Rogue's Gallery
Page 17
Once she had got the idea of a special dinner for us on Christmas Eve, Annabelle chattered on about what it should be. The damned kids insisted on turkey on The Day, of course, though I can think of about twenty meats I would find more interesting. We finally decided on a cold meal – light, but with a few touches of luxury. Margrethe was flying back to Bergen on the twenty-third, but she did some of the preparations before she went. We really get quite a lot of work out of Margrethe. I made one or two suggestions – not that I expected to eat anything much, but in order that it should look right to the investigating officers. I would have been a superb stage director. Annabelle said she could get some of the things at the delicatessen around the corner, and she would get the rest at Harrods. She also said it was going to be an absolutely smashing evening.
The day dawned. The children (‘the babies,’ as Annabelle calls them, though they are no longer that, thank God) were of course wild with pre-Christmas excitement, so I escaped to the office for most of the day. There was, after all, nothing left to do. Soon after I got home I suggested it was time for the kids to go to bed, and as they were confidently expecting a visit from Santa Claus, they didn’t make too many objections. Then I began setting the scene. I put the drinks on the phone table at the far end by the door. I intended to be over there when Annabelle opened the package. I toyed with the idea of being rather closer, to get the odd cut and scar from the debris, but I rejected the idea. Annabelle began bringing on the cold collation with a series of appreciative shrieks – ‘Doesn’t this look scrumptious?’ and the like. The room was beautifully warm from the central heating, and I rejected Annabelle’s suggestion that I light the fire. In fact, I was feeling distinctly sweaty, and I would have taken off my jacket and tie, except that I hate that sort of slovenliness. Round about seven-thirty, I said:
‘I think it’s about time for a drink.’
‘Oh, goody!’ said Annabelle. Getting God had not quenched her taste for dry martinis. I got her a large one with plenty of ice. Then I got for myself a gin and tonic that was mostly tonic and ice. Keep cool, George, keep cool!
‘Now!’ I said, and we looked at each other and smiled. We had agreed to open presents when we had our first drinks.
First of all we opened our own to each other. Annabelle oohed over the Cartier pendant (‘You shouldn’t have, Georgie boy! What must it have cost?’) I tried to look pleased with a very expensive shaving kit.
‘I really thought you should start shaving properly, Georgie. Electric razors are frightfully infra, and people are starting to comment on your midnight shadow. Look what harm that did to Richard Nixon.’
I regarded my midnight shadow as part of my saturnine and macho image. Nobody ever found Richard Nixon macho.
‘I promise, my darling,’ I said.
Then she opened her Bible Designed to Be Read as Literature.
‘Oh, wonderful! How thoughtful you are, Georgie-Porgy. People say that reading this is an entirely new experience!’ She opened it and read: ‘“There were shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.”’
I suppose I was lucky she didn’t sing it. She sometimes takes part in those come-along-and-sing Messiahs which are so very matey and democratic – practically the Labour Party at song. I opened a little square box and found a three-disc set of Luciano Pavarotti’s greatest hits. Talk about things being infra! ‘Perfect!’ I said.
So we worked through our presents, eating chocolates and trying things on till at last she laid her hand on the brown padded envelope and took it up.
‘What is this one?’ she said.
My heart stood still. I tried with all the nonchalance my sweaty state would allow to take up one of my presents and open it.
‘Haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘I noticed it the other day. Did it really come by post?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Because neither Margrethe nor I took it in, so you must have done.’
‘Can’t remember. I may have done, I suppose.’
‘If so, it must have been Sunday. It’s the only day when you were on your own here. I didn’t think they delivered parcels on Sunday. What did the postman look like?’
Normally this would have been a cue for a spurt of sarcasm on my part. I hoped Annabelle would attribute it to the Christmas spirit that it was not forthcoming.
‘Good heavens, one doesn’t notice what postmen look like,’ I said mildly. ‘If you’re wondering who sent it, you’d better open it and find out.’
She was looking at it closely.
‘The postmark is all smudged. In fact it doesn’t look like a real postmark at all.’ She got up. ‘Georgie, I think we ought to phone the police.’
She walked over toward the phone. I felt my face going red; our positions in my plan were exactly reversed. I forced myself to take up the package.
‘Of course I see what you’re getting at, darling, but I really do think that you’re panicking needlessly. I don’t see any of the things the inspector said should put us on our guard. It’s not from Ireland, the name is spelled right – there are none of the signs. A smudged postmark is hardly unusual.’
Her finger was poised over the press-button dial. ‘Better safe than sorry.’
‘No!’
My voice had come out very loud. The police would almost certainly be able to trace the package back to me if they got it intact. Annabelle paused.
‘No?’
‘I mean … we’d look awful fools … disturbing them on Christmas Eve, for nothing.’
‘How unusually considerate of you, Georgie. But you’ve been unusual for quite a while now. I’m beginning to think that Paul is right.’
‘Paul?’
‘A chap I’ve been seeing.’
‘Seeing?’
‘He said that if I drove you too mad with my Pollyanna act, it wouldn’t be divorce I drove you to but murder. He’s seen you on television from the House. He thinks you’re mad.’
‘Annabelle, look, this really has gone too far. There’s no need at all to call the police. I was told all about suspect packages. This one hasn’t got the look of one at all.’
She stood there, twenty feet away from me, her hand poised over the dial, very, very cool.
‘All right, buster: open it.’
About the Author
ROBERT BARNARD was born in Essex. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and after completing his degree he taught English at universities in Australia and Norway, where he completed his doctorate on Dickens. He returned to England to become a full-time writer and now lives in Leeds with his wife Louise, cat Durdles and dog Peggotty. He has been awarded both the prestigious CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger, in recognition of a lifetime’s achievement in crime writing, as well as the CWA prize for the best short story of the year.
By Robert Barnard
Sheer Torture
The Mistress of Alderley
A Cry from the Dark
The Graveyard Position
Dying Flames
A Fall from Grace
Last Post
The Killings on Jubilee Terrace
A Stranger in the Family
A Mansion and its Murder
Rogue’s Gallery (a short story collection)
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
13 Charlotte Mews
London W1T 4EJ
www.allisonandbusby.com
Hardcover published in Great Britain in 2011.
This ebook edition first published in 2011.
This collection copyright © 2011 by ROBERT BARNARD
The short stories’ copyright years as below:
Rogue’s Gallery © 2003
The New Slavery © 2011
Sins of Scarlet © 2006
Family Values © 2010
Mother Dear © 2008
The Fall of the House of Oldenborg © 2002
Where Mongrels Fear to Tread © 2005
Th
e Path to the Shroud © 2002
Lovely Requiem, Mr Mozart © 2009
Incompatibles © 2010
Time for a Change © 2011
A Slow Way to Di © 2000
Last Day of the Hols © 2011
Political Necessity © 1991
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1151–2