An Expert in Murder (27 page)

‘Jesus Christ, you look terrible,’ Swinburne said, going across to him. ‘What the hell are you doing out here?’

188

‘Waiting for you. I knew you’d be back soon and there’s something I need to ask you before I hand myself in.’

‘Hedley, what are you talking about? In where?’

‘To the police. They’ll be waiting at the house, I expect – that’s why I needed to catch you out here first.’ As Swinburne looked over his shoulder, bewildered, Hedley explained. ‘It’s Elspeth. She was the girl who was killed on the train and they think I did it.’

‘Fucking hell, mate, that’s awful. They’re here now, you say?’

‘Probably. Lydia said they would be.’

‘You’ve spoken to her about it?’

‘I had to. I didn’t know what else to do. She told me to give myself up and trust them to be fair.’

Swinburne was sceptical. ‘No doubt she means well, Hedley, but are you sure you want to do that? Wouldn’t you rather just keep out of sight for a bit until they catch the bastard who really did it?’

‘I don’t think I could stand it. Anyway, the more time they waste looking for me, the less likely it is they’ll get whoever did this to her. And I can’t bear the thought of him getting away with it, Rafe

– nothing would be worse than that.’ Swinburne waited while Hedley pulled himself together. ‘I’d like you to do something for me, though. I need an alibi for Friday night before the show. The papers said it happened early evening, so it’ll be before I got to the theatre. I didn’t kill her, but they’ll never believe me, so would you say I was with you?’

It was a risk, Swinburne thought; he didn’t want to get himself into trouble. ‘Aubrey would vouch for you,’ he said. ‘He’d know you couldn’t have done it.’

Hedley looked down. ‘I can’t ask him, not now. Anyway, I don’t think he would.’

‘All right, then. I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t say we went for a drink together. Not the Salisbury, though – someone might contradict that. We need somewhere more anonymous.

How about the Duncannon? It’s always busy on a Friday so nobody could swear we weren’t there. We went there together and arrived at about six o’clock. Is that early enough?’

Hedley shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

189

‘OK. We sat upstairs and drank beer – two halves each – until it was time to go to the theatre, then we walked back together as far as stage door. I’d say we got there about an hour before the performance, wouldn’t you?’

‘Can anybody prove we’re lying?’

‘I doubt it. I was actually with a girl but she wasn’t very memorable, and if I can’t remember her name, there’s not much chance of anyone else tracking her down. Fortunately, she was quite easy to shake off.’ He looked at Hedley’s worried face and wondered if it was sensible to ask; in the end, he couldn’t resist the question, but tried to make it casual. ‘What were you really doing, by the way?’

Hedley hesitated, then seemed to decide that he owed an explanation in return for the favour. ‘I was singing,’ he said, offering perhaps the one answer that would never have occurred to Swinburne. ‘Elspeth wanted one of those dolls from the play so badly but I couldn’t afford to buy her one. I thought if I did a quick round of the pit doors, entertaining the queues for a bit at each one, I might make enough money to get her a present.’

Swinburne raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘I can see why you want an alibi,’ he said, then, as Hedley began to protest, cut him short. ‘All right, all right – it’s unlikely enough to be true. I’ll speak up for you, and you’re probably right to assume that the police won’t go to the effort of tracing theatre queues to prove you innocent.’

He put a hand on Hedley’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. You can rely on me.’

‘Then will you do one more thing for me?’ He reached into the bag he was carrying and took out a doll. ‘I got the money,’ he said, handing it to Swinburne. ‘Actually, I did better than I could have hoped. I bought this in the interval ready to give to Elspeth when I saw her last night. Will you take it to her uncle for me? I’d still like her to have it and he’ll know where they’ve taken her. I’ve written the address down for you – it’s in Hammersmith, but it won’t take you long on a Sunday. And will you tell him I’m sorry?’

Swinburne looked down at the doll in his hands, relieved to have something to distract him from the intensity of Hedley’s grief.

190

It was the female character from the play, the Queen, and more a puppet than a doll, really. The figure, which wore a rich green velvet gown and head-dress, was sufficiently pliable to be posed and he raised its left arm, examining the coloured glass in the wedding ring and around the neck of the dress. He had always thought there was something hideous about dolls of any sort and this one was unnervingly realistic. An image of it clutched in a dead girl’s hands sprung involuntarily to mind and he shuddered, hoping that Hedley wouldn’t notice the horror which his posthumous gift to Elspeth had aroused.

‘I’ll do it now,’ he said quickly, wanting the thing out of his charge and remembering what was waiting for Hedley at home. At least it was a good excuse to be out of the way, he thought: he certainly had no desire to come between the police and their prime suspect.

The lights had gone out one by one as the residents of Verbena Gardens took to their beds and now, several hours later, Frank Simmons watched them come on again in near-perfect reverse order. The night had passed even more slowly than he feared it would; more than once, he got up from his seat at the window to check that the clock on Betty’s side of the bed was still working; each time, as he picked it up and held it to his ear, the gentle tick-ing confirmed that time was determined to move on, even if he had no idea how to move with it.

He hadn’t tried to go to bed, knowing that sleep would be impossible and, when Betty was not there with him, reluctant to disturb the tidy counterpane which she smoothed into place each morning. As soon as she had telephoned to say that she and Alice were leaving Berwick, he had turned his chair to face the point where the street joined the main road; he knew it would be an age before they arrived, but the very act of looking out for the car seemed to bring them closer. He would feel safer when Betty was home again. The police had been kind but he knew what they must be thinking in private, and he was mortified whenever he remembered the expression in Josephine Tey’s eyes as she had turned to 191

face him at the theatre. No one had ever looked at him in fear before, and he had never imagined that they would have reason to, but Friday night had changed all that.

He tried not to think about Elspeth too much, although that in itself felt like betrayal. He had been lucky to have known her. Betty had never wanted children and, although it was the one great sadness in his life, he had kept his disappointment quietly to himself and learned to cherish instead the time he spent with his niece.

After his brother’s death, he had vowed that she would not go through life missing a father’s concern and had watched over her welfare more diligently than ever before without, he hoped, seeming too heavy-handed about it. He thought back to the notes that Alice and Betty had kept secret from him, the notes that Walter had never mentioned, and it pained him now to realise that there were things in Elspeth’s life about which he knew nothing. He’d known their relationship must change as she grew into a young woman and, when she met Hedley, had recognised with sadness that the moment had come for him to relinquish some of the privileges of friendship. But Hedley was a good boy and, more than anything else, Frank wanted Elspeth to be happy. He’d always wanted that.

A motorcycle turned into Verbena Gardens but there was still no sign of a car so, for company, he got up to switch the wireless on in the kitchen. He filled the kettle and stood it on the stove, hoping that an indulgence in the habits of the morning might encourage time to pass more quickly. To his surprise, before he had a chance to light the gas, he heard the doorbell. Surely he hadn’t missed the car? He’d only been gone a few seconds and anyway, Betty would let herself in. In the brief time it took him to go downstairs and switch the lights on in the shop, Frank managed to conjure up a hundred different scenarios – road accidents, freak weather condi-tions, other murders – all of which would leave him wretched and alone in the world. When he lifted the blind he was relieved, if bewildered, to see the actor, Rafe Swinburne, standing on the doorstep, holding what looked like a doll.

‘Sorry to disturb you so early,’ Swinburne said, although Frank 192

was sure his dishevelled dress and exhausted face must make it painfully obvious that he had not been to bed. ‘I’m sorry, too, for your loss. I only met Elspeth once or twice, but she seemed a lovely girl. My name’s Swinburne and I’m a friend of Hedley’s,’ he explained. ‘I’ve brought something for you.’

Frank shook the hand he was offered. ‘Yes, I’ve seen you at the theatre. You’d better come in.’ He led the way upstairs and directed his guest into the living room while he returned to the kitchen. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he called. ‘I was just going to have one myself.’ There was no answer, so he went through to the other room and found Swinburne staring in disbelief at his collection. Realising he had company, the young man reverted to the expression of polite sympathy which he’d worn on arrival, but not before Frank had had time to see the smirk of amusement on his face as he looked into the glass cases. Suddenly, he saw his labour of love through the actor’s eyes – pathetic and ridiculous, and stripped of all its joy now that there was no one to share it with.

He felt a surge of anger towards this man who, with his good looks and easy charm, had destroyed years of dedication in a second and, when he spoke, his voice was filled with a resentment which would, in the past, have seemed utterly alien to him.

‘What do you want? I’m waiting for my wife to come back and she’ll be here any minute.’

Swinburne could hardly have missed the change in tone but he kept his composure. ‘Hedley asked me to bring you this,’ he said, gesturing with the doll. ‘He got it as a present for Elspeth and he was going to give it to her this weekend. He also asked me to tell you that he’s sorry.’

‘What for? Why hasn’t he come to see me himself?’ As he uttered the words, Frank marvelled at how quickly the poison of suspicion could take hold. He was appalled by the ease with which he was beginning to doubt those he had instinctively trusted, but he couldn’t help himself. Until you experienced it for yourself, he thought, it was impossible to understand how murder continued to corrode the living long after the dead were cold.

‘He’s with the police. Naturally, they want to speak to him 193

about Elspeth’s death – just to see if he can help them, of course.

Nothing more sinister than that.’ Frank listened as Swinburne talked about Hedley and Elspeth, and found that he resented the casual way in which words like ‘love’ and ‘belonging’ fell from his lips, as if he were delivering another script and had forgotten that the emotions he described belonged to real people. For Frank, these were important words and should be used sparingly, not thrown away in a performance. He doubted that Hedley – shy and inexperienced as he was – would have found it easy to express what he felt for Elspeth, but she would have known anyway, just as she had known how much he had always cared. Wasn’t that what love meant?

Eventually, Frank took the doll from Swinburne’s hands, wishing the scene to be over. ‘Hedley really wants Elspeth to have this and he thought you’d know what to do,’ the actor said, and looked again at the cases of theatre souvenirs. ‘Although, if you don’t think that’s appropriate, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you kept it here.’

Before he could say anything, Frank heard the shop door close and his wife called up the stairs. So he had missed their arrival after all, but at least they were back safely. When Betty came into the room, he was as surprised to see her alone as she was to discover he had company. ‘Where’s Alice?’ he asked.

‘She wanted to go to Elspeth straight away, spend some time with her on her own, so the car took her there first. The police have been very kind. She’s going there next – she said she had to speak to Inspector Penrose as soon as possible – so we probably won’t see her till this afternoon.’

‘What does she want to talk to the police about so urgently?

Does she know something?’

Betty looked at Swinburne, clearly not wanting to discuss their business in front of strangers. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Sorry, this is Rafe Swinburne.’

‘I just came to give my condolences, Mrs Simmons, and to bring something for Elspeth. I can see you need to be alone, though. I’ll see myself out.’

Betty removed her hat and went to deal with the kettle, while 194

Frank listened to the fading sound of a motorcycle engine and waited to hear what Alice had said to his wife.

Dead, then, thought Esme McCracken, trying to come to terms with the news as she sat alone in a poky, depressing room on the ground floor of New Scotland Yard. That would teach him to be so fucking smug.

It was a shame the police had found the letters, though. If she’d thought about it, she could have removed them – she’d had plenty of opportunities – but it never occurred to her that Aubrey would care enough to keep them. She cast her mind back over what she had written, and was pleased to recall nothing to be ashamed of.

Admittedly, the threats were unfortunate in hindsight – unfortunate but not unjustifiable, and she certainly didn’t regret having made them. No, when somebody did at last have the decency to come and see her, she’d be ready and happy to talk. What was keeping them, she wondered? Surely she must be a priority?

To pass the time, she tried to take in all she could of her surroundings. It was important for writers to make the most of every experience and she often played this game with herself, standing outside life, observing. It was second nature to her, really. Ironically, the one time the trick had failed her was when it mattered most, when her father died and she found herself unable to escape her own heart, torn between grief at his loss and resentment that she had had to postpone her writing to care for him. But that was a while ago now.