I groaned. He was hopeless and yet the story had the sort of detail that lent it veracity. ‘And you hoped we wouldn’t find the lad, for him to say it was some other time?’
‘I don’t know what I hoped. Mallin, surely you understand. I wanted it kept … sort of unemotional.’
I understood well enough. He’d wanted Bella not to know he’d met Dulcie. That had been almost … no, more than that, critically as important as any murder enquiry.
And I saw now what it did to her. She demanded so little from him, only that he should be with her. But part of him, for part of the time, had been with Dulcie. Her eyes were glazed. She fought the knowledge inwardly, hanging desperately to her life-line, rocking gently.
‘And Dulcie,’ I asked quietly. ‘Will she confirm this?’
‘I’ve no doubt she will.’
Because he’d had time to phone her and make damn sure she would?
‘Besides,’ he said, piling it on, ‘there was a small accident we had in the car-park at Parkway. She was … distressed. She pulled out of her space too suddenly and ran into the back of the Dolomite. I’ll show you. Broke my rear light. I was quite worried driving back without it.’
I remembered the impact marks on the Dolomite, the traces of blue or grey paint ingrained in the maroon. ‘What colour’s her Mini?’ I asked, just casually. It was easily checked.
‘She wasn’t driving the Mini. She was using Colmore’s Cortina. It was light blue.’
I sighed. A few minutes before, I’d been holding the answer. Now it was shattered at my feet and, if what he said was true, George’s Dulcie had told him a whole tangle of lies.
I glanced at my watch. George had had time and he’d head straight for Bentley Hall.
‘Can I use your phone?’
I asked it of Bella, as an attempt to penetrate her complete lack of response. She stared straight through me. It was Abbott who pointed to a table by the wall.
I asked for Directory Enquiries and then for the number of Bentley Hall, because I’d forgotten it. I dialled it and turned back to the room, listening to it ringing out.
Her eyes were again alive. They were on me, pitifully asking me to get the right answers — that Abbott was lying and he had not met Dulcie. She could have faced him being a murderer with equanimity, almost. But not this.
A woman answered. I asked for George Coe.
‘I’ll try.’
I waited. Then he came on, breathless, his voice tight. It didn’t sound like George.
‘George, was that Dulcie?’
‘Yes.’ A couple of grunts. ‘Why?’
‘I want you to ask her something. What’s going on there, George?’ There’d been a scuffling sound.
‘Ask her what’s going on?’
‘No, you fool. Ask her if she met Abbott at Parkway Service Area on Tuesday evening at nine.’
‘Ask her … ’ His voice faded. I heard him say something to her. Then his terse command. ‘Be still, damn you.’
I kept my eyes on Bella. She was watching my lips. Abbott moved restlessly.
George came back on. ‘She says yes, Dave. What is this? I can’t … hold on a sec’ … ’
I put my hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Dulcie says yes.’
And Bella moaned, pressing it back at once as her hands flew to her lips.
‘George!’ I shouted.
Then at last he was back. ‘Dave, they’ve been here. That Len and his girl. I’ve got her here — got hold of her. She’s a right handful. I can’t talk to you now.’
‘Don’t go away!’ I howled.
‘Hurry it up, Dave.’
‘Ask the girl … ask her if she knows the time Len got his ear shot.’
‘Lord, Dave … oh, all right.’
I heard him bullying her and her shaken, forced reply.
‘Dave … listen … I can’t say much. She says … says nearer — more like — ten …’
‘Ten? Then ask her … George, are you there? George!’
The Dulcie’s voice came back again, a practical voice. ‘I’ve got to hang up. I’m afraid he’s passed out.’
The phone crashed down, breaking the connection, and must have bounced because all I got was the continuous buzzing of a broken line.
I slowly replaced the handset. It took all my concentration to return my thoughts to the room.
‘You heard?’
Then Bella choked, almost as though she was about to be sick, and rushed from the room.
Abbott gave an angry explosion of profanity and ran after her.
I was left alone — to think. I didn’t want to risk any thoughts, my emotions were so torn apart. I had to tell myself that I was an hour away from Bentley Hall, to be calm and I would hear what had happened. I tried the number again, but I couldn’t get through. I paced the room, then stared through the window at the dark spread of countryside, with its placid winking lights in the distance. I lit my pipe and fumigated the draperies, but no coherent thought would come to me. I was lost in a turbulent sea of contradictions.
I lost touch with time. Two pipes later Abbott returned. He seemed calm and resolute.
‘She’s quieter now — no thanks to you. I’ve got her sitting by the fire with a cup of tea in her hand.’
It was a warm night. ‘Fire?’
‘She was shivering.’ I thought his voice would crack, but he held on to it. ‘I thought,’ he went on, ‘really seriously thought of throwing you out of here, but I decided I owe you an explanation.’
Did he have an explanation? Of how that clock had got itself haywire? ‘I’d be interested to hear it.’
‘I was sure you’d like to know how much this has harmed her, and why. You’ll want to treasure it.’ Then he caught at his mood. So much bitterness was not really in him. ‘I’m sorry. But you don’t understand Bella. I’m not sure I do. But I don’t have to, you understand. I just have to live with it. It’s not so much being put on a pedestal. That’d be uncomfortable, trying to keep the balance and not falling off. It’s … ’ He shook his head. ‘I’d never experienced it, you know, and that was partly because of living in, where I worked, at Bentley Hall. No. Let me go on. You’ll understand. At the Hall, you see, I didn’t go home. I was already there. But there’re certain advantages to working away from your home — you come back to it every evening. And here — I always return to a welcome. Oh, not just your casual enquiry of how the day’s been and a brush of the lips against your cheek. But a pleasure to see you, a delight that you’re there, her eyes shining with just the joy of your standing there in front of her. All, you’re saying, just the thing for a man’s ego. But I’m not too introspective. I love my wife, Mallin. This is something different from what I had with Dulcie. There it was a constant pleasure to be with her. Here — it’s a sheer delight to have her with me. Does that sound stupid?’
‘By no means.’
‘And if I’m tired or bad-tempered, or do something stupid … ’
‘Or even criminal?’
He darted a sour look at me. ‘Even that, if you like. Yes, she’d support me, help me. Not because we’re man and wife, but because I am me. Christ, I’m sounding smug.’
‘On the contrary. And Colmore?’
‘I thought you wouldn’t forget him. The mistake was in going to the Hall, that week-end, to give one lecture. Meeting Dulcie again was strange. She’d changed. Or maybe I had. There wasn’t the life in her. Anyway, she was having trouble with Colmore. He’s … was … a rotten bastard. And that’s all there is to it. What she ever saw in him … I was saying that I sympathized and there was a row. He warned me off! Can you imagine how I’d react to that?’
‘Easily. You’d dig your heels in.’ I peered into my pipe, which wasn’t drawing well. ‘You’d see her again.’
‘Like a fool, yes. Help and advice. A sympathetic ear. But there was nothing — absolutely nothing — there for me, Mallin. I’d come home to Bella and her welcome. God, I felt a louse and I wasn’t even doing anyth
ing wrong.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I told you!’ he burst out. ‘Just sympathy.’
‘It’s a question of interpretation. Wrong, maybe, to become involved at all.’
‘As it turned out. Lord, the thing wouldn’t let me go. He found out we were meeting. And you can guess what he made of that. The man was insanely possessive. And Dulcie … well, it’s part of the job — the principal goes to seminars, conferences, and visits other colleges as guest speaker. And every time she was away he’d assume she was with me. He’d check, phone my office. I’d even find him parked outside the factory when I left. Insane!’
‘And he even phoned here? Your home.’
‘What!’ He was appalled. ‘No, no! Bella never said.’
‘But would she?’ I asked him gently. ‘There’d still be the delight when you came home. Not because you’re man and wife, but because you’re you.’
I was sneering at him gently, testing whether, perhaps, his feelings for Bella were no more than an inflated ego. But he brushed it aside, as this new thought hit him.
‘Dear God, no!’
‘She wouldn’t let you see what it did for her. Colmore’s fantastic reaction to you and Dulcie — he might even have told Bella — would mean only one thing: that you were planning to go back to Dulcie.’
He groaned. ‘He hurt her.’
No, friend, I thought, it was you.
And then, from the far side of the house, we heard the whirr, whirr of a starter motor.
‘She’s in the car!’ he shouted and we ran out together.
I’m better at running. Besides, I was determined that he would not be the one to get to her first. I thrust him aside as we plunged for the open front door. I turned on the ball of my right foot, praying that the engine wouldn’t fire, rounded the corner and dived at the car.
She was in the Dolomite, the Morris Minor being blocked off. She was sitting amongst the dried blood she hadn’t been able to face, her features set, her eyes sightlessly forward, her left hand on the key as she tried time and again with the choke fully out, her right hand knotted on the leather-covered steering-wheel.
The smell of petrol was heavy on the still, warm air.
I jerked open the driver’s door. ‘Bella!’
She just went on with it. I reached in front of her and gently put my left hand over hers on the keys.
‘It’s no good like this,’ I said quietly.
Her mouth was open, loose, dribbling at the corners. I wasn’t sure she heard me, but she allowed me to still her hand and the harsh whining died. She had sat with her cup of tea, silent, until the realization burst over her and she could contain it no longer. She had done the only thing she could — tried to get away from herself and what was inside doing the hurting.
‘Victor couldn’t live if you went away,’ I told her and slowly her eyes turned to mine. ‘You can’t go and leave him now.’
She tried to say something. Abbott was jostling my shoulder. Her eyes were beyond me. I tried to release her stiff fingers from the wheel.
‘If you must go,’ I told her, ‘I’ll take you. Where you like. But not like this.’
Her lips moved. I didn’t hear her, and put my ear close. Then got it.
‘There isn’t anywhere.’
Her hand came free and she fell against me, not in a faint but more in sudden release from her own efforts to remain mobile.
I said: ‘Take her. Don’t leave her, Abbott. You hear that? Stay with her. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
He half carried her, his arm round her waist, towards the front door, mumbling inanities of affection, or some such thing. I reached down by the throttle-pedal and jerked the bonnet release. Then I went round and lifted it.
There was not much light and he hadn’t a torch. I flicked my lighter. It took only a second. That bastard Messingham! He’d kept it to himself.
I hurried back into the house. His low, murmurous voice guided me. I walked in on them.
She was bolt upright in a winged chair, he crouched in front of her, her hands in his. She was shaking her head in suffering, low, dribbling moans coming from her. Her eyes were swimming with tears that refused to overflow. She could not have seen through them distinctly.
I took his shoulder and thrust him away angrily.
In his place, I knelt before her and took her hands. But I didn’t simply hold them — I jerked them, repeating her name over and over, and went on with it until I attracted a response. Gradually her head ceased to move and she was looking at me.
‘Bella, can you understand what I’m saying? It’s important. Vitally important.’
Life crept into her eyes.
I did not raise my voice, forcing her to make a deliberate effort to comprehend. Then, hesitantly, she nodded.
‘Bella, he’s been lying to you. Victor. Your husband. The clock must have been shattered at nine. He lied, because — are you listening to me? — because the bullet went on into the engine compartment and smashed the distributor. It’s why you couldn’t start it. The car could not have moved from the clubhouse after the shot. It did not move. He could not have met Dulcie at the Parkway Service area. He did not drive out to meet her. Bella, he was at the clubhouse from eight until ten.’
She was staring at me and, suddenly, her face crumpled and her hands flew up from mine and I got to my feet.
‘A doctor … ’ suggested Abbott in a small, numb voice.
The instinct was to knock him down, but he was too pitiful.
‘Just be with her,’ I said roughly. ‘It’s all she wants. I’ve got to leave you. There’s something at Bentley … ’
The phone in the other room began to ring.
SIX
GEORGE COE
Having lost twenty minutes on the run, I decided that there was no point in driving directly to Marston Court for the timing and short-cutted to Bentley Hall. It was getting on for ten by that time and the place was very quiet. A large black car was parked almost out of sight in the heavy shadows of the shrubbery.
I walked into the hall. It was like coming home. Silence haunted the building. Now there was very little illumination, so that the light streaming through the glass windows of the office spread across the floor and I could hear murmurous voices. I walked in on them.
Rogerson was there, with Patterson. Dulcie was sitting at the desk, Rogerson pacing back and forth in front of it.
‘Now we’ll just go through it again,’ he was saying.
I shut the door firmly behind me. His eyes came up, slowly from my feet.
‘By God, you’ve got a nerve, coming back onto my patch.’
‘I’m a free agent.’
He stared. ‘Knew you were cheap — but free?’ He seemed about to choke on this pleasantry, then sobered. ‘You didn’t have to come yourself with the news. I’ve just told her he’s dead.’
‘And you’re still here? Waiting for the prophet?’
‘Huh?’
‘To come from Watling to the mountain.’
It was childish and paltry abuse. I was sinking to his level. I went on quickly: ‘But I’m glad you’re here. I wanted your permission … ’
‘Refused.’
‘To ask questions around Marston Court.’
‘Hah! You’re wondering what time he took out the Lancia?’
I hadn’t been. ‘No.’
‘Nobody knows. The garages are round the back.’
‘I can have a guess. Within two minutes of making that phone call to the taxi firm. Had to be. He was shot at Watling at nine.’
He stuck out his head like a bulldog, faintly quivering from behind a car’s rear screen. ‘Genius!’ he said sourly. ‘How’d we ever manage without you!’
‘Which is why you’re having another go at Mrs Colmore. You’re reckoning that Marilyn Trask was shot a good fifty minutes after Colmore left.’
‘It crossed my failing mind.’
‘You’re possessed with it,’ I said, glancing
at Dulcie. She was composed, but drawn. Tired. ‘You’ve got Miss Trask’s death down wrong. Somebody hears the sound of a shot during the sexy bit of a thriller — and that’s it. Man, it could’ve been anything.’
But he was grinning, his eye-teeth prehensile. His head shook gently, confidently, shutting me off.
‘Our bingo fiend,’ he crowed. ‘You spoke to her yourself. Very cute. I’d have your guts for that, if it wasn’t one great big laugh. You didn’t take it far enough, matey. You should’ve asked how many frames she won.’
‘Houses,’ I said automatically.
‘And she’d have told you she didn’t go. Of course she wouldn’t. All those men friends going to the flat next door and one of them changes his habits! It was worth turning back for and putting on her own telly dead quiet, so’s she could hear anythin’ interesting. And she heard the same row, the same screams — and not a man’s voice, mind you — and guess what! She was watching the same thriller and, right at the same point, she heard the same shot.’
‘All right … two people heard an identical sound at the same time. It could’ve been anything.’
‘But this person had turned her head away from the juicy part. It was a bit too meaty for her. And she heard something mere. You getting this? You know where that bullet struck?’
‘Forty grains of lead,’ I said quietly.
‘Exactly. It struck in a corner of the wall between the two flats. And our bingo friend actually heard the crack it made. There’s no mistaking an impact on the other side of your own wall. She heard it and she was looking towards it and there was a clock over there on the sideboard. Guess what it read.’
One Deathless Hour (David Mallin Detective series Book 16) Page 12
