Best British Crime 6 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

  I suppose I could have said no. At any time really, I could have taken my jealousy and fury home with me, travelled away from that city and never seen her again, left them to their desire and bitterness and passion. But I agreed with him, it wasn’t fair, she wasn’t fair. One understands the role of spouse, or of mistress, either of these makes sense. And a spouse knows there is the chance to be cuckolded, a mistress understands she is not first. But a third lover? A fourth? He was right. She was taking the piss. And besides, after just a short while, I quite liked the idea of having him to myself. He was - is - a very attractive man. If not conventionally so. But then I am not, unlike so many French women, a lover of convention.

  And it appears the plans of her husband, my lover-chef, have worked. I dressed in the disguise he chose for me, travelled as another woman, hid in this city and drowned another woman. Now she is dead and she is not beautiful, the drowned are not beautiful. I have been here a week. First the police came to speak to Daoud, but he had an alibi, he was washing dishes. Plenty of people saw him doing so. The husband had an alibi - he was working, in the kitchen, talking to his customers, creating art from raw ingredients, feeding the discerning masses. The young man did not have an alibi. He was sitting at home that night, alone, shooting up with the heroin substitute she brought him from her office, using the syringe she brought him from her office. Her husband told the police about her lovers, her drug habits, her hidden life. He did not tell the police how we parcelled her up in restaurant waste bags and carried her to his van, more often used for transporting sides of beef and mutton, and we took her to the river and we let her fall. So much is hidden under cover of darkness. And London has more CCTV cameras than any other city in Europe. But not Paris, those ugly cameras spoil the view. I told the police about our relationship. They were surprisingly ready to believe a respected medical professional could behave in such a manner, for them, the addition of lust to substance multiplied readily into disaster. It made it simple too, for them to understand the jealousy of her young lover, his head swimming, his hands holding her beneath the water. Crime passionnel is no longer a defence of course, but I trust his time in prison may help him with his addiction problems. Tout est bien qui finit bien.

  I did not have an alibi. But then I was not in France. My passport proves it, the strong security both our countries now pride themselves on proves it. There may have been a middle-aged woman in a grey wig and ill-fitting clothes at some point. She may have been in France, in Paris, but she was not noticed.

  I miss her, of course, though not too much, I suspect we were nearing the end of our time anyway, everything has its time. And I have my new lover now, he who feeds me so well. Too well almost. It is lucky my own husband and children demand so much energy at home, keeping me busy, I might get fat otherwise. Family is so important, isn’t it?

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  * * * *

  ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

  Marilyn Todd

  I looked at the couple hovering in the doorway, him in Savile Row, her all blue Chanel and pearls, and thought: so rich, so wholesome. So unhappy.

  “Mr and Mrs Cuthbertson,” he said by way of introduction, and there were enough plums in his mouth that I could have made jam, were I that way inclined. “We ...” he cast a sideways glance at his wife, who had found a sudden need to check that the buttons on her jacket were in line. “We have an appointment with Mr Hepburn.”

  “Please come in.”

  I made a point of glancing at the diary on my desk, then smiling at the clock on the wall in a way that commended their promptness. They were on the dot. And had no idea how the rough end of the law worked.

  “I’m afraid Mr Hepburn’s been summoned to an urgent court appearance,” I lied, shaking Mrs Cuthbertson’s limp white calfskin glove. “But he briefed me on your situation before he left, and asked me to run through the details with you.”

  This is the point where I bring out my most reassuring smile, proof that all those lengthy visits to the dentist do pay off.

  “I’m his daughter, Lois.” Ouch. Mr Cuthbertson’s handshake wasn’t only solid, though. I detected a distinct Freemason squeeze. “I guarantee you the same level of confidence and discretion that my father would give you.”

  They glanced at each other, still a little uneasy. But they hadn’t travelled all this way just to take the next train home.

  “That’s perfectly all right,” Mrs Cuthbertson said, and whatever her other faults, she was a terrible liar.

  “Yes, indeed.” Her husband, now, he scored a little higher, but only a fraction, I’m afraid. “Y’see, Miss Hepburn, we would like this . . . business organized as quickly as possible.”

  And that indeed was the truth.

  “Absolutely.” I ushered the pair into my fictitious father’s office before taking a seat behind my fictitious father’s desk. After all, the year might be 1959 and Brighton might be Britain’s most sophisticated town outside of London, but the world still wasn’t ready for single female private investigators. To be honest, I’m not sure I was, either.

  “My solicitor informs me that you can help speed up our divorce,” Mrs Cuthbertson said, in a manner that made it sound as though Stratton, Hall and Stratton might yet be playing a practical joke.

  “I can.” This time I didn’t smile, but steepled my fingers. “Though you need to understand what’s involved.”

  Mr Cuthbertson was the shuffling-in-his-chair kind. His wife was the avoid-direct-eye-contact type. I really did feel for them both.

  “On the contrary, Mr Stratton was specific,” she said, toying with the clasp on her matching Chanel handbag. “Indeed, he went to some pains to explain how one of the very few grounds for a rapid divorce is adultery, and that providing proof can be given that one party has been indiscreet ...” Her voice trailed off, and I noticed two bright red patches had sprung up to mar her immaculately rouged cheeks.

  “Then there is a certain acceleration in the severance of the marriage that cuts years off the waiting time, yes,” I finished for her. “But this isn’t Reno, Mrs Cuthbertson.” Someone needed to point this out, and trust me, it was never going to be some posh, pin-striped solicitor. “One of you—” (usually the man, gentlemanly conduct and all that) “— needs to be photographed in what the courts like to describe as a compromising position.”

  “But you do the . . . uh . . . groundwork?” her husband asked.

  “If you mean by booking a hotel room and hiring a corespondent, then yes, Mr Cuthbertson. This agency takes care of that.”

  As succinctly as possible, I ran through the procedure. The time for details was later, but this young couple needed to know here and now that evidence of not just a one-night stand but a long-standing, ongoing affair needed to be established. In practice, this was simply a matter of the man changing his tie for each of the photographs. The girls carried a change of clothing as a matter of course. I’d make lunch appointments every half-hour at different restaurants, dinner appointments in the evening, so there’d be wadges of photographs to lay before the court. The lovebirds holding hands between courses. The naughty couple toasting each other, whispering sweet nothings across the salt cellar, swanning in and out of hotels, that sort of thing.

  “I will provide a back-dated contract that shows Mrs Cuthbertson approached this agency three months ago, asking us to investigate her husband’s infidelity,” I said, “but all this proves is that her husband has been meeting another woman over a period of time.”

  To grant her a divorce, the courts need meat on their bones.

  “At a prearranged time, one of our agents -” I truly hoped I’d made it sound as though there was more than one of me - “goes to the hotel room, and because the courts require the corroboration of an independent witness, persuades the housekeeper to unlock the door.” I paused. “Then we snap the client in as compromising a position as they can muster.”

  The men were uniformly reserved, but the girls had no such qualms. At the requir
ed moment, they threw caution and their brassieres to the wind. No wonder the husbands looked so startled in the photos.

  “Jolly good.” Mr Cuthbertson was relieved that his input to the arrangements would be minimal.

  Mrs Cuthbertson didn’t even try to hide her joy at being left out of it completely. “That is excellent, Miss Hepburn,” she gushed, and I swear that little feather in her hat perked up. “Really excellent.”

  I wasn’t convinced excellent was the word.

  “Are you quite sure this is what you want?” This time I spoke to Mr Cuthbertson directly. “There’s no going back,” I told him. “You’ll be publicly branded an adulterer, your name will be blazoned across the newspapers—”

  “Miss Hepburn,” his wife interrupted gently, “my husband and I married in haste, we have already repented. We have no desire to add to the leisure.”

  I wondered whether they always did their arguing in such civilized terms, or whether they’d simply passed beyond that stage.

  “The thing is, Miss Hepburn, both Margaret and I have met someone else,” Mr. Cuthbertson said. “We just want this marriage ended as quickly as possible, so we are free to marry again.”

  It all seemed so gracious and polite that I imagined the four of them round the Cuthbertson’s elegant dining table, discussing it over a bottle of Margaux and a nice fillet steak. I thought it was about time someone added the mustard. “You are aware of the costs involved?”

  “My family’s in tractors and my husband is in baby foods,” Mrs Cuthbertson said, carelessly rubbing her diamonds, “Money is no object, Miss Hepburn.”

  “Then you’re also aware of why this fast-track divorce ploy is so expensive?” I leaned across the desk and looked her husband squarely in the eye. “If anything goes wrong, it’s not just you,” I told him. “We could both end up in jail.”

  They glanced at each other, gulped, then nodded. Of the two, the wife’s nod was the least grim, I decided.

  But then she wasn’t the one looking at porridge.

  * * * *

  I want to make it very clear that what I do has no connection whatsoever with prostitution. Quite the opposite, in fact, because the girls I hire are usually married themselves and lead otherwise normal, respectable lives. It’s just that, like me, they need the money - and for this kind of money, people take risks. Wouldn’t you?

  And it’s because there’s so much at stake, fixing up fake adultery cases, that I (a) charge exorbitant fees and (b) plan to the very last detail - then go over it time and again. That way, should anything go belly up, at least I have the satisfaction of having some money behind me to take care of Susan, plus I can wile away my stretch in the sure and certain knowledge that I did the best I could, which is all anyone can ask. Even crooked female private eyes.

  So my confidence was pretty high as I took the elevator to the Belle Vue’s second floor. Of course, that had as much to do with the hired mink as my meticulous forward planning, because even though I’d never earn enough to buy one for myself, you really do feel a million dollars wrapped inside real fur. And a girl certainly needs the right clothes in a hotel like the Belle Vue. For one thing, it’s the best hotel by a mile, and that’s where several of my competitors tripped up. They’d tried to cut costs, and realized too late that judges, especially divorce-court judges, aren’t lemons. No man who has his shirts handmade in Jermyn Street books into a cheap hotel with an even cheaper floozy. So that’s the first rule. Horses for courses, and since you only get the one chance in a place like the Belle Vue, you need to convince the housekeeper with a single glance that you’re a bona fide guest who’s foolishly left her key behind.

  “Here we are, madam. Two-two-three.”

  The housekeeper made to knock, but I pointed to the “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging dutifully on the doorknob, and you’d be surprised how far a five-pound note still goes in the middle of an afternoon in 1959. While she jiggled the master key in the lock, I whipped my camera out of a vanity case designed for rather more feminine and undoubtedly more trivial activities, then checked the corridor for the billionth time. Still deserted, but on these carpets, you wouldn’t hear a herd of wildebeest charging down on you. The lift whirred gently in the background.

  “Say cheese,” I breezed, as the housekeeper flung open the door.

  “Jeez,” the housekeeper said.

  So used to all this, I’d taken the photo before I even realized. It was a man on the bed, all right, but he wasn’t undressed and there was no sign of Mavis or her hired fox fur. (For the same reasons, I can’t have Mavis wandering round the Belle Vue without looking the part, either). But to be honest, I wasn’t surprised she’d done a bunk. His head lay at a horribly unnatural angle.

  My first thought was for Mrs Cuthbertson.

  My second was to get the hell out of there.

  “This situation needs to be handled with the utmost discretion,” I told the housekeeper, backing carefully out of the room. “You fetch the manager. I’ll wait here, to make sure no one goes in.”

  The trouble was, I couldn’t hear myself speak, there was this terrible din in the background. Not what one expects from the Belle Vue, I thought idly. What on earth was the place coming to? Then I turned round.

  So much for keeping it quiet, I realized, and so much for slipping away.

  That din was the housekeeper’s scream.

  * * * *

  With no quick or easy way out, it was now a case of damage control. At the first screech, the lift boy, two chambermaids, some straight-backed, po-faced security manager, and a fat room-service waiter appeared out of nowhere, while there I was, camera in hand, pretending to be Mrs Two-two-three. My gut instinct said play up the distraught widow thing, who’s to say what grief will do, why shouldn’t the poor wife run off, the girl’s in shock? But it only goes to show. In the past, on the very few occasions I’d ever ordered room service, the waiters proved aloof and snooty specimens. Trust me to pick the breed’s only bleeding heart. And then there was the Belle Vue’s director.

  “Drink this,” he insisted, pushing a cognac into my hand, having personally escorted me down to his office.

  “How kind,” I sniffed, thinking, good, I can sneak away now, but compassion, it seems, has no bounds at plush hotels. He left a desk clerk as a deposit, and you wouldn’t believe how fast the police can move, either. When they try.

  So there I was, surrounded on all sides by red velvet and gilt while the piano in the foyer tinkled Gershwin, computing a multitude of likely stories. I pictured Mrs Cuthbertson, fiddling with her handbag, fiddling with her pearls, and realized that I couldn’t maintain the pretence of being her. Her marriage might be failing, but her husband had been willing to put his upper-crust reputation on the line for her, and in any case, a murder investigation would quickly reveal that I wasn’t the genuine article. No, I’d have to be someone else who’d gone out without her damn room key. I warmed the cognac in my hand and sipped. Ultra smooth, but what else would one expect of the Belle Vue. And the more I thought about it, the better this scenario played out. If I was a woman who was stupid enough to forget her room key, I was certainly stupid enough to get the numbers muddled up. I finished off the brandy and pasted on my coy-but-nonetheless-ravishing smile for the benefit of the desk clerk. After all, who better to probe about the current guest list?

  Within ten minutes, I was Mrs Henry Martin, newlywed bride, because if honeymoons don’t make a girl jittery, what the hell does? Not the sex. The fact that she’s committing to a lifetime with someone, bearing his children, washing his socks. That would scare the pants off me, I can tell you. So. Providing the police didn’t interrogate me in the presence of the desk clerk (300-1), there was no way of being caught out on my story, especially since the Martins had gone sightseeing in Eastbourne and would not be back before supper (7:30 onwards, dinner jackets only). Yes, indeed. Between the mink and the cognac, my confidence was restored and while the desk clerk answered the director’s phone, I whip
ped the film from my camera and stuffed it behind my suspender.

  “Inspector Sullivan is on his way down to see you,” he announced, but even before he’d finished, the door had opened and the entire gap was filled by a man with a mop of unruly dark hair and a face that looked like it had come second in a fight with a brick wall.

  I stood up, though if I wasn’t to be at a height disadvantage, I’d really need to stand on a chair. Still, I was ready, and I ran through the key points in my head. Mrs Martin. Just married. Nervous. Excited. Definitely light-headed. Then—

  “Don’t I know you?” Inspector Sullivan asked, and his voice was rough from too many cigarettes, too little sleep. “Mrs Hepburn, right?” I hate conscientious policemen.

  “Miss.”