by Graham Ison
“Well, as you said the other night, Mrs Harris, only the partners to a marriage know all about it. There must have been something.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me, Mrs Harris, anything that you can remember?”
She remained in thought for some seconds before saying, “No, I don’t think so. I do hope that I haven’t wasted your time?”
“No, not at all. I appreciate your having come; I know it must have taken some soul-searching.”
She smiled and held out her hand. “Goodbye,” she said.
*
“What are we going to do about Jack Armitage, John?” Hussey put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair.
“I think we’ve got to leave him on ice for the time being, sir,” said Gaffney. “He’s not coming to any harm where he is.”
“Depends how our WDC’s treating him,” said Hussey with a chuckle. “He might be desperate to escape.”
Gaffney shook his head. “It’s anybody’s guess with that one,” he said. “She’s a very deep young lady. But seriously, we’re not a great deal further forward. Selby concerns me, but I don’t think we’ve uncovered a spy; he’s not devious enough.”
“Are any of them at the end of the day?” asked the commander.
“Don’t know,” said Gaffney. “We only know about the ones we catch. For all I know, this wimp-like attitude of his might be a pose, just to put us – and everyone else – off the scent. Incidentally, I’m going down to see Julia Hodder again, see what we can make of her the second time round. She was having it off with a neighbor, I’ve discovered.”
“You taking Harry Tipper?”
“Not this time. He’ll be mortified, but I’m taking a woman officer. Surprising what another woman will see that’ll completely escape a man.”
“Good thinking, John. We have to admit that at times we don’t know all the answers, except for commanders, of course.”
*
Claire Wentworth was a tall, slender girl of about thirty. She looked like a young business woman, but with a few extras, which was probably why she was a detective sergeant in Special Branch. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Yes, Claire. Sit down, and I’ll try to condense into a few minutes what is developing into a rather complicated enquiry.”
“I see, sir,” she said when he had finished. And then with a smile: “Actually, I don’t see at all, but I think I’ve grasped the main points.”
“Don’t worry,” said Gaffney. “With any luck, you’ll pick it up as you go along.”
*
Gaffney had telephoned Mrs Hodder and made an appointment to see her. He did not say that he would be bringing DS Wentworth with him, however, and he presumed that Julia Hodder had dressed to be attractive to two male officers, one of whom she thought would be Tipper, whose appraising glances she had noticed last time. She was wearing the short white shorts that Mrs Bates, the local policeman’s wife, had described, and a shirt that was knotted under her breasts to reveal a bare and sun-tanned midriff. Her smile vanished when she caught sight of the woman officer.
“This is Detective Sergeant Claire Wentworth, Mrs Hodder,” said Gaffney.
“Do come in,” she said, the smile returning to her face, but now a little artificial.
She led them into the sitting room and they sat down. Julia Hodder decided that she would ignore the woman detective and sat in the center of the settee facing Gaffney.
“I understand that you had an affair with Dick Harris,” said Gaffney without preamble.
Julia Hodder tensed slightly; she now understood the presence of Claire Wentworth. She laughed, but there was a falsity about it. “Whatever makes you think that?” she asked.
“His wife told us,” said Gaffney simply.
The smile vanished again. “It’s true,” she said coldly, “but quite frankly I don’t see what it has to do with you, or anyone else for that matter.”
“Mrs Hodder.” Gaffney spoke quietly, gently almost. “I am investigating the death of your husband – and one or two other matters which need not trouble you—” She frowned at that. “—and any information concerning his private or professional life could be relevant to that enquiry. Until I am satisfied that these things have nothing to do with his death, then I am entitled to ask and will ask.” Gaffney sat back in his chair, playing his old game of waiting for her to speak. The silence usually forced the people he interviewed into saying something.
At last she spoke. “It seems much worse now that Geoffrey’s dead; it makes the underhandedness seem even more deceitful. But I was desperate, Mr Gaffney – I don’t know if you understand that. I’m a normal healthy woman, with normal healthy appetites.” She glanced at Claire Wentworth’s left hand, hoping to find a wedding ring, at least an engagement ring. It was bare. There would be no sympathy there, she thought, wrongly. Claire smiled to herself and crossed her legs, the sun from the French windows catching the sheen of her stockings. Julia continued. “Geoffrey neglected me – just that. It was driving me mad. I began to wonder what was wrong with me. I don’t think I’m an unattractive woman…” She paused, seeking agreement in Gaffney’s face, but he just sat there, listening. “The Harrises were good friends; I suppose that makes it worse. I didn’t want to do anything to hurt Tina – Mrs Harris—” Gaffney nodded. “But it happened. There was nothing either of us could do about it. I wasn’t particularly proud of going to bed with Dick – I just couldn’t help myself, even though I knew we were deceiving both Tina and Geoffrey…”
With the intuitiveness of a woman, Claire Wentworth interrupted the conversation. “Mrs Hodder, do you mind if I use your bathroom?”
“Of course not, my dear,” said Julia, a little too gushing. “It’s the first door on the left at the top of the stairs.” She waited until the policewoman had left the room, and then leaned forward confidentially, both feet on the floor, arms loosely folded across her bare knees. “It’s embarrassing to say this in front of another woman,” she said, “but I need men – I can’t live without sex. You do understand that, don’t you, Mr Gaffney?”
“I think so. But surely, to have an affair with someone who lived in the village was taking a risk – particularly after what happened the last time?”
“The last time?”
“I gather that your liaison with Geoffrey, while he was still married to Elizabeth, was something of an open secret around here.”
She shrugged. “People don’t choose to be what they are, to feel what they feel. You don’t criticize someone who suffers from asthma, do you? You sympathize. So why criticize someone who is over-sexed?”
“That sounds a pretty callous way of putting it.”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever had an affair, Mr Gaffney,” she said, which surprised him by its boldness, perhaps because it contained the hint of an invitation, “but once you embark on it, callousness becomes second nature. You get devious, and the occasions when you feel any pangs of conscience get less and less. You can make what you like of that, but it’s true.” She was still sitting forward, an earnestness in her pose.
“Did your husband know?”
She leaned back, slowly sliding her hands up her legs until they rested at the tops of her thighs, her fingers spread. “I don’t think so. He never taxed me with it, if that’s what you mean.”
“Do you think he would have mentioned it, even if he’d found out?”
She shook her head, so that the curls of her blonde hair bounced. “No.” She smiled. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry to say that Geoffrey was a very weak man, which is probably why I got him into bed in the first place. He hated rows. Even when I complained about him not making love to me, he didn’t flare up.” She looked up very slowly, her blue eyes fixed on Gaffney’s. “He just apologized, and said that he was very tired these days. But that was what I was complaining about. He was always too tired or too busy.” She raised her arms above her head until they
were gripping the back of the settee, revealing a little more of her midriff. “Does this really have anything to do with Geoffrey’s death?”
“You tell me, Mrs Hodder. Supposing he had found out about you and Dick Harris. You say he hated rows, and he’d already got one divorce behind him. Perhaps he wanted to hold on to you whatever your shortcomings.”
“Shortcomings?” She bridled at that.
“I mean your other affairs.” That was pure guess-work, but based on his assessment of her, it seemed likely.
She relaxed, a smile of cool appraisal on her face. “You seem to have been finding out an awful lot about me. I thought it was Geoffrey you were investigating…?”
“Not exactly, Mrs Hodder; it is his death I am investigating, and any surrounding circumstances which may have had a bearing on it.”
“And am I a surrounding circumstance?”
“You were his wife, and your behavior may have had something to do with it.”
“I’ve had other affairs, yes,” she said after some time. “What of it? Lots of women do. It’s so utterly boring, being stuck here. Geoffrey spent an awful lot of time at work, you know. I had to do something.”
“Might he have been having an affair? After all he reneged on his first wife.” Gaffney didn’t think that that was the case at all, but he wanted to penetrate the ice-cool reserve of this woman opposite him.
She brought her arms down and linked them round her knees, a little too tightly. “He wouldn’t,” she said. “He wouldn’t have dared.” But she obviously hadn’t thought of it before.
Claire Wentworth came back into the room and smiled at Julia Hodder. It signaled an end to frankness.
Gaffney stood up. “Thank you for your time, Mrs Hodder. You’ve been most helpful.”
“I don’t know about helpful,” she said, smiling. “Candid perhaps.” Gaffney noticed that she stood close to him, much closer than was necessary, and he got a waft of expensive perfume. “If you think I can possibly help you again, please do come down.” The invitation was clearly directed at Gaffney alone; it was as if the woman sergeant wasn’t there.
At the front door, she held out her hand. “Goodbye,” she said, and he noticed her reluctance to relinquish the grasp. Then she nodded briefly at Claire Wentworth.
*
“And what did you think of her?” asked Gaffney on the journey back.
Claire Wentworth laughed. “I think she’s what’s called a man-eater – she was certainly dressed to eat one today.”
“That’s because she wasn’t expecting you – she thought that Mr Tipper would be coming with me again. Quite disappointed, wasn’t she?”
“Did she say anything useful when I went upstairs, sir?”
“Not really. She just said, in more graphic terms, that she was sex-starved.”
Claire laughed again. “I doubt that. She’s the sort of woman who only has to look at a man and he’s hooked.” She looked sideways at Gaffney. “As a matter of fact, sir, I think she rather fancied you.”
“Really?” asked Gaffney, concentrating on the road. “I take it you did your usual survey upstairs?” He had discovered, some years previously, the value of a woman officer when questioning women.
“She had quite a collection of good-name toiletries in her bathroom,” said Claire. “Bath oil, soap, talc, body lotion, toilet water – the full works. I reckon there must have been about two hundred quid’s-worth of the stuff. You don’t buy that out of the housekeeping a civil servant gives you.”
Gaffney whistled softly. “Interesting.”
“I had a quick look in her bedroom, too. There was a ticket from a refrigerated fur store stuck in the dressing-table mirror. That means an expensive coat; you don’t put rabbit fur into store. And there was a bottle of very expensive perfume to match the stuff in the bathroom.”
“Yes,” said Gaffney, “I caught a whiff of it when we were leaving.” He negotiated a roundabout before speaking again. “I’m still puzzled by her relationship with Harris. It was taking a risk, especially with all those wives just waiting to point a finger.”
“There might be an explanation for that, sir – desperation. The Hodders slept in separate rooms; single beds, too.”
“That’s interesting,” said Gaffney.
“And I reckon she’s a nympho,” said Claire. “She’d run after anything in trousers – or better still, without them.”
“You’re probably right,” said Gaffney, “but I still feel uneasy about her.”
“If I were in your shoes, sir, I think I would too.”
Chapter Fourteen
“D’you know what I think, guv’nor?” asked Tipper.
“What?”
“I reckon she’s a West End tom; high-class stuff. None of your Shepherd Market ‘short time, luv’ routine, but a discreet society sort of bird. And Mrs PC Bates said she worked from home; all a bit vague. That would explain the perfumery and the fur coat that Claire turned up; they all have that sort of gear.”
Gaffney nodded. “Well I’d expect an ordinary detective like you to know all about the insalubrious side of life. But why marry Hodder? He’s not exactly the answer to a girl who’s used to the high life, and I’d be surprised if his take-home pay reached seventeen grand a year.”
“Respectability. If she ever got pulled, she could always claim that she was a civil servant’s wife, and it was all a terrible mistake. Or admit to having a bit on the side, with a knowing wink; but not for profit.”
“I’m doubtful, Harry. If she’d got form for tomming, she’d never have got clearance, or rather Hodder wouldn’t have done when they did his up-to-date vetting when he remarried.”
Tipper scoffed. “She wouldn’t have form, not for that sort of tomming, guv’nor. They never set foot on the streets. Go everywhere by taxi; best hotels, private apartments. You never catch ’em at it. Look, she’s on the end of a telephone, and some rich bloke rings her up and books her for the night in his London flat. Next morning, he puts her in a cab and gives her a little present – a monkey, probably—”
“A what?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” said Tipper heavily, “I keep forgetting I’m in Special Branch now. Five hundred pounds.” He grinned. “But how are you going to prove it?”
“With difficulty, I should think.”
“Dead right.”
“But if that’s the case, how did she explain away her absences to Geoffrey?”
“Perhaps she didn’t bother. Look at it like this: we weren’t able to ask Hodder himself about his married life, and the chances are he wouldn’t have told us anyway. And she wouldn’t have given anything away either. It was only when you got a cough out of Mrs Harris that her old man had been having it off with Julia that we knew that everything wasn’t quite what it seemed. What we don’t know – and what we won’t be told – is whether Dick Harris paid for the pleasure. Don’t forget that he’s a well-heeled company director. It’s a funny thing, but blokes like him will confess to having had a bird on the side, but they seem to think it’s some sort of slur on their masculinity if they have to admit that they paid for it. Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”
Gaffney laughed. “You weave a nice tale, Harry, and it’s the most plausible so far.” He patted his pockets, searching for his lighter. “It could explain his suicide, I suppose.” He stared reflectively through his cigar smoke. “If he’d found out that she was a call-girl…”
“He’s not going to top himself though; kick her out maybe.”
“Anyone else might, Harry, but he’s thinking about his job, and his vetting, and the publicity if it came out; these blokes worry about things like that all the time. Think of the headlines: ‘My life as a prostitute, by MI5 officer’s wife’. No, Harry, it would be a good enough reason for him. But there’s not a scrap of evidence.”
Tipper looked mildly disappointed. “I still don’t think he’d do himself in because of it. It’s not his fault if he accidentally married a whore, is it?”<
br />
Gaffney shook his head. “I reckon he was a bit of an enigma, particularly when you think about the stories we heard from the blokes who were in the army with him. You wouldn’t have thought it was the same bloke.”
“People change.”
“That’s very profound, Harry; but you’re right. That outfit he worked for has a strange effect on some people; they start looking over their shoulders. Eventually they get frightened of everybody and everything. And having a flighty young wife doesn’t help, either; she must have exhausted him, or tried to.”
“Well one thing’s certain, sir, we aren’t going to find out by sitting here speculating. What d’you reckon, a few background enquiries? I’ll take that on if you like.”
Gaffney nodded slowly. “All right; but you know, Harry, I think we’re clutching at straws here. Let’s face it, Hodder tops himself, and he does it after the third job he’s been in charge of has gone wrong. If that doesn’t indicate guilt, I don’t know what does.”
“He’s not going to run the risk of grassing on three jobs in a row, guv’nor; that’d be a dead give-away.”
“Funny thing,” said Gaffney, “that’s what Carfax said, and I suppose there’s something in it. Somehow or other we’ve got to get to the inside of this man Hodder; until we do we aren’t going to find the truth, or the leak. To be honest, I don’t think that having a wife who puts herself about is the answer.”
