CHAPTER SEVEN
In spite of logic, the feeling of treachery remained. Charles Paris had deserted his friend in a crisis. Charles Paris had incriminated his friend by his statement.
He had to do something. At least find out all the circumstances, at least check that no mistakes had been made.
He hurried back to the house in Hereford Road, went to the pay-phone on the landing and dialled Gerald Venables’s office number.
Gerald was a successful show business solicitor whom Charles had known since Oxford. Armed with a boyish enthusiasm for the whole business of detection, he had collaborated with Charles on one or two investigations, starting with the strange death of Marius Steen. In the current circumstances, it was an immediate instinct to ring Gerald.
An efficient, husky voice answered the phone.
‘Is that Polly?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Charles Paris. Could I speak to Gerald, please?’
‘I’m sorry, he’s not here.’
‘Oh, sod it. Is he on his way home?’
‘No, he’s out with a client, I’m afraid. He was called down to Breckton mid-morning and he’s been there all day.’
‘Oh my God, of course. He’s Hugo Mecken’s solicitor, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. That’s who he’s with. I gather you’ve heard the news.’
‘Yes.’ It wasn’t worth going into details of how he had been the first to hear it. ‘Stupid of me. I’d forgotten. Gerald sorted out Hugo’s divorce, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. And he was a bit shocked when he discovered what it was about this time.’
‘That I can believe. Look, Polly, have you any idea when he’ll be back? I mean, is he reckoning to go back to the office?’
‘No. He rang about half an hour ago to say he’d go straight to Dulwich from Breckton. And asked me to ring Mrs Venables and say he’d be late.’
‘Why didn’t, he ring her himself?’ Charles asked irrelevantly.
‘I think it sounds more businesslike if I do.’ Polly replied with a hint of humour.
Yes, that was Gerald all over. ‘Polly, when he says “very late”, what do you reckon that means?’
‘I honestly don’t know. He said I was to say ten-thirty at the earliest to Mrs Venables.’
‘Okay. Thanks, Polly. He didn’t say anything else about… you know, the case… or Hugo… or anything.’
‘No. Well, there isn’t really much to say, is there?’
‘I suppose not.’
Charles spent an unsatisfactory evening and drank too much. He thought of ringing Frances, but put it off again. Round eight he realized he hadn’t eaten for over twenty-four hours.
He didn’t feel hungry, but he thought he ought to have something.
Going out to a restaurant was too much effort. He was too jumpy to sit down and relax over a proper meal. He looked round the room. There was an opened packet of cornflakes on the table. No milk. He tried a handful. They were soft, cardboard.
He rooted through the grey-painted cupboard, shoving aside scripts, half-finished plays, empty bottles, socks and crisp packets. All he came up with was a tin of sardines without a key and a tin of curried beans.
The menu was dictated by his antiquated tin-opener, which wouldn’t grip on the sardine tin., He slopped the beans into a saucepan still furred with boiled milk from the previous week and put it on the gas-ring which was hidden discreetly behind a plastic curtain.
The curried beans didn’t improve anything. He took a long swill from the Bell’s bottle as a mouthwash. Except he didn’t spit it out.
Then he addressed his mind to thought. Serious thought. He had been in criminal situations before and he had even, by a mixture of luck and serendipity, solved crimes before. But this one mattered. He had to concentrate, sort it out. He was motivated by his affection for Hugo and his abiding sense of guilt.
His first assumption remained Hugo’s innocence. No logic for this, just a conviction.
If only he could see Hugo face to face, talk to him, ask him. Then he would know, he felt sure.
But how do you get to see a man who has just been arrested for murder? Gerald would know. All action seemed to hinge on speaking to Gerald.
Half past nine. The evening was passing, but slowly. Perhaps another generous Bell’s would speed up the process.
He looked at the floor through the slopping spirit in his glass. The image was refracted and distorted. Like his thought processes.
The obvious solution was that Hugo had killed his wife. In a wild reaction to the collapse of his dreams he had taken the terrible kamikaze course of the disillusioned romantic. ‘Yet each man kills the thing he loves…,’ as Oscar Wilde wrote in his despair.
The only way to escape the obvious, solution was to provide a feasible alternative. Either to prove Hugo was doing something else at the time that Charlotte was killed. Or to prove that someone else did it.
Charles’s brief experience of the Backstagers told him that emotions ran high in the group. Charlotte had antagonized the established stars by her success as Nina. Vee Winter, for one,, felt herself usurped by the newcomer.
But that kind of jealousy wasn’t sufficient motive for murder. A sexual impulse was more likely. A woman as beautiful as Charlotte was bound to cause reverberations wherever she went and no doubt her appearance among the Backstagers had let to the snapping-off of a few middle-aged husbands’ heads by middle-aged wives who saw eyes lingering with too much interest. Indeed, Charles had seen evidence of this with the Hobbses.
But that was still not something for which a sane person would kill.
It must be a closer attachment. Clive Steele. Charles thought back over the conversation he had heard in the car park. The young man’s passions had been demonstrably immature, but they had been strong. He was supposed to be away working in Melton Mowbray for the whole week, but it might be worth investigating his movements.
Or then again, why should the murderer have anything to do with the Backstagers? Charlotte did have other contacts. Not many but a few. Diccon Hudson, for instance. He had made some sour reference to having gone around with her before her marriage. Probably nothing there, but anything was worth looking into to save Hugo.
After all, Diccon could have been the mysterious lover of whom Hugo had spoken. Charles didn’t know whether to believe in this personage or not. It could just be a creation of Hugo’s fevered imagination. But if such a person did exist, the possible permutations of violent emotions were considerably increased.
Equally, if he did exist, Hugo’s motive for killing his wife was that much stronger. But Charles put the thought from his mind. He had to start by assuming Hugo’s innocence.
He was full of nervous excitement. He wanted to do something, get started, begin his task of atonement.
He looked at his watch. Twenty-five to eleven. Thank God, he could try Gerald again. The need to do something was now almost unbearable.
Kate, Gerald’s wife, sounded disgruntled. No, he wasn’t home yet. Yes, Charles could try again in half an hour if it was important, but not much later because she was going to bed.
Charles stood by the phone, seething with energy. There must be something else he could do. He could start piecing together Hugo’s movements from the time he left the Back Room on Monday night. Someone must have seen him leave, someone might even have walked him home. Details like that could be vital.
The only Backstager’s number he had was Geoffrey and Vee’s. Geoffrey answered.
‘Have you heard about Hugo?’
‘Yes, Charles. Horrible, isn’t it?’
‘Horrible. Look, I’m trying to find out what he did when he left the bar on Monday night.’
