The Trebelzue Gate

by Anna Fitzwilliam

They watched his reaction. He shook his head and wiped the heel of his hand over his face, then he took a packet of cigarettes from the breast pocket of the flying suit and lit one. The thick lips were sensual, greedy perhaps, his mouth was wide. A saying from Monica’s childhood came into her head, a shouted taunt on some hopscotch chalked pavement in Tachbrook Street ‘What, did your mother feed you with a shovel!’

  ‘We understand that you and Miss Shute were rather close for a time,’ said Monica.

  He exhaled loudly.

  'For a time we were, yes. Can I ask who told you that, by the way?’

  There was a forced politeness to his tone.

  Monica had begun to make notes on the pad she had taken from her bag; she wrote in rapid lines using a gold Parker ballpoint pen. She had disliked Graham Jarvis on sight. She knew that her reaction was either instinctive or irrational and that in either case she must suppress this dislike and maintain neutrality. She did not look up, leaving the sergeant to answer the question.

  ‘It was her sister, Alexa, told us. Not a secret though was it, sir, you and Miss Shute?’

  ‘No, no of course it wasn’t, I was just curious, that’s all. Do you have any idea what happened to her?’

  ‘A fair idea, sir, yes.’

  Monica poised the golden pen above the page ‘How long did the affair last, Squadron Leader?’ she asked briskly.

  He frowned

  ‘About six months, I suppose. She’s - she was – a lovely girl.’

  ‘And when was this?

  ‘Last year, until the spring.’

  ‘And it was you that ended the relationship, was it?’

  ‘Er, yes, it was me … I’m sorry I don’t quite see what …’

  ‘And why was that, Squadron Leader? Why did you end the relationship?’

  ‘Well, because it all got a bit heavy – complicated. I could see that I wasn’t what Amanda wanted – or not what she needed, anyway. She was quite mixed up sometimes, unpredictable.’

  ‘What was it, that Amanda needed?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know, a father figure maybe.’

  He leaned forward to stub out the cigarette. The ashtray was pottery with an sgraffito advertisement for a bar in Gibraltar. The sergeant was looking towards the Scalextric track

  ‘You have children, do you sir?’

  ‘Yes, I have two, a boy and a girl.’

  ‘And are the children living with you at the moment, Squadron Leader?’ Monica asked, looking towards the balled fawn socks.

  ‘No, they were here in the holidays, at Easter. I let them leave their stuff around, it’s their home too.’

  Monica was writing again.

  ‘Lived here long, have you sir?’ asked Sergeant Bee.

  ‘A couple of years. After my divorce I had to make sure I had somewhere settled, for when I have the children to stay.’

  ‘You couldn’t live in married quarters then?’

  ‘Not once you’re divorced, it’s not allowed. Anyway, it can be a bit like living in a fishbowl, you know, a married quarters site. I like to have somewhere of my own to come back to, keep work and private life separate.’

  ‘Old, is it sir, this house?’

  ‘So they say – the couple I bought it from, they renovated it from scratch, and put in all the features. It’s got a bit of a history too, apparently it’s where they used to bring the drowned dead, after a wreck, to do the laying out.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Sergeant Bee cast his eyes around the lamplit room.

  Monica looked up abruptly ‘Where were you on Tuesday, Squadron Leader?’

  ‘On Tuesday …’ they heard annoyance in his tone, ‘Chief Inspector, can we just get things clear here - you surely can’t think I had anything to do with Amanda’s death?’

  ‘We’ll be asking everyone that knew Miss Shute the same question. Where were you sir?’

  He frowned again and lifted the flap of the flying suit breast pocket, feeling for the cigarette packet.

  ‘Tuesday, my trainee crew had a morning in the sim – the flight simulator …’

  ‘You’re a trainer, are you?’

  The sergeant sensed Graham Jarvis’ rising antipathy towards Monica’s manner.

  ‘I am an instructor, yes. I command the MRU.’

  ‘MRU?’

  ‘The Maritime Readiness Unit, the unit that ensures the capabilities of each Nimrod crew to full operational readiness.’

  ‘I see,’

  Watching her notes course across the page, Sergeant Bee saw that she wrote almost at shorthand speed and that some of the letters were more like symbols. The M, he thought, resembled the π sign.

  ‘And how many men are there in your MRU unit?’

  ‘Eight, three officers, five SNCOs – look I’m sorry Chief Inspector but I really can’t see the relevance of your questions,’

  She looked up and smiled blandly.

  ‘Neither can I, at the moment, Squadron Leader, but do carry on – you were going through your movements on Tuesday.’

  He made a show of curbing his impatience. Monica’s pen was poised over the notepad.

  ‘Okay, well I stayed to observe in the sim and then I went to my office to write up their reports. I did a preparatory briefing for Wednesday’s sortie with my unit and then I stayed to catch up on some more paperwork. I left at about 7.30 or 8 I suppose,’

  ‘Did you see Miss Shute?’

  ‘No, why should I have seen her?’

  ‘She was on the base on Tuesday evening.’

  ‘Was she really? Well so were several hundred others. There would be no reason for me to know that Amanda was amongst them – I haven’t spoken to her for months.’

  ‘What did you do when you finished work?’

  ‘I stopped off at the officers’ mess,’

  ‘Do you have dinner there?’

  ‘Sometimes,’

  ‘And did you eat there on Tuesday?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, as it happens, I only stayed for about ten minutes.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘There was a noisy crowd in, some of the younger officers from 7 Squadron,’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I left the base and I drove into St Columb Major to get something to eat.’

  ‘Where in St Columb Major?’

  ‘The Old Parsonage,’

  ‘The Old Parsonage?’

  ‘Yes, the country club, the proprietors are friends of mine,’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Gerstmann?’

  ‘Conrad and Maria, yes.’

  ‘The Gerstmanns are in partnership with Mrs Shute, Amanda’s mother, are they not?’

  ‘They are, they also have a number of other business interests.’

  ‘Do you go there regularly?’

  ‘Fairly regularly,’

  ‘Surely Amanda used to work at the Old Parsonage sometimes?’

  ‘She did yes,’

  ‘She worked there, you go there regularly, and yet, sir, you say you haven’t seen her for months.’

  ‘Yes, because Amanda worked in the main bar and restaurant. I tend to go into the little members’ lounge which Maria – Mrs Gerstmann – looks after. I don’t know if you’ve ever been inside the Old Parsonage?’

  She ignored his question.

  ‘Did you see Mrs Gerstmann on Tuesday?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I didn’t, no, neither she nor Conrad were there. I had a chat to Sandy, the manager, then I had a quick bite to eat and got back here at about half nine,’

  ‘Did you go out again?’

  ‘No, why should I? It had been a long day and I had a very early start on Wednesday. I took a bath and went to bed.’

  ‘And can anyone vouch for your movements, after you left the Old Parsonage?’

  ‘Probably not, I suppose. I stopped at Hawkey’s garage for petrol, but he was already closed. Paula might have heard my car, when I got back but apart from that … no,’

  ‘Paula?’

  ‘Paula Juli
an, my next-door neighbour. She does some cleaning and bits and bobs for me … her husband is working away, in the Gulf.’

  Both men watched as Monica wrote the name of the neighbour on a new line of the page. On the table beside her notepad a jam jar held a bunch of dried helichrysum flowers. The flower heads were strawy, the yellow and brown petals looked as if they would scrunch and disintegrate under a touch. A handwritten label had been pasted to the jar, it read:

  Ingredients:

  2 hearts full of love

  2 heaped cups of kindness

  2 armfuls of gentleness

  2 cups of joy

  2 minds full of tenderness

  A pinch of cuddles

  3 tablespoons of pure sweetness

  A great big kiss

  Preparation:

  Dim the lights then mix

  them very slowly together. Stir daily with happiness,

  humour and patience.

  Serve with warmth.

  Makes 1 lifetime of togetherness.

  Setting down her pen, Monica turned the jam jar fractionally towards her and studied the label. The writing appeared to be that of an adolescent, above each i there was a little circle instead of a dot. Cally had been through a phase of embellishing her handwriting, Garth had disapproved. He had said that he could not understand why the school fees were so bloody high if they weren’t even teaching the child to write properly. Around the edge of the label heart shapes had been drawn with a pink felt tip pen.

  Monica asked, ‘Are you a sentimental man, Squadron Leader?’

  ‘Sentimental? How do you mean?’

  ‘This – it’s a souvenir of Amanda isn’t it?’

  He hesitated. ‘No, as it happens, that’s not actually from Amanda.’

  ‘Really? So, as well as Amanda there is…’

  ‘Was; yes, if you must know, there was someone else. Chrissie. Chrissie was very special to me.’

  ‘I see. And did Chrissie come before or after your affair with Amanda?’

  ‘After.’

  ‘How long after, sir?’

  He made an expression as though to indicate the reluctance of slight embarrassment. In Monica’s judgement the embarrassment was insincere. He would enjoy talking about his success with women, she thought, especially much younger ones.

  ‘Well, it was more or less after.’

  ‘More or less,’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes. Look, it had got to the point where I could see clearly that I just couldn’t let things carry on with Amanda, it was time for both of us to move on with our lives …’

  ‘And did Amanda agree with you?’

  ‘Well actually no, she didn’t. Not for a while, anyway,’

  He leaned forward to stub out the cigarette, screwing up his eyes against the smoke.

  ‘How long had you been seeing Amanda?’

  ‘About six months I suppose, seven maybe …’

  ‘How old are you squadron leader?’

  ‘I’m thirty-six,’

  ‘And Amanda was what … twenty-one when you first met. Was that a problem, the age gap?’

  ‘No. Well not as such. Amanda was very intense, demanding; as I told you, it all got a bit heavy. We had some great times together, but it just ran its course, as these things do …’

  He glanced at Sergeant Bee, perhaps seeking some expression of solidarity, but the sergeant was once more studying the light from the lamps and the shadows around the long, curtained room, reflecting perhaps upon the drowned dead.

  ‘How did she take it, when you ended your relationship?’

  ‘Not very well. She found it difficult to accept that it was all over.’

  ‘And how did she express that difficulty, squadron leader?’

  ‘She used to keep trying to contact me, ringing up, writing me letters, sometimes she made scenes, in public …’

  He stood up and made a business of finding a new packet of cigarettes from an air force blue canvas briefcase. The briefcase had concertina sections for holding flight plans. He removed the cellophane from the cigarette packet and offered it to them.

  ‘Not for me, thanks, sir,’ said the sergeant.

  Monica, longing for a cigarette, merely held up a hand in refusal.

  ‘And how did Amanda react to your new girlfriend. To Chrissie?’

  He sighed and passed a hand over his eyes and then lit a cigarette.

  ‘I’m sorry, Chief Inspector, but this is all a bit difficult for me. As I say, Chrissie was very special. Our relationship, it wasn’t planned, it just happened between us, out of the blue,’

  ‘I would guess that Chrissie was also somewhat younger than you, if her handwriting’s anything to go by.’

  They watched him check his annoyance as he responded.

  ‘Yes, Chrissie is sixteen – well she’ll be almost seventeen now.’

  ‘You sound a little defensive, Squadron Leader.’

  ‘Look, as I say, it just happened between us. Yes, Chrissie was much younger, but it knocked me for six, I can tell you.’

  ‘How did you meet Chrissie?’

  ‘We met because I’d gone to stay with some friends of mine, Mike and Di, they’re based at RAF Mountbatten – Chrissie, Chrissie is their daughter,’

  ‘And you started an affair with your friends’ daughter?’

  ‘Yes – well strictly speaking, it was Chrissie who kind of initiated things.’

  ‘Did she indeed?’

  ‘Yes, actually, she did. We’d stayed up late to watch a film together, Mike and Di had already turned in…’

  ‘And that’s when things just happened between you, was it?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And what about your friends - her parents - did they know?’

  ‘We decided not to tell them, not at first. I felt I needed time to think, to make sure I was doing the right thing, for both of us … well, all of us…’

  His sentence was left incomplete while Monica made more notes. Sergeant Bee, conscious of the silence in the long room, thought he could hear music playing in the house next door. Monica came to the end of a line, keeping her pen ready over the page she looked up

  ‘It occurs to me, Squadron Leader, that while you were busy making sure whether you were doing the right thing or not, Chrissie’s parents might have found out anyway?’

  He shifted on his chair, ‘Actually, that is what happened, yes,’

  ‘And was that because somebody else took it upon themselves to tell them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And who was that somebody else, sir?’

  ‘It was Amanda,’

  ‘Right, I see. And how did Amanda find out about you and Chrissie, did you tell her?’

  ‘Not in so many words, no, but I did tell her that I’d met someone else. I felt I had to, you know, I thought it might help her to accept that things were over between us. She was still phoning me and she kept turning up here at all hours. Then one Saturday morning she came round while Chrissie was here …’

  ‘And what happened? Was there a scene?’

  ‘Well, yes, there was a lot of shouting, hard words … Amanda actually started trying to attack us physically … Paula came from next door to help and I got Chrissie back upstairs. Paula threatened to ring the police, that made Amanda get back into her car but she still sat outside for about an hour, at one point she called Paula’s son over to speak to her. Chrissie was so scared that she wouldn’t come out of the bedroom.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘Eventually she drove away. Then on the next day, the Sunday, Mike and Di arrived. We weren’t expecting them, Chrissie had told them she was staying with a girlfriend for the weekend.’

  ‘And it wasn’t a coincidence, them turning up?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. Amanda had met Mike and Di once at a mess do, apparently she contacted them, after the scene here, and told them about Chrissie and me,’

  ‘I see.’

  Once more Monica gave the jar of helichrysum
s a slight turn and then she said

  ‘I imagine it must all have been rather awkward. The young daughter of your good friends and you being, what – more than twice her age. It must have been very awkward indeed.’

  She spoke conversationally, her tone one of impartial observation. The sergeant looked for any hint of irony in her expression, but he found none. Graham Jarvis did not disguise the irritation in his retort.

  ‘It was rather more than awkward. Believe it or not, Chrissie and I were – no, we are - very much in love. It took hours to persuade her to leave here and go back with Mike and Di. In the end we had to reach an agreement that I wouldn’t see her again for the time being, not until she’s older.’

  ‘And have you seen her?’

  ‘No, not at all. We’ve had no contact since that weekend.’

  ‘Squadron Leader, you must surely have been very angry with Amanda. Presumably, if she hadn’t told your friends, you and Chrissie could have carried on regardless, perhaps you could even have carried on until she was old enough for it not to be such a problem. What do you think, sergeant?’

  ‘It sounds highly likely, M’am.’

  She gave Graham Jarvis no time to respond.

  ‘Yes, indeed. So, after that fateful weekend, what did Amanda do, just fade away quietly?’

  ‘No, no she did not. I honestly think she believed that with Chrissie gone, she and I would just pick up again.’

  ‘And did she continue to contact you?’

  ‘Yes, she did, both here and at work. Several times she tried to persuade Paula’s son to give her the spare key while I was out.’

  ‘So, that’s Mrs Julian next door, her son, how old would he be?’

  ‘Robert ... he’s about fifteen, I think …’

  ‘Oh, not far off Chrissie’s age then.’ Sergeant Bee turned his head away swiftly to hide a smile. Graham Jarvis looked stony faced at Monica ‘Carry on, Squadron Leader, do,’ she continued, her tone light and pleasant.

  ‘Amanda was drinking a lot at that time, she could become quite abusive to friends, colleagues, if they refused to give her information about where I was, what I was doing. A couple of times she made a scene down at the Old Parsonage, luckily I was able to confide in Maria – Mrs Gerstmann, she sorted out the duty roster so that I would be less likely to run across Amanda.’

  ‘As I said, you must have been very angry with Amanda,’