Murder in Waiting (Augustus Maltravers Mystery Book 5) Read online

  Murder in Waiting

  Robert Richardson

  © Robert Richardson 1991

  Robert Richardson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1991 by Victor Gollancz Limited.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: June, 1968

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Author’s Note

  Prologue: June, 1968

  Like a silent film in slow motion, Barry Kershaw somersaulted through humid Maida Vale night air from the penthouse balcony of the block of flats, until by some chance of distance his forehead crashed on to the concrete slabs of the courtyard and his skull split open. Crouched in a moon-shadowed bush, a hunting cat jumped away with a squeal of fright as the echo of the impact smacked round the walls, then there was stillness again. From the balcony, silhouetted against the lighted room behind her, a girl looked down at the body, Bob Dylan’s ‘Tambourine Man’ floating out into the sticky darkness. She waited, then, when nobody appeared, went back inside, closing the French doors. Tapering heels of knee-length black leather boots leaving indentations in the Persian carpet, she crossed to one of the tables covered in bottles and the remains of food, poured a Bacardi and Coke then sat on the couch, mini-skirted legs visible far up her thighs.

  She stared at a signed poster of Herman and the Hermits on the wall as the album finished and there was a series of clicks from the record-player as the automatic mechanism dropped another album into place. The sound of the Beach Boys filled the room as the girl smoked thoughtfully. Mentally she counted the names of those she knew had been in the flat during the evening. There were nineteen, plus about another dozen who had been strangers. It had not been a party, just a collection of visitors calling in en route to some West End theatre or Soho nightclub. Barry had only needed to make a few phone calls to let it be known that he wanted company and everyone had obediently attended. He did not mind that the guests did not stay long — he had his own private plans for the latter part of the evening — but was satisfied that they came and made obeisance. The sudden passage into professional oblivion of those who had ignored such invitations in the past was a permanent warning to others.

  Not a great deal had happened. People had gone through the usual pantomime of expressing the correct levels of admiration and envy at things they had seen before — personal messages on framed photographs of pop stars, the guitar bearing the autographs of all four Beatles and their Svengali manager Brian Epstein — and had assured Barry that everything about him was marvellous. All their contempt, hatred and fear had been smothered in sycophancy. Almost certainly, Barry Kershaw had been aware of the hypocrisy, but had not been concerned; he had been the East End kid — legitimate by birth, bastard by nature — holding court as glitterati of London’s Sixties paid homage. The girl could not think of anyone who would mourn when they heard he had been found dead, his sly, avaricious face smashed and bloody; there was more likely to be an outbreak of celebration parties. She was startled out of the satisfying thought by the telephone ringing on the table beside her. She hesitated then picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Is Barry there? It’s John Knight from the Daily Sketch.”

  “No … he’s gone out.” The girl found the grotesque literal truth of the statement amusing.

  “How long will he be?”

  “Quite a while I think.” Another grim smile.

  “Have him call me when he gets in, will you? Tell him it’s urgent. OK? He’s got the number.”

  “I’ll tell him. John Knight you said?”

  “Yeah. He’ll know what it’s about.”

  “All right. Goodbye.”

  “Just a minute … who is that? Don’t I know you?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll give Barry the message. Ciao.”

  She rang off before he could ask any more, then, shocked into reality as the sick humour of her replies evaporated, walked back to the balcony windows and looked across streetlights stretching down Edgware Road towards Marble Arch. Suddenly one of those illogically preserved fragments of childhood came back to her and she remembered looking through the window of her parents’ home, yellow cornfield at the back of the house imprinted almost photographically on her mind. Indelible recollection, held like perfect flies in amber in some corner of memory, triggered a flood of other chance-held incidents; her father planting a rose bush next to the garden bird-table, mother overjoyed at that new evening dress, her sister hesitantly pedalling her first tricycle down the garden path. Why did so many immaterial events that the mind inexplicably recorded seem to have happened on summer days? Perhaps memory did not hold on to winter so well. Stung by the contrast of lost innocence after all that had happened since, the girl wept.

  When she recovered, she sat down and began to think more calmly. The last guests had left sometime after eleven o’clock — it was now half-past midnight. Had they realised she was still there? Probably not. She had been in the loo when she heard them go and they had been half drunk anyway. Nobody knew that she had let Barry know she was prepared to spend the night with him after diplomatically refusing for so long. When the police came there would be fingerprints and countless other indications of her presence, but that was the same for all the rest. The journalist’s phone call would reveal that someone had been in the flat after the party ended, but although he had thought he recognised her voice too many cigarettes had made it unnaturally husky; if he had been certain, he would have said so immediately. She convinced herself nobody would ever realise that she had been the only witness to the moment when the web of Barry Kershaw’s empire had been broken. All the crooked agents and bent lawyers who drew up loaded contracts, the paid-off journalists and tame thugs, had lost their master spider. She smiled bitterly as she deliberately dropped her cigarette and ground it into the carpet with the toe of her boot; Barry would have gone mad at that. Then she left.

  Bird-song was busy in the early morning air when a milkman found the body. At first he thought it was a drunk who had passed out on the way home, but then he saw the crude star pattern of rust-brown stains framing the shattered head and ran back into the road, bottles clanking noisily in their metal carrier in the silence, and leapt into a phone box. The news spread so rapidly that the first celebratory bottles of champagne were being opened almost before the body had reached the mortuary. Three weeks later, after the inquest at which so many people lied, Barry Kershaw’s body was cremated. Years afterwards, when they began writing the history of the Sixties as legend, he did not even rate a footnote, but those who had been dominated, used and destroyed by him never forgot. Neither did the one person in the world who loved him.

  Chapter One

  “Which is the order of monks who never speak?” Tess Davy asked idly. “I’ve forgotten.”

  “Trappists,” Augustus Maltravers replied from behind The Guardian. “Although there is a legend that they sing very beautifully just before they
die.”

  He lowered the paper and looked across the breakfast table at the morning image only he ever saw. Long, burnished-bronze hair ragged as a mass of bracken catching late May sunshine filling the kitchen, pale skin unlit by make-up, slender figure wrapped in a shapeless candy-stripe housecoat. It was the reality behind the groomed and sparkling actress the public knew, when the hair gleamed like dark flame and witchcraft-green eyes could conjure up any human emotion. With the vanity of her profession, Tess only allowed the man she loved to see her without the mask of cosmetic deceit.

  “Why do you want to know?” he added as she scribbled in the margin of the Daily Mail.

  “It’s a competition. We could win a country hotel weekend break in the Cotswolds.”

  “Sounds nice. How do monks come into it?”

  “It’s in conjunction with the publishers of something called The Ultimate Trivial Pursuit Answers Book so it’s fairly eclectic.” She considered the rest of the questions. “What was Doris Day’s real name, what’s the capital of Liechtenstein and who was King Arthur’s father? I should know that one as well.”

  “Doris Kappelhof, Vaduz and Uther Pendragon.” When Trivial Pursuit had been all the rage, Maltravers’s ragbag mine of useless information, accumulated by voracious reading since his youth and years as a journalist, had made him tediously unbeatable. “Any more?”

  “No, I’ve got the rest.” Tess dropped the Mail on the floor and picked up the Daily Express. She devoured all the morning papers, amused by, if disbelieving, the gossip, alert for anything that might be professionally useful and simply keeping in touch with the world in which her audiences lived. Flicking through the pages, she paused and peered closely at a picture.

  “She’s worn well.”

  “Who has?” Maltravers asked, mind again absorbed by a Surrey v Yorkshire match report.

  “Jenni Hilton.”

  His reaction surprised her. Instantly putting down his own paper, he stretched his hand across the table. “Let me see that.” For a few moments he looked at the picture, frowning as though trying to remember something.

  “Better than well,” he corrected. “She’s even more beautiful.”

  “More beautiful?” Tess regarded him with interest. “Is there something about your past you haven’t told me?”

  “Not really.” He smiled nostalgically. “I was once madly in love with her, that’s all.”

  “Really? You’ve kept very quiet about it.” Tess firmly took the paper back and examined the picture more critically. “I didn’t know I had predecessors like that.”

  “You didn’t. It was a hopeless passion. She was incredibly famous and I was a sixth former with fantasies.”

  “Fantasies?” Tess repeated teasingly. “Were they very dirty?”

  “Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams,’” Maltravers warned her. “It was all very juvenile, but don’t tell me you didn’t have teenage crushes. In fact, didn’t you once lust after somebody’s older brother? Jason something wasn’t it?”

  Tess shuddered. “Pax. Double pax. I still feel embarrassed whenever I see someone on a Norton motor bike. I even forced down halfs of beer for him. And he had spots.”

  “Then don’t knock me and Jenni Hilton. I can’t have been the only one besotted with her in those days.” He shook his head in disbelief. “God, it’s more than twenty years ago.”

  “We were so terribly young, dahling.” Tess’s voice dropped a couple of octaves and she dramatically grasped his hand across the table. “Now we are old and wise and have found true love.”

  “But are still susceptible to a passing motor bike or a newspaper photograph. Let’s see the story.” Tess handed the paper back and began to clear the table as he read the Diary page item.

  *

  Among the guests at last night’s première of Tom Conti’s new play, who should I spot but Jenni Hilton who has hardly been seen anywhere since she walked out of a film in 1968 and disappeared.

  For those of you who have forgotten, she was one of the biggest names of the Sixties, scoring four number one hits before switching to acting, winning an Oscar nomination for her part in The Stuart Queen.

  I tried to speak to her as she was leaving the Albery, but la Hilton was being as elusive as ever. However, I understand she has now returned to live in London. She was alone and there was certainly no sign of the sort of gorgeous escorts who squired her in the old days. What a pity. As you can see, the lady is still very lovely.

  *

  “Do you remember her?” Maltravers asked as he finished reading.

  “Hardly.” Tess had done the washing up — two cups and two plates for toast; breakfast was always minimal — and was drying her hands. “I’ve seen her films on TV — she was very good — but I was very little when she was very big. How old is she?”

  “Four years, three months and six days older than me,” Maltravers said. “I worked it out. When you’re seventeen, that’s a lot.”

  “And when you were seventeen, I’d have been six,” Tess added. “I was heavily into Beatrix Potter, not pop singers.”

  “Don’t know why you stick around with an old man.”

  “I’m after your money.”

  “I don’t have any money. I’m a starving author.”

  “But with life insurance and a two-bedroom flat in Highbury.”

  “Highbury and Islington,” Maltravers corrected.

  “If you’re selling, you don’t mention the Islington. And I’ll be selling.” Tess ruffled his hair as she crossed the kitchen. “In the meantime, I’ll have to keep working. I’m due at the studios at eleven.”

  “Oh, yes, it’s that voice-over job where you play a soap bubble. Fine thing for a legitimate actress.”

  “It’s paying a hundred pounds an hour and it’s going to be a major television campaign,” Tess called back as she left the room. “The repeat fees will be worth a bomb. If it’s good enough for Judi Dench, it’s good enough for me.”

  “She doesn’t play soap bubbles,” Maltravers shouted after her.

  “I’m not a Dame and I don’t play Cleopatra at the National. Now get off your butt and do some writing.”

  Maltravers picked up the post — three bills, a Reader’s Digest special offer and a royalties cheque which was not going to change his life — and took it to the front room where his desk stood in the bay window overlooking Coppersmith Street. He had bought his flat when he started on Fleet Street in the 1970s, appalled at the price compared to his native Cheshire and the Midlands where he had worked immediately before. But what had cost him fifteen thousand pounds was now comfortably into six figures. He was in the not uncommon position among Londoners of his generation, sitting on a piece of real estate worth a fortune and constantly hard up. Since he had abandoned full-time journalism for the precarious life of a writer of plays and novels, supplemented by freelance newspaper features, his income and cost of living had remained as close to each other as horses in a photo-finish. But with Tess’s earnings, they managed to remain vaguely solvent. To all intents and purposes, they now lived together, but she had kept her own flat in Muswell Hill which brought in extra money through short-term lettings to other actors who needed a temporary base in town. If they married, they could sell both properties and afford … but marriage had fallen into the background. Sensing that Maltravers still had residual hang-ups from his first experience, Tess had wisely stopped even joking about it. The result was that one of their friends had described them as the most married unmarried couple she knew.

  He loaded a disc into his word-processor and lit a cigarette as the machine muttered to itself before throwing a menu on the screen. He called up the third chapter of a new book and read through what he had written the previous day, correcting mistypings and deleting a passage afflicted by chronic adjectivitis. He rapidly wrote three more paragraphs and immediately wiped them out. The cursor blinked at him, an agitated green sprinter waiting to be sent dashing across space leaving deathless prose
in its wake. A milk float rattled to a halt outside and Maltravers watched the milkman until he drove up the street. He contemplated deep crimson flowers on the tree paeonia by his front gate, reflecting that he had never got round to cutting out the dead wood, waved to a passing neighbour, craned his neck to see if the curtains at number seventeen had been opened yet — they had been closed for three weeks and he and Tess were becoming intrigued — and finally took a copy of his first novel from the bookshelf next to the desk, opening it at random to persuade himself that what he had done before he could surely do again. Finding several passages he would have rewritten given the chance, he dropped the book on the floor, put his chin in his hands and stared at the screen as though willing it to inspire him. All it did was wait. After a few moments he crashed his mind in gear and began to write flat out, letting words flow without interruption by analysis; an eventual salvageable ten per cent of something was going to be better than a hundred per cent of damn all.

  By the time Tess reappeared, elegant in yellow silk blouse and burgundy suit, he was absorbed, grunting vaguely as she kissed the top of his head and left. An hour produced more than a thousand words before he ran out of steam and went to make a cup of coffee; as he returned, the telephone on the desk rang.

  “Gus? Mike Fraser. Glad I’ve caught you. Can you do an interview for us?”

  “How much?”

  “Don’t be so mercenary. It’s supposed to be a privilege writing for The Chronicle.”

  “Privileges butter no parsnips and I’ve got parsnips gasping for butter. And do you realise you’re interrupting great art here? We could be talking Booker Prize country.”

  “Then you’ll expect us to review it, so be nice to me.” Maltravers was joking and Fraser, features editor of The Chronicle, knew it. In the three years since the paper had been founded, it had established a reputation for quality writing and Maltravers was flattered when his work appeared in the same columns as the likes of Alan Bennett and Anthony Burgess.