Put on by Cunning (12 page)

Parents can of course (as Wexford knew personally) enjoy success vicariously. Philip Cory might be scarcely remembered outside village-hall audiences, but his son Blaise Cory was a celebrity as only a television personality can be. His twice-weekly show of soul-searching interviews, drumming up support for charities, and professing aid for almost anyone out of a job, a home or a marriage, vied for pride of place with
Runway
in the popularity ratings. The name was as much a household word as Frost or Parkinson; the bland, handsome, rather larger-than-life face instantly familiar.

‘But he doesn’t live here, does he?’ said Burden whose
bête noire
Blaise Cory was.

‘Not as far as I know.’ Wexford tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Those are the gates up ahead, I think. On the left.’

It had been necessary to keep an eye out for Moidore Lodge which was in deep country, was three miles from the nearest village and, Cory had told Wexford on the phone, was invisible from the road. The pillars that supported the gates and on which sat a pair of stone wolves or possibly Alsatians – they very much resembled Nancy – were, however, unmistakable. The car turned in and, as the drive descended, entered an avenue of plane trees. And very strange and sinister they looked at this season, their trunks and limbs half covered in olive-green bark, half stripped to flesh colour, so that they appeared, or would have appeared to the fanciful, like shivering forms whose nakedness was revealed through rags. At the end of this double row of trees Moidore Lodge, three floors tall, narrow, and painted a curious shade of pale pea-green, glared formidably at visitors.

To ring the front-door bell it was necessary to climb half a dozen steps, though at the top of them there was no covered porch, nothing but a thin railing on each side. The wind blew sharply off the downs. Wexford, accustomed of late, as he remarked to Burden, to moving amongst those in the habit of being waited on, expected to be let in by a man or a maid or at least a cleaning woman, and was surprised when the door was opened by Cory himself.

He was no bigger than the impression of him Wexford had gained from that glimpse outside St Peter’s, a little thin old man with copious white hair as silky as floss. Rather than appearing disappointed, he had a face that was both cheerful and peevish. He wore jeans and the kind of heavy navy-blue sweater that is called a guernsey, which gave him a look of youth, or the look perhaps of
a
youth who suffers from some terrible prematurely ageing disease. Before speaking, he looked them up and down closely. Indeed, they had passed through the over-heated, dusty, amazingly untidy and untended hall and were in the overheated, dusty rubbish heap of a living room before he spoke.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘you are the first policemen I’ve ever actually had in my house. In any house I’ve ever lived in. Not the first I’ve ever
spoken
to, of course. I’ve
spoken
to them to ask the way and so forth. No doubt, I’ve lived a sheltered life.’ Having done his best to make them feel like lepers or untouchables, Cory cracked his face into a nervous smile. ‘The idea was distinctly strange to me. I’ve had to take two tranquillizers. As a matter of fact, myson is coming. I expect you’ve heard of my son.’

Burden’s face was a mask of blankness. Wexford said, who hadn’t? and proceeded to enlighten Cory as to the purpose of their visit. The result of this was that the old man had to take another Valium. It took a further full ten minutes to convince him there was a serious doubt about Natalie Arno’s identity.

‘Oh dear,’ said Cory, ‘oh dear, oh dear, how dreadful. Little Natalie. And she was so kind and considerate to me at poor Manuel’s memorial service. Who could possibly have imagined she wasn’t Natalie at all?’

‘Well, she may be,’ said Wexford. ‘We’re hoping you can establish that one way or the other.’

Looking at the distracted little man on whom tranquillizers seemed to have no effect, Wexford couldn’t help doubting if the truth could be established through his agency. ‘You want me to come with you and ask her a lot of questions? How horribly embarrassing that will be.’ Cory actually ran his fingers through his fluffy hair. Then he froze, listening, and looking for all the world like an alerted rabbit. ‘A car!’ he cried. ‘That will be Blaise. And none too soon. I must say, really, he knew what he was about when he insisted on being here to support me.’

If the father was no larger than Wexford had anticipated, the son was much smaller. The screen is a great deceiver when it comes to height. Blaise Cory was a small, wide man with a big face and eyes that twinkled as merrily as those of Santa Claus or a friendly elf. He came expansively into the room, holding out both hands to Wexford.

‘And how is Sheila? Away on her honeymoon? Isn’t that marvellous?’ Forewarned, astute, one who had to make it his business to know who was who, he had done his homework. ‘You know, she’s awfully like you. I almost think I should have known if I hadn’t known, if you see what I mean.’

‘They want me to go and look at poor Manuel’s girl and tell them if she’s really her,’ said Cory dolefully.

His son put up his eyebrows, made a soundless whistle. ‘You don’t mean it? Is
that
what it’s about?’

He seemed less surprised than his father or Mrs Mountnessing had been. But perhaps that was only because he daily encountered more surprising things than they did.

‘Do you also know her, Mr Cory?’ Wexford asked.

‘Know her? We took our first violin lessons together. Well, that’s an exaggeration. Let me say we, as tots, went to the same master.’

‘You didn’t keep it up, Blaise,’ said Cory senior. ‘You were never a
concentrating
boy. Now little Natalie was very good. I remember little Natalie playing so beautifully to me when she was fifteen or sixteen, it was Bach’s Chaconne from the D minor Partita and she . . .’

Blaise interrupted him. ‘My dear father, it is twelve-thirty, and though I seem to remember promising to take you out to lunch, a drink wouldn’t come amiss. With the possible exception of Macbeth, you must be the world’s worst host.’ He chuckled irrepressibly at his own joke. ‘Now surely you have something tucked away in one of these glory holes?’

Once more Cory put his hands through his hair. He began to trot about the room, opening cupboard doors and peering along cluttered shelves as if he were as much a stranger to the house as they were. ‘It’s because I’ve no one to look after me,’ he said distractedly. ‘I asked Natalie – or whoever she is, you know – I asked her if she didn’t want those Hickses and if she didn’t, would they come and work for me? She was rather non-committal, said she’d ask them, but I haven’t heard another word. How do
you
manage?’

Wexford was saved from replying by a triumphant shout from Blaise Cory who had found a bottle of whisky and one of dry sherry. It was now impossible to refuse a drink especially as Blaise Cory, with ferocious twinkles, declared that he knew for a fact policemen did drink on duty. The glasses were dusty and finger marked, not to be too closely scrutinized. Nothing now remained but to fix a time with Philip Cory for visiting Natalie, and Wexford felt it would be wise, in spite of Burden’s prejudice, to invite Blaise too.

‘Ah, but I’ve already seen her. And frankly I wouldn’t have the foggiest whether she was the late lamented Sir Manuel’s daughter or not, I hadn’t set eyes on her since we were teenagers. She said she was Natalie and that was good enough for me.’

‘You were also at the memorial service?’

‘Oh, no, no, no. Those morbid affairs give me the shivers. I’m a
life
person, Mr Wexford. No, I gave Natalie lunch. Oh, it must have been a good five or six weeks ago.’

‘May I ask why you did that, Mr Cory?’

‘Does one have to have a reason for taking attractive ladies out to lunch apart from the obvious one? No, I’m teasing you. It was actually Natalie who phoned me, recalled our former acquaintance and asked me if I could get a friend of hers a job, a man, she didn’t say his name. I’m afraid it was all rather due to my programme. I don’t know if a busy man like you ever has a moment to watch it? A poor thing, but mine own. I do make rather bold claims on it – not, however, without foundation
and
results – to aid people in finding – well, niches for themselves. This chap was apparently some sortof musician. Fancied himself on the box, I daresay. Anyway, I couldn’t hold out much hope but I asked her to have lunch with me. Now I come to think of it, it was January 17th. I remember because that was the dear old dad’s birthday.’

‘I was seventy-four,’ said Cory senior in the tone of one intending to astonish nobody, as indeed he had.

‘And when you met her that day you had no doubt she was the Natalie Camargue you had once known?’

‘Now wait a minute. When it came to it, I didn’t meet her that day. She cancelled on account of some medical thing she had to have, a biopsy, I think she said. We made a fresh date for the following Tuesday. She kept that and I must say we had a delightful time, she was absolutely charming, full of fun. I was only sorry to have to say I hadn’t anything cooking for this bloke of hers. But, you know, I couldn’t actually tell you if she was
our
Natalie. I mean, it obviously never occurred to me.’ He let his eyes light on Burden as being closer to his own age than the others. ‘Would you recognize a lady you hadn’t seen since you were nineteen?’

Burden responded with a cold smile which had no disconcerting effect on Blaise Cory.

‘It’s all rather thrilling, isn’t it? Quite a tonic it must be for the dear old dad.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ said the composer. ‘It’s very upsetting indeed. I think I’ll come back to London with you, Blaise, since I’ve got to be up there tomorrow. And I think I may stay awhile. I suppose you can put up with me for a couple of weeks?’

Blaise Cory put an arm round his father’s shoulders and answered with merry affirmatives. Perhaps it was Wexford’s imagination that the twinkle showed signs of strain. The kind of coincidence that leads to one’s coming across a hitherto unknown word three times in the same day or receiving a letter from an acquaintance one has dreamed of the night before was no doubt responsible for the poster in the window of the Kingsbrook Precinct travel agents.
Come to sunny California, land of perpetual spring
 . . . A picture of what might be Big Sur and next to it one of what might be Hearst Castle. Wexford paused and looked at it and wondered what the chief constable would say if he suggested being sent to the Golden West in quest of Natalie Arno’s antecedents. He could just imagine Colonel Griswold’s face.

Presently he turned away and went back to the police station. he had come from Symonds, O’Brien and Ames. Their handwriting expert had examined the writing of the eighteen-year-old Natalie Camargue and that of the thirty-seven-year-old Natalie Arno and expressed his opinion that, allowing for normal changes over a period of nearly two decades, the two sample had in all probability been made by the same person. Wexford had suggested the samples also be examined by an expert of police choosing. Without making any positive objection, Ames murmured that it would be unwise to spoil the ship with too many cooks.

Wexford thought he saw a better way.

‘Mike,’ he said, putting his head round the door of Burden’s office, ‘where can we get hold of a violin?’

Burden’s wife was something of a paragon. She was a history teacher, she was well-real in English literature, she was an excellent cook and dressmaker and now it appeared she was musical too.

‘You never told me Jenny played the violin,’ said Wexford.

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Burden rather shyly, ‘she used to be with the Pilgrim String Quartet.’ This was a local ensemble that enjoyed a little more than local fame. ‘I expect we could borrow her Hills if we were very careful with it.’

‘Her
what
?’

‘Her Hills. It’s a well-known make of violin.’

‘If you say so, Stradivarius.’

Burden brought the violin along in the morning. They were going to call for Philip Cory at his son’s home and drive him to De Beauvoir Place. It was a bright sunny day, the first since the snow had gone.

Blaise Cory lived on Campden Hill, not far from Mrs Mountnessing, and work seemed to have claimed him, for his father was alone in the big penthouse flat. Although he popped a Valium pill into his mouth as soon as he saw them, a night in London had evidently done him good. He was sprightly, his cheeks pink, and he had dressed himself in a dark suit with a thin red stripe, a pink shirt and a burgundy silk tie, more as if he were going to a smart luncheon party than taking part in a criminal investigation.

In the car he was inclined to be talkative.

‘I think I shall write to those Hickses personally. I’ve no reason to believe they’re not well-disposed towards me. I understand they like the country and the thing about Moidore Lodge is, it’s in the real country. Charming as poor Manuel’s place is, I always used to think there was something Metroland-ish about it. One might as well be living in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Do you know, I thought it would be quite an ordeal facing little Natalie today, but actually I feel rather excited at the prospect. London is such a stimulus, don’t you find? It seems to tone up one’s whole system. And if she isn’t Natalie, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.’

Wexford had no intention of going into the bookshop. The door to the upstairs flat was at the side of the building, a panelled door with a pane of glass in it, set under a porch with a steep tiled roof. As they walked up the path, Wexford leading and Burden bringing up the rear with the violin, the door opened, a woman came out and it immediately closed again. The woman was elderly and so tiny as to be almost a midget. She wore a black coat and a brightly coloured knitted hat and gloves. Cory said:

‘Good gracious me! It’s Mrs Woodhouse, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right, sir, and you’re Mr Cory.’ She spoke with a Sussex burr. ‘How have you been keeping? Mustn’t grumble, that’s what I always say. I see Mr Blaise on the tally last night, he’s a real scream, just the same as ever. You living in London now, are you?’