There was a great deal of Michael Banks memorabilia about. Photographs, framed posters, the odd award statuette. Whatever the nature of their relationship, it was clear that husband and wife had shared the same flat.
Charles was looking at a film still of Banks in one of his most famous roles as the captain of a doomed frigate, when Dottie came back from the kitchen with a bottle of champagne.
‘You open this.’
‘Fine.’
‘There are some things I always feel men do better than women.’
Charles recognised that there would come a point when one found this relentless sexual innuendo irritating. But he knew he hadn’t reached that point yet. He put down the still and took the champagne bottle.
‘Yes, poor Micky.’ Dotty Banks sighed. ‘Poor, poor Micky.’
It was said without any sense of tragedy, but with affection.
‘It must be pretty awful for you, having lost him.’ The cork popped and Charles caught the spume in a tall glass.
‘Yes, of course I miss him. Not as much as I would have expected, in some ways.’ Dottie shrugged. ‘I mean, as a marriage, it wasn’t, well, it wasn’t a marriage in the conventional sense. We got on well, we went around together quite a bit, we were nice to each other, but we always. . had our own friends.’
She looked at him unequivocally, so Charles asked the direct question. ‘You mean you both had affairs?’
‘But Micky didn’t?’
‘He had. . friendships.’
‘I see.’ So perhaps Lesley-Jane had been telling the truth in her description of the relationship. Just a few meals.
‘What I mean, Charles, is that sex wasn’t very high on Micky’s list of priorities.’
‘Ah. . Well, some people don’t have much of a sex-drive,’ Charles observed fatuously, aware that his own was revving up like mad.
‘In Micky’s case, he didn’t have any.’
‘Sex-drive?’
‘None at all.’ She shook her head to punctuate the words. ‘He couldn’t do it anymore.’
‘Ah.’ Charles wasn’t sure whether to say he was sorry or not. He didn’t know the correct etiquette for replying to a lady who’s just told you her recently-murdered husband was impotent.
‘This made us, in certain respects, incompatible.’ Dottie Banks emphasised the obvious by placing her hand on Charles’s thigh.
‘Ah. Well. Yes. I can see that.’
Her fingertips started to move gently up and down. He felt it would soon be the moment to make a move, and her behaviour left him in little doubt as to what sort of move it should be. Indeed, the only question seemed to be whether he should even bother to make a move, or just let her do everything for him.
But, even then, the nagging thought in his mind would not go away. ‘Dottie, about Micky’s death. .’
‘Uhuh.’ She was now leaning over towards him and breathing very close to his ear. He could feel the hard outline of her breasts against his upper arm.
‘Did you think there was anything odd about it?’
‘Odd?’ she murmured. ‘Well, no odder than any other murder that takes place on stage during the first night of a new play, when the leading actor is shot dead by his understudy.’
‘No, I just thought you, knowing Micky so well, might have. .’
‘Uhuh.’ She shook her head, which wobbled the ear she was now nibbling in a way that he found extremely stimulating.
But he still sat still, puzzling, the scene of the murder running like an old movie in his mind.
‘Did you come here,’ mumbled Dottie, very close, ‘to ask me fatuous questions the police have already been through a hundred times, or for other reasons?’
‘For other reasons,’ he assured her, though deep down he wasn’t certain.
‘Well then,’ she said, ‘are you paralysed?’
His hands, sliding from her hair to her neck and down inside the filmy black blouse, denied the imputation. And, after the two of them had slipped down on to the expensive and discreet rug, the rest of his body also demonstrated its unimpaired mobility.
They moved from the rug to the king-size bed for a second demonstration, after which they lay entwined.
Charles was beginning to wonder whether he actually liked Dottie or not. Her intimacy seemed completely impersonal, and he did rather like being appreciated for himself.
Also, his best efforts did not seem sufficient to her. She didn’t say anything, but the way she toyed with him suggested she wanted him to be demonstrating all day like a vacuum cleaner salesman.
At last she realised that, for a little while, her ambitions were vain. She lay back.
‘You know you asked if there was anything I thought odd about Micky’s death.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, there was one thing. One tiny thing. So tiny I’ve only just thought of it.’
‘What?’
‘Well, you know when you spend a lot of time with someone, you get used to how they speak, their mannerisms and so on. .’
‘Yes.’
‘Just before Micky died, he said something I’ve never heard him say before.’
‘What was that?’
‘He said, “Oh Lord!” I’ve never heard him say that before. “Oh God,” yes. “Oh Christ,” many times. But not “Oh Lord”.’
‘Good Lord!’
‘No “
‘No, I mean just “Good Lord!” you know, “Good Lord!”’
‘Hmm?’
‘Never mind. Look, Micky never said “Oh Lord!”, but Alex Household was always saying it.’
‘Oh, was he? Oh well, that explains it.’
‘How?’
‘Alex Household must have said it just before he shot the gun; Micky heard it over the deaf-aid and just repeated it.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
Dottie’s hands were once again busying themselves. ‘Hmm. I don’t know, Dottie. I keep wishing there was another solution to this murder.’
‘How can there be? Alex Household shot Micky. That’s the only possible solution.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Charles conceded, disgruntled. ‘I have to admit, it’s the best I can come up with.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’
But Dottie was no longer talking about the murder.
After the third demonstration, Charles said he’d better go, and Dottie, recognising that she’d had all she was getting, took a sleeping pill and let him.
In the taxi back to Hereford Road, Charles felt despicable. Sex without any element of love, or even affection, always had that effect on him.
But this time it seemed worse. It was her taking the sleeping pill that had cone it. It had reduced him to the same level, just another anonymous treatment that her body had required.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
