John was silent.
‘Wouldn’t you agree?’ Stephen demanded.
John made no reply.
‘Have you nothing else to say to me?’
‘I’m thinking,’ said John.
There had been no talk of betrayal. No apology sought. It didn’t seem right. Not even appropriate. They would be keeping Virginia out of their reckoning, so far as they could. ‘I understand why all this has happened,’ Stephen said. ‘I don’t like myself for being so understanding.’
‘I want you to know – ’
Stephen cut across him: ‘What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t see the attraction, I hear you say.’
‘No. I didn’t say that.’
‘Now, there’s the question of your punishment.’ This was more than an ironic barb. John needed to register his deep regret, but Stephen had indicated that the regret was to be taken for granted. ‘I’m thinking about the future.’
‘I see what you’re doing.’
‘Making provision ….’
‘Yes.’
‘Virginia is looking for a new life. Perhaps she’s told you as much?’
John mumbled hesitantly.
Stephen continued. ‘Don’t believe it. She wants an anchor. She wants to go back, get what she thinks she’s lost.’
‘Most of us – ’
Stephen cut in again: ‘You nail her down. You get her to commit.’
‘I will,’ John said. ‘I will,’ he repeated.
‘She won’t thank you for it. It has its own reward.’
This was a terrible ordeal, with all its promise, but in truth, John cared more about loving Virginia than he did about his friend – which was expressly what his friend wanted. Nothing else mattered. ‘I swear, I’ll take care of her.’
They watched two jets climb into the air before either of them spoke again. Watched them until they had vanished. ‘She chose you, John.’
‘I love her.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ Stephen reached across and patted his friend on the knee. He got him to agree to sell his stake in their business at a knockdown price. Clarissa would benefit. ‘You start something new. See how you fare.’
13
Virginia had not abandoned her husband, and would not have to do so. Stephen Graham was wise enough to know that his wife would throw over John Miller. That was the real punishment.
Virginia had chosen John and made it seem that he had chosen her. His blind love for her assumed that she would be willing to stay with him, which she was not.
There was no talk of betrayal. No expression of regret. Just the drive on both their parts to continue regardless. What else could they do?
Part 3
Gloria Meadows
14
Gloria was seeing her husband in familiar places. Being a court stenographer, her noting of these appearances was meticulous. She saw him on their street, in the café, by the park railings, passing at the far end of the fruit-and-veg aisle, but not carrying through into pork and dairy. These were skilfully choreographed, fleeting glimpses. He was not making ready to engage, but rather to rack her conscience. He was there and not there to haunt her, jingling change in his pocket and pretending not to see her. Being his usual solitary and uncommunicative self, demonstrating that nothing had changed, except that he was dead. One of the Lord’s many refuseniks lost in His clover demesne. ‘Close your eyes,’ she heard the phantom Richard say, ‘and I’ll shut mine.’
‘I do believe,’ she had told the nervous young Richard, as they were walking out through the college gates on their first proper date. The slight echo in the entrance arch was suddenly more pronounced. He thought she meant: believe in them, as a couple. That was altogether premature, not to say desperate.
‘We have time for a drink,’ he said out the side of his mouth. ‘I’ve booked the table for eight-thirty.’
With her quick, bright eyes, Gloria saw that the hinge-nuts on his jaw had tightened, that she needed to be specific. ‘I’m talking about God.’
‘Oh. Him.’
‘That shocks you, I know, poor liberal wretch that you are, Richard,’ and she squeezed his hand.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ he lied. ‘Not one bit.’ He headed this piece of information over Trinity railings and returned the hand-squeeze, but his squeeze wasn’t quite so convincing, and seemed mistimed. True, he had seen the lovely Gloria through the chaplain’s window bouncing her bottom with laughter on a hard chair. That was about sex, maybe. The unattached chaplain was a handsome fellow and, presumably, hard to get.
Gloria wished she had been there in the ditch to stop Richard staggering onto the road, to gather him up, to open his mouth and administer his heart-spray. She wished she had been there to lift his head onto her lap until it could rest on the flat pillow of the ambulance. To have got them to ring merry hell out of their siren. To have not let them cover his face. To have done that.
The police weren’t satisfied that Richard Meadows had been killed at the location he was found. They didn’t believe he was struck by a vehicle and propelled into the ditch, nor did they believe he was hit and staggered or crawled to the ditch. They would proceed on the basis that the incident had occurred somewhere else. They had not yet completely ruled out the possibility that Mr Meadows had been pushed from a height – a premeditated act, or manslaughter – followed by a panic dumping. The damage to his body was consistent with such trauma, but forensics suggested otherwise.
So, where was Mr Meadows slammed? Who had done it, and why? Detective Barrett was in charge of the investigation. It was shaping up to be his first murder case. When Richard Meadows was slid into the refrigeration unit, Detective Garda Barrett stood looking into the ditch, considering the physical evidence and contemplating deviousness and heartbreak. He wasn’t feeling the best, but was determined to see out his day, then get to bed early. He could think in his bed if his guts allowed.
15
Detective Barrett went to see Gloria first thing the following morning. He had talked with her several times, but this was his first house visit. He stepped in sheepishly from the hall and moved across the living room to the walnut upright piano. ‘Do you play?’ he asked softly. His eyes were narrower and brighter than before.
‘It sits there, mostly. It was my father’s.’
Barrett was a methodical man who taunted himself with capricious flights of flim-flam. He was a cautious but steady mover who vacillated in his desire to leap forwards. He liked his pleasures – such as they were – organised. He could not help his self-conscious demeanour, which was easily mistaken for reticence. There were colleagues who were surprised and irked by his recent promotion, and who quietly predicted an early fall. ‘But you play?’ he asked.
‘I play badly.’
‘Do you mind?’ he continued, drawing up in front of it and indicating with an open hand.
‘Go ahead.’
He lifted the keyboard lid, formally composed himself, and played a brief passage from Satie’s Gymnopédies, which he did with light fingers. The policeman can play, Gloria thought, but his timing is off. He plays with nobody listening.
‘Lovely tone,’ he declared. ‘Needs tuning, of course, but you know that.’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, lowering the lid. He brushed the walnut surface appreciatively. ‘I’m sure you don’t play badly, Mrs Meadows.’
Barrett broke from his piano excursion by pushing the stool under the keyboard as far as it would go. It was time to return to the order of business. It was no surprise to Gloria that he came at her again with a recap. They would talk through what had happened, making a deliberate reduction, asking questions again…
‘Your husband went missing on the Friday evening?’
‘Yes.’
‘After – ’
‘Yes. After,’ she said emphatically. She had told Barrett of their row, though it wasn’t a row as such.
‘Had he gone missing before?’
&nbs
p; ‘We’ve had our rows, of course, but he never – ’
‘Went missing.’ They were both nervous. The repetition had done nothing to reduce their anxiety about their duty to the dead Richard.
‘You tried calling?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘I tried.’
‘Six or seven times.’
‘Something of that order.’
‘And he – ?’
Didn’t answer.
‘He rang you later?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t answer?’
‘No.’
The detective made a brief pause, then said: ‘I understand.’
Gloria looked away to the window. ‘He must have been in trouble – ’
‘We don’t yet know the sequence of events.’
‘But I didn’t answer.’
‘It will be easier to bear when we know what exactly occurred.’
‘Yes.’ She wanted to believe him, but was convinced he had no idea how he would establish what had happened. He might be holding back important information, Gloria privately conceded – holding it until he had a fuller picture. There may have been sightings. She herself could conjure no reliable image of her husband at large in that landscape. She simply couldn’t imagine what he had done, or where he had gone, or how he had come to be wandering across wasteland on the edge of the city. He had become disorientated, perhaps, had got hopelessly lost, but that was so unlike him.
‘Mrs Meadows ….’ Barrett was calling in her attention.
‘Yes. What is it we can do to find him? I mean, find where he has been?’
‘Can we go through it again: his leaving the apartment?’
‘Yes. Friday evening ….’
When Detective Barrett moved to the study, Gloria stood resolutely in front of the mirror. I look like a widow, she thought. I look like I’m on my own.
Well, it was the truth.
Bitter widow, lost widow, good widow. The word ‘widow’ didn’t fit. It was a technical term. There was the future to consider. ‘Now you’re talking,’ she mimicked Richard aggressively. ‘Forwards. No slipping. Light a candle if you must.’
She would never again think of herself as a widow. What she was, was alone.
Was she looking after herself, Barrett wanted to know when she eventually followed him into the study. His question didn’t come out right. Did he think she wasn’t eating, that she wasn’t washing herself? She was standing in the shower in the middle of the day until the water ran cold. She was eating ripe fruit from the large blue bowl on the living-room table, eating tinned fish over the sink, having biscuits and wine at her end of the couch. She didn’t tell him any of this. It was none of his business.
‘Yes.’ She was looking after herself.
‘They’re good to you at work, are they? They’re giving you the time?’
‘Yes.’ They were.
He flicked his head in a manner that suggested he was glad about this, but would not expect to fare well himself were he to suffer any class of trauma. ‘Good. Good. You want to stay out of that place a while yet.’
She told him she intended to return to work on Monday week. He gave another twitch of the head. ‘See how you go,’ he advised. His words sounded weak to his own ears, but he persisted. ‘Take all the time on offer, I’d say.’
Detective Barrett stood a long time in Richard Meadows’ study staring one way, then another. He didn’t seem to mind Gloria watching him. She sat on the edge of the old chaise longue with her fingers laced. What was he thinking, she wondered. Evidently, he was waiting for something significant to jump up and bite him.
Eventually, he spoke. ‘Yours?’ he said, indicating the laptop on the desk.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘That’s mine there.’ She pointed to a second laptop, stored on a low shelf.
‘You share this space?’
‘Yes. But, as you can see, it’s mostly Richard’s domain. He was working from home in recent times.’
‘Do you mind?’ he asked, sitting carefully in the swivel chair and turning in to face the desk. ‘You switched on his computer?’
‘No. He left it on standby. It’s always on standby.’
Barrett lifted the lid and the screen illuminated. Richard’s files presented against a backdrop of the Brooklyn Bridge. ‘No password required?’
‘Coming out of sleep mode, no, but to start up, a password is required.’
‘You have that?’
‘No.’ She might never turn it off, she told him. She didn’t know.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked again. Now his fingertips were resting on the keyboard.
‘Go ahead.’ What did he think he might find? She told him she had looked at all the files, had opened all recent e-mails, so that she was familiar with his current, unfinished business. Barrett pretended he didn’t hear. He made himself comfortable adjusting the flattened cushion under his backside.
‘I’ll just go ahead here,’ he said belatedly. For over an hour he trawled through Richard’s files, saying nothing. Sunlight tracked across the desk, showing up the particles of dust that had accumulated on the piles of paper and folders. Gloria lay back on the chaise and listened to Delius on headphones. Not once did Barrett look to his reclining host. Instead, he wrung little creaks out of the ageing swivel chair as an aid to concentration.
When, eventually, he was finished, he got up and made for the door as though leaving the room of a sleeping child. He offered the slightest of farewell gestures, which Gloria found unacceptable. She pulled off the headphones and sprang to her feet.
‘I’m going,’ he declared, freezing in his tracks.
‘Well? Was that helpful?’ she demanded.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘How was it helpful?’ She didn’t mean to sound inquisitorial, but, as court stenographer, she was used to the reticence of policemen, and she wanted more. She wanted a clear answer.
‘There’s nothing out of the ordinary, so far as I can tell – not that we expected ….’
There it was: that awful vagueness. ‘All right, then.’
‘I have a better picture now.’
‘Of what?’
‘His work. He was working steadily and consistently to the end.’
‘You think?’
He put on his creased jacket. As he did so, he managed to turn the putting of one arm through the sleeve into a pointing gesture. ‘That needs water,’ he said, indicating the unwieldy weeping fig in the large pot in the corner of the study.
‘You like plants?’
‘I do, but I don’t keep any. It’s just that I noticed’ – he threw a finger again in the direction of the parcels of yellowing leaves – ‘and you don’t want to see them suffer.’
‘Of course not.’ This one is a misfit, Gloria thought.
‘I really should leave you now.’
‘Of course you should,’ she said distractedly, and showed him to the door. ‘I didn’t offer you anything. You could have tea, if you want.’
‘No tea, thanks.’
She saw him all the way to the lift. Stood staring at the metal doors for some time after they had closed and the lift had descended.
16
Barrett didn’t want her coming to the station if he could help it. With Mrs Meadows, a house-call was best. He would continue to conduct his interview in short sessions. He sensed that she liked him calling. She had not many people around her, he gathered. He presented himself at the Meadows’ apartment again the following day and made his sheepish entrance.
‘Mrs Meadows, would you be willing to view some cctv images of your late husband,’ he asked formally and politely. ‘It might help with our investigation.’
‘Yes, of course. What images are they?’
The detective had a small portable machine on which to play the recorded footage from one of the security cameras mounted in the underground car park of the apartment building. It showed Richard Meadows entering the concrete refuse room with her c
hair, heaving it into one of the dumpsters, jumping in after it and, eventually, climbing out. It showed him ballooning left and right, looking about intensely and rubbing his injured shoulder before exiting. At first, Gloria was speechless. Without comment, the detective quietly played the piece again. This time, he froze the picture on Richard rubbing his shoulder.
‘That must have been painful, all right,’ he said – which wasn’t helpful.
‘Yes. It must.’
‘What do you make of it, Mrs Meadows?’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘I don’t think he was – ’
‘Drunk. No.’
‘A spontaneous event?’
‘Yes. It appears to be ….’
‘A sudden show of zeal. What about the chair?’
‘I can’t think what he was doing.’
The chair, Barrett was sure, was linked to their row. In uniform he had seen all sorts of wild behaviour when it came to domestic arguments. Possessions destroyed, clothes shredded or burnt, property thrown in the bin. He had become inured to it. He didn’t know the chair had been returned and was in the bedroom, and Gloria didn’t see the significance. So far as she was concerned, her late husband had done a rash and stupid thing, had quickly regretted it, and had retrieved her chair. There was no CCTV of Richard returning. Theirs was an old apartment block. The residents committee had paid for the installation of security cameras in the car park, in the utility rooms and at the rear fence. The heavy double doors at the main entrance were secure, and the intercom gave clean, crisp images. No additional camera had been installed here – the door through which Richard had returned with the chair.
‘He doesn’t look happy, mind,’ said Barrett.
‘No.’
‘Frustration, do you think? I’m sorry to ask.’
Quiet City Page 7
