His landlady had thought it was the police. He had thought it was the police, until he had seen them, and then it had been too late. The police, he could have coped with. But the two gentlemen were anything but; if the police were sometimes less than gentle, that was nothing compared to Beale’s heavies. Not that they’d done anything yet except bundle him into Beale’s Rolls and drive him to the middle of nowhere, but that was quite enough to be going on with. They hadn’t spoken, not even to indicate who had sent them. Steve hardly needed telling. They just sat there, large, brainless, young and fit, one either side of him, in the back of Beale’s Rolls, hidden from view behind a derelict barn. Twenty, thirty years younger than him.
The man who had driven them was just as silent and still, but looked as though he had more brain than brawn. He was older, but Steve was still giving him fifteen years at least. Beale wouldn’t entrust the driving of the Rolls to just anyone. Not even Steve had been allowed behind the wheel. And Steve had been a trusted employee; a good enough driver to have Rosemary’s safety in his hands, and sharp enough to be given the job of spotting any irregularities in her behaviour.
Had been a trusted employee. He swallowed nervously. He hadn’t expected retribution to be this swift. Or this savage, come to that. He had only told Lennie, for God’s sake. But she must have used the weapon he had given her, and it was now being pointed at him.
Despite the warmth of the day, Steve was cold. Tell me, he had shouted, tell me what’s happening. But one of them told him to shut up, and he had thought it best to do as he was told.
He had never been convinced that it would work, though Rosemary had been. But only with Austin’s co-operation, of course. And thanks to Steve’s sudden rush of self-respect to the blood, that co-operation had presumably been withdrawn now that Lennie knew. But there was nothing Austin could do to Rosemary. He’d never go to the police.
So why, he thought, as they sat in the silent, invisible car, why was he here? He had thought at worst that he was risking his favoured position with Rosemary – something that his irritating self-respect had decided wasn’t worth hanging on to anyway. He wouldn’t be sharing the fortune, other than as a well-paid lorry driver and a diversion for Rosemary. The Beales would be the ones with the villa in Spain; he’d be the one running the risks. That was what he had thought he was giving up, if Lennie said anything. He had thought that Rosemary would keep him out of it as far as her husband was concerned.
But she hadn’t, evidently, or he wouldn’t be here. If he had thought for one moment that he was risking life and limb, then his self-respect would have taken a back seat, and Lennie’s would have been nowhere. Austin could have gone on using her, Rosemary could have gone on using him. Everyone would have been happy.
And he wouldn’t be sitting in a Rolls-Royce full of hired muscle just itching to bring him to book.
‘What?’ said Beale.
‘I want to let Gordon Pearce have his pick of them,’ said Jonathan. ‘But I thought you might want to have the rest.’
Beale looked round at the canvases adorning the walls of the studio, his mouth slightly open.
‘There are more in the back,’ said Jonathan. ‘And some watercolours. She did them for a while. And old sketches, that sort of thing. I thought you might be interested in them.’
Beale turned back to him, frowning. ‘I thought I was a businessman,’ he said.
Jonathan wasn’t really listening; he was searching his pockets for his lighter, the unlit cigarette between his lips. ‘Sorry?’ he said, finding it.
‘That’s why you asked me down here?’ Beale shook his head. ‘You don’t let the grass grow, do you? Maybe you should hang on to them,’ he added sarcastically. ‘They’ll be worth more in a couple of years.’
Jonathan took the cigarette from his month. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘I’m not selling them. I just want you to have them.’ He lit the cigarette. ‘After Gordon’s taken what he wants,’ he said.
‘You’re giving them away?’
‘Yes.’
‘To me?’
Jonathan expelled smoke.
‘You shouldn’t really do that in here,’ said Beale.
‘Oh.’ Jonathan looked at the cigarette. No, no, he shouldn’t. Leonora had always said …
‘One won’t matter,’ Beale said.
Beale’s disapproval at Jonathan’s apparent cashing in on his wife’s death was having to adjust to sheer astonishment; he had covered his confusion with the diversion. Jonathan had known he would get this reaction; it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone would assume he was selling the work.
‘Why?’ Beale asked.
‘You like them.’
Beale smiled, still bewildered. ‘Sure,’ he said.
‘You understand art.’
‘Yes,’ he said, with a slightly bitter laugh. ‘ Frankie Beale, wide boy. I’m not supposed to know a Degas from a day centre, right? But I do.’ He smiled again. ‘Art galleries were the only places you could go for nothing,’ he said. ‘When I was a kid, I spent hours …’ He stopped, slightly embarrassed.
‘So I want you to have them,’ said Jonathan.
‘I think,’ said Beale, ‘that we should discuss this in my flat. Don’t you?’
No. No, Jonathan didn’t want to do anything of the sort. But he nodded, and the two men left the studio, and went round to the flat entrance.
Jonathan still had his cigarette as they waited for the lift; he looked round for somewhere to put it, and found himself staring at an ashtray exactly like the one Sergeant Drake had described.
‘Where did that come from?’ he demanded.
‘Eh?’ Beale turned and looked round the foyer. ‘ What?’ he said.
‘That! That ashtray.’
Beale frowned. ‘Oh – yes. Pearce put it there. People were putting ash in the potted plants.’
Jonathan let his cigarette slip into it, and stepped into the lift. His mind was barely aware of what Beale was saying as he followed him in to the flat.
‘Can I offer you a drink, Mr Austin?’ said Beale. ‘I’ve got whisky, gin, vodka, brandy …’
‘Vodka and tonic, if that’s …’ He needed a drink.
‘One VAT.’
He poured Jonathan’s vodka and a gin and tonic for himself. ‘My wife,’ he said, handing Jonathan his drink and indicating the leather sofa, ‘wanted respectability, Mr Austin.’
Jonathan didn’t know what to say to that; he sipped his drink.
‘You,’ he said. ‘You were respectability.’
Was he? Jonathan felt that she could have chosen a better role model.
‘I said, ‘‘Rosemary, what the hell do you know about engineering?’’ ‘‘Nothing,’’ she says. “I don’t need to know about engineering. I know about business.’’ She wanted to work, see, Mr Austin. Me – I’m semi-retired. I’m coming up for my pension. But she was just in her mid-forties. She wanted to keep busy. That’s why I got her to go round the clubs, keep an eye on things. She was sharp, Rosemary. Clever. But she didn’t really want to do that.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand why she chose your outfit, though.’
Jonathan thought saying nothing had to be the wisest course. She had told him Beale didn’t know, and thank God, she had been speaking the truth.
‘The police say it’s because she was having an affair with you. It would explain things.’
Jonathan shook his head, still not speaking.
‘It doesn’t surprise you, though?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘ I’ve been made aware of the rumours.’
Beale sat down. ‘And there’s no truth in them?’
‘None,’ said Jonathan.
Beale drank, then stared into his glass. ‘ How do rumours like that start?’ he asked.
‘Who knows?’ Jonathan sighed. ‘She was taking a more active role in the business – we were working together a great deal. And your wife was very.…’ Obvious was the word that came to mind. Jonathan searched for another one. ‘… glamorous,’ he said, after a moment. ‘ I’ve got a reputation as a bit of a stick-in-the-mud,’ he said. ‘I think it appealed to them to think that there might be something going on.’
Beale nodded slowly. ‘But there wasn’t,’ he said.
‘No, I assure you, there wasn’t.’
‘Were you happily married, Mr Austin?’
The question took Jonathan by surprise. ‘We had our ups and downs,’ he said.
‘Yeah. So did we. Rosemary and me. She … she has been known to … stray, now and then. But I loved her.’
‘Mr Beale – my relationship with your wife was purely a business one,’ he said. If he said it often enough, he might believe him.
‘So why the paintings?’
‘I don’t understand them. I shouldn’t have them. You encouraged her, you bought a lot of her work – you were going to commission work. I want you to have them. That’s all.’
Beale looked back into his drink. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you don’t want the paintings because they remind you of your wife, and all that. But you and I – we’re in a peculiar position. I mean, I don’t know why in God’s name it’s happened, but we’ve both lost …’ He cleared his throat. ‘We’ve both lost our wives. Without any warning, without any reason that I can see – so I know how you’re feeling.’
Jonathan nodded briefly. He had known this would be difficult. He just hoped it wasn’t going to be impossible. Big, flash Frank Beale had gone; this man was devastated. Frank Beale didn’t know, couldn’t know how he felt. No one knew. All he could do was try to hold himself together, knowing that his only aim was to survive it all, maybe even realise his ambition … no. His dream. His dream of being in a position to make the world a different place because of his existence in it.
Once, it had been a worthy ambition. But it had become tarnished over the years of seeking nomination, of finding success there only to fail at the polls, because no one wanted to risk him in a reasonably safe seat. Stansfield were prepared to, but only after he had told them that he would be marrying Leonora. One hypocrisy. Taking that flat was another. Show the voters of Stansfield that you are just like them. You understand their problems. Their problems are your problems. Bullshit. He had never known money worries; his father had made money, and Jonathan had gone on making it. Once his voters had safely elected him, he would move to the country house he had already earmarked, for which he had already had interior designs roughed out, which was already landscaped on paper, on which he had already paid out thirty thousand pounds to the old lady to make sure he got it.
He could see his dream now for what it was, now that it might be snatched from him. But it didn’t stop him wanting to survive it all. And here was Beale, who cocked a snook at the very laws that he wanted to frame, giving him a lesson in morality.
‘You see,’ Beale said, ‘your wife was good. I mean – people were sitting up and taking notice. I mean – you don’t get headlines in the Sun for it, but … well, I think her work will get quite valuable. It’s unusual for a woman to be that highly thought of … I’m not talking Van Gogh, you understand, but you still don’t want to give it away.’
Jonathan swallowed, and took a deep draw on the cigarette. ‘ I have money, Mr Beale,’ he said. ‘I don’t need her paintings to make money for me.’ He looked up for the first time. ‘And neither do you,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean you shouldn’t sell them – they’re yours. But you’ll enjoy them. I can’t.’ Beale half shrugged. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a cooling-off
period. How’s that? You can change your mind.’
Jonathan shook his head.
‘Have another drink,’ said Beale, taking his still half-full glass.
The CID room was empty, which was how Mickey Drake liked it. Not that he didn’t get on with his colleagues; he did. But on this nice, sunny evening the air in the room was fresh, and he could hear the birds call to one another as they settled for the night. If his colleagues were all here, the room would be smoky and stale in no time. He smiled at himself. He was a reformed smoker at heart, but he tried not to behave like one.
He had found Tasker’s digs, but his landlady said he had gone out. Mickey had left a car there waiting for his return, and had rung Lloyd to let him know. Tasker, Lloyd informed him, had been chauffeuring Mrs Beale about. Mickey hadn’t known that; he would have to give it some thought.
He read the fire officer’s report on Austin-Pearce; entry had been effected through a window in a gents’ lavatory. The fire had been started under the wooden cabinet; no traces of inflammable spirit being used. Just combustible materials. The cabinet had resisted the flames; it was the plastic floor-covering which had given off smoke and fumes and set the sprinklers off. Hence the limited damage. Forensic were going over Mrs Beale’s office. He thought about Pearce, and about what Inspector Hill had said about his wife, and the more he thought, the more likely it seemed. He ought to talk to Lloyd first, though, so there wasn’t much more he could do there, and he might as well try to catch up on his other work.
The chief inspector had said that an incident room was being set up, and that the routine stuff would still be there when they got back to normal duties, but Mickey couldn’t really relax knowing that there was a backlog. So, he thought, if he got rid of as much of it as he could, he would feel more able to address himself to the puzzle of the fire.
DI Hill seemed to favour Austin himself, but Mickey wasn’t so sure. And he had considerable doubt about Austin’s supposed affair with Rosemary Beale, however much evidence there was to support the rumours. He didn’t know what sort of reception he’d get from the chief inspector if he voiced his beliefs about Austin, but he would have to tell him. He had made a fool of himself in front of Lloyd, and he didn’t want to do it again; he just hoped he was right. He glanced at the door of Lloyd’s office, and tried to imagine himself in that position. He wasn’t all that far off it: inspector next year, providing Lloyd gave him a good report. A year’s probation as inspector, and if he made the grade, the rank would be confirmed, and he would aim for chief inspector next. Two, three years at the most. And yet, for the moment, there seemed a world of difference. Sergeants were other ranks.
It was good in Stansfield, though. A good atmosphere. He hadn’t wanted to come back, and he hadn’t really wanted to be at Divisional HQ; he had thought it would be likely to stifle personal initiative. But Lloyd left you to get on with whatever you were doing; it was teamwork, of course – Mickey didn’t want to be a maverick, anyway – but he felt reasonably confident that Lloyd would notice if his contribution made a difference.
But for the moment, he was trying to clear his desk. He sighed, and picked up the file he had begun on the improbable crack factory at the Mitchell Estate flats. No point carrying on with that. He would tell Lloyd he had been spotted.
‘Stephen Arthur Tasker,’ boomed a voice, and Mickey leapt to his feet as the chief inspector came into the room, a file in one hand, and a plastic holder with machine cups of coffee in it in the other.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to make you jump.’
Not much. Mickey sat down again.
‘One sugar, no milk – that’s right, isn’t it?’ Lloyd removed a cup from the plastic holder and put it on the desk.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Mickey, putting it on to the drip mat. Thank you.’
Lloyd removed his own coffee from the holder, and perched on the edge of Mickey’s desk. ‘Stephen Arthur Tasker, age forty-nine.’ He frowned. ‘I was expecting him to be a younger man,’ he said.
‘Anyway,’ he said, blowing away the steam that rose in waves from the cup, and taking a sip, ‘what can you tell me about him?’
Mickey felt flustered. He had been expecting this ever since he’d been given Tasker’s name by Judy, but it didn’t make it any easier. ‘Not much more than it says in there,’ he said, indicating the file in Lloyd’s hand.
Lloyd drank some more coffee.
Mickey looked at him, fascinated by how he could possibly be drinking the boiling liquid in his cup. He felt a little like a rabbit with a snake.
‘You were the arresting officer,’ Lloyd said.
Oh, God. This man would think he was a congenital idiot, and no wonder. Mickey opened the file, and nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I got the credit,’ he said. ‘But only because he ran and I played rugby.’
‘You caught him before he could ditch the stuff,’ said Lloyd.
Mickey smiled. They had been watching the place all night before they had raided it; he had been determined to make it worth while. ‘Got him with a flying tackle,’ he said. ‘ But there were dozens of us on the raid – I didn’t really think of it as my arrest.’ He was talking to delay the inevitable, but it didn’t delay it long.
‘Was that who you saw with Mrs Austin?’
Mickey sighed, resigned to the fact that Lloyd would now be considering having him assigned to directing traffic. ‘It must have been, sir,’ he said. ‘ The description tallies. but it never crossed my mind. I thought he was still inside. He got three years plus he had to serve two years of a suspended sentence. I didn’t think he would be out yet.’
‘Well he is. And he isn’t at his digs.’
‘Do you think he’s done a runner, sir?’
Lloyd shrugged. ‘Either that or Beale got to him before we did,’ he said.
Mickey’s heart landed fairly and squarely somewhere in his stomach. ‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘Sorry, sir. Do you think he’s our man?’
Lloyd shrugged. ‘Not unless he had transport, and as far as we know, he didn’t. So if you did see him with Mrs Austin, he didn’t kill Mrs Beale. I’m banking on Beale realising that. He’d be no good to us in a coma.’
‘No, sir.’
‘What else do you remember?’ asked Lloyd.
‘About the raid? It was a studio flat in Queens Estate – it was rented by the girl he was living with.’
‘Do you remember her name?’
‘No, sir,’ said Mickey. ‘I don’t know if I ever knew it. I was a probationer – I had nothing to do with the planning. I was just muscle.’
‘Hovak,’ said Lloyd. ‘Leonora Hovak.’
Mickey wanted to die.
Lloyd got up, and pulled a chair across, sitting down, leaning his arms on the desk. ‘ Look,’ he said. ‘No one could deny that you work hard,’ He glanced at the clock. ‘It’s late, you were on duty half the night, you had a very traumatic experience, and you’re still here, working. Your paperwork’s always bang up to date – you do all your follow-up calls, you’re prepared to go out on a limb if you think it’s worth it – like your intelligence on the crack factory.’
Christ. He couldn’t tell him about that, not now. Not yet. Perhaps he could redeem himself somehow first.
‘But CID work is about more than that,’ said Lloyd. He smiled. ‘You have the opposite problem to most people,’ he said. ‘I usually have to tell detectives that it isn’t any more glamorous than being a bobby. It’s a damn sight more boring, most of the time. Hours spent on the phone. Days spent watching nothing happen. Months of work going down the drain in two minutes because you can’t prove what you know. Writing endless reports and statements. But that’s the bit you’re good at. it’s the one per cent inspiration that you’re missing out on – and you needn’t.’
Mickey couldn’t look at him as he listened to the lecture. He kept his eyes on the desk, on the Mitchell Estate file that he wished he could just tear up.
‘Everything you learn about a villain is worth knowing. Who his women are, who his contacts are – which addresses he can use if he’s in a jam. I keep a lot of it in my head – Inspector Hill writes it all down. Connections. You have to be able to make connections. This woman’s called Leonora – that woman was called Leonora. It’s not a very usual name … then, Tasker would have crossed your mind. You’d have checked, discovered that he’d been released from prison two months ago … and we’d have him, not Beale.’
‘Sir,’ muttered Mickey.
Lloyd sat back. ‘Tell me something,’ he said.
Mickey lifted his eyes.
‘I’ve been looking at your file,’ said Lloyd. ‘You started off eager and keen – you were always in the thick of it, you were being noticed by the top brass – well, your flying tackle on Tasker is a case in point. Then after that you … well – you’d have been kicked out if it hadn’t been for your previous record. You missed more than one court appearance, you were persistently late on duty, you were worse than useless. What happened?’
Mickey sighed. ‘I gave up smoking, sir,’ he said, with a hint of hostility.
Lloyd looked angry for a second, then relaxed a little. ‘It had that bad an effect on you?’ he asked.
‘I gave up because someone asked me to,’ said Mickey, with a reluctant little sigh. This was always going to happen. Getting the man’s back up wasn’t sensible; besides which, he was trying to understand. He lifted his head. ‘I got involved with a woman,’ he said defiantly. ‘My marriage broke up. It didn’t officially break up until a couple of years ago, but that’s when it really happened couldn’t keep my mind on work.’
Lloyd nodded. And understood. Mickey had heard bits and pieces about Lloyd and Judy Hill; their story wasn’t dissimilar, and Lloyd wasn’t pretending that it was.
‘You’re not the first that that’s happened to,’ he said sympathetically. ‘You were married then? How old were you? Twenty-one?’
‘Yes. I’d been married two years by then, sir. I was … well, just going through the motions at work.’
‘Not even that on occasion,’ said Lloyd. ‘And it’s cost us valuable time now, hasn’t it? And what I have to know is – are you about to go walkabout again? Because if you are, you’re no good to me.’
‘No, sir,’ said Mickey vehemently. ‘There’s no one. Not now. Nothing. I just want to do my job.’
Lloyd nodded briefly. ‘Then I suggest you start doing it,’ he said.
Mickey had no option; if he didn’t give Lloyd some reason to respect his ability now, then he was done for. He could be wrong; but he couldn’t let that bother him. Judy said he had a sharp tongue, but he gave credit where it was due. He just had to keep his fingers crossed that he was right, and that some credit would come his way before the man gave up on him altogether.
‘Sir,’ he said.
‘Yes, Sergeant.’
‘Mrs Beale’s office,’ he said. ‘Someone had helped themselves to her whisky. She doesn’t use the office much, and the other bottles were unopened.’
Lloyd nodded.
‘I think we can discount vandals,’ said Mickey. ‘Whoever it was used a glass.’
‘I’ll have you know we’ve got very cultured vandals in Stansfield,’ said Lloyd, just as though the previous conversation hadn’t taken place. ‘Wouldn’t dream of drinking out of the bottle.’
Mickey smiled. Lloyd confused him, but it was a joke, so he would smile. ‘Thing is, sir – if whoever it was had a drink beforehand – Dutch courage, or whatever – the natural thing to do would be to use the drinks cupboard to stand the bottle on. And it would just have got left there when he tried to set it alight.’ He could feel Lloyd listening to his every word, and suddenly it didn’t seem so intriguing. It seemed of monumental unimportance. He took a deep breath. ‘But it wasn’t there,’ he said. ‘It had been dropped, by the look of it. Near the door. Bottle and glass.’
Lloyd looked a little uncertain, and Mickey licked his lips nervously.
‘I think he was drinking after he’d started the fire, sir,’ he said. ‘I think he was in there, and dropped the bottle and the glass when the smoke got to him.’
Lloyd frowned a little. ‘He?’
‘The fumes, sir. They’d make him seem drunk – especially if he had had some alcohol. But he’d be functioning quite clearly. He might well be able to drive home, and pass out for a few minutes when he stopped being active. I – I asked the fire officer. He says it’s quite possible. He’d be a bit lightheaded for a few hours, he said. Those were Pearce’s symptoms, sir.’
‘And memory loss?’
‘I asked if it could result in memory problems, and he said it had never done that to any of his firemen. Sir.’
Lloyd raised an eyebrow.
‘You see, sir, I can’t see when Pearce got drunk. Austin says he had two at his house, and his wife says he came straight home. Inspector Hill didn’t believe her, and I think he was …’ He tailed off.
‘I think I’ll have a word with Mr Pearce,’ said Lloyd. And smiled.
Mickey could only hope that this bit of inspiration wasn’t misplaced.
‘Jonathan?’
Pauline was startled to find Jonathan Austin at her door. In these security-conscious flats, only neighbours could call unannounced.
‘I was in Frank Beale’s flat,’ he said, by way of explanation. I thought I should—’
‘Come in,’ she said, belatedly remembering her manners. She didn’t know what to say to him. ‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘Oh, you know.’ He sat down. ‘Frank Beale’s taking it very hard.’
‘Is he?’ Rosemary had seen him, once or twice. He didn’t seem much different. Still going about his dubious business, as far as she could see. A couple of unpleasant-looking characters had called on him in the afternoon.
‘Yes,’ said Jonathan, ‘He tries to look as though nothing’s happened, but it’s hurt him.’
Pauline raised a disbelieving eyebrow. ‘ I wouldn’t put it past him to have done it himself,’ she said.
Jonathan looked up at her. ‘Are the police saying that?’ he asked.
‘How should I know?’ She sat down. ‘All I know is that they think Lennie died because she heard what was happening to Rosemary Beale.’ Too late, she remembered that she was speaking to Lennie’s husband. It was strange; she had never really been able to think of Jonathan like that. ‘ Sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘She is dead; not talking about it won’t alter it’ He sighed. ‘They’ve told me their theory too,’ he said.
Pauline caught the nuance. ‘You don’t think that’s what happened?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. I’ve told them about an ex-boyfriend of hers that turned up. She was frightened of him, I know she was.’
Pauline hadn’t got that impression, not at all.
‘Do they have any … theories about Mrs Beale?’ he asked, getting her back on to what he regarded as safer ground, presumably. But that rather depended on where you were standing, and it didn’t seem like safer ground to Pauline.
‘They seem to be suspicious of Gordon,’ she said icily.
‘They asked me what our meeting had been about. I had to tell them.’
‘And did you tell them about you and Rosemary Beale?’ she asked.
‘That isn’t true! Gordon’s wrong about that.’
‘It isn’t just Gordon.’
‘Then everyone’s wrong. And they asked me about it, if you must know. Pauline, I didn’t come in here for a row – is Gordon here?’
‘He’s asleep.’
‘This early?’
In Jonathan’s world, you did everything at properly arranged times. You ate, you slept, you worked, you – She remembered with a stab of conscience what she had heard that night. Was Lennie working? Was she with this man? She had lied about when it was.
‘He’s hardly had any sleep,’ she said.
He wasn’t asleep. He was lying, fully clothed, on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t come out.
‘I just wanted to tell him that he can forget about that agreement,’ said Jonathan. ‘The board won’t be making any changes now.’
Pauline frowned a little. ‘You’ve spoken to them?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t have to. It was Mrs Beale who wanted the changes made, and that doesn’t apply any more.’
Pauline felt her legs grow suddenly weak. ‘Did Gordon know that?’ she asked.
‘He guessed that Mrs Beale was the moving light,’ said Jonathan. ‘The other thing is just Leonora’s paintings. I want him to have whatever he’d like. I’m giving the others away. Tell Gordon I’ll … I’ll talk to him later,’ he said.
He showed himself out.
Slowly, Pauline got up. Her legs shook as she made her way out of the room, into the bedroom, where Gordon still lay, staring at the ceiling.
‘We have to be very certain of what we are going to tell the police,’ she said. ‘They’ll be back, I know they will.’
He looked at her, then got off the bed. ‘I’m going to the pub,’ he said. ‘ Tell them what you like.’
Lloyd was right.
Judy put her hand over her eyes to block out the daylight that still streamed through the closed curtains, and tried to sleep, but the image of Lennie’s body stayed in her mind, as it had all day. She shouldn’t have gone. Lloyd was right; Lloyd was always right. It must be boring.
But she had had to go. After that call, what else could she do? She had been so sure that he was lying, that something terrible had happened. A hollowness in his tone, a falseness; she had heard it hundreds of times in a career which consisted for the most part of talking to liars. She had heard it then. She had heard lies, and something else. Something worse.
And then the call about Lennie. How could she have stayed at home? So, she told herself sternly, if you felt you had to see for yourself, then stop trying to forget what you saw. Face it. Think about it. If you think about it, you won’t keep dreaming about it.
The flat, the door standing open. Looking into the room first; seeing Lennie lying there. Then making herself go in. Lennie, lying in amongst upturned furniture. Broken, smashed chairs. A bookcase with splintered shelves. All around, the destruction which had terrified the neighbour. One blow had killed her; one blow to the temple, apparently from behind. She would have turned away from the inevitable, Freddie had said. But perhaps she didn’t even see it. Perhaps he had hit her from behind. One blow, and she was dead.
Then what? Why would he ring her, of all people? If he’d just killed his wife, perhaps his powers of reasoning were at a low ebb. He’d killed her, and he wanted to get away with it. Ring a convenient police officer and say she isn’t home and he’s worried. But no … the phone wouldn’t work.
But she had heard a police siren. And he could have phoned on his way back to the house, from the telephone-box at the post office. But then, he would have had to ring before he killed her, and the desperate reason didn’t apply. Then it would have been premeditated, thought out, if only for a few moments. He wouldn’t have been ringing her in the after-shock of having committed murder. And why make it sound as though he was at home, when that would be the last place …
She opened her eyes. What? What was she thinking about? She had lost the place somehow. Jonathan Austin. That’s what she was thinking about Austin, and his phoney call. A phoney-call. From a phoney-box at the post office.
She opened her eyes again. Phoney. Who’s a phoney? Austin. Austin is a phoney, living in a flat that Lloyd could afford, when he was rolling in it. Rolling. Rolling in it.
Judy, he’s rolling in it.
She opened her eyes. Who said that? Lennie. Lennie said it. She’d met her just before she got married. And she wasn’t like a bride-to-be, and didn’t pretend to be. Judy, he’s rolling in it. Not a figure of speech; not just by comparison to someone trying to live on the proceeds of her art. Really rolling in it. Chief Superintendent Allison said so. Rolling in it … rolling in money. Lying on the floor, banknotes scattered round like so many tissues, killed by a single …
She opened her eyes. No, not Jonathan. Jonathan wasn’t killed. He was rolling in it, but Lennie was killed. He wasn’t the victim – what made her think he was the victim? He was a phoney. A rich phoney. Lennie was the victim. Lennie, killed by a single blow. She shouldn’t have gone in. She shouldn’t have gone to see for herself. She shouldn’t … Lloyd was right.
She closed her eyes; sleep finally came, but it was fitful and troubled, and her racing, confused thoughts were overtaken by the dreams that she had tried and failed to chase away.
‘Mind if I join you?’
Gordon looked up to see one of the policemen who had been at the Beales’ flat that morning.
‘Your wife said I’d find you here.’
Gordon sighed, and looked out at the river, sparkling this evening in the setting summer sun. ‘I had hoped to have a quiet pint,’ he said.
‘Oh, I’m very quiet. Lloyd – DCI, Stansfield Division.’ He held out his hand; reluctantly, Gordon shook it.
Just let me do the talking. So why send the chief inspector to the pub? How was she going to do the talking at the pub? Tell them what you like, he had said. So, she had told them he was at the pub. Fair enough. He didn’t know how long he could go on with it.
It was your idea, Gordon, old son. You said you were drunk. Couldn’t remember a thing. Long before Pauline did her Joan Crawford bit.
It wasn’t Joan Crawford, it was Barbara Stanwyck. I remember now. And that was when I thought it was my problem. She made it hers, and I don’t know how she knows …
‘You were very unhappy when you left Mr Austin last night, weren’t you, Mr Pearce?’
‘I know,’ Gordon said carefully, ‘ what Austin’s told you. I know how it must sound. But I wasn’t angry with her – I didn’t mean those things. I know, I know …’ He let out a long sigh. ‘I know how it must sound. I … I blamed her for what was happening.’
He looked out at the sunshine; people strolled along the river bank, families out on the fine evening, enjoying the weather. He and Pauline could have had that. Late. Late parents. He’d thought that might be a good thing, might keep them young. But now that might not be possible.
‘Who are we talking about, Mr Pearce?’
‘Mrs Austin,’ he said. ‘I loved her, Mr Lloyd. I’ve known her all her life, and I loved her. I trusted her, and it seemed to me that my trust had been betrayed. But it hadn’t. She wasn’t to know he would take up with a woman like that.’
Lloyd took another apparently unconcerned sip of beer. ‘Austin didn’t tell us any of that,’ he said, removing a fleck of foam from the corner of his mouth.
Oh. That hadn’t occurred to him.
‘Were you with Mrs Austin last night?’
‘Only until she went out.’
‘When was that?’
Gordon shrugged a little. ‘Nine – something like that.’
‘And you didn’t see her again?’
Gordon shook his head.
Nice one, Gordon. Pauline got you into this.
No, she didn’t I got myself into it.
She’s the one insisting you got home at quarter past ten, Gordon, old son.
Lloyd finished his drink. ‘ Shall we take a walk by the river?’ he asked, as the pub began to fill.
The sun hung low in an impossibly blue sky; pink-tinged children who would be crying when the sheets touched the tender skin still laughed, and chased the ducks along the bank. An old man in a white linen jacket and a panama hat took a stroll. People wore bright colours and extravagant clothing; next week, they might be switching on their central heating and taking their dark suits back out of the wardrobe.
‘We believe that Mrs Austin was a witness. She heard what happened to Mrs Beale. Oh, it wouldn’t have meant anything at the time, but we think the killer believed she would be able to identify him once she knew.’ He looked over the river to the flats on the other side. ‘And what Mr Austin did tell us was that you were very resentful of Mrs Beale.’
Gordon closed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You were asked to come in to let us have your fingerprints for elimination – have you done that yet, Mr Pearce?’
Gordon shook his head.
‘Why not?’
He didn’t speak.
‘Is it because we’ll find your prints on the bottle in Mrs Beale’s office?’
Gordon sat down on a bench, and stared at the river.
‘You did set fire to her office, didn’t you, Mr Pearce? You were affected by the smoke when your wife saw you.’
‘Yes.’
Lloyd sat down beside him. ‘Why?’ he asked.
Gordon looked at him. ‘I tried to set fire to the whole place,’ he said. ‘I wanted it to go up in flames, with me in it. But then I couldn’t breathe, and I wanted to breathe. I didn’t want to die. So I ran. I left the way I had got in, and came home. Pauline thought I was drunk, and I let her think that.’
‘When did you go to the factory?’
Oh God, trying to remember all the ties was almost impossible.
‘When I left Austin.’
‘So you got there just after ten?’
Gordon nodded, his eyes closed.
‘Your wife says you were home by ten fifteen.’
He shook his head. ‘About an hour later,’ he said.
‘Did you see anything, or hear anything when you got home?’
He shook his head again. ‘I wasn’t taking any notice of anything. I could hardly see. And I thought I had burned the place down,’ he said. ‘Pauline smelt burning – I thought that that was the factory ablaze. But it was just me. My clothes. I couldn’t believe it when the factory manager rang me and said would I be coming in because there had been a bit of a fire.’ He looked at Lloyd, and smiled. ‘A bit of a fire. That’s about my range,’ he said. ‘A bit of a fire. Pauline lied for me.’ He swallowed. ‘Will I go to prison?’
‘Not up to me,’ said Lloyd. ‘But I doubt it’ He got up. ‘We will want to talk to your wife again,’ he said. ‘She did hear something, Mr Pearce. About twenty minutes before you came in, she said. Only she led us to believe that that made it ten o’clock – I presume that we’re an hour out.’
Gordon covered his face with his hands. ‘Please don’t blame Pauline,’ he said.
‘I’m a bit stuck for anyone else to blame,’ Lloyd said sharply. ‘I’m sorry to have spoiled your quiet pint.’
And he walked quickly away, down the path, across to the pub. In the fading light, Gordon could see him get into his car, and drive out on to the main road.
He walked slowly back to the bridge. Over, turn right, past Lennie’s studio.
He told Pauline.
‘Did you tell him anything else?’ she demanded.
No, you didn’t tell him anything else, did you, Gordon? No mention of Pauline being out in the middle of the night.
‘No. He doesn’t think anything terrible will happen to me.’ He held Pauline close to him. ‘He’s angry with you,’ he said.
‘Good,’ she said, and kissed him. And went on kissing him.
You’d think she was never going to see you again, Gordon, old son. What does she mean, good? What’s good about a policeman on the warpath?
‘We’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘ You’ll see. You’ve still got your business – you’ve still got me. It’ll be all right – we’ll be all right.’ Kissing him, unbuttoning his shirt, wanting him. They were making love, and still all she said was that it would be all right.
It wouldn’t. He couldn’t let her do this to herself, to the baby. You know what you have to do, don’t you, Gordon? Old son. You know what you have to do.
They hadn’t found Tasker. Beale had declared himself quite unable to account for his disappearance, and allowed the officers the run of the flat, eager to help. Beale’s Rolls had gone from the Riverside Inn car park; Beale had sent someone to fetch it from the Riverside Inn – you couldn’t trust anyone these days. Taken it for a spin, more than likely.
Lloyd had given vent to his feelings on Drake when Jack Woodford had come to tell him.
‘I think you’re being a bit hard on the lad,’ Jack had said.
‘Why? He should have recognised him, Jack. And we’d have had him. Now Beale’s got him holed up somewhere, and God knows why.’
Jack had raised an eyebrow. ‘It was a long time ago, Lloyd,’ he said. ‘He tackled him in the dark, over three years ago. Are you so sure you would have recognised him?’
Lloyd had refused to give in that easily. ‘He gave evidence in court, didn’t he?’ he had said. ‘Or was that one of the times he didn’t turn up?’
Jack had smiled at that ‘No,’ he had said patiently, ‘ he gave evidence. Go home, Lloyd. You’re tired and irritable. Your mum would be putting you to bed.’
Lloyd had started to feel uncomfortable. Jack Woodford could get away with making him feel like a petulant schoolboy, because he knew him so well. But Tasker had disappeared, all the same, and he still hadn’t given up.
‘Leonora,’ he had said. ‘How many women do you know called Leonora?’
‘Be fair,’ Jack had said. ‘I was here then too, and I didn’t make the connection.’
‘You weren’t involved in the arrest.’
‘Neither was she! She had nothing to do with it – we knew that all along. We weren’t bothered about her. She was in bed with him when the lads went in, or her name wouldn’t even be on the file.’
Lloyd had grunted. He had gone off at half-cock again, and he had been told off again, in Jack’s inimitable style. But Judy would never have missed the connection, he had thought, as he had packed up his briefcase, and wished he was still working with her.
‘And he was right about Pearce,’ Jack had added, as Lloyd had left the station.
Yes, thought Lloyd as he drove home, he had been. He ought to tell him it was good work.
He let himself into the flat, being as quiet as he could; he couldn’t be bothered cooking, and made himself a sandwich, going into the sitting-room, putting on the TV. He kept the sound low, though there was usually no need; Judy could sleep through anything. There was a film on that he wanted to see … well, wanted was pitching it a bit strongly. He doubted very much that he would enjoy it, but watch it he would, because if he didn’t they might stop showing anything but Superman and old Bond movies.
And they were showing it in letterbox format – another good reason to watch. Prove to them that the nation doesn’t really switch off in droves if the screen is blank top and bottom, or the image is black and white, or there are subtitles or four-letter words. What the viewer doesn’t like, he said, in the letter that he was eternally composing to various TV magazines, is a camera endlessly panning and scanning, or seeing half of a two-shot, and hearing the other half. What it doesn’t like is bad dubbing by bad actors, all the major characters apparently having severe speech defects, and some minor characters disappearing altogether. Not to mention key scenes in the plot, on occasion. That, sir, is what the viewer doesn’t like. Yours faithfully …
He had always had a problem with letters. He couldn’t sign formal letters ‘Lloyd’, as though he was a peer of the realm. He had to use his initial, and he didn’t like even doing that. D. It looked so innocuous, but he knew what it stood for.
That, however, wasn’t the reason that he had never actually written his letter about films on television. No – the reason he had never actually written was that he was on the side of the angels, and everyone knew that it was only the people who did apparently like see-sawing through edited Technicolor films dubbed into inoffensive English who wrote and complained every time they saw anything other than that.
The result was that no one knew that he was sitting here watching a small strip of screen on which a film that he wasn’t enjoying was playing, so it was all a waste of time, really.
It was just after nine thirty when the bedroom door opened, and Judy appeared, blinking a little, her hair tousled.
‘Hello, love. I thought you’d sleep right through.’
‘I keep having dreams,’ she said, joining him on the sofa as he put his arm round her.
‘It’ll pass,’ he said, kissing her on the top of her head.
‘I don’t think she was in her studio,’ said Judy.
Lloyd groaned. ‘ Judy – this way lies a nervous breakdown,’ he said gently.
‘Beale said he thinks she just left the light on when she closed up.’
He sighed. ‘Austin thought she was in the studio,’ he said. ‘Pauline Pearce heard someone at the studio door. Her car was gone from the garage … that adds up to her being in the studio, Judy.’
‘Why would she put the car back in the garage?’
‘To cover her tracks with Tasker,’ he said. He was sure that was why, wherever she went with him. He didn’t think the car had anything to do with it. The wedding ring, though …
‘She didn’t. Austin’s lying. He’s a fraud – look what Allison said about this house he’s going to buy once he’s safely elected.’
‘Judy,’ he said sternly, ‘you have no proof that he’s lying. You don’t like the man – all right, I probably wouldn’t care for him either. But that doesn’t mean he …’ He shook his head. ‘He doesn’t strike me as someone who has murdered his wife,’ he said.
‘Well, that’s all right. Not guilty because he doesn’t strike Chief Inspector Lloyd as someone who has murdered his wife.’
‘I’m not the jury! I’m the investigating officer. And the investigating officer doesn’t usually have to live with a friend of the victim, who received a phone-call that bothered her just before the victim died!’ He realised what he was doing as soon as the words were spoken and he saw Judy’s reaction. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, hugging her. ‘ I’m sorry. But it isn’t easy, Judy. So far, we have no proof that Austin did anything other than what he says he did, and I can’t do anything until we have.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Maybe it’s time to take my mind off it again.’
He knew that that was just what he should be doing, but he broke his own rule. ‘What did bother you about Austin’s call?’ he asked her.
Judy thought for a moment. ‘The fact that he called at all, for one thing,’ she said. ‘We just didn’t have that sort of friendship. It was a couples thing, really. I mean, I met her in the first place, but in a way, it was Michael and Jonathan who were friends. They had quite a lot in common.’
Lloyd smiled at the implicit criticism.
‘And I’m sure he was lying.’
Lloyd nodded. ‘But that could have been for a dozen reasons,’ he said. ‘He didn’t want to admit they’d had a row, or he really thought she was with Tasker, and didn’t want you to know that – any number of reasons.’
‘And there was something about the way he spoke that just seemed …’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘It gave me the willies,’ she said.
It had. He knew that. But … He smiled. ‘Guilty,’ he said. ‘By reason of giving Detective Inspector Hill the willies.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and smiled a little. ‘And I’m spoiling your film.’
Lloyd looked at the screen. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, the director spoiled it. You’re not spoiling anything.’
She sniffed a little, and wiped what might have been a tear. ‘Why are you watching it?’ she asked.
‘It’s one of those films you’re supposed to have seen,’ said Lloyd. ‘I avoided it when it was in the cinema, but I’ve got no excuse now.’
She smiled. ‘There isn’t a law,’ she said.
‘Oh, yes there is. It’s a natural law. Like having to finish a book once you’ve started it. You have to see any film which is described as a milestone, a classic, a departure, a tour de force, or seminal.’
‘Which is this?’
‘Seminal.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s the seed from which a hundred other films just like it spring up.’
‘Do you have to see the hundred other films?’
‘Yes. Because some of them may be merely derivative.’
She laughed. ‘You’re mad,’ she said. ‘ You can put it off. I won’t tell anyone.’
He felt quite guilty as he picked up the remote control, and pushed the little red button to remove the band of light from the screen. And quite relieved. It had another hour and a half to go, and he wasn’t going to have to sit through it after all.
‘Gordon Pearce is into old films,’ she said. ‘He’s got loads of videos.’
Lloyd smiled. Funny. People with whom you might have become friends turned into suspects. Not people any more.
She looked up at him, her eyes dark and worried. ‘I think …’ she began, then looked down again. ‘I think I just want it to be Jonathan who killed her,’ she said.
Lloyd frowned. ‘ What do you mean?’
‘You know I saw her yesterday,’ she said. ‘She was really going places, Lloyd. People were getting very interested – she was getting commissions. Not just Frank Beale – other people. People who didn’t live upstairs from her,’ she said.’ Judy smiled a little. ‘Someone was coming from one of the Sundays to interview her. She was excited, and—’ She pursed her lips together. ‘And someone just wiped all that out.’
There wasn’t much Lloyd could say. He held her tighter.
‘And why?’ she went on. ‘Because they thought she could identify them? I’d much rather it was Jonathan. I’d much rather it was anger, or jealousy, or hate, even. I – I don’t want her to have died because someone found it inconvenient for her to go on living.’
Lloyd sighed. There were no words of comfort. The best thing he could do for the people Mrs Austin had left behind was to prove who had killed her, and soon.
And his best hope of a witness was at Frank Beale’s mercy, or he was a Dutchman.