Dear Departed (23 page)

At that moment they were interrupted by another female entering the room – a very different proposition, this one, from Kylie. She was a very elderly lady, with such a look of frailty Slider almost expected the light to shine through her: thin as a rail, a halo of silver-white hair like spindrift around her face, cheekbones you could cut yourself on. She was dressed in an expensive knitted two-piece of brown jersey over a white lace blouse, high-collared with a cameo brooch at the throat, and
glossy brown court shoes. But despite the thinness and age, her eyes were bright and her gait steady.

Cornfeld rose at the sight of her. ‘Inspector Slider, my mother,’ he said.

Mrs Cornfeld inclined her head. ‘Inspector.’ And then, to her son, ‘I came to tell you there is a telephone call from Brussels. Kylie is speaking on the other line.’

‘Ah!’ Cornfeld turned to Slider. ‘I must take this. It’s a very important call. I’m sorry.’

‘I will entertain the inspector while you are away,’ said Mrs Cornfeld. There was no German accent after all these years, only a certain precision about the consonants and a purity of the vowel sounds that might betray a foreign origin. ‘Go, my dear. They are waiting on the line. Hurry.’

Slider thought, with an inward smile, that, like his own father, she had not got used to the cheapness of international calls these days. Cornfeld went out, and Mrs Cornfeld walked across to the table by the window and allowed Slider to pull out a chair for her. When she was seated she waved him graciously to his own chair and said, ‘It will be a long call. It is the European drugs regulatory authority. We have something quite new coming out. When Henry went away to America he was so excited about it, he looked ten years younger. Now, today, he hardly cares. This has been a great blow to him, a great blow. I would not be surprised if he gave up and retired now, though a week ago he was fit to go on fifteen years more. But this has taken the heart out of him. I truly believe Chattie was the only thing he ever loved, apart from his business. He has always been a driven man; she was his one human weakness. It was I who gave her the nickname Chattie, did you know that?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Henry would not tell you that. Men never know any of the important things in life, only the serious ones.’ She looked at him intently. ‘I suppose
you
must be interested in minutiae, however, because of your job. It must make you a uniquely satisfying companion for a woman. Are you married?’

He disliked personal questions, but it was impossible to snub such a venerable lady. ‘I am – engaged.’

‘How nice. I hope you will be very happy. Henry has not been fortunate in his wives, but then, did he deserve to be?
Now he does not think of marriage again. It is better as it is. You have seen Kylie?’ The eyes were cataloguing him. ‘I can see your thoughts. But, really, she is a dear creature. Like the hedgehog of legend, she knows one thing. I like her very much, and Henry cannot hurt her because she knows exactly what he wants her for.’

Slider could not think of anything to say, and cleared his throat noncommittally.

‘Am I being indiscreet?’ she said. ‘But surely that must be a boon to you, when people tell you what they ought not.’

Slider would not look at his watch, but there was a clock on a table behind the old lady and he allowed his eyes to slip quickly there and back. Not so quickly, however, that she did not note his change of focus.

‘You must be very busy,’ she said coolly.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘No, no, I understand. And you should be busy, trying to find out who killed my Chattie,’ Mrs Cornfeld said, and a world of grief came into her face. At my age, one gets used to losing people. Almost everyone I ever cared for has died. But I don’t think I can ever get over her death. Do you have any idea who killed her?’

‘Not yet. We have some leads to follow, but nothing definite. We think it must have been someone who knew her.’

‘Yes, I suppose that is the case with most murders.’

‘Were you and Chattie very close?’ Slider asked. Might as well make the best of it, he thought. ‘Did you see her often?’

‘Oh, yes. I loved her dearly and she was very attentive. Once a week at least. We had wonderful conversations. I truly believe she told me everything. She had an unhappy childhood in many ways, but I hope I was able to be an element of stability in it.’

‘Tell me about that,’ Slider invited.

She looked at him consideringly. ‘I go a little way further back first. So that you understand Henry a little.’

Slider settled in for the long haul.

‘First, Henry married Mary. She was the daughter of friends of ours in Enfield, a nice girl but plain, and five years older than him. She was thirty by then and “on the shelf” – that horrid phrase. This was – oh – 1960, I suppose. Girls then still did not have careers. They went to school, sometimes they had a little job for
a year or two, and then they got married. So Mary was – what shall I say? – not useless, exactly, but surplus to requirements.’

‘And Henry felt sorry for her?’

The almost transparent eyebrows shot up. ‘Sorry for her? Certainly not. He was engaged in building up his business – going through a crucial stage, trying to set up the manufacturing side. It meant much work, long hours, many difficulties, living on his nerves. He had no time for feelings, for sentiment.’

‘So why did he marry her?’

She looked faintly triumphant at having forced him to ask. ‘He wanted a housekeeper. He was too busy to cook his own meals and wash his own clothes, and he was not making enough yet to be able to employ servants. The only practical solution was to marry. Also, if he married, he would be able to have sex when he wanted it, without payment and without risk. Do I shock you? No, of course not. You understand the world. So, Mary was available, with the added advantage that she wouldn’t have to be wooed. Henry had no time then for wooing. All he had to do with Mary was to ask.’

‘Didn’t you try to dissuade him?’

‘Good heavens, why should I? Mary was no worse off as his wife than living at home with her parents. She was probably happy at first, relieved not to be a spinster. But Henry was not home much, and when he was, I doubt he ever talked to her. She was thrilled when she found she was to have a baby. Henry was not. He was taken aback. It was nuisance and expense. His home comforts were disrupted. And then it turned out to be a girl, not even a son he could leave his business to.’

‘That was Ruth?’

She nodded. ‘Poor child, she had the misfortune to be just like her mother – plain and dull. Henry could never be interested in her. And as his business grew, he began to move in different circles. Mary was no longer a suitable wife. He needed a hostess, someone who would sparkle in company. At a reception one day he met Stella, and thought how smart and clever she was. So he left Mary and married Stella.’

‘And Ruth?’

‘He did what he thought was right by her. He paid for her to go to a very good boarding school. He wanted her to have an education and the possibility of a career. And in case the
career didn’t work out, he thought it would give her polish so she could make a good marriage. But polish didn’t take on her. It only taught her to be resentful, seeing what all the other girls had. For a dull girl, she has a surprising capacity for anger – the slow, smouldering sort. Henry left Mary enough to live on, and a perfectly good house, but Ruth saw the way he lived with Stella, the parties, the important guests, the clothes – Stella was always a clothes horse – and thought she and her mother had been hard done-by.’

‘Did Ruth make a good marriage?’

‘Better than she might have expected. Henry practically arranged it. A young man called David Cockerell who was up and coming in the company. Ruth thought he was the bee’s knees – handsome, charming, bound to get ahead. Besides, she’d have done anything to get out of working for a living, which she thought degrading. She’d obeyed Henry’s wishes and studied chemistry at school, but she hadn’t the intellect to go far. She ended up as an assistant in a hospital pharmacy – couldn’t pass the exams to become a pharmacist herself. So David came as a saviour to her. As for David, he thought Ruth would be a good handle on Henry’s wealth. And Henry thought David might be a right-hand man for him, take the place of a son in the business. But he soon discovered David’s limitations. He was handsome and charming, but nothing more – though he’s done well enough for himself on charm alone. But he let Henry down very badly. I suppose he felt he wasn’t being appreciated enough, or advancing in the company quckly enough, because he went off and joined GCC – the Global Chemical Company – where he could have a big desk and an expense account and a pension fund. Henry was furious and for a time he wouldn’t have David in the house, which of course spoiled things as far as Ruth was concerned. I patched things up, for appearances’ sake. God knows, at this distance, why we care about such things, but I did, though I don’t think I ever made much difference to the way Ruth felt. To be fair to David, I think he really does admire Henry. They get on all right when David visits him on business. But Ruth only sees the difference in their lifestyle and Henry’s. And so we come to Stella and Chattie,’ she said, with a twinkling look at Slider. ‘You see, you needed to know the state of play at the time.’

‘You must tell the story in your own way,’ Slider said neutrally.

‘Be sure that I shall,’ said Mrs Cornfeld. ‘You are a good listener, young man, and I don’t have many opportunities to talk without interruption.’

Slider had not been called ‘young man’ for a long time. ‘Please continue,’ he said.

‘Well, Henry and Stella were happy at first, being very social together and having dinner parties and being important. Stella was happy when her picture was in the paper, and she thought all the new contacts she was making would advance her writing career. Have you read any of her books?’

‘I flicked through one,’ Slider said, not sure whether he was supposed to admire them or not.

Not, it turned out. ‘That is all you need to do. All surface and no substance – nothing of worth in them from beginning to end – like Stella herself. But they might have gone on being more or less contented if she had not found herself pregnant. Unlike Mary she was furious. She had never wanted children and it threatened to ruin her carefully planned life as well as her figure. Henry was moderately pleased, however. He thought he was fond of Stella, and he was more secure now, better off, so he didn’t fear the financial consequences. He thought he might quite like to have a son to boast about to his business acquaintances. But of course it was another girl.’ She sighed, but it was a sigh of pleasure this time.

‘Chattie was a pure delight from the beginning. She seemed born to smile. Henry adored her, and almost forgot he had wanted a boy, especially when she turned out clever as well as pretty. She had a very masculine grasp of intellectual things – and quite a way with machinery too. He taught her to drive when she was only twelve, on a disused airfield. Anyway, things were very happy for a while. But the business was going through another expansion, and Henry was away from home a lot, and Stella didn’t like being left behind. She was from an old county family, and she felt she had lifted Henry up to a better social class by marrying him. When she didn’t get her share of the parties and being in the papers, she resented it. The last straw was when he went to a reception at 10 Downing Street as a Giant of Industry, or some such nonsense, and she found out that he could have taken her with him. Shortly after that she
found that he was having an affair with his secretary and she threw him out; but that was only the excuse. It was Downing Street that did it. She never forgave him for that.’

‘And he married the secretary?’ Slider said, to get her along.

‘Susan Hatter, her name was. He wouldn’t have married her, except that she got herself pregnant and he was in the news quite a lot and he thought it would look bad. It was another daughter, of course – Jasmine. Oh, that girl!’ She gave an exasperated roll of the eyes. ‘He bought a house in High Wycombe and installed Susan there with the child, and by now he could afford staff so it didn’t matter that Susan hadn’t the first idea of how to run a house or host a dinner party.’

‘And what about Stella and Chattie?’

‘Stella kept the house – the houses Henry leaves scattered behind him! – and Henry paid her alimony, of course, so she ought to have been all right. But all right was not what Stella thought she was owed. She would have kept Chattie away from Henry if she could, to punish him, but he had visitation rights. And of course he was rich, and Stella loved money. So Chattie went to visit. She loved her father obsessively, and was heartbroken when he left. She’d have been about five or six. He had her to stay whenever he could, and visited her at school, and they were always the best of friends. He arranged her education, and as she grew up she became very like a son to him, with her cleverness and her masculine mind and her determination. They were very close.

‘Well, the marriage to Susan was always a mistake and it didn’t last, though he was away so much it didn’t seem necessary for him to divorce her at once. When the time came, he took charge of everything. Susan didn’t want a divorce at all, but she was a very weak-minded woman and easy to bamboozle. He sold the High Wycombe house and bought this one, and moved Susan and Jassy into a small house in St Albans, gave them enough to live on, and forgot about them.’

‘And Chattie?’

‘Oh, he went on seeing Chattie. When he bought this place I came to live here to run it for him, so it was easier, because we could pretend to Stella she was coming to see me rather than him. Once Chattie was eighteen she could do as she liked, though she pretended for her mother’s sake she never saw Henry.
Poor Stella fell on very hard times. She had always been fond of gambling, and after Henry went, she turned to it for solace, I suppose. She was a hard drinker, too, and she liked the high life, and expensive clothes, and when she found she couldn’t afford it all, she had to attach herself to really very unsatisfactory men to make up the difference. In the end, Henry refused to pay her debts, so she had to sell the house and move into a horrid little box and pay them off. It’s another thing she’ll never forgive him for.’