Murder by the Book (12 page)

‘Help yourself. Donald?'

‘Just a finger.'

‘A finger it is, dear boy!'

Maria arranged herself on the settee beside Langham and gave Charles the story they'd concocted on the drive back, so as not to alarm him. ‘My car broke down, Charles. Donald offered to drive me down to collect it tomorrow.'

‘Do that, my dears. A day in the country, why not? You should find a nice little place and perhaps stop for lunch.'

Maria tipped her head and smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Charles.'

‘And speaking of food, my dears – I take it you're both doing nothing this evening?'

Maria shook her head and Langham said, ‘I'm free.'

‘In that case the treat is mine. We shall dine in luxury, I shall regale you with fabulous tales of London between the wars, and not a word about this beastly affair shall pass our lips!'

L
angham picked Maria up outside her Kensington apartment at eleven the following morning. He moved the box Brownie camera from the front seat and placed it in the glove compartment.

‘Are you going to photograph me, Donald?'

‘Do you know something? I might just do that.'

She laughed. ‘I must warn you that I take a terrible photograph!'

‘Now that,' he said, easing the Austin into the road, ‘I cannot believe.'

The sun was shining and he was looking forward to a day in the country. The reviewing, for a day, could go hang.

‘Seriously, Donald, why the camera?'

‘Ah … wait and see. All will be revealed.'

‘Mysterious.' She pulled off her hat and gloves and said, ‘Anyway, Charles seemed to enjoy himself last night.'

‘I think the meal helped to take his mind off things.'

‘I wish I could forget about it. I hardly slept a wink.'

‘We'll sort it out. These things take time.' Even as he said the words, he knew they were platitudes.

She turned in the passenger seat, gazing at him. ‘I know Charles. I think I know him well. I have been working for him for almost five years now.'

He glanced at her. ‘And?'

She made a pretty bud of her rouged lips. ‘His gaiety is often a show. He makes light of things, puts on an act. I think that is because over the years he has had to do this, because of what he is, no?'

‘Hiding his true nature?'

She nodded. ‘Exactly. The thing is … I worry about him. I fear he will do something silly.'

He gripped the wheel as they headed south. ‘Silly?'

‘I don't know … I might be wrong. But I would not be surprised if Charles turned himself in.'

‘What makes you think that?'

‘It would be entirely in keeping with Charles's character, I think. He might do it to spite the blackmailer – admit to his liaison with this boy, and suffer the consequences rather than go on paying the blackmailer.'

‘And face a jail term?'

She shrugged. ‘I think it's not so much paying the money that he detests, as the principle … along with the idea that the blackmailer is like him, too – homosexual.'

‘I see.'

‘I think he sees people like himself as a … a fraternity, no? And that someone would break the unspoken trust and blackmail him like this …' she smiled, ‘… it offends his English notion of fair play.' She was silent for a time, and then said, ‘How long might he be jailed for, if the police find out?'

Langham thought about it. ‘Well, a few years ago a friend of mine – the crime writer Leo Bruce – did six months in Wormwood Scrubs for a trumped-up charge of gross indecency. So … if the police got hold of the photographs, and according to Charles they're pretty graphic, then I wouldn't be surprised if he were sent down for a year or more.'

‘A year! But that's medieval! What if he turned himself in, Donald? Might that work in his favour?'

Langham released a long breath. ‘Knowing the draconian views of the current Home Secretary,' he said, ‘I doubt it. Anyway, I'd rather we sorted the affair out without involving the police.'

‘Oh, Donald!' Maria exclaimed. She beat her fists against the dashboard in a funny, pantomime display of rage, then laughed. ‘Let's try to forget about this and enjoy the day, no?'

‘Capital idea!'

They left London in their wake and motored through the fields of Surrey. ‘Before we stop at Lingfield, I want to go on to Chalford and Hallet, or rather the lane where Charles dropped the money.'

‘Why?'

‘Take a peek at the mud in the gateway.'

‘Ah, that explains the camera, no? You wish to photograph the motorcyclist's footprints?'

‘It might lead us nowhere, but you never know.'

‘Donald,' she said with censure, ‘I thought we agreed to talk about something else!'

He laughed. ‘My fault. OK, let me see … Very well, tell me how you came to live in England.'

She laughed and said, ‘Oh, that is a very boring story, but if you really want to know …'

‘I'd like nothing more.'

They bowled through the countryside, the windows down to admit the cooling breeze and the scent of wild flowers in the hedgerows. She told him about how she and her father had fled to London a few days before the Nazis marched into Paris, and how, while her father set up a government in exile with De Gaulle, she was packed off to a girls' school in Gloucestershire.

‘I thought I would hate it, Donald! Away from my father, in a foreign country in war-time …'

‘And did you?'

She laughed. ‘I had the most wonderful time. All the real teachers had been called up, and their replacements were elderly and retired and didn't really want to get back into teaching. We had a few basic lessons, and the rest of the time we were allowed to do what we wished, which was smoke cigarettes and play cards in the tumbledown greenhouse behind the school.'

‘You obviously learned enough to get into university, though.'

‘One day my father arrived at the school. He was angry. I don't know how he found out about what was going on, but he threatened to send me to an aunt in Canada if I didn't apply myself.
Mon Dieu!
He hired a private tutor and I stayed at the school and, as you English say, “put my head down”.'

They sped through Lingfield and into the rolling countryside beyond. Over the low thrum of the engine, Langham made out the trilling of skylarks. He gripped the wheel, listening to Maria's lilting contralto as she described her time at Cambridge. ‘I studied politics and history and graduated in 'forty-six.'

‘Your father must have been delighted.'

‘I think he was. But he was far from happy when I decided I wanted to work in publishing. You see, he wanted me to go back to France and work as a political researcher for a government minister. The thought of it!' she exclaimed. ‘Anyway, I worked for a couple of publishers in London for a while, then met Charles at a launch party for one of his authors, and he offered me a place at his agency.'

‘And the rest, as they say, is history.'

‘The agreement,' she went on, ‘was that I should work for Charles for five years, learning the business, and then become a joint partner in the firm.'

‘Five years? Isn't that now?'

She nodded. ‘We were about to discuss the details when all this business began. So,' she said, ‘that is my life in a little capsule. Now it is your turn. Where did you go to school?'

He smiled. ‘You really don't want to know the boring details, Maria. Life growing up in 'twenties Nottingham, at a dull, second-rate grammar school … Ah, I do believe this is Chalford.'

They passed through the tiny village and turned along the lane to Hallet. A couple of minutes later he slowed down and drew to a halt beside the gate.

They climbed out and stretched. The sun beat down, and after the noise of the car engine the countryside seemed preternaturally silent, interrupted only by birdsong and the distant barking of a farm dog. He decided he should get out of the city more often.

‘I didn't come equipped for a hike through the mud,' Maria said. ‘Do you mind if I just stand here and laugh while I watch you?'

‘Not at all, but before you start laughing could you pass me the camera?'

She obliged, and he squelched through the mud and located the deep rut the motorbike had made. Beside it, next to the gatepost, was the imprint of the rider's left boot.

He squatted, squinted through the viewfinder and snapped. He stood, moved to gain a different angle and took another photograph of the footprint along with the tyre mark.

He was taking a third picture when he made out the chunter of an approaching tractor.

‘Donald,' Maria called out. ‘I think we have company.'

The tractor pulled into the verge behind his car, its engine ticking over. The farmer peered down at him, scratched his head and said, ‘Know this might be a silly question, sir, but why are you photographing my field?'

Maria sidled off behind the Austin, hiding her mouth behind a cupped hand.

‘Ah … well,' Langham temporized, ‘as a matter of fact I'm making a documentary record of the rural gateways of England, and today I'm concentrating on East Sussex.'

The farmer regarded him without expression. ‘Rural gateways?'

‘That's right,' Langham replied. ‘Rural gateways.'

The farmer stared at him, then asked, ‘From London, are you?'

‘We are,' Langham replied.

‘That'd explain it, then,' the farmer said, slipping the tractor into gear and bucketing off down the lane.

Maria was doubled up beside the car. ‘Oh! A documentary record of the rural gateways of England! Oh!' she gasped.

‘Well, it worked, didn't it?'

‘The look on his face! He … he must have thought you were a lunatic!' She wiped a tear from her eye. ‘And when … when you told him you were from London and he said, “That'd explain it, then”. Oh!'

Langham laughed. ‘Perhaps I am a lunatic,' he said, wiping his muddy feet on the grass and climbing in behind the wheel. ‘Come on, let's get some lunch. I spotted a likely-looking little tea room when we passed through Lingfield.' He glanced at her. ‘Do you think you could stop laughing long enough to have a spot of lunch?'

She wiped tears from her eyes and shook her head. ‘Oh, Donald! Probably not!'

Fifteen minutes later he pulled the Austin into the forecourt of the garage and climbed out. Maria's Sunbeam stood in the shadow of the building, equipped with two brand-new front tyres.

The mechanic strolled out to meet them, rubbing his chin. ‘I put the old tyres in the boot. You said you wanted them.'

‘Excellent.'

‘Strange thing was,' the mechanic went on, ‘I found these …' He pulled a hand from his pocket and opened a grease-stained palm, bearing two small grey bullets. ‘God knows how they got there.'

He tipped them into Langham's hand.

‘Mysterious,' Langham said. ‘Who on earth would take pot shots at two tourists innocently passing through the Downs?'

Maria linked an arm through Langham's. ‘We are safer in London, Donald. Come on!'

They left the mechanic scratching his head and strolled from the forecourt, along the high street to the tea room.

They sat at a tiny window table and ordered ham and lettuce sandwiches, Earl Grey tea and fruit scones. Langham stood the bullets upright on the tablecloth, both dented from the impact with the wheel hub. ‘It's a .38 calibre,' he said. ‘Possibly fired from a service revolver. There were thousands of them that were never handed in after the war, or stolen from barracks up and down the country. The underworld is flooded with them.'

Maria shrugged. ‘Do they tell you anything?'

He shook his head. ‘Not really – other than the fact that our blackmailing friend
might
have been in the services himself, stole it, or has criminal contacts.' He pocketed the bullets. ‘Ah, here comes lunch.'

As they ate, Maria asked him about his war service. ‘Charles told me you were in Madagascar. How exotic!'

‘It was, the little I saw of it. I was only there a month, before being shipped off to India. I was there for four years, and I came to love the place. Truth be told, I had a rather enjoyable war, though I feel guilty for admitting it.'

He told her about his work in field security, administering an area of central India the size of Great Britain, monitoring rumours of espionage and keeping tabs on nationalist unrest. He'd travelled a lot as an officer with the rank of captain, liaising with divisional commanders and hobnobbing with the occasional maharajah. When one of the latter found out he'd written crime novels before the war, he invited Langham to stay at his palace during a period of leave and even provided him with a typewriter so that he might begin a book.

‘So while I was smoking cigarettes in the greenhouse at school,' Maria said, ‘you were taking sundowners with Indian royalty.'

‘And now here we are in a quaint English tea room drinking Earl Grey from bone china cups.'

‘How strange is the world, Donald!'

After lunch they strolled around the town, inspected the ancient churchyard, then returned to their respective cars. She took his hand. ‘I've had a wonderful time, Donald. Let's do it again, soon, no?'

‘That would be wonderful.'

‘So … back to the city. I'll pop in and check that Charles is OK,' she said.

He hesitated, his mouth suddenly dry. ‘Perhaps … I was wondering, maybe we could go out for dinner one evening later this week?'

She smiled. ‘Yes. That would be nice, Donald.'

He followed her as she drove from the garage forecourt and headed north on the London road. This time, the journey home proceeded without event. He passed Maria's Sunbeam before Hammersmith Bridge, waved and turned off towards Notting Hill. He was still grinning like a lovesick schoolboy when he arrived at his flat fifteen minutes later.