Malice Aforethought (8 page)

He held her a little further away from him, staring into her face as if he was anxious to register its every nuance of expression. ‘You’re quite sure that that’s all it is? The heart?’

Despite herself, she burst out laughing. ‘Not many people would regard a heart bypass as trivial.’ She stopped laughing as suddenly as she had begun as she saw the fear in his face. ‘You thought it was the cancer coming back, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. I was worried when you seemed to tire so easily. It’s not like you, and—’

‘You’re right. I should have told you everything that was going on at the time, the tests and so forth. I thought I was shielding you. But you were worrying the cancer was coming back, just like me.’ Her hand strayed instinctively to her side, crept upwards towards the breast she had had removed a year earlier. ‘You’re quite a perceptive old thing, really, Jack Lambert!’ And this time, as she used the diminutive of his name that his mother had always forbidden, it was she who put her arms round him and fell against that comfortable chest.

‘It’s my job to be.’ She felt the chest tremble a little with mirth. ‘But you always told me I hadn’t to bring the job home with me.’

When they made love twenty minutes later, she had to tell him that he need not be quite so careful of her heart, and they dissolved into giggles together at this crucial moment. It was not until they were lying on their backs in the darkness some time later that Christine said, ‘Perhaps if we both live to be ninety we shall become quite a well-adjusted couple.’

Nine

There was one woman among the list given to them by Pat Roberts who looked promising.

Bert Hook looked at the sheet of paper with the small coloured photograph in the top right-hand corner. ‘Constance Elson. Reading between the lines of this, she’s forty-six, separated, rich and desperate for sex. Looks like we should send Chris Rushton.

Lambert grinned. ‘It’s tempting. But perhaps too cruel — and certainly too important. I think I’ll send Bert Hook.’

‘Not on his own you won’t!’ said Bert. ‘I don’t want promotion. But I do want to survive.’

It was a bit of cheerful male chauvinism they would not have been brave enough to indulge in if there had been female ears pricked to hear, but there were not many people in the CID section on Saturday morning, even in the Murder Room, which was now crowded with material gathered in the Edward Giles case. In the end, as they had known they would, Lambert and Hook went to visit the lady together. ‘Safety in numbers,’ said Hook. Lambert had hoped an Open University literature course might have helped him to avoid such clichés.

But Constance Elson turned out to be something of a cliché lady, in appearance at least. She lived in a bungalow with a garden which, even in the second half of November, looked tidy enough to be in
Homes and Gardens
. There was not a weed to be seen in the long, neat borders; in one, wallflowers had recently replaced annuals, in a second, roses made a determined late flowering above a carpet of mulching bark, in a third, dahlias, which any night now would be cut down by the frost which had so far spared them, threw gaudy splashes of colour defiantly into the grey day. Yet Bert Hook knew as soon as he saw the lady who opened the door to them that she had never soiled a finger to achieve this.

‘I am indeed Constance Elson,’ she said huskily, extending a warm, immaculately manicured hand to each of them in turn. ‘But please call me Connie. And do come inside! I’ve got the coffee ready. I’m sure you could use a cup.’ She turned an elegant back confidently upon them and led the way into an expensively but rather floridly furnished lounge. ‘Please be seated!’ she said, waving her arm expansively at two sofas and three armchairs. Even at this hour on a Saturday morning, she wore high heels and an haute couture dress which was perhaps one size too small for her, so that her bottom waggled in compulsive animation within two feet of Hook’s nose as she turned to the kitchen.

He caught John Lambert’s eye as they stared after her beneath the twin chandeliers of the big room. She had left the door open; neither of them dared to voice a thought during the two minutes of her absence. She brought in a large tray, with a plate of flapjacks and chocolate biscuits, as well as a pot of coffee, then sat in a low chair opposite them and crossed her nyloned legs. Hook, lifting his china cup carefully and sitting opposite her, decided this was certainly a change for the better from visiting and interrogating people like Aubrey Bass, Ted Giles’s egregious neighbour.

‘I can’t imagine what I can have to say which will be of any interest to important people like superintendents,’ she said, turning what she considered her most winning smile upon Lambert. That was interesting, he thought. She must have known why they wanted to see her, must surely have expected to be contacted from the moment she knew that Ted Giles was dead. It set him wondering about exactly how much she knew about that death ‘Hell hath no fury…’ was another cliché, but one they saw illustrated often enough in their investigations into violent crimes.

‘You will be aware, I’m sure, of the murder of Ted Giles a week ago. It is my responsibility to find out who killed him.’

‘I see.’

‘As you would expect, we are contacting everyone who knew Mr Giles well. Especially anyone who had regular contact with Mr Giles in the months before his death.’

‘And I am one of those people! Well, this is really rather exciting! Am I a suspect in a murder case?’

Lambert smiled into the wide-eyed, expectant face. She was like an amateur actress simulating girlish innocence She was a little old in the tooth for the part. ‘We need to eliminate you from our enquiries. We also need to find out things about Mr Giles from you.’

‘What kind of things?’

‘Things about his way of life. About where he went and what he knew. About people who might have had some wish to see him dead.’

‘I don’t know anyone who would have wanted to harm Ted. He was a lovely man.’ She had seemed until now like someone guying herself, like a consciously overstated and slightly comic version of the femme fatale. Her assertion about the dead man was a standard line, yet with it the brittle pretence dropped away and she seemed both serious and accessible. Love, whatever its nature, however unlikely or ridiculous it might seem to outsiders, could leave anyone vulnerable.

Lambert said, ‘I’m glad you liked him. And, needless to say, we’re sorry he’s dead. We know a lot more about him now than we did at the beginning of the week. But what people felt about him is the most difficult thing for us to unearth. You thought he was a lovely man, and you saw a lot more of him than most people.’

‘I saw him pretty regularly, in the last months of his life.’ She looked for a moment as if she would weep, then bit her lip and forced her voice to right itself. ‘I first met him back in May. I am a patron of the Welsh National Opera. They sent me tickets for a gala performance of
Ri goletto
in Cardiff. I didn’t want to appear there unaccompanied. I phoned Rendezvous and hired an escort.’

It is surprising how much of our lives we can reveal to perceptive listeners. They knew in that moment that she had used the agency before, that she was a lonely woman. But they did not pursue these other contacts; as yet, there was no need to open up windows into the lives of men who had sold who knew what services. Lambert prompted gently, ‘So you wanted someone to accompany you to a prestige social occasion. Someone presentable in those circles, no doubt. But you say you didn’t know Mr Giles at all before last May?’

‘No. I was just relieved to find someone so suitable for the occasion. Someone who looked good in evening dress and could hold a conversation about opera was all I asked for. Edward was all of that and more. I liked him from the first and I think he liked me. That’s one of the problems, you see, divining what your partner for the evening really thinks of you. When you pay for an acceptable escort, he pretends to be enjoying himself, if he’s good at the role, but you often don’t really know whether he likes your company. Not on a first outing.’

‘I suppose not. But you say you saw a lot more of Mr Giles in the months which followed.’

‘Yes. We eventually became very close.’ She could not keep the pride out of her voice.

‘How often did you see him?’

‘After that first time, I left it about a fortnight. Then I rang Rendezvous and booked him again. By the end of August, we were meeting every week, usually on a Friday night. In the last two months, we must have averaged twice a week.’

‘Thank you. That’s very helpful. And you obviously feel that Mr Giles returned your feelings.’

‘I don’t feel, Mr Lambert, I know. Edward was a bit guarded at first, and I know I’m a little older than him — five years, if you really want to know — but he wanted to be with me.’

‘Permanently?’

‘Yes. We’d discussed it, but agreed there was no need to rush things. He’d had an unhappy marriage and been hurt by it. He had certain objections to divorce — he was born a Catholic, you know — but they weren’t insuperable.’

Lambert had the familiar regret that the dead man could not be here to answer for himself. The facts argued certain reservations on his part that Connie Elson was not confronting. Both of them were unattached. There was no reason why they should not have met more than once or twice a week. Had Giles been less willing to take this further than she supposed? Had he, at worst, been a man on the make with a rich divorcee, anxious for whatever he could take from the liaison without serious commitment to it? That might mean just easy sex, or more material things like money or presents. On the other hand, he might indeed have been as committed as she claimed, cautiously increasing his meetings with her as his damaged confidence and his attachment increased. From what they had learned of him in the school and elsewhere, Giles hadn’t seemed a diffident man, but men confident in a more public context could be uncertain in the more intimate world of the emotions. The difficulty with this sort of problem was that it was difficult to find third parties who had watched from the sidelines and could offer detached opinions on the degree of the man’s commitment.

Hook said, ‘We need to know where you were on the night of Saturday the tenth of November, Mrs Elson.’

‘When Ted was killed, you mean? You want to know where I was when poor Ted was murdered?’ There was a suggestion of hysteria to her voice now, but there were few people more fitted to calm a woman on edge than the stolid Bert Hook.

‘For elimination purposes. That is how we work, you see.’ He flicked over a page of his notebook.

‘Yes. Yes, of course I realise that. It’s just — just that I’ve never been involved in anything like this before, you see. Well, I was here, as it happens. Watched a little television. Had quite an early night, as a matter of fact. Read for an hour or so in bed.’ She was brittle, nervous in her delivery, as if she realised that it sounded a thin story.

‘And was anyone with you during the evening?’

‘No. No, I don’t think there was. I suppose that’s a nuisance, isn’t it?’

Hook didn’t reply. It was Lambert who said, It’s a nuisance for all of us, Mrs Elson, but no more than that. If you should think of anyone who could verify that you were here — someone who rang you and spoke to you during the evening, for instance — please let us know. When did you last see Edward Giles?’

He thought perhaps the abruptness of his question had shocked her. She looked disconcerted, even embarrassed for a good ten seconds. Then she said, ‘He was here on that Saturday afternoon. For three and a quarter hours.’ The precision spoke more of her involvement with him than any declaration she had made. ‘We talked about our plans. And — and we went in there and made love.’ She gestured towards the hall and her bedroom beyond it. ‘Ted had to go out in the evening, you see. He had a commitment with someone from the school.’

It was the first they had heard of that. Lambert was pretty sure from his team’s enquiries around the staff of Oldford Comprehensive that Giles had had no such meeting arranged. As he had expected, Constance Elson could give him no further details of anyone involved. He said, ‘What time did Mr Giles leave here?’

‘At quarter to six. I wanted him to stay for a meal, but he said he was running late.’

They would have to find where Giles had really gone on that Saturday night. Or had been intending to go: perhaps he had never got there.

They did have one set of facts, however, which were suggestive in themselves. They had the details of Ted Giles’s steady income from Rendezvous. Lambert, forcing himself to voice the name she had urged them to use, said, ‘Forgive me, Connie, but I must ask this. Did you go on paying Rendezvous to arrange your meetings with Mr Giles?’

Her face flushed and a jewelled hand flashed as it was lifted towards it. For a moment, he thought she would blaze out at him in temper. Then she dropped her fierce brown eyes to the carpet and said with forced control, ‘No. I paid for only three meetings: the first expedition to Cardiff and two more. After that, Edward said he enjoyed seeing me and we met as friends. We became lovers after about a month.’

Clearly it was all documented in her mind. The important thing from their point of view was that the payments from Rendezvous into Giles’s account at the Halifax had gone on until the time of his death. He had been seeing other women and been paid for his attentions. Had Connie Elson found out about this and been furious? Or had some other woman found out about her?

***

While Bert Hook was enjoying Connie Elson’s flapjacks, Aubrey Bass was tidying his flat.

His efforts would certainly not have met the exacting standards Ms Elson demanded from her staff. He ran the aged vacuum sketchily over those areas of the carpet that were not covered by furniture or discarded newspapers, gathered up four empty beer cans from beside his usual armchair, washed the saucepans which had accumulated over the last few days, and straightened the blankets and sheets on his bed.

Aubrey looked round the place without much satisfaction after his efforts and sighed heavily. Even to his biased eye, the flat didn’t look much like home. Women had their uses, however much of a nuisance they could be at times. But perhaps now he’d finished his labours he should change his shirt. He went and peered unenthusiastically at the drably coloured garments crumpled together in his washing basket beside the washer. Clean, these were: funny how the colours ran in the hot water —someone should warn people about that. He spied a once-white T-shirt which was now grey with a tinge of blue and pulled it over his head; Aubrey didn’t believe in ironing. The multiple creases eased themselves away as they stretched over his ample stomach, until the legend
Fulham for the Cup
again became legible.

Curious how a clean shirt made you itch, thought Aubrey. Perhaps it was something in the washing powder. He crossed his hands over his chest, scratched himself vigorously under both arms, turned to the racing page of the
Sun
, and sat down with his pencil. You couldn’t put off the serious work of the day for ever.