by Simon Brett
They ate in Henderson’s Salad Bar, a bit of a comedown from the places where he had squired Anna, but excellent food and better value. Charles began to relax. As he did, the exhaustion that had been stalking him all day caught up. He nearly nodded asleep into his lentil stew. Frances reached out and held his hand. ‘You’re dead.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Been overdoing it.’
‘I suppose so.
‘Early night.’
‘Good idea.’
‘I’m pretty exhausted too. Those two girls have been leading me such a dance. Still, thank God they get a train back tomorrow. It can’t come soon enough. I think I might stay in Scotland for a bit.’
‘Don’t you have to chaperone them home?’
‘No. Put the two little horrors on the London train and from that moment they’re on their own.’
Charles smiled weakly at the incipient relief in her voice. ‘And then you’ll have a few days’ holiday?’
‘Yes. Bliss. Before term starts.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose . . .’
‘What?’
‘I don’t suppose you’d fancy a few days’ holiday. If we could book up somewhere . . .’
It was strange to see her blushing. Blushing for propositioning her own husband. He felt the familiar ridge of the kitchen-knife scar across her thumb. His eyelids were heavy with sleep as he replied. ‘I’ve heard worse ideas.’
There was quite a party at the pub before Charles’ performance on the Saturday. A lot of the D.U.D.S. who had never said hello to him decided they had an obligation to say goodbye, and any money that the show might have made was anticipated in large rounds of drinks for people he did not know.
But Charles didn’t mind. A night’s sleep had done wonders. Alcohol and company meant that he only felt the occasional twinge from thoughts of Anna or Willy’s death. Recovery from both obsessions would take time, but it was possible.
Frances was there, celebrating the departure of a King’s Cross train from Waverley Station. And, by a stroke of incredible luck, they had arranged a holiday. Stella Galpin-Lord, who was in the party, justified the expense of the vodka and Campari she ordered by fixing them up in a hotel at Clachenmore on Loch Fyne. In fact she had been booked in for a week herself, but had just heard that the acting friend who was meant to join her had got a part in a film and had to cancel. The need for a consoling drink after this disappointment explained her presence in the pub. But her loss was Charles’ and Frances’ gain. A phone call clinched the change of booking. Charles was so excited about the speed with which it happened that he did not have time to question the wisdom of going on holiday with his ex-wife.
He felt affectionate towards all of the Derby crowd and, now that his departure was imminent, even indulged himself in a slight regret that it was over. Sam Wasserman was talking earnestly (and no doubt allegorically) to Pam Northcliffe. She had her back to Charles, but he could imagine the glaze of boredom slowly covering her eyes. Frances was gamely trying to conduct a conversation with the lighting man Plug (who’d got to do the sodding cue sheets for Who Now?, but who’d heard there was a free drink going). Martin Warburton was gesticulating wildly as he expounded one of his theories to Stella Galpin-Lord. They all seemed animated and cheerful except for James Milne who sat slightly apart with a half of ‘heavy’.
Since the Laird was the first person he’d invited to the get-together, Charles felt he should not neglect him and sat down at the same table with his pint.
‘Are you really giving the investigation up, Charles?’
He found it difficult to meet the older man’s eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m sure we ought not to. I mean, if something else happens, we’ll feel terrible.’
‘What else can happen?’
‘Another crime.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just . . .’ The Laird leant closer and whispered. ‘I am convinced there’s something odd about Martin’s behaviour. We ought to find out more. We can’t just leave it.’
This was unsettling. Deep down Charles agreed. But he had managed to push that agreement so far down that it hardly troubled him. He would have to make some concession to his conscience. ‘What, you mean investigate the flat in Nicholson Street?’
‘Something like that, Charles.’
‘How about Holyrood?’ With sudden inspiration. ‘We’ll go this afternoon.’ The Laird looked relieved that something was being done and Charles felt it was a satisfactory solution. It gave the illusion of interest on his part and was a pleasant way of spending an afternoon. A visit to Edinburgh’s famous palace would be a fitting farewell to the city.
‘Drink?’ The word was spoken sharply close behind Charles. He turned to see Martin Warburton holding a couple of empty glasses. ‘I’m getting a round.’
Charles looked at his watch. ‘Better not have any more. I’ll want a pee in the middle of the show.’
James Milne also refused politely, but Martin did not turn away immediately. He stood still for a moment and said, almost to himself, ‘Holyrood.’
‘Yes,’ said Charles. ‘We’re going down there this afternoon.’ And then, as an explanatory probe, ‘Have you ever been there?’
‘Oh no,’ Martin replied slowly. ‘No, I haven’t.’
The last performance of So Much Comic, So Much Blood went very well; it justified the Glasgow Herald’s enthusiasm. It was possibly helped by the alcoholic relaxation of its presenter, and certainly by the vigorous reactions of an alcoholic contingent in the audience. Charles was left with the melancholy emptiness that follows a good show, and an urgent awareness that the pubs closed at two thirty.
A few more drinks and he parted with the D.U.D.S. in a haze of goodwill. Frances went off to scour Edinburgh for gumboots which she assured Charles would be essential for the West Coast of Scotland. James Milne waited for him outside the Masonic Hall while he slipped in to have another pee and pick up his belongings.
The stage crew were already in, setting up the scenery for a lighting rehearsal of Who Now? Martin Warburton, as writer, was deep in conference with Plug, the electrician. Charles picked up the holdall that he had left onstage. ‘Did all the slides go in, Plug?’
‘Sure.’
‘Cheerio then.’
‘Bye.’ Charles swung the holdall cheerfully on to his shoulder.
‘Goodbye, Charles Paris,’ said Martin Warburton.
The guide at the Palace of Holyroodhouse was a jovial gentleman with a green cap, green jacket and tartan trews. The effort of showing a mixed bag of international tourists round the old building ten times a day (or even more during the Festival) had not blunted his good humour, though it did give a staged quality to some of his jokes.
Charles let it all wash pleasantly over him. He even felt confident that the alcohol would not wear off until the pubs opened again at five. After the stresses of recent days he owed himself a real Saturday night blinder.
Meanwhile information about Scotland’s history and art poured out from the guide. Charles II rebuilt the palace . . . George IV wanted to be painted wearing a kilt . . . you can tell the carving’s by Grinling Gibbons because of his signature of five peas in a pod . . . the present Queen holds garden parties in the gardens here . . . the harpsichord by Johann Rucker of Antwerp is still in working order . . . the portraits of fictitious kings of Scotland are by Jacob de Wet . . . and so on and so on.
Occasionally Charles would be shaken from his reverie by a hiss from the Laird. ‘Do you think that might be significant?’
‘What?’
‘Sixteenth-century tapestry of the Battle of the Centaurs.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it’s violent, isn’t it? And Martin’s very obsessed with violence.’
Charles would feign interest for a moment and then mentally doze off again. With the confidence of alcohol, he knew that so far as he was concerned the Mariello case was over. The relief of that decision gave him the freedom to look at
the case objectively. He saw the long trail of his mistaken suspicions dragging on like a Whitehall farce, with him as the overacting protagonist, always opening the wrong door after the crooks had fled, after the pretty girl had put her clothes back on again, or after the vicar’s trousers had been irrevocably lost.
And, without the pressure of having to think about it, a new logic crept into the case. First, the greatest likelihood was that Willy Mariello had died accidentally. And if he had not, then the only person with whom he was directly connected was James Milne, through the house sale. Perhaps there had been some motive there; perhaps even (taking a cue from Michael Vanderzee’s insinuation) there had been a homosexual liaison between Willy and the Laird. Perhaps, perhaps. Motivations and suspicions took on the expendable and detached fascination of a crossword. Perhaps one day someone would make the effort to find out the facts. Preferably a policeman. Certainly it would not be Charles Paris. Detective work, he reflected, was a slow and unrewarding business, like reading Dickens for the dirty bits. Not for him. He followed the guide through a film of alcohol.
The oldest parts of Holyroodhouse, in the James IV Tower, are kept till last in the guided tour. These are the apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots and her second husband, Lord Darnley, and it is impossible to enter them without a sense of excitement.
Darnley’s bedroom is downstairs and there is a little staircase that leads up to the Queen’s room. Next door is the supper room where David Rizzio, her Italian secretary, musician and companion, was murdered by Darnley, Patrick Lord Ruthven and other disaffected noblemen. On his body there were found between fifty and sixty dagger-wounds.
‘And there,’ said the guide dramatically, ‘is the very spot where it happened.’ Then, with a quick switch into the practised joke, ‘There’s no use looking for bloodstains. There’s only a brass plaque there and it’s a different floor. But everything else is just as it was.’
‘Everything?’ Charles queried facetiously. ‘Is it the same clock?’
‘What clock?’ asked the guide, confused for the first time on the tour.
‘Well, the clock . . .’ Charles turned slowly round the room. There was no clock. ‘Then what’s the ticking?’
He looked slowly down at his holdall, lowered it to the floor and, with great care, unzipped it. The other tourists watched with frozen fascination.
There was no question. He had seen enough newspaper pictures from Northern Ireland to recognise the untidy arrangement of a clock face and wires.
So had the rest of the party. In the panic and screams that followed as they all rushed for the narrow spiral staircase, he could hear the Laird’s voice, high with fear. ‘A bomb! He could have killed us all! A bomb!’
CHAPTER TWELVE
The dog leapt up, but gave no yell,
The wire was pulled, but woke no bell,
The ghastly knocker rose and fell,
But caused no riot;
The ways of death, we all know well,
Are very quiet.
JACK HALL
BOMBS IN PUBLIC places are police matters, and cannot be well investigated by half-hearted amateurs. Charles found it a great relief when the blue uniforms moved in. He felt he could have gone on snooping in the dark for ever; the police had the advantage that investigation was their business. And they got on with it very efficiently.
An Army bomb disposal expert saved Queen Mary’s historic apartments from destruction. As Charles sat waiting to be interviewed at the Edinburgh City Police Headquarters in Fettes Avenue, he wondered what would have happened if the device had gone off. The wholesale destruction of twenty-odd tourists and a guide might have put Rizzio’s murder in the shade. And it would have needed a hell of a big brass plaque.
He had assumed that the bomb had not reached its detonation time when it was discovered and received an ugly shock when the findings of the bomb disposal expert were communicated to him. It had been set for twenty minutes earlier. The minute hand on the clock had reached its brass contact screw fixed in the clock face; it was only luck that had prevented it going off. The device’s construction was amateur and the motion of Charles’ holdall appeared to have broken one of the inadequately soldered joints in the wiring. But for the cavalier, drunken way he had manhandled the bag, the bomb would have worked.
He found its failure small comfort. The intention was no less destructive. The bomb was an unsophisticated weed-killer and acid device, which might not have been too devastating in the open, but in an enclosed space like the supper room . . . He didn’t like to think about it. Particularly as he had been carrying the thing. Even in the unlikely event of his surviving the blast, he would have been typecast for the rest of his life as Long John Silver or Toulouse Lautrec.
When he talked to the police, he was amazed at how much they knew. The assumption that they had written off Willy Mariello’s death as an accident and were just waiting for this to be officially confirmed in the Procurator-Fiscal’s report proved to be naive. Ever since the stabbing they had been investigating and keeping an eye on the D.U.D.S. They knew about Martin’s dual identity and had been following his movements with particular interest.
It all made Charles feel crassly amateur. Not only because his own stumbling investigations seemed so pathetic, but also because it showed he had an outdated image of the police as thick village constables whose only function was to have rings run round them by the brilliant amateur sleuth. That was the way it was in most of the plays he had ever been in, and plays were about his closest contact with the police. What he had taken in this case to be their lethargic inactivity had been discreet investigation, gathering together sufficient evidence for an arrest.
And they reckoned the bomb was probably enough evidence. Certainly enough to justify a search of the flat in Nicholson Road.
There was no question in the police’s mind of investigating anyone but Martin. Like the Laird, they reckoned that his behaviour was suspicious and, unlike Charles, they were not held up by vague woolly liberal notions that the boy was misunderstood and must have other explanations for his actions. Charles felt as he had in Oxford when, after an elaborate midnight climb back into college over walls, across roofs, down drainpipes and through dons’ bedrooms, he had discovered that the main gate was open.
He also felt rather out of it, though at the centre of operations. At least on his own abortive investigations he could maintain the illusion of doing something important in his own right. Here at the police headquarters he was just a source of information, politely asked to wait, filed for reference when necessary. They were interested in what he knew, not what he thought.
So rather than stage-managing dramatic denouements himself, he found out at second hand what had happened. The search at Nicholson Street had provided plenty of evidence to convict Martin. It was a positive bomb factory, chemicals and components scattered around on tables without any attempt at concealment. There was also an unpleasant collection of knives and other weapons, including a meat cleaver. The boy’s fantasies of violence took a disturbingly tangible form.
What the police did not find at the flat was Martin Warburton himself. And, though they found a bottle of spirit gum substitute and a brush, there was no sign of his false beard or glasses. So it was possible that he was somewhere in Edinburgh in his disguise.
They tried the obvious places, which were Coates Gardens and the Masonic Hall, but he was not at either. Apparently he had left the theatre after a disagreement with Plug over some lighting effect. That was shortly before three, and nobody had seen him since.
The case had changed from a whodunnit to a manhunt.
Charles was thanked courteously for his co-operation by the police and asked to keep them informed of where he would be contactable if he left Edinburgh.
It was then about seven o’clock. Frances, he knew, had got a ticket for the Scottish Opera’s Alceste at the King’s Theatre. Denied her calming therapy for his shattered nerves, he saw no reason to change his plans
of earlier in the day, and got drunk.
At the Police Headquarters James Milne and Charles had arranged to meet for coffee in the flat the next morning to talk through what had happened. Charles had found the truth of Dr Johnson’s dictum about the proximity of death concentrating a man’s mind wonderfully, and regained his flagging interest in the case.
About eleven on the Sunday he arrived at Coates Gardens. ‘Do you mind if I have something a bit stronger than coffee?’
‘Still in a state of shock? So am I.’
‘Well, mine’s only an indirect state of shock, James. I was so shocked yesterday that I had to have a great deal to drink for medical reasons. That’s why I need something stronger now. Hair of the dog.’
The Laird chuckled and reached for the malt whisky bottle. ‘Well,’ he said when they were sitting and the first gulp was irrigating Charles’ dehydrated head, ‘it seems that I was on the right track.’
‘About Martin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hmm. Of course, I knew there was something wrong with him right from the start. Now I come to think of it, the first night I was here, I heard someone crying in the bathroom—I’m sure it was him. Obviously in the throes of a nervous breakdown. A schizoid condition, aggravated by overwork for his finals.’
‘All work and no play . . .’
‘Makes Jack a nutter, yes.’
‘“Much study had made him very lean . . .”’
‘“And pale and leaden-eyed.”’ Charles completed the quotation automatically without thinking. Martin’s case seemed more relevant than literary games. ‘What surprised me was that all his fantasies manifested themselves in a real way. Usually with that type all the action’s in their minds.’
‘Not, it seems, in this case, Charles.’
‘No.’ He paused for a moment, ruefully. ‘Poor kid. He was so mixed up. He seemed so much the obvious suspect that I never really considered him.’ He laughed. ‘I must get a less subjective view of criminals.’
