Simon Brett - An Amateur Corpse

‘I… I won’t tell you.’

‘You tell him.’ A new voice came into the room, harsh and electronic. It was Ian Compton on the talkback from the control room. He must have had Diccon’s microphone up and been listening to their conversation for some time.

Diccon turned towards his friend behind the glass screen and shouted, ‘No!’

‘All right then, I’ll tell him.’

‘NO!’ Diccon Hudson rose and ran out of the screens towards the glass as if he could somehow smother Ian’s speech.

But the talkback talked on inexorably. ‘Diccon was with me. We went together to a club called The Cottage, which you may know is a resort of homosexuals or gays as we prefer to call them. We went there because we are both gay.’

‘No,’ muttered Diccon, tears pouring down his face.

‘For some reason, Charles, as you see, Diccon does not like to admit this fact in public. God knows why. He’s only discovered his real nature recently and still tries to put up a straight front. That’s why he lunches all these pretty little actresses, like Charlotte Mecken — to maintain the image of the great stud. Which is in fact far from the truth.’

Diccon Hudson found his voice again. ‘Shut up,’ he said feebly.

Charles decided it was time for him to go. He didn’t want to get into a marital squabble and he didn’t think much more useful information was likely to be forthcoming. ‘I’m sorry to have caused a scene. Thank you for telling me all you have. It’s going to help me clear Hugo.’

‘Clear Hugo?’ Diccon repeated in amazement. ‘You can’t still think that I — ’

‘No, not you.’

But something that Diccon had said had released a block in Charles’s mind and he was now certain who had killed Charlotte and how.

The next day he was going to confront that person.

Charles felt certain that the person he wanted to see would be at Breckton Magistrates’ Court the next morning.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when the little group came out of the main entrance. Geoffrey was in the middle with Vee, and they were flanked by Denis and Mary Hobbs. A man in a pin-striped suit, presumably the Hobbses’ solicitor, followed slightly behind. The atmosphere was more celebration of the return of a conquering hero than the release on bail of a man accused of petty theft from a friend.

Charles went forward to meet them. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Geoff. Vee inadvertently told me what had happened.’

‘That’s all right. Thanks for coming.’ Geoffrey wore a mask of relaxed affability. ‘I suppose everyone will know soon.’

‘Yes, but it’ll blow over pretty quickly,’ asserted Denis Hobbs. ‘Don’t you reckon, Willy?’

‘We live in hope,’ the solicitor replied smugly. Charles wondered whether smugness was something that all solicitors have to take on when they’re articled in a sort of primitive ceremony like a circumcision rite.

‘Anyway, don’t let’s talk about it,’ said Denis. ‘Charles, we’re all going out to lunch — how’d you like to join us? We’re going to put all this behind us and think of the future. I hadn’t realized how badly things were going with poor Geoff. But I think over lunch we might have a bit of a discussion about one or two openings there might be for architects in my business.’

He looked to Mary for approval. She smiled and he glowed visibly. So that was it. Not only was Geoffrey going to be forgiven for his crime; he was also going to get a new job to sort out his financial problems. Mary Hobbs loved being in the Lady Bountiful position, using her husband’s money and influence to share a little of the reflection of Geoffrey’s talent. And to gain power over him.

Charles declined the lunch invitation with thanks, but said he’d walk along with them a little way.

He fell into step beside his quarry. ‘I wonder if we could have a chat at some point. Something I’d like to discuss.’

‘Certainly. How about this afternoon? I’ll be at home when we get back from this lunch.’

‘Okay, fine.’

‘About three.’

Charles nodded. It had all been very casual, but they both knew it was a confrontation.

The house was empty but for the two of them.

‘Well, Charles, what can I do for you?’

No point in beating around the bush with social pleasantries. It had to be direct. ‘I know how you did it.’

‘Did what?’

‘Killed Charlotte.’

‘Ah.’ Charles had to admire the other’s control. Even total innocence should have given more reaction. ‘So that’s what it is, is it? All right, intrigue me, tell me how I did it.’

‘It was a very carefully worked out plan. A work of genius, one might say.’

‘I’m touched by the compliment, but I think it may be misapplied. Incidentally, before you tell me how I committed this crime, would you be so good as to tell me why I did it?’

‘You did it, Geoffrey, because Charlotte told you she was pregnant and as a good Catholic she said she wouldn’t have an abortion. So you had to get rid of her out of loyalty to Vee. She was coming to see Vee the day after she died. She’d fixed it by phone. You couldn’t risk Vee finding out about the pregnancy. It would have destroyed your marriage.’

Geoffrey left a pause before he responded. Maybe it was in reaction to what he had heard, but when he came back, his voice was as firm as ever. ‘I see. So that’s why I did it. Now perhaps you will continue with telling me how I did it.’

‘Right. Last Monday night, after we parted at the main road, you went home. Vee wanted to watch I, Claudius, as you knew she would. As soon as it had started, you put on a previously prepared cassette of yourself doing the lines for The Winter’s Tale, then left this room by the balcony. You walked briskly along the path at the back, over the main road and — ’

‘Look, I hate to break in on this magnificent piece of deduction, but I would just like to congratulate you and say you’re absolutely right. Except in one detail. I did all this, but the crime which I committed in the time thus gained was not Charlotte’s murder, but the theft from Denis and Mary for which I appeared in court this morning.’

‘If you will wait a moment, Geoffrey, I was coming to that. This is where your plan was so clever, because it involved a double alibi. If anyone worked out the cassette dodge, then you had a second line of defence that during the relevant time you were doing the robbery. On Friday you thought I was on to the cassette — in fact, you flattered me, I hadn’t quite got there by then — but that was sufficient to frighten you into implementing your second plan, getting rid of the stolen jewellery in such an amateur manner that you knew it was only a matter of time before the police arrested you.’

‘I see.’ Geoffrey’s voice was heavy with irony. ‘So, according to the Charles Paris theory, in the time I had at my disposal, I stole the jewellery and strangled Charlotte in two different houses half a mile apart. Hmm. You obviously have a very high opinion of the speed at which I work.’

‘No, I haven’t finished the Charles Paris theory. What I am saying is that you didn’t do the robbery.’

‘Oh, I see. Magic, was it? The jewellery suddenly appeared in my pocket. Or maybe I had a leprechaun as a henchman and he spirited the stuff away. Was that it?’

‘No. You did the robbery, but you didn’t do it on the Monday evening.’

‘But that’s when it was done. That’s when Bob Chubb saw the light in the Hobbses’ house, that’s when the police came and found it had been done.’

Charles shook his head slowly. ‘All you did on the Monday night was to break the window, open the catch and leave the switched-on torch on the window sill, so that Bob Chubb or whoever else happened to pass couldn’t fail to see it. You’d actually taken the valuables on the previous Wednesday evening when you’d been round at the house. You’d put a lot of planning into the thing. You’d suggested the game of charades at the Hobbses’ and while you were upstairs dressing up as Margaret Thatcher in Mary Hobbses’ clothes, you helped yourself to the jewellery.