Simon Tolkien Inspector Trave Trilogy: Orders From Berlin, The Inheritance, The King of Diamonds. Simon Tolkien

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       CHAPTER 5

      ‘Anyone would think that you’re enjoying this.’

      The sound of Ava’s voice cutting in on him as he replaced the telephone receiver made Bertram jump – it was the first comment she’d addressed to him all day. And the day before hadn’t been much better. She’d followed him around the flat from the time he got up until the time he went to bed, staring at him while he was talking to her and then saying nothing in response. He couldn’t tell what she was feeling – grief or anger or both, perhaps. She’d never behaved like this before, and it made him nervous.

      ‘Enjoying what?’ he asked. He had no idea what she was talking about.

      ‘My father’s funeral – making the arrangements, organizing the stupid flowers, transporting his body round town, getting to the church on time. You know what I mean, Bertie. Don’t pretend you don’t.’

      ‘Of course I’m not enjoying it,’ he said angrily. ‘But someone has to do it, and you didn’t show any signs of wanting to get involved.’

      ‘What’s the point? He made you his executor, didn’t he?’

      ‘I think he just thought it would be easier that way,’ he said defensively. ‘I know how these things work.’

      ‘What? Because of your job, you mean? The job that you don’t do.’ Ava’s bitterness was obvious.

      ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘You know damn well what I mean. You know how you sit at home all day, neglecting your patients, listening to news bulletins on the radio, poring over old copies of The Times, moving your stupid pins around on that map over there like the war’s some stupid game made up for your amusement, like you think you’re contributing to it in some way.’ Ava’s voice rose as she jabbed her finger at a large map of Europe taped to the kitchen wall. And then silent suddenly, she looked over at her husband on the other side of the table as if assessing his likely reaction, then reached up violently and pulled the map down, tearing it through the centre as it fell. A cascade of coloured pins rolled away in every direction across the lino floor.

      Bertram was white with anger. He wanted to hit his wife with one of the pots on the stove, make her pay for what she’d just done, but he held his hand. And an instant later, he realized that it wasn’t just good sense that had stopped him; it was fear too. He’d never seen her like this. She’d been cold to him, keeping him at arm’s length, but she’d always basically done as she was told. Now, since her father’s death, she was different – it was as if something inside her had been broken or released and she’d become a new person whose actions he could no longer predict.

      He got down on his hands and knees and started to pick up the pins. He couldn’t stand mess and disorder. She knew that. That was why she’d pulled down his map – to see him like this, crawling around on the floor; to humiliate him. He looked up and saw the contempt written all over her face.

      ‘You didn’t need to do that,’ he said.

      ‘Oh yes, I did,’ she shot back. ‘I need to feel something, and if it doesn’t happen soon, I think I’ll go mad – stark, raving mad.’

      ‘You’re overwrought. It’s the shock. You’ll feel better after the funeral,’ he said, getting to his feet, working hard to control his temper, frightened of the craziness he’d started to hear in her voice. There were still pins that he hadn’t got, ones that had rolled out of reach under the dresser. But they’d have to wait. He’d get them later, when Ava wasn’t standing over him, looking as though she might kick him or throw something on his head. He wanted to get away from her.

      ‘No, I won’t feel better,’ she said, spitting out the words. ‘I’ll feel worse – watching you spending my father’s money, paying off all those debts that you don’t want me to know about.’

      ‘What debts? I – I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Bertram stammered, looking away, wondering how much she knew.

      ‘Oh yes, you do. Do you think I’m blind? Do you think I haven’t seen the letters that have been coming here these last few months?’

      ‘You’ve got no right to look at them. They’re mine; they’re addressed to me.’

      Instinctively, he turned to look through the open door of the kitchen over to the locked bureau in the corner of the sitting room where he kept his papers, and at the same time he unconsciously fingered the keys in his pocket. Ava smiled; she could read her husband like a book.

      ‘Shame on you – running up debts when I haven’t had a new dress since the war started; when I haven’t had any fun in as long as I can remember; when I haven’t left this bloody flat except to go and dance attendance on that old man whom you’ve been so busy buttering up. What did you spend the money on, Bertie?’ she demanded, her voice rising with each accusation as she moved towards her husband with her fists clenched in anger. ‘Some other woman, was it? Some damned Soho whore so you could feel like a man for five or ten minutes?’

      ‘Don’t talk like that,’ he said, putting his hands over his ears to shut out her voice. ‘You know how I hate it when you talk like that.’

      ‘Tell me!’ she shouted, stamping her foot.

      ‘I made some bad investments. That’s all. I didn’t know there was going to be a war, did I? It wasn’t my fault.’

      ‘Of course not,’ she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘It never is, is it? Just like it’s not your fault your name’s in my father’s will when you know damned well you got him to put it there, going round there every day, ministering to his every whim, while you let all the rest of your patients go to hell because you couldn’t be bothered. You stole my inheritance,’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘It’s just the same as if you walked into one of the banks up on the High Street and took the money out of the till.’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I did no such thing. Albert left us both his money because we’re married. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine. You know that.’

      ‘Which would be fine, except that you’ve got nothing – nothing except my father’s money and a mountain of debts. Pretty convenient he died when he did, isn’t it?’

      There! She’d said it. It was as though she and Bertram could pretend that the suspicion wasn’t there as long as she didn’t voice it, but once the accusation had been spoken, she knew she couldn’t take it back. It was between them now, opening up like a chasm that neither of them could bridge.

      ‘I had nothing to do with your father’s death,’ said Bertram, speaking slowly, almost as if he were taking an oath in a court of law. ‘How could you even think such a thing, Ava?’

      ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think,’ said Ava, suppressing a cry and putting her hands over her face so she wouldn’t have to see her husband, wouldn’t have to deal with him or even think about him. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that he’d killed her father. He might have a motive, but she felt he was too weak, too law-abiding, to be capable of such an act. Her cry was more a scream СКАЧАТЬ