Death Of A Hollow Man

by Caroline Graham

  “Do you think then … the gods will reward me by answering my prayers?” The heavy attempt at sarcasm was only partially successful. Nicholas’s voice trembled.

  “Nico—you’re so naive.” Tim smiled. “That’s the way the gods punish us—by answering our prayers.”

  “Oh, my—it’s not going to be one of your world-weary evenings is it? I don’t think I could stand that.”

  But Avery’s response was jocular, and he appeared the picture of contentment. He beamed, and his little blue eyes twinkled. He started to relax. He had been tiptoeing about very carefully all day, because his morning horoscope, though fairly positive on the whole, had ended, “There may be friction in the home, however.” But surely, reasoned Avery, by nine-thirty any respectable bird of ill omen must be safely tucked up in its nest, reading the runes for the following day.

  “Is it all right?” he asked, mock-anxious.

  “My love—it’s absolutely marvelous.” Tim reached out, and his slim El Greco fingers rested briefly, lightly on Avery’s arm. Avery’s face burned with the intensity of his pleasure, and his heart pounded. Tim never used an endearment or touched him when other people were present, and Avery had quickly learned that he must behave with the same propriety. Of course, it was only Nico but even so …

  Avery breathed slowly and deeply, experiencing the spicy scents of the meat, the delicate fragrance of the jasmine in its hooped basket, the aroma of the wine, and the slightly acrid drip of the candles not just briefly in the membranes of his nose but pervasively, as if they had been injected into his bloodstream and were spreading languorously through his body. He broke a piece of bread and popped it into his mouth, and it was like the bread of angels.

  The phone rang. Everyone groaned. Avery, who was nearest, pushed back his chair and, carrying his glass, went to answer it.

  “Hullo? … Oh, hullo, darling.”

  “Who is it?” Tim mouthed, silently.

  Avery pressed the secrecy button. “The Wicked Witch of the West.”

  “My condolences.”

  “Tim sends his love, Rosa.”

  “And mine.”

  “And Nicholas. We’ve been having the most divine— Oh, all right. I’ll be quiet. There’s no need to be rude. One must go through these opening civilities, otherwise one might just as well take to the hills … Shut up yourself, if it comes to that.” He switched again. “Evil-tempered old crone.”

  The two men at the table exchanged glances. Tim’s faintly humorous, rather resigned. Nicholas’s wry, even a touch patronizing. A look that would never have graced his features when their friendship had first begun. They turned their attention back to Avery, whose face was avidity personified. His soft lips, delicately tinted toffee brown from the satay, were pushed forward into a thrilled marshmallow O.

  “My dear!” he cried. “But didn’t we always say? Well, I certainly always said … Are you sure? Well, that clinches it then … Of course I will … and you keep me posted.” He hung up, took a deep swallow of his wine, and hurried back to the table. Bursting with information, he looked from Tim to Nicholas and back again. “You’ll never guess.”

  “If there are three more interesting words in the English language,” said Tim, “I’ve yet to hear them.”

  “Oh, come on,” Nicholas said, rather slurrily, “what she say?”

  “The police have arrested David Smy.”

  Avery sat back more than satisfied with the effect of his pronouncement. Nicholas gaped foolishly in disbelief. Tim’s face, golden and ivory in the candle’s flame, became bleached; white and gray. “How does she know?”

  “Saw him. She was going to the library when a police car drew up outside the station and two cops marched him inside.”

  “Did he have a blanket over his head?”

  “Don’t be so bloody silly, Nicholas. How on earth could she have known it was David if he’d had a blanket over his head?”

  “Only they do,” persisted Nicholas with stolid determination. “If they’re guilty.”

  “Well, really. Sometimes I think your thought processes should be in a medical mysteries museum.”

  “Leave the boy alone.” Tim’s voice laid a great chill over the lately so festive company. “He’s had too much to drink.”

  “Oh … yes … sorry.” Avery picked up his glass, then nervously put it down again. His exhilaration was draining away fast. Almost as he entertained this thought, the last couple of wisps evaporated. He looked across at Tim, who was not looking at him, Avery, but through him, as if he didn’t exist. Avery looked down at the glistening puddle of peanut sauce, picked up his spoon, which clattered against the gilded rim of the bowl, and tasted a little. It was nearly cold. “Shall I warm this up Tim … do you think? Or bring in the pudding?”

  Tim did not reply. He had withdrawn into himself as he occasionally did in a way that Avery dreaded. He knew Tim didn’t mean this behavior as any sort of punishment. The action was so undeliberate as to appear almost involuntary, yet Avery inevitably felt responsible. He turned to their guest. “Are you ready for some pudding, Nico?”

  Nicholas smiled briefly and shrugged. He looked a little sulky and deeply abashed, as if guilty of some social misdemeanor. Yet, Avery thought, it is I who have committed the solecism. How unpleasant now, how crass, his reception of Rosa’s news appeared. With what salacious relish had he rushed to the table to relay the information, as if it were some edible goody he couldn’t wait to share. If he had stopped to think, even for a moment, he must have behaved differently. After all, this was a friend they were talking about. They all liked David and his kind, unhurried ways. And now he might be going to prison. For years. No wonder Tim, extremely fastidious at the best of times, had removed his attention from such a lubricious, blubbering display.

  “Well …” he said, forcing cheeriness into his voice, “it doesn’t do to get depressed. Okay, Rosa saw him going in … what does that mean? He might have just been asked to help clear up one or two points. Help them with their inquiries.” Avery wished he hadn’t said that. He was sure he’d read somewhere that was the official way of announcing that the police had got the guilty party but weren’t legally supposed to say so. “Just because he was the man in the lighting box doesn’t mean … well … what else have they got to go on, after all?” (Only that he had ample opportunity. Only that he was the man who took the razor on. Only that his mistress was now a rich widow.) Tim was getting up.

  “What … what’s happening?” said Avery. “We haven’t finished.”

  “I’ve finished.”

  “Oh, but you must have some cherries, Tim! You know how you love them. I made them especially. In little sugar baskets.”

  “Sorry.”

  I could kill Rosa, thought Avery. Malicious, scandal-mongering, interfering old bitch! If it weren’t for her, this would never have happened. And we were having such a lovely time. Tears of disappointment and frustration sprang to his eyes. When they cleared, Tim, wearing his overcoat and Borsalino hat, was at the sitting room door. Avery leaped to his feet.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just out.”

  “But where, Tim?” Avery hurried across and hung on Tim’s arm. His voice trembled as he continued, “You must tell me!”

  “I’ve got to go to the station.”

  “… the … the police station?” When Tim nodded, Avery cried, “What on earth for?”

  But even as he asked, Avery’s heart was squeezed with the terrible cold foreknowledge of what would be Tim’s reply.

  “Because,” said Tim, gently removing Avery’s hand from his sleeve, “I was the man in the lighting box.”

  Tim was sorry he had come. Barnaby had vouchsafed the information (it seemed to Tim with a certain amount of wry pleasure) that David Smy, far from being arrested, was as free as a bird and likely to remain so. Still, Tim’s confession had been made, and he could hardly take it back. He had assumed once this simple statement had been completed, he wou
ld be free to go, but Barnaby seemed keen to question him further. To add to the charm of these unwelcome proceedings, the poisonous youth with the carroty hair was also present at his scrivenings.

  “Just background, you understand, Tim,” Barnaby was saying. “Tell me how you got on with Esslyn.”

  “As well and as badly as anyone else. There was nothing to get on with, really. He was always posing. You never knew what he truly felt.”

  “Even so, it’s unusual for someone to belong to a group for over fourteen years and not have a single relationship of any depth or complexity.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Lots of men don’t have close friendships. As long as Esslyn was much admired and had plenty of sex, he was content.” Tim smiled. “The advertiser’s dream made manifest.”

  “No more than human.” Barnaby sounded indulgent. “Which of us can’t say the same?”

  Bang on target, thought Troy. Don’t knock it till you’ve had enough. Like when you’re stepping into your coffin. Troy was feeling very put out. He just couldn’t cope with the revelation that the man he thought of (apparently only too appropriately) as the cocky bugger in the executive suit had had it off with Kitty. Paradoxically, his resentment against Tim was now doubled. And the way he sauntered about … Look at him now … completely at home, mildly interested, cool as a cucumber. The dregs of society, thought Troy, should know their place and not come floating to the surface mingling with the good honest brew. Serve Kitty right if she got AIDS.

  “He was never short of female company, then?” Barnaby was asking.

  “Oh, no. Nothing that lasted long, though. They soon drifted off.”

  “You don’t know of anyone in the past that he had rejected? Who might be suffering from unrequited love?”

  “Anyone involved with Esslyn, whether rejected or not, suffered from unrequited love. And no, I don’t.”

  “You must realize, I’m sure, that Kitty is our number-one suspect. Did you assist her in doing away with her husband?”

  “Certainly not. There would have been no reason for me to do so. Our affair was trivial. I was already tired of it.”

  “Did she let anything slip while you were together that might give us some insight into this matter?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Or hint at any other man?”

  “No.”

  “To get on to Monday night—”

  “I’ve really nothing to add there, Tom.”

  “Well,” said Barnaby easily, “you never know. Try this. Why did the murder happen then? Why not, for instance, at one of the early rehearsals? Fewer people hanging around. No coppers present.”

  “The wings are never dark at rehearsal. And there’s always someone there prompting. Or wanting to do a scene change.”

  “They’re not dark at the run-through, surely. Or the dress rehearsal?” When Tim did not reply, Barnaby added, “By the way—did I congratulate you on your splendid lighting?”

  “I really don’t remember.”

  It was like touching a snail on the horns, thought Barnaby, sensing the quick (protective?) folding in of the other man’s attention.

  “Harold seemed quite put out.”

  “Did he?”

  “I noticed him thumping away in the intermission on the door of your box.”

  Tim shrugged. “He runs on a short fuse.”

  “Might’ve been less alarming if you’d sprung these splendid illuminations before the first night.”

  “If I’d done that, they’d never have reached the first night.”

  “So Harold didn’t know?”

  The snail disappeared completely. Although Tim’s expression remained laconic, even a tinge scornful, his eyes were disturbed and the skin seemed to tighten over his patrician nose. “That’s right.”

  “So he got two shocks for the price of one?”

  “As things turned out.”

  “Quite a coincidence.”

  “They happen all the time.”

  Not this time, thought Barnaby. He did not know how he knew, but he knew. Somewhere way back in the murk of his mind, so faint as to be hardly apprehended, he heard a warning rattle. This man who could not possibly have murdered Esslyn Carmichael knew something. But he met Barnaby’s gaze frankly, almost dauntingly, nor did he look away.

  “You’re probably not aware,” said Barnaby, “that Harold is claiming the new lighting plot as his own.”

  “Hah!” Tim laughed harshly, strainedly. His face flushed. “So that—” his laughter croaked—“so that was all we had to do. Say ‘Yes, Harold’ to everything. And go our own way. Just like Esslyn.”

  “So it seems.”

  “All these years.” He was still laughing in a rasping, irascible way when the chief inspector let him go a few minutes later.

  Barnaby had seen no point in keeping Tim there or in applying pressure at this stage. Tim was not the sort to wilt under generalized bullish cajoling. But Barnaby knew now where the pressure point was and could apply a little leverage if or when it became necessary. He turned to his sergeant.

  “Well, Troy?”

  “A worried man, sir,” Troy replied quickly. “All right till you touched on his lights, then shut up like balls in an ice bucket. He might have been hard put to it to have done the murder, but he knows something.”

  “I believe you’re right.”

  “How would it be if I had a word with his friend”— Troy arched his wrist limply—“Little Miss Roly Poly. On her own, like.” He winked. “She’d soon crumble.” He received in exchange for the wink a stare so icy that he all but crumbled himself.

  “First thing tomorrow I want to visit Carmichael’s office. And his solicitor. Get on the phone and fix it.”

  Nicholas had left fairly quickly after Tim, thanking Avery for the dinner, then saying on the doorstep with absolute clarity, “I’m not as think as you drunk I am.”

  Now, Avery sat alone. He had finished the Tignanello, pouring and gulping, pouring and gulping, at first in shock, then, steadily, in bitter loneliness and despair. After emptying the bottle, he had, in a confused state of aggressive misery jumbled up with vague ideas of retaliation, opened some Clos St. Denis, grand cru, that he knew Tim was keeping for his birthday. He wrestled savagely with the cork, breaking off little pieces and sloshing the wine about.

  The candles in their Mexican silver rose holders guttered, and Avery blew them out. But even in the dark the room was full of memories of Tim. Avery flinched at the word “memories,” and chided himself for being melodramatic. After all, Tim was coming back. But no sooner had this thought, which should have been a comfort, struck him than it was swamped by a hundred others, all permeated with the fervor of self-righteousness. Oh, yes, observed Avery to himself with a miserable snigger, no doubt he’ll be coming back. He won’t find anyone else like me in a hurry. Who else would cook and iron and clean and care for him with just the odd kind word for wages? And that tossed so casually into the conversation it might have been a bone to a mangy cur. Who but me would have bought a bookshop and given—yes given, fulminated Avery, half of it away? Whose money had furnished the house? And paid for the holidays? And he asked so little in return. Just to be allowed to love and look after Tim. And to be offered in exchange a modicum of affection. Immensely moved by this revelatory glimpse into the nobility of his soul, Avery shed a disconsolate tear.

  But the tear had no sooner dried on his cushiony cheek than the cold finger of reason pointed out that, for a reasonable sum, people could be found to cook and iron and clean and that Tim had once earned an excellent living teaching Latin and French in a public school and no doubt could do so again. And that if Avery poured out all the tiger words that, at this moment, were prowling round his heart when Tim came back, he might put on his Crombie overcoat and Borsalino hat and leave again, this time forever. And in fact (Avery felt sick with apprehension), even if he made the most tremendous superhuman efforts at self-control and behaved with calmness and understandin
g when his lover returned, it was probably too late. Because Tim had already met somebody else.

  Avery stood up suddenly and put the light on. He felt he must move. Walk about. He thought of going down to the station to meet Tim, to know the worst right away, and had seized his coat and opened the front door before he recognized what a foolish thing that would be to do. For Tim hated it when Avery “trailed around” after him. Also (Avery dropped his coat onto the raspberry bouffant sofa), his quick dash to the door had revealed him to be intensely, dizzily nauseous. He moved to the table and sat upright with difficulty, holding on to the edge. He felt as if he were trapped in a revolving door of the emotions. Having whipped rapidly and passionately through jealousy, rage, yearning fear, and concupiscence, he now seemed to be meeting them all on the way back.

  Avery made a huge effort to fight free of this soggy swamp of wretchedness. He drank several large glasses of Perrier and sat quietly struggling to compose himself. He tried to think as Tim would think. After all, what was done could not be undone. Perhaps, Avery thought tremulously, I am blowing it up out of all proportion. Also, getting into this state is just what Tim would expect. Poor Tim. Sitting down there for hours at the police station and then coming home to face a raging screaming row. How remarkable, how truly amazing it would be if he were welcomed by a tranquil, smiling, naturally slightly distant but ultimately forgiving friend. Let him without sin, decided Avery, and all that jazz. What would be the point, after all, of railing at Tim because he was not doggedly faithful? It’s because he’s so completely unlike me, realized Avery, now quite mooney with sentiment, that I love him so. And how proud he will be when he sees just how well I can actually handle things. How mature and wise, how detached, he will find me in the face of this, our first real catastrophe. Avery’s chest had just swelled to a pouter-pigeon prominence when he heard a key in the door, and a moment later Tim was standing before him.

  Avery yelled, “You faithless bastard!” and threw one of the Chinese bowls. Tim ducked, and the bowl hit the architrave and shattered into small pieces. When Tim bent to pick them up, Avery shouted, “Leave it! I don’t want it. I don’t want any of them. They’re all going in the trash bin.”