by Alex Pavesi
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s very kind.’
Scarlett filled their three glasses. ‘Do you have any update on how long we’ll be kept here? The world is practically ending outside.’
‘No,’ said Helen, confused by the question. ‘I haven’t left the room.’
Scarlett shrugged off this practicality.
‘Are you from out of town?’ asked Griff.
‘Yes, Guildford. How could you tell?’
‘I always can.’ He grinned. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Shopping,’ she said. ‘In fact, I was in that building before it caught fire.’
He whistled in admiration. ‘That was a lucky escape, then.’
‘Yes.’ She saw herself deep in the burning building, dark and crowded with the cloth-like smoke, panicking children running around her. ‘Very lucky.’
Scarlett put her elbows on the table. ‘And what do you do in Guildford?’
‘I’m a teacher.’
‘Oh,’ Scarlett considered it. ‘Then a little underqualified to be playing detective?’
Helen took a drink; she was no longer sober, and the alcohol had given her a very restrained recklessness. ‘In fact,’ she said. ‘I have a theory. It might interest you.’
Griff sat back with a burst of laughter. He slapped the table. ‘Come on then, let’s hear it.’
‘Well,’ said Helen. ‘You suggested earlier that the killer lay in wait for Harry on the rooftop outside the toilet window. What was unclear, at that time, was that this is the women’s toilet.’ She pointed up at the door that towered over them: the fourth guest at their small table. ‘Harry was tricked into using it instead of the men’s, which necessitates involvement from somebody in this room.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Griff.
‘But that got me thinking,’ Helen went on. ‘If someone in this room was involved, perhaps a neater solution could be considered. What if the killer was inside the loo, behind the door? When Harry enters they take him by surprise, a simple clean hit. Then they smash the window and move the pieces to make it look like it was broken from the outside. They wait until the rest of you break in, hiding behind the door again, and rejoin the group without comment. Would anyone even have noticed?’
‘Yes,’ said Griff, ‘I think I would have. When I opened the door.’
Helen took a dismissive sip of her wine. ‘Of course. Unless you were working with the killer.’ She put the glass down and grinned. Griff burst into laughter.
Scarlett hissed. ‘Is she actually accusing us, or is this just a strange sort of joke?’
Griff turned to her. ‘Oh, not you, darling. She knows you’d never get your hands dirty like that.’
‘This is infantile.’ Scarlett stood up and returned to the window.
‘I’m sorry, she’s very sensitive,’ said Griff. He shook gently with laughter, as if an underground train was at that moment passing beneath the restaurant.
He was still laughing as he walked away.
Helen’s head was muddied and the evening was growing long. She looked at the window, which ran almost the full length of the wall: Scarlett and Griff stood at one end, Andrew and Vanessa at the other. Helen got up and tottered over to the middle of it. Outside, everything was chaos. The fire was raging unashamedly now; there was no sign of movement inside the building, beyond the yellow flicker of the flames. The street was thick with smoke. There were no cars, and very few people that weren’t with the police or the fire brigade.
Have we been forgotten? thought Helen, suddenly fearful. Are we stranded up here, at the top of this restaurant? A thick cough came from her right. Vanessa was bent at the waist, her hand on the windowsill. ‘My sister is very sensitive to the smoke,’ said Andrew Carter, frowning. Maybe she shouldn’t stand by the window, thought Helen, who said nothing. ‘It would be barbaric to keep us here much longer.’
Helen moved towards them. ‘Have you seen anything else in the fire? Any other shapes?’ Was it sarcasm, or simply the wine?
‘No,’ Vanessa sobbed, between coughs. ‘But if there was any doubt that it’s the devil’s work –’ She pointed to a row of bodies that had been laid on the pavement opposite. ‘Some have fallen, some are burnt. I don’t think there could be a clearer message.’
Helen disagreed. She squinted at the flames, trying to detect the outline of something. Anything, really. But it just made her eyes sore.
She was about to ask a further question, when a loud squawking reached them from below. Vanessa jumped back, as if a panicked bird had flown into the room. Helen peered through the smoke and tried to locate the source of the sound. Over the road two servants were walking calmly, their arms filled with cages of exotic birds. Parrots and cockatoos, even a crate of live quails. Behind them a third servant was walking a leopard on a leash. It was an eccentric man’s menagerie being evacuated from a house nearby; a neat microcosm of the disruption caused by the fire.
Helen watched them parade down the street, wondering where they would go. ‘It does look like the world is ending,’ she said, mostly to herself. And then she noticed movement in the room behind her, reflected in the window.
The distinctive green dress that Wendy was wearing left the spot where she’d been standing, spun carefully around, and proceeded swiftly to the door leading downstairs. The door opened and the dress disappeared.
Helen blinked at the audacity of it, then turned and hurried after her.
She found Wendy in the corridor outside; she’d made it as far as the second step. ‘Wendy.’ She turned around. ‘Where are you going?’
The departing woman shrugged. ‘Oh, Helen, I was going to tell you. I have a train to catch. I feel I’ve contributed all I can here.’
‘But we’re not allowed to leave.’
Wendy shifted nervously; there was a pleading tone to her voice. ‘I don’t know any of these people. I barely knew Harry. And by all accounts he was killed before I got here.’
‘But you were engaged to him; you’re a key witness.’
‘I don’t want to be rude, Helen, but you’re just a teacher. Don’t ask me to indulge your delusions of being a detective.’
Helen flushed at such a remark from this previously polite woman. ‘The restaurant manager won’t let you leave.’
‘No, but I was hoping he wouldn’t notice.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
Wendy sighed, wearily. ‘Yes, I thought you probably would.’ She walked back towards Helen and took off her engagement ring, defeated; it slipped off like a scarf from a melting snowman. ‘If I’m being made to stay, I may as well tell you the truth.’ Wendy gave her the ring to inspect. ‘I borrowed that from a friend, that’s why it’s far too big for me.’
Helen looked down at the simple silver band; it was scratched in several places. ‘You weren’t really engaged?’
‘I really am an actor. And I’m from Manchester, that’s true, too. Harry really did meet me while he was there for a play. But there was no romance, it was all business. I was asked to come here today and pose very publicly as his fiancée.’
‘Asked by whom?’
‘By Harry, of course. He wrote me a letter. Someone had been pestering him, another woman. Being a bit too persistent, even scaring him a little. He thought if I came to this party and we pretended to be planning a wedding, it would send her a message. Then he’d quietly cancel the engagement once she’d moved on to someone else. Not the most pleasant scheme, I admit. But frankly I needed the work.’
Helen was intrigued. ‘But you don’t know her name, this mystery woman?’
Wendy shook her head. ‘Harry didn’t tell me.’
‘I don’t understand, though. You lied to me. But why? Why did you go on with the act, after he’d been killed?’
‘I wanted to see how you’d react. Look, you’re not the only one that can play detective. As soon as you were shown into the room, I wondered if it might be you. The one who’s been pestering him.’
‘Th
e other woman?’ Helen laughed at the impossibility of it. ‘But I’ve never even met Harry.’
‘Well, you suddenly showed up, you were acting nervous. I realize now that I made a mistake.’ She crept up to Helen and took her hands, speaking conspiratorially. ‘None of these people know my real name. Can’t you just let me slip away before the police come? It would save us both a lot of bother.’
‘I can’t blame you for wanting to leave. But we have to do what we’ve been told.’
The two women returned to the room; those inside looked up momentarily and then went back to their increasingly strained conversations. Helen sat at her table by the toilet door and Wendy, as if slightly embarrassed, took a seat alone at a separate table. There was near silence in the room now; everyone was waiting for something to happen.
And something did. The door opened and a loud voice came from outside: ‘This party is harder to get into than Buckingham Palace.’
A refined, energetic young man – in his late twenties and very good looking – entered from the corridor. He was greeted by a stunned silence. He spun the scarf from around his neck and hung it and his hat on a stand behind the door. ‘It’s smoking like my nan outside; I should have dug out my uncle’s old gas mask. But the fellows downstairs couldn’t seem to decide if this thing was cancelled or not, so I reasoned there must be something they weren’t telling me. I had to wait until they were all busy with bowls of soup and sneak up.’
His hat on the stand, and a head of shining black hair revealed, he turned to face the group. ‘Well, where’s the birthday boy?’
Griff stepped forward. ‘James, this really isn’t a good time. You should have listened to the chaps downstairs.’
‘Nonsense,’ said James, pouring himself a glass of red wine. He left the bottle on Helen’s table. ‘No social occasion is ever a lost cause: if I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t talk so much.’
Helen noticed Andrew roll his eyes and return to the window.
‘James, there’s something I need to tell you,’ Griff was speaking again, ‘in private.’
The two men went to the corner of the room. But as clear as the smell of smoke, everyone could hear James speak. ‘Harry is dead? My god!’ He turned to the room and raised his glass. ‘Well, here’s to absent friends.’ The response was apathetic; James downed his drink. ‘Well then, how did it happen?’
Griff whispered, ‘He was murdered.’
‘Murdered, you say? Not by Rhonda, I hope?’
‘Rhonda? Who is Rhonda?’
‘Rhonda, Harry’s latest flame. A pretty young thing, about nineteen years old. Getting a bit possessive, I understand.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Marriage on the brain.’
Andrew Carter looked pointedly at his sister. ‘But Rhonda is the name Vanessa uses on stage …’
Helen interrupted proceedings by toppling the bottle of red wine onto the floor. It landed with a concussive smash, leaving a stain not unlike the one in the toilet, all thin blood and fragments of glass. The group turned and looked at her; James was finally silent, twisted around in surprise. If there was any doubt that she’d knocked the wine to the floor on purpose, she dispelled it by nudging a wineglass over the edge with her fingertips. She sat in an island of smashed glass.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’ James approached her and offered his hand. ‘I’m James.’
Helen was staring at him. ‘I’ve seen you before, James.’
He was slightly taken aback. ‘In a play perhaps?’
‘You could certainly say that.’ She turned to the others. ‘I’ve seen you all before. And I recognize you, I recognize all of you. I recognize this whole situation. The quietest one in the room being preyed upon by the rest.’ She turned back to James. ‘Don’t they say that you should never let the audience watch you setting up? Once you’ve seen the actors smoking and bickering outside the theatre, kicking the props around, the illusion is ruined.’
Helen was drunk; James glanced at the other guests, unsure of how to proceed.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean?’
‘After arriving here later than everyone else, you should have at least pretended you didn’t know where the hatstand was. It’s quite hidden, behind the door.’
He looked insulted, but relieved to have a concrete accusation he could deny. ‘Well, I’ve been to this restaurant before.’
Saying the first thing that came into his head, thought Helen; everybody reverts to childhood when they lie. He was no different to a five-year-old girl claiming that a bird had dropped the contraband item into the room through the open window.
‘That is true,’ said Helen. ‘The entrance we all just witnessed was actually your return. You were here earlier.’
James shuffled awkwardly, isolated by this accusation, while the others gathered around Helen’s table. The broken glass kept them back. When they had formed a rough half-circle – even Wendy had approached, drawn by curiosity – Helen looked from one to another in turn. Griff spoke: ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I now know who all of you are,’ said Helen, pressing her head back into the wall, trying to focus her sobriety, knowing that it was the intoxication that was compelling her to speak. ‘I see six extroverts. All of you, even the shy ones.’ She looked at Wendy. ‘Six extroverts who think they can manipulate someone more reserved than themselves, just by talking more forcefully.’
‘She’s drunk,’ said Vanessa.
‘A little, but it doesn’t affect my judgement. You would be wise not to underestimate how well I know this scene. You see it with salesmen most often. They realize they’re talking to someone quiet and thoughtful and their eyes light up; they think they’ll be able to make your decisions for you, as if not being inclined to voice an opinion was the same as not being able to have one.’ Helen had a moment of self-doubt. Why didn’t she save this for a cosy conversation with a police detective, over a cup of tea? ‘So I’ve patiently listened to your lies all evening; it’s been like an afternoon in school. But your plan, implausible as it was, was downright sloppy in one respect: it didn’t occur to any of you that before I was asked to come and keep watch up here, I’d been sitting downstairs for about an hour. In this very restaurant, quite close to the door.’
The room was darkening, with the sun in decline and the windows almost black with smoke. She was speaking to an audience of silhouettes.
‘I must have been sitting there while the murder took place, eating a bowl of soup. And I expect I was sitting there while every one of you arrived. I didn’t pay too much attention, of course. But I couldn’t miss the sight of one smartly dressed, fully grown man carrying another into a crowded restaurant.’
A gasp filled the room. Somebody at the back of the circle dropped a glass.
She spoke to James: ‘If you hadn’t made such a dramatic entry just now that memory might never have come back to me, but it has. And so I can tie the threads together. What I saw earlier this evening was you escorting Harry onto the premises, the poor man so drunk he could hardly walk. I only saw the back of his head, in its original, unspoiled state of course, but I’m sure that it was him. It was his build, his beard, his sideburns and his signature black suit. You, on the other hand, I recognize without a doubt.’
‘It’s true,’ said Vanessa. ‘Harry was inordinately drunk when we arrived. We suspected he’d been drinking all day.’
Her brother nodded. ‘That’s right, he was ghastly.’
Griff stepped forward, crunching a piece of glass. ‘Anyone who knew Harry would expect him to be helplessly drunk by six o’clock on his birthday. I fail to see how that changes anything.’
‘You’ve all been lying to me,’ said Helen, pointedly. ‘I’ve heard any number of stories today – from demon dogs to fanatical women – but not one of them accounted for the fact that Harry was delivered here too drunk even to stand up. I can see what happened. When I entered this room for the first time this evening, you were all surprised. You’d b
een expecting the police, but instead you got me. Then one of you saw an opportunity. You thought that if you each told me a story, with no two stories the same, I’d be all in a muddle by the time I spoke to the police. I’d repeat all your lies and make a mess out of everything. I was just a way of adding some confusion to the crime scene, that’s how you saw me. And why, because I don’t assert myself much?’
There was an uncomfortable silence, as if the room had filled with water. ‘It’s been said to me,’ Helen went on, ‘at least once this evening, that Harry had a lot of enemies. It seemed a strange thing for his friends to insist upon. Unless you’re not his friends. You’re his enemies.’ Guilty looks were exchanged by the guests; then the six of them stared at their shoes. ‘I don’t know what he did to you individually – engagements and abandonments would have played some part, I’d imagine, from the way that you’ve depicted him – but I would guess that each of you held some grudge against Harry. So you gathered together, shared your grievances, and decided the world would be a better place if you killed him. So you arranged this party, on Harry’s birthday, and you all came along to pose as his friends. Presumably he didn’t have enough actual friends to object, or to have made any other plans.’
Nobody spoke. Helen stood up.
‘Did it happen like this? James here runs into Harry somewhere around lunchtime and suggests a drink, making it look like a coincidence. He’s the type of person that makes everyone feel wanted, so Harry goes along with it.’ James reddened. ‘You get Harry drunk and bring him here; he’s in no state to object. The rest of you arrive. Then the seemingly intractable crime scene is prepared: all it would take is for one of you to lock themselves inside the bathroom and let another break the door down, with Harry in the corner here the whole time. Probably taking a nap. Then one of you smashes the window and places the glass piece by piece on the floor and the windowsill, to make it look like it was done from outside. Then, once the last of you has arrived, the proceedings begin. He’s bundled into the toilet and propped on the seat, with his forehead against his knees. One of you produces a hammer. It would be easy enough to smuggle one inside, under a man’s suit jacket. A simple hammer, like the one that is soaked in blood and lying on the roof outside. The six of you passed this weapon around and took it in turns to strike the inebriated Harry on the back of the head. Six bold strikes. The poor man has hardly any skull left. What else? There’s a telltale spot of blood on a piece of glass in the window frame; I assume that’s just a distraction, to make it look as if the killer went out that way. None of you have any visible cuts; but Vanessa, you’re walking with a slight limp. Did you take off your shoe and scratch the bottom of your foot with that little glass triangle? A neat piece of misdirection. Then James, you must have taken the rest of the evidence with you and sneaked out of the restaurant. What was it? A bloody rag, perhaps?’