The Year of Dangerous Loving. John Davis Gordon
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34
‘Send a policeman to arrest me – I’ve just shot my husband!’
That was the dramatic announcement Elizabeth Hargreave made when she telephoned Jake McAdam at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club that hot Friday night. McAdam thought she must be drunk and he asked to speak to Hargreave.
‘He’s driven himself to hospital,’ Liz said, and hung up.
Then McAdam took it seriously. He went back to the bar and asked Max Popodopolous to go to her immediately and keep her away from the police while he went to look for Hargreave.
McAdam traced him at the Jockey Club Clinic. Ian Bradshaw was in attendance, and said that Hargreave would be all right: the bullet missed the lungs.
‘Thank God for that. How did you get involved in this?’ McAdam asked. Ian Bradshaw was an expensive surgeon who did not hang around casualty departments of hospitals.
‘Called me at the yacht club – he refused to let a government doctor treat him, he doesn’t want any official reports. You can’t see him, he’s still under anaesthetic.’
‘Did he tell you how it happened?’
‘Says it was an accident. Gun went off unintentionally. Don’t say anything to the police. Nor to the press.’
‘Of course not. But the press are going to love this.’
‘How embarrassing,’ Ian said. ‘Did you know the marriage was rocky?’
‘No.’ McAdam added in Liz’s defence: ‘She sounded as if she’d been drinking.’
‘Al had been drinking too. We all drink too much in this town but we don’t wave guns at our spouses. He doesn’t play around, does he?’
‘No,’ McAdam said, ‘nor does Liz.’
‘What will the police do about this?’
‘Nothing, if it was an accident.’
‘But pointing a gun at somebody is a crime, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it’s the sort of thing that can happen in a marital row. The police can’t do anything if Alistair doesn’t lay a charge – which he certainly won’t; he’ll want it hushed up.’
‘I hope you’re right, I like Liz. And Alistair. Amazing, isn’t it, what can go on in a marital bedroom without anybody else suspecting? Just goes to show, marriage can be one of the most stressful of undertakings. Well, I’ll go’n finish my dinner. You can see him in the morning.’
McAdam then telephoned Hargreave’s apartment. Max answered.
‘Okay, she’s gone to bed with a sleeping pill, the neighbours have been looking after her. I’ve fended off the cops, told them she’s not in her sound and sober senses and can’t make a statement.’
‘Any press around?’
‘Somebody alerted them; they’ve been clamouring at the door. I fended them off too.’
‘And what’s the scene-of-crime look like?’
‘The bullet hit the book Alistair was reading before hitting his chest. Another bullet-hole in the wall above the bed.’
‘Jesus, she fired two shots?’
‘After the first shot Al grabbed the gun, they struggled for possession of it and it went off a second time, hitting the wall.’
‘Al was reading?’
‘Apparently he was lying in bed, pretending to read, ignoring her. They’d been quarrelling.’
‘Did you find out what about?’
‘Not really, she was crying. Bits about how infuriating Al is, how he used to be life and soul of the party, now he doesn’t want to go anywhere, just work work work, et cetera.’
‘So she pulls a gun on him? There’s more to it than that.’
‘Oh, she’s convinced he’s seeing another woman, that’s all I got out of her before she passed out. She was furious because he was drinking in Wanchai this afternoon – she found lipstick on his ear. And he disgraced himself at the Chief Justice’s dinner party by falling asleep. They were both the worse for drink probably, Al’s been hitting the bottle of late – overwork. Do you think there’s another woman involved?’
McAdam sighed. ‘No. Al’s too honest a soul to lead a double life. Too much of a worrier.’
‘But how did he come by the lipstick?’
‘In Wanchai? Easy. I’ve come by a bit of it myself down there over the years. He probably picked it up dancing.’
‘Al dance? In Wanchai? Come on. Anyway,’ Max sighed, ‘I’ll spend the night here to make sure she doesn’t blab to the police when she wakes up. Will you look after Al in the morning?’
‘Sure, first thing.’
‘And Jake? Don’t go back to the club now, you’ll only be asked a lot of questions by the press boys.’
History is confused on the earlier events of that afternoon, avid gossip making hearsay more confounded.
One version of the story has Alistair Hargreave carried shoulder-high into the Pussycat Bar in Wanchai by the police after the jury returned a verdict of guilty in the big heroin case he had just successfully prosecuted; another is that the police even instructed the manager to get the bar-girls out of their beds to entertain the Director of Public Prosecutions because Wanchai does not warm up until night; another is that he was so drunk that he took several off to bed at once; yet another is that his wife found him in bed with one of them and shot him in flagrante delicto.
None of this is correct. The truth is that, after the jury returned their verdict, Hargreave went with the police investigation team to have a Chinese meal in Wanchai to celebrate; that a good deal of booze was drunk and that later they adjourned to a nearby bar called the Pussycat to have just one more; that the place was jumping, despite the comparatively early hour, because a shipload of American tourists had arrived; that Hargreave met some of his journalist friends there and had several drinks; and that he somehow acquired some lipstick on his ear whilst successfully resisting the blandishments of a bar-girl. When he finally emerged into the garish Wanchai sunset, he couldn’t remember where he’d parked his car and ended up taking a taxi home. His wife was very angry because he was