An Air That Kills (25 page)

She searched the rest of the room, but cursorily. It was at the dressing table that her mother would sit before dinner, brushing her hair and making the final adjustments to her appearance.

‘I think I'll wear the pearls,' she'd say. ‘Tony, be a darling and do them up for me, will you?'

Antonia stood up. The eiderdown fell from her shoulders. She felt uncomfortably hot. She went to the window and looked down at the summerhouse. It had been an even worse mistake to come back to Chandos Lodge than she had expected. If she had known what was in store, she told herself, she would have killed herself rather than come back. As she said the words silently to herself, she knew she was lying: she wouldn't have killed herself, because when she had tried before she had discovered that she was too much of a coward; she couldn't even manage her own death.

An idea occurred to her. One of the two wardrobes had a drawer beneath the hanging section. She knelt before it, grasped the handles and pulled. Nothing happened. She tugged again, throwing her weight backwards; each jerk was accompanied by a harsh, grunted word and each word was an obscenity.

With the seventh word, the drawer shot out. Still on her knees, Antonia pawed through the contents – framed prints, more letters, books and, at the bottom, a photograph album with thick black pages and a maroon binding. She lifted it out and opened it. On the flyleaf her mother's flowing handwriting confronted her:

She turned the pages desperately. The images blurred – grey snowcapped mountains, a grey houseboat on a grey lake, people drinking tea, her father in shorts, her mother with a broad-brimmed hat, its shadow turning her face into a blank, black mask. Near the end of the album, Antonia found what she was looking for, what she feared to find, in a studio photograph of her parents. She saw on her mother's dress a brooch in the shape of a true love knot.

Chapter Six

At six o'clock on Saturday evening, the Rover slid to a halt outside the pillared porch of the Bull Hotel. Philip was capable of flashes of unshakeable obstinacy and, despite Jill's protests and Charlotte's tacit opposition, he had insisted on driving her from Troy House.

‘Looks rather busy, doesn't it?' he said. ‘There's a Masonic dinner this evening, I think. Shall I come in for a moment?'

‘Philip, I'm quite capable of going into a hotel on my own.'

‘Sorry. Look, give me a ring when you'd like a lift back. Unless you'd rather I waited?'

‘No. I'll get a taxi.'

Jill got out of the car and shut the door before Philip could think of any more well-meaning suggestions. Since Oliver's telephone call, it seemed to her that she had spent most of her time and energy fending off questions from Philip and Charlotte.

‘There's someone I have to see staying at the Bull Hotel. You won't think me rude if I go, will you? I shan't be long.'

‘A friend?' Charlotte had asked.

Jill had ducked the question by saying that the meeting was to do with her leaving her job, which was true, though misleading. She could distinguish the thread of concern entangled with Philip and Charlotte's curiosity; but all she wanted, now as then, was to be left alone.

She waved at Philip, who was staring anxiously at her through the car window, and walked quickly into the hotel. The big building hummed with movement and noise, readying itself for the evening's dissipations; artificial light gave a kindly gloss to the peeling paintwork and the grubby wallpaper, and the place was filled with an illusion of prosperity whose reality had probably departed long before the war.

Behind the desk was the elderly man who had been on duty when Jill and Charlotte had come for coffee on Thursday. This time he wasn't dozing; he looked like a relatively alert tortoise in a striped waistcoat.

‘Good evening, madam,' he said as she approached the desk.

‘I've come to see Mr Yateley. My name's Francis.'

‘Ah, yes. Mr Yateley mentioned you would call. He's in the lounge.' The watery eyes examined her with the weary prurience of an old man; desire had died leaving behind a handful of lechery's rituals now shorn of their purpose. ‘Perhaps you would like me to . . . ?'

‘That's all right, I know the way.'

Jill walked past the desk. There was an unpleasant familiarity about the situation – she had met Oliver at so many hotels. She was conscious that the man at the reception desk was following her with his eyes.

She hesitated in the doorway of the lounge. The room looked very different from her memory of it. The curtains were drawn across the tall windows and the log fire cast a welcoming glow over the battered furniture and the faded fabrics. At least a dozen people were already there, most of them in groups around the tables, some with glasses in front of them. For an instant, all the conversations stopped, and it seemed to Jill that everyone was looking at her. Was her nose red, or was one of her stockings laddered? Damn them all, she thought, what right had they to stare at her?

As swiftly as blinking, everything changed. No one was staring at her. These were ordinary people engaged in ordinary activities. There was one exception and that was Oliver: he was hurrying across the room towards her, his hands spread wide. Before she could move away, he placed his hands on her arms and bent to kiss her. At the last moment she turned her head and the kiss landed on her cheek. She noted that he had very recently shaved, presumably in her honour.

‘Come and sit down and I'll get you a drink.' He glanced round the room. ‘Or perhaps it would be better if we went upstairs.'

They had gone upstairs together in all those other hotels, but Jill was determined that they would not go upstairs in this one. ‘I'd rather stay here.' She seized the initiative and moved towards the table near the fireplace, the table where she and Charlotte had sat. Oddly enough, the thought of Charlotte was a comfort at this moment: it was impossible to imagine Charlotte ever being involved in such a shabby and complicated business as this. She would have been able to cope with Oliver because it had never occurred to her that men were anything other than overlarge small boys in long trousers.

Jill avoided the sofa and sat down in one of the armchairs. Oliver waved one of the waitresses over.

‘What would you like?'

‘I don't want a drink, thanks.' The waitress hovered by their table. Oliver looked up.

‘I'll have a dry martini.' He turned back to Jill. ‘I'm so glad you've come.'

He sat down on the sofa. He had already changed for dinner and Jill speculated uncharitably about his motives: was it because he was hoping to persuade her to dine with him or was it merely that he thought, with some justification, that he looked rather good-looking in a dinner jacket? It had taken her a long time to realise that Oliver was vain, and an even longer time to think of his vanity as anything other than an endearing weakness.

For a moment. Oliver studied her in silence. He was a tall man with a strong-featured face and broad shoulders. He wasn't good-looking, but as he advanced into middle age, his face grew increasingly distinguished.

‘You're looking peaky,' he said abruptly. There was more than a hint of his native Yorkshire in his voice, which was often a sign of emotion in him, though Jill would not put it past him to simulate it. ‘How are you – physically, I mean? Are you back to – ah – normal?'

Jill wanted to say that she wasn't normal, that she would never feel normal again and that part of her didn't even want to feel normal. Instead she said, ‘I'm all right.'

‘These things happen. In a way it's a blessing it ended as it did.'

‘It wasn't an “it”.'

He appeared not to have heard her. ‘Best to put it behind us, eh? Make a fresh start.'

‘Us?'

‘Yes. Nothing's changed.' He looked accusingly at her. ‘I haven't changed.'

‘I know. That's the trouble.' Jill felt tears filling her eyes and turned her face towards the fire. She couldn't even ask him the one question to which she wanted an answer: ‘Why me?'

Chapter Seven

On the way out of police headquarters, there was a mirror in which all officers were supposed to check their appearance before they left the building. Thornhill glanced into it as he came downstairs and saw to his irritation that at some stage during the afternoon he had lost the poppy from his lapel. He supposed he would have to buy himself another. Otherwise Williamson would be sure to hear of this dereliction of duty from one of his spies.

The High Street was quiet at this time of evening. Haloes of mist clung to the lamps. Thornhill walked along the pavement towards the Bull Hotel. He had allowed Kirby to go off duty an hour early – for his own sake rather than Kirby's. The sergeant was taking a girl to the pictures this evening and had spent the afternoon in a state of poorly suppressed excitement which Thornhill had found cumulatively irritating. The irritation had approached snapping point when he glimpsed a packet of condoms in an open drawer of Kirby's desk. It was wiser to send the man home, thereby salvaging a little dignity if nothing else.

Thornhill went into the hotel. An elderly man behind the reception desk glanced incuriously at him and returned to his newspaper. There was a tray of poppies and a collecting tin on the desk. The sight of them reminded Thornhill of Harcutt's tray and tin and once more the tiny discrepancy stirred like a fish in the murky depths of his mind.

‘Police,' Thornhill said, laying his warrant card on the desk.

The old man sat up with a jerk and straightened his striped waistcoat. ‘Sorry. Didn't recognise your face.' He glanced at the card. ‘And what can I do for you, Inspector?'

‘I'd like to have a word with one of your guests. I believe his name is James.'

‘I thought that might be it. Mr James isn't back yet. As I told your Mr Kirby, he went to Gloucester for the day.'

‘Any idea when he'll be back?'

‘No.' The voice was regretful. ‘If only I'd known you was interested. Always glad to help the police.'

Thornhill shrugged. ‘While I'm here, I might as well see the register.'

The old man pushed a heavy leatherbound volume across the desk.

‘Thank you, Mr—'

‘Quale.'

Thornhill opened the book and flicked forward through the pages until he reached the last few entries. Only two guests had registered in November. One was Genghis Carn, modestly concealing his identity under the surname of James: he had given himself an address in Shepherd's Bush.

Thornhill took out his notebook and made a note of the details, as he did so, he noticed the other entry which had today's date. The name was Oliver Yateley and the address was in Dolphin Square, London SW1. Both the name and the address nudged Thornhill's memory. Dolphin Square, he remembered from his days in London, was somewhere in Belgravia near the river: a huge block of service flats favoured by the wealthy.

‘You're not very busy at present.'

‘It's the time of year. Nothing much happens in November.'

Thornhill took out his purse, fed a couple of pennies into the tin and selected a poppy. He looked up at the clock on the wall: technically he was off duty. ‘I'll have a drink while I'm here. Let me know if Mr James comes in before I go. Discreetly. Where's the bar?'

‘Down there – just beyond the lounge.'

As Thornhill was passing the open door of the lounge, there was a chorus of masculine laughter from the room. Automatically he glanced in the direction of the noise. Cyril George, the building contractor in charge of the Rose in Hand site, was sitting at a table near the fire with two other men, one of whom was telling a joke involving a vicar and an Irish burglar.

Thornhill's attention was drawn by the couple sitting on the other side of the fireplace – a prosperous-looking man in a dinner jacket and a dark-haired woman who was staring into the fire. With an unpleasant jolt he recognised the woman as Jill Francis, identifying her with absolute certainty although he could not see most of her face; that in itself was disturbing. Terrified that she might turn round and see him gawping at her, he hurried along the hall and went down the steps into the cocktail bar. He wished he hadn't seen her.

Chapter Eight

‘When are you coming back to London?' Oliver asked, putting down his glass.

‘I don't know.' Reluctantly, Jill looked away from the fire and stared at him. She found it hard to understand how she could have loved this man. It wasn't altogether his fault. At present there was a coldness inside her that precluded love.

‘Come back to town with me,' he murmured. ‘Tonight. I've got the car – we could be in Dolphin Square by ten o'clock.'

‘Oliver, why can't you understand? I'm not coming to your flat ever again. I don't even want to see you again.'

‘But you must.' He stared at her, his face filling not with pain but with incomprehension. ‘I couldn't bear it without you.'

‘You'll have to. Anyway, don't my feelings count? And what about Virginia?'

‘Virginia's got nothing to do with this,' he said angrily.

‘She's got everything to do with it. She's your wife, remember.' Jill took a deep breath. ‘And she's the mother of your children.'

‘Oh, for Christ's sake. That didn't seem to bother you before.'

‘It does now.'

There was a burst of laughter from the businessmen at the neighbouring table.

‘We've been through all this,' Oliver said with exaggerated patience. ‘I've got a job to do, Jill. It's an important job, and to do it properly I need to have Virginia in the background. I don't like it any more than you do. But it's the way the world works.'