‘Coffee, love?’ Alan asked after a while, gesturing at the machines in the corridor.
I shuddered. ‘I’m not that desperate. A candy bar, maybe. Or a Coke.’
He brought both. The candy was stale and the Coke warm. I ate and drank anyway. It was something to do.
Hours passed.
I was too tense and uncomfortable to sit, too tired to pace. I was aching in every muscle, and nearly weeping from weariness, when the nurse came in and beckoned to Carstairs.
We all stood, Alan and I with some difficulty.
‘He’s conscious and rational,’ she said briefly. ‘One of you may see him for five minutes.’
Carstairs followed her. Alan and I sat back in our easeless chairs.
He was back in less than the allotted time, and sat down beside us.
‘He confirmed that he took the capsules. There was never much doubt, but I had to make sure.’
‘Did he say why?’ I asked. ‘Or no, I don’t suppose you wanted to ask at this stage.’
‘No, I wouldn’t have asked. Not yet. But he told me a bit. The world has rather dumped on him of late, but the trigger tonight – last night – had to do with Jemima.’ The superintendent suddenly looked a good deal more human. ‘He’s got a bad case, hasn’t he?’
‘But what did Jemima do, or say, or . . .?’
‘He wasn’t specific; he’s very tired and feels bloody. She came to see him. I gather they had a row. We’ll know more tomorrow.’ He sighed. ‘Meanwhile, he isn’t allowed any visitors, and he’s under observation.’
‘But . . . he’s going to be all right. You said so.’ My panic started to rise again.
‘In case he thinks about trying again, love,’ said Alan gently.
‘Oh.’ I was too tired even to try to stop the tears that welled up.
Carstairs offered us a lift to a small hotel nearby. It was nearly morning, but we were too tired to drive home safely, and in any case we wanted to talk to Jonathan when he was feeling better. I slept like the dead and woke at mid-morning with a raging headache and a mouth that felt like our cats’ litterbox.
‘No toothbrush!’ I moaned. ‘And no ibuprofen!’
‘You used to carry both those essentials in your handbag,’ Alan said mildly. He had just stepped out of the shower. Clad in a towel, he found my bag, rummaged in it, and tossed me the items requested. ‘And there’s shampoo in the bathroom. You’ll have to do without a facecloth, I’m afraid. This is a genuine English hotel.’
The English, as I learned many years ago to my dismay, consider a washcloth as personal as a toothbrush, and travel with their own. Many hotels nowadays supply them, but I’ve learned to do without when necessary.
I felt slightly better with clean teeth and a clean body, but I hated getting back into clothes that felt like I’d worn them non-stop for a week. Alan had made coffee. I don’t care much for instant, but it supplied caffeine, and with the ibuprofen, took the edge off my headache.
‘No biscuits, worse luck,’ Alan commented. ‘And it’s far too late for breakfast. Would you like to go straight to the hospital, or find a snack somewhere?’
‘Don’t I remember a Starbucks in the hospital lobby?’ That lobby had startled me considerably, the first time I saw it. It looked more like a shopping mall.
There was indeed a Starbucks, and I lingered over an indulgent mocha and a huge muffin. Truth to tell, I was not eager to talk to Jonathan.
‘I don’t know how to act,’ I admitted to Alan. ‘What does one say to someone who’s tried to . . .?’ I couldn’t say the words.
‘What you would say to anyone else who was ill and in distress,’ said my husband sensibly. ‘Ask how he’s feeling, and let him take it from there.’
‘I suppose. It’s just . . . it feels like he’s a different person, somehow.’
‘Buck up, old girl. You’ll manage. I suspect he’ll be more embarrassed than you are.’
We were told, when we announced ourselves, that Jonathan had been moved to a room, now that he was in no imminent danger. A single room, not a ward. A uniformed policeman sat discreetly in the corner, but stood when we entered. ‘Mr Nesbitt. Mrs Martin. I was told to expect you. I’m to remain in the room, you know, but I’ll try to be invisible.’
Jonathan made some sort of noise, a protest, I thought. I turned to him, intending to say something bright and cheery, and found myself unable to speak at all.
He looked so small, lying there flat and pale. And so very young and helpless. I put out a hand, and he grasped it. ‘Let you down. Sorry.’
I swallowed hard and decided to ignore that. ‘Are you really feeling all right?’
‘I feel like hell. Have you ever had your stomach pumped? I don’t recommend it. But I daresay I deserve it. And before you ask, no, I’m not fool enough to try it again. They’re wasting manpower.’
He nodded his head in the direction of the mandated observer, who cleared his throat. ‘Orders, sir.’
‘I know. I doubt that Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, retired, and his lady wife, have smuggled drugs in, but . . .’ Jonathan made a weary gesture. ‘Ah, hell. I’ve caused everyone enough trouble.’
‘Are you up to talking about it?’ I asked cautiously.
He lifted a hand and let it drop to the blanket. ‘There was another row with Jemima. I’d thought . . . but I was wrong. She made it quite clear . . . and it just put the lid on. I had all those pills. I hadn’t taken any for a long time, trying to tough it out. So there they were, and I . . .’
‘You thought it was the easy way out of your troubles.’ I tried to say it gently.
‘In fact, old man, it’s dug you in a bit deeper, you know.’ Alan was speaking gently, too, and sadly. ‘You can’t escape the obvious conclusion.’
‘Suicide as a confession of guilt,’ said Jonathan in a flat voice. ‘And that damn-fool note didn’t help, did it.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘What’s going to happen now?’ I asked. ‘You can’t just go back to your flat alone. Will you go to Letty’s? Oh, Lord, where is she, anyway? I forgot all about her last night, but surely—’
‘It appears no one thought to tell her until this morning,’ said Jonathan, ‘and by that time there was no reason for her to traipse all this way. No, I’m not going to stay with her. It’s too much of a burden. She’s had enough to deal with.’
He sounded stronger, which was a good sign. Stronger, and thinking of someone besides himself.
‘They won’t let you go home alone, you know,’ said Alan. ‘You’re under a suicide watch.’
‘I’ve told you, I—’
‘I know what you’ve told us. The fact remains.’ Alan consulted me with a raised eyebrow. I nodded.
‘All right, old man. When are they going to let you out of here?’
‘This afternoon, I think. I didn’t take enough to cause serious damage, they tell me.’
‘It would have been serious enough if they hadn’t found you!’ I couldn’t help saying.
‘Yes, well. Anyway, they need the bed, so I’m out soon. With my keeper, I suppose. Bloody waste of police time.’
‘I have an alternative proposal,’ said Alan. ‘We’d like you to come home with us.’
It took a little persuading, but Jonathan was sensible enough to realize he had little choice. The police would not let him go home alone, and he was firm in his decision not to go to Letty. We checked with Carstairs to make sure our hospitality would meet official requirements, and finally told Jonathan to phone us when he was ready to leave.
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘What do you want to do about lunch?’ I asked Alan when we were out in the sunshine again. ‘We probably have a few hours to kill.’
‘If you wouldn’t mind making do with a sandwich, I’d like to call on one Robert Higgins Hathaway. I think that young man has some explaining to do.’
The more expensive a shop is, it seems, the later it opens, and Robert Hathaway’s shop was very expensive indeed. The sig
n wasn’t on the door any more, but the shades on the door and the show window were pulled down, and no lights were visible. ‘Round here,’ said Alan, steering me into the narrow passageway between the shop and the one next door. It was rather more salubrious than such areas in London tend to be. Evidently Chelsea keeps not only its streets but its footpaths cleaner than do lesser neighbourhoods.
The door Alan had expected to find was there, blank and unwelcoming. It had a buzzer and an intercom, though, and Alan applied his thumb and kept it there. We could hear the raucous noise from where we stood.
Eventually a voice sounded from the speaker. ‘Go away.’
‘Not until we’ve talked to you, Mr Hathaway.’
‘Who the hell are you?’
I spoke up. ‘It’s Mrs Martin, Bert. I’m here with my husband,’ I added, in case Bert was feeling violent at being awakened.
Pause. The voice, when it came again, was a little less agitated. ‘My dear lady, do you have any idea what time it is?’
‘It is after noon, sir,’ said Alan. ‘We must talk to you.’
‘Bloody . . . all right, all right. Give me fifteen minutes.’
It was more like half an hour before the door finally opened. A young man who bore no resemblance to Bert stumbled out, glared at us, and paused to light a cigarette and blow smoke in our faces before walking towards the street, muttering.
‘Shall we?’ Alan gestured to the open door. I coughed, nodded, and followed him up the narrow stairs.
Bert had managed to shower and pull on a pair of elegant jeans. He was barefoot and wore no shirt. He was standing in the kitchen area, at a fearsome-looking machine which was making noises suggestive of an imminent blast-off. ‘Sorry I was rude,’ he said, ‘but I’m barely human until I’ve had my coffee.’
‘Late night?’ I asked brightly, looking around the flat. Glasses and bottles were much in evidence, as were overflowing ashtrays. The air was heavy with the odours of sweat and smoke, and not, I thought, just tobacco smoke.
The disorder was a great pity, because the flat should have been beautiful. It was decorated in a clean, modern style that managed still to be warm. A couple of fine paintings hung on the white walls; a few well-chosen objets d’art brightened shelves and tables.
‘I’m surprised you allow your guests to smoke in here,’ I said. ‘It can’t be doing the paintings any good.’ And then I told myself to shut up. We weren’t there to talk about his habits, for heaven’s sake!
‘I don’t usually have parties up here, for that very reason. Last night just sort of happened. Some people came by, and then some more, and some of them brought in food, and they just . . . stayed.’
His hands shook as he picked up the cup of coffee, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked, in short, a wreck. He needed some aspirin and several more hours of sleep, not an interrogation.
I hardened my heart. Jonathan was in the hospital, and might have been dead. He was running a real risk of arrest for murder, and I was certain he was innocent. If Bert could help us find the real killer, he would just have to deal with his hangover later.
‘We’re sorry to disturb you,’ I said crisply, ‘but we need some information, and we need it now. Jonathan Quinn tried to kill himself yesterday.’
Bert spilled his coffee. ‘Ow!’ He grabbed a towel and dabbed at his chest. ‘But why?’
Alan shrugged, with a warning look at me. ‘At least in part because he is suspected of murder. The point is, several of us think he’s the wrong man. We’d like to know a little more about Anthony Jarvis. For a start, what is his real name?’
With great care, Bert put his coffee down. ‘So far as I know, his name is Anthony Jarvis.’
‘I don’t think so, Bert,’ I said. ‘Oh, that may be his real name now, but it isn’t the one he was born with. What was his name when you first knew him in Brighton?’
‘Why would you think it was something different?’
Aha! We’d been fishing, but whenever a person answers a question with a question, that person is stalling. I let Alan take over.
‘There are ways to find out, Higgins, but asking you was quickest. The name, please.’
‘Why should I tell you? You’re not the police. And I don’t want to get the poor chap into trouble.’
Alan just waited, looking steadily at Bert.
Bert picked up his coffee cup and sipped, gingerly. His hand was a trifle steadier. ‘Oh, all right!’ he said finally. ‘I should never have mentioned him in the first place. He couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this, but you’re going to think . . .’
‘You supply us with the facts and let us decide what to think.’
‘I suppose you’ll find out anyway, if you persist with this ridiculous notion. His name was Andrew Welles.’
‘And he used to be a teacher?’
‘I never said so!’
‘No.’ Alan let the silence lengthen again.
‘Yes,’ Bert said finally, ‘at a small school. It isn’t there any more. It’s been merged into some god-awful comprehensive.’
‘He taught art?’
‘If you can call it art in a school like that. He worked with the nine-to-elevens, trying to impart some sense of line and mass. It was a lost cause, naturally.’
‘You seem to know rather more about him than you implied to my wife earlier.’
‘I didn’t “imply” anything at all!’ Bert winced at his own loud voice. He picked up his coffee cup and took a swallow. ‘Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I knew Andrew for about a year. All right, I pursued him, if you want to know. So I chatted him up whenever I could contrive to meet him. I knew he hated his job. I wasn’t surprised when he chucked it.’
‘I thought you didn’t know he had left Brighton.’ Certainly I’d had that impression when Bert called.
‘Well, I did. Look, that’s all I know about the man, except that he’s really knowledgeable about art and a decent sort of chap. And I need to dress and work out some way of feeling human by the time the shop opens, so if you don’t mind . . .’
‘Just one more question,’ said Alan. ‘How did you know the gentleman’s new name? And why did he change it?’
‘That’s two questions. How would I know why he changed it?’
Another question answered with a question, I noted.
‘As for how I knew, it’s perfectly simple.’ Bert took on the tone of one addressing a somewhat slow five-year-old. ‘The man is an artist. He is interested in art. I sell art. He came into the shop one day to look. I didn’t happen to be out front. My assistant tried to help him, but he wanted something by a specific artist, and we had nothing at the time. My assistant took down his name, Anthony Jarvis, and his phone number. I happened to glance out while they were talking, and recognized Andrew.’
‘And you didn’t go out to talk to him?’ I put the maximum of scepticism into my voice.
‘After the way he humiliated me the last time we’d seen each other? Not bloody likely!’
‘But you’re sure it was Andrew Welles. And he gave his name as Anthony Jarvis.’ Alan likes to be certain.
‘God, how many more times! Yes, I’m sure. And I think I’m going to be sick. Go!’
We went.
‘What now?’ I asked Alan as we descended into the Tube station.
‘Suppose I send you home by train. I imagine you’ll have some arranging to do, and between Jonathan and his gear, the car’s going to be a bit full.’
So we made for Victoria Station. Once I got home, and after I’d tidied up the guest room and changed to fresh clothes, I sat down at my computer.
If information about Anthony Jarvis was notably lacking, there was a plethora about Andrew Welles, and it was both confusing and unsettling. He had apparently begun his teaching career working with younger children, and he’d done a lot of job-hopping. A year here, two there, always with the same age group, the intermediate ages of nine to eleven. He was a part-time art teacher at first, b
ut then, in one school, had taken a full-time position with a class of eleven-year-olds, teaching general subjects.
All the schools were in the same part of the country, never far from Brighton, and there seemed no reason why Welles had moved around so much.
Then I found it: a newspaper account of Andrew Welles’s trial for child molestation.
I scrolled down. There was no verdict shown; apparently the trial ran to a second day. I clicked a few times and found the follow-up article.
Acquitted. I wished I could see a transcript of that trial.
I also wanted, urgently, to tell Carstairs. Surely he’d find it of interest that a suspected child molester was in Buckingham Palace at a time when he might have met Melissa!
Well, I’d better consult Alan before I tried to talk to Carstairs. Meanwhile, there was the question of a meal. I finally decided to make a hearty salad and slice some meat and cheese for sandwiches. Then everyone could eat what they wanted, if they wanted. I made a quick trip to the High Street for orange juice, since wine isn’t a good idea for someone suffering from depression, and bustled about vacuuming cat and dog hair away, arranging flowers.
Everything was ready much too soon, and then all I had to do was sit around and worry. I sat for a while, Watson anxiously attentive, then went to the window to peer down the street, then went to the kitchen to make sure I’d left nothing undone, then sat again. The cats, annoyed by my restlessness, disappeared, presumably upstairs to sleep on the freshly made bed and deposit fur on the pillows. Watson eventually wearied, too, and stretched out in his bed in the corner.
I fretted, imagining all sorts of disaster. Jonathan was worse. The police had decided to keep him in London. There’d been an accident on the A21.
I put the kettle on, brewed myself some tea, and forgot to drink it.
Twilight was approaching by the time they finally arrived, and twilight comes late to England in June. I forced myself to assume an attitude of calm. The last thing Jonathan needed right now was a dithery female.
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