‘He’s a one-woman man,’ Charlie says. ‘He wouldn’t look at another woman.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Call it a shirtlifter’s instinct,’ he says.
And suddenly – totally unexpectedly – I am thrown into a rage.
‘Don’t you dare call yourself that!’ I say, before I’ve even had time to analyse my feelings.
‘What?’ he asks.
‘A shirtlifter!’ I reach across the table, and grab him by the lapels of his stylish jacket. ‘That’s as bad as “queer” or “queen” or “bum bandit”. It degrades you and it degrades your sexual life, and I won’t stand for it! Do you understand what I’m saying?’
He laughs, uncomfortably. ‘Steady on,’ he says, ‘I was only using the term satirically.’
‘It’s not satirical – not in any true sense of the word.’
‘All right, then, if you want to quibble over terms, I was using it in a humorous manner.’
‘But it’s not funny,’ I say. ‘You’ll never get other people to respect you for what you are unless you can show them that you respect yourself.’
Am I talking from personal experience here?
What do you think?
My anger has subsided, and I’m beginning to feel a little foolish. I release my hold on his jacket, and my arms flop onto the table, as if ashamed of themselves and their actions.
‘I’m only saying this because I love you,’ I tell him in the voice of a five-year-old.
He takes my right hand. ‘I know that. Shall we start again?’
‘Yes, please,’ I say.
‘We homosexuals … or may I call us gays, as it’s becoming quite a common term, and it’s not considered pejorative at all?’
‘Yes, you can call yourself gay,’ I concede.
‘We develop this instinct. When I see a man, I can tell whether or not he’s gay almost immediately. And it goes beyond that. I can tell if he’s in a relationship he’s happy with, or if he’s likely to fall victim to my manifest charms.’
‘What’s this got to do with Derek Stockton? Are you saying he’s a secret gay?’
‘No, no, not at all. But this instinct I have for gays can be applied to heterosexuals, too. I can tell if a man is looking out for an opportunity to play away from home, and Derek never was. Nor is he now. I see him nearly every day, and not once has he shown any interest in a woman since Grace was murdered. If you want my opinion, it’s only by a supreme effort of will that he shows an interest in anything. He’s a shell of the man he used to be. It breaks my heart to see it, but I know there’s nothing that I – or anybody else – can do about it.’
‘Thank you for that,’ I say.
‘Are we all right with each other?’ he asks, with a trace of anxiety in his voice.
‘Of course we are,’ I assure him. ‘As you pointed out yourself, all old married couples have arguments now and again, but it doesn’t mean a thing.’
Still, we are both relieved it’s over.
A look comes to Charlie’s eyes which tells me that he’s about to be mischievous.
‘If you really want to find out about Derek, the person that you should be talking to is Father Jim,’ he says, indicating the priest who is just draining a pint of Guinness.
‘Why, is he a close friend of Derek’s?’ I ask, falling straight into the trap he’s set me.
‘No,’ Charlie says, ‘he’s not his close personal friend at all – he’s his confessor.’
It has never occurred to me that Stockton could be a Roman Catholic, but there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be.
‘What about Grace?’ I ask. ‘Was she a Catholic, too?’
Charlie shakes his head. ‘No, Grace hadn’t got much time for western religions.’
We’ve still not ordered any drinks, and now there’s no time to.
‘I’m sorry, but I have to go,’ I say.
‘Have you got an appointment?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who with?’
‘The man we’ve just been talking about.’
‘I don’t think Derek is in college today,’ Charlie says.
‘He isn’t,’ I confirm. ‘I’m meeting him at Crocksworth Manor. I need to see the scene of the crime.’
NINE
Camden Town, London 26th April, 1944
Although it was early summer, there was a chill wind blowing in off the river, and since many of the buildings in Camden Town had been flattened by bombing in the early years of the war, there was nothing to stop that wind as it wrapped its icy fingers around Jane as she stood on the opposite side of the road to the King’s Head public house.
The girl pulled up the collar of her coat, but the coat was cheap and thin, and provided her with very little protection. She wished she could abandon her post and go back to her hovel, but she knew that if she did that, she would have no money for booze, and spending a night without drink was unthinkable.
So there was no choice but to remain there long enough for one of the customers in the public bar to leave drunk. And he did have to be drunk, there was no doubt about that, because she had never been attractive enough to find it easy to persuade men to part with their money, and now she was visibly pregnant, it was getting more and more difficult.
There was no doubt she’d had a hard life, but she never thought of it in those terms. Life was life, and you endured it because there always came a point at which you could drown yourself in alcoholic oblivion.
Her father had abandoned the family when she was six, and her ‘step-father’ had moved in when she was eight. He waited until she was eleven before he started visiting her at night, but when he did, he was as rough with her as if she’d been a hard-bitten, seasoned whore. She did not think of complaining to her mother, because the poor woman was already so cowed that she would not have dared to say anything. So Jane had endured it, two or three nights a week, until she was thirteen, and then she had run away.
Since then, she had lived with a variety of men, most of whom had treated her badly, and sometimes loaned her out to their friends. She had thought she’d finally got lucky with the last one – Archie. True, many women would not have considered him much of a catch – he was thin, with a lazy eye and bad teeth – but he’d occasionally said he loved her and he hadn’t knocked her about half as much as some of the others had.
Then she had fallen pregnant, and he had walked out of the condemned house in which they lived one morning, and never come back. To be fair, he had left her with enough forged ration books to feed her for a couple of years, but she didn’t eat much anyway, and what she really needed was money for booze.
A man came out of the pub, swaying slightly, and crossed the road.
She stepped into his path.
‘Would you like a good time?’ she asked.
He looked at her through bleary eyes. He was a big man, but he had let himself go to seed, and now he had three double chins and a stomach which arrived at his destination a good few seconds before the rest of him did.
‘How much?’ he asked.
She did a quick calculation. Ask too much, and she’d lose him. Ask too little and she’d have to go through this whole disgusting procedure again before she had enough money for her needs.
‘Five shillings,’ she said.
He thought about it, while, with his free hand, he jangled the coins in his pocket. And then he took a closer look at her.
‘You’re in the club!’ he said, accusingly. ‘I’m not screwing a woman who’s in the club.’
‘I’m only four months’ gone. It’ll be quite safe for a couple more months yet,’ she said reassuringly – even though she knew it was not the baby’s health which was concerning him.
‘I’m not wasting five bob of my own good money on somebody the size of an elephant,’ he told her.
‘Look,’ she said, desperately, ‘maybe we can find some other way to do it. Maybe that will be even better.’
‘What do you mean?�
�� he asked.
‘Well, I could bring you off by hand.’
He laughed, scornfully. ‘I’ve got a hand of my own. Why should I pay you five bob to do what I could do for free?’
She gulped. She had been hoping to avoid this, but she saw that she had no choice.
‘I … I could use my mouth,’ she said.
‘You’d do that, would you?’ he asked. ‘You’d actually do that?’
She hoped the ground would swallow her up, but it didn’t, and she said, ‘Yes.’
And even then – even after she’d offered him something he probably only read about in dirty books – he still needed to think about it.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said finally. ‘I’ve got a pal back in the pub. I’ll go and fetch him, and you can do us both.’
‘All right,’ she said dumbly.
‘Just to make sure we’re clear on this, you’ll do both of us for the five bob we’ve already settled on. Are we agreed?’
‘Yes,’ she said, hating him – but hating herself more.
TEN
For reasons of an impecuniary nature, I don’t possess a car of my own, but wheels are sometimes provided for me by one of my drinking companions, a mechanic called Sylvester, who runs his own repair garage and occasionally lends me one of the vehicles he’s just finished working on.
‘Are you sure the owners won’t mind me using it?’ I asked the first time he made the offer.
‘If I don’t tell them, the owners won’t know about it,’ he replied blithely. ‘Besides,’ he added, when he saw the dubious expression on my face, ‘look at it this way, Jennie – I’d have to test drive the vehicles once I’d repaired them, now, wouldn’t I?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’
‘So by driving the cars around, you’re not only doing me a favour, you’re doing the owners a favour. You’re a veritable registered charity – except that you’re not registered.’
‘And I’m not a charity,’ I pointed out.
‘Well, there you are then,’ Sylvester said, as if I’d proved his point for him.
And the matter was settled.
The vehicle Sylvester has lent me this fine autumn afternoon is a Mini Cooper, just like the ones used in The Italian Job, but I resist the urge to imitate the film and pull off a spectacular stunt in the middle of Oxford traffic, and instead drive sedately out of town in the direction of Crocksworth Manor.
The country road I follow is a pleasant lane, lined by hedges which were probably first planted out a couple of centuries ago. The hedges are positively weighed down by red berries, which, according to popular folklore, is a sign that a harsh winter is coming. I shiver at even the thought of it, and wonder if I could make a living as a private eye somewhere warm, like the Canary Islands or the Bahamas. But I know deep down this is no more than pointless speculation, because Oxford is like a powerful drug, and once it has got a hold on you – as it has on me – you can never bring yourself to break away.
About three miles down the lane, there is a five-barred gate at the side of the road, and a rough track beyond it. There is no sign to indicate that Crocksworth Manor lies at the end of the track, but there is no lock on the gate, either. I unlatch the gate, drive in, and then dutifully obey the country code by closing the five-barred gate again behind me.
The track looks rough from the other side of the gate, but that is nothing to what it feels like when you’re driving along it. There are sudden unexpected dips which test the suspension of the Mini Cooper, and deceptively steep rises which have the gears – caught unawares – howling in complaint.
Surely the Drs Stockton could have afforded to get this fixed years ago, I say to myself, as my spine alternates between trying to leap free of my body and to stab me in the brain.
Yes, they clearly could, because just in front of the manor I can see a large ornamental fountain with three dolphins leaping joyously in the air, which I’m certain must have cost as much as a reasonably sized terraced house would have done back in Whitebridge.
So, leaving the track in this deplorable state was clearly a matter of choice. And the reason for that choice, I speculate, is that it serves as a kind of barrier between the manor and the outside world, (a bit like a medieval moat, in a way, but less likely to start stinking in the summer heat).
Body and vehicle still both intact (just!) I pull up beside the fountain, and get my first judder-free look at the building. It is a manor in the truest historical sense – i.e. a large farmhouse from which the local aristocrat ran the surrounding villages very much in the style of a late medieval mafia boss. It’s clearly Elizabethan, and I would date it at around 1560, though I could be out by twenty or thirty years. But whenever it was built, it is in fantastic nick.
The front door is a magnificent example of artisan craftsmanship – solid planks of seasoned oak, cunningly held together by hidden joints which even two teams of horses, pulling strenuously in opposite directions, would have difficulty in separating.
‘I see you’re admiring the workmanship,’ says a deep voice from somewhere behind me.
I turn around, and see Dr Stockton standing there. He is a tall man, broad and in his late fifties. I remember observing him in college, when I was an undergraduate, and putting him at the very top of my fantasy list of dons I’d like to bounce up and down on the bedsprings with.
But though I may have fancied him back then, I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to him before, so feeling the aura that emanates from him is a new experience for me. It is not easy to say which elements make up the aura. There is confidence, certainly. There is intelligence, too. But there is also – and I hate to say this, because as a hard-bitten gumshoe it sounds far too fanciful – an integrity based on decency and honesty.
‘Miss Redhead?’ he asks.
I see what Charlie means about him – he so clearly isn’t the man he used to be.
‘Yes, I’m Jennie Redhead,’ I admit.
‘I remember you as an undergraduate.’
Had he fancied me, too? Had he yearned for my body as he watched me cross the quad?
I suspect not. It’s much more likely that the reason he remembers me is that not many students had hair that reminded him of a red traffic stop sign.
‘I want to be honest right from the start,’ he tells me. ‘There is only one reason I’ve agreed to see you, and that is that my daughter asked me to. If it had been left up to me, I would have refused.’
Great! Tremendous! Truly wonderful!
But at least it’s good to know where I stand.
‘Would you care to tell me why you would have refused to talk to me?’ I ask him.
‘My reasoning is simple enough – all that your investigation can accomplish is to stir up unhappy memories for both of us,’ he tells me.
‘And possibly find your wife’s murderer,’ I respond.
He snorts with mild contempt, like a Spanish fighting bull watching a fat picnicker wander all unknowingly across his pasture.
It is an instinctive reaction, and I can see from his expression that he instantly regrets it.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to appear rude,’ he says, ‘but if half a dozen regional police forces – working together on the case, from the very beginning – have not been able to establish even where the mad woman came from, then what chance do you think that you, a single individual working alone, will have after a full three years have passed?’
He has a very important point. And he is not the first to make it – I said as much to his daughter, when she came to see me in my office. But despite my own doubts, I still made a promise to her that I’d look into it, and here I am, fulfilling that promise to the best of my ability.
‘Well, how do you answer that?’ he asks.
I have sat through enough seminars in my time to recognize the tone of his voice. At this particular moment, Dr Stockton is very much the college tutor, gently leading his student towards grasping the truth for herself.
‘I don’t think I have much of a chance at all of doing something the police failed to do,’ I admit. ‘But isn’t it worth taking the gamble, just to see if we’re both wrong?’
He sighs, heavily. ‘But even if you succeed, it won’t bring my wife back, will it?’
‘No,’ I agree, ‘it won’t do that.’
‘But you’re right, Miss Redhead,’ he concedes. ‘Punishment is meaningless in this case, because I do not believe that the poor woman was responsible for her actions, but I still have a duty to do all I can to see she is apprehended.’ He gestures towards the front door. ‘Please come inside.’
He could have taken me into one of the manor’s reception rooms, but instead we go to the kitchen. It is a large room – almost vast! – with an Aga cooker, a stone fireplace and big scrubbed table. Looking around it, I get the definite sense that when the whole family was living here – when Grace was still alive, and Julia was growing up – this was the very heart and soul of the house.
Dr Stockton gestures me to sit down at the table.
‘Would you like something to drink, Miss Redhead?’ he asks. ‘A cup of tea or coffee? Or perhaps a glass of whisky?’
For any number of reasons, I am finding this whole situation straining, and the urge to ask for a gin and tonic is almost irresistible. Then I remind myself that I’m working, and say, ‘A cup of tea would be delightful, thank you very much.’
A cup of tea would be delightful, thank you very much!
Whose words are those?
Certainly not mine!
So what’s suddenly making me talk as if I’ve just stepped out of the pages of a Jane Austen novel? Is it this room, soaked in family history? Or is it Derek Stockton himself?
He brews a pot of tea and places it on the table between us. Most men would ask if I’d like to be Mother, but he – thank God – just says, ‘Would you like sugar? Milk?’
I’d really like lemon, but how many households can provide you with fresh lemon?
‘Or would you prefer lemon?’ he asks.
Daughters of Darkness Page 6
