A Clear Conscience

by Frances Fyfield

  Ryan had taken this statement. He had an ear for the vernacular and an ability to make people talk, something to do with his deceptively friendly face.

  ‘Anyway, I hardly noticed that the crowd had left and I forgot the fact they threatened to come back. I can’t, for the life of me, remember what the argument was about. Damien was good at pool; the pub has five tables; he’d won some money off a bloke who thought he was better; Damien had fleeced the poor kid on a bet, that was it, I think. Oh, maybe three or four games. What was lost? I’ve no idea. Maybe fifty, more like a hundred, but Damien was so shambling and so clever, they couldn’t see him coming. He was more than good at pool: he was brilliant.’

  There would have been a pause in the statement, for tea, Bailey guessed, rehearsing it all in his mind. The man was not a defendant, merely a witness. He would have been afforded all the luxury the police station could allow. Which was tea or coffee in a smoke-filled interview room, not quite far enough away from the sobbing and grunting in the cells.

  ‘Anyway, the place closed and out we went. Damien wanted to go to some other place, I said, no, not me, I must get home, your sister has an early start. He nodded, he never thought much of me, to tell the truth, and you were either with Damien or against him. So I didn’t wait to see if there was anyone there in the shadows, if you see what I mean. He had more than enough going for him with his friends around him. I was only ever asked along for the ride because my wife wanted Damien and me to be friends; he’s a bit flash for me. If he wanted a fight he had one. Boys will be boys and there never was any stopping my brother-in-law. I never dreamt it would go so far.’

  Not a bad bloke, that Joe Boyce, Ryan had said to Bailey. Bailey had never seen the man whose evidence had been agreed as part of the setting; it would provide nothing of great interest to either prosecution or defence at the forthcoming trial. Pleasant Mr Joseph Boyce had helped with descriptions, that was all, leaving before the action, as Damien’s friends had confirmed in their own, sorrowful evidence. Since they too had failed to prevent the death, they could not afford contempt, although one of them suggested it. Joe was nothing but a hanger-on, adopted by Damien and Mickey Gat because he was wed to Damien’s sister, Mary Catherine Boyce: there was a statement from her too.

  Bailey could not have said why he wanted to cast his eyes over Mr Boyce, some little trace element of bitterness in the statement, perhaps, but with his car accidentally pointing west instead of east, the time was as good as any. Ryan was a fine investigator. He got on the wavelength and spoke as he was spoken to, but his judgement, well, that varied.

  Bailey always knew the exact time of day, and as long as it was greater London, exactly where he was without reference to anything or anybody. The map and the minutes past the hour always seemed to tally with his preconceptions. The talent was one he dismissed as no more than accident; you walk round streets, he said, you get to know which way is south and how long it is since last you slept.

  The Spoon and Fiddle surprised him, first for its diminutive size, then for the luxuriance of the flowers, third for its signs of taste and privacy, and lastly, as an afterthought, its proximity to the Eliots.

  ‘Mr Boyce?’

  The man turned from an assiduous polishing of glasses at the bar, responded with an almost stagy deference, clicking his heels.

  ‘At your service, sir!’ A small man, Bailey noted, muscular; soft round the chin.

  He produced his warrant card. ‘About the Donovan trial. Can I have a word?’ It sounded such a clichéd way to begin but Bailey knew life was full of clichés; most people understood little else and expected a policeman to talk like his TV equivalent. What he had not expected was for Joseph Boyce to respond in the same clichéd terms, by looking visibly shocked, turning white, so that the livid bruise on his cheekbone and round the left eye burned in a pale skin like the mark of a branding iron. The reaction was quickly controlled. Boyce shook himself, looked resigned, then smiled with a sigh and extended his hand.

  Bailey did not want to take it, did so reluctantly. The pressure was dry and firm.

  ‘My, but you gave me a shock. I thought all that was over, bar the shouting. I hope they hang the bastard, but you can’t these days, can you?’

  ‘You seem to have been in a fight, Mr Boyce.’ Bailey pointed at the bruise, somewhat rudely.

  ‘Kids. Followed me home last evening after I wouldn’t serve them a drink. It’s nothing. I got away lightly.’

  ‘Did you report it?’

  ‘C’mon, sir, you know better than that. When I couldn’t begin to tell you what they looked like? I just wanted to get home. How else can I help you?’

  There was a hidden truculence behind the easy manner. The man was clean, but Bailey could sense fear.

  ‘I just wanted to check a few points on your statement. About your brother-in-law and the evening he died. I’m sorry if it upsets you, but if I dot the Ts and cross the Is, there’s less chance you’ll be needed at the trial.’

  The light of hope sprang into Joe’s eyes. ‘That would be great,’ he said firmly. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere near a court if I can help it. Upsets the wife, see? What do you want to know? Thought I said it all.’

  Bailey hoiked his long frame onto a bar stool. He had not quite thought what to ask, an investigator without portfolio and a car pointed in the wrong direction, but he was rarely at a total loss for words.

  ‘Were you fond of your brother-in-law, Mr Boyce?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, even though he could be a problem. Anyone who knew Damien loved him. You should have seen the turnout for his funeral. I’ve never seen flowers like it. Never.’

  Bailey nodded, without adding that he had been present himself on the edges of the same funeral, taking in the appearance of Damien’s friends and looking out for signs of his family. There had been one woman sobbing, only one. The flowers had been repellent; Bailey’s experience showed that the amount of floral tributes at funerals was often in inverse proportion to the grief, indeed they were sometimes a last revenge.

  ‘Is your wife the only relative?’

  ‘There’s a cousin or two somewhere, but otherwise, yes. The parents died when they were kids; Damien and she grew up together. Like peas in a pod. Very close.’

  ‘What does your wife do, Mr Boyce?’

  Boyce turned from friendly to angry.

  ‘Leave her out of it, will you? She’s had quite enough, what with having to identify her only kith and kin and then being asked to confirm what time I came home that night, as if it was me who needed the alibi! What does it matter what she does for a living?’

  Bailey could picture the statement of Mary Catherine Boyce. Short and to the point. Identifying her brother. Saying what time her husband had gone out and come in. Cleaning lady, he remembered suddenly, as if that mattered.

  He got up. ‘I’d only want to ask her a few questions about Damien’s background. I know there was a fight, but we’re still, well, how can I put it, short on the motive.’

  ‘Anyone can get killed in a fight,’ said Boyce, pointing to the bruise. ‘Happens every day in this God-forsaken place. You could work hard all your life without ever putting a foot wrong and still go that way. What difference does your background make?’ He was becoming increasingly agitated.

  ‘Where could I find her, Mr Boyce? I’ll do my best not to cause any upset.’

  ‘I believe you. Others wouldn’t. Why don’t you send that other bloke? I liked him.’

  Because Ryan is so often blind, Bailey thought, watching the other man struggling for control. Boyce was working out how to minimise the inevitable, a primitive, Bailey concluded: a body responsive to orders and not so stupid as to imagine he could hide his wife for ever. Nothing unusual in that: there were not many men who wanted police officers calling on their wives, especially a spouse unlikely to declare her meagre income or pay tax on it. But it was not this aspect of the black economy which worried Boyce. He was weighing up the pros and cons of whe
re such an interview with Cath should take place. Should he invite this interference home some afternoon when he could insist on being present, or could he ensure Bailey saw Cath somewhere where she would be equally awkward, embarrassed and taciturn? He smiled. There was no malice in the smile, Bailey noticed, merely satisfaction.

  ‘All right, if you must. No time like the present. She’s working round the corner here. Chantry Street. You might know it. Big houses. Number seven.’

  Then it was Bailey’s turn to mask surprise. Declining the now effusive offer of a drink, something Ryan rarely did, he left with a nod of acknowledgement.

  As he reached his own car, Bailey saw a large, silver-coloured Jaguar, old but perfectly preserved, moving with all the grace of an ageing ballerina as it rolled over the cobblestones of the mews. It stopped outside the flowers of the Spoon with scarcely a sound, while Bailey looked on, enviously. There were few materialistic ambitions which moved him much, outside the clocks he collected, but the sight of this elegant vehicle inspired an acquisitive admiration. The very best vintage, he thought, I would love one of those, a car which was more than a car. He was thinking, as an antidote, how such a motor would not last five minutes in his neck of the woods without a garage built like a fortress, when a figure rose out of the driving seat, yawned, stretched and executed three karate kicks, before ambling into the Spoon. A huge creature, dressed in a vivid shell suit, with a walk both languid and energetic, the sun catching pale hair and a face tanned by sunbeds. Bailey smiled to himself, envy of the car dispelled. Awesomely gorgeous Mickey Gat. A legend in her own time, except for lazy investigators like Ryan who never listened to important gossip and never kept their eyes open wide enough. Feminism incarnate, in one sense, that was Mickey Gat; big enough to make jelly of a man. One of a dying breed, lawless, but law-enforcing. Like the Jag, Bailey reflected: they were both in their way the very best of British. The sight of Mickey, looking like a bull in a china shop amid the discreet wealth of the mews, somehow made Bailey feel at home. He smiled after the retreating figure with affection, almost with desire, which was only in part for the car.

  Mickey had attended the Damien funeral, probably contributed some of the flowers of which Joe had boasted, but it had never been part of Ryan’s narrow mandate to explore any closer link. It made no odds, surely, who the murdered man knew; he was killed in a pub brawl and no single witness had suggested it was more complicated than that. Bailey shrugged. Neither had the ripples of the investigation turned up the fact that the sister of the deceased worked for a family Bailey knew. Why should it? Mary Catherine Boyce working for the Eliots; the fact did indeed stretch the long arm of coincidence. Bailey had learned never to be surprised by the elastic length of that particular limb. He decided, all the same, not to go to the Eliots’ number seven Chantry Street. Something told him that was a move which could embarrass Emily Eliot, and her Treasure. Let well alone. If the woman the Eliots called Cath, and her statement called Mary, had not told them anything about her family, least of all the death of a brother, it was not for Bailey to invade her privacy; after all, he had no real purpose, even less official blessing for these formless, further enquiries. He was only here because he had turned his car in the wrong direction. Mary Catherine, known as Cath. The woman who had also turned Helen’s flat into a different version of itself over the last week or two. If Bailey vowed to keep diplomatic silence with the Eliots, should he then use Helen in pursuit of his own curiosity? She would not like that.

  Emily Eliot sang as she worked. Occasionally, when her usual reserve deserted her, Cath would croon a little too, stopping if she thought she was heard. For some reason Emily could not discern, Cath rarely seemed to get further than ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, and only the first verse of that. ‘With the blood of Jesus, going on before!’ The words would emerge in the midst of a barely recognisable tune, half grunted, half sung. She and Emily rarely sang in unison, although that was often the way they worked. There was never a shortage of tasks in the long mornings Cath spent in the house. One day a week, they would tackle something specific. Today it was a large dressing room attached to the main bedroom. Emily was sure it had moths in it. One of Alistair’s suits had been eaten to death. She did not enjoy these joint tasks: they made her loud.

  ‘Little sods,’ Emily yelled. ‘Look at that! Why the hell can’t they go for cheap old sweaters? Why concentrate on the one thing which costs money? Mohair and something, this was once. Nice and soft for them to get their little teeth into, they can’t even make an effort. Look at it.’

  ‘He didn’t wear it once, last winter,’ Cath pointed out. Emily beamed, her rage subsiding. Put Cath in here, with her awful disinfectant smell, the moths would die anyway.

  ‘He never really liked it, that’s why.’ She emerged from the depths with an armful of clothes on hangers.

  ‘In fact, most of the things in the back of here no-one really likes. I just hate the thought of the bloody moths chomping away without asking permission first. Most of this belongs on the rubbish heap. Unless there’s anything you want, of course.’

  ‘I’ll think about it, can I?’

  Emily nodded, suppressing the irritation which so often beset her when she and Cath worked in close proximity. It was a reluctance to touch her, no more than that, which Emily translated into a slight aversion to one who was at once so passive and deferential, and at other times as stubborn as a mule. She knew Cath would take the clothes as soon as her back was turned. She just could not do it while she was being watched, and that was irritating too. If Cath felt the slightest insult at the idea that she was a fitting recipient for old garments otherwise unfit to wear, she did not show it and knew no such insult was intended. There were features of the upper middle class which made Cath marvel. The money they had never seemed to go on new things: people like Emily could bargain like a trader in an Eastern market, she was always making do. The children wore hand-me-downs without complaint since they had long since realised there was no choice; the cars were far from streamlined and the furniture was old. Cath could see the value of the furniture she treated with such care, but although she admired the taste, she wondered why Emily would not give her the second-hand rug with the faded colours and get herself a new one. If their positions were reversed, she was quite sure that Emily herself would take home the contents of her employer’s wardrobe without turning a hair.

  ‘Coffee,’ said Emily firmly. Cleaning ladies were supposed to have a reputation for time-wasting gossip, talking when they should be working, or so she heard, but here, the situation was reversed. Emily talked, at length, about nothing and everything, and it was usually Cath who rose and said, time to get on. Emily sometimes talked to avoid the challenge of silence and a sense of intimacy she resented, but she did not admit that, even to herself. It seemed ungrateful. Instead, she loathed, without comment, the way Cath ate wholemeal bread with open-mouthed hunger, never closing her mouth until it was finished. They went downstairs, Cath last, Emily singing and shouting for Jane. Cath watched her.

  On the first landing, Jane appeared, with one finger over her lips in a request for Cath to say nothing, then took her hand. She was an affectionate child; they all were, even Mark, the surly teenage son home from school. He would greet Cath with a bear hug; she would pretend to protest, giddy with the sensation of outrageous affection. She bent towards Jane. ‘What is it? A game? Are you hiding?’

  ‘No. I got something for you. Quick.’ She darted away into her father’s study. Cath shook her head. Mr Eliot’s study was strictly taboo: no child was allowed inside; even Cath herself was forbidden to enter Alistair’s domain which remained more or less orderly, the way he was himself. Cath made a warning tut, tut.

  ‘Lovey, you know you shouldn’t be in here. What if Mum catches you?’

  ‘I know,’ Jane whispered. ‘But I wanted to draw you a picture and I didn’t have any paper. Not the right kind.’

  The child loved the perforated listing paper which spilled
out of the old and faithful printer in the study. Her own supplies were never as good as those she stole, and Cath could see the point. Jane held up a banner of three pages, waving it like a flimsy flag. The multicoloured drawing began with a large head, wearing a hat with flowers. A stalk-like neck led on to the next sheet, containing a thin torso with the suggestion of a bosom, dressed in a black dress with straps over the shoulders. The waist led on to curvy hips and the final sheet depicted a pair of inordinately slender legs ending in high heels, and the name CATH.

  ‘It’s a picture of you,’ Jane said, urgently, impatient at the lack of comprehension. ‘You. Going to a party. In Mummy’s clothes. Can’t you tell? Here.’ She thrust the fluttering paper, already creased, towards Cath’s calloused hands and Cath wanted to weep. Emily’s voice came from the kitchen, faint but definite from this level.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cath gravely. ‘Thank you very much indeed. I shall keep it for ever.’