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.’
‘God rot you, you’re as bad as your mother.’
I put the receiver down with amusement and waited through the twenty minutes it would take until the doorbell rang.
‘Hello,’ 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 glass, 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 washing 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 shivered.’
‘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 gratitude, 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-class 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 damn 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