Orchestrated Death (14 page)

Slider was beginning to form a much clearer picture of Anne-Marie’s childhood, and the clash of personalities that was inevitable
between this former Bright Young Thing and an introverted orphan who cared only for music. Mrs Ringwood’s perceptions about
her niece would not be likely to be helpful to him. Instead he tried a shot in the dark. ‘Can you tell me who her solicitor
was?’

Was there a very slight hesitation before she answered?

‘The family solicitor, Mr Battershaw, attended to her business.’

‘Mr Battershaw of –?’

‘Riggs and Felper, in Woodstock,’ she completed, faintly unwillingly. Slider appeared not to notice, and wrote the name down
in his careful secondary-modern-taught hand. He looked up to ask the next question and his attention was drawn to the French
windows behind Mrs Ringwood, just a fraction of a second before the dogs also noticed the man standing there, and rushed at
him, barking shrilly.

‘Boys, boys!’ Mrs Ringwood turned with the automatic admonition, but the newcomer was in no danger. The yappings were welcoming,
and the attenuated tails were wagging. ‘Ah, Bernard,’ Mrs Ringwood said.

He stepped forward into the room, a tall, thin man a year or two older than her, dressed in a suit of expensive and extremely
disagreeable tweed, and a yellow waistcoat. His face was long, mobile and yellowish, much freckled. He had a ginger moustache,
grey eyebrows sparked with red, and thin, despairing, gingery hair, combined into careful strands across the top of his freckled,
balding skull.

As he stooped in, he put up a hand in what was obviously an automatic gesture to smooth the strands down, and Slider noticed
that the hand, too, was yellow with freckles, and that the nails were rather too long. The man smiled ingratiatingly behind
his moustache, but his eyes were everywhere, quick and penetrating under the undisciplined eyebrows.

Slider, freed of the dogs’ vigilance, stood politely, and Mrs Ringwood performed the introduction. ‘Inspector Slider – Captain
Hildyard, our local vet, and a great personal friend of mine. He looks after my boys, of course, and he often pops in on his
way past. I hope he didn’t startle you.’

Slider shook the strong, bony yellow hand, and the vet bent over him charmingly and said, ‘How do you do, Inspector? What
brings you here? Nothing serious, I hope. Has Esther been parking on double yellow lines?’

Slider merely gave a tight smile and left it to Mrs Ringwood to elucidate if she wanted.

‘I suppose you’ve come to look at Elgar’s foot?’ she said. ‘It was kind of you to drop by, but I’m sure it’s nothing
serious. Tomorrow would have done just as well.’

‘No trouble at all, my dear Esther,’ Hildyard said promptly. Slider watched them, unimpressed. Something about them struck
a false note with him. Had she warned him off, provided him with the excuse? Was there some kind of collusion between them,
and if so, why?

‘I’ll look at it while I’m here,’ Hildyard went on. ‘Don’t want the little chap suffering. By the way, Inspector, is that
your car out in the lane?’

‘Yes,’ said Slider. He met the vet’s eyes and discovered that they were grey with yellow flecks, and curiously shiny, as if
they were made of glass, like the eyes of a stuffed animal. ‘Is it in your way?’

‘Oh no, not at all. I was merely wondering. As a matter of fact, that was partly why I called in. We keep an eye on each other
in a neighbourly way in this village, and a strange car parked near a house like this is always cause for concern.’

He paused. With five pairs of eyes on him, watchful and waiting, Slider felt pressed to take his leave. He moved, and the
dogs rushed upon him, yapping.

‘I’d better be on my way,’ he said. ‘Thank you for your help, Mrs Ringwood. Nice to have met you, Captain Hildyard.’

Hildyard bowed slightly, and Mrs Ringwood smiled graciously, but they were waiting side by side for him to leave with a palpable
air of having things to say as soon as he was out of earshot. There was more between them than vet and client. Old friend?
Or something closer?

‘Who was that utterly bogus character in the hairy tweeds?’ Joanna asked as he got in and started the engine. ‘He looked like
a refugee from a Noël Coward play.’

‘He purported to be one Captain Hildyard, the local vet.’ Slider drove off, feeling relief at the putting of some distance
between him and the house.

‘He gave me a fairly savage once-over as he passed. Why only purported to be?’

‘Oh, I suppose he’s a vet all right,’ Slider said tautly.

‘He seems to have ruffled you.’

‘He had long fingernails. I absolutely abominate long fingernails on men. And I don’t like people who use military rank when
they’re not in the army.’

‘I said he looked bogus. What was he doing there, anyway?’

‘It did seem rather opportune, the way he suddenly appeared. But on the other hand, the dogs of the house evidently knew him
all right, and he said he’d called because he was worried by a strange car being parked near the house, which is not only
reasonable, but even laudable.’

‘You do like to be fair, don’t you?’ she said. ‘I bet you’re Libra.’

‘Close,’ he admitted. ‘I’m told I’m on the cusp. But listen, he had long fingernails, which is not only disgusting, but I
would have thought a distinct handicap for a vet.’

‘Perhaps he’s such an eminent vet he only does diagnoses from X-rays, and never has to shove his hands up things like Mr Herriot.’

‘Maybe. Still, I found out a couple of things, despite the aunt’s unwillingness.’

‘Why was she unwilling?’

‘That’s what I hope to find out. She told me, you see, that Anne-Marie had nothing but her income from the Orchestra. But
when I asked casually who her solicitor was, she gave me the name.’

‘Anne-Marie’s solicitor, you mean?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’m not with you. What’s significant about that?’

‘Well, look, ordinary people don’t have a solicitor. Do you have one?’

‘I’ve consulted one on a couple of occasions. I couldn’t exactly say I “have” one.’

‘Precisely. If you talk about “having” a solicitor, it suggests a continuing need for one. And the only continuing need I
can think of is the management of property, real or otherwise.’

‘Aha,’ Joanna said.

‘Exactly,’ Slider agreed. ‘So what we do now is have some lunch, and then go in search of the Man of Business. Shall we find
a pub, or would you prefer a restaurant?’

‘Silly question – pub of course. You forget I’m a musician.’

‘Has it occurred to you,’ said Joanna as they strolled into The Blacksmiths Arms a few villages further on, ‘that the pub
is the only modern example of the old rule of supply and demand?’

‘No,’ said Slider obligingly. They had chosen the pub because it had a Pub Grub sign and sold Wethereds, and when they got
inside they found it smelled agreeably of chips and furniture polish.

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘In every other field of commerce the rule has broken down. The customer bloody well has to take what
the supplier feels like supplying. Complaining gets you nowhere. You can look dignified and say “I shall take my custom elsewhere”
and the least offensive thing they’ll say is “Suit yourself”.’

‘I suppose so. Well?’

‘Remember what pubs used to be like in the Sixties and Seventies? Keg beer, lino on the floor, no ice except Sunday lunchtimes,
never any food. Now look! They’ve actually changed in response to public demand, which is a total denial of the Keynes theory.’

‘What, Maynard?’ he hazarded.

‘No, Milton.’

They reached the bar. ‘What will you have?’

‘A pint please.’

‘Two pints, then,’ Slider nodded. It was lovely to be in a
pub with someone other than Irene, who never entered into the spirit of the thing. The most she would ever have was a vodka
and tonic, which Slider always felt was a pointless drink. More often she would ask, with a pinching of her lips, for an orange
juice, than which there was nothing more frustrating for a beer-drinker. It makes it quite clear that the asker really doesn’t
want a drink at all and would sooner be anywhere but here, thus at a stroke putting the askee firmly in the wrong and destroying
any possibility of enjoyment for either.

They ordered ham, egg and chips as well, and went to sit down in the window seat, where the pale sunshine was puddling on
a round, polished table. Joanna drank off a quarter of her pint with fluid ease and sighed happily.

‘Oh, this is nice,’ she said, smiling at him, and then an expression of remorse crossed her face so obviously that Slider
wanted to laugh.

‘You were thinking that if Anne-Marie hadn’t died we wouldn’t be sitting here at all.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Your face. It’s like watching a cartoon character – everything larger than life.’

‘Gee, thanks!’

‘No, it’s nice. Most people are so world-weary.’

‘Even when they’ve nothing to be weary about. Poor things, I think it’s a habit they get into. It must be terrible never being
able to admit to enjoying anything.’

‘So why are you different?’ he asked, really wanting to know.

She gave the question her serious consideration. ‘I think because I never have time to watch television.’ He laughed protestingly,
but she said, ‘No, I mean it. Television’s so depressing – the universal assumption of vice. I don’t think it can be good
for people to be told so continuously that mankind is low, evil, petty, vicious and disgusting.’

‘Even if it is?’

She contemplated his face. ‘But you don’t think so. That’s much more remarkable, considering the job you do. How do you manage
to keep your illusions? Especially as -’ She broke off, looking confused.

‘Especially as what?’

‘Oh dear, I was going to say something impertinent. I was going to say, especially as you aren’t happily married, either.
Sorry.’

Considering they had just spent the night making torrid love together, considering he was being unfaithful to his wife with
her, impertinent’ was a deliciously inappropriate word, besides being pretty well obsolete in this modem age, and he laughed.

He had never in his life before felt so at ease in someone’s company. More even than making love with her, he wanted to spend
the rest of his life talking to her, to put an end to the years – his whole life, really – of having conversations inside
his head and never aloud, because there had never been anyone who would not be bored, or contemptuous, or simply not understand,
not see the point, or pretend not to in order to manipulate the situation. He knew that he could talk to her about absolutely
anything, and she would listen and respond, and a vast hunger filled him for conversation – not necessarily important or intellectual,
but simply absorbing, unimportant, supremely comfortable chat.

‘Talking of your job,’ she said, following Humpty Dumpty’s principle of going back to the last remark but one, ‘shouldn’t
you be asking me questions to justify bringing me along with you? I shouldn’t like you to get into trouble. Come to think
of it, you’ve been pretty indiscreet, haven’t you, Inspector? I mean, suppose I did it?’

‘Did you?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Well there you are, then.’ Slider said comfortably.

‘I’m worried about you,’ she said. ‘You seem to have no instinct for self-preservation.’

Where she was concerned, he thought, that was painfully true. The number of things he ought to be worried about was multiplying
by the minute, but he was completely comfortable, and her left leg was pressed against his right from hip to knee. He roused
himself with an effort. ‘Tell me about your friend Simon Thompson, then.’

‘No friend of mine, the slimy little snake,’ she said promptly. ‘However, I don’t suppose he could have been the
murderer. He’s like a kipper – two-faced, and no guts.’

‘Never mind supposing. You’ve been reading too many books.’

‘True,’ she admitted, and then tacked off again. On the other hand, and come to think of it, he might just have been capable
of it. These self-regarding people can be surprisingly ruthless, and he had convinced himself that she was the Phantom Wife-Phoner.’

‘Come again?’

‘Oh – well – you know I told you that people often do things on tour that they wouldn’t do at home? Of course everybody knows
about it, but everybody keeps quiet about it. Except that once or twice people’s wives have received anonymous phone calls
spilling the beans, and of course that makes terrible trouble all round. Well, after Anne-Marie and Simon had split up, he
put it about that she was the Phantom, and that made things very nasty for her, because of course there will always be people
who says things like “there’s no smoke without fire”.’

‘Do you think she was the Phantom?’

‘No, of course not. What possible reason could she have for wanting to do that?’

‘What reason could anyone have?’

She thought, and sighed. ‘Well, I don’t think it was her. Poor Anne-Marie, she never made it to the top of the popularity
stakes.’

Slider drank a little beer, thoughtfully. ‘When she and Simon were having their affair – did they get on well? Were they friendly?’

‘Oh yes. They were all over each other. Martin Cutts said it made him feel horny just to look at them.’ She frowned as a thought
crossed her mind. ‘They did have a quarrel on the last day in Florence, come to think of it. But they must have made it up,
because they sat together on the plane coming home.’

‘What was the quarrel about?’

‘I don’t know.’ She grinned. ‘I had my own fish to fry, so I wasn’t particularly interested.’

He felt a brief surge of jealousy. Other fish? ‘Tell me about Martin Cutts,’ he said evenly.

She leaned her elbows on the table and cupped her face. Oh, Martin’s all right as long as you don’t take him seriously, and
hardly anyone does. He simply never grew up. He got fossilised at the randy adolescent stage, and feels he has to have a crack
at every new female that crosses his path, but he doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s quite childlike, really – rather endearing.’