He got to his feet. From somewhere he scavenged a little dignity. ‘Then I’m sorry to have wasted your time.’
Stubborn, he was, I hated to see a frightened lad walk out of my door.
‘I can’t work unless the client levels with me.’
‘I’m sorry you think I’m not.’
‘Why pick on me, anyway?’
‘Your name was mentioned.’
Fame, by heaven. I watched him reach the door. I knew I should not let him walk through and out of my life. He reminded me of that solitary magpie, alone in a cold expanse of snow.
‘Who’d mention my name?’
‘She married again, Myra Gaines. Her husband, it was, who told me. His name’s Carter Finn.’
I prised the door handle out of his fist, locked my hand on his shoulder, and got him back to his chair.
‘Have another biscuit. They won’t be on expenses.’
He smiled. The fear went from the hard line of his mouth. Tiny wrinkles flickered at the corner of his eyes.
‘That’s very good of you, Mr Mallin.’ He chose another biscuit. ‘Is there any more tea?’
I looked. And there was.
CHAPTER TWO
What had seemed like a good idea at three o’clock had lost its attraction by six. The dinner jacket was pressed and I’d steamed out the musty smell. But I was no longer keen on taking Elsa along. Suddenly I was on a case.
From the middle of Birmingham it is an hour’s run to Elsa’s place in Shropshire. The Porsche squeezed it down to forty-five minutes. In a few more days I would no longer be doing the journey, and it would be my place in Shropshire, or pretty nearly. So I drove through the gates with some pride.
You come out on a gravel drive in front of the wide portico, and the house broods over you with a few hundred years of history behind the ivy. I liked the view of the rolling hills from the rear. I was going to be very happy living there, once I’d got used to being deprived of my little flat.
I was still wondering how to put it when I let myself in. Elsa, I was certain, would be half-way down the staircase in something Parisian, and I’d have no excuse for failing to take her along. But there was no sign of her.
‘Elsa!’ I shouted.
It was Doris’s head that appeared over the rear hall balcony. Doris had been cook-housekeeper for unimagined years.
‘Will you come up, Mr Mallin?’
I went up. They were in the west-front bedroom, the one that’s furnished in grey and rose, the one that would be ours. It was chaos. Elsa’s hair was flying and she had that rapt, wild look in her eyes of intense concentration. Elsa had always been emotional. I think she would be incapable of doing anything without extracting from it every last vestige of its impact. She looked at me, brushing the hair from her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘Oh David—is it that time already?’
Her lips were dry. ‘I may be a little early.’
‘We’re up to our eyes in it here… really?’
They were only preparing for a wedding. As far as I could see, all it needed was a couple of cases packing for our fortnight in Majorca. I looked round, but I couldn’t see just what was causing the distress.
‘Perhaps I ought to give you a hand,’ I suggested.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Oh no. You keep out of it. We’ve got enough to contend with as it is.’
I smiled at Doris, who flexed her lips a little. Maybe Doris didn’t approve of Dave Mallin.
Still, it did look as though I’d got a let-out. I shrugged and slid out the cigarette case I use when I’m wearing the dress suit. ‘I don’t see where you’re finding difficulty. At my end it’s a reasonably sedate and controlled business.’
‘It would be,’ said Elsa. ‘You can’t imagine.’
Then she looked fiercely at Doris as much as to say: when’s he going to get out from underfoot?
‘So you don’t really want me around?’
‘Not if you’ve got anything else to do.’
I got out my casual smile and moved to the door. Elsa hadn’t been too keen on the agency idea. She had inferred that I’d soon become bored with the silly idea and agree to live quietly as a country gentleman. It was just that I was anxious to insert some minor degree of independence into our relationship. I wasn’t going to earn a fortune at it, but it’d keep me in pipe tobacco. There would be one small thing I wouldn’t have to take from Elsa.
‘I’m on a case,’ I said, casually enough.
‘David, you’re not!’ Somehow I’d expected some congratulation. All I got was her startled eyes and a voice of doom.
‘It may not come to anything.’
‘But now!’
Just because they were up to their eyes didn’t mean I had to sit and wait—did it? ‘Well… yes, now actually.’
‘David, how could you! It’s so inconvenient.’
There was a lot I’d got to learn, obviously. I looked to Doris for guidance. Doris was nodding her grey head in solemn disapproval, pursing her lips like a little volcano with runnels of wrinkles all round it. What’d I done?
‘I shan’t let it affect us.’
‘We’re getting married on Friday.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten.’ I tried a little smile, but it bounced off. ‘Friday I’ll leave free.’
‘As though I haven’t got enough to worry about!’
‘Now Elsa love, if it’s going to upset you…’
‘No.’ She pounced in, shaking her head until her hair flew. ‘No, no. If you must go on with these things, you must.’
‘There’s no must about it.’
‘And afterwards we shall be in Majorca.’
‘This case has waited for twelve years. It can wait another fortnight.’
She looked at me as though searching for the hidden insanity she’d previously missed, then she turned and flung herself at a suitcase on the bed, apparently unpacking in ten seconds what had taken an hour to place in there.
‘And then we’ll be back,’ she cried, ‘and it’ll still be there. You’ll go straight back to it. All through our honeymoon you’ll be brooding over it. Blaming me for keeping you away from it. I’d thought of us coming back here, and… well, settling in. You know…’
I looked in agony at her back, her slim waist, the agitation in the movement of her head.
‘Elsa—we’ve had all this over.’
‘But to start a case now!’
‘I’ll pack it in,’ I promised heavily.
She turned back to me. Her face was red, her lips full. ‘Oh no. You’re not going to have that to throw at me.’
Sometimes a little devil of anger stirs in Dave Mallin. It flickers up and engulfs him for a second, then it’s gone. But while it’s there it wreaks havoc.
‘I’ll bloody-well chuck it in,’ I said furiously. Then I turned and stalked out of there, and if she called after me I didn’t hear it because I made too much noise galloping down the stairs.
It was not the sane behaviour of a man a few days from his wedding. As I stabbed the Porsche’s engine into life, I was aware that I was going to regret it. All evening, until I’d sorted it out, I’d be miserable and deflated. My hand hovered over the ignition key. I looked up. If her face had only appeared at the window I’d have cut the engine. But the windows remained faceless. I spurted gravel all over the daffodils in the border and the wheels were spinning all down the drive, and I was out on the main road before I remembered that the windows of that particular bedroom were not visible from where I’d parked.
I had not been to The Beeches for over twelve years, but I remembered very well where it was, only seventeen miles from Elsa’s, across country. But it was dark all the way and all I saw of the countryside was a hedge in the outer reaches of each headlamp beam. There was no hurry because I’d come out of Elsa’s earlier than I’d expected. But all the same I hurried. I was hoping there would be something to eat at The Beeches. There hadn’t been anything digestible at Elsa’s.
T
he blue and gold sign flashed into the lights. ‘The Beeches.’ It could have been a hotel, a pub, a country residence. It had been a country residence when Neville Gaines was there—Myra Gaines’s house. For the first time I realized how close the situation was to my own with Elsa. In both cases the properties belonged to the woman, and in both cases the husband attempted to justify his existence with a residual occupation. In Gaines’s case it had been painting, a gentle, placid occupation, which had led him to extreme violence. My occupation wasn’t gentle, and I didn’t expect it to be placid. I hoped it would not lead to any sort of violence.
Twelve years before, I had driven Crowshaw up this drive in an Austin Cambridge. I could remember it well, well enough to realize that they had glossed it up a bit. Through the trees lining the drive, which were now cut back to remove the overpowering feeling of depression, I could see that they had floodlights on the house. As I swept round and clear of the trees the long terrace was in full view. The floods were crouched back on the limits of the terrace, bathing the noble front in orange light. It was a long, squat building in red stone, with castellations and turrets. There were columns ranged along the terrace, and a row of high windows leading out on to it. The house sparkled with light from every downstairs window. As I swung round beneath the terrace on smooth tarmac, I faintly heard music. There had not been this drive below the terrace. The original drive had led directly ahead and along the end of the house to the old stables, which, even twelve years before, had been garages. But now they’d got it laid out, in front of me a sign indicating that I should drive all the way round to the parking lot. I did.
The greenhouses were gone. There was a spread of asphalt bordered by solid fencing, and two small search lights on poles to give the impression that you left your car safely beneath their benign illumination. I backed in, and cut the engine. Then I got out and had a quiet look round, because I hadn’t detected anybody watching me. Which was suspicious in itself at a Carter Finn establishment.
It was early, but there were about fifty cars there, mostly in the luxury class. I saw a 3 litre Rover automatic in grey that I thought might be Finn’s. It was splendidly polished. Two cars away was tucked-in a red Mini with matt black patches. He’d beaten me to it.
Over to one side, leaning against the rear of the house, was the conservatory that Gaines had used as a studio. There was light in it.
I looked round and located the sign that said entrance, climbed half a dozen steps, and was inside the club.
What I had in mind, around that time, was to find Paul Hutchinson and tell him it was off. Then find a phone and call Elsa and discover whether that was still on. Because I was thinking of these things I smiled before I recognised the man walking towards me in a dress jacket that shone like a suit of armour. He touched his fingertips delicately together. Sandy eyebrows were raised in polite enquiry. This was Feeney Keston, last sent down for eight years for robbery with violence, now respectable and suave, but judging by his eyes still completely vicious.
‘Good evening, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s a very fine evening.’ His eyes were flickering over me, searching for the elusive memory.
I said: ‘David Mallin. Honorary member.’
Something related to shock stiffened his jaw. His cold eyes told me to wait. He disappeared inside a cubicle. In half a minute he was out. One of his ears was pink.
‘Just go right in, Mr Mallin. On the house.’
I grinned at his pain; it must have cost him a lot to be so polite.
I pressed open a pair of plate glass doors and found myself at one end of what seemed like a wide corridor. Deep and placid red carpeting ran away from me invitingly. The light was subdued; it oozed rather than shone from the ceiling. Then I saw that it was not a corridor but a raised extension of the rooms to the right, which were three steps down and entered by way of a series of arches. Each archway had heavy plush curtains curtseying back to the pull of silken cords. There was the gentle sound of music.
I approached the first archway and discovered the ballroom. The tall windows on to the terrace faced me. Tables were spread around the outskirts and waiters moved discreetly amongst them, one of them coming up the steps towards me and smiling in polite apology as he brushed past, all the world as though he was as used to the tray in his fingers as a switch knife. There was a South American band on a dais at the end, at this early hour only toying with it.
I looked after the waiter, then followed him. A double curtain, then abruptly the corridor became a long bar running all the way along one side of the building. It glittered. The carpet became grey and the walls maroon, and smoke. Light caught the multi-coloured fluid in a thousand bottles and sprayed it into the tinkling atmosphere. Low conversation and delicate laughter issued from the few people at the bar.
I bought myself a scotch, and saw nobody interesting. Only Troy. Right at the end, he was, wedged between the extreme edge of his stool and the corner of the bar, nursing three tall glasses and some private hatred that I hoped was not directed towards me. He was wearing a plum-coloured dress jacket with black lapels and a shirt with a lot of lace down the front. Very fancy. I hoped the gun wouldn’t smear his frills with oil.
When the man brought my drink I asked him if I could get anything to eat around there. ‘There’s the Grill Room, sir.’ I nodded. It was comforting.
I wandered along the bar with my drink and saw that the archways here opened on to the gaming room. Lower, shaded and frilled lights cast a romantic glow on the discreet hum and clatter of the wheels and the croupiers’ ‘rien ne vas plus’, all very continental and impressive if one of them hadn’t been Harry Klein, late of Tipton, and later of Winson Green prison.
‘Quiet tonight.’ I was standing next to Troy.
His eyes came into focus. ‘Staying long, Mr Mallin?’
I’d been quite friendly about it. There was absolutely no cause for the distrust in his voice. ‘I may be.’
‘Then later, if there’s time…’ His mouth fought for it but didn’t quite achieve a smile, ‘…a game of chess?’ And he produced a pocket set from somewhere inside with his gun.
The poor devil was bored. I laughed, ran a finger down behind his lapel. ‘Sorry, I don’t play. Too deep for me.’
He was lost again, bereft. I left him to his sorrow, stepped down on to the gaming floor, and watched idly as somebody in a grubby old smoking jacket lost £100 on 23. I’m not a gaming man. I don’t believe in luck. I never take chances, and sure enough I never win. I winked at Harry Klein. He almost choked over ‘faites vos jeux’. He called it fate.
But I had spotted a sign that said Grill Room.
Yet I was sure I’d appreciate much more fully the delights that awaited me in there once I’d spoken to Paul and told him it was all off. At the far end of the gaming room there was a wall consisting almost entirely of glass, and beyond it an unearthly glow. The conservatory, that must be. As it was the only place, apart from the Grill, that I hadn’t been, I looked. He was there all right.
They had extended it and lighted it discreetly so that it provided a restful retreat for persons such as Smoking Jacket who’d just flipped their last hundred down the drain. Greenery curled and looped, and a monstera scared me a little. The smell was hot and fleshy. Paul was kissing a girl where the fronds hid most of the action except the fact that he’d got his hand where a hand only gets after the kissing has been going on for some time—and was likely to continue. I withdrew.
She had been wearing a gold sheath dress and tights and a nice little watch.
I climbed five steps into the Grill. It was nearly empty. Tiny tables swam in a red glow so dim you could barely reach them. My steak and mushrooms were so expensive that I passed up the french fries, and when I clicked my lighter for a few breaths of tobacco until it came, the flash nearly blinded me in the gloom.
The steak was rare. I could tell that the moment my knife parted the surface. How it tasted I never found out.
A voice at my elbow said
: ‘Mrs Finn will see you now, sir. If you’ll just follow me.’
He had a short jacket and a waist like a young girl, and he was bald. I looked in despair at my plate.
‘Now?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
‘And what if I do?’
Such an eventuality had never sullied his mind. Harsh reality tortured his face. ‘Sir?’
Madam was waiting. To hell with food. I stood up. He relaxed, and his life slumped down into its placid groove.
There was a felt-lined door off the gaming room, and suddenly we were in the morose and echoing hall. Stairs mounted in triumph from the centre, the balustrades in hand-carved oak. They spread out at the top in both directions along a balcony. We went left. The carpeting pressed aside to let me through. There was no sound.
‘In here, sir,’ he said, and opened a door without, as far as I could see, touching it. I went in there.
It seemed I was in their private lounge.
For one thing, I had had no intention of seeing Myra Finn. For another, I wasn’t keen on Myra Finn sending for me. After all, she wasn’t even paying me. So all in all I was in no mood for pleasantries.
When she had been Myra Gaines I had seen her only a couple of times. She had then been getting on for thirty. Say forty to forty-two now. I was looking at a woman I’d have said was thirty-five, eager, alive—and welcoming.
She was slim, dressed very simply, but obviously with the intention—the habit—of circulating with the customers. Her dress was so simple they’d never be able to reproduce it, and she had a small diamond and turquoise brooch just over her left breast. There was a single gold band round her wrist, a wedding ring, no more jewellery than that. Her hair was worn high, with touches of grey in the chestnut. Maybe she’d put them in there for dignity’s sake. She came towards me smiling, one slim hand extended, and her face was alive. There were fine planes between her jaw and her eyes, high cheekbones, and a straight nose. But it was her eyes that caught and held me, wide brown eyes with gold flecks and some hint of mischief, shared illicit joy… I don’t know. But she knew I was there. She knew and was glad I was there. I was made aware of it, and should have been warmed by the experience.
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