The Best of British Crime omnibus (46 page)

Bert gave an uncertain sniff. ‘Any news of that Hackle?'

They always referred to Larden as Mister. Hackle was just Hackle – and there was a reason.

‘If you ask me, he's done a bunk.'

‘Go on? With a woman?'

‘I wouldn't think so. Money more like.'

‘Sticky fingers in the till?'

‘It's hard to say, and I don't see how it can be that. Not really. But something very fishy's going on, all the same.'

‘He went off last Sunday?'

‘Sunday afternoon. From home. He's supposed to be seeing Midlands customers. Well Lorna, that's his secretary, she knew nothing about it, and he hasn't rung into the office once. Any calls for him have to go to Mr Larden or one of the other directors. That's if Mr Larden's not there. And they're automatically recorded. Anyway, with all this takeover business, he wouldn't stay away from the office. Stands to reason.'

‘What about the call to Mr Larden from the Irish bloke? The one on Monday?'

‘That was about Hackle. That's all I know.' She turned on her side towards him. ‘Doctor Ricini is staying with Mrs Hackle.'

‘Looking after her?'

‘Seems like it.'

‘And you don't think Hackle's with another woman? Right bugger he is. He hasn't tried it on with you since?'

‘Hasn't needed to.'

‘Better not neither.'

‘It was only that once.'

He hoped that was true. If ever he found it wasn't he'd kill the bastard. ‘Bloody animal,' he said.

Late one evening, in the previous autumn, Hackle had returned to the office, found Doris Tanner alone, and made a pass at her. It was obvious he had been drinking. She had made him leave her alone by threatening to tell her husband – which she had done, weeks later, after making Bert promise not to do anything about it. Despite her protests, Doris had been secretly flattered by the attentions of the Marketing Director: it was the reason why she had told Bert, without mentioning Hackle's condition. She'd have been more complimented, of course, if Hackle had been sober when he'd groped her – and probably have allowed him to go further than she had. She sometimes fantasised about that.

‘He's had Doctor Ricini panting for him for the last six months,' she said.

‘Is that a fact? Sleep with him, does she?'

‘Lorna thinks so. Only he seems to have gone off our lovely young Medical Director just recently. Most likely taken up with someone else, Lorna said. She doesn't know who though. I know she wishes it was her. She's potty about him.'

‘Blimey, does he have every bird in the company begging for it?'

‘'Course not. He doesn't have me for a start. He is dishy though, and … and sort of sophisticated, I suppose.' Her words tailed away.

‘And he's a married man with two kids, like you said.' Bert was strong on fidelity. ‘What about his wife then? What's she saying to Doctor Ricini who's looking after her? “Finished with my hubbie, have you? Who's he in bed with now, d'you know?” Cor! I'd give him sophisticated. If he ever lays a hand on you again— '

‘So what about laying a hand on me yourself?' She snuggled closer.

‘That's different.' As he put the empty mug on the table he noticed the time again. ‘I have to leave at quarter past six.'

‘Well it's not going to take you that long is it? Please yourself of course.' She feigned hurt feelings, half turning from him.

‘I'll do just that then.' He pushed away the sheet and ran a firm hand down her body.

She swung back to him, twining her arms around his neck.

He had been working out that he'd have time to shave and dress, take the dogs for a run, eat the ‘breakfast' Doris would cook for him, and make love to her once more now. Bert was a methodical man. ‘This is the life,' he growled.

‘So why … d'you have to leave … so early?' she asked, between the lovebites she was making down his chest and abdomen.

‘Didn't I say? I'm working out of Chiswick tonight. We're short-handed at Chiswick. Further to go than Hounslow.' There was a pause. ‘Oo, it's bloody marvellous there.'

But she knew he didn't mean Hounslow.

‘Are you leaving in the morning, Auntie Mary?' called Tim Hackle, missing the rubber quoit again. He and Mary Ricini were playing in the back garden of the Hackle house. Tim wasn't good at games that required too much physical co-ordination.

‘Perhaps. More likely I'll stay for tomorrow night.' As always with Tim she did her best to make everything sound as casual as possible.

‘That's good.' He gave her his endearing, slightly wicked smile. He retrieved the quoit from a flower bed and threw it back towards her across the lawn – but too high, and not far enough, despite his nearly propelling his whole self with it. ‘Sorry.' He pushed up a dangling blue shirt sleeve, but the other one dropped down while he was doing it.

‘Shall I roll them up for you?'

‘No thanks, I can do it.' He did so, but not very neatly. ‘Does that mean Daddy won't be home again?'

Mary, in stockinged feet, picked up the rubber ring, hopped backwards lightly for several steps, then aimed it accurately towards the small boy – who missed it again. ‘I expect that depends on how busy Daddy is.'

It was becoming a touch more difficult to satisfy Tim's curiosity about his father's whereabouts. His sister Emma was no problem. Whatever her view on what was happening, she pressed no one for explanations, and kept her own counsel.

‘Can we play the football game on TV now, Auntie Mary?'

‘Because you always win? You're a terror. All right.' She pushed the hair from her eyes.

He skipped to her side, then pulled up a sock to his knee below the short trousers. She leaned on him while she slipped on her discarded high heels. He took her hand and squeezed it affectionately as they made for the open kitchen door. ‘Why are you staying now Mummy's better?'

‘You want me to go away?'

‘'Course not.'

‘Well don't push your luck then. I like being here.' She had found that the best way to cope with his ceaseless questions was to neutralise them with counter questions.

‘Mummy is better isn't she?'

‘She's fine. Don't you think so?' The woman doctor was glad to have him relate her presence more to his mother's needs than to his father's absence.

‘She looks all right.'

‘But you see it's not only a matter of her being better. She's helping me with the research I'm doing on migraine. On those bad headaches she gets.'

‘That's with the new medicine?'

‘Right. If she gets another attack I have to be here to check on what happens.'

‘Can I have a drink, Auntie Mary?' he asked, when they were in the kitchen.

‘There's some orange juice in the fridge. I'll have some too.' It was juice she had brought herself, along with more fruit, fresh fish, and the extra groceries she had been providing on the pretext of contributing her share to the household costs. She had also given the children presents. There had been TV games for Tim, and a pretty blouse for Emma. It was a home where luxuries were rare but appreciated. Rosemary Hackle was clearly short on housekeeping money. She was certainly grateful for Mary's help, and unaware that the giver went to some trouble to disguise the extent of her benevolence – or else Rosemary was too preoccupied with other things to notice.

For her part, the pretty young doctor was compensating these three people in every way she knew for something she felt she had deprived them of in the recent past. Of course, it was a tortuous sort of formula that balanced wholesome foods against the stolen affections of Dermot Hackle. She was not even sure she had ever truly possessed those affections, but whatever the cause of her unease she was taking the opportunity to make up for it.

The emergency plan had worked well so far. Neither of the children was ever left alone out of school hours.

Rosemary was with her daughter now, meeting her out of school and taking her to a dental appointment arranged the week before. Accompanying her daughter to the dentist was something Rosemary would have done in the normal way.

Mary Ricini had left Closter Drug that afternoon in time to pick up Tim at his school at three thirty – something his mother usually did. Routines hadn't been noticeably changed, nor arrangements cancelled. The children weren't aware that they were being protected from special danger.

The alternative of Emma and Tim being sent away to safety somewhere, in the middle of the school term, would have created too many questions – in their own minds as well as other people's. It had been Mary herself who had devised the lower-keyed solution. Its credibility depended on the children accepting that the woman doctor needed Rosemary as much as Rosemary needed the woman doctor. The migraine research had met the situation admirably – particularly at night when normal medical supervision wouldn't be available outside a hospital. It explained to the children why Mary was sleeping at their house, and also satisfied the concern of Bob Larden and the other directors that there should be two adults there after dark.

Mary hadn't been alone with Tim before, or not for any length of time. She preferred his company to that of his sister. He had all his father's pleasing traits. She hoped he would never develop the unpleasing ones. She watched him now guzzling the orange juice, eyes sparkling at her beguilingly over the top of the glass, blond eyelashes flashing.

‘Daddy's been away a long time,' he said, standing on tiptoe as he washed the empty glass under the tap.

‘Not that long, surely? Only from Sunday lunchtime.'

Tim wrinkled his nose. ‘Emma and I saw him after that,' he offered in a conspiritorial voice. ‘We haven't told Mummy. Emma says we mustn't. She gave me 10p not to,' he added, as if proud of this less than objective reason for his reticence.

‘Have you told anyone else?'

‘Only you.'

‘Where did you see him?' She was doing her best to keep her interest at a low sounding level.

‘At Heathrow. Emma took me to see the new Aeroflot plane take off.'

‘What a coincidence. Did Daddy see you?'

‘Don't think so.'

‘About tea-time was it?'

‘Three o'clock. That was the take-off time.'

‘Was Daddy watching the take-off too?'

‘No. He was in his car. With a lady.'

‘That would be his secretary, I expect. Short girl with dark hair?'

Tim shook his head. ‘She's called Lorna Smith. It wasn't her. This one was ginger.'

They both heard the front door slam, together with voices in the hall. Mary quickly moved across to Tim, her mind racing. She knelt beside the boy and whispered. ‘Emma was right. Better not tell Mummy. Not at the moment. Nor anyone else. All right?'

‘Yes, Auntie Mary.' He looked over her shoulder. ‘Hello, Mummy.'

‘Teeth all right, Emma?' Mary enquired brightly, getting up as the girl came into the kitchen behind her mother. The black family cat was also in train.

‘Fine, thanks. Just a scaling.'

‘Tell you what, Tim and I were just going to play a TV game. Could you play instead of me?' She turned to Rosemary. ‘I've just remembered something I should have done at the office. I'll have to go back. Shouldn't take long. Let's see, it's four twenty. Back in an hour, I expect.'

But it was after seven o'clock when she returned.

At a quarter to five, Alison McFee was locking the door of her Austin Metro in the basement carpark of the supermarket. She had already done her shopping – just enough to get the money back on the parking token. Food prices were higher in Chiswick than they were in Maidenhead where she normally shopped, and parking was free in the supermarket there. She was careful with her money, not mean, but careful. It was why she still felt these trips to Chiswick were an extravagance, despite the improvement in her figure. The feeling was worse this time, too.

Up to last Monday she had been confident that she and Hughie were going to be rich because of the Closter flotation, that a few modest extra expenses could be justified. Now the shares were gone, her prudent Calvinistic upbringing had reasserted itself. Even though the shares had fetched a million pounds, she had almost decided to cancel the rest of her treatments – almost, but not quite.

She left the carpark by the street exit wearing her dark glasses.

She hadn't told Hughie anything about the slenderising course.

This was partly because she hadn't been certain till the last but one visit to Ivan Popinov that his treatment was working on her. Now she was pretty sure that it was. The results weren't startling yet, but even Hughie had remarked on how svelte she was looking all of a sudden. That was an exaggeration probably, but she thought she was definitely on the way to a better shape. She had told Hughie it was due to dieting and exercises, but it was scarcely that. Alison found it impossible to keep to a serious diet.

After crossing Chiswick High Street, she hurried down the narrow lane beside the furniture store.

What Mr Popinov did was to dissolve or redistribute the excess flesh. It was what his advertisement in
The Lady
had promised. The diet part wasn't rigorous and she'd got used to the foul-tasting vitamin drink. As for the process of ‘dissolving and redistributing', that was the most abandoned experience Alison McFee had enjoyed in her whole life, though she tried not to admit it to herself quite as baldly as that – to stem a much more insidious sense of culpability than the one caused by the cost.

The road into which she now emerged was residential. The new block of flats where Mr Popinov lived was some distance to the right. The basement carpark there was strictly for residents only, with apartment numbers painted on the bays. That was why she had taken to leaving her Metro at the supermarket. On the first visit to Mr Popinov she had looked for space in the basement of the flats without success, and eventually parked outside in the street. She hadn't noticed until she came away that the street parking was also restricted to residents. If the car had been clamped or towed away, she wouldn't have known how to cope. She relied on Hughie to handle all brushes with authority, but she would have had to explain to him why she was parked in a Chiswick sidestreet, twenty miles from home.