The Enemy Within (13 page)

‘She was really
that
alone, was she?'

‘Yes. After her husband died, she had no one at all to turn to.'

‘No relatives?'

‘Her parents died years ago. She had a brother, but he was killed in the war. Her husband, Ted, wasn't from round here, and he'd lost touch with his own family. And the marriage wasn't, as they say, blessed with children.'

‘But they must surely have had some friends?'

‘Her husband cost them any friends they had. The worse his gambling addiction became, the more he tried to borrow from the people he knew in order to support it. And he turned quite nasty if anybody refused him a loan. For the last couple of years before he died, nobody wanted to know him. And that meant, in effect, that nobody wanted to know Betty, either. I haven't been able to find anybody who'd admit to having any more than a passing conversation with her in the last three years.'

‘But did you manage to find anybody who at least caught sight of her in the last hour or so before she died?'

‘I'm afraid not.'

‘Maybe she was at the Saltney Rise Bowling and Social Club,' Rutter suggested.

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Four of the five punters I interviewed this afternoon said that the first time they met her, it was at the club. And if she had been at the club last night, she'd have probably passed Mad Jack's Field on her way home.'

‘Yes, she would, wouldn't she,' Woodend said thoughtfully. ‘Your punters didn't happen to say exactly
how
they met her, did they?'

‘They said they'd been told that she was on the game.'

‘Did they also say who'd told them this interestin' fact?'

‘No. At that point, they started coming over all vague. Said they'd forgotten, or that it was a feller they'd only seen in the club that one time.'

‘They're lyin'.'

‘Of course they're lying. And if you want me to, I'll sweat the truth out of them tomorrow.'

‘That probably won't be necessary.'

‘Won't it? Why not?'

‘Because I've already got a pretty good idea of who was probably pimpin' for her.'

‘I didn't know you knew any of the customers at that bowling club.'

‘I don't,' Woodend said. ‘But if I'd have been in Betty Stubbs' shoes, I know who
I'd
have talked to.'

Rutter stood in the back yard of the Drum and Monkey. He'd told Woodend and Paniatowski he needed to go the toilet – a lie designed to avoid the necessity of explaining why he suddenly needed fresh air.

He gulped some of that air in now – icy air, blowing off the moorland. It stung his lungs, but made him feel better.

Though he'd never expected it – and at first refused to admit it, even to himself – he'd found talking to Betty Stubbs' customers an unpleasant and disturbing experience.

It hadn't been easy with any of them, he thought, but Barry Eccles had been the worst – Barry Eccles had really managed to get under his skin.

Eccles was a metalwork teacher at one of the local secondary moderns. He was a middle-aged, slightly podgy man, with hard eyes, a shiny suit and a bad haircut. When Rutter met him at the school gates, he'd immediately recognized the man for what he was – a natural playground bully who'd never put his past behind him because he had a teaching certificate which meant he didn't need to.

‘Were you already on the lookout for a prostitute when you met Betty at the bowling club?' Rutter had asked.

‘No, not really,' Eccles had replied.

‘But since you fancied her, you thought you'd give it a go?'

‘Fancied her?'

‘You presumably liked the way she looked.'

‘I've never really thought about her looks before, but I suppose she was quite presentable – for a slag.'

Rutter had pictured Betty Stubbs lying on the mortuary slab – her body riddled with cancer, her throat ripped open – and it had taken all his self-control to stop him planting his fist in the middle of the other man's face.

‘Why did you feel the need to use the services of a prostitute?' the inspector asked, not even trying to hide his contempt.

The metalwork teacher had studied Rutter for a moment. ‘Are you a married man?' he'd asked.

‘I'm asking the questions,' Rutter said.

‘Are
you married?' Eccles insisted, his tone so similar to a bête noir of a teacher from Rutter's own school days that it brought him out in goose pimples.

‘Yes, I am married, as a matter of fact,' the inspector replied, before he could stop himself.

Eccles had grinned knowingly. ‘And don't
you
ever fancy a bit of fresh?'

Standing in back yard of the Drum and Monkey, his arm resting on a tower of empty beer crates, Rutter found that Eccles' words were still bouncing around in his mind.

A bit of fresh!

It wasn't like that with Monika, he told himself. She wasn't just a change – a slight variation in his diet.

‘Well? What's your answer?' demanded Eccles, who, like all bullies, was adept at recognizing when he'd hit a sensitive spot. ‘
Have
you never fancied a bit of fresh?'

‘I'd never pay for it.'

The metalwork teacher had smiled, so wistfully that Rutter almost found himself feeling sympathy for the man.

‘You'd never pay for it,' Eccles mused. ‘That's what I'd have said when I was your age. But when you get past forty, you start wondering if you've missed out. You know everything your wife's prepared to do for you by then. If there's any change, it's that she's not willing to do it as often as she used to. And you can't help asking yourself if there's a woman out there who might be more adventurous. When you find one – and she only costs two quid a time – you feel as if all your birthdays have come at once.'

‘How often did you pay her for sex?'

‘Once a fortnight.'

‘And when was the last time you slept with her?'

‘About two months ago.'

‘Why did you stop?'

‘There were things she wouldn't let me do to her any more.'

‘Did she give a reason?'

‘She said they hurt her.'

‘So that was it? That was the end?'

‘Yes, that was it. I decided that if all she could give me was what I was already getting at home, then I might as well sleep with my own missus and keep the money in my pocket.'

That was better, Rutter had thought. He was happier with this Eccles more than the wistful one – because he found it much easier to despise him.

‘One more question,' he'd said. ‘You found Betty Stubbs was much more adventurous in sexual matters than your wife. Why was that, do you think? Because she was born sexually liberated? Because her sexual adventurousness had always lain beneath the surface, and it took a real man like you to finally awaken it?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Or could it be that she badly needed the two quid you gave her every time you climbed off her – so badly, in fact, that she'd even submit to the disgusting caresses of a bucket of shit like you?'

‘You can't talk to me like that!' Eccles had exploded.

‘Can't I?' the inspector countered. ‘Funny, I thought I just had.'

Rutter took in another lungful of crisp moorland air.

Eccles was a toe-rag, he told himself. He was scum! A bully!

And though he accepted that all comparisons were odious, he reasoned he would be being unfair to himself if he didn't distinguish between his own actions and those of the metalwork teacher just once.

Eccles had probably treated his own wife as shamefully as he had treated Betty Stubbs. He himself, on the other hand, loved his wife with all his heart yet could still find space in one corner of it for Monika Paniatowski.

They were two totally different cases! He didn't sleep with Monika, as Eccles had slept with Betty, merely to practice perversions denied to him at home. He didn't search out fresh diversions, as Eccles had, because what was waiting for him in his own bedroom had started to bore him.

It wasn't the same at all! Not by any stretch of the imagination!

Was it?

L
ucy Tonge hated mirrors. She had done for as long as she could remember. They were malicious. They lay in ambush for her in all sorts of places – in shops, in buses, in toilets, and even in offices. And they were so cruel – so unremittingly cruel.

She had, over the years, developed strategies to circumvent most clashes with these relentless reflectors. She would, for example, work out in advance where a mirror was likely to be located, and deliberately look the other way as she approached the spot. Or if there were so many mirrors in a place that she could not avoid them whatever she did, then she would avoid the place instead. And she had perfected the art of brushing her hair – her best feature, her only
good
feature – without once catching a glance of the face which lay below the hairline.

But that was all about to change, she resolved. Why should a woman who was facing the thought of her approaching death so calmly be worried about facing mirrors? Why should a woman who had finally found love be repelled by the very features which were the object of that love?

Stiffened with her new resolve, she rose from the armchair and walked down the narrow passage between it and the bed. She came to a halt in front of the door which led on to the communal corridor. The mirror was there – hanging from a hook – but old habits died hard and she was still not looking at it.

She took a deep breath, and forced her eyes towards the mirror. And what did she see? She saw just what she had expected to see! A nose the size and shape of a tulip bulb. A jaw which was square without being resolute. A complexion which resembled a moonscape.

‘Is this what
you
see when you look at me, Roger?' she asked in a tiny, plaintive voice.

It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be. The mirror must, in some strange way, distort her features, because if she really
did
look like that, it was impossible that any man could ever love her.

There was a sudden ringing sound. Someone was calling on her new phone – the phone Roger had had installed for her.

It could be a wrong number, she thought, cautioning herself in advance against hope.

But if it wasn't a mistake? If it wasn't, then it had to be the one person in the world who she really wanted to talk to.

She grabbed at the receiver and breathlessly delivered her phone number.

On the other end of the line, a voice said, ‘Good evening, madam, can I interest you in house insurance?'

‘It's not my house,' she said, disappointedly. ‘It's a bed-sit, and I only rent it.'

Then the man laughed, and she realized it had been Roger all along.

‘You're so
easy
to fool, my darling,' he said.

‘I know I am,' she replied. ‘I'm sorry.'

He laughed again. ‘Don't apologize. Your naïveté is part of your charm.'

She hadn't even known she
had
charm until she met him. ‘I'm so glad you rang,' she said.

‘I nearly didn't. It's not always easy for me, you know, and I wasn't sure if you'd be in.'

Where else did he think she'd be? Didn't he know that she had no life which didn't involve him?

‘I would have gone out,' she said in an attempt to make herself seem less pathetic, ‘but it says in the paper that there may be a killer on the loose, and women shouldn't leave the house without a gentleman friend to escort them.'

‘You can be very hurtful sometimes, you know,' he said.

She raised her hand to her mouth in dismay. ‘I didn't mean that, Roger. I only . . .'

‘Don't you think I'd
like
to be seen outside with you? Don't you think I'd be
proud
to have other men notice you on my arm?'

‘I really didn't mean . . .'

‘Let's not fight,' he said. ‘Let's both imagine we're in a place where there's no need to hide – where we can be ourselves without fear of the consequences.'

But would they ever get to this paradise he had promised her? she wondered. She was trying not to be impatient, because she knew how difficult it was for him to arrange things. But the longer it took, the less likely it was that it would ever happen. However much he might love her and want to be with her, the clock was still ticking – slowly but inexorably – towards the final countdown.

‘Are you still there?' he asked.

‘Of course I am.'

‘Only you sounded a little distressed – sounded as if you thought I was letting you down.'

He was hurt. How could she hurt him – the only man she'd ever met who
hadn't
let her down? She searched her mind for some diversion.

‘Do you think this killer will strike again?' she asked.

‘No!' he replied, suddenly sounding alarmed. ‘What makes you ask that? What have you heard?'

‘Nothing,' she confessed. ‘I just wondered.'

He laughed, the tension in his voice gone. ‘My silly little Lucy,' he said. ‘It was a prostitute who was murdered, not a sweet little shop assistant. Why ever should he want to kill you?'

‘I never said he wanted to kill me.'

‘Of course you didn't.' He paused. ‘I expect the murder will be the main topic of conversation at the supermarket tomorrow.'

‘Yes, I expect it will.'

‘Don't get involved. Don't listen to gossip.' Another pause. ‘I don't think I want you working there any more.'