Death Penalties

by Paula Gosling

  ‘I know. Peters only caught a quick look, and his glasses had come off when he fell. But the description was more or less the same from the girl who rented the car, and the hotel maid. Except they added that he was attractive. Of course, Ivor Peters was retired, and the official verdict was Accidental Death, so he wasn’t in a position to arrange a photo-fit session or get a police artist to draw the man.’ (And neither am I, damn it, he thought.)

  ‘Did anyone say anything about his voice?’ Tess asked, casually.

  He stared at her. ‘His voice? No, I don’t think that was mentioned by anyone. Why?’

  She told him about the phone call, and the silly game with the booby-trapped wardrobe. ‘Although it didn’t seem silly at the time,’ she admitted. ‘It frightened me half to death.’

  ‘Anonymous threats are always scary,’ Luke agreed, sympathetically. ‘It’s not the threat itself so much as the feeling that it could be anybody – a stranger in the street or, even worse, someone you know and trust. You feel the floor isn’t solid any more.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it exactly.’ She was grateful for his understanding. She had been feeling so very foolish about it all, behaving so weakly when it was so important to stay strong for Max.

  ‘And you say there have been other calls?’

  ‘Yes, but they were only silent ones. Nobody ever spoke.’

  ‘It does seem odd, especially when you add it to that burglary of yours —’ he said, slowly.

  She was astonished. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Computers are wonderful things,’ he smiled. ‘I gather it was on the day of the funeral.’

  ‘Yes. That was the cruellest thing about it, to have your house torn apart when you’re at your own husband’s cremation. I could hardly bear it. Fortunately, after the service, I had sent Max to stay with a friend for a few days, and we managed to clear it all up before he came back. I just didn’t want him to know about it – on top of everything else. He was shocked and upset enough as it was.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not all that unusual,’ Nightingale admitted. ‘Houses are often left empty during funerals, and burglars can read the obituary columns just like anyone else.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she sighed.

  ‘The pattern of the break-in seemed rather unusual to me, though,’ he said.

  ‘It seemed just awful to me.’ Tess shivered. ‘I felt there wasn’t a room they hadn’t invaded, a thing they’d left untouched.’

  ‘And yet they took very little and destroyed nothing.’

  ‘Yes. The insurance man told me I was very lucky that they hadn’t broken up the house instead of just dumping out drawers and so on.’

  ‘It seems more likely to me that they were searching for something,’ Nightingale said, leaning back and regarding her from grave, dark eyes. She felt she was being explored and assessed. His glance seemed to travel along hidden veins and nerves, following them to her heart and brain, but she did not feel the sense of invasion she’d felt from the burglary. Had she been approved of – temporarily – or not? It was impossible to tell. She returned his gaze, steadily, but he was not open to a similar evaluation. His personal doors and windows were closed and curtained, she could not discover him that way. Just a tall and attractive young man doing the job he was trained to do. Nothing like Kojak at all. Or the town sheriff back in Amity. How much of his kindness stemmed from his own personality, and how much from his training? Was that smile just Lesson Three on how to put a person at ease? Was Lesson Ten how to soften up someone with gentleness, then pin her with a sharp and unexpected question?

  ‘Do you think they were looking for this money the man on the phone asked you about?’ he asked, suddenly.

  Ah, Lesson Ten. She hadn’t expected it so soon. Steady, now. ‘But there isn’t any money. I told that to Mr Soame. Roger had an insurance policy that paid off the mortgage, and another to cover Max’s school fees, but very little personal insurance – even less, once they found out he hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt.’

  ‘Was that usual – his not wearing a seatbelt?’

  A shadow of some distant annoyance crossed her face. ‘I’m afraid so. Roger was not one to be confined, unfortunately.’

  ‘I see. Go on.’

  ‘Well, after I’d settled all the outstanding bills, there was hardly anything left. Enough to set aside as an emergency fund, but certainly not enough to live on. Not even enough interest from it to cover poll tax, in fact. I had to go back to work, if we wanted to stay fed and clothed. There was no other way. The house is big, and a drain to keep up, but I wanted to hold on to it if I could – because I thought eventually I could sell it to provide a start for Max or something.’

  Nightingale nodded, but his expression had become faintly sceptical. Tess felt oddly let down. Nobody seemed to believe her. She only wished there was some money.

  ‘So you don’t know anything about any sum of money that your husband may have had at the time of his death?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I really don’t.’

  ‘I see.’ He had opened his notebook, but had found no need to write anything in it. Now he closed it and put it back into his inside jacket pocket, watching her face as he did so. She seemed genuine enough. Was this story about the phone calls true? About the booby-trapped wardrobe? She’d said the cleaning lady had taken some of the ‘silent’ calls. Had they come when she herself was home or conveniently away?

  It was not uncommon for lonely, grief-stricken women to behave oddly, to do things to draw attention to themselves. There was the further complication of her son’s illness, the stress and strain of it all, the need for comfort and support from any direction, through any excuse. Was she like that?

  He could believe her, he wanted to believe her, because it tended to vindicate Peters’ conviction that there was something wrong about Roger Leland’s death. And, by inference, his own similar conviction about Ivor Peters’ death. And yet . . .

  There was no proof. No proof for any of it.

  And he only had so much spare time.

  He looked again into Tess Leland’s eyes. She could be imagining things.

  So could he.

  And somewhere in the back of his mind, he could hear Abbott’s dry, quiet voice. ‘Two wrongs don’t make a case.’

  ELEVEN

  Max arrived home four days later. He was thin, and his pale cheeks were flushed with excitement at having travelled such a distance in an ambulance.

  Tess’s heart contracted when she and Mrs Grimble helped the ambulancemen transfer Max to his bed. Although reasonably fit for his age, he had never been a robust child, and now his body seemed all skin and bones. He looked around the room, as if checking that it had not changed while he was away, and his eyes widened at the sight of the big television set and matching video recorder sitting on his desk. ‘It’s a present from your Uncle Richard,’ Mrs Grimble informed him.

  ‘He’s not my uncle,’ Max objected.

  ‘No, nor mine, neither,’ Mrs Grimble agreed. ‘But he meant well, and you should write him a note to say thank you.’

  ‘Okay, I will,’ Max said, resignedly. He’d propped himself first on one elbow and then the other, in order to get the full circle of inspection, and now he flopped back onto his pillows with a thump. Mostly his movements were slow and listless, but he seemed more weary than ill. His joints were still slightly painful, but he didn’t complain. Tess started to murmur sympathetically, and he glared at her. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to say anything about her ‘poor baby’, especially in front of the ambulancemen.

  Mrs Grimble glanced across the bed at Tess, her eyes brimming with unshed tears at the sight of Max’s thin body. She’d only heard about his illness, not seen it first-hand. Now she realized how sick he’d been and how poorly he still was. ‘Poor mite,’ she murmured, as they left the room.

  ‘H
e’ll be fine,’ Tess said, with more confidence than she felt. ‘All we have to do is feed him, look after him, and love him.’

  ‘All any mother ever wants to do,’ Mrs Grimble observed. ‘’Cept these days nobody lets her.’

  Tess looked at the old woman with deep affection. Mrs Grimble had brought up two sons, both of whom had turned out almost too well, for they were now abroad making careers for themselves. One day, when they’d settled, one of them might send for her, but Tess selfishly hoped it wouldn’t be for a long time.

  Of course, Mrs Grimble might refuse to go to a new and unfamiliar life among the palm trees or mountain ranges, far from the London she’d known all her years. And there was always her ‘baby’ brother Walter to consider. Rarely-seen but ever-present Walter, the charmer, the weakling, the pay-day drunk. Although Tess had only met him a few times, and had never really talked to him, she felt she knew Walter Briggs and his unfortunate history only too well. She didn’t think the Grimble sons would be sending for him one day.

  Tess saw the ambulancemen out, thanked them for their care of Max, then waved them goodbye. Closing the door seemed, suddenly, a monumental task. It signalled the end of one phase and the start of the next. Max was her responsibility now, not the doctors’ or the nurses’, or even the school’s.

  As she came back down the hall, the phone rang. Tess picked it up, glancing in the mirror as she did so, and brushing back some wisps of hair. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Leland.’ It was the same horrible whisper, distorted, weird. ‘I’m still waiting for the money.’

  She froze, her hand still caught in her hair. ‘Who is this?’ she demanded, more bravely than she felt.

  ‘Watch over that boy of yours,’ the voice advised.

  ‘Who is this?’ she repeated.

  Silence.

  ‘Hello?’ she demanded.

  Mrs Grimble, who had come down the stairs behind her, spoke up, making her jump. ‘Give it to me,’ she said, firmly, and took it from Tess’s grasp. ‘Hello?’ After a minute she spoke again, more impatiently. ‘Hello?’

  Apparently her authoritative challenge evoked no response. As she held the receiver out in front of her and glared at it, there came the unmistakable click of a phone being hung up at the other end.

  Mrs Grimble slammed the receiver down in disgust. ‘Fish feathers,’ she said, furiously. It was her worst expletive. ‘I’m sick and tired of it.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  Mrs Grimble looked startled. ‘Say? Said nothing, as usual. Never spoke a word. What did he say to you?’

  Tess started to speak, then thought better of it. ‘Just nonsense,’ she said.

  ‘Hmmph,’ Mrs Grimble said. A bright pink flush of annoyance suffused her cheeks. ‘Wretched kids.’ She marched back towards the kitchen, mumbling. Tess stared at the phone, black and silent now.

  It had been no child who spoke to her.

  That evening, as Tess sat in her favourite rocker, looking through dealers’ catalogues, there was a knock at the door and John Soame looked in. He had been moving his things into the flat gradually, dividing his possessions and his days between London and Cambridge. Now he was settled in upstairs for the duration of his researches, but he had been out all that day.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked. His hair had been ruffled by the wind, and raindrops spattered his spectacles. He took them off and rubbed them absently on the front of his mac.

  Tess smiled. ‘Yes, thanks. The king is in his counting-house and, when last seen, was going over his stamp books and checking over his airplane models to make certain everything was intact. Apparently I have committed the sin of “tidying up”.’

  ‘Something no boy can tolerate.’ He returned her smile, then glanced at the large book she had balanced on the edge of the table. He came across and peered over her shoulder. ‘What year did you say the McMurdo house was built?’

  ‘1875.’

  He indicated the reproduction wallpaper collection she was considering. ‘Those didn’t come in until the nineties.’

  She sighed and closed the book. ‘I know, but it is so difficult to be exact. Sometimes you just have to settle for what you can get, and trust that the ambience of the whole will satisfy the customer, who doesn’t know dates from figs, anyway.’

  He made a disapproving sound, but there was a twinkle in his eye. ‘Bad history, but good decorating, is that it?’

  ‘Something like that. I could, of course, have some paper made specially – I have done, for the three large rooms – at a cost you wouldn’t like to know about. But this is just for a small bedroom. Unlimited budget or not, I hate to waste a client’s money unnecessarily.’

  He nodded, then glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘Is it all right if I go in to say hello to Max on my way upstairs? I won’t tire him, I promise.’

  ‘Of course.’ She watched him start for the door, and found herself wishing him back. ‘Ummmmm—’ She hesitated.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There was another phone call this afternoon, just after Max came back,’ she said.

  He frowned and came a few steps into the room. ‘And?’

  ‘That’s all. The same nasty whispering voice. He said he was still waiting for the money. And then he told me to look after my son. Then, just – silence. But not very nice silence, somehow.’

  He came a little further into the room. ‘No instructions about where this mythical money was to be given over, anything like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No specific threats?’

  ‘No. It was more in the nature of a second reminder,’ Tess said, wryly. She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. ‘By the way, I forgot to tell you, a policeman came to see me at the hospital the day after you came up. He wanted to know about Roger’s accident.’

  ‘Oh?’ John Soame came a few steps more into the room. ‘He said there had been a witness to the accident – an old man – who thought Roger’s car was being chased by another car, and that was what caused him to crash. He saw the man driving the other car, and tried to find him.’ Soame stiffened. ‘Why should he do that?’

  ‘Apparently he was an ex-policeman. Instinct, maybe? Or perhaps just curiosity. The detective wasn’t sure, I don’t think. Not really.’

  ‘I see. And has he found him?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s dead now, anyway, so—’

  ‘Who’s dead?’

  ‘The old man. The witness.’

  Soame sighed, shrugged, smiled. ‘So it came to nothing, then.’

  ‘Yes.’ She looked down at her lap, then up at him again. ‘I told the detective about the telephone calls. I don’t know whether he believed me or not,’ Tess said. ‘He left looking very bemused and I haven’t heard from him since. It was all rather – upsetting.’

  He regarded her through his misted glasses. ‘I should have said you’ve had more than enough to upset any six people during the past few months,’ he said, gruffly, and went out.

  Tess listened to his footsteps going up the stairs, and felt relieved. Although it might mean resigning from the feminist movement if it got out, she was glad to have John Soame living in the house. She could lean on him without being emotionally involved. It might seem an odd arrangement, but it made her happy.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t please everyone.

  TWELVE

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this!’ Richard Hendricks said, reproachfully. He’d tracked her down to the McMurdo house, and was now following her from room to room as she took measurements and jotted down her latest ideas on colours and patterns. He was very upset. ‘I got home late last night. This morning I called the hospital to find out how Max is, and they tell me he’s gone home. Wonderful. So I go around to see him, and discover you’ve actually installed a complete stranger in your home, and turned Max over to him.’


  ‘Mr Soame is highly qualified,’ Tess said, calmly, stepping over a pile of bricks and broken tiles. ‘He’s a Cambridge professor, for goodness’ sake. Adrian knows him very well.’

  ‘Am I to gather you think that’s some kind of recommendation?’ Richard asked. ‘Honestly, Tess, you are so naïve it sometimes frightens me. Adrian Brevitt might be a fashionable name in interior decoration, but he has some very odd friends along with it.’

  Tess stopped to look at him. Outside there was a cheerful chuckle of workmen and the sloppy churn of a cement mixer. From above there came the intermittent tap of a hammer, and a persistent scraping noise as someone removed years of accumulated wallpaper. Traffic rumbled distantly, and a jet growled its way across the sky to Heathrow. Here, however, in what would eventually become a breakfast room, there was silence. When Tess finally spoke, her voice was cold. ‘Just what do you mean by “odd friends”, Richard?’

  He looked uncomfortable, obviously not expecting quite this reaction from her. ‘Oh, just gossip, I suppose. But gossip has to start somewhere – and it’s said he’s popular at a certain kind of party.’

  ‘I had no idea you were so narrow-minded. Adrian makes no secret of being gay.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. What he does in bed is his own business. I meant he’s popular because of what he brings with him.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  He sighed in exasperation. ‘Drugs, damn it. Marijuana, cocaine, Ecstasy, that sort of thing. Oh, come along, Tess, don’t tell me you never suspected it?’

  ‘I never thought about it one way or another,’ Tess said, slowly. ‘Particularly in connection with Adrian.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Richard pounced on this evidence of her naïveté. ‘Any more than you thought about getting involved with this Soame character.’

  ‘I am not “involved” with him,’ Tess snapped. ‘He’s a lodger.’

  ‘He comes into your part of the house, doesn’t he? He sees Max, alone, every day. God knows what might happen. Especially if he’s a “friend” of Adrian’s.’