Death in Leamington (9 page)

However, now that she had this much information Pearl was no longer satisfied just with an investigation. She felt there was a settling of scores required, but how could she be sure that they had tracked down the right man? She became even more determined not to let this go now she that had a target in sight. However, the detective advised her against a direct approach given Troyte’s senior position in society, her mother’s long silence and the lack of any previous attempt to make contact. So instead, she and the detective devised a strategy to put him off his guard and try and establish through a sting whether he really was her father or not. They found out that Arthur was suffering from a debilitating skin disease as a result of his earlier sexual exploits and to get close to him, the detective would trick him into believing that he was a consultant specialising in such cases.

It worked. After a few sessions, the private detective let slip that he knew something of Troyte’s previous background. Arthur at first reacted with fury and denied knowing anything about Esther and her daughter and even when shown a photograph genuinely did not seem to recognise Esther at all. But the detective was persistent and clever and with the heavy threat of revelations to his family, Arthur finally reluctantly agreed to meet Pearl.

Pearl knew that she needed to get her mother to come along to this meeting as well if she was going to be sure. But she equally knew that if she told Esther who she was about to meet, she would not agree to go. So she made up a story about getting her mother to come with her to meet a potential sponsor for a record deal. The meeting place was a popular lunch stop in Greek Street in downtown Detroit.

As soon as she saw Troyte, Esther recognised him at once and reacted hysterically, starting to abuse and then scream at him across the table. She tore herself away from Pearl’s hold and started to land blows on his shocked face, before storming out of the restaurant cursing. In a state of shock at this violent outburst, but still not being clear himself that he knew who this woman or her daughter was, Troyte continued to deny vehemently to Pearl and the detective that he had anything to do with them. The detective started to argue with him loudly.

To avoid an even bigger scene in front of the amazed and prosperous lunch crowd, Troyte suddenly changed his tune. He blurted out a rash promise to pay them a substantial sum to keep silent and leave him alone, before hurriedly walking out of the restaurant himself. Pearl looked at the detective in amazement; she had not really been after money, it was really about finding her father, but given the turn of events she quickly began to recalculate her next move.

Even after this dramatic meeting, her mother continued to deny that this man was Pearl’s father but equally would not explain her amazing behaviour or how she knew him. After a week or so of arguments, Pearl decided belatedly that she had better drop the whole thing. In any case, she had now decided that she really wanted nothing to do with this man. Despite what her mother said, he had now confirmed in her mind by his actions, if not his words, that he was the love cheat. Still, money was money and with the sum he agreed to pay them for their silence, Pearl was able to move to New York with her mother. She agreed as part of that settlement to make no further attempts to contact him. To her dying day, her mother would never speak about the incident again.

Now thrown into a whole new world of possibility, Pearl soon began to get jobs singing at off-Broadway venues and jazz clubs like the Blue Morocco. Her mother spent her time in contemplation and charitable work with the poor and the lonely of SoHo. Pearl was noticed by Randy Benjamin at the Blue Chord club in Greenwich Village. After a trial period, the club booked Pearl on a semi-permanent basis, singing four nights a week to the post-theatre dinner crowds. At first, the money was not enough to live on and she had to supplement her income by working in a pharmacy during the day. But her reputation spread rapidly and soon she was playing for playwrights and presidents, ambassadors and bankers and further record deals beckoned. She got herself a proper agent. Cool and strong, singer and storyteller, happy black courage in a white man’s world, she rapidly became the darling of every Kubla Khan and pleasure seeker along the entertainment venues that lined 42nd Street. Within a few years, she had made enough money to set her mother up in a nice brownstone apartment overlooking Central Park while she prepared for a grand tour of Europe. Once across the Atlantic, she repeated and built further on her success and quickly gained a new following in the capitals of the old continent, feted as the new Anita Baker, a blues and jazz sensation. There were television appearances on French and German TV, recording several albums of soulful songs. A new transatlantic star was born

*

Now approaching fifty, Pearl is still physically striking and a mature and brilliant singer. She has the face to rival the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men. A mulatto Amazon of weird and haunting beauty, with deep black locks and a powerful body customarily encrusted with scarlet and gold, she is given to wearing flamboyant native African clothing on stage and designer couture off-stage. On her fingers she wears rings of every shape and colour, but the one she still values the most is the simple ring on her middle finger. It is solid gold, with a great scarlet
E
picked out with rubies in a field of diamonds, in honour of her mother who had died the previous year. Tipped off out of the blue by an informer about Troyte’s planned trip to Europe, she had come up with a scheme, now that her mother was dead, to exact further revenge on him. Importantly, she now has the money and means to make her mother’s former lover suffer a whole lot more for his past sins.

Pearl had to admit that she found The Holly Hotel a little disappointing compared to her normal standard of accommodation at the George V or Claridges – the
lodgings were fashionable enough, but rather limited in point of space and conveniences
. She spent the afternoon wandering round the town’s boutique shops and pleasure gardens, which were amusing enough, if provincial in range and ambition. She also sought the assistance of a very knowledgeable young man in the computer store and bought a trunk appropriate for a travelling lady, as well as a number of other specific items on her growing shopping list.

On her tour, she inspected the statue of Queen Victoria, who apparently enjoyed her visit to the town so much that she had granted it the right to use the prefix ‘Royal’. She read on a plaque that the queen’s statue had been moved an inch on its plinth by a German bomb in 1940, but her expression had reportedly remained steadfastly unamused by this indignity. Pearl visited the Pump Rooms and sampled the saline brew ‘rediscovered’ by Benjamin Satchwell in 1784, apparently a mild laxative and cure for rabies, which had made the town’s fortune in the early nineteenth century. In her view, it could hardly now pass for ditch water, let alone spa water. She admired the restored Hammam with its striking red and black tiles, the frigidarium and tepidarium, there were separate facilities of course for ladies and gentlemen.

She asked at the information bureau next to the library about which excursions were available from the town. The agent recommended to her a rather overwritten flyer that described a guided tour over a landscape of ‘
smooth undulations, windmills, corn-grass, bean fields, wild-flowers, farmyards, hayricks,
’ visiting Warwick Castle where ‘
grim knights and warriors looked scowling on,
’ with further stops at ‘
several admired points of view in the neighbourhood,
’ to take in the views and then ‘
a stroll amongst the haunted ruins of Kenilworth,
’ that once hosted the Faerie Queene.

It all sounds very nice
, she thought,
but perhaps this is all for future, more relaxed visits
. Before that she had more urgent business to attend to. The information booklet on the art gallery at Compton Verney was however one that caught her eye and a little more relevant to her own immediate proposed agenda. To finish her afternoon of exploration she took a tourist’s carriage ride to the beacon at Newbold Comyn to admire the views from this local highpoint.

The rule of law or law of the ruler,

Natural harmony or invention

Of man. What is fair is often crueller,

Revenge, sexual orientation,

Colour, gender the pursuit of ration-

ality. Fate or divine providence?

I am she who will bring retribution,

An eye for an eye to maintain balance.

Justice always proper, will regret my absence.

[Enter Nurse, to the chamber]

Nurse: Madam!

Juliet: Nurse?

Nurse: Your lady mother is coming to your chamber:

The day is broke; be wary, look about.

[Exit]

Juliet: Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet

‘MAB, MAB, busy old MAB!’ I heard Winnie crying.

‘Winnie, what is it? Calm down love,’ I shouted at her down the corridor of the nursing home.

‘MAB! MAB, busy old MAB!’

‘OK, OK, Winnie, I’m coming!’ I called.

‘I don’t know what’s come over her – she’s just this minute started screaming her head off,’ shouted the bemused Czech nurse as I ran down the corridor towards Winnie’s bedroom. It was nearly the end of my shift, what had seemed like the longest shift ever and I was looking forward to meeting Penn at my bedsit in less than an hour.

‘MAB!’ something in her cry curdled my blood.

*

When I reached Winnie’s room, she was standing at the window, her white nightdress billowing insanely in the wind, as if trapped in a tragic scream. For a second, I marvelled at this vision of innocent sensuality, her creamy white shoulders and svelte figure; her face glowing with the same luminosity that once made her a star. But I quickly began to worry that she might be trying to jump, her hair was entangled in the net curtains, blown about through the half-open frame of the sash window. Luckily, the window had been fitted with blocks as a precaution, so that it could open no higher than six inches. But all the same, in this state anything could happen. Winnie was laughing dementedly, a merry little trilly laugh, while shaking uncontrollably.

‘Please, Winnie – come away from that window, you silly girl…’ She jumped away in surprise at my voice.

*

The initial crisis over, I calmed down and tried to speak more soothingly as I approached her. There were tears streaming down the actress’s cheeks, her eyes fixed intently on something in the street. Her face was aflame with passion.

She turned to me and began to recite as if back on the stage again with the same intensity of delivery and focus as when she was a twenty year old straight out of the National Youth Theatre. Her normally gentle voice was projected with power, both intimate and rapturous. It was somewhat scary.

Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet

‘Sshh Winnie, come on please calm yourself, what’s happened? Has something given you a shock?’

Although I was relatively new to this nursing home I was already terribly fond of this remarkable woman. I looked quickly around the room to see what might have caused this sudden change in Winnie’s temperament. Her room was a real treasure trove, drawers bulging with letters, shelves of diaries and theatrical programmes, piles of crochet lying patient and unworked on the bedside cabinet. There was a mahogany bureau covered with photographs of Winnie with her leading men, captured in scenes from the plays that she had starred in. The walls of peeling plaster were set with yellowing alcoves filled with objects of chintzy cheeriness. It was a mess and I loved it but I couldn’t see anything out of place.

I still couldn’t fathom this sudden change in Winnie’s behaviour; she was normally so sedate and gentle. I scanned the medicine chart on the shelf; nothing unusual there that I could see. Winnie was one of our long-term patients with advanced early-onset dementia. The home was always extra careful with anti-depressants for such patients because of the risk of a fall. The chart showed that she has been given no more than her normal dosage that morning, yet her actions suggested that she was having some sort of paranoid hallucination. Although I was a fully qualified SRN, studying to be an Admiral Nurse, I’d never seen anything like this during my training or care of dementia patients.

Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet

I searched again, but still I could see nothing out of place in the room. Winnie now began to point resolutely towards the open window again. I walked over and looked out at the road below, and immediately saw the cause of Winnie’s anxiety. There had been some sort of an accident. A motorcyclist lay across the central reservation and another man was on the ground, people gathering around them.

‘Winnie, did you see it happen? Did you see the accident?’

‘MAB,’ Winnie said again, this time much more calmly. ‘All in black.’

‘Come on, come and sit on the bed and let me get you some tea,’ I said, trying to get her away from the window while looking out of it myself. I had no idea what this MAB business meant, however.

Eventually I managed to calm Winnie enough that I could leave her in the care of the Czech nurse while I reported what the actress had seen to the manager of the nursing home. Fortunately, the young policewoman that arrived a few minutes after 9am was none other than my good friend Penny; she was immediately very kind and reassuring with the actress.

‘So what do you think she saw, Izzie?’ asked Penny.

‘I can’t be sure, but I suspect she saw whatever hit those poor young lads. Are they going to be OK?’ I asked, but Penny shook her head.

‘No, and they are not so poor or innocent either. We believe they may have committed a murder on Clarendon Square a few minutes before the accident.’

‘A murder on the square? Oh my God, Penny, who was it?’ I replied, quite shocked.

‘Nobody we know. The victim was one of Sir William’s guests. He was stabbed then shot. Do you think Winnie will be able to remember anything else? We had a report of someone getting out of and maybe back into the car that hit them before it raced off.’

I hesitated, truthfully more concerned for Winnie’s welfare than answering Penny’s questions right then, but equally I still had something else on my mind.

‘I don’t know, she’s really behaving quite oddly and is certainly not herself at all. Maybe I can ask her when she’s calmed down a bit more. She is normally so lucid and calm. It’s really sad; she still has a fantastic long-term memory but forgets things that have happened only a few minutes earlier.’

‘Dementia?’

‘Sort of, she was quite famous in her time, you know. She played Ophelia, Lady M and of course Juliet, all the classic roles. Look at all these photographs. She must have been quite a heartthrob, she was even considered for the part of Juliet in the film by Zeffirelli, but she lost out to Olivia Hussey. To think, she used to learn all those lines off by heart and now…’

Spenser
, The Faerie Queene

‘Does she have any family?’

‘Oh yes, her daughter and her niece come to see her regularly. They’ve told me the stories. She lived in a wonderful house in Cheltenham, very musical as well, played the violin beautifully and was always entertaining. Her husband was also a famous actor, but he died many years ago. I think it was suicide. There was something wrong with him, burnt down their house after a long argument and then accidentally set himself on fire – trying to gain notoriety apparently.’

‘How awful.’

‘Yes and it’s so sad to see the effects of dementia in someone so relatively young.’

‘And you say she was quoting Shakespeare, when you found her?’

‘Queen Mab I think, word perfect, as precisely as if she was still on stage.’

‘How strange.’

‘Look, Penny, I know this is really awkward, but it’s the end of my shift and I’m afraid I’ve got someone waiting for me at home. Is it OK if I go now? The other nurses will look after Winnie. I’ll be back later to see if she is ready to answer your questions.’

Penny raised her eyebrows and I could tell what she was thinking. But I already had five texts from Penn in addition to those that had arrived at regular intervals during the night. Before hearing the scream I had been counting down the minutes and seconds to our meeting. I had even wondered briefly whether Penn might be interested in meeting Winnie, given they were both actors.

*

Helen Mirren’s speech from Don Levy’s
Herostratus (1967)

Izzie got back to her bedsit around 10am, an hour later than her nightshift had been due to finish. Reluctantly, she had left Winnie with the other nursing staff and police, sedated and calm but as yet not up to talking more about the accident. I could tell as soon as I saw her that she was stressed about something, but assumed it was just the effects of the long night shift.

I had been waiting for her by her front door, leaning against the wall, reading a copy of Robert Frost’s
Mountain Interval
, a bunch of Michaelmas daisies lying by my side. They had been relieved from a neighbour’s garden, but I wouldn’t tell her that.

‘Sorry, I know I’m late.’

‘I’m still here. What kept you?’

‘Don’t ask.’

I offered her the flowers and showed her the contents of the shopping bag in my hand. She smiled and turned the book to look at the cover.

‘What’s this?’

‘
The road not taken
,’ I quoted. ‘My inspiration, Robert Frost, he was a resident of Ann Arbor, Michigan just like me,’

‘Sounds great, but I still prefer my Emily Dickinson,’ she said, laughing. I was pleased to see a smile return to her face. Apparently she had a good memory for song lyrics as well.

I had bought oranges, maple syrup and all the ingredients for pancakes and muffins to cook in her bedsit. I calculated that this would be an unexpected bonus, a man who could cook as well as play the guitar. I’d been up all night as she probably suspected from the frequency of my texts. No really, I’m not a stalker, but something about her had enchanted me and I couldn’t sleep.

She opened the door and settled down at the small table in the kitchen while I started to prepare breakfast. Her flat was tiny, but she had clearly done her best to cheer it up with plants and art objects, mainly 60s and 70s stuff. In the corner of the room was a music stand and propped against it her viola. The kitchenette held only the bare essentials, the walls covered with turquoise post-it notes listing things she had to do: she told me she was a vegetarian and bought fresh food daily, but admitted she was not a particularly great cook. I scanned the photos on the fridge for any sign of another half, but they were mainly girlfriends. There was no separate bedroom and her clothes hung on a rail on the far side of the room. It revealed an eclectic collection of high street and vintage.

‘It’s amazing what rich people throw out,’ she explained defensively as she saw me assessing the clothing. ‘No really, such a waste,’ she added.

‘Don’t worry, I like them. You have a great sense of style. You could set up your own theatrical costume shop,’ I joked. She scowled.

As she recounted the morning’s events to me I soon understood why she had looked so stressed earlier. But before she had finished describing Winnie’s experience, I stopped her. ‘You’ve reminded me, I saw something strange myself going on last night after you left. There was a cab following an old guy slowly down the street as he walked his dogs. It seemed almost like the car was following him. I wonder if there is a connection.’

Izzie suggested I give her policewoman friend Penny a call, but I decided that could wait; I’d got plenty of time as I’d already received a text to say that filming was cancelled for the rest of the day. Now I could understand exactly why.

‘Anyway I’ve been waiting to see you again, all night,’ I said keenly, trying not to sound obsessive.

‘Then you’re mad, but I’m really glad you’re here,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid you can’t stay long, I’m going to have to get some sleep after breakfast. I’m really whacked.’ Something in her voice told me that sleep was not foremost on
her
mind
either
.

After we’d eaten, I decided it was time to make a move and shifted round to her side of the table. Kneeling beside her, I took her hands and gently kissed first her collarbone, then brushed my lips along the furrow at the back of her neck and finally up behind her ear. There was absolutely no resistance from her only a sweet groaning.

‘You don’t look tired at all to me,’ I said hopefully.

‘Well I think I can probably hold out for a while longer, you know,’ she said breathlessly.

I cradled her face in both my hands and kissed her fully on the lips. I could feel the warmth of her breath on my cheeks as I moved my hands slowly down her back and began to unbutton her uniform, slipping the collar carefully over her shoulders, checking her eyes for permission as I went. She kissed me with a passionate intensity that I certainly was not expecting and then withdrew again, seemingly waiting for me to make the next move.