The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale

by Jill McGown

  ‘When was that?’

  The question was sharp; he looked at Lloyd for the first time since he’d started asking about Lennie.

  ‘Then,’ he said. ‘Three years ago. He left her – or was kicked out, I don’t know which. Anyway, he’d gone. But he must have come back, because she kept trying to avoid him. She’d ring me up, ask me to go round there. If he saw my car he wouldn’t come in, she said. She was frightened of him. I knew that at the time. But on Monday night, I thought … I thought I had been used. I thought she had just … I could have stopped. I didn’t stop. I saw them, and I drove away. She was frightened of him, and I just left her there with him.’

  He could see them again in the headlights. She must have been trying to get away from him, but he had just seen a courting couple, and then seen that it was Lennie. And he hadn’t saved her life.

  ‘I … I thought she was enjoying it,’ he said. ‘ I got angry. And I came to the factory, and tried to burn it down.’ He looked round. ‘See how successful I was,’ he said.

  ‘What time did you see them?’

  ‘It must have been about half past ten,’ he said miserably.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Pearce,’ said Lloyd, standing up. ‘You should know something, though; Tasker didn’t leave Mrs Austin. He wasn’t thrown out, either. He was arrested at dawn one morning.’

  ‘Oh. Might have known.’

  ‘He was taken into custody, held on remand, and served a prison sentence. He was released two months ago, Mr Pearce.’

  At first, Gordon didn’t see the significance, then his eyes widened. ‘He was in prison?’

  ‘All the time. Tasker wasn’t pestering her. She wasn’t scared of him, Mr Pearce.’

  ‘Perhaps she should have been,’ Gordon said.

  ‘Perhaps. But she wouldn’t have thanked you for intervening. She probably was enjoying it, and you couldn’t have prevented what happened.’

  Gordon could have kissed him. He contented himself with standing up, and grasping warmly the hand that was being offered to him. ‘Thank you, Mr Lloyd,’ he said.

  ‘And Mr Pearce,’ Lloyd said, ‘ you and your wife could try telling one another the truth.’

  Gordon waited in his office, looking down on the car park until he saw the chief inspector drive away, then he told his secretary he wouldn’t be back, and followed suit, driving back to Malworth.

  He keyed in his number, and pushed open the door. Hadn’t he told Pauline the truth? He thought he had. ‘Pauline?’ he said, almost afraid, as he entered the flat. Please don’t be Barbara Stanwyck, he thought. Please. Please, just be Pauline.

  She didn’t answer; he walked through to the sitting-room, and found her looking out of the window, as she had been on Monday night. A lifetime ago.

  She looked round. ‘Did you miss her?’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The inspector. She knows, Gordon.’

  That’s it, Gordon, old son. That’s where telling the truth comes in. All this cryptic chat about who’s done what and what who knows. Try asking, Gordon. Try talking to the woman. She’s your wife.

  ‘Knows what?’ he asked.

  Pauline seemed almost startled by the directness of the question. Flustered – embarrassed, even.

  ‘Knows what, Pauline?’ he asked.

  ‘She knows I cleaned up next door after you.’

  ‘Cleaned up after me?’ he said.

  Pauline’s eyes were blank. Slowly, he could see them come back to life, realise her mistake.

  They stared at one another.

  ‘You thought I’d killed Lennie,’ she said, in self-defence.

  He flushed. My God. What had they done?

  ‘Oh, Gordon,’ she said, after a long, long time. ‘We’re in terrible trouble. They’ll charge us with God knows what all.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, finding himself smiling for the first time in what seemed like years. ‘Arson.’

  ‘Whatever you call interfering with the scene of a crime,’ said Pauline.

  ‘Interfering with the scene of a crime, I think,’ said Gordon.

  ‘Making false statements.’

  ‘Wasting police time.’ ‘Accessories, maybe,’ she said. Gordon blinked. ‘Accessories to what?’ he asked. ‘I might be an accessory to murder.’ Gordon thought about that. ‘ Yes,’ he said. ‘You might be. I think

  we should talk to a solicitor.’

  Pauline smiled. ‘I think we should,’ she said, coming into his

  arms.

  The desperation was gone. The hurting was gone. Barbara

  Stanwyck was gone. Poor Lennie was gone, but it hadn’t been his

  fault. He still had his business, his wife and his baby. And he would

  gladly go to prison as long as they were all there when he came

  out.

  She had caught him just as he was going to leave the studio. Appeared from nowhere. She had offered her sympathies, talked a little about Leonora. But a detective sergeant had come in with her, so it wasn’t a duty call by a friend; it was a duty call by a police officer.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’m sure Leonora would have wanted you to have a painting – if there’s one you particularly like …’

  Judy shook her head. ‘Lennie knew I was a philistine,’ she said.

  Jonathan put down the one he had been holding. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘So am I, I’m afraid.’

  Judy was very withdrawn, very cool.

  ‘I was sorry to hear that you and Michael had split up,’ he said.

  She smiled coldly. ‘I think we’re both better off,’ she said.

  ‘Probably.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Have you found this man yet?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s been interviewed,’ she said.

  Jonathan couldn’t believe what she had said. ‘Interviewed?’ he repeated. ‘Does that mean you’ve let him go?’

  She walked a little way into the room, looking at the paintings round the walls with the same slightly puzzled attitude that he did himself; Beale hadn’t been like that. His eyes had lingered, as they might over a beautiful woman.

  ‘Have you let him go?’ he asked angrily, walking up to her, catching her arm, making her turn towards him.

  The sergeant took a step towards him, but she shook her head very slightly, and he stepped back again, close to the door.

  ‘We have interviewed him,’ she said. ‘And we’ll interview him again, if necessary.’

  ‘And meanwhile he kills someone else?’

  ‘We can’t prove anything,’ she said.

  Jonathan felt his face grow red. ‘You could charge him anyway,’ he said. ‘At least you’d have him while you got proof!’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, Mr Austin,’ said the sergeant.

  Jonathan let Judy go and turned towards him.

  ‘If we charge someone, we can’t ask him any more questions,’ Sandwell said. ‘And asking questions is how we get answers.’

  ‘No! He’ll just lie to you – for God’s sake, you must know that.’

  ‘All the better, sir. When people start lying, that’s when they’re vulnerable.’

  Jonathan knew that. ‘But he’s a maniac,’ he said. ‘Did you see my flat?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Did you?’ He turned back to Judy.

  She dropped her eyes; she didn’t have to answer.

  ‘He’s a maniac, Judy!’

  She looked up again. ‘ Whoever did it, yes,’ she agreed. ‘ But we don’t know that it was Tasker.’ She walked over to another painting, and was looking at it when she spoke again. ‘It could just as easily have been you,’ she said.

  Jonathan nodded. ‘That’s what you’ve thought all along,’ he said. ‘That’s why you just walked away that night’ He took out his cigarettes. ‘ You don’t like me, do you?’ he said.

  ‘It’s hardly relevant, sir. Mrs Hill isn’t investigating your wife’s murder,’ said Sergeant Sandwell.

  ‘No?’ Jonathan lit a cigarette. ‘The
n she can answer the question.’

  Judy turned. ‘I’ve never thought about it one way or the other, Jonathan,’ she said. ‘I don’t know you very well.’

  ‘No. You don’t. And you think I didn’t care about Leonora, and you are wrong.’ He made to put the packet away, and then remembered that she smoked. ‘ Sorry,’ he said, offering her one.

  She shook her head.

  ‘You think I did it’ he said. ‘You think I could do something like that to Leonora. Whoever did that hated her!’ he said, his voice rising.

  ‘Tasker didn’t hate her,’ Judy said.

  ‘No – but if he loved her – don’t you see?’

  ‘I don’t think he loved her. She loved him.’

  She said it like a statement of fact. Loved him? No. No, she was wrong.

  ‘But I think you’re right about one thing,’ she said. ‘ I think it was someone who loved her.’ She took a step towards him. ‘Maybe loved her enough to block it all out,’ she said.

  Gordon? Was that what she meant? Oh, no, surely not. No. Gordon’s love was devotion, not passion. It was passionate love that turned to passionate hate, not Gordon’s kind of love.

  ‘Perhaps we’re dealing with someone who simply doesn’t know he did it.’

  Jonathan frowned. ‘ Who?’

  ‘Someone who isn’t certain what he was doing at the time. Whose story doesn’t really make much sense.’

  Slowly, he realised. ‘Me?’ he said, aghast, jumping to his feet. ‘Me? You can’t believe that!’ He brushed away the sergeant, who was attempting to restrain him. ‘ I’m not going to attack the woman!’ he said. ‘But don’t you think more attention should be being paid to what Leonora was doing?’

  ‘You’ve been very keen on that line all along, haven’t you, Jonathan?’ said Judy. ‘There was a belief that you might even have known what she was doing. Seen her doing it. But that wasn’t it at all was it? You just didn’t want us to enquire too closely into what you were doing.’

  ‘Because I’d lost my reason and killed Leonora without being aware of it?’ he said. ‘ That is sheer nonsense. And I know exactly what I was doing when Leonora died.’

  ‘So do I, Jonathan,’ said Judy. ‘So do I.’

  He froze, just for an instant.

  ‘You left the flat at ten thirty,’ she said, ‘and went to fetch Lennie’s car, like you said.’ She walked slowly two paces to the next picture, and looked at it as she spoke. ‘But what you didn’t say was that you did pick it up. Using the key that’s on your key-ring right now.’

  His hand automatically went to the pocket with his keys in it, as though he could magic the key away; she turned just as it did so. Michael had once told him that he mustn’t be fooled by the big brown eyes. Those eyes looked frankly into his now.

  ‘You thought Lennie was in her studio – that’s where she went before when you’d had a row. Or perhaps visiting Pauline Pearce – you told Chief Inspector Lloyd that you thought she might have been doing that. You got a bit confused about what you thought.’

  He drew on the cigarette, and sat down again.

  ‘You went to pick her up. You felt badly about not doing what she’d asked, and about what you’d just done to Mr Pearce. You thought if you picked her up, that might help smooth things over.’

  Jonathan tried to look relaxed, being reminded idiotically of the selection interview; he’d sat back then, answering their questions about why he’d be good for Stansfield, winging it a lot of the time when it got down to local issues of which he knew very little. He could do that; he could. And he hadn’t even been able to smoke in front of the selection board, so this shouldn’t be so difficult.

  ‘I think you probably got stopped at the traffic lights,’ she said. ‘But I’m just guessing about that. And what I think you saw was Rosemary Beale, walking home alone. Alone. No Frank, no minders, no driver. Alone, and vulnerable, just like any other woman is when a man is determined to kill her.’

  He flicked ash to the floor. ‘Kill her?’ he said. ‘ Do you still believe these ridiculous rumours?’

  ‘No, Jonathan. I know they’re not true. I also know about David Morris.’

  At the selection interview, they had asked him if there was anything in his background that could embarrass the party. No, he had laughed. Nothing that he could recall. He laughed now.

  ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘I know how she forced her way on to the board, and I know why she did. I’ve got a statement from a witness, Jonathan. And I know what it did to Gordon Pearce when she forced you to kick him out of his own company, his own business – his life. And so do you. That was what was in your mind when you saw her. Gordon Pearce.’

  She could be crediting him with a little more compassion than he possessed, he thought. Yes, Gordon had been in his mind. Yes, it had been the most difficult thing he had had to do. But what had been uppermost in his mind was the certainty that it would not end when he got into parliament. Then Rosemary would have an MP in her pocket, and she’d think of some good use for him. The endlessness. That was what was in his mind. More Gordon Pearces, more and more.

  ‘You drove to the flats, and you saw the light on in here, so you knew where Lennie was, you thought. You parked in the private car park, using one of the Beales’ spaces, since they only needed one. No danger of being moved along, or creating trouble. You got out, and waited in the shadows. I expect that’s when you worked out what you were going to do afterwards.’

  He dropped the cigarette to the floor and stood on it, simultaneously reaching into his pocket for the packet.

  ‘And she arrived, in due course. But things started to go wrong there, really. Because she turned and walked back out again.’

  His hand paused for an instant with the cigarette halfway to his lips. Had they been watching him? How had she known that?

  ‘You’ve only visited these flats once before, Jonathan,’ she said. ‘Gordon Pearce brought you here. They don’t like cars parked in their spaces, and Frank Beale’s Rolls needs two. Rosemary did what any right-thinking Andwell House tenant would have done. She came marching round here to tell Lennie to get her car out of Frank’s space.’ She moved again, to the next picture. ‘If I have a favourite,’ she said, ‘this is it.’

  It was called Self Portrait, but it didn’t look remotely like Leonora; it was a strange, double image of a woman with wild hair. Judy could have it, if she wanted.

  ‘But she found that this place was empty. So then she was probably very puzzled. Lennie’s car in the car park, the light in the studio, and no Lennie. She went back, and let herself in with her card. That door takes a long time to close, and you took advantage of that to slip in behind her. No camera, no record of your presence.’

  He lit the cigarette, and blew the flame of the lighter out.

  ‘Then she made things very easy for you. She left the door unlocked, and she went straight to the phone. She phoned Lennie, not unnaturally, to find out what had happened. An opportunist murder,’ she said. ‘That’s what it looked like to one of my colleagues. He was right.’ She smiled. ‘He always is,’ she added ‘He was right about a lot of things.’

  He had had to do it. She would never have stopped. He couldn’t have borne to be Rosemary’s performing monkey for the rest of his life. And the other option was just too dreadful to contemplate. Disgrace; prison, quite possibly. He released smoke into the room, on to the paintings. He would have to contemplate it now.

  ‘You left. I don’t think you bothered about fingerprints. What you were going to do was establish that you were somewhere else altogether, so it would never occur to anyone to ask for your fingerprints.’

  But they had, because of Leonora, and he had thought it was all over. He hadn’t understood why it wasn’t, but he hadn’t given himself away. And he wasn’t so sure that any of this actually constituted a case against him.

  ‘You had my new telephone number,’ she said. ‘And I was perfect. A police officer. A reasonably seni
or police officer of good character. So you rang me, asking if I’d seen Lennie. She wasn’t home yet, you said. I would assume that you were at home. You knew Lennie wasn’t – she was in her studio, or so you thought. So she couldn’t mess up your alibi.’

  Had she actually said anything that she could prove, that was the thing. Jonathan wasn’t convinced that she had. And she hadn’t even cautioned him.

  ‘While you were on the phone, a police car ran the red light, using its siren. Remember? No police car did that on the Mitchell Estate, Jonathan, or anywhere in Stansfield. No traffic lights. But one did it here. While you were in the phone-box. I heard it. Then you drove the car back, left it where you had found it, this time taking care to wipe its surfaces, and walked home. To find that Lennie hadn’t been in her studio at all. She had been murdered too.’

  He brushed some fallen ash from his jacket. He didn’t want to think about that. Not any more. Thinking about it didn’t bring her back, it didn’t get that lunatic off the streets. And Judy Hill wasn’t even interested in Tasker. Too busy trying to get him.

  ‘I don’t know that that constitutes proof of murder,’ he said.

  ‘It’s enough to take you in for questioning,’ said Judy. ‘Just as my information on Rosemary Beale’s blackmail is enough to take Beale in for questioning.’ She looked over at Sandwell. ‘I think you should make arrangements to take Mr Beale in, sergeant’ she said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Sandwell left.

  Judy smiled at Jonathan. ‘I’ll have to let him go, of course,’ she said, with a rueful smile. ‘I’m assuming that I don’t need squad cars and uniforms to take you in, but I can soon get them if necessary.’

  Jonathan rose slowly. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I’ll come quietly. But I think you’ll probably have to let me go too,’ he said.

  ‘Probably. Unless you make a statement of your own accord. We do have forensic evidence – it might place you at the scene, or it might not. But you’d be better making a statement. She was blackmailing you, which should be a quite powerful plea for mitigation. Shall we go?’

  Jonathan stared at her. They couldn’t go now; Beale would see him. And they would have questioned him about the blackmail. He would know. He would know.