“She's a fighter,” he answered his obviously rhetorical question. “Doesn't soften up easy. So, when she said she was going to learn cookery with that Lady Caroline, I was well chuffed.”
“She's gone to learn cookery with Lady Caroline?” I said, and watched as the aforementioned member of the gentry sprayed a half glass of Veuve Cliquot and Courvoisier across the kitchen table.
“Bit of class that Lady Holloway,” Chopper said. “Just proud that she’s passing her cordon bleu skills on to Elaine. I was so pleased when Lainey called an’ said she was going to spend the weekend at Holloway Manor. I knew you lot would be a good influence on her.”
Considering Chopper’s previous idea of a good influence had been getting his deranged granddaughter extra maths tuition from a man known as Frankie “Fishmonger” Harris (so called due to his skill with a filleting knife, allegedly) I was not exactly flattered by the faith Chopper had placed in Caz and I.
The truth was that Elaine was a delinquent, one so far out of control that even her dear old granddad – the most feared thug in South London – couldn’t handle her. He’d not so much placed her in our care as dumped her in our unpaid crèche. And now she’d attempted to burn the joint to the ground and gone on the lamb.
“Well, when she's back,” the befuddled gangster almost cooed, “Tell ‘er from me that I'll be expecting Chicken Chasseur, an’ all that Cordon Bleu stuff for breakfast.”
Cordon Bleu? Caz thought that anything beyond heating up a tin of soup was a skill innately in the working classes, but if Chopper and his snobbery were giving me a break, I was going to jump at it. “Absolutely, Mr F. Got to go…”
I ended the call and looked up at three faces in differing states of horror.
“She's missing, aint she?” Dash asked.
“Chopper thinks we're looking after her, don't he?” Ali said, the not so subtle suggestion that whatever happened to her while we were ‘Looking after her,’ would be entirely our fault.
Caz, meanwhile, having gathered the gist of the conversation, merely said the phrase “Cookery classes,” in the tone that a vicar might say Anal Gangbang, “I have neither the desire nor the inclination to ever engage in such practices.”
“Well Elaine told him she was going to cookery classes at Holloway Hall.”
“Firstly, sweetheart, there is no Holloway hall. There is Beaumont. And secondly, Elaine Falzone would not be caught dead in a dusty draughty pile like the house. Even if she were invited. Which she most certainly wouldn't be. What the hell is going on?”
“I don't know,” I admitted.
“Well you'd better figure it out,” Ali snapped, “And fast. Cos if you don't figure out where she's got to, and get her back, Chopper’ll make being burned alive in your own pub look like a pleasant way to spend an evening.”
As she spoke, my phone rang. I glanced at it, and saw an unknown number. Thank God, I sighed. She's calling to apologise. Dash is right: it was a prank that got out of hand, all’s forgiven, and no need to ever mention this again.
I snatched the device up, hitting answer, and talking even before the thing was to my ear.
“Elaine, where on earth have you been?”
But it wasn't Elaine at the other end of the line. It was a very drunken Desmond Everett. I glanced at the clock on the wall, saw that it said 10.15a.m., and allowed myself a brief moment of being shocked that anyone could be so shitfaced this early. Then, I observed my best friend opening another Veuve, while my bar manager fetched clean glasses and my nephew swigged Courvoisier straight from the bottle in an attempt to drown his broken heart, and thought Glass Houses, Danny.
Everett was wittering on. “… Not right. Not right at all, you see. Couldn't have been that way. Not at all. I mean, you see what I mean, surely?”
“Listen, Desmond,” I interrupted him. “Bit of a crisis at this end. Any chance I could call you back?”
He paused in his rambling. “Crisis? Yes, of course, but…” and he was off again rambling. “S’pose I should do the right thing. Was just so sad. So sad. But you're right. Thank you.”
I had no idea what he was going on about, but I needed rid of him fast, so I let him hang up, and turned back to the team.
“Booze down, folks. We've work to do. Ali, open up shop. Dash, get your brother in here: I've got some research you boys need to do.”
“What are you two doing?” Ali asked, gesturing suspiciously at Caz and I.
“We, while the twins here complete their research, are going to go visit an old queen. And hopefully, get some answers.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The apartment door was opened before I’d even stepped out of the lift.
A tall, middle-aged man, the silver in his buzz cut head sparkling in the sunshine behind him, stood smiling in the doorway. He was wearing a button down shirt, so dazzlingly white that the glare almost obscured the Polo logo on the breast, and a pair of pale blue jeans so tight that, at first glance, it seemed he was bare legged and suffering from terrible circulation.
“You must be Danny,” he beamed, extending his hand. “And friend.” The smile dimmed as he caught sight of Caz behind me.
“Lady Holloway,” Caz bypassed me, and introduced herself, taking the offered hand and shaking it vigorously. “How kind of you to see us.”
Lionel, predictably, was a pushover for a posh bird, and, any trace of frostiness vanished, he ushered us into his flat, introducing himself to Lady H as “Lionel Stamp, your Grace,” and informing her that it was, “A pleasure to have you here,” as though he were the director of an old folks home, and she were about to open the Jeremy Clarkson ward for the Terminally Nasty.
The interior of Stamp’s flat, considering it was nine stories up a Hammersmith Tower block, and had necessitated a ride in a lift which seemed to have been scented with Yankee candles in smells of cabbage and old urine, was breath-taking.
Here, the scent of Jo Malone lime and basil filled the air, the long hallway was plastered with old theatre posters framed in black ash and aligned with military precision, and the floor under our feet was polished oak.
“Would you mind,” our host said, gesturing at our shoes, and I realised that he was already barefoot, and sporting toenails painted a vibrant scarlet.
For a moment, I had a flashback to Jane Barton, but I pushed that down, and slipped off my shoes, before following Caz and her new best friend down the hall and into a living room that was even more jaw dropping than the hallway.
Here, three sides of the room were vast windows, beyond which the city – a heavy heat haze hanging over it like an unexpected gas bill – lay, seemingly consumed by the inertia of the day.
An air conditioning unit hummed quietly in the corner, it’s issue barely rippling the leaves on the plants dotted around the space.
The floor was, again, polished wood, which co-ordinated with the plants, the huge leather sofa and armchair, and the chunky coffee table to create the air of a gentlemen’s’ club in a conservatory in the sky.
“My,” Caz sighed, seemingly genuinely, “What an amazing apartment.”
“Oh, d’you like it?” Lionel beamed, “Well, I have had a few years to get it right. Can I get you both anything to drink? Tea? Coffee? A Gin and Tonic?”
Caz smiled beatifically at him, “Why Mister Stamp, I’d marry you for that.”
Stamp smiled, winked at me, pointed out that Caz was, “Not really my type, dear; I like ‘em a little butcher,” and left the room to fix our drinks.
“I don’t know what you’re grinning at,” Caz said, without even looking at me. “He said a little butcher. And you, sweetheart, are about as butch as this divine cashmere throw.”
She fingered the impressive item, and threw herself down on the sofa. “Why can’t you have more friends like Mr Stamp? He seems lovely.”
“Yes,” I said. “So genuine, and honest and not at all bitchy. Like some of my friends. I really should take your advice more often.”
“You’re not still going on about Tony, are you? He’s an old friend, and I didn’t tell you because you were having your, difficulties with Nick.”
“No, I am not still going on about Tony. And difficulties is something of an understatement, wouldn’t you say?”
Caz sighed. “It’s the Irish in you, of course. They don’t so much carry a grudge as wear it like,” she swept the throw around her shoulders, and stood to her feet to inspect the look in the gilt framed mirror that filled most of the wall opposite, “A divine purple pashmina of resentment and barely suppressed fury. Sweetheart, the fact he’s married shouldn’t bother you. It’s the twenty first century, you know. People have been jumping married men for ages now.”
“Ooh,” Stamp re-entered the room before I could pass comment, set his tray of drinks down on the sideboard under the mirror, and, handing tall, frosty, glasses to us, nodded appreciatively at Caz, “Very Sophia Loren,” he murmured cryptically, “And I fully agree with the married man comment.”
He turned his attention to me, “Jump him, love. I don’t know who he is, or what the issue is, but take it from me: a man in your bed – married, or otherwise – is better than empty space. Look at you: You’re young and gorgeous. You should be throwing it round like a bishop with a censer. But you didn’t come here for romantic advice, did you?” He gestured at the sofa, picked up his own gin, and settled himself into the chair. “What can I do for you?”
“We were hoping you could tell us a little more than we already know about Dave Walker,” I said.
“Ah.” He nodded, his smile dimming momentarily, “Davina. How do you describe your soul mate?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I hadn’t realised you were a couple.”
Lionel shrieked, his horror dissolving quickly into cackling laughter. “A couple? Jesus, love, I was never deranged enough to go there, and – to be honest – never damaged enough for Davina to be interested in me. Do you like marijuana?”
The question took me completely by surprise, and I stammered my response “I get giggly and chatty, and, um, not really a fan.”
“What he means,” Caz explained to our host, “Is he can’t take more than a drag before he turns into a very bad Carol Channing impersonation. Lightweight.” This last aimed directly at me.
“And what about you, Lady Holloway?”
“Oh, Mr Stamp, one simply adores anything that removes one from the ennui of modern life. Don’t you?”
“I do,” he acceded, as I tried to suppress the voice of Harry Champion in my head performing I’m ennui the Eighth I am, I am…
We relocated, via a kitchen decked out in state of the art utilities that I could only dream of, to the balcony, where Lionel sparked up a spliff, dragged deeply, handed it to Caz, and, after another sip of his gin, turned to me.
“Davina – David – and I were sisters from the moment we met each other at Central. We were studying,” he announced, his voice morphing into a perfect impersonation of John Gielgud, “The theatre, dear boy. Well, I was,” he said, his voice changing back. “All I ever wanted to be was in the business – didn’t care whether I was acting, lighting, costume, or ushering – and believe me, I’ve done all of them, and a few others in my time. But Davina – who I’ve known since before Cher had her second nose – wanted only to be an Actor with a capital ‘A.’ For her, it was Othello and Peer Gynt; nothing else was acceptable.
“Problem was that Dave wasn’t a great Actor. He wasn’t terrible, just dull. With a capital Duh. Pedestrian. Utterly without life. And always – even when trying to tell a gag – so fucking serious looking. Like he’d just spotted something nasty, or knew exactly what you were up to, and was disgusted at the thought.
“He wasn’t so much a Method actor as a Methodist actor. Oh, he tried: Audition after audition after audition. He even – for a while - changed his name. Well, everyone was doing it at Drama School, and it carried on for a while afterwards. You’d bump into a Sally in the street, and she’d have become a Sophie overnight; or a Frank would become a Franceso, and be going about talking like he came from Turino ‘stead of Tottenham. For a while there Dave was Daniel Walken. You know: Like Christopher? Still couldn’t so much as carry a spear convincingly.
“I even got her a few stints with me. I was already getting a name on the drag circuit as Alice Klaar, so we got Davina dragged up and shoved her out there as Carola DeBells.
“Well,” he accepted the joint back from Caz, dragged deeply, held the smoke a moment, and, exhaling via his nose, carried on, “You can probably imagine what a complete fucking shambles that was. Frankly, if she’d gone on as Maggie Thatcher at a miner’s convention, it couldn’t have gone flatter. Top up, Ange,” he giggled, nodding at Caz’s empty glass, and taking it – and his own- back into the kitchen.
“So,” his voice carried out to us, accompanied by the clink of ice and the hiss of tonic water, “He sort of drifted into what he liked to call ‘Service,’ which I used to wind him up by suggesting had the ring of Rent about it – albeit a rent boy who could do Hamlet rather than hand relief. But it really meant a stint as a butler for hire, a waiter, front of house at some posh Italian restaurant; you name it. And, of course, all that was money in the bank – more money that he’d ever earned on the stage.”
Lionel floated out to us, handed Caz her drink, and stared out over his balcony towards a crack in the buildings through which the river rolled indolently along.
“Then Mark – his boyfriend – got sick. If you know what I mean. Davina dropped everything and stayed at the hospital day and night. I remember saying to him, at one point: ‘Sweetheart, Mark’s the one who’s supposed to look skeletal.’”
He sighed, sipped his drink, and turned back to us. “But Mark got better; well, not better exactly, but he got over whatever it was that had been trying to kill him that time, and Davina found some marks on the back of his hand. Absolutely freaked out. Convinced it was Kaposi’s sarcoma, and he had days to live.
“Turned out they were liver spots. Silly queen was right as rain, but Mark got sick and better like a see-saw for a couple of years, and Davina insisted on being there all the time, like her presence could stave off the worst. Then,” Stamp took a long pull on the joint, handing it back to Caz, “Mark did die. No warning. Right as rain one night, and had a massive coronary on the 155 to Clapham.
“Davina was destroyed. By the time she’d got her life back together again, she knew it was over re the acting. But that was fine, ‘cos, as much as she loved the acting, she’d twigged re her abilities – or lack thereof. Plus, there was always the waiting.”
“So do you have any idea,” I got to the point of our visit, “Why anyone would want to kill him?”
Lionel giggled, “Oh love, everyone who ever spent more than ten minutes getting dressed down cos they’d disappointed him would be a suspect, to be honest. But no,” he shook his head, “He had no real enemies. Except himself; he was his own worst enemy, especially where men were concerned.”
Caz perked up. “Unsuitable men?”
“Lady H,” I muttered, “Is our expert in unsuitable men.”
Caz smiled at me the way Mary Scott might have smiled at Liz One, and, pausing only to mutter “Glasshouses, dear,” turned back to Stamp. “Were there any unsuitable men in the picture lately?”
“Well,” Lionel leaned in conspiratorially, “She was always one to keep things close to her chest, if you know what I mean.”
We both nodded that yes, we did know what he meant, and Caz gestured to him to continue.
“To be honest, he’d had no luck with men since Mark, but lately he’d been totally loved up. Someone he’d met on the internet. Younger, I think – though he’d have been unlikely to meet older on the internet. I mean: Alzheimer’s and the internet hardly go hand in hand do they? Dave had a couple of gins here a few weeks ago, and opened up a bit.
“Turns out the other half was madly in love, and Dave felt the same way. Despite the age gap, which
– the way Dave carried on – was centuries. So I says ‘Do it, then; tell him how you feel,’ and Dave – as was his wont – went all coy. Said he was afraid to make a move in case the sparrow flew. Shame he didn’t do it. Assuming he didn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Well… I got the sense there were some… issues.”
“What sort of issues?”
“Oh, my child, with Davina, it could be anything: Closeted. Confused. Certifiably insane. He once courted (for several months) a man who turned out to be on the lamb from Roehampton. I told him, the minute Gerald started kicking off about MI5 being shored up in the loft, and the fact that the cockroaches were packed with C5, that there was something off there. They lived in a ground floor flat, to begin with, and Gerald – well, she was hardly James Bond, if you know what I mean.
He paused, as though remembering the story of Gerald’s demise, then said, “Wouldn’t have surprised me if this one was married.”
“Married?”
“Oh, poor Davina had history. She never met a married ,man she couldn’t understand.”
I looked at Caz, who smiled beatifically, offered the joint to Lionel – who waved it aside – and, placing it into the ashtray on a small table beside her, asked Lionel. “So was this one married?”
“Search me, dear, “he said. “This one was mysterious. Like Gerald, only without the Spies. Or the exploding roaches.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I clicked “End Call,” and turned to Caz.
“What?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, as my dad slowed the cab to take a corner. “Could be nothing.”
“You’ve got that look that says you think it might be something.”
“Desmond Everett,” I said.
Caz sighed. “What’s Dopey Des been up to now?”
I slid the cab window back down, the breeze rushing in as we hit the Hammersmith Flyover and picked up speed, the petrol fumes and pollution mixing with my dad’s Acqua di Gio to make the scent of summer in London.
Death Of A Nobody Page 22