‘Just that he was a collector,’ said Bob. ‘He wanted a complete set, he said: a blonde, a redhead, a black-haired girl and a brunette. He’s a complete nutter, if you want my opinion. I’m worried that he’ll plead insanity and get sent to a mental asylum.’
‘Well, as long as he’s not free to abduct and murder more women,’ said Edgar.
‘He should be hanged,’ said Bob.
Edgar was opposed to the death penalty. He remembered Timothy Evans, wrongly executed for crimes committed by his landlord, John Christie. Edgar had caught murderers who had been sent to the gallows and, although he was sure that they were guilty, on the day of their execution he had felt like a killer himself. On the other hand, if Payne had harmed Marianne, he would willingly have torn him apart with his bare hands.
‘Sir Crispian Miles was at the hospital,’ he said. ‘It seems that Ernest Coggins turned up on his doorstep with a dog in a bag.’
‘What?’
‘He thought that Rhonda had run away because she wanted a dog so he broke out of prison and bought her one.’
‘Another nutcase,’ said Bob.
‘Quite a well-meaning one though. Sir Crispian called the police and Coggins is back in custody. The funny thing is that Sir Crispian seems quite besotted by the dog. He calls it Caesar.’
‘Dog are good company,’ said Bob, who owned a border terrier called Scruffy. ‘Did Coggins say how he escaped from prison? It seems that Davies has an alibi.’
‘The Surrey police think that Coggins had some help from a group called Action for Animals. They’re passionate about animal rights.’
‘Animal rights? What does that mean?’
‘I was reading about it recently. There are groups who believe that we shouldn’t eat animals or wear fur or test medicines on animals. They make good points although a few of them are a bit extreme.’
‘If these people helped Coggins escape from prison then they’re more than a bit extreme.’
‘Yes,’ said Edgar. ‘We’ll have some interviewing to do tomorrow.’
As he said this, Edgar felt a great weariness sweep over him. It seemed impossible to think that, in a few hours, he’d be back at work again, chasing up suspects, tying up loose ends. He rubbed his eyes.
‘You should go home, sir,’ said Bob. ‘See Emma. Mrs Stephens. She must be very shaken up.’
Bob had been fond of Emma when they worked together, Edgar remembered.
‘I’ve got some paperwork to do first.’
‘Go home, sir,’ said Bob. His voice was gentle but unusually firm.
Meg was touched to see Patrick waiting for her outside the station.
‘Mum thought you might like a lift home,’ he said. The Lambretta was leaning against one of the monstrous columns that supported the town hall portico.
‘She was right,’ said Meg. ‘I’m exhausted.’
‘Did you find him?’ asked Patrick, wheeling the scooter over. ‘The man you were looking for?’ Meg had parted company with Declan and Patrick at the Stephenses’ house after the super had told the boys, politely but firmly, to go home.
‘Yes,’ said Meg. ‘We found him and all the girls he’d kidnapped.’ She climbed on the back of the bike, pulling her skirt down over her knees. It seemed like years ago that she had ridden into Rottingdean. She hadn’t worried about her knees then, it had been pure adrenalin, terrifying but also—she had to admit—very exciting. The moment when she had seen the darkroom, the women’s faces looking out at her, eyes, hair, mouths, crazily overlapping, had been one of the most frightening experiences of her life but also, in a strange way, one of the best. It had been the moment when she knew they were right, that they were chasing the guilty suspect. And she had shared that realisation with the super’s wife, the famous detective Emma Holmes.
‘That must have been very satisfying,’ said Patrick, kicking the bike into life.
That was one word for it, thought Meg. She held on to Patrick’s parka, her face against the fox fur of his hood, and let the evening fly past her: the lights on the pier, the sound of the hurdy-gurdy, the cars and buses going past, their colours blurring like a dream kaleidoscope.
Edgar wasn’t sure why he was reluctant to go home. He wanted to see Marianne for himself, to check that she really was unhurt, he wanted to watch his daughters sleeping, side by side in their beds, and rejoice that, for the time being at least, he could keep them safely under one roof. He wanted to cuddle his baby boy, the son he had secretly longed for, and thank his lucky stars for his home and family. But why did he not, at this moment, feel lucky?
He walked back along the seafront. It was eight o’clock but still not dark. On the promenade council workers were still clearing up the mess left by the mods and rockers. Beer cans, stones and rubbish littered the road along with other, odder, pieces of detritus like a single high-heeled shoe and an abandoned crutch. What was the story there? The shoe reminded him of Sara Henratty, the girl who had tried to outwit the kidnapper and had paid with her life. Who would be mourning Sara tonight? Rhonda had gone home with her father, desperate to meet the small, fluffy dog called Caesar. Louise had Pete Chambers, who had stayed at her bedside throughout. But who was thinking of Sara tonight? Edgar would remember her, as he remembered all victims of crime. He would remember Sara long after Rita had written ‘Case Closed’ on her file. He made a mental note to send the photograph of Sara, the one she’d been so proud of, to Malcolm Henratty. He was her father, after all, and it was better than filing it away with all the case notes. Suddenly the weight of all those crimes, all those stories, felt like an unbearable burden, one that caused him almost to stagger as he walked. He felt so tired that he wanted to lie down on the stony beach and sleep for a year.
On the beach Edgar could see the remains of deckchairs, like birds of prey, hunched frames with wings flapping. Max had managed to convince Payne that a piece of deckchair was a gun. It didn’t surprise Edgar in the least. He thought of Max and Ruby driving back to London, Ruby going back to her glitzy celebrity life. Was Ruby happy? He thought that she probably was. ‘Cheer up, Ed,’ she’d said to him outside the flats. ‘You solved it. You won.’ But was it ever as simple as that?
Marianne and Sophie were in bed when he got home. ‘They were both exhausted,’ said Emma. She was holding Jonathan who looked like he planned to be awake all night. Edgar went upstairs to check on his daughters. They lay in their twin beds, facing each other, Marianne’s fair hair fanned out on the pillow, Sophie sucking her thumb. He kissed them both, whispered a prayer to the God he only vaguely believed in, and went back downstairs.
Emma was waiting for him with a whisky and soda. Jonathan was sitting, wakefully, in his playpen. ‘Are you hungry?’ she said. ‘Shall I make you something to eat?’
‘Have you been reading the Argus again?’ said Edgar. He had meant it as a joke, something to lighten the atmosphere that still seemed to hover in the air, but Emma crumbled. She literally fell to the floor and knelt there, sobbing.
‘What is it?’ Edgar pulled her upright. ‘It’s all OK. Marianne is fine. I’ve just checked on her and she’s sleeping peacefully.’
‘Oh, Ed.’ Emma pulled away from him. ‘It was all my fault. I planned that article to tempt him. Astarte said that the kidnapper wanted a blonde so I thought I’d make myself into bait. I thought that he might try and abduct me. But Harry saw Marianne. He saw her that day when he came to the house to take my photo. She had her hair loose and she looked so lovely, like an angel. Harry Payne abducted her and she trusted him because she’d seen him here, in her home. So it really was all my fault.’
Edgar put his arms round her. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Harry Payne was a madman. He told Bob that he was a collector, he wanted a set of girls, all with different hair colour. You can’t predict what a person like that will do.’
‘Astarte was right,’ said Emma, brushing tears from her eyes. She used her sleeve like a child would. Edgar felt his heart bursting with love and pity. ‘She said “he hasn�
��t got a blonde”. That’s what gave me the idea.’
Thanks very much, Edgar told the medium silently. Not content with encouraging my daughter to predict my death, you encourage my wife to take on a murderer single-handedly. Aloud he said, ‘You helped solve the case. You thought of Harry Payne. You went to his house.’
‘That was Sam,’ said Emma. But she brightened slightly. ‘Meg too. She was brilliant. Will you promote her?’
‘I might make her a DC,’ said Edgar. ‘She’s only young though. She’s got a lot to learn.’
‘Not a DS?’ said Emma. She was smiling now.
‘A woman detective sergeant?’ said Edgar. ‘Who’s heard of such a thing?’
‘You told me that I wasn’t a detective any more,’ said Emma.
‘You’ll always be a detective,’ said Edgar. He was rewarded by the warmth in Emma’s eyes but he wondered why the words gave him a distinct twinge of unease.
Thirty-Three
Once again, Max was meeting Ruby for a meal. But this time they were eating at the Grand so at least the food would be good. It was Saturday, almost a week after Harry Payne, ‘The Brighton Kidnapper’ as the papers called him, had been caught. Ruby had shared in most of the headlines. In fact, a lot of the press seemed to think she had apprehended the killer single-handedly. ‘Ruby’s Magic Escape’ screamed the Argus in massive letters. The article had been written by Sam Collins, the woman who had actually solved the mystery and thrown Harry Payne downstairs to boot.
‘How can you write this stuff?’ said Max, when they met for a quick coffee on the pier. It was three days after the rescue at the flats but Sam still seemed to be on a high from all of it. She was glowing with energy and vitality. Max remembered the electric shock he had experienced when they had touched.
‘“Reporter Solves Crime” is on page three,’ said Sam. ‘“Beautiful TV Star Solves Crime” is front-page stuff.’
‘And will the reporter get the credit she deserves?’
‘Probably not,’ said Sam, blowing the froth from something purporting to be a cappuccino—the coffee craze had really hit Brighton with a vengeance. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I’ve got other plans.’
‘Have you?’ said Max. ‘What are they?’
‘I can’t tell you now,’ said Sam. ‘But I will one day. When we meet again.’
But when would that be? Max was due to start filming next week. Lydia and the children would be joining him and then they would be spending the rest of the summer at Massingham Hall. He doubted that he would come back to Brighton. And, even if he did, he could hardly see Sam with Lydia in tow. He didn’t want to think of the reasons why this seemed impossible.
Ruby was due at twelve but he knew she’d be late. Max was quite happy sitting in the bar with a whisky, watching Brighton go by. The town was no longer a battleground, although you occasionally saw a flock of mods or a pack of rockers slouching past. Today it was full of families enjoying the sun: fathers in panama hats, mothers holding the hands of fractious toddlers, teenagers—that newly discovered breed—torn between the excitement of the seaside and the mortification of being seen in public with their parents. Max missed Rocco and Elena, who were still young enough to find him fun and entertaining. He wanted to hug them and do tricks for them (what did fathers do who couldn’t produce an egg from their daughter’s ear?). He was looking forward to showing them England, where everyone ‘talked funny’ like he did. He was even looking forward to taking them to Massingham Hall. Going back the other day had softened his feelings towards the house somehow. It was a place where you could have fun as a child; there were woods and streams and endless rooms where you could play hide-and-seek. It was just that Max had had no one to play with and, at the age of six, his world had been plunged into darkness with the death of his mother. Maybe Rocco and Elena would let the light back in. He touched the blue cat that he now always kept in his pocket. Perhaps everything would be all right with Lydia too.
‘Max?’
He was so far away, lost in the grounds of his ancestral home, that he actually jumped. He looked up and saw a blond man dressed in jeans and a check shirt.
‘Bobby! What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you. Is there somewhere we could talk?’
Max looked around the bar. It wasn’t full but a few people were looking in their direction. Whether it was because they recognised Bobby, or because they disapproved of his clothes, he wasn’t sure.
Max looked at his watch. A quarter to. Ruby would be at least another half an hour, by his guess.
‘We could go for a quick walk. I’m meeting someone at twelve.’ He didn’t want to tell Bobby that he was seeing Ruby. It wasn’t that he thought the pair had been deeply in love, more that Bobby wouldn’t want to be reminded of the one woman who had finished things with him.
‘Nah.’ Bobby glanced out of the window. ‘Too many people about. I’d get hassled.’ He was wearing dark glasses but Max thought that he was right. Bobby was famous; people would think that it was acceptable to approach him and ask him for autographs or to pose for photographs. Max had experienced some of this himself in the course of his career but he was hardly in Bobby’s league. Girls were unlikely to start screaming if they caught a glimpse of him crossing the street, for example.
‘We could go up to my room,’ he said.
‘That would be great.’
They went up in the lift. It felt odd to be taking another man to his room though Max had made this journey with many women in his time. The thought made him feel old and rather sleazy. Bobby didn’t speak until they were in Max’s suite. Then he sat on one of the many sofas, took a deep breath, and said, ‘I know you saw me that day. The day when all the hoodlums were fighting.’
Max had almost forgotten his glimpse of Bobby on the beach. It had been entirely eclipsed by the events that had followed: running into Sam and Emma, the dash up to the flats, the discovery of the girls, the showdown with Payne.
‘I was meeting a friend,’ said Bobby.
‘Really,’ said Max. ‘It’s none of my business.’
‘I figured that it might become your business if we’re going to work together,’ said Bobby. ‘The thing is, Max, I’m gay. I’m a faggot, a pansy, a fairy. Call it anything you want.’
‘I certainly wouldn’t call it any of those things,’ said Max. ‘And, as I say, it’s entirely your business.’
‘It’s why I like Brighton,’ said Bobby. ‘People are more relaxed about that sort of thing here. I can meet a guy in Kemp Town or by Duke’s Mound and we’ll both know the score. I usually go out at night but I thought there were so many people out and about that day that I could get away with it. But I know that you saw me and I wanted to be sure you’d keep the secret.’
‘Of course I will,’ said Max.
‘If anyone knew,’ said Bobby, ‘it would be the end of my career. The end of everything.’
Max was about to protest; homosexuality was illegal in Britain but people did seem more accepting these days; he’d heard comedians on the wireless who would have been considered shocking in America. But then he thought about Bobby Hambro; he was a heart-throb, his whole appeal rested on the fact that girls wanted to marry him. That’s why screaming fans waited outside his hotel, it was all part of some hormonal crucible. Bobby was the perfect man, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect husband. If this illusion was shattered, what would be left? Had Ruby known? he wondered. Thinking of her letter (I think you’d be happier with someone else too) he thought that she had probably guessed.
‘Of course I won’t say anything to anyone,’ he said. ‘I’m honoured that you told me.’
‘Thanks, Max. You’re a gent. Wilbur knows, and my American agent, but no one else.’
Bobby looked so relieved that Max felt a surge of pity for him. It suddenly felt unbearably sad that Bobby would not be able to find love with the person of his choosing. Bobby might be fairly free now but he was (officially) only eighteen. Max guessed that, be
fore long, he would be forced into marriage with some starlet and made to pose for articles entitled ‘Hollywood Star’s Domestic Bliss’.
‘I’m sorry that you have to live like this,’ he said. ‘I hope it won’t be for ever.’
Ruby was late but not impossibly so. They drank martinis in the bar and then moved through to the restaurant. Heads swivelled towards her as they had with Bobby but this time the reaction seemed universally favourable. Ruby was looking really lovely in a yellow minidress and, since the kidnapping case, she had acquired an almost goddess-like status in the eyes of the British public. ‘Well done, Ruby,’ said someone as they passed. ‘God bless you,’ said another.
‘You are now officially the nation’s sweetheart,’ said Max when they sat down.
‘I know,’ said Ruby. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Max, thinking of Bobby. ‘Fame can be a straitjacket sometimes.’
‘Are you in one of your gloomy moods?’ asked Ruby, smiling at the waiter as he proffered a basket full of rolls. He blinked, dazzled.
‘Of course not,’ said Max. To prove it he ordered champagne. The maître d’hôtel appeared, to tell them that the bottle was on the house ‘to celebrate the lady’s safe return’. Ruby twinkled and thanked him. Ruby was the queen of entrances and exits, thought Max. They had once performed an act together called the Vanishing Box but Ruby didn’t need a magic cabinet in order to disappear and reappear. She and the other girls had recently performed their own vanishing trick. Now you see them, now you don’t.
‘What are you going to do now?’ asked Max.
‘I’m back in the studio on Monday,’ said Ruby. ‘If it’s the last series of Ruby Magic, I want it to be a good one.’
‘Are you really going to leave?’ said Max.
‘Yes,’ said Ruby. ‘The show’s been good to me but I think it’s run its course. And I want to call the shots. I’m sick of smiling sweetly and saying stupid lines. I’ve got a fantastic new writer lined up for the detective show. I’m going to direct it as well as star in it. It’s going to be great.’
Now You See Them Page 25
