Old Bones

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Juries do, nine times out of ten,’ said Slider mildly.

  Porson was in his office – you could always tell from a distance because the door was open – so Slider went in to bring him up to date.

  ‘What did you make of Kellington?’ Porson asked when he had finished.

  Slider considered. ‘I thought he was a bit defensive.’

  ‘Not surprising.’ Porson nodded. ‘Must have felt a twat hearing the body turned up right there in the garden. Bound to feel people’ll think he didn’t do his job properly.’ Slider hesitated, and Porson barked, ‘What? Spit it out, laddie. Don’t mince about the bush!’

  ‘I do wonder whether they didn’t take it seriously enough at the time. Whether there was more they could have done but didn’t. And then she didn’t turn up and it was too late.’

  Porson didn’t pooh-pooh it. ‘We’ve all made mistakes. Let something slide that turned out to be important.’

  ‘I was wondering, you see, about the file having so little in it. Whether someone slimmed it down a bit afterwards. Without the paperwork, it would be harder to show that things weren’t done that should have been.’

  Porson shook his head, and did a turn or two along the strip of carpet between his desk and the window. It was down to the backing in places. ‘Don’t go there,’ he ordered. ‘Not our provenance. Things get lost. Accidents happen. Lot of water under the carpet since then. You just concentrate on getting your job done.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Slider said.

  ‘Get out there, start knocking on doorsteps. They’ve got a long start on you.’ Yes, Slider thought. Twenty-five years. But the good thing was, people who had something to hide back then probably wouldn’t worry about it now, so would be more likely to tell you the truth. One of the most frustrating things was that people lied to you to protect a secret you had no interest in. It happened all the time. Mind you, people lied to the police automatically, for no reason at all, just out of habit.

  Porson had followed a different thread. ‘Good thing is,’ he said, ‘no one can blame you if you don’t crack it, not after all this time.’ He sounded positively pleased about that.

  ‘I’ll blame myself,’ Slider replied.

  ‘Help yourself,’ Porson said generously. ‘Long as the commander’s happy.’

  Joanna came home, bringing in a swirl of outside air, moisture jewels in her hair. ‘It’s getting really foggy,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ said Slider. ‘I’m glad you’re back.’

  She knew he worried about her whenever she was out in her car. It had annoyed her at first, thinking he didn’t trust her driving. Now she realized it was everybody else’s he didn’t trust. So she didn’t pick up on it. ‘It was rather lovely along the Embankment, with those globe lights like strings of furry pearls,’ she said.

  ‘G and T?’ he offered.

  ‘Lovely,’ she said.

  He mixed it while she took off her coat and dumped her bag and violin case, and met her with it on the sofa. ‘Good show?’

  ‘Lots of entries,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to keep your wits about you. But it went OK.’ She took a deep draught and sighed with satisfaction. ‘There are only two rules to depping in a show,’ she told him, leaning back on the sofa. ‘Don’t change the markings on the part. And don’t be better than the person you’re depping for.’

  ‘I may be in something like that position,’ Slider said.

  ‘What, these bones of yours?’

  He told her about Kellington, and the emaciated file.

  ‘But he’s retired. He’s out of it. It won’t matter if you’re better than him. And you’re bound to be.’

  ‘Spoken like a loyal wife.’

  Her mind jumped to Porson’s comfort. ‘At least they can’t complain if you don’t do any better – not after all this time.’ She read his expression and said, ‘I know, you’ll care.’

  ‘It’s my job. You wouldn’t want to give a bad performance, however unimportant the concert.’

  ‘True. But that’s not why.’

  He got up and fetched a copy of the photograph from the Knight file that he had brought home with him, and gave it to her. ‘That’s why.’

  It had been a school photograph, so the girl was in uniform. She had straight mouse-fair hair cut in a bob just below jaw length and a short, square fringe – it was before the current fad for long, straggling locks. She had a narrow face, a straight nose, a dusting of freckles. She was narrowing her eyes, so it was hard to tell what colour they were, but the file had said blue; the smile was faint and perfunctory. She was smiling because she had been told to, not because she felt any hilarity. There was really nothing distinctive about her: she was just ordinary, and the ordinariness made it all the harder, somehow. A great beauty or a great talent would be remembered. Amanda Knight had left nothing behind to mark her short tenure. Nothing but some bones.

  Joanna studied the photograph. She said, ‘She looks like the kind of girl that keeps her bedroom tidy and does her homework without being nagged.’ She handed it back to him. ‘Yes, I see why,’ she said.

  ‘I shouldn’t have shown you. It’s upset you.’

  ‘I can stand a little upset. You’re my husband and my lover and the father of my child, and you have to share things with me.’

  He remembered an earlier conversation. ‘If I committed a murder, would you stand by me?’

  ‘You wouldn’t commit a murder.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘It’s all the answer you’ll get. Come on, don’t be morbid.’

  ‘I’m not being. It looks as though it must have been the father that did it.’

  Her mouth turned down. ‘I’ve never understood how anyone could kill their own child. I know it happens all the time, but how could they? Top me up?’

  She drained her glass, and he got up, feeling guilty, and refilled them both. He shouldn’t have brought the subject up. He searched for a new topic. With his back to her, he said, ‘I was thinking, it’s been a while since we had Jim and Emily over for supper. Do you think they’re on a firm enough footing now to risk it?’

  He turned back with the glasses and saw her expression of amusement. ‘Nice save,’ she said.

  He pretended innocence. ‘What? I mean it.’

  ‘If it had come up in your mind spontaneously you’d have said Atherton. You never call him Jim.’ She took her glass from him and clinked it with his. ‘Thank you for caring about my state of mind.’

  He gave her a crooked smile. ‘Didn’t want you having nightmares.’

  ‘And yes, I think their relationship can probably stand exposure to the white heat of our domestic bliss. I’ve got Friday off, and Sunday, if you want to check diaries.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him tomorrow,’ Slider said; and she began to talk about her day and the show. Later, in bed, he realized she had done it for his sake, to keep his mind off. She didn’t want him having nightmares either.

  SEVEN

  Skin and Blister

  Twenty-five years is a long time in a London street, especially in an upwardly-mobile area like Shepherd’s Bush. Few people stay that long. And in London people generally only know their immediate neighbours, if that. Even the people straight opposite across the street are likely to be strangers, perhaps known by sight but rarely by name. As for anyone further away – forget it.

  So it was not surprising that only two people in Laburnum Avenue had been there at the time Amanda Knight went missing, and neither of them had known the Knights personally, or knew anything other than what had been in the public domain. Swilley had a long and frustrating day and came up dry.

  Gascoyne had done better in getting a handle on the Bexleys, Amanda’s aunt and uncle. They were no longer at the address in Acton Vale, but a neighbour remembered them and said with some authority that they had moved to Ealing. With the search area thus narrowed, he was able to find a Patricia Bexley on the electoral register, at an address in Haven Lane. A telephone enq
uiry established that she was, indeed, the Pat Bexley, née Pirie, and that she was willing, even eager, to be visited.

  ‘Get the story first,’ Slider warned, ‘before you tell her anything. And find out where the Knights have gone.’

  Haven Lane was a narrow road of roomy Victorian houses, popular for its proximity to Ealing Broadway station. Unusually, it had two living pubs, the Haven and the Wheatsheaf, and adjacent to the latter was a short terrace of original two-up-two-down workmen’s cottages, gentrified now into bijou residences, ideal for singles or childless couples.

  The shiny red front door was opened to Gascoyne by a smart woman in jeans and a jaunty haircut. He knew from the records that she was now sixty-seven, but she was evidently making an effort, and with a disciplined figure, expensive highlights and artfully-applied make-up, she was managing to look ten years less. Her movements were spry, her smile fizzy; having shed ten years, she seemed to be trying, by applying the modern nostrum that fifty is the new forty, to lose ten more.

  The house, though small, was bright, modern and well-lit inside. Wood strip flooring, pale walls and minimalist furnishings maximized the impression of space; and there was an agreeable smell of good coffee.

  ‘Come on through,’ she invited cheerily. ‘Gascoyne, you said your name was? Any relation? I suppose everyone asks you that. Names! Honestly, what our parents make us suffer! Like me: I started off Patricia Pearl Pirie – three pees. Imagine what the other kids made of that at school! Patricia Pearl and Margaret Emerald – what was my mother thinking?’

  ‘Rather pretty,’ Gascoyne managed to get in before she was off again.

  ‘Pearls and emeralds were her favourite stones – or is a pearl a stone? Whatever. I suppose it could be worse. Could have been amethyst! Think of that! Amethyst Pirie, my God! I’ve always insisted on just Pat ever since I left home, but Mum always called me Patricia right to the end, or “my little pearl”, when I visited her. Ended up in a home – I felt bad about that, but what can you do? But at least she kept her marbles. Bodes well for me. What do I call you?’ She gave a little laugh. ‘It seems a bit old-fashioned to be calling you “constable”. Or “detective”, or whatever. Like something on TV. I’ve got some coffee on. How do you take it?’

  Gascoyne felt that only the last question needed answering. The two tiny downstairs rooms had been knocked together to make one long narrow one, and the scullery at the rear had been demolished and a glass-roofed kitchen built across the back. Here the smell of coffee was joined by the smell of oil paint.

  ‘You don’t mind if I carry on working while we talk, do you?’ she asked, plonking down a mug of coffee and indicating a chair at the table for Gascoyne. The table had been pushed back against the wall to make space in the middle of the tiled floor for an easel, on which stood an unfinished painting. Propped up next to the canvas was a photograph of an Alsatian dog, which she was evidently copying.

  ‘It’s a commission,’ she explained. ‘It’s what I do. “Your pet in oils”. Ghastly, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about art,’ Gascoyne said cautiously.

  Mrs Bexley wasn’t fey about it, he gave her that. She just laughed and said, ‘You don’t need to be polite. It’s not art. It’s only one step up from painting by numbers. I taught myself for a hobby, when I retired. A friend asked me if I’d do her dog, and it came out not bad, though I says it as shouldn’t. She showed it around, and someone else asked, and so it went on. Now I advertise in the newsagents, and the local freebie mag, and I’m doing a couple a month.’

  ‘Do you make a living at it?’ Gascoyne asked.

  ‘Oh, God, no. Just pocket money, but it keeps me in gin, as they say.’ Another gay laugh. ‘Have you got a pet you want immortalized? Take my card. I’ll give you a professional discount.’

  ‘I don’t have a pet.’

  ‘Funny enough, neither have I, not now, though we always had dogs. I miss them, really. More than I miss Brian, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Your husband’s not here?’ Gascoyne asked delicately.

  ‘Never was. We got divorced fifteen years ago. He got himself a twinkie, the idiot – one of the girls at his office, half his age and about a quarter his size, because it has to be said, he liked his grub, did Brian. Well, I was fed up with him by then, so I didn’t mind. Good luck to him. We sold the big house – we had one of those double-fronters in Madeley Road – and split the money, and I bought my little nest here free and clear. He had to take on a big mortgage to satisfy Lolita’s ambitions. And of course the effort killed him. Working every hour God sends and running around after her the rest of the time, bloody fool. Big heart attack, boom! Bye-bye Brian.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Gascoyne.

  ‘Oh, don’t be,’ she said easily. ‘After a certain age, a man is just a drag on you, you know? I mean, you have to cook for them and clean up after them, and all they do is slump in front of the telly, and fart, and snore – no offence. I’m sure you’re not like that. But he was like a smelly old dog I kept tripping over. Now I can eat what I like, when I like, go where I like. I had a fortnight in Japan last month. Brian would never have gone to Japan. Raw fish? He’d have thought they were trying to poison him. Do you like sushi?’

  She had picked up the palette and was working her brush into a patch of green paint, staring critically at the painting. Gascoyne wondered how you got green into a brown and black dog, and said, ‘What about your sister? Are you close to her?’

  ‘Maggie?’ She gave him a sidelong look. ‘I guessed it wasn’t me you wanted to talk about. Are you opening up that old case again? I’d have thought you’d all got plenty to do without that.’

  ‘There were just the two of you, weren’t there?’ It was a tip he had got from Slider. Don’t answer a question you don’t want to – ask another question of your own. And Mrs Bexley seemed happy to talk about herself. Gascoyne guessed that despite her robust ideas about being divorced, she missed having someone around, a captive audience.

  ‘That’s right. We got along all right, but I was the bright one, I got ahead and made something of myself, and Maggie – well, she never had a decent job. She was a school dinner lady at one time. My sister! Then she worked at a launderette. You see what I mean? Whereas I got myself qualifications, I always worked in an office. I was always a step above Maggie. And it didn’t help when she married Ronnie. Oh, he was a decent enough bloke, but not very bright. I suppose by the time he came along she thought it was him or nothing. She was over thirty when they got married, you know? I mean, I always had loads of boyfriends. Tons. I could have my pick. But Maggie – well, I don’t know that anyone else ever asked her.’

  ‘You didn’t like Ronnie?’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong. He was all right. But he was … old-fashioned working class, if you know what I mean. Whereas Brian and I … Well, we had a different lifestyle. Ronnie’d come home for his evening meal about half past five and call it his “tea”. I don’t think he ever drank wine in his life. And they never entertained. Unless Brian and I went over for Sunday lunch, I don’t think they ever had anyone in the house.’

  ‘Didn’t he have any relatives – Ronnie?’

  ‘No. Only child. Or, wait, I think he had a brother that died when he was a kid. No, he didn’t have any relatives, or friends. It was just the three of them. Amanda never had friends in, either. It was just the way their minds were set. Our parents, mine and Maggie’s, were just the same. I don’t remember anyone but relatives ever setting foot over the threshold.’ She dumped the green brush in a jam jar of turps and took a clean one, working brown and white together on the palette.

  ‘Tell me about Amanda,’ Gascoyne invited, seeing they had reached her naturally.

  ‘Oh, that poor kid,’ said Mrs Bexley, frowning at her painting. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever find out what happened to her. Unless you’ve got something new to tell me?’

  ‘What was she like?’ Gascoyne asked.

  ‘She wa
s a good kid. Good at school. I always thought she was more like me than Maggie – wanted to get ahead, make something of herself. She wasn’t lively like me. Very quiet. Sort of intense. Always thinking. But she was very fond of me. I think she was more fond of me than her mother, in some respects. Used to love coming to visit us – mind you, that was partly because of the dogs. We always had dogs. We couldn’t have kids, you see. Amanda loved dogs. Mad about animals. She wanted to be a vet when she left school, you know? I told her she had to work hard at her lessons if she was serious about it, especially maths and science. Otherwise—’ she glanced at him – ‘I could see her turning into one of those drudges, cleaning out kennels and so on. You know? End up like her mum. Instead of being a proper vet and making a lot of money and having a nice house and everything.’

  ‘And did she work hard at school?’

  ‘Oh, I think so. Well—’ a smile – ‘she didn’t have much else going on. She didn’t have a big circle of pals like I did at her age. I was very popular at school. Amanda didn’t seem to have any friends. Well, not friends that she visited. And of course, like I said, she wasn’t encouraged to have anyone in.’ The smile switched off. ‘That last day, she was playing all alone in the garden. In the middle of the summer holidays. Can you imagine that? I’d have been off out somewhere with my gang from dawn to dusk. But that was the sort of girl I was.’

  ‘When had you last seen her?’ Gascoyne asked.

  ‘The Sunday before. They all came over to our house for lunch.’ She made a face. ‘I made a point of it, at least once a month. Otherwise Ron would never have stirred out of that house at all. Liked eating at his own table, that’s what he always said. But I wanted Maggie to have a break now and then. And Amanda – at least she ought to know what a napkin was, if she was going to get on. Ron called them “serviettes”.’

  ‘Do you remember anything about that visit?’