Gilded Edge, The

by Miller, Danny

  ‘You should join the police, that’ll warm your views.’

  There was no witty rejoinder from Asprey. He was being deadly serious.

  ‘Hitler, for all his little eccentricities, had some good points regarding eugenics. Did you know, Treadwell, it’s been proven that higher-income groups tend to possess superior genetics? So joining the police would be out of the question, as I’m just not genetically built for the penuriousness of the public pay sector. I’m a capitalist with a big C.’

  ‘The air’s turning rank, Mr Asprey, and it’s not all Zarra’s fault either. I’m a little bored with the Übermensch philosophy, so let’s just stick to what time you spent at home?’

  ‘The vet arrived at about nine p.m. It was a reasonably simple procedure, but he’s a chum and we then had a drink together and a game of backgammon, so he didn’t leave until well past midnight.’ Asprey smiled. ‘Minus his fee for the camel’s tooth.’

  ‘After that, were you alone?’

  ‘Yes.’ Then, almost as an afterthought he said, ‘Apart from my wife and children.’ He gave a decisive shake of his head as if he’d suddenly come to a conclusion. ‘No, Detective, I wouldn’t kill Johnny. Not only was he a friend but he was a financial asset. Lots of people would come to the club to try and beat him, and they lost. He brought people in, so why kill the golden goose?’

  ‘You’re all heart.’Vince stood up. ‘I’ll now need to talk to two of your members, Mr Goldsachs and Lord Lucan.’Asprey gave him a quizzical look, and Vince firmly informed him: ‘I saw them both downstairs as I came through.’

  ‘You’ll give us a bad reputation.’

  ‘Rakish, I’d have thought.’

  ‘This is a place of business.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be incredibly discreet.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you will.’Asprey stood up and looked Vince over, as if measuring him for a suit. ‘I must say, Treadwell, you don’t look like a policeman. I usually expect the rotten clothes, the flat feet, the haggard expression, the dull eyes, and ultimately the outstretched palm.’

  ‘I’ve got all that to look forward to.’

  ‘I’ll draw you up some chips, on the house.’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t gamble.’ But he knew that Asprey wouldn’t have forgotten that little fact already.

  ‘Like I said, you’re most unlike a policeman. They always used to accept my chips, whether they gambled or not.’

  Vince glanced down at Zarra, and her spiralling tube of shit on the floor. ‘I bet the cleaner’s glad you don’t bring the camel in to work.’

  CHAPTER 14

  Vince and Asprey made their way down the stairs just as Leonard was making his way up – with some urgency. When Vince asked him about the whereabouts of Simon Goldsachs and Lord Lucan, Leonard quickly informed them that they had both left the club (no big surprise there: Leonard had obviously done his job). He then quickly revealed his real purpose for coming to see his boss: Isabel Saxmore-Blaine was downstairs, in Jezebel’s. She had obviously been drinking and was demanding to see James Asprey, or any of his friends.

  Asprey wanted to know: ‘Why the hell did they let her in?’

  Vince wanted to know, why the hell did they let her out?

  The red silk rope was immediately unhooked and the detective descended into the basement club alone. Vince had been into downstairs dives before, but this wasn’t one of them. The high Georgian style from upstairs didn’t stop downstairs, which originally would have been used for the servants’ quarters and cellars of the grand house above. Jezebel’s took its name from Lady Belle Finch, who had lived at the Berkeley Square address circa the 1700s. Quite a beauty, and quite a gal in her time, she was rumoured to have been the lover of Frederick, Prince of Wales, hence the nickname from Belle to Jezebel. It was a name and a reputation she apparently, though very privately, revelled in.

  Jezebel’s, with its vaulted ceilings, gave you a sense that it was a cathedral of high class and good taste. All the fixtures and furnishings were period: silver Corinthian-columned candlesticks illuminated the rooms, and gloomy old Dutch masters adorned its darkly varnished wood-panelled walls, giving the club a sombre look. But every now and then your eye was taken by a flash of colour: a framed splashy abstract, a modern advertising poster of artistic merit, along with the odd African mask or South American tapestry. All this was tempered with fine dining, one of the best wine cellars in London, and the slickest cocktail mixers this side of Manhattan. Somewhere around there was also a dance floor, although it wasn’t big enough to swing Zarra on. But for the members of Jezebel’s, this was home from home. For visiting kings and queens and presidents and potentates it was a paradigm of English class and discretion.

  And for Isabel Saxmore-Blaine it was a designated battlefield. Seated on her own, nursing a greenish-looking cocktail, she was in full plume. The thick honey hair was jooged and styled and shiny and luxurious. The lips were painted, the eyes mascaraed, the cheekbones blushed – all done with the lightest of touches, because hers was the kind of face that really didn’t need a lot of work. She came pre-prepared.

  She was dressed in a short shiny black and white outfit, something by Pierre Cardin just a little more modern than the gowns worn by the surrounding debs. To Vince’s eye, and he considered his eye to be pretty damned good, she was easily the best-looking woman in the place. And maybe that’s why she was being so studiously ignored. Out of jealousy? No, because she was being ignored by the men too. Therefore social pariah. How could she be anything but? And yet she looked as though she didn’t give a damn, positively rising to the occasion and enjoying it. She sat bolt upright, defiant, as if she was challenging the room; which, of course, her presence was.

  Vince sat down at the same table. He stayed calm and was all smiles, as though they were two friends meeting up for a drink. Inside he fumed, though, and didn’t quite know why. What did he care if they banged her up?

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You want a drink, Detective? I’m on the gimlets. They were a favourite of Johnny’s. I soon developed a taste for them myself, like a good little faithful lush.’

  Vince saw in her dark eyes that she was already well lit up. From out of nowhere a waiter magically appeared at their table.

  ‘My handsome detective friend and I will have some more gimlets, please, and—’

  ‘We’ll just have the bill,’ said Vince cutting her off. ‘And that will be all.’

  The waiter genuflected his way silently back into the ether.

  ‘You asked what I’m doing here. Well, I could ask the same of you. No offence but they’re very fussy about who they let in. I’m a member, so what’s your excuse?’

  He looked down at her three-quarters finished drink. ‘Finish it up and let’s go.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then leave it and let’s go.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You want to make a scene, Miss Saxmore-Blaine?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s an awful lot of nos.’

  ‘I counted three, but there’s a lot more where they came from. I’m drunk and I’ll do as I please, Vincent Treadwell.’

  ‘Drunk or sober, you’re a spoiled, over-privileged brat who’s been cut far too much slack, as far as I’m concerned. You want to make a spectacle of yourself, to be honest I really don’t give a damn.’

  Her head rolled back to emit a peal of laughter, then she banged the table in approval. ‘Well said, Detective! I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with that summation, and I really don’t give a damn either, so there!’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I’m not ready to leave. Not until I’ve set eyes on one of the rats. Where are the rats? Are they here?’

  ‘If you mean James Asprey—’

  ‘King Rat himself!’

  Heads turned at this remark. Isabel Saxmore-Blaine did the mature thing and poked her tongue out at them.

  Vince could not resist a smile. ‘Sitting here really is
n’t doing you any favours at all.’

  ‘Oh, that’s the joy of this place. Everyone so incredibly discreet. No one talks. No one will say a thing, for fear of being considered indiscreet and having their memberships taken away.’

  ‘It’s not them I care about.’

  She leaned across the table at him. ‘Your summation of me was about right, my dear Detective Treadwell, but with the money and influence my father has, until they tie a noose around my neck, I can do pretty much as I please.’

  ‘Don’t bet on it. I’m pretty sure the stipulations of your bail don’t allow nightclubbing. If this gets out you’ll be residing in another exclusive club, Holloway, with bull-dyke screws as hostesses and a mixed clientele of whores, junkies, shoplifters and murderesses. How does that grab you?’

  The forced frivolity left her face, and a moroseness settled in. ‘Maybe that’s what I deserve.’

  She looked as if she might start crying. Vince wasn’t going to let that happen, so he said, ‘No, no, and thrice no! You see, two can play at that game.’

  A smile broke out on her lips. ‘You’re cute, as we say in Poughkeepsie. In case you don’t know, Poughkeepsie is in New York State, home to my old alma mater, Vassar College. I was happy there, Detective, full of fun and ideas and ideals. Just before real life started. Did I mention you’re “cute”, as we say in Poughkeepsie?’

  ‘And you’re pissed, as we say in Pimlico. But beautifully so.’

  Vince grabbed her by the arm before she could react or get into a self-pitying jag. She attempted to free herself of his grip, but soon realized that resistance was futile, as they say. He had already arranged her escape route with James Asprey, just in case any photographers were waiting outside. So, with a firm hold, he steered her towards the cloakroom and collected her coat, which wasn’t a coat at all but a black fur cape, just like Zarra but without the teeth. Then through the kitchen and out the back way to where Vince had parked the Mk II.

  He drove Isabel to his own private club: Gino’s Café in Pimlico. It was an Italianate greasy spoon that did a good line in mama’s homemade cooking, the meatballs with red wine sauce being the pick of the menu. Red plastic gingham-style tablecloths covered Formica tables that were screwed to the floor. Framed pastoral scenes from the old country covered the burgundy-glossed walls. Vince tucked into the meatballs with ravioli.

  Isabel smoked and glanced listlessly at some slices of Welsh rarebit that seeped rust-coloured globules of grease on to her white plate. Both had fresh coffee in front of them.

  ‘So, what did Aspers have to say?’

  ‘Asprey? He thinks you did it,’ answered Vince, looking squarely at her as he did so. Her head dipped and she let out a dispirited and deflating sigh, like the jury had just delivered the final verdict. Vince could see that, without the fuel of booze, which had given her the ability to stare down an entire room, she was far from insensitive to the opinions of others.

  ‘Don’t look so upset. What did you expect Asprey to say? And I imagine the rest of Johnny’s friends will follow suit.’

  ‘Nicky won’t,’ she said, with a vigorous shake of her head. ‘He’s a true friend.’

  ‘If he killed Johnny, he will.’

  She sat up straight and hoisted her black eyebrows to breaking point, as though this was the most outrageous thing she’d ever heard.

  ‘Well, if you didn’t do it, someone did.’

  ‘Meaning you don’t think . . . I did it?’

  ‘I don’t even think you really think you did it,’ said Vince, eyeing the small gold crucifix hung around her long neck. ‘And you’re likely to be your own worst witness for the persecution.’ She looked confused, so Vince corrected himself. ‘Witness for the prosecution. If you genuinely thought you were guilty, you’d be tucked up in bed now, instead of pitching up at Jezebel’s dressed to the nines and drinking gimlets like Boudicca.’

  She laughed, as if this was the second most outrageous thing she’d ever heard. ‘Boudicca . . . with gimlets?’

  Vince picked up on the ridiculousness of the image, and laughed too. Their laughter went on far longer than either of them intended. It gathered momentum and quickly turned into a fit of giggles that just got worse every time they looked at each other and tried to subdue it. It became infectious as heads turned. Even the three stern-faced old cabbies, who looked as if they’d been around the block a few times, and were silently fuelling up on steaming copper-coloured tea and meatball sarnies, cracked smiles that soon turned into chuckles. Breathless and flushed, Isabel finally took control of the situation and excused herself to powder her nose. When she returned, she found Vince soberly sipping his black coffee.

  ‘Thank you for that,’ she said. ‘For making me laugh, I mean. It’s been a while. For a moment there, I almost forgot about everything. But you’re not going to let me do that, are you?’

  Vince looked apologetic for about three and a half seconds, then it was back to business. ‘Asprey and the others, did any of them have a beef, a problem, with Johnny – no matter how seemingly small, how seemingly slight.’

  ‘They’ve known each other since school days. They were his best friends.’

  Vince threw her a look over his coffee cup that killed off the last of such naivety, and in case it hadn’t he backed it up with: ‘Then they probably all had motives to kill him. I’m looking for rifts, I’m looking for falling-outs and arguments . . . I’m looking for anything. Let’s start with James Asprey.’

  ‘He’s your classic misanthrope, prefers the company of monkeys to most men outside his close circle of friends, and he thinks women have their place purely for breeding purposes. Believes they should drop the H bomb at least three more times, because a good culling is what the world needs. Thinks dictatorships are the only way to run things. Stalin had it right, but he was a red. And Adolf Hitler is preferable to Harold Wilson. I’ve heard all this being said without any hint of irony.’

  ‘Me, too, some of it. Would he include Johnny Beresford in that cull?’

  ‘They all fell out with one another at one time or another, but they always made up. Simon Goldsachs was the most recent, but I don’t know what it was about. Johnny claimed it was nothing, just a silly spat. Before that he wasn’t talking to Guy Ruley for a while, because of a business deal gone wrong. But they seemed to put it all behind them. As for Lucky—’

  ‘Lucky?’

  ‘Lord Lucky Lucan. A nickname, and deeply ironic to everyone but Lucky himself. Even as he watched his money drift away from him in hand after hand of chemmy or each throw of the dice, he still didn’t get the joke. Johnny never fell out with him, because he was too busy beating him at the tables.’ Vince’s eyes flashed with interest. Isabel must have noticed this, because she quickly added, ‘Lucky wouldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t have the brains to.’

  ‘You don’t have to have brains to kill people, you just need them to get away with it. And no one’s got away with anything yet. But go on, tell me about Nicky DeVane.’

  At this she gave a short derisive laugh. ‘Impossible. Nicky wouldn’t fall out with any of them. And they wouldn’t fall out with him. He’s impossible to fall out with.’

  ‘He’s more a friend of yours than of Johnny’s, you’d say?’

  ‘I’ve known him for years. Our families were neighbours when we were children. He and Johnny met at Eton. But I know that Nicky wouldn’t hear a word against me. Johnny told me that Nicky was intensely loyal to me.’

  ‘He sent you the flowers, a dozen red roses. That could be construed as a statement of more than just friendship.’

  ‘I like roses, and Nicky knows that. Johnny always preferred lilies, had them all over his house.’ At the memory of this, her eyes squeezed shut for a moment. But Vince could see it was a moment intensely felt, and she wasn’t savouring the recollection, instead was trying to rid herself of it. ‘I can smell them now, pungent and cloying. The drifting pollen used to catch on my clothes and leave an orange stain. They’re the flo
wer of death, did you know that?’

  Vince knew it and nodded, but he was preoccupied with an idea that was slowly but surely sliding into place. ‘You’ve not been to Eaton Square since, have you?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  She circumspectly picked up a slice of her Welsh rarebit. Vince took it out of her hand and said, ‘Your biggest problem is your blacking out there. I know a little about blackout drunks.’Vince watched as her head dipped, and a shadow of shame passed over her face. But, heartbreaking as it was, he’d had enough of humouring her and pressed on. ‘Blackout drunks are capable of anything. Jails are full of men who went for one drink after work and woke up the next morning with their wife lying dead next to them, and themselves holding the knife that did it. Yet they didn’t have a clue how it happened. And saying you blacked out and can’t remember anything is not a defence. From going around to Eaton Square and getting drunk, from fighting and clocking him with the champagne bottle, you’re missing about six hours. If you want to prove you’re innocent before a court of law, we have to find those hours.’

  ‘But where? I can’t remember.’

  ‘Trust me?’

  Isabel searched Vince’s eyes. ‘Why do you care about me, Detective Treadwell?’

  ‘I don’t, not especially,’ he said, none too convincingly. ‘Johnny may have killed himself. Maybe not. If not, which is my bet, then I want to find out who did. So, Miss Saxmore-Blaine, do you trust me?’

  She nodded, and asked: ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to wake up and smell the flowers.’

  CHAPTER 15

  It was around midnight when Vince drew up in Eaton Square. Isabel pulled out a cigarette and began searching her patent-leather clutch bag for a light. Vince opened the glove compartment and pulled out a book of matches, the same one Isabel had given him to dispose of when he’d seen her in the private hospital. The cardboard match sparked and fizzed into life, illuminating the car when its light caught the glint of the gold-coloured match book.