‘Nice spot. What about the fiance? P.R.O. at Shell-Mex?’
‘He doesn’t exist.’
‘Why did you get married?’
‘On an impulse.’
‘No question of love?’
‘Oh, that. Yes, I suppose so. But chiefly, well . . . I like him. He’s charming. Good company. Makes a woman feel good and pleased with-herself. And I was tired of hotel work and just the odd dates that don’t develop beyond a tatty weekend in the country. I’m thirty-five, you know. You begin to think about security, home, kids. God, it sounds conventional, but that’s what all women are at heart.’
‘Freeman doesn’t sound the security-giving type. Pinching from his sister, and a few others; a spell in stir for some City company swindle. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have been taken in.’
‘I’m impulsive. That’s why I’m here. I trust you.’
‘Carry on then.’
‘He said he was on the point of a really big deal. Something that would make his fortune. The idea was to keep the marriage secret. He didn’t want publicity and he might have got some. He’s a bit of a name in Fleet Street. He told me he was going off for two or three months, but he would send for me. We’d live abroad for the rest of our lives.’
‘Where?’
‘He didn’t say. I was just to trust him and wait for his call.’
‘Well, why not carry on and do that?’
She got up and helped herself to another whisky.
‘Because, frankly, I’m frightened. For two reasons.’
‘Number one?’
She nodded at the Evening Standard on the table at my side.
‘I’ve put a mark around a news item in the paper.’
She had. It was on the back page. Just a few lines, announcing the discovery of the body of an unknown man, strangled, at Ash Cottage, Crundale, near Wye in Kent.
I said, ‘He was in the chemical closet when I got down there. The type with the London-Scottish tie.’
‘God.’ She breathed the word quietly but there was all the feeling in the world in it.
‘You don’t like being mixed up in murder? Particularly if you fancy Freeman might be involved?’
‘You’re bloody right.’ There was a flash of the forceful, competent manner I’d known at the hotel.
‘Point number two?’
She hesitated, took a sip of her whisky, and then said, ‘This afternoon I had a phone call at the hotel. Some man, foreign, I think, who wouldn’t give his name, but said he was a close friend of Martin’s. He said that if I heard in any way that Martin was dead, I wasn’t to believe it. He was speaking for Martin, and said that Martin would, as he promised, eventually send for me.’ She looked hard at me. ‘I really am frightened, you know. I don’t want to get mixed up in anything . . . well, as I said, one of the chief reasons for marrying him was this security business. But I don’t want that at any price.’
‘So you came to me?’
‘Who else? I mean, you struck me as being a decent sort. You’re already looking for Martin . . . I just had to have someone to tell this to.’
‘You told all this to Mrs Stankowski?’
‘No. Only that I was married to Martin. What am I going to do?’
‘Go home, take three sleeping pills and get a good night’s sleep.’
‘But what about the police?’
‘If they get round to you—about the cottage, I mean—then tell them everything you’ve told me if you want to be out in the clear. Mind you, if you’re stuck on waiting for Martin Freeman to send for you, then you’ll have to make your own decision how much you tell.’
‘And do I tell about you?’
‘Why not? I didn’t murder old London-Scottish, and I’m just trying to trace Martin Freeman. However, if they happen to catch on fast to you, you might stall mentioning me until after midday tomorrow. Not that I think they will be so fast.’
‘Why midday tomorrow?’
‘Because I’m going to Paris on professional business and don’t want to be delayed.’
I stood up and took her arm and led her to the door.
‘Don’t fuss. You’ve done nothing wrong. Just speak the truth and shame the devil. And, anyway, you’ll have a new wad of material for the book Why I Sometimes Don’t Like Men.’
She paused at the open door, smiled and just touched my arm.
‘You’re a good guy. Thank you.’
‘If you get time, put that in writing and sign it. I’m often in need of a reference.’
She grinned, adjusted her beret with that nice little movement woman have with hats, and I knew she was recovering fast. Then she held something out to me.
‘Would you let Mrs Stankowski have this sometime? You needn’t say where you got it.’
I had the gold ring with the jade stone in my hand.
‘I’ll give it to her tonight,’ I said.
*
I didn’t. I drove, or rather was driven, in the Rolls around to Upper Grosvenor Street just after seven. I wore a midnight-blue dinner jacket, onyx cuff-links my sister had given me, and one loop of my back braces was held on to my trousers with a safety pin because the button had gone.
I went up in the lift feeling like young Lochinvar coming out of the West—S.W.1, actually. This Freeman thing was developing nicely along the therapeutic lines I needed. Could be, too, that there might come a moment when in addition to my Stankowski fee, there might be a chance to pick up some side money. Oh, yes, I was recovering fast.
The Scots number on opening the door to young Lochinvar soon put paid to any nonsense about so faithful in love and so dauntless in war, and she didn’t care a damn that through all the wild Border his steed was the best. She’d have known the Rolls was hired anyway.
She put a photograph in my hand.
‘I’m to give you this and her apologies for being called away for the evening.’ That’s a translation. I worked it out while looking at the photograph—of Freeman—which I’d forgotten
