A Cry from the Dark (21 page)

Hughie considered. “There are planes.”

“That's what the inspector said. Down on the last one at night, back on the early one from Heathrow. It all sounds rather silly and fantastic to me, like one of those detective stories based on railway timetables.”

“I don't see why the idea is fantastic.”

“Well, planes are pretty small, particularly ones on internal flights. They would surely be recognized and remembered by the hostesses and stewards.”

“That might not bother them if all they were planning on doing was to rob the flat. When did you see them that morning?”

“Sylvia about half past nine or so. Ollie later.”

“And the day before?”

“We went our separate ways.”

“I should think at that rate they could even have taken the train.”

“That seems hardly less fantastic. In any case I barely know Ollie, and only met Sylvia—apart from holding her as a baby—a couple of weeks or so ago. They can hardly be living in fear of my memoirs.”

“In Sylvia's case there could be a long-cherished resentment.”

“I know. I hope not, but I do realize there could be. But if there is one, why would she go down to London to work it out, when we were together in Edinburgh?…Murchison seemed more interested in Mark, oddly enough.”

Again, Hughie thought hard. “Apart from watching him today, I only met Mark briefly when he first came. I did realize it wasn't love at first sight as far as you two were concerned.”

“Oh, I could well put Mark down with a poisoned arrow or two if I was carrying the memoir up to the present day. But I'm not, and even if I was I don't think I'd bother with him. He's hardly worth the trouble.”

“I bet he wouldn't think that,” said Hughie with a grin. “Why is Murchison directing his cold gaze on him?”

“I didn't say he was direc—Oh well, yes, maybe he is. He's talked to him, of course, and I think he's been struck by the vanity, the self-love.”

“Who wouldn't be? You were. And even watching him just now it rather
thrust
itself at me. A modern Narcissus.”

“Yes. I forgot to tell Murchison that, according to Ollie, Mark hasn't always been like this.”

“I'm glad to hear it. I'd hate to think of a baby as full of himself as Mark is.”

“I rather think babies are, though neither of us would know much about that. It seems to me that the basic fact about growing up for most people is becoming aware of others. What Ollie said was that when he was at school he was the tall, beanpole type of kid, picked on by others.”

“Difficult to imagine.”

“Yes. Apparently it was partly because he wasn't too bright, partly the gangling physique. The ridicule sent him to the gyms and the weight-training courses.”

“Probably to steroids as well. That's the way men get Mark's sort of bulk. And they can send you off course, steroids.”

“Well, don't say that to Murchison. I had the same thought, but I let it out to Ollie, not to Murchison. He's fixated enough on Mark.”

“Why should you protect him? He's less than nothing to you. Anyway, the mere talk of gyms and weight-training will have suggested steroids to a policeman.”

“I'm not trying to protect Mark,” said Bettina, becoming a little heated, “except that I don't want innocent people accused or suspected where there is no evidence. There have been far too many fit-ups in British crime history in recent years.”

Hughie nodded, but kept with the subject. “So though you don't like Mark, though he gives you the heebie-jeebies, you feel pretty sure he didn't do it?”

Wanting to collect her thoughts, to approach the subject in the way that suited her best, Bettina put it off.

“Ah, here we are. Coffee is just what I need. I'm parched.”

They sat down in the open-air part of the cafeteria near the house and ordered coffee and cream cakes from an exuberantly Italian waiter. They talked about little nothings till they were tucked into them, and then Bettina took up the subject again.

“You asked me if I felt pretty sure that Mark didn't do it. I do, though I can see the way Murchison is thinking: Mark is vain and yet unsure of himself; he has a child's mind in a very powerful body; he seems to be pretty unsure of his sexuality; and he has the sort of vanity that needs constant feeding—for example from women, who may be casual paid pickups if nothing else is available. Poor Clare—I wonder how she's doing…You get this strange breezy confidence and at the same time the constant
asking
for admiration, for acceptance, for some kind of status. It seems to bespeak the uncertain persona, with a history of nonacceptance.”

“So? What holds you back from agreeing with him?”

“I can't for a moment see Mark conceiving the idea of destroying my book because it might contain some bilious picture of him, or going to the lengths of savaging Katie—he would know it wasn't me who was disturbing him, since I was with his father in Edinburgh. Mark just doesn't have enough determination and joined-up thinking to do that.”

“So who does? I must say Mark sounds more likely than most of the alternatives.”

“I'm not accusing anyone. I'm just saying, ‘Why pick on Mark?' Clare has the grit, the thinking-through, the ruthlessness.”

That surprised Hughie.

“Clare? I've always suspected Clare of preying on you, wanting her pound of financial flesh, though I suppose that's her job, as you always say. But have
you
thought it through? Why—?”

“There's no why. I'm not making a case against her. She has custody of the tapes of the new book, so if she were to have done it that couldn't be a motive…Then there's Peter.”

“Peter? I'd never even thought of him.”

“Yet he's got a lot in common with Mark. You know how I've said that everything washes over Mark. I remember I told you how I had him walking round the flat practically naked, and when I told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn't on, he just said, ‘OK, Auntie Bet,' and added an item of clothing or two. Then he was accused of curb-crawling and all he did was say it was a silly law, and that it's a good way of picking up someone for sex. Nothing sticks. And why? Because there are no known standards or norms of conduct there.”

“Are you saying Peter is the same?”

“Yes, I think I am. In a milder form. I love Peter, you know that: I enjoy his company almost more than anyone's, and my time with him was, I suppose, emotionally the best time in my life. But he has always been so much the boy, the willful, lustful
boy,
who must have whatever he craves at any one moment, so that he goes after it even if it means losing something infinitely more valuable to him. And he's always enjoyed the boy's pleasure of taking anything he wants
off
someone else. When he left me to go after a floozie he crowed at the thought of giving one in the eye to her existing ‘protector.' Very like Mark, don't you think?”

“I don't really know either of them well enough to say. I don't think you want Peter to have done it, though.”

“No, of course I don't. And I can't think of a reason why he should have. If he were to appear in my memory book he'd know it would be with affection…And if it wasn't, he'd just thumb his nose at me and laugh.”

“And you think Murchison will have all those people in mind?”

“I imagine so, since he obviously knows his job. For all I know he's added you to his list since his talk with you.”

Hughie seemed unfazed.

“I expect he has. And I suppose you're going to add that I have something of the self-love that Mark seems to embody for you.”

“Yes,” said Bettina nodding. “I think I would add that.” She was sitting opposite him now, and she held him with her stare. It was Hughie who spoke.

“We know each other so well, Bettina. There's hardly a thought of yours I don't spot in your face as soon as it comes into your mind.”

“Maybe, Hughie…Did I tell you I went and had a look at your current popsy the other day?”

“You didn't even tell me that you knew about my current popsy.”

“Oh, I knew. Clare is a great one for collecting gossip among the scribbling classes. I hope the popsy is satisfactory?”

“Very, thank you, Bettina,” said Hughie in his primmest voice.

“At least you don't have to crawl curbs for them.”

Hughie seemed inclined to fire up, but damped himself down.

“But the instinct is the same, you're implying?”

“The
need
may often be the same: for reassurance, bolstering of the ego, ministering to your self-satisfaction. And compensating for being shunned by your peers in your early days.”

Hughie, apparently on impulse, pushed aside his plate with a half-eaten cake on it.

“That was lovely, Bettina, but I think I've reached my limit as far as cakes are concerned.”

“So have I, I think…It does go back to school, doesn't it?”

Hughie shook himself.

“Sorry! I was dreaming. What goes back to school? A taste for cakes?”

“The need for reassurance, the need to assert a conventional sexual identity. Both you and Mark were the objects of ridicule and suspicion.”

“But I was ridiculed because I was a Pommie. Quite different from Mark.”

“That was part of it. You tried to become one of the boys by teaching some of them to play soccer. To which, I am quite sure, you were supremely indifferent, and of which I imagine you were almost as ignorant as they were.”

Hughie laughed, and Bettina laughed back.

“But there were other elements,” Bettina went on. “You were the intellectual in a thoroughly anti-intellectual climate. You were called ‘mardarse,' ‘backdoor merchant,' and suchlike because that was an assertively heterosexual climate—though some of those loudly hetero men wouldn't bear too much examination into their feelings, I suspect. But your sexual identity was under challenge, as I suspect Mark's was at school.”

“Maybe,” said Hughie, shrugging. “And is this, in your analysis, why I've usually gone in for bimbos on the side? And why you and I were close as close, but never attracted to each other in that way?”

“Partly, maybe. I think I've always gone for fun in my men. You were never fun in that way, Hughie. Wrapped up in yourself, just like Mark and Peter and poor Cecil Cockburn, but in a much more knotted-up way. Perhaps if I'd been interested in taking up a challenge rather than just having a superficial sort of good time we could have made a good couple, or an interesting one.”

“If I didn't continue to go after bimbos, like Peter.”

“Yes. Eventually I drew the line at that in Peter, so I suppose I would have in you too…Do you remember, Hughie, when we met up again in Venice?”

“Of course. It's a moment I've always treasured.”

“Cecil and I were in that little street, and you were crossing St. Mark's in the sunlight. You stopped and saw us. We stopped.”

“I just couldn't believe it could be you.”

“That wasn't the reason. It was only six or seven years since you'd seen me last. You were uncertain of your reception, though I'd sent a message to you long before by Steve Drayton. It was to say it was nothing to do with what happened at the dance, my having to get away from Bundaroo. Then, in the square, I went up to you and we hugged and kissed. It was so good.”

“Yes. Yes, it was. Golly, is that the time?”

“Hughie, I had a phone call from Murchison before I came away. Katie has died.”

He stopped momentarily in his getting his things together.

“Oh—poor thing! But I suppose in the circumstances—I mean, after what happened to her, perhaps this is for the best.”

“Maybe. It makes things more serious, Hughie.”

He started gathering up his things from the table again.

“Yes, of course it does. I must dash. I promised Marie I'd meet her at the Leighton Gallery at a quarter past. They've got a preview of a new exhibition on.”

“Well, you mustn't disappoint Marie.”

“Bettina—” He had stopped between the table and the path running beside the café. She had not been able to look at him closely during the last minutes of their talk. Now she saw that there was on his face a pleading look—a beseeching call to her to remain compassionate and understanding.

“Bettina, I never meant—” he said.

She should have replied, “Oh, but you did, Hughie. Why else did you malign all my friends, hoping that I'd make you my literary executor?” But she could not break the habit of a near-lifetime.

“I'll do what I can, Hughie,” she said.

He swallowed hard and hared down the path.