Cool Repentance

  'I never do forget, Cy,' murmured Jemima. The image of Cy dipping his hand into his heart was an irresistible one; she hoped Cy might use it in his next application for a television franchise. 'I think you've made the right decision,' she added more strongly. 'Boy Greville's a perfectly competent director and he happens to be already on the spot.'

  'Exactly. I made the same point to Guthrie: at least there's no need to fly him here from some expensive Greek island, which is what we had to do with Guthrie himself. But no more deaths, Jem please, no more deaths. The next time you ring me with the bad news that Christabel Herrick has fallen off a cliff or taken an overdose or been shot point-blank in her dressing-room, you and Spike must expect to interrupt your Bridset idyll. Permanently.'

  'The next time!' exclaimed Jemima. 'What makes you think there will be a next time?' Her tone suggested she might be referring more to her relationship with Spike Thompson than to future tragedies involving the Larminster Festival. As soon as she rang off, however, Jemima's thoughts turned away from Cy's teasing to the sadder and more sinister topic of Nat's death.

  The Bridset police had treated his death as murder from the start. An incident room had been set up at Beauport under the general command of the county's senior detectives at Bridchester: however the driving force behind this particular investigation was destined to be the Beauport-based Detective Inspector Matthew Harwood. The pathologist's postmortem report was one of the few concrete pieces of evidence available to him. It gave the cause of death as strangulation and when pressed for an opinion - in the nearest pub to the mortuary - the pathologist had placed the time of death between eleven p.m. and one a.m.

  There were no signs of breaking into the theatre: the key to the Stage Door had therefore presumably been used, since the front doors were locked and the locks had not been forced. Since one key to the Stage Door was also missing from beneath the Lady May Cartwright Memorial stone drinking trough, where Mr Blagge had placed it, the inference was generally made by the public that this was the key which had been used.

  Not, however, by the police. In the formidably bulky shape of Detective Inspector Harwood, the police were a great deal more cautious. In questioning his witnesses, Detective Inspector Harwood was very careful to give no opinion whatsoever as to which key might have been used to enter the Watchtower Theatre. There were, he pointed out, several other keys to the Stage Door. Nevertheless local gossip in Larminster continued to concentrate on that particular key placed by Mr Blagge under the stone on the night of the murder.

  'Anyone could have seen him' - it was an echo of Miss Kettering's pious cry. 'The types you get about here in the summer ... Vandals ... Hippies . . . Layabouts.' It was comforting to be able to blame some casual criminal, drawn from the outside world: the very existence of a theatrical Festival was felt to have some sinister bearing on the crime. Theatre audiences, if not to be totally identified with hippies and layabouts in the local imagination, were not exactly held to exclude this category either. Robbery was widely suggested as the motive, the box office proceeds as the target. Larminster gossip thus ignored the inconvenient detail that no attempt to enter the box office, let alone rob it, had in fact been made. After all, if the murder had not been committed in this random manner for mercenary motives, it must have been deliberately planned. In Larminster. Possibly by a Larminster resident. This was a forbidden thought.

  For precisely the same reasons, the distraught members of the King Charles Theatre Company preferred to believe in the notion of a Larminster murder - a local person of known bad character perhaps -whose identity would be uncovered as quickly as possible. Robbery remained an element in the story which the actors told themselves, although they were rather more cynical about the likely proceeds of the theatre box office.

  'I mean, it's not exactly Shaftesbury Avenue, darling, is it?' Thus Anna Maria Packe to her husband Boy Greville.

  'I hope no one thinks I killed him to get the job,' Boy Greville spoke in a voice of acute anxiety. 'Nat was utterly ruthless. Everyone knows that. The way he got rid of us both when the lovely lady Christabel made her unexpected entrance - blackmail - nothing else. Yet in the end one forgave him.'

  'Someone didn't,' Anna Maria said lightly: but she sounded reassuring. This was her habitual tone when addressing her husband just as his habitual tone when addressing anyone at all was one of acute anxiety. A mutual interest in the anxieties of Boy Greville was indeed the basis of their long and on the whole not unhappy marriage. From time to time a peculiarly tempestuous love affair - or a peculiarly demanding lover -would withdraw Anna Maria altogether from Boy's side; there had been several separations and even on one occasion (for who could resist Marty Bland?) a projected divorce. Physical separation from Boy did not however free Anna Maria from her responsibility as general consultant on his anxieties, a role he considered she could still carry out to his satisfaction so long as she remained at the end of the telephone.

  Boy was not insensitive: all his consultations pertained entirely to his own problems and he was most scrupulous in not referring to Anna Maria's own situation. Nevertheless it was the persistent nature of these calls which had always persuaded Anna Maria so far that it was easier to live with Boy Greville than at the end of his telephone line.

  'Someone had it in for him.' Detective Inspector Harwood, had he but known it, agreed with Anna Maria Packe. He made the remark quite casually to Jemima Shore in her sitting-room in the Royal Stag. 'We don't buy the idea of burglary, of course. No evidence for it whatsoever. Not a thing touched. Nor vandalism for that matter. I mean, think what a self-respecting vandal could have done to those seats! The mind boggles. And the glass. Frankly I'm always surprised that a glass theatre in Larminster doesn't suffer more. You sometimes get these young lads streaking up from Beauport on their motor-bikes. Still, it doesn't. One or two incidents, I believe, nothing very much. Quiet little place, Larminster. Even the Festival brings you a quiet sort of visitor. Quiet Americans. Quiet Germans. Quiet Japanese - well, that's only to be expected. Even the occasional quiet Italians. The noisy sort go to Stratford, I suppose.'

  Detective Inspector Harwood had already interviewed Jemima officially, as indeed he had interviewed all those present in Flora's Kitchen on the evening of Nat Fitzwilliam's death. The time of Nat's departure from the restaurant was easily established as ten o'clock. He had then had a drink in the bar of the Royal Stag with Anna Maria and Vic Marcovich, before announcing his intention of returning to the theatre. He also mentioned to Vic Marcovich that he would use his own front-of-house key instead of picking up the key deposited by Mr Blagge, since he had forgotten where Julian Cartwright had suggested it should be hidden. He had said this in the full earshot of all those in the bar of the Royal Stag at the time.

  Also in the full earshot of those same people in the bar, Vic Marcovich had criticized Christabel Herrick for demanding her shawl so capriciously in the first place: 'Lady of the Manor, First Lady of the Larminster Festival - which is it to be?' But that ungallant remark belonged to the whole area of background material relating to the case.

  No one suggested Vic Marcovich had murdered Nat Fitzwilliam. For one thing he had an unimpeachable if slightly disreputable alibi: he had spent most of the night with Anna Maria Packe in his room 'discussing the production'; as if that was not alibi enough, they had received constant calls from Boy Greville on the house telephone throughout the night hours on the subject of Boy Greville's latest allergy, probably aroused by one of the house plants in the lounge of the Stag. For another thing, Vic Marcovich had no motive.

  'And the question of motive brings me to you, Miss Shore.'

  'Me?'

  'Well, you've a reputation for these things, investigations I mean. I know all about you from my little brother Gary in London - not so little these days, two inches taller than me, Gary Harwood, if three stones lighter, the one who looks like Elvis, or so the girls tell me, and works for Pompey of the Yard. Jemima Shore Investigator . . . and not onl
y on the telly. Am I right or am I wrong?'

  'Ah.' Over the years it was true that Jemima had enjoyed a pleasant working relationship with Pompey of the Yard, Detective Superintendent Portsmouth as he had become, formerly Detective Chief Inspector John Portsmouth of the Bloomsbury Division; her relationship with his dashing sidekick while in Bloomsbury, Detective Constable Gary Harwood, had had its pleasant moments too. Her connection with Pompey had begun when she had interviewed him on television in connection with an appeal for a missing child. Subsequently there had been investigations - she was not too modest to admit it - where the confidence of the public in the familiar appearance of a telly star, combined with Jemima's own intelligence and curiosity, had enabled her to solve certain cases which had baffled the more conventional workings of the police.

  ‘I spoke to Gary this evening, as a matter of fact. Nothing official. What's happening in the Third Test, you know the sort of thing.' She did. 'And he said "That Jemima Shore, give her enough rope and—"'

  'Go on,' Jemima prompted him sweetly.

  '"Give her enough rope, Matt," he said, "and you can watch the Test to your heart's content - because she'll solve your case for you.'" 'Ah,' said Jemima Shore again.

  'What I need to know, Jemima, is this.' After these combined mentions of Pompey, Gary Harwood and cricket, their friendship was clearly progressing. 'Who wanted him out of the way? What's going on here? It doesn't make sense. No debts. We've checked that. No obvious clues. No vicious ex-girlfriends for example. We've checked that too. No romances in the cast - not gay either so far as we know. A girl in his flat in London who seemed devoted to him, very upset at his death, anyway she had an alibi although we didn't quite put it like that, at the theatre with her sister. Professional rivalry? That director, the nervous one, who's taken over - he doesn't look a murderer for my money and anyway if his wife's story - and her lover's by the way - is to be believed, he was busy telephoning about his asthma all through the night! Theatrical people. I ask you.' Detective Inspector Harwood shook his massive head.

  Jemima thought back to a certain conversation with Christabel Cartwright in Flora's Kitchen.

  'On the stage, I'll be safe.' And so she was safe - up to the present time. But Filly was dead, and so was Nat Fitzwilliam. These could no longer be forbidden thoughts. She had to talk to someone about Christabel. And that led her to Gregory Rowan, Gregory who had made no secret of his hostility to Megalith Television on her arrival at Larmouth, but was now suspiciously amiable.

  'I'd like to help you, Matt—' said Jemima with her angelic smile, the one she kept for ravishing television viewers when she was discussing importantly boring topics like the Common Market. 'Unofficially, of course.'

  'My money's on the playwright,' added Matt Harwood suddenly and rather unexpectedly. 'Had a row with Fitzwilliam over his production of his play. Left for home about eleven o'clock to go for a swim! Then went

  straight back to his cottage. Swimming. What kind of an alibi is that? Still, I dare say you will tell me that playwrights never do want to kill directors over productions of their plays.'

  Jemima saw no reason to tell him any such thing. But since she had no wish to lower his opinion of theatrical people still further, she merely agreed aloud that it would be a wise move for him to talk further with Gregory Rowan. Privately she decided to go and call on Gregory herself in the cottage in the woods. She thought she would go alone. She did not mention this plan to Detective Inspector Harwood.

  10

  A Real Killer

  'Let me help.'

  Gregory Rowan put out his arm, an arm so darkly tanned and knotted with muscles that it might have belonged to a sailor, and gripped Jemima by the elbow. She trod water desperately. For a moment he supported her altogether.

  'It's the current,' she gulped, 'I'd no idea. I'm quite a strong swimmer. And it's very cold.'

  He could just as easily have pulled her under: they were alone, far out from the shore; the beach was deserted. But that was a mad thought, produced by panic. He had saved her, not pulled her down.

  Afterwards he said: 'You see. Nobody takes this current seriously. That poor girl - you probably see now how easily it can happen. Anyway you're a beautiful swimmer. You just needed a little help. Even you.' Gregory smiled. 'Even Jemima Shore Investigator.'

  Jemima smiled too. 'I was out of my depth.' They were back at his cottage and she was smoking a cigarette, which had Gregory but known it, was another sign that she had felt, even for one moment, out of her depth. So far as she could recall, she had not smoked one cigarette that year.

  She had first begun to feel out of her depth when Gregory had greeted her unexpected arrival at Old Keeper's Lodge - in fact a cottage - with extraordinary cordiality. Unlike Detective Inspector Harwood, she was not herself inclined to 'put her money on the playwright'. It was to talk about Christabel that Jemima had decided to pay her surprise visit to the cottage - Christabel and her friends, Christabel and her enemies. In order to find out who might have had reason to kill Nat Fitzwilliam - possibly because of what he saw from the Watchtower concerning the death of Filly - it was necessary to go back to the beginning and find out what was or had been frightening Christabel. Gregory was her best potential source of information about the past at Lark Manor: but she did not expect the interview (she used the word automatically) to go very easily.

  On the other hand she did not herself rate Gregory as a suspect. Or if by any chance Gregory had killed Nat, Jemima could hardly believe that it was for the reason that Matt Harwood proposed. Fitzwilliam's contempt for Widow Capet had been much discussed; phrases like 'this middle-class, middle-brow and middle-aged hit' had been quoted, the latter being a remark Nat had chosen to make to Old Nicola of all people, with the predictable result that it had received a wide circulation. Nevertheless if Jemima judged Gregory's character right, this kind of behaviour in a young director was more likely to inspire Gregory to verbal attack in public than murder in private; even if the death of Nat had resulted in the restoration of the original director and sympathetic interpreter of Gregory's works, Boy Greville.

  As for the death of Filly, Jemima could not of course imagine any reason at all why Gregory should wish to remove her from the Larminster dramatic scene. Filly's death had considerably weakened the cast of Widow Capet. Anna Maria Packe was too old to play Paulinot, the jailer's daughter. Emily Jones, who was the right age, was as yet far too weak a stage presence to compete with Christabel as Marie Antoinette in the famous scene between the two women, which even Nat Fitzwilliam had admitted stood most effectively for the Old France versus the New. What might have been memorable theatre with Filly Lennox involved, would now be sadly tame.

  And Gregory killing Filly by mistake for Christabel? Ah, there was the rub. There was a great deal about the strange tangled emotional situation at Lark Manor yet to be unravelled. This was one reason why Jemima had not yet shared her suspicions concerning Filly's death with the police, despite the growing warmth of her friendship with Detective Inspector Harwood.

  'He wouldn't want to hear it. It's only supposition. After all there's no proof,' she told herself, to explain her reluctance, knowing mil well that this was not the true explanation. The truth was that Jemima Shore Investigator, tantalized by the strange situation at Lark Manor - above all by the 'cool repentance' of Christabel Cartwright - wanted first crack at solving the mystery herself.

  Gregory's cottage was predictably book-furnished, shelves everywhere, and books also in heaps on the floor and resting on sofas like sleeping cats. Jemima noticed a number of books about Restoration Drama and what looked like an eighteenth-century edition of Rochester's erotic poetry (an admirer had once presented her with something similar). A good many of the books looked as if they came into the valuable category of the very old; others fell into the expensive category of the very new.

  The books, whether leather-bound or modern, did not however look dusty. And there was nothing dirty or even shabby about the cottage.
The thick woods rising behind Lark Manor had parted to reveal this little patch of green order within the luxuriant chaos of the trees, with a cottage - a Hansel and Gretel type of cottage - in the middle of it. Inside the cottage there was the same feeling of order at work within chaos.

  As she looked round, Jemima's eye fell on a large framed photograph of the lady of Lark Manor herself. It must have been taken many years ago: the two solemn-eyed girls at Christabel's side, holding up the ends of her wide sash, were mere children. The photograph was not actually on Gregory's desk but facing it. On the desk, however, was another smaller photograph of Christabel in a gold frame. Her hair rippled out of the picture: she smiled into the camera, at Gregory, at Jemima Shore. That photograph too came from some past era. A further quick glance round the room revealed at least one other picture of Christabel, more of a family snapshot than a posed actress's photograph. It included the father of the family, Julian Cartwright.

  Jemima thought that the presence of so many large and obvious photographs of Christabel Cartwright ought to make her task of questioning Gregory on the subject rather easy. The fact that none of these photographs was at all recent - all of them must certainly antedate the Iron Boy affair - could also be considered helpful.

  At this point Gregory suggested going swimming.

  'And then we can talk all you like, Jemima Shore Investigator,' he ended with a slightly ironic smile; but he still showed absolutely no sign of his earlier hostility. 'And you can ask me all the questions you like. Isn't that what you've come for?'

  Somehow Gregory's professed willingness to be interrogated, like his friendliness, gave him an advantage. It crossed her mind to wonder which of them was really going to pose the questions and gain the needful information: who, whom? Once they were back in the cottage, after rattling up from the beach in Gregory's large black hearse-like car, she continued to feel out of her depth, and not only because of her recent chilling experience in the water.