Corporate Bodies (24 page)

The audience found this very funny. Robin Pritchard smiled sourly, trying but failing to look as if he found it very funny too.

‘And then, of course,' said Nicky Rules, ‘there's your Marketing Director, Ken Colebourne . . .'

The comedian smiled his evil smile. ‘Actually, you know, it's not the first time old Ken's been down to Brighton. Was here with his secretary a few weeks back to set the whole thing up – at least that was his story. When he got back to Stenley Curton, he said to his secretary, “Can you ever forget that lovely weekend we had in Brighton?”'

‘“Maybe,” she said. “What's it worth?”'

The salesmen enjoyed this old joke, too. Ken Colebourne looked uneasy. But worse was to come.

‘Of course, Ken's always had an eye for the young girls, hasn't he? When his wife got to forty, he said he wanted to change her for two twenties.'

Where Nicky Rules had got his information from, Charles didn't know. But what he said seemed to be striking a chord with the audience, so maybe Ken did have that kind of reputation round Delmoleen.

The comedian continued inexorably, ‘Actually, Ken went up to one of the girls in the typing pool at Stenley Curton – said to her, “I dreamt about you last night.” “Did you?” she said. “No,” he replied, “you wouldn't let me.”

‘Then someone walked past his office and heard old Ken and one of the typists talking. “What are you trying to tell me?” she's saying. “I don't know,” says Ken. “I'm groping for words.” “Well,” she says, “you won't find them down there.”

‘Story I heard about Ken taking on a new secretary. Really likes the look of her, he does. Says, “I'd like you to take the job. How much are you going to want to be paid?” “Hundred and fifty a week,” she says. “Great,” says Ken, “I'll give you that with pleasure.” “Oh no,” she says. “With pleasure it'll be two hundred and fifty!”'

How much longer Nicky Rules would have gone on in this vein, how much bluer he would have got, they never found out. Ken Colebourne had taken all he could take. He rose to his feet, kicked his chair back and strode off to the nearest exit.

Nicky Rules watched him go with a quizzical expression, then turned back to his audience.

‘Apologies from the Marketing Director,' he said. ‘Suddenly been taken randy.'

The audience roared and roared.

The mocking laughter rang in Charles's ears as he hurried off after Ken.

The banqueting suite was in the basement of the Ambassador Hotel. Charles hurried out into the lobby and saw Ken Colebourne standing by the lifts, waiting impatiently.

The Marketing Director blazed a look of concentrated hatred at him.

‘I didn't say a word,' Charles protested. ‘I don't know what made him start off on all that stuff.'

‘I can never face Pat again. Not after that.'

‘Ken . . .'

Charles stepped forward, but Ken Colebourne was not to be comforted. He turned away, giving up hopes of the lift and pushing through the double doors that led to the stairs. As he turned, Charles caught the glint of a tear in his eye.

Charles followed through the doors, but his quarry was already out of sight. Must have been running flat out to get away so quickly. Charles emerged by the reception area and hurried out through the hotel's main doors. There was no sign of Ken Colebourne on the rain-swept sea front.

Most likely gone up to his suite. Charles went back inside, had a cursory look in the lounges and bars of the ground floor, then walked up to Reception.

‘Could you try Mr Colebourne's suite, please?'

‘I think Mr Colebourne's involved in the Delmoleen banquet downstairs.'

‘No, he just came out. Please.'

The girl checked a list and dialled the number. It was while the phone was ringing that Charles heard a commotion outside the front of the hotel.

Sickened by anticipation, he moved slowly towards the main door.

‘I'm afraid there's no reply,' the receptionist called after him.

‘No,' he murmured. ‘There wouldn't be.'

The Ambassador Hotel is eight storeys high. On the eighth is a bar with panoramic views over the sea. It was to that bar, it emerged later, that Ken Colebourne had gone. He had ordered, paid for and quickly downed a large Scotch, then walked through the doors on to the balcony.

Hardly breaking his stride, he had climbed over the parapet, and jumped.

His body lay crumpled on the pavement directly in front of the hotel's main doors.

THE NEWS was smuggled discreetly to Brian Tressider, who, instantly decisive as ever, decreed that no purpose would be served by breaking up the party. So, showing no untoward emotion, he sat through the act of the American girl singer who'd been big in the charts in the early seventies, and then, when the band took over, began the first dance with Brenda in his arms. He subsequently did more public relations work, dancing jovially with the wives of specially favoured salesmen.

The official announcement of his Marketing Director's death would, he had decided, be made in the morning.

Charles Paris did not return to the banqueting suite. Instead, he went wearily to his room and ordered another Room Service bottle of whisky. They didn't have Bell's but he made do.

The death seemed so unnecessary, and he couldn't totally eradicate a feeling of guilt. Though he deserved no blame for the hideous inappropriateness – or perhaps appropriateness – of Nicky Rules' routine, Charles still felt responsible for having hounded the dead man earlier in the day. It wasn't a good feeling.

He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, but about a third of the whisky had gone, when there was a gentle tap on his door.

‘Come in,' he said, too dispirited to move.

It was Brenda Tressider, still immaculate in her ball dress. He shambled to his feet. ‘Come in. Can I get you something? More of that tap water?'

‘No, thank you.' She closed the door and moved a few steps into the room. ‘I just wanted to say that I'm sorry about what happened . . .'

‘Yes.'

‘And that you mustn't feel bad about it.'

‘Easily said.'

‘Ken was devoted to Pat. He really couldn't have lived without her.'

‘No, but they'd have got over this. They could have been reconciled.'

Brenda Tressider looked at him in puzzlement. ‘What do you mean? They could have got over it? You know that Pat's dead, don't you?'

‘What?'

‘She felt ill during the banquet and slipped away without any fuss. She managed to get up to their suite, but there . . . she must have passed out on the floor . . . maybe just died straight away. Nobody'll ever know for sure. The Hotel Manager found her after . . . after they'd found Ken.'

‘But –'

‘She was very ill. This had been on the cards for a long time. And I'd always been afraid of how Ken would react when the moment finally came.'

‘Oh. So what exactly do you think happened?'

‘Ken must've noticed she was missing from her table. In the middle of the cabaret. That must be why he left in such a hurry. Then, when he got to their suite, he found her dead and . . . just couldn't go on.'

‘Tell me, was Patricia present for any of Nicky Rules' routine?'

‘No. According to the people at her table, she left before the coffee.'

So Patricia Colebourne had never even been aware of the suggestions that her husband was so afraid of her hearing. She had died in full confidence of his undivided love.

Brenda Tressider's reading of events had not been the correct one. But it was, in its own way, tidy.

And it probably made a more satisfactory ending to the tragedy of Ken and Patricia Coleboume than the truth would have done.

CHARLES PARIS felt exhausted as he crossed the hotel's main lobby on the way to breakfast the following morning. The area was full of luggage and salesmen who were making an early start back to their scattered regions, hopefully re-energised by the previous two days, ready to return to the fray, to sell, sell, sell and increase Delmoleen's precious share of the foodstuffs market.

They didn't look very re-energised. ‘Bleary' and ‘hungover' would have been better descriptions. And the way some of them snapped at their wives suggested tempers had been shortened by the excesses of the night before.

Predictably enough, in the background Heather Routledge was talking on the telephone – or, more accurately, listening to the telephone. She had the receiver tucked under her chin, leaving both hands free to sort through some files which she was packing into a briefcase. Long practice had taught her that, as when listening to the radio, it was possible to do other things while her mother was talking on the telephone.

Charles found Will at breakfast, looking as ropy as he felt. ‘How did your evening pan out?' Charles asked, as he sat down.

‘Tiring. Ended up with the Top Salesman and his wife.'

‘Oh, Daryl and Shelley? Yes, well, that could have been tiring.'

Will groaned. ‘Certainly was.'

‘Just the three of you? Or others?'

‘Oh, bunch of other people came and went. God, one of the most exhausting nights I've ever spent.'

‘Well, you're not getting any younger, Will. Can't go at it in quite the way you used to.'

The writer looked up curiously from his scrambled eggs. ‘Go at what?'

‘Sex.'

‘Sex? There wasn't any sex involved, Charles.'

‘Oh. Then what was it that was so exhausting?'

‘What was so exhausting was listening to bloody Daryl telling me about all the exciting things he's done to his flaming Cortina!'

‘Ah. Yes. Right.'

Charles's coffee arrived. That was welcome. The kipper, however, didn't seem such a good idea as it had when he'd ordered it.

‘You heard about Ken Colebourne, Will . . .?'

‘Yes. Bloody tragic.'

‘I agree.'

‘Well, it means the one authentic Delmoleen contact I've got for
Parton Parcel
's just gone out of the window.'

Charles winced. That could have been more happily phrased. ‘Have to see who the new Marketing Director is, and start the cultivating process all over again.'

‘Hm. Still, at least it does mean I've got a solution to my mystery.'

‘Mystery?' It took a moment for Will's fuddled mind to catch on. ‘Oh, you mean your
murder
mystery. You still harping on that, are you?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘God, I thought you'd forgotten all about the idea.'

‘By no means. No, I now know that a murder definitely took place, I know why, and I know who the murderer was.'

‘All right then, surprise me, clever clogs.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, tell me whodunit.'

‘But it's obvious. I thought you'd gathered that.'

‘No. I hadn't. Go on then – who're we talking about?'

‘Well, obviously – Ken Colebourne.'

‘Ken Colebourne.' Will was silent for a moment. ‘We are talking about the same murder, aren't we? The girl Dayna in the warehouse . . .?'

‘Yes.'

‘Who was crushed by the forklift truck – or rather by the pallets pushed by the forklift truck – during that lunch-break when we were making the video . . .?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you think Ken Colebourne did it?'

‘I'm certain.'

‘Well, you're wrong, Charles.'

‘I'm not wrong. I can't be wrong.'

‘Oh, everyone can be wrong, Charles. Even you.'

‘But –'

Will Parton spelled it out. ‘During that lunchtime, you may recall, Griff Merricks and I and the rest of the crew were invited to the Executive dining room. And you weren't, because you were improperly dressed.'

‘I'm hardly likely to forget that.'

‘No. Well, we were escorted to the Executive dining room by Ken Colebourne. He sat with us right through the meal.'

‘But –'

‘He only left when he was summoned by a phone call announcing that there had been an accident in the warehouse. I'm sorry, Charles, but your murderer had a perfect alibi for the time of the murder – and I should know, because I am that alibi.'

Charles Paris was totally deflated. In the Deflation Olympics he would have defeated all comers, even pancakes. ‘Oh,' he said feebly.

‘So sorry to be a spoilsport, love, but I'm afraid you've got to start thinking of another perpetrator for your precious murder.'

And even as Will said the words, Charles did think of another perpetrator.

A woman. A woman who was in love with Brian Tressider.

They sat opposite each other in an otherwise empty lounge. She had her coat on, ready to leave the hotel.

‘I know exactly what happened that day,' said Charles.

‘Oh yes?' She remained cool, unruffled by his accusation. ‘Tell me.'

‘It was Dayna's boasting that signed her death warrant. She made no secret of her ambitions. She intended to use her sexual charms to make her way up the company. That didn't worry you particularly one way or the other. It was only when she set her sights on Brian that you really saw red.'

‘Perhaps.'

‘And when you heard that she was going to start working in London.'

That did produce a reaction. A slight indrawing of breath. ‘Yes. Yes, that was what did it.'

‘Because it was history repeating itself, wasn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Heather.

‘You'd known Brian from the time you started working at Stenley Curton. He rose up the management ladder and was going to be transferred to London . . .'

She nodded.

‘And at the same time you also had the offer of a job in London . . .'

‘Yes,' she murmured.