Nicola Upson - An Expert in Murder

On the way out, they looked for their host to thank him but Stulik’s attention had already been diverted to another party, recently arrived and headed by a distinguished elderly gentleman around whom the proprietor clucked like a mother hen.

‘Look! It’s Sickert,’ exclaimed Lettice, less subtly than she could 103

have. ‘Thank God Lydia’s not here or he’d be all over us. I can’t believe she spent all that time alone with him. There’s something very shifty about him, don’t you think?’ she asked with a shiver.

Josephine glanced at the painter, who had recently completed an impressive portrait of Lydia as Queen Isabella of France, falling quite naturally under her spell as he did so. Try as she might, the finely cut, sensitive face and untidy white hair revealed to her none of the evil intent which seemed so obvious to Lettice. Before her friend could place London’s most celebrated artist at King’s Cross with something more lethal than a paintbrush in his hand, Josephine told her not to be so ridiculous and led the way purposefully to the door.

104

Eight

The telephone on the dark oak desk in Bernard Aubrey’s office rang at exactly seven o’clock. Wearily, he lifted the receiver halfway through the third peal, then brightened as the voice at the other end identified itself.

‘There’s really no need to explain,’ he said, cutting short the apologies with which the caller opened the conversation. ‘It’s very good of you to bother on Saturday night. Do you have what I’m looking for?’

He listened carefully as the woman on the other end gave a succinct but comprehensive response to his questions, his fingers idly tracing the outline of numbers which had been scribbled on the blotting pad in front of him during the last few days. ‘You’re sure about that?’ he asked when she stopped talking. ‘There’s no possibility of a mistake?’ Reassured by her certainty, he thanked her again and carefully replaced the handset. The whole conversation had lasted barely five minutes, but he had all the details he needed.

The only question now was how best to act on them.

Reaching for the bottle of whisky which always stood on his desk, Aubrey noticed how quickly its contents had dwindled. He had never been a heavy drinker, preferring the habitual comforts of tobacco and sufficiently aware of the toll that one addiction had taken on his health to know that the acquisition of another was unwise. But he had long since ceased to care about his own well-being, and the peat-filled warmth of the Scotch soothed him now, taking the edge off the cold that had hovered at the back of his eyes and throat since he awoke that morning and centring his thoughts on the evening ahead: he would get through the performance with-105

out allowing his anxiety to distract him, and he would speak to Josephine and Lydia after the show. His recent behaviour towards them both had been so out of character that he needed to make his peace; his fears, in all truth, were not their concern. He must promise Josephine that she would not have to endure again any of the unpleasantness which had plagued her introduction to theatre, that the madness which had begun with Vintner’s ludicrous allegations was a one-off occurrence. In any case, he knew instinctively that the distorted success of Bordeaux was unlikely to be repeated and certainly not by the play which was soon to go into rehearsal; Queen of Scots would do moderately well, but it lacked the charm of its predecessor and would, he was sure, have a looser grip on the public’s affections. Lydia would be more difficult to appease, simply because the shadow that he had cast over her future in a moment of unnecessary harshness was genuine: it was hard for an actress in her forties, even one as accomplished and versatile as she was, but they were friends and he would find a way to reassure her.

Then there was Hedley to consider. The boy had not come to see him after the show as he had been asked, but he did not think any less of him for that. In love for the first time, he was bound to act out of character but, like anyone who has been given an unexpected chance in life and is anxious to please, he learned his les-sons quickly and well: the reprimand he had already received seemed to have hit home, and there would be no need to refer to the subject again. In fact, he had wanted to make amends for his earlier anger by allowing Hedley to take his girl backstage, to show her the dressing rooms and let her walk on the stage with the lights full on; from what he had been told about her, he knew how much that would mean to Elspeth and how pleased Hedley would be to be able to offer it. Never mind – it could wait until next week; she was staying in London for several days. As far as he could see, the couple stood a good chance of making a go of it: neither was particularly used to excessive kindness or affection, but nor had they been trained to distrust it through those scarring acts of cruelty and betrayal. They were surprised when the love which they had seen in the picture houses and read about in magazines 106

happened to them, but not afraid to embrace it wholeheartedly and turn it into something uniquely theirs. Aubrey shuddered when, by contrast, he thought of the poor murdered girl in that train and the passions which the papers were speculatively blaming for her death. There was a lot to be said for a simple life, undistinguished by any extreme emotion. He would help Elspeth and Hedley in any way he could and that would give him a deeper satisfaction, he suspected, than any of the success he had enjoyed up to now, if only because they had never asked for it.

If he had known the weight of responsibility that would follow him through life, he would perhaps have chosen another path.

Most men were relied upon by a family and he had provided more than adequately for his, but financial support had proved the easiest to give. Every day at the theatre, and throughout those four long years underground, people had looked to him to make things different, to change their fortunes, to keep them alive; the cost of getting it wrong varied, of course, but the pressure was always there, the emphasis was always on him to provide what was missing, be it money, recognition or simply hope. And now, at sixty-five, he was exhausted, so exhausted that he longed to disappear altogether. Perhaps one day he would just give up and leave, but there was something he needed to do first and tomorrow, when he had the building to himself and his mind was more settled, he would consider the most appropriate path to his own redemption.

It had been a long time coming and it would be all too easy to snatch at it in sheer relief, but the stain of damage must not spread.

The innocent must not be made to suffer again.

He emptied the bottle and walked over to the bookcase, where a woman in a silver frame looked out at him from a backdrop of Bennett and Walpole. The picture had been taken forty years ago or more and, until death brought its miraculous peace, the face had aged in that time more starkly than he cared to admit, but this was how he always remembered her. ‘We’re nearly there,’ he said, raising his glass in acknowledgement of the silent pact that ran between them. ‘We’re nearly there.’

*

107

Hedley White stood across the road from the New Theatre in the rain, trying to understand how his world had fallen apart so quickly and knowing it was all his own fault. He had been there for an hour now, huddled against the iron gates that divided the courtyard of 66 St Martin’s Lane from the busy street beyond, and taking advantage of the shadows to watch the comings and goings opposite. Since mid-afternoon, people had been queuing along the draughty passage which ran down one side of the New but there had been no sign of impatience or bad humour, just excitement and the companionship that always characterises a crowd with a shared objective. The queue tailed back as far as he could see, following the passage round past stage door – where he had first set eyes on Elspeth – and on to Wyndham’s, eventually emerging into Charing Cross Road. All reservable seats were long gone, and had been since the play’s last few days had been announced, but hopefuls still turned out in force for the pit and gallery entrances and, even now, when the doors were thrown open and the lucky frontrunners admitted, there was no indication that the line was anything but infinite.