A Splash of Red (12 page)

The black stub receded from her view into the pale glazed pottery ash-tray; it was shortly joined by another. Neither cigarette was fully smoked, a habit Sir Richard had in common with Kevin John Athlone; it was the image of the latter, stubbing out ceaselessly the black Sobranies he had found in Chloe's bedroom, which confirmed to her that this man before her had known her friend well, had from time to time shared that bedroom with her, had stored his cigarettes there, had perhaps stored a razor as well. Now she was dead, murdered.

Jemima did not of course know what had transpired between Lionnel and Pompey downstairs. Had he made a statement or were matters not that advanced? Which did he fear more - the Press or the police? These questions tantalized her as she replied with composure to match his own: 'I'm going to an hotel near here, I hope. Then I shall try to find something else. My own flat is let and I need to be in this area to get on with my work in the British Library.' She glanced at Pompey, who gave a very gentle shake of his head, and added firmly: 'And of course I want to give the police all the help I can.'

'Naturally,' replied Lionnel, as though she was offering to help him rather than the police. Once again he did not apparently feel it incumbent upon him to express the same helpful attitude. They stared at each other. 'Whatever the police know at this point about your relations with Chloe,' thought Jemima, refusing to let her own green ey
es fall before his black ones, ‘I
know. But do you know that I know?'

'Excuse me, sir,' said the young policeman, with a deferential cough. 'There's the question of this pet.' He was holding in his arms the golden bundle of Tiger, whose wild green eyes, rather the colour of Jemima's own but far more baleful, gazing with savage outrage at his imprisonment, made the policeman's description of him seem singularly inappropriate.

'Oh God - Tiger - I'd forgotten. Who will feed him?' began Jemima, just as the infuriated so-called pet eluded his captor's arms. Delivering a vicious scratch to the policeman's shoulder, protected only by a white shirt, he leapt away and to the floor. From this point he then leapt with equal precipitation right up on to Lionnel's tweed-clad shoulder. It was as though in his feline language, he was pointing directly and threateningly to their secret acquaintance. If so, Lionnel's reaction was equally significant. Without any visible annoyance, he simply struck the clinging cat off his shoulder, as one might brush off a beetle or some other flying insect. Tiger let out something closer to a squawk than a mew.

'Cats in their place,' said Lionnel pleasantly, but without a trace of apology. This was how Jemima had witnessed the Lion of Bloomsbury coping with television. 'Lionnel Estates will definitely be building further high-rise blocks - Lionnel Estates will be demolishing unsafe Adam houses - Lionnel Estates will do this, do that - wherever the permission is granted.' And then at the end, an unexpected grin, making him look like a happy satyr. He was not grinning now. 'But there's no need for them to starve. Cats, Miss Shore, not the masses. By repute, as you know, I'm less particular about the latter. Besides you might not get into a very salubrious hotel at this hour, and at the height of the tourist season. I'll call my people on Monday and see what we've got on offer to accommodate you. In the meantime, Miss Shore, why don't you stay downstairs? I've an office flat,' he went on blandly, 'which I'm using till my own flat on the third floor is decorated. Quite comfortable. Yes, really quite comfortable. I take it you're alone.' He looked round.

'Yes, quite alone,' said Jemima in
her most poised voice. 'How ver
y kind, Sir Richard. But what about—' she phrased it diplomatically 'your own plans?'

'I'm going back to the country. Now.' And to Portsmouth he added: 'You have my number there of course, and I'll be available at any time.'

'Thank you, Sir Richard. I should like to have a further word with you before you go.' Equally noncommittal.

'So why not, Miss Shore?' Why not indeed? It was true that Jemima felt a growing obligation towards Tiger, as though tending him was her own expression of mourning for Chloe. She could not abandon him now to his wildness. Who else would tend him? Adam Adamson? Was he yet back from that mysterious errand? Ah, that was a thought. The whole question of Adam Adamson, to say nothing of Kevin John Athlone, brought her back to the persistent refrain Who, Who?...

To deal with it, she needed two things. First of all, time and space for a clear think. And that the first-floor flat would provide. Second, and of this she was quietly optimistic, she needed a good long talk with her friend Detective Chief Inspector John Portsmouth, otherwise known as Pompey. She had after all a great deal of information for Pompey. Jemima, spirits rising as the habitual curiosity quickened in her, thought Pompey, unofficially of course, might have some for her.

One last encounter remained before she could descend to the abstract peace of the first floor. In its own way it was as surprising as anything which had yet confronted her that day.

Mr Stover was an unexpectedly little man. From his fiercely resonant voice, Jemima had anticipated more physical substance. He stood in the doorway, panting slightly from the climb, felt hat in hand, mackintosh over his arm - careful on even such a blazing day of what sudden rains might lie in wait in the capital. He was quite dwarfed by the policewoman at his side; she was rather pretty, with neat fair hair pinned up under a cap and a pleasantly freckled face; her black and white tie and rolled-up sleeves, revealing freckled arms, gave her the air of a school prefect.

The smallness of Mr Stover depressed Jemima once more. But then Chloe's so small. No, Chloe
was
small. She tried to put aside the memory of that frail corpse on the bed. And anyway, he's only her stepfather.

But Mr Stover was still talking quite fiercely and the eyes, in the lined face, under the white hair, were bright and even angry.

'We never came here, you know,' he was saying. 'Her mother and I were never invited.'

He looked round at the wreck of the pale flat, which now, under its police occupation, looked like some kind of abandoned film set.

'Very plush, I must say.' It did not seem the right word. 'No garden, of course.'

'There's a nice balcony, sir,' said the policewoman brightly.

Mr Stover shot her a sardonic glance. 'I can see that, my dear, I can see that. Seventy-seven next birthday and still got my own eyes. Can't say the same about my teeth, mind you, but then I don't see with my teeth, do I?'

'No, sir,' said the policewoman in a voice of friendly encouragement, as though he might if he tried hard enough.

'Those your teeth, by the way?' Mr Stover suddenly barked at Jemima, reminding her of the voice on the telephone. His small stature was certainly delusive.

'I believe so.'

'Funny. Always thought they ripped them out if you went on television and gave you new ones. That's why I never accepted any of their numerous offers to appear, you see.' Then the little spark subsided; there was something automatic about it as though Mr Stover was comforting himself with his familiar witticism.

'A balcony, yes,' he went on in a much less energetic voice. 'All very nice. But you couldn't put a baby on a balcony, could you? Not for very long. Her mother said, "Charlie, I'd like to know about the accommodation." That's the last thing she said. "Is it suitable, Charlie? You must tell Dollie to make quite sure she has a little garden.'" Then he choked and Jemima realized that tears were running down his cheeks, had been running down his cheeks while he talked of Dollie and her garden, and twisted his felt hat in his hands.

'She was so happy, the wife, when Dollie telephoned. We quite forgave her all the waiting. The second letter, cancelling the visit, never arrived, you know. Some problem with the address, I suppose. It will come—' He gave a little dry sob. 'She was so happy. In spite of the, well, somewhat unusual circumstances, least said soonest mended in that direction. "A grand-child at my age!" she said. Dollie was her only one, and we never had one of our own.'

Mr Stover turned to Jemima, as though the police were not present and she, and she alone, must hear this news.

'Yes, Miss Shore, Dollie was going to have a baby. That's what she wanted to tell us. And this morning she was so happy.'

As Mr Stover still stood there, having delivered this bombshell, Jemima found the old question coming back in force. Who, Who? Not only the murderer but the father of Chloe's child. One person or two. Who, Who?

9

Fallen Child

'Yes, she was pregnant all right. About three months, according to the police doctor,' said Detective Chief Inspector Portsmouth. 'We got on to the mortuary immediately in case anything could be done to save the child, which of course it couldn't.' He was sitting, nursing a pale whisky and water, in what was designated as the receiving room of Sir Richard Lionnel's office suite.

The decor was quite unlike that of the shocking cobalt blue aquarium upstairs. Here it was most obviously gracious: a great many well-polished surfaces belonging to furniture which could have been photographed as it stood for the pages of
Country Life.
Lamps were huge, marble based with wide shades. The sofa on which Pompey was sitting was discreetly covered in tobacco-coloured material, with appropriately tawny cushions. The flowers, a huge arrangement on the bow-fronted sideboard which otherwise bore only cut-glass decanters containing a variety of rich red liquids, consisted of gladioli and roses. Red and orange predominated. Jemima expected to see
Country Life
itself lying in sheaves on the low table in front of the sofa (such planning, with its lack of any personal element, recalled irresistibly the dentist's waiting-room). Whoever had decorated this suite, it was certainly not the same hand and imagination at work as had been rampant on the third floor. Perhaps the Lionnels merely hired the most fashionable decorator of the time, regardless of style.

Only Jemima herself, still in the rippling beige dress with its tiny splashes of red and navy blue in which she found herself spending this strange day, brought some lightness into the picture. Pompey noted once again Jemima's gift - and the gift of her clothes - of seeming unruffled and elegant even in the most bizarre circumstances.
It was
something to which his wife had first drawn his attention. Pompey merely thought Jemima an unfairly pretty girl for one who was so markedly - even awkwardly - intelligent. Every time they met he had to adjust to the combination all over again. Shaking his head, he expressed something along these lines.

'I don't believe it!' Jemima burst out. 'Oh thank you, Pompey,' she added quickly. 'No, I meant Chloe and the baby. I can't quite believe it. But then I'm always saying that about Chloe now. I'm beginning to think I never knew her at all.' Jemima took a long cool sip of white wine - a Muscadet happily found in Sir Richard's office fridge; but then many people drank white wine as an aperitif nowadays not only Jemima herself - Chloe, for example
...

'Tell me about her. A rather adventurous young lady, I take it.' A gentle shake of the head. 'A bit of a slip-up, that about the baby. Didn't she watch your famous programme, then, about the Pill?' Pompey's references to Jemima's programmes were generally jocular; Jemima was glad of this indication that he was in a relaxed - and therefore confidential - mood.

'Adventurous, yes. Young, well, you're always so chivalrous, Pompey. She was exactly my age.' Pompey spread his hands expressively. He looked quite roguish. The omens were good for a rather jolly discussion, if any discussion on such a painful subject could be jolly; it was one which involved Pompey's keen wits and Jemima's devouring curiosity.

Jemima had already described what she knew of the last twenty-four hours of Chloe's life. She had kept nothing of importance back, relating quite straightforwardly the various episodes of the telephone calls (including those of the Stovers), and the morning intrusion of Kevin John Athlone as she was about to leave for the Reading Room. Her description of her encounter with Adam Adamson had incurred quite a fierce headshake from Pompey but he did not interrupt her. She passed on to her unexpected meeting with Valentine Brighton in the Reading Room and her subsequent return first to the square gardens where she had spied Adamson leaving, and then to the house in Adelaide Square itself, where she had found Kevin John Athlone.

Jemima left nothing material out. She knew that if she was to pursue her enquiries successfully, she had much to gain from being very frank with Pompey in the hope that he would to some extent pool information. Only with regard to Valentine Brighton's mission to London did she tread somewhat circumspectly. This was for two reasons. First, Jemima had her own reservations about Valentine's story, told amidst the Assyrian gods. His whole presence in Bloomsbury needed further explanation so far as she was concerned; the image of that slumped figure - like a dead man as she had thought at the time -in the seat so providentially next to hers, remained to tantalize and disturb. Second, Chloe's alleged ambition to marry Lionnel was, by the rules of evidence, merely hearsay.