Six Feet Under

by Dorothy Simpson

  She waited until they had pulled out in the traffic and then half turned to face him, resting one arm on the back of her seat so that her fingers were brushing his shoulder

  “Fire away,” she said

  13

  Thanet did not immediately respond to her challenge. The afternoon traffic was building up and he waited until they were clear of the worst of the congestion and out on the Nettleton Road. Once they started to talk he wanted to be able to give her most of his attention. Meanwhile, he thought about what he was going to say. Some of it could be distinctly tricky.

  He began blandly enough.

  “I just wanted to talk to you about Monday night.”

  “Surprise, surprise! But I really haven’t anything to tell you, Inspector.”

  “You were out that evening, though.”

  “Yes.”

  “In Sturrenden?”

  “Right!”

  “At the cinema, with Chris Gamble.”

  Silence. Then, “If you damn well know it all, why bother to ask?”

  She didn’t deny it, though. He wondered what she was trying to hide behind that flippant, half-cynical manner. Thinking of her parents, it wasn’t difficult to guess: a rampant insecurity, a bitterness which could poison her life if she weren’t careful. He would have to be gentle with her.

  After a moment she said sulkily, “Who told you, anyway?” And then, “I suppose you’re going to tell my father?”

  He ignored the first question. “Why should you assume that?” he said.

  She shrugged. “Isn’t that your job? Stir us all up and see what crawls out?”

  “That’s not how I see it. There’s no virtue in causing unnecessary distress. I simply want to catch a murderer.”

  A quick, sideways glance showed that she didn’t believe him; she was staring out of the window, lips set in a stubborn line, arms folded defiantly. He sighed inwardly. This was going to be difficult.

  There was a lay-by ahead and he signalled, pulled into it, switched off the ignition. Then he turned to face her. She really was a beautiful girl, he thought, with the kind of good looks that would improve with age: a smooth oval of a face and a classic bone-structure.

  “Did either of you see or hear anything unusual on your way back from the bus stop?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know about Chris. I didn’t.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I told you, no.”

  No point in pursuing the subject. “What did you think of Miss Birch?”

  “Oh, her.” Her mouth twisted and she looked away, out of the side window.

  “You didn’t like her.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “She was a creep, a real creep.”

  “In what way?”

  She looked at him then, a long, considering look. He could hear her thinking, How much shall I tell him?, almost as clearly as if she had spoken the words aloud. At last, “She snooped,” she said. “Poked her nose into everything.” Indignation made her expansive. “I’d get home and find she’d even been through my underwear drawer, for God’s sake!” Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “I didn’t fancy wearing it, I can tell you, when I knew she’d been pawing it. She thought I didn’t know, of course, but she never put things back in exactly the right way. You wouldn’t believe how tidy I got, laying little traps for her. And she fell into them every time. If I could have locked up everything I owned, I would have.”

  “You never tackled her about it?”

  “What was the point?” Susan said scornfully. “She would simply have denied it. There was never any proof, you see. And she never actually took anything.”

  “To know that you knew might have been enough to stop her.”

  “Not on your life. She loved it, you see. Poking and prying. I bet that’s what finished her off in the end.”

  “You mean, she found out something.…?”

  “That someone couldn’t afford to let her know.”

  “Who, for example?”

  “Mr Casanova Ingram, perhaps, and his fancy woman. I bet he wouldn’t want his wife finding out about her.”

  “You know who she is?”

  “The girlfriend? Sure. Works in that glam hairdressing salon in Turtle Street. Blonde and very painted.”

  Useful information, if true. As it probably was, for it could easily be checked. But why was Susan being so free with it? Diversionary tactics?

  “I heard your mother playing the piano this afternoon,” he said. “She’s very good, isn’t she?”

  She looked at him warily. “Very.” She hadn’t been fooled by the apparent inconsequence of his remark, he could see.

  He would have to come out into the open, do it as gently as he could. She was painfully vulnerable and he didn’t want to hurt her, but he had to find out exactly what part Carrie had played in the Selby household.

  “Susan,” he said gently. “I’m sorry, but I know … about your mother.”

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him, just stared at him for a moment, eyes stretched wide.

  “My God,” she said, “you’re despicable, d’you know that? You’re as bad as her, aren’t you, poking about in other people’s lives, turning over the stones and gloating over the nasties that crawl out. How can you do it? What sort of satisfaction do you get out of it?” She was shouting at him now, her face distorted with anger.

  He bowed his head, waiting for the storm to pass, recognising the pain that lay beneath. He was only too familiar with the agonies of distress and humiliation experienced by the families of alcoholics and Susan was, despite her veneer of sophistication, only a child.

  Her anger suddenly fragmented and she began to cry, arms folded across her body, hugging herself as if to try to contain her distress. Thanet pushed a handkerchief into her hand and waited in silence.

  When, finally, her sobs had abated she blew her nose and whispered, “You don’t know what it’s like. You can’t imagine.”

  He said nothing.

  “It’s him, you see. My father.” She blew her nose again. “He’s.… You’re right, you know. Mum is a fine pianist, but she’s nothing now to what she was. I’ve read her press cuttings. She could have been really first-rate—world-famous, even, perhaps. And he stopped her. Wanted a meek little wife to cook his meals, warm his carpet slippers and generally run around him in circles. God knows why she was prepared to do it. I suppose she was in love with him, wanted to please him, and before she knew where she was it was too late to change things. He’s a tyrant, d’you know that? A real tyrant. D’you realise, he won’t even let me go out in the evenings unless he knows exactly where I’m going, who I’m going with.… No boyfriends.… I haven’t been to a party since I was thirteen.… So I’m not making any excuses about deceiving him over Chris. And, believe me, once I’m eighteen, he won’t see me for dust.”

  She glanced at Thanet, looking at him properly for the first time since her anger erupted.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “You’re wondering what’ll happen to Mum then, if I do go. You’re thinking I’m a selfish bitch. Well, maybe I am, but if so, then it’s him that’s made me so. As for Mum.…” Her face crumpled and for a moment Thanet thought she was about to start crying again. She regained control, however, and looked down at her hands, twisting his handkerchief into a long, tight spiral. “I’ve just got to save myself, you see. It’s too late for her, he’s ruined her, so I’ve just got to get away. It’s the only way I can survive.…”

  She looked at him again then, a surprised, assessing look. “No,” she said. “You weren’t thinking that at all, were you?”

  Thanet shook his head gently.

  The compassion in his eyes made hers fill with tears. “What am I going to do?” she said. “Oh, what am I going to do?”

  Thanet reached out to take her hand, squeezed it briefly before releasing it, and laid it back in her lap. It would need far more time than he could give, to help her. “Isn�
��t there anyone you could talk to, in confidence?”

  Her mouth twisted. “Who, for example?”

  “One of the teachers at school, perhaps?”

  “Not really. Well, perhaps there is one …”

  “Why not think about it? Or there’s a youth counselling service in Sturrenden.”

  She gave a quick, vehement shake of the head. “I couldn’t talk to a stranger.”

  “I’m a stranger, and you’re talking to me,” he said. “People say it’s often easier, to talk to strangers. They’re not part of your life, you see. You don’t have to face them, afterwards.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that.” She was much more composed now and she pulled a rueful face. “Wow, look at the mess I’ve made of your handkerchief. I’ll have to buy you a new one.”

  “Forget it,” he said. “Losing handkerchiefs is an occupational hazard.”

  She smiled, then, for the first time and Thanet caught his breath at the transformation. “Susan,” he said, “before we get back to what we were discussing, let me just say this. Try not to let your relationship with your father poison your life. After all, if you think about it, that really would be letting him win, wouldn’t it?”

  She bit her lip, frowned, looked away.

  “And now, back to business,” he said.

  It was much easier, this time. And he had been right, he discovered. It had been impossible to hide Mrs Selby’s sickness from Carrie and Major Selby had decided to use the fact to his own advantage, to employ her as a watchdog during his frequent absences on business. Her job during those morning and evening visits had been to hunt out Mrs Selby’s hidden reserves of alcohol and pour away the contents of any bottles she found.

  “Can you imagine what it was like” Susan said bitterly, “knowing that she knew, feeling that she had Mum at her mercy, so to speak? And what was the point anyway? Mum always managed to hide it away somewhere …” She stopped, clearly torn between loyalty to her mother and dislike of the cleaning woman. “It’s an illness, you know,” she said, defensively. “Mum just can’t help herself. I’ve read up about it. And it can be treated, there are places.… But Dad could never look at it like that. He sees it as a simple matter of willpower.… Simple!” She gave a bitter little laugh. “I tried to persuade him to get her some proper treatment, but he would never listen. He’s too afraid it’ll get out, that his precious social standing would be smirched, if people knew. He’d rather sacrifice his own wife.…” She gave Thanet a shamefaced little glance. “I did try to help her, but he wouldn’t have it. I wanted to give up school after my O Levels, stay at home with her, but he wouldn’t allow me to. He preferred to use that woman, instead.”

  “He wasn’t afraid she’d talk?”

  “Oh, he paid her well, believe me. No, she knew which side her bread was buttered.”

  How well? Thanet wondered, remembering the bundles of notes, the carrier bags of expensive clothes. And had Carrie become greedy, put pressure on him? Major Selby wouldn’t have liked that. Nor, for that matter, would he have enjoyed being beholden to her. Perhaps he had begun by finding it the lesser of two evils, ended by finding it intolerable.

  “You arrived home before your father on Monday evening, I believe,” he said.

  She looked at him with quick understanding. “Yes, I did. And if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you can forget it. Carrie had left even before I got home.”

  “She was there on Monday night?”

  “She must have been. She always came when Dad was away.”

  “But not on the evening he was due home, surely?”

  “No. But he came home early this time. He wasn’t really due until Tuesday. He got through his business more quickly than he had expected, I gathered.”

  “Would he have let your mother know that he was coming home early?”

  “Probably.”

  “In that case, she would surely have got a message to Carrie, saying that it was unnecessary for her to come?”

  “I suppose so. You’d have to ask her.”

  Thanet didn’t say that he already had, that Mrs Selby had lied over her husband’s expected time of arrival. And why should she have done so? Because she didn’t want Thanet to know that there had ever been a possibility of Carrie having been in the house on Monday evening? Could she suspect her husband of the murder?

  “Where was your mother, when you got home?”

  “In bed.” Susan grimaced. “Well, not exactly. She was, to be precise, lying on top of it.… And if you’re thinking she could possibly have had anything to do with Carrie’s death, you can forget it. Mum was out for the count. Had been for some time, by the look of it. I went straight up to her room when I got in and I’d just managed to get her under the covers when Dad arrived. So I could just pretend she was in bed and asleep, thank God.”

  But, thought Thanet, what if Major Selby was at that point arriving home for the second time? What if he’d come home earlier, while Carrie was there, and found his wife in a drunken stupor? Might he not then have accused Carrie of incompetence, have lost his temper? Thanet could just imagine the scene: the Major purple in the face, Carrie meek, submissive yet all-powerful—just the sort of situation to provoke a man like Selby beyond endurance.

  “You heard your father’s car come into the drive?”

  “No, just the back door shutting.”

  So it was possible. Selby’s car could already have been in the garage at the back of the house when Susan arrived home. Perhaps it would be possible to trace someone who had actually seen the Major’s car turning into the drive?

  Thanet had learned as much as he could from Susan for the moment so he thanked her, started the car and drove her back to Nettleton in thoughtful silence. Just as she was getting out, however, he thought of something he had forgotten to ask.

  “I believe that on several occasions you saw Miss Birch on the last bus back from Sturrenden? Always on Thursday evening, I understand?”

  Susan turned back, stooping to talk to him through the open door. “That’s right, yes. I wondered if she’d tell Dad about Chris and me, but she never did. She’d just give me that sly, knowing look of hers. It seemed enough for her, to know that you knew she knew, if you see what I mean.”

  “Can you remember how she was dressed on those occasions?”

  Susan’s eyebrows rose. “Sure. Same as usual. Drab old this and that. As if she’d just walked into a jumble sale and grabbed the first dreary things that came to hand.”

  “Did you happen to notice if she was carrying anything?”

  Susan considered. “Just a handbag I think. Nothing very bulky, anyway.”

  “Did you ever run into her earlier in the evening, in the town?”

  “No, never.”

  “And she never gave you any indication of where she had been, on those Thursday evenings?”

  “’Fraid not.” Susan’s attention had strayed now and she was looking over her shoulder at the house, wondering no doubt what sort of state she would find her mother in today.

  It was with compassion that Thanet said goodbye and watched her walk away up the drive towards her expensive home and her daily purgatory.

  14

  “What the hell has it got to do with you?” snarled Ingram.

  Dennis Ingram was the owner of the largest employment agency in Sturrenden and his office was as modern and expensive as his house: thick carpets, chrome and leather chairs, smoked glass tables and paintings to which Thanet wouldn’t have given house room. Its one enviable feature in his opinion was the view of the river, framed in a window the length of Thanet’s living room.

  “Nice view you’ve got here, sir.” Thanet said, crossing the room to look out at the broad expanse of water, shimmering in the late afternoon sun. The inconsequence of the remark was, he knew, deliberately provocative. When people were angry they were often indiscreet. And he was comfortably sure of his ground. After dropping Susan he had called in at the hair-dres
sing salon in Turtle Street before coming here. Ingram’s “blonde, very painted” had freely admitted her involvement with him—which was evidently more than Ingram was prepared to do, the other way around.

  “Never mind the bloody view. I don’t see what right you have to come poking about in my private life.” Head down, colour high in cheeks, Ingram looked like an angry bull about to charge. There was no doubt about it, he was over-reacting. Because he was afraid that his wife would now find out about his girlfriend, or because he had been involved in the murder? Thanet was determined to find out.

  “Mr Ingram,” Thanet said in a world-weary tone, “your private life is, I can assure you, of no interest to me except insofar as it touches upon the murder I am investigating. No,” he said, holding up a hand as Ingram opened his mouth to interrupt, “please, let me finish. The young lady in question has already admitted her involvement with you. I am merely asking you to confirm it. If that involvement has no bearing on the case, I can assure you that my interest in the matter will cease forthwith.”

  Ingram stared at him, eyes narrowed. “You mean,” he said at last, “that my wife doesn’t necessarily have to know about this?”

  “What would be the point in my telling her? Assuming, of course, as I said, that there is no connection with the murder.”

  “But what possible connection could there be?” said Ingram. He had relaxed a little now and was sitting back in his chair. He picked up a pencil and began to slide it through his fingers from one hand to the other in a smooth, rhythmic movement that Thanet guessed was habitual.

  Thanet found this reaction interesting. Hands were often a give-away, less easily controlled than facial muscles. It really began to look as though Ingram’s main concern was his wife.

  Thanet shrugged. “At this stage I’m casting around amongst Miss Birch’s acquaintance, seeing what turns up. Seeming irrelevancies can often prove to be of vital significance.”

  “Well, this one won’t,” Ingram said. “It’s true that I have been … involved … with Miss Parker, but I really do fail to see how that fact could have even the remotest connection with the death of Miss Birch.”