John Creasey - Alibi

She got out and slammed the door.

He sat without moving for what must have seemed a long time to the men in the patrol car. He wondered whether they could have seen anything through the rear window of his car, but their headlights had not been on and there was no street lamp near. It didn’t much matter, anyhow. He flicked his lights and almost at once one of the men got out of the car and came hurrying towards him.

“Sir?” The man pushed his head close to the open window.

“I wasn’t able to ask Mr. Nixon before,” Roger said, “but I want you two to watch this house, particularly Miss Dunster, until some men come from the division to keep an eye on it and her. I’ll talk to Mr. Nixon by radio.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Thanks. Goodnight.”

The man’s “goodnight” followed Roger as he began to move off. He drove slowly, turning the corner before calling Nixon and putting through the request which was tantamount to an order. Nixon made a light remark. “Didn’t think you’d let her go for the sake of it, Handsome. I’ll fix it.” Roger grunted and rang off.

Now he had to make a quick decision.

He touched his lips, still slightly tender from the crushing pressure of Maisie’s. He had never known a kiss like it, nor such a body, so demanding and yet so yielding.

It was lucky he was a staid old married man, he thought, smiling to himself and dismissing Maisie from his mind. There were three things he could do.

First, go back to Janet. She would be glad to see him, he felt certain, and anxious to make amends.

Second, go and question Rapelli. It was late and Rapelli, even if not asleep, would be tired and therefore more likely to talk. And if Rapelli once cracked, then the case was over.

Third, go and see Rachel Warrender, and chance her mood.

He knew that he should go back to Janet, that to force himself to go on working was an example of the excessive attention to duty which so often exasperated her. But if he went back and found that her mood had hardened, it would probably lead to an argument, possibly a near- quarrel which could carry them far into the night.

And he had to be fresh and fit next morning.

Chapter Fourteen

VISITOR

Roger yawned and rubbed his eyes. The truth was that he was in no shape to interview and interrogate anyone, wasn’t alert enough and must not attempt it; there was no emergency, and he was nearer Bell Street than the Yard. So he would go home. As he drove slowly and with extreme care, he found his thoughts roaming at will over the past with Janet. In this part of Chelsea and along the embankment, across the river in Battersea Park and a little further afield, on Clapham Common, they had done most of their courting. He had been at the Chelsea division in those days and Janet had lived in the next borough: Fulham.

She had been so lively, pretty; damn it, beautiful!

As she was beautiful today. If only she would not get so upset!

Her time of life, of course, simply heightened moods which had always existed. In those courting days she had always been acutely disappointed and often angry when he had had to break a date. Several times he had nearly lost her. He gave a twisted smile at the recollection of that, and of jealousy. When a young man was in love as utterly as he had been there was a special kind of torment in being forced to leave one’s beloved with others: knowing another man was playing tennis with her, or taking her home, or to the theatre or pictures.

And—his smile broadened—he remembered the first time he had been compelled to arrest a young woman who had resisted, almost savagely, and then turned all her considerable seductive charm on him, with Janet looking on.

Her voice came out of the past.

“You needn’t have handled her like that . . . You actually seemed to enjoy it!” And for a while there had been tension, with his heart in his boots. It had been touch and go whether they had spent the rest of the evening together. But they had; that was the very evening when they had walked along Bell Street and, as a result, started their married life in the house where they still lived. There had been clashes, all of them—well, most—over the restrictions of his job. But all of these had passed, and if it were true that of recent years the conflicts had lasted for longer periods and tension sometimes dragged on, Janet would come out of the menopause and sooner or later he would retire.

The recollection that he could resign whenever he liked and take a job that would give Janet all she asked came out of the blue. He actually let the wheel wobble for a moment and forced a passing motorist to pull out. The driver glowered. Roger turned into Bell Street, and as he did so a man came out of one of the houses, turned towards King’s Road and hurried away. There was something furtive in his manner, and Roger knew why.

The woman at that house, Natalie Tryon, was miserably unhappy, with a husband with whom she stayed only for her children’s sake. This man was her lover, who visited her whenever her husband was away.

Roger pulled up outside his own house and turned towards the garage, then put on the brakes, appalled at a sudden, devastating thought.

Supposing Janet had a lover!

Supposing she had become so lonely and miserable that she had sought and found consolation.

Wouldn’t that explain her moodiness, her attitudes, her thinking?

Roger sat absolutely rigid, and had been there for three or four minutes, hardly able to think clearly, when a shaft of light appeared from the front door, and then Janet’s silhouette appeared against the porch light.

“Darling! Is that you?”

He made himself call out, “Yes, coming!” Opening the car door, he saw her hurrying towards him. The light from street lamps were soft on her face, and she looked at her best. She moved beautifully, too. Suddenly, she was close to him, and he closed the car door softly, habitually remembering not to wake a neighbour’s baby. As suddenly, he took her in his arms, held her almost too tight for a moment, and then kissed her.

A few moments later, breathless, they drew apart. Neither spoke as they linked arms and turned towards the house, until Janet said, “Will you leave the car out?”

“Yes, it doesn’t matter on these warm nights.”

“I’ll put it away if you like,” she offered.

“No. Leave it.” They reached the porch, still arm in arm. He knew that her mood had changed even more than his, that now she was calm in spirit. He did not know how to tell her what was passing through his mind, and she saved him the need to say anything.

“You lock up, I’ll make some tea, darling, and we’ll have it in the kitchen. The boys have both gone to bed. I’ll pop up and get into a dressing-gown.”

“Good idea,” he said. He locked and bolted the front door, checked the windows of the sitting and dining rooms, then hesitated. He would be more comfortable in a dressing-gown, too, and especially in slippers. Quickly he went upstairs, and into their room.

He stopped short.

Spread across the bed were open photograph albums, loose snapshots and seaside pictures, and a glance showed that these were all of the days of their courtship and early marriage. None showed the boys, even as babies. The pillows were rucked up and the bedspread had been pulled down. On one pillow was a screwed-up handkerchief. Roger picked it up and found that it was damp; she had obviously been crying. He looked more closely at the albums; there they were at a tennis party, at a dance, with a crowd of young people on the beach: always together, always looking happy.

Roger lost himself in retrospection, now and again thinking: Thank God I came straight back tonight. He lost count of time, until, disturbed by a footfall on the landing, he looked up and saw Janet.

She came in.

“I meant to clear all that up before you came in here.” she said.

“Why, darling?”

She stood a little distance from him, and answered, “It seemed like a kind of blackmail to leave them out!”

“Some blackmail! I’ve been think about those days, too. Remember that buxom blonde I arrested at the tennis club for raiding the dressing rooms?”

“Shall I ever forget her!”

“She wasn’t unlike Maisie Dunster,” he told her. “Only Maisie’s much more attractive.”

“And seductive?” Janet, quite free from tension now, went on, “Darling, I hate myself when I behave like I did tonight, I really do. No, don’t interrupt.” She put a hand over his lips, and went on with words she had obviously rehearsed over and over again. “I know you have the job to do, I know we’ve had this kind of upset before, I know there are times when I hate the job so much that I could climb on the roof and cry “down with Scotland Yard!”—” She paused, momentarily, a gleam of laughter in her eyes. “But deep down I also know that you love it more than I hate it, that you couldn’t really live without the Yard but I can live with the situation even if I do have to let off steam sometimes. You needn’t worry, you really needn’t. Just—” She broke off again and went on with only a slight change of tone, “Just keep me hopeful with promises of what we’ll do when you do retire. After all, it won’t be more than five years now, and we’ve had twenty-five already, so it isn’t really too long.”

“No,” he said, huskily. And then, “I’ll keep you hopeful.”

“Don’t promise you’ll have every other weekend off and ten days” leave every quarter,” she protested, half-laughing. “Just be with me as much as you can, darling. Please “ Slowly the laughter faded and there was a new earnestness, new intentness in her manner. “You’re all I’ve got, you know. The boys, bless them, aren’t mine any longer, not in the true sense—and on a night like this they’re on your side. I love you so much,” she went on quietly. “Do you know, since those tennis club days I’ve never looked at another man. And—darling! Let me finish. I do not want to know whether you have looked at another woman. I really don’t. I don’t mind what you do provided you’re happy, and I hate myself when I add to your problems.”

There were tears in her eyes.

And his eyes stung.

•     •     •

Later, when their bodies had intermingled with a passion which they had not known for a long time, they fell asleep.

When, just after half past seven, Martin brought in a tea tray, Roger was still holding her tightly.

“Whoops!” exclaimed Scoop. “See you later.”

He put down the tray and fled.

•     •     •

On the Monday morning, Roger and Janet after waking early, were talking about the case. Relaxed in a chair by the bedside with Janet sitting against pillows, a bed- jacket draped over her shoulders, Roger could see the whole series of incidents more clearly. Now and again Janet asked a question, for clarification, but for the most part it was a monologue. The tea was cold in the pot and the room warm from hot sunshine when the telephone bell rang. He picked up the extension by the side of the bed, and glanced at the clock. It was a little after nine.

“Roger West,” he announced, expecting someone from the Yard.

“Mr. West,” a woman said, and he knew at once that this was Rachel Warrender, “I will be grateful if you can spare me an hour this morning.”

“I may not be able to fit in an hour,” Roger had to reply. “Will half an hour do?”

“You’re very kind. Shall I come to your office?”

“If you do, it will have to be official,”Roger said.

She hesitated for a moment, then said huskily, “You’re quite right, thank you. Where do you suggest?” Roger was looking at Janet and framing the name “Rachel W” with his lips. Janet’s eyes widened and she stretched out a hand, whispering, “Roger!”

“Just a moment,” Roger covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Had a brainwave?”

“Why not ask her here?” Janet suggested. “I could bring in some coffee or a drink, and I’d love to see her.”

It was a sensible idea, it would help to seal their new understanding, the new mood, and Roger turned back to the telephone.

“If you could be at my home in half an hour or so, we could talk here.”

“Oh, that would be splendid!” He had not heard Rachel Warrender speak with such spirit before. “I may be a little more than half an hour, I’m at my office in Lincoln’s Inn, but I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

She rang off.

As Roger replaced the receiver, Janet was getting out of bed. She edged towards the window, so that she couldn’t be seen from the street. Stretching up to draw the curtains, her skin was so white, her figure so lovely, her hair so dark where it fell about her shoulders, that he caught his breath.

“If she’ll be here in half an hour I’ve got to get a move on.” Out of the tail of her eye she saw him get up from the chair. “Darling, you get shaved quickly. I’ll have to make some toast—darling, you’ll have to. I—Roger!” she almost screamed. “Roger, there isn’t time!”

“I know,” he said, enveloping her. “And I’m nearly an old man.” He held her very tightly, then kissed her on the forehead and let her go. “I’ll get my own breakfast.”

He bathed, shaved, made toast, piled on butter and marmalade, made instant coffee, telephoned the Yard to say he would not be in the office until eleven thirty or so, checked that nothing new had developed over the Rapelli case and that Fogarty, Campbell and Rapelli, the only remaining three on any kind of charge, all appeared to have spent good nights. So far, so good.

“And Tom,” he said to Danizon, “I must be in court when the charges against Campbell are made. Will you see that he’s not heard until midday—noon—at the earliest?”

“Yes, sir,” Danizon said. “What about Fogarty?”

“If he’s released, make sure he’s effectively trailed,” Roger said.

“I’ll see to it, sir,” said Danizon. “I can tell you that Mr. Coppell will be out most of the day, he’s going to that conference of European Police. And the commissioner will be out too—he’s going to the luncheon reception.”

Roger laughed.

“Almost a free day, in fact!”

“If I were you, sir,” said Danizon, “I’d take at least part of the day off. Just go to court and—but I’m sorry, sir. I’m talking out of turn.”

Roger could almost see him go pink with confusion as he rang off.

A moment later, Janet came out of the sitting-room, a housecap sloping over one eye, a small apron over her nightdress. She carried a mop and a duster and a can of furniture-polish spray. Her nose and cheeks were shiny and her lips pale.

“I’ll have my bath now and get dressed—you open the door when she comes. I’ll bring coffee at a quarter past ten, is that right?”

“Ten o’clock,” urged Roger. “I’m not sure how this interview will go, and I could make heavy weather of it.”