‘But, Pa, if you don’t intend to have anything more to do with her wasn’t it unkind to mislead her?’
‘I know. But can I help it if she’s besotted? She was a perfect pest, making scenes, insulting the warders and insisting on abusive interviews with the governor. She’s mad, I tell you. Supposing she does kill herself? Imagine what the press would say. It wouldn’t exactly help things.’
I forgave my father this egotistical view. I knew from experience how hard it is to think of others when you are miserable. I kissed him goodbye and promised to go immediately to the police station, to ask Inspector Foy how his investigations were progressing and to urge upon him my father’s pressing need to breathe the purer air of freedom.
The inspector greeted me as an old friend when I knocked on his door. His desk was piled with papers and half his filing cabinets were open. Both telephones began to ring the moment I went in but he assured me he was not in the least busy.
He dealt with the calls swiftly and then clapped the pockets of his jacket, searching for his pipe and pouch. ‘How do you think he’s bearing up?’
‘Considering everything, not too badly. But … you know.’ ‘Yes, I know. Even old lags can go stir-crazy.’
‘I don’t suppose there are any new developments?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m going through the statements of the cast again in case I’ve missed something. If we could only find a motive.’
‘You don’t think my father did it, do you?’
The inspector took a long pull on his pipe to get it going. The tobacco in the bowl glowed red. ‘The circumstantial evidence is very strong against him. But we all flatter ourselves that we’re good judges of character. I’ve met a good many murderers and I find it hard to believe your father’s a killer. But if your father didn’t hit him over the head with the gouger, who did? There was no other possible weapon and there are three witnesses to swear that there was no one else on the stage.’
‘According to Sir Basil it was a thunderstorm that killed him.’
‘What?’
I told the inspector about the séance. I made a joke of it and expected him to be amused or politely dismissive. But he listened very carefully to everything I could remember that Sir Basil had said, and then made me repeat it so he could write it all down.
‘Surely you don’t think there’s anything in it?’ I asked, when he fished out a battered copy of Shakespeare’s tragedies and attempted to pinpoint the actual quotations.
‘One thing I’ve learned in fifteen years of doing this job is that nothing’s too insignificant to be disregarded. We once brought in a conviction on a particular brand of cigarette paper. If nothing else, that woman’s probably a fraud and she ought to be stopped. I don’t suppose for a moment that it was Sir Basil’s perturbèd spirit. But this case is so lacking in leads of any kind I’d be prepared to analyse the lick on a stamp if only we had one.’
He asked a lot of questions about Mr Podmore and laughed when I told him about my first assignment for the Brixton Mercury. I felt cheered up as I always did after talking to him. I wondered, not for the first time, whether there was a Mrs Foy. If so, she was very fortunate to be married to someone who always seemed able to inspire confidence.
‘I don’t suppose there’s any news of Dex? I know a cat isn’t important when you’re dealing with murders and rapes and armed robberies but we do miss him dreadfully.’
‘We’ll get him sooner or later, don’t you worry. It just takes time in a place the size of London.’ I did not say that it might be too late for Mark Antony but the inspector must have read my thoughts. ‘Don’t forget, a dead cat is no use as a bargaining tool. I’m very surprised he’s made no attempt to contact you. You won’t be silly and try to deal with it yourselves, will you? Promise you’ll let me know straight away if Dex gets in touch?’
I promised.
Walking up The Avenue from the bus stop I saw a large and elegant car parked outside our house. The sole reporter who was hanging on despite the chill wind and the lateness of the hour, was peering in through one of the windows, admiring its interior.
‘Hello, Harriet,’ said Frank of the Scrutineer. We were on familiar terms with all the journalists by now. ‘How’s Dad?’
‘A bit fed up.’
‘I bet! It doesn’t seem right for a gent like your father to be banged up with the scum of society.’
‘Have you had some tea?’
‘Mr Mason brought me out a mug. It isn’t every day you get your cha served up by Bonnie Prince Charlie. He’s a good sort, I must say.’
‘Absolutely the best.’
‘He and your mum look a proper picture together in their veils and scarves and hats and whatnot. Why the cloak-and-dagger act?’
By this time I was standing on the top step looking for my keys. Indoors Dirk was turning himself into a canine battering ram. ‘Protection from cold winds. They’re as bad as too much sun for making wrinkles.’
‘My father, who’s a bit of a film buff, says Mr Mason and your mum saw a lot of one another in the fifties. Rumour was they ran off to the South of France together.’
‘He’s always been a close friend of the family.’
‘Come on, Harriet. Strictly off the record, he’s still holding a torch, isn’t he? You can tell, the way he talks to her. I like a bit of romance myself. There isn’t enough of it in this hard, cynical world. Cross my heart and hope to die, I wouldn’t publish anything.’
‘Their relationship is as brother and sister.’
I closed the front door behind me with a gracious smile. I had learned my lesson.
‘Hello, Hat,’ Cordelia was in the hall, carefully negotiating the Anubis hat stand with a tray of drinks. ‘Rupert’s here. And his friend.’ She opened her eyes and mouth wide and mimed astonishment. It was Archie’s first visit to our house. I would have liked to linger in the hall to compose a favourable account of our first week as members of the nation’s workforce but Dirk’s effusions made this impossible. I went into the drawing room with the same sensations of guilt and anxiety I had experienced when, as a schoolgirl, I had been summoned to Sister Imelda’s office.
Rupert, still wearing his overcoat, was standing by a window looking out, his shoulders hunched against the cold, while Archie walked up and down, flapping his arms. He was much shorter than Rupert. His arms and legs were spindly by contrast with his barrel-shaped trunk. He wore a three-piece suit in a bold black-and-white Prince of Wales check, with a watch chain stretched across his stomach. The upper parts of his shoes were covered by pale-yellow spats.
‘My God!’ Archie rolled his black eyes, which were made more striking by the white makeup that covered his face, from a pronounced widow’s peak to sharply pointed chin. ‘Now I know how a penguin feels when its flippers are frozen in the ice and it has a pyramid of snow on the top of its head.’ He spoke very rapidly, with exaggerated emphasis on key words and syllables.
‘I’m awfully sorry.’ I went to the fireplace and took the matches from behind the ormolu clock crowned by a pair of lovebirds, which had not kept time for years. ‘Ronnie says we must save money on central heating.’
‘When I told you to make economies I didn’t mean you to live like beggars.’ Rupert took the matches from my hand and kneeled to light the fire.
‘We keep our coats on in here nowadays. But most of the time we live in the kitchen.’
‘Want to borrow my scarf?’ Cordelia unwound it from her neck.
Archie held up the scarf between finger and thumb for inspection. It was knitted in garish stripes and had large holes in it. ‘Too sweet of you but I prefer to shudder. Did you rob a sleeping tramp, you naughty girl?’ He put his head on one side and smiled provocatively.
Cordelia giggled. ‘I made it myself in craft lessons at sch – last year,’ she amended.
‘Take my advice, dear girl, and give up the manual arts forthwith. Your talents lie elsewhere.’
‘Are you back at school yet
, Cordelia?’ asked Rupert, without turning round. He was busy piling logs on the kindling but it was clear nothing escaped him.
Cordelia began to trip towards the door. ‘I promised Ronnie I’d help him make the faggots for supper.’
Archie pursed his crimsoned lips. ‘Faggots! Oh, how horrid! All those little tubes and gristly bits. Teeth and claws and pancreatic juices. Surely you aren’t going to eat such beastliness?’
But Cordelia had gone.
‘I haven’t found a school, yet, that will take her at short notice,’ I said guiltily. ‘Sister Imelda refused to have her back. I’m afraid it was my fault. We had a row.’
Rupert stood up and brushed splinters of bark from his overcoat. Dirk evidently thought he wanted to play and sprang at him, placing two large paws on his chest, which made Rupert fall backwards and crack his elbow painfully against the marble chimneypiece. ‘Ah-ow! Damn! Get down, will you? He nursed his arm, glaring first at Dirk and then at me, as I tried to express my concern. ‘All right, there’s no need to fuss. I accept it was a playful gesture. Though why anyone should want to keep such an animal in London … Well, how’s the job?’
‘Going quite well. I’ve got a rise, actually. But it was a fluke and I expect I’m going to come unstuck. I nearly made a complete ass of myself but luckily it turned out in my favour.’
‘Tell all,’ instructed Archie, drawing a chair close to the fire. ‘And make it funny. You, sir,’ he looked sternly at Dirk, who was eyeing Archie’s shoes hungrily, ‘one drop of saliva on those and I shall personally drive you to the dog pound.’
I did my best to be amusing and Archie was a good audience. He gave a gasp of surprise when I described Slim’s sudden disappearance and a shout of laughter when I revealed his true identity. Rupert remained silent. He kept his eyes fixed on me with a gravity that I found discouraging and if it had not been for Archie’s expressed desire to be entertained I would have cut the whole thing short.
‘So what’s your first article going to be about?’ asked Rupert when I had finished my recital.
‘I haven’t any idea. Are London houses haunted? It seems rather a country thing somehow.’
‘Of course they are,’ said Archie. ‘Near the Vauxhall Bridge a bollard marks the spot where prisoners were kept until they could be loaded on ships and transported to Australia. One young woman threw herself into the water rather than be banished from her native shores. Not surprisingly, as her hands and feet were shackled, she drowned. Several people have claimed to have met her dripping figure. Apparently she glows with a green light.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Rupert. ‘The Thames in those days was little better than an open sewer.’
‘But that isn’t a building,’ I objected. ‘I don’t think it’ll count.’
‘There’s the Church of St Agnes and St Margaret in Cheapside, named after two young virgins who were beheaded in the fourteenth century. According to legend, on All Hallows Eve they play ninepins, with thigh-bones for skittles and their own skulls for balls.’
‘That might do. But I’m not sure if I can write about a church under the heading “Spook Hall”.’
‘You are hard to please,’ complained Archie. ‘All right. What about the Red Cow Inn at Cripplegate? Named after the landlord’s wife, who had hair of that colour and was a shrew. She discovered her husband ravishing the barmaid in the marital bed. She stabbed the girl with a poisoned bodkin, then accused him of the crime. He was hanged at Tyburn.’
‘That seems very unfair. Did the police just take her word for it?’
‘This was the eighteenth century, you ignorant girl. They didn’t have policemen. Only rather inefficient Bow Street Runners. The inn became famous for being haunted. The landlady got rich by charging visitors half a crown to see the bedroom where at certain hours of the day, the ghostly couple could be heard fornicating, hammer and tongs.’
‘What happened to the landlady?’
‘She got smallpox soon after and died in that very room, her last hours a torment because of the tiresome creaking and shaking of the bed and ghostly sniggers of carnal gratification. But it goes to show that sometimes crime does pay.’
‘It was hard on the barmaid.’
‘Don’t waste your pity, Harriet.’ Rupert was examining a Meissen shepherdess, which stood on the table beside him. ‘The whole thing is a fabrication. There are no such things as ghosts.’ He looked dismayed when the shepherdess’s head came off in his hand.
‘Please don’t worry,’ I said. ‘It was only stuck on with Gripfix.’ I took from Dirk the cushion he was chewing. ‘I would have been inclined to agree with you. About ghosts, I mean. Until two days ago.’
‘Oho!’ cried Archie. ‘Tell all, my frippet, and don’t delay. Make my jaw lock with terror.’
‘It isn’t as frightening as all that. Unless you were there.’
Archie listened to my account of the séance with rapt and solemn concentration.
‘Marvellous how clever people can be when it comes to chicanery,’ said Rupert dampeningly. ‘It never seems to occur to them to apply the same skills to a proper line of work for which they’d probably earn more money and be safe from the risk of prosecution.’ He frowned at the chimneypiece. ‘That clock wasn’t working ten years ago.’
‘Take no notice of Rupert,’ said Archie. ‘He’s a wet blanket but he can’t help it. There has been no benign female influence in his life. Being an orphan with a wicked grandmother has curdled his soul.’
I remembered then those times, long ago, when my mother had been unkind to Rupert. I think she was jealous because my father and Rupert were so fond of each other. On one occasion – I must have been four or five years old – I had clung to Rupert, in a storm of childish tears, while she lashed him with sarcasm. I had felt an overwhelming desire to protect him. Rupert had not been at all grateful for my sympathy. He had told me sharply not to be a little silly and that he didn’t mind a row. But the next day he had given me his old prep school belt that I had always coveted. It was navy and red striped elastic with a buckle shaped like an S, and I had it still, rolled up in the drawer of my desk. When I looked at him now, grown up, wise, impregnable, it was difficult to believe that he had once stood silent, head down, dark hair falling untidily over shuttered eyes, playing with a piece of cord from a broken window sash, while my mother scolded.
‘What about the others?’ asked Rupert. ‘How’s Bron’s career with Burlington Motors?’ I noticed that abrupt redirection of the conversation seemed to be a habit of his.
I was spared the necessity of varnishing the truth by the return of Cordelia, bearing a small parcel. ‘Look, Hat, this must have come by the afternoon post. It’s addressed to ‘MISBING’. Who does he mean, do you think?’
I took the parcel from her. From the number of crossings-out and readdressings on the dirty brown paper, it had been delivered all over London. Every word of the original address had been misspelt in an illiterate hand. With a presentiment of anguish, I ripped off the string. Out fell a piece of paper and a ginger tail. Cordelia closed her eyes, clenched her fists, and began to scream. I put my hand over my mouth to quell the rising nausea.
‘Oh, oh!’ I cried through falling tears. ‘Mark Antony! Oh, no! The – bastard! How could he! His beautiful tail!’
Archie skipped over to the window, putting as much distance between himself and the dreadful object as possible. ‘You mean – is that part of an animal? I feel faint.’
Dirk, perceiving that the hank of fur was responsible for this aberrant human behaviour, seized it and shook it violently.
‘Let go, you stupid creature!’ Rupert wrested it from him and examined it. ‘Be quiet, all of you! You’re behaving like idiots. This is clearly part of something long dead, probably a fox tippet. It smells of mothballs. See for yourselves.’
He held it towards me. Trembling with horror, I forced myself to look at it. My legs grew weak with relief.
‘It’s all right, Cordelia.’ I
tried to grab her hands but she broke away, yelling hysterically. ‘It isn’t Mark Antony’s tail. Honestly, it’s darker and much coarser. Look!’
I showed her the battered and now damp piece of fur but she kept her eyes shut and only bawled more loudly.
‘She’s hysterical,’ said Rupert, and struck her, none too gently, on the cheek. Cordelia stopped crying and stood blinking with shock. I put my arms round her and pulled her down next to me on the sofa.
‘Are you certain it isn’t a recently severed limb?’ Archie eyed the tail with distrust.
Rupert was examining the note. ‘This is indecipherable.’
‘Let me try.’ I said. ‘I’m familiar with the style.’
BRING2000KWIDTOTHEHATEBELZWOPPING-NARSKFORDEXIFYUTELTHEFUZILRINGITSNEK
‘He must mean the Eight Bells pub in Wapping,’ I said, after some thought. ‘Oh dear!’ My mind raced round possible outcomes. ‘I haven’t got two thousand pounds. I haven’t even got twenty. But supposing he means it about wringing Mark Antony’s neck?’ I had a sick feeling as I said the words and Cordelia squealed.
Rupert gave her a flinty look. ‘Don’t start that again.’
‘I promised Inspector Foy if I heard from Dex I’d let him know at once. Oh, what shall I do?’
Rupert took the letter from my hand. ‘We can call at the police station on our way home. I’ll tell the inspector for you. Let me have this week’s bills and we’ll be off.’
‘I haven’t finished my drink,’ protested Archie. ‘Damn it, it’s a very good Pouilly Fuissé.’
Rupert held up the bottle. ‘An excellent year. I don’t think Waldo will be pleased to find you’ve been offering his best wines to all and sundry. I’ll get my wine merchant to send you something suitable for drinking every day.’
I was too anxious about Mark Antony to be properly grateful. ‘It must mean he’s still alive, mustn’t it?’
Clouds among the Stars Page 22
