Ruth Rendell - Adam And Eve And Pinch Me

“So you went home, Mr. Melcombe-Smith?”

Nothing but the truth would do now. “I’d left the notes at a friend’s house.”

“Ah,” said Inspector Demeanor. “And where might that be?”

He gave her Leonardo’s address. Beside him Damien seemed to swell and palpitate, though when he turned to look at him the solicitor was sitting there, immobile and calm. Jims wanted to fall on his knees before them and beg them to say nothing, to tell no one, to accept his word, just as Zillah had wanted to kneel to him. He stayed where he was, his face expressionless.

“And Mr. Norton will confirm what you say?”

The truth once told starts a train of truth. “I didn’t see him until eight-thirty. As I was going out to eat I met him coming in.”

“So you left Casterbridge at-what? Half past one?”

“About that,” said Jims.

“And you reached Glebe Terrace at seven? Five and a half hours to drive a hundred and fifty miles, James?”

Something he’d said, or simply because he’d admitted to lying, had reduced him in their eyes. He’d taken away his own dignity and thereby lost the privilege of being treated courteously. “I know it took a long time,” he said. “I’ve never taken so long before. There were miles of roadworks. That bit took me nearly an hour to get through. Then there was a pile-up near Heathrow.”

They would check, of course, and find it was true. It hardly helped him. “The Merry Cookhouse”-it pained him to utter the words-“where I had lunch was just before the roadworks, if that’s any use.”

“It may be. The relevant time is between 3:30 and 4:30 P.M. Did anyone see you enter the house in Glebe Terrace?”

How could he have forgotten, even for a moment? Relief flooded him. It was like drinking something warm and sweet when in a state of shock. “The woman next door-it’s 56a, I think-she gave me her key.”

“And now,” said Damien, “perhaps you’ll let Mr. Melcombe-Smith go.”

When the phone rang or when someone came to the front door, every time these things happened, Michelle thought it was the police. The joke aspect of being treated with suspicion had gone. She’d got it into her head it would be impossible to find witnesses to her and Matthew’s whereabouts that Friday afternoon and, though she wasn’t usually a nervous woman, she saw them both high on the list of suspects. Miscarriages of justice did happen, people were mistakenly tried and falsely imprisoned. She’d only once encountered the police before and that was when the Jarveys’ car was broken into and the radio stolen.

Matthew did his best to reassure her: “Darling, I think you must believe that when they say an inquiry is routine it is routine.”

“I hated being questioned like that. It was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

That made him laugh, but not unkindly. “No, it wasn’t. The worst thing that’s ever happened to you was when you thought I was going to die through my stupid food fads.”

“Not stupid,” Michelle said hotly. “You don’t mean that. You mean your illness.”

“Well, it’s not really fear of being arrested that’s upsetting you, is it? It’s not being suspected of a crime or interrogated, it’s indignation at Fiona’s behavior.”

“More than that, Matthew.” She went close behind the chair where he sat reading the Spectator , and put her arms round his neck. He looked up into her face. “It’s real pain over what she did. I’ll never be able to think of her, let alone speak to her, without remembering what she did.”

He said very seriously, “You’ll have to get over that.”

“Yes, but how? I wish I weren’t the sort of person who remembers forever hurtful things people have said or done. But I am. I do. I don’t like it, I know I ought to forgive and forget. If only I could. I remember unkind things people said to me when I was at school. I mean, thirty years ago, darling. The words they used are as fresh in my mind as when they first said them.”

Although he knew it already, she’d told him before, he said to her in a light, amused tone, “I shall have to be very careful what I say to you, then.”

She was vehement, intense. “You never never say those sort of things. You never have. It’s one of the reasons I love you and go on loving you, because you never hurt my feelings.”

Again he lifted to her his wizened, skeletal face. “Not because I’m so sexy and charming?”

“That too. Of course.” She was entirely sincere, unsmiling. “And the thing about Fiona is, it was true what she told the police, that I disliked Jeff, that I hated him, if you like. I hated him because he said those cruel things. He’s dead and he died in a horrible way, but I don’t care. I’m glad. It won’t matter how I try, I shall never forget the things he said.”

Matthew covered her hands with his. “Not even if you get thin and I get fat?” He knew now that she was trying to lose weight and he supported her, though without admonition for the past or congratulations for the present. “Not even when I’m Large and you’re Little?”

As she was trying to answer him the doorbell rang. Michelle put up her hands to her face, her eyes suddenly bright and staring. “They’ve come back. On a Sunday. They don’t care when they come, they don’t even let us know they’re coming.”

“I’ll go,” Matthew said.

He walked quite quickly these days and could stand almost upright. The bell rang again before he got there. Fiona was on the doorstep, a new, unattractive Fiona, her dirty hair in rats’ tails, her face swollen from weeping, and her eyes red. The trousers she wore were several sizes too big for her and looked like a man’s. A shirt that should have been white, tucked into the waistband, showed how thin the past week had made her.

“Come in.”

She put her face close to his and kissed him on both cheeks. It was the kind of kiss the recipient isn’t required to return. “I have to see you. I can’t be alone any longer. I’m going back to work tomorrow. I think it will kill me.”

Michelle blushed brightly when they came into the living room. She got up and took two, then three, awkward steps toward the visitor. Matthew wondered what she’d say, if she’d even refer to her contention.

Fiona stepped toward her, they met, and the bereaved woman threw her arms round Michelle, breaking into sobs. “Why haven’t you come to me? Why have you deserted me? What have I done?”

The silence was profound. Then Michelle said, in a voice Matthew had never heard before, “You know what you’ve done.”

“I don’t, I don’t. I needed you and you left me alone. I’ve no one I care about but you. What have I done? Tell me, you must tell me. I swear I don’t know.”

“You don’t know that you told those police people that Matthew and I disliked Jeff? You told them that and now they suspect us? You don’t know that?”

“No, darling, they don’t suspect us,” Matthew said firmly. Fiona had broken into fresh tears. She threw out her arms wildly, her face streaming. “Sit down, Fiona. Come on now, calm yourself. I’ll make some tea.”

“Not until Michelle says she’ll forgive me. I didn’t know what I was doing or saying. I said anything that came into my head. I’d give everything I’ve got to take it back now.”

Michelle was looking at her sadly. “The difficulty is that you can’t take things back.”

“Then say you’ll forgive me. Say it can be as if it never happened.”

“I’ve forgiven you already,” Michelle said dryly and went into the kitchen to switch on the kettle. But I haven’t forgotten , she thought. Why is it so much easier to forgive than to forget ?