First Blood

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Are you mad?’ He opened his eyes wide. ‘You’ve eaten their stuff!’

  ‘All right, then. Who’s the best caterer in the area? If I’m going to do this I might as well push the boat out.’

  ‘There’s really only one,’ he said after a moment. ‘Or as far as I know. Whenever anyone does anything special around these parts they bring in Castor and Pollux, from the Highway.’

  ‘Castor and …’

  Jerry grinned. ‘A very pretty pair. I hope it doesn’t bother you but they’re really quite outrageous. All, you know …’ He bent one knee and dropped his right hand from his wrist in a stereotypical gay pose. ‘But they cook like angels, they really do. The best parties I’ve been to are the ones they’ve done.’

  ‘Then why on earth should I care about their sexuality?’ George said and closed her notebook. ‘OK, there it is. I’ll get on to them. Do you have a phone number?’

  ‘It’s in the phone book, I expect.’ He reached for it and riffled the pages. ‘Here you are. Call them and get a quote.’

  She dialled the number and found herself talking to a very polite young man who didn’t seem at all as Jerry had described. When she told him what she wanted he promised to send round at once a sheet of sample menus with prices and an account of all they could do.

  ‘Just you check the date you want us, as soon as possible, and we’ll arrange it. It’s been a bit quiet lately – this isn’t the best time of the year, and I can’t pretend it is – so I dare say we’ll be able to fit you in. I’ll send the stuff over by hand. You’re only across the road from us, really, at Old East. We know it well. So let me know as soon as you can.’

  Jerry went back to work, sworn to silence, and she settled down to end her own afternoon’s work before getting on with her planning. But first she rang the admin office and checked the availability of the Board Room for her own private use.

  Daphne, Matthew Herne’s secretary, listened carefully to what she wanted and then suggested she talk to Mr Herne.

  ‘He’s always very generous to staff,’ she said. ‘If you ask him yourself he might manage a discount.’ And George, who had been trying to think of how much of her own money she was going to spend on this non-birthday party, agreed with alacrity. The man may be a murderer, and she may be using the event to unmask him, but even so, she had to make the best of her opportunities.

  He was very affable. She started by telling him she wanted to give a birthday party to which he and his wife were invited, and very much wanted to use the Board Room. Would that be possible and what would it cost her?

  ‘Cost you, Dr Barnabas? Well, let me see. When do you want it? If it’s a popular day it makes a difference.’

  ‘Well, tell me what’s available,’ she said. ‘As long as it’s soon, it’s not really vital.’

  ‘But I thought it was for your birthday?’

  ‘Oh, it is, but I – er, I don’t want to be childish. The most convenient for you’ll do fine for me. If it’s easier for you …’ And she crossed her fingers very childishly against the lie.

  ‘Well now.’ There was a rustle as he turned over pages and then he said, ‘Hmm. You could have April 23 if you like. It’s a Thursday, and that’s never a very popular day. And – er – actually it’s one when I’m free too. I’m sure my wife would be most pleased to join me in accepting your invitation.’

  She was fulsome in her appreciation, especially when he told her she need pay nothing for the use of the Board Room, and hung up feeling oddly guilty. She’d every intention of unmasking the man as a thief and a murderer and yet she had used him shamelessly to protect her own pocket. It was disgusting, she decided, quite disgusting. But she did nothing to alter the arrangements.

  She also phoned Professor Dieter’s office. Phyllis told her icily she would convey her invitation to Professor and Mrs Dieter, and became very agitated when George insisted that the polite way would be to do it herself, but in the end consented grudgingly to giving her the address to write to. Then she phoned Kate and Hattie, both of whom accepted with flattering alacrity. Toby and Fliss, she decided, would have to be approached differently later on. She didn’t know quite how she’d persuade herself to ask them but ask them she would. After all, convinced though she was of Herne’s guilt, there were still some lingering doubts about Toby that could do with being aired. Maybe her party would be as good a place as any to do it, if it all went as she planned.

  The sample menus from Castor and Pollux, who turned out to be in fact called Stephen Danbo and Miles Chapman, arrived at half past five, brought by a child of around twelve or so who waited sullenly in front of her desk until she realized what was expected of her and gave him fifty pence, and she read them with increasing pleasure. Castor and Pollux seemed like good cooks who knew what they were doing and understood wine as well; and their prices, when she worked it out, weren’t too horrendous, especially as she was not having to pay for the room. Altogether this party was going to be fun, she told herself, as she settled to the agreeable task of choosing what she should give her guests; so much so that she began to wish it were her birthday after all.

  28

  I must be mad, George thought, standing in the doorway looking at the preparations for her party. Quite mad. I’m spending all this money and what for? To make a complete ass of myself, trying to do Gus’s job and dig out information no one’ll want to part with. Oh, shit! I wish I were in Buffalo.

  Across the room the three of them were bustling about; Stephen Danbo and Miles Chapman were respectively folding napkins into elaborate turbans and setting food on the table, while Jerry fussed over the flowers that had been arranged in the centre. She had to admit it looked good and took a deep breath and then realized it all smelled good too; there was a redolence of garlic and hot bread and the seasideness of fish cooked in dill.

  Jerry spotted her. ‘Oh, you look wonderful. I knew scarlet was your colour. Doesn’t she look great?’ he appealed to Miles who looked at George’s silky trousers and jerkin and nodded a little thoughtfully.

  ‘We’d better take those tulips out of the arrangement,’ he said. ‘They clash. Just leave the yellow and white stuff. We’re almost ready, doctor. There are drinks all set over there.’ He nodded at a table against the window and went on with his dishing out of the salmon mousse they were having for a first course.

  ‘I’ve heard of attention to detail, but this is ridiculous,’ George said as Stephen obediently removed red tulips from the centre arrangement. ‘It’s really not that important.’

  ‘Of course it is. It’s your birthday!’ Jerry said and went over to the drinks table. ‘You re the special one tonight, so everything has to be right. What will you have?’

  George, whose guilt was beginning to rise as well as her trepidation, said, ‘Whisky,’ very firmly. Miles quirked an eyebrow at Stephen and she felt the comment even though he hadn’t said a word. ‘I’ve a good head,’ she said loudly to no one in particular and took the glass Jerry gave her, pretending not to notice how generously he’d filled it. Anyway, she reminded herself as she drank deeply, I’ve got to come on as though I’m smashed.

  But you mustn’t actually be smashed, dummy. Just seem so. If you are in reality, you’ll never get anywhere. You’ll just forget what people say, if you even hear them in the first place.

  Jerry went bustling off back to the dining table to continue tweaking flowers and candles to Miles’s and Stephen’s obvious irritation. George took the opportunity to tip her whisky back into the bottle and help herself to a handful of potato crisps to soak up what she had already swallowed. It was a matter of some regret that she couldn’t drink at her own party, but after all, it wasn’t her birthday.

  Which was something she had to work hard to remember as the evening took off and her guests arrived. She’d completely forgotten the possibility that she would be given birthday presents and now, as parcel after parcel wrapped in everything from glittering foil and silver ribbons (Carole) to brown paper and
string (the Dieters) was pushed into her hands, she felt shame fill her and make her as dizzy as whisky ever had.

  ‘You really shouldn’t,’ she said over and over again, and, ‘Oh, but I didn’t want presents! Just a little agreeable company is all …’

  But they smiled at her and patted her shoulder and shook her hand and the parcels piled up. She looked at them uneasily. Open them now, or save them till later?

  Remember what you’re here for, she told herself sternly and set to work along the lines she had planned. But it wasn’t at all as easy as she’d thought it would be.

  First of all she fussed over seating them and used the process to drop the first of her carefully contrived innocent remarks. ‘I’ll sit you here next to Dr Bellamy, Carole,’ she said, smiling tipsily. ‘I’m sure you’d rather sit next to a handsome bachelor than a husband any day.’ Carole was supposed to look, well, somewhat uneasy perhaps, and Matthew Herne was supposed to react in some way, but all that happened was Carole said vaguely, ‘Oh, thanks ever so,’ and sat down, and Herne, moving without any apparent haste but very definitely, sat down on her other side.

  So that was one ploy up and running into the wall, George registered bitterly and turned to Felicity Oxford, who was looking stunning in her obviously very expensive little Jean Muir number in deepest purple. Once again, a nice fashion touch, George thought. Sombre without being obvious as a widow’s weeds. She never gets it wrong. But she hadn’t waited to be told where to go; she sat down next to Matthew Herne and beckoned to Charles Dieter and the rest of the table fell into place without any help: Beatrice Dieter opposite her husband and apparently content between Sam Chanter and Kate’s Oliver Merrall; and Kate and Jerry and Hattie and herself taking the available spaces left. So it would have to be in general conversation that she did her stuff, George decided, as her guests with every sign of appreciation set to work on their hot garlic bread and the salmon mousse.

  It was remarkably easy to pretend to drink more than she was, in fact, or at least to hoodwink her guests. Whether she fooled Stephen Danbo, who was going round with the wine, she wasn’t sure, but she wasn’t concerned about him. It was the others she was after and once the main course of roast duck breasts with assorted fruits was on its way to being demolished she got going properly.

  ‘That business of poor old Formby,’ she said with a bright smile all round. ‘Awful, wasn’t it? To have another sudden death around the hospital so soon after poor Mr Oxford …’ She threw a regretful glance at Felicity who sat stony-faced and concentrating on her duck. ‘Well, it’s a bit much, isn’t it? Maybe the two were connected? That awful Detective Chief Inspector seems to think so, doesn’t he? Says it could be murder.’

  ‘Does he?’ Charles Dieter said sharply. ‘I got the impression he’d come to the conclusion that the poor man had slipped on the wet wood up there while he was doing his evening inspection and that there was no one to help him because it was after the men had clocked off.’

  ‘Oh, you mustn’t believe all the DCI says,’ George said and lifted her glass to her lips again and threw back her head, though not in fact swallowing any of the wine. ‘He’s a deep guy that one, deep as the Grand Canyon. He’ll say anything to get the sort of stuff he wants.’

  ‘And what might he want? Why say Formby had slipped if he hadn’t?’

  ‘Well, maybe he wants people to think he thinks that.’ George looked owlishly round the table. They were all looking at her now. ‘So that the person who actually pushed him reveals himself.’ She looked then at Carole Herne. ‘Or herself, of course.’

  Matthew Herne lifted his head sharply. ‘I can’t imagine he’d do anything so silly,’ he said crisply. ‘He’s an excellent police officer and one I have known for some time. I can’t see him saying one thing and meaning another.’

  ‘Maybe he’s still got investigations to do,’ George said and looked fuzzily at Herne. ‘I mean, has he asked where you were the night poor old Formby went over the edge?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Herne said stiffly. ‘I mean, why should –’

  ‘Oh, but Matty, he did! You told me he’d asked you about your movements and you had this awful problem telling him!’ Carole giggled and George thought, She really is smashed. Her eyes weren’t focusing as well as they might and she had a most becoming flush. ‘On account of you got home nice and prompt that evening so we could have an early dinner – after we’d relaxed, of course.’ And she giggled again and looked challengingly at George with her tongue tip between her teeth.

  Is she drunk? George thought. She’s straight-eyed enough now. And she doesn’t seem to have had all that much. Is she just trying to establish an alibi for him? Has he told her to say that if the subject comes up?

  ‘Not that early, darling,’ Herne said and his hand slipped from the table and disappeared beneath the edge and Carole let out an involuntary little yelp. He’s pinched her, George realized and watched more closely than ever. ‘It was my usual time. I don’t cheat on my work, you know, even to get home to you.’

  ‘I’m sure no one would ever check up on you, Herne,’ Dieter said and frowned, clearly not liking the turn the conversation had taken. ‘This is excellent duck, George. We must compliment you on it.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t me who cooked it,’ George said, letting the grammar go hang. ‘I got a caterer, of course –’ and she nodded in the direction of Miles who was going round with more of the lyonnaise potatoes which Oliver and Sam in particular welcomed warmly. ‘I got Castor and Pollux.’

  ‘Oh?’ Charles said vaguely and peered in Miles’s direction, but the room was glittering with candlelight now and the surroundings were rather dim so it seemed hard for him to see. ‘Well, they’re very good. I congratulate you.’

  ‘Good evening, Professor,’ Miles said politely. ‘I have some more of the épinards à la crème for you, if you’d like it.’

  Charles brightened. ‘Splendid. I’m very fond of that.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Miles said and came round to serve him. ‘And the roast parsnips, sir? I rather think you like them too.’

  Hattie launched herself into cookery talk and the conversation steered itself away from people’s whereabouts when Mitchell Formby had fallen off the new building, and George sat and tried to look interested as she considered. She’d have to push a bit harder if this whole party wasn’t going to turn into an expensive shambles from her point of view. She couldn’t return to Formby’s death now, it would be too obvious, but then she brightened as she heard Kate, who was leaning across the table to talk to Carole, say something about a new outfit she’d seen and wanted to buy, and opened her mouth in a wide grin.

  ‘Hell, though, Kate, did you see the other stuff in that fashion show? I saw it on TV as well – it was totally the pits. I mean, no one but a hooker’d be caught dead in them. They’re so – well, they don’t leave a thing to the imagination, do they?’

  ‘Eh?’ Kate was looking at her, startled, and George ploughed on. ‘I mean, honestly, the sort of women who wear that stuff … Mind you, I often wonder about hookers, don’t you? Are they born that way or are they pushed, if you see what I mean? Do they set out to take on the life of a prostitute because they just love sex and can’t get enough of it, or is it the money that draws them? And why do they all have such godawful fashion sense? I never saw one that didn’t look as though she wasn’t someone you’d be ashamed to take home to your ma. And I’d love to know, can they ever be reformed? You see these movies like – oh, I dunno – Pretty Woman and all that, and they’re supposed to get married and live happily ever after, but me, I just don’t see it. Once a hooker, surely –’

  Stephen leaned over her shoulder and took her plate and then they all leaned back as Miles also began to collect dishes and the moment passed, yet again. But there had been some profit, surely? George thought. Herne was as blank-faced as it was possible for a man to look and Carole looked simply vague, as she usually did; but Felicity had stared hard at George and she wondered a
s conversation again picked up, this time between Sam and Oliver and Jerry on the subject of football, whether she’d scored a hit or not.

  She had to do something better soon, she told herself desperately. They were almost ready for the dessert of a particularly luscious fruit pavlova; get past that to the coffee and people may start to go. And the way I’ve treated them they’ll want to. She was very aware now of the tensions round her table. She’d have to cash in soon or not get anything at all. She took the shortest way in she could.

  ‘That symposium, Professor, did you get a lot of reaction?’ she called down the table. He had been talking to Felicity in a low voice, but now he looked up and frowned slightly.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I wondered, did you get a lot of people coming forward to get themselves HIV tested because they were worried, afterwards? Any talk of HIV scares people, doesn’t it? They start thinking of getting tested.’

  ‘That symposium was designed to do quite the reverse of alarming participants,’ Dieter said sharply. ‘We need to get rid of this notion so many people have that a diagnosis of HIV positive is akin to a death sentence, because it isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Professor! Surely if you were told you were HIV positive you’d be scared? Most sensible people are.’ If I lose my job over this, it’ll be my own fault, not Gus’s, though right now I wish I’d never heard of him, she thought somewhere deep below the level of her speech. Oh, God, why am I doing this? To find out, came the whisper back from somewhere even deeper. To find out … ‘It’s one of the things I meet over and over again. People come and ask me to do HIV tests on the quiet and then go mad if they have to be told it’s positive. Yet they go just as mad if anyone ever finds out that they had a test, even if it came back negative. The fact of being tested at all is trouble.’

  ‘Is it?’ Carole said, wide-eyed. ‘Why? If it’s negative it’s nothing to worry about.’ She shivered. ‘I’d hate to be told that. I’d rather not have the test at all.’