Murder in Waiting (Augustus Maltravers Mystery Book 5)

by Robert Richardson

  Suddenly a scream of terror screeched through the racket and a man leapt back as he was splattered with human blood; a woman standing next to him whirled round and vomited. At the centre of the platform there was panic, passengers further along turning towards shouts of horror at the sight of a human body mangled beneath steel wheels. In the confusion, people stared at each other helplessly. An off-duty ambulanceman went to attend a woman who had fainted. Somebody hurried away to tell the station staff. The train driver scrambled out of his cab, shouting as he pushed through the crush. Several regular commuters simply walked away, mentally working out alternative routes home.

  Within two minutes, two uniformed policemen hurried down the centre escalator of the three leading to and from the main entrance, bundling passengers out of their way; people rising in the opposite direction wondered what had happened. Among them was one woman who looked at the police indifferently before disappearing in the crowd passing beneath the mosaic tiled arches at the top. She went through the ticket barrier and along the green and cream tiled corridor to the steps that led out into Oxford Street, emerging by the newspaper stand opposite McDonald’s. She ignored a girl handing out leaflets for courses in English and walked along the busy pavement towards Marble Arch then turned into Soho Square, with its anachronistic mock-Tudor arbour in the middle of the gardens. She cut through to Dean Street, past advertising agencies, film companies, the Chinese News Agency and the Sunset Strip until she reached the Groucho Club. The girl at reception was on the telephone, but smiled in recognition as she entered through the revolving door and signed the members’ book. In the bar, she was greeted by several people. A man asked what she wanted to drink and she said a vodka and lime; in the Groucho, that automatically meant a double. As the woman sat on the brown, buttoned-leather settee by the window, somebody pointed out a small dark stain on her skirt. She glanced at it, then rearranged the material so that it did not show.

  “Spaghetti sauce,” she said dismissively. “I had lunch at the Vecchia and the waiters were as mad as ever. It’ll wash out.” Nobody noticed that the stain wasn’t dry.

  *

  Overlooking the arrow-straight reach of the Thames between Chelsea Bridge and Battersea Bridge, Cheyne Walk is a good address. The view from its Queen Anne houses across to Battersea Park costs a great deal; Cheyne Row, Place, Mews and Gardens are acceptable for those who can’t have the real thing, but, hidden away from the river, Cheyne Street is the poor relation, anything under a million pounds or so for a property being bargain basement price in that neighbourhood. Its mirror-image Edwardian terraces of twelve houses on each side are functional rather than elegant, with spearhead railings rising on either side of three front steps and ornate glass lanterns over the doors. Maltravers made his way there by bus — a form of transport unknown to most of the residents — as even his knowledge of London would not be able to locate a parking place within miles. Discovering he was early, he walked down to the river and along the Embankment before turning up Flood Street, marked for minor historical fame as once being the home of Margaret Thatcher.

  The ridiculous anticipation of meeting Jenni Hilton was still with him, but now there were unexpected dimensions. The dramatic recluse could also have been involved in a murder to the extent of lying … and more than that? The thought that could not be dismissed as unthinkable returned again. He deliberately walked more slowly, turning over in his mind how to approach it. At first there would be no more than an arranged interview and, while they talked, he might be able to build up enough of a rapport for them to chat generally afterwards. Perhaps she would accept an invitation to lunch. Journalists meet all sorts of people in all sorts of circumstances and putting on whatever act is necessary to win their confidence is a trick they learn early. Maltravers had his own writing and Tess’s career with which to build bridges and was quite prepared to use them. It was not completely honest, but that was not a recommended virtue when digging out difficult angles on a story, and this angle was uniquely difficult.

  As he entered Cheyne Street, he realised he was mentally checking his appearance and was annoyed at such juvenile behaviour. But standing outside Jenni Hilton’s door, he felt again memories of teenage excess, its emotional traces more vivid than common sense. It was ridiculous. He reminded himself that since then he had enjoyed an affair with a model who was now among many men’s fantasy women and had a permanent relationship with another glamour figure in Tess. Behind fame and beauty were women like millions of others without make-up in the morning, bed was not the be-all and end-all, friendship mattered more than sex and … Christ, she was lovely. Logic temporarily collapsed as the door opened and Jenni Hilton was smiling at him.

  “Gus Maltravers? Hello. Come in.”

  Tapered black trousers looped beneath feet in flat shoes; white cotton shirt hanging loose at the waist with a designer logo on the breast pocket; large costume jewellery earrings shaped like a boat’s sails; long hair pulled back off her forehead and held in a ponytail; make-up so subtle as to be almost invisible and fingernails gleaming with silvery lacquer.

  “‘Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl,”’ he said as they shook hands. What a stupid thing to say, he told himself.

  “Pardon?” she glanced down and laughed. “Oh, the nails. Nobody’s ever been poetic about them before. Don’t tell me … Chesterton isn’t it? Lepanto?”

  “Yes.” Maltravers felt like someone discovering that the Taj Mahal really was as unbelievable as it looked in pictures; Jenni Hilton talked his language. “I had a girlfriend about a hundred years ago who used something similar and I used to quote it to her.”

  “God, I must be out of date.” She smiled again. “Coffee’s ready in the front room. You’re very punctual.”

  “After waiting twenty-odd years to meet you, I could at least be on time.”

  “Don’t flatter,” she warned as he followed her down the hall and into the front room. “I stopped falling for that journalists’ trick a very long time ago.”

  The front room was basically as it had been when the house was first built. An old-fashioned wooden picture rail still ran round the walls and the black marble fire surround with mock-classical pillars and mantelpiece had been left in place. Instead of ripping such things out, Jenni Hilton had used them as a framework for carefully selected contemporary furnishings: Montpelier painted bureau, Meubles Français dining suite, William L. Maclean sofa. Muriel Short fabric curtains, vivid with scarlet flowers, were offset by pale cream Regency striped wallpaper. It was the room of a woman with taste and the money to express it. Maltravers mentally took it all in — selected mention of certain touches added depth to an interview — and at the same time firmly stamped on his feelings and switched his mind into detached, professional gear as Jenni Hilton poured coffee from a prosaic glass percolator jug.

  “I thought of getting out the proper coffee set, but the cups really are too piss elegant,” she said, filling him a plain white mug. She sounded slightly mocking.

  “And too good for scruffy journalists?” he remarked.

  “Oh, dear.” Now she sounded surprised. “Are we offended? Reporters don’t normally have thin skins. Sugar? Or are you sweet enough?”

  “Two, please,” Maltravers replied. “And cream.” He watched her spoon sugar into his mug. He had anticipated she might be defensive, but had not known how; obviously needling antagonism was being used and he would have to deal with it.

  “I was told you’d put down ground rules for this interview,” he said as she handed him the mug. “Let me set my stall out as well. There are many journalists who make me as sick as they do you, but I don’t operate like them. You asked for me and now you’ve got me. You’ll find out how straight I am when you read my piece and it’s going to make life easier if you come out from behind your barriers.”

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Prepared speech?”

  “No. Instinctive response to a couple of oblique cracks. I’m not se
nsitive, but I am upfront.”

  Jenni Hilton smiled. “I think you are and I’m sorry. I’ve been … very nervous about this morning. Apology accepted?”

  “Of course. It’s perfectly understandable.”

  “Do you want to go out and come in again?”

  “No need to go that far.” Maltravers grinned at her. “Hey, aren’t you Jenni Hilton? I used to be crazy about you. Can we talk?”

  A grin flashed back to him. “You want an autographed photo?”

  “Will you sign it ‘With love to Gus’?”

  “I never put ‘love’. But you can have ‘Best wishes’.”

  “And a kiss? I really want a kiss.”

  “Don’t push it.” She laughed and held up her hand in surrender. “All right. It’s just that I wasn’t nervous about this, I was getting shit scared. I haven’t done this sort of thing for a long time.”

  “You’ll survive.” Maltravers produced a pocket tape recorder and put it on the low table between them. “Let’s see how we go. If any of my questions get too awkward, just tell me and I’ll turn this thing off and we’ll talk off the record.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “You mean that, don’t you? How the hell did you hold down a job on Fleet Street?”

  “Your problem is over-exposure to the worst of my kind,” he replied. “We don’t all kick the door down and lie through our teeth.”

  Jenni Hilton settled back in her chair. “Show me.”

  Maltravers had won the opening gambits and began his interview with basic questions, to which he already knew most of the answers, but they started her talking and he could sense her relaxing as they proceeded. She was objectively critical about her own work and shrewd in her assessment of the Sixties and its personalities. If anything, the tape was picking up more good lines than he would have space for; some people can talk for hours and the journalist later despairs of finding a single sentence worth using verbatim, others have a natural ability with words. Now cynical, now sympathetic, always articulate, Jenni Hilton emerged as the best sort of subject; she spoke in quotes. Only when he reached the reasons for her own sudden disappearance did she show signs of evasiveness. Maltravers cautiously led up to, and for a while stepped around the matter carefully, but eventually she shook her head abruptly.

  “Turn it off,” she told him. “This doesn’t matter.”

  “Sorry.” He pressed the stop button on the recorder. “I’m going outside my brief a bit, but you must admit it’s interesting. Not many people give up a career such as you had just like that.”

  “Perhaps not, but the reasons are personal. OK? I’m quite prepared to talk about some of the things I’ve been doing since, and if you want my opinions on the fur trade or North Sea pollution I’ve got plenty of soap boxes I stand on. But why I quit is off limits.”

  “Fine.” Apparently disinterested, he turned the machine on again. Instinctively, he felt it was not the moment to mention Barry Kershaw. “I’ve picked up your trail in California and Wales. What were you doing there?”

  Not a great deal as it transpired. Having accumulated money, Jenni Hilton had lived a private life bringing up her son — his father’s identity was not going to be revealed — and doing some writing, none of which had been published. She had returned to Britain so that the boy could go to school and, now that he was in his first year reading medicine at Exeter University, had returned to London.

  “And what about a comeback?” he asked. “It’s long overdue.”

  “It … has its attractions.” She had always intended using the interview to trail her coat and see if it brought any reaction. “Not singing, but I’d certainly be tempted to act again if the right part came up.”

  “I must try and write one,” Maltravers said. “Anyway, I think I’ve got everything I want. If I come across any gaps, I’ll phone you.”

  He smiled at her as he turned the recorder off again and put it back in his pocket. “Thank you. Wasn’t too bad, was it?”

  “I’ve known worse … no, that’s attacking again. Let’s say that several teeth were extracted quite painlessly.”

  “I’m glad,” he replied. “Now, it’s personal request time. I really was a fan — that wasn’t just a line to win you over — and I’d love to buy you lunch so we can just talk. No tricks. Everything from here on in is off the record.”

  “Well, I could pretend to have an engagement, but … ”

  “But you haven’t.”

  “‘What can a neat knave with a smooth tale make a woman believe?’” she quoted, challenging with her eyebrows.

  “If Tess was here, she’d confirm I’m rather good at that game,” he said. “Webster, The Duchess of Malfi. Anyway, where do you suggest? This part of town is outside my usual hunting grounds.”

  “There’s a decent wine bar just off the Embankment. Give me five minutes.”

  She left the room and Maltravers heard her go upstairs. He had discovered that the real Jenni Hilton was as attractive to him in much more subtle and satisfying ways than the unreachable star figure had been and just to spend more time in her company would be a pleasure. But there was still Kershaw’s death hidden in one of the no-go areas of her life. How he was going to explore it he had no immediate idea, but having overcome her initial antagonism and built up the beginnings of a willingness to trust during the interview, he decided to mention Kershaw’s name casually over lunch and see what happened. Perhaps he would hit another blank wall … but perhaps he would draw blood. Twenty years earlier, he would have been tongue-tied and gauche in Jenni Hilton’s presence. But not now.

  Chapter Five

  “Hello, this is the Gus Maltravers and Tess Davy mansion. Nobody’s about at the moment, but if you’re a burglar checking out the premises the only things worth stealing are the two Rottweilers. Otherwise leave a message after the traditional tone and we’ll call you back. Please remember to give your name and number to save us guessing. Thank you for calling and have a nice day if you’re American. Or British come to that.”

  “Oh … Gus, it’s Louella Sinclair. I’m sorry, but something’s happened that … There’s a story in last night’s Standard about a woman killed on the Tube. Page two. She was a very good friend of mine and … look, I’ll be at the shop until six and after that I’ll be at home on 228 0142. Call me as soon as you can.”

  Louella Sinclair’s eyes returned to the paper lying open on the table by the telephone as she rang off. It was the first edition, carrying news which had broken too late for the West End final the previous day. She had bought a later edition to see if they had enlarged the story, but there had been nothing more than the same three paragraphs under the headline HUNT FOR TUBE DEATH WITNESSES.

  *

  Police have named a woman who was killed when she fell under a Central Line train at Tottenham Court Road yesterday as publisher Caroline Owen of Sheppard Gardens, Holland Park.

  Mrs Owen, 50, who ran Scimitar Press, in King Street, Covent Garden, was identified from the contents of her handbag. She was married to Ted Owen, chairman of the advertising agency Owen Graham Metcalf, although the couple are believed to have been separated.

  Her death is being treated as accidental, but a police spokesman said: “The incident occurred during the rush hour and we are sure that some people on the platform left before the police arrived. We want anyone who witnessed the incident to come forward.”

  *

  The original story had been longer. Inquiries among her neighbours had established that Caroline Owen had lived alone since her marriage had broken up and little was known about her private life; Scimitar Press published children’s stories and books on organic gardening and cookery. Off the record, the police had said they felt that probably somebody had stumbled against her in the crush as the train came in and had panicked when they realised what they had done. There certainly appeared nothing to suggest suicide. A new reporter, anxious to impress the news desk with a front page exclusive off the police bulletin, had f
ailed to turn up anything. He had padded out his copy as much as possible, but a sub-editor with only six centimetres of space for the story and headline, had chopped it down to the bare essentials. One fact had not emerged because it was so obscure; Caroline Owen had been at Barry Kershaw’s last party in 1968.

  Shocked at the news of a friend’s death, Louella Sinclair tried to analyse instinctive, irrational, feelings. Logically, it was no more than coincidence that she had been talking about Barry Kershaw so recently. And the conversation had inevitably started her thinking, remembering people who had been involved, wondering again what had really happened. Common sense told her that she’d read stories before of people dying on London’s Underground. Some fell by accident, others deliberately chose to end their lives in such a desperate, bloody and certain manner. But others could be pushed. It was such a simple method of killing somebody. Surrounded by dozens of potential witnesses, but all watching the train, only interested if it would stop with doors conveniently facing them. There would be subtle jostling as people manoeuvred themselves into better positions, but there was a tendency not to look at anyone around you. One firm hand in the back of someone already half moving forward, then panic, a leaping away, confusion, screams. Any number of people could slip away, one guilty invisible among the innocent. Unless the police discovered a motive, it was a perfect murder covered by the explanation of tragic accident.

  Think, Louella, she told herself. Suicide was out of the question; it was only a couple of weeks since Caroline had been round to dinner, excited about a new author, talking about finding time for a holiday at the end of the year, joking about changing her hair style — “Tell me it won’t look ridiculous, darling. I’m not that old” — simply happy. So not suicide, but a terrible accident, just like the police were saying, and it was stupid to start imagining that … The door of the back room opened.