No Place of Safety

by Robert Barnard

  Alicia sometimes wished her husband did not remember her words so accurately. It was almost as if he made notes.

  ‘I know, but in the end . . . I mean, Carol is quite hopeless as nurse, guardian, warden – whatever you call it – and since I get no news from her, I simply can’t judge the situation, decide what is required. Let’s face it, I just don’t know how things are.’

  ‘I thought that was how you liked it.’

  ‘You know that’s not true, Randolph.’ She was getting a good colour up, matching her flaming hair. ‘I worry terribly! When someone’s failing, and wilful, and frankly going funny . . .’

  ‘Your mother knows her own mind, and always has.’

  ‘She just won’t acknowledge that other people may know what is best for her.’

  ‘It’s something very few people will acknowledge.’

  ‘But if only Carol would – ’

  She was interrupted by the telephone. For the last few weeks it had been assumed in the Ingram household that telephone calls were for Alicia.

  ‘Leeds 2647936.’

  ‘Mrs Ingram?’ A voice she didn’t know. London-common she categorized it as in her mind.

  ‘Yes, speaking.’

  ‘This is DC Peace of the West Yorkshire Police.’

  ‘Oh, ye-e-es?’

  ‘I believe you telephoned us earlier this evening about the refuge for the homeless in Portland Terrace.’

  There was a long pause. Randolph Ingram pricked up his ears. This had all the hallmarks of one of Alicia’s best-laid plans ganging agley, which they pretty oft did.

  ‘I didn’t give my name.’

  It was an admission, without being an explicit admission. Alicia never had been good at owning up, preferring a genteel fudge.

  ‘No, you didn’t give your name. Will you answer my question, Mrs Ingram?’

  ‘Well, yes, actually it was me. You see – ’

  ‘Right, can you tell me, Mrs Ingram, who was the source of the information you gave us that there were drugs behind the chest of drawers on the first-floor landing at 24 Portland Terrace?’

  ‘Yes, I think I can tell you that,’ said Alicia patronizingly, with a return of confidence. ‘I’d had a phone call earlier from a young man – he sounded young – who refused to give his name.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about his voice? His accent for example?’

  ‘Oh, just working-class Yorkshire, I’d say. His voice? Well, not very pleasant. Harsh almost. He was trying to be friendly, but . . .’

  ‘But he didn’t sound the friendly type. I see. Well, Mrs Ingram, I’ll need to ask you some questions about what happened earlier this evening at the refuge.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘There’s been an incident, a serious one. We’ll call on you tomorrow.’

  ‘Quite impossible, I’m afraid. I shall be away the next two or three days.’

  ‘Mrs Ingram, this may well become a murder inquiry, and you witnessed, perhaps were involved in, a confrontation at the same address earlier in the evening. I would strongly advise you not to leave home until we have questioned you.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?’ said Alicia, in her softest, most condescending tone, and she put the phone down. ‘Really, I don’t know what the police are coming to. They’ve no respect any longer. And that was just a constable!’

  ‘I expect it’s all the white-collar crime they come in contact with,’ said her husband, comfortably smiling to himself. He had long ago categorized his wife in his mind as ambitious, mendacious, and not very bright. He tried not to let her realize the pleasure he took in her discomfiture and aborted plots. And so far she never had.

  • • •

  Mike Oddie was seeing the two young people for the first time. The Chief Inspector had arrived at number twenty-four a few minutes before, had been given a rough outline of what had happened by Charlie, and had decided that the first thing to do was to get the details of the assault absolutely clear.

  ‘Now, Ben Marchant and Midge – let’s call her that, shall we? – had gone into the front room here to talk in private, is that right?’ The two young heads nodded. ‘What were they talking about?’

  ‘The new situation, sir.’ Mike’s chief inspector status seemed to give him, in Alan’s eyes, the sort of aura a senior schoolmaster would have. ‘Whether the fact that both her father and Mr Siddiq said that they’d given up the idea of marriage for her really changed things.’

  ‘Ben had talked to DC Peace about that earlier, I gather,’ said Mike, looking round at Charlie, who nodded.

  ‘We both agreed that caution was necessary.’

  ‘I’m sure Midge would have gone along with that,’ said Katy.

  ‘Right. Now let’s come to the attack. How long had Ben and Midge been talking?’

  ‘About ten minutes maybe,’ Alan said.

  ‘No more than fifteen, anyway,’ said Katy.

  ‘And where were you both?’

  ‘I was in here, watching Soldier, Soldier,’ said Alan.

  ‘And I was upstairs in my room reading.’

  ‘So tell me exactly what happened – Alan first.’

  Alan swallowed hard.

  ‘There was this scream, then another. I thought for a moment it was on the television. They were in this deserted barracks, and I thought . . . Anyway, it only took a second or two to realize it was coming through the wall, and then I was terrified. I got up, rushed through – ’

  ‘Hold on a bit. When you got to the hall, was it empty?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alan stopped, forehead furrowed. ‘It was empty, but as I was opening the door to the back room here, I think I heard the front door shutting.’

  ‘I think so too,’ said Katy. ‘I was on the landing, and you can’t see the front door – the ceiling of the ground floor is very high, as you can see, and the stairs are steep – but I think I heard it shut.’

  ‘Right. And you went into the front room, and – what?’

  ‘And Midge was screaming in pain and holding her cheek, and Ben was in her lap, retching and bleeding from the throat and – ’ Alan put his face in his hands at the memory. ‘It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen.’

  Oddie let that subject go. They could probably get as much as they needed from Midge, eventually. He took them back over the day, taking in the phone call from Mrs Ingram, which Ben had told them about, the departure of Mouse, and then the visits of Mr Siddiq and Mrs Ingram.

  ‘Could you see Mr Siddiq well?’ Oddie asked Alan.

  ‘Oh yes. Ben was on one side of the doorway, Zak and Pal on the other, and I was between them.’

  ‘What was your impression of him?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . He seemed to be trying to be nice . . . I could see why Midge didn’t like him – not just as a husband, I mean, but as a man.’

  ‘Would you say that there was violence there, under the surface?’

  Alan looked uncertain.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t want to say that. I wouldn’t want to judge him like that . . . But there was something . . . A sort of frustration, I think.’

  ‘Good – I see. Do you think it was frustration that he wasn’t getting his own way?’

  ‘Yes. I think he was used to getting it. Ben stopped him seeing Midge. But if all he wanted was to say the marriage was off, he didn’t have to talk to her, did he?’

  ‘No. And while this confrontation was going on, Mrs Ingram arrived, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t see her till she was at the gate. I didn’t know who she was, because I’d never seen her before, but I guessed.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, just because she looked very middle class, and was coming here. You wouldn’t see many people dressed like that around here. And then because she seemed sort of pleased.’

  ‘Pleased that there was a row going on?’

  ‘Yes. Chuffed.’

  ‘What did she actually do?’

  Alan turned to
Katy.

  ‘I can’t remember the exact words, can you?’

  ‘I was way back. I could hardly hear.’

  ‘It was something about having come at an inconvenient time. One of those phrases, said sort of snootily . . . And then there was something funny . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She said she’d come back when things were more – and then she paused, and eventually said “normal”. And I got this odd idea – ’ Oddie and Charlie waited, while he sorted his ideas out – ‘this odd idea that she hadn’t paused because she was searching for a word, like we all do, but because she was disconcerted for a moment by something she’d seen.’

  ‘What could that be?’

  Alan looked down, as if embarrassed, and afraid he was talking nonsense.

  ‘Well, maybe someone she’d seen. Someone standing in the doorway, for example. It’s just an idea.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Casualties

  It was nearly eleven at night before they were able to talk to Midge. Constable Ryder, who had gone with her, phoned to say that she had been sewn up, was stable and quite calm and wanted to speak to them. They certainly wanted to talk to her. They left WPC Gould at the Centre, with three other uniformed policemen who had been drafted in, to get the preliminary questioning of the inmates of both houses properly under way.

  At the hospital they were told that Ben Marchant was still in the operating theatre, so there was nothing to be done in that quarter. One of the locums they talked to shook his head.

  ‘It’s touch and go. He was only saved by being brought here so quickly. You won’t be talking to him for a while. Better count on it being a long while.’

  But when they had talked to Midge they wondered just how much Ben would be able to tell them.

  Midge had been heavily bandaged over the stitches. The bits that they could see looked very beautiful, but very fragile too, and they wondered about the bits of her face they could not see, and whether the scars would be permanent. Talking was a little easier for her now, though far from pain-free. Charlie sat on her bed and Oddie on the chair beside it, and PC Ryder stood just outside the curtains of her cubicle, keeping an eye on all the comings and goings in a large hospital’s accident and emergency unit.

  ‘Is Ben all right?’ Midge asked.

  ‘He’s still in the operating theatre,’ Oddie replied. ‘The doctor said it’s pretty serious.’

  Midge nodded, then winced.

  ‘I knew. I knew when I was holding him that he might die. It’s awful. He was doing so much good.’

  ‘You’d been discussing whether you should go back to your family, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Midge stopped herself nodding again. ‘Not much to discuss, really. We agreed I should be cautious.’

  ‘So you were going to stay at the Centre?’

  ‘Yes. Ben had been doubtful about that before. I’m not really homeless in the usual sense, not in the sense the rest are, and once my father had found out where I was, Ben felt that it made sense for me to move on.’

  ‘But he’d changed his mind?’

  Midge’s face, what they could see of it, assumed an expression that could only be described as inscrutable.

  ‘I suppose so . . . I suppose my father saying he’d given up the marriage made it less urgent for me to move.’

  ‘So Ben believed him?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that. He gave him the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘When we talked I emphasized the need to stay on your guard,’ Charlie put in. ‘He seemed to agree with that.’

  ‘Oh, he did . . .’ Midge hesitated, then seemed to make a decision. ‘I think he’d got to like having me around. While we were talking he put his hand on mine – oh, not trying anything on, I don’t mean that, but sort of fatherly. I think he felt affection for me is what I’m trying to say, though I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. Definitely fatherly. I appreciated it, though I didn’t want it to go too far. I have a father. Up till now I’ve loved him very much.’

  ‘How were you sitting, when he was holding your hand?’ Oddie asked.

  ‘His hand was on mine – that’s different,’ Midge corrected him. ‘I was sitting at the table nearest the door, looking towards the window. He’d pulled his chair out from the table, and was sitting looking straight at me.’

  ‘With his back to the door too?’

  ‘Yes. We were both at the same side of the table, with our backs to the door.’

  ‘Had you seen anything through the window – anyone arrive at the house maybe?’

  ‘No. I was too interested in what we were talking about.’

  ‘Now, the attack, when it happened. How much did you see?’

  Midge looked as if she would like to have screwed her face up, the memory of it paining her, but knew she mustn’t.

  ‘We were just sitting there talking quietly, unemotionally. The door was partly open – there was nothing secret about the talk. Then . . . it must have been opened further, someone must have come in . . .’

  ‘Must have,’ put in Charlie. ‘You weren’t conscious of it?’

  ‘No. I saw no one, sensed no one, till – till I felt this terrible pain down my left cheek, and I just keeled over.’

  ‘So you were attacked first?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But if . . . when we talk to Ben Marchant, the likelihood is that he will have seen nothing either?’

  Midge considered this.

  ‘Maybe. I can’t tell. Because there may have been a moment or two, between my getting slashed and him getting attacked, when he could have turned and caught a glimpse . . . But I was holding my head in my hands, not knowing what had happened to me, and I wasn’t aware of what happened next. Not till I was holding him in my arms and – ’

  Mike Oddie held up his hand, and the two men got up. There was every reason not to distress her further that night. It must already have been the most traumatic day of her young life.

  • • •

  It was very late when they got back to Portland Terrace, but everyone was still up. WPC Gould had talked to most of them, or had had reports from the other uniformed constables, and she had prepared a little chart of who was where, at least notionally. Of course in a hostel such as this one they didn’t stick to their rooms like prisoners in cells.

  ‘Downstairs in number twenty-four, as you know, is the kitchen, the dining room and the lounge with television – the communal area. Upstairs on the first floor there’s a bedroom with Katy and Mehjabean in it, one with Zak, and one with Jezebel. I thought it would be easier if I used the names they’re going under, sir.’

  ‘Sure,’ agreed Oddie. ‘We may well have difficulty getting their real ones.’

  ‘Then in the attic there’s two bedrooms, one that had the boy they call Mouse in it – ’

  ‘I’ve seen that one,’ Charlie said.

  ‘Grateful little sod, wasn’t he? And the other has a very young boy called Tony. I think we ought – ’

  Mike Oddie stopped her.

  ‘Maybe. But first things first. What about number twenty-two?’

  ‘Most of them are there, of course. The front room is split into two, and one has a boy called Simon in it, the other a girl called Rose – nicely spoken, but quiet.’

  ‘Right. I’ve got that.’

  ‘On the first floor upstairs Ben has one room, then there’s a boy called Splat in one, and a girl called Bett Southcott in the other. Alan has one of the attic rooms, and a guy called Derek the other – probably the oldest here, I would guess.’

  ‘They move in with each other now and then, I suppose?’

  WPC Gould pursed her lips dubiously.

  ‘A degree of that, but apparently not as much as you might expect. Ben, apparently, has always insisted on them having a room to themselves because they need their privacy after living communally on the streets. It seems that he is right. They value it.’

  ‘Well, that’s pretty clear. T
hanks. We can’t do much more that’s serious tonight, but maybe we could talk to one or two. Makes sense to start with number twenty-four. We’ll go up and chat to this Zak and his girlfriend. Tell all the others to go to bed. Tell them, if they’re nervous, that there’ll be a guard on the house – on both houses. We’ll talk to them tomorrow.’

  Then he looked at Charlie and the two of them went upstairs, Charlie leading the way to Zak’s bedroom. Jezebel and Queenie were still there, but the two humans were sharing a companionable nightcap, while the two dogs were watching, waiting for night. Mike was getting a good look at them for the first time. Jezebel was wearing a long skirt, a black jumper with a hole in it over a T-shirt, and bright plastic beads. Zak had on dirty khaki trousers and a mud-smeared sports shirt: he had tattoos up one arm and a stud in his nose. His hair hadn’t seen a comb in weeks, it seemed – in fact Pal was very much more kempt than his master, though not so spruce as to put off potential contributors to his welfare. Zak was very aware of Mike taking all this in.

  ‘Me best clothes is in the wash,’ he said. Mike grinned, and while Charlie sat on the floor, he took the one armchair.

  ‘Any news of Ben?’ Jezebel asked.

  ‘Not good,’ said Charlie. ‘Touch and go. But they haven’t given up hope.’

  ‘That’s diabolical,’ said Zak. ‘’E were a great bloke.’

  ‘Still is,’ said Jezebel. ‘Don’t you bury him if the doctors haven’t.’

  ‘And what ’appens to this place if ’e dies?’ Zak wanted to know.

  Nobody knew the answer to that.

  ‘How did you hear of it?’ Mike asked, to stay on the subject.

  ‘’E cum round himself, talking to people on the streets. Gave out little bits o’ paper wi’ th’address on. Talked to us about ussel’, and our lives and that.’

  ‘Is that how you heard?’ Mike asked Jezebel.

  ‘No, that was word of mouth. There’s this foul-mouthed old tart called Red Sal, sleeps up around the university science buildings. Claims to have once slept with the whole Bayern München football team of nineteen-whatever-it-was. Bet some of them took back a holiday souvenir they could have done without. Anyway, she was effing and blinding about people doing everything for the young homeless (I hadn’t noticed) and nothing for the old ones. She’d got hold of one of those bits of paper with the address on it, and the words “Centre for the Homeless”. I thought: “I’ll try that.” ’