Day for Dying

by Dorothy Simpson

  This time Thanet made no attempt to respond. What was the point? But it seemed the Superintendent had had his say. He glared at Thanet. ‘Well?’

  Draco would never listen to excuses. Thanet took a deep, unobtrusive breath. ‘What would I have told her, sir?’ His tone was as calm, as reasonable as he could make it.

  Draco stared at him, lips pursed. Then he clasped his hands behind his back. ‘Don’t ask me! That’s your job! Something, anything, to make her feel that we’re not sitting around twiddling our thumbs.’

  Prudence battled with a sense of injustice and lost. ‘But there really wasn’t anything to tell her!’

  ‘Then tell her that!’ Draco put his hands on his desk and leaned forward, thrusting his chin out. ‘Just so long as you remember that she had a right to know.’ He straightened up and waggled his fingers. ‘Within reason, of course. No need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s.’

  Pointless to argue. ‘I’ll detail someone to give her a ring each morning, sir,’ Thanet said stiffly.

  The concession won, Draco sat down with a thump, pulled a file towards him and opened it. ‘Good.’ His tone was already absent-minded. Clearly, the interview was over.

  Feeling like a schoolboy who has been unjustly accused by his headmaster Thanet left the room and walked upstairs fuming.

  Lineham took one look at his face and said, ‘Like that, sir, was it?’

  Thanet related the conversation.

  ‘Sounds par for the course to me,’ said Lineham.

  ‘You weren’t on the receiving end! I mean, I agree with him, Mike! Victims’ families should be kept up to date with what is going on. But what’s the point of ringing just to say there’s nothing to report?’

  ‘You don’t need to convince me, sir.’

  ‘It’s just a waste of time and manpower!’

  ‘Well, if it’ll keep him happy, it’s a simple enough thing to organise. Honestly, sir, it’s not worth getting so worked up about.’

  ‘I just object to being ticked off unfairly!’

  ‘You don’t object if it’s justified, then?’ said Lineham with a grin.

  Thanet glowered at him, then reluctantly grinned back. ‘Touché, Mike. And you’re right. It’s not worth getting steamed up about.’ If he was honest with himself, Thanet realised, it was hurt pride that was making him react like this. He sat down at his desk. ‘Anything new come in?’

  ‘Ellie Ransome rang at about 12.30, apparently – the competition lady. So I rang back. She said the girl came back again soon after we left. She still hadn’t heard that Jeopard was dead so Miss Ransome felt she had to tell her. She had hysterics on the spot. Miss Ransome took her into her flat to try and calm her down and tried to find out more about her, where she was staying and so on, but the girl was so upset and her English so poor that she was more or less incoherent. Miss Ransome gave her your card and tried to get her to understand that she really must contact us.’

  ‘But she hasn’t yet, I gather?’

  Lineham shook his head.

  ‘And this was, what?’ Thanet glanced at his watch. ‘Three hours ago. Hmm. Well, we’ll just have to hope she does. It may not be that important, of course.’

  They were soon to find out. Half an hour later the constable on desk duty rang through to say that a Miss Gomes was asking for Thanet.

  ‘I’ll be right down.’

  Thanet had pictured a tall Spanish-style beauty with an abundance of tumbling dark curls but for the second time today he was wrong. The girl who rose in response to his greeting was small, tiny in fact, and looked very young, little more than a child. She reminded Thanet of someone and almost at once he realised who it was: Tess Sylvester. She could have been Tess’s younger sister. Was this what had first attracted Jeopard to her?

  She looked very nervous, fearful even, and Thanet put himself out to set her at her ease, taking her into the least depressing of the interview rooms and despatching someone for a tray of coffee and biscuits.

  She was wearing a short, loose raincoat and she slipped it off as she sat down. It was as she twisted to drape it over the back of her chair that Thanet saw that she was pregnant. The bulge was slight but unmistakable. He wondered if Lineham had spotted this and glanced at him, but the sergeant was fiddling with the recording equipment.

  Remembering the airmail letter, so callously torn across unopened and discarded as rubbish, Thanet’s opinion of the man dropped several notches further. Max must surely have been told about the pregnancy months ago.

  ‘Now, how can we help you, Miss Gomes?’

  ‘The woman, she tell me . . . Is true?’ she said. ‘Max is . . .’e is dead?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Her forehead wrinkled. ‘Afraid?’

  This was going to be difficult. And there was no way he could get hold of an interpreter who could speak Portuguese on the spur of the moment. He would just have to do his best and try to make sure there were no misunderstandings. ‘Sorry. Yes. Max is dead.’

  She stared at him, her eyes huge, the tears welling up again and spilling over to trickle unheeded down her cheeks. ‘I see him,’ she said.

  ‘I do not understand,’ said Thanet, speaking slowly and clearly.

  ‘I want see’im.’ Impatiently she flicked the tears away. ‘Per’aps there is mistake.’

  So that was it. She had come to view the body. She wasn’t convinced that Jeopard was dead, Thanet realised, and wouldn’t be until she had seen for herself. He shook his head. ‘No mistake.’

  ‘I see ’im,’ she repeated. Her jaw set stubbornly. ‘I mus’.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Thanet. If the girl was carrying Jeopard’s child she surely had the right to view its father’s body. He could tell she hadn’t understood that he had agreed, though. He nodded emphatically. ‘Yes. We will take you to see him.’

  She relaxed a little, sat back and now, for the first time, picked up her cup of coffee and drank, cupping her hands around it as if to draw comfort from its warmth.

  ‘Did you know Max long?’

  She looked puzzled. ‘Max long?’

  Thanet tried again. ‘How long did you know Max? Weeks? Months?’ This was going to take some time but might be his only opportunity of talking to her and he was determined to learn as much as he could. Slowly, patiently, he extracted her story.

  She lived in the city of Manaus, which was in central Brazil, on the Amazon. Max Jeopard had been brought in by some tribesmen to the hospital where – she was a nurse she was, astonishingly, twenty-two, several years older than Thanet had first thought. Her English wasn’t good enough for her to explain exactly what had been wrong with Jeopard but he had been very debilitated. The next part was predictable – according to Rosinha they had fallen in love and he had flown back to England in December, promising to return as soon as possible. She had been convinced that when he did so, they would marry. But she had never heard from him again.

  ‘He gave you his address?’

  She shook her head. ‘I find a . . . how you say? A letter go in it . . .’

  ‘An envelope?’

  ‘Yes. An envelope. Empty. In a book he leave. So I write. I write many, many time, but he no reply. And then . . .’ Her hands rested gently on her stomach.

  ‘The baby.’

  Lineham’s startled face told Thanet that the sergeant hadn’t guessed.

  ‘Baby. Yes.’

  She had been frantic when, about a month after he left, she realised she was pregnant. Her religion barred her from having an abortion and further letters to Max telling him the news had still elicited no response. When she finally plucked up the courage to tell her parents they had thrown her out, told her they didn’t want to have anything more to do with her. She knew the time would come when she wouldn’t be able to work any longer and decided that her only option was to come to England and find Max. Now she didn’t know what to do. She had only been able to afford a one-way ticket and her limited funds were almost gone.

 
Her story finished she dissolved once more into tears and Thanet and Lineham exchanged glances. How would he feel, Thanet wondered, if it were Bridget in this situation? But she wouldn’t be, of course. Under no circumstances would he and Joan cast her out, as this girl’s parents had done. Even allowing for a different society, a different culture, he simply couldn’t understand the mentality of such people in this day and age. What was to be done?

  Thanet left a policewoman sitting with the girl while he and Lineham withdrew to confer.

  The sergeant was equally concerned about her. ‘What are we going to do, sir? We can’t just take her to the morgue, show her his body then pack her back off to London on the train. What will become of her? With no money, no work permit, nothing?’

  ‘I agree. We must think of something.’

  ‘Social services?’

  ‘We could try, but I doubt that they’d regard it as their responsibility.’

  ‘They might come up with some suggestions, though.’

  ‘True. Better get on to them then, Mike. No, just a minute . . . I wonder . . .’

  ‘What?’

  It might be worth a try. Tell me, how d’you think Mrs Jeopard would react to the idea of a grandchild?’

  Lineham stared at him. ‘You think she might take the girl in! That’s a brilliant idea, sir! Max was the apple of her eye! You’re right, it would be worth a try! Let’s go and suggest to Miss Gomes that she meet her.’

  Impulsive as ever, Lineham was already moving towards the door but Thanet caught his sleeve. ‘Just a minute, Mike. Not so fast. Let’s think about this. Say Mrs Jeopard does take her in. What sort of a life would she have? Would you like to live with the old lady?’

  ‘No way. But I’m not young, homeless, penniless and pregnant.’

  ‘And in the long term there’d be legal problems too, bound to be. She’s only over on a short visit, remember. What happens when her visa runs out?’

  ‘But as you say, sir, all that is in the long term. Surely the main thing at the moment is to make sure she has a roof over her head in the immediate future? And it would buy her time, to take stock of the situation and to adjust to the shock of Jeopard’s death.’

  ‘If she stays, she’s bound to find out he had just got engaged to someone else.’

  ‘True. And, OK, that’ll be hard. But not as hard as finding herself on the streets.’

  ‘All right, Mike. You win. We’ll suggest it to her. But not until we’ve got the visit to the morgue over, first. I don’t believe she can think beyond that, at the moment anyway.’

  ‘We’ll take her ourselves, sir?’

  ‘Oh, I think so, don’t you? She’s got enough to cope with without being made to feel like a parcel that’s being handed on from one policeman to another.’

  ‘You think we ought to tell her about Tess?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Probably not. We don’t know yet whether Mrs Jeopard will take her in and even if she does, the girl’s English is so poor it could be ages before she found out, so she’d have time to adjust to the situation gradually. No, better not to say anything about it at the moment.’

  It’s odd that she hasn’t yet asked any questions about how he died, don’t you think?’

  I really don’t believe she’s accepted that he has, yet. When she’s done so, and when she’s got over the initial shock, that’s when she’ll start asking questions. But that might well not be today.’

  And Thanet was right. Rosinha’s reaction to the sight of her lover’s lifeless face was predictable: she fainted. When she came to she was clearly in a state of shock and inclined to go along with whatever Thanet suggested. A tiny spark of interest briefly kindled in her eyes when Max’s mother was mentioned but on the brief drive out to the Jeopard house she remained silent and sunk in misery, wiping away the tears which rolled down her cheeks in a never-ending stream. It wasn’t until they turned off the road under the stone archway at the entrance to the Jeopard’s drive that she paid any interest at all to her surroundings.

  ‘This is Max’s ’ome?’ she said, peering out of the window at the lovely old timbered house.

  ‘Yes, Miss Gomes,’ said Lineham.

  Hartley’s Golf was again in the garage barn, alongside the Astra.

  ‘Hartley’s here, I see,’ said Thanet. He wondered how Max’s brother was going to react to the arrival of Rosinha Gomes. ‘He’s Max’s brother,’ he explained to her.

  She nodded. ‘I know. Max tell me about ’him. ’E is, ’ow you say, with money?’

  ‘Yes, an accountant,’ said Thanet. ‘Now, I think it would be best if you stay here while I go and . . .’ No, no good, he could tell by the look of anxious concentration already spreading across Rosinha’s face. Try again. ‘You stay here, I go talk to Max’s mother.’

  She nodded her comprehension. ‘I wait.’

  Once again it was Hartley Jeopard who opened the front door. Did he look relieved when Thanet said that it was Mrs Jeopard he had come to see? Thanet couldn’t make up his mind. Hartley showed him into the galleried hall, where his mother and aunt were taking afternoon tea.

  ‘About time!’ said Mrs Jeopard.

  Thanet couldn’t think what she meant for a moment, then realised that she assumed he had come to make the report Draco had promised her. As if he had the time to do so in person! Some people really didn’t have a clue!

  ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Have you any news for us?’

  ‘Not as far as the investigation is concerned.’

  She opened her mouth, presumably to make some scathing comment, but Thanet jumped in first. ‘But I am arranging for one of my men to be in touch with you each day, to keep you up to date. And as soon as there is anything of importance to report, I will contact you myself.’

  The wind taken out of her sails, she contented herself with saying, ‘Good.’ She did not, however, offer him a seat.

  ‘But this afternoon I have come about another matter. If I could have a word with you in private, perhaps?’

  ‘I have no secrets from my son or my sister, Inspector,’ she said stiffly. ‘You may speak freely.’

  Thanet was surprised. He would have expected a woman in Mrs Jeopard’s position, dependent upon others for her slightest need, to relish the prospect of having the small measure of power involved in knowing something they did not. it’s up to you.’ But still he hesitated. Ought he to try to persuade her to see him alone?

  ‘Well?’ she said impatiently. ‘What is it?’

  Mentally, Thanet shrugged. He had tried, after all. If she regretted it later, then that was her affair. He didn’t feel, however, that he could remain standing while he told them about Rosinha. ‘May I sit down?’

  She gave a grudging nod and he chose a small upright chair, moving its position slightly so that he could see their faces. Then he gave them a brief account of how he had learned of Rosinha’s existence and of her subsequent visit to Headquarters. He was hesitating over how best to break the news of her pregnancy when Mrs Jeopard interrupted his narrative.

  Leaning forward, she said, ‘May I assume that all this rigmarole has a point, Inspector? I really cannot see that one of my son’s former girlfriends has anything to do with me!’

  She had given him his opening. ‘Oh but she has, Mrs Jeopard, I assure you. You see, she is carrying your grandchild.’ He couldn’t help a spurt of satisfaction as he saw how the news affected her: her eyes flew open wide with the shock of it and her pale skin was infused with a tide of colour from neck to temple. Her sister looked equally shocked, as did Hartley. Neither of them had said a word until this point but almost at once Hartley burst out, ‘Are you sure? I mean, is it true?’

  ‘She is certainly pregnant. That is obvious.’

  ‘When is the baby due?’ said Louisa Burke.

  ‘In a few months, I imagine. What I haven’t yet told you is that her parents have turned her out, refuse to have anything more to do with her. She used the last of her money to fly over here to see Max, rel
ying on the fact that he would help her. Now she is virtually destitute and of course desperately upset over your son’s death – still in a state of shock, in fact, after seeing his body. She insisted on doing so. Until then I don’t think she really believed he was dead. I didn’t feel we could put her on a train back to London in that state and in her situation. That was when I thought of you.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ said Hartley.

  ‘Outside, in the car.’

  Three startled faces glanced towards the window as if they could see through bricks and mortar to this stranger who had suddenly entered their lives. Then Mrs Jeopard spoke for the first time since he had broken the news. ‘How do we know that the child is Max’s?’

  ‘You don’t. Not at this stage. Later, of course, when the baby is born, this could easily be confirmed by blood tests. But frankly, I doubt that she would have flown all this way if it weren’t.’

  ‘Poor girl,’ said Louisa Burke. ‘What a terrible situation to be in.’

  Her sister shot her an admonitory look. ‘Really, Louisa, tell you any sob story and you’ll swallow it hook, line and sinker! We’ve heard enough from Max about the conditions in central Brazil to make any tale like this suspect.’

  ‘But why should she make it up?’ said Louisa stubbornly.

  If people are desperate enough they’ll try anything on,’ said Hartley, ranging himself alongside his mother.

  Hartley would, after all, have a lot to lose if his brother’s child came on the scene, thought Thanet.

  ‘And if her parents have kicked her out . . .’ Hartley went on.

  ‘But to be completely alone, and to come all this way . . .’ said his aunt. She turned to Thanet. ‘What is she like?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ snapped Mrs Jeopard, clearly exasperated by her sister’s unwonted opposition. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting we should actually do anything about this.’ She shot a venomous glance at Thanet. ‘I really can’t imagine why you should have brought this . . . girl here at all. I suppose you thought you could just shuffle off the responsibility by dumping her on our doorstep.’