Child's Play

Chapter 7

It took Rod Lomas a turn round the room and a cigarette and a half to bring him to the talking point.

He didn’t deny her accusation then, but demanded, ‘How did you know?’

‘I was at the funeral,’ she said. ‘I saw everyone’s face when Pontelli showed up. Shock, bewilderment, outrage, that’s what I saw. Except on yours.’

‘And on mine?’

‘Amusement. You were enjoying it.’

‘My warped sense of humour, perhaps.’

‘Mebbe. But I saw your first night too. You were awful.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘I’d looked for you in your dressing-room before I went on stage to the party. There was a copy of the Evening Post there. It had Pontelli’s picture in it. I reckoned you must’ve seen it not long before you went on and that was the first you knew he was dead.’

‘At least you don’t think I killed him, then!’ he said with a slight sneer.

‘I’d not have done it if I’d thought that,’ she said calmly.

What ‘it’ referred to wasn’t altogether clear. He felt himself in her control and some rubbery imp of resentful ego still twisted in his gut. She was sitting up against the bed head, naked, her knees drawn up under her chin, watching him. Her steady gaze and her unselfconsciousness suddenly made him aware of his own nakedness and he instinctively dropped his cigaretteless hand to his crotch. A small smile sent the imp bounding again.

‘You look like an Oxfam poster!’ he mocked.

The jibe was surprisingly productive.

‘I don’t think that’s funny,’ she snapped.

‘Oh. Sensitive about our body, are we?’

‘I’m sensitive about the bodies I see on Oxfam posters,’ she said.

It was a rebuke which threatened to bring the imp bounding forth once more, then suddenly it was gone.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean anything. I was just putting off talking.’

‘Don’t,’ she advised.

‘It’s a long story,’ he warned.

‘Come back to bed and tell it.’

It wasn’t after all too long a story that Rod Lomas told Lexie Huby as they lay side by side in the narrow bed that had once belonged to the lost boy who bore both their names. But it was complicated, not simply in its narrative strands but in the threads of guilt and doubt and pride which were twisted into its telling.

‘It was my father’s idea,’ began Lomas. ‘I know he’s been dead for three years, but something like this doesn’t just spring up overnight. Not that I knew anything about it while he was alive. He didn’t believe in letting even his dearest and nearest see all his sleight of hand! God, he could have run the world if he’d thought it worth his while!’

Lexie said, ‘I don’t imagine you think he killed himself, then?’

‘Christ, no!’ said Lomas angrily. ‘All that crap about running his car off the road because his company was collapsing was just gutter press garbage. He beat Micawber for optimism!’

‘But the company was in trouble.’

‘Yes. Well, he always sailed close to the wind. But as long as he could talk and had a bit of working capital, he would have been OK. No, the company collapsed because he died, not the other way round.’

‘And the working capital?’

‘Oh yes. He had that too. Well, thirty thousand quids’ worth of it. Peanuts of course in terms of the whole operation, but enough to wave in the right faces.’

‘You’re very precise about the figure.’

‘I can be. It’s what he got from Aunt Gwen.’

Now Lexie showed surprise.

‘Auntie Gwen loaned him money?’

‘No way!’ he laughed. ‘There’s no one meaner than the rich, Lexie, you’ll find that out. No, Daddy knew better than to come cap in hand begging. Instead he offered to do her a favour. I imagine he told her that what she needed to lure Alexander out of hiding was a proper Italian address. He probably argued that while the lost lad might be reluctant to return to England, and be a bit shy even of writing, or calling at posh hotels, an Italian address could do the trick. During her Italian visit that year, I’ve no doubt he bumped into her by accident and mentioned that he just happened to have this superb villa in Tuscany, the Villa Boethius, on his books, forty thou for a quick sale, splendid investment, all that. She saw it, liked it, knocked him down the twenty-five per cent, he’d allowed for, and bought it.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Aunt Gwen, acting on impulse.’

‘No impulse. The completion date was set for a week after her return and she left a post-dated cheque with Daddy’s lawyer in Florence. Plenty of time for old Eden Thackeray to pull her and her money out of the deal if he didn’t like it. But don’t you remember, she got back here and her first night home she had a stroke. Mummy was full of tremulous anticipation, but alas, the old girl recovered. And then a couple of weeks later, Daddy had his accident.’

He fell silent, and Lexie wound her thin arms around him till he started again.

‘Then the vultures descended. Everything went, the Fraud Squad were sniffing around with their nasty insinuations, creditors were watching Mummy like a rare comet. They’d have had her gold fillings if she’d slept with her mouth open! Mummy knew about the villa deal, though she hadn’t been in Florence when it went through, but any hopes she had that Gwen’s thirty thou might be stashed away safe were soon shattered. It was in a nice little account in Zürich, but the Fraud Squad and the creditors between them sniffed it out. Don’t believe what you read about Swiss Banks. Millions they may hang on to, smaller sums they hand to the first cop who asks nicely.’

‘But the villa. There was nothing in the probate accounts about a villa.’

‘Don’t be impatient. A couple of months passed. One night the telephone rang. It was a call from Italy, a man who said he’d acted as Daddy’s agent on several occasions and he now had an Italian family who were interested in renting the Villa Boethius the following spring. He was sorry to trouble Mummy who must still be mourning her great loss, but if he could be of assistance, etcetera, etcetera. Well, Mummy and I just looked at each other with the dawning of faint hope. Daddy had not left us well provided for. Any source of income, however small, was not to be sneezed at. The creditors were still keeping a weather eye on Mummy, so we split forces. I took a train to Florence and Mummy took one to Yorkshire. We spoke on the phone two days later to exchange information. Hers was excellent. It was quite clear that though Gwen was recovering her health steadily, she had no recollection of buying the Villa Boethius.’

‘But someone had to know? What about Keech?’

‘No way. Auntie Gwen treated her like any good-living Yorkshire lady treats the help — called her a treasure and counted the spoons whenever she’d cleared the table.’

‘But a draft for thirty thousand …’

‘A drop in a pretty large ocean. Also, it would be made out to some very drab-sounding company, not to Daddy personally. There’s no evidence that Gwen ever noticed. No, there seemed no reason not to carry on as if the villa were Mummy’s by right of inheritance. There’s been a steady trickle of rental payments into an account in Dublin ever since.’

‘It’s fraud,’ said Lexie.

‘It’s a very small fraud.’

‘Then it’ll be a very small jail sentence. You must have been dead worried when Aunt Gwen died, though.’

‘You can say that again. We thought: Any minute now something’s going to turn up. And there wasn’t much we could do … Jesus Christ!’

A small but extremely hard fist had cracked into his ribs.

‘That’s what made you contact your “dear cousin”, wasn’t it? To see if you could pick up anything about the estate from Thackeray’s! Likely she’ll be too thick to notice she’s being pumped.’

‘I think you’ve punctured a lung! Yes, that was about the strength of it, I’m afraid. But I soon realized my error.’

‘You’d better not forget.’

‘No. I’d better not.’

‘You’ve still not mentioned Pontelli.’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘When? I didn’t hear you … oh.’

‘Sharp little Lexie! Yes, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered the astonishing coincidence that Alessandro Pontelli, my father’s agent in Florence, should happen to be Aunt Gwen’s long-lost son. Can’t you?’

‘Oh yes. I can imagine!’

‘You have an ill-divining soul! Well, here’s the truth. This chap Pontelli, well, he knew there was something odd going on about the villa, but I reckon he was used to that, working for Dad. But something about him struck me as soon as we met. The way he moved, the set of his jaw. It took me a little while to pin it down. In fact it wasn’t till he brought up the subject himself that it hit me. It was your father he reminded me of. He looked like a Huby!’

‘But why should he bring the subject up?’ asked Lexie.

‘Because Dad had obviously noticed the resemblance too! You really had to know Dad to understand what this would mean. He had a truly creative imagination. Something like this would be a seed dropped into fertile earth. Mummy’s a very sharp cookie, thinks on her feet, is good in a tight situation, but when it comes to true inventiveness and the long-term view she is nowhere. Her mind works in sharp focus snapshots, Daddy’s worked in five-reeler cinemascope!’

‘So this was his idea?’

‘His alone. Mummy knew nothing of it. All her eggs were in one basket, the will. Daddy knew much more about the oddities of the human mind and half-guessed that Gwen’s obsession might survive beyond her grave. But even without this suspicion, the sheer magnificent effrontery of the scheme would have fired his imagination.’

‘The scheme being to pass Pontelli off as Alexander Huby?’

‘That’s it! For over a year before his death he had been gathering information about the lost lad and coaching Pontelli in the role.’

Lomas freely admitted now that he was unable to recall whether it was his or Pontelli’s idea to revive the scheme.

‘Possibly he manipulated me, but I wasn’t averse to the manipulation. I don’t know, it seemed somehow like a sort of memorial to my father. Also, it had something of the unreal/real nature of the theatre. There was no point in trying anything while Gwen was alive. I mean, suppose Mummy was right and a great chunk of the money was coming her way anyway? But there was no harm in being ready. I gave Pontelli the full benefit of my dramatic expertise plus all the family and geographical background I could recall. He’d been badly shot up in the war, so we were able to work his scars into a lovely scenario of heroic action, near death, long amnesia, psychotic guilt. It seemed like a game in a way. I suppose really I was on Mummy’s side and I thought the cash would be hers anyway. When Gwen took ill in August, I was in Italy. I told Pontelli I had to fly back. He didn’t say anything, but a week later, he turned up in London. I was down there, as it happened, while Mummy was up here doing her tending-the-sick bit. I told Pontelli to sod off back to Florence. Then the phone rang and Mummy told me Gwen was dead.’

‘Your mother didn’t know about Pontelli.’

‘No. It seemed better. Dad hadn’t told her, so I could see no reason to. Well, I came hot foot to Yorkshire for the funeral. Pontelli was not to be shaken off by this time, but I made him stay in Leeds well away from the action till I saw how things were going. Then the news about the will broke, by courtesy of old Thackeray, and suddenly the game began to be for real. How to develop it, I wasn’t sure, but it seemed to me to be a good idea to set everyone’s mind moving in a certain direction as soon as possible. And I’m afraid I couldn’t resist the sheer dramatic impact of having Pontelli pop up at the graveside. All he was meant to be was the mysterious stranger, grieving in the background. It was his own mad Latin idea to go over the top with Mama! But, by God, the result was splendid, wasn’t it!’

‘There were people there who genuinely cared for the old lady,’ said Lexie quietly.

‘Not you, surely!’

‘No, not me. I won’t say that. But there were others. And for all her faults, she didn’t deserve to go out in farce.’

Lomas pushed himself up on his elbow to study her face in the dim light from the false dawn outside the window.

‘You can be quite frightening when you’re stern, you know,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. It wasn’t decent, was it? But as I am sure you know, that’s not what I’m being defensively frivolous about. A bit of comic indecorum never hurt anybody. It’s Pontelli’s murder that breaks me up. If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have been here, would he? I feel responsible, and I always flee to farce in times of guilt.’

‘But you’re not responsible, are you?’

‘You beginning to have doubts?’

‘What happened?’ Lexie said inexorably.

Lomas sighed and said, ‘Mummy went wild. After the initial shock, she soon put two and two together. I’d have had to tell her anyway. She’d never met Pontelli but she knew the name well enough. After the funeral she played hell with me. I got mad too and told her she hadn’t been so clever either, the way the will had turned out. She said that what should be worrying us to start with was whether old Thackeray as executor was going to track down the Villa Boethius. If he did, then there were going to be all kinds of questions to answer, and the clear link between Pontelli and the villa would plunge us really deep in the mire. I must admit I’d never thought of that. So I went after Pontelli and told him to cool it till we saw how things were developing. Ten days went by without the Fraud Squad banging at Mummy’s door. We were in an agony of suspense, to coin a phrase. Then Chung’s Mercutio got beaten up and by one of those coincidences too daring for drama I got invited back here to take the part, and Mummy said, why not contact Keechie and ask if you can stay at Troy House?’

‘I wondered about that,’ said Lexie. ‘It’s out of the way, inconvenient, and must be a real damper on your love life.’

‘I’m managing very nicely, I think,’ said Lomas. ‘Anyway, I didn’t hang about. My first night here I got into Aunt Gwen’s filing cabinet and there among all her bits of paper concerned with the search for Alex, I found her record of the villa purchase. Of course, that’s where she would keep it, you see, because that’s why she bought it!’

‘You stole it.’

‘I put it in a safer place,’ said Lomas.

‘And you activated Pontelli again straightaway,’ she said accusingly.

‘No! We’d been in touch, naturally. He had been griping on about hanging around doing nothing. And he was short of cash. We subbed him, of course, well, Mummy did; but we were still very uncertain of our long-term plans for him.’

‘Don’t make it sound like a moral problem,’ said Lexie. ‘You mean, you didn’t know whether to settle for the villa and whatever your mother might get out of the estate via Goodenough and the PAWS suit, or risk going for something much bigger.’

‘Christ, I hope you never become a judge!’ said Lomas. ‘All right, that’s about the strength of it. But what we didn’t reckon on was Pontelli taking independent action. I think he just got fed up with waiting and decided that the best way forward was to start the ball rolling himself. And that’s what he did, the very same day — in fact, as far as I can gather, the very same time — as I was trying to squeeze information out of your stony heart in the Black Bull.’

‘So you knew nothing about him going to see Mr Eden?’

‘Nothing, I swear it! Nor about him going to see your father. I think he was just putting himself on show, testing the water so he could judge how safe it was to jump in. Very likely he’d decided that the quickest way to make a profit was to create a certain nuisance value so that the estate might buy him off.’

‘Work independently of you and your mother, you mean?’

‘Why not? He knew we could hardly blow the gaff on him once he was out in the open. I found out what was happening from Mummy at lunchtime on Friday. I was furious! I tried ringing him at the hotel he was staying at in Leeds, but there was no reply from his room. Mummy told me to get myself across there that evening and make sure I saw him and found out what the hell he was playing at. I went by train. I didn’t want to show myself at the hotel, so I rang again from a call-box just round the corner. He still wasn’t in. It wasn’t much of an hotel and I knew I’d be pretty conspicuous hanging around inside, so I spent the evening wandering between a pub and a café on the other side of the road, ringing from time to time in case I’d missed him. Finally I got so desperate I went in and asked for him and made them go up to his room and check he was definitely out. I think they were getting suspicious he’d done a bunk by this time. I’d turned my collar up and put on a phoney accent just to be on the safe side. I didn’t know the safe side of what, of course. Finally I headed back to the station. I paused en route to ring Mummy at the Howard Arms to give her a lack-of-progress report, but she wasn’t answering either. To cap it all, I got back to the station just in time to see the last train disappearing! So I had to ring Keechie to tell her I wouldn’t be back that night as I was staying with a friend.’

‘Did you reverse the charges?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact — I’d used all my change on the other calls. Why?’

‘That’s how the police would know you were in Leeds. Keech must’ve told them.’

‘Why shouldn’t she? She’d no idea I’d want her to keep it quiet. Anyway, that was it. I dossed down in the waiting-room till the first morning train. I rang the hotel once again on Saturday. By this time they knew he’d done a bunk and were eager for any help I could give them. I rang off, said a little prayer that he’d run all the way back to Florence and forgot all about him till I glanced at the Evening Post just before I was due to go on on Monday night, and there he was. I nearly missed my entrance.’

‘That’s why I knew you didn’t kill him.’

‘I can’t see that fellow Pascoe being so easily convinced. And as for that other tub of lard, the very thought of him makes me shudder — Lexie, what am I going to do?’

‘Finish your story first,’ she said mildly. ‘Save your big remorse scene till you’ve told me who it was cooked up the idea of proving that Pontelli really was Huby now that he’s too dead to question.’

‘What? No, that wasn’t me, honestly. It was Mummy. I told you she thinks on her feet. I didn’t know why she suddenly wanted to know if Pontelli had any distinguishing marks. That was last night, just before she met with Dalziel. I told her — Pontelli and me had gone through the whole thing, about scars, birthmarks that sort of thing. It wasn’t till later I was able to work it out for myself.’

‘You surprise me,’ said Lexie. ‘You being a Lomas and all!’

‘Don’t you get all high and mighty!’ said Lomas, raising his voice defensively. ‘If Pontelli was proved to be Alexander, that makes your father the heir. It was pointless Mummy lying unless she could rely on him, wasn’t it? I just hope she can trust him for her share, if they get away with it.’

‘Not much chance of that,’ said Lexie ambiguously. ‘And there’s no need to shout. I just wanted to know.’

‘So now you know! Oh Lexie, I’m sorry. It’s all getting too complicated for me. Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint. Oh Lexie, what am I to do?’

‘Come here,’ she said softly. ‘You know what to do.’

‘What? No, I meant …’

‘Oh, methinks I feel some rousing motions in you that do dispose to something extraordinary my thoughts! You’re not the only one who can quote, you see.’

‘Full of surprises, Lexie. Mind you I think you’re wrong. All otherwise to me my thoughts portend- Christ! What was that for?’

‘It’s not gentlemanly to cap a lady’s quote,’ said Lexie. ‘And in any case, you were wrong. See?’