Classic Calls the Shots (27 page)

In the evening sun it seemed impossible that I was really thinking in terms of its being blown up or set on fire, or of anything more violent than the popping of champagne corks. As I drove up to the forecourt, I saw to my surprise that the Auburn was parked right in front of the main entrance to the house. The creamy paint glowed in the sunshine, seeming to dare anyone to defile its beauty. Was it there just temporarily? I doubted it. To me it had the hallmarks of a Bill Wade gesture of defiance. Tempting the bull, however, was by no means always a good plan. Bulls were noticeable; our joker was not.

I parked the car, checked in with Maisie who was superintending the caterers and then went straight into the grounds. The police and two security guards would have checked them of course, and the house too, but these gardens seemed to me the most vulnerable place if there was going to be trouble. In the setting sunlight they looked at peace, however. On the main lawn there was a huge marquee and a subsidiary service area. Tables were already set up inside, and I could see staff dashing around making last-minute arrangements for the seventy or eighty guests that I'd been told were expected. There were also half a dozen uniformed security guards around it.

I walked round the perimeter of the garden, more to satisfy myself than with much hope of finding anything suspicious. It took some time, as it was more a small estate than a mere garden. A brick wall, eight foot or so high, surrounded it; there was woodland on the western and southern sides, plus a stretch of trees inside the wall which ran parallel to it for part of the way. It wouldn't be thick enough to hide a killer for long, although the shrubbery on the eastern side could easily do so.

I was assuming that the potential killer would be trying to get in from outside the walls, but it was probable, alas, that he would be amongst those seventy or eighty guests. Not good. Any one of them could ‘smile and smile and be a villain' as Shakespeare realized. I wondered what the Bard would have made of the Bill Wade plot so far.

Maisie had said I was welcome to tour the house, and I took her up on it. As in Syndale Manor a semi-basement room had been converted to a home cinema, where the unedited
Dark Harvest
would obviously be shown. The living area of the house and bedrooms added up to a pleasantly relaxed atmosphere, which was surprising in view of its owner's taut energy. Angie must have had more going for her than my brief brushes with her suggested. Attics? Again, as the killer was in all probability known to everyone here, there would be no reason for him to hide. And yet I checked what I could, telling myself it was a precaution, although in fact it merely meant I could persuade myself I was doing something to help in a situation where – if I faced it starkly – we were all effectively impotent. As Manning was no doubt gloating over at this very moment.

At eight o'clock the two buses arrived and duly disgorged their passengers, and it was then I felt the first real chill of apprehension. What had been a mental exercise in trying to second guess the killer's intentions had become an all too real situation. I saw an added touch of defiance in that Bill had, presumably with Nigel's collaboration, arranged for the other three classics to join the Auburn. The front of Mayden Manor was glorified by the Bentley, the Fiat and the Horch, although amid them the Auburn reigned supreme.

Louise looked fabulous in a short silvery evening dress. I was so used to seeing her in thirties gear or in casual clothes that to see her in her full glory was breathtaking. Eleanor on the other hand, in a skimpy brown dress with too many ruffles, looked like a particularly cross hen.

As we all moved to the lawns, the women's dresses and party food and champagne livened up what could have been an awkward evening. Talk seemed to centre on the future and not on the traumas of the past few weeks. I watched Bill carefully as he circulated. He seemed preoccupied, but as the evening progressed he looked more relaxed, even – to my horror – standing up to make a speech at the end of the excellent meal. Not a good idea. I expected a shot to ring out at any moment with such a clear target.

Nothing happened. I didn't know whether to be relieved or whether this merely raised the tension level. I took them alternately, relaxed when coffee and liqueurs were circulating, then felt my muscles tensing as we left for the cinema.

‘The film won't make much sense to you at this stage,' Louise warned me. ‘It's nowhere near finished.'

I was almost lulled into relaxation myself, by the time the lights dimmed for the film show. That quickly came to an abrupt end. I'd been expecting the film to begin with the 1935 Jubilee Ball. What we actually saw with the opening shot was First World War fighter planes flying over fields of poppies.

There was a general gasp, someone cried out, but most of us sat in frozen bewilderment. Bill lost his cool. ‘What the hell is this?' he yelled at the unfortunate operator.

That at least was clear, as we had only recently seen this shot. It was the opening of
Running Tides.

‘Some mistake,' Louise muttered to me, as Bill and the operator struggled in the projection room to get the right film running. I had a renewed fear that the
Dark Harvest
rushes had indeed been destroyed, but apparently not because its first scene duly appeared, with the arrivals of the cars for the Syndale Manor ball.

‘I hope you're right about its being a mistake,' I replied.

She stiffened. ‘The joker again?'

‘Yes.'

It was clear to me that Geoffrey Manning had thrown down the gauntlet. It was his open declaration of war. The question was what would come next.

I was in a state of jitters as the film progressed, but nothing more happened. Not until after midnight when the party broke up, and the buses were ready to leave. And then, just as I was beginning to think it was all over, Nigel came rushing into the house and made straight for me.

‘Trouble, Jack. The
cars
.'

I was out there in the forecourt like a flash. Bill's gesture of defiance had been noted. The Auburn's creamy paint now had a gaudy decoration. The word ‘whore' had been painted in bright purple across the bonnet.

Amazingly, Bill took this in his stride, merely demanding of police and security guards what they thought they were paid for. It was his very quietness that made me nervous. I was well aware that this was just the warm-up. Manning was not going to be catching the bus back home.

‘Shall I stay, Jack?' Louise asked.

‘No, pet. I'd be worrying about you as well as Bill.'

She took that. ‘But you . . .'

‘The police are here,' I said lightly. ‘Plus the guards.' The extra security guards round the marquee had now left, but there were still two remaining, plus the two police and every security light and alarm yet known to man.

Louise didn't believe me, but I managed to persuade her to go. Everyone went, save for Bill, myself and our security. Plus, I feared, Geoff Manning.

‘You go too, Jack,' Bill told me.

‘As if,' I said briefly, and for once he didn't argue with me.

I checked with the police that the same number of guests had left as had arrived, and tried to believe their assurance that this was the case. Manning was clever enough to have sorted that one out, however. I walked out on to the terrace where I could see the marquee, now empty of all but the bare tables waiting to be picked up the next day. Maybe that was when Manning would come, I thought, and already I could feel the adrenalin dying down inside me. I roused myself. That would be what Manning was counting on.

‘No sign of anything yet, Jack,' Bill said neutrally as we walked back into his living room.

‘You call that
Running Tides
switch nothing? Or that attack on your Auburn?'

‘Guess not, but it's good. It means that's his last shot. No murder in mind.'

‘It's not over yet.'

A pause. ‘You still thinking Geoff Manning is going to come?'

‘Yes.'

He sighed. ‘Whoever does come, it won't be him. I checked him out. He died three years ago.'

W
e sat in our comfortable armchairs in silence, Bill and I. I wished I could have believed that the storm clouds had passed. There was a police car in the forecourt, containing one constable. Another one stood at the gate. Two security guards had replaced the earlier ones for the night patrol, and the house had been minutely searched to their satisfaction. Bill had told me enough to convince me that Geoffrey Manning was indeed no longer in the picture – whatever the picture might be. No switch of identities or false funerals in this case. The information had shaken me, but not to the point where I could shut up shop and go happily to bed. Either my fears had been one gigantic fantasy or I had taken a wrong turn in my thinking. I hoped it was the former, but every gut feeling told me it was the latter.

At one thirty Bill told me that he was going to get some sleep; I could do what I wanted. There was a bed ready for me upstairs, third door on the right, or I could stay here with the whisky bottle, or I could lay me down and sleep on the floor outside his door in the good old-fashioned way if I preferred. I opted for staying put – without the whisky bottle. Why stay? Obstinacy perhaps, or a feeling that if and when our killer arrived I needed to be on the spot, not lying vulnerably in bed.

After Bill left there was no temptation for me to sleep. I went over the evening again and again in my mind. Not everyone had attended the party, as the last day's shooting had not included a full crew and extras. I thought of the two incidents of the evening: the intrusion of
Running Tides
into the film and the paint on the Auburn. There had been – and must still be – some joker in our pack. So where was he now?

It was a scary feeling that he was around
somewhere.
In all my oil company days I'd had experience of being in the midst of the desert and yet knowing that danger was lurking near. Even though the security lights blazed out fiercely at the slightest move and we were safely indoors, I felt prickles at the back of my neck, as if I were a particularly stupid mouse who had been lured into a trap that would shortly slam shut. I saw a security guard passing, but it gave me little confidence. Shotsworth Security? I wondered. Was Nigel in on this deal too? He'd been present this evening, but I had seen him drive out in the Bentley. He'd wanted to take Louise with him, but she chose to go on the bus with the others. Perhaps she preferred that to Nigel. Had he bargained on that, and had not in fact left at all? All sorts of scenarios buzzed through my mind.

Except the one that exploded outside.

No security lights flashed on.

Only
noise.

Noise so deafening that it shot me out of the armchair, rushing to the windows to look out into the darkness of the night. Nothing to be seen. Only heard, as a woman's voice magnified a thousand times shrieked out endlessly in desperation:

‘
Bill, Bill! Come to me. Come
.'

Intermingled with it were snatches of music, music I remembered. We'd heard it earlier this evening. It wouldn't stop. It assaulted the eardrums, it tore at the nerves, blocking out reason. It brought Bill bursting back into the room with white face and staring vacantly. He wasn't focusing on me, and as he clutched at me and missed I thought he would collapse. He didn't, but stood there, swaying in a trance.

‘It's Margot,' he whispered.

No need to ask more. There was only one Margot. And all along she had been the missing character in this crazy script.

‘Margot,' he repeated, as the racket continued, lights blazing out. If the guards and police were shouting, I wouldn't have heard them.

I tried to shake Bill out of his stupor, shouting over the din. ‘What is it?'

I could feel him trembling, not with fear, but with disbelief. ‘
Running Tides
,' he said. ‘The last scene.'

I remembered now. Ramble, Margot's code name in the film, was in prison, calling on the man she loved, the British fighter pilot Bill Brackley.

‘Stop it, Jack,' he whispered as I rushed for the door. ‘
Stop
her.'

Without working out what the hell I was going to do, I ran over the terrace and down to the gardens, as the security lights blazed out. The noise was coming from the woods on the far side of the boundary wall. Or was it this side, where the line of trees ran in front of it?

I reached them at the same time as one of the two policemen. ‘Over there,' I panted. I could hear it nearby. At the same time he was yelling at me and pointing in a different direction. The security lights didn't reach through these trees but we rushed for the wall – anything to stop that
noise.
I wasn't looking down as I ran over the uneven ground, and I tripped on something. I nearly threw up.

It was a body. The policeman was waving frantically for his mate, who was just catching up with us. I fell to my knees to see what had happened. It was a security guard – probably the one I had seen from the house. He was alive, thank heavens, groaning and even conscious, although my hands were sticky with blood.

‘Where is he?' I asked sharply. ‘Ahead of us? Over the wall? Behind us?'

I thought he couldn't speak but his lips managed to form one word: ‘Woman.'

Woman? Dear God, what was this? Thoughts raced through my mind. Could it be a woman who had killed Angie and Joan? A woman had rung Tom. A woman had driven the Auburn. No time to think back. Think forward. Do, not think. The police were giving first aid and calling for back-up, the other security guard had arrived. I rushed to get over that wall to the source of the noise. One of the PCs was over first, but then my brain clicked into gear before I followed him.

Where the hell was Bill?
If one security guard was on the ground, the other with him, and two police here, Bill must be on his own. Whatever that racket was, the joker knew Bill wouldn't be going in search of it. Its aim was to lure me and anyone else that might be around out of the house. Whoever this woman was, she wanted Bill all to herself.