Dead Room Farce (23 page)

But, the minute he had the idea, he felt shabby. He did still care for Frances, but to use her as some kind of bargaining counter to get out of his other messy entanglements was disgusting.

Cookie's jealousy, however, had not been defused. ‘I was worried about you and that woman in Bath.'

‘Woman in Bath?' he echoed innocently.

‘That woman . . . Lisa is it?. . . that you've been scurrying off every Sunday to do recordings with. At least, you
called
them recordings.'

Her tone was only half-joking, so Charles came in quickly, ‘And you actually thought I was having a thing with her?'

‘You might have been. You're so gorgeous, Charles – at least, I find you so gorgeous – that I imagine every other woman in the world feels the same about you. That's what it's like when you're in love with someone . . . you're terrified that people are trying to steal them away from you.'

If Charles had needed any proof that he wasn't in love with Cookie Stone, that would have provided it. He was
dying
for someone to steal her away from him. He wanted nothing more than for some nice man, who really
did
think she was beautiful, who adored her for what she was, to come along and sweep her off her feet. If that were to happen, Charles Paris would not create any problems. He would do the decent thing, stand back and concede victory to the newcomer.

But he couldn't see it happening. He couldn't imagine the man had been born who could withstand her constant demands for reassurance. So deeply engrained was the self-doubt about her own attractiveness that all Cookie Stone's prophecies seemed doomed to self-fulfilment.

Still, there was one matter on which he could reassure her, without resorting to lies or half-truths. ‘Cookie, I promise you that nothing happened between me and Lisa Wilson yesterday. We like each other fine, but there is never any chance of it becoming a physical relationship in the future.'

Cookie seemed to accept his assertion – which was, to Charles's great regret, the absolute truth – and fortunately she did not enquire about any previous history. But, needless to say, reassurance on one detail did not allay all of Cookie's other anxieties. ‘So what is it you're thinking about all the time, Charles, when you look as if you're not here?'

Oh God, he thought, can't I even have my thoughts to myself? Being with Cookie Stone in the real world was claustrophobic enough, without her setting up a monitoring post in his brain as well. But of course that was not what he said. Instead, he tried to fob her off with a half-truth. ‘I am rather preoccupied at the moment. There's something I'm trying to find out the truth about. Something rather private.'

Many women in the world would have respected that hint, and discreetly withdrawn from further questioning. Cookie Stone was not amongst their number. ‘What is it, Charles?'

‘Well, something to do with . . . You remember that friend of mine who was running the studio in Bath . . . the one who was terribly drunk the afternoon we recorded the commercial . . . Mark Lear.'

‘Lisa Thing's boyfriend?'

‘That's right. Incidentally, he said he'd met you, didn't he?'

‘Did he?'

‘Yes. That afternoon. Don't you remember?'

She shook her head, making the hair rustle against his naked shoulder. ‘Can't recall it. But you say he used to be BBC.'

‘Yes. Radio. Continuing Education.'

‘I probably got introduced to him in the Ariel Bar at some point. I used to do quite a bit of radio work when I started.'

‘Hm.' Charles sighed. ‘Well, Mark's death has, kind of, affected me. You know how upset I was in Bath. So I've been trying to find out what really happened there.'

‘What, you think it might have been suicide?'

‘Yes, or . . . who can tell?'

‘You don't mean you think he might have been murdered, do you?'

‘Well . . . I suppose it's a possibility.'

His words silenced Cookie Stone. Charles couldn't help thinking that if – heaven forbid – his relationship with her continued, he should bear that in mind. Maybe the mention of murder would always silence her. It'd certainly be less exhausting than having to make love to her all the time.

But the silence didn't last for long. ‘Who would want to murder him, though?'

‘I don't know. Someone who had a secret Mark knew about, and someone who so much didn't want that secret known that they were prepared to silence him for ever. If you remember, he did kind of issue a challenge that afternoon, that he was going to spill the beans about something.'

‘Did he? I don't remember. I guess my mind's full of other things too.' Cookie had affected a throaty American voice, and pressed the length of her body against his. Oh God, thought Charles, not again.

But there was an ‘again'. After it, out of sheer exhaustion, they both fell asleep.

They were woken by the peremptory buzzing of the entryphone. Charles looked at his watch. Half-past nine. Oh God! Vinnie! Lavinia Bradshaw!

He bustled Cookie into wakefulness. ‘For heaven's sake, I've got someone coming to see me!'

‘Another woman?' she asked, sleepy but already jealous. ‘Yes, she is a woman, but not one that need cause you any anxiety. Please get some clothes on quickly! You've got to get out!'

Charles picked up the entryphone, but Cookie's rampant paranoia had not been appeased. ‘She's coming here to your flat at half-past nine in the morning and it needn't cause me any anxiety? You really expect me to believe that, Charles?'

‘Yes, I do. Now put some bloody clothes on!' He apologised into the entryphone. ‘Sorry, sorry. Look, I'll be right down to let you in if you just wait –'

‘But surely,' Lavinia Bradshaw's imperious tones crackled back, ‘you can let me in by simply pressing the –?' He cut her off, not without relish.

Shouting at Cookie, which he hadn't done before, had also proved an effective way of silencing her. Another one to bear in mind. She sat on the bed, resentfully pulling on tights, while Charles stumbled into his trousers.

The room looked a mess, fuggy with recent sex. He scrambled the bedspread inadequately over the twisted duvet, and threw open the window to let in cold air as an inadequate means of fumigation.

‘Are you ready?' he pleaded once he'd pushed his feet into his shoes.

‘Not quite.' Cookie seemed deliberately to have slowed down her dressing.

The entryphone buzzed again, seeming to echo the shrillness of Lavinia Bradshaw's tone.

‘Look, I've got to go and let her in. I'll try and delay a bit on the doorstep, but you get down as soon as you can. When you see me, just kind of nod, you know, like you were somebody else living in the block.'

‘I see. Still ashamed of me?' asked Cookie.

He countered the resentment in her voice by bellowing, ‘Just do as you're bloody told! And I'll see you in Birmingham!'

Once again, the shouting silenced her. Charles crossed to plant a dry kiss on her pouting lips, checked he'd got his keys with him, and went down to open the front door.

‘What the hell kept you?' demanded Lavinia Bradshaw. She was expensively dressed, her image sharpened up considerably from the childbound earth mother Charles recalled from their earlier meetings. Whatever her real age, plastic surgery had put her back firmly into her late thirties; and though the reddish-gold of her hair couldn't possibly be natural, it contrived to look natural.

‘Sorry, Vinnie. I, er, um . . . sorry.'

‘I didn't
wake
you, did I?' asked Lavinia Bradshaw, to whom the idea was entirely incongruous.

‘Good heavens, no. I just, er . . .' Charles loomed aimlessly, blocking the door.

‘Aren't you going to invite me in? It is quite cold out here.'

‘Yes, sorry. I, erm . . .'

Still he hovered, preventing her entrance. Then he heard the welcome sound of footsteps behind him. He turned with relief to see a fully dressed Cookie tiptoeing demurely down the stairs.

She was not an actress for nothing. ‘Good morning, Mr Paris,' she said without interest, as she passed him.

On the doorstep, Cookie came face to face with Mark Lear's widow. ‘I know you, don't I?' said Lavinia Bradshaw.

‘No, I don't think so,' replied Cookie Stone, before hurrying off down Hereford Road towards Westbourne Grove.

WHEN IT came to sniffs of disapproval, Lavinia Bradshaw left Charles's Bath landlady standing. Sniffs of disapproval were what her face did best. Maybe the fining-down of plastic surgery had sharpened its ability, but Charles seemed to remember the Vinnie of old had a pretty good line in withering scorn.

That was certainly the expression with which she greeted the interior of his flat. The cold blast of early November air which came in through the window did not seem to have dispelled the stuffiness of recent body contact, merely spread it more evenly around the room.

Lavinia Bradshaw focused her disapproval on the window. ‘I'm all in favour of fresh air, Charles, but there is a limit.'

‘Yes, sorry, I . . .' He closed the window, sealing in the night's fustiness. ‘Could I offer you a cup of coffee or –?'

‘No, thank you.' Lavinia Bradshaw's refusal may not have been prompted by the room's insalubrity, but that was certainly the way it came across.

‘OK, fine.' He gestured to a chair for Lavinia. She looked at it dubiously. He hurried forward to remove a few weeks' shirts and socks. Very gingerly, Lavinia Bradshaw sat down, allowing her skirt minimum contact with the chair's doubtful surface. Charles perched with unconvincing insouciance on the edge of the bed. ‘So what can I do for you?'

‘Needless to say, it's about Mark. I've –'

‘Oh, I hope you don't mind my interrupting, Vinnie . . .'

She clearly did. If her face hadn't already given him that information, he would have got it from the coldness with which she said, ‘I'm no longer called “Vinnie”. Everyone calls me “Lavinia” these days.'

‘Oh, sorry. Lavinia. No, well, the thing is, before you start, just a quick question. That girl . . . that woman . . . who came down the stairs when I let you in –'

‘Or seemed very unwilling to let me in, and kept me waiting on the doorstep.'

‘Yes, yes, all right. I'm sorry about that. But that woman . . . you seemed to know her.'

‘Well, I recognised her. We had met before.'

‘And did Mark know her?'

‘He'd met her too.' But she didn't want to be diverted. ‘Charles, I'm not here to discuss passing acquaintances. I'm here to talk about Mark's death.'

‘Yes, but –'

‘Now let me tell you, I am not getting involved in this business for sentimental reasons. Once I finally left Mark, the only question in my mind was how on earth I'd managed to stay with him for so long. I put up with his drinking, his infidelities. I cooked for him, virtually brought up the children single-handed. Any debt I might have had to Mark I have paid over and over again.

‘So I'm not raking through the sordid circumstances of his death for any reason other than the purely practical.' She then went on to confirm Lisa's assessment of the situation. Mark's life had been heavily insured, with a policy designed to benefit their children. But now the insurance company was kicking up a fuss, and had started the police re-investigating what had caused her husband's death. ‘Basically, they're suggesting it could have been suicide and, if it was, that invalidates the policy. I didn't pay out all that money in premiums not to get the payoff, so I'm determined to prove that Mark didn't kill himself. Have you any reason to believe that he might have done, Charles?'

The direct question put him in a difficult position. Yes, Charles did have a reason to believe that Mark Lear hadn't killed himself, but only because he knew his friend to have been murdered. Lisa had found the door to the little dead room locked. So far she had been extremely unwilling to pass that information on to the police. For Charles to pass it on now to Lavinia Bradshaw might be regarded as a betrayal of Lisa, because he couldn't envisage Lavinia keeping quiet about it. She would ensure that the police's investigation was very quickly redirected.

‘Come on, Charles!' Lavinia Bradshaw made him feel as if he was back at prep school, doing badly in one of Miss Pybus's quick-fire mental arithmetic tests. ‘Apparently you were with Mark the afternoon he died. Did he say anything that could have led you to believe he was about to take his own life?'

‘Well, he was severely depressed, and he was drinking heavily.'

Lavinia Bradshaw snorted. ‘That is no surprise to me at all. I gather he'd pretty soon regretted setting up house in Bath with that slut.'

Charles resisted the temptation to come to Lisa Wilson's defence, as he went on, ‘And yes, he did say things that could have been interpreted as expressing suicidal intentions. He said he felt old, he had nothing to look forward to, he couldn't see the point of going on.'

That prompted another derisive snort. In the course of their married life, Lavinia had heard Mark maundering on on similar lines far too often to take it seriously.

Charles endorsed her reaction. ‘But though, quoted out of context, those words might have come from someone who was genuinely suicidal, you know and I know that Mark often said things like that.'

‘Yes. And I always treated them with the contempt they deserved. Do you know, he even rang me that afternoon?'

‘The afternoon he died?'

‘Yes.'

‘What did he say?'

‘Oh, the usual maudlin rubbish. He was extremely drunk. He did all the nonsense about how we should never have split up, and how he still hoped we could get back together again, and how he loved me and the children, and how his life wasn't worth living without us. I'd heard it all many times before.'