Veil of Darkness

by Gillian White

  What is the point? ‘I really haven’t a clue. To be honest that thought never crossed my mind.’

  ‘Perhaps I ought to give her a ring. She might think we ought to get out of here. She’s been talking about moving for days; she says London would be more convenient.’ And then Bernie turns round quickly and glares hard at Avril. ‘I hope you’re not going to be involved in this mess,’ she says coldly. ‘Holy Mary Mother of God, you playing the victim, mourning your lover, playing up to the cameras, I can just see that.’

  This is intolerable. ‘Don’t be so hateful!’ Avril is tempted to slap Bernie’s face. ‘Ed is married! There was never anything serious between Ed and me. And why would I want to hog your limelight? We’re on the same side, remember!’

  And the true reason why Avril rushed upstairs to find her friend seems quite ludicrous now. Bernie just isn’t interested. Bernie has left her and Kirsty behind. Bernie wouldn’t give a damn, let alone hold out a comforting arm, over poor Fluffy the cat.

  Just one hour later…

  ‘Have you a brother, Miss Stott?’

  What’s this? Avril has to pause before she answers, she hasn’t seen Graham in years. ‘Well, yes…’

  ‘And has he been living down here with you since the middle of last month?’

  ‘Living with me?’ What does this mean? Avril shakes her head. ‘No, of course he hasn’t been living with me.’

  This frowning policeman, keen-featured, cleanshaven and well-tailored, and the younger man at his side are obviously trying to tell Avril something. But what? What?

  The first man shakes his head and smiles sadly. ‘And I have to ask you this, Avril. Soon after you arrived here, a couple of hotel guests, the Misses Peg and Vi Lewis, lost a rather important bracelet.’

  Avril nods, feeling her hands begin to sweat. She recognizes interrogation when she sees it; it was a feature of her youth.

  The man’s eyes flash and his voice rises slightly. ‘I believe you had access to the keys of the Miss Lewises’ room at that time?’

  ‘I worked on the reception desk. Yes, I did have access.’ Access seems such a law-laden word.

  ‘And when Mrs Stokes called a meeting of the staff, I believe it was you who advised the manageress to go and have a look in the Miss Lewises’ room.’

  Avril can hardly remember. ‘Yes, well, that did seem quite an obvious thing to do. They were old, they did tend to get things muddled.’

  ‘And lo and behold, when Mrs Stokes did go to look, she found the bracelet there in the dressing-table drawer.’

  Avril gasps, panic-struck, as the awful truth hits her. ‘You’re saying I took it, aren’t you?’ The colour drains from her face.

  ‘We are merely asking you, Avril. Mrs Stokes has mentioned that you looked very uneasy when she first mentioned the missing piece. And you had the wherewithal to replace the bracelet; you would see when the Miss Lewises went out.’

  ‘This is unbelievable!’ cries Avril.

  ‘The Miss Lewises departed from the hotel insisting that they had not been mistaken. They are certain that bracelet went missing.’

  ‘The Miss Lewises are vicious, small-minded snobs who love to cause trouble and would never admit they were wrong,’ says Avril indignantly, struggling now to keep her cool. This is all so unfair. ‘And what has this got to do with my brother?’

  The policeman crosses his legs and leans back in Mr Derek’s swivel chair. ‘You wouldn’t have taken the bracelet with a view to passing it on to him, would you, by any chance, Avril?’

  ‘I have never stolen anything in my entire life,’ Avril declares, clenching her fists and banging them down on Mr Derek’s office table. ‘Just because my brother’s a crook doesn’t mean to say I’m like him.’

  The tick tick tick of Mr Derek’s onyx carriage clock is the only sane sound in the room.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ says the policeman, watching Avril narrowly. ‘I believe you purchased some items recently from Mr Edward Board’s shop?’

  She can’t cope with this. ‘Well, yes, I did.’

  ‘Have you, by any chance, got the receipts?’ His is a strangely quiet politeness.

  So disordered are Avril’s thoughts that her brain goes bumping round like a waltzer. ‘I haven’t got any receipts because Ed told me I could take the items and pay him when I got my own money.’

  ‘And where are these items now?’ asks the smart detective with studied carelessness.

  ‘They are in my wardrobe, in my room.’

  ‘At the bottom of your wardrobe, Avril? Would you say they were hidden away at the bottom?’

  Avril sinks back, defeated. Menace! Menace is everywhere. Some little imp still living inside her shouts, ‘Admit it, Avril, admit it!’ But no, no, she won’t, she’s not that hopeless fat girl any more. ‘Stop bullying me like this! Stop it! Stop it! They are scrunched up in a bag at the bottom because I was too embarrassed to get them out and hang them up. I was afraid of what Bernie would say if she saw them because they make me look fatter than ever.’

  ‘I see. I see. I quite understand,’ says the detective slightly more pleasantly, as if there was never ill-feeling between them. ‘Please don’t be too upset. We have to ask these questions, I’m afraid, in an enquiry such as this. You see, the main problem is that we found your brother a little while earlier hiding out in the grounds, and he swore blind that he’d been living here with you.’

  ‘But that’s a lie.’

  ‘Yes, it would seem so. But we had to scotch some of the stories we always hear in these sorts of investigations. Unfortunately all sorts of rumours get put about.’

  ‘It’s that evil woman, Stokes, isn’t it? She told you about the bracelet. But what about the golfing gear, what made you check up on that?’

  ‘Oh that’s just a matter of going through the dockets in the shop,’ says the first detective mildly. ‘The figures didn’t add up, so we had to check them out. From what we already have on that brother of yours, he’s trouble, and you, unfortunately, were dragged into it. These things happen.’

  ‘But what is Graham doing here?’ pleads Avril, totally bewildered.

  ‘That is precisely what we would like to know,’ says the detective, showing her out. ‘But in the meantime, to be on the safe side, we are taking that young man into custody.’

  Eighteen

  LIFE IS NOT HALF as hellish as Dominic Coates, turncoat, had imagined it might be. In fact, this kind of luxurious existence suits him to a T; he has even telephoned Mummy and Daddy to tell them about his old love’s success. They, of course, knew already, being subscribers to the correct sorts of papers, and their new attitude to his Irish skivvy is an interesting change. No, his main worry is that Kirsty Hoskins, in her madness, will snitch on him on a whim, and Bernadette will kick him out on his arse.

  Dominic does not see much of Kirsty, a woman very seriously disturbed, because she works long hours and still lives in the staff quarters. He has made several abortive attempts to quiz Bernadette about her sick friend, but his famous girlfriend will not be drawn.

  ‘Oh she’s just someone we shared a room with when we first arrived. Yes, she’s odd, but she’s been through shit, despises men probably, after all that grief. She’s on the run from her husband; she’s getting her kids back next week.’

  Sometimes, when she thinks about Kirsty, Bernie feels a new anger well up and it’s almost as if she can’t tolerate thoughts of her sad old friend any more. Sad—the word enrages her. ‘But she’s a loser, born a loser, happy to be a loser, miserable most of the time and complaining, like Avril.’ Bernie hung her arms around him as she coldly dismissed her two best friends. How freeing it felt to be so censorious of them. They had been close. They had been a family, or coven. What was happening to make her so vicious? ‘Don’t you find it strange, Dom, how some people seem to be born to good luck?’

  ‘They’re not born to it,’ says he, forgetting his own privileged birth; ‘it’s an attitude of mind. Now Kirsty would
never have dreamed of attempting the kind of challenge you took when you sat down and wrote chapter one. Nor would Avril, they haven’t got that thrusting germ of ambition in them. And they don’t have the turn of phrase, or the stamina. Frankly, they’re just boring little people.’

  ‘But you’d love me even if I wasn’t a writer, wouldn’t you?’ Bernie puts on her little girl act, curling up, teasing him like a monkey.

  ‘You know I would.’

  ‘But you left me…’

  ‘We’ve been all through that. I was scared, Bernie, scared of commitment, scared of feelings I couldn’t control.’

  And that seems to satisfy his little Irish genius.

  Candice Love had a long talk with Dominic when he first arrived on the scene. He was nervous, not sure what to expect. Hell, this whole scenario was based on deception, it couldn’t get much more bizarre than it was.

  ‘I don’t want any cheating, heartbreak, or talk of personal space crap,’ she said. ‘If you’re going to move in here you’ve got to understand exactly what we’re dealing with.’ Candice tapped her nails firmly on the table as she emphasized every word and Dominic could hardly bear to watch: he has a thing about nails bending like chalk squeaking down a blackboard. ‘Bernadette is a genius. Now that might sound overdramatic, but you’ve only got to listen to Clementine Davaine, and she is the best in the business, frankly we are thrilled to get her. The press have seized on her image, partly because it’s the back end of the silly season, we realize that, but we don’t want anyone messing up now. And if Clementine says Bernadette is a wonder then nobody’s going to argue with her.’

  All this is quite hard for Dominic to grasp. ‘When I went out with Bernie before she didn’t show any signs of genius; we were pissed most of the time and she was just like any other girl working in a Scouse restaurant. I never even saw her read a book—sometimes a magazine, but that was only for the quizzes.’

  ‘No, well, it’s not the kind of thing you can spot,’ Candice Love went on with confidence. ‘People don’t have GENIUS emblazoned across their foreheads, and it’s not something that is inherent. Perhaps Bernie’s talent developed as a result of the unhappiness she went through after you left her: suicide bids, depression, obsession, the works. That could have done it.’

  But Dominic thought of the few cards she wrote him, that abject letter after the split, and the way she hated Scrabble because she couldn’t win—it wasn’t fair, she used to say, just ’cos she’d missed out on an education.

  ‘What we’re all waiting for now is a second novel,’ said Candice, her long fawn hair held back that morning by a brown chocolate-box bow that rested on her back. Dominic admired Candice’s style, he admired her directness and was impressed, in spite of himself, by the way she name-dropped so effortlessly—authors, actors, film directors—that was the world she moved in and Dominic wouldn’t mind that for himself. His future in cardboard boxes had never inspired him with much passion. How exhilarating it would be if he could move into the publishing world, and he could, with luck, on the back of starry-eyed Bernadette.

  ‘A second novel. That’s what they’re clamouring for now,’ Candice carried on, sipping her blue curaçao cocktail, having shoved the delicate paper umbrella straight in the ashtray. ‘These days authors aren’t worth their salt if they can’t churn out at least one a year, although, in Bernadette’s case, with Magdalene such a classic, there’s not quite so much pressure.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s just a one-off,’ said Dominic, still unconvinced.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Candice. ‘But I hope not. And I don’t want you causing Bernie any distress or distraction. She is charismatic, dynamic, with the looks of a superstar, and I hope you understand what I’m saying.’

  God, Candice was bold and sexy.

  This is beyond the pale.

  It looks as if Avril’s dreadful brother might be involved in this grisly murder—that is the rumour flying round the hotel; it splutters and twists like a burning fuse—and Bernie hurries off to interrogate Kirsty in her dingy quarters. This really takes the biscuit; it’s bad enough Avril hanging around moping, playing gooseberry, never contributing anything positive to this uncanny tabloid frenzy, but to have the sister of some Scouse hood contaminating Bernie’s impish, Irish image is to take the original talk of fairness a tad too far.

  If only Bernie had really written this blooming book. If only she didn’t need Kirsty or Avril.

  ‘We just can’t afford to have Avril around any more,’ argues Bernie, sitting down abruptly on her vacant old bed which already smells of mothballs. ‘She’s an embarrassment, she doesn’t fit in and it’s time we ditched her.’

  Kirsty, who can’t help being shocked by Bernie’s sudden disloyalty, had nevertheless anticipated it. She has watched the subtle change in her friend even before she arranged for Dom to move back. Something has touched her, tainted her beauty, and this hatred feels like a kind of possession. ‘How can you say that? That’s awful. I mean, what would happen to Avril if she had to move out? She hasn’t got a job any more since she gave it up to support you.’

  ‘You seem to be surviving OK.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Kirsty looks annoyingly miserable. ‘But then I don’t have any alternative.’

  Someone has to be positive round here. Bernie musters her best lilting brogue in her attempts at persuasion. ‘You must talk to Avril seriously and tell her this business might ruin the project, get shot of her before the tabloids link us up again and turn everything murky. Praise God they ignored her from the beginning; she’s not the most memorable woman I know.’ Kirsty doesn’t look comfortable with this. But Bernie’s the one they’re dependent on. ‘While the press are obsessed with this poor little Irish peasant made good, Avril has faded right out of the picture, but imagine how the headlines would change if they made that connection now.’

  Kirsty shakes her head sadly and this further infuriates Bernie. Sad, sad, sad. Everything about them is so bloody sad. ‘Avril is pretty uptight right now…’

  ‘I know. And I’m sorry for her. Jesus, everyone’s always sorry for Avril. But, Kirsty, she mustn’t ruin everything! Not now we’ve come so far.’

  Kirsty blinks hard, pausing to think, but nothing she says can influence Bernie and there is some sense in her argument. ‘Where would she live? We haven’t got paid yet and we still don’t know when that advance is coming.’

  ‘I’ve thought about that. When you move into your caravan why can’t you take Avril with you?’

  ‘She might not want to come.’

  ‘Of course she’d come. She’s needy. She knows she has a future with us. She’s found two friends, probably the first she’s ever had, and she won’t want to leave us and go back home with that mother-from-hell.’ Somehow Kirsty must be convinced. ‘And she might be a real help with your kids when you’re working back here.’

  This is disturbing stuff. It looks like Bernie is right, although so much spite runs through the logic. ‘Have you spoken to Candice yet? Does she feel the same?’

  Bernie would rather have skipped this bit, but now she might as well get it over. ‘Candice wants us to leave this weekend,’ she confesses, watching hard for Kirsty’s reactions. ‘To London, to her uncle’s flat while he’s away touring Australia. He plays the piano. She’s arranged everything. We’ll be there until Magdalene is published, probably till after Christmas. Dom has decided to skip his last year; he’d rather stay with me and help me through all this.’

  The rat. ‘So it’s working?’ interrupts Kirsty, lifting one curious eyebrow.

  Bernie’s green eyes shine with triumph. ‘Yeah. Good, isn’t it? He’s so different, Kirsty, I can’t believe it, he doesn’t screw around any more, he doesn’t get rat-arsed every night, he’s not mean-minded like he used to be, he seems so much more grown up.’

  This, at any rate, is good to hear. Dominic is behaving himself. ‘But if Avril doesn’t move to London with you how will you do the corrections?’

  Bernie
has thought of this, too. ‘You can do the corrections, no problem, I’ll have to keep ringing you up, that’s all. But what with this Ed Board crap, and Avril’s bloody brother, what’s the point of her hanging around? You must see that I’m right.’ How can she put this more forcibly? It must be as plain to Kirsty as the nose on Avril’s flat, chubby face. Avril is a burden, she has outlived her usefulness and that’s all there is to it.

  And Kirsty is too blinkered to see it.

  The police investigation builds up around the hotel and its excited guests; everyone is interviewed, everyone is revelling in it.

  You pay for murder weekends like this.

  The weapon has not yet been found. They know it was a number-four wood because of the measurements and the imprints on the wound, and because that was the only club missing from the professional’s golf bag, and now there is a tent on the spot where Ed Board’s body was found and a fluttering ribbon round it.

  Most people go to have a look and pretend they just happen to be passing.

  They say he was searching for his ball and someone came up on him from behind.

  It’s an unnerving feeling to be so near to where a murder has just been committed and Bernie finds herself staring at people—was it you? And although the preferred thinking is still that Graham Stott, the ne’er-do-well, must be the killer, it still comes as a thrilling shock when he is accused, not of Ed’s demise after all, but that of a little old lady in Liverpool.

  ‘The bastard must have done them both in.’

  ‘Bring back hanging.’

  ‘They had him behind bars once, so why did they let the sicko out?’

  ‘Animal.’

  ‘Throw him to the masses and let them deal with the scrote.’

  He killed poor Annie for £1.39, but why, they muse, did he kill Ed?

  ‘The poor sod must have disturbed him while he was looking for his ball. The bastard must have been skulking about in the bushes.’

  No-one believes the police announcement: ‘While we have charged Graham Stott with the murder of Mrs Annie Brenner, we have no reason at this time to connect him with the recent death of Mr Edward Board of Tintagel.’