Sweet Sorrow

by David Roberts

  ‘You know,’ Thomas said, ‘Caitlin – that’s my long-suffering wife, Lord Edward – says her mother brought her up to marry a duke. I really must introduce you.’

  ‘I would be a great disappointment,’ Edward replied. ‘In the first place, the younger son of a duke is worse than useless. His title is empty and, very often, his pockets too. In the second place, I have recently got married.’

  Thomas looked at Edward’s perfectly cut Savile Row suit and crisp Jermyn Street shirt. ‘I hope you aren’t really broke because – as I was just saying to Cathcart – I am more than usually hard up and was hoping to persuade you to lend me a fiver.’

  The pub was beginning to fill up but they found a small table in a corner where they perched uncomfortably on hard wooden benches. Cathcart must have seen Edward’s look of distaste at the table puddled with beer because he made what might have been an apology.

  ‘I can’t think why we come to this place, Dylan. It’s dirty and uncomfortable and stinks of cigarettes and faeces.’

  ‘That’s why we like it. We’d feel out of place somewhere posher. We’re not respectable, thank God. Tell me, Lord Edward,’ there was something mocking in the way Thomas drew out his title that made Edward wince, ‘why did you seek us out here in our sordid hideaway? I have heard you are an amateur sleuth. Would I be right in thinking you’ve come to accuse Cathcart of Frieda’s murder? Now, if you were to ask me whether my friend here could have killed Byron Gates, I’d have to say it was more than likely – we’ve all wanted to kill Byron at one moment or another – but not Frieda. Frieda was a bitch and she treated Lewis like shit but he loved her. He still loves her and he could never have hurt a hair on her head. Isn’t that right, my dear?’

  It was a mannerism of Thomas’s to call his friends ‘my dear ’. Edward didn’t like it and nor did he care for his language. It was both flowery and filthy which was not a combination he found attractive.

  ‘Cathcart, I gather you were there – in Broadcasting House – when Frieda was murdered? My wife said you rushed in when you heard the news,’ Edward inquired.

  ‘Yes, I had a meeting with a producer in an office on the third floor. As soon as I heard the sound of pounding feet I sensed something terrible had happened. I rushed out and followed the crowd. I couldn’t believe it when I saw Frieda. I loved her – whatever you choose to believe – and to see her lying there with her head smashed in . . . I can’t bear to think about it even now.’

  ‘Have you any idea who might have done it?’

  ‘Well, Gates is dead otherwise I might have said him. Frieda could be terribly annoying. They might have had a row but . . .’

  ‘Did she love Byron, do you think?’

  ‘Not really. She was a selfish cow,’ Cathcart said bitterly. ‘She wanted to “get on”. That’s why she attached herself to me originally. I fooled myself into thinking she loved me but I soon saw my mistake. She thought – wrongly, as it turned out – that I was a “coming man”. I helped her to meet people – people like Byron – and she dumped me when she’d squeezed everything out of me she could. She would have dumped Byron too if she’d met some film producer or the DG or the Prime Minister. I loved the little bitch, as I told you, but I didn’t like her.’

  Edward was rather shocked at Cathcart’s language but tried not to show it. ‘So you have no idea who might have killed her?’

  ‘An ex-lover . . . perhaps that lesbian writer – what’s her name? Elsa Fairweather. She was pretty cut up when Frieda threw her over. You know about that?’

  ‘I had heard,’ Edward admitted guardedly. ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Not that I can think of but . . .’

  ‘You know Mark Redel, I believe? Was he in Broadcasting House at the time of the murder?’

  Cathcart looked at his friend. ‘I didn’t see him. Do you know whether he was, Dylan?’

  ‘Not I, but Mark and she were lovers years ago when we were all young, though he always denied it. She modelled for him and don’t painters always sleep with their models?’

  ‘Were you aware that Mark had tried to kill himself?’ Edward asked brutally.

  ‘No, I wasn’t!’ Thomas looked genuinely shocked. ‘Lewis, did you know?’

  ‘Not me.’ Cathcart seemed uninterested.

  ‘You say he tried to kill himself. I take it then that he’s all right? He didn’t succeed?’ Thomas asked, showing what Edward thought was real concern.

  ‘It was a close-run thing. So you don’t think he was in Broadcasting House when Frieda was murdered?’

  ‘Not as far as I am aware,’ Cathcart answered.

  ‘You see, he was in London visiting his gallery,’ Edward explained.

  ‘Was he? I wonder why he didn’t let me know?’ Thomas murmured. ‘We were very close at one time but I’m not very good at keeping up with my friends.’ He sighed and once again, Edward thought, donned his armour of quiet amusement and world-weary cynicism.

  ‘Whoever killed Frieda must have known their way round Broadcasting House,’ Edward remarked.

  ‘That’s true. Dylan, you’re quite sure it wasn’t you?’ Cathcart smiled wryly.

  ‘I really don’t think I could do murder,’ his friend mused. ‘But what about that vicar fellow – the one who was doing the Daily Service the week she was killed?’

  ‘Paul Fisher? Why on earth would he want to kill Frieda?’

  ‘I’ve no idea but I saw him look at her once in the canteen. It was a combination of lust and loathing.’

  ‘But vicars don’t murder people except in books, do they?’ Cathcart asked. ‘Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you, old boy. What with the war coming any day now, I suppose the police have got better things to do than find Frieda’s murderer. I notice the investigation hardly makes page six in the News Chronicle.’

  ‘That may change,’ Edward replied.

  ‘Golly, gosh,’ Thomas mocked. ‘Is the amateur sleuth going to reveal all and make the police look like fools? I do hope so.’

  Edward got up to go. ‘No, I’m afraid there’s very rarely that sort of denouement in real life – or do I mean real death? In my experience, most murders – other than husbands killing their wives and vice versa – are rather too messy and complicated to be “solved” in that way. But I will find out who killed Frieda – that I promise you. One last question, Cathcart. Did you receive a poison pen letter? I ask because the murderer appears to send them out before he sets about killing the recipient. Mark Redel received one and it almost killed him.’

  Cathcart visibly blanched. ‘No, I’ve not received a poison pen letter. Why should I?’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Edward replied. ‘I thought it unlikely but I wanted to be sure.’

  ‘Before you go,’ Thomas said in a comical whine, ‘you couldn’t lend me a fiver, could you? I have to get back to my wife and son in Wales tonight and I seem to be stony-broke.’

  Edward took out his wallet and parted with a banknote.

  ‘Why, thank you! You’re a gent – but then of course you are. You’ll be able to tell your grandchildren that you once gave that great poet Dylan Thomas a sub. Now that’s got to be worth something, hasn’t it?’

  Edward had one final call to make in London. Guy Liddell had grudgingly agreed that he could talk to Colonel Rathbone, MI5’s man at the BBC. ‘But you won’t get anything out of him,’ he had added, sounding pleased.

  Before mentioning his appointment with Colonel Rathbone, Edward asked the commissionaire at the front desk to put through a call to ‘Talks’. When he had spoken to Reg Barnes the day before, he had asked whether he might have five minutes with him while he was at Broadcasting House to clear up a few points he didn’t want to discuss on the telephone.

  Barnes looked with interest at the tall, distinguished-looking man with a beaked nose and an air of authority as Edward strode into his office. He had met men like him before. They came into the BBC to give talks on the Arab Revolt or the ascent of Everest – army officers or e
mpire-makers for the most part who were more at home in a Damascus souk or a Kathmandu bazaar than in Portland Place.

  ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, Mr Barnes . . .’

  ‘Call me Reg, please. Everyone does.’

  ‘Thank you. It’s very kind of you to see me. I can guess how busy you are, and you were very helpful on the phone. I thought you might like to hear how my meeting with Lewis Cathcart went.’

  ‘What did you make of him?’

  ‘He was just as you described him and, as you prophesied, his friend Thomas “borrowed” a five-pound note off me. But I wonder if I could just ask you a few questions about Frieda’s murder which I didn’t want to ask on the phone? I’m sure the police have gone through it all with you until you’re sick to death of talking about it but you can understand how, with my wife’s involvement, I very much want to get to the heart of the matter.’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Lord Edward, I haven’t seen much of the police. They don’t seem to think I can tell them anything they don’t already know.’

  ‘And can you?’

  ‘Well, it was all such a mêlée. I mean, I can’t remember who was there and who wasn’t. To be honest with you, I was in a blind panic. I couldn’t believe that it had happened in my studio. I so admired your wife, Lord Edward. She was as cool as a cucumber. And so brave. She insisted on trying to see if the murderer was still in the building whereas I’d have been happy to leave it to the police. I can see why she is such a good foreign correspondent.’

  ‘I’ll tell her you said so. Are you still planning to use the interview? With Frieda dead . . .’

  ‘I think we will – as a tribute, you understand, if your wife has no objection. In fact I was thinking of asking her to say a few words before the interview is broadcast, saying something nice about her. Do you think she would?’

  ‘I’ll ask her.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So did you recognize anyone immediately after Frieda was found dead?’

  ‘We didn’t see anyone in the passages or the washrooms.’

  ‘No, I meant when the news got out that something had happened. Was there anyone you didn’t expect to see?’

  ‘Not really. I remember Cathcart turning up in the studio almost immediately. And that vicar fellow, Paul Fisher, may have been there as well. In fact, I’ve been thinking about him. Did your wife tell you that right at the end of the recording one could hear Frieda saying something like knotty?’ Edward nodded. ‘Well, what if she said, “Not E”?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that she assumed whoever had come in had mistaken it for Studio E.’

  ‘And Studio E is . . .?’

  ‘The chapel. It’s where Fisher holds the Daily Service which is broadcast to a grateful nation.’

  ‘I see. So you think Paul Fisher might have come into the studio – Frieda turns round to see who it is, starts to tell him he’s in the wrong place and then he smashes her skull in with the statuette of Sir John Reith?”

  ‘No, I can see it sounds rather absurd.’

  ‘It is an interesting theory. And you can’t recall anyone else? The painter – Mark Redel – do you know him?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so but I know his name . . .’

  ‘Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time, Reg. Here’s my card. Could I ask you to telephone me if anything else occurs to you?’

  ‘Of course! Frieda was like a daughter to me, Lord Edward. Whatever I can do to help, you can count on me to do it.’

  Colonel Rathbone was almost invisible behind a tall stack of brown files but he would have been easy to miss even if he had not been hiding. He was wearing a brown suit and a brown tie. His obligatory toothbrush moustache was brown and bristly and his toupee – Edward was sure it was a toupee – was also brown. He might have been bald on top but little tufts of brown hair in his ears and on his cheekbones and luxuriant brown eyebrows suggested the monkey, and there was something simian about his eyes which – it must have been Edward’s imagination – appeared to be yellow.

  There was hardly room in the tiny office for Rathbone to edge round the desk to greet him but he managed it, and Edward tried not to smile as he watched him pull in his stomach to avoid dislodging the mountain of files.

  ‘Let’s stroll into Regent’s Park,’ Rathbone suggested. ‘It’s a lovely day and it’s a sin to be stopped up in here like a fox in his earth.’

  Edward looked at the little man sharply. Why that casual reference to the fox? It was true he was more fox than monkey, now Edward came to think about it, but did he recognize that?

  Apart from a few pleasantries about the weather, little was said until they were ensconced on a bench in Queen Mary’s Garden admiring the roses.

  ‘So, what do you want to know and why should I tell you?’ Rathbone asked roguishly.

  Edward held his temper in check. ‘I imagine from what my wife told me that you were in the studio immediately after Frieda Burrowes was murdered?’

  ‘I was in my office and was quickly on the scene when I heard the uproar. I don’t know how well you know Broadcasting House but my office is on the same floor as the “Talks” studios.’

  ‘And did you notice anything odd – apart from the fact that a murder had taken place, I mean? Did you see anyone behaving suspiciously?’

  ‘By the time I got to the studio, there was quite a crowd. Two of the commissionaires had arrived and were trying to restore order but they know me, of course, and let me through.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I saw a young woman lying across the table, her head battered in. The weapon appeared to be a statuette of the BBC’s revered but recently evicted chairman, Sir John Reith. It was lying on the floor covered in blood and brains.’

  ‘Do you know if the police found any fingerprints on the statuette? For some reason, they don’t seem to want to keep me in touch with developments.’

  ‘No fingerprints. Just blood – Miss Burrowes’s and not the murderer’s, unfortunately.’

  ‘And who did you see there? I mean, who were you surprised to see?’

  ‘Well, I saw your wife and the producer, Reg Barnes. I saw Lewis Cathcart who I happened to know had been Miss Burrowes’s lover until she traded him in for the more influential Byron Gates. A vicar fellow was also there – the one who sometimes does the Daily Service.’

  ‘Paul Fisher.’

  ‘Is that his name? I don’t keep track of casual visitors to the BBC. I have enough on my plate dealing with the employees,’ Rathbone said a trifle defensively.

  ‘Were there any women there, apart from my wife?’

  ‘No. Wait a moment – I’ve just remembered that I did see a woman, though at first sight I took her for a man. She was dressed like Hamlet – white shirt with black trousers and a black jacket.’

  ‘She was – at least I assume she was – Miss Elsa Fairweather,’ Edward told him. ‘Did she seem distraught?’

  ‘I’m not sure. No, I think she looked . . . not pleased, exactly but . . . I might be imagining it but I would almost say triumphant.’

  ‘You know Miss Burrowes had a relationship with Miss Fairweather?’

  ‘It’s on her file,’ Rathbone admitted.

  ‘Anything else you can tell me? In those files of yours – is there anything to suggest who might have murdered the girl?’

  Edward spoke lightly but Rathbone took his question seriously.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. I’m only interested in criminals where there is a political connection. That man Cathcart, for instance – he consorts with some rather odd characters.’

  ‘You mean like Dylan Thomas? I met him with Cathcart at lunchtime.’

  ‘In the pub, I imagine. He’s more or less an alcoholic so I don’t take him very seriously, but he’s a troublemaker. He’s not employed by the BBC but he often gives talks and reads his poems – the most awful stuff. I’ve always had a distaste for the Welsh – they’re all goats. Look at that man Lloyd Ge
orge, a dishonest goat if ever there was one.’

  Ignoring the slur on the Welsh nation in general, Edward asked why he particularly disliked Dylan Thomas.

  ‘He’s open to blackmail, though I doubt whether anyone would bother to blackmail him when they could buy him for a few bob. He’s married but he goes after every girl he sees. And he’s a coward.’

  ‘A coward?’

  ‘I intercepted a letter of his . . .’ Edward was shocked but said nothing. ‘He was writing to one of his literary friends. I remember his words exactly. “What are you doing for your country? I’m letting mine rot.” He’s registered as a conscientious objector but he’s admitted to friends that he’s just an escapist. One of the people who drinks with him told me he brags that he can’t “do Brooke in a trench”.’

  ‘Rupert Brooke?’ Edward said. ‘I suppose he means he can’t be a “patriotic poet” – I don’t blame him for that. I think we are a bit too cynical to take that sort of verse in this war. Anyway, that’s by the by. He may be rather “artistic” for my taste but it doesn’t make him a murderer.’

  ‘No, but Cathcart would do well to choose his drinking companions more carefully.’

  ‘Is there anything on Reg Barnes?’

  ‘The producer?’ Rathbone sounded surprised. ‘No, though he does give a voice to some undesirable characters on the left – that odious man Guy Baron for one. But Reg is all right – even given me a tip or two. Why, do you think he had a relationship with Miss Burrowes which went wrong?’

  ‘He claims it was a father/daughter thing but he might not have liked seeing his little girl play around with people like Byron Gates and Lewis Cathcart, let alone Elsa Fairweather.’