Ruth Rendell: The Best Man To Die

‘Soft furnishings, table linen, cutlery,’ he said facetiously, pressing the button. The lift sighed and began to sink. ‘First floor for ladies’ underwear, stockings… Why’s it stopping, Mike?’

‘Maybe you pressed the wrong button.’

Or it won’t stand my weight, Wexford thought, alarmed. The lift came to rest at the first floor and the door slid open. Sergeant Camb hesitated apologetically on the threshold.

‘Sorry, sir. I didn’t know it was you. I can walk down.’

‘Three persons are permitted, Sergeant,’ Wexford said, hoping his now very real trepidation didn’t show. ‘Come along.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Not bad, is it? The tribute of a grateful government.’ Come on, come on, he thought, and pictured the three of them plummeting down the last thirty feet into the basement.

‘You off to see Mrs Fanshawe, I suppose?’ he said superfluously. The lift floated lightly, steadied and the door opened. Must be stoutly built, thought Wexford, like me. ‘I heard she’d regained consciousness.’

‘I’m hoping the doctors’ll have broken the news about her husband and her daughter, sir,’ said Camb as they crossed the black and white checkerboard foyer of the station. ‘It’s not a job I fancy. They were all the family she’d got. She hasn’t a soul in the world barring her sister who came down and identified the bodies.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Mrs Fanshawe, sir? Fifty odd. The sister’s a good bit older. Horrible business for her having to identify Miss Fanshawe. She was, a nasty mess, I can tell you. Face all…’

‘I’m just off for my lunch,’ said Wexford firmly.

He marched through the swing doors in front of the others and Camb got into his car. The stone flowerpots on the forecourt sported bright pink bouquets of pelargoniums, their magenta-splashed faces turned gratefully to the noon-day sun.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Burden.

‘Mrs Fanshawe? It’s not our cup of tea. She and her husband were driving home from Eastbourne in Fanshawe's Jaguar. It overturned in the fast lane on the twin-track road on the other side of Stowerton. Their home was in London and Fanshawe must have been in a hurry. God knows how it happened, there wasn’t another thing on the road, but the Jag overturned and caught fire. Mrs Fanshawe was flung clear, the other two killed outright. Badly burned too.’

‘And this Mrs Fanshawe doesn’t know?’

‘She’s been in a coma since it happened six weeks ago.’

‘I remember now,’ said Burden, lifting the plastic strip curtain the Carousel Café hung up in hot weather to keep out wasps. ‘The inquest was adjourned.’

‘Till Mrs F. regained consciousness. Presumably Camb’s going to try and get her to tell him just why a seasoned driver like Fanshawe overturned his car on an empty road. Some hopes! What d’you fancy for lunch, Mike? I’m going for the salad myself.’

‘Two ham salads,’ said Burden to the waitress. He poured himself some water from a chilled carafe.

‘Getting quite transatlantic the old Carousel,’ said Wexford. ‘And about time too. Not so long ago the water used to steam away like a perishing engine on these tables in hot weather. What’s the betting this McCoy’s running a big racket, paying Charlie Hatton to leave his lorry unattended and paying him to keep other lorry drivers occupied when ever the chance presents itself? Lorries are always getting hi jacked. They leave them in these lay-bys while they have a little kip or a cup of tea. Hatton could have done a nice little distracting job there. Fifty or a hundred quid a lorry depending on the load.’

‘In that case, why does McCloy kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?’

‘Because Hatton gets scared or fed-up and threatens to rat on him. He may even have tried blackmail.’

‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised,’ said Burden, spreading butter on his roll. The butter was almost liquid. Like the rest of humanity, he reflected, the Carousel staff were disappointingly inconsistent.

‘But my daughter wasn’t in the car.’

Seldom had Sergeant Camb felt so sorry for anyone as he did for this woman who lay against the piled pillows. His heart ached for her. And yet she was in one of the nicest private rooms in the hospital; she had a telephone and a television; her nightgown was a silly frou-frou of frills and spilling lace and on her thin fingers the rings – diamonds and sapphires in platinum – rattled as she clasped and unclasped the sheet.

It’s true what they say, money can’t buy happiness, thought the simple sergeant. He had noticed there were no flowers in the room and only one ‘get well’ card on the table by the chair where the policewoman sat. From her sister, he supposed. She hadn’t anyone else now, not a soul in the world. Her husband was dead and her daughter…

‘I’m very very sorry, Mrs Fanshawe,’ he said, ‘but your daughter was in the car. She was travelling back to London with you and your husband.’

‘They didn’t suffer,’ put in the young policewoman quickly. ‘They can’t have felt a thing.’

Mrs Fanshawe touched her forehead where the dyed hair showed half an inch of white at the roots. ‘My head,’ she said. ‘My head aches. I can’t remember things, not details. Everything’s so vague.’

‘Don’t you worry,’ said Camb heartily. ‘You’ll find you’ll get your memory back in time. You’re going to get quite well, you know.’ For what? For widowhood, for childlessness?

‘Your sister’s been able to supply us with most of the details we need.’

They had been close, Mrs Fanshawe and Mrs Browne, and there wasn’t much about the Fanshawes Mrs Browne hadn’t known. From her they had learned that Jerome Fanshawe had a bungalow at Eastover between Eastbourne and Seaford and that he and his wife and daughter had driven down there for a week’s holiday on May 17th. The daughter Nora had left her post as an English teacher in a German school before Easter. She was between jobs, at a loose end, Camb had gathered, otherwise nothing would have induced her to accompany her parents. But she had accompanied them. Mrs Browne had been at their Mayfair flat and seen them all off together.

They had left Eastover days earlier than had been expected. Mrs Browne couldn’t account for that, unless it had been because of the wet weather. Perhaps no one would ever know the reason, for Jerome Fanshawe’s Jaguar had skidded, crashed and caught fire five miles from the hospital where the sole survivor now lay.

‘I won’t bother you for long,’ Camb said gently. ‘Perhaps you can’t remember much about the crash. Do you think you could try and tell me what you do remember?’

Dorothy Fanshawe had forgotten who these kind though tiresome people were, just as she had again forgotten where she was. Her sister had been to see her and made her very tired and various strangers had moved her and pummelled her in a familiar manner that made her angry. Then someone had told her that Jerome was dead and had waited for her to cry. Mrs Fanshawe had twisted her rings – they were a great comfort to her, those rings – and said:

‘Then it’s all mine now, mine and Nora’s.’

They thought she was wandering and they went away. She was glad to see the back of them with their interfering ways and their lack of respect. There was only one person she wanted to see and that was why she stared so searchingly into the young pretty face of the policewoman. But she had been in a coma, she wasn’t mad. She knew very well this wasn’t the right face. ‘Am I in London?’ she asked clearly and briskly.

‘No, Mrs Fanshawe,’ said the sergeant, thinking how quavering and weak her voice was. ‘You’re in Stowerton Royal Infirmary, Stowerton in Sussex.’