A Capital Crime (36 page)

‘“It has been established that the tragedy has no link with the murder of 19-year-old Muriel Davies and her 14-month-old daughter Judy, who were found strangled at the same address in 1950.” No, it bloody hasn’t been established. Where did that come from?’

‘DCI Lamb, sir. Trying to discourage speculation.’

Stratton sighed. ‘Closing the stable door after the horse has gone, more like it.’

‘That’s what I thought, sir, although it might keep them off our backs – for the moment, at least. I’ve just had a word with DS Porter. He’s been talking to the British Road Services.’ Noting Stratton’s blank look, he added, ‘Backhouse’s former employers, sir. Apparently, he gave his notice a month ago, and they’ve not seen him since. His records show that he was working as a clerk at the Ultra Radio Works before that, during the war – after he’d resigned as a special. I did a spot of checking, and it appears that one of the employees there, May Drinkwater – 29-year-old spinster – was reported missing in nineteen forty-four. Of course,’ Ballard ducked his head as if ashamed at his efficiency, ‘it’s possible that it had nothing to do with Backhouse – might have been a flying bomb or something – but she’s described as being the same height as the shorter skeleton, and she had brown hair, so …’

‘So we ought to look into it,’ finished Stratton. ‘Well done, Ballard. At least one of us is on the ball.’

‘Thank you, sir. And we’ve got this photograph …’ he palmed
it from his pocket and handed it to Stratton, ‘from Mrs Backhouse’s brother, to send to the papers. Obviously, it’ll have to be doctored to show the overcoat.’

Stratton stared at the domed, bald head, the glasses, the prissy mouth and the weak, sloping shoulders. ‘Doesn’t look like a monster, does he?’

Ballard shook his head. ‘No, sir. But they never do.’

Chapter Fifty-Two

When Stratton eventually arrived home and opened the front door, he caught a glimpse of Monica in the sitting room, reading – or anyway looking at – a magazine. She called out a greeting but as she made no move to get up he went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He couldn’t face her just yet – his mouth was dry and foul, and the way he was feeling, having brooded on the matter all the way home in the bus, he feared he would start bellowing accusations at her and not be able to stop. Pete was gone, back to his unit, and except for the rustle of pages the house was silent, but the very air seemed to be poised and ominous, waiting for something to erupt. It must not be him, thought Stratton. He must remain calm.

He stared down at the plate of food that had been left out for him – ham and lettuce, with two slices of beetroot bleeding over the leaves. Eating was out of the question; his stomach had contracted into a tight ball of anger. Hands trembling, he picked up the kettle and then, almost immediately, set it back down on the gas ring with a clatter. At this rate, he’d end up breaking something. He went down the passage into the scullery and cupped his hands beneath the tap, gulping some water and splashing his face.

Slowly and carefully, he retraced his steps and went into the sitting room. Monica – who, thought Stratton, certainly didn’t
look
pregnant, although she seemed tired and very pale – put her magazine down and, for a long, dangling moment, during which time
seemed to hover rather than pass, they stared at each other. Then she said quietly, ‘Pete’s told you, hasn’t he?’

The feeble hope that Stratton had been nursing at the back of his mind that Pete was, for some reason of his own, lying to make trouble, crumbled. His last illusions about having control over his daughter fell sharply away, leaving him with the vertiginous sensation of standing on the very edge of a precipice. He sat down on the sofa. Swallowing, he said, ‘It’s true, is it?’

‘Yes. It’s true.’

The air seemed to tighten around him and, for a moment, he felt as though he were suffocating. ‘You’re certain about it, are you?’

Monica nodded miserably.

‘How far …?’

‘Two months. Well, two and a bit.’

‘How did it happen?’ God, what a stupid thing to say. ‘I mean …’

‘It’s all right, Dad. I know what you mean.’

‘It isn’t bloody all right!’ Stratton checked himself with an effort, biting back a torrent of stuff about you’re my daughter and how dare you and I should never have let you go to work at that studio. He knew that, however much he felt all this, it was both pompous and pointless to come out with any of it. Closing his eyes for a brief moment in order to try and contain his feelings, he opened them again to find that Monica, her face set and white, was gazing at him with something a lot like fear in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Dad.’

‘It’s a bit late for “sorry”,’ Stratton snapped. ‘You’d better tell me,’ he continued, ‘what the hell has been going on.’

‘He’s an actor,’ said Monica. ‘I met him at the studio. I was working on his picture. He started talking to me, and invited me out, and things just …’ Mouth wobbling and eyes blurred with tears, Monica blinked and gulped, trying to get the words out. ‘Just … sort of … he just …’

‘He’s married, isn’t he?’ asked Stratton, grimly.

Monica nodded miserably. ‘Last year. He didn’t tell me before.’

‘Why didn’t you know? Surely, with him being in the public eye, that sort of thing is common knowledge.’

‘Not with people like him. With male stars – the younger ones – the studio tends to keep quiet about that sort of thing because the fans don’t like it. Oh, Dad, I don’t know what to do.’

‘I do,’ said Stratton viciously. ‘He wants horsewhipping.’ Monica had fallen for the oldest trick in the book, one he’d seen dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times in the course of his work, but had never for one second imagined would be played on his own daughter. ‘Who is he? What’s his name?’

Shoulders heaving, face collapsed and soggy, Monica said, ‘Dad, you
can’t
. He said … he told me …’ the next words came out in a wet rush, ‘he’d pay for me to go to a clinic where it’s safe …’

‘An abortion,’ said Stratton, flatly. ‘That’s what he wants, isn’t it?’

‘He said it would be for the best. He got so angry, Dad. He said I was trying to trap him and if I told anyone he’d deny he’d had anything to do with it and no-one would believe me because we’d kept the whole thing secret, but it wasn’t like that, Dad, it really wasn’t … I didn’t know what to say.’ Monica stared at him, stupefied. ‘He was like a different person.’ Monica pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve and buried her face in it, shoulders heaving.

‘
I’ll bet he was.
’ And if I ever get hold of him, thought Stratton, I’m going to tear his head off his shoulders and piss down the hole. Trying to contain his mounting fury he said again, through clenched teeth, ‘Who is he?’

Monica, face still hidden by her handkerchief, shook her head. ‘No … Dad … please …’

‘He’s got to face up to his responsibilities.’

‘He can’t, Dad. He’s
married
. He said he’d never leave his wife and he thought I knew that it was just a … a sort of … game. But that wasn’t what he said, not at the start.’

‘I’m damn sure it wasn’t.
Bastard!
’ Unable to stop himself, Stratton thumped his fist into his palm. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted – ached – to hit someone so much. Jumping up, he began pacing up and down the room as Monica sobbed. ‘Tell me his name.’

‘If I do …’ Monica paused, gulping and snuffling, ‘you won’t … do anything, will you?’

‘What, thump him? No, I won’t – much as I’d like to. But something’s got to be done. As I said, he needs to face to up his responsibilities. He obviously thinks he can just shell out money to get rid of his mistakes and go sailing on regardless. Abortions aren’t just illegal, Monica, they’re dangerous. They can mess you up for life.’

‘But he says it’ll be safe – and that if I don’t he won’t have anything to do with me or acknowledge the baby or anything.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ said Stratton, grimly. ‘If he’s the father, then he needs to contribute to the child’s upkeep and that’s all there is to it. Now, who is he?’

‘His name’s Raymond Benson.’

‘And he’s a film actor.’

‘Yes. He’s not one of the biggest stars, though – at least, not yet.’

‘How old?’

‘Twenty-eight, I think. I
am
sorry, Dad,’ Monica wailed. ‘I truly am. I’ve let you down. And Mum.’

Stratton stopped pacing and stood over his daughter who, hunched in an armchair, seemed very young and very small. ‘Yes, well …’

Monica gazed up at him with enormous, wet eyes. ‘It was an accident,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean it to happen. I wish Mum was here.’

‘So do I,’ said Stratton, fervently. ‘So do I.’ Stiffly, he reached over and patted her on the back. ‘I’m sure you didn’t mean it to happen, love.’

This reassurance produced more choking sobs and, without quite knowing how, Stratton found that he was standing with his arms
around her and his chin grazing the top of her head. ‘It’s all right, love, it’s all right,’ he repeated, stroking her back. ‘Look,’ he said after some minutes of this, ‘why don’t you go up to bed? We can’t do anything about it tonight.’

Monica disentangled herself and picked up her handbag, saying meekly, ‘Yes, Dad.’

‘Have you told anyone about it, apart from Pete?’

‘Only Ray.’

‘Who’s— Oh, yes, of course. Well, it might be an idea to keep quiet about it for the time being. Until I’ve spoken to this man. I presume he’s on the telephone, is he?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know his number?’

‘Yes. He gave it to me when his wife was away once, on tour. She’s an actress.’

Stratton held up his hand. He didn’t think he could bear to hear any of the details, however marginal. ‘What is it?’

Monica dug around in her bag and scribbled it on the corner of a piece of paper on which was printed some sort of schedule, including the name of Raymond Benson. ‘Don’t you need this?’

‘No. The picture’s finished.’

‘He was in it, was he?’

Monica nodded.

‘Will he be in the next picture you’re working on?’

‘No, but he’ll be at the studio, on a different stage. He’s under contract. You won’t do anything to him, will you?’

‘I’ve said so, haven’t I?’

‘Thanks, Dad.’ Monica sniffed. The small sounds coming from her seemed to intensify the silence around them, and for a moment Stratton’s thoughts boomed so loudly that he wondered if they hadn’t somehow escaped from his head to reverberate round the room. Suddenly awkward, they avoided each other’s eyes as they said their goodnights.

Stratton sank onto the sofa. God, he wanted to punch Benson into the middle of next week. Knock his handsome white teeth – he didn’t know what the man looked like, but he was in films so handsome white teeth seemed a fair bet – right down his lying throat. He felt so helpless. It was all right when they were little, if they hurt their knees or fell out of a tree or something, because you could always kiss it better. But
this
. . . If Jenny was here, he thought, this wouldn’t have happened. Or perhaps if he’d got married again after she’d died and Monica had had more of a woman’s influence … Grief had made him selfish, and he’d assumed that because he didn’t want another wife, they wouldn’t want, or need, a stepmother. Maybe Doris and Lilian had been right, trying to push widows at him. In the last year, he had tried to take an interest in a couple of them. He’d even taken one out to supper, at a Lyons Corner House. It was a perfectly pleasant evening; she was sweet, and mercifully unaffected, but when he got home he found himself wondering why he’d done it. With no desire to repeat the experience, he’d written her an awkward letter, using pressure of work to cancel the tentative arrangement they’d made for the following week.

Throwing back his head and closing his eyes, he wondered if it were possible to pinpoint the exact moment when things had started to go wrong. At present, it felt as though his entire life had been a sequence of catastrophes leading up to this one, but surely that couldn’t actually be the case? There must have been a specific time. Why hadn’t he
known
? Why wasn’t there a siren or a warning bell or something? Why was everything in his life – Monica, Davies, Backhouse – spinning out of control?

Even if he murdered this Benson bloke, it wouldn’t do any good. Monica would still be pregnant. The thought of an abortion made him remember Davies’s story about Backhouse volunteering to get rid of Muriel’s baby, and a vision of the man’s bald, sweating pate as he bent over Monica’s prone body and fumbled between her legs with grimy nailed fingers made him wide-eyed and sick with
horror. Clapping a hand over his mouth, he ran into the scullery and leant over the basin. Arms braced and head lowered like a bull about to charge, he remained there until the danger was over.

Seeing the empty beer bottles from the previous evening standing on the draining board, Stratton decided something stronger was needed. Remembering that there was some Scotch in the sideboard in the sitting room, he retraced his steps and poured himself a bloody big slug of the stuff. Then, shrugging off his jacket, and jerking his tie loose in a single, swift movement, he sat down once more.