She followed him in and he turned to her. ‘I’m sorry I’m so late. I didn’t mean to get off to such a bad start.’
She raised an eyebrow at the word ‘start’, but said, ‘It’s all right. You don’t need to explain – I’m an old hand at this game, remember.’
‘Which game?’ he asked nervously, thinking of Mrs Goodwin.
But she said, ‘Waiting for policemen.’
‘I’m not sure I like the use of the plural there, but still. I am sorry to have kept you waiting.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said again, patiently. She reminded him of Irene.
‘I wish you’d get angry with me. There’s a thin line between tolerance and indifference.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You want me to be waiting behind the door with a rolling pin? I think you’ve strayed into the wrong decade. And the wrong house.’
‘And the wrong play. Oh dear. I’m sorry. Let’s start again. Have you eaten already?’ he asked in a brightly social voice. ‘Do you want go to out somewhere?’
Wrong again. ‘What d’you think, this is a date? You came to talk, that’s all.’ She cocked an eye at him. ‘I suppose you’re starving.’
‘I seem not to have got round to lunch.’
‘Just as I thought. Sit down, then, take your coat off, and I’ll get you something.’
He watched her walk away from him. She was wearing her comfortable velvet Turkish trousers, which were so old the pile was all rubbed off the seams, and a loose, Indian-style crimped-cotton shirt of similar vintage. She was neither tall nor elegant; her feet were bare and her hair was untidy; and she seemed to him to contain every desirable quality. She was home, rest, sanctuary: the place where you were understood and welcomed, the place where you gave and received pleasure. He wanted to talk with her and eat with her and sleep with her and walk along all the sunset beaches in Hollywood with her – things he had never even considered wanting to do with any other woman. By their houses shall ye know them, he thought inconsequentially: designed for living in, his desired person, rather than for display. And desired, by golly – he was anxious to obey her hospitable parting instructions but wasn’t sure that he ought to remove his coat yet. He had a promising young erection under there. Don’t want to frighten the horses.
She was back very soon with a tray. ‘This will keep you going.’ She handed him a large malt whisky, and a plate on which reposed a pork pie cut into quarters. He had – as she knew of course – a passion for pork pies, especially proper ones like this with the dark, lean meat and the very crisp raised crust. And she then placed before him a jar of Taylor’s English mustard and a knife, and everything was perfect.
‘What a woman!’ he said. ‘How did you just happen to have a pork pie about your person?’
She sat down beside him. ‘I’m a very wonderful person. Cut me a tiny piece just to taste.’ He cut a piece, dabbed it in mustard, and held it out to her, suddenly doubtful. In the old days he’d have put it in her mouth, but it seemed too intimate a gesture to be attempted without permission. It was unnerving for his brain to be getting all these conflicting signals. That’s how they gave laboratory monkeys ulcers.
She saw his difficulty. ‘For goodness’ sake,’ she said, then ducked her head and took the morsel from his fingers. It was a strangely diffuse exclamation and he wasn’t sure what she meant by it, but she seemed to know that too, because she said, ‘Old dogs and new tricks. With anyone else it would be a deliberate ploy to disarm me by pretending nothing had happened, but with you it’s just that you have no idea how to dissemble. Which is what makes you so dangerous.’ She was looking at him as she spoke, actually meeting his eyes for the first time, which did nothing to divert the flow of blood back to his head from the eager part of him that was desperately trying to point at her like a game dog; and in fact an unexpectedly game dog he was turning out to be for a man who had been contemplating solitary old age only yesterday. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if they couldn’t just go straight to bed and sort things out that way, but she caught that thought on its way up too. ‘And this still ain’t Kansas,’ she added sternly, but she was trying to hold down a smile as she said it. She had never been very good at being angry, and positively pathetic at holding grudges.
‘So what made you late?’ she went on, turning sideways on and tucking her legs under her so as to face him. ‘I bet you’ve been with a woman. I can smell scent on the air.’
‘I’ve been comforting a very attractive divorcée who says she finds me very sympathetic. She’s younger than you are, too.’
Joanna grinned. ‘I’m younger than I am. This is something to do with the case, I assume?’
‘It would be more flattering to me if you didn’t immediately jump to that conclusion.’
‘I wouldn’t be interested in a man I thought even capable of entertaining the notion of a thought for another woman. Go on, tell me about the case.’
He would sooner have pursued the intriguing hint that she was interested in him, but he knew there was no help for it. He was not on safe ground yet.
‘She’s the secretary of Radek’s son-in-law, Alec Coleraine. She’d been having an affair with him and now discovers he’s been two-timing her—’
‘Three-timing her, presumably, counting his wife,’ she said with horrible neutrality.
‘As you say. Anyway, contemplation of her wrongs was enough to tip her into telling me about something that’s been worrying her for some time. She suspected him of being less than a hundred per cent honest in his financial dealings, so I persuaded her to go back to the office and raid the filing cabinets.’
‘You dog,’ she said. ‘And what did you find?’
He told her about the Henry Russell trust. ‘All the papers were locked in Coleraine’s private cabinet, to which he alone holds the key – and no wonder. There’s been a steady sale of trust assets – shares, gilts, real estate – over the last two years, and no purchases, other than the three oil-paintings we know about, which he was careless enough to lose. I’ve taken down the share names and dates, and with a bit of research we’ll be able to find out how much money has gone, but even at a conservative estimate it’s got to be two million, given the paintings cost a million and a quarter.’
‘And where’s it all gone?’
‘Where indeed. Unfortunately the cheque-stubs and bank statements weren’t there, though Helena—’
‘Helena?’
‘You get friendly going through someone’s drawers together. Helena assures me the bank statements at least ought to have been there, because she’s seen him take them out on previous occasions. But we did find one dead cheque-book stuck in the crack at the back of the drawer, and it made interesting reading.’
‘Hang on a minute. If he kept all this incriminating evidence firmly locked away, how did you manage to get at it?’
He met her eyes limpidly. ‘I think in all his recent anxiety he must have left the filing cabinet unlocked. It’s easily done.’
‘Like fun he did. I suppose there was a coat-hanger lying about the office somewhere? Or had you brought your own?’
‘I can’t imagine what you’re suggesting,’ he said, shaking his head sadly.
‘It’s a good job I’m not wearing a wire. Anyway, tell me about this interesting cheque-book.’
‘Most of the stubs were uncontroversial. But quite a few had the amount filled in – and large amounts they were – but no payee.’
‘Sounds like belated caution. You think Coleraine paid the money to himself, then?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I’m not in the business of thinking,’ she quoted him, and then slipped into Stan Freeberg. ‘I just wanna get the facts, man.’
‘The fact is that Coleraine’s been under severe financial pressure because of his no-good son, who sucks at the parental wallet like a newborn calf—’
‘I love your agricultural metaphors,’ she marvelled.
‘I’m a farm boy, remember.
Also Helena told me that business has not been quite what it was because the old partner, Antrobus, had a lot of rich elderly clients who have now died, without being replaced by new ones. So his income was going down while his outgoings were going up.’
She had been thinking. ‘But wait a minute, if Coleraine had been defrauding the trust, wouldn’t it have been discovered? I mean, what about audits? Don’t they have to have them done, by law?’
He shook his head. ‘With family trusts, audits are carried out at the request of the trustee, whenever he thinks it’s necessary. The last one was done three years ago, according to Mrs Goodwin, and presumably showed up nothing unusual. The other trustee is a sort of sleeping partner who leaves everything to Coleraine because he, the other trustee I mean, is a layman and only knows about boats. So he’s not likely to ask for an audit, or want to look at the books.’
‘But sooner or later Coleraine would have to come up with the money, wouldn’t he? I mean, when the boy comes of age, he’s going to ask where it is.’
‘Ah yes, now that’s the really interesting thing. Helena told me the trust went on until the boy was twenty-five, and Henry Russell is only twenty-three. Coleraine still had eighteen months to replace the cash – assuming for the moment he had taken it – and I think that’s what the oil paintings were supposed to do, to turn enough profit to fill the piggy-bank again. When he lost them he must have been very, very worried; but he still had time, if he was clever. But then about six weeks ago, disaster struck. Henry Russell suddenly announced he was getting married.’
She grinned at him. ‘Oh, you have a lovely way of telling a tale. I liked the artistic pause there. What’s Our ’Enery’s nuptials got to do with it?’
‘While we were going through the filing cabinet, we found a photocopy of the actual trust deed. The trust ends when Henry is twenty-five, or on his marriage over the age of twenty-one, whichever is the sooner.’
‘Ah, I see! Nice one. Suddenly he’s got weeks instead of months.’
‘If it’s discovered he’s misappropriated the trust funds, he’ll be ruined. He’ll never practise again. And it’ll mean a gaol sentence, and gaol is not something people of his class can easily contemplate. He’d probably think his own death was preferable.’
‘Or better still, someone else’s death? You’re thinking he murdered Radek?’
‘Radek had millions, and it was all going to go to Fay anyway. He was an old man, it was only a matter of hastening him on his way. And it was generally believed Radek had a heart condition, and might pop off any time. I don’t know whether Radek himself put the story about, but Buster certainly believed it, and would have been sure to tell Coleraine – though the post mortem showed up no evidence of heart disease.’
‘What about the gun? Where would Coleraine get hold of a gun?’
‘Haven’t you heard that bit? I thought Atherton was keeping you up to date on all this.’
‘I don’t live in Jim’s pocket,’ she said with a sidelong look at him. ‘Besides, he’s got other fish to fry at the moment. Didn’t you know about him and Sue Caversham – principal second violin in my orchestra? They’ve been at it like crazed ferrets ever since they met.’
He tried not to feel relieved. He never really thought Atherton and Joanna were – but with Atherton one never knew. He was said to have the social conscience of a dog in a room full of hot bitches, and he and Joanna liked each other very much and had so much in common and – well, Sue Caversham was a very nice person. ‘Yes, I remember her. She’s very nice.’
‘Almost nice enough for Jim,’ Joanna said disconcertingly. ‘So what about the gun, anyway?’
‘Radek’s own gun is missing. A Second World War trophy, and the bullet that killed him was the same sort as the ammo we found in his house.’
‘Poor old bugger. That’s a nasty twist, shot with your own gun.’
‘We haven’t found it yet, but we know Coleraine had the opportunity to take it. And he has no proper alibi for the time of the murder; and he sure as hell had a motive.’
Joanna nodded. ‘It looks pretty black. But what a silly way to murder anyone – in broad daylight in front of a hundred witnesses.’
‘Yes,’ he frowned. ‘But then, Coleraine was an amateur in the business, and he was in a state of mental and emotional turmoil. There’s a kind of loony theatricality to it that I can see might fit him. And it probably wasn’t planned, you know. He probably thought about it as a tempting way out without really meaning anything serious by it. Then he found himself in the situation and just did it on the spur of the moment. And probably immediately regretted it.’ He thought back over past cases. ‘People who murder their nearest and dearest generally do it in a very silly and amateur way. The cunning criminal covering his steps, your domestic murderer is not.’
‘So what’s the next step?’
He shrugged. ‘None of this is proof, of course. We have to grind on, verifying everything, and most of all looking for witnesses. That’s the footslog of the job. And we have to find the gun, of course. No gun, no proof.’
‘But you said the ammunition matched.’
‘Yes, but it could have been fired from any compatible gun. The proof comes from the marks the gun leaves on the bullet and cartridge case when it’s fired. Those are unique, like a fingerprint.’
‘How so? I don’t understand.’
He smiled. ‘You should ask Norma about guns. Atherton thinks she’s got a fetish. Penis envy, he calls it.’
‘I’d sooner ask you. Norma hasn’t got your looks.’
‘It’s jolly kind of you to say so. Well, you know what rifling means, don’t you?’
‘Going through someone’s drawers?’ He stirred in his seat. Had she spotted the dog trying to see the rabbit, then?
‘Pay attention! A rifled gun barrel has spiral ridges all the way down the inside to guide the bullet. If you like, it’s like a screwdriver turned inside out.’
‘How graphic! Yes, I did understand that part.’
‘All right. Now a bullet is slightly larger than the minimum width of the barrel, and the metal it’s made of is slightly softer. So as it’s forced down the barrel by the charge, the ridges make marks on the bullet – striations, they’re called.’
‘Gotcher.’
‘And different makes of gun have different arrangements of ridges – the Webley automatic, for instance, has six right-hand thread grooves, while the Colt .45 has six left-hand grooves, and so on. So you can narrow down the type of gun a bullet was fired from. But in addition each individual gun has tiny variations in the rifling which are unique to that actual weapon. The same with the cartridge case – that will bear the marks of the breech-block and firing pin, which are never identical in two separate guns. So if we can find the gun, fire another bullet from it, then compare the marks on that bullet and on the one that killed Radek, we can prove that was the gun that was used.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘Then we only have to prove it was Coleraine who pulled the trigger.’ He was silent a moment in thought. ‘One thing, though: it does look as if you were right, that it wasn’t a musician who murdered Radek.’
‘Of course not. We couldn’t do it. We’re fools to ourselves, though. If anyone needed removing it was him.’
‘Don’t say that,’ he said. ‘I know it’s only a joke, but don’t say it.’
She looked at him quizzically. ‘You really mind, don’t you?’
‘Someone has to care.’
‘But nobody even liked him.’
‘Buster did. Somebody has to avenge him.’
She shook her head. ‘It isn’t that, though, is it?’ She studied his face for a moment. ‘It’s holding back the chaos, isn’t it?’
He looked at her warily, like a cat eyeing a thermometer. He was about to have his soul probed, and after the events of the last four months it was already feeling delicate. Though she was right, of course. ‘I suppose it is.’
‘We all have our own ways of doing it. My mother bakes.
’ It was the first time she’d ever mentioned her mother to him. ‘When I left home, for instance, she made a huge batch of shortbread and packed it in a tin in my suitcase, and it wasn’t because she thought I might be hungry. Whenever she feels threatened she makes cakes and biscuits and buns – and she’s terrific at it, they’re always beautiful, symmetrical, really professional-looking. Of course there’s only my father at home now to eat them, so mostly they end up feeding the birds, but still she bakes. When she lifts a steaming tray of perfect, golden fairy cakes out of the oven, she knows that she’s in control and the Devil is still on the other side of the door with the bolt shot home.’
He thought of Irene, cleaning things that weren’t dirty, plumping cushions no-one had leaned against. Why had he never thought of that before? Oh Irene! He felt a surge of sad, guilty compassion, fierce as canteen heartburn. But what could he ever have done, except what he did do?
‘Yes,’ he said comprehensively.
She went on, ‘Do you know that poem by Auden? “The glacier knocks in the cupboard, the desert sighs in the bed, the crack in the teacup opens a lane to the land of the dead.”’
‘Nasty. There was a wardrobe in my bedroom when I was a kid—’ He shuddered.
‘For me it’s always been music, of course. When I play, I know there’s order, symmetry, the things of the light. I can believe the guys in the white hats are going to win and the floor under my feet isn’t going to suddenly yawn and tip me into the pit – all common experience to the contrary.’
He smiled at her. ‘My father always liked you, you know.’
‘You are a master of the non sequitur,’ she said. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know what it means.’ The moment seemed to have arrived unannounced. ‘I love you. That’s such an inadequate sentence, but there doesn’t seem to be a word for the way I feel about you, which I think you know anyway.’ He quickly forestalled whatever she might have said then. ‘I know that I put you through two years of hell, though I never meant to hurt you, but please, now that we can be together properly and openly, without hurting anyone at all, won’t you take me back?’
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