IMPERFECTION by Ray Clark (e novels to read online TXT) 📗

Gardener was surprised. The woman must have been as hard as granite. His heart went out to the aged actor. It was sad for someone to have achieved his level of status, for it all to go unrecognised by the one person he’d chosen to share his life with. She didn’t, and probably hadn’t, reciprocated the emotion when he’d been alive. Eager to press on and satisfy his curiosity, Gardener opened the conversation.

“Would you like to tell us about your late husband please, Mrs White?”

“Not much to tell really, cock.”

“I doubt that. He was a fine actor, travelled extensively, and led such a full life, probably seen more than most people could even dream about. There must be something to say.”

“I’ll not argue with that summary,” she replied. If her expression was anything to go by, she must have left her enthusiasm back home in the Lake District. Her answers were blunt, emotionless. “But you’re talking from a personal point of view,” she continued. “I shared his home. Your view is from the public eye. As you say, a fine actor, well liked on the silver screen. Off screen, not the husband I’d hoped for.”

Gardener thought back to what his father had said. Val White certainly had a talent for making people feel uncomfortable. Despite the heating, there was a distinct chill in the atmosphere.

“If that was the case, why stay together?” asked Reilly.

“I had my reasons.”

“Money being one of them, I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, cutting to the chase.

Val stared at him. His comment had hit a nerve. “Maybe.” She maintained her self-control. “You’re entitled to your opinion, cock, it’s a free country. Not everyone’s relationship runs to what’s expected.”

Gardener sensed a real difference of opinion building, not to mention an instant dislike between Val White and his partner Sean Reilly. That was nothing new; most people didn’t like his abrupt manner. He had an unerring ability to see through people. He had an excellent technique for ruffling feathers and obtaining the information he wanted when interviewing.

“So, there is something you can tell us,” continued Gardener. “Why wasn’t he the husband you wanted?”

“My home life was what I made it. He was never there. When he was, he might as well not have been. We hardly ever talked, rarely went out as a couple, unless it were a social function of some standing. Quite frankly I played second fiddle to everything, especially his life on screen. The film industry was his mistress.”

I wonder why, thought Gardener.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” said Gardener, eager to maintain a better balance. “Tell me how you met, where you went from there. I need to build up a picture. Someone didn’t just kill him, they went to great lengths to make a public spectacle out of an extremely gruesome murder, which suggests an enemy, and a very personal one at that.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“Why?” Gardener asked.

“He was pompous. I’ve known people stop him in the street for an autograph, and he’d turn ’em down flat. Nothing and no one ever seemed good enough for him.”

That wasn’t the impression his father had given Gardener, but then again, he wasn’t married to the man. You had to be much closer than a friend to claim you really knew someone.

“It would take more than a disgruntled autograph hunter to do what was done to your husband.”

Val White finished her tea and poured another without offering Gardener or Reilly. If she had been a party to all the gruesome details, she was not letting on. “I dare say. He was born in Blackpool in 1940. He had three sisters and one brother. They’re all dead. He left school at sixteen and joined the RAF. After leaving the services, he landed a job in the theatre. A talent scout spotted him in 1959, and he went down to work London’s West End. He was there until 1964, then he landed a small part in a film.”

“All sounds very condensed.”

“It’s short and sweet because I don’t know a great deal about his life before we met.”

“Where and when did you two meet?”

“I think it were the late Sixties, because by then he’d settled into films at Hammer Studios. But he’d taken a part in a play back in the West End. The whole thing went on tour and we met here, in Leeds. I went to see the play with a friend. She had backstage passes, and Leonard and I met at the party thrown afterwards. It was the last night, you see.”

“What first attracted you to him?”

“He was very confident, knew what he wanted out of life, outspoken... and he had money.” As Val White had made her last comment, she smiled at Reilly. “Six months later we were married and bought our first home.”

“Where?”

“Horsforth, on the A65 going out towards Rawdon. You can’t miss it, big grey house set back from the road, black and gold wrought iron gates guard the arched entrance, grounds full of poplar trees.”

“My father mentioned that, but he couldn’t remember the name. Can you remember who you bought it from?”

“Not really, although the name Ashington rings a bell. I think that’s what it was called, Ashington Manor.”

“It’s not that important. I suppose I’m clutching at straws, trying to find a link where there isn’t one. What happened next?”

“We stayed up here in the house for a couple of years, but then the film bug got him again. He went back to Hammer sometime around 1966 to work with Christopher Lee in one of his Dracula films. And he stayed there for the next ten years. I hardly saw owt of him.”

“Any family?”

Val White took a sip of tea and lit a fresh cigarette. “No.” Her expression