Blood Sinister (11 page)

She blushed. ‘Oh, I was passing the time between phone calls looking at menus. I still haven’t sorted the caterers out.’

The file, he saw, was neatly labelled ‘Wedding’ in Swilley’s firm black capitals; and reading no unwillingness in her posture, he opened it and found it full of orderly paperwork, everything from correspondence with the organist over the choice of music to comparative quotations for marquees.

‘You’re going about it like a military campaign,’ he said. For some reason he found that unbearably touching.

‘I don’t know any other way,’ she said, and for a moment her voice was uncertain, and her look as she met Slider’s was horribly vulnerable. ‘Tony laughs at me, but – you have to be organised about things, don’t you?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said, feeling like Steve Martin. ‘It’s going to be the end of an era, you know, you getting married.’ Expect earthquakes, comets, two-headed calves, he thought; the very globe would gape in wonder – but it didn’t seem quite polite to say so. ‘So, is it all coming together all right?’

‘I wish!’ She regained her old ferocity. ‘I hate caterers! They start off telling you you can have anything you want, but they’ve got three standard menus, and you’re going to end up with one of them. Whatever you say, there’s a problem with it, or it’s not advisable and, blow me, there’s the standard menu back under your nose. It’s like
Alice Through The Looking Glass
. As fast as you walk out the door, you find yourself walking back in through it.’

‘So that’s why food at weddings always tastes the same,’ Slider marvelled. ‘Those caterer’s prawns, exactly like newborn baby mice. The rubber chicken.’

‘I
said
no chicken,’ Norma gnashed. ‘I said duck. I
swear
we agreed on duck. And when the confirmation arrived, it was down as chicken. What do you do?’

‘Keep fighting,’ Slider said. ‘It’s your wedding, not theirs. But shouldn’t your parents be doing all this?’

‘Don’t be silly, at my age? Anyway, my parents are dead.’

‘What about Tony’s?’ She made a face. ‘Don’t you like them?’

‘Oh, they’re very nice. All his family are terribly nice – but—’

‘Dull?’

‘Dull?’ It burst from her. ‘They’re like dead people without the rouge! Boss, d’you think – d’you think I’m doing the right thing?’

Slider spread his hands. ‘How can I answer that? Look, you love Tony, don’t you? Well, that’s the only important thing. Weddings are something you do for the sake of other people. Weddings are hell, but it doesn’t mean the marriage isn’t right.’

She opened her eyes wide. ‘Gosh, that sounded so brill! Did you just think of it?’

‘It was pretty good, wasn’t it?’ Slider said modestly. ‘Just hang in there, Norma. We’re all behind you.’

‘Some of you are more help than others,’ Norma said, closing the file with a sigh. ‘I asked Jim if he’d help me choose the wines, seeing he’s such a wine buff. He said I’d need a Mâcon with the chicken. I was writing it down, when he said, “Yeah, I’ve watched you, you’re a messy eater.”’

‘Atherton’s a pain in the khyber sometimes,’ Slider agreed. He patted her shoulder and headed for his office, but she called him back.

‘Boss?’ He turned, to encounter the unfamiliar vulnerable Norma again, lurking in those usually marble eyes. ‘I don’t suppose – I mean – are you doing anything on the sixth?’

He turned fully, surprised. ‘Are you inviting
me
to your wedding? I thought you didn’t want any of us there?’

‘I don’t want the others. They laugh at me.’

‘They don’t.’

‘All right, not laugh, exactly, but—’ She frowned, searching for the words. ‘They don’t think of me as a real person at all. I’m just old Norma Stits – like a cartoon character.’

Slider knew, uncomfortably, how far this was true. ‘They’re a bit scared of you, that’s all’

‘I didn’t ask them to be scared of me,’ she said fiercely. ‘Why can’t they just accept me? I accept them, I don’t judge them by their revolting bodies and nasty habits. But to them I’m a freak. Well, I won’t have them at my wedding, sneering and sniggering.’ Slider couldn’t think of anything to say, and in his silence her ferocity drained away. She became diffident. ‘Anyway, I know it’s short notice and everything, but I wondered if you’d – if you’d give me away?’

He was so surprised he didn’t answer at once, and she hurried on, blushing painfully.

‘I mean, say no if you think it’s a cheek to ask, but my Dad’s dead and the nearest thing I’ve got is a cousin I’ve never liked, who’s got dandruff and BO and terrible teeth. I don’t want him. Tony’s Dad’s offered, but that doesn’t seem right to me. It ought to be someone of mine. And you – well – you’re practically like family. In a sort of way. I mean …’

He had to say something to check this painful embarrassment. ‘I always knew there was some reason you never made a pass at me,’ he said, smiling slowly. ‘I assumed it was respect for my rank, but now I see it’s because you thought of me as a different generation.’ Now she smiled too, shyly. ‘I’d be honoured to do it. Thank you for asking me.’

‘Thank you, boss,’ she said, and, hugely daring, darted a kiss at his cheek.

‘And now you’d better go home,’ he said, mock-sternly, because someone had to get them out of this before they both burst into tears.

‘Right, boss.’ She sat abruptly at her desk and bent her head, shuffling her papers together in a terminal sort of way.

Slider marched himself off into his office.

Mâcon, indeed!

Peter Medmenham opened the door to Slider and said without a great deal of surprise, ‘Oh, it’s you.’

‘You know why I’m here?’ Slider said sternly.

‘Yes. My mother rang me.’ He managed to scrape up a bit of indignation. ‘You had no right to call her without my permission.’

‘Don’t be silly, of course we did,’ Slider said, and Medmenham’s balloon collapsed. ‘And we wouldn’t have had to bother her if you hadn’t lied to us in the first place.’

Now he only looked miserable. ‘You’d better come in,’ he sighed, and stepped back.

Medmenham’s flat was a very different affair from either of the other two. A great deal of money and thought had obviously gone into it. The narrow passageway beyond the front door ought, Slider knew from other houses like this, to have been dark and damp-smelling. In fact it was brightly lit from sunken halogen lamps in the ceiling and smelled faintly of pot-pourri. The walls were white, and the single piece of furniture in view was a delicate mahogany side table of breathtaking simplicity and elegance – Georgian, Slider thought – on which stood a narrow glass vase containing a single scarlet gerbera, spiky and stunning against the white wall.

Medmenham led the way past two closed doors – bedroom and bathroom, presumably – to the room at the back. This was the living room, with the kitchen beyond in a new glass-roofed extension, divided from the sitting-room, American style, only by a counter. The kitchen was blisteringly modern, all pale ash and chrome, with a wicker-fronted drawer stack, a lot of expensive stainless-steel equipment on overhead racks,
and a huge stone jar filled with dried rushes on the floor by the door.

Everything was tidy and put away, except that on the counter stood a large Gordon’s bottle and a heavy-bottomed cut-crystal glass, and a small chopping-board with half a lemon and a short knife lying on it.

The sitting-room was decorated in the sort of spare, minimalist style that depended on a very high quality of workmanship to make it succeed. Again the walls were white, and sported a series of black-and-white eighteenth-century political cartoons in huge white mounts and thin gold frames. The polished floorboards were covered in the centre with a large square carpet, very thick and blackberry purple. There was an enormous sofa covered in coarse white material, with lavender-coloured scatter cushions, and a heavy glass coffee table on which stood a single purple orchid in another tall skinny glass. The only other chair was an expensive-looking leather recliner which faced the state-of-the-art television set in the corner. Behind the TV was a cabinet which seemed to have been specially designed to house four video recorders – for his job as reviewer, Slider supposed. Evidently he didn’t watch Channel 5 – but then, who did?

‘You’ve really put some work into your flat, haven’t you?’ Slider said in admiring tones.

Medmenham seemed pleased. ‘Do you like it?’

‘You obviously have very good taste,’ Slider said. ‘But I wonder you should do so much when you don’t own it. I mean, I suppose you must have had to pay for all the building work yourself?’

‘Goodness, you don’t think Sborksi would
ever
put his hand in his pocket? I know,’ he said, looking round, ‘it’s probably a bit foolish of me, but the rent is so low, and I’m comfortable here, and my surroundings are so important to me. Things grate, don’t you find, if they’re not
just so
? And I never intended to move again, so what did it matter?’

‘You never intended – does that mean you intend now?’

Medmenham waved him graciously to the sofa, and stood facing him, clasping his hands together as though he were going to recite. ‘I don’t know. All this business – poor Phoebe – it’s so unsettling. I wonder if I’ll be able to bear it here now, thinking of her being – you know – up there.’ He rolled his eyes
at the ceiling. ‘And, of course, not having her there to talk to will make such a difference. We always planned to grow old together.’

The lighting in the room came from artfully placed lamps and was designed to be flattering, but even so Slider could see the age and weariness that had come to the plump face. Medmenham had bags under his eyes that even a BA stewardess would have rejected as cabin luggage.

‘You were very fond of her?’ Slider suggested.

‘I thought I’d made
that
clear,’ said Medmenham.

‘I thought you’d made a lot of things clear, until it turned out you’d been lying,’ Slider said sternly.

He made a fluttery movement of his hands. ‘Oh, Lord, don’t make a big thing of it! I’m not up to it. I can’t tell you what a state I’ve been in these last few days! Look, would you like a snort? Frankly, I’m not going to get through the next half hour without a drinkette. Gin and ton?’

Slider accepted, and having handed him a gin and tonic very nearly large enough to wash in, Medmenham took his own replenished glass and retired to the leather recliner, where he tucked one foot under him girlishly, took a good mouthful, swallowed, and shuddered.

‘That’s better! Not’, he added firmly, ‘that I want you to think I’m a boozer. Normally it’s moderation in all things, but things aren’t normal, are they? And frankly, dear, it’s ruinous to the complexion. Oh, I know, don’t look! I must look shocking. I’ve been weeping like a waterfall, and no sleep; but I just haven’t had the heart to put any slap on. I’ve said to Phoebe many a time, you and I just can’t go on drinking at our age the way we used to – well, you know what journalists are like, first cousin to a bottomless pit as far as alcohol’s concerned; but when you’re young you burn it off, don’t you? And just lately darling Feeb’s been hitting the White Horse a bit hard. I mean, I said, you’re not Lester Piggott, darling! But the past few weeks it’s been sip, sip, sip like a dowager. So depressing! Not that she can’t hold it. Always a perfect gentleman. But you can’t punish yourself like that and get away with it for ever.’

This was a promising vein, but Slider had other seams to mine first. ‘Let’s get back to what you were doing on Thursday evening,’ he said.

Medmenham raised his glass to his lips defensively. ‘Oh, must we? Look, I know I told a teensy little porkie pie, but, honestly, it’s nothing to do with all this – nothing to do with poor darling Feeb. It’s purely my personal life, which is so utterly ghastly at the moment I wouldn’t trouble anyone with it. I promise you I know nothing about what happened upstairs, other than what I’ve told you.’

‘You have to understand, Mr Medmenham, that I have to verify every statement that’s made to me. When people tell me lies I have to assume they’ve got something to hide. Especially when they can’t be accounted for at the time of the crime.’

‘Well, you can’t suspect me of murder,’ he said, almost gaily, and then, looking shocked. ‘You don’t? No, really, look at me! I’m the human equivalent of a cosy eiderdown. Born a duvet and I’ll die a duvet! Even on stage I’d never cut it as First Murderer.
Please
tell me you don’t think I’m capable of such a horrible thing!’

‘I think you capable of anything you put your mind to,’ Slider said seriously, and he saw his words give Medmenham pause. He drank, put his glass down on the counter top and folded his hands together in his lap.

‘What do you want to know?’ he asked without affectation.

‘How much of what you told me yesterday was true? Did you see Miss Agnew at six forty-five? Did she say she had a visitor?’

‘Oh, yes, all that was true.’

‘But you didn’t see the visitor? Or hear his voice?’

‘No. There was music playing in the background. Quietly. Vivaldi, I think.’

‘So she might have been alone.’

‘But then why wouldn’t she have asked me in?’ Medmenham looked suddenly shrewd. ‘Oh, you think I’m a chattering nuisance and she might just want to be rid of me? But I assure you, she was quite capable of telling me she wanted to be alone, and often did. We had a very frank relationship. “Sorry, Peter darling, things to do. Bog off, sweetheart.” No, it wasn’t that. There was someone else in there: you can
feel
, can’t you, when a house is empty? You just
know
. And the way she opened the door only a little bit and stood there in the gap: she didn’t want me to see who it was.’