On the Edge [= Dead Gorgeous]

14

Shortly before 7.30 on Tuesday morning a taxi entered Hyde Park by the Cumberland Gate, drove around the Ring and halted just across the bridge over the Serpentine. Antonia, who was the passenger, sensibly remained inside wrapped in her mink, for there was a thick frost. Her breath was making ice on the window. She rubbed at it.

‘A little closer, driver.’

‘You wouldn’t be thinking of joining them, miss?’

‘No fear.’

The all-weather bathers were taking their dip. A dozen at least, including women, were in the water paddling joylessly about.

The driver stopped at the point closest to the water. ‘Like ruddy lobsters, except that this lot go in red and come out blue.’

Some minutes passed. It seemed to be a case of first out’s a cissy. Then two of the women waded to the bank and started the exodus.

Antonia sighed. ‘They get no credit for this unless they break the ice to go in. Then they get their picture in the papers.’

‘I can think of easier ways, miss.’

One of the last to emerge was Vic, wearing trunks and chatting to two middle-aged men in old-fashioned costumes with shoulder straps. Although Antonia inclined to the view that people who did this must be coldblooded or mad, or both, she wasn’t totally disapproving. Vic’s body was good to look at even in these conditions. There was a suggestion of power as he moved, and his damp body-hair darkened the flesh and picked out the muscles as he flexed them.

She wound down the window and called his name.

He stopped and stared. Then he recognized her and gestured that he needed to dry himself. She nodded. He went into the brick bathing house to change.

The driver had watched all this with interest. ‘Boyfriend, miss?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Funny time to meet.’

‘I spent most of yesterday trying to find him.’ She took out her cigarettes and offered him one. ‘He’d better not be long.’

‘Doing up his buttons won’t be easy with frozen fingers.’

‘Don’t worry. He’ll get a roasting from me.’

She stared across the steely sheet of water until Vic emerged from the bathing house in his overcoat and came over to the taxi and climbed in.

‘Well, this is an unexpected pleasure. What are you doing here?’ He leaned across to kiss her cheek.

She withdrew her face out of range. ‘Making one final attempt to track you down.’

‘You were looking for me?’

‘For the last twenty-four hours.’

‘Sorry. I was sent to Birmingham. A conference. I got back at eleven last night.’

‘You could have picked up a phone’.

The voice from the front interjected, ‘Where to, please?’

She clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘I suppose you’re ravenous for breakfast now.’

The driver switched on his engine. ‘There’s a place at the top of North End Road. It ain’t the Savoy, but you’ll never taste a better bacon and egg.’

Later, after they’d put this recommendation to the test, Antonia conceded that the driver hadn’t been far wrong. Her pleasure in the meal was much assisted by a full apology from Vic.

She forgave him, and more. ‘I’m coming to stay with you some time in the next week or so.’

‘To stay?’

‘Yes, won’t it be divine? Our first whole night together. Then our second and our third and—’

‘What’s Hector going to say about this?’

‘I haven’t spoken to him yet. He won’t be any trouble.’

Vic glanced around the small café. Some traders from the market in wide-boy overcoats with heavily padded shoulders were in for breakfast. No one seemed to be listening.

‘Antonia, I’d like to know more about this. Are you up to something?’

‘Of course I’m up to something. I want to marry you and go to America.’

‘Yes, but I don’t want some bastard with a flash-camera bursting into my flat and taking pictures of you and me in bed.’

She laughed. ‘How did you get that dopey idea?’

‘That’s the way people arrange it these days.’

‘Arrange what?’

‘Divorce.’

‘Sweetie, how many times do I have to tell you divorce is out of the question? Forget about men with cameras.’

He sighed. ‘I don’t understand it.’

She lodged her foot against his. ‘Don’t try. Simply enjoy it while you’ve got the chance.’

Mr Smart, the insurance agent, was on the doorstep again, in the act of raising his trilby as Rose opened the door. His nose and ears were pillarbox red.

‘Good day, Mrs Bell. Bright but cold. Ice about.’

‘You’d better come in.’

He placed his hat and bicycle pump on the hallstand and removed his clips. ‘How are you settling down?’

‘I’m managing the best I can. Would you care for a cup of tea?’

‘That sounds agreeable.’

‘If you don’t mind the kitchen, it’s warmer in there.’

He stood rubbing his hands by the boiler. The teacloths from yesterday’s wash-up were draped from the struts attached to the flue.

Rose reached for the matches and lit the gas under the kettle. ‘What have you got — more forms for me to fill in?’

‘I require no more than a signature this time. The funeral was yesterday, I believe.’

‘Yes.’

‘I dare say you’re glad it’s over.’

She detected an undercurrent of disapproval in the voice.

‘It kept me busy. I was grateful for that.’

‘Stopped your mind from dwelling on things.’

‘True.’

‘Are you able to get any sleep at all?’

She gave him a long, cool look. ‘While we’re waiting for the kettle, Mr Smart, don’t you think we should get down to business?’

‘As you wish. This is what you are waiting for, I think.’ He took a brown envelope from his pocket and placed it ostentatiously on the kitchen table. ‘Your cheque for five thousand pounds.’

She resisted the polite impulse to say thank you. Why should she? Nor did she snatch up the envelope and rip it open. She put out cups and saucers and went to the larder for milk.

‘I shall require your signature on the receipt.’

‘Naturally.’ She noticed her Coronation biscuit tin taking up room at the front of the larder and remembered what it contained. ‘A piece of cake?’

Mr Smart unexpectedly laughed, and there wasn’t any humour in the laugh. ‘Tell me, is that an offer of something to eat — or self-congratulation?’

She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘What exactly do you mean?’

He gave a superior smile. ‘A piece of cake. One of those cheerful phrases the RAF has given the language. Is that what all this has been, Mrs Bell? A piece of cake?’

She clenched her teeth. She thought, I’ve been through a police interrogation, an inquest and a funeral. Am I to be tripped by this pipsqueak insurance man? He’s only guessing. He can’t be certain. She prised the lid off the tin and held her mother’s trench cake in front of him.

He selected a slice. There was a sneer on his face, as if the act of handing over the cheque had absolved him of the need to curry favour. ‘Strictly between ourselves, I’ve come across some queer things in the insurance business, but this is one of the queerest. The very day your husband is due to surrender his policy, he’s killed in an accident. Astonishing. You can hardly blame my company for wanting to make sure of the facts. We put the case in the hands of our best investigators. They find that the only person who stands to benefit — no sugar, if that’s my cup — has a watertight alibi. Sorry, I shouldn’t use the word “alibi”. It implies that an offence was committed and we know it wasn’t, don’t we? The coroner was satisfied, his jury were satisfied and our investigators were unable to prove that anything irregular had happened.’

So it was supposition. He knew nothing about Antonia.

‘Then I suggest, Mr Smart, that you stop imagining things.’ Rose pushed the tea towards him. She reached for her handbag and took out her fountain pen. ‘Do you have that receipt?’

‘In the envelope.’

He finished his tea and left without touching the cake.

Some time after midnight Hector stopped work in his office downstairs and came to bed. He undressed in the dark, padding about in his shirt-tails so as not to disturb Antonia.

He didn’t disturb her because she was still awake. She lay in silence in her own bed with her eyes open, waiting. The plan of action she was shortly to outline to Hector required his total concentration. She wanted him passive, in bed, where he had no choice except to listen. He had to be made to understand that his part in the plan was not only necessary, but inescapable.

She waited two or three minutes after he’d climbed into bed.

‘Hec.’

‘Mm?’

‘What did you think of Rose?’

‘Who?’

‘My pretty little friend from the WAAF.’

‘Rosie Bell? Nice girl. Why ask me?’

‘I’ve decided to kill her.’

The bedsprings screeched. ‘You gone mad?’

‘I knew you’d say that. Listen, will you? It’s the perfect answer to our problem. We invite her here to cook for you while I’m away.’

‘You’re going to kill her?’

‘Pipe down and listen. I said I’m going away for a few days.’

‘Going away? Where?’

‘I’ll come to that. I won’t really be away. Not far, anyway. I’ve arranged to stay somewhere near. We give Rose the key and she lets herself in to make you a pie or something. I saw the way she looked at you when you asked if she could cook. She’ll do it for you. I’ll be hiding in the house. I surprise her and knock her out with chloroform. Then I smother her with a cushion. No blood. No mess.’

‘Antonia, this is raving mad, you know.’

‘No, it isn’t, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve managed to get hold of a blank death certificate.’

‘A doctor’s certificate?’

‘No. Get a grip on yourself, Hector, and listen. A death registration. The one the registry office issues. With that we can get a body buried. We fill it in ourselves. We won’t even need a doctor’s certificate. It’s quite straightforward.’

‘You think?’

‘I’m certain.’

‘But it’s wicked to think of killing that poor sweet girl. What has Rosie done to hurt you or me? Nothing. She trusts us.’

‘Poor, sweet girl! Hector, you’re a mutt. That sweet girl is bloody dangerous. She’s got to be stopped.’

‘Stopped? What is she doing?’

‘Any day now she’ll go to the police.’ Antonia took a deep breath. ‘My fault, I admit it. I was taken in like you. Stupidly I let something slip about Maudie’s death.’

Hector groaned. ‘Maudie! Oh, no! You opened your big mouth. Crazy!’

Smoothly and expertly, Antonia embroidered fiction over the facts. ‘Days ago I made some remark about having to wait for Maudie to die before you and I could marry. Then of course she met you and almost the first thing you told her was that Maudie drowned. I don’t blame you, Hec, but she was on to it at once. She won’t let it pass. She’s been pestering me about it ever since. She’s that sort of person. I’m certain she knows already.’

‘Would she really go to the police?’

‘You’ve met her. She’s a vicar’s daughter. A model bloody citizen. She’d regard it as her moral duty. She’s got to be stopped, Hec.’

His reply was muffled, as if he’d pressed his hands to his face. ‘I can’t do this, Antonia.’

‘You don’t have to. I’m doing it. It’s too bloody late to discover you have a conscience.’

He was silent for a long time.

‘All right, you crazy bitch. After you kill Rosie in this house, what do you say to her people? She tripped over the cat and fell downstairs? She choked on a fish bone? You think her mother and father are going to believe you? And who arranges the funeral? You can’t take this certificate to the undertaker and get her buried yourself.’

‘No, my sweet. That’s your job.’

‘Mine? You make a big mistake there.’

‘Calm down and listen to me, little man. You’ve jumped to all the wrong conclusions. Give me credit for some intelligence. There will be no trouble from Rosie’s people because they won’t know she’s dead. The name on the death certificate will be mine. It will be my funeral, Hector. Can you get that into your head?’

He took a huge breath and then exhaled in a series of nervous bursts.

Antonia was in no hurry to move on. She wanted the essential message to sink in first. He was not unintelligent.

When he spoke again his tone was sceptical, but he’d got the point. ‘Her body, your funeral.’

‘Exactly. That’s why you must make the arrangements. It isn’t much to do, considering what you get in return. No more worries over the Maudie business. And you’ll be a single man again. A widower for the second time. We were talking about it only the other day. A life of your own, you old goat. You’ll never hear from me again.’

‘Oh yes? Where will you go?’

‘America, with Vic.’

‘They won’t let you stay.’

‘Don’t fret over that. I’ll be married to him and he’s got that job at Princeton.’

‘Married?’

‘Birdbrain. Haven’t you worked it out? I’ll be using Rose’s identity. It’s simply a matter of going through her handbag after she’s dead. Her identity card will be there. If by any chance it isn’t, the key of her house is sure to be, and I’ll collect it the same evening and become sweet little Rosie Bell. I’ll marry Vic at a registry office somewhere outside London within a couple of days. New surname. New passport. New country. Isn’t it neat?’

‘What about her people? They will report that she’s missing.’

‘Hector, thousands of people are missing. Haven’t you ever looked at those lists in the Sunday papers? The police can’t keep up with it. What’s one more missing woman?’

He gave up trying to pick fault with the plan. He turned obstinate instead. ‘I won’t do this, Antonia. It’s a mortal sin. I should never have let you kill poor Maudie. I suffer terrible dreams for that. I can’t stand by and let you repeat that wicked thing.’

‘Come off it, Hector! Don’t get high and mighty with me now. It doesn’t wash. We’re in this together.’

‘Not together. Leave me out.’

‘How can I? Be reasonable. I can’t arrange my own funeral.’

There was another scrunch from the bedsprings as he kicked out in fury. ‘You tell me be reasonable? Killing another innocent woman — is that reasonable?’

‘She’s not so innocent as you think, but that’s not the point. I’m going to insist that you help me in this, Hector. You and I are going to make it happen exactly as I told you. I shall definitely kill her. If anything goes wrong, if you fail me, I swear to God I’ll see you swing for killing Maudie.’

‘Maudie! You pushed her in the pool!’

‘With your connivance. You wanted to get rid of her. You were sick of her black moods and her drinking. I told you what I was going to do. That made you an accessory before the fact of murder, Hector. That’s a hanging offence.’

‘I didn’t know how serious you were.’

‘You stood back and let me get on with it. An English court of law isn’t going to waste much sympathy on a nasty little foreigner who gets his mistress to do the dirty work for him. I might get away with a life sentence, but it’s the rope for you, make no mistake about that.’

She let him brood on that. When he spoke again it was with an air of resignation.

‘Say what you want. Exactly.’

She went over her plan minutely. And after she’d told him the undemanding but necessary part she wanted him to play, she added that she also required twenty thousand pounds to get settled in America.

He was silent.

She said it would be a once and for all payment. He would never hear from her again.

He said she could have it. Then he called her a bloodsucking monster.

She wished him a cheery goodnight.