Take My Life

  ‘Hm. Bend down. Under the light, will you?’

  He examined the cut, sniffing for the smell of whisky on his customer’s breath.

  ‘I cant do anything to that. Did you fall?’

  ‘Er – yes. This mist, you know.’

  The man smiled humourlessly.

  ‘Well, it’s more than I can manage. You’ll need a stitch or two.’

  Nick shifted. ‘Can’t you make it stop bleeding?’

  ‘Sorry, no. I wouldn’t touch it. You’d be left with a nasty scar. It’s not in my line. The Fitzroy Street Hospital is just around the corner. There’s always a night staff there.’

  ‘Which way do I go?’

  ‘First on the left, and first on the left again. Two minutes’ walk, that’s all.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Talbot said, picking up his hat.

  The fire had been out twenty minutes, but there was still a thin ceiling of smoke in the room. The acrid smell of burnt blankets and leather was not quite strong enough to drown a more unpleasant smell. Everything was disordered, ornaments lay in the fireplace, chairs were overturned. There were people about the room, Mike Grieve sitting in a corner telling it all a third time to a sergeant of police with a bad cold, another policeman by the half-open door. Something still lay on the bed covered by a half-burnt sheet.

  Through the door came the voice of Ma Grieve on a monotonous note of complaint.

  ‘Always when I go out. Why wasn’t I ’ere? Why wasn’t I ’ere? If you leave ’im in charge, well, you can always depend on it … Always somefing. Only last week Mr Allisotti overflowed the bath …’

  A second constable came into the room, a littie short of breath with the stairs.

  ‘Inspector Archer’s here, Sergeant And the Divisional Surgeon. They’ve made quick time.’

  ‘Good,’ said the sergeant, pushing back his big hat, and blew his nose.

  Footsteps sounded, and Inspector Archer came in with Dr Frederick at his heels. Archer was a big tidy man going grey, he looked like a respectable merchant with a wife and five children in Hammersmith. He had deep-set eyes and rather small soft hands with the nails cut close.

  The sergeant got up, putting away his handkerchief. ‘ ’Morning, sir. ’Morning. We’ve been careful to touch nothing. Beyond, that is, what we were forced to handle making sure the fire was out. And the corpse …’

  ‘All through the blitz,’ came Mrs Grieve’s voice. ‘ Not a window broke. Only one perishin’ fire-bomb on the roof. An’ now this. It makes you curdle …’

  Archer said: ‘Who’s this man?’

  ‘The landlord. He says he was out at the time.’

  ‘ ’Course I was out,’ Grieve said sulkily. ‘There’s twenty people at the White Horse can prove it.’

  ‘Get the stairs cleared, will you,’ said Archer. ‘ People back in their own rooms and onlookers out of the house.’

  They moved over to the bed. Delicately, with finger and thumb, Archer pulled back a corner of the sheet. He pursed his lips a little with a moue of distaste. Dr Frederick pulled the sheet right back. They bent to examine the body.

  There was silence for a time.

  Then Grieve shifted in his seat and said: ‘He’d mebbe be about six foot, this man. ‘‘ ’Night,’’ I says to him, me being civil. ‘‘ ’Night,’’ he says. That’s all. Then out he goes with his ’and to his ’ead.’

  Archer turned from the body and glanced at Grieve with narrowed assessing eyes. He seemed to take the speaker in from head to foot.

  ‘What’s this about a man?’

  The sergeant told him.

  Archer continued to stare at Grieve. ‘What’s wrong with your hands?’

  ‘Scorched ’em putting out the fire. So has my missus. She came in just as I was putting it out.’

  ‘Did she see this man?’

  ‘Lord, no. He was gone afore ever I come up the stairs.’

  ‘Would you recognize him again?’

  ‘Mebbe. I didn’t see’is face all that plain: but mebbe I’d reckernize him if I was to see ’im close.’

  The inspector took a deep thoughtful breath and allowed it slowly to escape as his glance came back to the notes the sergeant had offered him. Then he turned to the doctor, who had straightened up.

  ‘Well, Frederick?’

  ‘She’s been dead about half an hour,’ Frederick said in a low voice. ‘I think she’s been strangled.’

  Archer’s eyes wandered round the room. ‘Looks as if there was a bit of a struggle, eh?’

  ‘Lucky the fire was put out. In another ten minutes it would have destroyed everything.’

  Archer’s eyes rested again on Grieve, then passed on.

  ‘Badly burned, isn’t she?’

  ‘Features and hair, yes. She might be difficult to identify.’

  ‘Fortunately that will only be a formality. Hm, Mr Grieve, how long has this Miss Rusman been with you?’

  ‘Three weeks last Friday. That’s all. Never seen her afore then. Never seen her. Don’t know where she comes from nor nothing.’

  ‘Is there a telephone near here?’

  ‘Next door, sir,’ said one of the constables. ‘ That’s where I telephoned from.’

  ‘Well, take this description, have it circulated, see. Get it round as soon as possible to all hospitals, etc. There’s just a chance it might help … It’s a long chance, but still …’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The constable went out. Archer plucked at his lip.

  ‘Where’s her case?’ he said. ‘Her belongings and things.’

  ‘Most of them have been burnt,’ the sergeant said, pointing to a mass of ashes and charred material behind the bed.

  ‘Wonder if they went by accident or design. Sergeant, you’d better get this man out of here.’

  ‘There’s this,’ said Dr Frederick. ‘ It was round her neck. It looks as if it might open.’

  Archer stared at the little gold heart-shaped locket. He tried to get his broad thumbnail into a possible nick. Then he saw a press-catch as small as a pin-head and squeezed it. The locket swung open on hinges.

  Inside was a small photograph of the head and shoulders of a man. It was not very clear, but quite clear enough to be circulated and to be recognized if by any chance the police should catch up with him.

  He had found the ‘ night staff’, and the worst was over. At least the two stitches were in, and this harsh stinging would stop in time.

  An elderly porter with a stiff leg had let him in, grudgingly, through a very-slow-widening crack in the door, and then had led him in a cloud of strong tobacco smoke up a long stone passage and into a room where they had found a young nurse and a younger doctor just finishing a meal of scrambled eggs and coffee. The doctor, called Harris, and the nurse, called Green, had quickly put on a professional manner, through which their youth and inexperience continued to stick out like bones through an ill-fitting coat.

  While the business was in process he had refrained, in the interests of his own peace of mind, from asking too many questions – it was better not to know than to know what he wryly suspected – but at this stage he said:

  ‘Done this job before?’

  ‘What?’ said the doctor, looking up quickly. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘This your first accident casualty?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. What makes you think that?’

  Nick said: ‘You’re very young. I thought you couldn’t have been at the job long.’

  ‘Over six weeks now.’

  Nick winced slightiy. ‘Think you’ve made a nice neat darn of it?’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Dr Harris, and glanced idly at the nurse as she left the room. ‘ Couldn’t have done it better if I’d got my fellowship. As pretty a job as I ever saw. There was no glass in the wound, by the way. Did you say it was a car accident?’

  Talbot had mumbled the first excuse that had come into his head.

  ‘Taxi skidded into a lamp standard,’ he said discouragingly.

  But the y
oung doctor was not curious. ‘Lucky you didn’t overturn, I was in a little MG sports once on the Brighton road. We were taking a corner at about sixty-eight when a tyre burst. Lucky for us –’

  Nurse Green had come back. ‘You’re wanted on the phone.’

  ‘Who, me?’ said the doctor. ‘Who wants me?’

  ‘They didn’t say.’

  ‘Lucky for us there were no cars ahead,’ said Harris, retreating towards the door. ‘We skidded twice round without taking a wheel off the road, went through a gate and ran into a cow. It stopped us dead. A good piece of driving, you know.’

  ‘What happened to the cow?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Oh, the farmer was insured,’ said the young man as he disappeared.

  Nick was left to think about Philippa for a few moments. Fitzroy Street was not really so far from the flat and he could be home in under ten minutes. Put an end to this silly squabble once and for all …

  ‘Can I pay for this job?’ he said to the nurse, who was tidying up on the table.

  ‘No, thanks, it’s on the house.’ She smiled. ‘But there’s a box for the Waifs and Strays at the door as you go out – that’s if you feel inclined.’

  Talbot smiled back at her. ‘Right. Thank you.’

  Harris came back. He came slowly in, shutting the door after him, and slowly across in the direction of Nick.

  ‘Anything important?’ asked the nurse.

  ‘Um? Oh … er – no. No, nothing much.’ The young man looked absent-minded. In a queer voice he said to Talbot: ‘ Let’s see; where was I?’

  ‘You’d just killed a cow,’ Nick said.

  ‘Yes … Ha, ha! Yes, I had, hadn’t I? Well, I tell you we were – er – lucky, don’t you think, to get off without even – er – a cut finger. Luckier than you, and I expect – er – our crash was much more of a crash than yours.’ He gazed hopefully at Nurse Green, who gazed back at him.

  There was a moment’s unproductive silence.

  ‘Yes, we were certainly lucky,’ said Harris, clinching the matter.

  ‘Suppose you finish this bandage,’ Nick reminded him gently.

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ The young surgeon moved over to him and seemed somehow more confident now that he had his fingers on his patient’s head. ‘Let me see. Better put on a bit more to keep it quite dry. Pass me the bandage, nurse.’

  ‘Don’t you think –’

  But he interrupted her. ‘Pass me the bandage, please.’

  Patiently, and with no more said, Nick accepted another wrapping.

  But if Dr Harris had seemed faintly uncertain before, now his fingers were really clumsy and unprofessional. First he got the bandage on and then apparently did not like the look of it, for he unwound it again and began afresh. Even this did not satisfy him, and presently Talbot began to stir under his treatment. What did it matter whether the thing was just so? Philippa herself would make a better job of it when he got home: she had done lots of such work in the camp where she had been interned so long.

  ‘Don’t forget I want to get my hat on,’ he said, rising at last. ‘Thank you very much for all your help.’ He glanced at Nurse Green’s flushed face. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Best thing we can do,’ Harris said, ‘ is to telephone for a taxi for you. Then you can be driven straight home.’

  Nick felt his bandages. It seemed a good job after all. ‘ Thanks, I’ll walk. The rain has stopped.’

  ‘Oh, you shouldn’t do that. Worst thing possible after shock.’

  ‘I’ll risk it.’

  He was moving towards the door when the doctor said: ‘ Just a moment. There’s a frayed end to the bandage. I’ll cut it off.’

  Impatiently Nick suffered this last attention; and while it was being done there was the sound of a car drawing up outside. Because they were so close together he caught a curious effect of the doctor’s breathing, as if breath which had been held was being slowly let out.

  ‘Another casualty?’ Nick asked, gingerly trying on his hat.

  The question was met with a cautious smile. ‘Perhaps it’s going to be a busy night.’

  Nick said: ‘Well, I’ll make way for the next case. Thanks a lot for your help.’

  He went to the door and turned into the long stone passage. As he did so the door opened at the other end and the porter came limping along in company with two other men. One was a uniformed policeman.

  They met half-way down and seemed to fill the passage.

  ‘Good evening,’ said one man, looking beyond Nick, ‘Are you Dr Harris?’

  Nick half turned and saw that the young surgeon had followed him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harris. ‘Yes. I … you telephoned and I thought …’

  ‘Very good of you. Thanks. Pardon me a moment, sir.’

  Nick, thinking this none of his business, had moved to go past, but somehow the policeman got in his way.

  ‘Yes?’ said Nick impatiently.

  ‘Could I trouble you a moment?’ said the other man. He was polite, even casual in his manner, but underlying it was a hint of authority. Inspector Archer was glad he had decided to come on this mission, which might so easily have proved a wild-goose chase. He was certain it was not that now, for he had recognized this tall man as the man whose photograph he had just found in the murdered woman’s locket.

  Philippa had slept very little during the night. She had waited up until two, hoping every minute that Nick would come back. Once she thought she heard his footsteps on the landing and had gone to the door and peered down the empty stairs.

  Very early on in the night she had realized that if there is to be a true honest unreserved making up of a quarrel, the only way is to forget what possible offence the other person has given you and think only how bad you’ve been yourself. That was not hard. Last night there had grown up inside her a devil of contrariness. Joyous at her own success, entirely in love with her husband, she had let these ugly growths run the evening into ruin. Nerves didn’t quite explain it. Pride didn’t explain it. Elizabeth Rusman didn’t quite explain it. It was a paradox of life, she told herself, because these ill things bad grown out of her happiness. She would not have been so over-strung with a more moderate success, she would not have been nearly so bitter towards Nick if she had not loved him so much.

  But she was clear-sighted enough to see how hard it might be to put things right. Into the pillow or outward to the empty air she could say she was sorry with all frankness and abandon. Facing him would be more difficult. The perversities would still put obstacles in her way, make her tongue hesitate, qualify the sincerity of her apology. No doubt they’d tempt some remark to his lips to try to turn all her good intentions to waste.

  Well, she would see. It was a matter of pride now, pride in herself. Asolute apology there should be, and nothing should stop her.

  Before lying down she had been specially careful to tidy up all signs of the quarrel; it seemed important to her. She had washed out her own things which were stained by the lotion – luckily her expensive house coat had escaped – she had brushed up the broken glass and carried it downstairs to the central heating stove, which served all the flats. It all gave her something to do, to occupy her hands if not her mind.

  But he did not come. She had not imagined he would stay out the whole night like this. Perhaps he had gone to his sister’s. But no, he’d never do that. It had been a principle of theirs from the start. If they ever quarrelled it was a private thing between themselves, kept to themselves. He would never tell any third person. Then where was he? At some hotel? How bad had the injury been? Glass could cut deep. He couldn’t surely have fainted somewhere and have lain there unseen …? Or been taken to a hospital? They would have let her know. Perhaps he had told them not to. He had papers on him.

  By six sleep was hopeless and she got up and went into the kitchen to brew some tea. She was glad she was not singing tonight. She would have a chance of relaxing before W
ednesday. The triumph of last night seemed a mockery. She didn’t seem to care what the papers said … If …

  There was a knock on the outer door.

  Startled, she hurried through the living-room, wondering what she would find. Nick had a key. But he might have lost it. Or there might be …

  Two strangers were standing there. One, a heavy man in a neat dark suit, was newly-shaven and looked tired; the other was taller and younger with a sort of facile eagerness in his glance.

  She stepped back.

  ‘Mrs Nicolas Talbot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I beg your pardon for disturbing you at this hour. I’m Divisional Inspector Archer of the Metropolitan Police.’

  The floor seemed suddenly nearer to Philippa, and she took a firmer grip of the door. They did not seem to have noticed her movement.

  ‘Come in,’ she said.

  As they went past her she found she could not wait. She said to the older man:

  ‘What is it? Nick – has anything happened to my husband?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Archer conventionally. ‘ Nothing at all, Mrs Talbot. We’re just making a few inquiries and thought you could help us.’

  She watched them stand in the middle of the room, waiting, tall and uncomfortable, for her to sit down. She found the edge of a chair, trying instinctively to hide her nightdress.

  Archer cleared his throat.

  ‘Do you know a Miss Elizabeth Rusman, Mrs Talbot?’

  She stared back at him in astonishment.

  ‘I met her for the first time last night. Why?’

  ‘Well, she’s dead,’ said Archer, watching her, while the thin sharp man licked the end of his thin sharp pencil.

  Philippa said: ‘But only last night …’ Her mind jumped on to a suicide. ‘Was Nick …? Does Nick know about this?’

  ‘You think it likely that he should?’

  ‘Only if you’ve told him.’

  Archer’s deep-looking eyes had been taking stock of her, of her tall, slender, resilient figure, of her young fair beauty, with all its pride and grace and high-strung excellence. But this morning they meant no more to him than any other fact to be docketed in his tidy mind. The physical appeal of this young woman was, or might become, a numeral, a letter, a symbol in the formula which would one day spell out the solution of Elizabeth Rusman’s murder.