Chelsea Mansions

TWENTY-TWO

I t was after eleven that evening when John Greenslade returned to Chelsea Mansions. Toby put his head around the lounge room door as he passed and said, ‘John, old chap, come in and join us. Deb and I are just having a nightcap.’

‘Oh, thanks, Toby. Sounds good.’ Judging by Toby’s mellow tones and the level of the liquid in the Teacher’s bottle, he guessed that this wasn’t their first.

‘Had a good day, dear?’ Deb beamed at him, holding her glass up to the whisky bottle as Toby poured.

‘I’ve just seen a very scary movie, actually. Blood everywhere. I could do with something to settle my stomach.’

‘Quite enough of that in real life, eh?’ Toby rumbled. ‘Especially in Cunningham Place.’ He handed John a brimming glass. ‘Cheers. Down the hatch. I see the inspector caught up with you.’ He waved a finger at the envelope John was carrying. ‘She called in here at lunchtime with it, and we told her she could find you at the Anglesea.’

‘Oh thanks. Yes, she had a quick pie with me on her way back to the office.’

‘No need to explain, old chap.’ Toby’s smile inclined towards a leer. ‘You could have had a tumble in the hay for all we care.’

They all had a chuckle over that.

‘But John,’ Deb said, ‘what is this mysterious work you’re doing with her? Or shouldn’t I pry?’

‘We’re all friends here,’ Toby prompted. ‘In our past lives we’ve both signed more Official Secrets Act declarations than you’ve had hot pies, old chap. We know how to keep a confidence.’

John gave a self-deprecating little laugh. ‘Oh, it’s not such a big deal. In my university work back home I often have to look at the authorship of documents, or fragments of text.’

‘Like did Shakespeare or Francis Bacon write a particular sonnet?’ Toby said.

‘Right, or Guittone d’Arezzo and Guido Guinizelli in my case. But anyway, the Montreal police got to hear about it, and I’ve been able to help them in a few cases of contested documents.’

‘Aha,’ Deb said. ‘And now you’re doing the same with Inspector Kolla.’

‘Moszynski’s will!’ Toby cried. ‘It’s a forgery, is it?’

John laughed. ‘No, no, nothing like that. She just needs to be sure that something he wrote was genuine. For the coroner, you know.’

‘And is it?’

John hesitated. ‘I’m not sure that I can give a definitive answer at the moment.’

‘But you think it could be a fake?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Interesting,’ Toby mused. ‘Bet it’s the letter to The Times. It implicated the Russian government, which is what everyone wants to believe, but if it’s a fake it suggests another motive. Sex or money.’

‘Sex?’ Deb said.

‘Well, in an earlier life, and after a few months in the Arabian desert, Shaka Gibbons might have tempted me to desperate acts,’ Toby said. ‘Here, let me top you up, old chap. All right, not sex. Money, obviously. Who could be after his money? The son-in-law, of course-he looks a ruthless bastard. And that weird accountant chappie that we saw at the funeral holding Shaka’s arm. Who knows what he’s been up to? And that slimy MP, Hadden-Vane, who’s always there next door, day and night. He’d be in it for whatever he could lay his hands on.’

John gave him a sharp look.

‘What, got it right, did I?’ Toby chuckled. ‘Not that difficult. It’s a freak show next door, a fucking circus. We see it every day and we smile, don’t we, Deb? The fabulously rich Russian, his crazy mother, the confused daughter, the sinister son-in-law, the glam wife…’

‘Oh now, I like Shaka,’ Deb protested. ‘She’s feisty, and beautiful.’

‘Yes, well…’ Toby conceded. He fixed John with a glare, enigmatic through the dark discs of his glasses. ‘ The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings .’

‘What’s that, Toby?’

‘Time was, John, we were the masters of our fate, our wealth created by our own ingenuity and hard work. Now look at us-lackeys to every foreign crook and embezzler that turns up with a suitcase stuffed with roubles or dirhams. “Let me take your bag, sir! Let me invest your lovely gold. Income tax? Good heavens no, sir, not for you. Citizenship? Any time you want! You like my house? Take it. A nice English girl? She’s yours!”’

Deb laughed and patted Toby’s hand. ‘Feel better now, love?’ She turned to John. ‘He needs to let off steam, now and then.’

Toby reached for the Teacher’s. ‘Time was, John,’ he growled, ‘when I was a small boy, my family owned three of the houses that made up this block. My great-aunt Daphne, an independent lady of Fabian tendencies, ran a small hotel in number seven next door, catering to people of an enlightened disposition-she insisted on that. My uncle George owned number six, and my father this house, number eight. Numbers one to five were owned by respectable, hard-working families-a solicitor, a retired general of the Indian Army, a civil servant, a bank manager and the head of an advertising agency. Now we’re the only ones left, clinging to the end of the Russian’s juggernaut. Not that they haven’t tried to push us out, eh, Deb? Every trick in the book. A refurbishment loan offered through a totally unconnected finance company that just happened to have been created by Moszynski’s little rat of an accountant for the purposes of forcing us into liquidation. Then they used the courts, suing us for breach of contract, stuffing the pockets of English lawyers with their cash to pulverise us into submission. And they nearly succeeded, didn’t they, Deb?’

‘Yes, Toby.’ She leaned over to John. ‘They decided they had to own the lot, the whole block, but Toby wouldn’t have it.’

‘You think I’m being paranoid, do you, John?’ Toby said. ‘Then let me ask you this: what are the police doing, would you say? Come on, you’re on the inside there. Tell us, what are they doing?’

‘Well… I don’t really know, Toby. Trying to solve Moszynski’s murder, I guess.’

‘Exactly!’ Toby nodded. ‘You’ve got it in one, boy. They’re trying to solve Moszynski’s murder. Not Nancy Haynes’ murder. She doesn’t count, does she? She didn’t have a sackful of roubles to command our servile attention. She was a pensioner, for God’s sake, a decent woman, but who gives a fuck about that.’

‘Toby, darling, I think it’s time for bed,’ Deb said.

‘True enough.’

They drained their glasses and John said, ‘I didn’t realise you’d had problems with the people next door.’

‘Actually, I liked Mr Moszynski in many ways,’ Deb said. ‘He could be quite charming and considerate when he felt like it. But if he wanted something, and you were in his way, then God help you. Our rather shabby little hotel was an affront to his vision of his palatial residence.’

‘Will it be easier for you now, do you think?’

‘We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?’