At Dead of Night Read online

  ‘Well, if you make your living working as a rep, that’s what you do! She knew it would be like that before she moved in with him! Did she say anything to you about it?’

  ‘No, in fact I don’t know any more than that, it was just an impression I got, nothing very concrete.’

  ‘But then there was something a bit more serious later on, wasn’t there?’

  ‘Was there? I didn’t know about anything else. Roy never said anything to me about it anyway.’

  ‘There was one evening when I went for a drink with Roy, and while we were in the pub, he told me how much he would like to have children…’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know a great deal about it really, but I got the impression that Marilyn didn’t want any.’

  ‘While they were still unmarried, you mean? I can understand that…’

  ‘No I think she told Roy that she didn’t want any ever! I would have thought they needed to get things like that sorted out before they started living together, don’t you?’

  ‘You may be right, who knows! I always think it’s impossible to judge other people’s relationships, but everybody seems to do it! But, frankly, all that’s immaterial, the relationship’s all over, and we need to think about Roy’s physical well-being right now. Driving like that indeed! Roy is clearly not safe to be at the wheel of a car at the moment, is he?’

  ‘No, you’re right, he isn’t. I’ve never seen driving like it!’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you’re supposed to be the action man!’

  ‘Ha, ha! Very funny! I propose to do nothing at this precise moment, but as soon as you’ve finished making funny remarks, I think we should call the police.’

  ‘Do you really think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t really want to get Roy into trouble, but he obviously shouldn’t be behind the wheel at the moment, and, since we have no idea of his whereabouts, the only people we can turn to are the police. Did you see the way he demolished that bollard? It’s just as well it wasn’t somebody crossing the road that he hit. It’s a question of public safety. I don’t want him to finish up killing somebody! He would have it on his conscience for the whole of his life!’

  So Ben rang the police and told them about his son’s reckless driving, adding details about the make and registration number of his car and his address, but making it clear to them that he would be unwilling to give evidence in any prosecution that they might bring, because he hadn’t been with him, that he was not in possession of all the facts, and that his principal concern was public safety.

  In the meantime Ben and Sylvia’s son Roy was making his way home to his flat in Charlton Kings, having just dropped off his companion for the evening at her home on the other side of Cheltenham. He had just passed through the town centre and noted that the bollard that he had demolished on his outward journey was still lying in the middle of the road, when he became aware of a flashing blue light being reflected in his rear view mirror. He glanced at his speedometer to check that he was complying with the 30 mph speed limit, but the police car, now immediately behind him, started flashing its headlights in an obvious signal to the driver of the car they were following that they wanted him to stop.

  Roy, however, satisfied that he was driving legally and convinced that the car the police were chasing could not possibly be his, kept on driving, whereupon the police car suddenly accelerated and overtook Roy’s car, swinging round and coming to a screeching halt just in front of him. Roy was thus forced to perform an emergency stop, and only narrowly managed to avoid smashing into the side of the police car. Two policemen immediately jumped out and walked round to speak to Roy, who wound down the window.

  ‘Would you mind blowing into this, sir?’ asked one of the policemen, holding out a breathalyser.

  ‘Why should I?’ Roy asked.

  ‘Because we say so,’ came the reply.

  ‘I don’t think that is sufficient grounds,’ Roy argued. ‘I wasn’t over the speed limit, I didn’t drive through a red light or anything like that. I think you’ll find the law says that I need to have done something like that to be breathalysed.’

  ‘Oh, God, we’ve got one of those,’ one of the policemen muttered, whilst his colleague continued the conversation.

  ‘I know the law, sir,’ he said, ‘and it also says we can breathalyse you if we have reasonable grounds for suspecting that you are over the drink-drive limit.’

  ‘And do you have reasonable grounds?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I believe we do.’

  ‘And those grounds are?’

  ‘You were seen earlier colliding with a traffic bollard in St George’s Road.’

  ‘By whom? Did you see me?’

  ‘No, not personally, but we had a report to the effect that this car was being driven erratically before it demolished a bollard.’

  ‘So if you didn’t see me personally, how do you know that I was driving at the time?’

  The police officer ignored the direct question and asked one of his own. ‘So you deny that you were in collision with a bollard, do you, sir?’

  ‘If you didn’t see me do it,’ said Roy, deliberately dodging the question, ‘I would like to see what evidence you have. What time was this collision supposed to have taken place, by the way?’

  ‘About half an hour ago. So where have you been this evening?’

  ‘Why should I answer that question?’

  ‘Because if you don’t, I shall charge you with obstructing the police in the course of their duties, sir. I advise you to answer our questions.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If you haven’t done anything wrong you have nothing to fear,’ said the policeman.

  ‘Oh yes? I’ve heard that before,’ Roy scoffed.

  ‘Oh, so you’ve been in trouble with the police before, have you? When was that?’

  ‘I didn’t say I had been in trouble with the police.’

  ‘You implied you had.’

  ‘In your mind!’ Roy replied scornfully.

  ‘So where have you been this evening?’

  ‘I don’t see why I should answer that question!’

  ‘In that case, would you mind accompanying me to the station?’

  ‘Is one of you planning to get a train?’

  ‘Very droll, sir. Let me put it this way: you can choose to answer my questions here, or to accompany me to the police station, where somebody else will ask you the identical questions.’

  At last Roy realised that he had no alternative but to answer, so he replied, ‘I’ve been out to a restaurant with my girlfriend.’

  ‘That’s better, sir. Which restaurant?’

  ‘The Balti in Rodney Road.’

  ‘And where’s your girlfriend now?’

  ‘At home, I suppose.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘When I took her home.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘On the Hester’s Way estate.’

  ‘And what’s her name?’

  ‘Marilyn Booth.’

  ‘And her actual address?’

  Roy provided him reluctantly with Marilyn’s address.

  ‘Was she with you when you smashed into the bollard?’

  ‘I didn’t say I had smashed into any bollard. You said that…’

  ‘So I did,’ the policeman admitted with a sigh. ‘Now at the restaurant, did you have any alcohol?’

  ‘A glass of wine.’

  ‘Just the one, sir?’

  ‘The waiter may have topped it up when it was half empty, but I didn’t have any more after that.’

  ‘And was your girlfriend drinking?’

  ‘Yes, she had a lot more than me, but she wasn’t driving.’

  ‘Was she aware that you’d driven into a bollard?’

  Roy was once more careful to dodge the leading question a
nd replied, ‘I doubt very much whether she was conscious of anything! She was probably asleep.’

  ‘Because she’d had too much to drink?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. She was tired.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘Did you drop off at the wheel? Is that perhaps why you collided with a bollard?’

  ‘I didn’t admit that I had collided with a bollard, so you’re wasting your time trying to make me agree that I did! And I certainly did not drop off at the wheel. But if you carry on like this much longer there’s a chance I shall drop off on the way home, because I’m getting tired of this!’

  The policeman took no notice of Roy’s taunt, and said, ‘All right, off you go! But we shall follow you home, and if we see you driving recklessly, we won’t hesitate to pull you in. Understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘Good night, sir.’

  Roy ignored what he interpreted as the policeman’s tactical switch to a polite manner, switched on the engine and drove off, taking care to do nothing that might tempt the policemen to intervene once more. As they had promised, the patrol car stayed with him until he parked his car outside his flat, and it was not until he was safely inside the house that the police car finally moved off.

  Once he was back home Roy made himself a cup of coffee and sat down for half an hour before preparing to go to bed, for he had much to think about – not so much about the police, more about Marilyn, for his former girlfriend had dropped a veritable bombshell that evening.

  It was the first time Roy had met Marilyn for about two months, for Marilyn had unilaterally declared that their relationship was going nowhere, and that they should stop living together. But a couple of days ago, a letter from Marilyn arrived out of the blue, suggesting to Roy that they should meet, because, she said, she needed to talk to him.

  ‘Well, if you hadn’t refused to make a note of my new mobile number when I offered, we would have been able to talk straight away,’ said Roy to himself. Then he turned his attention once more to her letter, in which Marilyn had said that what she needed to tell him could not be communicated by letter, and proposed instead that they go out for a meal and have what she described as a ‘civilised chat’. ‘I suppose she would also pretend that whatever she wants to talk about is not something she could talk about on the phone either,’ Roy commented sarcastically to himself.

  It took two or three weeks to set up the meeting that Marilyn appeared to consider urgent, because of the current nature of the postal service; if only Marilyn had been willing to call him on his mobile, Roy thought, it could all have been arranged in a matter of minutes.

  They met in an Indian restaurant in the centre of Cheltenham. In the event, although the evening began in a civilised way, things deteriorated fairly rapidly. The downturn started with Roy asking what she wanted to tell him that could not be explained in her letter.

  ‘Let’s order first,’ she replied, ‘it’s not the sort of thing I’d like anybody to overhear.’

  Although Roy was beginning to think that he would never get to learn the urgent news that Marilyn kept saying she needed to tell him, he acquiesced, and a few minutes later, once the waiter had brought their food and moved away from the table, Marilyn decided it was time to make her announcement, which, to Roy’s surprise, was only two words long.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.

  ‘Oh?’ replied Roy.

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’ Marilyn demanded.

  ‘What do you expect me to say? It’s nearly ten weeks since we stopped living together, so the baby can’t possibly be mine, and if I’d asked you who was the father, you would have told me to mind my own business!’

  ‘Quite right too,’ came the rejoinder, ‘but what makes you so sure that it’s not yours?’

  ‘As I said, we haven’t even seen each other for ten weeks, So it can’t possibly be mine!’

  ‘All right, clever clogs, but I went to see the doctor yesterday, and he says I’m at least three months pregnant, and, by my reckoning, “at least three months” is a lot more than ten weeks!’

  ‘I’ll grant you that, but why does that prove that I’m the father?’

  ‘What the hell are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. I just want proof, that’s all.’

  ‘So you think that while I was living with you I was also seeing someone else, do you?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Because I’m not that sort of girl!’

  ‘If you’re not that kind of girl, why did you walk out on me? I still don’t know why! You never gave me any explanation of any kind, so I naturally assumed that you’d found somebody else.’

  ‘Well I hadn’t!’

  ‘So why did you walk out on me?’

  ‘I didn’t walk out on you! You were living at my place, remember, so how could I have walked out on you. I didn’t!’

  ‘No, and if it had been left up to me, I wouldn’t have left! I certainly didn’t walk out on you! One day, quite out of the blue, you told me to move out, and that was that! And you never even told me why.’

  ‘You never asked…’

  ‘I bloody did! Several times.’

  ‘Don’t swear! People are looking…’

  ‘I’m not surprised! So why exactly did you decide one day to tell me to leave?’

  ‘Because our relationship wasn’t going anywhere.’

  ‘You were wrong then!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean you’re wrong to say that our relationship wasn’t going anywhere! After all, if we’re going to have a baby, our relationship certainly is going somewhere, isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, come on! It stands to reason, if you’re going to have a baby and you say the baby is mine, we’re going to be the baby’s parents, aren’t we? And being parents is a bit different from being boyfriend and girlfriend…’

  ‘I suppose it is, if you put it like that…’

  ‘Well look, I didn’t want us to break up in the first place, it was your idea, not mine! And if you’re really having my baby, I want you to know that I’m willing to do the honourable thing.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Oh God! I’m just trying to make it clear to you that I’m willing to marry the mother of my child!’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t want you to!’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I said I don’t want you to.’

  ‘So why did you tell me?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  Roy sighed. ‘Why did you tell me you’re having my child?’

  ‘Because I thought it was the decent thing to do. I’m having a baby, you’re the baby’s father, and I thought I should tell you.’

  Roy reached across the table to place his hand on Marilyn’s, but she withdrew it at once.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick, Roy! Because I thought it was the right thing to do to tell you that I was pregnant, that doesn’t mean that I want to force you to marry me!’

  ‘I didn’t say anything about force! I’m willing to. I want to!’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t! I’m perfectly capable of bringing up a child on my own…’

  ‘But you don’t need to!’

  ‘I want to! I don’t need you! A woman doesn’t need a man! And I don’t want you either!’

  ‘I thought you told me that the child is mine. How can I be a child’s father if I don’t have a hand in bringing him up?’

  ‘You’ve done your bit, and that’s as far as it’s going, Roy! And that’s my last word.’

  ‘But it’s not my last word! What do you mean by saying that I’ve done my bit?’

  ‘Exactly what I say. You’ve had your bit of fun, and now that’s over.’

  ‘I never heard you complain at the time!’

  But Marilyn persisted in saying nothing,
so Roy continued, ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’

  ‘Yes, I told you I wasn’t saying any more. Please take me home.’

  ‘I will when I’m ready! I think you’ve got a nerve!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You start a relationship and give me the impression that you’re as happy as I am, and then, without even suggesting that you’re unhappy, you chuck me out! And then when you find you’re pregnant, you get in touch and tell me – not because you want me back, but so that you can watch me squirming with pain as you twist the knife!’

  ‘It isn’t like that at all!’

  ‘It is from here, I assure you! And I find it difficult to believe that you’re contemplating looking after a child all on your own when it’s not exactly a hundred years since you told me emphatically that you didn’t want children anyway!’

  ‘A girl can change her mind, can’t she? It’s probably something to do with the way a woman’s hormones react when she does become pregnant…’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that…’

  ‘No, of course, you wouldn’t, would you…’

  Roy argued some more, but however hard he tried, he was unable to make her say anything other than that she didn’t need him and didn’t want him, so he settled the bill and they both left the restaurant and walked to the nearby car park, where they both got into Roy’s mini, which was the signal for hostilities to resume, on a much more bitter basis too, now that they no longer had any potential eavesdroppers. As they drove past Cheltenham Town Hall they were both screaming at each other furiously, and Roy swerved violently to avoid colliding with a taxi.

  ‘Be careful, you fool!’ Marilyn shouted. ‘You just went through a red light! I’m so frightened! Slow down, for God’s sake!’

  Roy’s response was to accelerate as they entered St George’s Road, so Marilyn screamed again, ‘I’ve had enough of this! I’m getting out!’

  Still screaming, she began to open the passenger door, whereupon Roy turned to look at her and, taking his eyes off the road, but still driving too fast, proceeded to demolish a traffic bollard in the middle of the road.

  After that, neither of them said another word until they reached their destination, although Marilyn spent the rest of the journey sobbing uncontrollably. As soon as they reached her house she opened the car door, and ran to the house without a word. By the time Roy got out of the car she had disappeared into the house. Roy walked up to the house, tried the door, then rang the doorbell, but the door remained stubbornly closed, so he returned to the car, got back into the driving seat and started to make his way home.