Death Of A Hollow Man Read online

  She measured out a careful thimbleful of Essence de Guimauve et Chelidoine, tipped it in, then stepped into the faintly scented water. Then, as she lay back letting go, floating away, sliding away, vanishing, her mind emptied itself of ghastly memories, and a new idea gradually, timidly drifted to the surface. It was an idea too appalling really to be given credence, yet Deidre, tensing a little with not unpleasurable alarm, braced herself to consider it.

  Cully’s intemperate phrases when referring to the previous night’s disaster had shocked Deidre deeply. She had been brought up to believe that you never spoke ill of the dead. As a child, she had assumed that this was because, given half a chance, the dead would come back and savage you. Later she modified this apprehension to include the understanding that a) if you only said nice things about them, they might put in a good word for you when your turn came, and b) it just wasn’t honorable to attack people who couldn’t answer back.

  Now, hesitant and half-fearful, she prepared to examine—even acknowledge—an emotion she had always prayed would be forever absent from her heart. She recalled Esslyn’s behavior to his fellow actors. His condescension and spite, his indifference to their feelings, his impregnable self-esteem and swaggering coxcombry. His laughter and sneers about her father. Holding her breath, lying rigidly, fists clenched in the perfumed bath, Deidre faced, more or less boldly, a terrible new perception about herself. She had hated Esslyn. Yes. Hated him. And, even worse, she was glad that he was dead.

  White-faced, she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Waiting for a sign of God’s displeasure. For the thunderbolt. When told as a child that every time she told a lie He got one out and it was only His all-forgiving love that stopped Him firing it off with all deliberate speed, she had tried to picture this celestial weapon of retribution, but all her young mind could come up with was the bolt on the kitchen door magnified a thousand times and painted shining bronze. Nothing even remotely similar crashed punitively through the Barnabys’ bathroom ceiling.

  At the recognition that it never would and that she could be glad that Esslyn was no longer in a position to cause anyone pain or distress without fear of divine retribution, a tremendous wave of something far too powerful to be called relief broke over Deidre. She lay dazed, still faintly incredulous at this new truth. She felt as if someone had removed a great yoke from her shoulders or heavy chains from her legs and feet. Any minute now, she might drift up to the unriven ceiling. She felt weak but far from helpless. She felt weak in the way the strong must sometimes do. Not endemically, but accepting the need of occasional rest and refreshment. She wished now she had eaten her toast.

  After a few somnolent minutes more, she turned on the hot tap and reached for the Celandine and Marshmallow elixir. If a thimbleful had this effect, reasoned Deidre, what could half a cupful do?

  Barnaby, having perused his scenes-of-crime reports and witnesses’ statements, sat gazing at his office wall, lips pursed, gaze, vacant, to a casual observer miles away. Troy, having seen all this before, was not deceived. The sergeant sat on one of the visitor’s chairs (chrome tubes and tweed cushions) and stared out of the window at the dark rain bouncing off the panes.

  He was dying for a cigarette but did not need the restraint of the no-smoking sign on the back of the door to stop him lighting up. He was used to being closeted all day with a clean-air freak. What really bugged him was that the chief had been a fifty-a-day high-tar merchant in his time. Reformed smokers (like reformed sinners) were the worst. Not content, thought Troy, with the shining perfection of their own lives, they were determined to sort out the unregenerate. And with no thought at all as to the possible side effects of their actions. When Troy thought of all that fresh cold air rushing into poor little lungs denied their protective coating of nicotine, he positively trembled. Pneumonia at the very least must be waiting around the corner. He insured himself against this eventuality by lighting up in the outer office, in the toilet, and anywhere at all the second Barnaby was off the premises. As a sop to all the haranguing, he had changed from unfiltered to filtered, flirting with Gitanes Caporal along the way. He admired the idea of a French cigarette more than the things themselves, and when Maureen had told him they stank like a polecat on the razzle he had not been sorry to give them up.

  Troy had read through the statements but not the scenes-of-crimes reports. He had also been present an hour ago when the Smys were interviewed. David had arrived first and stated, in an even and unflurried manner, that he had not removed the tape from the razor or seen anyone else do so. His father had said the same, but much less calmly. He had blushed and blustered and stared all over the place. This did not mean that he was culpable. Troy was aware that many innocent people, finding themselves being formally questioned in a police station, become overwhelmed by feelings of quite unfounded guilt. Still, Smy senior had been in a state. Troy became aware that Barnaby was making a vague rumbling sound. He gathered his wits about him.

  “That last word, Sergeant.”

  “Sir.”

  ‘Bungled’… . Odd, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes. I’ve been thinking about that.” Troy waited politely for a nod of encouragement, then continued, “Was someone supposed to do something, and they bungled? And was the throat-cutting the result? Or was it Carmichael who bungled? I mean, I assume he was doing what he should have been doing? What he did when they all … practiced?”

  “Rehearsed. Yes. Everyone seems to agree the last scene ran as usual.”

  “So what could the bungle have been? I did wonder actually if he took the tape off himself.”

  “No. He was the last person to commit suicide.”

  “What I meant is, if he took it off for some cock-eyed reason of his own. Maybe to get someone into trouble. Then, in the heat of the moment—acting away with all that music and everything—just forgot. Maybe he was trying to say, ‘I’ve bungled.’ ”

  “A bit unlikely.” Troy looked so crestfallen that Barnaby added, “I haven’t come up with anything, either. But he struggled to tell us something with his dying breath. It must have a point. And a very important one, I’d say. We’ll just have to poke away at it. This”—he slapped his scenes-of-crimes report sheets, ‘‘has one or two surprises. For a start, the razor, supposedly checked by Deidre and further handled by Sweeney-whoever-it-was, only has one set of prints. We’ll check it out, of course, but they must be those of the murdered man. We all saw him pick it up and use it. Now as Deidre would have no reason for wiping her own off— ”

  “Unless, sir, she could see we’d think that. And wiped them for that reason?”

  “I doubt it.” Barnaby shook his head. “That argues a degree of cunning that I just don’t think Deidre has. And I’ve known her for ten years. Apart from anything else, she has very strict ideas of right and wrong. Quite old-fashioned for someone her age.”

  “Well—that still leaves us plenty to play with.”

  Barnaby was not so sure. In spite of the large amount of people milling around both on and off the set, he believed the razor renovator would be found within the handful of people intimately known to the dead man. He thought it highly unlikely, for instance, that an evil prankster would be discovered among the youthful ASMs, although he had their statements on file should he wish to follow up the idea. Nor did he feel he was in with much of a chance with the small-part actors, three of whom had no previous knowledge of the dead man, having only joined the company for Amadeus. Although keeping an open mind on both these available options, Barnaby actually chose to cleave tightly to his core of hard-line suspects. Chief of whom, he surmised aloud, must be the widow.

  “An armful of spontaneous combustion there, sir.”

  “So they say.”

  “And I wouldn’t be surprised if the current bun might not be the husband’s. Women are a faithless lot.” Troy spoke with some bitterness. He had been laying none too subtle siege to Policewoman Brierley for about two years, only to see her fall the previous wee
k to a new recruit, hardly out of his rompers before he was into hers. “And as for these actors—well … you just don’t know where you stand.”

  “Can you expand that a bit?”

  “The thing is,” Troy continued, “when you usually talk to suspects, they either tell you the truth or, if they’ve got something to hide, they tell you lies. And on the whole you know what you’re dealing with. But this lot… they’re all exaggerating and swanking and displaying themselves. I mean, look at that woman he used to be married to. Getting her to answer questions was like watching Joan of Arc going to the stake. Almost impossible to know what she really felt.”

  “You think she wasn’t genuinely distressed?”

  “I just couldn’t decide. I’m damn glad you knew them all beforehand.”

  “Just because someone displays an emotion in the most effective or even stylish manner of which they’re capable doesn’t mean it isn’t genuine. Remember that.”

  “Right, chief.”

  “And in any case, with the exception of Joyce and Nicholas, you should be able to see through them. They’re all dreadful actors.”

  “Oh.” Troy kept his counsel. Actually he had thought the show was rather good. His disappointment had been in looking at the scenery close up. All old stuff cobbled together, painted over, and held up by what looked like old clothes props. Marvelous what a bit of illumination could do. Which reminded him. “I take it Doris and Daphne are definitely out, sir? Airy and fairy in the lighting box?”

  ‘‘I’m inclined to think so. Apart from the fact there’s no discernible motive, they were in the wings and dressing rooms so briefly—as these statements from the actors confirm”—he tapped the pile of forms with his hand— ‘‘and also so near to the first curtain that there would simply have been no time for tinkering. The same goes for Harold. I happened to arrive at the theater when he and his wife did. He hung up his coat and started swanning around in the foyer doing his Ziegfeld number. He was there when Cully and I went to wish the cast good luck—” “Beautiful girl that, chief. Fantastic.”

  “—and came down himself a minute or two later. And we all left virtually at the same time to take our seats.”

  “He didn’t slip into the bog?” Barnaby shook his head.

  “What about the intermission?”

  “Same problem with time, really. He was up in the clubroom for a bit, then went backstage to give them hell for lack of verismo, so my wife says. Then went back to his seat with the rest of the audience. And anyway, not only did Harold have no discernible motive for wanting Esslyn out of the way, he had very positive reasons for wanting him to stay alive. He was the only person in the group who could tackle leading roles in a moderately competent manner. He was doing Uncle Vanya next.”

  “Who’s he, sir, when he’s buying a round?”

  “It’s a Russian play.”

  Troy’s nod was distant. It seemed to him that you could go on for a very long time indeed before you ran out of decent English plays without putting on foreign rubbish. And Communist rubbish, at that. He tuned back into the chief inspector’s gist.

  “I think the next thing is to give Carmichael’s house the once-over. There might be something in his effects that will give us a lead. Organize some transport, will you? I’ll sort out a warrant.”

  * * *

  Rosa had a plan. She had not revealed it to Earnest despite the fact that if the plan came off, his life would never be the same again. Time enough to spring it on him if it proved to be workable. Really, it all hinged on whether Rosa had read Kitty’s character correctly. And Rosa was sure she had. Kitty had always struck her as a vapid, silly little thing, frankly on the make. A good-time girl. Now she was free, rich (unless Esslyn had been singularly spitefull in drawing up his will), and still only nineteen. What on earth, reasoned Rosa, would someone in that position want with a child?

  Kitty had been in the company for two years. Never during this time had she been heard to express the slightest interest in children. Dressing-room conversation, when touching on family matters, produced only yawns. Various offspring of CADS members backstage from time to time hardly merited a glance, let alone a kindly word. So, given this lack of interest, Rosa, like the majority of people at the Latimer, assumed that Kitty had got herself deliberately pregnant only to ensnare Esslyn. Now that he was so conveniently dispatched, surely the means of ensnarement would be nothing but a hindrance? Of course, there were those with no concern for other people’s children who still, when their own arrived, found them a never-ending source of wonder and delight, but Rosa believed (or had persuaded herself to the belief) that Kitty was not of that number. And it was this persuasion that had instigated her grand design.

  Since Esslyn’s death, Rosa had been whirling around in a veritable hodge-podge of emotions and troubled thoughts. Beneath her affected public manner she was increasingly aware of an aching pulse of sorrow. She recalled constantly the early days of her marriage, and mourned the passing of what she now believed to be a tender and passionate love. And as she dwelt on those happier days, it was as if her imagination, newly refurbished by the recent tragedy, wiped out in one blessed amnesiac stroke the years of disillusionment, leaving her with a wholesome if slightly inaccurate picture of Esslyn as sensitive, benevolent, and quite unspoiled.

  It was this sentimental sleight of memory that had led her first to covet Kitty’s baby. A child, Esslyn’s child, alive and growing in his wife’s womb, would transform her (Rosa’s) barren life, making it fresh and green again. Over the past two days the idea of adoption had flickered through her mind, returned, settled, taken root, and flowered with such intensity that she had now reached the point where she was practically regarding it as a fait accompli.

  Until she picked up the telephone. Then her previous sanguinity was swamped by a flood of doubts. Prominent among these was the idea that Kitty might decide to have an abortion. Having dialed the first three digits of the number at White Wings, Rosa replaced the receiver and pondered this alarming notion. Common sense forced her to admit that it must appear to Kitty the obvious solution. And she would have the money to go privately, so there would be no holdups. The whole thing would be simplicity itself. In and out: problem solved. The baby, vulnerable as an eggshell, all gone. She might even now be making the arrangements! Rosa snatched up the receiver again and redialed. When Kitty answered, Rosa asked if she might call in for a chat, and Kitty, as laconic as if such a request were an everyday occurrence, said, “Sure. Come when you like.”

  Backing the Panda out of the garage and crashing the gears with nervousness, Rosa struggled to plan out the strategy that would shape the argument she would have to present to Kitty. If it was going to be successful, she must look at the whole situation from the younger girl’s point of view. Why, Kitty might well and understandably ask, should she lumber around for the next five months, getting heavier and heavier, less and less able to circulate and enjoy life, then go through the lengthy and perhaps extremely painful ordeal of giving birth, only to hand over the result of all this travail to another woman? What (Rosa could just see her sharp, calculating little eyes weighing the odds) was in it for her?

  During the ten-minute drive over to White Wings, Rosa made herself answer that question to what she hoped would be Kitty’s satisfaction. First she would point out the psychological as well as the physical damage that might result from an abortion. Then she would ask Kitty if she had thought of the expense involved in rearing a child. A child cost thousands. They weren’t off your hands until they were eighteen, and even then, if Earnest’s sister’s complaints were anything to go by, you had to cough up for three more years while they went to university. “But you will have none of that financial burden,” Rosa heard herself saying, “I will take care of everything.”

  On the other hand, once the adoption was legally formalized, she would make it clear that Kitty could continue to see the child whenever she wished. Surely, Rosa thought as she drove, far too fast,
down Carradine Street, the triple thrust of her argument (huge savings, no responsibility, ease of access) must win the day. She had already forgotten her previous assumption—that Kitty’s maternal instinct was minus nil—which made immediate nonsense of hook number three.

  And as things turned out, none of the previous dialectic was of use anyway. Because at the moment of pressing the bell at the house and hearing it jangle in that so-familiar way in the sitting room, all Rosa’s careful reasoning evaporated and she was left, trembling with the urgency of her appeal, on the doorstep. And when Kitty opened the door and said “Hi” and clicked back to the kitchen in her feathered mules, Rosa, mouth desert dry, followed floundering with uncertainty.

  The kitchen was just the same. This was both a surprise and a comfort. She had been sure that Esslyn must have changed things around. That Kitty must have wanted new furniture, wallpaper, tiles. Apparently not. Rosa looked at the eggy, fat-smeared plate and the frying pan on the burner and noted the lingering fragrance of the full English breakfast. All this grease couldn’t be doing the baby much good, she thought proprietorially. Which brought her back to her reasons for being there. As Kitty removed a butter dish, its contents liberally garnished with burned toast crumbs and smears of marmalade, Rosa reviewed the situation.

  Momentarily she wondered if she should throw herself on Kitty’s mercy. Reveal how she’d always longed for a child and that this might be her last chance. Almost immediately this idea was rejected. Kitty would just give the thumbs down. She would enjoy that. Seeing Rosa on her bed of nails. The thing to do—why hadn’t she thought of it before?—was to offer money. Rosa had five thousand pounds in the bank and some jewelery she could sell. That was the way. Not to let Kitty see that she was desperate but to remain calm, even casual. Just to slip the subject almost lightheartedly into the conversation. Won’t be much fun coping with a child by yourself. Or, I expect you feel differently about having a baby now that Esslyn’s gone. Kitty removed more crumbs from the table by the simple expedient of sweeping them onto the floor with the sleeve of her negligee, and asked Rosa to take the weight off her feet.