Telling Lies to Alice (11 page)

Jack put his arm round me. “You are sweet . . .”

It made me realise quite how much I’d missed being in bed with somebody, being cuddled, touched . . . I suddenly had a picture of myself lying next to Lenny, both of us saying the silliest-sounding words that came into our heads, laughing and laughing . . . and then the other images crowded in before I could stop them, Lenny crashing upstairs in the early hours and falling into bed in a haze of boozy breath and pawing, not listening, assuming I wanted to as much as he did, and then not being able to . . . how it happened less and less and finally stopped and I missed it, not because I’d liked it but because . . . it was contact, and . . .
and because I did love him very, very much, and I tried really hard not to blame him, and, thinking back, I probably did everything wrong, but I didn’t know what else to do
. . .
and when he died, I thought it was my fault
. . . I shut my eyes tight, trying not to cry.

“Alice? Are you all right?”

“What? Sorry, I was miles away.”

“Be a good girl and fetch my cigarettes, would you? They’re in the kitchen.”

“Okay.” I was so glad to have an excuse to leave the room that I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs without stopping to put anything on. There was no one to see except Eustace, who was conked out in the hall. He opened one eye to check who it was, then shut it again.

A trail of discarded clothes led from the kitchen door to the foot of the stairs—Jack’s shoes, his trousers, my flip-flops, my shorts, his shirt, my top . . . Like a little story about what had happened. Or rather, hadn’t happened. There was a bulky brown paper bag on the table, right in a patch of sun: Jack’s chicken and bacon. Hoping they hadn’t already gone off, I took them over to put in the fridge. Jack’s trousers were in a heap in front of the door so I picked them up and felt in the pockets for his lighter. It wasn’t there. Instead, I found an envelope. Opened. I pulled it out—nosy—and glanced at it. It was addressed to me.

Jack had lied. When I’d asked, he’d told me there hadn’t been any post. The handwriting looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t recognise it. I turned it over, but there was no return address. Then I heard a noise on the stairs. Jack was coming down.

I was still holding the letter. There’s nowhere to hide anything when you’re naked and I couldn’t put it back in Jack’s trousers in case he wanted to put them on, so I dropped them and shot across the room to get my shorts. There wasn’t time to get dressed so I stuffed the letter into one of the side pockets. I just managed it before Jack came in.

I heard him behind me and jerked round. He’d said something, but I didn’t catch it. “Wh—oh, right, the cigarettes. No. I haven’t. Found them. I was just putting the meat in the fridge. We left it on the table. In the sun. I didn’t want you to get food poisoning.” I made a face. Jack gave me an odd look. I scooped up my T-shirt and bundled it together with the shorts, muttered something about nipping upstairs to get dressed, and ran out of the room before he had a chance to say anything. “Back in a sec!” I took the stairs three at a time and locked myself into the upstairs loo.

My hands were trembling as I pulled out the contents of the envelope. A newspaper cutting fluttered to the floor. I picked it up and saw the headline:
COMIC’S CAR IN DEATH-PLUNGE RIDDLE
. Beside it was a photograph of Lenny. I read the bit underneath—
WAS SUICIDE FUNNYMAN A KILLER?
—and sat down on the wooden loo seat with a bump.

A car containing human remains belonged to dead comedian Lenny Maxted, say police. A record drop in water levels led to the gruesome discovery in a lake on the 100-acre Ivar Park estate in Wiltshire last week. The blue Aston Martin DB6 was spotted by a film crew working at Ivar Park House. Former owner Viscount Deveraux, who became earl of Ivar on the death of his father in 1966, spent his fortune on drugs and celebrity parties at the stately home. Lenny Maxted and his partner Jack Flowers were frequent guests.

I read the cutting a second time, then a third. Well, I
say
“read”—my eyes were moving over the words, but I could barely take them in. Judging by the type, it came from a tabloid, but there wasn’t a name or date. I turned the scrap of paper over and stared stupidly at
NEW STIMULA, THE CONTRACEPTIVE SHEATH THAT LIVES UP TO ITS PROMISE
. Lenny couldn’t have killed anyone. He just couldn’t.

I turned the cutting over and looked at it again.
Accident
. . .
Murder
. . .
thought to be female
. . . It had to be Kitty. They’d gone to that party together, after I’d walked out on him, I knew that. I’d been to Granddad’s funeral the week before. I was only away a few days, but when I came back I’d found some of Kitty’s clothes, stuff I recognised, on our bed. We were living in a pretty little house in Chelsea at the time, and Lenny wasn’t in so I took Kitty’s things onto the balcony and threw them—shoes, underwear, the lot—into the street so they landed all over the trees and cars, then I packed a suitcase and legged it. I didn’t leave a note.

James Clarke-Dibley took me to the party. I didn’t want to go, but he persuaded me and I spent the whole time dancing with him to show Lenny I didn’t care, but all I could think about was him and Kitty together, and I felt so miserable . . .

I looked at the paper again.
Tragic Lenny told pals he’d sold the sports car
—that’s what he’d told me, afterwards, when we’d made up. He’d said he was bored with it. What
pals,
anyway? Who had the journalist talked to? Not to me. I could have told him Lenny wouldn’t have hurt a fly. He used to get angry sometimes, lash out, but everyone gets angry. . . . The paper made it sound all connected—the body in the car, the drinking, killing himself—but I’d have
known
. . . . They could have been writing about someone I’d never even met, let alone lived with. I mean, there were different Lennys, I knew that: Lenny the brilliant comedian; Lenny the drunkard, angry and bitter; Lenny the lecher who went out on the town with Jack . . . For six years I’d been holding on to
my
Lenny, the kind, funny man I’d fallen in love with, trying not to remember the others. . . .

I suddenly felt as if I might be sick so I knelt down on the floor and flipped up the seat. I stared into the bowl and waited for the nausea to pass. Surely Lenny couldn’t have
murdered
anyone? That bit, at least, had to be a mistake, and whoever sent me the cutting . . . My gaze fell on the scrap of newspaper on the floor beside the pedestal.
Police are seeking to interview Maxted’s former partner, Jack Flowers
. . . If Jack was running away from the police, or from journalists, why come here?

And why bring that cookbook? What had he said? That he’d been away working and gone back to fetch things . . . working on what? The rehearsals for his play hadn’t started yet, he’d said so. And that other film—with the vegetables and things—he’d said that was last year . . . He’d been angry when I’d asked about the book. He’d tried to stop me reading the newspaper outside the shop. And he’d hidden the letter—hidden it
before
I’d told him about the other newspaper cutting . . . He must have recognised the writing. Perhaps he’d been getting cuttings in the post, too. If he did have something to do with Kitty’s death, that would make more sense. . . . And he
had
been snooping around in my room . . . and he
was
drinking. I shook my head. None of it made sense.

I got off the floor and washed my hands. Just keep calm, I told myself. I looked again at the envelope. It had a London postmark, same as the first one. I looked at the handwritten address and wondered what I’d done with the first envelope. I couldn’t remember.

Whimpering and snuffling noises were coming from outside the door. I opened it cautiously, but it was only Eustace, looking up at me and wagging his tail, one front paw planted firmly on my knickers. He didn’t object when I retrieved them, just padded off to the top of the stairs and lowered himself to the floor with a sigh like a tyre deflating. “Yes, I know, I’m very boring,” I said to him. “At least let me get some clothes on, and I’ll come down.”

Jack was sitting in a deck chair under a tree in the garden,
Charley’s Aunt
on the grass beside him. Eustace rushed ahead of me to sniff his trouser legs. “He’s getting used to you.”

“Yeah. I found my cigarettes.” He pulled a packet of Dunhills and a lighter out of his trouser pocket. My heart skipped a beat. “Want one?” he asked, offering the packet to me.

“No thanks.” I put my hand in the pocket of my shorts and touched the envelope.

“Things to do,” I said. “I’ll leave you in peace.”

It was cool inside the barn, and my three guinea pigs were happy to see me. The chorus of squeaks and whistles didn’t stop until I’d put them outside in their pen. I watched them nibbling their way across the grass for a few minutes and envied them. It must be nice to be a guinea pig. Uncomplicated. Provided you’ve got a good home, of course.

Jack hadn’t mentioned the envelope, but he must have noticed it had gone. Unless he’d forgotten what he’d done with it—which was quite possible, given his state of mind. . . . But surely somebody would phone me? Any halfway-decent journalist would have contacted me already, I thought. To be honest—and I’m not sure why, because the last thing I wanted to do was speak to a journalist—I felt slightly pissed off. Reading that thing in the paper, you’d think I’d never existed, and I’d certainly been a damn sight more important to Lenny than bloody
Kitty
.

Of course, they might have rung while I was out on Pablo and Jack hadn’t answered or he’d told them it was a wrong number or something. . . . I went back to the barn and concentrated very hard on cleaning out the hutch. I had a quick flick through the top newspaper on the pile before I put it down and sprinkled fresh sawdust over it, but there was no mention of skeletons found in cars. . . . I looked at the date. Tuesday 10 August. Too early, probably. I couldn’t remember the date of the first cutting. A quick rummage around in the dustbin ought to find it, I thought, teasing out fresh hay.

I don’t know if it was something I’d seen in the paper, or just the connection with animals generally, but I suddenly remembered about the camels. You know when something comes back to you and it’s so vivid that it stops you in your tracks? Well, this was like that. Lenny had a few friends he used to drink with: John Forbes, who was in their show, was one of them—
he
only lasted till 1972, poor man—and there were a few other regulars as well. One evening I came back from the club and it was obvious he’d only just given them their marching orders because the place was a tip. Even the bedroom—the drawers were pulled out and my clothes were all over the floor. . . . Things like that don’t usually bother me too much, but that time I really lost it. I mean, I’d been on my feet for eight hours, and the last thing I wanted was to run around doing housework. Anyway, I had a real go at Lenny. I was shouting at him, “What happened?” and saying the place looked like a slum and why didn’t he clear up and all the rest of it, and this crafty look came across his face and he said, very slowly—to see how I’d take it—“Well, some camels got into the flat . . .”

“Camels?”

“From the zoo, they’d come out on a spree. They broke into the bedroom.”

“Why didn’t you stop them?”

“No, they were boisterous, they couldn’t be stopped. They took out all your clothes and tried them on . . . then they went down to the shops and people said, ‘Oh dear, look at Alice, she’s let herself go, she’s gone all lumpy . . .’ ”

“How do you know that’s what they said?”

“I followed them. I needed to get more booze.”

I’d sighed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” But I’d laughed and cleared up the mess.

John Forbes rang me a couple of days later, saying he was really worried about Lenny that night because he’d managed to convince himself I’d been having an affair with God knows who and the reason my clothes were strewn all over the place was because he was about to chuck them off the balcony—the way I’d done with Kitty’s—and they’d had a real job persuading him not to.

That was when I started to think Jack must have told him. It was just before they went to the States. They were still just about on speaking terms, but when they came back—
forget it
. Don Findlater tried to get them together in a restaurant to sort things out because Lenny wouldn’t even talk to Jack on the phone by that stage. I had no idea Jack was going to be there. I thought it was meant to be just Lenny and Findlater. That was the reason he’d insisted I come along. I remember because he’d said to me, “You’ve got to come, I’m not spending another evening having my hand patted and drowning in waves of homosexual despair.” It was at Biagi’s, and Lenny got halfway across the room, spotted Jack, bellowed, “I’m not sitting at the same table as that cunt!” and charged out again. Everyone heard him. I just stood there, frozen, in the middle of the room, with everyone gawping at me as if I’d been the one who shouted it.