A Deep Deceit (24 page)

That afternoon there was a bit of a diversion. Will Jones paid me a visit, bringing with him a beautiful book about Patrick Heron, which I received gratefully. I was still in a bit of a daze but, in spite of my befuddled and anxious state, it was good to have company, to chat for a bit.

At first we made a rather strained kind of small talk, but it was better than nothing. As with Mariette's visit, it was good just to think that someone cared enough to come calling.

At one point, after quite a long silence, Will enquired if I had any money on me. Typically, I hadn't even thought about it. And the answer was that I didn't have a penny. Will took his wallet from his pocket and handed me two twenty-pound notes. ‘I owe you more, I've sold some of Carl's paintings,' he said. ‘I'll work out how much by the time you get out of here . . .'

I thanked him. The money should have gone to Carl, I supposed. There was another vaguely uncomfortable silence. Then Will began to ask me a lot of questions, most of which I either could not or did not wish to answer.

‘So he just sort of went off the rails, really?' he muttered.

I nodded.

‘What pushed him, do you know?'

I sighed. Not sure whether I wanted to talk like this or not. ‘Fear, more than anything,' I said. ‘Fear of losing me. Fear of what might happen to us.'

‘And you thought all this time that you'd killed your husband?'

‘Absolutely,' I confirmed.

‘And you both thought that was what the letters and the rest of it referred to?'

‘Oh, the letters, yes, of course . . .'

I hadn't thought about any of that for a while. I had had other things on my mind, like being imprisoned against my will by the man I loved, and fighting off critical bouts of pneumonia and pleurisy. ‘Well, I thought that, but not Carl, of course,' I went on. ‘Carl sent the letters, I'm sure of that now.'

Will looked startled. ‘Did he admit it?'

‘I think so,' I wasn't quite sure, come to think of it. ‘What does it matter anyway, after all that has happened?'

‘No, I suppose not. So Carl really has turned into a villain, hasn't he?'

He was right enough, of course, but I still didn't like to hear it.

‘Fancy letting you think you'd killed someone all these years . . .'

‘We don't know that for sure,' I managed to protest, clutching at straws, maybe.

Will gave me that look of his, which he switched on when he was demonstrating just how much cleverer he was than you. Fond as I was of him, it never failed to irritate me. ‘Well, of course, you must believe what you want to believe, Suzanne,' he began. Then he was interrupted by a large nurse bearing a thermometer, which she placed uncompromisingly in my mouth. Which might have been all for the best.

The thermometer was still there when Will left.

‘I'll pop round when you're home,' he had said before he departed.

I tried to mutter something and reached for the thermometer. The large nurse tapped my hand reprovingly. And in my condition I didn't have the strength to argue, even had I not had a thermometer wedged between my lips.

Fourteen

I had to see him. And I had to know the worst.

You could not share all that I had shared with Carl and not want to see a man who you thought you had known so well, yet whom perhaps you hadn't known at all.

I discharged myself from hospital early the next morning. Nobody had phoned me back from the police, and I couldn't wait any longer. I somehow felt sure that if I could just get myself to St Ives police station I could sort everything out. I walked to Penzance railway station and caught the next train back to the little seaside town where Carl and I had been so happy for so long. At St Ives I made my way along the beach to the harbour, breathing in the sea air, taking strength from its fresh saltiness, before turning into the town and up through the network of steep streets to the hidden-away police station. I arrived there just after 9 a.m., out of breath and wondering if I had done a bit too much walking, but determined to get some answers. I was hoping, of course, that DS Perry would be back from wherever she had been over the two previous days. At least she seemed to have some idea what was going on. But even to be able to see Rob Partridge would be a result. I craved some kind of familiarity.

It seemed a lifetime had passed since, resolved to rid myself of my long-carried burden, I had first approached the ugly, dirty white building

The desk clerk greeted me with his customary lack of enthusiasm. Did they only have one clerk, or was I just lucky, I wondered glumly. He was, however, a little more communicative than in the past. He told me that DS Perry was in Plymouth and would be there for some time. Apparently there had been a particularly unpleasant murder of a young girl. That was why she hadn't responded to my phone calls.

I was still feeling very poorly and becoming aware that maybe I should have stayed in hospital at least another couple of days, and this news about DS Perry was yet another blow. I had barely known her but I somehow had more confidence in her than any of the other officers I had encountered. Not surprising, perhaps, when the only other one I had had much to do with was Rob Partridge.

‘I'll see if I can find someone else to help you,' the clerk offered and disappeared into the back office in a disconcertingly familiar way.

I could hear him talking into a telephone, but I wasn't optimistic. A murder. Yes, I supposed that was more important than a kidnapping, if that is what it really had been.

The inner door opened just as I was reconciling myself to another fruitless wait. Rob Partridge, in uniform but without his helmet, greeted me with an uncertain smile, and ushered me into the bleak little ground-floor interview room. ‘I just called you at the hospital,' he said. ‘Sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday.'

‘Look, I want to see my husband,' I said. ‘I want to see Carl.' For the first time in almost seven years I was somehow starkly aware that Carl wasn't my husband. But old habits die hard.

‘He's on remand in Exeter,' said Rob Partridge. ‘Surely you knew that?'

I didn't. I knew absolutely nothing about police or court procedure and little more about the case I was actively involved in. I had been more or less semi-conscious in hospital for two weeks. I didn't have a clue what had happened to Carl following his arrest and my admission to the hospital. In a simplistic way I suppose I expected him to be locked in a cell somewhere in the bowels of St Ives police station.

‘I thought he would be here,' I murmured lamely.

Rob shook his head. ‘This is a small district police station,' he told me. ‘We don't keep prisoners here. You can visit him at the Devon County Prison at Exeter whenever you like, just about. As he's on remand you have pretty free access.'

The Devon County Prison. I repeated it inside my head. The very sound of the words was chilling.

‘But I need to talk to somebody first. DS Perry mentioned something that happened in America. I need to know what's going on before I see him,' I mumbled.

Partridge and I were both standing in the interview room. He gestured me to one chair and, sitting down in the other, took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit up. He offered me one, which I declined, then he drew deeply on his own. The windowless little room filled with smoke. I hoped I wouldn't start coughing again. My chest still hurt.

‘We searched your cottage after we arrested Carl,' he began. ‘Standard procedure when you've arrested somebody on a serious charge. We found some photographs and an out-of-date American passport in another name. His picture, though. It was pretty simple to check out with the States. Your Carl was really called Harry Mendleson and he had good reason to be using a false name all right. Seems he makes a habit of trying to abduct his wives.'

I waited. I felt very cold. Rob Partridge smiled almost triumphantly, only to me it looked more like a leer. He was another one who could never resist showing off superior knowledge. Something made me think he shouldn't be telling me all this, but he seemed to be in full flight.

‘Only the last time it all went badly wrong. His wife was going to leave him. He wouldn't have it. Tried to prevent her getting away. Drugs were involved that time too. Apparently there was a kid, a daughter, who died of an overdose. Only five or six, she was, too. He's wanted on a manslaughter charge . . .'

I was shocked to the core. It seemed unreal. Carl was wanted on a manslaughter charge? He had drugged his daughter? Killed her? I hadn't even known he'd had a daughter. I began to shake again. I didn't know whether it was the impact of the news I had just heard or the residue of my illness. A bit of both probably. ‘What happened?' I cried. ‘I can't believe he killed his own daughter. How? Why? Please tell me.'

Rob Partridge looked uncomfortable at my reaction, as if he regretted telling me all that he had. He ran a hand through his spiky orange hair. ‘Look, I don't know the details, it's not even my case. I only know as much as I do because I was involved in the arrest and then the search. It's CID. Detective Sergeant Perry was in charge, you know that.'

I nodded. ‘But she's not here,' I said lamely.

‘No, the case has been handed over to DC Carter in Penzance. That's who you should be talking to now.'

I wasn't giving up that easily. ‘The photographs, the old passport. Where did you find them? I've never seen them. Carl and I didn't hide things from each other . . .'

‘He hid that lot all right. We found them in the box he keeps his paints and brushes in. There's a false compartment at the bottom.'

Yes, I thought morosely, that made a dreadful kind of sense. I never touched Carl's paints and brushes, never went near his special mahogany box because he was so fussy about his painting equipment.

Partridge had begun to speak again, once more parading his superior knowledge. ‘That's the thing about people living under a false identity,' he said in a self-important tone of voice. ‘Getting the new identity is no problem. A doddle, that is, if you know how. The old
Day of the Jackal
trick still works. You just take a name and birth date off the gravestone of someone about the same age as yourself, apply for a new birth certificate and bingo. Everything else you need is easy once you've got a birth certificate. The problem people have is walking away from the past. They nearly always keep something, just like Carl did. It's not being able to let go of the past that catches 'em out.' He paused. ‘The photographs were of the daughter he killed,' Partridge continued conversationally. ‘Typical, that, really . . .'

Suddenly it was all too much for me. I could barely take in what he was saying. Tears were welling up in my eyes and I couldn't hold them back. I began to sob quietly.

Rob Partridge didn't seem to know what to do then. His air of self-importance vanished abruptly. ‘Look, don't upset yourself. I'll see if I can get DC Carter on the phone,' he said, in a manner that suggested that the detective would be able to solve all my problems. He took his mobile from his pocket and punched in a number. Maybe it was just that Rob Partridge knew his way around a police station or maybe he was luckier than me. Most people were, I was beginning to think. Either way, he seemed to get through to the Penzance CID man straight away.

‘DC Carter can see you at Penzance police station at nine o'clock tomorrow morning,' he told me after a brief conversation, still holding the telephone to his ear, with one hand over the mouthpiece.

‘In Penzance?' I repeated through my snuffles. ‘But I want to see Carl and he's in Exeter.'

‘You can pick up the main-line train from there, straight on to Exeter. We'll fix it with the prison,' said Partridge.

I couldn't think straight and I was so used to doing what people told me to, falling in with what others said, that I meekly nodded my agreement. Tomorrow morning seemed a long way away, but I was still feeling distinctly unwell. I hoped that I might perhaps be stronger both mentally and physically by then and, in any case, I certainly did not have the energy at that moment to demand an earlier meeting.

Partridge spoke into the receiver again, relaying my assent. Then he showed me the door. ‘Ray Carter'll see you right,' he promised. ‘Good man, Ray.'

But I knew all he was really doing was getting rid of me.

By then, however, I didn't mind very much. The tight feeling in my chest was quite extreme and I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. I was suddenly quite glad that I didn't have to rush off to Penzance or Exeter, or anywhere at all.

I left the station and set off up the hill towards Rose Cottage. The climb seemed steeper than ever before. I was wheezing by the time I reached the cottage and it wasn't until I was standing outside the now dark-blue front door that I remembered I didn't have a key.

For a moment or two I dithered miserably. Then I recalled that Carl climbed over the wall of the cottage next door into our backyard when we had locked ourselves out once, and we had never got around to fixing the dodgy kitchen window.

The next-door cottage had access into its own small garden through a little gate at the front and a narrow alleyway between the two houses. I had my hand on the gate, ready to open it, before I thought that I had better not do so without knocking on the front door first. In any case, although I vaguely remembered Carl vaulting over the wall easily enough, I didn't think I could manage it without a ladder or something similar.

Our neighbour Mrs Jackson's wide smile of welcome turned into an expression of surprised uncertainty when she saw me standing there. ‘Suzanne!' she exclaimed, her eyes widening and her mouth remaining slackly open as if I had grown antennae.