‘I don’t see any point in staying together because of appearances,’ she said.
‘I’ve been lazy, I suppose,’ said Robbie. ‘That must be why I married her. She’s very capable.’
So was Wendy.
He and Wendy had been taken for a married couple wherever they went today. She was wearing a ring – he hadn’t asked her about it but was glad; it made it easier at the hotel. He was proud to be seen with her, to have people think they were married.
He wasn’t at all proud of being married to Isabel.
12
Isabel had to make her own breakfast on Sunday. By the time she had pattered about in her quilted housecoat assembling it, it seemed hardly worth going back to bed, since she meant to spend the day packing up her clothes and other things for the move the following weekend. Several times she found herself about to speak, to tell Robbie to do something; it was very irritating of him to have gone off like this just now.
She sat at the kitchen table, in the end, eating her toast, while outside on the bird table some puzzled sparrows searched in vain for their morning crumbs. She was sitting there drinking coffee when there was a thump at the back door.
Isabel opened it, and saw Charlie, who took a step backwards at seeing her and not Robbie. His toy pistol was thrust into the belt supporting his jeans. Isabel did not notice it.
‘I’m here – where’s Robbie?’ he asked. ‘It’s a nice day, we can put some polish on.’ Last week it had been agreed that it was time for this on one car, anyway.
‘Mr Robinson isn’t here,’ said Isabel. ‘And we’re moving next weekend. You’re not to come again,’ and she shut the door in Charlie’s face.
Quick tears sprang into Charlie’s eyes as he turned away from the door. Not there – without telling? Something must be wrong. It was true that Robbie’s car was not outside but Charlie thought there must be some explanation for that. Maybe it had broken down and was at Monty’s Garage round the corner being mended. He ran back home and appeared in front of his mother looking thoroughly dejected.
‘Robbie isn’t there,’ he said. ‘And she told me not to come again.’
His mother glanced at her husband.
‘Well, they’re moving, Charlie,’ she said. ‘You knew that.’
‘Yes, but Robbie’s my friend. He wouldn’t go away without saying good-bye,’ said Charlie.
Charlie’s mother decided that the worm had turned at last and Robbie had gone for good.
‘Sometimes things happen that can’t be helped,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he meant to.’
Isabel forgot the child as soon as she closed the door upon him. That was one thing that was going to stop: she wasn’t going to have a lot of snotty-nosed little brats round at the new house, for Robbie’s entertainment. She finished her breakfast and went up to have her bath.
Later, Beryl came round to help with the packing. She was glad of Robbie’s defection, for it meant she had Isabel to herself; however, it was typical of a man not to be there when he was wanted. Dressed in neat maroon slacks with a suede waistcoat over her polo sweater, she darted about the house helping Isabel go through cupboards. The removal men would pack everything up but Isabel did not want to leave it all to them and meant to take some of her clothes over to the new house herself. She and Beryl began packing them up in polythene bags. Whilst sorting through them, Isabel discarded some and set them aside to be sent to the charity shop in the town. Robbie should take them round on Saturday morning.
They started on the linen cupboard. Sheets and towels and pillow slips were put into bags and the necks neatly clipped. At eleven o’clock they paused for coffee.
‘We’re getting on well,’ Isabel said. ‘You are a help, Beryl. How would I manage without you?’
‘You’ll never have to do that,’ Beryl assured her.
She loved her job in Caprice. She had just enough responsibility; it wasn’t total. She liked assisting the bright young women who formed part of the clientele, and she was good at helping older women to choose suitable clothes. Best of all, she liked feeling that she was needed, and by Isabel. Her employer, moving around the kitchen now, was clearly disturbed by Robbie’s absence. What would she do if Robbie were dead, wondered Beryl? Would she mind? She was almost missing him now, but that was partly because she counted on him to carry out various duties, and she had worked out a schedule for the move which his irresponsible escapade might upset. Where could he have gone?
Isabel, in a grey Jaeger skirt and sweater, with three strings of silver chains round her neck, moved round the house with deliberation. She never seemed to hurry, unlike Beryl, yet she accomplished a great deal.
For the second week Robbie failed to provide Sunday lunch. The women took steaks from the freezer and Beryl laid the table while Isabel grilled them. There were éclairs, too, and they drank a bottle of burgundy between them. After that, both were flushed and sleepy so they sat down for a while with the fashion magazines.
Later, Isabel decided to go up to Robbie’s room.
‘Well, I made it,’ thought Detective Inspector Thomas as he drew up outside the neat house in a quiet, tree-lined road. His former wife lived in a bigger, better house than the one he had provided, in which their marriage had ended.
The journey by car took two hours, and as he drove along, Thomas had turned over in his mind the curious case of the Blewton bank raid, trying to understand what sort of man had committed the crime. It had the trappings of amateurishness – the toy gun, the obvious disguise, the improvisation over the car.
None of it fitted a pattern set by other recent raids. He thought they were looking for someone either unknown to them, or who had strayed outside his usual field of operations.
Whoever the villain was, he had committed a serious crime and Thomas meant to get him.
He switched off the engine outside the house and blew the horn. After a few minutes the front door opened and the two boys came out, David aged eight and Jonathan, who was six, so named by their mother. They wore new corduroy trousers and lined anoraks over scarlet jerseys, and looked very neat. They came reluctantly down the path looking backwards over their shoulders at the house, and Thomas’s heart sank. Always he hoped for the sight of them eagerly running to greet him, but that had stopped a long time ago. They were strangers, and he wondered if he might not serve them better by keeping out of their lives. Their stepfather, as far as he knew, was a decent man who was good to them. He could see his ex-wife standing in the doorway watching them go. She was pregnant. He waved half-heartedly in her direction as he got out of the car and walked towards his sons. He felt nothing towards her now, not love, not anger; it had all gone cold. It seemed so sad.
‘Hi,’ he said, wanting to stretch out his arms wide to enfold the boys, but you needed co-operation for that.
‘Hi,’ said David, to be polite.
Jonathan did not speak.
They got into the car and Thomas handed over bags of sweets, despising himself for the blatant bribery but how else could he hope to break the ice? By the evening he might just have broken through the barrier of the boys’ palpable resentment.
It was so difficult to keep them entertained. They’d already been to the museums and parks in the area; he had nowhere ordinary, homelike, to take them; it was too far to go back to Blewton – if they did that, they’d spend most of the day on the road.
He started the car.
‘We’ll go to the sea,’ he said.
The two boys were silent for the first half-hour as Thomas tried to make conversation. Eventually he extracted monosyllabic replies from them about what had gone on at school, avoiding all reference to their mother and their home life, which included a half-sister as well as the one on the way. He did not want to know about all that and wished he need have no further contact with Pat: she represented his failure.
At last Jonathan said, ‘I’ve got a new bike. I can ride it without hands.’
‘He didn’t want to come today. He w
anted to stay at home and ride it,’ said David betrayingly. ‘Mum said we’d got to, though.’
Thomas wouldn’t ask David if he would have preferred to stay at home too: he knew what the answer would be.
But things improved when they reached the coast. It was cold, and the east wind blew mercilessly at them. Thomas made them pull up the hoods of their anoraks. The tide was out, and after walking slowly at first across the sand, suddenly they began to race madly around, glad to stretch after sitting in the car. When two planes from a neighbouring airfield flew low overhead, Jonathan stretched out his arms and began to swoop and swerve in imitation, roaring, and after a few minutes the more aloof David copied him. Thomas produced a ball, and they played with that; then, when they were warmer, they examined pools among the rocks for crabs and shrimps.
He found a café for lunch where they could have hamburgers and chips. He had learned the hard way not to take them to a sea front hotel, all dignity and damask.
After lunch they went to an amusement arcade and spent a lot of money on the machines. Thomas had time to notice the youngsters lounging around waiting for time to pass; there should be better ways of spending it, and he thought that people were happier when they had to work physically just to survive. He must stop bringing the boys to places like this – but what else was there to do in an area where he knew no one?
Next time, despite the journey, he’d take them back to Blewton, and show them the station. They might as well learn about his job. He’d show them the cells and the patrol cars, and they could hear the radio. They might even grow up to be bobbies themselves. What would their mother say to that?
He took them back to the beach and they played with the ball until it was time to have tea. They wanted beans on toast and sausages, and they drank Coke.
Pouring his own tea, Thomas had a sudden thought.
He had told Wendy Lomax that Mrs Helen Jordan had not been badly hurt by the bank robber. He hadn’t told her to keep quiet about it, and she might have told someone, so that the news could have spread and the thief might have heard it. That could explain the telephone calls to the hospital ceasing. It supported the theory, arising from the dumping of the stolen money at Overtown, that they were looking for someone local.
Robbie and Wendy rose late on Sunday morning. They had a long luxurious bath, then packed up, paid their bill, and were ready to leave the hotel.
‘I like this room,’ Robbie said, reluctant to go.
For two nights it had been home, a safe retreat where literally, for him, time had stood still.
‘Yes,’ Wendy understood what he was thinking as he stood there, his jacket a little crumpled, his tie crooked. She straightened it. He did need looking after. He caught her and kissed her. The wonder of it had not ceased to amaze him.
She thought, almost afraid, it means too much to him. She liked being with him. He was a pleasant companion, and basking in his patent admiration made her feel good. She wondered if she might tire of it, if it would cloy, for Robbie was sometimes dull. But he was good and kind, and that was worth a great deal.
As they drove into the country, to make their way leisurely back to Blewton, stopping for lunch and a walk, perhaps a visit to a stately home, she wondered if she might, in time, marry him. She would like a little house, children. Robbie was not too old to be a father – she did not for a moment believe that cow of a wife of his, about his infertility, and it would be nice to prove her wrong. After Terry, she could not hope to fall in love again – indeed, the very thought of it was exhausting. She might be content with Robbie, expecting very little more than kindness from him. Was that enough?
Robbie felt charged with energy and confidence as he drove through lanes where thick hedges on either side would form screens of green later in the year. How he despised the weak, satellite man who had circled obediently around Isabel for so long. Now it seemed impossible that he had endured her dominance so totally. Let her join forces with her precious Beryl; she’d manage without him perfectly well. A new life lay ahead, with, in the fullness of time, a safe pension from the bank.
It was just as well that Wendy was going away, although he would miss her. He needed a respite – time to come down from the clouds and be practical. In her absence he would find somewhere to live and inquire about the legal process of divorce. Some of the money, though not much, from the sale of 49 Claremont Terrace was rightfully his and he must take steps to obtain it. Isabel would have to take out a bigger mortgage; she could afford it. He felt no obligation towards her. He hated her more every day.
There had been condensation on the windows and windscreen of the car when they started off that morning. Robbie had wiped them all down before they drove off, but the window on Wendy’s side had somehow become smeared. When they stopped for petrol, Robbie opened up the bonnet of the car to check the oil and water, and Wendy saw that he would be busy for a few minutes. She opened the glove compartment of the car to take out the cloth she had seen him use. There were some maps in it, and a torch, and something more: right at the back under everything else.
Wendy did not know what made her pull out the old pair of leather gloves but when she looked at them and saw the dark stain across the back of one, she recognized it at once.
She put the gloves back, and everything else, and was sitting apparently composedly in her place when Robbie got into the car.
Eating his Sunday lunch in a hotel, James Jordan decided to forgive his wife for her premarital trespass. He was missing the comforts of home; too much of his life was spent in hotels and restaurants, for as sales manager of his firm he was often at exhibitions or in foreign cities. At weekends he needed to unwind in the comfort of his well-equipped, well-run house. Things must be restored to normal, but he would never be able to trust Helen again.
He had favoured her return to work when the children grew older. She was an intelligent woman, and as long as she did not neglect her family he thought her time might as well be occupied profitably. The money, too, was useful while the children were at the stage of receiving higher education.
He had met Helen at a party, and had thought her attractive and warm; she was. Now he knew why. He was not, as he had supposed, the holder of the key that had unlocked her personality – her sexual personality, he decided was what he meant. It had already been released by another and what should rightfully have been his had been surrendered elsewhere.
James was worried about his daughter, growing up with contemporary freedom and now, at eighteen, in Paris. Goodness knows what she might get up to there, though the family she was with were expected, by him anyway, to supervise her. If she knew what her mother had done as a girl, the chances of Petra remaining chaste for much longer would be slight.
Splitting the home up would not help. Family stability was more important than hurt pride. Besides, there would be talk.
He drove round to his sister-in-law’s house and found Helen playing Scrabble with her niece and a young friend. She did not look particularly pleased to see him and he was obliged to go into the garden to help Tim prune the roses.
Isabel opened the door of Robbie’s room.
It was so neat inside that it seemed as though no one used it, and with its white painted furniture it was like a schoolboy’s room, Isabel thought. That was what Robbie was: a perpetual schoolboy, with his carpentry and his television thrillers; he thought she did not know what formed most of his viewing but she had long ago noticed the quick changeover of programme when she returned home.
It was lucky he still had a mother, herself, to look after him. He suited her well enough, appearing at her side as a consort when required and seldom about at other times.
His clothes would have to be moved from his cupboard in polythene bags to the new house, where there were built-in cupboards in all the rooms. Isabel laid down a small pile of bags on the bed. She tried the cupboard door and found it locked. How secretive. What could Robbie have to hide?
She opened the top drawer
of the chest of drawers. There was a pile of spotless handkerchiefs inside – the Robinsons used the Kleen-Wash Laundry – and some toys: a soldier in battle dress, a puzzle. She recognized them as trophies from cereal packets. The next drawer contained socks, the next vests and pants which were made of white cotton, like a schoolboy’s. She opened the bottom drawer. There were some sweaters in it, neatly folded, but something was poking up through their neat folds, disturbing the smooth outline. Isabel felt underneath them; she drew out a plastic carrier bag. It contained a tweed cap, a nylon raincoat, a pair of dark glasses, a red wig and a bushy ginger beard.
There was something else in the drawer under the sweaters. Isabel bent to investigate. It was a pair of women’s stockings.
13
Detective Inspector Thomas delivered his children back to their mother soon after six. They were cheerful now, and parted from him with amity though no hugs. Their new corduroy trousers were damp at the ends, and sandy.
‘See you again soon,’ Thomas said bracingly, and tried not to feel deflated when there was no response. He saw the pattern ahead: he would visit them less and less, perhaps stop coming altogether.
Driving back to Blewton, he switched his mind away from his domestic distress to the case of the bank raider. The radio appeal had produced nothing about the return of the money; nor had the inquiries in Overtown. The man must have been invisible, Thomas thought grimly. Someone must have seen him. Perhaps he made the drop wearing a different disguise, or none at all. They could dress up a constable in similar garb to the robber’s original attire and have him parade around, in the hope that someone might be reminded that they had, in fact, seen him. Perhaps the thief would carry out another raid and leave a few clues. Having surrendered that loot, for whatever obscure reason, he might try another raid to recoup. Was it possible that they were looking for a nutter whose plan was to rob banks for kicks and then give back the cash?
He thought again about Wendy Lomax and how she might have remarked that Helen Jordan had not been seriously hurt. He might as well go round and see if she remembered mentioning it to anyone. If she did, it should be possible to trace a chain along which the news had passed, and in that way a possible suspect might emerge.
Death on Account Page 11
