Simon Brett - Cast in Order of Disappearance

‘And when he did one of these script-reading sessions, he used to cut himself off completely?’

‘Yes. Just switch on the Ansaphone.’

‘I see. So when did you last speak to him?’

‘Small hours of Sunday morning. At the Sex of One… party.’

‘Oh yes. A thousand performances. Ugh. Let’s continue their movements. Marius is in Streatley. Where’s Nigel, say on the Monday morning? Milton Buildings?’

‘No, he came in after lunch.’

‘Was that unusual?’

‘No. Particularly considering the late night we’d all had on the Saturday.’

‘Right. Incidentally, how was Marius at the party?’

‘In marvellous form-leaping around like a boy of twenty. Dancing with all the girls.’ The pride was evident in her voice.

‘Including you.’

‘Yes.’

‘You loved him, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know he was contemplating remarriage?’

‘I knew.’

‘Did you mind?’

‘Yes, but if it made him happy… If Marius wanted something there was no point in trying to stop his getting it.’

‘No.’ Her answers sounded perfectly honest. ‘Let’s continue our tracing movements. Which car did Nigel go down in on the Thursday?’

‘His own. The Interceptor. It was after that that he complained about the brakes to Morrison.’

‘Right. And then he goes down again in secret on the Saturday in the Datsun. The Datsun, the Datsun. You know there’s something at the back of my mind about that Datsun and I can’t think what it is.’ He looked round the room for inspiration. It was an untidy mess. Jacqui’s occupation hadn’t improved it; she wasn’t the sort of girl who immediately revolutionised a place and gave it a woman’s touch; she just spread her belongings over the widest possible area. A flouncy negligee and a pair of tights lay over one chair; the tiny television was perched on another; a soggy packet of frozen spinach lay beside the gas-ring; on the crumpled candlewick of the bed an Evening Standard was open at the entertainments’ page so she could decide which film to go and see.

A thought suddenly illuminated Charles’ brain like a flash of lightning. ‘That’s it. The Evening Standard.’

‘What?’ Joanne was left floundering as his mind raced on. Very clearly he saw himself standing in the BBC Club with Sherlock Forster and hearing the name of Marius Steen, the name that had come to dominate his life. When was that? It was a Monday. Yes, Monday the 3rd of December. After that terrible play. And what had the paper said? Something about Marius not using the Rolls, but sticking to the Datsun. Oh, if only he could remember the details.

There was one person who could help. Johnny Smart, who’d been at Oxford with him and edited one of the university magazines, landed what seemed then an amazing job on the Evening Standard. In the years since he’d sunk into alcoholic indifference in the same job, which at his present age was less amazing. With a murmured excuse to Joanne, Charles rushed to the telephone and rang the paper. Fortunately Johnny was still there-a stroke of luck considering that the pubs were open. In rather breathless fashion, Charles explained that he wanted to find out who researched and wrote an article about the petrol crisis in a late edition on Monday 3rd of December.

Johnny thought he could probably find out. It was bound to be one of the young reporters. Why didn’t Charles come down and join them at Mother Bunch’s? A lot would be down there at this time of night. He’d be there himself except that the newsroom was on sodding tenterhooks waiting to see if Heath would call a sodding snap election and they’d have to bring out a sodding slip edition. He’d be down in half an hour though.

Just as Charles put the phone down, Jacqui returned. She had been to see Enter the Dragon and started to tell him all about the code of kung fu as he hurried her upstairs. Joanne recognised Jacqui the moment the dark glasses came off and Charles felt the room temperature drop as the two women faced each other. Still, he hadn’t time to worry about that. Leaving strict instructions to Joanne to stay there at all costs and to both of them under no account to let anyone in, he hurried to the Cortina and set off for Fleet Street.

Reporters are proverbially heavy drinkers, and it took a few bottles of bonhomie with Johnny Smart before Charles could actually get down to the business for which he had come. He sat in the broad circle of young journalists in Mother Bunch’s Wine House and, with the rest of them, sank glass after glass of red wine. Eventually Johnny drew him to one side with a shock-haired young reporter who sported horn-rimmed glasses and a velvet bow-tie. His name was Keith Battrick-Jones. Charles explained his mission.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Keith Battrick-Jones. ‘Done a lot of stories since then. I don’t know if I can remember that far back. When was it?’

‘Monday 3rd December. Six, seven weeks ago. It was a sort of round-up of people’s reactions to the petrol crisis. Pictures and comments. There was Steen…’ The boy looked blank. ‘… and some footballer…’ Still blank. ‘… and a leggy girl on a bike-’

‘Oh shit. I remember. Yes. Crappy idea, wasn’t it? Somebody thought of it at an editorial conference, and Muggins here had to ring round all these celebrities to get comments. As usual, the interesting people told me to piss off, and I ended up with the same old circle of publicity seekers.’

‘Can you remember phoning Marius Steen?’

‘No, I don’t think I can. If it was Monday morning, I must have had a skinful the night before. No, I… oh, just a minute though. I remember. I rang through and I got some old berk being facetious on an Ansaphone. So I told the machine what it was about, and moved on to a golfer and one of the Black and White minstrels.’

‘But Steen did phone back?’

‘Yes. Made some fatuous comment about using the smaller car. Well, we’d got a library picture of him, so we put it in.’

‘And you are sure it was Marius Steen himself who spoke to you?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never met the bloke.’

‘Was it the same voice as the one on the Ansaphone?’

‘Oh no. It was much more cultured. And younger.’

Simon Brett

Cast in Order of Disappearance

The Broker’s Men

CHARLES HAD A lot of wine inside him as he drove along the Strand on his way back, but he was thinking with extraordinary clarity. Suddenly Nigel had two secret trips to Streatley to explain, not one. If he had been at the Sex of One… party, he must have driven down some time between the small hours of the Sunday morning and when he rang Keith Battrick-Jones on the Monday morning. That was, of course, assuming that he had gone down on his own. It was possible that he had been in the Rolls with his father on the Sunday night.

If that were the case, and Charles’ other conjecture was correct, he must have witnessed Marius shooting Bill Sweet on the roadside at Theale. That might well explain the twitchiness which Joanne had noticed during the ensuing week. Possibly Nigel had shot Bill Sweet himself? But no, that was nonsense. He had nothing to do with the Sally Nash affair, and the Sweets represented no threat to him. If anyone had committed murder on the lonely turnoff from the M4, it must have been Marius.

At Hyde Park Corner, a taxi travelling from Knightsbridge suddenly cut across the front of the Cortina and Charles had to slam on all his brakes. The shock jarred every bone in his body and he felt as if he was about to pass out. There was nothing else coming. He swung the car across the yellow line and stopped by the marble colonnade at the roadside. His body was in agony. Slowly the total blinding pain broke down into individual centres of hurt. First there was his arm, with its bone bruised by the bullet. That pain seemed to swell and swamp the others. Then there were the bruises on his knees and elbows that he’d received from the fall over the trip-wire at Jacqui’s. And then, lower down the league of pain, there was the dull ache of an old bruise on his ankle.