Free The House of Women by Alison Taylor Page B

bloodshot, the irises muddied. ‘Edith said it was a heart attack.’
    ‘ Did she?’ McKenna smiled. ‘At the moment, we’re not sure. It could be suicide.’
    ‘ Oh, I see. Then you’d better come in.’ He stamped across the room to a swivel chair beside the desk, motioning McKenna to an armchair.
    The study reminded McKenna of the derelict house at the end of his street, and smelled worse, the deep casement windows tightly closed, the burgundy velvet curtains discoloured with dust. Ashtrays overflowed on desk and window-ledge, unwashed plates and cups decorated other surfaces, their contents rotting and curdling.
    Williams followed his gaze. ‘The cleaner’s on holiday, and the cook won’t do any cleaning. Bloody woman! I should sack her.’ Swinging from side to side in the chair, he said: ‘So Ned wasn’t crying wolf this time? He finally got round to killing himself. He’d been threatening long enough.’
    ‘ Had he?’
    ‘ About twice a month, according to Edith. He made life very difficult for her. She’s a bag of nerves.’ He pulled a cigarette from an open pack on the desk, and rooted around for matches.
    As McKenna held up his lighter, he noticed the professor ’s quivering fingers. ‘How well d’you know the family?’
    Williams puffed smoke towards the dirty window. ‘We knew her husband, so we kept an eye on her after he went. That’s all.’
    McKenna tried to place the alien intonation in the man ’s voice. ‘What happened to her husband?’
    ‘ I thought you wanted to talk about Ned. If you want to know about Edith’s affairs, ask her.’
    Lighting his own cigarette, McKenna asked: ‘Why did Mr Jones threaten suicide so often?’
    ‘ Because he was mentally ill, I imagine. He was in and out of Denbigh Hospital like a yo-yo.’
    ‘ He was also in considerable physical pain, I understand.’
    ‘ So he said.’ Contemplating the tip of his cigarette, Williams added: ‘But the doctors never found anything really wrong with him. He probably invented his aches and pains for sympathy. He was very manipulative, you know, very sorry for himself.’
    ‘ He had a gift for writing at one time. Perhaps his problems arose because he couldn’t realize his potential.’
    ‘ One swallow doesn’t make a summer,’ the other man observed. ‘And one Eisteddfod trophy doesn’t make a bard. He never amounted to much because he frittered away his time on his own crazy ideas. The whole family’s peculiar.’
    ‘ What ideas?’
    ‘ I don’t know. I never cared to get involved.’
    ‘ Mrs Harris mentioned a student. Was Mr Jones supervising a thesis?’
    ‘ You must be joking!’
    ‘ D’you know the student? He’s called George.’
    ‘ Yes, I know he’s called George.’ Mashing the cigarette in one of the ashtrays, scattering more dirt on the desk, Williams said: ‘George Polgreen is reading philosophy, and if you want my inexpert opinion, he’s no more compos mentis than Ned was, which would explain why they hit it off.’ He smiled, exposing stained and yellowed teeth, and the vestige of a boyish charm which would once have made him attractive. ‘Still, lunacy’s probably a prerequisite in his discipline.’
    ‘ I’ll get his address from the academic registrar,’ McKenna said. ‘Unless you know where he lives.’
    ‘ In term-time, probably in one of those student rat-holes in Upper Bangor, but his family home is a township in South Africa.’ The teeth appeared again, but without the charm. ‘He’s the blackest person I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty. A real jungle bunny!’
    McKenna rose. ‘Thank you for your time, professor.’
    As he walked towards the door, Williams turned in his chair, its joints squealing gently. ‘Will there be an inquest?’
    ‘ When it can be arranged.’
    ‘ And will the funeral be delayed?’
    ‘ I don’t know yet.’
    With the light behind him, Williams was a dark, slack shape. ‘Ned’s family will want him buried on home ground,