Permissible Limits (14 page)

‘
You think there’s more?’

‘
There’s always more.’

I nodded, trying to make light of it.

‘
I’m sure you’re right,’ I said. ‘But you’ll forgive me, you know, if I’m a little hazy just now.’

‘
Of course.’

There was a long silence. Perry blew his nose, carefully folding the handkerchief afterwards, and for a moment I thought he was going to start all over again. How long the insurance policy had been active. How experienced a pilot Adam had been. Why he might have tired of married life with yours truly.

‘
Are you telling me my husband faked his own death?’ I enquired coldly.

‘
I’m suggesting it’s a possibility.’

‘
OK.’ I nodded. ‘Let’s say he did, is that a crime?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
What kind of crime?’ ‘Fraud, for starters.’

‘
And is that why you’re here? Because you think he’s still alive?’

He hesitated a moment, then he had the grace to look away.

‘
You may not realise quite the kind of situation your husband’s created,’ he said. ‘Because there’s no body, we can only open an inquest and then adjourn it. As long as the inquest isn’t over, I’m afraid he’s not dead. Not officially, anyway.’

I stared at him, shocked. I’d heard some of this only this morning but I’d somehow assumed that Dennis’s talk of proof of loss was strictly for the benefit of the insurers. The possibility that it might also apply to the real world hadn’t occurred to me.

‘
So what happens next?’ I said. ‘Where do I go from here?’

‘
It’s awkward, Mrs Bruce. You have to wait a year. If your husband’s body turns up, all well and good. The inquest will resume, in the normal way.’

‘
But what if he doesn’t?’ I was looking at a photo on the dresser, Adam clambering out of the Mustang. ‘What then?’

‘
After the year’s up, we write to the Home Office. The Secretary of
State can grant a presumption of death. Normally
that
takes a couple
of weeks. Then we arrange an inquest - say
a
week or two later - and that’s when the coroner can close the file. Officially, that is.’

I nodded, trying to take it in.

‘
But does all that matter?’

‘
I’m afraid it can, yes.’

‘
Why?’

He hesitated, then looked round. Anything in joint names, he said, would have to stay that way. Assets that I might want to get rid of - like the house - would be effectively frozen.

‘
You mean I couldn’t…’ I shrugged hopelessly,’… sell it?’

‘
No, not without his consent.’

‘
But he’s dead.’

‘
Doesn’t matter. Makes no difference.’

I felt something close to panic welling up inside. Everything we had - the house, the business, the aircraft - was held in joint names. Did this mean I had to wait a year, a whole twelve months, before I could make any decisions? What if I had to raise money quickly? What then?

Mention of the aircraft sent Perry back to his pad. He wanted to know how much they were worth. I gave him the figure for the Mustang first.

‘
Six hundred grand?’ There was no doubt about the smile this time. ‘Yes.’

‘
And the other one?’

‘
The other two. There’s a Harvard and a Tiger Moth.’

I named a price for each. He wrote them down. While he was still busy with his shorthand, I got to my feet, eager now for the interview to end.

‘
Maybe I did it,’ I said lightly. ‘Have you thought of that?’

Perry didn’t look up.

‘
Did what, Mrs Bruce?’

‘
Killed him. Killed my husband.’

There was a longish silence. He was still making notes on the pad.

‘
You’d need a motive,’ he murmured at last, ‘if that’s a serious question.’

He stayed another half-hour or so. He took a formal statement about Adam - basic stuff like the length of our marriage and the nature of the business we ran - and then he went into some detail about Adam’s movements over the last month or so. Because I’d been thinking of nothing else since midday, I was able to help him out there, and when I’d fetched the diary from the office, I gave him a list of dates when Adam had been away.

‘
Where did he go?’

‘
Jersey, mostly.’

‘
Business?’

‘
Of course.’

‘
Who with?’

‘
Various people.’

Again, the pen faltered, and when he looked up and asked for names I had to bite my lip before I came up with Dennis Wetherall. I gave him the phone number of his office, and the address too.

‘
What about a Steve Liddell?’

‘
Him, too.’

‘
They were in business together?’

‘
Sort of. Not really. You’ll have to ask Dennis.’

‘
But you say you ran…’ he consulted his pad, ‘… this Old Glory together?’

‘
Absolutely.’

‘
And you didn’t know about Steve Liddell?’

‘
Of course I knew about Steve Liddell. But he had nothing to do with Old Glory.’

I was still wondering where he’d got Steve’s name. Had the Jersey police been on? Did he have a list of questions to put to me about the fire? It seemed he didn’t, though before he went he confided that he had, indeed, been contacted by the CID office in St Helier. When I asked why, he simply smiled, shaking his head. The scones, he said, had been lovely, and if there was anything else I wanted to say then I just had to lift the phone. He scribbled a mobile number on the back of a card and stepped aside as I led the way out of the kitchen.

By the front door, he paused and fumbled in his trouser pocket for the handkerchief. The oil painting of the Mustang was back in the hall. Perry peered at it, then pointed at the beaming face in the cockpit.

‘
Was that your husband?’

‘
Yes.’

Perry gave his nose a final wipe, then opened the door and stepped out.

‘
I expect you’d like him back.’ He turned round, buttoning his coat. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

I thought about the proposition for a moment or two. Then I nodded.

‘
I would,’ I said. ‘I’d like that very much.’

After Perry had gone, I buried myself in the paperwork I’d neglected over the past few days. Even with
the
two of us, running Old Glory was never less than demanding. Like any business, it needed constant attention and it was dark outside by the time I’d dealt with the latest batch of correspondence, mainly letters from Americans wanting to stay. The fact that we were already fully booked for the coming season made little difference to the workload. We’d always made a point of replying to each applicant, telling ourselves that every airmail letter represented a potential guest, if not this year then maybe next.

The work done, I left the printer to chatter away in the office and returned to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Already, deep inside me, I felt a stranger in my own house. This was where I thought Adam and I had been so happy. This was what we’d built together, shared together. As it turned out, though, me and the home and the business and the Mustang hadn’t been quite enough. There had, as ever, to be more - another challenge, another conquest, another ball for my greedy juggler to keep in the air.

Put this way, what he’d done didn’t seem quite so gross. Indeed, the more I thought about it, the more in keeping with his character it appeared to be. Adam wouldn’t have been Adam without the compulsion to tackle life at a thousand miles an hour, and if in his haste he’d stumbled over some sultry bimbo on a Jersey beach, then who was I to be surprised? Finding out hurt like hell, of course it did, and a big part of me that loved him couldn’t bear the thought of sharing him with anyone else. Indeed, had he still been alive, and had I still found the photo, then I’d certainly have thrown him out and probably killed him before he’d got to the end of the drive.

The thought, oddly enough, made me smile. It was so hot-blooded, so physical, so in keeping with what we’d had. If Adam had survived my onslaughts, then I knew he’d have been back within hours, contrite, laden with flowers, a late convert to monogamy. I dwelt on the image as long as I could, imagining his laboured explanations, his pleas for forgiveness. The girl had been easy, beautiful, thick. She’d taken him to bed a couple of times but already he was bored stiff with her. The thing was over, a couple of hot weeks way back last summer, maybe a phone call or two afterwards, but nothing serious, nothing heavy. And the photo in the drawer? The heartfelt message on the back? He’d grin, and shrug, and take me in his arms. You know men, he’d say. Always hanging on to the wrong kind of trophy.

I nearly didn’t answer the phone in the office. It was Dennis ringing from Jersey. He had two bits of news about Steve. One I wouldn’t want to hear. The other probably explained everything.

I didn’t understand a word.

‘
You what?’ I said.

‘
Bad news first. Adam was in deeper than we thought.’

‘
What do you mean?’

‘
I’ve been going through the current accounts. He laundered some cash and put it Steve’s way. We’re looking at money here, Ellie. Not loan guarantees.’

‘
Laundered?’

‘
Yeah. Basically it was income from the Mustang, about seventy grand’s worth, but he disguised it.’

‘
Why? How?’

‘
Doesn’t matter. If I tell you how he did it, I’d be here all night.’

I nodded, forcing myself to concentrate. This was like life in the Blitz, I thought. Raid after raid. The masonry crashing around me.

‘
That’s the bad news?’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
What’s the other bit?’

‘
Steve’s private life. You remember that photo of the kid you noticed? The one on his desk?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
That’s his little girl. Her name’s Minette.’ ‘Steve’s married?’

‘
No, he had a partner. Chick called Michelle.’

‘
Had?’

‘
Yeah, she went off with some fella. Don’t ask me who. Crucified Steve, though. You can see it, can’t you? State of the guy?’

I was still thinking of the little face in the photo on Steve’s desk. Dennis was right. No wonder Steve had looked so awful. No wonder the Spit had caught fire.

I began to thank Dennis for getting in touch again, then I stopped. The photo I’d found in Adam’s office was still lying beside the phone. I tried to head off the question but there was no stopping it.

‘
What does she look like? This Michelle?’

‘
No idea,’ Dennis laughed. ‘Apparently she runs some kind of windsurfing school. Out on one of those nice little bays.’

She had a name, this woman.
Michelle.
I sat in the car, parked in the darkness on a tiny track overlooking the lighthouse at St
Catherine’s
Point. This was the very bottom of the island. Beyond here, for umpteen miles, there was nothing but the trackless wastes of the Channel. Was Adam really out there? Had he really crashed? And even if he had, was there any point in caring any more?

Michelle.
I wound down the window, peering into the windy darkness, thinking of Steve Liddell and the little girl he’d lost to his one-time partner. No wonder he’d been reluctant to talk about the accident with the Spitfire. No wonder he’d looked so helpless, so beaten, so physically spent.

It was cold outside and I shivered, winding up the window again, wondering whether it was late or not. Since Thursday, time had become somehow elastic, stretching and stretching, the days blurring into each other, a non-stop succession of phone calls, and half-understood conversations. With each of these exchanges it seemed to me that the news got worse and worse, tightening the corset into which Adam had strapped me. First the loan guarantee. Then the photograph on the beach. And now £70,000 he’d simply helped himself to. Where had it gone, that money? Had it gone to Steve, as Dennis seemed to believe? Or had it really been meant for Michelle? A token of my husband’s affection? A down-payment on some life they were planning together, once he’d dumped one or two bits of baggage? Like me?