Vacuum by Bill James
Despite the Shale murders, Margaret almost always drove the children to school; a different private school from Laurent and Matilda Shale’s, but involving about the same amount of travel. Ralph couldn’t do it because he usually slept on a while in the mornings after his club duties. Someone from the firm always rode with Margaret and her daughters both ways and brought a variety of company vehicles for the trips, to make clue by car difficult. Margaret conscientiously changed routes to and from Bracken Collegiate every day. She supposed the escort had a gun, but didn’t ask Ralph: it was one of those questions best kiboshed.
When she returned today, Ralph’s Bentley had gone from the Low Pastures forecourt. Now and then he would cut short his sleep to attend to something special in one of the businesses. Today, the something special might have to do with those Gladstone Square events, though she knew he’d deny it. The bodyguard left, and he or another heavy from the firm would come back in the afternoon to pick up Fay and Venetia at Bracken with either herself or Ralph. It might have been simpler to allow one of Ralph’s people to take and bring the children on his own, but neither of them fancied this idea. It would be to dodge out of a responsibility. It would be casual, and being casual could lead to casualties.
A little before midday she was in the kitchen when she heard the sound of an unfamiliar car engine approaching up the long drive, definitely not the Bentley. This troubled her, and she was surprised at how much it troubled her. Vehicles strange to her quite often came to Low Pastures on normal domestic calls – the postman or woman, shop delivery vans. Why should she get so tense today? She went quickly to the front of the house and stood hidden by the folds of a drawn-back curtain. She saw a grey Ford Focus almost at the forecourt. As far as she could make out there were two people in it, a woman driving, a man in the passenger seat, both elderly. They drew nearer and stopped near her Lexus. Now, she recognized Beryl and Frank, Karen Lister’s neighbours from Carteret Drive.
They were people used to spying on others and so seemed to expect to be spied on here. That didn’t mean they stared at the Low Pastures windows, trying to spot a watcher. But they put on a flattering little charade, aimed to please any onlooker in the property. They acted out what Margaret regarded as token awe at the sight of the house and gardens, gazing around in nicely equal spells, left, right, up to the roof and chimneys, down to the paddocks and terraces: a very capable performance.
She couldn’t tell whether they’d seen her behind the curtain in the screening room, but reckoned it wouldn’t matter whether they had or not. They’d suppose there would be eyes on them from somewhere and the show must continue. They had their established notion of what windows were for and assumed one or more of them in the Low Pastures frontage might now be operating as such: windows invited occupants to observe things and people outside. Beryl and Frank would automatically adjust their behaviour to suit. Margaret admired the phoney thoroughness of it. She could almost feel their put-on reverence for the place. And it deserved reverence, though not this cooked-up sort.
Why were they here? How did they trace her and find the house? She had not given them even her first name, and certainly no address.
Frank nodded at the Lexus parked near the front door and smiled. The bell rang, and she did her own bit of acting, too – delayed for three minutes before responding, as though she’d been in the back part of the house and unaware of the visitors’ arrival, not having a nervy squint from behind drapes.
‘You’ll wonder what brings us to your fine home,’ Beryl said.
‘And magnificent setting,’ Frank said.
There was a kind of rhythm to their statements. It reminded Margaret of Psalms learned at school: first, the main pronouncement, then an addition or adjustment – the heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.
‘Oh, yes, the setting, too. Obviously,’ Beryl said. ‘The trees bordering the drive. A real autumn colour display, bright red, russet, evergreen.’
‘It was something of a gamble, our coming here,’ Frank said.
‘A gamble?’ Margaret said. She did her best to keep from her voice the irritation she felt, bordering on fury. This had replaced her apprehension. They talked in the porch so far. She wasn’t ready to ask them in. She didn’t want another duet about the distinction of the house – its interior now. Well, she didn’t want these two in the house at all. For one thing, Ralph might return from wherever he’d gone. For another thing . . . for another thing she just didn’t want them on the premises.
‘We knew we had it right when we saw the Lexus,’ Frank said. ‘Distinctive.’ He wore a Barbour jacket, perhaps put on to come into the country and visit a manor house.
‘We looked in on Karen this morning and told her that you’d called but couldn’t wait any longer,’ Beryl said. ‘She was very curious and mystified. Of course, we had no name, and she asked us to describe you. I think we must have done it quite well because almost at once she said, “It sounds like Margaret Ember.” I mentioned the red Lexus and she exclaimed, “Yes! Margaret Ember from Low Pastures. Her husband is in business and runs The Monty club. But what did she want? Do you know? Margaret Ember turned up here? Really?” That’s more or less what she said, isn’t it, Frank? I definitely remember that “really”. It showed true surprise at such an occurrence.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Frank said. ‘Extremely curious and mystified.’
Beryl said: ‘We didn’t mention that we’d seen her leave the house just after that visitor – the maybe police detective—’
‘The fair-haired Rocky Marciano almost-look-alike,’ Frank said. ‘Perhaps Harpur.’
‘—and seem to follow him,’ Beryl said. ‘That might have sounded as if we were snooping on her.’
‘Yes, I suppose it might,’ Margaret said.
‘It’s this detective – the possibly Colin Harpur – that we’d like to discuss with you, Mrs Ember,’ Frank said.
Margaret had a sudden notion, an instinct, that the two might, after all, have something worth listening to. She said: ‘But we shouldn’t be talking out here. Please, do come in. What can I have been thinking of?’ She’d been thinking of how to get rid of them without blatant rudeness. Now, she amended that.
‘Thanks so much,’ Beryl said.
‘Such a wonderful hall,’ Frank said, gazing. ‘Spacious and yet welcoming, even cosy. One can imagine long ago the squire returning gratefully to a hall like this after an arduous day’s hunting.’
‘The exposed stone – so authentic,’ Beryl said. ‘Quite a difference from plasterboard! Oh, yes, plasterboard is smoother and easier to hang wallpaper on, but this is a building obviously built to last, proud of its rugged, genuine materials.’
Margaret took them into the drawing room. It had views over the paddocks and fields to the sea. She went to the kitchen and put the kettle on.
When she came back, Frank said: ‘Yes, this police officer – the possible Detective Chief Superintendent Harpur – interests Beryl and me.’
‘You know him?’ Margaret asked.
‘Have you seen the local TV news this morning?’ Frank replied. He seemed to have taken over from Beryl the main role in their chat team. The way he ignored Margaret’s question and went on to one of his own got close to being autocratic, despite that feeble moustache and sad, old stoop.
‘I did glance at the news,’ Margaret said.
‘Some kind of crisis in the Valencia,’ Frank said. ‘Gladstone Square.’
‘Yes, I think I remember. An area cordoned off,’ Margaret said. ‘A lot of cars. A large Chrysler? An ambulance.’
‘A lot of cars, yes,’ he replied.
‘Frank thinks one of them rather significant,’ Beryl said. ‘He’s not good on motors and their make, but he did notice the Chrysler and another.’ She had on a brown car coat of high-grade leather over an amber blouse and tan corduroy trousers.
‘I’d like you, if you would, Mrs Ember, to think back to our conversation over the front f
‘How small and architecturally insignificant those houses seem against this one,’ Beryl said. ‘Yet it suits us. What would we be doing with paddocks at our age, I wonder?’
‘I happened to look along the street as we talked then, if you recall,’ Frank said.
‘Observant. Frank is like that. He seeks the full picture,’ Beryl said. ‘The context, if, in fact, that full picture, that context, is available. They’re not always, of course, but fragments placed together – skilfully placed together – inspirationally placed together, in fact – can sometimes add up to such a picture, as might be so in this case. Frank refuses to blow his own trumpet so, occasionally, I will blow it for him.’ She put a hand up to her lips for a moment as though she’d spotted a double entendre here and wanted to push the words back, particularly the word ‘blow’, most probably.
‘A black car – a Mazda you said, Mrs Ember – was parked some way from where we talked, facing in our direction and, at first, I thought it empty. My eyes are not what they were, you know,’ Frank said.
‘There might not have been much significance to it were that so,’ Beryl said.
‘What significance was there?’ Margaret replied. ‘An unoccupied parked car. There are always plenty in the street, especially at night.’
‘But was it empty, you see?’ Beryl said.
‘Ah,’ Margaret said. Of course, she’d noticed Frank had said that ‘at first’ he’d thought the Mazda empty. Stand by for a revision. She accepted a kind of duty, though, to play half stupid, so they would feel superior, keen to correct her by getting on with the tale.
‘Frank was describing his original impression,’ Beryl said.
They intended to roll out the story in their own style – place together those ‘fragments’ Beryl had spoken of, and do it at their chosen pace, which was not hell-for-leather. Margaret realized they aimed to intrigue her, make her desperate to hear what they knew, subordinate her to their insights, because she lived in a gorgeous house with authentic bare stone walls, as against their smaller and very average one held together by plasterboard.
She went back to the kitchen and made tea. She returned with a tray and mugs, not china cups, which might have looked chichi, or, worse than that, middle-class. She put the tray on the rosewood table. Beryl was sitting on the blue, loose-covered chesterfield. Frank had an armchair near the Regency sideboard. Margaret took another armchair opposite him.
Frank said: ‘You mentioned a Chrysler in the TV footage of the Gladstone Square incident. I’d agree. There was a Chrysler. Yes, one of the big models. Even I could recognize a Chrysler.’
‘“A Chrysler trying to look like a Bentley.” This was Frank’s comment when he saw it on the film. It sort of punctured the car’s pretensions, as it were,’ Beryl said. ‘Frank loathes grandiosity.’
Margaret didn’t mention that her husband might turn up soon in a Bentley that was a Bentley. Did that amount to grandiosity? She’d like to get them back into their Focus and fucked off before Ralph appeared and didn’t want to provoke extra chat about car makes. In any case, a reference to Ralph’s sublime limo might be the equivalent of the good china: blatant swank.
‘But a little behind the Chrysler?’ Frank asked gently.
‘Don’t remember,’ Margaret said. That was true. There’d been a lot of vehicles. She realized now, though, that the Mazda must have been there. The particles of Frank’s and Beryl’s yarn were about to add up to something. She couldn’t tell what.
‘A black Mazda,’ Frank declared.
‘Honestly?’ Margaret exclaimed, making sure the word reeked of astonishment.
Beryl said: ‘We both noted it, in fact, and we cried out the words themselves, “A black Mazda!” to guarantee the other noticed it, which, clearly, was unnecessary, since we jointly observed the vehicle standing there and – also jointly – appreciated its significance.’
‘What significance did you think it had, jointly?’ Margaret said.
‘I would like to take you back again to previous events in Carteret Drive,’ My Learned Friend Frank said. ‘I’ll reach in due course another relevant mention of the Mazda. But sequence is important – a saga properly managed.’
‘Frank has always striven for that kind of orderliness and clarity in describing a pattern of events,’ Beryl said. ‘It’s very much him.’
‘Mrs Ember, you left Carteret Drive when there continued to be no answer at number eleven,’ Frank said. ‘Shortly afterwards, Jason returned in the estate car with the same friends – at least, the same as far as one could tell, under the street lights – not very bright – and in the brief pause they made while Jason got out of the vehicle. He appeared to give a thumbs-up gesture. Presumably they’d had a pleasant evening somewhere.’
‘Thumbs up?’ Margaret said.
‘To the pair in the Volvo,’ Beryl said.
‘It could have been a “thank you” for the lift home, or a signal that they’d successfully pulled off something – achieved something – or simply an acknowledgement that they’d had that pleasant evening together.’
‘Achieved what?’ Margaret said.
‘Well, obviously Frank can’t answer that, can he?’ Beryl said. There was no sharpness in her tone, just a mild, patient reasonableness.
Margaret would agree her question had been absurd. Frank wasn’t clairvoyant, merely a grade-A neighbourhood watcher. Margaret would have to go on wondering about the thumbs up, suspecting about the thumbs up, disliking the thumbs up.
‘Number eleven had remained in darkness until Jason arrived. Now, there were lights on downstairs,’ Beryl said.
‘And then, fortunately, we were in the front room again when Karen’s Mini appeared,’ Frank said. ‘She found parking a little way up the street and came back on foot to the house – came back running to the house, and I mean really running, an undoubted sprint, although in heels. Joy – that’s what showed in her face, despite the exertion – joy, considerable excitement, relief.’
‘Relief at what?’ Margaret said.
‘Now, Mrs Ember, you may well ask what has happened to the black Mazda in our account of things,’ Frank replied.
‘Yes,’ Margaret said.
‘I’ve said I thought the car looked empty when I noticed it during our conversation over the front fence,’ Frank said, ‘although I had an unexplainable inkling that it might contain somebody.’
‘Now and then, or even oftener, Frank does have inklings,’ Beryl said. ‘How, then, do we define “inklings” – i.e., what is an inkling, especially the kind of inkling Frank has? A strange word, isn’t it? Strange, yet seeming to contain within itself – that is, within its sound when spoken – yes, seeming to contain its own meaning. Doesn’t it suggest something insubstantial, even slight – perhaps because it rhymes with “tinkling” – insubstantial even slight, but of a subtle, unexplainable, undeniable power?’
Shut your gob and let Frank get on with his dissertation, you tinkling old cow. ‘Fascinating,’ Margaret replied.
‘Suddenly, this inkling became something else,’ Frank said.
‘It’s the way inklings occasionally will – inklings generally, not just Frank’s,’ Beryl explained.
‘A little while after Karen returned at such a gallop to their house, the Mazda moved off,’ Frank said.
‘Had you seen anyone go to it?’ Margaret said.
‘Not in the sense that you probably mean,’ Frank said. ‘Nobody had come out from one of the houses and climbed in.’
‘So the inkling had been a correct inkling, although insubstantial?’ Margaret asked. ‘There had been someone in the car?’
‘This will really shock you, Mrs Ember,’ Beryl said.
‘Yes, there had been someone in the car,’ Frank said. ‘But in the back.’
‘This
‘Now, obviously, the Mazda couldn’t be driven away by someone sitting in the back,’ Frank said.
‘Hardly!’ Beryl had a merry laugh.
‘The off-side rear door opened, a man got out and then re-entered the car, but taking the driving seat now. He drove out of Carteret,’ Frank said.
‘We’re speculating that police detectives are trained to occupy the rear of a car when it’s being used for secret surveillance,’ Beryl said. ‘This would make them much less visible than when behind the wheel or in the front passenger seat, especially as headrests obscure the rear of the saloon.’
‘The disadvantage comes, of course, when the detective wants to drive off and has to get out and change seats,’ Frank said.
‘You believe this detective was Harpur and that he drove to the Valencia, parked in Gladstone Square, and the TV camera showed the vehicle there?’ Margaret asked.
‘The build and overall appearance of the man makes Frank think it was Harpur,’ Beryl said.
‘Which suggests a link between Jason and/or Karen and whatever it is that happened in that abandoned house – possibly the finding of a body, according to the telly news,’ Margaret said.
‘We felt it was something you should know about, since you were at number eleven last night seeking Karen – possibly have a friendship with her,’ Beryl said.
‘No, not exactly that,’ Margaret said.
‘Whatever,’ Beryl replied.
‘I hope you didn’t mind our bursting in on you,’ Frank said.