‘So you’re just backing out, is that it? You’re going to sit there, just laughing, while we scrat around —’
‘Am I bloody laughing?’ I asked quietly.
He made a weary gesture. He’d been trying to goad me, and it hadn’t worked. ‘It’s her toes I didn’t want to tread on — and yours, Richard.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ I felt deflated. ‘Sorry, Ken. But I just don’t dare to get involved. Hell to it, I’m going out to lunch. Out of here, somewhere I don’t have to look over my shoulder. Coming? It’s on me.’
‘Thanks, but I can’t. He’s called a conference for one o’clock.’
‘Right. Then I’ll see you...’
‘Don’t go.’
I stopped with my hand to the door. ‘There’s more?’
He spread his hands in exasperation. We’d been friends for years. ‘Damn it, don’t look at me like that. I’m not fighting you — and you’d bloody love it if I was.’
‘What were you going to say?’
‘You can see what it’s going to come to. The man was guarding the place with a shotgun. He even fired off a couple of barrels at somebody.’
‘And missed.’
‘At full range, that’s quite possible. Sideways through the glass — still possible. But Richard, it’s most likely that he allowed the murderer to get close, because he knew that person. And the most likely suspect in a man’s murder is his wife. A wife might have been able to get close enough.’
‘You know too much, Ken. Or you guess too much.’
‘Just making sounds,’ he said soothingly. ‘Try that new place in Cheshire Close. I hear it’s good.’
‘I’ll do that.’
It might be worth looking at, I decided. The usual depressing dumps I used — almost absentmindedly, as a supply of calories — were clearly not suitable for what I had in mind.
I parked at the top of the multi-storey just behind the church, and made my way on foot to Cheshire Close. The new place certainly looked attractive, so I crossed to one of the phone boxes on the corner.
From habit I’d noted the number on her phone in the hall. After a few moments of recall, I dialled it.
‘Amelia?’
‘Yes. It’s Richard.’ A flat statement.
‘I’d like to give you lunch. Can I come along and fetch you?’
I’d said it in a neutral tone, not sure what attitude to take, but I could hear that it couldn’t have sounded enticing. There was a pause before she replied.
‘Is there anything we could possibly discuss?’
‘We could try.’
Another pause. ‘But not there, please.’
‘You don’t know where I had in mind,’ I protested.
‘Wherever it is. I just couldn’t take your dogmatic old-fashioned philosophy in public again.’
‘Then where?’ Teeth barely separating.
‘You’d have to come here, anyway. I could prepare you something for lunch. If you’ll promise not to be too overbearing. Will you do that, Richard?’
I found I was very hot, sweat standing on my forehead. She was actually teasing me! Was it that I was taking the whole situation too seriously?
‘I’ll do that,’ I croaked. ‘Twenty minutes?’
‘That will be quite splendid.’
I hung up. Blast her. Did she think I was a teenager? Yet I was quite relaxed when I drove the car down the spiral.
She smiled at the door, smiled as she took my hat, watched me hanging up my coat, as though it was a rare accomplishment I was demonstrating.
‘If you’d care to sit in the back room...Ten minutes, and it’ll all be ready.’
‘The kitchen will do fine.’
Not only was there an appetising smell in there, but it also had the advantage of her presence. I liked to watch her, turn the pipe in my fingers — because she might not like me to smoke while she was cooking — and toss odd remarks of an innocuous nature to her back, just to enjoy the swirl of her hair as she turned her head to answer.
‘I had a casserole on, anyway,’ she told me.
‘Well...really...’
‘Enough for two. I’m sorry there’s no beer. Do you drink beer? All policemen spend so much time in pubs.’
‘I drink beer. But I don’t get withdrawal symptoms if I can’t.’
‘There’s some wine. Yes, I believe there’s a little wine.’ She ended on a question, eyebrows raised.
‘Fine.’ I laughed. How long since I’d laughed? ‘What goes with casserole?’
‘Whatever there is.’
We sat side by side, perched on stools at the counter at the side window. The view was of the undeveloped end of the cul-de-sac, earthwork thrown up and the foundations trenched, and a site hut desolate and cold. The wine was a surprisingly good hock.
‘Coffee at the table,’ she said, aware that we had to talk face to face, but teasing me, still.
I waited until she’d stirred in sugar and cream. I was sufficiently lulled to light my pipe now, and held my lighter to her cigarette, reaching across the table.
‘You’ll remember,’ I said amiably, ‘that there were indications the dead man might be Clive Kendall.’
‘You said you were praying that it was.’
‘Well...my prayers weren’t answered. There were just one person’s fingerprints — in fact, it would’ve been surprising to find more. I can tell you, there was no other person could have got in.’
‘Just one person,’ she echoed softly.
‘And the same fingerprints were on the window latch.’
She watched me wide-eyed. ‘Is that important?’
‘A hand could’ve been reached in through a hole in the glass. But seemingly it wasn’t. I was saying...the fingerprints were not Clive Kendall’s. So we have an unknown man. The normal routines will have to be applied, now.’
She blew smoke upwards. She tried a tentative smile, then looked away, the fingers of her left hand tracing the pattern on the table surface. With anyone else, I’d have diagnosed nervousness. But her voice was quite steady when she spoke.
‘I’ve been thinking about everything, Richard, and I realise you’ve been very rash, haven’t you? You came to see me about the car, and then you told me about the dead man. And both times, I really did feel that what you were saying was more personal than official. No, let me finish what I want to say, please. I’m guessing that neither of those interviews has been reported — does it all have to go down on paper? I see it does. And it hasn’t.’ She nodded. ‘But...because I reported a missing husband, and you’ve got an unidentified body, then I can expect some very official enquiries before very long. You’ve come to tell me that. Is that it?’
She was making everything too easy for me. ‘There’s more to it than that.’
‘It places you in a difficult position, though?’
‘To hell with that.’
‘Will you have to be very severe with me, when you come again, all official and formal?’
‘It will not be me.’
‘Richard! Relax. It’s all right. There’s nothing unpleasant going to happen.’
‘There’s something very unpleasant going to happen, and very soon. You’re going to be asked to identify the body. It’s at the path lab at St George’s hospital at the moment, and nothing about that place is pleasant. Donaldson will take you there, and I don’t think he’s capable of handling anything delicately. Amelia, I want you to come along with me, and get it over and done with.’
She had lost colour. She stubbed out the cigarette with short, impatient movements.
‘This is for you, Richard?’
‘No. For you.’
‘So that you can get in first, put it in your report, and turn an official reprimand into a commendation?’
I put that down to her uncertainty, to her necessity to eliminate the unpleasant possibilities first. ‘It’s not that.’
‘Because, if it’s to help you, I’ll willingly do it.’
‘It
’s because we must know.’
‘We? You and the rest of your crew?’
‘You and me. Us. Don’t you want to be sure?’
She got up from the table with one quick movement, turned back to me, bit her lip, and said: ‘How little you understand....’ Then she made an abrupt decision. ‘I’ll do what you say. Whatever you say.’
‘Damn it.’ I was on my feet, too. ‘It’s not what I say.’
‘Oh, but it is.’ She made a small gesture, and smiled ruefully. ‘My husband never told me to do anything. How pleasant it is not to make my own decisions for once. He always deferred...but he was such a gentleman. Oh God, such a wonderful and gentle man....’ Her voice broke.
‘Please, Amelia, what did I say?’
‘I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’m being silly and emotional. Why do you always do that to me? Give me a quarter of an hour, and I’ll be ready.’
‘But...’ I raised a hand to detain her. ‘I’ve got to phone and arrange it. Preparations will have to be made.’ She just couldn’t imagine!
‘The phone’s in the hall.’ She’d made up her mind, and that was that. She walked away from me.
‘I know where the phone is.’
To my annoyance, I found that they were expecting me. Sergeant Latchett had phoned to say that Inspector Patton would probably be along. It was therefore in a morose mood that I drove there, with scarcely a word for Amelia.
She was dressed for the cold, slacks and a cardigan, with a dark green duffle coat over them. The very thought of a hospital autopsy room must have been chilling, but in practice it was warm inside. She opened up the coat and threw back the hood. I put a hand to her arm, and she was shaking. She said nothing as I led her forward.
The naked, sterile room had been prepared for us. There was only a single white-enamelled trolley in evidence, and the smell was of a sweet disinfectant. There was no death present, only the shell of it.
They had covered his face with a white cloth, and had laid another across his middle, extending sideways and spread to mask the remnants of his hands. Apart from that he was naked. The attendant gestured, then stood aside.
She drew back. My hand closed on her arm more firmly. ‘But I can’t....’ she whispered, eyes down, shaking her head. ‘I told you,’ I encouraged her softly, ‘that you couldn’t see the face,’ and she looked at me with entreaty.
I drew her close again. ‘The body, my dear.’
She shuddered again. ‘But I can’t say.’
‘Is that his body?’ I insisted.
She put a hand over her mouth, her eyes horrified above it. ‘But I tell you, I can’t say.’
‘You must surely know.’
‘I...think it is.’
‘Say. Please say. Yes or no.’
‘Take me out. Let me go, Richard.’
I gave the attendant an apologetic smile. The man shrugged. Amelia was already at the door. I lengthened my stride, and when I reached her she was leaning back against the gloss green of the wall in the corridor, taking deep gulping breaths, the green reflected in her pallor.
I waited. She tried to smile. ‘You must understand, Richard. How can I be sure?’
‘But...if he’s your husband, you must know his body.’
She shook her head. ‘He was...oh dear Lord, he is a strange man. To you he’d seem unusual. I have never seen him undressed, Richard. He was very modest, too shy altogether. He would always undress in the bathroom. We...made love invariably in the dark. Is it improper of me to say...to say I always thought that was some sort of withdrawal?’ She was feeling her way through it with careful delicacy. ‘I’m trying to explain — get it right in my mind. We were always so frank together, holding back nothing. But that was the emotional aspect of it. In the physical...God help me, I felt he was ashamed of his own body. Oh, we discussed it. Discussing it, he was frank, yes, never too modest then. But physically it was a mania. I have never seen him undressed.’ She searched my face for disbelief. ‘That was why...if that in there is him, that was the reason I felt suddenly faint and somehow indecent, looking at him. As though I was taking advantage.’
‘Then you’re unsure?’ I didn’t dare to try any other comment.
‘I think it must he him,’ she said worriedly.
‘Not think. Thinking’s no good. You must be certain.’
‘How can I be?’
‘But if you felt as you did, then surely that means you recognised him, if only subconsciously.’
She looked at me with pity. ‘And did you want that so much?’
‘I’d hoped for a definite answer.’
‘Or had you hoped for something neat and tidy that you could put on paper?’
‘You’re upset,’ I whispered. ‘I’ll drive you home.’
We were both silent on the journey. I was struggling with implications, attitudes, impressions. The engine hummed. We were silent.
‘You’re very quiet,’ she said after a while. She sounded apologetic, but no longer distressed.
‘What you told me, about not recognising the body, that’s what’s worrying me.’
‘Is this something else you can’t fit into your conception of what life is?’
She could annoy me, sometimes. I said, steadily: ‘It’s not that.’
‘It’d be strange, wouldn’t it, being upset first of all by an idea too modern and advanced for your prejudices, and now just as upset about a point of view so old-fashioned.’
I refused to be drawn. ‘It’s not that. I can accept it. Not go along with it, perhaps, but understand. But you see, you’re going to have to tell the same thing to Chief Inspector Donaldson, and I can’t see him understanding. To him, it’ll seem that you’re just stalling. To him, it’ll simply mean you’re refusing to admit it’s your husband.’
I had drawn to a halt in front of the house. She gave a little choking laugh of disbelief.
‘But why should I deliberately refuse?’
‘Because, in any case of sudden death by violence, the surviving spouse is the first suspect.’
She was silent for a few moments. Then: ‘Aren’t you coming in?’
‘I’ve got to get back to the office.’
‘Yes. Of course. Your report.’ She tried to steady her voice. ‘Will you use that splendid phrase in your report? Surviving spouse! It sounds as though you lifted it straight from a police manual.’
‘It’s not for my damned report!’ I burst out. ‘Can I please explain, without you interrupting...
‘Of course you can.’ Calmly.
‘In the circumstances — the gutted car, for instance — the link with you and the dead man is rather close. Closer than with the wives of the other dozens of missing men who’re on the list. If you’re uncertain about the identification, Donaldson will tear into it, because he’ll believe you’re actually quite positive, but you’re refusing to admit it. So he’ll be even more suspicious. If you admit it now, that might make things —’
‘Admit? You keep saying admit.’
‘If you say it, then, he’ll be equally suspicious, but he could well go more easily with you. And Amelia...it would be now. I’ve got very little time left. From midnight tomorrow I shan’t be involved at all. Give me as much time as you can. Please.’
She answered quietly. ‘You’re talking as though you’re sure it’s him. Do you think I’m deliberately lying to you?’
My knuckles were white on the wheel. ‘I thought you might be afraid.’
‘What’s there to be afraid of?’
‘A murder investigation.’
‘I’m not afraid. There’s nothing for me to fear.’
I looked at her. She could not meet my eye. She was afraid. ‘Then I’m asking too much?’
She shook her head. Her mouth was a firm line, but her lips were twitching. She spoke softly, even warmly.
‘Then for you, Richard, I’ll make it positive. That man is my husband. There. Now you’ll know what to do. Unleash the dogs of law.’
&nb
sp; I bent my head, baffled. ‘You’re misunderstanding me.’
‘I don’t think so. Now just you run along and do your little report. You can state quite positively that I’ve identified the body as that of my husband. I’m sure you’ll word it exactly like that. And I shan’t deny it.’
‘Now just you wait a minute!’
But she had opened the car door. I reached over for her arm, but she eluded me, and stood outside with the wind ruffling her hair. ‘Richard, my dear...’
Then she was gone, up the dark path to her front door. And I was not certain what she had offered me.
7
The meeting was just breaking up when I got back to my office. I’d hoped to slip in quietly, unobserved, but Merridew’s eyes have always been sharp.
‘Richard. So there you are,’ he called from along the corridor.
Chummy, I thought. Donaldson loomed at Merridew’s shoulder, looking slightly cynical, perhaps a little repressed. Merridew advanced. They crowded me into my own office.
‘Why weren’t you at the meeting?’ Merridew asked, but still keeping it friendly.
Ken edged round the door and to his own desk. Brason was hovering in the corridor. I wondered what Brason was doing there.
‘Well,’ I answered, ‘I wasn’t invited. And I was clearing up one or two details of my own.’
‘But you’ve got an identification for us,’ Merridew said. ‘So I heard.’
Across the room I caught Ken’s eye. He raised his eyebrows and gently shook his head.
‘Nothing positive,’ I said casually, taking my seat, spreading out the files on the desk as though anxious to plunge into them. ‘I was looking into a missing husband case, and when this dead man cropped up, I thought it might be a good idea to take his wife along.’
‘They phoned from the hospital,’ Merridew told me.
‘It looked,’ put in Donaldson, ‘as though you were sort of anticipating me.’
I hoped my expression was soothing. ‘Not really. Wouldn’t think of such a thing. You know that. And it was no more than a chance.’
Ken turned his face away. Merridew glanced sharply at Donaldson. There was a warning in his eyes. I could read it. Let me handle Patton, I know him, and he can be an awkward cuss.
Face Value (Richard and Amelia Patton) Page 10
