‘So if Nigel had wanted to, he could have turfed his father out of his own houses.’
‘Yes. Because they weren’t his own houses. They were Nigel’s.’
‘And what about the business? He still seemed in charge there.’
‘Only in an advisory capacity. He made no profit from any of it.’
‘Good God. So there again Nigel could have ousted him.’
‘Could have done, but wasn’t daft. He knew the business depended completely on his father’s skill and instinct. No, Steen had organised it all very meticulously to avoid death duties. Nigel has been an incredibly wealthy young man for years.’
‘How wealthy?’
‘Certainly worth more than a million.’
‘Shit.’ Charles was impressed. ‘And if none of this had been done what sort of death duties would have been charged?’
‘80 per cent.’
‘Blimey. The Government gets its pound of flesh, doesn’t it. But Steen didn’t go the full seven years.’
‘No, he died just before the six came up. So estate duty is only going to be reduced by 30 per cent. Makes a nasty hole in Nigel’s assumed possessions.’
‘And certainly rules out any motive for murder.’
‘Yes. The only motive for killing Marius Steen could he sheer bloody-mindedness on somebody’s part-a desire to make things really difficult for Nigel. Is there anyone around who hates him that much?’
Though everyone seemed to despise Nigel, Charles hadn’t met anyone whose feeling seemed strong enough to amount to hatred. It was Marius Steen who inspired violent emotions, not his son. ‘And there’s no mention of any legacy to Jacqui in the will?’
‘None at all.’
‘Hmm. I wonder what Marius Steen’s letter meant.’
Charles felt depressed as he walked through Soho to Archer Street that evening. For a start there was the gloomy news he had to pass on to Jacqui. And then London itself was depressing. It was cold and dark. Display lighting was out, as Edward Heath began his schoolmasterish campaign of mass deprivation, keeping the whole country in until the miners owned up that they were in the wrong. Time would show that the campaign had misjudged the reactions of the British public. Shops were dark, cold and uninviting. Familiar landmarks, like the neons of theatres and cinemas, disappeared. It was like the blackout, which Charles could suddenly remember with great clarity. A fifteen-year-old in grey flannel wandering around London in school holidays with an adolescent’s apocalyptic vision, praying that he would lose his virginity before the bombs came and blasted him to oblivion.
He took a couple of wrong turnings in the gloom and was angry when he reached Jacqui’s flat. He prepared an account of the will situation to break to her brutally. There was no point in kid gloves; she had to know sooner or later.
But he didn’t get the chance to drop his thunderbolt. Jacqui opened the door in a state of high excitement, more colour and animation in her face than he had seen since the Steen affair started. ‘Charles, come in. Bartlemas and O’Rourke are here!’
William Bartlemas and Kevin O’Rourke were a legend in the world of British theatre. They were a middle- aged couple, whose main activity was the collection of memorabilia of the two great actors, Edmund Kean and William Macready. Bartlemas had an enormous private income, and the pair of them lived in a tall Victorian house in Islington, which was filled to the brim with play-bills, prints, prompt copies, figurines and other souvenirs of their two heroes. They identified with them totally. Bartlemas was Kean, and O’Rourke Macready. In theory they were writing a book on the actors, but long since the fascination of collection for its own sake had taken over and work on the collation of evidence ceased. They spent all their time travelling round the British Isles, visiting auctions and antique shops, following hints and rumours, searching for more and more relics of their idols. But they always rushed back to London for the first night of every West End show. It was a point of honour that, if they were in the country, they’d be there, sitting in the middle of the fifth row of the stalls, both resplendent in Victorian evening dress, clutching shiny top hats and silver-topped canes. Quite what their role in British theatre was, was hard to define, but they knew everyone, everyone knew them and managements even came to regard their presence on a first night as an essential good luck charm. In the camper and more superstitious regions of the theatre world you’d often hear the sentence, ‘My dear, Bartlemas and O’Rourke weren’t there. The notices’ll be up within the week’.
In appearance they fell rather short of their ideals. William Bartlemas was not tall, probably only about five foot seven, but his angular body gave the illusion of height and his knobbly limbs moved with adolescent awkwardness. His head was crowned with an astonished crest of dyed hair. It had that brittle crinkly texture born of much hairdressing, and was ginger, of a brightness to which nature has always been too shy to aspire. Kevin O’Rourke was tiny, with the pugnacious stance of a jockey and all the aggression of a butterfly. He was balding, and had countered the problem by combing what remained forward in a Royal Shakespeare Company Roman Plays style. The dyed black hair was as tight as skin over his head, except at the front where there was a curly fringe like the edge of a pie-crust. The two always dressed identically-a grotesque pair of Beverley sisters. Today they were in oyster grey velvet. Meeting Bartlemas and O’Rourke was an unforgettable experience, and a fairly exhausting one. They talked non-stop in an elaborate relay race, one picking up the thread as soon as the other paused for breath.
They were delighted to see Charles. He had only met them once briefly at a party, but they remembered him effusively. ‘Charles Paris,’ said Bartlemas, ‘lovely to see you. Haven’t talked since that marvellous Bassanio you did at the Vic’ — that had been fifteen years before-‘lovely performance.’
‘Yes,’ said O’Rourke, ‘you always were such a clever actor…’
‘Sensational,’ said Bartlemas. ‘What are you up to now? My dear, we’ve just been on the most shattering binge in North Africa.’
‘For months and months and months…’
‘In Morocco, of course. O’Rourke disgraced himself continually. So much to drink, my dear, it wasn’t true…’
‘And Bartlemas almost got arrested more than once…’
‘Oh, I didn’t. Not really…’
‘You did, dear, you did. I saw it all. This Moroccan policeman was watching you with a distinctly beady eye. And I don’t think it was your perfection of form that intrigued him…’
‘Well, be that as it may. We go off, we leave the collection and everything, miss all those divine first nights, just simply to have a holiday, to get away from everything…’
‘But everything…’
‘And we come back to hear this shattering news about Marius. Oh, it’s too sad.’
‘Too sad. We were just telling Jacqui here, we are absolutely desolated…’
‘I mean he was so strong. And such a chum too…’
‘I don’t know how we’ll survive without him, I really don’t.’
‘It’s terrifying. If someone like Marius who was so robust…’
‘So full of living…’
‘If he can just pop off like that…’
‘Then what chance is there for the rest of us?’
They both sat back, momentarily exhausted. Charles opened his mouth to speak, but missed the chance. ‘So of course,’ said Bartlemas, ‘as soon as we heard the ghastly news about Marius, we just had to rush round here…’
‘Immediately,’ said O’Rourke. ‘Because of our secret.’
They paused dramatically and gave Jacqui time to say, ‘Charles, they’ve got a new will. Marius made another will.’
Charles looked round at Bartlemas and O’Rourke. They were glowing with importance. ‘Yes,’ said Bartlemas, ‘we witnessed the will and he gave it to us to look after it…’
‘Which is a pity,’ said O’Rourke, ‘because that means we can’t inherit anything…’
‘Not that he had anything we’d really like to inherit. I mean, nothing to do with Edmund and William…’
‘No, but it would have been nice to have a little memento, wouldn’t it, Bartlemas?’
