Close Call (3 page)

Jason Ritchie was twenty-three years old. As far as Gurney Close was concerned, he was a gardener. It was not clear how knowledgeable or experienced he was in the field of horticulture, but he had toiled with some success towards the establishment of a garden in what had been the building plot of Lisa Holt's house. His arrival and his activities had been observed closely by the other women in the new development, and with considerable dismay by Philip Smart, who had been indulging lascivious ideas of his own about the glamorous divorcee of Gurney Close.

Jason had worked long and hard, full of the energy and enthusiasm which went with his years. He had unearthed a bewildering variety of broken concrete, rusting metal strips, lengths of wire and other unwelcome constructional detritus, and taken them away to the tip in his battered white van. On several evenings, he had laboured with pick, spade and fork into the last of the summer light. And when his work was over, he had enjoyed a well-earned beer with his employer. And perhaps other rewards as well.

Phil Smart peered from behind the new curtains hung by his efficient wife and speculated darkly about the activities of this young stud. Jason was in his view the classic ‘bit of rough' which educated women of Lisa Holt's age and background were rumoured to find attractive. Phil feared the worst, which was that Lisa had not only taken this brawny young man into her bed, but would as a result find what he himself could offer her in that department lacking in both vigour and imagination. This breezy young ruffian had cast Phil Smart into an unwonted gloom.

And now Lisa had insisted upon inviting him to the party. ‘He's almost one of us, really,' she said cheerfully, running her eyes appreciatively over his shining biceps. ‘And you must admit, he's done more to knock our new environment into a manageable shape than any one of us.'

The others looked at the front gardens of the new close and admitted glumly that Lisa was probably right. Of the little patches at the front of the houses, Lisa's was the one which was nearest to a garden. There were still some ugly lumps of intractable clay evident, but the ground had been cleared of builders' rubble and battered into something like submission. Where the rest of them were still laboriously unearthing half-bricks and bits of electric cable from earth which the long days of sun seemed determined to turn into concrete, Ms Holt's little rectangle already had turf, installed two days earlier, and the shapes of flower borders were now clearly defined. Indeed, a couple of pot-grown roses had already been transported from the garden centre in Jason Ritchie's white van; they now blazed defiantly crimson and yellow in the evening of the perfect day.

All of them had been working hard during the day, but they had disappeared into their residences for an hour before the party began, to shower and prepare for this evening of pleasant celebration. The women, at least, showed the benefits of forethought and effort. They emerged in a variety of colourful and becoming summer dresses, estimating each other carefully, even among the compliments they flung out cheerfully as they arrived in the Durkins's back garden at around eight o'clock.

The men were chivalrous in exactly the sort of way that was expected of them. There was not too much variation in their leisure shirts and chinos and sandals, the male uniform where al fresco informality was determined to be the order of the day. Philip Smart, startlingly vivid in a bright green shirt and sage trousers, was very complimentary about Rosemary Lennox's newly shaped hair and her dark-blue dress, singling out the oldest woman at the party for his attention with uncharacteristic tact.

Robin Durkin fondled his wife's bare shoulders in a display of uxorious attention which bordered upon the embarrassing, as she told him sharply when she had had enough of it.

Ron Lennox felt emboldened to assure Alison Durkin that her dark hair looked very splendid. He had not seen it done before in this loose and carefully informal style, which she had chosen for the party. The normally boisterous Ally seemed rather muted at the beginning of the evening, and Ron was rewarded with something very like an unexpected blush on her rather pale face.

Phil Smart took a huge breath and plunged in at the deep end. ‘You light up the whole close,' he assured Lisa Holt. ‘I don't know how you manage to work so hard in your new house and still come out here looking like something out of
Vogue
.'

‘I don't think
Vogue
deals much with Marks and Spencer's summer dresses and sandals from the seconds shop,' said Lisa dryly. ‘But thanks for the thought all the same, Phil.'

‘And don't kid yourself she works that hard.' Jason Ritchie came round the side of the Durkin house, an immaculate white tee shirt stretched tight over his muscular chest, the barbed wire tattoo winding its way impressively around his biceps to disappear beneath the cotton. ‘There's only one person does the work around Lisa's place, and that ain't the owner.' He bathed the divorcee in a look that seemed to Phil Smart altogether too proprietorial; it roamed unhurriedly from her blonde head to the well-pedicured feet upon the grass. Jason's labours, the look seemed to say, extended far beyond the garden. And the way in which Lisa Holt grinned back at him implied that the work he delivered in every different area was accounted wholly satisfactory.

The two men, with almost thirty years and a ton of resentment between them, stared hard at each other, hostility hardening in this least appropriate of contexts. But Carol Smart, with a world-weary expertise born of long practice, thrust a beer can into Jason's hand and a glass of wine into her husband's, and said, ‘I'm sure we all wish we were making the rapid progress you are in Lisa's garden, Jason. But then you have youth and strength on your side. I suppose I can't expect the same rate of progress from Philip.'

Jason looked at the attractive forty-three-year-old appreciatively. It suited him sometimes to play the young stud with more brawn than brains, but he understood exactly the sort of diplomacy which Carol Smart was attempting here. He smiled, looked deliberately away from the panting Phil Smart, and said, ‘My dad always says that you can't rush gardening. You make mistakes if you try to rush it.'

The moment passed. It had been a tricky one, the kind which could easily have got the evening off to a bad start. But once the drink began to flow, the strange dynamics of this diverse little group of people took over and things bowled along happily, even hilariously. The only common factor they had was that of beginning life anew in the close, but it was a surprisingly helpful one. The fact that they had moved in at this time of year, when the days were longest and the weather at its best, meant that they had seen a lot of each other as they moved their possessions into their houses and began the struggle to create gardens out of a building site. They had spent hours of digging, tugging and cursing in equal measure, commiserating over aching limbs and backs which seized up after hours of abuse.

Now they exchanged stories and recalled the more entertaining disasters of the last month, which were already being embellished with the hyperbole of nostalgia, as alcohol assisted imagination and the participants relaxed into a perfect English summer evening. The food was excellent, and Rosemary Lennox's organizational skills had ensured that the selection of dishes they had brought to the trestle table in the Durkins's garden was both varied and complementary. And the drink flowed, loosening tongues and weakening inhibitions.

The laughter became more genuine and more prolonged over two hours of recollected disasters and plans for the future; the decibel level rose higher and higher, until any listener from a hundred yards away would have thought that there were far more than eight people involved in the party. But there were no near neighbours for them to disturb. The fishermen a mile away down the river wondered about the source of this noise and laughter as the evening moved into dusk, but they were too busy with their own concerns to have any real interest in such speculation.

Robin Durkin had paid the builder to construct a small, unofficial gate in the back fence of his garden, to give him access to the land behind. He smiled and tapped the side of his nose when the others asked him about it. ‘All strictly speaking illegal, I'm sure,' he said airily, in answer to their queries. ‘There's no official footpath until you get to the banks of the river, but it's only pasture land and I shouldn't think anyone's going to bother about it.'

Emboldened by drink and the courage which comes from being in a group, they went out together and walked for a few minutes beside the river, admiring the deep crimson sky where the sun had disappeared over the Welsh hills, watching the numerous rings disturbing the still surface of the water as the trout rose towards the invisible flies. There was no one about here, but the occupants of Gurney Close found themselves whispering, perhaps because they felt themselves conspirators in this minor trespass, more probably because they did not want to disturb the peace of these magical moments by the river.

And then they were back, lounging in their garden chairs with glasses refilled, full of good humour and relaxed reminiscence as dusk moved into darkness. The last of the breeze had disappeared with the sunset, and the night retained its summer warmth. There were not many better places in the world to be than the heart of England on an evening like this, Ronald Lennox announced appreciatively, and the others nodded sage agreement and sipped contentedly.

It was at this time that Philip Smart made an unexpectedly graceful and well-turned speech about the excellence of the food, the quantity of the drink, and the brilliance of Rosemary Lennox's original concept of an evening of celebration like this. It reminded all of them that he could be more than a lecherous bore when he chose to be: Phil caught the mood of the moment; the sense of general bonhomie; the pleasant, uncritical, alcoholic lassitude which seemed to be overtaking all of them.

No one wanted to be the first to move, to break up the atmosphere which felt so relaxed and so right. Robin Durkin burrowed into a cardboard box he and Ally had still not unpacked and found balloon brandy glasses. ‘Time for a nightcap,' he said, and went round the company with the cognac bottle. The last remaining signs of the caution some of his guests had displayed towards him seemed to drop away with the brandy. The talk grew more quiet and sporadic, the thoughts expressed more sentimental than they would have been in daylight and sobriety.

The warmth of the night and the effects of alcohol meant that no one felt cold. It was almost another hour before the woman who had suggested this party drew it to a close. ‘Time us oldies were in bed,' Rosemary Lennox said with a smile, and stood up with a resolution which none of the others could muster.

Her husband took the hand she held out to help him and levered himself rather stiffly and reluctantly to his feet. ‘It's been great!' he said, untypically enthusiastic. ‘Perhaps we should agree now to make this an annual event.'

There was general assent to that. But with two of the company on their feet, everyone suddenly realized that it was now almost one o'clock and time to break up the party. There were token offers to help with tidying up, an assurance from Ally Durkin that she would leave everything until the morning, when those who wished could come and help to clear the tables of debris.

There was a final burst of animation as they all took leave of each other, much self-congratulation and laughter about the shortness of the journey home for all of them. The Lennoxes picked up their garden chairs and the remnants of the bowl of strawberries which Rosemary had prepared for the feast, and stepped away into the darkness. Phil Smart put his arm loyally around the shoulders of his wife and held her lightly against him in readiness for the thirty-yard journey to their front door; brandy was having a considerable, if temporary, effect upon him. He couldn't be sure, but he thought Lisa Holt showed a fleeting embarrassment as she departed quietly with Jason Ritchie to the first house in the close.

Lights flashed on in the four homes of the new settlement, and at one a.m. the place seemed a blaze of light compared with what it had been a little earlier. But within half an hour, all was in darkness, and silence reigned, more profound after the boisterous conviviality which had preceded it.

The dawn chorus of the birds began at four thirty on a perfect summer's day, and was exuberant and sustained. But there was no human sound to intrude upon the avian exultation. It was another three hours before that came.

The screaming was piercing and prolonged. No one could have slept through it for more than a second or two. They stumbled from their houses in their dressing gowns, all drowsiness banished by the urgency and agony in the voice. They hurried to the house they had left so happily a few hours earlier, then to the back garden whence came this imperative and primitive clamour.

Ally Durkin stood screaming at the empty sky, surrounded by the pathetic debris of the party. The women went and put arms round her, turned her forcibly away from the sight which had set her shrieking so frantically, pulled her back into the house and away from what had been her husband.

Robin Durkin lay on his back, with his legs splayed and one arm crushed unnaturally beneath him. The cord had cut so deeply into his bull-like neck that it was almost invisible. His eyes bulged out so far that it seemed they would leave his face at any moment. They stared glassily at the sun as it climbed the eastern sky. But those eyes would never see light again.

G
urney Close was suddenly full of vehicles. Scarcely a square foot of its newly laid tarmac was visible when Superintendent John Lambert drove his ageing Vauxhall Senator into the tiny cul-de-sac. It was twenty past nine on the morning of Sunday, the tenth of July.

He had been about to start a round of golf at Ross Golf Club when the call had come through to him. He had made the ritual noises of resentment about pleasure interrupted, but in truth his pulses had quickened and his senses been made more alert by this news of what seemed almost certainly a murder. John Lambert was in his fifties now, heavy with achievement and reputation. He was familiar with the slightly guilty excitement he felt now. The hunting instinct always takes over the CID man when there is the prospect of a serious crime to be solved. As he crossed the River Wye and drove through the lanes to the crime scene, Lambert was metaphorically sniffing the air and anticipating the challenges to come.