So Much Blood (7 page)

‘Nothing went very deep with Willy. That Truth Game could have meant anything. What makes you so sure it was something serious?'

He could only supply a lame ‘Instinct'.

To give her her due, Jean Mariello did not actually laugh out loud. ‘Well, instinct tells me, from knowing him pretty well, that the only thing that upset Willy was not getting his own way. He was spoilt. He'd had a lot of success and it went to his head. Used to be just a builder's labourer, playing guitar in his spare time. Then the group took off and suddenly he was famous. Everyone gave him everything he wanted and he started getting bad-tempered if anything didn't fail into his lap. If he was upset, it must have been that some girl had slapped his face.'

‘There were a lot of girls?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you know if he'd been particularly involved with anyone recently?'

‘We didn't discuss it. We went our own ways. Listen, Willy was a slob. All right, I'm sorry he died, but he was no great loss.'

Charles was shocked by her honesty and his face must have betrayed it. Jean laughed. ‘Yes, you're wondering why I married him. Well, I was only seventeen, I wanted to be a musician and I wanted to get away from my parents. And Willy was different then—it was before he became successful. He was less sure of himself and, as a result, less selfish. We both changed. He became a bastard and I got a lot tougher. In self-defence.'

There was a slight tremor on the last words, the first sign of human feeling that she had shown. The callous attitude to her husband's death was a protective shell, distancing her from reality. It was true that she had not loved him, but the killing had affected her. Charles changed his approach slightly. ‘When did you last see him?'

‘Last Friday. I went down to Carlisle to start a tour of folk clubs. Then this happened. I'll be joining the tour again as soon as I've got things sorted out.'

‘And Willy didn't seem upset when you left?'

‘He was exactly as usual.'

‘And you've no idea what he was doing over the weekend?'

‘Screwing some bird probably. Decorating here maybe. Rehearsing his bloody show. I don't know.'

The edge was creeping back into her voice. She wanted Charles to leave. She wanted to be on her own. Maybe so that she could break down and cry her heart out. There was not time for many more questions. ‘Why did he get involved in the show in the first place?'

‘Puce split up. Willy had delusions of grandeur—wanted to get it together as an all-round entertainer. Another Tommy Steele. No big impresario offered him a contract, but Derby University offered him a part in their tatty show. I suppose he saw it as a rung on the ladder to
stardom
.' She put an infinity of scorn into that word.

‘Sounds unlikely.'

‘Maybe there was some other reason. Look, Mr Paris—'

‘I'm sorry. I'll go. Can I just ask you again—was there anyone you can think of, however unlikely, who might have profited by your husband's death?'

‘First let me ask you—why are you so interested in all this? It's nothing to do with you.'

‘No, you're right, it's just . . . I was there . . . I saw it . . .' He petered out. Tried again. ‘There are people who will feel happier when the facts are known. I mean, there's so much gossip and speculation and accusation down at Coates Gardens . . .' As he spoke, he knew it was not true. In fact there had been surprisingly little discussion among the students. Once they had exhausted the inherent drama of the situation, they all seemed quite happy to accept that it was an accident and get back to the more important drama of the shows they were putting on. ‘No, I'm sorry, I can't really answer your question.'

‘Hmm. I'll answer yours. The only person who stood to benefit from Willy's death was his widow, who would thus get out of an unsatisfactory marriage without the fuss of divorce. In other words, the only person with a motive was me.' She laughed sharply. ‘Goodbye, Mr Paris.'

He wandered disconsolately along Meadow Lane and looked back at the house. It was in a better state of repair than the others, walls and chimney repointed, missing slates replaced. And inside, was Jean Mariello as tidy and controlled? Or was she crying? He'd never know. All he did know was that she did not kill her husband. Her talk of motives had just been a contemptuous challenge to him. She had not been in Edinburgh at the time of the murder, and in the Truth Game Willy had specified that the person whose secret he had discovered was connected with the Derby group. No progress.

He felt in need of company. As a long shot, he tried the bell of Anna's flat as he passed. Just after twelve, no reason why she should be there.

She wasn't. He went into the Highland chic of the Ensign Ewart pub opposite and started drinking whisky. As he drank, the whole business of playing at detectives seemed increasingly pointless. If only there were someone around he could discuss the case with. Maybe some great detectives manage on their own, he thought as he downed the second large Bell's, but right now I'd give anything for Dr Watson to walk through that door.

But the Doctor did not come and Charles drank too much on his own. The whisky did not make him think any more clearly. He looked round the pub. The office workers of Edinburgh were in huddles with their backs to him. A loud group of American tourists was being ignored at one table. The Festival influx was not welcomed by the residents. Charles tried to get another drink, but could not attract anyone's attention. Being invisible at a bar is one of the loneliest experiences in life and he felt depressed for the first time since his arrival.

It was the interview with Jean Mariello that had done it. Up until then he had been cheerful, even buoyant after the night with Anna. But Anna was not there and it did not take long for her image to get distorted. He needed her presence to restore reality. But she was as elusive as Dr Watson.

His eyes gave up trying to catch the barman's attention and wandered over to a notice board on which the grudging management had stuck a few of the dozens of handbills which earnest theatrical groups had thrust on them. They were on a metal clip. Oxford Theatre Group on top. That was inevitable. Their headquarters was opposite the pub and so they had a head-start on that pitch in the popular Fringe game of sticking your poster over everyone else's.

Beside the Oxford bill was another that looked familiar. Good God, it was one of the greatest DUDS on the Fringe, Charles Paris'
So Much Comic, So Much Blood
, opening Monday 19th August at one fifteen p.m. He felt a sense of urgency that amounted almost to panic.

‘Yes, sir, what can I get you?'

‘Nothing. I've got to rehearse.' The barman's bewildered stare followed him out of the pub.

Outside in the street he realised that he had had an excessive lunch for a working actor and trod with care down the steep steps of Lady Stair's Close to the Mound. The light seemed very bright. He thought he saw the familiar figure of Martin Warburton ahead. He hurried to catch up. ‘Martin!'

But the figure did not stop. It turned right at the bottom of the steps and Charles saw the beard and glasses. It was not Martin.

He awoke on his camp-bed at about five with the worst sort of afternoon hangover. The urgent rehearsal schedule he had promised himself had petered out rather quickly. He hoped that he had not been seen lying there by too many of the group. A middle-aged man asleep in the afternoon. No doubt snoring. The monotone of the piano upstairs indicated a revue rehearsal. He hoped Anna had not seen him.

A cup of coffee might help. He eased himself downstairs to the kitchen. The day's cook, a large girl with corkscrew curls, was chopping up more of the inevitable cabbage.

‘Where's the coffee?'

‘Over there, behind the cornflakes.'

‘Oh yes.'

‘I'll make you some . . .'

‘Thanks.' He made to sit on a chair by the table.

‘. . . if you don't mind doing something for me.'

‘What?'

‘Just empty that, would you?'

‘That' was a large cardboard box full of rubbish—papers, sweepings, cigarette ends, kitchen refuse. The bottom felt unwholesomely soggy on his hands. Charles Paris, haulage contractors. Amplifiers, refuse—distance no object. He negotiated the load through the kitchen door and made his way to the dustbins.

There was a little room at the top of one of them. He balanced the box on the edge and tried to let the contents slip gently in.

They all came with a rush, covering his hands with tea leaves and a yellow slime that had been food. Little scraps of paper scattered all around the bin.

He pushed down the smelly pile and bent to pick up some of the litter. A lot of the paper appeared to have been torn from a big poster photograph. He picked up a piece which had printing on it.

He scrabbled among the other bits until he found the adjacent one which spelled out the title.

It was ax publicity poster of Willy that someone had shredded into a thousand pieces.

CHAPTER FIVE

FROM BIBLICAL TIMES
the restorative properties of a young woman's body have been acknowledged, and Charles felt better after another night with Anna. He was amazed how much she affected him. She was beautiful, and she was knowledgeable in bed, but it was not just that. There was something about the honesty of her responses. No extravagant protestations of love, no questions about the future, just an acceptance that what was happening was good. Most people reveal their weaknesses in a close relationship and endear themselves by failure. But the nearer Charles got to Anna the more complete and integrated she seemed. And she made him feel complete too. Not two lost souls leaning against each other for support, but two independent people who complemented each other.

The alarm woke them at nine. Charles reached his hand round to the small of her back and kissed the elastic skin of her breasts. Anna smiled. ‘Got to get up.'

‘Saturday.'

‘No weekend for us. The revue opens on Monday. We've got a tech. run at ten.'

‘Yes, the show must go on.' She got up. Charles squatted ruefully on the bed with his elbows on his knees. Anna paused in the bathroom doorway and grinned. ‘You look like a dog that's had its bone taken away.'

‘Yes, I fancied a nice bit of marrow-bone jelly. Isn't that what Prolongs Active Life?'

‘You needn't worry.' She closed the bathroom door. Charles smiled, gratified. He spoke up over the sound of running water. ‘Hey, look, I've got a lot of rehearsal to do, too. Can I use the flat? It's so difficult to find anywhere quiet at Coates Gardens.'

A gurgle from the bathroom gave him permission. ‘What are the technical lot like, Anna? All the sound and lighting people?' Another gurgle said they were fine, there was a good course in the Department of Drama. ‘I hope so. I'm only getting a few hours' rehearsal in the hall—Sunday and Monday morning is all I'm allowed.'

The bathroom door slid open and Anna appeared, naked, her hair spiked with damp. ‘Not fair, is it, you poor old thing?' she said as she crossed to her clothes on the chair.

He grabbed at her ankle as she passed and she flopped on to the bed. ‘Got to go and rehearse, Charles.'

‘Rehearse and become a big star.'

‘Yes.'

‘Even stars have five minutes.'

The rehearsal went well too. Given somewhere to work on his own, Charles concentrated and put more subtlety into his readings. He was very organised. Once straight through, then a laborious line-by-line analysis of what had gone wrong. Another run—improvements in individual items but too uniform a pace overall. More detailed work, and finally a run that he would not have been ashamed to show to an audience. ‘There are many pleasures to be had at the Edinburgh Festival, and the greatest of these is Charles Paris'
So Much Comic, So Much Blood
.' Silly, however old and cynical he got, there were times when his mind raced and fantasies of success made him deliciously nervy and excited.

After rehearsal he found the pubs were shut and that made him feel virtuous. A brisk walk was called for. He popped into a little café aptly called the Poppin and bought a couple of floury ham rolls. Then started a leisurely stroll up to the Castle.

The Esplanade was flanked with tiers of seats ready for the Military Tattoo. The head of a statue and the point of an obelisk came up through the disciplined rows to be capped incongruously by green tarpaulin covers. But the Castle itself still looked impressive as Charles mounted the gentle incline to its heraldic gateway. ‘Nemo me impune lacessit.' The motto's translation came to his mind in the accent of a Glasgow thug— ‘No one provokes me and gets away with it.'

It was like a pilgrimage. Every time he came up to Edinburgh, he had to look round the Castle. Climb up to Mons Meg, maybe look inside St Margaret's Chapel. Then on the level below he would lean against the ramparts and gaze down over the city, whose greys merged to distant greens which were lost in the gleam of the Firth of Forth.

It was a clear, sparkling day. He had a beautiful girl and he felt confident about his show. And yet . . .

And yet there was a nagging unease in his mind. Willy Mariello's murder. Each time he tried to dismiss it, he saw the fear in those brown eyes. And he knew that the pleasures of Edinburgh could only allay his unrest temporarily. Peace would not come until he knew the full facts.