‘Aw!’ Bardolph’s face began to droop again.
Molly was filled with fresh compassion. ‘Will you be out by the 23rd?’ she asked.
His brow creased in calculation. ‘Aye. Likely.’
‘We’re going abroad on holiday tomorrow. But Keith had tickets for the Billy Connolly concert at the Kelvin Hall. Would you like them?’
‘The Big Yin? That’d be great! You’re . . .’ Bardolph paused, searched for the mot juste and found it. ‘You’re a wee smasher,’ he said.
Chapter Fourteen
In a luxurious but impersonal bedroom high above the Bay of Funchal, Keith was locked in argument, albeit one-sided argument, with Donald Illingworth. The man was as lean and dark as his pictured image, but photographs could not show his manner. And this puzzled Keith. Illingworth’s cast of feature, his description and occasional glimpses of a buried self all spoke of a quivering intensity; but all this was smothered under a blanket which Keith could not penetrate. It might have been residual shock, or a restraint imposed by his own will for some unguessable reason. And he looked older than his photographs. Despite his week on the island, his skin was still white.
‘I don’t think you’ve listened to a bloody word I’ve uttered,’ Keith said at last.
‘I’ve listened,’ Illingworth said woodenly.
‘No, you haven’t. You’ve heard but not listened. Now . . .’ Keith had brought his bottle of duty-free with him and a spare glass. He opened the bottle and started pouring. ‘Now we’re going to have a dram to loosen you up and I’ll see if I can get through to you.’
Illingworth shivered. ‘I’m not taking any drink. If I hadn’t been stoned to hell and gone none of this would have happened.’
‘Yes it would,’ Keith said irritably. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to get over to you. You were deliberately set up. You went there expecting a certain kind of a party, and you’d have been trapped even if you’d been stone cold sober. Now I don’t want to get you fu’, and if you’ll only take in what I’m saying there’ll be no need, but you’ve been sitting here for a week in a nervous dither, not even going out into the sunshine, waiting and wondering whether they were coming after you, and you’re wound up as tight as a gnat’s twat. Then, suddenly, somebody walks in out of the blue with the whole story laid bare, and your mind’s slammed shut. Instead of listening to my pearls of wisdom, you’re wondering whether to do something drastic to yourself.’
For the first time, Illingworth showed a flicker of expression. Keith thought that it was almost a smile. ‘I’m not, you know. I’ve already made up my mind and you can’t stop me. Even when I thought that I might get away with it, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself I only went to the Game Fair because I had a bet on with three club-members and I couldn’t think of an excuse that wouldn’t land me in more damned lies. Then I saw your wife taking photographs. She mightn’t have seen me, so I pinched her bag of films. She got them back all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s good. When I opened the bag and saw that the films were unexposed, I knew I was done for. I’d booked my holiday so I came out anyway, but the more I’ve thought about it the more hopeless it all seems. So all I’m puzzling out now is how to do it with the least bother to everybody else.’
‘Then you may as well have a dram to give you the courage.’
Illingworth picked up his glass, added water, made a sketchy salute and then drank. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘But you can’t change black into white. Facts are facts.’
‘Facts are never facts, and sometime you can turn black into white just by switching the light on.’ Surreptitiously, Keith topped up the other’s glass. Now that Illingworth was answering in more than monosyllables he felt that he might begin to break through the barrier. Perhaps what Molly had called his homespun philosophy might produce the mood that would accept practical arguments. ‘Colours change, the way you look at them. You were deliberately trapped. You chose a certain way out. It might have been better not to, but in similar circumstances I could have done the same.’
Illingworth drank again. ‘The fact of the matter is, I . . . had sex with my prostitute sister and killed a man to shut his mouth about it. Dress the fact up how you like, that’s the way I see it and that’s the way the police and the papers and the world – and my mother – will see it. But they don’t prosecute the dead. If I’d rather be out of the way, to save myself the misery and others the scandal, why the hell should you care?’
‘That’s good,’ Keith said. As he spoke, he realised that he was using the tone that he would have used to a pup in training. ‘Now that you’re asking questions, you’re obliged to listen to me. All right, so you bedded your sister. You didn’t know it at the time and you were being set up – those two facts alone should let your tender conscience off the hook. But you still have the willies because you’re hung up on the shibboleths of a church that you lost faith in and abandoned years ago; and that church was acting as the mouthpiece of an establishment that changed its mind long since. Think about it dispassionately for a minute. Fornication became taboo because of two consequences – babies and the clap. Medical science has reduced those risks. The church still preaches morality because it has moved from being a practical necessity to being an abstract virtue. What’s bugging you is that the word incest still has sinister, almost mystical overtones. But, for Christ’s sake, the Egyptian Pharaohs usually married their own sisters, and it was only when it became obvious that inbreeding was bad for the stock that incest became banned. There was never any other reason. Since there was no intention of breeding, the incident doesn’t matter a tinky’s curse unless you torture yourself over it.’
Illingworth seemed to have slumped into his apathy again, except that he was watching Keith from under drooping eyelids. Now he stirred. ‘How would you feel,’ he demanded, ‘if your sister turned out to be a tart?’
Keith cogitated, and while he thought he poured again. He had some reason to believe that a lady who was probably his half-sister on the wrong side of the blanket had practised for some years as a very successful tart. He had never before had to verbalise his thoughts on the matter, and he was surprised to find how clearcut they had become over the years. ‘If I thought that circumstances had forced her into it,’ he said, ‘It’d break my heart. But if she made her own decision, I hope I’d be broadminded enough to go along. Every woman has a high chance of being dependant on a man, or men, or mankind generally for some part of their lives. It wasn’t my idea, Nature planned it that way. Some of them commercialise the arrangement. But are they any worse than a woman who marries for money and then makes her husband miserable? At least a tart gives value for money. Or I expect she does, I wouldn’t know. But don’t forget that your sister made it to the top in a highly competitive market.’
Illingworth was giving Keith his full attention at last. ‘You’re a cynical sod.’
‘I don’t mean to be,’ Keith said. The discussion was revealing him to himself ‘Instead of being stuffed with superstition I was left to draw my own conclusions. Next, you say you killed a man. True enough. That man had been if not your childhood friend at least a lifelong acquaintance, and he set out to trap you into doing what you did so that he could blackmail you into breaking your most deeply-held principles and letting his corruption go unchecked. I’ve heard of some evil deeds in my time. Perhaps I’ve committed a few, though I hope not. But I swear that’s the foulest trick I ever heard of I wouldn’t say that he got much worse than he deserved. And, to make you vulnerable, he’d primed you with booze and pot. That was one hell of a mistake, because many men get more violent in that state. It seems to me that he was inviting exactly what he got. Given the circumstances, I think most men would have done something violent. But did you have to shoot him?’
‘I wasn’t going to,’ Illingworth said ‘But I’m smaller than you and not a fighter. It came back to me that when we were young he could outfight me every time. So I walked i
n on him with the pistol and pointed it at him and told him to give me the video-tape. He was lying back in the easy chair, grinning at me. He wouldn’t give up the tape. He patted his pocket, and I remember his exact words. He said, “If you think you can shoot me with that, go ahead. Otherwise, fuck off back to your sister. She’s probably ready again by now”,’ Illingworth put his head down in his hands.
‘So you shot him,’ Keith said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I’d have done that, but there’d have been a fight that’d probably have killed him anyway. Right or wrong, you took the action that seemed right at the time. Now put it behind you and get on with your life. You’ve things to do. For God’s sake, you’re luckier than most of us. You’ve got a mission.’
Donald Illingworth’s face, when he raised it again, was twisted between hope and despair. ‘How can I?’ His voice was choked and his lips were trembling. ‘A man died. There’s a widow. There’ll be the police poking their noses. If you tracked it to me, so can they. Humbert Brown must have known what he was after. They probably went to the police as soon as he went missing.’
Keith almost laughed. He thought that the worst was over. ‘I’ll tell you what steps have been taken,’ he said. ‘First off, you no longer have a tart for your sister. Mrs Heller did some digging. It seems that Hilary only went on the game to get out from under your mother’s domination. That’s a motive you’ll sympathise with. Her ambition is to have her own disco-nightclub. Yes, I know, it sounds like hell to me too, but that’s what she’s set her heart on. And Debbie Heller says that although she’s solid cotton-wool between the ears she’s got enough savvy and sense of style and enough ruthless determination to make a go of it. You don’t mind my talking about your sister that way?’
‘Why not? It’s just the way I remember her.’
‘So Personal Service is launching one in Cardiff It’s far enough away that she shouldn’t meet any old acquaintances. She goes in as manager under instruction for a year, and if she’s got the flair it’s all hers for her share in the company, on condition that she keeps her mouth tight shut.’
‘She’d do that anyway.’
‘I expect so. And she holds Mrs Heller in quite enough awe to make sure of it.
‘Next, the body had to be disposed of more permanently. Your burial was a bit of a spur-of-the-moment. Frankly, the first fox to pass that way could have uncovered it. Couldn’t you find a spade?’
‘I got one out of a shed,’ Illingworth said. ‘But I hit rock before I was down two feet. I couldn’t stay there all night digging holes.’
‘Nor you could,’ Keith said. ‘Then, certain mouths had to be shut tight. It’s been done, but I’m not saying how. You’ll just have to take my word.’
‘But who’s going to shut the shutter’s mouth?’ Illingworth asked bitterly. ‘I’m still wide open to blackmail. What does Personal Service want of me?’
‘Bugger-all. I’ll tell you something. Mrs Heller and her establishment have been an absolute total bloody revelation to me. You think of prostitution as being all mixed up with crime and violence and blackmail and God knows what-all. Debbie Heller’s tough enough for any of that. But she’s a top-class businesswoman, and she knows which side the bread’s buttered. Outside of the – er – carnal side of things, the place is as strictly run as a finishing school, with a higher moral code than most reputable businesses. They only want you to pick up the threads again and fight the good fight. Stand for office in local government again if you like. Personal Service’ll put no pressures on you, but if you need any help or backing . . .’
‘Backing? From a knocking-shop?’
‘It isn’t a knocking-shop, it’s a respectable group of companies,’ Keith said. The words as he spoke them reminded him of something or somebody, but he hurried on. ‘Take my advice, for what it’s worth. Grab hold of any support you can get; other politicians all do. Personal Service with its big business hat on can swing a lot of weight. Use it to go places. Put the past behind you. You won’t forget, of course. One never forgets one’s mistakes, and a damn good thing too! But put guilt aside. It’ll fade with time. Go back to your life. It’s a good life, a life that most men would envy. A bit of shooting, a bit of crusading, a profession, and some women. Too damn many women, if you ask me.
For the first time, Illingworth had a spark in his eye. ‘You’re hardly the man to say that,’ he pointed out. ‘I mind the time men locked up their daughters when you were in Dundee.’
‘I’m a happily married man now,’ Keith said weakly.
‘I think you’re a happily married man who’s jealous of somebody who can still screw around.’
Keith forced himself to sit silent. Remembering his itinerant, amorous youth and the self-satisfaction which he had felt on triumphing over a very real temptation at Millmont House, he supposed that there might be a grain of truth in the accusation. It was enough that Illingworth’s nervous energy was at last being turned outward into the world and not into the dark recesses of his soul.
‘Are you absolutely sure,’ Illingworth asked, ‘that nobody’s going to talk?’
‘Take my word for it,’ Keith said again. He felt his guts loosen as he thought about it. He had been a hard man in his time, but that day he had been out of his class. And he had known it.
*
Howarth, of Humbert Brown (Contractors) Limited, had arrived at Millmont House in a hostile mood barely suppressed. He came in a firm’s Daimler of current year, and left some of the firm’s rubber on the tarmac as he swung the car angrily round with headlamps blazing.
Keith and Debbie Heller were together to meet him in her office. He was a short, square man with iron-grey hair and a disciplined moustache of darker grey. His clothes were expensive and precise, and he brought with him an air of big business capability. Whatever the problem, it had better not dare to be insoluble. While he was still shaking hands he was already grumbling. ‘Can’t think what you want to see me about, alone and at this ungodly hour of the morning.’ His voice was meant to be commanding, but was spoiled by a hesitant, peevish note in it.
‘You’ll see as we go along,’ Mrs Heller said.
‘Are we talking about the Firth Bay project?’
She sat down behind her desk and waved the two men into chairs. ‘Not until this is settled,’ she said. ‘Probably not then, it all depends.’
‘If you’re talking about those two yobbos who you say attacked Mr Calder here, I can assure you –’
‘We’re talking about the late Henry Foster.’
There was a silence charged with the pain of dying hopes. ‘Who?’ Mr Howarth said, too late. ‘Never heard of him.’ Keith thought that he could almost hear the man’s blood draining down from his head.
‘That’s funny,’ Mrs Heller said. ‘Your telephone girl had heard of him. She said that he was off sick, which is one way of putting it I suppose.’ Howarth’s face, which was ruddy in the best of times, was scarlet. Mrs Heller rode smoothly over his attempts to break into her discourse. ‘Now, before you start to tell me that you do have a Henry Foster and he’s off work with ringworm and you hire somebody to tell me that he’s your Henry Foster, let me warn you not to say anything that you can’t prove up to the hilt. Because I’m not accepting any stories without treble-checking them. So now is the time for you to make up your mind and commit yourself one way or the other. Do you want me as an ally or as an implacable enemy?’
Peering inquiringly through her horn-rimmed glasses, Debbie Heller looked singularly unintimidating to Keith, but Howarth was taking her very seriously. ‘I want you as an ally, of course,’ he said.
‘We shall see. We’ve got to the bottom of Foster’s disappearance. And I’ve made quite sure that nobody on my staff will talk. You can believe me.’
‘I do.’ Howarth found a smile and produced it, carefully. ‘You have a reputation for being able to make your staff jump through hoops.’
‘Hold onto that thought. You may want it again later. We found out, a
nd can prove, that Foster picked up what he considered to be some useful information about Donald Illingworth, namely that Illingworth’s sister was one of the girls who use the chalets here.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes. Now, it doesn’t really matter a toss whether Foster was acting under direct instructions or was trying to get himself out of trouble with your firm by producing something which he knew would delight you, the fact is that he committed himself as your agent in pulling off one of the dirtiest frame-ups in history. And I’m not exaggerating. He contacted Illingworth, reminded him of a boyhood friendship and enticed him here. Foster made the bookings, and he was quite specific that he was booking the sister for the brother. The two hadn’t seen each other since she was a child and she’s changed the colour of her hair since then. The chance that they would recognise each other was infinitesimal. And he bribed one of my porters to make a visual recording of the resulting sex-act. Tell me, Mr Howarth, does that go to the top of your firm’s list of dirty tricks, or is that fairly run-of-the-mill for you?’
Howarth leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. ‘I knew nothing of this,’ he said, ‘nor did the firm. If Foster did as you say, he was acting on his own in the hope of a reward – which, incidentally, he would not have received if we had known anything of his methods. But can you prove any of this?’
‘Without the least difficulty. The pressure that Foster put on him drove Illingworth so far off the balance of his mind that he killed Foster, and the original tape is no doubt destroyed. But my porter also taped the confrontation between Foster and Illingworth when the threats were made. My porter says that Foster told him to make the second tape for your benefit, but I suspect that he made it on his own initiative with a bit of extra blackmail in mind. He also produced, under some pressure, three thousand quid in cash which he was paid by Foster. Where, I wonder, would Foster put his hands on that sort of money except from you? Anyway, this is what was recorded. Keith.’
The Game Page 16