Mods, young men in sharp suits who lounged about in coffee bars, listened to R&B music and occasionally roused themselves to have fights with rockers, had yet to surface in LA but Max had seen plenty of them in Brighton. He thought that Joe’s single-breasted suit and thin tie owed something to the movement.
‘Are you a mod now, Joe?’
‘Nah.’ A switch back to cockney as Joe lit a cigarette. ‘I just like the schmutter.’ A quick detour into stage Yiddish.
Max took out his cigarette box, having declined one of Joe’s.
‘Pity Ruby couldn’t have joined us,’ he said.
‘She’s got a hot date back in London,’ said Joe. ‘Took the car back.’ He blew out smoke in what Max saw as a slightly aggressive fashion. He wanted to know who Ruby was seeing in London but knew that he didn’t have the right to ask. While he was in England, he’d try to catch up with Ruby’s mother, an ex-snake-charmer called Emerald. Now rigidly respectable, Emerald wasn’t his biggest fan but she might be able to reassure him that Ruby was happy.
‘So, Maxie,’ said Joe, who, despite numerous requests and occasional threats, could not seem to break himself of this nickname, ‘what do you think about this here film?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Max. ‘I can’t quite see myself as the Earl of Dorincourt. Wasn’t he about ninety in the book?’
‘Forget the book,’ said Joe, who had almost certainly never read the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic. ‘In this version the earl is a handsome, dissolute aristocrat. That’s why you’d be perfect.’
‘Because I’m dissolute?’
‘Because you’re a bona fide aristocrat. Lord Massingham and all that. The producers are in a tizzy about it.’
‘I haven’t said yes yet.’
‘Just come to London and meet Bobby,’ said Joe. ‘He’s a sweet kid.’
‘I know the type. Hollywood’s full of child stars. Horrible grinning moppets.’
‘Bobby’s just a farm boy from Ohio at heart,’ said Joe. ‘And he really wants to do this film with you.’
‘I can’t afford the time,’ said Max.
‘Are you signed up for something else?’ asked Joe.
‘No,’ said Max. The truth was that he didn’t have another film on the horizon. Every script he was sent seemed to require him to be a moustache-twirling British villain, or in love with a woman a third of his age. He didn’t want to admit this to Joe though. ‘And I don’t want to be away from my family,’ he said.
‘Bring them,’ said Joe expansively.
‘Lydia’s too busy,’ said Max. Though Lydia had, in fact, just finished a film and he knew that she’d relish the chance to visit England, especially if it included a visit to Max’s ancestral home. She had sulked for hours when Max announced that he wouldn’t be using his title. She said Lady Lydia Lamont had a ring to it, although Max could have told her that she would actually be called Lady Massingham.
‘Ruby would like to see a bit more of you,’ said Joe, looking at Max through cigarette smoke. ‘She was really cut up about her uncle Stan.’
‘She was fond of Diablo,’ said Max.
‘She needs her dad.’
‘Don’t push it, Joe.’
‘And you’d like to spend some time in dear old Blighty, wouldn’t you? See your friend Edgar again.’
‘I can see him now,’ said Max, because Edgar had just walked into the bar.
*
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ said Edgar.
‘I’m nothing if not predictable,’ said Max. ‘Do you want a drink?’
‘Actually,’ said Edgar. ‘I wanted to talk to Joe. I guessed that you’d be here.’ He didn’t say that the intuition had actually been Emma’s. Edgar thought that Max looked rather irritated at this interruption.
‘Would you like me to go?’ said Max now, still with that slight edge.
‘No,’ said Edgar, ‘of course not.’ In the past he had involved Max in his cases, needing his insight into the theatrical world and, even more, his support and friendship. Somehow they had slipped back into the old days of the Magic Men, where Max was the ideas man and Edgar, supposedly, the one who kept them within the bounds of reality and the law. But they hadn’t worked on a case for eleven years. Max was a Hollywood star now; he probably had no interest in the work of a small-town policeman.
Despite Edgar’s protests, Max bought him a drink and they moved to a quiet table in the glassed-in area overlooking the sea. The sun was setting behind the West Pier, turning the sea red and gold.
‘A girl has gone missing,’ Edgar told Joe. ‘She’s a big fan of Bobby Hambro and we’ve reason to believe that she’s gone to London to look for him.’
‘All the girls love Bobby,’ said Joe. ‘You should see the crowds outside his hotel every evening. All young girls, screaming his name. “Bobby! Bobby!” It’s like Frank Sinatra all over again. We’ve even had girls fainting.’
‘Where’s he staying?’ asked Edgar.
‘The Ritz.’
Emma was right again.
Edgar got a black-and-white photograph out of his pocket. It had been given to him by Sir Crispian Miles and showed a round-faced girl with a fringe and chin-length hair. She was grinning, showing teeth that seemed rather too big for her face. Looking at Rhonda Miles, Edgar had some sympathy with her father’s view that she was not the sort of girl to lose her head over an American film star.
‘Her name’s Rhonda Miles and she’s got bright-red hair, apparently,’ he said. ‘You haven’t seen a girl like this hanging round the Ritz, Joe?’
Joe was looking at the photograph with an expert eye, as if Rhonda were auditioning for a role as a showgirl. ‘Can’t say I have,’ he said. ‘But they all look the same to me. That’s how I know I’m getting old.’
Edgar was pleased to see that Max didn’t return Joe’s rather lascivious smile.
‘How long has Rhonda been missing?’ he asked. Edgar felt grateful to him for using her name.
‘Since last night or early this morning. We can’t be sure. She left a note saying that she was going to London.’
‘Then Joe can’t have seen her. He’s been in Hastings all day.’
‘I just wondered if she’d managed to get to London another time,’ said Edgar, feeling slightly wrong-footed. ‘Her family don’t live that far away and it was half-term recently.’
‘It’s possible,’ said Joe. ‘Bobby’s been in London for a few weeks and there’ve been girls outside every night.’
‘Can you keep your eye out for a redhead?’ said Edgar. ‘I’ve alerted the London police and they’ll be checking up on Bobby’s fans. I think they’ll want to talk to him too.’
Joe looked faintly alarmed now. ‘Look, Bobby’s just a simple country boy. He won’t want to be mixed up with the police.’
‘He won’t be mixed up,’ said Edgar. ‘He’ll simply be helping them to find a missing girl. I’m sure he’d want to help, especially since Rhonda’s a fan of his.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Joe. ‘Bobby’s got a heart of gold.’ But Edgar thought that he still looked rather concerned.
‘Do you think something’s happened to this girl?’ asked Max, holding the picture up to the light. ‘How old is she?’
‘Sixteen. This picture’s a few years old. I’ve asked her father for a more recent one.’
‘Sixteen-year-olds can usually look out for themselves. I ran away from school three times. I left at sixteen. Went straight onto the boards doing card tricks. My father disowned me. The first of many times.’
But Max had been reconciled to his father by the end. At least he had been back in Lord Massingham’s will and had inherited the title he now refused to use. But Edgar knew that Max’s childhood hadn’t been easy. He’d lost his mother when he was six and had hated his boarding school. But Roedean seemed a much gentler place and, as Max said, sixteen-year-olds were usually fairly hardy.
‘We don’t have reason to believe that Rhonda is in danger,’ he said. ‘B
ut the family are concerned. Bob Willis is going to the school tomorrow.’
‘Are you letting Bob loose in a girls’ school?’ said Max. ‘He’ll be terrified.’
‘It’s been ten years since you’ve seen Bob,’ said Edgar. ‘He’s the DI now, married with two children. He’s grown up a lot.’
‘Really?’ said Max. ‘I had a long talk with him this afternoon. He seemed exactly the same to me.’
Edgar couldn’t help smiling at this. ‘I’ve got a new WPC,’ he said. ‘She can chaperone him.’
‘A new woman police officer,’ said Max. ‘Is she as good as Emma?’
‘No one’s ever been as good as Emma,’ said Edgar.
*
After Edgar and Joe had gone, Max stayed in the bar, nursing his lukewarm whisky and thinking about Brighton. He hadn’t been back since he left Mrs M’s boarding house eleven years ago, motivated only by a desire to get as far away as possible from the town where a woman he loved had been murdered. Florence. He thought of her now, watching as the lights on the West Pier were extinguished one by one. She had been part of a tableaux show where nearly naked women recreated scenes from art or history. The nudity was permitted only if the women didn’t move. There was a horrible salaciousness about the act, leering punters leaning forward in the hope of a drape slipping or a woman coughing, but Florence as Cleopatra had managed to rise above all that. She was so simply, perfectly, beautiful that she did, in fact, look like a work of art or a Shakespearean scene come to life. Florence had been clever too – she had shown Max radio sketches that she had written and they were really good, funny and original without being at all mawkish. Florence and Max had become lovers, although Max had been living with Mrs M at the time. They were in love, he told himself now, almost defiantly. It had been the real thing. Max had wanted to live with Florence, to see that perfect face every day. He had wanted them to have adventures together, to travel the world. It excused everything, that kind of love. But Florence had been killed, her body posed in a grotesque re-enactment of the Cleopatra scene. And Max had never been the same again.
Was that true, he thought now, or was he dramatising things, like any aging pro in the bar late at night? Had the death of Florence really been the defining moment of his life? The day that she died, he had gone on stage as usual and had got through his act. Though it had been a near thing, saved only by Ruby’s brilliance and quick thinking. The next night a Hollywood agent had come to the theatre and offered him a part in a film. Max had left with barely a backward glance. He hadn’t thought about Mrs M, who had been deeply in love with him. He hadn’t even thought about Ruby, his daughter, who had just been through a painful break-up with Edgar. He had simply thought about escaping. He had gone to America and, on the set of The Conjuror, had met Lydia Lamont, an actress then just ascending into stardom. Had he been in love with Lydia? It was more, he thought, that she had been in love with him. Or rather she had fallen for the character he played in the film, a Svengali-type villain who could only be redeemed by the love of a good woman. Lydia threw herself into that role with gusto.
Max remembered the moment when an on-screen kiss became something more serious. He had looked into Lydia’s big blue eyes and had seen the promise of escape, a different life, a different identity. When he was in Cairo during the war Max had seen a man performing the Indian Rope Trick, the rope ascending upwards, seemingly without human interference. Lydia had been his rope; he had grasped onto her and she had taken him towards the light. And, for the most part, it had been a happy marriage, an outstandingly successful one by Hollywood standards. Lydia was beautiful, of course, as Florence had been, though angelically blonde where Florence had been dramatically dark. But you can grow used to beauty. Max found that he no longer really noticed his wife’s looks except in the rare moments when she herself seemed unconscious of her appearance, first thing in the morning, for instance, or when playing with the children. Lydia could be wonderful company, full of fun and an almost relentless gaiety. She had a temper too but that didn’t bother Max; it was part of her charm. A deprived childhood had given Lydia an energy and ambition that sometimes made Max feel quite exhausted. But he thought that Lydia had been good for him, she had woken him up and revitalised him, stopped him from sinking into cynical middle age. And Lydia had given him Rocco and Elena. She could murder him tomorrow and he’d still be grateful to her for that. Jesus, why had that thought occurred to him? It was being back in Brighton. The place was making him morbid.
Max finished his whisky. He’d meet Bobby Hambro and discuss the film. If it sounded promising, he could bring Lydia and the children over for the summer. It would be good for them to get to know England. If the Vietnam war went on for much longer, they’d have to leave America anyway. Max wasn’t going to let his son die fighting a ridiculous war for a foreign power. Thinking of Rocco and Elena, Max felt himself relax. He took out the photograph he had showed Emma earlier and looked at it. This feeling was, at least, simple and uncomplicated. He loved his children, he would die for them. And that included Ruby. If he stayed in England, he would make an effort with his elder daughter, try to make up for the missing years.
The pier was in darkness now. Max made his way out of the bar. Tomorrow he would go to London to meet this former child star. But he would walk around Brighton too. He would confront Florence’s ghost. Maybe he would find that it no longer had any power over him.
Chapter 5
If there was one thing WPC Meg Connolly hated it was being compared to DS Emma Holmes, now Mrs Edgar Stephens. The way people talked about Emma, it was as if she was this combination of Marilyn Monroe and her namesake Sherlock. There was an old sergeant called Hobbs, he kept going on about how DS Holmes had solved the Lansdowne Road murders single-handedly. Except she had nearly got killed for her pains but Superintendent Stephens (then just a DI) had come to her rescue, giving her mouth-to-mouth and carrying her naked body (that bit was never explained) through the snow. The love story added to Emma’s mystique at the station. Even DI Willis went pink around the ears when he mentioned her. Maybe he was in love with her as well although he’d apparently met his wife through the Lansdowne Road case too. Just Meg’s luck that there were no juicy murder investigations these days.
The only time Meg had ever met Emma was at the Christmas party, a really grisly affair where you were meant to invite your ‘other half’, which, in practice, meant wives only. Emma had been there with her two little girls, both very sweet, saying ‘thank you’ with little bobbed curtsies when Father Christmas – Doug from the post room in a badly fitting wig – gave them their presents. Meg couldn’t see what there was to write home about really. Emma was what her mother would call ‘nice-looking’, she had shoulder-length blonde hair, good skin and no discernible make-up. Her fur coat had looked expensive but underneath she wore a black dress that had definitely seen better days. Afterwards Meg had worked out that Emma had been pregnant with her third child that Christmas. It hadn’t showed but maybe that explained the baggy dress and the lack of lipstick. Either way, she wasn’t exactly Mata Hari.
They drove to Roedean in DI Willis’s car. It was normally the junior officer who drove but WPCs weren’t allowed to take the wheel. Another thing to grumble about, though really, if you added them all up, you’d have no time for anything else.
The DI didn’t speak until they got past Black Rock, when he said, ‘Emma went to Roedean, you know.’
Dear God, not bloody Emma Holmes again. Meg pretended not to understand. ‘Emma who?’
‘DS Holmes. Mrs Stephens as she is now.’
‘She’s a Roedean girl? Aren’t we all?’
DI Willis turned to look at her. ‘Did you go to Roedean then?’
Meg laughed. ‘No. I went to Fitzherbert in Woodingdean. My parents wanted me to go to Blessed Sacrament but I failed the Eleven Plus.’
‘Blessed Sacrament? Are you a Catholic then?’
‘Yes,’ said Meg. ‘Good Catholic girl. Can’t you tell
?’
The DI’s ears went pink again and he didn’t answer. He’d sounded quite disapproving though. There was still a lot of anti-Catholic prejudice around, according to her mum, an expert on intolerance. Or maybe she’d been too jokey. She often got the tone wrong when talking to superiors. Maybe he just thought it was odd to call herself a girl. She was only nineteen but she knew that, at nearly six foot, she wasn’t what most people thought of as girlish.
After a few more minutes, the DI asked, ‘Are you from Woodingdean?’
‘No,’ said Meg. ‘Whitehawk.’ She was aware that this was probably the wrong answer. If Roedean was the smartest address in Brighton, next-door Whitehawk was definitely the least salubrious. Meg and Emma Holmes might have lived a few miles apart but socially there was a vast gulf between them. The DI digested this new information in silence.
The Roedean gates opened straight onto the coast road. The DI indicated and turned in but clearly someone was needed to push open the gates and clearly that someone was Meg. Nevertheless she managed to stay in her seat until the DI was forced to say, ‘WPC Connolly, would you . . . ?’ Once inside, the grey building loomed above them. Close up it looked more like a monstrous seaside villa than a castle, four storeys high with sloping gables and pebbledash walls. The main entrance had a sort of tower though, with a clock in the middle and chunky pillars, like chess pieces, below. The view was incredible, an uninterrupted sweep across the playing fields out to the sea. It was also, on this cold spring day, a rather bleak one. The sea was slate grey, capped with white, and, on the pitch in front of them, a group of girls struggled to control a lacrosse ball. Seagulls skirled overhead and, far below, you could hear the waves breaking against the cliffs.
In the entrance hall, in front of a magnificent double staircase, they were met by a tall woman in an academic gown. ‘I’m Miss Browning, the Number Four housemistress.’
The DI obviously didn’t know whether to shake hands or not. ‘I’m DI Willis and this is WPC Connolly.’
Now You See Them: The Brighton Mysteries 5 Page 3