Death Watch (32 page)

She didn’t try her own, only watched him, a faint smile on her lips that didn’t touch her eyes. ‘Well then, what did you want to know?’

‘I’m making enquiries in connection with the death of Richard Neal.’ He didn’t want her to force him into being formal and allowing her to shelter behind that. He smiled and said casually, ‘What did you call him when you were a little girl?’

‘Uncle Dickie,’ she responded automatically, and then an unexpected blush stained her cheeks, and as quickly receded, like the blush of rage that passes through an octopus when you lift its rock away.

Slider followed up quickly, before she could have time to get back under the stone. ‘He was always around the house, wasn’t he? Did he use to listen to you reciting, too?’

‘No, that was just between Daddy and me,’ she said. ‘I never did it in front of anyone else. Daddy used to say it
was silly, and I’d never get to be an actress that way, but to me it was a special thing, just for him.’

‘Did you want to be an actress?’

‘Not really. It’s just a thing you say when you’re little, like wanting to be a film star.’

‘Or wanting to be a fireman, like your father?’ A swift series of associations came to him, and he continued smoothly, ‘Of course, at Hammersmith station you can combine the two, can’t you?’

‘I could, if they’d put on a proper play, instead of
The Sound of Music’

‘Oh, aren’t you going to be in it?’ he sounded disappointed.

‘I am not.’

‘That’s a pity. I’m sure you have a lot of talent.’

‘I got rave reviews as Lady Hamilton in
Dearest Emma
last year,’ she said quickly. Her mouth curved down. ‘Then they spoiled it by following it with
Privates on Parade’

Slider had seen the film version. He thought it must be rather a good play. Now was not the time to say so, though. Instead he said, ‘What sort of things did you do with Uncle Dickie, if it wasn’t reciting?’

She looked at him. ‘You don’t have to call him that. I stopped doing it years ago.’

He tried frankness. ‘Sorry. It’s very difficult to know what to call people you don’t know, when you talk about them to someone who does.’

‘I suppose so,’ she said unhelpfully.

‘What do you call him now?’

‘He’s dead,’ she said stonily. ‘I don’t call him anything.’

Oh boy! ‘All right, how would you refer to him if you spoke about him now?’

She couldn’t get out of that one. ‘Dick, I suppose. Look, do we have to talk about him?’

‘That’s what I’m here for. What would you like us to talk about? The World Cup? The University Boat Race?’

She opened her mouth and shut it again, surprised by his rudeness. Then she said in a quieter voice, ‘I’m sorry. I suppose you have to do your job. It’s just that—’

‘Yes? Just what?’

‘It’s just that I don’t like to think about it. He’s dead, and nothing that happened can be altered. I just want to forget now.’

‘Forget what?’

She looked away for a moment, and then back, gathering herself. ‘You know, don’t you, that he and my mother were lovers?’

‘Before she married your father.’

She looked at him levelly. ‘And afterwards.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I don’t think, I know,’ she said patiently.

‘But you were only a child at the time. You were too young to fully understand the relationship between three adult—’

‘Children aren’t deaf and blind, you know. They know a lot more about what’s going on than people give them credit for.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know that—’

‘You don’t know what Mother was like then. She was very beautiful for one thing.’

‘She’s very beautiful now,’ Slider said.

She looked faintly surprised, as if that had never occurred to her. How young she was, he thought, for her age. Probably the tragedies in her life had retarded her emotional growth. There was something very inward-looking and stunted about this gloomy flat.

‘Well, she was beautiful then, and she loved to be admired. Everyone had to be fawning on her all the time, or she wasn’t happy. Unfortunately, men were quite willing to fawn. The whole of Red Watch was in love with her, you know. At the socials all the men were falling over themselves to light her cigarette and pull out her chair.’

‘Do you hate your mother for that?’

‘I don’t hate her,’ she said at once. Slider waited. She went on, ‘We’ve had rows in the past, lots of them. We think differently about a lot of things. But I don’t hate her. I feel sorry for her, really. Some women are just like that. She can’t help the way she’s made.’ She paused, and then
said in a very different voice, light and cautious, as though feeling a way along a previously untrodden path, ‘You know that he killed my father, don’t you?’

‘Dick Neal killed your father?’ This was a new track. Slider looked his incredulity.

‘I know what I’m saying. You don’t need to sound as if you’re humouring me.’

‘I’m sorry. But you can’t really know. You were only eight years old at the time. You weren’t even present at the fire when your father died.’

‘The person who told me was there,’ she said.

‘Who would that be?’

‘Jim Sears.’ She looked at him enquiringly. ‘Do you know anything about him?’

‘Your mother told me how you and he were going to be married, but he died. I’m very sorry.’

She ignored the sympathy. ‘How much do you know about the fire? You know Cookie was there?’

‘I’ve read the report,’ Slider said. ‘Your father and Dick Neal went in to rescue an old lady. Dick brought her out, then realised your father hadn’t followed. He went back to get him, and Jim Sears followed. They found your father tangled up in some wiring, and already dead, and had to leave him and get out to save their own lives.’

‘Yes, that was the way the report told it. It sounds all right, doesn’t it? But that’s not the way it happened. Cookie told me the truth, years later, when we were engaged.’

‘So what was the truth?’ he asked.

She looked at him doubtfully. ‘If I tell you, will you believe me?’

‘Have I any reason not to?’

She hesitated a moment, and then took the question as rhetorical. ‘All right. Well, then, Cookie told me that it was true about Dick and Daddy going in to get the old lady out, and Dick coming out alone. Barry Lister was Leading Fireman. He realised Daddy was in trouble and shouted to Cookie and Gary Handsworth to go in for him. But Dick jumped up and said he was going back for Daddy, and he
was off before they could stop him. He shouldn’t have gone in a second time, you see. That wasn’t the way it was done.’

Slider nodded.

‘Cookie went after him. Barry stopped Gary from following. Of course, everybody knew about Dick and Daddy being special friends, so nobody thought it was strange that he went back in, only not procedure.’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘Cookie was a bit behind Dick. When he got inside, he found Daddy as it said in the report, hanging dead, with the wires around his neck. And Dick was there, but he wasn’t doing anything, just standing looking at him. Cookie said, “Help me get him free,” and pushed past him to get to Daddy, but Dick said, “It’s no use. We’re too late.” Cookie grabbed hold of Daddy, to try to get him down, and then Dick grabbed him and pulled him away. But in that moment Cookie saw that Daddy wasn’t just tangled in the wire – the wires had been twisted together round his neck at the back, so that he couldn’t have got himself free. Dick dragged Cookie away and shouted “We’ve got to get out,” and then the ceiling fell and the floor started to go, so they left Daddy there and got out.’

It sounded like a wild story. After a moment or two Slider said, ‘He could have been mistaken, you know, about the wire. The place must have been full of smoke and dust, and it was a very emotionally charged moment.’

‘That was the first thing I thought when he told me. But Dick more or less confessed to Cookie afterwards, when they were in the ambulance together on the way to hospital. Dick’s hands had been badly burned, you see, and Cookie was suffering from smoke inhalation. Cookie said Dick gave a funny sort of smile and said, “No-one would believe you, you know. It’d be your word against mine, and it’s me they’d believe.” And Cookie knew that was true, so he never said anything to anyone. I suppose,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘he must have hoped over the years that he had been mistaken. Or that Dick was talking about something else.’

‘Perhaps he was,’ Slider said. ‘If that’s all he said, there’s really nothing specific to go on. He might just have meant that they should have tried to get your father’s body out, that they saved their own skins too readily, or something.’

She seemed to tire of the discussion. ‘Maybe,’ she said indifferently.

‘Why do you think Cookie told you that story?’

‘Because he wanted to marry me. He said he felt he couldn’t ask me if I didn’t know the truth. He felt guilty about it – that he hadn’t saved Daddy, or got him out, and that he’d let Dick get away with it.’

‘Did he tell your mother?’

The question seemed to surprise her. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought – she’s never mentioned it to me.’

Well, after all, would she? ‘But Jim Sears was quite close to her at one time, wasn’t he? Didn’t he use to come round to the house a lot, when you first moved to Hammersmith?’

‘Yes. I suppose he might have said something to her. And that would mean she—’

‘Yes?’ he encouraged.

Her eyes slid away. ‘Nothing. No, he couldn’t have told her, or she’d have told me long before Cookie did.’

Slider doubted the logic of that, but said, ‘Supposing that it was true, why would Dick want to murder your father anyway?’

‘Because he was in love with Mother,’ she said. ‘He and Mother were lovers, and Dick wanted to marry her, but Mother wouldn’t ask for a divorce because of the disgrace. So the only alternative was to get Daddy out of the way.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ Slider asked.

She didn’t answer directly. ‘Cookie believed it,’ she said flatly. ‘Anyway, what other reason could there be?’

‘But your mother and Dick didn’t get married afterwards.’

‘That was Mother. She refused him, because he wasn’t good enough for her.’ She stared at her cooling tea. She hadn’t drunk any of it and nor, he was happy to say, had Slider. ‘Poor Cookie. I wonder now whether – do you
think it’s possible that it was Dick Neal who murdered him? They never did find out who did it.’

‘Why would Dick Neal want to murder him?’

‘To shut him up. Cookie had just got engaged to me. Maybe Dick was scared that he’d tell me – which he did, of course – and I’d make trouble for him.’

‘In that case, who do you think murdered Dick?’ Slider asked, playing along.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘It was an act of God, wasn’t it? Isn’t that what you call an accident?’

‘It wasn’t quite that simple,’ said Slider. ‘Someone a little less omnipotent had a hand in it.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You mean – he was murdered, too?’

‘It looks that way.’

She thought for a long moment, her eyes blank. ‘I suppose I should have guessed. I mean, if it was an accident, you wouldn’t be here asking questions, would you?’

‘Probably not.’

She focused on him suddenly. ‘You don’t think my mother killed him, do you?’

That was an interesting jump of logic. ‘Why should I think that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that you’ve been talking to her, and now you come here checking up on her with me. It made me think you might – but it was a silly thing to say, of course. Forget it, please.’

Slider tried a different line. ‘When was the last time you saw Dick?’ he said abruptly.

‘At Daddy’s funeral, I suppose,’ she said indifferently.

‘Oh, surely not. He wouldn’t just cut off relations so abruptly. He must have come to see you and your mother after that?’

‘I don’t remember. Maybe he did.’ She shrugged. ‘It was all so long ago.’

‘What about when you moved to Hammersmith? Didn’t he come to the house there?’

‘No. Not when I was around, anyway. Mother used to go to his place to see him.’

‘And when you were engaged to Cookie? Didn’t you see Dick then?’

She looked surprised. ‘Why should I? He and Cookie had nothing to do with each other.’

‘Do you remember what you were doing on Sunday and Monday, the 25th and 26th of March?’

‘That’s easy,’ she smiled. ‘I was on duty. Does that let me off?’

He smiled back. ‘I should think it’s just about a perfect alibi.’

He drove away with his head more stuffed than ever. Was there any truth in it, he wondered? Was it possible that Neal had killed Forrester, that it had not just been a tragic accident? He supposed there was no way to find out for sure, with both Sears and Neal dead. Eleanor had certain things right about the background – about Marsha and Dick being lovers, for instance; about it’s being Marsha who ended the relationship, and her thinking Dick wasn’t good enough for her. But she had said Marsha had visited Dick when they lived in Hammersmith, and that didn’t accord with what Marsha said. Slider couldn’t imagine Marsha popping over to the flat in Dalling Road for a quickie. He was inclined to think Eleanor had got that part wrong.

But if Dick Neal really did kill Forrester – seizing an opportunity, very much in the heat of the moment, pardon the pun – how bitterly must he have regretted it afterwards? For there was no doubt – those photographs as mute witness – that there was a deep friendship between the men. If his passion for Marsha overcame him sufficiently to murder his best friend, and then afterwards he found it was all for nothing, because she wouldn’t have him, it was more than enough reason for his life to go to pieces. Pity for Neal reasserted itself. What a hell of a life the man had led, and the fact that it was all his own fault could have been no comfort.

If Neal did kill Forrester, did Marsha know? Did she
think they must all have known, all of Red Watch, and killed them for their complicity – starting with Cookie, who was there and next most guilty, and saving Dick Neal until last? Or was the whole thing a misunderstanding of Eleanor’s? She had been so very young at the time of the fire, and probably still emotionally troubled at the time of her courtship by Sears – very likely to get hold of the wrong end of the stick.