Permissible Limits

by Hurley, Graham

  Outside, I could hear the burble of the Yak’s big radial as Harald ran through his engine checks. I watched him taxi to the end of the grass strip. His take-off run must have been less than three hundred yards. Then he was airborne, retracting the undercarriage and easing the Yak into a steady climbing turn, the little plane growing smaller and smaller until all I could hear was the faraway beat of the engine.

  I turned away. Beside the hangar was the second-hand Portakabin Adam had bought as an office and an ops room. Over the years we’d been on the island, he’d made it his own, cluttering it with half a lifetime’s collection of maps, and snaps, and odd little mementos. Sooner or later I knew I had to go in there and start sorting things out, but I’d been putting off the moment ever since I’d first got the call from the police about the Cessna going down.

  The door to the Portakabin was padlocked. I had one of Adam’s several keys. I unlocked the door and let myself in. Adam’s office was the smaller of the two rooms. He’d angled the prefab so one side faced south, and the sun was streaming in through the window. Like this, midday, the place felt warm and snug and cosy.

  I sank onto the battered leather sofa Adam had treasured so much and looked round. Nothing, of course, had changed. The jigsaw of big airways maps that covered one wall. The framed colour shots from various airshows. Adam’s Fleet Air Arm squadron badge, mounted on a wooden shield. The exquisitely painted Tiger Moth he’d assembled from an Airfix kit, dangling on a length of cotton, inch-perfect over his desk.

  I got up and circled the office, tidying a pile of aviation magazines, retrieving a parachute from a hook on the coatstand, moving Adam’s mountain bike so I could get at the stuff that cluttered his bookcase. Every job I started was freighted with memories and in the end I gave up, collapsing into the swivel chair behind his desk, wondering whether I really had the strength to go through his unopened mail. I decided against it, pulling open one of the drawers instead. There was a litter of bills and receipts inside, paperwork I knew I had to tackle, and I was still sorting them into separate piles when I found the photo.

  It showed a girl on a beach. She had long black curly hair, and a full mouth, and she was wearing a wetsuit rolled down to her waist. The bikini top couldn’t have been briefer. She had a beautiful body, deeply suntanned, and the expression on her face - fond, eager, mischievous - told me more than I wanted to know. Behind her, in the water, windsurfers stitched back and forth across a pretty bay.

  I turned the photo over. The little office felt suddenly as cold as a tomb. For you, my darling, went the big, loopy handwriting. From all of me.

  Chapter five

  Amongst the calls waiting for me at Mapledurcombe were a couple of messages from the local police. The last time I’d had any contact with them was the afternoon they’d phoned with the news about Adam’s disappearance but I didn’t recognise the name on the ansaphone. A Detective Constable Perry wanted to have a word with me.

  I sat at Adam’s desk, trying to resist the urge to take yet another look at the photo I’d brought back from his office at the airfield. Already, the girl on the beach had come to obsess me. In ways I still find difficult to describe, coming across this tatty little snap, with its adolescent message, was an even bigger shock than the news of Adam’s death. Everything I’d assumed, everything I’d loved, treasured, taken for granted, had turned - almost literally - to sand.

  DC Perry drove over from Newport. He was a youngish detective with a shapeless black raincoat, bloodshot eyes and a heavy cold. We talked over tea in the kitchen. When I asked him why he’d come, he gave me a pretty vague answer about the circumstances surrounding Adam’s death. When I asked him what - exactly - those circumstances might be, he became even more evasive. Finally, after he’d wolfed the second scone, I managed to pin him down.

  ‘Is it to do with his insurance policy?’

  ‘Why do you say that, Mrs Bruce?’

  ‘My accountant tells me there might be a problem.’

  ‘What kind of problem?’

  I tire easily when I’m upset. This particular afternoon, I was exhausted. I stopped circling the kitchen and sank into the chair across the table from Perry, looking him in the eye.

  ‘My husband’s been dead three days,’ I told him. ‘It hasn’t been easy trying to cope. Why don’t you just tell me what you want?’

  Perry had already offered his condolences, a formal, rather passionless expression of regret, but I’d put this down to the fact that he’d known neither of us. Now, it occurred to me that there might be rather more to this visit than met the eye.

  ‘You’re right about the insurance policy,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of the nature of your husband’s death.’

  ‘You mean the way he did it?’

  Perry looked briefly startled.

  ‘Did what?’ he asked quickly.

  ‘Died.’ If I sounded aggressive, it was because I meant to. Funny how betrayal breeds contempt. All men. Every single one of them. Traitors.

  Perry had produced a notebook. I watched his biro racing across the page. He looked up, the easiest questions first.

  ‘I understand he’d had the policy a couple of years.’

  ‘Is that what the insurance people said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’m sure it’s true.’

  ‘You’re telling me you didn’t know?’

  ‘Not in any great detail, no.’

  ‘But you knew how much was at stake? How much he was worth?’ ‘Worth?’ I offered him a bleak smile.

  Biro poised, Perry waited for me to carry on but I just looked at him, staring him out. I’d had quite enough of playing men’s games. I wanted some answers of my own.

  ‘What happens next?’ I asked at last. ‘My accountant tells me we need to find his body.’

  ‘Your accountant’s right. At the moment, your husband’s down as a missing person. That’s partly why I’m here. If he’s missing, it’s our job to find him.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ I said flatly.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The ATC people saw the plane go down on radar. They tape these things. There’s a record. Evidence.’

  ‘They saw him drop off the screen,’ Perry said. ‘That’s not necessarily the same thing.’

  ‘You’ve talked to them?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The expression on Perry’s face might have been a smile. I glared at him. He was right about the ATC coverage. Below a certain height, the curve on the earth’s surface creates a black hole, impervious to radar beams. Smugglers use it, though coverage gets better and better the closer you get to the coast.

  Perry was looking at his notes.

  ‘Your husband’s plane was carrying four hours’ worth of fuel. He’d beenup for…’ he shrugged, ‘… say forty minutes. That leaves over three hours. Three hours is three hundred miles. He could be anywhere. He could have landed in some field or other… couldn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he could. But why? Why would he want to do it? Cause all this fuss? All this hassle?’ I flapped my hand half-heartedly, a gesture that was meant to encompass pretty much everything that had happened since Thursday afternoon.

  Perry was still looking at me. At length, he asked me whether Adam had been under any kind of stress.

  ‘None,’ I said briskly. ‘That I know of.’

  ‘He hadn’t been acting strangely? Nothing out of character?’

  ‘Not at all. He had the lowest blood pressure of any man I’ve ever met. Nothing got to him. Ever.’

  ‘No business problems?’

  ‘Nothing we couldn’t handle.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘And nothing…’ he paused,’… on the emotional side?’

  It was a curious way of putting it, clumsy, old-fashioned, awkward, and looking at him I couldn’t get the girl’s
face out of my mind. The lips. The half-smile. The way the wet bikini had clung to her breasts. What was I defending here? Why was I going through this daft charade?

  ‘We were very happy,’ I said firmly. ‘The relationship was fine.’

  ‘And nothing wrong with his health? Nothing you’d noticed? Only men don’t necessarily let on, you know, when things go wrong.’

  ‘They don’t?’

  For the second time, my directness made him blink. He reached for his pen again and scribbled a note. What had he written? What had I let slip?

  He looked up and the expression on his face made me realise that he was altogether more perceptive than I’d thought.

  ‘These things can be hurtful,’ he said quietly. ‘In my line of work you get to understand that. If there’s anything, anything at all…’ he gestured at the pad,’… you only have to say.’

  ‘You think there’s more?’

  ‘There’s always more.’

  I nodded, trying to make light of it.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I said. ‘But you’ll forgive me, you know, if I’m a little hazy just now.’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was a long silence. Perry blew his nose, carefully folding the handkerchief afterwards, and for a moment I thought he was going to start all over again. How long the insurance policy had been active. How experienced a pilot Adam had been. Why he might have tired of married life with yours truly.

  ‘Are you telling me my husband faked his own death?’ I enquired coldly.

  ‘I’m suggesting it’s a possibility.’

  ‘OK.’ I nodded. ‘Let’s say he did, is that a crime?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What kind of crime?’ ‘Fraud, for starters.’

  ‘And is that why you’re here? Because you think he’s still alive?’

  He hesitated a moment, then he had the grace to look away.

  ‘You may not realise quite the kind of situation your husband’s created,’ he said. ‘Because there’s no body, we can only open an inquest and then adjourn it. As long as the inquest isn’t over, I’m afraid he’s not dead. Not officially, anyway.’

  I stared at him, shocked. I’d heard some of this only this morning but I’d somehow assumed that Dennis’s talk of proof of loss was strictly for the benefit of the insurers. The possibility that it might also apply to the real world hadn’t occurred to me.

  ‘So what happens next?’ I said. ‘Where do I go from here?’

  ‘It’s awkward, Mrs Bruce. You have to wait a year. If your husband’s body turns up, all well and good. The inquest will resume, in the normal way.’

  ‘But what if he doesn’t?’ I was looking at a photo on the dresser, Adam clambering out of the Mustang. ‘What then?’

  ‘After the year’s up, we write to the Home Office. The Secretary of State can grant a presumption of death. Normally that takes a couple of weeks. Then we arrange an inquest - say a week or two later - and that’s when the coroner can close the file. Officially, that is.’

  I nodded, trying to take it in.

  ‘But does all that matter?’

  ‘I’m afraid it can, yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  He hesitated, then looked round. Anything in joint names, he said, would have to stay that way. Assets that I might want to get rid of - like the house - would be effectively frozen.

  ‘You mean I couldn’t…’ I shrugged hopelessly,’… sell it?’

  ‘No, not without his consent.’

  ‘But he’s dead.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Makes no difference.’

  I felt something close to panic welling up inside. Everything we had - the house, the business, the aircraft - was held in joint names. Did this mean I had to wait a year, a whole twelve months, before I could make any decisions? What if I had to raise money quickly? What then?

  Mention of the aircraft sent Perry back to his pad. He wanted to know how much they were worth. I gave him the figure for the Mustang first.

  ‘Six hundred grand?’ There was no doubt about the smile this time. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the other one?’

  ‘The other two. There’s a Harvard and a Tiger Moth.’

  I named a price for each. He wrote them down. While he was still busy with his shorthand, I got to my feet, eager now for the interview to end.

  ‘Maybe I did it,’ I said lightly. ‘Have you thought of that?’

  Perry didn’t look up.

  ‘Did what, Mrs Bruce?’

  ‘Killed him. Killed my husband.’

  There was a longish silence. He was still making notes on the pad.

  ‘You’d need a motive,’ he murmured at last, ‘if that’s a serious question.’

  He stayed another half-hour or so. He took a formal statement about Adam - basic stuff like the length of our marriage and the nature of the business we ran - and then he went into some detail about Adam’s movements over the last month or so. Because I’d been thinking of nothing else since midday, I was able to help him out there, and when I’d fetched the diary from the office, I gave him a list of dates when Adam had been away.

  ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘Jersey, mostly.’

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Various people.’

  Again, the pen faltered, and when he looked up and asked for names I had to bite my lip before I came up with Dennis Wetherall. I gave him the phone number of his office, and the address too.

  ‘What about a Steve Liddell?’

  ‘Him, too.’

  ‘They were in business together?’

  ‘Sort of. Not really. You’ll have to ask Dennis.’

  ‘But you say you ran…’ he consulted his pad, ‘… this Old Glory together?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And you didn’t know about Steve Liddell?’

  ‘Of course I knew about Steve Liddell. But he had nothing to do with Old Glory.’

  I was still wondering where he’d got Steve’s name. Had the Jersey police been on? Did he have a list of questions to put to me about the fire? It seemed he didn’t, though before he went he confided that he had, indeed, been contacted by the CID office in St Helier. When I asked why, he simply smiled, shaking his head. The scones, he said, had been lovely, and if there was anything else I wanted to say then I just had to lift the phone. He scribbled a mobile number on the back of a card and stepped aside as I led the way out of the kitchen.

  By the front door, he paused and fumbled in his trouser pocket for the handkerchief. The oil painting of the Mustang was back in the hall. Perry peered at it, then pointed at the beaming face in the cockpit.

  ‘Was that your husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Perry gave his nose a final wipe, then opened the door and stepped out.

  ‘I expect you’d like him back.’ He turned round, buttoning his coat. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  I thought about the proposition for a moment or two. Then I nodded.

  ‘I would,’ I said. ‘I’d like that very much.’

  After Perry had gone, I buried myself in the paperwork I’d neglected over the past few days. Even with the two of us, running Old Glory was never less than demanding. Like any business, it needed constant attention and it was dark outside by the time I’d dealt with the latest batch of correspondence, mainly letters from Americans wanting to stay. The fact that we were already fully booked for the coming season made little difference to the workload. We’d always made a point of replying to each applicant, telling ourselves that every airmail letter represented a potential guest, if not this year then maybe next.

  The work done, I left the printer to chatter away in the office and returned to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Already, deep inside me, I felt a stranger in my own house. This was where I thought Adam and I had been so happy. This was what we’d built together, shared together. As it turned out, though, me and the home and the busine
ss and the Mustang hadn’t been quite enough. There had, as ever, to be more - another challenge, another conquest, another ball for my greedy juggler to keep in the air.

  Put this way, what he’d done didn’t seem quite so gross. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more in keeping with his character it appeared to be. Adam wouldn’t have been Adam without the compulsion to tackle life at a thousand miles an hour, and if in his haste he’d stumbled over some sultry bimbo on a Jersey beach, then who was I to be surprised? Finding out hurt like hell, of course it did, and a big part of me that loved him couldn’t bear the thought of sharing him with anyone else. Indeed, had he still been alive, and had I still found the photo, then I’d certainly have thrown him out and probably killed him before he’d got to the end of the drive.

  The thought, oddly enough, made me smile. It was so hot-blooded, so physical, so in keeping with what we’d had. If Adam had survived my onslaughts, then I knew he’d have been back within hours, contrite, laden with flowers, a late convert to monogamy. I dwelt on the image as long as I could, imagining his laboured explanations, his pleas for forgiveness. The girl had been easy, beautiful, thick. She’d taken him to bed a couple of times but already he was bored stiff with her. The thing was over, a couple of hot weeks way back last summer, maybe a phone call or two afterwards, but nothing serious, nothing heavy. And the photo in the drawer? The heartfelt message on the back? He’d grin, and shrug, and take me in his arms. You know men, he’d say. Always hanging on to the wrong kind of trophy.

  I nearly didn’t answer the phone in the office. It was Dennis ringing from Jersey. He had two bits of news about Steve. One I wouldn’t want to hear. The other probably explained everything.

  I didn’t understand a word.

  ‘You what?’ I said.