Hung in the Balance (Simpson & Lowe Detective series Book 1)

by Ormerod, Roger

  I walked rapidly back to the hotel, went up to my room to tidy my face, to clear the mist from eyebrows and eyelashes and ruffle up my chestnut hair. Then I went down to the bar, which was less full than I’d expected, and where, at a corner seat with my gin and lime, I found that I felt more lonely and isolated than I had in the empty streets.

  For a moment I did not recognize him, as he’d discarded his anorak and tweed hat. He was standing at my table, a pint of beer in his fist and a gentle smile on his face, taking advantage of our brief encounter.

  ‘May I join you?’

  My eyes roved past him, at the several unoccupied tables, but I tried not to make it obvious. Then I smiled. ‘Why not?’ He seemed harmless.

  He sat, adjusted his chair, and beamed at me. I’d been correct about the grey above his ears, but in any event his hair was a very light blond, and untidy. And wrong about my guess as to his age. Mid-forties probably, a fit and burly man, easily six feet tall, with a firm but friendly line to his mouth and smooth lines to his features. An anonymous face, waiting for an expression, depending on my reaction. Large ears, deep grey eyes, pouched slightly, and a high, smooth brow. A man of depths, I decided, of surprises.

  ‘Why have you been following me?’ I asked, trying to grab the initiative.

  ‘Even in Penley, it can be unsafe at night.’

  ‘From men in anoraks and tweed hats?’

  ‘Especially. Never trust a man in a tweed hat. That’s why I raised it.’

  ‘I’ll remember that.’

  He sat back, clearly delighted with the exchange, but still made no effort to answer my original question. He consumed a large quantity of beer in one swallow, put down his glass, sucked his lips, and said, ‘I knew your father, you know. Of course, I was only a very junior member of his squad, when he was a superintendent. But he knew me. You know what I mean. Senior men tend to ignore the young sprogs. But not your father. Always time for a word. Very dry, though. You couldn’t always tell when he was joking.’

  ‘That just about ties him down. And now…you are?’

  ‘Inspector. In charge of the local CID. It’s only a small town, you know,’ he apologized.

  ‘Inspector what?’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Of course. Inspector Simpson. Oliver Victor, to be precise.’

  ‘Thank you. Now I feel a little more safe. And why were you following me? I mean, if we’re to be on Christian name terms, I need to know the essence of your interest.’

  ‘Lovely,’ he said, leaning forward so that I thought, for a moment, that he was about to pat my cheek. ‘The essence of my interest. I like that.’

  ‘You are,’ I told him, ‘the most irritating man I’ve ever met. You never answer a question. And don’t just grin like that.’

  ‘Did you know your eyes go all wide and dark brown when you’re angry?’

  ‘I’ll hit you in a minute.’

  ‘Forgive an old bachelor. I’ve never learned how to conduct myself with the ladies. I was simply keeping an eye on you. Making sure you remain safe on our streets. There. A direct answer.’

  I bit my lip, not sure I was pleased with it. Never learned to conduct himself, indeed! He was an artist at it, or so naïve he didn’t know how attractive his outgoing and friendly approach could be. It would, in fact, have been more pleasing if he’d simply said, ‘I liked the look of you.’ But the male population in America had spoiled me. They were so direct, so uncomplicated.

  ‘And why shouldn’t I be safe?’ I murmured, very casually.

  ‘That I don’t know. Call it taking no chances. Do I call you Mrs Tonkin?’

  ‘I’m using my maiden name. Lowe.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear it.’

  ‘Are you?’ I tilted my head, regarding him gravely. ‘Why?’

  ‘I read your father’s book. Liked it. It’s a very deep and serious breakdown of the Raymond Chandler novels, and how they were derived from the short stories. I remember the dedication.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘How does it go? “Dedicated with love to my daughter, Miss Philipa Lowe, who, had she been a mister, would not have made it possible.” Very cryptic. It took me ages before I got it.’

  ‘And what was it you got?’

  ‘You’re Philipa Lowe, which is Philip Marlowe without the M and the R. Without the mister. Which you are dearly without, for which may heaven be praised.’

  ‘You worked that out yourself?’ I asked demurely.

  ‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘When I became interested.’

  I leaned forward, holding his eyes. ‘In what way did you become interested?’ Strange that it seemed to matter.

  ‘In your husband’s death, of course.’ He clapped his hands as a kind of signal for attention. ‘Can I get you another?’

  ‘No, thank you. I want to get this clear. You became interested in Graham’s death. Now…correct me if I’m wrong…but from what I remember, police officers don’t become interested. They’re assigned to a case. They’re doing a job. Interested? Will you please explain that, Mr Simpson.’

  ‘Oliver, please. And that answers your question.’

  I frowned. ‘I must be getting slow. Does it?’

  ‘Indeed it does. If I’d been assigned to it, I’d have been Mr Simpson, or Inspector. But I’m interested, so I’m plain, ordinary Oliver.’

  Ordinary! I thought. Far from ordinary. ‘You’re telling me this is unofficial?’

  ‘I am.’ He seemed vastly pleased with himself, too.

  ‘As I recall it, unofficial activity was likely to attract official disapproval, and possibly official suspension from duty.’

  He waggled his head. ‘True. So very true. A sad state of affairs. But you see, on suspension I’d have even more time to concentrate on it. On you.’

  I laughed. ‘You’re a fool. D’you know that?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ve been told it so often. The super’s said it. Simpson, he said, if you didn’t act the fool, you’d be Chief Superintendent now. It’s true. But I’ve always been so…what shall I say? …well, independent, if you like.’

  With that, he produced a sad, solemn face, then flicked it away with a nod and a wink.

  ‘It wouldn’t have happened in my father’s time,’ I told him, knowing and loving my father, who’d had a thing about independent thought. (‘Show me a man of action,’ he’d said, ‘who knows the book inside out, and does what he’s told…and I’ll show you a flyer. Show me a man who sits and thinks, and sadly he’ll be at the same desk for years.’) ‘And yes, please,’ I added, ‘I’ll have that drink now. A gin and lime.’

  ‘Yuk!’ he said, and he slid out of his seat with the alacrity and athletic ease of a man half his age. And to remain so fit, he hadn’t thought at his desk, he’d thought on his feet.

  ‘So tell me,’ I said, when he was seated opposite to me again. ‘Why do you find Graham’s death interesting?’

  He thought for a moment, then he said, ‘I warned you this is unofficial. Really, I suppose, I shouldn’t be telling you, but you’re the daughter of your father.’ Whatever that meant, I thought. ‘The inquest verdict came in as suicide. You’ll know that.’ He nodded at me and waited until I nodded back. ‘And you’ll also know that the police don’t have to be bound by an inquest verdict. But what you don’t know is that there’s a lot of work around lately, and too few officers to cover it. So the top brass decided to put the Graham Tonkin case in the pending files. No case. Kaput! But I was the one who covered it, and one or two things weren’t explained. How much d’you know?’

  ‘Very little. Yet. The car over the top of Corry’s Head into the old quarry. That’s all.’

  ‘Hmm! Then you don’t know he was missing for a week before that?’

  ‘Was he?’ But Anna hadn’t suggested that, suggested just the opposite, really, with her claim that they’d never been apart.

  ‘Yes. We don’t know where he was and why. It was treated as irrelevant. But why, if it terminated in his suicide, would he come
back to his own district — only a mile from the cottage — in order to do it?’

  ‘Come back?’ My mind was racing now, trying to establish a scenario. My voice must’ve sounded distant.

  ‘Why did you say it like that?’ His head was cocked, a tuft of white hair protruding above his right ear.

  ‘Come back? How come back? Is the suggestion that he used the car to go missing with, and came back in that, to a place where he knew he could drive it over the edge and kill himself? If that’s the suggestion…’

  ‘Nobody’s suggested that. Simply that he was missing.’

  ‘All right. Missing.’ I looked up. He was eyeing me with a slight smile, encouraging, not condescending. ‘Did he walk the half mile from the cottage to the bus stop in order to go missing, and the half mile back when he returned? Then did he take the car? Is somebody saying that?’ I demanded.

  ‘Nobody’s said that.’

  ‘Or was he driven to Corry’s Head by somebody, who left him to get on with it?’

  ‘Left him, perhaps, to think his own thoughts, which led to a decision to end it all,’ he murmured, leading me on.

  ‘He must have been driven there. You’ll have established that. Have you established it?’

  ‘No ma’am.’ He was solemn.

  ‘Have you discovered any reason he might have had for suicide?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Don’t keep saying that! And where’s your imagination? Where’s all this independent thought of yours?’

  He sat there like a fool, pouting childishly. Waiting.

  ‘Say something,’ I implored at last.

  ‘I was just enjoying it. So refreshing, for a change, to be at the wrong end of an interrogation.’

  ‘You’re laughing at me.’

  ‘With you, perhaps. If you’d only laugh! Heavens, it’s made you so serious, your time in New York. It must be very wearing, all the pressure of pulling in a buck, as I believe they say.’ He held up his hand to restrain my eagerness. ‘I know, I know. That was a nasty dig. I apologize. And I know what you’re getting round to. You’re going to say that Graham didn’t drive.’

  I sighed. ‘Is that what they told you?’ Nobody seemed really to understand.

  He nodded. ‘It’s generally agreed that he didn’t drive. He certainly didn’t hold a licence. He was always driven, chauffeured by Anna Treadgold or somebody else. As far as they all knew, he’d never driven a car, and didn’t know how to. Perhaps he was too nervous, or too lazy. But it’s not a big issue, you know.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘No. Say he was driven there. Say there was a row or something. After all, he’d been missing for a week or so. With a woman, perhaps. Was he like that?’

  I stared at him. It was becoming personal.

  ‘Was he?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Right. A row. He was left there to think it over. He thought. Decided his life wasn’t worth living. In despair. No? Why’re you shaking your head?’

  ‘Graham wasn’t like that. He’d drive other people to despair, but nothing would’ve dented his self-esteem. His life was too important to him.’

  Now he was very serious, his face seamed with it, his mouth downcast. ‘Thus speaks a woman who must’ve disliked him intensely, because after all she walked away from him — and stayed away.’

  ‘If you’re not —’

  ‘I don’t know you,’ he reminded me. ‘Yet. I didn’t know him. I have to keep a neutral line.’

  I lifted my head in challenge, but managed to restrain my answer. He was correct, of course. I could be biased. For all he knew, I could have been an embittered and selfish bitch. For all I knew, I thought in unwelcome self-criticism.

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Neutral. But Oliver, there’s something nobody could’ve told you, because I’m probably the only one who knew it. I tried to teach him to drive. It wasn’t simply that he didn’t choose to drive, or hadn’t tried. Graham was psychologically completely incapable of driving.’

  ‘Explain, please.’

  ‘He was totally uncoordinated. His left hand didn’t know what his right hand doeth. And his feet. Put it like that. His brain was so tuned that it had to be completely focused on one thing at a time, like a torch, adjusted to a narrow beam. Completely. Put him at a piano and he could learn a tune with his right hand, and, separately, a rhythm with his left. Try them together and neither would operate. He could’ve learnt the flute, because that was only one note at a time, and both hands were doing the same task. A violin, no. A computer — his fingers just flew over the keys. One finger at a time, see. I’ve recently heard that he’s good at painting. It’s funny I never knew that. Anyway…one hand, and pure, unadulterated concentration. Of course he could do that. If he was writing, with a sandwich in his left hand, it’d go stale until he came to the end of a thought. Then he would bite. Then he would chew. If he went back to writing halfway through a mouthful, it’d still be there until he stopped writing. Then his jaws would start moving again. Am I making myself clear?’

  With high-lifted eyebrows, he nodded. A lock of hair fell over his eyes. He ignored it.

  ‘So try to imagine him in a car. Not only had the two hands got to do different things, but also the two feet. He was terrifyingly hopeless. If you’d put him behind a car’s wheel, at the top of that field above Corry’s Head, nose pointing straight down the slope to the quarry’s edge — and all he had to do was take off the handbrake and hold on — I can tell you, Inspector Oliver Simpson, he’d have missed that quarry by half a mile.’

  I grabbed my glass and gulped at it eagerly. He was watching me with amusement.

  ‘Better?’ he asked.

  ‘Better,’ I agreed, ‘out than in.’

  ‘So you’re saying?’

  ‘That the car would’ve run straighter without his help. He’d have had to be unconscious at the time.’

  ‘Ha!’ He lifted both hands from the table in salute. ‘We agree, then. It was not suicide. Shall we have another drink on that?’

  ‘I need it. I’ll get…what’re you drinking?’

  ‘And don’t come that feminist stuff on me. I asked first.’ He got to his feet. ‘Besides, there’s a lot of the evening left and we’ve got a lot of talking to do. Plenty of time.’

  ‘Is there any more to say about it?’

  ‘Oh, I hope not. We’ll talk about other things. About you, and about me.’

  He ambled off happily to the bar.

  3

  I lay quietly in the bed and thought myself to sleep. Oliver Simpson had proved to be exactly the companion I’d needed to round off a miserable day with a period of relaxing warmth.

  We had not continued with any discussion on the possibility of murder. Oliver had shut it away as though it did not exist, adopting a complete absorption in the topics on hand — mostly myself — which was reminiscent of Graham’s ability to concentrate. But where the periods of obsession had pounced on Graham unannounced, and possessed him, Oliver seemed able to conjure them before me and keep them in full control.

  He had been amusing, quietly teasing, drawing from beneath what I have to admit was a crisp professionalism a lighter and more relaxed mood that I’d forgotten I possessed.

  I was therefore able to present to Harvey Remington, at exactly 10.30 the following morning, a brisk and cheerful Philipa, anxious only to get the legal business out of the way.

  ‘Ah!’ he said, rising from behind his desk to wave towards a buttoned leather swivel chair. ‘I’m a man who appreciates punctuality. Do sit down, my dear. Coffee if you wish.’

  ‘Later, perhaps, Harvey.’

  He beamed at me, lifted a folder from his basket to the exact centre of his leather-bound blotter, peered down at it for a few seconds, then he sat back and assumed his serious face, the one he used when complex litigation and a possible large bill of costs presented itself.

  ‘You are Philipa Marjorie Lowe,’ he pronounced, ‘at present resident in New Yor
k, and formerly resident at Hawthorne Cottage, Lower Streetly in the parish of Penley, and the wife of Graham Mark Tonkin.’

  ‘I know who I am, Harvey, for heaven’s sake! And let’s forget the Marjorie, shall we.’

  ‘But do you?’ he asked. ‘Know who you are, I mean, in a legal sense.’

  ‘Is this a game, Harvey?’ I moved impatiently in the chair. In spite of his serious demeanour his eyes twinkled. He loved this sort of thing.

  ‘We are talking about the law, here, Philipa. I have to establish your identity.’

  ‘It’s me, you know. Surely you remember. Shall I go outside and come back in, and you can start from the beginning again? If there’s something for me to sign, let’s see it and I’ll sign it.’

  He raised a palm. ‘Haste, my dear! Tut, tut! You must be patient. After all, I represent you legally, and everything I do must be in your best interests.’

  ‘Interests! Harvey, there’s only one point I want to make clear. I don’t want the cottage. That young woman, Anna Treadgold — let her have it. And if that’s all…’

  ‘Sit still and listen,’ he said, more curtly than usual. His court voice.

  So I sat still.

  ‘You’re showing no respect for the law, Philipa, and your father was an officer of the law.’

  ‘Have I come here to be lectured, Harvey?’

  ‘It would appear that you need something like that. We’re here to discuss serious matters.’

  ‘Then can we get on with them? Please, Harvey.’

  ‘I wanted you to be very certain what this interview is all about. The law, for one thing, our mutual confidence for another — and facts. Facts. For instance, you didn’t dispute one word of my introduction, in which I described you and your basic circumstances.’

  I knew Harvey in this mood, grave and heavy in his ponderous pomposity. Yet his eyes still twinkled.

  ‘There was nothing to dispute,’ I assured him, but remaining quietly alert.

  ‘There was one inaccuracy, my dear. You are not the wife of Graham Tonkin.’

  ‘His widow then.’ I shrugged.

  ‘Not even his widow. He divorced you almost a year ago. Date of decree absolute…’ He glanced at his notes. ‘January the 6th, this year.’