by John Gardner
‘I have to interview you, so it may as well be now. Is there anything you want? More tea—?’
He shook his head. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ He patted his pockets and brought out a packet of Players. The familiar slim cardboard packs had gone in November: the new ones were made of light blue paper. Insubstantial. They crushed easily. There were already signs that cigarettes were going to be in short supply.
‘Could you give me one?’ Suzie smiled at him. ‘I’ve left mine on my desk.’
‘Want me to get them, Skip?’ Magnus moved.
‘Later. Leave it now, thank you.’ Fermin leaned over and lit the cigarette for her. Swan Vestas matches. The smokers’ match: little, thin waxed sticks; different. Magnus waved away his offer of another cigarette.
‘You said I had to do the ... the identification.’ Fermin drew on his cigarette, inhaling deeply, then letting the smoke trickle out of his mouth.
‘Later. No. No, it may not be necessary.’ Pause; swallow; a short puff on the cigarette. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Fermin, but we’re ninety-nine per cent certain. I’m afraid.’
‘Sergeant, please.’ He looked up at her. Spaniel eyes. ‘Please will you tell me what’s happened. I know Jo’s dead, but ...’
He’s desperate. Be careful, she heard Livermore’s friendly voice in her head. Don’t give him the full strength.
She took another draw at the cigarette. ‘No, sir. No, Mr Fermin. No we haven’t told you everything, and that’s because we haven’t got the whole picture ourselves. From what you saw in that house, sir. From what you saw ... Well, was that Miss Benton?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’ Hardly audible.
‘Okay, we think someone got into the house and was in the process of a robbery when Miss Benton disturbed him. Mr Fermin, did she, did Miss Benton, ever leave her back door open?’
‘The one into the kitchen?’
‘Yes. The one round the side of the house.’
He shook his head again as though trying to rid his brain of thick cobwebs. ‘I can’t believe ...’
‘I know, sir.’ Pause again; drag on the cigarette. ‘Miss Grigson has more or less confirmed —’
‘Jo was going to have a meal with Sally, tonight. Jo’s like an elder sister to her.’ He stopped, suddenly coming up against the brick wall of the past tense. ‘Was like an elder sister. We used to take Sally out sometimes. With us, you know; little treats. We’d take her into the BBC club. She was thrilled to bits when someone well-known came in. Tommy Handley always used to come over and talk to her.’ Handley was the biggest name in radio: the star of ITMA. It’s That Man Again.
‘You’d met Miss Benton through her work, then? Both of you at the BBC: at Broadcasting House.’
‘Yes. Last year after I got the programme.’
‘Fermin and Friends?’
‘Fermin and Friends.’ He nodded. ‘We were introduced —’ a momentary little smile — ‘she was introduced as “the winter-drawers-on girl”. She nearly lost her job through that you know. Poor Jo, she had this roguish sense of humour. There are elements within the BBC who have little in the way of humour.’ The sad smile again.
‘You mean dirty?’ Shouldn’t have said it. Suzie silently drew in breath through her mouth: couldn’t believe she’d been so crass.
‘No. No, not dirty. Cheeky, roguish, mischievous.’ He raised his head looking her straight in the eyes. Then with a tinge of anger, ‘No. Not dirty. If you’d known her ... Oh ...’
Suzie felt like an animal trapped in headlights. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Fermin. Perhaps you’d tell me about her: about your courtship perhaps.’
It was an ordinary story. A middle-class romance different only because the participants were figures in the world of entertainment. Both of them were avidly listened to four or five times a week on the Home & Forces Programme which had taken the place of the BBC National Programme. Their voices would be recognized on a bus, or the Tube or by people sitting at the next table in a restaurant. Though people hearing them might find the voices familiar it was possible that they wouldn’t actually be able to put names to voices. Rarely would they put names to faces.
They had met because they both worked for the same organization, among the same kind of people. When they were introduced, Steve Fermin had immediately thought — in his own words — ‘Hello?’ but did nothing about it for a week, and even then when they met again it seemed accidental. They were both guests at a dinner party given by mutual friends: Andy and Valerie Wilson. The same Andy Wilson who directed Fermin and Friends. Only later did they see that the Wilsons were match-making.
‘I thought I’d been invited to make up numbers,’ Fermin said. ‘Later we discovered that we’d both been fed the same line-shoot.’
‘And when was this?’
‘Oh, before the real war started. February — back in the Stone Age.’ This was the kind of language Fermin used on his show.
‘And you just fell in love?’ It didn’t sound right, the way she said it. Came out as a sneer. Damn, she thought,
‘If it’s not too trite or slushy, yes. I invited her to the show — we do it live, you know, almost like a comedy show. In that little theatre next to the Hungaria.’
‘In Lower Regent Street?’
‘Yes. We had dinner at the Hungaria afterwards. That became a regular thing. We used to eat there or at Choy’s in Dean Street, or Gennaros — though Papa Gennaro had been taken away as an alien by then because he’s still an Italian citizen. The younger Gennaros carry on, but there’s still a lot of ill feeling because of Papa being detained.’
‘And you finally proposed?’ Again she heard a bit of a sneer in her voice. Why was she doing this? she wondered.
Yes, he had proposed. ‘All in the April evening,’ he said and tears started at his eyes for the first time.
Glasgow Orpheus Choir, Suzie thought. All in the April evening. Her mum loved the record. Then, ‘Men are April when they woo,’ she remembered. Shakespeare, but she couldn’t have told you which play. ‘Men are April when they woo, December when they wed.’ Had Fermin turned early to December? Had he had a cold snap?
‘And you were getting married when?’
‘Soon. Quietly. Christmas probably, because I’m joining up in February.’
‘And she knew? Miss Benton knew that?’
‘Of course. I feel strongly about it. I’m twenty-seven next week.’ As though that explained everything. ‘I’m going into the Raff. February twenty-second.’
‘Is the BBC happy about that?’
‘Not really. They could have got me deferred: reserved occupation and all that.’
She looked at him again, examining his face, expecting to get answers from how he looked. All of eighteen, she considered. Dark, rather craggy looks, the kind of features you expected to find in the face of a rugger player, or the hero of a comic book. Her brother read the Wizard and there was a weekly story about Rockfist Rogan of the RAF. Above the two-or three-page tale there was a drawing of Rogan. Fermin could have modelled for it — square jaw, tough, untidy curly tousled hair.
‘Your relationship with Miss Benton. Was it still happy? No problems?’
‘No problems? What kind of problems? What do you ...? You don’t think I had anything to do with ...? No. No problems. We were as happy as anyone else.’ A touch of anger. There was a stiffening of his body, sounding an alert. She saw that his eyes were still moist.
‘Lovers are known to quarrel.’
‘We weren’t lovers. Inspector. Not in the accepted sense. We aren’t — weren’t — married.’
‘It’s Sergeant, not Inspector, and it is 1940, Mr Fermin. Nowadays you don’t have to be married to be lovers.’
‘We were waiting.’ He turned cold, astringent. She got a sense of him holding back; maybe of hitting a raw nerve. ‘We were waiting.’ In her head she added, ‘We were saving ourselves for each other.’
‘You hadn’t had a row about that? About sex, or lack of it?’
‘Sergeant,
I really ...’ He was angry now, and not trying to hide it. Magnus flashed her a look.
‘Can you think of anybody who might want to harm Miss Benton, Mr Fermin?’ Trying to change the subject.
Hesitation. The anger and emotion quite clear in his eyes and the way his mouth had become a hard little line. ‘What d’you mean, hurt her? Hurt Jo? No, nobody.’
‘Well, somebody did, sir.’ Again, why was she doing this? It was as though she couldn’t control herself. Fermin? No, she didn’t think for a moment that he had any part in the killing at 5 Coram Cross Road, but there was something there; something she didn’t like. ‘You said she left that door open. Around the side; the door into the kitchen.’
‘All the time. I don’t think she ever locked it. She was brought up in the country; her parents never locked any doors; she felt uncomfortable if the place was locked up and she was inside. I warned her that in a city you couldn’t live like that.’
‘Then anyone could walk in.’
‘I suppose so. But who’d want to harm Jo? I mean, why?’
‘It’s happened, Mr Fermin. Somebody did want to harm her, and they killed her.’
He shook his head as though denying she was dead.
‘Who’s Aunt Beatie?’ she asked, surprising herself.
‘Who?’
‘Miss Benton’s aunt. Aunt Beatie.’
‘Oh? Oh?’ Frowning, uncomprehending. Then — ‘Oh, yes. Her mother’s sister — older sister — Beatrice. Much older. She’s an invalid. She’s ... Oh, her mother and father.’ With sudden realization of something left undone. ‘Have you ...?’
‘No.’ Suzie felt the jerk at her conscience. Almost a physical thing tugging at her shoulders. Damn! Oh hell! The victim’s family. ‘It’ll be dealt with, Mr Fermin. In the meantime I’d like to know where you were between six and quarter to seven tonight.’
He was in the clear, of course. She should have known better, but what was it Livermore had said? Ninety-nine percent of murders are committed by close friends or even relatives.
Fermin had been in a planning meeting until almost half-past six. Walked down to the big swing doors of Broadcasting House with a couple of gag writers and his producer, Andy, who walked with him to his car parked in Wells Street.
Suzie had seized on a possible inconsistency, asking Fermin why he had driven over to Camford when he knew Jo Benton was going to have a meal with the Grigsons.
‘On a whim,’ he said. ‘I often used to go over and see her — even just for ten minutes. People in love do that.’
Of course there was no way he could have got to Camford during the critical period. There were ten respected people who were with him at the meeting, would swear to it. She didn’t just take his word but tracked three of them down, hunched over the telephone for twenty minutes, including Andy Wilson: asked all of them the same question, then, ‘You’d swear to that? You’d sign a statement to that effect?’
‘Of course,’ they all said.
‘Don’t like him, do you, Skip?’ Pip Magnus said.
‘Does it show that much?’
‘Got hostile with him pretty quickly.’
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t ... Yes, Pip, yes, I can’t say I like him. Can’t tell you why. Can’t put my finger on it, but no, I don’t like him. Doesn’t make him a murderer though.’
Then, quite suddenly it came to her and she knew why. For all his personality on the radio, Steven Fermin was weak and it showed. Whatever her father’s faults, Suzie had been brought up to face facts head on, and she did that most of the time — well, except on her fat and ugly days. Fermin, she felt, shied away from the unpleasant facts and it was clear in the way he spoke, the look in his eye, even his choice of words and phrases. She had never really liked his radio show either, she thought. He seemed to be a bit of a prude as well. Suzie thought there was always something false about prudes. Then she seriously started to wonder if she was a prude as well.
Pip had gone back to the canteen with Fermin, to give him more tea and a sandwich — ‘Sardine, actually, Skipper. They’re quite good an’ all. They must’ve picked up a new batch of tins.’
‘I’ve been on to Farnham nick,’ Suzie now told Magnus who had come back to the office to see what she wanted to do next. ‘They’re going round to the parents’ house. A superintendent’s going to do it, with a WDS. Break the news.’ She pursed her lips, glancing away as though she couldn’t look him in the eyes. ‘Bloody hell, how do you do that? Break that kind of thing. Where do you start?’
‘They’re in their sixties, Fermin said. Very proud of Miss Benton, what she’s accomplished. So what’s next, Skip?’
‘Address books. I want to throw names at Fermin.’
‘I’ll get him,’ Magnus bustled out, clumping along the passage.
Suzie started turning the pages of the address book she had found in the mahogany desk: the one in the living room. The living-room carpet was crimson with a great squirling pattern and a decorative border; it was laid square in the room, surrounded by an even perimeter of polished boards. These floorboards were stained to a dark brown gloss. She had lifted a corner of the carpet and seen that it had been laid over old copies of the Daily Mail. She had seen a headline about Mr Chamberlain announcing the declaration of war. Last year, she thought. Hasn’t had the carpet long. Her head was still crammed with doom and the horror of the woman’s death. She remembered a record that Charlotte had listened to — ages ago — ‘Ain’t it grand to be blooming well dead?’ She didn’t like it and couldn’t understand why her sister listened to it all the time — this was a long time ago when they were kids, when Daddy was still alive.
In the back of her head she heard it again —
Look at the tombstone, granite with knobs on,
Ain’t it grand to be blooming well dead?
Look at the parson, in his white nightshirt.
Ain’t it grand to be blooming well dead?
Then Shirley came in, back from the crime scene. She looked as though she had been listening to the same ghoulish popular song. Ain’t it grand to be blooming well dead.
‘Richards is still over there, Skip, and Dougie Catermole’s giving him a hand, if that’s okay.’
‘You had enough?’ Suzie asked and she saw the WDC flinch as if she’d been hit.
‘Sorry, Skip, but yes. Worst thing I’ve ever seen. How d’you manage?’
‘I don’t really.’ Long pause. ‘Fermin’s in the clear.’
‘Good,’ Shirley nodded. ‘How’s he taken it?’
‘Don’t think it’s real yet. To him I mean. Unreal. Her parents live near Farnham.’
‘Oh.’
‘Surrey,’ she added unnecessarily.
‘Oh?’ Shirley repeated.
‘They’re sending a chief super over.’
‘Yes?’
In the back of her head Suzie knew it was happening even as they sat there. Might just as well have had a bomb land right in their front room. Better if it had been a bomb because killed in action was more acceptable these days. None of it was easy, but everyone lived with it now. Lived with it; died with it. Now Magnus was ushering Fermin in, and Shirley was making a discreet exit. ‘See you in the morning, Skipper.’
They sat around her desk and Suzie explained what she would like to do: go through the names in Jo Benton’s address book and see how many of them Steve Fermin knew or could pinpoint. She was doing it correctly, she knew. This was by the book, check the circle of friends and acquaintances. And catch the boyfriend now because tomorrow he would be at sixes and sevens. Wouldn’t be able to think straight tomorrow; that was her personal assessment.
Some he had never met, only knew of. Some were relatives and people from Jo’s previous life. Suzie marked the book with slivers of paper, noting names they should follow up:
‘Hetty Pinhorn?’
‘Yes, an old school friend. She sees her regularly. Hetty’s an actress. She’s in a play at the moment, I think. Can’t remember, but yes, you
should talk to her. Very old, close friend.’
‘Norman Weaving?’
‘Met him once. Old family friend. A kind of uncle, takes her to lunch occasionally.’
‘A kind of uncle?’
‘You know, honorary uncle.’
‘Older?’
‘Oh yes, much older. Late fifties.’
Better take a look, she thought. Older men and lechery, she thought. She had read about that. Had a few uncles herself and knew the way they had looked at her as she became a woman.
From the BBC there were several names — people Jo Benton had seen every day — tagged by Suzie: Andy Wilson who had his eye on Jo Benton’s future, had plans for her; Penny Hargreaves, an old chum now in contracts; Michael Dalton from accounts; Richard Webster, her agent — you never thought of announcers having agents. Maybe she should start with him first thing in the morning. Yes, she copied his telephone number into her own book with a notation.
There were people she dealt with in business. People who had easy access to her home. Arthur Dove, the odd job man; Minnie Shotten, who did bits of typing for her; Josh Dance, estate agent. She rented the house from Mr Dance; Daniel Flint, who had an antique shop over in Kensington Church Street. Daniel was a friend and advisor. She was learning a lot about antiques from Daniel: antiques and paintings. Another older man, Barry Forbes, who was the cider brother of a school friend: did something in the city and saw Jo from time to time.
‘Yes, I’ve met him, know who he is now, of course. Now he’s popping in and out of Downing Street,’ Steve Fermin replied when she threw the usual question at him.
Lord, she thought, he’s that Barry Forbes. Advisor to the Prime Minister. Advisor to Churchill.
‘Yes,’ Fermin continued. ‘I went over to Coram Cross after work one night and he was there, having a drink with Jo. I was surprised. She’d never mentioned him before. He had a girl friend, a stunner, Emily Baccus, and that was odd —’
‘Why odd?’
‘Emily is another part of the firm Jo rents the house from.’ He was still speaking of her in the present, Suzie thought. It would take time. ‘Yes, I suppose they moved in similar circles, property and that, Barry Forbes and Emily Baccus ...’
