Time to Kill

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘Now don’t worry,’ I said. ‘He’s probably hung-over, but we’ll get him here somehow. Now, tell me how to reach his place.’

  She looked at me for a moment with empty swimming blue eyes, making an effort to understand what I’d said. Then she got it, and gave me the directions. Martin Reade had a garage, where he dispensed petrol, sold second-hand cars, and did repairs to local vehicles. It was eight miles away. Straight through this bit of a village, turn left at the crossroad, and it would be on our right. Couldn’t miss it. There was just one detail I nearly forgot. I turned back to Heather. How would we know if we passed him on his way here? It was easy, she said. Martin ran a bright yellow Triumph Dolomite, which he used for rallies. We would be able to tell it by the dents, I gathered.

  Once again I drove. Oliver was silent. I glanced at him and he sensed my mood.

  ‘Sheer hell, these weddings,’ he said.

  ‘They wouldn’t be if you stupid men didn’t have wild stag parties on the night before.’

  ‘There’re hen parties, too.’

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘Who can say? Who’s ever been to both?’

  We passed no yellow car coming the other way. We saw only two vehicles, one of those a farm tractor. And, with eight miles on the mileometer, there was his garage, just this side of another village, but a more sizeable one than Heather’s.

  Reade’s Rapid Repairs, indicated the sign. Crypton tuning. The repair shed was corrugated iron, a little back from the forecourt, which had four pumps and a small kiosk. We drew on to one side of the forecourt. At the far side of it there was a line of six cars, all of them with price stickers on the windows. Nothing was over £2,000. There was no sign of a battered yellow Triumph Dolomite.

  As we hadn’t drawn up beside the pumps, the shadowy figure in the kiosk made no sign of life. We got out of the car and approached. Oliver opened the kiosk door. It was a young man, his head lowered over a magazine, flowing hair draping forward to mask the nudes.

  ‘Is Martin Reade around?’ asked Oliver.

  ‘Doubt it. Gone on his honeymoon, he has.’ The head was lowered dismissively. For a moment, dark eyes had flicked over us with rejection.

  ‘Did you see him leave?’

  ‘Nah. He’d have gone before I got here. I’m in charge. For a fortnight I am, anyway.’

  ‘Where does he live when he’s here?’ Oliver was being carefully patient.

  ‘Got a place behind the repair shed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Oliver. ‘Much obliged.’

  We walked round to the rear. The surface here was untreated soil, very much cut into channels, but now hard and difficult to walk on. It was June, hot already at ten in the morning, the sun baking every surface. It seemed to bounce back at us from the half-cylinder of the corrugated iron repair shed. It was an army surplus Quonset hut from the last war, rusting itself away, with windows set half-way up its curved sides. A smell of oil and fumes and hot rubber assailed us as we passed the sliding door at one end, which was half open. It appeared that it had been in this position for a number of years, as the bottom edge was not in its rails.

  Walking past this opening, I glanced inside. The yellow Dolomite was there, six feet off the ground on a hydraulic hoist. I had no difficulty in recognising it, as my father had owned a Dolomite when I was very young. What seemed to be its engine was on the bench to one side, beneath one of the windows. Its tappet cover was off. I could see the word Triumph cast in the aluminium cover.

  Martin Reade seemed to be fairly well equipped. I’d been inside repair bays before, and knew an electronic tuning set-up when I saw one, recognised the air-pressure tank, and knew that the circular table was for stripping tyres from their rims.

  We paused only a moment. Oliver had been keeping his attention all around him, as befitted an ex-police inspector, and said, ‘Let’s go and have a look at his cottage.’

  It was thirty feet further back, this again a relic from the war, a pre-fab house set on a concrete base, designed for quick and easy erection and not expected to last for this length of time.

  But so many are still standing sturdily, and happily occupied by people who like a compact home.

  All the curtains were drawn, as though the last occupation had been in darkness. Oliver tried the front door, set centrally in the side facing us. It opened. He grunted at that, and led the way in.

  One living—room, one bedroom, a small kitchen. The bath—room was so tiny that it demanded a shower. Its door was open. No shower; just a hand basin and a toilet unit.

  ‘Anybody home?’ Oliver called out.

  There was silence, a silence seemingly deeper than a simple lack of sound. He tried a door from the narrow hall. It opened into a living—room. The light was still burning, a central unit in the ceiling. We hadn’t noticed this from outside. Instinctively, my hand moved towards the switch, but he said quickly, ‘No.’

  It was then, my attention drawn to him, that I realised he had changed. There was something tense about him, concentrated. His gaze was moving slowly round the room, absorbing and memorising what he saw. I had to suppose it was instinct. He must have been aware, from tiny facets of the situation carefully dovetailed into his consciousness, that there was something here out of order.

  To me, it was simply an untidy room with an ancient settee which had collapsing upholstery and looked as though a suddenly lowered bottom would raise a cloud of dust. There was a TV set, small, which had a suit of filthy overalls thrown over it. Even in here, the stench of oil and rubber predominated. There was one easy chair, also with its stuffing escaping on to the worn carpet, one upright chair, and a small table. Those completed the contents of the room.

  Oliver backed out. Our eyes were now accommodating to the low light level, after the blaze of the sun outside. It was possible to see that the door opposite was open an inch or two. He urged it further with the end of a ballpoint pen, and took one pace inside.

  A bedroom. There was a single bed beneath the window opposite us, which was draped with a thin, tenuous curtain. The light was just good enough to reveal details. A green metal vertical cupboard, which would have looked more at home in the repair shed, was being used as a wardrobe. Its doors were open, and there was very little in it. A simple chest of drawers was against another wall. The only floor covering was a car carpet, thin, worn and blue.

  On the bed, beneath a single sheet, with dark hair splashed against a dirty pillow, there was somebody lying very still, as though the alcohol fumes still held sway. Oliver crossed to the bed in three quick strides. His finger hooked under the edge of the sheet, and he lifted it clear of the face. I couldn’t see anything from where I was standing.

  ‘It isn’t him,’ he said softly. ‘It’s a woman. Stay where you are, Phil, and don’t touch a thing.’

  I drew in a quick breath. He lifted the sheet higher, peering beneath, and I caught just a whiff of perfume, something resembling cedar, and not normally a woman’s scent.

  ‘And she’s naked,’ he murmured.

  ‘It’s not polite...’ I protested.

  ‘She won’t mind.’ He shook his head, a sad and weary gesture. ‘She’s dead, Phil. Dead.’

  He must have sensed a death the moment we’d entered beneath the roof. Police experience, I had to suppose. I was unable to imagine how he could be so calm and undisturbed about it, when cold sweat was trickling down my back. And how could he bear to touch her, even though it was only with the back of his hand to her cheek? Twice, he touched her, first the cheek, then with one exploratory finger beneath her hair, behind the ear.

  ‘Where are her clothes?’ I asked. To me, my voice sounded distant and cold.

  ‘What? Clothes? How do I know?’

  ‘I don’t see any about,’ I persisted.

  ‘Put away in the cupboards,’ he said impatiently, anxious to get away from there as fast as possible.

  ‘Oh, use your imagination, Oliver, please. What d’you think we’ve got he
re? A woman for him on his last night of freedom... she’d strip off and toss her clothes — little enough of them, I’d guess — any old where. So where are they?’

  ‘It’s not for us to speculate.’ He seemed annoyed. His anger dismissed Martin Reade from his mind as an acceptable male — he who would take a woman to his bed on the night before his wedding. But what surprised me was his lack of curiosity. A

  woman was dead in Martin Reade’s bed, and he hadn’t turned up for his wedding... and Oliver was all cool practicality.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said abruptly. ‘There ought to be a phone in that kiosk.’

  ‘A phone? Who d’you want to call — the vicar?’

  ‘Philipa...’ He sighed. ‘He didn’t simply leave a dead woman in his bed, he left a murdered one. There’s an abrasion behind her ear and blood in her hair.’

  ‘But you can’t... it can’t be!’

  I was completely thrown off my balance, my concern not for this anonymous dead woman, not for the missing Martin Reade, but for my poor dear Heather, waiting there. Waiting.

  Oliver was ushering me into the open, anxious to get out of the house. ‘I’ll have to report it to the police, Phil. Surely you can see that. And you —’

  I halted him. ‘Now wait a minute. Don’t be so damned cold and official about it. Are you implying that this Martin Reade — whom we’ve never met, so we know nothing about him — that he’d not only have a woman in his bed and kill her, but would do it on the night before his own wedding, and then take all her clothes away? It makes no sense.’

  He now seemed impatient with me. ‘Let’s leave it to the police, Phil. Shall we?’

  ‘But her clothes...’

  ‘Damn it, he might think it would hide her identity to take them away. He might’ve thought anything.’

  ‘Rubbish. She’s probably a local girl — in a country district. Of course she’ll be missed.’

  ‘The important thing is not what you think, Phil. Not what I might think, either. It’s what he might have thought. And we don’t know that. Now be sensible. I’ll call the police, and wait for them, and you...’ He looked into my eyes, all sympathy now for me and my predicament. ‘Sorry, but it’s got to be done — you drive to St Asaph’s...’ He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Let’s get it over, shall we!’

  I was trapped, and there was no point in struggling. Miserable now, my mind racing, I walked beside him back to the kiosk, my ankles turning on the hard-packed ruts.

  Oliver opened the kiosk door. There had been no change inside. The young man turned bored eyes on us.

  ‘Have you seen him this morning?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘Not seen him since yesterday mornin’. Told you that. I’m here on me own. The amount we’ve been selling, we might just as well not open.’

  ‘He’s left it to you for... how long?’

  ‘A fortnight,’ he said. ‘I told you that as well. He’s gonna call from the US if they decide to stay on. So he said. Don’t ask me. What gives, anyway?’

  Plainly, he knew nothing of any relevance. Oliver glanced at me. ‘Better get going,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to hang on here, I expect.’ He leaned past the youth’s shoulder and read out the number on the phone. ‘You might be able to contact me here, Phil.’

  I nodded. He was the complete professional now, back in a routine that had been his life, before a shotgun had nearly robbed him of his right arm. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  Then I went back to the BMW, at last in full and sole control of my own car, and I was not looking forward to the trip at all. It had to have an ending, when I must confront Heather. And what the hell would I say?

  Logically I should have driven slowly, rehearsing my announcement, but I found myself driving on the very limit allowed by the winding lanes. I was anxious to get it over, rushing to get it done before my nerve failed, and all the while my anger was growing against this man, the first Heather had found for herself. He had barely entered her life before he’d ruined it.

  The Mercedes was no longer parked outside the church, and there was no sign of guests or best man. So perhaps she had driven back to her home, the location of which I didn’t know, almost too blinded by tears to be able to drive. I stopped. The vicar was just closing the gate. I got out of the car.

  ‘I’m too late.’

  ‘You are, young lady, and a very happy occasion it has been.’ I realised I was standing on a sprinkling of flower petals. ‘Has it?’ I asked emptily, my mind groping.

  ‘They had to leave in a hurry, to catch a plane I understand. Such a handsome couple, I must say, though I did think the groom might have had a shave and changed out of a suit he could well have slept in.’ But his grimace was one of amusement. It had still been a happy occasion. He inclined his head, and slowly moved away.

  For two solid minutes I stood there like a fool, wondering what to do. Could I simply back away from the responsibility, allowing Heather at least the delight of her honeymoon before she returned to... well, to what? But that would mean a whole fortnight for her with a man I knew nothing about, except that he was possibly a murderer. Or should I chase after them, and perhaps catch them before their departure and... well, do what? Warn her? Warn him? Try to persuade them to return?

  But, damn it, I was wasting time. Responsibilities have to be faced, or your inadequacy will surely undermine you. I began to run towards the phone booth by the little bridge, repeating over and over in my head the number of that kiosk, in case I lost it in the last second.

  It was answered at the first ring. ‘Hello. Who is this, please, and who do you wish to speak to?’ I knew that official tone. Oliver had dutifully called the police, and they were on the job. Now I dared not say a word. I simply hung up.

  There remained no alternative but to go alone after Heather and her new husband. I didn’t know what flight they were on, nor how much time I had. They had started late themselves, so I would have to drive hard to make it.

  A quick glance at my map indicated that I could pick up the M5 at Taunton and the M4 at Junction 20 and straight along there to Heathrow. It would be over 150 miles of motorway driving. I got settled into my seat and started to reduce that distance.

  I have to admit that I drove like a maniac. The car even encouraged it, seeming to be happier at speed. But I was running the risk of police intervention because I was rarely out of the overtaking lane, as I overtook everything. Every minute I expected a police car on my tail or a police trap for me ahead. But I got through and reached Heathrow just two and a quarter hours from St Asaph’s.

  I had never been to Heathrow, not as a visitor from outside it, and the directions are confusing. I had to watch the signs anxiously, assuming that International was what I wanted, and when I reached it I was clearly in a limited parking area. But to hell with that. I left the car and ran into the reception hall.

  It was chaos. Mid-June, and everybody wanted to be in some other country but their own. I was looking for Heather’s blue going-away costume, and I could barely see twenty yards ahead, and that was with jumping up and down. And what airline was I looking for? Pan Am? Aer Lingus? Air India? British Airways?

  Then I saw them. They had already checked in their luggage and were turning away from the desk. Heather was pointing upwards, where the steps led to the departure lounge. The tall, slim and seemingly placid man beside her was allowing her to take the lead. Maybe it was no more than courtesy, but he would have to learn that Heather required, even demanded, to be taken care of, to be reassured, to be cosseted.

  I tried to run towards her, but a man and a woman were before me. They closed in on Heather’s man, on Martin Reade. I saw the male partner of the duo plunge a hand into his inside pocket and show both Heather and Martin something. A few words were spoken, then a heavy hand was rested on Martin’s forearm. Martin was flapping with his free hand, protesting, throwing back his protests to Heather, who was standing lost and confused and unable to move. Before following her part
ner, the female officer paused for a few words with Heather, and to offer a smile, which did nothing to reassure my poor lost friend.

  Then the group of three was lost in the crush, and around Heather there was a clear space, as though a plague had descended on her.

  Into that space I stepped.

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