Hot Money Part 13

I could seldom resist her. Seldom tried.

'An hour would be great. I was just thinking of you.'

'Good,' she said. 'See you.'

I stopped worrying about cars and thought of the white lace negligee instead; more enticing altogether. I put two wine gla.s.ses on the table by the sofa and looked at my watch. Malcolm would scarcely have reached the Savoy, I thought, but it was worth a try; and in fact he picked up the telephone saying he had that minute walked into the suite.

'I'm glad you're safely back,' I said. 'I've been a bit detained. I'll be two or three hours yet. Don't get lost.'

'Your mother is a cat,' he said.

'She saved your skin.'

'She called me a raddled old roue done up like a fifth-rate pastrycook.'

I laughed and could hear his scowl down the line.

'What do you want after caviar,' he said, 'if I order dinner?'

'Chefs special.'

'G.o.d rot you, you're as bad as your mother.'

I put the receiver down with amus.e.m.e.nt and waited through the twenty minutes it would take until the doorbell rang.

'h.e.l.lo,' she said, as I let her in. 'How did the races go?'

I kissed her. 'Finished third.'

'Well done.'

She was older than I by ten or twelve years, also slender, auburn-haired and unselfconscious. I fetched the always-waiting champagne from the refrigerator, popped off the cork and poured our drinks. They were a ritual preliminary, really, as we'd never yet finished the bottle and, as usual, after half a gla.s.s, there was no point in sitting around on the sofa making small talk.

She exclaimed over the long black bruise down my thigh. 'Did you fall off a horse?'

'No, hit a car.'

'How careless.'

I drew the bedroom curtains to dim the setting western sun and lay with her naked between the sheets. We were practised lovers and comfortable with each other, philosophical over the fact that the coupling was usually better for one than the other, rarely earth-moving for both simultaneously. That day, like the time before, it turned out ecstatic for her, less so for me, and I thought the pleasure of giving such pleasure enough in itself.

'Was it all right for you?' she said finally.

'Yes, of course.'

'Not one of your great times.'

'They don't come to order. Not your turn, my turn. It's luck.'

'A matter of friction and angles,' she teased me, repeating what I'd once said. 'Who's showering first?'

She liked to return clean to her husband, acknowledging the was.h.i.+ng to be symbolic. I showered and dressed, and waited for her in the sitting-room. She was an essential part of my life, a comfort to the body, a contentment in the mind, a bulwark against loneliness. I usually said goodbye with regret, knowing she would return, but on that particular afternoon I said, 'Stay,' knowing all the same that she couldn't.

'What's the matter?' she said.

'Nothing.'

'You s.h.i.+vered.'

'Premonition.'

'What of?' She was preparing to go, standing by the door.

'That this will be the last time.'

'Don't be silly,' she said. 'I'll be back.'

She kissed me with what I knew was grat.i.tude, the way I too kissed her. She smiled into my eyes. 'I'll be back.'

I opened the door for her and she went away lightheartedly, and I knew that the premonition had been not for her, but for myself.

I ferried the cars in the morning, going from London to Cambridge and Epsom and back to the hire firm, and no one followed me anywhere, as far as I could see.

When I'd departed, Malcolm had been full of rampaging indignation over the non-availability of first-cla.s.s seats on any flight going to Paris the following day for the Arc de Triomphe.

'Go economy,' I said, 'it's only half an hour.'

It appeared that there were no economy seats either. I left him frowning but returned to find peace. He had chartered a private jet.

He told me that snippet later, because he was currently engaged with Norman West who had called to give a progress report. The detective still seemed alarmingly frail but the grey on-the-point-of-death look had abated to fawn. The dustbin clothes had been replaced by an ordinary dark suit, and the greasy hair, washed, was revealed as almost white and neatly brushed.

I shook his hand: damp, as before.

'Feeling better, Mr West?' I asked.

'Thank you, yes.'

'Tell my son what you've just said,' Malcolm commanded. 'Give him the bad news.'

West gave me a small apologetic smile and then looked down at the notepad on his knee.

'Mrs Vivien Pembroke can't remember what she did on the Friday,' he said. 'And she spent Tuesday alone at home sorting through piles of old magazines.'

'What's bad news about that?' I asked.

'Don't be obtuse,' Malcolm said impatiently. 'She hasn't an alibi. None of the whole d.a.m.n bunch has an alibi.'

'Have you checked them all?' I said, surprised. 'You surely haven't had time.'

'I haven't,' he agreed.

'Figure of speech.' Malcolm waved a hand. 'Go on telling him, Mr West.'

'I called on Mrs Berenice Pembroke.' West sighed expressively. 'She found me unwelcome.'

Malcolm chuckled sourly. 'Tongue like a rhinoceros-hide whip.'

West made a small squirming movement as if still feeling the lash, but said merely, with restraint, 'She was completely uncooperative.'

'Was Thomas there, when you called?' I asked.

'No, sir, he wasn't. Mrs Pembroke said he was at work. I later telephoned his office, to the number you gave me, hoping he could tell me where both his wife and himself had been at the relevant times, and a young lady there said that Mr Pembroke left the firm several weeks ago, and she knew nothing of his present whereabouts.'

'Well,' I said, stumped. 'I didn't know.'

'I telephoned Mrs Pembroke again to ask where her husband worked now, and she told me to... er... drop dead.'

Thomas, I thought, had worked for the same firm of biscuit makers from the day he'd finished a course in book-keeping and accountancy. Berenice referred disparagingly to his occupation as 'storekeeping' but Thomas said he was a quant.i.ty surveyor whose job it was to estimate the raw materials needed for each large contract, and cost them, and pa.s.s the information to the management. Thomas's promotions within the firm had been minor, such as from second a.s.sistant to first a.s.sistant, and at forty he could see, I supposed, that he would never be boardroom material. How bleak, I thought, to have to face his mid-life limitations with Berenice cramming them down his throat at every turn. Poor old Thomas ...

'Mrs Joyce Pembroke,' West said, 'is the only one who is definite about her movements. On each relevant day, she was playing bridge. She didn't like me snooping, as she called it, and she wouldn't say who she was playing bridge with as she didn't want those people bothered.'

'You can leave Mrs Joyce Pembroke out,' I said.

'Huh?' Malcolm said.

'You know perfectly well,' I told him, 'that Joyce wouldn't kill you. If you'd had any doubts, you wouldn't have gone off in a car with her yesterday.'

'All right, all right,' he said, grumbling. 'Cross Joyce off.'

I nodded to West, and he put a line through Joyce.

'Yesterday I called on Mrs Alicia Pembroke and then later on Mrs Ursula Pembroke.' West's face showed no joy over the encounters. 'Mrs Alicia Pembroke told me to mind my own business, and Mrs Ursula Pembroke had been crying and wouldn't speak to me.' He lifted his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. 'I couldn't persuade either of them of the advantage of establis.h.i.+ng alibis.'

'Did you get any impression,' I asked, 'that the police had been there before you, asking the same questions?'

'None at all.'

'I told you,' Malcolm said. 'They didn't believe I was attacked. They thought I'd just staged the whole thing.'

'Even so ...'

'They checked everyone out over Moira, as you no doubt remember, and came up with a load of clean slates. They're just not bothering to do it again.'

'Do you happen to have their telephone number with you?'

'Yes I do,' he said, bringing a diary out of an inner pocket and flicking over the pages. 'But they won't tell you anything. It's like talking to a steel door.'

I dialled the number all the same and asked for the superintendent.

'In what connection, sir?'

'About the attempted murder of Mr Malcolm Pembroke a week ago yesterday.'

'One moment, sir.'

Time pa.s.sed, and a different voice came on the line, plain and impersonal.

'Can I help you, sir?'

'About the attempted murder of Mr Malcolm Pembroke ...'

'Who are you, sir?'

'His son.'

'Er... which one?'

'Ian.'

There was a brief rustling of paper.

'Could you tell me your birth date, as proof of ident.i.ty?' Surprised, I gave it.

Then the voice said, 'Do you wish to give information, sir?'

'I wanted to find out how the investigation was going.'

'It isn't our custom to discuss that.'

'But...'

'But I can tell you, sir, that investigations into the alleged attack are being conducted with thoroughness.'

'Alleged!' I said.

'That's right, sir. We can find no evidence at all that there was another party involved.'

'I don't believe it.'

With slightly exaggerated patience but also a first flicker of sympathy, he said, 'I can tell you, sir, that there was no evidence of Mr Pembroke being dragged from the garden to the garage, which he alleged must have happened. No marks on the path. No sc.r.a.pes on the heels of Mr Pembroke's shoes, which we examined at the time. There were no fingerprints except his own on the door handles of the car, no fingerprints except his anywhere. He showed no signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, which he explained was because he had delayed calling us. We examined the scene thoroughly the following morning, after Mr Pembroke had left home, and we found nothing at all to indicate the presence of an a.s.sailant. You can be sure we are not closing the case, but we are not at this time able to find grounds for suspicion of any other person.'

'He was nearly killed,' I said blankly.

'Yes, sir, well I'm sorry, sir, but that's how things stand.' He paused briefly, 'I can understand your disbelief, sir. It can't be easy for you.' He sounded quite human, offering comfort.

'Thank you at least for talking to me,' I said.

'Right, sir. Goodbye.'