The Murders of Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Beale Page 4

  ‘For some reason,’ she went on, ‘they’ve got it into their heads that I’m some sort of tub-thumper for Women’s Lib.’

  ‘It’ll settle down,’ he said. ‘Eventually they’ll realise your sterling worth.’

  ‘Stop making fun of me,’ she grumbled, but she was smiling. She closed her eyes and leant against him.

  ‘Vive la difference,’ he dared to say aloud as he gave her a cuddle, and escaped a telling off because she had just done the slowest double-take in history.

  ‘Yours wasn’t a real Welsh mam?’

  He shook his head. ‘She was only half Welsh,’ he said.

  ‘What was the other half?’

  There was a tiny silence before he spoke, and Judy opened her eyes. ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘I’ve just given you a clue, as it happens,’ he said.

  ‘What? What did you just say? I wasn’t listening.’

  ‘You never do. I said, ‘‘Vive la difference.’’ ’

  ‘French?’ Judy looked at him suspiciously. ‘ Your mother was half French? Is this true?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘French. My grandma Pritchard was French.’

  Judy blinked. ‘So you’re part French,’ she said. He nodded. ‘Which part?’ ‘You tell me.’ He kissed her. ‘I’ll tell you later.’ ‘You know something?’ said Lloyd, as they got up from the sofa. ‘What?’ ‘I’ve never made love to a detective inspector,’ he said. She smiled. ‘I have,’ she said. ‘I can recommend it.’

  ‘He doesn’t make you feel like this,’ Steve said. ‘Does he?’

  She shook her head, her eyes closed. ‘ You can walk me home,’ she said, after a moment, relenting a little. ‘Well – some of the way, anyway.’

  Rock ‘n’ roll, walking a girl home. It was the fifties, thought Steve, as they walked up from the pub, arms round one another’s waists, crossing the railway bridge as a train thundered under them.

  ‘If this was the fifties,’ said Steve, going over to watch the train, ‘there would be smoke and steam everywhere now.’

  ‘I don’t remember steam trains,’ she said, joining him.

  He smacked her playfully. ‘Don’t rub it in,’ he said, looking over the edge of the bridge as the train snaked off into the distance, its red tail lights blurring with the speed. ‘ I loved them. Even then – it’s not just nostalgia. They were big and noisy and smelly – I don’t know. They had personalities. I didn’t want them to go.’

  They spent a few more minutes on the bridge, until Lennie decided people might see. They walked on slowly, past rows of shops.

  ‘If this was the fifties, we’d be ducking into a shop doorway,’ he said. ‘People wouldn’t see then. There aren’t any now,’ he added wistfully, looking at the plate glass doors, flush with the windows, covered in their safety mesh.

  ‘Neither there are,’ she said, surprised. ‘There used to be. When I was little. When did that happen?’

  ‘Search me.’

  They left the shops behind, and passed the empty spaces where Mitchell Engineering’s buildings used to be. Some had been redeveloped, mostly by small factory units let out to various businesses; Lennie’s husband’s new, custom-built factory still stood alone, but it was surrounded by ground marked out for others.

  They crossed over the silent, empty traffic roundabout, and walked towards the old post office. Pedestrian street-lighting was not a priority here, where the combustion engine reigned; dark slashes of shadow were pooled here and there by watery light. They took advantage of the privacy, and made slow progress through the shadows, stopping for minutes at a time, then moving on a few feet before stopping again. She wanted him, Steve knew that.

  She drew away from him as they came up to the old, empty post office, stepping into the deep shadows of the building. ‘You’d better not come any further,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anyone on the estate seeing us. Let’s say goodnight here.’

  Steve had no intention of saying goodnight; she was as eager as he was, and he made the most of it.

  ‘Oh, Stevie, please stop. Please,’ she said, after long, agonising moments. ‘Please don’t do this.’

  ‘We’ll find somewhere to go, Lennie.’

  ‘No – no.’ She tried to twist away from him; he pulled her back roughly, his tongue teasing hers into a would-be reluctant kiss as headlights swept them again, this time remaining on them as the car pulled to a halt a few feet away.

  Steve looked over at it after a moment. Was it the same car? It had to be, but he couldn’t make it out; it was just an indistinguishable dark shape behind its glaring headlights.

  ‘What the hell is he up to?’ he said angrily. ‘ I’ll sort him.’ He walked purposefully towards the car, which drove off as he came up to it, heading down towards the village.

  He walked back to Lennie. ‘Where had we got to?’ he asked, slipping back into the shadow with her.

  ‘Steve – stop it. I’m going home. Now. I’m not going to get involved with you.’

  He stood back a little and looked at her. ‘You want to,’ he said. ‘You know you do.’ She took a breath, and nodded. ‘ But I’m not going to. I’ve made

  promises, Steve.’

  He laughed. ‘Marriage vows?’ he said. ‘Who takes any notice of

  them?’

  ‘Jonathan does.’

  Steve shook his head. ‘ Why did you marry him, Lennie?’

  ‘Security,’ she said.

  ‘Security,’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ she said hotly. ‘ Three meals a day. Not being frightened

  to open my mail in the morning. Security. Precious little of that

  I’d get from you.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to give that up!’ He took her in his arms

  again. ‘A nice, old-fashioned affair, that’s all.’

  ‘And a nice, old-fashioned scandal. Candidate’s wife in love-nest

  with pusher.’

  Steve smiled, and pulled her closer to him. ‘All right,’ he whispered.

  ‘A nice, old-fashioned one-night stand.’

  She shook her head. ‘ It might not be a match made in heaven,’

  she said. ‘But he sticks to his part of the bargain, and I’m sticking

  to mine.’

  Steve let her go, and put his hands in his pockets, looking at

  her. He hadn’t been going to say anything. None of his business.

  But Austin didn’t deserve Lennie. ‘ Is that what you think?’ he asked.

  ‘That he sticks to the bargain?’

  She frowned. ‘Yes,’ she said warily.

  Steve shook his head.

  Mickey Drake drove slowly past the Austin-Pearce factory; a car had come out of the service road a few minutes ago, and it was an odd time of night for anyone to be in the area. He looked across, watching for any signs of life that shouldn’t be there, but his mind was still on the couple.

  They were a couple; he was sure of it. She wasn’t being molested, as he’d thought might have been the case, when she had seemed to try to pull away from him.

  He picked up his radio. ‘Delta Sierra to Delta Hotel,’ he said.

  But it wasn’t either of the men who had been at the flat earlier, and it wasn’t Frankie Beale, who had dropped her off there in the first place.

  The factory logo was lit up at night, though they had stopped working nightshift. It made the police’s job a little easier, lighting up the corrugated grey wall like a fluted cinema screen, against which any miscreant would clearly be seen. Lorries were scattered round the car park, and he watched carefully for signs of life behind them.

  He shook his head slightly, wondering why architects wanted new factories to look like old Nissen huts, and why it was suddenly fashionable to have all the paraphernalia of servicing a building picked out in red paint instead of boxed off neatly, out of sight.

  ‘Delta Hotel,’ said Jack Woodford’s voice. ‘I thought you were off watch, Mickey?’

  ‘I am. But
I thought you ought to know that I haven’t seen the panda car.’

  She must have been with him, all the same; she hadn’t tried to get away when he came towards the car. Though she might have been too frightened, if she was being assaulted. But she wasn’t. It had looked, for a moment, as though she was resisting, but she wasn’t. She was with him. She was.

  There was a silence, during which he knew that Woodford was sighing, or mouthing to someone. ‘ He’s checked in, thanks Mickey,’ he said. ‘ Everything’s OK.’

  Maybe she was frightened to run, in case that got him angry, he thought. Maybe he should have got out of the car and found out for himself what was going on.

  ‘It wasn’t him I was worried about,’ he said.

  ‘No, well – you wouldn’t have thanked him if he’d scared off your courier. He’d be keeping clear.’

  The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Mickey. ‘ Or sitting up a side-street eating fish and chips,’ he said.

  He drove through the old village. Chief Inspector Lloyd lived here. He glanced at the flats as he passed, on his way down to the dual carriageway; he’d heard that he lived with Judy Hill, but he was disinclined to believe station gossip. People usually had the wrong end of the stick. And he was inclined to think that it was their own business, if it was true. The force didn’t own your soul. But she wasn’t divorced from Mr Hill; he knew that.

  ‘That’s a possibility,’ said Woodford, after another long silence. ‘But I’ll tell you what, Mickey. You worry about your job, and I’ll worry about mine. All right?’

  Mickey had found DI Hill to be pleasant to look at, and talk to, but he’d only worked with her for a couple of weeks before she went off on a course prior to taking up her inspector’s duties at Malworth. He’d have to reserve judgement on her, and on the rumours. Though he certainly wouldn’t kick her out of bed.

  He shrugged at the radio. ‘All right,’ he said. He liked Jack Woodford, but he really didn’t check up on his beat men often enough.

  She was with him, he was sure. She was with him. She was with him, she wasn’t resisting.

  He drove along the dual carriageway, to where there was a break in the central reservation. Then he executed an illegal U-turn on the empty road, and headed back the way he had come.

  Pauline Pearce sat in the darkness, looking out of the window at the still, quiet street, and the dark river. Some noise, something had attracted her attention; it was unusual to hear anything after the shops had closed. She had switched off the lamp, and gone to the window, but whoever it was had gone. Across the road on the other side of the river was a children’s play park; the moon, high and round and full, sat hazily in the dark blue sky, lighting the swings and slides standing silent in the night. It was such a beautiful night now, after the drizzle that had fallen all day; she would have been able to see if there was anyone across there.

  A dull glow lit the pavement outside one of the shops below her, and it was this that Pauline was looking at, had been looking at, for ages. It was coming from Lennie’s studio, directly beneath their flat. And why would Lennie be working at this time of night? It could hardly be burglars; they surely wouldn’t put a light on. And she hadn’t heard anyone breaking in – though it could have been someone forcing the door, she supposed, but it hadn’t sounded like that. It couldn’t be Lennie working, because it wasn’t the studio light itself; that would make a much brighter splash of colour. It was the light in the back room. She closed her eyes briefly, and tried to recall the noise.

  More like trying the door, she would say, when she was asked to remember everything she could about this moment. But right now, she didn’t know to commit it to memory. It was just a strange noise, down there in the street.

  Perhaps Gordon had carried out his threat; she had thought he was joking, but he might not have been. He had come in from the bedroom, smelling of aftershave, still in his bathrobe.

  ‘How about some afternoon delight?’ he had said. ‘Well – early evening delight, anyway.’

  She had wanted to say yes. She could have said yes; she had done that before. But that had just made him angry, because she didn’t know how to simulate desire. So she had said no.

  ‘Oh, well, I’ll just have to go and make another pass at Lennie,’ he had said.

  Now she was being silly. Jonathan was there too; if she did have anything to fear from Lennie, it wouldn’t be tonight. But he had said that; another pass. Just a joke? Or a slip of the tongue? Or an oblique way of telling her that if she couldn’t bring herself to … She was being silly, she told herself. But it was late. Quarter past eleven was late, especially in Jonathan’s book, and Jonathan never encouraged visitors to stay late. And Gordon wasn’t home. And she had heard someone … doing what? Opening the door to the studio? Someone was in there. Someone had been in there a long time. And why would Lennie be working?

  She turned from the window, and was still sitting in the dark when she heard a car drive away; too late, she looked out again, but it was gone. She jumped as the door opened.

  ‘Why are you sitting in the dark?’ Gordon asked, switching on the light.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  Gordon sat down. ‘You are beginning to sound exactly like a wife,’ he said, and the words were slurring.

  ‘I am your wife. I’ve been worried.’

  ‘So you are. I knew I’d seen you somewhere before.’

  She felt guilty. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘I’ve been for a drink. I thought you were going to bed?’

  ‘I was. But I heard this noise.’

  ‘Noise?’

  ‘Someone. I think—’ She stopped. She mustn’t. If it had been him, this wasn’t the time to tackle it. If it hadn’t, he wouldn’t want to know.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think I must have been hearing things.’ She went over to him, kneeling down beside him, her head on his knee. ‘ I’m sorry about earlier,’ she said.

  She could feel him curl her hair round his fingers. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You can’t always be in the mood.’

  This was how he had been about it at the start. That bothered her a little, rather than comforted her. She planted a little kiss on his knee and looked up at him. ‘The doctor said it would pass,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure it will.’ His eyes were closing, and he looked pale and upset. ‘It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.’

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong? Why have you had so much to drink?’ He didn’t drink, not as a rule. Just the odd pint. She had never seen him drunk.

  He gave a shrug.

  ‘You didn’t drive home like that, did you?’

  ‘Yes. I drove home like this.’

  His clothes, with which he had taken such care, were dishevelled. There was a strange smell.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked. ‘ What’s happened?’

  His eyes were closing. ‘ To my own funeral,’ he said, indistinctly.

  ‘What? What do you mean? Gordon, tell me!’ She shook his arm.

  ‘Your friend Lennie,’ he said. ‘And our delightful next-door neighbour. They’ve …’ He opened his eyes with difficulty.

  She sniffed. ‘Can you smell burning?’ she asked.

  He sat up. ‘No,’ he said. ‘ I’m out, Pauline. I’m out of my own company. They wanted me to sign some … some agreement, but I’m – I didn’t. So I’m out. No money. No dividends, even. No money, no flat.’

  ‘Lennie wouldn’t do that to you!’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. She’s fallen in with thieves, Pauline. She’s no better herself. Used me. Only ever used me. And that Beale woman – she’s nothing but a …’ The words were slurring, and his eyes weren’t focusing. ‘ I’ve really done it now,’ he said, and fell back. He closed his eyes, and was dead to the world.

  Pauline sniffed again, and went to the window, shielding the reflection with the curtain. She couldn’t see anything on fire. The studio light was still on. She remembered th
e noise, and looked again at the light from the studio. No. No, he wouldn’t have done anything like that.

  She picked up the door key, and looked at Gordon, lying back, his mouth open.

  He wouldn’t.

  The champagne cork didn’t shoot up and break the light fitting; Lloyd was very proud of his prowess at opening bottles of bubbly. He poured it neatly, without spilling any, into two glasses, then topped them up as the fizz subsided.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, and handed Judy hers. ‘You were right,’ he said, clinking his glass with hers. ‘ DIs are OK.’

  She sat back on the pillow, her legs across his knee. ‘Just OK,’ she said. ‘And I get champagne. What do I get if I’m great?’

  ‘The champagne is to celebrate your new job, which you will like, believe me.’

  Lloyd had made her feel better. The champagne was going to make her feel better still. One day, she would tell him how lucky she was to have him, but not right now. It would just make him unbearably smug.

  ‘How on earth did your grandmother come to be French?’ she asked.

  ‘I imagine it was being born in France that did it,’ he said.

  She hit him. ‘How did she come to be living in a fishing village in Wales?’

  ‘Ah, well …’ Lloyd smiled. ‘It’s a very romantic story. It’ll be wasted on you.’

  There was something malevolent about the telephone, she thought, as it punctured the mood. These days it did it almost politely, purring quietly at them; it was an improvement on harsh bells, but that was all. Its effect was the same, she thought, as Lloyd picked it up.

  ‘Lloyd.’ He listened. ‘Yes, she is. Just a moment.’ He held the phone out to her.

  She sighed. If something was going to happen in that dead and alive place, why did it have to be now, for God’s sake? She glanced at the bedside alarm. Twenty past eleven. A burglary, she thought.

  ‘DI Hill,’ she said.

  ‘Judy?’

  She frowned, then recognised Jonathan Austin’s voice.

  ‘Oh, yes – sorry, Jonathan. I thought it would be work.’

  ‘I’m sorry to call so late,’ he said. ‘I just wondered if Leonora was with you.’