Farewell Gesture

by Roger Ormerod

  “I can explain all that. Come on, let’s rake him in.”

  “Thank you for the offer, but no.”

  “Please yourself. I’ll arrest him for you.”

  Greaves spoke so quietly that he barely disturbed the air. His pipe held his attention. “Any arrests around here will be made by me, Mr. Filey. This isn’t one of ’em.”

  Filey was stirred to bitter anger, moving round in small circles chasing his nerves. “You know I can make an arrest anywhere—”

  Greaves stabbed downwards. The point of his pipe-prodder stuck quivering in the table surface. “Not here.” Then he lifted his head, and I was surprised at the fury in his eyes. His calm voice had not hinted at it. “If you’ll let me explain about the scarf—”

  “To hell with the scarf.” Filey gestured it away. “I can cover that. Are you coming or not?”

  “I am not coming, and you are not going there.”

  Filey made a sound of disgust and turned away, his shoulders hunched. “It’s about time one of us did something.”

  Greaves’s voice cracked out. It stopped Filey in mid-pace. He’d heard only a gentle swish from the whip before, now he heard the snap. “Do what I say, or I’ll have you out of this town, Filey. Quietly. Officially or otherwise. No fuss. A word to my squad, you know how it works. You won’t be able to move a finger in any direction I’m not pointing. Do I make myself clear?”

  Filey was half turned. His eyes were narrowed and his glare killed the head on my beer. He said nothing.

  “Your patch is Killingham,” Greaves went on. “Your murder was there. It’s not here. Nothing for you here. It’s a domestic matter. Do you understand?”

  “My God, you’re a great help!” Filey snapped. Then he was out of the door, slamming everything in his way to the open air.

  “This damned pipe’s not drawing,” Greaves complained. “Is there any more beer, George?”

  “No,” said George. “Could find you a short, though.” It was a time for celebration.

  “Ah yes!” Greaves prodded again with his instrument.

  I hardly dared to raise my voice, in case I attracted his anger, but I risked it. “Can I go to bed now?”

  Still prodding, Greaves asked, “Who’ve you been fighting?”

  “That was domestic, too.”

  “Don’t play with me, Manson. Who?”

  “Grant Felton.”

  “That figures. Now get off to bed with you. I’ve got some thinking to do.”

  I downed the flat inch of my beer and complied. The last I saw of him he was blowing something very nasty from the stem of his pipe, and beaming at it in triumph.

  I was beginning to realise where I stood—dead in the middle. I knew both sides of the legal war, the criminal and the police. At this time I was neither, simply a civilian who was involved and in some ways informed. So I was both suspect and investigator, with no more than a moral obligation to discover the truth. Moral? Well, yes. It was I who had triggered it, who had been the cause of Dorothy Mann’s coming here, which had brought about the death of Philomena. All right—so I couldn’t be certain of that. But I couldn’t leave before there was something in all this mess of which I could feel certain.

  With this self-justification firmly in my mind, and exhausted from the last two days of effort, I turned my steps towards the bed, but I don’t remember reaching it.

  Thirteen

  There is a vast difference between walking up to a house and driving up to it, especially if it’s on a steep slope. With the car, I arrived with no shortness of breath or excess of perspiration.

  I swept up to the frontage of Seagulls, parked, and got out as though I owned the place. This time I had not been observed, because no one appeared. It was a dull day, with the rain hanging around over the sea. The run of glass along the frontage looked black, offering an oppressive welcome. No one would be out at the pool.

  I first walked to the corner of the building and peered along its side. There was an array of garages, set well back, like the rear of a housing estate. Two of them had their doors open. Two expensive vehicles were on display, and I knew at once that one of them was what had been intended as Philomena’s birthday present.

  Also on display was Grant Felton himself, hovering round the very neat black BMW 320i, with its top down. This was how it would’ve been presented to Philomena. If he’d also hidden her engagement ring somewhere inside it, I guessed he’d have recovered it by now.

  He hadn’t heard me, and was standing with his fists on his hips, three feet of cleaning rag dangling from the fingers of one of them, his head tilted. The zest would have gone from any aspect of cleaning or polishing, now that there was no point. Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop. It occupied his mind, stopped it from wandering where he dared not venture. The car shone. There was no possibility of improving it, but he had a bucket of water against a side wall and the rag looked wet. Somebody had given him an old sheet to tear up.

  “Nice car,” I said, pleasantly enough. “This the one with the six-cylinder engine?” I wandered up towards it.

  He whirled round, like a startled kangaroo, poised to fly at me, his fists now well clear of his sides.

  “Get lost! Ya hear me! Bloody jailbird.” His voice was contained, menace in every word, but quiet.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” I asked.

  “Why ain’t they got you inside?”

  Was that it? He believed I’d killed Philomena! Yet who but Dorothy could have fed him that idea? In a sudden surge of anger I snapped out, “She’ll have told you more than that. Give your brain a rest, cobber.”

  I didn’t know what a cobber was. Perhaps it’s an insult over there. He took a slow pace forward.

  “I’ll kill ya, you bastard!”

  His fury was too bitter to be real. He was poised, with every muscle tingling for attack. I watched his right hand as it swung back idly, trailing the yard-long streamer of rag. It was only subliminally that I recognised the movement, then I knew. He was going to snap it at me. A glance at his eyes, with all their menace focussed on me, that was all I could spare, then I had to watch the end of the rag whipping towards my face, to try to duck, to bring up my left hand to protect my eyes. It cracked at me like a heavy bullwhip.

  They’d done this sort of thing in the changing room at my prep school. A wet towel snapped at a naked buttock could raise weals. A wet cleaning rag could take out an eye. It got me across the back of my hand, hot pain rushing through it. He was shouting—an Aboriginal war cry, perhaps. I heard the rag whistling again, and frantically dived forward to get inside its arc.

  My head took him in the chest. He went back into the boot of the car, and I heard the air whoosh out of him. For a second he couldn’t bring himself upright, and I used the interval to plant my right fist on his nose.

  And stepped back. Dazed, he raised the wet rag to his face, his eyes flinching above it. I could have finished him off right there and then, but the fight had gone out of him, and what was the point? He was a pitiful fake, I realised, a macho puppet, all show-off and nothing but strutting ego.

  “Here,” I said. “This’ll stop it bleeding. A cold shock…”

  I finished the sentence by throwing the bucket of water over him. It was a pity that the top of the car was down.

  I walked away from him. His comments followed me. “Bleedin’ pommy slob!” At full pitch.

  The back of my left hand was red, and was swelling. The knuckles of my right hand were sore. I cursed him, found the bell-push, and waited. The house seemed dead and empty, but by the time I’d decided to ring again the door swung open. It was Aubrey Wise himself.

  “Now what do you want?” he demanded wearily.

  I was getting used to studying people closely, so that now I realised his pose of masterful top executive was suffering under the strain. On his own subject, finance and management, he would no doubt be very telling, but anything else, such as a domestic crisis, left him helpless. Steadily, th
e tragedy of his daughter’s death was undermining him. His eyes were moving round with no certainty as to purpose. Except perhaps for escape. There had been no authority in his voice.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you again—”

  “Haven’t you brought us enough trouble?” It was a plea. No more, no more, he cried silently.

  I didn’t think I was wholly responsible, but I didn’t say so. “It’s your wife I really wanted to see.”

  “That would not be possible.” But his phrasing indicated he could see no valid reason to refuse.

  “I don’t want to upset her…”

  “I’ll not have it.”

  “But perhaps she wouldn’t mind.” I was speaking very gently. “I wonder if you’d care to ask her for me.”

  I was like a tap dripping, jangling his nerves with persistence.

  “She can’t bear to hear one word about our daughter.”

  Our daughter? Not Philomena. Not my darling child. But…our daughter. So she was that to him, connected by a slim cord of filial devotion, the devotion being to the effort he’d expended in an attempt to sever it. Perhaps he hated his daughter, for the shame and distress she had brought. To him the shame would be personal, in the same way as it used to be thought that shame was deserved by the raped girl, when the shame was the rapist’s to bear. I didn’t think his wife would feel the same. She’d be a strange mother if she didn’t want to speak about her daughter. On and on, unendingly.

  “Could you ask her?” I asked gravely.

  He made an annoyed little click with his tongue, and turned. away. “You’d better come in.” I prowled the corridor, staring sightlessly at the paintings. They stared back, uninspiring.

  He returned. “She will see you.” Like royalty. “But I intend to be present.” Not conceding too much.

  Did he think I was going to bully her? Or was I expected to try to trick her into indiscretions?

  “Thank you. That’s all I’m asking.”

  This time it was a small living room, and if it was darkened by half-drawn shades it was not from bereavement, but to protect the lady’s eyes.

  There wasn’t much to look at, anyway, the furnishings matching the heavy velvet curtains, hideous ornaments and the dreary tock of a clock, marking off each second closer to the grave. A room to which you could bring your miseries. They lay thick underfoot, waiting to be picked up and fondled, and their harrowing memory revived.

  She was seated in a winged easy chair, placidly, dressed in a plain grey blouse and a black skirt long enough to enable her to rest her clasped hands in her lap without displaying her legs. I had the impression that she had reached the chair just before I entered, dragged from her Jane Austen.

  She inclined her head, and the light caught it. She had blond hair so pale you wouldn’t notice that it had turned grey.

  “If you will sit there,” she said.

  It was a light, musical voice, but with a reserve of strength behind it. I’ve heard the same in Wagner, just before Brünnhilde lets fly on a high note. So I was not impressed, merely braced for whatever was to come. The chair she had indicated was directly facing her, a Hepplewhite which he had intended to be looked at rather than sat on. My stay was to be limited.

  I made a murmuring sound of compliance, and sat. I couldn’t see what had happened to Aubrey, and licked the back of my left hand.

  “And you are?” she asked.

  “My name is Paul Manson. I’m a friend of Dorothy Mann. I knew her as Philomena Wise in Killingham.”

  “I’ve heard of you.” There was no longer any need to dispute the fact that Dorothy Mann was known there.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the real one. Your daughter.”

  “But you didn’t know her?”

  “No. We never met.”

  Now that my eyes were getting used to the gloom, I could see her more clearly. She had what must have been a pretty face, though with a nose too long for it, and now it had the smooth appearance of well-tended skin. Her eyes were dark. Even without the assistance of reflected light they blazed with an internal passion. Her mouth was firm, but there were stress lines around it. She compressed it often. With disapproval, no doubt.

  Here was the strength of the marriage. She was the driving force behind Aubrey, and the force that had tried to drive her daughter, though perhaps she had succeeded only in driving her in the wrong direction.

  She had hesitated a long while before deciding what to say next. “If you never met her,” she said at last, “I can’t understand your interest.”

  “I’d have liked very much to have met Philomena,” I told her, and even to me it sounded empty of sincerity. “I’m now in a position of being deeply involved with her…with what happened to her.”

  “And why is that?” she asked politely, but with distant interest.

  “Because the police are building up a case against me. In sheer self-defence I need to know more about her, who her friends were and who she’d approach for advice. That sort of thing.”

  To my surprise she gave a strange little snigger, as though I’d made a joke, a slightly blue one. But no, it seemed it was only an expression of bitter cynicism, judging by what she said next.

  “You’d have difficulty in understanding Mena, young man. That’s what we called her—Mena. And you’re not young enough to relate…is that what they say these days?…relate to her. She was always a difficult child, obstructive and sulky, and even argumentative. She managed to give the impression that she demanded something from us we couldn’t give, yet we were always generous in our help and advice.”

  She touched her lips with a handkerchief. It was real lace, and wafted a musky scent at me.

  “Of course,” she went on, as though he wasn’t there, “her father was useless. With a boy he might have related—there it is again—related to him. With a girl it was difficult, though if she asked for it he gave her money. Whatever she wanted. And he was generous in his advice on how to invest it.”

  Again she hesitated. I caught on a half smile and suppressed it. For a second I’d suspected her of humour, even if it was something that had gone sour with age and disuse. But no, I decided, she had simply stated fact. There was no murmur of protest from Aubrey, who was now no more than a pattern on the wallpaper.

  “And I,” she said with distant pride, “did what I could for a young girl in the way of moral advice. Don’t you think, young man, that personal morality is so very important in an age when society is in danger of crumbling from a lack of self-discipline? So I taught her morality. Tried to, but they have no use for that these days. In my day…but never mind that…but now they use sex as casually as they do a knife and fork. For pleasure!” she cried, her voice thin with disgust and long-repressed emotion.

  I said nothing. It was clear why they had only one child. I murmured encouragingly.

  “No,” she decided, “I think I was quite correct in not trying to advise her on sexual matters. But on social morality I did what I could. She was a girl who could have cultivated the most refined friends. There were numerous opportunities for improving relationships. But she rejected all my offers to help. Ungrateful child. She went her own wild way, and associated with riff-raff from the streets. And of course…well, you know where she finished—in court.” She nodded, tight-lipped.

  “But as a witness,” I tried in consolation.

  She rejected it with a break in her voice. “She knew them!” Her voice faltered, and she went on close to a whisper. “How could she have done this to me! I tried. I argued, I discussed, I pointed out the ways in which she’d been led astray. But she rejected me. She went off with that crowd of…of back-street thugs.”

  I thought that in Philomena’s position I too would perhaps have gone off. With anybody, for a little light relief. Dracula, if necessary.

  “A great disappointment,” I murmured, moving uneasily and cursing Hepplewhite.

  She had pulled herself together, looking down at her fingers, which were
tearing the handkerchief to pieces. Then she looked up. Her eyes were as dominating as ever. “If I’ve been of any assistance…”

  “Thank you, yes. I take it, then, that she’d have hesitated to confide in you?” What a useless question! I was trying only to keep the conversation going, feeling my way.

  “I’d have been very surprised.”

  “A man came to this district, to see her, to make her an offer—”

  “As though I’d know about that.” She cut me off shortly.

  “If he managed to contact her, and did make the offer, it would’ve given your daughter one or two problems to worry about. She might have needed advice. Urgently.”

  She was shaking her head. “She’d have made her own decisions. She was very wilful.”

  “But Dorothy Mann has been staying with you,” I suggested. “Would your daughter have confided in Miss Mann?”

  “That is conceivable.”

  “Even have asked for her advice?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Do you know if she did? Did you hear them discussing anything kind of secret?”

  She lifted her head in surprise. It was as though I’d suggested she would lower herself to eavesdropping. “Certainly not.” Then she unbent a little. “They were friends. Always whispering together.”

  “She’s not here now?”

  “Not at this moment. She’s been staying with us until all this dreadful business is over. Now…if you have nothing more to say…I am feeling very tired.”

  I was glad to comply with her suggestion, and got to my feet. I was tired and stiff and frustrated. But I didn’t say so.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Wise. I’m much obliged. I’ll show myself out.”

  “Certainly not,” she said, lifting her chin. “Aubrey. Show Mr.…er…er…out, please.”

  Aubrey separated himself from the shadows, appearing at my elbow with stately dignity. “This way,” he said, as though I didn’t know.

  We went back through the house. We saw nobody. There was silence. Such a large and magnificent home, with so few people rattling around in it! How would they manage to extract their full quota of enjoyment from it unless they moved quickly from one room to the other, perhaps completing the circuit in a week? Shall we go to the Thursday room and have an exciting game of Scrabble? No, we’re in the Friday room today. Yes of course—didn’t you have a grand piano put in it last Saturday—I must see it.