Element of Doubt Read online

  Pick your moment. Don’t, above all, choose a time when you’re both upset, in the middle of an argument. Easier said than done. If you were working long hours, as he was, time with your wife was at a premium, especially time alone with her. If you were tired after a heavy day, and she was already in bed and asleep when you got home, she was scarcely going to appreciate being woken up and asked to have a serious discussion, in the middle of the night. And mornings were always such a rush, with both of them getting ready to go to work, and the children around … But I must make time, he told himself fiercely. We can’t go on like this.

  All day, whenever he had allowed his concentration to slip, a wave of misery had washed over him at the memory of the rift between them. There had been arguments before, of course, times when one or the other of them – sometimes both – had been tired, contentious or on edge. But except for those distant, premonitory rumblings seven years ago, when Joan had chosen probation as her career, there had never been anything as serious as this. He could certainly never remember a time when she had gone off to bed without even saying good night to him – it had always been a matter of principle with them to follow the advice from Ephesians 4:26 drummed into them by both sets of parents: Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. It had, they found, never failed to work.

  I can’t let this happen, he thought. There must be some way around it.

  But if there was, he couldn’t see it. Perhaps he should simply climb down, make an abject apology and leave it at that?

  But why should he?

  If a man close to the victim disappears virtually at the same time as a murder is committed, the inference is obvious: there is a strong possibility that in some way he is involved. Surely Joan ought to be able to see that, after giving Damon twenty-four hours’ grace, Thanet had had no option but to publicise the boy’s disappearance?

  He had arrived home. Joan usually liked to be in bed by half past eleven, but the muted glow behind the curtained window of the living room told him that she was still up. Thanet got out of the car, locked it, then stood for a moment, hesitating. Despite his eagerness for a reconciliation he found that he was reluctant to go in and face her.

  It was very quiet; only the occasional roar of a distant car and the orange globes of the street lamps punctuated the wan midsummer darkness. The full moon was encircled by a band of milky, opalescent cloud and even as he watched a few high, ragged wisps drifted across it. Rain tomorrow?

  Light suddenly spilled across the front lawn as a curtain in the living room was pulled back, and Joan peered out. She must have heard the car and was checking that it was indeed her husband out there, not thieves on the prowl. She drew the curtain again and a few moments later the front door opened.

  ‘Luke?’

  ‘Coming.’

  She was wearing the blue silk kimono he had given her for her last birthday. As he came up to her she said, ‘I wondered who it was, lurking about out there.’

  Good resolutions were at once swamped by an irrational uprush of indignation. ‘I was not “lurking”!’ He brushed past her.

  ‘Sorry! Lingering, then.’ She followed him into the kitchen. ‘D’you want anything to eat?’

  ‘No, thanks. I picked something up in the canteen.’ He took a can of lager out of the fridge, held it up. ‘D’you want one?’ The note of forced politeness in his voice gave him a jolt. What was he doing? Here he was, presented with the very opportunity for which he had been hoping. The fact that Joan had waited up for him showed that she must be in a conciliatory mood.

  She was shaking her head. ‘I had a cup of tea, half an hour ago.’

  He put the can down on the table and reached for her hands. ‘Joan?’

  She returned his gaze steadily, defiantly, almost. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’ve got to talk.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Sorry I was so bad-tempered just now.’

  A little shrug, a barely perceptible movement of her shoulders. ‘That’s OK.’ She attempted a smile. ‘You’ve had a long day.’

  ‘No reason why I should take it out on you … Truce?’

  The smile was warmer now. ‘Truce.’

  He tugged her towards him and gave her a brief hug. ‘Let’s go into the other room, shall we?’

  He kept his arm around her as they crossed the hall. Surely, with goodwill on both sides they ought to be able to sort this out? Suddenly he felt more optimistic than he had all day. They sat down side by side, his arm falling from her shoulders as she curled away from him into her favourite position in the corner of the settee, legs tucked beneath her. The coffee table nearby was littered with photographs.

  She gestured towards them. ‘I really must get around to sticking them into an album.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He took a long, grateful drink of lager and leaned forward to set the can down on the table. There it was, spread out before him, a pictorial record of their married life together: their summer wedding, honeymoon in the Dordogne, Bridget’s christening, Ben’s, holiday photographs, children’s parties, family gatherings at Christmas … He picked a photograph out at random: Ben and himself, in the garden. He was squatting beside his son, who was holding a bright red balloon on the end of a string. It had been taken on Ben’s second birthday, he remembered. What had made Joan indulge in this orgy of nostalgia? he wondered. Regret for happier days gone by, fear of the future, or a need to reassure herself that with so much shared happiness they had a solid foundation on which to build a bridge over the chasm that now yawned between them?

  He risked a glance at her. She was watching him solemnly. What was she thinking? She was as apprehensive as he, he realised. How best to begin?

  ‘I don’t know where to start,’ he said helplessly.

  She shrugged. ‘There’s no point in beating about the bush. Let’s start with the TVS appeal, shall we?’

  ‘Why not. All right. Let’s. You first.’

  ‘I just don’t know why you acted so … precipitately.’ Her tone was reasonable, unaccusatory. ‘I should have thought it could easily have waited another twenty-four hours, if not longer.’

  She was, he could see, trying very hard to follow all the precepts he had been laying down for himself. His own voice echoed in his head. Try to see her point of view. ‘I don’t see that I had any choice. I couldn’t – I still can’t – believe that it was sheer coincidence that Damon disappeared on the very afternoon his mother was murdered. I’m convinced there must be some connection.’

  ‘But as it turned out, the appeal had no effect. He still hasn’t turned up.’

  ‘That’s beside the point. We couldn’t know that. The point is, we had to try.’

  ‘I’m not saying you didn’t have to try, but why then, at that particular moment? Why not give him a little more time?’

  ‘But why should I have?’ In spite of himself a note of indignation, of belligerence, almost, was creeping back into his voice. ‘Look, Joan, I think what you’re really saying is that I should have treated him differently simply because he was – is – your client.’

  Her frown deepened. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  She hesitated. She was, he could see, making a real effort to be honest with herself. ‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted at last.

  ‘You see, what I had to ask myself was, if Damon was not your client, would I have put out that appeal when I did? And the answer was yes, I would.’

  ‘Are you sure, Luke?’

  ‘Yes. Yes! Of course I am.’ But, was he? He glanced at Joan. She was frowning down at her lap, rolling the sash of her kimono round and round her forefinger. ‘You don’t believe me.’

  A tight little shake of the head. ‘It’s just that …’

  ‘What?’

  She looked up, met his accusatory gaze. ‘Oh never mind. Forget it.’

  ‘No!’

  There was a brief silence. Thanet told himself that nothing would be achieved and everything might be lost if he cou
ldn’t control his irritation, and he took a deep calming breath before saying, ‘Look, I’m sorry, love. We’ll get nowhere if we just stop talking every time things are getting sticky. Maybe you’re right and I just can’t see it yet. So tell me what you think, and we’ll take it from there.’

  She looked at him doubtfully, then said, ‘Well, there wasn’t any reason to believe that he might have committed the crime, was there?’

  ‘No.’ He tried hard to be fair. ‘There still isn’t, for that matter.’

  ‘So … Did you feel that you were stuck without his evidence?’

  ‘No, not exactly.’

  ‘That you couldn’t progress any further without talking to him?’

  ‘No, but …’

  Joan shook her head. ‘Then I’m sorry, I still can’t see why you couldn’t have waited a little longer. It’s not like you, Luke. You knew the boy might not know his mother had been killed … What a way to hear news like that! With the implication that he might somehow be involved.’

  ‘There was no such implication!’

  ‘Oh, come on, darling. What do you think people think, when that sort of appeal goes out? “The police are anxious to talk to …” It’s the first thing they think of, that that person is under suspicion.’

  ‘I can’t help it, if people misinterpret.’

  ‘Luke,’ said Joan softly. ‘A minute ago you asked me if what I was saying was that I thought you should have treated him differently because he was my client. I’m still not sure of the answer to that. Now I would like to ask you … Do you think you did treat him differently because he was my client?’

  Thanet recognised the prickle of shock which ran through him in reaction to her question; he had experienced it before, in facing an unpalatable truth. He suppressed the instinctive ‘No!’ which sprang to his lips. He owed it to Joan, to himself, to both of them, to try to match his honesty with hers.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said at last. ‘But if so, I certainly wasn’t aware of it, at the time.’

  ‘I didn’t suppose for a moment that you were. But,’ and her tone was gentle, ‘that isn’t quite the point, is it, darling?’

  ‘What is, then?’

  ‘The point is, that – assuming that he did in fact hear of the appeal – it’s Damon who’s been the loser, as a result of our private … war, conflict, disagreement … whatever you like to call it.’

  That was true. The thought pained him. He had acted unprofessionally and an innocent boy might have suffered. But why had he really gone ahead when he did? It wasn’t enough, simply to say that he had overreacted. If Joan had been a little more forthcoming, in the first place, it might never have happened, he thought defensively. He said so.

  ‘You mean on Thursday night, when you wanted me to talk to you about Damon?’

  ‘Well I did feel you could have been a little more helpful.’ Thanet’s sense of grievance had returned in full force. ‘After all, I’ve always talked freely about my cases to you, knowing that I could trust you implicitly never to talk about them. Surely you could have done the same?’

  ‘But it wasn’t the same, was it?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Our cases have never overlapped before. I’ve never needed to use any of the things you’ve told me, in my work.’

  ‘But this was a murder case. A woman had been killed …’

  ‘I know. D’you think it was easy for me, to withhold information which could have been useful to you? But I had to, don’t you see? I couldn’t betray my client. It’s a question of … well, of loyalty, I suppose.’

  ‘And what about your loyalty to me?’ The words were out before Thanet could stop them.

  ‘But that’s different, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course it is!’ Joan was beginning to get angry too, now. ‘Have you ever had any reason to doubt my loyalty to you, in our private life?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Then just tell me this. I said a minute ago that I’ve never needed to use any of the things you’ve told me, in my work. If I had, if a client of mine had been involved in one of your cases as a prime suspect, would you then have been prepared to talk to me so freely? Have you in fact talked to me as freely, in this case, even though Damon is not seriously under suspicion?’

  ‘I’ve scarcely seen you.’

  ‘Maybe not. But even if you had, I bet you would have edited what you’d told me.’

  Thanet didn’t answer. She was right and they both knew it.

  ‘And tell me this too. If, on Thursday, I had in fact given you any information about Damon upon which you could act, would you have acted upon it?’

  He had to admit that he would. And Joan would have known that he had betrayed her confidence. There seemed to be no end to the complications and ramifications of this issue. Perhaps, after all, hers was the wisest course.

  ‘I suppose I would.’ He wasn’t proud of the grudging reluctance in his tone, but at least he had managed to admit that he was wrong. He forced himself to say it. ‘You’re right, it could have caused all sorts of difficulties.’

  She sank back against the settee, as if the argument had sapped her energy. ‘I’ve always dreaded this happening, you know.’

  ‘What, in particular?’

  ‘Clashing, over our work. You warned me, didn’t you, right at the beginning. And I was so confident we could handle it, so …’ She shrugged. ‘So naive, I suppose. The truth was, I wanted so much to go into probation that I just didn’t want to listen to anything that might put me off.’

  ‘And have you ever regretted it?’ But he knew the answer.

  ‘No, never. I really enjoy it – though “enjoy” isn’t perhaps the right word. I find it satisfying, fulfilling.’

  And that, thought Thanet, with a sudden spurt of insight, was what he had never really been able to accept: that his wife should need anything beside himself, their children and their home, to feel fulfilled. Was he really so egocentric? He professed to love Joan, but if he truly loved her he would want above all to enable her to develop every aspect of her potential. True, he had paid lip-service to the idea, but even his capitulation had been brought about by selfish motives: he had known that, if he didn’t give in, he would bring about a breach between them that would never be healed.

  Was this, then, the root cause of their difficulty? Not that she was wilful, lacking in loyalty or understanding, but that he was childishly self-centred, jealous and spiteful. He saw now that it was he, not she, who had erected that barrier between them. From the moment he realised, on Thursday, that one of Joan’s clients was a possible suspect in this case, he had anticipated trouble. Worse, it was almost as though, deep down inside, he had welcomed it.

  Had he needed so much to be proved right in warning Joan against her choice of profession that after all these years he had seized the first opportunity of trying to force her to admit that it had been a mistake?

  The thought made him squirm.

  She was watching him apprehensively, as if she were aware of the private struggle going on inside him and were nervous of the outcome. He felt deeply ashamed that he, who had always prided himself on his tolerance, his compassion, his understanding of others, could have been so prejudiced, so punitive, so blinkered in this, the most important area of his life. Humble, too, that Joan, who was so wise, had continued to love him despite it all.

  It wasn’t enough, he realised, to attempt to come to terms with this unwelcome insight himself. He owed it to her to bring it out into the open. Perhaps, then, they might at last attain the peace which had always eluded them over this issue before. He turned to her, took her hand.

  ‘I know you do. Find your work fulfilling, I mean. And I suppose …’ Oh, God, it was hard, very hard, to expose one’s weaknesses to anyone, especially hard when all along he had felt that he was the one with the grievance. He tried again. ‘I suppose that’s what I’ve found so hard to accept. That I – we – weren’t enough for you.�
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  He could tell that she knew how much the admission had cost him.

  ‘Yes. Men do find that difficult, I think. Women have always accepted the importance of a man’s work, made allowances for it.’

  As she had, he thought – all those late nights, broken promises, last-minute phone calls, cancelled excursions … A policeman’s wife was called upon to make more sacrifices than most. To think that he had always prided himself on overcoming this problem by talking about his work to her, thinking that this would compensate for the demands it made upon her. How condescending could you get! Why should she, an intelligent woman with so much to offer, have been expected to be satisfied with the crumbs that fell from his table?

  ‘I think,’ Joan was saying, ‘that the next generation will find it easier. Ours was brought up in the transition period, and there have been a lot of casualties along the way.’

  And we could well have been one of them. It was a chilling thought.

  ‘I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?’

  She opened her arms to him. ‘Need you ask?’

  NINETEEN

  Thanet set the tray down on the dressing table and drew back the curtains, frowning at the dismal scene outside. The ring around the moon had fulfilled its promise and it was raining heavily, a continuous drenching downpour discharged by an unbroken ceiling of leaden cloud. But this morning not even this dreary prospect could lower his spirits for long. Their reconciliation last night had been sweet indeed, and today he was glowing with the well-being of a man restored to full health after a long and serious illness.

  Joan stirred and opened one eye. Quickly, Thanet picked up the tray and crossed to stand at attention beside the bed.