Maurice Procter - Murder Somewhere in This City

“There was a man in the film-not Paolo Ascari, but another man-who was a bit like you,” she said. “He was the wealthy businessman who was in love with Gina when she was an unknown singer, before she became famous. He paid for her training, without telling her. He gave her father the money, you see. But she met Paolo and fell in love with him, and married him at the finish. So the man’s part was a bit sad.”

“He was the guy who loved and lost,” Martineau commented, with his mouth full.

“It was a lovely picture,” she said with a reminiscent sigh. “Absolutely lovely.”

He so obviously failed to catch her enthusiasm that she thought he wanted to talk about his own affairs. “How did you go on today?” she asked.

He told her, briefly.

“Oh, that’s good, isn’t it?” she said. “You’ve done more than anybody. If only it’s you who catches Don Starling… They might make you a chief inspector.”

“There’s a chance,” he agreed. “There’ll be a vacancy when Ted Hollis retires.”

Her thoughts dwelt luxuriously on a chief inspectorship. More salary, more authority: more housekeeping money, more social prestige.

“You’ll get promotion,” she said, “if you get your man.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, speaking his mind as he was used to speaking his mind on police matters to Julia, because it is one of the duties of police wives, to listen and allow their husbands to “get things off their chests” with safety. “I’m up against stiff competition. There are some damn good men holding my rank. Picking up Starling would help, but it’s not all that important. Not to make a bull-up of it, that’s the thing.”

She frowned slightly. “But you always said Starling would eventually kill somebody, and that you’d like to be the man who arrested him for the last time.”

“True enough,” he agreed. “He’s trash, garbage, rubbish. He should be carted away and destroyed. But that’s a personal feeling, wanting to arrest him. I want to be sure it’s done right and proper, without bungling. No loopholes in the law for Mr. Starling. He wants seeing off. If you could have seen that poor kid we found on the moors… Well, to tell the truth, Julia, I do have a feeling about Don. I think he’ll walk into my hands. Wishful thinking, probably. He might be two hundred miles away from here.”

He was silent, then he said: “That’s the way it’s always been with him and me. Always running into each other, usually head-on.”

Julia was satisfied. Her husband would be the man who arrested Don Starling. He would handle it right. One thing about Harry, he was a big, strong, capable man. He did not make as much money as some women’s husbands, but to compensate for that he was a complete man. He was neither bald, corpulent nor ailing. He did not wear spectacles and his teeth were his own. He was quite a husband, really-when he was at home. She was moved by a surge of possessive pride. There would be women who envied her such a husband. Yes indeed, she wouldn’t be surprised if there were quite a few women who had an eye on Harry Martineau.

She rose from her chair and poured him a second cup of tea. He put it on a corner of the table, so that it was in easy reach when he moved to his armchair. He relaxed in the armchair, and lit a cigarette.

“I enjoyed that. Very good,” he said politely. Then he yawned. It had been a long day.

She moved across the hearth and perched on the arm of his chair. She was a tall woman for a posture of that sort, but she managed it gracefully enough. Her left arm was on the back of the chair, behind his head. She looked down at his hair, and stroked it. Then she pressed his head against her breast; a firm breast, of satisfactory proportions.

He noticed that she had a clean pleasant smell about her. She always did have.

“It’s a long time since you made love to me,” she said.

He admitted that it was indeed a long time, and refrained from giving his opinion that it was her fault. It had been such a long time that he felt awkward and shy. Also, he had a guilty remembrance of Lucky Lusk. He had been strongly tempted to go to Lucky’s house when he found himself off duty earlier than he expected.

“It’s late. Let’s go to bed,” Julia suggested. “I’ll come in with you for a little while, if you like.”

“That’s an idea,” he said, “but-we don’t have any of the doings.”

She sat up quickly.

“Why?” she demanded, because it was his business to keep a supply of contraceptives in the house.

“I keep forgetting to buy some.”

“You never forgot before,” she accused, though she did not seem to be angry. “You always make sure of having some.”

“Times change,” he said, for the sake of giving an answer. Then he went on: “It’s time we did without those things, anyway. We’re married, and we ought to behave as if we were married.”

She had relaxed to her former position. She stroked his hair pensively. For a moment he had a wild notion that she was going to say that she agreed with him. Then he thought: “It’s a good mood she’s in, but not as good as all that. No, not so good.”

He was right. She got up suddenly. “No,” she said. “I think not. Not tonight, great lover. I’m going to bed; to my own bed. Cheerio.”

“Good night,” he replied, and as she was leaving the room he drank the last of his tea, and stood up.

“I suppose you’re going to play your piano now,” she said, without rancor. “One of these days I’ll sell that thing and buy a television set.”

“Buy what you like,” he said, also in good humor, “but you’d better not sell my piano.”

She went off to bed. He wandered into the front room and sat down at the piano. He played softly, because he did not want to disturb Julia.

In the flat over the furniture shop, the supper dishes had been cleared away, and Devery and his sweetheart were happily engaged with pencil and paper. They were making a list of wedding guests. Devery wrote: “My Uncle Ernest. He’ll drink us out of house and home,” and then rapidly at the bottom of the foolscap sheet: “This list is not for publication.” Silver opened her lovely lips in silent laughter, and from his armchair her grandfather smiled at her happiness.

When the list was finished, Devery began to write pleasing nonsense on the other side of the paper. Silver snatched the pencil from him, and with lips primly pursed though her eyes sparkled, she wrote: “The wedding is off. You are too silly to be married.”

He took the pencil and replied: “If you don’t marry me I’ll lock you up-and lock myself up with you.”

She wrote: “If I marry you, will you be good to me?”

He replied: “No. Ha ha, wait till I have you in me power.”

She got the pencil and scribbled over his writing, and then there was a tussle, and some laughter. Then he wrote: “What will you be doing tomorrow while I am working for your living?”

She put a finger to her lips, and wrote: “This also is not for publication. I am going to spring clean the top floor. Granddad doesn’t know.”

He answered: “You can’t. It’s too big. You’ll be just about dead.”

“The lifeless bride,” she wrote. “You’ll have to restore me.”

“I’ll bring you to life, baby,” he replied.

She wrote: “You are a bad man,” and then the sheet was full. The two lovers sat and looked at each other. He was quite sure that he had never in his life seen anyone so radiantly alive and lovely.

In the heart of the city Devery sat with his Silver and thought only of future happiness.

There, too, in the heart of the city lay four men whose liberty Devery had helped to restrain. Laurie Lovett, Lolly Jakes, Clogger Roach, and Peter Purchas could only look forward to an appearance before a magistrate in the morning, and probably an adjournment, and then another appearance where pleas would be made and evidence presented. Since miracles could not be expected, that trial would lead to a committal for trial at the Granchester Assizes. Before a red-robed judge, be-wigged barristers, and a listening jury, there would be examination, cross-examination, and re-examination. Then the speeches of counsel. Then the judge’s careful weighing of evidence as he directed the jury. Then the agony of waiting for the verdict. Then the sentence. To what? Would the judge put on the black cap? Would there be the warden, and the chaplain, and finally the hangman on the gray execution morning? Would there be the final shivering stand on the scaffold, before the world dropped away from beneath the feet? And then what? Choking agony? It was said that it didn’t hurt, that it was over in a split second, but who could really tell? Oh God, said the men in the cells, who did not believe in God, Oh God, preserve us from the death penalty.