Death in Disguise Read online

  Arno was pulling radishes for a side salad, stopping sometimes to wave encouragingly to Christopher who was tying up runner beans at the far end of the garden. The radishes were poor forked things quite unlike the glowing crimson globes promised by the seed packet. One of them was covered in little scales and plainly destined for the bonfire. He tried to arrange the rest on a wooden plate brought out expressly for the purpose, but no matter how he turned them they always finished whiskery-side upmost and looking faintly rude.

  He had been attempting, as a way of keeping his mind off sorrowful things, to compose another haiku but it was not to his satisfaction. Aware that nothing would ever be good enough, this last one (‘Tumultuous heart, requiescat in pace, on the breast of your slave’) seemed especially inept. It even omitted his adored one’s name.

  He had hardly seen her today. He understood. Felicity’s need was great. Anyone could see that she had been very ill. But Arno’s heart was heavy, too. He had said his prayers before going to sleep and on rising, but not with any hope of comfort and certainly with no sense of homage. More out of habit really, because once he had promised his mother he always would. Never forget, she used to tell him, that Jesus loves you. Personally he’d never felt this and, even if it had been true, would have gained little consolation—for who wanted to be loved by someone who loved everybody? And then only because it was their job.

  This attention-drift brought him back to the Master’s death from which his thoughts had briefly strayed. How utterly dreadful it had been. And how changed they now were. No one put this into words. No one looked squarely into another’s face and said: ‘You are quite changed.’ But it was true. Arno could not describe precisely how. But people seemed somehow… smaller. Their humanness a shade diffused, their benevolence slippier, their vitality diminished. Perhaps this was what that poem meant. ‘Any man’s death…’

  Arno pinched himself. His Zen awareness seemed to have quite vanished over the last forty-eight hours. He was living not in the moment but in the near and dreadful past, the image of his dying teacher frozen on the retina. The constant comings and goings of the police distracted and alarmed him. Yesterday they’d searched the house. Today they’d been again, taking away all sorts of tea towels. Arno was especially concerned on Tim’s behalf. When frightened, who knew what the boy would say? That chief inspector, surprisingly brief and restrained though the manner of his questioning had been, looked like the sort to try again.

  Heather caught Arno’s eye, not for the first time. Over the last hour she had ballooned up and down the drive at least three times. Arno thought at first this was part of her daily work-out until he noticed that she stepped outside on to the pavement, scanning the High Street between each run. Perhaps something had happened since he left the house. A development in the case. If so, it was his duty to hurry back. How reluctant he was to do this. Somehow, out in the sunshine, things looked fractionally less appalling. Reasoning that he’d soon be called if needed, Arno turned back to his vegetables and so missed the cream car swinging through the Manor House gates.

  Ken and Heather had got ready at some length for the Daily Pitch, aware that there might be photographers and that it was their duty as representatives of the Golden Windhorse to look their very best.

  Thankfully Hilarion had given a positively radiated blessing on the project. Indeed the great chohan had been not only unequivocal in his support but also generous with his explanations. Zadkiel must know that, on the other side, the word ‘money’ was solidly anchored in the pink, atomic cellular light of manifest neutrality. Put simply, the stuff could be used for good or ill. Naturally as Pan-earthed cosmics, he and Tethys could be entrusted to fulfil the latter part creatively.

  Once this detail had been tidied away, the Beavers had discussed the situation at great length, mainly from the possible viewpoint of the other residents. Eventually, regretfully, they had come to the conclusion that their willingness to touch pitch, even on behalf of another, was fraught with the possibility of being misunderstood. This perception grasped, the next brief step (from virtue to pragmatism) was quickly taken. They decided that their sacrifice on behalf of Suhami should remain a secret. After all wasn’t it in the Bible—the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing? The upshot of all this prosing was that Ken and Heather decided it would be wiser to take their long spoons and sup with the devil elsewhere.

  Which is how Heather came to be resting against the old rose brick of the crinkle-crankle wall now gilded by the afternoon sun to deep umber. She was frowning and peering right—the direction from which a London-leaving car might reasonably be expected to arrive. But the Citroën CV, PRESS disc on its windscreen, approached from the left and was through the open gates and half way up the drive before she noticed.

  Semaphoring wildly, Heather started to run. Fast and graceless, flip-flops alternately slapping against the soles of her feet and the gravel, she cursed her misdirected attention.

  The car was already parked and two people had got out. If they rang the bell… One of them was standing in the porch, the other, fingers steepled against the light, was peering through a closed window. Calling on Artemis the swift-footed for assistance, Heather panted and lumbered on.

  The female half of the duo watched this approach, lips compressed, for it was an amusing sight. Mistakenly encouraged into lime green (Ken said it matched her eyes), Heather had piled up her hair to emphasise her neck, and she’d gilded her eyelids and brows to emphasise the hierophantic nature of her calling. She wore a nuclear receptor and the pyramid bounced on her vast bosom as she ran.

  ‘Terry…hey…’ The girl was wearing a mini-skirted denim suit, cream tights and spiky high-heeled shoes. She carried a black patent-leather bag almost as big as a brief case. ‘Get a load of this.’

  ‘Blimey,’ said Terry. (Short-sleeved check shirt, jeans and trainers.) ‘Weight-watchers’ disaster of the year.’ The Pentax flew into his hands and clicked as Heather crossed her hands back and forth over her head. They stood together, waiting.

  ‘Hi. You Mrs Beavers?’ She stepped out, tipping forwards slightly on the towering heels. ‘Heather?’

  Heather nodded, leaning on the porch frame, cheeks like sweating beetroots, hair collapsing. Terry took a couple more pictures. One of these, very cruelly angled indeed, made her look like a washed-up dugong.

  He said, ‘Lovely bash, darlin’. Yours is it?’ and went off without waiting for a reply, walking backwards, click clicking all the time.

  ‘I’m Ave Rokeby.’

  She had a really nice voice, decided Heather. Soft and kind and interested. A little humorous. Not at all like that common aggressive photographer. She was holding out her hand. That wasn’t so nice. Long bony fingers with crimson nails like birds’ claws. Quite witchy in fact. About to shake it, Heather realised she was clutching a Walkers ‘Salt and Vinegar’ bag picked up from the pavement. They laughed as she transferred it to the other hand.

  ‘Bit of a problem…’ said Heather getting her breath back, ‘vandalism.’

  (Vandalism? A crisp packet?)

  ‘Compton Dando’s rather a spiritual desert. No one’s really soul-aware.’

  (So what’s new?)

  ‘We link up with extra-terrestrials of course for inter-planetary cleansing…’

  (You do what?)

  ‘But Hilarion says till our akashic records are given egoic clearance, earth will remain locked into the same lethal agenda.’

  ‘Hilarion? Your husband?’

  ‘Oh… oh.’ Heather chuckled, slopping in all directions. ‘Hilarion’s been dead for hundreds of years.’

  (Jesus.)

  ‘But you still talk to him?’

  ‘Ken does. He’s clairaudient. A channel for the great ones to come through. He wrote all Shakespeare’s plays you know.’

  (Did I leave a number at the office?)

  Ave sat down in the porch and produced a tape recorder from her bag and a mike like a bulbous grey sponge. �
��I just want a bit of background. If you could tell me briefly how many people live here, what your general beliefs are. If you’re into UFOs—that kind of thing.’

  But Heather had hardly drawn attention to the multi-stellar glories of the soon-to-be-expected Venusian reconnaissance before Ave was asking how Guy Gamelin came on the scene and what could Heather tell the Pitch’s readers about the habits of the murdered man.

  ‘Are there a lot of young girls here for instance?’ Heather looked bewildered. ‘Boys then?’ Even more so. The mike went back in the bag. ‘OK, I’ll fill in the details later.’ Ave rose and lifted the wooden latch on the front door. ‘This is the country all right. Leave your place unlocked for two minutes in London, somebody does you over. Terry…’ Her voice raucoused up a notch. ‘We’re going in.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Could you please keep…if you wouldn’t mind…not shouting…’

  Heather’s heart, only just settling down after her tempestuous marathon, was once more beating fast. She wondered where Ken had got to and looked round anxiously. A vague belief in the law of averages left her certain that if a house held eight people, the time must surely be close when one of them should appear, or at least glance out of the window.

  ‘Ave…’ she plucked at the denim arm. ‘Miss Rokeby…’

  ‘Ave’s fine.’

  Terry pushed past Heather and a moment later all three were in the hall. Ave said, ‘God—this smells like my old convent,’ and started to wander round, the metal tips on her heels savagely scoring the venerable boards.

  ‘‘Ullo, ‘ullo.’ Terry was standing by the round table which held the pamphlets and wooden bowls. Ignoring the ‘Guilty’ card, he picked up the one marked ‘Love Offering’. ‘This where you put your names when you want a bit is it?’ He sniggered and turned his attention to the reading matter. Hugs and Laughter Workshop. How to Nurture Your Spiritual Tool.

  ‘Who turns out this stuff?’ He waved Ken’s Romance of the Enema.

  ‘Different people.’ Heather went over, saying pridefully, ‘We’re all writers here. My husband’s responsible for that one. It’s done terribly well. The Health Shop in Causton sold out the first week.’

  ‘No shit?’ said Terry, throwing the leaflet down.

  ‘Could I ask you,’ Heather restacked neatly, ‘please to…’ But he was off again, shooting the staircase and gallery.

  ‘Ave?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’ She was opening the elder of the chests, dragging out some curtains.

  ‘The thing is we decided…Ken and myself…that we’d rather talk to you outside. In the village perhaps. There’s a nice little pub—’

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Away from the sunlight, Heather could see how sallow the other woman’s skin was, how dry her hair. Despite the mini skirt she wasn’t really young at all.

  ‘We talk here because this is where it happened, OK? And Terry’ll want some piccies of the actual room.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Horrified, Heather looked round and round again as if the very suggestion might materialise wrathful inmates. ‘The Solar is a holy place kept strictly for prayer and meditation.’

  ‘You could have fooled me,’ said Ave, and she and Terry guffawed.

  ‘Human interest, darlin’,’ said Terry. ‘A quick flash won’t do it any harm.’ He danced about as he spoke. On the move all the while, the camera nosing everywhere. Reversing images, pinning them down. Wheeze, click. Wheeze, click. Hammer beams, stone Buddha, the glorious lantern. Heather stared, both fascinated and repelled by the impersonality of the thing. It was horrible—like something in a science-fiction film. A black and silver one-eyed metal brain between two hairy paws, swinging, staring, recording. Threatening. A movement in the corridor made her jump.

  But it was only Ken. He approached limping, left arm folded diagonally across his breast—the hand, open-palmed, resting against his shoulder. The right hand held a flower. He was draped in a mass of dingy cheesecloth with a green sash and he wore his headband with the blue tiger’s eye crystal. His moustache was newly trimmed.

  Murmuring, ‘Blimey—a master of the universe,’ Terry clicked again.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Heather ran to her husband. ‘Leaving me on my own!’ Then, noting his look of displeasure, ‘it’s not my fault. They just pushed in.’

  ‘Not to worry.’ Ken put her calmly aside. ‘I’ll handle everything now.’ He approached Ave and bowed, the crystal swinging out and clunking back again. ‘We will only discuss matters relevant to the current issue off the premises. So… if you please…’ He walked to the door opened it and waited.

  Ave returned to the chest and discovered some old copies of the Middle Way and a broken lamp shade. Terry knelt in front of the Buddha, screwing himself right round in an attempt to get a wide-nostrilled distortion of its calm and placid countenance. This action had hiked up his jeans, and nylon socks became clearly visible. They seemed to express his essential philosophy. One was covered with the word ‘get’ in many languages, its fellow said ‘stuffed’.

  Ken cleared his throat and said, ‘Excuse me—’

  ‘I’ve tried all that,’ cried Heather. ‘Why don’t you listen?’

  Tension combined with all the running had started a pain in her chest. Control of the situation had quite slipped away, if indeed it had ever been within her grasp. She sensed an unpleasant tightening in the atmosphere. A determined energy running back and forth between the two visitors. They hardly conferred, yet seemed to know each other’s ways like a crack team of whippers-in.

  ‘Where’s this solar, then?’ When there was no reply, Terry said: ‘Come on, come on.’ A hard Cockney barrow-boy whine. Cam orn…cam orn… He bounced on the balls of his feet, perky and aggressive, a boxer looking for an opening. ‘Did you ask us down or didn’t you?’

  ‘Ask you down?’

  The words boomed out above their heads and, briefly, Terry and Ave were disoriented. Then they saw at the top of the grand staircase a female figure magnificently clad in a flowing multicoloured robe, the bodice of which was adorned by a glittering crescent moon. A lofty mass of auburn hair added to this creature’s already splendid height.

  Terry muttered, ‘Funky bisons,’ and took aim. Dimly in the light from all this reflected radiance, he perceived another person. A slender girl in a green and gold sari positioned, like a handmaid, one step behind. As the flash went off, she turned quickly away, covering her face with a fold of silk.

  Now why do that, Ave thought?

  ‘Explain yourself.’ A further rich vibration. It was like listening to the opening chords of some grand oratorio.

  ‘It’s our glorious free press.’ Suhami spoke quietly into May’s ear. ‘Exercising their divine right to muckrake.’

  ‘This is private property.’ May began to descend, billowing in plenipotentiary splendour. Her feet, encased in damson velvet slippers thickly studded with brilliants, appeared and disappeared beneath the hem of her gown like gorgeous little boats. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Who are you?’ replied Ave, like someone out of Alice. Raptorial fingers hovered near the starter button of her machine.

  ‘That’s of no importance.’ Clickety click, wheeze click. ‘Stop doing that!’

  Briefly Terry held his fire. He was staring hard at the less exotic of the two women, and coming to the conclusion that she was no more a Chatterjee than he was despite the vermilion caste-mark. The brown skin was simply tanned white skin, plus the face was really familiar. Where had he seen her before? He closed, raising the Pentax. She took up a pewter plate from the second of the wooden chests and threw it, striking him sharply on the side of the head.

  ‘Do you frigging mind, lady?’ he shouted. ‘I’m trying to take some pictures here.’

  ‘Dear child…’ May turned, showing a shocked and distressed countenance. ‘That is not the way. Not the way at all. What would He have said?’ Suhami burst into a storm of weeping.

  ‘Now
look,’ said Ave, putting down her bag and microphone but in a manner that made it clear this was temporary. ‘I hate to pour cold water on all this virtuous indignation but we were invited here—right, Terry? So let’s stop carrying on as if it’s a break-in to rape and pillage the ancestral marbles.’

  ‘You must be mistaken,’ said May firmly.

  ‘Ask Mrs Beavers,’ replied Ave.

  All heads turned to where Ken and Heather stood looking greatly discomposed. Apprehension, embarrassment and exasperation vied for supremacy on their features. They kept screwing up their eyes and exchanging ‘you say—no you’ grimaces. Eventually Heather spoke.

  ‘There’s been a misunderstanding. This person rang up and I completely got the wrong end of the stick. She gave me the impression that some sort of interview was already fixed and all she needed was directions on how to find the place.’

  ‘You’re wasted here, kiddo,’ said Ave. ‘You should be in Westminster.’

  ‘Heather’s right,’ chimed in Ken. ‘I was standing by the phone at the time.’

  ‘I put the idea of an exclusive to them.’ Ave spoke directly to May. ‘They asked me to ring back in five minutes. When I did they said fine—come on down. Apparently they’d talked to some astral wanker called Hilarion and he’d okay’d the whole shoot.’

  ‘Is this true, Heather?’

  There was a long pause then Ave said, ‘If things are going to start getting tacky, I think I should say that all my incoming calls are taped.’

  ‘Of course it’s true!’ burst out Suhami, staring at the Beavers with contemptuous disgust. ‘They’ve sold us. You’ve only got to look at them.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that!’ cried Heather. ‘It’s all very well for you. Rolling in money all your life. Maybe if I’d got half a million to chuck about—’

  She broke off, clapping her hand across her mouth, horrified at such impious backsliding. Ken, looking sheepish and responsible, as though his wife was some large ill-tempered pet that he had failed to keep under control, started to pat her in a clumsy manner.