Bottled Spider

by John Gardner

  This wasn’t getting her anywhere. She’d tried to be conciliatory and if anything she seemed to be treading towards more trouble. She really did not have the right to be as hostile as this. Anyway, Big Toe would be taking over directly after Christmas. She’d give him the notes and let him do the work. She’d made a complete hash-up of this, and Shirley hadn’t helped. ‘Very good, Mr Forbes,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Mr Forbes,’ she said.

  ‘Is that it? Satisfied are you?’ Like one of those nasty little snapping dogs.

  ‘Not really, sir. You’ll probably have to sign a statement. My senior officer’ll almost certainly want to see you after Christmas. I’m really sorry to have bothered you, sir.’

  He looked at her with unashamed dislike. ‘Yes. Yes.’ Tilting his head to one side as though examining her face, eventually he said, ‘Not a woman’s job this, is it?’ Then another pause, and — ‘You were in the papers weren’t you?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Read a piece in the paper, didn’t I? Didn’t seem to approve of you doing a man’s job.’

  ‘Free country, Mr Forbes.’

  ‘Thank God for that. Let’s hope it remains so. Now you must excuse me. I really do have to meet Winst — the Prime Minister.’

  ‘We’ll probably see you after Christmas. Where will you be, sir? In case we need to speak before then.’

  ‘With the Churchills.’ Smug. ‘I’ve no family and he’s kindly asked ...’ He trailed off. Then, ‘And where will you be, Sergeant? Just in case I need to get hold of you.’

  ‘Overchurch. Hampshire. Falcon Cottage. Telephone Overchurch 358. I’ll be with my sister: Mrs Vernon Fox.’ Suzie was angry again. It wouldn’t do, she should get out of here. Forbes was unbelievable.

  ‘Know it well. Overchurch,’ he said calmly. ‘Used to stay with the Bartholemews. The local doctor, his son’s an old chum of mine. Paul. Maybe you ...?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. No.’ Everyone seemed to know the bloody village, she thought. That lovely Josh Dance, Daniel Flint and now the odious Barry Forbes.

  The two women took the Tube back to Piccadilly, planning to walk through to the Corner House in Coventry Street.

  ‘For crying out loud, why d’you let him off the hook like that?’ Shirley Cox asked as soon as they were out in the street and out of Miss Poulter’s hearing. She looked like a woman with incredibly acute hearing.

  ‘The man’s a big gun, Shirley, and you made a dog’s breakfast out of it. We really didn’t have the right to be as belligerent as we were. He could make trouble, and I could be back directing traffic.’

  ‘He’s a little turd.’

  ‘Maybe, but it won’t be my job in the end. Big Toe’ll take over fast as a Spit once he’s back. I agree there’s something unpleasant about Forbes.’ Then — ‘What’s a turd?’

  ‘Oh, Suzie. A stool, as in shit! Yes, he’s a jumped up little —’

  ‘Shirley, I couldn’t be bothered,’ she said calmly but very firmly. ‘Just couldn’t be bloody bothered. He spells trouble — trouble for me, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, come on, he’s been messing around. If this death has got something to do with sex I’d put him in the frame.’

  ‘Pretty intense about it, though.’ She deepened her voice, did an imitation Forbes’ accent. ‘I did not have a sexual relationship with Miss Benton!’

  Shirley Cox smiled, a little patronizingly perhaps. ‘Of course he’s going to deny it. He’d swear his mother was an Eskimo if it’d help him. He’s one of Churchill’s advisors. I wouldn’t trust someone in his job even if the Pope himself gave him an alibi. He thinks he’s fireproof because he’s built himself a sinecure next to the most powerful man in England.’

  ‘Big words, Shirley, but I know that bugger from somewhere. Not from pictures in magazines and papers.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyhow, it’s not going to concern me for much longer.’

  ‘Quite frankly, you don’t give a damn. Why?’

  ‘Big Toe’ll be back on New Year’s Day.’

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘My high-ranking would-be boyfriend told me ...’

  ‘Sanders of the River? He told you Big Toe’s coming back on New Year’s Day?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Then I bet Big Toe’ll put you straight back on to him. On to Forbes, I mean. Way of the world. I can see him saying it — “Sarn’t Mountford, you’ll go and talk to Winston’s friend. Forbes, right?”’

  ‘Then forewarned is —’

  ‘Forearmed, yes. Was your mum as full of clichés as mine was? A problem shared is a problem halved. Look after the pennies —’

  ‘And the pounds’ll look after themselves, yes. Full of it. A stitch in time and all that rot; a fool and his money; laugh and the world laughs with you —’

  ‘That one’s right, Skip. Cry and you cry alone. I’ve cried alone many a time and usually on my own.’

  They spent the journey to Piccadilly trying to outdo each other in the homespun philosophy stakes.

  ‘Many a mickle makes a muckle, what the hell did that mean?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. Let’s have tea and you can brief me on Gerald Vine.’

  They walked up to Coventry Street and into Suzie’s favourite Corner House. ‘You’ll be charging me rent next,’ she said when the nippy arrived to take their order. She had served Suzie on countless visits but had little sense of humour. ‘Yes, miss,’ she replied all straight-faced. They ordered tea for two and toast. ‘No butter,’ she said.

  ‘Jam?’ the nippy asked.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘It says greengage and ginger on the jar but I don’t think it’s been near a greengage.’ Nowadays all kinds of things masqueraded in jam — turnips for instance.

  ‘It’s being so cheerful as keeps her going,’ Shirley said once the nippy was out of earshot.

  At least the tea was strong, though they both agreed about the jam.

  ‘So what’s the gen on tonight?’

  ‘Tonight you’re on your own, Skipper.’

  ‘You’re not going to be with me? I’ve got to have someone with me.’

  ‘Not asked. His secretary specifically said he’d meet you. If there’s not a raid he’ll be at the Ivy: six o’clock.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not? Who’s to know?’

  ‘I can’t accept the man’s hospitality and interview him at the same time.’

  ‘He has to be there — at the Ivy. It was either meet him there at six or leave it ’til after Christmas?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You’ll have to. Just sit and talk to him, then leave. No need to order. He’s a catch, so get to meet him, Skip.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She did not feel good about it. It would be awkward. ‘Dinner at the Ivy and you’re not coming?’

  ‘No option. Anyway I’m seeing Bernie the Fearless Fireman.’

  ‘What if there’s a raid?’

  ‘You’re to ask for him at the Garrick. They’ll direct you. He probably has a private shelter there with Noel Coward and John Gielgud.’

  ‘I meant you and Bernie.’

  ‘We’ve got our own private shelter.’ She gave a little leer.

  ‘You’re a wicked girl, Shirley.’ The good middle-class girl speaking.

  ‘Whatever, it’s going to be an early night.’ Shirley grinned. ‘I’m on duty first thing tomorrow. Unlike some.’

  For a good minute, Suzie appeared to be wrapped up in her own thoughts, gnawing away at something in her mind. Finally she once more asked Shirley if she should see Steven Fermin again before she left for Christmas.

  ‘You’ve got things you haven’t asked him?’

  ‘Don’t know. I feel that I’m missing something. After all we didn’t know about Jo Benton and her predilection for musical beds.’

  ‘Or bury the muscle,’ Shirley said cheekily. ‘So?’

  ‘So I feel I ought to take another walk through his paradise gardens and listen to him: see if it makes more
sense now. I can hardly believe that he didn’t have an inkling that she was ...’

  ‘If you’d be happier, then you should. You’re in on Sunday, aren’t you?’

  ‘All day.’

  ‘Why not work out what you want to ask him and phone him from the office.’

  She had no clear idea of what she wanted with Fermin: just a vague feeling that she should see him and ask the questions all over again. ‘Heard anything about the funeral?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet. You want me to ring him tomorrow, or is that a good excuse for you?’

  ‘Yes, leave it. I’ll phone and ask him on Sunday.’ She thought they’d never get it done before Christmas. The coroner hadn’t finished with the body yet; it was still early days. Maybe they’d do it by New Year. New Year’s Day was an ordinary working day, except in Scotland where they celebrated Hogmanay.

  ‘If it’s going to be at the end of next week you’ll represent the nick? When’re you back?’ Shirley asked.

  ‘I’d thought of coming in on the 27th — Friday — and then perhaps going to see my mum for New Year’s Eve. I’ll make up my mind before I go to interview the Squadron Leader on Monday.’

  ‘Won’t be able to make your own mind up once Big Toe’s back.’

  ‘You don’t know. I may have a secret weapon by then: I may have started going out with Mr Sanders.’

  Before they went their separate ways Shirley told her not to get too tough with Gerald Vine. ‘Get out the whips and he’ll say, “Yes please.” And you’ll get nothing out of him.’

  The sirens had not sounded and Suzie got her timing right, walking back along Shaftesbury Avenue, going through the doors of the Ivy dead on six o’clock.

  Before leaving the Corner House she phoned Webster & Broome and got Dick Webster just as he was leaving the office. ‘I tend to nip off a little early these days,’ he explained. ‘Like to be back in the nest before the ferocious Hun starts getting aggressive.’

  She asked what the BBC’s future plans had been for Jo Benton.

  ‘Plans?’ Webster whooped. ‘They were full of ideas. She had a long-term contract for five years, and we had a clause that gave me the option to renegotiate money after two. They certainly indicated that they wanted to keep her. Her chosen career was in broadcasting and the BBC was the one place to go.’

  ‘It’s just that I’d heard they cancelled this antiques show thing they’d been planning.’

  A pause, then a little chuckle. ‘Oh dear, she was a naughty girl. There were no plans at the BBC for an antiques show. Jo had the plans and was trying to get the BBC involved. They had meetings about it, but I don’t think they were ever serious. Didn’t think she could do that kind of show. Humoured her though.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I’ve told you how she operated. She’d fancy someone, have fun, then drop him without any reason. Then pick him up again a couple of years later.’

  ‘And this time she gave a spurious reason?’

  ‘You’re talking about Dan Flint?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  Another pause. ‘She was spending a lot of time with him. Learning a lot as well. I know she was very keen to do a show on antiques and she was going to bed with Daniel as well as learning from him. Difficult to say whether she got fed up with antiques or Flint or if the BBC gave her a firm private no. Bit of each probably.’

  ‘That’s a great help. Mr Webster.’ Then, as though just remembering — ‘Oh, one other thing. That photograph of Jo in your office?’

  He remained silent.

  ‘She’s wearing a little wooden brooch in that picture. A sword I think it is.’

  Still no response.

  ‘Was it anything special, do you know?’

  ‘I know Gerald Vine gave it to her and I think it had some significance — a small romantic object, I suspect. That’s all I can tell you. She never talked about her jewellery. Sorry, can’t help you.’

  Well at least she had an opener for the conversation with the country’s greatest living actor. Gerald Vine OBE ...

  She was going off to meet him now — to meet the famous Gerald Vine. She thought of her mother and her mother would have said, ‘DV’, which meant Deo volente — God willing.

  ‘We’re going to the pictures tonight, Mummy?’ the girls would chorus.

  ‘DV,’ Mummy would say. Took the joy out of everything. Mummy could be a pain in the neck sometimes. Quite often actually.

  Thirteen

  Suzie’s heart did a little flutter as she walked into the Ivy and told the headwaiter she was meeting the actor Gerald Vine. And why shouldn’t it? Vine was undoubtedly Britain’s number one heart-throb across the board because he did it all, stage and screen and everything in between: regularly played the West End, the Old Vic and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford, so that’s all one.

  She got the impression that the headwaiter knew exactly who she was and why she was meeting the actor.

  He had not yet arrived, Mr Vine, but was certainly expected. This was his table, if you would like to wait for him here. Mr Vine would wish her to have a drink. A cocktail perhaps?

  ‘A small gin and vermouth, please.’ She knew she shouldn’t; she was on duty, but she’d read an article about Gerald Vine in Woman — on that browny-grey newsprint they were all being forced to use nowadays — and it said his favourite tipple was gin and vermouth.

  ‘An excellent idea, I’ll have one as well.’ And there he was, standing in front of the table, large as life, twice as natural, in a beautiful grey suit, a silk shirt from Jermyn Street and a Sulka tie, all soft blues and old gold. Immaculate, skin glowing, incredibly healthy, bronzed, the famous hair sleek from Trumpers ministrations, and the voice as magical as it had been in The Squire of Bovey Hall. She’d seen that film last year with her mother and Charlotte. Black and white of course as so many Pinewood films still were, yet now here he was in person, and in glorious Technicolor.

  Certainly he was not as tall as Suzie imagined, but the features, gestures and especially the voice — ‘clipped silk and honey’ as the critic James Agate had once described it — were all now immediate to her.

  The pit of her stomach rolled over, and there was a ferocious twinkling in her loins. When he leaned over to shake hands across the table she only just managed to stop herself from standing up as a mark of respect. He locked eyes with her, dragging her down to Lord knew where.

  The waiter fussed, holding the chair for him. About his drink he said, ‘You know how I like it, heavy on the gin,’ and asked if they still had any food left.

  ‘Noel eats them out of house and home at lunchtime,’ he said. The waiter made some secret moves with his hands and shoulders that indicated Mr-Vine-is-such-an-amusing-man, then scurried off in search of the gin.

  ‘Fortunately for you, sir, Mr Coward is in Australia.’ The headwaiter was also twinkling. (But probably not in the area of his loins, Suzie thought. Though you never could tell these days.)

  ‘I’m Gerald Vine,’ the actor said loudly and quite unnecessarily, ‘and you must be Miss Mountford.’

  ‘Yes.’ Gosh, she thought, he’s gorgeous. I wouldn’t last five minutes.

  ‘I think you London police are wonderful.’ He smiled and it puckered his lips and let fly a force ten on the twinkle scale. He took out a slim silver cigarette case from inside his splendidly cut jacket, flicked it open and offered it. ‘Virginian on the left, Turkish on the right, but they tell me we won’t have the choice in a few weeks time. It’ll be camel droppings on the left and dried herbal mixture on the right, and we’ll be glad of it.’

  Suzie took a Virginian — Players Navy Cut — and he leaned forward again, deftly operating a thin silver lighter and she almost choked as the smoke hit the back of her throat. It’s all like a Warwick Deeping novel, she thought.

  ‘You alright?’ He looked up at her through half-lowered eyelids as he fitted a cigarette into a jet holder and lit it.

  She blew smoke out of both sides of her mouth — like a bloody
dragon, she later told Shirley — and nodded yes, fine, okay, wonderful, and ye, any time, and how would you like me? Lightly grilled? Without dressing? Suddenly she knew what the tarty underwear thing was all about. Pray that I’m not too late for it.

  ‘So, what do the Metropolitan Police Force want with me? That business with Desdemona is it? Or perhaps the Scottish king, eh? Old Duncan? Or that fellow Clarence drowned in a butt of Malmsey. I deny everything of course; and my wife’ll deny the Scottish thing.’ He chuckled. He had played a young and passionate Othello a couple of years ago at the Old Vic, and six years or so earlier he had been an acclaimed Macbeth with Betty Tinsdale as Lady M; directed by the great Tyrone Guthrie. He had married Miss Tinsdale during the run.

  There was also his Richard III just before war was declared. He had broken the rules with Richard and appeared skulking on stage while the assassins murdered the Duke of Clarence by dumping him in a barrel of Malmsey wine — only Suzie didn’t know that because she rarely got to the theatre.

  The waiter returned with the drinks and placed menus in front of them.

  Suzie sat there with a goofy smile as though the idea of the Met investigating the murders of Desdemona, the Scottish King Duncan and the Duke of Clarence were the funniest things she’d ever heard. She only stopped chortling when he inquired what she’d like to eat. ‘Have you got any of the liver?’ he asked the waiter with another of his smiles and a quick flash of the teeth.

  ‘We kept some, Mr Vine, especially as we knew you were coming in tonight.’

  ‘They do the most divine liver. Try some.’

  ‘Really I can’t, Mr Vine. I can just about get away with accepting a drink from you. But I’m on duty, sir.’ She felt her muscles tighten as she faced up to what had to be done, even though Gerald Vine couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with murder.

  ‘Oh, but surely —?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I can’t.’ Quite proud of herself.

  He gave a little pout, playing the teenager. ‘Oh, what a shame. I wanted to pump you about police officers.’