by Gwen Moffat
‘She can probably hold her own with him,’ Miss Pink put in. ‘After all, he allows her to go—places without him on other occasions—’ Roderick gaped at her, ‘—but I don’t like the idea of this book. I wonder how many people she’s told about it.’
‘She never talked at the hotel,’ Doreen said. ‘This is the first anyone’s heard of it, to my knowledge.’
‘It’s to be hoped it won’t go any further.’
‘You think she’s in danger?’ Roderick asked unhappily.
‘I’m afraid she’s asked for it, Dad.’ Her eyes belied the concern in her tone. She shrugged and grimaced at Miss Pink over the old man’s head. ‘But I’ve no doubt she can pull the wool over most men’s eyes; that sort can get away with murder.’
Chapter Six
A web of paths like animal runs connected places in the village and radiated outwards to the fields. The following morning, equipped with a large-scale map, Miss Pink followed an earthy alley along the side of her garage, past parched back gardens, to a meadow where fat cows grazed among the buttercups. Ahead was a low wooded hill and when she reached the top she looked down through the trees to the valley of a minor stream. There were glimpses of a cart track and of a sunlit glade with turf running up to the white walls of a cottage. Upstream, a ruin and a rusty mill wheel rose above the alders. The scene was idyllic, flowers in the back garden of the cottage making brilliant splashes of colour against the green jungle.
She descended to the track where it crossed the stream by way of an ancient bridge. Above it the water was choked by cresses and yellow monkey flower, but below, it chattered clear under a shaven bank. Someone had been busy with a lawnmower. There was a smell of mayweed and dust, a ground hum of insects and then, from the cottage, a woman’s quick laugh, without amusement. Two cars stood beside the track: a rakish red Spitfire and a battered Saab.
The cottage held an air of magic, like a place in a fairy forest. Its chimneys were tall and rounded with a pattern of diamond trellising in the plaster. There were tiny sash windows on the ground floor, skylights in the slates, and the walls were a yard thick. As Miss Pink raised her hand to knock on the open door, a man’s voice said harshly: ‘It’s in the filing cabinet, I take it?’ There was no response and he continued: ‘You seem to have gone off at half-cock; you’ve leaked it deliberately—right? And when we follow it up, you play dumb. What’s the idea?’
Miss Pink knocked. There was a moment’s silence and then a tall blonde stepped back and glanced over her shoulder. She wore flared white pants and an emerald shirt and Miss Pink was about to ask for Sandra when she saw that this was Sandra, and now that the black wig had gone she looked all of a piece, and even more beguiling.
‘Good morning, Miss Pink!’ It was said gaily but her eyes were intent, conveying some message. ‘Do come in; we’re entertaining the Press—would you believe it? Two gentlemen from The Sketch’.
Miss Pink stepped into a dim living room and two men stood up: a portly fellow whom Sandra introduced as Mr Waterhouse, and a second, called Rogers, who nodded unhappily at her and sat down with an air of effacing himself. His companion assessed Miss Pink with shrewd eyes, remarked that it was a fine day for walking and paused for a response that might carry some interest for him. He was middle-aged and professional and she took her time about replying, surveying the room owlishly from behind her spectacles.
Sprawled in a chair by the fireplace Tony Thorne glowered at her and made no attempt to get up. Her glance passed over him to the good Welsh dresser which over-shadowed a small filing cabinet—a two-drawer job: the only features of interest in the otherwise standard furniture of a holiday cottage.
‘You’re busy,’ she said pleasantly, ‘I’ll come back at a more convenient time.’
Thorne said suddenly and surprisingly: ‘We want to talk to you, Sandra and me.’ He looked bleakly at the reporters.
‘Meaning you prefer our room to our company,’ Waterhouse said. ‘How long will you be? We haven’t got all day.’
‘No one asked you to come.’
Sandra and Waterhouse started to speak together and stopped, staring at Miss Pink. She moved towards the door.
‘No!’ Thorne stood up abruptly. ‘I’m asking you to stay.’ From his tone he was demanding it. He turned on the other men. ‘You can wait outside; there are some seats up at the end.’ He jerked his head and Miss Pink saw through a back window, seats under fruit trees some distance away, out of earshot. ‘No pictures,’ he told them coldly. ‘And if you get tired of waiting, that’s fine by us.’
Waterhouse showed no sign of affront. He stood for a moment, studying the other thoughtfully, then turned and followed his partner out through the back door.
‘Don’t needle them,’ Sandra said. ‘And I don’t see why we have to bother Miss Pink.’
‘She’s an authoress, isn’t she?’ He turned to her. ‘She said you write stories—miss.’ She couldn’t restrain a smile. It had the effect of encouraging him. ‘We got a problem; perhaps you can help.’
The diffidence sat badly on him. Sandra was biting her lip and darting quick glances at Miss Pink who wondered if Thorne knew that the girl had talked indiscreetly last night. She decided she must play it canny. From the presence of the reporters it looked as if someone had talked.
They sat down, Sandra on a chair beside Thorne. She stared intently at the visitor.
‘I’ve written a book,’ she began.
‘Yes?’ Miss Pink was all bright encouragement.
‘About—should I tell her, Tony?’
‘Cut the cackle. She’ll know as soon as she gets to the village. Everybody will know. You worried?’
‘It will shock you.’ The steady stare implored Miss Pink to be shocked.
Thorne said roughly: ‘It’s about a call-girl with a pad in Westminster—autobiography, they calls it. She knows a lot of politicians, see.’ His smile was lewd.
Miss Pink was nonplussed. ‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘What’s the purpose behind it?’
‘Money,’ Sandra said. She relaxed visibly.
‘It’ll fetch a few thousand,’ Thorne said airily.
Miss Pink looked vacuous. ‘It doesn’t sound very nice.’ Sandra’s lips twitched. ‘Not at all nice,’ Miss Pink continued reprovingly. ‘But perhaps I have the wrong. . . .? What kind of advice do you expect from me? On marketing?’
Thorne shifted impatiently. ‘It’s not finished yet; it don’t seem right to tell the Press at this moment of time. It’ll pre-empt the issue, right?’
Miss Pink stared at him.
‘But they know!’ Sandra broke in earnestly, gesturing to the garden: ‘They arrived at breakfast time and they know everything already: about the book, and where I live, they even know my professional name—’ she grinned mischievously, ‘—it’s Cynthia Gale.’
Miss Pink frowned; she hadn’t told them that last night. ‘So what did you say to them?’
‘Well, I had to admit it, didn’t I? I’ve got to go along with my agent; he’s the brains. He’s planned a fabulous publicity campaign: telly, papers, magazines, the lot—only thing wrong is he didn’t warn us he was ready to start.’
‘What does he say about that?’ Miss Pink’s tone was idle; she wasn’t really interested. She wanted to get away.
‘I can’t get him,’ Thorne said, ‘I been trying since these guys arrived. We got this contact, see, and he says Jul— our agent’s in France. We knew that but we thought he must have come back with the Press coming here, and that, but I guess he could have rung The Sketch just as well from Paris.’
‘The telephone systems do connect.’ Sandra was sarcastic.
‘If he’s abroad, he’s got to have rung from there, ain’t he?’ He was vicious. ‘Unless he left the job to someone else: to do while he was away.’
‘Yes,’ Sandra said. ‘He could have done that.’
‘Has he not got in touch with you?’ Miss Pink asked. They stared at her
blankly. ‘No; silly question. And you can’t get him this morning.’ Her eyes went to the telephone on the dresser. ‘Perhaps he can’t find a telephone.’ She regarded them blandly. ‘What were his plans?’
Thome’s eyes narrowed but he made no move to stop Sandra when she said that the plan had been to secure serialisation rights for the proposed book in continental publications. This elusive agent was now concerned with marketing in Paris, Bonn, Rome. Miss Pink had a sudden vision of rock and air and sparkling sea, she smelt the coconut smell of gorse. She stood up and saw consternation in Sandra’s eyes.
‘The only thing I can suggest is that you stall the Press until you’ve contacted your agent; you might even tell them that: no comment until you have his instructions. You can suggest he’s the boss—’ it was dryly put for it was obvious that Sandra had no hand in the plot of this thing; she just wrote the book. ‘Of course,’ Miss Pink added slyly, ‘you’d do better to go into hiding again: Manchester perhaps, since you’re known in London.’
‘We can find a safe place in London,’ Thorne said quickly, then: ‘Why should we? We’re meant to get publicity.’
‘Quite. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance. . . .’ The hypocrisy came easily; a ritual leave-taking kept the thing superficial, or was meant to. She didn’t want her day spoiled by a nasty taste in the mouth. All the same, as she went on her way she felt that for all Sandra’s beauty and Thorne’s arrogance, perhaps because of them, these two had an air that was more Babes in the Wood than villains. And already, before she’d climbed out of the miniature valley, another car was nosing down the track and over the bridge to halt outside the cottage, another pair got out in flared pants and drip-dry shirts, and cameras glinted in the sun. Silly girl, she thought.
*
It was late when she reached the summit of Cam Goch. She explored the Bronze Age fort from a sense of duty but the foundations of hut circles evoked no sense of time, still less any feeling of involvement with the people who lived here two thousand years ago. After a cursory examination she ensconced herself on the crumbling ramparts to eat her lunch. She had chosen the southern portal and the whole of the peninsula was spread before her, with Riffli’s woods on the left, the headland in front, and close below, under the scarp of the mountain, the farm called Corn, bright and abandoned as seen through the binoculars, with not even a hen abroad in the glare of its empty yard.
Pritchard was the farmer’s name, she remembered. He was haymaking; the whine of the tractor drifting through honey-scented air, counterpoint to the drone of bees in heather. In the next field to the tractor skirted figures toiled: advancing, retreating, bowing before a black toad-shape—the Pritchard women, presumably, raking hay round the Corn cromlech.
When she’d finished her lunch she turned, settled herself comfortably again and focused on the mill cottage which, as the raven flew, was a mile away.
She looked up the course of the millstream to the west gable. The place appeared busy in the early afternoon. There were a number of cars on the track but what she took to be the Spitfire now stood on the bank of the stream and, full in the sun’s glare, was a large white car which might well be the Bowens’ Mercedes.
Someone was making passes over the Spitfire—if it was the Spitfire—and this puzzled her until she realised the car was being washed. The person concerned was blue below and brown on top—a man in jeans and without a shirt? Thorne? But another, dressed similarly, stood stationary where a person might stand if he were talking to people sitting in the shade of the fruit trees in the garden.
Someone dressed in white passed under the gable-end and paused by the Spitfire. After a moment she—surely this was Doreen—went to the Mercedes, got in, and the big car moved away down the track.
The scene had the lazy quality of a dream; one had no inkling of what was being said, and broader gestures were invisible. People moved and halted, a car ran into a tunnel formed by trees and reappeared as in a film with the sound track cut. But there was sound. She lowered the binoculars and heard the bees and the rasp of a dry wind on the baking stones. She packed her rucksack and set off down the scarp towards the cliffs and the birds which went about their business, made no demands and yet were beautiful. There were times when one needed animals as an antidote to human beings.
*
She walked right round the peninsula, seeing no one other than a few visitors and none of these ventured out to the headland. She returned to the village to swim in the limpid sea and at six o’clock she made her way to the hotel.
From behind the bar Rupert greeted her with circumspection, his eyes flickering to the customers: an affluent middle-aged pair in blazers and club ties discussing trust funds.
‘Have you heard?’ he whispered.
‘Sandra?’
‘What a to-do!’ He was bubbling with excitement. ‘A couple of reporters came in for lunch. Of course, she knew it was going to be leaked last night, didn’t she? Telling us was a kind of trailer.’ His eyes danced. ‘There’s a television team on the way; they tried to book rooms but we’re full.’
‘Have they contacted the agent yet?’
‘They don’t need an agent; they’re doing very well on their own, from all I hear. I only hope we can keep the media away from Roderick; he does so love being on the box. We had a dose of it during the campaign. Once he gets in front of the cameras, there’s no knowing what he might say—’ He stopped short. After a moment he added flatly: ‘We’re running a business here; our kind of guest might not like scandal. Sandra, I mean.’
‘Don’t tell me you have other scandals in Abersaint.’ It was flippant and it didn’t reach him. She added, seriously: ‘I don’t see why the Press should seek out Roderick; he’s only the owner of the mill cottage and, technically, Sandra is nothing more than his tenant.’
‘Quite.’ He was quick, and a little flustered. ‘Of course, we make no secret of her having been here, but only as a customer.’ He avoided her eye. ‘We had no idea what was going on.’
‘Naturally. And as soon as she leaves, the Press will follow her: a nine-days wonder—less, one would hope.’
More people came in the bar, putting an end to private conversation. Miss Pink drew back from the counter and listened to the highly volatile remarks of the guests. The grapevine had been at work. The ladies were agog, the men speculative, but everyone was excited. Predictably, it was the human aspect of the situation that enthralled the feminine element: ‘She was in this bar at the weekend, and a pearl comb in her hair, my dear, and her dress! Pale green shantung. . . . What? Oh, you remember shantung. . . .’
The men were concerned with the repercussions in high places. ‘Shouldn’t wonder if it’ll affect the market, old man; if the government falls—’
‘Never!’
‘What else? They’ve only the most slender majority . . . a vote of confidence. . . .’
Doreen appeared in the doorway, in long black and white cotton with a scarlet belt. She caught Miss Pink’s eye and came over.
‘I’m going to have my dinner early to escape the crowd. Would you care to join me? Rupert can’t leave the bar. . . .’
They sat at a table in the window and talked about currents and safe beaches until the waiter came with iced cucumber soup. Doreen stubbed out her cigarette.
‘Has Rupert told you the news?’
‘Yes, and I was up there this morning.’
‘How many reporters were there then?’
‘Two. One would be a photographer.’
‘I went up after lunch and there were half a dozen: getting on with her like a house on fire—more or less. Thorne was a drag: not letting her out of his sight in case she got at the brandy, is my guess. She was drinking beer.’
‘Did you give her notice?’
‘How could I—with the Press flapping their ears? I asked what her plans were though and she told me, as brazenly as you please, that the book would be finished in a fortnight and then she’d go back to London—in ot
her words, she’s staying out her term. I went to Riffli and blew my top. You can guess Roderick’s reaction; he said he’d have her up to tea tomorrow and persuade her it’s in her own interests to go. You know what that means! She’ll be at Riffli every day and all day for the next fortnight. He’s bewitched. Isn’t there some legal pressure we could bring to bear to force her to go?’
‘Anything like an accusation of running a disorderly house would rebound on you.’ Miss Pink was dry. ‘But my guess is that they’ll go within the week.’
‘You haven’t talked to her about it. She’s an arrogant bitch.’
‘Were the Press interested when you asked if she was leaving?’
‘Not so that you’d notice. It was a very public conversation: out in the garden. Rather unworldly, I thought.’ Miss Pink showed surprise. ‘Heat,’ Doreen explained, ‘and all the reporters were getting tight; it reminded me of an old French film.’ She leaned across the table, lowering her voice. ‘They were discussing “presents” which, I gather, are a bonus over and above what are known as “basics”. Apparently if you’re in an upper bracket and you can count Arabs and such among your customers, the sky’s the limit.’ She regarded her wine thoughtfully. ‘An opossum coat was mentioned—and its price: just on a thousand.’
‘How did the Press react to that?’
‘It was laid on for them, wasn’t it? They made notes—and they watched me to see how I was taking it.’
‘Did she mention any names in regard to the people in the book?’
‘There was something about an “Uncle Tom”, and a wog called Ahmed who was something to do with oil and was responsible for the opossum coat but she pointed out that those weren’t their real names. It was a repetition of last night—a little more sordid in view of the company.’
‘What will you do if she comes down to the hotel?’
‘Good Lord, you’re not suggesting she’d do that!’ In the face of Miss Pink’s silence Doreen was forced to consider this and horror gave way to speculation. She nodded slowly and smiled. ‘She’d be good for trade—and with everyone watching her, none of the residents, even the unattached ones, would dare to go outside the bar with her, let alone back to the cottage.’