by TP Fielden
‘We had one of those but something went wrong. Our man went missing, the elimination did not occur, and Railton Freeman just carried on his own sweet way. We lost not one but three people on Tailcoat, and Rusty was pretty much in disgrace.’
‘Was that why they sent him to Scotland?’ asked Miss Dimont. ‘There was so much going on I hardly noticed he’d disappeared.’
‘Well, nobody wanted to talk about it anyway. It was a complete failure, black mark all round.’
Valentine jerked forward in his chair. ‘Why on earth, then, would Mr Rhys want to mention something like that to the police? Surely you’d do the best you could to bury such an awful failure, carry it to the grave?’
Miss Dimont poured coffee from a vacuum flask. ‘The answer to that, dear boy, probably rests with Mrs Larsson, and no doubt she’ll be happy to share it with us when we pop in again tomorrow.’
‘But I thought Mr Rhys said you weren’t to …’
Miss Dimont leant over the candlelit table towards her junior reporter and gave him a lingering smile. ‘There are times, dear Valentine, when one takes what the editor says with a pinch of salt. What comes first in journalism is finding out the truth.’
‘Throwing down the gauntlet?’ Valentine smiled back. ‘Challenging the Rusty one?’
‘You could say that.’
Auriol said it was time for her to go. There was more small talk about Mme Dimont’s threatened visit, and then she said goodnight. The tail lights of her car wove off into the night.
‘I ought to go too.’
‘Well, as I said, there’s a bed.’
‘No, no, I don’t think I will. But thank you. And thank you for a lovely evening. I feel in a curious way as if I’ve come home.’
‘Temple Regis has a way of ensnaring those who …’ They were walking slowly towards the door.
Valentine suddenly stopped and turned to look down at her. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not Temple Regis. It’s you.’ He paused for a moment, then kissed her.
At that moment the blackbird stopped singing.
SIXTEEN
A new week in Devon’s prettiest town and the refugees from less alluring parts of the country were beginning to fill up the houses, hotels and boarding establishments which for a week or two were happy to offer them a pillow in paradise.
The Riviera Express – train, not newspaper – did sterling work in bringing them in glamorous style to this place, its chocolate brown and cream Pullman coaches heavily carpeted and generously staffed, gliding luxuriantly to their destination. As the holidaymakers walked or took buses away from Regis Junction the town laid out its best welcome: the funfair at one end of the promenade tooting whistles and blaring hurdy-gurdy music, straw-hatted donkeys patiently awaiting their passengers on the golden beach, and the palm trees waving their welcome.
The cares of the world evaporated as the Riviera Express clanked to a halt – but how ruinous would it be to the town’s coffers if these joyous visitors were to discover that, only a few days ago, a body had been found on the beach with its head bashed in? And now another unexplained death in the town’s smartest quarter. They might be safer in Brixham or Torquay!
It was a glorious day, with no clouds in the sky and only the merest hint of a breeze, and Miss Dimont breathed in the scent of honeysuckle as she rode Herbert up to the gates of Ransome’s Retreat. Today her route took her through Primrose Lane and up Cliff Rise, a leisurely climb which gave her a lengthy glimpse of the estuary at its sparkling best.
Dutifully she had followed her editor’s instructions, coming in to the office early to dispatch the latest round of wedding reports which, to local readers, were of far more importance than the death of a rich old man.
HONEYMOON AT SECRET DESTINATION
She wrote. This meant that the young couple so recently joined by God’s holy law could not afford to take themselves away for their nuptial night, poor lambs, and would be honeymooning on the sofa.
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
– the newlyweds had been doing things they shouldn’t ever since the fourth form, but now Mother Nature had caught up with them. The bouquet in the accompanying photo was sufficiently generous to cover the bump.
FLORAL JOY AT ST MARGARET’S
– here, a lingering description of the stephanotis, lily of the valley, guipure lace and all the other flapdoodle which every young bride burdens herself with, because Miss Dimont had nothing else to go on – the young couple, eager to get their picture in the paper, had neglected to turn over the green form and fill in any personal details. They’d even forgotten to mention the bride’s mother, which was likely to cause ructions. It was a very short report.
MADE FOR EACH OTHER
Miss Dimont hoped he wouldn’t, but it was a certainty that the photographer who took the picture of this priceless pair would be adding it to the Thank Heavens! board down the other end of the office. Long ago someone had instituted this pictorial record of the ugliest people in Temple Regis, the ones with an unerring instinct for finding a matching partner. There seemed to be so many of these romantic lemmings the board was groaning under the weight of their 10 × 8 prints.
Her duties completed, Miss Dimont felt her obligation to the editor had ended. Herbert had brought her up the hill to Ransome’s Retreat where she found the front door, only so recently guarded by Temple Regis’ finest, abandoned and ajar. The house was silent and apparently empty.
She found Pernilla Larsson in the kitchen staring at a kettle and a bottle of Camp coffee, looking elegant as ever, but evidently suffering from loss of sleep. She did not rise when Miss Dimont put her head round the door.
‘Come in. I don’t know who you are, but come in anyway.’
‘Judy Dimont, Riviera Express. I hope you don’t mind …’
A slight stiffening. ‘A colleague of Mr Rhys, I take it?’
‘I’m his chief reporter.’
Mrs Larsson turned to inspect the newcomer, then turned back to stare at the kettle. ‘I suppose I should kick you out, but there’s nobody else here and really, what does it matter now?’ She sounded deflated and beaten.
Judy sized up the situation and took control. ‘Would you prefer a cup of real coffee? That bottled stuff is pretty foul.’
‘I looked round for the tin but I just couldn’t see it. Usually Lamb or Mrs Lamb …’
‘Here it is,’ said Judy soothingly. ‘I’ll just put the kettle on. Have you had anything to eat?’
‘I couldn’t possibly.’
‘Well, maybe later. Is there nobody else around?’
‘It’s complicated. What do you want?’
‘Just a chat, if you feel like talking. Nothing for the newspaper – just a chat really. Sometimes – after things like this – people like to talk. Sometimes they don’t.’
‘I haven’t got anything else to do, so you may as well sit down.’ Mrs Larsson ran a hand vaguely through her hair. ‘I haven’t quite finished dressing. Would you wait while …’
‘Please,’ said Miss Dimont, placing a cup in front of her, ‘don’t do anything on my account. Just a chat, nothing for the newspaper.’
Gradually, as the coffee warmed her, Pernilla Larsson was able to turn and face her visitor. The women talked about the mechanics of death – the removal of the body, the notifications, the officials, the lawyers, the relatives – until Judy was able to steer the conversation around to what she really wanted to discuss.
‘Shall we go and sit on the terrace?’ said her hostess, rallying for a moment. ‘It’s such a lovely day, shame to waste it.’ The moment she said it you could sense the bitterness and loss: there was no husband now to share the rest of her day with.
The two women moved slowly out through the long grey drawing room, the ghost of Bengt Larsson walking between them. Just because they are dead does not mean that people go away.
‘I know you’ve talked to the police, but I wonder if you’d mind answering a couple of other questions? When there are official secrets, sometime
s it’s difficult but …’
‘Ah,’ said Pernilla, turning again, sharpening her focus on her guest, ‘I see you know. About all that secrets nonsense.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Miss Dimont encouragingly, though in fact she didn’t really have a clue. But a useful piece of journalistic trickery is to pretend you know more than you do – it can open all sorts of doors. ‘I was just wondering why Mr Rhys felt it necessary to come up here yesterday. It was an odd time for him to leave the office, it being our busiest day of the week.’
‘He hasn’t told you?’
‘No.’
‘I wonder then,’ said Mrs Larsson shrewdly, ‘why you want to know. Are you after his job?’
Until that moment the thought had never occurred, but Judy Dimont never missed a trick. ‘Well … it’s a cut-throat business and …’
‘Thought so!’ said Mrs Larsson sharply. ‘Well, I can tell you, your Mr Rhys is no longer welcome in this house, no matter what the outcome of the police investigation. Better for him if he did go – he’s a thoroughly repellent individual.’
‘So why was he here, yesterday morning?’
‘The Daily Herald.’
‘Mm?’
‘You know they wrote that terrible article about Ben a week or so ago.’
‘Which the Riviera Express did its best to correct – my colleague Betty Featherstone …’
‘Yes, yes. But the day before yesterday the Herald rang Ben up again, to say that now they had incontrovertible proof that the Rejuvenator had caused at least half-a-dozen deaths in middle-aged to old people. This wasn’t the story they’d run before; this time they were actually naming names. It was shocking to hear.’
‘But not surprising.’
‘I told Ben, again and again – these complaints still continued to flood in, but he wouldn’t listen. He should have done something to refute them. I’ll be frank, it’s been like living with a time bomb.’
‘So Rudyard Rhys …’
‘Richard Rhys, Ben used to call him, yes. They’ve known each other a very long time.’
‘I thought so.’
‘He’s a terrible man, that Rhys.’ The words were bitter, slow. ‘Causing my husband’s death.’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Judy. ‘Are you saying … Are you saying that Mr Rhys killed your husband?’
Pernilla Larsson put down her cup and stood up, her lips working in an anguished way. ‘I don’t know what happened,’ she cried. ‘Did he kill him? Somebody did. Rhys was here, and it was no accident.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘But of course! That foolish policeman, Inspector Thingamum, was trying to suggest that Ben had killed himself with his own machine, either by accident or …’ The words struggled to come. ‘Or because he wanted to. But that’s complete nonsense! Ben has worked with that machine for thirty years – for heaven’s sake, he invented it! – there was no accident. Of that you can be certain.’
‘So what was Mr Rhys doing up here yesterday morning?’
‘Ben rang him up after he heard from the Daily Herald. Asked him what to do. Rhys was his usual hopeless self, couldn’t suggest anything useful. So Ben said to him, I have to go on the defensive. If I’m to stop people ruining me, I must let them know a little bit more about myself, so that they understand I am a good man.
‘He told me all this at breakfast yesterday. He’d decided to tell those Fleet Street fellows that far from being a charlatan and a fraud, he was in fact a war hero. That he did undercover work for Britain in Germany during the War, risked his life, saved the lives of others. So why, with his invention, would he want to put people’s lives in jeopardy?
‘But Richard Rhys didn’t want that. He told him on no account should he talk about work which was still covered by the Official Secrets Act.’
Miss Dimont poured more coffee and nodded encouragingly.
‘Ben told Rhys it was too late, he’d made up his mind. He was not going to have his reputation ruined because of some grubby newspaper investigation, digging up the dirt.’
‘I think you agree, don’t you, that the Rejuvenator probably did cause those deaths?’ asked Miss Dimont softly. Digging the dirt, in the circumstances, didn’t seem such a terrible thing for the press to be doing.
‘That’s not the point!’ snapped Pernilla. ‘My husband has done fine work all his life and now his reputation is to be smashed – of course he was right to tell people what good he had done for Britain during the war!’
‘Why do you think Mr Rhys objected so much?’
‘Well, as you gathered, they worked together during the war. Ben had been working for others in the Admiralty, but then Rhys came up with this thing called Operation Tailcoat. It was a plan to track down a man called Railton …’
‘Freeman … yes, I know about it.’
Mrs Larsson picked up her cup again, stirring in more sugar. ‘It all went badly wrong. People died … it wasn’t Ben’s fault, it may not even have been Rhys’s fault, but …’
‘So Mr Rhys came up here to try to persuade Mr Larsson not to reveal the details of Operation Tailcoat?’
‘Bullied him. Shouted about the Official Secrets Act. Of course, Rhys wasn’t concerned about Ben breaking the law, but about being exposed himself.’
‘So … are you saying he might have killed your husband?’
‘Yes! No! No … I don’t really think so … I mean – look at him! A dithering old fool – strong enough, yes, but with the capacity to kill? No, no.’
‘Do you think, then, that Richard Rhys bullying him like that caused your husband to … well, to commit suicide?’
‘I … just … don’t … know …’
The moment she’d asked it Miss Dimont knew the question was pointless. Ben Larsson was a man who revelled in his image as the bringer of new life to tired souls – how could he smash his own reputation by electrocuting himself with the Rejuvenator? It was absurd to even think he would.
But it wasn’t an accident either.
And despite her forlorn appearance, Miss Dimont had caught a glimpse of the steely resolve within this newly-minted widow and wondered, just for a second, whether it was Pernilla who had done the deed. She was, after all, his fourth wife and though the reporter knew little of the married state, she sensed that each new marriage is a paler imitation of the one before, and that a distance can grow quite easily between a couple who had not shared a lifetime together.
‘Can you tell me what actually happened?’
‘I had come back from shopping, and they were having their row. I went down to talk to the gardener – I must have been gone for nearly an hour – and when I came back there was Rhys running around in a panic saying that Ben was dead.’
‘Who else was around in the house?’
‘Gus was here doing some business. Then Lamb had let in some of those crackpots – the Lazarus League lot – who’d come to pay homage. There were only five or six, I think.’
‘Could one of them …?’
‘I doubt it. Haven’t you seen them? They’re the worst kind of religious nuts – feeble, unfocused, probably vegetarian too. Wouldn’t have it in them.’
‘Perhaps I could talk to Mr Lamb?’
Pernilla shot her a look. ‘That would be difficult. The moment Gus knew his stepfather was dead, he took charge. And the first thing he did was to fire Lamb. Mrs Lamb too.’
‘Oh, that’s awkward … where’s Gus now? Where’s Lamb?’
An odd look crept into Pernilla’s eye. ‘Not sure. And anyway, isn’t that enough questions? I don’t know quite what the form is on such occasions, not having been widowed before,’ she added with a dash of sarcasm, ‘but I think the wishes of the bereaved are usually respected, and my wish is that you go now.’
Miss Dimont nodded and rose to her feet.
‘You know,’ added Pernilla finally, ‘I always had the feeling it would end like this. Here we are, we live on the edge of the world.’ She wretchedly waved her arm ou
t towards the estuary with its golden slick of water and to the slowly circling gulls overhead. ‘We have lived in peace and harmony, as if in the land of milk and honey.
‘Life isn’t like that, though, is it? Life’s hard, and each reward we get has to be paid for. We, Ben and I, have been very well rewarded, but I have the feeling that now we are about to pay it all back. He with his life. Me – I don’t know …’
She pointed vaguely in the direction of her husband’s study. ‘You should have seen Ben. It was awful. Hooked up to his Rejuvenator, the thing that had made him famous and rich – his unique creation which had given hope to so many people. Now, of course, you – the press, I mean – are going to turn it all into a joke. “Inventor killed by his own machine”, that sort of thing. No mention now of his wartime heroics.’
‘No,’ agreed Miss Dimont. ‘Probably not. It will remain an Official Secret.’
Pernilla walked her towards the door. ‘How come you know about these things?’
‘I worked with Mr Rhys during the war. I didn’t know about Tailcoat though.’
‘It was – how do you say it? – a shambles.’
‘So I recently learned.’
‘I hate that filthy Rhys. I hope they find him guilty of Ben’s murder.’
Perhaps, on the present evidence, they will, thought Miss Dimont. And then where will we be?
*
Friday was the day of rest and recuperation at the Riviera Express. Expenses forms were filled in, cups of tea consumed, plans made for the weekend. Usually the editor came in for an hour and then adjourned to the Conservative Club to discuss matters with the town’s elders – matters of such importance they would never appear in the newspaper.
It was a day for catching up – there was always an encouraging clatter of typewriters but the effort expended this morning was in pursuit of informing loved ones of the latest goings-on in Temple Regis. Telephone calls were viewed as something of a luxury, wasteful even – and anyway typing a letter made it look as though you were working.
Some of the early pages for next week’s paper were already being prepared – women’s feature material, village correspondents’ notes, and other timeless jumble were collated and dispatched into the system. Athene Madrigale who doubled as Aunty Jill, the children’s page editor (though she never admitted it), had just signed off the Birthday of the Week – a celebration of the life of a joyless eight-year-old whose glowering features would dominate the page next week with an account of her recent triumph in the Methodist Church hula-hoop contest.