Shadows on the Mirror

by Frances Fyfield

  Ryan sat back, brow puckered with puzzlement. No woman in his own life had been so slow to accuse, but he never aimed to find out what they’d have done if he’d hit them. He still couldn’t understand anyone wanting to try. It was the one piece of male unfairness he could not understand.

  ‘Anyway, one day I took her back home, bleeding all over my new car. She had a lovely voice, Mrs T, and I asked her why she stayed with him. Because he loves me, she said. Funny way of showing it, I told her. He can’t help it, she said. It’s the way he is. If I try to go out, or look at anyone else, he goes wild, and it doesn’t even take that. He doesn’t like me thinking, even. Stop thinking out loud then, I told her, or he’ll kill you, and as long as you won’t bloody sign the sheet, we can’t help. Oh no, she said. I’m sorry to trouble you, but it isn’t so bad. He never scars me. The day he does that, I’ll know he hates me. Then this tomcat will really have marked his territory, and I’ll have to go. That was the time he’d broken her ribs. Why wait, I thought. Suit yourself, I thought. I wouldn’t wait, not even for a pedigree tomcat. Which he is of course. Eton, Oxford, cultivated bastard.’

  ‘He’s not the only one around who thumps his wife,’ Bailey said mildly, although his fists were clenched on the table. Ryan remembered the night when Helen West, Bailey’s woman, had suffered at the hands of an intruder, and understood more of why his boss was giving him a freer rein than normal.

  ‘Or she the only wife who refuses to take any action whenever she’s roughed up,’ Cook added. ‘The wives withdraw the allegations. Good God,’ he added with a grin, ‘how do some men get away with it? If we tried any such thing, they’d be queueing up to murder us.’

  ‘There’s a difference here, sir. This wasn’t a lout coming home from the pub and knocking his punch bag round the kitchen. This is a bloke who quite likes refinement with it. Mrs T had been tied up and beaten. Obviously he’d threatened to cut her face or she wouldn’t have mentioned it. She was terrified, only she wasn’t going to make it easy for him by letting him go and hopping out of it herself.’

  ‘A masochist maybe? Parlour games with a difference?’

  ‘No, I didn’t think that either. Wrong type.’

  Bailey wondered. Ryan might have been a dogged detective, but he was an easy champion, not quick to spot perversion in a pretty face. The Superintendent knew how his Helen had been in the face of attack, brave, but with all the normal instincts to do anything rather than repeat it. Even, thank God, living with him. She would have gone to the ends of the earth to avoid the humiliation of physical assault, and so, were she entirely normal and as far from helpless as Ryan described, would Mrs Tysall. Mink coats were rarely that important to people who wanted to stay alive.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ryan continued, ‘she disappeared, Mrs T. Clean went. Saw the light, you might say, and buggered off. But not before he’d had a good go at her, really chewed her up. She’d not been seen for three weeks. One of the uniformed lads checked every day with the caretaker and kept an eye on the comings and goings for me. No sign, no visits to the nick either, but a woman of her description, and there aren’t many, had been in the Brompton Hospital casualty having twenty-five stitches put in her face. Even then she wasn’t reasonable. Brought a bloody puppy inside with her. It sat and howled outside the ward. No one could shift it. I got that from a nurse I know.’

  Ryan paused, looked at Bailey.

  ‘And guess who took her to the clinic? Not Tysall of course, never does his own tidying up, but good old Ted Plumb. Never thought Ted was a good bloke, but he was once a good copper. What a way to go. No way but down. Getting your own car bloodstained by the boss’s wife, being left with a howling dog.’

  ‘Ted Plumb was a bad case,’ said Bailey. ‘In case you didn’t know,’ he explained patiently to Malcolm, ‘Ted Plumb was a DC in the Central Drugs Squad. Peddled drugs, used them once I think, but not now. He did a very good job bargaining with the Commissioner to get out of criminal charges. Threatened to take a few with him. Anyway, you can’t judge Tysall through his employees, or them through him. Yes you can, now I think of it. Sorry, that’s only a sideline. Go on, Ryan.’

  ‘All right. As I was saying, the lady stayed to get embroidered, then took herself to a private clinic in Mayfair. Couldn’t get more than that. Then pfft! Gone like a cloud of red smoke.’

  ‘Why couldn’t it be investigated? Or am I being naïve?’ Malcolm asked.

  ‘With respect, Malcolm, you are,’ said Bailey. ‘Ryan only got hold of the medical stuff by accident. No way of getting hold of the records officially. No doctor was going to reveal them without the patient’s permission, and no patient to be found.’

  ‘You could have got an order under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act for privileged material if you could show reasonable suspicion of a serious crime,’ Cook pointed out.

  ‘Oh could we indeed? And then what? One set of medical records showing multiple facial injuries, one reluctant witness who’ll say she fell downstairs if ever we found her, and one Charles Tysall, who’d have a very expensive lawyer, and not say anything? We could get the records, for what? We hadn’t a victim, we hadn’t a complainant, and no one even reported her missing. I think he killed her. Not then, later.’

  There was silence at this. And had Annie in between, thought Ryan savagely. He looked at Bailey, grateful for the silence, then took up the tale, tired of the sound of his own voice and bored with his own anger.

  ‘They had a place in Norfolk – you know, pukka country cottage by the sea, complete with dishwasher, very rural – and she was seen there three months later. We’re talking about two years ago now, but only seen for a couple of days. Walking round the village like a zombie, grinning at people, with a face like a battlefield and one squint eye. Then gave the keys to neighbours, said Ta-ta, she was moving on. No car with her, all tidy. Then no trace.’

  ‘Has the yearning husband expressed an interest?’

  ‘No, and no one else either. American she was, no parents alive, no friends, and no one expressing anxiety. So I can’t, or rather Division couldn’t, investigate, could they? What power have we got? You have to have a complaint before you can do anything, and all we had was him complaining of harrassment from me. I was told to lay off, and then Mr Bailey asked for me in Fraud. Come any closer to Tysall and what do you find? A man bristling with writs, who says his wife has simply deserted him, and what business is it of ours?’

  ‘I see your point,’ said Malcolm. ‘Not even reasonable suspicion of foul play, and you’d have to explain your information from the nurse. Not much fuel in that even, if she’s seen alive three months later. But that doesn’t entirely explain your passionate interest in Mr Tysall, Ryan. There’s more, isn’t there?’

  Here Ryan hesitated. Bailey knew why, albeit vaguely, Malcolm not. But only Bailey knew the signs of his Sergeant struggling with empirical conclusions, and struggling even harder not to look silly. Ryan drained the lager, shook his large head, appealed to the ceiling for help, and waved his hands in frustration.

  ‘I dunno. Redheads is what there is. Not just a disappeared, hacked-about wife, but redheads. All over the shop. Looking at Tysall’s files, raiding Tysall’s office, the companies he’s made bankrupt, having a look at his hotel accounts, there’s always a redhead jumping out of a corner at me like those pop-up cards you give to kids. He seems to surround himself with them, and then they up and go.

  ‘Or are you just seeing redheads because you’ve got them on the brain?’ asked Cook. ‘My mother told me whenever she was pregnant, or even thinking of it, the streets used to be full of pregnant women . . .’

  ‘Well, I’m not bloody pregnant. Or red-haired. Or female. And not quite daft either.’ Malcolm could see he had not chosen the best parallel. He smiled an apology, and Ryan went on grudgingly.

  ‘There must be plenty of redheads around, but our friend Tysall finds a high proportion of them. And some of them don’t come to any good, and none of them have families. Al
l those without families come to no good at Tysall’s hands, let alone the world at large.’

  ‘Like who, for instance?’

  Bailey answered. ‘The receptionist in his hotel. Seen on Tysall’s arm, next seen looking the worse for wear. Leaves job abruptly. No complaint. No family, of course. The private secretary in his office. Starry-eyed, goes downhill slower. Heroin overdose but rescued with funny compression marks on the neck. Catatonic, that’s the word, isn’t it? Won’t say anything. Then the bright girl from the computer company, very obviously seduced, bowled over by our Charles. Ditched when her usefulness was over. Committed suicide a few weeks ago, just as Ryan thought we might get something out of her. I don’t know what they do for him, or what they have for him, but he seems to haunt redheads.’

  ‘Or be haunted by them?’

  ‘As if he was looking for someone. Or something. Then he throws them away, or deliberately hurts them. Sorry, when we say all this it sounds daft. Let’s have another drink, what else can I say that makes sense?’

  ‘No,’ said Ryan. ‘My shout, I’ll go . . .’

  Bailey placed a hand on Cook’s arm, a gesture to prevent him from insisting otherwise. If Ryan was embarrassed by his tale of woe, let him buy the round, make himself feel better and sink the dying vision of Annie.

  ‘Hardly enough for a search warrant, is it, Malcolm? Or even enough to approach the Crown Prosecution Service with the idea of an official investigation?’

  ‘Official, no, but continued unofficial investigation with a modicum of surveillance . . .’

  ‘Yes, I’d say that, but you never heard me say it. The Met Police solicitors are the ones you should ask, but I know what they’ll say, and if it’s a second opinion you wanted, there it is. I’m only a senior principal. You know I can’t give you any kind of real authority, and no one else would give it either. But I’ll keep an eye on Ryan if you like. We’ve several other cases together already.’

  ‘Good. That’s all I wanted. He’ll hate it, he hates being watched.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be watching closely. Simply the odd question here and there, and I’ll take him out for a drink. It always makes him expansive. He likes me as well as anyone, I think.’

  ‘Kind of you. Leave it there.’

  Ryan was relieved to return to the table and find them discussing no more than mutual acquaintances, Bailey issuing invitations to his home. Since the past but still clearly remembered days of fatness, Malcolm’s confidence had been so altered, he could not bring himself to court invitation, preferred his own company. Bailey was simply reminding him of an open door. Malcolm grinned at Ryan as Bailey left them both for home. He too had realised how many strands, how many benign purposes there had been in Bailey’s skilful arrangement of the evening.

  ‘Crafty blighter. Great bloke,’ was Malcolm’s grudging contribution. They both laughed. As usual, Ryan’s glass was empty.

  ‘Don’t know about you, Mr Cook, but it’s like the other night. I’ve got the taste now, if you see what I mean. For talking and drinking, not sure which order. But not here. Can’t go home early, terrible waste of a free evening. The wife’s out.’

  ‘Well, I’m going home. You come too, it’s only a mile. See how the other half live.’

  Ryan looked up in surprise. Friendliness from a lawyer was one thing, appreciated and mistrusted in equal proportions, even if you got drunk with them sometimes; but being invited across the portals of their precious houses was quite another, a rare occurrence, except perhaps between bent copper and dodgy brief. And yes, he would like to see how an honest one lived, and yes he did see there was something in the gesture which should make him wary. No one in Ryan’s book, not even Mr Cook, gave something for nothing, but he would suspend judgement on that, for the moment.

  Two hours later, Ryan left and returned to Cook’s attic-flat laden with the Chinese food they had ordered. Conversation was flowing, freely. Ryan was finding a liking for wine. Cook could make him like the stuff, none of this poncing about with sniffing corks and that, and Ryan was even enjoying the prospect of being able to tell his wife. Most interesting evenings in Ryan’s life could not afford that kind of follow-up, but he could tell her all about the visit, if not the conversation, thinking as he shambled up the street with the hot bag how odd it was that people like Malcolm Cook should celebrate their modest and educated success by going to live in draughty old houses. Nothing so strange as folk. Thinking hard on that phenomenon and others, when he stopped, and almost released his hold on the carrier.

  There she bloody was. Mrs Charles Tysall to the life, tripping down the steps from the big front door into Malcolm’s house, collar turned up against the evening chill, exquisitely, formally dressed, as if for work, with a flow of red curls catching the light from the taxi-meter as she bent towards the window. Mrs Tysall had caught his fancy more than he had told, and Ryan’s heart stopped, until he saw the clean lines of that smiling profile, so close he could almost have touched, and heard the voice giving pleasant directions. ‘Gray’s Inn, please.’ Sarah Fortune, off to meet yet another lawyer. No, not Mrs Tysall, he saw with enormous relief and some regret. Just her double, without her gravelly voice or cut face. Not quite her height, but near as dammit, and his heart lurched into movement again, along with his feet, as the taxi pulled away, cheerful island of light in a dark street, diesel engine thumping. What a cracker, though. Thank God she wasn’t Mrs T, he’d have looked a real fool saying hallo. And why did such silly objections occur to him? He would have preferred her to be found. And thank God, whoever she was, she lived the other end of London from good old Charles: she was just his type. And he’d have to ask Cook if he kept a fancy woman downstairs. No sign of anything like that in residence with the prosecutor. He’d looked.

  ‘You’ve gone pale,’ said Cook indoors. ‘Was it the wine, or the effort of getting to the corner?’ Remarks had been made earlier on the subject of Ryan’s small paunch.

  ‘Do you know the neighbours, Malcolm?’ First names were suddenly permissible here; when next met in court or office, Malcolm knew he would become Mr Cook, but for now he saw an easing. ‘Only there’s a right smasher just come out downstairs. Redhead. Thought you might be keeping something from me.’

  ‘Don’t know any of the neighbours. I haven’t lived here long. Keep my head down, so do they. Perhaps I shouldn’t.’

  ‘Come on, Malc, you’re kidding me. You couldn’t have missed that one unless you’re blind.’

  ‘Well, I am, a bit. We all keep different hours, and when I go out, I go out to run.’

  ‘Where does the girlfriend live, then?’ Ryan asked, super-casual, ripping the foil-top from egg fried rice, sniffing appreciation.

  ‘What girlfriend?’ said Malcolm mildly, fetching plates to his fine polished dining-table, regarding his vegetable dish and Ryan’s spring-rolls with something like resignation.

  ‘Oh, come on, you don’t look like a hermit. Not now you’re so bloody slim. Where do you hide her?’

  ‘Nowhere. There isn’t one.’

  ‘Well, stone me, you poor sod. I’m no advert for marriage, but I like to go home to someone, nice warm lapful.’ He coughed, not wanting to repeat too much of the chequered Ryan history which at least gave him licence to lecture on the subject of women, but not to advise. ‘And I couldn’t be without the kids.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Two. Bloody babies, but the fact I’ve had two means Bailey at long last asks for my expert opinion on how to produce them, and that’s a turn up for the books, I can tell you. No girlfriend, Malc? What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Nothing. I just don’t try. Well, I do, but not very hard. They’re all so normal, the ones I meet. I’ll take one out, sit down with her, then I think of this girl I met once, and I lose interest. Stupid, really. Can’t ever get her out of my mind.’

  Ryan wondered. He’d been that kind of dreamer once, not so very long ago, still dreamt of Annie before he’d had the sense to go home and Tysall
had finished it all. Broken his heart. Only it hadn’t quite put him off his stroke somehow. You might be with one of them wishing she was the other, but you still managed to do what a man has to do.

  ‘Bit special, was she?’ he asked with the sudden sympathy of fellow feeling.

  ‘Yes, I suppose she was.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Don’t know. About two years.’

  ‘But look here, Malc, it won’t bloody do, you know. How old are you, thirty-twoish? Two bloody years. That’s a cop-out. You can’t wait for everything to come right, you’ve got to get on with it. She’ll be married to some other bloke by now. If she wasn’t then.’ So Ryan told himself firmly about the love of his life, every day. ‘What you holding the torch for? Stupidity, don’t want to get involved, some kind of loyalty, or what?’

  ‘Not loyalty. Just hope might find her again, though I never did know where she lived, and she didn’t want me to ask. More a question of making comparisons, and no one else compares. She was . . . very kind.’

  ‘Well, stuff it. Find another one. The best ones never come back. I’m not saying they’re all the same, but there’s plenty as nice as one another. You can have my wife for four days a week. The other two she’s mine, and on Sundays she goes to her mother’s.’

  Malcolm laughed, ate. ‘Perhaps I’ve just lost my touch. If I ever had one.’

  ‘Well, you can come out on the town with me. I’ll show you where to find them.’ It was an empty invitation: both knew they would do nothing of the kind, any more than Ryan would ever choose to live in a flat rather than a house, but the gesture counted for something. Ryan ate companionably, wondering why Cook liked so many paintings and plants. Perhaps the walls were bad, something to do with damp, but he had to admit it was restful.

  ‘You know PC Smith at Clerkenwell nick?’ Cook nodded. ‘He told me this good story. Roughly about women. About a man from Yorkshire, the only one who could ride the famous donkey on the beach . . . You know the one?’

  ‘Which famous donkey?’