Where There's Smoke

CHAPTER 14

The police took her to her flat. They asked for a photograph of Alex. The only one she had was from their picnic at Cambridge, when the Japanese man had taken one of them both together. Alex had mounted it in a clip-frame and given it to her a few days later, a little nervous but obviously pleased about making a gift of it. Kate looked at the colour print before handing it over to the Inspector. She and Alex stood side by side, smiling self-consciously at the camera. Behind them was the river, a corner of the punt just visible under an overhanging willow. They looked tanned and happy.

She watched Collins put the photograph into his overcoat pocket. “I will get it back, won’t I?”

“Just as soon as we’ve finished with it.”

The policemen left. They had offered to take her back to the office, but she had declined. She needed time alone. The relief she’d felt at discovering it wasn’t Alex’s body had been replaced by reaction, and now she felt drained.

She called Clive to tell him that she wouldn’t be in. He had made no comment when she had left with the police, but she had seen the concern in his face. It was in his voice now, when he asked, “I know it isn’t any of my business, but is everything okay?”

She began to formulate a polite response, then abandoned the attempt. “No, not really.”

“Is it anything I can help with?”

“Thanks, but no, I don’t think it is.”

He didn’t speak for a second or two. “Let me know if you want to talk about it.”

She said she would and rang off. She stood in the hall for a while. There seemed no particular reason to go into either the lounge or the kitchen. Finally, with the vague idea of making something to eat, she went into the kitchen.

Without bothering to see what flavour it was, she took out a tin of soup from one of the wall cupboards. It was only when she looked for a saucepan that she remembered they were still on the cooker from the night before.

Kate stared down at the cold vegetables, and then grabbed the pans and tipped them down the sink. The potatoes had dissolved into the water. It formed a scummy tidemark on the stainless steel. She scooped out the congealed lumps that were too big to drain down the plughole and dumped them into the bin, then turned on the tap and rinsed the sink sides.

Leaving the water running, she pulled open the oven door and pulled out the foil-wrapped salmon, dropping that into the bin too.

The water had begun to run hot. Kate squirted washing-up liquid onto the saucepans and scoured them until her arms ached. When they were dripping on the draining rack, she looked around for something else. She took the heavy metal frames from around the gas rings and plunged them into the soapy water. Then she started on the cooker itself.

Her confusion was like dark water under thin ice. Only by moving could she hope to keep from plunging through, so she scrubbed and wiped and polished, moving from the kitchen to the bathroom, then down the hall to the lounge. She was vacuuming the lounge carpet when the doorbell rang.

The sound was thin and reedy over the howl of the cleaner. Kate froze, then switched it off. The doorbell rang again as it whined into silence. She flew into the hall and down the stairs, but the hope sagged out of her when she saw two figures through the stained-glass panel.

The Inspector’s bulk filled the top step when she opened the front door. This time he had a uniformed policewoman with him. “Sorry to bother you again. Miss Powell. Can we come in?”

Kate led them upstairs into the lounge. They picked their way around the vacuum cleaner and sat down. All three sat on the edge of their seats. Collins told Kate the policewoman’s name, but it made no impression. She wouldn’t think about why he might have brought a woman officer with him this time.

The Inspector sat with his meaty hands dangling between his legs. His stomach pushed out towards his knees.

“There’ve been some further developments,” he said.

Kate couldn’t wait any longer. “Have you found him?”

There was a minute hesitation. “No. No, not yet. But after you failed to identify the body, we took one of Dr Turner’s colleagues to the mortuary. We thought there was a chance he might recognise the dead man as a patient.”

He rubbed his hands slowly together. They made a dry, rasping noise. “He positively identified him as Alex Turner.”

Kate looked at him, blankly. “He can’t have.”

Collins locked his hands together, as though to keep from rubbing them any more. “He’s known Dr Turner for ten years. He wasn’t in any doubt.”

“I don’t care how long he’d known him, that wasn’t Alex! For God’s sake, don’t you think I’d have recognised him if it was? You’ve only got to look at the photograph to see it was nothing like him!”

The Inspector took the photograph out of his jacket pocket. “Actually, we showed this to Dr Turner’s colleague. I’m afraid he didn’t recognise the man in it.”

She felt the dark water seeping up around her. “He must have!”

Collins continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “After that we also showed it to Turner’s secretary.” His eyes were mournful as he looked across at Kate. “She identified him as one of Dr Turner’s patients.”

The ice broke. The waters closed over her. “His real name’s Timothy Ellis,” Collins went on. “He’s a schizophrenic. He’s been Turner’s patient for the past two years. Since the last time they let him loose, apparently.”

As if on cue, the policewoman pulled a large photograph from a file and passed it to Kate. Kate automatically reached out and took it. It was black and white and divided into two halves, one a full-face picture, the other a profile. The man in it was younger, with shorter hair, but still recognisably Alex. “He’s twenty-six, and has had a history of arson since he was a kid,” Collins was saying. “Which would explain the attempt to set fire to the office. We don’t have full access to his psychiatric file yet, but we know he’s had a police record as an incendiary since he was ten. He was recommended for psychiatric assessment when he was fourteen, after he set fire to his school. Can’t have done much good, though, because a year or so later he set fire to his home. Killed his parents and two older brothers.”

“No!”

The cry was wrung from her. “No, his parents are alive, they live in Cornwall! He told me!”

Collins looked almost regretful. “Timothy Ellis’s parents and brothers died in the house fire that he started. He’s been in various institutions ever since. He came out two years ago, and since then he’s been employed part-time in a printer’s through a community care programme. The latest psychological reports said he was adapting well.” He gave a wry grimace. “They obviously got it wrong.”

There wasn’t enough air in the room. “No!”

“I’m sorry, Miss Powell — “

“Do you think I don’t know him?”

“You know Timothy Ellis. You never met Alex Turner.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“We checked the telephone number you gave us. It’s listed in the phone book under Ellis’s name. You can look it up for yourself, if you like. He just told you it was ex-directory because he didn’t want to risk you phoning Directory Enquiries and being given the real Alex Turner’s number. And the reason he kept you away from where he lived was because his ‘studio flat’ is actually a grubby, one-room bedsit. You’d have known straight away that no professional man on a decent wage lived there. It’s only a ten-minute walk from the printer’s where Ellis worked, though, so I suppose it was convenient for him.”

Kate shook her head, denying it. But the policeman’s words had triggered a chain reaction of connection that she couldn’t stop. The memory of the black stain on his jeans came back to her, terrifyingly clear. Not paint. Ink. Printer’s ink. She didn’t want to hear any more, but Collins was relentless.

“Alex Turner is dead. Miss Powell. You saw his body at the mortuary this morning, and it seems increasingly likely that Timothy Ellis killed him. We know now it was Ellis who Dr Turner was staying behind late to see. He told his secretary about it, and although he didn’t say why, I think we can assume that it had something to do with the fax you sent. We’ve also spoken to Ellis’s boss at the printers. He’s told us that there was a phone call for Ellis yesterday afternoon, and that after it he seemed moody and upset. I think that call was from Dr Turner, telling Ellis he wanted to see him. Now one of them is dead and the other is missing, and we need to find out what happened between them, and why. And I believe you can help us with that.”

She was suffocating. “You think this is my fault?”

“No, I don’t think that at all. But Ellis seems to have gone to great pains to make you think he was Alex Turner, and what happened yesterday seems to have been sparked off by your fax. To understand why, we have to know more about your relationship with Timothy Ellis.”

Kate shivered. She folded her arms around herself. A signal must have passed between Collins and the policewoman, because now she stood up.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. Kate shook her head. “I can make one. It’s no trouble.”

“I don’t want a bloody cup of tea!” The policewoman’s face hardened. She sat down again.

Collins let out a heavy sigh. “Look, Miss Powell, I know this isn’t easy, but I’d like you to bear in mind that, while we’re sitting here with you, Alex Turner’s lying on a mortuary slab, and his widow is having to come to terms with the fact that the baby she’s carrying will be born without a father because he had his head stoved in by a man he was trying to help. So, while you have my sympathy, my main priority is locating Timothy Ellis before he destroys any more lives. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

He spoke in a tone of patient weariness, but Kate felt her face flush as if she had been rebuked. “His wife’s pregnant?”

“Eight months,” Collins said. “That’s why I didn’t ask her to identify the body.”

The last of Kate’s resistance leaked away. “I didn’t know.”

“No reason why you should have. I didn’t see any point in telling you yesterday. But I thought it might help put things in perspective now.”

She nodded, chastised. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologise,” Collins said. “But I think it’s time you told us a little bit more about the fax. And what its significance was to Ellis.”

There was a last reluctance, a protest that these strangers should be the first to be told. Then it had gone. “I’d just found out I was pregnant.”

The words fell into the room’s silence. Collins turned to the policewoman. “I think perhaps we could do with that tea now.”

“So. What are you going to do?”

Lucy sat with her legs drawn under her on the sofa, leaning back on Jack. The children were in bed, and the three of them sat in the darkened lounge, close to the fire. It spat and growled behind the mesh guard. Kate stared at the flames, stretching yellow arms up the chimney, and thought of lies and arson. “I don’t know.”

A bottle of whisky stood between them. Kate held a tumbler of it in both hands. She hadn’t drunk from it yet.

“Are they sure, though?” Lucy asked. “I mean, it seems so … so …” She threw up her hands, speechless.

“They say there’s no doubt.”

“But how can they be certain he killed him? The psychologist, I mean. For all they know, it could have been, I don’t know, a burglar, or something. It’s not forced to have been Alex.”

“Ellis,” Kate said, not taking her eyes from the flames. “His name’s Timothy Ellis.”

Lucy didn’t say anything to that. Jack sat, grim-faced, looking at his lap.

“No wonder he looked so young,” Lucy went on, after a while. “Twenty-six! I mean, it’s the cheek of it that gets me!”

“I don’t think ‘cheek’ comes into it,” Jack commented.

“No, I know, but … Well, he just seemed so nice. Although, now you look back, you can see that some things weren’t right, can’t you? I always thought he was a bit shy to be a psychologist. And, when you think about it, it was pretty odd that he never let you see where he lived.”

Kate wanted to shout at her to shut up.

“At least he didn’t get any money out of you,” Lucy went on, oblivious. “I bet he was pig sick that he couldn’t cash your cheques. Makes you wonder how he could afford all those trips to Birmingham and everything, though, doesn’t it? I mean, he wouldn’t get much working part-time in a printer’s, would he?”

That seemed irrelevant now. Kate had to rouse herself to answer. “The police found a cardboard sign for Birmingham in his bedsit. They think he must have hitched.”

Lucy greeted the information with a wondering shake of her head. “Well, to say he’s supposed to be mentally ill, he’d got it all worked out, I’ll give him that.” She looked at Kate again. “What are you going to do, though?”

“Lucy, for God’s sake, I don’t know. I can’t even think straight at the moment. I just feel …” The effort of putting it into words defeated her.

“I know, but you’re going to have to decide sooner or later,” Lucy persisted. “About the baby, I mean.”

“Lucy …” Jack said, warningly.

“Well, she is.”

“Decide what about the baby?” Kate asked.

Lucy looked at her. “If you’re going to keep it or not.”

The crackling of the fire seemed to grow very loud, blending with the rush of blood in Kate’s ears. The room tilted, as if not even the floor were stable any more. She put her glass on the coffee table and gripped the chair arms, feeling a greasy slide of nausea. Lucy and Jack’s voices went on around her.

“For Christ’s sake, Lucy!”

“Well, she’s got to face up to it!”

“Give her a bloody chance! She’s had enough shocks for one day!”

Jack was crouching in front of her, raising the whisky to her lips. She could smell it, and the wave of nausea rose. Then it passed. She pushed away the glass without drinking. Jack set it on the coffee table and went back to his seat. “You okay?”

Kate nodded. She wasn’t, though. She felt weak, as though she was convalescing from an illness.

“Look, why don’t you go and see a doctor tomorrow?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t want tranquillisers.”

“I don’t mean that. I just think you need to talk to someone. Get some expert advice.”

“About what?”

Kate saw Jack give Lucy an incredulous look. Lucy ignored it.

“You know what about. I’m sorry, Kate, but I think you’ve got to accept that abortion’s a serious consideration now.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, leave it alone, Lucy!” Jack snapped.

“No, I won’t! I’m as pro-life, or whatever, as anybody, but there have to be exceptions! And, let’s face it, being made pregnant by a deranged murderer has got to be one of them!”

Kate felt buffeted by the words. Lucy pressed on. “You’ve got to face facts, Kate. I liked him too, I admit, but the man’s a lunatic. Apart from anything else, he got you pregnant under false pretences. They do emergency terminations for rape victims, and I don’t see that this is much different. But the longer you leave it, the worse it’ll be. The sooner you — “

“Please, Lucy.” Kate shut her eyes. “Just … don’t. Please.1”

“I know but — “

“Leave it, Lucy. Jack spoke firmly, putting a restraining hand on his wife’s shoulder. Lucy hesitated, then sat back.

“Okay.” She threw up her arms with a sigh. “Okay.”

Behind the mesh screen, the coal fire blazed, indifferently. Hands clenched, Kate stared into the depth of the flames.

The message light was flashing on her answerphone when she arrived home. She stood in front of it, looking down at the insistent pulse, then quickly reached out and stabbed the play button. Only a bristle of static came out of the speaker.

She thought she could make out faint breathing before the final clatter of disconnection, but she wasn’t sure.

There was one other message, a sales pitch from a double-glazing company, then the machine rewound with a whir. As it clicked into readiness, Kate went into the bathroom, stripped off and showered. It was her third of the day. She stood under the flow of hot water until the tank emptied and it began to run cool. Climbing out, she saw there wasn’t a clean towel and padded into her bedroom. As she pulled one out of the drawers, something else flipped into view. She looked at it, blankly, before there was a dip of recognition.

The child’s mitten was shockingly red against the white towels. The sight of it stabbed at her. Kate had forgotten about it, and its sudden appearance now seemed deliberately mocking. Snatching it up, she took it into the kitchen and threw it into the bin.