The Body of a Woman (21 page)

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Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: The Body of a Woman
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‘Almost.' Her voice was a whiplash.
‘Can you say more than that?'
She stalked about the room, flushed and tight-lipped. ‘Why now? Can't you wait a while? Why rush me? As for throwing yourself at the Bosnia thing, that's petty. Like threatening you'll walk under a bus if you don't have your own way. Petty and vicious.'
‘Paula, don't push me too far. Can't you see how difficult it would be for me in London, painstakingly building a criminal case, then watching you work to demolish it? It might not happen that way, but it could. That's why the Met's impossible for me. You've admitted it bugs you to win a case when you know the defendant's guilty as hell. So give up. Darling, come here and use your skills on the other side.'
‘The police side. You're wonderful, d'you know? - playing hard cop and soft cop with me, both at once.'
His reason ran out. He was breathing hard, towering over her. ‘A cop is what I am. It's the only thing I know how to be. And I'm bloody good at it. If you can't take it, you know what to do.'
She stared back as if he had hit her. Seconds ticked by, then she struggled to pull the ring off her finger. It landed on the supper table, rolled and fell to the floor. Without another word she turned, swept up her bag and left. Mott stood staring at the blank panels of the door.
 
In the CID office Beaumont was the only one remaining. Not dissatisfied with his own efforts over building up Knightley's amorous background, he was still weighing the possible outcome from Forensics on the cars.
When the call came the voice he heard was one he didn't
know. Young and uncertain at first, then displeased that Z wasn't to hand.
‘I'm afraid she's gone home. My name's Beaumont. I work alongside Zyczynski,' he told her. ‘We're partners.'
‘Well, would you tell her Chloe rang? Chloë Knightley. I've remembered something about the car that ran us down.'
‘That's great, Chloë. Can you tell me?'
‘Well, it was the front grill, the radiator. When I close my eyes I keep getting flashes of Hetty's body hitting the bonnet. And I see the grill's squarish chrome with that circle on top and a sort of three-pronged cross in it. It was a Mercedes. I'm sure of that now.'
He thanked her. She sounded relieved to have made the call. A Mercedes. Now where had he come across one just recently? He returned to the printouts and the word jumped out at him. From his own notes. He'd seen the car himself, parked round the back of Piggott's betting shop. And it was white. It had been facing the wall, so he hadn't observed the state of its front.
Piggott, of course, lived right next to the Knightleys. It wouldn't have been strange at all if he'd been sitting there Sunday night with the engine idling after Walter had returned it from being carted off and wheel-clamped.
But Pimm claimed he retrieved it on Monday. Which he might well have said if his boss had paid him to lie.
Sir Arthur Waites left the car by the colonnaded entrance, collected briefcase and
Evening Standard
from the passenger seat, and went into the silent house. A dim light reached the hall from a passage leading to the domestic quarters. He followed it and found the kitchen neon-lit with the dark-haired nurse seated at the large scrubbed table with her supper on a tray.
She looked up from an open book and smiled coolly
‘Evening, Nurse,' he said and, as ever, ‘How's your patient?'
‘Just the same, sir. She's settled down for the night.'
He nodded at the expected answer and went across to inspect the fridge's contents. It seemed well supplied. He supposed Piggott's heavies had stocked up. Which meant they would be staying over to set up the tables. He felt curiously flat about the prospect of tomorrow's gambling. Perhaps if he cared about money it would be different, but it was the way the numbers behaved that mattered to him. And at present so much gloom overshadowed a purely intellectual pleasure.
‘My son about?' he asked.
‘In his room, sir, watching the telly.'
‘Right.' Feeling dismissed, he left her to her supper and reading, returned to the hall, dumped briefcase and car keys, then mounted the stairs to check on Neil.
He found the boy half-dressed, sprawled in an easy chair facing the TV. Whether he'd been preparing for bed and given up, or had only just struggled into his underclothes and then lost energy for more, wasn't obvious. He was nocturnal much of the time now.
Cool air stirred the gauzy curtains at the open sash window. Beyond the dark cumulus of the garden's trees the
undulating Chilterns swelled to a clouded sky underlit in the distance with diffused orange from the motorway's sodium lamps.
After London's incessant rumble and hum the country always struck Waites at first as still. But not silent. There were minute rustlings and sighings, evidence of hidden night creatures and the slower pulse of rooted things growing. Only this house was paralysed, hopeless.
The screen that held Neil transfixed was dimly blue-lit, showing narrow inner-city alleys and dark warehouses with the glint of greasy water between. Feet were pounding on cobbles: flight and pursuit; hot breath panting.
Too much excitement for the young man. Waites reached for the remote control and selected another channel. Neil never stirred as the screen lit brilliantly for the end of
Crimewatch
. Nick Ross was gently recounting the details of an armed robbery some two months back in which a security guard had been clubbed to death.
‘And more recently,' he said, ‘Thames Valley Police want to know if anyone recognizes this dress. It's very unusual, made of fine silk chiffon and was worn by the murder victim found last Friday night in Shotters Wood, South Buckinghamshire. It has an Italian label, but the firm no longer exists. If anyone has seen such a dress, or if you saw the victim on the afternoon or evening of the same day, Friday July 2nd, please get in touch with our team here or ring 01865 846000 for Thames Valley Police. This was a particularly callous killing and the police are anxious to find the person responsible before he can repeat the crime. Finally, in West Yorkshire …'
Waites snapped off the remote control and the screen went blank. There was a little gasp of protest from Neil but his father took no notice, shocked to the core at the face he had seen flashed up: Leila, Knightley's wife, whom he'd chatted with not three weeks back at Carlton House Terrace.
Leila, dead? Murdered in a wood? Good God, how could
that be? She was so ordinary, so nice. Who in his right mind would want to harm such a woman?
‘Chloë,' Neil muttered.
‘What?'
But the young man shook his head, bemused. His father looked at him. It had taken little more than a year on drugs to make a zombie of him, ruining a promising career. Depriving him, Arthur, of the only member of his family left fully alive. Before Alice's accident he'd been dabbling in hash, as most kids did nowadays. But since then, away at college, he'd gone the whole hog, irretrievably damaging a fine brain. Yet another foul-up from that car crash which had left Alice shattered and his own life in ruins.
He was as much to blame himself because, cut off in private grieving, he'd given little thought to how his son was coping with the shock. Alice and their only child had been unusually close, although she had originally longed for a daughter to share her love for music and pretty things. She was so feminine herself that he'd once feared she'd make a milksop of the boy, petting him and encouraging him to play with her collection of dolls. Once even he'd come home and found the toddler Neil rigged out in a frilly pink frock and white socks.
He sighed. Even that, to grow into a cross-dresser, would have been better than this present wreck of a young man.
He looked down at the over-elegant, now emaciated, body sprawled in string vest and boxer shorts. The boy was running his fingers over his eyes in the habit he had when distressed. Waites put a hand on his shoulder in comfort but Neil shrugged it off.
‘I'm going for a shower,' Waites said. ‘When I've changed I'll see about something to eat. How's that, eh?' There was no answer, and he left Neil facing the darkened screen.
His own room was at the house's rear, so he knew nothing until Nurse Howe came running up and rapped on his
dressing-room door. ‘Sir Arthur, can you come, please? It's an emergency.'
In his bathrobe he opened up. ‘Alice? My wife?' he demanded sharply.
‘It's your son. He must have taken your car keys. There's been a slight smash. He's all right, I think, but I can't get him out on my own.'
He reached the front drive to find that Piggott's men were there before him and had the boy stretched out on the gravel. There was blood on his forehead and his eyes were closed. The car's bonnet was crushed against the brickwork of the archway to the gardens.
Nurse Howe had already collected the First-Aid box. Now she brought out a kitchen chair. Seated on that Neil opened his eyes, whimpering as she applied disinfectant swabs and taped the cuts. ‘It's not serious,' she said. ‘He can hardly have got the car moving when it hit the wall.'
‘Should we get him to X-ray?'
‘I shouldn't think we need to. But Dr Parrish, perhaps?'
‘Yes, of course. I'll ring her.' He turned to Ben and Walter. ‘Could you get him upstairs to his bed?'
The men exchanged glances. Walter hung back while Ben bent his huge frame and lifted Neil like a baby in his arms.
 
Dr Parrish was playing Bridge at Bix and unregretfully passed over her disappointing hand. She'd drawn an ineffectual but garrulous partner and was finding no pleasure in the rare evening out. It took only fifteen minutes to charge in her Mini through the empty country lanes to oblige Sir Arthur. When they went upstairs together they found Neil out of bed again and on his feet.
‘Say goodnight,' he insisted, and turned towards his mother's room. Dr Parrish regarded him keenly, then shrugged. They followed the young man and were joined by Nurse Howe at the top of the stairs.
Neil went ahead into Lady Waites' bedroom, bent over the
still form and laid his face against the cool cheek. She was quiet now. No more of those earlier snorts and throaty gurglings. He had done well to let her rest. Only the slightest pressure on her nostrils, and the heel of his hand over the closed mouth. She had barely noticed. More peaceful now, quite pretty again.
Dr Parrish walked to the other side of the bed, bent over and felt the woman's neck. ‘She's slipped away,' she said quietly. ‘Not entirely unexpected. I'm sorry, Arthur. It's fortunate you called me out for Neil. I'll drop by with the certificate tomorrow.'
She wouldn't stay for a drink and, having checked on Neil and declared him only in need of rest, she passed the open door of the drawing-room on her way out, noticing the tables set up for roulette and cards. One of the helpers - the burly one - saw her glance in and tried to cover the gap with his substantial body.
Interesting, she thought: so that's how the great mathematical brain relaxes. Rather more of a busman's holiday, to her mind.
She wondered who came here to play, and how much money passed through the house on these occasions. Arthur would do better to find less hazardous pastimes. Now that he was widowed like herself she might persuade him to take the Hellenic cruise she'd been considering off and on. There were a couple of suitable places where Neil could be well looked after temporarily, and an eye kept on what substances he was indulging in beyond the prescribed methadone.
Anything to get them both out of this dreary old house with its depressing background of tragedies. It was time it was pulled down and the land put to good use.
At the front door Waites stood tongue-tied for an instant. ‘There will be things to arrange,' she reminded him gently.
‘Yes, I suppose.' He frowned. ‘Doctor, you must have heard about Mrs Knightley. The murder, I mean.'
‘The woman over at Mardham, yes. It was in yesterday's papers. Did you know her?'
‘Slightly, through her husband. A thoroughly nice woman. I only heard tonight.'
‘I'm sorry, Arthur. So much happening to upset you all at once. They say bad things often come in threes.'
‘Threes?'
‘Yes. Hearing of the murder; your son's accident; now Alice. At least Neil's not badly hurt.'
‘I see. Yes. Threes.' He watched her get into her little car, reverse and drive off with a wave. Another nice woman, and she appeared to have some feelings towards numbers.
It was true what she said: the happenings seemed to make a set, even a sequence. But there was something that troubled him. He'd been hardly aware of it at the time but it came back now with startling clarity. The dress they'd shown on
Crimewatch
before flashing up Leila's photograph: the dress she'd been found dead in.
He knew it, had bought one like it some twenty-five years ago in Venice. On their honeymoon he'd had it made up for Alice from an Italian fabric she'd fallen in love with. And for sentimental reasons, he supposed, she'd never got rid of it; wore it on special anniversaries which they'd shared alone.
It was impossible, because Alice had chosen the style, so there should only have been the one. And yet he knew he wasn't mistaken. Hers must be here still, in one of her wardrobes.
He went back upstairs, passing Neil's room, the door of which stood wide open. This was unusual. He always shut himself in, hermetically. The boy waved a languid hand now from his chair as his father looked through. Sir Arthur nodded back and went on.
He spent a long time searching wardrobes in the room next to the one where Alice lay. There was such a crush of dresses, but not the one he was looking for. Some had dropped off their hangers and lay on the floor of the
cupboard, swirled into a sort of nest as though a large creature had crept in there for asylum. He knew who that must be.
The connections sprang into his mind. Alice's dress; Leila Knightley who, however unlikely, had acquired it; then - through Neil? But how would he ever have met her? He had a few young friends who still visited here, but surely no one of Leila's generation.
His mind swung back to Dr Parrish; her mentioning a threesome of bad news: what had happened to Alice, Neil, Leila. The same three, but in a separate connection.
He went into the next room and asked Nurse Howe to leave for a few minutes. Then he bent over the bed and searched the insides of his dead wife's arms for any sign of a puncture.
Nothing. It was all right. He'd imagined a horror that didn't exist. It had been an illogical leap of the mind. Alice had, as Dr Parrish - Nancy - said, just slipped away after prolonged, exhausting suffering. He felt ashamed of his suspicion, and immeasurably relieved.
 
Walter Pimm reversed the silver Mercedes from the crushed masonry and went round to survey the damage, brushing brickdust and cement rubble off the dented bonnet. Not too bad. Broken left headlamp, twisted grill, a few scratches. A couple of thousand to repair and repaint. Waites could afford that, and anyway they could try the insurance. No one need mention that the driver was debarred.
It could be fortunate in a way. He decided to make Waites an offer. He wouldn't after all want to swan around in the car the way it was. So, get it repaired for him and arrange a temporary substitute.
Simple enough. No pong of suspicion coming off it. Lucky they'd come out to set up the tables tonight for tomorrow's flutter. It gave him something to use to his advantage. And Piggott's. He'd have to call on Ben to help, but then Ben
already owed him one. By the time it was all worked out the boss would be in his debt forever.
Ben Carter sat in the shadowed angle below the staircase, worrying about Neil. For some reason he had always felt for him, perhaps because like himself the boy seemed so alone and everyone had given up on him.

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