Full of Money (5 page)

She needed something plain, factual, definite, to restore her mind to clarity. Esther drove over again to the big public park where his body had been found. Talking of madness – Esther knew this to be not a particularly sane trip. She wouldn't be finding anything new. Not the objective. She hoped for escape from the silly deviousness of the recorded chit-chat at Happy Gardening Solutions, and to look at a solid reminder of what had happened soon after the chit-chat to one of those taking part. In any case, she didn't want to go home yet. Gerald would be there, and not at his sweetest. Two reasons:

First,
Orchestra
, the professional magazine for musicians, had listed those considered the greatest living players on each classical instrument, and Gerald did not figure under ‘bassoonists'. Two others were named. If they'd picked only one he might have been reasonably all right. But to be pushed to third really got to him. And, of course, he couldn't be certain that
Orchestra
regarded him as third, or twenty-third. They'd named two. This did not mean that if they'd chosen three, he would have been it.

She left her Ford in the car park at the edge of Martin's Fields and walked over the grass towards the children's adventure playground. It had been a cold late autumnal day and now, mid-afternoon, only a few people were about, walking the dog, or jogging, or practising place kicks at the rugby posts. Of course, the playground had been closed for a week after the discovery of Tasker's body on the youngsters' curly chute there and, although it reopened a few days ago, no children played in the enclosure now. It might be on account of the weather. More likely, for a while the Fields and amusements would be regarded by parents as jinxed and they'd keep their kids away.

Suppose Esther told Gerald he should certainly have been placed first or second in the bassoonist tally, he would see that for what it was – the would-be soothing verdict of someone naturally biased in her hubbie's favour, and more or less ignorant of bassoons and of bassoon world league tables. The knee-jerk, worthless words might inflame him further. And suppose instead she argued that if three were named, he must have been included, he would take this as a declaration that, yes, she considered him third rate. Gerald could get rough-house when offended on such a scale, and Esther didn't fancy any of that just now. She had a tricky job on needing concentration and a brain not dulled by recent blows or distracted by widespread pain.

Luckily, Tasker's smashed body had been found early by one of the park keepers opening up the playground for the day. The slide was quickly tented and the area taped off as a crime site before any youngsters and their parents arrived. A notice near the gate said: ‘This playground is intended for children between the ages six to fourteen.'

But adaptable, obviously.

‘The nearest public phone booth is in Stanton Road. The nearest Accident and Emergency Hospital is the Fildew General in Lent Street.'

Unneeded, both, in this case. Her mind slipped back to Gerald. The second reason for his present unpredictabilities centred on that TV invitation. At times he seemed thrilled. At others he regarded it as ‘piffling' and ‘footling' – or
said
he did. She knew he would accept. It was the panellist status that riled. He thought there should be a programme, or possibly programmes, devoted only to him. He believed he deserved this, or he
had
believed it until that list of great bassoonists ignored him. Gerald considered he was being treated not quite as a musical nobody, but only not quite. He could be used to make up the numbers – either as third or worse in the magazine list, or on a panel of four or five where his personal voice could get only a share of attention, despite his flair.

Tasker had not been killed in the playground. That happened somewhere else and the body arranged on the slide at night after the gate lock to the playground was picked. Did this location, this careful, grotesque placement have any special meaning? Did it say something about why Tasker had been beaten before the bullets? Was the message that Tasker had childishly imagined he could do an exposure piece on the firms and should therefore be presented, slaughtered and bruised, in a juvenile, six to fourteen, playground? And the slide? A devious drop down and down to elimination from his cocky reporter's nosiness?

Gerald quite often had decent moments. Immediately after the discovery of Tasker's body, he'd seen that Esther was exceptionally shaken by the circumstances of this death, and monstrously flippant disposal of the body, and for a time shelved his egomania and grew considerate, kindly, tender. Yes, she'd admit he could be like that now and then. Hardly ever did he fail Esther when he judged her to be genuinely needy. And, occasionally, he could maintain such warm thoughtfulness for quite an impressive while. Hours.

This afternoon, Esther stayed outside the playground, her eyes directed at the slide. Uselessly directed. All she'd see was the empty chute, no late pointers. On the morning he was discovered she'd had the call at seven forty a.m. and arrived just after the Scenes of Crime team and before the tenting. She could still call up the sight of Tasker, flat on his back about halfway down, each arm over the side, perhaps to anchor him and stop the body slipping further, possibly off the chute altogether. The people who brought him here wanted a better show than a crumpled body on the ground at the end of the slide. Did they intend Tasker to look like a delighted and excited child as the slope took charge? But, in fact, because of what had happened to his face elsewhere, there could be no semblance of little-boy excitement and delight on it.

Now, as Esther zombie-stared, a park keeper came to end-of-day lock the playground gate. He didn't seem to recognize Esther. Maybe he'd been off when the body was found, and hadn't seen her around here then.

‘It's perfectly all right in there now, you know, lady, if you want to bring your children along to the rides and so on. I can understand the . . . the, well, queasiness, but it's all been thoroughly spruced up. Not a trace of . . . of anything.'

‘Thanks.' She went back to the car.

At home, Gerald was accentuating the negative: ‘I don't know about this TV thing, Esther. I've seen the programme once or twice, haven't I? It has that Rex Ince on it often. Cambridge – a don. He behaves as if he thinks the whole damn thing should be about him, not the topic they're discussing.'

A rival. ‘Does he, dear?' She'd like to keep matters still mild this evening, no knockabout. Perhaps he'd prefer that, too. If he was going on television he wouldn't want old scars evident. And she'd seen enough scars lately.

Gerald imitated a quibbling donnish voice: ‘“Oh, yes, William Boyd can describe room interiors well enough in his novels, but let me recount what happened to me one day in Tasmania.” That's fucking Ince. Do I want to line myself up on the screen with such people?' Yes. But Esther didn't say so. ‘And then the chairman,' Gerald added. ‘The usual chairman. Bale? Rupert Bale? One of the people who drinks with us works in television, though for a different company, and says this Bale is in a somewhat stressful situation involving Adrian Pellotte – Baron Pellotte of the Snorts. Bale and Pellotte's daughter have something going, apparently. Possible difficulties there. Bale's from the wrong estate.'

‘Temperate not Whitsun?'

‘Like that. What bothers me is that if this Bale has such worries he's likely to be a bit all over the place as chairman of a programme. No control, I mean. So, panellists screaming at one another. A noise competition.'

‘You could hold your own, Gerald.'

‘Unwise, inappropriate, for me to be seen in something chaotic and shambolic like that. I'm a name, Esther, a reputation. I have to guard these. I can't allow myself to be yelled at by a twerp like Ince. It would confuse and upset those who see me, know me, for what I am.'

‘Many of those.'

‘We'll watch the next damn programme in the series before I decide anything. That is mere good sense, isn't it? And how was
your
day?'

‘Admin chores.'

‘Tasker?'

‘Of course, I have people looking at that.'

‘I gave my own mind to it for a while.'

‘Did you, Gerald?'

‘I wonder if you've thought about the significance of the playground.'

‘In what sense?'

‘It's a place for children, isn't it?'

‘Certainly.'

‘Tasker gets arranged there, like a child. Are they telling the world he was stupidly, childishly naive? Perhaps this is not the kind of insight that would come to police officers. It's a revelation from a different kind of mind. Not necessarily a
better
kind of mind. One doesn't claim that. No, indeed. Different. An artist's mind. A mind that is used to dealing with the thematic, the intrinsic, rather than the obvious – a mind that can hear the unspoken – the unspoken but very present. Look, I don't mind if you present this idea as your own to colleagues, Esther.'

‘That's a true kindness, Gerald.'

Four

Larry Edgehill thought things could get worse –
knew
things
would
get worse, had already started to get worse. On-screen – on-screen! – on-screen Priscilla Sandine, a panellist, say twenty-six or -seven, puts all her big, insistent and vibrant charms towards Rupert Bale, chairman for the night, and, God, does he respond!

Well, fine in different circumstances and with different people. But . . . But! But Rupert Bale is apparently promised, or something like that, to Dione Pellotte. Here, in view of millions, on Larry's programme,
A Week in Review
, Sandine and Bale ferociously sparkle and brilliantly, almost rampantly, interlock. Adrian Pellotte will not care for this, and, of course, he'll be watching. Isn't the programme a favourite of his and Dean Feston's – their staple? And probably even more so now, because of Dione's link with Rupe. Link? Would tonight's show make Pellotte wonder how reliable that link was, and how reliable was Rupe? It could be very bad when Pellotte didn't care for something and when he began to wonder. Think of the journalist, Gervaise Manciple Tasker, who'd probably offended Pellotte by poking into his life – possibly including Dione's life – now dead in undetermined circumstances. Some of the circumstances. Not the playground slide.

A Week in Review
always went out live. Tom Marland usually directed, with Edgehill in overall charge. In the hospitality suite, pre-programme, Edgehill had noticed Rupert Bale on the other side of the room, alone and with a glass of what might be orange juice. He looked troubled. If difficulties with Adrian Pellotte hovered anyone might look troubled.

Pellotte had been a frightener for years. Since the death of Tasker his name commandeered even stronger scare elements. True, the death, as far as Edgehill knew, had never been officially connected with Pellotte, although gossip said two of his people – Dean Feston and a woman called Cornish – were hauled in, then released. Official connections were not the only ones. How about
un
official? How about guesswork? How about wise suspicion?

So,
did
Pellotte difficulties hover over Rupe? Perhaps, after all, Pellotte would grow to like the notion of his daughter partnered by a television star, even a television star who looked like Rupe and lived on Temperate. Perhaps, yes. Perhaps. There'd better be no messing with Dione by Rupe, though. And Pellotte and Rupe might take different views on what amounted to messing.

Would Pellotte and Dean have a ‘note' on Bale? This would probably be a big priority when a man started something with Pellotte's daughter: one of Dean's top-grade fact trawls. Edgehill wondered whether he, himself, looked troubled, following the Gideon ambush. It was frightening that they had a ‘note' on him, though from ‘just a basic fact store'. For Bale there must also be the usual anxieties and tensions about running the show. A couple of the newspaper critics had savaged him lately. That wouldn't do his nerves or his mortgage chances any good either.

Even before the broadcast it had worried Edgehill to think of Pellotte and Dean Feston watching
A.W.I.R.
together tonight. Pellotte's house? Dean's? Would anyone else be present? The daughter, proud of her alleged beau? Pellotte's wife? Members of Dean's family? Edgehill had a notion he'd heard Dean was divorced. There'd be big attention on Rupe if Udolpho had things correct, and Udolpho generally did. At moments during the Gideon confrontation Edgehill had felt Pellotte and Dean Feston spoke as if they
owned
the programme, the way they owned Whitsun.

In Hospitality before the show, Edgehill had glanced back towards Bale and the orange juice. Priscilla Sandine was talking to him. It would be her first appearance on
A Week in Review.
She was smartly got up in what looked to Edgehill like some kind of white jump suit to low calf length, and a black blazer. Her short fair hair had been given a sort of close, spiky, zigzag cut. Her shoes looked pricey – black, high-heeled but not absurdly. Although panellists had to dress their top halves all right, shoes didn't normally get much camera, and those who spent big on them just the same must be financially all right. That sort could be a fucking pain. They weren't desperate for money, so they might act maverick.

He didn't know her very well. Naturally, he'd done the greetings when she arrived, and during those few moments was aware of a very strong Sandine sexual force, though not necessarily meant for him in particular: more general, more scattergun. As he'd watched her and Bale later, he saw that Rupe, also, felt this power play fiercely and promisingly on him. He perked up notably, smiled, shifted about on his feet, obviously trying to respond, though Edgehill couldn't hear what was said, because of distance and the all-round talky-talky din. At that stage, pre-studio, Edgehill could hope that this apparent instant steaming rapport would not get carried over
too
damn hot to the actual broadcast, and to the screen, watched in whichever venue by Pellotte, Dean and kin.