Element of Doubt Read online

  He began to pace restlessly to and fro in the space between his desk and the window, pausing occasionally to look directly into Thanet’s face while making a telling point.

  ‘At first, of course, I’d assumed it was an accident. Then, when I came to think about it … I know that rail isn’t very high, and my wife was tall, but even so … I just couldn’t see how she could have fallen just by overbalancing …

  ‘Then, I knew she would never have thrown herself off that balcony deliberately. For one thing, she wasn’t the type to commit suicide. She loved life too much. She was … greedy for it. Oh yes, Inspector, I was under no illusions about my wife. I loved her for what she was … Anyway, if she had wanted to kill herself, she would have had enough common sense to choose another method. After all, how high is that balcony? Fifteen, twenty feet? She would have run the risk of injuring or even paralysing herself, and life in a wheelchair would have been unthinkable to her … No, I felt I could rule suicide out, straight away.’

  Thanet nodded. ‘I came to much the same conclusions myself.’

  ‘So that was when I began to take your suggestion seriously … That she might have been … murdered.’

  Tarrant turned his back on them and stood facing the window, though Thanet doubted if the man was seeing anything. Although he was trying hard to conceal it, he was fighting for control of himself. Those deliberately deep, even breaths, and clenched, white-knuckled fists told their own story.

  When he continued his throat was hoarse, his voice ragged. ‘I didn’t want to believe it, of course. In fact, even now, I … It scarcely bears thinking about. But if it did happen, then the first question to ask is the one I did ask, yesterday.’

  His voice was gaining in strength and momentum and now he swung around to face them again, his eyes glittering. ‘Who? Who could possibly want to do such a thing? Nothing had been taken, so far as we could tell, it couldn’t have been a burglar. So it must have been someone she knew, or who knew her, someone with a grudge against her. I thought and thought of all the people she knew, and all the possible reasons they could have for wanting to do such a thing … And I just couldn’t believe it, of any one of them. And then as I said, when I was shaving, it suddenly came to me!’

  He sat down abruptly and leaned forward across the desk, lowering his voice. His quiet, even tone and lack of histrionics gave his words credibility and impact. ‘I thought of someone who wouldn’t have hesitated to kill her, if it suited him. Someone, moreover, who had actually sworn to kill her – well, “get” her was the actual word he used … Have you by any chance ever come across a man called Buzzard, Inspector?’

  The unusual name immediately rang a bell with the two policemen and they glanced at each other.

  ‘Halo Buzzard?’ said Lineham. ‘Armed robbery.’

  ‘Post office raids,’ said Thanet. ‘A spate of them, about ten years ago.’

  ‘Right!’ said Tarrant, triumphantly. ‘And I’ll bet you anything you like that with the crazy parole system they have nowadays he’ll be out by now, for being a good little boy.’

  ‘Quite possible,’ said Thanet.

  ‘Well,’ said Tarrant, obviously nearing the climax of his revelation, ‘you may or may not be aware, Inspector, that it was my wife’s evidence that put him away.’

  ‘Really?’ Now that was interesting.

  ‘Yes. What happened was this. Buzzard used to wait until the coast was clear and the post office deserted, then he’d pull on one of those stocking masks and go in, armed with a sawn-off shotgun, to carry out the raid. He was a one-man band, if you remember, so he’d leave his engine running and when he came out he’d pull off the mask before driving away.

  ‘In the raid on Nettleton post office, my wife had just pulled up across the road when he emerged. Luckily for her, she dropped her handbag as she was getting out of the car, and she was bending down to pick it up. Buzzard glanced across at her car, couldn’t see anyone in it, and assumed the driver was gone. He got into his own car, pulled off the mask, and drove off. But she had seen him quite clearly, wearing the mask, through the windows of her car as she was straightening up. Realising what was happening she sensibly crouched down again, out of sight. Buzzard was naturally in a hurry and having satisfied himself that her car was empty, didn’t even glance in her direction again. But she got a clear view of his face when he pulled off the mask, took the number of his car and went straight into the post office and rang the police. Of course, Buzzard claimed he had an alibi, and paraded several of his unsavoury friends to back him up, but my wife’s evidence got him convicted. And when he was sentenced, he shouted out, in court, that he’d get her for this, one day. Now …’ Suddenly the excitement in Tarrant’s eyes faded and his voice trailed away. He shook his head despairingly. ‘Now it looks as though he has, doesn’t it?’

  ‘We’ll get onto it right away,’ said Thanet. ‘We’ll soon be able to find out if he’s still inside. And it shouldn’t be too difficult to pick him up if he’s not.’

  ‘I blame myself,’ said Tarrant. ‘There were all sorts of things I could have done. I could have made it my business to find out where he was, exactly when he was coming out … I could have made sure she had more protection, more security measures in the house … We could have moved, so that he wouldn’t have been able to find us … And above all, I shouldn’t have just forgotten about it, let it fade away in my mind so that it wasn’t a threat any longer … I should have known, people like that don’t forget, and they don’t forgive, and they don’t care about human life, it has no value for them.’ He looked pleadingly at Thanet. ‘But it was so long ago … Ten years …’

  ‘These things are bound to fade, in time. You mustn’t blame yourself. Criminals often make threats, in circumstances like that, but very few of them actually carry them out, so many years later. If that is what happened …’

  ‘But if it wasn’t him,’ said Tarrant, ‘who was it?’

  ‘I’m glad you recognise that we have to look at all the other possibilities, sir.’

  ‘Other possibilities?’ The dazed look was back in Tarrant’s eyes, as if the sustained effort of telling, his story had used up his meagre reserves of concentration.

  ‘I’m afraid so. As I said, we will most certainly follow up your theory. But meanwhile, we have to take a closer look at the movements yesterday of all the people connected with your wife.’

  Unexpectedly, Tarrant gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Beginning, I suppose, with me?’

  Thanet’s silence gave him his answer.

  He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this. I don’t believe any of it.’ His voice rose. ‘My God, I don’t really believe she’s dead, even, although I saw her lying there, with my own eyes … And now you’re suggesting …’

  ‘No,’ said Thanet, cutting in. ‘We are not suggesting anything, sir. Merely asking. As we must, however unpleasant the task may be.’

  ‘Unpleasant!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thanet, more quietly. ‘Unpleasant, Mr Tarrant. There is no pleasure, believe me, in appearing to harass people who are already suffering, as you are … But it has to be done, whether we like it or not. Your wife is dead, and if she was killed we have to try to find out who did it, you must see that.’

  ‘What’s the point? It won’t bring her back.’

  ‘Mr Tarrant. You are a surgeon. Your whole working life is dedicated to saving life, isn’t it? You must therefore believe, as I do, that it is of paramount importance. The difference is that whereas your work ends with a patient’s death, that’s when mine begins. If people were allowed to kill whoever they liked without any attempt being made to bring them to justice, the whole fabric of society would disintegrate.’

  Tarrant waved a weary hand. ‘All right, Inspector. Spare me the sermon. I’m well aware of all that. And I also know that in the case of domestic murder it is the husband who is most likely to have committed the crime. It just seems so …’ He shook his head agai
n. ‘Ah well … Go ahead. Let’s get it over with, shall we?’

  It was Tarrant’s very capitulation that made Thanet hesitate. It was true that in the majority of such cases it proved to be the husband who had committed the crime. It was therefore essential to question Tarrant, to treat him not merely as a suspect but as the chief suspect. Thanet knew that he would have to do it, knew that he would do it, but part of him hated himself for knowing this, fleetingly despised the man who voluntarily undertook such work. He was convinced that whether or not Tarrant had killed his wife, perhaps in a fit of anger which he now bitterly regretted, he had loved her, was genuinely grieving for her, and it was inhumane to consider treating him like a common criminal.

  Thanet could feel the comforting knob which was the bowl of his pipe in his pocket and he longed to take it out and smoke it. Tarrant, however, would no doubt disapprove; there wasn’t an ashtray in sight.

  No, there was only one possible outcome to his dilemma: he must get on with the job, whether he liked it or not. He became aware that the silence in the room had taken on a puzzled quality. Lineham and Tarrant were both staring at him, waiting for him to speak. Thanet was tempted to signal to Lineham to take over, but the knowledge that it would be a coward’s way out prevented him from following what would normally be accepted procedure.

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘You may remember, Mr Tarrant, that just before we left you, yesterday afternoon, I asked you a question to which you took exception, to the degree that you asked us to leave, at once.’

  Tarrant was nodding his head wearily. ‘Stupid of me. I should have known you’d find out about Speed from the first person you asked.’ He gave a resigned shrug. ‘My wife never bothered to conceal her little … amusements.’

  ‘Is that how you saw them? As amusements?’

  ‘I’ve just said so, haven’t I?’ There was an edge in Tarrant’s voice now.

  ‘Many men would find it difficult to be so tolerant.’

  ‘I am not many men.’ Tarrant made a moue of distaste. ‘I’m sorry, that sounds very arrogant, and I didn’t mean it to be so. I simply meant that it is impossible to generalise in that way. I am myself, my wife was herself, together we were a unique combination, as every couple is a unique combination. And as far as I was concerned, yes, that was precisely how I did see my wife’s lovers – and you will notice the plural, Inspector. I have lived with this sort of situation for many years, practically since we were first married, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘And it didn’t worry you?’

  ‘Of course it worried me! I’m only human, and I loved my wife – hell, I still love her, you don’t stop loving a person just because you’ll never see them again … But if you mean, did it make me so mad with jealousy that I killed her, then no, it didn’t. I’ve always thought such jealous rage self-defeating. After all, by giving in to it you simply succeed in losing the very person you are trying to keep.’

  It was all very well to sit there being coolly analytical, thought Thanet, but had Tarrant actually been able to put his theories into practice, maintain an iron self-control in the face of what at times must have been extreme provocation? What if, as Lineham had suggested, the surgeon had come home at lunchtime yesterday and found his wife in bed with the garage owner? Perhaps the long habit of years would have sent him away again, but was it not possible that he had had to endure this particular humiliation once too often? During the afternoon, could he not have stewed and sweated over what he had seen or heard until at last, driven by an impulse which was beyond reasoning away, he had gone home, had one final row with his wife, and pushed her off that balcony at a time when he was simply not in control of his behaviour? It was all too uncomfortably credible. It was and always had been human nature, to make good resolutions dictated by common sense which prove impossible to keep when confronted by the situation which prompted them.

  It was time to put this theory to the test.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us you came home at lunchtime yesterday, sir?’

  Tarrant stared at Thanet for a moment. What was he thinking? Was he going to deny it?

  Then he shrugged. ‘For one thing, you didn’t ask me. And for another, I didn’t think it relevant.’

  ‘You certainly gave us the impression you had been away from the house all day.’

  ‘I’m sorry if you were misled. But if you remember, you asked me when I had last seen my wife and I told you: at breakfast. That is the truth.’

  ‘You didn’t see her at lunchtime?’

  ‘No! I told you …’

  ‘Strange,’ said Thanet. ‘She was here, wasn’t she?’

  No reply.

  ‘Wasn’t she?’ Thanet insisted.

  Still no reply.

  ‘And if she was, are you really asking us to believe that you didn’t look for her and find her? That you simply came home and left without seeing her?’

  Again that long, considering stare. Then, once more, the resigned shrug. ‘All right, Inspector. I can see you’re not going to leave me in peace until you’re satisfied. I’ll tell you what did happen, at lunchtime.’

  NINE

  Tarrant paused for a moment, as if marshalling his thoughts. Then he sat back in his chair, folding his arms.

  ‘When I left home yesterday morning I forgot to take with me some papers I needed for a meeting in the afternoon, so I decided to pop back at lunchtime to fetch them. I got here just after half past twelve. I thought my wife would probably be in, so I naturally went upstairs to her sitting room to look for her. She usually had lunch about that time and she liked to eat it on the balcony, it was her favourite place.’

  For a moment it looked as though his composure would slip, but he recovered. ‘She wasn’t in the sitting room and I could see through the open french windows that she wasn’t out on the balcony, but all the same I went across and put my head out, to check. It was empty. I wondered where she was. Although it was a bit early – I knew that her hair-dressing appointment wasn’t until two – I thought she might be changing, so I went out into the corridor and along to her bedroom. I put my hand on the doorknob and was about to turn it when … when I heard a voice, from inside. A man’s voice. Speed’s.’

  Tarrant gave Thanet an assessing glance and said drily, ‘Naturally, I decided not to go in. I simply turned away, went downstairs, collected the papers from my study, and left.’ He lifted his hands. ‘End of story.’

  And not surprising, thought Thanet, that Tarrant had been reluctant to tell it. Most men would listen to such a tale with amazement tinged with disbelief, and he himself found it very difficult to swallow.

  How would he, Thanet, have reacted in a situation like that? An unwise question, he realised. Slamming a mental door upon the turmoil of violent images which immediately sprang into his mind, he forced himself to concentrate.

  Cuckold.

  The old term, with all its derogatory overtones, floated into his mind and was hastily suppressed. He wasn’t here to make moral judgements, indeed had no right to make them, except insofar as they affected his work. And he did feel genuine sympathy for Tarrant. It must be hell to be forced to admit to a complete stranger that you had found your wife in bed with another man and had done nothing about it.

  If that really was what had happened.

  Perhaps Tarrant had picked up the overtones of incredulity in Thanet’s silence. He said with wry amusement, ‘I see you find it difficult to believe that I just turned and walked away, Inspector, but I do assure you that that is precisely what I did. For a very good reason.’

  Tarrant’s tone changed, became earnest. ‘You see, I loved my wife, Inspector. Really loved her. Which means that I knew all her faults and weaknesses and loved her not in spite of them but because of them. She couldn’t help herself, you see.’ He leaned forward, as if anxious to convince Thanet of the truth of what he was saying. ‘That was what nobody else could ever understand, not even Daphne, her own sister. They haven’t seen her in tears
, as I have, over her infidelities. After every affair she’d say how sorry she was, swear it would never happen again. Of course, we both knew she’d never be able to keep that promise.’ He shook his head. ‘She really couldn’t help herself,’ he repeated.

  ‘I know you may find it difficult to understand my attitude, but I always felt that if she had been less insecure, hadn’t been – how shall I put it? – so hungry for love, she would never have married me. She would have been … unattainable to me. So you see, I could hardly have rejected her for the very weakness which brought her to me in the first place. In some strange way it forged a bond between us which kept us together all these years where many more apparently stable marriages have long since broken up. She knew, you see, that no one else could have accepted her as I did, that whatever she did, I would never leave her. And I knew that always, every time, she would come back to me. I was prepared to accept her upon any terms, rather than not have her at all.’

  It was a cry from the heart.

  Taken aback at first by Tarrant’s unexpected frankness, Thanet had by now realised that the surgeon was seizing what was perhaps the first opportunity he had ever had to attempt to vindicate his wife. Death had released him from the bonds of loyalty and propriety which would have prevented him from openly defending her while she was still alive.

  Nevertheless, thinking of the endless humiliations which Tarrant must have had to endure over the years, Thanet wondered if it was possible that the surgeon had truly never felt the need to punish her for all the suffering she must have caused him. Tarrant’s sincerity was obvious, but his determined tolerance would have had to falter for only a few moments yesterday afternoon for the damage to be done.

  ‘Have you any idea what gave her this … need for love?’

  For the last few minutes Tarrant had been gazing down at his clasped hands as he spoke, absentmindedly revolving his thumbs. Now he raised his eyes and gave Thanet a look of gratitude, aware that the Inspector was making a genuine effort to understand. ‘I’ve always assumed it was because her mother died when Daphne was born, when Nerine was only three. Her father, of course, was very busy and presumably didn’t have much time to spare for the children.’ He shrugged. ‘I did try, but I never managed to get her to talk about it, and I honestly don’t think she had any idea why she was the way she was. But I always felt that if her mother hadn’t died when she did, my wife would have been a very different person. I know she never wanted for anything material, but nothing can compensate for emotional deprivation. I always hoped that one day she would come to realise that she had found what she was looking for in me.’