Play to the End

by Robert Goddard

  Then a familiar face showed up: Sergeant Spooner. I was loaded into another police car and driven to CID headquarters on the northern outskirts of Brighton. There I was put in a blank-walled interview room, given a mug of tea and a ham sandwich and left alone for more than an hour. What they were waiting for I didn’t know. Most probably they were listening to the tape I’d told them they’d find in Roger Colborn’s pocket and trying to decide for themselves what had happened that morning at Powis Villas and Beachy Head—and why.

  Eventually, Spooner came in with Inspector Addis and the questioning began. They knew now that I’d lied to them yesterday when they’d asked me about Ian Maple. But, thanks to the tape, they also knew I’d stopped lying. We went through everything, step by step. At least, I suppose we did. I can’t recall more than a fraction of what was said. I should probably have asked for a lawyer to be present. They may even have encouraged me to. But I couldn’t see the point. There was only one story to tell now: the truth.

  In the end, Addis couldn’t seem to decide whether to reprimand me or sympathize. The gist of what he said was that Ian Maple and I should have come to him with our suspicions on Thursday. Then none of this need have happened. Three people who were now dead would still be alive, Ian wouldn’t be in hospital with a smashed leg and I wouldn’t be…I think he left me to sum up my condition for myself. I didn’t argue. I didn’t have the strength, let alone the will.

  “You can go now, sir,” he said at some point, after I’d signed a statement and drunk some more tea. “When will you be returning to London?”

  “Tomorrow, I expect.”

  “I dare say we’ll be in touch with you there. The press will be on to you for certain, you being a bit of a celebrity and all. Tell them nothing. If I hear you’ve sold your story to one of the tabloids, I may have to take a serious look at whether you should be charged with breaking and entering, or wasting police time, or…whatever. Catch my drift?”

  “You seriously think I want this splashed over the papers?”

  “I don’t know, sir. You might decide it’d be helpful to your career.”

  “Talking of which, sir,” put in Spooner, “we spoke to a Mr. Sallis at the theatre and explained the situation. As best we could.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Will you be wanting to be dropped somewhere? We can arrange a car.”

  “I’d like to…see my wife.”

  “Not sure I’d recommend that, sir. I gather she insisted on remaining at the scene until they’d brought up the bodies. Wanted to be certain Mr. Colborn really was one of them, I suppose. That was pretty upsetting, as you can imagine, given the state they were in and the fact that Mr. Braddock was there as well. A WPC’s with her out at Wickhurst Manor as we speak, waiting for Mrs. Flood’s sister to arrive. A Mrs. Butler. I presume you’re acquainted with the lady.”

  “Yes. We’re acquainted.” It was natural enough for Jenny to turn to Fiona in a crisis.

  “We’ll be seeing Mrs. Flood later to report our preliminary conclusions. It might be best if you postponed a visit until after that.”

  “Perhaps I could…phone her.”

  “Be our guest.”

  “And those…preliminary conclusions. What are they?”

  “You already know, sir,” said Addis. “You knew before we did.”

  Spooner brought in a phone for me to use, then I was left alone. I stared at the thing for several minutes, struggling to form some words into a sentence that might somehow measure up to the bloody havoc I’d played no small part in inflicting on Jenny’s life that morning. I still hadn’t succeeded when I picked the phone up and rang her mobile. It was switched off and I didn’t leave a message. I tried the house number instead.

  The WPC answered and seemed reluctant even to ask Jenny if she wanted to speak to me. She came back to say that Jenny was too upset to come to the phone. I sensed a wall was being thrown up between us. But for the moment there was nothing I could do to break it down.

  In the end, I declined the offer of a lift and left the police station on foot. Business was frenzied at the nearby superstore. I walked past the jam-packed car park and looked up at the shoppers wheeling out their laden trolleys. It was a normal pre-Christmas Saturday evening for them. The murder at Powis Villas and the deaths at Beachy Head were minor news items. Their futures were unaltered, their lives unaffected. The world went on its way. As it always does.

  I can’t remember how far I was intending to walk. I doubt in fact if I had much in the way of intentions at all. Somewhere in the seemingly endless sprawl of housing I found myself wandering through, I boarded a bus to the Old Steine. I sat at the back and kept my head down. No-one noticed me.

  I felt numb, disconnected, overwhelmed by events. My hearing had recovered, but my thinking hadn’t. I slunk into a crowded pub in St. James’s Street and downed several whiskies. Probably more than several. Then I headed for the Sea Air.

  Eunice’s greeting was double-edged. She was relieved to see me in one piece, alive and relatively well. But she was also angry over my failure to keep in touch.

  “It’s only thanks to Brian Sallis and the police that I haven’t been worried sick about you. Though what they told me didn’t exactly stop me worrying. Seems you’ve been through the mill, Toby, and no mistake, so I suppose I’d better not be as hard on you as I’m tempted to be. Come downstairs and I’ll rustle you up something to eat.”

  Protesting that I wasn’t hungry did me no good and I was soon perched blearily at the breakfast bar in her kitchen, picking at cauliflower cheese and admitting to myself that, of all the various ends to the day that had seemed possible to me in the course of it, this had certainly not featured.

  “What did Brian say?” I wincingly enquired.

  “That you’d got mixed up in some dreadful goings-on and been taken hostage by a murderer. Is that really true, Toby?”

  “Oh yes. It’s true.”

  “But the murderer threw himself off Beachy Head?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were there at the time?”

  “Yes. I was.”

  “It’s mortifying just to think about it.”

  “So it is.”

  “The things that happen while we law-abiding folk are going about our daily lives.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it…when it’s not so raw in my mind.”

  “But the murderer…was your wife’s…”

  “Can we leave it, Eunice? I honestly can’t—”

  “Sorry.” She gave me a sudden and genuinely affectionate hug. “You don’t want me rabbiting on.”

  “It’s all right. I…What did Brian say…about the play?”

  “Nothing. Except that…well…”

  “What?”

  “They’re coping without you.”

  I managed a rueful half-smile. “No doubt he meant that to be reassuring.”

  “You could always…phone him.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you still planning to go back to London tomorrow?”

  “I suppose so. It’s probably best, after all. Look at what’s happened in the six days I’ve been here.” I thought about that for a protracted moment, as a forkful of cauliflower cheese congealed on the plate in front of me. “Yes. It’s probably best.”

  That was not so long ago. This is now. Late. Very late. Too late, for Derek Oswin and Delia Sheringham. And for Roger Colborn too. But for Jenny and me? I don’t know. She should be grateful to me for discovering Colborn’s true nature before she married him. But I doubt she feels grateful. I doubt that very much.

  I should give her a chance for the shock to fade, of course, for the grief to give way to an understanding of what he was and what he did. I should go back to London and bide my time. I should let my own wounds heal as well as hers.

  Yes. That’s what I should do. That’s definitely what I should do. It’s for the best.

  Probably.

  SUNDAY

  I hav
e no memory of lying awake until the small hours last night, struggling to accommodate in my mind everything that had happened. I would have expected sleep to be as hard to come by as hope and consolation, but, strangely, it wasn’t. Exhaustion asserted its imperative. I plunged into a deep, absolving unconsciousness.

  I hadn’t closed the curtains of my room and was woken by the stealthy grey onset of dawn. A few seconds later, I realized that, no, I hadn’t dreamt the events of yesterday. Only in a fast-fading dream, in fact, could I walk along a railway viaduct with Derek Oswin high above Brighton and pull him back from the parapet when he seemed about to fall. In the real world, where I dwelt and had to go on dwelling, he was beyond saving. Nor was he alone in that.

  I showered and shaved hurriedly, then dressed and packed for my departure, sensing it might be best if, when I returned later, I could just grab my bag and go. Whatever logic and calculation had suggested was my wisest course of action, it wasn’t what I meant to do. I had to speak to Jenny. I had to see her. Without delay.

  But someone else had decided to see me, also without delay. As I closed the door of the Sea Air quietly behind me and stepped out into the dank, chill, silent morning, there was a beep on the horn of one of the cars parked on the other side of the street.

  It was a battered old Metro. The driver’s window had been wound down. And Ray Braddock was staring out at me.

  I walked slowly across to speak to him, wondering what I’d find to say and remembering Colborn’s taunt about actors needing lines to be written for them before they could sound convincing.

  “Sneaking off back to London?” Braddock asked. He was unshaven, his eyes red-rimmed, his manner bleak.

  “I’m sorry about Derek, Ray,” I said, holding his gaze determinedly. “Truly I am.”

  “You said you’d look after the boy.”

  “I don’t think I—”

  “You said it would all blow over.”

  I let his accusing glare seep into me. “I was wrong.”

  “I tried to stop him going round the cliff to find you and Colborn. I told him to think of himself. But he wouldn’t have it. ‘I got Mr. Flood into this,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get him out.’”

  “He said that?”

  “He did.”

  “Well, he was as good as his word, Ray. He got me out.”

  “He saved your life.”

  “Yes.”

  “At the cost of his own.”

  “No doubt you wish it was the other way about.”

  “I do.”

  “But you can be proud of him. You really can. Isn’t that something?”

  “When you’re old and poor and lonely…it’s sod all.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was true. I was sorry. But it was also true that my sorrow wasn’t enough. For either of us.

  “I don’t think Derek got you into anything,” said Braddock. “I think you got yourself in. And I wish to God you hadn’t.”

  “You may be right. In which case…” I shrugged. “I wish the same.”

  “Do you now?” Braddock’s anger suddenly ebbed. His expression softened marginally. He shook his head dolefully. “Fool to himself, that boy. Just like his father.”

  “There are worse things to be.”

  “So there are.” He sighed. “If you want to…show your respect…for what he did…”

  I suddenly noticed that he was proffering something to me through the window: a small white card. I took it and found myself looking at the name, address and telephone number of a local undertaker.

  “They’ll be able to tell you when the funeral is.”

  “Thanks. I…”

  “It’s up to you.” Braddock started the car. “I’d best be off. Looks like someone else wants to speak to you.”

  “What?” I turned and saw Brian Sallis standing on the pavement outside the Sea Air in his jogging kit.

  “Good morning, Toby,” he said solemnly.

  “Brian. I…” I walked across to him, glancing round as I heard the Metro draw away.

  “Who was that?”

  “Derek Oswin’s godfather.”

  “I see.” Brian gave me what was meant to be a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “This has been a bad business.”

  I nodded. “You can say that again.”

  “I’ve been trying to raise you on your mobile.”

  “I…mislaid it.”

  “Where are you off to now?”

  “The taxi rank in East Street.”

  “Can I walk with you?”

  “Sure.”

  We set off and reached the end of Madeira Place before another word was spoken, the right thing to say proving equally elusive for both of us.

  “I’m sorry…not to have been in touch,” I said as we rounded the corner into St. James’s Street.

  “Don’t worry about that. At the time, we were all pretty narked, but…well, from what the police tell me, the circumstances were about as extenuating as they come.”

  “I gather you coped without me.”

  “I went on for you.”

  “Yes.” I winced at the thought of Brian stumbling through my part, script in hand. “I suppose you had to.”

  “It’s been a while since I did any acting, I know, but…I quite enjoyed it, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’ve never experienced someone going on with the book. I can’t believe it’s enjoyable, though.”

  “Well, actually…”

  “What?”

  “By last night, I was word perfect. I’d already boned up on the part, you see. With Denis gone and you…behaving erratically…I…”

  We were crossing the Old Steine as Brian mentioned Denis, no more than fifteen yards from the fountain where I’d found him dead on Tuesday night. I kept my eyes fixed on the middle distance, straight ahead. “You saw it coming, did you, Brian?”

  “Not…what happened. Of course not. I mean…”

  “It’s all right. I understand. How did Leo react to news of my absence?”

  “Ballistically. But he doesn’t know the reason yet. When he does…”

  “He’ll soften. But not enough to hire me again in a hurry.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “Look, Toby, you’ve been through a terrible experience. I don’t want to add to your woes. I’ll make sure Leo appreciates that you missed the last three performances through no fault of your own.”

  “Thanks.”

  “When are you going back to London?”

  “Later today.”

  “Probably wise. I haven’t heard from the press, local or national, so I’m guessing they haven’t tied you in with yesterday’s events yet. But they will. It’ll be easier to lie low in London than here. Unless you’re going on somewhere else, of course.”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “Most of us are catching the eleven fifty up to Victoria, if you want to—”

  “There are things I have to do first, Brian.” I stopped at the corner of East Street and signalled to the driver of the only taxi on the rank. “I doubt you’ll see me on the eleven fifty.”

  “How’s Jenny taken all this?”

  “I don’t know. That’s one of the things I have to do.”

  There was no sign of the press out at Wickhurst Manor either, which was a blessing. I had the taxi driver, a mercifully tight-lipped bloke, drop me at the end of the lane leading to Stonestaples Wood as an additional precaution and approached the firmly closed gates on foot.

  At first, there was no response to the intercom button. But I persisted, reckoning there was close to no chance that Jenny would be anywhere but at home. If Wickhurst Manor could properly be regarded as her home any more, that is.

  Eventually, there was a response. I recognized the voice as Fiona’s. “Yes?” She was probably expecting the press. She sounded as if she meant to see off whoever it might be in short order.

  “It’s me, Fiona. Toby.”

/>   There was a brief silence. I thought I heard a sigh. “You shouldn’t have come here, Toby.”

  “I have to see Jenny.”

  “That’s really not a good idea.”

  “Let me in, Fiona. Please.”

  “I…don’t think I can.”

  “For God’s sake…”

  “You should have phoned first.”

  “I’ll go into Fulking if you like and phone from the call box for an appointment.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then, let me in.”

  “No.”

  “Fiona—”

  “Sorry, Toby. I have to put Jenny first. Phone later. Maybe tonight. Or tomorrow. But not now.”

  She switched off the intercom and I was left staring at the grille, rooks cawing around me in the trees, a fine drizzle filming the steel plate set in the pillar in front of me. I pushed the button again. There was no answer.

  I stepped back and surveyed the gates. It looked as if someone younger and fitter than me could climb them.

  But they weren’t about to try. I was.

  Fiona opened the front door of Wickhurst Manor five minutes or so later with the weary look of someone who knows what they’re going to see. A sororial resemblance to Jenny has never extended in her case to a fondness for me. She’s always regarded actors as suspect by definition—unstable, unreliable and essentially undesirable.

  “Couldn’t you just for once have taken my advice?” she snapped, pursing her lips irritably.

  “It didn’t sound like advice.”

  “That’s because you weren’t listening properly.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “What have you done to your leg?” She glanced down at my left ankle. There was a V-shaped tear just above the hem of my trousers where I’d snagged them on the spike at the top of one of the gate pales. When I looked down myself, I saw there was blood seeping through the hole. Fiona gave a heavy sigh. “Come into the kitchen. And keep your voice down. Jenny’s asleep. I’d like her to stay that way.”

  I followed her into the hall and round to the large north-facing kitchen at the back of the house. Its windows looked out onto the lawn I’d crossed under cover of dusk on Friday afternoon. My last visit to Wickhurst Manor felt far more distant to me than it really was, almost from a different age.