A Deadly Marriage Page 16

  “Oh!”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  She blinked rapidly as she struggled to hold back the tears. “It...it’s kind of you to tell me all this. I suppose I knew there was no hope, but...I just hoped.”

  “That we knew more than we’d told? No, Mrs. Brakes. Only one person could have given us the information we wanted and that was Mrs. Cabbot. But after the death of her husband, she refused to tell us anything.”

  Patricia slowly stood up. “There’s nothing more to be done?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “If...if the money Mrs. Cabbot had xms blackmail money, she must have been blackmailing Catalina?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then check Catalina’s bank balance to see if there’s a lot of money missing.”

  “We have.”

  “Oh!” She put her hand to her face. “It’s...it’s hopeless. I shouldn’t have come.”

  He spoke softly. “It’s cruel to go on hoping when there can’t be any hope.”

  She stood up, turned, and left the room. He accompanied her to the outside doors, which he held open for her. He watched her cross to the Aston Martin. He thought how sad it was that such fighting loyalty had to be defeated from the beginning.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Davie was sitting in his cell, reading, when he heard the rattle of keys and the cell door opened. A warder called him out.

  “The Law’s come for a word with you.”

  “The Law?” he queried.

  “Your mouthpiece. Your solicitor.”

  The warder was astonished that he had not understood immediately, thought David bitterly. But this was a different world, with its own language and customs that took time to learn. So far, he’d only really learned the bitterness and the anguish of not being able to look at a sky that was not crossed with steel bars.

  He and the warder walked past a row of cells. On their right was the open square which went straight down to the ground floor. It was covered at each floor with steel netting: the law did not want any man to cheat it by suicide.

  They went down circular stairs to the second floor and back along a corridor. Twice, the warder had to unlock heavy steel doors and each time the two of them were through he pulled the doors shut with such force that the heavy clang of metal against metal rang through the building. They went into the second of a row of interview rooms.

  Tullet was waiting inside and he shook hands with David. He failed to hide his nervousness.

  “Embarrassed?” asked David bitterly.

  Tullet prevaricated and became slightly pompous. “I’m naturally worried on your behalf, David.”

  The warder looked round the room. “I’ll lock you in, then. Just ring the bell when you’re ready.” He left. The door clanged shut and the outside lock snapped home.

  David went round the wooden table, bolted to the floor, and sat down on a wooden chair.

  Tullet took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and passed it across. “I thought you might like these.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry...” He stopped.

  He couldn’t find the right words to sympathise and at the same time apologise for being free, thought David.

  Tullet’s brief case was on the table and he hurriedly took some papers from it. He sat down on a second chair. “D’you remember filing an affidavit giving a list of your property and detailing your income — for the coming hearing on the amount of maintenance you’ll have to pay?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I told you that any jewellery Catalina had should be taken into account along with any other of her valuable property because if valuable enough the court might decide maintenance was either unnecessary or else would greatly reduce it, even though she gets no income from it? And you gave me a list of her jewellery?”

  “Can’t you stop talking like a text book?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Tullet stiffly.

  David spoke quickly. “Forget it. I’m in a state where I shout my head off' at anything. Yes, I remember your saying that if she owned a couple of Rubens I wouldn’t have to pay her anything because she’d be rich enough to keep herself. All I know that she’s got is her jewellery. The diamond necklace is a pretty good one. She’s always said it had tremendous sentimental attachment because her first husband gave it to her, but what really interested her was it’s worth a packet.”

  “She’s signed an affidavit swearing she owns no jewellery beyond a few rings whose value does not exceed five hundred pounds.”

  “That’s a bloody lie.”

  “Can you be certain?”

  “Look, that necklace and the other stuff is her insurance. The necklace alone was valued at five thousand quid. It would take a team of wild horses to get that away from her.”

  “When did you last see her wearing it?”

  “How the hell can I remember that?”

  “Try.”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “This is very important. It could materially affect the amount of maintenance you’ll be called on to pay.”

  “So? Is that important to me, stuck in this bloody jail, facing the rest of my life behind bars?”

  Tullet could find no answer to that.

  David lit one of the cigarettes. He thought about the necklace. Catalina had treasured it because of its intrinsic value, but beyond that — despite what he had just said to Tullet — there had been a strong sentimental attachment. Remembering this, it was impossible to believe she had got rid of it: she was lying, trying to get the last penny out of him, trying to rub his face even deeper in the dirt...Unless...unless she was telling the truth and had had to sell the necklace — because she was being blackmailed. His thoughts quickened and became excited. The money in Mrs. Cabbot’s hotel bedroom had suggested payments made under blackmail and blackmail immediately provided

  a motive for murder. But the police claimed they’d found no proof of blackmail, no large withdrawals from Catalina’s banking accounts.

  When he next spoke, there was a note of urgency to his voice. “Can Catalina be cross-examined about where this jewellery is?”

  “At the hearing, yes.”

  “Then we’ve got to find out if she really hasn’t got it any longer.”

  Patricia visited David, at the jail, on Wednesday, the 17th of August, the day after she had seen the detective inspector.

  She dreaded the meeting and she secretly wondered whether the agony of each visit wasn’t so great for both of them that it would be better not to go. When she stared at him, through the glass barrier that separated them, and was unable to touch him, to hold him, to comfort him, she felt both a wild fury and a bitter sorrow that lasted for hours and days after the visit and left her unable to think of anything beyond their own tragedy.

  She was shown into the usual room, a long thin place with walls of institutional white and divided in two by the bench, with wooden partition below and glass partition above. She sat down. Soon, David would be led in. They would look at one another and each see the same hopeless misery. They would talk, but would say little or nothing of what lay deep in their hearts because the warder would be standing against the wall, with nothing better to do than to listen to what they said. There was no privacy in jail: privacy was a privilege.

  After a short wait, David and a warder came in through a doorway on the other side of the partition. She watched him as he walked to the chair immediately opposite hers. He had lost weight and his cheeks seemed slightly sunken. Was she going to see him slowly rot, year by year?

  “Hallo, darling,” she said softly, as he sat down.

  He stared at her.

  The warder leaned against the wall and wondered if Patricia were as bedworthy as she looked.

  She tried to speak cheerfully. “I had a word earlier on with Jackson at the factory.”

  “Yes.”

  “He says everything is going along smoothly. Harris is just back from the West Country and he’s
sold another six parlour-shed units.”

  Despite himself, David showed a little interest. “He’s a bit of a slug, but he’s a salesman all right.”

  “They’ve delivered the five slurry units to the farms who are doing the field testing. They’ve had the sixth one going at the farm for the past fortnight. Jackson says he reckons it’s cutting man-hours and effort by at least half.”

  “Any snags?”

  “A few, but none that haven’t already been solved.”

  “Have the other farmers actually started operating yet?”

  “Yes, but no reports through.” She hesitated, then said: “I saw the detective inspector.”

  “What result?”

  She answered far more bluntly than she had meant to because she so hated to have to tell him. “It’s no good.”

  “I knew it wouldn’t be,” he answered dully.

  “The American police weren’t able to find out anything much and the passport was a forgery. The parents of Muriel Cabbot didn’t seem to know anything about Cabbot except that they didn’t begin to like him.”

  “According to the police, they didn’t. They swore he was after their daughter’s money and made certain he swept her off her feet and away before anyone had the time to check up on him. He was a Cuban, or said he was, and before he Americanised his Christian name it was Gual, but that’s as far as they know. The detective promised me they’d learned nothing else whatsoever.”

  “Surely they must have learned something about the man?”

  “Gual?”

  She looked at him, surprised. “Yes. Why?”

  “Only the coincidence. I haven’t heard the name since Catalina told me her first husband’s name was Gual. God knows why, but it always made me think of guava jelly, although by her accounts there was nothing jelly-like...My God!”

  They stared at each other.

  “That’s who it was,” said David excitedly. “It must be. He was Catalina’s first husband.” His voice rose. “Pat, he was her first husband.”

  The warder stood upright and tensed himself, thinking from David’s raised voice that there was going to be trouble. “Time’s up,” he snapped.

  “I’ve got to have longer,” shouted David.

  “I said, time’s up. Lay off the trouble because whatever you start, we’ll finish.”

  David ignored him. “Why didn’t the police tell us his name was Gual before?”

  She gave the obvious answer. “They couldn’t know it was at all important.”

  “You’ve got to tell them what it means.”

  “What was his surname?”

  David stared at her. “His...his surname? She used his maiden name aboard...”

  The warder came forward and put a hand on David’s shoulder. “Are you coming?”

  “Leave him alone,” shouted Patricia.

  The warder pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew it. Within ten seconds, a second warder rushed into the room. “They’re getting excited,” said the first man, speaking contemptuously. He pulled on David’s coat. The second man took hold of David’s right arm.

  For a moment, David struggled, then he relaxed and allowed himself to be brought to his feet. “Tell the police,” he called out. He was forced backwards, heels dragging on the floor, and hustled out of the room.

  Patricia, sickened, picked up her handbag, left, and went down the corridor. At the end, a warder was waiting with an opened book in front of him. “Mrs. Brakes? O.K.” He made a note in the book.

  She went past the warder, opened the door, and stepped out of the building into the sunshine. She crossed the yard and one of the two warders at the main gates opened the small door inset into the left-hand gate.

  She crossed to the Aston Martin, watched by a few people who were obviously sightseeing. She sat down behind the wheel and lit a cigarette with hands that shook. Tears trickled down her cheeks. They had manhandled David when there’d been no need to: he’d only wanted to talk to her a little longer. Had they beaten him up when outside the room, to get their own back or to gain a sadistic satisfaction? To see him so helpless was to suffer most terribly.

  She had not the time for prolonged misery and she forced herself to try to forget what had happened. She must help David. Cabhot had to be Catalina’s first husband. It would explain so much. Yet, knowing this, what had changed? It didn’t prove anything, didn’t alter the facts of the murder. Catalina would deny it and who could prove differently? David didn’t even know the man’s original surname. If the police were to uncover the truth, the very least they would want to know would be the man’s surname.

  She stared through the windscreen at the tall gates of the prison. If they were to be forced open for David, she must discover Cabbot’s original surname. But how? How to get Catalina to say what it was? Force? The police wouldn’t use force under any circumstances and what force could she, Patricia, exert on her own? Bribery? However much Catalina worshipped money, she wouldn’t react to bribery in this. Guile? What guile...And then, suddenly, Patricia realised that there was just one chance she could play on Catalina’s love for money, but with sufficient guile to hide the truth.

  She started the engine and drove out on to the road and along until she saw a telephone kiosk. She was able to park within a hundred yards of the kiosk. She picked up her handbag, checked she had several threepenny pieces, and left the car.

  A man was inside the kiosk, laughing heartily. He had several gold-filled teeth. Patricia waited with burning impatience, then knocked on the glass door. He nodded at her and went on listening and laughing. She looked at her wristwatch. The time was twelve o’clock. Would Catalina be at the flat? Would she recognise the voice? They had only once spoken to each other over the telephone, several months ago, and that had been by mistake. Would she know just enough about the law to realise it was nonsense? Or would her greed for money blind her?

  Patricia knocked on the glass door. The man nodded at her again, went on talking, then finally hung up. He came out of the kiosk. “Sorry, lady, talking to my best boy friend.” He roared with laughter as he walked away.

  She went in, took the threepenny pieces out of her pocket and put them on the coin box. She dialled Inquiries and asked for the telephone number of Mrs. Plesence. Inquiries told her it was Borisham 4137.

  She dialled the number. The dialling note went on and on. Oh, God! she thought, Catalina was out. Quite illogically, she became convinced that if this call did not get through now the whole scheme was useless.

  When she was about to replace the receiver, the call was answered.

  “Yes.”

  “Mrs. Plesence?”

  “What d’you want?”

  The words were slurred. Catalina, Patricia guessed, had been drinking heavily so that her wits would probably be fuddled. “This is Padlow and Co. speaking, Mrs. Plesence.”

  “Who? What’s that? What d’you want?”

  “Your solicitors.”

  “What d’you want, then?”

  “We’ve to make out another affidavit, Mrs. Plesence, for the maintenance claim and we have to give the name of your first husband. We should have asked you for this before.”

  “David Reginald Plesence.”

  “No, he was your second husband. We need the name of your first husband.”

  There was a long pause. Patricia could feel the hammering of a pulse in her throat.

  “What’s it matter what it was?”

  “I’m sorry, but as I’ve just said, we have to have it.”

  “He was a lousy bastard.”

  “What was his name, Mrs. Plesence?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Unless we have it, we can’t fill up the form and you’ll lose your right to any maintenance. It’s entirely in your own financial interest. Don’t you understand that?”

  “Bastards like him need shooting.”

  “Aren’t you worried whether you get maintenance, or not?” said Patricia, trying to keep the note of des
peration out of her voice.

  There was another and longer pause. “Gual Jose Cirilo Larraga,” said Catalina. “Which is a flowery set of names for a pure bastard.”

  “What was that last name?”

  “Larraga. LARRAGA. He’d so much money he didn’t know the stuff was valuable. The best hotels, the best food, the best cars...And then the lousy bastard jumps a lousy lift attendant while he had me learning squash. As if I hadn’t done everything for him, dedicated my life to him, seen him...”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Plesence.”

  “The lift attendant thought she was laughing, but she didn’t laugh for long.”

  Patricia replaced the receiver. She leaned against the side of the kiosk, suddenly feeling weak. Gual Jose Cirilo Larraga. Hastily, she searched inside her handbag for her diary. She wrote down the name.

  Cathart was working at some papers when the internal telephone rang. A constable told him Mrs. Brakes was at the station and wanted to speak to him. He cursed. He felt sympathy towards her, but sympathy was not an inexhaustible commodity. Still, he’d have to go down and tell her once and for all that there was nothing more to be done.