Simon Beckett - Where There's Smoke

“I’m sorry, Miss Powell—”

“Do you think I don’t know him?”

“You know Timothy Ellis. You never met Alex Turner.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“We checked the telephone number you gave us. It’s listed in the phone book under Ellis’s name. You can look it up for yourself, if you like. He just told you it was ex-directory because he didn’t want to risk you phoning Directory Enquiries and being given the real Alex Turner’s number. And the reason he kept you away from where he lived was because his ‘studio flat’ is actually a grubby, one-room bedsit. You’d have known straight away that no professional man on a decent wage lived there. It’s only a ten-minute walk from the printer’s where Ellis worked, though, so I suppose it was convenient for him.”

Kate shook her head, denying it. But the policeman’s words had triggered a chain reaction of connection that she couldn’t stop. The memory of the black stain on his jeans came back to her, terrifyingly clear. Not paint. Ink. Printer’s ink. She didn’t want to hear any more, but Collins was relentless.

“Alex Turner is dead. Miss Powell. You saw his body at the mortuary this morning, and it seems increasingly likely that Timothy Ellis killed him. We know now it was Ellis who Dr Turner was staying behind late to see. He told his secretary about it, and although he didn’t say why, I think we can assume that it had something to do with the fax you sent. We’ve also spoken to Ellis’s boss at the printers. He’s told us that there was a phone call for Ellis yesterday afternoon, and that after it he seemed moody and upset. I think that call was from Dr Turner, telling Ellis he wanted to see him. Now one of them is dead and the other is missing, and we need to find out what happened between them, and why. And I believe you can help us with that.”

She was suffocating. “You think this is my fault?”

“No, I don’t think that at all. But Ellis seems to have gone to great pains to make you think he was Alex Turner, and what happened yesterday seems to have been sparked off by your fax. To understand why, we have to know more about your relationship with Timothy Ellis.”

Kate shivered. She folded her arms around herself. A signal must have passed between Collins and the policewoman, because now she stood up.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked. Kate shook her head. “I can make one. It’s no trouble.”

“I don’t want a bloody cup of tea!” The policewoman’s face hardened. She sat down again.

Collins let out a heavy sigh. “Look, Miss Powell, I know this isn’t easy, but I’d like you to bear in mind that, while we’re sitting here with you, Alex Turner’s lying on a mortuary slab, and his widow is having to come to terms with the fact that the baby she’s carrying will be born without a father because he had his head stoved in by a man he was trying to help. So, while you have my sympathy, my main priority is locating Timothy Ellis before he destroys any more lives. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

He spoke in a tone of patient weariness, but Kate felt her face flush as if she had been rebuked. “His wife’s pregnant?”

“Eight months,” Collins said. “That’s why I didn’t ask her to identify the body.”

The last of Kate’s resistance leaked away. “I didn’t know.”

“No reason why you should have. I didn’t see any point in telling you yesterday. But I thought it might help put things in perspective now.”

She nodded, chastised. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologise,” Collins said. “But I think it’s time you told us a little bit more about the fax. And what its significance was to Ellis.”

There was a last reluctance, a protest that these strangers should be the first to be told. Then it had gone. “I’d just found out I was pregnant.”

The words fell into the room’s silence. Collins turned to the policewoman. “I think perhaps we could do with that tea now.”

“So. What are you going to do?”

Lucy sat with her legs drawn under her on the sofa, leaning back on Jack. The children were in bed, and the three of them sat in the darkened lounge, close to the fire. It spat and growled behind the mesh guard. Kate stared at the flames, stretching yellow arms up the chimney, and thought of lies and arson. “I don’t know.”

A bottle of whisky stood between them. Kate held a tumbler of it in both hands. She hadn’t drunk from it yet.

“Are they sure, though?” Lucy asked. “I mean, it seems so... so...” She threw up her hands, speechless.

“They say there’s no doubt.”

“But how can they be certain he killed him? The psychologist, I mean. For all they know, it could have been, I don’t know, a burglar, or something. It’s not forced to have been Alex.”

“Ellis,” Kate said, not taking her eyes from the flames. “His name’s Timothy Ellis.”

Lucy didn’t say anything to that. Jack sat, grim-faced, looking at his lap.

“No wonder he looked so young,” Lucy went on, after a while. “Twenty-six! I mean, it’s the cheek of it that gets me!”

“I don’t think ‘cheek’ comes into it,” Jack commented.

“No, I know, but... Well, he just seemed so nice. Although, now you look back, you can see that some things weren’t right, can’t you? I always thought he was a bit shy to be a psychologist. And, when you think about it, it was pretty odd that he never let you see where he lived.”

Kate wanted to shout at her to shut up.

“At least he didn’t get any money out of you,” Lucy went on, oblivious. “I bet he was pig sick that he couldn’t cash your cheques. Makes you wonder how he could afford all those trips to Birmingham and everything, though, doesn’t it? I mean, he wouldn’t get much working part-time in a printer’s, would he?”

That seemed irrelevant now. Kate had to rouse herself to answer. “The police found a cardboard sign for Birmingham in his bedsit. They think he must have hitched.”

Lucy greeted the information with a wondering shake of her head. “Well, to say he’s supposed to be mentally ill, he’d got it all worked out, I’ll give him that.” She looked at Kate again. “What are you going to do, though?”

“Lucy, for God’s sake, I don’t know. I can’t even think straight at the moment. I just feel...” The effort of putting it into words defeated her.

“I know, but you’re going to have to decide sooner or later,” Lucy persisted. “About the baby, I mean.”

“Lucy...” Jack said, warningly.

“Well, she is.”

“Decide what about the baby?” Kate asked.

Lucy looked at her. “If you’re going to keep it or not.”

The crackling of the fire seemed to grow very loud, blending with the rush of blood in Kate’s ears. The room tilted, as if not even the floor were stable any more. She put her glass on the coffee table and gripped the chair arms, feeling a greasy slide of nausea. Lucy and Jack’s voices went on around her.

“For Christ’s sake, Lucy!”

“Well, she’s got to face up to it!”

“Give her a bloody chance! She’s had enough shocks for one day!”

Jack was crouching in front of her, raising the whisky to her lips. She could smell it, and the wave of nausea rose. Then it passed. She pushed away the glass without drinking. Jack set it on the coffee table and went back to his seat. “You okay?”

Kate nodded. She wasn’t, though. She felt weak, as though she was convalescing from an illness.

“Look, why don’t you go and see a doctor tomorrow?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t want tranquillisers.”

“I don’t mean that. I just think you need to talk to someone. Get some expert advice.”

“About what?”