Nine Lives (3 page)

The neighbourhood was appalled. Harry Winston was a loved man in the community. A generous man, an organiser of good causes, a wonderful husband and father. This almost-too-good-to-be-true reputation served to feed the anger and indignation of his many friends. Even his patients, who came forward willingly to testify to his compassion and skill. According to the Council for Psychotherapy, Harry Winston was a leading pioneer in the field. His killer had to be found. And quickly.

DI Wilkins did his best, but he had little to go on. Few
witnesses could be traced, apart from a couple of schoolboys who said that they had seen a man walking past them at around that time. But they couldn't remember what he looked like, except for his trilby hat which they thought was a bit ‘square'. But that man could have been anybody. No one could be found who bore Mr Winston a grudge though Wilkins trailed through his list of patients, past and present, some dead, but others alive enough to praise him. The press was on his back, as was his superior, as well as the mayor of the borough who accused him of dragging his feet. Mr Harry Winston would not be put on the back-burner. What promised to be but a nine-days' wonder stubbornly persisted through the coming weeks, but eventually indignation waned. There were lives to be lived and a future to face. All that was left was sympathy and support for the widow and her children.

But at headquarters, the file was kept doggedly open. DI Wilkins, desperate for leads, organised a reconstruction of the crime on
Crimewatch
, but never, in the long history of that series, had there been so little feedback. Wilkins sensed that the killer would strike again. And possibly in the same manner. He would bide his time. And his faith was not misplaced.

I slept very badly …

I slept very badly last night. Always do before I have to go and see Donald. He's been moved. Much further away. Maximum security, they call it, as if they expect him to escape. I have to laugh. My Donald escaping. He's far too lazy even to think about it. Always has been. Especially since the legacy. An uncle of his, no children, left him a packet – enough for him to give up work. He was tempted, but I dissuaded him. I didn't want him around the house all day. Still, he didn't work much. He must have been the laziest accountant in London. He kept his office, but he didn't employ a secretary. He sat there all alone, doing the books. Bit of a loner, my Donald. He'll not be unhappy in solitary.

It was a long journey. I had to change trains twice and then get a bus at the other end. Still, it didn't matter. It gave me time to think. Think about what I was going to say to him. But we never talked much, even when he was free. In all our years of marriage, I know no more about him now than when we first met. He never talked about his family. I didn't even know if he had any brothers or sisters. Or if his parents were still alive. He went to a funeral once, a few years ago, but he didn't mention whose it was. Maybe his dad or his mum. There was another funeral shortly after that one, so I presumed he was an orphan. He didn't seem too upset about either of them. When we first met, I thought he'd introduce me to his family, but he said they were always travelling, mostly abroad. But he promised that he'd get us together one day.
I never reminded him of that promise. I thought it might upset him. I took him to meet mine though, just my mum, because my father had left, and she quite took to Donald. She's dead now too. I'm glad she didn't live to see what happened. But I miss her. I could do with her advice at this time. Or some explanation, because I don't understand it at all.

The first train journey was a short one. Just two stops, so there was no point in settling my mind to thinking. I would wait till I got on the next train. An hour's journey that one, and plenty of time to wonder what to say to him. Whatever I do say to him. I didn't know if it was the truth or a lie – whether he really did what they all said he did. Surely I would have noticed? If a man murders ten people, surely his wife would notice some change in his behaviour? He would have been nervous, ill-tempered and terrified. But not my Donald. On the contrary, he was elated sometimes, really cheerful, as if he'd pulled off some big business deal. And on some nights, just between you and me, he made love just like Casanova. Though I don't know who Casanova was, but I've heard it said he was a great lover. Of course we made love from time to time, just matter-of-fact stuff, but those times I'm talking about, those special times, he seemed possessed. I enjoyed those thoughts on my train journey and I indulged in them, all the way to the prison. So that when I arrived, I still had no idea what I was going to say to him.

This was my first visit to the new prison, so I had to make myself known all over again, with that same name that I don't know how to pronounce.

‘
Ver-ine
,' I said, giving each syllable an equal chance. The
warder looked at me as if I were lying. ‘Dorricks will do,' he said. ‘Through the swing doors on your left.'

I made my way to reception, and felt like a new prisoner. I was led into a long corridor lined with booths. I had to sit facing a glass partition and wait for Donald to appear behind it.

‘Use the phone to talk,' the warder said, acknowledging me as a first-timer. ‘You'll get used to it.'

I'll have plenty of time to accustom myself, I thought. Donald was in for life. But would I keep visiting him, month after month, dissembling on a telephone line? Or would I cut my losses? Take the advice of Donald's lawyer and move to another place? But I'd only do that if I was convinced my Donald was a murderer. And personally, I don't have any proof.

I waited for Donald to appear, and when he did, shortly afterwards, I was struck by how well he looked. Prison suited him. He'd put on a little weight and though his hair was closely shaven, he looked a lot younger. An innocent face, I thought, a claim that he confirmed immediately as he picked up the phone.

‘I'm innocent,' he said, as he always did. ‘You believe that, don't you?'

I nodded into the phone.

He pressed his hand over the partition and I sensed that I had to cover it with my own. He smiled and so did I. I loved that glass wall. It meant he couldn't embrace me or touch me in any way. All he could savour was the print of my hand, as lustful as a kiss through a wooden panel. But there was more to the glass than the distance it entailed. Much more. It gave me a sudden sense of freedom. I was untouchable, so I could say anything I wanted. All the
questions I'd been too timid to ask in our many years together could now be released without fear of irritated response.

‘D'you have any other visitors?' I dared to ask. ‘Your parents?' He shook his head over the phone.

‘Dead,' he said. ‘Both of them.' It had taken all those years of co-habitation, and a glass partition, to inform me that my husband was an orphan.

‘Any brothers? Sisters?' I was becoming bold.

‘No. I'm an only,' he said.

At last he had spoken. That mouth of his, that after almost thirty years of marriage had been clammed shut on such basic information, had now, with the shield of a glass partition, suddenly opened. It was not so much the news itself that astonished me; it was the realisation that I had been so accepting of his silence and for so long – that I had never questioned his reserve, his reticence. I had simply acknowledged him as a dark horse. Yet I thought I knew him, and knew him well, but now I understood that I knew nothing of the
core
of him and I had made do with his simple outline.

‘You must have been lonely as a child,' I said.

He shrugged. ‘I don't want to talk about it.'

The glass partition clearly prescribed limits. But I would not stop trying to make him out. I would persist, I decided. Next time, I'd visit him as long as I needed. As long as I needed to ferret out the nub of him and perhaps begin to fathom what was, until now, beyond my understanding. Through a glass darkly, I would begin to unravel my doubts.

‘I would like to see the boys,' he said.

I had no answer to that one. They had written him off and he was unlikely to see them ever again.

‘They think I'm guilty, don't they?' he said.

Again I had no answer. They, and the twelve jurors, good and true, I thought, along with thousands of others. What was so odd about me that I couldn't go along with the majority verdict? I suppose it was pride. For how could I admit to having lived with and loved such a man? It was vanity, the flipside of my self-contempt. But I would persevere. I would come again and again. At the end of that telephone line, I would wrench out of him all that he was loath to tell me. I would wring him dry.

‘You don't have to come if you don't want to,' he said.

At that moment, I could have shattered the glass and put my arms around him. I don't know whether it would have been a gesture of love, or perhaps pity. Probably, alas, the latter. For pity is so hard to live with. It diminishes both parties. It would have been easier to hate him. Or to love him even. Either of those feelings I could live with and learn from. But pity corrodes, and my nights were sleepless enough without it.

‘I haven't heard from the boys myself,' I said into the phone. I wanted to be part of his isolation.

‘You must be lonely,' he said.

‘Yes. I miss you.' And I meant it.

‘Me too,' he said. And smiled.

I couldn't think of anything more to say, and I was relieved when the warder appeared and put his hand on Donald's shoulder. It seemed a gentle touch and I was grateful for it.

‘Time's up,' he said.

Donald took his hand from the glass, and mine was left there, reprinting nothing. I watched him leave. He did not look behind him, so there was no point in waving. But I
kept my hand on the partition, as if to reserve that spot as my own. Because I would be coming back; and back again until I could prise the truth out of him, so that I could cease to be ashamed of my ignorance.

It's six months now since poor Harry Winston, and I reckon the trail has run cold. I was lucky because I took risks. I didn't know that he was married, and had children. Any of them could have been in the house. But you live and learn. From now on, I will choose loners, and check out their joints beforehand.

Once more to my list and my choice fell on a Miss Angela Mayling who lived in Birmingham. It did no harm to widen my net. I told Verry I had business in Devon. Then I drove in the opposite direction to investigate my quarry. There was a coffee shop on the corner, and her house was obliquely opposite. I sat myself by the window and ordered lunch. That gave me a legitimate hour's stay. During that time, I saw a man ring her bell and a woman, who I presumed was my next target, answered the door and let him in. As I was finishing my dessert, I spotted the man leaving and I assumed he was a patient. As I was paying my bill, a woman was seen to ring her bell. She too was greeted by my quarry and invited to enter. I didn't hang around any longer – it would have risked being spotted and recalled. I decided to wait a good two months before striking again, so that any possible witness of my visit that day would have well and truly forgotten all about me. After a decent interval, I told Verry that I had to go to Devon again. My Verry doesn't question anything, which is just as well. She just accepts what I tell her, and gets on with it.

I invented a new name for myself and I rang Miss Mayling
for an appointment. Seven o'clock in the morning was all she could offer me. Such an hour indicated an overnight stay, but I couldn't risk a hotel. So I left London very early and drove through the breaking dawn to the site of my target. Once parked, I put on my gloves and a bowler hat. I liked to ring the changes. There was no one about; unsurprising at that hour. I was not sweating this time. Nor was I afraid. Once convinced of one's mission, there is no place for fear. I rang her bell without hesitation and, as expected, she answered the door.

‘Miss Mayling?' I asked. I did not bother to disguise my voice – she would never live to identify it. She invited me inside, and as I entered I took out my string. Then I swept behind her, necklaced her throat and viciously pulled. She fell backwards on to the tiled floor of the hall. The blood spurted, and her pulse was still. Then I was out of the door, and into the empty street and my patient and innocent car for the return journey. For some reason, I was out of breath, as if I had been running. Yet I had walked calmly to her home, and with equal calm dispatched her. But my heart was racing. I started the car, for I daren't linger in fear of witnesses, and by the time I was out of the city I was calm again. And elated. I could not tell my Verry what I had done, but I would give her a good seeing-to with my new-found passion.

TWO DOWN. SEVEN TO GO.

The church clock …

The church clock was striking eight as Neil Clarkson turned into Shepton Road. She lived at the end of the street, so he would be late. At least two minutes late and she would dock it off his time. Money-grubbing bitch, he thought. At eight o'clock in the morning, three times a week, every week for the past six years, he had rung her bell and winced at the echo of the nursery chimes. Three times a week, each week, for the past six years and every bell ring at thirty quid a throw. He hated her. Though once, years ago, he remembered, he had loved her. ‘Transference,' they called it. But that mercifully was short-lived. More than once he had tried to get rid of her. But she had a hold on him, in a grip that tightened over the years. Sometimes he felt that she needed him more than he did her.

He opened her gate and pressed viciously on the bell. He waited, offended by the chimes. Normally, if that were a word that could be applied to her profession, she would open the door as the chimes still echoed. But there was no response. He looked at his watch and he waited. After three minutes, he reckoned she owed
him
, so he rang again and kept his finger on the buzzer. The chimes of ‘Baa, baa, black sheep' rang out over the neighbourhood in monotonous repetition.