Angels Dining at the Ritz

by John Gardner

  Later, when the visiting time was over, Mr Bolt himself escorted her back to the lodge that was really a kind of guard room at the main gates, the protected entrance and exit to Saxon Hall. As they walked, Lavender limping along slowly as Harriet Goldfinch, younger sister to Ailsa, Christopher Bolt spoke, ‘When we was talking in there, miss — I am right, it is miss, isn’t it?’ Looked down at her, smiled a knowing smile. Twinkle.

  ‘Yes, Mr Bolt. Yes it’s miss, always has been and I suppose always will be now.’

  ‘When we was talking in there. You spoke of your nephew as “a poor boy”. “A poor boy bewailing his fate,” you said.’

  ‘I did, yes.’

  ‘You think of him as a poor boy, miss?’

  ‘I do, Mr Bolt. Yes, of course I do. The boy’s had his liberty taken away from him, and, unless I’m mistaken, you keep him subdued with drugs. You keep him quiet and pliable, yes?’

  A curt nod from Mr Bolt.

  ‘He is lost to the world. Lost to me, his living relative, and he’s classified insane, my nephew,’ Miss Harriet Goldfinch said, almost tearfully.

  ‘Perhaps, miss, you should think of all those folks that your nephew, Golly, killed. The people he strangled with the piano wire; the people he crushed the life from; think about them and their relatives, who’ll never see them again because of Golly.’

  ‘They only proved he killed one. Charlotte Fox she was.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Goldfinch. They only had to prove one, but what about the others? Patricia Cooke from near Stratford-upon-Avon, Marie Davidson from Trumpington, Mary Tobin found on Ealing Common, Geraldine Williams, Newcastle, Gillian Hunt in her Birmingham flat, Pamela Harwood —’

  ‘You seem to have made quite a study of my nephew, Mr Bolt,’ she snapped.

  ‘Don’t need to make a study, miss. Your Golly never stops talking about them, croons hisself to sleep reciting their names… Obsessed by them.’

  ‘Even when he’s subdued by your drugs?’

  ‘Especially when he’s had the drugs. Gets what they call a heightened perception of things. I hear he goes into a lot of detail when he talks to Dr Cornish. A. Lot. Of. Detail.’

  ‘Then I trust Dr Cornish knows how to help him.’

  ‘Indeed he does, miss. Helps him a great deal, I gather.’

  Something not quite as it should be, Christopher Bolt thought to himself as he watched the elderly, rather common lady, waddle her way out of the gates and along the barbed wire-flanked drive heading towards the second checkpoint, the one in the brick wall topped with broken glass.

  Couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but Christopher Bolt had a nasty little sense of irritation about Harriet Goldfinch: something that didn’t quite fit. Have to keep an eye out for her on the next visiting day.

  Take a closer look.

  Chapter Four

  After making a couple of telephone calls they went to Willoughby Sands’s house near Hampstead Heath. A quiet road, large old Victorian mansions, lots of gable ends with painted white boards, big sash windows, and outside the trees in full dying summer leaf, August dust on them. Not much bomb damage around here, but the council had taken away the gates and railings from the front of the houses, to help make tanks and aeroplanes. They never did of course — make tanks and aeroplanes — because the metal from railings couldn’t be turned into tanks, ’planes, guns or bombs. Probably made people feel good though, letting all the railings go. The dogs loved it, had a field day.

  Inside it was cool and neat and Lady Sands, who greeted Tommy with a kiss and Suzie with a limp handshake, said you couldn’t get the staff these days, murder running a big house without staff, unfortunate choice of words in the circumstances. She went on to say she was trying to train a new general-purpose servant. ‘On the dim side,’ she told them. ‘Dim as a Toc H lamp.’

  Then Sir Willoughby came in, roly-poly like a caricature on legs. The pair together reminded Suzie of Laurel and Hardy, Lady Sands small and thin, Willoughby downright fat, but full of energy, fiddling with his tie.

  Stanley, pick up those tools.

  But Ollie, I only wanted to…

  Tommy started it. ‘Will, I want to talk about Max Ascoli. Run down the family history. Inside story from the wise, y’know, get it from the horse’s mouth.’

  Will Sands gave a high whinnying sound and Suzie was surprised that such an experienced barrister could stoop to that kind of music-hall humour. In the back of her head she heard Tommy Trinder, the comedian, doing his ‘You lucky people’ catchphrase.

  ‘Come to the fount of all wisdom,’ Tommy said with his Eton drawl. ‘I know you must be feeling it badly. Last thing you’ll want to do…’

  ‘Do what I can,’ from Willoughby. ‘You know that. I want you to get the bastard. Best I should keep going anyway but couldn’t stay in chambers: two families intertwined you see. Sands-Ascoli.’

  Lady Sands interrupted, said, ‘If you’ll excuse me I’ll go and attempt to train this fifteen-year-old cretin they’ve sent me from the Labour Exchange: teach her how to work a carpet sweeper,’ left a dazzling smile behind her. It seemed to linger in the drawing room after she had closed the door. But Suzie caught Tommy rolling his eyes to heaven.

  ‘Imogen really didn’t care for Jenny Ascoli,’ Willoughby grinned, speaking quietly, embarrassed. ‘Felt knowing her socially was a shade infra dig.’

  ‘Why?’ Suzie asked and Willoughby Sands gave a huge shrug, shaking his head and raising his arms. ‘Who can tell? I do not understand the female mind. Particularly I do not understand my wife’s mind.’ He laughed, deep and heartfelt. ‘She gets on with everyone else, know what I mean?’ His face showed that it was all a mystery to him. ‘Virgil got it right. Varium et mutabile semper Femina. Eh?’

  ‘Wasn’t any good at geometry, old thing.’ Tommy did his side-on smile — one corner of his mouth turned up showing his teeth — the one he called his terrible smile.

  “‘Fickle and changeable always is woman.’”

  ‘Thank you.’

  Suzie thought that maybe she should give up now while she was a step ahead.

  They waited and finally Willoughby said, ‘Anthony — Antonio — Tony Ascoli came to England from Rome around 1889-1890, sometime about then. Came with his wife, Clara, and the three bambini: Salvatore — whom friends called Sammy — Benito and the toddler Fredo. They settled first in Manchester, but Sammy came south: Oxford to read Law. Came up to Magdalene in the Michaelmas term 1891. They had money, big success in Rome with ice cream and confectionery. Never understood why they left Italy. Lot of rumours of course…’

  Not for the first time Suzie wondered why Oxford University had a college dedicated to St Mary Magdalene whose name they pronounced ‘Maudlin’. Never could work out the vagaries of university traditions.

  ‘What kind of rumours?’ Tommy sprawled in an easy chair and Willoughby in the middle of an old-fashioned Chesterfield, taking up most of it, the Chesterfield covered in white with little rosebuds dotted around. Suzie sat on a Victorian nursing chair in the far corner by a long curved bay window looking out on to the garden, big floral decoration on a table set in the bow: colourful. On the opposite wall there was a large oil: Venice, the waterfront adjacent to the Piazzetta di San Marco: a corner of the Doge’s Palace with the pillar topped by a statue of St Theodore and the other pillar, in the foreground, surmounted by the Lion of St Mark. Dramatic scene with a storm brewing, lightning in the wings. She had an idea that this was a copy of some more famous painting, but couldn’t place it. They used to carry out executions between those two columns. Suzie knew because she’d spent a week there with her family back in the peace of childhood, sometime in the thirties. Got her bottom pinched in Venice boarding a vaporetto: nice. Had it fondled in London, on a crowded tube train only last week: not so nice. One of the things she vividly remembered about that trip to Venice was the guide telling them about the executions, all gruesome and loving it. That and the bottom-pinching. Sexual arousal in Venice: what could
have been better?

  ‘Rumours?’ Willoughby sighed. ‘Rumours that the Ascolis had crossed someone. That was the favourite. Huge row, threats, vengeance-is-mine sort of business…’ Waving a hand, indicating it was a load of rubbish.

  ‘Someone?’ Tommy queried.

  ‘Yes… Someone. Never had details. Dame Rumour you know, Tommy.’

  ‘No. You knew Sammy; knew him well, I guess. After all he was your father’s partner in chambers. He must have said something. The real story, the reason why the family came to England.’

  ‘Oddly, Tom, he didn’t. None of the Ascolis ever referred to it, steered clear of it, changed the subject if asked, but there were other tales — that old Antonio had run away from Rome with some ice-cream recipe, or a secret piece of equipment for the confectionery trade. Another one was that Antonio’d had an affair with some girl in royal circles and it was a big scandal, something went wrong. Either the girl had killed herself — you know, hot Italian blood — or she was up the loop and he’d run away with his wife.’

  Tommy gave his screwed-up face ‘looking at the ceiling look’, the quizzical one, right eyebrow raised. But Willoughby Sands continued:

  ‘Old Antonio liked the ladies. Come to that, all the Ascolis were fond of the horizontal waltz, and chose women who were enthusiastic, enjoyed the zig-zig as well, all of them.’

  Tommy gave a long series of nods, understanding the Ascolis.

  ‘Beginning of the century they didn’t all lie back and think of England y’know. All the Ascoli men picked girls who knew what it was for and liked it with some fervour. Vines have tender grapes; let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine: Song of Solomon stuff.’

  Of course, Suzie thought, he means the beautiful romantic side of love, romantic and physical sides. I bet poetic old Willoughby’s full of it. Suzie wondered if this was the reason Imogen hadn’t liked Jenny Ascoli, the sex thing. Perhaps. Maybe didn’t like Willoughby either, could be.

  Willoughby smiled thinly, raising his head, looking Tommy in the eyes. ‘Not getting too technical for you, am I, Tommy?’

  ‘Not at all. If it gets difficult I’ll ask my translator.’ He grinned at Suzie. ‘Any truth in that last one, Anthony and the royal lady?’ Tommy, clipped now, the drawl gone.

  Suzie noticed that Willoughby had taken over the drawl. ‘Couldn’t say, old boy.’ Long pause as though waiting for Tommy to step in again. ‘Fact is the family came over from Rome, Antonio trawled the country for some kind of an in. I mean they were a cut above your normal tradespeople. Yes, they were in the ice cream and confectionery business but they didn’t actually sweat in kitchens or wait on tables in cafes.’ Broad smile and a nod. ‘Sammy though — well, Salvatore’d set his heart on the Law, and they had to have pulled some strings because Sammy got into Magdalene no problem. No problem about reading Law either. Come to think of it they must have had one hell of a pull because Sammy had to have become an English citizen by the time he was called to the Bar. And there was his wife — now I do know the truth about that…’

  ‘That’s a blessing,’ Dandy Tom muttered. ‘Blessing and a boon.’

  Sammy met Cynthia Hope-Jones at a ball in December 1894. The waltz was the dance and they danced the waltz that night till the early hours. ‘Marked her card. Every dance, as I heard the story. Soon as he saw her, Sammy decided he’d lay siege to her: bring in his big guns, trundle on the ballistas and howitzers.

  ‘Cynthia was a striking redhead — and you know how Italians can become obsessed by redheads — tall and slim of figure with grey eyes and a slinky smile.’ He gave a slinky smile of his own. ‘I remember my father, the guv’nor, tellin’ me.’ Willoughby leaned back, closed his eyes then opened them, wide and innocent. ‘Back then, “slinky” had two meanings. It meant sneaky or underhand, and Cynthia certainly still had a sneaky smile when I first met her twenty years on.’

  ‘Two meanings?’ Tommy snapped.

  ‘You don’t want to bother with the second one, I assure you.’ Willoughby leaning forward, sincere, nodding just as he would when trying to avoid going down some dangerous line of questioning in court, wrinkling his nose.

  ‘So, Sammy and Cynthia…?’ Tommy prodded him.

  ‘Yes.’ Willoughby seemed short of breath for a moment as though he’d been running or suddenly aroused by a memory. ‘Clicked,’ he said. ‘More than clicked really from what my guv’nor said. Met at that Christmas Ball 1894 and had to marry in April ’95. Desperately in love of course, but no end of a stink, the guv’nor told me. The Hope-Joneses were military: Colonel Sir Wilson Hope-Jones, Household Cavalry. Sir Wilson threatened to horsewhip old Sammy — nearly did, I gather. Lived in a state of armed truce. Sammy called him “Colonel” to his dying day. Cynthia said to him, “Daddy, what shall Sammy call you, now he’s part of the family?” “Oh, hup, ah, hup yes. He can call me Colonel.” Old boy was killed 1916. On Haig’s staff and his car caught a stray shell — one of ours, I believe. Blew him to buggery.’

  ‘So, Cynthia was, to use your own colourful expression, up the loop?’

  ‘If you’ll pardon my coarseness, young woman,’ to Suzie. ‘Yes, bun in the oven, caught out, up the spout, in the Pudding Club, whatever takes your fancy, Tommy.’

  ‘And the result was?’

  ‘Bit of a tragedy actually. A boy, Phillip — Fillipo.’ Exaggerating the Italian accent. ‘He wasn’t quite right,’ tapping his forehead with the fingers of his right hand. ‘Had to hide him away in some clinic. Switzerland, somewhere near Thun, round that way. Then Cynthia just couldn’t get pregnant again. Ironic really and it wasn’t for want of trying. I know. The guv’nor used to say they were at it like stoats. Caught them once in chambers late at night. Laugh? Lord he used to laugh like a drain. Talked about it. Said Sammy would complain to him about Cyn wearing him out. Couldn’t get enough. Sammy and my guv’nor formed Sands-Ascoli in 1910. Max was born eight years earlier, 1902, apple of Sam’s eye, and both of Cynthia’s. He was adored and spoiled rotten.’

  ‘And they all lived happily ever after.’ Tommy stretched, head going back, perfectly at ease. At his most dangerous, Suzie thought.

  ‘Happy as Larry.’

  ‘You got on with Max?’

  ‘Just about his best friend, seven years older than him, but he joined chambers a year after the guv’nor brought me in.’

  ‘So when was that?’

  ‘1924. Never looked back.’

  ‘And he had no problems? He was good?’

  ‘Good, he’s outstanding. Was outstanding. Well, you saw him in action, Tommy, the fellow he defended…the one you’d put away. What was his name, Goldmark, Goldfish…?’

  ‘Goldfinch. Adam Arthur Goldfinch. Golly Goldfinch. Strangler extraordinary. Loopy as a bat and dangerous as a scorpion.’ Tommy took a deep breath and was about to launch himself into his ‘hanging’s-really-too-good-for-them’ speech.

  ‘Golly Goldfinch, yes. I came along to watch Max on that one. No defence of course but he did the job, kept him alive, had him put away at HM’s pleasure. Good result. Knew the right people to bring in, that trick cyclist from Harrow. Brilliant. Perfect match. And the other fellow, the sociologist. Unusual line of questioning. You still looking for whoever primed the bloke? Directed him?’

  ‘We know exactly who did that, who became the voice in his head. We know who she is and why she did it. Trouble is she didn’t leave a forwarding address.’ A slim smile, flicking on and off. ‘Defence Max’s main thing, was it?’

  ‘He liked defence, though his great successes were when he prosecuted. All a challenge. Bit of an actor with a lot of law in his head. Very quick on his feet as well, great coordination between brain and limbs. You must recall some of his cases…’ and it looked as though they were off on a journey through Max Ascoli’s professional life. But not quite yet.

  Tommy asked, ‘Anyone in particular still living who might feel less than happy with Max?’

  ‘A few. Your boy Go
lly Goldfinch may think it’s Max’s fault that he’s locked up in some Government institution for the rest of his natural. There are a few like that. Take Lucan MacRoberts…’

  ‘The schoolgirl killer?’

  ‘That’s what the papers called him.’

  MacRoberts, an itinerant builder’s labourer, had been charged with murdering two schoolgirls, one fourteen years old, the other almost fifteen, on Putney Heath in 1932. But he appeared to have an unbreakable alibi involving four other labourers he claimed to have been with over the two days during which the killings had taken place — 6th and 7th June ’32.

  ‘The girls were strangled and raped, caught while they were taking a short cut, separately, across the heath.’

  Tommy nodded back at Willoughby, signifying that he had read about it, one of the famous cases of the ’30s.

  Willoughby said there was a lot of circumstantial evidence to link MacRoberts with the murders, but the man was said to have been working with four friends doing repairs for an iffy builder, putting some dodgy plumbing right in some equally dodgy houses near West Hill, spit and a stride from Putney Heath. The police couldn’t break the four men alibiing MacRoberts. Stalemate.

  ‘At the time we had an inquiry agent permanently working for Sands-Ascoli, name of Phillip Poole. Good un. In fact his son Dick works for us now. Phillip got himself close to these itinerant labourers, got the inside story.’

  Max Ascoli, it seemed, suspected MacRoberts was passing a bit of dropsy to the other lads giving him an alibi, doing some thieving to save his neck and pay for the story. Poole went through the records of the four alibis, eventually got details of jobs they’d been sacked from — petty theft and the like, no police action taken: theft, fiddling, bad time-keeping, drunkenness. ‘They all had stuff in the past they’d have rather kept hidden, and the people they’d worked for weren’t bashful about talking to Phil Poole. In the end they sang like the proverbial canary: veritable canary glee club.’