The Curious Incident at Claridge's (5 page)

7

Beneath a Waning Moon

Quarter past midnight. Somebody walking on my grave, Bettina Tradescant thought. She looked up from her computer screen. Something, she knew, was about to happen—or had already happened.

Bettina inserted a cigarette into a short jet-black holder. She lit the cigarette. She wore a perfectly pressed white shirt buttoned to the top, collar studs and black trousers with a knife-edge crease. About ten minutes earlier she had worn a jacket with a fur-trimmed collar, which seemed to raise her shoulders, and a skirt that reached below the calf and created the effect of elegant but painful attenuation. Since coming back home, she had already worn five different outfits, among them a drum majorette ensemble in white and gold and a silver off-the-shoulder evening dress. At one point she had put on a pale blue toque with a bunch of pink and yellow primulas. She was a compulsive dresser and restless experimenter, forever searching for the right sartorial coup. She had once had a real obsession with all things feathery; no less a man than designer Valentino had told her that he could find her in London by just following the trail of feathers. She found the past a never-ending source of inspiration. At the moment she sported an Edwardian coiffure: hair piled high on her head to form a bird's nest—that was a wig, one of ten. Not even her bitterest enemy—she had a real knack for making enemies—would have dared call her a ‘clichéd fashionista'.

Bettina suffered from insomnia. She called it her
tango nocturne
. She couldn't remember when it was the last time she had managed to have a proper snooze. There were people who went off the moment their heads hit the pillow. How she envied them. Her nerves were not in a good state. Her thoughts kept turning to her brother. It always happened at this time of night. Random memories as usual. Seymour teasing her mercilessly when they were children, calling her silly names—Seymour pushing her into the pond at Tradescant Hall—Seymour dressing up as her, doing a perfect imitation of her as a party piece, making their parents' guests scream with laughter while she had sat crying in her room.

(She would love to be able to dress up as Seymour—but that would mean she'd have to shave all her hair—Seymour was getting to be as bald as a coot!)

Seymour had always treated her with senseless malignancy. He'd always managed to reduce her to cowering and sullen states. Always, always, always.

Seymour was very much like the woods in
Titus Andronicus
—ruthless, dreadful, deaf and dull. Well, if he hadn't been such a colossal scrooge, if he had given her the money she needed so badly, she might have been able to forgive and forget. What Bettina wanted more than anything in the world was enough capital for her to start her own fashion magazine. Seymour could well afford it. He had after all received the bulk of their late father's estate and his was a vast wealth. More than four thousand acres of Shropshire. He didn't seem to be doing anything with it, apart from making donations to his ‘retreat'. It wasn't as though he was pampering poor Penelope …

Bettina looked down at the ring on her fourth finger and sighed. If
only
it were the authentic one and not a mere copy. She was mad about jewellery—though not as mad as Papa had been. She gave a twisted smile. Goodness—those photos of Papa! Mama had destroyed most of them. Papa had had quite a thing about jewellery. A veritable fetish. Papa could have given the ring to her but he hadn't—he'd given it to Seymour—
like everything else.

Bettina sighed. ‘My darling Wallis,' she said and kissed the ring. ‘You knew how to do things.' But of course the ring was not the real Wallis. She sighed again.

Bettina glanced up at the computer screen, at what she had written:

Greys, pinks and lace are set to dominate women's wardrobes this season. We may even see the retro trends of the 1930s and 1940s. Buttoned skirts and exaggerated silhouettes will make a comeback. Minimal to smaller prints will be in vogue and a lot of geometry. Yellow gold and diamonds will continue to dominate
…
Long hair with cascading waves and soft curls … The Veronica Lake look …

Bettina stubbed out the cigarette. She couldn't concentrate. That morning, at some unearthly hour, an anonymous voice on the phone had told her she was no longer a person, she was a
concept
, which, unless she'd dreamt it, had been rather flattering. (Her reading Bernard-Henri Lévy might have had something to do with it.) Then Penelope had rung to say Mowbray had pitched herself from the top of their house and the police were coming. Bettina had been in a meeting, so she hadn't been able to ask any questions. Penelope had sounded extremely upset. The poor sweet girl. What she had had to put up with! Being married to Seymour must be the ultimate nightmare. It was a good thing Penelope had—distractions. The idea of a cuckolded Seymour cheered Bettina up. She had tried to ring Penelope later on, but there had been no answer. Perhaps Penelope was with somebody …

She yawned and, as she did so, happened to glance back at the computer screen. She saw Seymour's face staring back at her, the mouth extended prodigiously in an agonized scream. Seymour appeared in great pain.

Bettina leant back in her chair and sat very still. People who didn't understand that sort of thing would have blamed her imagination—they might even say she was slightly mad. Some fools, she felt sure, might even have argued that it was her own face she had seen—wasn't a yawn very much like a silent sort of scream?

Well, her brother's toucan beak of a nose was very much like hers and they had generally similar casts of features. Not so surprising given that they were fraternal twins. And as it often happened with twins, there existed between them a powerful psychic link, which, since it always made her shiver first, Bettina had come to call the ‘chill'. Only Bettina took the chill seriously. Her brother did seem aware of
something
, but he tended to attribute it dismissively to indigestion. She could have done without the psychic link—life was complicated enough as it was—but there was nothing she could do about it.

Their faces were far from prepossessing, though Bettina had always managed to render her ugliness as strikingly picturesque as possible. She pinched the bags under her eyes, pulled a droll grimace, then tugged at her right cheek. She might have plastic surgery when she turned seventy, which was in November. Plastic surgery would destroy the likeness once and for all. It would also, she hoped, make her appear twenty years younger.

Twenty-five to one. Bettina shivered. She invariably felt the chill each time something bad befell her brother—it had happened not so long ago, on the afternoon he had been rushed to hospital with his foot infection. The initial prognosis had been bad. Her brother's condition had been described as ‘serious'. She had really hoped and prayed then he might die of blood poisoning.

She clutched at her bosom. She gasped. The chill had cut through her, worse than ever before! Seymour, she felt sure, was either gravely ill, was breathing his last, or indeed was already dead.

‘Arise, Sir Nicholas,' said the blonde girl and she laid her hairbrush with great gravity upon his left shoulder.

‘It is “Sir Tradescant”, actually,' the dark girl corrected her. She put her arm around Nicholas Tradescant's neck.

‘It's Sir Nicholas!'

‘No, it's Sir Tradescant!' The dark girl kissed him. ‘Isn't that right, Nicky?'

‘Wait a sec. Don't tell her, Nicky. Listen to this.
Let Nicky marry whoever's got it right
. How about it? Well?' They both turned eagerly towards him.

‘It's Sir Nicholas,' he said a little wearily. ‘Or rather would be. Heaven knows if I'd live to see the day.'

‘Of course you would, my darling.' The dark girl kissed him again.

‘My father seems determined to live for ever.'

‘No one can live for ever. It's not as though your father is a vampire, is it? He is an old man.'

‘Not that old.'

‘Perhaps we could bump him off for you? We could, couldn't we?' The dark girl addressed the blonde one. They giggled.

‘Think of the headlines,' the blonde girl said. ‘
Homicidal Hookers
.'

‘Don't say “hookers”—
so
common. There won't be any headlines. We'll be so clever about it, we'll never get caught!'

‘Sir
Nicholas
. I was right! I know all about the gentry.' The blonde girl nodded. ‘I can even speak like them.'

‘No, you can't,' the dark girl said. ‘You only
think
you can.'

‘I would make a much better Lady Tradescant than
you
.'

‘No, you wouldn't.'

‘
Girls
,' Nicholas Tradescant said in a warning voice.

‘Are you going to marry her now, Nicky?'

‘Of course he will marry me. Everybody knows that gentlemen prefer blondes.'

‘But marry brunettes! There's a book about it, so there.'

Nicholas Tradescant gave a sigh. ‘Actually, I am already married, you know that perfectly well.'

‘Yes, but you said you felt like divorcing your wife. The 'orrible Olivia. I can't believe you haven't divorced her yet. I really can't.'

‘It's not as easy as you might think,' he murmured.

‘Why not?'

The blonde girl said, ‘She's been nagging at you, making you miserable about all sorts of things. She's already ordered writing paper with
Sir Nicholas
at the top, hasn't she? You told us about it last time. She's so desperate to become “Lady Tradescant”. She's been making you dine with people you don't like. Lords and ladies and barons and dukes.'

‘With the
gentry
,' the dark girl said. She gave a dreamy sigh.

‘The gentry are dull, aren't they?'

He nodded. ‘I am afraid they are, rather. Where we live at least.'

‘The
gentry
,' the dark girl repeated wistfully. ‘You live with the gentry. I'd love to live with the gentry. I wouldn't mind them being dull.'

‘Nicky can't stand the gentry. That's why you are with us now, aren't you, Nicky? We give you a good time.' The blonde girl cast an anxious glance at him. ‘We give you a good time, don't we, Nicky?'

‘You certainly do.'

‘We are extremely expensive, though. Aren't we?'

‘It doesn't matter,' he said.

‘We know how to give a gent a good time,' the dark girl said gravely.

‘Don't be coarse. Nicky is the only real gent we see. All the others are rich businessmen and jumped-up knights and men who married money.'

‘Businessmen,' the dark girl said with a shiver. ‘No class.'

‘They order pizzas by phone and take their laptops to bed with them!' The blonde girl sounded outraged.

‘What did you tell Olivia? Where does she think you are now? At your club in London?'

‘Yes.' He looked at his watch. Good God, half past midnight already?

Both girls giggled, then the blonde asked: ‘What if she phoned the club? What if she asked to speak to you? Won't you be in trouble?'

‘They know exactly what to tell her if she does phone. They've got instructions. Listen, girls, on no account must you ring my home number again, promise?'

‘Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. I only did it once,' the dark girl said. ‘I was missing you.'

‘She always does things without thinking—always—and they say it's blondes who are dumb,' the blonde girl said.

‘Was Olivia 'orrible to you, Nicky?'

‘Well, she said nothing, but she just
looked
at me.'

‘Poor Nicky! I am so sorry for getting you into trouble!'

The blonde girl asked after a pause, ‘Which one of us do you like better, Nicky?'

‘I like you equally well,' Nicholas Tradescant said truthfully.

‘I don't think that's possible!'

Nicholas Tradescant held up his forefinger. ‘Comparisons are odious. We agreed we wouldn't have that sort of talk, didn't we?'

‘Let's loosen up,' the dark girl said. ‘Let's all have a drink.'

She went to the sideboard and started examining the array of drinks. They were at a rather exclusive moat hotel in Surrey. They had been there on three previous occasions, so they felt quite at home. A minute later the blonde girl was distributing drinks.

There was a pause as they drank. They sat on the bed, the two girls on either side of him. ‘I bet Nicky will forget all about us once his dad dies and he gets the title,' the dark girl said with a sigh.

‘Will you, Nicky?'

‘No, of course not.' Warmed by the drink, he smiled. ‘I might even marry the two of you.'

‘You would start one of those—what do you call them? Harems? Sheikhs have them.'

‘Yes. You will be my two-girl harem. But you must promise not to fight,' he said, falling into the spirit of the thing. ‘If you fight, I'll kick you out.'

‘We can't do that sort of thing in England, can we? We'll need to become Muslims first.'

‘Not necessarily,' the blonde girl said. ‘We could only live together. Like Hugh Hefner. Hugh Hefner lives with
three
girlfriends, I read in a mag.'

Nicholas frowned. ‘Is that the
Playboy
chap?'

‘Actually, there's an English lord—a viscount—who does that too,' the dark girl said. ‘What was his name now?

There was a programme on the telly about it once. He's got
wifelets
. Lots of wifelets. All the walls at his country estate are covered in dirty pictures. He's got a beard and wears fancy waistcoats.'

‘Weymouth.' Nicholas sipped more whisky.

‘We could be Nicky's wifelets!' The blonde girl clapped her hands.

‘We were with an Arab sheikh once. Oh, it was dreadful, wasn't it?'