In At The Deep End

by Anabel Donald

  How Kelly knew he was an actor, I didn’t know. It didn’t much matter.

  Claudia paid the bill and got up to go. ‘Hang on a minute,’ I said. ‘What have you forgotten?’

  ‘I’ve got my bag.’

  ‘Much more important than that. The bill. Keep the bill and log the expense.’

  ‘Alex, it’s only coffee and croissants.’

  ‘Who is training who?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And get a bigger organizer, I told you.’

  ‘Sorry. I haven’t had time.’

  ‘And never say you haven’t had time. That’s the ultimate confession of failure. If you want an explanation, say you bought an organizer yesterday but the producer lost it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Always blame the producer, except to his face. It’s a union requirement.’

  Madame Wig beckoned us over to the desk, where the fax machine was whirring. I watched the face inch out, younger, sharper, predatory without the glasses, the head tilted back and looking upwards, the neck strong on broad shoulders. A very handsome man. Worth having a face-lift for. His hair was longer, in the photograph. Long and straight and heavy and fair. He was, to the last detail, the sort of man I find attractive. So why, after the first few minutes, hadn’t I?

  I took the fax and we went back to my room. ‘It’s him,’ said Claudia, and looked at me reverently. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I said. ‘It was easy. Kelly gave it to us, and Polly, Barty, and you did the work. Why the hell the priest couldn’t just tell me—’

  I looked at the fax. Apart from the photograph, the entry said:

  ALISTAIR BERNARD. Height, six foot. Eyes, blue.

  Photograph taken 1982. c/o Spotlight.

  Underneath, Barty had written:

  He’s in 1983–86. 83’s the earliest I’ve got. Young Actor. Half-page ad, thinks a lot of himself I’ve seen him doing one-liners in cop series, nothing for years. He was terrible. Good hunting.

  I gave it to Claudia to mull over. ‘What does it mean, c/o Spotlight?’

  ‘That he didn’t have an agent.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘Sight-see. I’ve never been to Toulouse, and we’ve got the whole morning.’

  ‘ “Sight-see”? But Alex—’ She stopped, when I sneezed. Then I sneezed again. ‘You’ve got a cold!’ she said accusingly. ‘Lack of Vitamin C!’

  ‘Hay-fever,’ I said. ‘I didn’t bring enough antihistamine. I didn’t know we’d be going into deep country.’

  ‘There weren’t any in your medicine cabinet.’

  ‘That’s because I keep my drugs in the kitchen.’

  She was taken aback. ‘That’s cheating,’ she said, then rallied. ‘Aren’t you going to ring Father Corrigan?’

  ‘Not till we get back to England and I’ve had time to sort out what I think I know, and see if he confirms it. I’ll get more that way.’

  I needed Claudia-free time to work. Maybe I’d even wait until after I’d spoken to Tim Robertson. Meanwhile we were in Toulouse, on expenses.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I dropped Claudia off at her flat near Queen’s Gate at half-past four and took the taxi on home. I couldn’t wait to be alone. I had plenty to think about and I looked forward to a whole late afternoon, evening, night all to myself in the flat. Polly wasn’t due back till sometime next week.

  It was overcast in London too. And hot, and clammy. First stop, take my clothes off and stuff them into the washing machine. Next stop, a bath. I paid off the taxi and went into the house, kicking several Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes off the steps on the way. Four houses away, further along the road, there was a party. Probably Saturday night’s, still going. Bob Marley thundered from huge speakers balanced on the first-floor window-ledge.

  When I shut the front door behind me, the noise lessened, but only a little. I picked up the Saturday mail, and sorted it. Bills for me: proper mail for Polly. I took it into her flat. Her place was still the festering mess she’d left, but now we were back on friendly terms I felt more like sorting it out. Besides, the hay-fever had affected my sense of smell and the faint waves of Poison that reached me were almost pleasant. I got a black rubbish bag and collected her duvet-cover, pillowcases, and towels. Then I took another and emptied her linen-basket into it.

  Trailing the two bags and my overnight bag, heavy with all the material – mine, and Claudia’s – on the case, I went upstairs.

  I was home.

  I dropped everything on the floor, closed the door behind me, sneezed twice, and took off my boots. The flat was stuffy; I opened the living-room windows, including the French window.

  I didn’t feel up to Beethoven, but I didn’t want Marley. I put on a Mozart violin concerto (Perhaps the Mozart violin concerto – are there more than one?) on the CD, loud enough to screen the heavy background thumps, and turned on the hot water. I’d have to wait abut half an hour for my bath. Time to make coffee and sort the washing.

  When the coffee was ground and filtering, I took the black bag with Polly’s linen-basket washing up to the bathroom to add mine to it. On the way up the stairs, I passed the bookshelves I’d made for my American private eye paperback collection. Sitting on top was Barty’s present, the two Sue Graftons and the Sara Paretsky. I hadn’t read any of them. I’d read one in my bath, I thought. I could afford an hour or so before I got to work. But which one? I prefer Grafton, so normally I’d have read Paretsky first. On the other hand you shouldn’t read two books by the same author one after another because the mannerisms get on your nerves.

  I opened the tiny bathroom window, and it got stuffier. Could London actually be sucking oxygen out of the atmosphere, like a reverse rain forest? I sneezed again, and blew my nose, and then I smelt it.

  Not Poison. Not London. Aftershave. A familiar aftershave.

  I closed my eyes, and remembered. A beige carpet: a woman in a wheelchair. The Browns’ flat.

  Alistair Brown. Bernard Alistair. He’d been here.

  Maybe he still was.

  I was bent over my linen-basket, scooping out the dirty clothes. I didn’t stop, and I didn’t turn round. It was superstition. If I didn’t turn round, I wouldn’t see him. If I didn’t see him he couldn’t be there.

  I’d been into every room of my flat except the tiny spare bedroom beyond the living-room. And my bedroom, next door. I’d smelt the aftershave up here. I listened, but all I could hear was Mozart.

  I took two deep breaths, and turned round.

  He was standing in the doorway, between me and the stairs. He didn’t look like the Second-in-Command. He looked like his casting photograph, ten years on. No glasses: hair hanging over his face: a white T-shirt straining to cover his chest, with short sleeves over muscular arms, tight faded jeans, trainers, and short black leather gloves. He looked like a body-builder or a bouncer or a walk-on villain in a cop series. No wonder. I hadn’t found him attractive. He was gay, or so narcissistic that he was asexual.

  But that didn’t matter, now. I didn’t like the look of the gloves.

  I jumped. I gave a little scream, which wasn’t entirely affected. I dropped the black bag I was holding. ‘What the hell are you doing in my flat?’ I said. ‘How did you get in here?’

  ‘Up the back drainpipe, in through the bedroom window. You really should close the metal gate on that window. This is a rough area, isn’t it?’

  ‘I like it,’ I said. If one of my local burglars had turned up at that moment, I’d have given him the video and a box to carry it away in.

  Silence. I’d better fill it: I didn’t want him to get to the point. I didn’t think I’d like it. ‘Mr Brown, you’re wearing eye-liner,’ I said. ‘That’s unusual.’

  ‘Not very. Plenty of guys do, if it makes them look good. The Scottish accent had gone. In its place was an actor’s voice, with undertones of nasal London.

  ‘How did you get time off school?’ I said. The Major’d told me how important the housemaste
rs were at weekends, how a boarding school stood or fell by its weekend provision, that the housemasters had light timetables and a day and a half off during the week for that very reason.

  ‘Don’t play games,’ he said. ‘I want the letter.’

  I didn’t have to pretend ignorance. ‘What letter?’

  ‘Martin’s. The letter he sent you on Wednesday.’

  ‘I never received it. When did Martin Kelly tell you he’d written to me?’

  ‘Wednesday evening. Just before he died.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘I didn’t need to. He was crazy. He’d been in the bin, did you know that? You couldn’t trust a word he said. Plus he didn’t have the guts to come out of the closet. Plus he had a drink problem. A serious drink problem. No self-control. No self-discipline. Did you see his nails?’

  ‘Why did you go to see him on Wednesday?’

  ‘You said you’d read the piece in the Banbury Courier. You might have spoken to him. He’d promised to keep quiet about me, for John’s sake, but I wanted to check.’

  ‘Did you watch him die?’

  ‘Yeah. Had to be sure, didn’t I? Like I asked you to dinner, to find out what you knew, if you’d got the letter. I wanted to be sure.’

  We looked at each other. His eyes were empty but flickering and quick, like a computer game, full of bright, smug, childlike violence. I was glad Claudia wasn’t there, and sorry for Martin Kelly, who had surely, even if indirectly, died at this man’s manicured hands. I was also very angry. ‘How long had you known him?’ I said.

  ‘I only met him last summer. I knew of him for years, ever since he met John. John talked about him all the time. Martin this, Martin that. Typical cousin John. He never could keep his mouth shut. He talked about me all the time, too. And showed off my photograph. God, he was stupid.’

  ‘What happened to John?’ I said.

  ‘Chopped to dogmeat by some boy he met in the souk, in Marrakesh. A fine man of God, our John.’

  ‘Did you have an affair with him?’ I said.

  ‘Me?’ he was shocked, and outraged. ‘I’m straight. Martin and John were the lovebirds. True love. Romeo and Romeo. Antony and Antony.’ He groped for other names.

  ‘Tristan and Tristan,’ I suggested. ‘Kevin Costner and Kevin Costner—’

  ‘Shut up,’ he said. ‘I want the letter.’

  Actually, just then, he didn’t. He wanted me to be frightened of him, and I was, but only partly. I hadn’t got any grip on his personality at Rissington, but I had now. He was familiar to me. I’d eaten bacon butties from the location catering truck many a time, standing beside actors like him. They thought they could act because they were good-looking and they waited to be the new James Bond. He was very strong but he wasn’t very bright: I should be able to outmanoeuvre him. I’d have to be careful, and organized, and quick. And it would have to be soon.

  ‘Can we go downstairs?’ I said. ‘The coffee should be ready, and I want to put Polly’s bedlinen in the washing machine. I told you, I haven’t got any letter.’ I moved towards him. He didn’t step aside to let me pass, and I had to stop, my head level with his overdeveloped chest, my breath choking on his aftershave.

  Finally he moved down the stairs. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘It won’t help, you know.’

  I followed him. He was at the front door, double-locking it. He struggled to put the keys in the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Your jeans are too tight,’ I said. ‘Have you put on weight?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They were a bad buy, then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or a bad fashion choice.’

  ‘Will you shut the fuck up about my jeans?’ he said, and pushed me onto the sofa. He was not only strong, he was quick.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I said.

  ‘I told you, to get the letter.’

  ‘Why? If I know what’s in it, what good will the letter do you?’

  He didn’t answer, and I could only half guess. If he planned to get rid of me – but then he’d have to dispose of Claudia too – no, it was stupid. But then he was fairly stupid: actors often are. So are television researchers who don’t follow up broad hints from sources, however crazy. I’d sat on Kelly’s notes until he died. I hoped I’d live to regret it.

  ‘Do you want some coffee?’ I said.

  ‘No. Turn off that sodding music.’

  ‘You don’t like Mozart?’

  He stepped over to the music centre and pulled the wires from the wall. No more Mozart. Just the thump of Bob Marley from the party along the road.

  ‘It’s got to be an accident, you see,’ he said. ‘Desmoulins was an accident. Martin was suicide. You’ll be an accident, then the girl can be a sexual crime.’

  ‘What sort of accident will I be?’

  ‘The balcony, I think. Dangerously low, those railings.’

  The balcony. My balcony, that I owned and understood, and he only knew by sight.

  ‘Nobody’ll believe it,’ I said. ‘I never go out on the balcony. I’m afraid of heights. I’ve got vertigo. All my friends know that.’

  ‘All the better,’ he said. ‘If you stumbled onto the balcony by mistake, you’d panic, and fall.’

  ‘No,’ I said, sobbing, burying my head in my hands till I could squeeze out enough tears. ‘No, no, not that. Please – please let me get some coffee.’ I made a dash for the kitchen and managed to grab the coffee jug before he grabbed me. The tepid liquid splashed over me, soaking my clothes. He’d leapt back to avoid it, balanced and agile. Only a few drops reached him.

  ‘Clear up the mess,’ he said. ‘Now.’ I mopped at the floor with a J-cloth while he watched me critically and pointed out splashes I’d missed. When I’d finished, he said, ‘Change your clothes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just change them. And wash the coffee off.’

  I suppose he didn’t want me to have an unusually stained corpse. Neither did I.

  ‘Can I go to the bedroom?’ I said eagerly, sending him thought-waves, ‘drainpipe, drainpipe’ till the veins in my head stood out. He received them, or he’d worked it out for himself.

  ‘Change in the bathroom. You’ve got clothes in there, I saw them.’

  ‘They’re dirty,’ I complained.

  ‘Get on with it.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I want to be back for dinner in the Mess.’

  I went, looking reluctant, up the stairs to the bathroom, with him right behind me. I went into the bathroom. He stood on the stairs outside and didn’t object when I pulled the door half-shut.

  I couldn’t get out through the bathroom window and I wasn’t going to try. Even if I could have squeezed through, there was at least a forty-foot drop to Polly’s garden beneath, and no drainpipe or trellis to climb down.

  I had other plans. I shucked off my clothes, showered away the coffee, dried myself, and slavered handfuls of suntan oil on my legs and arms. I rubbed my hands with a towel until they were dry, and concentrated I told my body what it had to do. I went through every step, twice. Then I put on Polly’s costume: the cut-off jeans, the sawn-off T-shirt. I took the broad, heavy leather belt out of my jeans and threaded it through the loops, then fastened it, three holes looser than usual. That should be enough. Any more, and he might have noticed.

  The door banged open and hit me. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Time’s up.’

  He pushed me down the stairs ahead of him. In the living-room, I said: ‘This is a joke, right? Tell me this is a bad joke.’ I was managing to cry again.

  ‘On the balcony,’ he said.

  It was ten feet from where I was standing, across the room, to the balcony. He was fast, but I’d leave him standing, because he wouldn’t expect it. I relaxed, then I tensed and ran. To the French window, and through it, to the ledge outside. Two careful steps along the narrow window-ledge, facing the wall. I looped my belt over the previous tenant’s blessed anchor-spike, held the spike with both hands, and waited.

  He hesit
ated at the window. I could see him. He didn’t want to be seen from the road. But he couldn’t reach me from there, so he stepped onto the balcony, and it went from beneath him.

  As he felt himself falling, he grabbed for me. One hand reached my calf, and held. I could feel the bones in his fingers through the gloves, and my flesh. Then his frantic grip slid smoothly down my oiled calf to my ankle: my foot: and then air.

  I looked down. He’d fallen straight into the basement well and broken his neck.

  Monday, June 8th

  Chapter Thirty

  I woke at six, and it was raining. It must have been raining for hours: when I left the house half an hour later the gutters were swollen and the pavements greasy and slick.

  The train to Banbury was crowded, damp, and hot; all the seats were taken. I stood up in the buffet, tried to spill only twenty-five per cent of my coffee down my steaming leather jacket, and watched the rivulets of rain slide sideways down the windows. The Major was expecting me at nine. Between breakfast and break. He’d wanted me to come when the school would be at work: he’d insisted.

  I’d called him, last evening, right after I called the police, and long before they came. I thought he should know he had to replace his Second-in-Command. He hadn’t sounded shocked, or even surprised when I told him. He just said: ‘You are safe, Miss Tanner? Not hurt?’

  ‘Not hurt,’ I said. ‘In any way. You’d better break the news to Mrs Brown. I’ll tell the police I’ve told you.’

  After that, I’d spent hours with the police, first in the flat, when they’d taken the keys from Brown’s pocket and let themselves in, then at the Notting Hill station. I could have called Plummer and told him to find me a lawyer more conversant than he was with bodies in basements, but I didn’t need to. What I told them was the truth, though no more of it than they needed.