Merrily looked at him contemptuously as he entered the sitting-room.
‘Where’s the sewing machine?’ she asked.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Graham enjoyed the conference. It was like being back at school. Though the class was made up of international personnel experts, though the surroundings were the impersonal, dust-repellent luxury of a new hotel, though the equipment included videos, computers and interpreters, it was still the values of school which prevailed. What counted were the questions raised after each dissertation, the points brought up in discussion groups, and in supplying these Graham, with his quick wits and lack of real commitment to the subject was able to excel. He also had the comforting sensation that all the delegates were being assessed, and that he was coming out better than the rest. Graham Marshall felt his old self again.
He was untroubled by what he was missing back at Crasoco. The Departmental Heads’ meeting was less interesting than the Brussels conference and, he decided, probably no more useful. Already he was forming sentences with openings like ‘Of course what they’re doing in Holland about this problem. .’ or ‘I think the statistics from West Germany are relevant in this matter. .’ He was refurbishing his armoury of information, little details which could be used in his old game of confusing his colleagues. He might not fool Robert Benham, but he could still fool the rest of them.
And Graham was now feeling more confident about Crasoco. Yes, he’d missed George Brewer’s job, but he wasn’t written off yet. A hatchet man like Robert Benham was bound to make enemies, and a focus would be needed for the disaffection he created. George Brewer’s policies had become unfashionable and been reversed by the appointment of his successor, and exactly the same might happen when Robert Benham went.
Because there was no doubt that Robert Benham would go. He had made it clear that Head of Personnel was just a rung on the ladder he had planned for himself. Within five years he would have moved on to another company or … or who could say what might have happened to him?
Graham found that being away from London gave him objectivity. Since he lost the job, he had been too bound up in thoughts of his own failure and Robert Benham’s success. Now he could achieve a more balanced view of his position. All was by no means lost.
He also liked living in a hotel. He liked the anonymous cleanness of the decor, the polished tiles of the shower, the paper-wrapped individual soap, the breakfast that appeared in obedience to a form hung on the door. He liked the impersonal luxury of a world where every service was part of a financial contract, where nothing depended on the inefficient motivations of duty or goodwill, where environment was merely a support system, not an expression of personality. This was the style in which he intended to live in the future.
The thought process of removing Merrily from his life was now complete. He did not think of her at all, just of himself as a skilled athlete returning to peak efficiency. There had been a hiccup in his training, a virus perhaps, which had laid him low, but he was now on the mend and would soon be capable of even greater feats.
So totally had he expunged the memory of his wife that when the call came through, his first reaction was of irritation. Reality was limping too slowly behind his thoughts. The new structures in his mind were all designed, but he had to deal with a few niggling details before he could start building them. Merrily’s death became a formality, no more than a planning permission, but one that still, exasperatingly, had to be obtained.
He had flown to Brussels on Wednesday, 22nd April, and the conference had started that afternoon. He had an untroubled expectation that he might hear something from London the next morning, but the call did not come, so he was able to enjoy the point-scoring of the second day. He was in the hotel foyer on his way to the first Friday session when he was paged for a phone call. He took it in a booth near the Reception Desk.
His first feeling when the speaker identified himself as a policeman was one of annoyance. He had been looking forward to the day’s events. The second session in particular, a seminar on redeployment of staff too inefficient to be left in their current jobs but too senior to be demoted, was exactly the sort of occasion when Graham would excel. Still, he had to get the planning permission, tedious though it was.
‘I’m very sorry, sir. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.’
‘What? Something hasn’t happened to one of the children?’
He was gratified by the glibness with which the right words came into his mouth.
‘Not the children, no sir. I’m afraid it’s your wife.’
‘What? Has she had a car accident?’ Again, he congratulated himself.
‘No, sir. Not a car accident. A domestic … an accident with electricity.’
‘Oh, my God. Is she all right?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I’m afraid she’s dead.’
Mentally he counted up to ten before saying, ‘Oh no! She can’t be!’
And while he counted, he felt the glow of satisfaction spread within him.
The water of the Channel gleamed enticingly as he looked down from the plane. He had enjoyed the last few hours, making his excuses to the conference organisers, booking his flight, dispassionately explaining the circumstances of his need and feeling the officials’ admiration for his bravery. Having lost his wife was like holding a sick-note, an excuse only to do the things he chose.
But it was much, much more than that. It was an achievement, an ambition realised. He had decided to kill her and, almost by remote control, he had brought about her death.
His point of vantage over the Channel was suitably godlike. He was in charge, a puppet-master pulling the strings he selected at the moment he chose.
He felt a sense of power.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He had told the police when he was arriving and there was a uniformed constable at the Boileau Avenue house to meet him.
Graham’s first question was: ‘Where are the children?’, which he thought sounded properly concerned. He had devoted the journey to thinking of appropriate emotions for a widower. What he was really feeling, a gleeful confidence, he knew would not fit the bill.
‘They’ve gone to their grandmother’s, sir,’ the constable replied. ‘She said she could cope. Obviously very upset she was, but said it was her duty to look after the poor motherless little ones.’
Graham’s knowledge of his mother-in-law left him in no doubt that the policeman was quoting her verbatim. Merrily’s death, he felt sure, had provided Lilian with an irresistible new range of scenes to play to the extent of her histrionic powers.
‘Yes. The children. It’s terrible. It’s going to scar them for life.’ He felt these disjointed sentences were suitable for a man in his supposed state of shock.
‘They recover, sir. Remarkably resilient. Though I’m afraid your daughter. . She actually found your wife’s body.’
‘Oh no.’
The constable nodded lugubriously. ‘’Fraid so, sir. Not till the next morning, but — You know how your wife died, sir?’
Yes, of course I do, Graham was about to reply, but then remembered that no one had told him the precise details. He must concentrate. Step warily. Not allow the bubbling confidence inside to let down his act of bewildered bereavement.
‘I just know it was an electrical accident.’
The policeman outlined what was believed to have happened, and Graham found that the official conjecture was gratifyingly close to his own projection of events.
‘. . and the shock ran along her arms and stopped the heart. Then she fell down from the loft on to the landing, but the children didn’t hear anything. It was next morning that your daughter found her.’
