Filigrew, or whatever his real name might be, I sensed was not well disposed towards me - or, probably, towards anyone. He had that dyspeptic look which holds the world at fault. He’d taken my snub by baring his long discoloured teeth in a curious grimace, not a smile and not a snarl. He just wrinkled up his upper lip and let me see he needed to visit a dental hygienist. There was something very unsettling about the whole thing and suddenly I knew what it was. Some dogs do that when they aren’t sure of you. They sidle up, baring their upper teeth in a sort of canine grin. Their body language is subservient but the teeth display isn’t unintentional. They are hedging their bets.
Speaking of dogs, Spencer liked me. He settled down at my feet and looked up at me, pink tongue lolling and button eyes bright with expectation.
Filigrew cleared his throat again but I got in first. ‘Beryl tells me you act for Mickey Allerton.’
He replaced his spectacles and surveyed me through them, his mouth pursed. ‘That depends,’ he said.
‘Either you do or you don’t,’ I told him crisply. ‘If you don’t, I’ll leave now.’
‘I represent certain of Mr Allerton’s interests,’ he snapped. Now he actively disliked me, but so what?
‘I need to phone Allerton,’ I said. ‘But Beryl suggests I listen to you first. I’m prepared to listen, but make it brief.’
He put both hands to his spectacles and removed them again. His fidgeting with them was beginning to annoy me. It was his way of gaining time - and he who gains time gains the initiative. He knew he’d lost it at the outset, but he was going to get it back again, by hook or by crook.
He blinked watery eyes at me. ‘I need an assurance from you that this unfortunate incident, I mean of course your discovery of a body in the river . . .’ Here Filigrew paused and murmured, ‘T-t-t . . .’ in the manner of a man who’d just discovered something nasty sticking to the sole of his shoe. ‘You could, I suppose, have avoided finding it?’ His voice was heavy with reproach.
‘How?’ I asked him, amazed. ‘Do you mean, having found it, I should have run away before anyone else turned up and pretended I knew nothing about it? Isn’t that an offence? Aren’t we supposed to report something like that to the proper authorities?’
‘You might have been forgiven for thinking you were mistaken about the man being dead. You might have thought he was swimming. There would be no offence in making a genuine mistake. You should have phoned here and asked my advice.’
‘I didn’t know about you, did I?’ I retorted. ‘You didn’t tell me you represented Mickey. That’s your fault. Mickey’s not going to blame
me
for that!’
‘Then you should have phoned Mr Allerton and asked him what he wanted you to do.’ Filigrew glared at me. He knew as well as I did that Mickey would seek to blame someone for introducing an element which could seriously screw things up.
‘Don’t talk daft,’ I said to Filigrew. ‘I didn’t have time. There were other people around.’
He conceded the point. ‘Well, well, perhaps you might be excused for not seeking advice.’ He rallied. ‘But that means there was all the more reason to get out of there before other people arrived. People, incidentally, who could safely have been left to find the man themselves.’
‘I found him, me, right? All by myself,’ I said bleakly. ‘It wasn’t by choice but that’s what happened. There was no possibility he was swimming. Stop bleating about what I might have done or should have done. If I had tried to run away, it would have been worse, because the Americans came along in a punt just moments later and they would have seen me disappearing into the distance. Someone who runs away is a lot more suspicious than someone who stays. Anyway, I fell in the water.’
‘That,’ said Filigrew sharply, ‘could certainly have been avoided.’
‘What’s this assurance you want?’ I demanded.
‘That the police will not be seeking to interview the young lady.’
‘You mean Lisa Stallard? No, they won’t, because by the time she arrived there was a crowd. I managed to catch her eye and send her a message to clear off. She did.’
‘Good.’ He looked relieved. I don’t think he was any happier at the idea of giving bad news to Mickey Allerton than I was. ‘You haven’t yet spoken to the young lady, I mean about Mr Allerton’s request?’
I wished he’d stop referring to Lisa as the young lady. I was sure he’d never refer to me like that. ‘I’ve spoken to her,’ I told him, ‘but it was difficult as most of the time her parents were present. She doesn’t want them to know about her working for Allerton. That’s why she agreed to meet me down by the river so we could sort things out. I still hope to persuade her to phone Mickey. I want my dog back.’
‘What dog is this?’ asked Beryl, who though taking no part in our conversation had been listening.
‘I wasn’t going to tell you, Beryl,’ I said. ‘Because I know Allerton’s your friend. But he’s got my dog and is holding her hostage - or rather, he’s given her to one of his musclemen to keep until I return.’
‘Oh, I don’t think Mickey would hurt an animal!’ protested Beryl.
‘I didn’t say he’d do it himself,’ I snapped. No, his idea had been that Ivo should take care of this bit of business. Mickey was shrewd enough to guess what Bonnie meant to me. At least, I thought, now Bonnie won’t fall into Ivo’s hands, whatever else happens.
‘No one has hurt her - yet,’ I went on more calmly. ‘But I’m not going to see her again if Lisa doesn’t phone Allerton. That’s it in a nutshell. You don’t like this situation and I don’t like it. I didn’t want to come on this errand in the first place and I don’t know why Mickey chose me.’
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ said Beryl unexpectedly. ‘Mr Filigrew has been telling me about it, about the dancer who left the club without a word to anyone and how Mickey asked you to get her back because he’s concerned about her. These girls who want to be dancers . . .’ Beryl clicked her tongue. ‘They’ve no idea what a tough life it is and how uncertain. You want to be an actor, don’t you? Well, that puts you and this girl Lisa on much the same wavelength. You’re both young and stage-struck. She’d talk to you.’
‘I’m not stage-struck!’ I defended myself. ‘I
am
an actor. I’ve worked as an actor. I don’t like being used by Allerton. I don’t like being talked about and I don’t like any of this!’
‘To return to the body in the river.’ Filigrew drew the conversation firmly back to the main matter. ‘Your feelings are immaterial. If the young lady is not going to be involved, then perhaps we don’t have to trouble Mr Allerton about it. It’s not his concern, after all, it’s yours. You took the job, whatever your reasons, and all this is your responsibility.’
Filigrew was as worried about Mickey Allerton as I was. He wasn’t working out how to get me out of trouble, but how to extricate himself. The look of contempt on my face must have warned him. He essayed his unattractive smile again.
‘The police are not being difficult, are they? You are not under any kind of suspicion? I am on hand to give you any necessary advice and you can, if they wish to question you, ask that I be present.’ His watery eyes blinked at me again.
He really was a solicitor. But not in a thousand years would I ask for him to be there. He wouldn’t be representing me; he’d be representing Allerton and himself. The very request for a solicitor would alert Pereira. That I, a stranger in town, could call one up at a moment’s notice would make her even more suspicious. Last, but by no means least, I didn’t want Filigrew sticking his nose into my business.
‘I’ve already made a statement to Sergeant Pereira,’ I said, ‘and signed it.’
He looked worried. ‘What did you say? I wish you’d spoken to me first.’
‘We’ve been through all that,’ I pointed out. ‘I didn’t know you were Allerton’s mouthpiece. Anyway, there was no chance. DS Pereira brought me home and we went straight to my room.’
‘Fast work,’ said Beryl with grudging approval. I guessed she wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with police methods.
Filigrew muttered, ‘Pereira,’ and wrote the name down in the margin of his paper, by the crossword. ‘Detective sergeant, you say?’
‘Yes. I don’t think she’s bent, so don’t go offering her a holiday in Tenerife to lose her notes, will you?’
I didn’t really think he’d do that. It was a sort of joke on my part. But his neck flushed as red as a turkeycock’s and the colour rose up his pale cheeks in a crimson tide. He even gobbled like a turkey. ‘That is an outrageous suggestion—’
‘She’s winding you up, Mervyn,’ said Beryl easily. She winked at me on his blind side.
‘Really?’ snapped Filigrew, glaring at me. ‘You are extremely ill advised to do that, Miss Varady. You may need me.’
He could be right, after all. I had enough enemies in this cruel world without adding him to the number. ‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘My nerves are shot to bits. I’m hysterical.’
At that they both looked at me in horror. ‘Drop of brandy,’ said Beryl, getting awkwardly to her feet. ‘That’ll do the trick.’
‘Look,’ I said to Filigrew. ‘I don’t know what suspicions she’s got, if any. The police don’t take me into their confidence.’
Filigrew relaxed and seemed also to be considering that he and I had to get along somehow. ‘So,’ he said cautiously. ‘It is a purely local event, a piece of bad luck and bad timing. You found this man in the river.You made a statement to DS Pereira. There is no need to trouble Mr Allerton.’
‘Yes, there is, because the dead man works - worked for him.’
‘What?’ shouted Filigrew, completely losing his cool and bouncing to his feet.
The newspaper fell to the floor, sheets separating and spreading out across the carpet. The crossword with Pereira’s name in the margin ended up by my feet. Spencer leapt up and barked. Beryl shushed him and scooped him up in her arms where he wriggled furiously. Beryl’s eyes were popping at me like ping-pong balls. I hadn’t told her that.
‘How do you know?’ snapped Filigrew, sitting down again. He was annoyed that he’d twice lost control in front of me. He smoothed his sparse hair, put back his specs on his nose and glared at me.
‘I recognised him. His name is Ivo. He was a doorman at the Silver Circle.’
‘Lumme,’ breathed Beryl.
‘You can’t be sure of this!’ Filigrew was sweating. It was warm down in this basement but not that warm.
‘Yes, I’m sure. I told you, I fell in the river, right by him. I saw his face.’
‘Ooh, horrible,’ Beryl shivered.
‘You can’t be right!’ objected Filigrew but he didn’t sound half so confident.
‘I’m right and I suggest that, when I’ve told Mickey, you have a chat with him yourself. Because it seems to me that Mr Allerton has been holding out on both of us!’
Filigrew pulled himself together at that. He stood up and announced, ‘Wait here. I’ll speak to him first.’
Then he stormed out.
‘Has he got a mobile?’ I asked Beryl. I couldn’t see Filigrew communicating with Allerton via the phone in the entrance hall.
‘I expect so,’ she said comfortably. ‘Nearly everyone has, haven’t they?’
‘I had one,’ I said. ‘But I lost it in the river, like I told you. The police will probably dig around on the river bed looking for anything which might have been Ivo’s. They’ll find it. They’ll trace it to a friend of mine. I’ll have to warn him. Is it all right if I phone London while old Filigrew is talking to Mickey?’
Beryl hesitated.
‘I’ll pay for the call,’ I assured her.
‘Not that, dear.’ She seemed awkward. ‘Best wait for Mr Filigrew to come back, eh?’
I understood her dilemma. She wanted to do the right thing by Allerton and she’d only my word that the person I wanted to call was the owner of the phone I’d lost.
I told her, all right, and we settled down to wait for Filigrew’s return. ‘Tell you what, dear,’ said Beryl suddenly. ‘Let me get you that drop of brandy.’
‘Thanks, but no. I don’t drink spirits,’ I said gloomily. ‘I’m strictly a wine and beer person. If I start knocking back brandy now I’ll be in no state to speak to Allerton.’
‘I’ve got a bottle of white wine open in the fridge?’ She put Spencer on the floor and prepared to make for the kitchenette.
‘Honestly, Beryl, I appreciate it, but no - well, later, when I’ve got my phone call done, perhaps?’
The door opened and Filigrew returned. I was right about the mobile. He held it out to me. ‘He wants to talk to you,’ he said.
I took the phone gingerly and put it to my ear. ‘Mr Allerton?’ I hoped my voice didn’t sound as nervous as I felt.