The House of Women (31 page)

8

As the sun set, the little breeze off the sea had taken a chill upon itself from the dark water. Whispering through the trees surrounding Iolo Williams’s house, it set the leaves chattering, and as McKenna climbed from the car, a single leaf drifted to the ground, then, lifted again by the breeze, began to rattle against the wall.

‘
Another few weeks and we’ll see ground frost of a night,’ Rowlands commented. ‘I hope I get time to sort out my garden before the weather turns.’

‘
My little patch almost looks after itself.’

‘
Iolo’s got a nice garden, hasn’t he?’ Elbows on the wall, Rowlands surveyed the lawns and shrubbery and fine old trees. ‘Those holly bushes are a century old if they’re a day. He must have a gardener, because I can’t see him keeping this much land in order, and even less can I see Solange risking her nails with a bit of toil.’

‘
Did you check their cars?’ McKenna asked, pushing open the gate.

‘
Iolo’s is kosher, as you’d expect. It’s too conspicuous for a double-up. Solange doesn’t drive, so she hasn’t got a car.’

‘
Does she not? I’m surprised. Has she lost her licence?’

‘
There’s no record of her ever having one.’ Scuffing along the wide path towards the front door, Rowlands kicked another tiny brown leaf, and McKenna wondered if in essence there were any difference between the rearrangements wrought by the breeze and the man. ‘Not as Solange Williams, that is, although she could be registered under her maiden name. I didn’t think to check.’

‘
We’ll ask Iolo,’ McKenna decided, ringing the doorbell. Dull light behind dirty glass touched the crowns of the bushes under the window, then a shadow obliterated the light as Williams peered out, a scowl distorting his face.

‘
Did you make Edith cancel my dinner?’ he demanded, pulling open the door. The foul air of his house despoiled the summer night. ‘You did, didn’t you? No wonder she sounded strange on the phone! You’ve no right to interfere in people’s lives like this!’ The hectoring tone made his voice shrill.

‘
I told Mrs Harris I intended to visit,’ McKenna said. ‘May we come in?’

‘
Why?’

‘
To talk, Professor Williams. I think it’s about time, don’t you?’

‘
I’ve got nothing to say to you!’ he snapped. ‘And I’m quite sure you won’t say anything I want to hear!’ He edged the door closed.

McKenna put out his hand.
‘Let me add that you don’t have a choice in the matter.’

‘
He told you, didn’t he?’ he said, his voice rasping. ‘That bloody jungle bunny told you! Oh, I’ll bet he enjoyed that! Getting his own back with the help of that crazy old man!’ He let go of the door, and lunged forward, teeth almost bared, and a froth of spittle at the sides of his mouth. ‘Well, I won’t have it! D’you hear me? I won’t have that bloody nigger ruining my life! And I want my solicitor!’ he shouted. ‘I want him now!’ Without warning, he leapt back into the hall, and slammed the door.

McKenna leaned on the doorbell, hearing it shriek through the house in counterpoint to Williams
’s voice screaming down a telephone. Then there was a clatter, and the voice fell silent, leaving the bell to shriek alone. He thumped on the door, and shouted to the man inside.

‘
You’re wasting your breath,’ Rowlands said. ‘And your energy. Let him stew. I’ll make sure he doesn’t do a runner round the back.’

McKenna sat on the doorstep, shivering when the breeze touched his flesh, then another large, luxurious car swished to a halt i
n the road, heavy wheels crunching tarmac, and the city’s most expensive solicitor made his way up the path. ‘What in God’s name are you up to?’ he demanded. ‘Professor Williams is terrified.’

‘
We came to interview him.’

‘
Without benefit of counsel? Really, Chief Inspector, you should know better! I’m not surprised your promotion was shelved.’

*

While Rowlands sat patiently on an overblown chair, picking at its dirty velvet cover, McKenna leaned against the dark panelling in the hall, half-listening to the solicitor’s querulous demands, and watching Williams stamp back and forth, and when he stopped in mid-stride to glare at his observer, mouth working grotesquely inside the crust of spittle, McKenna felt as if suddenly blessed, or cursed, with a smidgen of Phoebe’s insight, and looked right through the man to the void at his heart. ‘Do you pay any maintenance?’ he asked. ‘For either of them? Have you ever paid?’

‘
What?’ the solicitor turned to his client. ‘What’s he talking about?’

‘
I asked if Professor Williams pays maintenance,’ McKenna repeated. ‘Or, in your professional parlance, provides ancillary relief.’

‘
For what?’ The solicitor frowned.

‘
For —’ McKenna began, and was cut short by a high-pitched yell from Iolo.

‘
Get out!’ He lunged forward, and pushed the solicitor violently in the chest. ‘Get out! Leave me alone!’ Snapping like a mad dog, he harried him towards the front door, and out into the night. ‘I don’t need you. It was all a mistake!’ The door slammed so violently a spatter of plaster fell from the ceiling, sprinkling more dust on the furniture and adding to the little heaps of dirt piling up in corners.

‘
Was that wise?’ asked McKenna, as Williams leaned against the front door, panting for breath. ‘He won’t come running so fast next time you need him, and you surely will.’

‘
Then I’ll get another solicitor! They’re like tarts, anyway. There’s always another one on the next street corner.’ He walked shakily along the hall. ‘And why should he know my business? It’s bad enough your knowing!’

‘
The whole world may come to know eventually,’ McKenna pointed out.

Williams smiled, a ghastly image.
‘I’m sure we could come to some arrangement.’

‘
No, that won’t be possible,’ McKenna said. ‘We’ll do our best to protect your daughter, but that’s all.’

‘
My daughter.’ Williams savoured the words. ‘People don’t call her that, you know. Not to my face, anyway.’

‘
Quite. You’ve spent almost two decades pretending she’s something else, and much good it’s done. By the way, do you pay Edith maintenance?’

‘
Her husband made sure they never went short, but I give her money for Mina’s clothes and holidays, and I pay the college fees.’

‘
That’s another well-kept secret, is it?’ McKenna said. ‘Like your long standing relationship with Ned Jones.’

‘
I’m hungry,’ the professor announced, making a rush for the kitchen. ‘You ruined what would have been a nice dinner.’

‘
Tough!’ Rowlands stood up to follow.

‘
There’s no need for nastiness!’ Williams snapped, opening the refrigerator.

The fly-blown light in the kitchen ceiling showed up patches of blackened grease on the tiled floor, and more grease and dirt besmirching counters and cooker hob and table top. Crumbs and bits of food crunched underfoot and littered the chairs, and the huge double sink overflowed with unwashed crockery and glassware.

Pushing aside the debris of other meals, he put bread and cheese on the table, seated himself, and began randomly tearing apart the food and stuffing it into his mouth. While he chewed and swallowed, his scrawny throat describing the passage of his meal, McKenna opened the back door to release the sickening smell from every corner of the squalid room.

Breathing in the fresh night air, Rowlands whispered:
‘We should ask environmental health to fumigate the place. He must be breeding roaches by the colony.’

‘
Don’t talk about me behind my back!’ Williams gab-bled. ‘Say it to my face or shut up!’ Snatching a plate, some cheese, an apple, and a knife, he pushed back his chair. ‘I’m going to the study. Shut the back door.’

‘
Do
you pay maintenance to Margaret?’ McKenna asked.

‘
I did until she shacked up with somebody else.’

‘
She seems remarkably content.’

‘
Bully for her!’

‘
You have a new partner, so why begrudge her happiness?’

‘
Why not?’ he demanded, tipping gin into a grimy tumbler. ‘She got off lightly.’

‘
I wouldn’t agree,’ McKenna said. ‘May we sit down?’

‘
You may as well, as you won’t bugger off. You can have a drink if you want.’

‘
No, thank you.’ McKenna shifted a heap of papers from a chair.

Williams grunted, then hacked the cheese and apple into ugly chunks which he stuffed into his mouth and washed down with gulps of gin.

‘When we asked you about Ned’s papers, you feigned ignorance,’ McKenna began. ‘In fact, you feigned ignorance about everything.’

‘
What else could I do?’ the other man demanded. ‘Come out with my hands in the air?’ Chewing apple, he added: ‘I didn’t kill him, and I had nothing to do with his death. Why should I tell you things you don’t need to know?’

‘
It’s not your place to decide what we need to know,’ McKenna said.

‘
Did you need to know about Mina? Did you need to turn Edith inside out?’

‘
Having to pry is one of the unfortunate consequences of a murder,’ replied McKenna. ‘So that we can discover what’s relevant.’

‘
Edith isn’t, Mina isn’t, I’m not, and nor are the other girls.’ He paused, mouth working. ‘Nor is that bloody nigger, much as I’d like him to be!’

‘
In our view, Ned’s death has its roots in his past.’

‘
You can’t be sure.’

‘
Give us some credit, Professor. No-one walked in off the street and spiked his food, and, sadly for you, no-one else appears to have a motive for wanting him out of the way.’

‘
Who
did
tell you?’ he asked, his eyes glinting.

‘
Not George, as you assumed.’ McKenna smiled bleakly. ‘Bits and pieces of information came together. Gladys Jones showed me a photo, taken on one of your long ago visits to Llys Ifor. Others also remembered “Eddie”, and one of your ilk filled in the blanks.’

‘
If I’d wanted to kill him, I’d have done it years ago, but there was no need. We made a bargain, and he stuck to his part as if it were written in stone.’ Williams smiled, too. ‘Anyway, he was as much in it as I was.’

‘
In what?’

‘
The manuscript business. It was a game.’ He emptied the gin bottle into his glass. ‘Then it got out of hand. We were going to own up, but everything snowballed.’

‘
A game?’ McKenna asked.

‘
It caused Ned’s first real breakdown, you know. He was so terrified we’d be rumbled, he got himself locked up in Denbigh Hospital, out of harm’s reach.’ Lighting a cigarette, he added thoughtfully: ‘Or perhaps he did it to get the feel of being behind bars.’

‘
What exactly did you do?’ McKenna asked. ‘What did this “manuscript business” entail?’

‘
Giving people what they wanted! We were both reading Welsh literature and language, and the lecturers were obsessed with the idea of a treasure trove of old manuscripts, if only someone could find them.’

‘
So you decided to “find” a few,’ McKenna said. ‘Did you copy them from an obscure book?’

‘
No, they weren’t copies. That’s the tragedy we had to live with.’ He drained the glass, then rummaged in a cupboard for more liquor.

‘
Shouldn’t Professor Williams have a solicitor before we go further, sir?’ Rowlands asked. ‘He seems to be admitting to an offence.’

‘
I don’t want a solicitor!’ Unopened gin bottle in hand, Williams turned.

‘
You might feel differently when you’ve had time to reflect,’ McKenna pointed out.

‘
And when I’ve sobered up?’ he asked. ‘It takes more than a few glasses of gin to affect me, more’s the pity.’

‘
None the less —’

‘
Hear me out, will you?’ A whine crept into his voice. ‘Let me talk. I know what I’m doing.’ The bottle clinked against the rim of the glass as the liquor tumbled out.

‘
And what are you doing?’ McKenna asked.

‘
Shedding my skin? Copying Edith, perhaps. She says she feels so much better.’

‘
Does she know? Does your wife?’

‘
No-one in the whole wide world knew except Ned and me, and now there’s only me, and my God, I wish I were dead as well!’ He threw the cigarette stub into the hearth, and watched the smoke dragged up the chimney. Slumped in his chair, hands between his knees, liquor slopping from the glass, he said: ‘Ned collected paper even then, bits out of newspapers and magazines, old pamphlets, anything he thought might be interesting or useful, and I was looking through his stuff one Sunday afternoon because I was bored, and neither of us had money to go out.’ He shuddered gently. ‘Ned was lying on his bed, saying he felt hot and sleepy, and I remember chaffing him because he wouldn’t take off his tie and unbutton his shirt. I asked him if he went to bed with his coat and tie and boots on, and he said it wasn’t decent to show your flesh, and nothing good could come of it. I suppose he was thinking of his sister, the one who’s gone completely mad.’ Reminiscence softening his features, he half-smiled. ‘I’ve been telling him for years that bottling up all his natural instincts would just make him ill, but the daft old prude still probably died as chaste as the day he was born.’ He stared blankly at the dirty hearth, then reached for another cigarette and put the tumbler on the floor. ‘Anyway, in among his litter, I found a newspaper article about the messes left over from the war which desperately needed sorting, especially in Germany and Austria, and I figured a job abroad for the long vac would probably pay much better than the usual run of bloody awful student jobs.’