The act of breathing became a terrible agonising struggle. The pain grasped me round my middle like a particularly vicious straitjacket. At some stage I remember shadowy people forcing some kind of tube down my throat, and trying to fight them off and not being able to. Most of the rest of it remains a blank – a bit like so much of the night when Robert died.
I was later to learn that I had bilateral pneumonia, which then turned to pleurisy. This meant that not only were both my lungs infected but also the lining of my chest wall. I spent several days in intensive care on a ventilator and it was getting on for two weeks before I returned properly to the world.
By then an awful lot had happened.
I was back on the ward, stupor-like most of the time, when I woke from a fitful sleep to find Mariette sitting by my bed.
‘They said you were a lot better, but I didn’t want to wake you,’ she told me with a small smile. ‘You do look better, I must say.’
I was puzzled. ‘What do you mean? Have you been to see me before?’ I asked.
She nodded. ‘A couple of times, you know, when I could,’ she said.
I was touched. I needed a friend. One thing about being as ill as I had been is that you don’t have time to think about anything except your physical misery. I was starting to think again, beginning to remember, and Carl filled my jumbled thoughts. Carl had not been to see me. Of course not. He had been arrested.
‘I suppose you know what’s happened?’ I enquired of Mariette.
‘More or less,’ she replied. ‘It’s the talk of the town, the kidnap and everything.’
I managed a small smile myself. ‘It wasn’t really a kidnap,’ I stated.
‘Sounded like one to me,’ she said. ‘Who’d have thought that of your Carl?’
‘I still don’t understand it.’
‘No. And you thought you’d murdered your first husband, as if you’d be capable of anything like that.’
‘Good God, does everyone know about that too?’
‘You know St Ives. Some of it was in the papers, don’t know where the rest of it came from. Mind you, they always say the nick leaks like a sieve . . .’
Mariette was kind and attentive, and completely unjudgemental. I had somehow always known so much about her life, but she had never known anything of mine. If she was shocked by anything she had learned she did not show it. But, unsurprisingly perhaps in the circumstances, she did not really know what to say to me.
At one point she started to say speak, then seemed to change her mind. ‘There was talk of something that happened in America, too, but, oh, it’s sure to be only rumour . . .’
‘What, Mariette? DS Perry mentioned something about America, just before I collapsed.’
Mariette grasped the opportunity with which I had presented her. ‘Then it’s DS Perry you should be talking to, not me. I should know better than even to start repeating the gossip of St Ives. It’s invariably a load of old nonsense.’
I could tell she didn’t really believe that, but she wasn’t saying any more. She could be very stubborn when she wanted, could Mariette. She left pretty quickly then, and I asked a passing nurse for a telephone.
After waiting fruitlessly for at least half an hour I asked another nurse. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up there was still no sign of a telephone.
Ultimately it was nearly the end of the day before one of those cumbersome trolleys was brought to me. Strange, with all the modern technology available, that nothing has changed in most NHS hospitals in this respect for several decades.
I called Directory Enquiries to get the number of the police station, dialled it and asked for DS Perry. She wasn’t there.
‘She’s away,’ I was told. I was pretty sure it was the same desk clerk I had spoken to when I went there.
I gave my name, mentioned Carl’s, said it was urgent and asked if there was anywhere else I could speak to her.
‘Not sure about that,’ said the clerk. He seemed about as interested and dynamic as he had the first time I had encountered him.
‘I don’t even know where Carl is,’ I muttered vaguely.
‘He’s been remanded in custody, abduction is a serious offence, Mrs Peters,’ said the clerk and that was about as informative as he was going to be. ‘I can get PC Partridge to call you, if you like. He’s about the only one around today.’
I groaned inwardly. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in PC Partridge. I also left a message for DS Perry and ultimately the promise of a call-back from one or other of them was what I had to settle for. I explained that it might be difficult for anyone to get through to me in hospital and asked that they keep insisting. The clerk muttered something inaudible.
I waited all that late afternoon and evening, and the next morning, before impatience got the better of me and I called again. I still reached a brick wall. This time I talked to an uninterested female voice.
‘DS Perry is still away, I’m afraid.’
I asked for PC Partridge again.
‘He’s in court today.’
‘Can you get a message to him? I called yesterday but he hasn’t got back to me . . .’
‘Did you leave a message for him then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, he’s sure to have got it.’
‘But I haven’t heard from him.’
‘He’ll call when he can, I’m sure. You’re in hospital you say? Not always easy to get through, is it?’
‘You can say that again,’ I said with feeling. ‘Look, I want to talk to someone about my husband Carl Peters. Can you help.’
‘I’m afraid not. You could try Penzance. I believe it’s being dealt with from there now.’
‘But I was told PC Partridge could help me.’
‘I’m sure he probably can. He did work on the case with DS Perry.’
I stifled an impatient sigh. ‘Please give him another message. I really do need to speak to him urgently.’
I got nowhere. But I still felt too weak to put up much of a fight. All I could do was lie back in my hospital bed and carry on waiting for Rob Partridge to call.
That afternoon there was a bit of a diversion. Will Jones paid me a visit, bringing with him a beautiful book about Patrick Heron, which I received gratefully. I was still in a bit of a daze but, in spite of my befuddled and anxious state, it was good to have company, to chat for a bit.
At first we made a rather strained kind of small talk, but it was better than nothing. As with Mariette’s visit, it was good just to think that someone cared enough to come calling.
At one point, after quite a long silence, Will enquired if I had any money on me. Typically, I hadn’t even thought about it. And the answer was that I didn’t have a penny. Will took his wallet from his pocket and handed me two twenty-pound notes. ‘I owe you more, I’ve sold some of Carl’s paintings,’ he said. ‘I’ll work out how much by the time you get out of here . . .’
I thanked him. The money should have gone to Carl, I supposed. There was another vaguely uncomfortable silence. Then Will began to ask me a lot of questions, most of which I either could not or did not wish to answer.
‘So he just sort of went off the rails, really?’ he muttered.
I nodded.
‘What pushed him, do you know?’
I sighed. Not sure whether I wanted to talk like this or not. ‘Fear, more than anything,’ I said. ‘Fear of losing me. Fear of what might happen to us.’
‘And you thought all this time that you’d killed your husband?’
‘Absolutely,’ I confirmed.
‘And you both thought that was what the letters and the rest of it referred to?’
‘Oh, the letters, yes, of course . . .’
I hadn’t thought about any of that for a while. I had had other things on my mind, like being imprisoned against my will by the man I loved, and fighting off critical bouts of pneumonia and pleurisy. ‘Well, I thought that, but not Carl, of course,’ I went on. ‘Carl sent the letters, I’m su
re of that now.’
Will looked startled. ‘Did he admit it?’
‘I think so,’ I wasn’t quite sure, come to think of it. ‘What does it matter anyway, after all that has happened?’
‘No, I suppose not. So Carl really has turned into a villain, hasn’t he?’
He was right enough, of course, but I still didn’t like to hear it.
‘Fancy letting you think you’d killed someone all these years . . .’
‘We don’t know that for sure,’ I managed to protest, clutching at straws, maybe.
Will gave me that look of his, which he switched on when he was demonstrating just how much cleverer he was than you. Fond as I was of him, it never failed to irritate me. ‘Well, of course, you must believe what you want to believe, Suzanne,’ he began. Then he was interrupted by a large nurse bearing a thermometer, which she placed uncompromisingly in my mouth. Which might have been all for the best.
The thermometer was still there when Will left.
‘I’ll pop round when you’re home,’ he had said before he departed.
I tried to mutter something and reached for the thermometer. The large nurse tapped my hand reprovingly. And in my condition I didn’t have the strength to argue, even had I not had a thermometer wedged between my lips.
Fourteen
I had to see him. And I had to know the worst.
You could not share all that I had shared with Carl and not want to see a man who you thought you had known so well, yet whom perhaps you hadn’t known at all.
I discharged myself from hospital early the next morning. Nobody had phoned me back from the police, and I couldn’t wait any longer. I somehow felt sure that if I could just get myself to St Ives police station I could sort everything out. I walked to Penzance railway station and caught the next train back to the little seaside town where Carl and I had been so happy for so long. At St Ives I made my way along the beach to the harbour, breathing in the sea air, taking strength from its fresh saltiness, before turning into the town and up through the network of steep streets to the hidden-away police station. I arrived there just after 9 a.m., out of breath and wondering if I had done a bit too much walking, but determined to get some answers. I was hoping, of course, that DS Perry would be back from wherever she had been over the two previous days. At least she seemed to have some idea what was going on. But even to be able to see Rob Partridge would be a result. I craved some kind of familiarity.
It seemed a lifetime had passed since, resolved to rid myself of my long-carried burden, I had first approached the ugly, dirty white building
The desk clerk greeted me with his customary lack of enthusiasm. Did they only have one clerk, or was I just lucky, I wondered glumly. He was, however, a little more communicative than in the past. He told me that DS Perry was in Plymouth and would be there for some time. Apparently there had been a particularly unpleasant murder of a young girl. That was why she hadn’t responded to my phone calls.
I was still feeling very poorly and becoming aware that maybe I should have stayed in hospital at least another couple of days, and this news about DS Perry was yet another blow. I had barely known her but I somehow had more confidence in her than any of the other officers I had encountered. Not surprising, perhaps, when the only other one I had had much to do with was Rob Partridge.
‘I’ll see if I can find someone else to help you,’ the clerk offered and disappeared into the back office in a disconcertingly familiar way.
I could hear him talking into a telephone, but I wasn’t optimistic. A murder. Yes, I supposed that was more important than a kidnapping, if that is what it really had been.
The inner door opened just as I was reconciling myself to another fruitless wait. Rob Partridge, in uniform but without his helmet, greeted me with an uncertain smile, and ushered me into the bleak little ground-floor interview room. ‘I just called you at the hospital,’ he said. ‘Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday.’
‘Look, I want to see my husband,’ I said. ‘I want to see Carl.’ For the first time in almost seven years I was somehow starkly aware that Carl wasn’t my husband. But old habits die hard.
‘He’s on remand in Exeter,’ said Rob Partridge. ‘Surely you knew that?’
I didn’t. I knew absolutely nothing about police or court procedure and little more about the case I was actively involved in. I had been more or less semi-conscious in hospital for two weeks. I didn’t have a clue what had happened to Carl following his arrest and my admission to the hospital. In a simplistic way I suppose I expected him to be locked in a cell somewhere in the bowels of St Ives police station.
‘I thought he would be here,’ I murmured lamely.
Rob shook his head. ‘This is a small district police station,’ he told me. ‘We don’t keep prisoners here. You can visit him at the Devon County Prison at Exeter whenever you like, just about. As he’s on remand you have pretty free access.’
The Devon County Prison. I repeated it inside my head. The very sound of the words was chilling.
‘But I need to talk to somebody first. DS Perry mentioned something that happened in America. I need to know what’s going on before I see him,’ I mumbled.
Partridge and I were both standing in the interview room. He gestured me to one chair and, sitting down in the other, took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit up. He offered me one, which I declined, then he drew deeply on his own. The windowless little room filled with smoke. I hoped I wouldn’t start coughing again. My chest still hurt.
‘We searched your cottage after we arrested Carl,’ he began. ‘Standard procedure when you’ve arrested somebody on a serious charge. We found some photographs and an out-of-date American passport in another name. His picture, though. It was pretty simple to check out with the States. Your Carl was really called Harry Mendleson and he had good reason to be using a false name all right. Seems he makes a habit of trying to abduct his wives.’
I waited. I felt very cold. Rob Partridge smiled almost triumphantly, only to me it looked more like a leer. He was another one who could never resist showing off superior knowledge. Something made me think he shouldn’t be telling me all this, but he seemed to be in full flight.
‘Only the last time it all went badly wrong. His wife was going to leave him. He wouldn’t have it. Tried to prevent her getting away. Drugs were involved that time too. Apparently there was a kid, a daughter, who died of an overdose. Only five or six, she was, too. He’s wanted on a manslaughter charge . . .’
I was shocked to the core. It seemed unreal. Carl was wanted on a manslaughter charge? He had drugged his daughter? Killed her? I hadn’t even known he’d had a daughter. I began to shake again. I didn’t know whether it was the impact of the news I had just heard or the residue of my illness. A bit of both probably. ‘What happened?’ I cried. ‘I can’t believe he killed his own daughter. How? Why? Please tell me.’
Rob Partridge looked uncomfortable at my reaction, as if he regretted telling me all that he had. He ran a hand through his spiky orange hair. ‘Look, I don’t know the details, it’s not even my case. I only know as much as I do because I was involved in the arrest and then the search. It’s CID. Detective Sergeant Perry was in charge, you know that.’
I nodded. ‘But she’s not here,’ I said lamely.
‘No, the case has been handed over to DC Carter in Penzance. That’s who you should be talking to now.’
I wasn’t giving up that easily. ‘The photographs, the old passport. Where did you find them? I’ve never seen them. Carl and I didn’t hide things from each other . . .’
‘He hid that lot all right. We found them in the box he keeps his paints and brushes in. There’s a false compartment at the bottom.’
Yes, I thought morosely, that made a dreadful kind of sense. I never touched Carl’s paints and brushes, never went near his special mahogany box because he was so fussy about his painting equipment.
Partridge had begun to speak again, once more pa
rading his superior knowledge. ‘That’s the thing about people living under a false identity,’ he said in a self-important tone of voice. ‘Getting the new identity is no problem. A doddle, that is, if you know how. The old Day of the Jackal trick still works. You just take a name and birth date off the gravestone of someone about the same age as yourself, apply for a new birth certificate and bingo. Everything else you need is easy once you’ve got a birth certificate. The problem people have is walking away from the past. They nearly always keep something, just like Carl did. It’s not being able to let go of the past that catches ’em out.’ He paused. ‘The photographs were of the daughter he killed,’ Partridge continued conversationally. ‘Typical, that, really . . .’
Suddenly it was all too much for me. I could barely take in what he was saying. Tears were welling up in my eyes and I couldn’t hold them back. I began to sob quietly.
Rob Partridge didn’t seem to know what to do then. His air of self-importance vanished abruptly. ‘Look, don’t upset yourself. I’ll see if I can get DC Carter on the phone,’ he said, in a manner that suggested that the detective would be able to solve all my problems. He took his mobile from his pocket and punched in a number. Maybe it was just that Rob Partridge knew his way around a police station or maybe he was luckier than me. Most people were, I was beginning to think. Either way, he seemed to get through to the Penzance CID man straight away.
‘DC Carter can see you at Penzance police station at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,’ he told me after a brief conversation, still holding the telephone to his ear, with one hand over the mouthpiece.
‘In Penzance?’ I repeated through my snuffles. ‘But I want to see Carl and he’s in Exeter.’
‘You can pick up the main-line train from there, straight on to Exeter. We’ll fix it with the prison,’ said Partridge.
I couldn’t think straight and I was so used to doing what people told me to, falling in with what others said, that I meekly nodded my agreement. Tomorrow morning seemed a long way away, but I was still feeling distinctly unwell. I hoped that I might perhaps be stronger both mentally and physically by then and, in any case, I certainly did not have the energy at that moment to demand an earlier meeting.
A Deep Deceit Page 18