A Sentence of Life

by Julian Gloag

  And yet, somehow, it seemed that Mrs. Ardley became the more impressive. Jordan did not follow closely, but now and again he caught her looking at him, and in her eyes he thought he saw, behind the judgement, a melancholy.

  30

  “ … don’t you agree, Maddox?”

  The petrol fume-filled van jolted over a rut, and the links of the handcuff which attached Jordan to Denver clicked metallically.

  Samson leaned forward from the opposite seat. “You’d agree with that, wouldn’t you, Maddox?”

  The other prisoners chattered, a hooter blared in the street outside. “Oh, shut up!” he shouted furiously.

  “Well, I must say … “

  There was silence in the van.

  “Now, Maddox,” Denver, dignified and kindly, “there’s no call to fly off the handle. Sammy means no harm.”

  They all stared at him, and, when they began to talk again, the malefactors, vicious or mild, they kept their voices low with respect.

  Jordan closed his eyes and put his head back so that it pressed against the side of the van, and the vibrations of the journey were conveyed directly to his brain.

  Oh God, he thought, oh God. The innocent phrases of the plump, myopic Mrs. Payne stabbed at him randomly. She had meant no harm either. But the damage she had done … he had to sort it out. Arrange it somehow. Calm the fever which possessed his head, and look at it. He’d let the sickening, falling motion take over, submit to it.

  Mrs. Payne, silly, smiling, artificial lilies pinned upon her shoulder.

  “Now, Mrs. Payne.”

  Her lips politely poised as if to accept a cup of tea at a social gathering in the best of Putney circles. She was quite unaware that Bartlett was not going to offer her a lump of sugar or the rich top milk which Pollen had fed her.

  “Now, Mrs. Payne. I would like to touch on your statement to my learned friend that Maddox frequently ‘bought’ flowers for June. How—”

  “Oh yes. Every week, at least.”

  “How do you know, Mrs. Payne, that he bought flowers for her?”

  “I don’t know how else he’d get them really.” The lilt of her final word made each answer sound like a question.

  “Were these flowers delivered to the house?”

  “Oh no, Junie brought them back with her from the office.”

  “How were they wrapped?”

  “In paper, always nicely wrapped.”

  “As a florist would wrap flowers?”

  “Well, I don’t know really about florists. They weren’t like wreaths, if that’s what you mean?”

  “Just wrapped in ordinary paper?”

  “But nice.”

  “And you do not know, do you, that the flowers were bought at all?”

  “Well, I thought they were. But she never said. Why should she? It didn’t make much difference, did it?”

  “It makes a great deal of difference. You knew June Singer all the time that she was working at Sutlif and Maddox, didn’t you?”

  “Long before that. Why, Mrs. Singer and Junie moved in the top flat right after the end of the war. Mr. Singer, poor soul, was killed in a raid. When my Mr. Payne passed away, Mrs. Singer was ever such a tower of strength to me, she was. She’d been through it herself, you see, and—”

  “And when did June begin bringing home flowers as a regular thing?”

  “I don’t know about that. I couldn’t say exact. I’ve never had a head for dates, really?”

  “A year ago?”

  “It might be—a year?”

  “Two years?”

  “Oh, dear—yes, it might be two years.”

  “Three?”

  “Perhaps. You mustn’t muddle me.”

  “Do you in fact recall a time when June was working at Sutlif and Maddox that she did not bring home flowers?”

  “Well, if you put it that way—” Mrs. Payne smiled. “No, I couldn’t rightly say I do. Why didn’t you ask me that at first?”

  “So that June’s bringing home flowers was just an ordinary, normal, regular thing?”

  “Yes. I always thought it was ever so thoughtful of him.”

  “You attached a particular significance to the flowers?”

  “Significance.” Mrs. Payne mouthed the word uncertainly. “Well, I—I mean it showed he liked her, didn’t it?”

  “And into that liking you read the signs of a romantic attachment, didn’t you, Mrs. Payne?”

  “He liked her, that’s all I said. Why not?”

  “No. You have been suggesting far more than that in the evidence you have given. You have been suggesting that Maddox was in love with Singer. You—”

  “Why shouldn’t he be? Junie was a lovely girl—a real little lady she was, right from when she was no more than a baby.”

  “I am not asking you that, Mrs. Payne. Please pay attention to my questions. Did you or did you not think that Maddox was in love with June Singer?”

  Mrs. Payne quivered softly. “I’ve said that. I told the other gentleman that.”

  “And when did you first begin to think that Maddox was in love with Singer?”

  “It sounds so strange when you call poor Junie ‘Singer’ like that. I told you—I did tell you I’m not good at dates.”

  “Well, was it when June began to bring home flowers as a regular thing, from the time she first went to work for Maddox?”

  “Oh no. She was never one to rush things.”

  “Then it must have been later. If it was not the matter of the flowers that put the notion of romance into your head, Mrs. Payne, what was it?”

  “You talk as though I made it all up.”

  “You are a very soft-hearted woman, are you not?”

  “I’m not hard, like some I could mention, if that’s what you mean.” The soft, powdered skin beneath Mrs. Payne’s dim eyes began to pucker.

  “Mrs. Payne—” a rare Bartlett smile—“I would be the last to suggest that romance is not a charming thing, even when it exists chiefly in the eye of the beholder.”

  “If you think I’m making it up—what about those letters?”

  “Ah yes, the famous letters. Did you ever see a single one of those letters?”

  “I couldn’t help but see them. They came near every day.”

  “But you did not see the letters. You saw the envelopes, didn’t you?”

  “Oh I see. Yes, that’s right. But I could tell it was from him—always ever so neatly typed they were. Miss J. Singer.”

  “How did you know those letters came from Maddox?”

  “Well, she told me!”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said they was from him.”

  “What were the words she used?”

  “I can’t remember that. I can’t remember the exact words.”

  “Well, did she say, ‘I’ve got another letter from Mr. Maddox’?”

  “Oh no. No, I don’t think she’d have said that. Junie was never one to say much, but you could tell…”

  “So, in fact, she never said the letters were from Maddox at all?”

  “She might not have in so many words. But she’d smile—I always handed her the post, me being in the ground floor flat, you see. And, well, I could tell. She’d brighten up ever so.”

  “If she never actually said the letters were from Maddox, why did you assume they were from him?”

  “Assume? I didn’t do no assuming. Why, Mrs. S. and me was always—”

  “If you say something to be true which you don’t know to be true, then you are either lying or you are making an unwarranted assumption.”

  Mrs. Payne gasped. “Me lying? Why, I …” Her lips quivered.

  “I have not said you are lying, Mrs. Payne. I don’t believe you are lying. I do believe, however, that you have made a number of assumptions and statements for which there is not the slightest evidence, and that you have constructed in your mind a whole fabric of romance between Singer and Maddox, a fabricated romance which did not exist and ne
ver existed.”

  Mrs. Payne blinked her soft eyes and her lips trembled. And then she seemed to master herself. “Well,” she said. “Well then, just you tell me why those letters began coming right after Junie spent that Saturday with Mr. Maddox in the country. You just tell me that!”

  Bartlett was quite rigid. “What Saturday in the country? What are you talking about?”

  “The Saturday she spent with him last June at Wooly, that’s what I’m talking about. That was the start of it, if you ask me. She was that happy, she was. And the very next week, or near enough, the letters began. I don’t call that no coincidence.”

  “Mrs. Payne, what evidence have you that June Singer spent a day last summer in the country with Maddox?”

  “I’ve got my five senses, that’s what I’ve got. I saw her go and I saw her come back—and a perfect picture she looked, too. And she told me. There! With her own lips she told me. She told me what a lovely house he had at Wooly. She told me how he took her out for a drink at a lovely pub where you could see all the country for miles round. She told me what they ‘ad for lunch and what they ‘ad for dinner. I never heard Junie talk so much before or since, fair bubbling over with it she was. And if you think I’m making up that, then you can think anything.”

  “Why was this not in your deposition, Mrs. Payne?”

  “Nobody asked me.”

  “Is this something else you made up?”

  “I’ve never made up anything. I swore I’d tell the truth, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  “But for all you know, June Singer could have made up this tale of a day in the country with Maddox?”

  “She could, anyone can do anything. But she didn’t—I know she didn’t.”

  “How do you know, Mrs. Payne? A sixth sense?”

  “Them photos, that’s how I know—as if I needed to know Junie would never tell a lie about something like that.”

  “What photos?”

  “Them photos—the one what was found in his desk and the one of him that Junie kept in her bag. You can’t argue with a photo.”

  “Where did you see those photos?”

  “In the paper. I knew at once—she’d showed ‘em to me and her Mum. Only the two came out, they did, but they was nice.”

  “You recognised these photos as having been taken at the time you allege Singer and Maddox spent a day together at Woodley?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you not come forward before, Mrs. Payne? Why did you not tell the police of this matter?”

  “Nobody asked me. Nobody said anything. I thought they knew. I was waiting for the other gentleman to ask me, but he didn’t.”

  “Mr. Bartlett, a moment.” The judge turned to Mr. Pollen. “You knew nothing of this, Mr. Pollen?”

  “No, my Lord. It is completely new. The police—”

  “Yes yes. Quite.” He turned to the witness. “Mrs. Payne, you are quite certain of what you say?”

  Mrs. Payne fluttered happily.

  “Oh yes, my Lord.”

  “In this conversation between yourself and Singer, after her return from the day’s outing, did she tell you the name of the place to which Maddox had taken her? Or the name of the pub?”

  “I expect she did, my Lord. But I’m not one for remembering names—not of places and that.”

  The Goat at Round Hill—Jordan murmured the words to himself. She had brought a camera—a Brownie—and she’d taken several pictures. She had asked an old man smoking a pipe to take a photo of them together. And he had, without a word or a smile, and gone back to his beer. That must have been one of those which didn’t come out.

  “… how is it, Mrs. Payne—” Bartlett now—“that you remember the date of this occurrence so clearly?”

  “I know it was the end of June. The last week. I know because every year that’s the week Mrs. Singer would go to the hospital for treatment and things.”

  “And did Mrs. Singer know about this?”

  “Why, of course she did. It was a big moment for June.”

  “Mrs. Singer talked to you about it?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “And did she not express any qualms about the fact that Maddox was a married man?”

  “She didn’t know he was married. I didn’t neither. She never knew.”

  “But June knew?”

  “Yes—yes, she must of.” Mrs. Payne a little anxious.

  “Then it follows that June must have lied to her mother—and to you—about the fact that Maddox was married?”

  “I don’t think she said either way, really.”

  “Just let her mother assume, as she did assume, that Maddox was a single man?”

  “Well … well, yes.”

  “That is tantamount to lying, is it not, Mrs. Payne?”

  “Well, it’s not … it wasn’t very nice of Junie,” feebly.

  “She deliberately let her mother form a total misapprehension?”

  “Well, I don’t know about deliberate.”

  “But June knew that her mother thought Maddox was single. She could have easily, in three words, have cleared up this misapprehension by telling the simple truth. Why did she not do so?”

  “Well, I expect the poor thing thought … maybe she was shy about it. And then—then she wouldn’t want to shock her Mum, I mean, not in the condition she was in?”

  “Easier to let the misunderstanding exist?”

  “Yes, I expect it was. I don’t blame her.”

  “Has it occurred to you, Mrs. Payne, that if June was willing to let her mother completely misunderstand the situation—Maddox’s marital situation—that she might have, in all probability did, let both Mrs. Singer and yourself misunderstand the entire nature of the relationship between Maddox and herself?”

  “Oh no. Junie wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yet we have seen, where it suited her interest, she was not a truthful person.”

  Mrs. Payne shook her head. “If she didn’t tell her Mum about that, it was out of kindness. But the way she felt about Mr. Maddox—well, you couldn’t make no mistake about that. She was always talking about him. It was always ‘Mr. Maddox said’ and ‘Mr. Maddox did,’ and sometimes she’d say ‘Jordan.’ It would just slip out. She worshipped the very ground he trod on, and you can’t disguise that.”

  “Her attachment to him, romantic as it may have been, in no way proves the fact that he had an attachment to her, does it?”

  “What about all them letters?”

  “You have no proof that the letters ever came from Maddox.”

  “Well, the day at Wooly?”

  “A single day in the country is hardly evidence of a blooming romance such as you are suggesting. I put it to you, Mrs. Payne, that the whole idea of a romantic attachment between Singer and Maddox was a dream built upon faulty foundations, eagerly seized upon by a suffering old lady anxious to see her daughter married, embellished by you, and passively, if not actively, encouraged by the girl herself. Is that not the true picture, Mrs. Payne?”

  “No, sir. You’re very clever, but that’s not like what it was. I don’t see so well, and I’m not one for mental things. Perhaps you think I’m a silly old woman, and perhaps I am. But Mrs. Singer, she wasn’t silly—she was sharp and bright and clever to her dying day. She’d have known if there was something not right.”

  “But there was something not right—Maddox was married—and Mrs. Singer didn’t suspect that, did she?”

  “I don’t believe she did. I couldn’t say for sure. She didn’t always say what was in her mind.”

  “But if she had known there was no chance of her daughter marrying Maddox, she would not have encouraged June’s romantic notions, would she?”

  “I don’t say she’d have been as happy as if he’d been a single man, I’m not saying that. But I don’t say she’d have tried to stop it either. She always spoiled Junie a bit—June was all she had. And if that’s what Junie wanted—well, him leading her on like that, he couldn’t have
been that happy with his wife, could he? And it’s the lucky ones that have love all easy and uncomplicated.”

  “You mean to say that Mrs. Singer would have encouraged her daughter’s attachment to a married man?”

  “I’m trying to answer your questions, sir. I can’t say more than I’m not sure. Mrs. Singer was not—a conventual person, if you know what I mean. She didn’t judge things by rules. She was strong-minded, she was. And independent. She was a wonderful person, she was.” Mrs. Payne’s eyes glistened.

  “Mrs. Payne—” Bartlett was very gentle—“I am not doubting your word for a moment. But it is a fact that, at the time, Mrs. Singer was not the woman she had been. In the late summer and autumn of last year, Mrs. Singer was in no fit state to make a proper judgement of this matter, was she?”

  “Her arthritis never affected her mind. She was just what she had always been in that respect.”

  “But we know, don’t we, Mrs. Payne—” quietly—“and I am sorry to have to raise this matter—that Mrs. Singer committed suicide while the balance of her mind was disturbed? And that she did this in early December, but that she had been planning it—saving the sleeping pills, an overdose of which she died from—for weeks, perhaps months, prior to that?”

  “There was nothing wrong with her mind.”

  “But the verdict at the inquest was that Mrs. Singer died by her own hand while the balance of her mind was disturbed.”

  “It was wrong. That verdict was all wrong.” Mrs. Payne was whispering.

  “Mrs. Payne, I have a transcript of the proceedings at that inquest. You yourself gave evidence, clear and unmistakable, that Mrs. Singer was in very great pain, which had affected her judgement and permitted her to do this terrible thing.”

  Mrs. Payne shook her head slowly from side to side.

  “Mrs. Payne, I can read from the transcript the very words you used.”

  “I know what I said. You don’t have to read nothing to me. I was wrong.”