An Air That Kills (12 page)

‘Oh, don't bother with that. There's a woman who comes in with my evening meal. She'll see to it.'

When Thornhill had finished with the glass, he turned his attention to the scattered poppies. Harcutt watched him, but said nothing.

‘If you don't mind, sir, I'll buy one of these while I'm here.'

‘I noticed you weren't wearing one.' Harcutt ground out the remains of his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘In my opinion, people are getting deplorably slack about Remembrance Day. It was very different in the twenties, you know.'

‘I'm sure it was.' Thornhill put the tray back on the bureau and fed a handful of coppers into the slot in the tin. He chose a poppy and pushed its wire stem into the buttonhole of his overcoat.

‘People used to care about the dead. Wanted to pay the debt they owed them. I knew a lot of good fellows who died so we could be sitting here at our ease.' Harcutt nodded in agreement with himself, apparently oblivious of the fact that Thornhill was neither sitting nor at his ease, and raised his glass. ‘Here's to them.'

While the major was talking, Thornhill had crossed the room to the door.

‘Thank you for your help,' he said. ‘No, don't bother to get up. I'll see myself out.'

Harcutt, who had made only a half-hearted attempt to rise, subsided into his chair. ‘Anything I can do, my dear fellow, just say.' His voice was slightly slurred. ‘Give you chapter and verse on the Rushwick case. Just let me know. Always at the constabulary's service, eh?'

Chapter Five

Charlotte was proving to be an impressive driver, armed with both mechanical and psychological skills. It was rarely difficult to park in the High Street, she told Jill, except on market days. Usually you could pick and choose. But on that morning it so happened that there was only a single space in the line of parked cars immediately outside the Bull Hotel. It was not a large space, and a baker's delivery van was trying to get into it.

Charlotte would have none of that. Sounding her horn, she overtook the van and pulled in beside the car parked immediately in front. She began to reverse the Rover into the space just as the van was trying, much less skilfully, to enter it in a forward direction.

The van driver put his hand on his horn and kept it there. He also braked, which was a tactical error. Charlotte simply continued to reverse and soon the Rover filled over half the space. In this case, possession was over fifty per cent of the law.

The baker's van reversed jerkily into the path of an oncoming bus. The bus stopped. Its horn blared. The van driver rolled down his window. Jill could see his lips moving and the anger in his eyes, and she could just hear his voice through the closed windows of the Rover.

‘Bloody women! You shouldn't be allowed on the road. Think you own the place, do you?'

Charlotte appeared not to hear, just as she had appeared unaware of the van from the start; she had conducted the entire series of manoeuvres automatically while her conscious mind was engaged in discussing hemlines.

‘Personally I always think that Balenciaga is a safer guide,' she said.

The bus driver leant out of his window and swore at the man in the van.

‘But anyway it's quite absurd, the way they assume that everyone's legs are the same length.' Charlotte's eyes darted to Jill's slim legs and back to her own, more substantial pair. ‘It's just the same with waists. Or, for that matter, busts.'

‘For Christ's sake,' the van driver shouted, rather plaintively.

‘People don't show any respect these days, do they?' Charlotte remarked, suddenly revealing that she had been aware of the entire incident. ‘It's extraordinary how attitudes have changed since the war.'

Before she could stop herself, Jill said, ‘I imagine the baker thinks it extraordinary how some attitudes haven't changed.'

‘Yes, I know.' Charlotte smiled, coping magnificently both with the baker and with Jill's implied criticism. ‘People can be so naïve. After all, it's simply a matter of economics.'

Jill smiled back, refusing to become embroiled in an argument conducted on a ground of Charlotte's choosing. By the time the two women got out of the car, both the van and the bus had moved on.

Charlotte stood on the pavement and settled her skintight gloves over her fingers; her rings bulged against the leather like arthritic swellings. ‘We could go to the Gardenia, I suppose.'

‘Wherever you like.'

Charlotte's expression was shrewder than Jill found entirely comfortable. ‘But I think perhaps the Bull. The coffee isn't as good, but the seats are much more comfortable. And one rarely meets people in there. People one knows, that is.'

The Bull Hotel was a large white building, rather older than its eighteenth-century façade suggested. Charlotte led the way into a dark hall smelling of boiled vegetables. Jill didn't know whether to feel relieved or annoyed or both; Charlotte had clearly divined that her guest was not in the mood for the sort of company they were likely to meet in the Gardenia.

An elderly man wearing a faded striped waistcoat dozed behind the reception desk. Directly above him was the dusty head, set slightly askew, of a glassy-eyed stag, flanked by cases containing stuffed fish.

‘Good morning, Quale,' Charlotte said as she passed him, and the man jerked awake.

Beside the desk was a notice board, on which most of the posters were already concerned, in one way or another, with the approach of Christmas. Jill glimpsed advertisements for the Conservative Party's Christmas Dance, the Lydmouth Amateur Dramatic Society's production of
Cinderella
and a carol service at St John's. The thought of Christmas made her lips tighten and her eyes water as if she had bitten a lemon. As she knew from experience, Christmas was the worst time of the year to be lonely. And this year, the loneliness would be different because there would be nothing to look forward to in the New Year.

Charlotte swung right into the hotel lounge, a large and lofty room with three tall windows overlooking the street. In the centre was a mahogany dining table covered with rows of newspapers and magazines. The rest of the room was furnished with low tables surrounded by clusters of armchairs and sofas in faded chintz covers. There was a marble chimneypiece against one wall which supported an enormous mirror, its murky glass dotted with brown spots. A log fire burned in the grate. It was a room made for a large number of people, and they had it to themselves.

‘Ah,' Charlotte said. ‘This is more like it.'

She led Jill to the table nearest the fire. Their reflections, slightly distorted, swam towards them in the mirror. Jill automatically assessed her own appearance. Why was it, she wondered, that old mirrors so often conveyed a sense of depth and mystery and half-hidden possibilities?

They put their coats and hats on the sofa. The armchairs needed recovering but they were certainly comfortable. Jill was glad to get the weight off her feet, which was absurd because she had walked only the few yards from the car. At the hospital they had told her she should have plenty of rest. In any case, perhaps sadness was physically tiring.

A sad-faced waitress in a black dress and a white apron slouched into the room to take their order. Charlotte interrogated her about the type and freshness of the biscuits.

‘Not that I particularly want any,' she said when the waitress had gone. ‘But it's the principle of the thing. If someone isn't willing to make a fuss, then standards always start to slip. Don't you agree?'

To avoid answering, Jill diverted the conversation: ‘Talking of slipping standards – Major Harcutt seemed a rather sad example.'

‘Poor old Jack,' Charlotte said. ‘He used to be so dashing as a young man. He's a bit of a hero, you know – he got some sort of medal in the Great War. I remember my mother saying that all the young girls were in love with him.'

‘Was he regular army?'

‘Yes, he came out in the thirties. It was when his elder brother died. I suppose he felt he had to take over the business – the Harcutts used to be coal merchants – quite substantial ones, too. But Jack couldn't make a go of it. Between ourselves, I suspect he's not much of a businessman. He sold up just before the last war and went back to the army for the duration.'

‘Strange house – I shouldn't like to live there myself.'

‘The Harcutts bought it just before the First War. The boys' mother was a terrible snob, and I imagine she thought it would improve their standing in the county. Not that they had any in the first place. Silly woman. It's a terrible white elephant.'

Jill remembered the overgrown garden, the boarded-up windows and the smell of poverty. ‘It must need a great deal of maintenance.'

‘What it needs and what it gets are two different things. Not much money in the bank, I fancy. I doubt if Jack really cares any more. He's not really been the same since his wife died. Cancer, poor thing. It happened very suddenly.'

The waitress arrived with their tray. Before pouring the coffee, Charlotte examined the cups to make quite sure they were clean. After her first sip, she sighed.

‘I just don't know what they put in it. Philip claims they've got a great big saucepan in the kitchen. And they empty out all the half-used coffee pots into it, he says, and just reheat it as needed. Of course, sometimes they must add some more water and some fresh coffee, but not enough to affect the overall taste.'

‘I've tasted worse.' As Jill spoke, the aftertaste reached her palate and she detected a curious compound flavour that reminded her of chicory, and of things she had never actually tasted, such as engine oil, burnt rubber and tar. ‘Though I must say I can't remember when.'

Charlotte helped herself to a biscuit. ‘I wonder what the policeman made of Jack Harcutt. He really does know a great deal about Lydmouth's history. But I'm not at all sure he was at his best this morning.' She leaned a little closer to Jill and lowered her voice to a powerful whisper. ‘Did you smell his breath, dear?'

‘No.'

Charlotte nodded. ‘Well, I did. Enough said, I think. One must be charitable. I suspect the poor man's terribly lonely. There's a daughter, but I don't think they're close. Mark you . . .' Charlotte broke off; she looked up and then quickly back to the fire.

Jill had her back to the door, but she heard footsteps, deliberate and masculine, coming into the room, the creak of springs as the newcomer sat down and the rustle of newspaper. She glanced at the mirror, but from this angle it gave her an uninformative view of the ceiling.

‘Yes,' Charlotte went on, ‘Jack was quite a different man before his wife died. Much jollier.' She looked at Jill. ‘Of course the loss of a loved one can have a terrible effect on people, can't it?'

‘Yes. So they say.'

There was a moment's silence. Jill felt a bubble of panic rising inside her. It was as if Charlotte were hunting her, and she wouldn't stop until she had found what she wanted: the dark and painful place inside Jill.

The waitress drifted into the room. Jill heard the murmur of voices as the man behind her ordered coffee.

‘Don't mind my asking, dear, but are you feeling all right? Philip was saying last night that he thought you looked a little peaky. I must say, I think he's right. When we saw you in London, you—'

‘I had a bad cold a few weeks ago. I don't think I've quite thrown it off.'

‘We shall have to feed you up, and make sure you have lots of rest and country air. Philip's really most concerned.' There was the tiniest hesitation. ‘And so, of course, am I.'

There was a barb concealed in the sympathy. Jill knew that Charlotte had never quite forgiven her for having been the object of Philip's affections when they were both young reporters. Worse still, perhaps, was the fact that Jill had been happy to give him friendship, but not love; Charlotte might interpret this as a reflection on her choice of husband.

Charlotte had never directly admitted that she knew about this episode. Jill had never referred to Philip's two proposals, and Philip himself was far too tactful to have mentioned them without prompting. Yet the knowledge hung between the three of them, an unacknowledged cloud. Charlotte had always gone out of her way to encourage the friendship. In her more cynical moments, Jill wondered whether she wanted to keep an eye on how her husband behaved with his old flame. Better the devil you know, Charlotte might be thinking; knowledge was strength, because forewarned was forearmed.

As the waitress was leaving the lounge, Charlotte told her to bring their bill; time was getting on and she was anxious not to be late for lunch – partly because she enjoyed her food and partly, as she herself admitted, because it would never do to offend Susan, and Susan was a stickler for punctuality.

As Jill was adjusting the set of her hat in the mirror, she saw the man who had come in after them. He was sitting in a corner, screened by the
Daily Mail
, but she sensed that he was watching them – perhaps herself rather than Charlotte. She told herself not to be so egotistical. Besides, she disliked intensely the impartial attention that strange men paid her for all the wrong reasons; and she found even more disturbing the suspicion that she might feel worthless and bereft if their eyes drifted over her without registering her presence as a woman. At present she felt enough of a failure as it was.

The two women moved towards the door and the man lowered the newspaper. His eyes met Jill's. In an instant, she took in the details of his appearance: small, wearing a baggy brown pinstriped suit, with a waxy complexion and a nautical beard. He recognised her, just as she recognised him: it was the man from the train, the man who had been reading about the month of the dead, the man whom she had found, for no reason at all, so terrifying that she had to run away from him.