A Twist in the Tale (2 page)

Once I had
reached the office car park I cleared up the mess on the passenger seat as best
I could and left a window open before taking a lift to the washroom on the
seventh floor. I tore my lunch invitation to Carla into little pieces and
flushed them down the
lav-atory
. I walked into my
room on the twelfth floor a little after eight thirty, to find the managing
director pacing up and down in front of my desk, obviously waiting for me. I
had quite forgotten that it was Friday and he always expected the latest
completed figures to be ready for his consideration.

This Friday it
turned out he also wanted the projected accounts for the months of May, June
and July. I promised they would be on his desk by midday. The one thing I
needed was a clear morning and I was not going to be allowed it.

Every time the
phone rang, the door opened or anyone even spoke to me, my heart missed a
beatI
assumed it could only be the police. By midday I had
finished some sort of report for the managing director, but I knew he would
find it neither adequate nor accurate. As soon as I had deposited the papers
with his secretary, I left for an early lunch. I
realised
I wouldn’t be able to eat anything, but at least I could get hold of the first
edition of the Standard and search for any news they might have picked up about
Carla’s death.

I sat in the
corner of my local pub where I knew I couldn’t be seen from behind the bar.

A tomato juice
by my side, I began slowly to turn the pages of the paper.

She hadn’t made
page one. She hadn’t made the second, third or fourth page. And on page five
she rated only a tiny paragraph.

“Miss Carla
Moorland, aged 31, was found dead at her home in
Pimlico
earlier this morning.” I remember thinking at the time they hadn’t even got her
age right. “Detective Inspector Simmons, who has been put in charge of the
case, said that an investigation was being carried out and they were awaiting
the pathologist’s report but to date they had no reason to suspect foul play.”

After that
piece of news I even managed a little soup and a roll. Once I had read the
report a second time I made my way back to
the of
lice
car park and sat in my car. I wound down the other front window to allow more
fresh air in before turning on the World
At
One on the
radio. Carla didn’t even get a mention. In the age of pump shotguns, drugs,
Aids and gold bullion robberies the death of a thirty two-year-old industrial
personal assistant had passed unnoticed by the BBC.

I returned to
my of lice to find on my desk a memo containing a series of questions that had
been fired back from the managing director, leaving me in no doubt as to how he
felt about my report. I was able to deal with nearly all his queries and return
the answers to his secretary before I left the office that night, despite
spending most of the afternoon trying to convince myself that whatever had
caused Carla’s death must have happened after I left and could not possibly
have been connected with my hitting her. But that red negligee kept returning
to my thoughts. Was there any way they could trace it back to me? I had bought
it at Harrods – an extravagance, but I felt certain it couldn’t be unique and
it was still the only serious present I’d ever given her. But the note that was
attached – had Carla destroyed it? Would they discover who
Casaneva
was?

I drove
directly home that evening, aware that I would never again be able to travel
down the road Carla had lived in. I listened to the end of the PM
programme
on my car radio and as soon as I reached home
switched on the six o’clock news. I turned to Channel Four at seven and back to
the BBC at nine. I returned to ITV at ten and even ended up watching
Newsnight
.

Carla’s death,
in their combined editorial opinion, must have been less important than a
Third-Division football result between Reading and
Walsall
.
Elizabeth continued reading her latest library book, oblivious to my possible
peril.

I slept
fitfully that night, and as soon as I heard the papers pushed through the
letterbox the next morning I ran downstairs to check the headlines.

“DUKAKIS
NOMINATED AS CANDIDATE” stared up at me from the front page of The Times.

I found myself
wondering, irrelevantly, if he would ever be President. “President Dukakis”
didn’t sound quite right to me.

I picked up my
wife’s Daily Express and the three-word headline filled the top of the page:
“LOVERS’ TIFF MURDER”.

My legs gave
way and I fell to my knees. I must have made a strange sight, crumpled up on
the floor trying to read that opening paragraph. I couldn’t make out the words
of the second paragraph with- out my spectacles. I stumbled back upstairs with
the papers and grabbed the glasses from the table on my side of the bed.
Elizabeth was still sleeping soundly. Even so, I locked myself in the bathroom
where I could read the story slowly and without fear of interruption.

Police are now
treating as murder the death of a beautiful
Pimlico
secretary,
Carla Moorland, 32, who was found dead in her flat early yesterday morning.
Detective Inspector Simmons of Scotland Yard, who is in charge of the case,
initially considered Carla Moorland’s death to be due to natural causes, but an
X-ray has revealed a broken jaw which could have been caused in a fight.

An inquest will
be held on April 19th.

Miss Moorland’s
daily, Maria Lucia (4 8), said – exclusively to the Express- that her employer
had been with a man friend when she had left the flat at five o’clock on the
night in question. Another witness,
Mrs
Rita Johnson,
who lives in – the adjoining block of flats, stated she had seen a man leaving
Miss Moorland’s flat at around six, before entering the newsagents opposite and
later driving away.
Mrs
Johnson added that she
couldn’t be sure of the make of the car but it might have been a Rover . . .

“Oh, my God,” I
exclaimed in such a loud voice that I was afraid it might have woken Elizabeth.
I shaved and showered quickly, trying to think as I went along. I was dressed
and ready to leave for work even before my wife had woken. 1 kissed her on the
cheek but she only turned over, so I scribbled a note and left it on her side
of the bed, explaining that I had to spend the morning in the office as I had
an important report to complete.

On my journey
to work I rehearsed exactly what I was going to say. I went over it again and
again. I arrived on the twelfth floor a little before eight and left my door
wide open so I would be aware of the slightest
intru-sion
.
I felt confident that I had a clear fifteen, even twenty minutes before anyone
else could be expected to arrive.

Once again I
went over exactly what I needed to say. I found the number in the L-R directory
and scribbled it down on a pad in front of me before writing five headings in
block capitals, something I always did before a board meeting.

BUS STOP

COAT

NO. 19

BMW

TICKET

Then I
dialled
the number.

I took off my
watch and placed it in front of me. I had read somewhere that the location of a
telephone call can be traced in about three minutes.

A woman’s voice
said, “Scotland Yard.”

“Inspector
Simmons, please,” was all I volunteered.

“Can I tell him
who’s
calling?”

“No, I would
prefer not to give my name.”

“Yes, of
course, sir,” she said, evidently used to such callers.

Another ringing tone.
My mouth went dry as a man’s voice
announced “Simmons”
andI
heard the detective speak
for the first time.

I was taken
aback to find that a man with so English a name could have such a strong
Glaswegian accent.

“Can I help
you?” he asked.

“No, but I
think I can help you,” I said in a quiet tone which I pitched considerably
lower than my natural speaking voice.

“How can you
help me, sir?”

“Are you the
officer in charge of the Carla whatever-her-name-is case?”

“Yes, I am. But
how can you help?” he repeated.

The second hand
showed one minute had already passed.

“I saw a man
leaving her flat that night.”

“Where were you
at the time?”

“At the bus stop on the same side of the road.”

“Can you give
me a description of the man?”

Simmons’s tone
was every bit as casual as my own.

“Tall. I’d say
five eleven, six foot. Well built.

Wore one of
those posh City coats – you know, the black ones with a velvet collar.”

“How can you be
so sure about the coat?” the detective asked.

“It was so cold
standing out there waiting for the No. 19 that I wished it had been me who was
wearing it.”

“Do you
remember anything in particular that happened after he left the flat?”

“Only that he
went into the paper shop opposite before getting into his car and driving
away.”

“Yes, we know
that much,” said the Detective Inspector. “I don’t suppose you recall what make
of car it was?”

Two minutes had
now passed and I began to watch the second hand more closely.

“I think it was
a BMW,” I said.

“Do you
remember the
colour
by any chance?”

“No, it was too
dark for that.” I paused. “But I saw him tear a parking ticket
offthe
windscreen, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you to
trace him.”

“And at what
time did all this take place?”

“Around six
fifteen to six thirty, Inspector,” I said.

“And can you
tell me...?”

Two minutes
fifty-eight seconds. I put the phone back on the hook. My whole body broke out
in a sweat.

“Good to see
you in the office on a Saturday morning,” said the managing director grimly as
he passed my door. “Soon as you’re finished whatever you’re doing I’d like a
word with you.”

I left my desk
and followed him along the corridor into his office. For the next hour he went
over my projected figures, but however hard I tried I couldn’t concentrate. It
wasn’t long before he stopped trying to disguise his impatience.

“Have you got
something else on your mind?” he asked as he closed his file. “You seem
preoccupied.”

“No,” I
insisted, “just been doing a lot of overtime lately,” and stood up to leave.

Once I had
returned to my office, I burnt the piece of paper with the five headings and
left to go home.
In the first edition of the afternoon paper,
the “Lovers’ Tilts’ story had been moved back to page seven.
They had
nothing new to report.

The rest of
Saturday seemed interminable but my wife’s Sunday Express finally brought me
some relief.

“Following up
information received in the Carla Moorland ‘Lovers’ Tills murder, a man is
helping the police with their inquiries.”

The commonplace
expressions I had read so often in the past suddenly took on a real meaning.

I scoured the
other Sunday papers, listened to every news bulletin and watched each news item
on television. When my wife became curious I explained that there was a
rumour
in the office that the company might be taken over
again, which meant I could lose my job.

By Monday
morning the Daily Express had named the man in “The Lovers’ Tiff murder” as
Paul
Menzies
(51), an insurance broker from Sutton.
His wife was at a hospital in Epsom under sedation while he was being held in
the cells of Brixton Prison under arrest. I began to wonder if
Mr
Menzies
had told Carla the
truth about his wife and what his nickname might be. I poured myself a strong
black coffee and left for the office.

Later that
morning,
Menzies
appeared before the magistrates at
the
Horseferry
Road
court, charged with the murder of
Carla Moorland. The police had been successful in opposing bail, the Standard
reassured me.

*
* *

It takes six
months, I was to discover, for a case of this gravity to reach the Old Bailey.

Paul
Menzies
passed those months on re-
mand
in Brixton Prison. 1 spent the same period fearful of every telephone call,
every knock on the door, every unexpected visitor.

Each one
created its own nightmare. Innocent people have no idea how many such incidents
occur every day. I went about my job as best I could, often wondering if
Menzies
knew of my relationship with Carla, if he knew my
name or if he even knew of my existence.

It must have
been a couple of months before the trial was due to begin that the company held
its annual general meeting. It had taken some considerable creative account-
ancy
on my part to produce a set of figures that showed us
managing any profit at all.

We certainly
didn’t pay our share- holders a dividend that year.

I came away
from the meeting relieved, almost elated. Six months had passed since Carla’s
death and not one incident had occurred during that period to suggest that
anyone suspected I had even known her, let alone been the cause of her death. I
still felt guilty about Carla, even missed her, but after six months I was now
able to go for a whole day without fear entering my mind.

Strangely, I
felt no guilt about
Menzies’s
plight. After all, it
was he who had become the instrument that was going to keep me from a lifetime
spent in prison. So when the blow came it had double the impact.