recognisable. She was talking enthusiastically, surrounded by a crowd of journalists. He felt a momentary pang of jealousy, a desire to go over and claim her. But no, she was right. Better to keep it quiet. Later they’d be together. The thought warmed him.
‘Hello.’ Pam Northcliffe wormed her way between a green velvet suit and a coat of dishcloth chain mail. She looked flushed and breathless. There was an empty glass in her hand which Charles filled from a jug on the table. ‘Oh Lord.’ She took a sip at it. ‘A few people, aren’t there?’
‘Just a few. How are you?’
‘Oh. Pissed, I think.’ She giggled at the audacity of her vocabulary. He was surprised. He felt he could have poured that pink fluid into himself for a year and not registered on the most sensitive breathalyser. Still, Pam claimed to be pissed and certainly she was much more relaxed and forthcoming on what she thought of her fellow- students. A wicked humour flashed into her observations and at times she even looked attractive.
Charles decided that this confidential mood was too good to waste from the point of view of his investigations. The crowd was beginning to thin out, but he did not want to lose her. ‘You rehearsing now?’
‘No, they’re doing the Dream at seven thirty-a run as-per performance. I’ll be doing props for the revue at eleven-if I’m sober enough.’
‘Come and have another drink. That’ll sober you up.
She giggled. ‘Everywhere’s closed on a Sunday.’
‘No. We can go up to the Traverse.’
The Traverse Theatre Club had moved since Charles had last been there doing a strange Durrenmatt play in 1968. But he found the new premises and managed to re-establish his membership. (The girl on the box-office was distrustful until he explained his credentials as a genuine actor and culture-lover. Too many people tried to join for the club’s relaxed drinking hours rather than its theatrical milestones.)
The media contingent from the Royal Mile Centre seemed to have been transplanted bodily to the Traverse bar. But the crush was less and Charles and Pam found a round wooden table to sit on. He fought to the counter and brought back two glasses of red wine as trophies. ‘Cheers, Pam.’
‘Cheers.’ She took a long swallow. Then she looked at him. ‘Thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘Bringing me here.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘No, it’s kind of you. I know it’s only because you feel sorry for me.’
‘Well, I…’ He was embarrassed. He had not done it for that reason, but his real motive was not much more defensible. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re just being kind. Taking me out of myself. And I appreciate it.’ She spoke without rancour. ‘I know I’m not very attractive.’
He laughed uneasily. ‘Oh, come on. What’s that got to do with it? I mean, not that you aren’t attractive, but I mean… Can’t I just ask you for a drink because I like your company? Do you take me for a dirty old man? I’m old enough to be your father.’ (And, incidentally, old enough to be Anna’s father.)
He was floundering. Fortunately Pam did not seem to notice; she wanted to talk about her predicament. ‘I never realised how important being pretty was. When I lived at home, my parents kept saying I was all right and I suppose I believed them. Then, when I went to Derby, all that was taken away. What you looked like was the only thing that mattered and I was ugly.’ Charles could not think of anything helpful to say. She seemed quite rational, not self-pitying, glad of an audience. She continued, ‘You had to have a man.’
‘Or at least fancy one?’
‘Yes. A frustrated romance was better than nothing. You had to assert yourself sort of… sexually. You know what I mean?’
Charles nodded. ‘Yes. Have a sexual identity. At best a lover, at worst an idol.’ He played his bait out gently. ‘A public figure, maybe
… A symbol… Perhaps just a poster…’
Pam flushed suddenly and he knew he had a bite. ‘I found the poster torn up in the dustbin.’
‘Ah.’ She looked down shamefaced.
‘Did you love Willy Mariello?’
‘No. It was just… I don’t know. All this pressure, and then Puce came to play at the Union and I met him. And, you know, he was a rock star…’
‘Potent symbol.’
‘Yes. And lots of the other girls in the hail of residence thought he was marvellous and bought posters and…’ She looked up defiantly. ‘It’s terrible emotional immaturity, I know. But I am emotionally immature. Thanks to a middle-class upbringing. It was just a schoolgirl crush.’
‘Did you know him well?’
‘No, that’s what makes it so pathetic. I mean, I knew him to say hello to, but nothing more. He didn’t notice me.’
‘You never slept with him?’
Her eyes opened wide. ‘Oh Lord, no.’
‘So why the rush to get rid of the poster?’
‘I don’t know. That was daft. I was just so confused-what with the death, and the police asking all those questions…, and then you asking questions… I don’t know. I got paranoid. I thought somehow if my things were searched and they found the poster that I’d be incriminated or… I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight.’
It rang true. The brief mystery of the poster was explained. But there must be more to be found out from Pam. ‘What did you feel about Willy when he was dead?’
‘Shock. I mean, I hadn’t seen a dead body before.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘No sense of loss?’
‘Not really. I mean, it wasn’t real love, just something I’d built up in my mind. In a way his death got it out of my system, made me realise that I didn’t really feel a thing for him. Anyway, it had been fading ever since we came up here.’
‘As you saw more of him?’
‘Yes.’ She grinned ruefully. ‘He became more real. Just an ordinary man. And perhaps not a very nice one. Anyway, I didn’t really feel the same about him after that business with Lesley…’ Charles picked up the last few words as if they were the ash of a vital document in a murderer’s fireplace. ‘Business with Lesley?’
‘Yes, I…’ well, I haven’t mentioned it to anyone, but… it may be nothing, just the way it seemed…’
‘What?’
‘It was after we’d been up here about a week. Willy suddenly started to take an interest in Lesley-that’s Lesley Petter who-’
‘I know about her. Go on.’
‘I think he was probably after her, fancied her, I don’t know. Anyway, one evening, after we’d been rehearsing, we were all having coffee back at Coates Gardens and Willy said he was going for a walk up to the Castle and did anyone want to come with him. Well, I said yes sort of straight off, because, you know, I thought he was marvellous and… But then I realised that he’d only said that as a sort of prearranged signal to Lesley. It was meant to be just the two of them.
‘I was awfully embarrassed, but I couldn’t say I wouldn’t go when I realised. So the three of us set off and I dawdled or went ahead or
… wishing like anything I wasn’t there.
‘We went up to the Castle Esplanade and wandered around, and I, feeling more and more of a gooseberry, went on ahead on the way back. I started off down the steps that go down to Johnstone Terrace.’
‘Castle Wynd South.’
‘Is that what it’s called, yes. Anyway, I was nearly at the bottom, and suddenly I heard this scream. I turned round and saw Lesley, with her arms and legs flailing, falling down the steps.’
‘And that was how she broke her leg?’
‘Yes. I rushed up to where she’d managed to stop herself, and Willy rushed down. She was in terrible pain
