A Little White Death

by John Lawton

  Fitz peeled off the disguise.

  ‘Theatrical suppliers in Drury Lane, one and ninepence. Works every time. Could have had a Durante schnozzle if I’d wanted. Now, can I get you a cocktail?’

  ‘No thanks, I’m swimming in pills. I’ll pass on spirits and go straight to the grape. Just one glass. Something red and rich if they have it.’

  The waiter left menus and went for the wine.

  ‘I usually put it on in a gents’,’ Fitz said. ‘First time I looked in a mirror it was a shock. With the cap and the moustache I look the very image of my father. I suppose we all turn into dad in the end. However, you have less to fear in so doing than I.’

  With a fresh Margarita in front of him, and glass of claret in Troy’s hand, Fitz proposed a toast.

  ‘Freedom in the morning.’

  And Troy knew he had a tough time ahead. He could see no value in not telling Fitz the truth, and much damage in letting him continue to kid himself. The sooner he faced up to it the better. He was going to go to prison.

  ‘You’re not drinking.’

  Troy set down his glass untouched. ‘It’s not going to be simple as you think, Fitz.’

  ‘Don’t let that ruin your evening, Troy. You were bound to talk shop. It’s your nature. Now, what are you going to have?’

  ‘Something simple. The soup and a grilled sole?’

  Fitz looked at his watch. Beckoned the waiter.

  ‘Fine. You can have till halfway through the fish course. At which point I shall change the subject with a vengeance whether you appear to be listening or not. Now, be a love and drink to my freedom, whether you believe in it or not.’

  ‘Freedom,’ said Troy, feeling he had pissed on the chips.

  Fitz ordered. Fish for Troy, veal for himself. He was still in the pleasant, smiley frame of mind Troy had found him in. Perhaps he would hear him out, listen to sense after all?

  ‘Tell me,’ Fitz said, ‘do you not think David Cocket made a good job of my defence?’

  ‘I didn’t see the whole trial. I missed whole swathes – Blood in the box, Cocket cross-examining Tara.’

  ‘I’d still value your opinion.’

  ‘Yes. I rather think he did. I was a little worried at first. He is so young. But on the whole I think he served you well. When Moira Twelvetrees blew her testimony it crossed my mind that he should move for a dismissal – but the ceiling was the only point he scored and he could not shift her further so I doubt Mirkeyn would have granted it.’

  ‘Dear Moira. I rolled her on her back, pointed out the stars and moons and described to her the ceilings I had seen in Italy. All she could say was “nice init?” Poor girl. Memory like a sieve.’

  Fitz was not smiling. He was grinning.

  ‘You mean she conveniently forgot?’

  He grinned the more. ‘Do carry on, Troy. We were talking about young Cocket.’

  ‘When Caro went to pieces on the prosecution it was possible to ask for a dismissal again. But by then I had the measure of Mirkeyn. He would never have granted it. I think Caro helped you enormously, but at great risk to herself. She caught Mirkeyn on his weak spot. Even the most appalling old chauvinists can’t stand to see a woman cry. But there’s your problem. Out of sight is out of mind. Unless you can embarrass him perpetually, the memory of tearful woman will not move him. Only the woman herself. Mirkeyn stitched you up in his last words to the jury.’

  ‘But Cocket told them in his final address that the prosecution had “signally failed to prove their case”.’

  ‘And he was right. But juries aren’t as bright as you might think. The judge speaks last and they attach most importance to the last thing they hear. Mirkeyn as good as told them to bring in a guilty verdict.’

  ‘I didn’t think he had.’

  ‘Believe me, it was as biased a summing up as I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘Give me your worst.’

  ‘My worst? You are found guilty and the old sod sends you down for three to five.’

  ‘Your best.’

  ‘He’s given you a superb set of grounds for appeal. The law lords overturn conviction and sentence and set you free—’

  ‘And I pick up the threads of my practice. Notorious but innocent and my fame spreads far and wide.’

  ‘Not quite – there’s something in between.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t get bail. You serve time while the case gets to the Appeal Court.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘I’d say about twelve to sixteen weeks. That would be no joke.’

  ‘I spent a fortnight on remand, but you’re going to tell me prison is different, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’ve seen the inside of a prison less often than you might think. I’ve interviewed prisoners inside, and as a young copper I had to collect them for trial or appeal. I’ve hardly ever seen the cells. But, yes it’s different. The presumption of innocence is gone.’

  ‘So you can’t really tell me what it’s like?’

  ‘I can tell you what it’s like in terms of the people I’ve sent there in my time.’

  ‘Not a lot of people like me.’

  ‘Not a lot, no.’

  Fitz shrugged. Tucked into his veal while Troy picked at his Dover sole. It was the first silence they had hit.

  ‘But’, Fitz said at last, ‘you think I will win on appeal?’

  ‘Ordinarily I’d put money on it.’

  ‘But this is . . . I am . . . extraordinary?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Well . . . you needn’t worry. I’m glad you told me. It’s as well to know. And I do value your opinion. But do not worry. It’s all taken care of.’

  Troy had a vague memory of the pissed Fitz at Uphill telling him he had ‘an ace in the fffff . . . fffff . . . fucking hole’. He had no idea now or then what he might mean by this. But it did seem to imbue him with confidence.

  ‘What do you mean, Fitz?’

  ‘I mean I’m not going to go to prison. Arrangements have been made. So I don’t want you to worry. More than that, I want you to tell Anna not to worry.’

  He watched Troy finish his fish, looked at his watch again. ‘Your time’s up. I don’t want to talk about the trial any more.

  Let’s discuss your health.’ ‘My health? I’d far rather talk about the trial than my health!’ ‘I didn’t get you here to talk about the trial. I got you here to give you this.’ Fitz dipped into his inside pocket and produced a very creased and battered envelope. ‘For me?’ said Troy. ‘For you. I’ve been meaning to give it to you for ages. First at the club, then at Easter, and I plain forgot both times.’ Troy tore it open. It was a single sheet of headed notepaper, reading:

  One West Seventy-Second Street

  Apt # 66 New York

  NY 10023

  December 15th 1962

  Dear Troy, Been living here a while now. Come up and see me some time.

  Larissa XXX

  It was startling. He waited for it to sink in, but it floated on the surface, recognisable but hardly assimilable. ‘So that’s where she is,’ Troy said, more to himself than to Fitz. ‘You mean you didn’t know? I’m most awfully sorry, I’ve known for a couple of years. I just presumed you did too.’ Troy folded the note and put it in his jacket pocket. ‘We haven’t met since 1960. I always knew she was in America. I could guess that, but I suppose I thought she’d avoid New York.’ ‘Why would she? It’s her home town?’ ‘Exactly,’ said Troy. ‘Her home town. Have you seen her since?’ ‘Since December? No.’ ‘Do you know, I hardly know the first thing about her. I thought she might have divorced me in absentia.’

  ‘On the contrary. She calls herself Mrs Troy. Clarissa Troy. Very well known on the art and fart circuit in Manhattan.’

  ‘What does she do there?’

  ‘Not sure. Something bookish. I tend to come across her at the galleries and the book bashes. I bumped into her at the first night of some dreadful Ibsen revival in the summer. She was at a book booze-up j
ust before Christmas. But I couldn’t tell you what she does exactly.’

  Troy ground to a halt. Fitz was right. He had changed the subject with a vengeance. Troy had come crashing to earth; Fitz was still up there. Nothing Troy said had dented his confidence. He was ordering dessert and Muscat de Beaume de Venise, and prattling pleasantly, as he rightly predicted, whether Troy was listening or not, and he wasn’t.

  Around ten o’clock, they parted in the street.

  Fitz said, ‘When it’s all over I want you and Anna to come down to Uphill again. We’ll forget all this ever happened.’

  He couldn’t believe that. He could not possibly believe that.

  Walking home through Soho, head full of Tosca, a random thought hit him out of nowhere. He finally found the answer to Clover’s obsessive question, and wondered why he had not thought of it before. Literature’s great joint suicide was in Rosmersholm, the Ibsen play whose heroine is called Rebecca West, who leaps with her lover into a millstream somewhere offstage. He wondered why he had not thought of it at once.

  § 69

  When he opened the front door, he could see Clover slumped awkwardly in an armchair. Arms too loose, chin too close to her chest. He knew at once this was not the posture of sleep. On the coffee table, in the small circle of light thrown by the lamp, was a brown screwtopjar, lying on its side. Next to it were two envelopes. The tableau froze part of him, all of him unwilling to believe what he was seeing. He picked up the letters. In her neat, unformed, stick-man hand they were addressed ‘Grandad’ and ‘Troy’. He picked up the jar and shook it. A single pill rolled out.

  The Charing Cross Hospital was only yards away. A couple of hundred at the most. Down Bedfordbury, across Chandos Place, almost to the Strand.

  He picked her up and ran. He’d no idea where he’d find the energy and once he’d stormed into casualty, dropped Clover onto a chair and yelled ‘Overdose!’ he’d just enough to answer the question put to him.

  ‘Overdose of what?’

  ‘Mandrax.’

  ‘How many?’

  But he couldn’t speak now. His breath came in great tearing wheezes, ripping up his throat and larynx as though he’d just inhaled barbed wire.

  The young man in the white coat made him sit. Two nurses whisked Clover into a cubicle and swished the curtains closed around her.

  ‘Ten?’

  Troy shook his head.

  ‘Fifteen?’

  ‘Nearer thirty,’ Troy croaked.

  ‘Oh bloody hell. Look, are you all right?’

  ‘I’ll . . . I’ll be . . . fine.’

  ‘Sorry, but I don’t believe you. You look absolutely awful.’

  He summoned another nurse. Taller than Troy and twice as strong, she woman-handled him onto the bed in a cubicle of his own. He lay back gasping. The doctor reappeared. ‘Oxygen,’ he said simply.

  Troy lay a long time breathing in the heady gas of life and felt nearer to death than at any time he could ever recall. Being stabbed was nothing to this; being shot was nothing. Pain galvanised. This was numbing, soporific, the weak and sleepy way to hell. He went under, felt the bliss of temporary oblivion.

  When he awoke he wondered for the splitting of a second if he was dead. Then the young doctor came in and told him. It was Clover who was dead.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry. There was so little we could do. And if there had been I could not have assured you of the consequences. A dose that large . . . possible brain damage . . . plays all hell with the liver.’

  Troy said nothing.

  ‘Look – you seem to be in the most awful shape. I want to admit you.’

  Troy did not argue. It was the first time in his life – and he’d been in half the hospitals in London – that he had been admitted conscious and had not argued.

  Around one in the morning a uniformed constable looked in.

  ‘They told me you were awake. I was wondering if you were up to a few questions. We have to ask them in cases like this.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Troy.

  The bobby parked his helmet on the floor, where it sat like a bizarre species of horned tortoise. Troy had never known what to do with his when he’d been a constable. It was too heavy for a hat peg, and wherever you set it down people would bump into it or fall over it. Daft things, police helmets.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Sorry. I was miles way. By all means ask your questions.’

  The bobby took his folding notebook and his Biro from a breast pocket and turned to a blank page.

  ‘Your name first, sir.’

  ‘Frederick Troy.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘Goodwin’s Court. WC1.’

  ‘Occupation?’

  ‘I’m head of CID at Scotland Yard.’

  Troy watched the Biro veer off at a tangent, a thin blue line trailing across the page and off it to stab the poor bloke in the thigh with the sharpend of his own pen.

  ‘I . . . I . . . er . . .’

  ‘You could try asking me for my warrant card. It’s in my jacket on the end of the bed.’

  The bobby fished it out. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘I didn’t . . . I wasn’t . . .’

  ‘Why don’t you just carry on with your questions, constable? You’ve an unexplained death to investigate.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say next.’

  ‘Try asking me who the girl was.’

  ‘Who was she, then, sir?’

  ‘Jacqueline Marjorie Clover.’

  This was not the name Troy had given the nurses.

  ‘Aged sixteen or seventeen. I’m not sure. She might have turned seventeen some time this month,’ he went on.

  ‘No relation?’

  ‘No.’

  The constable thought for a moment, resisted the obvious question, then asked it. ‘Could I ask what she was doing at your house, sir?’

  ‘I suppose I was looking after her.’

  ‘Like . . . her guardian?’

  Troy had never once let this word reach the level of conscious recognition, but yes that was what he had been. And a bloody awful one at that.

  ‘Daughter of a friend was she, sir?’

  ‘She’s the granddaughter of Sir Stanley Onions, the recently retired Commissioner of the Met.’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell. Oh, bloody hell.’

  This, clearly, was more than the man could stand. He flustered himself to silence, the blood drained from his cheeks.

  ‘Tell me,’ Troy said, ‘do you have any doubts that this was a suicide?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then you do. And so you should. Why don’t you write up the report from what you now know and drop it into Mr Wildeve’s office? Tell him you cannot accept the facts at face value and request his department look into it. Quote the only witness – me – as saying I know of no reason why Miss Clover should have taken her own life. Do it before you go off shift. See he gets it first thing in the morning. And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, talk to no one about this.’

  The constable seemed relieved to have a plan of action. He thanked Troy, put his warrant card on top of the sheet across his chest and fled.

  Habit took over. Troy reached for his jacket to put back the card, and found the two envelopes Clover had left, one addressed to him, the other to Stan. He’d no memory of ever picking them up. Damn. He should have told that young bobby there were notes.

  He opened his.

  Dear Fred, Lovely Fred,

  I’m sorry to do this to you, and I know it’s a mess. But it pays to know when it’s all pointless. You been great – really you have – but this was always there, always with me, and it was never going to go away. Was it?

  I’m really very sorry, really I am.

  Love,

  C. XXXX.

  He’d no idea what she was talking about. He thought about calling Stan. It would destroy him. Better to let him sleep. It might be the last good night’s sleepthe old man would ever get. He put the letter marked ‘Grandad�
�� back into his pocket unopened.

  § 70

  He rose around six thirty the next morning, only minutes before the overhead neon lights flickered on with their blinking light and the clanking sound of their metal housings expanding in the heat. He found a coinbox telephone on a trolley in the corridor.

  Time to phone Stan.

  He’d be up by now. Fire lit, first fag of the day, sitting by the range in his pyjamas and dressing-gown, cursing the cheerlessness of smokeless coal, and thoroughly relishing the onset of autumn.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said, instantly suspicious. Troy never called at this hour. The Troy Stan had known was hardly ever up at this hour. Only murder got him up at this time of day.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the Charing Cross Hospital. Stan, Jackie’s dead.’

  He’d learnt not to mince words about death. Stan had taught him that years ago in his first days at the Yard. ‘Forget “Sit down, I’ve something to tell you” – just spit it out. There’s nowt ye can say’ll save ’em so much as an ounce of grief.’

  All the same Stan’s response shocked him.

  ‘Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!’

  And he did not stop. His voice rose, louder and shriller. And he did not stop. ‘No, no, no’ might have made more sense, but this wasn’t denial. It was unstoppable, unplumbable heartbreak. Troy heard the phone fall. Waited minutes, a passing age, before Stan picked it up.

  ‘Which ward?’

  ‘Bevan.’

  ‘I’ll be there in an hour.’

  § 71

  Stan sat backbone rigid on a hospital chair, his face bloodless – but shaved, shaved and groomed. Troy had never seen him turned out any other way, whatever the crisis, and he could not count the crises in the best part of thirty years. His hair and his mac glistened with early-morning rain, and his shining black boots sat squarely on the lino, as unmistakably police as a helmet.

  He heard Troy out in silence. When Troy handed him Jackie’s letter, emotion betrayed him for the first time. He stretched out his hand and it seemed that he could not make himself grasp it. The hand withdrew, dived into his pocket. Out came his glasses. Like grandfather like granddaughter – he was rarely caught wearing his glasses in public.