He made his way to a food table and helped himself to salmon roulade and fettucini with wild mushrooms and anchovies lying on a frisée of oakleaf lettuce beginning to wilt in the heat. He had just decided on Australian Chardonnay rather than Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon when somebody spoke his name. Surprised that anyone there should know him, he turned to see a man whose face he half recognised but whose name lay just beyond immediate recollection.
“Give me a clue,” he said.
“Worcester Evening Echo.”
Maltravers paused momentarily as a series of events and journalists flashed through his mind and realisation came. “Simon … just a moment … Simon Cunliffe. What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’ve sold out and gone into the advertising business.”
“Not quite — but I am on Campaign magazine which is the next worst thing. Why are you here?”
“Let’s fight our way out of this lot and I’ll tell you.”
Holding glasses and plates at head height, they wriggled through the chattering crush and found a space by a window. Cunliffe’s employers explained his presence completely. Campaign is the weekly Bible of British advertising. Multi-million pound accounts on the move, the rise and fall of highly paid talents, new agencies formed by people all of whom insist that their name must be included in the company’s title, the creation of ingenious selling strategies provide an endless if somewhat repetitive source of news about an industry that eventually controls the lives of virtually everybody in the Western world without them realising it.
For a few minutes, the two men exchanged gossip about themselves and people they had worked with, then Maltravers glanced round the room, which appeared to be even more full than it had been when he arrived.
“Why did you bother coming tonight, though?” he asked. “Invitations to shindigs like this must be ten a penny.”
“I’ve just done a profile on Ted Owen and his secretary called me personally,” Cunliffe replied. “You know what it’s like. We’ve reported the launch ad nauseam, so I didn’t expect there to be any copy in it — although I’ve picked up a bit for the Diary page.”
“What?” Maltravers was only vaguely interested until Cunliffe explained.
“Ted Owen’s live-in girlfriend is wearing an engagement ring that would embarrass Liz Taylor. That’s her over there near the door. Silver dress and … ”
Maltravers looked where Cunliffe was indicating and identified Daphne Gillie, but for a few moments he did not hear anything the reporter was saying to him. Caroline Owen had been dead for only a few days and already her husband and his girlfriend had made their engagement public? It was so heartlessly repulsive that … He became aware that Cunliffe had started to talk about something else.
“When’s the wedding?” he asked sharply.
“Whose? Oh, Ted and Daphne’s. That’s being kept under wraps because they don’t want a fuss, but apparently it’s going to be fairly soon.”
“How soon is fairly soon?”
Cunliffe shrugged. “Some people think it could only be a matter of weeks. What’s your interest?”
“Just that I knew Ted Owen’s wife and her body’s hardly bloody cold yet.” Maltravers turned and looked out of the window, partly to hide his disgust, partly to prevent Cunliffe suspecting that his interest could be anything more than personal. As he did so, someone dragged Cunliffe away with standard promises of seeing him later and Maltravers was able to think by himself. Up to Caroline Owen’s death, Ted and Daphne had said they were prepared to wait as long as it took before they married; now they were rushing into it as though a four-minute warning had sounded. Why? One possibility occurred to him: a wife could not give evidence against her husband and vice versa. He couldn’t see that it made much sense, but Maltravers suddenly became certain that Caroline Owen’s death had not been accidental and the conviction shook him. He turned back to face the room and saw Tess talking to a man with a small ponytail who must be Owen. He could leave her to deal with him while he made contact with Daphne Gillie. It took him about three quarters of an hour of meaningless conversations with other people before he managed to be alone with her by using his connection with Tess.
“She’s a very good actress,” Daphne Gillie said. “We had quite a job deciding which of her voices we should use.”
“Did you finally choose her real one?” For a moment, he took the opportunity to elicit some information which might put Tess’s mind at rest.
“No, we settled on what we called Squeaky Mark II. It was dead right for the CIDI target market. We’ll probably want to use her again.”
“She does get busy,” Maltravers replied, laying the ground for what he knew would be Tess’s refusal. “Have you been in the business long?”
Probing with commonplace questions gave him time to assess Daphne Gillie and he was not enchanted. Gestures and body language revealed that she used her looks as a snare; even talking to a man whom she knew was in a relationship and unlikely to be of use to her in any event, she still instinctively played the game. He carefully controlled his response — she would know if he reacted out of amusement — but still injected occasional comments that suggested he was flattered. At one point after some joke that had made her laugh, he took hold of her left hand.
“Very nice.” He moved her hand and the ring sparkled. “That didn’t come out of a Christmas cracker. Who’s the lucky man?”
Gently but firmly, she pulled her hand away. “Ted and I have just got engaged … but we’re not making a big thing about it. The trouble is, you can’t keep anything quiet in the advertising business.”
“When’s the wedding?”
“Now that is a secret.” She glanced over his shoulder and smiled at someone behind him. “Will you excuse me? There’s somebody I must talk to. Help yourself to another drink.”
It could have been a genuine ending by a polite hostess who had to spread herself among the guests, but Maltravers suspected Daphne Gillie had wanted to terminate the conversation. He spotted Tess trapped in a corner by a young man from Pearlman’s, leaning with his arm against the wall to prevent her getting away; he gave the distinct impression of becoming overexcited at chatting up an attractive actress. Maltravers smoothly rescued her amid half-drunk Northern protests and steered her towards the door.
“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured. “I’ve had enough.”
Outside on the pavement, they both breathed deep sighs of relief, partly at the evening coolness after the humidity of the packed room, partly at simply having escaped.
“I didn’t get anything,” Tess told him. “I mentioned that I knew a friend of Caroline’s to Ted Owen and sympathised over her death, but he obviously didn’t want to talk about it and there was no way I could push it. How about you?”
“Oh, I picked up something, but I’m not sure what to make of it.” Maltravers frowned as he glanced up and down the street. “Where did we park … oh yes. I’ll tell you in the car because I want to go and see Louella if she’s at home. Come on. Incidentally, your reputation is safe. The loathsome Bubbles will sound nothing like you.”
“Oh, I know that. It was the first thing I asked Ted Owen about.”
Louella Sinclair’s house stood at the end of an Edwardian terrace with a view across Clapham Common; when she had bought it, such an address attracted half-amused sympathy, now it was an eminently desirable part of yuppiedom. She took Maltravers and Tess through to the front room, elegant enough for House & Garden (in which it had actually appeared), and heard their news with a silent dismay that bordered on revulsion.
“I knew that Ted could be a bastard,” she said when they finished. “I didn’t know that Daphne was such a bitch. If she dares to show her face at Caroline’s funeral, I may kill.”
“The question is, did they?” Maltravers observed. “I still can’t see a reason, but why this rush to get married all of a sudden?”
“There’s nothing to stop them now, so perhaps they just decided they may as well,”
Tess suggested. She did not sound convinced.
Maltravers shook his head. “If they waited a year, even six months, that would be different. But while they’re keeping the actual date quiet, I have the feeling it’s a damn sight sooner than that. And they must know that anyone who was a friend of Caroline’s would be offended. So what’s so important that they’re prepared to live with what people are going to think?”
“They probably don’t give a damn,” Louella said. “But it’s as though they’re deliberately going out of their way to upset people. What for?”
“There has to be something and giving offence is hardly enough.” Maltravers looked at Louella. “I’ve been thinking it over as we drove here and keep stumbling because the starting point could somehow be that party when Kershaw died. Jenni and Caroline were both there and could have been mixed up in his death. You say Ted wasn’t among the guests, that he didn’t know him, but he could have met Kershaw sometime and you know nothing about it. That at least brings everyone together.” “All right, but where does it get us?” she demanded in exasperation. “That was 1968 for God’s sake. Caroline and I stopped talking about Barry Kershaw a long time ago and Ted certainly never mentioned him. The only thing you’ve told me that’s happening now is that Jenni asked you to take his name out of your profile of her … When’s that appearing?”
“Tomorrow — and Kershaw’s been deleted. The trouble is that he’s dead but he won’t lie down. The evil that men do may surely live after them.”
“Well, there was no bloody good interred with his bones,” Louella remarked caustically. “I’ve managed to contact a couple of people from the old days, but they’re scattered all over the place now. They were intrigued, but had no suggestions. I didn’t bother with Jack Buxton because you’re seeing him.”
“That’s tomorrow as well,” Maltravers confirmed. “I shall be a person in, rather than from, Porlock. Bad day for Coleridge that. Perhaps I’ll have more luck.”
*
The winding-up of OGM’s party had been carefully arranged in advance. Male Pearlman employees determined to sample Soho’s salacious delights — which they were erroneously convinced would offer more blatant bawdiness than similar clubs back home — had been taken to an establishment which would sell them cheap champagne at two hundred pounds a bottle in return for ultimate disappointment, and the chairman and his wife had been escorted to the Talk of the Town for less expensive drinks and better entertainment. Ted Owen told one of his executives to make sure the last drunken hangers-on were flushed out of the building as he and Daphne Gillie were leaving. She sank back in the front seat of the Mercedes with relief and spoke with her eyes closed.
“Cynthia disappeared with Dudley, Linda and Mick vanished after half an hour, Sophie was almost undressing Alan as they went to the lift and Dennis couldn’t keep his eyes off young Paul all evening. Everybody appears to be changing beds.”
Owen turned up towards Euston Road and the longer but quieter route from the West End to Richmond, accelerating to beat an amber light. “Did Tess Davy talk to you?”
Daphne turned her head against the padded support behind her seat and looked at him. “No. Why do you ask?”
“She was asking me about Caroline.”
“What about her?” She sat up, abruptly reanimated out of post-party exhaustion.
“Nothing in particular. Just that she knows Louella Sinclair, an old friend of Caroline’s, and that Caroline used to be a publisher’s editor for her boyfriend. What’s his name? Guy?”
“Gus. Gus Maltravers. He was talking to me at one point.”
“Did he mention Caroline?”
“No, but he made some comment about my engagement ring. Asked when the wedding was going to be. What did you say to Tess Davy?”
“Stupid bastard!” They lurched against their seat belts as Owen braked to avoid hitting a delivery van cutting him up. He flashed his headlights angrily as he swerved past. “I didn’t say anything. Gave her a touch of the grieving husband bit and changed the subject. It just seemed strange she should bring it up. Not the sort of thing I’d have expected her to mention in the circumstances.”
Daphne relaxed again. “Sympathetic small talk. Nothing to worry about.”
“What about Maltravers asking about the wedding?”
“Same thing,” she said dismissively. “He wasn’t the only one.” She held out her hand, fingers spread wide, and street-lamps fired the diamond with orange shafts of passing light. “Perhaps we should have chosen something less outrageous. But when you’ve got it, flaunt it.”
*
Terry Kershaw took the call from the detective agency in his study again.
“Drawn a blank so far. Tried the Daily Express, but they say they don’t know where she lives and there’s nothing else to go on. I’ve got someone making inquiries at the theatre and we’re asking taxi drivers in the area. One of them may have taken her home. Apart from that, it’s needle in a haystack country. When do you want this by?”
“Soon as you can,” Kershaw replied. “If I come up with anything else that could help, I’ll pass it on. Keep me posted. Cheers.”
After starting the process of tracing Jenni Hilton, Kershaw had at first started moving back towards the idea that telling his mother would be to collude with her obsession. Self-determination fatally undermined by two possessive women, he had swayed between what his conscience said he should do, what confused loyalties urged him to do, and what a desire to hit back at his wife tempted him to do. Finally he had decided to try and find the information and then think again. The eventual decision would be a matter of chance, depending on who manipulated him and in which direction. Successful in business, popular with friends, Terry Kershaw was privately tormented by the acceptance of his own weakness and a recognition that he was unable to do anything about it. He could not even draw strength from the fear that a woman’s life could depend on which way he allowed himself to be pushed.
Chapter Twelve
Pictured half in shadow against the curtains of her front room, Jenni Hilton’s four-column image on the front page of The Chronicle’s Weekend section encapsulated distance and mystery. A less skilled photographer would have captured preserved beauty; a vainer and less intelligent woman would have insisted that he did so. Instead, the loveliness was there only to be seen by those who looked carefully. Maltravers gave the illustration a nod of silent admiration, then grimaced slightly at the headline drawn from a Beatles classic: WHY SHE HAD TO GO, I DON’T KNOW, SHE WOULDN’T SAY. It highlighted an aspect of his piece he would rather they had played down. Non-journalists often imagine that writers produce their own headlines, unaware that sub-editors jealously guard that privilege, now enhancing with brilliance, now damaging with awfulness. Taking as detached a view as he could, Maltravers had to admit the head cleverly caught a central point about Jenni Hilton, complete with an appropriate Sixties’ flavour, but wished they had come up with something else. He automatically checked that any reference to Barry Kershaw had been deleted, which it had.
“You shouldn’t look so smug about your own work,” Tess told him as he read a passage again. “It’s conceited.”
“I’m allowed a little satisfaction over doing my job well, and I know better than anyone else where it could have been improved. That bit’s sloppy.” He folded the paper and dropped it on the floor by the kitchen table. “Anyway, there’s nothing that Jenni Hilton can complain about. No mention of Kershaw.”
“She might worry if she knew what we were up to,” Tess remarked.
“All we’re trying to discover is why Caroline Owen died with nothing more to go on than a gut feeling she was murdered. It’s nothing to do with Jenni … ” He paused as a new thought occurred to him, “Unless, of course, she has or had some connection with Ted Owen. Did you raise that when you spoke to him?”
“No,” Tess sighed. “That’s the problem isn’t it? I woke up during the night and lay awake for ages trying to make connections.”
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“Well, I’m not about to make some runic Poirot-style comment revealing that I’ve worked out something everyone else has missed. Irritating habit.” He stood up. “All I have is the possibility that Porlock might produce something more than another piece The Chronicle will pay me for.”
Tess pouted mischievously. “I was rather hoping for a dirty weekend as well.”
“Dirty weekends are illicit. We shall have a clean weekend. Same basic principle, considerably less screwing.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “I’ll settle for that.”
“Sensualist. But don’t forget we’re after information. You grill Kate Buxton to see if she knows anything while I work on her husband.”
*
Maltravers and Tess left London so early that they were speeding past Bristol when Kershaw called the detective agency again.
“Have you seen this morning’s Chronicle? There’s a feature about Jenni Hilton.”
“We’ll get hold of a copy. I take it there’s no address.”
“Not even a district. Call them and see if they’ll tell you.”
“There’ll be nobody in on a Saturday. Who wrote it?”
“Someone called … Augustus Maltravers. Doesn’t say anything about him though.”
“Spell it … hang on.” Kershaw heard the phone being laid down and there were a few moments of silence before it was picked up again. “This could be handy. There’s only one Maltravers in the London phone book. Initial A. Lives in Coppersmith Street. It’s certainly worth a try. I’ll call you back.”
Murder in Waiting (Augustus Maltravers Mystery Book 5) Page 12