A Coat of Varnish (32 page)

Paul delivered some more comments on the national and Western situation, in his own style, realistic, not bland, but not apocalyptic. Then he said, as though nothing had for an instant disturbed his impeccable manners, that he really must go, he had a paper to write for the said Tom Thirkill. He thanked Humphrey for an admirable meal. As he thanked Humphrey again, on his way into St James’s Street, he added: ‘What a pleasant club this is. If you could bear it, perhaps you would put me up for it sometime.’

Passing on to Frank Briers those fragments of news about Susan, Humphrey remarked that they didn’t add up to much. Frank, restive, thought that that was overstating the case. They added up to nothing at all – unless they believed Paul’s assertion that, on the Sunday, Susan was still in ignorance about the murder. Was Paul trying to help her out? Even if he wasn’t, it was nothing but a subjective judgment, worth putting on the files, no more.

When Humphrey gave another report about his meeting with Paul Mason, this time to Kate in the bedroom, he evoked more interest. It had been a disastrous evening, he felt, like Briers dissatisfied with himself. Kate soothed him. For Paul’s behaviour there must be some explanation they didn’t know. He must be more complicated than either of them had guessed. It didn’t have any bearing on the practical problem, Humphrey said, telling her, self-mocking, how he had had his ‘head bitten off’ by Frank Briers. ‘To hell with the practical problem!’ said Kate. ‘To hell with Frank Briers. I want to know what was driving Paul mad.’

‘Easier said than done,’ he replied. She didn’t cross him any more. She wasn’t capable of splitting love into compartments. For her it was whole or nothing. So she wanted to help. She had to feel that what he thought worth doing was just that. She couldn’t help much, but she thought that she might be able to squeeze some fragments of the truth out of Susan. After all, she had had some experience of that girl. At the worst, it would do no harm. And Kate had some internal amusement at her own expense: she was also inquisitive.

It happened that the governor of her hospital had given her two tickets for Covent Garden and an invitation to a party. Opera remained the most lavish entertainment in London. The fact that it was state-subsidised didn’t mean that it was a popular entertainment. The governor of Kate’s hospital also doubled as a trustee of the Opera, and had a private box there, in which he was running true to the form of other well-cushioned men. Kate knew that Susan was totally unmusical, but she suspected that an invitation wouldn’t be rejected. The Opera House was a suitable place to be seen. The suspicion proved to be justified.

Susan arrived at Kate’s house in a limousine, provided, so Kate assumed, by her father. She arrived also brilliant with diamond necklace and earrings, provided, Kate further assumed, by her father. Kate, to whom music was the one aesthetic joy, was looking forward to a night at the opera. At this glittering sight, she felt more than a little dowdy. She was skilful at making do with her clothes, but she felt she had better keep out of sight if this was going to be the evening’s competition. Still, she thought, self-taunting, it served her right, she had brought it on herself.

She might have brought it on herself, self-taunting she might be, but when they arrived at Covent Garden she couldn’t suppress a sharper lurch of envy. Their host was receiving them in the corridor outside his box. He greeted Susan with manifest enthusiasm, holding her hand as she stood calmly still, diamonds glittering under the chandeliers, dress elegant and quiet, expression at the same time self-possessed and demure. ‘How very good of you to come, Lady Loseby! How very good of you!’ Lady Loseby was being introduced to members of the party, who were, so far as such elevation still persisted, considerably more lofty than anything Aylestone Square could have risen to. Lady Loseby smiled unself-consciously, unassertively, as others made the rounds. She was looking like the model of a young married woman, or alternatively, Kate recalled with satisfaction an old phrase of her nurse, as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

Another old phrase drifted through Kate’s mind as she listened to the singing. It was
Tristan
, and Wagner was too oppressively romantic – though it was tempting to think of the real thing, with Humphrey, not this noise whirling round her. The box was a large one, but the party was a dozen strong and they were jammed together. She was placed in the back row. Susan was beside their host.

The wicked flourishing, the old phrase teased her, like a green bay-tree. Why a green bay-tree? Did green bay-trees flourish? Tom Thirkill was one of her least favourite men. He was certainly flourishing, more than anyone she knew. Certain to be a member of the Cabinet in the new year. Not an agreeable thought. She wasn’t fond of him. She couldn’t help being fond of his daughter, sitting a few feet away. Not that the girl deserved it. She was flourishing as much as her father. Kate liked her own sex. Liked her more perhaps, because she was no feminist, and saw women with no more illusion than she did men. Susan was flourishing. No one in their senses could think she was a more estimable character than most men. No justice in this world. What did Humphrey say? Anyone who expected justice in this world was a born fool. That night was being a triumph for Susan. Never mind. Kate had a job to do.

She found her opportunity after supper. Leading out of the box was another room, considerably larger, tables set for a meal. The meal was as sumptuous as any cold supper Kate had seen. There was a slice of
pâté de foie gras
for each (someone didn’t like it, and Kate, comforting herself, got two), a spoonful of caviare, game pie, pheasant, champagne, burgundy. The host was being handsome. He was also flirting, not unskilfully, with Susan.

Intermission over, the party filtered back to their box. Kate contrived to hold Susan back.

‘No reason to hurry. Let’s have another drink. You needn’t tell me, I know you’re bored out there.’

With Kate, Susan didn’t pretend to musical tastes. She had a trait, which Kate found endearing, of being honest when there was no reason not to be.

They had the supper room to themselves. It could have occurred to one of them, or each of them, that there would have been a certain mild luxury in sitting in the box with a lover, just the two of you, and knowing that there was this good safe place to enjoy yourself, just a few steps away.

Susan, abstemious about alcohol, wouldn’t have another drink. Kate poured herself a whisky and said: ‘How’s Loseby?’

‘Oh, he’s all right. Mister’s usually all right, you know.’ Susan spoke with casual acceptance. Kate had ceased being surprised about her. When she had been desperate about that man – had Kate been wrong? Or could the girl throw it off like a jacket once she had won?

Kate came straight to it. She had dealt with Susan before and knew that there was no merit in being delicate. She had to be taken head on.

‘I suppose you know he’s safe, about that murder? They do believe what he’s told them.’

‘Nice of them.’ Susan smiled.

‘Anyway, he’s safe enough. Unless someone did it for him. He can’t have been there himself.’

Clearly, this was no news to Susan. ‘How did you know?’ she asked. She had a shrewd idea, and gazed at the older woman with sisterly interest. In fact, she had assumed that Kate and Humphrey were sleeping together long before they were. Susan went on. ‘I expect you know the whole story.’

‘Some of it, anyway.’

‘All boys together.’ Susan spoke without rancour. ‘Damn fools. Mister doesn’t really go for men. He hasn’t got the necessary taste.’ Suddenly Susan specified what the necessary taste was. She still looked like a demure young wife, but she had the vestige of a prurient grin. What she said was simple and brutish. Kate had not heard genuine homosexuals defined like that before. It might be right. Women such as Susan had a knack of taking the covers off.

‘He couldn’t get the real taste if he tried.’ It was Loseby’s wife speaking. ‘Of course he tried. He’s tried most things. He never knows what he wants. But with luck I ought to be able to put up with him.’

‘Anyway, he’s out of trouble.’ Kate hadn’t the time to listen to this curious prognosis of a marriage. ‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘They still want to find out what you were doing that night.’

‘I’ve told them, Kate dear, I really have.’ Susan’s expression had become simple, sincere and faintly injured.

‘You’ve told them too many things. You never have grasped that one excuse is better than three. How many times have I tried to get that into your head?’

Susan now looked repentant. ‘Oh, but you can understand, Can’t you? I was trying to protect Mister. You’d have done the same. Any girl would have done.’

‘You didn’t do it very well.’ Kate wasn’t moved by Susan transforming herself into a guilty child. ‘You never could make a lie stand up for long. What were you doing that night?’

‘Just hanging about. I was at a loose end, you see.’

‘Tell that to some nice old man.’ Kate was amused, contemptuous, cross. ‘What were you doing that night?’

With a candid face, half-sullen with innocence, Susan gave several different accounts supported by realistic detail. It had been a very hot night. She had no one to take her out. There was no one in the apartment in Eaton Square. She had gone for a long walk. No, she had tried to see whether any of her acquaintances was at home. No, she was searching for someone to take her to a film. Or to one of the gambling clubs. Sometimes she did like a flutter, she said with confessional honesty.

Kate said that she didn’t believe a word of it, the less so the more confessional it was. At last she forced out a version which might have been somewhere near the truth. Susan had been attempting to run Loseby down. ‘He’s several kinds of a rat, you know. I thought it was time to have a showdown.’ Just as Humphrey had done the following Monday, she telephoned his headquarters in Germany. Just as Humphrey was told, so was she. She heard that Loseby was in London on compassionate leave. Staying where? 72 Aylestone Square. If he was staying with his grandmother, and Susan hadn’t been told, he had another date for that night. He had left the house often enough, after his grandmother had gone to bed, to join Susan in one of their hideouts. Now she was going to catch him at it. Vigil. No sign of him.

At last she decided that she had got it wrong. Next morning she rang Loseby’s friends in London. Where was he? She had previously had an eye on Douglas Gimson. Douglas said that she was not to worry. He admitted that he had found Loseby a bed for the last couple of nights.

‘Found him a bed. Good way of putting it.’ Chortles of laughter, as shameless as Loseby’s own. Then, about midday on Monday, Loseby had called her at home, told her that Lady Ashbrook had been killed, said that he was obviously in a fix, and that afternoon they invented their story.

What Susan had at last admitted seemed to Kate to be plausible. Some things had been left out, no doubt. And some tastefully decorated. It wasn’t clear how she had proposed to use her will on Loseby. What resources did she have? Yet he had married her. It would be foolish to think that Loseby was above mundane considerations, such as Tom Thirkill’s money. But it could also be, Kate thought, that he had discovered Susan was not only a randy little liar, but also had a strong and ruthless character, maybe that, lacking it himself, he was searching for. It could have been a sign that he had turned to her at once when he was in a crisis. Unlike Briers, and intermittently Humphrey, Kate paid no attention to the idea that Loseby and Susan had been acting in complicity.

Susan had almost persuaded the police with her bedroom story, Kate was thinking. Maybe that had been the most realistic of her romances, or had she overdone it? The police heard enough bedroom stories, though one from this good-looking girl might have given them a certain amount of pleasure.

By now Kate was indulging her curiosity.

‘Why ever did you spread yourself like that?’

‘Oh, it didn’t do any harm, did it?’ The concept of not melting butter was difficult for Kate to drive away.

‘Did it ever happen like that? Not that night, I know.’

‘Perhaps it did.’

‘When?’ Kate’s antennae were suddenly all alert.

‘The Sunday night. The day after.’

‘But you didn’t see Loseby that Sunday night. Not till the Monday, so you said.’

‘No, I didn’t. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t Loseby I was with that Sunday night.’

Kate exploded into a laugh, a little astonished, even shocked, much more amused. ‘You little bitch. What you want–’ Curiosity was too pressing. ‘Who was it?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ Susan asked gently.

‘It might have been any male within miles.’ Kate wasn’t so gentle.

‘No, it was Paul. Paul Mason.’ Susan justified herself. ‘I always rather liked him; you may have noticed that.’

‘I’ve noticed that with quite a lot of men.’ Kate’s language was tarter than her grin.

Meekly, Susan replied: ‘That’s not very kind, is it? You see, I was rather upset about Loseby. He is one hell of a rat, you know. So I wanted some comfort somewhere. So I thought I could push Paul into it. He doesn’t sleep around much actually. But he was on his own. That girl Celia had let him go. What an idiot she must be. Paul doesn’t much like me,’ she added, with factual composure. ‘Except for a spot of you know what. Still, it worked that night.’

She went on with secret satisfaction: ‘He wasn’t pleased at being used as a consolation prize. He’s too proud altogether. And he’s furious if anyone gets inside his plans. He’s cagier than any man I’ve ever had.’ Then she let show an impudent defiant pout. ‘Still, I may have another go at him sometime. He’s very satisfactory when it comes to action. He can go wild. Rather exciting. He’s very satisfying when he gets to the point.’

Kate was pleased with herself when surreptitiously they tiptoed back into the box. Susan’s actions might not be significant (she didn’t know what Humphrey would think when she told him), but it couldn’t do harm to clear them up. Kate thought she had done well. So did Humphrey when, before leaving for her hospital, she broke in on him at breakfast the following morning. ‘That’s good work, my girl. I don’t like unfinished business.’ He chuckled. He could still regress to the official life he had once lived. He gave her a hearty, and more than hearty, kiss.