Suspicious Death

by Dorothy Simpson

  Salden was watching him closely. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ His voice rose. ‘That is what you’re getting at, isn’t it?’ A rush of indignation drove him to his feet and he stood confronting Thanet, feet planted firmly apart and hands shoved into his pockets. ‘My God,’ he said, glaring down at him, ‘you really are the lowest of the low, aren’t you?’

  Inwardly, Thanet winced but, knowing that in circumstances like these silence is the most powerful weapon of all, he still did not respond.

  ‘How can you do it?’ said Salden, working himself up into a real fury. ‘How would you feel if your wife had just been dragged out of the river and some grubby little policeman came along and said you’d shoved her in yourself, tell me that?’

  This accorded so well with what Thanet himself felt that he was stung into speech. ‘I said no such thing.’

  Salden brushed the denial aside. ‘Said, implied, what’s the difference? It all conies down to the same thing, doesn’t it? You think I might have killed her.’ He shook his head in disgust and began to blunder blindly about the room, as if trying to find his way out of an impossible situation.

  Lineham tensed, but Thanet shook his head. Let him be.

  Salden clutched his head. ‘I don’t believe this. I just don’t believe it.’

  ‘Mr Salden.’

  The note of command in Thanet’s voice was so powerful that Salden was stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Mr Salden,’ Thanet repeated, more gently. ‘Look, I know this is an unpleasant situation …’

  Salden gave a great bark of mirthless laughter. ‘Unpleasant, he says!’

  ‘For both of us. And for you most of all. But …’

  ‘Oh, I’m glad you recognise that! Very glad! You’re right, it is unpleasant to be accused of murdering your wife when you’re still trying to grasp the fact that she’s gone for ever. Do you have even the first glimmering of what that can be like? Of course you haven’t. No one can, if they haven’t actually been through it themselves. There’s this huge gap, this vast empty space, which has always been filled by one person … And you know that no one can fill it ever again, that you’re going to have to live with that gap for the rest of your life. How can you even begin to understand? It’s as if life itself has hit you with a sledgehammer and you know you’re never going to get over it, never …’

  Salden was fighting for control. Thanet and Lineham sat frozen into silence. What can you say in response to grief so raw and unconcealed?

  ‘And then,’ said Salden, his voice still shaking, ‘you’re expected to sit down meekly and face the allegation that you killed her yourself!’

  ‘Mr Salden …’

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more! Get out, will you? Just get out!’

  Thanet and Lineham consulted each other with a glance. They’d inflicted more than enough pain on the man for one day, Thanet thought. He nodded and they both rose, walked silently to the door. Thanet had his hand on the knob when Salden said, ‘No!’

  They turned.

  Salden was chinking the change in his pockets, his restless fingers unconsciously betraying his jangled nerves. ‘If I don’t answer your bloody questions now you’ll only come back another day. I’ve changed my mind. I want to get it over with.’

  Thanet hesitated. He wasn’t sure that there was any point in continuing, with Salden in this state.

  Salden misread him. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I won’t blow my top again. I can see that it’s in my own interest to satisfy your curiosity’ – he practically spat the word out – ‘as soon as possible.’ He sat down decisively in the wing chair and folded his hands in his lap. ‘So I’m ready when you are.’

  ‘If you’re sure …’

  ‘I’ve said so, haven’t I?’

  Thanet and Lineham returned to their seats.

  ‘Right,’ said Thanet briskly. ‘We’ll be as quick as possible. This walk …’

  ‘We’ve been over all that once,’ interrupted Salden impatiently.

  ‘Please … bear with me for just a moment. This bench you were sitting on. How far away from the bridge was it?’

  ‘Quite a long way. Three or four hundred yards, perhaps?’

  ‘It was dark, of course. Would you be able to see anyone walking across the bridge, from that distance?’

  ‘No. Not clearly, anyway, not to recognise anyone.’

  ‘There’s a lamp on the pub side of the bridge, isn’t there? What about on the other side? I’m not too clear on that.’

  ‘It’s a sore point. We’ve been trying to get another one installed. The nearest one is a hundred yards away, where the houses start.’

  ‘I see … Now I’d like you to think very carefully. While you were sitting on your bench, did you in fact see or hear any noise at all from the direction of the bridge? Voices, for example, or footsteps?’ Or sounds of a struggle, or a splash? Thanet shuddered at the thought of Salden’s wife fighting for her life with her husband sitting innocently on a bench only a quarter of a mile away. ‘It was a clear, frosty night, so sound would have carried quite a long way, I imagine.’

  The brief, factual questions were calming Salden down. He was frowning hard, trying to remember.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘I just can’t remember. I wasn’t taking any notice, you see. I vaguely remember the odd car going by, but that’s all.’

  It was pointless to ask if, on his way back to Mrs Carter’s cottage, Salden had seen his wife. He would obviously deny it. ‘On your way back to your mother-in-law’s house, did you see anyone?’

  ‘Not a soul.’

  ‘This walk you took … I must confess I’m a little puzzled.’

  Salden raised his eyebrows.

  ‘As to why you didn’t go home instead? Especially as you had guests to dinner that evening.’

  ‘I just wasn’t feeling particularly sociable.’

  ‘Even so …’

  ‘To be blunt, Inspector, I just couldn’t face the prospect of making polite conversation. My mother-in-law and I were very close, I told you … It really upset me to see her like that. At that particular moment I couldn’t have cared less how discourteous it looked.’

  ‘That dinner party …’ Careful now, Thanet told himself. He didn’t want to set Salden off again. On the other hand, he had to find out … ‘I did have the impression it wasn’t just a normal social occasion.’

  ‘Oh?’ Salden’s eyes were wary.

  ‘One of your guests was Councillor Lomax, I understand.’

  ‘Yes he was.’

  ‘I believe he is chairman of the Planning Committee. And your wife was hoping to get a rather tricky planning permission …’ The implication was clear and Thanet awaited Salden’s response with interest and some trepidation. Would he pretend not to understand, feign ignorance, become angry, bluster …?

  Salden sighed. ‘Yes … Perhaps I should explain … My wife was an amazing woman. If you knew the kind of background she came from … Her father was an alcoholic, and they never had two pennies to rub together. I think that was why she had this tremendous drive to succeed. She was one of my students, you know, that was how we met. I was lecturing at the time on a Business Studies course, and this was what singled her out from all the rest. She was so determined … I couldn’t help admiring her for that, it was what attracted me to her in the first place. I’ve always admired people who knew what they wanted and were prepared to work hard to get it. So I could hardly complain if, from time to time, she set out to do something I didn’t really approve of. She never was the type to rest on her laurels, she was always looking for some bigger challenge to move on to and usually I just let her get on with it.’

  ‘And this particular scheme?’

  Salden shrugged. ‘I told her I didn’t like it. But if you think I shoved her off the bridge to stop her going on with it, I’m afraid you’re way off the mark. There were other ways to show my disapproval.’

  ‘Like ducking out of the dinner party, for example?’
r />   For the first time there was a flicker of amusement in Salden’s eyes. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘The other guest, Miss Trimble …?’

  ‘We all call her Josie. She spends quite a lot of time here. She’s only eighteen and she comes from the village, her mother’s a widow so they’ve had a bit of a struggle to manage. Josie was … well, I suppose you could call her a protégé of my wife’s. We never actually discussed it, but I think Marcia saw herself in the girl, and was trying to help her to better herself – teaching her table manners and so on.’

  ‘So she was often invited to dinner parties? To put into practice what she’d learned.’

  ‘Yes. Well, not often, exactly. We don’t – didn’t – entertain much.’

  ‘In that case, wasn’t your wife annoyed, that you didn’t go back to join them?’

  Salden blinked. ‘How should I know? I never saw her again … Oh, you mean earlier, when we spoke on the phone? No, I don’t think so. In fact I think at that point she was just relieved that she wouldn’t have to go down to the village herself. It had been too late, earlier, to stop Lomax coming, Nurse Lint didn’t ring until just before half-past seven.’

  ‘Your wife went down to see her mother later though, leaving her guests entirely on their own.’

  Another shrug. ‘In the normal way of things she’d only have been away ten or fifteen minutes, if she’d gone by car.’

  ‘But she still went, even though the car wouldn’t start.’

  ‘True. But she’d have expected to find me there, remember. No doubt she thought I’d be able to give her a lift back, or that she could borrow my keys and drive back in my car … Look, Inspector, I really can’t see why we’re dredging all this up. Yes, she did go, and yes, I agree it did look odd, leaving her guests by themselves like that, but it happened and I can’t see any point in discussing it further.’

  ‘Why did Mrs Carter want to see you?’

  Salden lifted his shoulders. ‘She was convinced she was dying. Wasn’t that a good enough reason?’

  ‘In that case, wasn’t it strange that she didn’t ask for your wife in the first place?’

  ‘She knew I’d get Marcia to come when I felt the time was right. My mother-in-law was a very proud woman in some ways, especially where my wife was concerned. It was as if she didn’t want it to look as though she was making any kind of claim on her. I could never understand it myself. She really hated asking Marcia for anything. Anyway, I decided to ring Marcia from the cottage when I got back from my walk and tell her I thought she ought to come down. I knew dinner would be over by then and she’d be able to get rid of Lomax and Josie without too much difficulty. But of course, when I got back to the cottage, she’d already been and gone.’

  ‘I understand you missed her by just a few minutes.’

  ‘Yes.’ Salden shivered and wrapped his arms around his body. ‘If only I’d started back a few minutes earlier she’d still be alive …’

  ‘There’s never any point in saying “If only”, Mr Salden,’ said Thanet gently.

  ‘Maybe not. But how do you stop yourself, in circumstances like these?’

  The pain in Salden’s eyes was so intense that it was almost unbearable to meet them and there was no doubting his sincerity.

  ‘Just one more question, and we’ll leave you in peace. When you got home, why didn’t you go into your wife’s room and tell her that her mother had died?’

  ‘It was four in the morning, Inspector. Her room was in darkness and I assumed she’d been asleep for hours. What was the point in waking her up? She couldn’t have done anything.’

  This was unanswerable.

  They left.

  TWELVE

  ‘Well, that was no act, was it?’ said Lineham. ‘He really did care about her, didn’t he?’

  Thanet had decided that a visit to Greenleaf was definitely next on the agenda and they were crossing the lawn towards the entrance to the footpath. It was a relief to get out into the open air, away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of the house. He sniffed appreciatively and turned his face to the sun, which had just broken through. ‘Mmm.’ His feet scuffed through the lake of fallen petals beneath the cherry tree. ‘Doesn’t necessarily exonerate him, though.’ Violent crime, he knew, stirred strong passions in those caught up in its aftermath – guilt, anger and frustration as well as sorrow and regret.

  ‘He seemed pretty cut up, to me.’

  ‘Oh yes, I agree, he is.’

  ‘And not so ordinary after all.’

  ‘True. Just shows it never pays to judge by outward appearances.’

  They walked on in a companionable silence, Thanet wondering if the Sergeant had yet managed to have that talk with his wife. He certainly looked much more cheerful this morning.

  Lineham unhooked the gate and held it open.

  A young woman was coming up the footpath from the village, leaning forward with the effort of propelling a toddler in a pushchair up the hill. She checked for a moment when she saw the two men, then came on again more slowly. It looked as though Marcia’s death had encouraged people to start using the short cut again. Perhaps this girl thought she was about to be accused of trespassing. Or perhaps, Thanet thought as they stepped aside on to the grass for her to pass, she was simply nervous of meeting two strange men out here where there was no one to come to her aid if she were attacked. She had scuttled past, barely returning their greeting, and he thought how sad it was that nowadays women felt so vulnerable that even an innocent chance encounter such as this became an occasion for fear.

  As they rounded the trees near the river and glanced up the grassy slope towards Greenleaf’s hut, Lineham gave Thanet an excited nudge.

  ‘He’s there, sir.’

  It was logical to assume that the figure stooping over the vegetable patch was Greenleaf. A black and white mongrel which had been lying near him leaped up and started to bark the moment it spotted them and Greenleaf turned to look. He straightened up, shoving his fork into the ground, and, hands on hips, watched them approach. Thanet realised with surprise that the recluse was much younger than he had expected. For some reason he had visualised Greenleaf as an old man, in his sixties or seventies, but even from a distance it was obvious from the vigour of his movements that he was a good decade or two younger.

  It was, of course, impossible to tell his age from his face.

  Even though Thanet had been prepared for the man’s disfigurement, he still experienced a shock of pity when they drew close enough to see him clearly. The fire in which he had received his injuries must have been horrendous. Despite the miracles which plastic surgery is now able to achieve, Greenleaf’s face was barely human, its contours unnatural, the skin stretched and shiny, the nose virtually non-existent, the mouth lipless, the eyes mere slits. He was wearing worn but clean corduroy trousers and a collarless shirt rolled up above the elbows. His hands and arms had been badly burned too. Thanet could see why he lived in self-imposed isolation. It would be impossible for him ever to go out without attracting glances of fascinated horror, aversion or pity. Deliberately, Thanet kept his face impassive, and hoped that Lineham was managing to do the same.

  The dog was still barking frantically. Greenleaf made no move to quieten it until the two men were only a few yards away, then he extended the forefinger of his right hand and pointed briefly at the dog’s muzzle. It fell silent at once, sitting down close beside him. His hand moved over its head in a brief gesture of praise before he said, ‘Who are you?’ He obviously didn’t believe in wasting words. His voice was hoarse, rusty perhaps with disuse. He would have no one to talk to but the animals. He listened to Thanet’s introductions, his eyes moving to Lineham and back again. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

  ‘Thought you might be more of those danged reporters. Or the bailiffs, come to chuck me out.’

  Thanet shook his head. ‘We’re looking into the death of Mrs Salden.’

  ‘Ah … Yes, I heard about that … Falled in the
river, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she did. We wondered if you knew anything about it.’

  ‘Knew anything?’

  The dog growled low in its throat, a barometer perhaps of its master’s emotions. Thanet could not remember ever having to interview a witness without being able to try to gauge his reaction from his face.

  ‘She was drowned in the river down there.’ Thanet gestured at the waters of the Teale in the valley below, sparkling innocently in the spring sunshine. ‘We thought perhaps you might have seen or heard something.’

  ‘I heard tell that there’s a lot of questions being asked,’ said Greenleaf. ‘In the village and all.’

  ‘A woman is dead,’ said Thanet. ‘Of course we’re asking a lot of questions. And until we find out how and when she died, we’ll be asking a lot more.’

  ‘You’re thinking, perhaps, that someone might have helped her on her way.’

  ‘It is one possibility, yes.’

  ‘And you asks yourself, “Now, who would be glad to see the back of Mrs Salden?” And back comes the answer, “Harry Greenleaf, that’s who. Him what was about to be turned off her land and made to join the ranks of the homeless.” Am I right?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Just so long as we know where we are.’

  ‘So …’ Thanet was brisk. ‘Now that we’re quite clear about it … Perhaps you could tell us where you were, that night.’

  ‘Well now, which night was that, can you tell me?’ Disfigured hand came up and rubbed travesty of a chin in a gesture of mock puzzlement.

  No point in allowing yourself to be riled, Thanet told himself. ‘Oh, come, Mr Greenleaf,’ he said lightly, ‘your memory can’t be that short, surely. It was only the night before last.’

  ‘The night before last,’ Greenleaf said thoughtfully. He looked down at the dog and stroked its head. ‘Do you remember what we was doing the night before last, Jack?’

  He and the dog gazed at each other in silence for a moment or two. ‘Ah, yes, that’s right. Thanks, Jack.’ Greenleaf’s slits of eyes turned in Thanet’s direction again. ‘I was busy packing up, of course. On account of expecting to be turfed out next morning.’