The Zig Zag Girl (14 page)

The scratch of a gramophone needle, a blast of Offenbach and a woman appeared from behind the curtain. The music stopped abruptly and, accompanied only by wheezy breathing and the hiss of the gas fire, Suzette proceeded to remove her dress.

Edgar thought that he’d scarcely seen anything sadder than this desolate striptease. He’d been to a strip club once before (with Tony, of course) and then he remembered that there had at least been some semblance of enjoyment from the participants. And the audience had clearly been having the time of their lives, whooping and cat-calling. Here although, with the exception of Max, everyone was watching Suzette, nobody seemed to be enjoying the spectacle very much. The club members stared solidly ahead, occasionally raising their pint glasses to their lips. And Suzette, pulling off petticoat, bra and, finally, pants, could have been getting undressed for bed. No, not for bed (which would presuppose some pleasurable anticipation), for an examination at the doctor’s. When, naked, she gyrated half-heartedly in front of them, Edgar almost expected to hear a dispassionate medical voice ask, ‘Where does it hurt, dear?’

Edgar turned back to Max, who was staring morosely into his drink.

‘God, how depressing. I only hope she gets paid well for this.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Max.

‘Think her name’s really Suzette?’

‘Who knows. I had a girlfriend called Emerald once. She had a snake-charming act.’

Edgar watched as Suzette parked herself on the lap of a distinctly unenthralled spectator. Suddenly he thought of Charis and her room at the Caledonian, how the pale Scottish sunlight had embraced her as she had stood in front of him, her hair like fire. She liked to walk around naked, doing ordinary things like pulling the curtains and lighting the lamps, teasing him with her beauty.

Almost without knowing it, he stood up.

‘Siddown,’ shouted a voice at the back of the room.

‘I’m off,’ said Edgar to Max, ‘See you outside.’

But, as he crossed the room, Suzie finished her spot and, gathering up her clothes, disappeared behind the curtain. This time the doorman was saying, with markedly less enthusiasm, ‘It’s time for Mr Magico.’

And Edgar heard a familiar voice offering to make a coin pass through a bottle.

‘Diablo!’ said Edgar, before he could stop himself.

The old man peered across the dark room. ‘Edgar? It that you, dear boy?’

‘Geddon with it,’ shouted a voice from one of the tables.

Diablo was still looking eagerly towards the direction of Edgar’s voice.

‘Edgar? What are you doing here? Is Max with you?’

‘I’m here,’ Max spoke from the bar.

‘Max!’ Face wreathed in smiles, Diablo reached out to shake his hand.

‘Get on with your act, you old fool,’ said the doorman.

‘My act, yes.’ Diablo looked down at the bottle in his hand in apparent bewilderment. ‘I’m now going to pass this bottle through the coin … No, the coin through the bottle …’

The audience started to boo.

‘No, hold on a second,’ pleaded Diablo. ‘In one hand I have a sealed bottle. In the other I have a coin, an ordinary
coin of the realm.’ He opened his hand. It was empty. The booing grew louder.

‘Do some magic,’ hissed the doorman, ‘or you’re out.’

Diablo still continued to stare at his empty palm. Edgar stood rooted to the spot by the door. He wanted to rescue Diablo, to floor the doorman, to silence the crowd. But how and in which order? While he dithered, Max strode forward. Gently, he took the bottle from Diablo’s hand.

‘Come on, old chap. Let’s get out of here.’

‘You’re fired,’ said the doorman.

‘He’s been fired from better places than this,’ said Max.

He placed the bottle in the doorman’s hand, turned it upside down once and then rattled it to show the half-crown that was now inside.

‘Consider it a tip,’ he said. ‘Come on, Ed.’

And the three of them trooped out of the club.

*

Outside it was dark and cold. Diablo shivered in his thin jacket. He was wearing fairly presentable evening dress, but it looked too big on him. The trousers were held up by jaunty green braces. The shirt was stained with what looked like red wine.

‘Let’s go back to the Star,’ said Max. ‘Have a meal, get Diablo a bed for the night.’

‘Anything you say, dear boy,’ said Diablo, tucking his arm into Max’s. He seemed quite unfazed by the events of the night.

After shepherd’s pie, served by Max’s barmaid friend, Diablo became more expansive.

‘What are you two doing here? Bit far from the bright lights, Yarmouth.’

‘We came to see you,’ said Max, leaning back and lighting a cigarette.

‘To see me?’ Diablo cocked his head on one side, looking like a rather dishevelled parrot.

‘A few things have happened,’ said Edgar. ‘We think they may be linked to the Magic Men.’

‘The Magic Men,’ repeated Diablo. To Edgar’s surprise, there were tears in his eyes. ‘Those were the days, weren’t they? The fun we had.’

Edgar had grown used to thinking of the Magic Men years as purgatory. A limbo of tedium, followed by the heaven of his affair with Charis and the hell of her death. It hadn’t occurred to him that to Diablo they were halcyon days.

‘We did have some fun,’ he said, realising that this was true. ‘But this is a bit more serious. It’s about murder.’

‘Murder?’ Diablo’s still watery eyes were round with surprise.

‘Edgar’s a policeman now,’ said Max.

‘A bobby? Bless my soul. I thought you were such a clever chap.’

‘I’m not the clever one,’ said Edgar. ‘That was Max, if you remember. Look, Diablo, this will come as a shock. Prepare yourself. It’s about Tony.’

‘Tony? What’s the young fool done now?’

‘Got himself murdered,’ said Edgar. He told Diablo the whole story, about Ethel’s dismembered body, about Tony
and the sword cabinet. He wondered why he was telling Diablo things that he had deliberately withheld from Bill. The old magician was a good audience. He listened attentively, occasionally sipping his wine. The bottle in front of him was almost empty, but he didn’t seem even slightly drunk. In fact, the meal and the company seemed to have revived him to an extraordinary extent.

At the end of Edgar’s story, Diablo said, ‘Poor old Tony. That wasn’t the way I expected him to go.’

‘How did you expect him to go?’ asked Max.

‘Oh, heart attack in a penthouse surrounded by dancing girls. That sort of thing. You know I saw him recently? Here in Yarmouth.’

‘Yes, we heard that,’ said Edgar. ‘What was Tony doing in Yarmouth?’

‘What do any of us do anywhere?’ asked Diablo. ‘He was on the bill at the Windmill. He had a comedy act. I went to see him. Just to be kind, you know, but it wasn’t my sort of thing at all. I told him, dear boy, stick to magic. The public will never get bored with seeing a rabbit appear out of a hat. But, no, Tony said the money was in comedy. Magic was dead, he said. He was going to make it big in television, be a millionaire in five years, that sort of talk.’

Edgar wondered whether Diablo had persuaded Tony to part with any of his beloved cash. On balance, he thought not. Diablo was a good hustler, but Tony kept his wallet close.

‘He was on the bill with me in Brighton,’ said Max. ‘A
comedy act with a few mind-tricks. He was working quite well, but it didn’t seem to click for some reason.’

‘When you met Tony,’ said Edgar, ‘did he say whether he’d been in touch with anyone else from the Magic Men?’

‘Yes,’ said Diablo, much to Edgar’s surprise. ‘I know he’d seen the Major.’

‘Major Gormley? Really?’ Edgar looked at Max. Didn’t the Major say that he hadn’t seen any of the Magic Men in years?

‘Yes. Said he’d seen the Major and he was as stiff-necked as ever. Got the impression that they might have quarrelled.’

‘What about?’

Diablo laughed. ‘When did Tony ever need an excuse to quarrel? Boy had a positive genius for getting under your skin. Not to speak ill of the dead, of course.’

‘What about Bill? Had he seen Bill?’

‘I don’t think so. Bill got married. Did you know?’

‘Yes,’ said Max. ‘We went to see them. They’ve got a very small house and a very big baby.’

‘He married Jean Whitby, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Edgar. ‘I didn’t remember her, but she was at Inverness.’

‘You must remember Jean, dear boy. She had a thumping great crush on you.’

Edgar stared at him. ‘On me?’

‘Yes. Don’t you remember? Oh, most of them fancied Max, but little Jean had a real thing for you. She was always hanging round asking questions.’

‘I don’t remember,’ said Edgar again, but even as he said it, a picture flickered in his brain, a tiny flash of light. Coming back from the dock where they’d been working on the
Ptolemy
, a blonde girl walking up the towpath with them, asking endless questions about boats and camouflage, Tony’s voice saying, ‘Haven’t you got a home to go to, Jean?’

‘The Major said that he’d been visited by a girl,’ said Max, ‘a journalist. Has anyone been pestering you, asking about the Magic Men?’

Now Diablo laughed in earnest, wiping his eyes on his napkin. ‘Dear boy, it’s been years since a girl pestered me: 1921, to be exact. Summer season at the Palladium. Shall we order another bottle?’

*

Edgar woke the next morning feeling very much the worse for wear. Max, he remembered from old, was able to drink all night without it seeming to affect him at all, and even Diablo had the iron constitution of a hardened drinker. Last night, after the wine, they had moved on to brandy. Edgar dimly remembered sitting in the hotel’s parlour under a portrait of Nelson and listening to Diablo reminisce about Vesta Tilley, pantomime dames and girls you didn’t have to wine and dine before kissing them. When Edgar had finally staggered off to bed, Max and Diablo were still sitting by the gas fire; Max in shadow, the light glinting off his balloon glass, Diablo performing his famous ashtray routine.

But, when Edgar braved the Terrace Room for breakfast, there was Diablo, bright and breezy, demolishing bacon
and fried bread. There was no sign of Max, but that was only to be expected. Max didn’t like mornings, never ate breakfast and thought fried bread was the invention of the devil.

‘Morning, dear boy,’ Diablo greeted him. ‘Can I pour you some tea? There’s still some in the pot.’

‘Thank you,’ said Edgar faintly.

Diablo poured the tea, humming ‘Mary from the Dairy’ under his breath. Last night he had looked a hundred, an old man worn out by drink, poverty and years of touring seaside towns offering to pass a coin through a bottle. But, this morning, though he was still dressed in a crumpled dinner jacket and bow tie, there was a determined cheerfulness about the old magician, a sense that he would rise again another day. God, these old pros are tough, thought Edgar, wincing as he swallowed the lukewarm tea, a year on the variety circuit would kill him, but here was Diablo, who must be at least eighty, homeless and penniless, settling down to his breakfast as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

The barmaid from last night appeared with more tea. Edgar requested some toast.

‘No bacon?’ said Diablo. ‘They keep pigs, you know.’

‘No thank you.’

Fresh tea revived Edgar slightly. They would have to set off for Brighton that morning. He had already taken too much time off. Had they gained anything from the trip to Yarmouth? Only the knowledge that Tony had met Major Gormley fairly recently and that they had quarrelled.
Did that get them any further? As Diablo had said, Tony had been capable of quarrelling with almost anyone. He would have to get a list of everyone who had been on the bill with Tony over the last few years. There was bound to be some bad feeling somewhere. Bad feeling had followed Tony like a cloud. He had to make some progress on this case before anything else happened …

But it seemed that Diablo had also been thinking about the future.

‘You know, dear boy,’ he said, wiping his hands delicately on a napkin. ‘I’ve been thinking. To tell you the truth, Yarmouth is pretty flat at this time of year. I was thinking that I might go back to Brighton with you. Lovely place, Brighton. Always feel years younger when I can breathe in the sea air.’ He sniffed hopefully, one eye on Edgar.

‘Of course you can come back with us,’ said Edgar. ‘But what …?’ He meant to say, what will you do? Where will you stay? But Diablo waved aside these questions with an airy hand. ‘Something will turn up. It always does.’

‘Do you need to collect your things?’ said Edgar, feeling as though events were moving rather fast. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘And how much do you owe there?’ said a voice behind them. Max had materialised, immaculately dressed as usual, cigarette in hand.

‘Good morning, Max,’ said Diablo. ‘Care for some tea?’

Max shuddered. ‘No thanks. I was asking how much you owed at your digs.’

Diablo looked hurt, ‘I always pay my way.’

‘We called in at the Nelson yesterday.’

Diablo was unabashed. ‘Did you? Lovely people. Always enjoyed my magic tricks.’

*

Max drove Diablo to his lodgings to collect his belongings. ‘I’ll take my chequebook,’ he said to Edgar. ‘I’m not sure I’ll have enough cash on me to pay the old devil’s bar bill.’

Edgar waited for them in the front parlour watched sardonically by Admiral Nelson. He paced the room, feeling obscurely resentful. It was all very well for Max to swan in, paying Diablo’s bills, whisking him out of that dive last night, performing the bottle trick as an encore. This was supposed to be Edgar’s show. He was a policeman and this was still a police case. He wandered into the bar. The place was deserted apart from the barmaid half-heartedly wiping tables. She seemed to do everything. She’d probably cooked breakfast too. And slaughtered the pig. Edgar said a polite good morning and made his way back to the lobby. There was a public telephone by the reception desk, but, with an odd twist of loneliness, Edgar realised that there was no one who would really welcome a telephone call from him. His mother had a phone, but she viewed it with extreme suspicion. He could just hear her voice, ‘But why are you calling, dear? What’s wrong?’ His sister would be friendly but impatient. She had her own life; doctor’s receptionist and mother of three noisy sons. She wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted in the middle of some urgent domestic or clerical task just because he was in Yarmouth
and feeling sorry for himself. In the end, he telephoned Bob at the police station. Might as well try to do his job well, even if his personal life was non-existent. And Bob was at least paid to be polite to him.

‘Who’s that?’ said Bob. ‘Ed who?’

‘Your boss,’ said Edgar. ‘Have there been any developments?’

‘What sort of developments?’ said Bob cautiously.

Edgar counted to ten. ‘Anything you think I might need to know.’

‘Well, something was delivered for you yesterday.’

Edgar’s heart contracted. He thought of the black box addressed to Captain Edgar Stephens. The stench that had Sergeant McGuire backing away, retching. The sight that greeted him when he opened the lid.

‘What sort of thing? A package?’

‘No. A letter. Hand-delivered.’

‘Who’s it addressed to?’

There was a brief pause. ‘To you.’

This time Edgar counted to twenty. ‘The exact name.’

‘Captain E. Stephens.’

‘Open it.’

A maddeningly long silence, interspersed with the sound of a letter-opener and Bob telling someone called Cathy that he liked it strong with two sugars.

‘For God’s sake,’ Edgar exploded. ‘Forget your tea break and tell me what’s in the bloody letter.’

Another silence, an offended one this time. ‘It’s a photograph,’ said Bob.

‘A photograph? Of what?’

‘A group of people standing by a boat, a battleship. They look like soldiers except one’s wearing a straw hat. Oh, one of them’s you …’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You look a lot younger though. There’s someone who looks like that magician friend of yours, Max Mephisto. And there’s a girl on the end. She’s quite pretty.’

Quite pretty
? Even after all these years, Edgar bristled at this description of Charis, the most beautiful woman since Helen of Troy.

‘Anything else about the photo?’ he asked.

‘Well, one of the people has a cross over his face. It’s the man between you and Mephisto.’