Murder Under A Green Sea

by Phillip Hunter

  He paused for effect.

  Sometimes when he was like this and raised a rhetorical question, some fool attempted an answer. In this instance, everybody was looking awkward, except for Lindsey, who was looking drunk out of his very small mind, and Flora, who was gazing at Max in the same way she sometimes gazed at Gary Cooper or Robert Taylor. Max and her father were probably the wisest men Flora knew. Oh, and possibly Eric, of course.

  Martha was chewing the inside of her cheek and pushing a pea around her plate.

  Then Max happened to look over at Hart, expecting that quiet man to be unsettled by the turn the dinner had taken. Instead, Hart was attempting to stifle a smile that his twinkling eyes would’ve betrayed anyway. The two men exchanged glances, and Max was sure the old gent had winked at him.

  Having dished out the main course, Flora put the remaining vegetable dishes on the table so that people could help themselves to more, if they wanted. Then she put the tray under her arm, walked serenely past Mrs Dunaway and bashed her on the head. Mrs Dunaway’s head caused the silver tray to ring like a bell.

  “Ouch.”

  “Flora.”

  “Terribly sorry, ma’am.”

  “My fault entirely,” Lindsey said.

  Conversation then became fragmented, several exchanges going on at once, as often happens when people become more drunk and thus unable to follow a multi-line discourse.

  Martha, who was agreeing with whatever it was that Mrs Dunaway had said to her, was watching Max, and had determined to cheer him up a little, and take his mind off his poor dead friend. She had, by now, become slightly blotto, or fuzzy, as Max would have it.

  After the main course, Flora served the dessert, which was a vanilla and ginger cheesecake with cream. By now, most of the table was in various latter stages of inebriation, with the exception of Frost, who was uncannily sober, and Fernando, who’d been drinking the same glass of wine for the last hour. Lindsey and Mrs Dunaway, in particular, were feeling the effects of Max and Martha’s hospitality.

  “Tell me about your family,” Mrs Dunaway said to Max. “What is your hic-story? Who are you from?”

  Talk of his background made Max uncomfortable, something that Martha knew and occasionally played upon, teasing him in the way that someone who knows an unimportant secret might do.

  “Max doesn’t have family, do you, darling?” she said.

  Martha was in that dangerous area beyond sobriety but before the wavering-eye, wobbly-leg state of no return. She had a wicked glint in her eye.

  “No.”

  “What happened to them, Max?” Rosamunde said.

  “They died.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “The swings and roundabouts of outrageous fortune,” Lindsey said.

  “I never knew them. I was adopted. They’ve gone now, too. My adopted parents.”

  “You’re an orphan,” Rosamunde said. “How sad. Isn’t that sad, Fernando?”

  “Muy triste,” Fernando agreed.

  “I don’t think Max ever had a family,” Martha said. “I think he was a foundling. A rejected baby. Abandoned for some reason.”

  “I was an ugly duckling,” he said.

  “Yes,” Martha said, “and you grew into an ugly duck.”

  “Family is very important,” Hart said, “one’s roots are what makes one. For example, take us here, obviously we are all from good stock, Anglo-Saxon and—” here raising his glass to Fernando, “of course Spanish. Our civilisations have shaped the world, for the better, I might add. Background is essential. It’s everything.”

  “Disagree,” Lindsey said. “Take my lot. Hideous examples, mostly.”

  “I don’t agree with you, Lindsey,” Frost said. “I think Hart is right, family is extremely important. They’re the backbone of a country, a society. And the family one marries into is, perhaps, just as important. Providing,” he said, brushing a speck from his jacket sleeve, “they’re the right sort.”

  This was a loaded comment, as far as Martha was concerned, since it was clear to her that Frost was here referencing her own family, especially her cousin who’d unfortunately run off with that American/Albanian/Armenian businessman. But, Max, seeing Martha’s unease, came to the rescue, saying, “And what is the ‘right sort’? And who decides which sort of sort a person is?”

  “Background, breeding.”

  “Religion,” Hart said. “Class, the usual things. One doesn’t compare a thoroughbred to a donkey, does one?”

  This observation actually received applause from Mrs Dunaway, who said, “How well put, Mr Hart. A thorokey and a whatsit. Very good.”

  There was some more talk, and a lot more drinking, with Max passing round an Italian dessert wine.

  Finally, it was time for everyone to leave. Fernando shook Max’s hand and said, in perfect English, “Thank you. I’ve learned a lot about the British tonight.”

  Rosamunde held tightly to her lover and whispered to Martha, “Doesn’t he have super eyes? And he has oodles of money.”

  Lindsey and Mrs Dunaway walked – well, staggered – out together, both rubbing their heads. Frost left with a nod, while Hart paused a moment and thanked Max and Martha for a wonderful evening.

  “I wonder if I might call on you again,” he said. “Perhaps we could discuss the Peninsula Campaign, Mr Dalton. I understand your latest book was on that subject. I have some contacts on the continent. Perhaps a translated volume of your work would sell well.”

  Max smiled and said, certainly he could call again. Hart handed him a business card, which read “Edward Hart”, followed simply by a telephone number.

  Then Hart left and it was over and Max let out a long sigh.

  “I think that went quite well,” Martha said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Martha mentioned Flora’s strange behaviour to Max, saying, “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She kept hitting people with the tray and dropping potatoes and carrots all over the place.”

  “She’s probably exhausted,” Max said.

  “You think so? Oh, poor girl.”

  Martha then told Flora to go home and to leave the cleaning to her and Max. Flora, surprised, left with her wages and got the bus home, wondering along the way how she might renew her attacks on Mrs Dunaway and Lindsey, should the opportunity ever arise, and even whether she should include Mr Frost and Mr Hart, as a strike for the working cause. She imagined a whole table of massacre and errant vegetables.

  Meanwhile, after they’d had some coffee, Max and Martha were in the kitchen, swaying while washing and drying the dishes. Martha had a pinafore over her dress, Max had hung his jacket on the back of a chair and rolled his sleeves up.

  They didn’t say much, each wondering whether they’d upset the other. Finally, with a dish mop in her hand, Martha turned to Max and said, “I’m sorry about Mrs Dunaway. I always thought she was a harmless old thing. But it’s been so long since I last saw her.”

  “It’s not her,” Max said. “At least, it’s not only her.”

  He abandoned the towel and found his cigarettes, which were in his jacket.

  “I know you don’t like people smoking in the kitchen,” Max said, lighting a cigarette for himself, and one for Martha, which she took, wiping her hands first on the pinafore. She said, “What the hell.”

  “They’re killing us, Martha,” Max said. “Can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel them killing us, amusing us to death with their wit and dryness? It’s osmosis in reverse; they’re taking the life from us, pulling it down into their dryness so that, for just a while, they don’t feel dry, but feel alive. They’re feeding on our life, Martha. And we’re dying from it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Max. Don’t you like our friends?”

  “They’re not friends. They’re just people we know. We only know peopl
e we know.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “I’m making more sense than I ever have. Except when I asked you to marry me.”

  “Max. I… I don’t understand you.”

  “No, you don’t, do you?” Max said.

  They were quiet for a few minutes, each trying to understand what the other felt, what they felt themselves.

  “You’re upset,” Martha said, after a while. “It’s been difficult for you, with your friend dying, well, possibly dying, and the police and everything.”

  Max didn’t say anything to that. Martha was right, of course, but he didn’t know to what extent she was right. Had he been unfair to their guests that evening? He was the host, after all.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, though,” Martha said, a small glint in her eye. “I’m never going to invite Mrs Dunaway again.”

  But Max was struggling now to be jocular, and Martha saw it in his expression, which was remote, pained. She knew that every now and then a wave of sadness would roll over Max, knock him down and scrape him along the shingle, threatening to drag him back with it, back to the sea. She didn’t know much about these waves, often didn’t even see them coming, but she knew this much: they started way off, way back in the deep and cold of the ocean.

  Martha took him by the hand. “Let’s leave the washing up.”

  She led him into the sitting room and pushed him down on to the sofa, sitting on his lap. “I wish I knew where you went.”

  “We went to The Lion.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Oh.”

  “It must’ve been very terrible.”

  “Only in parts. Mostly, it was just plain awful.”

  “Why do you do that? Hide it all beneath that dry wit of yours?”

  “I think, because I don’t want it to hurt you.”

  “You must think me terribly weak.”

  “Only in parts. Mostly I think of you as terribly strong.”

  Martha put her hand on Max’s neck, ran her thumb nail over the bristles on his jaw, her fingers through the short bits of black hair at the base of his skull.

  They stayed like that for a long time, each thinking silent thoughts. Then Martha suddenly tensed. “I know what we’re going to do,” she said, turning herself around on the sofa, drawing her knees up, her ankles together.

  She was facing Max now, and there was an excitement in her expression, and Max’s heart melted. “You do?” he said.

  “Yes. We’re going to investigate what happened.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes. We can’t rely on the police. We have to do it ourselves.”

  “Uh, ourselves?”

  “Surely. Why not? You’re a journalist and I’m well connected. And we have lovely Mr Thingy. He’ll probably tell us tomorrow what he’s found out.” She smiled. “Hey, you know what, we’re like Nick and Nora Charles.”

  “Who?”

  “William Powell and Myrna Loy. The Thin Man and all that. You’ve heard of The Thin Man, haven’t you?”

  “Darling, I am the Thin Man.”

  “Well, that’s wrong. On both counts. You had far too much pudding.”

  Then Martha smiled and said, “When Flora told us you’d been arrested for murder, I really believe I saw my mother trying to hide a smile behind her napkin.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunday lunch was, as usual, spent with Martha’s parents. Max, of course, was reluctant. And Martha, of course, was insistent. “When you get parents of your own,” she’d say sometimes, “we’ll have lunch with them. Meanwhile, we’ll have lunch with mine.”

  Other times, she’d say, “If I have to do it, you have to do it. That’s what marriage is about – mutual suffering.”

  Of course, after the events of Saturday, they both knew this would be an unusual lunch, and was bound to involve an interrogation. So they plodded along to Mr and Mrs Webster’s house in Kensington, walking as slowly as they could.

  The roads were quiet and the weather was pleasant, a warm sun and hazy sky. Max and Martha took a long route, walking up Sloane Street and then on to Knightsbridge and Kensington High Street. A couple of young men in suits cycled past them, on their way home from church, perhaps. They were followed by a rattling old green truck with a gold livery advertising a furniture manufacturer.

  When they came adjacent to the Albert Memorial, Max and Martha paused for a moment. Martha put her arm in Max’s, and they stood like that, silently, and gazed at the monument, a seated Prince Albert beneath a gothic canopy that reached for heaven and the Albert Hall looming behind them. Nearby, several groups of people were enjoying the spring weather, some seated on the steps smoking or eating sandwiches, some wandering towards Kensington Gardens.

  Max and Martha were each thinking different things as they stood there. For Max, the monument was a melancholy sight, for he felt how pointless such beauty has to be, in the end; sic transit gloria mundi. For Martha, it was a statement of love, defying, as best as possible, the loss of someone.

  They walked on.

  When they arrived at the Websters’ Georgian townhouse in Phillimore Gardens, their coats and hats were collected by an elderly retainer called Seymour who greeted Martha with a complete lack of recognition, despite having known her for her entire life.

  Once Martha and Max had introduced themselves, they followed Seymour into the kitchen, the conservatory, the kitchen again and, finally, the breakfast room where Mr and Mrs Webster were sitting. Seymour attempted to announce Max and Martha, but had forgotten their names and why they’d come. Max and Martha sat at the table. Max lit a cigarette while Mrs Webster gave instructions to Seymour to bring in a new pot of tea.

  “I don’t understand why anyone would have tea at this time of day,” Mr Webster said to nobody.

  “Remember,” Mrs Webster was saying to Seymour. “Pot. Of. Tea.”

  “I think he’s getting a bit past it,” Martha said after Seymour had wandered off. “Shouldn’t he retire or something?”

  “Retire?” Mr Webster said. “And what will he do when he retires? He wouldn’t have a reason to go on living.”

  Mr Webster was a thin and tidy-looking man with an aquiline nose and neat grey moustache. He was scrutinising his newspaper, trying to do the crossword.

  “I’m sure there are reasons for living, other than serving you,” Max replied.

  Mr Webster chose to ignore this, as he often did when Max said something.

  When Seymour returned, with a new pot of tea, Mrs Webster poured it out, and Max and Martha added milk and sugar. “Now,” she said, “I think you’d better tell us why you were arrested yesterday, Max.”

  “He wasn’t arrested,” Martha said.

  “Nevertheless.”

  Mr Webster was apparently staring at his newspaper, but his eyes hadn’t moved across the text.

  Max stirred his tea.

  “I happened to have seen an old friend on Friday evening,” he said to his tea. “And someone was killed nearby at approximately the same time. The police simply wanted to ask me some questions, as a witness.”

  “Well,” Mrs Webster said, smiling, “that’s a relief.”

  This resulted in a stern glare from Martha. But her glare fell on deaf eyes. “It might’ve been Max’s friend who was killed, mother,” she said sternly.

  Mr Webster lowered his newspaper and said, “That’s unfortunate, Max. Naturally, Eleanor and I are sorry for your loss, if it is your friend.”

  “Thank you, Donald,” Max said.

  “Yes, of course,” Mrs Webster said. “Terrible. Now, what do the police know?”

  Max and Martha explained that they were awaiting a report from Mr Bacon.

  “But we’re going to investigate it ourselves,” Martha said.

  Mr Webster looked a
t his daughter over his newspaper.

  “We’re just going to have a look,” Max said. “After all, it can only help the investigation if I can add my point of view, assuming it was Burton who was killed.”

  “Don’t the police know?” Mr Webster said.

  “They’re… uncertain,” Max said.

  “And you’re going to investigate it?” Mrs Webster said.

  “Yes. Like Nick and Nora Charles.”

  “Oh,” Mrs Webster said, trying to recall who they were and whether they were related to Hugo Charles.

  “And we want Mr…”

  “Bacon,” Max said.

  “…Bacon to help us. Daddy, you’ll speak to your solicitor friend, won’t you?”

  “I hardly think the firm will spare him for one of your whims, Martha.”

  “We’d pay, of course.”

  Mr Webster sighed. Everyone knew that he’d do as Martha asked. He always did. “I’ll have a word with them,” he said.

  “But I still don’t understand why you can’t let the police deal with it.” Mrs Webster said.

  “Because they think Max is guilty.” Martha, immediately realising her mistake, put her cup to her lips and drank her tea for about two minutes, moving her eyes from her parents to Max.

  “Max?” Mrs Webster said. “Guilty?”

  “Um,” Max said.

  “Is that why you want to use Mr Bacon?” Mr Webster said.

  “There’s just some confusion. That’s all. And if the police thought I was in any way involved, they’d have arrested me.”

  At this moment, Seymour entered the room and announced that dinner was ready. He left. And immediately returned to announce that dinner was ready.

  “Lunch, Seymour,” Mrs Webster said. “Lunch. Remember?”

  Seymour left again.

  Mrs Webster then surprised Max and Martha by saying, “Dear old Mrs Dunaway telephoned me this morning to say what a lovely time she had with you last night.”

  “That’s nice,” Martha said doubtfully.