Dead on Arrival

by Dorothy Simpson

  ‘What is the name of the other twin?’

  ‘Geoff. Geoffrey.’

  Thanet remembered the bawdy birthday card on Long’s mantelpiece. ‘And he’s still living with your sister?’

  ‘No. She died a couple of months ago.’ For the first time a shadow passed briefly across Mrs May’s face.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Who for? Her or me?’ Mrs May gave that harsh, cynical laugh again. ‘You certainly needn’t be sorry for her. She may have had it short, but she did have it good.’

  ‘She married well, you mean?’

  ‘Better’n I did, that’s for sure, even first time round. Then, the second time, she hit the jackpot. Married her boss.’

  It took a little while to get Mrs May’s tangled family relationships sorted out.

  Shortly after the departure of her first husband, Fred Long, Mrs May had found herself another man, Stanley May, whom she eventually married. They had had two more boys, Christopher and Frank, both now married and living in Sturrenden. Carson took down their addresses.

  ‘How did Steven get on with his half-brothers?’ asked Thanet.

  ‘He didn’t. Full stop.’

  ‘They argued?’

  ‘All the time. You got any children?’

  ‘I’m not sure what that has got to do with it.’

  ‘You would if you had more than one boy. Squabble squabble all day long. Drives you round the bend.’ Mrs May was getting restless, crossing her legs first one way, then the other, twiddling hair around her fingers, picking at a loose thread on the arm of her chair.

  ‘Didn’t they get on better as they grew up?’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice. It was Steve’s fault, really.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Frank and Chris didn’t go looking for trouble, if you see what I mean. Steve did, always … Fancy a little nip, Inspector?’

  ‘It’s a bit early for me, I’m afraid. But you go ahead, if you want to.’

  She jumped up with alacrity and crossed to the sideboard. ‘It’s so bloody cold in here …’

  By now the room was stifling. Thanet and Carson exchanged glances as she poured herself one glass of neat gin, tossed it off and poured another.

  She returned to her chair with the second drink. ‘That’s better … What were you saying?’

  ‘You were saying that Steve always went looking for trouble.’

  She drank, nodded. ‘S’right. Always did, even as a little’un. Used to needle you. Go on and on until you …’ She stopped.

  ‘Exploded?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ Her eyes were evasive.

  ‘So you think that’s what might have happened, last night? He provoked someone beyond endurance?’

  She shrugged. ‘I haven’t set eyes on him for months. How should I know?’

  Or care. The unspoken words hung in the air, almost audible.

  ‘What about his twin? Geoffrey? How did Steve get on with him?’

  ‘A bit better than with the others, I suppose. Not much.’

  ‘I thought there was supposed to be a closeness between identical twins.’

  ‘You could have fooled me. Perhaps it was because they never saw each other till they were … oh, let me see … must’ve been when they were nine or ten.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  When Mavis, Mrs May’s sister, had adopted Geoffrey, the other twin, she had been married to an insurance salesman called Hunt. Soon afterwards his work had taken him to another part of the country, where they had remained until his death, ten years later. Mrs Hunt and the boy had then returned to Sturrenden, where she had found a secretarial job in a small but prosperous firm which manufactured engineering components. Her boss, the owner, was a widower and a year later they married.

  ‘In clover, she was. He bought her a big house in Brompton Lane, then conveniently popped off, a couple of years later. Heart attack.’

  Thanet knew Brompton Lane well. He’d had a case there, once. The houses were Victorian, solidly built and spacious.

  ‘He was jealous as hell, of course,’ she added.

  It took Thanet a moment to realise who she was referring to. ‘Steve, you mean? Jealous of Geoffrey?’

  ‘Can you blame him?’ She waved her hand at their sleazy surroundings. ‘He wasn’t the only one.’

  ‘How did Geoffrey react to that?’

  ‘How should I know? They were hardly ever together and when they were I had better things to do than sit around staring at them.’

  ‘Were they much alike? In character, I mean?’

  She frowned, as if she had never considered the question before. ‘No. Well … I dunno. A bit, in some ways, I suppose.’

  ‘What ways?’

  ‘They both liked messing around with cars … Look, Inspector, I don’t want to be rude, but is there any point in all this? I mean, I can see you’ve got to ask questions, but like I said, I got to get to work. I’m on at eleven thirty and it’s ten past now.’

  She worked as a barmaid, apparently, in a pub on the housing estate.

  ‘Just one more question, then, Mrs May. Do you know anyone fitting this description?’ And Thanet described the young man seen coming away from Long’s flat the previous evening.

  As soon as he began Mrs May’s face went blank. She waited until he had finished then said, ‘Dozens of ’em. Could fit half the customers I see every day.’

  ‘No one you know personally?’

  ‘I know most of them personally. Why d’you want to know, anyway?’

  ‘Just wondered,’ said Thanet, vaguely.

  ‘Hard as nails, that one,’ said Carson as they walked back to the car.

  ‘I know.’ Thanet turned up the collar of his coat. The sky was an unbroken, leaden grey and it was beginning to rain again.

  ‘And she recognised that description all right, didn’t she? She just wasn’t letting on.’

  ‘I’m sure of it. I’m not too worried, though. We’ll find out which of them he is, soon enough.’

  Once again Thanet was missing Lineham and the ritual discussion after interviewing a witness. He felt like a boxer trying to fight with one arm tied behind his back. Hines had better keep his word, or there’ll be fireworks.

  ‘Where now, sir?’

  ‘When you talked to Mrs Long last night, did she tell you when she last saw her husband?’

  Carson grimaced. ‘I didn’t have a chance to ask her anything at all, sir. As soon as I broke the news to her she just fell apart. Of all the jobs we have to do, that’s the one I hate the most.’

  ‘Me too. Well, I suppose we’d better try and have a word with her. Though I don’t suppose she’ll be in much of a state to talk, after doing the identification. What time was she being picked up?’

  ‘Nine thirty.’

  So she should be back by now. It wouldn’t be the ideal time to interview her but Thanet did at least want to introduce himself and establish some kind of initial contact with her.

  The block of flats in which Sharon Long’s boyfriend lived had been put up in record time a few years ago by a speculative builder, and had been the subject of a never-ending stream of complaints ever since. Chunks of ceiling fell down, the plumbing didn’t work, and fixtures and fittings worked their way out of crumbling plaster. By now a number of the flats were empty and only the desperate moved in. Anything was better than being crammed in with in-laws, Thanet supposed, but looking around he sent up a silent prayer of thankfulness for his own comfortable, well-ordered home.

  There was no answer to their knock and they were about to turn away when the door across the landing opened and a young woman came out, struggling with two toddlers and a push-chair.

  ‘You looking for Sharon?’

  ‘Yes.’ Thanet held up his warrant card. ‘Detective Inspector Thanet, Sturrenden CID.’

  ‘That’ll be about ’er ’usband, I suppose. Terrible wasn’t it. Stop it, Darren.’

  Darren was jiggling the handle of t
he push-chair.

  ‘Sharon was that upset … Though I dunno, you’d think that, you know, her living with Ivor and all that … Will you stop that, Darren!’ The baby’s face was beginning to crease ominously. ‘She’s out. Gone to ’er mum’s for the day.’

  ‘Where does her mother live, do you know?’

  ‘Nightingale Road. Don’t know which number. Darren, if you don’t stop that I’ll give you to the policeman and he’ll take you away.’

  Thanet winced inwardly. He hated being used as a bogeyman by ineffective parents. All the same, he sympathised with the girl. Three children under the age of five were enough for anyone to cope with and it couldn’t be much fun struggling to do it here, with your home disintegrating around you and three flights of stairs to struggle up and down every time you went out because the lift was permanently out of order.

  ‘Do you happen to know her mother’s surname?’

  ‘Sorry, no.’

  ‘Not to worry. I’m sure we’ll find her. Do you know Mrs Long well?’

  ‘Not really. She’s out at work all day. And they’ve only been here a coupla weeks. Darren, I told you …’

  The baby had had enough. It began to cry and the girl gave her recalcitrant son a half-hearted slap on the bottom. His wails combined with the baby’s to echo deafeningly off the bare walls of the landing and stair-well.

  ‘Shall we give you a hand down with the push-chair?’ Thanet had to shout, to make himself heard.

  ‘Oh, ta.’

  At the bottom of the stairs she smiled gratefully at them before setting off into the wind and rain, head down, one toddler clutching at the push-chair handle on either side.

  If there had ever been any of the fabled birds in Nightingale Road they had long since disappeared. Carson went off to knock on doors and track down Sharon’s mother and Thanet stood looking about him. It was a short street of neat little early Victorian cottages, obviously owned by a conscientious landlord: the roofs were in uniformly good repair, identical replacement windows punctuated the well-pointed façades, and all the front doors were the same serviceable shade of milk chocolate.

  Strange, thought Thanet, his imagination kindled by the poetry of the name, to think that this very spot where I am standing was once deep in the heart of the great forest.

  This, he knew, had stretched a hundred and twenty miles from east to west, thirty miles wide, from behind Folkstone right across Kent into the neighbouring county of Sussex, a wild, virtually uninhabitated region of giant oaks, deer and wild boar.

  ‘… sir.’

  He became aware that Carson was speaking to him. ‘Sorry, Tom. What did you say?’

  ‘Her name’s Mrs Pinfold, sir. Lives at number 14.’

  The woman who opened the door reminded Thanet of a boxer dog: square jowls, pugnacious expression, solid build.

  He introduced himself, but she was clearly reluctant to let them in.

  She folded her arms belligerently. ‘My daughter’s not well. She’s very upset. She’s only just got back from the mortuary.’

  ‘We are aware of that, Mrs Pinfold,’ said Thanet gently. ‘And we do understand your concern for her.’ With a non-criminal aggressive witness he invariably retreated into mildness. He found it by far the most disconcerting way to react.

  As now.

  Mrs Pinfold shifted uneasily and said, ‘Yes, well …’

  ‘I assure you that I have no intention of interrogating her. But as I am in charge of the investigation into her husband’s death, I thought it only proper to introduce myself … I just wanted a word with her about the identification this morning … And to ask her, at this stage, just one question.’

  ‘What question?’

  ‘Whether or not she saw him, yesterday. We are trying to build up a picture of his movements, you see, so far without much success. It really would be very helpful if we could …’

  ‘All right, then,’ said Mrs Pinfold ungraciously. ‘But only for a few minutes, mind.’

  She led them into a room of formidable cleanliness and neatness. Furniture gleamed, the window sparkled, even the aspidistra leaves looked polished, and everything was geometrically arranged: chairs at right angles to the fireplace, television exactly parallel to the wall.

  ‘I’ll fetch her,’ she said grudgingly.

  The girl who came into the room a few moments later was a complete contrast to her mother; small and slim, she looked as though a strong wind would blow her right away. Her face was chalk-white, with dark hollows of grief and sleeplessness around the eyes. Her hair, though, was beautiful, an airy cloud of filigree-gold curls.

  Mrs Pinfold was close behind, steering her protectively with one hand.

  They all sat down and Thanet chatted quietly for a few moments, to put Sharon at her ease. He would have liked to talk to her at length, but that would have to wait for another day. She was, he noticed, very fond of jewellery. She was wearing gold hoop earrings, three gold necklaces of varying lengths and thicknesses, and rings on most of her fingers.

  ‘I expect your mother told you why I wanted to see you?’

  She nodded. She had rolled her handkerchief up into a ball and was turning it over and over, tugging incessantly at one corner.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you to go back once more over what must have been a very distressing experience for you, but I’m afraid circumstances make it necessary … The identification this morning … You’re absolutely certain it was your husband?’

  She nodded again, a single, jerky movement. She was having to exert all her self-control to contain her emotion.

  ‘I have to ask you, you see, because we understand that he has a twin brother.’

  She immediately understood the implication. Her head snapped up. ‘You mean …?’ Hope flared briefly in her eyes, followed by a gleam of calculation, then resignation. She shook her head, sadly. ‘No. It was Steve, I’m certain of it.’

  ‘I’m sorry … You do understand why I had to ask?’ Thanet waited for her nod before going on. ‘I won’t trouble you much longer, but there is just one more point I’d like to raise with you. We’re trying to get some idea of your husband’s movements yesterday, and we haven’t had much luck so far. We were wondering if you could help us. Did you by any chance see him, at any time yesterday?’

  ‘Yes.’ She glanced apologetically at her mother. ‘Just for a few minutes.’

  Mrs Pinfold’s lips tightened.

  ‘When was this?’ asked Thanet.

  ‘He came straight from work.’

  ‘And he finished work at what time?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, with this new job. But it must have been half five, I think. He was there about twenty to six.’

  ‘And he stayed how long?’

  ‘Five minutes, ten at the most. I … He …’

  ‘Always pestering her, he was,’ burst out Mrs Pinfold. ‘Just wouldn’t leave her alone. You’d think he wouldn’t have the nerve, after the way he treated her …’

  ‘Mum,’ said Sharon wearily. ‘Leave it out, will you?’

  ‘What did he want?’ said Thanet.

  ‘What he usually wanted, of course,’ said Mrs Pinfold, undeterred by Sharon’s request. ‘He was always on at her to go back to him.’

  ‘It don’t do no good, going on like that, Mum. Don’t you understand? He’ll never be coming round again.’ Sharon jumped to her feet, tears starting to her eyes, fists clenched as if to fight the onrush of pain. ‘He’s dead. Dead, do you hear me?’ Her voice had risen but now she broke off, sinking down on to her chair like a puppet whose strings have just been released. She buried her face in her hands and began rocking to and fro, shaking her head.

  Mrs Pinfold stood up and shot Thanet a furious glance. ‘Now look what you’ve done. Just when she was starting to pull herself together, too.’

  He opened his mouth to protest, then decided it wasn’t worth it.

  ‘I think we’d better go.’

  He and Carson rose. As t
hey walked to the door Thanet laid a sympathetic hand on Sharon’s shoulder.

  At least one person, then, truly mourned Steven Long’s passing.

  FIVE

  It was twenty past two by the time Lineham walked into the office.

  ‘Mike! I was just about to ring Mr Hines, to find out where you’d got to.’

  Lineham grinned. ‘I’m afraid you’re not too popular in that quarter, sir.’ He sat down and put his hands proprietorially on his desk. ‘It’s good to be back.’

  ‘Any news yet?’

  They both knew what he was referring to. After much heart-searching Lineham had finally decided to take the plunge and try for promotion to Inspector. He had taken the written examinations, had waited the usual interminable three or four months for the results to come through, and had passed. Unfortunately, promotion was not thereafter automatic, especially in Kent, where there is always a great press of applicants. Of the one hundred and fifty men who had passed the examinations, only a third would be called to the Selection Board, and Lineham was waiting to hear if he would be one of them. A further sifting would then take place and approximately twenty-five candidates would attempt the final hurdle, the Promotion Board. Only five or six of these would finally make the grade.

  Thanet had very ambivalent feelings about the whole business. He didn’t want to stand in Lineham’s way, had even positively encouraged him to go ahead, once the sergeant had made up his mind to do so. But he suspected that it was Louise who had pushed Lineham into seeking promotion and that left to his own devices the sergeant would have been content to leave things as they were. Thanet himself very much doubted that Lineham would make it, and sincerely hoped that the sergeant’s self-esteem, always somewhat precarious, would not be too badly damaged by the failure, if it came.

  Lineham shook his head mournfully. ‘Not yet. It’s really beginning to get me down.’

  And the sleepless nights inevitable with a new-born baby couldn’t be helping either, thought Thanet. Lineham was very pale, with dark smudges beneath his eyes.

  ‘Come on, cheer up. It’ll be any day, now.’

  ‘Louise says if the suspense goes on much longer she’ll run round the town screaming.’