A Slightly Bitter Taste Page 9

  There was no sound from the nursery. Whatever was taking place between Elvin and Dr. Bossard they were keeping their voices down.

  … Of course, if Parry and his wife didn’t get on very well, I wouldn’t expect him to be crying his eyes out. Unless she’s pulled a fast one on him he’ll probably inherit all her money … and that must be a tidy sum. She may have been heavily insured, as well …

  It was the lonely who committed suicide. Few people took their own lives unless they had no one they could turn to.

  … Seems such a waste. Rich and beautiful and, as Irene Ford said, so much to live for. Yet Mrs. Adele Parry must’ve considered that what she possessed didn’t compensate for the things she lacked … if she committed suicide. If not …

  The door opened and Michael Parry came in. He looked much less dispirited now.

  When he caught sight of Quinn he gave a little start and said, “I didn’t expect to find anyone in here. I thought you and the inspector would be with Dr. Bossard.”

  “No, Elvin wanted to talk to him on his own. He left me” — Quinn couldn’t resist the temptation — “to play watchdog, as it were.”

  Michael wiped a hand over his face. It seemed to replace the harassed look he’d worn downstairs as though he were putting on a mask.

  Then he asked doubtfully, “What do you mean by watchdog?”

  “Just a figure of speech. Elvin merely wants me to see nothing’s interfered with in this room while he’s having a chat with Dr. Bossard.”

  “Interfered with? What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Ask the inspector. I’m only quoting what he told me. I gather he’s going to make a search in here when he gets back.”

  Michael Parry’s mouth opened and shut again. He said, “This is absolutely fantastic. What does Elvin expect to find?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Quinn said.

  “But there can’t possibly be anything in this room that —” Like a man who had been on the verge of saying too much, Parry stopped and moistened his lips.

  Then he went on weakly, “It’s bad enough that my wife committed suicide without all this on top of it. Still, I suppose the police have their own way of doing things and they won’t change their system out of consideration for my feelings.”

  Quinn said, “You can be sure of that … if nothing else. They never go by appearances. Although it does look as if your wife committed suicide.”

  Something showed momentarily in Parry’s eyes. He said, “Of course she did. What else could it have been?”

  “Are you asking me or yourself?”

  “No, I just wondered if Inspector Elvin thought it might’ve been an accident.”

  “Possibly. For the sake of you and the other members of the family I hope that’s what it turns out to be. Save a lot of embarrassment all round.”

  Parry said, “Thanks.” He looked grateful. “That’s very decent of you. I suppose all we can do is keep our fingers crossed.”

  “That’s all. But if it’s an encouragement to you the average Coroner’s jury leans over backwards to avoid bringing in a suicide verdict.”

  Through Quinn’s mind ran the thoughts he’d had before. Now they were more positive.

  … This bloke doesn’t care a damn that his wife’s dead. His only concern is for himself. Wonder if he realises he’s bound to be asked a lot of questions at the inquest. Won’t sound good if they prove she must’ve swallowed the stuff — whatever it was — after he got back home …

  Nobody would believe Parry was so drunk he hadn’t heard anything. Whatever pub he’d been in the landlord would know if he’d had a lot to drink.

  … You can bet all your wife’s money — every sausage of it — that the landlord will be asked what sort of state you were in when you left … and where you were … and why … and how … and what time you went rolling home …

  Parry said, “If you’re right it’ll make me feel a lot better. Not that anything can ever —”

  A door closed not far away and he broke off to listen. As footsteps came near and halted outside he rubbed his hands together as though he felt cold.

  Then Inspector Elvin walked in. He looked at Parry and said, “Ah, I’m glad you’re here, sir, very glad. I think we can have our little talk now and clear up various matters.”

  His eyes switched to Quinn and he went on, “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind leaving us. When you go downstairs I’d be grateful if you’d tell Sergeant Taylor to phone for the ambulance … very grateful.”

  Quinn had reached the door when Parry said, “I’d like you to stay. Pass on the inspector’s message and then come back, there’s a good fellow.” He made it sound more like an order than a request.

  Inspector Elvin coughed and said, “I see no necessity for a third party to be present — no necessity at all.”

  A look of aggression came into Parry’s pallid blue eyes. He said flatly, “What you see or don’t see is quite immaterial. This is my home and I look on Mr. Quinn as a friend. So I want him to stick around while you question me. Any law against it?”

  “No. I never suggested that there was. It’s just that —”

  “Have you got some personal objection?”

  “None at all.” The inspector bent his silver head and looked down as though admiring the shine on his highly-polished shoes. “I merely think it’s rather ill-advised. That’s all — ill-advised.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I suppose you’re aware that he’s a newspaper reporter?”

  There was nothing offensive in either the words or the tone but Quinn felt resentment at being involved. He said, “You make it sound as if I were a prostitute.”

  Elvin looked up without raising his head. He said, “The comparison is rather unfortunate, if I may say so — rather unfortunate.”

  “You’ve already said so. I get the point.”

  “I’m afraid you choose to misunderstand me. However, if Mr. Parry wishes you to stay there’s no reason why you shouldn’t … no reason at all. But please oblige me by remaining quiet. We’ll get on much quicker that way.”

  For a moment longer than was necessary he kept his eyes on Quinn’s face. Then he turned to Michael Parry and asked, “Would you excuse me while I give instructions to my sergeant?”

  He left the door open when he went out. Quinn heard the clip-clop of his shoes on the stairs … subdued talk that lasted only a few seconds … the tinkle of a phone bell. He wondered if Sergeant Taylor had gone on studying the light fittings all the time he’d been alone.

  … Typical plain-clothes dick. Looks the kind who’d shop his own grandmother. Wouldn’t like to trust this fellow Elvin, for that matter. One minute he pretends we’re the best of pals, and the next thing you know he acts as if he wouldn’t trust me with the church collection …

  Inspector Elvin was coming upstairs again. As he reached the top, someone came out of the adjoining bedroom.

  Quinn heard Carole’s husky voice. She asked something that he couldn’t make out.

  Elvin said, “Yes, I’m from the police. May I ask who you are?”

  “I’m Carole Stewart. Is Dr. Bossard still here?”

  “He is. Do you want him for any special reason?”

  “Well, I think he might take a look at Mrs. Ford. It was she who found Mrs. Parry and you can understand —”

  “Yes, of course. Have a word with the doctor yourself. You’ll find him in the nursery.”

  … Funny how Carole and Bossard behaved as if they hardly knew each other. They wouldn’t act that way unless they had something to hide. Maybe they were pretty close at one time and then she took up with somebody else … that man who stayed at the cottage, perhaps … or it was Bossard himself who shared the love-nest. Don’t suppose he’d be amused if he knew I was wearing his shirt. Bound to get altogether the wrong idea of how I came to be there …

  Carole said, “Thank you. Do you know where Mr. Parry is?”

  “In the next room. But he�
��s not free for the moment. You’ll be able to see him later.”

  Michael Parry was listening although he pretended to be indifferent. His eyes looked strained.

  … In every sense I’m odd man out here. They’ve all got their little secrets but I don’t feature anywhere. I feel as if I’m looking through a peephole … like that thing they used to have on the pier at Yarmouth: What the Butler Saw …

  Elvin was coming back. He walked with the unhurried, confident tread of a man who was very sure of himself — a man who had everything under control.

  … If that old boy old boy character, Reg, hadn’t gone off to get another drink I wouldn’t have got myself mixed up in all this … Carole had no need to come looking for me. What I did, or didn’t do, was no concern of hers. I’d either have slept it off in that wench’s bedroom … what was her name? Caroline? Gwendoline? No, Jacqueline, that was it … or they’d have tossed me out on my ear … Some day I must look up Charlie Hinchcliffe and see what he’s like …

  At the back of Quinn’s mind, Reg was talking in a superior voice that sounded as though he had something hot in his mouth. “Charlie isn’t short of the old folding money, you know. His wife left him pretty well fixed … very considerate woman. Went and snuffed it while Charlie was in the prime of life. Ever since then he’s been having a whale of a time … got rid of his handicap and came into a packet … some fellows have all the luck, don’t they?”

  Fellows like Michael Parry. It was a grim thought and it stuck in Quinn’s mind.

  Yet Parry didn’t want people to think his wife had committed suicide. He would prefer a verdict of Accidental Death. If he could be believed … if anybody could be believed in this damned house.

  6

  Then Inspector Elvin returned.

  He shut the door, leaned back against it, and slid his hands into his jacket pockets with his thumbs left outside.

  He said, “Now, where were we? Ah, yes … I suppose you know the circumstances of your wife’s death, Mr. Parry?”

  After a hesitant start, Michael said, “I only know she died from — from something she took. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

  “You haven’t been to see your wife?”

  “No, I — I couldn’t face it. The thought of her being dead …” He looked down at his restless hands.

  “Have you any idea why this should have happened?”

  “Not a clue. If I’d had even the faintest idea … but how could I know?”

  “That is a point.” Elvin bobbed his silver head in agreement. “How could you know?”

  For a few moments he waited as though expecting an answer. Then he went on in a confidential tone, “Well, I feel I ought to tell you what we think caused your wife’s death, Mr. Parry. She would appear to have died from an overdose of some hypnotic drug, probably a barbiturate called Pembrium. Was she in the habit of taking sleeping pills?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a habit … but she did take one now and again.”

  “Were they Pembrium?”

  “That’s something I couldn’t say. All I know is that Dr. Bossard prescribed them for her.”

  “Do you know of any reason why she should’ve suffered from sleeplessness?”

  With a touch of his old hearty manner, Parry said, “Well, now, that’s making too much out of it. Just because she took an odd pill once in a while …”

  He seemed to lose the thread of what he had been going to say. His eyes shifted from Elvin to Quinn and then dropped to his hands again.

  In a clipped voice. Inspector Elvin said, “It was not an odd pill that your wife took this afternoon, Mr. Parry. It was a massive and fatal overdose. What I am trying to establish is her reason for doing such a thing. And I know you want to help me … don’t you?”

  “Of course. But I’m as much in the dark as you are.”

  “Had she been worried recently about anything — I mean anything that could’ve made her depressed, not quite herself?”

  Michael Parry rubbed his eyes while he thought. Then he said, “Worried is hardly how I’d put it, but she did seem a bit off-colour. Inclined to get irritable over trifles, I noticed. That’s why I thought it a good idea when she suggested going to Wood Lake for a few days.”

  “What sort of place is Wood Lake?”

  “Oh, it’s one of those slimming resorts that women go to. Fancy diets and massage and sauna baths and beauty treatment and all that kind of thing.”

  “Did she go there often?”

  “Yes, every two or three months.”

  “And came back each time feeling better in health?”

  Parry looked as though he’d been asked a trick question. Eventually, he said, “That wasn’t really why she went to Wood Lake. Her health never troubled her. She was always a very fit person.”

  “But she took sleeping pills,” Elvin said.

  In a bluff voice, Michael said, “So do most people nowadays. I’ve read that half the population take drugs of one kind or another.”

  “But half the population don’t commit suicide. And that’s what your wife has done … or appears to have done. Isn’t it?”

  Michael looked at Quinn as though for support. He asked, “Couldn’t it have been — an accident?”

  Inspector Elvin said, “That’s for a Coroner’s jury to decide, Mr. Parry. However, I would doubt it very much. I can’t see anyone accidentally taking a large dose of barbiturate in the middle of the afternoon … can you?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “And then there are all the other factors that have to be taken into account. You’ve had plenty of time,, to think about them by now — plenty of time.”

  The inspector paused. When Michael Parry had waited until he could wait no longer, he asked, “What factors?”

  “From what I understand you thought she wouldn’t be coming home until some time this evening. That is what you did think, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’d arranged to meet the eight-ten bus at Blandford. In fact I went there and hung around until the eight-fifty had come and gone.”

  “You received no word from your wife to say she’d changed her mind?”

  “No, she never got in touch with me at all from the time she went away.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last Monday.”

  “Where is this place Wood Lake?”

  “Just outside Chobham.”

  “That’s near Woking, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, three or four miles from there.”

  “How did your wife usually get to Wood Lake?”

  “A taxi would call here and take her to Blandford. From there she’d get the bus to Salisbury where she caught a train. At Woking she’d be met by a car from Wood Lake.”

  “I see.”

  Inspector Elvin moved his feet farther apart and repeated, “I see.”

  Then he asked, “Did she always return the same way?”

  “Yes. I usually picked her up at Blandford instead of letting her get a taxi home.”

  “Didn’t you ever take her there in your own car when she was going off to Wood Lake?”

  “Yes, sometimes.”

  “But not on this last occasion?”

  An uncomfortable look came into Michael’s puffy face. He said, “No, she didn’t want me to.”

  “Any special reason?”

  “Not really. She preferred to take a taxi, that’s all.”

  Elvin made no attempt to hide the disbelief in his eyes. He said, “I do wish you’d be frank with me, Mr. Parry. It would make my job so much easier and save you inevitable distress.”

  “I’m being absolutely frank. I’ve no reason to be otherwise.”

  “Then please answer my question. Why didn’t your wife want you to run her to Blandford last Monday?”

  Parry glanced at Quinn again. Then he said, “What difference does it make? Will any of this alter what’s happened?”

  “No, of course not. Nothing can do that. But the Coroner’s go
ing to ask me a lot of questions, Mr. Parry — a lot of questions — and he’ll expect answers to them. With your help we may be able to satisfy him.”

  “But I still don’t see —”

  “Above all else we must try to fathom your wife’s state of mind on the day she left here to visit Wood Lake. I’d have thought that was obvious — very obvious.”

  “Why? What good will that do? It’s days ago.”

  “She may have brooded over it while she was away. That’s quite possible if” — the inspector stared at him with guileless eyes — “if, for example, you had a quarrel on the day she left.”

  Michael Parry said in a flat voice, “My wife and I never quarrelled.” “Never?”

  “Once in a while we might’ve had a difference of opinion but that was as far as it ever went.”

  “Did you have a difference of opinion last Monday before she went away?”

  Quinn saw anger flare in Michael’s eyes. Then defeat took its place.

  He said, “It was quite trivial … not worth mentioning. But women get these damn’ silly ideas. There was no reason why I couldn’t have taken her to Blandford.”

  “But she preferred to go by taxi. Why?”

  “Because I’d had a couple of drinks at lunch time and she was afraid I might be stopped and given a breathalyser test.”

  Quinn told himself Michael Parry was lying. “… Michael, me boy, you’re a first-class, one-hundred-percent liar. She wasn’t afraid merely because you’d had a couple. You must’ve been stinko — so damn’ plastered you weren’t fit to drive. She wasn’t going to trust herself in a car with you driving.”

  Inspector Elvin nodded amiably. He said, “Good. That’s one thing out of the way.”

  As though tabulating his thoughts, he went on, “She left in a taxi, you stayed here … and there was no quarrel of any kind before she left. Have I got it right?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly how it was.”

  “And you didn’t hear from your wife at any time while she was at Wood Lake?”

  “No.”

  “Was that usual?”

  “Yes. She seldom, if ever, got in touch with me when she went away for just a few days. Anyway, I’d arranged to pick her up at the bus stop this evening, so there was nothing for us to talk about.”