Dying Flames (12 page)

“She swindled both you and her brother, didn't she?”

“She did. She knew it was best to keep it in the family.”

It was a sad little story. They talked for a bit longer. Ted was still full of the hole left in his life by his wife's death. After his beloved daughter had failed him, Mary was his mainstay. Graham promised to keep in touch and told him he was going to the police later, in an attempt to inject a bit of urgency into their concern.

The next stop was the Halliburtons—obviously Peggy's best friends in Romford. There were two or three customers in the shop, and Graham felt rather guilty at asking to speak to one or both of the pair.

“You go, Mike,” said Vesta. “You know her best. Take him in the back room, then I can come in and have my say if we get slack in the shop.”

So Michael Halliburton took Graham through to a little box of a room, with two easy chairs, a kettle, and a hot-plate-cum-grill. Graham refused more coffee and got down to business.

“I expect you think I'm causing a stir about nothing.”

Michael shifted slightly uneasily in his chair. “Well, I don't want to sound as if I don't care about Peggy. And she has been away longer than I expected, I'll admit that. It won't be long before rehearsals start for
Virginia Woolf.
But she is after all an adult, and we're not living in the nineteenth century.”

“She has responsibilities,” said Graham.

“Christa and Adam?” Michael gave a little laugh, and a dismissive wave of the hand. “But you'll have noticed that they're very self-sufficient, very grown-up.”

“What I noticed about Adam when I saw him first at Luigi's was that he is a typical adolescent, full of mixed-up emotions and a lot of resentment.”

Michael shifted again. “Well, I suppose so. Yes. But he'll have to learn to cope with that.”

“He will. On his own, so far as I can see.”

“I suppose you're saying Peggy is not much of a mother. Well, you're probably right, though she must be wonderful fun as well. What I've been more interested in is her acting ability, so maybe I have turned a blind eye to what you call her responsibilities.”

“I suppose you would. No shame in that. But she's also a friend, isn't she?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. That's why we got her working for us here. So we could keep an eye on her.”

Not much of an eye, Graham thought.

“Mike, could you come out?” called Vesta from the shop. “We're busy.”

Mike pulled himself up from his chair and hurried out. Graham thought he learned more about him from his movements than from his face, which was cleverly controlled. He was a man of energy—not the constant energy of a sportsman or athlete: the purpose and drive was in his shoulders and arms. When you saw the whole man in motion—as Graham now did, watching him serving two customers with notable efficiency and minimum movement—you saw someone who was egocentrically directed toward getting what he wanted, and getting it with minimum expenditure and unnecessary emotion. He must have been a first-rate director, Graham thought.

“Sorry about that,” Michael said, coming back. Graham decided to chance his arm.

“You got Peggy working here to make sure no other amateur drama group poached her, didn't you?”

Mike smiled disarmingly, though Graham was not disarmed.

“Absolutely. No harm in that, is there?”

“None at all. Though it's not quite friendship, as it is normally understood.”

“Two birds with one stone,” said Mike airily. “There's drama groups all over South London would give their eyeteeth to have her as a regular. Much of the reputation we've built up here has been due to her. Having her work in the shop, in a job which doesn't take much out of her emotionally—that's vital—and having her under our eyes makes her feel safe and us feel safe about her too.”

Vesta, from the empty shop, poked her head around the door.

“And you've slept with her too, Mike. Might as well tell him, or someone else will. Didn't mean anything, and I wasn't jealous, but it happened.”

The doorbell in the shop signaled a customer, and she disappeared. Graham raised his eyebrows at Mike.

“Yes, it happened. Well, it's happened now and again with one or two of our actresses. Like Vesta says, it doesn't mean anything. Our marriage is based on trust—the trust we both have that I'm
essentially
hers, and she's essentially mine.”

Graham held back a sardonic comment. His own record as a married man disqualified him from making it.

“I see,” he said. “I never quite managed to create that trust with my own wife.” He chanced his arm on a guess again. “Did the parts she was playing make any difference to Peggy, in her actual life?”

Mike looked at him, thought, then laughed.

“Well, let's just say that playing Lady Windermere didn't make her into a virtuous, straitlaced wife. It doesn't work like that.”

“I don't remember that playing Saint Joan turned her into a saint either.”

“On the other hand, you could say that while she was rehearsing and playing Lady Windermere, she became more formal in her manner, more queenly, more…remote. The onstage bearing got into the offstage behavior to that extent.”

“Yes…. How long has it been decided that her next part will be Martha in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
”

“Decided? Only two or three weeks before she took off. It's been in the air for a lot longer than that—as one of
her
parts, that eventually she'll have to play. She's about the right age now: still stunning when she makes the effort.”

“I bet you've never said that to her.”

“I certainly haven't. Why are you interested?”

“Martha. The woman who is so desperate to have a child that she and her husband create an imaginary son. And while Peggy is getting into the mood to start rehearsals of the play, into her life comes a real son….”

“That can only be coincidence.”

“Oh, almost certainly. Though with the current enthusiasm for adoptive children contacting their birth mothers, it was quite likely to happen, and while the child was still young…. What struck me was that, while she's preparing to play a woman overflowing with maternal love and frustration in having no object for it, along comes a long-lost son. And she is over the moon, all over the boy, eager to share the news with all the world.”

“Partly in preparation for the role, do you think?”

“She's never been particularly maternal with the two children she already has, according to them. And then, perhaps quite soon, the new son sees through the role-playing…”

Michael looked skeptical. “Did you think he was particularly bright?”

“I didn't see enough of him to judge.”

“And the reason for the bust-up was quite different.”

“Yes, certainly. But also quite mystifying. Two potential birth fathers. It really calls for a judgment of Solomon, doesn't it?”

Graham got up.

“Where are you going now?” Mike asked.

“To the police.”

“Is that necessary? Nothing we've said has given any reason why Peggy should have come to any harm.”

“Maybe not. But a woman with a home, children, a job, a very exciting theatrical role in prospect, should be able to think of someone she should contact if she goes away unexpectedly. You and Vesta would be obvious people. But she hasn't. I'm just trying to get the police to put some urgency into the case. To do
some
thing.”

That proved to be more difficult than Graham had imagined. The duty sergeant on the desk merely feigned interest: he pointed out it was not a child or an adolescent who had gone missing, and that grown adults were not required to register once a week at the police station. Even Mr. Blunkett hadn't come up with that one. Graham felt inhibited from mentioning Peggy's children, so he pulled Peggy's other claim for special attention.

“She's a pretty well-known local figure. About the best-known amateur actress in Romford, regularly stars in the Romford Amateur Players' shows. It will be a newspaper matter if she doesn't turn up soon.”

The sergeant looked down at the computer record.

“Margaret Webster, known as Peggy. That rings a bell. Would that be the lady who starred in
Hello, Dolly!
?”

“Very likely.”

“Brilliant she was. Not the greatest voice in the world, but oodles of personality.”

“That sounds like Peggy. Do you go to the Romford Players' shows regularly?”

“Not regularly, no. But word usually gets around when there's something really good on. And this was top-notch. Good as the West End any day.”

And this was enough to get the sergeant into the back room behind him and on the phone in low-voiced consultation with someone in the detectives' central office. Five minutes later Graham was in an informal interview room talking to a lean, sharp-eyed man, Detective Sergeant Relf, who was taking down details over and above what Ted had given them a few days earlier.

“Forty-three. Not the usual age for taking off with a bloke, but anything can happen—we learn that in this job. Somers was her maiden name, Webster the married one, is that right?”

“That's right.”

“Husband no longer around?”

“No—lives in Stevenage with a new wife who dislikes him having contact with his earlier family.”

“That's not unusual. And the children are in their teens, I see. That's a frequent reason for middle-aged parents just downing tools and going away for a bit. For a bit of a break, you might say. Who's looking after them?”

“I am. They're fine. I'm a sort of stepfather to them.”

He was subjected to a sharp glance.

“So there'd been a relationship between you and her, then? When? Before or after the marriage?”

“Before. We were still in our teens. But there was a result: an elder brother for these two.”

“I see. Now left home?”

“Yes, but not this home. He was put up for adoption at birth. He recently made contact with his birth mother. Peggy was delighted. Another reason for her not taking off suddenly.”

Sergeant Relf raised his eyebrows skeptically.

“Maybe. But as far as I can see she did take off willingly. Mr. Somers told us she left a note at her home to the children, saying she was going.”

“That's right. ‘With a friend,' the note said.”

“Sex unspecified, probably male.”

“We've all assumed he's male.”

“And what else did you assume? That she'd suddenly and unexpectedly met up with an old lover and gone off with him?”

“That seemed the most likely. But it's also possible she met a new man, there was an instant attraction, and they went off together. Unlikely but possible.”

“As I say, we learn in this job that anything's possible. Now this meeting will have taken place just after there'd been some kind of celebratory meal at Luigi's in Cornwallis Street—is that right?”

“Yes. Between Peggy's leaving Luigi's and her daughter and me finding the note at her house in Milton Terrace.”

“Odd thing for a woman to do: go out and walk around in her hometown after a meal.”

“There'd been a bit of a contretemps.”

“That would be a sort of disagreement or misunderstanding, would it, sir?”

The question was a reproof rather than an inquiry. Graham had not intended telling him about this, but now found himself doing so.

“Sorry. It was a minor row. Or perhaps
scene
is a better word, because there was really only one person involved. The dinner had been to introduce her newfound son to her friends. His name is Terry Telford, by the way.”

“Yes. I have it here. And there was Mrs. Webster's father, a couple connected with the theater group, her other two children, and you, sir.”

“That's right.”

“So you've remained friends over the years, have you, sir?”

“No. We'd only met up again recently, but I think she had remembered me and talked about me. I'm a novelist, and there is generally some publicity when a new book comes out. Anyway, she toasted Terry at the end of the meal, told us about giving him up when he was a baby, and so on. Then over coffee she got up again—Peggy likes being the center of attention—and told the table that Terry had not only found his real mother, but also his father as well…. She told them that I was his father.”

“I see. Was this a surprise?”

“Not really. I'd suspected something like this was going to happen. I was beginning to understand Peggy.”

“So what was the problem? Who made the scene?”