A Deadly Marriage

by Roderic Jeffries

  From the factory, the two Volgas drove them into the centre of Borisham and the restaurant where a table had been reserved. After several cocktails and then several glasses of wine, the delegation began to express more cheerfulness. Mrs. Kudabinski, on David’s right, still the most lively of her compatriots, suddenly became confidential and told him in a broken English that he was just able to understand that they were all very impressed with the new system for rapid bulk milking and that if the matter rested in their hands they would order a large number of units immediately, but that they must go back to Sofia and report. After another glass of wine, she became even more confidential and said what a pity that it was most unlikely any units would ever be imported into Bulgaria since the recommendations of this trade mission would be studied by any number of experts for any length of time and when it finally came to the moment for a decision to be made the present members would no longer be in a position of authority to support their claims — since Bulgaria was a democratic country, they only held office for two years and then new officers would be appointed who would not know anything about the matter. She laughed heartily as she went on to say that this was why the Bulgarian agriculture remained essentially primitive.

  As the second round of brandies was being poured out, the head waiter came across and stood by David’s chair. He coughed.

  “Yes?” said David.

  “Mr. Plesence, sir. There’s a Detective Constable Quenton wishes very much to have a word with you. I have asked him to wait in the cocktail bar.”

  “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I can’t break away now. Ask him to see me later.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  The head waiter left. Mrs. Kudabinski told David a long tale about the inefficiency of one collective farm which in three years had resulted in one grain of wheat growing where previously four had grown. Glancing at Grashnov, who was suddenly looking even sourer than usual, David wondered if the cocktails and the wine had made Mrs. Kudabinski a little too talkative for her own good. Did people who found inefficiency amusing still disappear in Bulgaria?

  The head waiter returned and said that before the detective had left he had asked if Mr. Plesence would be kind enough to call at the central police station at his early convenience or else telephone and make an appointment.

  The luncheon party came to an end at a quarter to three. Grashnov made another long and boring speech and then he and his companions climbed into the two Volgas and were driven off.

  David looked at his watch. He and Patricia were going up to the new Covent Garden production of Der Rosenkavalier and were catching the five o’clock train. There was, then, just time enough to go along to the police station now. He hailed a taxi and was driven the three quarters of a mile to the central police station, which lay behind the main shopping centre.

  The building was squat, ugly, and covered with the grime of years. Only the window frames, newly painted white, were clean. He passed a noticeboard on which were pinned a number of posters telling the public to look after their property and went inside.

  He spoke to a constable in the information room, who used the internal telephone to speak to the C.I.D.

  “Detective Constable Quenton is out, sir,” said the constable, “but Detective Sergeant McWatt knows the form and will see you. If you’ll follow me.” He lifted the flap at the end of the counter and led the way down a corridor and up a flight of stairs.

  The detective sergeant’s room was small and crowded with furniture, filing cabinets, and endless stacks of dusty bundled up papers. McWatt stood up. He came round the desk and shook hands. He was a tall man, with a lined face that suggested hardness. A scar ran half-way across his right cheek and slightly twisted his upper lip.

  David sat down on the uncomfortable wooden chair. The detective took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “Smoke?”

  “Not for the moment, thanks. I’ve just had a business lunch and smoked my mouth dry.”

  Me Watt returned to his seat. He lit a cigarette, blew out the match, and dropped it into an over-filled ash-tray. He read what was written on a foolscap sheet of paper. “Mr. Plesence, did you have a visitor at your place last night?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “A man by the name of Cabbot?”

  “That’s right.”

  “A friend of yours?”

  “First time I’d ever met him. Something wrong?”

  “The taxi took him back to his hotel in south Borisham and almost as soon as he arrived, he collapsed. A doctor was called and he was rushed to hospital, but he died.”

  “That must have been hellish sudden! When he left my place he seemed as right as rain.”

  “Can you tell me anything about him, Mr. Plesence? Why he visited your house, where he comes from, and that sort of thing?”

  “The whole thing was damned odd. He telephoned me at work yesterday to say he wanted to see me on a matter that was very important and confidential. I’d never heard of him before so I naturally tried to find out something of what all this was about, but he refused to discuss it until he saw me at home. I told him to come along at seven o’clock.

  “When he turned up, he turned round and said he was sorry but the whole thing was a mistake and would I forgive him for troubling me.”

  “A mistake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t lie give you any inkling of what it was all about?”

  “I don’t know a thing more than you do now.”

  “Was it connected with your business, d’you think?”

  “I’ve just said, I’ve literally no idea.”

  McWatt doodled with a pencil for a few seconds. “Were you able to discover anything about the man?”

  “Nothing other than that he considered himself an expert on art, furniture, carpets and a dozen other subjects as well.”

  “He was cocky?”

  “In a laboured way. He made a point of talking like a wealthy man and yet it was pretty obvious he wasn’t. To tell the truth, I thought he might be trying some sort of swindle.”

  “But he wasn’t?”

  “If he was, he changed his mind between morning and evening.”

  “Did you offer him a drink?”

  “I did, even though I regarded him with deep suspicion!” David smiled. “My wife felt like one and I could hardly leave him out of it.”

  “And something to eat?”

  “Eat? Not a meal, good lord, no.”

  “I was thinking more of a cocktail snack?”

  “He did have a celery straw, yes. Why d’you ask?”

  “It’s all a matter of routine, sir. On a job like this, we have to check up on a thousand and one different points. There, I think that’s the lot. We’ll try not to bother you too much.” McWatt stood up. “Thanks again for coming along.”

  There was a note in the other’s voice which David could not interpret. He looked at the detective’s face, but the man’s expression gave nothing away.

  David left the police station and walked back along the road towards the main railway station where he could be certain to catch a taxi. He felt a spot of rain on his face and looked up at the sky. A dark bellied cloud was moving across, but it was on its own and at the worst would give no more than a shower.

  What were the police’s motives with regard to their inquiries about Cabbot, who had died so soon after leaving Frogsfeet Hall? Were they trying to trace relatives or was there something suspicious about his sudden death? McWatt had given away nothing. He looked a tough nut, the kind of man whose drive forced him on, regardless of any obstacles.

  David stopped at the shop that sold home-made chocolates. Patricia adored truffles but did not buy them very often solely because if she ate many she began to put on a number of surplus pounds. He bought two pounds of truffles. Whilst he waited for the assistant to wrap up the box, he wondered, with a sudden bitterness, whether he would ever be able to buy truffles and take t
hem back to her as his wife. Goddamn the laws, he thought. All right, he was the guilty party, but was Catalina’s guilt in reality any the less? He would have settled for the marriage as it was, had not Catalina made it a greater hell than he could possibly stand.

  The assistant gave him the wrapped up box of chocolates and he paid and left. He and Patricia had talked about “living in sin” once Catalina had been granted a decree of judicial separation: they had decided to live together at Frogsfeet Hall. They would find tremendous happiness, but because the law was vicious and vindictive they would be denied the final happiness of having a family since nothing they could do would legitimise their children.

  The main railway station was being modernised — not before time — and everywhere was a maze of scaffolding, temporary wooden huts, trailing electric cables, and workers who seemed to have little to do. The taxi stand had been moved to a corner of the car-park, behind a pile of bricks, and there were two cars waiting.

  He sat back in the taxi as it drove out of the station yard, past the large garage, and up the long hill to the main shopping area. He gazed unseeingly out of the near-side window. His parents had lived most of their lives in Borisham, in a house at the back of what was now a Bingo hall. They had not been at all well off and he had only been able to go to Borisham Grammar School by winning a small scholarship. He’d always wanted to be a farmer, but without the large capital needed, he’d had to start from the bottom rung. He’d been a general dog’s-body, then assistant cowman to a farmer who begrudged every penny he had to pay out. The 28 cows had been milked in a shed which was so filthy that when a representative of the Milk Marketing Board came round, the man’s milk contract had been cancelled. David had moved to a large, modern dairy farm which had a ten point herringbone milking parlour. Here, speed of milking had been all important. He had not been long at this farm when he started thinking about the problem of combining the speed of milking that a herringbone offered and the individual attention and therefore increased milk yield that came from cowshed milking. In a relatively short space of time, he’d thought up the parlour-shed system. It was now installed on farms all over the United Kingdom and in six other countries. He was wealthy and life had been generous to him. Except in his marriage. There should be a law prohibiting thirty year old bachelors from going on Caribbean cruises in the moonlight.

  The six mile drive took twenty minutes. As the taxi drove away from Frogsfeet Hall, he turned and looked at the house. It was square, with a bell-tower on the right. The bell-tower was beautifully proportioned so that there was no hint of the absurd about it. The brickwork of both buildings was a deep red, a colour that came from mellowed age. It was the kind of house he had always wanted and there was something of a miracle in the fact that he had been able to buy it. Even its situation was perfect. House and garden stood on a slight hill and had a view south over a two hundred degree arc. On a fine day, and perhaps with a little imagination, one could see the coast. And ships on their way to the Caribbean. He smiled sarcastically and thought that there was little romance of the sea left in his soul.

  He walked to the front door and took the key from his pocket, but as he went to put it in the keyhole, the door opened.

  “Surprise!” said Patricia. “I thought that as your wife wouldn’t be here to greet you, your concubine should be.” He laughed and kissed her. “And surprise for you.” He handed her the box of chocolates. “To make you all nice and fat.”

  “Oh, David! There must be an awful lot here. I’ll never stop from pigging into them and I’ll put on so many spare tyres you’ll have to roll me around the place.”

  “Isn’t it the Arabs who like their women nice and fat?”

  “If you’re an Arab, I’m off home. They have four wives.” She tucked her arm round his. “You’re back rather late. Were the Bulgarians a bit of a handful?”

  “They weren’t too bad and there was a woman who provided the light entertainment. No, I had to go on and see the police.”

  “Been up to no good?”

  “It was that chap I told you about, the one who turned up here last night and said he didn’t want to see me after all.”

  “The man who speaks only to God?”

  “What?”

  “‘The home of the bean and the cod, where the Lowells talk to the Cabots and the Cabots talk only to God’.” He smiled. “That sounds a bit mixed up.”

  “I never did get many marks in literature. The only poems I could really remember I wasn’t even supposed to have heard about.” They walked through to-the sitting-room. “What about Mr. Cabbot?”

  “He upped and died just after leaving here.”

  “Good God! What kind of die? Heart?”

  “The police either don’t know yet or else aren’t saying.”

  “Then there’s a bit of suspicion flying around?”

  “Search me. I spoke to a detective sergeant, but he wasn’t even saying what the time was. How about a quick drink before I rush through my bath and change?”

  “I’d much rather have a sweet.” She released her arm and went across to the small pie-crust table on which she put the box of chocolates, which she unwrapped. “David, they’re truffles! You’re determined to ruin my will-power.” She ate one. “I wonder if you’ll learn what shipped Cabbot off this mortal coil?” She picked up a second truffle.

  “I don’t suppose we’ll ever hear another word,” he answered, as he went across to the cocktail cabinet and poured himself out a whisky and soda.

  CHAPTER IV

  Detective Inspector Cathart was an ambitious man with reason to believe that most of his ambitions would be realised. He was a hard-working, conscientious police officer with a flair for his job. The clear-up rate for his division was the best in the county. When it was necessary to do so, he drove himself on in his work regardless of hours or days and he demanded that the men under him did the same. His juniors respected him but did not like him because no man who asked as much from them as he did could be liked. In any case, many mistook his selfcertainty for cockiness: there were some in the county force, including his superiors, who would not have been sorry to see him make a really serious mistake. For his part, he knew that in less than a year’s time one of the divisional D.I.s was going to gain promotion to detective chief inspector and he intended to be that man.

  He was working at his office desk, filling in the half-yearly promotion reports, when there was a quick knock on the door and McWatt entered. Between him and McWatt there was an armed neutrality. They were both broadly of the same temperament and frequently there were incipient clashes between them, but McWatt never made the mistake of forgetting who was the senior.

  “I’m just back from the smash-and-grab job, sir,” said McWatt. “They’ve turned up a dab from the car and we’re waiting on a report.”

  “A singleton?”

  “Yes, but it’s almost certainly a right forefinger so that they should be able to check it without too much trouble.”

  “The job was done by professionals and their dabs will be on record. How’s the man who was hit by the car?”

  “Fractured pelvis and severe bruising, but he’ll live.” Cathart half turned and looked out of the window. The evening sun was sending its light slantwise across the window and dappling the back of the building opposite. “Anything else of importance?” He hoped there was nothing. He had promised his wife he would get home at a reasonable hour as they were having friends in to a meal: she was one of the few people in the world he bothered to try to please.

  “The Cabbot case, sir.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s beginning to sound entirely screwball.” McWatt shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was physically tired and would have welcomed the chance to sit down, but Cathart did not often invite his juniors to sit down. “I spoke to the bloke Plesence, here, at the station. According to him, Cabbot telephoned from out of the blue and said he’d something very important and confidential to
talk about and invited himself to the house in the evening. He turned up on time and said there was nothing in it after all. He had a drink and a cocktail straw and then went on his way.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How does Plesence explain things?”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “What kind of bloke is he?”

  “Well spoken, quiet, confident, probably a bloke who can be as stubborn as hell. His house is called Frogsfeet Hall: isn’t that the name of some local manufacturing concern?”

  “Dairy equipment, out at Ashbridge. In that case, I’ve met Plesence.” Cathart was silent for several seconds. “I seem to remember that when I did meet Plesence his wife was with him. She was badly overcooked: a dozen jars of make-up slapped on her face to cover up all the wrinkles.” He scratched the side of his neck. “No news from the lab, I suppose?”

  “The pathologist said it might take days or weeks.”

  “Don’t listen to him, he’s a professional pessimist.” Cathart searched amongst the papers on his desk and picked up one. He read it. “The poison was almost certainly in the last thing that Cabbot ate or drank — that means the cocktail or the celery straw?”

  “That’s the picture at the moment.”

  “The poison acts like a bomb. What are the odds of suicide? I know the report says it’s impossible yet to pass an opinion, but didn’t the pathologist say anything useful?”

  “Quenton says not.”

  Cathart made a note in pencil. “Plesence maintains he’s no idea who Cabbot was, where he came from, why he went to the house, or what the very important and confidential stuff was all about?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s a hell of a stupid line to take if it’s not true.”

  “I doubt he’s stupid. Not unless he’s badly panicked.”

  “And to date we don’t know whether there’s any cause for panic. Get on to whoever’s doing the lab tests and ask them to pull their fingers out.”