Blood Sinister (12 page)

‘Why do you suppose she would do that? Was she usually secretive about her visitors?’

‘Well—’ He thought. ‘Not
secretive
. She didn’t go into graphic detail about her sex life, and I didn’t ask. But she didn’t go out of her way to hide the fact when she had visitors.’

‘So if it was Josh Prentiss, for instance—’

‘Well, why should she try and hide Josh from me?’ he said. ‘I’ve known Josh for yonks.’

‘It was you who told me that’s who was visiting her,’ Slider said patiently.

Medmenham put a hand to his cheek. ‘You’re right! I did say that. Because I saw his car outside. It doesn’t make sense, does it?’

‘That’s what I was thinking.’

He looked at Slider and went a bit pink. ‘You think I’m lying? But I’m not! It all happened exactly as I told you, up to that point; and I did see his car in the street. It’s only about where I went afterwards that I didn’t tell the truth.’

‘Well, suppose you tell me the truth now, and we’ll see how we get on,’ Slider suggested kindly.

‘Oh, we can be sarcastic when we try!’ Medmenham complained. ‘Well, look, I’ll tell you, since you make such a thing about it, but it’s very painful for me, and I hope you won’t repeat it to anyone. Can I trust you to be discreet?’

‘If it has nothing to do with the case, I will do my very best,’ Slider said.

Medmenham sighed. ‘And I suppose that’s all I’ll get out of you. You’re very
hard
, you know. Well, after I’d been up to see Phoebe and she said she wasn’t coming down, I came back down here and thought I’d just hole in for the night and watch some television. I’d put the tape in for
Red Slayer
, but I thought I ought to watch that new thing on the Beeb,
Windermere
, though frankly, love, it sounded like the usual old drivel – ess and vee lightly wrapped in panoramic views. So predictable! It would never have got made at all if it hadn’t been set in the Lake District. Dear old Auntie’s regional promotion plan! I don’t know why they don’t just give them a Tourist Board grant and be done with it. Well, long story short,’ he responded to Slider’s look, ‘I was just about to change into my kimono and slippers when the phone rang.’ He stopped.

‘Please,’ Slider said, ‘the suspense is killing me.’

Medmenham sighed. ‘I suppose I’ve got to tell you. All right, it was Piers.’

‘Peers?’ With all the Government connections of Josh Prentiss in the background, Slider’s mind offered him a section of the House of Lords.

‘My
friend
.’ He gave it an emphasis to show he was talking about more than friendship. ‘And, to be perfectly frank and honest, Josh’s brother.’

Slider got the spelling at last. ‘Oh, I see! Piers Prentiss?’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Never met him.’

‘I wish I never had. The heartache that little wrecker’s given me!’

‘How did you know him?’

‘Oh, I met him through Phoebe and Josh, of course. I’ve been to the Prentisses’ house to parties and things. Sometimes escorted Phoebe when they wanted the numbers kept even. Always fancied him, but we didn’t get together until a couple of months had gone by. Then it was a case of why didn’t we do this before? We were made for each other – or at least I thought so. Not that it’s been a bed of roses. He’s not the easiest man to get on with, let me tell you! But I thought we were settled for life. Then about two months ago, or a bit more, he started acting strangely. Blowing hot and cold. Not phoning. Breaking dates. I thought, hello, I thought – because we’ve been there before, dear, believe you me! Our life has not been a garden path, by any means. No, I thought, it’s got a little something on the side, that’s what’s going on here! Well, I let it go, because these things happen, and least said, soonest back under the duvet. I thought it would burn itself out and we’d be all right again. That’s usually the best way. But then came this phone call. Out of the blue. Not so much as a “brace yourself, love.”’

‘He was breaking it off?’ Slider asked, hoping to move the story on.

‘Breaking it off? I’d like to break his off!’ Medmenham cried with tiny rage. ‘And doing it like that, the little bitch, on the phone! I
had
been expecting to be seeing him, you see. We
were
supposed to’ve spent Sunday together. But then he phoned me on Wednesday to say he had to go on a collecting trip up north
somewhere – a country house sale on Monday, with the viewing on Sunday. He’s in the antiques trade, you see. Well, that rang true. Sunday and Monday are the days most antiques shops shut. But he said he was going up on the Saturday night so as to get to the viewing early and leave some bids, and that made me a bit suspicious, because he’d never done that before. Still, I didn’t say anything. And then he phones me at seven o’clock on Thursday to say it’s all over and he’s got someone else and it’s the real thing this time. He hadn’t been going to go away at all – he planned to spend the weekend with the new one. They’d arranged it Wednesday night – he’d been there, the new one, spent all day Thursday with him, and he’d just gone, so Piers had got straight on to me to tell me it was all over.’ He stopped a moment. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll have to have another drinky. It makes me shake just thinking about it. What about yours?’

Slider declined, and watched as Medmenham got up and mixed himself another G and T. Had it not been Josh Prentiss’s brother, he would have been impatient with all this detail, but as it was, he was listening with mind agog. If Piers had done him wrong and it was Phoebe who’d brought them together in the first place and Phoebe was making the beast with two backs with Josh – well, could that add up to enough to make Medmenham snap? Except that the rape still seemed a bit unlikely.

Medmenham returned with his drink, but didn’t sit down. He wandered about restlessly, sipping, touching things. Slider prompted him. ‘So Piers told you it was all over. What next?’

‘Naturally I argued with him. Told him this new thing was a flash in the pan. He says he’s known him a while, but it was just ordinary acquaintance before – well, I thought, tell that to the marines! I know the symptoms. I’ve been dumped on before, believe you me! Anyway, it’s obvious that Piers has just been dazzled by a young turk in a Donna Karan suit and Gucci shoes. So different from tweedy old
moi
. He wouldn’t say who it was, but he went on and on about how wonderful he was in frankly tedious detail. I said why all the secrecy? Tell me his name. And he said the new one wanted it kept secret, forbade him to tell anyone. I said, love, if he’s ashamed of you, but he said no, it was that his career was at a delicate stage. He’s going to be frightfully important, and when he is, he’ll come out in the open about the relationship.’ Medmenham sniffed. ‘Piers is
such an innocent, he shouldn’t be let out alone. One can see why he’s gone doo-lally over this power dresser. What
he
sees in Piers is another matter! Seal my lips for
that
, dear, because nobody likes a bitch. But anyway, I wasn’t taking it lying down, pardon the pun, because I just
know
it isn’t going to work and I’d like to save Piers heartache if I can, despite the way he’s treated me, so I said, “Is he with you now?” and Piers said he’d just left. So I said, “Then let me come up and see you. You owe me that, at least, to tell me to my face.” Because of course I thought if I could see him I could talk him round. He argued a bit, but I wore him down. I think he was quite glad really, because he was never the slightest use at being on his own, Piers wasn’t. I think one should be a world unto oneself. I’m happy as a lark with my own company. But Piers has to be with someone every minute. I suppose that’s what the problem was with
us
, because I wasn’t there enough of the time. Not that we couldn’t have worked that out. Anyway, after a bit he said all right, I could come if I wanted but it wouldn’t make any difference. So I went.’

‘Went where?’ Slider asked.

‘To see
Piers
,’ Medmenham said irritably, and then, ‘Oh, you mean
where
? Well, Chelmsford, of course. He’s got the shop there, and a dear little cottage, very
bijou
, stuffed with the most
precious
things. I mean, Chelmsford’s Outer Mongolia as far as I’m concerned, anything beyond the Angel Islington just doesn’t
exist
for me, but he finds it convenient and it’s only forty minutes on the train, and when he wants to stay in London he’s got a room at Josh and Noni’s, if he’s not with me – or someone else, the slut, as I found out to my cost! But don’t let’s think about that. So anyway, I caught the 9.02, just like I told you – you see, I did tell you the truth, except for some bits that didn’t matter – and he met me at the station. We went to a wine bar – what? Oh, Ramblers, it’s called. We had a spot of manjare and some drinkie-poos and then we went back to the cottage. I thought everything was all right again, but in the morning, just when I was squeezing the oranges for breakfast, he said as calm as you like that it was still over and that now he’d told me to my face there’d be no call for us to meet again.’

‘That must have been upsetting for you,’ Slider said mildly. Medmenham seemed to be trembling with rage.

‘Upsetting? He’d played me for a complete patsy! I felt like a – well, I felt
used
! I threw the orange juice at him, that’s how mad I was – and I’m not a throwing person usually, too conscious of the mess. So it ended up with a flaming row, and I marched out of there and slammed the door. It was dreadful,’ he confided, ‘because when I’d calmed down a bit I realised I’d have to walk to the station, and with my feet that was no joke! But then I saw a bus coming with Danbury on the front, and I thought of the dear old Aged P, and flagged it down. Quite an adventure, because I never go on buses – well, one doesn’t, does one? Normally the Mum collects me from the station and takes me back – she’s a marvel, seventy-nine and still driving! She was a bit startled when I turned up, but I said I wanted to take her to lunch, and that way she drove us into Chelmsford and I ended up being dropped at the station, so my poor old feet didn’t take the punishment.’

‘Didn’t she ask you why you’d suddenly appeared?’ Slider asked.

‘You don’t know the Mum. Naturally she suspected I’d flown to her arms from some little
crise
or other, but she’d never ask. Just took it in her stride. She was always wonderful like that. When I first came out to them, my parents, she said she’d always suspected and she loved me anyway, and she talked to Dad like a Dutch uncle to make him accept it – though I don’t think he ever really came to terms. Well, fathers don’t, do they? Have you got any kiddies, love? I can tell you’re married.’

Slider wasn’t going to be drawn. ‘So you had lunch with your mother and got her to take you to the station?’

He shrugged. ‘Like I said. I brooded all the way down on the train, and then when I got to Liverpool Street I picked up the
Standard
and there I saw the para and found out about poor darling Feeb. Well, you can imagine! I was so shocked I thought I’d faint.’

‘And when you found out, what was the first thing that went through your head? Who did you think must have done it?’

‘Well,’ he said, shaking his blue head reluctantly, ‘just for a teensy-weensy instant I thought it might have been Josh, because I knew he’d been there – and also, I suppose, because he was Piers’s brother and just then I was willing to believe anything bad about a Prentiss. But then I couldn’t think of
any reason why he’d want to kill her – I mean, they were old, old friends – so I thought it must have been one of those drug addict loonies, like I said to you, breaking in at random. I mean, no-one’s safe now, are they?’

‘But apart from not being able to think of a motive,’ Slider pursued with interest, ‘you didn’t think Prentiss wasn’t capable of such a thing?’

‘Oh, I’d think he was capable of it all right,’ Medmenham said easily. ‘He’s a very ruthless man when it comes to getting his own way. I could quite see him murdering someone if they’d become inconvenient, and not thinking twice about it. But he’d do it cleverly and I bet he’d never get caught. But he and Phoebe were very close, so I put it out of my mind.’

‘Were they lovers?’

He hesitated. ‘D’you know, I don’t really know? She never said so one way or the other. Maybe they had been at one time – no, I really couldn’t say. It was funny really, they were more like—’ He paused, thinking it out. ‘I don’t know, brothers or something. Or an old married couple. Very close, but almost too close for sex, you know? But then, I’ve always had my doubts about Josh. He’s always played the great butch omi-about-town, but there’s just something about him – I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t a closet queen. Ooh, slap my wrist for gossiping! Still, they say it’s in the genes, don’t they, and there’s Piers to take into consideration.’

Slider thought of the softness he had suspected in Prentiss – a hint of petulance and self-indulgence, it had come across to him. Medmenham seemed to have picked up on the same thing. And it was interesting that he had said that Josh and Phoebe were like brothers, rather than brother and sister.

Well, if Medmenham’s story was true, it looked as though he could be ruled out as the murderer, and that was one strand untangled.
If
it was true – and if Prentiss’s story was true – and if they weren’t in it together. That was enough ifs to make a cult movie.

‘I shall have to take steps to verify your story,’ he said. ‘Which means I shall have to speak to Piers Prentiss.’ Medmenham looked dismayed. ‘But if he agrees with what you’ve said, there’s no reason why anyone else should know anything about it.’