Murder in the Title (23 page)

‘In the last eighteen months?'

‘Yes.'

‘So much so that he's allowed you to use his holiday home in Corsica.'

This again caught the Councillor on the raw. ‘Don't try it, Mr Paris. I paid him the rent for the villa, and I can prove it.'

‘I know. Are you aware who owns Schlenter Estates, Mr Inchbald?'

‘I assumed they were independent. Well, perhaps they're part of some conglomerate . . . I don't know.' It was hard to tell whether this hesitant answer was the truth, or whether the Councillor was bluffing.

‘Let me outline a little story for you, Mr Inchbald. Fiction, of course, but maybe you'll find something relevant in it. Let's say we have a peer of the realm with a large estate to maintain and he's feeling the pinch . . . His income just isn't big enough to cope with it all. True, he's got a few directorships which bring in a bit of loot for no effort, but it's not sufficient money. And then let's say one of the companies of which he's director takes over, through a fairly lengthy chain of ownership, a property company. Normally, it wouldn't interest him much, but in this case he does become involved. Someone in the property company comes to him with a proposal . . . a new mortgage, a loan maybe, something anyway that will let him off the hook financially . . .'

‘Sounds good, says the noble lord, adding cautiously, is there anything I have to do in return? Yes, the property company replies soothingly, but it's something very small. All we want you to do is to get chummy with a local councillor in your area and –'

‘I've heard enough of this!' snapped Herbie Inchbald. ‘It's slander and I will see to it that –'

‘As I said,' Charles overrode him, ‘it's only a story. To make it even begin to be slanderous, you'd have to fill in some of the names. Call the peer of the realm Lord Kitestone, for example . . . Call the company of which he's a director Carker Glyde Securities . . . Call the property company they took over eighteen months ago Schlenter Estates . . . Call the Councillor –'

‘Stop.' Herbie Inchbald's face was ashen. ‘Is he really a director of the company that owns Schlenter?'

‘Yes. You can check it. What's that very useful book called – “Who Owns Who”?'

‘Oh, my God.' This time the Councillor did not appear to be acting. His shock at the revelation was quite genuine.

‘So, to complete my little story, all I need to know is what the noble lord was delegated to get from the Councillor. What was the little favour? I think I know what the Councillor got in return.'

Inchbald picked himself up and returned aggressively to the fray. ‘You're on a hiding to nothing, Paris. I've never accepted a bribe from anyone, and certainly not from Lord Kitestone. You can check my bank accounts, search my house if you like. You won't find anything.'

‘I'm not talking about anything as crude as money. As I said, it had to be something that appealed to your snobbery, something that the noble lord could give at no cost to himself, but something that you could not get from any other source.'

‘I don't follow you.'

‘No? I am right, am I not, in saying that Lord Kitestone put you up for Blake's Club?'

‘Yes, but . . .' The Councillor looked very angry again. ‘That was just a friendly gesture on his part, because we got on so well. Good God, can't friends do each other favours nowadays without everyone getting suspicious?'

‘Of course they can. And what favour did you do him in return?'

‘Nothing. Well, I mean, hardly anything. He just gave me some advice and I took it. Wasn't even a favour to him, as it happened. Favour to someone else, another example of Willie's generosity. Turned out to be a favour to me too, as things worked out.'

‘But, nonetheless, he didn't put you up for the club until you'd agreed to accept his advice?'

‘God, you make it sound so cold-blooded. It was just two friends helping each other out, that's all.'

‘You scratch my back . . .'

‘Exactly . . .'

‘Okay, I know how Lord Kitestone scratched your back. How did you scratch his?'

‘It was nothing. It was just . . .'

And Herbie Inchbald told him.

As he finished, he smiled weakly and said, ‘And if you can find any corruption in that, good luck to you. It's been a positive benefit to the theatre, and without Lord Kitestone it wouldn't have happened. I think you're barking up the wrong tree with all your talk of sabotage, Mr Paris. You certainly are if you're trying to point the finger at me.' Herbie Inchbald sat down and tried to regain some composure behind his desk. ‘I am a devoted supporter of the Regent Theatre. And so is Willie Kitestone.'

Charles gave the Councillor the benefit of the doubt and believed his first assertion.

But not the second.

CHARLES' MIND WAS
now working well. He hadn't slept much the night before, but the tiredness heightened his efficiency rather than diminished it. He was on a high, feeling good, and his mind responded, making sudden new connections in the case.

After his interview with Herbie Inchbald he returned to Mimi's and, ignoring her curiosity as to what he was doing there at that time of day, went straight up to his bedroom. There he got out the file Martha Wensleigh had given him and took another look at its contents.

The brainwave came quickly. He looked at his watch. Quarter to one. Might just make it. Clutching some of the papers in his hand, he ran downstairs to the telephone and, oblivious of Mimi's eavesdropping, dialled.

‘Gerald.'

‘Charles? Look, this is rather inconvenient. I said –'

‘I know. You're just about to go out for a long, good lunch. Where?'

‘Langan's, as it happens.'

‘Of course. Well, you can spare me two minutes. Listen, is Bill still with you?'

‘Right beside me.'

‘Put him on. I want a word.'

‘Very well, but . . .'

‘Hello?'

‘Bill, hi. This is Charles Paris.'

‘Oh. Good to hear you. What can I –'

‘I want to pick your brains.'

‘You're welcome to anything you can find there.'

‘Right. You've just come back from Australia, where you've been directing . . .'

‘For the last five years, yeah.'

‘So you know the theatrical scene out there pretty well?'

‘Such as it is. Yes, I guess I do.'

‘Right.' Charles consulted the sheets in his hand. ‘Do you know the Theatre Royal, Adelaide?'

‘Sure. Nice old building.'

‘And the Artistic Director, Ralph Johnson.'

‘Ralph who?'

‘Johnson.'

‘Never heard of him.'

‘This'd be back in . . .'

‘Before my time. I'd have thought I'd have heard the name, though.'

‘Okay. Try another. The Dominion, Perth?'

‘Know it well.'

‘Artistic Director, Rich Coleman?'

‘Never heard of him. Jed Spencer had the job all the time I was out there.'

‘What about the Hippodrome, Melbourne?'

‘Know that too.'

‘And the Artistic Director there in '79 was . . .?'

‘Bruce Wade.'

‘Not Greg Avon?'

‘Never heard the name. What is this – a
Mastermind
special subject on the theatres of Australia?'

‘No. I will explain. I haven't got time at the moment. There's only one more. Do you know the Kelly Theatre in Sydney?'

‘Should do.'

‘And you're going to tell me the Artistic Director there last year was not Jim Vasilis.'

‘That one, Charles, I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt. For the last five years
I
have been Artistic Director of the Kelly Theatre in Sydney. That's the job I've just finished.'

Charles sighed with relief. ‘Thank you very much, Bill.'

‘No problem. I wish I knew what the hell it was about.'

‘One day, Bill, over a very long and very drunken lunch, I will tell you.'

‘I look forward to that, Charles.'

‘Could you put me back to Gerald, just for a sec?'

‘Okay.'

‘Gerald, listen, have you got a copy of
The British Theatre Directory
there?' The solicitor grunted assent. ‘Could you look up the Pavilion Theatre, Darlington for me?'

‘Okay just a sec. I wish you'd explain, Charles.'

‘If I did it might make you late for your lunch.'

‘Oh, that's true. Some other time then. Right . . . the Pavilion, you said. It's owned by . . . ah, the site was bought up quite recently.'

‘By whom, Gerald?'

‘Schlenter Estates. Is that significant?'

‘Yes, Gerald. It is.'

So all the references were quite meaningless. The Australian ones were forged, and the Darlington one presumably dictated by Schlenter Estates. No, more likely it was genuine. After all, that one could be checked easily, and Donald Mason must have spent some time finding out about theatre administration. Six months as Assistant Front of House Manager at Darlington would have given enough background to someone with a genuine flair for organization. And Schlenter had presumably arranged for him to take the job.

They had also assumed, correctly, that the average provincial rep theatre would know nothing about the Australian scene, and be too mean to ring up the other side of the world to check the references.

Charles now knew what Donald Mason's career hadn't been and, his memory working well, thought he might be able to find out what it
had
been.

The old lady was in her usual niche in the pub behind the theatre and accepted another bottle of Guinness gratefully.

‘I
do
know you,' she said. ‘Seen you before, you know.'

‘In here. Just the once.'

‘That's right,' she said, raising his hopes that she would prove to be a reliable witness. ‘Your name's Lionel,' she continued, dashing them.

‘Charles.'

‘That's right, Charles.' She nodded her head, which seemed loose on her shoulders. ‘Charles, I knew another Charles once. Had this nasty habit in the park. He used to –'

Charles didn't want to get too involved in irrelevant reminiscence, so he nudged the conversation on by asking, ‘Was this in Islington?'

‘Round the Angel, yes.'

‘Where you used to live?'

‘That's right, yes. Don't live there no more. Had this nice little flat. Now I live with my daughter. She wouldn't let me go to the Old People's, not my daughter. She's got this bird, my daughter has. Canary, it is. I don't care for canaries . . .'

Once again Charles had to stop the conversation from straying too far off course.

‘Your flat was in Blenley Terrace, wasn't it?' he asked, memory working overtime.

‘Blenley Terrace, that's right.' Again she started the unnerving nodding. ‘Nice place it was, round there. Nice people, like a village. Not now. All been tarted up now.'

‘Yes. Listen, I want you to try and remember something.'

‘You come to the right person.' She stopped nodding and fixed her faded eyes on him seriously. ‘I got one of them photographic memories. Never forget a face. Nor a name, Lionel.'

‘Charles.'

‘That's right. Charles.'

‘Listen, when I last came in here, week or so ago, someone else came in, someone you said you recognized from Islington.

She looked at him blankly. Her mouth sagged. Charles feared he had hoped for too much. Her mind had really gone.

‘Man about thirty. Tall, pin-striped suit. Blond hair.' Something in this description struck a chord in her memory, because her expression changed suddenly. ‘Oh, I remember
him
,' she spat out venomously. ‘He was why I left my flat.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘He said he come from the estate agents. Offered me money to move out. But I didn't want to. I liked it there. All my friends there. Didn't care how much money, I told him, I didn't want to move. He kept coming back and I kept saying no. Then he started coming strange times, very late at night, six in the morning. But I still said no.

‘Then I didn't see him no more, but . . . things started happening.'

‘What sort of things?' Charles asked softly.

‘Be knocking on my door in the middle of the night. Then someone bunged a brick through my window. Plumbing started going funny. Bath overflowed and soaked the people downstairs. I never left it on, I know, but they got in the social worker. And then there was the gas.'

‘Gas?'

‘Yes. Gas was left on on all my rings. Nearly a big explosion. They said I wasn't safe living on my own. But I ask you, would I leave all of them on? Anyone could leave one on by mistake, but not all of them.' She sniffed. ‘Anyway, the social worker got on to my daughter and she come, and the social worker said I couldn't manage alone, and I'd have to go to the Old People's. And my daughter, bless her, says no, and brought me up here.'

‘So you never went back to the flat?'

‘No.'

‘And you think the man you saw in here was behind it?'

‘Bloody sure. I remember, the estate agents was called Spielberg, Pugh and Fosco. And his name was Mr Mason.'

Charles bought the old lady another Guinness. She had earned it.

As he stood at the bar, he pieced it together. So Donald Mason had started out as a ‘winkler' for one of the estate agents the Schlenters took over. Then he probably had gone to Australia as the property company expanded in the early 1970s. Back to England, brief spell in Darlington to learn the new business, then, with Lord Kitestone leaning discreetly on Herbie Inchbald, he got the Rugland Spa job. Winkling again.

Just the same, but on a larger scale. Instead of getting rid of one old lady to clear a house, his job was to get rid of a theatre to clear a town centre site for development.