20
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
‘Mrs Hampson.’
‘Clean Slate?’ A sharply dressed woman in her forties held the door of a 1960s house in Kew half open.
Jack Harmon lifted the plastic card around his neck on which ‘Clean Slate’ was written in blue. The woman looked familiar. But he had noticed that this happened more and more. He saw a lot of people.
‘I was expecting a woman.’ She was stern.
‘People often do.’ Jack let the card drop. He was happy to leave it; his new Host had left the school early that morning and, delayed by Jackie’s call, he had lost track of her. She had taken the A–Z; it wasn’t in her bedroom.
‘You’d better come in.’ Mrs Hampson let go of the door and went inside, saying over her shoulder, ‘Don’t do my meditation temple, it’s circular so doesn’t attract dirt.’
Jack collected up the Henry vacuum and heaved in the cumbersome green and blue bag of materials. There was no sign of Mrs Hampson. His job sheet stipulated he begin in the kitchen so he snapped on his blue rubber gloves and got started.
The room had a modern Scandinavian feel: light wood and a bright open aspect, helped by a large window that framed an overgrown lawn. He pictured walking across the springy turf and felt a tingling. Mrs Hampson must be in the house, yet there was a profound quiet not unlike that in the school. A quiet he had learnt not to trust.
At first glance he couldn’t see what needed doing, surfaces gleamed in the afternoon sunshine. But when he got to work on the sink, he found scum around the plughole and the taps, streaks of grime on the stainless-steel splashback and a greasy residue on the hob. A veil of dirt shrouded the room. This was the years of accumulation that Stella relished. No wonder Jackie had circumvented her in favour of him. Stella would never run the business if she did jobs like this. This reminded him that Stella had talked about a case. Odd she hadn’t been around to his house first thing. He wrung out his cloth and groaned. Stella would have knocked and got no answer. She would ask where he had been and he could not tell her.
It was half past four; he was on schedule with just the sitting room to clean and the house to vacuum. He would stay longer than an hour if necessary. Jack felt vaguely that this would make amends to Stella for his night-time activities. With the vacuum in his arms he padded along the hallway and opened the sitting-room door.
‘Oh!’ he exclaimed.
Mrs Hampson was seated at a desk by the French doors, staring at papers strewn over the surface.
‘Did I frighten you?’ She did not look up, a pen poised.
‘I didn’t expect you to be here.’ Jack lowered the vacuum cleaner. ‘I thought you had gone out. This room’s on my list, but if you’d rather…’
‘I would hardly leave you alone.’ Mrs Hampson flung down her pen and swung around to face him.
‘I can do the vacuuming first.’ Jack understood his unease in the kitchen and what was wrong now.
He had been here before. He had stood on that patio outside two nights ago. This was the room he had seen through the glass. Mrs Hampson had been where she sat now.
On the wall above the fireplace was the man in grey. Jack saw that while a smile played over full sensuous lips, the eyes were cold. The painting, or rather the photograph scanned on to canvas, was no less life-life up close.
Jack did not choose True Hosts at random. He could come across them by chance. That he knew them on sight was due to intuition. He spent time following them before he accepted a tacit invitation to stay. Those who risked cutting along a secluded towpath or dark alley must have a mind like his own. He divined that they had either done a dreadful deed or were planning one. True Hosts spread unease at best and misery at worst. Jack styled himself a saviour. Detectives finds murderers because only by the flip of a coin are they not a murderer themselves. Jack believed himself of the same cast as his Hosts and dreaded that one day the coin would flip again and he would become a Host. Until last night he had kept his promise to Stella to stop looking for Hosts, he had assured her it was over. That he found himself back here was a sign.
‘That’s an imposing picture.’ Jack broke Stella’s cardinal rule about commenting on clients’ possessions or their homes. If she knew what other rules he had broken this would seem paltry.
‘It’s my husband.’
Mr Hampson was a Host. ‘He must be pleased with it.’ Jack gave the frame a flick with his duster. It came away thick with dust.
‘He’s dead. Didn’t they tell you?’
‘I’m only told what I need to know for each job.’ Jackie had told him and of course he had guessed the other night. Jack got more out of people by feigning innocence.
‘You need to know Charlie has been dead three years.’ Mrs Hampson stood up. ‘Did you use bleach?’
‘Tea-tree concentrate.’ Jack was prompt.
‘He was killed at some time after eleven on the evening of Sunday the fifteenth of March, 2009.’ She came over and, putting out a hand, stroked the frame, seeming not to notice that her finger came away blackened.
‘I’m sorry.’ Jack set down the vacuum cleaner. He resisted telling her that he had been thirty-two on that day and could remember what he had been doing.
‘He was due home at seven. He was area sales manager and did ridiculous hours driving around his territory – West London, Surrey, some of Hampshire – and on a Sunday, poor love.’ Mrs Hampson looked sharply at the portrait as if she sensed contradiction. ‘He rang me at six saying something had come up and he would be late. We were going out, the table booked for eight. He said, “Don’t cancel, get the last sitting.” He would not have done it.’
‘Done what?’ Jack was glad Stella was not there to see him crash through the rules. ‘Let clients talk. Do not engage them in conversation on personal matters. Keep cleaning throughout or afterwards they will blame you.’
‘Killed himself. Suicide. Took his own life. Took it where?’ She sat down at the desk. ‘They insinuated Charlie was having an affair and couldn’t cope. “Dumb wife blind to what’s under her nose” was written all over their faces. Meetings on a Sunday; all men tell lies to unsuspecting spouses. He’d completed expensive dental treatment only days before. Why would he do that if he planned to be dead? Sodding waste of money since his head smashed through the windscreen.’ She snatched up the pen again, holding it above the papers on her desk as if about to pounce.
Jack regarded Charles Hampson. The man’s chilly smile revealed flawless teeth.
‘At first they were sorry for me. You get sympathy if you lick your wounds and go quietly. Then I came out fighting and, boy, did that put them off!’
‘Who are “they”?’ Jack pulled the flex out of the vacuum but then stopped; it felt inappropriate to clean, even though that was why he was here.
‘The boys in blue, the sickly coroner, our so-called friends and my family – such as they are. Two motley cousins. “Don’t fool yourself, Amanda dear, face facts.” I couldn’t stand it and now I don’t have to. No one invites “the Widow” to dinner – not even to a party. They pretend I’m dead too.’
She had the low, cracked voice of a heavy smoker, although Jack couldn’t detect smoke on her or in the room.
‘I told the policeman, “If you won’t get to the truth, I will.”’ She stirred the papers on her table with the pen.
‘What do you think happened?’ Charles Hampson had a portentous air. Beringed hands clasped, he could be peeing.
‘Not what I think.’ Mrs Hampson grabbed some pages and rattled them at Jack. ‘I know. Charlie’s car came off the road. I called him at ten past eleven and couldn’t get through. That was normal, he turns his phone off for meetings but I was fretting. I had the table until midnight – if it had been anyone but Charlie they would have let it go, but people did anything for him. I was calling him for the umpteenth time when the doorbell went.’
In the pause, Jack imagined he could hear the bell ring. ‘Don’t feel you have to—’
‘He died instantly. They assured me he felt nothing – as if that was consolation.’
‘Wasn’t it?’
Mrs Hampson shot Jack a look. ‘Of course it was, I don’t want him to have suffered. But suicide? The man was happy. Why kill himself?’ Mrs Hampson reached for a plastic carrier bag by the desk and brought it on to her lap. She pulled out a newspaper and, unfolding it, jabbed at the print, motioning to Jack.
She had been talking for fifteen minutes. Jack would not finish on time; the job was slipping away from him. He joined her at the desk.
It was a copy of the Fulham & Hammersmith Chronicle and was dated Thursday, 19 March 2009. Mrs Hampson prodded an announcement about a forthcoming Japanese Garden Party to be held in the borough. Jack was puzzled until underneath he saw the piece reporting a fatal car accident the previous Sunday on Phoenix Way on the Phoenix Industrial Estate. The driver was Charles Hampson, aged fifty-four, a sales manager for AVCOM Technology. Mr Hampson was dead on arrival at Charing Cross Hospital on the Fulham Palace Road. His BMW, a brand-new vehicle, the report stated, swerved off the road, glanced against a tree and finally smashed through a wall.
‘His teams were exceeding targets. He was due a whacking bonus and had promised me a Lexus. His car was a week old. Had he wanted to do something so f*cking stupid, it would not have involved his beloved Beemer.’ She glared up at Jack. ‘It was not suicide.’
‘It was an accident.’ Jack nodded, at a loss as to how to resume cleaning without appearing crass. Mrs Hampson seemed to have forgotten why he was there. Soon she would remember and demand a refund for dawdling.
‘It was not an accident!’ She leapt up and barged past him, stopping by the sitting-room door.
‘What do you think happened?’ Stella’s rules had never seemed more sensible.
‘I know what happened.’ Mrs Hampson pointed a jabbing finger at the portrait. ‘Charlie was murdered.’
Jack stowed everything into the van. He opened the driver’s door and with a sigh got in.
‘You’re running late.’
With a yelp he scrabbled at the door, his instinct to jump out and scream for help.
Stella was sitting in the passenger seat.
‘We need to talk,’ she said. ‘Go round the corner.’
‘I won’t charge overtime.’ Jack turned on the ignition and took the van unsteadily down a little road on their left. He stalled the engine before he could brake.
‘Yes you will, don’t be silly.’ Stella twisted around and leant back on the door facing him, her rucksack on her lap. She rummaged in it and produced two flasks; she passed one to Jack. ‘There’s hot milk and honey in yours. I’ve got tea.’ She busied herself pouring tea into her cup.
After a sip of the hot sweet liquid Jack brightened: ‘What do you know about Amanda Hampson?’ He did not mention he had seen her before. It would involve him confessing how he came to be there.
‘Ex-customer come back to haunt us after three years in the wilderness. We lost the job over using bleach. Did Jackie say?’ She raised her eyebrows. When Jack nodded, she went on. ‘Husband dead. Cancer, I think. Tell me there were no hiccups.’
‘He was killed in a car crash. Mrs Hampson says he was murdered. She’s trying to get the police to reopen the case. They’re not interested.’ Their drinks had made the windscreen steam up so he rubbed a porthole in the glass. ‘I’m guessing they think she’s potty. She swears Hampson had no enemies and was popular at work. He sold process software of some kind.’ He blew on the hot liquid.
‘How did he die?’
‘Car accident. I just said.’
‘Literally.’
‘He hit a tree and then a wall, he must have been going fast.’
‘I’d say so. What’s the problem, does she think the brakes were tampered with?’
‘The car was new. She has no evidence for murder.’
‘Sounds far-fetched. Was the verdict “Accidental Death”?’
‘No, it was “Narrative” – a catch-all for when nothing else will do. She is sure they think it was suicide. She said he would have left a note.’
‘Not if he’d wanted her to collect on the insurance.’
‘I doubt Charlie-boy would be that considerate.’ Jack pictured the ice-blue eyes of the man in grey. ‘Hampson told his sister three weeks before he died that he was furious at losing a sales pitch, but Amanda Hampson says that’s nonsense, he was on top of his job and his sister is, quote: “a stirrer”. They don’t get on.’
‘She can’t accept it was an accident. She said we used bleach on purpose.’
‘Perhaps she was right,’ Jack said without thinking. Seeing Stella was about to protest, he added: ‘It is a mystery why Hampson left the road. It was straight with no parked cars. The only thing was the weather. That night it was foggy.’
‘Was he drunk?’
‘No, and there’s no mention in his diary of the meeting he said he had. Although he told Amanda it was last-minute, which could explain that.’
‘He was lying.’
‘He was lying to someone. She says he always told her the truth. Oh, and there was no CCTV.’
‘He was having an affair and drove too fast to get back in time.’ Stella drank her tea. ‘People assume their partners tell them the truth, erroneously usually.’
‘You have to assume a level of trust or you go mad,’ Jack countered. Stella was cynical about relationships.
‘People are blind to reality if it suits them not to rock the boat. It means they don’t have to have sex, but get companionship; they keep the status quo and the lifestyle. Some people would rather live with betrayal than be on their own.’
Jack poured more milk into the flask cup and breathed in the steam. She had a point there.
‘It’s a pact with the devil,’ Stella said. ‘Those people keep a clean house.’ She sipped her drink in silence as if digesting this idea.
‘Amanda Hampson would have clouted me if I had hinted her husband was meeting someone,’ Jack said at last.
Stella screwed the cup back on her flask. ‘It’s open and shut.’ She could have been meaning the flask.
‘Anyway, she likes my work and wants me every week.’ Jack drained his cup. ‘Because, as she put it, I “understand”.’
‘We’d better allow two and a half hours: she’ll want to chat on to you about her “murdered husband”.’
‘I’ll try to avoid it.’
‘Make allowances. Tea-tree and sympathy: that’s what you can offer!’ Stella sniffed at her pun.
‘You don’t make jokes. What’s happened? Is this the case you mentioned last night?’
‘Will you clean for my mother for two hours twice a week? If you go in the late afternoon it will give her time to make a mess and lose stuff for you to fail to find.’ She stuffed the flask back in the rucksack.
‘Yes of course.’ Jack looked at her. ‘And the case?’
Stella reached into her rucksack and produced a blue plastic ring binder.
‘See what you make of that.’