A Splash of Red (26 page)

It seemed even less out of the question the next morning when Jemima awoke into the dawn. An exhausted grey light filled the sitting room, more reminiscent of a long night past than redolent of the promise of day. She squinted at her watch. Close on five o'clock. The candle had guttered to a standstill. Congested wax had spilled onto the glass table. It joined the debris of the crashed tray which Kevin John had not allowed her to clear up the night before.

She was aware that some noise had caused her awakening. Kevin John was still sitting opposite her - for they had finally fallen asleep as they sat, she rejecting with unrepressed horror the offer of Chloe's bedroom. His eyes were closed; he was emitting gentle half sighs, half snoring sounds which reminded her of how many bottles of wine he had consumed the night before - unaided but also undisturbed by her abstinence. The penthouse was at least well stocked with wine. His sighs, however, were not responsible for her waking.

It was Tiger, a dark golden blur outside the balcony window, who had roused her with his delicate infant's wail. He looked and sounded reproachful. Jemima guessed he was hungry. Knowing that she could open the balcony window, her first impulse was to let him in and feed him with the remnants of the sardines from Kevin John's tinned supper. Then she realized that here was a possible opportunity to summon help - supposing there was anyone around to summon at 5 am in Bloomsbury of a Sunday morning.

A note dropped, perhaps? One thing she did not propose to attempt was a descent via the scaffolding; and she had a gloomy feeling that the kitchen door to the fire escape at the back - poor Valentine Brighton's voyeur's route - would have been well and truly locked by the police.

'Don't do it, darling,' said Kevin John with only a flicker of his eyelashes to indicate wakefulness.
‘If
I'm the bully boy the police say I am, I wouldn't hesitate to cast you off the balcony after the keys would I, rather than let you yodel for help? Wait till you've solved our little problem. Then we'll both celebrate together.'

He put out his arm, brown, hairy, and very strong-loo
king, exposed from the sleeve of
his white shirt, which was now like his grey trousers in a very crumpled condition.

'I was going to feed the cat.'

'Let him starve. I loathe cats: selfish little buggers. When do they ever put down a saucer of milk for you and me? Even worse than women.'

'He might appreciate the sardines more than I did.'

'Not a fishy sniff shall he have till you come up with your solution.'

But it was not until nearly eight o'clock, when the slight Bloomsbury bustle indicated the beginning of modest Sunday traffic, that Jemima finally agreed to listen.

Under the promise of coffee - thank God the remaining stores in the flat did not consist solely of white Muscadet - she bent her weary mind yet again to the problem of Chloc's murder. It had after all obsessed her all the week, until Kevin John's bullying had brought about a counter-reaction.

Besides, she had in mind asking for a bath once he was sufficiently mollified. The hot water system was still working. Tiger by this time had vanished, and she hoped that he had managed to scavenge a meal elsewhere.

'If not you, then who?' It was the old question: Who, Who? 'I'll accept your premise that you're innocent for the time being. Hostages can't be choosers. So long as you let me have another cup of coffee.'

'The bitch - I refer to your late friend - was meeting someone up here. I never believed that crap about looking for her notebook. Passed it on to the police, mind you. I could see it only made things worse for me if they thought I'd surprised her with someone else. Then I really might have done her in.'

'And him, too, I suppose.'

Kevin John favoured her with a boyish smile. 'Not necessarily, darling. We men stick together. We'd probably have a lot in common if she treated him as badly as she treated me. You know, the sweetness, the sex - she was very keen on
that
In- the way; breathless, begging for it - then the torture of it, the infidelity, never knowing where she was. Oh Christ—'

He put his great black head in his hands.

'She's dead now,' said Jemima in a softer voice. 'And we're going to find out who did it. Look, I'll buy that,' she went on more rapidly, 'the fact she was meeting someone else. I've had my suspicions all along. Little things - the petticoat she wore, for example. Chloe was so particular, wasn't she? When she was working,' she added hastily. 'Then there's the question of her other lovers. Three of them. Bear with me—' She raised her hand as he gave a half groan. 'You want the truth. You promised to help me.'

Kevin John poured himself yet another glass of white wine. 'Shoot, sweetheart,' he said. Jemima herself swigged her coffee in great gulps from the oatmeal-coloured mug.

'After you split up, Chloe had three lovers. I'll call them, with great originality, A, B and C. A was a young man, a kind of drop-out, squatter, whatever you like, she knew him in Fulham. He also came here with her, to this building, probably not to this flat, squatted on another floor—'

To her surprise, Kevin John interrupted her: 'A is for Adam,' he said heavily. 'I know that. She told me about him. She boasted about him -the young body, like a Greek god, all that kind of shit. She could be very cruel, you know. That was the last time we met. In Fulham. So he was here, was he? Well, why the hell don't the police think he killed her?' His indignation was gathering momentum. 'Why pick on me?'

Jemima hesitated. Kevin John obviously did not know that Adam had sworn to seeing him leaving the building, evidence corroborated by an outside witness.

'Lack of motive chiefly. And lack of proof. I believe he has some kind of alibi. The police also don't think he did it because they think you did, I suppose. He
could
have killed her. He could have come up the fire escape from the third-floor flat.' Jemima briefly described Adam's hideout.

'And what do you think?'

'I suppose I think he's not the killing type.'

'And I am? Poor Kevin John, a lambkin among mankind, to be labelled a killing type just because he lays about him with his fists when the drink is in him—'

'Did you know Chloe was pregnant?' Jemima interrupted the tirade.

Sudden tears came into his eyes. 'The police told me. Asked me if I was responsible. Of course I wasn't. The only child we had, we could have had,
she
killed. That was a killing - a real killing - she said we weren't getting on, I was drinking - true enough, but it was
her
fault -she drove me to it.'

'I believe this Adam was the father.'

'There's your motive then!' The change of mood was mercurial. 'The young fellow doesn't want to be a father, kills her to avoid the responsibility. You know what the young are.' He gave a ghastly parody of a Harrods' matron's accent.

'A bit far-fetched, isn't it? In an age of abortion on demand. Besides, you haven't heard about B and C yet.'

'Get on with it then!'

'B was a man of substance, a famous man, whom Chloe hoped would marry her. We think she intende
d to palm off this baby on him;
she certainly intended to use it to lure him away from his wife. B certainly had a motive to murder Chloe, scandal, a lot to lose. But unlike A who had opportunity but not motive, B had no opportunity. B, you see, was having lunch in Soho with his wife. It is also unlikely that B would arrange a rendezvous in the penthouse - but that's another matter.'

'I suppose you won't tell me who B was?'

'Correct. You haven't heard about C yet. I think I ought to call him X rather than C because X is the man of mystery in all this. Someone unknown whom she met in the square gardens. One night when she was locked out of here, forgot her key. A casual encounter she called it. Supposing she was meeting that person, X, up here.'

'And he goes and does her in? Why?'

'I don't know yet. Maybe he sees her with you, gets the wrong impression.'

'And that might be anyone!' exclaimed Kevin John. 'That bitch was capable of having it off in the bushes with anyone, man, woman, in between—'

'You've no clues? Nothing she said?'

'My God!' he stopped. 'No, that's impossible.'

'Nothing's impossible. It's not even impossible that
you
killed her. Anyone leaving the building? Anyone she talked about?'

'What I was going to say, that's what I meant is impossible. But, wait, another train of thought. A famous man you said, a man of substance. Another impossible thing. That man, the tycoon, Lionnel—'

'You
knew
then—'

'Wait, Lionnel, the monster who put up this appalling building, but not such a monster after all, a man of taste and judgement, since he bought one of my pictures. Binnie Rapallo fixed it and since she has no taste whatsoever, he must have some himself. That Saturday, morning, lunch-time, whenever it was - I was so pissed,
and
pissed off - I saw him. I ran away from him. Didn't want to talk about any damn modern art under the circumstances, as you may imagine. You know what tycoons are, buy your work, and think they own you, including your merest conversation.'

'Where was he?'

'Outside this building. Coming from the Tottenham Court Road. Walking very fast. I thought he was coming towards me. I had the impression he ducked. Perhaps he saw me, or someone else he knew. I veered off. I was pissed as a newt, as I told you.'

'The time?'

'How the hell do I know? As I left the building. Whatever the police
say. It was odd that he was walking so fast. I remember thinking that. I thought tycoons were unhurried. Or else had chauffeurs. Or both.'

Silence fell between them. Kevin John poured yet another glass of wine. Through Jemima's orderly mind were proceeding the following thoughts: not Lady Lionnel leaving the restaurant early in a taxi, but Sir Richard fetching that taxi for her; Sir Richard running out into the street in the absence of his chauffeur; evidence not given by Stavros to the police because it touched on a family row and Sir Richard was a good customer; Valentine's dying words - 'He came back'; Lionnel walking fast to Adelaide Square from 'The Little Athens', only a few minutes away across the Tottenham Court Road, and back again . . . About
1.30,
the time Kevin John left the building
...
About the time Chloe Fontaine was killed. Above all, Valentine's 'He came back.'

Sir Richard Lionnel with motive
and
opportunity
..
. Had the queen, shut up in her tower, succeeded in spinning straw into gold?

17

Lovers in disguise

'Now let me go,' said Jemima. 'I've kept my word.'

'You think he did it - that art-loving tycoon. Why is it, incidentally, that all the worst of them are art-loving?' Kevin John still sounded lugubrious. But he did not stop her when she walked to the balcony and pressed the catch to open it. 'Puss - Tiger—' she called into the morning air. Its freshness was a relief. But Tiger, once scorned, did not reappear.

'I need to prove it. The police too will want proof. I need to talk to Stavros, the owner of the restaurant.'

'A Greek colonel, eh? All those bastards are in league together.'

'No, an honest man. But a businessman.'

'If I let you go, what happens if you shop me to the police?'

'Shop you! You're on a murder charge already. Have you forgotten?' Dazed with wine and lack of sleep, perhaps Kevin John had forgotten. 'Next problem,' Jemima continued briskly, 'is how we get out. Do you recommend hollering blue murder - sorry, red innocence - flying a white flag, or dropping a brick on the head of the nearest passer-by in Adelaide Square—'

A mumble sounding like: 'You've promised, Jemima Shore, Investigator,' was his only reply. And then: 'You'll see me all right.' Jemima had an awful fear that the drink was overtaking him. True to her dread, Kevin John slipped further down the chair and finally onto the floor. He had fallen asleep or at least into that coma-like state which with him passed for sleep.

Oh my God, she thought, now how do I escape? Hollering was the least attractive of the alternatives. She did not wish for public attention at this moment: she needed to get to
'The Little Athens', re-examine
Stavros, work out a few times precisely, and then perhaps call Pompey with new evidence.

It might be easier to break a lock. Jemima inspected the kitchen door to the fire escape. The bolt she could draw back, but the police had also locked the door, and the key was missing. The glass was reinforced with wire. The front door was out of the question.