by TP Fielden
‘How’s the supper coming along?’
‘I think you’ll be quite thrilled by my culinary skills.’
‘Will I?’ said Judy, and smiled at him. He really was very handsome.
‘Are we going to talk about this murder tomfoolery, or are we awaiting Miss Hedley before we get stuck in?’ asked Valentine. He suddenly seemed a trifle nervous.
‘She’ll be along in a quarter of an hour; I looked in on my way here. She had to wait for a delivery.’
‘Good. Have another?’
‘No thank you, Valentine.’
‘Well, I will, there’s something I wanted to tell you.’ He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with an over-full glass.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t know quite how to say this but …’
Miss Dimont caught the look in his eye. ‘Then, Valentine, don’t say it.’
‘I will, I will.’ He took a slug of whisky and she wondered for a moment if it was neat. ‘What I’m trying to say …’
‘I know what you’re trying to say,’ said Judy. ‘And it is very flattering, Sir Valentine. But please don’t.’
‘Let me put it in the abstract then,’ he went on determinedly. ‘Young chap grows up, lonely life, not much love about the place, if any. Wonderful aunt takes him in and makes life fun, but still, because of the unusual circs perhaps, he still feels very lonely. Chap tries to counteract it by going into the Army and being amongst the jolly chaps. It works, up to a point, but not really – the moment he comes out, it’s the same as before. Something terribly missing.
‘Then he goes somewhere – somewhere a bit like this, actually.’ He looked at her with his grey eyes and smiled. ‘And then everything’s suddenly all right. In fact, not all right, but amazing.’
‘The sea air down here does wonders.’
‘It certainly does. But not only that – not even that. Chap suddenly finds the most remarkable person he has ever encountered – someone so dazzlingly gifted, and brave, and clever. And beautiful.’
‘Valentine.’
‘No, I will say it. Judy – Huguette – I’ve fallen in love with you.’
‘No you haven’t.’
‘I really have. Really I have. I can’t begin to tell you …’
‘Then don’t. Let’s talk about something else. The detection of murder. Assisting aged police officers across the street. That’s what we should be concentrating on.’
‘May I kiss you?’
‘You may not.’
‘I must.’
‘No, Valentine, no! And if you want to carry on working with me, don’t ask again. Now what are we going to discuss with Auriol?’
‘Let me tell you about Boots McGuigan.’ He was not in the slightest dismayed. ‘Darling …’
They were talking about McGuigan’s links to both Larsson and Faye Addams when Auriol slipped in: ‘Door was open, hello, Valentine!’
‘Wasn’t the Boots man,’ said Judy to Auriol, over Valentine’s shoulder.
‘Whoever thought it was?’ Auriol was irritating like that, she always seemed to imply in retrospect that she was right, even if she hadn’t ever voiced aloud her thoughts. Clearly, only an idiot could ever have entertained the idea that McGuigan was a murderer.
All three agreed to draw a veil over the supper which followed but then such occasions are not only about food; the wine and conversation anchored them to the small pine table long after the memory of Valentine’s Spag Bol à la Waterford, an emergency replacement for the abandoned casserole, had evaporated. As Judy made the coffee Auriol interested herself in the host’s social life.
‘All these invitations on your mantelpiece – they’re from London and the Home Counties. Do they expect you to drive up there every other day of the week?’
‘They just like to have my name on the invitation list.’
‘I expect they’d probably like you to pop along and propose marriage to one of their daughters,’ said Auriol shrewdly.
‘I expect so,’ sighed Valentine. ‘That’s why I don’t go. Though I’m tagging along to one tomorrow, it’s only up the road in Gloucestershire. One of my cousins is …’
‘Ah yes,’ sang Judy, bearing in the coffee pot and a collection of cracked china. ‘The Waterfords. Big family.’
‘In that tiny little bubble car?’ asked Auriol.
‘Only two or three hours if you put your foot down.’
The talk, which had circled around the two murders, turned to the future of Rudyard Rhys.
‘Can’t see how he can go on at the Express,’ said Auriol. ‘Honestly, Hugue, he is so incompetent. And dictatorial. And the decisions he takes – when he takes them, that is – always the wrong ones!’
‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Dimont, kindly, ‘I’ve got used to it.’
‘You’d make a much better editor,’ said Valentine. ‘Clear-sighted is what you are. I had a captain in the Army just like that – always knew which way to jump in an emergency – one learns so much by example.’
‘Have you been learning, by example, from Hugue?’ asked Auriol, teasingly.
‘A great deal,’ said the young man, his gaze lingering a little too long on his chief reporter. It was not lost on the other guest.
Just then the telephone rang and Valentine went off to answer it.
‘Hugue, I do believe that boy’s in love with you.’
‘Yes,’ sighed Miss Dimont, ‘he certainly thinks he is.’
‘Same thing then.’
‘Not quite sure what to do about it,’ said Judy. ‘Going to be difficult in the office if he keeps up this sort of thing.’
‘Banish him to the backwoods, then, if you’re not going to take him home. The air in Newton Abbot is magnificent at this time of year, I believe.’
‘What a cruel thought. Anyway it’s not a decision I can take. That’s up to Mr Rhys.’
‘He is awfully sweet.’
‘He’s a child, Auriol. I’m nearly fifty and he’s still talking about short trousers.’
‘And very handsome.’
‘Look,’ said Judy, lowering her voice. ‘Of course he is. Of course! But, Auriol, doesn’t he remind you of someone? Doesn’t he remind you of Eric?’
‘My brother didn’t have hair like that.’
‘For heaven’s sake! Look at him – he’s got the same questing spirit, the same untamed intelligence, the same sort of courage and devil-may-care that Eric had … When I sat at home the other night with Mulligatawny, I was looking up at Eric’s photo on the mantelpiece, and just for a moment I saw the face of this young man.’
‘Ah,’ said Auriol, and wrinkled her eyes at her friend.
‘No, Auriol, no! I have the power to resist – besides, think how foolish the whole thing would be. Furthermore,’ she added, not quite sure how far to go in sharing her secrets with dead Eric’s sister, ‘I’ve rather taken a shine to someone.’
‘Really?’
‘The captain of a trawler. I know,’ she added hastily, ‘not what you might expect, but he is rather magnificent in his way.’
Auriol was far more intrigued by the boy and his unusual love, though, and the conversation passed quickly on.
TWENTY-FIVE
The vestry of St Margaret’s looked particularly dreary with the sun shining through its lattice windows, casting shadows on the unswept floor and highlighting the choir’s threadbare surplices. Next door, the chancel was alive with colour, its brass and silver and oak shining transcendently, but the back room was a place of gloom scented by old peppermints and floor wax.
The people gathered around the small oak table looked as dingy as their surroundings yet, if you were to believe the newspapers, they were the flower of Devon’s youth, the most beauteous creatures God’s own county had ever created. They hunched moodily over their cups of tea and sucked biscuits.
‘So just remember,’ ordered Cyril Normandy, lighting up a fat cigar which somehow seemed sacrilegious in the present surroundings, ‘no more t
alking to the press. And if the police come sniffing around, you refer them to me. This is just an isolated incident of no real importance and …’
‘Go on, Cyril, you’ll be saying that Adolf Hitler was a lovely fellow next,’ chipped in Molly Churchstow. ‘For heaven’s sake! She may not have been one of us, but that girl Faye was a human being after all. She deserves a bit more respect than that.’
Normandy didn’t even look at her but addressed the small group with his arms held wide. ‘What do we care about?’ he asked genially, ‘what do we really care about? Do we want to become queen of this jolly old Riviera with a chance to move on to the semi-finals of Miss Great Britain? Or do we want to sit around here moping about a poor girl who met with an unfortunate accident? Telling tales and causing trouble – really! The show must go on!’
‘Not exactly an accident, was it, Mr Normandy?’ said Eve Berry, who normally watched her ps and qs. ‘She was murdered. Who’s to say one of us here won’t be next? You read all the time about these men with a yen for dead blondes.’
‘Well, you should be safe then,’ mocked Normandy, pointing at the dark roots emerging from Eve’s scalp. ‘Not quite the flaxen filly today, Eve!’
The reigning Miss Exmouth blushed angrily but said no more.
‘Look,’ said Normandy, ‘we have no idea who killed Faye or why. It was just a …’ he struggled to find the word ‘. . . a random attack. Some nutcase! She was probably taking a stroll on the beach when …’
‘Expensive girl like that only strolls down Bond Street,’ snapped Molly, who might know Paignton Beach well but would need a map to find her way round Mayfair. ‘Strolling? On that beach? In a dress? I don’t think so!’
Cyril Normandy didn’t like his girls to think, they were there to ease a sore eye or two and to make him bundles of cash, nothing more. ‘Shut up, Molly,’ he barked. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. You hardly knew the girl.’
‘Ah, but you did, didn’t you, Mr Normandy?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I saw you and her. I saw you when you—’
‘Shut up!’ snapped Normandy. ‘You saw nothing of the kind. You say anything more like that and I’ll kick you out of the pageant – there are a million girls, you know, ready and willing to take your place.’
‘Not a million girls with ones like these.’ She gave a sardonic smile and stuck out her chest. ‘That’s why you always put me at the front in the publicity pictures, isn’t it, Mr Normandy?’
The other girls looked sour and stared into their teacups. They weren’t being paid to be here, why were they wasting their time?
‘I’ve called you here because I’ve decided there’s going to be an extra heat in the competition,’ announced Cyril. ‘We need to budge people’s imaginations away from Faye Addams. I’m going to call it the Goddess of the Riviera, and you can all be here next Saturday.’
‘Expenses?’ came the chorus.
‘Double expenses,’ said Cyril magnificently, and re-lit his fat cigar. ‘Let’s just remind everybody how beautiful Devon girls can be.’
‘And forget about how Faye was fixed up to win the next round,’ whispered Molly.
The girls were getting restless. Their attention span was short and Normandy had made his point – keep your traps shut, keep smiling. He got up from the table, brushing cigar ash from his shirt front, and the queens, there being no servants or footmen around to do it for them, picked up the cups and took them over to the sink.
‘I’ll have a word with you, Molly,’ said Normandy menacingly. She knew he wanted to talk about her seeing him pawing Faye Addams.
‘I’m off now,’ she said, skipping towards the vestry door. ‘Got to get the bus back to work.’
As she reached for the heavy iron handle it turned, and the door opened.
‘Ah,’ said a commanding voice from outside, ‘just in time. Would you all mind resuming your seats?’
‘’Oo the ell are you?’ demanded Normandy.
‘I think we’ve met, Mr Normandy, the name’s Judy Dimont, chief reporter of the Riviera Express.’
The impresario eyed the new arrival up and down. She was clearly not his kind of woman: wrong age, wrong hair colour, haphazardly dressed and buzzing with a visible intelligence. He disliked her on sight.
‘This is a private meeting. Would you mind making an appointment with my secretary? We’re here to discuss strategy and that is not a matter for the public prints.’
‘Come off it, Mr Normandy,’ said Judy in jollying fashion, ‘it’s just you and this group of nice young ladies having a cup of tea. Don’t you want me to write anything nice about Miss English Riviera?’
‘All publicity is most welcome,’ said Normandy quickly, for though he was rattled by the interruption he knew on which side his bread was buttered. The Express had been lavish in its spreads and layouts and hadn’t the editor been ever so accommodating in agreeing not to mention Faye Addams’ name in connection with the pageant? Though, of course, thanks to these stupid girls it had got out anyway.
‘I know Mr Rhys,’ said Normandy in patronising tones, ‘your editor.’ Meaning, Push off or I’ll telephone him.
‘So do I,’ Judy replied, smiling sweetly – meaning, That won’t save you from what’s coming next.
‘What d’you want?’
‘I’m glad to find you all here because I’m writing a big feature about the future of beauty pageants, in the light of the attack in Paignton and the murder of one of your contestants.’
This caught the attention of the gathered beauty queens – anything that was written about them was of interest, especially if accompanied by a photograph they could cut out and keep.
‘These girls are all pretty shy, they don’t like talking to the press. They’re busy people, they’ve all got appointments, so shortly I shall be letting them get along. You can get all you need from me.’ Normandy smelt danger in a newspaper feature about dead beauty queens.
‘Ladies, are you in a hurry?’ asked Judy sweetly. She was gratified by their happy demur.
‘I’d like to ask you some questions, Mr Normandy, but let the girls speak first.’ Their combined majesties nodded approval and the fat man sat down in disgust. Showing a united front was good for business and he couldn’t be seen publicly to be bullying his girls, no matter what happened in private.
‘Ladies, tell me first, do any of you know Boots McGuigan, one of the beat group playing at the Pavilion?’
‘Of course we do,’ said Eve. ‘By reputation anyway. Faye’s boyfriend.’
‘Did any of you ever see him? Did he come to any of the heats?’
Like a wheat field being tossed by a sou’westerly there was a gentle shaking of blonde tresses. With only a few more questions, Miss Dimont had established what she needed to know: that the musician had never been seen in Faye’s company, and his claim that he did not know his sweetheart had arrived in Temple Regis seemed to stand up. Faye had spent all her time since her arrival in town in the company of the other girls and, as Molly did not hesitate to point out, Cyril Normandy.
‘Was she a special friend, Mr Normandy?’
The fat man did not like having his impartiality questioned. ‘She was a contestant like all these girls,’ he huffed.
‘Not quite,’ said Molly defiantly. The other girls’ eyes widened.
‘What do you mean?’
‘My dad’s a greengrocer,’ said Molly. ‘He don’t stand in the shop pawing the fruit.’
‘Shuddup,’ snapped Normandy.
‘But Mr Normandy doesn’t mind ’elpin’ himself to a peach when he wants one,’ continued Molly. ‘He don’t bother with us girls, but this fancy piece he brought down from London, that was different.’
The queens were appalled by their friend’s candour. Molly was rapidly talking her way out of any further participation in the pageant – there would be plenty of candidates ready to take her place. That was always the threat, that was why
they did all this for no money and for pitiful expenses – they were on the very brink of fame, and they were paying the price by making Normandy rich and themselves even poorer.
‘Yes,’ said Molly, her bridges burning magnificently, ‘he had a bite or two of that peach, believe you me! And I shouldn’t wonder that he told her she’d win the Riviera crown and go on to Miss Great Britain. Yes, maybe Miss World, who knows? He’s a nasty one, that!’
Normandy, so powerful when left in sole charge of his hen coop, suddenly seemed completely deflated. Even if only temporarily, his girls had shifted their allegiance to this dumpy-looking reporter in her trench coat and glasses, and the game was up: there were too many secrets the girls knew. He could only hope they’d remember in time on which side their bread was buttered.
‘I think you have just resigned your title of Miss Paignton, have you not, Molly?’ he hissed, but the queen of that ancient place of pleasure wasn’t listening.
‘I saw them in the changing room,’ she went on to Miss Dimont. ‘They’d obviously had a row, don’t know what about. But she told him – I heard her say it – “You wait till I get back to London, I’ve got a friend who’s a reporter.”’
‘Did she say that?’ said Miss Dimont sharply to Normandy.
‘What if she did? That’s private,’ huffed the fat man.
‘He was really mad and he was threatening her,’ went on Molly resolutely, ‘like the bully he is.’ The other girls couldn’t believe how foolhardy she’d suddenly become. ‘And I’ll say this now – when I heard she was dead I thought, well old Normandy won’t mind. Whatever trouble she was going to bring ’im ain’t going to happen now.’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Miss Dimont, pushing her glasses up her nose.
‘Look at ’im! ’E’s not a very nice man! ’E’s a cheat and a fraud and these pageants are all a fix. ’E drinks champagne and drives round in a huge car and ’e doesn’t give a damn about us. If Faye Addams was going to the newspapers to say that he’d make her the Riviera Queen in return for a little what-ya-ma-call-it, I wouldn’t put it past ’im to get rid of ’er. I wouldn’t! There!’