The Green Flash

  ‘Who is to be the coroner? Do you know?’ Shona asked.

  ‘Reginald Summit. He practised at the Bar for a time, chiefly trade union law. A hard man but fair, I think.’

  ‘I just want it over,’ I said.

  On the Sunday Derek Jones rang. He said: ‘Really, David, what a tragedy! My heart bleeds. It was utterly an accident, of course?’

  ‘What the hell d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, after that row you had at the party. D’you know I think Erica was having us all on that night. Poor Erica! Never tell with the little girl, could you? Oh, it was all planned as a special surprise for you. She was very down in the mouth when she thought you were not going to turn up. Hamlet without the Prince, she said. Or do I mean Princess? You know what she was like, couldn’t resist the quip.’

  I said: ‘ Derek, I don’t want to talk.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m sure you don’t. I just wanted to say –’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘I just wanted to say it was so unfortunate you made that remark. ‘‘I could kill that woman.’’ And Reg Palmer overheard it. I wanted you to know that if anything comes up about it at the inquest I’m not the one responsible.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You know, matey, I hate to be thought true-blue or anything of that sort, but I don’t split on friends.’

  ‘Glad to know it.’ My head was aching and drink wasn’t going to do any good. Two of those pills the medic had given me might save me from the worst nightmares.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘maybe you know, the lads were committed for trial.’

  ‘What lads?’

  ‘Bickmaster and the rest. It all happened at some magistrates’ court. On Wednesday. The day after this happened.’ When I didn’t speak he went on: ‘So they’ll be languishing in durance vile for a couple of months before the trial comes on.’

  ‘Derek, I’m going to hang up now.’

  ‘Right, old dear. I’ll not be there on Monday cheering or anything. But when it’s over, if it’s over, you’d do well to go away for a bit.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, you know, dear. Some of the lads stick together.’

  I hung up, and when the line was clear I took the receiver off again and left it off.

  II

  Memory is a funny old joker. It pretends not to recall something, though you know if you were challenged you’d have to admit it’s somewhere just under the crust. Then something fairly basic – such as killing your wife – makes a little nick in the crust and out everything pops as dark and as clear-cut as a witch’s profile.

  All that hour was back with me; I could even remember the smells of the kitchen. There’d been something boiling on the Aga and it had boiled over and begun to hiss and spit before someone took it off, and there was the smell of burned potatoes. And the mat had twisted up in the struggle, and lay away from the stove almost like another body. And my father’s overcoat was on the chair where he’d thrown it when he first came in: green-brown Harris tweed, belted, a bit shabby, with a handkerchief half out of the pocket; he’d been too cronked to hang it up. And my mother’s shoe had fallen off, and the metal handle was cold in my hand before I let it drop, and I kept wiping my sleeve across my nose trying to stop it running; the tears seemed to be coming out of the wrong place.

  The inquest – this inquest – was at Horseferry Road, and they’d decided not to have a jury. Reginald Summit wore a black tie and a wing collar and looked like an undertaker. Very bald, with a voice that sounded as if it was coming out of a microphone troubled with static. Mr and Mrs Lease were nearby, they’d taken it well, considering; if I’d been in their shoes I’d have been applying for a gamekeeper’s licence.

  The detective constable was first in the box and gave his evidence out of that nice neat little buttoned-down notebook. On the night of Tuesday last, etc … Called to flat no. 24 on a 999 emergency, went in and found the deceased lying in the kitchen suffering from a severe throat wound. Very considerable bleeding … Policewoman Mary Wallace attempted to do what she could … Could feel no pulse … after the arrival of the ambulance, returned to the sitting-room where deceased’s husband appeared in a state of shock.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the coroner, ‘a little more slowly, constable. The husband, you say, appeared to be in a state of shock. How did he appear so? What brought you to that conclusion?’

  ‘Well, sir, he had his head in his hands and seemed hardly to take any notice of what I was asking him. Just sat there, muttering to himself.’

  ‘Could you hear what he was muttering?’

  ‘Well, some of it, sir. He kept saying, ‘‘I’ve killed her, I’ve killed her.’’ Over and over again.’

  ‘Nothing more than that? Just ‘‘ I’ve killed her’’? He didn’t enlarge on it – try to tell you how it had happened?’

  ‘No, sir. The other lady, Mrs Carreros, she explained what she had seen.’

  ‘Never mind that. We shall be able to call her, shan’t we.’

  Stupid to hear her called Mrs Carreros. Brought her down to earth. Should have been Mme Shona. Why hadn’t she insisted on it? This had all happened in another kitchen, hadn’t it, for Christ’s sake? Did one’s life run in repeating ruts? But such a different kitchen. This one was big enough for a squash court. The other, that other, had been too small for fun and games; we’d just fallen over each other in it, in a complicated dance of drunkenness, envy, jealousy, love and death. And in the middle of it a boy with a heavy iron handle …

  Mr Gale asked the detective one or two questions, but I couldn’t remember what, and then the doctor took the stand. Cause of death was severance of the carotid artery by the broken end of an épée or fencing sword. The sword was of Russian manufacture, a type much favoured by the Amateur Fencing Association, and had broken off about three inches from the tip. The sharp point had penetrated the gap between the fencer’s jacket and her protective mask and bib. The blade had pierced the throat and Lady Abden had almost certainly been dead when he arrived. However, he had thought it proper to inject a heart stimulant and to have her taken immediately to hospital. By the time they reached the hospital life was certainly extinct.

  Extinct. Odd word. It meant nothingness, it meant what was left after a wild panic blow to the head or a fierce jabbing thrust. They weren’t there any longer. Flies swatted away. Nobody knew where they were. They’d absented themselves permanently from the scene, just a decaying body in a casket left behind.

  Mr Gale had nothing to ask the doctor, but some other type got up, who, it seemed, represented the makers of the protective clothing. Did the witness think? … Could he agree that if? … I tried not to yawn. I knew it would be looked on as callous and insensitive to yawn. I remembered old Meiss once all those years ago asking me, just when I was yawning at him, if I had ever had any impulses to kill him, because if so it was not just him I was thinking of killing but the whole of my past, schooldays, family memories, associations. I must learn, he said, to live surrounded by my past but not fixed to unalterable emotional patterns. Had he really said that, to a boy of eleven, or had I dreamed it up in some sort of folk memory since?

  Shona was in the box. Never saw her move but she was there. Wham. She looked slim, proud, Russian, but elderly. Everything she wore built up the picture. Yes, she was Mme Shona, the perfumer. Yes, she had known the deceased for many years. Yes, Sir David was the manager of her perfumery firm and was shortly to become a director. Yes, she had arrived that night and witnessed the practice fencing. Sir David had in fact been very reluctant to engage in this practice, because he wanted to discuss with her the flotation of the company. Lady Abden had insisted on challenging him, and eventually, to satisfy her, Sir David had picked up his weapon, put on his mask and fenced with her. So far as she, Mme Shona, could see – and she was an experienced fencer herself – there was nothing out of the ordinary in the bout, and she had been calling the hits as they were made, when Lady Abden made a sudden running attack at he
r husband; he had partly sidestepped, and the blade in his hand had gone under her protective mask. What a liar, I thought. Shall I stand up and shout at everybody in court what a blinding, dyed-in-the-wool, up-to-the-crop, stark, unmitigated liar she is? But the chance’ll come yet. They’re going to call me.

  Francis Norbury came next. He described himself as a ‘master coach’ and Lady Abden’s teacher. Both Sir David and Lady Abden were members of the Sloane Gymnasium Amateur Fencing Association, and had in fact first met in the fencing hall. Sir David was a fair, adequate performer but not with a sufficient technique for any real excellence; but Miss Lease, as she then was, was one of the outstanding young women fencers of the day, and had only just missed being picked for the Olympics. Then there was a lot of stuff about the strength of the protective mask, the four layers of cloth for the jacket, the 5mm thick bit of reinforced plastic-foam and canvas. There had apparently been two other fatalities in modern fencing, one in Hungary two years ago, when the blade had again snapped and the end had slipped through the gap between the safety mesh and the jacket; an earlier one, nine years ago, in England, when a young man had been struck in the head by a blade. Since her death the safety equipment worn by Lady Abden had been examined and had seemed satisfactory in every way except perhaps that the bib had a tendency to curl upwards, thus very slightly accentuating the existence of a gap between the bib and the collar of the jacket. Norbury said he was convinced the accident could only have occurred as a freak, and pointed to the tremendous safety record the sport had, seeing that some five thousand people fenced every week of the year.

  Summit then asked if it wasn’t unusual for men and women to fence against each other. In competition, Norbury said, it was never done. But in practice quite often, though usually when one was the teacher and the other the pupil.

  Norbury drifted away and Summit held up proceedings for a couple of minutes while he finished his autobiography. Then he said: ‘I have no wish to add to any disagreeable publicity which has attached itself to this case; but it appears that shortly before the tragedy a dinner party took place at a well-known London hotel, given by Sir David and Lady Abden, and the police have been approached by two guests at the party who wish to give evidence. This seems the most appropriate moment to call them.’

  I hadn’t seen Palmer in the court, but there he was picking his way towards the witness box, stooping and theatrical and gaunt. To look at him you’d never have thought his fancy was teenage boys.

  He had, he said, been a guest at a party given by Sir David and Lady Abden to celebrate her twenty-sixth birthday. There were about a score of guests. Sir David had arrived very late and had looked angry and dishevelled. He did not greet his wife, but sat down at the other end of the table, next to him, Palmer, and carried on little or no conversation with anyone. Lady Abden’s attempts to bring him into the generally jolly mood of the party fell completely flat. He ate little and drank only champagne in considerable amounts. In the course of the dinner one of the few remarks he made which was audible to most of the table was: ‘I’m going to murder that woman.’ A few minutes later he smashed two champagne glasses on the floor and left.

  Mr Gale got up awkwardly on his peg-leg and bowed slightly to the coroner, who cleared his throat of static and nodded.

  Mr Gale said: ‘ Is it your opinion that Sir David was intoxicated?’

  Palmer licked his lips. ‘He seemed to have had a lot to drink.’

  ‘With the coroner’s permission I will recall Mrs Carreros to the stand, but I understood her to say that was not her impression. Have you known Sir David long?’

  ‘About eighteen months.’

  ‘Since his marriage, in fact? Did you know Lady Abden before that?’

  ‘Oh, yes. About seven or eight years.’

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you must know many married people who in a moment of frustration will say of their wives, ‘‘I could murder that woman,’’ or, if it is the other way round, ‘‘ I could murder that man.’’.’

  ‘This seemed to me more than just frustration.’

  ‘It seemed to you. But it must surely be a matter of opinion in what tone it was spoken.’

  ‘I have given you my opinion.’

  ‘Just so …’ Mr Gale hitched himself on to his other leg. ‘Now, Mr Palmer, you are, I understand, a theatrical agent who at times helps to put packages together in the West End for the production of experimental plays.’

  ‘Not only in the West End. And not only experimental.’

  ‘Is it true that Lady Abden sometimes helped you with the financing of such ventures?’

  Palmer smiled. ‘We call them angels. There are quite a number of such people who like to help in this way.’

  ‘Is it true that Lady Abden has not helped you since her marriage?’

  ‘As it happens, yes. But we were still on the best of terms.’

  ‘With her husband as well?’

  ‘Er – yes, I think so.’

  ‘Is it true that you made a special effort to interest her in the play you have recently put on at the Royal Court Theatre and that, in refusing to help you, she said that her husband had advised against it?’

  Now where in hell, I thought, has he got such an idea? It was news to me; Erica would never have consulted me on such a thing.

  Palmer said curtly: ‘I am not giving this testimony today out of enmity for Sir David Abden.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Palmer.’

  The coroner had got a cold: that was all that was wrong with his voice. After he’d tuned in again he said: ‘Was it your impression that Sir David Abden and his wife were usually on good terms with each other – that this could well have been just a lovers’ quarrel?’

  ‘I saw too little of them to say. I can only assure you, sir, of the genuineness of this quarrel.’

  Genuine enough, I thought. All my quarrels are genuine; they boil up in a moment, whether it’s shaking a Mafia boss till he drops his drink or stabbing my wife. If only my ego would get out of the way – was that it? – something to stop me doing these things; if only I were paralysed all over. But this ganging up against me by people who pretended they were quite impartial …

  Steve Houseman was saying he had been at the dinner party and that he had witnessed the quarrel, heard me threaten my wife, and she had expressed her anxiety about going home, yet feeling she must do so, with her husband being in such a violent mood. My arrival, he said, had cast a complete blight on the birthday party, and the other guests had gone home soon afterwards.

  Then little Edmond Gale was on his feet again. Witness had spoken of Sir David being violent. What evidence did he have that Sir David was a violent man?

  I could provide plenty. Steve said: ‘Well, throwing those glasses like that. I’d call that violent, I really would, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘The previous witness has spoken of Sir David dropping two glasses. Do you insist that he threw them? And if so, what at?’

  ‘Well, on the floor – he threw them on the floor. I thought, what a frightful temper!’

  ‘This was a large dinner party, Mr Houseman? Eighteen, I believe. I suppose it was like any other party, was it, people eating and chinking and talking, waiters moving about?’

  ‘Well, naturally.’

  ‘Where were you sitting?’

  ‘On the right of my hostess.’

  ‘Yet you were quite able to hear what Sir David said about his wife, separated as you were from him by about eight people?’

  ‘Yes, of course I was.’

  ‘You were very friendly with Lady Abden?’

  ‘Well, I’ve known her for simply ages.’

  ‘And Sir David? A newer friend?’

  Steve tossed his head. ‘Oh, I’ve nothing against him.’

  The coroner was looking at the clock. He compared it with his own watch, then nodded to the clerk.

  ‘Sir David Abden.’

  Someone gave me a nudge on the
shoulder, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have recognized the call. I got up and made a wandering way to the box. Scruffy old book. How many tearful hands had grabbed it, how many lies spilled over it? Were mine going to make it worse?

  Close to, the coroner was an older man than I thought. One eye was bloodshot. Summer colds are the devil. It couldn’t be a help to his temper. He was inviting me to tell it in my own words. Whose other words would I use?

  ‘… then when I got back from the dinner party I decided –’

  ‘No,’ said Summit. ‘Earlier than that. Just summarize what you were doing earlier in the day.’

  I swallowed a piece of tonsil and stared across the courtroom. Lot of people. Curiosity and the newshounds. I wondered if Chalmers or one of his men had come to watch. Mrs Lease was dabbing her nose with her handkerchief. Hers wasn’t a summer cold. Poor dear. Oh Christ, what had I done to her?

  ‘Tuesday morning I was up about four, drove from Edinburgh to London – actually to Barking Magistrates’ Court.’ Summit looked puzzled so I explained wearily what I’d been there for. ‘After the – d’you call ’ em committal proceedings? – Inspector Chalmers asked me to stay behind because he thought I might help them with their further enquiries.’ I stopped. You couldn’t have put that bloody worse if you’d sat up all night thinking how to give the wrong impression. ‘Someone I once, knew,’ I said tonelessly. ‘ I helped to provide a background … Then my car gave trouble and I took it to the garage for servicing. So I was late arriving at the party. Must have been just before nine … I had a light meal there and then left again. I walked back across the park to our flat and began packing –’

  ‘Packing?’ said Summit.

  I gave him a stony stare. ‘I’d decided that things weren’t ever going to work out between myself and my wife and it was time to opt out.’

  ‘I see … And then?’

  ‘Well, my wife returned from the dinner party earlier than I expected and challenged me to a bout.’