Satisfied with the band’s response, she fought her way over the road to grab him and kiss him on both cheeks. “So glad you could make it, John! How lucky we are with the weather! A perfect spring day. King’s chestnut has put out its blossoms to greet us. And you, too, darling, you’ve made an effort! That suit’s perfect. And the shoes! Black and white, eh? Very daring!”
“My two-tone wing-tip Oxfords? You approve? They’re all the go at the Palais de Dance. I chose not to wear my chocolate and cream with the nonslip soles because I hardly think we need worry about losing our footing on this surface,” he said, knowing that she never picked up on his irony.
“They’re not so good for a waltz, but just fine for the tango,” she said seriously.
“I was going to make exactly that remark about the band. Where did you find those villains? There are two sax players in the second row that we’ve had on our books for years. Bigamy on the left and burglary on the right.”
“Don’t be silly, John! They’re lambs! Cecil and Georgio, if those are the two you’re referring to, are members of the London Symphony Orchestra. They’re moonlighting. And Lazlo and Igor on the front row are at present appearing with Ramon and his Romantics at the Savoy.”
“What about the bruiser with the squeezebox on the right? The one in a fedora and leather trousers.”
“Felipe is the world’s best on the bandoneon. He’s played all over Europe with Carlos Gardel. But here’s Madame Dorine, dying to meet you. She’s been trying to catch my eye for five minutes.”
Redfyre smiled. “She caught my eye ten minutes ago!” he said, meaning it to be annoying.
Earwig performed the introductions and promptly disappeared, leaving Redfyre lost for words in front of a beautiful Frenchwoman in possibly her early thirties. Her bobbed, glossy dark hair, hooded brown eyes, wide red lips and daring décolletage were intimidating. Like a Long Tom field gun, you could admire its lines in profile at a mile’s distance, but at close range with its barrel pointing straight at you, there was no choice. You chucked away your musket and ran.
“Take no notice of Earwig, madam,” he found himself muttering treacherously in self-defence. “All her geese are swans. I’ve never had a lesson in my life, and the only practice I’ve had was in Parisian dance halls on leave from my unit. I’m afraid I’m more skilled at killing people than dancing with them.”
“Then the tango is your dance, Monsieur Redfyre! That is its dark secret. It is a dance of barely disguised violence and hatred. The girl spurns, even kicks out at the man, and he despises her. He lusts after her, which is explicit in a properly danced tango, but ultimately, he throws her away like a soiled glove. Perhaps later . . . ?”
With superb stagecraft, she turned from him and began to make her way over to the band just as a kettle drum gave out three peremptory raps and a saxophone snarled a pay-attention flourish. The crowd fell silent and cleared the roadway. They’d done this before and knew what to expect. Madame Dorine spoke in a clear voice in perfect English with the merest trace of a French accent. It hardly mattered what she was saying; the crowd was entranced. People began to emerge from the alehouses and cafés along the parade, and a noisy party from the Eagle had daringly brought their drinks out with them.
Redfyre gathered that she was promising a demonstration tango to kick off with, a dance with her partner, Alexis. Alexis stalked forward, lean, dark, tightly trousered, menacingly unsmiling, and bowed deeply to applause and good-natured wolf whistles from the crowd. After that, the dancers of her school would perform a waltz, a fox-trot and thirdly, a tango. Finally, the audience was invited to take part in a general excuse-me and choose a partner from among the dancers of the school, who would teach them the essential steps.
The band blared out, taking Redfyre by surprise. They were excellent. They made his heart beat faster and his blood pump in rhythm. His feet, in their appalling shoes, would not keep still. Someone had chosen ‘La cumparsita’ for the opening dance, a tune known to everyone. Dorine and the smouldering Alexis threw themselves from the first beat into the jerky, stalking rhythms, the saxophones restrained but carrying the swirling tune up above the dark bass notes like a wreath of nose-tickling smoke. Alexis’s long, dark limbs entwined with unbelievable speed and sinuosity with the slender ones of Dorine, clad in red chiffon. They were male and female, fluttering flame and carbon-black embers. They were love and loathing. Indivisible, but eternally in conflict.
Too soon for Redfyre, the dance swirled to a conclusion. With a move that owed more to the techniques of jujitsu than the dance floor, Dorine thrust out an elegant leg and threw Alexis, in choreographed unbalance, over her hip. With both arms raised triumphantly in the air, she fixed him to the ground with his throat under her high red heel. The applause for the demonstration was thunderous. An odd moment for Redfyre’s thoughts to turn to his aunt Hetty, but he wished, as he gave a piercing whistle of approval, that she’d been by his side to see this. She would have been scandalised, horrified by the louche spectacle, and laughing her socks off as she told him so.
At last, he spotted them. Rosamund Wells was wearing the lavender-coloured dress he’d seen her in when he’d climbed up on the water butt in the churchyard. She’d enlivened it with a diamanté bandeau, secured a green-and-purple peacock’s feather over her right ear and a long rope of pearls dangled over her slim bosom.
Redfyre’s heart thumped, and his muscles tensed on seeing that her hand was clutched firmly in that of a multiple murderer. If MacFarlane had it right.
Digby Gisbourne was not at his dying father, Syd’s, bedside. Nor was he dutifully writing letters of condolence to the family of his mentor, Oliver Fanshawe. No. He was here, ungrieving, unashamed, making flirtatious conversation with Pansy-Face, as uncle Gerald had called her, and waiting in the lineup of dancers about to entertain the crowd with their prowess in the waltz, fox-trot and tango. In view of the whole of Cambridge. Despite himself, Redfyre found himself admiring the man’s spirit and insouciance. His bloody cheek!
The inspector was more concerned to note that Digby’s eyes never strayed far from the upturned, animated face of Rosamund. He’d seen men paying court to suitable but unloved ladies before and was shocked to realise that in the scene being played out, young Digby would appear not to conform to that stereotype in the slightest. He was chattering away in a completely natural manner, bending his ear down to her level to hear her responses and laughing heartily. Uncle Gerald’s dryly flippant comment came back to him: “Choose a woman who can make you laugh, Johnny—that’s life’s secret.”
The villain Gisbourne seemed to have hit the jackpot. Rosa would make a wonderful wife for a rising—or risen—Tory politician. Hostess, aide-de-camp, confidante. But, even leaving aside the murdering nature of the man, how did Gisbourne measure up? Rich, ambitious, philanthropic, conversable . . . good-looking if you didn’t mind that lofty, captain-of-the-first-eleven look, he supposed. Redfyre sighed.
With a surprising change in tempo and tone, but with no less enthusiasm, the band swung into “The Vienna Woods,” and a troupe of a dozen couples forming a double line drifted, swooning faces and twinkling feet into the dance, circling, interlacing, forming and re-forming figures. How in hell they managed that on a road surface Redfyre was at a loss to imagine, but he was resolving, like many in the crowd, to sign up for classes as soon as he could arrange it.
Naughty Rosa had been less than truthful about Digby’s prowess on the dance floor, he decided. The chap was no Alexis, but he moved with skill and seemed to be greatly enjoying himself. But Redfyre decided to mark him out of ten only when he’d seen his tango.
He reckoned Digby scored well on his fox-trot. The couples floated around, swaying and gliding effortlessly to a sweet jazz tune Redfyre thought he recognised: “Whispering.” Then, in contrast, came the part that everyone had been looking forward to—the class demonstration of the tango. After a solo on the b
andoneon so thrilling and musical Redfyre swore he’d never listen to an accordion again, they plunged into the dance he’d seen Rosa rehearsing. To his irritation, he noticed Gisbourne was throatily singing the words into her ear in the smoochy parts. To his further irritation, he had to mark him seven out of ten for the full performance.
As soon as the dance ended and the free-for-all broke out, Rosa was faced with a line of eager young blades who fancied their chances of being taught a move or two by the prettiest girl present. All blocking his way.
Chewing over his disappointment, he found himself being tapped on the shoulder. He spun round to find Dorine laughing at him. “May I have this dance?” she asked. “You see, I have chosen my pupil. I’m out to recruit you!”
Redfyre swallowed to see that people were making way for them with speculative glances as she steered him onto the road. He decided that the only thing to do was adopt his routine for facing enemy fire. Straighten your spine, square your shoulders and freeze your face. Perfect preparation, he thought, for the challenges of the tango.
Dorine was a delight. Medea one moment, sylph the next, her touch, varying between whiplash and feather stroke, guided him through it. He even began to enjoy the dance and actually caught himself growling in her ear once. Remembering her short way with Alexis, who had ended his dance spiked on his back in the dust, he didn’t try it a second time. In an abandoned moment, he discovered that if he swung her sideways and upwards, she seized the chance of showing off some very intriguing scissor kicks. He had strong arms, and lifting her slim frame was no effort. He did it again. The manoeuvre also had the advantage of drawing attention away from his feet, which were often uncertain about direction, and length of step.
He stiffened for a moment as Digby Gisbourne stalked by with a pretty girl barging deliberately into his shoulder. Dorine pulled Redfyre close and whispered in his ear, “He dances the tango like a Cossack. You dance it like a Frenchman.” He thought he would never hear anything more flattering said of him and finished the dance cock-a-hoop, with the crowd-pleasing Gallic flourish of a hand-kissing for Dorine.
The excuse-me ended too soon for the crowd, leaving them shouting for more. This was not unexpected as Earwig, who seemed to have appointed herself commère for the occasion, jumped up onto the wall in front of the grinning band and announced that they would now have an encore.
Dorine leaned to him and whispered a suggestion Redfyre was delighted to take up.
A minute later, he was raising his glass of lemonade to hers in the select bar of the Eagle. “Santé, Dorine! A huge success! We’ve earned this. But won’t you—”
“All’s well! Earwig can manage. And this won’t take long. I wanted to speak to you as a policeman. About Ricardo de Angelis. Chiqui. Five years ago. He was stabbed to death. No one was ever arrested for the murder. I’ve always wondered . . .”
But never quite managed to come to the station and make an appointment, Redfyre thought suspiciously. Why this moment? Aloud, he enquired, “Did you know him well?”
“I was his professional dancing partner in those days. I took over the school later from the owners when they retired. I identified his body. He had no family in the country, no close friends. I’m the only one who would think to ask about him.”
“But not the only girl who might think about him,” he suggested, and aiming for an impression of efficiency, hauled a name up from the black box file. “One of your pupils, a Miss Amelia Bullen, I believe, was amorously involved with him?”
“Nuts about him! Completely barmy!”
“Do you remember what happened to her?”
“She’d been working here in Cambridge in a bookshop. To get away from a lonely life in the family home in Norfolk. An uncle of hers found her the position. After Chiqui was done to death, her parents insisted that she return home. That’s where she still is, I assume. Under lock and key, I shouldn’t wonder. I send her Christmas cards, but she never replies. We all know her ghastly old father was behind it. But you didn’t wait to hear my question. Are the police ever going to come up with the name of the man who actually stabbed him? I don’t like to think he’s at large out there in the town, perhaps serving me my half pound of cheddar, sitting next to me on the bus, signing on for dancing lessons—”
He cut her short. Tense and eager to be off, he said more than he ought. “Don’t worry, Dorine! Buy your cheese and take the bus with confidence! The most sinister face you’ll have to confront next dancing term will be mine! The knife man is dead. He can do no more damage. But tell me, this uncle of Amelia’s—do you know his name?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I ever knew it. Sorry.”
As he shouldered his way through the crowd, a quick backward glance revealed the always disquieting sight of Earwig arm in arm with—should he be surprised?—his aunt Henrietta. Now, where had Hetty sprung from, and why had she not greeted him? Oh Lord! Had she seen him tangoing? Good manners stayed his step. He ought to go over and speak to her.
At that moment, the two women were approached by a third, and three heads began to nod and bob in eager exchange. Madame Dorine seemed to have things of import to convey. Ears burning, Redfyre groaned and hurried on.
Chapter 23
Cambridge, Friday, the 23rd of May, 1924
Back at the station, he dashed into MacFarlane’s office.
“Quick, sir! I want you to take a look with me at the Chiqui file again. I’ve just been interviewing the person who identified the body, and—”
“Dressed like that! Have you been auditioning for the front line of the City Slickers Shoeshine Band? There’s the box. Help yourself.”
“The address of Amelia’s Bullen’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Brancaster . . .” He riffled quickly through. “Here it is. Melton Hall, near Kettlestone. Now, did Miss Wells manage to present the promised list of addresses and contacts for the dining group? She did? Good girl!”
MacFarlane was already tearing open the envelope that had been put in his in-tray.
A stubby finger ran down the neatly typed list, stopped, stabbed at a name and he chortled. “Gotcha! Here’s a match! Melton Hall!”
He handed the list to Redfyre, who took up the tale. “This is where he spends his vacations. The home address he’s given is actually the home of his sister, the lady of the manor. Oliver Fanshawe! He’s the uncle of the girl Chiqui was involved with. That’s the military thread connecting him with the killings. Well, not so much a thread . . . more like the first small stone that starts an avalanche. The retired general—old Brancaster—learned of Abel’s special services by the military grapevine, confided between armchairs in one of their clubs when the port was flowing. ‘I say, old chap, if you have a problem that needs to be solved irrevocably and discreetly, I can give you a number to ring . . .’ Uncle Oliver listens sympathetically to his sister’s story of attempted blackmail—perhaps he is genuinely fond of the niece he tries to help—and is persuaded by his brother-in-law to arrange for Chiqui’s last tango to happen in Cambridge, giving his family a safe alibi of fifty miles or so. It must have added another stimulating dimension to Fanshawe’s intellectual torment soirées to know that their victim was leaving the party, going on somewhere to keep a further date with death.”
“Heathens! They probably noted down the poor fool’s last words. Wouldn’t surprise me. At least he had a good meal . . . beef Wellington, wasn’t it? Apart from the pudding, according to the doc. He must have flounced out before the pudding.”
“And encountered his nemesis lying in wait below in the street, delivered into his hands, drunk, incapable and quarrelsome, by a couple of the Amici,” Redfyre said. “Information from Dr. Wells. He says two men helped him down the stairs and off the premises. Hardy! An easy job for a man of his experience. Just lend a steadying arm to a drunk and offer to escort him home . . . you’re going his way, after all.”
�
��Unless,” MacFarlane interrupted, “Hardy was already there? A guest himself at the dinner table? No need to be kept waiting down below, stropping his knife on the sole of his shoe or picking his nose. And it would give him all the time he needed to size up the victim. To assess his strength and locate his weapon, if any.”
“Good thought! Hardy would quickly notice that Chiqui carried a knife in his belt. The work of a moment to wait until you reach the Fitzwilliam then nick his knife, plunge it into exactly the right spot, as he’d been trained, wipe the handle and string the body up in the place you’d chosen. Wait until daylight—which would be early in, what was it? June? And nip back with your pocket Kodak. The resulting shot would swiftly make its way by post to the general, releasing the second half of the payment. The body remains unremarked until an inquisitive nurse on her way to work decides there’s a pulse that ought to be taken.”
“And when Ernest Jessup makes a nuisance of himself, the Fox-Gisbournes scratch their heads and say, ‘What was that number again? Let’s leave this to able Abel, shall we?’” MacFarlane speculated. “He became the useful tool, the recourse for the elimination of the rest of the group. Dickie was on the list, all right. Ratty would have followed.”
“Hardy didn’t flinch at the notion of killing his old mates.” Redfyre’s voice was not questioning; it was pronouncing judgement. A heavy judgement.
“Contracted killers don’t suffer from soft hearts, nostalgia or loyalty, lad.”
“No. I do rather wonder why he’s getting special attention from us, sir? Clearly a villain. Numberless crimes to his account. But all we have is his corpse. We can’t even hang him once, let alone a dozen times for his misdeeds.”
“You can only be a victim once, and it’s in this capacity that he’s of interest to me. Someone had his hands round his neck and squeezed. He may have deserved it, but I want to know whose hands they were and to be able to prove it. A confession will do.”
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