The Heartbreaker
Page 9
My difficulty here has always been the lack of a lever which would coax Elizabeth to open up further about what really happened in 1990. I’ll get nowhere by just saying: “Hey, I need more information to ensure I take St. Benet’s seriously in future.” Elizabeth’s left me in no doubt about how seriously I should take St. Benet’s and as far as she’s concerned there’s nothing further I need to know. Where the truth’s concerned about the fiasco of 1990, she’ll short-change me until she’s blue in the face.
Suddenly I have a brainwave. It’s the word “short-change,” reminding me of the threat she’s just made about Asherton.
Tentatively, very tentatively I say: “Darling, there’s something that’s puzzling me. I couldn’t help noticing that Asherton was as alarmed as you were when the subject of St. Benet’s cropped up. Was he somehow involved too in the fiasco of 1990?”
The question works. Shit, she’s thinking, that’s a complication I don’t need, better toss him an explanation that’ll shut him up.
Idly, willing to be cosy again after the big blast, she says: “Get me another glass of sherry, will you, dear? I think it’s best if I finally tell you everything.”
She won’t, of course.
But I bet she cooks up the helluva story.
Before I get to Elizabeth’s story-cooking in 1992, here’s the story she cooked up for me in 1990 after she’d been forced to abandon her business as a psychic healer in Fulham, ditch the alternative identity she’d used there and shut herself up in the Lambeth house until it was safe to emerge for plastic surgery.
Things went wrong (said Elizabeth in 1990) when one of the clients who came to her for healing accused her of being a fraud. Of course the client was mentally ill and of course facing false accusations is an occupational hazard for all healers, even doctors, but Elizabeth was still shocked. She was even more shocked when the nutso client chugged along to the well-known St. Benet’s Healing Centre and shot his mouth off to the Rector who then took the most unjustifiable step (said Elizabeth) of tipping off the police. Fearing persecution despite her innocence (ran the fairy-tale) she decided she had no choice but to disappear before the wicked police started trampling around investigating her affairs. Even though her businesses were all legitimate (said Elizabeth) the bad publicity would wreck my leisure-working, then heading for the financial stratosphere. So it was better that Mrs. Elizabeth Mayfield, psychic healer, should cease to exist in order that Mrs. Elizabeth Delamere could continue her law-abiding and blameless career. The big advantage of running two identities in tandem (said Elizabeth) was that if one of them went tits-up the other was always available as a safe haven, but she’d never forgive that villain Darrow at St. Benet’s for depriving countless suffering people of her exceptional skills as a healer.
Well, even back in 1990 I took this story with a pinch of salt but naturally I wasn’t so dumb as to query it. Something serious had without doubt been going on—no one ditches an identity and resorts to major plastic surgery without a strong motivation—but I decided straight away to give her my total support. I loved Elizabeth and I owed her everything. I didn’t need to know her goriest secrets because I was going to stay loyal to her whatever she’d done.
So much for 1990.
Today in 1992 I’m as loyal to her as ever, but I’m also older, sharper, tougher and keener to take risks in order to have a fun time. Carta Graham’s a risk and shagging her would give me a big buzz, but I’m not stupid and I know I’ve got to assess this risky behaviour very carefully— which is why I’m now so determined to find out more about what really went on back in 1990 . . .
“Well, dear,” says Elizabeth, taking a dainty little sip from her refilled glass of sweet sherry in September 1992, “this is what really happened. The fact is that back in 1990 I saw no need to tell you that Asherton was involved. You and I hadn’t been working together for long, had we, and although you were doing so well you might still have wound up disappointing me just as Jason and Tony did. Much better, I thought, if you weren’t told anything you didn’t need to know.”
Jason and Tony were my predecessors who had failed to stay the course and been sacked. I was a case of third time lucky.
“So how was Asherton involved?” I ask, keen to gloss over my fragile status in 1990 and get to the shitty-gritty.
“The trouble centred around a member of GOLD.”
I’m hooked. I’d been assuming Asherton was tied in through his S&M group, not through that weird society of his which specialises in pseuds’-corner religion.
“The member of GOLD who triggered the fiasco,” says Elizabeth, rolling out the information with a theatrical sigh, “was a man called Betz, B-E-T-Z. He was a naturalised Brit but born a Kraut, and he worked for an investment bank in the City. I’d known him a long time—in fact I was the one who introduced him to Asherton—and in 1990 he was treasurer of GOLD.”
“And what did he get up to?”
“No good, is the short answer, dear. In the late eighties he ran into serious problems in his private life and consulted me not just as a friend but as a healer. In fact he only knew me in my healer’s identity, which I ran parallel to my present identity for longer than you’ve probably imagined. I used to operate out of a room near here in Lambeth before I went upmarket across the river in Fulham . . . But the point I’m making is that Betz only knew me as Elizabeth Mayfield, so when the fiasco blew up in 1990 no one around Betz except Asherton knew I was also Elizabeth Delamere. It was the crucial factor in allowing me to disappear without trace.”
“But if Betz was the treasurer of GOLD, didn’t he have access to your Delamere name and address?”
“I told Asherton to keep it from him. As a consultant to GOLD on occult matters I’m paid a fee, of course, but as soon as Betz started signing the cheques I had the fees directed to one of my Mayfield accounts.”
“But mightn’t he have heard about the Delamere identity from someone else at GOLD?”
“No, because apart from Asherton the members either knew me as Mrs. Mayfield or else they didn’t know my surname at all. As the occult consultant I was addressed at meetings simply as Madame Elizabeth . . . But let me go back to Betz. When he consulted me again in the late eighties I soon realised that this time he was too unstable to respond to any therapy I could offer, and after he’d insisted on marrying a thoroughly unsuitable second wife, I could see the fiasco coming. To cut a long story short, I’ll just say he had a nervous breakdown and killed himself.”
“Wow—big scandal!” I’m trying to work out whether the severe editing necessary to cut a long story short means that a fiction’s beginning, but I think my straining ears can still catch the ring of truth.
“Oh, it was much worse than a mere scandal, dear! By the most malign coincidence, the new second wife—a real bitch if ever there was one—knew someone connected with St. Benet’s and she complained to bloody Darrow.”
“You mean there really was someone who complained about you?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t a nutty client, as I told you in 1990—it was this interfering bitch.”
“So this naughty totty lit the fuse to the St. Benet’s keg of dynamite and—”
“Naughty totty? You make her sound like a teenage tart! She was a lying, scheming businesswoman who pulled down a six-figure salary, and when she said I was a fraudulent healer who was responsible for her husband’s breakdown and suicide, everyone believed her! I can still hardly believe she said such dreadful things about me—I can’t tell you how much help I’d given that husband of hers over the years! Was it my fault that in the end she seduced him and cut him off from me so that he went totally out of control?”
I see a dull glow on the horizon and I know it’s the truth fading out of sight. Trying to lasso it before it disappears I ask: “So after Mrs. Betz complained to Darrow he tipped off the police, just as you said originally?”
“Well, because of the suicide the coroner was involved and the police were cluttering up the la
ndscape anyway, but they would never have known about me if Darrow hadn’t supported the bitch’s claim that the fiasco was all my fault. I thought his behaviour was disgraceful, but of course he was biased against me because as a New Age practitioner I was a rival to him in his own healing business. Jealousy’s a very terrible thing,” says Elizabeth righteously, “and there’s nothing more wicked than a jealous Christian priest bent on persecuting the innocent.”
The truth’s sunk far below the horizon by this time but I keep up the struggle to keel-haul it back. “And meanwhile Asherton was shitting bricks because—”
“—because he was terrified that the police would uncover GOLD and use the link with Betz to justify a search of Asherton’s house in Westminster. God only knows what that would have turned up, but when you think of his SM group . . .”
Elizabeth always refers to Asherton’s favourite hobby as “SM” instead of “S&M.” She says that’s the way it was when she was young, and people today have quite forgotten that the practice isn’t sadism-and-masochism but sado-masochism.
“So what you’re saying is,” I persist, battling away to keep the truth in view, “the police would still like to talk to you about the Betz case, and this would be bad news for Asherton as well as you.”
“Yes, dear. You see, innocent though both Asherton and I are in relation to the Betz fiasco, Asherton’s even more vulnerable to police nosiness than I am since that SM group generates his video business and we all know hard-core porn can be a bit iffy. But Asherton’s only catering to a genuine human need, of course. He’s ever so well-meaning when you get to know him.”
The truth’s sunk below the horizon again but this time it’s fallen into a black hole and it’s heading for another galaxy. Mentally reeling in my busted keel-haul rope I take one last pot shot at any truth-fragments which might still be floating around. “Was Betz a member of the S&M group as well as a member of GOLD?”
“For a short time, yes, but he dropped out. When it came to SM he preferred to be a loner on the prowl.”
“You mean the new wife knew that but married him anyway?”
“Of course not, dear, he kept mum because he thought that marrying the bitch would cure him! But it was quite the wrong therapy, and I told him right from the start it would all end in tears—in fact I even had a psychic premonition about it . . .”
I tune out. I don’t believe in psychic premonitions. They’re just a way for smart operators like Elizabeth to make their shrewd guesses sound plausible.
This concludes the conversation on Bad-News Betz, but although I’m sure Elizabeth’s done another classy editing job, I believe I really do know more now than I did before.
I want to run off at once and reassess the risk factor in shagging Frosty-Puss, but I know I have to act cool, implying the new information satisfied my curiosity and isn’t of any major importance to me. Making the required effort I tune in again to Elizabeth, who’s now saying she’s recently had a new psychic premonition, this time in the form of bad vibes about Richard.
“You mean because you felt he was losing it where I was concerned?” I enquire seriously. I’ve long since learned not to snigger when she goes psychic on me.
“I’m sure the infatuation contributed to my uneasiness, but the premonition embraced more than that. I felt he was going to trigger some big disaster for me, just as Betz did when he married that bitch who hooked herself up with St. Benet’s . . . But I see now I could have misinterpreted those vibes. Maybe what I was picking up was Slaney’s St. Benet’s connection, and that was reminding me on an unconscious level of the Betz fiasco.”
This is obviously not the moment to ask if I can go to Richard’s funeral. She might decide she has a psychic vibe telling her not to let me go. Focusing instead on the explanation I gave her earlier to cover my visit to Richard’s flat I change the subject by saying idly: “I had a wasted trip to Oxford Street tonight—that place is a bloody scrum when there’s late-night shopping, and I didn’t buy a thing.”
“What a shame! And why, may I ask, did you feel it necessary to wear your brand-new Armani suit for a mere shopping expedition?”
“Hoped I’d get lucky and hit on a babe I can shag this weekend!”
To my relief she smiles. “You’d better run along and have your supper,” she murmurs indulgently, but when I try to kiss her the smile vanishes. “No, I’m not feeling too affectionate tonight, dear,” she says, averting her face. “You were a very silly boy, embarrassing me like that in front of Asherton, and I’m still feeling more than a little put out.”
I trudge upstairs to get fed.
Nigel the valet-housekeeper’s waiting with my dinner. He’s about fiveseven, thin as a whippet, and he has one of those faces which are all eyes and no chin. His hair’s wild. He has it permed and it froths around his head like a black halo. His eyes are a moist green, like grass after heavy rain. His London accent has been ironed into something more neutral: cockney with the corners rubbed off.
“Hi, Gav.”
I grunt.
“Shall I dish up or—”
“Dish.”
He dishes. It’s pork casserole with rice and a salad. Delicious. We have an eat-in kitchen in the part of the house we share, and I like to shovel down dinner at the table while reading the Evening Standard.
Nigel retires to the living-room to watch TV but returns to serve up the rest of the meal: Eve’s pudding with custard. “Anything else, Gav?”
I finish my single glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. “Nah.” That’s me adopting a more neutral accent: Surrey with the fringe ironed out.
“Bad day?”
“Elizabeth’s pissed off with me at the moment.”
“Oh, that won’t last!”
“It seems like it’s already lasted a week—I can’t believe it only began when I got home this evening. I walk in and who do I find slimeballing around her living-room? Bloody Asherton.”
Nigel recoils. “What did he want?”
“He was talking to Elizabeth about this rich new client who I’ve got lined up for next Tuesday, so maybe the financial prospects were under discussion. Anyway, Elizabeth gets angry with me over something and Asherton makes me shit bricks and all I can think afterwards is fucking hell, what a fucking awful day.”
“There’s football on Sky Sports tonight—or there’s even kick boxing on Eurosport. I could watch with you if you wanted company.”
“Dear old friend . . .” I started calling Nigel that occasionally after he told me he didn’t have any old friends because whenever he made a friend he soon got dumped. “Thanks for the offer, mate,” I say, finally pulling myself together, “but I think I’ll listen to Wagner instead.”
“Oh, that’ll cheer you up! You’re always better after opera.” He closes the dishwasher. “Shall I turn this on or do you want to stay longer in here?”
“Turn it on.”
He pushes the button. The machine roars. Nigel and I go our separate ways.
Nigel’s right—after a dose of opera I do feel better. On an impulse I pass up Wagner and listen to Tosca, currently playing at Covent Garden with Zubin Mehta (always at his best in Puccini) conducting. It’s had rave reviews and everyone says Pavarotti’s on grade-A form. I’ve managed to get a ticket for later this month. Can’t wait to go.
Can’t wait to shag Frosty-Puss either, and now at last I have the chance to do some serious risk-assessing. Carefully I start to pick over Elizabeth’s brand-new version of the 1990 mess. I can now follow her example and call it the Betz fiasco after its doomed anti-hero.
Although much of what Elizabeth said was just a variation on her poor-innocent-little-me-going-it-alone-in-the-leisure-industry song (which is pretty gross, considering the kind of money she must have stashed in the Caymans as the result of all her successful ventures) there are a few new nuggets of information nestling among the garbage and I suspect that underneath all the fantasy and the euphemisms the real story goes something like this:
But Elizabeth and Asherton had another lucky break, didn’t they? Betz dived off the twig. In fact this is so lucky that I’m tempted to think . . . no, I’m not. Asherton’s not interested in topping people. He’s into pain, not death—death’s when all the fun stops. Nigel and I joke sometimes about Asherton making snuff movies for his video business, but we’re just resorting to black humour to soothe our nerves. And of course Elizabeth would never kill anyone either, she’d say murder was an unacceptable risk. No, Elizabeth wouldn’t have knocked off Betz, especially when she would have known that any kind of dive Betz took from the twig would cause her trouble.
I pause. My interpretation of her newly edited reminiscences seems to be panning out—or is it? I’m sure I’m on the right track in theorising that Betz committed a serious crime connected with his S&M habit— only something really heavy in the background could explain why Elizabeth and Asherton are still so nervy about the events of 1990. But the problem’s this: surely after Betz is dead and the coroner’s court has produced the suicide verdict, the police would close the case? Why is Elizabeth so convinced that the police would turn back to the Betz fiasco if they found her? Maybe we are talking murder here—the file on an unsolved murder always stays open. If Betz was a murderer . . . yes, now everything’s certainly adding up. And don’t forget that I only have Elizabeth’s word that his S&M disaster wasn’t connected with Asherton’s S&M group. Maybe it was. And maybe both Asherton and Elizabeth became accessories after the fact as they tried to cover up the crime in order to protect themselves.