A Death Divided

by Clare Francis

  ‘And if she wrote it months - years - ago, why would it be found now all of a sudden? Why would it be lying on a table?’

  Ines’s expression hardened, she got to her feet. ‘I understand.

  You don’t want to help him. Fine. We have saved ourselves a lot of trouble by establishing this now. Fine.’

  ‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to help, Ines—’

  ‘Oh, I think that is exactly what you are saying, Joe. I think you are saying it very clearly.’

  She walked to the doorway and stood in an attitude of frosty impatience, waiting for him to leave.

  He followed slowly. ‘All I’m saying is - an old suicide note isn’t exactly something you leave out on a table, is it?’

  ‘Who said it was found on a table?’ she declared as she moved into the hall.

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘When someone dies, the husband goes through her papers - no? He looks for a reason she has killed herself, and he keeps looking till he finds it.’ She swung the flat door open. ‘So that is what he did - he found it!’

  ‘So it was in among her papers?’ .

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I just find it incredible that she’d keep something like that.’

  ‘To remind herself of how near she had come to it?’

  ‘Okay,’ he conceded. ‘Okay.’

  But she was staring at him as if she despised him, and he knew she was not about to forgive him.

  She would have closed the door hard on his heels, but he stopped on the threshold. Something else had been niggling at him and only now did he realise what it was. ‘The car.’

  Ines raised one eyebrow.

  ‘How could she have driven her car to the weir?’

  Ines tightened her mouth in barely suppressed anger.

  ‘Please—’ She gestured him out. ‘I really have to go.’

  Moving onto the landing, Joe paused again. He was going to suggest that the car made a good argument for suicide, that it could only be a strong point in Chetwood’s favour, but as he opened his mouth to speak the door shut with a firm thud.

  The actor upstairs had landed a new part or a new lover because the music suppurating down through the ceiling was loud and upbeat. Preparing to call Alan, Joe poured a glass of wine and went to the bedroom because it was quieter there.

  Sitting on the bed, he thought briefly, no more job, and raised his glass in a solemn toast. The corollary to this - no income, large mortgage— was a thought for another and braver day.

  On his twice-daily calls to Alan, Joe had found it hard to gauge how well the old man was coping. Yesterday morning he had sounded a little monosyllabic, a bit breathless, but otherwise steady enough, apparently taking things in, making sense, giving his usual effusive thanks for everything that Joe was doing, though as Joe kept reminding him he was doing nothing at all. At the news of Chetwood’s arrest three days ago, Alan had expressed disbelief and incredulity, he had cast doubt if not on the competence of the police then on their judgement, he had declared himself certain it was a terrible mistake. Then, yesterday evening and again this morning, Joe had noticed a shift in Alan’s tone, not quite a cooling - Alan could never be as calculating or ungenerous as that - more of a pained hesitation, an overlying awkwardness, and it was clear to Joe that Alan, possibly under Helena’s influence, was having second thoughts about the arrest, that he was confronting the possibility that Chetwood might after all have had something to do with Jenna’s death.

  If Alan thought this idea was going to offend Joe, then he was mistaken. At several times in the last few days, waiting with Ines in the dreary hotel lounge, or in the cramped reception area at the police station amid the odour of unwashed bodies, stale booze and disinfectant, or driving to and from the valley, Joe had slowly, almost furtively, opened his mind to the possibility of Chetwood’s involvement. In his more bullish moments, he wondered if Chetwood had driven Jenna to suicide. What, after all, did he really know about their life together? Perhaps for all Chetwood’s talk of love and newfound contentment, he and Jenna had fought. Perhaps, in the mysterious way of some couples, they had thrived on goading each other until without warning Chetwood had simply snapped.

  This idea hadn’t lasted long, however. Remembering Jenna’s praise for Chetwood, the spontaneity of it, and the gravity, he couldn’t believe it had covered some huge unspoken tension. No, the two of them had not fought. Rather - he was grasping for straws - they had struggled to create the longed-for idyll, they had staked all their emotional energy on the dream, only to find the living of it soul-destroying. And then but here his imagination failed him, he had no idea what could have happened then. He realised, too, that his vision of grim disillusionment belonged more to the mouldering cottage than the seductive comforts of the cabin. And hadn’t Chetwood said he loved the life up at the cabin? Hadn’t he sworn it was all he’d ever wanted?

  To this must now be added the bald fact of murder and brutality. It would be tempting to accept Ines’s talk of death threats, but he .baulked at the overdramatic term. He could have accepted the existence of a few anonymous letters - it was easy to be a thug on paper - but the idea of some elaborate plan to harm Jenna: that belonged to films. Having settled this in his mind, his thoughts were immediately unsettled again by the memory of the immense trouble Chetwood and Jenna had taken to hide themselves away. How far did you need to go for a fresh start? Or, as Joe’s father would insist against the available evidence, to escape money troubles? Didn’t it prove, as Ines would argue, that the threats had been all too real?

  Dialling Alan’s mobile, Joe prepared himself in case Helena should answer, as she sometimes did when Alan was at home and on the house line. Twice in the last few days she had made no response to Joe’s greeting, either handing the phone straight to Alan - who had to ask him to hang on - or ringing off without a word, leaving Joe to the censure of a dead line. The first time, Joe assumed she was too upset to speak; the second time, he realised it could only be deliberate, and felt the sadness when two old friends fall out.

  But it was Alan who answered now. He was in his car, and he asked Joe to wait while he pulled over.

  ‘The police came this afternoon,’ he said in an expressionless voice. ‘The liaison people.’

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘They came to tell us it was definitely murder.’

  ‘Alan, I’m so terribly sorry.’

  A pause during which Joe heard the grinding and rumbling of the traffic. They said she’d been strangled.’

  Yes.’

  ‘Is that what your man’s postmortem said too?’

  ‘Partly,’ Joe said cautiously. ‘But he couldn’t establish a definite cause of death.’

  ‘But he found signs of strangulation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have the details, Joe?’

  The music over Joe’s head stopped abruptly, leaving a sharp silence. ‘I’ve only had a third-hand report,’ Joe said. ‘I need to check it with the lawyer tomorrow. I—’

  ‘If you could just tell me what you’ve heard so far, Joe.’

  ‘There were marks on her neck, Alan. Thumb marks. Either side of her windpipe.’

  The pause was so intense that Joe thought he could hear the sound of Alan’s heart breaking.

  His voice was noticeably unsteady as he asked, ‘Anything else?’

  Even if Joe’d had the chance to speak to Elwyn Roberts, even if he’d got confirmation of the rope marks, he didn’t have the courage to tell Alan just then. ‘No,’ he lied.

  ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

  ‘Look, I’ll be down in the morning. All right?’

  ‘See you then, Joe.’

  ‘You all right to drive, Alan?’

  ‘Oh yes. Not far from home.’

  There were two moments on the journey to Shepherd’s Bush when Joe almost turned back, once when snatches of his last conversation with Sarah sprang into his mind - I really don’t think there’s much po
int, Joe, do you?; it’d just make it worse to drag things out - and again when he reminded himself that you don’t spring unannounced on your closest friends, let alone your ex-lovers. Every few minutes he told himself it wasn’t too late to call, and every few minutes he left the phone untouched in his pocket. Parking three doors from her address, he gave himself one last chance, but something held him back: the wish to surprise her; the wish not to be turned away. And he had his excuse. He rehearsed it as he went up to the house and found the bell marked ‘goddard/ellis’.

  No answer. What else had he expected at eight o’clock on a Friday night? She would be in a bar, at a restaurant, partying after a long week. She would be all dressed up for her new man: skimpy black top, long hair, long legs. Lucky bastard.

  He stood back a little from the door and looked up. The house was flat red-brick and semi-detached, three floors with the third storey hidden in the roof, and plenty of lights showing.

  He tried once more. After half a minute the intercom crackled and hissed, then issued a clattering sound as though the person at the other end had dropped the handset. A muffled curse, then a sharp, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Joe.’

  A long pause, then the door-release buzzed. He stepped into a pitch-dark hall which was suddenly flooded with light as she hit the switch somewhere further up the house. The stairs were narrow and dog-legged. Rounding the first bend, he looked up and saw her on the landing above, hair dripping, towelling robe pulled roughly around her. His chest felt very tight; she was as lovely as ever.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she said.

  He offered a rueful grin. ‘Just passing.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘I know. But I was just at the end of the street, and I thought…’ He trailed off.

  Her eyes were glittering strangely. In a shortlived flash of optimism Joe wondered if she had missed him.

  She said accusingly, ‘You came specially.’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

  ‘You’ve heard, then?’ She was using one hand to hold the bathrobe across her front, the other to keep the flat door open, with none spare to wipe the drips running down her face. Two rivulets had formed down her temples, and a single drop sat on the end of her nose.

  ‘Heard what?’

  She shot him a narrow look to see if he was playing games.

  ‘Heard what, Sarah?’

  With a last searching stare and a shake of her head, as if she was being forced into a discussion against her better judgement, she led the way into the flat. A short passage opened out into a small hall with four doors, all ajar. She pointed him towards the room on the right. ‘Give me a moment.’

  He glimpsed a small kitchen and a white bathroom with all the lights on, before going into a living room decorated in all those shades of off-white that designers have strange names for, like ivory and ecru and alabaster. There were uplighters on tall spindly stands and good modern prints and a beautiful frosted glass bowl on the coffee-table. However, the overall effect was spoilt by a huge and ugly wide-screen TV overflowing with video tapes which protruded almost into the centre of the room.

  He gravitated towards some framed photographs and saw Sarah with a group of people somewhere sunny, Sarah with a dark good-looking bloke who Joe would have liked to believe was her brother, except she had no brother, and a sixtyish couple conservatively dressed - he in blazer, she in flowered dress - presumably her parents.

  There were two piles of magazines. He tried not to notice that one was topped by Motorsport. The videos weren’t much better. Rocky, Terminator 2, Die Hard. He had known as soon as he’d seen the hall, of course. Four doors, one kitchen, one bathroom. Maths had never been his strong point, but you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that there was only one bedroom.

  She came in wearing jeans, a sweater and a towel wrapped in a turban around her head. She was agitated or she-was angry. She reached onto a side-table and, picking up a packet of cigarettes, tapped one out and stuck it in her mouth.

  ‘You don’t smoke,’ Joe said. .

  ‘I do now,’ she said, lighting it.

  She didn’t invite him to sit down, so they stood on either side of the low table, gazing at each other across the copy of Motorsport.

  She said, ‘You’ve got me into serious trouble.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You told someone on the investigation that I helped you.’

  It was strange to see her dragging on a cigarette, inhaling the smoke in a sharp snatch.

  ‘Of course I didn’t. Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Think again, Joe.’

  ‘I didn’t say a word. I promise you. I—’ A hollow feeling suddenly opened up in his stomach. ‘Well, I may have mentioned something about Jenna’s passport. Knowing it was out of date.’

  Sarah closed her eyes in disbelief. ‘Didn’t you realise?’ she groaned. ‘Didn’t you know that would be enough?’

  ‘Well, no, I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. Otherwise I would never have said anything.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you to be discreet? Didn’t I?’ Without warning, her eyes glistened, she clamped her lips together.

  ‘Sarah, I had no idea. I promise. When you say serious…?’

  She shook her head as if he couldn’t begin to guess how serious it was going to be. ‘My contact’s career will be on the line. He could get disciplined, he could get demoted. It’s Pete,’

  she declared fiercely, as if there’d been a conspiracy to deny him a name. ‘And in case you hadn’t guessed, he’s in the CID.

  For God’s sake, Joe - the Passport Office! It’s all logged on the damn computer.’

  ‘Sarah, I had no idea that they’d pick up on it. I had no idea they’d even be interested. Why should I? In fact, I find it incredible they bothered to check.’

  Dropping her head, shielding her eyes with one hand, Sarah mumbled something under her breath.

  He skirted the table and put an arm tentatively around her shoulders. She didn’t shrug him off, and she didn’t pull away.

  Squeezing her closer, the memories came rushing back, and it seemed to him that he had loved her very much.

  He said, ‘I had no idea it could be traced back, no idea I could get you into any trouble. Believe me.’

  She kept shaking her head, very slowly. ‘Too late,’ she gasped. ‘Too late.’

  ‘Isn’t there something I can do? Somebody I can speak to?’

  And still she kept her hand over her eyes, still she kept shaking her head. In her other hand the forgotten cigarette was forming a column of ash and, taking it gently from her fingers, he leant down and laid it in an ashtray. He still had his arm on her shoulder, but the move had taken him a little in front of her, and straightening up he came closer to her, he paused with his face just inches from hers.

  ‘Sarah, believe me, I would do anything to undo it if I could.’

  She dropped her hand, she looked up at him.

  ‘Anything.’ He had forgotten her eyes, the extraordinary shade of grey-green. He had forgotten her mouth and how much he had enjoyed kissing it.

  She held his gaze, she seemed on the point of speaking a couple of times, then her eyes dulled, she said in a subdued voice, ‘Only one thing.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Leave before Pete gets back.’

  Joe got her message, he got it loud and clear, but he still needed to hear it from her own mouth. ‘You live together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He moved back a little and crossed his arms. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since after you.’

  ‘Well.’ He heard himself give a false laugh. ‘No answer to that, is there?’

  ‘It just happened,’ she said dully.

  He wanted to say. But he was your contact, your source, you must have known him well before. Instead, he said, ‘I’d better go then.’

  At the
door she said, ‘Why did you come, Joe, if it wasn’t about the passport thing?’

  ‘Believe it or not, I was going to ask you another favour.’

  She raised an eyebrow, her mouth formed a slow circle as she breathed, ‘Oh.’

  In a more sanguine mood he might have thought she was hoping for rather a different answer.

  She said, ‘What was it, this favour?’

  ‘I’m certainly not going to ask you now, am I?’

  ‘No, tell me. Something to do with Jennifer’s death?’

  ‘It was something that might - or might not - help Chetwood, that was all.’

  ‘They’re not going to charge him though, are they?’

  ‘Oh, I think it’s highly likely they will, yes.’

  The professional prosecutor in her asked, ‘But what evidence do they have?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say.’

  ‘You must have some idea.’

  ‘Only that it’s serious.’

  Suddenly he was desperate to be gone, he would have run away down the stairs there and then, but she held him back with a light touch to the arm, she said, ‘I’ll be glad to help, Joe. So long as it doesn’t involve …’ The proviso hardly needed spelling out. ‘Really.’ Her hand was still on his arm. ‘If I can … It sounds as though your friend’s going to need all the help he can get.’

  ‘Kind of you to offer. But, you see, it was the evidence from an inquest I wanted.’

  She withdrew her hand with a small jerk. ‘Ah. No.’

  ‘Outside the public domain, I think?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Yes, I couldn’t help you there.’

  ‘I can get most of it from the press cuttings anyway.’

  ‘This is the boy who died?’

  ‘Yes. I might go and see the family if I can find them.’

  ‘The family.’

  He smiled at her. ‘That’s what you told me before. Remember?

  You said always go and talk to the family. And you were absolutely right.’

  When’ he reached the turn of the stairs and looked back, she had lifted her hand in a small wave of farewell.

  He came out of the house head-down and only glanced up because he heard a car door slam. In the instant he recognised the smart Ford double-parked in front of the house, he also recognised the man coming round the back, striding rapidly towards the house. The car was the one Sarah had borrowed from her flatmate to take him to the airport - at least Joe couldn’t fault her on the word ‘flatmate’ - while the driver was the dark-haired man from the photograph upstairs. Pete, the Ellis of the doorbell, the policeman contact lover.