Wake the Dead

by Dorothy Simpson

  And yes, she had made up her mind. He could read the decision in her eyes before she spoke.

  ‘To be honest, I think he was relieved when the baby died. I don’t think it would have suited his image, especially as the child grew older and its handicap became more evident.’

  Now he could risk a question he would never have dared ask earlier. ‘Did young Mrs Fairleigh blame him, especially, for their being away the night the baby died?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course she did. With disastrous effect.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Caroline rummaged for another cigarette, found one. She took her time in lighting it, then gave a cynical little laugh. ‘I always think it’s so sad, don’t you, when dreams turn to ashes?’

  ‘Dreams?’

  ‘Yes. The irony of it, you see, is that it was always Grace who was keen on Hugo. Even at school … Our school and his used to get together for certain events, you see, and of course there was always a lot of excitement about this. Well, you can imagine! We were boy-starved, and Hugo was the one most of us fell for. He was really something in those days – I suppose some people might think he still is. But anyway, Grace thought he was the last word, and worshipped him from afar for ages.’

  ‘He never took any notice of her, then?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t until years later that they met again, when he was a practising barrister. It was at a dinner party, at the house of a mutual friend. Grace rang me up the next day. She was so excited, he’d asked her out … Anyway, six months later they were married and I’m afraid it was downhill all the way from then on.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  She blew out a plume of smoke. ‘Basically because there’s only one thing that matters to Hugo and that’s Hugo. To him, Grace was just a social attribute – she came from a good family, could hold her own in society, was an excellent hostess and as a bonus was highly decorative, as I’m sure you’ll agree. She soon found out that there was little more to it than that, and became more and more disillusioned. That was why the baby meant so much to her and why things got so much worse between her and Hugo when the tragedy happened.’

  ‘Did he …?’ There was no way to put this tactfully. But it wasn’t necessary, she understood at once what he meant.

  ‘Did he play around, you mean?’ She looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t think so. Not for years, anyway. He was too busy making his way in the world. But then …’

  Thanet waited. Here came another of those barriers. Would this one come down too? He guessed that she was trying to decide whether her loyalty to Grace would be compromised by talking about Hugo.

  She gave him another considering look. ‘I did say, didn’t I, that if it was dirt you were looking for, I wasn’t prepared to play.’

  Thanet nodded. There was no point in putting pressure on her. She would make up her own mind and nothing he could say would influence her. But he was willing to bet that she was going to be unable to resist the temptation.

  She was silent for a few moments, smoking thoughtfully and gazing out of the window at the street. There were a few more people about now, he noticed.

  ‘Well …’ she said, then broke off, frowning.

  Someone was tapping at the window. A middle-aged couple was peering in, the woman shielding her eyes in order to get a better view of the interior.

  Thanet cursed silently. Just the wrong moment for an interruption. He hoped Caroline would pick up where she had left off.

  She rose and went across to the window. The woman outside was pointing at their coffee cups and miming drinking movements. Caroline was shaking her head and pointing to the ‘OPENING SOON’ notice. Eventually the couple gave disappointed shrugs and turned away.

  Caroline came back. ‘Perhaps I’d better consider Sunday opening, for the coffee shop. There’s nowhere else in Sturrenden you can get a decent cup of coffee on a Sunday. Speaking of which, would either of you like some more?’

  Thanet and Lineham shook their heads. She picked up her own cup and went to refill it.

  Should he wait for her to take up the thread of the conversation again? Thanet wondered. He decided to risk doing so himself. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘What?’ She gazed at him blankly for a moment, then remembered. ‘Ah yes, the dirt. Shall I, shan’t I? Will I, won’t I? That’s what you want to know, isn’t it, Inspector?’

  Thanet shrugged. ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘What, no strong-arm tactics?’ She laughed. ‘No, not your style, I can see that. Softly softly catchee monkey, that’s more your line. No doubt you’ve realised that putting pressure on me would merely make me clam up. Now, the question is, do you get a reward for your restraint, or not?’

  Thanet said nothing, merely tried to make his expression as non-committal as possible. This, he felt, was the turning point in the interview. If she decided to go on now, they were home and dry. Lineham was aware of this too, he could tell. The sergeant was sitting as still as a statue, almost willing himself into invisibility.

  Go on, Thanet urged her silently. Go on.

  She stubbed out the cigarette and took a leisurely sip of coffee. She was enjoying keeping them in suspense, he could see that.

  Eventually she grinned and Thanet glimpsed a spark of malicious satisfaction in her eyes. She was going to enjoy this.

  ‘Well, why not?’ she said.

  EIGHT

  Thanet became aware that he had been holding his breath. He released it slowly, unobtrusively, feeling the ache in his lungs subside.

  ‘After all,’ said Caroline, ‘what do I owe Hugo? Nothing. Less than nothing, in fact, after the way he’s treated Grace. And if I don’t tell you, someone else is bound to. I imagine all sorts of skeletons fall out once you lot start poking around in cupboards. Can’t say I envy you your job, but I can see that it might have a horrible sort of fascination, for those so inclined.’

  Was that how she saw him? wondered Thanet. As someone who enjoyed prising out people’s grubby little secrets? He had to admit that there was some truth in the accusation. But it wasn’t that he enjoyed the ‘dirt’, as she called it, for its own sake. A murder investigation was a complex business and he remembered Lineham saying once that it was like trying to complete a really difficult jigsaw without ever having seen the picture. To find another piece was to fill in a little more of the picture and if he found enough pieces and managed to put them together then the crime would be solved, it was as simple as that.

  Now Caroline was about to hand him one.

  ‘Of course, this is just speculation,’ she said. ‘I can’t give you chapter and verse. And Grace and I have never actually discussed the matter. She wouldn’t. Whatever she feels about Hugo she’s never been the type to complain about him behind his back. But my guess is that he met someone about a year ago, and the affair is still going on.’

  ‘What grounds have you for suspecting this?’

  Caroline shrugged. ‘Nothing specific. Just a lot of little things which add up. A change in his attitude towards her, for a start. When he speaks to her, for instance, he never actually looks at her any more. He very rarely asks her to accompany him to functions now, and that’s something he’s invariably expected of her. It’s always been part of his image, you see, to have his charming wife by his side. And then, he has a flat in London and for years he’s usually spent two or three nights a week there, but now he hardly ever comes home during the week and quite often he stays up at the weekend, too.’

  ‘You think he might be contemplating a divorce?’

  Caroline frowned. ‘That’s a tricky one. He certainly wouldn’t relish the idea of a scandal, however minor. It could damage his reputation in the constituency, Grace is very well liked down here. And it’s difficult to imagine Hugo casting all aside for love, he’s much too hard-headed for that. I’d say it depends on the woman. If she’s happy to remain his little bit on the side, he’d probably be content to go on like that indefinitely. But I could be doing him an injustice, I sup
pose. If he really is in love with her I imagine it’s just conceivable he’d be prepared to throw caution to the winds.’

  ‘How would his wife feel about that, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think she’d make a fuss, if that’s what you mean. Personally, I think it would be the best thing that could happen to her. I can’t think of a single benefit she gets from being his wife.’

  ‘A comfortable life-style?’

  ‘She has enough money of her own not to worry about that.’

  ‘What about old Mrs Fairleigh? How would she have reacted to the idea of a divorce, d’you think?’

  ‘Ah. I wondered when we’d be getting around to Isobel.’ Caroline pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘To be honest, if he was trading Grace in for a younger model, one who’d be able to provide Hugo with an heir, then I’m sure the old bat would have been all in favour of it. In fact, I gather she’s even hinted as much, to Hugo, in the past.’

  ‘You didn’t like her, either.’

  ‘She and Hugo were my two unfavourite people.’ She grinned. ‘I wouldn’t like you to think I feel like this about everybody, you know. Letty, for instance, is a poppet. No, on the whole I like people, but those two … I suppose I’ve always resented their making Grace so unhappy.’

  ‘She and her mother-in-law didn’t get on?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that. It was an interesting relationship, really. On the one hand you had Isobel, who was selfish, egocentric and demanding, and on the other Grace, who was compliant, eager to please. I suppose you could say that each supplied something the other needed. So superficially at least they seemed to get on reasonably well. It’s just that I could see it was doing Grace more harm than good. She was never going to begin to feel more positive about herself all the while Isobel was constantly making her feel a failure.’

  ‘In what way, a failure?’

  ‘Well, by producing an heir that was flawed, for a start. And then, after the baby died, failing to produce another one at all. Isobel used to watch Grace like a hawk, you know, for signs of her being pregnant again. And when nothing happened she began dropping subtle hints. Then the hints became less subtle and, eventually, reproaches …’ Caroline shook her head in disgust. ‘It used to make me sick. Mad, too. Why couldn’t the old bitch see that Grace longed for more children herself, that she had suffered enough over the baby’s death and was still suffering over her failure to conceive again, without making it worse by twisting the knife in the wound?’

  Thanet was beginning to wonder if there was such a thing as an altruistic killing. Caroline Plowright obviously cared deeply about her friend. What if she had seen the opportunity to bring this tyranny to an end, and had grabbed it?

  ‘This was still going on?’

  ‘Oh no. Grace is forty now. I think even Isobel could see that the hope of another baby was becoming more and more faint with each passing year.’

  ‘You make her sound a very unpleasant person.’

  ‘Oh she was. Believe me, she was. How Letty put up with her I just don’t know. Not that she had much choice, poor woman, with no means of her own and no kind of training for a job. The way Isobel used to boss her around … She used to behave as if Letty’s one aim in life should be to make her own as comfortable as possible. And she never, ever let her forget that she was dependent on her for the roof over her head.’

  ‘What was she like, as a person?’ Caroline’s view of Isobel would of course be biased, but it always fascinated Thanet to hear how different people saw the same person. He knew that one’s view of anyone must be coloured by one’s own character, that one automatically sees other people through the filter of one’s own prejudices and attitudes. In his work he always had to make allowances for this, but found nevertheless that if he talked to enough people about a murder victim he could gradually attain quite a profound understanding of that person’s character. And experience had taught him that in the case of domestic murder such understanding was all-important. After all, barring accidents and ill health, most people live to a ripe old age. But somewhere in the character of those who die an unnatural death lies buried deep the reason for it. His mission was to dig, and keep on digging, until he found it.

  ‘Oh God, I’m not exactly going to give you an unprejudiced opinion, am I?’ said Caroline, unconsciously echoing his thoughts. ‘All the same, let me see … Well, as you’ll have gathered, she was entirely self-centred. I think she genuinely saw the world as revolving around her. I’d say she was incapable of seeing anything from anyone else’s point of view – even of conceiving that there could be another point of view, apart from her own. She didn’t suffer fools gladly – she was very efficient herself, a bit of a perfectionist, and was impatient with people who couldn’t attain the standards she set. Quiet, diffident people irritated her, I think that was one of the reasons why she treated Letty so badly. And she was very single-minded. If she set out to do something, she would do it, no matter how much opposition there was.’

  ‘Sounds as though she must have put a lot of people’s backs up.’

  ‘Oh she did. But don’t let me give you the wrong impression. She could be charming at times, when she wanted her own way. The gloves would only come off as a last resort. And she certainly got results, I’ll grant her that.’

  ‘Did she have many friends?’

  ‘Not what I would call friends. There were a few people she played bridge with regularly, but I wouldn’t say any of them was close to her. She didn’t seem to need other people, not in the way most of us do.’ Caroline’s forehead wrinkled. ‘It was odd, really. I mean, in some respects she didn’t care what people thought, so long as she got what she wanted, but at the same time she cared very much about keeping up appearances.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, she was very proud. It was important to her, to be a Fairleigh and to live in a house which had come down in the family, like Thaxden Hall. And she was very particular about the way she looked – she was always well groomed, beautifully dressed in expensive clothes, hair immaculate and so on.’

  ‘How did she get on with her son?’

  Caroline shrugged. ‘As well as she got on with anyone. I wouldn’t say that there was any deep affection between them, but there wasn’t any open disagreement, either. On the whole Hugo used to go along with what she wanted, he probably found it the easiest thing to do. I think his political career was very important to her – she enjoyed the reflected glory, you see. “My son the MP” and all that.’

  Walking back along the High Street, Lineham said, ‘Well, that didn’t get us very far, did it?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know. I thought it was fascinating.’

  Lineham’s grunt indicated that in his view that didn’t stop it being a waste of time. ‘Not surprising, by the sound of it, that someone decided to pick up a pillow and finish her off.’

  ‘Maybe not, Mike. But who? And why?’ But Thanet was content at the moment not really to give his mind to the subject. He turned up his face to the sun. How he loved the summer! As far as he was concerned this glorious weather could go on for ever. Devotees of the British climate who say that it is good to have variety, that we appreciate the sun more because it doesn’t always shine, had got it all wrong, in his opinion. He hadn’t heard of those who lived in California complaining.

  There were more people about now and a number of cars arriving at All Saints’ Church where the bells were pealing out for morning service. The bellringers were improving, thought Thanet, and he counted. Ten bells today, the full complement.

  Lineham was being single-minded. ‘I wonder if she’s right about him having an affair. Because if so … No, I suppose not.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking. I know an MP earns a decent whack in comparison with us, say, but if you think he’s got to keep up that great big house, pay a housekeeper and run a flat in town … And if he’s got a mistress, he’d no doubt want to wine and dine her, give her presents
and so on … he could find himself pretty strapped for money. But then I thought, no, I bet he’s got a nice fat private income on top of his salary to help out.’

  ‘Not necessarily, I suppose. His father could have left everything to his mother – which could be why she was still living in the house. We really must find out about her will, Mike, go and see the solicitor first thing tomorrow morning.’

  By the time they reached Thaxden people were coming out of church. ‘The service must start at 10.30 here,’ said Thanet.

  ‘Reporters waiting for the Fairleighs, by the look of it.’ Lineham nodded at three men and a woman clustered around the lych-gate at the entrance to the churchyard.

  Thanet spotted Grace and Hugo Fairleigh talking to another couple as they walked down the path to the lych-gate. Their clothes were sober but not funereal. Hugo was wearing a dark suit and discreet tie, Grace a navy linen suit with a navy and white silk scarf tucked into the neckline. Although the whole village must be buzzing with news of the murder Hugo must have decided that the best way to suppress gossip was to meet it head on, appear in public as if nothing other than the personal tragedy of losing his mother had happened. Thanet was surprised, though, that Grace had accompanied him. Her absence would surely have occasioned no comment – or perhaps it would, in the circumstances. In any case, he wondered what it was that made her continue to behave as a loyal wife, if everything Caroline had said were true.

  ‘There are the Fairleighs,’ he said to Lineham.

  The sergeant slowed down. ‘You want me to stop?’

  ‘No. Use your head, Mike. We don’t want to talk to them here. No doubt they’ll be coming straight home, once they’ve got rid of the reporters.’

  ‘Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.’

  At the entrance to Thaxden Hall a man up a ladder was taking down the big sign advertising the fête, and a lorry half loaded with trestle tables was parked in front of the house. As they awaited an answer to their knock two men carrying tea-urns came around the corner of the house and put them on the lorry. Heading back to the village hall, probably, thought Thanet.