Dead Gorgeous

by Peter Lovesey

  Eventually Antonia spoke in a flat, embittered voice. ‘What did he call it?’

  ‘A disposal certificate. God, what a laugh! After all our trouble he didn’t need the death certificate at all.’

  Antonia was white with shock. ‘I’m devastated. Why did I walk out of there? Now that it’s too bloody late I can see what we should have done. We should have let him collect the body. He wanted the job. He would have overlooked the wretched form. He could have stretched a point. He kept saying it wasn’t important.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Antonia. Once he’d seen the body he’d quietly ask the registrar’s office for one, and that would be curtains for you and me.’

  ‘It’s curtains anyway.’

  They passed the Zoo entrance and Gloucester Gate before either spoke again. This time Antonia’s anger switched to Rose. ‘You knew about this all along, didn’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The bloody disposal certificate. What else? You must have had one for Barry. So why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Dry up, Antonia! I didn’t even look at the wretched forms. I just handed them over to the bank. They acted as executors, so they did everything. For God’s sake get it out of your head that I tried to undermine the plan. We wouldn’t be in this mess if I could have avoided it and that’s the truth.’

  The force of this reasoning evidently impressed Antonia, because she took a more positive line. ‘Is there any way we can get hold of one of those damned forms?’

  ‘Only from the registry office.’

  ‘By reporting Hector’s death, you mean? That’s out. We’d have to get a doctor to look at the body first and write out a certificate.’

  ‘Do you think a doctor could tell what happened?’

  ‘He’d order a postmortem for sure. Perfectly healthy men don’t drop dead without some reason.’

  ‘Was Hector fit?’

  ‘He never had a day off work that I can remember.’

  ‘So he never saw a doctor. We could ask any doctor to look at him.’

  ‘Duckie, even the most pea-brained, superannuated, gin-sodden GP in the world knows bloody well that sudden death has to be reported to the coroner.’

  Rose wasted no more words. Her mind was made up. She spun the wheel and turned sharp left into Albany Street, raced through the gears and stamped on the accelerator.

  ‘Christ! Where the heck are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  27

  As Rose reversed the car into a space in Lowndes Square she admitted that they wouldn’t be working to a plan. In Air Force parlance it was chocks away and let us pray.

  The entrance to the Stationery Office depot was manned by a burly ex-serviceman with two rows of ribbons and a seen-it-all-before look. He said nobody was ever allowed inside without an appointment and then stared over their heads as if that were the end of it. Rose kept talking. And when she told him she was Barry Bell’s widow it worked like a password. He beamed and grasped her hand. Wing Commander Bell have been a particular pal of his with a wicked sense of humour just like his own and the depot could do with a few more like him.

  It was a long time since Rose had found cause to be thankful to Barry.

  She explained that she had been asked by Mr Gascoigne to collect some of her husband’s things and since she was still not coping very well alone she had brought her friend.

  The doorman wrote out a pass for them and ordered a messenger boy to take the two ladies to Gascoigne’s office. They were led through swing doors and along a corridor painted in institutional green and cream. A second set of doors opened into a place of a size and scale they were unprepared for, a warehouse as long as the nave of St Paul’s, with rank upon rank of metal storage racks where the pews would have been.

  Rose’s nerve faltered. She glanced Antonia’s way and rolled her eyes upwards.

  Antonia shook her head and gave the V-sign.

  Gascoigne’s office was higher than everything else, mounted on struts like a watchtower. They climbed an iron staircase, and had to be let into the office to wait because he wasn’t inside. Through windows the length of each wall they could see brown-coated civil servants between the racks collecting packets of stationery and loading them on to hand-trolleys.

  While the boy went to look for Gascoigne the two women stared out at the scene. Antonia asked if Barry had been one of the trolley-pushers.

  ‘He must have been.’

  ‘Can’t imagine it.’

  Rose could, without difficulty. She wasn’t a believer in the occult, yet she had a disturbing sense of his presence here. Listening to the doorman she had sharply visualized the wisecracking clever dick who was her husband striding through that entrance with some fresh quip to brighten the day. All along the corridor she had been conscious of him, into the warehouse and up the stairs and now if she turned her head he would be just behind her in one of those brown overalls, grinning all over his face at what had happened to her and what she was desperate enough to be planning now.

  Bastard. She still hated him. Soon after they’d married he’d given up bothering to amuse her. All the bonhomie was directed at other people.

  Antonia said someone was coming.

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘He’s only a man, darling.’

  Gascoigne had come up the stairs in a rush and was breathless. He was in the same dark grey pinstripe he’d worn at the funeral. He held out his hand. ‘My dear Mrs Bell, they didn’t tell me you were expected this afternoon.’

  ‘They didn’t know. We just happened to be passing. This is Mrs Ashton who is helping me attend to things.’ Not entirely untruthful. Ashton had been Antonia’s maiden name. And they were attending to things.

  A small stack of chairs stood in one corner. Gascoigne lifted two out and dusted them with his handkerchief. ‘How are you feeling now, Mrs Bell?’

  ‘Not much better, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s early days.’

  ‘You mentioned some articles of my husband’s.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ He opened a desk and took out a brown envelope. ‘Would you care to check them?’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  He coughed. ‘I meant would you be good enough to check them. Perhaps it’s fussy of me, but I need a receipt.’ He flapped his hand vaguely. ‘Bureaucracy, I’m afraid.’

  She let the things slide out on to his desk. A Swan fountain pen that she had seen Barry use at home to fill in his football coupon. Two tickets for a dance at the Hammersmith Palais on October 12th – one date loverboy had been unable to keep. Finally a snapshot. She got a jolt as if Barry himself had nudged her. The picture was of a woman holding a child, a boy of eighteen months or so. She turned it over. In a neat, small hand was written, ‘To Darling B from Mike and Me’.

  She tore it in two and dropped it into the wastepaper basket with the dance tickets and the envelope.

  Gascoigne looked shocked. ‘I seem to have dragged you here unnecessarily.’

  Antonia beamed at him. ‘Not at all. The pen will come in useful, if it’s only to sign your receipt.’ She picked it up and handed it to Rose, who scribbled her signature on the slip of paper Gascoigne had ready.

  Gascoigne thanked her. ‘Will you have a cup of tea? It’s past the time, but I’m sure the ladies downstairs will rise to the occasion. Wing Commander Bell was very popular with them.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Rose was choking with bitterness from seeing the photograph. She pressed her hankie to her face and told herself angrily to stay in control. Then she stood up and glanced out of the window at the storage racks. ‘What would really please me would be to see exactly where he worked.’

  Gascoigne paled. ‘That’s not possible, I’m sorry to say.’

  Antonia chipped in. ‘Oh, I say, you can’t mean that, Mr Gascoigne. You don’t know what a comfort it would be.’

  ‘It’s a matter of security.’

  ‘No, darling. Humanity. It’s a matter of humanity. What do you
think she’s going to do – steal a ration book?’

  ‘Goodness, no.’

  ‘Well, then?’ She moved closer to Rose and slipped her arms around her and looked appealingly at Gascoigne.

  ‘There are regulations.’

  ‘You’re just obeying orders, is that it? That excuse has an ugly ring to it, Mr Gascoigne.’

  A flicker of indecision crossed his features.

  Rose raised her head from Antonia’s shoulder and smiled wanly. ‘Please forget that I mentioned it. I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble over me.’

  He licked his lips. He was a lost man. He scraped his chair and sprang up. ‘Look, I think we can bend the rules just this once.’

  Downstairs he hurried them past the trolley-pushers to an unoccupied space between the racks. ‘As you probably know, this depot was established early in the war, when Churchill realized the havoc that would be caused if the building in Storey’s Gate was bombed. Now I think we have more capacity than they do. We handle just about every item of government stationery. I am the despatch officer.’

  ‘You must be kept busy.’

  He smiled disdainfully.

  Rose turned to one of the stacks. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Leaflets about swine fever. Everything along here relates to agriculture. Not much to interest a lady.’

  She asked whether the numbers painted in white on the base of the rack were significant and he started telling her about the classification system.

  Rose cut in. ‘There must be a list of all these numbers somewhere.’

  ‘There is. I’ll show you.’

  As they followed him to the end of the rack Rose tapped Antonia’s arm. ‘See you at the car.’

  She stood for a minute or so in front of the plan and index displayed on the end wall – long enough to learn that the Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths section was in Rows GRO1 to 6 and that Form 134/B (Disposal) was stored in GRO6. Gascoigne was running his finger down the list pointing out items that they might have come across as housewives.

  Rose sidled around the end of the nearest rack, turned and walked away, up the column towards the far end. As soon as she reckoned Gascoigne wouldn’t see her if he turned round she stepped out fast. She relied on Antonia to invent some excuse.

  She slowed to pass two people with trolleys. They didn’t give her a second look. She could imagine how easy it would be to get into a zombie-like state pushing a trolley up and down these aisles. Whichever one you chose the scene was the same: dark shelves reaching almost to infinity and lit at intervals by lamps with conical shades coated in dust.

  The system also made strong demands on one’s concentration. She reckoned the racks marked GRO ought to have been about halfway along, but she’d gone three-quarters of the way and still hadn’t found them. She stopped, not wanting to panic, yet fearing she was in error. If she retraced her steps she had no certainty of doing any better. Her shoulders went tense and she breathed faster. Couldn’t stand still. Had to look as if she knew what she was doing.

  She turned and went back the way she had come, along the ends of the rows, checking the code numbers. About the middle she became convinced that she was wasting precious time. None of the GRO numbers was there. She would have noticed the first time.

  Then she raised her eyes and saw a set of letters and figures much higher up the rack she was standing beside. Because she’d first noticed the information at eye level she hadn’t looked any higher. There was a whole series she’d missed. Encouraged, she moved on and found the rack marked GRO6 just a short way ahead. She reached out and ran her hand along one of the shelves. Now all she had to do was find 134/B (Disposal).

  The stationery itself was not on view. It was stored in brown paper packets with the coding written on labels pasted on to the ends. She moved along the rack reading them off.

  134/B. She clenched her fist in triumph, or relief.

  Her idea was to unwrap the top packet, remove a disposal form and tuck it into her handbag. With some care she prised her fingernail under the fold to separate it without causing a tear.

  ‘Are you looking for something?’

  A man had come up behind her.

  She gasped and spun round.

  ‘What are you doing, exactly?’ He wasn’t one of the trolley-pushers. He was in a suit like Gascoigne. An important-looking man with silver hair and a black moustache.

  A surge of fear galvanized Rose. A lie sprang readily to her lips. ‘I was sent over from Somerset House. They ran out of 134/Bs. Mr Gascoigne told me where to find them.’

  ‘Ah. Gascoigne.’

  ‘Here they are. Good.’ She tucked a packet under her arm and set off at as brisk a walk as she dared towards the far end of the warehouse and the exit. She wouldn’t stop if he called out. There was such a pounding in her head that she wouldn’t hear anyway.

  She stared ahead, knowing she was trapped if anyone chose to block her path. It was the recurring nightmare of being chased up a narrow passageway, thinking she could make it to the end and then being met by a leaping tiger. Or, in this case, Gascoigne. But he didn’t appear. She turned right and headed for the swing doors without a glance to either side. People were moving about there and she avoided looking at them. Through the doors and into the corridor.

  Walk.

  It was longer than she remembered. God, she thought, I hope I picked the right doors. And then, oh, no, what am I going to tell the doorman?

  He turned to face her as she burst through the doors. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yes.’ She smacked her hand over the label on the packet. ‘I got the things.’

  ‘You seem to have lost your friend.’

  ‘Oh, she’s following. Got talking to someone. ‘Bye, then.’

  ‘Best of luck.’

  She’d already had more of that than she was entitled to expect.

  28

  Through the rear-view mirror of the Bentley, Rose’s eyes were fixed on the farthest pillar in a row of housefronts at one end of Lowndes Square, the point where she would first catch sight of somebody approaching from the Stationery Office Depot. She had the engine running and her hands gripping the wheel.

  Please God let it be Antonia, she thought.

  Yet how absurd. She was sitting here waiting for the woman who had tried to chloroform her, who would surely have murdered her, whatever she claimed afterwards. A callous, unpredictable killer for whose arrival Rose was praying fervently. She had no illusions about Antonia. The charm was totally resistible now. Remarks that once seemed witty left her cold, yet she couldn’t ignore the certainty that she herself was destined for the gallows if Antonia was arrested and persuaded to confess. What a mess! She didn’t see any way to untangle herself.

  So she waited in the car.

  Two more minutes went by. Rose drummed her fingers on the rim of the wheel.

  Then Antonia appeared, her fair hair springing against the black velvet collar as she clattered around the corner in her high heels. She flashed a wide smile when their eyes met. Bravado, Rose thought sourly as she leaned across and lifted the lock on the door, but smiled back.

  Antonia hauled it open, sank into the seat and swung her legs in.

  ‘Any joy?’

  ‘Behind you.’

  Antonia turned, looked at the packet of forms on the back seat and whistled. ‘Hell’s bells, Rosie, we only needed one.’

  ‘It was easier to take the packet.’

  ‘Five hundred! Gordon Bennett! Are you going into business?’ She started to laugh.

  Rose joined in the peal of giggles, a frankly hysterical reaction as they shattered the tension.

  ‘You don’t do things by halves, ducky!’

  Their laughter shrilled at least an octave higher, recalling that hilarious moment – Rose had forgotten the cause of the hilarity – in the Black and White Milk Bar just after they had met in Piccadilly. For a few blissful seconds it blotted out everything that had happened since that
afternoon.

  Someone had to say something when the laughter died and it was Antonia. ‘Ah well, who knows, the extra ones may come in useful.’

  ‘What?’ Rose almost swung the car into a taxi she was overtaking.

  ‘In case the pen slips and I mess it up, darling.’ She gave a chesty laugh. ‘What else?’ This time Rose didn’t join in.

  As they approached the traffic lights at the top of Sloane Street, she returned to practicalities and suggested they stopped somewhere in Hyde Park. ‘If we fill the form in right away, we can get to an undertaker’s before they close.’ She got a nod from Antonia so she turned right, through the Albert Gate into South Carriage Drive. ‘How did you cope with Gascoigne?’

  ‘Told him you’d had trouble with your suspenders.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’

  ‘What’s up? It was the perfect thing to say. He went pink and twitchy at the thought and his eyes glazed over, dirty old sod, so I knew what to talk about – stocking-tops, belts, garters, corsets and quivering thighs, forests of them. And how to hitch up your stocking with a sixpence. Oh, and the shortage of elastic. That really got his smutty little mind going. The steam was coming out of his ears by then. He forgot all about his precious coding system and he didn’t mention you for ten minutes.’

  ‘How did you get away?’

  ‘With ease. When I’d run out of things to say about suspenders I passed on the thought that perhaps we ought to find out whether you were all right. We had a look up and down the aisles, by which time I felt sure you must have found the form and cleared off, so I told Gascoigne that you must have got extremely embarrassed and quit the building minus stockings or worse. He had no difficulty visualizing that. I think he found it very believable. We went down to the entrance and the doorman told us you’d left in a hurry. I winked at Gascoigne and followed you.’

  Rose stopped the car. The light was already going and they still had to get to an undertaker’s. She fished in her handbag for Barry’s fountain pen while Antonia ripped the brown paper off the packet of disposal forms.

  ‘Don’t bother, darling. I’d better use mine. I filled in the registration form with it.’ She took it out and unscrewed the top. ‘Can’t be too careful.’