She Died Young (33 page)

chapter
50

R
EGINE HAD INVITED CHARLES
to the party she was organising at the Ambassadors Club. She’d told him he was welcome to bring a friend, so Charles had Fergus in tow. Fergus would now have a second opportunity to impress Mrs Drownes and the party might also, Charles suggested, provide a scene for the novel Fergus was writing.

Fergus dismissed this idea. ‘It’s about the decline of the Communist Party, not some sleazy thriller.’

Besides the Drownes themselves, guests included the currently rather notorious ‘angry young man’ Tom Harrison, a minor writer, who arrived with a bold-looking girlfriend dressed as an existentialist all in black. Sir Avery and Lady Pearson were also of the party. The guest of honour, however, was Regine’s latest ‘discovery’, the crime reporter, Gerry Blackstone. The evening, in fact, was to celebrate his recovery after he’d been so nearly slaughtered by a detective who’d gone spectacularly mad.

The scandal had wiped everything else off the front pages. Blackstone should have died. He would have died if his girlfriend hadn’t turned up in the nick of time. The policeman, Detective Inspector Slater, had sent the journalist anonymous letters and even a bomb before the actual attack, when he had left the reporter for dead. He hadn’t even bothered to cover his tracks. His fury that Blackstone had uncovered the truth about the death of Valerie Jarvis had finally sent him over the edge.

The girlfriend had been worried when Blackstone didn’t answer the phone and arrived at his flat to find the front door open and Blackstone lying in a pool of blood on the sitting-room floor. She’d called an ambulance and staunched the blood from the wound in his chest. Somehow the bullet had missed the vital organs, but he’d taken months to recover.

Charles assumed that the pretty young woman Blackstone had with him was the heroine of the story. ‘Young enough to be his daughter,’ muttered Fergus.

‘You look super in a dinner jacket,’ said Regine to Charles. ‘You’re looking terribly well. Is it because we’ve seen the last of that creepy old Professor Quinault? Or were you sorry to lose him?’

‘Sorry to lose him?
No!
It’s the best thing that’s happened to me since …’ He couldn’t think of anything. ‘You know, I’m not really surprised he was a blackmailer. There was something repellent about him. He was so bitchy about everyone too. And he loathed women. Thought female classicists were the dregs of the earth. That new novelist – Iris Murdoch? – all he had to say about her was, poor woman, she knows no Greek.’

‘I tried one of her books, but I didn’t really enjoy it.’

Charles lowered his voice, although William Drownes was at the other end of the table. ‘Your friend must be relieved. About Quinault.’

Regine took a quick gulp of champagne. ‘Yes … well … yes, a tremendous relief. Now I suppose we’ll go on as before.’ She gazed down into her glass. ‘Sometimes I don’t think I
can
go on indefinitely like this … things not changing … ever.’

‘Oh Reggie.’ He squeezed her arm, but had no idea what to say.

‘I’m just being morbid. Come and dance.’

He enjoyed the feeling that the guests seated at the tables arranged round the floor were watching him as he circled with Regine, and that they made a striking couple, she with her red hair and elegant black dress, he in black tie, which was always so flattering.

Later he found himself in conversation with the crime reporter. ‘I’m dying to hear more about Bodkin Adams. What a name for a murderer for a start! Quite Dickensian.’

Blackstone was smoking as though his life depended on it. ‘But he ain’t a murderer, is he? He’s been acquitted.’

‘I was utterly amazed! Could that possibly have been the right verdict?’

‘Personally I doubt it. He had some very powerful friends. But don’t quote me on that.’

The reporter’s words shocked Charles, despite his blasé cynicism. They also exhilarated him, since here was someone other than himself who suspected that the myths everyone lived by might be just myths or even downright lies: the justice system not impeccable, the powerful dishonest and the political system corrupt. British complacency and conservatism might, after all, be nothing more than a flimsy façade. Fergus, of course, believed those things too, but he was a communist, even if he’d left ‘the Party’. Perhaps Charles’ disdain for the status quo meant that he was becoming a communist too.

‘We’re honoured,’ muttered Blackstone. ‘Here comes Mallory.’

Charles looked at the man who now loomed over their table. He first greeted Regine, but of course it was the presence of the crime reporter that had drawn him over.

He pulled up a chair between Blackstone and Charles. ‘I never know, Blackie, whether we’re friends or enemies. But at least one way or another, we’ve seen off Slater. And now he’s safely in Broadmoor. Not fit to plead, eh? That was a let-out for the Met, weren’t it? They wouldn’t have wanted one of their own to be the centrepiece of a damaging show trial. God knows what might have come creeping out from the woodwork if it had come to court.’ The gravelly voice was ripe with irony.

‘Unfortunately true,’ agreed Blackstone.

‘Not happy about the Bodkin Adams verdict either, I’m guessing.’

Charles was aware of the bulk of the promoter next to him. The cigar he was smoking sent a waft of masculinity in his direction. The broad shoulders were not just the result of the padding of the smooth, dark suit. And soon Mallory turned his full attention onto Charles.

‘Who’s this? You haven’t introduced us.’

‘Friend of Mrs Drownes. Oxford graduate. Researches ancient Rome.’

‘A college boy, eh?’ The iceberg eyes pierced Charles like a laser. Charles flinched psychologically from Mallory’s overwhelming presence. Yet he reacted physically in a manner outside his control, responding in the most languidly suggestive way. He was incapable of not playing up to the promoter’s gaze. It was an irresistible force field of intent, to which his responses were automatic, without his even being aware of the way in which his sullen eyelids lowered, nor of the half-smile that sent a reply far different from the decisive ‘No’ he had in mind.

‘Ancient Rome. That’s interesting.’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t, really. Nothing about catamites and slave boys, or Christians mauled by lions, or anything like that, unfortunately.’

‘Unfortunate if you’ve a taste for that sort of thing. I’d like to hear more about it.’

Charles smiled enigmatically. Of course he had no intention of having anything to do with this frightful and rather terrifyingly outsize bit of rough. Yet every movement, every glance, sent a different message.

‘About the Romans?’

‘About you. Saw you dancing with the redhead. You dance well. Well as any gigolo.’

‘I’d probably quite like to be a gigolo. An easy life, wouldn’t you think? Lying on the beach all day and dancing all night?’

‘I thought you were brainy. Life of the mind and all that.’

‘Well … I’m supposed to become a Fellow of the College – you know, to lecture at Oxford. But I did the Naval Russian course for National Service. It’s partly a kind of training for the secret services and I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather do that instead.’

‘Would you?’ Mallory smiled wolfishly. ‘Looking for a life of adventure, then.’ He handed Charles a card he’d extracted from an inner pocket. ‘Come and see me. Next Monday, if that suits you.’

‘Very kind of you, sir, but I’m supposed to go back to Oxford.’

Mallory got to his feet. He placed a forceful hand on Charles’ shoulder. ‘Another time then, my son.’

chapter
51

T
HE SUN HAD FALLEN
behind the buildings. The High was in shadow. As Penny winged past Queens on her bike, the melancholy yet jaunty lilt of the Tommy Steele hit ‘I never felt more like singing the blues’ floated out from the quad into the empty street.

Had Oxford in the end been what she’d wanted? It had been worth it, hadn’t it?

All the brilliance of the sunny day had been gathering towards this evening. She shot down to Magdalen Bridge, screeched to a halt and wheeled her bike through the entrance and into the quad. She felt brave enough to face Alistair’s party on her own. Venetia was engaged to a Viscount from Christ Church, but there was no getting back with Alistair. She was no longer smitten. And she could never have told him about the operation.

In the end, it had been Charles’ stepmother who’d escorted her to the psychiatrist’s consulting room and then to the clinic. Brenda had seen her through. It was hard to understand why Charles disliked her, for she’d been so kind, especially afterwards. She’d seen Penny off to the station and when they parted she’d said: ‘I know how painful it is, dear, and you probably think you’ll never be happy again. But you will. Believe me. You have your whole future before you.’

The future was beginning now.

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