A Meeting of Minds (21 page)

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Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: A Meeting of Minds
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Marty was mad to say anything so hurtful. Or manipulative; meaning to produce some effect. To keep them apart? Well, fuck Marty then. He'd please himself.
He burnt up his resentment by punishing the carpets with the vacuum cleaner and sloshing disinfectant round the kitchen, but he'd barely reached a decision when he heard Max's car return. Now it was too late, unless he walked in on them together. That might peeve her, having him act gooseberry, though he could pretend he'd thought she was on her own and might need some help.
With luck she'd ask him to stay on. He might learn what it was about the man that appealed to her. He seemed so ordinary; not a superman body, and he wore specs which slipped down his nose, so that he was always pushing them back up with one index finger. A wimp. Visually a sort of adult Harry Potter, but without the magic powers. Man for man, he was a better proposition himself.
He made the trek downstairs, through to the hall and up to the gallery. There was no sound of voices. Had Max Harris just dumped the provisions and taken her straight to bed? He put his head against the door panel and then there came the muffled sound of crockery. The fridge door slammed. He rang the bell. It was Rosemary who came.
‘Hi,' he said brightly. ‘Anything I can do for you?'
‘Sure;' she said easily, ‘share a meal with us. Max is putting something together in the kitchen. Come through and keep me company.'
He followed her in. ‘With Marty away, I'm actually missing the job. Never thought I could.'
‘Yes, I heard he'd gone, just when the police wanted to ask him some questions.'
Neil hooted. ‘They don't think he could be the one who attacked you? They must be more cretinous than I thought. Who told you they wanted to see him?'
She didn't seem sure. ‘I think Max overheard one of the neighbours. “What the great will do the less will prattle of,” you know.'
He eased himself into an armchair. ‘I never took you for a Shakespeare fan.'
‘There's a lot about me you don't know,' she teased.
God, but she was easy to get on with. No silly girly giggles. She was someone you could talk to. Totally wasted on that wimp Harris. ‘So wise me up,' he invited. ‘It's a fascinating subject.'
‘I'm not sure that it is.' She paused, uncertain. ‘I lost both my parents when I was ten and got passed to my mother's older half-sister.'
It wasn't something she would easily tell a near stranger, but it seemed almost in parallel with the boy's history and she hoped it might loosen him up. She stole a glance at him and saw his face go wooden. No confidences coming, then.
‘I quite liked being sent away to school, but the holidays were pretty grim, unless I was invited to stay with friends.'
‘I guess you had plenty of those.'
‘One or two that I've kept up with,' she admitted, ‘but children can be quite cruel if they think you're anyway different from them, can't they?'
‘Until you learn that what they think just doesn't matter.' He was sitting forward now, scowling into the carpet, bony hands tensely clasped between his knees. She knew that he was going to come through with it. Not that he'd be asking for sympathy. He just needed to unload some of the rancour, get her agreeing that what went wrong was others' fault and not his; or perhaps not entirely his, because under it all he seemed honest enough.
‘As I told you before, I wasn't totally orphaned like you,' he said, ‘but I might just as well have been. Because Mother died when I was born, my father never could decide if it was my fault or his. But eventually he emerged from his work long enough to …'
He was biting his lower lip. ‘ …to marry again. She was a – scheming – little – shit actually, twenty-five years younger than him. Had all the necessary female attractions, and knew how to use them. On anybody to hand. It was the original marriage from Hell.
‘She taught me to drive, among other things. Underage, of course. Anyway, that's how I came to kill her. In a car crash. Well, it finished me with the old man. Once I came out of hospital, patched up, and the police had had their say, I was less than dog crap. If I'd been older they'd have had me put away on a manslaughter charge. He could have stood that. We don't meet. He pays me an allowance through Marty.'
‘But you're making your way. You're holding down a job, doing something useful.'
‘Yeah, like society should be grateful to me.' He had changed back to the coarse voice he'd used when they first talked, weeks ago. It was his disguise when he felt vulnerable. Z remembered how different he'd sounded when he claimed to have a taste for older women: sophisticated. His voice sometimes took on an echo of Martin Chisholm's irony. The older man had been his tutor in fighting back against the world, but he was still walking wounded.
A resounding crash sounded from the kitchen, followed by low-voiced expletives. Max put his head round the door, grinned and explained in one breath, ‘That was lunch and your best casserole. Hi, Neil, how are you? Let's all go out for a ploughman's, shall we?'
It was early, and in the Plough Inn at Speen the final place-settings were still being laid. Although the dining rooms were fully booked, Max managed to persuade the management otherwise. They settled in the bar to wait, and ordered a round of drinks.
Z made her kir last while Max worked through his pint. Remembering Chisholm's warning, she wasn't sure if Neil should have alcohol in view of his health, but she couldn't show that she knew more about him than he'd cared to tell. It surely meant progress that he'd opened up and told her so much of the story behind his trauma, although not details of his own injuries in the car crash. Those, she hoped, could be gleaned from press or police reports. All she needed was the date and locality.
When the young man insisted on his turn to order drinks, she suggested they went to table before the rush started. As they carried their fresh drinks through, she tapped Max on the elbow and shook her head. ‘Ah,' he said, picking up her glance towards Neil.
They seated themselves and discussed the menu. ‘Let me do the wine,' Neil suggested, and was voted down. But since the subject was raised, and as a compliment to the chef's reputation, Max flipped through the list and ordered a single bottle of Merlot. ‘Wine can't hurt you if it's the best,' he murmured, ‘and we are having a meal.'
They chose separately from the main courses and Neil followed it with cheese, while the other two opted for fruit. The conversation stayed on mundane matters until, over the coffee, Neil asked Max about his work and the flow began. Even with an ingrained prejudice against the columnist, he had to admit then that Rosemary's man must be something special.
‘You should read him,' Rosemary said. ‘He writes the way
he talks: shrewd, witty and a tad wry. He takes a simple subject and puts a new slant on it. Makes people think.'
‘My number one fan,' Max allowed modestly.
‘I wouldn't have thought Afghanistan was so simple,' Neil objected, after some thought.
‘Sometimes I'm allowed to be serious.'
‘So how would you write about the things going on at Ashbourne House?'
‘I'd rather not. But it's obviously been exercising your mind. Have you arrived at any theory?'
Neil frowned. ‘Weird things have happened, but nothing fits together. I mean, Sheila Winter – who would want to kill her? She was so ordinary; rather boring really, going on all the time about her precious garden centre. And then her stagy old mother. Do you know, she sometimes calls me Gordon. Do I look like a Gordon? She probably confuses me with her gin bottle. But weirdest of all is that creep Wormsley.'
‘Creep?' Rosemary queried. ‘I know he's rather paranoid about security, but why that?'
‘He creeps about, spying. He's always watching, and sort of laughing to himself about us. Marty told me the Worm followed his car for miles one day before he shook him off.'
‘Coincidence,' she said comfortably. ‘They both just happened to be heading in the same direction.'
‘No, it was deliberate. Marty turned off suddenly, to make the Worm go past. Then a few minutes later Wormsley drove back and started searching down the way he'd gone. Marty had the Saab concealed, so in the end the Worm had to give up.'
‘Quite a cunning little ploy,' Max commented. ‘Your Marty sounds very wise to the ways of the world.'
The young man's brow puckered. ‘He's – he's good at things to do with cars,' he admitted, sounding defensive. Z, in her CID hat, wondered if Martin Chisholm had any particular need to keep his comings and goings from public scrutiny. For a split second Neil had looked as if he knew he'd let
something slip. So had the inquisitive Wormsley caught on to something there?
Returning after lunch, they made a detour and called in at Greenvale to pick up a giant poinsettia which Max was to donate to Rosemary's flat. ‘Have you ever been here before?' he asked Neil.
‘Yeah.' His voice was droll. ‘I drove Mrs Winter out here two days back. She wanted to see what she'd inherited. Ended up nearly clearing out the whole place. Well, not exactly buying. I suppose the stuff was hers to take.' He sounded uncertain. ‘Nice car, though.' He darted a guilty glance at Rosemary ‘Even if I drove it into a ditch.'
She watched him. He seemed surprised at himself, as though confessing to such a minor accident had been something special – which perhaps it was, in view of his guilt over the earlier fatal crash. Being able to admit this mishap could be a breakthrough for him.
‘Country lanes!' she said ruefully. ‘You barely get into top gear and there's a flock of sheep all over the road or a harvester reversing from a gateway. Don't I just know it! Reminds me I'm a natural townee.'
That seemed to pass it off. It was partly the drink, she supposed, that had loosed the young man's tongue, but he seemed to be steady enough on his feet as he carried the potted poinsettia upstairs when Max dropped them off at the front door.
‘Thanks a lot,' he told her, depositing the plant in her kitchen. ‘Marvellous lunch. Maybe we can have a return match sometime.'
He made way for Max to come through and left them to it. He guessed what they'd be up to, the minute they were on their own again. He minded, as he turned away from the closed door; but reluctantly admitted, ‘To the hero the spoils.'
‘Gordon,' said a husky voice behind him. Vanessa Winter was leaning in her doorway, one hand tucked behind her waist. ‘I want you to come in.'
He began to refuse, but she reached towards him and
seemed about to teeter. Her free hand locked about his wrist. ‘I want you to come in,' she repeated.
It wasn't her usual voice, much deeper-throated, and it struck a chord in him. She was acting out a role, but he didn't t instantly recognize what play it came from. Her hidden hand came into sight and held a bottle of Cointreau, half full. ‘Come with me,' she commanded.
It wasn't what she said but the precarious state she was in that made him follow. She led him into the drawing-room. ‘A little liqueur after your lunch. You went out with those people next door,' she accused. Her face was blotched and her hand shook as she fumbled in the glass cabinet. ‘You like to party, don't you?'
She pulled out a tumbler, almost let it slip from her fingers but managed to pour a few inches into it.
That was far too much, and he didn't like that sticky sweet stuff anyway. He found himself tongue-tied, helpless, and that too seemed vaguely familiar. He had been here before, or somewhere eerily like it.
He moved away, the glass in his hand, looking for somewhere to put it, but turned at a soft susurration. She was shedding her dress. It slid, whispering, to the floor, and she had nothing else on. An old woman. She raised her arms imperiously. They were thin and the skin hung limply off. ‘You know what to do,' she told him.
Then he saw why it all seemed familiar. ‘Mrs Robinson,' he muttered. She smiled at his recognition and slithered on to the sofa, the crimson silk of her dress grotesquely caught about one ankle.
He'd seen
The Graduate
on the stage over a year ago, with Marty, and the promise of a celebrity in the nude had drawn a full house. It was well done, but the flash of flesh had been only a snack. The feast offered now was obscene and prolonged. Orgiastic. He pushed his tumbler towards the table and blundered from the room. He heard the glass fall and shatter as he gained the door.
He ran full tilt down the front stairs and through to the rear, heart pumping, stomach churning. He stopped at the stairs to his own flat and hung on to the newel post to regain his balance. The whole passageway was lurching. Over by Wormsley's door someone had dumped a black sack of rubbish. Or maybe the man had been too idle to take it to the refuse bins.
Clinging on while vomit hit the back of his throat and he bit his lips to hold the bitter stream back, he saw the sack move, try to heave itself erect, slide back and collapse into the shape of a man.
Then it was impossible to stem it any more. His stomach contents, lumpily undigested, pumped out over his chin and chest, soaking his jacket, plopping to the polished wood blocks of the floor. He couldn't breathe for the stench of his bile.
Dizzy, he tore off his jacket and dropped it away, wiped his face with his shirtsleeve and swept the back of one hand across his eyes to clear the involuntary tears. ‘God, no! No!' But he didn't know what it was he repulsed: the odious woman, the humiliation, fear of the half-dead thing on the floor by Wormsley's door. Or worse: the nightmare return of the life he'd recklessly taken years before – Miriam, his father's wife, resurrected in another body, and the film running through again and again, the same frames and the same self-loathing, so that he knew he would never be free of it.
He felt his way to the stairs and sat there, shaking. Just once he thought there came a low rattling sound from the sack-shape of the man he knew was dying, but he couldn't respond for a moment, had to hold himself together to go across.
There was no memory of getting to his feet or moving, but suddenly he was there, staring down at the stickily smeared red skull and the twisted spectacles hanging from one bloodied ear. The centre parting of the floppy, dark hair was a crimson line alongside the crushed skull. The face under it was Wormsley's, but such as he'd never before seen it, never wanted to see it again, but always would in haunting nightmare.
He screamed for Marty. Then he knew that was no use and began staggering again into the front hall, up the stairs, shouting for Max.
‘Don't let Rosemary see,' he begged when the man came.
‘What? Where?'
Neil pointed downwards. ‘By the back door. It's Wormsely He's been shot or coshed or something.'
Despite his warning Z ran past him, close on Max's heels. When he turned to follow he dully registered Vanessa's closed door and that under her arm the girl had a zipper bag with red cross markings on it.
Max was kneeling by the curled-up body, speaking urgently into his cell phone. ‘Neil, keep away,' Rosemary ordered. He started to apologize about being sick but no one was listening. The other two had moved the body, laying it out flat, and Max was working on his heart while Rosemary's face was pressed against the injured man's, with only a doubled handkerchief between.
There was nothing for him to do. Not even a trolley to wheel anyone away on. It left him ashamed.
They went on, counting and pressing and blowing until Max said, ‘Is there any point?'
Rosemary looked at her watch and sat back on her heels. ‘No,' she said firmly when he offered to get something to cover the body. ‘We have to leave everything just as it is. I'd like you to take Neil back upstairs with you. I'll wait here until they come.'
She called Max back as he followed Neil through to the front hall. ‘Don't let him wash. Or drink. Just keep him sitting absolutely still, touching nothing.'
He looked startled. ‘You surely don't think Neil …'
‘For his own safety, because Salmon may jump to conclusions. We have to tell him about Wormsley spying on Chisholm. He could think it was motive enough; and Neil having been drinking. Let's hope there are tests which can eliminate him and save us time. But, until we find the weapon …'
‘Rosebud, you frighten me. Your tortuous mind …' He shook his head and went after the young man.
Nauseated by the stench of vomit in the enclosed space, Z stood motionless, her eyes scanning the walls and floor of the passageway. At that instant the timer clicked off and all lights went out. In the darkness she was left wondering who had last turned them on, and at which of the three switches in the linked system.
As her eyes adjusted to the glimmer of evening sky from the tall window she was able to pick out shapes: the dark huddle of the body against the luminous gloss of the door to Wormsley's flat, still fast locked against his imagined enemies. His elaborate precautions hadn't saved him. Perhaps the complicated security system had even delayed his escape from the killer. It looked as though he had just come home; but he never reached sanctuary.
Across by the stairs, a smaller dark shape was Neil's discarded jacket. Had he thrown it down, going to attack the other man? She thought not. That jacket was the source of the sour smell. Neil too hadn't made it home in time.
From her front windows the others watched the ambulance arrive first and the paramedics being let in. They stayed no more than five minutes before driving off to another emergency. It seemed a long time before the police turned up, but actually only seven minutes. Then there were two patrol cars with flashing lights, each with a pair of uniformed constables, and on their tail the detective sergeant Neil remembered from before. Finally came a second unmarked car driven by the senior officer called Salmon. His loud, rough voice reached them through the closed windows. ‘This is getting to be a habit with Z.'

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