The Riviera Express

by TP Fielden

  ‘How long were you married to the deceased?’

  ‘Twenty-five years. I—’

  ‘Thank you,’ the coroner jumped in. He did not like his witnesses offering random thoughts, especially ones which might lead to more headlines.

  ‘You last saw your husband?’

  ‘The night before his death.’

  ‘Was he in good spirits?’

  ‘Very much so,’ lied Prudence. They’d had a blazing row before he stormed out.

  ‘But he did not come down to Devon that night, I think?’

  ‘No, he went to his club for a rubber of bridge. He stayed there the night because he was leaving first thing in the morning to catch the Temple Regis train.’

  Dr Rudkin nodded. He did not ask why Gerald Hennessy chose to come to this golden town – because anybody in their right senses would want to be in Temple Regis if they thought about it for a second or two.

  ‘Had he been unwell in recent times?’

  ‘No. He exercised and watched his diet. I was shocked . . .’ and here, suddenly, Melpomene clasped the proceedings in an awesome grip. Prudence Aubrey’s eyes fell away, her hand went to her throat, and those who fondly remembered her peerless appearance in The Beautiful and Damned could be forgiven for almost thinking themselves back in that 1949 classic.

  ‘Shocked,’ said Prudence, slower this time. ‘I . . .’

  Dr Rudkin fidgeted in his seat. He did not like this at all. Normally his courtroom accommodated no more than a score of interested parties but this morning every seat was filled. It was a large room at the back of the Magistrates’ Court building deemed too spacious for everyday crimes and licence applications, but today its copious seating was found wanting.

  And every single pair of eyes was on Prudence Aubrey.

  There was nothing Rudkin could do. He could bully his police and his pathologists, but old-fashioned good manners would never allow him to interrupt a widow as she slowly broke down in the witness box. However infuriating, however self-indulgent those actions were, his hands were tied. He fidgeted again.

  ‘Are you ready to go on, Mrs Hennessy?’

  Prudence, a seasoned actress – even if not the most sought-after by casting directors this week – read the runes. She got to the end of her evidence in short order and resumed her seat in the well of the court. Nevertheless, her audience was on the verge of tears by the time she had done.

  Some official business had to be run through – a couple more witnesses including the incomparable Mudge, station porter, who wore his Great War medals for the occasion – but quite soon the official inquiry had run its course.

  ‘I find the deceased, Gerald Victor Midleton Hennessy, died of natural causes. The sympathy of the court is extended to his widow and family.’

  And that was that.

  Miss Dimont was floored. She sat in her customary seat on the press bench and scratched her corkscrew hair with her shorthand pencil. It didn’t make sense.

  It didn’t make sense because Gerald Hennessy had been murdered.

  Of that she was convinced, but there was nothing more she could do. She caught Prudence Aubrey making her way slowly out of court, signing autographs and posing for the cameras (nothing Dr Rudkin could do!) – and agreed they should meet at the Grand Hotel later in the day. That business with Marion Lake had made Prudence look more kindly on the person she had so recently accused of press harassment.

  Meanwhile, after a short adjournment Dr Rudkin returned to finish his day’s business.

  ‘This is an inquest into the death of Garrick Arthur Shrimsley,’ he said, obviously.

  The usual forms of procedure were duly observed and soon it was Inspector Topham’s turn again. They had heard the witness statement of Sergeant Hernaford – man at top of cliff, crumbling cliff top, man at bottom of cliff – and Dr Rudkin was, as usual, eager to discover what the shrewd questioning of the CID had uncovered.

  ‘Man of sixty-seven,’ said Topham. ‘Widowed. A resident of Exbridge. Well known in Temple Regis for his letters to the local paper.’

  Dr Rudkin shot him a warning glance.

  ‘Walking his dog on Mudford Cliffs. Seen by an eyewitness at about 11.50 a.m. Shortly afterwards he went behind the protective barrier and fell to his death. He chose to ignore the large signs warning of the recent cliff fall. It would appear he had been drinking.’

  ‘Dr Protheroe.’

  ‘Body of a well-nourished man, sir. Cause of death multiple injuries consistent with a fall from a cliff top on to rocks two hundred and fifty feet below. He had ingested quite a large amount of whisky.’

  ‘Anything more?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I hereby record that the said Garrick Arthur Shrimsley died from multiple injuries sustained from a fall from the cliff top at Mudford Cliffs,’ said Dr Rudkin briskly. ‘Accidental death.’

  ‘Court rise,’ intoned the coroner’s officer, and it was all over. Almost nobody had stayed behind once Gerald Hennessy’s case had been dealt with, and the few people still remaining now dribbled out into the September sun.

  Inspector Topham made his way past the press bench on his way to lunch.

  ‘Just a moment, Inspector!’ There was a chill in Miss Dimont’s voice.

  ‘Ah,’ said the inspector, edging past.

  ‘Man was out walking his dog. What happened to the dog?’

  Topham eyed her warily.

  ‘Man had a note in his hand. What happened to it?’

  ‘You’re wrong there,’ said Topham loftily.

  ‘Got the photograph,’ said Miss Dimont, with an edge of triumph in her voice.

  ‘I think not, Miss Dimont.’

  The trouble with Miss Dimont was, she believed the police. She believed in their honesty and steadfastness. Many a constable’s stuttering first appearances before Mrs Marchbank she had turned into moments of high drama via the court pages of the Riviera Express.

  She wavered. If Inspector Topham said there was no letter, perhaps there was no letter. That, coming after the apparently innocent death of Gerald Hennessy, had blown her murder theory wide apart. The blackmail conspiracy had disappeared in a puff of smoke as well. Any moment now Ray Cattermole would pop his head round the door, waggle his absurd eyebrows, and ask if she would join him in a chota peg.

  Ridiculous, humphed Miss Dimont.

  ‘I distinctly saw in a photograph of Terry Eagleton’s a letter in Mr Shrimsley’s hand.’

  ‘You were there at the scene, I believe, according to Sergeant Hernaford.’

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Then you would have seen there was no letter.’

  ‘The sergeant kept us away from the body. Terry took a photograph on his long lens.’ (f8 at 1/125th, as a matter of fact.) ‘And there it was, under his right hand. Was it a suicide note?’

  Topham wanted his lunch. ‘If you must know,’ he said shirtily, ‘there was a scrap of cloth in his hand, not a letter. Get your facts right!’

  But then he relented, because Miss Dimont seemed so downcast. ‘An awful lot of rubbish came down that cliff with him. Underneath his body there was a croquet mallet and a ball. Nearby there was a kid’s tin bucket. There was debris all over the place, you must have seen it yourself. The place where he stood at the top of Mudford Cliffs was highly unstable and ready to go, after that earlier cliff fall. He did a stupid thing and ignored the warnings. He was drunk. And when he went over he took a lot more earth and rock – and whatever was resting on the earth and rock – down with him. He wasn’t a pretty sight.’

  Miss Dimont had been no fan of Arthur Shrimsley – who was? – but she felt sorry for him. The end must have been horrific.

  ‘How did you know about Marion Lake being Gerald Hennessy’s daughter?’

  ‘She told me,’ said Topham. ‘The thought that she could be his mistress was hilarious to her. She’d brought someone else down on the train to share her pillow at the Grand.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Miss Dimont dully, who
was as broad-minded as the rest. Most of the time.

  ‘I really must get along,’ said Topham. ‘I can see you were hoping for more out of this morning’s proceedings.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Miss Dimont, ‘I have quite enough to keep me busy. It’s not every day that the number-one matinée idol is exposed as having fathered a daughter who is now the nation’s number-one sex siren.’ She uttered the words with mild distaste.

  ‘Not quite as good as a double murder, though, eh?’ winked Topham, for he was no fool.

  He could tell what was on Judy Dimont’s mind.

  SIXTEEN

  To suggest Betty Featherstone was desolated by Derek’s telegram would be an overstatement. It was humiliating to be given the brush-off in quite such a public way – in the street, with Perce bearing that anxious look which meant he’d probably read the contents before sealing the envelope – and, anyway, if anyone was going to be doing the off-brushing it should be she.

  After all, Derek was a big wheel in Rotary but pretty insignificant in Temple Regis – his small electrical shop in Lemon Street struggled to make its way – and the thing had run its course. True, two telegrams in a row for Betty smacked of carelessness in an Oscar Wilde sort of way, but in affairs of the heart she remained an optimist. She set her sights low and, as a result, was rarely without companionship and that was all she needed; for Betty was incapable of love.

  Tonight found her simultaneously at work and play at the town’s Coronation Ball. Held annually since the new Elizabethan era had been proclaimed six years earlier, it was a glamorous affair, though obviously pitched at a different level from what went on behind the doors of the Grand. Some of the old diehards wore tails, but the trend these days was more towards a dinner jacket with a white handkerchief in the breast pocket. Ladies wore court shoes and calf-length ball gowns, setting off their newly permed hair, and the music was jolly but retrospective – not a guitar in sight.

  Betty was there on behalf of the Riviera Express and such was the status conferred by her employment that she was seated next to the mayor, Mr Brough. Across the circular table littered with red, white and blue ribbons sat the monolithic Mrs Brough, not demonstrably pleased to see her husband so concerned about the future of the town’s ancient newspaper. And understandably so – Betty’s hair was objectionably blonde tonight, her lipstick too glossy, even for a gala occasion such as this.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Betty spotted Derek on the dance floor with Beryl Couzens, one of the town’s few lady councillors, who from the soft expression on her face seemed not to have noticed the cut of his clothes, the shape of his head or the size of his feet. Could they all have been quite so ugly only as recently as last week? Betty asked herself. She had never noticed before quite what a leaden figure he cut.

  Before she had time to answer that question, Mr Brough had breathtakingly swept her on to the dance floor to the strains of ‘On a Little Street in Singapore’. His Worship might be a butcher, but he knew how to cut his way through the crowd and Betty went with him, swirling and turning and smiling – especially as they whizzed past Derek and Beryl – in wonderful gay abandon. This was where she felt most at home, caught in an in-between world filled with music and laughter and gracious manners, and the clanking of the heavy mayoral chain wedged between her and Mr Brough only offered the mildest dampener to proceedings.

  Before long Betty and Mr Brough were the centre of attention – for she was as skilled as he on her feet and it turned out they were natural partners. Betty looked up at handsome Mr Brough and Mr Brough gazed down at melting Miss Betty as they completed a spectacular circuit of the floor and . . .

  And . . .

  But no, Betty had Certain Rules.

  Drenched with applause, they returned to the table only to discover Mrs Brough, brief witness to this considerable social success for her husband in his mayoral year, had disappeared. His Worship knew what this meant and, after extending the courtesy of pulling back Betty’s chair and quickly seeing her safely into it, beat a hasty retreat.

  The evening was hotting up and most people were on the floor or at the bar – there must have been two hundred people there, what a triumph! Betty thought she should take the opportunity to make a few notes, for this sort of event not only reminded Temple Regis that it had an identity of its own when not submerged by happy holidaymakers, but it was a reaffirmation – less often mentioned, but very much in everyone’s thoughts – that their great ship of state was now at peace, in calm waters and, after years of privation, had turned its prow towards prosperity and a golden future.

  This was what Rudyard Rhys wanted for his newspaper, not death! And Betty’s reward for her coverage of the evening’s events would be a big byline with a Page One turn (to the uninitiated, her name in exaggeratedly large print and her story spilling over from the front cover to page three – maybe even four!).

  It was exactly the sort of affair at which Miss Dimont struggled professionally, for her ever-questing mind found it difficult to construct a celebration out of an evening where the town’s bigwigs got together, drank copiously, and bragged each other down while their wives sat marooned at their tables, smiling vacantly across the void. But Betty had no difficulty on such occasions, and with a few swift notes jotted down, neatly put her purse away. She was looking radiant this evening, though the combination of coral-pink lipstick and lime-green ball dress indicated perhaps a lack of coherent thought; no doubt Mrs Brough would be making the point with His Worship later that night.

  Betty took a sip of her Babycham and gazed out at the exhilarated crowd. Her eye was attracted to the sight of Claud Hannaford, the coal merchant, whose get-up would not have disgraced one of Prudence Aubrey’s costume dramas. Though twice Derek’s age, his tailcoat was a perfect fit, the white tie and dimpled waistcoat dazzled in the revolving lights, his dance pumps glittering in an old-fashioned but, to Betty, very reassuring way.

  Claud did not waste time by asking Betty for a spin. Instead, he brought two glasses of something interesting-looking and settled down beside her. He was old enough to be Betty’s father – older – but he didn’t care. And, she found somewhat surprisingly, neither did she.

  ‘Express, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thanks heavens they didn’t send that other one. Miss . . . er . . .’

  ‘She’s not very keen on this sort of thing,’ said Betty, truthfully enough.

  ‘So I’ve noticed,’ laughed Claud, drawing out a cigar from his top pocket. ‘We haven’t forgotten the Conservative Ball last winter.’

  ‘The Express printed an apology. But people do seem to go on about it still.’

  ‘You should have been there!’ laughed Claud, but his thoughts had evidently moved on. ‘You’re not married?’

  ‘I have a number of engagements rings which I keep in my kitchen drawer,’ sparkled Betty, her stock response to this oft-put question. ‘Won’t tell you how many!’

  There was rather more talk along these lines but Betty soon settled to the realisation that this rich widower wanted nothing more than to spend time in the company of a younger woman. He charmed, he yarned, he brought more drinks, and at all times behaved impeccably. His was not an approach the worldly-wise Betty had encountered before – all he seemed to want to do was entertain her.

  ‘And old Bill Pithers,’ he was saying, ‘you must remember him.’

  ‘I don’t think . . .’

  ‘You know, the old fat renderer. Biggest crook in South Devon. You’ve seen him – pink Rolls-Royce, those appalling tweed suits. Died last year.’

  ‘The golf club.’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘I tended to avoid him. He had . . . creeping hands.’

  ‘That’s old Bill,’ roared Claud. ‘I used to go racing with him at Exeter and Newton Abbot, and oh! the ladies! But he never paid his bookies, it was an embarrassment.’

  ‘So what about him?’ asked Betty, more for form’s sake than anything
else. She had detested the overblown caricature who could never leave a woman’s skirt alone.

  ‘He left me his Rolls, I’ve got it outside. Can’t quite believe it, because he was mean as mouse-shit in life.’ Claud smiled as he said this, hoping to bring a blush to Betty’s cheeks. She’d heard worse.

  The coal merchant was happy to muse on his good fortune, knowing that in Betty he had a captive audience. Hannaford knew about women and he could see she had no date that night; Betty was his for the next hour if he wanted.

  ‘It’s taken all this time for the probate to come through,’ he said, drawing on his cigar. ‘I’d love to know where all the money went.’

  ‘Was he rich?’ This interested Betty.

  ‘Multimillionaire. Nobody wanted to do what he did for a business – not even me, and I’m a coal merchant! Filthy, dirty, smelly – horrible. But he made a packet.

  ‘Then, of course, all the things you never heard about – shipping Dartmoor ponies to Ireland to be used for dog food. The property swindles. Wasn’t above threatening his way into a bargain. I liked him because he amused me, but I’m the only one who ever did.’

  ‘Who got the money, then?’ asked Betty, idly watching the back of Derek’s square head.

  ‘Well, it’s interesting – there were two daughters but he last saw them when they were toddlers – his wife Honoria made a mistake. She thought she could polish up a rough diamond, turn him into a gentleman, then when she discovered she couldn’t, she hightailed it.’

  ‘I doubt it was the rough diamond business,’ said Betty, not without experience when it came to matters of the human heart. ‘More like all those other women.’

  ‘That may have played a part,’ acknowledged Claud. ‘Anyway, according to the will there are two grandchildren who’ve copped the lot. I got my Rolls-Royce, but they are both very rich now.’