Dead Gorgeous

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘I shall require your signature on the receipt.’

  ‘Naturally.’ She noticed her Coronation biscuit tin taking up room at the front of the larder and remembered what it contained. ‘A piece of cake?’

  Mr Smart unexpectedly laughed, and there wasn’t any humour in the laugh. ‘Tell me, is that an offer of something to eat – or self-congratulation?’

  She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘What exactly do you mean?’

  He gave a superior smile. ‘A piece of cake. One of those cheerful phrases the RAF has given the language. Is that what all this has been, Mrs Bell? A piece of cake?’

  She clenched her teeth. She thought, I’ve been through a police interrogation, an inquest and a funeral. Am I to be tripped by this pipsqueak insurance man? He’s only guessing. He can’t be certain. She prised the lid off the tin and held her mother’s trench cake in front of him.

  He selected a slice. There was a sneer on his face, as if the act of handing over the cheque had absolved him of the need to curry favour. ‘Strictly between ourselves, I’ve come across some queer things in the insurance business, but this is one of the queerest. The very day your husband is due to surrender his policy, he’s killed in an accident. Astonishing. You can hardly blame my company for wanting to make sure of the facts. We put the case in the hands of our best investigators. They find that the only person who stands to benefit – no sugar, if that’s my cup – has a watertight alibi. Sorry, I shouldn’t use the word “alibi”. It implies that an offence was committed and we know it wasn’t, don’t we? The coroner was satisfied, his jury were satisfied and our investigators were unable to prove that anything irregular had happened.’

  So it was supposition. He knew nothing about Antonia.

  ‘Then I suggest, Mr Smart, that you stop imagining things.’ Rose pushed the tea towards him. She reached for her handbag and took out her fountain pen. ‘Do you have that receipt?’

  ‘In the envelope.’

  He finished his tea and left without touching the cake.

  Some time after midnight Hector stopped work in his office downstairs and came to bed. He undressed in the dark, padding about in his shirt-tails so as not to disturb Antonia.

  He didn’t disturb her because she was still awake. She lay in silence in her own bed with her eyes open, waiting. The plan of action she was shortly to outline to Hector required his total concentration. She wanted him passive, in bed, where he had no choice except to listen. He had to be made to understand that his part in the plan was not only necessary, but inescapable.

  She waited two or three minutes after he’d climbed into bed.

  ‘Hec.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘What did you think of Rose?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My pretty little friend from the WAAF.’

  ‘Rosie Bell? Nice girl. Why ask me?’

  ‘I’ve decided to kill her.’

  The bedsprings screeched. ‘You gone mad?’

  ‘I knew you’d say that. Listen, will you? It’s the perfect answer to our problem. We invite her here to cook for you while I’m away.’

  ‘You’re going to kill her?’

  ‘Pipe down and listen. I said I’m going away for a few days.’

  ‘Going away? Where?’

  ‘I’ll come to that. I won’t really be away. Not far, anyway. I’ve arranged to stay somewhere near. We give Rose the key and she lets herself in to make you a pie or something. I saw the way she looked at you when you asked if she could cook. She’ll do it for you. I’ll be hiding in the house. I surprise her and knock her out with chloroform. Then I smother her with a cushion. No blood. No mess.’

  ‘Antonia, this is raving mad, you know.’

  ‘No, it isn’t, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve managed to get hold of a blank death certificate.’

  ‘A doctor’s certificate?’

  ‘No. Get a grip on yourself, Hector, and listen. A death registration. The one the registry office issues. With that we can get a body buried. We fill it in ourselves. We won’t even need a doctor’s certificate. It’s quite straightforward.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I’m certain.’

  ‘But it’s wicked to think of killing that poor sweet girl. What has Rosie done to hurt you or me? Nothing. She trusts us.’

  ‘Poor, sweet girl! Hector, you’re a mutt. That sweet girl is bloody dangerous. She’s got to be stopped.’

  ‘Stopped? What is she doing?’

  ‘Any day now she’ll go to the police.’ Antonia took a deep breath. ‘My fault, I admit it. I was taken in like you. Stupidly I let something slip about Maudie’s death.’

  Hector groaned. ‘Maudie! Oh, no! You opened your big mouth. Crazy!’

  Smoothly and expertly, Antonia embroidered fiction over the facts. ‘Days ago I made some remark about having to wait for Maudie to die before you and I could marry. Then of course she met you and almost the first thing you told her was that Maudie drowned. I don’t blame you, Hec, but she was on to it at once. She won’t let it pass. She’s been pestering me about it ever since. She’s that sort of person. I’m certain she knows already.’

  ‘Would she really go to the police?’

  ‘You’ve met her. She’s a vicar’s daughter. A model bloody citizen. She’d regard it as her moral duty. She’s got to be stopped, Hec.’

  His reply was muffled, as if he’d pressed his hands to his face. ‘I can’t do this, Antonia.’

  ‘You don’t have to. I’m doing it. It’s too bloody late to discover you have a conscience.’

  He was silent for a long time.

  ‘All right, you crazy bitch. After you kill Rosie in this house, what do you say to her people? She tripped over the cat and fell downstairs? She choked on a fish bone? You think her mother and father are going to believe you? And who arranges the funeral? You can’t take this certificate to the undertaker and get her buried yourself.’

  ‘No, my sweet. That’s your job.’

  ‘Mine? You make a big mistake there.’

  ‘Calm down and listen to me, little man. You’ve jumped to all the wrong conclusions. Give me credit for some intelligence. There will be no trouble from Rosie’s people because they won’t know she’s dead. The name on the death certificate will be mine. It will be my funeral, Hector. Can you get that into your head?’

  He took a huge breath and then exhaled in a series of nervous bursts.

  Antonia was in no hurry to move on. She wanted the essential message to sink in first. He was not unintelligent.

  When he spoke again his tone was sceptical, but he’d got the point. ‘Her body, your funeral.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s why you must make the arrangements. It isn’t much to do, considering what you get in return. No more worries over the Maudie business. And you’ll be a single man again. A widower for the second time. We were talking about it only the other day. A life of your own, you old goat. You’ll never hear from me again.’

  ‘Oh yes? Where will you go?’

  ‘America, with Vic.’

  ‘They won’t let you stay.’

  ‘Don’t fret over that. I’ll be married to him and he’s got that job at Princeton.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Birdbrain. Haven’t you worked it out? I’ll be using Rose’s identity. It’s simply a matter of going through her handbag after she’s dead. Her identity card will be there. If by any chance it isn’t, the key of her house is sure to be, and I’ll collect it the same evening and become sweet little Rosie Bell. I’ll marry Vic at a registry office somewhere outside London within a couple of days. New surname. New passport. New country. Isn’t it neat?’

  ‘What about her people? They will report that she’s missing.’

  ‘Hector, thousands of people are missing. Haven’t you ever looked at those lists in the Sunday papers? The police can’t keep up with it. What’s one more missing woman?’

  He gave up trying to pick fault with the plan. He turned obs
tinate instead. ‘I won’t do this, Antonia. It’s a mortal sin. I should never have let you kill poor Maudie. I suffer terrible dreams for that. I can’t stand by and let you repeat that wicked thing.’

  ‘Come off it, Hector! Don’t get high and mighty with me now. It doesn’t wash. We’re in this together.’

  ‘Not together. Leave me out.’

  ‘How can I? Be reasonable. I can’t arrange my own funeral.’

  There was another scrunch from the bedsprings as he kicked out in fury. ‘You tell me be reasonable? Killing another innocent woman – is that reasonable?’

  ‘She’s not so innocent as you think, but that’s not the point. I’m going to insist that you help me in this, Hector. You and I are going to make it happen exactly as I told you. I shall definitely kill her. If anything goes wrong, if you fail me, I swear to God I’ll see you swing for killing Maudie.’

  ‘Maudie! You pushed her in the pool!’

  ‘With your connivance. You wanted to get rid of her. You were sick of her black moods and her drinking. I told you what I was going to do. That made you an accessory before the fact of murder, Hector. That’s a hanging offence.’

  ‘I didn’t know how serious you were.’

  ‘You stood back and let me get on with it. An English court of law isn’t going to waste much sympathy on a nasty little foreigner who gets his mistress to do the dirty work for him. I might get away with a life sentence, but it’s the rope for you, make no mistake about that.’

  She let him brood on that. When he spoke again it was with an air of resignation.

  ‘Say what you want. Exactly.’

  She went over her plan minutely. And after she’d told him the undemanding but necessary part she wanted him to play, she added that she also required twenty thousand pounds to get settled in America.

  He was silent.

  She said it would be a once and for all payment. He would never hear from her again.

  He said she could have it. Then he called her a bloodsucking monster.

  She wished him a cheery goodnight.

  15

  Rose’s nerves had given her another bad night. On Wednesday morning she needed to do something to occupy her mind so she went to Gorringe’s and blued two clothing coupons and some of her new wealth on a roll of parachute silk. She’d decided to run up a set of under-clothes on the sewing machine. Her dreary Utility things would go into service as floorcloths. Walking around the shop she drew up a mental shopping list, a wardrobe for the good times ahead. After a decent interval she would get a ‘long look’ coat, a suit with padded hips and shoulders, a couple of day dresses in bright prints and some shiny sling-back shoes. But the silk undies came first. It would create a bad impression to break out too soon after burying Barry. She didn’t want the likes of Mr Sharp spreading rumours. Yet she couldn’t wait to blot out every memory of Barry, throw out all the clothes she’d worn while she was married to him and start afresh. Well, some silk undies would be a start. No one need know what she was wearing underneath. Not without an invitation, she told herself in an effort to be frivolous. People were always telling her she was too solemn. She went straight up to Haberdashery and bought five yards of lace trimming.

  She snipped and machined all afternoon with the firm intention of wearing her handiwork on Saturday when Antonia and Hector took her out to dinner. Up to now she’d been intimidated by Antonia’s clothes. It would be a confidence boost to wear silk under her dreary old suit.

  She was going to have no nonsense from Antonia, she decided. A week’s respite from that domineering presence had given her a chance to think for herself. Antonia was clearly playing some elaborate and tasteless charade. She had always enjoyed shocking others, but that remark about having Hector cremated had been the limit. And that dangerous escapade to obtain the blank death registration certificate was obviously part of the same ghoulish game.

  Wasn’t it?

  It was horrid to talk about doing away with Hector as if he were just as expendable as Barry. The two couldn’t be compared. Barry had degenerated dangerously. He’d started to get violent. There would have been no escape. But Hector offered no threat whatsoever. He’d done nothing despicable that Rose had heard of. In fact he appeared rather charming. His worst fault, it seemed, was that he talked too much about his work – hardly a capital crime. Antonia was bored with him. She wanted to be rid of him, but there was a catch. She also wanted his money, to keep on living like a countess. Not a nice reason for killing anyone.

  That, in Rose’s eyes, would be a very wicked murder. Of course it was nonsense. It had to be.

  She had an unpleasant shock on Friday. The doorbell rang at lunchtime and when she answered it she saw two children with the lifeless body of an adult man between them. They were trying with difficulty to support him at the armpits. His head hung over his chest and his knees had buckled under him. He was dressed in a grey trilby, shirt, trousers and boots. The elder child grabbed the head and jerked it upright.

  ‘Penny for the Guy, miss.’

  The face was a crudely drawn mask. The body was stuffed.

  ‘Bonfire Night.’

  ‘Isn’t it rather early for that? It’s still October.’

  They were the Irish children from two doors along. They stood staring at her.

  ‘I’ll see what I’ve got in my purse. Did you make him yourselves?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘He doesn’t look very warm, dressed like that, in just a shirt. Wait a minute. I’ve got an idea.’

  She returned presently with Barry’s demob jacket, the garment Ronald had been caught in the act of trying on. ‘See if this fits.’

  ‘That’s too good for the Guy, miss.’

  ‘I’ve no use for it. Look, it suits him.’ She laughed. ‘And here’s a tie. He’ll look smart in a tie.’

  In Barry’s jacket and RAF tie, he looked distinctly smarter.

  Antonia phoned on Saturday morning and suggested they met at the restaurant at eight.

  ‘Reggiori’s, in Euston Road, practically opposite St Pancras, darling. It’s my regular haunt, red plush and brass, suits me down to the ground, terribly decadent, but the food is as good as you’ll get anywhere. Can you make it, or would you like me to collect you?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘Reggiori’s at eight, then.’

  ‘Antonia . . .’

  ‘What, darling?’

  ‘Will Hector be there?’

  ‘God, yes. I haven’t bumped him off yet.’

  The fine silk stirred against her skin as she moved. She’d made French knickers and a slip and trimmed them with the lace. To complete the ensemble, she was wearing the one pair of nylons she owned. Over it all, she had the severe black suit with the false shirt front she’d worn for the inquest. And her soon-to-be-discarded tweed coat.

  She left the house about twenty to eight with the intention of walking along to Vauxhall Bridge Road and finding a taxi. First, her attention was caught by the road safety poster opposite. Something else had been added to it. She crossed the street. They’d carefully coloured the widow’s face, giving her lipstick, rouge and mascara. The eyes were now light blue. The falling tear had been blocked out entirely. If not a merry widow, she was certainly less bleak than before.

  Rose smiled at her.

  16

  Reggiori’s must have been a cleaner’s nightmare. Ornate fittings in abundance: the original gas jets, hat pegs, doorknobs, hand rails and bar furniture. More brass than the Royal Philharmonic. Red plush settees, wall mirrors, mosaic floor, ornamental tiles, potted ferns and silver cruets.

  Antonia waved from a table against the wall and Hector stood up and helped Rose into her chair. Whatever it was on his hair smelt expensive. She smiled her thanks. The guarded look he gave her in return was difficult to understand. He’d been so open the last time they had met.

  After they’d ordered, Antonia asked about the funeral and Rose told her how Rex Ballard, Peter B
liss and the others had driven down from Kettlesham Heath. ‘I wasn’t too happy about them coming at first, but as it turned out they helped me get through the day.’

  Ridges of tension showed in Antonia’s cheek. ‘You didn’t mention my name?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘No.’

  The lines softened and disappeared. ‘I expect they were shocked about Barry.’

  ‘Rex could hardly take it in.’

  ‘I bet he wasn’t lost for words, though.’

  Rose smiled. ‘No.’

  The wine waiter arrived and Hector asked whether Rose cared for Italian wine. She made the mistake of asking if wine wasn’t rather extravagant and got ticked off by Antonia.

  ‘The war’s over now. You’ve got to get out of that scrimp-and-save mentality.’

  ‘People in your circumstances can. It’s not so easy for the rest of us.’

  ‘Oh, send me to the guillotine, darling. I don’t know how the poor live.’

  Hector turned from ordering the wine and showed that he had missed the point entirely. ‘I think in this country they don’t use the guillotine.’ He made a ‘V’ shape between thumb and forefinger of his right hand and pressed it hard into the angle of his neck and jaw, at the same time pulling an imaginery lever with his left hand. He ended the performance by giving a doglike stare at Rose that made her feel extremely uneasy.

  She took a sip of water and tried to think of some other topic, but Antonia was unaffected.

  ‘I see that our ex-RAF colleague went to the scaffold this morning.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Neville Heath.’

  Rose tensed. Hector made a vibrating sound with his lips but it didn’t discourage Antonia.

  ‘According to the Star, he took leave of the world in style. They asked for his last request and he said he’d like a whisky. When it was handed to him and everyone was waiting he said, “I think I’ll make that a double.” Nice sense of humour.’

  Rose said, ‘I can’t admire a man who did the things he did. Can we change the subject?’