The Double Bind of Mr. Rigby (26 page)

‘OK, I’ll do it. I’ll find out what he’s doing. Roxanne will tell me.’

Early that evening I rang Roxanne. This time there was no smooth-tongued Spanish secretary who answered the phone. It was Roxanne herself.

‘Pelham dear, how nice to hear you. When are we going to meet? I miss you terribly. Raoul’s been away in the Baltic. It seems he’s too busy for me. I need you.’

Immediately I felt the old frisson of desire and, at the same time, a stab of guilt. I was about to use her for other ends than the cause of love. Yet she was irresistible.

‘Likewise,’ I responded. ‘When are you likely to be in London next? What are Raoul’s plans? I can’t wait to see you.’

‘I can’t wait to touch you. Just talking to you excites me. Look, I think Raoul plans to fly to the UK at the weekend. He’s meeting some Russians at Claridge’s, so we’ll no doubt be staying there. He’ll want me with him. Just hang on, I’ll ask his secretary.’

There was a long silence. I began to think that the line had gone dead and that I should have to ring back. Yet I held on and eventually she returned.

‘Yes, Pel, are you there? We’re flying on Saturday morning to Heathrow and we’ll be at Claridge’s by lunchtime. I’ll ring you from there in the early afternoon and let you know what’s happening.’ She added tantalisingly, ‘I hope you’re in the mood for love.’ It was an old cliché but I was and could barely contain my excitement.

When we had finished talking after another twenty minutes or so, I phoned Uri. I had a momentary sense of betrayal but it passed quickly.

‘That’s just great, Pel. Let me now what he’s doing, where he’s going. It’s essential that we pin him down.’ That seemed to me like another bureaucratic euphemism.

It occurred to me that perhaps Willy should know what was happening.

‘What about Willy and the British Service, Uri? Shouldn’t they know what is going on?’

‘All in good time, my friend. No one is to know at present what goes on between you and me. Willy will get to know. Keep quiet for now. We’ll share our info, but not yet.’

The rest of the week passed. I went in and out of the
Journal
’s offices. At times I felt depressed; at others elated that something was happening that might avenge Mark’s death. I certainly looked forward to Roxanne’s arrival. Once I met Willy in Lower Regent Street. He was making for Piccadilly and Hatchard’s bookshop.

‘Morning, Pelham. How’s things?’

Naturally I felt restrained. I wanted to tell him about Uri and the Raoul plot but knew that I could not. I talked generally and, I suppose, pleasantly, and then just as we were to part, he said, ‘We might need you to do something for us, Pel. I hope you don’t mind. I’ll get in touch – officially.’

That did not leave me particularly happy. I did not want to be the factotum of both Security Services. I was not one of them. What about my own personal security? I felt even more uneasy than I already was.

When Saturday arrived I was eager to meet Roxanne. The prospect of being with her made me restless. I could not concentrate on anything else. My mind was filled with images of her from the past, most of them erotic. Nevertheless I experienced a degree of apprehension that I had never had before. I felt extremely nervous, but that of course was to do with Raoul.

At around two o’clock my mobile rang. It was Roxanne, clear-voiced, welcoming and seductive.

‘Come round, Pel. I’ll be on my own this afternoon, probably for the rest of the day. We’ll have the suite to ourselves. I can’t wait.’

‘Nor can I. I’ll be with you in roughly half an hour.’

There was no need to say more. By 3.15 I was being ushered into the Brook Street entrance to Claridge’s by a top-hatted and red-waistcoated doorman. By 3.30 Roxanne and I had renewed our old intimacy. An hour later we decided to go downstairs and have tea. We took a table close to the main fireplace and ordered smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches. She told me that she would be very much on her own during this trip. Raoul had several appointments. I asked her what he was doing that evening.

‘Well, he comes back from some meeting at a factory in Bethnal Green, but he’s not coming here. He’s going straight to the Ritz to meet some people for drinks and then on to L’Escargot for dinner. He’s going to ring me from the Ritz. We’ll be all on our own. What shall we do?’

Immediately I thought that Uri had better know; after all that was my commission, to keep him informed of Raoul’s movements. At the same time I felt uneasy, treacherous. I was leading Raoul into a trap, which almost certainly was going to be fatal. Then I thought of Mark, that dismal Paldiski building and Raoul’s imperious presence there. I had no compunction. I said to Roxanne that I had to make a phone call to the paper. Already I was entering the world of deceit and subterfuge. I went to the lobby, rang Uri’s mobile and reported Raoul’s schedule.

‘Thanks, Pel. Can you call me when he rings from the Ritz. Our boys are standing by. I reckon he’ll be there about an hour and a half. We need to get him away. It’s important you ring me; we’ll be short of time. Still, if it doesn’t work this evening, there’s always tomorrow. We’ve got to be patient in this game. You’ll learn that.’

Did he assume I was joining up? Was he thinking that I would become one of his crowd? Those questions went through my head. I reserved my position. The Raoul business had to be accomplished first, even though in a pure sense it involved an act of betrayal on my part. It was an act of piety, something I owed to Mark’s memory.

‘OK, Uri, I’ll let you know immediately.’ I returned to the reality of Roxanne’s care and warmth.

At five past six when we had embarked on our first Martinis, a waiter came up to us and said there was a call for Roxanne. I knew it could not be anyone else but Raoul, and sure enough Roxanne returned and told me that he was at the Ritz. Again, I told her I had to contact the
Journal
. Being a journalist was a good excuse for always using the phone.

Uri was pleased but cut me off short: he said that he had to move quickly. So far, my part in the deed had been done.

What happened then came as a complete surprise to me. Roxanne and I spent an extraordinary evening together. I had never seen her so relaxed. It was like experiencing how she might be when Raoul was no longer with us. We talked a great deal but not once did either of us mention Myrex. We drank and dined. Everything went on to Raoul’s tab. Subsequently I thought it had something of mafia irony about it, our evening together at Raoul’s, a condemned man’s, expense.

It was late in the evening when we heard the news. A waiter came to our table and asked for a private word with Mrs Gimenez. Roxanne, mystified, left the table and went with the waiter into the anteroom of the dining room. She came back to me and said that there had been a telephone call and that she had to ring a certain number, but that when she did so a relative or close friend should be with her. She said rather light-heartedly that since Raoul was not present perhaps I would not mind performing the duty. It all sounded odd to me but I agreed. At that point I did not connect the call to Raoul or Uri.

Roxanne quickly finished her coffee and I drained my coupe of champagne. We took the lift to Raoul’s suite; and there standing next to her as she made the call I heard the dramatic news. After brief preliminaries and a question answered in the affirmative about who was with her, I just managed to hear from the receiver that Roxanne held, ‘I’m afraid to have to tell you that Mr Gimenez is dead. It will come as a terrible shock.’ Then there was a pause, and I watched the information sink in. I had suddenly gone extremely cold and felt gooseflesh rise at the back of my neck. Roxanne did not say a word but stood looking blank. Then she quivered slightly, pulled herself together and said sharply, ‘I don’t believe it. Who are you? Who am I speaking to?’ Again I overheard the reply. ‘I’m Inspector Naish at the Savile Row station. I think you should go to the Ritz Hotel if you can – if there is someone with you. I have to tell you that it looks as if Mr Gimenez took his own life.’ Roxanne, drained white, walked in a half circle to a chair and sat down. She handed the phone to me. ‘It’s OK, inspector. I’m a friend. I’ll go with her to the Ritz. We’ll be as quick as we can. Thanks.’

Roxanne was pale and frowning. I realised too that she was angry. I had witnessed two other people in my life being given news of their loved one’s death; individuals react in different ways. Roxanne’s initial disbelief had changed into anger. She railed. It was impossible, she said. ‘Raoul would never take his own life. He’s not like that. It’s impossible. There just has to be a mistake. This can’t be right.’ The truth was that I too thought it crazy: Raoul was certainly not the sort of man to commit suicide. Then I thought of Uri. What was going on? Was he involved? If indeed Raoul was dead at the Ritz, then of course Uri had something to do with it, and I would be the agent of his death. I did not like that thought. It sat uneasily on my conscience.

Roxanne, hardly knowing what she was doing, got herself together, found her handbag and a light coat, and we took the lift down to the vestibule. Although it was only a short walk from Carlos Place to the Ritz I asked the doorman to hail us a taxi. There were several waiting, poised for an easy fare, outside the hotel. It rapidly took us down Berkeley Street to Piccadilly. At the intersection we stopped. I extravagantly gave the driver a ten-pound note and we hurried across the road to the Ritz. There were four police cars and an ambulance outside and the main entrance was cordoned off by blue-and-white tape. I explained to an officer who we were and we were allowed in. A constable took us to a group of senior officers seated incongruously at one of the tables usually occupied by elegant middle-aged women in the Palm Court. He told them who we were and just as he did so another man hurried along to the table. The others deferred to him and it turned out that he was Inspector Naish. He took us aside and sat us down at a table on the far side of the room; he explained what appeared to have happened.

Someone had gone into the gents’ lavatories. One of the cubicle doors was closed but there was clearly blood on the floor coming from the inside. The man had tried to open the door but it would not budge. He banged on the door but had no response. At that he decided to fetch some help. A clerk from reception and a porter went to investigate. The porter, an agile Malay, climbed the door frame and saw over the top that a man was slumped back on the lavatory seat fully clothed but bleeding profusely from the neck. Together all three of them managed to force the door open. They found Raoul Gimenez sitting back with his jugular vein severed. A razor-sharp six-inch blade had fallen to the floor at the side of the pan. Raoul had killed himself.

The police had been called, an ambulance and a doctor. As we spoke, the doctor came from the washroom and spoke to Naish. Naish turned to us and said to Roxanne, ‘Would you mind, Mrs Gimenez, identifying Mr Gimenez? I know it will be shocking, but we should do it.’

Roxanne was pale with anxiety and trembling slightly. She blanched even more at his suggestion. I said, ‘Look, if it helps, I’ll identify him. I’m a good friend.’ I found that sickening to say in the case of Raoul but in the circumstances it was necessary. I also showed Naish my press card. Naish thought it a good idea and commented that Roxanne should see Raoul’s corpse later, and turning to me he added
sotto voce
, ‘When things have been tidied up a bit.’

Raoul lay on a stretcher in the middle of the floor of the washroom. A paramedic uncovered him and I took a close look. Most of the washroom was a complete mess; there was so much blood. The medics had cleaned around Raoul’s neck and what surprised me was the neatness of the incision that had opened up the jugular vein. It was almost surgical and I wondered then how Raoul would have managed such a precise piece of surgery. It was at that moment that I started thinking that Raoul would not have been able to do that himself; perhaps someone else had done it. Maybe he had been murdered. Uri and the Agency were the obvious perpetrators. Raoul’s death could have been stage-managed and made to look like suicide. Uri’s outfit were specialists in deception. Of course I said nothing to Naish; I kept my thoughts to myself. If it were an assassination, I thought how ironic. Raoul had overseen Mark’s throat being cut; now he lay there having suffered the same fate. There was a terrible, fatal contrast between a murder in Tallinn and this bloodied corpse in the Ritz, London.

That night I stayed with Roxanne. She was withdrawn and distant. I could not penetrate her thoughts. In bed for a short time she allowed me to hold her in my arms but then gently pushed me away, turned on her side and whispered that she needed to think. I lay there wondering about Raoul’s fate.

It was impossible that he should have committed suicide. Raoul was not that sort of man. The act did not fit his personality. Anyway, Uri had been definitive about what should happen to him. I considered his corpse. The jugular slit was surgical, small but effective. I could not see Raoul administering with clinical objectivity the scalpel cut himself. I remembered that there were marks, almost weals, at each side of his mouth as if he had been gagged with a cord, a nylon cord or a jute sash-window cord. It had been done for him, the deft incision that enabled his life to flood away. The set-up of his suicide had been contrived; but the investigators would soon see, as I had done, that it was murder. Why the Agency wanted to present a charade of suicide, I was at a loss to know; perhaps they wanted to provide the police with an easy story. Anyway, I was convinced that the Agency had acted swiftly. The opportunity had presented itself, information provided by me, and the deed had been efficiently executed. Myrex’s chief actor had departed the stage.

Throughout the night I woke from time to time. I sensed that Roxanne drifted in and out of sleep; she was deeply disturbed. I knew that she could not think that Raoul had taken his own life. She suppressed talking about it. In the early hours of the morning I saw a new life opening for me. Roxanne and I would live together. The towering figure of Raoul was no longer there to inhibit us. The prospect actually excited me.

The reality turned out to be somewhat different. When Roxanne got up early that next morning she was still distant, preoccupied with her own thoughts. I ordered breakfast to be sent up to Raoul’s suite. She immediately said that she would return straight away to Spain. She needed to be on her own; she needed to sort things out.

‘What will become of Myrex?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Presumably it will be up to the board. There are people who will help work that problem out.’

She commented contemptuously, ‘Myrex is nothing without Raoul. Nothing.’ I was surprised by the degree of dislike, even contempt, in her remark.

‘Of course, it might not even survive. Scandal and suspicion might ruin confidence in Myrex. Clients and partners might want to distance themselves from it. I’ve seen it happen before.’

I reflected silently that much would depend on the Agency and Willy’s outfit. They could both ensure Myrex’s demise. They could arrange adverse publicity and spread damaging rumour. It was their trade. I envisaged directors in the marketplace looking for a job.

Roxanne left that afternoon. I looked forward to her return. We said goodbye. There was no passion in her embrace and those last kisses. She had changed. It was as though her blood ran cold. She was indifferent to me. Our parting was something to be endured.