by Colin Murray
I closed my eyes, relishing the heat of the sun on my face, and tried not to think about the unresolved problems that were steadily piling up, concentrating instead on one salient fact. I was at liberty, which meant I could do something about them.
My roomful of armed French Commies was no longer quite as pressing a problem as it had been. In fact, my study boasted only one. Emile had evidently drawn the short straw, and while the others, including Ghislaine, had set off on the heroic quest to find the café of London legend selling good coffee and fresh croissants, he sat at my desk unhappily nursing a lukewarm cup of Typhoo tea.
The room stank of cigarettes and unwashed men.
But that was easily dealt with. I opened the window.
I then told Emile – for no other reason than he had been left behind to keep an eye on me and he had a gun – what I had to do and promised him a cup of coffee. He brightened up and accompanied me down to Jerry’s shop and the phone.
Jerry was morose and uncommunicative, but I decided to ignore that. Anyway, every Englishman ought to have his heart broken by a sophisticated Frenchwoman at least once in his life.
It took only fifteen minutes and two telephone calls to track down Les and discover that Beverley Beaumont wasn’t filming today and was resting at home. Something to do with union agreements and some technical problem. He gave me her address without any hesitation. He offered to ring and let her know I was coming. I told him not to bother, that I’d ring myself. I had no intention of doing so, of course. I rather hoped to find the elusive Master Harrison at home.
Les was monumentally hung-over. I could almost hear his head throbbing down the line. It cheered me up no end.
‘Good party, Les?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk to you.’
‘I had to leave early,’ I said.
‘You missed Dolores then,’ he said.
‘I think she can probably live with the disappointment.’
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘that Jenkins bloke was on the blower this morning. Wants me to sack you. Says he won’t put money into one of my films while I still employ you.’
‘What did you say?’ I said.
‘I told him I didn’t employ you.’
‘But that’s a lie, Les,’ I said.
‘Yeah, but Daphne says he’s not a genuine investor. So, who gives a toss? We’ll worry about that if he comes up with any dosh.’
‘You’ll sack me then?’
‘No. God knows why, but Daphne has a soft spot for you.’
‘All right, Les, I’ll try to repay your loyalty and confidence in me.’
‘You do that, son,’ he said and hung up, presumably to take another Alka-Seltzer.
I turned to Emile. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘let’s go and find you some coffee, my friend.’
He almost smiled and headed towards the door. I followed.
Jerry stopped fiddling with a large pile of sheet music. ‘Where’re you going?’ he said.
‘Out,’ I said. ‘Emile needs coffee, and I have to see someone.’
‘What about my ceiling?’ he said, pointing at the ragged hole.
‘It’ll have to wait, Jerry. This is really important.’
‘So’s my ceiling,’ he said.
He sounded and looked so miserable that I stopped by the door and decided to give him what little advice I could on affairs of the heart.
‘Jerry,’ I said, in as kindly a tone as I could manage, ‘don’t brood about Ghislaine. She makes her own decisions, whatever Robert may think, but I wouldn’t make too many plans that include her, if I were you. She has a tendency to use the female prerogative.’
He looked puzzled.
‘She used to change her mind a lot,’ I said, ‘and she probably still does.’
He nodded sadly and turned back to his sheet music. I watched him as he listlessly shuffled the pile. It didn’t look as if my words of comfort had had the desired effect.
NINETEEN
I left Emile in a little café close to St John’s Wood Underground station. A shiny coffee machine chuckled to itself on a shelf behind the counter and a few cakes and pastries sat uninvitingly under a round glass container next to the till. A pretty young waitress had smiled warmly at Emile – well, he was a good-looking boy – and called him ‘luv’. He looked happy enough, sat at a Formica-topped table, staring dreamily at the seams on her stockings as she coaxed the machine into hissing and dribbling coffee into a cup.
I’d explained to him that my visit to Beverley Beaumont was a delicate matter and involved an affair of the heart, and so, after a little shrugging and head scratching, his Gallic sense of propriety overcame his orders from Robert and he allowed me to go alone. I’d given him the address, explained how to get there and agreed to be back in half an hour.
And I was completely sincere about this. I felt I was going to need all the help I could get in order to manhandle Jonathan Harrison to New Scotland Yard. Emile, and his ugly little black pistol, would figure prominently in any argument I had with the boy.
I strolled along, the opening bars of Bessie Smith belting out ‘Careless Love’ resounding in my head, on the opposite side of the street to the long, featureless brick wall that encircled Lord’s Cricket ground until I came to the brand spanking new block where Les Jackson’s second or third most important asset lived.
The glass front door was open, and there was no one in the little lobby. There was a calm about the place that whispered quiet money at me.
I ignored the lift and ran up the stairs to the second floor. Evidently, Miss Beaumont hadn’t taken up residence to watch Test matches for free. Maybe the flats in the lower floors came at a discount.
I stood outside her door and listened for a few seconds, acutely conscious that I was wearing the same, shabby suit and soiled shirt I had been wearing the previous night, aware that they were in an even worse state after my run-in with Alfred and Jan than they had been when I’d seen her at Les’s party. I sniffed, but couldn’t detect more of a pong about me than usual. That didn’t, of course, mean that Beverley Beaumont wouldn’t.
There was someone in. I could hear the wireless playing a light orchestral piece. I rang the bell, and the music stopped immediately, but no one came to the door. I waited for a few seconds and then crouched down and opened the letter box. There wasn’t much to see beyond a dark little hallway with a few firmly closed doors leading off it.
‘Miss Beaumont,’ I called quietly, ‘it’s Tony Gérard. We need to talk.’
I was about to call again when one of the doors opened and she came into the hall. I stood up straight while she fiddled with the locks. She opened the door a few inches and peered through the gap.
She wasn’t wearing any make-up, her dark hair was tousled and she looked very young, vulnerable and naked. In fact, she more or less was. A thin, satiny, pink dressing gown clung to her and suggested strongly that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Her feet and legs were bare.
‘I wasn’t expecting anyone,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not dressed yet.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m not really myself this morning.’
She was very pale in the half-light of the hall and seemed distracted. Her eyes shone.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said, smiling as reassuringly as I could. ‘I won’t take long.’
She nodded and opened the door a little wider to allow me to enter, closing it carefully when I was inside.
I followed her into the small living room. The solid, dark old-fashioned furniture wasn’t altogether right for the modern space, which would have been full of light from the French doors that led out to a tiny balcony had the heavy brown curtain not been partially pulled across, but, in the dimness, it didn’t jar too much. She sat on a big, solid-looking green sofa, curling her legs up under her, and indicated that I should sit on a matching armchair.
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I was hoping to speak to Jon. Is he around?’
She shook her
head.
‘Do you know where I can reach him?’ I asked, leaning forward.
She shook her head again and turned away slightly. A small tear leaked out from her right eye and she brushed at it. ‘He left about an hour ago,’ she said. ‘Someone came to the door, and he left.’
‘Willingly?’
She shook her head slowly. ‘I‘m not sure,’ she said. ‘But there wasn’t any noise. No raised voices, no scuffle or anything.’
‘Do you know who it was?’
‘I didn’t see anyone,’ she said. ‘Or hear anything, really. He just went to the door when the bell rang and then he left.’
She was crying properly now, emitting raw little gasps, her chest heaving, her nose running.
I stood up, unsure what to do.
‘Please find him,’ she sobbed out, ‘I’m worried about him.’
With good reason, I thought.
‘I’ll try,’ I said, ‘I really will.’
I imagined him turning up at New Scotland Yard without me, floating past with the other flotsam, his head just above the scummy water of the Thames. That wouldn’t play too well with Rose and Radcliffe.
‘I’ll find him,’ I said firmly, leaning down and patting her shoulder. She didn’t look noticeably reassured, but, oddly, I felt better. ‘Where’s the kitchen? I’ll make tea.’
She pointed across to another door, and I went through it into a narrow, neat and shiny little kitchen area. I filled the kettle, put it on the stove and then fussed around with a teapot, a packet of tea and some cups.
I didn’t hear her come in and was only aware of her when she put her arms around me and pressed herself against my back.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, her soft warmth, the touch of her fingers on my chest and the overwhelmingly heady smell of her perfume making me more awkward and uncomfortable than I’d been before. We stood there in silence for a few seconds, her moulded to my back, me helplessly holding a cup in each hand, staring out of the window at the cricket ground’s drab wall and the dreary buildings beyond. Yes, these lower flats would not be as expensive as the upper floors with their clear view of the playing area. A coalman’s cart clopped slowly past, the huge blinkered horse labouring in the morning sun, hooves and hide gleaming, black dust shimmering on the sacks and on the leather neck-piece of the coalman’s hat.
I wondered at the intense pressure and the impossibly long period of time it took to turn coal into diamonds. But really I was just trying not to think about Beverley Beaumont’s unrestrained breasts nestling against my cheap suit. Then, just before the moment stretched out too embarrassingly, the kettle started to whistle.
‘Tea,’ I said, and she released her grip and stepped away.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think I need some. And a cigarette.’
She padded back into the living room as silently as she’d come.
When I carried the tea through, she was curled up on the sofa again, a cigarette held fastidiously at arm’s length. Guiltily, I remembered that her holder was still nestling, in splendid isolation, in Jerry’s far from impregnable safe.
I put the cups down on a small side table. ‘I put two sugars in,’ I said. ‘I thought you might need it.’
‘I don’t usually,’ she said, patting her stomach. ‘My figure, you know.’
I picked up my own cup and sipped. ‘So,’ I said, ‘who knew that Jonathan was here?’
‘No one,’ she said.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I did.’
She nodded, but said nothing.
‘Was there anyone else?’ I said. ‘Did you or Jonathan mention it?’
She put her cigarette in a large glass ash tray, picked up her tea and frowned. ‘Oh, Jon did call his college right after getting here,’ she said.
‘Who did he speak to?’
‘His tutor, I think,’ she said.
We sat in silence for a while.
‘Anyone else know he was here?’ I finally said.
‘David,’ she said. ‘My agent. David Cavendish. Well, he’s my manager, really, I suppose. I mentioned it to him last night. At the party.’
The intemperate Mr Cavendish.
‘Anyone else?’ I said.
She shook her head firmly.
‘Could Jonathan have called anyone else?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
Well, I hadn’t told anyone where he was, so that cut the possibilities by a third – if we really were the only three people who knew that he was holed up with her.
And assuming that she had nothing to do with his disappearance.
That such a thought could even cross my mind was mildly dismaying. I put it down to the company I’d been keeping recently.
I knew that I ought to be asking her searching questions about Cavendish and Jameson, but I couldn’t think of any. I was just framing an inconsequential enquiry about how Cavendish had got on with Jonathan when the doorbell rang.
Beverley Beaumont looked startled.
I was reminded of something Jerry had once said about someone starting like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons. Well, it went a bit like that. Except that I didn’t think she was guilty. Just frightened.
‘Would you like me to answer that?’ I said.
‘Please,’ she said very quietly.
By the time I’d walked the few yards to the door, the letter box was open and our visitor was peering through, rather as I’d done twenty or so minutes before. It was too late to pretend there was no one in. He must have seen me.
‘Who is it?’ I said.
‘Tony? Is that you? Open the door, you daft bugger,’ a familiar voice growled.
‘Les?’ I said as I fiddled with the lock. ‘What are you doing here?’
He looked around and leaned towards me conspiratorially. ‘Daphne got a tearful call about half an hour ago, and she thought I ought to come round and find out what’s what. Then I remembered you were coming here, and I thought you might have upset her nibs. Then I thought, no, not my Tony. Too much the gentleman. So what’s the story?’ he said sotto voce as he slipped into the hall.
He didn’t look too bad, considering how hung-over he’d sounded on the phone.
‘Boyfriend’s gone AWOL,’ I whispered. ‘With persons unknown and without so much as a peck on the cheek.’
‘Boyfriend? Oh, Jonathan. You found him then?’ he said.
‘Yeah, the other day, and he came running here.’
Les shook his head and then walked into the living room. ‘Beverley, love,’ he said. ‘Daphne said you were upset so I come straight round.’
‘Thanks, Les,’ she said. She lit another cigarette. She was using a box of matches, which looked wrong. ‘But Tony’s here and he’s going to find Jonathan.’ She tilted her head up and blew smoke towards the ceiling.
‘Yeah,’ Les said, ‘you can trust Tony. Solid as the Rock of Gibraltar he is.’ He favoured me with a sly look and a smile that I chose to interpret as sceptical.
He sat down next to her on the sofa and, with his big, meaty right paw, grasped her pale, slender hand, patting the back of it gently with his other palm. I suddenly realized that Les had come because he was concerned about her, not about the film or business. For all his philandering and Max Miller vulgarity, Les was that rarest of men – one who actually liked women and enjoyed their company. I wondered if I did.
‘Well,’ I said, squinting at the big alarm clock perched incongruously and at an odd angle on the mantelpiece, ‘I’d better get started, if I’m going to find him today.’
‘Yes,’ Les said, letting go of her hand and leaning back. ‘If you’re all right, Beverley love, I might totter off with him.’
‘I’ll be fine, Les,’ she said. ‘Thanks again for coming.’
A little cynically, I thought that Jonathan Harrison had probably left her enough ‘medicine’ to alleviate her blues for a few hours and that she was looking forward to being alone to administer some.
Les insisted on taking t
he lift down, and I overcame my mild fear of them and entered it with him.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ he said.
I shrugged. ‘Well, she says only two people, apart from me, knew he was here, so I thought I’d start with them.’
‘Who?’ he said as, mercifully, the doors to the little lift opened and we stepped out into the hallway.
‘Jonathan’s tutor in Cambridge, and Miss Beaumont’s agent.’
‘Cavendish?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘Well, Charlie and I can drop you off at his office if you like,’ he said. ‘The Roller’s just outside.’
‘Thanks,’ I said as we emerged on to St John’s Wood Road, realizing that I’d completely forgotten to ask Beverley Beaumont for an address for him.
‘Will he be there?’ I said.
Les looked puzzled.
‘It’s Good Friday, Les,’ I said.
‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘Yeah, he’ll be there. Theatrical agents aren’t human. They don’t take Bank Holidays.’
Seeing Emile standing on the pavement, gazing dreamily at the old black Rolls, reminded me that I’d forgotten something else as well. He was a strange Communist, going weak-kneed and dewy-eyed at the sight of such a piece of capitalist opulence.
Evidently, Charlie, who was standing, arms folded, flint-eyed, between Emile and the car, didn’t much like the look of the lascivious way the young man was ogling the elegant old lady.
I decided I’d better introduce them before Charlie called Emile out to defend her honour. As soon as I’d explained that Emile was a friend, and he, through me, had told Charlie how much he loved and admired the beauty of such machines, they were all smiles. Charlie, unprompted, perhaps feeling guilty for his earlier hostility, even raised the bonnet so Emile could fully appreciate the finer aspects of the engine.
Les raised his eyebrows and climbed into the back. I joined him. We waited for a few minutes until Charlie remembered his chauffeuring duties. A beaming Emile sat next to Charlie, telling me that this was his first time in a Rolls-Royce. I told him that I wouldn’t tell Robert if he didn’t. His smile faded only slightly.