'I was going to feed the cat.'
'Let him starve. I loathe cats: selfish little buggers. When do they ever put down a saucer of milk for you and me? Even worse than women.'
'He might appreciate the sardines more than I did.'
'Not a fishy sniff shall he have till you come up with your solution.'
But it was not until nearly eight o'clock, when the slight Bloomsbury bustle indicated the beginning of modest Sunday traffic, that Jemima finally agreed to listen.
Under the promise of coffee - thank God the remaining stores in the flat did not consist solely of white Muscadet - she bent her weary mind yet again to the problem of Chloc's murder. It had after all obsessed her all the week, until Kevin John's bullying had brought about a counter-reaction.
Besides, she had in mind asking for a bath once he was sufficiently mollified. The hot water system was still working. Tiger by this time had vanished, and she hoped that he had managed to scavenge a meal elsewhere.
'If not you, then who?' It was the old question: Who, Who? 'I'll accept your premise that you're innocent for the time being. Hostages can't be choosers. So long as you let me have another cup of coffee.'
'The bitch - I refer to your late friend - was meeting someone up here. I never believed that crap about looking for her notebook. Passed it on to the police, mind you. I could see it only made things worse for me if they thought I'd surprised her with someone else. Then I really might have done her in.'
'And him, too, I suppose.'
Kevin John favoured her with a boyish smile. 'Not necessarily, darling. We men stick together. We'd probably have a lot in common if she treated him as badly as she treated me. You know, the sweetness, the sex - she was very keen on that In- the way; breathless, begging for it - then the torture of it, the infidelity, never knowing where she was. Oh Christ—'
He put his great black head in his hands.
'She's dead now,' said Jemima in a softer voice. 'And we're going to find out who did it. Look, I'll buy that,' she went on more rapidly, 'the fact she was meeting someone else. I've had my suspicions all along. Little things - the petticoat she wore, for example. Chloe was so particular, wasn't she? When she was working,' she added hastily. 'Then there's the question of her other lovers. Three of them. Bear with me—' She raised her hand as he gave a half groan. 'You want the truth. You promised to help me.'
Kevin John poured himself yet another glass of white wine. 'Shoot, sweetheart,' he said. Jemima herself swigged her coffee in great gulps from the oatmeal-coloured mug.
'After you split up, Chloe had three lovers. I'll call them, with great originality, A, B and C. A was a young man, a kind of drop-out, squatter, whatever you like, she knew him in Fulham. He also came here with her, to this building, probably not to this flat, squatted on another floor—'
To her surprise, Kevin John interrupted her: 'A is for Adam,' he said heavily. 'I know that. She told me about him. She boasted about him -the young body, like a Greek god, all that kind of shit. She could be very cruel, you know. That was the last time we met. In Fulham. So he was here, was he? Well, why the hell don't the police think he killed her?' His indignation was gathering momentum. 'Why pick on me?'
Jemima hesitated. Kevin John obviously did not know that Adam had sworn to seeing him leaving the building, evidence corroborated by an outside witness.
'Lack of motive chiefly. And lack of proof. I believe he has some kind of alibi. The police also don't think he did it because they think you did, I suppose. He could have killed her. He could have come up the fire escape from the third-floor flat.' Jemima briefly described Adam's hideout.
'And what do you think?'
'I suppose I think he's not the killing type.'
'And I am? Poor Kevin John, a lambkin among mankind, to be labelled a killing type just because he lays about him with his fists when the drink is in him—'
'Did you know Chloe was pregnant?' Jemima interrupted the tirade.
Sudden tears came into his eyes. 'The police told me. Asked me if I was responsible. Of course I wasn't. The only child we had, we could have had, she killed. That was a killing - a real killing - she said we weren't getting on, I was drinking - true enough, but it was her fault -she drove me to it.'
'I believe this Adam was the father.'
'There's your motive then!' The change of mood was mercurial. 'The young fellow doesn't want to be a father, kills her to avoid the responsibility. You know what the young are.' He gave a ghastly parody of a Harrods' matron's accent.
'A bit far-fetched, isn't it? In an age of abortion on demand. Besides, you haven't heard about B and C yet.'
'Get on with it then!'
'B was a man of substance, a famous man, whom Chloe hoped would marry her. We think she intended to palm off this baby on him; she certainly intended to use it to lure him away from his wife. B certainly had a motive to murder Chloe, scandal, a lot to lose. But unlike A who had opportunity but not motive, B had no opportunity. B, you see, was having lunch in Soho with his wife. It is also unlikely that B would arrange a rendezvous in the penthouse - but that's another matter.'
'I suppose you won't tell me who B was?'
'Correct. You haven't heard about C yet. I think I ought to call him X rather than C because X is the man of mystery in all this. Someone unknown whom she met in the square gardens. One night when she was locked out of here, forgot her key. A casual encounter she called it. Supposing she was meeting that person, X, up here.'
'And he goes and does her in? Why?'
'I don't know yet. Maybe he sees her with you, gets the wrong impression.'
'And that might be anyone!' exclaimed Kevin John. 'That bitch was capable of having it off in the bushes with anyone, man, woman, in between—'
'You've no clues? Nothing she said?'
'My God!' he stopped. 'No, that's impossible.'
'Nothing's impossible. It's not even impossible that you killed her. Anyone leaving the building? Anyone she talked about?'
'What I was going to say, that's what I meant is impossible. But, wait, another train of thought. A famous man you said, a man of substance. Another impossible thing. That man, the tycoon, Lionnel—'
'You knew then—'
'Wait, Lionnel, the monster who put up this appalling building, but not such a monster after all, a man of taste and judgement, since he bought one of my pictures. Binnie Rapallo fixed it and since she has no taste whatsoever, he must have some himself. That Saturday, morning, lunch-time, whenever it was - I was so pissed, and pissed off - I saw him. I ran away from him. Didn't want to talk about any damn modern art under the circumstances, as you may imagine. You know what tycoons are, buy your work, and think they own you, including your merest conversation.'
'Where was he?'
'Outside this building. Coming from the Tottenham Court Road. Walking very fast. I thought he was coming towards me. I had the impression he ducked. Perhaps he saw me, or someone else he knew. I veered off. I was pissed as a newt, as I told you.'
'The time?'
'How the hell do I know? As I left the building. Whatever the police say. It was odd that he was walking so fast. I remember thinking that. I thought tycoons were unhurried. Or else had chauffeurs. Or both.'
Silence fell between them. Kevin John poured yet another glass of wine. Through Jemima's orderly mind were proceeding the following thoughts: not Lady Lionnel leaving the restaurant early in a taxi, but Sir Richard fetching that taxi for her; Sir Richard running out into the street in the absence of his chauffeur; evidence not given by Stavros to the police because it touched on a family row and Sir Richard was a good customer; Valentine's dying words - 'He came back'; Lionnel walking fast to Adelaide Square from 'The Little Athens', only a few minutes away across the Tottenham Court Road, and back again . . . About 1.30, the time Kevin John left the building ... About the time Chloe Fontaine was killed. Above all, Valentine's 'He came back.'
Sir Richard Lionnel with motive and opportunity .. . Had
the queen, shut up in her tower, succeeded in spinning straw into gold?
17
Lovers in disguise
'Now let me go,' said Jemima. 'I've kept my word.'
'You think he did it - that art-loving tycoon. Why is it, incidentally, that all the worst of them are art-loving?' Kevin John still sounded lugubrious. But he did not stop her when she walked to the balcony and pressed the catch to open it. 'Puss - Tiger—' she called into the morning air. Its freshness was a relief. But Tiger, once scorned, did not reappear.
'I need to prove it. The police too will want proof. I need to talk to Stavros, the owner of the restaurant.'
'A Greek colonel, eh? All those bastards are in league together.'
'No, an honest man. But a businessman.'
'If I let you go, what happens if you shop me to the police?'
'Shop you! You're on a murder charge already. Have you forgotten?' Dazed with wine and lack of sleep, perhaps Kevin John had forgotten. 'Next problem,' Jemima continued briskly, 'is how we get out. Do you recommend hollering blue murder - sorry, red innocence - flying a white flag, or dropping a brick on the head of the nearest passer-by in Adelaide Square—'
A mumble sounding like: 'You've promised, Jemima Shore, Investigator,' was his only reply. And then: 'You'll see me all right.' Jemima had an awful fear that the drink was overtaking him. True to her dread, Kevin John slipped further down the chair and finally onto the floor. He had fallen asleep or at least into that coma-like state which with him passed for sleep.
Oh my God, she thought, now how do I escape? Hollering was the least attractive of the alternatives. She did not wish for public attention at this moment: she needed to get to 'The Little Athens', re-examine Stavros, work out a few times precisely, and then perhaps call Pompey with new evidence.
It might be easier to break a lock. Jemima inspected the kitchen door to the fire escape. The bolt she could draw back, but the police had also locked the door, and the key was missing. The glass was reinforced with wire. The front door was out of the question.
There was nothing for it but the balcony. Kevin John did not move as she stepped onto it. She was grateful for that. If she had to cry for help - with all the possible public consequences - she would prefer not to be accompanied by a drunken artist out on bail for murder.
Inspection of the scaffolding provided a happy surprise. Jemima had imagined that Kevin John's successive scalings of it had been an example of exaggerated intrepidity possibly due to inebriation. Now she saw that anyone even moderately athletic, with a head for heights (or the self-discipline not to look downwards), could have achieved this feat. The scaffolding was stoutly built, a credit to the Lionnel Estates. Even Kevin John's ability to elude public notice during his climbs was now more explicable. The scaffolding was quite deep as well as securely slung together. A man could well have worked there, in the shadow of the building, and not been spotted by a random passer-by.
Right. Where a drunken Kevin John Athlone could ascend, a sober Jemima Shore could descend. Slipping off her golden thonged sandals, which laced up her legs, Jemima tested her toes against the metal. Her dress remained a problem. Was a Jean Muir silk jersey dress, with all its virtues, really the right apparel in which to shin down scaffolding? It was tempting to strip to her bra and pants - but the arguments against reaching the ground in her underclothes, like those of crying for help accompanied by a man on a murder charge, were conclusive. Jean Muir it would have to be.
With brilliant improvisation, or so it struck her at the time, Jemima belted the flowing dress twice round her narrow waist with the gold thongs from her sandals. Barefoot, she embarked.
The journey was not so much long as, in spite of the solidity of the scaffolding, nerve-wracking. With relief, Jemima flopped down onto the staging-post of the concrete third-floor balcony. It was fortunate that she did not suffer from vertigo; she felt she might do so in future.
She was immediately aware - with another spasm of relief - of the presence of Tiger. Sleekly, he rolled onto his back at her feet, revealing the pale yellow fur of his tummy, and began to purr. This unprecedented friendliness was no doubt to be explained by the presence of a large bowl of milk in the corner of the balcony, and another bowl of something chopped, white enough to be chicken. There was a smaller saucer of water.
All in all, Jemima was not totally surprised - but once more relieved - to find the balcony window slightly ajar. At least she would be saved further perilous descent.
She peered through the smoked glass without being able to discern anything very clear except the confused swirl of that subterranean blue and something which looked like low modern furniture on the floor, cushions perhaps, which had not been there before. She inched the window open.
Then and only then the confused shapes of the cushions separated themselves and became white or rather pale; they also became two shapes. A Laocoon-like figure, writhing legs and arms, on the floor, resolved itself into Adam Adamson, naked; some unknown figure, equally naked except for a string of gold chains, rose hastily but gracefully from the floor, like some greyhound starting, gave a much less elegant squawk of dismay, and vanished in the direction of the subterranean bathroom.
Adam Adamson, undismayed, lolled back on his elbow.
'Pallas Athena,' he said. 'What strange moments goddesses choose to call. I was just tangling with the goddess Artemis, as you may have noticed.' He gazed at her.
His body had that confidence of nakedness associated with statues of the gods.
He went on: 'Yes, in that strange tunic effect and bare feet you really do look like a goddess. Why don't I imitate you and slip into something similar?' He rose, strolled into the bathroom in his turn and re-emerged with a towel knotted round his waist. Only the ugly geometric design, in keeping with the rest of the flat's aggressively modern decor, disturbed the picture.
Behind him, at least an inch taller, and clad in a bright green cat-suit, lurked a young woman with a highly sulky expression. From her small head, disdainfully carried on the long neck, and excessively long legs and narrow flanks, she might have been a model.
'The goddess Athena, the goddess Artemis,' Adam waved his hand.
'Miss Shore and I have met,' said the goddess Artemis; her accent was more gracious than her expression. Extending her hand, whose long fingers were serrated in gold rings, in a parody of a bountiful greeting, the girl in the green catsuit said: 'I'm Laura Barrymore, Isabelle Mancini's assistant.'
Had they ever met? Jemima really did not remember. There were many Laura Barrymores in the world. Nor did she particularly care, for that matter, why and wherefore Laura Barrymore was passing the time of day with Adam Adamson. Her concern was to find her way out of this flat and to a telephone. Then she could raise Stavros, Pompey, even Sir Richard Lionnel himself. The keys to the first floor, which now seemed like a paradise of a refuge, were still in her pocket.
Baldly, she addressed herself to Adam: 'Get me out of here. I don't care what you're doing here, by the way, just let me out. No questions to you, none to me.'
Adam raised an eyebrow but it was the measure of his unhurried self-confidence that he seemed prepared to do as she asked without further ado. It was Laura Barrymore who disturbed this amity.
'Miss Shore, I am truly aware that you must be wondering,' she began in a rush, 'but on my honour, I swear to you that I first came here with the absolute firm intention of rescuing Isabelle's letters, letters from that dreadful woman, well, of course one doesn't want to speak ill of the dead—' she paused, having evidently lost track of her explanation, then continued more firmly. 'That Saturday morning, you remember, when you telephoned. I thought that if you were in Miss Fontaine's flat, we could search together, you're famous for being so warm and understanding about human problems, I could explain to you—'
Jemima shot Laura Barrymore a look which was anything but symptomatic of those warm qualities recently ascribed to her.
Adam, who continued to regard Jemima wi
th a slight smile, threw in: 'It's true you know,' he said. 'Our friend was fairly on the prowl. The trouble was she came to the wrong flat, and then, as they say, one thing led to another. I read her some Petrarch when I discovered what her name was and that seemed to turn her on. I never could resist goddesses you know. That coldness, that aloof air—'
'She was here - a week ago—' exclaimed Jemima incredulously.
'Oh yes, for a couple of happy hours. She went back and found her friend - shall we call her the goddess Hera, another jealous type - had arrived back unexpectedly from Paris, was there waiting for her.'
Jemima addressed herself directly to the girl.
'Is that true?'
But by this time Laura Barrymore, who had been knotting her long streaky blonde hair the while and pinning it on top of her head, had fully recovered her poise.
'And if it is,' she enquired coldly, 'what the fuck is it to do with you?' The refinement of her voice, from which all the mid-atlantic was now missing, made the obscenity sound far worse than it might have done, for example, on the vigorous lips of Kevin John Athlone.
A Splash of Red Page 21