Will Power

by Judith Cutler

  ‘According to this article in the paper the other day, you’re less likely to die in a plane crash than to die of a donkey kick.’

  ‘Oh, trust the papers to say something stupid like that! How many donkeys do you see in Kings Heath, you tell me that.’

  ‘For that matter, how many plane crashes do you get over Kings Heath? Come on, Cassie: you know I’m much more likely to get killed crossing the High Street than I am flying to Berlin.’

  ‘Did you say, “flying to Berlin”?’ Graham’s voice asked. He stood in the open doorway, and then stepped in, closing the door behind him. As always, he went straight over to Cassie, taking her hand and kissing her cheek.

  Without being asked, Kate poured three G and T’s. She passed Cassie hers, but Graham stepped towards her, apparently to reach for his glass but in face to take her hand and press it against his crutch. His cock pulsed: he looked her straight in the eye.

  ‘I’ve got two hours to spare,’ he mouthed, before walking to the window and saying over his shoulder to Cassie, ‘I’m surprised you’re not out there having another barbecue tonight; it’s a lovely evening.’ He downed his gin in one surprising gulp.

  ‘We could do with some rain,’ Cassie said. ‘Freshen the place up a bit. And this heat … All you young people in your nothings. Look at Kate, here. I’d never have thought of showing the world my tummy button like that.’

  Kate laughed: ‘I bet you did the equivalent.’ Her eyes sought Graham’s. She tapped her watch and raised five fingers.

  Nodding, he went back to Cassie. ‘I’d best be off,’ he said.

  ‘But you’ve only been here two minutes.’

  ‘Mustn’t make Mrs Nelmes jealous.’

  ‘But you haven’t heard about Kate and this flying business. I want you to stop it. You’re her boss.’

  ‘Not any more. She got too much of a handful for me.’ He kissed her again, then turned to Kate, kissing her hard on the lips. ‘At your house,’ he whispered.

  ‘My regards to Mrs Nelmes,’ Cassie said. ‘Now, young Kate, how d’you feel about a nice game of whist? We’re one short tonight. Old Trev’s only been and popped his clogs.’

  How could you be as casual about death when you were that close to it yourself? ‘Trev?’ How soon could she escape?

  ‘I told you. The one who can never remember what trumps are.’

  ‘Well, I can’t manage it tonight, I’m afraid. In fact, I must dash, I’ve got my washing and ironing to do.’

  ‘Isn’t tomorrow good enough for that?’

  Poor old woman. Pleading with Graham, now with her. But she hardened her heart. ‘Packing tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I’ll call in as soon as I get back.’

  ‘I want you to phone the people here,’ Cassie wailed. ‘Soon as you get to Berlin. And then when you get to wherever it is. You’ll be killed in a crash, I know you will. And then who’ll look after me?’

  Usually Graham parked his car round the corner. Tonight it was in front of her house. God, what a risk! What if his wife, or Rod—? She shooed him away to park more discreetly, leaving her front door on the latch while she ran upstairs, shedding clothes as she went. Her bra arranged itself into an arrow shape through her open bedroom doorway. It was a game she’d played with Robin, but Graham would never know it was second-hand. He had another, unspoken, fantasy: that he was the first man in her life. It was not her function to initiate anything, but to respond to him, which she did, with absolute willingness. But the pretence had been difficult to maintain when he had bouts – not rare – of impotence. That, at least, wasn’t a problem tonight. He entered into the spirit of things, taking her with gusto.

  If she turned her head, she could watch him in the wardrobe mirror: see his cock plunging into her, see the thrust of his buttocks, his thighs. She had almost as much pleasure in that as in the sex act itself. When he had come, and had rolled off, stripping off the condom and dropping it by the bed – she’d cured him of his habit of dashing straight to the bathroom to flush away his guilt – she ran her hands over the parts she’d looked at so lovingly before. Perhaps he might do the same to her.

  But he was pulling himself on to his elbow, reaching for his glasses. Was it they that changed his voice?

  ‘So what’s this about Berlin?’

  ‘Chasing a witness in a fraud case. Then on to Portugal to talk to another. The sun, the wine, the food – oh, it’s a hard life! I suppose you couldn’t discover a case to take you there too?’

  ‘Are you sure you can justify the expense?’

  What was the matter with him? ‘Not my decision. In fact, I rather voted against it. Lizzie’s idea.’ Could she risk it? ‘I’m afraid she may be cutting corners over the paperwork.’

  ‘She’s a good cop,’ he said, which didn’t seem to be an answer to anything.

  And felt like a criticism. Not good, if you believed that Lizzie and he had once been such serious lovers that he’d gone back to his wife. Not just stayed with her: gone back to her.

  ‘Life’s too short to talk about work,’ she suggested. Any moment now, he’d decide he had to go, and she didn’t want Lizzie to be their final topic of conversation. How crazy, to hate his relationship with a past lover more than she hated that with his wife. But what she feared, so much she found herself shivering, what she really feared, was that he would drop her not for his wife but for Lizzie – after all, he never spoke of the poor Flavia with half the enthusiasm he reserved for Lizzie. She swallowed hard: he’d never speak of her, Kate, with that enthusiasm, would he? Couldn’t. Not while they were secret lovers, and almost certainly not afterwards. And she wanted his praise more than she’d ever wanted anyone’s, even her father’s: wanted his praise for her work, and now, yes, now for her body and her sexiness and desirability. She wanted to hear that she was his best lover, with the loveliest body.

  What she did hear was a quiet sigh as he turned over and reached for his watch.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  If Birmingham had been hot and almost airless, when Kate stepped off the disconcertingly small plane at Tegel, she found Berlin even hotter, and what little air there so thick she could have cut it up and taken it out in chunks. Her lightweight suit was already a crumpled mess; her shoes felt exceptionally full of foot. She strap-hung on the airport link bus to the city, her nose close to the plain-clothes armpit of Jo, Lizzie’s ex, who had been wished on her willy-nilly. Since he’d pocketed what Kate still suspected was dodgy paperwork without comment, perhaps she shouldn’t regret the absence of Sam’s partner. Jo – short for Johannes, and therefore pronounced Yo – had greeted her with courtesy but markedly little enthusiasm. He’d be a little older than Graham, but was already fleshing out a little around the midriff, and markedly about the jaw. From time to time he’d smooth a broad hand across his pale thinning hair. He lurked behind impenetrable shades.

  ‘We’ll get the U-bahn straight out to Gneisenaustrasse,’ he said, in English so perfect Kate decided not to embarrass either of them with her German. ‘That’s in Kreuzberg. We’ll find somewhere to get a coffee. Maybe an imbiss for some lunch – you’ve put your watch forward?’

  Kate nodded. So long as she could have a long, cold drink, she could tackle anything. But she suspected Jo was the sort of man to put work first.

  Their conversation was no more than tepid. Maybe Jo wasn’t by nature an affable man. He barely responded to her favourable comments about the U-bahn, or her unfavourable ones about its graffiti. Her German wasn’t up to translating the terse advice he offered to a beggar working their carriage: whatever it was, it seemed to be taken rapidly to heart. Kate glanced at him as he spoke: without the sinister dark glasses maybe he’d be reassuringly normal.

  At last they emerged into the sunlight of a suburb, right, as it happened, in the middle of a street, a broad thoroughfare with plane trees down the central reservation as well as the pavement. They waited obediently for the pedestrian signal to cross an entirely clear road. At a tiny café, old men – T
urkish, by the looks of them – drank coffee and stared disconsolately at a profusion of vegetables glossy with freshness spilling out from the equally tiny shop next door. A couple of women scurried past, swathed from top to toe in black. As always, Kate found the effect disconcerting, as disconcerting as Jo’s mirror glasses.

  ‘Hmph,’ Jo said. ‘You get this in Birmingham? This ethnic crap?’

  ‘Yes, some women have started to wear their faces entirely covered, even their eyes.’

  ‘What I say is: when in Rome …’

  If pushed, that might have been what Kate confessed to feeling. But she was so offended at hearing it said so brutally she pushed all her more liberal ideals to the fore. ‘If it’s their religion,’ she began.

  ‘Religion? Pah! It’s all political. Left here.’

  Schleiermacherstrasse. Some sort of playground – yes, there was a school there, too – occupied the far side of the road. Theirs had more shops – one displaying patently second-hand items that must have been trashy even when new – and a couple of restaurants, one Indian, one Turkish. The smell of food still hung over the pavement. If only she wasn’t so thirsty.

  ‘You mentioned coffee,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long time since I had a drink.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ He perched his briefcase on one knee and produced a bottle of mineral water. He swigged and then offered it to her.

  Was there any etiquette about wiping it before she drank? She did anyway, wiping it again before returning it to him. ‘Thanks. That’s better.’

  He stowed it, then produced something else. Sun block. ‘Who’d have a bald spot?’ he asked, with the first genuine grin he’d managed so far. ‘So we don’t forget when we come out,’ he added, rubbing the lotion in vigorously.

  ‘We’ve all got noses,’ she said, accepting the bottle.

  ‘True.’ He checked she’d fastened the lid before putting the bottle back. ‘There you are: Steiner, Dr Joseph.’ He pointed to a name on the entry-phone before applying a finger to it. He took the tube and shoved it in his pocket as the buzzer sounded. ‘So you talk and I listen?’

  ‘Fine. And when you take his German statement, you talk and I listen.’

  Inside were wide marble stairs; true, after the first flight they became stone.

  ‘Built to last,’ he said, shoving the shades into his breast pocket – yes, he looked remarkably ordinary. ‘About eighteen seventy, I’d say. Officers’ flats, now converted into apartments, of course.’

  ‘Barracks! A bit grand for barracks!’

  ‘No. Not barracks. Flats. Not on the compound or whatever. Actually, my aunt used to live round the corner: accommodation for the officers’ orderlies. Very inferior.’ He produced another grin.

  Neither had much breath for conversation by the time they’d reached the third floor. Someone had propped open all the stairwell windows, but the air was too exhausted to flow in or out.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked, his thumb ready for Steiner’s bell.

  ‘Ready.’

  But when a door opened, it was to the apartment on the opposite side of the landing.

  ‘Sergeant Power, I presume?’ asked a lightly accented voice.

  Kate spun round to be confronted by a double for an Old Testament prophet. No, his beard was too neatly trimmed, and his hair no more than a hangover from an earlier, more youthful style. But his bones were wonderful, an elegant jaw and cheekbones framing a pair of fine dark eyes that obscurely reminded her of Cassie, as did the age spots on the hands.

  ‘That’s right. You must be Dr Steiner.’ They shook hands. ‘And this is my colleague Inspector Rathman of the German police. He will take down your statement in German.’

  ‘Oh, statements! I’ll let you into my flat and then I must just finish feeding the rabbits. Unless you’re keen on rabbits?’

  Kate was suddenly very keen on rabbits, if, when it came to it, less keen on their smell in the confines of a flat. Carrots, lettuce: Dr Steiner had left a colander of food just inside the door. Rathman seemed to take to his allotted task, feeding guinea pigs to which he muttered German endearments, while Steiner tackled a couple of caged parakeets, whistling Bach to them.

  ‘Who on earth keeps all these?’ Kate demanded at last, standing, hands on hips, gazing at pens and cages and fish-tanks, all in an otherwise normal and possibly elegant sitting room.

  ‘A lady who is lonely without them,’ Steiner said, his voice dry with irony. ‘All it remains for me to do now is feed the piranha.’

  ‘The – the piranha?’

  Steiner nodded in the direction of a high-walled tank, perhaps a foot wide and three feet long. It was occupied by nothing but a solitary fish so huge she wondered how it turned round. If the lady was lonely, what about this fish?

  ‘I thought they were small fish,’ she said, ‘in big shoals.’

  ‘Without the rest of their shoal, perhaps they grow. This one did. I suspect he grows large on redundant guinea-pig litters.’ He paused to mist some foliage she’d only ever seen in a hothouse. ‘There. And now you have met my neighbours, perhaps I might offer you my hospitality?’

  Steiner’s coffee was ambrosial, especially when served with tall glasses of iced water and the sort of biscuit that Sam Kennedy had offered her. They sat in what she suspected was a double cube of a living room, its proportions so good that all Kate wanted to do was stand by the open balcony doors and absorb them. One long wall was entirely covered with bookshelves, crammed with books in at least four languages.

  Jo caught her eye and tapped his watch. She glanced at her own, which told her what her stomach didn’t – that it was way past lunch-time.

  Nodding, she smiled at Steiner, and fished her notebook from her bag. ‘Now, Dr Steiner, I wonder if we might just put together your statement about the signing of Mrs Barr’s will?’

  He settled into a chair opposite her, moving aside a chess table the better to cross his ankles, his relaxed posture at variance with his unsmiling face. ‘You have my account of the events. I sent it to you as soon as you asked me. I have nothing to add to that.’ He reached for a file from the bookshelf behind him, fishing out three copies. Keeping one on his lap, he passed Rathman the others.

  I’d like to clarify just a couple of points, if I may,’ Kate began. ‘How did you come to be a witness? After all, you weren’t a friend of Mrs Barr’s.’

  ‘I doubt if Mrs Barr had any friends by then, she was so cantankerous. What happened was that she decided that she must make her will that very day. Like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘I had arranged to meet my good friend Max that afternoon anyway, and he telephoned me to ask if I would come earlier to witness the will. It was as simple as that. I arrived at about two-thirty. She insisted on dictating the will, word by laborious word. I hadn’t realised till then what a very sick woman she was. In fact, she was so distressed by the whole procedure that Max had to give up our evening engagement to stay with her.’

  Nothing new there.

  ‘The other witness was Mr Leon Horowitz: at what—’

  ‘Yes, another old friend of Max’s. We shared the same child and young manhood, Sergeant, all three of us. I’ve been an academic all my adult life, a not unsuccessful one, if I might say so, and Leon a distinguished gerontologist. Who can blame him for seeking the rich pickings to be had amongst the elderly inhabitants of the Algarve? But if any one of us had a wonderful future, I’d have predicted it for Max. Such a fine mind.’ He sighed, a huge rib-cracking sigh. ‘Who’d have thought he’d remain a general factotum all his life? Sergeant, have you seen that rat-hole he calls his room? A place like that when there is a mansion full of fine rooms …’

  ‘Fine when they’ve been emptied and cleaned,’ Kate agreed. ‘Now, Mr Horowitz arrived at what time?’

  ‘My dear Sergeant, it’s all in here; everything I wish to say.’ He flicked his copy of his account.

  ‘It’s singularly lacking in detail, Dr Steiner, if you don’t mind my saying so. Indulge me a mo
ment. I like to see how things really happened: a snapshot, as it were, of the event.’

  He flicked the paper again. ‘Here is your snapshot.’

  ‘I think it might need some more time in the developing dish, then,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘In which room did all this take place?’

  ‘That dreadful living room. I remember thinking it was more a dying room than a living room.’

  ‘My colleague here has never seen it. Could you tell him something about it?’

  Steiner half turned, but with an air of humouring her. ‘It is a dirty, ugly room, officer, half filled by a grand piano excruciatingly out of tune. Any one of the pictures on the wall might be sold and the proceeds keep a person modestly fed for a year. There may be windows at either end but it is dark as a cellar. A basement, at least.’

  Jo nodded with apparent interest.

  Kate continued: ‘How did Mrs Barr get into the room?’

  ‘In a wheelchair. Max had to carry her downstairs.’

  ‘And you sat where?’

  ‘The armchair nearest the piano.’

  ‘And Mr Cornfield?’

  ‘What does it matter where he sat?’

  ‘At the table? Or did he sit in an armchair with a writing pad on his knee?’

  ‘Sergeant, you are playing games with me. You know as well as I do there is no table for him to sit at. He sat in the other armchair.’

  ‘And Mr Horowitz sat?’

  ‘By a process of elimination, Sergeant, you can surely work out that anyone else in the room must have sat on the sofa.’

  Ah! So she wasn’t the only one playing games. ‘Did Mr Horowitz sit on the sofa?’

  ‘I thought you’d just established that.’

  ‘What time did Mr Horowitz arrive?’

  ‘I didn’t check my watch.’ He sounded pettish.

  She was getting somewhere: she knew she was. ‘He didn’t arrive with you, then? Earlier or later?’

  ‘Sergeant, I have said all I wish to say about the incident and wish you good-day.’

  Kate reached for her bag, made all the moves that one would make to leave. But instead of standing, she fumbled in a side pocket, producing one of the photos from the Duncton albums, still in its official evidence bag.