In Love with Richard

by Paul Kelly

  He was about to tell her that he had finished his enquiries for the time being, but Maya anticipated his departure, throwing her head about in a nervous fashion and telling Gardner that she wanted to get dressed and it would be better if he ‘slung his hook’ and made sure the door was closed behind him when he left.

  Chapter Eight

  FIONA MORRAY-SMITH was the daughter of Maya Thompson and her first husband, Major Sebastian Morray-Smith of the Scots Guards. Fiona was only two years of age when Major Morray-Smith married Maya Thompson. Fiona had adored her father and felt that her mother had treated him shabbily when the divorce came through seven years after the marriage and therefore she had always maintained a certain degree of ‘reserve’... even distrust and dislike of her mother.

  The doorbell rang and Fiona answered only to discover a tall, elegant, middle-aged man standing on her doorstep.

  “Miss Thompson?” the gentleman asked and she guessed straight away it was something to do with her mother.

  “Morray-Smith,” she explained, “Fiona Morray-Smith, but I think I know what you want, so will you please come in.”

  Eric Powel followed her into her small bed-sit and she invited him to sit down after she removed some clothing from a nearby chair. It seemed obvious to Powel that the lady he was about to question was a single girl with no apparent partner. The room looked like a bachelor pad of the female variety, as the clothesline above the fireplace was filled entirely with ladies underwear.

  “Please excuse the room,” she said apologizing profusely and tried to move some of the contents of the washing line. A pink lace bra fell to the floor and she hurriedly picked it up, but Powel put out his hand and touched her arm.

  “Please don’t go to any trouble on my behalf Miss... Miss Morray-Smith and I hope I am not keeping you from anything important... like your work for example. My name is Powel, Eric Powel and I am the solicitor assigned to Mr. Bright on this recent unfortunate affair at... at your mother’s flat. Incidentally, if I may say so, I thought you would be much younger than you are and please forgive me if I seem to be impertinent.”

  Fiona threw her head back and laughed.

  “I am employed as a veterinary nurse with a local vet. Have always loved animals and I find this the most satisfying job to do... apart from my music, that is. Of course, I need hardly say that I love the work and as for my mother... well... she tells everyone I am seventeen and I suppose you thought I was if you have already spoken to her... but that’s because it makes her sound younger than she is. She is not thirty-five as she would have you believe. She is forty-four, very nearly forty-five in fact... and I am nearly twenty-two and if you want to ask me if she is a genuine blonde... the answer is definitely NO... She is rich mouse. Besides, she is not...”

  Powel put his hand to his mouth to stifle his laughter. How much was Miss Morray-Smith like so many other ladies he knew...

  “Not what?” he asked, but Fiona looked away and declined to answer and Powel repeated the question with the same response.

  “It is nothing of importance,” she said solemnly.

  “So you too are a musician, Miss... er may I call you Fiona,”

  “Please do... everyone else does and I don’t particularly like double barreled names anyway... it’s just that I did love my father and... I suppose you already know that I was born two years before my father married my mother, but Major Morray Smith is definitely my father. I went into that matter when my mother got her divorce.”

  Powel smiled benevolently. He liked Fiona with the double-barreled name. She seemed very open and frank in her approach and he felt easy talking to her.

  “What instrument do you play, Fiona?”

  “I play the piano, she said very shyly,” but I‘ve also dabbled in the flute. Quite a stark difference, wouldn‘t you say?”

  Powel laughed.

  “Extremes, I would say, but very talented nevertheless. I‘ve never heard of anyone being proficient at both ends.”

  “Oh! I don‘t want you to think that I am that good at either. It‘s just that I love music and these two instruments help me to express how I feel,” said Fiona and Powel could see that she felt a little embarrassed at seemingly giving the impression that she was in any way proficient and he decided to change the subject.

  “I understand from having seen Mr. Bright at the police station that he went to visit your mother on the Friday evening of the incident and that it was because of some information you gave him, suggesting that your mother wanted to see him again. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, that is so and I regret that now” Fiona said but she was hesitant as she continued, “Not that Richard had gone to see my mother. I don’t regret that at all because I wanted that all along, but because of what happened afterwards. You see, Mr. Powel... I have never been happy with the situation of my mother and this very much younger man, but he was obsessed with and by her and nobody but she could have told him that the situation was an unhealthy one.”

  “So this was the reason you asked him to go back to her? That seems a strange request to make of Mr. Bright if you disagreed with the relationship with your mother, surely.” said Powel with a raised eyebrow and Fiona sighed deeply.

  “No no... You haven’t understood me, Mr. Powel, or perhaps I haven’t explained my reason sufficiently. You see, I knew that my mother had ‘visitors’ all over the weekend and she would never see Richard in that time, because of this fact. Even when Richard lived with her in more recent times, she always reserved the weekends for private reasons of her own, saying she would be away at conferences or meetings of some kind or other. She is a very devious and calculating woman, is my mother... and I thought if Richard went back to the flat and found her with another man, he would learn about the situation and walk out of her life forever... It was with very deep regret that I did that now, I may add.””

  “I see... very diplomatic of you, I must say,“ added Powel, “Friday seems to be a red letter day for young Richard does it not? It was on a Friday evening that Richard first met your mother on her return from Southend, I understand.”

  “Yes, but that occasion was really a conference as I remember.”

  “So your mother doesn’t go to Southend to be with any of her other... ‘friends’... does she?”

  Fiona grinned... It was a very unlikely situation for her to consider. Maya Thompson always liked the comfort of her own flat when she was entertaining her ‘friends’ but she preferred to entertain or be entertained at the weekends.

  “No, she doesn’t have any associates at Southend as far as I know and I really think that was a genuine conference that she had to attend there.” added Fiona as she smiled.

  “How does she manage her practice during that time? Your mother, I mean... I thought all photographers worked all through the week and at least one day at the weekend; very often on a Saturday,” said Powel and Fiona was quick to answer his question.

  “Mother has another photographer who takes over her practice as well as his own at weekends, because as you have just said, the practice is also operative on a Saturday and this other gentleman, Mr. Rutherford, Michael Rutherford only has a very small photography practice of his own. He is very obliging in helping mother. I think a lot has to do with the fact that mother has a lot of private patients whereas Mr. Rutherford’s work is mostly with the National Health and I think mother is going to America sometime soon on some conference or other... to Chicago if my memory serves me right and then she will get Michael to fill in for her at that time too, I’m sure.”

  Powel nodded as he went on,

  “And so... when Richard went back to the flat on that Friday evening when you told him to visit your mother, he found this man, Mr... Mr...”Powel waited until Fiona would assist him with his question...

  “Rudolph Barnes.” she replied very conveniently... “He vis
ited mother regularly, well in the last few months, I think and was one of her most ardent paramours, but since my mother met Richard she cut off most of her admirers who would normally come to see her at weekends. This weekend business was because she had met young Bright. Before that she had visitors any night of the week and would have had them during the day also if she hadn’t to go to her office. It was regretful that when Richard went into the flat, Rudolph had already started an argument with mother and things went on from there that you already know about.”

  Powel stroked his chin and screwed his face up as he always did when he was in doubt about anything.

  “But how did you know that Richard still had a key to your mother’s flat and how did you know he would get into the flat when Rudolph Barnes was there?” he asked and Fiona looked around the room before she replied.

  “Well,” she said hesitatingly, “Richard kept the key on a chain around his neck. He was proud of that and I didn’t care who was with mother at that time which was the same time as Richard always went to the flat. After all she was working all day as a photographer... and you must realize that.”

  “I see... and when Richard arrived there, there was an argument going on and Barnes was strangling your mother.”

  Fiona interrupted before Powel could say any more.

  “I always felt that Rudolph Barnes was or could be a violent man. I didn’t like him at all. He appeared to me to be a most uncouth person although... I understand he went to public school and would therefore have been someone of the upper crust.” she said and Powel made a mental note of what she said.

  “Was Barnes a drug addict?” he asked and Fiona shook her head, with a look of surprise on her face.

  “As far as I know he was not, but it seems now as though he was.”

  “And your mother... was she addicted?”

  “No. I am sure... Oh wait a minute... She kept cocaine at the flat but I thought that was to do with her health. Cocaine is used regularly for health reasons, you understand. She had easy access to the stuff, but I have never ever thought she used it for recreational purposes.”

  “Do you know the names of other men who visited your mother... at the weekends, Fiona?”

  “Many of them... There were many,” she replied.

  “Tens... Hundreds?” asked Powel as he raised his eyebrows... and his remark made Fiona smile...

  “No... More like thirty or forty I would say,” she said, making Powel look to the ceiling and whistle. “But, I only know some of them by their Christian names. Mother kept some sort of diary or other with their names in it, but I‘m sure you would never find that. Mother was too careful when it came to matters in her private life and I only found about this diary when I was staying with mother overnight on one occasion and I needed something... well I needed a fresh pair of knickers and she always kept a ‘knickers’ drawer,”

  Powel pretended not to hear that matter of the diary that Fiona found in the knickers drawer, but he made a mental note to write it down at a later date.

  “Would young Richard be one of your admirers, may I ask, Miss?” Powel diverted and Fiona laughed again.

  “Not possible, even if I wanted to have an interest there. Mother was envious of all she had and possessed and she certainly possessed Richard, or Ricky-Boy Bright as she had him christened.”

  “Was Richard happy with that name? It sounds a bit silly, don’t you think?”

  “My mother had her own way of doing things and made a world of her own imagination with most things. Do you know that one of her lovers was called ‘Bingo’ and another ‘Fatso’... and they all accepted her ultimatum, so that they could get what they wanted... She was a very liberal lady with her assets, was my dear mother.”

  “You mentioned your father, Major Morray-Smith and that you were very fond of him. Was the divorce acrimonious?”

  “Yes, it was a very unpleasant affair at that time. I was only nine, so I don’t remember all the details but I know that daddy was very unhappy. I was born a few years before my father married Maya, as I have already told you, but it was always a love match with him. He wouldn’t have looked at another woman and wanted to marry mother when he thought she was pregnant, but mother wouldn’t have that. She would marry him in HER time and she told him that. I don’t really think she ever wanted to marry him at all, but he was persistent. Mother was the very opposite in character to my father. She couldn’t keep her hands off the many men who came to the house at that time. Daddy had a lot of friends and business partners. Anything in trousers for mother and a kilt would have sent her round the bend. Her second husband was a Scot too... well, I don’t think they ever got round to getting married, but she called him her husband. His name was Joseph Barratt and mother wanted to change my name to Barratt at that time. Thank God she didn’t, as he was a strange character if ever there was one and she had a child by him; a little girl, but she died soon after she was born, I understand. She was only with Barratt for a couple of years and she never talks about the little girl who died. You see... Mother tires easily of the men in her life, that is why I thought by this time, Richard Bright would have been well out of the scene, but I was wrong.”

  “Perhaps Richard’s tender youth has something to do with it. Has your mother ever been with anyone as young as Ricky-Boy before this, do you know?”

  “No, I don’t think so and that was actually a surprise to me as she usually goes for men who are giants in more ways than one. Richard is very nice. He’s tall and lean and handsome and I’m surprised he is attracted to a woman as old as my mother.”

  “You don’t fancy him yourself, do you Fiona.” asked Powel with a particular ‘glint’ in his eye and Fiona blushed visibly as she lowered her head.

  “Does it show that much?” she asked before she suggested they change the subject, but Powel had other appointments he intended to keep.

  “Now I will have to leave you as I have another appointment this afternoon... With your mother actually, but I’d rather you didn’t mention anything to her about my visit here and I won‘t tell her that I saw you blush when I mentioned young Richard‘s name... unless you want me to... do you?”

  “No worries there. I only speak to her now when it is absolutely necessary, but before you go, do you think Richard is in serious trouble over this? After all Rudolph Barnes nearly throttled my mother and probably the drugs, if he was using them, didn’t help that either. Surely Richard will be O.K. now that old Barnes is still alive and kicking.”

  “Well... Richard can’t accuse himself of murder any more. That’s one thing and I think the law will be clement in dealing with him, but he is guilty of assault. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Well that’s my entire fault isn’t it... ? If I hadn’t sent him to mother’s flat that evening, this would never have happened, would it?”

  “No, I don’t suppose it would, but who knows, old Barnes as you call him could have been had up for killing your dear mother, if someone hadn‘t arrived there in the nick of time”

  “Oh! Dear... that would have been a terrible disaster, wouldn’t it now,” said Fiona with a large grin on her face.

  Chapter Nine

  “Oh! Gawd,” Maya drawled as she opened the flat door to Powel... “Not another one with a load of bloody questions. Can’t you give it a rest?”

  Eric Powel ignored the protest and introduced himself accordingly, inviting himself into the flat before Maya had a chance to ask him in.

  “This won’t take long, Madam,” Powel announced as he dropped his briefcase near a chair in the lounge before he sat down and Maya remembered that she had seen his face recently, shortly before she was discharged from the hospital

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, buster,” she replied casually, “You’ll be out of here before you can count to ten. Now make it quick and don’t muck about. I don’t have
long if you have... and before you ask, I don’t serve teas or coffees during the day, so don’t ask...”

  Powel stroked his chin and looked about the room.

  “Nice place you have here, Madam. Do you live alone,” he asked, knowing that his remark would make the lady standing opposite him come out with some form of obscenity or other and she did.

  “Don’t be so fuckin’ smart with me, buster. I know why you’re here and you know why you’re here, so let’s get on with it and don’t piss about.”

  Powel could tell at this point in the conversation that he had met a lady of charm and grace, but he refrained from telling her.

  “Alright then, we’ll begin,” he said and Maya sat down, but Powel smiled at her before she had another chance to speak... as he made his request.

  “I don’t suppose you would be making a cup of tea or coffee about this time, Mrs. Thompson, would you?” he enquired and she closed her eyes, making some remark which he was unable to hear, but by her face he knew the answer was NO... Definitely NO... It came with an obvious hissing sound.