Cast in Order of Disappearance (15 page)

Charles rose late and managed to beat one of the Swedes into the bathroom. He returned to his room wrapped cosily in his towelling dressing-gown and sat in front of the gas-fire with a cup of coffee. Now that the excitements of the last fortnight were over, he would have to think again about getting some work. True, he'd got
The Zombie Walks
coming up, but that wasn't going to make him a millionaire, and the old overdraft was getting rather overblown. Perhaps the answer was to write another television play. But, even if he could write the thing quickly, all the subsequent processes took such a bloody long time. Getting the thing accepted, rewritten, rewritten, rewritten, rehearsed, recorded, edited, scheduled, rescheduled, rescheduled, rescheduled ad infinitum. Not much likelihood of getting a commission either. Charles Paris wasn't a big enough name these days. And no doubt, with the prospects of a three-day week and early closedown, none of the television companies would commit themselves to anything.

But as he tried to think of his work (Charles had long since ceased to grace it with the name of ‘his career'), his thoughts kept returning to the Steen situation. There was something fishy about the whole set-up. He tried to think himself into a detective frame of mind. What would Sherlock Holmes do in the circumstances? He would sit puffing on his pipe, Dr Watson goggle-eyed with admiration at his side, and suddenly, by a simple process of deduction, arrive at the complete solution. Somehow Charles Paris, sitting on his own in a towelling dressing-gown, hadn't quite the same charisma. Or the same powers of deduction.

Reflecting sadly on his inadequacy, Charles rose to get dressed. He opened the dull grey wardrobe and pulled a pair of trousers off a hanger. As he did so, he noticed that there was a dark smudge on the seat. It smelled of petrol. He was about to put his trousers back and take out another pair, when a sudden thought stopped him in his tracks.

The trousers he was holding were the ones he'd been wearing at Streatley the previous weekend. And he must have got the mark on them when he slipped over in Steen's garage. The scene came back to him with immediate clarity of detail. The enormous bulk of the blue Rolls illuminated by his torch, then suddenly his feet going from under him, slipping in a pool of petrol, landing on a spanner and a piece of tubing.

A piece of tubing. And the Rolls petrol gauge registered empty. Joanne Menzies' words about the Datsun came back to him—‘It's pretty good on petrol, but not that good. Might just about make it one way without registering, but certainly not both.' But what was simpler than to drive the car to Streatley, siphon petrol out of the Rolls into it (possibly even siphon some into a can as well, to top it up near London) and then drive back? Charles decided that a visit should be paid to Mr Nigel Steen.

Joanne Menzies still looked drawn and strained when she ushered Detective-Sergeant McWhirter into Mr Steen's office on the Monday afternoon. The policeman thanked her and stood deferentially until he was invited to sit down.

The man who made the invitation was very like his father, but without the vitality that had distinguished Marius Steen. Nigel had the same beak of a nose, but, without the dark eyes, its effect was comic rather than forceful. His eyes were blue, a legacy from the English rose whom Marius had married; and his hair was light brown rather than the black which his father had kept, only peppered with grey, until his death. The general effect was of a diluted Marius Steen, ineffectual and slightly afraid.

Nigel was ostentatiously smoking a big cigar to give an illusion of poise. He flashed Charles what was meant to be a frank smile. ‘Well, what can I do to help?'

‘I'm very sorry to bother you,' said Detective-Inspector McWhirter slowly, ‘and I do very much appreciate your putting yourself out to see me. Particularly at what must be a very distressing time for you.'

‘That's quite all right. What is it?' With a hint of irritation, or was it anxiety?

‘I have already spoken to your secretary on the matter and she proved most helpful.' Charles reiterated his lies about the theft in Pangbourne on the Saturday night.

‘But you see, since I spoke to her, we have had another witness's account of having seen a yellow Datsun in the Goring area. And they identified your number plate. I mean, you can never trust members of the public; they are extraordinarily inaccurate in what they claim to remember, but I can't discount anything. All I'm trying to do is to establish where your father's Datsun was on that night, and then stop wasting your time.'

‘Yes.' Nigel drew on the cigar and coughed slightly. He was clearly rattled. Not a man with a strong nerve, and certainly on the surface not one who could carry out a cold-blooded murder. He capitulated very quickly. ‘As a matter of fact, I was in Streatley in the Datsun on that Saturday night.'

Charles felt a great surge of excitement, but Detective-Sergeant McWhirter only said, ‘Ah.'

‘Yes. I'd phoned my father in the evening, and he didn't sound too well, so I drove down to see how he was.'

‘And how was he?'

‘Fine, fine. We had a few drinks together, chatted. He seemed in very good form. Then I drove back to London.'

‘Still on the Saturday night?'

‘Yes. It's not far.'

‘No, no, of course not.' Charles was about to ask about the subterfuge of the full petrol tank, but decided that Detective-Sergeant McWhirter might not be in possession of all the relevant facts for that deduction. As it happened, Nigel continued defensively without needing further questions.

‘You're probably wondering why I didn't mention this fact before. Well, to tell you the truth, your boys asked me when had I last seen my father alive and I said Friday instinctively, and then by the time I'd realised my mistake, it was all written down, and, you know, I thought if I changed it, that'd only create trouble.'

It sounded pretty implausible to Charles, but Detective-Sergeant McWhirter gave a reassuring nod. ‘Yes, of course, sir. And you're quite sure that while the car was down in Streatley, the thieves who I'm after wouldn't have had a chance to take it and use it for their break-in?'

‘No, that would be quite impossible. I put the car in the garage and I'm sure I'd have heard it being driven off. Anyway, I wasn't down there very long.'

‘No. Oh well, fine, Mr Steen. Thank you very much.' Detective-Sergeant McWhirter rose to leave. ‘I think I'd better start looking for another yellow Datsun.'

‘Yes. And . . . er . . . Detective-Sergeant . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘Will you have to mention the discrepancy in my story—you know, my confusion about when I last saw my father—?'

‘Good Lord, no. That's quite an understandable mistake in a moment of emotion, sir. So long as an account's written down somewhere, no one's going to fuss about the details. After all, there wasn't anything unusual about your father's death. If there had been any grounds for suspicion, it'd be a different case.' And Detective-Sergeant McWhirter laughed.

Nigel Steen laughed too, Charles thought a bit too heartily. But perhaps he was being hypersensitive and letting his suspicions race like Jacqui's.

‘Anyway,' the Detective-Sergeant continued, ‘I don't have anything to do with your father's death. Different department, you know.'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘Well, goodbye, Mr Steen. And thank you again for your help. If only more members of the public were as co-operative as you have been, our life would be a lot easier. They shook hands. Nigel's felt like a damp face cloth.

Detective-Sergeant McWhirter went through into Miss Menzies' anteroom. ‘All sorted out now?' she asked brightly.

‘Yes, thank you, Miss Menzies.'

‘Hmm. We've seen quite a lot of you lately.'

‘Yes,' said the Detective-Sergeant casually, unprepared for what happened next.

Miss Menzies suddenly stood up, looked him straight in the eyes and said, ‘Do you know it's a very serious offence to impersonate a police officer?'

‘Yes,' said Detective-Sergeant McWhirter slowly, waiting to see what came next.

‘I rang up Scotland Yard to tell you something this morning, and they'd never heard of you.'

‘Ah.'

‘And from the start I thought your accent was a bit phoney. I know a lot of people who come from Glasgow.'

‘Yes.' There was a pause. Then Charles continued, still in his discredited Glaswegian. ‘Well, what was it you rang up the Yard to tell me?'

Joanne Menzies looked at him coolly. ‘You've got a nerve. But I think you're probably doing something I'd sympathise with, so I'll tell you. I checked with Morrison, the chauffeur at Orme Gardens, and he was suspicious that the Datsun may have been used on the Saturday night.'

‘Yes, I know. I've just got that from Mr Nigel Steen.'

‘Ah.' She sounded disappointed that her information was redundant. ‘You're suspicious of him too, aren't you?'

‘Maybe.'

‘No maybe,' she said, ‘you are. Incidentally, “Detective Sergeant”, what's your real name?'

‘Charles Paris.'

‘Ah.' Her eyes widened and she nodded slowly. ‘Very good.' It was a warming compliment, from someone who knew about the theatre. ‘Well, Charles, if there's anything else I can tell you, or I can find out for you, let me know.'

‘Thanks.' As he was leaving, he turned and looked at her. ‘You hate Nigel Steen, don't you?'

‘Yes,' she said simply.

Christmas intervened and the business of investigation was suspended. Charles told Jacqui the new information he'd gleaned, but met with little luck in following it up. When he rang Joanne to check Nigel's movements in the week before Steen's death, a strange female voice answered and informed him that Miss Menzies had already gone up to Scotland for her Christmas holidays. Gerald Venables was getting a very slow response from Cohn, Jarvis, Cohn and Stickley on the matter of the new will, and also seemed preoccupied with family arrangements and Christmas drink parties. His enthusiasm for the cloak-and-dagger business of detection seemed to have waned.

Charles felt his own sense of urgency ebbing too. Though he got excited at each new development in his investigations, he soon became disillusioned again. And Joanne's seeing through his disguise made him a bit wary. He had no particular desire to break the law. Detection was a serious business, and perhaps he should leave it alone. The days of the gifted amateur investigator were over. It was better to leave everything to the police, who with superior training and equipment must stand a greater chance of uncovering crime.

And each time Charles looked at his progress it seemed more negative. Though he had enjoyed his little investigations and masquerades, his only real discovery was that Nigel Steen had tried to disguise the fact of driving down to Streatley on the night of Saturday 8th December. And though the visit could have given him an opportunity to kill his father, and then drive down the next day to discover the body, that was the one crime which every logical motive screamed against. By killing Marius then, Nigel would have been sacrificing a great deal of money. Duties at 80 per cent on an estate of a million, only reduced by 30 per cent, because of the donor's death before the end of the sixth year (to borrow Gerald Venables' terminology) would mean that Nigel would be paying more than half a million in estate duty. Whereas if he only waited till the seven years were up, all the given property would be his without any tax. It's a rare character who commits murder in order to lose half a million pounds.

And the only other fact, hanging around in the background, was Bill Sweet's death, which, by some fairly dubious reasoning and some circumstantial evidence, could be laid at Marius Steen's door. But Marius Steen was dead. Why bother him now?

The Montrose was open over Christmas and so, along with a lot of other divorced and debauched actors, Charles Paris spent a week sublimely pissed.

He was feeling distinctly drink-sodden when the phone rang on the morning of the 3rd of January, 1974. He wanted to be picked up and wrung out like a floor cloth to get the stuff out of his system. He lay in bed, hoping the phone would go away or someone would answer it. But the Swedish girls were still in Sweden for the holidays and he was alone in the house. The phone went on ringing.

He stumped savagely downstairs and picked up the receiver. ‘Hello.' His voice came out as a croak.

‘It's Jacqui.' Her voice was excited again, bubbling. ‘Charles, I've been to the police.'

‘What?'

‘About Nigel. I went to Scotland Yard this morning and saw an Inspector and told him all about our suspicions, and about how we knew Nigel had been down at Streatley that Saturday—'

‘I hope you didn't tell him how we found out.'

‘No, I didn't. I didn't mention you at all.'

‘Thank God for that.'

‘Anyway, the Inspector said it all sounded very suspicious and he's going to authorise an aupopsy—'

‘Autopsy.'

‘Yes. Anyway, he's getting an order to have Marius exhumed and check the cause of death. He took everything I said very seriously.' The last sentence was pronounced with pride. There was a pause; she was waiting for him to react. ‘Well, what do you think, Charles?'

‘I don't know. In a way, I think it's asking for trouble . . .'

‘Oh, Charles, we've got to know whether or not Marius was murdered.'

‘Have we? It's all sorted out. The baby's being looked after . . .'

‘Charles, do you mean that?'

‘No.'

‘We've got to know.'

‘Yes. When's the exhumation to be?'

‘Quite soon. Probably next Monday.'

‘And when will the results be known?'

‘End of next week. There should be an inquest on Friday.'

‘You realise that, by doing this, you have virtually made a public accusation of murder against Nigel?'