My Wife Melissa Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter One

  The night that Melissa died I came home from Fleet Street in a very depressed mood. I had not landed the newspaper job I had been after. I knew that Melissa would be furious when she found out, which in turn gave me a bad conscience, so that’s probably why I was halfway through a mental disagreement with her before I even turned the latch of our front door.

  The sight of the hatbox didn’t help matters. It was the first thing I saw as I entered the hall. It was one of those whimsical things in gold and crimson stripes, all tied up with a colossal silk bow; there was no price-tag on it, of course, but with a sinking heart I mentally deducted another twenty guineas from the not very rosy level of our joint bank account. Melissa was a sucker for new hats. It sometimes seemed to me, the longer I was out of work, the more fancy hats she bought though heaven alone knew what she did with them; she hardly ever wore them. “My Love in her attire doth show her wit,” wrote the poet, “For every season she hath dressings fit”. That was Melissa all right. My Love, with cupboards full of expensive clothes and no worries as to how we were going to pay for them. As I crossed the hall her voice came lilting over to me, a slight sting to its tail.

  “Is that you, Guy? You’re late.”

  “Late for what?”

  “Don’s party. Don’t tell me you’d forgotten?”

  I had. I swore under my breath and crossed to the bedroom. Paula and Felix Hepburn were in there. Paula had a drink in her hand and raised her glass cheerfully to me with that infectious grin of hers. I managed a smile. I like Paula, though I could have done without the Hepburns just then. Felix was engaged in zipping up Melissa’s cocktail dress.

  “Wotcha, Guy,” he said. “Caught red-handed as I tear the clothes off your wife’s alluring back.”

  Again I essayed a weak smile. I like Felix too. He’s a bit of an ass, but we’ve known one another a long time and I find him rather a relief after some of my intellectual friends.

  “Guy!” said Melissa rather tartly, “aren’t you going to get changed? We’ll be late for Don’s. It’s his birthday, you know.”

  “Really? How old is he today? Sixteen?”

  “Naughty,” said Paula.

  Don Page is not one of my favourites. When we are young boys, I mean, not girls — we spend most of our waking and dreaming hours behind the wheel of a scarlet racing car (worked by pedals) hurtling round hairpin-bends in the back garden or on street corners. A little later, soon after the age of puberty, we are doing the same thing, only this time there is a smashing blonde at our side and the car is powered by petrol. Then we grow up. That is to say, all except the Don Pages of this world. He’s still doing it, despite a serious crash at Le Mans a year or two back.

  Felix was surprisingly on the ball that night and actually detected the sarcasm in my voice. “I say, I think you’re wrong there — Don’s all of twenty-six, isn’t he, Melissa? Didn’t he win the Stirling Moss trophy soon after his twenty-first? The youngest and fastest —”

  “Don Page may be the youngest and fastest and handsomest thing that ever drew breath,” I cut in, “but it so happens that I cannot face his smooth profile behind that enormous cocktail bar of his tonight. My salaams and all that; tell him I’ve got a shocking headache which is true, incidentally.”

  “Poor Guy, you do look all in,” Paula said with genuine sympathy. “Let me get you a drink.”

  She went out of the bedroom and amazingly enough Felix had the tact to potter after her. I don’t quite know why I write “potter”; he’s not all that old. Just turned forty, in fact. But he does somehow seem to potter; whereas Paula, who is an undisclosed number of years older than he (about ten, Melissa maintains), positively exudes the joys of spring.

  Anyway, that left Melissa and me alone, which of course was our cue for one of those jagged little tiffs we seemed to be having all too frequently. I forget just exactly what was said. Because of my guilty conscience about having turned the job down that afternoon, I instinctively attacked: the new hatbox; her extravagance in general; this continuous gadding about from cocktail party to party, and so on. She retorted that I was like a bear with a sore head, that it was foolish vanity on my part to imagine I could earn a decent living by writing novels, that sooner or later I’d have to swallow my pride and take a regular job back in Fleet Street.

  I think the bedroom door was open, so Felix and Paula must have heard most of it, but it was short and sharp and pretty soon we patched things up. Melissa agreed to go to the birthday party without me, and to express suitable apologies on my behalf.

  “Have you got a present for the birthday boy?” I said, trying to show some semblance of good humour as we rejoined the Hepburns.

  “I’ve bought him a smart pair of gloves, chamois leather, terribly expensive — where the dickens did I put them?” Melissa answered distractedly. There began the usual hue and cry that erupts whenever Melissa mislays something, which happens about twenty times a week. Eventually the gloves were found wrapped up in tissue paper and hidden behind her black handbag on top of the hatbox in the hall.

  “What do you think of them? Will they fit?”

  I said I thought they would, she giggled and gave me a peck on the cheek and then in a flurry of last-minute instructions as to what I should find in the refrigerator for my supper, the three of them were gone. I glanced out of the living-room window as they came out in the street below, noted that my scatter-brained wife had omitted to take a coat (but the one that Paula had on, a voluminous black Persian lamb, looked big enough for the two of them), then with a splutter from the exhaust of Felix’s battered Austin they were gone. Inside the hall one further piece of Melissa’s scattiness was evident. She had forgotten to take her handbag. It still sat on top of the hatbox. I shrugged my shoulders and went into the living-room.

  There I stretched myself like a cat and heaved a sigh of relief. The evening was mine. Long hours of undisturbed concentration stretched ahead of me. There is no place I can work better, except perhaps our cottage down at Lenton-on-Sea.

  Deferring the moment of feeding a fresh sheet of paper into the typewriter and starting a new chapter of my novel, I literally basked in the silence for several minutes, then with elaborate care mixed myself a drink, lit a cigarette and just sat. After a while my eye was caught by the record-player. There was only one record poised on the arm, waiting to drop automatically on to the turntable and flood the room with its strange, subtle and all-too-familiar melody: it begins with the loud twanging of a guitar beating out the principal theme. It’s modern, very clever and all done (so I am told) with the aid of a Hammond organ. The record has some meaningless title, but I call it “Melissa’s tune”; she plays it night and day, it haunts the blessed place, and when someone finally comes to buy this flat I swear they’ll have to accept the confounded record on the inventory.

  After a while I went over to the console, placed “Melissa’s tune” to one side, selected a series of soothing Mozart piano concertos, turned the volume pretty low and settled down at my typewriter.

  The new chapter went well. Page after page came pouring out, and I think it was good stuff. When the phone rang I was astonished to see how quickly the time had flown. The small travelling-clock that stands on my desk next to the receiver read twenty minutes to eleven. Deep in my chapter, it took me a second or two to realise that it was Melissa on the phone. She
sounded as though she were enjoying herself. She always does at parties.

  “How’s it going, darling?”

  “What?”

  “The book, silly!” she giggled.

  “Pretty good. What’s new with you?”

  “Guy, I’m at Don’s and I’ve met a frightfully interesting man called Walter Starr. You’ve probably heard of him, he’s the man who —”

  “Walter Starr! Of course I’ve heard of him, for Pete’s sake. He owns half Piccadilly, and the half he doesn’t own he’s pulling down.”

  “Well, listen, darling. I’ve been talking to him about you and he’s terribly interested and wants to meet you . . .”

  “What — tonight?” I tried not to sound too grumpy.

  “Yes. He’s invited half a dozen of us back to his place. I said you’d join us there.”

  “Why on earth should a man like Starr want to meet me?”

  “He’s talking about buying a magazine and he wants to find out what makes — oh, look, pet, don’t argue, just take this address down.”

  She gave me an address near Regent’s Park, a place called Clinton Mews. I’d never heard of it, but she was too full of her usual bubbling gaiety for me to get a word in edgeways.

  “Roxford House, Clinton Mews?” I repeated.

  “That’s it, darling. We’ll be leaving here in about twenty minutes. See you later. Oh, Guy! I almost forgot . . . I left my handbag behind.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s on the hatbox in the hall. I spotted it just after you’d left.”

  “Bring it with you, pet. ’Bye now!”

  I was a bit peeved at having to break off from my work, but it was probably just as well as I was on the way to becoming too tired to write sense. And I knew I would be in for the thin edge of Melissa’s tongue if I ignored this offer Walter Starr appeared to want to make me. I slipped the cover over my typewriter, put on my jacket, found a tie and debated whether to have a quick shave or not. Then I thought to hell with Mr. Walter–Tycoon–Starr, he can either like me unshaved or he can damn well launch his magazine without my assistance. I fetched my coat and hat from the bedroom, patted my pockets for wallet and car keys, and went out into the hall to pick up Melissa’s handbag.

  So far so good. The only trouble was, the handbag wasn’t there.

  For a moment I just stood gazing at the table on which it had rested, on top of the red and gold hatbox. But the hatbox was gone too. I was so certain that this was precisely where Melissa had put both objects that it took considerable willpower to make me start a search through the rest of the flat. Unfortunately this yielded nothing either.

  It was a mystery, though no doubt there was a perfectly simple explanation. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was getting on for eleven. There was almost certainly a limit to the extent of time in which the great Walter Starr was prepared to be interested in me. I left the flat and drove out towards Regent’s Park.

  Clinton Mews was not shown on the inferior street map I had in the Hillman. I bumbled around near the southern approaches to the Park, then by a bit of luck caught sight of a police constable hurrying through one of the gates. I made a U-turn, retraced my tracks towards the Outer Circle and drove into the Park in search of my policeman.

  The lad I got hold of was young and not very bright. At least, so I thought at first. Then I realised he was distracted by some kind of accident that seemed to have taken place on a nearby embankment. I became aware of a lot of men in uniform milling around, and I heard the distant clang of an ambulance bell. I asked the young constable if he could direct me to Roxford House, Clinton Mews. We were getting nowhere when a big fellow in a white raincoat came clambering down the embankment, caught sight of me, hesitated a moment and then came over to the car.

  The young constable addressed him as Inspector and asked him if he knew where Roxford House was. The burly Inspector made some sort of reply, but I was hardly listening. My eyes were riveted on the coat he had slung over one arm.

  He must have noticed I was staring at it. “You’ve seen this coat before, sir?” he asked me abruptly, in a deep voice with a slight Scottish accent.

  I said I thought that I had.

  He held it up full-length for me to examine. It was a voluminous black Persian lamb, big enough for two women.

  I said, “Would you look if there is a small ornament on the inside of one of the lapels?”

  He examined the lapels.

  “Yes, there is.”

  “A small red ladybird?”

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “Then the coat belongs to a friend of mine, Mrs. Hepburn. Paula always wore that red ladybird; she said it was her good luck charm.”

  The Inspector eyed me curiously.

  “I’m afraid the charm appears to have failed tonight, sir. Mrs. Hepburn was strangled to death on top of that embankment there, late this evening. I shall have to ask you to be kind enough to come with me and identify the body, if you don’t mind.”

  In a state of numbed shock I stumbled out of my car and followed the burly Scottish Inspector. As we walked he asked me when I had last seen Paula Hepburn. I told him about Don’s party and he grunted some sort of reply. We came up to a stationary ambulance. Two men in dark uniforms picked their way carefully down the embankment, a stretcher between them. On the stretcher was a body covered by a blanket.

  The stretcher-bearers reached the Inspector’s side and he motioned to them to stop. Gently he pulled back the part of the blanket covering the head.

  “Is this Mrs. Hepburn, sir?”

  The world seemed to turn a slow, sickening half-circle. I do not remember them lowering Melissa into the ambulance.

  Someone must have taken me home, given me a sedative and more or less put me to bed like a child. I never did find out who it was and I was too embarrassed to ask. It certainly wasn’t Cameron, the burly Scottish Inspector. He went straight from the scene of the murder to Don Page’s flat, so he told me in his dry brogue, when he called on me sometime around the middle of the following morning.

  His rugged, almost repellent features were discounted by a gentle tone of voice. He reminded me of a benevolent walrus in a neat dark suit.

  “How did you know where to contact Paula Hepburn last night?” I asked, not quite wide awake as I sat opposite Cameron over a pot of coffee.

  “You told me, sir.”

  “Did I? When?”

  “As we walked towards the ambulance. You said the Hepburns had taken your wife to a birthday party given by Mr. Donald Page. It is not hard to find out where a man as famous as that lives. I went there immediately, for the simple reason that I wanted to find out why your wife had been wearing Mrs. Hepburn’s coat when she was murdered.”

  “And why was she?”

  “You are unable to explain that, sir?”

  “No, Inspector. As I’ve already told you, Melissa left in a flurry and forgot both coat and handbag. I never saw her again until until . . .”

  “Ah, yes, the handbag. We’ll come to that in a minute. According to Mr. and Mrs. Hepburn, when I talked to them at Mr. Page’s flat last night, your wife accepted the offer of the loan of Mrs. Hepburn’s coat, then she suddenly discovered she had forgotten her handbag and decided to go back for it. The Hepburns wanted to turn round and drive her back, but as they were already rather late for this party, Mrs. Foster would not hear of it and insisted on taking a taxi. It was a cold night and Mrs. Hepburn offered your wife her coat.”

  “I see. That explains the coat, anyway.”

  “There’s still the handbag.”

  “That’s a complete mystery to me. When Melissa phoned for it, I said straightaway, yes, it’s on the hall-table, on top of the hatbox; I mean, I didn’t have the slightest doubt that it was still there. You can imagine my astonishment when I discovered it had gone.”

  “Yes,” said the Inspector a trifle dryly. “What time was this, Mr. Foster?”

  “It would be about twenty minutes to eleven. I remember glanci
ng at that clock over there on my desk where I was writing, and being surprised at how quickly three hours had passed.”

  “And in those three hours — roughly between twenty to eight and twenty to eleven when your wife telephoned you, you say that you never left your flat?”

  “Most definitely not.”

  “And that you received no visitor at all?”

  “Not a soul.”

  Cameron was insistent. “It’s of vital importance, Mr. Foster. Perhaps you’re forgetting about some chance caller dropping in for a minute . . .”

  I shook my head. “Not a single person. I was alone all evening.”

  Cameron gave me a piercing look which somewhat disturbed his benevolent walrus image. There was a long, awkward pause. I poured out more coffee.

  If, up till now, I have given rather a cold, matter-of-fact account of this scene — if, in fact, I have shown a strange naivety at not realising I was being cross-examined by a tough-minded detective of the Criminal Investigation Department, I can only say, that is how it was. The simple truth was, I was still in a state of delayed shock. The appalling realisation of Melissa’s death had not yet pierced through the hazy numbness. Cruel awareness was to come soon enough, but at that time, still a little drugged from sleep, I just answered Cameron’s questions as though he were some harmless market-researcher. It was only when he went on, his voice and manner a trifle grimmer and his glance more searching, that I gradually realised he was driving inexorably towards a point. A very sharp and a very unpleasant point.

  He drained his coffee cup, took out his notebook and asked me to repeat exactly what Melissa had said when she phoned at twenty minutes to eleven. I had already told him twice, but I told him again. He wrote it down, word for word.

  “You had no doubt at the time that it was your wife speaking?”

  I must have looked bewildered. “Of course not! It was her. I don’t get the point of your question.”

  “Did Mrs. Foster generally call you ‘pet’?”

  “Yes — always.”

  “And the voice — the laugh — you are quite sure about them?”