Death Penalties

by Paula Gosling

  ‘Was it in Melbourne, Adelaide, or Sydney that you learned to be such a . . . such a . . . creep?’ she demanded, sidestepping his advance. It had been a mistake to let him in, to worry about what the neighbours might think, and she already regretted it. Why, for all she knew, that boyish grin could be the very expression he wore when pulling the wings off flies.

  ‘Now don’t go all snaky on me, sweetheart,’ he pleaded, as she dodged him.

  ‘I have every right to “go snaky” on you,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve been a bit of a snake, yourself, if you ask me. You promised not to interfere at the house, yet I find out you’re still hanging around out there annoying Ernie and the other men. Now you’ve gone behind my back to Adrian and told him I shouldn’t be working on the house—’

  ‘You shouldn’t.’

  ‘—and threatening to write to your aunt suggesting that she hire another interior decorator. How dare you!’

  He stopped his clumsy but apparently good-natured pursuit and scowled. ‘Not a matter of dare, sweetheart. Matter of fact. You’ve got too much on your mind these days. Your kid. The money. People threatening you. All that. Takes a girl’s attention from her work. Changes her priorities.’ He beamed suddenly. ‘So, I think you should forget the house and all the rest of it and concentrate on me. Much nicer for both of us when we’ve got time to enjoy it.’

  She stared at him. ‘Do you mean to tell me that you did that just so we could be together?’

  ‘Sure. Aren’t you flattered? Just shows how much I think of you, sweetheart.’

  Drawing herself up, Tess went from stare to glare. ‘On the contrary,’ she said, coldly. ‘It shows how little you think of me and how much you think of yourself.’

  Anger flared in his eyes. ‘Now, wait a minute—’

  ‘No, you wait a minute,’ she said. ‘I am a mother and a working woman who is hanging on by the skin of her teeth to her home, her child, her career, and her sanity. Contrary to general opinion, I do not need a man to complete my life. Get out!’

  ‘The hell I will. Not until you and me get a few things straight.’ He lunged at her, still apparently under the impression that a few deep-tongued kisses would transform her from independent career woman to supplicant, and convert hostility into panting hunger.

  She struck him, hard, across the face.

  It had a strange effect on him. He went red, then white, and then a terrible expression came into his eyes. She saw, too late, that he was far more gone in drink than she had thought. And that slap had been one mistake too many.

  She backed away, knocking over a small pine chair which in turn collided with the small hall table near the front door. A vase teetered and went down onto the scuffed parquet floor with a splintering crash.

  Archie McMurdo laughed. It was a vicious laugh – he was enjoying himself now. ‘Uh-oh,’ he said. ‘There goes the furniture,’ he added, gleefully, and returned to his relentless pursuit, moving as suddenly and unpredictably as a spider, scuttling first one way and then another. Dodging around her own hallway, Tess would have felt foolish if she hadn’t been so frightened. ‘Time to squirm for your supper, sweetheart,’ he grinned, reaching for her. ‘Time to give old Archie what he deserves.’

  ‘I’d rather do that myself,’ said a voice from above them, and Tess looked up to see John Soame standing on the stairway, arms crossed and staring down. His face was very pale.

  Archie, startled into immobility, stared at him. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded. He turned to Tess. ‘Nobody said anything about a boyfriend. Who’s he?’

  He was still waiting for her answer as Soame descended the last few steps, took hold of him from behind, and started propelling him towards the front door. Caught unawares, Archie seemed to forget for a moment that he was taller and stronger by far than the other man.

  Then he remembered.

  ‘Let go of me, you little bastard!’ he howled, and twisted out of Soame’s grasp, then went for him, wildly. Tess put her hands to her mouth, horrified, as the two men began to grapple in the hall. Seeing violence on television or witnessing it in a Soho alley was one thing, having it in your own home was quite another. The grunting, the sudden bitter smell of violence, the wordless struggling was eerie, shocking, and made infinitely more terrible by taking place within familiar walls.

  ‘Oh, John, be careful, oh, darling, please stop, please be careful – oh, no – don’t . . . ’ She could hear herself babbling, as she moved around them, plucking ineffectually at their straining shoulders, mesmerized by the enraged grimaces on their reddening faces as they pushed and shoved one another backwards and forwards, like animals jockeying for superior position and leverage, or like boys in a playground. It was silly, and it was absolutely awful.

  ‘Open the door,’ John grunted, through clenched teeth.

  Tess edged past them and did as she was told. Cold air and rain swept in. She wanted to close her eyes and ears to the sight and sound of the two men, but she couldn’t.

  A moment later, she was glad she hadn’t, for she might have missed the sight of an astonished Archie McMurdo being suddenly thrust through the open front door and thrown down the front steps on to the wet pavement below. It was so quickly done, so adroit and unexpected, that she could only stare at the man who had done it. John Soame stood panting but unmarked in the open doorway, staring down, quite oblivious to her presence in his moment of triumph.

  Archie, however, was not. He got up, staggered slightly, brushed at himself and stared up at her defiantly. ‘Did you enjoy that, sweetheart? Don’t laugh too long, because we haven’t finished with you, yet. We still have business together. And next time I’ll make sure you’re alone.’

  John slammed the door shut and then leaned his head against it, panting slightly, his shirt taut across his thin shoulders, his tie dangling over one shoulder, his hair ruffled up at the back like a boy’s.

  ‘Damn,’ he said, under his breath. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  John Soame turned and stared at Tess. ‘Are you all right?’

  She was suddenly aware of her scrubbed face, her old bathrobe, her straggly hair, and her acute embarrassment at having been the cause of a scene.

  ‘I – I’m fine, really,’ she stammered, feeling the flush rising up her throat and flooding her naked face, like a unfurling banner of shame. ‘I’m sorry about – it’s so – ’

  ‘I’m sorry if he was a friend—’ He glanced at the abandoned roses and champagne, and managed to imbue the word ‘friend’ with a great complexity of meaning.

  ‘No . . . not at all. He’s my client’s nephew, the man I had dinner with last night. He’s been causing a lot of trouble at the house, and Adrian thought my being friendly might change his attitude.’

  He offered a wry smile. ‘Apparently it did just that.’

  ‘Yes.’ She pulled her dressing-gown closer around her throat. ‘But I really gave him no reason to suppose—’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ he said, rather too quickly. And rather too coldly for comfort.

  ‘In fact, I made things worse. He went to Adrian today and told him he thinks I can’t handle the job, said he wants another decorator. And Adrian listened to him,’ she said, miserably. ‘He’s angry with me . . . I don’t understand anything, any more.’

  He came to her then, and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, Adrian is always flying off the handle about something. You know he has faith in you – he wouldn’t have been so determined to keep you if he didn’t.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Even to the point of inflicting me and my troubles on his poor, unsuspecting brother-in-law.’

  He in his turn flushed slightly. ‘Poor, yes, but hardly unsuspecting. Nobody who has taught adolescents is unsuspecting – quite the reverse, I assure you. And as for—’

  ‘John? What’s wrong? What on earth wa
s all the shouting about?’

  It was a woman’s voice – a young woman’s voice, light and soft as gossamer. Startled, Tess sprang away from Soame’s encircling arm and looked up. There, outlined in the entrance to the attic flat, was a lovely girl; slender, blonde, and barefoot. She was wearing a man’s silk dressing gown, presumably Soame’s. Suddenly Tess realized that when he had first appeared on the stairs he, too, had been dressed rather more casually than usual. That his tie had been loosened and the first few buttons of his shirt had been undone before his encounter with Archie. Her heart, which had been thudding and fluttering a moment before, closed up and went as hard as a fist.

  ‘It’s all right, Julia,’ Soame said. ‘Just a drunken intruder who needed to be shown the door.’ He glanced uneasily at Tess – his turn now to be embarrassed. He started to say more, but Tess didn’t want to hear it. The situation was all too obvious.

  ‘I’m sorry, I hope I haven’t spoiled your evening,’ she said, stiffly. ‘Thanks again for the rescue.’ She wrapped her faded robe around her, feeling very foolish, very tired, and very, very old. She fled to Max’s room, before she made it all worse.

  Max looked up as she came in and closed the door behind her. His freckles stood out against the pale skin, and his hair was standing up in spikes, needing a wash. His pyjamas were all wrinkled, and he had a smear of jam on his chin, a teatime leftover. ‘Hi,’ he said.

  It was enough.

  She sat down on the side of the bed and, taking him into her arms, she wept into his spiky hair. ‘Oh, Max, I’m sorry.’

  ‘What for? Gosh, Mum, you’re strangling me,’ he said, squirming in her arms until he was free. He stared at her, startled by her tears. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Stop that.’ He patted her arm and smoothed the top of her head awkwardly.

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeves. ‘Oh, rats,’ she said, crossly, blinking rapidly to recentre her contact lens. She sniffed hugely, and sighed. ‘It’s just that sometimes I’m so – so – dumb about things. People and . . . things. You know.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ He was half disappointed to find the crisis so small.

  ‘What do you mean, “Oh, that”?’

  ‘Well—’ He shrugged. ‘You are a bit of a klutz, Mum.’

  ‘Am I?’ she asked, in some astonishment.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, patting her hand with an unconscious air of benign superiority. ‘Girls are always hopeless.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ She gazed at him speculatively, and blew her nose. If that was the attitude his father and that damned school had been inculcating into him, perhaps it would be a good idea if he did go to the local comprehensive, at that. From what she’d seen of the little ladies of the neighbourhood, he’d soon have that patronizing attitude knocked out of him, and a good thing, too.

  ‘This has been a momentary aberration,’ she said, giving her nose a final wipe. ‘Normal services are now resumed.’

  She began plumping his pillows and straightening his blankets. There was a resentful squeak and Albert appeared from beneath the covers, his cosy nest disturbed by her sudden burst of housekeeping. ‘I think you should have a bath and a hair-wash before you go to sleep,’ she said, firmly. ‘And you need fresh pyjamas, too, you’ve had these on for days.’

  ‘I’ve just got them nicely broken in,’ he protested.

  She plucked at a hole in the right sleeve. ‘Broken out, you mean. This top is a diary of disasters – I can see glue, ketchup, gravy, ink, and poster paint, all down the front. Come on, stop moaning. No, leave Albert here. He might fall in and drown.’

  Grumbling over the unfairness of it all, Max deposited Albert in a huge cardboard box of balled-up newspapers.

  ‘Simon made that today to keep Albert from knocking the pieces off the chessboard,’ Max said. ‘It kept him quiet – sort of.’ As if to prove the efficacy of the young vicar’s unusual gambit, the kitten immediately began a mad scrabble, picking out a ball and chasing it around the box, then changing direction when another took its eye. Max grinned. ‘That’s his crazy-box.’

  Tess looked down at the kitten as it excitedly continued its manic, circular pursuit. ‘I know just how he feels,’ she said.

  During a humiliating night of waking and sleeping, Tess confronted herself and was not impressed. What an idiot she’d been. What a fool. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

  All her troubles had to do with the McMurdo house.

  They must do.

  She thought back to Mrs McMurdo and their first trip to the house all that time ago. Hadn’t Dolly said something about ‘Harry’s little treasure’? At the time she’d thought the woman was being sarcastic about the house itself, but could there have been more to it than that? Suppose there had been some family story about the old man having a secret hoard of money, which Dolly only took half-seriously, but which Archie had taken to heart?

  Suppose he’d followed his aunt to London and, when she made no fabulous discovery, decided to do a little exploring of his own? Ernie had said, just before they started the restoration work, that he thought ‘kids’ had been in the house at night, disturbing things. What if it hadn’t been kids, but Archie, searching for something?

  And then she’d arrived on the scene, and got in his way.

  What would he have done then?

  Decided to get her out of his way, of course. He could easily have pumped Dolly about Tess: heard all about Roger’s death and then Max’s illness, and decided to use the situation.

  Because he thought she’d found what he’d been searching for.

  ‘We want the money back, Mrs Leland.’ That’s what the caller had said. It seemed so obvious now.

  The burglary, the phone calls, the threats – they had to have been Archie. When they hadn’t worked, he’d decided to try criticizing the restoration work. But no luck. So he’d turned to charm. That hadn’t worked either. So he’d gone to Adrian and tried to get her fired. That would have got the work suspended, and while he pretended to be choosing another decorator, he’d really be searching for the money, unobserved and unimpeded.

  But where was it?

  The house had been almost literally torn to pieces while they installed new wiring and plumbing and put in the central heating system. The attic had been completely exposed when they’d put on a new roof. All the window frames had been removed and replaced, the chimneys swept and repaired, even many of the walls had been stripped right down and replastered. What was left, for goodness’ sake? She frowned in the darkness, and then her eyes flew open and she stared into the shadows. Of course.

  The cellar.

  TWENTY-TWO

  While the vista of Cambridge under sunlight is uplifting and noble, Nightingale felt that in mid-morning rain the town revealed its true nature – quiet, enclosed, introspective. Steamy windows in teashops and cafés bespoke earnest conversations within, lights glimmering in the various libraries told of shoulders hunched over books and hurriedly scribbled essays, while brief flares of blue light, random metallic ticks and deadly silences emanating from within the Cavendish laboratories told of heaven knew what next.

  He walked slowly across Trinity’s Great Court, practically alone in the vast expanse. He passed one or two hurrying scholars and a muttering academic, all head- down into the rain. In the distance two gowned figures marched in almost military tandem beneath a large blue umbrella. The stormy sky pressed down, with torn rags of smaller and darker clouds moving quickly beneath a pale grey canopy.

  The line between town and gown was a sharp one, as always. In contrast to Trinity’s peace, the street beyond was as clotted with cars as any London thoroughfare, and a horde of Saturday-morning shoppers jostled over the pavements. Around and between the road and foot traffic wove the bicycles, their riders for the most part encased in waterproof ponchos, rain speckling their spectacles and dripping down from hatbrims or noses. In their baskets or trapp
ed over rear wheels under elasticated ropes, rode awkward bundles of books, haphazardly encased in layers of plastic carrier bags. Under the banners of Gateway, Safeway, Sainsburys, Marks and Spencer, and Gupta’s Groceries, were transports of Herodotus, Thucydides, Darwin, Donne, and Drucker, safe from the rain, but still – and always – vulnerable to undergraduate attack.

  The cheekbones of the cyclists were flushed with exertion, but otherwise they looked pale and waxy with cold and damp around the jawline. They seemed, for the most part, unbearably young, and he envied them – knowing that his envy stamped him forever old and severed at last his tenuous connection to that age which parents think wonderful but students know to be fraught, confusing, and full of strain.

  He’d been happy here.

  He was not happy to be back.

  Not, at least, on this mission. Always behind him he could hear the Yard accountants’ footsteps drawing near. He should have had a week to suss out John Soame – to talk casually to academics, students, his bank manager, his landlady if he had one, and so on. The bits and pieces that reveal a man are rarely found in a hurry – one day would never be enough.

  It gave him only one real option.

  Bardy Philpott.

  Bardy had been head porter at Brendan College, Tim’s alma mater. Brendan was one of the ‘newer’ additions to the university, being less than two centuries old. Brendan bore its nouveau stigma gracefully. The blatant red bricks chosen by its founder had long since been hidden behind trembling ivy. The panelled rooms and hallways had gradually acquired the desirable patina of age by the simple expedient of successive Masters allowing smoking everywhere until well after World War Two.

  Nightingale made a stop on his way to Little Badger Lane, to acquire a small offering of Bardy’s favourite tobacco and malt whisky. The old man was retired, now, and living in a very bijou residence acquired for him by his son, who had ‘done well’ after leaving Trinity with a First and going on to become a QC much given to annoying the Met by gleefully picking holes in their evidence.