worm my way in. They never had any time for me when Mike was alive and I don’t want their pity now. I’d rather things stayed as they are. To tell you the truth, I wondered if you’d mind dropping them off for me? It’s number 19, about half way up, and you can recognise the place a mile off by all the old junk they leave lying around in the front garden. You wouldn’t need to go indoors, just dump the books on the doorstep. They’ll know where they came from and it couldn’t make the place look more untidy than it does already.”
I did not tell her so, but in fact I had no intention of leaving them on the doorstep, and moreover was hoping to find both the Burnetts at home when I carried out my errand. It was partly for this reason that I did not go straight to their house after leaving Brenda. Another was that it was getting on for five o’clock and I realised that all the cleaners’ shops would be closed by the time I reached London. I did not much relish the idea of storing Mike’s clothes at Beacon Square overnight, still less of Robin’s finding them on the back seat, if he should decide to use the car. Fortunately, there was a simple way out of the dilemma and having driven half way up the hill and past number 19, I reversed into an open driveway and drove smartly down again, turning left into the main road and the new shopping centre.
It covered quite a small area, about half way between a village and a minor suburb and all the buildings were brand new and of crushing mediocrity, but it was not only this which depressed me. Even worse was the feeling it gave me of belonging to another age, for I found myself contrasting it with the kind of High Street conglomeration which would have served a community of this size in my childhood. Then there would have been lots of small shops, each selling a separate type of commodity, all dotted about in a haphazard fashion and interspersed with private houses and cottages. Here the whole area was given over to commerce, with one large and one small supermarket cheek by jowl, and two other chain stores opposite them. There were also numerous banks, a travel bureau and driving school, and a car park flanked on one side by red brick public lavatories.
There was a choice of two dry cleaners, Streamline and Quickservice. The girl behind the counter of the first one did not do much for the image, for she was fat and pasty faced, bulging out of her tight trousers and grubby, sleeveless white satin blouse. She was also extremely sluggish and deliberate in her movements, raising up each separate garment in slow motion and carefully inspecting it for indelible stains and breakable buttons, before thumbing through a three-page price list and writing out the ticket.
It was therefore all the more gratifying when this boring performance ended on a somewhat sensational note. She had worked her way through to the last item to be cleaned, which happened to be a blue and red striped dressing gown and was in the act of lifting it up by the shoulder seams when her expression slowly but perceptibly changed. She then dropped the dressing gown back on the counter as though it had burned her fingers. “You did say the name was Price?”
Since I had already repeated it four times, there was little point in denying it now and I nodded.
“Funny! Looks just the same.”
“Same as what?”
“One we had in for cleaning only the week before last. Customer was in a hurry and wanted it done express, I remember. It looked just like this one. Same label too.”
“Oh well,” I explained hastily, “that’s possible. I’ve brought these for a friend, you see. She’s without a car at the moment and I said I’d drop them off for her.”
“I should think she might have made a mistake with this one. Probably doesn’t realise he’d brought it in himself. Think you ought to take it back?”
“No time, I’m afraid. Just throw it in with the rest, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay,” she replied indifferently and went laboriously through the business of copying the details on to her pad, then tore out each individual receipt and handed them over.
“Ready Thursday, but it’s early closing and we shut at one.”
“Right,” I said, already half way to the door, but it was not quite over yet.
“Just a sec.,” she called out. “What about this, then?”
I turned to see her holding out a small folded square of blue paper.
“Better take it, hadn’t you? Might be something important?”
“Yes, it might. Where did you find it?”
“In one of the pockets.”
“You’re quite the most thorough person I ever met,” I assured her. “Wasted in a place like this.”
I did not unfold the paper until I was back in the car, but trotted along, laying bets with myself as to what it would contain. Winning them too, as it turned out, for the inside of the paper was covered with half a dozen lines of flamboyant, instantly recognisable script, filling the top half of a torn off sheet of writing paper. The message began and ended in the middle of sentences, but it was of no consequence, for I could make a fair guess at the beginning of the first one, having already seen the end of the last. The part of the letter now in my hands read as follows:
‘. . . true that he still has the greatest affection for you, but it can only end in more disillusionment for him, and personally I consider that he has a better chance of recovery if you will consent to leave him alone. To be as blunt as I know how, I am asking one last favour of you—that you will stay away from us, just as I mean never to speak to you again for . . .’
The only small puzzle was how this fragment came to be in the pocket of a dressing gown which had been returned from the cleaners only such a short time before Mike’s death. However, I shelved that problem for the time being, for there was reading matter of a different nature to be undertaken before I paid my next call.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Such bonuses do not fall into one’s lap every time, however, and I soon
discovered that by timing my call on the Burnetts for half past five I had missed my chance of coming face to face with the elusive sergeant by only a few minutes. Fay, who opened the door to me, with Claire balanced on her left hip, explained that he had been home all afternoon, but that this was the one day of the week he had to work nights.
She was very cordial though and, having thanked me profusely for returning the books, bade me come along in and meet the rest of the brood. She then led the way to the kitchen, a brief journey which nevertheless provided enough contrasts with the Parsons’ menage to satisfy the most avid student of human nature.
In addition to the baby’s push chair, there were two dolls’ prams lined up in the hall, plus a selection of mangled toys and picture books scattered over the floor and staircase. At the foot of the stairs a pugnacious looking dog on wheels barred the way with a ferocious glassy stare and there was ample evidence in the way of rubber bones and muddy paw prints to show that the household also included at least one dog which was not on wheels.
Two whey-faced, wispy little girls, introduced to me as Louise and Mary Jane, were seated at the kitchen table. Both had flaxen hair like Claire’s and black circles under their eyes and in general there appeared to have been a skimping of flesh and blood all round, giving rise to the idea that there was not quite enough to go round among three of them, but that by putting the mixture together and starting again, one respectably plump and sturdy infant might emerge.
I accepted a glass of milk, which appeared to be the popular beverage and Fay requested Louise and Mary Jane to take their beakers and peanut butter sandwiches and run along and watch T.V. for a while. She then deposited Claire in a circular contraption which looked rather like a giant butterfly net and invited me to fill her in with the current situation chez Parsons. After I had done so she said:
“Well, she sounds to be making out better than I’d have imagined. From the way Mike always hinted . . .”
“That she was a drunk?”
“Right. That is, he never said so to me, as I recall, but Drew certainly had that impression. It was mainly why he got to feel so sorry for him.”
“Did he feel sorry for him?”
“Oh, sure! I mean, he was grateful to him at the start. He thought it was darn nice and neighbourly of him to keep dropping around and taking him down to the pub and all, but there were times, you know how it is, when he didn’t feel like going out of an evening. Often he’d have preferred to stay home with me and the girls, only he didn’t care to hurt Mike’s feelings. Finally, I’d say it was Mike who got to be so dependent on Drew, instead of the other way round.”
“Which pub did they frequent, do you know?”
“Different ones, I guess, but there was one special place Drew told me about. A real old-fashioned country inn down by the river with everyone drinking beer and joining in the darts game.”
“That’s another thing I meant to ask you; what did they drink on these outings?”
“Oh, Drew always had beer. He’s hooked on your English beer now, even likes it warm. Just wait till the folks back home get to hear about that!” she said, smiling at her own joke.
“And Mike too?”
“No, he stuck to ginger ale, that kind of thing. Drew used to tease him about it at first, but then he discovered that Mike had gone teetotal to try and help his wife. He admired him for that. Me too, but all the same . . .”
“What?”
“Well, you know how it is? I ought not to be saying this now he’s dead, and he certainly did have problems, but have you ever noticed how some people can get so involved in their own problems that they end by acting as though it gave them special rights and privileges?”
“Yes, I had noticed it.”
“Sometimes I thought that applied to Mike. Like I said, there were plenty of evenings when Drew would really rather have stayed home and cut out the pub crawl, but he always gave in finally. It wasn’t only because he liked Mike and felt sorry for him. There was this other aspect where Mike made you feel you had an obligation to do whatever he wanted. I feel wicked saying this, I honestly do, but I won’t be entirely sorry not to have him turning up on the doorstep two or three times a week.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Although I suppose one must assume that people don’t go about killing their neighbours just for the sake of a few quiet domestic evenings,” I remarked later that evening. “Even though Drew is such a promising name, and even though he is a man.”
“I am not sure that I care very much for that last observation,” Robin said. “Admittedly, most murders are committed by men, but it doesn’t follow that most men are potential murderers.”
“Oh, I know that. At least, I think I do, but it has always seemed to me that in this case in particular so much sheer physical strength would have been needed, much more than the average woman possesses. Even suffocating a fairly young and able-bodied man would surely require a good deal of force, quite apart from carting the corpse around afterwards and finally hoisting it into the river? In that way the evidence does rather point to a man, although not necessarily this one.”
“So having straightened out that small point, why do you say that Drew is such a promising name?”
“Simply because he’s the only person I’ve come across so far who could very easily be masquerading as this mysterious Sandy. The one, according to Brenda, whose first call came through a telephone switchboard and who has a slight American accent. I should explain that I had a careful look through all those books which Brenda asked me to return and one of them had an interesting inscription on the flyleaf.”
“Are there no limits to your inquisitiveness?”
“Absolutely not, and I don’t imagine there are to yours when you’re tracking down the miscreants. Except that you would probably call it fact finding.”
“And what facts did you uncover this time?” Robin asked, proving my point.
“Oh, plenty. One was that his birthday is on 12th December, another that he had an aunt called Helen, who was sufficiently attached to him four years ago to mark the occasion with a book on water fowl, costing fifteen dollars. The really stunning one was that to this Aunt Helen he is known as Andrew. ‘Happy birthday to Andrew’ is what she wrote, ‘With love from Aunt Helen’, and the date underneath.”
“Quite a little potted biography! Which is the relevant bit?”
“In the name. You see, when Brenda mentioned this Sandy with the American accent I immediately began to wonder about those neighbours Mike had become so chummy with, although at the time I couldn’t see any reason why the man should call himself Sandy. Drew, all by itself, is not such an uncommon name in America, as you probably know, and it didn’t occur to me that he might actually have started life as Andrew.”
“And when it did you instantly concluded that another nickname might be Sandy?”
“Not exactly, but I do think it’s possible that Brenda could have heard it in that way. If somebody said to you on the telephone ‘This is Andy’, you can see how easily the last two words would run together.”
“Yes, I suppose so, but why should Mike Parsons have called him Andy when to everyone else he was Drew?”
“There’s no proof of that. All we know for certain is that his wife refers to him as Drew, and that might be her own special name for him. On the other hand, from what I’m beginning to learn about Mike it wouldn’t surprise me if he was another one who used special names for his close friends. He seems to have had a passion for insinuating himself into other people’s lives and this could have been one of the devices he used to make his relationship with them exclusive.”
“Why didn’t you settle the matter by putting a few tactful questions to Mrs Burnett?”
“Because the idea only came to me when I was half way home. Never mind, I’ll probably drum up an excuse to go and call on her again. Although I do hope I shall be proved wrong.”
“A forlorn hope, no doubt! What inspires it?”
“Just that I like Fay. She’s got twenty times more guts than that self-pitying old Brenda and it would be awful if it turned out that her husband was involved in a murder.”
“It doesn’t follow. There’s nothing incriminating in ringing someone up and saying your name is Andy, and as you’ve pointed out the only motive you’ve been able to hang on him so far is decidedly thin.”
“I know, but if it was him the fact that he telephoned Brenda within hours of Mike’s disappearance and again on the day he turned up in the river does look rather fishy. You could almost believe that he’d got the wind up and was trying to find out through Brenda whether there’d been any developments. However, at least there can’t be any connection between him and Chloe’s brother, so that’s one point in his favour.”
“Only half a point, really. The odds now stand at a thousand to one against the two deaths being linked.”
“Since when?”
“Since the experts went to work on the suicide note. They’re satisfied that it’s genuine and furthermore the G.P. has gone on record as stating that the boy was in a highly neurotic condition, with pronounced suicidal tendencies.”
“But Robin, darling, this is the first I’ve heard of any note. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Mainly because I knew you would say it was a forgery.”
“And why do you think I won’t say it now?”
“Because now you would be voicing the opinion of an amateur, who has not seen it, in direct contradiction to all the handwriting experts who have.”
“Oh, all right, but what did it say?”
“Just what you’d expect. All the usual stuff about being a burden to himself and everyone else. You know how it goes?”
“No mention of Mike?”
“Not as far as I know. I’m another one who hasn’t seen it, but I understand no one was specifically named. It was addressed to the coroner, incidentally, and the only point which need concern us is that its authenticity has been proved beyond doubt.”