An Uncommon Murder

by Anabel Donald

  ‘You must have been successful. He didn’t notice anything, did he?’

  ‘It wasn’t him I was worried about, it was Lady Sherwin. Women are much more observant about these matters. There was a pile of satin scatter-cushions in pastel shades; one of them was her nightdress-case. I made a point of replacing them exactly. I only did it for Rosalind’s sake. She was a very appealing little thing.’

  An appealing little thing with the determination to get this limp dick to dress up in her uncle’s gear and bang her on her aunt’s bed. She’d probably blackmailed him into it by threatening to tell. I tried not to smile. The remembered fear was making him sweat. She couldn’t have done it for fun; she must have known how frightened he was. I’m surprised he could make it at all, under those circumstances. Perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps she’d known he couldn’t. Any way you looked at it, revenge was what she was after, to punish him, to humiliate him. It looked to me like pique. I suppose, remotely, it could have been a sexual charge; maybe she was funny for her uncle.

  ‘While you were in the house, that time, did you notice anything? Apart from the scatter-cushions?’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, I’m just fishing.’

  ‘I didn’t notice much, frankly. I was listening for cars and footsteps. Have you any idea how long it takes to put on full Scottish dress? I noticed that first when I played Macduff. All those fiddly daggers and brooches and stocking-flashes.’ He was still sweating.

  ‘And this was just before the ball?’

  ‘The weekend before, as I recall. It was – by way of a farewell. I’d already decided that after the ball, I was going to make a clean break with Rosalind and move out of the lodge.’

  ‘Did you tell her?’

  ‘Certainly not. She’d have been – very upset.’

  She’d have played merry hell, and you were afraid of her. ‘Did you give notice for the lodge?’

  ‘Naturally. Some weeks before. Otherwise, I’d have been liable for the rent.’

  And there was my answer Rosalind knew Patrick was leaving, and that he hadn’t told her, so she got her own back. Another piece for the jigsaw. Might be useful, except that increasingly I had more pieces and less picture.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I was back at my flat by twenty past seven. Time to get ready for Barty. I was poking through my wardrobe when Polly banged on my door.

  ‘They’re clamping in the street again, Alex, they did next door’s Mercedes and he was livid. Have you heard on the news the IRA have blown up another MP, isn’t it dreadful? I’ve never met him, though, he was a backbench Conservative. You look busy, shall I get you a coffee?’

  I went back to the wardrobe. ‘Fine,’ I said.

  ‘Are you going out? Who with? Is it business or pleasure? Don’t tell me, I can guess from your grin.’

  ‘Am I grinning?’

  ‘Eat your heart out, Cheshire Cat. Is it Barty?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I told you he fancies you.’

  ‘You said I fancied him.’

  ‘Both. Trust me, about this I am never wrong. About everything else, yes. You haven’t really looked at another man since you met him.’

  ‘I’ve done a great deal more than look.’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Isolated lust. Doesn’t count. Here, let me help.’ She burrowed into the heap of clean clothes on my shelves. ‘Why don’t you ever hang things up?’

  ‘Because I never wear them. I just keep them for when I have to tart up for work, and then I iron them before I put them on.’

  ‘I’ve never seen these before.’ She hauled out an Italian outfit I bought in a mad moment in Venice, egged on by the costume designer for a feature film I worked on about the Doges in the sixteenth century. I’d blown all my ludicrously inflated feature film-rate expenses on the outfit, flowing trousers and top in a multicoloured Florentine print. I’d been younger then. I’d only worn it twice since. Polly had unerringly picked out my only expensive clothes. How is it people can do that? I can’t, just as I can’t tell great wine from drinkable stuff from the local offy.

  Polly was giving little cries of distress. ‘How could you leave it crumpled in a ball, Alex? You didn’t WASH it, did you? Oh my God, it’s raw silk.’

  ‘Silk washes,’ I said, teed off.

  ‘Not when it’s made up like this – look at the facings and the buttons. Run a bath, quick. We’ll steam it first.’

  ‘Can I use the bath to wash in as well, please, miss?’

  ‘Drink it if you like.’ She bustled about, organizing me. I didn’t mind. I sat in the bath sipping the coffee Polly provided, with the sacred garments dangling from the shower rail. She genuflected to them every time she passed. ‘What time is he picking you up?’ she said, sorting through my make-up bag.

  ‘Eight o’clock.’

  ‘Only half an hour, help. Hurry up and get out of there. Your skin needs to cool down before I do your make-up.’

  ‘And then I’ll be transformed and Barty will fall at my feet, stunned at my newly revealed beauty? Come off it, Polly, face facts.’

  ‘Why won’t you ever give it a go? You’ve got to stop being so timid, Alex.’

  ‘Timid? Me?’

  ‘You’re shy and retiring, underneath, and not as far underneath as you think. You pretend to be above looks and actually that’s because you think you haven’t got them, and it’s not true. You’ve got good features, thick hair—’

  ‘Mouse-coloured—’

  ‘Not now. Your body is well-proportioned—’

  ‘Too broad—’

  ‘Strong. In proportion. You have good ankles, lovely skin, thick eyelashes—’

  ‘Stubby—’

  ‘Terrific green eyes, and you sparkle. Men look at you. You must have noticed.’

  ‘That’s a load of crap. Anyway, why should you care?’

  ‘Because we’re mates, that’s why, and you listen to me drivelling on about Clive. I owe you a lot.’ She did, of course, but I didn’t know she knew it.

  Barty came to fetch me in a taxi, presumably intending to sweeten a date with me by drinking himself stupid. He said I looked nice, and maybe I did, but people have to say that anyway when you’ve obviously tried. He was still in a dark suit but he’d changed his tie; it no longer said ‘I belong’. It said ‘I’ve plenty of money to waste on expensive ties’. He didn’t look nearly as tired as he had that morning and I wondered if it hadn’t been tiredness but depression. He always seems cheerful when I see him but his work must get him down, it’s a perpetual struggle. About a quarter of the time his films don’t get shown; his downstairs toilet is wallpapered with restraining injunctions and he spends whole days kicking his heels in court. Even if his work does get broadcast, the scandals he reveals cause only about a week’s upheaval and then the water closes over them.

  He took me to a really posh place, one which he clearly often used because the waiters knew him. Probably he took Annabel there. It was the kind of place where waiters threaten you with padded menus like deadly weapons and in which the price of the food is exceeded only by the pretensions of the customers. Barty fitted in. I didn’t. He smiled at me reassuringly. ‘Are you ready to order?’

  ‘Order for me.’ I wasn’t being an unreconstructed Barbie doll, I just don’t give a toss about food.

  ‘Any particular preferences?’

  ‘No. Just lots of it.’ He went into a huddle with the waiter, then the wine-waiter I was getting the full treatment. When he’d finished ordering, he said, ‘This is supposed to be a treat. Enjoy.’

  ‘I know. Sorry, I’ll lighten up.’

  ‘Not on my account,’ he said, and squeezed my hand. I snatched it away, discomfited. ‘Behave as you please.’

  I was compos enough not to say ‘Gee, thanks’, but only just. I did the next worst thing. ‘How’s Annabel?’ I said.

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ he said, ‘considering her natural disadvantages, as
far as you’re concerned. She’s out with Charles.’

  ‘Charles?’

  ‘Or Harry or Marcus or Dominick. I don’t umpire. She’s efficient.’

  ‘At work or with Harry or Marcus or Dominick?’

  ‘Grow up, Alex.’ He said it very gently as the waiter appeared with a microscopic variegated starter on a huge plate.

  I owed it to Barty to get a grip. He was certainly being nice. He was probably making a move on me, that was the trouble, and I only have two behaviours for responding to that. Either I blush and run, crushing people’s feelings as I go, or else I say, ‘Do you want to fuck?’ Polly tells me most men find the situation equally awkward and one should be kind to them. Polly does not feel as unattractive as I do, however. Nor does she fear the loss of a major source of income.

  I tried deep relaxation breathing and waved a fork in the direction of my starter. ‘I’m sorry, Barty,’ I said. ‘I must sign up for evening classes to make me more ept.’

  ‘It’ll make a change from the evening classes in target-practice,’ he said seriously.

  I misunderstood; I thought he meant it. ‘Target-practice?’ He’d probably forgotten. My last evening classes were in karate.

  ‘Shooting yourself in the foot.’ He was smiling. Eventually, I smiled back, then laughed. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Sometimes you make me feel old.’

  ‘Don’t say “old”. Say experienced. Mature. Suave.’

  ‘The new after-shave for MEN. Eat up, there’s four more courses.’

  ‘How’d it go in court today?’

  ‘Not bad. We won. I think the opposition will appeal it, but never mind.’

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. There was a pause. I ate a piece of bread roll; my chewing sounded loud in my own ears. ‘Do you mind if I talk business?’ I said.

  ‘Not at all, during dinner I don’t want to have to take Rollo Sherwin to bed with us, though. How could I measure up? It’d be inhibiting.’

  Smoothly done, Barty, I thought. ‘We’ve no reason to suppose he was any good in bed,’ I said airily, remembering that Polly had tried to lend me her high-cut black lace bed-me pants. We’d compromised on black camiknickers. ‘Just that he had lots of practice.’

  ‘True. Now eat your salmon and spinach mousse, it’s feeling neglected, and if you leave it the chef will cry.’

  By the end of the main course (a little more food, an even huger plate) and the first bottle of wine, Barty was up to date with Charlotte Mayfield, Patrick Revill and the state of play with Miss Potter I had plenty to tell him and I spun it out. ‘So you think you can get her to talk?’ he said, pushing his plate aside, still half-full. Mine wasn’t.

  ‘If she’s got anything to say.’

  ‘Any idea why Charlotte got her knickers in a twist about Toad?’

  ‘I’m not wasting time speculating. When Toad’s friend gets back to me I’ll know. It’s nothing to do with the Sherwin murder, I’m sure of that.’

  ‘Have you heard from Eddy Barstow yet?’

  ‘He’s only been working on it since yesterday evening.’

  ‘I’ll be happier when we have an angle.’

  ‘So will I.’

  We’d exhausted business. I drank more wine and tried not to show how desperate I was to get dinner over with and leave. By mistake, I caught sight of myself in a mirror on the opposite wall I’d been avoiding ever since we came in. I looked ridiculous, I thought, and jerked away.

  ‘What’s the matter, Alex?’ said Barty gently. He was being kind to me, maybe because of me telling him about my mother that morning, maybe because he was making a pass, maybe both. He’d always been kind to me. I had to handle him right. ‘Tell me what’s the matter,’ he said. ‘The truth. I can take it.’

  The truth would be easiest, gussied up a bit. I tried to explain. I was a freelance. He had provided just under half my income last year. Our relationship was great as it stood. Anything else might go sour I might be a disappointment to him. I couldn’t afford to be.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Alex, you sound like the serving-wench in a melodrama. Things have changed. No big deal. Is money that important to you? There are other things, you know.’

  ‘Not for me. I have nothing to fall back on, no capital, no relations, no trust funds, no qualifications, no expectations. There is no camp fire burning for me. I’m not One of Us. I’m one of Thatcher’s children, and she’s on her way out.’

  ‘You’re a very good researcher.’

  ‘And when the recession bites deeper, what then? When more staffers are laid off, when the indies go to the wall, when interest rates hit twenty per cent, when I can’t afford the mortgage on my flat and I can’t shift it either, what then, Barty? I won’t need a lover, I’ll need an employer.’ Damn it. I was crying. ‘If you want sex, use Annabel or her sisters. Don’t condescend to me. You don’t understand the first thing about me. For God’s sake, you bring me to a place like this for a treat. I hate every moment of it, with these sodding superior waiters looking at me and wondering what I’ll get wrong—’

  ‘Waiters don’t wonder,’ said Barty, ‘except about the size of their tip, and possibly in this case how I got lucky with you, considering our relative pulling power—’

  ‘And don’t try to heal my wounds with cheap public-school flattery—’

  ‘That wasn’t what I had in mind. At all.’

  I was past caution. ‘Then you haven’t got a mind, or you aren’t using it. Just like all your programmes, useless. Romantic and useless. Who gives a toss if they’re unkind to blacks in the Household Cavalry? Nothing’s going to unseat the bosses in this country, certainly not your footling efforts, and come to that why should they care? It’s a system that works, for them, so at least someone’s happy. If you had a spit of sense you’d hang on to what you’ve got and not piss your money away. It’s a hard world, Barty, face it. Who cares—’

  He caught one of my gesturing hands and held it still. He’s stronger than he looks, for all he’s so skinny. I’ve seen him carry and operate a steadicam for hours at a time, in Egyptian summer temperatures. ‘It’ll occur to you later that maybe saying all that wasn’t the best way to make sure I keep hiring you.’

  ‘And?’ I said. He was right, of course. And I hadn’t even had the sex, which of course I wanted. ‘And?’

  ‘And then you should remember what I’m about to tell you.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘What you say about me could well be true. And I know it. And I like you a lot. Eat your pudding.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  On the way upstairs, I banged on Polly’s door. ‘You’re early,’ she called after me, sounding shocked. ‘Can I come up for coffee? Olive’s gone to Amsterdam on a peace mission. He sent me guilt chocolates. Shall I bring them?’

  ‘Bring them.’

  ‘So how did it go?’

  ‘Not great.’ She had every right to ask but I didn’t want to discuss Barty.

  ‘Bit of a bugger?’

  ‘Bit. Thanks for all your help, anyway.’

  ‘You look terrific.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘You should dress up more often.’

  ‘Lay off, Polly, OK?’

  ‘Whatever you say. Where did you eat? Is there anything good on telly? I’ll make coffee.’

  I stood at the window, looking out, thinking about Barty; what he would do, what I would do, what I wanted from him. He’d managed, just, to prevent our dinner becoming a debacle. If I’d co-operated, even a little, we might have reached the, presumably pleasant, intimacy that lovers glide into after rows. I’d never managed it, myself. It’s something to do with bowing your head and being grateful. I am never grateful. I stopped being grateful a very long time ago, and I stopped pretending to be grateful, except for work, when I turned eighteen.

  Polly brought the coffee and I stopped thinking about Barty. It was too painful. My relationships were always like this. Even if they began well they ended badly; more
often, they began so badly they aborted on launch. The Jesuits were right. You had to get some things sorted young. By seven, it was too late to learn to ride, or ski, or trust people, or feel attractive.

  Polly stayed two hours and talked for one hour and fifty-five minutes. For the other five minutes, I yesed and noed and reallyed and laughed. When she went I was sorry to see her go. Left alone, I adopted my strategy of last resort. I got into the bath with a Robert B. Parker novel; within reach, on the lavatory, a stack of four more. I’d read them all before, several times, but not for the last six months, and I couldn’t actually recite the dialogue verbatim.

  I read two before I accepted that though I was exhausted, I wasn’t going to sleep, and that Spenser’s high-minded New Manism reminded me of Barty. Probably, that night, any male character would.

  Finally slept just after four; heavy sleep with ugly, muddled, unhappy dreams. Patrick Revill was in there somewhere, with Barty, Miss Potter, my mother and the cocker spaniel I’d owned. Briefly. In the real world, the sound of the phone only just managed to wake me. I picked it up; at the beginning all I could manage was ‘What? Hello?’ then the telephone noise resolved itself into a breathless, young, half-familiar voice. It was Lally.

  ‘I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you,’ said Lally, ‘and to ring you so early, but we’ve got to go to work, even though it’s Saturday, because we’ve taken so much time off looking for Toad. It’s Toad, you see, we want to talk to you about Toad, and we were trying to find Charles and he’s in Australia, and we can’t find the right sheep farm. He’s moved, and it was difficult to ring people, because of the time difference and everything . . .’ She rambled on as my mind cleared. With the clearing came a dreadful apprehension. I knew that I was worried about Toad. I had been, subconsciously, ever since my first meeting with Lally; much more so since seeing Charlotte. The worry had tried to force its way into the front of my mind, but each time I resisted it. Hidden, it had time to take a body and a form and now as I blinked at the alarm clock – it was past eight – scrabbled myself upright against the pillows and ruffled my hair, the worry squatted on my shoulder.