What in God’s name had Mortimer been thinking of? It must have been he who had engineered the publicity. He had told her about his Fleet Street contacts, about the tiresome but useful “working breakfasts” with the editor of the Sunday Times. But the pressure his agency commanded was not to be applied—or so she had understood—unless and until David refused to onsider a reasonable settlement. Why had he not been given time?
There were other odd things about this newspaper report, things that not only were puzzling but had a ring of menace.
The police, it said, were “seeking” her. Well, yes; so they were, in a sense. She was missing, presumably murdered by her husband. So they were seeking her body. Then why was their search described in this story as “country-wide”? It sounded as if the police believed her to be mobile, to be still alive. You might search a house for a corpse, or dig up a field or two, but surely you didn’t look for it all over the country?
No mention of David. Again, very odd. Was he under arrest already? No, that surely would have been stated. But at least he must have been questioned as the one and only suspect. Nothing here, though, about “a man helping the police with their inquiries”. That’s what the husband was often called until an actual charge was made.
Queerest of all, and somehow the most frightening, was this mention of the accident in the fair. What the hell was that supposed to have to do with her?
Once again, Julia looked at the lines before her. “...wanted for questioning...” Hey, how could they question a body? She hadn’t noticed that before. It was she they wanted to question, not David. God, Mortimer really had ballsed it up.
And that fellow in the fair. He was just something in reserve, a name picked at random to fit the invented lover of hers who was supposed to have driven her husband mad with jealousy. It was a piece of fantasy dreamed up by Mortimer and shared by nobody else.
Or so she had believed. Now the man in the fair was the concern of the police. She, too. The police were actually looking for her, hunting her. Everything had gone wrong. And somewhere there in comfortable, dozy old Flaxborough, David was sitting, smug and untouched, not being sought, not being questioned.
Julia folded the Sunday Times and pushed it close beside her in the chair, obedient to a childish instinct to preserve her shame from questing eyes. Only when Major Cartwright came through the room a few moments later on his way to the kitchen and wished her good morning as Mrs Rothermere did she remember that Julia Harton did not exist as far as her present companions were concerned.
“In for lunch?” inquired Major Cartwright, leaning over her like an insecure scaffold pole.
“Yes. Oh, yes. Certainly.”
“Lamb,” he said. “Cooked in Mrs Cartwright’s special way. Yum yum.” He straightened and marched out.
Julia went to the box of mahogany and cut glass panels that housed the telephone. In her handbag was the diary in which she had pencilled the number given her by Mortimer. His Hampstead flat. Ring if worried or in trouble. Any time. She was worried now. She dialled carefully, moistening her upper lip with the tip of her tongue.
The telephone at the far end rang eight times. Then a voice, a woman’s voice, Julia thought, answered. The voice said that it spoke from the George the Fourth public house.
Public house? Odd. “May I speak to Mr Rothermere, please?” Perhaps the flat was attached. Upstairs or something.
“Who?”
“Mr Rothermere. Mr Mortimer Rothermere.”
“Is he a customer, dear? We’re not open yet.”
“He’s got a flat.”
“This is a pub, dear. No flats. P’raps you’ve got a wrong number.”
Julia read out what she thought she had dialled. “That’s right, dear,” said the voice. “But we’re a pub. No flats.”
“Sorry,” said Julia. She put the phone down.
Leaning back, she closed her eyes and tried to remember the address Mortimer had entered in the registration book (she would look very silly if she asked the Cartwrights if she might look it up). Something-or-other Lodge—that would be the name of the block of flats. And the street? Oil came to mind for some reason. The word oil. Olive? Oil-can...no. Oil well... Well Road. Of course. She dialled Directory Inquiries. Rothermere M., Well Road, Hampstead, London. Thanks.
The verdict was prompt. No telephone was listed under that name and address. Was the person a new subscriber, perhaps?
Julia said no, she didn’t think so, but anyway it didn’t matter.
Again she closed her eyes. There grew upon her a curious feeling that the air about her had thickened in the past half-hour and was now like jelly in which every movement was slow and laboured.
Somebody tapped the glass. Startled, Julia turned. One of the companions of the clergyman was staring in with wide, concerned eyes. “Are you all right, dear?” the woman asked, articulating in mime in case the cabinet was soundproof.
Julia gave her a reassuring smile and raised a hand. The woman nodded and crept off towards the staircase. At once, Julia began to cry.
No, this was stupid. Self-pity she could not afford. If some sort of a trap had been sprung, with her inside it, the best course was to look for an escape hole. First, though, she had to learn the nature of the trap. What had she let herself in for? What, for God’s sake, did the police think she’d done?
She put more change in readiness and dialled her father’s number.
“Flaxborough double two eight nine; Headmaster’s Lodging.” Clear, precise, no room for error. Good old dad. Tight-arsed as ever.
She slipped in the coin. “This is Julia, father. Ahoy, there!” The jocularity was really the tail-end of her weeping. It held a trace of hysteria.
“Julia! Where are you? What on earth have you been up to?”
She said she was at a place on the coast in Norfolk. A small hotel. Then new doubts assailed her. Why was the old man so surprised?
“Look,” she said, “this Rothermere character—I think he’s a crook. He’s skipped off.”
There was a short pause. “Rothermere? Who is Rothermere, pray?”
“Well, he’s from that Happy Endings set-up of yours, isn’t he. But it looks as if he’s ditched me. I mean, a false phone number doesn’t inspire much confidence, does it?”
“Have you been drinking, Julia?”
“Christ! I’m worried half out of my mind and all you can do is accuse me of being drunk.”
Mr Clay’s tone softened a degree. “Not at all. I was simply asking. It has happened before, you know. And I am at a loss to understand these very odd references of yours.”
“What odd references?”