Хилари Боннер - A Deep Deceit

It seemed a lifetime had passed since, resolved to rid myself of my long-carried burden, I had first approached the ugly, dirty white building

The desk clerk greeted me with his customary lack of enthusiasm. Did they only have one clerk, or was I just lucky, I wondered glumly. He was, however, a little more communicative than in the past. He told me that DS Perry was in Plymouth and would be there for some time. Apparently there had been a particularly unpleasant murder of a young girl. That was why she hadn’t responded to my phone calls.

I was still feeling very poorly and becoming aware that maybe I should have stayed in hospital at least another couple of days, and this news about DS Perry was yet another blow. I had barely known her but I somehow had more confidence in her than any of the other officers I had encountered. Not surprising, perhaps, when the only other one I had had much to do with was Rob Partridge.

‘I’ll see if I can find someone else to help you,’ the clerk offered and disappeared into the back office in a disconcertingly familiar way.

I could hear him talking into a telephone, but I wasn’t optimistic. A murder. Yes, I supposed that was more important than a kidnapping, if that is what it really had been.

The inner door opened just as I was reconciling myself to another fruitless wait. Rob Partridge, in uniform but without his helmet, greeted me with an uncertain smile, and ushered me into the bleak little ground-floor interview room. ‘I just called you at the hospital,’ he said. ‘Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday.’

‘Look, I want to see my husband,’ I said. ‘I want to see Carl.’ For the first time in almost seven years I was somehow starkly aware that Carl wasn’t my husband. But old habits die hard.

‘He’s on remand in Exeter,’ said Rob Partridge. ‘Surely you knew that?’

I didn’t. I knew absolutely nothing about police or court procedure and little more about the case I was actively involved in. I had been more or less semi-conscious in hospital for two weeks. I didn’t have a clue what had happened to Carl following his arrest and my admission to the hospital. In a simplistic way I suppose I expected him to be locked in a cell somewhere in the bowels of St Ives police station.

‘I thought he would be here,’ I murmured lamely.

Rob shook his head. ‘This is a small district police station,’ he told me. ‘We don’t keep prisoners here. You can visit him at the Devon County Prison at Exeter whenever you like, just about. As he’s on remand you have pretty free access.’

The Devon County Prison. I repeated it inside my head. The very sound of the words was chilling.

‘But I need to talk to somebody first. DS Perry mentioned something that happened in America. I need to know what’s going on before I see him,’ I mumbled.

Partridge and I were both standing in the interview room. He gestured me to one chair and, sitting down in the other, took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and lit up. He offered me one, which I declined, then he drew deeply on his own. The windowless little room filled with smoke. I hoped I wouldn’t start coughing again. My chest still hurt.

‘We searched your cottage after we arrested Carl,’ he began. ‘Standard procedure when you’ve arrested somebody on a serious charge. We found some photographs and an out-of-date American passport in another name. His picture, though. It was pretty simple to check out with the States. Your Carl was really called Harry Mendleson and he had good reason to be using a false name all right. Seems he makes a habit of trying to abduct his wives.’

I waited. I felt very cold. Rob Partridge smiled almost triumphantly, only to me it looked more like a leer. He was another one who could never resist showing off superior knowledge. Something made me think he shouldn’t be telling me all this, but he seemed to be in full flight.

‘Only the last time it all went badly wrong. His wife was going to leave him. He wouldn’t have it. Tried to prevent her getting away. Drugs were involved that time too. Apparently there was a kid, a daughter, who died of an overdose. Only five or six, she was, too. He’s wanted on a manslaughter charge...’

I was shocked to the core. It seemed unreal. Carl was wanted on a manslaughter charge? He had drugged his daughter? Killed her? I hadn’t even known he’d had a daughter. I began to shake again. I didn’t know whether it was the impact of the news I had just heard or the residue of my illness. A bit of both probably. ‘What happened?’ I cried. ‘I can’t believe he killed his own daughter. How? Why? Please tell me.’

Rob Partridge looked uncomfortable at my reaction, as if he regretted telling me all that he had. He ran a hand through his spiky orange hair. ‘Look, I don’t know the details, it’s not even my case. I only know as much as I do because I was involved in the arrest and then the search. It’s CID. Detective Sergeant Perry was in charge, you know that.’

I nodded. ‘But she’s not here,’ I said lamely.

‘No, the case has been handed over to DC Carter in Penzance. That’s who you should be talking to now.’

I wasn’t giving up that easily. ‘The photographs, the old passport. Where did you find them? I’ve never seen them. Carl and I didn’t hide things from each other...’

‘He hid that lot all right. We found them in the box he keeps his paints and brushes in. There’s a false compartment at the bottom.’

Yes, I thought morosely, that made a dreadful kind of sense. I never touched Carl’s paints and brushes, never went near his special mahogany box because he was so fussy about his painting equipment.

Partridge had begun to speak again, once more parading his superior knowledge. ‘That’s the thing about people living under a false identity,’ he said in a self-important tone of voice. ‘Getting the new identity is no problem. A doddle, that is, if you know how. The old Day of the Jackal trick still works. You just take a name and birth date off the gravestone of someone about the same age as yourself, apply for a new birth certificate and bingo. Everything else you need is easy once you’ve got a birth certificate. The problem people have is walking away from the past. They nearly always keep something, just like Carl did. It’s not being able to let go of the past that catches ’em out.’ He paused. ‘The photographs were of the daughter he killed,’ Partridge continued conversationally. ‘Typical, that, really...’

Suddenly it was all too much for me. I could barely take in what he was saying. Tears were welling up in my eyes and I couldn’t hold them back. I began to sob quietly.

Rob Partridge didn’t seem to know what to do then. His air of self-importance vanished abruptly. ‘Look, don’t upset yourself. I’ll see if I can get DC Carter on the phone,’ he said, in a manner that suggested that the detective would be able to solve all my problems. He took his mobile from his pocket and punched in a number. Maybe it was just that Rob Partridge knew his way around a police station or maybe he was luckier than me. Most people were, I was beginning to think. Either way, he seemed to get through to the Penzance CID man straight away.

‘DC Carter can see you at Penzance police station at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,’ he told me after a brief conversation, still holding the telephone to his ear, with one hand over the mouthpiece.

‘In Penzance?’ I repeated through my snuffles. ‘But I want to see Carl and he’s in Exeter.’

‘You can pick up the main-line train from there, straight on to Exeter. We’ll fix it with the prison,’ said Partridge.

I couldn’t think straight and I was so used to doing what people told me to, falling in with what others said, that I meekly nodded my agreement. Tomorrow morning seemed a long way away, but I was still feeling distinctly unwell. I hoped that I might perhaps be stronger both mentally and physically by then and, in any case, I certainly did not have the energy at that moment to demand an earlier meeting.