Sweet Poison

by David Roberts

  He had found Hermione. She was hardly recognizable. Her dress, the same one she had been wearing at the Cocoanut Grove, was torn and smeared with what looked like excrement. But it was her face which gave him the greatest shock. It was very red and the flesh was swollen, particularly around her eyes which were closed. He gently raised one of her eyelids. The eyeball had rolled upwards giving her a blind look which was quite shocking. Her hair was matted and she was getting her breath only with great difficulty. It was this snorting which had first alerted him that the pile of rags hid a living thing. Cursing, he ran down the stairs two steps at a time. He found a telephone in the hallway but it was not working. He opened the front door, breathing the fresh air with huge relief. He ran across the road to the electric-blue door and hammered on it, blistering the paintwork. Mrs Watson opened the door to him, white as a sheet.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she cried, a hand at her throat. ‘Is someone dead?’

  ‘I have found my friend but she is very ill. I must use your telephone.’

  ‘I am afraid I don’t have one,’ Mrs Watson said apologetically. ‘Wait, my next-door neighbour does.’ In her slippers she ran outside and up the garden path of the next-door house. Her neighbour must have been disturbed by the commotion because she opened her door immediately.

  ‘Please – may I use your telephone? It’s an emergency,’ said Edward who had followed close on the old woman’s heels.

  The lady seemed too amazed to say anything but indicated the instrument sitting on the hall table. He dialled 999 and summoned an ambulance. He hesitated for a moment and then rang Whitehall 1212 and asked to speak to Inspector Pride. Luck was with him; the Inspector was just on his way out. There was a minute’s wait while Edward drummed his fingers on the table and the two women stared at him. Then he heard the Inspector’s dry voice: ‘Yes, what is it?’

  Inspector Pride listened silently to Edward’s story. ‘I’ll come at once,’ he said when he had finished.

  Edward mumbled his thanks to the two women and returned to the house and to Hermione. Bravely, Mrs Watson came after him. She cried out when she saw Hermione. Between them, they tried to make the girl a little more comfortable but Edward was frightened of doing more harm than good by moving her. He went back down the stairs to listen for the ambulance. Then it struck him that there might be others in this ghastly house. He looked into a filthy kitchen and then went upstairs again. Mrs Watson was crouched beside Hermione murmuring comfort and stroking her hand. Edward walked out into the passage and opened another door. There was a second bedroom and a bathroom. Both were empty but there were signs that someone had used the rooms quite recently. He noticed a safety razor in a pool of soapy water on the washbasin in the bathroom and several used syringes. He went downstairs again and as he did so noticed a door which he had overlooked when he had been downstairs before. He opened it. It was a lavatory and sitting upon the lavatory bowl was a young man in evening dress. He had not taken off his coat or trousers and Edward guessed that he had gone into the lavatory to hide though the smell suggested that, deliberately or not, his bowels had opened. One thing was quite evident, Charlie Lomax would never need to sell dope again because a knife through his chest skewered him to the wall.

  There was a sound of bells clanging as an ambulance and a police car arrived at the same time.

  10

  Monday Evening

  ‘How absolutely frightful,’ said Verity, pale of face. ‘Will she live?’

  ‘Touch and go,’ Edward answered. ‘Someone pumped her full of heroin and it will be a couple of days, apparently, before the doctors know.’

  ‘And her poor mother?’

  ‘She’s taken it hard, of course – won’t move from her bedside. Weaver’s been good too. He doesn’t pretend he got on with his stepdaughter but he definitely loves his wife and anything which hurts her, hurts him.’

  ‘That’s what makes it so odd about your girlfriend.’

  ‘What girlfriend?’

  ‘Amy Pageant. You had her down as Weaver’s mistress and every other capitalist tycoon I’m sure has a score of mistresses, but somehow – and I expect I’m being naïve – I don’t think Weaver would have one.’

  ‘You asked him?’ inquired Edward ironically.

  ‘Of course not, fool, but he treated me like a real person not like a power-hungry sex maniac. I mean, he patronized me but then all men do patronize women –’

  ‘I’ve never patronized you.’

  ‘You bloody well have and do,’ said Verity hotly.

  Edward was a little taken aback by her language but even more so by the notion that he could ever be accused of patronizing anyone. ‘Look here, my dear –’ he began.

  ‘There you are,’ she chipped in triumphantly.

  ‘Where?’ he said, shaking his head in bewilderment.

  ‘Calling me “my dear”, idiot. I’m not your dear. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, I remember. I was saying Weaver patronized me but he seemed willing to admit I might be able to do my job, which was more than either the editor or the historian believed. He didn’t try that magnetic sexual power stuff on me.’

  ‘What’s wrong with “my dear”?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, do shut up and concentrate. And before you say it, I am not using my so-called feminine intuition or Freudian rubbish for that matter. I’m just saying he looks as though he’s one of the few men I know who genuinely loves his wife. Now, if it had been that awful Larmore man –’

  ‘You’ve never read Freud,’ said Edward.

  ‘There you go again – patronizing me,’ exclaimed Verity in exasperation. ‘Of course I have not read Freud but no need to assume it!’

  ‘Oh God, sorry. I apologize. But yes, you are right about Larmore. I agree, he is definitely a cad. I spoke to one or two friends who move in political circles and they all say he is absolutely untrustworthy. I thought I would go and see him after I’ve been back to the club.’

  ‘You mean the Cocoanut Jungle or whatever it’s called? Can I come too? You can’t go to a night-club on your own, you know. You would stick out like a sore thumb.’

  ‘Yes, I would like that,’ he said, careful not to sound patronizing.

  ‘Hasn’t Inspector Pride closed it down by now?’

  ‘No. I told him what I suspected and that I thought the dope came from there, but he says there’s no evidence and he can’t do anything until there is.’

  ‘And does Lord Weaver know that his stepdaughter might have got her dope from a night-club he owns?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Obviously I did not tell him and I don’t think Inspector Pride has.’

  There was suddenly a great deal of hushing and Edward saw that a tall, thin man with bad acne and a scraggy beard was on his feet introducing a poet to the little audience. The bookshop was a well-known meeting place for left-wing intellectuals and Edward felt himself to be out of place. He had the feeling that card-carrying Communists and ‘fellow travellers’ would probably lynch him at the end of the reading. If they did he would probably let them: he was exhausted by the events of the afternoon. By the time Hermione was in hospital and he had been interviewed by Inspector Pride, who could hardly contain his disapproval of Edward’s unauthorized entry into a house not his own, it was five thirty and the last thing he wanted to do was to listen to young things spout poetry in Bloomsbury. On the other hand he did not feel like resting: he wanted to discuss things with Verity and make some sense of what had happened to Hermione.

  When he saw the poet rising to his feet, acknowledging the applause with a pleased look on his face, he realized that underlying his decision not to obey his first instinct and skip this rendezvous was something else: an instinct that Verity’s interest in poetry was not entirely intellectual. The man with acne had given way to a Greek god, or that was the way it seemed to Edward. He was six feet of brawn, tall, broad-shouldered, with a noble head, strong chin and corn-yellow hair which flopped becomingly over his
blue eyes. He wore grey flannels, an open-neck Airtex shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow as though he could not wait to get down to some hard manual work. A tweed jacket was lying where he had tossed it over the back of a chair. Edward disliked him before he had even opened his mouth. He disliked him even more when he did. He had a resonant deep baritone with a pronounced Welsh lilt and Edward immediately put him down as a member of a male-voice choir, a combination of musicians for which he had always had an aversion. Worst of all, when Edward began to listen, he had to admit that the man was spouting some rather good verse, among some exhortatory dross. Certainly, everyone around him seemed to think so. The little Parton Street bookshop was crammed with people leaning against shelves, peering around piles of George Meredith and H.G. Wells. Edward himself was leaning against modern poetry by people whose names, when he examined the dust covers, were unknown to him: someone called Auden was the only one he had heard of. Auden dug into his left buttock and, as he moved to make himself more comfortable, a pile of slim volumes by one David Griffiths-Jones slipped away on to the floor with a slap of protest just as the poet was lamenting, in sonnet form, the death of a dear friend. ‘Ssh!’ said Verity fiercely.

  ‘Sorry,’ he whispered back. ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘David Griffiths-Jones; I told you, for God’s sake!’ she whispered back but so loudly that a man in a black felt hat and a Crombie, leaning against Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, shushed her. She then listened in seeming rapture as the poet proclaimed:

  ‘When I utter Stalin I mean good.

  When I utter Stalin I mean courage.

  I mean eyes shining.

  I mean ceaseless activity.

  ‘When I utter Stalin I mean yes,

  Whenever you call me I am there;

  You are my present, my yesterday,

  You are my tomorrow.’

  When the poet had finished, Verity, along with most of those present, applauded vigorously. The favoured versifier bowed gracefully and accepted the applause with a modest shake of his head. The man with acne got on his hind legs again and said how grateful they all were; what a success the poet had been in Boston and New York and how pleased they were that he had agreed to sign copies of his book. It appeared that most of these were now languishing on the floor owing to Edward having leaned upon them too heavily. He and Verity hurriedly began to scoop them up, Verity all the time complaining at his clumsiness so that he began to wish he had not come after all. He had felt tired and listless when he returned from his burglarious afternoon but had been unable to rest. He felt worse now. The shock of finding poor Hermione close to death and a man murdered, even if the latter would not be missed, was only now beginning to take its toll on him. He wanted Verity to tell him he had acted with decision and vigour but, though she had been very shocked to hear about Hermione, she had not seemed to think he might be in need of any comfort.

  While he had been half listening to David Griffiths-Jones, it had suddenly occurred to him that Verity might report the attack on Hermione Weaver and the murder of Charles Lomax in the Daily Worker, another scoop for that publication, usefully, no doubt, demonstrating how wealth did not bring happiness. But how could he ask Verity not to use what he had told her? They were partners of a sort and he had to trust her, but the truth was he did not altogether trust her. He was attracted to her but he knew her to be capable of subterfuge, and she was incontestably possessed of a ruthless streak which he admired unless he was to be one of its victims – a toad beneath her harrow? He did not quite know what the phrase meant but it seemed to express what he felt now as he saw the poet kissing her on the lips.

  Well, of course, a girl as pretty and outgoing as Verity was going to have close friends, lovers even, Edward told himself, and he had no reason to object if she allowed herself to be kissed by Greek gods. After all, he doubted she even considered him to be a friend and certainly there was no question of him being anything more. Why would a girl with strong left-wing principles find anything appealing about a member of the despised upper classes? He continued to flagellate himself until Verity released herself from the poet’s embrace and turned to him. ‘Oh, David, this is a friend of mine, Edward Corinth.’

  He glowed: she did consider him a friend and she had not embarrassed him by using his ridiculous title.

  ‘Lord Edward!’ said the poet genially, spoiling it all. ‘I thought it was you when I was reading just now and you tipped all my books on the floor. Don’t you remember? We were at Cambridge together.’

  ‘Hello, jolly good, were we?’ Edward said vacuously.

  ‘Of course we were. You were at Trinity and I was at Queens’. We both rowed a bit,’ he added, speaking to Verity.

  ‘Golly,’ said Edward. ‘Yes of course! How rude of me. You got a blue, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes, but who cares. Fancy seeing you here! Somehow I would not have put you down as a member of the Party.’

  ‘Oh yes, I came with Verity.’

  ‘Stupid! David means the CP. He’s not a member of the Party, David. He’s just hanging around because we are investigating a murder.’

  ‘Gosh! That’s great,’ said David oddly. ‘Look, I’ve got to sign some books.’ He gestured deprecatingly at a little table piled with his books and guarded by a cross-looking woman in spectacles, no doubt an employee of the bookshop who wanted the poet to begin earning his keep. ‘But why not let’s all go and have a meal after?’

  David drifted away to be surrounded by adoring fans. ‘How well do you know that man?’ said Edward suspiciously.

  ‘Well enough,’ said Verity haughtily, ‘though I don’t know what it has to do with you.’

  ‘Are you coming with me to the Cocoanut Grove this evening or not?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s lots of time. We can’t get there till ten at the earliest. We have plenty of time to have a bite to eat with David first.’

  ‘Oh, do we have to?’

  ‘What’s got into you, Edward? Don’t you like David? I thought it was rather rude of you to pretend that you did not recognize him.’

  ‘I didn’t at first,’ said Edward in an injured tone, ‘but then I did.’

  ‘But you don’t like him,’ Verity persisted.

  ‘No, if you want to know, I didn’t and still don’t. He’s all a bit too good to be true, for one thing.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nonsense.’ She looked at him, suddenly interested. ‘I do believe you are jealous!’

  ‘Now you are being silly,’ he said. ‘What is there to be jealous about?’

  ‘That’s not very polite either. It was me who ought to have said that. Anyway, like it or lump it, he’s a friend, so either be polite or leave us. It’s up to you.’

  ‘No, I’ll stay,’ said Edward meekly.

  It was only with some difficulty that Griffiths-Jones shed his admirers and it was eight thirty before he, Edward and Verity settled themselves in a Greek restaurant in Fitzroy Street where the poet made himself very much at home. The owner and his wife and daughter welcomed David as a long-lost son and fawned over him. Edward was amused to see how he put on a great show of modesty while all the time encouraging the flattery. It seemed unfair that Verity should shout at him for being patronizing but not seem to mind David’s careless put-downs and veiled sneers. He reprimanded her for going on the Peace March which apparently had been against the Party’s policy. He praised her piece in the Daily Worker but criticized it for not being hard-hitting enough.

  ‘You know, my dear,’ – Verity seemed not to notice ‘my dear’ when it came from David – ‘you have a talent for sniffing out capitalist conspiracy but you must be careful not to become enamoured of the very corruption we have to root out. The world has to be changed,’ he added with slightly sinister intensity.

  This seemed to Edward to be aimed at himself, and Verity had the grace to look embarrassed. David sailed on quite unconcerned to speak of his work for the cause. He had been to Moscow, it appeared, and he expanded on the joys of five-year pl
ans, workers’ communes, collective farms and the honour done to him when he had an audience with the great leader himself. Verity was entranced. He had been to Spain where he said there was a very good chance of seeing the first elected Communist Party government. Verity’s eyes shone and Edward got more and more depressed. In an odd way, Griffiths-Jones reminded him of a Catholic convert so in love with the Pope and the Papacy he had abnegated his normal critical faculties.

  ‘When I first read Kapital,’ – it was fashionable to omit the definite article and pronounce the word ‘Kapital’ in as German an accent as one could manage – ‘it came as a revelation.’ David consciously or unconsciously used religious terminology. ‘I realized that individualism resulted in tyranny and that the people needed to be liberated. How was that to be done? Their strength had to be forged into one voice, one will.’

  He went on to talk about the division of labour, the classless society, superstructure and substructure, empowering the unions. ‘We must trust Uncle Joe,’ he repeated like a mantra.

  Edward’s attention had wandered during David’s dissertation on Marxism and the eventual overthrow of capitalism by the proletariat so he did not register that he had finally ended his tirade until he heard Verity giving the poet a detailed account of General Craig’s death at Mersham Castle.

  David seemed uninterested in how the General had died and if he had been killed or had committed suicide or, indeed, if it had all been a terrible accident. His attitude seemed to be that it hardly mattered how an enemy of the people died and Verity ought not to trouble herself with such bourgeois trivialities. However, he was interested in Mersham Castle: who had been at dinner with the Duke, what had been discussed and the purpose of the dinners. Edward felt uneasy when Verity repeated what he had told her about the Duke’s design to do all that he could to prevent another war. There was nothing in it that any ordinary person could possibly object to but he still thought that it almost amounted to an act of betrayal discussing it with Griffiths-Jones.