Free The Lately Deceased by Bernard Knight Page B

for the missing Moore couple.
    â€˜If anything comes in by midnight, call one of the inspectors – after that get hold of me at home.’
    With a gruff ‘goodnight’ he vanished into the wet darkness of the station yard.
    Masters turned to the inspectors. ‘Right, then; if either of these damn people turn up, I’m to get one of you out, is that it?’
    Grey muttered under his breath as he turned the collar of his camel-hair coat against the damp night.
    â€˜Hope to hell they stay where they are until morning! I’m damned if I want to get out again on a foul night like this!’
    As it happened, at that moment Colin Moore was slumped in a corner of the lounge bar of the ‘Duke of Wellington’ public house, less than half a mile away. The middle-aged barmaid was watching him covertly, uneasy at his solitary and prolonged drinking. She went behind the bar into the saloon and spoke to the landlord, a tall craggy ex-guardsman.
    â€˜Have you seen that chap in the lounge, Mike?’ she asked. ‘He’s looking real queer, just staring at the table, except when he asks for another drink. Been there for hours, he has. I don’t like the look of him at all.’
    The landlord moved into the other bar and looked across to the corner. He saw a fair-haired man of about thirty sitting motionless behind a table, staring fixedly at a half-empty whisky glass. Handsome in a pale, watery way, his boyish face was set in a blank mask-like expression, his blue eyes unblinking.
    â€˜Oh, he’s all right, just drinking away his sorrows. Probably his girlfriend has given him the push.’
    The landlord reassured the woman and went back to the saloon, but the barmaid continued to look over at the raincoated figure. Colin had been there for four hours and had spent the previous six hours in a club in Brewer Street. He was quite drunk, though in control of his limbs and some of his senses.
    Having spent all day on this ‘bender’, he knew nothing of the hue and cry for him. When the previous night’s party had come to its tragic end, he had made his way back to his car, parked in the mews behind the flat, and had sat there waiting for Pearl. She had come after a few minutes and slipped into the passenger seat without a word. He drove off and they sat in silence for a mile or so.
    Then Pearl had said, ‘You lousy worm!’
    Her voice was low, but carried intense contempt. He had had to resist an impulse to smack her across the face. Instead he held his tongue, but she was determined to goad him beyond endurance.
    â€˜Playing with little girls at your age?’ she sneered. ‘Aren’t I enough fun for you now?’
    â€˜You!’ he jerked out. ‘Fun! Oh, my God! You’re no better than a bloody little whore.’
    As an answer, Pearl lifted the slim leather handbag that she carried on her lap and hit him violently across the side of the face with it. A corner of the bag caught him in the left eye and tears blinded him for a moment. The car lurched across the road and screeched to a stop as he instinctively stamped on the clutch and brake. They finished up on the wrong side of the street, with the front wheels in the gutter and the rear sticking out into the road.
    â€˜Get out!’ said Colin thickly, putting a hand up to his injured eye.
    â€˜Get out yourself, you swine!’ she had replied.
    â€˜All right, I will!’ He plucked the ignition key from the dashboard, got out of the car and walked over to the gutter, holding the key at arm’s length. Finding a drain he deliberately dropped it through the grating. Without so much as a backward glance, he continued walking along the quiet street, and kept going until he met a cruising taxi. Going straight to their flat in Hampstead, he washed, shaved, and then left again before Pearl could come back.
    He had done all these things automatically, his rage slowly dying into a mood of black