The Torso in the Town

by Simon Brett

  Not that his wife chose to draw attention to James Lister’s commercial origins. When the Tournedos Rossini were being served at dinner and he mentioned the fine quality of the beef, he was cut short from the other end of the table by his wife’s voice saying, ‘I don’t think we need to talk about meat, James.’

  Blushing like a schoolboy who had told a dirty joke at a maiden aunt’s tea party, James Lister was duly silent, enabling his wife to steer the conversation to more rarefied planes. ‘Do tell us about your plans for the Art Crawl, Terry.’

  Fiona Lister’s voice was, like her person, so encrusted with gentility that it had to be hiding something less genteel underneath. Though probably in her late sixties, she was one of those thin straight women whose looks don’t change much throughout their adult life. She was dressed in a white blouse with a plain collar and a grey silk dress. Though the clothes were undoubtedly expensive, they made her look like a failed nun. And also somehow gave the impression that she’d worn the same style for many years.

  Her dinner menu hadn’t changed for a while either. Though beautifully presented, the food came from the ancien régime when Constance Spry and cordon bleu had ruled the kitchens of Britain; before that mildest of revolutionaries, Delia Smith, had achieved her coup d’état; and long before the excesses of fusion added by ever-wilder television chefs.

  Each course looked exactly as it must have done in the recipe book photographs. Not a lemon slice was misaligned on the smoked salmon pâté. For the Tournedos Rossini, the toast, the foie gras and the disc of entrecote were piled in perfect symmetry, identical on every plate. Glace cherries and angelica sticks made an exquisitely regular clock-face on the yellow surface of the sherry trifle; the sponge fingers were exactly parallel around the Charlotte Russe.

  The choice of wines was also from another generation, the existence of the New World unacknowledged. James Lister poured copious amounts of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and an icy sweet Niersteiner. When it came to coffee (and After Eight mints), the guests would be offered Cointreau, Benedictine and Kümmel.

  The overall effect was rich and rather cloying.

  The guest list for the dinner once again included the Durringtons and the Rev Trigwell. Jude wondered if this helped to explain the unexpected invitations to herself and Carole. Without desperate infusions of new blood, perhaps all Fedborough dinner parties ended up with exactly the same personnel.

  There was another couple she hadn’t met. The fact that they were gay clearly gave Fiona Lister quite a frisson. She kept making unambiguous remarks, destined to show what a broadminded hostess she was to have friends ‘like that’. She was so determinedly relaxed with the gay couple that the effect was very unrelaxing.

  Terry Harper, the one to whom she’d addressed the question about the Art Crawl, was the older. A neat man with short grey hair styled like one of the lesser Roman emperors, he wore owl-like tortoiseshell glasses and an immaculately cut charcoal sports jacket. His partner was thin and dark, Mediterranean looks at odds with his very English name, Andrew Wragg. He wore tight black leather trousers and a shimmering black V-necked sweater, deliberately contrasting with the collars and ties of the other male guests. Had someone else turned up to one of her dinner parties dressed in that way, Fiona Lister would have been vocal in her disapproval, but the fact that Andrew had seemed to give her some kind of charge. She was being so daring, inviting someone ‘like that’. She beamed indulgently whenever he spoke, impressed by the astonishing breadth of her own mind.

  Andrew could have been as much as twenty years younger than Terry, and he was clearly the volatile element in the partnership. He flirted outrageously with the other guests, regardless of gender, and was prone to calculatedly shocking remarks. Terry looked on benignly, a parody of the steady older man, with a lot of raised eyebrows and comfortable ‘What on earth can I do with him?’ grimaces.

  Terry Harper, it was established when Jude and Carole were introduced, ran the Yesteryear Antiques, which James Lister had pointed out during his Town Walk as being Fedborough’s former grocery. Andrew Wragg was some unspecified kind of artist, and worked in the studio that had been converted from the smokehouse behind his partner’s shop.

  The Art Crawl turned out to be the one Debbie Carlton had described to Carole, and, as its organizers, Terry and Andrew were more than happy to talk on the subject.

  ‘I’m quietly confident it’s going to be rather good this year,’ said the older man. He spoke with the same restrained neatness as he dressed.

  ‘Remind me, Terry – when does the thing actually start?’ asked Dr Durrington.

  Fiona Lister saw it as her duty to provide the answer. ‘Really! Don’t you pay any attention to what’s going on in this town, Donald?’

  Joan Durrington also looked daggers at her husband, but said nothing and took a sip of her mineral water.

  The doctor’s protestations that he was kept rather busy in his practice were swept away by his hostess. ‘There’s Fedborough Festival literature and posters all over the town. There’s even a big banner out on the A27. The Festival starts with the Carnival Parade on Thursday night, and the Art Crawl is open to the public at two o’clock on Friday. Open two to six every afternoon of the Festival. You really ought to know that, Donald – particularly since one of the artists is exhibiting in your house.’

  She sounded genuinely offended that any prominent citizen of Fedborough should remain ignorant of what was going on in the town. Donald Durrington looked suitably chastened. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Joan deals with all that sort of thing.’

  His wife’s expression suggested this was not an arrangement with which she was happy. It also suggested their marriage was not necessarily an arrangement with which she was happy.

  ‘Yes, just a week to go,’ said Terry Harper. ‘All in place, though. I think it’ll work well.’ He smiled coyly. ‘Though I’m afraid we may have put one or two backs up around the town.’

  ‘One or two?’ screeched Andrew. ‘Always had a way with the old understatement, didn’t you? I think he’s offended so many people, soon he’s going to need police protection.’

  ‘Why is that?’ asked Fiona Lister with steely gentility. ‘Who have you been offending, Terry?’

  He made a shrugging gesture of studied innocence. ‘All I’ve done is to suggest that we should broaden the range of artists we include. Get some of the bright new talent from London, from Paris, from Hamburg, Amsterdam. As a result, of course, there is inevitably less room for some of the local artists . . . no, sorry, I’d better qualify that . . . some of the local people who think of themselves as artists.’

  There was a sparkle in Fiona Lister’s eyes as she leaned forward to listen. Her highly sensitive gossip-antennae informed her that bitchiness was imminent.

  Terry Harper listed some of the locals who’d featured in previous years’ Art Crawls, but whose work didn’t meet the more exacting artistic standards his regime was introducing. Andrew Wragg chipped in to the aspersions with his own scurrilous addenda. They were clearly going into a practised routine; some of Terry’s lines showed signs of long honing.

  None of the names meant anything to Carole or Jude, so they just sat back and let the malice flow around them.

  Terry: ‘His idea of mixed-media is about as original as cheese and pineapple chunks on a cocktail stick.’

  Andrew: ‘And the cheese in his case’d only be bog-standard Cheddar.’

  Terry: ‘I mean, her little whimsical pictures of kit-tens’d be all right on the front of a chocolate box.’

  Andrew: ‘Oh yes, lots of people like a nice bit of pussy.’

  Terry: ‘Goblins and elves carved from driftwood must be useful for something . . .’

  Andrew: ‘Kindling, perhaps?’

  ‘ . . . but you can’t call them art,’ Terry Harper concluded. ‘No, so I’m afraid a lot of the local amateurs and weekend painters have had their noses rather put out of joint. But I just think that in the arts you have to have
the highest standards possible.’ He spoke with regret at the hard task he had set himself, but was obviously enjoying every minute of it. He loved being in charge of the Fedborough Art Crawl Hanging Committee. And his attitude to hanging was reminiscent of Judge Jeffries.

  ‘So who of the locals has survived?’ asked Fiona Lister eagerly, storing information for future slights and put-downs.

  ‘Well . . . Alan Burnethorpe’s still in there, of course, but then his drawings are quite superb.’

  James Lister chuckled. ‘I always like his stuff. Doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination. After last year there was no one in Fedborough who didn’t know what the lovely Joke looked like in the altogether.’

  He was all set to bracket the speech with another chuckle, but catching Fiona’s eye, let it wither instantly on the bough.

  Terry Harper sighed coyly. ‘And I’m afraid there’s someone else in this room who’s survived the cull.’ He sent an indulgent look across to Andrew Wragg. ‘Because I just haven’t got the strength for any more tantrums. I knew if I excluded him, I’d never hear the end of it.’

  ‘That’s not the reason. Don’t listen to him!’ shrieked the younger man in mock-affront. ‘I’m going to be represented because I’m bloody good! In years to come, art-lovers will make pilgrimages to the Fedborough Smokehouse to see where I worked. And all of you lot’ll be boasting that you once were once at the same dinner party as Andrew Wragg!’

  He was so over the top as to be humorous, and he duly got his laugh. But Carole had the feeling he more than half believed what he was saying.

  ‘What about Debbie Carlton?’ asked Fiona Lister in acid tones. ‘Have her little watercolours survived the cull?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Terry replied. ‘Debbie’s one of the few genuinely talented artists in Fedborough. Present company, of course, excepted,’ he added quickly before Andrew could say anything.

  This was clearly the wrong answer so far as Fiona Lister was concerned. ‘Her parents always said she was very gifted.’ She sniffed. ‘Couldn’t see it myself. Billie and Stanley were very tickled when she got into art college. Can’t imagine why. It’s not a proper training for anything. At least our children all got professional qualifications, didn’t they, James?’

  Her husband hastily agreed that indeed they did.

  With trepidation, the Rev Trigwell tiptoed into the conversation. ‘Of course, Fiona, you must have seen a lot of the Frankses in the old days . . . what with their grocery being right next door to your butcher’s . . .’

  From the frown it prompted, this hadn’t been the right thing to say either. Carole got the feeling that the only right thing to say after Fiona Lister’s every pronouncement was ‘Ye s’. From the subdued way her husband was behaving that evening, it seemed to be a lesson he had learnt early in their marriage.

  ‘Did you hear,’ Fiona went on, after a withering look at the vicar, ‘that Francis Carlton had been back in Fedborough this week?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ squealed Andrew Wragg. ‘Owning up to the police about all the women he’d chopped up in the cellar of Pelling House.’

  Fiona Lister spoke, darkly portentous. ‘He certainly did have other women friends, after he’d been married to Debbie.’

  ‘Having women friends,’ said Jude, who was getting a bit sick of all the prejudice flying about, ‘doesn’t automatically mean chopping them up.’

  ‘It could do,’ her hostess riposted. ‘The kind of man who betrays his wife is capable of all kinds of other moral lapses.’

  ‘I don’t agree with that. You can’t apply the same standards to sexual behaviour and criminal behaviour.’

  Fiona Lister turned the beady majesty of her stare on Jude. She was not used to having her opinions challenged, least of all in her own house. Jude, who had never been afraid to express her views on anything, seemed blithely unaware of the beam of disapproval focused on her.

  The Rev Trigwell tried to ease the conversation, and regain some of the ground he’d lost by his previous remark. ‘Very sad that things didn’t work out with Debbie and Francis.’

  Fiona Lister was implacable. ‘Her parents gave that girl too much freedom. Too full of her own opinions, if you ask me. That kind can never make a marriage work. You need discipline. Marriage may not be fun all the time, but you have to stick with it. All our children’s marriages are still intact. Aren’t they, James?’

  Her husband, who hadn’t heard the subject that was being discussed, took the safe option of saying that indeed they were.

  ‘It hit her parents very hard when Debbie and Francis divorced,’ Fiona went on. ‘The shock was what started Stanley’s illness, wasn’t it, Donald?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think one can say that,’ the doctor equivocated. ‘He was deteriorating long before Debbie’s marriage went wrong. Anyway, no one really knows what brings on Alzheimer’s.’

  ‘In Stanley’s case it was Debbie getting divorced.’ Fiona Lister would never change an opinion simply because there was an expert on the subject present. ‘Have you seen him recently, Donald?’

  ‘Couple of weeks back. The Elms is part of my patch, so I do go down and check over the old lot on a fairly regular basis.’

  ‘Any change with Stanley? I met Billie in Sainsbury’s the other week and she said he was improving.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s little chance of that. Alzheimer’s is a degenerative condition.’

  Carole wondered whether the doctor should be talking about one of his patients in this way. Surely even someone in Stanley Franks’s condition had the right to medical confidentiality. She thought how much she would dislike meeting her own doctor socially, sitting down to meals with someone to whom she had entrusted embarrassing physical secrets. But perhaps that was inevitable in a small community like Fedborough.

  She was also beginning to wonder why she and Jude had been invited to the dinner party. Once they’d said they came from Fethering, nobody had asked them any further personal details. Fiona Lister wasn’t, as her husband had said, interested in new people; she just wanted to appropriate new people before anyone else in Fedborough got their hands on them.

  The assumption seemed to be that the immigrants from Fethering should be deeply honoured to be included in conversations about Fedborough people they didn’t know and were never likely to meet. Jude, having experienced the same at the Roxbys’, had issued a warning in the car on the way over, but Carole had thought she was exaggerating.

  And, what’s more, they didn’t seem to be getting any very useful information about the case. The torso had been mentioned, yes, but only surrounded by unsupported rumour.

  Even as Carole had this thought, though, Joan Durrington, who had not spoken before, filled the silence with an announcement. ‘Did you hear that the police have identified who the torso was?’

  Chapter Twenty

  Her husband’s voice rumbled disapproval. ‘I think I was told that in confidence, Joan.’

  ‘Well, you told me.’

  ‘Yes, but a doctor’s wife . . . there are certain kinds of accepted obligations that go with the job.’

  The way the couple looked at each other suggested that they were digging over an old argument. But the defiance in Joan Durrington’s eyes also suggested to Carole that the doctor’s wife was less mousy and anonymous than her manner might suggest.

  ‘You can’t leave it there, Joan,’ said Terry Harper.

  ‘No, you can’t!’ Andrew Wragg squealed in agreement. ‘Come on, give us the name! We want to know which of the fine upstanding pillars of Fedborough society cut his mistress down to size in such an imaginative way.’

  This sally didn’t go down well with the assembled company. Carole reckoned the offence was caused, not by the tastelessness of the image, but by the implication that respectable men in Fedborough might have mistresses.

  Joan Durrington’s moment of self-assertion had passed. ‘You’d better ask Donald. He was the one the police talked to.’

  Fiona Lister turned h
er beady eye on the doctor. ‘Well, don’t keep us in suspense.’

  He immediately became formal and professional. ‘The police consulted me about some medical records . . .’

  ‘Whose?’ demanded Andrew Wragg. ‘Come on, give us the dirt!’

  ‘Obviously I can’t tell you that.’ It was the answer Andrew had been expecting; indeed, to get that answer had been the only reason he’d asked the question. Terry Harper’s eyes rolled heavenwards in fond despair at the incorrigible nature of his partner.

  ‘And in the course of conversation they told me there would soon be a press conference when the identity of the deceased would be announced.’

  ‘Has the press conference happened yet?’ asked Carole.

  ‘I don’t think so. The implication was that it’ll be tomorrow.’

  ‘Hm . . .’ James Lister stroked his moustache thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if that’s why Roddy isn’t here tonight . . . ?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ his wife snapped.

  ‘I was just thinking, if the body does turn out to be Virginia . . .’

  Fiona was not persuaded by this idea. ‘Nonsense, that has nothing to do with it. The reason Roddy isn’t here is the usual one. He’s drunk. It’s his birthday, for heaven’s sake, probably been celebrating all day. He’s lost the few manners he ever had.’ Carole thought that was unfair. Roddy Hargreaves was certainly a drunkard, but he had seemed to her almost excessively courteous.

  Fiona was returning to a theme she’d started on earlier in the evening, when it became clear that Roddy wasn’t going to turn up. He was very inconsiderate, and had ruined her seating plan. Everything had been arranged for ten people; nine was a much less convenient number. She’d been persuaded – against her better judgment – to invite Roddy because it was his birthday and – as ever – he’d disgraced himself. There was no doubt where the fault lay: where it always lay in their marriage. James shouldn’t have issued the invitation.