‘Not even close,’ he said. ‘How about Adolf Hitler?’
Advocacy was like heroin, and as dangerous as the drug that had destroyed Tara Glass. It was so easy to get hooked on the power of persuasion. The rush you got when the words came out right and you swayed a judge or jury – nothing like it. The case became your whole world. Everything. All you wanted was to win. It was so much more than an intellectual challenge. People talked about the logic of the law, but the best advocates knew they must conquer the heart and soul as well as the mind. Advocates were supposed to be actors, a trite metaphor, but the best were story-tellers. Yes, story-tellers as mesmeric as Bryn Gabriel. They spun yarns with a difference. Rather than telling others what they wanted to hear, they urged their listeners to do what they themselves wanted. Which was not the same as encouraging them to believe in what the advocates believed. Belief simply didn’t come into it.
Wild ideas kept jumping around in Nic’s brain, but by a miracle he managed a couple of hours’ sleep. A good night, his best since Dylan’s murder. He was on the road early, heading for Oxford. Another hot day; he’d forgotten what clouds looked like.
Jazz Delahaye’s flat had occupied the second floor of a Victorian villa in a leafy crescent near the Parks. An elderly widower who lived below had been the one to find her. According to a pal of Zack’s, the old man fancied fifteen minutes of fame and had tipped off the Press the moment he’d hung up on the emergency services. He proved to be a diminutive halitosis sufferer with an accent straight out of Coronation Street. He wouldn’t have looked out of place wearing a flat cap and limping across a townscape by Lowry. He’d had no time for Jazz and wasn’t bothered about speaking ill of the dead.
‘Daft as a bloody brush, she was. Miss Floppy, I called her. Never wore a brassiere, y’know. My late wife would never have given a woman like that the time of day, and that’s a fact.’
They sat in a kitchen smelling of tobacco and burnt toast, on either side of a table with a chipped formica top. Nic remembered the frightened woman who had slammed the phone down on him. A short while later, she had been dead.
Brusquely, he said, ‘You said you overheard her on the telephone?’
‘It was a scorcher, yesterday,’ the old man said, folding his arms as if to defy contradiction. ‘I opened that window as soon as I got up. She’d done the same upstairs. I wasn’t eavesdropping, I just couldn’t help hearing her.’
Of course not. ‘What did she say?’
‘There were two calls. The first on her mobile, I think. It didn’t last long. Then the phone in her room rang.’
Nic wanted to punch the air, but he’d told the old man he was a journalist undertaking background research on Jazz’s death for a piece in the Oxford Mail and he wasn’t ready for his cover to be blown.
‘What did she say?’
‘She was getting herself upset. Raising her voice. Like I said, I couldn’t help hearing. Obviously it was a boyfriend on the line, giving her the heave-ho. She kept saying she loved him, that she’d never let him down. Why didn’t he trust her? He ought to know she’d never betrayed him.’ A reminiscent chuckle. ‘Soft soap, it never works. He was on his way, all right, and there was nothing she could do to talk him out of it.’
‘What else was said?’
‘I got the feeling he was trying to calm her down. Saying they could still be friends, or summat like that, I suppose.’ The old man paused in theatrical style. ‘She said, “I loved you and you destroyed my life.” Then she banged the phone down and started banging about like a bull in a china shop, the way she always did when she was in a state. I heard her mobile go, it wasn’t a long conversation, maybe a wrong number, I dunno. Five minutes later I heard this crash. As if something had fallen over. After that, everything went quiet. For a change.’
Nic ground his teeth. When she picked up the phone and heard my voice, she was praying it was her lover. Instead, I gave her more to fear. ‘What did you do?’
For the first time, the old man’s voice faltered. ‘I – I left it quarter of an hour. I hadn’t heard her go out. I wondered what was up. The silence was funny, like. She was a noisy woman, always had been. I decided I ought to take a gander, just in case. Her door was ajar. She never had the faintest idea about security. I looked inside…’
‘And you saw her hanging there,’ Nic finished. His stomach was churning.
‘In the buff,’ the old man said. ‘Not a bloody stitch on. What a way to go, eh?’
‘Jazz always put herself through hell,’ Misty Karl said. ‘As well as those of us who were fond of her. She fretted so much, it was tough to handle. Manic depression. Or bipolar disorder, should I say. You’d be amazed how many creative people have it. Most of the geniuses, actually. From the Hemingways to Tony Hancock, from Graham Greene to Edgar Allan Poe. The list is endless, Jazz used to say. Thinking that cheered her up at times. Years back, though, the bloody thing got the better of her. It was after an ex-boyfriend died. She shouldered all the blame. Poor Jazz, she always took everything so much to heart, sometimes she could be hard to take herself.’
She and Nic were sitting on a bench in the Parks, casting an occasional glance at the punts passing by. Zack Flowers had said Misty was Jazz Delahaye’s oldest friend, also Balliol College’s Senior Research Fellow in Genre Fiction Studies. She was wearing a short white tennis skirt and plimsolls. Nic’s call to her mobile number had caught her at the end of a tie-break. She’d been playing a friend from another college, but had agreed to talk to him about Jazz. Her legs were sturdy and brown and she’d done nothing to hide the crinkles around her eyes and mouth or first streaks of grey in her hair. She smelled faintly of patchouli.
‘Did she keep a diary?’
‘I don’t think so.’
He’d wondered if there might be something in her flat, something that would answer his questions. But of course it was too much to hope for. Even Dylan’s laptop had finished up in a watery grave.
‘Now, why are you so interested in Jazz? Is there any chance it wasn’t suicide? Perhaps an accident…’
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ he interrupted.
Dylan had known that someone wanted Jazz dead, someone who had now got his way. Nic remembered her frightened voice on the telephone. She knew her life was in danger. She’d ended it herself, before that someone else did.
‘I see.’ As if to suppress any display of emotion, Misty turned her gaze to the river where a fat young man striving to impress a languid girlfriend was revealing his lack of mastery of punting technique. ‘Oh, it’s a pole not a hockey stick, you silly oaf! Now, where were we? You were about to explain what it is about Jazz’s death that has brought you here.’
Nic hesitated, but he knew that soon he would have to confide in someone. ‘Jazz had an affair with a friend of mine. His name was Dylan Rees. Did she mention him at all?’
Misty shook her head. ‘I’d scarcely seen Jazz since last autumn. Partly my fault. I’ve been working on this book about Elizabeth Gaskell. Which argues, if you’re interested, that the plot of Mary Barton marks her out as the first woman crime writer. Don’t frown, Nic, it doesn’t suit you. At least the synopsis earned me a decent advance. Trouble is, coming up to a deadline, I haven’t had much chance to socialise. Anyway, Jazz wasn’t around. The story goes, she’d been pretty much wrapped up in herself. Then again, who am I to talk? I wish I’d made an effort to see her when I had the chance…’
Her voice broke and again she fixed her gaze back on the sweating punter. He glanced in her direction and she gave him an encouraging smile.
‘Something was bothering her, according to Dylan,’ Nic said. ‘Several people had died suddenly and in strange circumstances.’
‘Is that why you’re asking about her?’
‘Yes.’ She wasn’t someone to lie to.
‘Sorry, I can’t help you. Poor Jazz, she’d had to deal with sudden death before in her life. I’m not sure she ever quite got over what happened.’
�
��Which was?’
Misty sighed. ‘She didn’t mean to, but she killed her ex.’
Nic clenched his fists. Now for it.
‘How?’
‘It was a pure accident. The police accepted that, so did everyone else. I was there, I saw her face when she realised what was going wrong. No one could have faked the look of horror on her face. I’ll never forget it. Never.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘A mutual friend of ours, a chap called Peter, was having a party. He’d sold a book about rugby football to Penguin and he was celebrating. He asked Jazz and me to help out with refreshments at his little house in Jericho. There was only one fly in the ointment. Peter’s best friend was Darrell Bergen, Jazz’s ex. They’d split up a few weeks earlier. Darrell’s decision, he was too easy-going to commit. At first, she was devastated. I wondered how she would feel about seeing him again. But she said she’d found someone else. She was going through one of her euphoric phases, so probably it was true, although I don’t know. She didn’t bring the new boyfriend to the party. I never met him, and I did wonder if she’d made him up.’
‘How did Darrell die?’
‘It was horrible.’ The colour drained from her face at the memory. ‘Jazz and Darrell said hello. She was putting on a brave face and he wanted no hard feelings. She’d brought in a bowl of crisps and he took one. Goodwill gesture, that’s all there was to it. I went to have a word with Darrell. He was flushed, but I thought nothing of it. We were in the midst of a heat wave as fierce as this one. He was sweating and he started to look anxious. I was chattering away and when he began to cough, I asked if he was okay, but he couldn’t answer. His face and lips swelled up, it was almost as if he had nettle rash. I was frightened and I called Peter to come and take a look. Darrell was scarcely breathing.’ Misty shivered, a faraway look in her eyes as she relived the past. Peter went to phone for an ambulance. Poor Darrell began to throw up. Jazz was in hysterics and the poor lad lost all control. He was having diarrhoea, it was awful. I’ve never seen anything like it, not before or since. Thank God. By the time the ambulance arrived, Darrell was dead. There was nothing anyone could do. Not a bloody thing.’
The punt finally drifted out of their sight. The young man was covered in sweat, his girlfriend dozing. Nic said, ‘And the cause of death?’
‘It turned out that Darrell was allergic to peanuts. Of all the bloody stupid, totally innocent things to die of. The crisps he ate were plain. No problem there, but the bowl had had peanuts in it. Even touching a container that has held peanuts can cause a reaction if you have the allergy. Anaphylactic shock. He was a fit man, played squash three or four times a week, but that didn’t save him. No, the medics said exercise exacerbates the condition. Ironic, or what?’
The boy who died of shock. Nic said, ‘Did Jazz admit that the bowl had contained peanuts?’
‘That was the one thing that never stacked up. She sort of went into denial. To listen to her, the bowl had never contained peanuts and she’d washed it thoroughly anyway before bringing it to the party. I must say, none of us believed that.’
‘What then?’
Misty’s face hardened. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate. There was a bit of gossip at the time. One or two people suggested she was trying to give Darrell a fright, to pay him back for being unkind to her, without realising she was going to kill him. That was a wicked thing to say. She wasn’t cruel. Okay, she knew about Darrell’s allergy, but it was obvious what had happened. She’d simply forgotten that the bowl had held peanuts. Maybe she hadn’t washed it properly, either. When she realised the truth, she couldn’t cope with the guilt.’
‘Simple as that?’
‘Simple as that.’ She considered him, not smiling. ‘Except there’s more to it than I realised, isn’t there? Otherwise why would you be asking me all these questions?’
An hour later, Nic was having tea and crumpets in Misty Karl’s eyrie at the top of staircase sixteen, overlooking the Balliol croquet lawn. Every now and then, through the open window, they heard the thud of mallet against ball, cries of anguish and glee. Inside, the furnishings were spartan, the chairs hard, and yet Nic felt as though he had arrived in the land of sybarites. If you stayed here long enough, perhaps you might come to believe that this was paradise, and the world outside a poor second best.
‘Sex, Law and Videotape,’ Dr. Kennedy Brown said with a satyr’s wink. ‘I owe the title to Jazz. I meant to dedicate the book to her, even before…this terrible, terrible thing happened.’
When Nic had asked Misty if she knew anyone who might have seen Jazz lately, she’d immediately thought of the man she called JFK. He was on sabbatical from the Birmingham Law and Media Institute and Jazz had commissioned him to write a book about film and the law. He was a thin, balding man who wore a white jacket and silk cravat and had an inexplicable liking for the sound of his own high-pitched voice. When he took Misty’s call, he’d been at a champagne and strawberries party in the Master’s Garden and he freely admitted that he didn’t have much of a head for bubbly. The main challenge was to keep him on the point. He’d already explained to Nic at length that he’d never forget where he was when the American President was assassinated in Dallas, since on that very day his mother had been giving birth to him in Warrington Hospital and his parents had chosen to commemorate the event by naming him after the dead leader.
‘Did you see much of Jazz?’ Nic asked, buttering another crumpet.
‘Oh, dear me, yes. I was always popping round to pester her, seek a second opinion. She was a marvellous editor, you know. She must have been, of course, to spot my talent!’ Kennedy gave an arch smile. ‘She’d been having the blues quite a lot lately, poor thing. I was so sorry. This bloody bipolar disorder. She’d tried everything. Lithium, anti-depressants, you name it. I’m no shrink, but to my mind the best remedy is a spot of tender loving care. I hoped that when she met Dylan, the headhunter, things would change.’
‘But they didn’t?’
‘Not much. He loved her and left her.’
‘They met at a conference, didn’t they?’
‘Oh yes, that was me playing Cupid! Quite unintentionally, I might add. My friend Alvin works for a hospitality company that organised a conference about careers in the law. This chap Dylan Rees was one of the speakers. There was a party on the Friday evening. Alvin invited me along, but he was going to be run off his feet and so I asked Jazz if she’d like to come as my guest. She’d been pretty down, although she never wanted to talk about it. In the end she said yes.’
‘And she and Dylan hit it off?’
‘I’ll say so. I finished up as a gooseberry and they finished up spending the night together. Talk about a pair of fast workers! I didn’t mind, I was really happy for Jazz. A hard man is good to find, as Mae West used to say. They seemed to get on so well. Such a tragedy that it didn’t last.’
‘And how did Jazz take that?’
‘Perhaps not as badly as I might have expected. They kept in touch as friends, I believe. She said to me once that she’d found him easy to confide in, that before she realised what she was doing, she was sharing her innermost secrets with him. I thought that was going too far. I mean, nice guy and all that, but he was obviously only interested in one thing.’
‘Did she confide in you?’
‘We were good pals,’ Kennedy Brown said. ‘Not every author can say that about his relationship with his editor. I used to worry about her. She seemed – oh, I don’t know. Bothered. No, worse than that. Scared. But she didn’t want to tell me what was wrong. That hurt a bit, I can tell you. She’d only known Dylan Rees five minutes, but we weren’t bedmates, that was the difference.’
After taking his leave, Nic found a quiet corner in the quad near the library. Leaning against the wall, he dialled the main switchboard at Creed. Soon he would be returning to Avalon Buildings. He had found the answers to most of his questions. Except for the most important one of all.
‘Creed,
good afternoon, this is Anji speaking, how may I help you?’
‘I’d like to speak to Roxanne Wake.’
Chapter Twenty
‘When are you coming to bed?’
Roxanne turned her head and saw Chloe standing in the hall, looking into the living room. White flesh luminous in the dark, but no provocation in her nakedness. Her shoulders were sloping, her eyes looked sore, and she was stifling a yawn.
‘Just let me get to the end of this chapter.’
‘Do you know it’s half past two?’
Roxanne glanced at the clock. ‘I got carried away.’
She slipped a used train ticket into Nic Gabriel’s book to keep her place. Once she’d started turning the pages, it proved impossible to stop. Crippen belonged to a different world, but Nic Gabriel had entered that world. He had woven music hall ditties, learned notes on the characteristics of scar tissue and extracts from the doctor’s private correspondence into a narrative web. The picture he’d conjured of Crippen’s endless torments, his hapless efforts to cover up his wife’s accidental death, his panic when the police came round, was it truth or illusion, fact or fiction? According to the critics, it scarcely mattered. If the whole thing was all made up, then at least Gabriel possessed the gift of seeing into the human heart. And if the little doctor had not gone through the hell that the book described, he should have done.
Chloe knelt beside Roxanne’s chair. ‘Carried away, huh? You could have got carried away with me.’
‘Sorry.’ Roxanne ran her fingers along the long knobbly spine, relished the sigh of contentment she evoked. ‘I’ve been selfish. I’ll finish now.’
Chloe took the book and peered at Nic Gabriel’s face on the back cover. ‘He looks – restless. Like someone who will never be satisfied. Someone who can never bring himself to let go.’
‘Yes.’
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