Murder in Bare Feet

C
harles Pleasant was every woman’s dream of a man. He was 46 but looked nearer 35: he worked out almost every morning, swam, had a massage and then an hour under a lamp almost every afternoon. His body glowed with rude health. Women knew it and women liked it.

He drove his new Range Rover up to the front of Merrill’s department store and looked at his watch. He was waiting outside the most expensive store in town for the most important woman in his life, Mrs Bridie Longley. And there she was, struggling through the glass door of the store loaded up with colourful bags and boxes of shopping.

He smiled as he caught sight of her. It always warmed his heart and lightened his life when she appeared. Wherever she went everybody turned to look at her, especially the men, which delighted him. She had those slim tanned long curvy legs that men can’t take their eyes off, especially as she wore short skirts from her navel like a cake frill.

But she wasn’t smiling. She looked distinctly out of sorts.

He lowered the car window. ‘Jump in, darling. We’re late.’

She wrinkled her little kitten nose. ‘I need six hundred, darling,’ she said. She had a warm voice like thick, hot chocolate. ‘My card’s run dry.’

His jaw tightened then he frowned. ‘I put a thousand in on Friday,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she said with an indignant stare. ‘But I need another £600. I’ve seen the most magnificent parasol.’

Pleasant stared at her. ‘Parasol?’

‘Come on. Come on, darling,’ she said like an impatient schoolteacher to a slow pupil. ‘Six hundred. That’s all. Good heavens!’

He slowly put his hand into his inside pocket and pulled out his wallet. ‘I don’t think I’ve got—’

She stamped her feet on the cold pavement and held out a hand. ‘Come on, Charles. Don’t fool around.’

He pulled out a few twenty-pound notes, but he obviously had nowhere near £600.

‘What about your cards, Charles. What about your cards?’ She rattled off like a machine gun and then, to soften the outburst, added the word, ‘Darling?’

A hot boiling feeling in the lower part of his chest began to work its way upwards. It was raw anger turning into stubbornness. It grew hotter and hotter as it rose up his chest towards his face. He pushed the wallet resolutely back into his pocket and said: ‘No, Bridie. I’m sorry. I haven’t got it.’

Her eyes grew to double their size and then flashed like lightning. She held the stare in disbelief. Her lips tightened.

‘I must have it!’ she snapped.

‘I haven’t got it, Bridie. Now, get in. We’re late.’

‘Huh! You bastard!’ she stormed. She turned round, stared at the shop, hesitated, stamped her foot, then stormed round to the other side of the Range Rover, pushed in the bags and boxes of shopping she had been carrying and then bounced into the seat and slammed the car door.

Her face was red; her hands were shaking. ‘You can go to the bank and get it?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘You must.’

He didn’t reply. He started the engine and engaged first gear.

‘What is it, Charles,’ she continued. ‘Are you suddenly poor? Is that what it is?’ she said scathingly. ‘You told me you had money to burn. That nothing was too much for me. You told me you would cut off your arm rather than let me want for anything.’

He pressed down on the accelerator and pulled into the traffic.

‘I need that parasol. It goes with my new summer outfit. It would just set it off right. What’s the matter? Don’t you want me to look nice when we go out? It would make all the difference to my outfit when we go to Nice. We are going to Nice? Aren’t we? That is still on, isn’t it?’

Pleasant had to concentrate on the driving, but at the same time he was also trying to think of something to say to Bridie that would settle her down without him actually having to grovel. He was desperately searching for the right turn of phrase. He knew it wasn’t easy saying no to her. She had such a powerful will, and was, of course, married and he was well aware that she could withdraw her favours anytime, and return to living with husband, Larry. But he also knew that that would not suit her. Her husband was not like most men. For one thing, he had a natural need for quietness, gentleness and peace. That didn’t suit her. In addition, Pleasant recalled the repeated disappointments she told him that she had tolerated. The thought of what she had said gave him some confidence in what he must say to her. The time had come. He would have to speak up now, before she bled him dry. At the same time he sighed when he thought how he would struggle to live without her. His entire life had been transformed unbelievably since they became lovers. He could not possibly endure life without her. The emptiness he did not bear to think about. It was not too strong to say that he could not live without her. There was nobody like Bridie Longley. Nobody.

‘Are you listening to me, Charles?’

‘I hear you, darling,’ he said.

‘Don’t you
dare
call me darling,’ she said. ‘Not when you are so mean to me.’

He changed gear. His hand so easily could have slipped on to her legs and caressed them, as it had done so many times before. In this mood, she would have rejected such an advance. He simply could not stand the risk of being held at arm’s length, like this. The trouble was she knew that too.

‘Are you trying to find a hole in the wall, a cash machine?’

‘No. I’m trying to find a way through this traffic and get home.’

‘Not to your house, Charles,’ she said quietly. But it was highly significant. ‘Take me home.’

She meant her own home with husband, Larry Longley. It was like a sword thrust into his belly. He would need her tonight. Even one night without her close to him, to put his arms round was impossible to contemplate. ‘No need to make a big thing out of this, Bridie,’ he said. ‘You know I’m crackers about you.’

‘That’s why you deny me a parasol. The most beautiful parasol I have ever seen.’

‘It’s not the parasol. It’s the principle.’

‘It’s not the principle, it’s the money.’

There was hesitation. He swallowed hard. ‘All right, it’s the money. I can’t afford your spending any more, Bridie. A couple of hundred a week, maybe I can manage, but you’re spending over a thousand.’

‘You told me you had millions. You’re just a tight-fisted meanie. Or a liar.’

‘No. Be reasonable.’

‘Reasonable,’ she screamed. ‘You’ve all those lorries and that big house.’

‘It’s all mortgaged, Bridie. I’ve a loan so big, I daren’t even think about.’

Her jaw dropped open. ‘Huh! You’ve lied to me.’

His eye was on the road. It was a tricky moment. He carefully contrived to overtake a bus. He put his right foot down and roared ahead.

‘What?’ he said.

‘You’ve lied to me,’ she said. ‘You told me you had millions. Have I wasted eight years on you?’

‘Money is a bit tight, just now. That’s all. Come back to my house, now. I can make it up to you, darling. You know that.’

She put both hands to her head. ‘No,’ she said. It was going to be a great wrench. She would need great willpower to push him away from her. Larry would be a very poor substitute. No substitute. He was pathetic. ‘This has all been a great shock to me,’ she said. ‘I have to think things out.’

‘You’re at that time in your life when you need me. You know that.’

It was true. He knew her better than she knew herself.

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘We have that magic that millions of people wished they had. Don’t throw it away because of some trivial thing like … a parasol.’

He saw a 30 mph speed restriction sign. He eased off the accelerator.

‘When you think quietly about it,’ he continued, ‘you’ll get it into perspective. Let’s go back to my house. You know I can give you a super time. We are always great together.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘We can sort something out about the parasol.’

‘It’s not only about the parasol, now, Charles.’

‘I can’t live without you, Bridie.’

‘Don’t be so bloody melodramatic.’

‘If you leave me now, to go back to Larry, I won’t be able to help myself. I will kill you.’

The church clock struck midnight. Fog had dropped on the town like a shroud. There was no moon. Visibility was five metres. Nervous drivers had abandoned their cars and left them at the side of the road. What little traffic there was crawled like noisy, determined, snails. Pedestrians had long since found their destination and were snug in their beds.

A pair of powerful headlights pierced through the fog as a solitary vehicle ground its unhappy way along St George’s Road on the outskirts of the town and stopped at a frontage of lock up shops. The vehicle’s engine ticked away, sucking in diesel and blowing out dark fumes as the driver pulled on the handbrake. A few seconds later, the driver, in leather jerkin, woolly hat and leather gloves, and carrying a heavy duty rubber-sleeved torch jumped down from the cab. He walked tentatively across the wide pavement towards the shops and flashed the torch erratically up at the fascias. He found the colourful sign of ‘Hellman’s Family Butchers’ repeated across four shopfronts then waved the light searchingly on the imposing entranceway into the shop. There was no sign of life. He flashed the torch around to see if he was being observed. All he could see was grey fog. Everywhere was silent and deserted. He went straight up to the shop door and tried the sneck. It was unlocked. He pushed the door, went straight in and closed it quickly. It was the largest butcher’s shop he had ever seen. He flashed the torch on to the huge length of glass and chromium counters, creating crazy reflections and eerie shadows. He made his way to the back of the shop, and flashed the torch rapidly over a dozen spotless, and bare butcher’s blocks in turn. On the nearest, he saw the glittering reflection of the blade of a solitary chopper sticking lightly into its surface. He stared at the shining blade. His hands were shaking. His pulse raced. He quickly snatched it off the block, thrust it under his arm and dashed out of the shop.

It was a bleak winter’s night.

AA patrolman Carl Standish was driving northwards on the A1(M) motorway stretch through Cambridgeshire towards the hard standing, midway between the Little Chef restaurant and Grantswood Services. It was pitch black but no fog or mist. So driving wasn’t difficult. There had been a slight air frost and unusually Standish had only had one call since reporting on duty four hours earlier. He preferred to be busy, not overwhelmed; a steady flow of jobs made the shift pass more quickly. He had supplied and fitted a new fan belt on an old Nissan and sent the driver happily on his way and was heading for Grantswood Services, the position he had to wait at when not attending members. There was a constant stream of traffic, but it was not heavy and he drove at an easy 40 mph, behind a heavy, articulated GPO van in the nearside lane. He was thinking how much he would enjoy a drink of coffee from his flask when he arrived and parked up at his waiting station, when the vehicle in front of him braked suddenly. His brake lights came on. It squealed to a stop. He braked hard and only just managed to stop four feet away from the back of the pantechnicon. He immediately stabbed the button to put on his flashing amber lights.

He wrinkled his nose and rubbed his chin.

In his mirror, he saw a stream of vehicles’ headlights approach from behind, saw their overtaking indicator lights blinking in the night and then observed them roar past. After a few more seconds, he switched off the ignition, grabbed his rubber-covered torch, withdrew his ignition key and made his way up to the front of the GPO wagon. In the wagon’s headlights, he could see the uniformed driver with his hands on the rim of an oil drum about four feet high and two feet in diameter. It was standing upright a few feet from the gutter.

‘What’s happened?’ Standish said.

‘This ruddy thing. Dangerous standing here. Dropped off the back of a lorry, I reckon. Somebody will be short when they arrive wherever they’re going. Lost an ’eadlight glass to it. Give us a hand, mate.’

Standish grabbed the other side and between them they manoeuvred it to the side of the road. It wasn’t very heavy. When at the edge, they gave it a final triumphant push on to the grass. It hit the banking with a thud, the lid fell off and a mess of blonde hair covered in blood slithered on to the grass. Standish flashed his torch at the sight. It had an ear and two red staring eyes, and below, grey, skinny shoulders.

The two men gasped.

Standish’s arms turned to gooseflesh.

Summer had arrived. It was hotter than a crematorium chimney on a January afternoon.

‘Michael. Michael. Michael! Are you going to cut that lawn then?’

Detective Inspector Michael Angel was enjoying his weekend off. He was in a deckchair in his garden in his shirtsleeves and shorts with the
Sunday Telegraph
covering his face. His wife, Mary Angel, came through the French windows in white blouse and tennis shorts carrying a tray. ‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea.’