A Thing of Blood (7 page)

Clutterbuck selected a shirt. He pulled out a narrow drawer, not unlike a map drawer which was segmented into many small compartments so that it resembled a specimen case of some kind. In each wooden square a single pair of socks rested. He selected a pair. The drawer beneath was pulled out, and from it he retrieved a pair of underpants, each of which, like the socks, occupied a single square. I wasn’t sure if it was admirable or disturbing that someone would go to so much trouble to curtail the disorderly tendencies of socks and underwear.

‘The trousers,’ he said, ‘are in the other wardrobe.’

A wardrobe of identical design stood on the opposite side of the bedroom. He crossed to it and chose trousers from the rack within. He draped all of these items onto a chair, took off his vest and stepped out of his underwear. I wasn’t in the least perturbed by his lack of modesty. As an actor, I had abandoned my own a long time ago. There is no room for coyness when quick changes have to be made in cramped wings.

Clutterbuck went into the bathroom, turned off the tap and climbed into the tub.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘Tell me what happened.’

I sat in a comfortable armchair in his bedroom and called through the half-opened bathroom door.

‘Your former wife arrived just when you said she would and she met a man there. Well dressed. Well heeled, I’d say. Moustache. About forty-two or forty-three. They went to a café called the Petrushka.’

‘I know it,’ he said. ‘Commies, queers and Jews go there,’ and he gave each word an equal weighting of contempt. The venom in his voice made my heart sink. Was Clutterbuck some sort of fascist? Had I foolishly moved in with a black shirt? A sudden burst of laughter from Clutterbuck assuaged my fears somewhat. Perhaps he hadn’t been serious, but had wanted to shock me, to test my response to his remarks.

‘Not a salubrious place for a tryst,’ he said.

‘They went to the Menzies Hotel after that, and took a room. They’re there under the name of Mr and Mrs Cunningham.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘But that’s not six pounds worth, is it? I want you to find out who this Cunningham is. Has he got a wife? That sort of thing.’

A bitter little acid drop of bile rose to my throat. Was Clutterbuck planning on blackmailing this man? I walked to the bathroom door and leaned against the jamb. Clutterbuck had a washer across his eyes and didn’t see me.

‘This isn’t about blackmail, is it?’ I asked.

He didn’t flinch at the sudden closeness of my voice, but took the washer away from his eyes.

‘No, Will,’ he said. ‘This isn’t about blackmail. It most certainly is not. I’m in no position to blackmail other people about their sex lives, and when I get dressed we’ll have a drink and I’ll tell you why. I’ll see you downstairs in ten minutes.’

As he was paying me I suppose he had a right to dismiss me in this way, but I didn’t like it.

When Clutterbuck joined me in the living room the first thing he did was apologise.

‘I’m sorry if I sounded officious,’ he said. ‘I’m told it’s one of my least attractive qualities.’

Then he smiled, confident that his charm would be sufficient to repair my opinion of him. After the first, large single malt, I was reassured, but I now knew I would have to remain wary of Paul Clutterbuck.

‘While you were out tracking Anna and this Cunningham,’ he said, ‘I was having lunch at the Melbourne Club. I’m not a member. I was a guest. My fiancée’s father is a member.’

‘Gretel’s father is a member of the Melbourne Club?’

I was surprised in spite of myself. Clutterbuck looked at me for a moment, then produced a sputter that escalated into a laugh.

‘I’m not sure Gretel even knows who her father is but, whoever he is, I’m sure the closest he’s ever come to being a pillar of the community is in propping up a bar somewhere. No, Will, Gretel Beech isn’t my fiancée. That honour goes to Miss Nigella Fowler. Her father is big in banking; I’m not sure what he does exactly, but whatever it is he makes a lot of money out of it, and his daughter is keen on me. I’m certainly keen to marry her. My funds aren’t what they were before the war. So you see, Will, I’m in no position to blackmail anybody. My former wife knows about my little dalliances, and I don’t want to give her any reason to start blathering about them. Fowler isn’t entirely happy as it is with the fact that I’m divorced. If word got back to him about anything else, there’d be no wedding, I can assure you. And I’ll tell you quite frankly, Will, that this is all about money, not love — not on my side anyway. As far as I’m concerned this is a financial arrangement, and I fully intend to fulfil all statutory requirements in relation to sex and procreation. Nigella is not unattractive, and it will be no sacrifice to consummate our union when the time comes. Are you appalled?’

I couldn’t make up my mind whether there was something admirable about Clutterbuck’s frankness, or whether it pointed to a serious deficiency in his understanding of the limits of social intimacy. At least he was consistent in his amorality. His well-oiled smile was good camouflage, and even that wasn’t intended to disguise so much as to excuse. I could imagine that if Anna Capshaw had started out loving this man, it wouldn’t have taken too long for her feelings to curdle into hatred. Miss Nigella Fowler stood in peril of ruining her life, but this was none of my business. I was, at any rate, relieved to know that I wasn’t being paid to procure a blackmail victim for Paul Clutterbuck.

‘You can meet Nigella here tomorrow,’ he said. ‘She’ll be over in the afternoon. We’re having tea and cake. Very civilised. Her father will be here too, and her brother, who is a pill. So, will you join us?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And I’ll see what I can find out about Cunningham in the morning.’

He exposed his perfect teeth in a grin and made a little snapping noise with them which sounded unnervingly like the tumblers of a lock falling into place.

Clutterbuck had told me that we would be going with Gretel Beech to hear her singing at a place in Carlton called Ma Maguire’s — a speakeasy that had been lubricating customers since the 1920s. Ma Maguire was long dead, and the place was now run by shady businessmen with, Clutterbuck insisted, the full cooperation of the police. Gretel performed irregularly, usually when someone was indisposed — a term I took to mean off having an abortion. Tonight she would perform two shows, one early in the evening and the other much later, after midnight.

‘We’ll come back here between sets,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to pour money into the pockets of those crooks, and besides, only the beer is worth drinking.’

I went upstairs and changed into my freshly pressed clothes. I heard Gretel arrive and came downstairs. She was wearing her stage outfit. At least I presumed the assemblage was her costume: she was draped in filmy scarves and wrapped in cloth that evoked a bizarre meld of Classical Greece and Hollywood vamp. With her bee-stung lips and heavily kohled eyes, she looked like a throwback to Theda Bara. She seemed melancholy to me, but I think this had less to do with how she was feeling than with my own response to the recollection of Theda Bara.

When I was the vulnerable age of ten, it was Theda Bara who shattered my faith in movies. I had believed in the man-eating vamp, born in the shadow of the Sphinx, her name a mysterious anagram of ‘Arab Death’. So I was devastated to discover that Theda Bara was really plain old Theodosia Goodman, born in Cincinnati and not weaned on serpent’s blood after all. From that point on, the realisation grew that life was little more than the slow dismantling of illusions, one by agonising one. It was these progressive revelations that sharpened my observational skills and made me less gullible than I might otherwise have been.

‘Are we ready?’ Gretel said, and twirled so that her scarves drifted around her like smoke.

We walked to Ma Maguire’s. It was a double-storey terrace just a stone’s throw from the police station in Carlton. Gretel left us as soon as we arrived. Clutterbuck knew his way around and he took me to a room where a dozen American soldiers were laughing, smoking and drinking. There were a few women there, but they didn’t look at ease; it was as if the twilight reined in their carnal desires, which would assert themselves more freely later under cover of darkness and dim bulbs. Clutterbuck disappeared and came back with two beers.

‘She’ll be on in ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll tell you why I want you to find out about Cunningham.’

He had to lean into my ear to be heard over the babble of American voices.

‘When I divorced Anna she said she would find a way to get even, to get back what she reckons she’s entitled to. It was ugly. To do that she’ll need a lawyer, and I happen to know that she has no way of paying one. But I also happen to know that she’s not above fucking her way to success. This Cunningham has to be a lawyer, and if he’s going to start poking around in my affairs, I want to have the jump on him.’

‘So all you want me to do is find out what Cunningham’s job is.’

‘Exactly. I want you to find out who he’s working for and what kind of reputation he has.’

The people in the room reacted to a signal that I’d missed, and began heading upstairs. We followed them into a large, front room, stripped of all furniture except for rows of seats. In one corner a man, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, sat at a piano. His youth, and the absence of any obvious physical defects, indicated to me that the reason for his not being in the armed forces lay in the probability that he was a member of the criminal class. I had heard that many of his kind had enlisted early, but that they had been dishonourably discharged after exploiting opportunities for violence and theft.

Gretel Beech leaned languidly against the piano; startlingly, she was completely naked. The audience took their seats, and whistled and foot stomped, and yelled obscenities. Everyone’s proximity to Gretel made it shockingly intimate. She pushed herself away from the piano and assumed a defiant stance, hands on hips, feet apart. Her eyes roamed over the audience, but I doubt she found the eyes of many in return. Their gaze was firmly locked on her breasts and her pudendum. The piano player struck a chord, and then another, and the audience began to quieten down. With swagger, assurance, and considerable skill, Gretel began to sing, and as she sang she began a reverse strip-tease, gradually re-clothing herself with all the sensual gestures of that craft, until by the time she delivered the final line of the song she was seated in a chair, fully dressed, but with her legs splayed obscenely. She sang:

If you’re a young man, or older,
I don’t mind, you’re a soldier,
And you’re willing to fight so we can be free.
I’ve a soft spot for privates,
And for sergeants I’ll sigh,
But they all stand to attention when they come home with me.
I ain’t scared of your guns, be they small ones or bigger,
And I know when to stay well away from the trigger.
You’re safe with me, boys,
Don’t run helter-skelter.
Come home with me, boys.
I’ve got room in my shelter.

‘So what did you think?’ she asked me on our way back to Clutterbuck’s house.

‘You have a fine voice,’ I said, being unsure how to address the most prominent features of her act. Clutterbuck laughed and put his arms around Gretel’s shoulders.

‘Gretel has more talent in her little finger than Gladys Moncrieff has in her whole body — and I don’t think many people would pay to see Our Glad do what Gretel does.’

When we reached the house Gretel said that she’d like a bath before the next show, which was still a few hours away. Clutterbuck went upstairs with her, and I took the opportunity to ring Mother. She said that there’d been no progress in the search for Darlene, and described how Brian was becoming more and more agitated about the attitude of the police towards him.

‘What I’m much more concerned about,’ she said, ‘is whether or not Darlene’s kidnapper intends to strike again, especially now that we know that we’re not dealing with a slightly built woman, but with a brute of unknown dimensions.’

‘Would you feel safer if I came home?’

‘Good heavens no, dear. I know you’ve only been gone one day, but we’re managing quite well. I’m worried about Fulton, too. I was sure a letter from him would come today.’

I said a few comforting words and hung up. When I walked into the living room, Clutterbuck was there, pouring himself a drink. He automatically poured one for me.

‘Gretel wants to soak for a while,’ he said.

‘Does Gretel know about your fiancée?’ I asked.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘She makes no claims on me at all. She’s the original libertine. Mine isn’t the only bed she sleeps in, and I have never demanded fidelity. I’m sure you couldn’t help but notice from her performance that she’s not exactly a nun.’

‘She has talent,’ I said.

‘She’s also rather lovely, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘I’m very attached to her. Giving her up isn’t going to be easy.’

An expression of some sort must have crossed my face because he shook his finger at me.

‘Don’t make the mistake of thinking that she’s waiting for someone to rescue her,’ he said. ‘That’s sentimental tosh. She knows exactly what she’s doing, and it suits her to do it.’

I had to agree that there was nothing reticent about Gretel’s stage persona.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said. ‘I’m bored sitting here.’

‘Fine,’ I said.