The Zig Zag Girl (15 page)

That must be Tony, who often positioned himself between Max and Edgar as if he resented their friendship. The man in the straw hat must be Diablo, who insisted on wearing this headgear in the face of Major Gormley’s rage. ‘I need to protect my skin,’ he would say, regardless of the fact that Inverness saw roughly one day’s sun a year. The boat must be the
Ptolemy
. Edgar felt a moment’s pride that Bob had thought she was a bona fide battleship.

‘There’s something else,’ his sergeant was saying. ‘Something written on the back.’

‘What?’

‘It says: “For my next trick, The Wolf Trap”.’

They were on their way back to Brighton. Max was driving and Edgar sat next to him. Diablo sat in the back, exclaiming with pleasure over the comfort of the seats and the smoothness of the drive. Edgar had told the others about his telephone call and the delivery of the photograph. Neither of them seemed particularly concerned about the sinister implication of Tony’s crossed-out face. They were trying to place the magic trick.

‘The Wolf Trap,’ said Max. ‘I’ve seen it performed a few times. It’s one of those “mind over matter” things. Magician starts with a small trap, shows it snapping a pencil in two. Then a bigger trap, this time it breaks a stick or a branch. Raising the stakes each time. Ends up with a huge trap, the wolf trap. The magician puts his head inside and comes out unscathed. Trick is that this trap might be bigger, but it’s the least dangerous, the blades are probably made of rubber. But the audience is fooled into thinking that the traps get more dangerous as they get bigger.’

‘I’ve seen a different version,’ said Diablo. ‘It’s an escapology act. Magician gets into a cage called The Wolf Trap. Darkness, sound effects of wolves howling. Lights go up and – hey presto! – he’s free.’

‘Well, whatever it is,’ said Edgar, ‘it’s his next trick.’ He wasn’t sure if he should have told Max and Diablo about the picture, but Max knew so much already that it seemed stupid not to tell him this latest development. And Diablo, well somehow he’d become one of the team. A slightly troublesome member, it was true, prone to performing drunken turns at strip clubs, but one of the gang all the same. It’s like a parody of a family, thought Edgar, with Max as the father behind the wheel and Diablo as the whining youngster in the back seat. God, what did that make him? The mother?

‘Are we there yet?’ asked Diablo, right on cue.

Max ignored him. ‘Do you really think that this chap is picking us off one by one?’ he asked.

‘Bags I be next,’ said Diablo brightly.

‘It’s not funny,’ said Edgar dourly. ‘We should all have police protection. I’ll have to warn Bill.’

‘But why Ethel?’ said Max. ‘She wasn’t one of the Magic Men.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Edgar. ‘Unless she was an attempt to get at you.’

‘But how would anyone know about the link between me and Ethel?’

‘It wouldn’t be hard to find out.’

‘Well, if he’s after all Max’s old girlfriends,’ said Diablo, ‘he’s got his work cut out.’

‘Ethel wasn’t an old girlfriend,’ said Max. ‘I’d never have an affair with an assistant. Too dangerous.’

Dangerous was an odd word to choose, thought Edgar, as he looked out over the grey countryside, land and sea merging into each other (Diablo was right: Yarmouth was very flat). And he wasn’t sure if he believed Max’s protestations about his assistants. He certainly seemed to be getting pretty close to Ruby that day on the pier. Ruby! Edgar thought of that little figure twirling on stage, at once provocative and vulnerable. He remembered her walking beside him on the promenade, the little skipping steps as she tried to keep up. Could Ruby be in danger? He’d better speak to her, just in case. He realised that Diablo was talking to him.

‘All right if I stay with you, old boy,’ he was asking, ‘just until I get myself sorted.’

‘I’ve only got a small place,’ protested Edgar.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Diablo kindly. ‘I’m an awfully good house guest. You’ll hardly know I’m there.’

Edgar found himself agreeing to share a flat with The Great Diablo.

*

By the time they got to Brighton, Max had had enough of both of them. He wasn’t used to spending so much concentrated time with other people. His life normally consisted of audiences – far enough away as to become faceless – the occasional girl and plenty of solitude. He
remembered now that this was what he had hated about the army: the enforced camaraderie, the banter, the idea of being part of a team. ‘Max isn’t a team player,’ his headmaster had written on his report. It was meant to be a criticism – that school had
worshipped
team games, that whole ‘play up and play the game’ rot – but, even at the time, Max had glowed with pride. No, he wasn’t a team player. He was better than that.

Max liked Edgar, had sometimes thought that he was like a younger brother to him. Not that he had any idea what it was like to have a brother, what with his mother dying when he was six and his father being too much of an unsociable bastard to find himself another wife. But, even with Edgar, there were times when he just wanted to be left alone with a whisky and a cigarette, not to be constantly talking things over all the time. ‘What do you think of Bill? Mrs Bill? Major Gormley?’ Christ, these were people he had hoped never to see again. And Diablo. When he had seen Diablo on stage, fumbling with that bloody coin and bottle, he’d been shot through with pity. He had wanted to take care of him, rescue him from that ghastly club, sit him in an armchair and tell him that he’d never have to do another card trick as long as he lived. But now, after having spent the day with the old reprobate, he felt as if he’d willingly sell Diablo to the highest bidder. Not that he’d get many offers. ‘To tell you the truth, dear boy,’ Diablo had said to him that morning, ‘I’m not quite the draw I once was.’

When he’d seen the squalid lodgings and had helped Diablo pack his belongings into a cardboard suitcase tied up with string, the compassionate feeling was back again. This was no life for an old man. How old
was
Diablo? Seventy? Eighty? He deserved to be sitting at home, surrounded by his family, boring them senseless with stories of his showbusiness youth. But Diablo had no family. ‘Never had time to get a wife,’ he had confided last night over the port. ‘Too late now, of course.’ He had leered hopefully at the barmaid. Was that going to be how Max ended up? Slogging round the strip clubs of Great Yarmouth, trying to do the coin in the bottle trick? God, no. He’d shoot himself first.

After he had dropped Edgar and Diablo at Edgar’s digs (trying to suppress a smile at Edgar’s obvious dismay at this arrangement), he drove straight to the Old Ship. He wanted to have a hot bath and an evening of complete silence – apart from the words ‘a large steak and a bottle of red wine please’.

But, as he crossed the lobby, a voice said, ‘Someone to see you, Mr Mephisto.’ Christ, who was it this time? Another skeleton about to come crawling out of the cupboard? He honestly felt that he’d seen enough cupboards for one lifetime.

And it was a skeleton of a kind, albeit a rather well-fleshed one, red-faced and uncomfortable after his long wait.

‘Hallo, Max,’ said Bill.

‘Bill! What are you doing here?’

Bill flushed, looking more overheated than ever.

‘I wanted to see you.’

Why? was the question on Max’s lips, but he realised that this would sound impossibly rude, especially as it transpired that Bill had been waiting for him since eleven o’clock that morning. It was now five, so Max suggested tea in the conservatory, a comfortable English ritual to offset what he felt was going to be a singularly uncomfortable conversation.

As they sat down in the ‘sun room’ – black and white tiles, wrought-iron furniture, piano tinkling in the background – Max reflected that this was probably the first time that he’d ever been alone with Bill. ‘Salt of the earth,’ is what he would have said if anyone had asked him about the ex-sergeant, but earth had never been Max’s favourite element. At Inverness, he was aware of Bill only as an excellent craftsman and, later, as the man who – unwittingly or not – broke Edgar’s stupidly breakable heart. He was happy to talk to Bill about refinements to the
Ptolemy
or the construction of dummy tanks, but in the evenings – if nothing better was on offer – he had always sought out the company of Edgar or Diablo. Even Tony had more to say for himself.

But now, it seemed, Bill had something to say.

‘Hope you don’t mind me tracking you down like this,’ he said, absent-mindedly demolishing a scone. ‘It’s just … I wanted to tell you something.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me last week,’ said Max, ‘when Edgar and I came to visit?’ Was it only last week? It seemed years ago.

Bill took a gulp of tea and choked. His face was redder than ever and his eyes bulged alarmingly. Max wondered whether he should pat him on the back or just wait until the paroxysm had passed. He settled for waiting.

‘It’s difficult,’ said Bill, when he could speak. ‘Didn’t want to talk in front of Jean.’

‘Ah.’ Now that, Max could understand.

‘She gets … well,
difficult
sometimes. Women often get like that when they’ve had a baby.’

‘Do they?’

Bill nodded solemnly. ‘You wouldn’t know … well, at least I … that is ….’ He seemed about to choke again.

Max took pity on him. ‘No, I wouldn’t know. So what was it that you didn’t want to say in front of Jean?’

In answer, Bill took a sheet of notepaper from his pocket and spread it out on the table in front of them.

The letter was written in a bold sloping hand.

Max looked across the table at Bill.
A voice from the grave
. It was as if he could hear Tony’s voice – those mocking Londoner’s tones – echoing around the conservatory. He had always known that Tony was vaguely malign, but now it was as if his old comrade had thrown a grenade into their midst, shattering the glass walls, impaling them with tiny, vicious shards.
Bet you’re surprised to hear from me … if you want to keep it that way … You can’t afford to ignore me.

‘August the twelfth,’ said Max, ‘that was the day he died.’ The glorious twelfth, he thought. A big day in his father’s calendar. Lots of marching over dreary fields slaughtering innocent birds.

‘I thought it must be,’ said Bill. The date obviously meant nothing to him. He was looking warily at the letter as if he expected it to rise up and attack him. ‘Edgar said Saturday. I got the letter on the Thursday. You came to see us the next Tuesday.’

And Edgar was also due to meet Tony that Saturday at one-fifteen, thought Max. He remembered Edgar wondering about the strangely precise time. What the hell had Tony been playing at?
Got your address from old Gormley
. Diablo said that Tony had been in touch with Major Gormley and that they’d quarrelled. What about?

He saw that Bill was still frowning down at the letter. What had Tony got on Bill? Something pretty explosive by the sounds of it. He was struck with a sudden desire to know exactly what Bill had been doing that Saturday afternoon.

‘You weren’t tempted to go, then?’ he asked.

‘No.’ Bill’s voice was suddenly loud. The china rattled on the table and, in the background, the piano stopped momentarily.

Max looked at the letter again. He too felt curiously reluctant to touch it. ‘What was that about: “You can’t afford to ignore me. Not this time anyway”?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

Max sighed. You didn’t need to be an expert on body language to know that Bill was lying. But why? And about what?

‘Why did you show me this,’ he asked, ‘if you’d already decided to ignore it?’

‘Well, he’s dead. He died that same day. It can’t be a coincidence, can it?’

‘Why didn’t you go to Ed? He’s the policeman.’

Bill pointed at the letter. ‘He said not to tell Edgar.’

Or any of his pals, thought Max. Did Tony mean Edgar’s fellow policemen or the Magic Men?

‘But Tony’s dead,’ he said aloud, ‘he can’t do anything about it now.’

Bill laughed hollowly. ‘Is that what you think?’

Max looked at Bill. There was no doubt about it: the big man was genuinely scared. But why? What did Bill think had been waiting for him in Brighton?

‘Bill,’ he said, ‘why are you showing me this? What can I do about it?’

Bill rubbed his eyes. His hands were large and efficient, thick fingers, square-cut nails. Workman’s hands. Those
hands couldn’t shuffle a deck, cutting and cutting again, dazzling the audience with false passes so that they failed to notice the mystery card appearing at the top of the pack, but, Max couldn’t help thinking, they could do someone a whole lot of damage.

‘I thought …’ said Bill, ‘I thought you might have had a similar letter.’

Now it was Max’s turn to speak too loudly. ‘You thought
I
might have …’

‘Well, yes.’ Bill reddened again but, at the same time, he looked Max in the face for the first time that afternoon. ‘He must have written to someone else, mustn’t he?’

‘Why?’

‘Because that person killed him.’

‘I’ll just have a quick cat nap,’ said Diablo. With that, he collapsed onto Edgar’s bed (the only bed) and was snoring within seconds. Edgar placed the cardboard suitcase on the bedside table and resigned himself to sleeping on the sofa for the duration of Diablo’s stay. He wandered into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea, discovered that there was no milk and wandered out again. It was nearly five o’clock. He could sit down and try to read a book, listening to the reverberations that now seemed to be shaking the whole house. He could go for a walk, up and down the endless hills. He could stroll down to the Old Ship to see Max, but he had a feeling that Max wanted to be left alone for a while. Maybe he should go down to the station and catch up with some work. He might even be able to have a drink with Bob afterwards. Edgar picked up his hat.

Bob, who was clearly just about to slope off early, did not look overjoyed to see his boss. Edgar didn’t detain him.

‘I’ll just have a look at that photograph you mentioned and then I’ll join you in the pub. Are you going to the Bath Arms?’

Bob looked at his feet. ‘We might be going somewhere else. Haven’t decided yet.’

From this, Edgar deduced that his company wasn’t welcome.

Edgar heard Bob clattering up the stairs, his shouted goodbyes to the night sergeant, then the door banging behind him. One by one, he heard the other officers leaving. Edgar sat in his subterranean office listening to the old building talking to itself, the water hissing in the tank, the floorboards sighing as they expanded and contracted. He thought of Bill and Jean in their little house, of Major Gormley tending his roses, of Diablo currently snoring on Edgar’s bed. Could Tony have known a secret about any of them? Tony, the expert on mind-games, Tony who took the greatest pleasure in bad news. What had been his last explosive truth?

Maybe it would help to look at the pictures in the Incident Room. Edgar walked quickly along the clammy corridors. The cells were in this part of the basement too. They were empty at the moment, but the little airless rooms always made his flesh creep. Really, it was true what Max said; he was temperamentally unsuited to being a policeman.

The Incident Room was deserted. One wall was a gruesome collage of photographs: the black boxes containing Ethel’s body, the cabinet with swords protruding, Ethel
herself, in glamorous film-star mode, Tony doing the gimlet-eyed stare Edgar remembered from his stage act. ‘I can see into your soul,’ Tony used to say. Edgar had laughed at the time, but now, turning his back to go through the incident log, he had the uncomfortable feeling that Tony was still staring at him. Why had Tony wanted to see him that day at one-fifteen? What news could he have about the Magic Men, that disparate group of individuals who singularly failed to make any mark on the progress of the war? But, whatever information Tony had, someone had killed to keep it a secret.

Edgar looked at the pictures again. Ethel, the beautiful showgirl, was pouting across at Tony. Had they known each other? It was certainly possible. Maybe there was a link there that they had overlooked. Maybe he should talk to Ethel’s husband again. He should certainly see Major Gormley again. The Major had lied about seeing Tony, even if only by omission. Why?

The ringing of the phone made him jump. Feeling ridiculous, he picked up the receiver. It was the night sergeant.

‘Call for you, Detective Inspector Stephens.’

It was Max.

‘Max. Hallo.’ He was ashamed how glad he was to hear another human voice.

‘Ed. I thought you’d be at work.’

‘It was the only way I could get away from Diablo.’

Max gave a short laugh. ‘Look, Ed. I have to be quick. I’m here with Bill.’

‘Bill?’

‘Yes. Bit of a surprise visitor. Anyway, he has some news. Apparently Tony had written to him.’

‘Tony wrote to Bill? When?’

‘A few days before he was killed. He asked Bill to meet him on Saturday at one-fifteen.’

‘What?’

‘Yes. Looks as if it was going to be rather a crowded little meeting.’

‘Did Tony say why he wanted to meet Bill?’

‘Said he had something to show him. Said it was important.’

Edgar digested this. Tony’s face glared down at him from the wall. Was there something mocking in that gaze?
I know something you don’t.

‘Why didn’t Bill come to me?’ he asked.

‘The letter said not to. You know Bill, always one for obeying orders.’

‘Do you think Tony wrote to anyone else?’

‘Bill thinks so. And we know there was someone in his room before he died.’

Edgar thought of the chair by the bed. Tony hadn’t been frightened of his visitor. Probably even when he was drinking the tea laced with atropa belladonna or deadly nightshade (traces had been found in one of the cups on the bedside table), he hadn’t been afraid. When had he started to guess? When his assailant had loomed over him, forced him to his feet, dragged him into the wardrobe? When the sword had shattered the flimsy wood, its blade shining like poison?

‘Who else could Tony have contacted?’ he asked.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘You didn’t get a letter then?’ Edgar hated himself for asking the question.

Max’s voice was icy. ‘You don’t think I would have mentioned it to you?’

‘Of course you would have. I’m sorry.’

There was a silence. In the room above, something – probably a mouse – scuttled across the floor.

‘I think I’ll go back to see the Major,’ said Edgar. ‘It’s a bit suspicious that he didn’t mention meeting Tony.’

‘You might try Bill again too,’ said Max. ‘He’s obviously holding something back, but I don’t know what.’ He didn’t offer to accompany Edgar on the visit.

‘Did you mention the photograph to Bill?’ asked Edgar. ‘The one with the face crossed out.’

‘No. I didn’t want to make him even more nervous.’

‘All the same,’ said Edgar slowly, ‘we ought to warn him. I haven’t seen the picture yet, but the implication was that we were being picked off one by one. Diablo should be safe, staying with me. What about you?’

‘Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.’

So could Tony, thought Edgar, but he knew better than to argue. Instead he said, ‘We need to find Ruby. I think she ought to be on her guard. After all, it’s possible that Ethel was killed because of the link to you.

Another silence and then Max said, ‘I told you I don’t have an address. She said her parents lived in Hove, but I never met them. She shared a flat with a girlfriend.’

‘And you had no idea where that was?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll get Bob to search the electoral roll.’

‘She’s not old enough to vote,’ said Max. ‘She’s only twenty.’ Then, ‘Christ, I hope she’s not in danger.’

‘I’m sure she’ll be fine,’ said Edgar, in the soothing tone that he used to the relatives of victims. It didn’t seem to work on Max, though. He rang off with the briefest of goodbyes.

Putting down the phone, Edgar turned back to the case file. There, filed neatly, was the letter that had arrived two days ago. The envelope was typed. Edgar made a note to check it against the address label on the box and against the letter from Hugh D. Nee requesting a Post Office box. He drew out the photograph. Even though he was prepared, it was still a shock to see their faces laughing up at him. Max, dark and handsome, cigarette in hand. Diablo in that ridiculous hat. The Major, parade-ground straight. Himself – God, Bob was right, he did look young, callow and innocent, one hand raised in a half-salute. Tony, his face almost completely erased by the heavily scored lines. And, at the edge of the picture … Edgar looked again, holding the image up to the light. The girl described by Bob as ‘quite pretty’ smiled back at him.

It wasn’t Charis. It was Jean.