by Nick Thripp
Chapter 31
Another Death, 2003-4
Abbotsford was an old walled city, famous for its fourteenth century cathedral, historic centre, and its numerous teashops. It would have been charming had it not been drowned by traffic trying to force its way through the narrow streets like blood through a sclerotic artery, and dwarfed by modern office blocks, thrown up on land made available by bombing. At the fringes of the indeterminate urban sprawl which surrounded the redeveloped business area, lay a few suburbs of tall gabled Victorian houses built in stark red brick. Every so often, one or two of these had been demolished to make way for a close of several modern two-storey town houses. Most of those remaining had been converted into flats. One, extended significantly by the addition of a modern concrete wing, was the Alison Rose Hospice, standing in its own tree-lined grounds.
As I entered, I felt full of trepidation, although I wasn’t sure why. The corridor leading to the reception desk smelled of floor polish and Dettol. The duty nurse looked up at my approach.
‘Mrs Beart, love? Room seven, third door on the left.’
I signed the visitors’ book and found the room easily. A small tabby cat sat on the linoleum outside as though it couldn’t decide whether to go in. I stepped carefully round it, holding my handkerchief to my face. I sneezed and the cat flinched.
‘Sorry moggy, not your fault.’ It stared at me with disdain before strolling down the long corridor, its tail raised in some form of feline semaphore.
‘I suppose that means “fuck off” in cat,’ I muttered to myself.
The perfume from the numerous large vases full of lilies and roses surrounding her was almost overpowering. Mrs Beart, grey and waif-like in the metal-framed bed, was lying with her eyes closed. I hesitated, not wanting to wake her. A nurse came in and, seeing me dithering, brought over a chair which she placed quietly by the bedside. I sat down and gazed at Mrs Beart’s crumpled face and almost hairless head. She didn’t move. Just when I’d decided to get up quietly and go, her cloudy eyes opened and looked vacantly at me. I smiled and said ‘hello’. Her look of puzzlement only deepened. I felt myself grow hot under my shirt and regretted being there at all. She continued to stare at me, the intensity of her eyes trapping me like a deer frozen by an on-coming lorry’s headlights.
‘Mrs Beart, I…., er I…..’ Words were congealing in my brain.
Wheezing with effort, she pulled herself up onto her elbows and peered more closely at me.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘Yes. You remember me.’
‘John?’
‘No, it’s me. You probably remember me when I had hair, a lot more hair.’ I spoke with forced jollity, thinking to myself she was almost unrecognisable with so little.
‘John.’ She sighed.
‘He’s not here. I wanted to come before—’
‘After all this time—’ she said weakly, slumping back onto the bed.
I didn’t know what to say; I didn’t even know why I’d come. Was it that I was sorry for my behaviour all those years ago? Was it because I’d never been able to forget her, even though our emotional entanglement had been so brief?
‘I wanted to see you again,’ I mumbled feebly.
‘You took your time. Where have you been?’ Her voice was a hoarse whisper. She shut her eyes and stretched out a hand as cold as marble.
After a few minutes, she slipped her hand from mine and groped for something on her bedside table. Clasping it, she passed it to me. It was a large silver crucifix with a distinctive cluster of emeralds at its centre.
She made as though to speak, and I craned over her to catch what she said. Her voice was almost inaudible.
‘Want you to have this.’ She pressed the crucifix into my hand.
‘But why?’
She lay down with her eyes closed, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. Her hand hung down beside the bed. Then she half-coughed, as though clearing her throat, exhaled deeply and her body went limp. For the first time since my arrival, her face looked serene. I placed her hand gently on the bed beside her and went to the end of the corridor where the duty sister was sitting. She returned quickly with me and confirmed Mrs Beart’s death. It was only then I realised I still didn’t know her forename. I glanced at the whiteboard above her bed. It read ‘Josephine Beart.’
Numb, I left the hospice and eventually found myself on a bench in a park, the smell of new mown grass in my nostrils and the clamour of children playing Frisbee in my ears. My hands, arms and legs were shaking. I took the crucifix out of my pocket and examined it, the emeralds glinting in the waning sunshine of early evening. I flipped it over, noticing a minute inscription on the back. I strained to read it, holding it this way and that, before finally discerning that it said, ‘To Mummy, with all my love for ever, John.’
Why had she given it to me? Had she had a soft spot for me all these years, or had she been deluded by pain, drugs and the imminence of her own mortality into mistaking me for Beart? I slipped the crucifix into my suit pocket just as a Frisbee rapped my ankle. I stood up and threw it back. It veered off course, bouncing off a push chair. I waved my arms in apology, only to be given the finger by a young mother busy comforting her bawling brat.
*
I wasn’t invited to the funeral. I heard from Rachel no expense was spared, even though it was only attended by half a dozen of John’s closest work colleagues. The coffin was polished bronze lined with red velvet, and the funeral cortege consisted of five black Rolls Royce limousines draped with black crepe. Josephine’s body was buried in a cemetery outside Abbotsford, and Rachel said a life-size statue of the virgin and child in Italian marble had been ordered to mark the grave.
A couple of days after the funeral, my phone rang.
‘You were with my mother when she died.’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘The nurse told me someone was there. I got her to look in the visitors’ book.’
‘Sorry, I should have mentioned it. I’ve been meaning to call you, John,’ I lied.
‘Where’s her crucifix?’
‘Crucifix?’ My brain froze.
‘The nurse said it was on the table beside her. Then it disappeared.’
I felt a moment’s panic and a strong desire to lie again. Instead I took a deep breath.
‘Yes, I’ve got it. She gave it to me just before she died.’
‘She gave it to you?’ His tone was scornful. ‘Why would she give it to you? You hardly knew her.’
‘I used to do her gardening,’ I said, realising how limp the explanation sounded.
‘You could have created the hanging gardens of Babylon for all I care. I want it back.’
‘Of course, John; I was going to talk to you about it after the funeral.’
‘Have it sent round to my office tomorrow morning.’ I heard the click of his phone disconnecting, followed by a dialling tone. I felt as though I’d been caught stealing. I went to my jacket straight away – I hadn’t worn it since and it hadn’t been to the dry cleaners. But there was no sign of the crucifix. Even though I turned the pockets inside out, it remained stubbornly absent. I tried to cast my mind back to the day Josephine Beart had died. After my sojourn in the park I’d gone to a fashionable bar, one of those with wooden floors and exorbitant prices, and had drunk myself steadily into a state of near oblivion. I thought I could remember hanging the jacket on the back of a chair. I might even have gone to the toilet and left it there, unguarded. I felt sick. I picked the phone up and dialled Beart’s number.
‘Yes.’ His voice was harsh. His phone obviously had a number recognition function.
‘John, I’ve lost it. I think it must have been stolen while I was in Bar Barollo.’
‘You fucking idiot,’ he said quietly. ‘You absolutely stupid fucking idiot. That crucifix meant the world to my mother. She
clung onto it through the worst of times, prayed clasping it in her hands, bathed it with her tears. Then you come along, God knows why, and walk off with it before the breath’s even left her body, just because you used to cut her grass.’
‘I didn’t walk off with it. She gave it to me and I put it in my pocket—’
‘You must think I’m a fucking simpleton. I won’t forget this.’
‘John, I, I—’ I started to say before realising he’d hung up on me.
*
I suppose I should have been expecting a visit from the police after Neil’s tip-off. Even so, it still came as a surprise, not least because they arrived at my apartment one Saturday morning at five-thirty, insisting I accompany them to the station. Soon I was sitting on the chill back seat of a police car being whisked through empty streets.
I found myself in a small, windowless interview room with a metal table and two metal chairs. One had a cushion. I was told to sit on the other one, and the cold seat froze my buttocks through my thin linen trousers. A uniformed female constable stood between me and the door. After twenty-five minutes, a youngish man in a short leather jacket and ripped jeans came in carrying a cup of coffee and a half-burnt cigarette. He sat down and stared at me, swigged at his coffee and drew heavily on his cigarette.
‘You attended a party recently at the Palazzo Urtica. Correct?’
I resolved not to be intimidated.
‘I believe the correct form of address to a member of the public who pays your salary, and the upkeep of all this,’ I looked around for dramatic effect, ‘is “sir”. What’s more, you should have the decency to introduce yourself before peppering me with questions.’
His upper lip curled. ‘I’m terribly sorry, sir. I’m Inspector Barnes. Now would you mind answering my question, sir, as I haven’t got all day, sir?’
‘Of course, Inspector, but you realise I was asked to attend the party by Superintendent Neil Wallington in B6, and I’ve given him a full debriefing.’
‘Never heard of him,’ Barnes replied. ‘And I wouldn’t pay those tossers in B6 in bent washers.’
The interview lasted two hours, during which I was asked to name everyone I remembered from the party and was shown several photographs. Every time I denied recognising someone, it was greeted with looks of exaggerated disbelief. I recounted the conversations I’d had, and the people with whom I’d had them. A small silver device recorded every word.
‘You may think me naïve, Inspector,’ I said after about an hour’s interrogation. ‘Beart is an extremely intelligent man. Why would he invite dodgy characters to a high-profile party unless he had absolutely nothing to hide?’
Barnes looked down his nose at me.
‘For the same reason leaving something out in the open is the best way of hiding it.’
At the end of the conversation Barnes said, ‘I trust you’ll keep this discussion confidential, sir.’
Once home, I showered, shaved and brewed a cappuccino which I sipped as I sizzled bacon and toasted bread for my traditional Saturday morning breakfast. The door opened and Suzie walked in as though she’d returned from a ten-minute stroll. She’d been away for several weeks.
‘Hello.’ She kissed me lightly on the cheek. She exuded the salty-sweat and sunshine aroma of someone who’s been sunbathing. She pulled out the grill pan and inhaled.
‘That smells good. Got enough for me?’
I threw another couple of rashers under the grill. Although I was aching to, I knew I mustn’t ask where she’d been.
‘You’re up early for a Saturday,’ she said. Without thinking, I mentioned my visit to the police station.
‘Are you in trouble?’ She was wide-eyed with disbelief.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything but it’s nothing to do with me.’
‘Why did they take you there?’
I could tell from her terrier-like expression it wouldn’t be easy to fob her off.
‘They wanted some information.’
‘From you? You never go anywhere exciting or do anything remotely dodgy. The only interesting person you know is me.’ Her expression became thoughtful.
‘It’s nothing to do with Ignacio, is it?’
‘I can’t say.’ I pulled out the grill pan and checked the bacon slices. A small globule of fat spat out and landed on the back of my hand.
‘Oh, you’re so irritating. I hate you.’ She sat quietly for a moment, reflecting. ‘Hold on. You only met him in Urtica, so it must be connected to that party.’ Her eyes lit up. ‘It’s something to do with Ignacio and John, isn’t it?’
I didn’t reply.
‘I knew it, I knew it,’ she sang as she pirouetted around the room.
She wolfed her bacon sandwich and, giving me a big slobbery retriever-like kiss, told me she had to go out and would be home for dinner.
‘Can we have lamb chops? I really fancy lamb chops.’
I nodded. ‘If you like.’
Even though I went shopping that day, I didn’t bother to buy lamb chops. I wasn’t expecting her back.
*
It was a wet, grey Sunday morning. Torrential rain beat against the windows and formed puddles in the road through which the traffic ploughed, making a continuous slushing noise. It was not a day for venturing out. I was watering my house plants when the front door bell rang, and rang and rang. I hurried to the intercom, unable to imagine what was so urgent. Perhaps it was a bunch of schoolboys playing games, or a tramp looking to be bought off. Both seemed unlikely given the conditions outside.
‘Yes, hello?’
‘Let me in.’ The voice hissing down the line was unmistakably Beart’s. I pressed the release button and the buzzer sounded. A few seconds later his fist thundered on the apartment door. He must have bounded, almost flown up the four flights of stairs. I put down my silver watering can and released the catch.
He barged in, a look of fury on his face and, without greeting me, produced a battered tome from under his soaking coat. I recognised it from all those years before as Mrs Beart’s diary.
‘You bastard, you fucking bastard, you screwed my mother.’ His whole body was rigid and his hands were shaking. He lent slightly towards me and I was sure he was about to hit me. I took a step back.
‘Look, John, calm down, I’ll explain—’
‘I won’t calm down, and I don’t need you to explain anything.’ He thrust himself towards me, pushing his face against mine. His breath had the sourness of rotting vegetables. ‘It’s all here, in her own writing, everything. About you, and him too. Let me tell you, you’re finished. I made you and I can break you. I’m taking Beart Enterprises away from Andrews Postlethwaite.’
He stuffed the diary under his coat and stormed out leaving a trail of water behind him. I heard his feet slapping their way down the first flight of stairs as I closed the door quietly and slumped to the floor. I wondered how she’d recorded our brief encounter and, for one blissful moment, I had a vision of how lovely she’d been, stretched out naked beside me.
Then my stomach started churning and I felt sick. I’m not sure how long I stayed there; dusk was already falling when I finally got up. I poured myself a strong whisky and phoned Richard. I’d no doubts about Beart’s resolve, so I decided to warn the partners.
One thought kept niggling in my mind. Had I heard Beart correctly, or was it my imagination? ‘And him too?’ Why had he added this reference to Smallwood, if that was what it was, to his tirade against me? Or had someone else been her secret lover? Could it have been Ronald Carrot-Top, after all? Recalling the blankness of Ronald’s expression when I’d mentioned her name all those years ago, I dismissed the thought. Then my mind threw up an image of Neil, lying on that same sofa, flicking post conjugal peanuts into his mouth. I shook my head. It was ridiculous. Neil hardly knew her.
*
I expected the world to collapse around my ears, so on Monday morning I was surprised to see everyone at their workstations with their heads down or scurrying along the corridors with files or folders in their hands. It was almost as though it had been a bad dream. Richard called the senior partners together and I addressed them. Of course, I couldn’t tell them why Beart was taking the account away, so I fabricated a story in which he’d attacked me for questioning his business practices and I’d defended the auditor’s integrity. Led by Richard, the partners agreed I’d been left with no alternative; I’d had to resist the blandishments of an aggressive and arrogant client. As I scanned the room, I could see the fear in their eyes. They knew the consequences of losing this audit account and hoped the matter would blow over.
I decided to talk to Rachel before calling Beart. She was curt. I didn’t know whether he’d managed to turn her against me, or whether she was just in her normal overstretched and stressed state.
‘I don’t know what you’ve done to upset him. As far as he’s concerned you’re a non-person now, and the audit’s as good as dead. A resolution to change the auditors will be put to the next Board meeting and ratified by the shareholders a few weeks later. What on earth did you do? I’ve never seen him as angry.’
I didn’t feel up to confessing my youthful peccadilloes to Rachel, so when she said, ‘It’s not still about that bloody crucifix, is it?’ I grunted.
Beart refused to take my calls. Richard also phoned him and was rebuffed. I visited Beart’s offices in Victoria, only to be told he was away on business, even though his Lamborghini was parked on the forecourt. I tried to use Rachel as an intermediary.