A Conspiracy of Aunts

by Sally Spencer

  ‘Nice place you’ve got here, sir,’ he said. ‘There must be more money in this bridge business than I thought. Pay your income tax, do you? Got a licence for that television set, have you?’

  ‘And are the lights on my bike working?’ I asked.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir?’

  ‘You’re not, by any chance, an acquaintance of Chief Inspector Fliques, are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Superintendent Fliques of the Cheshire Constabulary did ask me to look you up, yes,’ Gouge admitted.

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Why indeed, sir? I suppose the short answer is that, living in Cheshire as he does, he can’t do it himself.’

  ‘And what’s the long answer?’

  ‘The long answer?’ Gouge repeated. ‘I’m not sure that I quite understand you, sir.’

  ‘Yes, you do. What was it Les told you – and what message did he give you to pass along to me?’

  Gouge frowned at my familiar use of Fliques’ first name, and then took out his leather notebook.

  ‘The Superintendent told me that the women you associate with are very prone to sudden and/or violent death,’ he said. ‘And he’s got this Miss …’ he opened the notebook, ‘... this Miss Rosalyn Russell marked down as your next victim.’

  ‘Very interesting,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Gouge agreed. ‘Anyway, he wants you to know that he’ll be keeping an eye on you himself whenever he’s down here, but when he’s not, I’ll be acting as his locum.’

  ‘You’re a good choice for that position, because you’re almost as subtle as he is,’ I told Gouge.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far, sir,’ Gouge said modestly.

  ‘Isn’t Les Fliques worried that by letting me know in advance that I’m being watched, he’ll frighten me off?’

  ‘Frighten you off what, sir?’ Gouge asked, with Fliquesque ease.

  ‘Isn’t he afraid that with you looking over my shoulder, the next victim won’t die at all?’

  I said the words lightly – almost whimsically. After all, while Rosalyn could be difficult, I still loved her, and I certainly wouldn’t let any harm come to her.

  ‘If it does frighten you off, that’s a good thing, because the first aim of law enforcement is crime prevention,’ Gouge said. ‘But Mr Fliques doesn’t think that knowing you’re being watched is going to stop you. “Nothing will stop Rob once he’s put his mind to it”, were his exact words.’

  ‘So if nothing’s going to stop me, why bother to come and tell me I’m under observation?’

  Gouge fixed me with his wild razor-wielder’s eyes.

  ‘Because knowing you’re being watched might put a bit of pressure on you, sir – and people under pressure often make mistakes.

  ‘You’re good,’ I told him.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘In fact, you’re very good.’

  ‘That means a lot to me, coming, as it does, from a homicidal genius like you, Mr Bates.’

  ‘But you’re still no Les Fliques.’

  ‘Maybe not yet,’ Gouge agreed, ‘but I’m getting there.’

  ‘Will you be seeing him again soon?’

  ‘I might be, sir – it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility.’

  ‘Well, when you do, tell him he’s wasting both his time and yours,’ I said. ‘Tell him that if Rosalyn does die, it’ll be nothing to do with me.’

  And in a way, I suppose, I was at least half right.

  12

  My career went from strength to strength. The BBC commissioned a new series, Bates’ Better Bridge – originally entitled Bates’ Master Bridge Class, until some wag pointed out how open it was to word inversion.

  I appeared on Star Circles, a quiz show which featured guests who were mainly famous for being famous.

  And the makers of Chunkie-Chops decided that I was the ideal person to advertise their cat food – and at the kind of obscene fee they were offering, who was I to argue?

  The one black cloud on the horizon was the absence of Wesley. It was somehow boring to always travel by the flight I’d intended to take, and to arrive at hotels where the room had invariably been booked ahead. Yes, I missed Wesley. He deserved to share in the success he’d worked so incompetently to achieve.

  And how did Rosalyn feel about my ever-increasing fame? She was becoming more and more jealous.

  In the early stages, she’d been able to tell herself that I was nothing more than her protégé‚ you see.

  ‘I spotted you first,’ she’d say. ‘If it hadn’t been for my articles, you’d have got nowhere.’

  But now it was becoming harder and harder for her to play the role of my Svengali, since – despite my best efforts to counteract the trend – most people regarded her as nothing more than my appendage.

  I can’t blame her for her bitterness, I suppose. She was still stuck in the post of junior reporter, and evidence of my success was all around her. When we were out together, I was constantly being asked for my autograph. At cocktail parties, it was me her former friends homed in on. She couldn’t walk past a book shop without noticing a stack of Better Bridge with Bates piled up in the window.

  And then there were the television commercials …

  ****

  A complacent grey cat, wearing a Lincoln green cap on which the word “Hood” is written, pads through the trees. Suddenly, it finds itself surrounded by legs clad in chain mail. It tries to run, but one of the men grabs it. It struggles, but its captor is holding it tightly.

  All the soldiers laugh, wickedly.

  ‘The Sheriff will pay us well for this outlaw cat,’ one of them says.

  An arrow thuds into the tree next to them. A second one follows, within a hair’s-breadth of the first. The soldiers look across the clearing. And there I stand – bow in hand and, like the cat, dressed in Lincoln green.

  The soldiers start to advance towards me, but when I smile and draw my sword, they lose their nerve.

  ‘Run for it, lads,’ one of them shouts.

  Crashing into one another, and sometimes falling over, the soldiers make their escape. The cat comes over to where I am standing. I reach behind a tree, and produce a bowl of cat food.

  ‘Rob ’n Hood,’ says the rich mellow voice-over. ‘Two champions of Chunkie-Chops.’

  I look down at the fat grey cat.

  ‘Not even venison tastes this good, does it, Hood?’ I ask.

  ‘Meow,’ my co-star replies.

  ****

  ‘Not even venison tastes this good,’ Rosalyn mimicked when the advert came on the television. ‘You’ve made yourself look ridiculous, Rob.’

  Yet none of the hundreds of people who wrote to me every week seemed to agree with her, and the advertising campaign had been such a success there was even talk of making it into a cartoon series – a fact I was wise enough to keep my fiancée ignorant of.

  ****

  The breaking point for Rosalyn came, I think, with the taxi ride to the National Theatre. The evening had started very well. We’d made love just an hour earlier, and we were sitting in the back of the cab, snuggled up and more relaxed with each other than we’d been in months.

  Then the cabbie had to open his big mouth. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘didn’t I see you on the telly the other night?’

  I felt Rosalyn stiffen.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I said. ‘I really think you must be confusing me with someone else.’

  ‘Pull the other one!’ the cabbie retorted. ‘It was you, all right. You’re what’s-his-name.’

  ‘Tom Cruise?’ I suggested, still doing my best to defuse the situation.

  ‘Nah, not him. You’re Rob Bates. You were on that Jonathan Woss Show. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted in defeat. ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Cor, but you’ve got some stories, ain’t you?’ continued the clown I was actually paying to ruin my evening. ‘What about th
e one when you and your mate Wesley was hiding from the police in that Turkish brothel? Laugh? I very nearly wet meself.’

  ‘Stop the car!’ Rosalyn screamed.

  ‘What, here, lady?’ said the cabbie, finally beginning to realise that all was not well in the back.

  ‘Yes! Here! Now!’

  ‘You’ll not find another cab very easily, and we’re miles away from the nearest tube sta—’

  ‘I’ll walk,’ Rosalyn said. ‘I’ll bloody walk.’

  The cabbie pulled into the side, and Rosalyn flung the door open.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ I said.

  ‘You will not,’ replied my fiancée, stepping onto the kerb. She was about to walk away, then changed her mind and leaned back into the cab.

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Rob Bates,’ she said. ‘The Globe built you up, and The Globe can knock you down again. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times.’

  I didn’t take her threat seriously at the time. The whole outburst was nothing more than sour grapes, I told myself, and dismissed it from my mind. I should have guessed that Rosalyn’s bitterness was closer to deadly nightshade than it was to anything which grew on the vine – and that from that bitterness, she was already beginning to concoct the poisoned cup.

  13

  On that fateful day when I got back from Singapore a full twelve hours earlier than I was expected, I’d been engaged to Rosalyn for nearly two years.

  It was a fine May morning, I remember. Buds were bursting forth on what – when I’d left the country – had been stark, skeletal trees. Birds, shedding their winter misery, flitted from branch to branch, chirping happily. Young girls had donned bright new clothes, and even old men, leaning on their sticks, seemed to have developed something of a spring in their steps.

  My fiancée was not at home, but her latest project was spread untidily all over the living room table.

  I didn’t intend to read it – Rosalyn’s “work” was really of no interest to me – and I would have gone straight to bed had it not been for the fact that amidst the various papers and pages of notes, I caught sight of Mother’s photograph.

  Nor was that the only material relating to me. Though I had never seen a copy of my birth certificate before – Aunt Sadie having gone through all the formalities of getting me a passport – I saw one now.

  With trembling hands, I picked it up.

  “Mother: Jennifer Bates – Spinster

  Father: Unknown …”

  Mother – a spinster! It was a shock, I must admit. I’d always assumed my parents had been married, and that Father had died. Yet thinking about it at that moment, I couldn’t find any solid basis for my assumption – Mother certainly hadn’t gone so far as to say that she’d been married, or that she’d been left a widow.

  The shock drained away, to be replaced by anger.

  Father unknown!

  That was what the cold, official form said.

  As if Mother had had so many lovers that she couldn’t be sure who had impregnated her!

  It hadn’t been like that at all. I was sure it hadn’t. There’d only been one man in Mother’s life and, for her own good reasons, she’d chosen to keep his name a secret from the snoops and bureaucrats down at the town hall.

  I grabbed a piece of paper covered with Rosalyn’s writing:

  “Mother’s Death

  Drowning due to cramp – at the crucial moment

  Father’s Death

  See above

  Father’s death? See above?”

  I wished I could remember more of the last week of Mother’s life, but all I had was a few vague images: the three of us in the taxi, going to the station; me, opening the door of Mother’s hotel room, and hearing a man’s voice, ‘I thought you’d locked it, Jennie’; Mother suddenly appearing in the doorway, and blocking my view of the room …

  I read on:

  “Aunts

  Did they do it, too?”

  Do what, too?

  ‘We all had the same temptation,’ Aunt Jacqueline had screamed at me when I’d told her I would never cheat at bridge, ‘even that self-righteous prig Catherine. But only your mother, your precious bloody mother, gave in to it.’

  My ears pricked up at the sound of a key turning the front door dead-bolt.

  Rosalyn.

  I stood perfectly still, and listened to her close the door, then walk along the corridor. She stopped half-way down the hall – as I’d known she would – to check her appearance in the mirror. I held myself as rigid as a statue – and waited.

  The living room door swung open, and my back-stabbing fiancée walked in. She was wearing a crisp white blouse and an expensive grey skirt. It was just the sort of tasteful outfit that Sadie would have worn, and, despite my anger, I couldn’t help loving her.

  Rosalyn was intent on putting her keys in her handbag, and didn’t see me at first – but when she finally noticed me, she froze in her tracks.

  ‘Hello, Rosalyn,’ I said, forcing a neutral tone into my voice.

  ‘I … I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,’ she told me, looking first at me, then at the table, and finally back at me again.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked, pointing to the pile of papers.

  ‘I’m … I’m writing another story about you.’

  ‘Any particular angle?’ I asked innocently.

  ‘I’m going to talk about all the rewards that fame and fortune have brought you,’ she lied.

  ‘Then why do you need a copy of my birth certificate?’ I demanded. ‘Tell me the truth, Rosalyn.’

  My fiancée shrugged her shoulders resignedly. ‘All right, it’s going to be more biographical than that,’ she admitted.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Rosalyn smiled maliciously, and I realised, for the first time, just how much she’d grown to resent me.

  ‘I’ve discovered something very interesting – very, very juicy – about you and your family,’ she said.

  My Aunts!

  Had my investigative fiancée uncovered anything on the violent deaths of my aunts?

  Was it possible she could succeed where Fliques had failed?

  Might I, as a result of her efforts, yet end up in gaol?

  I could already see The Globe’s headline: “Bridge Champion Killed His Entire Family!”

  ‘I scarcely think my aunts could be of much interest to your readers,’ I said unconvincingly.

  ‘Your aunts?’ Rosalyn repeated – and though she was a good actress when she wanted to be, I could see that, this time, her surprise was genuine. ‘Who’s talking about your aunts?’

  ‘I thought you were.’

  ‘Of course not. It’s your bloody mother that I’ve got the dirt on, for Christ’s sake!’

  14

  We stood facing each other across the living room. Only a few seconds had passed since Rosalyn had said she’d got some dirt on Mother, but it seemed like an eternity of mental torture.

  ‘Mother died when I was young,’ I said shakily.

  ‘I know that,’ Rosalyn told me, the amused, malicious look still in her eyes. ‘But it’s the way she died which is interesting.’

  ‘We shouldn’t talk about it!’ Sadie had said at that congregation of aunts after Mother’s funeral. ‘For Rob’s sake, we should come to an agreement right now that none of us will ever tell him exactly how his mother died. Will you promise? All of you?’

  ‘Promise!’ Aunt Catherine had repeated. ‘There’s no need to promise. I would never soil my lips with such filth.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Aunt Peggy had said. ‘I mean, I just couldn’t. I wouldn’t know where to put myself.’

  ‘Mother was drowned,’ I said. ‘It was tragic – but these things happen. I can’t see how there’s a story in it – especially over twenty years after the event.’

  ‘There’s a beautiful story in it,’ Rosalyn said with relish, ‘a gorgeous, wonderful story. Because
she didn’t just drown, did she?’

  ‘Didn’t just drown?’ I asked, becoming more confused by the second. ‘Then what else did she do?’

  ‘You don’t know!’ Rosalyn said with amazement in her voice. ‘I thought at first you were hiding it from me – but you really don’t know! None of those bloody aunts of yours ever told you.’

  ‘They made an agreement,’ I said, before I could stop myself. ‘It was a sort of conspiracy.’

  Rosalyn laughed nastily. ‘Given what they were keeping quiet about, I can understand that,’ she said.

  ‘Why are you doing this to me, Rosalyn?’ I asked.

  ‘You know why I’m doing it. People used to notice me. I was getting to be important. But what am I now? I’m nothing but Rob Bates’ girlfriend. You’ve destroyed every chance I ever had, because even if I left you now, I’d never be anything more than Rob Bates’ ex-girlfriend. But after the story’s published, they’ll have to take me seriously.’

  ‘I take you seriously,’ I said. ‘You’re important to me.’

  ‘That’s not nearly enough,’ Rosalyn replied. She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Do you want to hear the truth now – or would you rather wait and read about it in The Globe?’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about it at all,’ I told her, as I’d once told Aunt Jacqueline. ‘Not now, not in The Globe – not ever.’

  ‘Really?’ Rosalyn asked challengingly. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know who your father was?’

  My father again!

  My mysterious father, whose name did not even appear on my birth certificate – the dark shadow which had been with me all my life.

  ‘You look very like him,’ Aunt Sadie had said, advancing uncertainly – and perhaps a little drunkenly – into my room, the day that I went to live with her. ‘Very like him. I could have had him, you know. He wanted me – badly. But I couldn’t have done it to Jennifer – to your mother. She needed him more than I did. Yet sometimes, I wish …’

  ‘I … I think there are some things we shouldn’t go into, don’t you?’ Aunt Peggy had stuttered. ‘I mean, you might not like the truth when you hear it.’