Simon Brett - So Much Blood

‘David Rizzio represents the ecological lobby who might argue against the exploitation of oil resources in favour of a more medieval economic structure. For that reason, he gets killed off pretty early.’ Sam chuckled at his own intellectual audacity.

It might be a tiny lever to shift the conversation and Charles seized it. ‘But not killed off as early as Willy Mariello was.’

‘No.’

Before Sam had time to relate the death to one of his allegories, Charles pressed on. ‘You must have been pretty cut up to hear about Willy.’

‘Shocked certainly. I mean one is always shocked to hear of a young person’s death; it’s a kind of suspension of continuity. And obviously there was a dramatic element in this particular event.’

‘But you must have felt this more. To lose a friend…’

‘I didn’t know Mariello that well.’

‘I thought it was through you that Willy came to be in this show in the first place.’

‘That’s true, but only indirectly. I suppose the suggestion that he should do the music came from me-I put it up to the D.U.D.S. committee-but that was on the recommendation of someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘A girl involved in the society suggested it. I thought it was a good idea, because, you know, he was a professional musician and into rock music and I, well, I’ve got a kind of basic musical knowledge, but really my talent lies with words. And certainly the settings Mariello did for my lyrics were infinitely superior to anything I could have done. He changed the odd word here and there and I had to pull him up on that, but basically it was great. Besides, I believe very strongly in people working together under a kind of creative umbrella unit.’

‘Why do you think the girl recommended Willy to you?’ Charles asked slowly.

‘Well, like I say, he was very good. And he’d been hanging round the Derby campus for a bit and apparently, after the group he was with split up, he wanted to try something different…’

‘And?’

‘Well, I kind of got the impression that there might be a kind of thing going on between him and this girl. They both played it pretty close to the chest, but I sort of got this feeling that they wouldn’t mind being involved in something together.’

‘Oh,’ said Charles, and then asked the question he had been putting off. ‘Who was this girl?’

‘A girl called Anna Duncan. She’s now playing Mary in my show. I don’t know if you know her.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Charles, ‘I know her.’

That evening he met James Milne back at Coates Gardens and found the Laird eager for another Dr Watson session. Charles had suddenly become unwilling to pursue the business of detection, but he could not avoid a cosy chat over malt whisky.

Sherlock Holmes was always way ahead of Dr Watson in his deductions, but he rarely actually withheld information from his sidekick. Charles Paris did. There were things he wanted to be sure of, half-formed ideas that could not be shared until they had hardened into facts.

They talked mostly about Martin Warburton. Charles told of his long tracking expeditions and the discovery of Martin’s second identity.

‘But surely that makes him our number one suspect?’

‘I suppose so.’ Charles hoped he sounded convinced.

‘It’s fairly bizarre behaviour.’

‘Yes, I agree. Certainly Martin is in a very strange mental state. He’s all mixed up and he has some violent fantasies. I think he’s probably suffering from overwork-you know, just taken finals-but that doesn’t make him a murderer. His disguise may be for criminal purposes, or it may just be that he needs to escape into another identity.’

‘Hmm. That sounds like psychological claptrap to me.’

‘You don’t subscribe to a psychological approach to crime?’

‘I dare say it’s very useful in certain cases, but I think it’s often used to fog perfectly straightforward issues. Every action has some sort of motive, and I’m sure that Martin Warburton has a real motive for dressing up as someone else.’

‘And you don’t regard an inadequacy in his personality as a real motive?’

‘I regard it as a formula of words. A motive is theft or blackmail, that sort of thing. Revenge even.’

‘But Martin might take on another identity because there’s something in his own that he can’t come to terms with.’

‘I don’t really know what you’re talking about.’

It was so easy for the Laird, insulated from life in his library, just as he had been insulated with his mother at Glenloan House and insulated in the staffroom at Kilbruce School. Because he had never encountered any unpleasant realities, he assumed they did not exist. Or if they did, they were simple things that could be cut up like sheets of paper, not made of material that frayed and tore and could never be properly divided.

‘But, James, come off it. When we last spoke you were talking of an obsessional killer, someone for whom the Mary, Queen of Scots story had a macabre significance.’

‘I didn’t quite say that.’

‘You were moving in that direction. And an obsessional killer hasn’t got one of your nice neatly defined motives like theft or blackmail or revenge.

‘Yes, he has. The very obsession is the motive. It’s not a sane motive, but it’s real to the murderer.’

‘Therefore you’ve got to understand the psychology of the murderer.’ Charles felt that it was a mild triumph.

‘Yes, but the process is simple. Assume an inverted logic, and the motivation makes sense. You don’t have to delve into inadequacies of personality and compensation and all that humbug.’

‘I don’t think we’re going to agree on this point.’ Charles was beginning to lose the little interest he had in their discussion. His mind was elsewhere, and not enjoying the trip. But he felt he should simulate some concern. ‘So if Martin, say, is an obsessional killer, what do you reckon is the motive for his walking round the city of Edinburgh in disguise?’

‘It must be something to do with the planning of his next crime.’

‘I see.’ Charles tried not to sound contemptuous. ‘So what do you think we should do about it?’

‘I think we should keep a close eye on him.’

‘Yes, fine. I must go.’ He rose with almost rude abruptness. ‘I’ve got to… um… go.’ He could not think of a polite excuse. He could not think of anything except the ordeal ahead of him. The ordeal of seeing Anna.

When it came, it was not really an ordeal. She arrived, flushed and excited after the revue. There had been a B.B.C. producer in the audience who (according to Brian Cassells, who had buttonholed the poor man departing and forced an opinion out of him) had liked Anna’s performance. She was very giggly and charming as she described Brian’s earnest relaying of the news and imagined his clumsy handling of the encounter. Charles warmed to her in spite of himself.

But he felt detached because of the tiny infection of suspicion inside him. He kept wanting to ask her about Willy, to know if they had had an affair and, by doing so, cauterise the wound before it spread to dangerous proportions. But he could not do it. Not when she was so lovely. It would spoil everything.

They drank some port that Anna had bought and giggled into bed. And they made love. As good as ever, tender, synchronised, good. Except that Charles felt he was watching the two of them like a picture on the wall. Immediately after, they switched off the light and Anna, who was exhausted by Mary rehearsals and the revue, slipped easily into sleep.

Charles did not. He felt better for having seen her; his imagination could not run riot while she was actually there. But the doubt remained. He wanted to excise it, cut it out of his mind. The only way to do that was to ask her point-blank. But he knew he couldn’t. Not to her face. He contemplated ringing her up, even ringing her up in a different identity, pretending to be a policeman or… No, that was stupid.