The Green Flash (50 page)

You bloody bitch, I feel like shouting, you're covering up for me, just the way my bloody bitch of a mother covered up for me once before. My husband seemed to overbalance and turned as he did so, catching his head on the rail of the Aga as he fell. Not true. I hit him across the head with the heavy iron handle that you use to empty an Aga, and the blood gushed down his face and he fell over backwards, clutching the rail of the stove as he fell. But he wasn't dead; he crawled across the kitchen like a half-crushed beetle and my mother rushed to help him up. But he never got up; he just got half up and pulled a chair over with him, and half got up again, twitching while he did so, and clutched at my mother, and slowly sank down and twitched a good bit more before he died in her arms. It was almost as good as Mercutio.

Did I want to kill him? Who knows? I wanted to hit him and stop him and punish him, just as I wanted to hit and stop and punish Erica. Bloody murder, that's what it is; don't try to make excuses, you Russian bitch. I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it.

And the policeman is on one knee beside me, because I've got my head in my hands, and he's saying: ‘Your wife has been taken to hospital, Sir David. I'm sure they'll do everything. they can. If you and this lady would like to follow, we can give you a lift in our car.' And Shona is thanking them and saying we'll go; and then at the last there's a few minutes' wait until two more policemen turn up to take charge of the flat. One of them is an inspector who has to be told part of it over again. And the detective constable has already taken notes of what I've said and what Shona has said, and his little notebook is back again buttoned up in his breast pocket, all proper as pie.

Of course I know it's no use going to the hospital: they have to try all the latest drugs to reactivate a corpse; but when someone has a hole in the jugular modern science doesn't have much of a remedy.

I

Shona has taken charge. She's taken charge. She's been helpful in her own way. I sleep in the spare bedroom in her flat for the first two days, clutching at pillows and wrestling and turning; but then I go back to Knightsbridge and see it through on my own. The maids come as usual, and then her mother and father come. They stay at the Hyde Park Hotel, thank God, but they see me and I try to tell them what has happened – he lumbering and dazed with grief, she looking at me with Erica's eyes, damp with crying and puzzled, seeking something from me that I can't give. She was their only one, on whom they'd lavished everything. Too much. They gave her too much too soon. But what have I given her? A sword-jab in the throat. That's it, isn't it?

But lying by omission already – the first time in this affair. You can't say outright to them, yes, I meant to kill off your daughter because she was a spoiled slut who irritated me beyond endurance and I wanted her out of the way. Because it's not true. She drove me wild but I never meant to do that. Or did I? Not consciously. But in a split second does the subconscious take over? Like other times. There were too many other times.

Shona had muttered in my ear so often and so much, talking to me, willing me, driving me – even saying that if I denied her story she'd be prosecuted for perjury. But in the end you don't deliberately take on the role of stunned husband – it falls on you like a winter overcoat. It wouldn't last. How could it last through the inquest?

Edmond Gale walked with a polio limp, had big eyes and a careful manner. Shona had taken me unwillingly to see him. Well-known barrister. He would attend the inquest to look after my interests. I muttered that my interests were plain: I'd killed my wife in unfair fight and should be prepared to take the consequences.

‘In what way was the fight unfair?' he asked.

‘Man against a woman.'

‘Even if the man was a novice and the woman one of the leading exponents in the country?'

‘Brute force,' I said.

Gale coughed into his fist. ‘I think, Sir David, this is a matter for the experts rather than for ourselves. Force on the point of a rapier is largely a matter of timing, and timing is a matter of high technique. With such technique I should suppose a woman is as capable of a lethal thrust as a man. You were practising, with her choice of weapons and at her request. You should leave it to the coroner – or his jury – to decide whether there was any measure of unfairness in the contest.'

‘Will there be a jury?' asked Shona.

‘I don't think so. But – er – there has been a slight complication. I believe the police have received one or two letters informing them of threats you made earlier that evening, at some party, as the result of some quarrel you had with Lady Abden …'

‘Yes.'

He waited but I said no more. I sat and said nothing. All you had to do was wheel Dr Meiss on. Eventually Gale said: ‘It will be a matter of whether the coroner, in consultation with the police, decides to call a jury. He may well think that these are merely unsavoury rumours which often occur when there is a sudden death. Or he may take the view that a jury's verdict will be more likely to clear the air.'

‘Who is to be the coroner? Do you know?' Shona asked.

‘Reginald Summit. He practised at the Bar for a time, chiefly trade union law. A hard man but fair, I think.'

‘I just want it over,' I said.

On the Sunday Derek Jones rang. He said: ‘Really, David, what a tragedy! My heart bleeds. It was utterly an accident, of course?'

‘What the hell d'you mean?'

‘Well, after that row you had at the party. D'you know I think Erica was having us
all
on that night. Poor Erica! Never tell with the little girl, could you? Oh, it
was
all planned as a special surprise for you. She was very down in the mouth when she thought you were not going to turn up.
Hamlet
without the Prince, she said. Or do I mean Princess? You know what she was like, couldn't resist the quip.'

I said: ‘ Derek, I don't want to talk.'

‘Sorry. I'm sure you don't. I just wanted to say –'

‘Forget it.'

‘I just wanted to say it was so
unfortunate
you made that remark. ‘‘I could kill that woman.'' And Reg Palmer overheard it. I wanted you to know that if anything comes up about it at the inquest I'm not the one responsible.'

‘OK.'

‘You know, matey, I hate to be thought true-blue or anything of that sort, but I don't split on friends.'

‘Glad to know it.' My head was aching and drink wasn't going to do any good. Two of those pills the medic had given me might save me from the worst nightmares.

‘By the way,' he said, ‘maybe you know, the lads were committed for trial.'

‘What lads?'

‘Bickmaster and the rest. It all happened at some magistrates' court. On Wednesday. The day after this happened.' When I didn't speak he went on: ‘So they'll be languishing in durance vile for a couple of months before the trial comes on.'

‘Derek, I'm going to hang up now.'

‘Right, old dear. I'll not be there on Monday cheering or anything. But when it's over,
if
it's over, you'd do well to go away for a bit.'

‘Why?'

‘Oh,
you
know, dear. Some of the lads stick together.'

I hung up, and when the line was clear I took the receiver off again and left it off.

II

Memory is a funny old joker. It pretends not to recall something, though you know if you were challenged you'd have to admit it's somewhere just under the crust. Then something fairly basic – such as killing your wife – makes a little nick in the crust and out everything pops as dark and as clear-cut as a witch's profile.

All that hour was back with me; I could even remember the smells of the kitchen. There'd been something boiling on the Aga and it had boiled over and begun to hiss and spit before someone took it off, and there was the smell of burned potatoes. And the mat had twisted up in the struggle, and lay away from the stove almost like another body. And my father's overcoat was on the chair where he'd thrown it when he first came in: green-brown Harris tweed, belted, a bit shabby, with a handkerchief half out of the pocket; he'd been too cronked to hang it up. And my mother's shoe had fallen off, and the metal handle was cold in my hand before I let it drop, and I kept wiping my sleeve across my nose trying to stop it running; the tears seemed to be coming out of the wrong place.

The inquest – this inquest – was at Horseferry Road, and they'd decided not to have a jury. Reginald Summit wore a black tie and a wing collar and looked like an undertaker. Very bald, with a voice that sounded as if it was coming out of a microphone troubled with static. Mr and Mrs Lease were nearby, they'd taken it well, considering; if I'd been in their shoes I'd have been applying for a gamekeeper's licence.

The detective constable was first in the box and gave his evidence out of that nice neat little buttoned-down notebook. On the night of Tuesday last, etc … Called to flat no. 24 on a 999 emergency, went in and found the deceased lying in the kitchen suffering from a severe throat wound. Very considerable bleeding … Policewoman Mary Wallace attempted to do what she could … Could feel no pulse … after the arrival of the ambulance, returned to the sitting-room where deceased's husband appeared in a state of shock.

‘Yes, yes,' said the coroner, ‘a little more slowly, constable. The husband, you say, appeared to be in a state of shock. How did he appear so? What brought you to that conclusion?'

‘Well, sir, he had his head in his hands and seemed hardly to take any notice of what I was asking him. Just sat there, muttering to himself.'

‘Could you hear what he was muttering?'

‘Well, some of it, sir. He kept saying, ‘‘I've killed her, I've killed her.'' Over and over again.'

‘Nothing more than that? Just ‘‘ I've killed her''? He didn't enlarge on it – try to tell you how it had happened?'

‘No, sir. The other lady, Mrs Carreros, she explained what she had seen.'

‘Never mind that. We shall be able to call her, shan't we.'

Stupid to hear her called Mrs Carreros. Brought her down to earth. Should have been Mme Shona. Why hadn't she insisted on it? This had all happened in another kitchen, hadn't it, for Christ's sake? Did one's life run in repeating ruts? But such a different kitchen. This one was big enough for a squash court. The other, that other, had been too small for fun and games; we'd just fallen over each other in it, in a complicated dance of drunkenness, envy, jealousy, love and death. And in the middle of it a boy with a heavy iron handle …

Mr Gale asked the detective one or two questions, but I couldn't remember what, and then the doctor took the stand. Cause of death was severance of the carotid artery by the broken end of an épée or fencing sword. The sword was of Russian manufacture, a type much favoured by the Amateur Fencing Association, and had broken off about three inches from the tip. The sharp point had penetrated the gap between the fencer's jacket and her protective mask and bib. The blade had pierced the throat and Lady Abden had almost certainly been dead when he arrived. However, he had thought it proper to inject a heart stimulant and to have her taken immediately to hospital. By the time they reached the hospital life was certainly extinct.

Extinct. Odd word. It meant nothingness, it meant what was left after a wild panic blow to the head or a fierce jabbing thrust. They weren't there any longer. Flies swatted away. Nobody knew where they were. They'd absented themselves permanently from the scene, just a decaying body in a casket left behind.

Mr Gale had nothing to ask the doctor, but some other type got up, who, it seemed, represented the makers of the protective clothing. Did the witness think? … Could he agree that if? … I tried not to yawn. I knew it would be looked on as callous and insensitive to yawn. I remembered old Meiss once all those years ago asking me, just when I was yawning at him, if I had ever had any impulses to kill him, because if so it was not just him I was thinking of killing but the whole of my past, schooldays, family memories, associations. I must learn, he said, to live surrounded by my past but not fixed to unalterable emotional patterns. Had he
really
said that, to a boy of eleven, or had I dreamed it up in some sort of folk memory since?

Shona was in the box. Never saw her move but she was there.
Wham
. She looked slim, proud, Russian, but elderly. Everything she wore built up the picture. Yes, she was Mme Shona, the perfumer. Yes, she had known the deceased for many years. Yes, Sir David was the manager of her perfumery firm and was shortly to become a director. Yes, she had arrived that night and witnessed the practice fencing. Sir David had in fact been very reluctant to engage in this practice, because he wanted to discuss with her the flotation of the company. Lady Abden had insisted on challenging him, and eventually, to satisfy her, Sir David had picked up his weapon, put on his mask and fenced with her. So far as she, Mme Shona, could see – and she was an experienced fencer herself – there was nothing out of the ordinary in the bout, and she had been calling the hits as they were made, when Lady Abden made a sudden running attack at her husband; he had partly sidestepped, and the blade in his hand had gone under her protective mask. What a liar, I thought. Shall I stand up and shout at everybody in court what a blinding, dyed-in-the-wool, up-to-the-crop, stark, unmitigated liar she is? But the chance'll come yet. They're going to call me.

Francis Norbury came next. He described himself as a ‘master coach' and Lady Abden's teacher. Both Sir David and Lady Abden were members of the Sloane Gymnasium Amateur Fencing Association, and had in fact first met in the fencing hall. Sir David was a fair, adequate performer but not with a sufficient technique for any real excellence; but Miss Lease, as she then was, was one of the outstanding young women fencers of the day, and had only just missed being picked for the Olympics. Then there was a lot of stuff about the strength of the protective mask, the four layers of cloth for the jacket, the 5mm thick bit of reinforced plastic-foam and canvas. There had apparently been two other fatalities in modern fencing, one in Hungary two years ago, when the blade had again snapped and the end had slipped through the gap between the safety mesh and the jacket; an earlier one, nine years ago, in England, when a young man had been struck in the head by a blade. Since her death the safety equipment worn by Lady Abden had been examined and had seemed satisfactory in every way except perhaps that the bib had a tendency to curl upwards, thus very slightly accentuating the existence of a gap between the bib and the collar of the jacket. Norbury said he was convinced the accident could only have occurred as a freak, and pointed to the tremendous safety record the sport had, seeing that some five thousand people fenced every week of the year.