Loose Head (31 page)

But it wasn’t just between Ian and me – not anymore. He’d crossed that line when he attacked Brian. And now he’d involved Jane and Bernie. Then there was the fact that he was pointing a gun at me, and that I had begun to understand why. Ian had brought Bernie along tonight for a reason. “Somehow I don’t think I’ll be given that option,” I replied as lightly as I could.

“You didn’t answer my question, Dex.”

“If I say no, will you leave us in peace, and agree to vanish once again?”

“I can’t do that, Dex.” Ian rose, and stood staring into the glowing embers of the fire. “The fact is, I’m very disappointed in you. Thanks to your carelessness, four of the people I care most about in the world are facing personal and professional ruin. And now I find that you’ve been taking your pleasure with the lovely Jane, even while our old mate Bernie has been locked up, facing prosecution for a crime he didn’t commit! I’ve seen a lot of bad behavior in 35 years of rugby, Dex. But this really is contemptibly low!”

Bernie stirred feebly. “Certainly is,” he mumbled.

Ian ignored him, fixing me with the same smoldering predatory stare I had seen so often on the rugby pitch. “Well? What do you have to say for yourselves?”

Jane, until now, had huddled silent and trembling beside me. She wasn’t trembling any more. “What business is it of yours, Ian? Are you the moral guardian of the club now, as well? If so, and if half the rumors I’ve heard are true, you’ve got a full-time job ahead of you! I didn’t know Bernie was gay, Ian. Do you know what a shock it was when I found out? I’ve loved Dex for ages! Yes, we had an affair 15 years ago! But since then, I’ve asked him to respect my marriage, and he’s been gentleman enough to agree! When I saw Bernie’s video, I came to Dex – even then, he didn’t come to me. We’re grown-ups, Ian – all of us. We make our own decisions – you don’t make them for us. I love Dex, Ian! And nothing you can do or say is going to change that!”

It was the wrong tack to take with a man whose years of enforced isolation had created an obsessive and idealized memory of his old mates – as well as a delusional sense of his own right to act as judge, jury and executioner. I saw Bernie sit up groggily in his chair, struggling desperately to follow the conversation, as Ian turned his full attention on Jane.

“Well that’s clear enough, then,” he said, with sudden decisiveness. “If that’s the way things are, perhaps you two lovebirds would be good enough to disrobe, and lie down before the fire.”

“What?” I asked dangerously.

“Strip off!” he snarled. “Or I’ll shoot you where you sit.”

I looked at Jane, mind seething. My MPS training came back to me. Avoid upsetting the man with the gun, play for time, watch alertly for your opportunity. I shrugged, pulled off my tie, and began unbuttoning my shirt. Jane, following my lead, also began slowly to disrobe.

“That’s a good girl. Just scatter your clothes passionately on the floor... now lay down by the fire – yes, that’s right. Believe me, I take no pleasure in this. Sorry it’s come to this, but when a drunken, cuckolded wreck of a man happens on his wife and best friend in a passionate embrace, and you mix in an unregistered, untraceable handgun... well, murder, suicide, it’s the stuff of Shakespearean tragedy, isn’t it? Goodbye, Jane – and goodbye, Dex, my old friend.” And Ian aimed the gun.

I suddenly lashed out with a foot, to send the lamp crashing to the floor, grabbed Jane and rolled atop her into the precarious shelter of the sofa. At that moment, I heard Bernie suddenly rejoin the living. “That’s my WIFE, you bastard!” Then came the sound of two heavy bodies colliding.

I leapt to my feet, to behold Bernie, fighting with maniacal strength for possession of the gun. Ian, eyes bulging, struggled to force it away from his own torso. Even as I leapt forward to join the battle, a deafening report rattled the windows. For a moment, they stood frozen. Then Ian’s knees buckled, and he slumped to the floor.

Bernie held the gun loosely at his side. “Ian!” he cried piteously. “What’ve I done?” Then his woozy gaze found me, and Jane, where she had struggled to a sitting position. “Oh, God, Jane, what’ve I done?” he whispered. “I’ve ruined everything.”

“It’s all right, Bern,” I said. “You had no choice.”

He seemed not to hear me, but turned his haunted gaze to Jane. “I’m so ashamed,” he said. “I’ve hurt you so badly! You never deserved it. You deserved a man who was strong, and good, and knew what he wanted to do with his life! For God’s sake, you at least deserved a husband who knew who he was! I... I wanted to tell you, my darling. I just never had the guts.”

“It’s all right, Bernie,” I said, edging closer. “Why don’t you give me the gun, now. The police are on their way – we don’t want any misunderstandings.”

“I don’t blame you for seeking comfort in Dex’s arms – God knows I’ve wanted to, sometimes. He’s a good man. And you’re an incomparable woman. Forgive me, Jane. You deserved better than me.”

And he raised the gun to his head.

Then Jane was there, walking toward him, nearly naked but calm and unafraid. “Bernie, darling, no,” she said. “Don’t leave me – not like this. I love you, Bernie. I don’t want you to go. It’s me who should be asking your forgiveness. Now don’t be an ass – this won’t solve anything. Give Dex the gun.”

“Jane, I...”

Her voice sharpened. “Don’t argue, Bernie. Give Dex the gun.”

Like one in a dream, Bernie slowly lowered the pistol until it hung limply at his side. I took it from him carefully as Jane rushed into his arms. “Bernie you ass, you ass! What were you thinking?”

“I... don’t know,” I heard him murmur dazedly. “Just seemed like the thing to do.”

Ian lay on his back, eyes open, as if unable to believe the unthinkable tragedy that had, at last, overtaken him. I felt his carotid – no pulse. The blackened bullet-hole under his chin and the spreading pool of blood beneath his head told the story. He’d come here tonight to kill me – I knew that. So why was I crying, sobs wracking my weary shoulders, as all the bitter, earth-shaking grief of his loss a decade or more ago came flooding back?

I felt arms around me then, as both Jane and Bernie forgot their own anguish and tried to comfort me. And that’s how the uniformed boys found us – three grief-stricken people, two of them half-naked, clinging desperately to one another like climbers lost in an Everest blizzard, with a corpse on the floor and a smoking Glock on the table.

Chapter 27

The last time I saw Ian Chalmers, before he vanished from my life in 1994, we’d met for a drink after work, at the Barley Mow in Dorset Street, a cozy old pub with very private booths tucked away in various crannies and crevices. Ian was several pints ahead of me when I arrived, fresh from a particularly sad and disturbing homicide. A pleasant, quiet couple in their 50s, the Healys, had lived for years in a row-house in Nottingham Street, in Marylebone. They’d been married 41 years. Earlier that afternoon, the wife, Beryl, had rung 999 to suggest that it might be a good idea if the police called ‘round. When the operator asked why, Beryl had replied calmly, “Because I’ve killed him.” She then provided her address, brushed her hair, touched up her makeup, and waited placidly next to her rapidly-cooling husband for the police.

It seemed that when Mr. Healy had arrived home for his lunch, Beryl had served him a nice curry laced with enough rat poison to kill a hippopotamus. When I asked her why, she had frowned slightly, a pleasant-looking, grandmotherly woman with an impressive bosom, her soft brown hair now running to grey, as if trying to think of a plausible reason. “I couldn’t stand the way he belched when he ate,” she replied at length.

Ian had absorbed this tale with gloomy concentration. He looked uncharacteristically harried and out of sorts; I could tell there was something weighing on him. “That’s the fascinating thing about relationships, isn’t it, Dex?” he’d said when I finished. “You think you know someone, then boom! One day they turn on you. It’s like you never really knew them at all! And yet, if you never trust anyone, you’ll never be loved in return. And what kind of life is that? Once you’re dead, it’s like you never existed.” He drained his pint, signaled for another. “I hope that, when I’m dead, you, at least, will remember me fondly.”

“No worries, mate. Now tell me – what’s bothering you? You seem a bit gloomy, but perhaps it’s just constipation, or impotence.”

“That obvious, is it?”

“I’m a policeman, Ian – I’m paid to notice things. Anything I can do to help?”

For just a moment, he seemed on the verge of spilling whatever was on his mind. Then he managed a sour grin, and clapped me on the shoulder. “Nah, but thanks for asking. You’ve always been the best of them, do you know that, Dex? I knew the first time I laid eyes on you that there was something special about you. Remember, in that changing-room at school? You’d just given that stuck-up little turd Lord Westbrook a right walloping. I invited you to come out for rugby.”

I raised my glass. “And started me on the road to perdition. I do have a lot to blame you for, don’t I?”

“Let me buy you a drink, to make partial amends,” he said, signaling the barman. “Life’s an uncertain thing, Dex! Who knows? It could be the last we’ll ever have together.”

“In that case,” I said, “better make it a large one.”

And that was the last time I ever saw Ian Chalmers – until the night, a decade or so later, that he came to kill me.

II

I was dozing fitfully next to Brian’s bed, in a chair that apparently had been ordered from Marquis de Sade Hospital Furnishings Ltd., when a croaking voice, like that of Hell’s parched doorman, awakened me. “Christ, you look worse than I feel.”

“God’s balls!” I leapt to my feet. “Brian, you’re awake!”

“I just now woke up. Where the hell am I?”

I turned briefly away to hide the tears that suddenly sprang to my eyes. “University Hospital,” I managed, after a pause. “How d’you feel?”

“Like shit, mate. My head hurts like somebody’s drilled a hole in it.”

“Funny you should say that.”

Brian regarded me speculatively. “They didn’t.”

“No choice. You gave Fee and I quite a turn, I don’t mind telling you now.”

“What happened to me?”

“You were set upon and beaten within an inch of your bloody life. You don’t remember?”

“Last thing I remember is walking down the Charing Cross Road, chatting to you on the mobile, about... what were we talking about?”

“The Weathersby case.”

“Right. And after that, it’s all a blank until I woke up here. What’s the date? How long have I been out?”

“Six days. Today’s the 17
of November.”

“Six days? JESUS CHRIST!” A pause, and Brian raised his uninjured hand shakily to his brow. “Oooh – shouldn’t have done that. Six days! Fancy that. No wonder I’m famished. Who was it attacked me?”

“Four teenaged thugs. They were paid to thrash you. They’re behind bars even as we speak, repenting their sins.”

“Paid to attack me.” Brian paused to take inventory -- bandaged head, stitches in his forehead, right arm in a cast to the armpit, left leg in a cast, broken ribs bound up, assorted abrasions, cuts and contusions. “They earned their money, I’ll give them that. I take it they were being paid by the blow. But by whom?”

“Do you remember anything about the conversation we were having when you were attacked?”

Brian frowned painfully. “Is there any water? I’m parched.” I found a pitcher, poured a glass and helped him drink. “Thanks, Dex. I remember snatches. Bits and pieces. I remember I’d just been to see... Devilliers. One of the boys in Computer Crime... Graves... had tapped into Devilliers’ computer. He found...” Brian trailed off.

“You told me you knew who killed Weathersby – that you’d solved the case. But you wouldn’t tell me who it was, you bastard! We were going to meet for a pint so you could tell me all about it.”

Brian closed his eyes in an agony of concentration. Then, abruptly, they snapped open. “Chalmers!” he rasped. “It was Chalmers, Dex! I remember now! Graves found an email... Dex, he’s alive! Chalmers is alive!”

“Not anymore, Brian.” And I filled him in on the events of the last few days.

“Oh, sweet Jesus and Mary,” he said when I’d finished. “You poor bastard. He was your mate, wasn’t he?”

I nodded, feeling the anguish of it afresh, like heat to a new burn. “Like a brother.”

“But he was going to kill you?”

“Oh, yes. And Jane. And Bernie. And make it look like Bernie did it, in a jealous, drunken rage.”

“And I’d have been next – a pillow over the face, or an injection of air.”

I nodded again. “In all likelihood. Devilliers too, perhaps. Then Ian’s secret would’ve been safe forever.”

“And Jane? How did she happen to be there?”

I told him about Jane and me. I wanted no secrets between us. Not anymore.

“Well,” he said, not quite knowing what to say. “I’m shocked and appalled, in case Fee asks. Just between you and me, having seen her, I don’t think I could’ve resisted her either. Is this going to be a permanent arrangement, then?”

“I hope so,” I replied. “I’d like it to be, but it’s up to her. I’m meeting her in half an hour – guess I’ll find out then. And now...” I went to the bedside phone, punched in a number, and held the receiver to Brian’s ear, “there’s someone you need to talk to more than me.”

“Hullo, gorgeous,” Brian croaked. “Send the kids to your sisters and peel off your knickers – I’m coming home!” I pretended not to notice the tears running in rivers into his beard.

III

Jane had asked me to meet her in the bar at the Park Hotel – the very place our affair had begun so many years ago. I hadn’t seen her since that terrible night in my flat, though we had spoken often and affectionately on the phone. She was sipping a gimlet when I arrived; she rose and kissed me softly. “Hullo, Dex,” she smiled. “I like to come here sometimes, you see. To think about that thrilling night 15 years ago, when we first...” she trailed off.

I felt an awkwardness between us, a constraint that hadn’t been there two nights ago. Then, talking to her had seemed the easiest and most natural thing in the world. Now I sensed wariness in her, saw something in her warm brown eyes that gave me pause. “How’s Bernie?” I asked at length.