by David Smith
‘Penn’s an actor, he’s shooting the new Sherlock across the square,’ explained Izzie in her ‘thoughtful’ voice, her hands now entwined generously around her new beau.
‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ I smiled back and looked again at this ‘actor’. Izzie might have seen this one first, but I subconsciously thought that I’d at least keep him in play just in case.
‘And Penn, this is Penny,’ laughed Izzie, realising for the first time the similarity of our names. ‘Penny’s a policewoman and yeah, some sort of very complicated relative of mine – I can’t remember the relationship exactly. She’s a proper detective now, probably already investigating that murder that happened yesterday. How weird is that?’
‘A detective? Cool, I might get a few clues from you then if we ever get back to filming,’ he joked. ‘I love your hair; you’re a dead ringer for that Harry Potter actress. Have you ever done any acting yourself?’ he added, flirting with me a little again. I could tell by his eyes that he was trying to see if he could get a rise from Izzie. He had obviously already noticed that there was an undercurrent of competitive rivalry between us.
‘Well yes, you know, I had a few minor parts at school,’ I answered, playing bashful.
‘Oh yes, just tell him about Dorothy and Sally Bowles, you old show-off,’ said Izzie, looking somewhat annoyed with Penn for asking me this particular question. We had a history of ‘sharing’ boyfriends and rivalry over leading roles in school plays, but I guessed she was thinking that she wasn’t about to let this one wander my way that easily.
‘So, which book are they filming this time?’ I asked, changing the subject and by the look of Izzie’s face, smiling at him a little too flirtatiously for her liking.
‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men,’ he said. And at my request, he began to briefly explain the outline of the story.
When he was done, Penn re-joined the queue to pick up skinny lattes for himself and Izzie. I took Izzie aside to chat conspiratorially on a group of sofas in the corner while we waited.
‘God, Izzie, where did you find him? He’s drop dead gorgeous.’ I said, leaning over the table to speak to her in confidence.
‘He was in the Dell Park, playing his guitar, singing ‘Let us be lovers’ if you believe it. It was amazing.’
‘No kidding? He’s a musician as well as an actor? God, you’re so jammy.’
‘Something like that, his father was a writer and his grandfather was a famous poet so there’s more than a fair bullshit quotient mind you, but I like him all the same.’
‘Who wouldn’t? So, should I assume you two are an item?’
‘Let’s just say you’d better knock next time you call round,’ she answered, grinning from ear to ear.
‘OK – spare me the details.’
‘You asked.’
‘So the obvious question is does he have any more actor friends, preferably tall ones?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know but feel free to ask,’ she replied laughing and then suddenly looked concerned as if she had remembered something. ‘Penny, there’s something I need to ask you about.’
‘Fire away, but I thought you knew what you were doing in that arena, you’ve had enough practice,’ I replied.
‘Don’t be coarse. No, seriously it’s about Winnie. You know that we found her unconscious in the bath. Well I for one don’t think it was an accident,’ she was whispering now and went on to explain the circumstances in which they had found her. ‘The owners of the home seem to want to brush it under the carpet as an accident, but there’s something just not right about it. She didn’t have access to her own drugs so there’s no way she could have deliberately taken an overdose like they said. And the drugs she took, Moban, are not available in the UK for regular usage.’
‘Moban, that’s interesting, I’ll check that out? In any case, don’t worry; we’re definitely getting an autopsy arranged. We’ll soon sort out what happened. She was a prime witness after all.’
‘Thanks so much, Penny. I was really fond of her. Oh, and by the way, Penn’s got something else to tell you about that man that was killed as well.’
*
Back in their basement flat, Alice turned over in bed and fumbled for the alarm clock. It was 9am already; shafts of light from the window shutters were spreading a zebra pattern of shadows across the covers of the bed. She glanced around the room but the tentative forms of furniture and discarded clothing remained out of focus. She had removed her contact lenses the previous evening. Is it really time to get up already? she wondered, groaning.
The weather had turned warmer again overnight and the early morning chill was giving way rapidly to pleasant warmth as the sun’s rays spread across her face. She loved this time on a Sunday morning, the moments before the day had started; the most peaceful time of the week. Eddie was curled up in his duvet, the sound of his breathing heavy and reassuring in the room. Alice slipped her hand inside the duvet and found the patch of small fine hair that she loved at the base of his neck, stroking him gently with the back of her hand before beginning to run her fingers slowly up and down the muscles of his back. She felt his body respond sleepily to her touch and knew that he was awake but she didn’t speak to him and he didn’t turn over, content to feel her hand massaging him. She pulled her whole body in under the duvet so she was coupled around his back, like a small glove stretched over the bent length of his torso, feeling the warmth of his body on hers. Then she slipped her hand around his hips, already sensing his skin shiver at the amorous progress of her fingertips.
He still said nothing, but she knew from experience how to break this code of silence; she banished her dark doubts from the previous evening and was eager to re-establish her claim on his affections after his pleasure-seeking and foolishness last Friday. Like freshly squeezed juice, he was easy to forgive, despite his unreliable sermons, and even easier to arouse. Eddie turned over and rolled on top of her, pulling the straps of her nightdress over her shoulders so that he could kiss her neck and chest, rubbing his nose gently over her like a puppy. She giggled, but let him continue, while she caressed his hair and then pulled him closer toward her.
‘I love you,’ he said. That was what she had been waiting to hear all week.
‘I will always love you, Eddie.’
‘And do you believe in me again, oh faithless one?’
‘Of course, although to be truthful, you do have your moments.’
*
When I finally got to the office with my takeaway coffee, it was around 9am. The first email, when it arrived an hour later, was perplexing.
‘It’s just a bunch of dancing stick men with flags,’ I said to one of my colleagues as we stared together at the screen. Given our earlier conversation about the Sherlock Holmes story, I wondered if Izzie and Penn were playing some kind of a practical joke on me, so I gave Izzie a call to check, but this drew a blank. Still, remembering what Penn had told me about the subject of the story they were filming, I tried simple semaphore to decode the message, but that did not seem to work. I then decided to call in some specialist help from computer forensics and had the message traced to an email account registered to an Arthur Troyte, an architect who lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This was a place I had never heard of before my research into Nariman’s background the previous day, so it was certainly a weird coincidence. If they were really connected to Nariman, these messages might be important clues to the murder.
By the end of the morning I had received three more similar looking messages, all in the same stick man code, but I was none the wiser about their meaning. Then I had a brainwave and called my cousin who worked at Codehunters, a local computer games company to see if he had any ideas on how to crack the code. I was already impatient for Hunter to arrive to show him my discoveries. I knew that he was planning to call on the Flyte household again that morning and texted to him to say there was something I needed to show him as soon as possible.
*
Hunter was
on his way up to the sitting room of No. 5 Clarendon Square with Julia when he received the first text message from Penny. He replied that he would be back as soon as possible. He was intrigued by this new development but also had some important and sensitive work to complete first. When they were seated and despite their previous social acquaintance, Hunter proceeded quite formally, asking Julia a series of very direct questions.
‘Miss Flyte, I understand there’s very bad blood between Lady Mary and Sir William following their separation?’
‘Yes you could say that, but that’s not exactly a secret. And please call me Julia, Inspector.’
‘And your mother, I mean Lady Mary, is away for a while?’
‘Yes, Inspector, she and Reverend Dore are on their honeymoon. In fact, they’re on a cruise ship at the moment, sailing between Antibes and the Amalfi coast. It all seems very romantic; she’s certainly not hurrying back any time soon. We’re lucky if we get a postcard from them from time to time.’
‘So you’re saying there’s no way that she could have been here over the last couple of days.’
‘No Inspector, of course not. As I’ve just said she’s on a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean.’
‘Yes of course, that’s certainly a very convincing alibi, um, explanation, but you understand why I have to ask given the situation?’
‘Not really, Mother is hardly a likely candidate for a murderer, is she? But I guess if you must, you must.’
‘It’s my job to look at every possibility seriously. And what about yourself and Delia, can I ask what you were doing yesterday morning about 8am?’
Julia looked at him with an air of disbelief. She lifted up her hands and proffered them to the inspector as if inviting him to put a pair of imaginary handcuffs on her.
‘OK, sorry Miss Flyte, but I have to ask you this. You know that, especially given your relationship to Sir William.’
‘Well, you never know, I might just enjoy being a suspect, Inspector. But in all fairness, I should warn you that if we were going to bump off anybody next door, it certainly wouldn’t have been Nadia’s grandfather.’
‘Quite, I suppose you do have a good point there on motivation. In any case, I was told that you were both away at a wedding on Friday night anyway, would that be correct?’
‘Yes, in Malvern with about a hundred other people. Mind you, I suppose it wouldn’t be that hard finding hit men to do us a favour in that town,’ she laughed to try and defuse the formality of the situation. ‘There’s a lot of that sort of stuff goes on in Malvern, you know. A girl can get a Malvern man to do almost anything for a show of leg.’
‘OK, OK I get the message,’ he was silent for a moment, considering further what to ask her next.
‘So did you find out anything more about those men with the knife?’ she asked him, breaking the silence.
‘We’re still pursuing those enquiries,’ he replied without giving anything away, thoughtfully shaking his head. ‘Had you seen them or any other strangers hanging around the house at all recently, anything suspicious?’ She shook her head.
‘And did you know this Mr Nariman, at all?’
‘No, I did not know him at all; in fact I didn’t know that he was staying there. Of course I suppose it would have been more than a bit embarrassing for my father to have to introduce us, you understand, with us living next door, skeletons in the cupboard so to speak.’
‘Yes I can see the difficulty. There’s one last thing I need to ask. When I went to use the bathroom just now I noticed that one of your mother’s rifles was missing from the guncase on the landing.’
‘Really?’ she paused. ‘Well yes, she probably did take a hunting rifle with her. They had a few days at a Scottish castle that her friend owns before flying to the Med.’
‘OK, it’s just that we haven’t found the murder weapon yet and we have to look at all possibilities.’
‘Oh my God? How exciting, mother’s ancient rifle is an assassin’s weapon of choice. Will we be having one of those group sessions in the breakfast room, you know where everything is finally revealed and we find out that the butler did it and which murder weapon he used?’
*
As Hunter left Lady Mary’s house, he saw Eddie, Alice and Carrie coming up the steps from their flat with their bicycles. Alice and Carrie were both wearing pretty pinafore-style dresses and Eddie had made the effort to dress up in imitation of an Edwardian gentleman.
‘We’re going on a Snark hunt, beyond the ocean right to the source of the river, Mr Hunter!’ said Carrie in her best-behaved, prim and proper voice. ‘Do you want to come with us?’
‘Carrie, you shouldn’t bother the inspector, he’s very busy,’ warned Alice.
‘Well, do you at least know what a Snark looks like?’ asked Carrie, ignoring her mother’s warnings. ‘Daddy won’t let on at all.’
‘Well, Miss Carice, I have to admit I’ve never actually met one. I tend to deal only in sharks and alligators round here, and I’m certainly up to my neck in them. But from what I’ve heard they are all meagre and hollow and crisp to taste, with a habit of rising late and taking breakfast during five o’clock tea!’
Carrie giggled, clapping her hands in delight. ‘More!’
‘Well I have also heard that they have a fondness for bathing machines as well as an inordinate amount of ambition. So I wish you well in your hunting, young lady, your expedition sounds quite delightful. Let me know if you find any, so that maybe I can join in with you the next time. Have fun, but beware of the Bandersnatch!’
‘Dad, what’s a Bandersnatch?’ asked Carrie, excited to hear about this new danger.
‘It’s just a fig-mint,’ said Eddie, amused at seeing the softer side of Hunter for once. He wondered what had brought this on. ‘Nothing to worry about, come on now you two or we’ll all be late!’
*
Eddie led off on his old Sunbeam and they cycled down the road toward the riverside park. When they reached the boat centre they couldn’t agree at first on whether to hire kayaks or one of the traditional rowing skiffs. Eddie said that the kayaks would be just the thing for hunting Snarks in the reed beds, but Alice persuaded him that the skiff might be just a little more appropriate for two ladies dressed up in their Sunday best.
They hired the skiff for two hours and progressed up the river slowly, zigzagging back and forth, skirting the banks, looking up every creek, skimming through the dangling willow branches. Alice had made a vegetarian picnic, which they munched on happily, whilst Eddie rowed and Carrie dangled her fingers in the wake behind the boat. When Carrie was distracted feeding the ducks, Eddie bent over and planted a kiss on Alice’s lips.
‘You look beautiful in that dress,’ he said.
*
Two compliments in a day, she was beginning to feel spoiled by Eddie’s attention. She stared at his face, searching for confirmation of the sincerity of his intentions. She was suddenly feeling very happy again. Despite all his flaws, there was no denying that Eddie was both a darling and beautiful. But her need for love was more than physical; it was about an amalgamation with another person’s thoughts and behaviours. And in Carrie they had certainly also given the world something new and wonderful: a legacy.
At birth, a child receives its genes from its parents but more importantly as it is growing up it develops something of each parent’s personality, good or bad. Lately she had begun to feel the anxiety of age as she approached forty. Despite all her achievements, was she really happy? Sometimes she just wanted the world to slow down so that they could enjoy the moment, like today, like there and now in that boat on that river, with her beloved husband and her beautiful daughter, in the calm and the peacefulness. It was a picture of love, not romantic love, but something much deeper, agape love, a love of being. These were mixed up thoughts but ones that made her feel glad to be alive. She felt ever so fortunate to have both of them to herself for once, after all their free time was so limited.
Strangely
, the memory of her teenage sweetheart, Sebastian, came back into her mind for the second time that weekend. They used to walk along this riverbank together as teenagers, holding hands, telling each other stories about the mundane things of life as well as their dreams. Now that had been romantic love, innocent love, intense with the first flush of passion and discovery. She had taken a long time to recover from his death, cried for weeks in private and sometimes in public. She still had a frozen image of him in her mind that would never grow up, forever nineteen. In contrast, her image of Eddie had evolved and constantly changed, so that she could not quite remember what he looked like when they had first met but the intricacies of their relationship continued to grow. She realised her memory of Sebastian was an idealised sort of love, a sweetheart, a teenage crush, not the realism of real life. If he were still alive, there was a chance that they would not have gotten on at all anymore. And if they’d married, they would more than likely have split up by now.
She thought how strange it would be to meet him again, not just an old flame, but one preserved now in aspic. What would they have to talk about? Old friends, places they had been, but all without a point, without any consequence or outcome or possible future. It probably would not be that long a conversation, unlike those with his sisters with whom she could quite happily talk for hours. She looked across again at Eddie, now concentrating hard, looking over his shoulder as they rounded a little island in the river. Yes, although imperfect he was real and worth the effort. She hadn’t chosen so badly.
