One May Smile

by Penny Freedman

  ‘I didn’t. I was just responding to you. You didn’t enjoy academic work. You got bored.’

  ‘I got bored because I didn’t think I could be the best so I didn’t bother trying.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry. I apologise for not recognising your thwarted genius and for nearly condemning you to a life of mediocrity.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’re not sorry, of course, because you think you’re perfect, don’t you? Thank God for Dad, is all I can say. At least he believes in me.’

  ‘And you’re happy, are you?’ I demand. ‘You’re enjoying life as an academic high flyer? Because you don’t look happy to me. You look thin and pale and your hair’s lank and I’ve barely seen you smile during this last year.’

  ‘There are more important things than being happy. There’s achievement and success. If I get those, then I’ll be happy.’

  ‘No, you won’t! You’ll –’

  ‘I will. I will!’

  Suddenly tears are streaming down her face and she stumbles off towards the beach. There is no point in following her, so I turn to go indoors, but Zada is coming out.

  She peers at me. ‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

  ‘Sort of.’ I attempt a cheery smile.

  ‘Nobody’s quite sure what happened today. I know Ray’s been arrested. Someone said he attacked you. Is that true?’

  ‘It is but I’m over that. I’m just recovering from a wound to the heart – or maybe just the pride.’

  She looks out towards the beach, where Annie is sitting on a rock looking out to sea. ‘You two had a row?’

  ‘I tried to ruin her life, apparently.’

  ‘You know what Oscar Wilde says.’

  ‘Children begin by loving their parents –’

  ‘– As they get older they judge them. Sometimes they forgive them.’

  ‘Yes, thank you for that. I think there’s a further stage, actually. Forgiven or not, there’s a point where your parents become just irrelevant. My mother has. What she did or didn’t do really doesn’t matter any more. We’re probably not truly grown up until we get to the point of feeling that about our parents.’

  ‘I can’t imagine feeling that.’

  ‘No? Well, if Annie can’t forgive me then irrelevance is the best I can hope for. Intimations of failure are rushing in on me, Zada. Failed wife, failed mother, failed girlfriend/lover/partner/significant other.’

  ‘I only caught a glimpse of your man. He seemed nice.’

  ‘He is. But I treat him badly,’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s the question.’

  There are a couple of wrought iron chairs further along the terrace and I move to sit down. Zada follows me. ‘I was married for fifteen years to an overbearing man,’ I say, ‘and –’

  Zada interrupts. ‘I must say, I don’t care much for him. A bit smarmy, the way he was all over Mummy. I don’t think you should blame yourself for failure there.’

  ‘Well, anyway, the only way not to get trampled on was to fight about everything. And it became a habit. And now I can’t stop doing it, even with David.’

  She laughs. ‘Of course you can! You’ve analysed the problem – now fix it. You’re a clever woman – don’t tell me you can’t do that.’

  ‘Annie’s not happy,’ I say. ‘And she says it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It’s funny to hear you call her Annie. I can’t think of her as Annie.’

  ‘Another mistake of mine.’

  ‘Well, I’m not really the person to talk to about her. We have a complicated relationship. I stole Adam from her and now she seems to have got my Jon. So she ought to be happy is all I can say.’

  ‘Will you be happy?’

  ‘Oh yes. Babies will make me happy.’ She stands up. ‘Talking of which, Mrs Failure, Freda seems pretty keen on you. You haven’t screwed that up yet.’

  She pats me on the shoulder and trots back inside.

  I watch Annie for a while, debating whether to go down and try to mend fences, but it’s actually she who makes the first move. She comes slowly up the beach and sits down beside me.

  ‘It was a bad time to hit you with that today,’ she says without looking at me. ‘After what happened to you. Sorry.’

  I start to laugh. ‘There would have been a good time?’ I ask, and her face relaxes into a glimmer of an answering smile.

  *

  I don’t go back for pudding and the warm embrace of Artos Petrosian. I haul myself upstairs and put myself to bed, stopping only to write a note for David and leave it in his toilet bag, where he will find it when he goes to clean his teeth.

  20

  DAY NINE

  And in the upshot purposes mistook,

  Fall’n on the inventors’ heads. 5.2

  I am so used to waking these mornings and finding David up and about and breakfast awaiting me, that I’m taken aback today to wake and find him still slumbering beside me. The electronic figures of the clock on the bedside table tell me it is 08.55. I shake him awake.

  ‘The Wagners,’ I say urgently as soon as he opens his eyes. ‘Their plane’s leaving at ten thirty. You have to catch him before he leaves the hotel.’

  He lies there looking at me. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Didn’t you say Ray doesn’t admit to killing Conrad? Then I’m sure I’m right about what happened – I’ve known for days – but I’ve got no proof – everything’s circumstantial. But I’ve got a question to ask Jacob Wagner and if I’m right about the answer then Anders Mortensen will have to see that my theory fits.’

  ‘Gina, as far as he’s concerned it’s case closed. They’ve all got their passports back. They’re going home. If you think someone else is –’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Won’t make any difference. But Ray didn’t do it and it could make a difference to him. He’s a lunatic but he’s got a right to justice like anyone else.’

  He sits up. ‘So what is it you want me to do?’

  ‘Go down to breakfast. Find Jacob Wagner. Ask him this question.’ I grab the complimentary hotel notepad and biro from beside the bed, and write down my question. I fold it over and write my answer on the other side. ‘There you are, the question inside and my answer on the back.’

  ‘Can I just ask,’ he says, swinging his legs out of bed, ‘why you can’t put the question yourself?’

  ‘Because Anders Mortensen will pay attention if you do it. And I think you’ll have to do it as a policeman. It’s such a weird question to be asking him now that there’s no way of normalising it. I’ve thought about it but I can’t see any way I could go up to him while he’s eating his scrambled eggs and say, Oh by the way I was just wondering…’

  He opens the sheet of paper and reads my question. ‘I see what you mean,’ he says, ‘but it’s hardly a police question either.’

  ‘You’ll manage,’ I say. ‘I have faith in you.’

  *

  After he has gone I check the bedside clock again – 09.15 – and I notice, lying beside it, my phone, wrapped in a plastic bag. David must have left it there last night. With it is my scrawled note from last night with a response from David – one word, forgiven – written underneath. OK, Zada? How am I doing?

  I take a look at my phone and find I have a number of messages, mostly advertising things and all now redundant. Among my missed calls, however, are two from Mr Christodoulou. It really seems too late to follow up on them now but I’m still nagged by the oddity of his wanting to thank me. There is something undeniably ominous about that. I dial a different number.

  ‘The Vice-Chancellor’s office.’ Janet sounds as brisk as ever, vacation or not.

  ‘Janet? Gina Gray.’

  I think I hear a muffled something or other before she says, ‘Oh Gina. Hello. Having a good holiday?’

  ‘Eventful. Look, Janet, what’s going on with Anastasia Christodoulou? I’ve had a very weird conversation with her father but we got cut off and my phone’s been – inaccessible and I
haven’t been able to phone him back.’

  ‘You haven’t read my email then?’

  ‘Email? No. I’ve been reading my home emails but I haven’t logged on to work emails.’

  ‘Ah. Right,’ she says ominously.

  ‘So what does it say?’

  ‘Ah. Well, the thing is, Gina, Anastasia’s going to repeat the foundation year course.’

  ‘She’s what? But it was a decision of the examiners’ board that there were no grounds for her being allowed to repeat the year. She failed everything as well as cheating.‘

  ‘The Vice-Chancellor felt that too much had been made of that aspect. He wasn’t persuaded that she intended to cheat.’

  ‘Wasn’t persuaded? Who persuaded him otherwise?’

  ‘Well he had a meeting with Mr Christodoulou and –’

  ‘How much?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How much was the bribe? What does the college get?’

  ‘A generous donation to a conference centre,’ she says.

  ‘A conference centre? Where are they going to put it? There’s not a square inch of the campus that hasn’t been built on.’

  ‘We’ve bought St Aidan’s playing field. It’s very convenient, just on the edge of the campus.’

  ‘Good God! Are they still allowed to sell off school playing fields? Whatever happened to the Olympic legacy and the war on childhood obesity?’

  She doesn’t offer an answer.

  ‘Put me through to him, Janet. I want to talk to him.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why? Where is he?’

  ‘He’s – here. But he won’t talk to you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He told me he didn’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He said, And don’t let that bloody woman anywhere near me. I don’t want to see her and I don’t want to have her shouting at me down the phone.’

  ‘Oh, did he? Well you tell him that he can’t hide forever. I will get him and he’s never going to know when it will be. Have you got that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of all the –‘

  ‘Gina.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s fair, do you, because you can’t shout at him to shout at me?’

  ‘No. Sorry Janet. The man’s a puny coward and it’s not your fault. What exactly did Christodoulou get in exchange for his conference centre, do you know?’

  ‘Well a second chance, obviously. I think there was an arrangement about accommodation, too. The girl wasn’t happy with hers last year, if you remember.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘And permission to park on campus. And –’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And she requested not to be taught by you.’

  ‘Halleluya! Not all bad news then.’

  ‘What I don’t understand is Greece is supposed to be bankrupt, isn’t it? How come he has this sort of money to throw around?’

  ‘I think you’ll find that Greece is bankrupt precisely because people like Christodoulou build conference centres in far away places rather than paying their income tax.’

  ‘Right. Well, enjoy the rest of your holiday, Gina.’

  ‘I will. And, Janet, spit in his coffee for me, will you?’

  *

  I am still recovering from this conversation when David returns but the expression on his face brings me back to the matters of the moment.

  ‘Did you find him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And yes, you were right about the answer. And I’m beginning to see where it leads you.’

  ‘Good.’ I’m out of bed and on my way to the bathroom. ‘Then come with me to Anders Mortensen and help me make my case.’

  ‘Am I allowed breakfast first? It’s a good spread down there?’

  *

  Replete with fruit, cheese, ham, a variety of breads, yoghourt, croissants eaten with rather strange jam and pints of coffee, we get in the car and head for the police station. David is by now up to speed on my theory and has phoned Anders Mortensen to tell him we’re coming.

  Mortensen looks less than delighted to see us, however, and I can understand why. It has been a troublesome and tiresome case; he got the wrong man and now he’s got the right one and he would like to leave it at that. He was quite friendly after I was rescued yesterday, because I was a victim of sorts, but he resents my amateur meddling and he would like me to go home. I try to be as brisk as possible.

  ‘I don’t believe that Ray Porter killed Conrad,’ I say, as soon as we’re settled in his office, ‘and I don’t think you’ll ever pin it on him. I have two starting points; one is that no-one saw anyone except Conrad near the car at the time when the brakes must have been cut; the other is that his father believed that Conrad was going to be playing the part of Hamlet. David checked that with him this morning.’

  Mortensen takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes wearily. ‘One of the most difficult aspects of this case,’ he says, ‘is the significance that everyone gives to the performance of this play – a play acted by students for what – three or four evenings?’

  ‘Well, you do have to accept that, I’m afraid. For some of them it was just a jaunt, but for some – Adam and Conrad especially – it meant everything. They saw it as the start of their careers.’

  ‘OK. So what follows from this?’

  ‘Conrad was desperate to play Hamlet. I’ve seen emails he sent to the director, begging for the part, and then when that didn’t work he tried blackmail, but that was no good either because Karin wouldn’t play. And then, just when he had to accept that he wasn’t going to get the part, he got a text from his father saying he was coming to see the show. I saw the text and I saw how Conrad reacted when the text arrived. He threw his phone out into the garden.’

  ‘Where you picked it up, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes. And I thought his father was being sarcastic. It said, Send dates and times. Will stop off on way home from Edinburgh. Can’t miss you in such a great role. You can’t by any stretch call Rosencrantz a great role. Claudius, perhaps, or even Laertes or Horatio at a pinch, but not Rosencrantz. He’s a kind of joke. Always yoked to Guildenstern – nobody can tell them apart. They’re bywords for nonentities. Jacob Wagner must have thought Conrad was playing Hamlet, and the only reason why he would think that was because Conrad told him so.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Ah, this is where some amateur psychology comes in, I’m afraid. I think Conrad was desperate to impress his father. His parents divorced when he was very young, his father has married again several times and there are several more children. Conrad never saw much of him. He was sent off to school in England and sometimes didn’t even go back to the US for the holidays. What boy with a powerful, rich, famous, absent father doesn’t want to make his father notice him and be proud of him? Conrad was determined that he was going to be a great actor and make his father proud. And along came an opportunity – Hamlet at Elsinore. When you’re here, you realise it’s not such a big deal at all – just a bunch of students performing to tourists – but it seemed like a big deal to them. And I guess Conrad really felt that he was Hamlet, with his father’s spirit looming over him. He was convinced he would get the part – even dyed his hair blond like Olivier in the film. Have you seen it? Well, never mind. Anyway, I guess he was so convinced that he told his father he was doing it. And it wouldn’t have mattered. His father would never have known that he wasn’t except that Conrad hadn’t reckoned with the Edinburgh Film Festival. And actually it’s quite surprising that Jacob Wagner was there – it’s not Cannes – but he was, so he was just a hop away in his private plane, ready to see his boy being a star.’

  I pause for breath; Mortensen is making notes. He looks up. ‘I suppose
you have a scenario for what happened next?’

  ‘I do. Conrad was in a desperate situation – he was facing being completely humiliated – so he took desperate measures. If he could get rid of James, he could play the part. He regarded himself as the understudy – he told the director that – and he was probably deluded enough to have learnt the lines. I should have seen that he was plotting something – we all should, really. He had been vile to James, chipping away at him, really undermining him at rehearsals, and then suddenly he was all friendly, suggesting, of all things, that James came and helped him work on the car he’d hired. We all felt it was odd. I’m sure James did too. He told Conrad he knew nothing about cars, but Conrad insisted, and I guess James was happy for any respite from the carping so he went along with it. So they spent the morning together, Conrad tinkering with the car and James sitting around passing the occasional spanner, I suppose – at least, that’s what they were doing when we went to call them to lunch. And then – I guess you know what happened then. James must have told you.’

  ‘His story was that Wagner suddenly got angry about the way he was treating Sophie Forrester. Wagner, it seems, had agreed to drive her to a clinic that afternoon in København, for a termination of her pregnancy, but he told Asquith that he was the one who should do it.’

  ‘And he stormed off and told him to get on with it.’

  ‘Exactly.’