Death Of A Hollow Man (32 page)

Tim was sorry he had come. Barnaby had vouchsafed the information (it seemed to Tim with a certain amount of wry pleasure) that David Smy, far from being arrested, was as free as a bird and likely to remain so. Still, Tim’s confession had been made, and he could hardly take it back. He had assumed once this simple statement had been completed, he would be free to go, but Barnaby seemed keen to question him further. To add to the charm of these unwelcome proceedings, the poisonous youth with the carroty hair was also present at his scrivenings.

“Just background, you understand, Tim,” Barnaby was saying. “Tell me how you got on with Esslyn.”

“As well and as badly as anyone else. There was nothing to get on with, really. He was always posing. You never knew what he truly felt.”

“Even so, it’s unusual for someone to belong to a group for over fourteen years and not have a single relationship of any depth or complexity.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Lots of men don’t have close friendships. As long as Esslyn was much admired and had plenty of sex, he was content.” Tim smiled. “The advertiser’s dream made manifest.”

“No more than human.” Barnaby sounded indulgent. “Which of us can’t say the same?”

Bang on target, thought Troy. Don’t knock it till you’ve had enough. Like when you’re stepping into your coffin. Troy was feeling very put out. He just couldn’t cope with the revelation that the man he thought of (apparently only too appropriately) as the cocky bugger in the executive suit had had it off with Kitty. Paradoxically, his resentment against Tim was now doubled. And the way he sauntered about … Look at him now … completely at home, mildly interested, cool as a cucumber. The dregs of society, thought Troy, should know their place and not come floating to the surface mingling with the good honest brew. Serve Kitty right if she got AIDS.

“He was never short of female company, then?” Barnaby was asking.

“Oh, no. Nothing that lasted long, though. They soon drifted off.”

“You don’t know of anyone in the past that he had rejected? Who might be suffering from unrequited love?”

“Anyone involved with Esslyn, whether rejected or not, suffered from unrequited love. And no, I don’t.”

“You must realize, I’m sure, that Kitty is our number-one suspect. Did you assist her in doing away with her husband?”

“Certainly not. There would have been no reason for me to do so. Our affair was trivial. I was already tired of it.”

“Did she let anything slip while you were together that might give us some insight into this matter?”

“Not that I recall.”

“Or hint at any other man?”

“No.”

“To get on to Monday night—”

“I’ve really nothing to add there, Tom.”

“Well,” said Barnaby easily, “you never know. Try this. Why did the murder happen then? Why not, for instance, at one of the early rehearsals? Fewer people hanging around. No coppers present.”

“The wings are never dark at rehearsal. And there’s always someone there prompting. Or wanting to do a scene change.”

“They’re not dark at the run-through, surely. Or the dress rehearsal?” When Tim did not reply, Barnaby added, “By the way—did I congratulate you on your splendid lighting?”

“I really don’t remember.”

It was like touching a snail on the horns, thought Barnaby, sensing the quick (protective?) folding in of the other man’s attention.

“Harold seemed quite put out.”

“Did he?”

“I noticed him thumping away in the intermission on the door of your box.”

Tim shrugged. “He runs on a short fuse.”

“Might’ve been less alarming if you’d sprung these splendid illuminations before the first night.”

“If I’d done that, they’d never have reached the first night.”

“So Harold didn’t know?”

The snail disappeared completely. Although Tim’s expression remained laconic, even a tinge scornful, his eyes were disturbed and the skin seemed to tighten over his patrician nose. “That’s right.”

“So he got two shocks for the price of one?”

“As things turned out.”

“Quite a coincidence.”

“They happen all the time.”

Not this time, thought Barnaby. He did not know how he knew, but he knew. Somewhere way back in the murk of his mind, so faint as to be hardly apprehended, he heard a warning rattle. This man who could not possibly have murdered Esslyn Carmichael knew something. But he met Barnaby’s gaze frankly, almost dauntingly, nor did he look away.

“You’re probably not aware,” said Barnaby, “that Harold is claiming the new lighting plot as his own.”

“Hah!” Tim laughed harshly, strainedly. His face flushed. “So that—” his laughter croaked—“so that was all we had to do. Say ‘Yes, Harold’ to everything. And go our own way. Just like Esslyn.”

“So it seems.”

“All these years.” He was still laughing in a rasping, irascible way when the chief inspector let him go a few minutes later.

Barnaby had seen no point in keeping Tim there or in applying pressure at this stage. Tim was not the sort to wilt under generalized bullish cajoling. But Barnaby knew now where the pressure point was and could apply a little leverage if or when it became necessary. He turned to his sergeant.

“Well, Troy?”

“A worried man, sir,” Troy replied quickly. “All right till you touched on his lights, then shut up like balls in an ice bucket. He might have been hard put to it to have done the murder, but he knows something.”

“I believe you’re right.”

“How would it be if I had a word with his friend”— Troy arched his wrist limply—“Little Miss Roly Poly. On her own, like.” He winked. “She’d soon crumble.” He received in exchange for the wink a stare so icy that he all but crumbled himself.

“First thing tomorrow I want to visit Carmichael’s office. And his solicitor. Get on the phone and fix it.”

Nicholas had left fairly quickly after Tim, thanking Avery for the dinner, then saying on the doorstep with absolute clarity, “I’m not as think as you drunk I am.”

Now, Avery sat alone. He had finished the Tignanello, pouring and gulping, pouring and gulping, at first in shock, then, steadily, in bitter loneliness and despair. After emptying the bottle, he had, in a confused state of aggressive misery jumbled up with vague ideas of retaliation, opened some Clos St. Denis,
grand cru
, that he knew Tim was keeping for his birthday. He wrestled savagely with the cork, breaking off little pieces and sloshing the wine about.

The candles in their Mexican silver rose holders guttered, and Avery blew them out. But even in the dark the room was full of memories of Tim. Avery flinched at the word “memories,” and chided himself for being melodramatic. After all, Tim was coming back. But no sooner had this thought, which should have been a comfort, struck him than it was swamped by a hundred others, all permeated with the fervor of self-righteousness. Oh, yes, observed Avery to himself with a miserable snigger, no doubt he’ll be coming back. He won’t find anyone else like me in a hurry. Who else would cook and iron and clean and care for him with just the odd kind word for wages? And that tossed so casually into the conversation it might have been a bone to a mangy cur. Who but me would have bought a bookshop and given—
yes given
, fulminated Avery, half of it away? Whose money had furnished the house? And paid for the holidays? And he asked so little in return. Just to be allowed to love and look after Tim. And to be offered in exchange a modicum of affection. Immensely moved by this revelatory glimpse into the nobility of his soul, Avery shed a disconsolate tear.

But the tear had no sooner dried on his cushiony cheek than the cold finger of reason pointed out that, for a reasonable sum, people could be found to cook and iron and clean and that Tim had once earned an excellent living teaching Latin and French in a public school and no doubt could do so again. And that if Avery poured out all the tiger words that, at this moment, were prowling round his heart when Tim came back, he might put on his Crombie overcoat and Borsalino hat and leave again, this time forever. And in fact (Avery felt sick with apprehension), even if he made the most tremendous superhuman efforts at self-control and behaved with calmness and understanding when his lover returned, it was probably too late. Because Tim had already met somebody else.

Avery stood up suddenly and put the light on. He felt he must move. Walk about. He thought of going down to the station to meet Tim, to know the worst right away, and had seized his coat and opened the front door before he recognized what a foolish thing that would be to do. For Tim hated it when Avery “trailed around” after him. Also (Avery dropped his coat onto the raspberry bouffant sofa), his quick dash to the door had revealed him to be intensely, dizzily nauseous. He moved to the table and sat upright with difficulty, holding on to the edge. He felt as if he were trapped in a revolving door of the emotions. Having whipped rapidly and passionately through jealousy, rage, yearning fear, and concupiscence, he now seemed to be meeting them all on the way back.

Avery made a huge effort to fight free of this soggy swamp of wretchedness. He drank several large glasses of Perrier and sat quietly struggling to compose himself. He tried to think as Tim would think. After all, what was done could not be undone. Perhaps, Avery thought tremulously, I am blowing it up out of all proportion. Also, getting into this state is just what Tim would expect. Poor Tim. Sitting down there for hours at the police station and then coming home to face a raging screaming row. How remarkable, how truly amazing it would be if he were welcomed by a tranquil, smiling, naturally slightly distant but ultimately
forgiving
friend. Let him without sin, decided Avery, and all that jazz. What would be the point, after all, of railing at Tim because he was not doggedly faithful? It’s because he’s so completely unlike me, realized Avery, now quite mooney with sentiment, that I love him so. And how proud he will be when he sees just how well I can actually handle things. How mature and wise, how detached, he will find me in the face of this, our first real catastrophe. Avery’s chest had just swelled to a pouter-pigeon prominence when he heard a key in the door, and a moment later Tim was standing before him.

Avery yelled, “You faithless bastard!” and threw one of the Chinese bowls. Tim ducked, and the bowl hit the architrave and shattered into small pieces. When Tim bent to pick them up, Avery shouted, “Leave it! I don’t want it. I don’t want any of them. They’re all going in the trash bin.”

Ignoring him, Tim picked up the pieces and put them on the table. Then he got a clean glass from the kitchen and poured some of the Clos St. Denis. He sniffed at it and made an irritated sound, picking out a few cork crumbs.

“I was laying this down.”

“Seems to be your favorite occupation.”

“If you wanted to get tanked up, why on earth didn’t you use the Dao? There’s half a dozen bottles in the larder.”

“Oh, yes—the Dao! Any old rubbish will do for me, won’t it? I haven’t got your exquisite palate. Your celebrated
je ne sais quoi
.”

“Don’t be silly.” Tim took a thoughtful swallow. “Wonderful fruit. A lot of style. Not as big as I expected.”

“Well hoity lucking toity.”

“I’m tired.” Tim removed his muffler and coat. “I’m going to bed.”

“You most certainly are not going to bed. You are going to leave my house. And you are going to leave it now!”

“I’m not going anywhere at this hour of the night, Avery.” Tim hung up his coat. “We’ll talk in the morning, when you’ve sobered up.”

“We’ll talk now!” Avery leaped up from the table and stumbled over to the hall, where he stood at the bottom of the staircase barring the way. Tim turned then, made his way to the kitchen, and started filling up the coffee-maker. Avery followed, crying, “What do you think you’re doing?” And “Leave my things alone.”

“If I’m going to stay awake, I need some strong coffee. And so, by the looks of things, do you.”

“What did you expect? To come home and find me all sweet reason? Clearing up after the Last Supper? Counting out your thirty pieces of silver?”

“Why are you being so dramatic?” Tim spooned the Costa Rica out lavishly. “And come and sit down before you fall down.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d love it if I fell and hit my head and died. Then you’d get the shop and the house, and you’d be able to move that bloody little tart in here. Well, you can think again, because first thing tomorrow I shall go to the solicitor’s and change my will.”

“You can do what you like tomorrow. For now, I should concentrate on parking your bum on something and getting this coffee down you.”

Avery, allowing a moment for a disdainful pause, thus making it clear that any move he might be inclined to make would be entirely of his own choosing, made his erratic way over the kitchen floor and contemplated the north face of the Bentwood stool. Somehow he managed to clamber up and hang on, swaying like an aerial mast in a high wind.

The rich, homely smell of coffee filled his nostrils cruelly, recalling a thousand shared starts to happy days and as many intimate and gossipy after-dinner exchanges. All gone now. All ruined. He and Tim would never be happy again. Avery’s eyes filled with sorrow as the utter terribleness of the situation struck him anew, and a thrill of pain stabbed clean through the deadening haze of alcohol. A needle to the heart.

As Tim passed the coffee, he folded Avery’s limp, unresisting fingers around the cup, and this gesture of concern was the last straw breaking the back of Avery’s anger and releasing a great gush of tears. And with the release of tears came an overwhelming need for contact and solace. He cried, “I
trusted
you …”

Tim sighed, put down his drink, pulled up a second stool, and sat next to Avery. “Listen, love,” he said, “if we are going to have a heart-to-heart at this ridiculous hour of the morning, let’s not start with a false premise. You have never trusted me. Ever since we started to live together, I’ve known that whenever we’re apart, you do nothing but worry and fret over whether I’m meeting someone else or that I might one day meet someone else. Or that I’ve already met someone else and I’m concealing it. That is not trust.”