Death and the Chaste Apprentice

by Robert Barnard

  “Yes. What a lovely word: ‘unashamedly’! So you think we should be ashamed? Of course, Clarissa uses the situation to launch lethal little barbs against Carston and me, but that’s just her nature.”

  “I find it difficult,” said Dundy, trying not to sound prim, “to get a picture of this marriage. Why do they stay together if they’re quarreling all the time?”

  “Haven’t you ever met a soldier who’s only happy in action? Or a policeman who couldn’t be happy on the beat in a quiet area but is always itching for a bit of action?”

  “Frequently.”

  “Well, then. ‘Pleased with the danger when the waves went high / He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit . . .’ Dryden. It’s quite impossible to imagine either of the Galloways having a calm relationship with anyone.”

  “I see,” said Dundy, sighing. “My point in trying to establish how open all this is, is to make the point that there was very little mileage to be got—by Des Capper, for example—out of threatening to reveal the truth of the situation to any of the people involved.”

  “None whatsoever. We all knew. The whole hotel, down to the kitchen skivvies, knew. The room maids probably had a running bet on as to who would be sleeping with who each night.”

  “Right . . . Right . . . So if any of you had a grudge against Capper, it would have to be on some other grounds.”

  “Oh, certainly. Like that he was the biggest bore, the biggest ignoramus, and the biggest liar in a fifty-mile radius.”

  “I doubt whether people get murdered for any of those reasons,” said Iain Dundy. “And I suppose if there were anything more substantial, you wouldn’t tell me. Now, let me get this clear, finally. Your duties in the play never led you to leave the kitchen?”

  “Never once. I was there the whole time, even during the interval, checking costumes and props. Jason aims to give the sense of Jacobean bourgeois life, so in the absence of sets, props are very important.”

  “And the balcony scene we’ve mentioned is the only time in the play when the upper stage is used?”

  “Yes, the only one.”

  “I suppose you checked that the room upstairs that led onto the balcony was in fact unlocked?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Susan unsuspectingly. “But well before the performance started. In any case, Carston had a room key in case one of the maids had locked it by mistake.”

  Dundy nodded his head and mentally wiped Susan Fanshaw from his list of suspects.

  • • •

  “Of course, I’m onstage practically the whole evening,” said Ronnie Wimsett, clearly not immune to the same little vanities as Carston Galloway. “Or just off, or just about to go on. So quite apart from the fact that it would be difficult for me to have done it, it’s also difficult for me to remember anything that went on backstage.”

  “Why? Because if you weren’t on, you were hovering about around one of the doors onto the stage?”

  “That’s right. Whereas someone with a smaller part could certainly spend an hour or more in the kitchen just sitting around and noticing.”

  Wimsett was a very different type from most of the actors, Dundy decided. Apparently open, genial, conversational, but with an overriding reticence, particularly about himself. On essentials he presented a bland front to the world. Dundy was willing to bet that his fellow actors knew little about his character, his private life, his sexual preferences. He kept, in popular parlance, himself to himself. Like many policemen, Dundy thought.

  “Miss Geary ought to be ideal,” he said. “She was sitting around for most of the play. But for obvious reasons that she makes no secret of, she’s not much use. Tell me, during the weeks of rehearsal, who reacted most strongly to Des Capper?”

  “Well . . .” Ronnie was either plainly reluctant or plainly acting out reluctance. “I suppose you’d have to say Gillian Soames. She’d been very fond of Arthur Bradley, the earlier manager, in a father-and-daughter sort of way. I think anyone would have been a letdown. But Capper she thought the absolute pits.”

  “Yes, she’s been quite open about that,” said Dundy quickly. The foot of one of his attendant policemen gave a gentle tap on the ankle of the other attendant policeman. “What about the other people staying at the Saracen? How did they react to him?”

  “Oh, in various ways. Carston Galloway with a sort of lordly, amused contempt . . . Clarissa taking the opportunity for a scene. . . . Connie Geary rather relished him. She enjoys the chance of plumbing the depths of human awfulness, and she got that with Des. It’s something actors often enjoy—watching dreadful people, to use them afterwards.” He thought. “I think some of the people whom he most got under the skin of were the ones he gave advice to.” He grinned self-depreciatingly. “That includes me, I suppose. He tried to educate me in the method school of acting. He tried to give Krister Kroll a lesson in breathing techniques, and that riled him.”

  “Krister Kroll? He is—?”

  “The lead tenor in Adelaide. He’s not staying in the hotel, but he’s been around a fair bit with Peter and Natalya, having a drink in the Shakespeare, and so on. He’s sung here before, so he knew the Saracen in better days. He was around after the concert.”

  “I see. Yes, I saw Mr. Kroll onstage last night. And what about Gunter Gottlieb?”

  “Oh, God! Rather an appropriate exclamation, now I come to think about it. Gottlieb resembles the God of our worst fears. Well, I don’t think for much of the time Gottlieb was aware that Des existed. I think that was probably worse than ridicule as far as Des was concerned. I mean, if we laughed at his ideas of correct breathing or his cures for the piles, then we were just wrong, because he’d read it in All You Want To Know About Your Innards, or some such tome, so he knew. But if you just ignored his existence, you undermined his whole basis for living.”

  “And Gottlieb did that?”

  “I tell you, I once saw him come into the Shakespeare, where Natalya and Peter Fortnum had been holed up at a table by Des Capper. Gottlieb wanted to speak to Natalya—the usual urge to make sure that she did exactly as he demanded at some moment of the score, because he has this need for total control and a terrible mistrust of anyone else’s creative powers. Anyway, instead of asking Des to go away, he just walked over, pushed against his shoulder, and pointed. Des was in full flood about something or other as usual, but he was so astonished he got up, whereupon Gottlieb simply sat down and started in on whatever he wanted to talk about. And all this was done without a word, as if Des were some kind of intrusive insect.”

  “Yes,” said Dundy meditatively. “One sometimes feels in this case that the wrong person got murdered.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” said Ronnie, putting up his hand. “I had no sympathy for Des. He was quite loathsome, but perhaps in ways that are more difficult to convey.”

  Dundy turned to another aspect. “You mentioned Mr. Fortnum and Natalya Radilova—”

  “Ye-es.”

  “What’s going on there?”

  “Search me.” Ronnie Wimsett shrugged. “They’re keeping very quiet about it, whatever it is. I don’t think even Gillian knows, and she and Peter are quite close.”

  “But you agree there’s something going on?”

  “Seems so. I know that Peter makes long phone calls involving speaking Russian, and German as well, and that he immediately afterwards likes to report back to Natalya. Apparently these calls are to Germany. Make of that what you will.”

  “Why doesn’t she make them herself?” wondered Dundy.

  “I’d guess because she only speaks Russian. Peter is a great linguist. Also she’s very involved with rehearsals. She arrived late and has an immensely demanding part, while Peter has quite a small one. I don’t imagine it has anything to do with Des Capper’s death.”

  “Except that Des Capper took an interest in it,” said Iain Dundy.

  • • •

  When Ronnie had gone, Dundy sat in thought for some moments, then looked at his watch.

&
nbsp; “I’m expecting a Russian interpreter at ten-thirty. I wonder if we could call on the hotel for some breakfast? Just tea and toast would keep the inner man happy. And we are investigating the death of their manager, however glad most of them seem to have been to see the end of him.”

  “I’ll go and rustle something up,” said Charlie, getting up. “They’ve got a new body from the Beaumont headquarters here today as temporary manager. I’m sure he’ll fall over backwards to keep us happy. He’ll want us out as soon as possible.”

  When he had gone, Dundy remained thoughtful.

  “The difficulty in this case,” he said, “is sorting out the wood from the trees. I think whatever Fortnum and this Russian lady have been getting up to is undergrowth, to be cleared away. And yet it could be the most important thing that Capper was on to. More important than the Geary woman’s drinking, obviously, or the Galloways’ sleeping around. The trouble with dealing with arty people is, it’s like dealing with foreigners. You don’t know what they think is important.”

  “You mean like a Neapolitan would kill to revenge his sister’s honor, whereas an Englishman wouldn’t care tuppence about his?” asked Nettles.

  “Aptly put. Though I’m not sure you’re entirely up-to-date with Neapolitan mores.” Dundy groaned. “I’ve just thought: This Radilova woman is both foreign and arty!”

  “Right,” said Charlie, coming back from the kitchen, a large tray in his hands. “Very sharp, the young man now in charge. Admits he’s been sent from the head office to bring things round. Tea, coffee, toast. Something more substantial if we want it; we’ve only got to ring. And a bit of news to go with it.”

  “News? What’s happened?”

  “Literally news. On the news headlines at ten, and I happened to hear it in the kitchens. Five musicians have defected from the Moscow Radio Orchestra. They’d just completed the last concert on a short visit to Stuttgart.”

  “Ah! What happened?” asked Dundy, interested.

  “Well, the concert had just ended with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Wet Dreams Symphony— Would that be right, do you think?”

  “I very much doubt it, but it’s a happy thought. Go on.”

  “Anyway, the conductor and orchestra acknowledged tumultuous applause, and by the time it was over, they found they were five members short: two violins, a cello, and two French horns. Ten minutes later the five were asking for asylum in the nearest police station. There’s no doubt they’ll get it.”

  “I suspect,” said Dundy, “that this is going to make our task much easier.” He looked at Charlie, who was stuffing toast into his mouth. “And now, young Peace, tell us what’s on your mind.”

  “On my mind, sir?”

  “On your mind. Come off it. You’ve been sunk in thought since you got here this morning. Hardly paying attention. Something occurred to you overnight, or maybe at the opera.”

  “Well . . .” Charlie stopped eating and looked at Dundy. “It’s so fantastic. What’s that French word? Outré. That’s what it is, it’s outré. Or maybe I just mean sick.”

  “Come on, man!”

  “Well, can I just fetch something from upstairs?” Charlie jumped up and headed for the stairs up to the manager’s quarters. A moment later he was back, carrying books. “Look, I’ll just put it before you—right? Because if I just explain it, you’ll probably think I’m out of my mind. See this book? It was by Des’s chair when we first went through the room. It’s William Ashbrook’s Donizetti and His Operas, apparently the standard work borrowed from the local library. Des was wising himself up on the opera, having learned all there was to know about the play. The book was published in 1982. Read what it says about the first version of Adelaide.”

  He laid the book in front of Dundy, who read it, nodded, and handed it on to Nettles.

  “Right. Now here’s the program the director gave us last night. Did you read it?”

  “Skimmed through it.”

  “Read the account of the second version of the opera, which was only discovered, or put together, a year or so ago.”

  Dundy read it and looked up at Charlie, a light in his eyes that was the beginnings of comprehension.

  “Yes?”

  “Now look at this. Heat and Dust.”

  “Why on earth—?”

  “Remember the note in Des’s little book? HAD 9? With an arrow pointing to the side. The note both belonged on the page about getting Gottlieb and referred back to earlier speculations. Look at page nine.”

  He put the book in front of Dundy. Dundy read it and looked up, aghast.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Charlie stood there silent. He knew that the words meant the opposite of what they said.

  “You don’t mean—?”

  “Maybe that’s how Des intended to ‘Get Gottlieb,’ ” said Charlie.

  For a moment there was silence. Then it was interrupted by a knock on the door. The police interpreter had arrived, but he was not really needed. He had met up with Peter and Natalya in the foyer, and both of them were cock-a-hoop, ready to tell all. Peter’s exuberance dominated the small manager’s office, now decidedly overcrowded.

  “Right,” he said, rubbing his hands, when they were somehow settled in. “Now we can come clean.”

  “I suppose it’s no good giving you a lecture about how serious an offense it is, misleading a police officer?” asked Dundy.

  “No, because this was a once-in-a-lifetime affair, and there was really nothing else we could do. I promise never to do it again and all the things schoolboys promise, but I’m not going to pretend I’m sorry.”

  “Who precisely is it who’s defected?”

  “Natalya’s father—one of the violinists. And one of the French horns is a young man she’s . . . friendly with. I should say there’s no romantic interest between us at all, just so you don’t get things wrong.”

  “Only a very deep friendship,” said Natalya in Russian, and in a very Russian way.

  “I see. Tell me, was all this cloak-and-dagger stuff necessary? Aren’t things much freer, more open, at the moment in Russia?”

  Natalya understood that and said something vitriolic in her own language.

  “She said, in effect, ‘Tell that to the Ministry of Culture,’ ” put in the interpreter.

  “That’s it, you see,” said Peter. “Glasnost just isn’t filtering down. The ministry is run by the same combination of bureaucrats and secret policemen, and they’re not changing their ways. Now, Natalya has been allowed abroad before, but there has never been any question of her father being allowed to go at the same time. Natalya has always been adamant in her own mind that she would never defect and leave her father behind. Her mother died young, and they are very close. Her father is with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, but he deputizes with the Moscow Radio Orchestra when they need a particularly large band or when there is illness. Which there was. Just before coming away on this German tour. Five string players fell ill. . . . I think I should say there may have been a bit of skulduggery, because Natalya somehow hoped her father would be coming before the orchestra even left Moscow.”

  Peter grinned at Natalya, who smiled mysteriously into her lap.

  “Not my business at all,” said Dundy.

  “I imagine it was something nasty in their vodka at a drinking session,” resumed Peter. “Anyway, her father was called on, and for once bureaucracy and the KGB were caught napping: He was allowed out of the country while his daughter was already outside. All this phoning has been to check that he got out, to confirm plans, and so on—all under the guise of innocent-sounding messages from daughter to father. It’s as simple as that.”

  “And these five didn’t want to defect until the tour was completed?”

  “That’s right. The regular members of the orchestra insisted on that. For the honor of the orchestra and so as not to cast a shadow over the whole trip for the others, who would practically have been locked in their hotel rooms. They had a series of
concerts in Hamburg, Mannheim, and Frankfurt, then this final one in Stuttgart before flying back. They just got to the end of the Winter Dreams Symphony—”

  “What an odd name for a symphony,” put in Charlie.

  “—and whoosh they were away. There’s no doubt they will be given asylum in Germany. There’s so many orchestras there that certainly one or another will want them.”

  “And Miss Radilova will be joining her father?”

  “She hasn’t decided where she will live. She’s had lots of offers since the concert and last night’s Adelaide. She’s been parrying them with talk of the Ministry of Culture, who normally arrange all this sort of thing, and with a very heavy hand, too. Now she can talk over with Brad Mallory which to accept. A good soprano is never going to starve.”

  “Was Mr. Mallory in on all this?”

  “No.”

  “That seems odd. He is her agent, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but the explanation is simple: He didn’t seem to Natalya to be completely reliable. She didn’t feel she could trust him not to let something out, say something indiscreet. And I must say I agree with her. So she used me because I could speak German and Russian.”

  “Right,” said Dundy, stirring in his seat. He felt sure that he had now cleared part of the undergrowth away. Was there anything of more vital growth to be revealed? “Well, as far as it goes, that’s clear enough. You had no hint that Des Capper was on to all or any of this?”

  “No. The phones in the rooms all go through the hotel switchboard, so presumably he could have listened in. Or he could have listened outside my door; he wasn’t above doing that. But it was all in German or Russian, and all in coded language, so really I don’t think he could have made anything of it. Not anything specific.”

  “He could have guessed,” said Dundy. “It was a fairly obvious possibility.”

  “Yes, I expect a lot of people wondered,” agreed Peter.

  “Which bring us,” said Dundy, “to what you did on the night of the murder.”