by Tim Heald
‘Letters, too,’ said Dr Belgrave. ‘She’d kept copies of lots of her letters. It was almost as if…well, it’s ridiculous but…’
‘As if she’d meant the truth to be found out.’
‘Yes.’
Dr Belgrave’s cigarette had been lying untouched in the Pepsi-Cola ashtray. She tapped it out and lit another.
‘Did you know any of this when she was alive?’
She frowned and the perplexity seemed genuine.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘I suppose I did. I mean she never made any secret of the fact that she knew all these upper-class nancies and she was obviously caught up in intelligence even though I could never quite work out how. But there was no grand confession.’
Bognor wanted tea. He waved at Mr Mozzarella and asked him for another cup and a fresh pot.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you weren’t entirely surprised by what was in the papers?’
‘In general, no. In detail, yes. The Churchill story, for instance. A lost weekend in Boulogne. That surprised me.’
‘And Stalin?’
‘I think that’s Green jumping to conclusions. There was certainly a very drunken evening in a dacha but there’s nothing to suggest she ever…the diaries are usually pretty explicit about that sort of thing.’
The tea arrived.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Bognor. ‘I don’t want to get too personal, but it may be important. You were shocked by what you found?’
Dr Belgrave considered this. She had a quite noticeable dark moustache.
‘I’m not sure how to explain this,’ she said. ‘Yes, I was shocked, but not because there were a whole lot of revelations. It was just that I was suddenly confronted with something very private – the very private life of someone, well, of someone I loved. It made me realise how much there was of Daisy that I’d never really known. I thought I’d got beyond the façade but I hadn’t. Not really. So, yes, it was pretty bloody. I’d assumed I was a true confidante but I wasn’t. She’d used me just like she used everyone else.’
The Bognors turned away and looked out at the bleak midwinter while Dr Belgrave composed herself. It suddenly seemed almost as bleak in the Marine Ice Cream Parlour as the Bognors contemplated the wreckage of a life’s love lost.
‘You showed it to Vernon Hemlock as soon as you’d read it.’
‘Yes. I needed to share it with someone.’
‘You were already a successful Big Book author by then.’
‘The British Approach to Sex had come out a year or so before. It sold a hundred thousand in hardback and there was a very lucrative paperback deal. And then the film rights.’
‘Orgasm!’ said Bognor.
‘They were going to call it Foreplay at first but the Americans didn’t like it. I remember they said they wanted something that delivered. Vernon dealt with all that side of things. I didn’t want to get involved. It all seemed very tacky at the time. I was trying to do serious clinical work. The publicity got in the way. Has done ever since. I have to publish my academic papers under an assumed name. Bloody absurd.’
Bognor’s heart bled.
‘And what was Hemlock’s reaction?’
Dr Belgrave snorted.
‘It was what you’d expect. “Dynamite” was the exact word. You’ve got to remember it was at least ten years before anyone knew about Blunt. It was only four years since Philby went to Moscow. Everybody thinks it’s a good story now but it was a damn sight better story then.’
‘So Hemlock wanted to publish?’
‘Yes. He wanted me to edit the diaries myself and do them as diaries. He didn’t want to use them as a basis for a biography or an expose or anything else.’
‘You persuaded him not to.’
Again Dr Belgrave had to think about this.
‘Up to a point,’ she said at last, but tentatively. ‘He never stopped trying. But I was adamant. I was joint literary executor along with Saunders Horovitz, his literary agent, so I was in a position to veto it. Saunders was in favour, of course, because he wanted his ten per cent. Vernon never pushed too far, though. He may have thought me a bit of a goose but he knew I could lay a nestful of golden eggs. And even though Daisy’s diaries would have been a sensation, they would have been a flash in the pan. No sequel. I had years ahead of me. My contract was so tight I couldn’t have gone anywhere else but I could always have developed a terminal writer’s block. Vernon didn’t want that. He wanted a bloody Big Belgrave Book every third year at least.’
‘I see.’ Bognor pursed his lips. ‘So let’s bring ourselves up to date. How did Green get involved?’
Dr Belgrave sighed.
‘I always had a soft spot for Vernon. Despite everything. I think there might even have been a time when I was a little in love with him. But you couldn’t trust him. He didn’t have it in him. Didn’t know what it meant. Not his fault. Like being born without legs or having a cleft palate. It was a condition. Congenital. Couldn’t be trusted. All that mattered to Vernon was Vernon.’
‘But you did trust him?’
‘At first. He made me a very rich woman. I was grateful. I thought it was more than just a commercial arrangement. That was what he told me.’
‘When ,did he first show it to Green?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you let him keep the stuff?’
‘No. That is, I lent it to him, for, oh, a couple of days. He must have made a copy.’
‘Not what you intended?’
‘I never thought about it.’
They stared at each other in silence. The naivety in one so aggressively worldly-wise as Dr Belgrave was stunning. But it had been a long time ago.
‘The idea of Green doing something on it only started to surface a year or so ago,’ she said. ‘Up until then Vernon had kept trying to persuade me to give him permission to do the diaries verbatim. Then he suddenly switched tack and started to go on about what a brilliant subject Daisy was for a biography. He even had the nerve to suggest a memoir. “My Life with Daisy”. He had no idea of taste. That helped him in his business but hardly in private life.’
‘Did Green approach you directly?’
‘Not for a while. To start with it was just Vernon producing a series of innuendoes. Then we had lunch one day at the White Tower. I remember we’d been discussing the library and whether to include Lord Weymouth as a separate entry or just lump him into “Erotic murals”. Then, suddenly, apropos of bugger all, he said, “By the way, Arthur Green’s doing a real life story about your old girlfriend.” That blew the bows off my sneakers, I can tell you.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I threw a wobbly. Left my dolmades untouched and walked out. We didn’t speak for a month. Then he wrote me a long letter more or less apologising, but saying that Green had got the bit between his teeth and that he couldn’t see how he could be stopped.’
‘The papers were copyright?’ said Bognor.
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Dr Belgrave, ‘but the Green line was that he was using them merely as “the basis for research”. If that was all he was doing then he was unstoppable.’
‘Presumably you took legal advice?’
‘Much good that did me. Long hours in chambers with learned counsel who did nothing but fudge and prevaricate while the money ticked up like a metronome. No, I’m afraid I took a very rat-like way out in the end. I went to the Intelligence services themselves. They knew about Daisy, it appeared. In fact they seemed to know everything about everybody, only they didn’t do anything about it. I saw the top man. His main preoccupation was about “rocking the boat”. “Whatever happens,” I remember he kept saying, “we mustn’t rock the boat.” When I left he told me not to worry, he’d deal with it personally, have a word with Vernon, man to man. He was sure he’d see sense. He would appeal to his patriotism, bla, bla. In any case he thought they’d have him under the Official Secrets Act.’
‘And that was it?’
‘Yes,�
� said Dr Belgrave. ‘He never mentioned it again. Not once. And I certainly wasn’t going to.’
‘Odd,’ said Bognor, ‘I was under the impression the security services didn’t know anything about it until much more recently than that.’
Dr Belgrave gave him a very sharp look. Simultaneously Monica kicked him under the table.
‘What makes you say that?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Oh,’ said Bognor, flustered, ‘just that no one told me.’
‘No one ever does, darling,’ said his wife, sweetly. ‘After all, you’re only Board of Trade.’
FIVE
MERLIN GLATT WAS IN the lounge bar of the Goose and Goblet, lurking behind the Byfleet Bugle and nursing a horse’s neck. The room was empty and it seemed unlikely to Bognor that the Bugle would carry the cricket score from Australia. Nevertheless he asked.
‘Rained off,’ said Glatt, tersely. ‘I don’t want to risk being spotted here. There have been developments. My masters are not amused. Come to my room, number seventeen, in ten minutes’ time. Knock three times.’
Monica and Simon glanced at each other with weary expressions of mild disbelief. Simon ordered two large Scotches and they sat down to wait.
‘I suppose he really is one of us,’ said Simon. ‘Is his stuff really any good?’
‘Yes,’ said Monica. ‘“Loftus Road on the Night of the Newcastle Match” and “Hamster” are brilliant. “Box”, of course, and “The Dartington Rhymes”. I’m not sure about “South of the River Blues” or “Arts Council Bursary”. But I’d say he was genuinely pretty good. All the experts say he’s marvellous.’
‘Well,’ said Bognor grumpily, ‘I’m not at all sure I trust him. Too arty-farty by half. He imitated Glatt’s rather precious fogeyish voice: “Rained off…knock three times”. I think he’s been watching too much television. That’s not the sort of stuff they teach you in “Tradecraft” at Hayling Island.’
‘At least,’ said Monica, ‘we’d better play along with him. If he is a double agent we’ll soon find out. I do agree the dual relationship with Romany Flange and Andover Strobe does give one pause for thought.’
They drained their glasses and went upstairs.
‘Come,’ said Glatt, as the third knock died away. When they entered he was adjusting his cravat in the glass.
‘Several developments,’ he said. ‘Oh, do sit down, it’ll have to be the bed for one of you. This isn’t exactly the Ritz. I’ve taken the liberty of mixing Margaritas. I hope you’ll join me. Good.’
He had even put salt round the rim of the glasses. Bognor frowned at it and at the poet with ever-deepening suspicion.
‘Salud!’ said Glatt, raising his glass.
‘Cheers!’ said Bognor.
Monica mumbled something non-committal.
‘Well,’ said Glatt, ‘the first turn-up is that the scene-of-crime people discovered some yellow fibre between Audrey Hemlock’s sheets. It matches the wool in Danvers Warrington’s stockings.’
‘Are you suggesting that Warrington and Audrey were having an affair?’ asked Monica, licking salt.
‘I don’t know how else you can account for bits of his socks being in Audrey’s bed,’ said her husband. ‘All the same, it’s a bit of a so-what on its own. After all, Hemlock himself was given to knocking off all and sundry. A bit of tit-for-tat seems reasonable enough.’
Glatt gazed at him down his chiselled nose.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but coupled with the fact that Warrington seems to have gone off in rather a hurry it does seem odd.’
‘Gone off in a hurry?’
‘Yes. Capstick, too.’
Bognor crossed his legs. The bed on which he sat was old. The springs stuck into him and there was a deep valley in the middle which rendered his posture undignified as well as uncomfortable.
‘What’s the other turn-up?’ he asked.
‘I had a quick snoop round Hemlocks,’ said Glatt, ‘and found the butler had been keeping a diary. Explicit is hardly the word for it. It appears he’d been trying to blackmail Hemlock. What’s more, he hadn’t filled in the last couple of days, but the last entry for the day before Hemlock’s death actually says…’ Here Glatt referred to his own shorthand notes. ‘“Have given V. another twenty-four hours to come across. Situation dodgy. People are beginning to suspect. Hadn’t realised what nasty minds writers had. I shall be glad to be shot of them all.”’
Glatt looked up with satisfaction. ‘Interesting, eh?’ he said.
‘Perhaps.’ Bognor smiled, feeling that he might have the better of Glatt, particularly as the poet/agent had said that his real interest was in ‘The First Woman’ or ‘First Lady’. He told Glatt about Green’s presentation to the sales force and about the subsequent revelations from Dr Belgrave in Mr Mozzarella’s ice cream parlour. At the end of it Merlin Glatt was like one of his Margaritas – visibly shaken.
‘Hmmm,’ he said, ‘I have to confess we all missed that.’
‘What?’
‘The Belgrave connection. It explains a lot.’
‘But not who killed the Hemlocks.’
‘As I said to you earlier that’s not my primary area of interest. You and Bumstead can feel free to fight that one out between you.’ Glatt had got some composure back.
‘Would Dr Belgrave have killed either Vernon or Audrey?’ asked Monica.
Bognor shook his head. ‘Only if she thought they were going to publish The First Lady. From what she said to us they were more or less happy not to. Vernon certainly. We don’t know about Audrey.’
‘Romany’s obviously the one who’s keenest,’ said Glatt, ‘God rot her.’
‘Ideological reasons?’ Bognor was genuinely curious.
‘Greed,’ said Glatt. ‘Romany wouldn’t understand ideology. As for Green, God knows. But I must say the Belgrave stuff is a revelation. Does she still have the original diaries?’
‘I think so,’ said Bognor. ‘One thing bothers me, though. She says that she went to your people and spoke to the head man. Says she told him everything and that he shut up Hemlock.’
‘She what?’
‘Told all,’ said Bognor. ‘Years ago. Told your people.’
‘Not possible,’ said Glatt, ‘I’ve seen the files. Nothing about Belgrave in them.’
‘So she’s lying?’
‘Must be.’ Glatt frowned.
‘Why would she do that?’ Bognor stared hard at the hunting print above the dressing table.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Glatt, without conviction. ‘We’ll have to take her in for questioning.’
‘She’ll say she made a full statement to your people years ago,’ said Bognor, ‘and you’ll have a job proving she didn’t.’
Glatt winced. ‘That’s my problem,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile, I suggest you have a word with Warrington about sex and Mrs Hemlock. Also enquire about the literary aspirations of the butler.’
The three of them toyed with their drinks. Bognor was all at sea.
‘Glatt,’ he said, gazing at the sensitive yet virile features of action man of letters, wondering to himself if there was real depth behind the Renaissance-man façade. He had a reputation for profundity, high seriousness, ‘bottom’, the sort of thing that distinguished the men from the boys. But was it merited? Was it real? ‘Glatt, what’s going on here? I mean, what do you think? Really?’
‘My brief, as I told you, is to address the Byfleet Lit Soc tomorrow evening and prevent anyone – and I mean anyone – publishing the truth about Butskell-Godunov and her circle. As far as the murders are concerned, it seems to me most likely that Arthur Green and Romany Flange finally became exasperated by Hemlock’s refusal to publish the ‘First Lady’ book and did him in. Then when Audrey said she would stick by Vernon’s wishes they did her in, too. Tiresome of them. Particularly as we can’t risk anything as public as a murder trial. All that Butskell-Godunov stuff spilling out under cross-examination from some nosey parker like Simpson QC would be even worse t
han publication. Still, with luck our friend Bumstead will manage to bark up the wrong tree and we’ll get someone else convicted instead. Which will be much more satisfactory. Otherwise, we might have to stage a little accident ourselves.’
‘Accident?’ Bognor did not want to hear what he heard.
‘Romany and her friend have become a serious nuisance,’ said Glatt. ‘If things don’t take a speedy turn for the better they may well be involved in a fatal car crash. My people are rather expert at that kind of thing.’
Bognor swallowed hard.
‘That’s not on,’ he said. ‘You’re employed by the Government. This is England.’
‘Precisely,’ said Glatt. ‘If people like me weren’t prepared to kill from time to time there’d be no such thing as democracy in this country. You can’t faff about when it comes to an unpublished manuscript like this.’
Bognor swallowed again.
‘I see,’ he said.
A truculent smile played around the poet’s thin cruel lips. ‘I thought you would,’ he said. ‘“There must be many a pair of friends/who arm in arm, deserve the warm/moon-births and the long evening-ends.”’ Then he laughed briefly. ‘But no need for anything quite so drastic just yet,’ he said. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some reading to do. From now on I think it best if we stay away from each other. We’ll adopt the old publisher’s adage: “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”’
The Bognors let themselves out, traversed the lounge and stepped into the dank dark of Byfleet night.
‘Brrr!’ They shivered in unison, not so much from the cold as from the chill of their conversation.
‘Was he serious?’ asked Monica, putting an arm through her husband’s.
‘I thought so,’ said Bognor. ‘Not the least bit unserious. Gave me the impression of positively wanting to bump someone off.’
‘And,’ Monica shivered again, ‘he’s supposed to be having some sort of an affair with Romany Flange. Imagine killing your mistress.’
‘Some people get a kick out of that sort of thing.’
‘Meaning people like Glatt.’