Resort to Murder

by TP Fielden

  ‘It must have been a wonderful time between the wars.’

  ‘I never left Mayfair. Well, of course, except to go to work, the West End isn’t exactly the same thing at all. They do things differently there.’

  Valentine was lapping this up. The old boy had always been looked on as the black sheep, the one who bankrupted the family. He had never heard him recalled quite so exotically.

  ‘Did you come up to Lovelocke?’

  ‘That was your place, was it? I don’t think so. Cliveden, Longleat, I was a friend of Eric Dudley so I went to Himley. Reggie Pembroke took a fancy to me as well – you know my friends among the Gaiety Girls all seemed to end up marrying earls, but somehow all mine were already married.’

  ‘That must have been disappointing.’

  ‘Not always, dear,’ said Geraldine Phipps, looking fondly at the heavy diamond ring weighing down one finger.

  ‘This is lovely,’ said Valentine, finishing his tea, ‘but you know I came here to see Gavin. See how the riots were getting on. The editor seems very keen for us to write something other than about that chap Larsson.’

  ‘Married four times,’ said Geraldine, wistfully. ‘Ben wasn’t that attractive but he certainly got the women all right.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Fur coats, darling. He would always buy them the coat first before knocking on the bedroom door with his … you know.’

  ‘Another world,’ marvelled Valentine, running his hand through his wavy blond locks.

  ‘And now here we all are, in Temple Regis,’ said Mrs Phipps with a sigh. ‘What a fall from grace!’

  Valentine looked up sharply. ‘I’ve been here a short time only, Mrs Phipps, but to me it seems like paradise.’

  ‘Hang around as long as I have,’ said Geraldine drily, reaching for the Plymouth gin, ‘you’ll see things differently.’

  ‘Miss Dimont says …’

  ‘Miss Dimont again! You’ve mentioned her quite a lot. Are you soft on her?’

  Valentine coloured slightly.

  ‘She’s old enough to be your …’ said the old trouper, sensing a secret.

  ‘I think I’ll go and find Gavin now, Mrs Phipps,’ said Valentine quickly, and wandered off. The Gaiety Girl smiled, and nodded privately to herself – just like Sir Jefrye!

  Inside the Pavilion Theatre, Danny and The Urge were rehearsing their new number. He may not have had much feel for music but Gavin Armstrong had a mill-owner’s work ethic and constantly warned the boys they must not rest on their laurels. A new record once every six or eight weeks until the bubble burst, he said, and was keeping them to it.

  The noise was unbearable. Valentine tapped Gavin on the shoulder and the two escaped through a side door on to the boardwalk of the pier. A few people were pushing penny coins into the What The Butler Saw machines but a chilly wind had kept most of the crowds away.

  ‘Been asked to do a follow-up on Danny and the boys.’

  ‘Great story you did last week,’ said Gavin enthusiastically. ‘We’re sold out. Completely! Trouble is, the boys have never played night after night like this before and they’re exhausted. The atmosphere in the van is getting a bit out of hand.’

  ‘Can’t they afford a bed and breakfast?’

  ‘Not a question of that. In the van, I can keep an eye on ’em, stop ’em from wandering off everywhere. I lost Boots – he just disappeared – couldn’t be sure he hadn’t quit the group to go looking for his girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Valentine. A primeval yet so far untapped instinct urged him on, telling him that maybe there was a story here. ‘Is she missing?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, it was an on–off relationship anyway, she was rather attached to one of The Shadows. She only got interested in Bootsie because suddenly The Urge were getting more Number One hits. And then she had her own career to follow as well, so they only saw each other from time to time. She promised she’d be down here when the boys were playing and that she had a big surprise for him, but she never showed up.’

  ‘Hmm, that could make a story for the Express.’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ said Gavin with finality. ‘Very bad for business. In fact, I’d say fatal.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The boys aren’t supposed to have girlfriends. We want to leave the fans free to dream that one day, one day …’

  ‘OK,’ said Valentine obligingly, and with secret pride drew out his notebook and a pen. His notebook! A pen! He had them both! ‘What else then?’

  ‘You can reveal they’re writing new hits in Temple Regis. That this dreary old dump will finally get put on the map because of the musical legacy the boys’ll leave behind.’

  ‘It’s quite famous already,’ retorted Valentine. First Mrs Phipps, now Gavin – what had they got against this wonderful town?

  ‘Huh. Look at this broken-down old theatre – is that the best you can do? It could use the urgent attention of a bulldozer.’

  ‘Hardly needs that,’ riposted Valentine, ‘when it’s already getting a pretty thorough demolition job from your fans. Have you seen what they’re doing to the place?’

  ‘Insurance will cover it,’ said Gavin airily, patting his pockets and preparing to depart. ‘Be the best thing that ever happened to it. Look, why don’t you go and talk to the boys, they can give you all the guff on their latest – platter.’ He laced the word, a favourite of disc jockeys of the moment, with heavy irony; and in that moment Valentine realised that Gavin Armstrong was well on the way to becoming an extremely successful entrepreneur. With not a friend in the world.

  He stood on the boardwalk for a moment and looked at the sea. He was facing, for the first time, the dilemma which confronts all reporters – whether information given in confidence should be used to the greater good, or whether it should be dutifully forgotten as its donor would wish. Writing about a beat group making a new record was, well, like writing about a bricklayer laying another brick. Whereas the story of the missing girlfriend of the bass player sounded different, fresh. If she were found as a result of his writing the story, it would be a real coup.

  ‘Human interest,’ said Valentine, rather pleased that he’d discovered what this overworked justification for intruding into people’s private lives actually meant. ‘Human interest!’

  He was about to plunge back into the theatre when the man in question came out, nodded, and walked over to the rail. Boots McGuigan – the dark, handsome, secret and dangerous dream of a thousand schoolgirls! About to give voice to the world’s press!

  The guitarist stared moodily out to sea and fished in his pockets for a cigarette,

  ‘Have one of these,’ said Valentine. ‘Though they’re a bit rough – not good for the vocal cords.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed,’ came the surly reply, ‘that when I sing in the choruses, no sound comes out of my microphone. That’s because it’s switched off. They don’t like the way I sound.’

  Good Lord, thought Valentine, now that’s a story! Britain’s No 1 beat group gags its bass guitarist!

  ‘Don’t write that,’ ordered Boots McGuigan, ‘or I’ll thump you.’

  ‘OK,’ said Valentine, unmoved, ‘tell me about your girlfriend then.’

  He was amazed by the change which overcame the irritable musician. ‘Can you do something about it? Write about it, I mean?’

  ‘I’d have to know more about it.’ He was getting the hang of squeezing information out of people without appearing to ask questions.

  ‘She’s called Faye Addams, she’s twenty-two and very beautiful. She said she was coming down here to see me and was bringing a big surprise with her. That was a week ago but I haven’t heard from her since. I telephoned her mum and she hasn’t heard from her either. I’m really worried.’

  ‘Does she have any other friends?’ Valentine was thinking of the chap in The Shadows – was he a bass player too? – had she gone back to him?

  ‘I’ve tried,’ said McGuigan. ‘Nothing. Look, could y
ou write something about her in the paper? I’ve got a photograph you can have. Only you can’t say she’s my girlfriend – Gavin won’t allow it.’

  ‘Not much of a story without that,’ said Valentine with finality. It was extraordinary how the words sprang to his lips, words which pushed the interviewee on, possibly against their will, to give more of themselves than they would like.

  ‘Look,’ he explained, ‘your girlfriend – Faye – she could be anywhere. She could still be in London, she could be in Timbuctoo. That’s not a local newspaper story. You, on the other hand, are a local newspaper story all the time you remain in Temple Regis, and a girl that’s associated with Britain’s No 1 beat group gone missing, now that’s a story!’

  The musician tossed his cigarette end into the waves beneath him. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘To be frank, I’m getting pretty fed up with Gavin. Do this, don’t do that – all he cares about is money. I’m sick of it. I’m a musician.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Valentine, though he didn’t really. ‘What does she do, Faye?’

  ‘A beautician. She was working in the West End – Selfridges – but gave it up to concentrate on her hobby. Reckoned she could make a living out of it.’

  Here the future star reporter fumbled it. He should have asked a certain question but failed to do so, instead turned his attention to getting a full description of the missing Miss Addams. The two young men stepped inside the theatre to find the photograph of her when they bumped into Gavin again.

  ‘Ah, Boots,’ he said proprietorially. ‘Is the song finished?’

  ‘They don’t need me,’ came the sour reply. ‘They told me, give us another hour and we’ll have a Number One. But they don’t want me to have a hand in it, they don’t want to share the royalties.’

  ‘Well, don’t you go buggering off again like yesterday,’ ordered Gavin. ‘He just pushed off in the middle of rehearsal,’ he said, turning to Valentine. ‘So unprofessional. What did you think you were doing, Boots?’

  ‘None of your business,’ snapped the bass player and headed for his dressing room.

  ‘You know,’ said Gavin, who liked talking about himself, ‘I nearly made a million this week. Well, not a million, but a nice wedge. Then that old geezer had to go and electrocute himself and all bets are off. That’s showbiz, Val.’

  ‘Valentine.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘You’re talking about old Mr Larsson? What happened?’

  The manager wheeled into his office and sat behind the desk. He told the story of Gus Wetherby and the Youthenator and how much money the pair were going to make, but how Gus had telephoned to say they’d have to forget about it for the time being.

  But as he rattled on, Valentine’s thoughts drifted back to the band and to a conversation he’d had previously with Boots, about his interest in Ransome’s Retreat. Though part of his brain was taken up with his scoop on the missing girl, another part was wondering why Boots McGuigan was interested in Ben Larsson. Had he gone up to the Retreat? Did his visit coincide with Larsson’s death?

  He realised he’d failed to ask the right question.

  Dammit!

  NINETEEN

  However crowded the Grand Hotel got, there was always room for Fleet Street’s emissaries. They had expensive tastes, prodigious thirsts and lordly ways, but such were the benefits of a timely mention in their pages they were always treated like royalty.

  Recently they’d descended en masse after the tragic loss of Gerald Hennessy, the country’s best-loved actor who ended up dead in the first-class carriage of his Pullman train at Regis Junction. Now here they were again, lounging with their feet splayed out all over the Palm Court, ordering drinks as if they’d just returned from the desert. Individually, they were genial and amusing, but in a pack they were far less attractive: shards of malice spiked their comradely badinage, and you could see that every single one of them would sell his mother’s soul in return for a Page One splash.

  The death of Bengt Larsson coincided with one of those lulls when there is no news, but these men, lolling comfortably in the Palm Court, running poor Peter Potts off his feet, were supreme alchemists, gifted in turning nothing into something. They were past masters at filling their pages with hot air.

  At their centre sat Guy Brace, a red-cheeked Mephistopheles whose self-ordained job, wherever the pack went, was to conduct the orchestra. On complicated stories he would assign other members of the group specific tasks so that no lead should be missed; all would then retire to a convenient hostelry to pool their findings while keeping back a morsel so they could claim an ‘exclusive’ to their rapacious news editors. There were probably more efficient ways of obtaining the news but nobody had yet taken the trouble to discover them.

  ‘So, Sinclair, you’ll go up to the Retreat and get Mrs Larsson’s side of things. Wilson, you’ll track down the son. Who’s covering the Lazarus League?’

  ‘Me, Guy,’ offered an eager newcomer to this piratical crew. ‘Can I get you another drink?’

  ‘Now, Spraggs,’ said Brace to the Daily Herald’s chief reporter, displaying just the merest hint of irritation, ‘how much are you holding back? After all, you’ve already had two bites out of this cherry, there must be something left for the rest of us to share.’

  ‘We put all we knew into those two splashes, Guy. The cupboard’s bare.’ This meant the Herald had more, but weren’t prepared to share.

  ‘Come off it, Spraggs,’ said the token woman reporter, from the Daily Mirror, ‘remember the time we helped you out on the Acid Bath murders – you mucked that up, big time. Time to pay back.’

  ‘That was a lifetime ago, Marje,’ retorted the Herald man. So long ago, he implied, that time had expunged the debt. ‘You were still in pigtails, sweetie.’

  ‘A Campari for the lady,’ yodelled Brace to Peter, and the waiter scuttled off in pursuit. Pretty soon, all avenues and eventualities covered, the talk among the group turned to absent friends and to long-ago scoops. The day’s work was over, the prospect of a fine dinner lay ahead, and then a comfortable night’s sleep in the Grand’s sumptuous four-posters to bring them fresh to the bright new morrow.

  Round the corner in the bar a very different kind of journalism was at work. Frank Topham sat motionless, clutching his pint of Portlemouth, while before him Miss Dimont smiled and coaxed and dissembled.

  ‘I understand your concern, Inspector. Temple Regis is going to hit the headlines, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it. And, frankly, in a situation where that pack of Fleet Street reporters next door is likely to tear the place apart, wouldn’t it be better to give an official version to me, which will help – shall we say guide? – their thinking. Keeping the nastiness out of it?’

  Topham was inclined to agree but didn’t want to show it. Behind his reluctance was the fact that, on the Larsson murder – and on the dead blonde, come to that – he hadn’t a clue, and he didn’t like people knowing it.

  Both knew Miss Dimont had the upper hand. Topham’s first concern, always, was the reputation of Temple Regis – he was a loyal man, a good man – and if she could be trusted to filter out certain inconsistencies in the Larsson case (the Fleet Street boys hadn’t caught wind of the blonde; he hoped they never would), part of his role as defender of the town’s reputation would have been discharged.

  ‘Off the record, then,’ said Miss Dimont, helpfully, ‘it’s murder.’

  ‘What else,’ said Topham gloomily and took a sip of Portlemouth. It tasted sour but that was him, not the beer.

  ‘Suspects are—’ began Miss Dimont before the Inspector cut her off.

  ‘I’m not going to idly speculate.’

  ‘You must have some idea,’ said the reporter, goading him on.

  ‘Of course I have, but I don’t want to …’

  ‘The stepson. The wife. The manservant. The manservant’s wife. Somebody from that ragtag-and-bobtail lot, the Lazarus League. Have I left anybody out?’ Miss Dimont was crisp, focuse
d, alert.

  Topham looked into his beer and pondered what his answer might be.

  You could still hear raised voices floating down the corridor from the Palm Court, but slowly they were drowned out by the ancient string trio who were getting stuck into a regrettable Viennese medley. While Topham procrastinated the threat remained that tomorrow he would be filleted by Fleet Street’s finest, and having grilled him, they would pick over the carcase till the bones were clean.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said finally. ‘I’ve talked to Mr Wetherby, and I think we may very well arrest him – just waiting to see what his next moves are.’

  ‘Don’t think it’s him,’ said Judy firmly, pushing up her spectacles and giving him a beautiful smile. She was recalling her lunch with Lamb in the Signal Box Café.

  ‘I hope you’ll forgive me,’ said Topham, wearily, ‘but I am the policeman around here, Miss Dimont. Mr Wetherby wanted to get his stepfather out of the country – sending him with his mother to their estate in Argentina – and then he was going to stage a coup. He’d developed a rival product, which he was going to announce while Mr Larsson was away – his aim being to get over the embarrassing publicity which was going to kill the business stone dead unless something was done.’

  ‘I don’t think …’

  ‘The trouble was that Larsson found him out and kicked the lad out of the house. Told him never to come back. Remember he’s only the stepson, no guarantee he would inherit Larsson’s millions, and all he had was a small salary from his mother for helping in the business plus his board and lodging. There’s motive enough there.’

  ‘You don’t think it could be Mrs Larsson?’

  The inspector blinked. ‘Say that again?’

  ‘You’ve talked to her. She’s a steely one. If her husband threatened to kick her son out of the house, that would weaken her own position in the family. Remember, he’d been married three times before and could easily go out and find a newer model.’