by Eric Brown
‘I was a little tipsy at the end of the evening, but not so much that I didn’t forget to lock the door of my room. I was naive, but not foolish. Anyway, on the Sunday he continued with the painting, and said that one more session, the following weekend, would see it completed.’
‘And you went down again?’
‘Not the following weekend – I had planned something with my father. But the weekend after that, yes.’
‘How did it go?’
She shrugged, and he saw that she was clutching her gloves again. ‘He finished the painting, and it made me look incredible. I was astounded. I wondered if this was how I really appeared, or whether it was just as he saw me.’
‘Go on.’
It was a while before she could bring herself to continue. ‘It was Sunday evening, and he’d plied me with drink. He said he’d like to do another painting, only this time, he said, it would be a nude.’
‘Christ,’ Langham said. ‘And?’
‘I was horrified. It was so sudden, so out of the blue. I liked him. I suppose I was attracted to him in a silly, schoolgirlish way, but the thought of doing that … So I refused.’
‘And he accepted that?’
‘No. No, he didn’t. He was enraged. He turned very ugly, Donald. He was very drunk by this time, and he cursed me.’ She screwed her eyes shut, then forced herself to go on. ‘And the things he said …’ She shook her head. ‘He called me terrible things – things I cannot repeat. And then he said that I was a little fool if I thought that all he wanted was to paint me. I was terribly hurt and confused. I was in out of my depth. And then … then he forced himself on me.’
‘The bastard—’
‘Or, rather, he tried to.’
Langham found that his mouth was dry. ‘What happened?’
‘I fought him off. He was very drunk, and although he was a big man, I was young and more athletic. He scared me to death when he grabbed me, and I fought like a cat, scratched him, tried to gouge out his eyes. I was enraged, Donald.’
‘Good for you!’
‘And then I lurched towards the fireplace, grabbed the only thing to hand and swung it at him. The poker struck the side of his head and he went down like a clichéd sack of cement in a bad thriller. I thought I’d killed him. I felt for his pulse, found that he was still alive, then gathered my belongings and left. I managed to catch the last train up to London and stayed at my friend’s house.’
‘And that was the last time you set eyes on Maxwell Fenton?’
She shook her head. ‘No, Donald. Imagine my horror when he showed up at one of my father’s soirées a month later. I tried to avoid him, but he cornered me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He fingered the scar on his temple, smiled like the devil and said that he hoped it wouldn’t fade as he wanted to have it as a reminder of my tempestuousness. And then he had the temerity to ask me to sit for him again.’
‘And you said?’
‘I told him to go to hell.’
‘Attagirl!’
‘And that was the very last time I saw him,’ she said.
They sat in silence for a while, before Maria looked up at him and smiled. ‘So you see, Donald, I want to go down and see if Maxwell Fenton really does intend to kill himself – and, to be honest, I suppose a small part of me hopes he does.’
‘Well, if you think you’re going there on your own, my girl …’
She smiled. ‘So you’ll come with me?’
Langham sighed. ‘Of course, but I’m taking my revolver. Just to be on the safe side.’
He glanced at his watch. It was almost four o’clock. ‘If we set off now, we’ll be at Lower Malton well before six.’
Maria looked relieved. ‘Oh, thank you, Donald. You don’t know how much this means to me.’
‘You owe me one, my dear.’
They moved to the outer office, and Langham told Ralph they were heading up to Essex.
‘It’s a fair way,’ Ralph said. ‘You OK for petrol?’
‘Managed to fill up last night at my local station,’ Langham said.
Ralph nodded. ‘I know a chap down Chiswick way who’ll see us right in an emergency,’ he said, no doubt referring to one of the many black marketeers he’d got to know just after the war. ‘No ruddy Arab’s going to stop me driving.’
‘Don’t curse the Arabs,’ Langham said. ‘It’s your shower, the Tory fools governing the country, who made a mess of Suez. Right,’ he said to Maria, ‘let’s be making tracks.’
She donned her overcoat, headscarf and gloves, and they descended the stairs to the busy, rain-lashed street.
TWO
They drove north-east through the dreary suburban sprawl of the city, chatting about the cottage and Maria’s plans to buy new furnishings and curtains. She appeared animated, but it was a superficial enthusiasm belying the fact that her thoughts were elsewhere.
Already the winter twilight was closing in, abetted by rain clouds. The downpour persisted, making the procession of houses, shops and factories seem all the more bleak. Shop fronts were lighted against the gathering darkness, and pedestrians bent into the wind as they hurried homeward. Langham noticed queues of cars at every petrol station they passed.
It was a relief when they left London in their wake and motored through open country. These days he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders when London with its heaving population was finally behind him. He wondered if it was the imminent prospect of moving from the city that had brought about his sudden antipathy to the capital.
Maria said something, and Langham glanced at her. ‘I’m sorry, what was that? Miles away.’
‘I said, when all this is over, Donald, I think we should have another little break at the Grange.’ A month before they’d spent a weekend at the comfortable old hotel near the village of Abbotsford in west Suffolk.
‘“When all this is over”,’ he said, glancing at her. ‘Yes, let’s do that.’
They drove on in silence for a while.
‘So you really think Fenton intends to kill himself?’ he said a little later.
Maria stared into the darkness, grimacing. ‘Perhaps the rumours are correct, Donald, and he has gone mad.’
‘It certainly sounds deranged to send out invitations to a death.’
‘In a way, it is entirely in keeping with his egocentric character. He was always the showman who liked to be the centre of attention. He had talent, yes, undeniably, but it seemed that this was not enough for him. He wanted people to admire him for his eccentricities as well as for his art.’ She shrugged. ‘He once said to me that his artistic talent came naturally, and that he despised those who lauded it. Do you know what I think?’ she added, turning to him.
‘Go on.’
‘I think he loathed himself. He despised the facility of his talent, and therefore mistrusted those taken in by it. He wanted to be loved for who he was, but people could not love him because he was so terribly flawed and narcissistic.’
‘You’d make a good psychiatrist.’ He laughed. ‘I’ll have to watch myself.’
‘You have nothing to worry about, Donald. You are at heart a simple, uncomplicated soul, and perhaps that is why I love you so.’
They drove on for another fifteen minutes until they came to a crossroads. Maria pointed to a fingerpost and said, ‘Oldhurst, two miles. Lower Malton is just a mile or so further on.’
‘Can you recall the way to the house?’
She nodded grimly. ‘How can I forget? That Sunday night, fleeing over the fields and down the road to the train station at Oldhurst … The house stands a mile beyond the village, in woodland. Winterfield.’ She shivered. ‘Even the name gives me the chills.’
They came to Oldhurst and took a winding lane away from the town and into the darkened countryside.
Lower Malton proved to be a collection of perhaps fifty cottages, a couple of shops, a public house, and a Saxon church on either side of a twisting main street. L
angham drove through the village in less than a minute and slowed down as they approached a crossroads.
‘Where now? Left, right or straight ahead?’
Maria leaned forward, peering. ‘Right, and then an immediate left. The house is about a mile further on.’
Langham turned right, then left along a lane with high hedges and overhung with trees; their headlights bored through the darkness, illuminating a lane that twisted and turned and resembled more a burrow than a road.
Maria pointed. ‘There, to the left.’
Langham made out a pair of stone gateposts topped with what looked like griffins rampant. The great wrought-iron gates were open, though hanging off their hinges and leaning back against masses of rhododendron.
He slowed down and looked at his watch. ‘Five forty-five. Just on time. At least it’s stopped raining.’
‘I wonder how many other people he’s invited. I hope …’
‘Go on,’ he said, turning into the driveway.
‘I hope I’m not the only one.’
‘I very much doubt you will be. The invitation was numbered, remember. There’ll be others; rest assured.’
They proceeded slowly up the gravelled drive, with looming vegetation closing in on either side. They rounded the bend and the headlights picked out, a hundred yards ahead, the low, many-turreted shape of what looked like an Elizabethan manor house. A roseate glow issued from a single mullioned window to the right of a great timber door.
‘And we’re not the first to arrive,’ he said, pulling up beside a crimson Morgan coupé.
He reached into the glove compartment, withdrew his revolver and slipped it under his jacket.
Maria watched him, smiling tensely. ‘I hope you won’t need to use it,’ she murmured.
‘I’m sure I won’t,’ he said. ‘But it’s a precaution.’
Langham opened the door and climbed out. He took Maria’s hand and they approached the porticoed entrance.
As they were climbing the steps, someone called out, ‘I think you’ll find it’s locked, and that no one will answer your summons.’
They turned to see a small, slim, peroxide blonde stride across the gravel from the side of the house, presumably the owner of the Morgan. She was in her early forties, a pale beauty dressed in a high-collared raincoat and a cloche hat that perched on the side of her head.
‘I rang the bell,’ she said, ‘but there was no reply. So I tried the door and found it locked.’ She gestured over her shoulder. ‘Then I took a turn around the house, but there’s no sign of life.’
She gave them a winning smile and held out a hand. ‘Holly Beckwith,’ she said. ‘You probably know the name from the West End – if you’re theatregoers, that is.’
Maria took her hand. ‘An Inspector Calls,’ she said. ‘Donald and I saw it at the Globe last year. You were superb.’
The actress pressed a hand against her chest. ‘So kind.’
Langham made the introductions. The grip of the woman’s bird-boned hand was almost ethereal.
He indicated the house. ‘I take it you too were invited?’
‘So tiresome. I hear nothing from the man for over twenty years, and then this. He always did like to be the centre of attention; it became just too much. I was stupid enough to have had an affair with him, darling. It ended in tears – his tears, might I add, when I finished with him.’
Langham moved to the door and drew the bell-pull, then hammered on the door. He moved from the plinth of steps, approached the mullioned window and peered inside. A roaring fire in a vast hearth illuminated a comfortable lounge furnished with three sofas and several armchairs. A trolley of drinks stood beside the fireplace.
‘Appears to be set up for a little soirée,’ he reported on returning to the women.
The actress eyed Maria. ‘And how do you know Fenton? Another one of his conquests, I take it?’
‘I sat for him,’ Maria replied hurriedly.
‘That was one of his many ploys,’ Beckwith purred. ‘It’s a wonder he didn’t inveigle you into his little harem.’
‘If you haven’t seen him for more than twenty years,’ Langham said, ‘and thought little of the man at the time, do you mind my asking why you came here this evening?’
The actress gave a dazzling smile. ‘I came because I wanted to ensure, with my own eyes, that the despicable man was really dead.’
Langham exchanged a glance with Maria. ‘You think—?’ he began.
‘That he intends to kill himself?’ Beckwith said. ‘Yes, I do, darling. It’s entirely in keeping with his character, given that he’s dying.’
‘He’s dying?’ Maria said.
‘Heard it on the grapevine,’ Beckwith replied. ‘Cancer or leukaemia or something beastly like that. It isn’t like the Fenton I knew to go out with a whimper. I suspect he wants people to watch him go with a bang.’
Langham was about to suggest that they wait in the car, out of the cold wind, when the sound of an engine forestalled him. They turned and watched a pre-war Daimler roll sedately up the drive and draw to a halt beside his Rover.
A small, tubby man leapt out from behind the wheel, ran around the front of the car, and opened the passenger door. His perform-ance had about it the obsequious alacrity of a flunky attending royalty. This impression was reinforced when a small, imperious woman in her mid to late fifties, dressed in an evening gown, stepped from the vehicle. The expression on her plump, querulous face suggested that she thought the gravel might be quicksand.
The little man reached into the car for a fox stole and arranged it around the woman’s shoulders with exaggerated solicitude.
She had a bloated, thickly powdered face and a beehive of blue-rinsed hair, and she surveyed the little gathering imperiously through a lorgnette. ‘And who might we have here?’ she piped.
Langham made the introductions. ‘And you are?’
‘Goudge,’ said the woman. ‘Hermione Goudge.’
Behind her, the little man bobbed from side to side, smiling nervously at the company. Langham expected him to return to the car and drive away, and was surprised when Hermione Goudge turned to him almost dismissively and said, ‘And this is my husband, George.’
Langham shook his hand in the spirit of camaraderie, already feeling sorry for the fellow. George appeared not so much short as truncated, as if his legs had been amputated at the knees and his ludicrously tiny feet attached to their stumps.
‘Any idea what all this is about, old man?’ George asked in a reedy falsetto.
‘’Fraid not,’ Langham said. ‘My wife received an invitation, and we thought it prudent to turn up. I take it you received—?’
Hermione Goudge turned to him. ‘Of course we did. Why do you think we’re here?’ Her voice had the sharp, hectoring tone of someone who assumed she was always in the right.
‘Why the devil are we standing around out here, catching our deaths?’ she demanded. ‘Hasn’t someone—’
Holly Beckwith snapped, ‘Of course we have. No one appears to be home.’
‘Ridiculous!’ Hermione Goudge snorted.
‘Would you mind if I took a look at your invitation cards?’ Langham asked, looking from the Goudges to Beckwith.
‘Why on earth do you want to do that?’ Hermione asked.
‘Just curious,’ Langham said.
‘George,’ Hermione demanded, holding out a hand.
Her husband fumbled through his pockets and eventually produced two cards which he handed to his wife. She passed them to Langham. The cards were identical to Maria’s with the exception of the numerals ‘2’ and ‘3’ handwritten in the top right-hand corners. Beckwith handed him her invitation, which was numbered ‘4’.
He passed them back without comment.
As if in an attempt to strike up conversation, the actress asked Hermione Goudge, ‘And how do you know Fenton? I take it,’ she added archly, ‘that you weren’t one of his paramours?’
Hermione regarded her down the lengt
h of her nose. ‘The impudence!’ she snorted. ‘I had the unpleasant task of reviewing several of Fenton’s exhibitions and writing critically of his mawkish daubs.’
‘Of course,’ Maria said. ‘You’re the art critic – didn’t you write the biography of Velázquez?’
‘Among many other books and monographs, my dear.’ Hermione sniffed.
Langham asked, ‘And how did Fenton take your criticism?’
She fixed him with a caustic stare. ‘How do you think anyone of Fenton’s shallow, egotistical bent might take criticism? He was enraged – which, I admit, was rather gratifying to behold. He was apoplectic that anyone might think his third-rate smatterings were anything other than works of genius. I demolished him in print, and I had the pleasure of doing so verbally when he bearded me at his solo exhibition at the National just before the war.’
‘When was the last time you met him?’ Langham asked.
‘That would be ’thirty-nine,’ she said, ‘and thankfully our paths have not crossed since. Maxwell Fenton has subsided back into the obscurity he deserves.’
He turned to George. ‘Do you know the artist?’
The little man hesitated. ‘We … we were friends, many years ago, before we fell out.’
Langham exchanged a glance with Maria. There was a pattern developing here, he thought: Fenton had reason to dislike everyone who had so far accepted his invitation.
Holly Beckwith said to Hermione, ‘Did you know that Fenton was dying?’
The critic sniffed. ‘I have heard the rumour, yes. The only worthwhile thing he might have done in years.’
Another car engine sounded, and a black Ford Popular appeared around the bend of the drive and drew to a halt beside the Goudges’ Daimler.
Two men climbed out and approached the gathering, now sheltering under the portico from the rain that had resumed. The elder of the two Langham judged to be in his sixties – a nervous, portly, plum-faced man in a tight suit who hung back and observed the gathering with darting, piggy eyes.
The younger man in his mid-twenties was small, thin and epicene, and introduced himself in a languorous drawl as Crispin Proudfoot, ‘the poet’.
Langham wondered if the unlikely moniker was an affectation. Proudfoot was dressed in a lightweight beige jacket and trousers more suited to the south of France than to England in winter. His deathly pale face and white eyelashes suggested albinism.