Murder by the Book (15 page)

She controlled her anger. ‘If you must know, he's an agency author and I dined with him to discuss business.'

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. She regretted her spinelessness. Why couldn't she simply tell him the truth, that she had at last found someone who she liked a lot?

Then she knew why she had not told him. It was not because she feared hurting Gideon Martin, far from it. She feared
him
; she feared his strength, but more than that she feared his mercurial mood which, if pushed, she had no doubt might easily tip into physical rage.

He approached her slowly and said, ‘An agency author? And do you kiss
all
your authors like that?'

‘Like what? I'm French. Or hadn't you noticed? We kiss when saying goodbye to friends.'

Then she knew what was so unsettling about Gideon Martin tonight: he was actually looking straight at her, staring at her with the full intensity of his dark, storm-filled eyes.

‘I know you're lying, Maria. Since when have you dined in the evening with agency clients?'

She stared at him, then shook her head very slowly. ‘Oh, go to hell! Who are you to question me like this? Who are you to say who I should and shouldn't see?' She approached him, trembling with anger now. ‘What is
wrong
with you?'

His response surprised her. He walked to the end of the room and turned to face her. ‘I love you, Maria.'

She continued to shake her head, despairing. She wanted to tell him to go away, to get out of her life.

He said, ‘I am angry because I love you.' He stepped forward, reached inside the jacket and withdrew a neatly packaged parcel. He held it out to her.

‘What is it?' she asked suspiciously.

‘The first of two surprises,' he said.

‘Two?'

‘I have another, in here …' he touched his jacket, ‘if you refuse this one.'

The package was perhaps a foot square and as thin as a paperback book. She stared at it without reaching out.

‘Take it,' he said.

She was reluctant to do so, as if by accepting the gift she might be acceding to something which, in his eyes, was far greater.

He thrust the parcel into her hands. She stared at him, then down at the parcel, and only then fumbled with the gold wrapping paper.

‘Oh …' she said.

It was the watercolour she had intended to buy for her father's birthday. ‘I know how much you wanted it for your father,' he said.

She looked up at him. Why had he made a point of telling her, at the party the other evening, that he had rather liked the same watercolour and had bought it for himself?

He said, ‘Maria, I'm going away to Paris next week. I would like you to come with me. We could go to restaurants that make those here look like soup kitchens. I know a romantic little place in Montmartre …'

She held the watercolour out to him, rage boiling within her. ‘Is this a bribe?'

He smiled his insufferably arrogant smile. ‘A bribe, no. Merely a token of my esteem.'

She threw the painting at him and cried, ‘I don't want it and I don't want to spend time with you in Paris!'

His response was to stride to the far end of the room, then turn and stare at her. ‘In that case you may have the second gift.'

She felt like weeping.
Just go
, she thought;
go …!

‘I don't want
anything
from you! I don't want your gifts. I don't want your offers of holidays … I don't want you! Can't you understand that?' She was close to weeping, but fought the impulse.

He pulled a small parcel from his jacket, wrapped like the first in gold paper.

‘Here.' He tossed her the packet, and she caught it instinctively. It was far heavier than she thought it would be.

‘Go on,' he barked, ‘open it.'

She stared at him, knowing what was within the wrapping paper from its shape. She said, ‘You're mad …'

‘I said open it!'

With trembling fingers she pulled off the ribbon that bound the parcel, then unfolded the paper.

She stared at the revealed object lying on her palm and looked up at him. ‘I don't understand …'

His smile could be cruel as well as arrogant. Her heartbeat was thundering. She wanted to sit down, but there were no chairs nearby and her legs would not move. She stared at the small silver pistol in her hand.

He said, quietly, ‘There is one bullet in it, Maria.'

Her vision swam, and his features became Mephistophelian. She wondered why he would want her dead, why he just didn't shoot her himself.

Then all was explained. He said, ‘Shoot me.' His voice rang with theatrical intensity.

She wondered if he'd planned this for days, weeks – planned what he might do if she spurned him. A part of her wanted to laugh, but the fearful part of her would not grant that release.

I must be very careful, she told herself: he
is
mad.

‘I said shoot me!' he yelled at her, spittle flying.

‘Gideon …' was all she could manage.

‘Do it! You obviously hate me, despise me. Go on – shoot me!'

‘This is …' She had been about to say ‘insane', but something stopped her. If she intimated to Martin that she thought him insane, might that be the very thing that tipped him over the edge?

Startling her, he leapt forward and grabbed the pistol from her hand. He backed off, smiling at her, then stopped and raised the weapon to his head. He lodged its barrel against his temple. ‘Well, Maria, if you refuse to do it, then I will.'

She wanted to tell him to grow up, to look at himself. Why the theatrics? she wondered. Why the grand gestures that, when analysed, were nothing other than a manifestation of a self-centred petulance?

He said, ‘I've contemplated life without you for months, Maria, and I can't bear the thought.'

She cried, ‘But you've had years without me! For God's sake, we've never really been together!'

‘But we could be. You could grant my wishes, and I could show you how happy you would be. All you have to do is say yes.'

She shook her head, tears coming freely now. She stared at him. ‘I will not be blackmailed!'

And it was as if a tide of rage was released in her at the utterance of the word. She saw his finger tighten on the trigger and, surprising herself, she strode towards him, raised her right hand and slapped him across the face.

The blow almost knocked him off his feet. She grabbed the gun from his fingers and flung it across the room with a cry.

He fled, but not before stooping to pick up the watercolour from the floor.

Her heart beating madly, she followed him down the stairs. He disappeared through the front door, leaving it wide open. She slammed the door shut and fell against it with a sob, then locked it and ran back up the stairs.

She saw the gun, small and malignant, lying on the carpet. She picked it up as if it were something poisonous, carried it across the room and locked it in her writing bureau.

Weeping, she pulled the telephone towards her and cradled it in her lap. She wanted to ring Donald, to hear his reassuring voice, but at the same time she didn't want to lay the fact of her weakness before him.

She set the phone aside, then poured herself a brandy and sat crying quietly to herself, wishing Gideon Martin dead.

C
harles Elder went up before the magistrate at eleven fifteen the following morning, the session heard in a small court to the rear of Bow Street station. A local reporter and two members of the public occupied the narrow public gallery along with Langham and Maria.

Charles was led into the room by a uniformed constable, staring ahead without expression. His usual ebullient, expansive self appeared reduced, physically smaller, as if just one night in custody had taken its toll.

A detective sergeant read out the particulars of the case, and Charles's solicitor, Mr Winstanley, applied for bail.

The magistrate deliberated with a clerk, and their
tête-à-tête
seemed to last an age. Maria found Langham's hand and squeezed. ‘Please,' she implored. ‘Please …'

Minutes later the magistrate cleared his throat and granted bail at two hundred pounds, to be stood by Mr Donald Langham and Miss Maria Dupré. At the sound of their names Charles seemed to expand and become himself again. He looked up for the first time, raised his fingers to his lips and blew them a kiss with a mimed, ‘
Bless you
.'

Langham glanced at Maria. Tears tracked down her face, at odds with her overjoyed smile.

‘Let's go and meet him,' he said.

They were escorted into a small office where Langham handed over a banker's draft for the sum of two hundred pounds, then signed a declaration binding him and Maria to abide by the stipulations required as Charles Elder's bailers. Only then was Charles escorted into the room by a uniformed officer and officially granted his freedom in accordance with the terms of his bail.

Langham shook his hand. ‘Donald!' Charles exclaimed. ‘You cannot imagine my pleasure at seeing such friendly faces! Maria, my sweet child.' They embraced, only for the intimacies to be cut short by the throat-clearing of the presiding officer.

Charles comported himself in exemplary fashion. He signed a release form with a flourish, handed the pen to the officer with a gracious smile, and on the way from the station thanked the desk sergeant for his supply of copious and excellent tea.

He paused in the foyer and smiled. He looked around the tiled room as if with fondness. ‘I followed hallowed footsteps, my friends. Hallowed! Did you know that, almost sixty years ago to the very day, this is where Oscar was brought when he was so foully arrested?'

Langham smiled. ‘Come on, Charles …'

They left the station and Langham escorted Charles to his waiting car. ‘Is it vain of me,' Charles said while inserting himself into the passenger seat, ‘but I was rather hoping that there might be a posse of pressmen encamped outside the station, awaiting my emergence.'

Maria smiled. ‘You had a small column in this morning's
Express
, Charles.'

‘Just a
small
column? I wanted the leader and nothing less!'

Langham said, ‘We'll get you home. You can refresh yourself, and then we're taking you out for lunch.'

‘Lunch? Now there's an offer! While the judiciary's tea was ambrosial, breakfast was revolting. I hope it isn't a harbinger of the fare on offer in the Scrubs, my dears. I don't know how I might survive incarceration without at least one cordon bleu meal a day.'

Maria laughed, and Langham wondered if Charles's
savoir faire
in the face of adversity was nothing more than a show to reassure them.

As Langham parked outside Charles's office, his agent said, ‘And the estimable Mr Winstanley informed me of the burglary, so please don't fret that you need to break the news.'

Maria smiled. ‘Well, I
was
worrying.'

‘Compared to the rest of my trials and tribulations, my dear, what does a little petty larceny matter? Just so long as the fiend did not outrage my aspidistra.'

‘The monster is fine,' Langham reassured him.

Once in the flat, Charles excused himself while he attended to his toilette and exhorted them to make merry with the drinks. They compromised with Earl Grey and sat side by side on the settee.

‘That went a lot better than I feared,' Maria murmured. ‘Charles seems in good spirits, no?'

Langham tipped his hand. ‘I'm not so sure. I was just wondering if it wasn't an act for our sakes. We'll just have to make sure we're around for him.' He shrugged. ‘He seems fine now, but I'm not even sure the reality of a prison sentence has fully hit him yet. And when it does …'

Maria stared into her tea. ‘Your friend, the writer, how did he cope in prison?'

‘Leo fared very well, but he's a strong, self-reliant character.' He smiled. ‘He even got a book out of it. I fear Charles won't cope half so well. Some of the hardened criminals in there don't take kindly to Charles's type. And he's no fool. He must know what to expect.'

‘Oh, Donald …'

He took her hand.

Charles sailed into the room, magnificent in tweed plus-fours.

Maria released Langham's hand quickly, and Charles twinkled a smile. ‘You don't know how much it delights me to see you two getting on so well. If nothing else, my little contretemps has brought you closer together, am I correct?'

Maria blushed. ‘Charles, you are terrible!'

Charles flourished his cane. ‘To lunch! I have an appetite to sate and good friends with which to share the experience. Could one ask for more?'

They dined at Bartholomew's in Knightsbridge, where Charles was known and respected as a regular and discerning patron. He was brilliant and sparkling throughout the meal, and Langham sat back, metaphorically, and enjoyed the experience.

His agent regaled them with tall stories of his time in the trade, the famous names he had known and represented and some of their more risqué behaviour. ‘Did I ever mention that I briefly represented Noel? I didn't? How remiss! He was on my books before he hit the big time. I recall one famous lunch we had together …'

They ate grilled trout followed by fresh cream meringue, accompanied by a white wine. ‘A vintage
par excellence
!' Charles carolled, ‘and from a vineyard regarded as the greatest in Bordeaux. Which reminds me, did I ever tell you of the time I entertained Conrad in the little pied-á-terre I had in Antibes in the twenties?'

He attacked his meal with gusto, a large napkin reduced to the size of a kerchief tucked beneath his multiple chins. His belly bulged like a tweed spinnaker and it seemed that only the gold chain of his fob-watch held the swelling in check.