Kill My Darling

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Thank you for that comforting thought. But McGuire’s record only goes back ten years, to the time of the Greenford crash. Before that he was a hospital porter living in a council flat in Paddington. Why the sudden break?’

  ‘He might well have wanted a complete change after the trauma of the crash. Why not?’

  ‘And there’s the fact that he and Hunter were both in the crash, and he’s the one who found Hunter’s murdered daughter ten years on. That’s one hell of a coincidence.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Atherton admitted lightly, ‘there you have me. I’ll go for a coinkidink every time over hard fact. Makes life so much more interesting.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be polite to me and flatter me. You seem to forget I’m your boss,’ Slider said, plipping open the car and climbing in. ‘I should hate to see you throwing everything away when the world is at your feet.’

  ‘Usual place for it,’ Atherton observed, getting in the other side. ‘Where are we going now?’ he asked, as Slider started the engine.

  ‘Where d’you think?’ said Slider.

  ‘Oh boy,’ said Atherton. ‘I feel a lawsuit coming on.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ Slider admitted after a silence, ‘and it’s my fault.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When Norma brought me the forensic report on the clothes, I was busy. I told her to precis for me. I didn’t read it until last night.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The dog hair on her clothes wasn’t black, it was white. And Marty doesn’t have a white hair on him.’

  Atherton wrinkled his nose. ‘McGuire had a white dog,’ he admitted, ‘but it was the dog that found her. The hair could have got on her clothes then.’

  ‘She was found lying on her back. The hair was on the seat of her skirt. So unless the dog managed to turn her right over and sit on her—’

  ‘Ah, I’m with you now.’

  ‘Every dog owner has the dog in the car at some point, and dog hair is the devil to get off the upholstery. So if we can DNA match McGuire’s dog’s hair to the hair on her skirt—’

  ‘We’ve got him. Hallelujah, some firm evidence at last.’

  ‘But we won’t tell him that to begin with. If I’m right, I think he may confess.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Dieu Que Le Son Du Cor Est Triste Au Fond Des Bois

  There was no answer from McGuire’s half of the maisonette. ‘I hope he hasn’t skedaddled,’ Slider said.

  ‘Or done himself in,’ said Atherton.

  ‘Thank you for that cheery thought.’ He rang again. ‘The dog’s not barking,’ he observed.

  ‘So he probably has flitted,’ Atherton said.

  ‘Or he’s taken it for a walk.’ He tried one more ring.

  A window upstairs opened and a woman stuck her head out. ‘He’s prob’ly down the pub. The Bells. Round the corner. Why don’t you try there? I can’t hear the telly for your ringing.’

  They left the car and walked round. The Six Bells, like most pubs since the smoking ban came in, had to use food to entice the customers in, and most of it was laid out for restaurant purposes, though there was a small bar area in the back. They strolled round the whole premises but there was no sign of McGuire. The bar and waiting staff were all young, mostly East European and temporary, and even when you could get them to stand still for a minute, they had no knowledge of the customers. But there was one older woman, smartly dressed from the Valerie Proctor catalogue, who came out from the back just as they were admitting defeat. She clocked them at once for what they were (what was it? The suits? Slider wondered. Or did they have ‘policemen’s eyes’? Horrible thought), backed them into a quiet corner and said, ‘Looking for someone? What’s he done?’

  ‘Why does everyone always ask that?’ Atherton said plaintively. ‘As soon as we want to talk to someone . . .’

  ‘He’s just a witness,’ Slider said. ‘Or we hope he might be.’ He described McGuire.

  ‘Oh, yeah, Old Bill we call him. His name’s Bill,’ she added helpfully. ‘Got a little dog. We don’t mind dogs if they’re well behaved. Not in the restaurant area, of course.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Slider agreed kindly. ‘Has he been in tonight?’

  ‘Not been in – ooh – a while. Quite a regular usually. Weekends, mostly, though he does come in of a weekday night, but he doesn’t drink then – has something soft. Very strict. Says he’ll never put his job in jeopardy. Mind you, Friday nights and Saturday nights he tanks it a bit. But he’s never any trouble. Have to stop him singing sometimes. Got quite a nice voice, but we can’t have the punters singing. Gives the wrong impression.’

  ‘Can you remember when you last saw him?’

  ‘No, not offhand. It’s been a while, though. Couple of weeks, maybe.’

  ‘Can you remember Friday week past?’ Slider asked. ‘Was he in then?’

  ‘Dunno. Maybe. Probably – Fridays are his big night. Wait a minute, was that the night he ran out of cash?’ She screwed up her face with effort. ‘I think it could’ve been. It was a Friday, anyway. He tried to get credit, the cheeky bastard. I told him to sling his hook.’

  ‘Do you know what time that would have been?’

  ‘Are you kidding? I can’t remember stuff like that from weeks ago. It was before chucking out time, I can tell you that, though. I only remember it was a Friday because he was back in the next night – Saturday being his other drinking night – and I told him no credit before he could open his mouth, and he got out his wallet and showed me cash.’ She frowned again. ‘Now I think about it, he wasn’t his usual self that night. Usually he’s the life and soul of the party, laughing and joking and trying to sing, like I told you. But that night he just sat down at the end of the bar and threw ’em back, not a peep out of him. I think that might’ve been the last time I saw him, come to think of it. Has something happened to him?’ There was an eagerness for disaster in her voice that Slider didn’t want to feed.

  ‘Not that I know of. I just want to talk to him about something he might have seen.’

  ‘Well, if he comes in, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him,’ she said.

  They walked back to the car. ‘Ran out of money on the Friday, got chucked out early,’ Atherton said. ‘That fits. A phone call to Melanie – “Can you lend me some money, pet?” And when she agrees to meet him outside her flat with the cash, “You wouldn’t get me a Chinese on your way, would you?” And she says, with a degree of irritation, “All right, Dad.” As per report.’

  ‘And on Saturday night he’s drinking to forget.’

  ‘He’d got some balls going to the pub at all. If it was him.’

  ‘If it was him, he might feel he had to stick to his usual pattern. But couldn’t quite hack the bonhomie.’

  ‘Well, I like him better for that, anyway,’ Atherton said. ‘If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a cheerful murderer.’ They reached their car. ‘What now?’

  Slider was looking past him, towards the Lido. ‘Here he comes,’ he said quietly. ‘He must have been taking the dog for a walk. Why didn’t we think of that?’

  McGuire was shuffling along, hunched into his clothes, the little dog trotting at his side, looking subdued, glancing up at his master from time to time in that anxious way dogs have when something doesn’t feel right. He didn’t seem to see the two men waiting for him until he actually reached them, and then he stopped and looked at them with an appalling resignation, and so much pain, if he had been an animal Slider would have wanted to put him down right there and then.

  ‘Mr Hunter,’ he said quietly, ‘can we have a word with you?’

  He showed no surprise. He just looked old – his face lined, his eyes bagged and raw, his skin slack and grey. It was as if all the lost years of William McGuire had been added to his own, a terrible reverse Dorian Gray of a punishment. The dog watched them warily, nose working hard, waiting for a cue from its master as to whether to wag or growl.

  At last McGuire said, ‘
You’d better come in.’ His voice was different from the way Slider remembered it, from their first interview: lighter, his accent posher, more suited to an educated man rather than a manual labourer. So he had been a bit of an actor as well, Slider thought as they followed him to his door. Well, that was no surprise. There was always a bit of an actor in the man who lived by his charm. But there was no sign of that charm now. This was a beaten man; the spark had gone out.

  There was no smell of drink in the room, or from McGuire. He let the dog out into the back garden, and came back, caught Slider sniffing, and said, ‘I’m not drunk. I haven’t touched a drop for five days. I’m never going to drink again.’ He sat down heavily in an armchair whose seat bore the impression.

  ‘You didn’t react when I called you Mr Hunter,’ Slider said. ‘For the record, you are Graham Hunter, aren’t you?’

  He seemed to think about it for a moment; or perhaps he was choosing his words. ‘If you’ve got as far as asking me that question, I suppose there’s no point in denying it. I’ve gone all these years wondering when it would come, but after a certain point, you think it’s all been settled in your favour, and you stop worrying. Yes, I’m Graham Hunter – or at least, I was once. I feel as if he died a long time ago. I wish he had,’ he concluded bitterly.

  ‘Tell me about the train crash,’ Slider said. ‘What do you remember about it?’

  ‘Not much about the actual crash. I was going down to Bristol to see a man about a business proposition.’ He made a wry face. ‘Importing edible insects from Latin America – cicadas, beetles and ants. Dried, and mixed in small bags. He said it would be the next snack food craze – eat them at the bar instead of peanuts or pork scratchings. Seen any lately in your local?’ he enquired ironically. ‘I remember there were engineering works and the train was quite slow to start with. Men in red safety jackets beside the line as we went slowly past. Then not long after we speeded up—’

  He paused. The dog came in, flip-flap, from the garden, and looked at them, then sat on the invisible frontier between the sitting room and the kitchen.

  ‘It’s funny,’ Hunter went on, ‘I don’t remember a noise. There was a terrific bang, but it was a feeling rather than a sound. The train was packed and I hadn’t been able to get a seat, which probably saved me. I was standing in the space by the door between two carriages with a lot of other people. Then came this bang. I remember feeling as if all the breath was pressed out of my body. Then I hit the ground, or the ground hit me, and there were bits of debris falling all around me. A twisted piece of metal fell on my outstretched hand. Cut my palm. I was lucky it didn’t sever it completely. I was bruised and breathless, but otherwise I wasn’t hurt. I just lay there thinking, what happened? It seemed like ages, though I suppose it couldn’t have been more than a minute, before the power of thought came back to me, and I said to myself, “The train crashed.”’

  Slider guessed this was the first time he had told this story – who would there have been to tell it to, after all? – which was why he had it all honed and ready. He must have gone over it in his mind a thousand times. All he and Atherton had to do was sit still and listen.

  ‘I sat up,’ Hunter went on, ‘and looked around. There were the trains. The express had ridden over the top of the slow train, so there were three carriages sitting on top of it. Both engines had derailed and were on their sides and one of them had caught fire. Some of the carriages were catching, too. And there was debris everywhere. And bodies.’ He stopped. ‘Well, I suppose you’ve seen pictures of it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Slider.

  ‘I got up. I was a bit dazed, I think. I wandered around a bit, just looking, unable to take it in. Then I thought about seeing if there was anyone I could help. The first person I came to was obviously beyond help. A massive great metal thing – looked like a cast-iron water tank – had landed on his head. He was dead as a nail. I didn’t even think about moving that thing – I didn’t want to think what was underneath. But as I knelt there looking at him, I saw the blood dripping from my hand, and realized it was quite badly cut. I couldn’t find my handkerchief for the moment, but I saw one poking out of the dead man’s pocket, so I pulled it out, and it looked clean, so I thought, “He won’t want it any more,” and I tied my hand up with it. And that was when it came to me.’

  He looked at Slider, as if to check that he really knew.

  ‘The idea of swapping identities,’ Slider supplied.

  ‘It was the maddest thing. I think it was a symptom of shock that it even crossed my mind. But I thought, here was a way to start again, a clean slate, leave all my troubles behind. My life was a mess, my marriage was on the rocks, I had debts from here to Timbuktu. If I could just walk away from the lot, I could start a new life, all clean and clear. Like a snake shedding its old skin. I went through his pockets. He didn’t have much, poor bugger. I found a driving licence with his name and address on it, a cheap wallet with a few quid and a Blockbuster card, and one of those plastic name badges on a lanyard – a hospital pass for Queen Mary’s isolation annexe in Greenford – the old fever hospital. Given that, and the fact that his address was in Paddington, I think he must have been on the local train. Well, it was the work of a moment to switch what was in his pockets with what was in mine. And then I walked away. I had a bad moment when a paramedic grabbed me and insisted on looking at my hand – the handkerchief had soaked through and I was fiddling with it. He made me go to the first aid tent they’d set up, and a young doctor stitched it for me. I remembered to tell them my new name for the record, but I couldn’t remember the address. I looked dumb and gave them the driving licence, and I suppose they decided I was in shock. Anyway, they took down the information from that, even worked out I was fifty-five. It was a funny thing – I felt a sort of pang about that. I thought I’d lost thirteen years of my life. But then I was free to go. They were giving out cups of tea and sandwiches in another tent nearby and I got something and sat down for a bit – I was starting to shake with the reaction. But I didn’t want to hang around – I was afraid someone would find out about the switch, God knows how – everyone had too much to do. So I walked to the nearest bit of civilization, which turned out to be Greenford, and got myself a bed in a cheap hotel for the night, took the aspirin the doctor had given me, and slept like the dead.’

  He sighed and looked down at his hand, flexing it absently in the manner of someone who has grown used to the ache and stiffness of age. Slider thought he saw, among the natural creases, the faint scar of an old wound across the palm. The dog thought the movement was for him, and trotted forward, and sat hopefully at Hunter’s feet, but he didn’t notice it.

  ‘Of course,’ he resumed, ‘in the morning I realized what a stupid scheme it was. There was no possible way it could work. My wife would be called to identify the body, and she’d know right away it wasn’t me. I haunted the papers for days, expecting some outcry. When I finally saw my own name on the list of casualties – well, it gave me a jolt, I can tell you. That’s a strange thing to read. And then there was a notice of my death in the deaths column, and the date of my funeral.’ He looked at Atherton as if anticipating the question, though Atherton had not made a sound. ‘No, I didn’t go. I wasn’t quite that mad. By then I’d realized what had happened. Rachel had decided that if I wanted out, she was going to let me. She must have known the body wasn’t mine, but she’d gone along with it anyway. And then I remembered the life insurance. I was more use to her dead than alive. So I stayed dead. I didn’t blame her. Life with me wasn’t a bed of roses for her, poor bitch. If she preferred the money to my company, who’s to say she wasn’t right?’

  ‘What about William McGuire? How did you go about becoming him?’ Slider asked.

  Hunter sighed with a sort of weariness, settling back in the chair as if he needed help to get to the end. The dog, seeing the movement, and tired of waiting, jumped up on to his lap, and he moved his hands automatically to accommodate it. ‘I went to his address
the next day. It was a council flat.’

  ‘Yes. I know the estate,’ Slider said.

  ‘I watched the place for hours to see if anyone would go in or out. Then I thought, this is stupid, bucked myself up and went and knocked. When there was no answer I used the key from his pocket. It was a grim sort of place. One bedroom, small and very dark, sitting room with a kitchen area and a tiny bathroom. Hardly any furniture or belongings. Hadn’t been decorated in an age. Smelt funny, too. But right away I could see he’d lived alone. There was no woman stuff there, no women’s clothes in the wardrobe, no make-up or anything in the bathroom. And the cooking arrangements were primitive. Sliced bread and a tub of Flora in the fridge. A few tins of baked beans in the cupboard. Dirty plates in the sink. I never saw such a bleak place in my life – well, I hadn’t then. I have since. I know a lot about the William McGuires of this world now. But it was just my dumb luck that it was him. A fifty-five-year-old bachelor, works as a hospital porter, lives in a council flat: a person like him disappears, and no one will even notice for weeks. And when they notice, they won’t care. I don’t know if he had any relatives. There was nothing in the flat to suggest it. Maybe he had some, far away and out of touch. I still sometimes wonder if anyone ever asked themselves what had become of old Bill.’

  ‘Did you stay there? At the flat?’

  ‘God, no! That would have been too weird. And maybe dangerous. Once I’d had a look round, I just left, and never went back. I had to find a room to rent and a job. I had five hundred quid in cash with me – it was going to be a down payment to the man in Bristol, to get me in on the scheme – but that was all, and I couldn’t use my credit cards. I needed some way to support myself with no questions asked. Poor old William didn’t have much, but the one thing of value he left me was his driving licence. I went to the library and went online, found a ten-year-old Nissan saloon in decent condition, well looked after, with eleven months MOT, for three-fifty. I got myself a room, from an advert in a newsagent’s, in Maida Vale, and went along and signed up with a minicab company. Within a week, I had my new life all set up. I moved around a good bit for the first year, to foil the scent, in case anyone was looking for me. But in the end, I concluded that old Bill hadn’t had any friends in the world, and I settled down in Fulham.’