*
Dudley Broadbent had a great respect for the proprieties, one of which was that taxi-drivers did not speak until spoken to. “No, I did not have a good time,” he snapped. “And I was working and was not on holiday.”
“Working? In Paris? That’s a good story, Guv.”
“I have been in Amsterdam.”
“Is that so? Thought you said Paris. A pal of mine said as how there’re a lot of good tit shows there — is that right?”
Broadbent was disgusted by such crudity. The driver decided to charge the sour old bastard extra fare, but after another quick look in the rearview mirror correctly decided that his passenger was not in the market for being suckered.
Easthover House looked time-caressed and peaceful in the sunshine and Broadbent’s humour rapidly improved as he felt a warm glow of possession. They drew up in front of the porch, too large and ostentatious in style, and the driver said the fare was ninety pence. Broadbent passed over a pound note and asked for the one penny change, since he believed in tipping an exact ten per cent. The driver, an expression of disbelief on his face, gave him the penny.
Broadbent carried his single suitcase into the house, a little short of breath even though the suitcase wasn’t heavy. A late night, he reminded himself. But these days he was often short of breath.
Patricia did not come out into the large hall, even though she must have heard the taxi. It annoyed him because he liked to be greeted on arrival. “Patricia,” he called out, his voice a shade peevish.
A door banged upstairs and he looked up at the small gallery where a tall, thin, pock-marked woman looked over the carved wooden rail. “Mornin’, Mr. Broadbent,” she said cheerfully. “Lovely day to come ‘ome on. As I said to Bert, it’s summer.”
Summer hadn’t yet started, astronomically speaking, he thought pedantically. “Where’s Mrs. Broadbent?”
“I wouldn’t know. As a matter of fact, I was asking myself the same question earlier on.”
He contained his impatience. “She must have been here when you arrived?”
“That she wasn’t, for I had to let myself in with the spare key. And if you was to ask me, I’d say Mrs. Broadbent ain’t been ‘ere for quite a bit.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“’Er bed’s made up, the dining-room table ain’t been used, there’s nothing wanting cleaning in the kitchen, and nor’s there anything in the washing-up machine.”
“But…but if she’s gone anywhere, there must be a message?”
“Well, I ain’t seen one.”
He began to feel slightly ridiculous, not knowing where his wife was. “Thank you,” he said, by way of dismissal. She refused to be dismissed and stared down at him with great interest. Muttering angrily, he left his case in the hall and went into the dining-room.
There was nothing on the mantelpiece which was where she usually left any note and he noticed that the cut flowers in the crystal vase were drooping. He left and crossed the hall to the larger of the two sitting-rooms. The Sunday papers were on one of the coffee tables, neatly folded and clearly unread…But Patricia always did the Sunday Telegraph crossword puzzle.
Still annoyed, but admitting to a little perplexed worry, he went upstairs. The woman was dusting in their bedroom, so he told her he wanted to change and she left. He checked Patricia’s nightdress case, shaped like a floppy-eared donkey: the nightdress was inside. In the bathroom, to the left of his changing-room, he found her two toothbrushes were in the small cupboard.
Back in the bedroom, he sat down on one of the tapestry-covered chairs. He was not a fool and work had shown him many times that when a man of middle age — nearly middle age — was married to a woman in her twenties there was often trouble. When he’d married Patricia five years before, many of his friends had probably thought he was setting himself up for a pair of horns. But work had also taught him to judge character and he had judged Patricia to have the kind of sense of duty that would deny any other man the familiarity of her body. She couldn’t have gone off with another man. And yet…Perhaps her mother was ill. Illness had so dominated her life until the death of her father that she tended to get over-emotional about it. All it needed was for her mother to ring up and say she wasn’t feeling too fit and Patricia would get in a panic and rush up to Norwich. Perhaps this had happened and she’d forgotten about his homecoming. Reprehensible, of course, but understandable…A telephone call to Mrs. Frayne proved she wasn’t ill. Worse, it had seemed to him that Mrs. Frayne, a woman for whom he’d never had much affection, had quietly been amused because he didn’t know where Patricia was.
He went downstairs where he lit a cigar, even though he normally never smoked before lunch, and he poured out a very early drink.
*
Amanda Rainer, middle-aged and a spinster though not, village gossip said, a virgin despite her looks, was stupid in a fairly pleasant way and prone to breaking things. She’d infuriated Gwen, but she still only charged twenty pence an hour and Gwen had never been able to replace her. She had a small, rusty car, as angular as herself, and had agreed to come to the flat in Ethington five mornings a week.
There was a crash. She came into the sitting-room. “I’m afraid I’ve had a little accident, Mr. Armitage.”
He turned and looked at her.
“It’s a cup. Of course, I’ll pay for it.” She always offered to pay for breakages, probably because she’d never been asked for the money.
In the odd way in which, when under great emotional stress, a person sometimes concentrated on something entirely immaterial, he noticed that the hair in the mole in the middle of her cheek had grown in length.
“It’s the new washing-up liquid: they’ve made it so slippery. As I said to Doll only yesterday…”
He stopped listening. She spoke to him whenever she could because she was simple enough to believe him an important author. He lit another cigarette, even though his mouth tasted foul.
She left, still talking until she’d closed the door behind herself. She hadn’t changed, he thought: nothing in the outside world had changed. His terror, pain, and mental agony, were peculiar to himself.
A little while ago, he’d begun to have an idea, but then his thoughts had become all confused again. He tried desperately to concentrate. Dudley was a man who owned things, including his wife. He was pompous, self-satisfied. Wouldn’t he surely do anything rather than admit publicly…?
The telephone rang.
“Is everything nice and quiet?”
He gripped the receiver more tightly. “Yes,” he croaked.
“Then I’ll tell you something to make you happy. She’s fine. Ain’t that nice to know?”
He didn’t answer.
“I said, ain’t that nice to know?”
He realised the caller was gaining pleasure from taunting him. “Yes.”
“The lads reckon she’s great. One of ‘em says that with lips like hers, she must be a ripe artist in bed. Is she?”
He shivered.
“Is she?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic. Now if you want her back so as you can have more fun together in bed, just keep quiet. ‘Cause if you don’t we’re going to…”
As he listened, he wondered how any mind could be so perverted and sadistic. The man finished speaking and rang off. Armitage found he was shaking.
Amanda Rainer returned to the room. “I’ll be on my way, then, ‘cause me and Bertha is going into Cruxton Cross on account of she wants to buy some baby things. It’s the fourth one coming and she says she don’t know ‘ow she’ll manage. Like I said, the time to worry about that was eight months ago. Trouble is, Fred likes it too much.”
She had a country person’s direct approach towards sex, thought Armitage, in sharp and bitter contrast to the man who’d spoken over the telephone. If he couldn’t find a way of keeping Dudley quiet, Patricia would suffer in a manner that…
CHAPTER XIII
&nb
sp; For the first time in ten years — the waiter had only worked in the club for ten years — Dudley Broadbent refused coffee after his lunch. “No coffee, sir?” said the waiter, in tones of amazement. Then he hastily pulled himself together. Members of the club were allowed to do anything but bring a lady into the dining-room. He left.
Broadbent’s table companion, Epps, said: “Have you got a real stinker of a case on your hands, Dudley?”
“Eh? What’s that?” muttered Broadbent.
“I wondered if you’d a very troublesome case? You’ve hardly spoken during the meal and just now you quite upset Jim’s day by not ordering coffee.”
“Er…Yes. Very difficult case.” Broadbent gratefully accepted the proffered excuse. He brought out his cigar case, took out a cigar, cut the end, and lit it. Where was she? He’d telephoned home just before lunch and there’d been no answer. Could she have had some sort of an accident? But then she must have been identified by now. What circumstance could possibly explain her absence, except…except the one he refused to consider.
Epps was talking about his nephew, Roger, who’d been a bit wild when young but had now settled down and gained a good two one law degree. Broadbent got up suddenly, thereby cutting off Epps in mid-sentence, and left. Epps watched him leave with dislike, because he’d been going to ask a favour in respect of his nephew. Down the stairs and on the far side of the lobby was a call-box. Broadbent went into it, switched on the light, brought out the coins in his trousers pocket and stacked them in their denominations, ready for a fairly prolonged call because he was suddenly convinced Patricia would have returned home and he was determined to make it plain, in a dignified way of course, that he’d been very worried and she’d been rather thoughtless. The call was answered, but by the daily woman who worked in the afternoons. She was a miserable, sniffing woman. She said, sniff, Mrs. Broadbent wasn’t at home, sniff, that there’d been no messages, sniff, and she wasn’t feeling very well so she might not, sniff, be able to stay the whole afternoon.
He picked up the unused coins and replaced them in his pocket, then left the club and walked the four hundred yards to his office. The receptionist smiled a greeting, but he was a trifle frigid in return as he noticed she was still wearing a very short skirt although he’d asked her to wear something more appropriate to a dignified solicitor’s office. He went up the first flight of stairs to his office, large and discreetly, but luxuriously, furnished. His middle-aged secretary — in a skirt of decent length — came in and said that two more appointments had been entered in his diary, although she’d had some difficulty in fitting them in because he was so busy. He was a very successful country solicitor. He had a dignified personality, discretion, a touch of servility when dealing with the richer or more influential clients, and three junior partners who were academically clever.
His secretary left. He looked at the telephone, wondering whether to ring again, but then decided it was too soon after his last call. Exerting a great deal of willpower, he resumed work.
*
As Armitage turned into Hermione’s drive, he was very conscious of the fact that he was gambling everything on his reading of Broadbent’s character: yet it was a gamble he had to take.
He knocked on the front door and when there was no immediate answer he suddenly realised for the first time that she might be out. It was a frightening thought. He rang again and kept his finger on the bell-push.
The door was eventually opened by the daily woman who said she was very sorry, but she and Miss Grant had been up in one of the attic rooms, clearing out some things. He asked if he might have a word with Miss Grant and the woman showed him into the sitting-room.
He picked up a copy of The Field and leafed through the pages, but wasn’t conscious of anything he looked at. All the time his mind pictured the things the man said they’d do to Patricia if the alarm was given…” What brings the great author here in the middle of a working afternoon?” Hermione was dressed in slacks and a sweater which might just have suited a woman half her age and size. She studied him. “My God! You look as though you’ve been burning the candle in the middle as well as at both ends.”
He was grateful for the lead-in. “Well, as a matter of fact…” He stopped. The more she guessed at what he was going to say, the more readily she would believe what he told her.
“Something’s going on!” She slumped down on one of the beautiful leather armchairs and stared at him with bright, inquisitive eyes.
“Well, I…I’ve come to see if you’ll help me.”
“What is it — something to do with you and Pat?”
He fiddled with one of the buttons of his well-worn sports jacket. “Yes, it is.”
“Then you don’t surprise me,” she said, with satisfaction. Yet there was a hint of something else in her expression: a touch of bitter sadness. “For God’s sake, stop drooping like the Tower of Pisa and sit down before you collapse.”
He sat down.
“Will you have a drink?”
“Yes, I’d like one.”
“You’re someone after my own heart, George. No bloody nonsense about the sun being over the yardarm. If I want a drink in the afternoon, I want one. But Dudley…” She’d introduced the name deliberately and she stared more fixedly at him to note his reaction. “What I’ve come about concerns Dudley as well.”
“I thought it probably did. But get the drinks before telling me the plot. I’ll have a gin and tonic.”
He poured out two gin and tonics, though he’d seldom wanted a drink less. When he handed her a glass, he said abruptly: “You know Patricia and I have been seeing quite a bit of each other?”
“Of course I do. Damn it, she always used me to pull the wool over Dudley’s eyes.”
“You’ve been very kind.”
“How in the hell she ever came to marry him, I can’t imagine: she might as well have married a maiden aunt.”
“When Pat came to dinner on Saturday, we…we got to talking about what we were going to do. It’s a hell of a situation.”
“Happens every day of the week and if a middle-aged man is fool enough to marry someone half his age, he ought to expect it.” She spoke with open satisfaction. “It’s not that easy.”
“How d’you mean?”
“You know Pat — she’s got a conscience a mile high. Because of that, she wouldn’t bum her bridges and…even though she admitted she really wanted to…You won’t tell anyone what I’m telling you?”
“Good God, no!”
“Thanks. In the end she was so mixed up she said she had to get away and think things over entirely on her own. So she left on Sunday.”
“On Sunday!”
He shook his head. “We slept in different bedrooms.”
Hermione spoke almost angrily. “My God! You’re as bad as she is.”
He tried to smile. “It certainly wasn’t my fault…She begged me not to tell Dudley anything in case she decides she must stick with him and she doesn’t want him hurt.”
“Nobody else could be so soft as to think of Dudley at such a time.”
“But I had to promise her I wouldn’t do anything precipitate.”
“It strikes me that if you’d done something precipitate the whole thing would be sorted out by now.”
Hermione shook her head as if she couldn’t understand. She finished her drink.
“Look, will you get on to Dudley and say that one of your mutual old school friends suddenly turned up on a motoring holiday and she suggested Pat went with her and Pat suddenly decided to take a holiday, knowing Dudley wouldn’t mind.”
“But she’d know Dudley would think she’d gone quite crazy to do a thing like that without reference to him.”
“Perhaps, but it’ll keep him quiet just long enough for her to make up her mind what she’s going to do. Then if she decides to come to me, it won’t make things worse if he learns she lied about things, while if…if she decides to stick with him, she’ll surely be able to persuade him she
was telling the truth.”
“It’s obvious which of you two thought up something that tortuous!” She lit a cigarette.
Dudley would force himself to believe the story, thought Armitage. But he’d know he was forcing himself, and why. Which was why he wouldn’t actually check up on the story, because to do so might be to learn it was a lie and then he’d have to acknowledge the fact that she’d almost certainly gone off with another man and with his character he’d rather do anything than that.
*
Dudley was considering what advice to give to the beneficiaries of a trust fund now worth approximately a quarter of a million pounds when his telephone buzzed once. Miss Grant wanted to speak to him He began to tap on the desk with his fingers. He certainly didn’t want to talk to Hermione Grant. He thought her a horrible woman, rude of tongue and manner, perhaps a lesbian, and he had done his best to break up the friendship between her and Patricia. She knew this and she knew why he did it and she hated him for it.
“Dudley? It’s taken a bloody long time to get through to you. Some silly bitch said you’d given orders you weren’t taking any calls.”
The Colour of Violence Page 9