Body Politic

by J M Gregson

  ‘Old Arkwright said Zoe Renwick had only been put into a new will as the major beneficiary quite recently. Do you think Moira Yates was cut out at the same time?’

  ‘Must have been, I expect. We should have asked the old phoney about that, I suppose; we’ll check it out later. But I was thoroughly irritated with the old bugger by then. We’ve certainly found a strong motive for Zoe Renwick: she couldn’t have expected to remain in the will for very long, once she’d told Keane it was all over between them. And the news of what happens to Gloucester Electronics bowled me over. Hampson never told us he stood to benefit by Keane’s death in that way.’

  Hook was delighted to hear these thoughts pouring out. Lambert was certainly better working, as he said. They ran into a village which was now also an outer suburb of Gloucester, and he used his street map to guide Lambert expertly to the little cul-de-sac of modern houses where Dermot Yates kept anxious watch over the progress of his sister.

  The Irishman was waiting for them on the step of the house. ‘Moira saw you coming,’ he explained as he took them through the hall and into the comfortable, rather overheated lounge.

  He sat down protectively beside his smiling sister on the settee, having pulled the curtain a little across the window to ensure that the sun was not in her eyes. Hook almost expected him to take her hand in his as they talked, but he did not go so far, though he looked at her anxiously each time she spoke in the exchanges which followed.

  The smiling, confident woman who sat beside him seemed at first sight to need neither protection nor support from anyone. ‘I gave the two of you those chairs,’ she explained. ‘Left us facing the light. That’s how you like your suspects, isn’t it, with the light full upon their faces?’ She looked as though she was preparing to enjoy herself thoroughly over the next few minutes. Hook wondered what drugs they used for agoraphobia. Perhaps those who had lost the nerve to face people outside compensated by an excess of confidence in the home environment which was now their whole world.

  There was coffee on the table. The CID men wondered who had made it, what contributions were made to this strange household by the smiling hostess and her nervous brother. Moira poured the coffee, added milk and sugar as they requested them, proffered the plate of thin lemon-flavoured biscuits. ‘Dermot buys all these things,’ she said, as if anxious not to take praise she did not deserve. ‘He’s an excellent housekeeper. He’s had to be, these last few months.’

  Dermot showed impatience at her relaxation into this domestic mode. ‘What is it you wanted to know from us?’ he said to Lambert.

  ‘A little background, to start with,’ said the superintendent. Hook thought he was deliberately slowing down, guarding against the impatience which had been his previous reaction to his own problems. ‘Miss Yates: I believe you had a close relationship at one time with the late Raymond Keane.’

  ‘I was his mistress, yes. For a period of almost two years. We were talking about getting married. But Raymond was busy making his way in parliament, and at the time there seemed no hurry.’

  She was on the surface a model interview subject, articulate, unembarrassed about highly personal revelations, precise about times and circumstances. She wore a little discreetly applied make-up on her open, smiling face; her forehead furrowed a little in thought as she supplied them with the detail she thought appropriate; her very black hair was of medium length, tidily arranged in large waves about her very still head.

  Hook wanted to ask the questions they could not ask, such as whether she normally wore make-up or had prepared specially for this occasion, what trouble she had taken over her appearance in the months of her illness, whether she was normally as voluble and as welcoming to strangers as she appeared to be to them. How much of this was a performance, a front put up for their benefit?

  Lambert said, ‘And when did this association come to an end?’

  Dermot Yates began to reply, but she stilled him with an imperious lift of her hand. ‘Four months and two weeks ago. You will want to know how it ended, no doubt. Well, it was Raymond who ended it. Rather abruptly, as a matter of fact. He rang me from Westminster. I suppose that was to prepare me. He didn’t say much on the phone, but I knew from that moment what was coming.’

  Hook looked up from his notes: so far it had been almost like taking dictation. He said, ‘Where were you living at this time, Miss Yates?’

  She gave him a broad, friendly smile, as if to congratulate him on his percipience. ‘I was living in Raymond’s cottage, seven miles from here. It’s a nice old place. But then you’ll have seen it, I expect. I understand that he may have been killed there.’

  ‘We think so, yes,’ said Bert stiffly. He wished the press didn’t reveal things so quickly; he had an old-fashioned feeling that the CID were not on top of the job if they were not running well ahead of the information which the crime reporters fed to their papers. But the modern idea was that you prevented speculation by revealing all that you could that did not help the criminal.

  Lambert said, ‘So you were at the cottage for most of the time, and Mr Keane only came down at weekends.’

  ‘Yes. I have a flat of my own near Stroud, but that is let at present.’ She looked gratefully at Dermot. It was the first time she had taken her attention from the police faces in their conversation, and it lasted only for a second. ‘There were the parliamentary recesses as well, of course, which as you are no doubt aware are quite lengthy. Raymond and I were together for those, though not always in Gloucestershire.’

  Lambert was irritated by her composure, when he should have been grateful to her for providing the answers they needed so readily, rather than retreating behind her invalid status. She gave the impression of conducting this interview on her own terms, when he was used to laying out the ground rules himself. Senior CID men are happier to see people a little disconcerted when they question them: it is an unfortunate effect their work has upon them. He said gruffly, ‘So Mr Keane came down here and told you that he wanted to end your relationship.’

  She smiled, taking her time, determined to stay calm now that the point she had known would come had arrived. ‘Yes. That is a fair way to put it, I suppose.’ Dermot’s hand strayed towards hers again, and this time she allowed it to rest on top of her small, lightly clenched fist. ‘He said that he didn’t think it was working any more between us, that it would be better if we broke up quickly. So I moved out.’

  ‘Forgive me. I know this must be painful to you, but I need to know when Miss Zoe Ren—’

  ‘No. It’s not painful! Why should it be, at this distance?’ She almost shouted her interruption. The smile came back to her face slowly, as if it was being applied by invisible hands. ‘I found that Miss Renwick had been installed in my place within a week. There are always people who are only too anxious to tell you these things.’

  Dermot said, ‘Is this really necessary, Superintendent? We don’t know and don’t wish to know anything about this new woman who supplanted Moira in Keane’s affections.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Mr Yates. We merely wished to check Miss Renwick’s version of the length of her association with the deceased, you see.’ And to check the strength of feeling here about Keane and his new woman, thought Hook. Crafty old devil, John Lambert, and fully concentrated on the work in hand.

  Yates appeared pacified by the hint that they were regarding Zoe Renwick with suspicion. He said grudgingly, ‘We’ve no knowledge of how much she knew about Keane’s previous life with Moira. Perhaps he didn’t tell her how close he had been to my sister.’ He glanced at her, then back at the policemen, getting no reaction in either quarter. He said a little desperately, ‘She came here with him, you know, on that Sunday before Christmas.’

  ‘It was the first time I’d seen her. And the last time I saw Raymond,’ said Moira. ‘She didn’t say very much though, did she, Dermot?’ Her smile seemed to have taken on genuine pleasure again now.

  Dermot said, ‘No one seemed to say a great deal that da
y, apart from you, sis!’ For a revealing moment, his pride in her, in the way that despite her illness she had dominated the man who had treated her so badly, shone through. Then, as if to explain away this display of affection, he said, ‘Moira’s had a bad time of it, you know, since they split up.’

  ‘Yes. I understand you’ve not felt able to leave the house very much in the last few months, Miss Yates.’

  For the first time, she seemed prepared to let her brother answer for her, it was as if once her relationship with Keane had been dealt with, she had no energy for lesser questions. Dermot said, ‘Moira came here in great distress when Keane threw her out.’ He glanced at her apprehensively, expecting her to challenge the violence of the phrase, but she was looking listlessly at her spotless blue leather court shoes. ‘She recovered physically within a day or two, but she’s not been able to go out for months now.’

  ‘Mr Yates, what do you do for a living?’

  If Lambert had hoped to disconcert him by the suddenness of this switch, he did not succeed. Yates said, ‘I’m a freelance writer, working from home. I write specialist books on horses, on the history of different breeds, on point-to-point and national hunt racing. I write articles for Horse and Hound and review books on horses, horseracing and tennis.’ The answer tripped readily off his tongue, but no doubt he had offered it to the curious many times before.

  ‘So you’ve been able to look after Miss Yates during her illness?’

  ‘Yes. But she hasn’t needed much attention.’

  Moira looked up and smiled her secret smile again. ‘He means you’ve been able to keep an eye on me, Dermot. Make sure I wasn’t doing anything silly, as they say. But sure didn’t y’always do that when we were kids?’ She allowed the Irish brogue they had scarcely heard before to come through loud and strong in the last question, then laughed affectionately at him, as if there were no one else in the room.

  Lambert said, ‘Where were you on Christmas Eve, Mr Yates?’

  Again there was no evidence that the man was shaken, though his questioner was sure that he appreciated the importance of this thrust. The Irishman ran a hand through his plentiful, unruly brown hair, considered the matter, then fixed his wide brown eyes upon the new page in Hook’s notebook that had been made ready for this. ‘Basically, I was here. I did a little shopping in the morning, then was here for the rest of the day.’

  ‘You were out for a little while in the afternoon, though,’ Moira reminded him, with a nervous little nudge of her arm.

  If he was annoyed by the revelation, he gave no sign of it. ‘That’s correct, yes. I went to the Humes’ down the road, for a Christmas drink. They keep open house for a few hours on Christmas Eve, and people pop in as it suits them. Moira should have gone with me, but she didn’t feel up to leaving the house, so I went on my own.’

  ‘It wasn’t just the house. I couldn’t face all those people at once, when it came to it. But Dermot was very good, as usual. I don’t suppose he was more than a couple of hours across there. And I could see the lights in the house and people going in and out for the whole time.’

  ‘Well, I may have been a little longer. I was quite tipsy when I got back.’ Dermot Yates grinned a little at his own expense.

  Or you say you were tipsy, thought Hook as he wrote. Detection made a cynic of everyone. ‘What time were you out of the house, sir?’ he said, making it clear that the answer would be recorded.

  ‘I couldn’t be quite sure. I should think I went across there at about three thirty.’

  ‘And you came back here when?’

  ‘About six thirty. Maybe a little later.’

  Lambert said, ‘Well, we can always check your memory against other people’s recollections, if that should be necessary. You say there were lots of other people there?’

  ‘Yes. Though not all the time; they came and went. But I expect the Humes would have some idea of the time I was there.’

  ‘Yes. No doubt they could help us, if it should be necessary.’ Lambert was suddenly brisk, giving the impression that this was almost at an end, that only a few formalities needed to be completed. ‘And on Christmas Day?’

  ‘We were here all day, weren’t we, Moira?’ She nodded vigorously. ‘And an old friend of ours, Gerald Sangster, was with us for most of the day. From about eleven in the morning until quite late at night. About eleven, I suppose. We had quite a lot to eat and drink. Gerry only lives a couple of miles away. Someone dropped him off in the morning, and he walked home at night, so that he wouldn’t be worried about the breathalyzer.’

  ‘Is Mr Sangster a relation?’

  ‘No. I told you, an old friend.’

  Moira said, ‘It’s all right, Dermot.’ She patted his hand and turned her attention back to Lambert. ‘I suppose he’d be better described as an old flame, Superintendent. He’s provided a lot of moral support for me while I’ve been such a nuisance to Dermot.’

  Yates opened his mouth to deny that she had been a nuisance, but Lambert switched the questioning again. ‘You have a car, Mr Yates?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you any objection to its being examined by a forensic team?’

  ‘No. But I’d like to know—’

  ‘We both have cars, Superintendent Lambert.’ Moira Yates was on her feet. ‘You may look at them now, if you like.’ Lambert wanted to say that there was no point, that it needed the specialist resources and expertise of a forensic team, but it was too late; she was moving with the smooth grace of an athlete ahead of them, across the room, through the kitchen, to the door in the utility room which linked the house directly with the garage. She hesitated for the merest fraction in the threshold she had not crossed for months, then flung open the door and showed them a green Vauxhall Astra which was covered with a thick layer of dust. ‘There she is, kind sirs! First time I’ve seen her since September.’

  Lambert was at last able to deliver his thoughts about the necessity for scientific examination by a forensic team, but he was privately sure that this car as she said had not been on the road for months. Dermot Yates said, ‘My car’s on the drive. I use it almost every day. It’s been on the road quite a lot in the days since Keane disappeared.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I should like our forensic experts to have a look at it,’ said Lambert. ‘For purposes of elimination, you understand.’

  ‘Whenever you like,’ said Dermot. He followed them on to the drive as they left. ‘I can’t be sorry that Keane’s gone,’ he said in a low voice. He rubbed his broad nose, pulled for a moment at the square chin below it. ‘Frankly, I’d like to shake the hand of whoever killed him. But you have to try to find the man who did it, of course, I understand that.’

  He took his pale face back into the house. Lambert wondered what that close pair would say to each other when they were alone again. He looked at Yates’s car as they passed it. It was a Vauxhall Cavalier hatchback, with the rear seats presently laid flat to provide extra storage space.

  It would have accommodated a body quite easily when the wide rear door was raised.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘She’s come through the operation,’ the sister said. She tried to make it sound fresh and bright, but it was difficult when you had said those words so many times.

  In the bed, Christine Lambert looked small but very peaceful. She lay on her back with the sheet neatly drawn beneath her chin. Someone had arranged her hair in a dark-brown aureole around her face, so that it shut out the edges of the white oval and made the smooth, well-featured face seem tiny and vulnerable. Lambert saw too many dead bodies, he decided: this silent figure evoked for him the carefully prepared dead flesh of the funeral parlour.

  He did not dare disturb the sheets to take a hold on his wife’s hand, so he smoothed the marble brow gently with the backs of his fingers, and found it reassuringly warm. They had made her look like a nun, not a corpse, he decided; he preferred that image.

  Words came to him now, when they were useless because she could no
t hear. He wanted to tell her that this thing would bring them closer, whatever happened. That they would be as close to each other as they had been twenty years ago, when they lost a child that was four days old, and for weeks it had bonded them as no pleasant experience could ever have done. Finding the words he thought his agnosticism had banished for ever, he prayed beside the silent bed that all might be well for its occupant.

  The first part of what followed might almost have been scripted by Hollywood, except that there were no violins and there was a full two-minute gap before Christine’s eyes opened slowly. They looked towards the ceiling and the high fluorescent light, registered puzzlement, then focused on her husband as he bent forward. A tiny smile came to her pale pink lips. John Lambert said, ‘You’re through it and doing fine. Don’t try to talk.’

  Suddenly, her throat and face were convulsed, and he thought in spite of his advice that she was trying to reply. Just in time, he snatched up the stainless-steel bowl from the top of the bedside locker and thrust it beneath the wobbling chin. Christine was sick, retchingly, erratically, surprisingly copiously. She sank back exhaustedly into a renewed unconsciousness. He drew away the bowl reluctantly and with great care, anxious not to spill even a drop of the foul-smelling contents upon the immaculate sheets.

  Mercifully, a nurse appeared at his elbow, picked up the bowl, wiped the patient’s mouth and chin expertly with a tissue. ‘I expect it was just the aftermath of the anaesthetic,’ said Lambert apologetically.

  The nurse smiled briefly at his anxious face. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t something you said?’ she teased.

  *

  Bert Hook had told Lambert he should take as long as he needed inside the hospital. Lambert had said he would not be more than half an hour.

  The municipal golf course with its driving range abutted the hospital grounds. Hook could see club-heads rising and falling over the hedge at the edge of the car park. He had no doubt that if he lowered the window he would even be able to hear the oaths which seemed to accompany eighty per cent of amateur golf shots. He resisted temptation for almost a full minute. But he couldn’t spend half an hour sitting in the car worrying about John and Christine in the hospital, could he? Morbid, that would be.