Rick dabbed at the mark on Frank’s red face, threw away the paper towel. There were plenty of those for the price of a pint. Too early in the evening yet for this place to stink of misdirected pee. Frank had a penis the size of a stub and managed to pee like a horse. Possibly the only time the bloody thing grew. Rick was well hung, better than a donkey, but he could keep his own pee pees inside for hours and hours. The result of long hours of surveillance, he’d told Frank, and Frank, bless him, believed.
‘OK, Frank. So you thought she was the long-lost daughter who’d read a newspaper and come to claim. Bollocks, old son. With respect. Why wasn’t she just a bird, wandering up and down, early for something? Going out with some bloke in there, been stood up, whatever? What made you think she was anything to do with anything? What made you see red and hit her?’
‘It was the way she walked,’ Frank said. ‘She looked like she owned the fucking world. Like Marianne did. I knew it was her. I thought, that’s the bitch who thinks she’s going to inherit. It was the way she looked. She was hanging around outside there, like she didn’t know whether she should go in or not. I’d seen Thomas, looking out of the window, like he was waiting for someone. Then he went away and then she came. I thought, you’re coming to claim. You’re coming to claim. And then she seemed to know I was there. She turned round and came straight towards me. Like she was going to tell me to fuck off. Like women do. I lost it.’
Rick Boyd smiled. Don’t tell the man that you had never quite let him out of your sight in three days. That you did not trust him to make a meeting in a cosy pub deliberately chosen for being out of his territory and closer to your own. Suggested also because its persuasively dark interior and proximity to the lowering buildings of the Law Courts made it an ideal place to sit Frank Shearer down again and feed his growing paranoia. Don’t tell him how you yourself had stood well back and watched the man make a complete ass of himself in a full scale explosion of stupid violence. The paranoia had already taken hold. Made him make connections where there were none. Don’t say, look mate, if you’re going to hurt someone, make sure it hurts bad and make sure it makes you happy. No point hurting anyone unless you enjoy it. Even better if they enjoy it too. Even less point if you come off worse. What a fucking idiot Frank Shearer was, but a rich, delusional idiot, sublimely suggestible and with very useful propensities if used as a weapon. He could certainly pack a punch if only he could aim right. A heat-seeking missile, fuelled by a serious hatred of women. Rick could take a bet that this wasn’t the first time Frank had had his face scratched. Probably couldn’t get it up, blamed everything on them, although the way Frank told it, they were all gagging for him. Or they would be, when he was rich.
‘The bitch,’ Rick said. ‘What a bitch. How old was she, would you say, Frank?’
‘I don’t know. Not a kid, a young laydeee.’
He spat the last word. Lady Muck. He still smelt, slightly; still belligerent from the drink at lunchtime. Better cut this down, Rick thought; otherwise he’ll lose the job, and don’t want that, not yet. Got to get him to pledge me at least ten thousand to find this daughter or son and get rid. He’s got to believe I can do that. Or believe he can. Or I can point him in the direction he’s already taken. Use him to get that bitch. Oh shit, I can’t believe this. Too good to be true, what else can I get him to do? His voice was soothing.
‘Only, if she did happen to be Marianne’s bastard, she wouldn’t be that young, would she? Because Marianne would have been a kid herself when she had it. So it’s got to be thirty, I reckon. Plenty of boys and girls of that age knocking around, pacing up and down, whatever. So why the fuck did you leap to the amazing conclusion that this was It? Why was this one a bigger threat than any other bitch?’
‘It was the way she walked,’ Frank said stubbornly, sensing criticism and ready to cry again. ‘And because she was there.’ He was snivelling now. ‘And ’cos she came straight for me.’
Rick wanted a drink, very badly. Patted Frank down like a good old friend who could never doubt him.
‘We’ll check it out, Frank. Told you I’ve got all the contacts. I’m nearly there. Never mind. I reckon she deserved a slapping, whoever she was. We’ll find her. We’ll sort her out.’
‘She pushed dog shit in my face,’ Frank said. ‘No one does that to me.’
‘There are different ways to connect, Frank.’
Rick really could have laughed, but that would have been unkind. God was sometimes good, but Christ, he worked in mysterious ways.
Peter Friel was finding it very difficult to see a connection between the man he faced and the woman he had known. Abrasive, aggressive, throaty-voiced, harsh-mannered, wily Marianne Shearer was so vulgar in her naked ambition that her sheer physical presence pushed one aside. She could spit contempt without actually spitting, while this old man was softly spoken, mellow, almost deferential in his guarded politeness and it was difficult to see what they might have had in common, apart from the attraction of opposites. He had the feeling that Stanton, QC, otherwise known as the Lover, would have loathed Shearer in an ordinary social context, would not be seen dead with her, despite the flattery of her being so much younger. He might have been ashamed of her had she been his daughter. What the hell was this paragon doing with a middle-aged harridan like Marianne Shearer and her plain, pug face? Old habits dying hard? Her availability, their athleticism, mutual sexual peccadilloes or what? Peter tried not to let his own speculations surface, although he did not resist a tendency to stare. Distracting himself from the scrutiny to which he himself was being subjected was not so difficult. He was sitting in a room he would remember for ever, at the end of a long day of visual feasts. He was in a world apart, sitting in a parallel universe. Peter found he was memorising details to pass on to Hen, and to Thomas. It was indeed cruel of the Lover to deny Thomas the sight of this room. Thomas would ache for it.
The Lover’s top floor apartment was safely within the confines of Lincoln’s Inn itself, set off to the side away from the main square, overlooking a courtyard thoroughfare on one side and Chancery Lane on the other, as if it formed a boundary between two worlds. How he had come by this and managed to keep it away from the grasp of all those lawyers greedy for priceless office space in this precious square mile was something Peter could not comprehend, but every one of the Inns of Court had leasehold anomalies and hidden gems guarded by old or privileged retainers. The three gates to Lincoln’s Inn were locked at night with massive doors. There were smaller doors contained in the larger doors for keyholders only. The idea of stepping through a door within a door had always delighted Peter, and now he felt he stepped through another door beyond. The Lover could look down into the courtyard and see the lights in the warren of offices go out, one by one, until only the ancient lamp lights were left. No one would see him looking. No one would see who came in with their own key. An excellent trysting place.
‘Excuse me, sir, I’m a little overwhelmed. It’s odd to be inside a place . . . so unusual. I’ve passed through a hundred times and never realised that anyone lived here at all.’
‘I don’t live here,’ the Lover said. ‘I live at home. In a large house, with an exacting, extended, adorable family whose admiration I wish to keep. My family has its squalid side, as in arguments, tragedies, noise, utilitarian architecture and the unattractive machinery of everyday life. I detest everyday life. You don’t need to know where I actually live.’
‘No, sir, I don’t.’
‘Good. I’ve come here, at least once a week for more years than I can remember, at first when I still worked, and later, gratefully, for the hell of it. Officially, I stay overnight for the committee meetings I still attend. Once you’ve finished looking at everything, perhaps we could get on to the matter in hand. I promise you there’s nothing more than you can see.’
A large, low-ceilinged room, spanning the top of the building, windows each end. An open door to a small bedroom with a huge Biedermeier bed, dressed in cream linen.
An upright wardrobe in walnut, the contours framed in black. On the far side of the main room, a kitchen area rather than a kitchen, and, naked to the eye, a splendid bath half hidden by a painted screen. No modern planning permission would allow for any of it.
‘I understand the need for privacy, sir. I’m not Marianne Shearer’s executor. That’s Thomas Noble. I don’t have any obligation to reveal anything, nor inclination either. But I do have a job to do that she herself seems to have set out for me, which is to find out why such a woman took her own life and where she left her personal possessions. Including her instructions, her wishes, her clothes, her computer, her records of work and her phone. I was hoping you could help me. Mr Noble was hoping you would be the custodian of it all. My personal curiosity’s another matter and believe me, I’ve plenty of that. She was kind to me, once. I know what she was wearing when she died and I know all about her last case. None of that gives me an excuse to pry into how you live.’
‘No, it doesn’t. I suppose she broke every bone in her body on the way down from the sixth floor? The very least I’d have expected of her. Thorough. Death with a degree of style. Her own timing, but what a mess she must have made on the pavement. At least she avoided the tree, that would have been extremely undignified. Do you think she arranged the photographer in advance? He would have taken better pictures if she had. I wish she’d asked me. I could have told her exactly what to wear. I did wonder if that skirt was supposed to break the fall. Pity, it was one of my favourites. Also hers.’
Peter looked down at his own feet, planted on an exquisite carpet which covered half of the fine wood floor. Either old or reclaimed. There was another carpet hanging on the wall behind him, gilt mirrors on the walls either side, the constant risk of seeing himself, and the apartment, reflected. It was like a room from a small palace or a bijou hotel in Venice, requiring invisible servants of the utmost discretion or none at all. He wondered, like the pedant he felt, who kept it clean.
‘I could probably get you the Pathologist’s report in advance of the inquest if you want to know the details,’ he said carefully, reading an expression of sheer distaste on the Lover’s face. ‘I don’t know what was fractured on impact. You may be right, perhaps everything dissolved. I can only tell you there was very little blood on the skirt she wore. She upholstered it from the inside. Most of the bleeding was from the head, as far as I know. She died on impact.’
The Lover waved his hand dismissively, as if to say he was not really that curious. Peter could suddenly see what the two of them had had in common, which was a merciless objectivity that left no room for sentiment. Neither would have any time to waste on pity.
The Lover adjusted himself in his winged armchair, tapping his elegant fingers on the angled wings of the arms. The whole room was a poem of wood, fabric and mirrors. Oak floors, deco panellings. The owner of it was in love with another era and another way of living, but not entirely ruled by it. There were touches of modernity, in the form of a small but elaborate sound system, and the blessing of comfortable heating. What was certain was the old man was not wedded to the decade or year in which he lived now. In manners, dress and attitude, he belonged elsewhere. When he smiled he was powerfully attractive, an old rogue of a beast. It was equally clear to Peter that he himself had somehow passed a test, and the Lover wanted an audience.
‘This place,’ he said, ‘is a respite from the ugliness outside. I have an aversion to ugliness. I missed my real vocation, which was to design clothes for beautiful bodies. Preferably for androgynous yet feminine bodies like Marianne’s, but there was precious little scope for that when I was first apprenticed as a mere boy to Hartnell. Ghastly economy clothing and no sign of it ending, then. So I took to the Law, devoted my life to another kind of ugliness. Disputes about patents, designs, ephemera, the protection of same. I hate cheap, I was inordinately well paid. I always knew when something was original and authentic.’
Peter picked up the crystal glass which stood on a small rosewood table by his chair. He wanted to hold it up to the light to see the colour of the pale wine reflected in one of the mirrors. Instead, he sipped.
‘She liked Sauvignon best, lately,’ the Lover said, noticing. ‘As long as it did not come from New Zealand. In some things she had very little taste, as well as quite unreasonable prejudice.’
There was nothing unharmonious in this room, Peter was thinking. Maybe Marianne Shearer, visiting mistress, was allowed to bring a little of the ugliness of her own world, simply by way of contrast. No new object here, except the CD player, and over there the fridge, hidden by another screen. Peter presumed that the lavatory, hidden behind the only door, worked perfectly.
‘If you can’t tell me anything about how Marianne died, or where she hid her intentions, sir, perhaps I shouldn’t take up any more of your time.’
Peter felt a longing for anywhere else, a place of lesser perfection where people lived messier lives. He wanted to be in a fully functioning kitchen with children yelling offstage, and then felt guilty. He had no idea what this man’s life was like or what made him what he was. Perhaps Marianne did.
‘I quite understand if there’s no need to bother you further, but thank you for the wine and the sight of this room. If you ever look down, you might see me craning my neck upwards, wishing I could come back or tell someone about it.’
Stanton, QC, laughed softly, a wicked laugh. Peter remembered Marianne Shearer’s gaudy cackle. They would have made strange music together.
‘She told me you were a born diplomat,’ the Lover said. ‘She said you might have been an excellent liar, if only you’d tried. You aren’t her son by any chance, are you?’
Peter put the glass back on the table with great care. There was hardly a suitable reply.
‘I don’t think so, sir. I’m one of five, with marked resemblances to one another and to our parents. If there’s nothing else, perhaps I should go.’
‘One of five, are you? I have five. I made five. Such gorgeous creatures. Grandchildren, too. Hence mess, hence discretion.’
Peter got to his feet. He saw himself in one of the mirrors and heard Marianne laughing.
‘Please stay,’ the Lover said. ‘Please stay.’
He swallowed.
‘I need you for a while. Please stay.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Lover turned on the music. The sound of it drifted round the corners of the room. He sat centre stage and softly lit.
‘I met Marianne when she was very young. Still a student, young and raw and looking for a place.’
Peter was calculating. Perhaps forty-five to her twenty, something like that. Miss Shearer, drawn to an older man.
‘She was allocated to be my pupil. I gather you were once hers. One hopes she behaved better towards you. We slept together, which is a polite way of putting it, since we never actually slept. It was deliciously incestuous; she was the same age as my eldest daughter and quite irresistible in her naive belief that screwing senior men was a short cut to influence rather than ridicule. Women were still called chicks in those days. She was an ugly minx, so ambitious she shone with it like the grease on her skin, nothing she would not do. Poor creature: all we men wanted was an extra orifice, an extra mouth when our wives – my second wife by then – were busy with our children. She said it was love. I said how can it be? She became a nuisance, I got her thrown out of our set of chambers. Told her crime would suit her better, because she would understand the tarts and the crooks. Still, there was a charm about her. She would never dress like anyone else.’
The Lover rose from his chair and refilled the wine glasses with a flourish. He detoured towards the CD player and altered the volume to background noise only. Peter struggled to detect exactly what the music was.
‘Then she got pregnant and pretended it was mine, but I knew it wasn’t. I might have taken risks, but not that kind. I called her a liar. She went like a lamb. She knew she’d gone too far. A quiet termination and back to business
. She said, you wait, I’ll show you. I’m going to be big news, I’ll show you what I’m worth one day. Then she disappeared. I never asked where, never tried to find her, but I missed her.’
He smiled at memories. Peter did not.
‘I met her five years after I threw her out, walking through the Temple. She was as sleek as a seal with her hair cut in a cap, walking as if someone had trained her to dance. A grownup woman with success in her eyes, and she said how do I look, Lover boy, do you still not want me? I invited her here. She came in dressed in a real Lanvin evening jacket. High-necked, satin. Her mother or grandmother might have had such a thing. Held together by a single button, yellow silk, cross-cut, topstitched heavy-duty thing. Of course I wanted her.
‘It came to be a ritual. Every week, Miss Marianne Shearer came to this room where I take refuge, supposedly at the end of a day of my committee meetings. She dressed; she undressed. I am always besotted with beautiful clothes, while my dear wives never cared. She was the ideal model. She loved what I loved and I loved to dress her. She was the perfect shape, she could bend double, pliable as the cloth, and still, nothing she wouldn’t do, no position she could not reach. We would dress in our best; we would meet, undress, dress, eat a little, drink a little and dance to the light of the silvery moon. Where else is there to dance to the music of one’s choice? Away from all the ugliness, while each presents their best, their very best?’
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