A Murder of Magpies (11 page)

I was standing talking to the editor of an art magazine about an author of mine who might suit one of his regular “What Do They Look At?” features when I felt two arms go around my waist in a bear hug from behind. Nick.

“Don't you look like something the cat's dragged in?” he boomed.

“Thanks, Nick. It's nice to know that not only do I feel like shit, but I look like shit, too.”

He looked closer. “My God, you really do. What on earth…?”

“I was burgled. I got beaten up.”

He disentangled me from the art magazine editor, who was suddenly a lot more interested in our conversation, and said, “Never mind all this,” his arm sweepingly dismissing the great and the good. “Is this to do with Kit?” Nick is a great big bear of a man, easily six feet two inches, and about as wide, with a reddish fuzz covering most of his face and body, as far as one could tell in public. He was now a concerned bear. Winnie-the-Pooh does worry. “When you called I thought it was serious, but I didn't realize you were personally involved. Let's get out of here and go somewhere where we can talk.”

“Are you sure? You've seen everyone you need to see?” Now I knew he was hooked, I could afford to sound generous.

“Sam. Please. It's a party, for Christ's sake, not an audience with the pope.” He thought about the director of the Tate for a minute and conceded, “Maybe it is an audience with the pope, but I've been and genuflected before him already. It's enough.”

We left.

I'd forgotten about Nick's boy-toy mania, or I would have arranged to meet him at the restaurant. Parked just by the ramp was an enormous bike that, at a guess, I'd say was a Harley-Davidson. Nick took a second helmet off the back and handed it to me. I put it on without the protest I would have made another time. After the past two days, what did dicing with death matter? I got on behind Nick, put my arms as far around his tree-trunk-like waist as I could manage and, clutching his leather jacket tightly, closed my eyes.

After about a thousand years, he stopped. I opened my eyes cautiously. We were at the Reform Club, of all places. Nick gave our helmets to the porter, who handled them by the extreme edges, as though they were radioactive, and pulled me up the stairs.

“The
Reform
?” I was overcome with giggles.

“It seemed like the best place. Anywhere else I know, it's either impossible to hear, and we'd have to shout at each other, which I figured you didn't want, or it's so quiet that everyone can hear every word, which I also figured you didn't want.”

“And the Reform Club isn't quiet?”

“It's quiet, but that's because all the members are dead or deaf. Either suits our purposes.”

He was right, so I followed him in. I knew the drill, having a couple of old crusty authors who had never discovered that there are other places to eat in London when they venture up from the country on their annual outing, so I didn't try and leave my coat with Nick's on the pegs outside the dining room. It's against the rules for women to leave their coats there. I assume that the members think these nasty girl coats will get up to something with the boy coats while we're eating, and by the time we come out there will be dozens of baby jackets, all claiming child support from the Committee. I went up the back stairs to the ladies' lav, which is where the Club has decided women are to be hidden away to do whatever it is women do, and returned to find Nick seated in a corner of the Grill room. He was right, it was a good place to talk. It was very dark, very upholstered, very hushed. If you saw it in a movie, you would think it was a parody of a gentleman's club. No one in the room had ever heard of Kit, or fashion, although from a quick guess at the price of some of their suits, quite a few knew about money laundering. But they were too far away to worry about, and anyway, they hadn't heard anything except the sounds of their own voices for decades.

We ordered and I got down to it. “What did the police say about Kit's disappearance?”

Nick looked disappointed. “I thought you were going to tell me.”

“I am, but I need to know where to begin.”

“Fair enough. They didn't say he had disappeared at all. Just that they were ‘looking into' a few matters, and what could I tell them. I thought it was about Jonathan Davies, so I told them about our internal investigation; that Davies had left last term and we have no current address for him; that I hadn't seen Kit in months; that I would be thrilled if he came back to lecture. And then they went away.”

I filled him in on Kit's book—there was nothing to lose by it, and if he could help, there was a lot to gain—and my burglary. I left out the money laundering, and most of the names outside of Vernet. Nick wasn't going to have any information about banks and investment companies. “I'm really just fishing here, but tell me about Davies. Kit said he followed him around the country.”

“He did? That surprises me, because he showed no initiative in any other way. He was on the History of Fashion course—he had no practical abilities—and he rarely showed up for classes. His grades were ordinary. Nothing to get him thrown out, but nothing to make anyone take any notice of him.”

“You did. Noticed him, I mean.”

“Only after he accused Kit of harassment. I've got to say, I never believed it. Davies, let's face it, was such a little twerp. There was no reason for Kit to notice him at all. If Kit tended toward students, and there was no history of that, he wouldn't have chosen Davies. He was totally null: not good, not bad; not handsome, not ugly; not interesting, not boring. Just
nothing
.”

Nick was getting worked up, as though I had suggested that the harassment charge had been his fault. I tried to get him to concentrate on practical details. “When he first accused Kit, did you speak to any of his friends? Anyone I could talk to now to find out where he is?”

Nick thought for a minute. “I'm not sure. He was in his final year, so everyone who was with him will have finished their degree now. I'll check the file on Monday, and talk to a few of the lecturers. If we can come up with anyone, I'll call.”

I had to leave it there—Nick was trying to be helpful. If he knew anything, I'd get it as soon as he could.

*   *   *

Until I saw Diego Alemán, there really wasn't much I could do. I hated the idea of sitting still when Kit might be lying dead somewhere, but the memory of my “discussion” with Kit's editor was a useful reality check. Life wasn't a novel, and I couldn't go charging about demanding that total strangers tell me all their guilty secrets. I could barely do it in real life to my friends, and they needed industrial-sized pincers to get anything out of me, so who was I kidding? The only constructive thing I could think of was sorting out my flat. So I did. I spent Saturday cajoling builders into fixing my door, locksmiths into fitting new locks, getting duplicate keys made for all the people who have keys to my place—my cleaning lady, my mother, Anthony and Kay. Mr. Rudiger got added to the list. He was always at home, and he was on “our” side—what more can a neighbor want?

I used the time waiting for the various people to arrive by spring cleaning my flat. I washed out the insides of the newly emptied cupboards, put back all the clothes that I wore, bagged up more clothes that I hadn't seen for years to take to Oxfam, went through the thousands of pages of paper now on the floor, refiling some and bagging even more for disposal. I was exhausted and covered with dust by the end, but at least I'd accomplished something, which was more than I could say of the rest of the week. I felt that I had spent all my time that week wandering around not knowing what the hell was going on, asking questions of everyone, hoping that by pure dumb luck I would hit the right person with the right question at the right time. Instead I wasn't even sure now what the questions were. I preferred to have a goal and head toward it, even if it was only the recycling center.

By evening everything was tidy, and I rang Mr. Rudiger to see if he wanted to come down for dinner. It was the least I could do after all his help. I heard the hesitation in his voice, and quickly added, “Or shall I bring it up?” He accepted with grace, as though he was pleased to have the invitation, but not as though I were humoring a disability. I still didn't know why he didn't leave his flat, but he made it appear to be a choice, not a limitation.

We had a pleasant evening, and after fifteen years I finally learnt a little about my upstairs neighbor. Pavel Rudiger had fled Czechoslovakia after the war, had become one of Britain's foremost architects (my adjective, not his), and had retired suddenly, without explanation, some forty years ago, at the height of his career. His buildings were all over the city—I walked past the Stobel House, one of his most famous private commissions, every day on my way to work. Not that he told me any of this. He just said he'd been an architect, and I found the rest in a Pevsner book on London when I came back downstairs. I'd have to tell Nick next time I saw him. From Pevsner, it was clear that Mr. Rudiger was a design legend. Or maybe I wouldn't tell Nick. Mr. Rudiger might not want to meet strangers. It had taken me fifteen years.

On Sunday, I set off for Chris and Rosie's party with a bottle of wine in one hand. Mostly because, having thrust myself on them, I had to take something, but partly, I admit, because I was nervous, and it was better than waving a rolled-up
Sunday Times
at anyone who threatened me. No one did—no one had since Thursday—but I was frightened when I was on my own all the same.

I'd never been to the Stanleys before, but it was immediately familiar. One day someone will have to write a book on why we all live in identical houses. Mine is early Victorian and theirs is later, maybe Edwardian. Apart from that, they were built to the same floor plan, and have exactly the same kind of decoration: neutral colors, bare floorboards, neutral soft furnishings. Hell, even the people were the same as my friends: well-meaning, intelligent, thoughtful people. But the last few days had made me question my life, and the people I'd spent my life with, and I wondered what purpose we were serving by spending our time reading, writing, publishing more books, so that others could read, write, and publish more. We were just a bunch of ants in a tiny, if creative, rut, and when I looked at their house, so similar to mine, so similar to everyone's that I know, our ant nests were not much different in that respect, either.

Rosie was genuinely glad to see me. I'd always liked her, although we didn't know each other well. Peter and Chris had done most of their socializing at work. Rosie taught French at a girls' school nearby, and she spoke very slowly, as though constantly trying to impose herself on girls who weren't paying any attention. If you could wait until the end of each clause, though, she was very funny. The place was packed, with lots of adults standing with drinks, and lots of children running around at waist level—his, hers, theirs, and probably a bunch of other people's, too. I couldn't immediately see Chris through the crowd, so I settled down happily to talk to a couple of people I knew from my Peter days.

After a few minutes I looked up to see where I could find a drink, and discovered a man staring at me in horror, as though one of the children had bitten him in the leg. I looked behind me, but there was no one there. It was definitely me he was staring at. By the time I turned around again, he had grabbed Chris and was talking to him urgently.

Chris looked around and, seeing me, beckoned me over. “Sam, this is Diego Alemán.”

Diego was in his late twenties. He was good-looking in a quiet way, with lots of dark brown hair and a thin, aquiline nose. Having seen hundreds of pictures of his brother, I could just about see the resemblance, although the fact that Diego was wearing jeans and a denim jacket made him look radically different from Rodrigo, who was usually decked out in high-camp glamour, with a shaven head, or dreadlocks, or half on each side.

In the time it had taken me to walk five feet Diego had wiped the original expression from his face. “How do you do?” was all he said. But I hadn't been mistaken. He had recognized me. And I had never seen him before in my life.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, trying to give the impression that I hadn't seen what I'd seen. “Are you one of Chris's students?”

“Yes,” he said, as though this were the least interesting conversation he'd had all year. Which, superficially, it probably was. “He's my Ph.D. adviser.”

We began to discuss his thesis subject, which was John Wilkes and
The North Briton
. This was more interesting. In theory we were discussing his course, but given that the only thing I knew about Wilkes was that he had been an eighteenth-century MP who had been prosecuted for libel, I wondered what we were really talking about.

I moved on. “Have you been in England long?” I asked, in the way English people do, usually just as the visitor has reached the arrivals lounge at Heathrow.

“A couple of years. Before that I was in Paris. I've only recently decided to finish my degree.”

“Paris, lucky you,” I said, meaning
Paris? Really?

“Yes,” he said, without elaborating. Was I reading things into this, or was he just finding the conversation boring? If he was bored, he had dozens of ways of drifting away without it being rude—his glass needed refilling, he saw someone he wanted to catch before they left. It's easy to shift about at a party, but he wasn't. He was staying put. I didn't delude myself that my views on John Wilkes were what was keeping him glued to my side. And it sure as hell wasn't my snappy repartee.

“What do you do?” he said, visibly coming to a decision.

“I'm an editor at a publishing house.” There was no point in pretending. He had recognized me, after all.

“What kind of books?”