Authors: Antonia Fraser
Cool Repentance (11 page)
But when she opened the door of her suite, she was not alone. There was someone waiting for her. Spike Thompson was sitting there, quite at his ease, in the most comfortable chair in the room, wearing jeans and a blue top which might or might not have been a kind of vest. Through the door, she could see his black leather jacket was laid carefully on the bed -which was very large, a four-poster and advertised as having been occupied by King Charles II on his escape from Worcester. He had not bothered to draw the curtains of the rooms more than half-way.
'I think you said champagne was your heart's desire.' There was a bottle cooling in a silver container beside him. 'I paid for it in cash, by the way.'
'Ah. Cash. Now that
is
serious.'
'Exactly. Now why don't you take off your clothes, and then take off mine, unless you'd prefer it to be the other way round? I want this to be your treat, starting with the champagne.'
'If this is to be my treat,' said Jemima thoughtfully, 'I think one or other of us should wear your black leather jacket.'
In the end it was Spike Thompson who took off the clothes and Jemima Shore who wore the black leather jacket. Spike Thompson also opened the champagne. Neither of them remembered to close the gap in the curtains.
It was a long time later that Jemima raised her head from Spike's chest, her fingers clutched into the nests of black curly hair. 'Spike?'
'Mmmmm.' He tightened the grasp of his arm, equally hirsute, about her.
'There's a light on in the
t
heatre.' 'Fuck the theatre. This is television.'
Nat Fitzwilliam, when he went back into the Watchtower Theatre, also found someone waiting for him, someone sitting silently in the front row of the stalls.
'Who is it?' he called from the back of the auditorium. But the figure, apparently gazing fixedly at the empty darkened stage, did not answer. It was very dark and still in the theatre: the lights which Nat had switched on did not illuminate the silent figure where it sat and to Nat, suddenly nervous, it had something of the horrid immobile air of a guy, a guy waiting patiently for the drama to begin.
'Who are you?' Nat called again, walking quickly forward. 'And how the hell did you get into the theatre?' His voice sounded sharp, even commanding, but he was twisting the ends of his white scarf as he spoke.
'Oh, I know where the key was left,' said the person suddenly, rising up from the seat, and pulling Nat's white scarf from between his hands. Taking advantage of Nat's surprise, the person most efficiently then placed the scarf round Nat's neck and pulled it tight, tight, till his round eyes began to pop out of his head, and his poor bragging tongue started forth.
The theatre was quite quiet and no one saw the person who had just murdered Nat Fitzwilliam leave the the Stage Door and go away.
Nat Fitzwilliam remained sitting, sightless, on the edge of the seat of the stalls where he had fallen, the white scarf twisted round his neck. After a while his body keeled forward and pitched down on to the floor. His body made no sound, resting on the thick theatre carpet. And when the seat, relieved of its burden, clapped back again upright it made no sound either.
9
Forbidden Thoughts
It was Julian Cartwright who broke the news of Nat Fitzwilliam's death to Christabel. He intended to do so with that gentle deference which characterized his treatment of his wife. At the time Christabel was immured alone upstairs in her white bedroom whose windows looked to the sea. She was in that trance-like state half-way between sleep and the anguish of the day in which she might linger for hours if not called by Mrs Blagge.
When rehearsals began, Christabel's orders had been precise: 'My breakfast tray exactly two and a half hours before rehearsal, darling - not a minute earlier, not a minute later. I like to have a bath, find my face again, recover from those wretched but essential pills. And I want the female Blagge to bring it, no, not you, Blanche darling, no Rina, of course not, and above all not Ketty - the female Blagge is the only one of you who won't talk at that time of day. Silent disapproval is ideal at that time in the morning, because it really is
silent."
Julian Cartwright had not offered to bring the tray himself and thus ran no risk of being repulsed.
Now he stood beside his wife's large bed, gazing down at her in the semi-darkness. The day was overcast: the sultry night had ended in a small storm and a
shower
of rain, freshening the heavy green summer garden: so there was no sunlight to eat its way through the chinks in the curtains. All the same Julian could discern the soft contours of his wife's body under the bedclothes; she slept, as she always had, he remembered, well over on the right side of the bed, although there was now no rival occupant to disturb her repose. Had she slept like this too during those years away, those years when - surely her bed then had been all unruly -
These were forbidden thoughts. Putting them from him, Julian touched Christabel's shoulder lightly.
She stirred and muttered something like 'Curtains'. Seeing that her eyes were still tightly shut, Julian suddenly bent down and kissed her naked shoulder where he had touched it, as though to soothe the mark away.
Christabel gave a little cry, opened her eyes, cried out again more strongly, and then stopped. She looked quite frightened as she clutched the white sheet across her breasts, only partly concealed by the white silk nightdress. Julian sat down on the edge of the bed.
'Darling Christabel, listen to me.' He did not attempt to touch her again.
'What time is it?' Christabel sat up more fully, and tried to squint at the little lapis lazuli and gold clock on her bedside table. 'What time is it? Have I overslept? Where's Mrs Blagge?'
'Listen to me, my dearest. The police have telephoned from Larminster. There's been an accident. I want to prepare you.' For once Julian's voice was really low; his tone, as ever, was reasonable.
He was violently interrupted by screams coming from the landing. The voice was that of Blanche. The cry - 'Mummy, Mummy' - was the same primitive wail which had announced the discovery of Filly Lennox's body on the seashore.
Blanche came running into the bedroom. She was wearing very tight jeans and a
T
-shirt, with her fair hair pulled tightly into a ponytail. Julian had an automatic reaction: Blanche shouldn't wear jeans or pull her hair back, even last night's baggy outfit had been better. Then Blanche's story came tumbling out at high speed:
'He's dead! Murdered! Vandals came in the night! They killed him -and now—' She began to weep copiously, hurling herself across the silk coverlet embroidered with spring of lily of the valley. 'I'll never be an actress now, I know I never will.' As Blanche's weeping turned to howls, Regina's much taller and slimmer figure, also clad in jeans, was seen rather wistfully standing in the bedroom door.
'Come in, Rina, come in, don't hang about there,' he called out impatiently. 'Mummy's awake. You can see that. Ordinary rules don't apply. Besides—'
Regina stepped tentatively into the bedroom. Her eyes were full of tears.
'Oh Daddy,' she began. 'The pity of it—' She stopped as she saw that Julian's arms were struggling with Blanche's prostrate form, half-comforting her, half-trying to lug her off Christabel's bed. Regina too began to cry.
About the time that Julian Cartwright with the help of Blanche was breaking the news of Nat Fitzwilliam's murder to Christabel, Miss Kettering was performing the same office for the Blagges.
Mr and Mrs Blagge were together in the main kitchen; Mrs Blagge was setting Christabel's breakfast tray. Ketty watched her sister for a moment in silence.
'Give over, Katherine,' muttered Mrs Blagge rather irritably. 'Give over watching me, why don't you? Haven't you got any of your own work to do?' Mrs Blagge folded a tiny voile napkin and made it look like a butterfly. 'If I don't call her in good time before rehearsal—'
'No need to hurry yourself, Rose, no need whatsoever. There won't be any rehearsals from this time forward. Not for Her at any rate. For others more worthy, there will be. After all sin will not triumph.' Ketty's tone was solemn but beneath it, something approaching glee could be discerned. Mrs Blagge was bent over the fridge, searching out a minute pat of butter.
'What's that you say, Katherine?'
'Thought better of it, has she then? No rehearsals? Repented her wicked ways?' If Ketty sounded a note of subdued glee, Mr Blagge was positively jovial.
'Nat Fitzwilliam, he's dead. Mrs Nixon and Joan found him this morning when they went to clean the theatre. A terrible sight! Strangled with his own scarf. It's all over Larminster. They got the police of course, but he was quite dead. Must have been dead for hours. Somebody must have broken in. May God Have Mercy on His Soul.' Ketty crossed herself.
Mrs Blagge did likewise. Mr Blagge did not move. Then the jug he was holding crashed to the floor and splintered into fragments as though some unseen force had prised open his fingers. He made no attempt to pick up the pieces.
'Barry! He was just the same age as our Barry - and now they're both dead - well, at least it's fair - when you think—'
'We agreed that we'd never talk about that, Jim,' interrupted Mrs Blagge. 'That's forbidden, Jim, to think about that, about those days.' Mr Blagge subsided.
'Broke in, you said?'
'Well, they must have broken in, mustn't they?' observed Ketty in a pious voice. 'We are not dealing with the supernatural here, Jim, and he was not likely to have let in his own murderer was he? He was a foolish boy, but he was not that foolish.'
'So the key wasn't used?' Mr Blagge's voice was hoarse.
The two women looked at each other; their expressions were unwontedly sympathetic.
'What's that, then, Jim?'
Mr Blagge sat down heavily at the kitchen table, the debris of the jug crunching under his feet.
'Last night. While you, Katherine, were having dinner with them in that arty-crafty place they love so much with the mucked-up food and those two hens who run it, Rose went to call on Father O'Brien and Mrs
Lang - I stayed in the car. Then
She
asked me to fetch her shawl from her dressing-room. Found a teeny weeny draught in the restaurant' - Mr Blagge cruelly imitated Christabel's beguiling tones - 'and of course Mr Julian had first rushed off to look for it. Came back without it. No key to the theatre - forgot about asking for it, in all his hurry to look after
Her.
'So then I was called from the car to make the second visit. The key was produced by Master Nat - he was having dinner there too you know -and into the theatre I go. Very cheeky he was too, when I asked him for the key. Gave him a piece of my mind right back, I did. I wasn't standing for that from young Nat. I don't care who heard me.'
'Into the theatre, Jim! Why you might have been killed,' gasped Mrs Blagge ignoring the references to Nat's cheekiness. There was something quite self-righteous about her exaggerated anxiety.
'That is, not into the actual theatre,' Mr Blagge corrected himself carefully, 'through the Stage Door, where I picked up the key of her dressing-room, and ended up with the aforesaid shawl
..
. The only thing is
...'
he hesitated. 'When I returned the shawl, Mr Julian told me not to bother to give young Nat back the key. I was very glad not to have to hand it back to that cheeky bastard, I can tell you. He'd left the restaurant by that time with the bald actor, the one who plays Sergeant Bartock on telly, and some woman. I saw them crossing the square to the Royal Stag on my way back.
'"Leave it under the big stone by the dogs' drinking-trough," he said -Mr Julian, that is. "Mr Fitzwilliam will pick it up later. It'll be quite safe." So forth went I out and deposited it, just as he, Mr Julian, had requested.'
Already there was something about Mr Blagge's words which smacked of the prepared statement.
'And so you did, Jim?' Mrs Blagge prompted him.
He nodded.
'Then you've done nothing to reproach yourself with. Even if it wasn't a break-in. You were just obeying orders. Mr Julian's orders.'
'Ah, but Rose, anyone could have seen him,' Ketty resumed her most pious voice. 'You must bear that in mind. Anyone could have heard you, Jim, come to think of it.'
'Heard me! Heard Mr Julian, more like. It was he what was making the arrangements, don't you forget it. A voice like a bull, as She has so often put it—' Mr Blagge now sounded quite agitated.
'Be that as it may, I prefer to look upon the bright side of things, myself,' Ketty in contrast was all sweetness.
'And what might that be?'
