TP Fielden - A Quarter Past Dead

‘If it had her relatives in it.’

‘Ah yes.’

‘Did you look inside it?’

‘No.’

That appeared to have exhausted the extent of Mr Baggs’ knowledge and there seemed little left to say. He eyed Judy’s unfinished glass with interest as she gathered up her notebook and prepared her departure.

‘Mr Bunton – where can I find him?’

‘He’ll be with Fluffles, I expect.’

Judy turned at the door. Writing that Page One lead on Fluffles being thrown out of the Marine Hotel seemed a lifetime ago. Was it really only an hour?

‘I suppose you know about that incident in the Marine?’

Mr Baggs had got up, wandered over, and absently helped himself to her glass. The action appeared to ease a momentary stress in his features.

‘Par for the course,’ he said, serene again. ‘Fluffles likes her presence to be felt.’

‘What actually happened?’ It’s amazing how you can write a newspaper story and appear to know so much when actually all you’ve done is thrown some random facts together at top speed and crashed them out on your Remington.

‘Well, you know Bobby and that stuffed-shirt Radipole are at loggerheads.’

‘Evidently.’

‘Yers, well, when we opened up the camp here last year, Bobby went out of his way to be nice to him – sent a bottle of champagne, wrote and offered him a free holiday, even. That man is such a snob he didn’t even bother to answer.

‘Now Bobby don’t give up easily. So he started going into the Primrose Bar when he come down here, just to make friends like. That seemed to work OK – they didn’t mind taking his money, and Bobby can splash it around when he wants.’

‘Mr Radipole, I seem to remember, tried very hard to stop Buntorama opening.’

‘Nothing he could do. He may run a stuck-up hotel with fancy customers and write-ups in all the glossy magazines, but Bobby has given more pleasure to more people than that stuffed-shirt could ever dream of. Eight million workers – eight million – spend all year waiting for their annual holiday, Miss Dimmum, and we give ’em the best they could wish for. Not just some lousy cocktail in a glass – we give ’em the works!’

‘You were talking about Fluffles.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Baggs, nodding happily. ‘She’s a one!’

‘I thought Mr Bunton was married.’

‘Several times, ha ha! But this is one’s different – she’s gorgeous, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t think I’ve…’

‘You should, you should! Like a film-star, only she’s never been in films. I guess she’s just famous for being famous.’

‘Or because of the famous people she’s been photographed with.’

‘Well, think how much nicer they look in the paper when they’ve got Fluffles by their side – I mean, that figure ! Those curves ! And every man loves a platinum blonde!’

I can certainly think of one, thought Miss D. And look what he did to poor Betty…

‘Only sometimes she gets a little excitable after a drinkie or two. And she always wears those high high heels which she falls off.’

‘I was told her clothes were torn.’

‘Well,’ said Baggs, enjoying himself now, ‘she likes her dresses so tight she’s been known to be sewn into ’em – oh, she’s the one! – and you can guess what happened. A drink too many, a little arse-over-tip, her dress splits, she bashes her nose – hey presto!’

‘So nobody manhandled her? Roughed her up? Kicked her out of the hotel?’

‘Not likely, not her. Self-inflicted wounds, I’d say.’

Thank heavens that woman died in Curzon Street, she thought selfishly, and the Fluffles story got pulled as a result. The editor does hate a complaint.

THREE

‘We’re supposed to be in this together , Terry. Thanks so much!’

It was next morning and the dust kicked up by the sparkplug incident had yet to settle – or was it the heaven-raised eyes that had done the damage? Either way, the pair greeted each other with the bare minimum of civility.

Normally Friday was a day for writing up expenses, sending off letters to loved ones, planning holidays or phoning distant mothers, for the editor rarely put in an appearance until after lunch. But this was no ordinary Friday – the murder at Buntorama had changed everything.

‘Better get over there,’ said Judy. Terry looked unconvinced, he had plans to strip down his Leica and do something unfathomable with it.

‘Bobby Bunton,’ insisted Judy. ‘The man Baggs told me he was coming down to visit the camp today, we should try for an interview. I want to get some words out of him before Fleet Street comes nosing around. Get to the bottom of him and Miss Janetti being chucked out of the Marine at the same time.’

‘Yeah, but I’ve just got the new A-36 Infra-red filter.’

‘Many congratulations, Terry.’

‘That’ll take me all morning to get sorted.’

‘Not now it won’t.’

‘You don’t know what it can do. Why, I guarantee…’

‘For heaven’s sake, Terry, toys for boys!’

Terry looked at her steadily. This was, after all, the reporter who nearly missed the scoop last night. The arch of his shoulder against the library counter inferred the superiority he felt this morning, but Miss Dimont knew her man.

She tossed out the bait.

‘You always wanted to meet Fluffles, you told me so.’

This altered things. ‘I could try out the Tri X!’

‘Oh, do shut up about the Tri X,’ said Judy. ‘Let’s just get over there.’

The Marine Hotel was all its rival, the Grand, was not. The Grand looked like a cake whipped up by an excitable Italian pastry-chef, smothered in icing and promising a sweet interior. Its colonnaded halls and fussy décor appealed to the traditionalist, and it was true that in its time it had attracted more than its share of the rich and famous.

After all, when the celebrated actor Gerald Hennessy decided to grace Temple Regis with his glorious presence, hadn’t he chosen the Grand as his watering-hole of choice? It was a shame he had to get murdered before he could set foot in the place, but as a result of his unexpected demise the Grand’s public profile took a significant upswing when his wife, Prudence Aubrey, came to stay instead, trailing behind her widow’s weeds the assembled multitude of Fleet Street’s finest.

And then, to top it all, it had emerged that Marion Lake – the Marion Lake! – turned out to be Hennessy’s secret love-child. And she was staying at the Grand as well! No wonder the iced cake looked down on its smoother rival, the Marine.

The Marine didn’t care. An art deco edifice of immensely elegant proportions, it looked like an ocean liner. Its rectilinear windows were painted a seafoam green, as snooty a colour as you will see anywhere, its vast entrance hall was dotted with sculpture which may or may not have been by Henry Moore. Its staff wore boxy clothes and angular haircuts which made them look as though they’d stepped out of a portrait by Tamara de Lempicka, and if you asked for a cocktail it came in a triangular glass.

Its clientele were urbane sophisticates and, not to put too fine a point on it, rich. They didn’t mind paying 5/6d for a pot of tea when you could get the same in Lovely Mary’s for 1/3d, and as for the price of a bottle of Moët & Chandon!

Despite the discarded front-page splash detailing the ejection of Bobby Bunton and his companion from the Primrose Bar, Judy guessed the King of Holiday Camps would be back for a drink sooner or later.

‘The man has never allowed anybody to dictate anything to him, any time, ever,’ she said to Terry. They were trundling in the Minor out past Ruggles Point, the stately piece of headland from which the Marine stared imperiously back at the lesser folk of Temple Regis.