‘Money, really. We hadn’t got much to live on. I had gone on working and Nicholas was teaching at a crammer. He was spending a lot of his spare time in Labour party work and the prospects of getting a seat seemed reasonably good. Then I got pregnant and had to give up work.’
‘You couldn’t live on his salary?’
‘We probably could have managed. I wouldn’t have minded. But Daddy got at Nicholas about getting a proper job and keeping his wife and child decently. Nicholas was very proud and couldn’t bear to think I might regret the comforts of the old days. I couldn’t convince him that all I cared about was being with him. He made up his mind—and when he did that you couldn’t shift him. He applied for a number of jobs and the best one that came up was in the civil service. He had only been there a couple of weeks when I lost the baby.’
‘Couldn’t he have left the job then?’
‘He wouldn’t. He’d had to give up active politics when he joined and he wouldn’t go back. He had a very obstinate streak. He insisted that he had made his decision and would stick to it. He threw himself instead into making a success of his job. He’d been very upset about the baby, and work seemed to be the only thing that took his mind off it.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I didn’t go back to work. It wasn’t really respectable for a middle-class married woman to work in those days and Daddy backed up Nicholas when he said there was no need for me to get a job now that he was earning a decent salary. Anyway, we assumed it wouldn’t be long before I became pregnant again.
‘During the next five years I miscarried twice and I was ill a lot. It was hard on Nicholas. He worked very long hours and I was a worry rather than a pleasure to him. That was when the disappointment began to show.’
‘But it wasn’t your fault.’
‘No. But Nicholas had already made one big sacrifice. His life was being disrupted by my endless illnesses. He desperately wanted children, and I couldn’t give them to him. It would have taken a very understanding man to feel no resentment of me.’
‘Didn’t it make a difference when Nigel was born?’
‘Oh, yes. For a while. But I had such a hard time with the birth that I was warned I shouldn’t have any more, and that was another disappointment. And although Nicholas was mad about Nigel, he wasn’t really much good with him. He was always trying to teach him and make him read when he just wanted to play. Nicholas knew that Nigel was much more fond of me.’
‘Wasn’t his success at work any compensation?’
‘It helped, but work brought its own problems. Of course, Nicholas was so clever that he got on very quickly, but he always seemed to crave more recognition than he got. Although he didn’t talk about it much, I noticed him being very bitter when others his own age were promoted earlier.’
‘He got to the top eventually, though.’
‘It depends what you call the top. Nicholas really wanted to head a bigger department. The Department of Conservation isn’t very important. It was hived off from the Department of Energy.’
‘What about your lives together?’
‘He grew more and more distant. When I inherited money and we could afford to buy this house and furnish it as we liked. I thought it would make a difference. It is very central and I had visions of being able to entertain a lot. Nicholas didn’t take much interest in the house, though. He left it to me to do what I wanted to it. He spent more and more time in his study, reading and working. He didn’t want to entertain—just to be left alone. We just had the odd few dinners when he thought it would be useful to talk informally to colleagues or politicians.’
‘What about friends?’
‘We didn’t have many. Nicholas kept up with a few of his independently. He seemed to prefer to have lunch with them rather than bring them home. I thought he was rather ashamed of me. He despised the kind of thing I read and was always telling me that my political views were ill-informed and naïve. I had never been as left-wing as he was in the early days, but I stayed loyal to the Labour party. He used to say that they were all fools and that he had been a fool as well ever to have thought that politics was an occupation for anyone with a brain.’
‘What about Nigel?’
‘I’m afraid he let Nicholas down by taking after me academically. God knows what his education cost. The school fees were enormous and he used to have private tuition in the holidays, but it didn’t make any difference. By most people’s standards he was bright enough. He went to university and got a second in Physics. But he was always a bit of a disappointment to Nicholas. He was hopeless at Classics and he was turned down by Oxford.’
‘They got on badly, then?’
‘Oh, no. They just didn’t have much to do with one another.’
‘Does Nigel live with you?’
‘He did for a while after university, but he’s just moved out. He’s come back to stay with me for a while now.’
‘I need to see him. Is he at work?’
‘No. He’s just gone over to collect a few things from his flat. He should be back any minute.’
Milton braced himself.
‘I’m sorry to have to ask you such a personal question, Lady Clark, but is it true that you are involved with Martin Jenkins?’
Chapter Twenty
‘Is this what you’ve been leading up to all this time?’ she asked bitterly.
‘Look, Lady Clark. I know this is unpleasant for you, but it’s just as unpleasant for me. I have to find out who murdered your husband and Mrs Bradley, and if I have to trample over people’s private lives to do so, I will. You must understand that I can’t ignore a link between you and someone who was at the Monday morning meeting with Sir Nicholas.’
She was hesitating.
‘Just tell me the truth, Lady Clark. It’ll save us all a lot of harassment in the long run.’
‘You’re right, Superintendent. You’ve been kind to me, and I appreciate it. I realize you wouldn’t ask about Martin and me if you didn’t have to. I’ll tell you about it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘We met about ten months ago at a local Labour party meeting where Martin was giving a speech. I hadn’t expected to like him. All I knew about him was that he was a trade-union leader with a line in fiery Welsh rhetoric. I went along to hear him with a friend of mine from the party because I had nothing better to do that evening. I enjoyed his speech, though it was a bit radical for me. Martin goes on a lot about Establishment conspiracies, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘But afterwards, when a group of us had adjourned for a drink, he was quite different. He made me laugh a lot, and that’s something I haven’t done much of for a long time. And he seemed to find me amusing too. We went on talking after the others had left and he treated me as if I were intelligent and well-informed. We even found we shared a secret liking for murder stories.’
She looked ruefully at Milton.
‘When he suggested lunch, I couldn’t bear to refuse. He had made me feel young and attractive again. I didn’t tell Nicholas. I knew what he thought of Martin and I wouldn’t have been able to bear the snide remarks. We met several times for lunch, and then for dinner and for the last six months we’ve been having an affair. We’ve kept it as quiet as possible, but it looks as if we haven’t been very successful.’
‘Did Sir Nicholas know?’
‘I don’t see how he could. He never took any interest in how I spent my time. I was going to tell him soon. I had promised Martin that when Nigel left home I would leave Nicholas and go and live with him.’
‘Wouldn’t that have caused a minor scandal?’
‘I just didn’t care any more, Superintendent. I’ve wasted an awful lot of my life on Nicholas, who didn’t want me. Martin wants me desperately, and I want him.’
‘I hope y
ou’ll be very happy.’
‘Thank you, Superintendent. I think we will, although the decencies require me to play the bereaved widow for a few months. Nicholas’s death has postponed our being together, you see. So you can’t possibly think that Martin had any motive to kill him. Quite the reverse.’
They heard the front door opening and a young man came into the room. Lady Clark introduced her son. He was very like his mother—the same blond hair and narrow features. He didn’t have her elegance, but by the standards of his generation he was spruce—a well-pressed check shirt and a sharp crease in his white cotton trousers.
‘Did you want to see me, Superintendent?’
‘Only for a moment, sir. I wanted to check your movements yesterday lunchtime.’
They both confirmed their statements of the previous day. Lady Clark anticipated Milton’s request to be left alone with Nigel for a moment and found a reason to go to the kitchen.
‘Have you any idea, sir, who might have had reason to kill your father?’
‘No, Superintendent. Unless someone wanted his job. I can’t imagine the usual motives applying in my father’s case. He didn’t indulge in torrid love affairs and he won’t leave much money.’
‘You’d be surprised what a wide range of motives lead people to kill, sir. What seems trivial to most of us can seem overwhelmingly important to some. You can’t think of anything, however slight, that might have led to his death?’
‘Honestly, no, Superintendent. I haven’t had much to do with my father over the past few years. I’ve been away at university most of the time.’
‘I understand you had just moved into your own flat. There wasn’t a breach between you, was there?’
‘Oh, no, Superintendent. I always wanted to live away from home and be independent as soon as I could afford to.’
‘How were your relations with your father, sir?’
‘Not very close, Superintendent. We weren’t much alike. Didn’t have a lot to talk about.’
‘No rows?’
‘Well, of course there were some disagreements, since our approach to life was so different. He hadn’t got much time for my generation. Thought us frivolous and idle. But I went my way and he went his. Neither of us was the rowing type.’
‘Very well, sir. Thank you. I don’t think there’s anything else I want to ask you.’
‘I’ll just call my mother.’
Lady Clark came in carrying another silver tray, on which rested this time three glasses and a decanter.
‘Do have a glass of sherry with us before you leave, Superintendent?’
Milton accepted with some secret amusement. Amiss had confided in him the previous night, when ordering drinks, that he was looked on askance by some colleagues because he couldn’t stand sherry (the traditional tipple at in-house get-togethers) and had provided gin instead for a Christmas office drink. Apparently the effect on Gladys had been dramatic. She had shown an unexpected talent for singing old Rosemary Clooney numbers. Milton didn’t care for sherry much either, but he knew a symbolic drink when he saw one. Lady Clark was showing her appreciation of the police for showing a human face.
When Nigel’s back was turned, Milton most improperly raised his glass to Lady Clark and mouthed ‘Good Luck.’ The grin he got in return made him wonder at Sir Nicholas’s blind stupidity.
Chapter Twenty-one
Amiss had racked his brains all the way to the office that morning to turn up the name of someone who could tell him something about Nigel Clark. He drew a complete blank. He couldn’t remember Nigel coming into the office more than once or twice. Then he recalled that Sir Nicholas had once got him a vacation job in the department—in the days before the unions stopped the employment of temporary clerical staff. Yes, of course. It had been the summer before Amiss became Sir Nicholas’s Private Secretary, and he had heard about it when the union decision became known. Fulminations: the service now dominated by the whims of a crowd of oafs who should be employed digging ditches instead of dealing with papers they couldn’t read without moving their lips.
Amiss couldn’t think of any unofficial way of finding out where Nigel had worked. He didn’t have any contacts in Personnel Division, bar his Careers Advisor, with whom his relations had been, of necessity, above-board and rather formal. He still remembered the interview there when he was informed of the privilege that was to be his in working for Sir Nicholas. Not a hint, amid all the piety, that he was known to his staff, with reason, as ‘Old Nick’. No—string-pulling with Personnel Division was out. He referred the problem to his subconscious and walked into his office hoping for a day of peace unmarked by any more murderous assaults on public servants.
Personnel Division had obviously worked at lightning speed to find a replacement for Gladys. Others could wait for months for urgent clerical staff, but perish the thought that a Permanent Secretary might be inconvenienced for a moment—even a stand-in Permanent Secretary. Poor Gladys’s desk was manned by a familiar figure, feet in the in-tray, gnawing on one of the canteen’s polystyrene rolls and gazing at the generous breasts of a pouting young woman, which tumbled over half of page three of his newspaper.
‘Hey, Robert, cop a load of this pair. They’re fantastic.’
‘What are you doing here, you sex-crazed yob?’ asked Amiss with pleasure.
‘That old tart in Personnel rung me up and said as how there was a National Emergency and my place was by your side.’
Amiss was amazed at the intelligence the old tart had displayed in sending him someone who knew the job. Phil had been the bright spot of the office until Sir Nicholas had him ejected on the famous occasion when he overheard himself being referred to as ‘Shit-face’. Gladys had been in all respects an unworthy successor.
‘Well, if it wouldn’t swell your already enormous head, I’d say I was pleased to see you back.’
‘Up yours,’ said Phil affably, and returned to his studies.
Amiss got himself a cup of coffee and fell on the more sober newspapers. Even The Times had brought itself to make Gladys’s murder the lead story. The report was heavy with references to grave concern in Whitehall and embarrassing implications for the government. One of the popular papers had heard rumours of a vendetta against Sir Nicholas and his staff. At least Milton would be relieved that they hadn’t discovered who was on the short-list of suspects.
‘Swap?’ asked Phil, who read The Times as enthusiastically as his tabloid. (It was generally thought that the ghastly rag he claimed to love was just another tactic in his épater le bourgeois campaign—or ‘stickin’ it up their noses’, as he would more likely put it.)
Amiss leafed listlessly through Phil’s paper. Even the news of an alleged rapist vicar failed to arouse his interest.
‘Don’t you want to hear about the murders?’
‘Nah. Julia’s already told me about ’em. Seems to me everyone’s making too much of a bleedin’ fuss about two ole geezers that should of been buried years ago.’
Phil’s iconoclasm wasn’t usually too much for Amiss, but decency required him to remonstrate.
‘For Christ’s sake, Phil. I agree about Sir Nicholas but it’s a bit thick about Gladys.’
‘From all I’ve ’eard the old bint didn’t enjoy life much,’ said Phil carelessly. ‘Seems to me the murderer was doin’ ’er a favour.’ And he bent to a consideration of The Times’s leading article on Israel and the Left Bank.
Amiss gave up. There was no point in trying to impose even the most widely held social convenances on Phil. It only made him more outrageous. Anyway, he didn’t want to be called ‘a pompous git’. It was something he secretly worried he might become if he stayed in the civil service long enough. Phil had a way of touching the nerve.
‘I fink them Palestinians should kick the Israelis in the arse,’ said Phil consideringly. ‘Seem
s to me the latest carry-on over the …’
Amiss cut him short, cursing, not for the first time, the respect for Phil’s intelligence which had made him propel the latter towards evening classes and an interest in current affairs. There didn’t seem to be a clerical assistant’s job in Whitehall busy enough to engage Phil for a full day’s work. He read the newspapers with more attention than his more elevated colleagues and liked nothing better than embarrassing them by showing that he was more up-to-date and better informed than they. Amiss shuddered at the recollection of the time Phil had become converted to monetarism, and had proved in argument to have a grasp of the views of Milton Friedman which made mincemeat of his own vaguely-held Keynesianism.
‘Get on with some work.’
‘Don’t want an argument, do you?’ said Phil, who always saw through attempts to kill off debates. ‘O.K. then, I’ll leave you in peace. But I ain’t got no work to do. I done it all before you got in, you lazy bugger.’
Amiss retired to his paper work in a dignified silence. Julia had gone off to find more audiences for her story, and George and Bernard seemed disinclined for chat.
‘That’s a good picture of that poofdah,’ broke in Phil, who had the habit of assuming that one could instantly divine the subject he was alluding to. ‘Untrained mind,’ said some. Amiss had seen too many people wrong-footed by the technique to believe it was entirely unconscious.
‘Which poofdah?’
‘That Nigel Clark. There’s a picture in ’ere of ’im and ’is mum, lookin’ all sad. That’s a laugh. Imagine anyone looking sad about that ole fart gettin’ done in.’
‘What are you talking about? You don’t know Nigel Clark.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Phil aggrievedly. ‘Worked with ’im in Accounts Division, didn’t I, when he was doin’ a few weeks graft eighteen months ago?’
Amiss couldn’t believe his luck. An unsolicited piece of information at last.
‘What do you mean, poofdah?’
‘Bum bandit. Queen. Fag. Gay. ’Omosexual. What do you think I mean?’
Corridors of Death Page 10
