Cast in Order of Disappearance (19 page)

Joanne Menzies arrived quickly and they started talking over a glass of whisky. Charles gave the shortest possible explanation of his sling—‘an accident on the film set'. He didn't want to voice any suspicions until he felt a bit surer of Joanne's allegiances. ‘So. What do you think is fishy?'

‘No one big thing, Charles. Just a lot of dubious details.'

‘Like . . .?'

‘Like the way Nigel lied over that Saturday night, all the subterfuge over the petrol in the Datsun. Like the way he's been behaving since his father's death—and the week before, come to that—'

‘How's he been behaving?'

‘Very twitchy. Jumps whenever the phone rings. As if there's something he's frightened of.'

‘What else?'

‘The way I've been dismissed. All right, I was Marius' personal assistant and there's no reason to assume that Nigel would want to take me over in the same role. But it was rather sudden. And a year's salary is excessive—out of character too for someone as mean as Nigel.'

‘Hmm. So you think that Nigel murdered Marius?'

‘That's the obvious thing to think.'

‘Except for the findings of the inquest.'

‘Yes.' Joanne spoke with the same contempt Jacqui had shown for the high achievements of forensic science.

‘And the fact that Nigel had no motive. It was in his interests that his father should live at least until the seven years were up.' Joanne's face revealed that she didn't know about the gift, so Charles gave a brief résumé of the legal position. He finished up, ‘You know, we are not the only people who are suspicious of Nigel and would attribute any crime to him. But the fact remains that, in the matter of Marius Steen's death, we have not a solitary shred of evidence to go on. Just prejudice and dislike.'

‘Yes. I'm sure he's done something, though.' Her conviction was reminiscent of Jacqui's, overriding little details like facts.

‘All right, Joanne, let's talk through it all again. Actually, one thing you said interested me. You said Nigel was twitchy the week before the murder—I mean, the death.'

‘Yes.'

‘I thought he was in Streatley that week.'

‘Only part of it. He went down on the Thursday to go through some business things with Marius, then came back on the Friday late afternoon—just after you came round about your play. Was that another blind, by the way?'

“Fraid so.'

‘Why?'

‘Too complicated to explain.' He didn't want to bring in the Sweets and the implied charge of murder against the dead man. ‘So look, let's trace through the movements of the two of them. Where were they on the Sunday, that'd be what . . .?'

‘The 2nd of December.'

‘Right.'

‘I think they were both in Orme Gardens. Then Marius drove to Streatley that night to read the scripts on his own.'

‘Was that unexpected?'

‘No, he'd been talking about it. He'd noticed a slight waning in the receipts on
Sex of One
. . . though I think it was just the power crisis and the railways. Anyway, he felt he had to make a decision on the next show for the Kings.'

‘And when he did one of these script-reading sessions, he used to cut himself off completely?'

‘Yes. Just switch on the Ansaphone.'

‘I see. So when did you last speak to him?'

‘Small hours of Sunday morning. At the
Sex of One
. . . party.'

‘Oh yes. A thousand performances. Ugh. Let's continue their movements. Marius is in Streatley. Where's Nigel, say on the Monday morning? Milton Buildings?'

‘No, he came in after lunch.'

‘Was that unusual?'

‘No. Particularly considering the late night we'd all had on the Saturday.'

‘Right. Incidentally, how was Marius at the party?'

‘In marvellous form—leaping around like a boy of twenty. Dancing with all the girls.' The pride was evident in her voice.

‘Including you.'

‘Yes.'

‘You loved him, didn't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you know he was contemplating remarriage?'

‘I knew.'

‘Did you mind?'

‘Yes, but if it made him happy . . . If Marius wanted something there was no point in trying to stop his getting it.'

‘No.' Her answers sounded perfectly honest. ‘Let's continue our tracing movements. Which car did Nigel go down in on the Thursday?'

‘His own. The Interceptor. It was after that that he complained about the brakes to Morrison.'

‘Right. And then he goes down again in secret on the Saturday in the Datsun. The Datsun, the Datsun. You know there's something at the back of my mind about that Datsun and I can't think what it is.' He looked round the room for inspiration. It was an untidy mess. Jacqui's occupation hadn't improved it; she wasn't the sort of girl who immediately revolutionised a place and gave it a woman's touch; she just spread her belongings over the widest possible area. A flouncy negligee and a pair of tights lay over one chair; the tiny television was perched on another; a soggy packet of frozen spinach lay beside the gas-ring; on the crumpled candlewick of the bed an
Evening Standard
was open at the entertainments' page so she could decide which film to go and see.

A thought suddenly illuminated Charles' brain like a flash of lightning. ‘That's it. The
Evening Standard
.'

‘What?' Joanne was left floundering as his mind raced on. Very clearly he saw himself standing in the BBC Club with Sherlock Forster and hearing the name of Marius Steen, the name that had come to dominate his life. When was that? It was a Monday. Yes, Monday the 3rd of December. After that terrible play. And what had the paper said? Something about Marius not using the Rolls, but sticking to the Datsun. Oh, if only he could remember the details.

There was one person who could help. Johnny Smart, who'd been at Oxford with him and edited one of the university magazines, landed what seemed then an amazing job on the
Evening Standard
. In the years since he'd sunk into alcoholic indifference in the same job, which at his present age was less amazing. With a murmured excuse to Joanne, Charles rushed to the telephone and rang the paper. Fortunately Johnny was still there—a stroke of luck considering that the pubs were open. In rather breathless fashion, Charles explained that he wanted to find out who researched and wrote an article about the petrol crisis in a late edition on Monday 3rd of December.

Johnny thought he could probably find out. It was bound to be one of the young reporters. Why didn't Charles come down and join them at Mother Bunch's? A lot would be down there at this time of night. He'd be there himself except that the newsroom was on sodding tenterhooks waiting to see if Heath would call a sodding snap election and they'd have to bring out a sodding slip edition. He'd be down in half an hour though.

Just as Charles put the phone down, Jacqui returned. She had been to see
Enter the Dragon
and started to tell him all about the code of
kung fu
as he hurried her upstairs. Joanne recognised Jacqui the moment the dark glasses came off and Charles felt the room temperature drop as the two women faced each other. Still, he hadn't time to worry about that. Leaving strict instructions to Joanne to stay there at all costs and to both of them under no account to let anyone in, he hurried to the Cortina and set off for Fleet Street.

Reporters are proverbially heavy drinkers, and it took a few bottles of bonhomie with Johnny Smart before Charles could actually get down to the business for which he had come. He sat in the broad circle of young journalists in Mother Bunch's Wine House and, with the rest of them, sank glass after glass of red wine. Eventually Johnny drew him to one side with a shock-haired young reporter who sported horn-rimmed glasses and a velvet bow-tie. His name was Keith Battrick-Jones. Charles explained his mission.

‘Bloody hell,' said Keith Battrick-Jones. ‘Done a lot of stories since then. I don't know if I can remember that far back. When was it?'

‘Monday 3rd December. Six, seven weeks ago. It was a sort of round-up of people's reactions to the petrol crisis. Pictures and comments. There was Steen . . .' The boy looked blank. ‘. . . and some footballer . . .' Still blank. ‘. . . and a leggy girl on a bike—'

‘Oh shit. I remember. Yes. Crappy idea, wasn't it? Somebody thought of it at an editorial conference, and Muggins here had to ring round all these celebrities to get comments. As usual, the interesting people told me to piss off, and I ended up with the same old circle of publicity seekers.'

‘Can you remember phoning Marius Steen?'

‘No, I don't think I can. If it was Monday morning, I must have had a skinful the night before. No, I . . . oh, just a minute though. I remember. I rang through and I got some old berk being facetious on an Ansaphone. So I told the machine what it was about, and moved on to a golfer and one of the Black and White minstrels.'

‘But Steen did phone back?'

‘Yes. Made some fatuous comment about using the smaller car. Well, we'd got a library picture of him, so we put it in.'

‘And you are sure it was Marius Steen himself who spoke to you?'

‘I don't know. I've never met the bloke.'

‘Was it the same voice as the one on the Ansaphone?'

‘Oh no. It was much more cultured. And younger.'

XVII

The Broker's Men

CHARLES HAD A lot of wine inside him as he drove along the Strand on his way back, but he was thinking with extraordinary clarity. Suddenly Nigel had two secret trips to Streatley to explain, not one. If he had been at the Sex of One . . . party, he must have driven down some time between the small hours of the Sunday morning and when he rang Keith Battrick-Jones on the Monday morning. That was, of course, assuming that he had gone down on his own. It was possible that he had been in the Rolls with his father on the Sunday night.

If that were the case, and Charles' other conjecture was correct, he must have witnessed Marius shooting Bill Sweet on the roadside at Theale. That might well explain the twitchiness which Joanne had noticed during the ensuing week. Possibly Nigel had shot Bill Sweet himself? But no, that was nonsense. He had nothing to do with the Sally Nash affair, and the Sweets represented no threat to him. If anyone had committed murder on the lonely turnoff from the M4, it must have been Marius.

At Hyde Park Corner, a taxi travelling from Knightsbridge suddenly cut across the front of the Cortina and Charles had to slam on all his brakes. The shock jarred every bone in his body and he felt as if he was about to pass out. There was nothing else coming. He swung the car across the yellow line and stopped by the marble colonnade at the roadside. His body was in agony. Slowly the total blinding pain broke down into individual centres of hurt. First there was his arm, with its bone bruised by the bullet. That pain seemed to swell and swamp the others. Then there were the bruises on his knees and elbows that he'd received from the fall over the trip-wire at Jacqui's. And then, lower down the league of pain, there was the dull ache of an old bruise on his ankle.

Suddenly, he saw in his mind the utility room at Streatley and a scattered pile of boxes. Some words of Gerald Venables reverberated in his head. Dr Lefeuvre's role came clearly defined into focus, and Charles Paris knew what Nigel Steen's crime was.

As he walked up the stairs at Hereford Road, he was glowing with the intellectual perfection of it. Not the intellectual perfection of the crime—that was a shabby affair—but the intellectual perfection of his conclusion. Suddenly, given one fact, all the others clicked neatly into position. As he drove back, he had tried each element individually, and none of them broke the pattern. He was looking forward to spelling it all out to Jacqui and Joanne. Actual evidence was still a bit short on the ground (burning the vicious letter to Jacqui and the Sweet photographs had shown a regrettable lack of detective instinct). But he felt sure facts would come, now the basic riddle was solved.

The door of his room was open, the lock plate hanging loose. A cold feeling trickled into his stomach as he went inside. It was dark. He switched on the light. A body lay tied, gagged and struggling on the floor by the bed. Joanne. There was no sign of Jacqui.

He fumbled with the knots of Jacqui's tights which had been tied cruelly round Joanne's mouth. She gave a little gasp of pain as he tightened to release them, and then she was free to talk. ‘Two men . . . someone must have let them in the front door . . . they took Jacqui . . .'

‘Did you see them?'

‘They had stockings over their heads. One was big and burly, the other was smaller . . .'

‘Yes. I know who they are.' He cut her other bonds free with a kitchen knife. ‘Come on. We must follow them.'

‘Where to? How do we know where they've gone?'

‘I think it's Streatley. And I pray to God I'm right. For the sake of Jacqui's baby.'

XVIII

King Rat

THEY ROARED DOWN the M4, fifty miles an hour limits contemptuously ignored. They swung off the motor way at Theale, past the scene of Bill Sweet's death, and on, through the dark roads, past Tidmarsh, Pangbourne, Lower Basildon, towards Streatley. About a mile outside the town, the Cortina suddenly lost power and pop-popped to a stop at the roadside. ‘Sod it. Bloody petrol. The whole case hinges on it, and I forget to fill up.'

‘He might have a spare can,' said Joanne. But there was nothing in the boot. Miles' odious efficiency was absent when actually needed. ‘I'll have to walk the rest.' Charles started off into the gloom.

‘What shall I do?' Joanne's voice floated after him.

‘Get the police.' He stumbled on, occasionally trying a little jogging run. His body ached all over and the wounded arm felt as if it were dropping off. The strain of the last few days was beginning to tell, and he knew he hadn't got much energy left. If it came to violence, he wasn't going to do too well. He didn't relish facing Jem and Eric (he felt sure it was they who'd carried Jacqui off).