Shake Hands Forever, page 7
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Denise's flower arrangements and conquered his awe of her fragile china ornaments and the pastel satin upholstery he was sure he would ruin with coffee stains. The abundance of everything, the smooth-running splendours and the air of gracious living, no longer intimidated him. He could sit with ease on a chair in one of those little circles of chairs and a silk sofa that reminded him of photographs of royal palace interiors. He could laugh about the tropical central heating, or as now when it wasn't on, comment on its summer counterpart, the newly installed air conditioning.
'It reminds me,' he said, 'of that description of Scott's of the Lady Rowena's apartments. "The rich hangings shook to the night blast . . . the flame of the torches streamed sideways into the air like the unfurled pennon of a chieftain." Only, in your case, it's house plants that stream and not flames.'
They had an injoke about their exchange of quotations, for at one time Wexford had used them to assert his intellectual equality, and Howard had replied, or so his uncle believed, to keep discreetly off the subject of their shared occupation.
'Literary chit-chat, Reg?' said Howard, smiling.
'To break the ice only - and you'll get real ice on your flower vases if you keep that going, Denise. No, I want to talk to you about why I've come up here, but that'll keep till after dinner.'
'And I thought you'd come up here to see met' said Denise.
'So I have, my dear, but another young woman is interesting me a good deal more at present.'
'What's she got that I haven't got?'
Wexford took her hand and, pretending to scrutinize it, said, 'An L-shaped scar on her forefinger.'
When Wexford was in London he always hoped people 73
would take him for a Londoner. To sustain this illusion, he took certain measures such as remaining in his seat until the tube train had actually come to a halt at his destination instead of leaping up nervously thirty seconds beforehand as is the habit of non-condoners. And he refrained from enquiring of other passengers if the train he was in was actually going to the place announced by the confusing indi- cator. As a result, he had once found himself in Uxbridge instead of Harrow-on-the-Hill. But there is no easy way of getting from the western reaches of Chelsea to the West End by Tube, so Wexford boarded the number I4 bus, an old friend.
Instead of one person, Marcus Flower turned out to be two, Jason Marcus and Stephen Flower, the former looking like a long-haired and youthful Ronald Colman and the latter a short-haired and superannuated Mick Jagger. Wexford refused a cup of the black coffee they were drinking -apparently as a hangover remedy - and said he had really come to talk to Linda Kipling. Marcus and Flower went off into a double act of innuendo at this, declaring that Miss Kipling was far better worth seeing than they, that no one ever came there except to look at the girls, and then, falling simultaneously grave, said almost in unison how frightfully sorry they had been to hear of 'poor old Bob's loss' about which they had been 'absolutely cut up'.
Wexford was then conducted by Marcus through a series of offices that were strangely lush and stark at the same time, rooms where the furniture was made of steel and leather and set against extravagant velvet drapes and high-pile carpets. On the walls were abstract paintings of the splashed ketchup and copulating spiders genre, and on low tables magazine pornography so soft as to be gently blancmange-like in texture and kind. The secretaries, three of them, were all to
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"ether in a blue velvet room, the one who had received hirn, a red-headed one, and Linda Kipling. Two others, said Linda, were in one case at the hairdresser's and in the other at a wedding. It was that sort of place.
She led him into an empty office where she sat down on the kind of black leather and metal bench you find in airport lounges. She had the look of a dummy in the window of a very expensive dress shop, realistic but not real, as if made of high-quality plastic. Contemplating her fingernails, which were green, she told him that Robert Hathall had phoned his wife every day at lunchtime since he had been with them, either calling her himself or asking her to put the call through for him. This she had thought 'terribly sweet', though now, of course, it was 'terribly tragic'.
'You'd say he was very happily married, would you, Miss Kipling ? Talked about his wife a lot, kept her photograph on his desk, that sort of thing?'
'He did have her photograph, but Liz said it was frightfully bourgeois, doing things like that, so he put it away. I wouldn't know if he was happy. He was never very lively, not like Jason and Steve and some of the other blokes.'
'What was he like last Friday?'
'The same as usual. just the same. I've told that to a policeman already. I don't know what's the good of saying the same thing over and over again. He was just the same as usual. He got in a bit before ten and he was in here all the morning working out the details of a sort of scheme for private hospital treatment for those of the staff who wanted it. Insurance, you know.' Linda looked her contempt for those executives who couldn't afford to pay for their own private treatment. 'He phoned his wife a bit before one and then he went out to lunch in a pub with Jason. They weren't gone long. I know he was back here by half past two. He dictated
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three letters to me.' She seemed aggrieved at the memory, as if this had been an unfairly demanding task. 'And he went off at five-thirty to meet his mother and take her off to wherever he lives, somewhere in Sussex.'
'Did he ever get phone calls here from women or a woman ?'
'His wife never phoned him.' His meaning sank in and she stared at him. She was one of those people who are so narrow and who have imaginations so limited that hints at anything unexpected in the field of sex or social conduct or the emo- tions throw them into fits of nervous giggles. She giggled now. 'A girl-friend, d'you mean ? Nobody like that phoned him. No one ever phoned him.'
'Was he attracted by any of the girls here ?'
She looked astonished and edged slightly away. 'The girls here ?'
'Well, there are five girls here, Miss Kipling, and if the three of you I've seen are anything to go by, you're not exactly repulsive. Did Mr Hathall have a special friendship with any girl here?'
The green fingernails fluttered. 'Do you mean a relationship ? D'you mean, was he sleeping with anyone ?'
'If you like to put it that way. After all, he was a lonely man, temporarily separated from his wife. I suppose you were all here on Friday afternoon, none of you out having her hair done or at a wedding?'
'Of course we were all herel And as to Bob Hathall having a relationship with any of us, you might care to know that June and Liz are married, Clare's engaged to Jason and Suzanne is Lord Carthew's daughter.'
'Does that exempt her from sleeping with a man ?'
'It exempts her from sleeping with someone of Bob Hathall's - er, kind. And that goes for all of us. Wemayn'tbe
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"exactly repulsive", as you put it, but we haven't come down to thatl'
Wexford said good morning to her and walked out, feeling rather sorry he had paid her even that one grudging compliment. In Piccadilly, he went into a call-box and dialled the number of Craig and Butler, Accountants, of Gray's Inn Road. Mr Butler, he was told, was at present engaged, but would be happy to see him at three o'clock that afternoon. How should he spend the intervening time ? Although he had discovered Mrs Eileen Hathall's address, Croydon was too far distant to sandwich in a visit there between now and three. Why not find out a little more about Angela herself and get some background to this marriage that everyone said was happy but which had ended in murder? He leafed through the directory and found it: The National Archaeologists' League Library, ~7 Trident Place, Knightsbridge SW7. Briskly, he walked up to the Tube station in Piccadilly Circus.
Trident Place wasn't easy to find. Although he had consulted his A to Z Guide in the privacy of the call-box, he found he had to look at it again in full view of sophisticated Londoners. As he was telling himself he was an old fool to be so self-conscious, he was rewarded by the sight of Sloane Street from which, according to the guide, Trident Place debauched.
It was a wide street of four-storey mid-Victorian houses, all smart and well kept. Number seven had a pair of heavy glass doors, framed in mahogany, through which Wexford went into a hall hung with monochrome photographs of amphorae and with portraits of gloomy-looking unearthers of the past, and thence through another door into the library itself. The atmosphere was that of all such places, utterly quiet, scholarly, redolent of books, ancient and modern.
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There were very few people about. A member was busy with one of the huge leather-bound catalogues, another was signing for the books he had taken out. Two girls and a young man were occupied in a quiet and studious way behind the polished oak counter, and it was one of these girls who came out and took Wexford upstairs, past more portraits, more photographs, past the sepulchrally silent reading room, to the office of the chief librarian, Miss Marie Marcovitch.
Miss Marcovitch was a little elderly woman, presumably of Central European Jewish origin. She spoke fluent academic English with a slight accent. As unlike Linda Kipling as one woman can be unlike another, she asked him to sit down and showed no surprise that he had come to question her about a murder case, although she had not at first connected the girl who used to work for her with the dead woman.
'She left here, of course, before her marriage,' said Wexford. 'How would you describe her, as tough and ungracious, or nervous and shy?'
'Well, she was quiet. I could put it like this - but, no, the poor girl is deed.' after her small hesitation, Miss Marcovitch went on hastily, 'I really don't know what I can tell you about her. She was quite ordinary.'
'I should like you to tell me everything you know.'
'A tall order, even though she was ordinary. She came to work here about five years ago. It's not the usual practice of the library to employ people without university degrees, but Angela was a qualified librarian and she had some knowledge of archaeology. She'd no practical experience, but neither, for that matter, have I.'
The bookish atmosphere had reminded Wexford of a book he still had in his possession. 'Was she interested in Celtic languages ?'
Miss Marcovitch looked surprised. 'Not that I know of.'
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'Never mind. Please go on.'
'I hardly know how to go on, Chief Inspector. Angela did her work quite satisfactorily, though she was absent rather a lot on vague medical grounds. She was bad about money . . .' Again Wexford noticed the hesitation. 'I mean, she couldn't manage on her salary and she used to complain that it was inadequate. I gathered she borrowed small sums from other members of the staff, but that was no business of mine.'
'I believe she worked here for some months before she met Mr Hathall 7'
'I'm not at all sure when she did meet Mr Hathall. First of all she was friendly with a Mr Craig who used to be on our staff but who has since left. Indeed, all the members of our staff from that time have left except myself. I'm afraid I never met Mr Hathall.'
'But you did meet the first Mrs Hathall ?'
The librarian pursed her lips and folded her small shrivelled hands in her lap. 'This seems very much like scandalmongering,' she said primly.
'So much of my work is, Miss Marcovitch.'
'Well . . .' She gave a sudden unexpected smile, bright and almost naughty. 'In for a penny, in for a pound, eh ? I did meet the first Mrs Hathall. I happened to be in the library itself when she came in. You'll have noticed that this is a very quiet place. Voices aren't raised and movements aren't swift, an atmosphere which suits members and staff alike. I must confess to having been very angry indeed when this woman burst into the library, rushed up to where Angela was behind the counter and began to rant and rave at her. It was impossible for members not to realize that she was reproaching Angela for what she called stealing her husband. I asked Mr Craig to get rid of the woman as quietly as he could, and then I took Angela upstairs with me. When she calmed down I told
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her that, although her private affairs were-no business of mine, such a thing mustn't be allowed to occur again.'
'It didn't occur again?'
'No, but Angela's work began to suffer. She was the kind that goes to pieces easily under strain. I was sorry for her, but not otherwise sorry, when she said she'd have to give up her job on her doctor's advice.'
The librarian finished speaking, seemed to have said everything she had to say and was on her feet. But Wexford, instead of getting up, said in a dry voice, 'In for a pound, Miss Marcovitch?'
She coloured and gave a little embarrassed laugh. 'How perspicacious of you, Chief Inspector! Yes, there is one more thing. I suppose you noticed my hesitations. I've never told anyone about this, but - well, I will tell you.' She sat down again, and her manner became more pedantic. 'In view of the fact that the library members pay a large subscription -twenty-five pounds annually - and are by their nature careful of books, we charge no fines should they keep books beyond the allotted period of one month. Naturally, however, we don't publicize this, and many new members have been pleasantly surprised to find that, on returning books they have kept for perhaps two or three months, no charge is made.
'About three and a half years ago, a little while after Angela had left us, I happened to be helping out at the returns counter when a member handed to me three books that I saw were six weeks overdue. I should have made no comment on this had the member not produced one pound eighty, which he assured me was the proper fine for overdue books, ten pence per week per book. When I told him no fines were ever exacted in this library, he said he'd only been a member for a year and had only once before kept books longer than a month. On that occasion the "young lady" had asked him for
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one pound twenty, and he hadn't protested, thinking it to be reasonable.
'Of course I made enquiries among the staff who all appeared perfectly innocent, but the two girls told me that other members had recently also tried to get them to accept fines for overdue books, which they had refused and had given an explanation of our rules.'
'You think Angela Hathall was responsible?' Wexford asked.
'Who else could have been? But she had gone, no very great harm was done, and I didn't relish raising this matter at a meeting of the trustees which might have led to trouble and perhaps to a prosecution with members called as witnesses and so on. Besides, the girl had been under a strain and it was a very small fraud. I doubt if she made more than ten pounds out of it at the most.'
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A very small fraud . . . Wexford hadn't expected to encounter fraud at all, and it was probably irrelevant. But the shadowy figure of Angela Hathall had now, like a shape looming out of fog, begun to take more definite outlines. A paranoid personality with a tendency to hypochondria; intelligent but unable to persevere at a steadyjob; her mental state easily overthrown by adversity; financially unstable and not above making extra money by fraudulent means. How, then, had she managed on the fifteen pounds a week which was all she and her husband had had to live on for a period of nearly three years ?
He left the library and took the Tube to Chancery Lane. Craig and Butler, Accountants, had their offices on the third floor of an old building near the Royal Free Hospital. He noted the place, had a salad and orange juice lunch in a cafe, and at one minute to three was shown up into the office of the senior partner, William Butler. The room was as oldfashioned and nearly as quiet as the library, and Mr Butler as wizened as Miss Marcovitch. But he wore a jolly smile, the atmosphere was of business rather than scholarship, and the only portrait a highly coloured oil of an elderly man in evening dress.
'My former partner, Mr Craig,' said William Butler.
'It would be his son, I imagine, who introduced Robert and Angela Hathall ?'
'His nephew. Paul Craig, the son, has been my partner 82
since his father's retirement. It's Jonadhan Craig who used to work at the archaeologistst place.'
'I believe the introduction took place at an office party here ?'
The old man gave a sharp scratchy little chuckle. 'A party here? Where would we put the food and drink, not to mention the guests ? They'd be reminded of their income tax and get gloomy and depressed. No, that party was at Mr Craig's own home in Finchley on his retirement from the firm after forty-five years.'
'You met Angela Hathall there ?'
'It was the only time I did meet her. Nice-looking creature, Though widh a bit of that Shetland pony look so many of them have nowadays. Wearing trousers too. Personally, I think a woman should put on a skirt to go to a party. Bob Hathall was very smitten with her from the first, you could see that.'
'That can't have pleased Mr Jonathan Craig.'
Again Mr Butler gave his fiddle-string squawk. 'He wasn't serious about her. Got married since, as a matter of fact. His wife's nothing to look at but loaded, my dear fellow, pots of it. This Angela wouldn't have gone down at all well with He family, they're not easy-going like me. Mind you, even I took a bit of a dim view when she went up to Paul and said what a lovely job he'd got, just the thing for knowing how to fiddle one's tax. Saying that to an accountant's like telling a doctor he's lucky to be able to get hold of heroin.' And Mr Buder chortled merrily. 'I met the first Mrs Hathall too, you know,' he said. 'She was a lively one. We had quite a scene, what with her banging about trying to get to Bob, and Bob locking himself up in his office. What a voice she's got when she's roused I Another time she sat on the stairs all day waiting for Bob to come out. He locked himself up again and never went out all night. God knows when she went home. The next day 83
she turned up again and screamed at me to make him go back to her and their daughter. Fine set-out that was. I'll never forget it.'
'As a result,' said Wexford, 'you gave him the sack.'
'I never dial Is that what he says?'
Wexford nodded.
'God damn ill Bob Hathall always was a liar. I'll tell you what happened, and you can believe it or not, as you like. I had him in here after all that set-out and told him he'd better manage his private affairs a bit better. We had a bit of an argument and the upshot was he flew into a rage and said he was leaving. I tried to dissuade him. He'd come to us as an office boy and done all his training here. I told him that if he was getting a divorce he'd need all the money he could lay his hands on and there'd be a rise for him in the New Year. But he wouldn't listen, kept saying everyone was against him and this Angela. So he left and got himself some tin-pot parttime job, and serve him right.'
