An Amateur Corpse

by Simon Brett

  ‘Haven’t heard of anything. London Weekend are supposed to be setting up a new series about Queen Victoria’s cooks, but I haven’t heard when.’

  ‘Then let’s live in hope of the voice-overs. I’d better get along to this place for the test. By the way, did they say what the product was?’

  ‘Yes. Something for . . . depopulation, was it?’ ‘For depopulation? You mean, like napalm?’

  ‘No, no. For removing unsightly hair.’

  ‘Depilation, Maurice.’

  The new depilatory about to be launched on the armpits of the world was called No Fuzz and the selling line was ‘There’s no fuss with No Fuzz.’

  Charles used his heavy cold voice again, because that was what they wanted. (If he had to keep grinding it down like that, he was going to ruin his vocal cords.) He dropped into the routine of giving every possible intonation to the new line, waiting for the fatuous notes from the account executive in charge (‘Give it a bit more brio, love’ and ‘Try it with just a smidgeonette of sex in the voice’) and let his mind wander. He couldn’t lose the suspicion that a properly programmed computer could sew up the entire voice-over business.

  He was kept for an hour, told he was super and that they’d give him a tinkle. And he had earned another thirty-five pounds.

  In the reception of the agency he met Diccon Hudson. Charles saw the other man’s eyes narrow at the sight of a potential rival. Diccon worked hard to maintain all his agency contacts and wouldn’t take kindly to being aced out by a non-specialist. ‘You up for the No Fuzz campaign?’ he asked directly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Becoming rivals, aren’t we. First Mr. Bland, now . . .’

  ‘I haven’t necessarily got this one.’

  ‘No.’ Diccon Hudson seemed to gain comfort from the fact. His ferrety face could not conceal what was going through his mind.

  Charles recalled suddenly that Diccon was on his list of people to check out in his investigation. ‘You heard about Charlotte?’

  The name sent a spasm across Diccon’s over-expressive face. ‘I heard. I was pretty cut up about it.’

  Charles nodded. ‘Terrible, yes. I suppose you hadn’t seen her for a long time.’

  ‘I saw her quite recently actually.’

  ‘Not on Monday night, I suppose,’ Charles joked, to draw Diccon out.

  ‘No, not on Monday night. I –’ Diccon suddenly stopped short, as if he’d thought better of what he was going to say.

  ‘What were you doing on Monday night then, buddy?’ Charles dropped into a New York cop accent to take the curse off his interrogation.

  ‘Nothing.’ Diccon hurried on, ‘I last saw Charlotte about a fortnight ago. We used to meet for the odd lunch.’

  ‘Regularly?’ Charles was beginning to wonder if, in spite of Sally Radford’s recollection of the name ‘Geoff,’ there was any connection between Diccon and the dates in Charlotte’s diary.

  But the theory was shattered before it was formed. ‘I was away in Crete for all of August, but I saw her a few times before and after. A few times.’ The repeat was accompanied by a smug smile, enigmatic, but probably meant to be taken as a form of sexual bragging.

  ‘Did Hugo know?’

  Diccon gave a contemptuous shrug; the question wasn’t worth answering.

  Now for Geoffrey Winter. Charles was glad that Sally had come up with the name, because it confirmed a conclusion towards which his mind had been moving.

  He had decided that, if Charlotte had chosen her lover from the ranks of the Backstagers, then Geoffrey was the only candidate. Perhaps it was The Seagull which had led him to the conclusion. Trigorin. after all, was the older man who seduced Nina. Or maybe it was just that Geoffrey seemed the only one of the Backstagers sufficiently attractive and interesting to be worthy of Charlotte.

  He had first got an inkling of something between the two of them at the cast party. Not that they had been together; they had been apart. They had both danced so ostentatiously, both putting on such a show with other people. There had been something studied about the way they had avoided each other. All of the rest of the cast had been constantly reforming and forming in little knots to remember some near disaster or ill-disguised corpse, but Geoffrey and Charlotte had always ended up in different groups.

  So Charles liked to think that he would have looked up Geoffrey’s office address in the phone book even if Sally hadn’t mentioned the name.

  When he did, the address gave him further confirmation. Listed under Geoffrey Winter Associates, Architects. And an office in Villiers Street, adjacent to Charing Cross Station and just over Hungerford Bridge from Waterloo.

  The office was on the top floor. A door with a frosted glass window bore the name on a stainless steel plaque. He tapped on the window, but, getting no response, tried the handle.

  The door was opened. He found himself in a small outer office. It was very tidy, box files upright in rows along the shelves, cardboard tubes of plans stacked on brackets on the walls. The colour scheme and the choice of the sparse furniture showed the same discrimination as Geoffrey’s study.

  But the outer office gave no feeling of work. It was like the Meckens’ house after it had been tidied by the police – too neat to be functional.

  The typewriter on the desk was shrouded in its plastic cover, as if its typist had long gone. There were no coats on the row of aluminium pegs.

  But there was someone in the next room. Or presumably more than one person, because Charles could hear a voice. Talking loudly, in a rather stilted way.

  He drew close to the connecting door, but couldn’t make out the words. He couldn’t even be sure that they were in English. He tapped on the door, but there was no break in the speech. He turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  There was only one person in the room. The first thing Charles saw was the soles of a new pair of shoes resting on the desk. Behind them, a pair of hands holding an Arden edition of The Winter’s Tale. And behind that the surprised face of Geoffrey Winter.

  ‘Good God. Charles Paris.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you come to commission me to build a second National Theatre?’

  ‘No such luck, I’m afraid. It’s not work.’

  ‘It never is.’

  ‘Bad at the moment?’

  ‘Not a good time for the architect on his own. No one’s building anything.’

  ‘The economic situation.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like everything else. Like why theatres are cutting down on resident companies, why managements are putting on less shows . . .’

  This banter was conducted at a pleasant enough level, but they both knew that it was only a formal observance preceding something more important. Charles decided there was little to be gained by further prevarication. ‘I’ve come to talk about Charlotte Mecken.’

  ‘Ah.’ Geoffrey Winter tensed fractionally at the name, but he didn’t give anything away. Charles got the same message that he had got from the performance as Trigorin, that here was a man of considerable emotional depth, but with great control over his reactions. He did not let anything emerge until he had fully considered how he wanted to present it.

  Charles had hoped for more reaction and was thrown when he didn’t get it. So he blundered on and, after a brief explanation of his belief in Hugo’s innocence, asked point blank if Geoffrey had been Charlotte’s lover.

  The response was an ‘Oh,’ delivered absolutely flat; it gave nothing. But Geoffrey Winter was only playing the pause for maximum dramatic effect. Charles recognized the acting technique and let the silence ride. At last Geoffrey spoke.

  ‘Well, congratulations. You’ve done your homework well. There’s no point in my denying it, you’re right. Since the police know, no doubt it’ll all come out at Hugo’s trial, so why should I pretend? Yes, I was Charlotte’s lover until she . . . died.’

  He changed pace suddenly on the last word, straightened up in his chair and turned to look
out over the irregular roofs of London. As if in the grip of strong emotion. Charles always found it difficult to judge with actors. Since their lives were devoted to simulation, it was often hard to distinguish when their feelings were genuine.

  He didn’t offer any comment; he let Geoffrey play the scene at his own pace. Sure enough, when the pause had extended far enough to make even a Pinter audience feel uncomfortable, Geoffrey turned back from the window and looked piercingly at him. ‘I suppose your next question is going to be – did I kill Charlotte?’

  In fact, that was not where Charles’s suspicions were leading, but he decided to play along with the scene. ‘I was going to be a bit more subtle than that.’

  ‘Well, Charles, the answer is no. I didn’t kill her. It would have been perverse for me to . . . I had no cause to break up what was happening . . . about the best . . . . thing that . . .’ Again he was overcome by real or simulated emotion (or, most likely, an amalgam of the two). He turned back to the window.

  ‘I’m sorry to put you through this, Geoffrey. I realize it must be painful. But Hugo is a friend and I have to investigate every avenue.’

  Geoffrey was once again master of himself (if indeed he had ever relinquished control). ‘I quite understand. I’ve been through all this with the police.’

  ‘How did they find out?’

  ‘Not difficult. They checked Charlotte’s comings and goings with the staff at Breckton Station, realized the convenient position of my office for such an affair, then came and asked me, more or less as you have done. It seemed pointless to try and hide the facts. It would only have made things worse.’

  ‘Did they ask you if you’d killed her?’

  ‘They, as you intended to be, were a bit more subtle than that. But they did ask a few pertinent questions about my movements on Monday. I think they were just checking; I didn’t get the impression they had much doubt about Hugo’s guilt. In fact, they came to see me after he had been arrested, so I suppose they were just building up the background to the case.’

  Charles must have been looking at Geoffrey quizzically, because the architect seemed to read his thoughts. He gave a dry laugh. ‘Yes. I’ll tell you what I told the police. I’ll establish my alibi for you – as I believe the saying goes.

  ‘Part of it you know, because you were with me in the Back Room. As you recall, we left there together and walked down to the main road. Now, in case you’re thinking that I might have immediately doubled back and taken the insane step of strangling someone I loved, it seems that there is proof that Charlotte was still alive and well at nine o’clock. Shad Scott-Smith, you may remember, in the Back Room buying drinks for The Seagull cast. Because Charlotte wasn’t there, he rang her from his home at about ten to nine. He rang off at nine. The reason he could be so specific is that he heard the opening of I, Claudius on the telly and he wanted to watch it.’

  ‘It seems to have cut a swathe through the lives of an entire generation, that programme.’

  ‘It did. Big success. Pity you weren’t in it.’

  ‘Yes, there’d be some pretty useful repeats on something like that. I’m afraid I’ve never been in what’s been hailed as a television success.’

  The change of subject relaxed the tension between the two men and Geoffrey continued in almost a bantering tone. ‘Right, on with my alibi. I arrived home just before nine to find that Vee, as another member of the generation decimated by 1, Claudius, was all geared up to watch. I left her to it and went upstairs to do some work on my lines for The Winter’s Tale.

  ‘For the next bit, I have cause to be thankful that I have a bloody-minded neighbour. Apparently, old Mrs Withers next door, who goes to bed at about nine, could hear me ranting away through the wall – her bedroom’s right next door to my study. Apparently she’s not a great fan of Shakespeare and later on, when I got a bit carried away with the character, she took it upon herself to ring up the police and complain. A very apologetic constable was round at our place for some time saying that old ladies could be very difficult Apparently, according to the police in the murder case, this means that I’m covered for the time of the death’

  He paused, not with satisfaction or triumph, but as if he had reached a natural conclusion. Then he added, ‘Fortunate, really. Most evenings spent at home, it would be very difficult to account for one’s movements.’

  ‘Thank you very much for going through it all again. And for bearing with my wild accusations.’

  ‘That’s quite okay. I sympathize with your motives. I’m as keen as you are to find the person who killed Charlotte. I just thought he had already been found.’

  ‘You may well be right. Certainly the fact that she was having an affair would give Hugo even more of a motive. Do you know if he knew about it?’

  ‘No idea. Charlotte and I didn’t discuss him.’

  ‘From my conversations with him, I got the impression that he thought she was having an affair, but didn’t know who with.’

  Geoffrey smiled painfully. ‘Ironic though it may seem, Charlotte and I did try to be discreet about it. I mean, never let on what we felt for each other round Breckton. We didn’t want to be gossip-fodder for the Backstagers.’

  ‘Very wise. So she always came up here?’

  Geoffrey nodded sadly. ‘Yes. It started in the summer. You remember the long, hot summer?’

  This new note of wistfulness, like everything else, sounded contrived. Charles didn’t respond to it. ‘Tell me, why did Charlotte come sometimes to Charing Cross and sometimes to Waterloo?’

  Geoffrey raised his eyebrows and nodded in appreciation. ‘Ten out of ten for homework. To answer that question, I think you have to understand what Charlotte was like. It was her first affair, she treated it with great excitement, and I think much of the excitement came from the secrecy. Corning to different stations was her idea of discretion, of covering her tracks. She was very young. As you see,’ he continued with irony, ‘the smoke-screen was not very effective. It. didn’t take the police – or you – long to see through it.’

  Charles felt a glow of satisfaction for his understanding of Charlotte’s character. ‘And was it for the same reason that she planned to go to Victoria on the day after she died?’

  ‘Victoria?’

  ‘I’d better explain. I found Charlotte’s engagement diary down at the house. She’d listed all your meetings by a time and the name of the terminus she was coming to. The last two entries were one o’clock at Charing Cross on the Monday, the day she died, and then one o’clock on the Tuesday at Victoria.’

  ‘Ah, I didn’t know she’d done that.’

  ‘What – put the places down in the book?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that must have been it.’ For the first time in their interview he seemed to be in the grip of some emotion that was more powerful than his control. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just so typical of her, to think that that kind of subterfuge would fool anyone. Going to Victoria instead . . . I mean, to go out of her way like that to be inconspicuous and then write all the details down in a diary. I think a lot of the affair was just a game for her, like a schoolgirl having a midnight feast.’

  ‘But it was serious on your side?’

  Geoffrey looked pained. ‘Serious on both sides – in our different ways. It was very good.’

  ‘And it was still going well when she died? I mean, you hadn’t had a row or . . .?’

  Geoffrey looked at Charles with some distaste, pitying his lack of subtlety. ‘I know what you mean. No, we hadn’t had a lover’s tiff which would inspire me with hatred to go and kill her. It was all going very well.’ He was becoming wistful again.

  ‘And was it going to change?’

  ‘Change?’

  ‘I mean, were you likely to get divorced and marry?’

  Geoffrey shook his head and slowly. ‘No, it was an affair. I wanted to go on as long as possible, but I suppose some time it would have ended. I’ve had other affairs. They all end sooner or later. I wouldn’t have left Vee
. People can never understand how close Vee and I are. I’m just one of those men who’s capable of loving more than one woman at a time. Do you understand?’

  ‘I think I do. Did Vee know about Charlotte?’

  ‘I assume so. I never told her, but she’s not stupid.’

  ‘Didn’t she get jealous?’

  ‘Vee would only get jealous if she thought someone was likely to take me away from her. She knew that no one would. According to my own rules of morality, I’m very loyal.’

  Charles nodded. Geoffrey had a male chauvinist vanity which was quite strong enough to blind him to his wife’s real feelings. No woman, however liberated, actually welcomes the knowledge that her husband is sleeping around. And Charles knew from the way that Vee had watched her husband at the cast party, she had a strong possessive instinct.

  There wasn’t a lot more Charles could find out. ‘I must go. I mustn’t keep you from your work any longer.’

  Geoffrey laughed cynically and flapped his copy of The Winter’s Tale. ‘Ah, my work. Geoffrey Winter Associates haven’t had a decent size job now for four months.’

  ‘Where are the Associates?’

  ‘Disassociated – or should it be dissociated? I never know. All gone their separate ways, anyway. Even the secretary’s gone.’

  ‘So you just come up here and do nothing all day?’

  ‘Sometimes things come up. Odd little jobs, through friends in various government departments. That’s the answer these days – work in the public sector. No room for men on their own. I keep applying for jobs in local government and things, but as yet no luck. So I stay on here and wait. May as well, until the lease is up.’

  ‘When’s that?’

  ‘A couple of months.’

  ‘And then what?’

  Geoffrey Winter’s shrug started expansive as if it encompassed every possibility in the known world, but shrank down to nothing.

  ‘So what do you live on?’

  ‘Credit.’ He laughed unconcernedly. ‘And the confidence that something will turn up.’