Shallow Grave (Bill Slider Mystery)

by Harrod-Eagles, Cynthia

  ‘You don’t like him? Why is that?’

  ‘Oh, what, apart from the fact that he’s murdered her, you mean?’ she said sarcastically, and then took a puff at her cigarette to compose herself. ‘No, I’ll tell you. He’s one of those men who has to own a woman. Thinks if you put a ring on a woman’s finger she’s your property, at your beck and call every minute of the day. Jen couldn’t have any life of her own. And jealous? He’s mad. I mean literally – unbalanced, if you ask me. Always following her about and spying on her, accusing her of this, that and the other.’ Mostly the other, Slider gathered. ‘Terrible rows they had, because of course she wouldn’t take it lying down. You can’t, can you? Let ’em start walking all over you and you might as well be dead. But it didn’t matter what she said. He wouldn’t have been happy unless he had her under lock and key twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘Did they have money problems?’

  She looked surprised. ‘Why? Did someone say they did?’

  ‘I was wondering why she took the job with you.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t for the money, it was just to get away from him for a bit. He’s got plenty of money – doing very well for himself.’

  ‘Generous with it?’

  She seemed unwilling to grant Eddie Andrews any mitigating features. ‘She never wanted for anything. But then she never asked him to keep her. She had her own career.’

  ‘Working for the estate agent?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She nodded. ‘She was earning her own living before she met him, and if you ask me she made a big mistake ever giving it up, because it just gave him ideas. She couldn’t stand being stuck at home doing nothing all day, so she took it up again part time.’

  ‘Why part time?’

  ‘Because he made such a fuss about her going out to work! That’s why he built her that house – thought it would keep her home. It was a cage, that’s what that was. But Jen was wise to it. She came to me and asked me for a job, to give her a reason to get out.’

  ‘Why didn’t she do the other thing full time?’

  ‘Meacher’s didn’t want her full time. Anyway, it was evenings she wanted to get away from him. Of course, he was furious. He couldn’t stand any wife of his working in a pub.’

  ‘I thought she worked in the restaurant?’

  She looked at him shrewdly. ‘Is that what he said? God, he’s a snob! He makes my blood boil! He’s not the bloody Duke of Westminster, he’s only a bloody builder, but he thinks himself so-o superior! Can’t have his wife being a barmaid, oh no! Can’t have her consorting with people like Jack and me! Publicans? The way he talked to me, you’d think I was a common prostitute! I said to him, you want to change your attitude, mate, I said, ’cause if you’re not careful they’ll stuff you and stick you in a museum, and good bloody riddance!’

  ‘They didn’t have any children, I understand.’

  ‘Jen didn’t want any, and who can blame her? He wanted ’em, but then it wouldn’t be him had to go through it all, would it? Jack’s the same way – all sentimental about “kiddies”. Never mind morning sickness and backache, losing your figure, to say nothing of childbirth, and then being stuck in a house for the best years of your life changing nappies and wiping noses. No, she wasn’t having any of that, thank you very much. Of course, it was another thing he held against me – as if I made her mind up for her!’

  ‘You say he accused her of having affairs,’ Slider said. ‘Was there any truth in the accusations?’

  She coloured angrily. ‘Of course there wasn’t! What are you trying to say?’

  He made a small open gesture with his hand. ‘Mrs Potter, I don’t know the people involved. I’m not saying anything – I’m asking.’

  She calmed a little. ‘Well, there wasn’t, that’s all. It’s just his morbid imagination. He wanted her locked up like some Arab woman, you know, and he couldn’t stand it that she wanted a life of her own. I mean, Jen’s smart, pretty, full of life, always into everything; all he ever wants to do is sit slumped in a chair watching football on the telly. Never wants to go out anywhere or do anything, just wants to go home and lock the door with Jen inside. Well, she doesn’t want to spend her life doing housework, which is all he’d’ve let her do if he had his way. And then he accuses her of things she hasn’t done, the nasty-minded, jealous little snob.’

  ‘Did he hit her?’

  ‘Oh, yes, he’s done that too. When they’ve rowed. I don’t know why she stayed with him. I mean, he was earning the money, and Jen always liked the good life, but I would never have to do with a man that’d hit a woman.’

  She stubbed out her cigarette with shaking fingers and immediately racked the packet for another. Slider, with a reputation now to maintain, lit it for her. Then he said, ‘I understand Jennifer was working here last night. Was that her regular evening?’

  She looked sidelong at him. ‘She didn’t have regular times here. I just asked her, or Jack asked her, when we were busy. But yesterday – well, it was a bit different.’ She sighed out a mouthful of smoke. ‘I can’t believe it was only yesterday. My God, I still can’t believe she’s dead.’ She took a few more serious drags to steady herself. Slider waited in sympathetic silence, and at last she went on, ‘I’ll tell you how it was. Jen was at work at Meacher’s in the morning – till one o’clock, she did – and about, oh, quarter, twenty past one she came here, came round the back to the kitchen to talk to me. Well, we were standing chatting when suddenly Eddie turns up—’

  ‘Eddie Andrews came to the pub yesterday lunchtime? From his work at Mrs Hammond’s house?’

  She glanced an enquiry at him. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘He said you didn’t allow working clothes in the pub.’

  ‘That’s right, we don’t. Well, it’s all lounge trade here. But we don’t mind in the garden. Not that you really get working clothes coming in very often – people like that go to the Mimpriss, where they’ve got a public bar. But, of course, working at the Rectory, this is closer, so I suppose he just popped across for a drink. Anyway, the first I know about it is he comes into the garden with a pint in his hand, and sees Jen standing at the kitchen door talking to me. So he comes over and says, “What are you doing here?” and Jen says, “Talking to my friend, do you mind?” And he says, “Yes, I do mind, I don’t want my wife hanging around pubs.”’

  She looked at Slider to see if he appreciated the insult, and he nodded encouragingly.

  ‘So I can see Jen’s really fed up with him, and she says, “I don’t care what you want. As it happens, Linda’s asked me to work tonight and I’ve said yes,” which I hadn’t, but of course I had to back her up, so I said that was right, and he gets mad and says he won’t have it and there’s a bit of a barney, and at the end of it Jen says she’ll do as she likes and if he don’t like it he can do the other thing, and she walks off. So then Eddie starts mouthing off at me, how I’m a bad influence on Jen and all that old toffee, but I’m not taking it so I tell him to clear off. I said I’ve had enough of you, I said, and you’re barred from now on. So he says I wouldn’t drink here if you paid me, and he tips his beer out all over my clean kitchen step and walks off.’

  ‘Weren’t you afraid?’

  ‘What, of him? If he’d tried to hit me, I’d’ve decked him first – and he knew it. He’s all mouth and trousers, that one. A bully, like most men: if you stand up to them they cave in. You get to know who’s dangerous in my trade and who isn’t. But then I wasn’t married to him.’

  ‘Go on,’ Slider said. ‘Did Mrs Andrews come in to work that evening?’

  ‘Well, she phones me up in the afternoon, about ha’pass three. She sounded upset, and I said what’s up, and she just says, oh, men, I hate ’em all. So I told her I’d barred Eddie, and she said thank God for that, at least there was one place she could go to get away from him, and I said do you really want to come in tonight, because of course Tuesday isn’t a busy night in the bar, and she said, yes, is that a problem, so I said did
she fancy helping out in the restaurant instead because I had an office birthday party, twelve covers, coming in, and you know what those parties are like, it takes for ever to get the order down with ’em all talking and changing their minds. But she said no, she’d do the bar, and Karen – that’s our bar girl – could do the restaurant. So that’s how we left it, and she was to come in at seven.’

  ‘And did she in fact come in at seven?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, I didn’t see her, but Karen came through and said Jen had just arrived. As it turned out the restaurant was really busy – we had a lot of casuals in as well as the bookings – so I never got a chance to go through to the bar, and by the time I’d finished Jen was gone.’ Her eyes moistened abruptly. ‘So I never got to say goodbye. I mean, not that I’d have known it was the last time – but – you know.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I understand,’ Slider said, and she nodded and retired into the tissue again, and then emerged for a therapeutic puff. ‘And you didn’t see her or speak to her again?’ She shook her head. ‘And what about Eddie? Did you see him at all last night?’

  ‘Oh, he came in that evening, all right, but I didn’t see him. Jack’ll tell you all about that. Of course, if we’d known what was going to happen, we’d have got the police on to him, but we didn’t know,’ she said harshly. ‘No-one could have known, that’s what I say. I mean, he led that poor woman a hell of a life, but I’d never have thought he had it in him to do what he did, the evil bastard.’

  Atherton sat on one of the bar stools as Slider was led away by the female of the species, and said to her mate, ‘You carry on with what you’re doing. What are twirlies, by the way?’

  ‘Eh?’ Jack seemed distracted. He was watching his wife’s departure with what looked like perplexity, and came back to attention with difficulty. ‘Oh – they’re the ones who turn up every day on the dot of opening, if not before – pensioners, usually, with nowhere else to go. They dodder into the bar the minute you unlock and say, “Am I too early?” Too early – twirly. See?’

  ‘You perform a social service, really, don’t you?’ Atherton said. ‘Like the public library.’

  Jack Potter took him seriously. ‘Well, yes, we do. The public house has a unique place in the social fabric of this country. There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world, did you know that? And this was a village pub once – back in history.’

  ‘Really?’ Atherton marvelled.

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s any age, this place. All these beams are genuine, you know.’ He slapped the nearest in a horsemanlike way. ‘There was a village here goes back to Doomsday, before they built all this lot on top of it.’

  ‘It’s an unusual place to find in this part of London,’ Atherton said.

  ‘Oh, there’s a lot of old stuff about, if you know where to look,’ Potter said. ‘Trouble is, most of it got messed up before anyone started caring about that sort of thing. The First And Last – in Woodbridge Road, you know it? – that was an old coaching inn, stage coaches and all that, though you’d never know to look at it now. But this one, being out of the way, it got missed out when all the modernising was going on. And now it’s listed, so the outside’s protected at any rate. But it’s a nice place, and we get a very nice sort of clientele round here. Shorts and wine trade, like I said—’

  ‘And the occasional murderer,’ Atherton remarked.

  Jack looked upset. He leaned on his hands on the bar, pulling the bar-towel taut between them. ‘Don’t say that! I can’t bear to think of it. That poor woman! It was murder, then? Nobody seemed to know, but people were saying …’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t like to. I mean, Eddie and her were always having rows, but I never would have thought he’d go so far as to …’ He filled in with a shake of the head. ‘How did he do it, anyway?’

  Atherton said, ‘I don’t want to go into that. Tell me about yesterday.’

  ‘Well, he was here yesterday lunchtime, and they had a bit of a barney out in the garden, but I didn’t actually see that. Linda will tell you all about it. She ended up barring Eddie, and I wasn’t sorry. He had it coming. I mean, he was a nice enough bloke most of the time, but it made it awkward, with Jen and Lin being friendly, and her working here. I mean, you never want to get in between a husband and wife rowing, see what I mean? I’d’ve stayed out of it, kept neutral, if I could’ve. But with the situation what it was – and I didn’t like the way he behaved to my wife. Very rude to her he was. So I’d’ve ended up barring him myself sooner or later.’ He looked at Atherton to see if he believed him. Atherton already had a fair idea who was the Lord Warden of the Trousers in this family.

  ‘And Jennifer Andrews was working here last night, was she?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, though his eyes moved about a bit.

  ‘She was here all evening?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said again.

  ‘In the restaurant or in the bar?’

  ‘Well, she came on to help me in here, so that Karen – that’s our girl – could help the wife out in the restaurant. Had a big party in, Lin did. Jen came on about seven, or a bit after, and then Karen went through to help Lin.’

  ‘And what time did she leave?’

  ‘What, Karen?’

  Atherton curbed his impatience. ‘No, Jennifer.’

  Jack Potter stared at him, and his face congealed with guilt. ‘Look,’ he said. Atherton looked, but he seemed not to be able to go on. His eyes shifted sideways and back. ‘Look,’ he said again, pleadingly now, ‘I want to tell you the truth, but you’ve got to keep it from the wife. I mean, it’s nothing bad,’ he added hastily, ‘but I don’t want Lin coming down on me for it. She’s got a sharp tongue, my wife, and – well, married life’s hard enough, d’you know what I mean?’

  Atherton smiled, inviting confidence, persuasive as the Serpent on commission. ‘Every marriage has its little secrets,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not wrong!’ Jack said gladly. ‘Women? I tell you, it’s a juggling act, keeping ’em sweet. Well, look, strictly between you and me – the thing was, Jen wasn’t really working here last night. She’d arranged it with the wife lunchtime, and all I knew was what they’d arranged between them, about Karen going in the restaurant and everything. So Jen comes in at about seven, like I said, or a bit after, and Karen goes through, and Jen and me chats a bit, because there’s no-one in the bar yet; and then she says, Jen says, “Look, you don’t really need me here tonight, do you?” Well, Tuesdays are quiet – in the bar at any rate. So she says, “You can manage without me,” and I says yes, and she says, “Good, because I’ve got to go somewhere, to see someone.” And she gives me a wink, just like that, you know.’

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’

  ‘No,’ he said, and seemed to find it a naïve question. ‘Well, the thing was, she wanted me to cover for her. Now Eddie was barred, it meant he couldn’t come in and check up on her, so he’d think she was in here, and—’ He shrugged.

  ‘What time did she leave?’

  ‘About half seven, it must have been. She went out through the back, down the passage past the ladies’ and out through the garden, and that was the last I saw of her. She said she’d be back later but she never. Luckily Lin never came through until after ten, so I just told her Jen had finished and gone home.’

  ‘Why didn’t she want Linda to know where she was?’

  ‘Well, Lin’s a bit – careful with the money. It’s not that she’s not generous, I don’t say that, but she’s the one that keeps the books and everything and she’s – careful. She wouldn’t’ve liked if it I’d paid Jen for the evening and she wasn’t here.’

  ‘But then why did you have to pay her, if all you were doing was providing cover for her?’

  ‘Well, if I hadn’t paid her, Lin would’ve known she wasn’t here.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t your wife know Jennifer wasn’t here?’ Atherton asked, patiently trotting another circle
.

  ‘Well, Lin’s a bit, you know, strait-laced,’ Jack said, with what seemed like sudden inspiration. ‘She would never tell a lie, my wife, which is why Jen never asked her to cover for her.’

  ‘Did you think Jennifer was going to meet another man?’

  Jack looked defensive. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know where she was going. It was probably all innocent, but Eddie wouldn’t’ve thought so, which is why she needed me to cover for her. I’m sure it was all innocent. She just wanted to get away from Eddie.’

  As yarn went, Atherton thought, this was multi-coloured lurex thread. He went on unravelling. ‘So what would you have done if your wife had come through during the evening and found Jennifer not there?’ Atherton asked.

  ‘Well, she wasn’t likely to, with a big party in, but Jen said if she did I was just to say she’d felt a bit iffy and gone home; but as it was, Lin was really pushed and never come through till closing, so she never found out, and I never said.’

  ‘And what about Karen? Didn’t she come through at any point?’

  ‘Oh, yes, she was fetching the drinks for the restaurant. But I just told her to keep schtumm. She’s a good girl, she does what I tell her.’

  ‘I see. But surely the customers would know Jennifer wasn’t there, and let it out some time?’

  ‘Well, they wouldn’t expect her to be there anyway, so why should they mention it to Lin that she wasn’t?’ Atherton offered no reason. ‘You won’t tell her – Linda – will you?’ Jack pleaded, and laughed unconvincingly. ‘There’s no harm in it. I just want a quiet life, that’s all.’

  Atherton let it go. ‘What about Eddie Andrews? Did he come to check up on his wife at all?’

  ‘Twice,’ Jack said, seeming relieved to reach something more stable underfoot. ‘First time he came it was around eight, eight thirty. He’d had a few by then, I could tell. He comes bursting in through the door over there, but I nipped out smartish and stopped him, and told him to get out. “You’re barred,” I said, “and besides which we don’t allow work clothes in here.”’