Corpse in Waiting (3 page)

I was still doing my sphinx thing.

‘Fancy seeing her again after all this time,' Patrick said musingly as we went up to our hotel room.

‘Yes, fancy,' I heard myself respond, graven image-like.

I felt, rather than saw, the sideways look he gave me.

‘Surely you don't blame me for having girlfriends while we were apart.'

I looked him right in the eye. ‘No, of course not. I just don't like women who call a man darling in public when they haven't seen him in years and he's obviously with someone else. It's just plain bad manners.' Even uttering the words made me feel an old fogey.

‘Alex is like that,' Patrick said with a reflective smile.

‘As well as being a binge drinker?'

‘That's not like you, and cruel,' he shot back at me.

‘No, actually this is me being your consultant,' I countered. ‘You know, the one on the other end of the phone when things go a bit tits-up for you? Dispassionately, and I might add soberly, I'm telling you that that woman will make trouble for you.'

‘Look, I'm only going to look round some houses with her.'

‘She's well on the way to ending up a booze-soaked old buzzard.'

‘Now you're being ridiculous.'

‘Did you sleep with her?'

‘Yes.'

I was being ridiculous and I knew he was lying, a shock in itself, and it came to me a little later that we had not had an exchange of words like this since just before we were divorced.

TWO

T
he morning brought a murky sky with darker, thunder-grey clouds on the horizon. Later, as we stood on the pavement outside the hotel I heard the first rumbles and, cursed with flippancy even in bad moments, it occurred to me that this could be the backdrop for a scene in a rather tacky movie. Even our surroundings, one of the finer terraces in Bath, would have had a locations manager bouncing up and down with joy.

And here stood the hero and heroine, I thought glumly, still not at ease with one another, he thinking she was silent on account of the presence of an old flame, or damp squib, whichever way you looked at it, she desperately wondering how to break the stalemate.

We were still standing there fifteen minutes later, getting restless, the storm coming closer, when Patrick's mobile rang. It soon became obvious that it was Commander Michael Greenway, his boss. Nothing too exciting by the sound of it, just making contact. The call ended.

‘Good of him to ring,' I commented.

‘Yes.'

‘Did he say anything about any job he might have for you?'

‘No.'

‘How long do you think we ought to wait here?'

‘I don't know.'

‘She's probably still asleep.'

A grunt.

We lapsed into silence again.

At seven minutes past ten, large spots of rain beginning to thunk on to the pavement, I was just about to give up when a Ford estate car roared up to us and screeched to a halt.

‘Morning!' Alexandra shrieked out of the driver's window, following this with ‘Shit!' as she stalled the engine.

I was directed to the back seat, ‘So Patrick can show me the way,' and duly shifted various items to make space for myself; a thin leather document case, open and stuffed full with papers that were spilling out everywhere, road maps, two umbrellas and a large make-up bag. The car jerked away before I had settled, throwing me into the seat. I mulled over how I would be safest; with my seat belt fastened or not, and then discovered that they all appeared to be trapped behind the upholstery where the seats had been folded down to make room for carrying a bigger load in the rear.

‘You need a left here,' Patrick was saying, having to raise his voice above a downpour as the storm arrived.

A horn blared and the car slewed to a standstill. I had just prevented myself from being thrown forward when Alexandra delivered, full volume, an amazing string of obscenities at someone through her hastily opened window. She then swore again as she got wet.

‘But you do have to give way,' Patrick added, and then laughed.

Never having been a very good traveller I fought down nausea.

We rolled back a little, someone behind us leaned on their horn in panic and then we rocketed off again.

‘This is a horrible little car!' Alexandra raved. ‘I have a Porsche at home, you know.'

‘Did I hear you say you were being given the keys to one of the houses?' Patrick asked.

‘The second place we're looking at. I called in for them on the way over to pick you up. Where to now?'

‘Just bear left and follow the main road. What's the address?'

‘God knows but it's on the particulars. They're in the left hand pocket of my jacket. Have a rummage.'

The female then commenced to wriggle, uttering little giggles, as he put a hand in her pocket and truly, if she had not been driving I would have battered her over the head with anything heavy that was to hand.

He found the folded sheet of paper.

‘Nineteen, King's Court,' he read out.

‘That's just along from where James Carrick used to live,' I said. ‘Up here, on the left.'

Lightning zipped and thunder cracked and we had to pull over for a couple of minutes as it was impossible to see clearly for the rain even with the wipers going flat out. Finally, when it was easing off, we found the place, actually a large mansion that had been converted into flats. Someone from the estate agent's was waiting to show us around, the owners being abroad.

The flat was on the ground floor, spacious but in need of decoration. Alexandra studiously ignored my presence, asking Patrick about paint, wallpaper, plumbing, heating; subjects about which he has never had time to acquaint himself having been content to leave all that kind of thing to his wife. I could have answered most of her questions but neither of them bothered to consult me so I am afraid Patrick had to flounder. As it was I thought the flat a fair price and with quite a lot to recommend it being quiet, very private and with rooms that had lovely proportions.

‘Even if you tore the whole place apart there'd still be a bad feel to it,' Alexandra was saying in ringing tones when I returned from a quick tour of my own, the estate agent, also finding himself superfluous, waiting patiently for us in the hall. ‘I mean, their taste is
execrable.
I'd never be able to get things like those bloody awful curtains out of my mind. No, this isn't the home for me.'

We left.

The next property was empty and because of this we were going to be permitted to look at it on our own, the other appointments Alexandra had during the afternoon. It turned out to be a small terraced Georgian house of some charm, clematis coming into bud around the front door, a narrow front garden overgrown and neglected. The building had been on the market for a long time, over a year, and was in a dire state; peeling paint, cracked glass in some of the rotten sash windows, slipping slates. It would cost a fair bit to restore but I reckoned that if it was done properly one would end up with a real gem.

‘I'd concrete over all this and park the car off the road,' said Alexandra as we walked up the path, waving one elegant hand in the direction of the dripping garden.

‘You wouldn't be allowed to,' I told her. ‘These old properties are almost all Grade One or Two listed.'

‘Oh, I'd soon see to that. Money talks, you know.'

The old-fashioned keys grated in the locks of the front door and we went in. It was gloomy inside and smelt of damp. Alexandra grabbed Patrick by the hand and towed him off towards the rear of the house leaving me to wander into the gloomy living room to the left of the narrow hallway.

It was obvious that no one had lived here for a long time either. The lack of light was due to plants having grown across the windows, which were thick with dirt. I gazed around, trying to work out how much this room alone would cost to restore. I thought not a huge sum even though the floorboards appeared to be rotten along one side and there was a crack in the wall over the fireplace, suggesting a one-time chimney fire. On the positive side there was a very attractive fireplace, which no doubt Alexandra would have removed, and what looked like the original cornices and central ceiling rose. A long and narrow cupboard to one side of the hearth was locked but there were several small keys on the ring still in the lock of the front door, one of which, I quickly discovered, fitted.

There were only two shelves, towards the top, which held dust and dead spiders, plus one large and very alive one which, upon seeing daylight for the first time since heaven alone knew when, raced out of confinement at my nose height startling me before tumbling down on to the floor and rattling off into the grate. It had probably survived by sucking the life out of the others and then become too fat to get through the crack in the door. I'm not a fan of big spiders, nor anything on this planet, come to think of it, with attitude and that number of legs.

I could hear Patrick telling Alexandra about dry rot and so forth and all at once felt depressed and even more superfluous, just as she had intended. To join them and start throwing my weight about seemed juvenile in the extreme, to stay where I was might be construed as sulking. I left that room, crossed the hall and went into the front room on the other side. This was virtually a mirror image of the first but with window seats in the bay and no cupboard.

‘Don't you want to see the back?' Alexandra called, appearing and sounding offended.

‘In a minute,' I answered.

‘There is dry rot in the kitchen,' Patrick reported, his voice sounding muffled as though he was half inside a cupboard under the sink. ‘Probably mushrooms of it under the floorboards.'

‘We could always have them on toast for lunch,' I murmured and went up the stairs.

It was much brighter and lighter here, the two bedrooms and tiny box room charming with faded flowery wallpaper. There was a distant view of hills. I began to fall in love with the place. My imagination blossomed and created a staggeringly wonderful idea. This was a perfect writer's retreat, a winter snug or summer garden cottage where I would not be constantly having to share my workspace with up to nine other people. The box room was just about large enough for a corner shower, hand basin and toilet, one of the living rooms on the ground floor could be made into a study and a simple but modern kitchen installed at the rear.

I went off into a world of my own for a while, gazing out of a window that overlooked the small overgrown back garden, redesigning it in my mind's-eye and for some reason feeling really happy for the first time in ages. Finding my mobile phone I decided to take a photo of it but just as I pressed the button Alexandra walked into shot. She did not see me and I withdrew a little and waited until she went back indoors before taking another. Then I heard footsteps behind me.

‘We wondered where you'd got to,' Patrick said.

‘This is a lovely little house.'

‘Alex is thinking of buying it. But I've told her she'll have a full-scale war with the planners on her hands over what she wants to do with it.'

‘She can't have it,' I heard myself say.

‘Why not?' Patrick asked blankly.

I turned to face him. ‘Because
I'm
buying it.'

‘Eh?'

‘So I can escape when I want to, to write. I've lost my writing room since we moved and have to make do with my desk in the dining room. I've discovered that I can't work like that.'

‘But . . .' Words didn't often fail him. He tried again. ‘Look, I know you—'

A deep resentment that I thought I had emotionally dealt with surfaced. ‘All the time I was site-managing the building work being done on the rectory just before and after I'd had Mark I knew that there would be nowhere for me to write. Frankly, no one seemed to care despite the fact that the cottage we'd just sold in Devon had been
mine
. And if you're thinking that I'd use the money we're putting aside for the children's university education that's not the case at all. Besides which, this place'll be worth a lot when it's been done up and is a good investment. Even in this financial climate an historic house in Bath, albeit a very small one, is never going to lose its value.'

Patrick nodded briskly. ‘I already knew there might be a problem with the present writing arrangements and I'm sure we can find a way round it.'

I had already racked my brains but could think of no way round it. I was hanged if I was going to have one of those studio sheds in the garden either. There was nowhere to hide away anything like that and I would have a constant stream of little visitors who would think it was a playhouse just for them and would then raise hell when I tried to explain that it was not.

‘I wasn't thinking about money,' Patrick went on. ‘Although you ought to know that even in this condition it's on the market for just over three hundred thousand pounds.'

The man had not the first clue about Bath property prices. This place was a gift. I said, ‘As I told you the other day, Berkley's just sold the TV rights for ten of my novels. That will pay for it.'

Berkley Morton is my agent.

Patrick did not appear to hear. I had not thought he had really hoisted in my good news at the first telling. ‘But, Ingrid, the rectory at Hinton Littlemoor is your home.'

‘Of course it is. I shall only be here sometimes. Probably mostly when you're in London.'

‘So you're no longer going to—'

‘There's no question that I won't be there for you if you want my help.'