A Murder of Magpies

by Flanders, Judith

  “Of course. What’s the manuscript?”

  “One of my authors is writing a book on the fashion industry, and he wants to check out various things with the Alemán family.” It was weak, but Chris might not think in scandalous tabloid terms about my kind of book.

  He didn’t. “Sure. I can get him to e-mail you. Or, I tell you what, Rosie and I are having a lunch party on Sunday—why don’t you come? Diego will be there.”

  “That would be great.” I couldn’t believe it was going to be this easy. “Thanks. What time?”

  “Come whenever you like after one. I can’t promise you’ll have much chance to talk to Diego, there’ll be a lot of people, but at least you can meet.”

  We hung up and I tried Nicholas at the LSD again. This time he was in, and as cheerfully expansive as ever. “Sam! I haven’t heard from you for ages.”

  “I could say the same, surely?” We’d always flirted, on the comfortable understanding that neither of us had any intention of acting on it.

  He didn’t bother to follow up. “What can I do for you?”

  Nick hated being out of the loop, so if I dangled the bait in front of him, I knew he’d leap at it. “It’s about Kit.”

  “Kit Lovell? We’ve had the police asking about him. Now you. For God’s sake, what’s going on?”

  “They didn’t tell you?” I murmured tantalizingly. “Just like them. Kit’s vanished.”

  “Vanished? What do you mean, vanished?”

  “Vanished. As in disappeared. As in, no one knows where he is.” I hated saying it, and I hated even more that the police were still not treating Kit’s disappearance as their priority. “Can we meet?”

  Nick was really a very nice man. “My God, yes. Why didn’t they say? Idiots.”

  “What’s good for you?”

  “Are you going to this party at the Tate tonight?”

  I wasn’t, because I wasn’t nearly trendy enough to be invited. “The Tate. Sure. If I meet you there, can we go somewhere for dinner after and talk?”

  Nick was nice, but he wasn’t stupid. “I’ll leave your name at the door and say you’re my guest. It starts at six, but I won’t be there until closer to eight. We can duck out after half an hour.”

  Three down. Only Selden’s to go, and then I could go home—well, to Mr. Rudiger’s—to start talking to carpenters and locksmiths and with luck get some sleep before seeing Nick.

  My conversation with Robert was easily encapsulated: (a) he was faintly revolted by the idea of crime, and, by extension, with me for bringing it to his notice; (b) he would line up some fraud and corporate law people for me to talk to on Monday; (c) would I now please go away and let him catch an early train home to his nice, orderly life. I agreed with (d) all of the above, and we hung up, mutually relieved to have postponed the problem for seventy-two hours.

  * * *

  I hadn’t asked Nick which Tate, Modern or British, since I’d been pretending I’d been invited. Rather than call back and admit to my uncool-ness, I made a guess on Modern. I could always get a cab over to Millbank if I needed to.

  One of the things that is so peculiar about London is that there are hardly any views. In most cities you stand on a long avenue, or a piazza, or a plaza, and get a dramatic sweep of the most important buildings, which have been carefully situated to say “authority,” “prestige,” “status,” or, more simply, “money.” Even New York, which is most like London in this respect, has a skyline that you could recognize anywhere. London has none of this. It’s as though all the architects in the city took a course in How to Hide a Building. The best ones are tucked away down dark alleys. Even St. Paul’s has to be glimpsed through a thicket of multistory car parks.

  The new Tate, for all its lip service to design, is exactly the same. From the other side of the river, if you’re in one of those multi-story car parks, it is probably fantastic. But approaching it from any other direction you have to wend your way through low-cost council housing and 1960s concrete bunkers cunningly disguised as pubs. But then, what do I know?

  It was still raining steadily as I ducked down the appropriate underpass and there I was. I was right about the party being here. The place was ringed by warders got up to look like bodyguards in all-black uniforms: Tate Modish. None of your “accessibility” for the Tate. They pull the punters in by making it look like they aren’t wanted. The thing is, it works, and people now besiege a place that shows the very same art that they avoided like the plague when the warders wore bright blue polyester.

  I told one of the bodyguards that I was a guest of Nicholas Meredith. He tried not to show his disbelief openly, and after a murmured conversation into his mobile he reluctantly had to let me pass, although you could see he thought that it was a bad idea to let someone with my notions of makeup into the building.

  I went down the ramp into the Turbine Hall, where Dylan Surtees’s four-hundred-foot photograph, Visitors to the Turbine Hall, was being unveiled. It was a great piece, but I was so uncool for looking at it when I could have been looking at Lady Gaga, who was surrounded by more bodyguards than there were outside. I gave myself points for actually recognizing Lady Gaga instead, and grabbed a drink before I set off to mill around looking for Nick. It was painless, as parties go. There were plenty of journalists and authors there I knew, and by the time I arrived they were all too drunk to think my eye makeup was odd. Either that, or it was close to what I always looked like, which was not really a thought to warm the cockles of my heart. Whatever cockles were. I made a mental note to look it up when I got home. Then I made another note, to slap myself. Jesus, what a nerd I am. I got a grip and looked around.

  And there, at five o’clock from where I stood, was Gerald Atworth, Kit’s editor. I shifted uncomfortably. Was I really willing to barge up and talk to him? He wouldn’t remember me. I wasn’t someone who might one day be able to offer him a job, or access, or do him a favor. And I wasn’t twenty and blonde and wearing a short skirt. Those two possibilities were the only varieties of women he’d remember. As I havered, undecided, he stepped forward, moving into the personal space of the young blonde short-skirted woman who had been cheerfully talking to him and another man. I watched as she began to drink more and talk less, taking small, unconscious steps back.

  Despite this, I found that my feet had made a decision while my mind was screaming no, and I was now standing right beside them. The third in the group, the man whose back had been to me, turned. The paper’s literary editor. Now it was easy, and I moved in smoothly.

  “James. Good to see you.” We kissed and did the how-long-it’s-been-we-should-see-each-other-more-often routine, which is really just publishing-speak for “hello.” I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the blonde took the pause as an opportunity to flee. I turned to Kit’s editor, hand outstretched. “Sam Clair. We met with Kit Lovell.”

  He was bored but civil. Well, civil-ish. His eyes flickered over my shoulder to see who he could move on to as we went through the courtesies. It was obvious I didn’t have long.

  “Have you spoken to Kit recently? I’ve been trying to catch up with him, but he seems to have gone to ground.”

  Atworth shrugged. “I don’t take attendance.”

  Not civil at all. I pasted my social smile on more firmly. “Of course. But an editor like you knows everything.” Nothing but the best butter.

  James snorted quietly into this drink. I took that to mean there wasn’t enough butter in the world. And he was probably right. Atworth didn’t even bother to look at me. “Maybe he just doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  I wasn’t going to get anywhere, so screw this. I widened my eyes and channeled my inner Betty Boop. “Goodness,” I said with a baby lisp. “The diplomatic world must have gone into mourning when you decided to move to Madras and become a snake charmer.” I shook my head admiringly, patted his arm benevolently, and stomped off.

  I was standing talking to the editor of an art magazine about an author of mine who
might suit one of his regular “What Do They Look At?” features when I felt two arms go around my waist in a bear hug from behind. Nick.

  “Don’t you look like something the cat’s dragged in?” he boomed.

  “Thanks, Nick. It’s nice to know that not only do I feel like shit, but I look like shit, too.”

  He looked closer. “My God, you really do. What on earth…?”

  “I was burgled. I got beaten up.”

  He disentangled me from the art magazine editor, who was suddenly a lot more interested in our conversation, and said, “Never mind all this,” his arm sweepingly dismissing the great and the good. “Is this to do with Kit?” Nick is a great big bear of a man, easily six feet two inches, and about as wide, with a reddish fuzz covering most of his face and body, as far as one could tell in public. He was now a concerned bear. Winnie-the-Pooh does worry. “When you called I thought it was serious, but I didn’t realize you were personally involved. Let’s get out of here and go somewhere where we can talk.”

  “Are you sure? You’ve seen everyone you need to see?” Now I knew he was hooked, I could afford to sound generous.

  “Sam. Please. It’s a party, for Christ’s sake, not an audience with the pope.” He thought about the director of the Tate for a minute and conceded, “Maybe it is an audience with the pope, but I’ve been and genuflected before him already. It’s enough.”

  We left.

  I’d forgotten about Nick’s boy-toy mania, or I would have arranged to meet him at the restaurant. Parked just by the ramp was an enormous bike that, at a guess, I’d say was a Harley-Davidson. Nick took a second helmet off the back and handed it to me. I put it on without the protest I would have made another time. After the past two days, what did dicing with death matter? I got on behind Nick, put my arms as far around his tree-trunk-like waist as I could manage and, clutching his leather jacket tightly, closed my eyes.

  After about a thousand years, he stopped. I opened my eyes cautiously. We were at the Reform Club, of all places. Nick gave our helmets to the porter, who handled them by the extreme edges, as though they were radioactive, and pulled me up the stairs.

  “The Reform?” I was overcome with giggles.

  “It seemed like the best place. Anywhere else I know, it’s either impossible to hear, and we’d have to shout at each other, which I figured you didn’t want, or it’s so quiet that everyone can hear every word, which I also figured you didn’t want.”

  “And the Reform Club isn’t quiet?”

  “It’s quiet, but that’s because all the members are dead or deaf. Either suits our purposes.”

  He was right, so I followed him in. I knew the drill, having a couple of old crusty authors who had never discovered that there are other places to eat in London when they venture up from the country on their annual outing, so I didn’t try and leave my coat with Nick’s on the pegs outside the dining room. It’s against the rules for women to leave their coats there. I assume that the members think these nasty girl coats will get up to something with the boy coats while we’re eating, and by the time we come out there will be dozens of baby jackets, all claiming child support from the Committee. I went up the back stairs to the ladies’ lav, which is where the Club has decided women are to be hidden away to do whatever it is women do, and returned to find Nick seated in a corner of the Grill room. He was right, it was a good place to talk. It was very dark, very upholstered, very hushed. If you saw it in a movie, you would think it was a parody of a gentleman’s club. No one in the room had ever heard of Kit, or fashion, although from a quick guess at the price of some of their suits, quite a few knew about money laundering. But they were too far away to worry about, and anyway, they hadn’t heard anything except the sounds of their own voices for decades.

  We ordered and I got down to it. “What did the police say about Kit’s disappearance?”

  Nick looked disappointed. “I thought you were going to tell me.”

  “I am, but I need to know where to begin.”

  “Fair enough. They didn’t say he had disappeared at all. Just that they were ‘looking into’ a few matters, and what could I tell them. I thought it was about Jonathan Davies, so I told them about our internal investigation; that Davies had left last term and we have no current address for him; that I hadn’t seen Kit in months; that I would be thrilled if he came back to lecture. And then they went away.”

  I filled him in on Kit’s book—there was nothing to lose by it, and if he could help, there was a lot to gain—and my burglary. I left out the money laundering, and most of the names outside of Vernet. Nick wasn’t going to have any information about banks and investment companies. “I’m really just fishing here, but tell me about Davies. Kit said he followed him around the country.”

  “He did? That surprises me, because he showed no initiative in any other way. He was on the History of Fashion course—he had no practical abilities—and he rarely showed up for classes. His grades were ordinary. Nothing to get him thrown out, but nothing to make anyone take any notice of him.”

  “You did. Noticed him, I mean.”

  “Only after he accused Kit of harassment. I’ve got to say, I never believed it. Davies, let’s face it, was such a little twerp. There was no reason for Kit to notice him at all. If Kit tended toward students, and there was no history of that, he wouldn’t have chosen Davies. He was totally null: not good, not bad; not handsome, not ugly; not interesting, not boring. Just nothing.”

  Nick was getting worked up, as though I had suggested that the harassment charge had been his fault. I tried to get him to concentrate on practical details. “When he first accused Kit, did you speak to any of his friends? Anyone I could talk to now to find out where he is?”

  Nick thought for a minute. “I’m not sure. He was in his final year, so everyone who was with him will have finished their degree now. I’ll check the file on Monday, and talk to a few of the lecturers. If we can come up with anyone, I’ll call.”

  I had to leave it there—Nick was trying to be helpful. If he knew anything, I’d get it as soon as he could.

  * * *

  Until I saw Diego Alemán, there really wasn’t much I could do. I hated the idea of sitting still when Kit might be lying dead somewhere, but the memory of my “discussion” with Kit’s editor was a useful reality check. Life wasn’t a novel, and I couldn’t go charging about demanding that total strangers tell me all their guilty secrets. I could barely do it in real life to my friends, and they needed industrial-sized pincers to get anything out of me, so who was I kidding? The only constructive thing I could think of was sorting out my flat. So I did. I spent Saturday cajoling builders into fixing my door, locksmiths into fitting new locks, getting duplicate keys made for all the people who have keys to my place—my cleaning lady, my mother, Anthony and Kay. Mr. Rudiger got added to the list. He was always at home, and he was on “our” side—what more can a neighbor want?

  I used the time waiting for the various people to arrive by spring cleaning my flat. I washed out the insides of the newly emptied cupboards, put back all the clothes that I wore, bagged up more clothes that I hadn’t seen for years to take to Oxfam, went through the thousands of pages of paper now on the floor, refiling some and bagging even more for disposal. I was exhausted and covered with dust by the end, but at least I’d accomplished something, which was more than I could say of the rest of the week. I felt that I had spent all my time that week wandering around not knowing what the hell was going on, asking questions of everyone, hoping that by pure dumb luck I would hit the right person with the right question at the right time. Instead I wasn’t even sure now what the questions were. I preferred to have a goal and head toward it, even if it was only the recycling center.

  By evening everything was tidy, and I rang Mr. Rudiger to see if he wanted to come down for dinner. It was the least I could do after all his help. I heard the hesitation in his voice, and quickly added, “Or shall I bring it up?” He accepted with grace, as though
he was pleased to have the invitation, but not as though I were humoring a disability. I still didn’t know why he didn’t leave his flat, but he made it appear to be a choice, not a limitation.

  We had a pleasant evening, and after fifteen years I finally learnt a little about my upstairs neighbor. Pavel Rudiger had fled Czechoslovakia after the war, had become one of Britain’s foremost architects (my adjective, not his), and had retired suddenly, without explanation, some forty years ago, at the height of his career. His buildings were all over the city—I walked past the Stobel House, one of his most famous private commissions, every day on my way to work. Not that he told me any of this. He just said he’d been an architect, and I found the rest in a Pevsner book on London when I came back downstairs. I’d have to tell Nick next time I saw him. From Pevsner, it was clear that Mr. Rudiger was a design legend. Or maybe I wouldn’t tell Nick. Mr. Rudiger might not want to meet strangers. It had taken me fifteen years.

  On Sunday, I set off for Chris and Rosie’s party with a bottle of wine in one hand. Mostly because, having thrust myself on them, I had to take something, but partly, I admit, because I was nervous, and it was better than waving a rolled-up Sunday Times at anyone who threatened me. No one did—no one had since Thursday—but I was frightened when I was on my own all the same.

  I’d never been to the Stanleys before, but it was immediately familiar. One day someone will have to write a book on why we all live in identical houses. Mine is early Victorian and theirs is later, maybe Edwardian. Apart from that, they were built to the same floor plan, and have exactly the same kind of decoration: neutral colors, bare floorboards, neutral soft furnishings. Hell, even the people were the same as my friends: well-meaning, intelligent, thoughtful people. But the last few days had made me question my life, and the people I’d spent my life with, and I wondered what purpose we were serving by spending our time reading, writing, publishing more books, so that others could read, write, and publish more. We were just a bunch of ants in a tiny, if creative, rut, and when I looked at their house, so similar to mine, so similar to everyone’s that I know, our ant nests were not much different in that respect, either.