She paused and drank some more of the water.
‘Of course, I knew what I really needed was the ability to be in two places at once, so I contacted a theatrical agency – quite ingenious, wouldn’t you agree? Although when I first saw the woman they sent to be me I was somewhat taken aback – I thought God, do I really look like that – she was un peu raddled, shall we say … anyway, she did the trick …’ her eyes turned to Monica and she smiled, ‘for a while, anyway,’
‘Go on,’ said Monica.
‘I went to the hotel and booked in, I made a point of getting the receptionist to find out what was on at the cinema that evening. Then I drove to the game fair, I visited a lot of stalls and talked to the exhibitors – although I couldn’t actually tell you what I talked about, it was the adrenalin I suppose. I just wanted to make sure people saw me, I calculated that the timing there wouldn’t be quite so crucial – I knew from my days at the London Book Fair that when people have to man one of those stalls for hours on end they completely lose track of the time. Later I went into the hospitality tent and sure enough, Charlie Trevail and Jack Payne – from the estate agents in St Columb - were there propping up the bar. They were already well-away, but I made a point of telling them how I was going to watch the gun dog demonstrations later in the afternoon, so that I had an alibi fixed with them. After that I went to meet my doppelgänger, as arranged, at the Gordano service station, I gave her some clothes and spare car keys, she drove me to the outskirts of Bristol and dropped me near the hire place, then went back to the hotel with the car. I had already come to an agreement with the young woman in the office at the hire company, she jumped at the chance of making some ready money … then I drove back to Cornwall in the van. It was all going like clockwork; my only concern was that she …’
‘Amanda’
‘Yes, very well, Aman-da’ in mock obedience she repeated the name and elongated the last syllable, ‘that she wouldn’t have picked up the message …’
‘But she did,’
‘Oh yes, she did. I shouldn’t have worried, for such a stupid little tart she was actually surprisingly loyal, she checked their precious milestone several times a day. Nicholas had stopped on his way to the station to make his mark, all I had to do was alter it slightly, telling her to come to the lodge that night instead of the next day.’
‘And she did come.’
‘Yes, she did come, and I was waiting for her. I parked the van out of sight and I waited in the trees, near the place where she always left her car. I was well concealed, I’d put on Nick’s Barbour coat and one of his caps, but I think she knew that something wasn’t quite right. I watched her tip toeing through the trees with her torch and she seemed to sense something. I managed to be completely silent as I moved in on her but just as I got up close behind her she began to turn around and she … she called his name … not loudly … she whispered it “Nick” … and that was my spur, I suppose, I yanked the lead up around her neck and … and I pulled on the ends, harder and harder and … and after that the dark …’
‘It was a dog’s lead that you used?’
She nodded ‘It was indeed. It was old Major’s lead – Major was my father-in-law’s favourite dog, his lead is always kept over there, with the old man’s mac.’
They looked towards a row of cloakroom hooks beside the back door, from one hook hung a weather stained Burberry riding mackintosh, from the next a brown leather dog lead.
Felicity Haig-Mercer watched their expressions and began to laugh. The sound of the laugh verged on hysteria.
‘Oh, come, come, don’t look so shocked,’ she said, ‘I was only tidying up after myself,’
Monica nodded to Martin Bee and he crossed to the hooks and, using the end of a biro, he lifted off the lead. He brought it back to the kitchen table and Monica held open her cardboard document wallet and with concentration he lowered the old brown leather lead into it.
Felicity Haig-Mercer said ‘You look as if you are playing that magnetic fishing game, Sergeant.’
Monica closed the flap of the wallet.
‘What did you do after that?’ she asked.
She laughed again. ‘What, after I had strangled my husband’s mistress, you mean? Well firstly I made sure she was dead. And she was, Blondie, she was absolutely dead. It was all quite easy, I had no qualms, once I’d done it, she was just like any other dead creature. People are so precious, nowadays, about killing, and yet the last two or three generations all dutifully trotted off and slaughtered millions, killed indiscriminately, and didn’t think twice about it … sorry, I digress … then I got her into the back of the van and drove out onto the coast road, there’s a culvert that goes right underneath the roadway – it would have been the perfect place to dump her – but just as I was going to get her out some patrol vehicle came along, on the airfield, it lit everything up like a bloody Christmas tree.’
‘So, what did you do?’
‘I drove off pretty quick, I didn’t dare go back to the culvert but by then I just wanted to get rid of her, I knew that the time was getting on, so I decided I’d just have to leave her beside the road, and that’s what I did.’
‘At the Trebelzue gate.’
‘Yes, at the Trebelzue gate. I went hell for leather back up the motorway and left the van outside the hire company. Then I got an early bus into the city and changed my top clothes in the car. My doppelgänger had left it in the car park as per instructions, she’d slipped out by the fire door to be out of the way before the day shift started. I had breakfast in the dining room and paid my bill. It was the same receptionist on the desk and I told her how much I’d enjoyed the film. On the way home I stopped at the game fair again and did a couple of circuits, picked up one or two things. Then I drove back and got here in the afternoon. Esther was quite beside herself over the rumours that were flying around.’
‘Was your husband here when you arrived?’
‘Not then, no. I didn’t see him until the next morning, he came in – from the woods I suppose – he looked an absolute wreck.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I said to him that I had no idea what was wrong with him, further, that I had no wish to know what was wrong with him, but for the sake of the family, and particularly his mother, if he couldn’t get himself under control he had better go over to his office and stay out of sight and I would tell everyone he’d gone away for a few days.’
She picked up the Rothmans packet, there was one cigarette left which she shook out onto the table. ‘So, that’s what we did. That’s what we were doing, when you lot arrived.’
The tendency to hysteria had passed. Felicity Haig-Mercer sat silent and unresponsive while Monica spoke the words of formal arrest and asked the sergeant to arrange for a patrol car to come, with WPC Jones to accompany. He went to use the telephone in the hall. When he had finished the call he turned to see Dorothy Haig-Mercer watching him. She was leaning on a stick of black wood so that the hem of her dress dipped slightly on one side, but she held her upper body straight and stiff.
‘Come in for a moment, won’t you,’ she said.
He followed her into the morning room with the Cubist painting.
‘You know, do you Madam…’ he began.
‘Thank you, Sergeant, yes, I am aware of what has happened. There was rather a scene earlier today, I believe that my son telephoned you. Are you going to take Felicity away?’
‘Yes Madam, we are just waiting for the car now,’
‘I see,’ she looked around the room as though she too was leaving and needed to check that everything was in its place.
‘I’m sorry Madam,’
‘Thank you, Sergeant.’
He was almost out of the room when she added ‘Of course Sergeant, we will get over this you know, as a family. Once Nicolas has recovered his equilibrium he will be able to meet someone new, start afresh, have children …’
Unsure how to respond, Martin Bee merely nodded and went away.
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br /> When the patrol car arrived Monica said ‘You go with them, would you, I just want to take a last look around. And Sergeant, before she goes down to the cells, can you and Jones arrange for her to be seen by the doctor – I don’t want to waste any time in charging her but I’m not convinced that she’s going to be up to a statement today.’
Martin Bee left Felicity Haig-Mercer with the custody sergeant and the duty doctor and made his way to the canteen. Janet had gone home. Her assistant said that there wasn’t much left, but she could warm him up a pie. He said that would do. As he was returning to his office a constable called him
‘Woman’s turned up from Plymouth, Sarge, a Mrs Roness, she wants to talk to someone about the investigation.’
He gave the pie to the constable and made his way to the interview room. A woman sat waiting, her shoulder length blonde hair was cut with a deep fringe and she wore heavy eye make-up. A sling back shoe had half slipped from the foot of one lean crossed leg.
‘Mrs Roness?’ he asked.
‘That’s me,’
Sergeant Bee scanned the form she had filled in at the desk.
‘It’s Mrs Danni Roness, is that right?’
‘Partly. Danni is my stage name – my real name is Doreen.’
‘And Roness, that’s quite unusual, isn’t it?’
‘There’s a story to that,’ she said. She took cigarettes and a gold lighter from her bag. There was a charm bracelet on her wrist, one of the charms was a ten-shilling note in a small transparent canister. ‘I’ll explain if you like, so long as you promise me it won’t go on record – it has no bearing on what I’m here to see you about.’
‘Go on then,’
‘Well, when I got married, back in 1950, I was only seventeen and I was pretty green. I was just starting out in variety – singing and dancing. My husband, he was in his thirties, but still a real Jack the Lad, at least I thought so then. He had a number of lines, one of which was racing greyhounds. Things got a bit tricky, he overstepped the mark, and not just with the law. He said we needed to go abroad for a bit and that he would have to alter the passports, our name in those days was Jones, he did it himself, and the easiest thing to alter it to was ‘Roness’. We had a few years on the Continent, but things didn’t work out. I came back to England - and my old dad saying ‘I told you so’. I went back to the stage work and I kept to the new name. I changed my first name to Danni – it sounded more the part than Doreen.’
‘And do you still do that, stage work?’
‘I’ve done all sorts in my time, mainly singing, summer seasons and pantos, I even had a stint in the d’Oyly Carte chorus for a while. Lately I’ve been doing more in cosmetic sales, store demonstrations and so on, but my agent keeps me on his books, and that’s how this job turned up.’
‘Which job, Mrs Roness?’
‘You won’t need to say anything about that old passport business, will you?’
‘I don’t expect so,’ he said.
‘Right then, well it may have been something and nothing, but I don’t want it on my conscience. A couple of weeks ago I got a call from Lennie, my agent, to say an engagement had come up, a bit out of the ordinary but the pay rate was good.’
She paused to light a cigarette. The charms on the bracelet quivered. Next to the ten-shilling note there was a cat with a ball of wool between its paws.
‘It was an impersonation, a woman who wanted me to impersonate her, she said she was planning this elaborate birthday surprise for her husband, a sort of This is Your Life do, but he was suspicious, and so she needed him to think that she was in Bristol, for a shopping trip, whereas really she was off making the arrangements.’
‘Is there much call for that, people wanting impersonators?’
‘Oh yes, though usually people want you to do someone famous - I’ve done Petula Clark in the past. At the moment there’s a woman making a fortune because she looks like the Queen.’
‘What were you asked to do?’
‘Not all that much, to be honest. I had to meet this woman at Gordano services. She handed over some clothes and I had a vanity case for me to put my stuff in. There was a cash payment with the clothes, she said I could collect the rest from Lennie once the engagement was completed. She’d already booked into the Royal Hotel in Bristol, I just had to go in at about half ten and pick up the room key from reception. If anyone asked I was supposed to have been at the pictures seeing Death on the Nile, as luck would have it I’d seen it a couple of weeks earlier, when it was on in Plymouth. She and I were about the same height and build and both blonde and she gave me a headscarf to wear as well. After I’d gone up to the room I just had to wait until early morning, then slip out the back way and leave her stuff in her car. It was money for old rope really.’
‘What made you decide to contact us, Mrs Roness?’
‘I was reading yesterday’s Western Morning News, it said that the car connected to that girl’s murder had been found in some woods, Trenant Woods. When I picked up the room key from reception, I happened to see the address this woman had put in the guest register – I suppose you could say I’m a bit nosey by nature,’ she paused and smiled, the sergeant smiled back,
‘And what was the address?’ he asked
‘It was Trenant House; putting two and two together, I thought they might be connected, am I right?’
Sergeant Bee’s expression was impassive.
‘Mrs Roness, you have been most helpful,’ he said, ‘Where can we contact you again, if we need to?’
‘I’ll give you a card, it has Lennie’s details on too. And you won’t say anything, about the passport, will you?’
‘What passport?’
‘It’s a respectable turnaround time,’ said Commander Scott, on the telephone, ‘My congratulations,’
Monica began to respond but he was already speaking again ‘I suppose I can tell the MoD that we’ve almost finished with their premises, can I – no doubt you’ll tie everything up back at the station?’
The process of dismantling their occupation of the SECO hut was as rapid as their setting up had been. Monica, watching, saw that the others were glib about their leave taking while she, lingering in the emptying offices, felt some regret. Within the hut’s thin walls she had expended all the energy and intellect that she could bring to bear on the case. She had proved her worth amid the doubts of others and of herself. But her feeling now was more than a reluctance to leave a site of professional achievement. Some features of this far corner of the airfield and the wartime hut had been instantly recognisable, triggering associations with other places. Whenever she encountered such coincidences, Monica, catechumen-like, returned to a belief that finding connections and familiar points of reference in memory promised to make some sense of life. A reassurance that there was, after all, a pattern to it.
‘Red Lion tonight then,’ Ellery said as he placed the cushion on top of his cardboard box.
‘Red Lion?’ Monica quietly asked of Martin Bee.
‘The pub above the harbour M’am, it’s customary for everyone on a team to go there, once a big case is sewn up,’
‘And they’ll expect me to …’
‘It is customary, M’am,’ he said.
Light bulbs of different colours hung in bright swags around the beer garden of the Red Lion. Some of their group drifted outside to look down on the boats in the harbour below. Monica, straining her voice above the hubbub, arranged a tab for drinks behind the bar. Martin Bee had told her that pasties would also be expected; when the barmaid appeared, holding aloft a silver metal platter, a cheer went up. Sprigs of plastic parsley had been tucked at the edges of the pastry mound. WPC Jones challenged one of the pub regulars, a man with a round red face and long sideburns, to a game of darts. The others catcalled and joshed but they quietened as she threw her darts with unfailing accuracy. At the end of the bar Martin Bee stood watching the scene and exchanging occasional comments with the landlord. Monica saw that although he responded
to his colleagues when called upon, he remained at one remove from the rest. She considered shouldering her way through the crowd to join him but instead she moved outside. In the twilight she observed a red and white fishing boat entering the harbour, as compact and neat as a toy it chugged steadily between the long arms of the grey concrete jetties.
A little before ten o’clock she took her leave.
Ellery, swaying slightly and with his arm around Toy’s shoulder, called out a loud goodnight and said that he would see her bright and early.
In the cottage the low ceilinged living room was musty and still. Filled, she sensed, with the presence of its past occupants, generations she could not know or understand. She made a cup of coffee and stood for a while at the open back door. Every so often the dusk flickered like a film reel and she thought that it might be a bat. Beside her the rose Prince Klaus was listing to one side in the flowerpot. She drank the coffee and smoked a cigarette and then went inside to the telephone.
‘Is there something wrong?’ asked Cally, ’It’s rather late.’
‘No, no, nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry, I should have thought, but I’ve been working and I rather lost track of time …’
Her explanation trailed away, Cally did not make any answer.
‘The thing is, I thought I might drive up and visit your father next weekend and I wondered if you’d like me to pick you up, on the way, I know it’s a difficult journey for you,’
‘Canterbury’s not on the way from Cornwall,’
‘Well yes, I know it isn’t, but I could make a detour. We wouldn’t have to go in together to see him … you could spend as much time as you liked on your own with him of course… anyway, let me know,’
The Trebelzue Gate Page 22