Play to the End

by Robert Goddard

  “I’d take that as a kindness, Mr. Flood. My number’s in the book.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’d best be on my way.” He stood up, but made no move towards the door. It was apparent that he still had something to say. I rose and looked at him promptingly. Several seconds passed during which he seemed to ponder the wisdom of his words. Then, in a gruff undertone, he finally unburdened himself. “Derek’s the nearest to family I have left. I must do what I can for him.”

  It was nearly noon by the time Ray Braddock made his plodding exit, leaving me with less than half an hour to get up to the station and meet Moira off the 12.27. I flung on a coat and hurried out into a cold, grey, mizzly midday. A glazier’s van was parked outside and I could hear Eunice in conversation with its driver down in the basement area. He was one visitor to the Sea Air I didn’t need to worry about.

  On my way to the taxi rank in East Street, a thought suddenly came to me. It would have occurred to me sooner, but my own need to avoid the police was so well served by Braddock’s similar reluctance that I hadn’t bothered to question it. Yet the question was a good one. Why was the old man so leery of the boys in blue? What did he have to be frightened of? Like more or less everyone else mixed up in the misadventures of Derek Oswin, he was hiding something. But what? And why?

  My brain was obviously suffering from anxiety overload, because it was only when I was halfway to the station in the back of a taxi that I remembered Moira’s bizarre message of yesterday afternoon. I turned on my mobile and checked for further word from her, but there was none. My various tart responses had presumably dispelled the muddle she’d somehow got herself into. Ordinarily, I’d have looked forward to a boozy lunch with the gossipy guzzler herself, but, the circumstances being about as far from ordinary as conceivably possible, the prospect had lost its lustre. Even the opportunity to lay my hands on the manuscript of The Plastic Men had turned sour on me. If I couldn’t use any ammunition it provided me with against Roger Colborn, maybe, I reflected, I was better off not knowing what that ammunition might be.

  This reflection was about to recoil on me, however. The 12.27 arrived only a couple of minutes late and Moira was one of the first passengers through the barrier. Loud, red-haired and generously proportioned, she’s never faded into any background I’ve ever seen. The faux leopard-skin coat and purple beret made sure the concourse of Brighton railway station on a dull December day hadn’t a chance of being an exception. What I noticed, however, even before the mandatory hug and triple kiss, was that she was carrying nothing apart from her handbag.

  “Where’s the manuscript, Moira?” I asked, as soon as we’d disentangled ourselves.

  “You don’t have it, do you?” she responded bafflingly. “I was afraid of that.”

  “You were supposed to bring it with you.”

  “I was hoping your messages didn’t mean what they seemed to.”

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “That, Toby, is a very good question.”

  It was a question I only got some sort of an answer to once we were installed in a taxi, heading for La Fourchette in Western Road, Moira’s choice of lunch venue.

  “I had to go out shortly after you called yesterday morning,” she began. “I didn’t get back to the office till after lunch. That’s when I found out what had happened.”

  “Which was?” I prompted impatiently.

  “Well, I’d asked Lorraine to retrieve the manuscript from Ursula because you wanted it back in a hurry, but I hadn’t told her I was planning to bring it down here today, so, when this guy showed up—”

  “What guy?”

  “He said you’d sent him to fetch the manuscript. Naturally, Lorraine thought you’d told me you’d send someone round for it and I’d forgotten to mention it to her. Simple as that. So—”

  “She handed it over?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Catch this guy’s name, did she?”

  “Er, no.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Unremarkable. Medium height, medium build. She probably did no more than glance at him. After all—”

  “Why should she bother to take reasonable care of something I’d entrusted to you? Good question, Moira. And I can’t think of an answer. Mr. Nobody swans in off the street, tickles Lorraine under the chin and walks out with a manuscript he had no claim to. Most natural thing in the world. Perfectly understandable. Happens every day.”

  “Look, Toby, I’m sorry. It’s very…unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate?”

  “I shall have a serious word with Lorraine. You can be certain of that. But what’s the big deal? Surely you can get another copy from the author as I suggested to you yesterday.”

  “The original’s gone missing.”

  “What?”

  “Along with the author, as a matter of fact.”

  Moira stared at me in amazement. “Missing?”

  “As in ‘vanished without trace.’”

  “But that means…” Her brow furrowed in agently concern. “What have you got yourself mixed up in, Toby?”

  The answer was more than I had any intention of divulging to Moira. Colborn must have learned of the copy of The Plastic Men I’d sent to her from Derek. He’d had the original—along with any other copies—removed from 77 Viaduct Road. An artful sortie to the Soho offices of the Moira Jennings Agency had now completed the collection. There was no other way to read it. Roger Colborn’s opportunistic instincts had prevailed yet again.

  “You’re not going to tell me what this is all about, are you, Toby?” Moira demanded after we’d ordered our lunch and started on a bottle of Montagny, her insistence that she had a right to know only enhanced by the embarrassment she felt at losing the manuscript. “You’re putting me in an impossible position.”

  “Actually, I’m not. It’s telling you that would do that.”

  “Does this have something to do with Denis?”

  “I can’t discuss it, Moira. Sorry. My hands are tied.”

  “But that bloke who tricked Lorraine was part of some…conspiracy. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m saying I can’t discuss it.”

  “And Jenny. Is she involved? I know she lives down here. Brian Sallis implied your no-show on Monday night was on her account.”

  “When did he imply that?”

  “When I spoke to him yesterday afternoon, after trying to speak to you.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you? Do you really? As your agent, Toby, I have to look at the big picture, which at the moment isn’t a very attractive one where you’re concerned.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you need to be careful. There’s a chance Leo may decide to bring Lodger in the Throat into London after all.”

  “Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”

  “It is…” She paused, apparently unconvinced. Then she added, “If you’re still in the cast.”

  I bridled instantly. “Why the bloody hell shouldn’t I be?”

  “Because, Toby,” she replied, lowering her voice, “Leo may calculate that the only viable way of bringing it in is by economizing on the salaries. And thanks to my negotiating skills your salary’s the biggest by quite a margin.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “Wouldn’t he?” Moira looked at me over the rim of her glass, one eyebrow cocked. “I dare say Martin Donohue would be willing to take over your part at a cut-price rate just for the career leg-up it would give him.”

  There was no denying that. In fact, the harder I thought about the possibility Moira had raised, the more horribly plausible it became. I’d seen little of my fellow actors off stage in recent days. I’d opted out of all their post-show suppers. I’d made myself remote and semi-detached. If there were whispers going round, they were unlikely to have reached my ears.

  “Leading the cast of an unsuc
cessful production is plain bad luck,” said Moira. “Getting sacked from that role in a production just about to redeem itself, on the other hand…is something you can’t afford to let happen, Toby. Trust your aunty Moira on this one. It’s an absolute no-no.”

  Our meals arrived. Moira tucked into hers with relish, while I picked listlessly at mine and reflected on the truly sickening prospect she’d conjured up for me. Martin Donohue replacing me as James Elliott? His name, and not mine, up in lights outside a West End theatre? The week was just getting worse and worse.

  Perhaps my pitiful expression penetrated Moira’s defences. Or perhaps sating her hunger allowed the sympathy in her soul to take flight. She ordered a second bottle of wine, which I’d refrained from suggesting for fear of being thought even more unprofessional than she already had me down as. She lit a cigarette and reached across the table to give my hand a consoling squeeze.

  “It probably won’t happen, Toby. I just want you to be aware of the vulnerability of your position. Besides, acting’s only a job. There are more important things to think about. Your marriage to Jenny, for instance.”

  “It ends next month, Moira. Decree absolute.”

  “Does it have to?”

  “I can’t think of any way to stop it.”

  “You could try telling her you still love her.”

  “She knows that. The problem is that she no longer loves me.”

  “I bet she does.”

  “Your cheer-up act lacks subtlety, Moira. You haven’t seen Jenny in over a year. How would you know what she feels?”

  “You two belong together. It’s as simple as that.” Our plates were removed. She leaned back and observed me with narrow-eyed acuity through a curl of cigarette smoke. “If you hadn’t lost Peter, you’d never have lost each other. You know that better than I do.”

  My mouth dried. My self-control faltered. It’s strange how, despite the passage of time, the grief I never properly shared with Jenny remains no more than a stray word away. “There’s nothing to be gained by dwelling on what can’t be altered,” I said stiffly.

  “Have you seen much of Jenny since you came to Brighton?”

  “Not as much as I’d like. And not exactly in favourable circumstances, either.”

  “But you have seen her?”

  “Yes. Several times.”

  “At whose instigation?”

  “Well, initially…Jenny’s.”

  Moira smiled. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “She simply wanted me to do her a favour.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really.”

  “As your agent, friend and counsellor on female psychology, Toby, I have to say that sometimes you can be mind-numbingly obtuse. Don’t you get it?”

  “Get what?”

  “The message.” Moira stubbed out her cigarette and leaned across the table again. “No woman eagerly counting the days to the legal finalization of her divorce asks her soon-to-be-ex-husband for anything, however minor, however trivial, or contacts him for any reason whatsoever, unless, in some secret part of her mind, she’s come to doubt whether she genuinely wants to lead the rest of her life without him. She’s not going to admit that, of course. She’s going to deny it vehemently, in fact, even to herself. But it’s the truth. My experience of divorce is, let’s face it, considerable, so you’ll have to acknowledge me as an authority on the subject. Jenny was asking you to do her a favour. But it wasn’t the one she spelt out. Forget the pretext, Toby. Concentrate on the subtext. Do yourself a favour.”

  Men mismanaging their love lives was a subject that evidently appealed to Moira. When we left La Fourchette, well fed and altogether too well wined, she announced her intention to tour the Royal Pavilion before returning to London. “High time I saw inside the old sot’s lair.” I walked her through the Christmas shoppers to the Pavilion entrance, but declined to accompany her further. We parted outside, Moira fudging a climactic apology for losing the manuscript of The Plastic Men by advising me to forget whatever l’affaire Oswin amounted to and devote my remaining leisure time in Brighton to winning back Jenny. Then, in a tipsy swirl of leopard-skin, she was gone.

  I walked down to the pier and out along it, remembering my meeting there with Jenny last Sunday. Could Moira be right? Was Jenny as reluctant in her own way to let go as I was in mine? The afternoon was cold and murky, the pier all but empty. The sea was a heaving, foam-flecked mass, greyer than the sky. A fine drizzle blurred the illuminated signs. I stopped and stared back towards the shore. Colborn had been too quick and too clever for me. He had me where he wanted me. He was in control. But not of Jenny. She was his weak spot. And my chink of light.

  Ten minutes later, I pushed open the door of Brimmers and entered the shop for the first time. Two customers were debating the merits of a fluffy pink cloche with a thin, bright-eyed, blonde-haired young woman I took to be Jenny’s assistant, Sophie. Of Jenny herself there was no sign. I headed towards the door at the rear marked PRIVATE. But Sophie cut me off.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said, starting with surprise as she either recognized me or deduced who I was. “Oh,” she added, her mouth holding the shape of the word as she stared at me.

  “I’m looking for Jenny.”

  “She’s…not here…at the moment.”

  “When are you expecting her back?”

  “I’m not, actually.” Sophie cast a nervous sidelong glance at the pair with the cloche and dropped her voice. “Mr. Flood, I—”

  “Where is she?”

  “I…don’t know.” Reading the scepticism in my face, she lowered her voice still further, to the level of a whisper. “She’s gone away.”

  “She said nothing about this yesterday.”

  “It was arranged at short notice. She phoned me this morning. An urgent family matter, apparently. She won’t be back until after the weekend.”

  I’d done it again. I’d underestimated Colborn. Jenny was gone, whisked away, placed beyond my reach. I said no more. I couldn’t bear to. I brushed past Sophie and hurried out of the shop.

  From a window-seat in the Rendezvous, I rang Jenny’s mobile. It didn’t come as any great surprise to find it was switched off. I left no message. Sipping my espresso, I wondered if there really could have been a family crisis. It seemed wildly improbable. But a tactical retreat to her parents’ house in Huntingdon or her sister’s in Hemel Hempstead wasn’t. I had both numbers back at the Sea Air, but ringing them was pointless. Either she hadn’t gone to them or they’d be under instruction to tell me she hadn’t. Besides, there was another possibility I could check, personally. And at that moment I badly wanted to do more than log up futile phone calls.

  The taxi dropped me a hundred yards or so short of the entrance to Wickhurst Manor, at the end of the lane leading north towards Stonestaples Wood, the lane where Sir Walter Colborn met his end seven years ago and from which his killer’s son, Derek Oswin, took those covert photographs of the house he’d shown me. I’d bought an Ordnance Survey map of the area before leaving Brighton, but the light was failing so fast it wasn’t going to be useful for long. A chill, damp winter’s evening was encroaching rapidly as the taxi pulled away and I started up the lane.

  Derek had mentioned a right of way skirting Wickhurst Manor. The dotted green line shown on the map diverging from the lane about a quarter of a mile ahead had to be it. I stepped up my pace, racing against the twilight.

  If the path hadn’t been marked by a fingerpost, I might easily have missed it. The route meandered off muddily through the trees flanking the lane. The going was slow and slippery, thorns dragging at my coat and trousers as I diverted round the deeper puddles. But I pressed on, confident that the boundary of the manor couldn’t be far.

  Nor was it. Through the tangled undergrowth I spotted the perimeter wall ahead, creeper-hung flint patched in places with brick. It was no more than five feet high and I could see the trunk of a fallen tree propped against it that looked the likeliest
means of climbing over.

  The theory was fine, its execution clumsy. The tree trunk was slimy and soft with decay. I scrambled up onto it and immediately slipped straight off, further jarring my already twanging thigh muscle, an unwelcome reminder that I was neither young nor fit enough for such antics. But needs must. I scrambled up again, stretched precariously to a foothold on top of the wall and crouched there, squinting for a view of the ground on the other side.

  The shadows were too deep, however. It was a question of trusting to luck. I lowered myself cautiously down, clutching onto a flint-edge and a branch of the tree, and ended up knee-deep in a patch of nettles. Blundering clear, I found myself on the fern- and thorn-strewn fringe of a plantation of fir trees. Their serried ranks opened up tunnels of sight through the deepening dusk to open ground beyond. Wincing from sundry nettle stings and thorn slashes, I headed along one of the diagonals, the going easy under the conifers through rustling drifts of needles.

  I caught my first sight of the house as I emerged from the plantation on its far side. A barbed-wire fence separated me from a hummocked stretch of parkland. Beyond, the chimneys and roof of Wickhurst Manor were silhouetted, black against the grey-black sky. There were lights on in several of the ground-floor windows and a couple on the first floor as well. As I watched, a car came into view, moving down the drive away from the house, its headlamps tracking round the leafless branches of the trees as it followed the curving route to the gates.

  I snagged my coat on a barb as I squeezed between two wires of the fence, but tugged it clear and set off across the park. Fifty yards or so took me to another fence. Beyond this and a narrow lawn lay the single-storey wing of the house enclosing the kitchen garden. I was on the opposite side of the house to Colborn’s office quarters. It was quiet here. There was no-one about. But, then, why would there be? It was nearly dark and growing colder by the minute. The drizzle was thickening into rain.

  I crawled under the bottom wire of the fence, crossed the lawn and took a squint through the nearest window. This wing had originally been the servants’ domain, I supposed. It looked now to be used for the storage of gardening equipment. I headed round the angle of the building in search of a door.