Peter Robinson - Past Reason Hated

‘What do you want to see me about?’ he asked.

Banks repressed a childish urge to tell him he liked his music. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Caroline Hartley, your wife’s companion. She’s dead.’

Ivers lurched forward and gripped the sides of his chair. ‘Good God! What? How?’

‘She was murdered.’

‘But that’s absurd. Things like that don’t happen in real life.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s true.’

He shook his head. ‘Is Veronica all right?’

‘She’s very upset, obviously, but apart from that she’s okay. I take it you still care?’

‘Of course I do.’

Banks heard something crash down heavily in the kitchen.

‘If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr Ivers,’ he went on, ‘I find that very difficult to understand. If my wife-’

He waved Banks’s comparison aside. ‘Listen, I went through everything any normal man would go through. Everything. Not just anger and rage, but disbelief, disgust, loss of self-esteem, loss of self-confidence. I went through hell. Christ, it’s bad enough when your wife runs away with another man, but another woman…’

‘You forgave her?’

‘If that’s the right word. I could never entirely blame Veronica in the first place. Can you understand that? It was as if she’d been led astray, fallen under someone else’s influence.’

‘Caroline Hartley’s?’

He nodded.

‘Would you tell me what happened?’

For several moments there was silence but for the fire, the sea and muted sounds from the kitchen. Finally, Ivers stared at Banks, then cracked his fingers and stretched back in the chair.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘You’re a stranger. Somehow that makes it easier. And we don’t get many people to talk to around here. Sometimes I get a bit stir-crazy, as Patsy puts it. There’s not a lot to it, really. One day everything was tine. She was happy, we were happy. At least I thought so. Maybe she got a bit bored from time to time, got depressed now and then, but we had a good solid marriage, or so I thought. Then she started seeing a therapist, didn’t tell me why. I don’t think she knew herself, but I suspect it was a bit of a trend among bored, middle-class housewives. It didn’t seem to be doing her much harm at first so I didn’t object, but then, out of the blue, there’s this new friend. It’s all “Caroline says this” and “Caroline says that”. My wife starts to change in front of my eyes. Can you believe that? She even started using this other girl’s language, saying things she would never say herself. She started calling things she liked “neat”. “Really neat”, she’d say! That wasn’t Veronica. And she started dressing differently. She’d always been a bit on the formal side, but now she’d wear jeans and a sweatshirt. And there was all that interminable talk about Jung and self-actualization. I think she once told me I was too much the thinking type, or some such rot. Said my music was too intellectual and not emotional enough. And she got interested in stuff she’d never cared about when I’d tried to interest her – theatre, cinema, literature. She was never in, always around at Caroline’s. Then she even started suggesting that I should go to therapy too.’

‘But you didn’t?’

He stared into the fire and paused, as if he realized he had already given too much away, then he said quietly, ‘I have my demons, Mr Banks, but they also fire me. I’m afraid that if I subjected them to therapy I’d have no more fuel, no more creativity. Whatever Veronica might say, my music’s born from conflict and feeling, not just technical skill.’ He tapped his head. ‘I really hear those things. And I was afraid if I opened my head to some shrink all the music would escape and I would be condemned to silence I couldn’t live like that. No, I didn’t go.’

Patsy returned with the coffee. Ivers took it, smiled at her, and she sat on the floor beside him with her legs curled under her and her hand resting on his thigh.

‘Did you know at the start of the friendship that Caroline was a lesbian?’ Banks asked.

‘Yes. Veronica told me Caroline was living with a woman called Nancy Wood. Fair enough, I thought. Live and let live. I’m a musician, not the bohemian type, perhaps, but I’ve been around enough oddballs in my time not to worry about them too much. And I’m fairly broad-minded. So Caroline was a lesbian. I never for a moment thought that my wife…’

‘So if you blamed anyone it was Caroline?’

‘Yes.’ He hesitated, realizing what he’d said. ‘But I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

‘What did you do yesterday evening?’

He sipped his coffee and spoke, half into the mug. Stayed in. With Patsy. We don’t go out all that much.’

Patsy looked at Banks and nodded in agreement. He saw shadows behind her eyes. He wasn’t sure he believed her. ‘Do you own a car?’ he asked.

‘We both do.’

‘Where do you park?’

‘We’ve got spots reserved in the village, behind the pub. Obviously there’s no parking up here.’

‘When did you last see your wife?’

He thought for a moment. ‘About a month ago. I was in Eastvale on business and I dropped in to see how Veronica was doing. I called at the shop first. I usually do that to avoid meeting Caroline, but sometimes if it’s evening I just have to face it out.’

‘How did Caroline react to these visits?’

‘She’d leave the room.’

‘So you never spoke to her?’

‘Not much, no. And Veronica would be tense. I’d never end up staying long if Caroline was around.’

‘Are you sure that was the last time you visited the house, a month ago?’

‘Yes, of course I am.’

‘You didn’t go there yesterday evening?’

‘I told you. We stayed in.’

‘You’re a musician,’ Banks said. ‘You must know Vivaldi’s work.’

‘I – of course I do.’

‘Do you know the Laudate pueri ?’

Ivers turned aside and reached for some bread and butter. ‘Which one? He wrote four, you know.’

‘Four what?’

‘Four settings for the same liturgical piece. I think it’s Psalm 112, but I can’t be sure. Why do you ask?’

‘Have you heard of a singer called Magda Kalmar?’

‘Yes. But I-’

‘Did you usually buy your wife a Christmas present?’

‘I did last year.’

‘And this year?’

He buttered his bread as he spoke. ‘I was going to. Am. I just haven’t got round to it yet.’

‘Better hurry up, then,’ Banks said with a smile. ‘Only one more shopping day to Christmas.’ He put his cup down on the hearth and stood up to leave. ‘Thank you very much for the tea and bread,’ he said to Patsy, ‘and it was an honour to meet you Mr Ivers. I’ve enjoyed your music for a long time.’

Ivers raised an eyebrow. Banks was thankful he just nodded and didn’t say anything about being surprised that policemen listened to music.

Banks walked over to the door and Ivers followed him. ‘About Veronica,’ he said. ‘She must be in a terrible state Do you think she needs me?’

‘I don’t know,’ Banks said. He honestly didn’t. Did a wife who lost her female lover turn back to her husband for comfort? ‘Maybe you should ask her.’

Ivers nodded, and the last thing Banks noticed before the door closed was the darkening expression in Patsy Janowski’s eyes, fixed on the pipe in Ivers’s hand.

He made his way against the wind back to the car and drove up the hill again. The Ivers household had left him with a strange feeling. However rustic and cosy it was, he couldn’t help but suspect that all was not well, and that nobody had told him the complete truth. He had little doubt that Ivers had bought the record for Veronica and had more than likely delivered it, too. But he couldn’t prove it. As soon as he could, he would go back to visit Claude Ivers again.