Simon Brett - Cast in Order of Disappearance

But he had reached a pitch where he couldn’t give up. He stumbled round the side of the house, through the flower beds, feeling the windows. All were tightly locked.

Round the back of the bungalow he was suddenly aware of the slow wash of water at the end of the lawn. There was no other sound and no light was visible on this elevation. But he knew Marius Steen was inside.

There was a small door which corresponded with the back of the garage. He walked up a crazy-paving path and tried the handle. Braced for a shove he nearly overbalanced when the door gave inwards.

It was very dark. He blinked, trying to accustom his eyes to the change, but still couldn’t see much. There were no windows and only a trickle of light came in through the door behind him. From what he could see, it illuminated a pile of boxes. Perhaps he was in some sort of store-room rather than the garage. He moved slowly forward, groping ahead with a breast-stroke motion.

But discretion was difficult in his alcoholic state. There was some thing in the way of his foot, then an object with a sharp edge fell agonisingly on to his ankle. Whatever it was precipitated an avalanche of other objects which thundered down around him as Charles fell sprawling to the ground.

He lay frozen, waiting for some reaction, but there was nothing. It was only his tense state that made the crash sound so loud. Gingerly he reached forward, found a wall and levered himself up against it. Then he felt along to a door frame and followed its outline until he found a light-switch.

The sudden glare was blinding, but when he unscrewed his eyes, he could see he was in a kind of windowless utility room. There was a washing machine, a spin dryer, a washing-up machine, a deep-freeze and rows of neatly hanging brooms and mops. Above these was a cluster of meters, fuse-boxes and power-switches. Deep shelves on the opposite wall contained boxes of tinned food and crates of spirits. There was a spreading honeycomb of a wine-rack, full and expensive-looking.

And on the floor Charles could see what had caused his fall. A pile of boxes lay scattered like a demolished chimney. He knelt down and re-piled them. They were heavy, as he knew from the numbing pain in his shin. He looked at the writing on the boxes. ‘Salmon’, ‘Trout’, ‘Strawberries.’ ‘Do not refreeze.’ Marius Steen certainly knew how to live.

When he had finished piling the boxes up, Charles looked once more round the room and his eyes lighted on the very thing he needed at that moment-a torch. It was a long, black, rubber-encased one, hanging from a hook by the back door. He took it down, switched on, turned off the light and opened the door into the rest of the house.

He was in the garage. It was large, but dominated by the huge form of a dark blue Rolls-Royce. Remembering a detail with sudden clarity, Charles knelt down and looked at the left-hand side of the front bumper. There was a little dent, which he’d lay any money corresponded to the dent in the back right-hand wing of Bill Sweet’s Ford Escort. The door of the Rolls was not locked. Key in the ignition, nothing in the glove compartment and the petrol gauge read empty.

Charles moved round the great car, looking for any other clues it might give. He felt his foot slip under him and sat down with a jarring shock, landing uncomfortably on a spanner and a piece of plastic tubing. Fate seemed determined to translate his dramatic mission into slapstick.

He found the door which led to the body of the house. Along a corridor and into the large hall. All the walls were hung with hunting prints which were anonymously expensive, bought on advice by a man without natural taste. Two enormous china Dalmatians stood guarding the front door. They seemed to reflect more of their owner’s personality. They were Steen the showman; the prints were Steen the man who wanted to gatecrash high society, the man who wanted a knighthood.

There were no lights in evidence, except for a slight glow from the top of a short flight of steps, which must lead to a room above the garage. The room whose light Charles had seen from the front.

He moved purposefully up the stairs and began to feel faint. The drink was telling; he felt his energy wane. He had to get the interview over quickly.

The first room he came to was a kind of study, equipped with telephones, typewriters, and copying machines. The walls were covered with framed photographs of stars from Marius Steen’s shows, scribbled with effusive messages. It was a sentimental showbiz touch that again didn’t fit the man’s character. What he felt was wanted, rather than what he wanted. Bernard Walton’s face grinned patronisingly down from the wall.

The study was empty; the light came from the adjacent room. Charles switched off his torch with a dull click and moved towards the half-open door. Through its crack he could see a plush bedroom, dominated by a large four-poster bed. Curtains obscured his view, but the shape of the covers told him that the bed was occupied.

As he entered the room, exhaustion threatened to swamp him, but still he moved forward. Now, in the light of a bedside lamp, he could see Marius Steen lying back on the pillows asleep. The great beak of a nose, familiar from countless press photographs, rose out of the sheets like the dorsal fin of a shark. One large hand lay, palm upward, on the cover.

‘Wake him, tell him and go.’ Charles formulated his thoughts very simply with desperate concentration. He staggered forward to the bedside and stood there, swaying. As he reached for Steen’s hand, he heard a car drawing up outside the gates. He clutched at the hand in panic, and felt the coldness of death.

Charles woke as if his body was being dragged out of a deep pit, and memory returned slowly to his pounding head. He didn’t like it when it came. He could see Steen’s face in its pained repose, and felt certain that he was up against a case of murder.

He was lying in bed in Miles and Juliet’s spare room. Vague memories of getting there. The rush from Steen’s bedroom out through the garage and utility room, as he heard a car stopping on the gravel and footsteps approaching the garage door. Then he remembered skulking breathless behind the bungalow until the car was safely garaged, a rush through the gates, staggering along the road till a police car stopped, warnings-‘Had a few too many, haven’t you, sir? Still, won’t charge you this time. But watch it’ — and ignominious delivery on Miles and Juliet’s doorstep.

He heaved himself out of bed and limped downstairs. The bruise on his ankle was cripplingly painful and he felt his forty-seven years. Too old to be involved in this escalating round of violence.

Juliet stood staring at him as he made it to the kitchen chair. She appeared not to have inherited Frances’ forgiving nature. ‘Really, Daddy, what a state to come home in.’

‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘Miles was furious.’

‘Oh well.’ There were more important things than Miles’ sensibilities.

‘I mean, the police coming here. What will other people on the estate think?’

‘You can tell them the police weren’t coming for you or Miles.’

‘They wouldn’t think that!’

‘Miles can tell them it’s just his drunken father-in-law.’

‘I don’t think they’d find that very amusing.’ She turned away to make coffee. ‘Honestly, Daddy, I don’t think you have any concept of human dignity.’

That hurt. ‘Listen, Juliet darling. I think I probably have more knowledge of the really important things that give a person dignity than…’ But it wasn’t worth explaining; she wouldn’t understand. ‘Oh, forget it. Shouldn’t you be at work?’

‘I’m not going in till after lunch. There’s not much to do and