Adam and Eve and Pinch Me (19 page)

When it got to nine and Jeff hadn’t come home, Fiona was so worried she went next door. Not because Michelle or Matthew would know any more than she did, not that they could give her any advice she couldn’t give herself, but simply for their company, for the comfort and reassurance they might give her. To have someone else with whom to share her anxiety. Long before, she’d canceled that dinner reservation, made herself tea, and tried unsuccessfully to eat a sandwich.

Afterward, when they were in bed, Matthew and Michelle confessed to each other that they’d both had the same thought: that Jeff had deserted Fiona. Of course, they said not a word of this at the time. When a woman is out of her mind with worry you don’t tell her that maybe the man she met only eight months before and of whose past history she knows nothing has walked out on her. You don’t say he’s obviously a villain and a conman who’s alarmed by the prospect of marriage. You give her a brandy and tell her to wait a little and then you’ll start phoning hospitals.

Fiona went home twice just to check he hadn’t come back in the meantime. She returned to the Jarveys twice, by now shaking with fear. It was past ten. If that man’s somewhere with another woman, thought Michelle, I’ll find some way to punish him. Never mind his teaching me to slim, that was me, not him. I didn’t have to take notice of what he said, but I will make life hard for him if he’s betrayed her. I will find him and tell him what I think of him. I will set a private detective on his track, I
will.
Her unaccustomed vindictiveness alarmed her, and she forced herself to give Fiona an encouraging smile. Should she make tea? Another drink? Fiona stood up and threw herself into Michelle’s arms. Michelle hugged her and patted her shoulder, and held her against her big, soft bosom while Matthew phoned the Royal Free and the Whittington, and half a dozen other hospitals. Then he phoned the police.

They knew nothing about a Jeff Leigh. Matthew spelled the name for them.

“You said Leigh, not Leach?”

“No, Leigh.”

“There’s been no accident to anyone of that name.”

For by now they knew whose was the body they had on their hands. In the breast pocket of its linen jacket they found a bloodstained driving license in the name of Jeffrey John Leach, of 45 Greta Road, Queen’s Park, London NW10. It had been issued nine years ago and a long time before new British driving licenses were required to contain their holder’s photograph. Also in the pocket were a photograph, in a plastic pack, of a long-haired young man with a baby in his arms, a bloodstained letter from a woman called Zillah, a door key of a common kind and unnumbered, £320 in £20 and £10 notes, a Visa card in the name of Z. H. Leach, and a half-used packet of Polo mints.

It took no more than a few hours to establish that Jeffrey John Leach was married to Sarah Helen Leach, née Watling, who also had a driving license and lived at an address in Long Fredington, Dorset.

Chapter 16

ARRIVING IN HIS parliamentary constituency late on Friday afternoon, Jims had first had a meeting with his agent, Colonel Nigel Travers-Jenkins, and then, accompanied by him, gone as guest of honor and principal speaker to the annual gala dinner of the South Wessex Young Conservatives at the Lord Quantock Arms in Markton. Contrary to Zillah’s belief, Leonardo wasn’t with him. While he was speaking, on the subject of the Party’s future hope and inspiration being in the hands of its youth, whose idealism and fervor had already been manifested to him that evening, Zillah was sitting in the Abbey Gardens flat watching a
Rugrats
video with the children, Jordan grizzling on her lap.

Jims, who had been casually fond of her for years, had always used her rather as a screen for his natural activities than as a friend. She was the kind of woman whose appearance led the South Wessex Conservatives to put her down as a female of loose morals. Any Fredingtonian seeing him call at Willow Cottage, particularly in the evenings, believed—again in their phrase—the worst. But they were the sort of people who held to a double standard, condemning the woman in this situation but attaching no blame to the man. Rather the reverse, as Jims well knew, for someone had reported back to him that Colonel Travers-Jenkins had been overheard calling him “a bit of a lad with the birds.” For this reason, though he used her, he had always felt grateful to Zillah and persuaded himself this was affection.

Now he was married to her he felt quite differently. She was a nuisance and, if not kept under surveillance, might damage his career. Jims thought about these things as he drove back to his house in Fredington Crucis. What a pity it was that once you’d been through a marriage ceremony, you had to live under the same roof as your bride! What a misfortune you couldn’t give her a lump sum and a little house somewhere, and never see her again! Still, he knew this was impossible. He must be married and manifestly be seen to be married. And his wife must be Caesar’s wife. There was no other way. When he got home on Monday morning he would set about educating Zillah in her duties as helpmeet to the Member for South Wessex. He would teach her about the boards and committees she must chair, the garden parties she must attend, the baby shows judge, Conservative Women’s gatherings address, the canvassing she must do, and the suitable clothes she must wear. No skirts above the knee, nothing low-cut, no sexy shoes, tight trousers—maybe no trousers at all—but afternoon dresses and big hats. A supposed mistress may look like a loose woman but not an MP’s wife.

Jims had phoned Leonardo and then gone to bed. In the morning he held his appointments at nine sharp in Casterbridge Shire Hall, where he made earnest promises to his constituents that he would personally improve the education of their children, the National Health Service, transport, and the environment, while undertaking to retain at all costs hunting with dogs. Jims didn’t say “dogs,” though that was the term that appeared in the title of the new bill proposed on the subject. To please the people in the Shire Hall he referred always to “hounds.” Talk of the hunt, a constant subject of conversation and discussion in South Wessex, reminded him that on Saturday evening he would be addressing the local branch of the Countryside Alliance at Fredington Episcopi village hall. The meeting would be so well attended that the largest hall in the neighborhood had been chosen as its venue.

His speech he had brought with him. It was still in his briefcase, which he hadn’t even opened while at Fredington Crucis House. In calling it a speech, Jims was rather underrating himself, for of course he had no intention of
reading
to the assembled members. But there were all sorts of details of a previous private member’s bill that he had noted down on paper, along with statistics, reports on research into cruelty to stags and stress levels in foxes, and, most important, assessments of the hardship which would be suffered by locals should hunting be banned in what Jims was careful to call “England” and occasionally “this blessed plot,” but never “the United Kingdom.” Also with his notes was the Burns Report in its dark blue cover, the findings of Lord Burns’s investigation into hunting. When he was leaving his office and was once more in his car, he opened his briefcase to check that he had it and his notes with him.

Jims intended to have lunch at the Golden Hind in Casterbridge with a close friend, the predecessor, in fact, of Leonardo. The decision to end their relationship had been mutual and there were no hard feelings. Moreover, Ivo Carew was chairman of a charity called Conservatives Target Cancer, so being seen with him could only win approval. But he couldn’t find his Countryside Alliance notes. He emptied everything out of the briefcase onto the passenger seat. He knew they weren’t there and he also knew very well where they were. Inside a transparent blue plastic folder that matched the cover of the Burns Report, and he would have spotted them at once. He knew they weren’t there and he knew where they were: in Leonardo’s house.

But precisely where? That he couldn’t remember. He did remember, though, that Leonardo had told him on the phone the evening before that he was taking Friday off and would be going to see his mother in Cheltenham. These visits were frequent and enjoyable, for Giulietta Norton, born in Rome just after the Second World War and a hippie and groupie in the sixties, was a fascinating woman and about as unlike a mother as could be. Leonardo might even decide to stay the night. Of course Jims had a key to the flat, that was no problem. Even if he could remember exactly where the blue folder was and could persuade one of Leonardo’s neighbors to let his messenger in, whom could he trust? Was there anyone he could rely on to go to Glebe Terrace, find the notes, and fax them to him, without thinking it funny, without thinking it suspicious that James Melcombe-Smith MP left important papers in the home of a young and very good-looking stock jobber? In, very probably, that young man’s bedroom? Zillah, perhaps. He called his home number on his mobile. No answer. In fact, Zillah, deeply asleep, heard the phone ringing in a dream about Jims changing his sexual orientation and falling in love with her. She thought the ringing was her mother and she ignored it.

How useless she was! An encumbrance, not even a helpful companion. Jims called Ivo Carew and canceled their date.

“Thanks a bunch,” said Ivo. “Did you have to wait till five to one?”

“It’s unavoidable. D’you honestly think I wouldn’t rather see you than drive back to bloody London?”

He stopped en route at a Merry Cookhouse where, shuddering, he tried to eat chicken in a basket and chips. With plenty of time to spare, he could have lunched with Ivo and set off a couple of hours later, but he was becoming nervous about the whereabouts of that folder. His mind must be set at rest as soon as possible. But not before he’d complained about the soggy chips and the chicken, which he was sure was spoiled. The manager was a man with a temper easily roused and the two of them engaged for a minute or two in a slanging match.

The traffic was heavy and grew heavier as Jims approached London. A pile-up near a motorway and a road junction caused a nose-to-tail queue extending for several miles, while roadworks near Heathrow airport reduced cars to a single lane. It was close to eight o’clock before he parked the car in Glebe Terrace. His mind must be going, he thought. Having mislaid his notes, he was now unable to find the key to Leonardo’s house. He looked on his Abbey Gardens Mansions key ring and his car keys ring, then went through his pockets. It wasn’t there. The woman next door, Amber Something, had one. He prayed she’d be at home and she was. She gave him a funny look in which there was a lot of snide amusement but she gave him the key, saying to be sure to let her have it back in the morning. He let himself into Leonardo’s house.

Mounting the little staircase to the bedroom, he thought how ghastly it would be if he opened the door and found Leonardo in bed with someone, maybe that guy in the Department of Education and Employment he said was attractive. A lot of men wouldn’t mind, though he wasn’t one of them. But the room was empty.

Jims searched for the folder. It was nowhere to be found. Seriously worried, he went back downstairs and after hunting—hunting!—for ten minutes, found it and Burns at the back of a rather elegant rosewood filing cabinet. Put there, no doubt, by Leonardo’s obsessively tidy busy-body of a cleaner.

He’d go out to dinner, then come back here to sleep. There was a chance Giulietta had a date, in which case Leonardo might come back. Anyway, he couldn’t face his own home, not with Zillah there and those kids.

While Jims was searching for his notes and Zillah was watching television in Abbey Gardens Mansions with Jordan on her lap, two policemen, a sergeant and a constable, were calling at Willow Cottage, Long Fredington.

After she had left, Zillah’s landlord, who during her tenancy had been afraid she’d never go but stay forever and eventually establish children’s rights for her girl and boy, had decided to sell the place. Accordingly, he was having it redecorated and a new kitchen and bathroom fitted. Although the builders had started soon after Christmas, their task was still incomplete. Scaffolding covered the front of the house, the windows were boarded up, and a builders’ sign proclaiming the workmen as construction designers stuck up in the garden. The police could see no one lived there. They tried the neighbors and were told Mrs. Leach had left in December and got married again. The woman next door could even tell them whom she’d married: the local MP, Mr. Melcombe-Smith.

It was, of course, imperative that the late Jeffrey Leach’s wife be told as soon as possible of his violent death. But it now appeared she was his wife no longer. She had remarried, and into a social class far above what the investigators had calculated was Jeffrey Leach’s.

Zillah had just got up on Saturday morning when the policeman rang the bell at Abbey Gardens Mansions. It was only half past eight, an early hour for her, but she’d been unable to lie in, for Eugenie’s prediction— that having slept most of the day she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night— proved true. The children were already up and watching cartoons on television. Zillah came out in her dressing gown and began making toast and pouring cornflakes into bowls. She caught sight of herself in a mirror and backed away from it, she looked so terrible, her hair in rats’ tails and dark smudges under her eyes. A spot, the likes of which she hadn’t had for fifteen years, was erupting in the middle of her chin.

“Who on earth’s that?” she asked when the bell rang.

“You’ll know if you open the door,” said Eugenie. “What a stupid question.”

“How dare you be so rude!”

Jordan, who was always upset by shouting, began to snivel. The doorbell rang again and Zillah went to answer it.

“Mrs. Melcombe-Smith?”

“That’s right.”

“May I come in? I have some distressing news for you.”

There was no one in the world not in the flat at that moment whom Zillah cared enough for to mind whether they were fit or injured, alive or dead. But she couldn’t hide her shocked response when the caller told her of the death of Jeffrey Leach. “I don’t believe it.”