He stared at me unblinkingly and I had the oddest feeling I’d seen him somewhere before. Then he was gone, swallowed up in the mass of spotty youth tearing excitedly round the room.
‘Can I go now?’ piped up Christmas.
I glanced down and his face was shining with excitement. Well, if the little scrap wanted to volunteer for all this leaping about and frog-spawn collecting, who was I to gainsay him? I bent down and was all too aware of the pistol-shot cracking of my joints.
‘Have a lovely time, Christmas,’ I murmured, awkwardly patting my child on the head. ‘Don’t get into any trouble now, promise?’
His bright gaze was straying already to the back of the hut. He looked at me crossly. ‘Of course I won’t.’
My temper flared, but Miss ffawthawte intervened, dragging the boy behind her back. ‘I’ll just settle him in, Mr Box,’ she said quickly. ‘And then perhaps I can show you the rest of the camp.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, please. I can’t wait to see your…facilities.’
She met my gaze. ‘Oh, they don’t disappoint, I can assure you. I won’t be a moment. I’ll meet you down the corridor. Third room on the left. Say goodbye to your father, Christmas.’
The boy peeped round her skirts and mouthed, ‘Bye.’
I waved at the boy, feeling a sudden, disturbing pang of what I dimly recognised as guilt.
Miss ffawthawte took his hand and turned to go.
‘Oh, by the way,’ I said. ‘Third room on the left. What’s in there?’
‘The Games Room, Mr Box,’ she said coolly. ‘Do you like to play games?’
.3.
KISSING THE PINK
In stark contrast to the rest of the gimcrack establishment, the Games Room, which smelled pleasingly of beeswax, was in exceptional order. Tennis racquets in wooden frames lined the panelled walls, and well-polished shields commemorated past glories on the field. A pile of laced leather footballs, brown and shiny as conkers, had been built into a tidy pyramid below.
In pride of place, above the shields, was a photograph of the Movement’s Honorary Chairman, Lord Battenburg. The tanned, smiling face of the famous scientist and adventurer gazed down serenely, as though offering benediction on the sporting enterprise to which the place was dedicated.
Dominating the room, however, was a splendid snooker table, the baize glowing a grassy green under the lampshades. In the centre, the glinting red balls lay neatly arranged in their wooden triangle, the colours on their spots, the white standing free. I crossed to the table, and set the lone white ball spinning. The gentle whirl it made on the cloth was curiously satisfying. I removed a cue from the rack close by, and ran it experimentally between my thumb and forefinger.
The soft click of the door announced Melissa ffawthawte’s entrance and in the dim light, she looked even more alluring. She removed her spectacles and her green eyes flashed. Within the masculine cut of her jacket, her breasts were shadowed into a deep V. Just visible was the frilled edge of a white brassière and, on the soft skin of her bosom, a curved black mark. I realised with a thrill that it was some kind of tattoo. I entertained the notion that, had Scout leaders been of Miss ffawthawte’s stamp, I might have shown an interest much earlier.
‘Very impressive,’ I said, not entirely alluding to the Games Room.
‘Akela provides in so many ways,’ she enthused, closing the door behind her. ‘He’s a great believer in the power of play.’
‘Oh, me too,’ I said, then tapped the cue lightly on the table. ‘This your game?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Snooker. It’s an unlikely sport for a young lady, but in the absence of a draughts board…’
Miss ffawthawte ran her fingers over the reds, and they clicked and clacked as her nails stroked each one. ‘I’m adept in most sports, Mr Box,’ she said sweetly, ‘but I must admit to a particular fondness for this one.’ She lifted the triangle and the reds were exposed, like a segment of pomegranate seeds. ‘And you? Are you au fait with it?’
I shrugged. ‘Played a frame or two in my time.’
‘Red ball, followed by all fifteen blacks until cleared. Then all the colours.’
I nodded. ‘If one is lucky.’
‘One makes one’s own luck, don’t you think?’ Suddenly, she picked out a cue. ‘Shall we toss?’
I refrained from the obvious rejoinder and, nodding, pulled a two-bob bit from my trousers. ‘Call.’
‘Tails.’
I flipped the florin. ‘Tails it is. Just the one frame?’
The girl looked up. ‘Oh, I think that’s all I’ll need.’
‘Confident, aren’t you, Miss ffawthawte?’
She didn’t respond, but simply slipped off her jacket and hung it on a peg behind the door. The pointy brassière was visible now through the high-collared blouse.
‘So,’ I said. ‘The stakes?’
Miss ffawthawte glanced at me and the faint scar above her lip caught the light of the shaded lamp. ‘If you win,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘the rewards would be great.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘But you won’t win, Mr Box.’ Without hesitation, she positioned the white ball and, bending low with the cue, sent it cracking expertly into the crowd of reds. They broke beautifully. One immediately rolled to the bottom left pocket and sank without a sound. At once, Miss ffawthawte crouched down again, her rear turned rather pleasingly towards me, trim and firm beneath the short grey skirt. She sank the black without blinking.
‘Played,’ I muttered, tapping my cue against the floor. I adjusted the metal scorer on the wall and then went to replace the black on its spot. However, the girl was already on the move, eyes flickering back and forth as she scanned the table. Then she was down again, the cue swished and another red was gone, then another black. I stayed by the scorer and she squeezed past me. I noticed the dark seams of her stockings.
The next shot wasn’t quite so easy–the only pottable red was effectively hidden behind the green ball. I ran my hand up and down my cue, confident that I’d soon be at the table. Miss ffawthawte ducked down to retrieve one of the rests from beneath the baize, slotted her cue into the X at its tip and, with a sound like snapping teeth, swerved the white ball brilliantly around the green, sending the red whispering into the top right pocket.
I cleared my throat. She was good. She was very good.
‘You see, Mr Box,’ she murmured, never taking her eyes off the table, ‘it’s all a matter of angles. It’s a beautiful game. A perfect game. If one can get the geometry right…’ she stretched across the table and sent down another black ‘…there’s no reason at all why one shouldn’t win. Every time.’
I pulled absently at my ear-lobe, fascinated by this spirited female. ‘Certainly, certainly. But it’s not all science, Miss ffawthawte. I still say there’s the matter of luck.’
She didn’t answer, merely returned to the table and sent yet another red to its grave. I moved the score counter again. At this rate, I wasn’t going to get any kind of a look-in. Another black, another red. The balls zoomed towards the pockets as though magnetically attracted. The points mounted inexorably.
‘Speaking of angles’ I said at last, as she whacked the black into the top right pocket. ‘What’s yours?’
She brushed a coil of hair from her eyes but didn’t look up from her cueing. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You seem a very capable young woman to be mouldering away in a Scout camp,’ I said quietly. ‘What’s in it for you?’
The cue shushed between her fingers. The white smacked into the red but it made an ugly noise.
The ball hit the cushion and bounced off.
I held my breath as the red sailed towards the bottom left pocket. Melissa ffawthawte didn’t move, gripping her cue like a javelin. The ball rolled towards the open jaws of the pocket and she smiled. Then it glanced against the cushion, wobbled–and stopped dead.
The girl looked at it in abject disbelief.
‘Oh,
shame,’ I said. ‘Sounded like a mis-cue. Here.’ I picked up the cube of blue chalk from the table and threw it over to her. ‘You probably need this.’
She caught the cube, glared at it as though it were a burning coal, then hurled it back at me. The chalk bounced off my black linen, leaving a blue smear. I stooped to pick it up. ‘Suit yourself.’ After brushing it over the tip of my own cue, I stuffed the block into my trouser pocket and readied myself for my first shot of the match.
The girl stepped back from the table, glowering. Her gaze flickered over the view of the baize. Seventy-two points scored. A possible seventy-five points on the table. Could I claw my way back?
‘Wish me luck,’ I said happily, bending over the table and, with tremendous care, lining up the shot. I sent the white gently towards the nearest pottable red. There was a soft clock and it disappeared into the pocket. I moved swiftly round to work out the angle on the black. It shone like an olive under the lamplight.
This was a pretty easy shot, but those can be traps for the unwary so I took my time, sliding the cue back and forth, back and forth, between my thumb and finger, before neatly pocketing the ball. Melissa ffawthawte never took her eyes off me. I sent down another two reds, another two blacks.
I played steadily, unflashily. More reds sank. More blacks.
The girl remained silent, no sign of emotion other than the impatient rotation of the cue in her hand.
I knocked down a difficult red–and then an awkward ricochet got me into trouble.
I paused and hugged the cue to my chest, chewing my lip thoughtfully. I’d clawed my way to forty-one points against her seventy-two. I could still win.
The black ball was close to the top left-hand pocket, the blue not far away. However, the white had settled so close to the pink–I shaded my eyes and peered down at it to make sure–that it was what is called a touching ball. In other words, I would have to send the white rocketing away from the pink to avoid hitting it and making a foul, thus handing my opponent the upper hand and, very probably, the match.
Melissa ffawthawte leaned against the panelled walls, one finger placed idly on the metal scorer. ‘Oh dear,’ she murmured. ‘And you were doing so well.’
To my surprise, I found my heart was racing and I took a few deep breaths to calm myself. After all, it was only a game. There was nothing at stake except my pride.
I drummed my fingers against the cushion. Somewhere a clock chimed.
There was just a chance that, if I could put enough screw on the white ball as I cued it away from the pink, it might curve round and sink the black into the pocket. I wiped perspiration from my forehead and looked again at the balls: the black on the jaws of the pocket, the pink and the white cheek-by-jowl close by.
I took the chalk from my pocket and stroked it distractedly once, twice, three times over the tip of the cue. Then I put the little cube back in my trousers and bent down to play the shot.
Holding the cue high, as though spearing a fish, I brought it down with tremendous power onto the top of the white. There was a curious noise, like marbles jostling together. Too hard! I’d hit the damn thing too hard!
The ball raced away down the table and hit the far cushion.
Melissa ffawthawte made a tiny, excited noise in her throat.
But the strength with which I’d hit the ball meant that it bounced off the cushion and veered back up the table.
It rolled–rolled–rolled–and hit the black!
My heart leaped.
The black collided with the blue but revolved towards the pocket.
I swallowed. My throat was like paper.
The ball rotated on its axis like a tiny planet, hovered in the soft green jaws–and stopped.
My face fell.
Melissa ffawthawte whooped with joy. She threw her cue into the air and caught it again–but I suddenly stayed her with a gesture and pointed to the table.
Because the disturbed blue ball was still travelling.
As we watched, it rolled softly, gently, towards the middle pocket and–with an understated clunk– vanished from sight.
I burst into spontaneous laughter. The blue ball was worth five points! I could still win! I didn’t even look at Miss ffawthawte as I cleared the rest of the table swiftly and efficiently: yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and the final black, a tinglingly satisfying long pot that travelled smoothly down the baize into the bottom right pocket.
There was a deathly silence.
Then Melissa ffawthawte swung towards me, eyes blazing. She took her cue in both hands and, with a snarl of rage, snapped it in two. Whitish splinters peppered the green cloth of the table.
‘Congratulations,’ she managed.
I shrugged. ‘Well, you know. Just a fluke.’ I held out my hand. ‘I enjoyed that. Perhaps we can play again some time.’
She looked down at my hand as though it was some species of crawling reptile, then moved towards the door.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I believe there was some talk of a prize?’
Melissa ffawthawte turned in the doorway. ‘Perhaps, Mr Box,’ she hissed, ‘you’ll find your reward in heaven.’
She stalked from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Stepping outside, I made my way back through the camp, happy as Larry, buoyed by my narrow victory. I barely registered the industrious activity of the Scouts thronging the meadow. By the time I’d reached the footbridge, my mind was already focusing, with delicious anticipation, on the next day and my appointment with Miss Beveridge. Then, with a jolt, I reminded myself of the reason for our meeting. The interment of Christopher Miracle.
.4.
SNOBBERY WITH VIOLETS
‘Funerals, it may surprise you to learn, my dear Miss Beveridge, are awfully sexy.’
‘Sir?’
I checked my appearance in the hall mirror, carefully placing a sombre Homburg onto my white locks. The girl had arrived precisely on time the next morning, pulling up outside Number Nine, Downing Street in a black Triumph Mayflower that neatly complemented her jacket, skirt and nylons.
‘Back in the good old days of public executions,’ I continued, ‘when Jack Ketch was dangling felons from Tyburn Tree, the Mob would regularly break out into the most glorious displays of drinking and fighting and, most especially, fornicating.’
‘Eeh, I never knew that,’ she said, opening the front door onto the suitably funereal rain lashing the street. ‘Sounds indecent.’ She opened a large umbrella and, shielding my path to the car, thrillingly hooked her arm through mine. Her red nails were bright as winter berries against the sober cloth of my coat.
‘Indecent is just the word,’ I said, clambering into the back of the car. ‘It’s the wonderful notion, you see, that one is not yet inside the box oneself that creates an unnatural and naughty high.’
‘Not sure about that, Mr Box,’ said Miss Beveridge, stuttering the car into life. ‘Last spring, we sent me Nan up the crematorium chimney and had to spend a good half-hour brushing her off our Gannexes.’
I laughed. Miss Beveridge was a find. Her eyes crinkled in the narrow reflection of the driving mirror.
She turned the car round and we sliced through the puddles onto Whitehall, the view through the windscreen peppered with pollen and smeared into greasy triangles by the action of the wipers.
The journey took us about half an hour, by which time the rain was thudding down onto the cemetery’s broad-leafed horse-chestnuts and running off the noses of weeping angels, making them look clammy as wet clay.
I got out of the car, straightened the Windsor knot on my tie and set off, the girl holding the umbrella over us. Many of the graves we passed were neglected, their stone borders breached, grisly green marble chippings spilling out onto the muddy path. Dead flowers had been stuffed into wire dustbins.
I stopped briefly as I spotted a grand building standing at the centre of a confluence of pathways. It was an old, black-doored chapel, filthy with age–and I realised with a start that
I’d once, long ago, driven a hansom cab into it. That was during the complicated business of the Vesuvius Club when Christopher Miracle and I had both been young…
Oh, poor Christopher.
There were only a handful of brolly-bearing mourners grouped around the churned-up red earth, their wizened faces rendered blank and emotionless by the surfeit of burying that comes with old age. I nodded to acquaintances, fellow survivors of a shattered generation. Unbidden, images flickered through my mind. That first meeting with Miracle at one of Maudie Risborough’s Chelsea crushes back in the Naughty Nineties. I was the ingénu dauber, pale, skinny, almost innocent. Miracle was the lionised portraitist, glowing, strapping, beautiful. He could have demolished me and my fragile reputation with a single gesture or a well-placed bon mot. But he’d shown me such kindness that dizzying afternoon that we’d soon become firm friends.
Not quite as firm as I would have liked, alas, but then Miracle had never shared my egalitarian proclivities. Occasional flashes of his startlingly classical physique in the Wigmore Street steam rooms had had to suffice until Time (and regular encounters with a priapic Scots guardsman on Rotten Row) had cured me of the pash.
Then, shortly after I’d frustrated the insane schemes of Victoria Wine and her deadly manservant Oddbins, Miracle had finally cottoned on to my by-line in espionage. I’d been forced to tell him all about the Royal Academy and my scandalous adventures–after which, sometimes unwillingly, he’d assisted me on many a hair-raising adventure–as you might recall from The Case of the Insecure Syrup.
Then had come the Great War, the Franco-Swiss mission to Lit-de-Diable and the injuries from which that wonderful blond boy had never wholly recovered. Miracle had drifted through his money and the years, never quite committing to anything. When last I’d seen him he’d just taken over–in a desultory fashion–a business that manufactured fruit cordial. Then it had all come to an abrupt end with Miracle’s Jaguar XK 120 tearing wildly through the streets of Cape Town before plunging into the Atlantic.