War Damage (5 page)

Phil was waiting for her as she shut the front door: ‘Are you all right? This is absolutely ghastly. Look – d'you want me to ring work and say … I mean, I don't want to leave you here on your own.'

‘I'll be all right, Phil. Honestly. I'm perfectly all right. You go off. Mrs Havelock will be here any minute. And anyway I'll have to ring Neville.'

She was desperate to be alone. She sat numbly in the drawing room. When Cato came nudging and licking and wanting attention she pushed him away. Shot! Freddie had been shot.

She had to phone Neville. The phone was inconveniently in the hall where there was no room for a chair to sit on – Neville's strategy to discourage lengthy calls. It was always irritating; but at least Phil's bike wasn't there now, cluttering up the passage.

She dialled the museum number. When she got through to Neville and told him, there was a prolonged silence at the other end of the line. Then: ‘What the
hell
are you talking about? He can't be dead! What on earth was he doing on the Heath? Trolling around?'

‘
I
don't know, Neville. He always talks about going down the East End – look, we mustn't let on to the police that he's – you know …'

‘They'll find out, won't they. They'll go sniffing around Markham Square.
God
! The bloody
fool
!' He paused and then spoke more calmly. ‘Reg – I'm one of his executors. Hilary Jordan's the other; he's his solicitor. I'll have to ring him. God, this is going to mean so much work. Why the hell did he have to … We've got a set of keys, haven't we? You'd better get over to the house, Reg, have a look around. See if you can find a will. And anything incriminating.'

She gripped the handset. ‘Don't be ridiculous, I can't go to the house, it'll be crawling with detectives. Hilary will have a copy of the will, won't he. And why didn't you tell me you're his executor?'

‘For Christ's sake, Reggie, it never arose!'

‘And what do you mean – incriminating? Look – can't you come home? You can get away, can't you, tell them what's happened?'

‘No, no, I can't do that. I've got an important meeting. I don't want to … this day of all days—' He left the sentence unfinished. ‘God! What on earth made him – the
fool
!'

‘You don't sound very upset. Why are you so angry? He didn't mean to – this didn't happen just to inconvenience you.'

‘Of
course
I'm upset. I'm bloody beside myself.'

‘The police said we might have to identify the body.'

‘I tell you what,' her husband said in a calmer tone of voice, ‘I tell you what, I'll meet you at the house. And then we can have lunch or something. But just take the keys and go over to the house now. You'll be able to tell if the police have got there before you. Obviously if they're there, make yourself scarce. But if they're not – well, see what you can find. Actually, the most important thing is his address book. We don't want them knowing all about all his friends – and ours, do we.'

‘No!'

‘That's the girl, Reg. God, what an awful, rotten thing to happen.' He still didn't actually sound
upset
. ‘I'll try to get to the house by twelve.'

She stood in the hall. It was crazy to go over to Freddie's, but Neville was right, it was vital to make sure the police didn't find anything … a sordid scandal would be so dreadful.

She should have insisted on more details. When had Freddie's body been found? Who had found it? She collapsed onto the drawing-room sofa, feeling slightly faint. When Mrs Havelock arrived she found her employer staring into space.

‘Whatever is the matter, madam, are you all right?'

‘I've had a shock, Mrs Havelock, a friend of mine has – has died. Suddenly.'

‘You look quite white. I'll make you a cup of tea.'

‘Thank you – yes, a cup of tea … no milk or sugar.'

When Mrs Havelock returned with the tea, Regine said: ‘That's so kind. But I'm quite all right, honestly.'

After a while she knew she was sitting there because she didn't want to reach the Markham Square house before Neville. But she could look in at the shops in Knightsbridge on the way, Harrods, Woollands, Harvey Nichols … At the same time she was unbearably restless, filled with a burning desire to get out of the house. She knew she wouldn't be able to sit still or do any work today. She ran upstairs to find a jacket and pulled on the old red leather one. She had to get away before the lugubrious char asked any more questions.

It was another fine day. She registered the blue sky and leaves beginning to turn – orange, yellow. Her high heels rapped against the pavement up the hill to Hampstead underground: banging nails in a coffin.

five

T
HE KING'S ROAD WAS BUSY
with buses and pedestrians, but when she turned into the square, its emptiness seemed eerie, the blank windows seemed to watch her and the sunlight seemed too bright.

No sign of a black police Wolseley. No sign of Neville either. She stared up at the house. Freddie used to congratulate himself on having a house on the sunny side of the square. Now the house was here, but Freddie wasn't. Freddie didn't exist any more.

Thank God, there was the old Bentley sliding into the square and a moment later Neville climbed out and hurried towards her. He put an arm round her and squeezed her shoulders. How relieved she was to have him with her. As she fumbled with the keys, Neville said: ‘I couldn't get hold of Hilary. But I don't suppose it matters. We're here now, anyway. There'll be a copy of the will somewhere. Let's hope we find it.'

Regine walked into the long, narrow double drawing room, stood still and looked round. What Freddie had always called his ‘tat' was everywhere: Victorian wax fruit in glass domes, odd little genre scene paintings on the walls, a skeleton clock, also encased in glass, boxes stuck all over with shells, a lacquer screen, the petit-point fire screen. The chimney piece was laden with postcards and invitations from people she didn't know, names she didn't recognise, and she inspected them with jealous interest. Freddie had so many different friends, moved in so many different circles.

He was more important to me than I was to him. It was a sad, sour little thought. She felt ashamed of it.

In the bright sunlight the Regency striped wallpaper looked faded, the room was like a theatrical set, and suffocatingly camp. The sense of Freddie's presence was suddenly overwhelming. A lump in her throat; she somehow mustn't cry; not now, not here.

Neville was riffling through the drawers of the desk. ‘No will here.' He banged a drawer shut and opened the next.

‘Why is Hilary Freddie's executor? He was very nasty about him yesterday. I can't imagine they got on very well.' Regine peered out of the window and then walked slowly round the front part of the room, smoothing the polished wood of a table, touching a glass dome. What had happened? Freddie must have picked someone up; either that or it was a thief, as Phil had suggested. And Neville was right; the police were bound to turn over every aspect of Freddie's life until they solved the crime and there was every reason for them to know as little as possible about all his – their – friends. Everyone had a secret; and Freddie knew – had known – them all.

‘No address book either.' There was a note of panic in Neville's voice. ‘Business letters and bank statements, there isn't time to read those. But no will and no address book. Keep a look out for the
Polizei
, kitten.'

She moved over to the front window and drew the lace curtain aside. ‘But if I see the police it'll be too late to get away.'

‘I'm the executor. I have a right to be here. That's what I'll say anyway. Brazen it out.'

The street was empty, uninhabited. Like the house.

She walked away to the back half of the room and glanced at the books along one wall. Ballet books mostly, some photographic volumes, art books, Edmund Dulac's illustrated
Arabian Nights
. Neville came up behind her and took out a volume. ‘Crebillon's
Sofa
. High-class pornography.' Then, as a sudden thought hit him: ‘Oh God – the studio.'

The large extension at the back of the house had been one of Freddie's reasons for buying the house, or so he'd told her. Seen from the poky back garden it was ugly and disproportionate, but provided room for an adequate studio, with behind it a darkroom and a box room with filing cabinets. Regine switched on the light. The studio was as it should be: the long roll of white paper hanging down from the ceiling, the light reflectors, the tripods, everything was in place.

Neville made straight for the box room, where Freddie had kept the prints in filing cabinets and where the negatives were stored along the shelves, in boxes.

‘We'll have to remove them. Can't be too careful.' Neville's clipped, dry words puzzled her. Everything was taking a long time to understand. Then in a different tone of voice he said: ‘They're not all here – some of the negatives – and prints. They're missing.' She heard him open and shut the filing cabinet drawers. He came back into the main room.

‘Why are you …?'

‘For God's sake, kitten, you don't think he confined himself to ballerinas, do you?'

‘But no one else has a key,' she said stupidly.

You're the only person I'd trust with a key, darling, I don't want my inquisitive neighbours poking around … in case something happened.

And now ‘something'
had
happened.

‘Oh yes they have, Reggie. Of course someone else has a key. His own keys weren't found on the body. You said the police found nothing on him except your postcard. Do pull yourself together. Someone's been here. Must have been.' He looked round. ‘Could he have kept them somewhere else, hidden them …
Damn
– we can't stay here indefinitely. There's no time to make a proper search. And there may be all sorts of other things: incriminating love letters, diaries, anything.'

The police were bound to find out about Freddie's private life, unless … suppose Phil was right and Freddie had been attacked by a thief and things had gone horribly wrong. They'd find something – footprints, a knife, a witness who'd seen something, perhaps a man running from the scene – and there'd be no need to delve into his private life. Oh, how desperately she hoped that was the case.

‘It doesn't
look
as if there was a break-in,' said Neville, looking round and speaking more to himself than to Regine. ‘Though if they had the keys there wouldn't be a forced entry, but … look, I'm going to have another poke around in the desk. Why don't you nip upstairs, see if you think anything else has been stolen – any of his precious objects – the clocks are valuable – and didn't he have quite a lot of silver? But that'll be in the basement, I suppose. But anyway, have a look. I'll be just a sec.'

‘We shouldn't stay too long, Neville.'

‘I
know
that, but I'd like to find his address book. And his diaries. He always boasted about his diaries – said one day he'd publish and be damned. The will's less important. He may not have kept a copy. Hilary'll have one.'

Regine reluctantly climbed the steep staircase to Freddie's bedroom. She'd never been in this room and it felt like an intrusion. Sometimes she'd thought theirs was a love affair without sex, somehow forbidden and romantic. But she'd never been
in love
with Freddie. More like brother and sister, then; but she shook her head irritably. That was sentimental, somehow false. Perhaps she hadn't known him as well as she'd believed. What Neville had said had shocked her. She hadn't entirely realised … did he really mean … and if so … her thoughts moved on to blackmail, exposures in the papers – even that glamour pose he'd taken of
her
– it didn't bear thinking about.

The bedroom could not have been more different from downstairs; grimly masculine with a mahogany tallboy, ivory-backed brushes, a navy blue silk counterpane, a free-standing cheval glass, no pictures on the dark grey walls.

A portrait photograph of Charles Hallam stood on the chest of drawers.

She stared at it, lost in thought – or non-thought – a kind of formless dread.

She must pull herself together. She looked in each drawer of the chest, one after the other, but found only neat piles of folded garments. In the top drawer of the tallboy was a box full of cuff links, dress shirt studs, and …

Good God! It was almost an automatic reflex to thrust what she'd found into her bag.

A few moments later she ran down the stairs. ‘No diaries, no love letters, no will, no address book, nothing,' she said, sounding as matter of fact as she could. ‘Of course, there's no time to look properly.'

He stared about, tense, agitated. Eventually he said: ‘Yes, we'd better go.'

The front door clicked shut behind them. They walked away along the west side of the square towards the car, without noticing the figure who watched them from the other end.

In the restaurant she sat down too quickly and winced as her bruised buttocks met the hard little chair. Tears welled up.

‘Don't be upset, kitten.' He held her hand across the table. ‘Bloody Freddie. It's a nuisance not finding his diaries. God knows what he wrote in them. If the press get hold of them … perhaps they're libellous, though. Or – perhaps they don't exist. It'd be just like Freddie to make it all up. But the photos.
They
were real, all right. Perhaps he gave them to someone to look after. Though why would he do that? And the address book, that's the worst of all.' He looked at her and softened. ‘I know it's ghastly, kitten, of course it is. I'm upset too.'

‘He was shot,' she said suddenly.

‘
Shot
?' He lit a cigarette. ‘Shot? A hold-up – on the Heath? You didn't tell me
that
! Good God.'

The waitress came to take their order. The wine came quickly and Neville poured a glass for her as well as himself. ‘You'll feel better when you've drunk some of this.'

Neville mistakenly imagined alcohol always made everyone feel better. Regine never normally drank during the day, but now she gulped it down.

‘I'll try to get hold of Hilary again later. He'll have the will at least.' He stared at her with pinpointy eyes through his wire-framed glasses.

‘I'm amazed he made a will,' said Regine. ‘I can't imagine Freddie being that organised. And I should've thought he'd have been too superstitious.' She suddenly remembered Charles Hallam and what he'd said about Diaghilev never travelling by boat because some fortune teller had predicted he'd die on the water … and Freddie
had
been superstitious, but he took risks as well …

They sat hunched close over the shiny American cloth table covering. ‘There's so much that doesn't add up about all this,' murmured Neville. ‘And there could be the most frightful scandal, that's why we're worried, isn't it. Because we are. We're frightened. We're nervous. It could involve people we know.'

‘What on earth are you talking about? You don't think someone we know might have … look, the police said his wallet was stolen. And his keys, no doubt. Just a senseless, random attack – almost an accident.'

Neville was silent while the waitress set down their plates of cauliflower soup. ‘But what was he doing on the Heath? Well, I can guess. Did he say where he was going? Was he just going home? If it is something more complicated – it'll go on for weeks, months, it'll be in the papers. If it's just some nasty little thief, with any luck it'll go away quite quickly, otherwise … all the private life stuff will emerge. And that's why we're panicking, isn't it.'

‘Panicking … are we?' The soup was insipid. Regine stirred it round in her plate. She didn't feel like eating. She took another gulp of wine instead. ‘You're right. It won't go away.' Freddie was dead. That would never go away.

‘If it comes out,' said Neville, ‘it won't be a fair trial … If they get anyone in the first place. They might not even bother much if they work out he was queer. Which of course they will. And even if they do manage to pin it on some oaf, it'll be Freddie in the dock …'

‘Don't, please.'

Neville wiped his mouth with the paper napkin. ‘This soup is disgusting.' He lit a cigarette. ‘At the very best it'll be a sordid little story – there'll be speculation in the
Sunday Graphic
or the
News of the World
– you know, “a confirmed bachelor, he moved in bohemian circles”, making us all look thoroughly
louche
and dubious. They won't like it at the museum.'

‘It'll ruin my Sundays.'

How selfish it was of them to have such thoughts!

She thought of how the detectives had wanted to know all about their friends, but the implications of what Neville had just said were too alarming to contemplate.

The blanquette of veal arrived. It resembled a lumpier version of the cauliflower soup.

‘There was something he wanted to talk to me about. I've no idea what it was.'

‘Money, I expect.'

‘Did he really not have any? His family's frightfully rich.'

They ate stoically in silence. After the half-eaten stew was removed, Neville lit another cigarette as they waited for the crême caramel.

‘It must have been a robbery,' said Regine. ‘No one who knew Freddie would want to hurt him. He wouldn't harm a fly.'

‘I wouldn't be so sure about that.' Neville looked at her. ‘You know, actually, Reggie, yesterday evening—' and then he stopped.