Nor All Your Tears (28 page)

‘And what was going on?'

‘Mike and David were having an argument in David's bedroom.' He reconsidered this. ‘No, actually, they were having a fight. Mike had his stepson by the lapels and was shaking him, screaming at him. I don't mind telling you he was using language that was most unsuitable for a lady like Ada. Mind you, David was being none too restrained. He was spitting in Mike's face.' He stopped in recollection. ‘Funny thing was, he was laughing.'

‘Laughing? Was he enjoying it, do you think?'

‘I had the impression that what he was enjoying was riling his stepfather. Ada's always been a bit reticent about the family dynamics, but I have my suspicions that things can get a little tense at times, especially between those two.'

I supposed that living with a man of Mike's atavistic tendencies might make for an atmosphere that was less than chilled.

‘What was the row about?'

Dad's demeanour became even more secretive. After another covert glance at Ada, he said, ‘That's the funny thing.'

‘Yes . . .?'

‘Mike kept shouting that David had “gone too far this time”.'

‘Is that all?'

‘David just said that he didn't know what Mike was talking about – he calls him “Mike” just to infuriate him, I think.' From what I had seen, David would enjoy doing that. Dad continued, ‘Mike said that he wasn't a puppet and that David was . . . well, he used some fairly unparliamentary language . . . and he seemed to drop him, then brandish his fist at him.'

‘His fist?' I said, even as I considered that the word ‘brandish' was such a lovely word.

‘David said something along the lines that he thought Mike was a lunatic, although by now his language was none too delicate either – I'm not sure Ada has ever heard such words, because she looked stricken. She kept calling up to them to stop it. By now Tricia had joined us at the bottom of the stairs; she'd been sewing curtains in the front room. She started to go up, but Ada pulled her back.

‘David kept saying he knew nothing about it – whatever “it” was – but I could tell from his voice that he was really enjoying getting his stepfather going; getting under his skin, if you know what I mean.' From the few moments I had spent in David's company, I could see exactly what Dad meant. ‘Anyway, there suddenly came a titanic crash as Mike picked David up and almost threw him out of his bedroom across the upstairs landing. As he did so, he shouted, “These!”

‘That was when Tricia finally got involved. She shook herself loose from Ada and pushed and rushed upstairs, shouting at her husband to stop it. It was difficult to make out exactly what happened then because we only had an obstructed view.' He said this last in a tone of some disappointment, as if he had been sold duff tickets for the Cup Final. ‘She still had a pair of scissors in her hand, I recall. There was some sort of scuffle and she must have stabbed him.'

My appreciation of Tricia shot skywards; here was a woman not to be trifled with, I surmised. In the face of a marauding Mike Clark, I thought it unlikely that I would have made a gesture as aggressive as that one; in fact, I was fairly sure I'd have been moving backwards at a fairly rapid rate.

‘You don't know what “these” were?'

‘Haven't the foggiest. By this time the next-door neighbours had rung the police because of the noise. I tried to do what I could for Mike – putting pressure on the wound and making him comfortable – and got Ada to phone for an ambulance. When she got back from doing that I went over to David to see if he was all right; his mother was cradling him and he obviously wasn't too badly injured, although I should think he was a bit concussed and shocked.'

A thought occurred to me. ‘Where's Joanna?'

‘With a neighbour, I think.'

‘You've had a quite a day, then.'

He laughed bitterly; I could see that he was worried that he might not have done enough to save Mike Clarke, and he was reproving himself; I thought he was doing so unfairly and told him so. He smiled briefly, then a deep frown replaced it. ‘He's a funny lad, that David.' I wasn't going to argue with him; even amongst the Clarke menagerie, David seemed something special. He said thoughtfully, ‘Even after he'd been thrown against the wall and was clearly dazed and in some pain, he had a satisfied smile on his face, as if he'd achieved something special.'

FORTY

W
ith Dad going back to comfort Ada, I wandered back into the house. Upstairs, at the precise scene of the stabbing – readily identified by the blood stains on the carpet and the wall and the newel post – two people from the police laboratory were taking samples. I stood at the bottom of the stairs wondering if they'd mind if I pushed past them into David's bedroom to nose around, but decided they probably would, and very much so, too. The door to the back sitting room opened and a woman police constable came out, pushing past me a tad rudely to go out of the front door; I could see beyond her that the curtains were closed, the lights were on and Masson was sitting – to all appearances uncomfortably, as if he were perched on a Space Hopper – on a bright red chair in the modern style; it had a back that was no more than a foot in height, no arms and was covered in an artificial fabric that seemed to be uniquely frictionless. He was staring at someone or something out of my line of sight – presumably Tricia. I couldn't see Jean, but I guessed she was in there, too.

Suddenly the front door burst open and the police woman returned. She pushed back past me, only now it was totally bereft of any semblance of politeness. She rushed into the back room, shouting, ‘Inspector? There's something wrong.'

Masson stood up at once. I heard him say, ‘You two stay here.' With that he was doing a bit of pushing-rudely-past-me of his own (accompanied by a surprised glare that I was once again in the neighbourhood), and was gone. I followed, of course.

Masson made his way to an ambulance; I say ‘an ambulance', although it was by now the only one in the vicinity, the one with David Clarke having departed. He hefted himself into the back, there was a pause of about fifteen seconds and then his head appeared. ‘Get over here,' he shouted at me over the heads of the audience; ever obedient, I hurried over and he stepped down to let me in.

One of the two ambulance men was pumping on Mike Clarke's chest, another had clamped a green rubber mask over his face with one hand and was squeezing a black rubber bellows with the other. There were two drips up, clear fluid running rapidly into his veins; the dressing on his upper abdomen was sodden to overflowing with blood. One of the ambulance crew recognized me and let me assess him. It didn't take long; he had exsanguinated and all the fluid they were pushing into his circulatory system was just running out into his abdominal cavity within seconds.

He was dead.

As soon as I had informed Masson of this incontrovertible and irreversible fact, he stormed back into the house, having let out his breath in a kind of long, low growl that was not only menacing but, I would imagine, brought up a fair amount of phlegm. I did the formalities in the back of the ambulance and was about to get back down when I spotted that Michael Clarke still held in his hand two pieces of paper.

It was less than five minutes before Masson re-emerged, this time leading Tricia Clarke; she was handcuffed to the woman police constable and Jean was holding her other arm; the newly widowed Mrs Clarke did not look particularly upset but perhaps she had yet to be informed of her new legal status. I tried to attract some attention but, what with the murmuring, gasping and occasional jeer from the crowd, I couldn't make myself heard. I sighed and murmured, ‘Oh, well.'

I reckoned it could wait.

They let Dad go about an hour later, after his and Ada's statements had been taken. The crowd had dispersed, Mike Clarke's body been taken to the mortuary at Mayday Hospital, and all the police had vanished; the insubstantial pageant had faded, leaving not a rack behind.

All except two bloodstained pieces of paper.

‘Are you all right?' I asked.

‘Oh, yes,' he assured me, although he sounded slightly shaky.

I walked with him over to his execrable yet somehow adorable car. ‘You know,' he said as he put his key into the door lock, ‘I really did love Ada.'

‘Did?'

He accepted my correction at once. ‘You're right,' he admitted. ‘Maybe I've been fooling myself for a while.'

‘Ada's a very nice person. I'm not sure I can say the same about her family, though.'

He took a while to answer. ‘To be frank with you, Lance, I think I would have regretted marrying just one member of the Clarke clan, let alone the whole brood of them.'

He got into the car and started the engine, in the process waking every sleeping babe within a mile radius of Kingswood Avenue, then drove home.

And I was left with those bloodstained pieces of paper.

I went home myself, feeling tired and frustrated; no one would listen to me. Even when I rang the police station to try yet again to get someone to listen to me, I was told that I would be rung back; no one did, of course, because they never do. I went to bed, reassuring myself that it could wait until the morning.

The phone went at three in the morning; in my groggy state I even wondered if it might be Jean or Masson ringing me back, but I should really learn not to be so naive. It was Max, and she was scared.

‘Lance? Is that you?'

I didn't need to ask why she was ringing me at the hour, and why she sounded terrified, but I asked anyway. ‘What's wrong, Max?'

‘He's outside! I can see him in the back garden.'

‘I'm going to put the phone down. As soon as I do, dial 999. I'll be right over.'

‘Please come quickly.'

‘I will.'

I put the receiver down and was dressed and in the car within ten minutes. It's about an hour's drive to Max's parents' house but I managed it in forty. When I arrived, there were two police cars parked outside; all of the lights were on and the front door was open. I ran up the path and met two policemen; between them was Tristan, grinning; behind them in the doorway was Max being all but asphyxiated by her mother, her father standing protective guard. I stood aside to let Tristan and his friends past; as they did so, Tristan winked at me; he mouthed something too, and although I could not decipher what, I had the impression it was lewd. I then hurried on into the house.

‘Is everything all right?' I asked.

Her father opened his mouth, drew in some breath and, as far as I could tell (and I
am
a doctor), looked about to speak, but he never got the chance, because Jean Abelson emerged from the front room on his left. She looked at me with a completely neutral expression and walked straight past me. By now utterly confused, I looked at Max, for which all I got was a venomous look from her mother and no look at all from her.

FORTY-ONE

E
veryone has days on which one's paid occupation just doesn't do it. No matter how hard one tries, one can't engage; not even Mrs Potter, who had held me in thrall on regular occasions by regaling me of tales of her torrid battles with
tinea pedis
, could keep me interested that morning. I had tried to contact first Max, then Jean, first thing, with a completely equal lack of success in both ventures; consequently, I felt not a little frustrated.

It was during my morning digestive (so to speak) that Sheila came to tell me that Sergeant Abelson was on the phone.

‘You wanted to talk to me,' she said without any of the usual preliminaries; her voice was worrying impersonal.

‘I wanted to thank you.'

‘For what?'

Which found me momentarily nonplussed. ‘For what you did last night. For helping protect Max. I still don't quite know how you did it, but thanks anyway.'

‘I said that I'd do what I could,' she pointed out.

‘Yes, I know that . . . but I appreciate how busy you are, what with the murders and everything.'

There was a hint of tired amusement as she said, ‘I wasn't personally standing guard over Miss Christy. I called in a few favours at the local station. She didn't have a twenty-four-hour bodyguard, but as soon as the 999 call came in, there was a car only two minutes away.'

‘But when I got to the house, you were there, too.'

‘They let me know at once. I was still at work – as you've just pointed out, we're slightly busy at the moment, especially with what happened yesterday.'

Which brought me neatly to my next point. ‘About that, Jean . . .'

There was a long pause, and then she sighed deeply; it was a sound that I think was full of exasperation but tinged also at the edges with something else; I sort of hope it wasn't just anger. Then, she said, ‘You were right, OK, Lance? Well done. Mike Clarke was the murderer.'

But that wasn't what I was trying to say, as I now started to tell her. ‘I think there's more to the story than any of us know.'

‘Look, Lance. We appreciate your help – even the Inspector, although he might not ever say that – but the case is over. Tricia's told us everything.'

But I had those pieces of paper, and I knew that it wasn't quite everything. It was my turn to take a deep breath. ‘I bet she hasn't.'

‘What do you mean by that?'

‘I need to speak to you and Masson, but I've got a house call to make first. Can we meet in, say, a couple of hours?'

She asked cautiously, ‘Is this going to be relevant?'

‘Definitely,' I said confidently.

‘You'll come to the station?'

At which I had to demur. ‘No.'

‘Where, then?'

‘At the Clarkes' house.'

FORTY-TWO

M
asson was small, irascible, impatient and quite frankly, horrible; he was always a bit – quite a lot, actually – like that, but when we met that day, he was like it with golden knobs and no returns. I still managed to have a lot of time for him, though. I'd always had some empathy with his incredulous attitude to the vicissitudes of life, to the way that he had to endure constant irritants. Perhaps, though, this was at least partly because I seemed to be one of the largest irritants that constantly beset him; he was, I think, the Job of the Croydon Constabulary establishment, and I suspect I was one of his largest boils.