Tickled to Death and Other Stories of Crime and Suspense (29 page)

“Jeremy,” she said, when she went into his office, “mind if I go up to Town? It's something on the Karlstetter thing.”

“No, fine. I'd come myself, but I've got this lunch at Umberto's with a racehorse trainer who's interested in a surveillance system . . .”

“Of course.”

Mr Karlstetter worked for an oil company, whose central office was in a large block near Victoria Station. Which was ideal for Isabel's purposes.

She parked her car on a meter round the back of the building, opposite a row of rubbish bins awaiting collection. A moment's casual sifting produced what she wanted. A brown A4 envelope for internal mail. Most of the boxes on the front had names filled in, but, as is always the case in big organizations, the envelope had been thrown away before they'd all been used. Isabel wrote “Mr Karlstetter” in the next vacant box, put her outdoor coat in the car, and went round to the front of the building.

In the foyer, in front of the lifts, were a cluster of armchairs and low tables. She lifted a magazine off one of them.
Oil News.
That'd do. She put it into the envelope and, ignoring the sign which said “All Security Passes Must Be Shown”, walked up to the Commissionaire behind the Reception desk.

“Mr Karlstetter?” she asked, holding the envelope up in front of him.

“Seventh Floor. 7106,” said the Commissionaire helpfully.

Mr Karlstetter's secretary was, as anticipated, a pretty little thing. Early twenties, with a good figure and a knowing eye.

Isabel had studied the other names on the internal envelope. “From Mr Rogers,” she said, naming the last one as she handed it over.

“Oh.” The secretary looked at her curiously. “Why didn't Linda bring it?”

Isabel made a rueful face. “They can't think of things for me to do. I'm being retrained. Transfer from Manchester.”

Mr Karlstetter's secretary nodded without interest.

Isabel left it at that and went out of the room. Leave the more intimate bit for the Ladies.

There was only one on that floor, so she reckoned it was a safe bet, though it might mean a bit of waiting.

She bolted herself into one of the cubicles, propped her handbag mirror against the wall, so that it gave her a view through the gap under the door, and waited.

It was after twelve, so there was quite a lot of pre-lunch coming and going. At quarter to one her quarry arrived. Isabel waited till she heard the cubicle locked behind Mr Karlstetter's secretary, then flushed her lavatory and emerged. She put her handbag on the shelf beneath the mirror, and started to apply a neutral-coloured lipstick. (Under normal circumstances she didn't wear make-up, but she had come prepared.)

The other lavatory flushed, and Mr Karlstetter's secretary came out. She smiled vague recognition at Isabel, washed her hands, and began to repair her more elaborate make-up. She took out a soft brush to highlight the cheekbones.

“Ooh, that's good, isn't it?” Isabel commented in her dowdiest voice.

“Hmm.”

“Really doing yourself up.”

“Oh, nothing special.”

“Mr Karlstetter taking you out for lunch then?”

The brush froze in mid-air, and the secretary turned from the mirror to blaze at Isabel, “What do you mean?”

“Oh, sorry I spoke. Thought it was common knowledge, about you and him.”

“What?”

“I've only been here a few days, but everyone seems to know.”

“Oh.” The girl looked dejected, and very young. “It's meant to be a secret.”

“Oh. Sorry. Difficult to keep secrets in an organization like this.”

“Yes. These last four months haven't been easy. I'll be glad when we don't have to keep it a secret any more.”

“Oh, when's that?” asked Isabel ingenuously.

“When we're married,” Mr Karlstetter's secretary replied defiantly.

Which perhaps provided a motive for Mr Karlstetter to want to get his wife out of the way.

An affair between a boss and his secretary. The oldest, shoddiest cliché in the book. Suddenly Isabel had to ring Jeremy to cancel their stupid dinner date for the following evening. Strangle it at birth. Stop it before anything started.

There was no reply when she rang at two. She kept trying, from various call-boxes on Victoria Station. At ten to four he was finally back from lunch.

And a good lunch too, if the fuzziness of his voice was anything to go by.

But when she heard him, something inside her, something that infuriated her, wouldn't let her say what she'd intended.

“Look, I want to try to follow Mr Karlstetter tonight. Mrs Karlstetter said he was working late at the office again . . .”

“That's right.”

“But he's told his secretary—who, incidentally, was what he was working late on last night—”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. He's told her he's spending the evening at home.”

“Ah.”

“So I'm going to try to find out what he's up to.”

“Good. I'd come up and help you, Isabel, but I think Felicia and the kids are kind of expecting me to . . .”

“Of course, Jeremy.”

Maybe Mr Karlstetter did actually work late that evening. Isabel, from her car parked opposite, saw his secretary leave the building on the dot of five-thirty, but it was over two hours later, just when she was starting to think she'd missed him, that Mr Karlstetter himself appeared. She recognized him easily from the photograph she'd seen at his home. A man fighting ungracefully against encroaching age.

Fortunately, there was not much traffic at that time of night and Isabel was able to follow discreetly without losing him. He made straight for Victoria Station. Oh no, had he changed his mind? Was he actually going home to his wife after all?

But he'd only gone to the station to pick up a taxi from the rank in front. Isabel discovered how much easier it was to do the “Follow that taxi” routine in her own car than in another taxi.

He stopped outside Jules Bar in Jermyn Street and, when he had paid off the driver, went inside. Isabel parked a couple of streets away and followed him in.

The bar was full, but she managed to find a couple of seats at one of the tables. She ordered two drinks from the waitress, aware that a girl waiting angrily for a man who's late looks less conspicuous than one drinking on her own.

Then she looked round for Mr Karlstetter. He was over in the corner with his arm round a girl. She was also thirty years younger than him, but she wasn't his secretary. The couple talked intimately, while Isabel maintained a masquerade of alternately looking at her watch and, with venom, at the untouched gin and tonic opposite her.

After about half an hour, Mr Karlstetter and the girl left. With a final gesture of annoyance, Isabel stumped out after them.

Fortunately they had difficulty in getting a taxi, so she had time to get her car and be ready for them.

This time the journey took them South of the river. This girl's flat was in York Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive.

Isabel waited outside. At half-past ten Mr Karlstetter emerged, looking pleased with himself.

It took him a long time to find a cab, and Isabel kept having to resist the temptation to offer him a lift.

But eventually he got a taxi back over the river and disappeared into Victoria Station. Back home to his wife, presumably, after another hard evening at the office.

Isabel thought about it. A man who wants to marry a younger girl might possibly contemplate murdering his wife to get her out of the way. But a man who is two-timing the younger girl and only using the idea of marriage to keep her on the boil surely wouldn't bother to go to such lengths. In complicated deceptions the existence of a wife is always a useful long-stop, the ultimate excuse when things get difficult.

As she drove back into the suburbs, a thought struck her. If he'd used his car for his philandering on Tuesday night, why would a man suddenly turn to taxis for the same purpose on a Wednesday?

Then she realized—and laughed out loud at the realization—that he'd only do it if Scotland Yard had been making enquiries about his car's movements.

“. . . so I'm absolutely convinced, Jeremy, that she's set the whole thing up herself. She knows what he's up to, and she wants to get her revenge. She doesn't really think he'll get arrested for trying to kill her; she just wants to scare the living daylights out of him.”

“Are you sure, Isabel?”

“Positive. That's how that sort of woman works.”

“What do you mean—that sort of woman? She's very attractive.”

“That's neither here nor there. I'm certain that's what's happened. She's just drawing attention to herself and trying to get revenge.”

“Hmm.”

“You challenge her with it, Jeremy. I bet she'll confess. Her ‘unwilling sleep' is completely self-induced. When did you say she was coming in?”

“Six o'clock this evening.”

Mrs Karlstetter arrived looking very elegant and confident. She was in Jeremy's office a long time before the intercom buzzed. Isabel stayed waiting at her desk outside. There might be something that needed tying up. Also, however much she tried to push it from her mind, she couldn't forget the plan that Jeremy had suggested for Thursday evening.

“Oh, Miss Black,” the intercom asked peremptorily, “could you bring in some Kleenex, please?”

When Isabel went in, Jeremy was saying, “I'm sorry, Virginia, but you couldn't have hoped to deceive me. When I am engaged to investigate something, I'm afraid I always find out the truth—oh, thank you, Miss Black.”

Isabel handed over a couple of Kleenex to the weeping Mrs Karlstetter.

“If you could just hang on for a little longer, Miss Black. We're nearly through.”

“Of course, Mr Garson.”

Half an hour later, the intercom buzzed again. “Oh, Miss Black, could you get on to Tiberio's Restaurant, please, and book me a table for two for eight o'clock tonight. One of the ones in the alcoves.”

To her annoyance, Isabel's voice trembled as she fulfilled this commission. So he hadn't forgotten.

At half-past seven, the intercom buzzed again. “Oh, Miss Black, do you think you could just type up Mrs Karlstetter's invoice. I'd like her to have it before we go out to dinner.”

“Yes, of course, Mr Garson.”

“Thank you. You're a treasure.” Even over the crackles of the intercom, his voice sounded warm. “So if you could just leave the invoice on the typewriter, that'll be all. See you in the morning.”

Isabel typed up the invoice, hitting the keys with something approaching savagery.

M
ARIANA
L
YTHGOE TOOK
the centre of the stage as if by right. It was a matter of habit and instinct, helped by the natural deference of those around her. But the dominance of her presence was never resented; force of personality demanded a tribute that was willingly given. Nor was that force of personality noticeably diminished by the actress's seventy years. Though the famous brown eyes were foxed with grey, they retained their magnetism.

The stage whose centre she so naturally took was, on this occasion, a small one. It was a low wooden table, surrounded by a cluster of plastic-upholstered armchairs, in BBC Radio's Ariel Bar.

The audience was also small, but more theatrically discriminating than many she had faced in her long career on the stage. Every member was, to a greater or lesser extent, “in the business”. They had all just completed recording a radio play, for which the producer, Mark Lear, had lured Mariana Lythgoe from her much-publicized retirement.

It was a tribute, Charles Paris thought wryly, to her enduring magnetism that Mark was now listening to her with such concentration. During the two days of the recording the producer had been patently earmarking a young, purple-haired actress for his attentions, and the fact that he was deferring the inevitable post-production chat-up for Mariana said a lot for the old lady's power.

“But, of course, no one remembers me now,” she was saying with self-depreciating charm.

“Absolute balderdash,” Mark Lear protested. “The less work you do, the more you seem to be in the public eye.”

She laughed in fond disagreement.

“No, really, Mariana. You should have heard the reaction I got from people who heard you were going to do this play for me. And then there's been all this recent publicity about your autobiography.”

“A nine-days' wonder,” she said dismissively. “Publishers spend their lives creating nine-day wonders. A month hence everyone will have forgotten about the book.”

“Don't you believe it,” Mark persisted. “Then there's this new production of
Roses In Winter
at the Haymarket. There hasn't been a single review of it which hasn't mentioned you.”

“Oh . . .” The vowel was long with denial, but still asked for more.

“That's the way to get reviews,” the producer continued, “—without even being in the show. Get all the critics saying, ‘It's hard to forget Mariana Lythgoe's creation of the part of Clara in Boy Trubshawe's original production.' You ever had any notices like that, Charles?”

Charles Paris grimaced. “No. I've had one or two that wished I hadn't been in shows I was in, but none that actually praised me
in absentia
.”

Mark laughed. “Well, I'm afraid the poor kid who's playing Clara in this production hasn't got a chance. What's her name?”

“Sandy Drake,” Mariana supplied. “I haven't seen it, but I gather she's awfully good,” she added loyally.

“The only good things I've read about her have been in comparisons with you,” said Mark. Charles couldn't decide whether the producer was being more than usually sycophantic or whether this was just the effect Mariana Lythgoe had on people. From his own reactions to her, he inclined to the second opinion.