by Simon Brett
‘Ah, Mr Holroyd. How shrewd you are. No, I’m afraid not. The photographs and the negatives would cost you five thousand pounds.’
So, as he suspected, Jacqui had been done. A thousand pounds for one set of photographs; there might be any number of others about. Bill Holroyd blustered. ‘Oh, I don’t think I could possibly raise that.’
‘That’s the price. Mind you, when things start moving in a certain court case, they might get even more expensive.
‘Oh dear.’ Charles let a note of panic creep into Bill Holroyd’s voice and looked anxiously around the room.
‘No point in looking for them, love.’ It was ‘love’, now she knew she had the whip hand. ‘You won’t find them here.’
‘How do I know you’ve got them?’
‘I’ll show you.’ She opened a drawer in the dresser, pulled out a folder and handed it to him. ‘Only copies, love. You’ll never find the negatives, so don’t try.’
‘No.’ Charles opened the folder and looked at all the photographs. There were a lot and they included some identical to the set still bulging in his pocket. His hunch about the morals of blackmailing photographers was right. He handed them back. ‘You don’t think there’s any possibility that the price might be-’
‘Five thousand pounds.’
‘Hmm.’ (A pause, while Charles tried, according to the best Stanislavskian method, to give the impression of a man torn between the two great motives of his life-love of money and fear of scandal.) ‘Of course, it would take me some time to put my hands on that amount of money. Some days.’
‘I can wait.’ She smiled like a Venus fly-trap. ‘I’m not so sure that you can. Once they start getting deeper into this trial, I’m sure the interest in photographs of this sort will-’
‘Yes, yes. I’m sure it won’t take too long. It’s unfortunate not having my bank in London. It’s in Leeds. But… er… perhaps by Wednesday… Would Wednesday…?’
‘I’ll be here. With the negatives.’
‘Oh good.’ Although he was only acting the part, Charles felt Bill Holroyd’s relief. And in his own character he’d found out what he wanted to know. If there were other copies of the photographs, there was no doubt that Bill Sweet was blackmailing Steen. Steen had assumed from Jacqui’s message to Nigel that she was involved too. Charles was relieved that the information put her in the clear; she had been telling the truth. All he had to do now was what she had asked-get to see Steen, give him the photographs and explain that Jacqui was nothing to do with Bill Sweet. If Sweet himself continued his blackmail, that wasn’t Charles’ concern.
Mrs Sweet rose from the sofa. ‘That’s our business concluded. I’m glad we reached agreement in such a reasonable way. Would you like a drink?’
‘Oh, thank you very much.’ Perhaps a little too readily for Bill Holroyd. ‘That is to say, I don’t make a habit of it, but perhaps a small one.’
‘Gin?’ She went to the door.
‘That’d be… very nice.’ Charles just stopped himself from saying ‘Reet nice’. Would have been too much.
After a few moments, Mrs Sweet returned with a bottle, poured two substantial gins, added tonic and proffered a glass. Charles rose to take it. They were close. She didn’t move back. ‘Cheers, Mr Holroyd.’
‘Cheers.’
She looked at him, hard. ‘You like all that, do you, Mr Holroyd?’
‘All what?’
‘Parties. Like the one in Holland Park.’
‘Oh… well. Not habitually, no. I’m a respectable man, but, you know, one works very hard and… er… needs to relax, eh?’
‘Yes.’ She sat back on the sofa and motioned him beside her. ‘Yes, I find I need to relax too, Mr Holroyd.’
‘Ah.’ Charles sat gingerly on the mock leopard. He couldn’t quite believe the way things appeared to be going, and couldn’t think of anything else to say.
But Mrs Sweet continued, softly. ‘Yes, and relaxation becomes increasingly difficult.’ Her hand rested gently on top of his. The scene was getting distinctly sultry.
Charles decided to play it for light comedy. ‘I go in for a certain amount of golf, you know. That’s good for relaxation.’
‘Oh really.’ Her hand was moving gently over his. Charles stole a sidelong glance. The mouth was parted and thickened lashes low over her eyes. He recognised that she was trying to look seductive, and, while he didn’t find her attractive (rather the reverse), he was intrigued by the sudden change in her behaviour.
Mrs Sweet leant against him, so that he could feel the lacquered crispness of her hair on his ear. Her hand drew his to rest casually on her thigh. ‘I’ve never played golf.’
‘Oh, it’s a grand game,’ said Charles fatuously. In spite of himself, he could feel that he was becoming interested. Her perfume was strong and acrid in his nostrils. ‘Champion game.’
‘But I’m sure you play others.’ Quite suddenly the grip hardened on his hand and he felt it forced into the warm cleft between her legs. Instinctively he clutched at the nylon-clad mound.
But his mind was moving quickly. Mrs Sweet and her husband were blackmailers. This must be a plot of some sort. ‘Where’s your husband?’
‘A long way away.’
‘But wouldn’t he mind if-’
‘We lead separate lives. Very separate lives now.’ Her face was close to his and he kissed her. After all, he reflected, I am one of the few people in the world who isn’t worth blackmailing. And Bill Holroyd was already showing himself to be pretty gullible, so it’s in character.
Mrs Sweet reached her free hand down to his flies. No impotence problem this time. Charles began to consider the irony of life-that with Jacqui, whom he found very attractive, there was nothing, and yet with this nymphomaniac, who almost repelled him… but it wasn’t the moment for philosophy.
Mrs Sweet stood up and stripped off the housecoat. There was a crackle of static electricity. Her underwear was lacy red and black, brief and garish, the kind of stuff he’d seen in Soho shops and assumed was the monopoly of prostitutes. Perhaps she was a prostitute. The thought of another dose of clap flashed across his mind. But he was by now too aroused to be side-tracked.
He hastily pulled off his clothes and stood facing Mrs Sweet.
‘It doesn’t show,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Your war wound. The shrapnel.’
‘Ah. No. Well, they do wonders with plastic surgery. He advanced and put his arms round her, fumbled with the back of her brassiere. ‘The front,’ she murmured. It unclipped.
They sank down on to the leopardette sofa and he slipped off the crisp lacy briefs. Underneath he’d expected her to be hard and dry, but she was very soft and moist. Again he thought of meringues. And as he had her, he emitted grunts which he hoped were in character for the director of a man-made fibres company.
VII
Cinderella by the Fireside
Charles felt distinctly jaded as he walked along Hereford Road. Mrs Sweet had kept him at it some time. He ached all over, and felt the revulsion that sex without affection always left like a hangover inside him. It was half-past four and dark. No pubs open yet. He felt in need of a bath to wash away Mrs Sweet’s stale perfume.
As he entered the hall of the house, he heard a door open upstairs. ‘He is here,’ said a flat Swedish voice. There was the sound of footsteps running downstairs and Jacqui rushed into his arms. She was quivering like an animal. He held her to him and she started to weep hysterically. A podgy Swedish face peered over the banisters at them. ‘You are an old dirty man,’ it said and disappeared.
Charles was too concerned with Jacqui even to yell the usual obscenities at the Swede. He led the trembling girl into his room. She was as cold as ice. He sat her in the armchair and lit the gas-fire, poured a large Scotch and held it out to her. ‘No. It’d make me sick.’ And she burst out crying again.
Charles knelt by the chair and put his arm round her shoulders. She was still shivering convulsively. ‘What’s happened, Jacqu
i?’
The question prompted another great surge of weeping. Charles stayed crouching by her side and drank the Scotch while he tried to think how to calm her.
Eventually the convulsions subsided to some extent and he could hear what she was saying. ‘My flat-they broke into my flat.’
‘Who did?’
‘I don’t know. This morning I came back from doing the weekend shopping and it was-it had all been done over. My oil lamp-and the curtains pulled down and all my glasses smashed and my clothes torn in shreds and-’ She broke down again into incoherence.
‘Jacqui, who did it?’
‘I don’t know. It must have been someone who Marius-who Marius-’ she sobbed.
‘Why should he-’
‘I… I tried to ring him again.’
‘Jacqui, I told you not to do that.’
‘I know, but I… I couldn’t help it… I had to ring him, because of the baby.’
‘Baby?’
‘Yes, I’m pregnant again and…’
‘Does Steen know?’
‘Yes. We knew a month ago, and he said we’d keep this one and he wanted a child and…’ Again she was shaken by uncontrollable spasms.
‘Jacqui, listen. Calm down. Listen, it’ll be all right. Steen’s only acting this way because he’s frightened. There’s been a misunderstanding about those photographs.’ And Charles gave an edited version of his findings at Imago Studios.
By the end of his narrative she was calmer. ‘So that’s all. Marius thinks I’m involved with this Bill Sweet?’
‘That’s it. Jacqui, you might have known he’d keep the negatives.’
‘I never thought. I hope you tore him off a strip when-’
‘I didn’t see him. I saw his wife.’
‘What was she like?’
‘Oh.’ He shrugged non-committally. ‘Listen, Jacqui, it’ll be all right now. You can stay here. You’ll be quite safe. And go ahead as planned. I’ll somehow get to see Steen, deliver the photographs and explain the position. Then at least he’ll take the heat off you. And turn it on Sweet, where it belongs.’ He laughed. ‘I must say, Jacqui, I don’t care for your boy-friend’s methods.’
Jacqui laughed too, a weak giggle of relief. ‘Yes, he can be a bastard. You think it’ll be all right?’
‘Just as soon as I can get to see him. I mean, I don’t know about the emotional thing-that’s between the two of you-but I’m sure he’ll stop the rough stuff.’
There was a pause. Jacqui breathed deeply. ‘Oh, it really hurts. My throat, from all that crying.’
‘Yes, of course it does. You’re exhausted. Tell you what, I’ll get you pleasantly drunk, tuck you up in bed, you’ll sleep the sleep of the dead. And in the morning nothing’ll seem so bad.’
‘But my flat…’
‘I’ll help you tidy it up, when we’ve got this sorted out.
‘Oh, Charles, you are great. I don’t know what I’d do without you, honest.’
‘S’all right.’ He took her hand and gripped it, embarrassed, like a father with his grown-up daughter. Then suddenly, brisk. ‘Right, I’m hungry. Have you had anything to eat?’
‘No, I… I’ve felt sick. I-’
‘Haven’t got anything here, but-’
‘I couldn’t go out.’
‘Don’t you worry. It was for just such occasions that fish and chips were invented.’
‘Oh no. I’d be sick.’
‘Don’t you believe it. Nice bit of rock salmon, bag of chips, lots of vinegar, you’ll feel on top of the world.’
‘Ugh.’
It’s strange how fish and chip newspapers, out of date and greasy, are always much more interesting than current ones. It’s like other people’s papers in crowded tubes. You can’t wait to buy a copy and read some intriguing article you glimpse over a strap-hanging shoulder. It’s always disappointing.
In the fish and chip shop Charles noticed that his order was wrapped in a copy of the Sun. On the front page was the tantalizing headline, ‘Virginity Auction-see page 11’. The fascination of page 11 grew as he walked home. Who was auctioning whose virginity to whom? And where?
This thought preoccupied him as he entered his room. Jacqui was lying on the bed, fast asleep. Curled up in a ball on the candlewick, she looked about three years old.
He made no attempt to wake her. In her state sleep was more important than food. The Virginity Auction-he settled down in front of the fire to find out all about it. He slipped a hot crumbling piece of fish into his mouth, placed the warm bag of chips on his knees and turned to page 11.
Bugger. He’d only got pages 1 to 8, and the corresponding ones at the back. He’d never know where virginities were knocked down, or how one bidded. A pleasant thought of nubile young girls being displayed at Sotheby’s crossed his mind.
There wasn’t much else in the paper. It was the last Wednesday’s-all bloody petrol crisis. The titty girl on page 3’s midriff was stained and transparent with grease from the fish and chips. It looked rather obscene, particularly as the word ‘Come’ showed through backwards from the other side of the page.
Charles turned over and stopped dead. There was a photograph on the page that was ominously familiar. He had last seen it on a dresser, surrounded by brass souvenirs.
Fiercely calm, he read the accompanying article.
M4 MURDER VICTIM IDENTIFIED
The man whose body was found early on Monday morning by the M4 exit road at Theale, Berks, has been identified as 44-year-old William Sweet, a photographer from Paddington, London. Sweet was found shot through the head at the roadside beside his grey Ford Escort, which appeared to have run out of petrol.
Interviewed at his Paddington studios, Sweet’s wife, Audrey, could suggest no motive for the killing. Police believe Sweet may have been the victim of a gangland revenge killing, and that he may have been mistaken for someone else.
Charles put down the fish and chips and poured a large Scotch. He could feel his thoughts beginning to stampede and furiously tried to hold them in check.
Certain points were clear. He ordered them with grim concentration. Marius Steen must have killed Sweet: Sweet had put the pressure on about the photographs, Steen had fixed to meet him and shot him. Charles grabbed an old AA book that was lying around. Yes, the Theale turn-off was the one you’d take going to Streatley. Sweet was shot Sunday night or Monday morning. Marius Steen was in London certainly on the Saturday night, because he was at the Sex of One
… party. And in Streatley during the week. He was therefore likely to have been driving through Theale late on Sunday. As Harry Chiltern had said, there was always a gun in the glove compartment. A glance at the map made Charles pretty sure that that gun was now in the Thames.
Other facts followed too. Mrs Sweet was holding out on the police. It was nonsense for her to say no one had a motive for murdering her husband. As Charles had discovered, she knew about the Sally Nash party photographs. All she had to do was to tell the police about her husband’s blackmailing activities and very soon the finger would point at Steen. For reasons of her own, she wasn’t doing that. Probably just didn’t want to lose a profitable business.
But the most chilling deduction from the fact of Bill Sweet’s murder was the immediate danger to Jacqui. If he’d shoot one person who challenged him, Marius Steen would do the same to anyone else he thought represented the same threat. He’d tried to frighten Jacqui off with the telephone messages and vicious note, but if she persisted
… Charles shivered as he thought what might have happened if Jacqui had been in the flat when her ‘visitors’ called that morning. He looked over to the child-like form on his bed and felt a protective instinct so strong he almost wept.
Confrontation with Marius Steen couldn’t wait. Charles must get down to Streatley straight away. If the man was down there… Better ring the Bayswater house to check. But he hadn’t got the number. It seemed a pity to wake Jacqui. He opened her handbag, but the address book revealed
nothing.
No help for it. ‘Jacqui.’ He shook her gently. She started like a frightened cat, and looked up at him wide-eyed. ‘Sorry. Listen, I’ve been thinking. I want to get this sorted out, like as soon as possible. There’s no point in your being in this state of terror. I am going to try and see Steen tonight. Get it over with.’
‘But if he’s in Streatley-’
‘That’s all right. I don’t mind.’ He tried to sound casual, as if the new urgency was only a whim. ‘My daughter lives down that way. I wanted to go and visit her anyway.’
‘I didn’t know you’d got a daughter.’
‘Oh yes.’
‘How old?’
‘Twenty-one.’
‘Nearly as old as me.’
‘Yes.’
‘Like me?’
‘Hardly. Safely married at nineteen to a whizz-kid of the insurance world-if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Anyway, the reason I woke you was not just bloody-mindedness. I want to ring Steen’s Bayswater place and check he’s not there. It’s a long way to go if he’s just round the corner.’
Both the phone numbers Jacqui gave were ex-directory. Charles paused for a moment before dialling the Bayswater one, while he decided what character to take on. It had to be someone anonymous, but somebody who would be allowed to speak to the man if he was there, and someone who might conceivably be ringing on a Saturday night.
The phone was picked up at the other end and Charles pressed his two p into the coin box. A discreet, educated voice identified the number-nothing more.
‘Ah, good evening.’ He plumped for the Glaswegian accent he’d used in a Thirty-Minute Theatre (‘Pointless’ — The Times). ‘Is that Mr Marius Steen’s residence?’
‘He does live here, yes, but-’
‘It’s Detective-Sergeant McWhirter from Scotland Yard. I’m sorry to bother you at this time of night. Is it possible to speak to Mr Steen?’
‘I’m afraid not. Mr Steen is at his home in the country. Can I help at all?’
Charles hadn’t planned beyond finding out what he wanted to know and had to think quickly. ‘Ah yes, perhaps you can. It’s only a small thing. Um.’ Playing for time. Then a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘We’re just checking on various Rolls-Royce owners. There’s a number-plate racket going on at the moment. I wonder if you could give me Mr Steen’s registration.’
