“What happened to Messrs. Culpepper, Simpson and Clark?”
She smiled. “Messrs. Culpepper and Clark are long since departed this life. Mr. Ernest Simpson is the senior partner, but he’s semi-retired and only comes in occasionally.”
She tapped on the glass door in the left-hand partition and showed me into the office which lay beyond. Mr. Alan Holding rose to his feet, a rather short man in his fifties with a small moustache and boyishly rosy cheeks. “Miss Durrell? I believe you may be able to help us out? Capital, capital!”
Twenty minutes later I was seated at the desk opposite Miss Davidson, typing out property details. So far, so good. However, if I’d expected all to be mysteriously revealed during the first few hours I spent at Culpepper’s, I was to be disappointed. A more ordinary firm would have been hard to find. Peter Holding appeared and called me into his office to take down a few letters. He was about my own age, with long hair and a penchant for purple suits.
“Do you drive, Miss Durrell? Fine, then you wouldn’t object to showing clients over properties where necessary? Great. You’d better come with me once or twice first though, to learn the ropes.”
The morning passed. At lunchtime, rather than drive back all the way to the Beeches, I merely crossed the Avenue and found a pleasant cake shop with a small restaurant above. I went up, seated myself at a window table, and stared down at the crowds of shoppers milling below. Beyond the pavement was the wide road, the gardens, and, discernible behind the fountain, the glass frontage of Culpepper’s itself. And as my eyes located it, the door opened and Marcus Sinclair came quickly out and strode away up the road. Could I go nowhere without running across Marcus Sinclair? I wondered a little uneasily what business he had with Culpepper’s and whether it could possibly have any bearing on the fact that I had started working there that very morning.
During the afternoon some clients called and later Peter Holding and I went with them to look round an empty house. By the end of that week I seemed to have been at the office for months but there had been no cryptic phone messages for me to intercept and no suspicious characters lurking round corners. Hating every moment of it, I had steeled myself to a quick flick through desks and filing cabinets as chance offered, but nothing untoward came to light, which fact made me feel guiltier than ever. Each lunchtime I returned to the same café and usually to the same table and it was there, on the Friday, that Marcus Sinclair found me.
“Mind if I join you?”
I turned quickly from the window in time to see him pulling out the chair beside me. “I saw you from the street. How are things?”
“All right, thank you.”
“Managing to pass the time?”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, my eyes fixed on him with a hint of challenge, “I’ve taken a job.”
“Oh?” He was studying the menu.
“With Culpepper’s, across the road.”
“Good for you.” If he was already aware of the fact, he was not going to admit it.
“You know the firm?” I prompted.
“Oh yes, they’re pretty sound, I imagine. Long-established and all that. Unlikely to fold during your temporary employment, anyway!”
“I didn’t mention that it was temporary.”
His eyes met mine with some amusement. “But since you’ve only taken the flat for six months, it can hardly be permanent, can it?” He turned away to give his order to the waitress and I started to eat my meal. “You know something, Miss Durrell?” he went on deliberately, turning back to me, “I have a feeling that you’re not quite what you seem to be.”
I stared at him wordlessly while he unhurriedly leaned over and ran one finger over the white band on my ringless hand. I jerked back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“For instance,” he continued softly, “I would hazard a guess that you are in fact Mrs. Carl Clements.”
I ran my tongue round dry lips and when I spoke at last my voice was shriller than I cared for. “What are you, an enquiry agent or something?”
He smiled. “Nothing so dramatic. Don’t look so worried, it’s no concern of mine. I won’t give you away.”
“But how – ?”
“I recognized you back at the hotel. It was a chance in a thousand, I know, but I’d seen a photograph of you with your husband in an old magazine at the dentist’s, only the week before. I am right, aren’t I?”
I nodded. There was no point in denying it.
“I presume you’ve left him?”
Another nod.
“Permanently?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he know where you are?”
“No.” My breathing was rapid and shallow and I kept my eyes on my plate.
After a moment he said gently, “Isn’t that rather cruel?” I did not reply. “You see, I know what he’s going through. My wife left me, too. We’re divorced now.” He answered the unspoken query that must have been in my eyes. “Yes, I suppose I did deserve it, but that didn’t make it hurt any the less at the time.”
“Have you any children?”
“No. All nice and tidy.” His voice was bitter. He leaned back while the waitress placed a bowl of soup in front of him and then, with a shrewd glance at my face, he said, “Anyway, enough of that. What really intrigues me is why you so obviously regard me with such dark suspicion. Am I indebted to the imaginative Mrs. Foss again?”
I crumbled the bread on my plate. His interest in me at the hotel was now doubly explained. He had recognized me and he’d heard me say I was going to live at his own address. His being at the window that night had also had a simple enough explanation, as I’d really suspected all along. Which left – “Did you follow me last Sunday afternoon?” I asked abruptly.
He met my eyes. “Yes, but I didn’t think you’d noticed. I must be slipping!”
That, at least, was truthful. “May I ask why?”
“Because, though I couldn’t imagine why, I was pretty sure you’d make a beeline for that grotty hotel and I didn’t feel it was a safe place for you to go.”
“You’re trying to say you went along to keep an eye on me?”
“Exactly that.”
“And you’d have stormed the barricades if I hadn’t returned in reasonable time? That could have been embarrassing!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Ginnie.” It was the first time he’d used my first name and he spoke impatiently. I flushed, resenting the reprimand although unwillingly aware that my facetiousness had warranted it.
“Are you going to tell me why you went?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Something to do with your husband?”
My flush deepened. “Good Lord no!”
“Thank God for that, anyway. It was something those pansies said, wasn’t it? You leaped as though you’d been stung when you heard the name of the place, so it must have rung some kind of a bell.”
I stirred uneasily. “Marcus, what is your job? What do you do?”
“Changing the subject? All right. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there’s nothing mysterious about it. I’m a building consultant. I draw plans for extensions, new houses, all that kind of thing, and see them through from the drawing board to the planning department and beyond. Satisfied?”
“Which is why you went to Culpepper’s?”
“Of course, and Freeman’s, and Jones, Henry. Why? Had that appeared sinister in some way too?”
“You work from home?”
“I do. It’s easier and cheaper than paying for office premises. Next question!”
I smiled reluctantly. “I’m sorry. I have been a bit jumpy lately.”
“I’ve noticed. But you’re not going to tell me why?”
“Not at the moment, anyway. Heavens, look at the time! I must go.”
I met Sarah that evening as I was walking back from garaging the car.
“What did you think of M.M.?” she demanded. “I bet he only came because of you. He�
�d seen you before somewhere, hadn’t he? He seemed pretty attentive – you’d better watch him!”
I laughed. “Relax, Sarah, he’s not in the microfilm business after all!” Briefly I told her of his joining me for lunch and the explanation of his job. She looked rather disappointed.
“Well, he certainly seems interested in you, whatever he does. How’s your job going?”
“Okay. Having just got used to Miss Davidson, she’s off on a fortnight’s holiday today and on Monday I have to start getting to know the other girl.” Who, I added privately, might well be a likelier bet for my purposes than Isobel Davidson had proved.
Looking back on that week, it is obvious that I was treating the whole rigmarole as a sort of game, a mental stimulant in the same vein as a crossword puzzle. As time passed without any further development and the seeming mysteries surrounding Marcus were peeled innocently away, the initial uneasiness I had felt faded and I was far from convinced that anything untoward had actually taken place.
“How about you and Andy coming round for supper tomorrow evening?” I suggested impulsively. The weekend stretched emptily ahead and I wanted to avoid at all costs the danger of allowing myself time to brood over Carl.
“That would be super! I’d like him to see how the other half lives!”
It passed through my mind that Marcus would have made up a foursome, but I dismissed the idea at once. He wasn’t much given to small talk, I didn’t feel that he and the Fosses would find very much in common, and, most important to my way of thinking, it seemed wise not to become too involved with Marcus myself.
The following morning I met Kitty at the supermarket. “Have you been along to the theatre this week?” she asked, as we trundled our baskets side by side.
“No, have you?”
“A couple of times. Actually, I volunteered to go along and cook them some lunch tomorrow. They’re rehearsing like mad all day and Laurence doesn’t like going out for lunch – it breaks the continuity, he says. They’ve been living on sandwiches all week so I thought I’d rustle up something on the little stove at the theatre – nothing complicated, just a change from sandwiches.”
Sunday was completely clear, a potential Carl-trap. “Like any help?”
“I certainly would!”
“What lines are you thinking along?”
“Oh, spaghetti Bolognese or something. I’ve bought a few tins of mince as a start.”
“How many will be there?”
“About a dozen or so, I imagine, plus the stage manager, stage director and possibly some of the lighting people. I don’t know how far they’ve got.”
“What play are they doing?”
“Twelfth Night. They double up some of the minor parts, though.”
“Suzanne Grey isn’t in this one, is she?”
She glanced at me quickly. “No, which should make life easier.”
“Is she temperamental?”
“Well, you presumably heard her at the party.”
We joined the queue at the cash desk. “If you come along about eleven-thirty,” Kitty said, “that will give us plenty of time and we can stay on and watch for a while if we feel like it.”
It was a pleasant evening with the Fosses. Sarah as usual chattered incessantly and several times I caught her husband’s amused eyes on her. He was a few years older than she, quiet and studious-looking with his dark-rimmed glasses. I gathered he was a junior partner in a firm of accountants over the other side of Westhampton.
“You realize,” I remarked during the meal, “that I have been in the flat for one whole week?”
“Pamela and Stephanie will be arriving back sometime this weekend,” Sarah said. “I hope they won’t crash around too much overhead! I’m sure we must make a dreadful row, but Moira never complains. I suppose she’s used to noise, living with the boys.”
“I won’t mind a bit of noise; it’ll stop me feeling lonely,” I replied, and then regretted the admission tacit in the remark.
“Do you get lonely, Ginnie? You seem very self-sufficient to me! I’m sure I couldn’t bear to live alone.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t, darling,” Andrew agreed with a laugh. “If you’d no one to talk to, you’d wilt away!”
“Not only that, I’d be scared stiff, specially sleeping on the ground floor.”
“Don’t be silly, Sarah!” Andrew’s voice sharpened as he threw me an anxious glance.
“It’s all right, Andy, Ginnie’s not going to be put off by my prattling. I know it’s silly, but the fact remains if I slept downstairs, I’d stay awake all night listening for footsteps!”
“You’ve made me feel a lot better!” I commented ruefully.
“I’d never given it a thought before.”
“I told you to shut up,” Andrew said accusingly.
I smiled. “I was only joking. More coffee, Sarah?”
But that night after they had gone I made sure that all the windows except the bedroom ones were firmly closed, and even so I lay awake longer than usual listening to the wind in the trees just outside.
At eleven-thirty the following morning I parked the car in the usual position and swung through the quiet streets to the Little Theatre. It was a dull day with a cool breeze which lifted my hair as I walked and made me glad I had decided to wear a trouser suit rather than a summer dress. I ran up the steep stairs with my shopping bag and turned into the kitchenette, where Kitty was unloading her own contributions onto the table.
“I bought some mushrooms and tomatoes to liven up the tinned mince,” I said. “Also a green pepper I had left over from last night.”
“Gorgeous, and I’ve brought some French loaves. We should have quite a feast. Remind me to pay you back for what you bought out of the petty cash. Is this pan big enough for the spaghetti, do you think?”
“Barely. We’d better do it in two batches.” I hung my jacket on the back of the door and pushed up the sleeves of my sweater.
“We’re getting a bit low on coffee,” Kitty remarked, peering into the huge tin. “They must have been living on it this week. There’s only just enough left for today.”
“I could drop some in after work tomorrow if you like. It’s no bother when I have the car.”
“Thanks, that would be a great help. I’d certainly have trouble fitting it on my handlebars!”
Lunch was very informal, with some people sitting on the chairs round the walls of the foyer and the rest on the floor. Talk was mainly of the play and I drank it in avidly though I was perfectly content in my role of onlooker until Stephen, with a malicious gleam in his eye, drew me into the conversation.
“Well, Ginnie, aren’t you going to give us the benefit of your opinion? I’m sure you’d be able to put us right!” Since the problem they were discussing had arisen once at the Playhouse, I was able to reply lucidly and even to suggest an improvement on the method they had chosen. Stephen was obviously taken aback at my unexpected competence. “Of course,” he went on quickly, after Laurence Grey had thanked me warmly for the suggestion, “if you’re not careful you can get bogged down with too many contrived effects, which eventually detracts from the drama rather than otherwise.”
I smiled. “You mean ‘Art for art’s sake,’ or l’art pour I'art, as Madame Lefevre always says.”
My laughing words dropped into an icy pool of sudden silence. For at least ten seconds – and it seemed three times as long – no one even moved. Then Laurence Grey said a little breathlessly, “Who did you say?”
I swallowed nervously, aware of the gimlet concentration of every pair of eyes in the room but completely at a loss to understand why I had merited it. “Madame Lefevre. She’s a wealthy French widow I know in London who takes a great interest in the theatre.”
Laurence said smoothly, “I knew a Juliette Lefevre in Paris some years ago. I wonder if that could be any relation?” He was in control again now.
“I don’t think so, no. She only had one son and he was killed in a road accident
a few months ago.”
“I see.” Laurence’s eyes were on me, considering, almost calculating. After a moment a perfunctory smile touched his mouth briefly and he looked away. I found that my neck was stiff, as though I had subconsciously held it in an immobility matching that of my companions. Carefully, with unsteady hands, I put my plate down on the floor and at the movement eyes dropped away from me and I was no longer under such intense scrutiny. I drew a quivering breath of relief.
Later, as Kitty and I washed the dishes side by side, I said with an attempt at casualness, “That was an odd reaction, about Madame Lefevre. Do you know what it was all about?”
“Search me. Perhaps Laurence had an affair with La Belle Juliette and was afraid of Papa with a shotgun in pursuit!”
“But it wasn’t only Laurence that reacted.”
“Sorry, Ginnie, it was lost on me.” There was obviously no help forthcoming from Kitty. After we’d cleared away, we crept through to the auditorium and settled down in the back row to watch the progress of the rehearsal. On Carl’s behalf I was particularly interested in Robert Harling’s portrayal of Antonio and felt it came over very well. A girl I hadn’t seen before, Joanna Lacy, made a very appealing Viola while Marion Dobie, whom I’d last seen as the mother in the Priestley play, was a rather elderly Olivia.
After a while Kitty glanced at her watch. “I’ll have to go,” she said regretfully. “It’s Mum’s birthday and I promised I’d be there for tea. Are you sure it won’t be a nuisance having to collect the coffee tomorrow? One of the cast could always slip out.”
“No, not at all. I’ll drop it off on my way home.”
“Right, thanks. Keep the receipt for reimbursement. Are you going to stay a bit longer?”
“I’ll wait till the end of this scene, anyway.”
She slipped away and I settled back as I’d done countless times in the past to watch movement and speech begin to coagulate, this time under the direction of Laurence Grey, slouched in the second row. “Can we have Malvolio on again please; this letter scene isn’t gelling yet. Give Malvolio his cue, Liz: ‘Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.’ Okay, let’s go.”
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