A Death of Distinction

by Marjorie Eccles

It gave Dex a big charge, satisfied his need for revenge, the idea that Jack Lilburne had been blown to smithereens, but over the years he’d learned not to show his feelings.

  ‘You’ll not walk away from this, you know. It won’t be a couple of years this time, it’ll be life. And it won’t include any safari trips, I promise you.’

  He was known as a hard man, proud of it, his street cred depended on it. But life! Christ. He knew they weren’t bluffing, not this time. ‘There’s no way I’m going down for that bomb,’ he said, ‘no way!’

  ‘Now we’re talking, my friend.’ And half an hour later, she said, ‘OK, this mate of yours, the one you say you met in the pub –’

  ‘He’s no mate of mine. Just some guy that was around, I tell you. He asked me if I could get him the stuff and I said no problem. If he used it to do for Lilburne, that’s down to him.’

  ‘Why you?’ Kite said. ‘If he’d never met you before, how did he know you’d do that for him? Shooting your mouth off, were you?’

  ‘Just talking to the others, that’s all.’ He saw their scepticism. ‘I might’ve said, “Somebody should put a bomb under that bastard.”‘

  ‘Might have? And added that you knew how it could be done?’

  ‘Well, I’d had a jar or two, you know how it is. This guy must’ve heard what I said. When I went to the gents, he followed me and told me he could make it worth me while, like. But I didn’t do the bomb.’

  ‘Just got the stuff for him.’

  ‘No, I never! I just told him I knew somebody who could.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘I don’t grass on me mates.’

  Not if he’d any sense, he wouldn’t. If he’d any choice. Which Abigail could tell Dex was beginning to see he hadn’t. Even though the criminal fraternity had never been renowned for their long-term forward thinking. She changed tack. ‘How much did he pay you?’

  ‘Half a grand.’

  ‘Five hundred pounds! Pull the other one.’

  ‘And a couple of grand for the stuff –’

  ‘Ah, at last. The bomb materials. Where did they come from?’

  Dex looked shifty and refused to say. On and on it went, turn and turn about – how much were you really paid? What did he look like, this man you met in the pub, are you sure you don’t know him, where did you get the explosives, how did you know who to go to ...?

  They were presently joined by the big man, the super, who sat himself down and said nothing, just listened and watched, which unnerved Dex more than the woman and the sergeant’s endless questions ... ‘We want names, Derek,’ Abigail said. ‘A lot more information, and names.’

  ‘If I tell you –’

  ‘I’m not dealing with you, Derek. You’re not in a prime position for that.’

  In the end, he came up with a name – Clarke, he said, gazing into space, John Clarke. And then the admission that the bomb equipment had been left in the unlocked boot of a car parked in a deserted demolition lot down by the river ... sticks of explosives, leads, detonators in a biscuit tin. To be replaced with the required money in used tenners, no problem. But he wouldn’t yet say who’d agreed to supply the materials.

  ‘All right, Dex,’ Abigail said at last, standing up and taking her jacket from the back of her chair, ready to follow the superintendent out, who’d left the room as quietly as he came in.

  ‘You mean I can go?’

  She and Kite exchanged smiles. ‘Not on your life! We’re keeping you in here till you tell us who provided those explosives. And there’s still the matter of that dodgy Orion of yours.’

  Barry Davis, Dex’s father and erstwhile husband of Bridie, had not at first been cooperative in the matter of the Orion, which his son had eventually admitted he’d bought from the backstreet garage where his father worked. Possibly because Davis Senior had been interrupted in the consumption of a vast plate of chips, under which lurked black pudding, bacon and fried eggs, with maybe a fried tomato or two as yet undisclosed. Accompanied by thick slabs of bread and butter. All adding another dimension of strain to an already complaining waistband, tight over a check workshirt, open to reveal a white T-shirt.

  He was an older version of Dex, even less bright. Trying hard to retain his youth, and keep up with his new young wife, with tight jeans and his hair short on top and tied at the back, a gold identity bracelet and a gold earring – it seemed to be a family adornment – in one ear.

  Bright enough to know, however, that he was in it up to the eyebrows, as far as the car was concerned, he and the man he was working with. The Orion, to nobody’s surprise, had been nicked, resprayed, given new number plates before being sold to Dex at a giveaway price.

  The greasy spoon where these revelations took place was located just around the corner from the garage where Barry Davis worked and were continued in the garage itself. Dex’s father was a slippery customer, whose own record was none too clean, though up to now he’d been going straight for some time. After twenty minutes, both he and his partner were apprehended. Further inquiries, in an interview room not far removed from the cell where his son was presently languishing, brought forth no information on the provenance of the bomb materials. After half an hour. Kite was certain in his own mind that Barry Davis was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know anything about them.

  Throwing her jacket over the back of a chair, Abigail reached for the cup of tea she’d been just in time to claim as she walked into the incident room next morning, just before Mayo’s morning briefing. ‘We can forget the Conyhall Residents for Freedom from Rapists and Murderers,’ she announced as she grabbed herself an unoccupied chair.

  ‘That’s what they’re calling themselves?’ Mayo murmured absently, perched on the edge of a desk, deeply immersed in a file, falling for it before realizing he’d been caught napping. He looked up, grinning sheepishly ... ‘OK, OK, OK!’ ... then looked again, wondering why his inspector appeared so radiant this morning. Bronze hair, recently regrown after a brief flirtation with shorter haircuts, now a shining, curved bob hanging below her ears, hazel eyes glowing, bursting with energy – she made him feel a hundred, sometimes. ‘Why can we forget them?’

  ‘They’re a harmless lot, mostly young mums, only anxious for their kids’ safety. Mistaken, maybe, but bombers they’re not. Just happy to know there’ll be no more danger from the desperate crooks and villains behind the wire than there ever was, even if the new extension goes ahead, which now seems unlikely. Claudia Reynolds made them see that.’

  ‘Claudia Reynolds?’ Mayo was surprised enough to show it.

  Abigail smiled. ‘She addressed the residents’ meeting last night. Explained what it was all about, and why. Used her elfin charm to convince them that they’d actually benefit, since the new block would really form a bigger barrier between their children and the inmates.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I was there with Ben Appleyard.’

  As editor of the Advertiser, he’d planned to send one of his juniors along to cover the protest meeting but when the bomb had occurred he’d written the meeting off, assuming it would certainly be cancelled. By the time he’d learned it was still on, he was short of someone to send, although even without it there was plenty of mileage still to be squeezed from the incident. Ready for the next edition was the gardener’s photo, to be displayed under the caption, ‘Pensioner escapes death bomb by minutes’: more than that, one of the youngsters on the staff knew Flora Lilburne and was hoping for another front page human interest story from her, though so far he’d been foiled in his attempts to contact Flora, either by the hospital staff or by Flora’s formidable mother. But then it had occurred to Ben that Abigail – purely from a professional point of view, of course – might be interested in the meeting, and might, incidentally, be persuaded into snatching a quick supper afterwards, and after that... He’d been lucky on all counts; they’d both left her cottage this morning in their respective cars feeling very chipper.

  It wasn
’t always that easy, straddling the gap between press and police territory, Abigail had thought, inching her way through the one-way system, but since she and Ben were both aware of the danger areas and had been scrupulous in avoiding them, whatever they had going between them had so far worked very well. How far it would continue to do so when the heat was really on, they hadn’t actually faced. They were both ambitious, dead keen. So far theirs was an undemanding and uncommitted relationship, suiting them very well; neither had admitted yet to the growing strength of the bond between them.

  She sipped her tea and wished she’d stopped for more breakfast. On cloud nine, food wasn’t a priority, but back in the real world she was aware that a cup of coffee and half a bowl of muesli wasn’t going to sustain her long. But it was almost eight-thirty, the briefing was about to begin, with no time to nip out for even a Mars Bar, and Mayo, twirling his pen, thinking about what she’d just said, was observing, ‘If it was so easy, why didn’t Jack Lilburne do the same thing, call a meeting and avoid trouble in the first place?’

  Abigail had no answer to that, either.

  The investigation wasn’t proceeding quickly enough for Mayo, nor for the Chief Constable, whose breath Mayo was beginning to feel on the back of his neck. Tossing ideas around was no substitute for action, but at the moment, ideas were pretty much all they had, as long as Dex Davis persisted in keeping silent.

  ‘What about his father?’ Mayo asked.

  ‘I think he’s clean,’ Kite said, ‘as far as the bomb goes, anyway. The car’s another matter, and he’s been charged, him and his partner. As far as Dex goes, he’s more frightened of what’ll happen to him if he splits than what’ll happen if he doesn’t.’

  ‘We can’t keep him in much longer,’ Mayo warned.

  ‘I’m reliably informed that he hangs out at the Black Bull in Holden Hill, him and his mates,’ volunteered DC Tiplady. ‘And we all know what their clientele’s like.’

  ‘Right.’ Mayo observed his new DC. Jim Tiplady was a shortish, stocky, slightly balding man who rarely smiled, newly recruited from the uniformed branch, known universally as Tip, he struck him as a forthright and sensible sort of chap, the sort needed to form the backbone of CID. ‘Get up there and see what you can find, then.’

  ‘We could try the quarry, sir,’ said Farrar. ‘That’s in Holden Hill, too.’

  ‘First place we made inquiries, remember?’ Kite said, giving him a look. ‘No dice.’

  ‘I know, but wouldn’t it be worth trying again?’ He meant to imply that if he’d done the asking ...

  Mayo knew quite well what Farrar meant. ‘You can go up to the Black Bull with Tip as well, Keith. Discreet inquiries, both of you, as to whether any of the customers have connections up at the quarry.’

  ‘Oh, right, sir.’ Farrar’s smart response was more enthusiastic than his desire to waste an evening at the Black Bull, among the great unwashed of Holden Hill, but he was becoming wise enough not to let it show. Served him right, he should’ve kept his mouth shut.

  On that cold January night, that first time he’d met his mother, clutching his bunch of exotic hothouse lilies, Marc had approached the house in Coltmore Road feeling more nervous than he’d ever felt in his life. He’d bought flowers, rather than chocolates or anything else, for no other reason than that June had always taken them when visiting someone socially, and though he’d never bought flowers for anyone before, he wasn’t embarrassed, as some men would have been. Once having decided to do something, Marc went through with it without bothering what other people thought.

  ‘I’ll take all those,’ he’d told the florist, making his decision immediately, pointing to a container of the biggest, most flamboyant flowers he could see.

  ‘The Longhi lilies? Well, there’s eight there – and they’re three-fifteen a stem.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ He hadn’t batted an eyelid, not letting on that he’d no idea what flowers cost, and if he’d given the matter any forethought, he might have expected to pay something more like three pounds fifteen for the bunch, rather than over twenty-five pounds.

  The assistant tenderly wrapped the flowers in daisy-dotted cellophane, fastening the wrapping with a huge pink satin bow. ‘There you go! They cost a lot, but they are lovely, aren’t they? I’m sure she’ll like them.’ She smiled, evidently thinking he was splashing out for a favoured girlfriend. He didn’t tell her they were for his mother.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d been down the road since Avril had told him the address. It had been two whole days since they’d met in the Crown and Anchor and, unable to wait until the appointed time, he’d driven down the previous evening and sat in his car on the opposite side of the road, watching the house, hoping for a glimpse of Marie-Laure in the upstairs flat. But all he’d seen were shadowy figures behind the curtain, a chink of light down the middle where they were imperfectly drawn. The light had gone out about ten. They were obviously not night owls. This evening, he must beware of outstaying his welcome.

  He didn’t have to hang around this time. It was so near to where he lived it hadn’t been worth bringing his car, and he walked down to Coltmore Road, the huge bunch of lilies like a banner before him. He rang the bell under the name of Kitchin and waited, his heart beating painfully. What should he do if it was Marie-Laure, his mother, who answered the door? Would she recognize him? Would she burst into tears? Would she expect him to kiss her?

  He needn’t have worried, it was Avril who came to the door, in ill-chosen trousers and an unexpected, lacily knitted pink top. Her hair, though still parted in the middle and scraped back with the tortoiseshell slides, was seen to be quite a pretty auburn shade under the hall light. There was no welcoming smile on her doughy face.

  ‘Come in.’ She must have thought the flowers were a gift for both of them because she held out her hand, but Marc guarded the bouquet jealously, not wanting to relinquish the first present he’d ever bought for his mother. Avril made no comment but led him upstairs and through a door which opened straight off the landing at the top.

  He’d been right, he thought later, when they were sitting down to supper, he would have known her anywhere. Thin and dark, also wearing trousers, she was much younger looking than he’d expected. With her hair worn boyishly short, seeming at first to be another edition of himself, he could see now why Avril had so easily recognized him. Then he saw that although she was so extremely slim, the trousers revealed a shapely figure, and when she smiled, her femininity was in no doubt. She wore no make-up and no jewellery except for a small ivory crucifix on a gold chain around her neck, which she fingered constantly.

  There’d been no question of her wanting to kiss him, then or in the weeks which followed.

  It wasn’t easy, that evening, though he could see that someone had gone to a lot of trouble, by having everything scrupulously clean and tidy and polishing what there was to polish, to make the tiny room look welcoming, a room of such small dimensions as to make his own poky bedsitter seem spacious. They had to eat off plates balanced on their knees because there was no space for a dining table. The narrow divan which nevertheless took up so much room was, he learned later, where Marie-Laure slept, while the curtain across the alcove contained Avril’s bed.

  Avril had put the lilies in a hideous moulded glass vase, where they looked graceless because there were too many for such a narrow container, and there was nothing to soften their stiffness, but she said it was the only vase they had. She had to put it on the floor by the fireplace, where the heat from the gas fire brought out the heavy scent of the flowers.

  They ate rice with coronation chicken, bought from the supermarket, they told him, because neither of them were much interested in cooking and it was easy to eat with a fork only. This was followed by trifle, which delighted him – he was sure that his mother must have remembered that it had always been his favourite sweet.

  The food was brought out immediately, which was a good idea because it served to bridge the first awkward
moments. But the conversation remained stilted, on general subjects, about his work at the hospital, Avril’s at the house agency. She told him that the name of the owner really was Search, but Sell had been added as a sales gimmick. He learned that his mother worked as a waitress in Catesby’s restaurant.

  Marie-Laure sneezed several times during the meal, and her eyes watered as if she were coming down with a cold. Marc saw Avril raise her eyebrows and his mother shake her head imperceptibly. He noticed jealously how often the two women exchanged these sort of glances, how they seemed to know what the other was going to say, before they spoke, the sort of wordless communication that comes when two people understand each other perfectly. It made him slightly uneasy, without knowing why.

  Before they reached the coffee stage, Marie-Laure’s cold had become worse, until in the end she could scarcely control her sneezes. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she gasped between bouts.

  Without saying anything, Avril picked the flowers up and squeezed past Marc where he sat uncomfortably perched on the edge of the divan, and presently Marie-Laure’s sneezes grew less. ‘I’m sorry, your lovely lilies, I’m allergic to flowers of any kind. I thought I would be able ...’

  Marc tried to hide his chagrin. Not because he’d spent a fortune on the lilies which would obviously have to be thrown out, but because he couldn’t help wondering why Avril, knowing his mother’s allergy, hadn’t left them in the kitchen sink, with some tactful remark about arranging them later. Or why she’d put them by the fire, where their scent was bound to be stronger.

  He felt depressingly that the incident only emphasized the huge yawning gap which lay between himself and his mother, how little he knew of her, how much there was for both of them still to learn. How much he needed to know, not to mention what he had to conceal from her.

  He desperately wanted to mention the idea he’d had of buying a place where they could live together, but though this was very obviously a one-person flat and even two people living there made it unacceptably overcrowded, he sensed it was much too early to broach the subject, that his mother would need time before being willing even to consider such a suggestion.