‘Let me guess.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘Nobody else would touch it.’
‘You see, you’re not even trying to understand. No. Our President himself wanted it, but I persuaded him to let me try, simply because it was so difficult. So how could I allow myself to fail? The more Kendall jeered at me, and the more he tried to assert his emotional aggression, the more I had to fight him, and fight for him. He made demands. He wanted this and that and the other concession. His cell didn’t please him, the books he could get didn’t interest him, his cell-mate was a homo and was importuning him. Oh, the demands streamed from him, and every one was a challenge to me, as a person and as a woman. It got to the point where I could have screamed for help. Screamed at him. Every demand...I had to take it up, tackle the Governor about it, and fight for it. And win, Richard, not so much for Kendall as for myself. Me, as a person. And all the time I was wasting time and effort on minor details, when I should have been concentrating on trying to get his release considered, trying for a parole hearing...’
‘He knew what he was about,’ I murmured. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I said he wasn’t in any way insane. He could control every movement and demand he made. That’s what he was doing with you.’
‘He was trying to force me to quit. Because I’m a woman.’
‘No.’ At last I lit my pipe. This was my own ground, and I was sure I’d got it right. ‘He really needed you, and he knew it. And he read you like a book. The more he threw at you, the more determined you became.’
‘That was certainly how it worked out,’ she conceded, but warily, warningly.
‘Because he wanted his freedom, and he knew it’d take something special to pull it off. So he manipulated you. He picked you up and he manipulated the necessary hidden strings to get you to do what he wanted. And in the end you’d have done anything for him, just to prove to yourself that you were yourself. Anything!’
‘I knew how well you’d understand,’ she said bitterly. But of course she’d have to reject it.
‘But you didn’t prove it, did you?’ I asked. ‘Not to your own satisfaction.’
‘I succeeded,’ she claimed, her chin lifting.
‘He didn’t deserve you, my dear. You tried too hard. What he deserved was to rot in prison. But you failed, by getting him out. That didn’t prove yourself. Not you as your own individual self. In the end, you were his.’
My palm came down hard on the table surface. For a moment I was having difficulty in controlling my temper. There was a vein throbbing in my temple, and my jaw ached.
‘I don’t think you understood one word I said,’ she told me with miserable anger.
‘I could kill him.’
‘We talk,’ she said, ‘about him. Kendall! Kendall! I thought I was talking about me, hoping you’d understand.’
I gave a grimace, partly humour, partly distaste. ‘It seems to me we can’t think about you without Kendall sticking his nose in.’
‘You’re upset.’
‘Not now. Shall we go?’
‘We must speak about us.’
I rose to my feet and went round the table to draw back her chair. She was reluctant to leave. Nothing was settled. She thought it took only a few words, but my entanglement was too complex for me to explain. I got her outside, and still I wasn’t sure how to smooth it over. Kendall had come back into my life, but this time as a very vital and personal factor. I resented it like hell.
I handed her into the Stag. ‘How can we talk about us?’ I burst out. ‘He’s always there, in the middle.’
She pouted, and folded her hands in her lap. Women always assume you can’t understand what they’re trying to tell you.
So I drove silently for a while. On the seat behind us there was now a broken doll, a rusted shotgun, and a plastic carrier containing a shaving-soap bowl.
I was not annoyed, merely disturbed. Now I was confident that what I had detected between us was an affinity that went beyond friendliness. But I felt it grew from what she’d indicated she admired in Kendall, a forcefulness, a masculinity, a control. I wasn’t happy with the comparison; they were characteristics I couldn’t admire in myself. I even hoped she’d hint at a dislike for him. Just for once.
I wondered grimly to what extent she had opposed Kendall. Whether, in practice, she might have relaxed in the end, not from confidence but from sheer exhaustion. In that event, he wouldn’t have hesitated to take advantage of her weakness.
At last I had to speak. She cocked her head. I could see it was a nervous reaction, her responses taut.
‘And what did your husband make of all this?’ I asked, keeping my voice casual. ‘This Kendall business.’
She brightened. ‘Dear man. He was so helpful.’
‘To the extent of encouraging you to go on with it?’
‘He knew it was what I wanted to do.’
‘That wasn’t quite what I asked.’
She moistened her lips. ‘Well — at first — he took the same old-fashioned view you have, Richard. No...really...you’re very patient with me...’
‘He was patient?’
‘Amused, rather.’
‘But he wouldn’t have been pleased, seeing you spend so much time and emotional energy on a creature like Kendall.’
‘You can’t hide that hatred, can you?’
‘Did your husband hate him, too?’
‘No.’ She bit her lip. ‘You tangle me up. Is that what comes of being a detective? My husband was very patient,’ she reproved me.
‘Unlike me?’
‘Damn it, you’re too blasted abrasive!’
She didn’t often swear. I was silent. It was clear she wasn’t going to compare me with her husband, whom she’d described as a gentle man. All the same, I was surprised at how she’d put it. Had I always seemed like that to other people? Too abrasive? Too aggressive, perhaps? It was not a pleasant thought, when I’d imagined my career had been undermined by my attempts to be sympathetic. Damn it, I’d always thought I was not sufficiently assertive.
I decided to discard the subject of character. ‘Did your husband ever meet Kendall?’
‘Oh, yes. Several times. He went with me to the prison. He said he ought to see for himself. He was making a real effort to show interest in what I was doing.’
‘And Kendall, at those times?’
‘The dear man, he made such an effort. He could be very charming, you know. He set himself out to praise me. He told my husband how much I was doing for him, and how much he appreciated it.’
‘And you didn’t see through that?’
‘Of course I did, silly. Kendall even had the cheek to wink at me. It was between us, you see. To Kendall, it must have seemed that I was bringing in reinforcements — and that I needed them. He was teasing me, another of his challenges. But just between the two of us. Now do you understand?’
‘Oh dear Lord,’ I groaned to myself, leaning forward over the steering wheel.
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing.’ I leaned back. ‘And your husband — so gentle and kind — he didn’t object when you moved home to this district, just in order to be near Kendall when he came out of prison?’
It was a pure guess, but it seemed an obvious conclusion. We hadn’t touched on this before, but I’d been waiting for the opportunity to bring it up.
She was silent a moment, but her voice was steady when she replied. ‘You always put the worst construction on everything. It wasn’t really like that. Of course I wanted to carry it on through, and see how he coped. But at the same time, there was always Atlas Electronics to consider.’
‘That was a poor chance, surely.’
‘But it suited both of us, moving here.’
‘Both you and your husband?’
‘Of course,’ she said shortly. ‘And at the same time I could keep an eye on Kendall.’
‘Just in case you’d made a mistake, I suppose,’ I said grimly. ‘In case a fresh batch of little gir
ls caught his attention.’
‘That’s unworthy of you, Richard.’
I grunted. Unworthy!
‘It was....’ she began.
‘Another of his challenges, I suppose?’
‘If you like.’ Then, with abrupt anger. ‘If you like.’
‘It’s how you’ve explained things.’
‘All right,’ she snapped. ‘It wasn’t finished — with Kendall. He said...said he supposed I’d drop him like a hot cake, once he was free. I had to deny that, or his confidence would have been undermined. It’s a difficult and frightening thing, coming out of prison.’
‘I can understand that, with the reception he could expect. So you went as far as preparing his bungalow for him? That as well?’ Another guess, but there’d been a woman’s hand in that, his home, neatly welcoming him.
She glanced at me sharply. ‘The least I could do,’ she murmured defensively.
Though I’d been driving slower and slower, the cul-de-sac eventually appeared. I was not really sorry to see it, and drew up in front of the house, pointedly not switching off the engine. I needed time to think, and alone.
‘I won’t ask you in,’ she said, ‘because I know you’ve got things to do.’
I said nothing.
‘And because,’ she went on, ‘you’re in a very funny mood.’ She waited. Then she opened the door. But I couldn’t restrain myself.
‘And your husband,’ I wondered, ‘what did he think of this bungalow-warming business?’
‘Oh.’ She poised the door to shut it. ‘He helped me. He was pleased to, if you must know. It seemed to intrigue him no end.’
‘But this was all before Kendall was released. Have you seen him since then? Has he contacted you?’ I desperately needed to know what had happened to him.
‘No.’ Her eyes briefly caught a reflection of light. ‘Not a word. Not a sign from him.’
Then she slammed the door, and there was anger in it. When I’d managed the circle at the end, and drove past again, she was no longer visible.
She must have run into the house, I decided. She’d run from me. I wound up the window.
Kendall, I was beginning to realise, had come out of prison just about the time her husband had disappeared.
8
The new premises of Divisional HQ were spread over a couple of acres of pastureland, on which most of the trees had been preserved as landscaping. The forensic lab was separate, a low building projecting out from the three-storey main complex, and enclosing a covered tarmac expanse where vehicles involved in crime were retained. I ran the Stag in beside a crashed and battered Rover 3500. The building was flooded with light from inside, and with an outside light over the entrance in the corner, a door at the top of six stone steps.
The interior was one long room lined with benches, resembling a laboratory of an exotic and unorthodox nature. The light was artificial daylight and shadowless, the air dust-free, the heating controlled. I had to enter through two doors, the second of which refused to open until the first was shut.
The activity was subdued, as the time was then after eleven. I looked along between the benches, hoping to spot something that was clearly from the cottage, but the Swallow’s End case was obviously one of a multitude. The lab was packed with assorted crime. A pistol barrel under a microscope, and two bullets lined up for comparison — not from the cottage. A bloodstain on a pyjama jacket — again not from the cottage.
‘Can I help you?’
I turned. Somebody I didn’t know. ‘Is Charlie on duty? Charlie Finch.’
‘No. I’m sorry.’ He was unresponsive. They don’t like to be pressured.
‘I’m Inspector Patton. The Swallow’s End case.’ I produced my warrant card.
‘Yes. That’s over there, under the window. Have a word with Frank.’
I thanked him. Frank was a young man, dark, wearing large metal-framed glasses. His eyes peered with the unfocused look of a man at the other end of a microscope. I spotted the window latch from the cottage, lying on a sheet of white paper on the bench.
‘The Swallow’s End job?’ I asked.
The eyes considered me. ‘You’re from there?’
‘Inspector Patton. I’ve got something for you, son. I want a nice, quick check on fingerprints.’
I offered the plastic bag. He was immediately interested. His eyes flashed. ‘This from the cottage?’
‘You tell me.’
While he worked, I sucked at my cold pipe, careful not to light it. The young man was precise and quick, without seeming to hurry. He found time to make the odd remark while lifting a print delicately, or searching for a comparison.
‘We got nearly four hundred prints from that place,’ he told me proudly. ‘Smears, partials, palms. Marvellous.’
‘And there’s no doubt they’re all from the same person?’
‘No doubt at all.’
He straightened from his comparison check. ‘And we’ve got another here. Several.’
‘They check?’
‘Oh, absolutely. Nearly as good as the ones on the soap.’
‘Tell me.’ Because he was going to, anyway.
‘There was a tablet of Pear’s, on the quarry-tile windowsill behind the sink. You know how it is with Pear’s, you get down to a thin oval, and this just fits the dent in the new cake. Well, that was what happened. You’ve got to press the old bit in the dent. This chap’d pressed, with both thumbs, fingers underneath. Perfect!’ he said with enthusiasm.
‘A good job he didn’t get round to using it,’ I said.
‘Eh?’
‘If he’d washed with it after the pressing bit, he’d have washed away the prints.’
‘Yes. Never thought of that.’
‘Did you find any shaving tackle?’
‘Well, no...heh, and now you’ve got a shaving-bowl. That’s strange.’
‘I didn’t say it’d come from the cottage. Don’t jump to conclusions. I see you brought the latch here.’
‘We lifted it from the frame. Seemed it could be important...you know, with that hole in the window just below it.’
I was pleased. ‘Just what I wanted to ask you. That hole seemed to be just too damned convenient. A hand could’ve been stuck through it, and reached up to the latch. Now...the prints on it? I hope it’s not too rusty, but I heard you’d got some.’
‘They weren’t too good,’ Frank admitted. ‘But we got enough, partials here and there. Yes, it’s the same hand.’
‘There’s another possibility, though. Suppose that you wanted to close that latch without blurring or overlaying the prints already on it. Now...a hook of wire...the latch moves down to fasten, and it’d take no more than a pull...a hand reaching in from outside.’
He’d been watching me solemnly, making no attempt to interrupt. It seemed, I thought, that his patience was extended only while I talked my way into absurdity. At last he smiled. There was pity in it.
‘We thought of that. Mr Donaldson made a point of it. Hasn’t he told you, sir?’
‘I’ve been away from the office.’
‘Yes. Well, there’s no chance that was done. The handle was near vertical, the way we found it, pointing downwards. Any length of wire, bit of string, or what-have-you just couldn’t help but to have slipped a bit. It would’ve left some sort of trace. We did three separate microscopic checks. Nothing at all. Nothing.’
I smiled at him again, because I was feeling a sick despair, and I didn’t want it to show. It kept coming back to the same thing — a locked and fastened cottage, into which nobody could have entered, and nobody left. All there was to go on was that hole in the pane, through which a shotgun might have been discharged from outside. And that had to come back to the only answer — somebody who’d be able to bring a shotgun that close. The dead man’s wife.
‘Can I have a written report on the fingerprints?’ I asked.
‘It’ll take a time.’
‘I’ve got time. A little.’
&n
bsp; Frank stared at me for a moment. ‘Then I’ll get on with it.’ He grinned, his face suddenly transformed. The dedicated scientist became the naughty boy. ‘Better fix yourself some coffee. Boiling water in that flask over the bunsen, coffee powder in that can marked DRIED BLOOD, and milk...’
‘I’ll find it, thanks.’
‘Use a two-fifty millilitre pyrex beaker, sir. I do.’
I waited. The coffee, when I’d finally satisfied myself that STRYCHNINE — CRYSTALLISED was in fact sugar, was very good. Frank eventually returned with a report that included comparison photos, and a certificate that exhibit A was from the shaving-soap bowl delivered to the lab by Inspector Patton.
‘Oh, one thing,’ I remembered to ask, turning back. ‘Now you’ve been over it, let’s have a look inside.’
Frank removed the lid. It was a plastic container, which had started life filled with a cake of soap. The inside was empty, clean, nothing but a shiny brown plastic.
‘Son,’ I said, ‘if you can think of any reason why a man should clean out a shaving bowl, and then hide it in the back of a bathroom cupboard, then tell me now. My mind is getting just a little tired.’
He shook his head. ‘Not my line, sir, detecting. Can’t think of anything logical.’
‘That’s what it has to be. Logical. And this logic I don’t like.’
Wearily and discouraged, I drove back to the office. It was one-forty when I entered the side door from the car park, and I’d started on my final day. That fact, alone, undermined me. Passing the canteen, I wondered when I’d last eaten. But now only a smell was available, and that not very encouraging.
Face Value (Richard and Amelia Patton) Page 12
