No Place of Safety (12 page)

He turned to the narrow stairwell and went more slowly up the second flight and into Mouse's room. Again he was unsurprised as he surveyed the mingled bile and filth of the slogans decorating the walls. He soon took in the main drift of the filth, and he had, professionally, to wonder whether there was any truth in it, if there was an affair going on between Ben and Mehjabean. On the whole his instinct told him not. On the way downstairs he knocked at one of the bedroom doors on the first floor. Inside were Zak and Jezebel, in a clinch on a capacious armchair, with Queenie watching intently from behind the door and Pal incuriously stretching his length on the rug. He was much more interested in Charlie than the clinch, and made him welcome.

‘Was either of you in when the boy Mouse left earlier today?' Charlie asked.

‘Yeah,' said Zak. ‘I were.'

‘Did you talk to him?'

‘No, I just 'eard 'im. 'E cum down to this floor, then 'e waited an age, listening to Ben on the phone downstairs. Then 'e went down to the 'all, an' kicked summat on 'is way out. That was expected. That was Mouse. Vicious little
toe-rag. 'E's a rotten street beggar, because 'e looks so threatening.'

‘That's very useful. Thanks very much.'

And Charlie bounded down into the hall again, consulted his notebook, and took up the phone and dialled.

‘Mrs Ingram?'

 • • • 

When Randolph Ingram got home from a quiet couple of pints at the pub, his wife was sitting draped on the sofa, her red hair spread out like a rising sun around her. She had been at a Tory Party recruitment do, but she got up at once and made him his nightcap. This was usually a sign that she had something to communicate. When he was taking the first sip of his Horlicks she sat down again gracefully and said:

‘I've been thinking, Randolph – '

‘Mmmm?'

‘I think I'll go down and see Mother tomorrow for a few days.'

She didn't see his sceptically raised eyebrows.

‘Really, Alicia? I thought you'd more or less washed your hands of her. You said beyond a certain point there was nothing you could do, you couldn't be expected to throw your life away when she showed no gratitude, and the kindest thing you could do would be to leave the pair of them alone.'

Alicia sometimes wished her husband did not remember her words so accurately. It was almost as if he made notes.

‘I know, but in the end . . . I mean, Carol is quite hopeless as nurse, guardian, warden – whatever you call it – and since I get
no
news from her, I simply can't judge the situation, decide what is required. Let's face it, I just
don't know
how things are.'

‘I thought that was how you liked it.'

‘You
know
that's not true, Randolph.' She was getting a good colour up, matching her flaming hair. ‘I worry terribly! When someone's failing, and wilful, and frankly going funny . . .'

‘Your mother knows her own mind, and always has.'

‘She just won't acknowledge that other people may know what is best for her.'

‘It's something very few people will acknowledge.'

‘But if only Carol would – '

She was interrupted by the telephone. For the last few weeks it had been assumed in the Ingram household that telephone calls were for Alicia.

‘Leeds 2647936.'

‘Mrs Ingram?' A voice she didn't know. London-common she categorized it as in her mind.

‘Yes, speaking.'

‘This is DC Peace of the West Yorkshire Police.'

‘Oh, ye-e-es?'

‘I believe you telephoned us earlier this evening about the refuge for the homeless in Portland Terrace.'

There was a long pause. Randolph Ingram pricked up his ears. This had all the hallmarks of one of Alicia's best-laid plans ganging agley, which they pretty oft did.

‘I didn't give my name.'

It was an admission, without being an explicit admission. Alicia never had been good at owning up, preferring a genteel fudge.

‘No, you didn't give your name. Will you answer my question, Mrs Ingram?'

‘Well, yes, actually it was me. You see – '

‘Right, can you tell me, Mrs Ingram, who was the source of the information you gave us that there were drugs behind the chest of drawers on the first-floor landing at 24 Portland Terrace?'

‘Yes, I think I can tell you that,' said Alicia patronizingly, with a return of confidence. ‘I'd had a phone call earlier from a young man – he sounded young – who refused to give his name.'

‘Can you tell me anything about his voice? His accent for example?'

‘Oh, just working-class Yorkshire, I'd say. His voice? Well, not very pleasant. Harsh almost. He was trying to be friendly, but . . .'

‘But he didn't sound the friendly type. I see. Well, Mrs
Ingram, I'll need to ask you some questions about what happened earlier this evening at the refuge.'

‘Oh? Why?'

‘There's been an incident, a serious one. We'll call on you tomorrow.'

‘Quite impossible, I'm afraid. I shall be away the next two or three days.'

‘Mrs Ingram, this may well become a murder inquiry, and you witnessed, perhaps were involved in, a confrontation at the same address earlier in the evening. I would strongly advise you not to leave home until we have questioned you.'

‘Well, we'll have to see about that, won't we?' said Alicia, in her softest, most condescending tone, and she put the phone down. ‘Really, I don't know what the police are coming to. They've no respect any longer. And that was just a constable!'

‘I expect it's all the white-collar crime they come in contact with,' said her husband, comfortably smiling to himself. He had long ago categorized his wife in his mind as ambitious, mendacious, and not very bright. He tried not to let her realize the pleasure he took in her discomfiture and aborted plots. And so far she never had.

 • • • 

Mike Oddie was seeing the two young people for the first time. The Chief Inspector had arrived at number twenty-four a few minutes before, had been given a rough outline of what had happened by Charlie, and had decided that the first thing to do was to get the details of the assault absolutely clear.

‘Now, Ben Marchant and Midge – let's call her that, shall we? – had gone into the front room here to talk in private, is that right?' The two young heads nodded. ‘What were they talking about?'

‘The new situation, sir.' Mike's chief inspector status seemed to give him, in Alan's eyes, the sort of aura a senior schoolmaster would have. ‘Whether the fact that both her father and Mr Siddiq said that they'd given up the idea of marriage for her really changed things.'

‘Ben had talked to DC Peace about that earlier, I gather,' said Mike, looking round at Charlie, who nodded.

‘We both agreed that caution was necessary.'

‘I'm sure Midge would have gone along with that,' said Katy.

‘Right. Now let's come to the attack. How long had Ben and Midge been talking?'

‘About ten minutes maybe,' Alan said.

‘No more than fifteen, anyway,' said Katy.

‘And where were you both?'

‘I was in here, watching
Soldier, Soldier
,' said Alan.

‘And I was upstairs in my room reading.'

‘So tell me exactly what happened – Alan first.'

Alan swallowed hard.

‘There was this scream, then another. I thought for a moment it was on the television. They were in this deserted barracks, and I thought . . . Anyway, it only took a second or two to realize it was coming through the wall, and then I was terrified. I got up, rushed through – '

‘Hold on a bit. When you got to the hall, was it empty?'

‘Yes.' Alan stopped, forehead furrowed. ‘It was empty, but as I was opening the door to the back room here, I think I heard the front door shutting.'

‘I think so too,' said Katy. ‘I was on the landing, and you can't see the front door – the ceiling of the ground floor is very high, as you can see, and the stairs are steep – but I think I heard it shut.'

‘Right. And you went into the front room, and – what?'

‘And Midge was screaming in pain and holding her cheek, and Ben was in her lap, retching and bleeding from the throat and – ' Alan put his face in his hands at the memory. ‘It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen.'

Oddie let that subject go. They could probably get as much as they needed from Midge, eventually. He took them back over the day, taking in the phone call from Mrs Ingram, which Ben had told them about, the departure of Mouse, and then the visits of Mr Siddiq and Mrs Ingram.

‘Could you see Mr Siddiq well?' Oddie asked Alan.

‘Oh yes. Ben was on one side of the doorway, Zak and Pal on the other, and I was between them.'

‘What was your impression of him?'

‘I don't know . . . He seemed to be
trying
to be nice . . . I could see why Midge didn't like him – not just as a husband, I mean, but as a man.'

‘Would you say that there was violence there, under the surface?'

Alan looked uncertain.

‘No, I wouldn't want to say that. I wouldn't want to judge him like that . . . But there was something . . . A sort of frustration, I think.'

‘Good – I see. Do you think it was frustration that he wasn't getting his own way?'

‘Yes. I think he was used to getting it. Ben stopped him seeing Midge. But if all he wanted was to say the marriage was off, he didn't have to talk to her, did he?'

‘No. And while this confrontation was going on, Mrs Ingram arrived, didn't she?'

‘Yes. I didn't see her till she was at the gate. I didn't know who she was, because I'd never seen her before, but I guessed.'

‘How?'

‘Well, just because she looked very middle class, and was coming here. You wouldn't see many people dressed like that around here. And then because she seemed sort of pleased.'

‘Pleased that there was a row going on?'

‘Yes. Chuffed.'

‘What did she actually do?'

Alan turned to Katy.

‘I can't remember the exact words, can you?'

‘I was way back. I could hardly hear.'

‘It was something about having come at an inconvenient time. One of those phrases, said sort of snootily . . . And then there was something funny . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘She said she'd come back when things were more – and then she paused, and eventually said “normal”. And I got this odd idea – ' Oddie and Charlie waited, while he sorted
his ideas out – ‘this odd idea that she hadn't paused because she was searching for a word, like we all do, but because she was disconcerted for a moment by something she'd seen.'

‘What could that be?'

Alan looked down, as if embarrassed, and afraid he was talking nonsense.

‘Well, maybe some
one
she'd seen. Someone standing in the doorway, for example. It's just an idea.'

It was nearly eleven at night before they were able to talk to Midge. Constable Ryder, who had gone with her, phoned to say that she had been sewn up, was stable and quite calm and wanted to speak to them. They certainly wanted to talk to her. They left WPC Gould at the Centre, with three other uniformed policemen who had been drafted in, to get the preliminary questioning of the inmates of both houses properly under way.

At the hospital they were told that Ben Marchant was still in the operating theatre, so there was nothing to be done in that quarter. One of the locums they talked to shook his head.

‘It's touch and go. He was only saved by being brought here so quickly. You won't be talking to him for a while. Better count on it being a long while.'

But when they had talked to Midge they wondered just how much Ben would be able to tell them.

Midge had been heavily bandaged over the stitches. The bits that they could see looked very beautiful, but very fragile too, and they wondered about the bits of her face they could not see, and whether the scars would be permanent. Talking was a little easier for her now, though far from pain-free. Charlie sat on her bed and Oddie on the chair beside it, and PC Ryder stood just outside the curtains of her cubicle, keeping an eye on all the comings and goings in a large hospital's accident and emergency unit.

‘Is Ben all right?' Midge asked.

‘He's still in the operating theatre,' Oddie replied. ‘The doctor said it's pretty serious.'

Midge nodded, then winced.

‘I knew. I knew when I was holding him that he might die. It's awful. He was doing so much good.'

‘You'd been discussing whether you should go back to your family, hadn't you?'

‘Yes.' Midge stopped herself nodding again. ‘Not much to discuss, really. We agreed I should be cautious.'