‘I’ll try,’ she said. ‘I will try. It was – it still is, I suppose. I’m more screwed up about Dolly and all the things that happened than I knew. Though – I don’t know. Maybe it’s not as bad as it was. I’ve found out a lot, haven’t I? See things more clearly maybe.’
‘From a different angle, perhaps. But you’re still pretty screwy.’ He smiled, rather thinly, and impulsively she leaned forward and kissed him.
‘I’ll get better, love, really I will. Let me finish this business off, get it out of the way, and then we’ll see where we go from here, hmm? It will get better –’
‘I’ll keep you to that.’
He got up after a while and went over to the window, peering out into the dark street far below.
‘Anyone there?’ She tried to sound casual, and was pleased with how successful she was.
‘I don’t think so. Not that I can see, anyway. Tomorrow, we go to the police. Quietly. No fuss, but we’ll tell them, ask for a bit of help. I’ve made up my mind to that.’
‘After I’ve been to the Haymarket.’
‘The Haymarket?’
‘To get the money, Theo. I’ve got the key, haven’t I? I’ve got to go.’
‘Yes. You’ve got the key – Maggy, why do you suppose Dolly sent you to Mort? Have you thought about that?’
She closed her eyes, leaning back on the sofa. ‘A lot. I just don’t know. Unless –’
‘Unless what?’
‘This’ll sound silly, but – well, to make me love her again. To feel sorry for all the things that happened.’
‘You never stopped loving her. I’ve always known that. Even when you were at your most vitriolic, I knew that. You were angry with her, and hurt by her, but you never stopped loving her.’
‘Didn’t I? I don’t know any more. I just don’t know. One thing’s sure. She didn’t know. All she knew was that I was – I seemed strange. Wouldn’t go to see her, was always – It was because of Oliver. That’s what I used to think. But not now. He was just an excuse.’
He was leaning against the window now, watching her, his arms folded across his chest.
‘Oliver.’ He said it quietly. ‘I always thought there was something about him and you. Not that I could understand it. You and that –’
‘He wasn’t always the way he is now,’ she said softly. ‘Not always. He was a good musician once. He really was. But then – oh, well, I was young and so bloody ignorant it makes me feel sick when I remember it. I thought I could save him, or something. I didn’t even realize he was the way he is, do you know that? Christ, how dim can you be? I didn’t even know he was gay – Theo, isn’t it extraordinary how much people being gay has mattered in all this? I mean Oliver, and Dolly scooping him up, and then Mort and Andy. And Dolly –’
‘She felt safe with them,’ Theo said sapiently. ‘There are lots of women like that. Scared of their own feelings, scared of their own sex. So they only feel really safe with ambiguous people. That’s all it was with Dolly.’
She looked up at him standing there with his arms folded and smiled, comfortable suddenly. ‘You’re a very knowing bloke Theo, sometimes, aren’t you?’
‘Given the chance,’ he said, lightly. ‘You’ve always kept me at arms’ length, though, haven’t you? Never given me the whisper of a chance. But now – Maggy, get this bloody money tomorrow, will you? And then – oh, give it to Ida, get rid of the Westpark, and we’ll get married.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
She laughed, hearing the sound in her own ears, warm and friendly. ‘I’ll think about it, love. It sounds a bit whacky, at our time of life and all that, but I’ll think about it.’
She dreamed about it. Saw herself in a great haze of white on the stage of the Lincoln Center and people whizzing around her and playing trumpets and double basses and flutes and shouting, ‘Here come de Bride, here come de Bride –’ and all she could do was laugh, and then Theo was there and he was laughing too. It was a nice dream, a comfortably mad dream and she woke feeling relaxed and happy to lie looking at Theo lying with his mouth half open in unlovely slumber and liking what she saw. Married? It could be fun at that. Get a house, maybe, with a real music room, instead of a flat with stairs people could hide on to mug you. It could be fun at that.
It was while they were having breakfast that her answering service called. They had three messages for her from the day before, the thin clacking voice reported. Jump Records had called and wanted Mr Cordery, please would he call in first chance he had. The dentist had called to ask her to change her appointment from the nineteenth to the twenty-sixth, and Adam called to say he was so sorry to have missed her in New York, but he’d keep in touch through his friends, who will be around, and he’d see her in London very soon.
‘What did you say?’ she said, catching her breath sharply.
‘Adam is sorry to have missed you in New York but he’ll keep in touch through his friends who’ll be around and he’ll see you in London very soon,’ the girl repeated glibly.
‘Thank you,’ she said mechanically and hung up, feeling all the tension of the day before build in her again, all the comfort of the night’s dreaming shattered into sharp little points of anxiety.
‘Theo –’ She told him and he listened, his face hardening.
‘It’s enough!’ he said loudly. ‘It’s more than enough. No one’s going to go on threatening you like this. I won’t have it. I’m calling the –’
‘Not yet.’ She took his hand, pulling him away from the phone. ‘Listen, love, let me get this money out first, will you? If you call the police you’ve got to tell them all about it, and that means the money’ll have to be given up, won’t it? It was stolen, remember? And I want Ida to have it.’
‘But –’
‘No. No buts. You said it last night. Get the money, give it to Ida, get rid of the Westpark, and then we’ll – then we’ll get on with whatever we want to do. Right?’
He stood uncertainly for a moment and then said unwillingly, ‘Well, I suppose –’
‘You know I’m right. Look, it’s almost ten. If we go now, we can have the whole thing over and done with before lunch. Will you come?’
‘If you’re going, I’ve got to. Don’t be stupid, Maggy. There’s no way you’re going anywhere on your own while all this is going on.’
‘All right,’ she said peaceably. ‘Great. Fine. Anything you say. I’ll get dressed.’
* * *
They decided to go by taxi. ‘If anyone’s out there and following us, train will be too easy. Taxis aren’t that thick on the ground, and with a bit of luck we’ll leave ’em behind, if they’re down there,’ Theo said.
They were. As Maggy came down the steps of the house she saw them. Two smooth young men in neat suits standing side by side on the other side of the street. Not the same ones she had seen on the steps of the next-door house the day before, but very like them, and she pulled back against Theo as he closed the door behind them, and he reacted fast, following her gaze and seeing them.
They stood there poised on the steps for a moment, looking at them and the two young men stared back and men after a moment they turned with an almost comical precision and walked down the street towards the main Holland Park Road, not looking back.
‘Cheeky bastards!’ Theo muttered furiously. ‘God damn their guts – they know we’ve got to go that way and they’re playing stupid games with us – for two pins I’d go after them and knock their bloody heads together –’
‘We could go round the Crescent the other way,’ Maggy said. ‘Maybe they won’t think of that –’
‘Oh, do me a favour, Maggy! It’s obvious they know exactly what they’re doing. If we do that, they’ll be at the other end waiting for us. Come on. We’ll just brazen them out. And pray that we get the only taxi there is –’
But prayer was pointless. They waited on the corner, watching for a cab with its ‘For Hire’ light on, and when one
came bumbling up from Notting Hill Gate Maggy almost wanted to jump up and down in excitement, for it was the only one. They were going to get away with it –
The two young men were nowhere to be seen, and she looked round as the taxi came abreast of them, hunting. But there were just the usual morning hurriers-by, the desultory shoppers going to the little supermarket, the buses, the vans – and then she saw the car.
Parked insolently on a double yellow line, just a few yards up the road, a narrow blue coupé, shining absurdly clean amongst the shabby London traffic. The two men sitting in it, side by side, neat and unsmiling, and as she climbed into the taxi, and peered out through the back window and watched with a sense of almost helpless fury as the car pulled out into the traffic behind them.
‘There they are,’ she said to Theo and he looked too, and swore softly, and leaned forward to speak to the driver.
‘There’s a car following us,’ he said. ‘A blue coupé. Can you get rid of it? This lady is Maggy Dundas, jazz player, you know? And these two are journalists trying to pester her –’
‘Who?’ said the taxi driver, not turning his head. ‘Never ’eard of ’er.’
‘Well, never mind that – but can you get rid of them?’
‘I’m not on the bloody telly, mate,’ the driver said, and hunched his shoulders. ‘Can’t stop a geezer from followin’ if that’s what he wants to do. None o’ my business –’
But for all that he seemed to pick up the challenge and moved fast, cutting across traffic lights just as they turned red, so that the following car was forced to stop, and then twisting off into side streets instead of going straight up the Bayswater Road. But it made no difference. Within minutes, the blue car was there again, bobbing about in the rear window, and Maggy watched it, her rage growing and hardening into a hard lump in the middle of her chest.
‘They’ll have parking trouble, won’t they?’ she said suddenly as the taxi cut into the traffic heading into Oxford Street. ‘And won’t they be picked up here in Oxford Street? Only taxis and buses are supposed to come down here.’
‘Whatever they’re supposed to do they still come, bleedin’ private cars do,’ the taxi driver said sourly. ‘Bleedin’ police make their bleedin’ rules and no one takes no bleedin’ notice. There! What’d I tell you? There the buggers are again.’ He seemed to be taking a melancholy pleasure in the chase now. ‘You ain’t goin’ to get rid o’ them that easy, lady, that’s for sure –’
‘Listen,’ Theo said suddenly. ‘Take us to Piccadilly underground, will you? At the end of Regent Street Then we can dodge into the subways, come up in the Haymarket.’
‘Anythin’ you say,’ the driver said, and sniffed. ‘S’no skin off my nose. But you won’t get rid o’ them that easy. Right cunning buggers they are. Drive like bleedin’ cabmen, and you can’t say worse than that –’ and he laughed, pleased with his joke.
He was right. They paid him while they were still in the cab, and then ran from it down into the underground just as the blue car came up behind the taxi, and Maggy had a mad desire to turn and stick her tongue out at them, or thumb her nose.
But her triumph was short-lived. The car just pulled over to the kerb, apparently oblivious of the no-parking signs and both the men left it there and came running over the Circus, weaving their way through the hooting traffic. The leader of the two was less than a dozen yards behind them as they went running up the stairs on the far side of the Piccadilly concourse to the Haymarket exit.
And as they turned into the building, he was so close behind them that he caught the swing of the door as Theo let it go.
Theo was white with tension and anger now, and she felt his arm tighten under her hand as he turned and stared the man in the face.
‘Maggy, go ahead. I’ll wait here for you,’ he said curtly. ‘Now you, you bastard. What the hell do you mean by making such a bloody pest of yourself?’
Maggy ran, obediently, heading for the bank of lifts, and as one opened its doors with a hiss she ran in and pressed the button for the basement, still watching Theo and the man in the neat dark suit.
The last thing she saw as the doors closed was the young man smiling at Theo, and bending his head politely, and actually holding out his hand as though to shake Theo’s. He looked as affable as it was possible for any man to look.
29
She came out of the lift with a firm step, her head up and her arms held protectively round her jacket, which was tied into a bundle, and her lips quirked a little. Theo, standing on the far side of the lobby, with the two young men on each side of him, watched her come and was puzzled, trying to read something into her expression. But she looked happy and incredibly, a little amused.
She walked steadily across the lobby directly towards them and he moved forward a step, wanting to fend her off, but she just shook her head slightly, and came and stood in front of them.
‘Well, now,’ she said coolly. ‘Who are our friends, Theo? Have you managed to find out? And have they apologized for behaving in such a stupid fashion?’
‘Why, Miss Dundas!’ one of them said, and smiled. He was tall, even taller man Theo, and had very blue eyes. A good-looking square-shouldered young man. ‘Miss Dundas, the last thing we’d ever want to do is upset you! And if we have, we surely do apologize. But I just don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I mean, I just came in here about my business this morning, and this gentleman here – well, I have to say it, ma’am. He attacked me! Just turned on me and accused me of all sorts of things. As if I would ever follow people or hurt them in any way! Do I look as though I would?’ And he smiled at her disarmingly.
‘Yet you know my name. If you haven’t been following us and – and all the rest of it, how do you know my name?’
He opened his eyes to an ever richer blue. ‘Your friend here told us, ma’am! And –’
‘Do you know, George. I don’t think there’s any need any more to make any pretences.’
The other man was quieter, less physically big, altogether a more nondescript figure, though just as neat and clean, but there was a menacing air about him that made her shoulders tighten. ‘It’s clear Miss Dundas knows we’ve been looking for her and I don’t think we serve anyone’s purpose by prevaricating. Do you, Miss Dundas?’
‘None at all,’ she said crisply.
‘So let’s talk sensibly, shall we?’ He turned to Theo. ‘We really must introduce ourselves properly, sir. My name is Fowler, Wendell Fowler, and my friend here is George Porteous.’
‘And you’re both friends of Andy Kentish. Or should I use his alias? Adam Lancaster. Are you two Born Again, Fowler?’ Maggy said, putting all the scorn she could get into the words. ‘Have you two joined the great Crusade to get sweeping women to work their guts out to make Lancaster rich?’
Fowler turned his head to look at her again, and his mild eyes looked reproachful.
‘Why, Miss Dundas. I would never have thought you the sort of crass person who would deride a man for his religious beliefs. I’m very surprised.’
‘Are you? Well, you needn’t be. I don’t deride religious beliefs, when that’s what they are. But I deride cheats and nasty little con men and –’
‘I think that will do, Miss Dundas,’ Fowler said as mildly as ever, but there was a note in his voice that made the back of her neck tingle suddenly and she jerked her chin up and said hotly, ‘Like hell it will! That man, that Andy – he’s a liar and a cheat and a –’
‘I think we should talk some place else, don’t you?’ Porteous said. ‘No peace here at all – I know it’s a shade early, but how about a little lunch, hmm?’
‘I don’t want any lunch,’ she said icily. ‘I just want to get something sorted out. Right here and now.’
‘I want to go to the police right here and now.’ Theo spoke for the first time, and his voice was shaking a little. ‘I’ve controlled myself for as long as I –’
‘Theo, it’s all right. Leave it to me.’ Maggy looked at
him, her eyes wide, trying to get the message across to him. ‘Believe me, there’s no need for police. Not now and not ever, unless these two make fools of themselves. I don’t think they will, though, when I tell them what I’m going to do.’
She turned back to them and looked at them, moving her head slowly from one side to the other, staring at their smooth young faces and their neat round heads and then she laughed, softly.
‘You want my money, don’t you? That’s what Andy sent you for, didn’t he? He wants the money my mother left me. Did he tell you about that money?’
Fowler smiled, gently. ‘He told us all we need to know, Miss Dundas.’
‘And how much was that? It’s worth telling me, because you know –’ And she lifted her arms slightly, so that the bundled jacket could be more clearly seen. ‘ – it might be worth your while.’
Porteous’s eyes flickered as he looked at the jacket and then at Fowler and Maggy laughed again.
‘Oh, no, George! Never think you can hit me on the head and help yourself this time. Last time I was alone in my flat and it was easy, wasn’t it? Just a naked woman alone in a room –’ Porteous’s eyes again flickered and his neck reddened and Maggy grinned, triumphantly. ‘It was you, then! Yes, I thought it was! And much good that stuff did you, didn’t it? Just a load of old newspaper cuttings and not a penny to be found. You poor sap! As if it would be that easy!’
‘Miss Dundas, can we keep to the point?’ Fowler said softly. ‘You have that money there in your jacket?’
‘Money? In my jacket?’ she said sweetly and looked down at it, as though in surprise. ‘Is that what’s in here?’
‘Maggy, for Christ’s sake, stop it!’ Theo said urgently. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing but –’
‘Don’t worry, Theo!’ Maggy said, and grinned at him again. ‘Oh, believe me, there’s not a thing to worry about. Not a thing – I just want to know from Mr Fowler here, and Mr Porteous – if he can keep his mind off the fact that he hit me over the head when I was alone and naked –’ and she threw a wicked glance at him, ‘– what their charming boss told them about my money.’
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