“I’m afraid it’s not good news,” said the detective, also sitting down although no one had invited him to do so. “It appears that your friend Tony Allen took his wife to Brighton for a holiday. This was evidently to keep out of the way of both the press and the police, and to try and forget the dismal turn of recent events.”
“Shit,” said Harry. “Bugger. So what now?”
“He has confessed to killing his wife as an act of mistaken and accidental defence,” Morrison continued. “In a fit of agonised guilt, Mr. Allen admitted that he’d often acted as a bully at home. This was principally because he felt insignificant and wanted to reassert himself. He says his wife was going to leave him. She also hit him with a frying pan. He retaliated, but certainly never meant to kill her. Once he realised she was dead, which took him some time since he was watching football, which evidently took precedence, he phoned for an ambulance and immediately afterwards reported to the local police down in Brighton. I intend travelling down there, but I wanted to talk to you first. I want to know what you’ve witnessed yourself of Mr. Allen’s behaviour towards his wife in the past.”
“Oh, good God,” Harry said, and answered at length.
Sylvia raised one eyebrow, and Morrison said, “Did you ever witness this abuse?”
“No, not really, but she turned up on my doorstep one day and demanded to move in because she was leaving him. She said he was always a bully. But of course, I know from him before that she punched him too, threw stuff at him, shouted and screamed, and tipped hot water over him when he was pissed. He hated her cooking. So anyway, they weren’t the ideal couple. She planned to leave him until she heard he was suspected of being the Ripper. Then she felt sorry for him and ran back home.”
“So you believe that any death would have been accidental?”
Both Harry and Sylvia nodded. “I can’t be sure,” Harry added. “But I’d say so. I mean, I don’t think he’d have the courage to do anything intentionally.”
“But you once thought he might be the Ripper?”
“It was a stupid idea. Because he was always off on his own and so on. But he’s no psycho. Just an idiot.”
“Most murderers are idiots, Mr. Joyce.”
“Can I see Tony?”
Morrison sighed. “I’m travelling down to Brighton in the morning. But he’ll be kept down there until the initial hearing, and then transferred on remand. Unless he’s given bail which is highly unlikely.”
“So I can have permission to visit him in Brighton?”
“That permission’s not mine to give,” the detective said. “But I see no reason why not.”
Harry rang Brighton police station, received permission, and suggested to Sylvia that they both drive down there on the following day. She agreed, although she had no particular liking for Tony. “More than a bully if he hit her so hard he killed her. And you always said you didn’t even like him much. He wasn’t a proper friend.”
“But I know him. He thinks I’m his friend. And maybe I just want to be kind.” Harry took Sylvia to bed. They lay entwined in the soft expanse, sharing warmth and light caresses. “If you still want me, I’ll move in tomorrow.”
“Before or after you visit your murderous friend?”
“Before. I want the nice part first. But it’s a long drive.”
“We can stay overnight in a hotel.”
“This comes first,” and Harry kissed her, gently as though tasting her. Sylvia loved the pressure and the quickening of her pulse. The only thing that had quickened her pulse for years previously had been grinning as she watched Ruby approach a cream cake, or when fascinated by the Lord of the Rings in the cinema. She cuddled up. His arms around her felt even sweeter than the kiss. Just the knowledge that he enjoyed holding her seemed glorious, and she enjoyed knowing what he enjoyed. She really didn’t care about Tony or Isabel, but brushed aside the peculiar knowledge that an insane monster had somehow orchestrated her present happiness.
It was a cold night and the window rattled as the winds howled through the wolds and valleys. But Sylvia and Harry remained warm, then warmer as they made slow love and whispering for the very first time that they adored each other.
“It’s like being married, if I move in. I’ll throw some clothes in a suitcase. We could have a late breakfast and then drive to Brighton.” Harry kissed her ear and up her cheek to her eyes, then down her nose to the tip.
She murmured, “I’m sorry for Isabel, but I didn’t like her.”
Harry mumbled, “I’m sorry for Tony But I never liked him much either.”
After a pause, utterly content in his embrace, Sylvia asked, “What was Audrey like?” She could feel each part of him. His stomach was a little soft beneath the ribbed platter of his chest. His body hair was sparse, grey, but soft and it brushed silkily against her own breasts. “I bet she thought you were wonderful, I do.”
“Maybe at first.” He chuckled. “I met her at work and she was the boss. Unusual in those days. But computers were in the early stages, and she was good at sales. She understood the technology for what it was back then. Then I showed off, and got promoted over her head, because she got stuck on sales and I loved the technology.”
“I never got promoted. I loved the radio, but I left when I got married. He insisted. I was a pathetic twit and agreed.”
Harry shook his head. “At least I didn’t demand that. But Audrey left anyway when we got married. I thought she was brilliant. Angelic. She was, in a way. Sweet and clever and kind and gentle. She got pregnant quite quickly but lost the baby. She lost three, one after the other, poor little Audrey. Absolutely wretched. Then gradually we moved apart. She was depressed, and I was passionate about my work. We didn’t divorce. Just got bored with each other.”
“I’m sorry about the babies. That must have been tragic.”
“It was, but far worse for her. The miscarriages didn’t seem like little human beings to me. I never felt they were my children. It was just my beloved wife getting ill. But she never got pregnant again, and I don’t think she ever got over it.”
“At least that’s something we don’t have to worry about.”
“And you never had children either?”
Sylvia shook her head. “I discovered he was unfaithful to me on our wedding night, and just about every night afterwards. Then he suggested threesomes and orgies and swaps and a bit of s and m. I started to divorce him, and then he died anyway. Sadism gone too far. He suffocated himself by mistake in a plastic bag. So I went off and had affairs, and nearly got married again a couple of times, but I’d gone off the idea by then. I made sure to stay on the pill, and just tried to have fun.”
“So we both had fairly unsatisfactory experiences. But,” said Harry with a clasp on both breasts, “we won’t this time. It’s going to be bloody glorious.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I’m going back to France,” he said, chucking his wife a blank look. He sat on the arm of the sofa, growled at the carpet, and stuffed his latest wage-slip in his pocket. When he managed to look up at Felicity and meet her expression, he was still glowering.
Felicity was bored. “You’ve said that half a dozen times. Go, if you want to, but honestly, Hugh, now we’re leaving the Common Market, you may not be accepted to live over there. I mean, you’re not highly skilled or anything. You’re certainly not rich. And you’ve turned fifty now. What happens when you want a pension? You won’t get one in France.”
“I’m not earning enough to keep a tortoise alive. I did overtime, but I just got taxed more.”
“Stop sulking.”
“You go and get a decent job then, and we might live a bit better.”
“My dear Hugh,” Felicity said, “stop sulking and stop moaning. You know I’ve looked. I’ll get a job in the little bookshop over Christmas when they sell more so they take on more staff. But it’s only temporary.”
“And my name’s not Hugh,” said Paul. “It’s Paul.”
“And that
reminds me,” said Felicity, putting on the kettle and preparing two mugs with tea bags and milk. “I was in the bookshop yesterday asking about working, and while I was waiting, I looked at the new books on the best sellers’ shelf. There’s one out about these horrible murders. It looked sort of trashy, but I flicked through it and they were going on about the original suspect on those other murders way back. Remember? Some man was arrested and got tried and everything. He was Paul too. But they found him innocent. They had a photo and he was a lot younger, but he looked a bit like you, only quite handsome. Anyway, they said this Paul person had disappeared, and he could be the killer. The Welsh Ripper. But the Paul person wasn’t Welsh.”
Paul hiccupped and got up from the chair arm. “Did you buy it?”
“Of course not. I don’t buy trash like that. Hugh.” The kettle boiled. Felicity stirred the tea. “I only like Mills and Boone, but I might have another look when I start work there. They’ve taken me on, you know, four half days a week including Saturday. I might have another look then when there’s no customers. They had some horrible photos of the victims. Honestly, it was really gruesome.”
Slumping into the chair he’d left, Paul sighed. “I remember when they tried that bloke years back. The murders were disgusting. I was nearly sick at the time, hearing what they said, and then they had the nerve – well, it was horrible. Don’t read that book. It’ll just make you scared.” He thought a moment. “Are you working Christmas Day?”
“Book shops don’t open on Christmas Day.”
“Do cinemas open? I thought we might go to something cheerful.”
“I’ll be cheerful if you stop moaning all the time.”
Looking quietly at each other, Paul and Felicity realised something, although vague, at almost exactly the same moment. Then Paul said, “No, I won’t go crawling back to France if we can keep going and make a bit more money and do things together. I mean, think of those murders, can you imagine being suspected of those sorts of dreadful things when you never even killed a spider without feeling rotten?”
Felicity said, “I kill cockroaches.”
“I don’t,” said Paul. “If I see spiders, I poke them into a cup and carry them outside to release.”
“Where they get eaten by birds.”
“That’s not under my control.” Paul looked at his wife, wondering. He remembered quite vividly and quite suddenly how he had loved her during the first few years of their marriage. Not that he was sure if they were legally married, since he’d given a false name. He said, “So we’ll celebrate Christmas by going to the cinema. We’ll sit in the back row and cuddle.”
“Oh Hugh.”
“And would it bother you,” Paul asked, “if I told you, really and truly, that my name wasn’t Hugh after all?”
“Oh, rubbish,” Felicity clicked her tongue.
“There’s something I really have to tell you,” murmured Paul, “and I think you’d better sit down.”
Tony lay flat on his back and tried to breathe without choking. A large cockroach was crawling across the ceiling. It did not seem to notice him, so he said, “You in here too, mate? What did you do then? Nothing, perhaps? Same here.”
The cell echoed. There was no window and daylight was replaced by electric yellow. The bed where he lay was lumpy and narrow and Tony was shivering. Yet somehow the cold felt fitting, as though he deserved it. His brain reeled, reminding him of innocence and guilt and the confusion between the two. What the bloody hell was he doing in a police cell, when he was just an ordinary hard working bloke who had a boring and irritating wife, who he was quite fond of in spite of her faults. He gave a push or a slap sometimes, well – why not? She got on his nerves and often he was sure she did it on purpose. She threw things at him too, and so he gave her a whack. That was surely normal. His dad had always done the same.
But murder? That was stupid. He’d never killed anyone, never could and never would. They were treating him like a criminal and that was mean and unkind and absurd. Frankly he didn’t understand what had happened with Isabel. She’d wanted to leave him, which was unkind and unreasonable of her. Well, now she had left him. But he wished she’d come back. Life had been a bore for years. Now it was horribly unkind. It had all come out of nowhere. He wondered if they’d tell him it was all a mistake and let him go with an apology.
He heard the door unlock and the usual disinterested face peered in. “Get up, Allen. You’ve got visitors.”
“I don’t want any,” Tony muttered. “I don’t deserve any.”
The police Sargent sighed. “No doubt true. But they’ve come all the way from the Cotswolds, so come and thank them.”
Sniffing and moist eyed, Tony looked away. “It’ll be my best friend Harry. But I don’t deserve him. he should go home and forget me.”
“I’ll tell him that, shall I?” Police Sergeant Lofting looked ready to close the cell door again. Tony rolled off the bed in a hurry and pushed back hands through what small amount of hair remained to him.
“I’m coming. Harry’s my friend. He’ll understand.”
“I just don’t understand,” said Harry, frowning. “I know Isabel was planning to leave and that must have upset you. But she came running back when she thought you were being unfairly treated. She cared, she really did.”
Tony burst into tears, couldn’t find a handkerchief and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “She hit me. I hit her back. Honestly, Harry, she often hit me. And I hate to admit it, but I often hit her too. Not hard. Just a little push. What happened this time?”
Harry looked up at the police officer. “What’s Mr. Allen actually charged with?”
“Aggravated assault and involuntary manslaughter,” said the police officer, “and the magistrate has denied bail. Mr. Allen will be picked up later today and held on remand.”
“She died,” sniffed Tony. “She went and died.”
Sylvia, sitting beside Harry, had said nothing, but now she looked up. “You hit her with a frying pan.”
“She hit me with it first. I’ve got the big black bruise to prove it. A big frying pan. But not one of those huge heavy French things. Just a pan. I took it off her and hit her back. That’s self-defence.”
The police officer shook his head and sighed but said nothing.
Harry said, “Well, it’s not murder, Tony. It’s bound to be a minor sentence in the end. At trial they’ll probably say you’ve already served time on remand, and that’ll be it.”
The police officer raised his eyebrows but remained silent. Sylvia said, “What would you like us to bring you when we visit next?”
“Chocolates,” said Tony at once. “And a photo of Isabel.”
Harry and Sylvia stayed overnight in a B&B in central Brighton, decided it was freezing and the mist rolled in from the sea like a prophesy of doom and gloom, so the next morning they bought chocolates, delivered them to the police station, were told that Tony had been taken off to Lewis. then crammed themselves back into the car and drove home.
Rochester Manor sparkled with running footsteps. “We called a meeting,” said Ruby. “Well, actually it wasn’t me, it was Norman Syrett, the old creep. But everyone’s going. Lavender’s bringing out the welcome home mat.”
“For us?”
“Well, not really,” Ruby confessed. “But it’s a sort of engagement party, and we’re all donating booze of some kind, and Francesco is doing special grub. But you know what we’ll end up talking about.”
“Bloody murder.”
“Now we know who it was all the time.”
Harry stared. “Not Tony. Just the opposite. Well, yes, but no. Involuntary manslaughter or whatever they call it.”
“But let’s join our own party,” said Sylvia, approaching the crowd. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so celebrated. And Norman Syrett of all people.” It was the cheering as she and Harry entered the larger living room, and the raising of ten or more glasses, that almost brought Harry to tears. Sylvia just grinned. “You’re
probably all pissed already. But thanks.
It was the congratulations, popping of corks, loud cheers and general stuffing of cucumber sandwiches, strawberry cake, and generous trifle that encompassed the first half hour. Ruby was wearing a bluebell blue Caftan and proclaimed she’d never take it off. “No horrible tight waistbands. No horrible tight tights. No bra straps pinching my love handles. Sylvikins, I’ll buy you one for your wedding. Red, perhaps.”
“Not red. Do they come in white?”
“Virginal Caftans?”
And the general conversation did not slip into murderous discussion until nearly bedtime.
It was the next morning when Inspector Morrison turned up. He straddled the doorstep and said it looked as though it was about to rain again. “I’ve no time to come in. But I thought you should know.”
Harry was looking a little hung over. “Breakfast time. Scrambled eggs?”
Morrison managed to smile. “No time, Mr. Joyce. There’s a lot happening. Do you live here now?”
“Sylvia and I are engaged. Married in the New Year. You’re invited. January probably. A white wedding in the other sense. Snow.”
“Thank you.” He looked mystified. “But there’s been a small development as regards your friend Mr. Allen. The P.M. results have come back. Isabel Allen died of a heart attack, but the likelihood is that the heart attack was exacerbated by the blow to the head, and the fall. I’m not involved in the case so have no actual information on what the police intend to do next, but they may let him go. Bail at least.”
“Bloody hell,” said Harry as Morrison marched off. “I suppose I ought to be pleased.”
Norman Syrett was asleep in the armchair beside the cold ashes in the fireplace, having fallen asleep there the previous evening, his forth glass of champagne still half full. He had slept soundly all night, and no one had bothered to wake him. Lavender had taken the glass from his fist, finished the rest of the expensive champagne herself, taken the glass off for washing, and then gone to bed.
It was Ralph Tammy who had cleaned up everything else. He had also managed to empty the last dregs of one or two glasses, including Harry’s ouzo and tonic. Then he and Francesco had settled down in the kitchen for a midnight chat.
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