Staging Death

by Judith Cutler

  But how had he managed to get it into my car? Surely I hadn’t left it unlocked? I never left it unlocked, ever, not even when I was parked in a house at the back of beyond. Actually, especially not then.

  I checked: the parking meter money I kept in the little plastic drawer was still there. So, in the glovebox, were my AA card and a couple of CDs. What I couldn’t see was the accent CDs. Hell, he’d only have had to ask and I’d have lent them to him. But nicking them… I hadn’t time to phone him to remonstrate now – or to thank him for the flowers, of course – but I’d wring his neck when I next saw him. And ask him, of course, how he’d got into the car in the first place.

  I’d only been waiting at Knottsall Lodge about three minutes when a top-of-the-range BMW appeared, decanting a couple in their later thirties.

  I hadn’t reached the age Toby knew I was without recognising a Mulberry bag when I saw one. Mrs Turovsky might not have been sporting a brand new Mulberry bag, one of the huge ones, but at several thousand pounds a shot I’d have had a go at making mine last more than one season, too. Particularly if I had lashed out on a pair of platform boots I was fairly sure were Miu Miu. Maybe on what was turning out to be a gorgeous warm day, I wouldn’t have dressed for Siberia in a snowstorm, but then I wasn’t six foot tall with the sort of circumference measurements that poor Allyn was dying to achieve.

  Not that I could have remonstrated anyway. Mrs Turovsky didn’t appear to have any English at all. So I couldn’t even have told her that, as far as she was concerned, Knottsall Lodge was a dead duck. With or without heels she was about to endure the same problems as those that had afflicted her ursine predecessor, Mr Brosnic. As to weaponry, she could pretty well have carried a Bren gun in that bag of hers, and I’d have been none the wiser.

  In contrast, Mr Turovsky, who spoke slightly old-fashioned English with what sounded like an authentic Russian accent, was about the same height and build as the Russian leader, Mr Putin, his fair hair cut close to his head, his eyes a piercing blue. He radiated an aura that wasn’t quite charm, but was certainly charisma. He bowed and smiled, and spread his hands in an international gesture of delighted approval when I opened Knottsall Lodge’s front door.

  This time I went through my preamble as soon as we were all inside: this was someone’s home and it was important that they stayed with me. Both nodded amiably enough, though I thought I might have had the same response had I read the shipping forecast in my clearly enunciated and well-modulated tones. As a threesome, we explored slowly, Mrs Turovsky clapping her hands – she’d gone so far as to remove her calfskin gloves by now – with pleasure at each new vista. I was beginning to warm to them.

  They both loved the view from the roof – and they’d have had to have hearts of stone not to; they both loved the graffiti in the room below; they positively adored the leaded-light windows, which absolutely could not be double-glazed and were a pig to clean.

  ‘And imagine,’ I said, leaning on the balustrade and looking down into the hall, ‘that Shakespeare himself might once have done this.’

  Obediently, they leant too. ‘Too small to enact Hamlet,’ he declared with an ironic smile, muttering something to his wife, who smiled appreciatively.

  By this time I could almost imagine their marching into Greg’s office and flourishing a cheque there and then. We descended slowly and stood in the hall, basking in the ambience and the fact we were sharing it together. Then Mrs Turovsky tugged her husband’s sleeve, like a schoolgirl, and whispered in his ear.

  Indulgently, he patted her hand. He turned to me, but his smile was apologetic, not that of a man about to commit to a purchase. ‘My wife has left her gloves somewhere. May she fetch them while we proceed to the most beautiful grounds? She will not be long, I assure you.’

  I hoped my smile conveyed reproachful disapproval, but I had, of course, to agree.

  Indeed, Mrs Turovsky, despite the handicap of her height and her heels, took very little time, and produced a most charming heavily accented apology as she joined her husband and me by the daffodils. I was worried about the effect of the wet grass on her expensive boots, but if you could afford to put so many pounds’ worth of leather on your feet perhaps you didn’t have to worry about replacing them.

  The visit ended with friendly smiles and handshakes all round. I waved them off with mixed feelings. They’d have had enough money to give the place the TLC it needed, but would she have consented to wear carpet slippers all the time? It wasn’t my job to speculate. Just for the hell of it I let myself in and walked round savouring the atmosphere. It would have been nice if Shakespeare had indeed visited the place. It would be nicer still if Caddie phoned to say that someone had offered me a part in one of his plays – Juliet’s Nurse, even, if the anti-ageing stuff didn’t work.

  I had just locked up and given the front door one last push to check, when my mobile rang. Yes!

  No. Not Caddie. Greg.

  ‘And who is the most charming lady who made the Turovskys so very welcome?’ he asked, a grin very evident in his voice.

  ‘Greg! They never!’

  ‘I think they may. The only problem seemed to be the ceilings, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But they want to see a couple of other properties and said you had been so helpful, so very gracious, indeed, that they would like you to escort them. They’re so keen for your company, Vee, that they’re prepared to hang on till tomorrow if you can’t make it today.’

  ‘What’s the weather forecast?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, I see what you mean. A place would almost sell itself on a day like this. Just checking on the computer now. Hmm. Low cloud and occasional rain. If you can free up this afternoon it might be better.’

  So far as I knew there was nothing in my diary for the rest of the week, but I didn’t want to sound too keen. I stretched the pause almost long enough for him to ask if I was still there. ‘Yes, I think I can do it, if I can just rearrange…’ I said, as if I had the prospect of completely rejigging my week’s appointments, just to suit him. ‘OK, let’s go for it. I’ve got an extra reason to sell, after all.’ I explained about St Jude’s roof. ‘Can I put you down for a couple of grand for the appeal fund anyway, Greg? It’d look really good if you could sponsor something very specific – good PR, you know. And you know you made a lot when you sold the rectory there.’ The suggestion didn’t have the benefit of logic, but perhaps he wouldn’t notice.

  I welcomed the Turovskys to Langley Park with genuine pleasure, which they appeared to reciprocate. As far as Mrs Turovsky was concerned, it was a much more user-friendly home, with its lovely eighteenth-century proportions giving her plenty of headroom. She had shed her coat in response to the warm sun, displaying what might have been a MaxMara suit; he had acquired a man bag of considerable elegance if, as far as I was concerned, unknown provenance. They were happy to stick with me, until his mobile rang. Shrugging his shoulders apologetically, he looked around for somewhere private to take the call, eventually cutting, with an embarrassed laugh, into the en suite bathroom of the bedchamber we were admiring. Bedchamber, indeed. But such a term seemed appropriate in this timelessly chic room. He cut the call very quickly. We heard him flush the loo. And he was back with us, shaking his hands dry.

  ‘Make hay while the sun is shining,’ he quipped.

  That being my principle when it came to loos, I could not argue; as for his wife, I didn’t think she could understand.

  The visit to Oxfield Place was much the briskest. He’d relinquished his man bag, so presumably intended to take no more calls. She clutched his arm affectionately, and the three of us were inseparable as triplets, until she looked first concerned, then anxious and finally desperate. Touching her husband’s immaculately suited arm, she whispered urgently.

  ‘I am so sorry. My wife is in urgent need of the bathroom. Would you excuse her? And I would like to ask you about the possibility of letting some of this farmland. There are far too many fields for the two of
us. Sheep? Horses? What would be your advice?’

  I knew next to nothing about such matters, of course, but that had never yet stopped me offering my opinion. I was scraping the barrel by the time Mrs Turovsky returned, however.

  She blushingly apologised, but said something to her husband, who laughed affectionately. ‘She says she wishes she could have an excuse to revisit all the bathrooms, they are so charming. But I fear we are taking much of your valuable time, Miss Burford – and we should be returning to London tonight if we can. But we are so pleased to have seen all these lovely English homes. It has given us much to think about. Do you have a card, Miss Burford, so that we may contact you when we have had a long, long discussion?’ With that, he kissed my hand and went round to hand his wife into the Beamer.

  I waved them goodbye with a sincere smile and something very like optimism. And I beat both teams on University Challenge that evening.

  At last, later that week, James, my carpet specialist contact, and the Frenshams had their meeting, and a carpet was selected. Indeed, despite its thirty thousand pounds price label, it chose itself, as I’d known it would. We all celebrated with vintage champagne and canapés impeccably prepared and served by Greta, the Valkyrie. While the rest of us did justice to the culinary delights (I would have stowed platefuls for my supper had I had a bag the size of Mrs Turovsky’s – but there again, I might not have needed to), poor Allyn permitted herself only the smallest nibble of one. She concealed the remains in her napkin.

  When all hands had been shaken and smiles exchanged, James and I prepared to bid our farewells. The enormous 4x4 lording it over my company Ka suggested I needn’t have worried about his cash flow, but he didn’t match Toby’s gesture to him by flourishing a cheque in my direction. Would it be vulgar to ask?

  It might. But it was necessary.

  However gracefully and delicately one might lead conversation towards such a request, it still felt, if you were as hard up as I was, like begging. I wiped away a sudden intrusive vision of myself as a Big Issue seller outside the post office.

  ‘Do you need me to send you an account?’ I asked with a smile, as if such formality was obviously unnecessary between friends.

  ‘Yes, please. The usual address.’ He zapped his monster mobile and got in, with scarcely more than a nod. Then he opened his window. ‘Sorry, Vee – I’ve got to make sure this cheque doesn’t bounce. But I’ll get your commission in the post as soon as I get your invoice. OK?’

  He must have assumed it would be, because the window inexorably shut, and the vehicle pulled away.

  The Ka and I exchanged a fatalistic shrug.

  But the evening wasn’t over. I heard voices coming my way.

  ‘I was hoping we’d catch you,’ Toby said. ‘Why don’t you join us for supper?’

  ‘I couldn’t stand that snooty guy,’ Allyn confided. ‘He’d have put me off my food.’

  Since actors eat late even when they’re not working, the children didn’t join us, but it struck me that they’d make the safest topic of conversation while we ate.

  ‘Toby’s got them playing cricket now,’ Allyn announced over the soup, a vegetable consommé. It sounded as if his next move might be to induct them into the arcane rituals of Druids.

  He smiled. ‘The only thing I was ever good at was cricket. Really. But I got glandular fever the summer I should have had my county trial. So I’m only fulfilling my ambitions second hand. And what a coup if a USA-born lad ever plays at Lord’s!’

  ‘Lord’s? Is that anything to do with the Lord’s Taverners? One of his favourite charities, Vena,’ Allyn explained.

  I nodded with as much interest as if I hadn’t known for ever the extent of his charitable work. What I didn’t know was that I was about to become one of his projects myself.

  It seemed he and Ted, his head of security, were so worried about my Ka’s visibility they’d decided I had to have a different car. So Toby and Allyn – or more probably the put-upon Miss Fairford – had worked out how much I had so far spent on their behalf.

  It was eye-watering. No wonder I was living on plastic.

  ‘But you don’t need to pay me until the job’s complete,’ I protested. That was when I always unfurled every last receipt and hit the calculator. My smile might have been confident, but underneath my stomach was churning. Did this mean I was being paid off, that someone else was being brought in to finish the rest of the house?

  ‘You think we haven’t heard of the credit crunch, darling?’ Allyn asked. ‘Everyone wants cash up front these days. So here’s what we owe you so far.’ She passed me an envelope, which I tucked discreetly into my bag. ‘And we’d like it if you invoiced us every week or so. You don’t have to subsidise our extravagances. No, no arguments. Coffee? Or herbal tea? I always prefer mint tea at this time of night.’

  At last it was time for me to go. We’d had such a pleasant evening, I felt able to put into operation my plan to get to know Allyn better, perhaps becoming friends with her. So I began, ‘You’ve got a wonderful tennis court. If ever you fancy a game, I’d—’

  She went white. Literally.

  What on earth had I done wrong? To create a diversion so that she could compose herself, I dropped my car keys and started scrabbling for them. I managed to tip my bag over too. In the midst of all the frantic business, the moment passed, and they accompanied me to the Ka in apparent harmony.

  ‘So now you’ll be able to get an anonymous set of wheels,’ Toby declared, patting the Ka on its roof.

  ‘But it might not accept presents like this one did on Monday. Flowers on the driving seat,’ I explained, still garrulous after my gaffe.

  ‘After all Ted said you left it unlocked?’ Toby asked angrily. ‘For goodness’ sake, Vee!’

  ‘I’m sure I’d locked it. It seems Christopher Wild must have even more talents than we knew about. I told you we all found ways to earn our crusts while we were resting.’

  So why was it that the more positive I sounded, the more I felt decidedly less convinced?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  My courtesy phone calls to the Turovskys were not returned. Not one of them. I couldn’t believe it. I even checked with their hotel reception staff, who assured me that they had passed on my messages. All of them. But they didn’t even contact me to say their interest had waned. Had they found somewhere else? A quick call to Heather, my contact at Greg’s main rival agency, revealed nothing: she couldn’t place anyone like them. Dare I risk phoning other agencies with less friendly staff? On the whole, I thought not. But I did try the hotel one more time, only to learn that they’d checked out.

  I felt not just disappointed, but let down.

  However, at least I had the pleasure of choosing a car. Ted had recommended I get a model so popular as to be almost invisible – a Fiesta or something similar. My local Ford garage had a special offer on. I could get a good deal on a second-hand silver Fiesta, and do even better if I paid cash. I didn’t have any cash, of course, not until Toby’s cheque cleared. But for once Greg consented to make me an advance on the bonuses I’d earned. Pride told me that I should treat it as a loan.

  But common sense soon prevailed.

  At least Greg spoke no more about letting me go, and phoned on Friday to ask if I could do a Saturday viewing of Oxfield Place. Did I dare ask what had happened to the person who usually accompanied punters going direct to the other offices? Did I really want to know? I reflected on the dentition of gift horses and agreed immediately.

  ‘And the viewers are?’

  ‘A couple of Londoners. Mr and Mrs Cope. I’m just putting all their details on file now. They’re sold and are in rental at the moment – only a month’s notice, though.’

  ‘They sound bona fide?’ I asked more in hope than expectation of a genuine answer.

  ‘Absolutely. No funny accents, I promise. I’ve got their solicitor’s details – everything even your heart could desire. Tell you what, Vee – pick up the keys for Langley Park,
too. Just in case. You never know in this business.’

  I had to agree. You never did know.

  The rain was pouring down on Saturday afternoon, so my new-old Fiesta had a regular baptism. Of course, it had been waxed during the garage valeting process, so the windscreen smeared horribly. Neither was a good omen, I thought. And ten to one the Copes would have been put off by the weather and wouldn’t turn up.

  Certainly they were late for their Oxfield Place viewing. On Ted’s orders I had parked out of visitors’ sight lines under the trees, hoping that my car would be anonymous; certainly the number plates, at right angles to anyone arriving, would be practically invisible unless they made a real effort to get a look at them. Ted would have been proud of me. I switched on Radio Three. Often I’d tune to the afternoon play on Radio Four, but today it starred an old rival of mine, and I couldn’t bear to think of her having sat recording it in a nice warm studio while I was stuck out here, waiting to go into a cold, damp house – if I was lucky enough to have the viewers turn up, of course. And she’d be guaranteed her fee even if no one switched on.

  No, I couldn’t stand what Radio Three was offering – Rachmaninov’s rather blowsy second symphony – and twiddled till I found Classic FM. I’d better make that one of my presets. There. But blow me if they weren’t playing the same symphony.

  I’d heard nothing from Allyn, and after her reaction to the suggestion that she might enjoy a game of tennis thought it better not to contact her. Not that we’d have been playing tennis in this, of course, but we might have done something girly. Shopping – no, our budgets would have been too different. A day at a spa? Not unless she paid for me, which certainly wasn’t an option. I had some pride, after all. So I sat in gloom, listening to the rain drip onto my shiny new silver roof, and expecting nothing from the afternoon.