by William Paul
‘If only it was so simple,’ Ramensky said.
‘It’s a respectable theory. Dates back to the ancient Greeks and their penchant for regular human sacrifices to pacify the gods. Red Indians believed they acquired the strength of an enemy killed in battle. You’re not on any original track really.’
‘I would have done it in a minute if it would have helped Lorna.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘I thought about it,’ Ramensky replied seriously. ‘I thought about killing myself too. I had this idea I would lie down beside her and cut my wrists and my life force or whatever it is would pass over somehow and she would be miraculously cured and get to grow up. I’ve thought about it a hundred times. I’ve studied it. It even has a scientific name. Metempsychosis, the transmigration of human souls into new bodies. But it wouldn’t be Lorna then, would it? If only it was so simple.’
‘Why wouldn’t it work?’
‘Because you wouldn’t be able to focus the changeover,’ Ramensky argued reasonably. ‘How could I guarantee that Mrs McElhose’s soul, once it was released, would be available for Lorna? Besides, body and soul are separate. It is Lorna’s body that is dying. Her soul is strong.’
Fyfe had no answer to such a deceptively rational argument, although he suspected a course in philosophy might provide him with one. He nodded and looked away from Ramensky’s entreating stare.
‘Why did you call her Lorna?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘Lorna. Where did the name come from?’
‘I don’t know. Marianne chose it. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Nothing. I’m just curious about names. How is she? Lorna?’
The explosion of laughter that came from Ramensky made the hairs prickle on the back of Fyfe’s neck. He wished he hadn’t asked the question. It was stupid. There was no need for it. He knew the answer.
‘Another day closer to death. What do you expect?’
Fyfe coughed and tried to cover his embarrassment by ushering Ramensky inside and closing and locking the french windows. They went down through the house, passing the locations of the bodies without comment, and out the back door, raising the blue and white crime scene marking line over their heads to exit. Fyfe checked his watch as he followed Ramensky up the side path. He had some time to spare.
‘Is your wife asleep?’
‘No,’ Ramensky said. ‘She can’t.’
‘Does she know about your theorising?’
‘No,’ he said too hastily. ‘She’s made a statement as well.’
‘She’ll know the answers to give me then.’
They took Fyfe’s car the short distance to the lodge, leaving it beside the incident caravan where the policeman on guard now sat pretending not to be reading a book while drinking tea from a polystyrene cup. Fyfe was no sooner inside the door of the lodge than he was affected by an atmosphere of unreality that made him desperate to escape. The central heating was on full, making it oppressively warm. He decided not to ask too many questions. He wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Marianne Dunne came over to him with one hand outstretched and her tragic wide-eyed daughter Lorna astride her hip. Ramensky made the introductions and left to go to work. Fyfe felt the slight pressure of the mother’s handshake and the fixed stare of the child.
‘She won’t sleep,’ Marianne explained. ‘Too much excitement and comings and goings today. It’s too early.’
‘How is she?’ Fyfe asked before he could stop himself.
‘Bearing up.’
Marianne was so small and delicate compared to the lumbering Ramensky. She had a haunted look about her, a vacancy behind the eyes that cancelled out the superficial, tear-dry smile. She was a woman on the verge of insanity. Outwardly she was controlled and assured, yet she was actually inconsolable and unreachable by anyone. The murder of Zena McElhose was an unimportant sideshow compared to what was happening to her daughter. Fyfe imagined she was thinking he should be there to investigate the injustice being done to a child who had been condemned to die so young. Who was the prime suspect in her inevitable death? What was the defence case? There was a genuine paradox to be resolved in Lorna’s case. Who was to blame?
No wonder Sapalski had felt the need to go home to restore his grip on reality after having to face this, Fyfe thought. He tried to take hold of Lorna’s hand to show his compassion but she snatched it away and hid her face against her mother’s neck.
Fyfe asked his questions and Marianne answered them from behind her self-imposed barrier. He did not take any notes. He did not learn anything new. He made his excuses and left, gulping down the cold air outside as if he had just surfaced from deep under water. He looked up at the sky through the waving branches of the trees and was aware of the raw biological power of his own life force surging through him.
Chapter Nineteen
Sunday, 16.05
The identity of the man in hospital after the murder of the old lady remained a mystery, according to the news on the hour in the never-ending Tam Spurious radio programme. Poor Valentine must still be unconscious, Maureen Gilliland speculated. It wasn’t clear if the police knew who he was and were refusing to say or if they had no idea to begin with. Perhaps, even now, he was trying to do a deal to protect his anonymity and his reputation. But he had made his bed and taken Zena McElhose under the covers. It was only fair he should lie on it, exposed for what he was. All’s fair in love and war.
Gilliland stood inside the phone box in the street outside the police where Valentine Randolph would fail to turn up for work tomorrow. He was never late. Punctuality with him was an obsession, as it was with her. What a shock the others would get when neither appeared. They would be even more surprised when they learned the truth.
She had driven back in the Mercedes to see that her mother was all right. No problems there. Fed and watered and settled down where she could watch television and contentedly nibble digestive biscuits to her heart’s content. It would be the morning before she became aware that her dutiful daughter was gone for good.
Gilliland had been into the office too, sitting in his swivel seat to feel the shape moulded by Val’s weight over the years. She had swung around in the chair until the whole familiar room dissolved into a disjointed stream of colours. In a drawer she found a card. It had Manet’s Blonde with Bare Breasts on the front, the kind of painting most people would expect her to strongly disapprove of, but which she secretly coveted. Inside the message page was blank. She took out his fountain pen and wrote: ‘For Maureen. Only we will ever know the truth.’ Then his name and three kisses. She put the card in its accompanying envelope, writing her own name on that, and replaced it in the drawer.
She got up and put on her coat again before locking up. Outside in the phone box, she wore the little portable radio with the headphones she used for the bus journey to and from work and sang gently to herself.
‘I think the washing powder is greatly overrated,’ a female caller was saying. ‘It just doesn’t get my whites white.’
‘I find that extremely interesting,’ Spurious replied in witheringly sarcastic tones. ‘It is sad, is it not, that with the world crumbling around our ears the only subject you wish to discuss on national radio is the effectiveness or otherwise of washing powder?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Get a life and keep me out of it. Next caller, please.’
‘Hi, Tam. I’m opposed to these building regulations that mean I can’t replace my windows without some dickhead from the council coming round and telling me he approves.’
‘Really. Would you be happy if your neighbour installed tartan window frames?’
‘Well, no.’
‘Or if another neighbour decided he liked flashing neon tubes round his panes of glass?’
‘No, but –’
‘In other words you think everybody should be subject to regulations but your good self.’
‘Aye, but ther
e’s nothing wrong with my windows.’
‘There is however something wrong with your logic.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Everybody’s wrong but you. Don’t you realise laws are made to be impartial and objective and not to favour one person against the other? Everybody or nobody has to conform. It’s not a matter of personal choice.’
‘Aye, but my windows are fine.’
‘Goodbye. Is there no one out there with the intellectual rigour to sustain an argument beyond its initial premise? We homespun philosophers are such lonely people. Ah, another call. Maybe this will be a good one.’
‘Tam, do you know what happened when I walked into a bar the other night?’
‘No. What happened?’
‘I was knocked out.’
‘Were you now? Why was that?’
‘It was an iron bar.’
Spurious sighed over the sound of manic cackling. The programme dissolved into a run of advertisements. In the phone box Gilliland smiled at the joke, picked up the receiver and pressed a pound coin into the slot. She dialled the programme’s number from memory. The call was answered immediately.
‘May I speak with Mr Spurious?’
‘Okey dokey, darling,’ a voice said. ‘If you just hang on you’re next in the queue.’
She waited patiently. A couple of minutes passed. She put in another pound coin. On the radio the advertisements ended and a furious argument developed between Spurious and a caller with a high-pitched voice over the need for religious education in schools.
‘If I had my way I’d ban the bible and replace it with the Kama Sutra. At least the stories in it are enjoyable and much more believable. Some of them anyway.’
‘You are a blasphemous sinner,’ the caller spluttered.
‘Get away. And here’s me thinking I was a homo sapiens. Is there anybody else out there? Who’s next?’
Gilliland realised it was her. ‘See if you can make the bastard’s teeth rattle,’ she was told. ‘You’re on air now.’
It was strange hearing Tam Spurious speak in her ear at the same time as she heard him on the radio. She removed one headphone to be able to hear him better and found herself blinking rapidly.
‘Yes, caller, what have you got to say for yourself?’
‘This murder last night.’
‘The old lady?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about it?’
‘The man they found there. The police don’t know who he is.’
‘Is that so? Do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Go on, tell us then.’
‘His name is Valentine Randolph, senior partner in a law firm in the city.’
The sudden loud blast of rock music from the radio disorientated her, making her jerk her head to the side. She hadn’t heard Val’s name repeated. They had blanked it out.
‘How do you know this?’ Spurious was asking.
‘I know.’
‘Who are you?’
She didn’t reply.
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘Look for his car.’ She recited the registration number. ‘When you find it you’ll understand.’
‘Where is this car?’
She hung up, pulled off the remaining headphones and walked away from the phone box. One way or the other everybody would know about Val soon enough. And then they would know about her too. She hummed quietly to herself as she slid behind the wheel of the red Mercedes. The seat fitted perfectly round her. It was warm and comfortable. She imagined her fantasy lover was in the passenger seat beside her, leaning over, grabbing her knee, running his hand up the inside of her leg, kissing her neck. She put her head back and moaned with the frightening intensity of her unreal, unrequited passion.
‘Maureen? Is that you?’
She froze. Her eyes snapped open. Gregor Runciman’s face was framed in the V-shaped space at the top of the open car door. He was leaning down, preventing her from closing the door. He looked puzzled; more than that, shocked. His eyes were dangerously pink, like an albino rabbit’s, surrounded by a flat whiteness of pale flesh. His lips moved and she heard the words but could not answer them. She told herself to be calm but panic paralysed her and squeezed at her insides. She felt the warm dampness between her legs and realised she had wet herself again.
‘Maureen, what are you doing here?’ Runciman asked. ‘Have you been in the office?’
He was pulling at the door but she held it tight, aware of the pain it was causing in the muscle of her right arm. Had he seen her in the phone box? Did he know what she was doing? Had he been watching her in the office? Why was he here? Was he following her? Had she been found out already? She had to get away from him.
‘Just hold on a minute, Maureen,’ Runciman said, and there was an edge to his voice that frightened her. ‘Wait there. I’ll get in the other side. I have to speak to you. It’s important.’
The car door slammed shut, hurting Gilliland’s wrist. Runciman was moving round the front of the car, hand resting on the wing as he stepped off the kerb. Gilliland seized her chance. She switched on the ignition, rammed the gearstick into first gear, released the clutch and stamped on the accelerator. The Mercedes leapt forward. Runciman, his face rigid with shock and surprise, was lifted off his feet. He rolled on to the bonnet. His knees struck the windscreen, then his hands and he was pushed to one side, falling away. Gilliland, smiling vacantly at her own reflection, moved her head to be able to see him in the rear-view mirror, crawling on all fours on the ground far behind.
Chapter Twenty
Sunday, 16.10
John Sapalski got what Wilma asked for, macaroni with jam doughnuts on the side washed down by a cherry-flavoured fizzy drink that gave her the most terrible wind. She was sitting, hugely pregnant, in the living-room with her feet up on a cushion-covered chair and all the necessities within easy reach. She read one of a supply of books and watched the television at the same time and when she got bored she played with one of those children’s games where you have to roll tiny steel balls into holes on the horizontal base by tilting it from side to side.
He hung about but she didn’t seem too bothered whether he was there or not. He knelt down beside her and put his ear against the mound of her stomach to listen to all the whooshing and gurgling noises that so fascinated him. Wilma patted him on the head.
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me. It’s not an illness, you know. Having a baby is a wholly natural event.’
‘Even our baby?’
‘Yes, even our baby. It won’t be the first to come into this world, believe it or not. Might not even be the last.’
Sapalski ran the palms of his hands over her stomach. They had been to natural childbirth classes at his insistence to learn breathing and pain relief techniques. Wilma had agreed but reserved the right to be pumped full of drugs so that she wouldn’t feel anything at all when it came to the crucial moment. How could he argue? He had done his bit. Everything was up to her now. The division of labour was quite clear.
‘Go back to work, John,’ she said.
‘I don’t like leaving you on your own.’
‘I won’t be on my own,’ she replied, cradling her stomach. ‘I’ve got our baby to keep me company.’
‘I should go back.’
‘Back you go then.’
Sapalski stood up. Wilma didn’t know about the murder of Zena McElhose. He didn’t want to upset her by describing the terrible fate of a lonely old woman. Wilma thought it was just another routine investigation he was in charge of. He hadn’t told her about Fyfe being shunted in above him to supervise. He hadn’t told her about his encounter with little Lorna and her terminal illness. He hadn’t explained his overpowering urge to rush home to be with her. He hadn’t conveyed the substance of his fears and worries. All he had done was make her macaroni and jam doughnuts and annoy her by fussing around uselessly.
His feelings of anxiety were passing now that he had
established Wilma was safe, or at least as safe as he knew. There were no guarantees that the biological formation of his offspring was progressing without mishap inside her womb. A fatal genetic flaw might be insinuating itself as he stood there looking down. That wasn’t something he could protect her against.
‘For goodness sake, John, will you stop it. You’re making me nervous.’
‘Sorry. I’ll leave you to it then.’
‘I won’t wait up.’
‘I don’t know when I’ll be back.’
‘Any emergencies or early starts and you can be sure I’ll have every policeman in the force hunting you down. You won’t miss any of the blood and gore. That’s a promise.’
He bent down and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll leave then.’
‘If you say it often enough you just might.’
Sapalski backed out of the room and picked up his coat from the floor in the hall where he had flung it on his way in. He decided to phone before he left to find out if there were any developments in the case. He couldn’t think of any there might be unless their mystery man woke up at the hospital. He got through to Graham Evans who had been delegated to headquarters to begin setting up a computer database with the first rush of statements from the door-to-doors.
‘What’s the score?’ he asked.
‘Possible line on John Doe,’ Evans replied. ‘A woman phoned the local radio station and gave a name.’
‘Who?’
‘Valentine Randolph. A New Town lawyer and businessman. Senior partner in Randolph and Runciman, a blue chip firm. Luckily we had a car passing his address. No one home. Could be a wind-up. We’re trying to find him.’
‘Who was the woman?’
‘Anonymous call to the Tam Spurious show.’
‘How genuine, do you reckon?’
‘Difficult to say. She did give the number of a car that is registered in Randolph’s name. The caller seemed to think it was significant information but the garage at his house is empty.’
