The Killing of Katie Steelstock (3 page)

“You must find your children a great comfort”

“Sometimes they’re a comfort. Sometimes they’re a pain in the neck,” said Mrs. Havelock and sailed off up the street like a barquentine with the wind behind it. Mr. Beaumorris smiled. He detested all children.

A quarter past eight. Time to be thinking of moving. He liked to be early at functions. It was too hot for his favourite velvet-collared smoking coat. Instead he would wear the white alpaca jacket, which had belonged to his father. The ends of the trousers could be tucked temporarily into his socks. This would prevent them from getting dirty when he rode, as he planned to do, on his ancient bicycle, to take part in the evening’s festivities.

As was his habit, Mr. Beaumorris annexed the most comfortable chair in the hall, shifted it into the corner and enthroned himself upon it; and as iron filings are drawn to a magnet, the older ladies flocked up and settled around him. Among themselves they said, “Of course, old Frank’s a terrible rattle. If you tell him anything it’ll be round the village in half an hour.” But this did not prevent them spending a great deal of time talking to him.

“We live in troubleous times,” he said. “Violence, dishonesty, theft and assault. I can’t help feeling glad, sometimes, that I’m an old man, with not many years to go.”

“I hear this gang broke into Lady Porteous’ house at Compton,” said Mrs. Havelock. “They ransacked the place from top to bottom.”

“Poor Lucretia was in tears about it,” said Mrs. Steelstock. “They took
all
the silver. She had a complete set of asparagus servers which had been in the family for more than three hundred years.”

This was recognised as being a prestige point for Mrs. Steelstock, as the only person present who knew, and could use, Lady Porteous’ Christian name.

“I have a number of precious objects in my own little house,” said Mr. Beaumorris. “Many of them I picked up when I was working at the V. and A. Fortunately they are hardly the sort of items to attract the rapacity of a burglar.”

“I imagine you have some valuable things in your house, Helen.”

Helen Mariner swivelled in her chair and stared glassily at Mrs. Havelock. This unnerving mannerism was largely due to deafness.

Eventually she thawed sufficiently to say, “I believe we have. I leave all that sort of thing to George.”

“I saw that nice policeman going round on his motorcycle,” said Mrs. Havelock. “I believe he was warning everyone to lock up very carefully.”

At this moment Tony Windle and Katie swirled past to the strains of an old-fashioned waltz. The ladies abandoned burglary for a more congenial topic.

“It’s time she got married,” said her mother. “It can’t be good for her, the rackety life she lives in London.”

“I wonder she honours us with her presence,” said Mavis Gonville. A life lived in and around R.A.F. messes and married quarters had attuned her to precisely the sort of remark which, without actually being offensive, could be taken in as many different ways as her hearers chose.

“She’s a nice unspoilt girl at heart,” said Mrs. Havelock.

“Is it true that she gets five hundred letters a week from her admirers?”

“I’m not sure of the exact number. Her agent deals with all that sort of thing.”

The gyration of the waltz brought Katie and Tony within range of the battery once more.

“She’s got an admirer there,” said Mavis.

“Not serious, surely,” said Mrs. Havelock. “He can’t seriously be considering matrimony. He’s got a job with some insurance company, but I don’t believe they pay him very much.”

“If it’s as little as they pay Billy,” said Mrs. Gonville, “he certainly couldn’t support a wife on it. Billy can’t even pay his own bills.”

Mr. Beaumorris said, “In my opinion, although of course I’m completely out of touch with the affairs of the young, a much more serious prospect would be our journalistic friend Jonathan Limbery.”

This produced a short silence while the four ladies digested the inferences.

“It depends what you mean by serious,” said Mrs. Havelock. “If one of my daughters was entangled with that young man I should regard it as extremely serious.”

“There was something in it at one time, I believe,” said Mrs. Steelstock. “And he used to hang around our house a good deal. But Katie gave him no encouragement, of that I’m sure.”

“It went a bit further than that,” said Mavis Gonville. “It wasn’t just a question of no encouragement. They had a flaming row. And since they were tactless enough to have it in the Tennis Club bar, quite a lot of people heard them having it. I believe you were there, Helen.”

Mrs. Mariner rotated again and said, “Was I? I don’t think so. I believe my husband was there.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Beaumorris, “but bear in mind, ladies,
Amantium irae amoris integratio est.”

“You’ll have to translate for us,” said Mavis. “We’re none of us Latin scholars.”

“It is a comment, dear ladies, which is attributed to the Roman poet Terence. It means, roughly, that a lovers’ quarrel sometimes signifies the rebirth of love.”

“There’s a nasty draft from that electric fan,” said Mrs. Mariner. “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to turn it away from me, Mr. Beaumorris.”

“That’s a real hanging jury in the corner,” said Tony Windle as he and Katie swirled away. “One old man and four old women.”

“Five old women.”

“Who do you think they’re tearing to pieces?”

“Us, of course. Where’s Jonathan?”

“He’s not coming.”

“Oh. Why?”

Remembering Jonathan’s stated opinion about village dances, Tony thought it more tactful to say, “He had a piece to finish for his paper.”

“I should have thought it could have waited. That rotten rag of his only comes out once a week. If the piece is for next Thursday he’d have plenty of time, surely.”

She sounded put out. Tony thought. “So that’s the way the wind’s blowing, is it?”

“The same again,” said George Mariner. “Vernon?”

“Thank you. It’s a gin and tonic.”

“Gerry?”

“The same. It’s the only possible drink on a night like this.”

“Hottest for years,” said Vernon Vigors. He was the senior partner in Vigors and Dibden, the only firm of solicitors in Hannington. A thin, dry man in his middle sixties, he seemed to feel the heat less than the florid George Mariner or Group Captain Gerry Gonville, tubby, bald and cheerful and recently retired from the Royal Air Force.

“Put plenty of ice in, Sam,” said Mariner. “How’s the new job going, Gerry?”

“Better than the last one,” said Gerry.

The other two laughed. When Gonville had left the Air Force his first job had been secretary to the Hannington and District Golf Club. The story of his brushes with the lady members had become part of local folklore.

“It involves going up to London four days a week, but this one’s a sensible sort of job. I help look after all the appeals for the R.A.F. Benevolent Fund. We collect the money. Our welfare department spends it.”

Vigors said, “I’m glad you got the job. Cheers, George.”

“Cheers,” said Mariner. “And a bloody good cause, too. Though why we have to leave the care and comfort of Air Force men who’ve fallen on hard times to a voluntary organisation is something I’ve never understood. Did the Air Force save this country in 1940 or didn’t they? They did. All right. Then why can’t this futile bloody crowd of old women who call themselves a government use a hundredth—a thousandth—of the money they put into bankrupt bloody shows like car factories that can’t make cars and steelworks that can’t produce steel and pay the Air Force back something of what we owe them.”

“I can tell you the answer to that,” said Vigors. “Fifty thousand steelworkers and fifty thousand car workers add up to a hundred thousand votes.”

“I was talking to old Playfair the other day,” said Gonville. “Jack Playfair. He was one of the squadron leaders in Number Six Group. He’s in charge of the Recruit Training Centres at Horsham. He said the first thing these recruits ask about when they come in is money. What’s the pay? Any special allowances they can wangle? What about free issues? The next thing is leave. They haven’t been inside ten minutes before they’re thinking of getting out again.”

“The first leave I got,” said Vigors, “was in 1941. One week in two years.”

“It was a bit different during the war,” said Mariner. “Though I can’t help thinking a year or two of active service would do all these young gentlemen a power of good. Sometimes it makes me sick to look at them. Slouching along, with their hair down to their shoulders and their hands in their pockets. What they need is a sergeant major right behind them with a swagger stick.”

“It’s not their appearance I mind so much,” said Vigors, “as the fact that they know it all. The other day a young fellow in our office – not even qualified, mind you – had the nerve to tell me that he thought we oughtn’t to act for a man
because he was dishonest.
I explained to him, quite gently, that it was a solicitor’s job to act for people who were in trouble—”

“And that half your clients were crooks anyway.”

“Well, not quite half,” said Vigors. “It’s about time we filled those glasses up again, isn’t it? The same again all round, Sam. And have one yourself.”

Young Noel Vigors and his wife, Georgie, were one of the few married couples who were dancing together. They were both good performers. Noel was saying, “I saw Dad sloping off into the bar with George Mariner and Gerry Gonville. I bet they’re hard at it, yackety-yack, yackety-yack, down with the young, up with the old and what they all did in the war.”

“Your father was a gunner, wasn’t he?”

“North Africa and Italy. Quite a respectable sort of war. Better than old George, who spent all
his
time in the R.A.S.C. dishing out spam and toilet paper to the troops. Not as good as Gerry, of course. They didn’t hand out D.S.O.’s and D.F.C.’s for nothing.”

It was odd, thought Georgie, how the precise way in which a man happened to have behaved forty years before still seemed to make such a lot of difference forty years later.

She said, “It’s difficult not to agree with some of the things they say. I only wish they wouldn’t say them quite so often.” She caught sight of the Reverend Bird, who had been cornered by Roseabel Tress and had a glazed look in his eye. She said, “I’ll tell you one thing. It never really seems to work if you try too hard with the young. I do believe the current generation are as shy and as fly as any we’ve ever produced. Look at Dicky Bird. He spends hours every day trying to gain their confidence and organise them and entertain them. But he hasn’t persuaded a single one of the boys to sing in his choir.”

“Maybe they haven’t got voices.”

“Then why do nine or ten of them go along once a week to Jonathan’s house and sing songs there? They’re talking of putting on a concert.”

“Perhaps it’s because Jonathan never bothers to be nice to anyone except small boys.”

“Or maybe it’s because he’s got a guitar. He’s a wizard performer with it.”

“Oh? How do you know?”

“Someone told me,” said Georgie vaguely.

“You should be out there dancing,” said Jack Nurse. “When you’re as old as your mother and me you can sit around and watch the others. Not when you’re eighteen.”

“Nineteen,” said Sally automatically. She realised that she ought to be as fond of her father as she had been when she was nine, but she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep it up. “Besides, there’s no one worth dancing with.”

“Mickey Havelock.”

“He’s just a kid. And please don’t suggest Harvey Maxton. A dance with him isn’t a lot different from being mugged.”

“It’s a pity Peter isn’t here,” said Mrs. Nurse. “I think he’s such a nice boy.”

She had one eye on her daughter as she said this, but years of family in-fighting had rendered Sally proof against innuendos of this sort. She simply said, “He’s all right, I suppose.”

The waltz had finished and the band was striking up a tango.

“I’m not much of a hand at this number,” said Billy Gonville, who had come up behind them unseen, “but if you’re prepared to chance your arm—”

“Why not,” said Sally. “You can only die once.”

“Come on, then.”

In common with other girls of her age and generation Sally was a much better dancer than most of the boys she met. She had never danced with Billy before. He was light on his feet and had a sense of rhythm, if not much expertise. But there was something more. She sensed – and it was a thing a girl is very rarely mistaken about – that he was interested in her. Nor, thank heaven, did he seem to want to talk.

“Billy’s a nice boy,” said Mrs. Nurse.

“He’s in insurance,” said her husband. “That’s a good steady job. Not exciting, perhaps, but safe.”

“When I was a young girl in India,” said Roseabel Tress, “I was much attracted by the doctrines of Brahmanism. Brahma is the supreme being of post-Vedic Hindu mythology. I expect you know about all this, of course. You modern young clergymen are taught to be broad-minded.”

“Well—” said the vicar.

“Brahma the Creator, with Vishnu the Preserver and Siva the Destroyer. They form the Trimurti, that is, the great Hindu Triad. An interesting conception.”

“Yes indeed.”

“I was particularly fascinated by the place they allotted to animals in their pantheistic mythology. The elephant, the tortoise, the bull and the snake. Does it seem absurd to you to worship animals?”

“Lots of people I know worship their dogs,” said the vicar. “I think I must go and give my wife a hand. We’re just coming up for the coffee break.”

The coffee cups and lemonade glasses, the plates which had once contained tiny sandwiches, cakes and croissants and now contained nothing but crumbs, had all been cleared away. Outside it was growing dark. Walter Steelstock said to Lavinia, the oldest of the Havelock girls, “It’s very stuffy in here, isn’t it? What do you say we go outside and get a breath of fresh air?”

Lavinia looked at him thoughtfully. Walter was supposed to be the steadiest of the three Steelstock children, a nice boy, they said, and a great help to his mother.