The Zig Zag Girl (20 page)

Max reached Hastings at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon and a more depressing time of day, he thought, would be hard be imagine. It was even raining, a thin grey drizzle that you didn’t notice until it had soaked through to your skin. August had given way to September and there was a dour back-to-school feel about the whole town. Max was staying at digs recommended by a friend but, when he looked up at the stucco seafront building, he felt his heart sink a little lower. He was an expert at assessing lodgings, and he knew that this building would possess high ceilings and elaborate cornices, but also peeling paintwork and ill-fitting floorboards. He was sure the bathrooms would be freezing at night.

The door was opened by a pleasant-looking woman in her early fifties. ‘Mr Mephisto? This is an honour. We’re so glad Ray suggested us. I’ve given you the best room. It’s got a lovely view.’

Slightly mollified by this welcome, Max followed the woman (‘Call me Queenie, everyone does’) up the stairs.
He wasn’t excited at the thought of a view. In his opinion, all rooms were improved by having the curtains drawn.

The room was as he expected. Handsome proportions, bay window, damp in the corners, as cold as a harlot’s heart.

‘You can see the pier from here,’ said Queenie, drawing back the net curtains.

Max agreed that you could.

‘We’ve got tickets for Monday first house. I can’t wait to see you in action. Are you going to do the trick with the levitating table?’

Max smiled. ‘That would be telling.’

Queenie lingered in the doorway. ‘If you want anything, just shout.’

‘I will.’

‘Bye for now then. Supper’s at six.’

‘I think I might eat out if it’s all the same to you.’

‘But it’s steak and kidney pie. My theatricals always like a steak and kidney pie.’

Max sighed and agreed to eat the pie. Queenie departed, only to reappear again.

‘I’ll forget my head next. I’ve got a letter for you.’

‘You have?’

‘It’s from Ray. The Great Raymondo. He knew you’d be coming here, see.’

‘Thank you very much.’

Max waited until he could hear the landlady’s feet descending the stairs and then he opened the letter.

Max went to the window and looked out at the grey, rainswept promenade. So his meeting with Ruby hadn’t been chance, providence, whatever you like to call it. Ruby had wanted to meet him. She had known all about him. She had engineered their encounter. Why? He thought of Ruby on stage, how she seemed to know instinctively where he’d be and how she was always ready with a twirl and a smile up to the gallery. Was she still one step ahead of him? He thought of what Ray had said in
his letter.
If you can’t find her, it’s because she wants to stay hidden.

‘Where are you, Ruby?’ he said aloud. And his voice echoed against the high, dusty walls.

*

Edgar was woken by a banging on the door. He sat up, disorientated for a moment. On Friday he had been somehow reluctant to sleep in the bed vacated by Diablo, so had spent the night on the sofa. But last night, after trying and failing to ring Max and warn him about the poster with the name crossed out, he had changed the sheets, drunk half a bottle of scotch and passed out. Now he wasn’t quite sure where he was. The wardrobe seemed to be looming nastily and the empty whisky bottle winked from the bedside table. The knocking grew louder.

‘Coming.’

Edgar rolled off the bed, registered that he had slept in his clothes and staggered towards the front door. A small square shape was visible through the glass. Who the hell could it be on a Sunday morning?

It was raining outside, but the light still hurt his eyes. The shape solidified into an angry man in a tweed hat.

‘What time do you call this? It’s nearly midday.’

‘Major Gormley. What are you doing here?’

‘Came to see you,’ said the Major, unanswerably. ‘Can I come in?’

Edgar led the Major into the sitting room and deposited him on the sofa. Then he went into the kitchen and took three aspirins with a pint of water. Then he made
coffee and took it back into the room where the Major was standing, looking out of the window.

‘Strordinary view. You can see the sea.’

‘Yes, well, it’s a steep hill.’

‘I know,’ said the Major with some asperity. ‘I just walked up it.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘Took the train. Walked from the station.’

That was the wrong question. Edgar took a gulp of coffee and tried to think of the right one.

‘
Why
are you here?’

The Major sat down and took a wallet from his inside pocket. Then, with hands that shook a little, he extracted a piece of paper and spread it on the table. It was an article, somewhat crumpled, cut from a newspaper. Edgar thought of the cutting that had been found in Ethel’s room after her death.
Max Mephisto Mesmerises in Manchester.

This article, too, concerned Max. It was a review of the show at the Theatre Royal, not the one from the
Argus
that Edgar had read after the show, but one that was fairly similar in tone; ambivalent about Tony, cutting about the dancers and positively gushing about Max. ‘Max Mephisto is the greatest variety star of our age. His act never fails to enthral and surprise in equal measure …’

Edgar looked up. Why would Major Gormley leave his sick wife and get the train to Brighton just to show him an article saying that Max was a good magician? They all knew that. The world knew that. Heavens, even Hitler had known that.

‘Why are you showing me this?’ he said at last.

The Major jabbed an arthritic finger at the photograph accompanying the article. It was an action photograph showing Max on stage brandishing a sword. The cabinet was beside him and next to it was Ruby, smiling straight into the camera.

‘That girl,’ said the Major. ‘She’s the girl that came to see me asking questions about Massingham. The girl who said she was a journalist. I don’t take the local paper normally,’ he went on, ‘but our daily uses it to wrap up the good china. Elsie took a fancy to have the willow-pattern cups yesterday. I took them out and there it was.’

‘Are you sure it’s the same girl?’

‘Yes. Pretty little thing. I’d know her anywhere. She had a pretty name too, some kind of jewel.’

‘Ruby?’

‘That’s it.’

‘And she came to see you in July asking questions about Max?’

‘Yes. Said she was writing a piece about Max Mephisto’s contribution to the war. Well, I said to her, it’ll be a fairly short piece in that case.’

Edgar felt an urge to defend Max’s war record: the camouflaged tanks in Egypt, the deal with the imam, the
Ptolemy
. He forced himself to return to the topic in hand.

‘Even if it is her,’ he said slowly. ‘Why’s it so important? I mean, why did you feel that you had to come to see me?’

The Major looked at him in astonishment, shocked that anyone could be that stupid. The expression brought back
the days at Inverness so clearly that Edgar almost felt the chafe of his battle tunic against his neck.

‘When you came to see me last time,’ said the Major, speaking slowly and clearly as if to an idiot (or junior officer), ‘you said that we were all in danger. I remember it plainly. Well, what if it’s her?’ He pointed at the picture. ‘That girl. What if she’s the one who’s tracking you all down?’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know why,’ said the Major impatiently, ‘that’s your job. But it seems pretty damn suspicious to me.’

‘Jean’s dead,’ said Edgar. ‘Bill’s wife Jean. She was murdered in her home. I think it was the same person who killed Tony.’

The Major looked at him. He didn’t seem scared or even surprised. If Edgar had to name an emotion reflected in the little grey eyes, he would have said that it was pity.

‘So there’s just the four of you left. You, Massingham, Cosgrove and Parks.’

‘And you,’ said Edgar, wondering why everyone seemed to forget that the Major had actually been in charge of the Magic Men.

‘I wasn’t really one of you though, was I?’

Edgar looked down at the picture. Ruby smiled back up at him. Who are you? Edgar wanted to say. What do you want with us all?

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘I’m not a
magician
.’ A wealth of contempt went into the last word.

‘Nor am I.’

‘No,’ said the Major. ‘That’s why he’s the one in danger.’

He didn’t have to say who he meant.

*

The steak and kidney pie was everything he imagined it would be. Queenie presided regally over the supper table and introduced Max to his fellow pros: Big and Small, the double act (who, disconcertingly, were exactly the same size), Professor Van Blum, who played the organ, the four Fantinis, acrobats, and Madame Mitzi who did an act with a performing poodle. The dog made a particular impression as it was sitting on its owner’s lap throughout the meal.

‘Sadie’s partial to steak and kidney,’ explained Madame Mitzi, whose accent hailed from the exotic climes of Blackburn.

‘Does she always eat with you?’ asked Max.

‘Bless you, yes. She’s that clever, this dog, you couldn’t give her dog biscuits. I bet she’s even cleverer than you, Mr Mephisto.’

‘I’m sure she is,’ said Max politely.

The Fantinis remarked to each other, in Italian, that this sort of thing would never happen in Naples. Max was inclined to agree with them.

‘Ah, you’re wrong there, Mitzi,’ said Queenie, carving out second helpings, ‘no one’s cleverer than Mr Mephisto.’

Max smiled uncomfortably. Throughout the meal, Queenie had shown signs of singling him out for special favours. He had had the biggest slice of pie and the plate
showing scenes from Shakespeare plays. He was also occupying the chair at the head of the table. ‘My husband’s place,’ said Queenie, lowering her eyelids. ‘God rest his soul.’ Max wondered uneasily what Ray had meant by writing, with sly parenthesis,
She’s … a big fan of yours (if you know what I mean).

‘More pie, Mr Mephisto?’

‘No thank you, Queenie, I couldn’t. And do call me Max.’

‘Oh!’ Queenie showed signs of being overcome. Signor Fantini remarked to his eldest son that the magician was in with a chance there. ‘He’s welcome to it,’ replied Pietro Fantini.

The appearance of the maid brought an end to this comedy of manners. The girl stood in the doorway as if she had something momentous to announce. Max had to admire her stage presence.

‘Please, ma’am, there’s a policeman at the door.’

Big and Small looked at each other, Sadie barked and the Fantinis agreed that there had always been something suspicious about the magician.

‘What does he want?’ asked Queenie.

‘Please’m, he wants to talk to Mr Mephisto.’

Max discouraged Queenie from following him out of the room. A uniformed constable was standing nervously in the hall, holding his helmet in front of him like a shield.

‘Mr Max Mephisto?’

‘That’s me.’

‘I’m PC Ian Granger. I’ve been sent to guard you.’

‘What?’

PC Granger held his ground. ‘We’ve had a message from Detective Inspector Stephens of the Brighton police. He has reason to believe that you’re in danger.’

For a moment the name meant nothing to Max. Military ranks had always struck him as absurd – he’d never once used that ridiculous Acting Major handle – and police titles didn’t seem much better. Then he remembered. Stephens. Edgar Stephens. He sighed inwardly. This was Edgar’s promised police protection. Really, it was rather insulting.

‘I’m not in danger,’ said Max. ‘And you can tell Inspector Stephens that with my love.’

PC Granger winced at the last word. ‘I’ve been told to guard you,’ he said.

‘Well, you can guard me from a distance,’ said Max. ‘I’m going back to my dinner. Good night.’

When he got back to the table, Sadie was finishing the last of the pie.

When the Major had left, trundling back down the hill like an angry steam train, Edgar sat on the sofa and thought about Ruby and Max. He had thought that Ruby might be in danger, the Major was convinced that she
was
the danger. Either way, the girl had vanished without trace and Edgar was still no closer to finding the person who had killed Ethel, Tony and Jean. Was Max marked out as the next victim?

He wished that he could telephone Max, but he had no idea where he was staying in Hastings. Eventually he rang the local police station. After a long explanation (‘You’re saying a
magician
is in danger?’), the officer in charge promised to find out where Max was staying and send someone round. ‘He’ll say that he’s not in danger,’ said Edgar. ‘I just want you to keep a discreet eye on him.’ ‘Don’t worry, Inspector Stephens,’ said the officer reassuringly. ‘We’ll be very subtle.’

Edgar went out for a walk, hoping that it would clear his head, but it was a dull rainy evening which only
seemed to make him feel more befuddled. He bought some chips from the shop at the corner and walked home eating them out of the newspaper. Even in his current state of worry, it still gave him a small feeling of satisfaction to think how shocked his mother would be if she could see him.

Back home, Edgar poured himself a whisky (hair of the dog and all that), sat back down on the sofa and thought about the Magic Men. What had happened up there at Inverness that had led to this – this gruesome game of cat and mouse? A ship had burnt and a girl had died. That was it. After Charis’s death, the unit had been disbanded with what felt like unseemly haste. Edgar was sent to a desk job at the Ministry of Information where he waited out the last months of the war in a welter of misery and frustration. To everyone’s surprise, Max volunteered for active service and was sent back to Egypt. Diablo was invalided out and Tony, too, claimed to be suffering from stress. Bill joined the RAF base at Watnall. Come to think of it, that was probably where he had got to know Jean. A lot of the WAAFs had ended up at Watnall, a place that had the distinction of having a mixed mess and, in consequence, a decidedly racy reputation.

Edgar remembered Bill coming to see him early in 1945. The doodlebugs were still coming over, silent and purposeful, but otherwise London was getting back to normal. Children were playing in the parks and the words, ‘Second Front Now’, chalked on the wall opposite Edgar’s digs, were looking faded and apologetic. They
had sat in a pub near Gordon Square and talked about the prospect of peace.

‘I just want a house and a job,’ Bill had said. ‘I’m not ambitious. I don’t want my name in lights like Tony used to say.’

‘I don’t know what I want,’ Edgar had said. ‘To make a difference, I suppose.’ He thought now that, while Bill had at least achieved his ambition, his was still as remote as ever.

They had stayed in the pub quite late, he remembered. Edgar and Bill had never been close and, while Charis was alive, they were rivals. But, now that she was dead, they found an odd comfort in each other’s company. Not that they spoke about Charis. Or about Jean. Edgar did remember one thing that Bill had said. ‘Do you think we’ll ever see Max and Tony again,’ he had asked, over his fourth pint. ‘Or will they be too grand for us, being stars and all that?’ Even at the time, this had seemed curiously bitter. Edgar was sure that his friendship with Max would survive the war. He didn’t care whether or not he saw Tony again. But Bill obviously thought that he would be snubbed by his old army comrades. Was this why he had invited them all to his wedding? To show them that he was on his way to success in civilian life? Or was it just for a reunion? Either way, they had all refused the invitation. Why? He knew that, in his case, it had simply been because seeing Bill again would remind him of Charis. Had it been snobbishness on Max’s part, indifference on Tony’s? Had Bill been angry? Angry enough to kill?

Edgar thought of Tony greeting his visitor.
I thought I’d be seeing you sooner or later
. Why had Tony wanted to see Edgar and Bill that day at one-fifteen? Tony liked power, Edgar knew, that was why he favoured mind-games and hypnosis over other kinds of magic. He had obviously looked forward to making his former comrades sweat. But someone had called on him before the fun could start. Who was it? Who had sat beside Tony in that squalid little bedroom, drugged him and then stabbed him, leaving the sword stuck into the cupboard like a bloody exclamation mark?

Edgar remembered something Max had once told him about card tricks. ‘You cut the cards and then you ask the punter to tap the deck twice. Why? Because then he feels that he has some control over the trick. He’s making it happen.’ Was Tony’s message the equivalent of an audience member tapping a pack of cards? The trick was already in motion, the die was cast, but Tony still wanted to make it seem as if he were in control.

Max had told him in Eastbourne, ‘The thing about The Zig Zag Girl is that it’s a trick that depends on the girl.’ Some of Max’s illusions depended on having a stooge in the audience, they looked like solos but they were really duets. What if there were two murderers designed to look like one? Bill, for example, may have had an alibi for Jean’s murder, but he could easily have killed Ethel and Tony. Maybe the flower-buyer and the sword-purchaser were really two different people? There was still the problem of motive though. Try as he might, Edgar
couldn’t unearth one reason why anyone should want to kill a retired showgirl, a comedian and a housewife. They were linked, albeit tenuously, by the Magic Men.

The whisky was making him feel worse. It was almost dark outside now. Edgar had a bath and got ready for bed. If only he could sleep really deeply tonight, wipe out everything that had happened over the last few days and wake feeling properly refreshed. But, as he lay in bed, thoughts and images insisted on whirling around in his head.

I thought I’d be seeing you sooner or later.

You thought it might be a lunatic magician.

Love ’em and leave ’em, eh, Max?

I used to be his girl.

This guy’s a showman and I know about showmen.

There was a spy, you know. In the Magic Men.

And, as he was falling into an uneasy sleep, he thought of Diablo’s warning, that first day in Inverness.

If you’re playing cards with Max, never take your eyes off his hands.

*

Max’s room proved every bit as uncomfortable as he’d feared. The eiderdown escaped in the night and the windows rattled every time a bus drove past. The bathroom was, of course, freezing. In the morning he didn’t wait for Queenie’s special breakfast, but headed straight for the theatre, stopping at a cafe on the way for a black coffee and a cigarette.

As soon as he stepped through the pass door, he felt better. Here at least he was at home. The smell of Calor
gas and greasepaint was as soothing as an anaesthetic. He stood for a few minutes, drinking it in. Even if he did manage to give up the stage, would he ever really be happy anywhere else?

‘Mr Mephisto?’ A trilling female voice brought him back to the present.

A woman with shingled hair like a twenties model was standing at the back of the auditorium. As she came closer, Max saw that she was younger than she first seemed. Her clothes (she was squeezed into a skirt suit, very tight around the hips) and hair made her seem almost middleaged, but she was little more than a schoolgirl.

‘I’m Beryl,’ said the vision. ‘Uncle Terry suggested me for your assistant.’

Uncle Terry must be Terry Urquhart, the stage manager. Max remembered asking him for a girl to perform the disappearing act. This girl looked far too solid to vanish. Max wished that he had signed up Queenie’s housemaid. She, at least, had some sense of dramatic timing.

‘Have you done anything like this before?’ he asked.

‘Oh yes,’ said Beryl, she had an over-genteel voice, the vowels squeezed very thin. ‘I was in lots of plays at school.’

‘Do you want to be an actress then?’

‘More than anything,’ she simpered.

‘Well, this is about acting the part of an ordinary member of the audience. Think you can do that?’

‘I’ll try.’ Beryl laughed, showing too many teeth.

The theatre on the pier had been destroyed by fire during the First World War and completely rebuilt in the
1930s. It was now an art deco gem floating on the sea. The outside was vaguely Egyptian in design and this had given Max the idea of adding a kind of Tutankhamen twist to the act. He had designed a folding pyramid which would cover the girl. It was semi-transparent, which would give the audience the idea that they were seeing everything, but, as all magicians know, audiences never really see anything.

Max took Beryl backstage and showed her the props.

‘So you lie on the table,’ he said, ‘and I cover you with the robe.’ The robe, covered in hieroglyphs and jackal-headed gods, was deliberately eye-catching. There was a headdress too. ‘Then I’ll put the screen round you. The robe is stiff so it’ll stay in place and with any luck the audience will be watching it rather than you. Then, when the drum rolls start, you slip off the table and into the trapdoor.’

At first, she couldn’t even get on the table without help. In the end she managed a sort of laborious hop, a far cry from the elegant glide that Max had envisaged. The trapdoor was greeted by a squeal and a warning that she was afraid of dark places.

‘It’s not dark,’ said Max, ‘and there’ll be a stagehand waiting at the bottom.’ He thought of Ruby and how neatly she would have performed this trick; how effortlessly she would have garnered the audience’s affections, rising slightly awkwardly from her seat and dipping her head in embarrassment, how ruthlessly she would have held their attention, still and dignified in the pharaoh’s
robe and how quickly and easily she would have slipped out of sight, leaving just a slither of material behind.

‘Let’s try it again,’ he said. ‘You can wear the headdress this time.’

‘I feel like Cleopatra,’ said Beryl.

I feel like a cigarette, thought Max.

*

It had rained in the night, but Monday morning was fresh and hopeful, the blue sky reflected in the puddles as Edgar walked to work. He was feeling, if not completely refreshed, at least a little more human. It was the start of a new week. He had a slightly better description of the main suspect, he could commission a police artist and circulate the picture. He had alerted the Hastings police and, with any luck, he would be able to talk to Max. He could redouble his efforts to trace Ruby and Diablo. After all, finding the old magician would surely only be a matter of scouring the dodgiest pubs in Brighton.

In the Incident Room, he pinned up the playbill that had been posted through his letterbox. It seemed that the killer knew not only his army rank but also his address. It was hard to shake the feeling that someone was watching him all the time, a shadowy figure moving backstage, just out of view of the lights. He remembered the footsteps in the corridor last night, the flash of white on the stairs. Was there a spy, here, in the police station? It was possible, he supposed. He stared up at the poster advertising the Flying Fantinis and an act with a talking dog. The words ‘Max Mephisto’ had been crossed out with a thick-nibbed
ink pen. Was this the same pen that had deleted Tony’s face in the earlier photograph? Edgar looked closer, as if the ink itself held the clue. The names on the board swirled and danced in front of him. Ethel Williams, Tony Mulholland, Jean Cosgrove. What did they have in common? There were lines from Ethel and Tony to Max Mephisto and from Jean to Bill Cosgrove. With a slight jolt, Edgar realised that his name should be on the board too, somewhere between Max and Bill, the third man, the stooge in the audience. A little to the side was the name ‘Stan Parks, alias The Great Diablo.’ Where the hell was The Great Diablo?

Bob appeared in the doorway wearing the trilby hat which he hoped made him look older.

‘Is that the latest from the Conjuror Killer?’ he asked, gesturing towards the playbill.

‘Don’t call him that,’ said Edgar.

‘No, seriously, sir. Who do you think it is?’

Edgar looked round. The ‘sir’ sounded suspicious, but Bob’s expression was one of earnest enquiry.

‘If I knew,’ said Edgar wearily, ‘don’t you think I would have done something about it?’

‘People are saying it’s Max Mephisto.’

‘Are they?’

‘Do you think it’s him?’

Edgar had long given up counting to ten with Bob. ‘Max is my closest friend,’ he said. ‘We served in the army together. So no, Bob, I don’t think he’s a sadistic killer.’

‘Just asking,’ said Bob.

When Bob had left, expressing disappointment with his boss in every fibre of his being, Edgar went back to his office and telephoned the Hastings police. Yes, the chief inspector replied, they had traced Mr Mephisto’s lodgings and had sent an officer round last night. Mr Mephisto had denied that he was in any danger. ‘Quite forthright he was, apparently. Said that we could tell you so with his love.’

Edgar smiled, but he asked if someone could be sent to the theatre that evening. ‘A threat has been made against Max Mephisto,’ he said, ‘and we’re taking it very seriously.’

‘I’ll send my very best officer,’ promised the chief inspector. ‘I expect he’ll be grateful for a night out.’

Edgar dispatched Bob to search the pubs and doss-houses for The Great Diablo. He commissioned a picture from the police artist knowing, as he did so, that the result would not look like any human being, alive or dead. He then telephoned Sergeant Deacon in Wembley.

‘We’ve had some results back from the lab,’ said Deacon. ‘Wonderful what they can do these days, isn’t it? Seems that one of the cups held traces of atropha belladonna. That’s …’

‘I know what it is,’ said Edgar. ‘It’s our man’s modus operandi.’

‘Think it’s definitely the same man then?’

‘Yes I do. The descriptions tally too, vague as they are. How’s Mr Cosgrove? Have you interviewed him again?’