The Ambiguity of Murder Read online

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  CHAPTER 1

  In the public car park, Fenella sat behind the wheel of the Rover and willed the minutes away. Every visiting day she had promised herself she would not arrive early and have to sit and wait, wishing, like a child, that the impossible would happen; every visiting day, she had failed her promise. Now she was equally early and time had slowed almost to a halt …

  A man turned the corner of the nearest building and her heart shouted Harry, before her eyes, guided by common sense, identified him from his clothes as a warder. He bore hardly any resemblance to Harry … If you don’t turn up soon, my love, I’ll be confusing you with little green men from Mars …

  Two men appeared down the right-hand path beyond the outside building, and while one of them was another warder, the second was Harry. But they came to a stop and talked … Why the hell aren’t you rushing to me?… He never allowed his emotions free rein; had not, even when he knew his world was about to collapse about him … Harry, if you don’t rush now, I’ll scream blue, bloody murder …

  He finally shook hands with the warder, walked towards the Rover, the collar of his overcoat turned up against the wind which blew out of a sullen sky that promised yet more rain in what was proving to be a real Filldyke February … You’re even thinner; you’re looking haggard. You need good food and love beyond satiation …

  She opened the door and stepped out of the car. Unlike him, she had no intention of restraining her emotions and she ran forward. As she wrapped herself around him, she could hear a Hollywood choir.

  * * *

  As they drove along the country lane, bordered by thorn hedges and an occasional tree, she sat sideways in the passenger seat so that she could stare directly at him. He had a high forehead. Soon after meeting him, she’d joked that this denoted great intelligence. The first whisper of baldness had been his reply. He might be of the present, but he belonged to the past, to the age when a man pursued modesty. His eyes were an ever-changing blue. He claimed that that was impossible, but it was true. His nose was Roman – brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate, must have sported such a nose. His lips were full and …

  ‘You’ve become very silent,’ he said.

  … And shaped for love. She briefly put her hand on his left thigh. ‘If I tell you what I’m thinking, you’ll cringe at the woman’s gush.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Do you know what you do to me when you laugh like that?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You make me want to throw myself into your arms.’

  ‘Then in the name of road safety, I won’t laugh again until we arrive.’ He braked for a corner. ‘Fen.’

  ‘What?’

  Once round the corner, he accelerated. ‘Are you sure it’s sensible to go to your place?’

  ‘Where else can you suggest?’

  ‘Since my place went to Anne in the divorce settlement, it’ll have to be a hotel.’

  ‘We celebrate in some coldly anonymous room after all you’ve been through?’

  ‘James is hardly going to welcome my appearance. Not after all that’s happened.’

  She settled back in the seat and stared through the windscreen, her expression strained.

  ‘I’d hate to cause any more trouble.’

  ‘He died eight months ago.’

  In his surprise, he let the car drift on the low grass bank and the near-side front wheel briefly bumped along its uneven surface. As he hurriedly steered back on to the road, he said: ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Where was the point? There was nothing you could do. And if you’d known, it would only have made things worse for you.’

  ‘But…’ He became silent. What she said was true. All he could have offered would have been words and they seldom assuaged pain. ‘Was it … Was he…’

  ‘The past is the past. We’ve each other and that’s all that matters.’

  Could one ever dismiss the past? he wondered.

  * * *

  Brakebourne House stood in the centre of a row of Edwardian houses. Three floors high and relatively narrow, it lacked good proportions and its appearance was only redeemed by the odd-shaped, stone-bordered windows, which provided a certain quirkiness.

  They lay in bed in the main bedroom; he on his back, she on her side and pressed against him.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘The score out of ten? Eleven.’

  ‘Thank goodness it wasn’t a mere nine.’ She moved until she could rest her breasts on his chest and kiss him. ‘When I allowed myself to dream, we made such imaginative love that I drove your pain away.’

  ‘You’ve exceeded all expectations.’

  The rain increased and the wind swept it against the window with a drumming sound. He said, his voice distant: ‘When it rained as hard as this, the roof leaked and water dripped with irritating monotony on to the floor between my bed and the next one. Each time it happened, I reported it and they said repairs would be carried out, but they never were. I reckon the secret of good prison management is to make certain that nothing changes.’

  ‘Was it very terrible? Or don’t you want to talk about it?’

  Several seconds passed before he said: ‘There’s the old chestnut that if you’ve suffered public school, prison’s a piece of cake. There’s a little truth in that. But when one’s an adult, it’s difficult to accept stupidity in the name of discipline … Still, it was a loose regime compared to a closed prison and the only real problem was successfully defending one’s virtue.’

  ‘What were the staff like?’

  ‘The mixture one meets anywhere; some good, some bad, some indifferent. I was lucky. One of the screws had a secret liking for romantic poetry.’

  ‘Why secret?’

  ‘In such a regime, that sort of passion is regarded with the deepest suspicion.’

  ‘How did you discover he liked it?’

  ‘Shortly after I arrived, he told me to weed one of the flower beds. Being facetious, to try to keep my spirits above freezing, I said, “A host, of golden daffodils; beside the mess, beneath the trees.” Instead of bawling me out for insolence, he assumed I was a Wordsworth fanatic and had me posted as assistant librarian. From time to time he discussed poetry with me and since he knew far more than I could remember, I had to do a lot of surreptitious revision. It paid off. He was usually ready to give a spot of advice and more than once enabled me to avoid trouble.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘As it’s an open prison, in theory all the inmates are nonviolent, but people’s concepts of what constitutes violence varies. For some, knocking hell out of someone is no more than horseplay and I’d probably have been well on the receiving end because of my obvious background if he hadn’t advised me how to act when things started looking dicey.’

  ‘You’d have been badly hurt?’

  ‘More than likely.’

&nbs
p; ‘Bastards!’

  ‘On the face of things, yes. But most of them have led rough lives so their values are completely different.’

  ‘I meant the lawyers.’

  ‘You can’t blame them…’

  ‘I can! Why do you have to be so bloody forgiving?’

  ‘It’s supposed to get you to heaven quicker.’

  ‘You’re hiding the truth, aren’t you? You’re being facetious to cover the fact that every moment was pure hell, made far worse because you weren’t guilty.’

  ‘That certainly didn’t help.’

  She kissed him with passion, trying to drive past hurt from his mind and fear of the past from her own. In the nature of things, she succeeded in doing both for a while.

  Later, when the rain had eased and objects seen through the window were distorted rather than a meaningless blur, he said: ‘Did James ever…’ He came to a stop.

  ‘Understand?’

  ‘I suppose that’s as good a word as any.’

  ‘He couldn’t.’

  ‘He still thought it was because of his illness, not despite it?’

  ‘I tried and tried to make him understand … For God’s sake, why do I keep on using that word when it’s meaningless since I can’t understand myself even. How did it happen? I’ve always considered myself loyal. But we’re asked to a party, James isn’t up to it, but persuades me to go because he says I must have a break from illness; I’m standing by the fireplace thinking how odd it is to see people able to lead normal lives and you’re introduced … And I throw loyalty out of the window!’

  ‘Sometimes, one just isn’t in control of one’s own life, however hard one tries to be.’

  ‘That’s merely excusing weakness.’

  ‘Perhaps. It’s also true.’

  ‘If Anne hadn’t been having another affair, would you have been so eager?’

  ‘It was nothing to do with attitudes, all to do with pheromones. They’re irresistible. Female moths release them and in no time at all they’re surrounded by ardent males.’

  ‘You make it sound as if I hadn’t bathed properly.’

  ‘I’m saying that we couldn’t have stopped its happening.’

  ‘Not even if we’d known the pain it would cause?’

  ‘I said, they’re irresistible.’

  ‘That’s a weasel.’

  ‘Sometimes it helps one to see the truth to weasel.’

  They were silent for a while.

  ‘Don’t you think we ought to get up?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m sure you were brought up to believe it to be decadent to be in bed during the day unless one’s ill.’

  ‘Since the only decadence available to me until now has not been to my taste, I say, decade on.’

  CHAPTER 2

  The sky was cloudless, the sun hot. Orange and lemon trees were in fruit and blossom, fig trees were showing green tips; tomato and sweet pepper plants were already making good growth; the first strawberries were in the shops. Spring had come early to the island.

  Karen collected up the shopping bag and her handbag from the passenger seat, opened the driver’s door and stepped out of the car. Emilio stood upright in the middle of the nearest flower bed.

  ‘Good morning, señora,’ he said.

  She liked to practise her Spanish. ‘It’s a nice day.’

  ‘Now, it is perfect!’

  Because of the generosity of so many tourists, every Mallorquin male in the prime of his life imagined himself Don Juan; she didn’t doubt that the slightest hint of encouragement on her part would have him breathing heavily as he undressed her with greater skill than he gardened – he found difficulty in distinguishing flower from weed. She smiled a neutral smile, made her way across to the front door, certain that he was appreciating the rhythm of her taut buttocks. She unlocked the door and went into the hall. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘I’m in here,’ Robertson called out.

  ‘Be with you in a second, darling.’ She carried the shopping bag into the kitchen, emptied it and put the perishable items in the refrigerator. About to leave, she remembered the two letters she’d collected from the post office and brought them from her handbag.

  He was sitting on the settee, watching a soap opera on the television. ‘How are you now?’ she asked, sounding concerned.

  ‘No better. Worse.’ He did not look away from the screen. ‘It feels like I’m being sawn in half. It’s appendicitis, whatever that useless doctor said.’

  ‘But you had your appendix out when you were a boy.’

  ‘They must have left part of it in.’

  He’d suggested that – through her, since he took pride in speaking no Spanish – to the doctor. The doctor did not speak any English, so she’d been able to mistranslate his curtly contemptuous reply. ‘Have you taken the pills he gave you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For goodness sake, why not?’

  ‘They’re probably nothing but chalk.’

  She gave up. ‘There are two letters for you.’

  The programme ended and the advertisements began. He used the remote control to switch off the set.

  She handed him the letters. He opened the first one and brought out a single sheet of paper. ‘What’s the use of sending me this?’ he demanded angrily.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That’s just the point. It’s in Spanish. Why?’

  Because they were living in Spain. When he became annoyed, which was frequently, she mentally compared him to a bedraggled, aging bantam cock. The hairs in his nose needed cutting and his moustache a good wipe. Not Adonis’s younger brother. One of the sad facts of life was that so few men had fat bank accounts before they had fat bellies. ‘Shall I have a look?’ He held out the letter and she took it. After a moment, she said: ‘It’s in Mallorquin, not Spanish, so I can’t be certain, but it looks as if the town hall’s putting up the catastral value of this place.’

  ‘Bloody robbers!’

  ‘I’ve heard that a lot of properties are being revalued.’

  ‘Anything to grub more money out of the foreigners.’

  She hadn’t known him in England, but didn’t doubt that when he’d lived there, he’d complained about the ever-increasing rates and how they were wasted on supporting layabouts … It was necessary to nudge him into a better mood. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t like a little champagne before I get the meal.’

  ‘You do, do you?’

  ‘Well, if your stomach’s so bad…’

  ‘Champagne’s good for the stomach.’

  ‘Then I’ll get a bottle out of the fridge and you can have a glass…’

  ‘I’ll have as many glasses as I like.’

  ‘Of course you will, my pet.’ It was astonishing how you could always lead a man by making him think he was doing the leading.

  She returned to the kitchen and opened the double-door refrigerator, looked at the several bottles that were on one of the shelves. Champagne or cava? If she offered champagne, he’d probably complain about the cost; if cava, the fact that it wasn’t champagne. In the end, she chose a bottle of Veuve Clicquot because that was her favourite. She brought the cooler out of a cupboard, slotted into this the two frozen packs which had been in the deep-freeze compartment of the refrigerator, put the bottle into the cooler and that on a tray, together with a couple of flutes.

  Back in the sitting room, she set the tray on one of the occasional tables. ‘Will you open it or shall I?’

  ‘I’m feeling too rotten to do it. But don’t make a mess of things and waste half of it.’

  She wondered if he was genuinely ill, but regretfully decided that this appeared unlikely. ‘It’s terrible seeing you suffer; but you’re so brave about it.’

  ‘I’m English.’

  ‘I met Jane at the supermarket and she asked how you were. I told her, not at all well, but that you weren’t like the locals, always moaning.’ Her mother had taught her that while sex brought a man runn
ing, it was polishing his ego that held him. She lifted up the bottle.

  ‘That’s champagne!’

  ‘I thought you really needed the best.’

  ‘Maybe. But it costs a bloody fortune.’

  Full marks to her for divination! She opened the bottle without spilling a drop. ‘The barman at the Ritz couldn’t have done better.’ She filled the two flutes, handed him one, carried the second across to an armchair and sat. She stared through the French windows. Because the house and garden were on a slight downward slope, there was a view across to the Estart Caves. In a nearby field, pink almond blossom provided a swirl of colour. Jane had told her that pink trees produced bitter almonds and to eat too many of these was dangerous because they contained prussic acid. She’d fantasized about buying a couple of kilos and feeding them to Jerome, but couldn’t forget that Jane was a font of misinformation … To look at the fields, the hills, the mountains, and the blue sky, was to recall Sunbury-by-the-river: here, all was beauty; there, all had been ugliness and even the river had been more like a sewer …

  ‘What are you thinking?’ he demanded.

  ‘How lovely it is here.’

  ‘Where it isn’t ruined.’

  She drained her glass. ‘Would you like a refill before I go through to get lunch?’

  ‘If you want.’

  She stood, moved the occasional table with the champagne on nearer to him so that he could reach it, refilled his glass, said: ‘By the way, I should be back for tea, but if I’m not I’ll leave everything ready so that you have only to put the machine on the stove for coffee.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Back from where? Where d’you think you’re going?’

  She said lightly: ‘I told you earlier, bunnikins; before I went out to do the shopping.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me anything.’

  She moved until she could bend down and nuzzle his cheek. ‘I promise you I did. You were just too busy thinking great thoughts to make a note of what I told you.’

  ‘What’s it all about?’

  ‘Theo’s picking me up at half past two, which is why we’re having a slightly early lunch.’