Simon Brett - Cast in Order of Disappearance

‘It’s Jacqui.’ Her voice was excited again, bubbling. ‘Charles, I’ve been to the police.’

‘What?’

‘About Nigel. I went to Scotland Yard this morning and saw an Inspector and told him all about our suspicions, and about how we knew Nigel had been down at Streatley that Saturday-’

‘I hope you didn’t tell him how we found out.’

‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t mention you at all.’

‘Thank God for that.’

‘Anyway, the Inspector said it all sounded very suspicious and he’s going to authorise an aupopsy-’

‘Autopsy.’

‘Yes. Anyway, he’s getting an order to have Marius exhumed and check the cause of death. He took everything I said very seriously.’ The last sentence was pronounced with pride. There was a pause; she was waiting for him to react. ‘Well, what do you think, Charles?’

‘I don’t know. In a way, I think it’s asking for trouble…’

‘Oh, Charles, we’ve got to know whether or not Marius was murdered.’

‘Have we? It’s all sorted out. The baby’s being looked after …’

‘Charles, do you mean that?’

‘No.’

‘We’ve got to know.’

‘Yes. When’s the exhumation to be?’

‘Quite soon. Probably next Monday.’

‘And when will the results be known?’

‘End of next week. There should be an inquest on Friday.’

‘You realise that, by doing this, you have virtually made a public accusation of murder against Nigel?’

‘Yes. And that is exactly what I meant to do.’

Ten days passed. In America, with the tide of Watergate rising around him, President Nixon celebrated his sixty-first birthday. In England wild storms swept the country, and commuters were infuriated and inconvenienced by the ASLEF dispute. Housewives started panic buying of toilet rolls. And in a churchyard in Goring, the body of Marius Steen was moved from its grave after a stay of only four short weeks. Then it was opened up and samples of its organs were taken and analysed.

All of these events, international and domestic, seemed unreal to Charles. Since sobering up after Christmas he had degenerated into a deep depression. Inactivity and introspection left him lethargic and uninterested in anything. His usual solutions to the problem-drink and sex-were ineffectual. He drank heavily, but it gave him no elation, merely intensified his mood. And his self-despite was so strong that he knew reviving an old flame or chasing some young actress would only aggravate it. He tried to write, but couldn’t concentrate. Instead he sat in his room, his mind detached, looking down on his body and despising what it saw. Forty-seven years old, creatively and emotionally sterile. He thought of going to see Frances, but didn’t feel worthy of her warmth and eternal forgiveness. She had sent him four stout dependable Marks and Spencer shirts for Christmas, nursing him like a mother who respects her child’s independence. He’d sent her Iris Murdoch’s latest novel. In hardback, which he knew she’d think an unnecessary extravagance.

His only comfort was that the following Monday he was to start filming The Zombie Walks. Though he didn’t view the prospect with any sort of enthusiasm (he’d been sent a script, but hadn’t bothered to read it) he knew that activity of some sort, something he had to do, was always better than nothing. Eventually, if enough kept happening, the mood would lift without his noticing its departure and he would hardly remember the self-destructive self that went with it.

But as he walked through the dim streets of London to Archer Street on the Friday evening, the mood was still with him. He felt remote, viewing himself as a third person. And he had a sense of gloom about the findings of the inquest.

When Jacqui opened the door of her flat, he knew from her face that his forebodings had been justified. She was silent until he’d sat down. Then she handed him a glass of Southern Comfort and said, ‘Well that’s that.’

‘What?’

‘According to the coroner, Marius died of natural causes.’

‘A heart attack?’

‘They had some fancy medical term for it, but yes, that’s what they said.’

‘Well.’ Charles sighed. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Jacqui looked on the verge of tears, and, as usual, converted her emotion into a violent outburst. ‘Little Arsehole’s been clever, the sod. He must have given Marius an electric shock, or injected air into his veins, or-’

‘Jacqui, you’ve been watching too much television. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen. I’m afraid we have to accept the fact that Marius did die from natural causes, and that all our suspicions of Nigel have been slander, just based on dislike and nothing else.’

‘No, I don’t believe it.’

‘Jacqui, you’ve got to believe it. There’s nothing else you can do.’

‘Well, why did he go down to Streatley on the Saturday night, and make such a bloody secret of it?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps for the reasons he said. He was worried about his father, so he went down, they had a few drinks, then he came back to London.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, that won’t wash.’

‘Why not?’

‘He and Marius didn’t get on at the time. We know that from the new will and the letter to me and-’

‘Perhaps they had another reconciliation.’

‘Piss off, Charles. There’s something fishy and Nigel’s behind it. Marius was murdered.’

‘Jacqui, the most sophisticated forensic tests have proved that he wasn’t.’

‘Well, they’re wrong. They’re all bloody wrong. Nigel paid them off. He bribed them.’

‘Now you’re getting childish.’

‘I am not getting bloody childish! ‘Jacqui stood up and looked as if she was about to hit him. Charles didn’t respond and after a frozen pause, she collapsed into a chair and burst out crying. When he had calmed her, she announced very coolly. ‘I’m not going to stop, Charles. I’ll get him. From now on there’s a war between Nigel and me.’

‘Well, you certainly nailed your colours to the mast by setting up the post-mortem.’

‘Yes. And I’m going to win.’ Thereafter she didn’t mention anything about either of the Steens for the rest of the evening. She cooked another of her frozen meals (country rissoles) and Charles drank moderately (a rather vinegary Spanish Rioja). Then they watched the television. She had just bought (in anticipation of her legacy) a new Sony portable (‘I’ll be sitting about a lot when I get very big’). There wasn’t much on the box, but that night it was preferable to conversation. At ten-thirty, by Government orders, came the close-down. Charles rose and after a few mumbled words about thanks, and keeping in touch, and being cheerful, and seeing himself out, he left.

Jacqui’s flat was on the top floor and the bulb in the light on her landing had long since gone and not been replaced. As Charles moved forward to the familiar step, he felt his ankle caught, and his body, overbalancing, hurtled forward down the flight of stairs.

The noise brought Jacqui to the door and light spilled out over the scene. ‘Charles, are you all right? Are you drunk, or what?’

He slowly picked himself up. The flight was only about ten steps down to the next landing, and though he felt bruised all over, and shocked, nothing seemed to be broken. ‘No, I’m not drunk. Look.’

And he pointed up to the top step. Muzzily outlined in the light was a wire, tied tightly between the banisters on either side. It was about four inches above the step. Jacqui turned pale, and let out a little gasp of horror. ‘Good God. Were they trying to kill me?’

‘No!’ said Charles, as he leant, aching, against the wall at the foot of the flight. Suddenly he realised the flaw in the will Marius Steen had so hastily improvised in the South of France. ‘I don’t think it was you they wanted to kill. Just your baby.’