In the end, I got Ian to drive me, while Alan set off briskly via a more direct route.
‘Chris won’t like your doing this,’ he said, checking I’d locked my front door. ‘But I think you’re right. When I spoke to Fairfax yesterday morning – just a little follow-up visit after Tuesday evening, you understand – he hadn’t any fight in him.’
‘Fight?’
He unlocked the passenger door thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know how you’d describe him. Resigned? You’ll see soon enough.’
‘He is up to something?’
‘I didn’t say that. Chris would like to nail him for something, because—’
‘Because Chris is jealous. But does he have a criminal record? I know he’s got those bloody files, but he’s the Chair of the governors and would have to—’
‘Let’s wait and see. I’d rather it was Curtis. Still not talking, you know – roll on the Criminal Justice Act, say I. OK, I know what you’re going to say. I don’t think even Chris really agrees with it, either. Anyway, he’s got this solicitor character sitting there with him—’
‘Not one Frank Laker?’
‘The same. Know him?’
‘Not well. Hardly at all. But—’
‘Ah, there’s always buts …’
‘Is there a but about Fairfax?’
‘Never give up, do you? Proper little terrier you are. Tell you what, Sophie, I can’t ever believe a man gets that rich without, let’s say, bending the odd rule. Some people think that doesn’t matter. I happen to think it does – and remember what they taught in chapel about rich men and eyes of needles. And –’ he took his eyes from the road to glance at me – ‘I’d reckon it would matter to you, too. Smethwick Baptist, were you, or Oldbury Congregational?’
‘Put it this way, Ian, I shan’t mourn him as a friend. Just as a man who’s had a nasty death rather before his time.’
‘Oh, they can work wonders with drugs these days,’ he said brusquely.
Fairfax’s front door opened.
‘Mrs Cavendish!’ I squeaked. ‘No, you’re—’
‘Iris’s twin,’ she said. ‘Violet. On account of our eyes. Come along in, dear. He’ll be glad to see you.’
I got no further than the mat. If only I could have consulted Ian, but he’d parked discreetly down the road. I had rather expected he’d tail me – and possibly make adverse comments on my driving. ‘Your sister,’ I began, hoarse with embarrassment.
‘D’you want to talk to her? She’s in the back somewhere.’
‘She went out leaving her kitchen door unlocked,’ I said.
‘No, that’d be Alan. I always told him it’d get him the sack one day, being careless like that.’
‘And he left his apple on her mantelpiece.’
‘Stupid man – but it isn’t that he got the sack for!’ She turned on me. ‘That was you! You got him the sack!’
I shook my head, stupid in the onslaught.
‘If it hadn’t been for you it would have been redundancy, wouldn’t it, but no, you have to—’
‘That will do, Violet!’ said Fairfax, coming into the hall, his hand on Pilot’s head. ‘Sophie, my dear, if you could just feed Pilot, we could be on our way.’
I wouldn’t argue. ‘Come on, then,’ I said, snapping my fingers.
Mrs Cavendish was in the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher. She’d been crying. ‘Sophie!’
‘Hi!’ I said mildly, and found Pilot’s tin and bowl.
‘You must understand—’
‘I think we should talk later, Mrs Cavendish. I don’t think Mr Fairfax ought to be kept waiting.’
I took his overnight bag, but wouldn’t humiliate him by offering my arm. The car was outside the garage, but locked, and he handed me the keys with something of a flourish. I zapped, and the central locking responded. I stowed his case behind the driver’s seat, then accompanied him to his side of the car, opening the door, and finally letting him grip my hand as he sank awkwardly on to the passenger seat. But he eased his legs across the sill himself. Then he waited for me to pull down his seat belt, and I leaned across to fasten it for him.
It was time to drive the car. I set the seat, the mirrors, the position of the gear lever. ‘I’ve never driven an automatic before,’ I said.
He nodded but did not speak.
When we got to the hospice, he didn’t want me to stay, that was clear. I was almost an irrelevance in his fight against the pain. I was out of the room when he called me back. There was a set of keys in his hand. ‘You will have these when I die. This is the one to the safe. You will find the code on your answering machine.’
And so I was dispatched from the bright, airy room, past other people’s flowers and wheelchairs, past other people’s tears, back to the monster car. What I wanted to do was head out of the city for a motorway; what I had to do was get out of the car park without hitting anything and go back to Fairfax’s house. Perhaps it would be sensible to invite Chris to join me. I cut the engine and reached for the phone.
‘There must be some questions you can answer, Mrs. Cavendish,’ said Chris reasonably, taking the cup of tea she offered and sitting down. ‘I accept that you won’t want to implicate Mr Fairfax in any way, but a crime has been committed – a number of crimes – and I need to bring people to justice.’
‘Think of poor Melina!’ I urged. ‘Poor kid! Being thrown from the roof and left to die before being thrown in a rubbish skip. Who did that? Mr Fairfax?’
‘That was nothing to do with him!’ she said. ‘Nothing. Nor Mr Blake. He was furious.’
‘Because it drew attention to the college?’ Chris asked, his voice more gentle this time.
She nodded.
‘Do you have any idea who did kill her?’ he asked.
Her head shot up with amazing venom. ‘Dr Trevelyan, of course. She wouldn’t want anyone talking about that computer business of hers. Melina had found out about her ordering from her own firm, having fewer delivered than were on the invoice and then claiming they’d been stolen. The stupid woman! It was obvious she’d be found out eventually, obvious.’
Pilot growled.
‘Shh,’ I said, clicking my fingers to him and welcoming him with a rub between his ears. ‘Sit.’
The sun had pushed round into the room; I wondered if it was warming Fairfax yet.
Chris leaned forward and poured more tea for himself. He gestured with the pot but she shook her head. So did I.
‘Why did Mr Blake give her extended sick leave?’ I asked, forgetting I was supposed to be no more than an observer.
She dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. ‘I think it was because of – you know. I think she’d found out about that – that stuff he liked to watch.’
‘Blackmail? You’re saying she blackmailed him?’ Chris asked.
She nodded. ‘After all, she was in charge of all the college computers: she was a computer expert. She came with the very highest references.’
‘And we’ve checked her qualifications,’ put in Ian, ‘just in case. Best student of the year, everything.’
‘But if she was so good, why on earth teach in a place like George Muntz? Surely she’d have been at a university or in industry? More money!’ I was doing it again, but Chris said nothing.
‘Because of her health record,’ Mrs Cavendish said, shuffling forwards in her enthusiasm and carefully smoothing her skirt. ‘She was only on a short-term contract with us, in case she did it again – had another breakdown. There was one in her sixth form, one at university, then, when she got a job in the City, they came in one day and found her tearing up ten-pound notes. Her own. She did her PhD to help her convalesce. I did warn Mr Blake, don’t think I didn’t warn him! I told him, she’s trouble, I said. But he wouldn’t listen, and now look what’s happened to the poor dear man!’
‘But she couldn’t have killed him, could she?’ I exclaimed.
‘We still haven’t found her,’ said Chris in an undertone.
‘They say if you kill once,’ Mrs Cavendish said, ‘you find it easier to kill a second time.’
Chris and I blinked at her tone.
‘You haven’t seen her round the building, have you? Recently?’ Chris asked.
‘I promised that young man from the north that I would telephone him, should I encounter her again.’
‘So you haven’t?’
She shook her head.
Chris stood up suddenly, towering over her. ‘So why did you miss work yesterday, Mrs Cavendish?’
She looked taken aback. I certainly was. This was a side of Chris I’d not seen before. I probably wouldn’t see it again: I’d never be admitted to a formal interview room.
‘Mrs Cavendish?’ His voice was harsh.
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Because of Richard, of course. Richard. Your only brother, dying – wouldn’t you? And now he doesn’t want us with him …’
Pilot yelped; I soothed the ear I’d pulled.
‘Violet keeps house for him. She never married.’
‘Alan is …?’ I asked quietly.
‘Her friend. And now he’s sacked. Because of you, Sophie!’
‘OK, Mrs Cavendish,’ said Chris, tapping his notebook. ‘Now, is there anything else you can tell us? About Mr Blake, perhaps?’
She shook her head and started to weep quietly. ‘Will it have to come out? About him and – you know. Because he’s got such a sweet wife …’
Ian nodded. ‘Very nice. A real lady.’
What had she done to impress him? Offered him excellent sherry? I wished they’d told me about her. But then, what could I have done?
‘I don’t think many people will be interested in his private life,’ Ian said soothingly. And probably mendaciously – what would the gutter press make of it? COLLEGE HEAD DIES IN PORN SCANDAL. Forget all George Muntz’s excellent staff and students.
‘I’ve done it again! I’ve forgotten to call Muntz!’
‘Well, you needn’t bother,’ said Mrs Cavendish, tart and upright. ‘Not if you’re in that union. National Day of Action, they call it. Inaction more like.’
I started to laugh. ‘You know what I’ve done, Chris – I’ve only missed a day on strike!’
Ian joined in, but dourly. ‘And you’d have been on the picket line, no doubt.’
I laughed again – but then saw in my mind’s eye those who would be, and one who would never strike again.
Chris dispatched Ian to talk to James Worrall, Mrs Cavendish to Rose Road in the company of a WPC, and stopped off with me at the Botanical Gardens. The nearest pub was only a couple of hundred yards down the road, but it got noisy at lunchtime, and Chris was clearly in the mood for quiet. We bought sandwiches and fruit juice and wandered down to the terrace to eat, only to be joined with indecent haste by a peacock who insisted it was starving. Its bright little head followed each bite. I dropped a few morsels. I was grateful to it for providing something for us to laugh at: it would have been a very silent meal otherwise.
‘Time for a stroll?’ I asked at last.
He shook his head, but got up and followed me anyway. Other couples were on the long slope of the lawn, close, even feeding titbits to each other. Chris maintained a five-inch gap, as if afraid of touching me again. I needed to be touched or, better still, cuddled: he hadn’t exactly had sex alone, and I wanted to feel valued, cherished. And I had taken a man to die. The silence had to be broken soon.
It was. By his phone. It was Tom, full of himself. Luke had been declared fit to leave hospital. Could Tom go down and fetch him, have a bit of a chat, like?
‘Blow the expense – off you go! And phone me as soon as you know what he wanted to tell Sophie.’
I pressed up to his left shoulder so I could hear properly. He grinned and tilted the phone slightly. Then, holding it in his right hand, he suddenly made room for me, tucking my head on his shoulder.
‘I know that already, man. Gaffer. And I’ve told Dave. But it’s a bit late, man, because we can’t find Curtis at the moment.’
‘Shit! Tell them to keep looking – harder. What’s your news, anyway? Out with it!’
‘It seems Curtis got his ONC, like the lady said, but he did go on to get an HNC. So I thought I’d check a bit more at other places, and I find he’s got some Open University qualifications. But it seems they’re not in figures, like, but in electronics.’
‘Jesus Christ! OK, Tom, off you go to Bristol. Take your time, and remember there’s a speed limit.’ He switched off and replaced the phone in his inside pocket.
I suppose I might have expected a hug, maybe even a celebratory kiss. What I got was Chris pushing his hair back with both hands. ‘Christ! I start off with no suspects and end up with two buggers who could have done it. Three, if you count Phil. Shit, I’d better get back and start looking for Curtis. Why the fuck didn’t I bring him in earlier?’
It was more tactful to say nothing. I could only think of ‘I told you so’ anyway, and that wouldn’t help our relationship. ‘Let’s think about Dr Trevelyan. If you’d signed yourself out of hospital, and you got home to find it guarded by the fuzz, what’d you do?’
Chris considered. ‘Go and talk to someone who owed me – like Blake.’
From the terrace came a dreadful scream. It took us a second to realise it was the peacock giving voice. But neither of us laughed.
‘And what might Blake do? Give her some money to make herself scarce?’ I asked.
‘Or – depends how scared he was – get rid of her. Or if he was too much of a gentleman, he might still know a man who could. Sophie? What’s up? Sophie!’
‘What do people smell like when they’re dead?’ I asked, my voice carefully neutral.
‘How dead?’
‘Three or four days. Maybe longer. Because maybe it wasn’t gas, maybe it wasn’t pigeon shit we smelled at the Muntz outpost.’
And I stopped then because Chris already had me by the wrist and was running fast up the hill.
33
‘You are not coming in. I don’t want to go in myself. I’ve seen a body after a week’s warm weather and I wish I hadn’t. I don’t want you to.’ Chris gripped me by the shoulders, but this time he wasn’t shaking me. ‘Sophie, this sort of thing is part of my job – comes with the territory. I can get counselling if I need it; and I may well. Please, please, don’t do this to yourself. It won’t make it any easier for me.’
We were in Newtown, in the yard of the Muntz annexe, the sun warm in a clear blue sky. The smell was more noticeable, and there was a steady buzz of bluebottles.
‘But—’
‘You see that little window up there, no more than a skylight? You see that black blind across it? Ask yourself why there’s a blind there.’
‘I suppose—’
‘I don’t think it’s a blind. I think it’s a solid mass of flies. No, a live, seething mass of flies. Now will you promise me you’ll not try to come in?’ His voice was harsh; when he stopped speaking, he started to shudder.
‘On one condition. That you wait for backup. Just in case, Chris. Please.’ I reached to grip his hands.
He released a hand to touch my hair.
He didn’t have long to wait anyway. We could hear cars turning into the street outside, and Chris pushed back through the hole in the gate to greet his team.
It was hard to sit in Ian and Val’s front room and watch everything on the regional news. I could see the strain on Chris’s face as he spoke to the press, understand something of all the frantic activity as the cameras panned rather pointlessly across a little knot of bystanders, a WPC spruce in shirtsleeves and a great deal of police tape. There was also a shot of a closed van driving ominously away.
And there was I, in a close, overfurnished room in Quinton, drinking instant coffee from a china cup and saucer with a pink rose decoration inside as well as out. Other people’s lives: how did Ian, so fastidious about his sherry and his tea, cope with Val’s coffee? And how did she, forty-something but n
eat in the clothes she wore to work as a school secretary, cope with a man who would come home after an afternoon that culminated in the company of a corpse?
‘Would you like another cup, dear?’
I jumped.
‘Another cup?’
‘No, thanks. Look, Val, I don’t know quite how to say this, but I’d rather be a friend than a visitor. You don’t have to wait on me just because of Ian’s job. Let me come and help with the supper. Please.’
‘It’s only chops, I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘and Ian says you’re a good cook.’
‘I could peel the spuds?’
In fact they were tiny new potatoes, hardly needing a scrub, and she steamed broccoli over the carrots. There was mint growing on the windowsill for mint sauce, which she made with cider vinegar. She cooked the chops to perfection – crisp outside and pinkish within.
And Ian’s stayed on the table, covered by a plate.
‘You’d think he was married to the police!’ she said at last. ‘I’m so sorry.’
It wasn’t, was it, just another spoiled meal. It was the fact that Ian had talked of my exotic supermarket trolley, and she’d made the effort to impress me, and he’d let her down by not being there.
‘I think Chris is too,’ I said, and found myself ready to weep.
I didn’t go with Val to her keep-fit class, but sat instead at her kitchen table, staring at yet another sheet of paper. This time I didn’t try to make sense of the murders. I simply wrote down some of the things that had happened to me. The Barclaycard fraud; the theft of my money: they could be dismissed as part of one of the more badly stitched corners of life’s rich tapestry. The silly jaywalking accident. That had to be a coincidence – no one could have guaranteed my presence at that particular time and place – but it was not so silly if it was the same smiling man who’d attacked Aggie for defending my house. Blake had tried to get the project moved back to William Murdock. There was Sunshine – but I could discount him, of course. There was all that graffiti and the obscene call. And then I rubbed that bit out. It was the obscene call and then the graffiti. Someone had called me at home on the Sunday before the graffiti appeared at college on the Monday. Someone had tried to shut him up. Someone had given something away.
Dying on Principle Page 27