A New Lease of Death

by Ruth Rendell

  ‘My baby has got herself a situation and she starts tomorrow. An operative in a ladies’ wear establishment. I understand the prospects are excellent. With her intelligence there’s no knowing how far she can go. The trouble is she’s never had a real chance.’ She had been speaking in a low genteel voice. Suddenly she turned her back on him, banged the sugar basin on the table and screamed loudly in the direction of the kitchen:

  ‘Service!’

  Charles jumped. Archery shot him a glance of triumph.

  ‘Always having her hopes raised and then it comes to nothing,’ she went on just as if the scream had never happened. ‘Her father was just the same – struck down with T.B. in the flower of his age and dead within six months.’ Archery flinched as she jerked away from him once more. ‘Where the flaming hell are those bloody girls?’ she shouted.

  A woman in a green uniform with Manageress embroidered on the bodice came out from the kitchen. The look she gave Mrs Crilling was bored and withering.

  ‘I asked you not to come in here again, Mrs Crilling, if you can’t behave yourself.’ She smiled frostily at Archery, ‘What can I get you, sir?’

  ‘Three coffees, please.’

  ‘I’ll have mine black,’ said Charles.

  ‘What was I talking about?’

  ‘Your daughter,’ said Archery hopefully.

  ‘Oh, yes, my baby. It’s funny really she should have had such a bad break because when she was a little tot it looked as if everything in the garden was lovely. I had a dear old friend, you see, who simply doted on my baby. And she was rolling in money, kept servants and all that kind of thing …’

  The coffee came. It was the espresso kind with foam on the top.

  ‘You can bring me some white sugar,’ said Mrs Crilling sulkily. ‘I can’t stomach that demerara muck.’ The waitress flounced away, returned with another sugar bowl and banged it down on the table. Mrs Crilling gave a shrill little shriek as soon as she was out of earshot. ‘Silly bitch!’

  Then she returned to her theme. ‘Very old my friend was and beyond being responsible for her actions. Senile, they call it. Over and over again she told me she wanted to do something for my baby. I passed it off, of course, having an absolute revulsion about stepping into dead men’s shoes.’ She stopped suddenly and dropped four heaped teaspoonfuls of sugar into her coffee.

  ‘Natural,’ said Charles. ‘The last thing anyone would call you is mercenary, Mrs Crilling.’

  She smiled complacently and to Archery’s intense amusement, leant across the table and patted Charles’s cheek.

  ‘You dear,’ she said. ‘You lovely, understanding dear.’ After a deep breath she went on more practically, ‘Still, you have to look after your own. I didn’t press it, not till the doctor told me Mr Crilling had only got six months to live. No insurance, I thought in my despair, no pension. I pictured myself reduced to leaving my baby on the steps of an orphanage.’

  For his part, Archery was unable to picture it. Elizabeth had been a sturdy youngster of five at the time.

  ‘Do go on,’ said Charles. ‘It’s most interesting.’

  ‘You ought to make a will, I said to my friend. I’ll pop down the road and get you a will form. A thousand or two would make all the difference to my baby. You know how she’s gladdened your last years, and what have those grandchildren of yours ever done for you? Damn all, I thought.’

  ‘But she didn’t make a will?’ Archery said.

  ‘What do you know about it? You let me tell it in my own way. It was about a week before she died. I’d had the will form for weeks and weeks and all the time poor Mr Crilling was wasting away to a shadow. But would she fill it in? Not her, the old cow. I had to use all my most winning powers of persuasion. Every time I said a word that crazy old maid of hers would put her spoke in. Then that old maid – Flower, her name was – she got a bad cold and had to keep to her bed. “Have you thought any more about disposing of your temporal estates?” I said to my friend in a light-hearted, casual manner. “Maybe I should do something for Lizzie,” she said and I knew my opportunity was at hand.

  ‘Back across the road I flew. I didn’t like to witness it myself, you know, on account of my baby being a beneficiary. Mrs White, my neighbour, came over and the lady who helped with her housework. They were only too delighted. You might say it brought a ray of sunshine into their humdrum lives.’

  Archery wanted to say, ‘But Mrs Primero died intestate.’ He didn’t dare. Any hint that he knew whom she was talking about and the whole narrative might be brought to a halt.

  ‘Well, we got it all written out. I’m a great reader, Mr Archery, so I was able to put it in the right language. “Blood is thicker than water,” said my old friend – she was wandering in her mind – but she only put the grandchildren down for five hundred a-piece. There was eight thousand for my baby and I was to have charge of it till she was twenty-one, and a bit left over for the Flower woman. My friend was crying bitterly. I reckon she realized how wicked she’d been in not doing it before.

  ‘And that was that. I saw Mrs White and the other lady safely off the premises – more fool I, though I didn’t know it at the time. I said I’d keep the will safe and I did. She wasn’t to mention it to anybody. And – would you believe it? – a week later she met with her death.’

  Charles said innocently, ‘That was a good start for your daughter, Mrs Crilling, whatever misfortunes came afterwards.’

  He started as she got up abruptly. Her face had blanched to the whiteness it had worn in court and her eyes blazed.

  ‘Any benefits she got,’ she said in a choking voice, ‘came from her dead father’s people. Charity it was, cold charity. “Send me the school bills, Josie,” her uncle’d say to me. “I’ll pay them direct, and her auntie can go with her to get her uniform. If you think she needs treatment for her nerves her auntie can go with her to Harley Street, too.”’

  ‘But what about the will?’

  ‘That bloody will!’ Mrs Crilling shouted. ‘It wasn’t legal. I only found out after she was dead. I took it straight round to Quadrants, the solicitors that were in the High Street. Old Mr Quadrant was alive then. “What about these alterations?” he said. Well, I looked and, lo and behold, the old cow had scribbled in a lot of extra bits while I was at the front door with Mrs White. Scribbled in bits and scratched out bits too. “These invalidate the whole thing,” said Mr Quadrant. “You have to get the witnesses to sign them, or have a codicil. You could fight it,” he said, looking me up and down in a nasty way, knowing I hadn’t got a bean, “But I wouldn’t say much for your chances.”’

  To Archery’s horror she broke into a stream of obscenities, many of which he had never heard before. The manageress came out and took her by the arm.

  ‘Out you go. We can’t have this in here.’

  ‘My God,’ said Charles, after she had been hustled away. ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘I must confess her language shook me a bit.’

  Charles chuckled. ‘Not fit for your ears at all.’

  ‘It was most enlightening, though. Are you going to bother with Primero now?’

  ‘It can’t do any harm.’

  Archery had to wait a long time in the corridor outside Wexford’s office. Just as he was beginning to think he would have to give up and try again later, the main entrance doors opened and a little bright-eyed man in working clothes came in between two uniformed policemen. He was plainly some sort of criminal, but everyone seemed to know him and find him a source of ironic amusement.

  ‘I can’t stand these contemporary-type nicks,’ he said impudently to the station sergeant. Wexford came out of his office, ignoring Archery, and crossed to the desk. ‘Give me the old-fashioned kind every time. I’ve got a slummy mind, that’s my trouble.’

  ‘I’m not interested in your views on interior decoration, Monkey,’ said Wexford.

  The little man turned to him and grinned.

  ‘You’ve got a nasty tongue, you have. Your se
nse of humour’s sunk as you’ve gone up. Pity, really.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Archery listened in admiration. He wished that he had the power and the authority to talk like that to Mrs Crilling, or that such authority could be vested in Charles, enabling him to question Primero without the inhibitions of subterfuge. Wexford, talking silkily about bombs and attempted murder, ushered the little man into his office and the door closed on them. Such things did go on, Archery thought. Perhaps his own new-forming theories were not so far-fetched after all.

  ‘If I could just see Inspector Burden for a moment,’ he said more confidently to the station sergeant.

  ‘I’ll see if he’s free, sir.’

  Eventually Burden came out to him himself.

  ‘Good morning, sir. Doesn’t get any cooler, does it?’

  ‘I’ve got something rather important to tell you. Can you spare me five minutes?’

  ‘Surely.’

  But he made no move to take him into a more private place. The station sergeant occupied himself with perusing a large book. Sitting on a ridiculous spoon-shaped chair outside Wexford’s office, Archery felt like a school boy, who having waited a long time to see the headmaster, is compelled to confide in and perhaps take his punishment from an underling. Rather chastened, he told Burden briefly about Mrs Crilling.

  ‘Most interesting. You mean that when Mrs Primero was murdered the Crilling woman thought the will was valid?’

  ‘It amounts to that. She didn’t mention the murder.’

  ‘We can’t do anything. You realize that?’

  ‘I want you to tell me if I have sufficient grounds to write to the Home Secretary.’

  A constable appeared from somewhere, tapped on Wexford’s door and was admitted.

  ‘You haven’t any circumstantial evidence,’ Burden said. ‘I’m sure the Chief Inspector wouldn’t encourage it.’

  A roar of sardonic laughter sounded through the thin dividing wall. Archery felt unreasonably piqued.

  ‘I think I shall write just the same.’

  ‘You must do as you please, sir.’ Burden got up. ‘Been seeing much of the country round here?’

  Archery swallowed his anger. If Burden intended to terminate the interview with small talk, small talk he should have. Hadn’t he promised his old friend Griswold and, for that matter, the Chief Inspector, not to make trouble?

  ‘I went to Forby yesterday,’ he said. ‘I was in the churchyard and I happened to notice the grave of that boy Mr Wexford was talking about in court the other day. His name was Grace. Do you remember?’

  Burden’s face was a polite bank but the station sergeant glanced up.

  ‘I’m a Forby man myself, sir,’ he said. ‘We make a bit of a song and dance about John Grace at home. They’ll tell you all about him in Forby for all it was twenty years ago.’

  ‘All about him?’

  ‘He fancied himself as a poet, poor kid, wrote plays too. Sort of religious mystic he was. In his day he used to try and sell his verses from door to door.’

  ‘Like W. H. Davis,’ said Archery.

  ‘I daresay.’

  ‘Was he a shepherd?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. Baker’s roundsman or something.’

  Wexford’s door swung open, the constable came out and said to Burden, ‘Chief Inspector wants you, sir.’

  Wexford’s voice roared after him, ‘You can come back in here, Gates, and take a statement from Guy Fawkes. And give him a cigarette. He won’t blow up.’

  ‘It seems I’m wanted, sir, so if you’ll excuse me …’

  Burden went with Archery to the entrance doors.

  ‘You had your chat with Alice Flower just in time,’ he said. ‘If you had it, that is.’

  ‘Yes, I talked to her. Why?’

  ‘She died yesterday,’ said Burden. ‘It’s all in the local rag.’

  Archery found a newsagent. The Kingsmarkham Chronicle had come out that morning and fresh stacks of papers lay on the counter. He bought a copy and found the announcement at the bottom of the back page.

  ‘Death of Miss A. Flower.’

  He scanned it and took it back with him to the terrace of the hotel to read it properly.

  ‘The death occurred today …’ That meant yesterday, Archery thought, looking at the dateline. He read on. ‘The death occurred today of Miss Alice Flower at Stowerton Infirmary. She was eighty-seven. Miss Flower, who had lived in the district for twenty-five years, will be best remembered for the part she played in the notorious Victor’s Piece murder trial. She was for many years maid and trusted friend of Mrs Primero …’

  There followed a brief account of the murder and the trial.

  ‘The funeral will take place at Forby parish church on Monday. Mr Roger Primero has expressed a wish that the last rites may be celebrated quietly and that there will be no sightseers.’

  Roger Primero, faithful to the end, Archery thought. He found himself hoping that Charles had done nothing to distress this kindly and dutiful man. So Alice Flower was dead at last, death had waited just long enough to let her tell him, Archery, all she knew. Again he seemed to feel the working of destiny. Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord!

  He went in to lunch, feeling jaded and depressed. Where on earth was Charles? He had been gone more than two hours. By now Primero had probably seen through that absurd cover story and …

  His imagination showing him his son being interrogated by Wexford at his nastiest, he was just picking at his fruit salad and warm ice-cream when Charles burst into the dining room, swinging the car keys.

  ‘I was wondering where you’d got to.’

  ‘I’ve had a most instructive morning. Anything happened here?’

  ‘Nothing much. Alice Flower is dead.’

  ‘You can’t tell me anything about that. Primero was full of it. Apparently he was at her bedside for hours yesterday.’ He threw himself into a chair next to his father’s. ‘God, it was hot in that car! As a matter of fact, her dying like that was a help if anything. Made it easier to get him on to the murder.’

  ‘I didn’t think you could be so callous,’ said Archery distastefully.

  ‘Oh, come off it, Father. She’d had her allotted span plus seventeen. She can’t have wanted to live. Don’t you want to hear what I got out of him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You don’t want any coffee, do you? Let’s go outside.’

  There was no one on the terrace. A yellow climbing rose had shed its petals all over the ground and the battered cane chairs. What residents there were had left possessions out here as if to reserve permanent perches, magazines, library books, a roll of blue knitting, a pair of glasses. Ruthlessly Charles cleared two chairs and blew away the rose petals. For the first time Archery noticed that he looked extremely happy.

  ‘Well,’ he said when they had sat down, ‘the house first. It’s quite a place, about ten times the size of Thringford Manor, and it’s all built of grey stone with a kind of pediment thing over the front door. Mrs Primero lived there when she was a girl and Roger bought it when it came up for sale this spring. There’s park with deer in it and a vast drive coming up from a pillared entrance. You can’t see the house from the road, only the cedars in the park.

  ‘They’ve got an Italian butler – not so classy as an English one, d’you think? But I suppose they’re a dying race. Anyway, this butler character let me in and kept me hanging about for about ten minutes in a hall the size of the ground floor of our house. I was a bit nervous because I kept thinking, suppose he’s rung up the Sunday Planet and they’ve said they’ve never heard of me? But he hadn’t and it was all right. He was in the library. Superb collection of books he’s got and some of them looked quite worn, so I suppose someone reads them, though I shouldn’t think he does.

  ‘It was all furnished in leather, black leather. You know that rather sexy modern stuff. He asked me to sit down and have a drink …’

 
‘A bit early, wasn’t it?’

  ‘People like that, they slosh it down all day. If they were working class they’d be alcoholics, but you can get away with anything when you’ve got a butler and about fifty thousand a year. Then his wife came in. Rather a nice-looking woman – a bit past it, of course – but magnificent clothes. Not that I’d want Tess to dress like that …’ His face fell and Archery’s heart moved with pity. ‘If I ever get a say in what Tess wears,’ he added dolefully.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We had our drinks. Mrs Primero wasn’t very talkative, but her husband was most expansive. I didn’t have to ask him much, so you needn’t get all steamed up about your conscience, and he got on to the murder, quite naturally. He kept saying he wished he hadn’t left Victor’s Piece so early that Sunday evening. He could easily have stayed.

  ‘“I was only going to meet a couple of chaps I knew at a pub in Sewingbury,” he said. “And, as it happened, it was a dead loss because they never turned up. Or, at least, they did turn up but I got the wrong pub. So I waited about for an hour or so and then went back to my lodgings. I wonder,” he said, “how many times I’ve cursed myself for not staying at Victor’s Piece.”

  ‘What d’you think of that? I thought it was fishy.’

  ‘He didn’t have to tell you,’ Archery said. ‘In any case the police must have questioned him.’

  ‘Maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. He didn’t say.’ Charles lounged back in his chair, and swinging his feet up poked them through the trellis. ‘Then we got on to money,’ he said. ‘Money, I may add, is the mainspring of his existence.’

  Inexplicably, Archery felt himself marked out as Primero’s defender. Alice Flower had painted him in such glowing colours. ‘I had the impression he was rather a nice sort of man,’ he said.

  ‘He’s all right,’ Charles said indifferently. ‘He’s very modest about his success and about his money.’ He grinned. ‘The kind of character who cries all the way to the bank. Anyway, now we come to the crux of the whole thing.

  ‘Just before Mrs Primero was killed some mate of his asked him if he’d like to go into business with him. Importing or exporting. I don’t quite know what it was but it doesn’t matter. The friend was to put up ten thousand and so was Primero. Well, Primero hadn’t got it, hadn’t got a smell of it. As far as he was concerned it was hopeless. Then Mrs Primero died.’