Hard Going

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘There are nicer,’ Swilley said, with truth. ‘The other thing, boss, SOCA sent over a mobile phone they found in the pocket of a suit in his bedroom wardrobe. Switched off. Very basic, pay as you go, the sort old people have for emergencies only.’

  ‘I suppose these days you can’t be sure of finding a telephone box that works.’

  ‘Right,’ Swilley said. ‘I’ve got the call record back, and the calls he made were mostly to his own flat – presumably ringing when he was out to give Mrs Kroll instructions or ask her something. Otherwise theatre box offices and restaurants, minicab companies and cab ranks. But it seems he did give the number to someone. The one number he rang that went to a private person also happened to be the only number that rang him.’ She paused dramatically.

  ‘And?’ Slider prompted, with anticipation.

  Norma smiled happily. ‘I think we’ve found Nina.’

  The number Bygod had rung went back to a mobile phone in the name of Anna Klimov, with an address in St John’s Wood.

  ‘I Googled the name,’ Swilley said. ‘It turns out that it’s the real name of the actress Diana Chambers.’

  Slider was impressed. ‘The grand dame of the theatre,’ he said. He had seen her on stage often in her younger days – and his – when he had worked Central and before marriage and children had claimed his evenings. She had been gorgeous then – well, she was pretty handsome now – and he had been sufficiently smitten to sit through the whole Oresteia cycle at the Old Vic because she had been starring in it, in flimsy Greek robes. She had a voice that went right to the roots of your hair and massaged your scalp, and eyes like liquid velvet. And though in later years she had done quite a few films, she had remained true to live theatre and always seemed to be in something in the West End. Atherton would know what the latest thing was – he still went, while Slider, alas, didn’t.

  Swilley went on, ‘It seems from Google that she went to Oxford and was a star in the OUDS at the same time Bygod was there, so probably that’s when they met. She was in that Burton-Taylor production of Dr Faustus that Mrs Bygod mentioned, that Bygod helped in.’

  ‘But what makes you think she’s Nina?’ Slider asked.

  ‘Well, boss, Nina is a pet name for Anna among East Europeans.’

  ‘That’s not much to go on.’

  ‘And it says on Google she acted as Nina Klimov right at the beginning of her career, before she got her big break,’ Swilley concluded. ‘Anyway, she’s the only person with his mobile number, so she was obviously special to him.’

  ‘Good enough. We must talk to her.’

  ‘According to Google she’s married to actor-director Alistair Head,’ Swilley went on.

  ‘I didn’t know she was married,’ Slider said, and felt a ridiculous pang of disappointment. Now he thought about it, he had heard their names in the same sentence before now. He had actually seen them together in a stage production of Private Lives long ago, and they had famously starred as Nicholas and Alexandra in the film Last Days.

  ‘Married since 1975 – that’s a long time in showbiz,’ said Swilley. ‘But I found some gossip on Google that they’ve had their ups and downs. Apparently he’s got a bit of a taste for starlets – casting-couch stuff – and she once had an affair with Daly Redmond, maybe to get her own back. There was an incident in the Ivy when he found out, when there was practically a fist-fight – all the gossip magazines covered it. Tops! Magazine says Head’s very jealous and controlling,’ she concluded, ‘so if she and Bygod were seeing each other it was probably in secret.’

  ‘In that case, we must be careful about how we approach her. Can’t go asking her about Bygod if her husband’s listening.’

  ‘No, boss,’ Swilley said. She raised celestial blue eyes to his with a question. ‘If he’s the jealous sort and has a nasty temper …’

  ‘You mean, if he found out she’d had a long-term affair – if it was an affair …’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ Swilley concluded.

  Atherton was probably even more excited than Slider, and certainly had more information. ‘She and Head are doing a revival of their Antony and Cleopatra on stage. I saw it the first time round and it was electric then, but of course the real Antony and Cleopatra were mature people by Roman standards, so there’s a case for preferring older actors in the parts. It’ll be interesting to see how differently they play it this time.’

  ‘Did you know they were married?’

  ‘Of course I did. How could you not? They’re a famous luvvieland couple, like Judi Dench and Michael Williams. Except that Head’s a director as well so they get double the work.’

  ‘Happily married?’

  ‘Well, they’re still together. Head’s known for having a bit of a temper, professionally – probably why he prefers to direct himself. He has everyone who works for him trembling.’

  ‘Except the nubile ones?’

  ‘Oh, you’ve heard that, have you? I thought you didn’t know anything about them.’

  ‘Norma Googled and told me the results.’

  ‘Well, there’s always lots of temptation in the acting world. Plus long absences, late nights and heightened emotions. But if they’ve lasted thirty-something years together they must have worked out a modus vivendi, one would have thought.’

  ‘This production they’re in now …?’

  ‘It’s in rehearsal – not due to open until December. Do you want me to find out where they’re rehearsing? It’ll be rooms at this stage, I should think.’

  ‘Do that,’ Slider said. ‘And find out where she and Head are at this moment. We need to interview her alone. I don’t want to rock her boat if she’s not a suspect.’

  ‘Fancy old Lionel Bygod knowing Diana Chambers! He really did move in the inner circle after all. And if she’s felt the need to keep it secret all these years, there must have been more than just friendship involved, the old dog.’

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions. She might not want even an innocent friendship revealed if she has a jealous husband. And we don’t know yet that she did keep it secret. I’m just erring on the side of caution.’

  ‘That’s a first.’ He frowned. ‘You said “if” she’s not a suspect. Why would she want to kill him?’

  ‘Norma’s worked out that he was worth about three million. That’s reason enough for a lot of people. I could stand to know what her financial position is.’

  ‘So you want me to go and interview her, I suppose,’ Atherton said casually.

  Slider was not fooled. ‘I’m going myself. I didn’t sit through six solid hours of Aeschylus in my youth to give up a chance like this when it’s offered. I thought I’d take Norma.’

  Atherton was aghast. ‘I’m the theatre buff around here. You have to take me.’

  ‘Norma was the one who found her out. And she can bring the woman’s touch to the interview.’

  ‘You’ve always said women respond better to men,’ Atherton objected. ‘And theatre’s my milieu. And I can use words like “milieu”. The only thing Norma’s been to is Mamma Mia, and she thought that was dangerously over-intellectual.’

  ‘All right,’ Slider yielded, as he’d meant to all along, ‘you can come. But you owe me. Tea whenever I want it for week.’

  ‘For Diana Chambers I’ll throw in biscuits as well,’ Atherton vowed devoutly.

  THIRTEEN

  Love Among the Rubens

  Chambers and Head lived in Highgate, in a modern house that turned out to be one Slider knew by sight. He had passed it many times over the years, and with his interest in architecture had noticed it because it was one of the few modern buildings he liked. It was set just below the crest of the hill, a simple box that worked because of its perfect Golden Rectangle proportions, a felicitous choice of brick, and elegant landscaping.

  Atherton had built up a network of theatre sources, and it didn’t take him long to discover that Antony and Cleopatra was currently rehearsing in the Workspace studio in Archer Street, but tha
t they didn’t rehearse on Sundays. Also that Alistair Head was in New York receiving some kind of theatre award, so the chances were that Diana Chambers would be at home, and alone.

  ‘Piece of luck for us,’ Slider remarked as they stood before the door waiting for his ring to be answered. It was a cold, grey day, the gusty wind flicking bits of paper along the pavement, trees shaking the leaves out of their hair. It was very quiet in the street – amazingly so for the centre of London. The house had a feeling of stillness and Slider felt the door would not be opened. When you thought of it, why would anyone ever?

  But at last there was a crackle and the entryphone said in a woman’s voice, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Police, ma’am,’ Slider said. ‘Detective Inspector Slider, Shepherd’s Bush, and Detective Sergeant Atherton. May we speak to Miss Chambers, please?’ He held up his warrant card to the camera and smiled reassuringly. After a moment of consideration, the inner door opened and a woman stepped into the glazed porch and conducted another inspection of the warrant cards through the glass outer door.

  Slider’s unruly heart beat a little faster because this was the great lady herself. He said understandingly, ‘If you’d like to telephone Shepherd’s Bush police station, they will confirm that we have come here to speak to you, and describe us to you.’

  Evidently this – or perhaps their unthreatening appearance – was enough for her. She unlocked and opened the door, and stood before them, giving them the Old Money stare that duchesses and grand dames of the theatre alone can master. Footballers’ wives never get it.

  Slider was surprised she was so tiny. He had always thought of her as tall, and he had not been exposed to enough thesps in the flesh to know, as Atherton could have told him, that most actresses only looked tall because actors were so short. If she had been at university at the same time as Bygod, she must be about the same age, but she looked very good for it, though he tried to tell himself her perfect, dewy skin must be at least partly make-up.

  But she did have genuinely beautiful features, thick, shoulder-length waves of chestnut hair, and enormous blue eyes, though close to he could see the fine lines around them and the crêpiness of the deep eyelids. But she was still fabulous; and dressed in beige tailored slacks with a long matching jacket over a delicate white blouse, with a heavy gold neck-chain and earrings, she looked ready to go anywhere. The thought that she might have to be dressed-up and ready to be papped at any moment struck him as sad. Who’d be famous? Not him, that was for damn sure.

  All this observation happened in an instant, of course. She had had time only to look from one of them to the other.

  ‘Perhaps you think my caution foolish, but the paparazzi will go to any lengths to ambush one,’ she said. Oh yes, that was the voice! Smooth as Manuka honey, bathing Slider’s heart in consolation.

  ‘Not foolish at all, ma’am – very sensible. May we come in and talk to you?’

  ‘Am I in trouble?’ she asked, with a hint of a smile.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Slider said. ‘But we do have something very particular we’d like to talk to you about.’

  ‘You’re being very mysterious. However, I suppose you had better come in,’ she said, and stepped back for them to pass her, locking the outer door behind them.

  The interior spaces of the house were large and plain, with vistas through open doorways and square arches: very much designer-architectural. It was all parquet floors and muted shades of beige and cream, with a little, extremely beautiful, furniture that looked 1920s, streamlined and elegant, and modern paintings on the walls that Slider guessed were worth a fortune. She led them to the back of the house, and suddenly they were in a double-height room whose outer wall was glazed all the way up, giving a breathtaking view down the rolling green acres of the hill.

  She turned to inspect their reaction, which Atherton thought touching – she still wanted it to impress people. He obliged, saying, ‘What a fabulous room. The view is amazing. It must be wonderful at night, too, with the lights in the distance.’

  ‘Thank you. It is nice, isn’t it?’ she said, and he could hear she was pleased. ‘Come and sit down and tell me how I can help you.’

  She led them to a group of chairs and sofas – beige leather – arranged before the glass wall to get the benefit. Slider noted Sunday newspapers and an empty coffee cup on the low table, suggesting what she had been doing when they rang. The Culture section of the Sunday Times was lying on top of the heap open at the theatre reviews. He took a seat, she settled herself opposite him, and Atherton sat on the sofa between them.

  The view beckoned his eye insistently, and he took a moment to satisfy it, taking a long sweeping look over the deep green, the trees, and the grey, misty profile of the city in the distance. Yes, it was stunning, and was of course what the architect had designed the house for, to look out at this astonishing stretch of the pastoral, preserved in the heart of an industrial city. But he would not have liked to live here. When he was home he liked to hole in. Here, when it was dark and you put the lights on, you would be visible and what was outside would be hidden. You would not know who might be looking at you, unseen in the darkness. It made him shiver even to imagine it.

  Well, perhaps a great star was so used to living in a goldfish bowl it ceased to matter. You could get used to anything, so they say.

  ‘Well, then,’ Diana Chambers said. ‘It must be something important to bring you out here on a Sunday.’

  Slider got down to business. ‘I understand you are a friend of Lionel Bygod.’

  Her mouth tightened. ‘Why do you understand that?’

  ‘Yours is the only number he called on his mobile phone. And the only number that called his.’

  She considered a moment, examining him with hostility. ‘He and I are old friends. But I must ask you to keep it to yourselves. My husband is a – difficult man. If he were to find out … And he will, if you allow it to go any further.’

  ‘I assure you, I have no wish to make your life difficult,’ Slider said. ‘I am a great admirer of yours, have been for many years. I saw your Oresteia—’

  ‘Good Lord!’ she interrupted, suspicion joining hostility. ‘Is that what this is about? You’re just a common-or-garden celebrity hunter.’ She started to rise, and Slider saw ejection in her face, but Atherton interrupted.

  ‘Miss Chambers,’ he said sternly, ‘we’ve come to tell you that Lionel Bygod is dead.’

  She subsided into her seat, her eyes went from him to Slider, and then she lowered her head with an expression of great sadness. ‘I wasn’t expecting it so soon,’ she said. ‘I thought there was still time. I didn’t say goodbye.’ The large eyes filled with tears. ‘My poor Bobo,’ she murmured. ‘My poor darling.’

  She drew out a handkerchief and carefully dabbed the tears away. A star, Slider thought, couldn’t even cry with abandon for fear of looking less than lovely. He was getting a sharp lesson in the strains of celebrity here this morning.

  She didn’t seem very surprised by the news, but then – another lesson to learn – how would you tell with an actor?

  Then she looked up at him sharply, handkerchief arrested, the suspicion back. ‘Why are you here telling me? It’s not the police’s job, surely? What’s going on?’

  He answered with a question of his own. ‘You were expecting his death?’

  ‘He told me he had cancer, but he said he had a few months left. He said he would tell me when it was time to say goodbye.’

  Atherton spoke, holding her eyes so that Slider could observe her reaction. ‘He didn’t die of cancer, Miss Chambers. He was murdered.’

  She flinched as though she had been hit. Her lips made the ‘m’ of ‘murdered?’ but did not go on. They began to quiver, and she shook her head slowly. ‘Oh no. Oh no.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true.’

  ‘But – how? Who?’ She left Atherton’s face for Slider’s, searching it. ‘It can’t be true. You mean – someone broke in, something like tha
t? A burglar?’

  Slider felt like an executioner. ‘There was no break in, no robbery. He was killed deliberately, by someone he knew.’

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she said. ‘No-one would hurt him if they knew him. He was the kindest, gentlest man I ever knew. He was good, a good man. He never did anyone any harm.’ A hope dawned. ‘It’s a mistake,’ she pleaded. ‘It wasn’t him, it was someone else. You’ve made a mistake.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ Slider said.

  Now the tears welled over. ‘I can’t believe it. Oh, my poor Bobo.’

  She cried, and Slider waited, staring out through the window. The grey light made everything seem curiously depthless. The tree heads whipped from side to side in emphatic negatives. He watched the wind yank a plastic bag along as though it were on a chain, and waited for the storm to subside.

  ‘Bobo?’ he queried.

  ‘It’s what we called each other from the beginning, at university. He was Bobo and I was Nina. My parents called me Nina or Ninette at home. I can’t remember now why Lionel was Bobo. Something to do with a gorilla, I think. We were probably drunk at the time – we seemed to have spent a lot of the time at Oxford that way. But it was a happy, harmless drunkenness, just youthful high spirits, really. Anyway, the names stuck.’

  He saw her remember again why they were here. It was the way with unexpected death, that you forgot it for a few seconds, only to remember again with renewed shock, fresh every time. ‘My poor Bobo! How can he be dead? Who would do such a thing?

  ‘We’re hoping for your help about that,’ Slider said. ‘He seems to have lived a very private life, almost one might say secretive. No-one knew much about him, and nothing about his life before he came to Hammersmith.’

  ‘He cut himself off after that terrible court case. I suppose you know about that?’

  Slider nodded.

  ‘He made a new life, simply shed his old life like a skin and had nothing to do with it after that. Except for me. I was the only person he took with him from the old days.’ She broke off. ‘How come there’s been nothing in the press about this? How have you kept it out?’