Death Penalties

by Paula Gosling

  ‘As far as you know,’ John Soame said.

  ‘I know that Roger couldn’t hold on to money at all,’ Tess protested. ‘I’d certainly have known if—’

  ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ he interrupted, firmly. ‘But the fact is, the newspapers are always full of stories about wives who are astounded to discover things about their husbands after they’ve died or run away.’

  That was certainly true, Tess thought, ruefully.

  John Soame spoke again. ‘Was he a secretive man?’

  Tess thought about that. ‘Not in a sly way, no. But he did like to surprise people. He was very generous, always bringing home unexpected little gifts and things.’

  ‘What about this – Richard Hendricks, did you say? Your husband’s ex-partner? Would he know about any money?’

  Tess shook her head. ‘I’m sure if Richard had known about any money that Roger had, he’d have given it to me long ago. He’s been very good to us.’

  ‘Did you ask him about this?’

  ‘I rang him last night but there was only the answering machine. When I rang the office this morning, his secretary told me he’s still out of the country on business. He’s gone into partnership with someone else now, doing market research, I think. He and Roger handled a lot of international accounts, and now that we’re in the Common Market, anybody with that kind of experience is in demand. I believe he’s doing very well, already.’

  ‘Have you told him about these calls?’

  ‘No. I just thought it was a crank. Mrs Grimble knows about it, she’s taken a few of the calls. She thinks it’s one of the neighbours. Or the greengrocer or the butcher – depending on who she’s had her latest argument with. That’s more or less what I assumed, too.’

  John nodded. ‘Well, if Max approves of me, you’ll soon know there’s someone in the house all the time. And perhaps the police can convince the telephone people to cooperate.’

  Tess’s eyes widened. ‘The police?’

  He glanced at her. ‘Of course. You’ve been threatened, and threatening phone calls must be against some law or other. I’ll ring Scotland Yard when I get back to London later this afternoon and find out the position.’

  The middle-aged woman in the blue hat and coat had stopped pretending not to listen. So had the two men in the seats across the aisle. Tess stared at John Soame in some confusion. Why was he doing this? He saw the question in her eyes and smiled that oddly infectious smile of his. ‘Blame it on Clark Kent,’ he said.

  The meeting between Max and John Soame went very well. As soon as they discovered mutual passions for cricket, stamps, Sherlock Holmes, and World-War-One flying machines, the relationship was solid.

  While they talked, Tess went over to the window and looked out. Maybe it would be all right, after all. Mr Soame would teach Max, she could look after Mrs McMurdo’s house, Mrs Grimble could look after her house, and everybody would be happy. A thin shaft of sunlight penetrated the gloomy overcast sky, and touched a vase of brilliant yellow roses that stood in the window of a room in the opposite wing, seeming to set them alight. That’s a hopeful sign, isn’t it? she thought.

  There was a tentative knock on the door, and a young man poked his head through the gap. ‘Hello? Oh, sorry, Max, didn’t know you had visitors.’

  ‘It’s only my Mum,’ Max said.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ Tess laughed.

  The young man came in a few steps, and smiled. He was dressed in jeans and a bright red pullover, and resembled a plump robin. His hair was a fluff of light brown curls that surrounded his high forehead like a halo, which may have been appropriate, for his shirt had a reversed collar.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Leland?’ He extended a pale hand. ‘My name is Simon Carter. I’ve been visiting your son – I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Tess said, shaking his hand, which was surprisingly warm and firm of grip.

  ‘He’s a vicar,’ Max said, in pretended disgust.

  Simon grinned. ‘I’ve only just been ordained,’ he said. ‘Doing a bit of hospital visiting until I get a parish assignment. Max is trying to convince me that rugby is a much finer vocation. We are fighting the good fight across a chessboard.’ He produced a folded board and a box of chessmen that he had been holding. ‘Mind you, we haven’t finished a game yet, but . . . early days, early days.’

  ‘I’m going to beat you before I go home,’ Max said, with pathetic determination. He looked very tired now.

  ‘Perhaps. But not today,’ Simon said, gently. ‘How about tomorrow, after lunch?’

  Max looked as if he was going to protest, then sank back on his pillows with a sigh. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow.’

  Carter smiled engagingly at them all, and departed.

  Tess walked John Soame to the lifts. After he’d prodded the button to go down, he smiled at her. ‘I’m sure we can get to the bottom of this business with the phone calls, you know. The police must deal with this kind of thing quite regularly.’

  She’d almost forgotten, but he obviously hadn’t. ‘I’ll bet they’ve never dealt with a vicious wardrobe before.’

  He frowned. ‘I must admit, that was worrying, if only because it shows someone got into the house.’ He prodded the lift button again, rather viciously. ‘You must leave the dirty work to those who are good at it,’ he told her.

  She had to smile. ‘Meaning you?’

  ‘Don’t I look the type?’

  ‘Frankly, no.’

  He nodded, accepting her sympathetic assessment. ‘Ah, well, you see – that’s my secret strength,’ he informed her, solemnly, and limped away down the corridor towards the stairs, his awful mac flapping around his long, thin legs. The lift arrived then, but it was too late.

  The caped crusader was gone.

  TEN

  Nightingale had become accustomed to hospitals, but was still a long way from liking to be in one. Their internal workings were akin to those of a small city erected to the glory of some mysterious and undeclared religion. The gleaming instruments and machines glimpsed through half-open doors seemed manufactured for arcane ritual, the various uniforms of doctors, nurses, technicians and workers were worn like vestments to delineate both status and function. The whole edifice was riddled with intersecting corridors leading to unlabelled destinations, and surrounded by a seemingly random and organic encrustation of outbuildings, annexes, and chambers, many of which emitted sudden unexplained bursts of noise or steam. Most of all, there was a peculiar sound that flowed down every hall – a humming pulsation of hidden machinery, overlaid by the susurrus of unseen people speaking softly in secret rooms, using words you could not quite catch, but which seem filled with important meaning.

  He might have enjoyed learning about it all, were it not for the pain.

  He could feel it as he walked down the corridors. Not just the pain of the patients, but the pain of their families as well. Worst of all, he had a heightened awareness of Death hovering in the corners and on the stairways, watching for its chance. To enter a hospital may be to enter a city, he thought, but it is a city at war with battalions of nurses, doctors and technicians on one side, and the dark, invisible shadow of mortality on the other. For Death is a guerilla fighter, and will dart in through any door, any window, given even the briefest opportunity. He’d seen its work, and knew he would see much more in the years ahead.

  A haggard-looking young doctor passed him in the hallway.

  Death is our common enemy, Nightingale thought. But you’re the soldier, and I’m just one of the dustmen, one of the ones who come to clear up after the battle is lost. You might stop Death; I only trace its footsteps back to its instrument.

  And I’m here to do that, now.

  He found the room number he’d been given. The door was open and he looked in to see a woman sitting in a chair beside a bed in which a small boy was slee
ping. She was holding a magazine open on her lap, but was not reading it, gazing out instead at the rain clouds scudding low above the trees.

  ‘Mrs Leland?’ He spoke softly, and she turned, startled.

  ‘Yes?’

  Nightingale introduced himself and showed her his identification. ‘I wonder if I might have a few words with you?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps over a cup of tea? I noticed a visitors’ cafeteria as I came in.’

  She stood up and glanced at the boy. ‘Yes, that would be nice. He’s just had his medication and will probably sleep for another hour or so.’ She smiled at him.

  He was startled by her American accent, which was still strong. Despite constant evidence to the contrary, his image of American girls was of long-legged blue-eyed blondes who were incredibly efficient and laughed a lot.

  Tess Leland had long legs, yes, but she was a brunette with dark eyes, and had a fragile beauty that aroused every protective male instinct. Police detectives are no more immune to that than any other man. She was pale, and her skin had a translucency born of skipped meals and bruised nerves. As a result, her wide-set eyes seemed even larger, and her mouth more vulnerable. And yet there was strength there, too, in the way she held herself, chin up and shoulders back, in unconscious imitation of a soldier facing danger. The fact that she was dressed in a jumper and skirt that accentuated her slenderness made her rigidity of purpose and backbone all the more appealing – and sad. Because the thinness was not natural, and the bravery was assumed. This was a frightened and weary woman.

  The visitors’ cafeteria was newly-decorated, and obviously popular, but they found a corner table empty. Nightingale brought over a tray of tea and biscuits. He draped his rain-soaked coat over a chair and watched her fill their cups.

  ‘I must say, you don’t seem very surprised by a visit from the police,’ he said.

  She glanced up briefly from her task. ‘Well, I’m surprised by the speed of it,’ she admitted. ‘Mr Soame must have made quite a scene to produce such quick results.’

  Nightingale stared at her in some puzzlement. ‘Mr Soame?’

  She put the chrome teapot down and pushed the sugar bowl towards him. ‘Yes.’ It was her turn to frown. ‘Aren’t you here because of Mr Soame?’

  ‘No, I’m here about your husband’s death.’

  She sat back and stared at him. ‘But that was months ago.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Then you’re not here because of someone asking you to come?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Oh.’ She seemed quite taken aback. After a moment’s reflection, she focused on him again. ‘I really don’t understand. You said it’s about Roger’s death?’

  ‘Yes. I’m very sorry to cause you any distress, but I need to ask you some questions about Mr Leland.’

  ‘Why?’

  This was the sticky part. Particularly as it was his day off and he had no official sanction to question her or to make any other enquiries. He didn’t want to upset her, but usually the truth was best. ‘Because I have some cause to believe his death was not just an accident.’

  Damn, he’d seriously shocked her. ‘Of course it was,’ she said. ‘He was going too fast and lost control of the car on a wet street. There was no question at the time, and the insurance company was perfectly satisfied.’ Her voice rose a little.

  ‘Yes, I know. But there was a witness.’

  ‘Was there?’ Sudden weariness seemed to sweep away her initial alarm. ‘Oh, yes, I seem to remember them saying there was someone . . . ’ She sighed and rubbed a temple, then sipped her tea.

  ‘He was a retired police officer, and he had the distinct impression that another car was chasing your husband’s, and that was why he was speeding.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Someone chasing Roger? But that’s crazy. Who would do that? Why?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to find out.’

  ‘Even so – it would still be an accident, wouldn’t it? I mean, Roger was a good driver, but . . . ’ She paused. ‘Like a teenager or something, is that what you mean? Because Roger had challenged him at the lights? He’d do that, sometimes, rev the engine and so on. He liked to win, you see.’

  Nightingale sipped his tea, then shook his head. ‘I don’t think it was like that, exactly.’

  ‘No, of course not, because Max was in the car. Roger would never have played games with Max there.’

  ‘Max?’

  ‘My son.’

  Of course, it had been on the report, a child in the car. Nightingale was horrified. ‘You mean he’s still in hospital because of the accident? I had no idea he was so badly—’

  ‘No, no, Max wasn’t hurt at all,’ Tess said quickly. She could see this was a nice man, that he’d been instantly upset to think of Max being hurt. She didn’t know what it was all about, why he should be coming along to talk to her after all this time, but perhaps it was just bureaucracy, the slow grinding of the paper wheels. ‘They had to cut him out of the car, it’s true, but he was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. It was an adult seatbelt, though, and he slid out and ended up under the dash, sort of cocooned. Bruised and shaken up, and shocked, of course – but whole.’

  ‘He’s ill, then?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Rheumatic fever. He’s at school near here.’ She stared at the sugar bowl, then looked up at him anxiously, and seemed to be seeking some kind of approval. ‘I wanted to keep him home, but everyone said he should go back to school, that it would be better for him to be busy and distracted. It seemed so – so English, stiff upper lip, all that. I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘Did he want to come?’

  ‘He said he did. In the end I could see that probably it would be better for him to go back to school than stay at home and notice the . . . ’ She raised and lowered her shoulders. ‘The emptiness. And I had to go to work, anyway. So, I sent him back.’

  ‘Children are resilient.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. But the accident and Roger’s death must have upset him far more than he let on – he still has nightmares.’ She took a deep breath and let it go in a rush around her words, as if she had to get them out quickly. ‘And I think that he got sick like this because he was trying too hard not to show how much it hurt, so his body – sort of – gave him a way out. Does that make any sense?’

  ‘Shock does strange things to people. We see a lot of it, I’m afraid, and it’s not always just a matter of a cup of sweet tea. There’s something called delayed shock, that could lower someone’s resistance, I expect. I don’t know if it could give him something as serious as rheumatic fever, but I guess it could make him more vulnerable to the germ or whatever when it came along.’ (Or make an old man vulnerable to fear, he added to himself.)

  She nodded, apparently satisfied with this, and drank her tea.

  Nightingale ate a biscuit, giving her time. When she’d topped up both their cups, he spoke. ‘Did your husband have any enemies, Mrs Leland?’

  She frowned, but there was a trace of amusement in her eyes. ‘Good heavens, you really do say that.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, but it did sound like something from a television series.’ She scowled and put on a husky voice.

  ‘ “Did your husband have any enemies?” ’

  He smiled, but shrugged. ‘I can’t think of any other way to ask it,’ he admitted. ‘Does it upset you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. If you mean talking about Roger, that is. I’m over the worst now.’ She sighed. ‘As to whether he had enemies, I imagine he had quite a few.’

  ‘Can you remember their names?’ Nightingale reached for his notebook.

  But she was shaking her head. ‘No. I didn’t mean I knew of any specific ones – just that it wouldn’t surprise me if some people hated Roger, that’s all. You see, he was very competitive
. More than anything, Roger liked to win. He never meant to hurt people, though, there was no cruelty in him. He was always surprised when they got angry or sulked. People didn’t understand or believe he was just out to win for the sheer joy of it, but it was true. Maybe a psychiatrist would argue the point, but I think he was like that because he was always trying to prove to himself that he could win. That was what mattered, not beating other people down, but seeing that he could succeed at whatever he took on.’ She smiled to herself, ruefully. ‘Roger was like a child in many ways; he believed in living for the minute, and enjoying everything – it was all games, really. That’s why I asked about the car race – what do they call it, a “chicken run” or something?’

  ‘I don’t think it was anything like that,’ Nightingale said. He looked down at his empty teacup, and moved the spoon back and forth in the saucer.

  ‘But you suspect someone was trying to . . . to . . . what?’ She was groping for a sense of what he was after. ‘Catch him? Hurt him? Frighten him?’ She paused, then spoke in a whisper. ‘Kill him?’

  Nightingale shook his head. ‘Any of those, all of them, none of them. I just don’t know. Ivor Peters just said there was something wrong, and I believe him.’

  ‘Who is Ivor Peters?’

  He explained who Peters was, and what he said had happened at the scene of the accident. He added that Peters had since passed away, but supplied no details.

  ‘Poor old man. What did he say this man looked like?’

  He gave her the description from Peters’ notebook – it was all he had. ‘About six feet tall, brown hair, regular features, slim-built, wearing dark blue trousers and a light blue windcheater over a white shirt, no tie, no glasses, no distinguishing marks.’

  She looked at him. ‘That could be you, if you were wearing the right clothes . . . ’ She looked around. ‘Or quite a few men in this cafeteria. Or Max’s consultant, come to think of it.’