John Creasey - Alibi

The woman at that house, Natalie Tryon, was miserably unhappy, with a husband with whom she stayed only for her children’s sake. This man was her lover, who visited her whenever her husband was away.

Roger pulled up outside his own house and turned towards the garage, then put on the brakes, appalled at a sudden, devastating thought.

Supposing Janet had a lover!

Supposing she had become so lonely and miserable that she had sought and found consolation.

Wouldn’t that explain her moodiness, her attitudes, her thinking?

Roger sat absolutely rigid, and had been there for three or four minutes, hardly able to think clearly, when a shaft of light appeared from the front door, and then Janet’s silhouette appeared against the porch light.

“Darling! Is that you?”

He made himself call out, “Yes, coming!” Opening the car door, he saw her hurrying towards him. The light from street lamps were soft on her face, and she looked at her best. She moved beautifully, too. Suddenly, she was close to him, and he closed the car door softly, habitually remembering not to wake a neighbour’s baby. As suddenly, he took her in his arms, held her almost too tight for a moment, and then kissed her.

A few moments later, breathless, they drew apart. Neither spoke as they linked arms and turned towards the house, until Janet said, “Will you leave the car out?”

“Yes, it doesn’t matter on these warm nights.”

“I’ll put it away if you like,” she offered.

“No. Leave it.” They reached the porch, still arm in arm. He knew that her mood had changed even more than his, that now she was calm in spirit. He did not know how to tell her what was passing through his mind, and she saved him the need to say anything.

“You lock up, I’ll make some tea, darling, and we’ll have it in the kitchen. The boys have both gone to bed. I’ll pop up and get into a dressing-gown.”

“Good idea,” he said. He locked and bolted the front door, checked the windows of the sitting and dining rooms, then hesitated. He would be more comfortable in a dressing-gown, too, and especially in slippers. Quickly he went upstairs, and into their room.

He stopped short.

Spread across the bed were open photograph albums, loose snapshots and seaside pictures, and a glance showed that these were all of the days of their courtship and early marriage. None showed the boys, even as babies. The pillows were rucked up and the bedspread had been pulled down. On one pillow was a screwed-up handkerchief. Roger picked it up and found that it was damp; she had obviously been crying. He looked more closely at the albums; there they were at a tennis party, at a dance, with a crowd of young people on the beach: always together, always looking happy.

Roger lost himself in retrospection, now and again thinking: Thank God I came straight back tonight. He lost count of time, until, disturbed by a footfall on the landing, he looked up and saw Janet.

She came in.

“I meant to clear all that up before you came in here.” she said.

“Why, darling?”

She stood a little distance from him, and answered, “It seemed like a kind of blackmail to leave them out!”

“Some blackmail! I’ve been think about those days, too. Remember that buxom blonde I arrested at the tennis club for raiding the dressing rooms?”

“Shall I ever forget her!”

“She wasn’t unlike Maisie Dunster,” he told her. “Only Maisie’s much more attractive.”

“ And seductive?” Janet, quite free from tension now, went on, “Darling, I hate myself when I behave like I did tonight, I really do. No, don’t interrupt.” She put a hand over his lips, and went on with words she had obviously rehearsed over and over again. “I know you have the job to do, I know we’ve had this kind of upset before, I know there are times when I hate the job so much that I could climb on the roof and cry “down with Scotland Yard!”—” She paused, momentarily, a gleam of laughter in her eyes. “But deep down I also know that you love it more than I hate it, that you couldn’t really live without the Yard but I can live with the situation even if I do have to let off steam sometimes. You needn’t worry, you really needn’t. Just—” She broke off again and went on with only a slight change of tone, “Just keep me hopeful with promises of what we’ll do when you do retire. After all, it won’t be more than five years now, and we’ve had twenty-five already, so it isn’t really too long.”

“No,” he said, huskily. And then, “I’ll keep you hopeful.”

“Don’t promise you’ll have every other weekend off and ten days” leave every quarter,” she protested, half-laughing. “Just be with me as much as you can, darling. Please “ Slowly the laughter faded and there was a new earnestness, new intentness in her manner. “You’re all I’ve got, you know. The boys, bless them, aren’t mine any longer, not in the true sense—and on a night like this they’re on your side. I love you so much,” she went on quietly. “Do you know, since those tennis club days I’ve never looked at another man. And— darling! Let me finish. I do not want to know whether you have looked at another woman. I really don’t. I don’t mind what you do provided you’re happy, and I hate myself when I add to your problems.”

There were tears in her eyes.

And his eyes stung.

• • •

Later, when their bodies had intermingled with a passion which they had not known for a long time, they fell asleep.

When, just after half past seven, Martin brought in a tea tray, Roger was still holding her tightly.

“ Whoops! ” exclaimed Scoop. “See you later.”

He put down the tray and fled.

• • •

On the Monday morning, Roger and Janet after waking early, were talking about the case. Relaxed in a chair by the bedside with Janet sitting against pillows, a bed- jacket draped over her shoulders, Roger could see the whole series of incidents more clearly. Now and again Janet asked a question, for clarification, but for the most part it was a monologue. The tea was cold in the pot and the room warm from hot sunshine when the telephone bell rang. He picked up the extension by the side of the bed, and glanced at the clock. It was a little after nine.

“Roger West,” he announced, expecting someone from the Yard.

“Mr. West,” a woman said, and he knew at once that this was Rachel Warrender, “I will be grateful if you can spare me an hour this morning.”

“I may not be able to fit in an hour,” Roger had to reply. “Will half an hour do?”

“You’re very kind. Shall I come to your office?”

“If you do, it will have to be official,”Roger said.

She hesitated for a moment, then said huskily, “You’re quite right, thank you. Where do you suggest?” Roger was looking at Janet and framing the name “Rachel W” with his lips. Janet’s eyes widened and she stretched out a hand, whispering, “Roger!”

“Just a moment,” Roger covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Had a brainwave?”

“Why not ask her here?” Janet suggested. “I could bring in some coffee or a drink, and I’d love to see her.”

It was a sensible idea, it would help to seal their new understanding, the new mood, and Roger turned back to the telephone.

“If you could be at my home in half an hour or so, we could talk here.”

“Oh, that would be splendid!” He had not heard Rachel Warrender speak with such spirit before. “I may be a little more than half an hour, I’m at my office in Lincoln’s Inn, but I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

She rang off.

As Roger replaced the receiver, Janet was getting out of bed. She edged towards the window, so that she couldn’t be seen from the street. Stretching up to draw the curtains, her skin was so white, her figure so lovely, her hair so dark where it fell about her shoulders, that he caught his breath.

“If she’ll be here in half an hour I ’ ve got to get a move on.” Out of the tail of her eye she saw him get up from the chair. “Darling, you get shaved quickly. I’ll have to make some toast—darling, you’ll have to. I—Roger! ” she almost screamed. “Roger, there isn’t time!”

“I know,” he said, enveloping her. “And I’m nearly an old man.” He held her very tightly, then kissed her on the forehead and let her go. “I’ll get my own breakfast.”

He bathed, shaved, made toast, piled on butter and marmalade, made instant coffee, telephoned the Yard to say he would not be in the office until eleven thirty or so, checked that nothing new had developed over the Rapelli case and that Fogarty, Campbell and Rapelli, the only remaining three on any kind of charge, all appeared to have spent good nights. So far, so good.

“And Tom,” he said to Danizon, “I must be in court when the charges against Campbell are made. Will you see that he’s not heard until midday—noon—at the earliest?”

“Yes, sir,” Danizon said. “What about Fogarty?”

“If he’s released, make sure he’s effectively trailed,” Roger said.

“I’ll see to it, sir,” said Danizon. “I can tell you that Mr. Coppell will be out most of the day, he’s going to that conference of European Police. And the commissioner will be out too—he’s going to the luncheon reception.”

Roger laughed.

“Almost a free day, in fact!”

“If I were you, sir,” said Danizon, “I’d take at least part of the day off. Just go to court and—but I’m sorry, sir. I’m talking out of turn.”

Roger could almost see him go pink with confusion as he rang off.

A moment later, Janet came out of the sitting-room, a housecap sloping over one eye, a small apron over her nightdress. She carried a mop and a duster and a can of furniture-polish spray. Her nose and cheeks were shiny and her lips pale.

“I’ll have my bath now and get dressed—you open the door when she comes. I’ll bring coffee at a quarter past ten, is that right?”

“Ten o’clock,” urged Roger. “I’m not sure how this interview will go, and I could make heavy weather of it.”

“Why?” asked Janet. “Isn’t she buxom enough for you?”

Five minutes later he was outside, snipping the fading heads off some scarlet parrot tulips and noticing the trimness of lawn and hedge which he had hardly seen during the pressures of the past few weeks. Did either of the boys help Janet much? he wondered. Or was this mostly her work? Practically nothing needed doing, he must remember to compliment her.

He was pulling a few weeds, mostly seedlings, when a car drew up. He looked through the thick privet hedge, able to see that it was a white M.G.: just the car he could imagine Rachel Warrender having. And it was her. She climbed out, and he was slightly startled by her appearance, for she wore a white linen trouser-suit, accentuating her youth and slimness of figure, and a small, round, sailor hat. Not at all the average person’s con-ception of a woman solicitor, Roger thought amusedly. He felt sure that Janet, watching out of the window, would have eyes rounded in surprise.

“Good morning, Miss Warrender,” he called across the hedge. “You found the house all right, then.”

She started, and turned to look at him. And now he was even more startled: in fact appalled. For she looked in terrible distress. Her beautiful eyes were shadowed, and so glassy that he doubted if she had slept all night. She nodded, and formed the words “good morning”, but did not utter a sound. He met her at the gate, and saw that there were tears in her eyes as well as lines at her forehead and mouth. He didn’t shake hands but led the way to the front door, said, “The door on the right,” and followed her into the sittingroom.