Charles got back to Hereford Road at half-past nine the next morning, feeling pretty good. So it wasn’t all over; it could still happen. His mind started to generalize, filling with images of other nubile young girls through whose beds he would flit.
An envelope on the doormat quickly dislocated his mood. A birthday card. Right on cue. Friday, November 5th. The card was a well-chosen reproduction of an El Greco grandee and continued the message ‘Congratulations on half a century. Love, Frances.’ It served as a brutal reminder not only of his age but also of his neglected responsibilities. Images of future girls gave way to wistful recollection.
To stop himself getting maudlin, he brought his concentration to bear on Charlotte’s murder. Now he knew the identity of her lover, the case seethed with new possibilities. The first thing he must do was to talk to Geoffrey Winter.
The sound of the phone ringing broke into his train of thought. Expecting it would be a boyfriend of one of the beefy Swedish girls who lived in the other bedsitters, he answered. It was his agent, Maurice Skellern.
That was unusual. Maurice was terribly inefficient and never rang his clients. Since he had never got any work for them, there was no point; they could ring him to find that out.
‘Charles, I’ve had an inquiry from an advertising agency about your availability for a voice-over.’
‘What, Mills Brown Mazzini?’
‘No, another one.’
‘That’s good. Hugo said that once somebody uses you in this field, you start getting lots more inquiries. Perhaps I’ve become Flavour of the Month.’
‘Well, they want you to do a voice test.’
‘When?’
‘This morning. At eleven.’
‘Shee. I’d better get straight along. What’s the address and who do I ask for?’
Maurice gave the details. ‘Incidentally, Charles, about this voice-over business. I don’t know much about it.’
‘Well, there’s an admission.’
‘What I was going to say was, I’m glad about all the work, but we don’t seem to have had too many checks through yet.’
‘No, we’ll have just the basic studio session fees so far. A few thirty-five quids. It’s when the commercials go out and get repeated that the money really starts to flow. I mean, if this Bland campaign takes off… well… Exclusive contract has even been mentioned. And, you see, it’s already leading to other inquiries.
‘So you reckon there’s a lot of work there?’
‘Could be. Some people do dozens of voice-overs a week. Mix it in with film dubbing, reading books for the blind, other voice work. Make vast sums. Mostly people with specialist agents, of course,’ he added maliciously.
Maurice was too used to Charles’s snide lines about their relationship even to acknowledge this one. ‘Well, good, good. Obviously the right step for you career-wise. Haven’t I always been telling you you should be extending your range, finding a wider artistic fulfilment?’
‘No, you’ve always been telling me I should make more money. By the way, anything else about?’
‘There’s a new permanent company being set up in Cardiff. Might be worth trying for that.’
‘Hardly me, is it — Cardiff? Anyway, if this voice-over business gets under way, I’m going to have to be based in London for a bit. Till I’ve made enough to keep the taxman quiet. No nice convenient little tellies coming up, are there?’
‘Haven’t heard of anything. London Weekend are supposed to be setting up a new series about Queen Victoria’s cooks, but I haven’t heard when.’
‘Then let’s live in hope of the voice-overs. I’d better get along to this place for the test. By the way, did they say what the product was?’
‘Yes. Something for… depopulation, was it?’ ‘For depopulation? You mean, like napalm?’
‘No, no. For removing unsightly hair.’
‘Depilation, Maurice.’
The new depilatory about to be launched on the armpits of the world was called No Fuzz and the selling line was ‘There’s no fuss with No Fuzz.’
Charles used his heavy cold voice again, because that was what they wanted. (If he had to keep grinding it down like that, he was going to ruin his vocal cords.) He dropped into the routine of giving every possible intonation to the new line, waiting for the fatuous notes from the account executive in charge (‘Give it a bit more brio, love’ and ‘Try it with just a smidgeonette of sex in the voice’) and let his mind wander. He couldn’t lose the suspicion that a properly programmed computer could sew up the entire voice-over business.
He was kept for an hour, told he was super and that they’d give him a tinkle. And he had earned another thirty-five pounds.
In the reception of the agency he met Diccon Hudson. Charles saw the other man’s eyes narrow at the sight of a potential rival. Diccon worked hard to maintain all his agency contacts and wouldn’t take kindly to being aced out by a non-specialist. ‘You up for the No Fuzz campaign?’ he asked directly.
‘Yes.’
‘Becoming rivals, aren’t we. First Mr. Bland, now…’
‘I haven’t necessarily got this one.’
‘No.’ Diccon Hudson seemed to gain comfort from the fact. His ferrety face could not conceal what was going through his mind.
Charles recalled suddenly that Diccon was on his list of people to check out in his investigation. ‘You heard about Charlotte?’
The name sent a spasm across Diccon’s over-expressive face. ‘I heard. I was pretty cut up about it.’
Charles nodded. ‘Terrible, yes. I suppose you hadn’t seen her for a long time.’
‘I saw her quite recently actually.’
‘Not on Monday night, I suppose,’ Charles joked, to draw Diccon out.
‘No, not on Monday night. I — ’ Diccon suddenly stopped short, as if he’d thought better of what he was going to say.
‘What were you doing on Monday night then, buddy?’ Charles dropped into a New York cop accent to take the curse off his interrogation.
‘Nothing.’ Diccon hurried on, ‘I last saw Charlotte about a fortnight ago. We used to meet for the odd lunch.’
‘Regularly?’ Charles was beginning to wonder if, in spite of Sally Radford’s recollection of the name ‘Geoff,’ there was any connection between Diccon and the dates in Charlotte’s diary.
But the theory was shattered before it was formed. ‘I was away in Crete for all of August, but I saw her a few times before and after. A few times.’ The repeat was accompanied by a smug smile, enigmatic, but probably meant to be taken as a form of sexual bragging.
‘Did Hugo know?’
Diccon gave a contemptuous shrug; the question wasn’t worth answering.
Now for Geoffrey Winter. Charles was glad that Sally had come up with the name, because it confirmed a conclusion towards which his mind had been moving.
He had decided that, if Charlotte had chosen her lover from the ranks of the Backstagers, then Geoffrey was the only candidate. Perhaps it was The Seagull which had led him to the conclusion. Trigorin. after all, was the older man who seduced Nina. Or maybe it was just that Geoffrey seemed the only one of the Backstagers sufficiently attractive and interesting to be worthy of Charlotte.
He had first got an inkling of something between the two of them at the cast party. Not that they had been together; they had been apart. They had both danced so ostentatiously, both putting on such a show with other people. There had been something studied about the way they had avoided each other. All of the rest of the cast had been constantly reforming and forming in little knots to remember some near disaster or ill-disguised corpse, but Geoffrey and Charlotte had always ended up in different groups.
So Charles liked to think that he would have looked up Geoffrey’s office address in the phone book even if Sally hadn’t mentioned the name.
When he did, the address gave him further confirmation. Listed under Geoffrey Winter Associates, Architects. And an office in Villiers Street, adjacent to Charing Cross Station and just over Hungerford Bridge from Waterloo.
The office was on the top floor. A door with a frosted glass window bore the name on a stainless steel plaque. He tapped on the window, but, getting no response, tried the handle.
The door was opened. He found himself in a small outer office. It was very tidy, box files upright in rows along the shelves, cardboard tubes of plans stacked on brackets on the walls. The colour scheme and the choice of the sparse furniture showed the same discrimination as Geoffrey’s study.
But the outer office gave no feeling of work. It was like the Meckens’ house after it had been tidied by the police — too neat to be functional.
The typewriter on the desk was shrouded in its plastic cover, as if its typist had long gone. There were no coats on the row of aluminium pegs.
But there was someone in the next room. Or presumably more than one person, because Charles could hear a voice. Talking loudly, in a rather stilted way.
He drew close to the connecting door, but couldn’t make out the words. He couldn’t even be sure that they were in English. He tapped on the door, but there was no break in the speech. He turned the handle and pushed the door open.
There was only one person in the room. The first thing Charles saw was the soles of a new pair of shoes resting on the desk. Behind them, a pair of hands holding an Arden edition of The Winter’s Tale. And behind that the surprised face of Geoffrey Winter.
‘Good God. Charles Paris.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you come to commission me to build a second National Theatre?’
‘No such luck, I’m afraid. It’s not work.’
‘It never is.’
‘Bad at the moment?’
‘Not a good time for the architect on his own. No one’s building anything.’
‘The economic situation.’
‘Yes.’
‘Like everything else. Like why theatres are cutting down on resident companies, why managements are putting on less shows…’
This banter was conducted at a pleasant enough level, but they both knew that it was only a formal observance preceding something more important. Charles decided there was little to be gained by further prevarication. ‘I’ve come to talk about Charlotte Mecken.’
‘Ah.’ Geoffrey Winter tensed fractionally at the name, but he didn’t give anything away. Charles got the same message that he had got from the performance as Trigorin, that here was a man of considerable emotional depth, but with great control over his reactions. He did not let anything emerge until he had fully considered how he wanted to present it.
Charles had hoped for more reaction and was thrown when he didn’t get it. So he blundered on and, after a brief explanation of his belief in Hugo’s innocence, asked point blank if Geoffrey had been Charlotte’s lover.
The response was an ‘Oh,’ delivered absolutely flat; it gave nothing. But Geoffrey Winter was only playing the pause for maximum dramatic effect. Charles recognized the acting technique and let the silence ride. At last Geoffrey spoke.
‘Well, congratulations. You’ve done your homework well. There’s no point in my denying it, you’re right. Since the police know, no doubt it’ll all come out at Hugo’s trial, so why should I pretend? Yes, I was Charlotte’s lover until she… died.’
He changed pace suddenly on the last word, straightened up in his chair and turned to look out over the irregular roofs of London. As if in the grip of strong emotion. Charles always found it difficult to judge with actors. Since their lives were devoted to simulation, it was often hard to distinguish when their feelings were genuine.
He didn’t offer any comment; he let Geoffrey play the scene at his own pace. Sure enough, when the pause had extended far enough to make even a Pinter audience feel uncomfortable, Geoffrey turned back from the window and looked piercingly at him. ‘I suppose your next question is going to be — did I kill Charlotte?’
In fact, that was not where Charles’s suspicions were leading, but he decided to play along with the scene. ‘I was going to be a bit more subtle than that.’
‘Well, Charles, the answer is no. I didn’t kill her. It would have been perverse for me to… I had no cause to break up what was happening… about the best… thing that…’ Again he was overcome by real or simulated emotion (or, most likely, an amalgam of the two). He turned back to the window.
‘I’m sorry to put you through this, Geoffrey. I realize it must be painful. But Hugo is a friend and I have to investigate every avenue.’
Geoffrey was once again master of himself (if indeed he had ever relinquished control). ‘I quite understand. I’ve been through all this with the police.’
‘How did they find out?’
‘Not difficult. They checked Charlotte’s comings and goings with the staff at Breckton Station, realized the convenient position of my office for such an affair, then came and asked me, more or less as you have done. It seemed pointless to try and hide the facts. It would only have made things worse.’
‘Did they ask you if you’d killed her?’
‘They, as you intended to be, were a bit more subtle than that. But they did ask a few pertinent questions about my movements on Monday. I think they were just checking; I didn’t get the impression they had much doubt about Hugo’s guilt. In fact, they came to see me after he had been arrested, so I suppose they were just building up the background to the case.’
Charles must have been looking at Geoffrey quizzically, because the architect seemed to read his thoughts. He gave a dry laugh. ‘Yes. I’ll tell you what I told the police. I’ll establish my alibi for you — as I believe the saying goes.
‘Part of it you know, because you were with me in the Back Room. As you recall, we left there together and walked down to the main road. Now, in case you’re thinking that I might have immediately doubled back and taken the insane step of strangling someone I loved, it seems that there is proof that Charlotte was still alive and well at nine o’clock. Shad Scott-Smith, you may remember, in the Back Room buying drinks for The Seagull cast. Because Charlotte wasn’t there, he rang her from his home at about ten to nine. He rang off at nine. The reason he could be so specific is that he heard the opening of I, Claudius on the telly and he wanted to watch it.’
‘It seems to have cut a swathe through the lives of an entire generation, that programme.’
‘It did. Big success. Pity you weren’t in it.’
‘Yes, there’d be some pretty useful repeats on something like that. I’m afraid I’ve never been in what’s been hailed as a television success.’
The change of subject relaxed the tension between the two men and Geoffrey continued in almost a bantering tone. ‘Right, on with my alibi. I arrived home just before nine to find that Vee, as another member of the generation decimated by 1, Claudius, was all geared up to watch. I left her to it and went upstairs to do some work on my lines for The Winter’s Tale.
‘For the next bit, I have cause to be thankful that I have a bloody-minded neighbour. Apparently, old Mrs Withers next door, who goes to bed at about nine, could hear me ranting away through the wall — her bedroom’s right next door to my study. Apparently she’s not a great fan of Shakespeare and later on, when I got a bit carried away with the character, she took it upon herself to ring up the police and complain. A very apologetic constable was round at our place for some time saying that old ladies could be very difficult Apparently, according to the police in the murder case, this means that I’m covered for the time of the death’
He paused, not with satisfaction or triumph, but as if he had reached a natural conclusion. Then he added, ‘Fortunate, really. Most evenings spent at home, it would be very difficult to account for one’s movements.’
‘Thank you very much for going through it all again. And for bearing with my wild accusations.’
‘That’s quite okay. I sympathize with your motives. I’m as keen as you are to find the person who killed Charlotte. I just thought he had already been found.’
‘You may well be right. Certainly the fact that she was having an affair would give Hugo even more of a motive. Do you know if he knew about it?’
‘No idea. Charlotte and I didn’t discuss him.’
‘From my conversations with him, I got the impression that he thought she was having an affair, but didn’t know who with.’
Geoffrey smiled painfully. ‘Ironic though it may seem, Charlotte and I did try to be discreet about it. I mean, never let on what we felt for each other round Breckton. We didn’t want to be gossip-fodder for the Backstagers.’
‘Very wise. So she always came up here?’
Geoffrey nodded sadly. ‘Yes. It started in the summer. You remember the long, hot summer?’
This new note of wistfulness, like everything else, sounded contrived. Charles didn’t respond to it. ‘Tell me, why did Charlotte come sometimes to Charing Cross and sometimes to Waterloo?’
Geoffrey raised his eyebrows and nodded in appreciation. ‘Ten out of ten for homework. To answer that question, I think you have to understand what Charlotte was like. It was her first affair, she treated it with great excitement, and I think much of the excitement came from the secrecy. Corning to different stations was her idea of discretion, of covering her tracks. She was very young. As you see,’ he continued with irony, ‘the smoke-screen was not very effective. It. didn’t take the police — or you — long to see through it.’
Charles felt a glow of satisfaction for his understanding of Charlotte’s character. ‘And was it for the same reason that she planned to go to Victoria on the day after she died?’
‘Victoria?’
‘I’d better explain. I found Charlotte’s engagement diary down at the house. She’d listed all your meetings by a time and the name of the terminus she was coming to. The last two entries were one o’clock at Charing Cross on the Monday, the day she died, and then one o’clock on the Tuesday at Victoria.’
‘Ah, I didn’t know she’d done that.’
‘What — put the places down in the book?’
‘Yes. Yes, that must have been it.’ For the first time in their interview he seemed to be in the grip of some emotion that was more powerful than his control. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just so typical of her, to think that that kind of subterfuge would fool anyone. Going to Victoria instead… I mean, to go out of her way like that to be inconspicuous and then write all the details down in a diary. I think a lot of the affair was just a game for her, like a schoolgirl having a midnight feast.’
‘But it was serious on your side?’
Geoffrey looked pained. ‘Serious on both sides — in our different ways. It was very good.’
‘And it was still going well when she died? I mean, you hadn’t had a row or…?’
Geoffrey looked at Charles with some distaste, pitying his lack of subtlety. ‘I know what you mean. No, we hadn’t had a lover’s tiff which would inspire me with hatred to go and kill her. It was all going very well.’ He was becoming wistful again.
‘And was it going to change?’
‘Change?’
‘I mean, were you likely to get divorced and marry?’
Geoffrey shook his head and slowly. ‘No, it was an affair. I wanted to go on as long as possible, but I suppose some time it would have ended. I’ve had other affairs. They all end sooner or later. I wouldn’t have left Vee. People can never understand how close Vee and I are. I’m just one of those men who’s capable of loving more than one woman at a time. Do you understand?’
‘I think I do. Did Vee know about Charlotte?’
‘I assume so. I never told her, but she’s not stupid.’
‘Didn’t she get jealous?’
‘Vee would only get jealous if she thought someone was likely to take me away from her. She knew that no one would. According to my own rules of morality, I’m very loyal.’
Charles nodded. Geoffrey had a male chauvinist vanity which was quite strong enough to blind him to his wife’s real feelings. No woman, however liberated, actually welcomes the knowledge that her husband is sleeping around. And Charles knew from the way that Vee had watched her husband at the cast party, she had a strong possessive instinct.
There wasn’t a lot more Charles could find out. ‘I must go. I mustn’t keep you from your work any longer.’
Geoffrey laughed cynically and flapped his copy of The Winter’s Tale. ‘Ah, my work. Geoffrey Winter Associates haven’t had a decent size job now for four months.’
‘Where are the Associates?’
‘Disassociated — or should it be dissociated? I never know. All gone their separate ways, anyway. Even the secretary’s gone.’
‘So you just come up here and do nothing all day?’
‘Sometimes things come up. Odd little jobs, through friends in various government departments. That’s the answer these days — work in the public sector. No room for men on their own. I keep applying for jobs in local government and things, but as yet no luck. So I stay on here and wait. May as well, until the lease is up.’
‘When’s that?’
‘A couple of months.’
‘And then what?’
Geoffrey Winter’s shrug started expansive as if it encompassed every possibility in the known world, but shrank down to nothing.
‘So what do you live on?’
‘Credit.’ He laughed unconcernedly. ‘And the confidence that something will turn up.’
Charles went back to Hereford Road feeling excited. He had been glad to hear Geoffrey’s watertight alibi because that removed him from the running. And enabled Charles to follow the suspicions which were hardening in his mind. It wasn’t Geoffrey he suspected; it was his wife. He could not forget the tensed-up energy he had felt in Vee’s body as they had danced together. She was a woman capable of anything.
The chain of motivation was simple. Vee’s jealously of Charlotte had started when she was beaten for the role of Nina which she had regarded as hers by right. It had been compounded by the discovery of her husband’s affair with the upstart. That, however, she could have borne; what drove her to murder was the discovery that Charlotte was giving Geoffrey the one thing that their marriage could not — a child.
The opportunity for committing the crime was equally easily explained. Geoffrey had been at such pains to establish his own alibi that he hadn’t thought about his wife’s. While he was upstairs ranting through Leontes, she was assumed to be downstairs watching I. Claudius. So far as Geoffrey was concerned, that was what she was doing. He could presumably hear the television from upstairs.
But a television set conducts a one-way conversation, regardless of whether or not there is anyone watching. Vee, knowing that Geoffrey would get carried away by his performance, had every opportunity to leave the house after the show had started. There was plenty of time for her to have gone up to the Meckens’. Charlotte would have recognised her and let her in. A brief exchange, then Vee had taken Charlotte by surprise and strangled her. Put the body in the coal shed to delay its discovery and a brisk walk home to be back in time for the end of I, Claudius.
It was all conjecture, but it fitted. And, what was more, Charles thought he could prove it.
The proof lay on the table of his bedsitter. For reasons mainly of masochism (to see how much work other actors were getting), Charles always had the Radio Times delivered. Since he had no television and rarely listened to the radio, it was frequently thrown away unread. But on this occasion he felt sure it was going to be useful.
It was the Wednesday that interested him. He thought back to the Wednesday night when he had rung the Winters to get Robert Chubb’s number. He remembered the time. Twenty-five to eleven, because he had looked at his watch after speaking to Kate Venables. And when he had spoken to Geoffrey Winter, there had been a break in their conversation while Vee was given advice on how to adjust the television for a good picture on BBC2.
Charles almost shouted out loud when the Radio Times confirmed his suspicions. At ten o’clock until ten-fifty on BBC2 on Wednesday night there had been a repeat of the Monday’s episode of I, Claudius. Geoffrey Winter would not have been watching it, because he had missed so many of the earlier episodes.
So why should his wife watch the same program for a second time in three days? Unless of course she hadn’t been there to see it the first time.