Simon Brett - So Much Blood

He reasoned with himself. All right, so say she had been having an affair with Willy Mariello. So what? Charles had no particular claim on her and, anyway, he never worried about a woman’s previous lovers; they didn’t concern him. Jealousy over something that was over was pointless. And a lover couldn’t be more over than Willy.

That was the worrying bit. Not that Anna had slept with the Scottish lout, but that he had been murdered. Again Charles reasoned with himself and calmed himself with thoughts that there might be no connection between the two facts. Indeed, they weren’t both definitive facts yet. And they could be investigated.

Yes, a bit of investigation would put his mind at rest. He plumped up his pillow and turned over. Anna’s breathing had a soporific rhythm. But he did not sleep.

The first part of the investigation to set his mind at rest was another call on Jean Mariello.

She opened the door and leaned against it uninvitingly. ‘What do you want? There’s nothing more I can tell you.’

‘Please, just a couple of questions. I think I’m on to something.’

‘Big deal. Listen, Mr Paris. I’m very busy packing. The only thing that interests me about Willy is how soon I can forget he ever existed. And I don’t want to play cops and robbers.’

‘Please give me five minutes.’

‘Oh…’ She hovered between shutting him out and letting him in. Then she drew back. ‘Five minutes.’ She looked at her watch.

Charles entered the hall and moved into the front room. Jean Mariello gained some of the satisfaction she would have got from slamming the door in his face by slamming it behind him. ‘Right. Ask.’

Charles looked round. There were suitcases and cardboard boxes brimful of belongings. In the corner household rubbish and decorating rubble was swept into a neat pile. ‘You’re going?’

‘Yes, the house is on the market. I’ll never come back here.’

‘You’re leaving Edinburgh?’

‘Yes. I’m moving in with a man in the folk group. In Newcastle.’

‘Won’t you miss it?’

‘Edinburgh, yes. This house I hope I never see again.’

‘It’s a nice enough house.’

‘Look, I never lived here. Willy only bought the place a few months ago. I’ve been on tour. The only times I ever saw it, it was covered with paint brushes or plaster dust or other evidence of Willy’s latest ideas of home decor. He had the knack of converting every place we lived in into a pigsty. He’d suddenly get sick of his surroundings and want to change it all-smother everything with paint, take down a door… and never finish the job. We got turned out of one flat after he decided to take down the partition between the bedroom and sitting-room. Living with Willy was not an experience that gave one a feeling of home. I feel nothing for this place.’

‘Oh well, it’s in reasonable condition. You should get a good price for it.’

She snorted contemptuously. ‘The building society should get a good price for it.’

‘Ah. Still, Willy…’

She shook her head. ‘Willy had no money. He spent everything he made with Puce, not that there was much left after all the agents and managers had taken their bites. There may be a few royalties to come, but they’ll go on the bank loan he got for the deposit on this place and the arrears on the mortgage.’

‘Arrears?’

‘Yes. Willy got the mortgage on the basis of his earnings last year and the assumption that that level of income would continue. Then the band split up and he had virtually nothing. I don’t think one single repayment has been made to the building society. Mind you,’ she added bitterly, ‘I only discover this when he’s dead and I have to go through his mail.’

‘So you’re not exactly a rich widow?’

He got a scornful ‘Huh’ for that. ‘Mr Paris, I can’t believe that you came here to talk homes and gardens and mortgages. And if you didn’t, your five minutes and my patience are running low.’

‘I’m sorry. But just before I ask what I really came for, tell me why Willy bought this house.’

‘It fitted the image of what he wanted to be. Saw himself as the great landowner, in his ancestral home in front of his blazing fire. The man of property, Willy, like all social upstarts, couldn’t wait to be rich enough to be Conservative. The Socialist pose, the sub-hippy world of rock music-that meant nothing to him really. It was only a stage he had to go through. He wanted to be stinking rich with servants to do everything for him. Trouble was, he was a bloody awful business man and couldn’t keep any money for more than five minutes.’

There was a pause. Jean Mariello looked at her watch and Charles realised he could not beat about the bush any longer. ‘I really wanted to ask you about Willy’s sex life.’

‘Oh. Well, of recent years I’m not really an expert on that.’

‘No. 1 wanted to know about another woman.’

‘I didn’t take a great deal of interest in his other women either.’

Charles ignored the rebuffs and ploughed on. ‘When he was in Derby-you know, he stayed after the band had played there-do you know if he had a girl then?’

‘I assume so. I can’t think he stayed for the scenery.’

‘He never mentioned a girl?’

‘No. We didn’t discuss our private lives.’ She glanced at her watch.

‘Do you know if he had a girl around recently? You know, in the week before he died?’

She laughed incredulously. ‘I wasn’t here much of the time. You know that. What do you want me to do-say if I found stains on the sheets or hairs on the pillow?’

‘Yes, if necessary.

That took her aback. She paused and then said in a softer voice. ‘All right then, I would say, from the evidence of dirty laundry, that Willy did commit yet another desecration of our marriage bed between the Friday when I left and the Tuesday when he was killed.’

‘Yes?’

She spoke slowly, as if unwillingly dredging her memory. ‘Oh yes, he’d had someone. Hairs on the pillow, all the old familiar signs.’

‘What colour hairs?’ asked Charles breathlessly.

‘Blonde.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Five minutes. Goodbye, Mr Paris. We won’t meet again.’

The audience for So Much Comic, So Much Blood was larger and they saw a competent performance by Charles Paris. There were some laughs, although the show had no more animation than a slot-machine. As Charles’ voice wove its way through Hood’s tortuous puns, his mind was elsewhere.

After the show, he gathered his possessions together for a quick exit. There was something important that had to be done before three o’clock.

The women’s wards in the Royal Infirmary off Lauriston Place are much the same as in other hospitals. The one Charles entered had the usual mixture of patients. An old lady stared ahead with liquid blue eyes, her long white hair radiating over the pillows. A plump bed-ridden blonde chattered to a morose husband. A homely housewife’s face still registered surprise at being hospitalised and half-listened to the sympathy of a lady in a hat. Screens hid one bed and prompted unhealthy thoughts. A thin, thin woman with shiny skin lay as still as her pillow. And, in the corner bed, was a young girl with her plastered left leg raised on a pulley.

Visiting ended in ten minutes; no time to waste. ‘Hello. Are you Lesley Petter?’

The girl looked up and acknowledged that she was. Brown hair, shrewd brown eyes, well-proportioned but unremarkable features. Hers was the sort of face that needed emotion to animate it; in repose it was ordinary.