Armistice (20 page)

“I just made her up. There's a girl in a play we did, and a professor—”

“
Pygmalion
,” interrupted Jonathan. “Eliza Dolittle and Professor—”

“Higgins,” she interrupted back.

They were still looking down at Anthony Dore.

“You should have let me stab him,” said Philomena.

“If you had done you'd be in the wrong.”

“I wouldn't have killed him with this thing,” she claimed.

“You don't know that.”

“You
want
him dead,” she goaded, “but you can't bring yourself to kill him so you tried to ki—”

“I didn't actually try to kill myself,” interrupted Jonathan. “And I only want him dead
if
I can be certain he killed Dan.”

“You
are
certain.”

“Not certain enough to
do
anything.”

“Certain enough to tell
me
.”

Jonathan shrugged. She bristled, grabbed his arm and pulled him around to face her. “What am I supposed to do now you've told me?” she accused. “It would have been better if you hadn't!”

“Damned if I did, damned if I didn't. I never anticipated that you'd be quite as aggressive as you are—perhaps aggressive is the wrong word—no, perhaps not, looking at you now, and knowing what you've been—”

“You thought Dan's fiancée would be a wallflower?”

“No, but dressing up to trick Dore into—”

“I think that when you wrote to me you wanted someone to take charge because you're
incapable
of—”

“It's true. I've done
everything
I can.”

There was a few moments' pause. Their spat had had the effect of reeling them in nearer to each other. Their faces were close, his inclined down, hers up. She got fresh booze,
waning eau de cologne, perspiration, male skin. He was slightly taller than Dan.

“So,” she said quietly, “that's why I was in there.”

“I buy cocaine there. Dope helps you stay awake, alcohol helps you to sleep. Learned that in the war,” said Jonathan.

“The war, the war, the fucking war. Did Dan take dope?”

“A little. Until it was outlawed Harrods ran a line of nifty gift sets: ‘A Welcome Present For Friends at the Front.' Cocaine, heroin, a syringe, needles. I use powder these days. Easier to carry. You have no vices, Philomena?”

“No addictions,” she said.

“There's plenty of time. Plenty of time.”

A bell began to chime the hour, slightly ahead of another. They listened. Not looking into each other's eyes. Jonathan licked his lips. Philomena shifted backward slightly. They weren't so close anymore. Now she couldn't smell him.

“I'm going home tomorrow, which is today,” she said. “I should be there now.”

“Come and see my home,” said Jonathan, matter of factly.

Yes, thought Philomena. There's more to say, more to know. And time to fill. “Why not?” she said. “But I have to get my coat.”

They looked down again and saw Anthony Dore striding away. He turned a corner and was out of sight.

“Do you think he's gone?”

“Looks like it,” replied Jonathan. “Which is worse, me bumping into him, or you?”

“If I bump into him I'll have to talk to him,” said Philomena.
“It'd be awkward. I'd have to play along.”

“But if I go in for your coat,” said Jonathan, “they know me. We don't want anyone making the connection between us. The man on the door doesn't miss a trick.”

So Philomena slipped into the club to retrieve her coat. When she emerged Jonathan slunk off ahead of her, right then left down narrow streets, then at a wider one they risked entering a taxi together.

It wasn't over. The investigation by Felicity could continue, if desired, with Anthony Dore still ignorant.

Worried about Felicity, Anthony entered The Whitehall, the hotel he thought was hers. Making a snap judgment of character, he offered the night porter cash in exchange for the answers to some questions. Yes, there was a woman registered in that room, four oh seven. No, no man, but the night porter wouldn't be surprised if she'd had a male guest. Oh? What was the night porter saying about her? Nothing, beyond that. A man had visited her last night and stayed for about two hours—beyond that, he couldn't say. What did this man look like? asked Anthony. Taller than sir. Dark hair and eyes. And in the morning there had been reports of stains on her pillowcase that seemed to be a gentleman's hair cream. No, she wasn't in now. Her key was here.

Anthony decided to push his luck. He explained, man to man, that he'd rather fallen for Felicity without knowing much about her; she was that kind of girl, you know? The night porter did know. He shared Anthony's belief that they were discussing a loose, attractive woman, probably a liar who cheated men. The night porter added helpfully that the gentleman had better get a move on with “falling for her”
because she was due to check out in the morning. What name had the gentleman said he knew her by? Felicity, said Anthony. That began with an F, didn't it, mused the night porter. Well, she hadn't registered as an F, she'd registered as a P. That's a common trick—using a false name with a gentleman. She's P. Bligh.

Bligh, Bligh? That rings a bell, thought Anthony.

“Is Felicity a nickname, perhaps?” inquired the night porter. Ironical perhaps? Or cynical?

“You know,” confided Anthony, “you're right. I'm now feeling distinctly uneasy about her because she told me her name was Felicity.”

The night porter understood this, and didn't blame him. He voiced his hope that the gentleman hadn't lent her any money, and understood that the extra coin that had appeared in the gentleman's hand was payment for the lend of the key to Felicity's door, just to have a quick look. And for an extra consideration the night porter agreed to come up and keep a lookout, and give a warning should it be necessary, while the gentleman was inside Felicity or P. Bligh's room, engaged in establishing her bona fides.

Thus Anthony found himself waiting while the night porter quietly opened the door to room four oh seven before standing aside and conspiratorially whispering “two minutes.” Anthony entered and nudged the door halfway shut behind him so that the night porter couldn't see directly in. He went to the window, as he always did on entering an unfamiliar room. He had a look out toward the tenement block opposite, then
turned to look into the room and began to search. There was very little hanging in the wardrobe—a sign of a tendency to leave in a hurry? A small suitcase on the floor was empty. As he neared the bedside table there were photographs and what looked like a bundle of papers. The night porter coughed in the corridor. Anthony hurried to see if it was a signal. No, the night porter was just coughing. Anthony turned back into the room and looked down on a photograph that was lying on the bedside table. It was recognizably Felicity but not exactly her. It could have been of Felicity's plainer sister. Anthony looked at the other photograph, the one in a frame, and he almost gagged. It was of Daniel Case! Felicity knew him?

Anthony's heartbeat shot up and his breathing came in short gasps. His palms were instantly damp with sweat inside his gloves. He only became aware that he must have emitted a strange sound when the porter stationed outside inquired, “Everything all right?” Anthony tried to reply but his mouth was so dry his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He furiously worked his jaw to generate saliva and managed a weak “Yes.” He took out a handkerchief and shakily wiped his brow.

Returning to the wardrobe, he feverishly rummaged in the clothes, finding a jacket that bore a nametag that read Philomena Bligh. He explored the bundle of papers on the bedside table. Flicking through them he found his own letter of condolence that he'd addressed to Philomena Bligh, November last. As the night porter fidgeted outside and began to whistle
tunelessly under his breath Anthony scanned several of the other papers in the bundle. Extracts from letters Daniel Case had written to his fiancée leaped out at him. Anthony speedread, his eyes racing to take in as much as possible. He glimpsed the name Jonathan Priest and “my new best friend.” Also, toward the end of the same missive, “My darling, my darling, my darling.”

Philomena and Jonathan's taxicab pulled up a little to the west of Marble Arch, at an apartment block of several floors. Very London; she'd never seen a building like it before arriving in the capital. It had large rectangular windows—more like a department store—and a glass entrance. There was something maritime about it. Only five or six stories, yet it had a lift. Jonathan pressed the button to call it. They kept well apart as they waited for the lift to descend to the ground floor and maintained their distance once they were inside. The floor they alighted on—the fifth—had the same wooden parquet floors as the foyer. It absorbed sound, unlike the bare boards at her hotel. Jonathan stopped at a door and inserted a key in the lock, opened the door and stepped back to allow her to enter first. She hesitated on the threshold then entered.

First impressions were that it was clean and spacious, and spare, and modern. No heavy wallpaper, no aspidistras, and no tables on which to stand any. Jonathan led her down the hallway indicating rooms as they passed them: the lounge, the bathroom, master bedroom, guest bedroom, dining room, and the kitchen. They entered the last, which was large enough
to accommodate a small dining table. A gas cooker! Fancy. Jonathan pulled out a chair for her. She sat. He opened a cupboard and pulled out bottles: whisky, rum, vodka. He asked what she wanted and poured what she told him. He didn't sit.

“I want to discourage you,” he said, “from taking any further action against Anthony Dore.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because there isn't any more that you can do.”

“Neither of us knows that.”

“I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be justice, or revenge—”

She interrupted: “What are you arguing?”

“You've tricked him, yes, you've got inside his guard, but you're going home tomorrow so all this is academic anyhow.” He flapped his arms dramatically.

Philomena narrowed her eyes. What lay behind his objections? “It looks bad to you, doesn't it? Me dressed up with Anthony.”

“Not my place to say.”

No, but you are saying it, aren't you, beneath your words. She wasn't having him thinking that about her. Did he really believe that? “You don't know what passed between us.”

Jonathan tried to ignore the rising taunt in her voice. “Where did you meet him the first time?”

“In that same club.”

“It's full of bachelor girls, notorious for its goings-on. There was a scandal: a girl who frequented the place died from
taking dope she probably got there.” There, he was saying, that was why I thought what I did. And, you don't know what you've been doing. You don't know the true nature of the place you were in, what context you are being judged in, therefore what signals you are giving off, what other people would reasonably be concluding about you. But Philomena was keeping pace with Jonathan's thoughts. If she was reckless being in The Gates of Heaven in that way, then so was he.

“In that case you in particular are taking a big risk going there.”

“Yes, I am,” said Jonathan. His defiant, slightly sulky tone and his jutting chin made Philomena pause.

“Are you saying that you want to be caught there?”

Jonathan's head inclined down; his voice lost its brittle edge.

“I acknowledge that it's potentially rash. Perhaps part of me does want to be caught. Perhaps part of Anthony Dore wants to be caught—hence his letter to you.”

“Or he thinks he's very clever,” suggested Philomena.

“Not so clever. You've tricked him.”

“Yes, I have.” Now she was emphatic; her means justified the end. “He doesn't know who I am and he doesn't know what I want so I have a huge advantage—”

“Until he realizes that you're not going to give him what he wants,” said Jonathan, challenging her. “He will be assuming certain things about a single girl he meets in that club.”

“Yes, yes, you've already said that,” said Philomena, impatiently.

“And what have you got from tricking him? What have you actually got? You were about to stick a bloody great pin in the man—”

“He wouldn't do something,” she snapped.

“You two looked quite cozy.”

Philomena opened her mouth to continue the spat, then closed it. She frowned. Was there a little bit of jealousy behind those sarcastic words? A new thought struck her about Jonathan.

“How
long
did you watch us?”

“I wasn't
watching
you, I saw you.”

Philomena could smell a little mendacity; a whiff.

“How long?”

“Only briefly.”

“How briefly?”

“I glimpsed you just before the lights went.”

A guess: “Were those lights anything to do with you?”

“No,” said Jonathan, meeting her inquisitorial gaze. He didn't blink. She changed tack, sat back.

“We need the truth about Anthony. Felicity might find it,” she said.

“It's only justice if he is caught, and punished, for the crime of murdering Dan; there's no point otherwise—it's not justice otherwise. You can wish the worst on him but you'd feel forever uneasy if you do something before you're certain that he killed Dan.”

“I agree.” She flared her eyes and pushed forward her head, marking an end to that line of argument.

Jonathan sighed with his mouth closed, impatient with her,
and with himself for allowing their exchange to become adversarial. But it was unfinished. He decided to come at it more wisely.