Bridge of Sighs

by Priscilla Masters

The Armoury was an unusual choice for an intimate meeting. Almost a student pub, it wasn’t particularly private but open plan and noisy. The food was great but the atmosphere was not exactly conducive to winkling out secrets. But … and when Martha realized this her feet went cold. It was somewhere where people could easily watch you, take photographs without being noticed because, being open plan, lots of people were taking pictures and selfies with their mobile phones ready to display to all their Facebook friends what a great life they were having. It was, in other words, public. Not intimate but jolly, reminding her of the student pubs she and Martin had frequented all those years ago, places in Birmingham, which fairly buzzed with the excitement of the young and which they had invented new names for: The White Swan became The Mucky Duck. The Gun Barrels became The Beer Barrels and so on. Silly student jokes.

  But there was a difference. Geographically The Armoury was on the banks of the River Severn, its level currently high following heavy rain but held back by flood defences. As coroner she presided over about three drownings a year in that wicked old river. A friend on summer days when the folk of Shrewsbury strolled along its banks or sculled over its surface, but like a dog that bites its owner a river is wild, untamed. However picturesque, tempting artists and trippers, a river is still a river. Water can drown you. You can sink or swim. She had another thought that chilled her even further: if she had ever planned her own suicide it was possible this would have been the route she would have chosen. Not an overdose or a slash of the wrists, not a hanging or the suffocation of carbon monoxide poisoning from a car exhaust. It would be a dive into the river. Welcome water dragging her down, closing over her head.

  And then rationale took over.

  That, she thought, is not how he works. He needs time for his punishments to mature. To prolong and extract the suffering. She was supping with the Devil. She could do with back-up.

  But she couldn’t call on Simon Pendlebury again. Friendship was as far as they would go. She’d seen him out with his new secretary a year or so ago and knew his predilection for beautiful young women would always prove to be his weak spot. Seeing his attractiveness only too clearly through their eyes, rich, polished, handsome, they would succumb. But unlike poor little flawed Christabel who had been his previous squeeze, naive and blinded by love for him, in contrast Cerys Watkins, his secretary, could probably look after herself. She was a Welsh beauty with the loveliest hair Martha had ever seen, long, straight and black falling to her waist. Combined with the scarlet lipstick Cerys wore she had reminded her of a witch queen. But Cerys had an extra quality that made all the difference. She was clever and when Simon introduced her into the conversation he brought her name up with respect.

  The real question was whether Cerys was strong enough to withstand the onslaught of Simon’s two daughters.

  So Simon was out and so was Alex.

  ‘Martha,’ she spoke aloud, ‘this time you really are on your own.’

  FIFTY

  Saturday, 29 April, 7.25 p.m.

  The day rolled round soon enough. Sam was distracted with a major match and Sukey had returned to university so Martha was alone as she showered and chose an outfit. What did one wear for such an ordeal? A chastity belt? She was aware she hadn’t addressed the question of whether Gina had been drugged. She felt a strange mixture of excitement, exhilaration and apprehension. Which was winning, she couldn’t even begin to guess.

  The Armoury was not a dressy place but neither was it somewhere you would wear jeans. In the end she opted for some black trousers (safer in them than a skirt, surely?), high-heeled boots and a rather flashy pink jacket. She tried to erase the expression of anxiety from her face and replace it at least with something neutral but wasn’t sure she’d quite succeeded. She left the house wishing she was already returning. She felt hugely apprehensive and scolded herself as she turned the car around in front of the White House. She paused for a moment. The name often made her smile and she could not see the name on the gate without remembering her and Martin’s giggles at the name. Yet what else could you call a large, square house with a balcony central on the first floor and a snowflake facade? It might have a pretentious name but it was a beautiful place. High Georgian, perfect symmetry. When she and Martin had turned into the drive on that first occasion they had fallen in love with its square symmetry, the sash windows, the solid front door, portico over to protect visitors from rain. Standing outside it, they had decided then and there it was the place for them to bring up their twins. Once inside, the rooms had not disappointed. Square and neat, easy to furnish, light and bright. They had quickly imagined the function and colour scheme for each room. But she had not thought she would be inhabiting it alone.

  She turned away. Time to go.

  She headed down the drive and out on to the Shrewsbury bypass, turning in on the road that passed the crematorium towards the town. She could park in the nearby car park and walk down to Frankwell and the river.

  It was darkening, the sky streaked with silver, the town already bustling ready for its Saturday evening jollities. The Armoury looked welcoming as she peered in through the tall windows. As usual, when she entered it took a while to adjust to the noisy, friendly place and the sound of chatter and laughter. No background music was necessary. No one would have heard it anyway and the place had enough atmosphere without it. Lined with bookshelves and old prints of the town, it was almost collegiate.

  She spotted him straight away, to the right of the front door, sitting at the back, not at one of the long refectory tables but in the far corner, his eyes watchful. He’d already picked up on her entrance. There was a touch of triumphant humour around his mouth.

  She gulped in a deep breath. The friendly atmosphere receded. She was in enemy territory. She squared her shoulders. What could he do to her here? It was a public place.

  She would be safe. Surely?

  Gina Marconi must have believed that too. He stood up politely, smiling but making no attempt to make the greeting physical – neither kissing one or both cheeks or even a formal shake of the hand. He simply smiled at her. The camera had not lied; neither had her memory. Victor Stanley was as handsome as a film star, tall, dark haired, olive skinned, with white teeth and brown eyes which smiled at her from underneath heavy lids. His dress, she noticed, was casual, grey chinos, a dark blue sweater over an open-necked pale blue shirt. No tie. ‘Good of you to come,’ he said, eyes roving over her but not making a personal comment. There was nothing lascivious about it. He was too clever for that.

  She smiled her response and sat down but already she felt uncomfortable. He was too smart for her. She realized then what a stupid move this had been. She should have thought this one through. Martha looked around her and ordered herself not to let her guard drop. Even here, in this crowd of Saturday-night revellers, couples, work colleagues, bands of friends, families, she might not be safe. It was even possible that the very public venue in the town where she both lived and worked was the most dangerous place to be seen with him. He could slip something into her drink, as he might have done to Gina. She felt panicked, looked around for someone – anyone she knew. Did not recognize a single person. And no one appeared to recognize her. No one even looked her way.

  ‘Hungry?’

  She looked down at the menu. ‘Not terribly.’

  He gave a bland smile which could mean anything. And then the conversation seemed to stutter and stop. He asked a little about her work and she trotted out the same old points – that she was a voice for the dead. A mouthpiece for those who had lost the power of speech. They talked around this issue but it was desultory conversation, neither leading anywhere nor, she suspected, was it what either of them had come here tonight to discuss. It didn’t answer the question: Why me?

  So she needed to skirt around it.

  ‘And you?’ she finally asked, quite pleasantly, half interested. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I run my own business,’ he said, a challenge in its wake. ‘A
timber yard.’

  ‘A timber yard?’ Why, she wondered, had he chosen this?

  ‘That’s right. I import most of my wood from the Far East,’ he added, an engaging twinkle now in the heavy-lidded brown eyes. ‘They grow lovely hard, dark woods over there. And there’s an inexhaustible supply.’

  She stared at him. What was he really talking about? Not wood, that was for sure.

  She had to remind herself why she was here tonight. She met his eyes and read determination, steely, unforgiving and with a hint of mischief. She didn’t feel afraid of him. Peering into this face with its neat features and reassuringly clear brown eyes hoisted no red flag. Her warning voices were all silenced.

  It was that that made him dangerous.

  She didn’t realize she had been staring at him, searching for some alert until he interrupted her thoughts. ‘So, would you like to eat?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She looked around. The menus were on the table, the specials on the board. She chose beef wellington and he a steak, and he wandered over to the counter to put the order in, returning with a welcome glass of blood-warm Rioja. He asked her a little more about her work, her background, her training, her family, and she gave away as little as possible – nothing he couldn’t have found out through Google. The food arrived and they ate, still making that desultory conversation.

  Finally he put his knife and fork down. ‘We-ell?’

  It was a challenge. ‘Time to stop playing games, I think.’

  Was this the moment when he morphed into the villain of the piece? Was Dr Jekyll about to turn into Mr Hyde?

  He took a sip of his beer, wiped the foam from his lips. ‘Let’s get down to business, shall we? You must be wondering why I invited you here.’ He didn’t wait for a response. ‘Does the name Harris Palliser mean anything to you?’

  She shook her head and saw a glint of anger in his eyes.

  ‘Years ago you were conducting an inquest into the deaths of three people killed in a multiple vehicle car crash.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Mr Stanley,’ she said, ‘I deal with many fatalities following car crashes.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘You …’ stabbing her with an index finger, ‘… directed the police towards a finding of vehicular homicide. And the person who was subsequently convicted was a friend. OK,’ he conceded, ‘you didn’t actually convict him but you pointed the finger. He was subsequently sentenced to a long stretch in prison.’

  She blinked.

  ‘My mate was just a car mechanic and the bloody thing that he’d worked on crashed. The brakes failed because my mate, Harris, fitted faulty brakes because they were half the price and you drew attention to this. Made a little speech damning cheats who put in substandard parts in the cars they serviced. My mate died in prison of hepatitis. He was clean before he went in. You executed him by your little comment. So, Mrs Gunn, I owe you one.’

  ‘I stand by what I said.’

  His face showed no sign he had even heard her. ‘You don’t know what to say, do you? So why are you here?’

  ‘Because I believe,’ she said, ‘that you set up two suicides.’

  ‘Really? And how do you think I did that?’

  ‘Photographs,’ she said, ‘taken of people in compromising situations. One just a boy.’

  He smiled, reached across the table and stroked her hand. ‘What an imagination you have, Coroner Gunn.’

  ‘Why? What’s in it for you? How does it benefit you?’

  He watched her steadily for a few minutes then smiled. ‘What makes you so sure I’m involved, let alone responsible?’

  ‘I’ve seen the photographs. You’re in them.’

  ‘Sure about that?’

  She nodded, then leaned forward to make her words score a direct hit. ‘Why? What did they ever do to you?’

  He drew in a deep breath and his answer, in a pleasant, polite voice, was chilling. ‘Are you talking about Gina?’

  ‘We can start with her.’

  ‘She was going to …’

  ‘Struggle to convince the jury that Pete Lewinski was innocent? That the knife somehow magically appeared in his hand?’

  She sensed a grudging respect as he nodded.

  ‘Besides, Gina was a beauty.’ He folded his arms and grinned. ‘Sometimes, Mrs Gunn, I really enjoy my job. You want to know why? Money. Mrs Gunn, some people have brains, others looks. Whatever you have you trade.’

  ‘Wasn’t it a bit risky when she had protection?’

  He smiled again. ‘All jobs carry risks.’

  ‘Who took the photos?’

  ‘My friend.’ He blinked then smiled. ‘You have no option but to find her death suicide.’

  Martha smiled back. ‘That might be what you think. I couldn’t possibly comment.’

  He looked angry at that. Victor was a man who did not like to lose.

  She pressed on. ‘But Patrick?’

  ‘Let’s just say I owed a friend a favour.’

  ‘Jack Silver?’

  He wagged a finger in front of her face. ‘You don’t know everything then, Mrs Gunn.’

  Now she was sensing his overt hostility.

  ‘Not Jack Silver,’ he said impatiently.

  She shook her head, unsure now.

  ‘Jodi,’ he supplied, ‘the lovely wife of the currently imprisoned Jack.’ He paused. ‘And mother to two boys.’ He paused.

  ‘Warren is …’ He thought for a minute. ‘Well, to put it frankly, Warren is a devious little rat. But Sean, Jodi’s younger son, he’s labelled dyslexic or …’ He frowned. ‘What do they call it these days?’ He scrabbled around in his brain. ‘Oh, yes – learning difficulties. He was always bottom of the class. A plodder, the butt of all jokes.’ He smiled abstractedly.

  She tried to flush him out. ‘You’re fond of the boy.’

  His eyes grew hard. ‘I tell you what I choose to tell you.’

  He was silent and she wondered if he was going to keep his story to himself after all, but then he kicked off again. ‘Patrick Elson was in the same class as Warren and Sean. Patrick wasn’t just bright, he was a show-off. Laughed when poor old Sean got all his questions wrong – mocked him. And one day it just got to Sean. He chucked the boy’s new and probably hard-earned shoes over the telegraph wire. But that wasn’t enough. He asked me to teach the boy a real lesson. So I did.’

  And the result of that lesson had been … Arms outstretched, the boy flew across her mind’s eyes. ‘He didn’t deserve to …’

  Victor Stanley interrupted her right then with a voice as sharp as a stiletto, displaying the anger he had kept so well hidden until now. ‘You still don’t get it, do you? Strength and sheer bloody mindedness – it’s all Sean’s got. That was his gift and he used it. We used to meet at their house and he probably heard me and Pete jawing off about Gina, how we’d paid her back. Humiliated her. I remember saying that. Humiliation works a treat. Very destructive force is humiliation, Martha Gunn. Make a fool of them. They never get to you again because everyone sees only the fool. I think the boys must have been listening and they asked me to intervene with their troublesome classmate. As it happened it suited me. I can bat for both teams.’ He stood up. ‘And now, Mrs Gunn, I think it’s time we settled our bill. Paid our dues.’

  He crossed the room. Her eyes followed him. He had a plan, she sensed, but she didn’t have a clue what that plan was.

  There was a queue at the counter, people arriving and setting up tabs, people leaving and paying their bill, others ordering their meals, starters, desserts, more drinks. He was a full ten minutes gone and she didn’t know what his intentions were. She watched him surreptitiously. Unlike many of the impatient customers, with their fidgeting or hopping from one leg to the other, the wait did not seem to faze him. He stood still, not glancing back in her direction. This was a man who was perfectly comfortable in his own skin, happy with his rotten ways, and he would continue. There was nothing she could do to stop him.

  When he came back he was still in a
rrogant mood. ‘No crime was committed,’ he said, pocketing his wallet. ‘No money demanded, nothing. They both chose to die. The police have absolutely no chance of conviction. They have nothing against me.’

  ‘They have pictures of you committing an indecent and humiliating act with a twelve-year-old boy.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘I believe the police will be able to.’

  He shrugged, a casual, contemptuous gesture. ‘Believe what you like,’ he said. ‘I really don’t care what you believe. It doesn’t matter to me.’

  Martha looked around her. The place seemed busier than ever, full of decent people having a good time.

  Oh, how she wanted to win this round. And then …

  The entrance to The Armoury is three steps down, in a well. Two men were walking in. She saw their heads first. DS Paul Talith, Alex behind him. Talith looked around for an empty table – or perhaps a reserved one, and spotted her … and him.

  Martha’s heart sank. Because she’d felt nervous about the outcome of the evening she’d wanted someone to be there for her, but not him and not like this. Not without a chance to explain.

  She felt hot with embarrassment. She could see this from their perspective. Having what would look like a friendly dinner with a good-looking man ten years younger than herself.

  They would assume the worst. She was trying not to look across the crowd but her eyes seemed magnetized. And even from this distance she could read Alex’s expression. He was staring at her with a look of utter bleakness.

  Victor Stanley followed the direction of her gaze and for a moment he looked furious, until his demeanour slowly changed as he thought of a way he could capitalize on this late arrival. His smile broadened; his face looked malicious. Martha almost shrank away from the expression, it held so much spite. She hadn’t seen this level of hatred since a girl had pulled her ponytail and said how she hated people with red hair. Martha had been six years old at the time and it had been the first time she’d encountered ginger prejudice.

  ‘Well, look who’s here,’ he said. ‘The recently widowed Detective Inspector Alex Randall.’