No Place of Safety

by Robert Barnard

  ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter,’ said Alan to Charlie, ‘with all the policemen around. But if anybody comes looking for a room, it gives a terrible impression.’

  ‘We do,’ agreed Charlie, whose irony went unappreciated. ‘Why don’t you leave Derek in charge?’

  ‘Derek?’

  ‘The chap in the attic of number twenty-two. He’s a bit older than the rest, and seems a capable chap,’ said Charlie, who had talked to Oddie about him and taken a cup of coffee with him in his room, with devious intent.

  ‘Oh yes. He only came yesterday, and I hardly saw anything of him, though my room’s opposite his. Well, if you think he could cope . . .’

  By the time they left they were sure he could cope. He told them that he would just do for any refuge-seeker what they’d done for him the day before, except that he’d tell them there might be a room the next day. Otherwise he’d stick around in the living room of number twenty-four and try to help with any problems. He made no fuss about it – just like Ben.

  The hospital, in the centre of Leeds behind the town hall, was all bustle and light – very different from the Centre, until you looked closer and saw the cheap, shoddy uniforms, the overcrowding, the air of harassment and just-about-coping. The news about Ben was a little more encouraging. The attack had been vicious but wild, and had been too low to be totally effective. Ben was not out of danger, but his condition was stable.

  ‘How can you call it stable if he still might die?’ Katy asked.

  She was told that he was getting no worse, and if he could maintain that condition he would be out of danger. There was no question of the police interviewing him for quite a while yet.

  At Mehjabean’s bedside there was a visitor – a substantial middle-aged man whom they realized must be her father. When she saw them come through the curtain pulled aside by the policeman who was currently guarding her, Midge’s face lit up. Her father looked round nervously, got up from his chair and, after a brief greeting or rather nod to his daughter’s friends, took off. Alan raised an eyebrow at Midge.

  ‘What was he trying to do?’

  ‘Oh, nothing really,’ said Midge, trying to speak without moving her jaw too much. ‘He says the marriage is definitely off. I told him it was never on, as far as I was concerned.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘I think so . . . I told him that the wound was going to leave a permanent scar and he seemed concerned for me, rather than for my prospects.’

  ‘Oh Midge!’ cried Katy. ‘How awful! But surely with plastic surgery – ’

  Midge grinned, then flinched.

  ‘I was testing him. You don’t think any doctor would commit himself so soon, do you? They’re worse than lawyers. At the moment I’m in the dark, and they probably are too.’

  ‘If the marriage is off, how is your dad going to cope with his financial problems?’ Alan asked.

  ‘He says he’s found a buyer for two of his shops. If those deals go through, the pressure would be off.’

  Katy thought.

  ‘But aren’t all his shops run by members of your family?’

  ‘Yes. I expect they’ll be pretty sore at me.’

  That thought hung in the air for a moment, and Alan was not changing the subject when he said:

  ‘You’ll be coming back to live at Portland Terrace, won’t you, Midge?’

  ‘Oh yes. Tomorrow, they say. Are there lots of gorgeous policemen around?’

  ‘I don’t know about gor – ’ Alan began.

  ‘They feel gorgeous,’ said Katy. ‘In the circumstances.’

  ‘I’ll be as safe there as anywhere then,’ said Mehjabean. ‘When the whole thing’s solved, then we will have to rethink. Maybe Ben will be well enough to advise by then. Maybe I’ll be ready to go back to my family.’

  ‘It sounds as if Ben’s recovery will take a while,’ said Alan, sombrely. ‘It could be a long while, in fact he may never recover.’

  ‘Well, the case could take a while too,’ said Midge. ‘Though that’s not a cheerful prospect.’ She frowned, in thought. ‘I wish I could remember something – something that the police would find useful. Something to say whether it was a man or a woman, for example. It seems so feeble to have to say that the attack just sort of descended on us out of the blue, without our having any idea of who it was, what kind of person. But that’s the truth. All I remember is the sudden pain, and keeling forward to cradle my face. And when they come to question him, I really don’t think Ben will remember anything more than me.’

  ‘But I do think you should try to remember more,’ said Alan urgently. ‘Or perhaps not try, but leave your mind blank, and hope that some memory will suddenly come in.’

  ‘That’s the sort of thing people say,’ said Mehjabean with a touch of scorn. ‘If I try to let my mind go blank all my troubles and worries and dangers come jostling along for space.’

  It was a rare complaint, a rare glimpse of her state of mind. But Alan pressed on.

  ‘You ought to try. You read about these cases where suddenly someone remembers something – something light as a feather – and they nearly don’t mention it to the police, but they do, and it leads to other things, and that’s how they get the murderer.’

  ‘Sounds more like murder in a book,’ said Midge sceptically. ‘Most murders in real life seem to be solved by PC Plod going round from door to door asking Mrs Jones and Mrs Smith if they saw anything on their way to the shops.’

  But after Alan and Katy had gone, something in what had been said troubled Midge, yet refused to come to the conscious forefront of her mind.

  • • •

  Oddie had delegated the initial questioning of the Haldalwa family to DC Iqbal, an Urdu-speaking policeman whom they had borrowed for the occasion from Keighley. He had gone about his business with commendable dispatch, and came to present his initial report to Oddie at the refuge that same evening.

  ‘The women are easy,’ he said. ‘They were all at home with their children, except one aunt of Mehjabean who was visiting another aunt, with her children. All were watching television, or hired videos of the exploits of heroic princes and lovers, from the Hollywood of the East. I presume you’re not really interested in the women?’

  ‘Open mind,’ said Oddie. ‘Don’t presume anything.’

  ‘Right you are. But I didn’t get the impression they had anything to hide. Then the men. They were all, except one, at a meeting at Razaq Haldalwa’s. They were hearing that he was going to sell some of his businesses. It was a heated meeting.’

  ‘And the one exception?’

  ‘He was minding his shop. He couldn’t get anyone to stand in for him – it was his wife who was out. There won’t be any problem establishing his alibi, I wouldn’t think.’

  ‘No,’ said Oddie thoughtfully. ‘The funny thing is, I prefer the alibi of the one who was alone in his shop to the alibis of all those men together at Razaq Haldalwa’s.’

  • • •

  Charlie was in quest of Ben Marchant’s past. It was not that he ruled out the residents of the Centre as suspects – far from it. But it seemed to him that it was equally likely that the man’s extraordinary past – scattering in his wake children for which he accepted no responsibility – played some part in provoking the murder attack. Nor could a link with the refuge dwellers be ruled out: Ben Marchant himself had toyed with the possibility of one of his own children turning up at the refuge. Granted the home background of many of the young homeless, that would not be too outrageous a coincidence.

  Ben’s previous employers could possibly be a fruitful source of information, but, confident as Charlie was, he felt he ought to be with Oddie when talking to local grandees, even if they were, as Mrs Ingram implied, of the newly rich variety. Meanwhile, with an evening to himself, he decided to talk to Alan’s parents.

  Mrs Coughlan was up and bustling, and the living room was tidy and polished to a sparkle. It got enough of the evening sun to seem quite pleasant this
time round. Mrs Coughlan was obviously the mover in the household, and Arthur Coughlan the passive, despondent and altogether lesser partner in the marriage.

  The phrase Mrs Coughlan used to sum up her feelings was the same as Mrs Bourne’s, but totally appropriate for all that.

  ‘I’m worried sick,’ she said. ‘We both are.’

  ‘Rose can’t stop talking about it,’ said Arthur, ‘and if I went down the Railway it would be the same. Was it one of those dossers that done it, Mr Peace?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Charlie, sitting down in the same fat armchair as he had used previously and trying to establish an atmosphere of confidentiality. ‘It’s very early days yet. It’s possible that Ben Marchant got a glimpse of the attacker, and will tell us who it was when he can talk. That won’t be for a day or two yet, if ever.’

  ‘You mean he might die?’ asked Rose Coughlan.

  ‘It’s still very possible. Would that upset you?’

  She bridled a little.

  ‘Oh, not in the way you mean. But he is Alan’s father, when all’s said and done. No, what worries me is it’ll be murder then, won’t it? And having Alan stay in that house . . .’

  ‘I’m afraid the attack was so savage that there’s really very little difference between murder and attempted murder. The intent was definitely there, though there may have been some wavering at the last minute. As to Alan staying on there, I’ve done my best, but he’s determined. They both are. And with so many policemen in the house and around it, he’s as safe there as he would be here.’

  Mrs Coughlan was reluctant to accept that.

  ‘But will the police be there until he’s caught?’

  ‘I hope so. And I hope it will be soon. But why are you assuming that it’s a he? With Ben Marchant’s record, wouldn’t it be more likely to be a she?’

  ‘Record?’ Mrs Coughlan had misunderstood him for a moment. ‘Oh, sorry: I thought you meant criminal record. I don’t know as he’s ever had that.’

  ‘Should have been chased for maintenance several times over if the Child Support Agency knew what they were at,’ said Arthur Coughlan.

  ‘I never harassed him for money,’ said his wife, looking at his aggrieved face. ‘Alan was only three months when we married, and you had a good enough job.’

  ‘Then,’ said Arthur bitterly. ‘And it was never a high payer, so we never had another of our own. Alan was our child . . . till he came along.’

  ‘He still is,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s told me he can never regard Ben as his father. You are.’

  The gloom lightened, but only momentarily, on Arthur’s face.

  ‘Then what’s the bloody attraction?’ he demanded.

  ‘Of Ben? I think the fact that he’s doing good. And he is a very charismatic person, in a quiet way.’

  ‘Does that mean attractive, like?’ Rose Coughlan asked. ‘He was always that, and quiet too. So quiet you thought he was sincere, believed what he told you.’

  ‘Do you think, now, that you were silly to believe what he told you?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Not exactly that . . .’ She sat in thought. ‘It’s difficult, it being so long ago. I hadn’t thought about Ben for years, except sometimes looking at Alan and seeing something of him . . . I think often he believed what he was saying. And often he would be honest, like he’d make no bones about being faithful and that. He wasn’t faithful by nature, and he’d say so. But he could also say “I love you” as if he meant it, and you always felt that, maybe . . . maybe you would prove to be the one.’

  ‘You hoped so,’ said Charlie gently.

  ‘Oh yes. At the time I hoped so, so much.’

  ‘How do you see him now?’

  ‘I think there must have been good in him – be good in him, still. Good intentions. But he always had to have what he wanted, and he didn’t care how he got it.’

  ‘You mean women?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Well, I don’t mean only that. Women were important to him, but mainly for . . . the obvious.’ She looked down into her lap. ‘He always had lots of other interests, and there’d always be one big, mastering idea. Something he was going all out for. And when he’d got it, well, then he’d need something new to chase after. It was like he’d hop from flower to flower, not just with women, but with ideas, ambitions.’

  ‘Do you think this refuge for the homeless may be like that, just one of his flowers?’

  ‘Oh, I hope so!’ She immediately looked ashamed. ‘Sorry – seems heartless, to say that. I’m sorry for those young people – it breaks my heart to see lives thrown away like that. And maybe he has grown up, grown older and wiser, so that he will keep on and make a go of it. But I don’t want Alan there.’

  ‘That’s natural, but he is doing good work,’ Charlie pointed out, ‘not just playing.’

  ‘He needs to be studying, going to college, settling on some sort of work he wants to do later in life.’

  ‘He’s probably thinking a lot about that while he’s working at the Centre.’

  ‘It’s his summer holiday! He should be having a good time before he starts work for his A-levels.’

  ‘I think in his way he is having a good time.’

  ‘He may be doing that and still be being used. I don’t want to speak ill of Ben when he’s so sick, but have you ever thought he’s using his children now just like he used his women in the past? Have you thought maybe that’s the only kind of relationship he knows?’

  CHAPTER 15

  Employers

  ‘I’ll keep a low profile,’ said Charlie, as they drove out to the Mallabys of Belstone Manor next morning.

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘I have an idea they’ll be old-fashioned Tory types who won’t be easy with the idea of a black policeman.’

  ‘Maybe. That wasn’t quite how Mrs Ingram saw them, was it? Anyway, keep an open mind. When Mrs Ingram and her recognition of Marchant comes up, you’ll have to take over anyway. You’re the one who talked to her.’

  They were taking the scenic route from Leeds to Otley, and, having driven through Cookridge, were now passing rolling farmland as they approached the Chevin.

  ‘People around here must have a bob or two,’ commented Charlie.

  ‘A bob or two, a million or two,’ said Oddie, shrugging. ‘Farmers aren’t quite on the gravy train they used to be on, but Mallaby isn’t a farmer, as I understand it, or only as a sideline. He’s a businessman.’ He thought. ‘Rather Victorian that: retreating from your place of business to play at being landed gentry in the lush countryside.’

  When they finally arrived at Belstone Manor, the Victorian comparison was reinforced by cast-iron gates and the gatehouse beside them. However, the latter looked empty, and you gained admittance by ringing and stating your business into a speaking device. The voice which asked it sounded landed – no butler, presumably. When Oddie said, ‘West Yorkshire police’, the gates swung open and Charlie drove them through.

  ‘Jane Austen meets James Bond,’ he commented.

  The house was early nineteenth-century and heavily gracious – rather like Alicia Ingram. The front door was opened by Sir George himself, and he shook hands heartily.

  ‘Only got some new Filipinos,’ he explained, as if they were a breed of watchdog. ‘Awfully sweet and wonderful about the house, but no good with the telephone or callers. So I prefer to do it myself. If you’ll come through to the drawing room.’

  He led the way down the high hall to a sunny room in which the French windows, a recent innovation apparently, looked out on to the garden. Sir George was hearty, friendly (Charlie had detected no reaction to his colour) and moustached in the style of a country gentleman rather than a serviceman. He was a little too small to be the ideal bluff countryman, but he worked to make up for the deficiency.

  ‘You said you’d like to speak to my wife, too, didn’t you?’ He went to the windows, opened them and bellowed: ‘Susan!’ He turned and gestured them to large, square arm
chairs, new or newly covered in a traditional style. The men saved effort by waiting until his wife arrived before they sat down, and Sir George filled in time. ‘No help to be got for the garden these days. Can’t fly in Filipinos for that. We have a man two afternoons a week, and Susan does the rest.’

  Susan, it turned out, was more effortlessly the picture of the country gentlewoman of a certain age. Her hair was drawn back into a bun, but quite a lot of it had escaped and now hung around her wide forehead. She wore a capacious, smock-like dress, thick dark stockings and heavy shoes. She left a fork and trowel on a window-ledge and came breezing in.

  ‘Hello. I’m filthy, so I won’t shake hands. This time of year it’s never ending out there. Now, you’re the policemen and it’s about Ben, isn’t it? When we heard the name on the news we wondered if you’d be wanting to talk to us. Awful thing – horrible! How is he, poor old chap?’

  ‘Holding his own,’ said Oddie. ‘But it’s still touch and go.’

  ‘He didn’t deserve that,’ she said, sitting down in a billow of flowery cotton, and letting them get a glimpse of sturdy calf. Charlie, sitting, opened his book. For the moment he was the note-taker. ‘After all the good he was trying to do,’ said Lady Mallaby, resuming the subject of Ben. ‘Do you think it was one of his street people? A lot of them are sad creatures, but there are some out-and-out weirdos as well.’

  ‘We’re keeping an open mind,’ said Oddie, with a finality that said he’d ask the questions. ‘Now, Ben Marchant was your estate manager, I believe. How long did he work for you?’

  Sir George took over the answering.

  ‘Five years. I’ve looked him up in the farm file since you rang. He came in the spring of ‘91.’

  ‘I believe he’d worked in Derbyshire somewhere. Did he come to you from there?’

  ‘That’s right. Somewhere near Matlock. I think he’d been there since finishing Agricultural College.’

  ‘And he came with good references?’

  ‘Excellent. And deserved them. If he’d needed references when he left I’d have given him glowing ones.’