Who Saw Him Die? (13 page)

Quantrill had decided to be mild and conciliatory; friendly, if possible. He switched off the bright light. ‘Don't know about you,' he said, ‘but I'm damn hungry. What say we have some cheese and biscuits?'

‘Oh, for heaven's
sake
,' said Peter contemptuously. He flopped back on to his pillow and closed his eyes again.

‘All right, forget the food. We can have a chat, though, can't we? Don't often get the chance.'

Quantrill looked round for somewhere to sit, and found that the one armchair, beneath a Mediterranean poster of a well-built girl wearing nothing but a sun-tan, was already occupied. The grubby toy animals that had been Peter's childhood joy and comfort were still accorded a place of honour in his room. Quantrill picked them up and, as there seemed to be nowhere else to put them without risk of offending their owner, sat down with Teddy, Peter Rabbit and Eeyore on his knee.

‘I didn't realise you were in favour of nuclear disarmament,' he began tentatively. ‘D'you belong to the CND?'

‘No,' said Peter. He opened his eyes. ‘Not yet. But I
think
about the issue, because it's
our
future that your generation has screwed up. And if I decide to join CND, I shall, whether you like it or not.'

‘Fair enough,' said his father quickly. ‘As you suspect, I don't agree with you. In my opinion, it's only because of our defence policy that you've never had to live through a war. But even so, if you want to support the campaign I shan't object. All I ask is that you don't go making a public nuisance of yourself by blocking the highway outside the Cruise missile bases. The police there have got quite enough to –'

‘There you go again! Don't do this, don't do that – you're dictating to me all the time. And as for the Cruise missile bases,' Peter went on bitterly, ‘some chance I'd have of getting
there
without any transport of my own …'

It was this subject that Quantrill had come prepared to discuss. He was, he considered, not an unreasonable father. On reflection, he was willing to concede that times had changed since he was Peter's age. Young men expected, now, to learn to ride or drive as soon as they were old enough to hold a licence, and it was something to be thankful for that Peter hadn't wanted to take to the roads on a moped, with a provisional licence and L plates, just as soon as he turned sixteen.

And now that the boy was nearly seventeen it was no use, Quantrill realised, simply saying ‘No'to him. Much better to give him something to hope – and, hopefully to work – for.

‘
Not
a motor bike,' Quantrill insisted. ‘I'll never agree to that because I know of too many youngsters who've come to grief on the wretched things. What you really need to aim for is a car.'

Peter sat up, open-mouthed with astonished hope. ‘A car! D'you mean –?'

‘No promises,' his father warned him. ‘What I mean is that if you buckle down to your school work and pass your exams next summer, I'll be willing to pay for you to have driving lessons. Then, when you get yourself a job, and after you've settled in it and proved that you can afford to run a car, I'll consider helping you to buy one.'

‘You're telling me that I can't have any transport until after I'm settled in a job?' Almost crying with disappointment, Peter snatched his toy animals away from his father and bundled them on to his bed. ‘What kind of an offer is that? Bribery, that's all! You
know
how hard it is for school-leavers to get jobs round here. Even if I do pass the rotten exams, I'll probably still be unemployed by the time I'm ninety.'

‘Now you're being childish.' His father got up to go. ‘I've made you a very fair offer, and if you're not prepared to –'

Quantrill paused, one hand on the door handle, and sniffed the air. Peter's school blazer was hanging behind the door. His father seized it and pressed the cloth to his nose. Then he turned on his son, his face dark with fury.

‘Glue …' he said. ‘My God, you young fool! After all I've told you, you've been sniffing glue –'

Peter denied it. He'd been doing woodwork at school, he said. They used glue in the craft workshops, that was all.

‘Don't lie to me!' stormed Quantrill. He switched on the main light, made a grab for his son, caught a fistful of pullover and shirt front, and pulled him close. Peter, not far off the same height, jerked his head backwards to avoid his father's thrusting jaw and turned his own face away.

‘Let me look at you!' Quantrill commanded, shaking him. ‘And
breathe
! Breathe on me, blast you –'

Slowly, with a look of dislike and anger, Peter straightened his head. Holding his breath, he stared his father unwaveringly in the eye. Then, as deliberately as though he were about to spit, he exhaled.

The boy was a smoker, there was no doubt about that. But the trace of stale smoke on his breath smelled unarguably of tobacco. There was no herbal smell of cannabis, and none of the chemical smell of solvent abuse.

It was true that Peter looked out of sorts. But now, at closer quarters than he had been for months, Quantrill could see that the pupils of his son's eyes were not drug-dilated. There was no glue-burn round his mouth, no rash round his nose. He had no sniffer's catarrh, and the odd fiery spot on his skin was almost certainly nothing more than adolescent acne. As for the boy's heavy-eyed pallor, it would probably be cured if he spent more of his time on healthy outdoor activity, and less of it lying about on his bed listening to his favourite tapes and indulging in heated fantasies.

But it was breath that was the decider. And Peter's breath smelled predominantly of his recent supper, of apple and sugar and cream …

Quantrill released his grip on the boy's clothing. ‘Sorry,' he said lamely, trying to make amends by straightening his son's shirt collar.

Peter pushed him away, sneering at him. ‘Thanks for your trust in me, Dad,' he said with contempt.

‘I'm
sorry
. It's just that … well, I know my job makes me over-suspicious. But, really, it's only because your mother and I care so much about your welfare. We're anxious that you shouldn't come to any harm …'

Peter turned his back and picked up his earphones.

‘No, just listen a minute –' Quantrill cast about desperately for some way of changing the subject and at the same time appeasing his son. ‘It's your mother's birthday next Wednesday. You know how much store she sets on our remembering it. Look –' he pulled out his wallet, plucked from it a five pound note, and then hastily exchanged it for a tenner. ‘Buy her a nice present, and keep the –'

‘Her birthday's
Tuesday
, not Wednesday,' said Peter with scorn. ‘And I've
made
her a present. I've been making it all term – in
woodwork
classes.'

He strode to his cupboard and fetched from it a stool – or possibly a coffee table – in attractively grained elm. Turning it upside down, he demonstrated its construction loudly and crossly, as though to a wilfully obtuse child. ‘T-joints,' he pointed out. ‘They're held in place with
Duroglue. Glue
… OK?'

Quantrill, still holding his ten pound note, nodded shame-faced approval. ‘Very nice,' he said. ‘You've done well – your mother'll be really pleased with that.' Then he proffered the money again. ‘Don't forget to buy her a card as well.'

‘I've
bought
her a card,' said Peter, tight-lipped with anger. He banged down the stool and pulled from his cupboard a flat white cardboard box that measured all of two feet by eighteen inches. Yanking off the lid, he revealed a huge birthday card depicting a curious hybrid animal, with Minnie Mouse ears, big blue eyes, pink fur and a kitten's nose and paws. The fluffy, cuddlesome creature was wearing a mob cap and a long flower-sprigged dress. It held a banner that proclaimed, in letters of gold, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST MUM IN THE WORLD.

‘Very nice,' mumbled Quantrill. ‘Very nice indeed … She'll like that.' Then he added, haltingly, ‘You're a good lad. Look, take the money anyway. Buy something for yourself –'

But Peter, clenching his fists in an attempt to contain his rage, spurned his father's offer. ‘
Stuff
your tenner,' he said. ‘You keep your rotten money, Dad. And much good it'll do you when the nuclear winter comes.'

Two days later, on Saturday November 15th, the Goodrums'house was burgled.

It was the day of the county bazaar, held annually in the Assembly Rooms at Yarchester in aid of the Save the Children Fund. Felicity Goodrum's offer to help with one of the stalls had been gladly accepted by the organising committee, who promptly earmarked her, as she had hoped they would, as the right kind of person to become a future committee member.

As it was going to be such a long day for his wife – she needed to leave home soon after 10 a.m., and didn't expect to return much before six – Jack Goodrum had insisted on driving her to Yarchester. Besides, his Range Rover had more carrying capacity than her Renault for all the bits and pieces she was taking to sell.

After unloading, and helping her to set up her stall, Jack had made himself scarce. He strolled about the misty city and spent some time in Bignold's, the gunsmith's, where he ordered a heavy metal security cabinet to keep his shotguns in. The detective chief inspector who had come nosing round The Mount earlier in the week had seen him cleaning his guns, asked where he kept them, and told him that an ordinary locked cupboard wasn't good enough. The old Jack would have seen the detective damned before going to the trouble and expense of getting a security cabinet; but now he was a reformed character and a responsible citizen. And besides, he didn't intend to give the police any cause for aggravation if, as he suspected they might, they came back to do any checking.

He ate a pub lunch, toured the fruit and vegetable market, bought a large pineapple and a fine crimson potted cyclamen as surprises for his wife, and finally returned through the November afternoon dusk to the Assembly Rooms. The bazaar was almost over, and there was little of interest left on the stalls. Jack had intended to do his bit by buying something, but he saw no point in acquiring useless pieces of handicraft, or someone's unwanted last year's Christmas presents, or someone else‘s mountain of green tomato chutney. But then Felicity whispered to him that the purpose of attending a charity bazaar was to support the cause by buying things
whether you wanted them or not
and Jack, ever anxious to please her, immediately went over the top and spent money by the handful.

Eventually, having collected nonsenses enough to stock an entire stall for his wife at her next charity event, he had loaded up the Range Rover and driven her home to Breckham Market. Felicity, sitting beside him nursing her cyclamen, felt satisfactorily tired. She had done some useful fund-raising, and had also become re-acquainted with the kind of social circle she had been brought up in. Other stallholders had welcomed her, and she had received several unspecific invitations (‘You must come for coffee, or a drink, whenever you're in our vicinity.
Do
telephone') to houses in distant parts of the county.

The invitations pleased Felicity, but it pleased her more that she felt no great eagerness to take them up. Against all the expectations of her family and friends, she really was content to be with Jack. And not merely content; she felt so happy that, as they drove, she began to sing. Her new husband hadn't attempted to sing since he was in short trousers, and he knew hardly any of the words of her carols, but he shared her mood so completely that he growled an unmusical accompaniment.

By the time they reached The Mount, the light mist had turned to rain. To save Felicity the trouble of cooking after her busy day, Jack had booked a table for dinner at the Old Bakery restaurant at Ashthorpe, and so he left the Range Rover at the front door while they went in to change.

Hurrying in out of the wet, and laughing because he was holding the pineapple like an exotic umbrella over her head, they were not at first aware that anything was wrong. Pausing to exchange a kiss in the hall, they failed to notice that all the doors were ajar. But then Felicity entered the kitchen and saw the wanton damage that had been done. In a state of shock, she dropped her pot of cyclamen and added its compost and crimson flowers to the foul-smelling mess on the floor.

And when she saw what had been done to defile the other rooms of her lovingly decorated and furnished house, and especially the bedrooms, she sat down on the stairs and wept.

The burglary at The Mount was investigated by Detective Sergeant Lloyd. It was a long job which she and the scenes of crime team took particularly seriously, because among the stolen items was an AYA side-by-side 12-bore shotgun.

Chief Inspector Quantrill was angry when he read the sergeant's report.

‘That bloody man Goodrum! I
told
him to get a proper security cabinet for his guns.'

‘To be fair,' said Sergeant Lloyd, ‘he'd ordered one from Bignold's only that morning. And his other three guns were locked in a cupboard which the burglars didn't force.'

‘They didn't need to, did they? Not when he'd left one gun lying about for them! Of all the irresponsible –'

‘Goodrum denies that he left it “lying about”,' said Hilary. ‘He says it was propped in a corner of the downstairs cloakroom, in a leather and canvas gun bag. He'd overlooked the fact that it was there because it was hidden by some coats.'

‘That's no excuse for not locking it up. But I might have known you'd sympathise with the man …'

‘I sympathise with both of them. And you would, too, if you'd seen the damage. I can't recall ever having come across such a viciously destructive burglary.'