Before the Poison (12 page)

October 2010

I left the Volvo at home and took a taxi to Darlington station, then the train down to London. I had talked with Bernie Wilkins, my art dealer colleague, on the telephone the previous day, and he had given me Samuel Porter’s address. He was intrigued by my interest and suggested we meet for dinner. It would be good to see him again, I thought, and he might be able to tell me a bit more about Sam. I had booked a room at Hazlitt’s, on Frith Street, where I usually stay when I’m on business in London, so we arranged to meet at Arbutus, just across the street.

I have always found train travel relaxing, despite the frequent delays and general lack of sympathy towards passengers on the part of the staff, who act as if they’re doing you a big favour by letting you ride on their train in the first place, and you ought to be jolly well grateful for it. But you only notice these things if you’ve spent a long time away. If you live here all the time, I should imagine you just think it’s the norm and expect nothing better. But I still love train travel. Many’s the time I’ve stood in the security line at LAX wishing there were a train I could take to San Francisco that took less than about twelve hours to travel 383 miles!

Still plagued by childhood memories of British Rail sandwiches curled at the edges, I bought a ham and cheese baguette at the station, and a large Costa latte. The train arrived on time. No one had the seat next to me, so I was able to spread out, eat my lunch and sip my latte and watch the world go by. It was a pleasant enough day, with only a few clouds and the occasional brief shower, but mostly with enough blue sky to make baby a new bonnet, as my mother used to say. Shadows flitted over the Vale of York and the distant hills of Wensleydale, and soon we were past York and Doncaster, well on our way out of Yorkshire. I passed the time pleasantly listening to Tchaikovsky’s string quartets on my iPod and reading my Alan Furst.

There were no delays, and the train rolled into King’s Cross at 2.44, as promised. I followed the signs for the taxi rank opposite St Pancras. The London crowds came as quite a shock after my weeks of peace and relative solitude at Kilnsgate House. The sun was out, so the streets were crowded as the taxi made its slow progress along Euston Road, and became even slower in the maze of narrow one-way streets of Soho. People stood or sat at tables outside the pubs and coffee shops drinking and smoking – Café Italiano, Caffè Nero, Nelly Dean’s, the Dog and Duck – as we went up one street and down another. There were roadworks everywhere, it seemed, as men replaced the old Victorian sewers. It cost more to get from Oxford Street to the hotel than it did from King’s Cross to Oxford Street.

Hazlitt’s has undergone a few changes over the years I’ve been staying there, including the installation of air-conditioning and a library bar. Most recently they have extended the reception area and added a wing of renovated, modern rooms with showers. But I was happy to find, when I first arrived in London just a few weeks ago, that the old-fashioned charm hadn’t disappeared.

My room this time was as delightfully eccentric as the others I remembered staying in over the years, with uneven, creaky floors, worn rugs, heavy silk curtains, antiques, gilt-framed paintings of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gentlemen and ladies in their finery, a marble bust of some Greek or Roman orator, and a high carved oak bed. It was hot, so I slid open the large sash window a few inches. It overlooked a small courtyard, where an imitation Greek sculpture stood. The bathtub was the old claw-foot style, with telephone-handset shower. The toilet chain hung from the overhead cistern, the way they all used to do when I was a child.

I had plenty of time to kill, so after a little shopping on Oxford Street and Charing Cross Road, I indulged in a quick pint of Timothy Taylor’s at the Dog and Duck. I had had no success tracking down the
Famous Trials
account of the Grace Fox case in the second-hand bookshops on Charing Cross Road, though I did pick up a recent book on Hitchcock’s film music, which I browsed through as I sipped my pint.

The restaurant was only a few yards along Frith Street, and Bernie was already waiting at a table by the window, watching the ebb and flow of Soho life outside, when I arrived. It was dark by then, and there were a few early party-seekers on the street, but the most interesting Soho types don’t come out until much later. Bernie poured me a glass of wine and we clinked glasses.

‘Good to see you again, Chris,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘Too long.’

He lowered his eyes. ‘I was very sorry to hear about Laura.’

I drank some wine. ‘Thanks.’

‘Anyway, let’s have a look at the menu.’

I went for the bavette steak and Bernie settled on Elwy Valley lamb. We decided to stick with the same wine that Bernie had ordered before I arrived. A group of giggling, scantily clad girls walked by outside, fanning out across the narrow street, on their way to a club or a hen party. One of them was wearing Mickey Mouse ears and another was struggling on impossibly high heels. A taxi honked at them to get out of the road, and they scattered, screaming and giggling. ‘Some things never change,’ Bernie said. ‘It’s ages since I’ve been to the West End.’

We worked on our wine and reminisced about old times until the food came. ‘I still appreciate the way you took care of me in LA, you know,’ he said.

‘It can be a terribly lonely place.’ I remembered my own first days there, around the age of twenty-five, working on the score of that low-budget horror movie. I was dreadfully shy and spent most of my free time either shut away in the studio or in my tiny Sherwood Oaks apartment, tinkling the ivories of my upright piano. What saved me was playing keyboards in a covers band at various bars and clubs around town. This was around 1975, and still a fairly exciting time in rock, a sort of buffer between the end of the sixties and the punk era. It may have been all Bay City Rollers and Abba as far as the charts were concerned, but Bowie was turning into the Thin White Duke, and Dylan, Pink Floyd and the Stones were still churning out decent albums. Playing in the band got me a date with the pretty young blonde actress who played the blood-sucking monster’s first victim. Her name was Fey DeWitt, and she used to practise her lines on me in bed. She had an insatiable appetite for oral sex and Chinese takeaways, though not at the same time, but not for much else.

There were more young girls walking by in the street outside the restaurant, and I felt a sudden pang in my heart – for Laura, for Fey, for others I vaguely remembered – but mostly for my own lost youth.

‘You were going to tell me why you want to talk to Samuel Porter,’ Bernie said between mouthfuls of succulent lamb.

‘It’s a bit complicated.’ I explained what I had learned so far about the Grace Fox case.

When I had finished, Bernie asked me the same question as Wilf Pelham: why was I interested?

‘I don’t really know,’ I answered, as truthfully as I could. ‘I’m curious, that’s all. I feel a connection. She was actually hanged at the prison right next to my old junior school, and now I’m living in her house. I feel as if I’m looking into the place’s ancestry, a family tree, though it’s not my own family tree, of course. And she sounds interesting. By all accounts she was a very beautiful and interesting woman. Mysterious. Enigmatic. She rode a motorbike. She made notations in the margins of her copy of Schubert’s
Impromptus
in tiny neat handwriting. And I love Schubert.’ I didn’t tell him about the night noises and the dark shadows I had imagined, her resemblance to Laura, or the figure in the wardrobe mirror, lest he think me stark raving mad.

‘But what does it matter? She’s dead.’

I filled my wineglass. This was becoming too much like the sort of interrogation I wanted to avoid, mostly because I didn’t have the right answers. Didn’t have
any
answers. But at the same time, I thought, Bernie was showing a disturbing lack of imagination. ‘Is that any reason to simply forget her?’ I said. ‘She might not have done it. There may still be family out there. There’s Samuel Porter for a start. And she had a son. Don’t you think if there’s a truth that differs from the official version
someone
might be interested in knowing it?’

Bernie gave me a long sad look. ‘Maybe and maybe not,’ he said. ‘You might find that people don’t want the past stirred up after so long of getting used to what you call the “official version”. Most people accept an explanation that works for them and get on with their lives. Besides, what makes you think she might not have done it, or that you can suddenly find out the truth after all these years?’

‘Nothing, seeing as you put it like that. I’ve no idea what really happened. I’m just interested, that’s all. I’d like to build up a better picture.’

‘I’d be careful if I were you, Chris.’

I gave a nervous laugh. ‘Careful? Why? Surely there’s nobody left alive who’d want to harm me if I came up with a different explanation of what happened?’

‘That wasn’t exactly what I meant, though you may be wrong on that score, too. No, I meant be careful for yourself, for your own peace of mind, that you don’t let this . . . this thing become an obsession, take you over, damage your psyche. You’re probably fragile after Laura’s death and all the upheaval of moving back over here. And I must say it’s a pretty remote place you’ve chosen to live. The isolation can’t be doing you any good.’

I put my knife and fork down. ‘Thanks for your concern, Bernie. You think I’m going crazy?’

Bernie laughed uneasily. He must have seen the angry gleam in my eye. ‘Steady on, old mate. I wasn’t saying that. I was just offering a friendly warning, that’s all. Besides, maybe there
are
people still around who don’t want the truth getting out. I mean, if Grace Fox didn’t do it, there’s a good chance that someone else did, isn’t there? What about Samuel Porter himself? Maybe he did it? Have you thought of that?’

I had to admit that I hadn’t. I had so little information to go on so far that any speculation as to what might have happened if Grace
were
to prove not guilty was quite beyond me. ‘Sam Porter must be pushing eighty,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I’ve got anything to fear from him. I appreciate what you’re saying, Bernie, I really do. But I’m not going mad, and I’m not getting obsessed. I’ve moved into a big old house in the country where a murder was committed nearly sixty years ago. I’m taking a break from work, from deadlines. I’ve got time on my hands, enough money to live on, to do what I want. I’m interested, that’s all. Nothing’s ever as straightforward as it seems. Hindsight can sometimes give you an advantage. All right?’

Bernie held up his hands. ‘OK. OK. You’re just interested. Fair enough. I get it. Maybe I’d feel the same way if I were in your position. Let’s order the cheese plate, shall we?’

‘Are you still going to tell me where to find Samuel Porter?’

‘Of course I am. But you can hardly ignore
my
curiosity, given yours, can you?’

‘I suppose not.’

Over the cheese and more wine I told him about my conversation with Wilf Pelham, where I had learned what little I knew of the circumstances of Ernest Fox’s death and Grace’s trial. Bernie listened intently, a little knot of concentration between his eyebrows.

‘It’s not very much, is it?’ he said when I’d finished.

‘That’s the problem. But don’t you think it’s fascinating? I’m living in that house, where the murder took place, maybe even sleeping in the room where it happened.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is intriguing, in a
Daily Mail
sort of way. She didn’t happen to leave any of her stuff lying around, did she? Diaries? Letters?’

‘Not that I know of. And, believe me, I’ve had a good look around. There’s a family portrait in the vestibule, that’s all, and some sheet music I think she might have made notations on. Of course, lots of people have lived there or stayed there as guests since then.’

‘Even so . . . People miss things. The police miss things.’

‘All I can say is I didn’t find anything interesting. How well do you know Samuel Porter?’

‘I’ve met him a few times, mostly at openings and exhibitions. I must say, he’s remarkably well preserved for his age. You’ll be surprised. Got all his faculties, or he had last time I saw him a few months ago. Still an expert stylist. Can be a bit cantankerous, mind you. Likes his drink. Stickler over money. Takes the Eurostar over to London two or three times a year. There was a big retrospective of his works three or four years ago. He made quite a pile on that. Samuel’s quite a charmer, really, especially with a few glasses of wine under his belt. Still has an eye for the ladies.’

‘Did he ever marry?’

‘Not that I know of. At least, no mention of a wife, living or dead, has ever come up.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Montparnasse. Lived in the same flat for years, apparently. Maybe ever since he first arrived in Paris.’

‘When was that?’

‘Oh, before my time. Mid-fifties, I think. When are you planning on going over to see him?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Well, best of luck. There’s nothing wrong with his memory, as far as I know, so it all depends what sort of mood you catch him in. He’s very stubborn, Samuel. If he doesn’t want to talk about something he won’t do it.’

‘I’ll use my charm.’

Bernie smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine, then. Coffee?’

I felt a bit shaken after my dinner with Bernie. He had questioned my motives even more severely than Wilf Pelham or Heather had, and he had even warned of the damage such a quest could do to me and to others. I hadn’t thought of that. Whatever the reason, the double espresso, the cheese, the wine, the conversation, I felt jumpy and restless, and I knew there was no point in going back to my hotel room just yet. Instead, I started to walk around Soho, almost oblivious to my surroundings, but somehow just registering the bright lights of neon signs, the knots of people standing outside pubs or sitting at the cafés, some drunk by now, others deep in private conversations, the smells of espresso coffee and cigarette smoke, marijuana, the couples holding hands.

At least I had Samuel Porter’s address in my pocket, and tomorrow I would head to Paris to talk to him. The anticipation of that meeting thrilled me in a way I would never have expected. It was a step closer to Grace, who, I realised, had become a mystery I had to unravel, if for no other reason than it seemed that no one else had tried. So far, she remained a remote and enigmatic figure, but I hoped, through talking to her ex-lover, to add some substance to fill in a few details of the faint outline I had.