Murder... Now and Then (17 page)

She had stared at him, the tears falling, running down her face.

‘I'm sorry,' he had said. ‘But I'm only thinking of you. So that's the way it's going to be.'

And she had got out of bed, pulled on her dressing-gown, and left the room.

She was upset of course she was. A baby was the be-all and end-all of her life. It was the first real row they had ever had, and he hoped very much that it would be the last. He liked things the way they were. She would get over it; there weren't many husbands who would behave as well as he had over such lapses. But he still couldn't sleep, even though he had averted potential disaster. He wished he had kept his mouth shut about the abortion, for one thing.

Dawn was breaking as he finally felt his eyelids grow heavier, and his burdens, for a few snatched moments, just a little lighter.

Judy's eyes opened as light filled the room through the half-open blinds that they had never got round to closing when Lloyd had cornered her in the moonlit bedroom in his attempts to scare her witless.

Half-past six, she noted, before closing her eyes again. Half-past six on almost her last day off, but that was all right, because she was in Lloyd's flat, and that was always a little like being on holiday. She glanced at him as he slept and smiled. He
had
scared her last night with all his talk of
doppelgängers
and premonitions. She had almost believed him about Victor Holyoak and his two faces.

She
had
believed him, she admitted to herself. Lloyd could do that; he had always been able to make her believe whatever be wanted her to believe. That he was happy when he was miserable, that he was indifferent when he was hurt. That he was hurt when he was nothing of the sort. The only time that she really knew where she was with him was when he was angry with her, when he left her in no doubt.

Strips of sunlight slashed across the walls, showing the room in its true colours – a statement of its occupant's personality. No frills, no unnecessary furniture, not even curtains. Just the clean lines of his brand-new vertical blinds, a bed, a bedside table, a chest of drawers, and a mirror. But the door of the built-in wardrobe was open, the sleeve of one of his jackets preventing it closing; several shoes, none of which seemed to match any of the others, were scattered over the plain, space-enhancing carpet; and the unfussy lines were obliterated by cast-off clothing, bottles of aftershave, piles of books everywhere, and the odd newspaper and magazine. Even a mug.

But last night, once he had realized he could scare her, there had been no such comforting, familiar images. Soft, fuzzy lines of light had inexplicably penetrated the darkness of the room, disorienting her, and Lloyd's eerie tales of ghosts walking, of apparitions appearing to foretell their own deaths, had demolished the barrier of sound common sense that she had always put between herself and such things. Her imagination had been more than receptive to Lloyd's suggestions as to what the half-lit shapes might be, as to what he might be, come to that, when the moon was full.

And she had loved every scary, exhilarating, delicious moment of it. The delight had turned to desire, and the desire to drowsy tenderness; she had finally fallen asleep in a tangle of bedclothes and Lloyd and ribbons of moonlight undeniably, inexpressibly happy.

He must have been up since then, because the duvet was now neatly over both of them. It was the only neat thing in the room. Her common sense had returned from wherever Lloyd had sent it scurrying last night, and she resolved to tidy up his bedroom whether he wanted her to or not. The bedside phone rang, and she glared at it.

Lloyd stirred. ‘Whose flat are we in?' he muttered, still nine-tenths asleep.

‘Yours.'

‘Mm. Right.' Eyes closed, he reached out an accurately aimed hand, and lifted the receiver to his ear. His eyes opened, and he sat up. ‘ Say that again,' he said, and listened, fully awake. He glanced at her, then looked away again. ‘Right,' he said. ‘Twenty minutes.'

He hung up and still didn't look at her. ‘I don't know how to tell you this,' he said.

‘Is it bad news?' she asked, alarmed.

‘No – no, not like that. Nothing personal.'

She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘What then?' she asked.

‘It's Victor Holyoak,' he said, and looked at her for the first time. ‘He's been found dead, Judy.' His voice was almost apologetic.

Judy's spine tingled again. But this time she didn't enjoy the sensation.

‘I'll have to go,' he said, and gave a little shrug. ‘It looks like your leave just got cancelled,' he added. ‘Sorry.'

She nodded.

‘Right,' he said, getting out of bed. ‘I'll have a quick shower and get off.' He smiled. ‘I expect you've got time to have breakfast before you have to face it,' he said.

For once she wasn't at all sure she felt like having breakfast. ‘Just tell me one thing first,' she said. ‘Was any of that stuff true?'

‘About my being the Phantom of the Pithead?'

‘Very funny,' she said. ‘About Victor Holyoak.'

He nodded.

‘All of it? All that about you were close to him, but he was far away, and you could see him but he couldn't see you?'

He nodded again, with another apologetic little shrug. ‘It was as though I was standing next to him,' he said. ‘Except that I wasn't. I couldn't touch him. I know that.'

She sighed, and pushed back the duvet, swinging her legs out into the cold air. In the daylight, she knew that there had to be a rational explanation. Holyoak hadn't appeared to Lloyd in a dream, or some premonition. She pursued Lloyd out of the bedroom, into the living room.

‘That's just your memory playing tricks,' she said.

‘Is it?'

Lloyd had seen him yesterday, and had recognized him; now the man was dead. There could be a horribly rational explanation for that, and it was that that Lloyd was shying away from; the fact that his presence at the reception may have signed Holyoak's death warrant.

‘Perhaps it's … I don't know. Psychological. You were after him for something and couldn't prove it. And that's translated itself into your being able to see him, but not touch him. Someone there knew that you could identify him, and …' She shrugged the rest of the sentence.

He thought about that for a second; it was quirky enough to appeal. But then he shook his head. ‘I'd remember,' he said. ‘If I'd ever been after him.'

He would. She knew that.

‘He's dead, Judy,' he said, a little uncomfortably. ‘I have this strange image of him yesterday, and this morning he's dead.'

‘It's got nothing to do with the supernatural!' she said firmly.

‘I know.' He didn't sound at all convinced. He walked out into the hall, with Judy on his tail.

‘Do we know how he died?' she asked, as he went into the bathroom.

‘Multiple stab wounds,' he said, as he turned on the shower, and pulled the curtain round. Then his face appeared again. ‘Norman Bates isn't around, is he?' he asked anxiously.

‘Who?' said Judy.

He grinned. ‘Forget it,' he said, and disappeared back behind the curtain.

Judy frowned a little, then forgot it, as instructed. ‘Could he have disturbed an intruder?' she called above the noise of the shower.

‘Could have done,' Lloyd called back. ‘ There was a window open, apparently. But there's a twenty-four-hour video security system in operation – I'll get someone to check through the tapes. It'll take for ever, though.'

Judy thought about the situation while Lloyd showered, but her attempts to think logically had been sabotaged by Lloyd's surreal memory of Holyoak. Though the fact of the surreal image was real enough; he had told her about it when Holyoak was still hale and hearty. But there was an explanation, and they would find it eventually. In the mean time, she forced herself to approach it as she would any other incident.

‘Is there anything missing?' she asked.

‘It doesn't look like it, apparently. But if there is, we might never know. His wife's on very heavy sedation, and she's not going to come out of it. I don't know who else is likely to know what was up there. Maybe Anna Worthing, if Mrs Driver's got it right about her.'

‘What about his stepdaughter?'

‘The Scotts are apparently not at home,' said Lloyd, switching off the shower, and stepping out. ‘All yours,' he said, towelling himself vigorously.

Judy frowned, and got into the shower. ‘No one knows where they are?' she asked, as she pulled the curtain round. Shower curtains. Multiple stab wounds. Norman Bates. ‘
Psycho
!' she shouted triumphantly as the water cascaded down.

‘No need to get personal just because you aren't clairvoyant.' The next few words were unintelligible as he tried to speak while brushing his teeth.

‘What?' She rinsed the shampoo from her hair.

‘I said it's not seven o'clock yet. I don't think we've asked anyone.' There was a brief silence. ‘But there was something odd going on there yesterday,' he said, his voice a little defiant.

‘You said.'

‘Mm. And Anna Worthing said something about Scott,' he said.

‘Scott?'

Lloyd was now having to shout above the noise of his battery shaver and the shower. ‘People were giving him a wide berth,' he explained. ‘It was obvious – it was meant to be obvious. When I asked her why, she seemed to think that I should know.'

‘Do you want me to run a check on him?' she asked.

‘Er … yes,' he said, indecisively.

‘Right,' said Judy. Lloyd was never indecisive, and it was his half-memory of Holyoak that was bothering him, Judy knew. Because that meant that he might have been indirectly responsible for Holyoak's death; someone knew that Lloyd might have recognized him, and that was dangerous for whoever it was. Either that or he really was a seer. And though Lloyd's capacity for belief could accommodate virtually anything and everything but ordinary, work-a-day God, even he didn't believe that. Did he? She certainly didn't. Did she?

Judy rinsed herself off, and stepped out of the shower. ‘You have to remember where you saw him,' she said.

He
had
to.

‘Where did you get it?' She looked scared.

Dave Bannister was still in bed; Jackie had come in, holding out the money, wanting to know where it had come from.

‘Keep that out of it,' he said, pointing to his own nose, and pulling himself out of bed. ‘Why were you going through my pockets?' he demanded, snatching the money out of her hand.

‘I was only trying to get the washing in the machine before I went to work,' she said. ‘I always check the pockets.'

‘Well, don't' he said.

‘Would you rather it had all gone in the machine?' she asked.

She washed all the bloody time. The kids went through clothes like nobody's business. She could have left his jeans until tomorrow. He ignored her, and counted the money; he had forgotten all about it in his panic-stricken drive homeward. My God, that little whore had really done it this time.

Two hundred and ten pounds. He reached over to the bedside table, and picked up a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.

‘Where were you last night?' Jackie asked.

‘Here,' he said, lighting a cigarette, closing his eyes as he exhaled the smoke, and wondered what his next move should be. ‘All night. I was here, with you, watching telly.' He caught his wife's arm. ‘You got that?' he asked.

She nodded, and he let her go. For a few moments only the drone of the washing-machine could be heard, as she looked at him the way only wives knew how to look at people, and he was back in that flat frozen into immobility by the scene in the bedroom.

‘Dave – what have you done?' She broke into his thoughts.

Christ, he didn't know. He was sure no one had seen him, but they would be bound to question Annabel. He stuffed the notes into the dressing-table drawer.

‘Dave?'

‘You'll be late for work,' he said.

She looked at him, her eyes wide with a mixture of curiosity and fear. ‘I'm late already,' she said, distractedly. ‘I'm not even dressed yet – I'll miss the bus.' Her eyes went to the drawer. ‘Where did you get it, Dave?' she asked again.

He had to tell her something; just something she would believe. ‘I told you I'd had an offer of a job,' he said.

She groaned. ‘Oh, Dave – not those crooks! What did you have to do for two hundred pounds?'

He sat down on the bed. My God, if she only knew. But he'd worn gloves, and they couldn't place him there. Even if that little bitch said anything, he could deny it. He was here, watching television, and they couldn't prove any different. He hadn‘t clapped eyes on her for almost fifteen years; they'd laugh at her. They hadn't taken her word against his last time, and they wouldn't this time. Besides, she would be putting herself in the frame if she said anything at all, wouldn't she? But he had to be sure. Easy enough to frighten Annabel into keeping her mouth shut. And no Holyoak to exact retribution.

He smiled, when he realized that. He felt better anyway now that he had put distance between himself and Stansfield, now that he'd had some sleep, now that he had a few quid. And he knew Annabel of old. She never said anything in interviews, on the grounds that that way she couldn't get caught out. She wouldn't say anything. He looked up at his wife. ‘‘ Where are the kids?' he asked.

‘On that school trip. Someone collected them at seven in a mini-bus.'

Oh, yes. Her mother had paid for that; the old bat had her uses. ‘Well,' he said. ‘If you're late already, don't bother going.' He pulled the tie of her dressing-gown, and let it fall open. She smiled as he touched her.

‘Will it be regular money?' she asked, slipping off the dressing-gown, and sitting beside him on the bed. ‘ This job? You're not going to get knocked about, are you? Because your insides won't take any more—'