by Simon Brett
‘What colour hairs?’ asked Charles breathlessly.
‘Blonde.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Five minutes. Goodbye, Mr Paris. We won’t meet again.’
The audience for So Much Comic, So Much Blood was larger and they saw a competent performance by Charles Paris. There were some laughs, although the show had no more animation than a slot-machine. As Charles’ voice wove its way through Hood’s tortuous puns, his mind was elsewhere.
After the show, he gathered his possessions together for a quick exit. There was something important that had to be done before three o’clock.
The women’s wards in the Royal Infirmary off Lauriston Place are much the same as in other hospitals. The one Charles entered had the usual mixture of patients. An old lady stared ahead with liquid blue eyes, her long white hair radiating over the pillows. A plump bed-ridden blonde chattered to a morose husband. A homely housewife’s face still registered surprise at being hospitalised and half-listened to the sympathy of a lady in a hat. Screens hid one bed and prompted unhealthy thoughts. A thin, thin woman with shiny skin lay as still as her pillow. And, in the corner bed, was a young girl with her plastered left leg raised on a pulley.
Visiting ended in ten minutes; no time to waste. ‘Hello. Are you Lesley Petter?’
The girl looked up and acknowledged that she was. Brown hair, shrewd brown eyes, well-proportioned but unremarkable features. Hers was the sort of face that needed emotion to animate it; in repose it was ordinary.
Charles’ approach had brought some light into her eyes. Anything was more interesting than the pile of magazines, thrillers and ragged-edged French novels.
‘I’m Charles Paris.’
‘Oh. You’ve taken over my lunch time show.’
‘Yes. It’s an ill wind.’
She laughed wryly. ‘How’s it going?’
‘O.K.’
‘It’s about Thomas Hood, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ He did not want to elaborate, though the girl’s intelligent eyes indicated sensible opinions on the subject. ‘I’m really here for a purpose.’
‘Of course.’ She was disappointed, but philosophical. ‘Though I can’t think what purpose of yours could involve me.’
‘No. Maybe it doesn’t involve you.’ He tried to think of a way to phrase his questions. ‘I . . . there’s . . . I don’t know, your group . . . D.U.D.S., there’s something strange going on there.’
‘It must seem strange to an outsider coming in.’
‘No, I expect that, as a middle-aged man with a bunch of whizz-kids. I mean strange in . . . well, there’s Willy Mariello’s death.’
A shutter of caution flicked across her eyes. ‘Yes. That was terrible.’
‘And, of course, your accident.’
‘Yes.’ She seemed anxious to move the dialogue into a more flippant direction. ‘Somebody must have whistled in the dressing-room or quoted Macbeth or had real flowers onstage or broken another of the show business taboos.’
Charles laughed. He was also relieved at the postponement of his questions. ‘You know it all. Do you want to go into the theatre?’
‘Yes, I did. But . . . I don’t know how good I am as an actress. Oh, I’d done bits all right, but the thing I’m really good at is dancing: She looked down the bed at the grotesque suspended limb.
‘It’ll heal all right.’
She patently did not believe his diagnosis, though she said ‘Oh yes’ as if there were no question.
Charles retreated to safer ground. ‘Anyway, I’m sure you must be a good actress. I mean, you were playing Mary and doing the revue and . . .’
‘I got the parts, yes. I don’t know how I’d have done them, whether I’d have got good press or . . .’
‘Well . . .’ He could not think of anything suitable. ‘Anna got a very good notice for the revue.’ It was just a statement, without malice or jealousy.
‘Yes, I gather she did.’ Charles instinctively and defensively made it sound as if he hardly knew who was being referred to.
‘And I think she’ll be better than I would have been in Mary.’
‘Who knows.’ He found himself blushing. ‘As I said, it’s an ill wind.’
‘Yes.’
There was a slight pause. A bell sounded, muffled, from an adjacent ward and he blurted out his question. ‘Lesley, did Willy Mariello push you down those steps?’
She looked at him in amazement and opened her mouth to reply. But she swallowed the instinctive answer and said in a controlled voice, ‘No. No. Why should he?’
It was too controlled. Charles was not convinced. ‘Are you sure he didn’t? I heard a rumour to the contrary.’
‘People shouldn’t spread rumours,’ she said sharply. There was confusion in her face. ‘Listen, Willy’s dead. My leg’s broken, there’s nothing can be done about that. Does it matter?’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘Well, I don’t know. To be quite honest I don’t.’ She was floundering, an essentially nice girl unable to come to terms with something unpalatable. ‘I was confused when it happened and I suppose I turned on the nearest person. I . . . I don’t know. I mean, would Willy do something like that? What had he possibly got to gain from doing it?’
Charles restricted himself to answering the first question. ‘Willy was capable of that sort of thing; he was a lout.’
She looked shocked at this speaking ill of the dead. A bell was rung loudly in the corridor outside the ward. There was a rustle of parcels and final messages from the other visitors. Lesley looked at Charles pleadingly. ‘If he did it, I’m sure it was only high spirits, or horseplay or . . .’
‘You mean he did do it?’
‘I don’t know. I . . .’
‘Did he push you?’
‘Yes, he did.’
Charles left her with assurances that he would try to visit again. And he meant to. Poor kid, stuck in hospital in a strange city where all her friends were too busy to remember her.
The brown eyes were troubled when he left. And it was not just loneliness. She had managed to convince herself since the accident that it really had been a mistake, an unfortunate overflow of youthful exuberance. Now she had been forced to destroy that illusion and her kind nature was finding it difficult to believe that anyone could be so evil.
Charles had no difficulty in believing it. To him the human capacity for evil suddenly seemed infinite.
CHAPTER TEN
Thus Pleasure oft eludes our grasp
Just when we think to grip her;
And hunting after Happiness,
We only hunt a slipper.
THE EPPING HUNT
TWO THINGS WERE clear. One, a confrontation with Anna was now unavoidable. And two, he could not face that confrontation himself. He still treasured a hope that everything would be all right, that there was an innocent explanation for the disturbing chain of events that his logic was joining up. And, if his suspicions proved unfounded, he did not want to let them blight his budding relationship with the girl. There was too much at risk. She was the first woman to touch his emotions for years.
He considered the possibilities of disguise, but rejected them. As an actor, he was capable of convincing physical transformations, and he had used disguise before to gain information. But then he had not been trying to hide his identity from people he knew; here he would be trying to fool a girl he had been sleeping with. No disguise would work at close quarters under those circumstances. Even the varied wardrobe of Edinburgh’s many old clothes shops and the wizardry of film make-up with foam rubber padding, latex masks and coloured contact lenses would not stand close scrutiny.
He regretted that he could not use the excitement of dressing up to take his mind off the depressing tracks it was moving along. And, like most actors, he found it easier to perform difficult tasks in character than as himself. He visualised appearing to Anna in a total disguise, confirming her innocence by a few well-placed questions, then unmasking and making a joke of it.
He contemplated interrogation by telephone. A disembodied voice could be convincingly disguised. But that introduced the problem of an identity. Who would Anna be likely to give information to in a telephone conversation? There were only two answers—someone she knew or a policeman. The first was out and Charles did not feel inclined to risk the second. On a previous occasion he had had it pointed out to him that impersonation of a policeman is a serious offence. And if Anna did have something criminal to hide, the last person she would tell about it was an investigating officer of the law. What was needed was an interrogator who had some other justifiable reason for meeting her and who could introduce relevant questions into the conversation with some pretence at casual enquiry.
Which meant an accomplice. It was Wednesday. Gerald Venables should be back from his weekend in Cannes. Charles rang his Grosvenor Street office from a call-box in the Royal Mile.
Gerald was back. ‘How’s the sleuth-work going, Charles?’
‘I don’t know really. I might be on to something.’
‘Anything I can do?’ There was immediate excitement in the voice. Gerald, who spent his entire life dealing with the peccadilloes of contract-breaking in his show-business legal firm, was fascinated by what he called ‘real’ crime. He had a Boy’s Own Paper enthusiasm for anything shady. ‘Wills to check out, blood samples to analyse, stool pigeons to third degree, hit-men to rub out? You name it, I’ll do my best.’
Charles wished he could share this detective fiction relish for the case; it all seemed depressingly real to him. ‘There is something you can do for me. I’m afraid it involves coming up to Edinburgh.’
‘That’s all right. One of my clients is in the Actors’ Company Tartuffe. There’s a film contract on the way for him. I could arrange to have to come up and discuss it.’
‘Is it urgent?’
‘No. But he’s not to know that.’
‘You mean he’s going to be footing your bill?’ Charles had to remonstrate on behalf of a fellow actor.
‘Don’t worry. You should see the money they’re paying him for the movie. And he can set me against tax. Really I’m doing him a service.’
‘Hmm.’ There was never any point in arguing with Gerald on money, it was a subject he had made his own. ‘Look, how soon do you think you can get up?’
‘If Polly can fix me a flight, I’ll be up this evening.’ It was typical of Gerald that he would not insult his client’s money by contemplating rail travel.
But it was good from Charles’ point of view. ‘Good. If you can make it, there’s a revue I’d like you to see at eleven o’clock. Oh, and could you bring one of your little cassette recorders?’
‘Conversation you want to tape?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Secretly?’
‘Exactly. Do you think you’ll be able to make it tonight?’
‘Do my best. Can I ring you back?’
‘No, I’m in a call-box.’
‘Ring me again in an hour and I’ll tell you what gives.’
Charles had decided that he could not face another night with Anna until his suspicions had been exorcised. Then, he kept telling himself, then we can bounce back together again and it’ll be even better. Maybe he’d stay in Edinburgh longer than his week. Maybe even away from Edinburgh they could . . .
But not till this was sorted out.
He left the call-box and went down Cockburn Street to the Accommodation Bureau. He picked up his bag from Coates Gardens and by five o’clock was installed with Mrs Butt in the Aberdour Guest House in Dublin Street, booked for two nights.
He rang Gerald’s office from Mrs Butt’s pay-phone. Polly’s efficiency had worked wonders and her boss was already in a taxi on the way to Heathrow. He would reach the Princes Street terminal in a coach from Edinburgh (Turnhouse) Airport at about ten.
The next move involved seeing Anna. After a couple of bracing whiskies in a Rose Street pub, he went back to Coates Gardens, where, as he anticipated, another cabbage dinner was drawing to its blancmangy end. He signalled to Anna, who left the table discreetly and met him in the empty hall.
The lie slipped out easily. ‘Look, I’m sorry. Can’t come tonight. An old friend called Alastair Newton came to see the show at lunch time. He’s invited me to dinner at his place. It’s some way outside Edinburgh, so he suggested I stay the night there and he’ll give me a lift in in the morning. It’s a bugger, but I can’t really get out of it.’
Anna looked disappointed, which did not make the deception any easier. Then she grinned. ‘I could do with some sleep, anyway.’
He grinned too. She was beautiful and the navy blue eyes looked so open and honest, he wished the script of the last few days could be rewritten and all the promptings of suspicion cut out. He felt confident that it would be all right. Probably they would even be able to laugh about it afterwards.
‘But tomorrow . . .’ he hazarded, ‘be O.K. if I come round after the revue as per usual?’
‘As per usual. Of course.’ There was a lot of warmth in her voice. But she was still discreet and did not want them to be seen together. ‘Better get back.’
As she turned to go, he took her hand and leant forward to kiss her. Their lips came together.
A creak on the stairs from the basement made Charles recoil guiltily. Anna as usual kept her cool and glanced towards the person who was staring at them. She looked back at Charles. ‘See you then, then.’ With unruffled poise she went back to the dining-room. Martin Warburton stood aside to let her pass, looked at Charles, gave one of his abrupt laughs and hurried out of the front door, slamming it behind him.
It didn’t matter. Anna was the one who wanted to keep the affair quiet, and somebody was bound to twig sooner or later.
Charles remembered that he had left his toothbrush in the first-floor bathroom. On the landing he met James Milne hurrying angrily downstairs. ‘Oh hello, Charles. I’ve spoken to them before about slamming that door. Not only is it bad for the actual door, it also disturbs the neighbours and I get complaints. Did you see who it was?’
‘It was Martin Warburton.’
‘Ah.’ The Laird’s tone changed from angry to confidential. ‘Actually I wanted to talk to you about Martin Warburton. Come upstairs and have a drink.’
‘Have to be quick. I’ve got to go out to dinner.’ It was important to maintain the lie.
‘Won’t take long.’
More malt in the leather-bound library. The Laird stood by his marble mantlepiece to give drama to his pronouncement. ‘Further to our discussion about Martin’s disguise, I followed him this morning.’
‘From here?’
‘Yes, all the way to Nicholson Street as you described. I waited and he came out with the beard and what have you, and then I followed him again. Guess where he went this time?’
‘Not a clue.’ Charles found it difficult to get excited about Martin’s bizarre doings. He had decided that they were irrelevant to the investigation.
‘The Palace of Holyroodhouse,’ said James Milne dramatically. ‘Now why should he go to the National Portrait Gallery and Holyrood in disguise?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s embarrassed about being a tourist.’
This flippant answer was not well received by the Laird who thought that Martin was definitely the murderer. Charles wished he could share that simple faith; it would be a relief from the forbidding tangle of thoughts that filled his head. But he did not feel inclined to tell his confidant what he knew. It would be better to play along with this Martin theory.
James Milne elaborated. ‘I think there’s some strange tie-up in his mind. It’s all connected with the Mary, Queen of Scots story, I’m sure. Rizzio was only the first of a sequence of murders of people close to that particular lady.’
‘I’m a bit hazy about the details of her life. I just remember that she was very tall and when they executed her they lifted the head up and her wig came off.’
‘What unusual details you pick on, Charles. I’m sure one of your psychologists would have something to say about the selective processes of your mind. But let me tell you, there’s quite a lot more significant stuff in the unfortunate queen’s story. I know it fairly well—as a schoolboy I spent one long wet holiday at Glenloan reading everything available on the subject. As you probably know, Mary was the daughter of James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise—’
Charles was in no mood for a schoolmaster’s lecture. Worry made him less tolerant than usual. ‘James, I’m sorry. I do have to go.
‘Well, let me lend you a book on the subject. I won’t give you one of my heavy schoolboy tomes. But there’s Antonia Fraser’s biography. Popular, but none the worse for that.’ His mental catalogue took him straight to the right volume on the shelf.
Charles was eager to leave now. He reached out for the book with muttered thanks, but James Milne kept hold of it and said with a twinkle, ‘If I might quote from the Great Unknown, Sir Walter Scott, “Please return this book; I find that though many of my friends are poor arithmeticians, they are nearly all good bookkeepers.” Not a bad joke, considering the source.’
Charles smiled politely and managed to leave. He was in no mood for swapping literary references. He found a pub in Dundas Street where he was unlikely to meet any of the D.U.D.S. and whiled away the time till Gerald’s arrival with the co-operation of Bell’s Whisky, Ltd.
The solicitor arrived at the terminal immaculate in a Prince of Wales check three-piece suit. He carried an overnight bag that looked like a giant pigskin wallet and obviously contained the neatly pressed shirt and pyjamas of a travel advertisement. ‘Hello, buddy. Wise me up on the gen.’
Charles cringed at the number of thrillers Gerald must have read, and suggested that they talk in a pub.
‘Why not in the hotel bar? Then I can check in and dump the bag.’
‘Which hotel?’
