Play to the End

by Robert Goddard

  What had happened after they’d got what they came for? Why wasn’t Derek here, traumatized and trembling? Because they’d taken him with them, that’s why. They’d probably called a van round from wherever its driver was waiting, bundled Derek in and driven off. It wasn’t just the book they’d come for. It was the author.

  Would I see matching shoe-prints outside on the pavement, maybe skid marks where the van had sped away? I edged the front door open for a look.

  The latch slipped from my grasp as the door was suddenly thrust wide open, striking me in the chest and throwing me back against the wall. A bulky figure moved in and past me, slamming the door shut behind him.

  “Hi,” said Ian Maple, staring at me beadily from close quarters.

  “You,” was all the response I could manage.

  “Yeah. That’s right. Me. I followed you from the theatre. Glenys Williams isn’t a good liar. And you’re not a much better one. So…how about telling me what the fuck’s going on?”

  It seemed I had no choice. We sat in Derek Oswin’s armchairs, as the kitchen clock counted the continuing seconds and minutes and hours of his absence. And I told Ian Maple everything that had led to his brother’s death. There was no point holding any of it back. Like Glenys had said, he had a right to know. And now he’d asserted that right.

  “Denis was caught in the crossfire between you and Roger Colborn,” he accurately and bleakly concluded. “There’s no other way to look at it.”

  “No,” I had to agree. “There isn’t.”

  “And now Colborn’s grabbed this Oswin guy.”

  “Looks like it. Though not in person, I imagine.”

  “No. His goons will have done that for him. The same goons who went after Denis.”

  “Probably, yes.”

  “Not a very nice man, Colborn, is he? Except in your wife’s opinion.”

  “She knows nothing about this.”

  “Perhaps it’s time she was told.”

  “She won’t believe me.”

  “Maybe she’ll believe me.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you want to do about Oswin?”

  “I’m not sure. Call the police?”

  Ian looked at me sceptically. “You haven’t a shred of evidence against Colborn. Even if the police believe Oswin’s been abducted, they won’t go looking for him at Wickhurst Manor. And they wouldn’t find anything if they did. From what you tell me, Colborn will have been sure to cover his tracks. As things stand, the police would be more likely to arrest us than anyone else. Besides, my guess is that Colborn just wants to put the fear of God into Oswin. He’ll have him back here by morning.” He shrugged. “If not, I’ll pay him a call. And find out just how tough he really is.”

  And so it was agreed, however reluctantly on my part: we’d await Derek’s return, find out what had happened to him and decide how to react then. Ian was confident he’d be back. I was less certain. Colborn’s no fool, I told myself. Doing Derek serious harm would be asking for trouble. And yet…

  I found a key to the front door in one of the kitchen drawers and pocketed it when we left. We walked south through the chill, star-spattered Brighton night. Little was said. We’d talked ourselves out back at Derek’s house. And neither of us quite trusted the other.

  We parted by the Law Courts in Edward Street. “I’ll go back to Viaduct Road mid-morning,” I said. “I’ll let you know whether Derek’s there or not. And, if he is, what state he’s in.”

  “I’ll be waiting on your call.”

  My call, yes. But watching him walk briskly away along the street without a backward glance, his broad shoulders hunched against the cold, I had the distinct feeling that what happened next would be his call, not mine.

  But that’s been the way of it ever since I arrived on Sunday. First Jenny, then Derek, now Ian Maple. Plus Roger Colborn, of course. They’ve all dictated my agenda, in their different ways. They’ve all decreed what’s best for me. Or worst, depending how you look at it.

  There’s a matinée tomorrow. From lunchtime onwards I should be thinking about nothing beyond the dramatic and comedic challenges of Lodger in the Throat. As it is, acting is likely to be just about the last thing on my mind.

  I’m so tired I can’t sort the questions I should be asking myself into any logical order. Did I interpret the scene at 77 Viaduct Road correctly? Is Derek Oswin really being held somewhere against his will? Fraud and corruption you might expect of a certain ruthless type of businessman. But abduction and possibly worse? I thought Colborn was too clever for that, too subtle, too confident that less overt measures would always serve him better. Maybe I thought wrong.

  If so, it’s not just Derek I should be worried about. There’s Jenny to consider as well. What kind of a man has she become involved with? She’s normally a good judge of character. She must know what he’s really like. He can’t have deceived her so completely. Can he?

  I don’t know. I’m not sure. About that or anything else. I have a feeling akin to seeing something out of the corner of my eye that isn’t there whenever I look directly at it. Something’s going on, beyond Colborn’s dirty tricks and dirtier dealings. I’ve been told so many different and conflicting stories that I can be certain of only one thing: I haven’t come close to the truth; I haven’t even glimpsed it.

  But I will.

  THURSDAY

  It had to happen eventually. The sun was shining, low and cold in a cloudless sky, when I left the Sea Air this morning after one of Eunice’s hearty breakfasts that somehow hadn’t heartened me. I walked north up Grand Parade, chilled by a biting east wind and a gnawing anxiety about what I’d find.

  Near the Open Market I fell in with the imagined footsteps of Derek Oswin’s grandfather as he traced his daily route to work seventy or eighty years ago. But they kept on climbing the hill towards Colbonite, while I turned into Viaduct Road and made my way to the door of number 77.

  There was no answer to my knock. It was as I’d feared, then. Derek had not returned. I let myself in and was met by the unaltered silence of last night; by Derek’s duffel-coat hanging on its hook, the broken balusters sagging from the stair-rail, the books strewn across the sitting-room floor.

  I glanced into the kitchen, then headed up to the bedroom. Nothing had changed there either. Nor, in Derek’s continued absence, was it likely to. I sat down on the bed and rang Ian Maple.

  “Yuh?” His answer was gruffly matter-of-fact.

  “Toby Flood here, Ian. I’ve done as we agreed. There’s no sign of him.”

  “Understood.”

  “What do you mean to do now?”

  “Pay our friend a visit.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I’ll call you later.” And with no assurance as to carefulness, he rang off.

  Ian hadn’t asked what my plans for the day were. I think he assumed I’d be busy at the theatre, leaving him free to probe the affairs of Roger Colborn in whatever way suited him best. But I had four hours at my disposal before I had to report for the matinée and I intended to put them to good use.

  I picked up the photograph album from among the scattered contents of the chest and opened its stiff leather cover. The pages were black card, the captions beneath the photographs written in white ink in a copperplate hand. The Oswins’ camera-caught memories kicked off with Kenneth and Valerie’s wedding at St. Bart’s in July 1955. Kenneth was a thin, hollow-chested man with curly hair and a toothy grin, Valerie even thinner, fine-boned and graceful, surprisingly beautiful. (Why that surprised me I couldn’t say, but it did.) The best man and bridesmaids were also snapped and identified and the best man cropped up in other pictures as I leafed on through. Burlier than Kenneth Oswin, with slicked-down hair and a stern gaze, Ray Braddock, or “Uncle Ray” as later captions referred to him, was some sort of close family friend or relative to judge by the frequency of his appearances. He was to be seen standing by the pram when baby Derek made his début in front of the lens in the summer
of 1958. Grandfather Oswin was a rarer subject, an older version of Kenneth who cropped up sporadically and never with Grandmother; she’d presumably died sometime before 1955. Valerie’s parents and siblings were rarer still. Perhaps they lived some distance away. Certainly the Oswins didn’t travel far with their camera. Beachy Head was just about the most exotic locale. Brighton sea front, Preston Park and the back yard of 77 Viaduct Road were the commonest settings. Around 1972 the captions started being written in a different hand, which I recognized as Derek’s. That was also when Grandfather Oswin died, if his abrupt disappearance from the album was anything to go by. But Uncle Ray was still on the scene and remained there until the photographs fizzled out in the early eighties, with several pages still unused. Never the most prolific of snappers, the Oswins appeared to have given up altogether.

  By then Kenneth, Valerie and Uncle Ray had moved from their twenties into stolid middle age and Derek had grown from infancy to a mop-haired young man of uncertain bearing. He’d changed little in the years since, while his parents had both died, leaving him alone in this house of his childhood, a family home become both his refuge and his prison. As for Uncle Ray…

  I phoned directory enquiries and they confirmed that there was a Braddock, R., listed in the Brighton area. They even gave me his address: 9 Buttermere Avenue, Peacehaven. I tried the number. No reply. And no answerphone either. Well, I could easily try later.

  Next I conducted a search of all the obvious places where Derek might have stored or hidden the original of The Plastic Men. On top of the wardrobe and behind it. Under the bed. Beneath the stairs. In the kitchen cupboards. I didn’t expect to find it, of course. I was as certain as could be that it had left with him. Sure enough, I found nothing.

  Then I put a call in to Moira, crossing my fingers that I’d catch her in an obliging mood.

  “What can I do for you, Toby?” Her tone left the issue of her mood tantalizingly undecided.

  “You received the manuscript yesterday?”

  “Yes. But if you think I’ve already got a response to it for you, then—”

  “No, no. It’s not that. I have another favour to ask of you.”

  “The news about Denis was dreadful,” she said, apparently failing to register my last remark. “I’ll really miss him, you know, even though I hardly ever saw him. He was always so chirpy.” It was only then that I remembered Denis had been a client of hers, albeit not one of her most famous. “Brian Sallis said you found him. Is that right?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “If there’s anything I can do…”

  “There is, actually. It concerns the manuscript.”

  “What’s that to do with Denis?”

  “Long story, Moira, which I’ll be happy to go into another time. The point is, I need it back.”

  “The manuscript?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’ve only just sent it to me.”

  “I know. And now I need it back. Urgently.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s too complicated to explain. But it’s important, believe me.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Toby. First you send me this, this…what is it, plastic something?…demanding an instant evaluation, then you demand it back again.”

  “I’m well aware that it must sound crazy, Moira. You’ll just have to trust me when I say there’s a very good reason.”

  “I know you and Denis were friends from way back. You must be upset. But—”

  “I need to see the manuscript.”

  “All right. All right. Calm down. If you want it, you must have it, I suppose.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll have it posted to you this afternoon. What’s your address in Brighton?”

  “Actually, Moira…”

  “What?”

  “I was hoping someone could bring it down to me. Today.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No. You have umpteen juniors at your beck and call. You wouldn’t miss one of them for a few hours. I’d rather not rely on the post. And it really is very urgent.”

  “May I remind you that the bloody thing’s only up here because you sent it to me, Toby?”

  “I realize that. But—”

  “Can’t you ask the author to run you off another copy?”

  “Impossible.”

  “Any point my asking why?”

  “Not really. Just lump all my credit points together and offset this favour against them.”

  “What credit points?”

  “Be reasonable, Moira. I’m asking you to help me out of a deep hole here.”

  “Of whose digging, may I ask?” She paused, though not long enough for me to devise an answer, then resumed, her voice suddenly gentler. “Sorry. You’ve been under a lot of strain, I know. Probably more than I know. All right.” During the next pause I heard her take a long draw on her cigarette. “Tell you what, Toby. I really can’t spare anyone today. Tomorrow, though, I’m supposed to be working at home. I’ll substitute a day trip to Brighton, manuscript in hand, and you can pour out your troubles to your aunty Moira over lunch. Good enough?”

  Only just good enough, to be honest. I wanted The Plastic Men in my hands, there and then, to comb for clues to what had happened and evidence to use against Roger Colborn. Short of going up to London to get it, however, I was going to have to wait until Moira brought it to me. The matinée meant I couldn’t leave Brighton. The consequences of another no-show by me, with no understudy on hand, didn’t bear contemplation. I suspected Moira had volunteered to act as courier because she wanted to reassure herself as to my state of mind. She’d lost two clients in this run of Lodger in the Throat—Jimmy Maidment was one of hers as well—so maybe she was getting twitchy.

  If so, it seemed she wasn’t the only one. I let myself out of the house and headed round the corner into London Road to catch a bus back into the centre. While I was waiting at the stop, Brian Sallis rang me.

  “Good morning, Toby. How are you?”

  “You don’t need to worry, Brian. I’ll be at the theatre by two o’clock.”

  “Oh, I didn’t phone to check up on you. Please don’t think that.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “It’s true. The thing is, well…”

  “Spit it out, for God’s sake.”

  “All right. Sorry. Leo and Melvyn are coming down to see the matinée. I thought you ought to know.”

  “The pair of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Just to see how we’re going, I suppose.”

  “Don’t give me that. We’re two days from closure.”

  “Ah, but are we?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have the impression Melvyn’s report on Tuesday night”s show may have made Leo think twice about taking us off.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I don’t see any other way to read it. Play it this afternoon like you did Tuesday and…who knows? It could be very good news.”

  Brian’s definition of good news and mine were quite a way apart at that moment. I sat on the top deck of the number 5 as it rumbled south, bemused by the ironies of my situation. If Leo really was considering an eleventh-hour stay of execution for Lodger in the Throat and, by implication, a London transfer, I should be psyching myself up for a persuasive and possibly clinching star turn as James Elliott. The rest of the cast could be relied on to pull out all the stops. The chance was there to be seized.

  But the chance was to me more of a burden. I couldn’t spare much thought for acting as matters currently stood. In fact, I couldn’t spare any. Reality doesn’t often intrude into the life of an actor. Pretence is all, off stage as well as on. For me, though, that had changed. Utterly.

  The only problem was explaining my predicament to other people in a way that would make sense to them. And I knew it was a problem I couldn’t hope to solve.

  As if to underline the point, Brian
was back on to me before I’d even got off the bus.

  “I’ve just spoken to Melvyn, Toby. I’m having lunch with him and Leo at the Hôtel du Vin. It’s in Ship Street. You know, where Henekeys used to be.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time.”

  “Ah, but Leo’s suggested you join us, you see. That’s why I called. Not for the whole meal, obviously. Wouldn’t want to put you off your stroke.” His laugh was not contagious. “One o’clock OK for you? It’s only a ten-minute walk from there to the theatre.”

  I agreed, of course. I only had to think how rejecting a lunch invitation from our esteemed producer would go down with my fellow cast members, whose salaries he paid, to realize I had no choice. Buttering up Leo and Melvyn was something I had neither the wish nor the leisure to engage in, but come one o’clock I was going to be doing it none the less.

  I hopped off the bus at the Steine and doubled back at an Olympic-style walk to the Local Studies Library in Church Street. I glimpsed a representative sample of library-going folk poring over microfilm-readers as I entered, but fortunately there were several vacant places. I just had to hope none of those using the machines were consulting November 1995 editions of the Argus.

  As I peeled round to the enquiries desk, however, I came face to face with someone extremely unlikely to have come there in search of anything else.

  “Toby,” said Jenny, shuffling together a sheaf of photocopied pages, conspicuous by their having been printed white on black. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same question” was such an obvious retort that I didn’t utter it. I just looked at her, then down at the sheets of paper in her hand, recognizing at a glance the headlines and columns of a newspaper page and deciphering a date at the top of one: Friday, November 17, 1995. Then I looked back up at her and said simply, “Snap.”