Cool Repentance (19 page)

Jemima Shore, for her part, wished she could feel so totally convinced about the guilt of James Roy Blagge. It would have made life so much simpler. Instead, her instinct was troubling her; that famous instinct, merrily castigated by both Cy Fredericks ('Your lady's instinct, my dear Jem, always so expensive, what is it asking for this time?') and Pompey of the Yard ('My wife suffers from the feminine instinct too; you could say we both suffer from it'). But Jemima knew by experience that this instinct was not to be derided.

The single word 'instinct', drawing the fire of such quizzical males as Cy Fredericks and Pompey, was in fact not quite accurate. It was more that Jemima possessed a very strong instinct for order. This would not let her rest so long as the smallest detail was out of place in the well-regulated pattern of her mind. On this occasion the small detail which was troubling her, and would continue to do so naggingly until she resolved it, was Christabel's distress at the televised rehearsal and her continued nervous state since Mr Blagge's arrest. Jemima had suggested rather flippantly to Matt Harwood that Mr Blagge might be being held in custody 'just in case he does it again'. Bu
t there could be no question of
Mr
Blagge attacking anyone while he was in the cells at Beauport. What then was frightening Christabel Cartwright?

The best way to find that out was to ask the lady in question. Jemima would use as an excuse for a meeting the need to discuss the new shape of the programme. She found that television provided an excellent cover for investigations of a very different nature, because the victims themselves were so eager to submit themselves to interrogation; the demands of the medium apparently vindicated in their eyes inquisitive approaches which Jemima herself would never have tolerated from a comparative stranger.

So Jemima invited Christabel to lunch at Flora's Kitchen. Inflamed by Cherry's descriptions of her gastronomic adventures with the Major, Jemima did for a moment flirt with the idea of roaming further afield, tasting the delights of Giovanni e Giovanna at Deep Larkin, for example, or even voyaging as far as The French Lieutenant just across the county border. In the end she rejected both plans: Giovanni's Special Bridset Spaghetti (Lar Bay mussels) and The French Lieutenant's
Coupe Sarah,
about both of which Cherry had waxed lyrical, would have to wait for another occasion for Jemima's seal of approval.

There was the complication of rehearsals as the First Night of
The Seagull
approached (and
Widow Capet
was billed to open the following week). More than that, Jemima wanted Christabel to be exceptionally relaxed and confidential at this particular meal. Such an insecure woman - Jemima was increasingly inclined to take Gregory's estimate seriously -would be at her least guarded on familiar Larminster ground. Elsewhere, she might be tempted to give a performance, as it were, to Giovanni if not to Jemima Shore.

But as she faced Christabel across the Botticelli-printed tablecloth at Flora's Kitchen, Jemima did not find her noticeably relaxed. She could not help contrasting this jumpy nervous woman with the confident charming Christabel who had first introduced her to the restaurant. Her clothes were still perfectly chosen in their feminine way; full skirt of a very pale pink, echoed by the deeper pink rose on her jacket lapel, cream-coloured silk blouse tied in a floppy bow at the neck, and pearls. The great aquamarine ring still flashed on her finger, as though to remind anyone in danger of forgetting that Christabel's unblinking eyes were the same translucent tropical-sea colour. So was her eyeshadow, for that matter, and one noticed that fact too.

Critically, Jemima wondered whether Christabel wasn't wearing too much make-up for that time of day - and that particular restaurant. Her cheekbones were prominently high-lighted with rather harsh blush-on powder; frequent dabs from her gold basket-weave compact, with its diamond and lapis lazuli catch, did not serve to soften the picture. Her over-heavy mascara made her lashes look ra
ther spiky. Next to Christabel,
Poll's scrubbed powderless face, as she swept on her silent way producing the Florentine - or pseudo-Florentine - food, had a welcome freshness.

It would not be long before Blanche Cartwright would represent a prettier, as well as a younger version of her mother. This reflection was inspired in Jemima by Blanche's sudden eruption into the restaurant in the middle of lunch. She demanded some cash from her mother. She sounded jolly rather than hysterical and it suited her; her cheeks were pink, and a new short layered haircut drew attention to the heart shape of her face. Evidently Blanche was reconciled with her mother, at least to the extent of taking her money; her outburst at the Watchtower Theatre appeared to have had some kind of purgative effect. Even in her man's -or rather boy's - clothes of shirt and white knee-length shorts she looked rather pretty, now she had lost weight.

It was Regina Cartwright in her father's Land-Rover who dropped her mother at the restaurant - she had recently passed her driving test and Jemima had a feeling that the days of Rina's teenage passion for the horse Lancelot might be numbered. Striding away from her mother, black hair swinging on her shoulders, Rina looked both beautiful and confident. In the three or four months Jemima had known her, she too had changed out of all recognition. The girls had both emerged from the summer's ordeal strengthened and rather improved; it was the mother who languished.

One memorable aspect of Jemima's first meeting with Christabel was however still present. She continued to dip into the vodka bottle concealed in her expensive handbag. Guiltily, Jemima was rather glad, she presumed that drink had loosened Christabel's tongue on that previous occasion and hoped it would produce the same effect on her today.

Jemima insisted that this was her lunch - 'Megalith's lunch', she said with her sweet wide television smile, the one that made people who watched her on the box, men and women, fall deeply in love with her and decide she was really a very sweet person. She ordered a carafe of red wine for Christabel and a glass of white wine for herself.

But as it turned out, Christabel was not to be drawn. All the wiles of Jemima Shore Investigator, the practised tricks of the professional interviewer, failed to secure any form of personal revelation from her. In particular she declined to respond to references to their original conversation. Had Christabel felt 'safe' back on stage, as she had hoped to do?

'Oh darling, it's no good asking me that. Safe! I'm always so terribly terribly nervous before a First Night. A bundle of nerves. Not safe at all. Ask anyone. I'm on the verge of quitting the profession — again!' Christabel added with a ghost of her old humour. It was really the only light moment in what was otherwise purely a defensive operation.

'But something was frightening you—' pursued Jemima. 'You told me.'

Christabel looked at her quite steadily for a moment, her huge eyes appeared to glisten with tears.

'Oh it's too late to talk about all that now, darling,' was all she said. She hesitated. 'Maybe I should have talked to you about it more then. It all seems so long ago. If I had, darling, well, all sorts of things might have been different. But now - well, it's too late, isn't it?'

'Too late for what, Christabel?' In her desperation, feeling the brief moment of confidentiality passing away, Jemima became bolder. But at this Christabel merely opened her blue eyes even wider in a parody of surprise.

'Too late to go back, darling. That's all. That's all I meant. One can never go back in life, can one?'

You did! Jemima longed to cry in frustration, seeing Christabel's face settling itself into a mask of polite non-cooperation. She still looked infinitely sad, but at the same time remote. In a moment she would be waving the dreaded powder compact again, powdering her nose for the third time, as one who shakes dust in her pursuer's face. You came back! But the words died on her lips. She could not risk antagonizing her at this stage. The question of Filly Lennox's death was crucial.

Afterwards Jemima was to regret bitterly not pressing Christabel Carrwright further on those few melancholy words, so much at variance with her public air of cool - and maddeningly successful - repentance. If Jemima had done so, might not Christabel have broken out from behind the pathetic painted mask? And if so, would Christabel have been 'safe'? -what she declared she so much wanted to be at their first meeting. Or was it already, as Christabel now so sadly said, 'Too late'?

At the time Jemima was too concerned to satisfy herself on the subject of Jim Blagge's guilt or innocence to turn aside.

'Christabel,' she said urgently. 'There's one question I must ask you. Do
you
think Mr Blagge murdered Nat? Is he quite simply guilty? Should I accept that fact? Supposing he did, and I must admit that the police evidence against him is very strong, is it possible - wait for it - that poor Filly Lennox was murdered too? Deliberately drowned: murdered in mistake for you? Mr Blagge went out in the boat on the day of the picnic. Does Mr Blagge hate
you
too? For the sake of-' now she had to come out with it 'for the sake of his son?'

At this point Jemima fully intended to shock. She did not intend to let Christabel drift back into her gracious reticence. And there was something deeply shocking about voicing her theory - to the woman whom Mr Blagge had perhaps intended to drown in Filly's place. Even so Jemima was quite unprepared for Christabel's reaction.

She fainted.

When Jemima told Spike Thompson about it late that night, as they lay together in the four-poster bed conveniently provided by the Royal Stag, it suddenly struck her that the faint - a dead faint, off the chair to the floor, carrying glasses and cutlery with it - might have been a protective measure. After all Christabel never had answered Jemima's question about Filly's death. Nor for that matter about Jim Blagge's guilt. Yet if it was a protective measure, who was Christabel so concerned to protect?

At the time Christabel's startling physical collapse made it easy for her to escape from Jemima's inquisition: 'I'll go back to the theatre and rest,' she murmured. 'Terribly silly of me, darling. I've been overdoing it. Two productions. Poor little Filly's death. Then Nat. And the strain of the arrest.'

Christabel would not let Jemima summon Regina to drive her home and reacted even more strongly to the idea of Jemima's telephoning Julian at Lark. Blanche, who could be seen inside a bow-windowed Larminster boutique opposite, trying on a pair of velvet knickerbockers, was the only person Christabel agreed to have contacted and sent after her to her dressing-room. So Jemima had to let her go.

Spike, prepared to take a lazy interest in the subject of Christabel's faint during a temporary lull in the night's proceedings, encouraged Jemima in her suspicions. 'These actresses are up to any old trick. I could tell you a thing or two about actresses. But then you, my lovely, are also up to any old trick, aren't you?' But the thought of Jemima and her tricks turned Spike's thoughts away from Christabel Cartwright and once more to that activity with which the gallant Spike always liked to fill as many as possible of his off-duty hours when on location.

He did spare one Parthian chauvinist shot for Julian Cartwright: 'I can't get over her old man taking her back like that. Screwed all over the press by a pop star - and then it's welcome-home time when he ditches her, and-did-you-have-a-good-time, darling? I wouldn't stand for
it
in my missis, I can tell you,' said Spike virtuously. 'I'd give her a proper going over.'

'Not all men are the same. And not all women either. If I was Christabel Cartwright, it would drive me quite mad to have to come back to Lark as penitent Magdalen.' The conversation might have gone further - for Spike's Parthian shot had started an interesting train of thought in her mind. But by now Spike had succeeded in turning Jemima's attention too from Christabel Cartwright; for the rest of the night, Jemima was entirely possessed by Spike, the touch and taste and feel of him.

What with one thing and another, it was not until the next day that Jemima fully analysed her conversation with Christabel. She was now in renewed conclave with Matt Harvvood. It was time, she decided - the time was really overdue - to confide to him her suspicions about the death of Filly Lennox and her instinct that Christabel, while still fearful, was nonetheless protecting some person close to her.

But Detective Inspector Harwood, in his most reasonable voice, merely asked for proof of all these female fancies. He freely admitted that a good many people had had the opportunity to kill Nat Fitzwilliam, including, if she wished to consider them, the entire large Cartwright family party installed at the Royal Stag on the night of Blanche's birthday. Gregory, Ketty, the Cartwrights in force, they had all been there milling about in the hotel: Mrs Tennant, the manageress, had given them an empty suite on the first floor - Jemima's suite was the only other one in the hotel -out of local loyalty.

Up
there however the party had rather fizzled out. The suite was stuffy because it was not in use. At Christabel's request Gregory had then gone downstairs to rout out the champagne which Flora's Kitchen had not been able to produce before leaving for his late-night swim. Christabel had been overcome with exhaustion - 'or maybe something stronger' said the Detective Inspector - and during Gregory's absence, which had been quite prolonged, had at Julian's suggestion retired to the bedroom to lie down. Blanche, removing a few of her hotter garments and unbuttoning her shirt as she went, had then taken the opportunity to flit off to find Ollie Summertown. She had ignored Ketty's protests - 'It's my
birthday,
Ketty, and anyway it's
not
indecent - some people think it looks pretty' -and after a bit Ketty had gone to look for her. Julian agreeing that it
was
very hot had gone out for a breath of air. Regina went down to the lounge to look for a book .
..
the Detective Inspector was happy to give Jemima as detailed an account as she liked of their various movements.