Puppet for a Corpse Read online

Thanet groaned. He was fond of Lineham’s wife, though she was a little over-powering for his own taste. He could guess what was wrong. “Mother-in-law trouble again?”

  “I’m afraid so. Honestly, Luke, I really do wonder what will happen there, in the end. After that business of the wedding, I rather hoped Mike’s mother had learned her lesson.”

  Lineham’s wedding had twice been delayed by his mother having mild heart attacks. At the third attempt he had told her that even if she had another attack he would, in fairness to Louise, have to go ahead regardless. She did and he had.

  “What happened this time?” Thanet asked.

  “Well, apparently they had some friends round to supper last night. Fortunately they knew them well, otherwise … well, anyway, Mike’s mother kept on ringing up.”

  “Did she know they were entertaining?”

  “Yes. She rang first at eight, just as they were sitting down to table, saying she didn’t feel well, and the soup got cold while they were waiting for Mike to finish the phone call. Then she rang again just as they were all settling down to coffee, after the meal. And then, to cap it all, she rang yet again just after Mike and Louise had got into bed and, I gather, had begun to make love. And that time Mike actually got dressed and went over to see her!”

  “You can see why Louise was mad!”

  “I should say. But what she finds so frustrating is that Mike won’t talk about it, won’t even acknowledge that they have a problem.”

  “I’m not surprised really. Louise can be pretty forceful at times too, you know. I should think he often feels like a worm between two blackbirds.”

  “I thought you liked Louise!”

  “Oh, I do. I do. But I wouldn’t want to be married to her.”

  “She says Mike doesn’t even seem to realise how his mother manipulates him, and this makes her furious.”

  “Poor Mike. But you can understand why he refuses to talk about it, can’t you?”

  “Why?”

  “Well what good would it do? I bet that, by ‘talk about it’, Louise really means ‘get him to see her point of view, put her first’. Nothing else would really satisfy her, now would it?”

  “I suppose not.” Joan sounded doubtful.

  “I’m sure of it. She’s not the compromising type. And, looking at it from Mike’s point of view, you can understand him feeling that his mother has at least got some claim on him. Louise, after all, has him all the time, but his mother calls on him only occasionally. I can see why Louise gets angry but let’s face it, she did know what she was letting herself in for, before she married him. And I don’t know whether she’d be any happier if Mike did stop jumping when his mother claims his attention. As I see it, he’d then feel so guilty he’d be as miserable as sin anyway. And she wouldn’t like that either, now would she?”

  “You do sound unsympathetic, darling, I must say.”

  “If I do, I’m sorry. But I wouldn’t call it unsympathetic, I’d call it realistic. Frankly, I think that neither Mike’s mother nor Louise are going to change their spots at this stage. In fact, I can’t really see the situation altering until one of them dies.”

  “Luke!”

  “I’m sorry love, but come on, don’t you agree with me, underneath?”

  Joan bit her lip. “I’m just being an ostrich, really. Yes, I suppose I do. It’s just that, well, seeing Louise so miserable …”

  “It’s something she will have to come to terms with, I’m afraid.”

  “She wondered if you might perhaps have a word with Mike …?”

  “Me? Not on your life. Mike and I have got a damned good working relationship and I don’t want to ruin it. Besides, you must see it really isn’t my place to start butting in on his private life without an invitation.”

  “So you haven’t any bright ideas?”

  “Just one. If she really feels that the problem is serious—and it does sound as though it’s getting that way—then by far the best thing to do is to go to the Marriage Guidance Council.”

  “Isn’t that a bit drastic?”

  “Not at all. I should think prevention is better than cure and besides, the only counsellor I’ve ever met really impressed me. You remember, Mrs Thorpe, in the Julie Holmes case?”

  “Yes, I do remember, now you mention it. All right. I’ll give Louise a ring tomorrow, see if I can tactfully suggest it.”

  Marriages, marriages, Thanet thought as he lay awake in bed, later. Who could ever tell what went on behind all those closed front doors? No one but the couples themselves—no, even that was a fallacy. Usually, the two people in a marriage were the last to be able to understand what was happening to them. It took a major upheaval, a crisis, a painful reassessment of self to do that. He remembered his own near-danger point, a couple of years ago, when he and Joan had clashed over her desire to abandon her contented-housewife rôle for a more satisfying job. But they had been lucky. He had been jogged into awareness by the case in which he had been involved at the time and besides, that had been only a temporary dilemma. Lineham and Louise were a different matter; their problem was permanent, rooted in their different character and backgrounds. Any solution they found would be hard-won and painfully achieved. He didn’t envy them that.

  His mind drifted back to the Pettifer case. Now there was an intriguing marriage. His forehead furrowed as he lay staring up into the darkness, thinking of each partner in turn.

  Pettifer, now. A strange man, stern and proud, a man who set high standards not only for himself but, Thanet guessed, for those about him too, reserved in his manner yet capable of a passionate wooing … His twin obsessions: his wife and his work. No doubt about how he would have felt had he known that she had been—was still being—unfaithful to him.

  If he had known.

  Had he?

  Thanet considered. There was, so far, not one single scrap of evidence to indicate that he had. They would have to find out, because if he had … Well, what if he had? How would he have reacted? He might have cut his wife out of his will, for a start. Thanet made a mental note to check, in the morning. In any case Pettifer must have been desperately hurt, wounded and then angry, yes, overwhelmingly angry. But what would he have done? Would he have killed himself?

  Thanet thought. He remembered what Doc Mallard had said about suicide—that one school of thought saw it as an act of anger, of aggression rather than despair. Could this have applied in Pettifer’s case? Perhaps it would depend on how Pettifer read his wife’s character. According to Deborah Chivers, Gemma had no moral scruples whatsoever. True, Deborah was biased, as she herself had freely admitted—but then, Thanet himself had seen how cruel Gemma could be, in that incident with Andrew. But Pettifer, blinded by love, might well have seen her differently. If, then, he had thought her to be a woman of conscience who would be overwhelmed by guilt and remorse and blame herself for her husband’s suicide, could he conceivably have decided to revenge himself upon her in this way?

  Thanet found himself shaking his head. No. Everything he had so far learnt about Pettifer contradicted the idea. He could imagine Pettifer fighting back—confronting his wife’s lover, perhaps, or accusing her outright, or repudiating her even, with an icy coldness which masked his pain. But this … No, suicide as the final act of aggression was surely the ultimate gesture of a coward, of a man who felt he couldn’t get his own back on life any other way than by voluntarily surrendering it. And Pettifer, by common consensus, had been a fighter, a man who squared up to life and lived it on his own terms.

  Conclusion, then: Pettifer had not known of his wife’s infidelity.

  And this was the only possible reason for suicide that had turned up—yet, Thanet reminded himself. The post-mortem result was still to come.

  Then there was Gemma Pettifer—Gemma Shade. The fact that she had two names seemed symbolic of her dual identity: at home in Sturrenden the happily married woman (with a touch of glamour, admittedly, for no one ever quite forgot her public persona), the respectable
doctor’s wife. And in the theatre world the cat on heat, the older woman with a taste for young men and a reputation for getting what she wanted irrespective of the damage it caused to those who got in her way. “Greedy” was the word Deborah had used, and if so it was understandable, considering the insecurity of Gemma’s early life. Deborah had found it astonishing that Gemma should have chosen to marry a country GP, but Thanet felt he could understand it. Medicine was a solid, respectable profession and Pettifer had been able to offer the added advantages of wealth and maturity. Add to that the fact that he had been prepared to allow Gemma complete freedom to pursue her career (and therefore, unknown to him, her lovers) and the proposition must have been irresistible to her.

  So, taking the hypothesis that Gemma had killed him, why should she have decided to throw all that security away? Had she become bored with Pettifer? Or, conversely, had she truly fallen in love with Lee? Suppose that, as in the classic murder triangle, she and Lee had wanted not only to be together but to get their hands on Pettifer’s considerable wealth—and had conspired together to do so … How had they done it, in view of the fact that Pettifer had not taken the overdose for several hours after Gemma left? Obviously, Thanet decided, they must have returned to Sturrenden later on in the evening, after Gemma’s dinner with her agent.

  He considered the mechanics of the idea. Gemma would have given Pettifer a sufficiently strong drug in the cocoa to send him off into a sound sleep. Then, later, she and Lee would return—by car perhaps. By then Pettifer would be deep in a drugged sleep and it would be a relatively simple matter to administer the overdose … But if that was how it had been done, how could Gemma possibly have known that Pettifer would conveniently develop a cold, thereby providing her with the opportunity to slip him the first dose?

  For a moment Thanet’s mind, poised between sleep and wakefulness, skittered off into a wildly imaginative explanation wherein Gemma somehow managed to get hold of cold germs and administer them to her husband at appropriate intervals before the night of the planned murder …

  With an effort Thanet dragged his thoughts back into logical channels. Don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. It wasn’t necessary for Pettifer to have had a cold at all, for Gemma to be able to give him that initial dose. She could originally have planned to give it to him in his tea and then, when he conveniently developed the cold symptoms, decided to use them to her own advantage. For that matter, the whole thing could have been unplanned, could have been set in motion by that cold of his. Seeing her chance, Gemma could have acted on impulse, grabbed it with both hands.

  Though of course, they had only Gemma’s word for it that Pettifer had had any cold symptoms at all. For some reason this seemed a significant thought, though Thanet couldn’t for the life of him see why. He felt consciousness slipping away as he endeavoured to concentrate on it. It was no good. It would have to wait until morning.

  Morning … Tomorrow … Tomorrow he would have to tackle Gemma, confront her with her adultery …

  He wasn’t looking forward to that.

  12

  When Thanet arrived at the office next morning he found Lineham engrossed in a report.

  “What’s that?” Thanet asked.

  “Handwriting report.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Not really.” Lineham handed it over.

  Thanet scanned it quickly, read it again more carefully and finally tossed it on to the desk in disgust. “A second opinion! That’ll mean another couple of days at least, before we’ll know for certain.”

  “We might not know even then,” Lineham pointed out. “There’s no guarantee that the second report’ll be any more conclusive than the first.”

  “True.” Thanet ran a hand through his hair. “I really was hoping that today we’d have a definite pointer one way or the other. I’m sick of working in a vacuum like this. Is the PM definitely scheduled for today?”

  “They’re doing it now. They started at eight-thirty so they should be finished soon.”

  “Good.”

  “There are three interesting bits of information that have come in, though. First, the bottle of port. According to Mrs Price, Mrs Pettifer gave it to her husband for his birthday. And the wine merchant confirms, we’ve checked. He remembers because Mrs Pettifer asked his advice in selecting it.”

  “So it’s not surprising her prints are on that, at least.”

  “The next thing is, I thought it might be useful to know the terms of Dr Pettifer’s will—I thought, if he did know his wife was being unfaithful to him, he might well have decided to cut her out.”

  “And?”

  “He made a new will on his marriage. There’s money left in trust for Andrew, of course, but all the rest goes to Mrs Pettifer. That will still stands and no changes had been discussed.”

  “Now that is interesting. What’s the third thing?”

  “Just before you came in this morning I had a call from PC Sparks.”

  “Yes, I know him.” Sparks was promising material. Thanet had had his eye on him for some time.

  “He’d heard that we’re taking a bit more than a routine interest in Dr Pettifer’s death and the long and the short of it is, he and PC May were on patrol duty in that area the night Pettifer died and around midnight there was a car parked near the entrance to the house next door to Pine Lodge. They noticed it because it was an interesting model, an old Morgan sports car. They didn’t think anything of it at the time, assumed it belonged to someone visiting in the area. They just commented briefly in passing and more or less forgot about it.”

  “Did they get the number?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Pity. Colour?”

  “Dark, that’s all.”

  Thanet reached for his pipe, began to fill it. “Sparks could be right, of course, there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for its being there, but …”

  “I was thinking, just before you arrived … If Mrs Pettifer and her boyfriend were in this together …”

  “He could have driven her down from London, you mean? Yes, the thought had crossed my mind. We’d better ring Miss Chivers. She’d probably know what sort of car Lee has at the moment, if he’s got one.”

  “I tried, sir. But she’s out for the day, apparently.”

  “I expect the Met could find out for us, without too much difficulty. We’ll give them a ring in a minute.”

  “Anyway, as I say, I was thinking,” Lineham said. “Just say she’d been biding her time, waiting for the right moment …” Eagerly he presented the scenario which Thanet had worked out in bed the night before. “… By midnight Pettifer would have been sufficiently muzzy not to cotton on to what was happening when she roused him to give him the overdose,” he finished triumphantly.

  Thanet had been lighting his pipe as he listened patiently and now he waited for a moment before he commented, pressing his match box over the bowl to get it drawing properly. Eventually, satisfied, he put the matches back in his pocket and sat back in his chair, waving away the coils of smoke that were obscuring his view of Lineham. “But if she did all that, why be stupid enough to put the whole scheme in jeopardy by taking Lee back to her hotel and spending the night with him? I know they took care not to be seen, but they must have realised the risk was there.”

  Lineham looked crestfallen. “True.”

  “And why be so idiotic as to leave her fingerprints all over the glass and so on. Everyone knows about fingerprints these days. And why be so vehement in insisting it couldn’t have been suicide? Why show us that cruise booking, for instance? Why not just keep mum and hope we’d swallow the idea of suicide—hook, line and sinker?”

  “Because she knew we’d be bound to find out he had no reason to kill himself and we’d get suspicious anyway? So she thought she’d put herself in the clear by getting in first?” Lineham pulled a face. “No, it’s too feeble, isn’t it?”

  “It is, rather. But don’t think I’m dismissing her entirely. W
e both know how apparently insuperable objections have a habit of melting away. We just haven’t enough information at the moment. Perhaps the PM results will help.” Thanet looked at his watch. “Surely they won’t be long now … While we’re waiting, could you give Mrs Pettifer a ring, tell her we’ll be out to see her shortly?”

  Lineham had only just replaced the receiver when the phone rang. He snatched it up, listened.

  “Doc Mallard,” he said, handing it to Thanet.

  Thanet listened intently for a minute or so and then said, “Yes. Yes, I see. They’re positive about that? Right. Oh, just one other point. Was there any sign of a head cold? Yes, a head cold … I see. Thanks. ’Bye.” He put the phone down. “Doc Mallard was particularly interested, so he went along to watch. It’s been confirmed that Pettifer died of an overdose, but of course the stomach contents have yet to be analysed.”

  “Did he have anything wrong with him?”

  “As far as his health was concerned? No, nothing. He was unusually fit and there was no sign of organic disease.”

  “Nothing creepy, like leukaemia, which might not show up?”

  “Well, apparently, if it were sufficiently advanced, leukaemia would show up—in an increase in the size of the spleen. In any case, Doc Mallard was his usual scrupulous self and got them to do an immediate blood test, in case the disease was in its very early stages. And there was nothing … I think we’d better play safe, Mike, arrange that the stomach contents are sent to London rather than to County Hall, just in case we have got a murder on our hands. Incidentally, there was one interesting point. There was no sign of a head cold, either.”

  “How could they tell?”

  “There’d be something called hyperaemia—reddening—of the nasal passages. Odd … only last night I was thinking, no one else noticed that he had any sign of a cold—I specifically asked.”

  “But why on earth should Mrs Pettifer say he had a cold if he didn’t?”

  “I really can’t imagine.”

  “Perhaps he was putting it on, to prevent her going to London.”