Who Saw Him Die? (12 page)

‘I doubt he'll succeed,' said Hilary.

‘Probably not. And she could be right. Chances are that Lucky Jack Goodrum's been in luck again.'

‘I know that's what you think,' Hilary acknowledged. ‘You didn't like him, did you? I was surprised about that, because you seem to have such a lot in common.'

Quantrill snorted. ‘Because we both sound Suffolk?'

‘That, yes. But I was thinking more in terms of directness and honesty.'

Dazed by her compliment, Quantrill bent his head and rummaged about among the dog-eared forms, match boxes, spare torch batteries, empty cigar tins, useless ball-point pens and gritty fluff that occupied the bottom drawer of his desk. He would have preferred to hear something more vigorously masculine about himself, but any comment from Hilary – any indication that she took a personal interest in him – gave him cause for hope. The compliment was, though, on rapid reflection and in view of his own opinion of Jack Goodrum, a bit of a back-hander.

‘Well,
I
don't trust the feller,' he said, surfacing abruptly. ‘Miss Bell suggested, and I agree with her, that anybody who starts from nothing and makes a fortune is bound to have a ruthless streak.'

‘That,' Hilary pointed out, ‘sounds remarkably like envy. Or like the resentment Jack Goodrum told us he expected to meet from local people.'

‘Pah! You've let him con you, Hilary. Just as his wife has. All that touching, and holding her hand, and the “my dear” stuff, and claiming they've got no secrets from each other …'

‘I happened to believe him. I think his affection for his wife is absolutely genuine. We see so many problem relationships in this job that it's a real pleasure to come across a couple who are so obviously happily married.'

‘
Any
husband and wife,' said Quantrill sourly, ‘can give that impression for the first few months …'

‘It's a good deal more than an impression,' Hilary retorted. ‘The Goodrums obviously
care
for each other. Surely you saw that, just as well as I did? He's very kind to her, very gentle and considerate. And she trusts him completely – not with newly-wed bedazzlement, but with mature calm. That's why I liked him. I think it means that he's a nice man, and genuinely trustworthy.'

Quantrill muttered disagreement. He saw no reason why he should acknowledge that his sergeant might well be right about Jack Goodrum as a husband, because it still didn't invalidate his own opinion of Jack Goodrum as a man. But to discuss it further – Hilary liked arguing, and argument became her, adding sparkle to her eyes and colour to her cheeks – would be sheer self-indulgence on a busy morning.

‘Anyway,' he said, ‘whatever we think of Jack Goodrum, the enquiry's now closed. We've got enough to do without wasting any more of our time. Just give me a quarter of an hour to sift through these new reports, and then you can bring back this file on the post office raids and tell me what action you suggest.'

He gave his sergeant the file, and what he intended to be an impersonal, dismissive nod. It was a matter of surprise and confusion to him that the movement of his head beckoned rather than dismissed her. At the same time he heard himself saying, without premeditation or truth and in a sickeningly ingratiating tone, ‘Er – as it happens, I've got to go and see somebody over at Ashthorpe this evening. I hear that the old bakery in the village has been turned into a very good restaurant. Would you like to meet me there and have a bite of supper? It'll give me a chance to tell you all about the computer course.'

Hilary was already half-way out of the door, the bulging post office robbery file cradled in her arm. She paused, then turned back, her face lively with interest. ‘Oh, the computer familiarisation course at Yarchester? Yes, I do want to hear about it. Did you enjoy it?'

‘Fascinating,' he said, and this time the lie was premeditated. No point in giving her the impression that he was too thick to master the new technology.

She smiled at him, and he realised how much he liked her new short hairstyle. ‘Good,' she said. ‘I'll look forward to hearing the details – the computer'll be a great help when we're dealing with major enquiries. But I can't join you tonight, I'm afraid. I've arranged to play squash.'

‘Tomorrow night?'

‘Squash again. A club tournament. But thank you for the invitation.'

‘Some other time, then,' he muttered, crestfallen. But Hilary was already walking away, and failed to hear.

It wasn't as though he would have been deserting Molly, Quantrill argued to himself as he drove home through the damp darkness of the early November evening. She was used to being left on her own, anyway, because he was very often called out on a case. But tonight Molly was going out herself, to a rehearsal for some nonsense that the Amateur Operatic Society was shortly putting on at the Town Hall, so she wouldn't even have noticed his absence.

And quite apart from the enjoyment of Hilary's company, he would have been glad of the chance to eat a second supper. He looked gloomily at the pale piece of skinless grilled chicken, the spoonful of peas and the small, butter-free jacket potato that his wife put in front of him as soon as he arrived home, just after six o'clock. Peter, he noticed, qualified for juicy brown skin on his chicken and butter on his large potato as well.

‘It's all right for growing boys …' Quantrill said, attempting fatherly joviality; but Peter was in one of his withdrawn moods, and ignored him.

‘You'll never guess who spoke to me at the health centre today, Douggie,' said Molly brightly. Eager as she was to get the meal over early and go off to rehearsal – she was a backstage helper rather than a performer, but she liked to lend her support in the choruses and she was particularly fond of the music of
My Fair Lady
– she felt that supper was an occasion for family togetherness. ‘You'll
never
guess!'

‘No, I shan't,' said her husband.

‘Well – It was Miss Bell. Eunice Bell from Tower House, one of the county Red Cross vice presidents! There, I knew you'd be surprised. She's a patient of Dr Fieldhouse, but we hardly see her from one year to the next. I can't reveal why she came in, of course – patient confidentiality! Well, actually she was only having her annual flu injection. But she came over to me on her way out, and she said, “It's Mrs Quantrill, isn't it? You're one of our invaluable Red Cross workers.” And then she asked me all about the way I run the medical loan service. She was so pleasant and friendly!'

‘No reason why she shouldn't be, was there?' said her husband, irritated by her deference.

‘Oh, but I had no idea she knew my name. She's certainly never spoken to me before. But I think perhaps, now her poor drunken brother's dead, she feels she can hold her head up in the town and she wants to be more sociable. Anyway, she made a point of chatting to several people, and then she saw the poster, just by my desk in the waiting room, for
My Fair Lady
. And she's coming to see it, Douggie – she bought a ticket from me for the final performance on Saturday week!'

Bored, disappointed, inadequately fed and thoroughly ill-humoured, Quantrill muttered unkindly, ‘Rather her than me.'

‘If you want a cup of tea you must make it yourself,' snapped Molly; but her hurt, flushed face showed him that she hadn't really misheard his remark.

‘That was very nice – my dear,' he said quickly, trying to retrieve the situation and at the same time set a better example to his son. He passed her his plate, empty of everything but the pattern. ‘Is there any pud?' he asked, hoping that in some moment of dietary aberration she might have baked him an apple pie.

Still flushed with indignation, but now tight-lipped, Molly slapped down in front of him a baked apple. It looked well cooked, with the pale fruit fluffing out of the burst skin and a few sultanas steaming plumply on top, but it cried out for an accompaniment of crunchy brown sugar and custard. Either custard or cream …

‘Anything – er – with it?' he ventured.

‘Certainly not,' said Molly. ‘Except for Peter, of course. There's sugar on yours already, dear,' she told her son indulgently. ‘Would you like some cream?'

A silence fell over the supper table, broken only by the sound of Peter blowing on the hot sultanas as he picked them one by one off his apple and ate them idly with his fingers.

‘
Answer
your mother when she speaks to you!' roared Quantrill. ‘And for heaven's sake sit up and eat your food properly, boy.'

‘What?' said Peter, with a dazed look. But he accepted the cream that his mother poured over his apple, took his elbows off the table and picked up his spoon and fork. ‘I say, Mum –'

‘Yes, dear?'

‘Darren Catchpole's seventeen tomorrow. He's going to have a Yamaha 125 for his birthday.'

‘Is he really?' said Molly, in a comfortable tone that conveyed her complete ignorance of what her son was talking about.

‘No!' said Quantrill forcefully.

Molly frowned at her husband. ‘What do you mean,
no
? Is he or isn't he?'

‘What I mean,' said Quantrill, abandoning his hot, sour apple, ‘is that it's no use Peter trying to wheedle round you. Because there's no chance at all of
him
having a motor bike for his birthday.'

‘Oh … well I'm sure he was thinking of no such thing,' said Molly.

‘Of course he was. But he needn't bother. He is not going to have a motor bike, not at
any
age, and the sooner he gets that into his head the better.'

‘But Dad! Darren Catchpole –'

‘Darren Catchpole's parents must have more money than sense. Motor bikes are too dangerous.'

‘Your father's quite right, dear,' said Molly, horrified. ‘We wouldn't
dream
of letting you have one. Just think what happened to poor Stephen Carter – only twenty, and paralysed from the waist down after his accident! We couldn't possibly let you take that risk.'

‘But Steve was on a Kawasaki 750 Turbo! I don't want a big bike – even a Honda 50 would do. I just need something to get about on.'

‘You've got exactly what I had when I was your age,' said his father ponderously. ‘A perfectly good bicycle. And buying you that cost me more than enough … Of
course
I'm not going to buy you a motor bike. Do you think I'm made of money?'

‘But I'm not asking you to buy it! I can use my own money – the money in my savings bank.'

‘You can't use that,' said his mother in a scandalised voice. ‘That's put aside for your future.'

‘
What
future?' Peter demanded dramatically. ‘I probably shan't
have
a future – not unless this country changes its defence policy! Don't you realise that Suffolk is full of American military bases? Don't you realise that all it needs is for some hawk in the Pentagon or the Kremlin to start even a limited exchange of nuclear weapons, and Suffolk will be the first place to be flattened? And if any of us survive that, we'll be plunged into a nuclear winter. We'll be covered by such dark clouds of smoke and dust that the sun will be completely excluded. The temperature will drop so far that crops and animals won't survive, and we'll all starve to death in a few weeks. And what good
then
will my savings bank account do me?'

It was the most that Peter had said to them, at any one time, for as long as his parents could remember. They stared at the pale-faced, impassioned, man-sized stranger on the other side of the supper table with amazement and unease.

Then Quantrill said, ‘Well I'm not having you killing yourself on a motor bike, anyway. You're not going to buy one, and that's that.'

And Molly said, ‘Would you like some more cream, dear? Do finish up your apple, before it gets cold.'

Peter jumped to his feet, sending his cutlery clattering to the floor in his fury. ‘For God's sake stop treating me like some stupid kid!' he shouted. ‘I'm a
person
. I've got ideas, and feelings, and needs, and I've got the right to live my life the way I want to. All you ever do, both of you, is patronise me and put me down, and I've had as much of it as I can take. If I want to use my
own
money to buy my
own
bike, I shall. And there's nothing you can do or say to stop me!'

He slammed out of the door and bounded up the stairs to his room. Molly turned to her husband, aghast.

‘Oh Douggie – you
must
stop him! If he buys a motor bike I shall never have a minute's peace of mind, never.'

‘It's all right,' said her husband, his confidence returning with the recollection that he was still master in his own home. ‘He can't get hold of his savings bank book, because it's locked away with ours and I'm the only one with the key. So there's nothing for you to worry about, is there?'

Later, after he had shooed Molly off to her rehearsal with a promise that he would do the washing up, he went upstairs and knocked on Peter's door. There was no reply.

Remembering that they had bought the boy a Sony Walkman the previous Christmas, principally in self-defence against the peace-shattering noises that had been issuing from his room, Quantrill decided that he was justified in opening the door without invitation. The poster-pasted room was dimly lit by one small lamp. Peter, earphones on, eyes closed, was stretched out on his bed. As it was obvious that neither word nor shout would get through to him, Quantrill switched on the main light.

Peter jerked up into a sitting position, his expression dazed, his eyes heavy. ‘Wass'at?' he demanded hoarsely. ‘What d'y want?'

His father gestured to him to remove his earphones. Peter did so with reluctance, and turned down the volume of the cassette player. ‘What d'y want?' he repeated aggressively.