Synopsis
Jeffries, Roderic
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Ambiguity of Murder
By Roderic JeffriesChivers Press
Copyright © 2001 Roderic JeffriesAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780754045052
Chapter One
In the public car park, Fenella sat behind the wheel of theRover and willed the minutes away. Every visiting day shehad promised herself she would not arrive early and haveto sit and wait, wishing, like a child, that the impossiblewould happen; every visiting day, she had failed her promise.Now she was equally early and time had slowed almost to ahalt ...
A man turned the corner of the nearest building and herheart shouted Harry, before her eyes, guided by commonsense, identified him from his clothes as a warder. He borehardly any resemblance to Harry ... If you don't turn upsoon, my love, I'll be confusing you with little green menfrom Mars ...
Two men appeared down the right-hand path beyond theoutside building, and while one of them was another warder,the second was Harry. But they came to a stop and talked ...Why the hell aren't you rushing to me? ... He never allowedhis emotions free rein; had not, even when he knew his worldwas about to collapse about him ... Harry, if you don't rushnow, I'll scream blue, bloody murder.
He finally shook hands with the warder, walked towardsthe Rover, the collar of his overcoat turned up against thewind which blew out of a sullen sky that promised yet morerain in what was proving to be a real Filldyke February ...You're even thinner; you're looking haggard. You need goodfood and love beyond satiation ...
She opened the door and stepped out of the car. Unlikehim, she had no intention of restraining her emotions andshe ran forward. As she wrapped herself around him, shecould hear a Hollywood choir.
* * *
As they drove along the country lane, bordered by thornhedges and an occasional tree, she sat sideways in the passengerseat so that she could stare directly at him. He had ahigh forehead. Soon after meeting him, she'd joked that thisdenoted great intelligence. The first whisper of baldness hadbeen his reply. He might be of the present, but he belongedto the past, to the age when a man pursued modesty. Hiseyes were an ever-changing blue. He claimed that that wasimpossible, but it was true. His nose was Roman ? braveHoratius, the Captain of the Gate, must have sported sucha nose. His lips were full and ...
`You've become very silent,' he said.
... And shaped for love. She briefly put her hand on hisleft thigh. `If I tell you what I'm thinking, you'll cringe at thewoman's gush.'
He laughed.
`Do you know what you do to me when you laugh likethat?'
`Tell me.'
`You make me want to throw myself into your arms.'
`Then in the name of road safety, I won't laugh again untilwe arrive.' He braked for a corner. `Fen.'
`What?'
Once round the corner, he accelerated. `Are you sure it'ssensible to go to your place?'
`Where else can you suggest?'
`Since my place went to Anne in the divorce settlement,it'll have to be a hotel.'
`We celebrate in some coldly anonymous room after allyou've been through?'
`James is hardly going to welcome my appearance. Notafter all that's happened.'
She settled back in the seat and stared through the windscreen,her expression strained.
`I'd hate to cause any more trouble.'
`He died eight months ago.'
In his surprise, he let the car drift on the low grass bank andthe near-side front wheel briefly bumped along its unevensurface. As he hurriedly steered back on to the road, he said:`Why on earth didn't you tell me?'
`Where was the point? There was nothing you could do.And if you'd known, it would only have made things worsefor you.'
`But ...' He became silent. What she said was true. All hecould have offered would have been words and they seldomassuaged pain. `Was it ... Was he ...'
`The past is the past. We've each other and that's all thatmatters.'
Could one ever dismiss the past? he wondered.
Brakebourne House stood in the centre of a row of Edwardianhouses. Three floors high and relatively narrow, it lackedgood proportions and its appearance was only redeemed bythe odd-shaped, stone-bordered windows, which provided acertain quirkiness.
They lay in bed in the main bedroom; he on his back, sheon her side and pressed against him.
`Well?' she said.
`The score out of ten? Eleven.'
`Thank goodness it wasn't a mere nine.' She moved untilshe could rest her breasts on his chest and kiss him. `WhenI allowed myself to dream, we made such imaginative lovethat I drove your pain away.'
`You've exceeded all expectations.'
The rain increased and the wind swept it against the windowwith a drumming sound. He said, his voice distant:`When it rained as hard as this, the roof leaked and waterdripped with irritating monotony on to the floor betweenmy bed and the next one. Each time it happened, I reportedit and they said repairs would be carried out, but they neverwere. I reckon the secret of good prison management is tomake certain that nothing changes.'
`Was it very terrible? Or don't you want to talk about it?'
Several seconds passed before he said: `There's the oldchestnut that if you've suffered public school, prison's a pieceof cake. There's a little truth in that. But when one's an adult,it's difficult to accept stupidity in the name of discipline ...Still, it was a loose regime compared to a closed prison and theonly real problem was successfully defending one's virtue.'
`What were the staff like?'
`The mixture one meets anywhere; some good, some bad,some indifferent. I was lucky. One of the screws had a secretliking for romantic poetry.'
`Why secret?'
`In such a regime, that sort of passion is regarded with thedeepest suspicion.'
`How did you discover he liked it?'
`Shortly after I arrived, he told me to weed one of theflower beds. Being facetious, to try to keep my spirits abovefreezing, I said, "A host, of golden daffodils; beside the mess,beneath the trees." Instead of bawling me out for insolence,he assumed I was a Wordsworth fanatic and had me postedas assistant librarian. From time to time he discussed poetrywith me and since he knew far more than I could remember,I had to do a lot of surreptitious revision. It paid off. He wasusually ready to give a spot of advice and more than onceenabled me to avoid trouble.'
`What sort of trouble?'
`As it's an open prison, in theory all the inmates are non-violent,but people's concepts of what constitutes violencevaries. For some, knocking hell out of someone is no morethan horseplay and I'd probably have been well on thereceiving end because of my obvious background if he hadn'tadvised me how to act when things started looking dicey.'
`You'd have been badly hurt?'
`More than likely.'
`Bastards!'
`On the face of things, yes. But most of them have ledrough lives so their values are completely different.'
`I meant the lawyers.'
`You can't blame them ...'
`I can! Why do you have to be so bloody forgiving?'
`It's supposed to get you to heaven quicker.'
`You're hiding the truth, aren't you? You're being facetiousto cover the fact that every moment was pure hell, made farworse because you weren't guilty.'
`That certainly didn't help.'
She kissed him with passion, trying to drive past hurt from,his mind and fear of the past from her own. In the nature ofthings, she succeeded in doing both for a while.
Later, when the rain had eased and objects seen throughthe window were distorted rather than a meaningless blur,he said: `Did James ever ...' He came to a stop.
`Understand?'
`I suppose that's as good a word as any.'
`He couldn't.'
`He still thought it was because of his illness, not despiteit?'
`I tried and tried to make him understand ... For God'ssake, why do I keep on using that word when it's meaninglesssince I can't understand myself even. How did it happen? I'vealways considered myself loyal. But we're asked to a party,James isn't up to it, but persuades me to go because he says Imust have a break from illness; I'm standing by the fireplacethinking how odd it is to see people able to lead normal livesand you're introduced ... And I throw loyalty out of thewindow!'
`Sometimes, one just isn't in control of one's own life,however hard one tries to be.'
`That's merely excusing weakness.'
`Perhaps. It's also true.'
`If Anne hadn't been having another affair, would you havebeen so eager?'
`It was nothing to do with attitudes, all to do with pheromones.They're irresistible. Female moths release them andin no time at all they're surrounded by ardent males.
`You make it sound as if I hadn't bathed properly.'
`I'm saying that we couldn't have stopped its happening.'
`Not even if we'd known the pain it would cause?'
`I said, they're irresistible.'
`That's a weasel.'
`Sometimes it helps one to see the truth to weasel.'
They were silent for a while.
`Don't you think we ought to get up?' she finally asked.
`Why?'
`I'm sure you were brought up to believe it to be decadentto be in bed during the day unless one's ill.'
`Since the only decadence available to me until now hasnot been to my taste, I say, decade on.'
Continues...
Excerpted from The Ambiguity of Murderby Roderic Jeffries Copyright © 2001 by Roderic Jeffries. Excerpted by permission.
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