A Free Range Wife Read online

  “What d’yer think I’m being. Told yer—”

  “When were you last at the Château de Mordan?”

  “Spell it.”

  He spelled it.

  “Charlie stayed there a few times, if it’s the same place. On business.”

  “We know. He didn’t take you with him?”

  “If you knew Charlie stayed there you should know I never did. Right? Never mind.” She was sipping with gathering momentum. “Look, I wasn’t enraptured about Charlie’s birds but I wasn’t one for cramping his style either. What good would it have done me?” Sip, swallow. “All right, he took me once. I suppose you could check that if you wanted. Can’t see what it’s got to do with anything. Plenty of times he’d say, ‘Come along, gorgeous,’ and I’d say no, because Charlie needed his freedom. I knew that better than he did. Paris, Majorca, Gibraltar. ‘You go on your own,’ I’d tell him. And he always came back.” Sip, sip. Except the last time, she thought. “Business conferences he called them. Mind, I’m not saying there wasn’t business too.”

  “Travel agency business?”

  “Straight up, he didn’t talk to me about business and I didn’t ask. He was a very professional working man. Compartalised, everything in boxes. Compartmentalised.”

  He sounds it, Peckover thought, and said, “Why Mordan? It’s not particularly handy for Lourdes?”

  “Fancy though, innit? Got class.”

  “That what counted?”

  “That’s what counted. If it had the stars and crossed cutlery and someone who spoke English, it was for Charlie.”

  “Mercy McCluskey speaks English. She’s the owner’s wife. Still saying you never heard of her?”

  “Never said I hadn’t heard of her, though I hadn’t, not till now. Said I didn’t know her.” The Widow Spence, replenishing her glass from the Gordon’s, giggled. “Name like that, IRA is she? Ho, begorra! Does your mother come from Oireland?”

  “Her mother’s American and McCluskey’s Scottish.” Peckover supposed it was Scottish. “Older than you, fortyish, blonde, six feet tall. Taller. A Yank.”

  “Miriam.”

  “Who?”

  “Can’t be that many six-foot blonde Yanks in Lourdes. She had on this gray gaberdine jacket, red cords, smashin’ necklace. Ivory. Couldn’t stop fiddling with it. She was in a fair old state, my opinion. Edgy. Said she was Miriam Burns, or Barnes. Didn’t catch it. She wanted to know if I knew Mercy McCluskey.”

  Peckover thought he might not say no to a gin after all, if pressed. Mercy McCluskey looking for Mercy McCluskey but calling herself Miriam. Cheeky baggage. He blew on his tea and said, “When?”

  “Hour or two ago. Four o’clock. I hadn’t hardly got in. Open house here today, I can tell you.”

  “You told her you didn’t know Mercy McCluskey?”

  “First I’d heard of her. Who is bleedin’ Mercy McCluskey anyway? This Yankee woman, Miriam, or whoever she is, she seemed to think I should know her. When I didn’t she lost interest. Chewed her necklace and said goodbye.”

  “What else did she say? Before saying goodbye.”

  “That’s all. She sat where you’re sitting. Said she was a friend of Mercy McCluskey, hadn’t seen her for years, but she’d met Charlie at that château place, and they found they both knew her, knew Mercy McCluskey, and she was sincerely grieved to hear about Charlie passing on but perhaps did I know had he left behind any clue to where she might find her friend Mercy McCluskey, him being a friend? A likely bleedin’ story.”

  “You told her you didn’t believe her?”

  “I should of, p’raps. No point though. Like I said, she lost interest and went.”

  “Why’d she lose interest?”

  “Cause I didn’t know bleedin’ Mercy McCluskey. Obvious.”

  “What kind of clue about her did this woman think Charlie might have left behind? Scent on a silk handkerchief? A lock of hair? Letters tied in blue? She say?”

  “She said he might have had her phone number or an address or an old photo.”

  “And did he?”

  “No.”

  “You looked?”

  “Course I looked. We both did. Best way to get rid of her. I brought his address book. You coppers went through it a hundred times.”

  “No Mercy McCluskey?”

  “Want to see it?”

  “That was the point she lost interest, was it?”

  “You’re good. You should be on quiz programmes.”

  “And no old photos, letters?”

  “Wouldn’t think so. Charlie wasn’t one for souvenirs and he never wrote a letter in his life. Nobody wrote to Charlie either. There were some snaps and picture postcards somewhere. ‘Wish you were here.’ Truth is, I haven’t hardly looked. Charlie’s stuff. I kept out of it when the coppers were here, told them to help themselves. Suppose I’ll have to go through it now, packing. Oh, God.”

  Peckover put down his cup. He started to rise. He thought she was about to cry out or start weeping. She did neither, but exhaled breathily, almost a moan, and tossed her cigarette-end into the sink. When she spoke again her tone was determinedly bright.

  “Any case, I wasn’t scrabblin’ about in Charlie’s things for her, Yankee slag, no better ’n she should be, my opinion.”

  “Why d’you say that?”

  “One of Charlie’s tarts. Obvious. Wetting her knickers in case her husband or boy-friend finds out. Wanted to get her hands on anything that might tie her in with Charlie and flush it down the S-bend.”

  “Think so? She waited long enough. Four months.” Alternatively, if what had spurred her had been a stabbed pianist coming on top of stabbed Ziegler she had waited barely five minutes. He watched the easy efficiency with which a widow lit up her fortieth cigarette. “Still, you’ll scrabble round for me, dear, won’t you? Quick peek at the postcards perhaps, then I’ll be off.”

  “Dunno I’ll ever find them.”

  “I’m supposed to be trained. Did he have a study?”

  “Study? That’s a laugh.” Glug went the gin bottle. “Mother’s bleedin’ ruin. Fat lot of packin’ I’ll get done tonight. C’mon then.”

  Twirling the beret on his forefinger, blinking in the slip-stream of cigarette smoke, Peckover followed the Widow Spence out of the kitchen, between crates in the hall, and up the stairs. At liberty at last to yawn, he did so capaciously. Ahead, moving with less than alacrity, the widow held her glass in one hand, the banister with the other. Peckover averted his eyes from the eye-level bum, tight-trousered and mobile. Balls, he decided, and defying Puritanism observed with enjoyment. They reached the landing and the bum descended to knee-level or thereabouts. In a corner were piled shoes, some with buckles, most high-heeled. What about Charlie’s shoes? A mother or sister should have been here sorting and helping.

  He was unexcited about Charlie’s shoes or postcards but a sniff around the more intimate recesses might give a better idea of Charlie than all his widow’s natterings. Different anyway. He was not convinced he wanted any idea about Charles Fordyce Spence beyond that which he had but he had come a fair distance and learned nothing. Except that Mercy McCluskey had come a fair distance too.

  In a bedroom with a musty smell, grandiose bed, and bathroom en suite, Susan Spence opened the drawer of a dresser, and said, “Socks. That’s a comb he found on the pavement in Jermyn Street. Couldn’t resist a free gift, Charlie, for all his spending. Yours if you want it. Big deal. And the shirts. What’s your collar size? You could wear them open neck. I haven’t hardly been in here since—since it happened. Know what I mean?”

  At her shoulder, Peckover burped, put the beret to his lips, and murmured, “Pardon.”

  “Charming,” said the widow. She was rummaging among trays of male jewellery: cuff-links, rings, a gold chain and crucifix. “Pooh! What’ve you been eating?”

  Peckover backed. The bedroom which, widowed, she had fled, was luxurious and probably
vulgar, though on the latter count he would have preferred the opinion of Miriam. Miriam-Miriam the only Miriam, not counterfeit McCluskey-Miriam, though she too had taste, he recalled, seeing in his mind’s eye a restored fireplace, woven green curtains, a loom, and unwanted drum kit. Here on each side of the bed stood a veneered console, his and hers, as if in a stateroom on an ocean liner, with buttons for room service and added power for the stabilisers. The flock wallpaper was unadorned by flying china geese, or a turquoise oriental girl from Boots, or even gilt-edged Picassos, but there were fitted, flock-wallpapered wardrobes, a reproduction cabinet with silver knobs, and everywhere considerable shine and velvety purple stuff. The lampshades had fringes and there was concealed lighting which you could spot if you looked hard enough, though Peckover would have bet that with all the lights on there would not have been enough light to read by. In an alcove in the wall opposite the bed, aimed at the bed, was the colour television and video recorder.

  “You could have had that cheap except it’s a selling-point,” said the Widow Spence. “We never watched, not the telly, it’s all in bleedin’ French. Charlie had his own tapes.”

  Peckover was able to imagine. He slid wardrobe doors open and surveyed a hanging score of suits, jackets, blazers, tailored fatigues.

  “Make me an offer,” Susan Spence said, arriving at the wardrobe. “I’m not givin’ them to Oxfam.”

  On the floor were three or four pair of shoes. Peckover wondered whether that might not have been a mark of class, or rather lack of it: twenty suits and loss of interest when you reached your feet. He stowed his beret into his pocket and started dipping into Charlie’s pockets.

  “Smart of you,” the woman said, dipping. “The coppers did say they’d try to keep everything as it was. Only it was winter. Either the tweed or the cashmere.”

  It was the cashmere, from an inside pocket of which she drew out an assortment of papers and a packet of Peter Stuyvesant. “Have that for starters,” she said, and passed Peckover the return, first-class portion of a Lourdes-Paris train ticket, which he did not want.

  The next gem she handed him was a brochure for the new Peugeot, which he did not want even more. Susan Spence hesitated, speculating on a picture postcard, turning it over.

  “Just like Blackpool Tower, innit? From Janice, whoever she is. ‘Six goals to our side, Big Boy.’ Bleedin’ slag. Here, take it.”

  She was already looking at the next postcard, an ethereal, chiffony bride-child on a bed with one leg up, examining her toenails, very arty and fond of herself. As far as Peckover could see, there were only two postcards. Little else remained. Some photos.

  “‘From D’—D for ‘dirt cheap,’” said the Widow Spence, and gave the chiffony girl to the policeman. “No letters, see? His Visa card, I’ll hang on to that.” She slid the Visa card back into the cashmere, finished her gin in a gulp, and regarded a colour photograph. “His nibs himself by flash bulb in some night-club, very sweaty, don’t ask me who the company is. Here, it’s yours. Passport photo of more company—hey!”

  “What?” Peckover regarded a passport photograph of Mercy McCluskey, startled and wild-eyed enough to have given any immigration officer pause.

  “That’s her!”

  “Who?”

  “Miriam Thing. The one who was here.”

  “Honest?” He took the photograph. “The police see all this?”

  “See it? They carted it off, kept it for months. Weeks anyway. Some of it came back in plastic bags.”

  “I’ll give you a receipt.”

  “I don’t want a receipt. Here, have the lot.” What remained was a football pools coupon, which she thrust at him. “Something you could do though.”

  Peckover waited to hear what he could do. He waited so long while she gazed in the direction of her husband’s suits, seeing probably nothing, that he thought she had changed her mind, there was nothing he could do after all. Finally she said, “Can’t stand this room,” swung round, and stalked out.

  Unsteadily she descended the stairs, Peckover in her wake. From a bureau in the living room she produced the Motorist’s Diary.

  “I haven’t said a thing,” she said. “Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “His name’s Becker. He was a business mate of Charlie’s. That’s his address.”

  “Travel agent, is he?”

  “Those are his addresses too, there. But that’s the one he’s at. Andorra. From today.”

  “I don’t know, love. Obliged, but quite honestly I ’adn’t thought of going to Andorra.”

  “Suit yourself. Thought you’d got that woman on your mind. You wouldn’t be the first. If you did have, Andorra’s where you might find her, not that I’d know. Becker was the one Charlie used to meet at the château.”

  “And the one time you were there you met Becker too.”

  “Who said I did? Mind your own beeswax.”

  “So what you’re saying is Mercy McCluskey might have served ’em both, Charlie and this Becker geezer. With the Scotch eggs and champers. That it?”

  “Told you, I’m saying nothing.”

  “Sensible girl.” Peckover brought out his notebook and peered at the page in the Motorist’s Diary. “No phone number for Andorra?”

  “Maybe he was cut off, couldn’t pay his bills.”

  “Maybe he’s all alone on a mountain top. Villa Azul. What’s that mean? Villa up in the Blue?”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised. What language is it?”

  “You’ve never been there?”

  “Never bleedin’ will now either.”

  “When she left here, Mercy, or Miniam, she say where she was going?”

  “No. Asked if I knew a reasonable hotel. I told her the Impérial, four stars, first that came into my head. If she gets a room over the road she’ll be able to listen to the traffic all night.” Susan Spence fumbled so cack-handedly with her cigarette packet that the cigarette she produced had broken in two. “Off to hold her hand, are you?”

  “Not particularly.” He pocketed the notebook, unfurled the beret. “Take care, love.”

  “You could stay here if you want. I’ve got some lamb chops in the freezer.”

  “Thanks all the same.”

  He was relieved to hear himself say it. She had drunk too much, whether he stayed or left she was pretty certainly going to be doing some weeping, and if he stayed he could see himself packing her crates for her. None of which was the point, because he liked her and was tempted. But he did not trust her and the game was not worth et cetera. One day six months hence over gin and giggles in the Horse and Groom she would entertain the company with the tale of her little happening in Lourdes with a Chief Inspector Peckover from Scotland Yard. Though it would not be the Horse and Groom. On the proceeds from this pad she would buy something Tudor in Weybridge or Sunningdale. For a year. Then, bored dizzy, back to the East End.

  “Piss off then,” said the Widow Spence.

  Suzy the Floosie, she thought, crumbling the cigarette, watching his nod and smile, his gesture with the beret, then the big back retreating past crates and into the hall.

  Oh, Charlie.

  With or without the wedding ring she would have taken him back, done it all again. Why couldn’t they have had more time? Waste, waste. No one knew like Charlie how to please a woman. So he knew how to please a thousand women, so all right. She did not care.

  “Get that snotrag Becker!” she shouted.

  In the moments of silence which followed, she thought: He’s coming back, the copper, he’s going to stay. But she heard the front door close, then continuing silence.

  “Oh, Charlie,” she sobbed. “Oh, Charlie.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Cock? Mr. Veal, sir? That you?”

  “Henry?”

  “C’est moi. Bonjour. Sunshine here, matey. Bet that’s more than you’ve got.”

  “Before you go any further, we’re up to ou
r eyes.”

  “Ho, liverish this morning, are we? Phoned you last night but there was no one except a duty sergeant. Is he new?”

  “Who?”

  “Sounded like an Indian—a Red Indian. His French was rubbish. You’d have been at Evensong, I expect.”

  “Henry—”

  “It’s Evensong morning, noon, and night ’ere. Listen—hear it? They’ve got loudspeakers everywhere. I’m going to sing along. Ready? Pom-pom-pom . . . Here it comes. Laud-a-arr-tay, laud-a-arr-tay, laud-a-arr-tay dom-ee-nay . . .”

  “Henry!”

  “There’s not a lot of variety. When they’ve done it forty times they start over again. Same thing.”

  “Look, you won’t know this but we had bonfires in Brixton last night. They’ve started rehearsing for the summer. And I’ve got the gaffer’s conference in fifteen minutes. Can you hurry it?”

  “Yessir. You have my message there, sir?”

  “What message?”

  “The message I gave the Cherokee, Big Moose Feather.”

  “He’s a Comanche and he’s Big Stag Droppings.”

  “Oh-ho. Who’ve you been talking to?”

  “I estimate, old chum, your clowning at that château is going to be number four or five on the gaffer’s agenda. Is this what you’re talking about—twenty-two fifteen, Sunday? You’re in Lourdes, Hotel Galilée-Windsor. You’ve talked to the Widow Spence . . . Mrs. McCluskey’s in town . . . ‘Lapin aux pruneaux is one of the more succulent specialties of the region, a gourmet’s gorge, serve it with a piping-hot piperade, as do the Basques, and to follow, why not the local ewe’s-milk cheese washed down with a heady Jurançon, the golden sweet dessert wine with the herbal tang?’ Am I suppose to show this to the gaffer?”

  “Read the poem.”

  “Listen, you gruesome—”

  “For Geronimo. He took it down in real joined-up writing.”

  “Jesus! Here then.

  “He eyed the garçon, gave a cough:

  ‘A gourmet and a gambler, I.

  ‘The soup was cold, the fish was off,

  ‘And now the steaks are high—’”

  “Gettit, the stakes are high? Go on then. What’ve you stopped for?”