A Shock to the System

by Simon Brett

  He was going to have to do something about Robert Benham.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Detective-Inspector Laker looked again at the letter. It was typewritten and had arrived through the post that morning, addressed simply (and incorrectly) to ‘Murder Department’.

  A crank letter would normally have been dealt with further down the hierarchy. It was only because of the very specific nature of the accusation that it had teen referred to him.

  The message was short.

  THERE ARE CONSTANT COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE NUMBER OF UNSOLVED MURDERS, AND THAT DOESN’T DO MUCH FOR THE POLICE IMAGE. IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE THE STATISTICS, YOU COULD DO WORSE THAN ASK GRAHAM MARSHALL OF 173, BOILEAU AVENUE ABOUT THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE, MERRILY.

  Needless to say, there was no signature.

  Detective-Inspector Laker looked at the paper hard. He didn’t handle it. In the unlikely event of investigation being required, the less new prints the better.

  From the criminal point of view, he didn’t take it very seriously. The shock of death, he knew, produced bizarre reactions in people; its random nature, its lack of apparent purpose, had power to change characters overnight. The sheer disbelief of bereavement, the desperate desire to explain the inexplicable, could lead to wild accusations, usually against doctors and hospitals, but often against individuals too.

  No, it was not the nature of the letter that disturbed him; it was just one phrase in it. ‘The death of his wife.’

  It was eight months since Helen had died. He thought he was getting better; at times he could even think ahead, make plans beyond the imperatives of work; he would never get over it, but at times he could envisage living in a kind of equilibrium with the knowledge of her absence.

  And then something like this would happen. He never knew what it would be that triggered the return of his raw, uncontainable grief. It could be the sight of a woman in the street, a sentence half-heard in a television play, a smell of cooking, or something as fatuously irrelevant as those five typewritten words. And when it came, the pain still had power to destroy him, sap his strength and poison his thoughts, leaving him empty, exhausted and afraid.

  Yes, obviously the letter needed some sort of token investigation. But it could wait a few days.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Graham liked being alone in the Boileau Avenue house.

  Charmian had taken the children to Islington for the weekend. This was not their final move, merely one of the steps in their process of acclimatisation. She had presented it to them as fun and, though Graham’s opinion of Charmian had been soured by her statement of distrust in him, he could still appreciate her skill in managing his offspring. This weekend, she announced, Henry and Emma could come and select their rooms in her house. If they liked, they could go out and buy some paint to start decorating the rooms. At least they could reconnoitre the area, try the local hamburger joints, maybe even see what was on at the local cinemas.

  Graham felt confident that they were in good hands. Absurdly, that little righteous sensation of being a model father returned to him. There he was, selflessly doing what was best for his children.

  Lilian was also conveniently looked after. Though Graham’s sole interest in her was that they should never meet again, he was aware that appearances must be kept up. To banish her too suddenly from his life might draw attention to his behaviour, and he knew that all his future plans depended on maintaining a low profile.

  He had therefore talked very solicitously to the hospital doctor about his mother-in-law’s condition. She was obviously in a state of shock, he agreed, after her daughter’s death, but he did not feel this could have been helped by the additional stress of looking after her two grandchildren. He was also certain that staying in the house where her daughter had died must have been a contributory factor in her suffering, and felt it would be better if she returned to her own flat. It was not, of course, that he was unwilling to look after her, but he felt his own emotional stability to be so precarious that he feared he might do more harm than good. Since his own unhappiness sprang from the same cause as his mother-in-law’s, namely Merrily’s death, he feared that the two of them together might only exacerbate each other’s distress.

  He found, as he made his recitation, a full repertoire of pauses, sighs and sobs came unbidden to his aid, and the performance was taken at face value. The doctor agreed with what he said, regretted Mrs. Hinchcliffe’s uncompromising hostility towards her surviving daughter, and arranged for her to return to her own flat, where a voluntary helper would stay with her over the weekend.

  Graham was thus freed to enjoy his solitude.

  That solitude was not uninterrupted. There were still phone calls of sympathy from former friends, and the estate agent sent round four couples at intervals to inspect the property. All of these were properly respectful of his recently bereaved status. They regretted, from his point of view, the need to sell the house, but could see exactly why he was doing it. Three of the couples showed a gratifying amount of interest and one implied that some form of offer might not be long in coming.

  This pleased Graham, because, although he felt at ease alone in the house that day, his happiness arose from the solitude rather than the surroundings. The house was too large and raised too many responsibilities. Since Merrily’s death it had quickly got untidy and Lilian’s barnstorming forays with Hoover and duster had made little impression. Then Graham found that he was having to devote time to washing shirts and socks. He also looked with distaste at, but ultimately ignored, the rising tide of dirty clothes in the children’s bedrooms. Perhaps Charmian should move ud her proposed schedule. He couldn’t cope for long with the constant kitting-out and other services that Henry and Emma required.

  He also resented the clutter of the house, the volume of furniture and bits that Merrily had accumulated. Though he had been present, and even consulted, at many of the purchases, he thought of it all as exclusively hers. Now she was gone, and the house soon to go, he would sell the lot, piano, pine dressers, hatstands, rocking chairs, knick-knacks — all could go to the first bidder.

  Yes, the sooner he was installed in his nice little service flat, the better.

  A pleasing thought struck him. The normal inhibition of house purchase, unwillingness to be saddled, however briefly, with two mortgages, did not apply to him. Merrily’s death, something he now saw as an artefact, with its own perfection of design, had freed him from such restrictions. There was nothing to stop him from looking for, or indeed buying and moving into, a flat straight away.

  But not yet. He would keep this weekend to himself, cosset himself a little, recoup, build up his strength for the next test.

  And read. He had bought another book about murderers, this time one by a Home Office pathologist. The subject was beginning to fascinate him, but the fascination was not that of prurience. His interest was detached, professional, almost academic. He shook his head over the follies of past murderers, their carelessness, their lack of proper planning. He felt towards them much as he had towards his colleagues at Crasoco, that they were maybe good, but that in a straight race he had the skills to beat them.

  His feelings towards the murderers, however, were subtly different. With them he felt an identity, a mild regret for their failures, a unity in the freemasonry of murder.

  He experienced mild anxiety about his growing interest in the subject. Any behaviour tainted with obsession was alien to him. The first murder had been an accident, and Merrily’s a logical solution to a problem. He must never begin to think of murder as more than a means to an end.

  And what was the end he had in view? He decided he should devote a little time to the analysis of his motives.

  His main reason for killing his wife had been financial. Her death offered him a way out of a situation that threatened to reproduce his parents’ parsimonious existence. It also brought other benefits, freed him from unwelcome responsibilities, and offered him the chance of living the sort of life
he wanted.

  And what did he want? An hotel-like environment, and no emotional ties. Freedom to be himself, do what he chose. To have a nice flat, a nice car, enough money, go out where and when he wanted. And with whom. He was not yet sure to what extent sex would play a part in his new life, but it was an option not to be forgotten.

  By one murder, he had achieved most of those objectives. With Merrily and the children out of his life, there was nothing to stop him from building up his dream.

  Why then did he not feel complete satisfaction? What was the little unease in his mind?

  Deep down he knew, but he teased himself by withholding the answer for a little while.

  It was work. His image of his free self had projected a Graham Marshall who was Head of Personnel at Crasoco, not a passed-over and resented assistant to another appointee.

  Robert Benham was the problem.

  And while there might be political ways within the Crasoco system of dealing with that problem, there was another, much quicker, method. Robert might talk airily of Human Resources, but he was not aware of the inhuman resources of his rival.

  It was not just a morbid fascination with murder that brought Graham to his conclusion. To kill Robert Benham was the logical thing to do.

  Accepting this fact, one which had recently popped in and out of his mind with some frequency, gave it official status. Now he had declared his intention to himself, he could begin to plan.

  The murder of Robert Benham would not be as easily accomplished as that of Merrily Marshall. Though he felt pride in the achievement of his wife’s death, Graham could see the advantages which he had when planning it. A knowledge of her habits and a knowledge of her environment had both helped. Lack of any motive apparent to the outside world had also been on his side. Living in the same house, he had had time and opportunity to set up the means of her removal. And his absence in Brussels had ensured its remote operation. Setting it in perspective, after, the first euphoria of achievement, he could see that it was a good murder, but not a great murder.

  To dispose of Robert Benham he would need something rather better. And in the case of Benham, he might be seen to have a discernible motive, so greater caution would be required.

  Like Merrily’s, he decided, the young man’s death must appear to be accidental. Though he thought he had the skills to divert suspicion from himself in a murder investigation, life would be considerably simplified if no such investigation were ever started.

  Benham had three main areas of operation where he might meet with an accident — at the office, at his Dolphin Square flat, or at his country cottage. Other settings were appealing, but impractical. For Robert to be run down on his way to work, or for him to fall down a flight of steps on one of his visits to Miami, were attractive, but hard to arrange. Or hard to arrange without Graham’s involvement being too obvious. If he just happened to be in Miami at the same time as Benham, the finger of suspicion would not take too long to home in on him. No, as with Merrily, the operation had to be remote. When Benham died his murderer must not be in the vicinity; Graham must be somewhere else with an unbreakable alibi.

  These were just general principles. Graham felt no great urgency to form a complete plan at once. The fact that he was making a start, that he had made the decision, gave him sufficient pleasure for the time being. He opened a rather good bottle of wine and settled down to watch Saturday evening television.

  He awoke on the Sunday morning, luxuriating in the space of the double bed. He contemplated masturbating. There was nothing to stop him; it might be quite fun. But an exploratory hand stirred no response. And his mind remained empty of carnal images. Perhaps he really had managed to eliminate desire, along with so many other inconvenient distractions, when he killed Merrily.

  He went downstairs to make a cup of instant coffee and collect the papers, then returned to bed. He felt deliciously unhurried. Time to savour all the irrelevancies that journalists dig up for Sundays; time, if he got bored with that, to relish a few more of the pathologist’s tales of murder; time, if he felt like it, to think and plan.

  The papers occupied him for forty minutes, the book a mere ten. Then, giving in good-humouredly to his mind like an indulgent father, he returned to the teaser of Robert Benham’s murder.

  First, the setting for the fatal accident. .

  He thought about the office. Like all buildings, the Crasoco tower offered opportunities for fatal accidents. As he knew from experience, anywhere on mains electricity could prove lethal. There were also boilers to explode, heavy furniture to crush people, lift shafts and staircases to be fallen down. Come to that, there were windows to fall out of. Only a year before a twenty-two-year-old secretary had drawn attention to the unhappiness of her affair with her boss by projecting herself from the tenth floor. As a method of killing it had been undoubtedly efficacious.

  But nobody was going to believe in Robert Benham as a suicide victim. The idea was totally incongruous. And the idea of anyone falling accidentally from those windows was even less convincing. Because of the building’s air conditioning, actually getting one open was quite an achievement.

  Besides, even granted the gift of Robert Benham standing at an open window, Graham would have to be on hand — and therefore visible — to push him.

  The same objection arose with all office accidents. The Crasoco tower was a busy place; few things occurred unseen. And even if Graham could engineer an accident without witnesses, or, better, contrive one that happened by remote control, it was all too close. In the office setting, if there were the slightest suspicion, professional rivalries would instantly be investigated. The atmosphere between the two had been observed, and Graham’s statements to the lunchtime anti-Benham faction would be remembered. He would be set up as a prime suspect.

  No, the office was out.

  He had never been to the Dolphin Square flat, but knowledge of the block and the dangers of any break-in being witnessed, ruled it out straight away.

  He turned his attention to the cottage. This offered considerable advantages over the Crasoco tower and the flat. First it was remote. If, as Benham had implied, he was frequently there on his own, the danger of witnesses was less. Or if a remotely triggered method could be devised, Graham was unlikely to be observed while setting it up. The cottage was also old and, though it had been extensively modernised, its age made an accident more feasible.

  Then there were all those beams. And the thatch. In a place like that fire would spread instantly. And the cottage’s small windows might make escape difficult. Anyone asleep upstairs when a fire started would be lucky to survive.

  As a method of killing it would undoubtedly work, but setting up a suitable conflagration posed problems. Arson was not one of Graham Marshall’s special subjects, but his reading of newspapers suggested that it was a crime fairly easily detected. So shoving petrol-soaked rags through the letter box, or throwing a can of the stuff in at one of the windows, or even — in a frivolous image his mind presented — shooting flaming arrows Indian-style at the thatch, though probably efficacious methods, were unlikely to escape the notice of the authorities.

  And they all had the disadvantage of requiring Graham’s presence at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime.

  There were remote methods that might work. Maybe he could use another act of electrical sabotage. Some appliance that could overheat near a curtain, perhaps? Or near a sofa? The flames from the burning foam in modern sofas were notoriously deadly.

  Hmm, not quite. The idea had not quite the form yet, not the intellectual perfection that his plan to dispose of Merrily had had. He wondered briefly whether he really had been so convinced when he devised his wife’s quietus, or whether the conviction had been added in the retrospect of success. On balance, he thought it had always been there, and felt confident that, when he got the right idea for Robert Benham’s extinction, he would recognise it.

  He brought his mind back to the cottage. There were arguments
against the staging of electrical disasters. The timing might be a problem. Suppose the faulty appliance were spotted. . Then the sabotage might be identified and investigations ensue.

  The trouble with any such plan was that it would involve housebreaking. He realised again how easy he had had it with Merrily. Was that, he wondered wryly, the reason why the majority of murders are of cohabitants?

  Breaking into Robert’s cottage to set a booby-trap doubled the risk. There was a danger of discovery, not only when the thing went off, but while it was being installed. And there was no guarantee that. .

  Suddenly he remembered the bright blue burglar alarm on the front of the cottage.

  For the time being he had reached an impasse. He took the realisation philosophically. Time enough, time enough. He was on the right track. He would get there.

  It was while he was shaving that he thought of the boat.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Graham saw Stella in the canteen on the Monday lunchtime. She was sitting at an empty table, eating cheese and biscuits, when he approached with his loaded tray.

  ‘Do you mind if I …?’

  ‘No. Please.’ He sat down. She scrutinised him. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Oh, you know. .’

  ‘Any better?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘The shock must be awful.’

  ‘Yes. In surprising ways. It sort of upsets one’s whole thinking. Whatever you think about is different. The circumstances have changed.’ He was mildly surprised at the fluency with which such lines came out.

  ‘Yes. I’ve never lost anyone very close to me. Both my parents are still alive. It must be terrible.’ She spoke this automatically, assessing, wondering what his next move was going to be.