Best British Crime 6 - [Anthology] Read online

  “So what happened last night?”

  He explained with brutal simplicity, “My wife died.”

  “That we know. It’s what we don’t know that I need you to tell me, and you’re the only one who can.”

  Sam thought for several seconds that he was showing no emotion at all, but then he realized his mistake. Reed’s eyes were aqueous, sparkling despite the gloom of the surroundings. “No one on the outside knows what goes on between four walls.”

  “But you were on the inside.”

  He sighed, and with perfect timing a single tear tracked down his right cheek. “Yes.”

  “So tell me what happened.”

  Now he drew in breath, a ragged, almost juddering sound. “I thought it would all be straightforward. I thought that it would be an ending.”

  “And isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  Sam said in a low tone, “It was for your wife.”

  Reed seemed surprised that anyone else was in the room. “Yes,” he agreed.

  Hannah asked, “How do you feel about that, Phil?”

  “How do you expect me to feel? My wife’s dead.”

  “Who’s fault is that?”

  He even managed to smile. “On the face of it, mine.”

  “Is that a confession?”

  At which he was given pause. “Ah, thereby is suspended a very interesting tale.”

  “Did you kill Kate?”

  His reply might have been to a question about the answer to number twenty-one down. “I’ve been thinking long and hard about that. I suppose, taking everything into account, I would have to admit that I bear some responsibility for her death, yes ... Yet, no. There was a degree of inevitability about the events that culminated in Kate’s death.”

  “So you admit that you slit her wrists?”

  He took this, considered it, then admitted, “Yes, she asked me to.”

  Sam was incredulous. “She asked you to? She asked you to grab hold of her hands and slice through her wrists?”

  “Something like that.”

  “And then you sat there? You’re asking us to believe that she was quite happy for you to watch her die?”

  Reed protested. “We talked. We remembered the good times that we’d had together.”

  Sam had heard stories on Jackanory that were more believable. “You’re asking us to believe that you just sat there while she sat in a bath of water, completely naked, and bled to death?”

  “She was my wife. I had seen her sans culottes before.”

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  “Yes, Detective Sergeant, and I am asking you to believe what I’m saying. I loved Kate. I wouldn’t murder her.”

  “Yet you admit that you slit her wrists.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What reason would she have for suicide? An attractive woman, a happy marriage ... it was a happy marriage, wasn’t it?”

  Reed smiled. “Are any truly happy?”

  “We’re talking about yours.”

  Reed looked up at him, tears still bright in his eyes. “Well, since you ask, no it wasn’t ... But that wasn’t because we didn’t love each other. Far from it.”

  Sam thought that he was onto something. “Why was it unhappy? Was it money? Or was she having an affair? Were you, perhaps?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Then why did you kill her?”

  “I...”

  Sam wasn’t interested in his protestations. “Come on, Doctor. There’s no point in refusing to tell us. You’re going to be convicted of murder whether you say anything or not. The only difference is whether you get parole sooner rather than later. The Parole Board don’t like people who refuse to accept guilt.”

  Reed turned to Sam’s boss. “I didn’t murder Kate, Hannah. I loved her.”

  Hannah raised her eyebrows. “So you what? Put her out of her misery?”

  Reed might have been about to protest, but instead he paused, then said, “That would be a fair description.”

  “But why? What misery did Kate have to be put out of?”

  Reed had begun to weep again. For protracted seconds he said nothing, his head bowed low, then he said sadly, “Death.”

  * * * *

  “That went well, I think.”

  Reed, who was tired, raised a smile as he brought a tray of dirty crockery out to the kitchen. “It was superb. The desserts were brilliant.”

  “Thank you. I thought so.”

  “Mind you, it was obvious that Will and Ruth preferred my main.” He decided this with perfect seriousness, apparently after considered study.

  Kate was outraged. “You think? You really think?”

  Careful not to smile. “I know.”

  She shook her head. “You sad man.”

  He had put down the tray and was helping his wife unload the dishwasher. “Where does this go?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Obviously not.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself. It just goes to show how little you do around here.”

  “Thank you for that. I’ll tell you what, I’ll give up the day job—and the money it brings in—and become a househusband. You can support us.”

  She straightened up. She was wearing a figure-hugging bright blue, almost iridescent evening dress. “I may only be a humble publisher,” she pointed out, “but I think you’d notice it if I packed it in tomorrow.”

  “I seriously doubt it.”

  And, abruptly, her demeanor changed and became almost fearful. “You really think so?”

  “What does that mean?”

  A slight hesitation now came upon her. “It’s still supposed to be a secret, but Ruth’s just found out that she’s pregnant. She told me this evening.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s thrilled.”

  For a moment, he was blind to her thinking. “I’m not surprised...” It was at this point that he came to realization. “Oh...”

  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful? To have a baby?” Something joyous had come into her face, something that frightened him.

  “Well ... I suppose so.”

  “Maybe twins,” she rushed on. “At any rate, we could eventually have two, or maybe three.”

  He held up his hands. “Whoa. Hang on there. We’ve haven’t decided on having one yet. We’ve only been married three years.”

  “But you want children, don’t you? You’ve always said that you did.”

  He felt buffeted by her passion, wanted to swim to shore. “Yes...”

  “Well, then.”

  He gestured with his hands that she should slow down. He was fully aware that if he just refused she would be upset, there might even be a row, and he didn’t want that. At the same time, he wanted her to calm down, think rationally, where now he was sure that she was driven by instinct. “I just wasn’t expecting things to change quite so quickly. We’ve got a good life together.”

  “And we’ll have an even better one when we’re parents. You’ll see.”

  “This is all a bit sudden, Kate.”

  She couldn’t see it. “After three years?”

  “I hope we’re going to be married a long time.”

  Despite his wish to avoid confrontation, she was plainly becoming angry at his intransigence. “But what’s the point of marriage without children?”

  “For Christ’s sake, marriage is more than just a means of making babies, Kate.”

  “But it’s also more than just two people enjoying themselves.” Her voice was rising, a frown beginning to form on her face. “It’s more than just dinner parties, holidays, and good sex.” She stopped. Her next sentences were dug out of a very deep pit of emotion. “I want a child, Phil. I want a baby.”

  And before such depth of passion he found too late that he had nowhere to swim to, no safe haven to find. Before it, he was powerless. “Oh, God ... Come here, Kate.”

  As they held each other, she said through tears against his shou
lder, “I didn’t realize before how much I wanted children, but I’ve been unable to get the idea of babies out of my head. And then when Ruth told me...”

  Even then, he knew not only that she would have her way, but also that her way would be costly.

  * * * *

  “About five months ago, Kate was diagnosed with glioblastome multiforme.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Reed smiled sadly. “It’s a lovely name, isn’t it? Sounds properly scientific, suitably imposing. Much more impressive than words like cancer, or brain tumor.”

  “Is that what it is? Cancer?”

  He sighed. “Oh yes. It’s a brain tumor, but it’s a brain tumor and a half ... a supercharged brain tumor. A really nasty, aggressive one. Down the microscope, it looks beautiful, but then all the really vicious diseases look like that. It’s one of God’s little jokes.” He paused, then with intense sourness he added, “Full of jokes, is God. Full of them. A right comedian.”

  Hannah glanced at Sam, then asked Reed, “But she was being treated...?”

  “She was being palliated.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a euphemism. Have you noticed how we live in a euphemistic society? Everything has to be disguised, hidden, pushed away. Call it by another name and then all will be better. The trouble is, deep down they’re still the same. The unpleasant is still unpleasant, the vicious is still vicious, the untreatable is still untreatable.”

  “She was going to die?”

  “Oh yes. She was going to die, and how. Maybe in three months, maybe in six.”

  Sam thought that he understood. “So you killed her.”

  “So I did as she asked,” Reed said with justifiable pedantry.

  Sam, though, seemed less impressed by Reed’s aspiration to mercy. “Why like that? Why naked in a bath? Why not tablets? You must have access to any number of tablets.”

  “I know about death, Sergeant. It’s my job, God help me. You have to be careful with tablets. They can make you sick, they can make you fit, they can give you unendurable stomach pains. Whereas lying in a warm bath, your lifeblood slowly draining away ... there is no pain or vomiting or convulsion. Just slow, lazy unconsciousness from which you never wake up.”

  “You say you slit her wrists and that she was quite happy for you to do it. I can’t believe that. It must have hurt like hell. No one would willingly allow someone else—no matter how much they love them—to put a blade through their flesh.”

  Reed’s demeanor suggested that he was in front of a particularly dense medical student. “You’re right, of course ... unless you use local anaesthetic first.”

  Hannah understood. “The puncture marks on her wrists.”

  Despite everything, Reed seemed impressed by this piece of professionalism. “They were noticed? Good. Who’s your pathologist?”

  “Colin Browne.”

  He nodded, then said gently, “Tell him to treat her with dignity.”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  Sam remained untainted by sentimentalism and intruded on the moment. “Forgive me for being dense, but you’re asking us to believe that you sat there and watched her die? Isn’t that a bit ghoulish?”

  “What was I supposed to do? Go and make a cup of tea? Perhaps watch Countdown on the telly?”

  “But just to sit there? To watch your own wife, who you claim to love, dying?”

  Reed was distracted, the last hours of his wife still playing in his mind. “She didn’t want to die alone. Who does?”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “Yes. Why shouldn’t it be?”

  “Because I think you enjoyed sitting there while she died.”

  He shook his head. “It’s a funny thing. I know all about death. I’m totally familiar with what it does in all its forms; so much so I can work back from the traces that it leaves on the corpse to deduce what form it took when it visited. That’s my skill.” He paused, then said, “Yet I know nothing about dying. That’s as alien to me as the surface of Jupiter.”

  Sam thought he understood. “So you treated your own wife’s death as some sort of peep show?”

  “No, Sergeant. I did not enjoy the experience one bit.”

  “I think you’re sick, Dr. Reed. I think you drugged your wife, slit her wrists, and then sat there drinking wine and enjoying her death.”

  At which Reed gave up on his student. “I don’t really care what you think, Sergeant Rich.”

  “It’s bad enough that you were willing to cut your wife’s flesh yourself, but then to watch her bleed to death...”

  Reed’s head was bowed, as if penitent. “I didn’t want to do it, but when the time came, she couldn’t do it herself.” In a slightly louder voice he asked, “You don’t think I enjoyed doing it, do you?”

  “You were fascinated, weren’t you? A little experiment: Slit the wrists and then sit back and watch. Did you make notes? Did you get off on it? Was it worth—”

  “Shut up!” Reed suddenly looked up at Sam and rose slightly from his chair, so that they were face to face in a posture of animal aggression.

  Hannah said mildly, “Well, perhaps we’ve got as far as we’re going to get for now. Come on, Sam.” They stood up, then to Reed she said, “We’re going to have to charge you, I’m afraid.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll need to discuss with the superintendent whether it’s manslaughter or murder.”

  “Perhaps—”

  She failed to notice that Reed had something more to say. “And of course, when we get the toxicology and the full autopsy reports back, they may change matters.”

  “No doubt, but—”

  “Even if you were acting from the best of motives, I’m afraid that what you did was illegal. Manslaughter is the very best you can hope for.”

  Reed smiled. “You think so? I would have said that the best would be redemption.”

  “Redemption for what, Phil? You claim that what you did was some sort of act of kindness, don’t you?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Well, then...” She shrugged. “I think you can switch the tape off now, Sam.”

  But at this, Reed said suddenly, “No!”

  “No? Why not?”

  He took a deep breath. “I want to tell you something more.”

  She looked at him, then sat back down slowly. “Really? We don’t often get such voluble people in here.”

  “It’s your lucky day, then.”

  “What do you want to tell us about, Phil?”

  “The swirling patterns.”

  This non sequitur found her lost. “I’m sorry?”

  Slowly he repeated the phrase. “The swirling patterns.” His tone was dreamy, almost awe filled. “As I cut Kate’s wrists, the blood dripped into the bath water and made swirling pink patterns that faded as they curled around and around...”

  She looked again at Sam, saw that he was as intrigued as she. “What about them?”

  But Reed, it seemed, was in a circumlocutory mood. “It wasn’t a happy marriage—hadn’t been for some time—but we still loved each other, and as we sat together while she died, we both realized just how much.” His voice trailed away for a moment, before, “Of course, happy marriages are made, not born, and ours was made unhappy by only one thing.”

  “Which was?”

  “Children. When they’re born, they keep you awake at night, they scream and they puke and they dribble. The lie in their own excrement, and they live entirely for themselves. They suck you dry and then come back for more. They drive you beyond the limits that you thought you could endure, and with a heartlessness that not even the most evil dictator in the world would ever show, they come back for more of you.” And with surprise they saw that there were tears in his eyes, and more than that, for he was crying almost uncontrollably. His last words were almost lost in this flood of sorrow, were uttered in a soft moan. “And we could not have them.”