Puppet for a Corpse Read online

  “Ah …” Andrew pounced at last on a crumpled sheet of paper. “I knew I had it somewhere.” He glanced at it, murmured, “Yes”, with satisfaction, then laid it on the table to smooth out the creases before handing it to Thanet together with the suicide note. “There you are,” he said triumphantly. “He always spelt my name like that. With an E.”

  Thanet looked. “My dear Andie,” the letter began. No possibility of typing error, it was handwritten. He glanced at the note left for Mrs Pettifer, in order to verify what he clearly remembered. “Make it up to Andy for me,” Dr Pettifer had written.

  “It’s a very minute difference,” Thanet said, handing both letters to Lineham. Though he was well aware that it could be a significant one.

  Andrew was shaking his head vehemently as he stuffed his possessions back into his pockets. “He’d never have spelt my name with a Y,” he said. “Never.”

  “With due respect, Andrew, your father could hardly have been in a normal state of mind at the time.”

  “I don’t care what state of mind he was in. He just wouldn’t have spelt it like that. He never, ever has. Anyway, you can check, surely, with the handwriting experts. They’ll tell you.”

  “We will, of course,” said Thanet.

  “Look,” said Andrew, suddenly fierce. “Don’t humour me, right? Are you trying to say I don’t know what my own father would have written? That’s not the only example, you know,” he said, pointing at the piece of paper in Thanet’s hand, “I’ve got dozens more. Hundreds. I’ll send you the lot if you like and then you’ll have to believe me. Because you’ll find that never, not in a single one of them, has my father ever spelled my name with a Y on the end. And the interesting thing is, of course, that no one else has seen those letters, no one else would know that, would they? And nobody else would realise, because they sound the same, don’t they? They sound just the bloody same …” His voice had been rising and now, suddenly, it broke and tears gushed forth, streamed down his face. He dashed them away angrily with the back of one hand, then went to stand looking out of the window, shoulders twitching as he struggled to regain control of himself.

  Dr Lowrie took a step towards him and then checked, aware no doubt that any display of sympathy would simply make the battle more difficult.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  Finally, when Thanet judged that the boy was ready, he said, “You do realise the implications of what you’re saying, don’t you, Andrew?”

  Andrew swung around, his eyes hard. “I’m not a complete fool, Inspector. And it seems to me you won’t have far to look.” His mouth twisted as he glanced up at the ceiling.

  “Andy!” Dr Lowrie sounded shocked. “You can’t realise what you’re saying!” And to Thanet, “He’s overwrought, doesn’t realise the implications …”

  “Please, Dr Lowrie!” Andrew broke in. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m not a child of five, you know. OK, I know I’m not an adult, either, but I do think I’m old enough to have an opinion of my own, and frankly, that’s it.”

  “What on earth is going on?”

  They all turned to the door. Gemma Pettifer, in a delicately pretty blue robe with deep ruffles at neck and hem was standing with folds of the soft material clutched just below her breast, emphasising her distended stomach. She looked slightly dazed and flushed with sleep. “I heard shouting … Oh, Andy,” she said, noticing him for the first time. “My dear …” She released her robe and advanced, hands outstretched, to greet him. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “So very sorry …”

  “And so you should be, you cow,” shouted Andrew backing away from her, his hard-won self-control flying out of the window. “Keep away from me!”

  “Andy!” Dr Lowrie and Gemma Pettifer spoke in identical tones of horrified disbelief. Gemma checked in her advance and glanced uncertainly at the doctor, who put a hand protectively on her arm.

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” he said hurriedly. “He’s upset, naturally …”

  “Upset? OF COURSE I’M BLOODY UPSET!” bellowed Andrew. “He was my father, wasn’t he? MY FATHER, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!”

  “Your adoptive father, actually,” said Gemma crisply, each precisely articulated word as deliberately hurtful as a slap on the face.

  There was a shocked silence. He’s right, Thanet found himself thinking furiously. She really is a cow. And in any case, this has gone on long enough.

  “Take Mrs Pettifer back upstairs, please, Sergeant,” he said, seizing her elbow with one hand and Lineham’s with the other and giving them both a sharp push towards the door.

  Mrs Pettifer opened her mouth to protest and then, glancing at the stony faces of the three men, evidently thought better of it. In silence she gathered up the skirt of her robe and swept out of the room, followed by Lineham.

  Thanet glanced at Andrew’s still, white face and decided to leave Lowrie to comfort the boy as best he could. “I’m going to have a word with Mrs Price,” he said. At the door he paused. “Andrew, I wasn’t just humouring you, you know. If you’re right, I’ll get to the bottom of it somehow. That I promise you.”

  7

  “I wish everyone was as well-organised as this,” said Thanet.

  He and Lineham were going through Dr Pettifer’s desk. Accustomed as they were to the chaotic clutter which most people leave behind them, they were impressed by Pettifer’s management of his affairs. There were no unpaid bills, no unanswered letters and not a single slip of paper, it seemed, out of place. A row of box files neatly labelled FUEL, INSURANCE, EDUCATION, HOUSEHOLD EXP stood on the ledge at the top of the old roll-top desk.

  Thanet reached for the education file. Predictably, this related to Andrew and contained not only correspondence with the school but mementoes of the boy’s childhood—hand-made Christmas and birthday cards, drawings and letters in crooked, childish script. Thanet picked up the last bundle of papers in the file: school reports. He slipped off the elastic band, skimmed through them. Andrew was a bright boy, it seemed, hardworking and popular. His mother’s death had hit him hard:

  … Andrew has been subdued and somewhat withdrawn this term and there is no doubt that it is taking him some time to recover from his mother’s death. It is therefore not surprising that the standard of his work has slipped, but I am confident that in time he will regain his old sparkle and once more attain the excellent standards which he has achieved in the past.

  How long would it take Andrew to regain that “sparkle” this time? Thanet wondered. There was a limit to the number of blows any one person could assimilate without suffering a permanent degree of damage. To be abandoned by not one but two sets of parents was hard indeed. Andrew now had no one of his own left—only a stepmother whom he clearly loathed. Thanet passed the report to Lineham.

  Lineham read it, then snorted. “If Pettifer did kill himself, you really would have thought he’d have considered the effect it’d have on Andrew, wouldn’t you? He must have been fond of the boy, or he wouldn’t have kept all this stuff. Though if you think about it …”

  “What?”

  “Well, isn’t it another argument against suicide? Being fond of the boy and realising the effect it would have on him?”

  Thanet sighed. “I don’t know. People can be overwhelmingly selfish when it comes to personal happiness—or unhappiness, for that matter. How are you getting on with those drawers?”

  “Nothing interesting so far. Mostly supplies of stationery, that sort of thing. This one’s locked, though,” Lineham added, giving a sharp tug.

  Thanet thought for a moment. “That bunch of keys upstairs in Dr Pettifer’s room, on the chair. Are they still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go and fetch them, will you?”

  Lineham was back in a minute or so.

  “Ah,” Thanet said with satisfaction as one of the keys turned sweetly in the lock. “Now then, what have we here? Details of his financial position, by the look of it.” Together they pored o
ver the sheaf of papers: bank statements, lists of share-holdings and amounts of money invested, together with dates. Thanet whistled softly as he glanced down the immaculate records. “The bank manager wasn’t exaggerating when he said, ‘healthy’, was he?”

  “Beats me why he bothered to work at all, with that lot,” said Lineham.

  “He was a dedicated doctor, that’s why. Lowrie told us that.”

  “Catch me,” said Lineham. “I’d be off to an island in the sun.”

  “Would you? I wonder. Haven’t you come across any personal stuff at all?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Funny. Let’s take a look at the rest.”

  But neither of the remaining two drawers yielded anything of interest.

  “Nothing personal at all, apart from the stuff about Andrew,” said Thanet. “Nothing relating to his first marriage, for example.”

  “I did come across the marriage certificate in one of the other drawers. But that’s all.”

  “If it wasn’t for that, his first wife might never have existed. No letters, no photographs of her—for that matter, no photographs at all, except for that one.” This was a large, framed photograph of Gemma Pettifer, a glossy studio portrait. “No family photographs, even … Surely everyone accumulates those? Is there anywhere else he could have kept them? A photograph album, perhaps?”

  “We certainly haven’t come across one. I know you’re always interested in that sort of thing and keep my eyes open.”

  “Tell me, Mike … Have you got a desk at home?”

  “Not a desk, exactly. A couple of drawers in a side table my mother gave us.”

  “Tidy?”

  Lineham grinned. “Louise is always complaining there’s so much stuff in them they won’t shut properly. I go through them from time to time, weed things out a bit …” He stopped. “I see what you mean,” he said slowly.

  “Quite. Pettifer may have been tidy-minded, but even the best-organised of men have odds and ends lying about waiting to be filed or dealt with. There’s nothing like that here. And together with the fact that there’s nothing personal at all …”

  “He’s cleared it all out recently, you mean.”

  “Looks like it, doesn’t it?”

  “In which case …”

  “It’s back to suicide again,” agreed Thanet.

  They contemplated the desk in silence.

  “If he did kill himself,” Lineham said reluctantly, “then I suppose it would have been in character for him to have got rid of any personal stuff. I mean, from what we’ve heard of him, he wasn’t the sort of man to relish the idea of someone poking about in his papers after he’d gone.”

  “I agree.” Thanet stood up. “Let’s go and have a word with Mrs Price.”

  The housekeeper’s eyes narrowed at Thanet’s question. “Now that you mention it, yes, Dr Pettifer did clear out his desk. I remember because he asked me for a plastic sack and later I saw him carry it down the garden and have a bonfire.”

  “When was this?”

  “Let me see, it must be, oh, a good month ago, I should think.”

  “A month!”

  “Easily, yes. Yes, I remember now, I was bottling the Victorias when he came through the kitchen and I always do that in the middle of September.”

  Five weeks ago, then.

  “Where do you burn your rubbish?”

  “At the bottom of the garden, behind the laurel hedge.”

  Little point in looking, after all this time, but Thanet and Lineham went to see for themselves just the same. The sky was overcast, the wind had dropped again and the air was still and heavy with moisture. Fallen leaves from a towering copper beech lay in great crimson swatches upon the dew-heavy grass and dahlias, chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies stood out with the brilliance and clarity of gem-stones in the fading light.

  The laurel hedge was tall and thick, screening the vegetable garden from the house. A narrow concrete path bisected the neat rows of autumn cauliflowers and brussels sprouts and led to a metal incinerator beside a compost heap.

  “Looks as though they’ve got a gardener,” Lineham said, nodding at the weed-free soil.

  “Pity. At this time of the year he’d have been burning rubbish regularly a couple of times a week.”

  They contemplated the incinerator, empty of all but a few charred twigs.

  “Five weeks ago!” Lineham said. “Could anybody plan his own suicide as far ahead as that?”

  “Perhaps there’s no connection.” But Thanet couldn’t really believe that. No man totally destroys his past if he can visualise a future. Thanet shook his head, hard, as if to try to dissipate his confusion. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got to have a breathing space, try to sort things out a bit, in my mind.” His need to get away was physical too. His nostrils suddenly seemed full of the stench of decay, the autumn garden permeated with a sense of mortality.

  “We’ll go back to the office and do our reports, like good little boys,” he said. “Getting things down on paper might help.”

  But he doubted it.

  8

  Before he reached the front door, Thanet could hear the television blaring forth. He frowned. Joan never watched television until after supper, nor did she ever turn the volume up so high. The children must still be up and Joan with Mrs Markham again.

  He glanced angrily at the house next door before letting himself in, his morning’s resolution to have it out with Joan resurrecting itself and hardening. He was further incensed to find both Bridget and Ben watching a completely unsuitable documentary on violence in Northern Ireland.

  “Come on, you two,” he said, dropping his coat on a chair and crossing at once to switch off the set. “It’s long past your bedtime.”

  They must have been tired because there were no cries of protest. They simply turned dazed faces towards him and scrambled to their feet, putting up their arms to embrace him.

  “Mummy next door?” he said.

  They nodded and Ben reached into the pocket of his jeans.

  “I saved this for you, Daddy.”

  Thanet smiled and accepted the sticky, unwrapped sweet, liberally coated with fluff. “Thank you, Ben,” he said gravely. “Lovely. D’you mind if I save it for after supper?”

  Ben shook his head and Thanet placed the sweet ceremoniously on the mantelpiece. Then they all went upstairs, hand in hand.

  Ben was in bed and Thanet was kneeling on the bathroom floor drying Bridget when he heard the front door slam. A moment later Joan came upstairs in a rush.

  “I’m sorry, darling,” she said, stooping to kiss the top of his head, “I just couldn’t get away.”

  “Do you realise,” Thanet said, keeping his anger damped down and his voice as conversational as possible for Bridget’s sake, “that those were the first words you spoke to me this morning, too?”

  Joan compressed her lips. Neither the anger nor the reproach had escaped her. “Ben in bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll just go along and say goodnight, then I’ll get supper. It’s all prepared, it won’t be long.”

  Thanet realised why when he saw what it was: sausage and chips. Again. Gone were the halcyon days of steak and kidney puddings, delectable desserts. Before she started working full-time Joan had been an excellent cook and the evening meal had been one of the highlights of Thanet’s day. Now his anger on the children’s behalf was fuelled by the thought that if Joan hadn’t spent so much time next door he wouldn’t be eating such a dreary meal. It was about time she got her priorities right, he told himself furiously.

  “You’ll give yourself indigestion if you go on eating as fast as that,” Joan said.

  The rebuke was the last straw. Thanet looked at his plate, then laid down his knife and fork. “D’you know what the children were doing when I came in this evening?”

  “Watching television, I imagine.” Joan’s tone was defensive.

  “Precisely. Watching boys not much older than Sprig
hurling petrol bombs at soldiers in the streets of Belfast …”

  Joan bit her lip. “I didn’t realise. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! That’s all you ever seem to say these days!”

  “Only because you’re always going on at me,” Joan retaliated.

  “Now wait a minute. You mean, you don’t really feel sorry at all? If it weren’t for my attitude, you wouldn’t? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No. Not exactly. Well, I don’t know … Oh darling, that’s not true. I do know what you’re complaining about and you’re right, I know that too. I know I shouldn’t be spending so much time with Mrs Markham, but I just don’t seem to be able to get out of it.”

  Her capitulation disarmed him. “But why not?” he said, more gently. “I really just don’t understand why not.”

  “Well, because she’s so … pathetic. So helpless. I told you, her husband used to do everything for her. Do you realise she’s never had to pay a household bill in her life, or keep any kind of budget … He used to organise the finances, say what they could or couldn’t afford in the way of holiday, clothes, outings … She’s absolutely lost without him. She just doesn’t know how to begin to organise her own life.”

  “Then, without wishing to sound hard, isn’t it about time she learned?”

  “But that’s what I’m trying to help her to do!”

  “Are you? Are you, really? Come on darling, be honest with yourself.” Thanet’s anger had evaporated now but he knew that it was important, for all their sakes, that he and Joan should settle this issue one way or the other. “Can you truthfully say she’s much more independent now than she was a year ago?”

  Joan sighed. “I suppose not. But what can I do, Luke? I try, I really do try very hard to get her to do things herself, but she just says, ‘Could you do it, dear, you’re so much quicker at it than I am.’ Or, ‘What a pity it takes so long to get to the library. It’s such a long walk to the bus stop and then you have to wait around in the cold for so long …’, and before I know where I am I’m offering to change her books for her on the way home …”