Murder in Waiting (Augustus Maltravers Mystery Book 5)

by Robert Richardson

  Kershaw replaced the receiver and almost instantly it rang. It was his mother. Yes, he had seen The Chronicle. Yes, he was on to it. Yes, the agency was trying to … Yes, Mum. Yes, Mum … All right, Mum. Yes, Mum. “No” had always been a difficult word.

  Stephanie walked in just as he managed to end the conversation. She was pulling on a pair of string-backed driving gloves and he could smell the Giorgio Beverly Hills perfume he had bought for her birthday.

  “I’m going shopping.” Shopping in a Chanel suit, perfume worth a hundred and fifty pounds and Gucci shoes. “I’ll probably be late back. The girls are spending the day with the Weinrebs. You can find something for lunch in the fridge.”

  “What time will you be back?”

  She smoothed the gloves against her hands and examined the results critically. “Expect me when you see me. I may pop in to Mummy and Daddy’s … or go to someone who’s invited me round for a drink.”

  She was gone. No goodbye, no kiss, not even the gesture of a casual wave. Terry Kershaw heard the front door slam and gravel scatter as the Mercedes skidded away from the house. The phone rang again and he picked it up like an automaton.

  “It’s Alan Bedford again. Maltravers is out. I’ve left a message on the ansaphone. There’s no guarantee he’s the right one, but it’s a reasonable chance. When we get the paper, we’ll see if he’s dropped any clues.”

  “I couldn’t see anything,” Kershaw said. “I think she’s being secretive.”

  “We’ll find her. Nobody can hide in London for ever. Just be patient. Cheers, Terry … ”

  “No, hang on! There’s something else.” Kershaw realised he was gripping the receiver tighter as months of vague suspicions came into focus. “This is right off the record, Alan. Just between you and me. Nothing at all to do with Insignia. No talking to the old man.”

  “You know my company well enough, Terry. All confidentialities are respected. As long as everything’s above board. What is it?”

  “I want you to follow my wife.”

  There was a pause. “I see. How long for?”

  “As long as it takes to find out where she spends her time when I’m at work.”

  “I’m … sorry you’re asking me to do that. It wasn’t the sort of thing I thought would happen in your case. Anyway, when would you like us to begin?”

  “Today. She says she’s gone shopping for the day. She doesn’t think anywhere but Harrods exists. If she goes there, you should pick her up.”

  “There’ll be a young lady at your house in about twenty minutes,” Bedford told him. “Let her have a recent photograph and she’ll take it from there. As soon as we have anything, I’ll let you know.”

  *

  Jack and Kate Buxton’s guesthouse stood near the bottom of the nerve-wrackingly steep Porlock Hill and the air outside carried the smell of burning brake pads as unprepared tourists descended it for the first — and what they probably swore would be the last — time. Shining white pebble-dash walls with flowered curtains glimpsed through diamond leaded windows and thick overhanging thatch provided the ideal vision for holidaymakers, particularly Americans, seeking a romanticised version of England. Inside were pieces of genuine Georgian furniture, embroidered cloths on occasional tables in the lounge, crocheted linen antimacassars on plump easy chairs and sepia hunting prints which filled the walls. The overall combination was historically ridiculous, but offered a restful idiosyncratic style with the added comforts of contemporary plumbing and colour television.

  Jack Buxton’s face was still recognisable from the photographs that Maltravers had seen while doing his research, but swollen with years and what had been obligatory, rebellious long hair replaced by a diminishing cap of ash grey, brushed forward like a worn mop. As they shook hands, Maltravers felt as though he had taken hold of a large knuckle end of pork, dead flesh distorted by a jumble of bone. He could not help looking down at reddened fingers twisted with chronic arthritis, erupting out of palms like mangled giant prawns.

  “If you know about me, you know about them,” Buxton said.

  “I know,” Maltravers acknowledged sympathetically. “Will you mind talking about that?”

  “No. I’ve learned to live with it. Anyway, you’ll want to freshen up first. I’ll show you your room — sorry, I can’t carry cases.”

  They followed him up narrow stairs to the first floor. Whatever Jasmine Cottage had originally been built as, it had been large and the upper floor was divided into six double bedrooms. Buxton let them into one at the back.

  “There’s less noise from the traffic here,” he said, glancing round proprietorially to make sure some chambermaid had done her job properly. “Sorry, that soap should have been replaced. I’ll deal with it. If there’s anything else you want, call me or Kate. When you’re ready you’ll find me downstairs.”

  There was no bathroom en suite, so Tess went to find one while Maltravers unpacked what few clothes they had brought and he was reading a tourists’ guide to Exmoor when she returned twenty minutes later.

  “Other end of the corridor.” she told him. “Very swish. I’ll go down and introduce myself to Kate Buxton while you shower. If she was a dancer, there’s a chance she may have known some people I’ve met who are still in the business. That should get us going.”

  “Good luck.”

  Maltravers checked his tape recorder before going downstairs; it was an invaluable invention for his profession, but he constantly feared it would go wrong in mid-interview and he would not have the remotest idea how to fix it. A couple of tests persuaded him that its inner mysteries were still functioning and he went to find Buxton, who was leaning against the reception desk reading The Chronicle.

  “Is this how you got on to me?” he asked. “Through Jenni.”

  “Indirectly,” Maltravers said. “Because of that, I met Louella Sinclair and she told me about you.”

  “Louella? God, you’re going back.” Recollection half rueful, half painful crossed Buxton’s face. “I had it all going for me in those days. This interview could rake up an awful lot.”

  “I hope it does … Where’s the best place to talk?”

  “We’ll use the lounge.” Buxton stepped round from behind the desk. “It’s only available to guests in the evening.”

  “Where’s Tess?” Maltravers asked as he followed him.

  “In the kitchen talking to Kate. It’s like old home week in there. Swapping gossip as though Kate had never left the business.”

  Satisfied that Tess had made a start, Maltravers began his interview with a handful of open-ended questions which allowed Buxton to relax while he recounted the story of his career and subsequent success. He began to chainsmoke, cigarettes held with clumsy skill. Little came out that Maltravers did not already know, and it flowed smoothly until Buxton held up his hands.

  “Then I had to quit.” He stopped abruptly, eyes stained with what must have been constant physical pain. “Do you want to know how it happened?”

  “I already know most of it. Barry Kershaw.”

  “You’ve got it.” Buxton stubbed out a cigarette and immediately lit another. “Nobody could prove anything though. He covered all his tracks. How much of the story have you dug up?”

  “Check this out,” Maltravers replied and ran through what Louella Sinclair had told him.

  “Then you know,” Buxton acknowledged. “The bastard left me with no way back. So I end up here. Some of the older guests recognise me from time to time, but apart from that it’s as though none of it ever happened.”

  “How bitter are you?”

  Buxton shrugged. “Not as much as I was. Bitterness burns you up. Two things helped. Kate marrying me despite my being semi-crippled — and Kershaw buying it.”

  Maltravers reached across the low table between them and stopped the tape. “Let’s go off the record for a minute. Louella is convinced Kershaw was murdered.”

  “Of course he was.”

  “Who by? This is just you a
nd me now.”

  “I tried to find out, but either nobody knew or they weren’t saying.” Buxton smiled sourly. “Pity. I wanted to thank them.”

  “Educated guess?”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start.” Buxton glanced at him suspiciously. “If you can’t use any of this, why are you interested?”

  “Curiosity. Professional habit.”

  “Balls.”

  Maltravers grinned. He remembered Louella telling him about Buxton’s intelligence and decided it would be better to own up.

  “OK, I’ll come clean. The interview’s genuine — you can ring The Chronicle and check that if you want — but there is more to it. Answer one more question, then I’ll tell you. When were you last in London?”

  “Sometime in March, certainly before Easter. Once the season starts we never get away from here.” Buxton’s eyes hardened. “There’s your answer. You’re on next.”

  “If you’ve been here all that time, you can’t have had anything to do with Caroline Owen’s death. That’s when all this sprang up again.”

  “Caroline? I didn’t know she was dead.” Buxton leant forward, closing the already narrow space that separated them. “Explanations, friend.”

  For a quarter of an hour, he remained silent as Maltravers explained everything that had happened and what he suspected but could make no sense of.

  “I can understand why you wanted to see me,” Buxton acknowledged at the end. “But you could have been upfront from the start. The interview excuse wasn’t necessary.”

  “I wasn’t to know that,” Maltravers pointed out. “The only way of finding out what you were like was to meet you personally. Now I know, I can be … less devious. Got any thoughts?”

  “I remember Caroline very well,” Buxton said. “We had a thing going for a while, but it fizzled out like a lot of others. If this Owen guy was anything to do with Kershaw, it’s news to me. Someone told me Caroline was married, but I never met him. As for Jenni … ” Maltravers waited while he lit another cigarette. He had left an interval of almost five minutes since the last one. “She was the one I nearly married.”

  “What happened?” This was new information. Buxton’s name had come up among others when Maltravers and Jenni Hilton had talked over lunch after the interview, but she had not indicated there had been anything special about the relationship. As far as he could remember, she had almost been dismissive.

  “The easy answer is that Kate happened. But it was more complicated than that. For Jenni we were Romeo and Juliet at maximum volume, but … I don’t know. Either her fire was too hot or mine started to go out. We’d kept it quiet for some reason — can’t remember why now, perhaps it just added to the excitement — but I wanted out. I’d met Kate and she was my big thing — she still is. But I never cheated on Jenni. When I knew I had to end it, I was straight up.” He gave a small laugh with little humour in it. “Asked her to meet me for a drink, thanked her, told her how sorry I was. I really tried to do it right.” Maltravers frowned. “When was this?”

  “Eighteenth of June, 1968. In a pub at Kew. Can see it now.” “Less than two weeks after Kershaw died and the day before she walked off that film set … ” The answer to a critical question suddenly appeared. “So were you the reason she wouldn’t tell me about?”

  “Come on,” Buxton protested. “Jenni was too level-headed to chuck in a career like she had because of a broken heart. Obviously I thought there was a connection at first, but I expected her to turn up after a couple of weeks with some cover story about a breakdown. When she never came back, it had to be something more than carrying a torch for me. You can’t pin that disappearance on Jack Buxton.”

  “But if not that, then what?” Maltravers demanded. “Whatever the ultimate reason may have been, when she did a runner she was crying over you in the wee, small hours.”

  “So she got the blue meanies playing Sinatra. We’ve all had them and they make us do funny things. But you get over them.” Buxton shook his head. “No way. There had to be something else.”

  There was a long silence before Maltravers reached an answer that shook him with its plausibility.

  “How about this? Jenni Hilton killed Kershaw — and she did it for you. Then you finished with her. The man she loved enough to murder for. That was something she’d have wanted to run a long way away from.” He gave a long, heavy sigh out of years of private adoration. Uttering something unthinkable gave it substance. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “Come on.” There was instant rejection and disbelief in Buxton’s voice. “What are you trying to lay on me here?”

  “You knew nothing about it,” Maltravers told him. “But try and knock it down. I can’t.”

  “Jenni wasn’t … She wouldn’t have hurt a fly.”

  “She didn’t hurt a fly. She killed a … I don’t know … a five-star bastard from everything I’ve been told. And she did it out of love. Jack, for reasons I won’t bore you with, I like the idea of Jenni Hilton murdering someone as little as you do. But after what you’ve told me, I can’t make it go away.”

  “All right so I’ll admit it’s possible,” Buxton agreed reluctantly. “Sick, but possible. What do we do about it?”

  “Regarding Kershaw, damn all. Suddenly we have a theory, but there’s no proof — and let’s face it, we could both persuade ourselves that it was justifiable. You more than anyone. The only thing that interests me about Kershaw is how he ties in with Caroline’s death.”

  “You’re not suggesting Jenni did that as well, are you?” Maltravers hesitated before replying. “That was just a pause for thought. No, because it doesn’t make sense. The only explanation would be that Caroline knew Jenni was the murderer and had been blackmailing her and that’s crap. Caroline wasn’t like that and why should Jenni kill her after years of paying her off? The link’s got to be somewhere else.”

  “So are you back with Ted Owen?” Buxton asked. “You say that nobody knows of any connection between him and Kershaw … unless Jenni does.”

  “And she certainly won’t tell me … Would she tell you?”

  “Don’t count on it. If she murdered Barry — I’m not sure how far I go along with that, but still — if she did, she never told me. And that could have been a way of holding on to me.”

  “I can’t imagine Jenni would have wanted you on terms like that,” Maltravers replied. “Not after you’d told her it was over … Look we can finish the interview later. You must have worked out that Tess is more than just casually chatting to Kate. Sorry about the deceit, but now you know the reason. Let’s go and explain and we can all talk together.”

  Buxton checked his watch. “After dinner? We don’t serve it, but there are a couple of restaurants in the village that we recommend. In the meantime, I’ve got a business to run and I left the Sixties a long time back — until you arrived.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Before she left for Exeter on Saturday morning to see Russell, Jenni Hilton received several calls congratulating her on Maltravers’s feature. People she had maintained contact with from her professional days envied her the free publicity, those who led unpublic lives were impressed and vaguely surprised that someone they knew as a friend should be able to attract such extensive coverage in a newspaper. One call was from a film producer. He was trying to raise the finance to make Love in the Time of Cholera and the role of Fermina Daza still hadn’t been cast … She was startled that her reputation had survived a twenty-year hiatus at such a level. She adored the book and the role offered the opportunity for a stupendous comeback. She promised to think about it and realised when the call was finished how much she wanted to do it. But it was too high profile, a major production that would include a massive publicity drive, appearances on television chat shows, endless interviews. Her contract would mean she would have to become public property again, every shred of her privacy lost until there were no hiding places. Was playing Marquez’s eternally pursued heroine worth it? Who would play Floren
tino Ariza? Both parts aged over sixty years or so, they would have to split them between actors. Say Harry Connick Jnr — or perhaps Emilio Estevez — for the young version and … Jack Nicholson for the old man? No; Raul Julia would be perfect. She’d have no problem with the middle-aged woman and could tackle the old one, but what about the young girl? Sandrine Bonnaire? Julia Roberts? Or would Meryl Streep want to go from teenage to the end of life in a South American accent from her collection? Perhaps …

  “Stop it!” she shouted at herself. “It’s out of the question!”

  But was it? Agreeing to an interview in a national newspaper was the same as admitting you had deliberately made yourself pregnant, but only a little bit. It was the start of a process that was difficult to control unless you stopped it completely. And Fermina Daza … she went to the bookcase and found the book, flicking through its pages. Who would be doing the screen adaptation? As she read, she could feel lines on her lips. Where would they shoot? Mexico? Brazil? A long end shot of the riverboat endlessly sailing to an Amazonian Avalon? Plaintive notes of a violin — perhaps mixed with a nose flute — and …

  No. She replaced the book abruptly. She would be prepared to take on the occasional supporting role on television if it was offered, some radio work, provincial theatre, sufficient to feed a renewed desire, anonymous enough to be safe. But she could never go back to being the star she had been. Fame at that level held too many dangers of discovery.

  *

  Just an address, Terry. You can’t refuse me that. Not after all this time, not after all I’ve done for you. Then you can forget about it, just leave it with me. You’ll never know anything, unless … No, don’t think about unless. All it needs is a plan. Barry was good at plans. He was always telling me about his plans. What would Barry have done? Not that he’d ever do anything like this because he was a good boy and never had to. But if he had … Find if she lives on her own or with one of her fancy men. Ask a neighbour. Probably lives in a snooty area where they don’t chat to you like some of them round here. So pretend you’re looking for somebody. Think of some story. Perhaps the daily will answer the door and she’ll talk. Then get into the house. How? Too old to break in, use your common, Maureen. Think. Where’s that paper got to? There was something about … Where’s my glasses? Let’s see … here it is. Belongs to the World Wide Fund for Nature and Save the Whales. Typical. So, just knock on the door and ask … need to be careful. Must look right, make her think I’m genuine. It’ll only need a moment to get in, then …