Dead Room Farce (24 page)

‘Did you tell the police about this?'

Lavinia Bradshaw was affronted by the suggestion. ‘No, of course I didn't! They'd have immediately interpreted that as a sign that he was suicidal. Whereas, as you know, in his cups Mark was always saying things like that. And he didn't mean a word of them.'

‘No. Probably not. I mean, of course – to play devil's advocate for a moment – there is always the Last Straw Syndrome to consider. He'd gone on saying that kind of stuff all his life, but eventually perhaps there came a point when the pressures on him were so great that –'

‘Poppycock!' Lavinia Bradshaw snapped briskly. ‘Mark was a shallow poseur. Like his emotions and his enthusiasms, his depressions were never more than skin-deep.'

It was chilling to hear the depth of resentment in her voice, a resentment that had been simmering away for more than twenty years of marriage.

‘Well, I'm not so sure . . .' said Charles, trying to be loyal to his friend's memory, though rather afraid that she had assessed her ex-husband all too accurately.

‘It's true!' Lavinia Bradshaw smoothed down her skirt, as if somehow to separate it from the contamination of Charles Paris's armchair. ‘But is there anything else, Charles? Any actual proof you could bring forward to make it clear once and for all that Mark did not deliberately take his own life?'

‘But if he didn't . . .' asked Charles cautiously, ‘then how did he die?'

‘Of drink and stupidity. He was so drunk when he went into the little studio that he passed out, and didn't wake up, even when he started to suffocate. It was an accident,' Lavinia Bradshaw announced with unarguable finality.

‘Yes, quite possibly . . .'

‘Everyone knows it was. It's only the bloody insurance company trying to duck out of its obligations, as usual. Come on, Charles. I told you. I need proof that my ex-husband didn't commit suicide.'

‘Well, look . . .' he hedged, ‘I can't actually supply that proof at the moment . . .'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake!' Lavinia Bradshaw had no patience with such shilly-shallying.

‘. . . but I can make a suggestion.'

‘Then make it!'

‘Yes, all right. Erm . . .' He had to phrase the next bit carefully. ‘The person who found Mark's body was Lisa Wilson . . .'

‘His latest bit of stuff.'

Charles didn't waste time taking issue with the description. ‘I should think if anyone knows the detail of what actually happened to Mark, it'd be her.'

That seemed the fairest thing to do. Put the two women in contact and let them sort it out between them. If Lavinia Bradshaw was really determined to find out about her ex-husband's death, then she'd have to overcome her scruples and speak to his ‘latest bit of stuff'. Whether or not Lisa Wilson would come across with the goods, admit she'd found the studio doors locked . . ., well, that was up to her.

Charles thought the probability was that the two women would communicate, and Lisa would share all she knew. If they could overcome their instinctive antipathy, they'd recognise that co-operation was in both their interests. Lavinia Bradshaw was determined to secure her ex-husband's insurance money, and Lisa Wilson wanted to nail Mark's killer. Her attempts to achieve that with the help of Charles Paris having proved less than successful, she would probably be ready to try another approach.

They were two determined women. If they worked together, Charles didn't give much for the murderer's chances of escaping detection for ever.

Lavinia Bradshaw wasn't pleased by Charles's suggestion. She had the feeling that he was holding something back, that he could tell her more. But, in spite of her fierce badgering, he didn't give in.

It was in the middle of the badgering that his phone rang. ‘Excuse me,' said Charles and picked up the receiver. Lavinia Bradshaw's mouth went into a little moue of annoyance at the interruption.

‘Charles, it's Maurice.'

‘Ah, hello. Maurice, if you could make it quick . . .'

‘What's this, Charles? Hurrying me off the phone? I might be ringing about a fabulous offer of a year's very lucrative work.'

‘Are you?'

‘No. As it happens, I'm not.'

‘Well then, if you could make it quickish . . . I've got someone with me.'

‘Oh, Charles. Another of your little lady friends, is it?'

‘No. Well, it is a lady, but –'

‘Say no more. My lips are sealed. Your secret is safe with me.'

‘Maurice . . .' Charles was tired, and his patience was not inexhaustible. ‘What is it you're calling about?'

‘You may remember,' said Maurice Skellern with lofty dignity, ‘that some time ago you asked me to find out about some gay porn tapes, produced by the late Mark Lear . . .'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘Well, I have been continuing my investigations into that matter, and I have found out the names of the actors who were involved.'

Maurice stopped dead. If there was one thing he loved doing, it was to dictate the pace of his revelations.

‘Yes, Maurice, yes. Go on, tell me. Who?'

‘A very interesting list of names it turns out to be . . .' the agent went on with infuriating slowness.

‘I'm sure it does. Who are they, Maurice?'

Realising that he had squeezed the last drop of potential melodrama out of the situation, Maurice gave Charles the names. And he was right. A very interesting list it did turn out to be.

When Charles had finished scribbling down the names, he said his grateful goodbyes and put the phone down. Lavinia Bradshaw looked extremely peeved at having been kept waiting so long. ‘And that's really it, Charles, is it? You have nothing to tell me, except that I should get in touch with this Liza Wilson girl?' She deliberately pronounced the name wrong.

‘Yes, ‘fraid so.'

She snorted at the inadequacy of his information. ‘Well, I'd better go. If you find out anything else, you've got my number.'

‘Yes. If I do get anything, I'll certainly let you know. Then we can ensure that justice is done.'

Lavinia Bradshaw tossed her red-gold hair angrily. ‘I don't give a damn about justice. I just want the insurance money.'

Charles Paris was seeing her off on the doorstep when another thought came to him. ‘That phone call Mark made to you the afternoon he died . . .'

‘Yes. What about it?'

‘How did it end? Did you put the phone down on him?'

‘No. I was about to, because I had to go out for a hairdresser's appointment. But in fact it was Mark who ended the conversation. He said he had to ring off because someone had just come into the studio.'

‘Really? Did he say who that person was?'

‘Now let me think . . .' Lavinia Bradshaw tried to piece the recollection together. ‘He did call out, “Hello . . .” and then I think he said a name, but . . .'

‘Try to remember. It could be very important.'

‘Why?'

Suddenly Charles realised that, through all her bluster, Lavinia Bradshaw was in fact not very bright. ‘Because,' he explained, ‘whoever it was was probably the last person to see Mark alive.'

‘Yes, yes,' she said thoughtfully.

‘And you haven't mentioned how the phone call ended to the police?'

‘No, of course not, Charles. Really, you are dense. Suppose that person, whoever it was, got more of Mark's drunken ramblings of self-pity. Then they might have got the impression that he was suicidal.'

‘That's true. Have the police actually talked to you about the phone call? Because presumably they could check who Mark did ring that day.'

‘They haven't been in touch yet, no.' A sly look came into her eyes. ‘And, if they are, I have a perfectly good cover story ready. Mark rang me to check what one of the girls wanted for her birthday.'

‘Which of the girls?'

‘Claudia. It was her birthday the next week.'

‘Oh, is she the one who's ill? Mark mentioned –'

‘Claudia is absolutely fine, thank you,' she said sharply. The slyness came back into her face, and was transformed into self-satisfaction as Lavinia Bradshaw went on, ‘People about to commit suicide do not on the whole spend their last hours planning what they're going to give their children as birthday presents, do they?'

‘No.'

The glee at her own cleverness gave way to a sudden recollection. ‘Ooh, I've just remembered the name Mark said, the name of the person who'd come into the studio. It didn't mean anything to me.'

‘No, but then you don't know any of the people who were doing the recording that afternoon.'

‘That's true.'

‘So tell me what Mark said. The name might mean something to me.'

She told him the name. It did mean something to Charles Paris.

‘One other thing, Lavinia . . .' They had said their goodbyes and she had started off down Hereford Road.

‘What now?' she asked crossly.

‘That woman who was coming out of the house when you arrived . . .'

‘What about her?'

‘Where was it you and Mark met her?'

‘It was in the hospital.'

‘Hospital?'

‘Private clinic, I should say. God, the prices they charge in those places! You pay out all that money in medical insurance, but they still have the nerve to –'

‘I hope you don't mind my asking, Lavinia, but what were you in the clinic for?'

‘No, I don't mind. Unlike some women, I'm very proud of my new body.'

‘So you were in for plastic surgery?'

‘That's right. Bags under the eyes, breasts, bum, the whole shooting match.'

‘And Cookie – the woman we saw this morning – was in the clinic at the same time? And that's when Mark met her?'

‘Yes. God knows why he bothered coming to see me. I'd made it abundantly clear by then that there was nothing left between us, but he insisted on turning up and whingeing away in the lounge for an hour or so.'

‘And that woman was in the lounge at the same time?'

‘Some of it, yes. I introduced them, you know, casually, the way one does.' She looked at her watch with irritation. ‘I'm sorry, Charles, I really must be –'

‘Just one more question, Lavinia . . . Do you happen to remember why Cookie – that woman – was actually in the clinic?'

She let out a harsh little laugh. ‘Well, of course I remember. She was having the same as me.'

‘Bags under the eyes, breasts, bum, the whole shooting match?'

‘Exactly,' said Lavinia Bradshaw, and set off briskly down Hereford Road.

BEFORE Charles left for Birmingham, he made a couple of phone calls. One was to Lisa Wilson to warn her that she might be contacted by Lavinia Bradshaw. He didn't spell out the details, but made it clear that she would have the option of telling Mark's ex-wife about the locked studio door. Whether she did or not was up to her.

Their conversation was civilised, even friendly. No one listening in would have detected that they'd ever been lovers, or that less than twenty-four hours previously one of them had announced they were no longer lovers.

Charles's second call was to the actors' union, Equity. He had a useful contact in the membership records there, who supplied him with the information he required.

By then, the confusions of the morning had not left Charles time to do as he'd intended and take the tour's dirty clothes to the launderette. Have to wait till Birmingham, he thought resignedly, as he scooped last week's dirty shirts, socks and underwear back into his suitcase (which felt uncomfortably light without its customary ballast of a Bell's bottle). By then he was so close to the train departure time, he had to take a cab to Euston.

He'd hoped to sleep for the hour and forty minutes of the train journey. He was utterly exhausted after the emotional upheavals of the previous few days – not to mention two virtually sleepless nights spent listening to Cookie Stone.

But sleep didn't come. His mind was too full. And, mostly, it was Cookie Stone who filled it.

A lot of details fell into place. The unusual firmness of her breasts, for a start. Charles Paris wondered whether, unwittingly, he'd recently had his first encounter with silicon.

But his other thoughts about Cookie Stone were more serious. She was an extraordinarily neurotic woman, of that there could not be any doubt. And she was deeply anxious about her attractiveness, or lack of it, to the opposite sex. She was also, regrettably, in love with Charles Paris.

He wondered just how deep Cookie's insecurities went, and what kinds of erratic behaviour they might drive her to. Finding out that she'd had plastic surgery fitted the overall picture, filled in a few more pieces in the jigsaw of her personality.

Except in cases of extreme deformity, the decision to have plastic surgery can never be a random one. The patient must be expecting some payback for the pain and inconvenience. In most cases, there must be some level of expectation that the transformation of the body will lead to some kind of transformation in the life. Lack of self-esteem, based on feelings of unattractiveness, the theory runs, will vanish when the external appearance has been adjusted.

And clearly it could work. For Lavinia Bradshaw, the plastic surgery of which she was so proud had been part of the reinvention of herself. Vinnie, wife of Mark Lear, the coping earth mother in droopy cardigans, had been transformed into Lavinia Bradshaw, designer clotheshorse, with a new body to complement her new lover.

But had Cookie Stone's transformation been so effective? From hints she'd dropped, Charles gathered Cookie's sex-life had been pretty inactive in the months before she met him. It was even likely that he was her first postoperation lover. Maybe for her, to have ensnared a lover – and a lover who called her ‘beautiful' – was an endorsement of her decision to have the plastic surgery. It had worked!