‘Yes?’ she heard Bob say. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Willis.’
Emma still couldn’t get used to the fact that Bob was the DI now.
Chapter 2
After Bob had taken the message, he and Edgar conferred in low voices for a while. To avoid looking as if she was listening, Emma wandered over to Ruby, who was still sitting on the window seat.
‘I keep thinking how much Uncle Stan would have loved this,’ said Ruby. ‘He adored reunions. Telling all those Magic Men stories.’
‘About the time they were adrift at sea for days and days,’ said Emma. ‘And Diablo kept them alive by singing “Burlington Bertie”.’
‘Those were the days,’ said Ruby. She stubbed her cigarette out in her saucer.
Emma was trying to think of a neutral topic of conversation when Ruby said, ‘Was Max showing you pictures of his adorable children?’ There was definitely an edge to this and ‘adorable’ was said with what was clearly meant to be an American accent.
‘He did show me a photograph,’ said Emma carefully.
‘Very much the proud father,’ said Ruby, getting another cigarette out of her case. She seemed a bit lost without Joe to light it for her.
‘He’s proud of you too,’ said Emma.
‘You wouldn’t know it,’ said Ruby. ‘I’ve barely seen him since he went to America. He’s only here today because of Uncle Stan. Oh, and because of the film.’
‘He said that you telephoned him to tell him about Diablo,’ said Emma. ‘I think he’s here for you too.’
They both looked over at Max who was talking to two women who were obviously once chorus girls. All three of them were laughing and Max did not look like a man with fatherhood on his mind.
‘I went to visit them in Hollywood,’ said Ruby. ‘They’ve got this massive house with a swimming pool. Lydia spends all day drifting about in a negligee getting photographed by gossip magazines. The children are quite sweet though. Although they’ve got American accents.’
‘Well, they are American, I suppose.’
‘I suppose,’ said Ruby. ‘I just never thought that Max would have American children.’ She had succeeded in lighting her cigarette and inhaled deeply. Ruby might be a glamorous TV star who called her father by his first name, thought Emma, but she still sometimes sounded like a disgruntled child.
‘How’s Edgar?’ said Ruby. ‘I hear he’s a superintendent now.’
‘Yes, he is,’ said Emma. ‘He’s fine, although it’s a lot of work.’ The previous superintendent, Frank Hodges, had spent most of his time on the golf course but Edgar was made of sterner stuff.
‘Do you miss it?’ said Ruby. ‘Being a policewoman?’
Emma was surprised. In all the years since she had married Edgar and left the force (‘married women can’t be police officers,’ Hodges had decreed) no one had ever asked her this. Most people seemed to think that she must be delighted with her life: handsome husband, three healthy children, charming town house in Brighton. And, by and large, she was.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do miss it. I was good at it.’
‘You were,’ said Ruby. ‘I remember.’ Were they both thinking about the days when Emma was a detective sergeant – one of the first women to have this title – and Ruby was engaged to Edgar?
‘You’ve been so successful though,’ said Emma. ‘Are you happy?’ It was rather a personal question but she really wanted to know.
‘Oh I’m deliriously happy.’ Ruby flashed her famous TV smile. ‘The show is more popular than ever and I’m seeing a rather delicious new man.’
Emma glanced over at Joe who was now deep in conversation with Max, who had once been one of his clients.
‘Oh, not Joe,’ said Ruby. ‘We’re just friends, whatever the papers say. And he’s my agent, of course. No, this is someone entirely different.’ Her voice lowered and she leaned forward.
‘Emma. There you are. I think we should be going now. It’s nearly two.’
Ruby laughed. ‘Still the same old Edgar.’
Emma didn’t like her tone.
*
‘What was the message for Bob?’ asked Emma as they drove back along the coast road, the bland white hotels on one side, the sea on the other. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, blue and gold, seagulls riding in on the waves.
Emma was sure that the message was confidential but Edgar usually shared work details with her. He said it was because he valued her advice but Emma noticed that he didn’t always take it.
‘A girl has gone missing,’ said Edgar after a pause. ‘She left a note saying that she was going to London but her parents are worried. She’s only sixteen and still at school. Roedean,’ he added, with a sideways glance at Emma.
‘Goodness.’ Emma had been a Roedean girl herself. She liked to say that the school, an imposing building on the cliff edge outside Brighton, had been like a prison and that her only happy years were when the pupils were evacuated to the Lake District in the war. But, as she grew older, she found herself feeling almost nostalgic for the place. It didn’t mean that she was going to send her daughters there though, whatever her parents said.
‘How long has she been missing?’ she asked.
‘Only a day,’ said Edgar. ‘The school informed the parents this morning. The girl, Rhonda, was last seen in her bedroom last night. The father’s an MP, quite important, and he’s kicking up all kinds of fuss.’
Emma could imagine her own father doing the same, though he wasn’t an important MP, just a businessman with enough money to send his daughter to a posh private school. ‘What does Bob think?’ she asked.
‘He thinks – and I quote – that she’s gone to see “the bright lights of London”.’
Emma laughed. ‘Has Bob ever been to London, do you think?’
‘He went once,’ said Edgar, ‘but he didn’t like it.’ He was laughing too.
‘What about the note?’ said Emma. ‘Was it in Rhonda’s handwriting?’
‘You’re still a detective at heart, Sergeant Holmes.’
‘I was the best sergeant you ever had,’ said Emma. ‘Make sure you have a look at the note.’
Edgar dropped Emma at the school gate. The girls were at Bristol Road Primary, a council school whose intake made Emma’s parents shudder every time they encountered them at end-of-term plays or the disorganised free-for-all that counted as Sports Day. But Emma and Edgar had met the headmaster on a previous case and liked him. If Marianne and Sophie passed the Eleven Plus then they would go to the grammar school in Hove, which was unrelentingly middle-class. ‘Why put them through that, darling,’ said Emma’s mother, ‘when Roedean is so close?’ There were many answers to that but Emma was saving her ammunition for nearer the time. At the moment the girls loved their school, playing hopscotch in the concrete playground or running madly around Queen’s Park with their friends. And at least they had local friends, which is more than Emma ever had.
‘Mummy!’ Sophie came hurtling out first. ‘I drew you a picture.’
‘It’s lovely.’ Emma took the sheet of paper, still wet with poster paint. ‘What is it?’
‘How can you say it’s lovely when you don’t know what it is?’ Marianne had appeared. A tall girl with Emma’s blonde hair, she could occasionally look alarmingly grown-up.
‘It’s a lady shark,’ said Sophie. ‘We learnt about fish today.’
‘How can you tell it’s a lady?’ asked Marianne, as they began the walk up the hill towards home.
‘They’ve got bigger teeth,’ said Sophie. ‘Did you buy me a present from Hastings, Mummy?’
Chapter 3
Edgar found Bob in his office facing a large man with a red face and an intimidating moustache, the sort RAF officers had sported during the war. But he was to learn that Sir Crispian Miles had avoided military service due to bad circulation and excellent connections.
‘At last!’ Sir Crispian managed to give the impression that he had been waiting for Edgar for hours, possibly yea
rs. Edgar recognised him as the type who always starts a meeting with a sense of grievance and, having been introduced to an official, immediately demands to see their superior. Bob’s ears were pink and he said, ‘I’m dealing with your complaint, sir.’
‘My complaint!’ Sir Crispian appeared to be swelling in his chair. ‘My daughter goes missing and you call it a complaint. It’s a crime. And when I got here, I was told that the detective inspector and the superintendent were at a funeral. It’s a disgrace. Why do I pay my taxes?’
Edgar was willing to bet that Crispian paid as little tax as his accountant was able to contrive.
‘DI Willis and I are on leave today,’ he said. ‘We were attending the funeral of a close friend but we came in as soon as we were notified.’
‘I made them telephone,’ said Sir Crispian. ‘I wasn’t about to be fobbed off with some constable.’
Edgar took the seat next to Sir Crispian, wanting to emphasise that Bob was still in charge.
‘Sir Crispian’s daughter Rhonda has gone missing from school,’ said Bob, in the wooden voice he adopted for relaying evidence. ‘She was last seen at approximately nine last night.’
‘Twelve hours,’ barked Sir Crispian. ‘Twelve hours before I was informed of this. I’m going to sue.’
‘I’m sure you’ve already been through this with DI Willis,’ said Edgar, ‘but could you tell me what happened from the time that Roedean first reported Rhonda missing?’
He thought that Sir Crispian was going to explode again but, after a couple of deep breaths, he said, in an almost reasonable voice, ‘The housemistress rang me. Bloody impertinent woman. She said that Rhonda had left a note saying that she was going to London.’
‘Have you seen the note?’ asked Edgar.
‘Of course I’ve seen the note,’ said Sir Crispian. ‘I motored straight down from Surrey.’
‘And was the note in Rhonda’s handwriting? Did it sound like her?’
‘What d’you mean, did it sound like her?’
‘Did it sound like her letters home to you, for example?’
‘I never read them. M’wife reads bits out to me sometimes. But it looked like Rhonda’s handwriting, all right. The teacher thought so too.’
Where was Lady Miles? wondered Edgar. Surely she would want to accompany her husband on his visit to the school. But, then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d visited his daughters’ school. Emma took them there in the morning and collected them in the afternoon. She went to all the plays and sports days too, often accompanied by her parents. Edgar could rarely get time off work. But if something like this happened, he told himself rather defensively, he would be there like a shot. The thought made him feel superstitiously anxious and less willing to judge the Miles family.
‘What else did Rhonda’s teacher say?’ he asked.
‘She said that Rhonda had last been seen when a teacher called in on her at lights out. Rho shares a bedroom with another girl but she was in sickbay. The teacher said goodnight to Rhonda, said she seemed her normal self but, when Rhonda didn’t turn up for breakfast, the housemistress sent a junior to call for her. The girl found Rhonda missing and the note on her desk.’
‘Did anyone see her leave?’
‘Apparently not. What a shower.’
Edgar thought about Roedean school, which was visible from Emma’s parents’ house. In fact, it was visible for miles around, a Gothic-looking mansion high on the clifftop. The coast road was in front, the South Downs behind. There were a few houses nearby, grand 1920s villas like the one owned by his parents-in-law, but these were hidden behind gardens and gates. Further back was the golf course and the beginnings of the council estate, the grey houses making their way up towards the Race Hill. If Rhonda escaped in the night, she would have had to walk along the unlit coast road or hike over the fields. That is, unless someone was waiting for her with a car.
‘What did the note say, exactly?’
‘I’ve got it here.’ Sir Crispian opened an official-looking briefcase and pulled out a piece of notepaper in a rather lurid pink.
The letter was brief.
I’m going to London for a bit. Don’t worry about me.
See you later, alligator
Rhonda.
‘See you later, alligator,’ said Sir Crispian. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It’s a line from a fifties pop song,’ said Bob. ‘Bill Haley and his Comets.’
‘A pop song!’ Sir Crispian started to swell again.
Edgar cut in. ‘Did the school, the housemistress, think that this was in character for Rhonda? This note, for instance?’
‘She didn’t seem that surprised,’ said Sir Crispian. ‘Everyone at the school seemed to think that Rhonda was obsessed with some film star. Bobby something. They thought she might have gone to see him. But Rhonda’s not like that. She’s a good girl. A hard worker. She won a chess competition recently. It was in the paper. She’s not the sort to moon over some long-haired idiot from Hollywood.’
‘What do you think has happened to Rhonda?’ asked Edgar.
‘It’s obvious,’ said Sir Crispian. ‘She’s been abducted. I’m a rich man. Someone wants a ransom.’
‘Have you had a ransom demand?’
‘No.’ Sir Crispian sounded almost disappointed.
‘And why did the school think Rhonda might have gone to see this film star?’
‘Apparently he’s here, in London, making some godawful film. It’s with that magician, Max Mephisto. I used to like him before he went all American.’
Max hadn’t mentioned any film to Edgar. Was that the real reason why he was in England? Edgar felt a stab of hurt on Diablo’s behalf. He exchanged a look with Bob.
‘We should follow this up,’ he said. ‘Find out where this film star is staying. I suppose you can’t remember his full name, Sir Crispian?’
‘I certainly can’t.’ He sounded affronted at the very thought.
‘Don’t worry. I know someone who will know.’
*
‘Bobby Hambro,’ said Emma. ‘He was a child star. He’s only about eighteen now but he’s a fully fledged matinee idol. His last two films were “box office smashes”.’ Edgar could hear her putting quotation marks around the words. ‘Puppy Love was the first, Only You was the second.’
Reading Film Frolics was one of Emma’s weaknesses; her photographic memory was one of her strengths.
‘Have you heard anything about a third film?’ asked Edgar. ‘Possibly filming in London now?’
‘I heard that he was in England looking at locations for a new film. I don’t think they’ve started filming yet. Apparently it’s an adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy.’
‘I thought he was a child?’
‘He’s a teenager in this version. A golden-haired, lovable teenager. In fact I think it’s called something like Golden. Ruby mentioned something about a film this afternoon. Maybe Max is going to be in it too.’
‘That’s what I’d heard.’
Edgar thought of Sir Crispian saying that Rhonda was ‘not the sort to moon over some long-haired idiot from Hollywood’. He sympathised. He dreaded the day when Marianne and Sophie became interested in boys. But, all the same, he thought it was possible that Rhonda could have fallen under the influence of the golden-haired Bobby Hambro. He wondered what part Max could possibly be playing in an adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy.
‘Do you know anything else about Bobby?’ he said. ‘Where he’s staying in London, for example.’
‘What do you think I am?’ said Emma. ‘Directory Enquiries?’ But she didn’t really sound annoyed. He could hear the wireless playing and the girls arguing in the background. It made him want to be at home. By the time he got back from work, there was usually barely time to eat supper before the girls were preparing for bed. It sometimes felt as if he was missing out on the best part of the day. When he’d said this once to Emma she had replied, tartly, that she’d be willing to swap.
‘Film stars usually stay at the Ritz,’ Emma was saying. ‘I’ll see if there’s anything in the magazine . . . Here it is . . . Oh!’
‘What is it?’ said Edgar. It reminded him of the times when Emma was his sergeant and would sometimes go off following a hunch without telling him what it was.
‘It doesn’t say where Bobby is staying but it does say who his London agent is.’
‘Who is it?’ said Edgar but he thought he had guessed.
‘Joe Passolini.’
Joe, a Londoner of Italian heritage with a sharp line in suits and trilbies, was Ruby’s agent and had once been Max’s. Edgar had never really spoken to Joe but he had a nasty feeling that the agent – who was certainly Ruby’s confidant, if not her lover – knew everything there was to know about him.
‘Joe will be back in London by now,’ he said.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Emma. ‘I think Ruby went back alone. I bet Joe will be having a drink with Max at the Grand, trying to get him back on the books.’
As usual, Emma was probably right.
Chapter 4
‘Here’s your poison.’ Joe Passolini put the glass on the table in front of Max, who eyed it with disfavour.
‘Didn’t they have any ice?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘This is the Grand. Of course they’ll have ice.’ Max heard himself sounding like his father and stopped, though it was an effort. ‘Sorry. It’s living in America. They put ice in everything.’
Joe took an appreciative sip of his whisky. ‘Ah, the Big Apple.’ To Max’s knowledge, Joe had never visited America but he had based his whole persona on a New York gumshoe, down to the trench coat and the fedora. He peppered his London vernacular with Americanisms and had a distressing tendency to call women ‘honey’.
‘I’m based in LA,’ said Max. ‘That’s not the Big Apple. It’s more like a giant wasp.’
‘A vespa,’ said Joe who liked to use Italian words with Max, as if to emphasise their shared heritage. Max’s mother had been an Italian opera singer. ‘You know that’s what they call those little motorbikes,’ he added. ‘The ones the mods ride.’
Now You See Them: The Brighton Mysteries 5 Page 2
