Death of a Nobody

by J M Gregson

  George Lewis was quite pleased that the superintendent had rung him at Amy’s. It showed her that he really had quite an important job. He was even a man the police relied on for information. He was halfway back to Old Mead Park before he realized that he had made no arrangement to see Amy again. Well, he could always ring. No sense in either of them rushing things along.

  ***

  Gabrielle Berridge gazed out across the rising green acres of Gloucestershire and feared that she would soon begin to hate the view which had once seemed so appealing. Even today, with her lover beside her, the quiet countryside seemed menacing. It was no help to her that she knew the threat came from within herself, from her own awful imaginings, rather from the innocent hills towards which she gazed.

  Even today, with her lover here with her, she could not rid herself of foreboding. Ian Faraday was sitting in the armchair which had once been Jim’s, pretending to read his paper, watching her restlessness and feeling himself affected by it. Wanting to reassure her, he found all he could say was, ‘I burned the clothes, as I told you. I’ve looked all through the house, and there’s nothing anywhere now to connect me with him.’

  ‘So you said. And I’ve looked through here in the same way. And there’s no way they can prove that I removed that pistol.’ She was irritable with him, impatient with his repetitions. This was not how lovers should be with each other, when the obstacle to their alliance had been removed. ‘We’ve been through all this before.’

  ‘I know. But they seemed to believe me when I gave them those theatre stubs. If they once accept that we were in Stratford for the play, they must rule us out of contention for his death.’ He was going over old ground still, mentally ticking things off, trying to set his own mind at rest whilst ostensibly reassuring her.

  Gabrielle said listlessly, ‘Perhaps we can go away for a few days, after he’s cremated.’ She noticed that just as the police had become the faceless ‘they’, so neither of them today mentioned her husband by name. He had become for them a more baleful presence in death than he ever had been in life. When Ian looked at her, she said unnecessarily, ‘It’s been a big strain for both of us, all of this.’

  They both knew what she was getting at; they had not been to bed together since Berridge’s death. The event which should have liberated them seemed instead to have shackled a relationship which had once been so natural. She walked behind the chair, putting her hands on the neck she had caressed so often, feeling how tense the muscles were now. She eased his collar and began a gentle massage. ‘Tell me again about what we’re going to do,’ she said. It was like a callow girl’s demand of her first sweetheart, but he had once said he liked it when she behaved like that.

  And he told her of the house they would have, hundreds of miles from the grave of James Berridge, after their quiet wedding in a little stone church. Of the new job he would have, perhaps now in their own company, where she could help him and be near him. This last idea was an addition to what he had said before the death, and he knew even as he voiced the thought that it was a mistake.

  Their own business would be possible now. But it would be based on her wealth, from her husband’s estate. It brought the man they were trying to ignore vividly back between them, even in the midst of their simple escapism. After a heavy silence, Ian said heavily, ‘Anyway, whatever happens, we shall be together from now on.’

  They remained like that, a Victorian morality painting that no one would ever see, with her standing behind him with her hands at his neck, and his right hand reaching up to hers, gently kneading her fingers, waiting for the answering response which the troubled woman could not give.

  There is no knowing how long they might have remained thus if the phone had not rung on the table beside them. Their heads turned to it in unison. For a long moment, neither of them moved to answer it, as if they knew that the next step in the disintegration of their dreams was at hand. Then Gabrielle stepped briskly to the wall and picked up the receiver.

  Lambert’s voice, professional, not unfriendly, said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Berridge. Is Mr Faraday with you, by any chance?’

  Gabrielle kept her voice neutral. ‘He is. Would you like to speak to him?’

  ‘No, there’s no need, I think. Not if he’s going to be there for a little while. I’d like to see both of you together. In about an hour?’

  She realized when he had rung off that she had not asked him what he wanted to talk about. But both she and Ian were in no doubt about the reason for this visit.

  ***

  Sarah Farrell remembered during the afternoon that it was the day when her gardener tended the patch behind her cottage. She should have thought of it before. It was unlikely that he would touch the back border, which was planted with shrubs. But at this time of the year the weeds were growing fast. He might just take the hoe to it…

  The thought nagged at her, until anxiety became something like panic. Eventually, she said to her senior assistant in the travel shop, ‘I have to go out for a little while. I shan’t be long.’ The woman raised her eyebrows: they were busy with the spring bookings, and the manager was not one to shirk the involvement. But Sarah gave them no further enlightenment.

  By the time she had driven the five miles to the cottage, Sarah was in a state of feverish excitement. Old Joe Philips was not on the tiny patch at the front, though she saw that he had hoed out the weeds beneath the wallflowers in the narrow bed beneath the window. She drove round to her parking space at the back, then breathed a long sigh of relief, smiling wryly at her groundless fears. Joe had just mown the neat rectangle of lawn. He was coming from the garage with the edging shears. ‘Home early today, Miss Farrell,’ he said. The very sound of his broad Gloucestershire accent was an assurance to her that nothing was amiss.

  ‘Not finished work yet, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Just passing through. You’ve got it looking pretty good. It’s a credit to you.’ She had suddenly realized that he might think she had come early to inspect his work, to check on his industry.

  ‘No problem with that, m’dear,’ said Joe. ‘Not room ‘ere to swing a cat round. But it looks right enough, I’ll give you that.’

  He looked appreciatively at the brightness of the Japanese azaleas at the front of the shrub border, and Sarah seized her cue from his glance. ‘There’s no need for you to touch that back border today, Joe. I’m going to give it a hoeing at the weekend. Time I did a bit for myself.’

  Joe Philips did not think there was anything odd in this sudden urge to be involved. He had long given up any attempt to analyse the behaviour of the gentry, and working women were a new and exotic species to workers of his generation. Sarah Farrell was always friendly, and she often paid him in advance. That was good enough for him. He was still looking at the border, and it reminded him of something. ‘Cissie Harding was in here for a minute this morning. I expect she’d arranged it with you.’

  For a moment she could not place the name. Then it came to her. ‘Miss Harding from next door but one?’

  ‘Yes. I can see through to some of your back garden from my bedroom window, you see. She seemed to dig out something from the soil, but I couldn’t see properly. Perhaps she was just looking for that cat of hers — he’s a devil for the birds, that one.’

  Sarah looked at the patch where she had buried the keys: the soil looked freshly disturbed, but then it was only a couple of days since she had dug there herself. She had to resist the urge to rush to the spot now and burrow there before Joe Philips’s astonished eyes. She said, ‘She shouldn’t have come in here without asking. I’ll go and tell her so now.’

  ‘No use now, I’m afraid, miss. She’ll be round at her sister’s this afternoon. Always is, on a Friday.’ He hoped he had not got the old girl into trouble; she wasn’t a bad old stick, when you got to know her. And they were the same generation; there was a sort of bond in that.

  Sarah pulled her eyes from the spot where she had dug with her trowel, forcing herself to turn away when
her senses were screaming at her to check whether her secret had been discovered. She drove back to the shop, her mind in even greater turmoil than on her journey to the cottage. She scarcely knew the woman. If the old biddy had found the keys, what did she plan to do with them? Sarah vowed that she would not be blackmailed, but she could not convince herself of her determination.

  Though it was within half an hour of closing time, the shop was busier than ever, with the telephones shrilling their interruptions to the direct exchanges between customers and staff. Sarah vaguely recognized the large and comfortable figure with the weatherbeaten face who was standing outside the doorway of the shop. She thought at first he was a man in search of a family holiday. It was only when he introduced himself as Sergeant Hook that she was able to place him as the man who had unemotionally recorded her statements about her last hours with Jim Berridge.

  He said, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Farrell. Superintendent Lambert has a few more questions to ask you, I’m afraid.’ Although he began almost apologetically, he knew he was going to allow no refusal.

  But all she said was, ‘Not here, please.’ It was her professional self asserting itself: detectives seeking her out for a second time in a crowded shop would surely excite speculation among her staff.

  Hook smiled. ‘No, not here. We’d like you to come to Old Mead Park, please. There are some discrepancies among the different accounts of what happened there on Tuesday night, you see.’

  He had watched her park her car. It was only two spaces away from his, so they walked together to the vehicles. With this large figure pacing at her side, Sarah Farrell felt already under arrest.

  21

  Sarah Farrell knew the way to Old Mead Park well enough. She was conscious of Hook and Lambert in the car behind her, escorting her watchfully. Perhaps if she had followed them she could have pretended she needed guidance, but she had a feeling they were now beyond such deceptions.

  When she had locked her car and stood awkwardly beside it in the visitors’ car park, Lambert came purposefully across to her. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Farrell. There are some contradictions in the statements we have been given about this business. I thought it best that we got the parties concerned together; it seemed the quickest way to sort things out.’ He turned without inviting any comment from her and went swiftly into the block of flats, leaving her to follow with Bert Hook. The superintendent seemed very sure of himself, she thought. That was rather disturbing.

  George Lewis, observant as ever, had seen them arrive. He came out from his porter’s office, buttons gleaming on the dark green of his uniform, hair immaculately parted and brushed over his sleek head. He smiled at Lambert, wondering about the woman who trailed twenty yards behind him with Hook, far too professionally polished to voice any enquiry about her. ‘You said you’d like to see me, Superintendent. I can see you’re busy at present, but when you think I can be of any assistance, you know that I’ll be entirely at—’

  ‘As a matter of fact, you can help us now, George. I’d like you to lock up your office for a little while and come up to the penthouse flat with us.’

  Even George’s impersonation of Jeeves was not proof against a little note of surprise in the voice as he said, ‘Mrs Berridge’s apartment? Yes, of course I’ll come up, but—’

  He did not complete the sentence, for Lambert had accepted his agreement with a nod and passed on towards the lift. As with Sarah Farrell a moment earlier, he had not even considered the possibility of refusal, and his energy carried them along in his wake. Bert Hook was left to shepherd them both into the lift. That was what sergeants were for, he thought without resentment. He had worked with Lambert long enough to feel the excitement of anticipation.

  It was Ian Faraday who opened the door of the penthouse to them. He showed only a little surprise at the trio assembled behind Lambert. His own apprehension was such that he felt obscurely that there was some sort of safety in numbers. As the group moved into the drawing room, Gabrielle’s only visible reaction was to add two more cups and saucers to the tray she had prepared in anticipation of Lambert and Hook.

  Lambert looked at these preparations and said after a second’s consideration, ‘No refreshments just yet, if you don’t mind, Mrs Berridge.’ She looked full into his face for the first time, struck by a tiny nuance in his tone. She was the only person in the room who appreciated at that moment that Lambert, apparently so thoroughly in control of the situation, was himself under considerable strain.

  It was Gabrielle who said, ‘Shall we sit down, then?’ and disposed them in a semi-circle around the ample easy chairs and sofas of the huge room. She realized too late that she had assumed the role of hostess, even in this macabre situation. The laughter which sprang unbidden to her lips at that thought would have issued as hysteria: she found her fist at her mouth to prevent it emerging.

  Lambert said calmly, ‘Thank you all for coming here. Sergeant Hook and I wanted to see you for a simple reason. All of you have told us lies.’ He glanced briefly round the four faces. No one sought to contradict him, though Faraday glanced briefly at George Lewis, wondering what the porter’s role was in clarifying all this, speculating about exactly how much he had seen. Lambert, finding his statement apparently accepted, said, ‘Dishonesty is not an unusual phenomenon in murder investigations, unfortunately. The problem for us is to sort out which are the important lies: hence this meeting.’

  Five yards from him, Sarah Farrell looked as if she was about to speak. She was exchanging looks with Gabrielle Berridge. Lambert, preoccupied with the solution to this murder, had almost forgotten that he had brought wife and mistress into the same room. But at this moment they looked more like companions in distress than bitter enemies.

  He said, ‘I take it we are agreed that there is no room here for false emotion. Every person in this room, including the two representatives of the law, is glad to see James Berridge removed from the world where he was perpetrating such evil.’ He looked round the room, challenging them to contradict him, but there was no reaction, save for a single curt nod from the widow.

  George Lewis, sitting on the edge of his chair in his carefully buttoned uniform, felt a need to account for the presence of a porter in this catalogue of hate for a murder victim. He said quietly, almost proudly, ‘That includes even me. He killed my friend Charlie, you see.’ Then when the others looked at him interrogatively, he added, ‘Charlie Pegg, who did a lot of joinery work in here, and in the other flats. We went way back, you see, Charlie and me. And Mr Lambert thought I might be of use here.’ With his credentials thus established, he settled a little more comfortably on his seat. He was the only person in the room on a stand chair; that seemed to him the appropriate thing.

  Strangely, in view of these seating arrangements, the porter was the only one in the room who looked relaxed. Hook had produced his notebook and waited watchfully; Lambert was poised to conduct the interplay of this assorted sextet; the other three had given up any attempt to hide their tensions as they sensed a crisis.

  Lambert said, ‘Miss Farrell has left a hectic business to come here. Perhaps we should deal with her first.’ Sarah Farrell’s face showed that she thought that scarcely a privilege. ‘Your statement told us that you quarrelled with the deceased on the night he died. That he then struck you several times, then left you in a distressed condition at about seven o’clock on that evening, driving away in his own car.’

  Inevitably, the eyes turned to look at what they could see of her injuries. The graze on her chin was scarcely visible now, but even beneath careful make-up the technicoloured flesh around her healing eye was apparent. She sat a little more upright in the armchair as she felt their scrutiny, then winced as the pain from the bruise in her side stabbed acutely into her poise. She had not consulted a doctor; she wondered again if she had a cracked rib. Her left eye had been practically closed when the CID men had last seen her. Now the swelling had declined and it was fully open, so that she was able to train b
oth her bright blue eyes on Lambert.

  She had made no move to confirm or amend her original story. Lambert spoke to the room at large, but his eyes never left the woman who had been the dead man’s mistress as he said, ‘One of the curious things about this case is that we never located the second set of keys for the victim’s car. Until today, that is. This afternoon, a dutiful citizen brought them into the police station at Oldford.’

  Sarah Farrell spoke like one in a dream.

  ‘I had them. I buried them in my garden.’ She felt rather than saw the surprise the statement brought to those around her.

  ‘A foolish action. Why?’

  ‘I — I panicked. I found them in my bag after…’ Her voice faltered away as her eyes dropped to the rich green carpet.

  ‘After you had driven James Berridge’s car on the night when he died.’

  Her blue eyes were too revealing. There was fear in them now as they flashed up to look into her tormentor’s face. The others thought she might deny it. Instead, she said, so quietly that they strained to catch the words, ‘How do you know that?’

  It was Hook who looked up from his notebook to tell her. ‘Your taxi-driver came forward and told us. It was no more than his duty.’

  She nodded. A tress of fair hair dropped over her forehead and she was suddenly very weary. ‘If it hadn’t been him, I expect you would have found out from someone else.’

  ‘I expect we should, yes. Especially after the forensic examination of the car produced one of the earrings I saw you wearing on that same night.’ Lambert saw no harm in developing a notion of police omniscience among the rest of the group. ‘You drove Berridge back here on Tuesday night, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. That was what we had the row about at my place, after you’d left us. I said I wasn’t going to drive him anywhere, after what I’d heard.’ She paused, staring past him now, seeing nothing of the room or the people in it, but only the horror of discovering the real nature of her lover in that small neat lounge of hers. ‘I don’t know how many times he hit me. Eventually I screamed that it was enough, that I would do it.’