Charles sipped his wine and tried not to look too downcast when Vee came in loaded with her theatrical memorabilia. Scrapbooks, programs, a box of photographs and — most daunting of all — the cassette recorder that he had seen Geoffrey using. Oh dear, it looked as if he was going to get an Action Replay of her entire dramatic career.
He settled down to be bored out of his mind. Vee, he knew, was inflicting this on him because he was a professional actor. She wanted his commendation, she wanted him to say how impoverished the British theatre had been by her decision to turn her back on it. Maybe she even wanted to gain his praise so that she would compare favourably with those whom he had condemned at the Critics’ Circle.
He found her exhibitionism sad. The fact that she needed this bolstering. It showed that Geoffrey had too simple an interpretation of his wife’s character. Her insecurity spoke in every nervous action. To think that she would not be jealous of another woman was totally wrong.
The overtones of sexuality which she gave to the proceedings also revealed her insecurity. She needed attention, she needed Charles to be aware that the two of them together was a potentially sexual scenario, but he felt that was all she needed. If he had made a pass at her, he would have got a considerate rebuff. She wouldn’t have minded — in fact, she would rather have welcomed it as a boost to her ego and as something else to feel martyred about. She liked to think of herself as a tragic queen, resisting all blandishments from other men, because of her devotion to one man who was not really worthy of her.
Charles had not realized this vein of contempt which ran through Vee’s feelings for her husband until the subject of children came up again. It was prompted by a photograph of Vee with another girl in Elizabethan dress who, apparently, had been a terribly good actress, but had given it all up when she started to have children. ‘Four I believe she’s got now. Four. I suppose that could have been me, if things had turned out differently.’ She responded to Charles’s quizzical look. ‘I mean, if I had married someone else.’
‘Oh.’ He sounded slightly embarrassed, as if he ought not to inquire further, knowing that this was the sure way to make her continue.
‘Yes, with another man, no doubt I would be surrounded with the little brats, spending all my days at coffee parties and tea parties, talking about nappies and nursery schools.’ The edge she put into the words showed how much she was an outsider in the great incubator of Breckton. All the thoughts he’d had about Charlotte being ostracized by her childlessness applied even more strongly to Vee.
He continued his embarrassed act. ‘Well… I understood that nowadays there were things that could be done about infertility and… er… clinics and so on.’
Vee smiled a martyred smile. ‘Maybe, but I don’t think you’d ever get Geoffrey along to one of those. He couldn’t admit to himself that… male pride in virility or… I’m sure you know all about that.’
Again the remark was sexually loaded. Not quite a come-on, but a reminder that they were a man and woman alone together.
Charles thought quickly as he worked through the file of meaningless photographs. Vee’s conviction that Geoffrey was to blame for their lack of family was obviously one of the supports of their marriage. She believed it, because it gave her superiority over him. She could watch with indulgence his philandering with other women, knowing his secret. And she’ was not afraid to divulge it.
Charlotte’s pregnancy must have threatened the entire fabric of that illusion and Charlotte had had to be removed so that Vee could remain protected in her cocoon of fiction.
He knew he was right. All he needed was proof. It was time he got down to the details of his investigation.
In broaching the subject he was helped by the photographs. There was a picture of Vee surrounded by adolescent youths in togas with laundry marks.
‘Portia in Julius Caesar at school,’ she supplied.
‘Ah, real I, Claudius stuff,’ he commented, grateful for the cue.
She laughed.
‘Have you been watching it, Vee?’ he asked casually.
‘Oh yes. Seen every one. That was the big advantage of not doing The Seagull. Meant I could make it a regular date.’
‘Every Wednesday.’
‘No, I watch it on Mondays.’
Charles took a risk. What he had to say next was going to sound more like interrogation than casual conversation. He hoped she wouldn’t notice. ‘That’s strange. I rang Geoffrey on Wednesday and I could have sworn he said you were watching it then.’
He played it very light, but still threw her. She looked at him, flustered and bewildered. ‘Oh… oh yes, I did watch it on Wednesday this week.’
He didn’t volunteer any comment. Just left her to explain.
She did a goad performance as someone sorting through her memory. ‘Oh, of course. My mother rang on Monday just after it had started. She always natters on so, the show was practically over by the time I got off the phone.’
Charles joked, as if the information meant nothing to him, ‘I think everyone’s mother’s like that.’ But he felt sure she was lying.
‘Yes, mine always rings at inconvenient times. Still, I suppose 1 shouldn’t grumble, if the odd phone call keeps her happy. Better than continually traipsing up to Lytham St. Anne’s to see her.’
That was very helpful. He knew Vee’s maiden name was le Carpentier. There shouldn’t be too many old ladies of that name in Lytham St. Anne’s with whom to check her alibi.
Eventually (and it seemed to take for ever) they came to the end of the photographs. ‘Fascinating,’ Charles lied.
Vee looked disappointed, as if she had expected more. What did she want him to do, for God’s sake, say that she was the greatest actress to tread the boards on the evidence of a load of amateur snapshots?
But it seemed there was more evidence about to be offered. Vee was now turning her attention to the cassette player and the black plastic-covered box of cassettes. ‘Actually,’ she said with elaborate casualness, ‘I’ve got recordings here for some of the stuff I’ve done.’
‘Oh, really?’ Charles gave the last dreg of his supply of simulated interest. ‘What, recorded off stage?’
‘Some of them. Some I’ve just done at home — really just for my own benefit, so that I can get a kind of objective view of what I’m doing.’
‘I see.’
‘I thought you might like to hear one or two little bits. It’d give you some idea of how I do act.’
Charles quarried a smile from his petrifying features. ‘Great.’ She fiddled with the machine. ‘Geoffrey lets you borrow his recorder then?’
‘It’s not his, it’s mine. He occasionally borrows it when he’s learning lines.’
‘And to dub off his music.’
‘What? Good God, no. He’s far too much of a purist for that. Only happy when music is being perfectly reproduced on all that hi-fi stuff he’s got upstairs. He always says I’m a bit of a Philistine about it. I mean, I’ve got some music cassettes — popular stuff — which I play round the house, but he gets very sniffy about them. This recorder’s only mono for a start and he says you’re missing ninety per cent of the enjoyment if you don’t hear music in stereo.’
‘So he would never use it for music?’
‘Not a chance. Look, there’s a bit here that’s an extract from a production of The Country Wife that we did. I played Mrs Pinchwife. Got very good press. I think this speech is quite amusing. Would you like to hear it?’
The affirmative smile was another triumph of engineering. Just before she switched it on, they both heard a strange wail from outside. A sound like a child in pain. Vee rose and Charles looked at her with some alarm.
‘I must go to the kitchen to let him in,’ said Vee.
‘Who is he?’
‘Vanya.’
‘Vanya?’
‘The cat.’
As soon as she was out of the door, he leapt to the cassette box. Her recorded voice wound on, but he didn’t listen. His mind was too full.
When he had first gone up to the study, Geoffrey Winter had been copying Wagner’s Liebestod from his expensive stereo on to this cheap mono cassette machine. Geoffrey had given some specious line about it being handier, which had seemed reasonable at the time, but which now seemed extremely suspicious.
If you don’t want a cassette copy of a piece of music, then why copy it? Only one answer sprang to mind — in order to cover something already on the cassette.
He felt a prickle of excitement. Now at last he was on to something. Geoffrey’s recording of the Wagner had taken place on the Tuesday, the day after Charlotte’s murder. The architect must somehow have found out about his wife’s crime and known that there was incriminating evidence on a cassette, which had to be removed. But Charles was due for supper just after he made the discovery, so he had to destroy the evidence while their guest was there without raising his suspicions. What was easier than to record over it?
Charles found the distinctive yellow and green container which held the cassette Geoffrey had used. There was a chance, a very long chance, that some part of its previous recording remained unerased. He slipped the thin rectangle into his pocket.
Meanwhile Vee Winter’s interpretation of Wycherley ground on.
Suddenly the door opened and Geoffrey walked in. ‘Hello, Vee, I — ’
The surprise was so great that even his well-controlled emotions were caught off their guard. In the flash of time before he recovered himself, Geoffrey’s face bared his thoughts. He found another man alone in his house with his wife. And he was extremely suspicious.