The Best Man To Die

by Ruth Rendell

  Burden walked a little way away from him and stopped by the black birch stump. ‘If the girl stepped off here,’ he said, taking a couple of paces towards the fast lane, ‘and Fanshawe thought he was going to hit her, why didn’t he swerve to the left, into the middle lane, instead of to the right? The road must have been clear as there were no witnesses to the accident. He swerved inwards, to the right, mounted this centre strip and hit the tree.’

  Wexford shrugged. A car in the fast lane leapt past them at seventy. ‘Feel like experimenting, Mike?’ he said with a grin. ‘Just pop out into the road now, wave your arms and see what happens.’

  ‘You can, if you’re so keen,’ said Burden, involuntarily retreating from the edge. ‘I want to stay alive.’

  ‘Funny that girl didn’t. Mike, it couldn’t have been straight suicide, could it?’

  Burden said thoughtfully, ‘I suppose it could have at that. Assume she has no connection with Fanshawe, assume she went to the South Coast with another boy friend who ditched her so that she had to hitch a lift as far as here. The driver that brought her to this point might then have dropped her at her own request. She crosses the centre section, waits until a fast car comes and steps out suddenly in front of it. Of course, that doesn’t explain why Fanshawe pulled to the right instead of to the left.’

  ‘And it doesn’t explain why everything that might have identified her was removed from her handbag. If she was a suicide, there’s, no possible reason why she should have removed it herself. Anyway, you seem to have forgotten our main reason for coming here. The crash occurred at ten to ten and Hatton passed on the other highway, going in the other direction, at approximately twenty to. Impoverished Hatton, desperate to replenish the empty coffers. Suppose he passed a little later than that and saw the girl step out? Now, if Fanshawe were still alive, if, say, he’d killed the girl without damage to his car, and had simply driven on, Hatton might have blackmailed him. But Fanshawe is dead, Mike.’

  Now it was Burden’s turn to shrug and look baffled. He eyed the other highway, the southbound section, the hedge that bounded it, the meadows behind that hedge. The road came to a crest some fifty yards to the north of where they stood and above this ridge nothing but the pale milky sky was visible.

  ‘If there was some sort of foul play,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘if, for instance, the girl was pushed into the road… Oh, I know it’s fantastic, but haven’t you got something of the sort in mind yourself? If she was pushed and Hatton, approaching over the brow of the hill, was a witness, why didn’t whoever it was doing the pushing, see him first? His lorry was an outsize very high van and anyone standing here would see the top of it appearing over the crest seconds before its driver could see him. Look, here comes a lorry now.’

  Wexford turned his eyes towards the brow of the hill. The lorry’s roof loomed above it and it seemed that some seconds passed before the cab came into view.

  ‘It was dark,’ he said.

  ‘Anyone standing where we are could see its headlights at precisely the same time as its driver saw him.’

  The same thought striking each man simultaneously, they walked towards the crest. Beneath them half Sussex lay spread, broad meadows, green and gold, the dense bluish shadows of woodland and in the folds between, farmhouses and the occasional pointing spire of a church. Through this pastoral landscape the road wound its twin white ribbon, hummocking here, dipping there, and sometimes entirely concealed by the green swelling land.

  Not more than twenty yards beyond the crest, the south bound section widened into an arc and in this lay-by the occupants of two cars sat picnicking.

  ‘Perhaps he parked here for a bit,’ Burden said. ‘Walked up this way for – well, a natural purpose or just because he needed air. He hadn’t been well, after all.’

  But Wexford looked at the view and said presently, ‘Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.’

  The huge American car with its splayed fins dwarfed every other vehicle in the Olive’s car park. Crossing the forecourt with Burden, Wexford saw on closer scrutiny that it was neither new nor well cared for. One of its headlamps was broken and the rust on its chrome rim showed that it had been broken a long time. Scratches marred the bluish-green finish on its wings. Here in this tiny car park in a small country town it was an unwieldy mass of metal that doubt less gave a poor return for the petrol it devoured. It took up an immense amount of space but its seating capacity was small.

  ‘Reminds me of one of those prehistoric monsters,’ said Wexford, ‘all brawn and no brain.’

  ‘Must have been grand once, though.’

  ‘That’s what they said about the dinosaurs.’

  They sat in the saloon bar. In the far corner Nora Fanshawe sat on a leather settle beside a huge fair man with a small head. His expression was vapid, his shoulders of Mister Universe proportions. Another dinosaur, Wexford thought, and suddenly he was sure this was the owner of the car.

  ‘We keep running into each other, Miss Fanshawe.’

  ‘You keep running into me,’ said the girl dryly. She wore another of her finely tailored, neatly stitched suits, navy blue this time and as slick and business-like as a uniform. ‘This is Michael Jameson. You may remember, I mentioned him to you.’

  The hand that took Wexford’s had a damp palm. ‘Nice little place this, if a bit off the map.’

  ‘Depends where you make your maps.’

  ‘Come again? Oh, I see. Ha ha!’

  ‘We were just going,’ said Nora Fanshawe. Then her strong masculine voice quavered a little as she said, ‘Ready, Michael?’ Suddenly she was vulnerable. Wexford knew that wistful pleading look. He had seen it before in the eyes of plain women, the pathetic terror of rejection that, because it deprives them of confidence, makes them plainer.

  Jameson got up sluggishly, reluctantly; he winked at Wexford and that wink was as eloquent as words.

  ‘Off to see your mother, Miss Fanshawe?’

  The girl nodded and Jameson said, ‘The old girl keeps her on her toes.’

  ‘Let’s go, Michael.’ She linked her arm in his and held it tight. Wexford watched them go, telling himself he was a fool to let the scene upset him. She was gruff, rude, unfeminine. She was also peculiarly honest and she lacked the talent of self-deception. Not for a moment did Wexford doubt that she knew this man was quite unworthy of her, in intelligence, in probity, in character. But he was good looking and she had money.

  ‘A bit of an oaf,’ said Burden.

  Wexford lifted the curtain and between the fuchsias he saw Jameson get into the huge car and start the engine. Nora Fanshawe was not the kind of woman who looks on courtesy from men as her right. The car was already in motion before she got herself into the passenger seat. Jameson had not even opened the door for her from the inside.

  Chapter 16

  ‘I want you all to concentrate,’ Wexford said. ‘Don’t tell me it was a long time ago and you can’t remember. It was only about seven weeks ago. You’ll be surprised what you can remember if you try.’

  They were sitting in Lilian Hatton’s flat, Wexford con fronting the three people on the sofa. Mrs Hatton wore a black cotton frock and all the jewellery Charlie had ever given her. Her face was white and tense, still stained by the tears she had shed when Wexford had revealed her husband’s source of income. Was it a revelation or had she always known? Wexford couldn’t make his mind up about that. For all her short skirt and her make-up and the equipment in her kitchen, she was essentially at heart a Victorian wife, help less, clinging, accepting all her husband’s quirks with unquestioning passivity. She would no more have asked Charlie if the brooch she wore was brought with ill-gotten money than her nineteenth-century counterpart would have asked her lord and master to admit that his presents to her were the result of cheating at cards. Hers not to reason why, hers but to accept and praise and adore. Now, as he faced her, Wexford wondered how this anachronism would fend for herself in the world Charlie called a battlefield.

&n
bsp; ‘He always talked about fighting for what you wanted,’ she had said wretchedly, ‘about being one up on the next man. Planning his – his stra… His stra – something.’

  ‘Strategy?’

  ‘That’s it. Like as if he was a general.’

  A soldier of fortune, Wexford thought, a mercenary.

  The other two knew all right, the young Pertwees. They had finally admitted as much and now Marilyn said sullenly, ‘He was getting back at the big nobs. What does losing a load mean to them? They’re all robbers, anyway. Capitalism’s organized robbery of the working classes. Charlie was only taking back what was due to him.’

  ‘Having his revenge on society perhaps, Mrs Pertwee?’

  ‘Yeah, and why not? When we’ve got a real people’s government in this country, folks like Charlie’ll get their fair shares and there won’t be no crime. Or what you call crime. When we get real socialism.’

  ‘Charlie always voted Conservative,’ said Lilian Hatton. ‘I don’t know, Marilyn, I don’t think…’

  Wexford interrupted them. There was no room for laughter in this flat, yet he wanted to laugh. ‘Let’s postpone the political discussion, shall we? Mrs Hatton, you’ve had time to think now and I want you to tell me all you remember about your husband’s departure for Leeds on Sunday, May 19th and his return on the 20th.’

  She cleared her throat and glanced hesitantly at Jack Pertwee, waiting perhaps for more masculine directions and more masculine support.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Lily,’ said Marilyn. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what I’d do without you. Well… Well, Charlie’d been ill and I didn’t want him to go but he would insist.’

  ‘Was he worried about money, Mrs Hatton?’

  ‘Charlie never bothered me with things like that. Oh, wait a minute though… He did say the doctor would have to wait to get paid. I remember him saying that. D’you want me to go on about that Sunday?’ Wexford nodded. ‘Jack and Marilyn came in the evening for a three-handed solo.’

  ‘That’s right, said Marilyn, ‘and Charlie rung you from Leeds while we was here.’

  Mrs Hatton looked at her admiringly. ‘So he did. Yes, he did.’

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘Nothing much. It was mostly – well, asking me how I was and saying he missed me.’ She sniffed and bit her lip. ‘We didn’t like being separated. We couldn’t sleep away from each other.’

  ‘More like sweethearts than man and wife they were,’ said Jack and he put his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Did he say he was still feeling unwell?’

  ‘Bit under the weather. He’d have come back that night else.’

  ‘Did he sound pleased, excited?’

  ‘Down in the dumps, if anything.’

  ‘Now I want you to be very exact about this. Precisely what time did your husband come home on the following night, the Monday night?’

  She didn’t hesitate. ‘Ten on the dot. He’s said ten the night before and I’d made him a chicken casserole. Charlie’d bought me a kitchen timer back in March, but it went wrong and had to go back to the shop, and that was the first time I’d used it. I set it for ten and it just started pinging when Charlie put his key in the door.’

  ‘How was he when he came in?’

  ‘In himself, d’you mean? He’d had his sickness back, he said, and he’d had to stop a couple of times on the road. He’d have been back earlier if he hadn’t stopped. He wanted to get back earlier, you see, to surprise me.’ Emotion over came her and she breathed quickly, fighting back the tears. ‘I… He… he said it was stifling in the lorry and he’d had to get a breath of fresh air on the Stowerton By-pass. He walked in the fields a bit where it was cool.’

  ‘Think carefully, Mrs Hatton. Did he say he had seen anything of interest while he was in those fields?’

  She looked at him in bewilderment. ‘No, he only said it had done him good. He felt fine, he said, and I could see he did. On top of the world he was that night, a different man. He was having his meal and we talked about Jack’s wedding.’ Her voice grew hoarse and she leant heavily against Jack’s arm. ‘Charlie wanted me to have a whole new outfit, dress, coat, hat, the lot. He said – he said I was his wife and he wanted me to be a credit to him.’

  ‘And you always were, love. Charlie was proud of you.’

  ‘What happened the next day?’ said Wexford.

  ‘We had a bit of a lay-in.’ She bit her lip. ‘Charlie got up at nine and then he phoned a fellow he knew who was leaving his flat. Charlie’d said he’d come down and look at it when he’d had his breakfast and that’s what he did. You tell it, Jack, it’s your turn.’

  Jack eased away his arm and patted the widow’s hand.

  ‘Charlie came down to the works but I couldn’t get away. I was off doing the wiring in them new houses over Pomfret way. He said he reckoned he’d found us a flat and I said, take Marilyn with you. I can see him now, old Charlie, pleased as punch and grinning like he always did when he was going to do something for you. Bobbing up and down he was like a monkey on a stick.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘Old Charlie,’ he said.

  Impatiently, Wexford turned to the wife. ‘You went with him?’

  ‘Yeah, he came down to Moran’s.’ Moran’s was Kingsmarkham’s biggest draper’s. ‘That old bitch, that manageress, didn’t want me to go at first. Not that there’s much trade to speak of on a Monday morning. I’m leaving in a month anyway, I said, and if you don’t like it you can give me my cards and I’ll go now. Straight out I said it. I’d made her look real small in front of Charlie and she never said another word. Well, me and Charlie we went to look at this flat and there was this geezer who was leaving, a right queer if you ask me, wanted two hundred quid key money before he’d let us have it. I could have smacked his face then and there. In a dressing gown he was. There’ll be forced labour for his sort one of these fine days and I was just going to come out with it when Charlie said that was all right and we’d find the money somehow. He could see I was dead keen on the place.’

  ‘He paid over the money?’

  ‘Don’t be so daft. He said something about consulting with Jack, though if I wanted it Jack’d want it too all right, and then we went. I was fuming. I’ll put up the money, Charlie said when we was outside, and you can pay me back when you’re rolling. How about that, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘how about that?’

  ‘Did Hatton take you back to the shop?’

  ‘Of course he didn’t, he wasn’t my keeper. He walked up with me as far as the Olive and then he said he’d got to make a phone call. He went into that box outside the Olive and I never saw him again for a couple of days.’

  ‘Why would he make a phone call from a box when he had his own phone at home?’

  The married pair were thinking what he, under other circumstances might have thought. A married man with a phone of his own makes calls from a box to his mistress. Mrs Hatton looked innocent, subdued, armoured by her memories. Then Marilyn laughed harshly. ‘You’re crazy if you’re thinking what I think you are! Charlie Hatton?’

  ‘What do you mean, Marilyn?’ the widow asked.

  ‘I’m thinking nothing,’ said Wexford. ‘Did your husband come home for his lunch?’

  ‘About half-past twelve. I asked him what he was going to do with himself in the afternoon and it was then he said he was going to get his teeth seen to. He kept getting bits of food under his plate, you see. He was very ashamed of having false teeth was Charlie on account of being so young and all that. And on account of me… He thought I minded. Me mind? I wouldn’t have cared it… Oh, what’s the use? I was telling you about getting his teeth fixed. He’d often said he’d see about getting his teeth fixed. He’d often said he’d see about getting a real good set when he could afford it and he said he thought he’d go to Mr Vigo.’

  ‘I’d sort of recommended him, you see,’ Jack put in.

  ‘You?’ Wexford said rudel
y.

  Jack lifted his face and flushed a deep wine colour.

  ‘I don’t mean I went to him for my teeth,’ he muttered. ‘I’d been up at his place once or twice doing electrical work and I’d sort of described what the place was like to Charlie. Sort of about the garden and all the old things he’s got up there and that room full of Chinese stuff.’

  Mrs Hatton was crying now and she wiped her eyes, smiling reminiscently her tears. ‘Many’s the laugh Charlie and Jack used to have over that,’ she said. ‘Charlie said he’d like to see it. Like to have a dekko, he said, and Jack said Mr Vigo was rolling in money. Well, he’d have to be a good dentist to make all that, wouldn’t he? So Charlie thought he was the man for him and he phoned then and there. You’ll never get an appointment for today, I said, but he did. Mr Vigo had a cancellation and he said he’d see him at two.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Charlie came back at four and said Mr Vigo was going to fix him up with a new set. Mr Vigo was as nice as pie, he said, no side to him. He’d given him a drink in this said Chinese room and Charlie said when he was rich he was going to have stuff like that, rooms full of it and vases and ornaments and – and a little army of chess men and… Oh God, he’ll never have anything where he is!’

  ‘Don’t, Lily, don’t, love.’

  ‘When did Mr Hatton give you the key money for this flat of yours?’

  ‘It was a loan,’ said Marilyn Pertwee indignantly.

  ‘Lend it to you, then?’

  ‘He came round with it to Jack’s dad’s place on the Wednesday.’

  ‘That would have been the 22nd?’

  ‘I reckon. We handed it over to this bloke as had the flat the next day.’ Jack Pertwee stared hard at Wexford. The dull eyes were glazed now, the face pallid yet mottled. Wexford could hardly suppress a shiver. God help the man who murdered Charlie Hatton, he thought, if Pertwee gets on to him before we do.

  ‘Isn’t it about time we got shot of that thing?’