The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale

by Jill McGown

  Judy frowned. ‘No,’ she said. ‘ Sorry, Jonathan. Should she be?’

  ‘What? Oh – no. That is, she didn’t say she was going to see you or anything. It’s just that she’s not home yet.’

  Judy imagined that she must be the last desperate hope in a long series of phone-calls. Lennie had lots of friends, all of whom she had known longer, any of whom would be more likely than she was to receive an unannounced visit.

  ‘I haven’t seen her,’ she said. ‘Are you worried about her?’

  ‘No, no. She probably did tell me where she was going. I was a bit preoccupied this evening.’

  It was so patently a lie that Judy was at a loss to know what to say next.

  ‘Look – she isn’t just telling you to say she’s not there, is she?’ he said.

  ‘Of course not,’ Judy said.

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not all that late, Jonathan. She’s probably on her way home now.’

  ‘Yes. I expect so. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’

  Judy looked at Lloyd, and shrugged. ‘What’s worrying you?’ she asked Jonathan. ‘Have you had a row or something?’

  ‘Well, to be honest, I don’t think that’s—’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Judy said quickly. ‘Curiosity is an occupational hazard, I’m afraid.’ In the background, she could hear the rise and fall of a siren in the distance, and an illogical cold shiver swept over her. ‘ Jonathan – everything is all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I – yes, we did have words. Nothing spectacular, but she wasn’t very pleased with me. She’s probably at the studio. I can’t think why I didn’t try there. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’

  Judy put down the phone, concerned about Lennie.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘His name’s Jonathan Austin. He’s married to a friend of mine.’ She shrugged a little. ‘He seems to have lost her.’

  ‘Does he think something’s happened to her?’ asked Lloyd.

  ‘It’s hard to say. I don’t think he has reason to think that,’ she said. She swung her legs off his knee, and sat up, the better to address the situation. ‘They’ve had a row, and she hasn’t come home yet, that’s all. It’s not late, not really.’ She smiled. ‘By your standards this is late afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘Do I know her?’

  ‘No. I met her when I was the crime prevention officer at Stansfield. She had a studio flat on Queens Estate. We got quite friendly. After she got married, she and Jonathan used to visit me and Michael now and then.’

  ‘Maybe she’s got a boyfriend. Used you as an alibi, and you’ve just blown it.’

  Judy shook her head. ‘She’s not like that. Oh – I don’t mean that their marriage is too solid, or anything. Just that she’d walk out rather than cheat, I’m sure.’ She flushed slightly. ‘ She’s not like me,’ she said. ‘She’s got a lot more courage.’

  ‘Well – maybe she has walked out.’

  ‘Yes.’ Judy nodded. ‘She’s not a bit like herself with Jonathan, you know. She’s like … that film. You know? Where all the women do exactly what the men want?’

  ‘Stepford Wives,’ said Lloyd, and laughed. ‘Maybe her wiring’s gone wrong.’ His face sobered. ‘It’s bothering you, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, though for the life of me I don’t know why,’ said Judy. ‘ I just don’t understand why he rang me. I saw her today, so we arranged to have lunch once I’d got settled in. And I gave her this number, and told her about you. But we’re not all that close – I mean, I hadn’t told her about you before, for instance. And we don’t pop in on each other.’

  ‘Maybe your number was written by the phone, or something,’ said Lloyd. ‘First one he saw.’

  ‘No. Jonathan was dropping her off at the studio, and she got him to make a note of it.’ She pulled a face. ‘Jonathan has a Filofax,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, that’s probably why he rang you,’ said Lloyd, putting down his glass and getting back into bed. ‘ If you saw her this morning, and your number was to hand. Stop worrying about him. Worry about me instead.’

  She smiled. ‘And why do I have to worry about you?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m lonely. And I’ve got a frightening detective sergeant.’

  ‘Poor Mickey,’ said Judy. ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘He’s like a recruitment firm.’

  ‘Oh, leave him alone!’ She laughed. ‘And you say I don’t like change! Anyway – he’s frightened of you.’

  ‘No one’s frightened of me.’

  ‘He is. He told me you’d probably heard terrible reports about him from Jack Woodford. I think he’s trying to impress you, not frighten you. He needs a good report from you.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Lloyd, not looking much happier. He put his arm round her. ‘What do you say we forget about Drake, and your friend and her husband?’ He kissed her.

  Judy tried to forget. But she wished, all the same, that Jonathan hadn’t rung. It wasn’t like Lennie just to go off and worry him. She was straightforward, direct. The phone-call had unsettled her, and Lloyd wasn’t getting her full attention.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m still here, you know.’

  She made a determined effort to push the phone-call out of her mind. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘ I’m all yours.’

  But she just hoped that wherever Lennie was, she knew what she was doing.

  Lennie walked briskly through the Mitchell Estate roads while she listened to Steve, not caring much who saw them. Then she realised that that wasn’t sensible. Why kill the goose?

  ‘All right,’ she said slowly, measuring her words. ‘But we’re not going to advertise it.’ She smiled. ‘ You come to the studio tomorrow. At lunchtime.’

  ‘Just to get your own back?’ He smiled. He didn’t care why she was doing it, just as long as she was.

  ‘No,’ she said seriously. ‘To get you back. Now, I’m going home.’ She started to walk away.

  He caught her up, catching hold of her arm. ‘ I’m not letting you walk up there alone,’ he said.

  ‘It’s five hundred yards! You can see the flats round this corner.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you alone with that weirdo in the car,’ he said.

  Lennie frowned. ‘Do you think it was the same car both times?’ she asked.

  ‘I hope it was. Or there are two weirdos in cars. Come on.’

  As they rounded the corner, Lennie could see that the flat was in darkness. ‘That’s odd,’ she said.

  ‘He’s gone out,’ said Steve, and smiled. ‘So I can see you safely in.’ He paused. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have told you,’ he said.

  ‘But you have,’ said Lennie. And it was the truth; she knew that. When does he go there? she had asked Steve, just in case. Wednesday, he had said. Jonathan’s chess evening, at a club in Barton. And she had believed him, wished him luck – asked him how he had got on, week after week. And she had been made a fool of, week after week.

  ‘Are you going to say any thing to him?’

  ‘No.’ No. But she would have a separate room in future. Not that that would worry Jonathan. And she would do exactly as she chose, but discreetly.

  They could hear the muffled ring of the telephone as they pushed open the door to the flats. With an urgency that only the telephone can produce, Lennie scrabbled for her keys, and opened the door.

  She went into the sitting-room, lit only by stray beams from the flat entrance light, and Steve followed her in, beating her to the phone and putting his hand on it as he caught her, turning her round.

  ‘Leave it,’ he said, pulling her into yet another kiss, which she never wanted to stop. All the time, the phone rang, over and over and over, demanding that she answer it, telling her that this was not discreet. If she was embarking on a truly double life, she should plan it, not let this happen.

  She pushed him away. ‘Go,’ she said. ‘ I’m in. Safely. Go.’

&n
bsp; ‘You can’t leave me feeling like this,’ he said.

  ‘How do you think I feel? Go. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  He held up his hands in surrender, and waved as he went back out of the room; she turned, and picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  There was silence. Not total silence, but no one spoke.

  ‘Hello, who’s there?’

  She could hear sounds; unidentifiable, fuzzy sounds. ‘ Who’s there?’ she asked again, feeling a little alarmed. ‘I know there’s someone.’ But no one spoke.

  She replaced the receiver, and glanced at herself in the mirror; even in the dim light she could see the little bruise developing on her lower lip. She examined herself for further proof of her evening’s activities, in order to disguise them before he came home. She had never had to be duplicitous, but if she was going to be, then she would do it well. She sat back a little, and looked at her back-lit reflection, smiling a little as she thought of tomorrow, and Steve.

  That was when she saw the figure in the mirror.

  Chapter Three

  Gordon opened his eyes, and immediately shielded them from the overhead light. Then he tried to get to his feet, and staggered slightly as he became upright.

  He’d say he was drunk. He didn’t know what he was doing. He had known, of course. He had been horribly aware of what he was doing, aware that it was wrong. Aware that the only way in which it would change things would be that he would go to prison if he got found out. He shook his throbbing head. Can’t blame the drink, he told himself, as he stumbled through to the kitchen. You didn’t have enough. Still. You can try.

  I was drunk, m’lud.

  Were you, Gordon? Oh, well, that explains everything. Don’t worry about it, old son, could have happened to anyone. Don’t give it another thought. If you were drunk, you were drunk.

  Thing is, m’lud, I think I was intending suicide. But I got frightened, and ran away instead.

  Suicide? Well – no wonder. I mean, here you are, no bloody use to anyone. The only worthwhile thing you ever did was to develop an engineering process so obscure that no one knows what it was you did anyway. And then you couldn’t even cash in on that without help. And you were too stupid to see that people don’t do anything for anyone but themselves in this world, that everyone is out for what he – or she – can grab. Your wife doesn’t want you, your fellow directors don’t want you, and the woman you would have jumped off a cliff for was practically having it off against a wall with some ne’er-do-well of her acquaintance. No wonder you were contemplating suicide.

  Gordon finally got the childproof top off the aspirin bottle, and knocked three tablets into the palm of his hand.

  Go on, Gordon. You can still do it. Where’s Pauline? In bed? Well – she won’t mind. She’d get the insurance.

  Would she? Where did she keep the policies? He should check that. Make sure there wasn’t an exclusion clause. He chewed the aspirin and groped his way back into the sitting-room, pulling open the drawer in the bureau where Pauline kept important documents.

  Will. You haven’t made a will, Gordon. You should have. You’ve a baby to consider now. Still. Doesn’t matter. It’ll go to Pauline and the baby anyway.

  He scrabbled amongst the envelopes and folded A4 sheets, but he couldn’t concentrate.

  Sorry, m’lud. Couldn’t kill myself, couldn’t find the insurance policy. Scared to, anyway. What if it’s true? What if you’re damned?

  Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, Gordon. Prison. You weren’t drunk, you weren’t unaware of what you were doing, you knew the difference between right and wrong. No option but to send you to prison, old son.

  Might as well, m’lud. Better than a funny farm. Better than everlasting hell.

  Of course, Gordon, we have to prove that it was you. No proof, no prison. Did you leave evidence, Gordon?

  I don’t know, m’lud. I just left.

  He pushed the drawer, trapping paper in the runners; he tried to ram it shut, but it wouldn’t work. Sighing, he straightened up, and held on to his head, moving slowly through the room, out into the hallway, and into the bedroom.

  No Pauline. Gordon frowned, and focused with difficulty on the alarm clock. Twenty-five to twelve.

  ‘Pauline?’ he called.

  He went back out into the hallway, and knocked on the bathroom door. ‘Are you in there, Pauline?’

  Panicking a little, he tried the door, which opened immediately.

  No Pauline.

  ‘Pauline!’ he called again, uselessly. The other rooms were open; she wasn’t there. But he went from one to the other, calling her name. Where was she? Where had she gone? Why had she gone? He ran back into the bedroom, and opened the wardrobe doors. Her clothes were there. But they would be, he told himself. It was only in films that people removed every item of clothing when they left the marital home. Real people didn’t do that.

  Real people just left. When things got too much, they just left. She hadn’t wanted him before; now he had told her what they had done, she just wanted out. She didn’t even know what he had done, and she had gone. Which was all he deserved. What had he done for her, other than give her a standard of living which he had just told her was about to take a nosedive? Nothing. He had married her because Lennie had deserted him, and she knew that. He hadn’t appreciated what he had got, so envious was he of what Austin had. She knew that too. She had accepted it; even let him make jokes about it. They weren’t jokes, and she knew that too.

  Not surprised she’s quit the happy home, old son. All you deserve, really. So – you don’t have to worry about going to prison, do you?

  A car slowed down outside, and pulled into the car park. The police. It was bound to be the police.

  Perhaps he shouldn’t have told her. He hadn’t been going to; for one thing he was a very strong believer in minding his own business, and for another Rosemary Beale would be less than pleased if she found out that he’d told anyone. Steve shook his head slightly, as he waited for the kettle to boil. Mrs Sweeney didn’t know he had a kettle; he hid it when he went out. Very hot on use of electricity, was Mrs S.

  He wasn’t sure why he had told her; true, it had entirely altered her stand on fidelity, but he hadn’t known that it would. And risking Rosemary’s wrath for a bit of nooky was far from sensible, even if it was with Lennie. Telling Lennie had been pure madness. But he had told her, out of some long-dormant sense of the fitness of things. Seeing her there, holding her, knowing how much she still felt for him – not just physically, either – watching her determination not to give in to these feelings, however tempted, because of loyalty to Austin … it had just got too much for him. Austin had no right to that loyalty, no right to use Lennie as he had.

  At first, when he found out, his only thought had been that it served her right. Marrying that prat while he was in prison, and in no position to talk her out of it. But the first thing he’d done when he got out was find out where she was. Then he’d hung about in the hope of catching sight of her. He had; she hadn’t seen him. And he hadn’t been prepared for the shock of seeing her again, after so long.

  She looked the same; she hadn’t altered. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, and walked to the same car that she had been running when he knew her. It was as if nothing had happened. Then Beale had offered him a job; chauffeuring Rosemary around, plus. Plus reporting back to Beale if she was taking too much interest in any member of the opposite sex. It was while gainfully employed in this fashion that he had found out about Austin, and he had wanted to tell Lennie then. Tell her what a mistake she had made. Tell her it served her right. Next time he found himself at the Mitchell Estate flats, he had let her see him; he had spoken to her. But he didn’t tell her.

  The kettle sang louder and louder, then the sound died away, and steam poured from the spout. Steve splashed water on the coffee, and looked at the clouded dressing-table mirror.

  He hadn’t told her because he hadn’t wanted to hurt he
r after all, and that’s what the knowledge was. A weapon. A weapon that he didn’t want to use. But when all he had hoped for was a roll in the hay for old times’ sake, when all it looked like he was going to get was the frustration of a teenage heavy petting session, and he was prepared to settle even for that, he had told her. There she was, vulnerable and alone; the perfect time to hurt her. But he hadn’t done it to hurt her; he had handed her the weapon hilt-first. Because it seemed to him that she needed it more than he did.

  So that was why he had told her. He wiped away a patch of steam, and looked at himself. A funny time of life to find your self-respect But he must have found it, to feel so strongly about Lennie’s.

  He hoped Lennie used her weapon wisely – for his sake, he admitted to himself – not hers. Because if she blew the whistle on Austin, Rosemary would not be pleased.

  And that would be bad news for Steve.

  Pauline moved quietly along the corridor, and put her key in the lock, jumping as the door swung open, just as the Beales’ door had.

  Slowly, cautiously, she stepped inside, her heart beating too fast her breath too shallow. She walked along the hallway without making a sound, and pushed open the sitting-room door. The room was empty; her heart beat painfully fast.

  ‘I heard your car.’

  Gordon’s voice made her start; she closed her eyes with relief.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I opened the door when I realised it was you. I thought at first it was—’ He stopped speaking, shook his head, and went back into the kitchen.

  She licked her lips, took a deep breath, and followed him in. ‘You thought at first … what?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Forget it.’

  She frowned. She had expected him to be still slumped in the chair, sleeping it off. ‘Are you sober?’ she asked.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I’ve put the kettle on for black coffee. That’s what you’re supposed to drink, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you’re trying to sober up,’ she said.

  ‘Well, that’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?’ His voice was hard-edged, unhappy. Not like his voice at all.