Ten minutes later, when they were drinking fragrant smoky Lapsang Souchong from thin porcelain cups and Lois was leaning back looking a little more relaxed, she said abruptly, “I suppose, having told you so much, you’ve a right to know the rest.”
Alex studied the shadowy outline of the cup’s pattern which showed through on the inside like blue veins under white skin. There was something to be said for Lois’s contention that good tea tasted better from delicate porcelain, and strong, milky breakfast coffee from a huge, dark green Continental cup. Gil found attitudes like this precious, but perhaps the thick white all-purpose cups they used down at the station did account for the all-purpose taste of any liquid poured into them. She looked at Lois and said, “Not if you don’t want to tell me. And as long as you understand that I can’t keep anything that’s relevant to myself.”
“There isn’t anything relevant as you call it, my love, not really. I scarcely knew the first thing about Rupert Fleming, if you want the truth, unless you count knowing that he was selfish and egotistical to a degree I’ve rarely met in anyone before. He really was a cold-hearted devil, though he could be charming when he wanted – God, couldn’t he just! – but it was all a big act. Oddly enough, he couldn’t act at all on stage. They tried him in several parts but he was a complete fiasco. I’ve sometimes thought it was as if he was permanently acting a part in real life and felt if he let himself go on stage he’d reveal the real Rupert.”
“What a horror you make him sound! And yet – ?” Alex stopped, not quite knowing how to put it.
“And yet we had this thing going for us, is that what you’re trying to say? Well, chemistry, what else? Sheer animal magnetism, and I’m not over it yet, though given a few more weeks and I would’ve been, I daresay. I really didn’t like him very much, you know. To be honest – he frightened me sometimes. And I frightened myself because I couldn’t tell him to keep away. My God, I’ve never thought I was one of those women ...”
“What do you mean, he frightened you?”
“I don’t know.” Lois looked deep into her cup, as if the answer lay there. “I felt as though I’d never really know him, that no one would. I couldn’t understand why he hung around the theatre, for instance ...”
“That was where you met him?”
“Yes. There didn’t seem to be anything in it for him. He couldn’t act, as I’ve said, and he wasn’t involved in the production in any other way. And he definitely wasn’t the sort to waste himself. Then I began to wonder if he and our dear Arts Director weren’t up to something.”
“Cockayne?”
“Ashleigh Cockayne, if you can believe a name like that. Just designed for a Sir in the next Honours list, isn’t it? Too bad he’ll never make it,” she said acidly, adding, too hastily for Alex’s liking, as though she regretted having gone so far but realized she couldn’t fairly back down at this point. “Don’t ask me what was going on, I haven’t a clue ... but they were down there together all hours, and there was something unspoken running between them. I can’t explain it better than that. It was simply a feeling I had.”
“Did you speak to anyone about this?”
“Theatre people, even amateurs, aren’t the sort who ever actually listen when you want to talk. They’re too wrapped up in themselves and too conscious of the impression they’re making. But someone mentioned it to me – that nice young policewoman of yours, Janet Lindsay. She hinted – oh, very discreetly – that she’d wondered too.”
“Janet? Good heavens, I didn’t realize Janet fancied herself as an actress! Really?”
Alex tried to visualise the calm, matter-of-fact young Scottish W.P.C. with her smoothly pinned-up fair hair giving her all to a part in a Renaissance tragedy, and failed.
“She doesn’t act. She helps behind the scenes and prompts, that sort of thing. They call her the Assistant Stage Manager on the programmes, which means general dogsbody, but she seems to enjoy it.”
“And?”
“What do you mean, and?”
“And what else?”
“There is nothing else. What else should there be, for God’s sake?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said. But she did know her sister, and wondered.
If, for instance, Lois had yet gone beyond the shock of hearing of Rupert’s death and its effect on her emotionally and come to the realization of what her connection with the dead man might really mean to the police.
The next morning W.P.C. Janet Lindsay woke up feeling rather put out, unusual for her. Her natural inclination and her police training combined to make her normally calm and unruffled at all times. Most times. But really, she did think Mitch might have met her at the airport.
She hoped he wasn’t sulking because she’d resolutely refused to cancel her pre-arranged holiday in Rhodes with Kate and go skiing with him, though sulkiness had never been part of Andrew Mitchell’s make-up ... and she’d been so certain that she’d succeeded in getting him round to her way of thinking. He’d agreed that of course she couldn’t let Kate down, miserable as she was after that rotten divorce ... after all, he and Janet hadn’t even been going out together when the holiday with Kate had been arranged, months ago. He’d eventually settled, cheerfully enough she’d thought, on spending the first week of his leave near Klosters, on his own. Only she wasn’t to blame him, he said, if he found some local talent to share his holiday with him.
That was a joke. He was a great one for jokes, Mitch. No one, not even Janet, ever called him Andrew, or even Andy, though it was sometimes Einstein down at the station, on account of having his nose in a book whenever he could. His good humour made him very popular with everyone and he could take as good as he gave, never taking offence. He and Janet hadn’t known each other all that long, only since she’d joined the force six months ago, but they’d spent most of their time together since then, while agreeing to keep their own interests as well. She had the Thespians and Mitch had his reading to keep up with ... he was hoping to be accepted as an external university student and read for a Law Degree. He was very ambitious. He wasn’t going to stay on a constable’s pay any longer than he could help.
Janet, with true Scottish caution, kept telling herself that she hadn’t yet decided whether or not to be serious about him. But she smiled whenever she thought of him and something inside her made her blood do a little dance. And a future which didn’t include Mitch seemed too dismal a thing to contemplate. Rhodes hadn’t been much fun without him and she could hardly bear all the delays and frustrations of the journey home, hour after boring hour before departure.
And then, when she’d rung him as arranged, so that he could pick her and Kate up, there was no answer. She’d assumed some emergency which had called him in off leave, especially when there was still no reply this morning.
She didn’t want to ring in to the station to find out what had happened, because with a slightly sinking feeling she asked herself if it was just possible that he had found someone else to share his holiday, and stayed on. But how stupid can you get, she thought, chiding herself and deciding that with his usual impetuosity he had stayed on, but simply because he was enjoying himself. There’d be a postcard tomorrow.
But the slightly depressed feeling wouldn’t go away, so she decided she might as well make the best of it and go down to the Gaiety for the Saturday morning rehearsal that had been called for that day.
“There’s something I think you should know, sir, about the Fleming case,” Alex said, looking up from the charge sheets she was sorting through in the front office as Mayo and Kite came in.
“Right, come up to my office, would you, Sergeant? We were just going to have some coffee there. Organise another cup, will you, Kite?”
Kite winked at the desk sergeant at all this formality as he went off to perform his office-boy duties. There was scarcely anyone at the station who wasn’t aware by now of the association which existed between the extremely attractive Sergeant Jones and the Chief Inspector. It wasn’t the
sort of thing you could keep secret for long in Lavenstock, especially not in a police station. But no one made jokes about it. That wouldn’t have gone down well at all with Mayo who, Kite was sure, was well aware of the gossip, but who kept his private life very largely to himself. Nor, Kite suspected, with Alex Jones either. He could imagine the fire flashing from those dark blue eyes if anyone had dared to make any snide remarks or innuendoes.
Upstairs, when Kite eventually brought in the coffee, the atmosphere soon slipped into a more friendly mode. After all, he and Alex were of equal rank, and Mayo was never one to stand on his dignity. “I suppose you want your usual disgusting amount of sugar, Martin?” she asked, handing him his cup, not leaving him to pour out his own as more and more of the female strength, even the youngest, were inclined to do.
“Only two and a half. I’m trying to cut down.” Kite had an insatiable sweet tooth and the campaign against sugar was bad news for him.
Mayo watched Alex as she poured, bending over the table, her movements graceful even at such a mundane task, and realized just how much he’d give to be able to spend one of those long, lazy evenings together which they quite often managed, despite the constraints of their jobs. They could eat something special which they both liked. He had a new record, Barenboim conducting Beethoven’s Ninth, and afterwards, they’d make love, and it would be marvellous and he would wonder why the hell Alex wouldn’t agree to their getting married so that it could be like this all the time. And then he’d start wondering whether she was, after all, right in her decision to live apart – whether it wasn’t better to be together when they chose, rather than have custom stale the infinite variety et cetera, et cetera.
He finished his coffee and with difficulty brought his mind to bear on what Alex was saying. She was talking about her sister and as the tale unfolded he began to realize he’d have to climb down and admit that this time she’d been right to be worried about Lois. He marvelled again at the intuition between the two women. He could never make out whether this was normal between sisters or some other exceptional facet of Alex’s character.
She came rather self-consciously to a halt. She’d had to tell them of the affair between Lois and Rupert Fleming, but she’d glossed over it as much as she felt she could. She saw the glance which passed between the two men and knew she hadn’t fooled either of them.
Lois, yet another of Fleming’s women! Mayo was thinking. Regular Casanova he’d been and no mistake. “What sort of thing did she suspect was going on between Fleming and Cockayne, then?” he asked.
Alex thought about the evasion that had crept into Lois’s story at that point. “I’m not sure she knows ... or wants to admit,” she said carefully. “Their relationship – Lois and Rupert’s, I mean – well, she’s very much on edge and awfully touchy about it. You see, she didn’t really like him very much and if she admits what she really thinks and it shows him in an even worse light, she’ll despise herself even more for being attracted to him.”
This feminine logic was beyond Kite, for one. He looked baffled and said rather shortly, “Despising herself might be the least of her worries, doesn’t she realize that? The man’s been murdered, Alex, and he was her lover.”
He thought he might have gone too far when he saw the expression on her face. She averted her dark, sleek head to gaze out of the window for a moment, but then said calmly, “I’ve thought of that, of course. She’s not such a fool that she’ll try to hide anything, but I didn’t want to press her at that moment. I think she’s relieved she’s got it off her chest and she’ll be able to talk about it soon enough.”
“As long as she doesn’t take too long,” Mayo said shortly, making a mental note to see that she didn’t. “Meanwhile, I’d like to talk to Lindsay, see what her impressions were.”
“I’m afraid she’s on leave until Monday. I think she’s in Crete. No, it was Rhodes.”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s Timbuctoo if she isn’t here. We’ll have to go down to the Gaiety without the benefit of seeing her, then. This isn’t the first time we’ve had that place mentioned in connection with Fleming.”
Georgina Fleming entered the garden in Folgate Street through a pair of tall, wrought-iron gates set in a wall of ancient brick, part of the original fabric of a long-demolished Cistercian foundation.
Inside the gates, it was like being in church, an enclosed oasis of peace in the busy town, the traffic noise muted by the high walls. They would be entirely private here. Walkers of dogs weren’t allowed in the garden and mothers with prams and children preferred the Rec with its swings and slides, thank God. It was too cold and too early in the year as yet for the elderly to sit and doze on the seats in the sun and enjoy the aromatic scents breathed out into the air; the wrought-iron gates, kept shut to deter stray animals, also intimidated the casual passer-by, though in fact they were only locked at sundown. It suited her purpose that the garden and its botanical treasures, though open and free to all, wasn’t better used. But the charm of its rare plants and box-edged parterres was elusive; most people didn’t care for a garden where there were no bedding-out schemes or herbaceous borders.
It hadn’t been Rupert’s scene either. She’d brought him here at that early point in their acquaintance when she had wanted them to know everything about each other, to share delights. But he’d rushed her through the garden like the Red Queen. Faster, faster.
Don’t think of it. Don’t.
Georgina would’ve liked to have had a garden, was knowledgeable about the theory of it, as she was about so much. She picked up knowledge as a magnet picks up iron filings, and she had a keen eye for the rightness of things. She would’ve loved to dig and mow and energetically rake up leaves in autumn, and plan grandiose schemes ... but it was no good, she’d never make a true gardener. She knew only too well that she lacked any kind of patience. Inactivity she couldn’t bear at any time. And just now it was insupportable.
Pigeons lumbered away from her rapid impatient strides ringing on the stone-flagged paths as she increased her pace, though the starlings, bold as ever, continued to strut around in an opportunist way, hoping for crumbs. The old bricks of the walls were a tapestry of purple and cream and rose, the length of one making a setting for half a dozen seventeenth-century bee-boles, set into it at intervals. And here in the middle of the wall was the bronze plaque, green with age, that her father had first shown her, announcing that the garden was dedicated to William Corbyn who had begun and endowed it, he who had scoured the world to bring back the strangeness and beauty of exotic plants from remote places.
How that would be frowned upon nowadays, plundering other nations’ stores of riches – all the same, she was on the side of William Corbyn and all the others of his ilk. Think of it, no Kew, no Chelsea Physic Garden, no azaleas, or even crocus ...
“Hello, George.”
No one, but no one, had ever been allowed to call her that except Tim. And he’d long since forfeited that right. She turned and stared at him, tweed-capped and Barbour-jacketed, coldly.
“What is it you want?” she asked shortly, looking at her watch. She would give him ten minutes, no more. She’d already lost more than enough time recently. She was very much afraid Tim Salisbury might be going to turn into a nuisance, and his first words confirmed the fear.
“Well,” he said, “he’s gone, now.”
She wondered how she could ever have thought she loved him, or even liked him, this pompous, self-satisfied dull man, how she could have contemplated marrying him and becoming a county farmer’s wife. There would have been compensations, of course. It would have pleased her father, for one thing, because there would have been plenty of money. And position, if that was what mattered to you. Time on one’s hands, all the time in the world, which was never a thing Georgina wanted. She would have found occupations, of course she would. But there would have been nothing for her mind to do. No excitement for her body.
Salisbury watched her face, palely made-up and with the sort
of bright, deep-coloured lipstick he associated with his mother and other women when he was a child, her nails painted to match – even that frightful hair-do. It was the in thing, he supposed vaguely, and awful as he thought it, it somehow looked right on her, part of the whole. She’d always had style, it was in everything about her – her fashionable clothes, the boots, the slim, boyish, almost breastless figure ... he felt a sudden surge of long-buried desire, as strong as any he had ever felt for her. He reached out for her hand.
But the movement turned into an ungainly grab and she managed to outmanoeuvre him, disconcerting him as she’d always done, even when they’d been children and, later, lovers, by asking, “How is Susan?”
The last person he wanted to be reminded of at this moment was Susan. Susan was something apart, rarefied, different from other women, nothing at all to do with this old remembered longing he felt just now for Georgina. It was a desecration to talk of her in such a context. “Let’s leave her out of this, shall we?”
“Isn’t it too late for that – a long way too late?” She found him, after all.
He knew she was right, and this and the small mocking smile with which she said it made him brutal. “Don’t start pretending at this stage that you were happy with him,” he said, and had his small revenge when he saw how he’d succeeded in needling her, but it didn’t last long. Her eyes, those curious tigress eyes, were like a liquid-gold fire that reduced him to jelly, and he knew with a sick feeling that Fleming was still part of her dream, in that secret place where he, Tim, never had been and never would be admitted.
“What do you know about my happiness?” she demanded, the last syllable drawn out so that it was nearly a hiss.
More Deaths Than One Page 8
