Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

Chapter 28

A BOY DELIVERING papers found Eileen Dring’s body at six forty-five on Sunday morning. He was just sixteen and it gave him a bad shock. The body was still on the seat where Eileen Dring had settled for the night. But for the blood that had soaked through her clothes and the blanket with which she had covered herself, she would have seemed asleep. Perhaps she had been stabbed in her sleep and had known nothing about it.

The police knew her. There were no problems of identification. For several years she had had a room in Jakarta Road off Mill Lane in West Hampstead, paid for by Camden Council, but she had seldom lived in it, preferring to wander the streets and sleep out of doors, at least in summer. Kilburn and Maida Vale and Paddington Recreation Ground were among her haunts. They had never known her to come as far west as this. But Eileen was known to love flowers and had once been observed sleeping in the doorway of an empty building that had formerly been a bank, on the corner of Maida Vale and Clifton Road. It happened to be very close to where the flower and plant seller would pitch his stall in the morning, and perhaps she’d chosen it in anticipation of waking up to the scent of carnations and roses in the morning. The site of her death, the seat on which she was lying, was just in front of a crescent-shaped flower bed, at present red, white, and pink with geraniums, among which lay the detritus of meals and drinks consumed on the street.

It took only a short time to establish that the knife used to stab her was very similar to the one that killed Jeffrey Leach. Similar but not identical. Possibly one of a pair bought at the same time. So advanced are forensics by now that investigators can tell precisely the shape and size of a weapon used in these circumstances, the nicks, if any, on its blade, any minuscule unevenness in that blade’s surface, for a knife itself is unique. So they knew it wasn’t the knife but its twin.

The motive for the killing of Jeffrey Leach remained obscure but the motive for this one at first seemed transparent. The holdall Eileen carried with her, which lay under her head, usually held a blanket and a cardigan and scarf, a can of fizzy drink-she was strictly teetotal-a sandwich or two as well as her pension book. It was empty. There should also have been money, for Eileen had drawn two weeks’ pension the day before and had spent only a little of it on the food and drink. Does anyone do murder for £140? Violent Crimes knows it’s done for half that, for a quarter; it’s done for the price of ten grams of cannabis.

On the other hand, they were sure Eileen was the victim of Jeffrey Leach’s killer and the question of financial profit hadn’t entered into that. So were there any links between the two victims apart from the close similarity of the weapons used? How about West Hampstead?

Leach had been living there for the six months prior to his death. Jakarta Road was two streets away from Holmdale Road, running parallel to it but linked by a cross street, Athena Road. Although they were yet to discover whether Eileen had ever frequented Holmdale, West Hampstead police-the police station was in Fortune Green Road-knew Athena Road to be a favorite pitch of hers. Twice they’d moved her on when she’d been found sleeping on someone’s front lawn between the flower borders. Had she tried the same experiment in camping in the gardens of Holmdale Road?

Sunday had passed without Jims addressing a word to her. He stayed at home, but in silence. It was as if he’d lost the use of his tongue. Zillah wouldn’t have believed until she experienced it that anyone could behave like that, not simply not speaking, but acting as if he were alone in the place. The children and she might have been inanimate objects or pieces of furniture for all the notice he took of them. It was as if they had become inaudible and invisible, and she’d hardly have been surprised if, seeking a chair to settle himself into, he’d sat on one of them or on her.

This policy of ignoring them made her, against her will and determination, conciliatory toward him. She prepared quite a nice lunch of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon with a salad, offered him the dishes, poured him a glass of wine. He took no notice of any of it but went to the kitchen, returning with a sandwich he’d made himself and beer which he drank out of the can. She found herself looking wistfully at him and forced her head to turn away. The afternoon he spent at his desk, apparently writing letters. She couldn’t help thinking that if only he’d been of a different sexual orientation she could have won him over, seduced him, charmed him, but if he’d been different she knew very well she wouldn’t have been with him in the first place.

At about five Moon and Stars Television rang. Eugenie answered and gave the response she always did if Zillah failed to get to the phone first.

“She’s not available.”

Zillah snatched the receiver from her. The woman at the other end wanted to say that they were afraid they couldn’t send a car in the morning after all. Of course she could still come under her own steam if she liked. Zillah, sensing she was no longer the attraction she once had been, thought she did like, though she was longer quite sure. At any rate, she agreed. It would mean getting up at five-thirty in the morning but it would be worth it. She could charm them, she could bewitch her audience. The phone rang again almost immediately. It was the cleaner from number nine to say she couldn’t manage babysitting in the morning after all.

Zillah looked at Jims. He appeared to be signing his letters. She was afraid to ask him. She’d just leave the children in the flat. After all, he’d be there, and with luck no one would wake up until she was back home again. Eugenie wouldn’t leave her brother to scream, would she?

Jims turned on the television news at five thirty-five, sat inscrutably through items about floods in Gujarat, ongoing strife in Zimbabwe, and the murder of an old woman in Kensal Green, before seeing himself scarlet-faced, then sheltering his flush behind his briefcase, as he emerged from the front door of Fredington Crucis House. The children watched it and so did Zillah, occasionally turning her eyes to cast fearful glances in Jims’s direction. He wasn’t blushing now but had become even whiter. The pictures weren’t new, they’d appeared the evening before, but now they were followed by comments from all sorts of Party dignitaries including the chairman of the South Wessex Conservatives who said stoutly that he had complete confidence in Mr. Melcombe-Smith and in his shortly being able to give clear replies to all the questions that still remained unanswered.

“Why is my stepfather on the TV?” asked Eugenie.

No one answered her. The phone rang, Jims answered it, put the receiver back without a word, and pulled out the plug. Unnerved, Zillah went into her bedroom, taking the children with her. Jordan had begun to whimper.

She dressed with great care. If real work came out of this interview, if it led to celebrity and getting her own television show, she wouldn’t have to leave London and go back to Willow Cottage. Jims had said, in a nasty sarcastic tone-on Saturday night, when he’d still had a tongue-that she’d like the cottage very much now, the new decorations made all the difference. “Especially the lovely contemporary fitted kitchen,” he’d added, as if that kind of language were habitual with her. But she wouldn’t like it and wild horses would have to drag her there.

She put on her favorite white suit with a coral red shirt because she’d heard that bright colors do best on television. Would they make her up or expect her to have done it herself? Zillah couldn’t contemplate going out into the street in London without makeup on. Long Fredington was another matter and the very thought of it made her shiver. Once she was back from Moon and Stars and had taken Jordan to the child psychiatrist, she’d find herself a solicitor and see what could be done to force Jims out of the flat. Something must be possible.

It was pouring rain. She’d left the flat on tiptoe, putting her key in the lock to close the door silently. She couldn’t go back for a raincoat or an umbrella. Fearing for her hair and her flimsy shoes, she tried to shelter under an overhanging portico while hailing a taxi but the result of this was that other people got there before her. She had to come out and get wet. The cab driver who finally stopped grinned at her rats’-tail hair.

But Zillah soon discovered that she need not have worried. Another woman going on the program looked, in her tracksuit and unmade-up state, as if she’d just got out of bed. The makeup department dealt with all that, dried Zillah’s hair, cleaned her shoes, redid her face. The other woman told her confidingly that she’d been appearing on shows of this kind for years. She’d go along wearing laddered tights, knowing they’d give her a new pair. Zillah was shocked but delighted to learn these tricks of the trade. She’d begun to feel a lot better.

But when the program began and she was able to watch it, sitting with the other interviewees-to-be in a waiting room, she realized something she must have been told but that hadn’t sunk in. It was live. There would be no rehearsal, no preparation, and no chance to say she hadn’t meant that, cut that, please, or can we go back? The questions were very searching and even the inexperienced could tell they weren’t kind. A young man, who looked very young, put his head round the door and beckoned to the tights woman. She would be the next-Zillah found herself using the word “victim.”

It was a strange feeling watching the screen and seeing her walk onto the set. Zillah suddenly felt naive and rather helpless. The woman, whom she hadn’t recognized, turned out to be a pop singer of the seventies trying to make a comeback. The presenter, an ugly man with a beard and the rasping voice that had made him famous, asked her if she didn’t think she was “a bit over the hill” for what she had in mind. She wasn’t exactly Posh Spice, was she? Maybe she’d like to sing for them now. They’d an accompanist on hand. The singer answered the questions bravely and sang not very well. While she was singing the young man came back and beckoned to the teenage boy who was there because he’d got into Oxford at the age of fifteen. Zillah would be the last.

“They always save the best till last,” said a girl who’d come in to see if she wanted more coffee or orange juice.

After the singer came a woman reading the news, then a weather forecast, then advertising of the programs for the day ahead. She thought the singer might come back but she didn’t. The boy came on and was interviewed by a kindly woman presenter who treated him as if he’d won the Nobel Prize. Zillah had been told that the man with the rasping voice would be talking to her but she found herself hoping that plans had changed and she might get this woman who was now telling the boy that his family must be enormously proud of him. And he wasn’t even very good, but shy and tongue-tied.

Zillah was called. The girl who’d inquired about coffee and orange juice led her along one passage and then another and onto the edge of what seemed like theater-in-the-round, a circular platform, partly screened and curtained, thick with cameramen and soundmen and electricians. The brightly lit area she’d seen on the screen could just be seen in the center.

“When I give you a sign, I’ll lift my finger like this,” whispered the girl, “you walk on from here and sit in that chair opposite Sebastian. Okay?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” said Zillah loudly.

Everyone in her vicinity turned and shushed her, fingers on lips. Such confidence as she had left began to ebb. Her heels were too high, she knew that now. Suppose she tripped? The boy genius came off and so did the kindly woman interviewer. The man called Sebastian told viewers they were now to expect the guest of the day, Zillah Melcombe-Smith, bigamist wife-or was she?-of the disgraced MP James Melcombe-Smith, and widow-or was she?-of the Cinema Slayer’s victim. Zillah suddenly felt very cold. That kind of introduction wasn’t at all what she’d expected. But the girl who’d brought her here was holding up one finger, so she had no option but to set off on what seemed like the longest and slowest walk of her life to the chair opposite Sebastian.

He stared at her as if she were something peculiar in a zoo, an okapi or echidna. “Welcome to A Bite of Breakfast, Zillah,” he said. “Tell us what it feels like to be a widow, a wife, and a bigamist all at once. It can’t happen to many women, d’you think?”

Zillah said, “No,” and, “No, it can’t,” but could think of nothing else.

“Well, let’s start with the bigamy, shall we? Maybe you’re one of those people who don’t approve of divorce. A Catholic, are you?”

Her voice came out thin and hoarse. “I’m not.” Suppose her mother was watching! She’d only just thought of that. “My husband-my first husband said we were divorced. And my husband-my present husband, I mean-he said I was.” Whatever she didn’t do, she had to stick to that. “I thought I was divorced.”

“But when you married James in the House of Commons Chapel”-the way he said it made it sound like St. Peter’s in Rome-“you told the vicar you were single. A single girl and fancy free, that was about it, wasn’t it?”

Why had no one picked on that till now? Her tone trembled: “James…James thought it best. James said…I didn’t know I was doing wrong. I thought I…I…”

“Well, never mind. It all came right for a while with your first husband’s tragic death in the cinema. A terrible thing, of course, but in some ways it happened at just the right time. What was your reaction?”

Her reaction in the here and now was to burst into tears. She couldn’t help it. She felt driven into a corner from which the only escape was to be led away to prison. Falling forward, anything to stop looking into his awful bearded face, she put her head on her knees and sobbed. What he was doing, saying, what all those cameramen and soundmen were doing, she didn’t know. She felt a touch on her shoulder, jerked up, put her head back, and howled. The kindly woman presenter took her arm, helped her up. She couldn’t really tell because of the beard, but Sebastian seemed to be smiling. Behind her, she heard him say something for the benefit of viewers about her being overcome with grief. Still on camera, she did what she’d feared to do, tripped and nearly fell over. As she left the set, crying and limping, a cameraman whispered, “Great television. It’s what presenters dream of.”

That program was really the end of the battle for Zillah. She went back to Abbey Gardens Mansions in a cab. It was still only nine o’clock. The children were watching television and she recognized the same channel as that on which she’d just appeared.

“Did you do that on purpose?” asked Eugenie. “That crying and falling over?”

“Of course I didn’t. I was upset.”

“When he said about your first husband’s tragic death, what did he mean?”

Zillah had never thought about that, about the children watching the program and in this way, this terrible way, learning about their father’s death. Looking into Eugenie’s beautiful, troubled, reproachful face, she could tell that the child knew, but still she couldn’t answer her. Not now, not in the midst of all she was going through.

“That’s why we never see him,” said Eugenie.

“I’ll tell you later, I promise I will.”

“Your mascara has run all down your face.”

Zillah said she was going to wash. “Where’s Jims?”

“In bed. He didn’t go out and leave us alone, if that’s what you think.”

She wanted to tell the child not to speak to her like that, but she was afraid. It was a dreadful admission to make, that she was afraid of her own seven-year-old daughter. Nevertheless, it was true. How would it be when Eugenie was a teenager? She would be able to do exactly as she liked with her mother, she would rule the place. Willow Cottage, Long Fredington, Dorset. Zillah realized she was resigned to returning there. Consulting lawyers was no longer feasible. Jordan was crying again. He’d probably been crying since before she came in and while she was talking to Eugenie, but she hadn’t even noticed, she was so used to it by now. They were due at the child psychiatrist’s in an hour’s time.

“We’ve never even seen her,” Michelle said indignantly. “We don’t know who you mean. We’ve never had an old homeless woman sleeping in our front garden.”

“Not homeless, Michelle,” said Violent Crimes. “She had a home. That’s the point. Her home was in Jakarta Road. What about you, Matthew? Do you remember her?”

Matthew had been writing his column when they came. They hadn’t phoned first. The thought was inescapable that they had hoped to catch the Jarveys unawares. Plotting their next crime perhaps or disposing of the weapon. “I am old-fashioned,” he said, “but I would prefer you not to call my wife and me by our Christian names. You didn’t when you first spoke to us, so I can only think that since then, for some reason, we’ve forfeited your respect.”

Violent Crimes stared. “Well, if you feel like that, of course. Most clients say it establishes a friendlier relationship.”

“But we’re not clients, are we? We’re suspects. In answer to your question, I don’t remember Mrs. Dring. To my knowledge, I’ve never seen her. Now will that do?”

“We’d like to search this house.”

Michelle shouted, “No!” before she knew what she was saying.

“We can get a warrant, Mrs. Jarvey. All your refusal does is delay things.”

“If my wife will agree,” said Matthew wearily, “I will.”

Michelle shrugged, then nodded. From believing, a week ago, that no one could suppose a couple like themselves guilty of violence, she had come to understand, only too easily, how Violent Crimes must see her and Matthew. Already she could imagine their photographs, their rogues’ gallery death-row portraits, in some true-crimes collection of the future. A sinister pair, he cadaverously thin with the skull-like face of an Eichmann or a Christie, a man who purposely starved himself and made a living out of writing about anorexics, she a waddling tub of lard with a deceptively pretty face sunk in pillows of fat. It made no difference to this picture Michelle had of herself, and the husband she adored, that since he embarked on his television program he’d been steadily eating a little more every day and that she had done no more than nibble at a piece of fruit or a slice of chicken since the investigation began. She still saw them as grotesque.

The searching began. Four officers worked over the house. They didn’t say what they were looking for and neither of the Jarveys would condescend to ask. After the early rain the day had become warm and sunny. They went out into their garden, which, front and back, was no more than a lawn surrounded by flowerless shrubs, sat on the swing seat, silent but holding hands. Both were thinking of Fiona.

Their neighbor had gone off to work at eight-thirty as usual. Carefree was how Michelle saw her, for though she and Matthew had fallen in love at first sight, she found it hard to believe in the passion Fiona claimed to have had for a man she’d known for such a short time. And such a man! She’d gone off to work, no doubt making money hand over fist for herself and her clients, with never a thought for the people she professed to be her friends but whom she’d made the police suspect. She must have more money than she knew what to do with if she was talking, as she had last time they saw her, of compensating two of those women of Jeffrey Leach’s for what they’d lost through him. Michelle no longer believed she was sorry for what she’d done. She wouldn’t have put it past Fiona, once she’d seen of the murder of Eileen Dring on television last night, to have phoned the police and told them the Jarveys had known the dead woman. Wasn’t it rather too much of a coincidence that they’d known both murder victims?

They went indoors again after the search was over. Of course, nothing incriminating had been found. But, “We shall be in touch,” Violent Crimes said. “We shall want to talk to you again.”

Michelle felt as some people do after their homes have been burgled. Not just an intrusion but a violation, a desecration. She imagined the officers going through her underwear drawers, sniggering at the size of her bras and panties. Finding those X rays of Matthew’s spine and pelvis, which had been taken when a specialist suspected his bones were becoming brittle. Marveling and exchanging amused glances over their wedding photograph album. She’d never feel the same about her house again. She and Matthew had begun their married life there in such an ecstasy of joy and hope. In the kitchen she began to prepare his lunch. For herself, she felt less like eating than ever.

He came out to her. “I love you.”

“I love you too, darling,” she said. “Nothing makes any difference to that.”

“Thanks,” said Jims, “that’s very kind of you.”

He’d been astonished when Eugenie brought him a cup of coffee in bed. It wasn’t very good, being made from less-than-boiling water, instant coffee, and dried milk. Nevertheless he was touched and vague thoughts fluttered through his mind of how, had things turned out differently, he and his stepdaughter might one day have become friends. At least, unlike her mother, she had a brain.

“She’s gone to do some interview,” said Eugenie.

“So what’s new?”

Eugenie laughed and then, to his surprise, so did he. And there he’d been thinking he’d never smile again. So Zillah had gone out-no doubt to bad-mouth him-leaving him to look after her kids without first asking him. And he’d do it. He hadn’t much choice. It would be the last time.

He heard her come back. Because he’d known her so long, he could tell from the way she shut the front door and walked across the hall what kind of a mood she was in. A desperate one, by the sound of it. He lay in bed for a further half-hour, then got up and had a bath, a long, hot soak. Where she was going with the kids this time he neither knew nor cared, but he waited until the door had closed and he heard the lift move before emerging into the living room. He had dressed with care, but then he always did. What sort of a mess had he got himself into that he was being driven out of his own home by that woman?

He walked for a while. It was a beautiful day now, the rain clouds swept away by a high wind, which had since dropped, and the sun had come out. He found himself in South Kensington outside the Launceston Place restaurant where they were happy to let him lunch, though he hadn’t booked. His thoughts drifted from Zillah to Sir Ronald Grasmere and the terms they had agreed on for Willow Cottage, then to Leonardo. Jims hoped he’d been unable to get a taxi and been forced to walk to Casterbridge, that the train had been canceled or that weekend works on the line had necessitated part of the journey being made by bus.

A cab took him back and Big Ben showed twenty minutes past two as he went into the Commons by way of Westminster Hall.

Two messages awaited him. The one from the leader of the Opposition was peremptory and cold. No messing, thought Jims. He’d see him at three sharp. It was a command. The chief whip’s message was couched in rather more wistful terms. Would Jims like to come and “meet with him”-why did even his own party use this awful language?-in his office for a predinner drink and review of “the situation”? Jims threw both into a wastepaper bin and, drawing in his breath, remembering how he’d confronted the press on Saturday morning, he strolled into the Commons Chamber.

All eyes were immediately on him. He had known it would be so and was careful to meet no one’s gaze. Two members sat near where he always sat, on the second from the back of the back benches. With assumed nonchalance, though his heart was pounding, he moved to sit between them. One ignored him. The other, whom Jims of course knew but whom he’d never thought of with anything like friendship, leaned across and gave him a small fatherly pat on the knee. It was so unexpected and so bloody kind that Jims, grinning at him and saying, “Thanks,” felt something happen that hadn’t occurred for twenty years. Tears came into his eyes.

They never fell. Jims didn’t give them the chance. He remained in the Chamber for twenty minutes, apparently listening but in fact hearing nothing, and then he rose to his feet, looked one by one at such members as were present, then at the Speaker (“We who are about to die salute you!”), and walked toward the door. There he paused and looked back. He would never see this sight again. It was already receding into his past, like the fading memory of a dream.

The central lobby was almost empty. Yesterday he had sent his resignation to the chairman of the parliamentary Conservative party and his relinquishment of the whip to the chief whip. There was nothing to stay for except one small consultation. A member who’d been in here for forty years and who knew all about procedure was expecting him in his office with helpful hints on ceasing to be a member. It couldn’t be done as easily as leaving the party.

“The Chiltern Hundreds,” said Jims.

“Pity about that, old man, but it’s taken. You remember-well, a little contretemps in the matter of the former member for…”

“Oh, yes,” Jims cut in. “Pederasty, wasn’t it?”

“Possibly. I try to put a distance between myself and that kind of thing.”

“There must be other offices of profit under the crown. What about the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports?”

“I’m afraid His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has that.”

“Of course.”

A ledger was consulted. “There’s the stewardship of the Tolpuddle Marshes. It carries a nominal annual stipend of fifty-two pence and acceptance of it would of course disqualify you from membership of the House of Commons.”

“Sounds perfect,” said Jims. “I’ve always wanted to have my say in the fate of the Tolpuddle Marshes. Where exactly are they? Wales, isn’t it?”

“No, actually it’s Dorset.”

The aged member afterward remarked to a crony of his that Melcombe-Smith had laughed so much he was quite concerned, supposing that the shock of the wretched man’s recent experiences was bringing on some kind of breakdown.

Jims wasn’t going to hang around for any scoldings, reproaches, or impertinent inquiries. He walked out into New Palace Yard as Big Ben struck twice for three-thirty, an awesome sound to which, for the first time in years, he gave his full attention. The afternoon was beautiful-sunny and hot. What should he do now?

The child psychiatrist told Zillah he was also a doctor of medicine. She didn’t know why he bothered, she hadn’t brought Jordan all the way to Wimpole Street because he had a sore throat. Jordan hadn’t stopped crying since they got into the taxi. Just before they left he’d been sick. It wasn’t surprising, she thought and told the psychiatrist, that a child who was always crying should also be frequently vomiting. Eugenie, who had to come because there was no one to look after her at home, sat on a chair in the consulting room, wearing the wry and cynical expression of a disillusioned woman six times her age.

When he’d talked to Jordan, or tried to, the psychiatrist said he’d like to give him a perfunctory physical examination. Zillah, who was nothing if not a child of her times and was in a nervous state anyway, immediately envisaged sexual abuse, but she nodded miserably. Jordan was stripped and examined.

It took two minutes for the psychiatrist to sit him up, give him a pat on the shoulder, and covering him with a blanket, say to Zillah, “This child has a hernia. Of course you must have a second opinion but I’d be very surprised if that’s not what’s wrong with him. And another may be forming on the other side.” He gave her what she interpreted as a nasty look. “If he’s been crying and vomiting he’s had it for a long time. Pain doesn’t start until the hernia’s reached a critical stage. It may even be strangulated.”

In newspapers a tremendous story is always followed by a period of anticlimax. The tension cannot be sustained. Some cataclysmic revelation has burst upon the world and there can be follow-ups, but sometimes these are unusable, due to the principal being dead or due to appear in court or missing. But something must be found to fill the gap between the shock and triumph and the next amazing journalistic coup. Natalie had outed Jims and ruptured his discretion, but was chary of writing much more about him while he seemed to be suspected of Jeff Leach’s murder. The time had come to produce a history of Jeff’s life, a catalogue of his women. So far only his wife and the woman he was living with had been publicly named. A stunning move might be to acknowledge that she herself had been among his lovers. She had no inhibitions at all about doing this, and her boyfriend was as hardheaded about things as she. But who else should feature in her story?

She had often thought of “the funny little thing” he had mentioned at lunch the last time they’d met, a woman with a peculiar name. The more Natalie thought about her, the more she remembered. He called her Polo and she lived near Kensal Green Cemetery. It might be a good idea to hunt this woman down. An interview with Fiona Harrington was a must and maybe another with Natalie’s own predecessor. She knew very well that hadn’t been Jeff’s ex-wife but a woman called-she tried for a while to remember her name. It would come back to her. Jeff had talked of her frequently enough, and mostly with bitterness, while he and she were together.

A restaurateur? A doctor? The chief executive of some agency or charity? She’d let her memories of Jeff’s references to this woman and the few sentences he’d spoken about “Polo” lie at the back of her mind. There was no hurry. One day soon she’d delve down into the jumble in there and maybe some interesting things would come to the surface.