Death Watch

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  She stopped abruptly, snapping her mouth shut. Her eyes met Slider’s in terrible, pitiful appeal. Under the expensive makeup her face had the nakedness, the unfinished look of the unloved child. ‘When he left—’ Her mouth worked. ‘I didn’t know I’d never see him again. I didn’t tell him – I never even said goodbye. Not properly.’

  Slider remembered a remorseful poem his mother used to recite, about a father sending his small son to bed in anger ‘with harsh words, and unkissed.’

  ‘I’m sure he knew you loved him,’ he said.

  ‘Do you really think so?’ The eyes fawned now, craving reassurance.

  ‘Sure of it.’ He had kept on coming home to her, hadn’t he, through sixteen years of unfaithfulness, knowing that however much he hurt her, she would always forgive him.

  Men may not always know what, he paraphrased her words inwardly, but they know who.

  Joanna saw that he’d come back to her. He blinked a little in the sudden daylight at the end of his thought-tunnel.

  ‘So we’re going to Atherton’s for dinner tonight,’ she said, by way of landing him gently.

  ‘Hmm? Oh – yes. Unless something comes up.’

  ‘Always unless something comes up,’ she agreed. ‘His dinners are becoming famous, you know. Norma told me that last time she was invited he had real truffles in his pâté.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a truffle,’ Slider said vaguely. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Nobody knows the truffles I’ve seen. I wonder about Atherton, though. Do you think he’s trying to build himself a persona, or is he really like that? Oddly enough, he seems to get more intensively the same the longer I know him. Is it an elaborate mask to hide his quiveringly naked soul from the harsh winds of reality, or is Time eroding the topsoil from him and revealing the bedrock of his genuine character underneath?’

  Slider gave the propositions his weightiest consideration. ‘Dunno,’ he said at last.

  ‘Thanks,’ she smiled. ‘I love you, Inspector.’

  The lines around his mouth softened a little. ‘I love you too.’

  ‘Who else is going to be there, anyway?’

  ‘Only Polly Jablowski.’

  ‘Oh. Is he having a crack at her? That’s quick work.’

  ‘I like Polish,’ he said, as if it had been a criticism. ‘I think she’ll be an asset to the Department.’

  ‘Yes, she seems a bright kid. I hope she doesn’t mind sharing his favours, though. He was never one to confine himself to one woman.’

  ‘Is he still seeing that solicitor from the magistrates’ court?’

  ‘He’s seeing two, actually.’

  ‘Why two?’

  ‘Everest syndrome – because they were there.’

  ‘Sooner him than me. All solicitors are as mad as gerbils,’ he said automatically.

  ‘Sometimes, Bill Slider, you’re a typical copper,’ she said, and he looked pleased. ‘Well, if Atherton ever thinks of settling down, someone like Polish would be my choice for him.’

  ‘And at least he’d be settling with a woman who understands his way of life,’ Slider said unwarily.

  ‘Thanks.’ He saw her expression change as rapidly and completely as someone pulling off a mask. It was one of the things he loved about her, that she hid nothing from him, but it had its disadvantages sometimes.

  ‘Bill, what’s going to happen to us?’ He didn’t answer this in any case unanswerable question, and she went on, ‘We haven’t had any proper time together for God knows how long. It’s always snatched moments in unsuitable places.’

  ‘We could have had time together this evening. We didn’t have to accept Atherton’s invitation,’ he pointed out.

  ‘But I wanted to. I want to go places with you, to see you in company with other people, the way proper couples do. I don’t want to be hidden away like a shameful secret.’

  ‘You’re not—’

  ‘Don’t say it! You know what I want. It was supposed to be what you want too. You said you wanted to be with me.’

  Oh God, he thought, sadly but without rancour. He entered into her predicament far more completely than she could possibly realise. ‘It’s going to be difficult for a while. You know what it’s like with a major case. You know how little time I have.’

  ‘But what little there is you could spend with me. You’re going back to Ruislip tonight, aren’t you?’

  She never talked about his going home now. The house where his wife lived was ‘Ruislip’ and her house was ‘here’ or ‘Chiswick’.

  ‘I have to,’ he said helplessly.

  ‘No, you don’t have to, that’s the whole point.’

  ‘While I live there, I have to.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have had to, if you’d done what you were going to do.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. He was beginning to feel hollow. The situation was a bastard, and the full and frank admission that it was of his own making didn’t help a bit. ‘I did ask you to be patient—’

  ‘I have been. I am. But for how long? I want a proper life with you, not this piecemeal business. I want us to live together. When are you going to move in with me?’

  He looked at her helplessly. There was nothing he could say to her, no decision to give her, no excuse to offer for the lack of a decision. The fact was he simply hadn’t been able to face up to the gross deed, the actual leaving of Irene. Leaving, nothing! What about the first step, what about telling Irene for a chilling start? How did any man ever do it? Even with the stoicism for facing unpleasant situations developed over twenty years in the Job, it was still a brown-trouser notion by any standard.

  And here in the canteen, after the days and nights he had just spent, in this brief pause in a long period of sustained concentration, everything outside the Job seemed, in any case, a fantastic irrelevance. Life beyond the Department had all the gripping qualities of the repeat of an episode of a television soap you hadn’t been following.

  ‘Oh Jo, not now,’ he said. ‘I can’t think about it now.’

  He saw her cheek muscles tremble, with anger she was holding back because she wanted to discuss with him, not quarrel. A quarrel could never lead to a conclusion, and she wanted a conclusion. But despite herself, a little spurt of steam escaped. ‘It’s always not now, though, isn’t it? There never is a good time.’

  ‘There will be. We’re on the same side. We want the same thing. It’s just timing. There’s no need for us to fight;

  He saw the last words, at least, make an impact. ‘Let’s fight until six, and then have dinner,’ she suggested.

  He didn’t always understand her oblique references, but he knew the tone of her voice. He said, ‘We will talk about it, I promise you, but not now. I know I’ve no right to ask you to go on being patient, but I do ask it. When I’m in the middle of something like this, it takes all my concentration. You’ve seen it before – you know.’

  For a long moment she said nothing. He could see everything flitting with endearing visibility through her face, as she weighed her frustration against her understanding of his position, her hatred of the situation against her sense of fair play. She came down in the end, as it seemed she always did, on his side. It was that generosity which made women victims, he thought – like Mrs Neal. But he would never be a Richard Neal to Joanna. And then he thought, depressingly, that he was being a Richard Neal to Irene, wasn’t he?

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘Well, just hurry up and get a result, then. What is it they say? You only get seventy-two hours to catch a murderer.’

  The storm had passed over without breaking. He wished it made him feel better. ‘You’re beginning to sound like Dickson,’ he said.

  The red-haired trollop of Mrs Neal’s anathema turned out to be a Miss Jacqueline Turner, and apart from the fact that she abbreviated her name to Jacqui, and dotted the ‘i’ with a little circle, Atherton found nothing to dislike about her.

  He went to interview her at her place of work, the Omniflamme
office in Coronation Road, Park Royal. The grim hinterland of the industrial estate stretched away forever in a vista of stained concrete, flat roofs, cheap flettons, plastic fascias and metal-frame windows: an affront to the senses, relieved only by the determined reclamation attempts of ragwort and buddleia at the foot of every lamp-post; and the brave, rich odour of roasting hops in the air, drifting over from the Guinness brewery.

  Atherton spent eight long minutes in the Omniflamme reception area, perched on the edge of a minimalist black leather sofa, reading the Omniflamme sales literature he found on the minimalist glass coffee-table. Omniflamme for all your Detection and Protection needs, he read. A cross between Phil Hunt and a Durex, then, he thought to himself. Though there really wasn’t a lot of discernible difference between Phil Hunt and a Durex, not as far as intellect went, anyway.

  Omniflamme, he learned with the appropriate amounts of surprise and pleasure, could interface with his existing systemised personnel alerting capacity, and extend and maximise its function; or on the other hand – if, indeed, it was another hand – could be personally tailored to his individual needs and requirements. At that point, and to his profound relief, he was accessed to Miss Turner on a prioritised one-to-one basis and advised that he could interface with her in the small conference room, which was momentarily in vacant standby mode.

  She led him there in silence, and as soon as the door was shut behind them turned to him with the urgent question, ‘Is it true?’

  Jacqui Turner was extremely easy on the eye, although Atherton would have described her hair as strawberry blonde rather than red. She was wearing a mini-skirt, though not a terribly abbreviated one, and she had the legs to match, but to his keen eye she was on the borderline of being too old for it – twenty-five or thereabouts. She was wearing quite a lot of makeup, but it was skilfully applied, and there was nothing about her to invite the description of trollop – except, of course, from a wronged wife.

  Under the makeup her face was drawn with anxiety. They’ve been saying – people have been saying – that Dick – Mr Neal – is – that he’s been killed. It’s not true, is it?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ Atherton said.

  Her face quivered, and she went very white. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered.

  ‘I think you’d better sit down,’ he said, drawing out one of the chairs from the long table. She sat down abruptly and rested her forearms on the table, and stared blindly ahead of her. Atherton sat down eater-cornered to her and drew out his notebook.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said eventually. ‘When Bob said it I thought it was a joke. A sick joke. He can’t be dead. It must be a mistake.’ She looked a him. ‘Couldn’t it be a mistake? Someone else, not Dick?’

  ‘No mistake,’ he said, holding her gaze steadily.

  She searched his face for a moment, and then looked away and said bleakly, but in acceptance, ‘Oh God.’

  ‘I have to ask you a few questions,’ Atherton went on. ‘I understand you were very close to him.’

  ‘I’m his sales backup,’ she said automatically, not with him, her mind busy elsewhere. ‘I make his appointments, type up his quotations, order his samples, all that sort of thing. A bit like a PA, you know, except that we have three Account Executives each to look after.’

  ‘Didn’t you have a more personal relationship with Mr Neal, though?’

  She turned her head back to him slowly, catching up with the question. A look of bitterness came over her. ‘I suppose there’s no point in trying to keep it secret now. We were – lovers. He was – we were going to get married.’

  ‘But you must have known he was already married?’

  ‘When he got the divorce, I mean,’ she said with dignity. ‘His marriage had been over a long time, in all but name. He and his wife – well, they just shared the same house, that was all. They didn’t sleep together or anything. And as soon as the divorce came through, we were going to get married.’

  ‘Mrs Neal knew about you, then?’ Atherton asked, fascinated, as always, by the lengths to which human self-deception could go. She knew none of that was true, he could see it in her face.

  ‘Oh yes, of course. He’d told her all about it. It was all out in the open as far as she was concerned. We tried to keep it a secret, otherwise, though. The company wouldn’t have liked it, you see, if it had got back.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Mrs Neal?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Or speak to her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see.’ Atherton’s voice was as neutral as magnolia matt emulsion.

  She was stung by it. ‘But I knew all about her. He’d told me all about her. He didn’t hide anything from me.’ She was desperate to convince him. ‘He wanted children, you see, and she couldn’t have any. She told him to find someone else. She didn’t mind. They were more like brother and sister. He told me she said he should marry someone who could—’ The story was too thin to be jumped up and down on like that. He saw her foot go straight through it. Her face crumpled, and she put her hands over it. ‘Now he’s dead,’ she gasped, ‘and she’ll be the widow, and I’ll be nothing! They didn’t even tell me. I won’t even be allowed to go to the funeral.’

  He waited while she cried, not feeling any inclination to laugh at her choice of words. She had put her finger, with the unerring aim of the interested, on the essential difference marriage made: the right to know, the right to ask, the right to be told. It was stronger than love, or even habit. It was self-evidently stronger than death. He remembered how, at the end of the Austen case, when Bill had been lying in hospital covered in bandages, it was Irene who went to visit him there. Joanna wasn’t even allowed to enquire after him: if she had telephoned the hospital, they would have refused to tell her anything.

  It was some time before Jacqui Turner had recovered enough for him to get her back to specifics. With the fourth tissue in her hand, she answered his questions dolefully and docilely, as if she had no more fight in her.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘On Friday. He came in to the office at about five to do his paperwork, and then we went to Crispin’s for a drink and something to eat.’

  ‘That’s the wine bar in Ealing, is it?’

  She nodded. ‘We went there a lot. I live at Ealing Common, so it was handy for my place. He lives in – lived in Pinner. Oh, well, I suppose you know that.’

  ‘So you had a meal and some wine—?’ He left a space for her, but she didn’t correct him or add anything, so he went on, ‘And after that, what?’

  ‘He went back to my place.’

  ‘For coffee and brandy?’

  ‘Whisky, if you want to be particular. I don’t have any brandy. Dick’s a whisky drinker.’

  ‘Did he smoke?’ Atherton asked through natural association.

  ‘Like a chimney. They all do.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘All the salesmen. It goes with the job.’

  ‘I see. And after the coffee and the whisky—?’

  She met his eye defiantly. ‘We made love, of course.’

  ‘Of course. And what time did he leave?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. About ten, I think.’

  ‘And when did you next expect to see him?’

  ‘Well, normally it would have been on Saturday. We always had lunch together on Saturdays, unless he was away, and Sundays he spent at home. And Monday he was supposed to be in Bradford and Leeds for two days, so I suppose it would have been Wednesday. I’d have spoken to him, though – they have to ring in every day.’

  ‘But you didn’t, in fact, see him on Saturday?’

  ‘He said he couldn’t because he was meeting someone.’

  ‘Did he say who?’

  She shrugged, her lower lip drooping. He saw that they had quarrelled about it. ‘He just said an old friend.’

  ‘He didn’t mention a name? Or where he knew him from? Anything about him at all?’

  ‘He said
he’d got to meet an old friend he hadn’t seen for years, and that’s all he said.’

  ‘What was his manner when he told you that? Was he worried, apprehensive, disappointed, bored?’

  ‘He sounded pleased,’ she said sulkily, ‘as if he was looking forward to it. He was sort of grinning to himself, as if he had some stupid secret he wasn’t going to let me in on.’

  ‘I see,’ Atherton said sympathetically. ‘So from that you gathered that it wasn’t a business meeting?’

  ‘If you want to know,’ she said, turning her annoyance on him, ‘I thought he was meeting some old mate of his and they were going on the piss together, to some stupid club or something, probably with topless waitresses or something pathetic like that. Or maybe it was a dirty film – some man-thing, anyway.’

  ‘Did he often do that sort of thing?’

  ‘Oh—!’ Her anger ran out of places to go. She sighed and said, ‘You know what men are like when they get together. They’re just like little boys. All the salesmen are like it when they get together. They drink and tell dirty jokes and – oh, you know.’

  ‘Was he particularly interested in blue movies?’

  She looked faintly puzzled. ‘What do you mean? All men are, aren’t they, when they get the chance? He didn’t have a collection of them, if that’s what you mean. If you want to know, he’d always sooner be doing it than watching it.’

  ‘Did he like doing unusual things?’

  She actually blushed, though whether with embarrassment or anger he wasn’t sure. ‘That’s not what I meant. No, he didn’t. And why are you asking me questions like that? What’s going on? What’s it got to do with you how he spent his spare time?’

  Spare time was the mot juste, Atherton thought. ‘I assure you I’m not asking questions out of idle curiosity, Miss Turner,’ he said with reassuring formality. ‘You say that he normally telephoned the office when he was away on business. Do you know if he did, in fact, call on Monday?’