The Avenue of the Dead (12 page)

‘I wasn't hungry,' she said.

‘You must eat,' he insisted. ‘I can't stand a skinny woman. I'll make something while you set the table. We can take our mind off our sorrows by discussing Edward Fleming and that lovely wife of his. What did you say to her? Did you set the scene for tomorrow?'

‘I did,' Davina answered. ‘I didn't go into any details, I just said I had bad news for her. She looked worried to death. I had to push her out before she could ask any questions.'

‘Well done,' he said. ‘She'll sweat all night, wondering what's going to happen. The more I see her, the more she makes my hackles rise. I watched her tonight eyeing herself in every mirror she passed. Even if she wasn't three sheets to the wind most of the time, there's nothing I can find to like about her. By the way, why does she call you “Mousey”?'

‘It was my nickname at school,' Davina said. ‘She gave it to me, now I think of it. She said I looked like a mouse; brownish and always skulking in the corner.'

‘Stupid cow,' Lomax said over his shoulder as he went out.

‘You can't! You can't walk out and leave me!' Elizabeth Fleming faced Davina; both hands were clenched at her sides and there was a strident note of terror in her voice.

‘There's no reason for me to stay,' Davina said. ‘I've had a wonderful holiday here but I've decided to go home. And I'm not walking out on you, Liz. There's nothing the matter with you except drink, and not enough to do.' She was not enjoying the scene, for she found the other woman's fear and confusion distressing. Now the change of mood caught her unprepared. Liz Fleming's face twisted into an ugly sneer.

‘You pompous little smart-ass,' she spat out. ‘“Drink and not enough to do.” You go to hell! What do you know about me – what do you care about anybody but yourself? I launched you in this lousy city, I took you everywhere, introduced you to everyone and that's my thanks, is it? Got yourself a boy friend and now you don't need me any more so you're going back?'

Davina picked up her handbag. ‘Goodbye, Liz,' she said. She turned her back and moved towards the door. She was twisting the handle when Elizabeth Fleming said behind her, ‘Please – for Christ's sake, wait. Davina – wait!' Davina paused for a moment and then slowly turned back into the room. ‘I didn't mean that,' said Elizabeth desperately, and her face cracked into soundless weeping. ‘I didn't mean anything I said. I was just so frightened – don't go, please?'

Davina sat down on the arm of the big sofa. ‘If you want me to stay,' she said, ‘you've got to tell me the truth. I've spent the past month listening to you, Liz, throwing out hints and being mysterious. I've had enough. Either you come clean with me now, or I walk out of this house and you're on your own. Neil Browning won't be available either. The embassy's closed to you from now on.'

‘How can you say that? What's Neil got to do with you?'

‘He's my subordinate,' Davina said calmly. ‘I've ordered him to cut off from you. As I said, you either tell me the truth now, or you face whatever it is entirely alone. If there's anything to face.' She looked at the other woman and said in the same deadly calm way, ‘If you've been lying just to get attention, I won't blame you. Just admit it, and that's the end of it.'

‘What are you?' Liz Fleming whispered. ‘What do you mean, Neil is your subordinate?'

‘Never mind what I am,' Davina answered. She looked at her watch. ‘It's two minutes to eleven. You have two minutes to decide.'

‘I'm going to have a drink,' Liz mumbled.

Davina moved very quickly. She set her back against the trolley. ‘No,' she said. ‘You're not having anything. You're not going to get drunk and run away this time.'

‘I need something,' the woman quavered. ‘My nerves –'

‘You'll be able to have as much as you like after I've gone.'

‘He's going to kill me,' Elizabeth Fleming said suddenly. The way he killed his first wife.'

Davina didn't move. ‘Why?' she asked.

Liz's hands with their scarlet nails and glittering ring came up to her mouth and partly covered it. They were trembling. ‘I can't tell you that,' she said. ‘Just get me out of here. Get me somewhere I'll be safe.'

‘You tell me why,' Davina said. ‘Then I can help you. But not before. Why would your husband want to kill you?'

‘Because I found out something.' Suddenly Liz Fleming seemed to sag; her body shrank down upon itself until she seemed quite small. Her hands fell to her sides and hung there as if something attaching them had broken.

‘Come with me,' she said. ‘Upstairs. I'll show you.'

It was a diary – a small brown leather book with the initials R.F. tooled in gold in the right-hand bottom corner. The leather was scuffed at the edges. It was hidden at the bottom of a box of tissues. Fleming's wife held it out to Davina.

‘I change the hiding place,' she said. ‘I hide it somewhere different every day, just in case. He tore the place to pieces looking for it at first. Now he believes what I told him. It's my life insurance.' She gave a scared glance behind them at the closed bedroom door. ‘I've read it over and over,' she said, whispering as if they could be overheard. ‘The last entries – you look at them.'

Davina held the little book. ‘You'd better come back with me. I'll look at this when we get there.' One quick glimpse inside showed that the entries were in a woman's writing, and that the diary was for the year before last. She felt a surge of excitement that showed in a flush of colour on her cheeks – the thrill of the hunter in sight of his quarry, the spurt of adrenalin into the bloodstream. She had forgotten the sensation. Without knowing it, she smiled.

‘Come on,' she said. ‘I'll give you your drink when we get to my flat.' She put the little book into her bag, then she took Elizabeth Fleming by the arm and hurried her out of the room and out of the house. Lomax had been right. The bluff had indeed been called.

The studio was very quiet; the single duplex living area was filled with sunshine from the high windows, and double glazing cut out the traffic noise from the street below them. Elizabeth Fleming was crouched on the big green sofa, her legs tucked up under her, both arms hugging herself. Davina had kept her promise and given her one drink to steady her. Elizabeth's eyes were red and her mascara had streaked from crying. Her face was blurred with constant changes of expression, from weeping to anger and back to fear.

Davina had the diary in her hands. The initials R.F. were for Raffaella Fleming. The entries were varied, some only a line or two marking appointments for social engagements, and then towards the end the writer began to comment. There hadn't been time to read it with close attention. The later entries were the ones that counted, as Elizabeth had said. Davina closed it and put the little book down on the table.

‘Where did you find this?'

‘I didn't find it,' she answered. ‘I was given it. By the goddamnedest coincidence. You'll never believe it when I tell you.'

‘Go on,' said Davina. ‘I'll believe you.'

‘You'll believe me now,' Liz accused suddenly. ‘Now that you've read that other poor bitch's diary and you know what happened to her! But you wouldn't believe me before, would you?' She squeezed out more tears and blew her nose. Don't lose your patience now, Davina told herself. Let her take a swing at you if she feels any better for it …

‘I'm sorry, Liz,' she said. ‘I misjudged you. Now tell me, where did you get this diary?'

Elizabeth Fleming shifted on the sofa, bringing her feet down to the floor. ‘After the wedding we came to Washington. I didn't know the city at all. I like to have regular massage and facials, so I asked a senator's wife where to go. She recommended this beauty parlour. She said Eddie's first wife used to go there. She swore by it. So I went. I wanted to see where Raffaella went to keep herself in shape. She was an attractive woman. Half Mexican, very sexy. And
very
rich. I wasn't bothered by any of that; Eddie was crazy about me and didn't care a damn about her. I was just curious, I suppose. So I went to the beauticians, and as I was paying the bill, a girl came out of the office with a little case. It had a tag tied to it, saying Mrs Fleming. You know the sort of thing, people put passports or paperbacks in it, things you don't carry in your ordinary bag. She said, “Oh, Mrs Fleming, this has got your name on it. I saw it inside the office safe and got it out when you made your appointment. It's been here ages.” It was Raffaella's; I saw the initials R.F. on the lid. So I took it. It was locked. I broke it open when I got home. There was a lot of rubbish in it, and the diary. She must have left it behind just before they went to Mexico. Look at the last entry – she burned to death in a fire. A nice accidental fire. Only she thought he might try with the car again. That's what she wrote.'

‘Yes,' Davina said quietly. ‘That's how it reads. Listen to me, Liz. I've got to have time to study this. I want to check on the facts before I do anything more. It'll take a few days. Do you want to stay here?'

She hesitated. ‘I'd like to – sweet Jesus, wouldn't I like to hole up here and lock the door on him!' Then slowly she shook her head. ‘No, Mousey, I'd better not. So long as I stay at home he'll have to behave himself. He thinks I've lodged that diary with an attorney. It sounds like a cheap gangster movie, doesn't it, but that's exactly what I said. You can't touch me, I told him, because your wife's diary will go straight to the police if anything happens to me. Anything. He believed me, after he'd searched the house. He beat me up,' she added. ‘Not where it'd show, of course. I didn't tell him the name of the attorney because I don't have one. I kept the diary all the time.'

‘Why did you tell him in the first place?' Davina asked her.

Liz Fleming shrugged defensively. ‘I read it over and over,' she said. ‘I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. Try to understand, Mousey, I was in shock. I had a drink or two, and when he came home I just couldn't keep it back. I faced him with what she'd written.'

‘What did he say?' The questions were quiet punctuations in the story; the other woman hardly noticed she was being prompted.

‘Say? God, he nearly died. I've never seen a man look so shaken, so bloody scared stiff! And then he got furious. He shouted at me, he denied everything, he said I was drunk. He wanted to see the diary. I remember laughing at him, I was hysterical really, and then he hit me. He ended up saying it was all lies, that I'd made it up to blackmail him.'

‘Why blackmail?'

‘Stop him leaving me,' she retorted. ‘I'd had an affair or two and he was thinking about his reputation. He'd got high on the Republican bandwagon and he didn't want me causing a scandal. He had talked about divorce. So he said I'd invented the diary to make him stay with me. I need a drink – just a little one.'

‘Of course,' Davina nodded. ‘I'll get one for you.'

She could imagine the scene. If she hadn't read the little book, she might have accepted Edward Fleming's explanation. Most people would accept his word against the accusations of a woman like Elizabeth Fleming. But not when they read those entries, and the last pathetic words written the day before the fatal trip to Mexico. ‘I love him enough; I could forgive him for what he is. Maybe I can prove it to him. But I'm so afraid.' She shivered as she gave the whisky to Elizabeth. ‘Goose walked over my grave,' she said.

‘It walked over Raffaella's,' she answered. She took a long swallow.

‘We never spoke of it again. I tried once but he just asked me who I was sleeping with this time. I wasn't, as it happened. I was too scared and too confused. Life went on as normal, except that we were not just strangers but enemies. He hated me, and he showed it. He used to sleep with me, even when we weren't getting on and there was another man. He was completely hung up on me that way. But that stopped. He couldn't bear to touch me. The hell of it is, I used to read that damned diary in secret, just to remind myself that it was really true and I hadn't imagined some of it.

‘He was nominated for this post; I remember the evening very well. People kept calling and coming to the house to congratulate him. We opened champagne; he stood beside me and when someone important came up to us, he put his arm round me. It was the creepiest feeling, I can tell you. There we stood, the golden couple, in our lovely Washington house with all the world saying nice things to Eddie and envying me having such a brilliant husband. I made a fool of myself afterwards.' She looked at Davina. ‘You'll think I'm hopeless,' she said. ‘You're a very strong person – you'd never have done it. But I did.' She wiped away more tears. The glass was nearly empty.

‘I'm not strong at all,' Davina said. ‘What did you do?'

The face looked up at her, wretched with pain and self-contempt. ‘I tried for a reconciliation,' Elizabeth Fleming said. ‘I nerved myself to go up and tell him I loved him and it didn't matter about anything else. Do you know what he said? He said, “Give me Raffaella's diary and then I'll believe you.” I'm not a clever woman, not like you, but I'm not a fool either. I know men. I looked into his face and I knew that all he wanted was to get that book, and he'd throw me out in the street. I told him to go to hell. It was very late, into the early morning – the celebration party had been going on all night. Neither of us were sober. I went to bed, and the next thing I knew I was awake and something was choking me. Davina' – she stared into the distance, unaware that for once she had dropped the patronizing nickname – ‘Davina, there was a pillow over my face. I couldn't breathe. I kicked out and clawed with my nails, and I felt something, like an arm in the darkness. Then the pillow fell off and I heard someone moving. I called out, but it was dark and I couldn't see. The movement came again and I knew he'd gone out through the dressing-room door. I got to the bathroom before I was sick. I was sick again and again. It was late morning before I could pull myself together. I had a drink – who wouldn't? I had several drinks. Then I went to the embassy and asked to see Arthur Moore. He was at home, because I'd forgotten it was Sunday. I don't know if you heard about that –'